Note 625 — SERMON VII.[589]

How exactly, in this instance, has Dr. Whewell's anticipation received fulfilment!;—"We may, with the greatest propriety, deny to the mechanical Philosophers and Mathematicians of recent times any authority with regard to their views of the administration of the Universe; we have no reason whatever to expect from their speculations any help, when we ascend to the first Cause and supreme Ruler of the Universe. But we might perhaps go further, and assert that they are in some respects less likely than men employed in other pursuits, to make any clear advance towards such a subject of speculation."—(Whewell's Bridgewater Treatise, p. 334.)—Scarcely less acute is the remark which the late excellent Hugh James Rose has somewhere left on record, concerning the chapter wherein the preceding remark occurs,—That the world would not easily forgive Dr. Whewell for those two chapters on "Inductive" and "Deductive Habits."