ties of this school. With this understanding of the matter, it is my purpose to avoid touching upon that portion which will be so much better treated elsewhere, and to confine myself to those views of it, which are more practical than speculative, and which are best calculated to throw light upon the main subject committed to my charge. As we approach our entrè upon the great theatre of life, it is important that we lay aside somewhat of the metaphysical subtleties of the schools, and take that common sense view of every matter which is best calculated to give us just opinions of human life and human duties. I shall therefore consider natural law as that rule of rectitude which is prescribed to us by the author of our being and pointed out by our reason; and which lies at the foundation of all wise and salutary systems of positive law.

It shall moreover be my object to satisfy you that there is such a rule of rectitude growing out of our constitution, founded on our nature, binding every where, and the source from which all human laws derive their validity and value.

In the enforcement of these positions, if in following the example of other writers upon the subject, I shall occasionally speak of man as in that state which is familiarly called a state of nature, I beg it to be understood, that it is from no belief that such a state' has ever had existence. The natural state of man had has ever been and ever must be a state of society; rude indeed (if you please) and confined to the narrowest limits, but still coeval with created man. Take the holy scriptures for our guide and the fact is proved at once! reject them and give the reins to our imaginations, and whither will our unbridled fancies run? Do they point to an eternity behind us? Our mortal eye will never penetrate the mists that hang around it. The keenest vision reaches not beyond a date. far, far within the period when countless millions mingled into society. It is the bible only that tells us of the time when man was found alone; when

The world was sad, the garden was a wild,
And man the hermit sighed till woman smiled.

The supposition therefore of what is called a state of nature, is at most gratuitous and is demonstrably impossible. Yet in dissecting the human heart and exploring the laws which grow out of our nature and constitution, it serves to simplify our reasonings to proceed upon the favourite hypothesis of the existence of a state of nature in the primitive ages of the world. Thus far I have fallen in with the ordinary mode of treating the subject; but I beg to be understood as discarding altogether a belief in that hypothesis.

If there be any truth which on all hands will be acknowledged to be universal, it is, that there is nothing in nature which has not its laws. You will have derived but little benefit from the preliminary steps you have taken in your education, if you have been altogether inattentive to this interesting fact. From the first dawn of reason you have been observing it in the qualities of matter, the growth of every plant, and the habitudes of animals. There is a law of nature for all; and though, in boyhood, they struck you but as curious or amusing, yet as reflection has poured its flood of light upon the mind, they have assumed a deeper and more enduring interest.

Permit me however to place this matter before you more distinctly, and in a light, which if it can boast of nothing new, may enable you at least to perceive more clearly, the important inferences I intend to draw from it.

Natural philosophy, in its most general sense, is the science of those laws according to which nature operates through all her works; and the settled methods according to which she works, are called the laws of nature. The term is indeed used very commonly in a more restricted sense; but it is as accurately applicable to the history of a plant or a flower, to the habitudes of an animal, or the structure and

organization of its frame, as to the laws of planetary motion, the principles of mechanics, or the phenomena of light and electricity. Let us illustrate the matter by a few examples.

Take first the instance of crystallization. All crystalline substances have their own peculiar crystals. It is one of the laws of their nature. Thus calcareous spar crystallizes in rhombohedrons, fluor spar in cubes, and quartz in six sided pyramids; and these forms are so peculiar to those substances, that fluor spar never crystallizes in rhombohedrons or six sided pyramids, nor calcareous spar nor quartz in cubes.— Turner's Chem. 409. Next take the elective attractions, all of which have their peculiar affinities, so unerring are they, that man's boasted wisdom appeals to them as tests. And here is a magnet! Though inanimate and senseless, it can, by the law of its nature, tell iron from silver or gold. It tells intuitively a pin from a needle! And so with electricity. The very lightning of heaven distinguishes between a metal and an electric. It is a law of its nature. Let us pass to the vegetable creation.

Here is a flower! It is denominated the heliotrope or sunflower, from that tendency it has to turn its calyx to the sun. Place it where you will within the influence of its beams, and

It turns to its God with each varying hour,

And follows its idol throughout his career.

This is the law of its nature. Take this vine! It is the hop. It winds itself around the stake for its support, as it will by instinct. But what is more, it always twines from right to left. Here is another. It is a bean; twining indeed like the other, but always from left to right. It is the law of their respective natures. Do as you will, you cannot make them grow otherwise. Mount a little higher in the scale of being. Take the animal creation. All have the peculiar laws of their respective natures. The flocks and the herds are bloodless and gregarious: the lion

and the tiger are solitary and cruel. Yet all have one common principle at least, in all their natures; from the maternal hen to the fierce hyena and the ravening wolf. The natural storgee or love of their young, animates the whole, from the instant the whelp is ushered into life, or the tender chick is liberated from its shell. Look next abroad through nature,

"To the range of planets, suns and adamantine spheres," and contemplate the wondrous law that rules the whole. "Tis gravitation! whose universal power governs all creation, from the apple falling to the ground, to the mighty orbs, that wheel their unerring course through azure fields of air. They obey a law that's common to them all. They give the crowning proof that all creation lives by nature's laws;-laws which proceeding from Almighty power defy the vain attempts of man to change them.

Perhaps I may be asked Quo tendunt hæc? To what inferences would you have these facts to lead us? To this plain inference. If there be a law for all other created things, why not for man! "for man, so noble in reason, so infinite in faculties; in form and moving so express and admirable; in action so like an angel, in apprehension so like a god; the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals." For him above the rest, whom human pride has taught us to regard as the peculiar object of the favour and the care of heaven's all-ruling sire, must that Almighty Being have established laws which should govern his existence. These are to him the laws of nature. They are laws for him whether we look upon him as a wandering savage, in his solitary cave, or as the polished and luxurious tenant of a palace in the midst of a crowded city. They speak to the latter indeed in a voice by far more audible, and to an ear far more acute than the blunted senses of the brutal man of nature. To the man of civilization and society consciousness points out the paths

of duty; and the stings of conscience force him to pursue it.

Nor is it to his structure and organization or to his appetites or propensities alone that these laws have been confined. A nobler nature having been implanted in him than is given to the brute, other laws to govern it must also be inferred; for we have already seen, that 'tis the universal attribute of being that all that has existence must have a law appropriate to its nature. Of this indeed we have perfect consciousness, and none can look into their hearts without a sense of inborn duty there. It is of itself evidence enough of the real existence of a moral sense-innate and implanted in the human heart. What better evidence can we have of any thing, than that of our consciousness? What evidence have we of the objects of sense, but the consciousness which is derived from the information of the senses? What evidence have we of the existence of our appetites, and our passions, of our love and our hatred, of our fears and our sympathies, of our wishes and our hopes, than consciousness itself? If I have then in my heart, a conscious love of what I consider right, and a correspondent abhorrence of what I consider wrong, I have the same evidence of that moral sense, that I have of all other objects of consciousness. I must therefore believe in its existence, though I may confess that in its operations it is ever subject to be deluded. I may also readily admit, that it may exist in different degrees in different individuals, in like manner as the acuteness of the senses and the powers of the mind and the benevolence of the temper are more remarkable in one than in another. If indeed self evident truths are to be received as axioms, self consciousness is the best assurance we can have of truth and if in all men there is even a scintilla of the sense of right and wrong, the moral sense is established beyond the danger of contradiction.

I am well aware that, in these opinions, I run