If EBTTliAR HYPOTHESIS. 



213 



operations were in no way arbitrary or capricious, that they 

 were not single and detached phenomena, but the result 

 of principles flowing from the Eternal and Immutable, 

 and which prevailed over all the realms of Infinity at once 



We have fixed mechanical laws at one end of the sys- 

 tem of nature. If we turn to the mind and morals of 

 man, we find that we have equally fixed laws at the other. 

 The human being, a mystery considered as an individual, 

 becomes a simple natural phenomenon when taken in the 

 mass, for a regularity is observed in every peculiarity of 

 our constitution and every form of thought and deed of 

 which we are capable, when we only extend our view 

 over a sufficiently wide range. It is to M. Quetelet, of 

 Brussels, that we are indebted for the first satisfactory 

 explication of this great truth ; it is presented in his well- 

 known and very able treatise, Sur L'Homme, et le Dive- 

 loppement de ses Facultes. He first shows the regularity 

 which presides over the births and deaths of a commu- 

 nity, liable to be affected in some degree by accidental 

 circumstances, but fixed again when these are uniform. 

 He then makes it clear that the stature, weight, strength, 

 and other physical peculiarities of men are likewise reg- 

 ulated by fixed principles of nature. Afterwards, the 

 moral qualities — the impulses of all our various sentiments 

 and passions — even the tendency to yield to those temp- 

 tations which give birth to crime — are proved to be of no 

 less determinate character, however impossible it may be 

 to predict the conduct of any single person. These are 

 doctrines not to be resisted by inconsiderate prejudices 

 They rest on the most powerful of all evidence, that of 

 numbers. If they appear to take from the personal re- 

 sponsibility of individuals, it is merely an appearance, for 

 the doctrine immediately steps forward to show that laws, 

 education, and moral influences of every kind exercise an 

 equally determinate control over men ; so that the need 

 for their being called into use becomes even more palpa- 

 ble than before. We are not, however, required at this 

 moment to argue respecting the bearing which this doc- 

 trine may have upon human interests. What we are at 

 present concerned with is the simple fact, that Morals— 

 that part of the system of things which seemed least un- 

 der natural regulation or law — is as thoroughly ascertained 

 to be wholly so, as the arrangements of the heavenly bodies 



