And scuds along the placid main, Without a compass for his guide. And wraps his prospects up in gloom; And points to ruin's gaping jaws,— THE HOUR OF PEACE. BY THOS. GISBORNE. WHEN groves by moonlight silence keep, By turns to gain each parent's knees, Lord! is not this the hour of peace? ON THE CAUSES OF DELINQUENCY blishment of State Lotteries; which, he argues, tends to cherish a spirit of gaming, and to draw after it a train of evils, which, in their effects and consequences, spread into numerous departments of domestic life. Through the temptation which this fascinating system holds out, many, he observes, who, in the subordinate stations of civilized society, are entrusted with money, have been induced to risk the property of their employers; and, when they have discovered that their foolish adventures have been unsuccessful, they have had recourse to other crimes to escape detection; till, shut from every hope, they have either absconded, to prey on the public, or have terminated their existence by suicide. Of the time unavoidably wasted in contrivances to raise money to purchase tickets, and in calculating upon the issue of the adventure, he has also taken notice. He likewise adverts to the offices of insurance, pointing out their pernicious tendencies; and finally concludes, that the whole system inevitably leads to demoralization. His second subject is that of contested elections; which, he contends, introduce excessive dissipation, promote drunkenness and inattention to labour, and give a sanction to bribery and perjury. The principles of moral rectitude, thus wounded, soon cease to operate in their primitive vigour; and the trained delinquent carries among his associates the lessons he has learnSOME time in the month of March, ed from those, who should have taught 1819, we were favoured, by an inha-him virtue both by their precepts and bitant of Liverpool, with an Essay, example. professing to develop the causes of delinquency and crime, as named in the title of this article. Just at that moment, we were laying before the public the substance of a pamphlet, written in America, in which several topies of discussion introduced into these papers seemed to be anticipated. These circumstances rendered the appearance of this article at that time comparatively unnecessary; and directed its omission until the present. To such points as have not been particularly noticed, and to others which are placed in a new light, we shall now pay due attention; but we find it necessary, for reasons already mentioned, to give condensation to his remarks, selecting only the essence of his observations. The first cause of delinquency and crime which he mentions is, the estaNo. 6.-VOL. I. His third subject is the comfortable accommodations, which, through mistaken humanity, our common jails afford. Detected in the commission of crimes, which he has been instructed to perpetrate, the offender is consigned to a jail, which, on examination, he finds more comfortable than his own habitation. Here vice reigns in triumph among the prisoners; and dissipation and gambling divide his hours. Hence, having nothing more to fear from the loss of reputation, he becomes, on his release, should he escape with only a slight punishment, prepared for every species of villany, for which his abilities and a jail education could qualify him. And being neglected and abandoned by all, except those whose views are conformable to his own, he again renews b 20 depredations, and rather wishes for a jail, that he may enjoy its wretched comforts, than dreads the punishment which the laws may inflict. He balances the hope of escaping, against the possibility of conviction, and hazards all for the booty he attempts to acquire. The fourth topic introduced, is the multiplication of oaths; which, he argues, are administered on such trifling occasions, as tend to destroy their dignity, and to deprive them of solemnity, by which alone they become a bond of civil society. In favour of what he asserts, he adverts to the Excise and Customs, and adduces some specific instances, which unhappily prove, that, in these departments, oaths are generally viewed by multitudes who take them with acknowledged indifference. The late income and property taxes he considers as having proved highly injurious to public morals, on account of the oaths with which they were associated, and as having given laxity to the ties of moral obligation. legerdemain philosophy, which seeks to account for the simple phenomena of matter and motion, by introducing into nature such fanciful agents, as INNATE ATTRACTION, ETERNAL PROJECTILE FORCE, INHERENT REPULSION, MATTER OF HEAT, &c. &c. I have the honour to be, Sir, Your obedient servant, Bridge-street, July 24, 1819. IN defence of the principles of the pretended orthodox philosophy, five appeals have been made to credulity, which merit special exposure before I conclude my personal concern in this great controversy. The first, is an attempt to evade the question, by