ART. IV.-1. The History of Peter the Cruel. By M. Mérimée. From the French, with Notes. London: 1850. V. The Lyrical Dramas of Eschylus translated into English Verse. By J. S. Blackie. London: 1850, 173 2. Goethe in Berlin. Erinnerungs-Blätter sur Feier seines hundertjährigen Geburtsfestes. Berlin: 1849. 3. Zu Goethe's Jubelfeier. Studien zu Goethe's Werken. Von Heinrich Dünzer. Elberfeld: 1849. 4. Goethe's Briefe an Frau von Stein. 2 vols. Wei- VII. 1. Pourquoi la Révolution d'Angleterre a-t-elle réussi ? Discours sur l'Histoire de la Révolution d'Angleterre. 2. On the Causes of the Success of the English Revo- IX.-Report of the Judgment of the Judicial Committee of ART. I.-1. The English Language. By R. G. Latham, M.D. Second Edition, 8vo. London: Pp. 581. 2. Elementary English Grammar for the Use of Schools. By R. G. Latham, M. D. Second Edition, 3. The Rise, Progress, and Present Structure of the II. 1. A Second Visit to the United States of America. By Sir Charles Lyell. 2d edit. 2. The Western World, or Travels in the United States in 1846-7; exhibiting them in their latest development-social, political, and industrial-in- cluding a chapter on California. By Alexander Mackay, Esq., of the Middle Temple, Barrister-at- 3. Reed and Matheson's Visit to the American 4. Tenth Annual Report of the Massachusetts System of Common Schools. Boston: 1849. 5. Speech of the Hon. Daniel Webster upon the Sub- ject of Slavery, delivered in the Senate of the United Notices of the Regions situated between the Rivers Nile and Indus. In Four Volumes, with Fourteen Maps and Charts, and embellished with Ninety- seven Plates, besides numerous Woodcuts. By Lieutenant-Colonel Chesney, R. A., F. R. S., F. R. G.S., Colonel in Asia, Commander of the Expedi- tion. By Authority. Vols. I. II. London: 1850. 2. Report from the Select Committee on Steam Navi- gation to India; with the Minutes of Evidence, Appendix, and Index. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 14th July, 1834. Sessional 3. Copies or Extracts from Communications or Dis- patches,' addressed to the Board of Control, relating to the recent Expedition to the Rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and its Result. Ordered to be printed, 22d February, 1838. Sessional Paper, No. 75., . 436 VI.-1. Pericles: a Tale of Athens in the Eighty-third Olympiad. By the Author of a Brief Sketch of Greek Philosophy. 2 vols. London: 1846. 2. The Fawn of Sertorius. 2 vols. London: 1846. 3. The Fountain of Arethusa. By Robert Eyres Landor, Author of The Fawn of Sertorius, &c. 4. Amymone: a Romance of the Days of Pericles. By the Author of Azeth the Egyptian. 3 vols. 5. Antonina; or, the Fall of Rome. A Romance of VII.-1. Minutes of the Committee of Council on Education: Schools of Parochial Unions, England and Wales. 2. Second Annual Report of the Committee of the United Industrial School. Edinburgh: 1850, IX.-1. The Works of Quintus Horatius Flaccus, illustrated chiefly from the Remains of Ancient Art. Life by the Rev. Henry Hart Milman, Canon of St. THE EDINBURGH REVIEW, JULY, 1850. No. CLXXXV. ART. I. 1. Lettres à S. A. R. le Duc règnant de SaxeCobourg et Gotha sur la Théorie des Probabilités appliquée aux Sciences Morales et Politiques. Par M. A. QUETELET, Astron. Royal de la Belgique, &c. &c. 1 vol. in 8vo. 1846. Chez M. Hayez, à Bruxelles. 2. Letters addressed to H. R. H. the Grand Duke of Saxe-Cobourg and Gotha on the Theory of Probabilities as applied to the Moral and Political Sciences. By M. A. QUETELET, Astronomer Royal of Belgium, Corresponding Member of the Institute of France, &c. &c. Translated from the French by OLINTHUS GREGORY DOWNES, of the Economic Life Assurance Society. London: 1849. EXPERIENCE has been declared, with equal truth and poetry, to adopt occasionally the tone, and attain to something like the certainty, of Prophecy. In the contemplating mind the past and the future are linked by a bond as indissoluble as that which connects them in their actual sequence. Metaphysicians may dispute concerning the nature of causation; and it will always, no doubt, be difficult to explain and demonstrate the objective reality of that relation: but the reality, as an internal feeling, of the expectation that what has happened under given circumstances will happen again under precisely similar circumstances, is independent of metaphysical dispute and above it. It is an axiom drawn from the inward consciousness of our nature by involuntary generalisation. We acknowledge it expressly or impliedly in every instant of life. It is the practical ground of VOL. XCII. NO. CLXXXV. B every sane transaction. Instinctive in childhood or if not instinctive, the direct result of the earliest, simplest, and most powerful associations it becomes, however, entangled with conditions and modifications, as reason enlarges her sphere of vision, and we learn to question the absolute similarity of circumstances in any two assigned cases. But though puzzled for a while, and baffled as by a verbal quibble, the impression itself is not destroyed or weakened. We begin early to distinguish between relevant and irrelevant circumstances; to attend only to the former and to disregard the latter. Upon this ground Inductive Science takes her stand and erects her axioms; making it her business to ascertain, in each case, what are the really relevant circumstances on which events depend, and to analyse the complicated web of phenomena into a system of elementary and superposed uniformities, to which we assign the name of inductive theorems, or laws of nature. One of the greatest steps which have yet been made in the philosophy of Logic-a step which may almost be termed a discovery when we consider the inveteracy of the habits and prejudices which it has cast to the winds-is that recently taken by Mr. Mill, in showing that all reasoning (meaning thereby the investigation of truth as distinguished from the mere interpretation of a formula) is from particulars to particulars, and in thence assigning to general propositions their true character and to the syllogism its true office. But while a vast accumulation of rubbish, which obscured the basis of all sound philosophy, has thus been swept away, a condition of affairs is disclosed which, at first sight, seems to annul our prospect of attaining to any general knowledge whatever, at least in those of its departments in which analogies are not at once perceived to be identities. No one has ever yet contended that our knowledge of special facts is intuitive. The questions, therefore, at once arise, 1st. What sort of security have we for the truth of any assertion concerning any external thing or fact which has not been made a matter of direct observation? and, 2dly. What measure have we of the degree or amount of that security, supposing we possess it in some degree, and supposing absolute and mathematical certainty to be unattainable? Now, with regard to the first of these questions, it must at * System of Logic, 2d ed. chap. 3. on the functions and logical value of the Syllogism. Perhaps Mr. Mill may be considered as only fol lowing out more emphatically the views originally taken by Berkeley on this subject, but which seem to have dropped so far out of notice as to give their revival all the force of novelty. |
