the kind, and it follows with readiness and certainty, that what has once been will be again.The principle of the permanency and uniformity of the laws of nature is something antecedent to reasoning and not subsequent to it; something beyond reasoning and not dependent on it; one of its substantial and magnificent columns.

REMARK. The above mentioned primary truth and that of the preceding section are in fact the same. They are different only in being the two great and equal sections of a principle, which has no limits but those of the universe and eternity. In other words, one of them has exclusive relation to the past; the other to the future; the former to that which has been, and the latter to that which will be. And hence as the human mind cannot readily contemplate them under one point of view, they are for that reason considered separately.

§. 28. Of the distinction between primary and ultimate truths.

Such propositions or truths, as are here called PRIMARY, are sometimes spoken of as ultimate; nor is this last epithet improperly applied to them. But there seems, nevertheless, good reason for proposing the following distinction, viz. Primary truths may be always regarded as ultimate, but not all ultimate truths are primary. Primary truths are such as are necessarily implied in the mere fact of the existence of the mind and of its operations, particularly those of reasoning; and being not only the necessary, but among the earliest products of the understanding, may also properly be called ultimate. But we also apply the epithet, ultimate, to those general truths, facts, or laws in our intellectual economy, which are ascertained by the examination and comparison of many particulars, and which are supposed to be unsusceptible of any further generalization.

For instance, when the rays of light reach the retina of the eye, and inscribe upon it the picture of some external object, there immediately follows that state of the mind, which we call sight or visual perception. When the mental exercises of whatever kind are frequently repeated, we

find the general result, that they acquire facility or strength. -Again, when we behold certain appearances in the external world, such as green fields, enriched with rivulets, and ornamented with flowers and trees, there immediately exists within us that pleasurable feeling, which is termed an emotion of beauty. Supposing ourselves to have come in such cases as these, as Mr. Locke says, "to the length of our tether," and to be incapable of making any further analysis, we call such truths, facts, or laws, ultimate. For the existence of these ultimate truths or laws we can give no other reason than this, that we are so formed, and that they are permanent and original characteristics of the mind. All the inquiries, which we are hereafter to make, will continually imply the existence of such ultimate or original laws, and it will be one great object to ascertain what are truly such. But as the actual knowledge of these general facts is not an absolute prerequisite to the conduct of life, and in particular as it is not necessarily antecedent to the exercise of the reasoning faculty, we cannot call them PRIMARY in the same sense, in which that term has been applied to certain facts in our constitution already mentioned.