alleging, that attraction and gravitation are mere names of the effects, and that by them it is not pretended to define any cause. To this it may be replied, that to give names to effects is not the business and object of genuine philosophy; and that it is the bounden duty of legitimate of the proximate cause of an effect, in preference to any term which may merely describe the effect; and, therefore, it is not a sufficient reason for refusing to inquire into the cause, that a mere name of the effect has been generally recognized. That would be a despicable philosophy, which contented itself merely with giving learned names to phenomena; and any old woman, who says that a body falls to the earth on account of its weight, would exhibit as profound a discrimination as any self-called philosopher, who might assert that it falls owing to its gravitation, or owing to the preponderating attraction of the earth. In his last topic, he adverts to tax-philosophers,, to adopt an explanation ation itself; and argues, that in the same proportion as imposts are multiplied and heavy, they have a natural tendency to generate a disposition to evade their application. To accomplish this, no subterfuge is left untried; and, with many, no duplicity is thought too criminal to be practised. Even among those whose names and characters have been celebrated for loyalty, he contends, that no small number may be found, who have discovered the art of detaching turpitude from a violation of law. This pernicious principle, he argues, when once unhappily adopted, opens an easy passage to the vices which distinguish the present age. It separates law from justice, and reducing obedience to the former as a matter of expediency, leaves the latter wholly unguarded. The Newtonians profess to consider, by the word attraction, merely the name of the law or phenomenon. But when we apply their name or law to the several phenomena, and ask them why the planets do not fall to the sun, as ΤΟ THE EDITOR OF THE IMPERIAL well as a stone to the earth, they then MAGAZINE. SIR, abandon the name, as a law, and tell us that the tendency towards the sun is counteracted by a force, which they call projectile or centrifugal. Yet, as this counteraction is a force, surely that which is counteracted must also be a force; and therefore, in spite of all equivocation, the name is by themselves converted into a force or ten dency to the centre, governed by a certain law. Here then we are at issue: I admit this law, as a result of certain local mechanical forces, and which, being local, and not essentially universal, does not require the hypothesis of a counteracting projectile or centrifugal force. But they assert, that the law is a result of forces inherent in matter, and universal as matter; and then, to counteract this universal force, which would unite all bodies in one mass, they are obliged to feign the existence of a centrifugal or projectile force, which, however, is not supported by any experiment like that of a falling stone, but is created by themselves, for the sole purpose of reconciling another hypothesis of their own to the phenomena! sun. This confusion arises from considering the phenomena of the terrestrial mass, and those of the sun and planets, as similar, and as results of the same universal cause. A stone falls to the earth, but a planet does not fall to the Nevertheless, the Newtonians assert, that the planets have a tendency to fall to the sun, though they do not fall! They assert that of which they have no proof in any fact; and then, upon this assertion, they found a system of physics! A stone falls to the earth; and, from this fact, they deduce the monstrous conclusion, that the planets also have a tendency to fall to the sun; though it is notorious they do not fall, and never evince any disposition to fall! But, the analogy between the force which impels a stone to the earth, and that which retains the planets in their orbits, is, in truth, confirmed by no fact: it is, therefore, evident, that the analogy is gratuitous, and highly probable that it is utterly false. sarily moves towards the centre of the terrestrial masses, because it is the patient of the orbicular and rotatory motions of the mass, and because the common force, which revolves the heterogeneous mass, necessarily produces equal momenta in every part; and equal momenta can only result from every part revolving at distances from the centre, which are inversely as their densities: and I have also found, that it is highly probable that the planets move round the sun, because having no innate tendency to move in any direction, and having atmospheres which gradually fine off, and vanish into the medium of space, they are susceptible of being moved by the exceedingly slight forces created by the medium of space in curvilinear orbits, corresponding with the circular motions of the sun round the centre of the planetary system; the force of the impulse being measured by the relative bulks of the masses concerned, and by