120 The Cotton Manufacture, and the Factory System. latter gentleman in particular has dis- His publication, now before us, [July, In fact, however, the greater part of ance for any moderate term of life. the atrocities of late years will be found in the woollen and linen disprovisions of the acts procured by the tricts of Yorkshire, to which the late Sir Robert Peel and Sir John Hobhouse were not extended; the ly improved under their operation. cotton factories had long been great whilst unrepealed, should be strictly We have said that the present law, enforced, and so we are assured it is to be for the future-for the past it has been shamefully unattended to. of the abuses even now perpetrated, To show the nature and extent that during the last year no fewer it appears by a parliamentary return, than 350 masters of mills have notwithstanding been convicted of penalties for the infringement of the act, to the amount of upwards of L.1000. By its inexorable execupointed out, will effect its own cure. tion, the evil, as we have before It is for the benefit of the respectmasters themselves, who, we are able and enlightened of the millproud to think, constitute no mean proportion of the whole body, that it should be so, since the more sordid of their class would otherwise reap a dishonourable advantage over the fair dealer, equal to a living profit upon the sale price out of the told that the state of society is now wages cost of production. We are too far advanced in civilisation, and lutely under the control, and subject the higher order of traders too absoder the repetition of the former to the lash of public opinion, to renatrocities of the system practicable to question the fact as one not sancor possible. We may be permitted tioned by history and experience. Human nature is essentially, and in all ages the same; in the conflict between the base passion of avarice and the admonitions of conscience, humanity, where the law interposes not the strength of its arm, liable to be worsted. The following is always extract from a Leeds paper, of Radical principles, will demonstrate the actual value in the market of the influence of public opinion, and is a melancholy commentary on the advancing spirit of the age. " GROSS VIOLATION OF THE FACTORY ACT AT BATLEY. "To the Editor of the Leeds Times. "Robert Baker, Esq. surgeon of this town, and superintendent of factories under the Factories Regulation Act, last week gave Messrs Ib botson, Taylor, and Co. of Batley, notice to attend on Saturday last before John Ingram and John Wheatley, Esqrs., magistrates, at Dewsbury, to answer a complaint against them for violating the provisions of the act. One of the partners accordingly appeared on that daywhen it was stated that 'the firm had worked five boys between twelve and fifteen years of age from six o'clock on Friday morning to four o'clock on Saturday afternoon, with out allowing them any rest except at meal times, and one hour at midnight.' The work was in a shoddyhole (or place for tearing up linen rags), where the atmosphere is so impure as to render it necessary for the workmen constantly to wear handkerchiefs tied across their mouths to keep out the innumerable particles which would otherwise be drawn into the lungs and destroy the health. For this four informations were laid. First-For having worked one of the boys more than twelve hours on Friday. SecondFor having worked another of the boys before half-past five o'clock on Saturday morning. Third-For ha ving worked three of the boys after half-past eight on Friday evening. Fourth For having kept false time-books, the books having stated that the engine stopped working at half-past seven on Friday evening, instead of which it had been kept going almost the whole night. The partner who attended on behalf of the firm said that the children had four hours allowed for rest, but that they had not gone to bed. He said that the firm had never done so before, and had been led to do it then in consequence of the boiler having burst a little before, the time consumed in mending which had caused them to be behindhand with their business. The magistrates convicted Messrs Taylor, Ibbotson, and Co. on all four informations, and fined them in the mitigated penalty of L.20 (L.5 for each offence), and expenses, the full penalty allowed by the act being L.80 (L.20 for each offence). At the same time the following manufacturers in Batley and the neighbourhood were brought up by Mr Baker :-Messrs Hall, Sheard, and Co. were fined L.6 and expenses for night working, and employing children under ten years of age for more than twelve hours per day.Messrs Nussey and Co. were fined L.6 and expenses for the same offences. Messrs Ellis and Co. were fined L.15 and expenses for the same offences, and for the keeping false time-books. Messrs Sheard, Spedding, and Co. were fined L.1 and expenses for working children under ten years of age for more than twelve hours per day. Messrs John Burnley and Sons were fined L.2 and expenses for the same offences. Messrs Nussey and Clapham were fined L.3 and expenses for the same offence. Messrs Taylor and Co. were fined L.2 and expenses for the same offence." THE METAPHYSICIAN. No. II. BROWN ON CAUSE AND EFFECT. "In every