down. These are the two great keys to his method; they are the views which he inherited from Bacon, and they are also the views which have been held by every man who, during the last two centuries, has added any thing of moment to the stock of human knowledge. First to doubt,72 then to inquire, and then to discover, has been the process universally followed by our great teachers. So strongly did Boyle feel this, that though he was an eminently religious man,73 he gave to the most popular of his scientific works the title of The Sceptical Chemist; meaning to intimate, that until men were sceptical concerning the chemistry of their own time, it would be impossible that they should advance far in the career which lay before them. Nor can we fail to observe, that this remarkable work, in which such havoc was made with old notions, was published in 1661,74 the year after the acces

"This disregard of ancient authority appears so constantly in his works, that it is difficult to choose among innumerable passages which might be quoted. I will select one which strikes me as well expressed, and is certainly very characteristic. In his Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notion of Nature, he says (Boyle's Works, vol. iv. p. 359), " For I am wont to judge of opinions as of coins: I consider much less, in any one that I am to receive, whose inscription it bears, than what metal it is made of. It is indifferent enough to me whether it was stamped many years or ages since, or came but yesterday from the mint." In other places he speaks of the "schoolmen" and gownmen" "with a contempt not much inferior to that expressed by Locke himself.

72. In his Considerations touching Experimental Essays, he says (Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 197), "Perhaps you will wonder, Pyrophilus, that in almost every one of the following essays I should speak so doubtingly, and use so often perhaps, it seems, it is not improbable, and such other expressions as argue a diffidence of the truth of the opinions I incline to," &c. Indeed, this spirit is seen at every turn. Thus, his Essay on Crystals, which, considering the then state of knowledge, is a remarkable production, is entitled "Doubts and Experiments touching the curious Figures of Salts." Works, vol. ii. p. 488. It is, therefore, with good reason that M. Humboldt terms him "the cautious and doubting Robert Boyle." Humboldt's Cosmos, vol. ii. p. 730.

73 On the sincere Christianity of Boyle, compare Burnet's Lives and Characters, edit. Jebb, 1833, pp. 351-360; Life of Ken, by a Layman, vol. i. pp. 32, 33; Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 273. He made several attempts to reconcile the scientific method with the defence of established religious opinions. See one of the best instances of this, in Boyle's Works, vol. v. pp. 38, 39.

74 The Sceptical Chemist is in Boyle's Works, vol. i. pp. 290-371. It went through two editions in the author's lifetime, an unusual success for a book of that kind. Boyle's Works, vol. i. p. 375, vol. iv. p. 89, vol. v. p. 345. I find, from a letter written in 1696 (Fairfax Correspondence, vol. iv. p. 344),

sion of Charles II., in whose reign the spread of incredulity was indeed rapid, since it was seen not only among the intellectual classes, but even among the nobles and personal friends of the king. It is true, that in that rank of society, it assumed an offensive and degenerate form. But the movement must have been one of no common energy, which, in so early a stage, could thus penetrate the recesses of the palace, and excite the minds of the courtiers; a lazy and feeble race, who from the frivolity of their habits are, under ordinary circumstances, predisposed to superstition, and prepared to believe whatever the wisdom of their fathers has bequeathed to them.

In every thing this tendency was now seen. Every thing marked a growing determination to subordinate old notions to new inquiries. At the very moment when Boyle was prosecuting his labours, Charles II. incorporated the Royal Society, which was formed with the avowed object of increasing knowledge by direct experiment.75 And it is well worthy of remark, that the charter now first granted to this celebrated institution declares that its object is the extension of natural knowledge, as opposed to that which is supernatural.76

that Boyle's works were then becoming scarce, and that there was an intention of reprinting the whole of them. In regard to the Sceptical Chemist, it was so popular, that it attracted the attention of Monconys, a French traveller, who visited London in 1663, and from whom we learn that it was to be bought for four shillings, "pour quatre chelins." Voyages de Monconys, vol. iii. p. 67, edit. 1695; a book containing some very curious facts respecting London in the reign of Charles II.; but, so far as I am aware, not quoted by any English historian. In Sprengel's Hist. de la Médecine, vol. v. pp. 78-9, there is a summary of the views advocated in the Sceptical Chemist, respecting which Sprengel says, "Ce fut cependant aussi en Angleterre que s'élevèrent les premiers doutes sur l'exactitude des explications chimiques."