the law of divergency, or reciprocal square of the distance; and the areas of the medium of space, moved by the action and re-action of the same forces, or described by the radiusvector, must always be necessarily equal. The assertion, therefore, that physical philosophy is perfect, without considering the true mechanical cause of the action and re-action of distant unconnected bodies on one another, is a mere pretence to cover inadvertency, prejudice, or pride. The second assertion of the defenders of the pretended orthodox principles of philosophy, is, that they accord with geometry, and are confirmed by the researches of the most profound mathematicians; and therefore ought not to be disturbed. In considering It does not follow, because a stone the assumptions of this piece of arrant moves towards the centre of the earth, sophistry, I appeal to every one who and the planets move in orbits round has applied geometry to the Keplerian the sun, that therefore the proximate law, whether that science takes, or causes of motions so dissimilar, and affects to take, any cognizance whatin such contrary directions, are the ever of the source of that law? It is same. I should rather infer, that the the same thing to geometry, whether proximate causes are altogether differ- it is assumed as analogous to emanaent; and, instead of saying that they tions, on the whimsical hypothesis of were the same, and then inventing a new emanating gravific particles; whether force to explain the difference, I should it was a false analogy deduced from rather search for appropriate and ex- Galileo's law of falling bodies; wheisting motions of nature, calculated ther it was an astrological harmony by themselves to produce the peculiar of Kepler's; or whether it was ascribmotions. And having made this search, ed to attraction by Hooke; the geomeI have discovered, that a stone neces-trician acts merely on the abstract la depredations, and rather wishes for a jail, that he may enjoy its wretched comforts, than dreads the punishment which the laws may inflict. He balances the hope of escaping, against the possibility of conviction, and hazards all for the booty he attempts to acquire. The fourth topic introduced, is the multiplication of oaths; which, he argues, are administered on such trifling occasions, as tend to destroy their dignity, and to deprive them of solemnity, by which alone they become a bond of civil society. In favour of what he asserts, he adverts to the Excise and Customs, and adduces some specific instances, which unhappily prove, that, in these departments, oaths are generally viewed by multitudes who take them with acknowledged indifference. The late income and property taxes he considers as having proved highly injurious to public morals, on account of the oaths with which they were associated, and as having given laxity to the ties of moral obligation. In his last topic, he adverts to taxation itself; and argues, that in the same proportion as imposts are multiplied and heavy, they have a natural tendency to generate a disposition to evade their application. To accomplish this, no subterfuge is left untried; and, with many, no duplicity is thought too criminal to be practised. Even , among those whose names and characters have been celebrated for loyalty, he contends, that no small number may be found, who have discovered the art of detaching turpitude from a violation of law. This pernicious principle, he argues, when once unhappily adopted, opens an easy passage to the vices which distinguish the present age. It separates law from justice, and reducing obedience to the former as a matter of expediency, leaves the latter wholly unguarded. IN defence of the principles of the pretended orthodox philosophy, five appeals have been made to credulity, which merit special exposure before I conclude my personal concern in this great controversy. The first, is an attempt to evade the question, by alleging, that attraction and gravitation are mere names of the effects, and that by them it is not pretended to define any cause. To this it may be replied, that to give names to effects is not the business and object of genuine philosophy; and that it is the bounden duty of legitimate philosophers, to adopt an explanation of the proximate cause of an effect, in preference to any term which may merely describe the effect; and, therefore, it is not a sufficient reason for refusing to inquire into the cause, that a mere name of the effect has been generally recognized. That would be a despicable philosophy, which contented itself merely with giving learned names to phenomena; and any old woman, who says that a body falls to the earth on account of its weight, would exhibit as profound a discrimination as any self-called philosopher, who might assert that it falls owing to its gravitation, or owing to the preponderating attraction of the earth. The Newtonians profess to consider, by the word attraction, merely the name of the law or phenomenon. But when we apply