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68 to the process of vegetation:—or that an acorn should produce an oak. In these operations, "nature is uniform," and "the constant conjunction of similar events," leads to the "consequent inference of one from another." But where this evident uniformity ceases, there also ceases the doctrine of Necessity. Unless you can tell me what I am about to do, as distinctly as you can predict the expansion of an oak from an acorn, you cannot apply the same doctrine to the one as to the other. An inference from a certainty, is not an equal certainty; and a supposition from a fact is entitled to little credit. "Liberty applied to mind," is not, as Mr. Shelley says, "analogous to chance, as applied to matter." There is no greater analogy between them, than there is between mind, and a dead corpse; or between the head and the hair which grows upon it; and it is equally wide of conclusive reasoning to remark, that "the precise character and motives of any man, on any occasion, being given, the moral philosopher could predict his actions with as much certainty, as the natural philosopher could predict the effects of the mixture of any particular chemical substances." The "precise character," and the "motives" can never