75"From the nature and constitution of the Royal Society, the objects of their attention were necessarily unlimited. The physical sciences, however, or those which are promoted by experiment, were their declared objects; and experiment was the method which they professed to follow in accomplishing their purpose." Thomson's Hist. of the Royal Society, p. 6. When the society was first instituted, experiments were so unusual, that there was a difficulty of finding the necessary workmen in London. See a curious passage in Weld's Hist. of the Royal Society, 1848, vol. ii. p. 88.

78 Dr. Paris (Life of Sir II. Davy, 1831, vol. ii. p. 178) says, "The charter of the Royal Society states, that it was established for the improvement of natural science. This epithet natural was originally intended to imply a meaning, of which very few persons, I believe, are aware. At the period of

It is easy to imagine with what terror and disgust these things were viewed by those inordinate admirers of antiquity, who, solely occupied in venerating past ages, are unable either to respect the present or hope for the future. These great obstructors of mankind played, in the seventeenth century, the same part as they play in our own day, rejecting every novelty, and therefore opposing every improvement. The angry contest which arose between the two parties, and the hostility directed against the Royal Society, as the first institution in which the idea of progress was distinctly embodied, are among the most instructive parts of our history, and on another occasion I shall relate them at considerable length. At present it is enough to say, that the reactionary party, though led by an overwhelming majority of the clergy, was entirely defeated; as, indeed, was to be expected, seeing that their opponents had on their side nearly all the intellect of the country, and were moreover reinforced by such aid as the court could bestow. The progress was, in truth, so rapid, as to carry away with it some of the ablest members even of the ecclesiastical profession; their love of knowledge proving too strong for the old traditions in which they had been bred. But these were exceptional cases, and, speaking generally, there is no doubt that in the reign of Charles II. the antagonism between physical science and the theological spirit was such as to induce nearly the whole of the clergy to array themselves against the science, and seek to bring it into discredit. Nor ought we to be surprised that they should have adopted this course. That inquisitive and experimental spirit which they wished to check, was not only offensive to their prejudices, but it was also detrimental to their power. For in the first the establishment of the society, the arts of witchcraft and divination were very extensively encouraged; and the word natural was therefore introduced in contradistinction to supernatural." The charters granted by Charles II. are printed in Weld's History of the Royal Society, vol. ii. pp. 481-521. Evelyn (Diary, 13 Aug. 1662, vol. ii. p. 195) mentions, that the object of the Royal Society was "natural knowledge." See also Aubrey's Letters and Lives, vol. ii. p. 358; Pulteney's Hist. of Botany, vol. ii. pp. 97, 98; and on the distinction thus established in the popular mind between natural and supernatural, compare Boyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 455, vol. iv. pp. 288, 359.

place, the mere habit of cultivating physical science taught men to require a severity of proof which it was soon found that the clergy were, in their own department, unable to supply. And in the second place, the additions made to physical knowledge opened new fields of thought, and thus tended still further to divert attention from ecclesiastical topics. Both these effects would of course be limited to the comparatively few persons who were interested in scientific inquiries: it is, however, to be observed, that the ultimate results of such inquiries must have been extended over a far wider surface. This may be called their secondary influence; and the way in which it operated is well worth our attention, because an acquaintance with it will go far to explain the reason of that marked opposition which has always existed between superstition and knowledge.

