io NATURAL APPEARANCES 



of the vegetable turf, is a thing eafily to be conceived, like what 

 happens in thofe ftripes the fecond year, when I have feen an 

 abundant crop of a certain fpecies of mufhrooms in the track. 

 Had animals of a particular fpecies been found there, in the exa- 

 mination of the foil in thofe withered tracks, a rafh conclufion 

 might have been formed, in erroneoufly attributing as a caufe 

 for the appearance, what was truly an effect or confequence of 

 the thing in queftion. 



It is always making a ftep towards the difcovering the caufe of 

 a phenomenon, when caufes which, with fome degree of pro 1 - 

 bability, have been afcribed to an event, are found to be uncon- 

 nected with, or to have no affinity to it ; for this is the natural 

 method of investigation, by examining the affinities or rela- 

 tions of things, and rejecting thofe as properly related, where 

 there is found a difcrepancy. Thus, as there is no effect with- 

 out its proper caufe ; fo, in proportion as a greater number of 

 events are found to be unconnected with an appearance, fome 

 kind of approach is made towards that by which the natural 

 appearance is to be explained ; but in cafes where events are 

 multiplied or numberlefs, every approach of this kind is only 

 negative j and fuch a method of invefligation, while it may be 

 the means of difcovering the thing in queftion, only mows 

 that what we want is not attained. This, however, if made 

 with full conviction, is no contemptible ftep in natural philo- 

 fbphy, where, next to the inveftigation of the proper order in 

 events, it is of the higheft importance to avoid, or to correct, 

 the improper connection of them. 



The explanation of the phenomena, in the prefent piece of 

 natural hiftory, either by thunder or the operation of infects, 

 without having obferved the actual connection of thofe diffe- 

 rent events, is merely conjectural, as would be equally the re- 

 futing to admit for explanation a known caufe, which, though 

 not actually obferved as connected with the event in queftion, 



had, 



