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senses could rrive no information. It is well known that Newton 
rejected this view, contending that no one competent in philosophy 
could admit the possibility ot such tc action at a distance. He 
even conceived of the existence of a rare and universally diffused 
clastic medium which might perform the part of intermediate, agent. 
But in Newton’s time, and long after, neither mathematics nor 
physics were in a sufficiently advanced state for showing how the 
force and tiie law of gravity might be referable to the pressure of 
an elastic fluid. Under these circumstances it would have been 
legitimate philosophy to adopt the law of gravity merely as a con- 
venient provisional hypothesis, in the expectation that a reason 
might be given for it in a more advanced stage of natural philosophy. 
This course, however, was not taken ; the occult quality, of gravity 
was almost universally admitted, and all attempts to assign, a cause 
for the action at a distance were abandoned. At this, juncture 
Hume, who was neither a mathematician nor a physicist, pro- 
mulgated the doctrine that natural philosophy has nothing to do 
with causes, but only with laics of phenomena, and that these laws 
consist of an invariable order of antecedence and consequence of 
phenomena, the discovery of which order constitutes the proper and 
sole purpose of observation and experiment. This, philosophy 
labours under the serious defect of affording no criterion whereby 
to decide whether a supposed consequent of an antecedent is imme- 
diately consequent, or whether it might not be possible to discover 
other facts which, by being interposed between these, would produce 
a different law of antecedents and consequents. It will presently 
be shown that no such indeterminateness pertains to the other 
philosophy. 
9. Hume’s doctrine has bad, both on physical and metaphysical 
science, a widespread and persistent effect, and, perhaps, under no 
circumstances has its influence been manifested in greater degree 
than in the empirical philosophy of the present day. The doctrine 
seems to have been originally propounded with the view of proving 
the impossibility of miracles : this, at least, was the use made of 
it by Hume and his immediate followers. It has since affected in 
various ways almost all modern physical and metaphysical produc- 
tions, ana has even tainted the theological opinions of many who 
] rofess to believe the teaching of Scripture. Recently the advo- 
cates of the sceptical philosophy have begun to see that the possi- 
bility of miracles must be granted, if the actuality of creation and 
of a personal creator be admitted, miracles being nothing more nor 
less than a repetition of the exercise of creative energy. Hence, 
with an evident intention of getting rid of any reference to agency 
governed by personal will, theories have been proposed which 
ascribe to laic functions which belong only to creative power. Tins, 
