Hence Aristotle, not less than Plato, regarded metaphysics as coming after physics in the order of study, but as prior in the order of science, representing it as the First Philosophy and the Universal Science, common to all the sciences.* And Lord Bacon speaks of this Prima Philosophia as the root or stock out of which the other parts of knowledge shoot into separate branches.† Science results from the combination of the two methods the analytical, which must guide our studies of nature, and by which we ascend from effects to causes; and the synthetical, which appears in the works of nature, and by which God is beheld descending from causes to effects.

21. It may now be proper to call attention to the characteristics of the classification which we have adopted. First, starting with the idea or belief of a necessarily-existing and independent Being, and with the conditions of dependent being, we have regarded the successive stages of dependent being as based, respectively, on the ideas of power, and wisdom, and goodness, and holiness; in other words, of cause, design, benevolence, and rectitude. Secondly, these general ideas, which include numerous subordinate ones, proceed from the more simple to the less, or rather from the most simple that of an Infinite Being to the regularly-increasing complex. For, thirdly, each science in the succession supposes the preceding science or sciences. Thus the mathematical science presupposes a sciential mind—a mind cognizant of the unalterable relations of space and number which constitute the scientific conditions of an actual creation; the science of unorganized bodies presupposes the mathematical and metaphysical sciences; the science of organized bodies presupposes that of unorganized matter; and so of the rest. Thus, fourthly, the arrangement is, in effect, circular; the science of mind, Of which the laws of human development in families and communities are but a further unfolding or illustration, remanding us to "the Father of spirits," whose manifested and revealed relations give us Theology. And, fifthly, this arrangement is in harmony with that Revelation which is a transcript of the Divine Mind, and, as such, finds its reason in Him whose nature is the ultimate ground of all things.

22. But we have seen that man, besides being intelligent, is also an emotional, voluntary, and moral being. As intelligent,

* Metaph., lib. i., c. 2; lib. iv., c. 1; lib. vi., c. 1.

† De Augm. Scient. lib. iii. c. 1.

his sensational perceptions place him in relation to the bare phenomena of the external world, to the contingent, giving us unconnected facts; his reflective understanding gives him the relations of these phenomena, as the probable, in the sense of the inductively proveable, or the experimental sciences; his reason gives him their ultimate relations, as the necessary, or deductive philosophy; and, as the actual is necessarily limited, while the ideas which it embodies are unlimited, his imagination gives him the possible, or that which might be as emotional, he is placed in relation to the agreeable and desirable, or that which, in harmony with the general constitution of things, should be: as voluntary, he is related to the practicable, or that which can be; these latter three giving us the arts æsthetic and useful: and, as endowed with conscience, he stands related to the moral in the largest and highest sense, or that which, in harmony with immutable right, ought to be.

And here, first, again, the order is from the most simple to the complex-from thought to emotion, from emotion to voluntary action, and from action, right in the lower relation of man to the constitution of things, to action right also in its higher relation to the Author of that constitution. For, secondly, (as we have shown in the chapter on Order) the order of succession is the order of dependence the second implying the first, the third implying the preceding two, and the fourth presupposing them all. So also, regarding man as a voluntary being influenced by motives, his instincts and passions, which connect him with the irrational creation, imply his sensational perceptions merely; his self-love, which individualizes him as a being having an end of his own, implies his rational powers and his appropriate emotions; his benevolent affections, which place him in relation to the human race, imply the preceding, and his impartative emotions also; and his sense of obligation, which places him in relation to immutable Perfection, implies all the elements included in the other classes of motives. The same order of succession and dependence appears, if we look at man in his relation to the great end. His knowledge of God implies intelligence, including imagination, to which the infinitude of the subject pre-eminently appeals. His appreciation of the Divine excellence implies his emotional nature, which looks back to his knowledge. His acceptable obedience implies freedom of will, which looks back to his emotions. And his holy enjoyment of God implies that power of moral approbation which presup poses all the rest, though it is something added to them. And

thus, thirdly, whether we take man's nature in its totality, or in its intellectual or its practical relations, or in respect to its final purpose, the same order of succession and dependence invariably lands us at that point where he is seen reflecting the Divine image, and partaking of the Divine nature; and from whence he is meant to re-act, armed with the influence of the Divine government, on all the subordinate parts of his constitution. Nor, fourthly, is the science of human nature less based on a fundamental idea than are the sciences of external nature. The idea of Perfection lies at the foundation of all our psychological investigations; and of this idea, Law, Truth and Beauty, Right and Obligation, Personality and Immortality, are only correlative forms modified according to man's different relations. Ideas of Spirit and Cause, Design and Happiness, too, are suggested by the phenomena of his own nature, identical with those suggested by his study of the external universe; for man's constitution includes a summary of nature. But as it is in man that the Creator has been pleased to reflect his moral image, the idea of Perfection underlies all his self-investigations.

