characterises the laws of nature in the material world, we find nothing but uncertainty. "An old statesman" is not always "more skilful than a raw politician." Polonius knows no more of Hamlet's madness than Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. What Mr. Shelley attempts to illustrate by saying, "No farmer carrying his corn to market, doubts the sale of it at market price," I am at a loss to guess. It is of a piece, however, with many other of his illustrations, and can illustrate nothing, because it is a fallacy. If he can sell it in the market at all, he knows he will sell it at the market price! And yet he may have doubts, whether he can effect a sale; and these doubts have often been converted into realities. Such illustrations suit very well with such reasoners as talk about "voluntary actions," and yet tell us "every human being is irresistibly impelled to act precisely as he does act, by a chain of causes generated in the eternity which preceded his birth." An illustration to a similar purpose, states "the master of a manufactory no more doubts that he can purchase the human labour necessary for his purpose, than that his machinery will act as it has been accustomed to act." It is not necessary to have been a manufacturer, to see that this is