their name or law to the several phenomena, and ask them why the planets do not fall to the sun, as well as a stone to the earth, they then abandon the name, as a law, and tell us that the tendency towards the sun is counteracted by a force, which they call projectile or centrifugal. Yet, as this counteraction is a force, surely that which is counteracted must also be a force; and therefore, in spite of all equivocation, the name is by themselves converted into a force or ten dency to the centre, governed by a certain law. Here then we are at issue: I admit this law, as a result of certain local mechanical forces, and which, being local, and not essentially universal, does not require the hypothesis of a counteracting projectile or centrifugal force. But they assert, that the law is a result of forces inherent in matter, and universal as matter; and then, to counteract this universal force, which would unite all bodies in one mass, they are obliged to feign the existence of a centrifugal or projectile force, which, however, is not supported by any experiment like that of a falling stone, but is created by themselves, for the sole purpose of reconciling another hypothesis of their own to the phenomena! This confusion arises from considering the phenomena of the terrestrial mass, and those of the sun and planets, as similar, and as results of the same universal cause. A stone falls to the earth, but a planet does not fall to the sun. Nevertheless, the Newtonians assert, that the planets have a tendency to fall to the sun, though they do not fall! They assert that of which they have no proof in any fact; and then, upon this assertion, they found a system of physics! A stone falls to the earth; and, from this fact, they deduce the monstrous conclusion, that the planets also have a tendency to fall to the sun; though it is notorious they do not fall, and never evince any disposition to fall! But, the analogy between the force which impels a stone to the earth, and that which retains the planets in their orbits, is, in truth, confirmed by no fact: it is, therefore, evident, that the analogy is gratuitous, and highly probable that it is utterly false. same. It does not follow, because a stone moves towards the centre of the earth, and the planets move in orbits round the sun, that therefore the proximate causes of motions so dissimilar, and in such contrary directions, are the I should rather infer, that the proximate causes are altogether different; and, instead of saying that they were the same, and then inventing a new force to explain the difference, I should rather search for appropriate and existing motions of nature, calculated by themselves to produce the peculiar motions. And having made this search, I have discovered, that a stone neces sarily moves towards the centre of the terrestrial masses, because it is the patient of the orbicular and rotatory motions of the mass, and because the common force, which revolves the heterogeneous mass, necessarily produces equal momenta in every part; and equal momenta can only result from every part revolving at distances from the centre, which are inversely as their densities: and I have also found, that it is highly probable that the planets move round the sun, because having no innate tendency to move in any direction, and having atmospheres which gradually fine off, and vanish into the medium of space, they are susceptible of being moved by the exceedingly slight forces created by the medium of space in curvilinear orbits, corresponding with the circular motions of the sun round the centre of the planetary system; the force of the impulse being measured by the relative bulks of the masses concerned, and by the law of divergency, or reciprocal square of the distance; and the areas of the medium of space, moved by the action and re-action of the same forces, or described by the radiusvector, must always be necessarily equal. The assertion, therefore, that physical philosophy is perfect, without considering the true mechanical cause of the action and re-action of distant unconnected bodies on one another, is a mere pretence to cover inadvertency, prejudice, or pride. The second assertion of the defenders of the pretended orthodox principles of philosophy, is, that they accord with geometry, and are confirmed by the researches of the most profound mathematicians; and therefore ought not to be disturbed. In considering the assumptions of this piece of arrant sophistry, I appeal to every one who has applied geometry to the Keplerian law, whether that science takes, or affects to take, any cognizance whatever of the source of that law? It is the same thing to geometry, whether it is assumed as analogous to emanations, on the whimsical hypothesis of emanating gravific particles; whether it was a false analogy deduced from Galileo's law of falling bodies; whether it was an astrological harmony of Kepler's; or whether it was ascribed to attraction by Hooke; the geometrician acts merely on the abstract law, |