It is evident, that a nation perfectly ignorant of physical laws, will refer to supernatural causes all the phenomena by which it is surrounded.77 But so soon as natural science begins to do its work, there are introduced the elements of a great change. Each successive discovery, by ascertaining the law that governs certain events, deprives them of that apparent mystery in which they were formerly involved.78 The love of the marvellous becomes

"The speculative view of this tendency has been recently illustrated in the most comprehensive manner by M. Auguste Comte, in his Philosophie Positive; and his conclusions in regard to the earliest stage of the human mind are confirmed by every thing we know of barbarous nations; and they are also confirmed, as he has decisively proved, by the history of physical science. In addition to the facts he has adduced, I may mention, that the history of geology supplies evidence analogous to that which he has collected from other departments.

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A popular notion of the working of this belief in supernatural causation may be seen in a circumstance related by Combe. He says, that in the middle of the eighteenth century the country west of Edinburgh was so unhealthy, that every spring the farmers and their servants were seized with fever and ague." As long as the cause of this was unknown, "these visitations were believed to be sent by Providence;" but after a time the land was drained, the ague disappeared, and the inhabitants perceived that what they had believed to be supernatural was perfectly natural, and that the cause was the state of the land, not the intervention of the Deity. Combe's Constitution of Man, Edinb. 1847, p. 156.

78 I say apparent mystery, because it does not at all lessen the real mystery. But this does not affect the accuracy of my remark, inasmuch as

proportionably diminished; and when any science has made such progress as to enable those who are acquainted with it to foretell the events with which it deals, it is clear that the whole of those events are at once withdrawn from the jurisdiction of supernatural, and brought under the authority of natural powers.79 The business of physical philosophy is, to explain external phenomena with a view to their prediction; and every successful prediction which is recognized by the people, causes a disruption of one of those links which, as it were, bind the imagination to the occult and invisible world. Hence it is that, supposing other things equal, the superstition of a nation must always bear an exact proportion to the extent of its physical knowledge. This may be in some degree verified by the ordinary experience of mankind. For if we compare the different classes of society, we shall find that they are

the people at large never enter into such subtleties as the difference between Law and Cause; a difference, indeed, which is so neglected, that it is often lost sight of even in scientific books. All that the people know is, that events which they once believed to be directly controlled by the Deity, and modified by Him, are not only foretold by the human mind, but are altered by human interference. The attempts which Paley and others have made to solve this mystery by rising from the laws to the cause, are evidently futile, because to the eye of reason the solution is as incomprehensible as the problem; and the arguments of the natural theologians, in so far as they are arguments, must depend on reason. As Mr. Newman truly says, "A God uncaused and existing from eternity, is to the full as incomprehensible as a world uncaused and existing from eternity. We must not reject the latter theory as incomprehensible; for so is every other possible theory." Newman's Natural History of the Soul, 1849, p. 36. The truth of this conclusion is unintentionally confirmed by the defence of the old method, which is set up by Dr. Whewell in his Bridgewater Treatise, pp. 262-5; because the remarks made by that able writer refer to men who, from their vast powers, were most likely to rise to that transcendental view of religion which is slowly but steadily gaining ground among us. Kant, probably the deepest thinker of the eighteenth century, clearly saw that no arguments drawn from the external world could prove the existence of a First Cause. See, among other passages, two particularly remarkable in Kritik der reinen Vernunft, Kant's Werke, vol. ii. pp. 478, 491, on "der physikotheologische

Beweis.

This is tersely expressed by M. Lamennais: "Pourquoi les corps gravitent-ils les uns vers les autres ? Parceque Dieu l'a voulu, disaient les anciens. Parceque les corps s'attirent, dit la science." Maury, Légendes du Moyen Age, p. 33. See to the same effect Mackay's Religious Development, 1850, vol. i. pp. 5, 30, 31, and elsewhere. See also a partial statement of the antithesis in Copleston's Inquiry into Necessity and Predestination, p. 49; an ingenious but overrated book.