23. But if this classification places the first, or individual man, at the head of the creation, the same theory applied to collective man would assign to every member of the human family "his own place." Here, indeed, a subject of immeasurable compass, and of the highest interest, opens to view. In our application of the principle to the three stages of natureinorganic, organic, and sentient- -we saw that it distributes the phenomena of each stage according to the order of progressive nature, taken in connection with the relative importance of the progressive steps; and we saw that each advancing stage, by presenting additional phenomena, multiplied the points of comparison, and thus increased our means of classification, and our powers of testing the truth of such classification. But the new characteristics which the human species presents augment the points of comparison between the different members of the race indefinitely. If the twenty-six letters of the alphabet admit of combinations in words and sentences, which all the books written, and all the sounds hitherto uttered by man, leave comparatively undiminished, how unimaginable must be the combinations of which the alphabet or elements of human nature admit, especially when these are multiplied by all the possible varieties of man's external condition! To say that no two men of all the myriads that have lived have been precisely alike, would

amount to little. The possible diversities of which humanity admits are hardly as yet numerically diminished to any sensible amount, and could be exhausted by no conceivable number of generations, and within no computable tract of time. Yet the scientific distribution of the whole is possible.

24. According to the method which our theory prescribes, 1, the classification of men is to be made from a calculation and comparison of all the elements which the human constitution includes from the lowest mechanical law and chemical property to its highest moral perfection. Not a single property, organ, or faculty is to be passed over as unimportant. 2. It ranges the characteristic properties of human nature on a graduated scale, according to which the value of each property rises as it approaches man's highest distinction. 3. It requires that each group or class of men shall be formed of such individuals only as resemble each other more than they resemble any other human beings, or, as have the greatest number of important properties in common. 4. It provides not only for the formation of men into classes, but also for the arrangement of these classes in an ascending series, ranging according to the ideal of human perfection; for, as we have seen, it recognizes degrees of value or intensity in the main characteristics of the human economy. Consequently, the affinity of man to man is to be regarded as nearest, when the resemblance lies between those characteristics which are of the highest value.

25. According to this method, then, the highest generalization of which man admits, is that which places him according to his moral character. For we cannot here say, as we did when speaking of the classification of mere organic bodies, that an arrangement correctly formed on one function will harmonize with an arrangement correctly formed on another function. This is true, indeed, of man considered merely as an organic being. But he has more than organic functions; and among these higher faculties, disturbance and derangement exist. If we class the members of the human family according to their physiological relations, we obtain resemblances of color, and physical conformation, and adopt family and national ties. If they are classed according to their knowledge, or their progress in civilization, the prior arrangement may have to be almost entirely broken up, and parties to be brought together which had before been separated; and a union is formed of a higher order still. If classed according to their emotional nature their tastes and wishes, and affections - -a new arrangement is

formed, and a stronger compact still. But if, now, those were to be selected who, besides believing the same truths, and approving the same objects, were bent on pursuing them from an enlightened sense of duty to God, and from the deep feeling that their endless well-being depended on attaining them, we should have formed a class united together by the closest, highest, and most enduring affinities of which we can conceive. This, we are Divinely assured, will form the basis of the great, the final, classification of our race. Owing, indeed, to the elements of responsibility which our nature includes, no two even of this best and highest class present precisely the same aspect to the Divine government, or stand in exactly the same relation to it. For, in order accurately to determine that relation, the original constitution, physical, mental, and moral, of each, and of all his subsequent external circumstances, must be taken into account. And thus it happens that the very minuteness and multiplicity of the points of comparison by which each man will be made to "stand in his lot at the end of the days," takes the work of actual classification out of our incompetent handsleaving us only to "judge ourselves" individually—and refers the ultimate generalization of the race to Omniscience. But of that "number which no man can number," the first man had now appeared-the model and father of the species; and of that final judgment the first foreshadowing was about to appear in his Divine arraignment.

CHAPTER XVIII.

CHANGE.

1. WILL man fall? From the moment in which he became the subject of moral government, this was, not unlikely, the great question of the intelligent universe. Consequences were depending on it, the least glimpse of which must have thrown the mere physical disruption of a planet, or of a system of worlds, into the shade. Among the means for forming an antecedent conjecture on the subject, one was, the fact that man came into a system of things which was already subject to a law of change. His lot was cast on the line of progress at a time when successive races of animal life already belonged to the silence of the