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He who founds his “ inductive logic ” on the notion of such an 
invariable order of succession, is adrift "without rudder or 
compass the moment he leaves the region of inorganic changes. 
If he live among gases and such simple substances, and observe 
nothing but the laws according to which they are combined 
and dissolved when treated in given ways, he will work away 
tolerably with his defective reasoning; but he must not venture 
beyond the inorganic line. He will find that one part of 
hydrogen will always combine with eight parts of oxygen, when 
treated in the proper way for their combination, and that the 
result will be w T ater. So long as he confines his investigations 
to such elemental matter his so-called “ law of causation as 
that of invariable succession, will suit ; but when he begins to 
examine the lowest forms that have life, his “laiv” will fail 
him. Those antecedents whose consequent is a lichen or a 
sponge are not invariably followed by a perfectly similar result. 
One part of hydrogen combining with eight parts of oxygen 
always issues in water, and in water which is perfectly the same 
as any other water so formed; but whatever be the nature of 
that which gives rise even to a lichen it introduces variation 
the moment it acts. So strikingly true is this, that men of the 
most extensive materialistic science have been impressed with 
the variableness of succession in nature, till they are not 
indisposed to believe that the lichen itself may have developed 
in the course of myriads of ages so that its offspring is found 
at last to be a man ! You thus find a votary of science at one 
time founding his whole fabric of reasoning- on an (< invariable 
succession in nature,” and at another arguing as if the suc- 
cession had been so variable as to account for the production, 
from some absolutely simple antecedent, of all the measure- 
less variety of the universe ! These are the results of that 
strange fancy, that so possesses us all at times, and in the 
indulgence of which we refuse to see with more than the 
half or even the tenth of an eye! We place two pure gases 
in certain proportions together, and do what is necessary to 
their combining chemically — the result is the same as it ever 
has been if the same experiment has been repeated millions of 
millions of times. But we put a seed into the soil, and from 
the germ we have a plant strikingly different from that on 
which the seed grew — strikingly different from those produced 
by the seeds that grew along with it in the same pod, resulting 
from the fructifying of the same flower; and all the plants from 
these seeds will give more or less variety from their seeds in 
their turn. The astonishing individuality of every living being, 
whether plant or animal, is dependent on this variableness of 
succession in nature. A man may a£ well deny that indi- 