enquiry into the successions of phenomena, whether of matter or of mind, there is one relation on the truth of which the enquirer always proceeds, and which he must believe therefore to be as extensive as the appearances of the material world, that come beneath his view, and the feelings of which he is conscious. "This universal relation is that according to which events are classed in a certain order, as reciprocally causes and effects; and since the sole object of every physical investigation of the changes which nature exhibits, is the ascertainment of the particular phenomena which admit of their being ranked together, it is surely of the utmost consequence, for precision of enquiry, that he who is to prosecute it should have clear notions of the relation itself, which it is to be his labour to trace, and accurate definition of the import of the terms which he is to employ for expressing it, in every stage of his continued search." We take these very just remarks from the introduction to a very subtle Analytical Enquiry by the late Dr Brown into the nature of the relation we are about to consider. All the appearances which the world exhibits to our eyes are changes; all the appearances that we can notice in our minds, are changes also. But these changes are not lawless, they proceed according to constant laws. If we could trace back each appearance to the beginning of time, we should find merely an unbroken series of changes, proceeding by unaltering laws. Dr Brown, at page eleven of his treatise, says, "The great character of all these changes is the regularity which they exhibit." We observe the varying phenomena "as they are continually taking place around us and within us." "The change which we" thus "know in the actual circumstances observed, we believe to have taken place as often as the circumstances before were similar; and we believe, also, that it will continue to take place, as often as future circumstances shall in this respect have an exact resemblance to the present. What we thus believe is always verified by subsequent observation. The future, when it arrives, we find to be only the past under another form; or, if it seem to present to us new phenomena, we do not consider these as resulting from any altered tendencies of succession in the substances which thus appear to be varied, but only from the new circumstances in which the substances themselves have been brought together; circumstances in which, if they had existed before, we have no doubt they would have exhibited phenomena precisely the same." These successions of phenomena, one following the other, are what are commonly called the connected series of causes and effects. It is the opinion of Dr Brown that we know them only as successions or sequences of phenomena, and only as such can conceive of them. The character which gives such sequences their importance is that they are invariable. Of two events in any such sequence, the antecedent always has been, and always will be followed by the same consequent. And this is all we know of causation. "It is," he says in page fifteen, "this mere relation of uniform antecedence, so important and so universally believed, which appears to me to constitute all that can be philosophically meant, in the words power or causation, to whatever objects, material or spiritual, the words may be applied. If events had succeeded each other in perfect irregularity, such terms never would have been invented; but, when the successions are believed to be in regular order, the importance of this regularity to all our wishes and plans and actions has of course led to employment of terms significant of the most valuable distinctions which we are physically able to make. We give the name of cause to the object which we believe to be invariable antecedent of a particular change; we give the name of effect reciprocally to that invariable consequent; and the relation itself, when considered abstractly, we denominate power in the object that is the invariable antecedent; susceptibility in the object that exhibite, in its change, the invariable consequent." "A cause, therefore, in the fullest definition, which it philosophically admits, may be said to be, that which immediately precedes any change, and which, existing at any time in similar circumstances, has been always, and will be always immediately followed by a similar change." Such, then, is the sum of Dr Brown's doctrine upon the subject. He adds in other words "Priority,—in the sequence observed, and invariableness of antecedence in the past and future sequences supposed, are the elements, and the only elements, combined in the notion of a cause." Of this he gives many illustrations-thus he says:-" We see in nature one event followed by another. The fall of a spark on gunpowder, for example, followed by the deflagration of the gunpowder, and by a peculiar tendency of our constitution, we believe that as long as all the circumstances continue the same, the sequence of events will continue the same; that the deflagration of gunpowder, for example, will be the invariable consequence of the fall of a spark on it;-in other words, we believe the gunpowder to be susceptible of deflagration on the application of a spark-and a spark to have the power of deflagrating gunpowder." Here then, in common language we say, that the spark falling is the cause of the deflagration of the gunpowder-that the deflagration is the effect of the spark falling;-we conceive there is a power in the spark to produce that effect; and that in virtue of that power whenever the same concurrence of circumstances precisely takes place, the same effect must again ensue. Now the distinct and full purport of Dr Brown's doctrine, it will be observed, is this-that when we apply in this way the words cause and power, we attach no other meaning to the terms than what he has exBy the word cause we plained. mean no more than that in this in- mean This is the doctrine; and the author submits it to this test:-"Let any one," he says, "ask himself what it is which he means by the term power,' and without contenting himself with a few phrases that signify nothing, reflect before he give his answer, and he will find that he means nothing more, than that, in all similar circumstances, the explosion of gunpowder will be the immediate and uniform consequence of the application of a spark." " This test, indeed, is the only one to which the question can be brought. For the question does not regard causes themselves, but solely the ideas of cause, in the human mind. If, therefore, every one to whom this analysis of the idea that is in bis mind when he speaks of a cause, is proposed, finds on comparing it with what passed in his mind, that this is a complete and full account of his conception, there is nothing more to be said, and the point is made good. By that sole possible test the analysis, is, in such a case, If, on the contrary, established. when this analysis is proposed, as containing all the ideas which we annex to the word cause and power, the minds of most men cannot satisfy themselves that it is complete, but are still possessed with a strong suspicion that there is something more, which is not here accounted forthen the analysis is not yet established, and it becomes necessary to enquire, by additional examination of the subject, what that more may be. Let us then apply the test by which Dr Brown proposes that the truth of his views shall be tried. Let us ask ourselves what we mean when we say that the spark has power to kindle the gunpowder-that the powder is susceptible of being kindled by the spark? Do we mean only that whenever they come to gether this will happen? Do we merely predict this simple and certain futurity? We do not fear to say, that when we speak of a power in one substance to produce a change in another, and of a susceptibility of such change in that other, we express more than our belief that the change has taken and will take place. There is more in our mind than a conviction of the past and a foresight of the future. There is, besides this, the conception included of a fixed constitution of their nature, which determines the event-a constitution which, while it lasts, makes the event a necessary consequence of the situation in which the objects are placed. We should say then, that there are included in these terms, power" and "susceptibility of change," two ideas which are not expressed in Dr Brown's analysis-one of necessity, and the other of a constitution of things in which that necessity is established. That these two ideas are not expressed in the terms of Dr Brown's analysis, is seen by quoting again his words-" he will find that he means nothing more than that in all similar circumstances the explosion of gunpowder will be the immediate and uniform consequence of the application of a spark." It is certain, from the whole tenor of his work, that Dr Brown has designed to exclude the idea of necessity from his analysis. The terms he has commonly employed to designate the elements of the idea of causation, namely, an invariable series of antecedents and consequents, are selected to express the simply historical conviction, if we may so call it, of the past, and the prophetic conviction, to use Dr Brown's own term, of the future; that he has meant to describe a view of the mind looking backwards, and looking forwards, and seeing both ways one unbroken series; that he has meant to limit the idea to this known past and this known future, excluding the collateral idea, which to many minds this unvarying series will seem to imply, namely, of a necessity, which makes it unvarying. We have said, then, that when the power in one substance to produce a change, and the susceptibility in another to admit that change, are conceived by our minds, besides the idea of an uniform happening of the event, there is entertained by us a notion of something in the constitution of nature, in virtue of which the event takes place ;—we conceive an adaptation in the one substance to produce the change, and a disposition in the nature of the other to receive it ;-or, in one word, we conceive a fitness in them both for the production of the change. Let us examine then what is the impression that will really take effect in the mind upon witnessing for the first time any such phenomenon. As for instance, the firing of gunpowder seen by one who had heard nothing of the properties of the substance before. It appears to us, that an irresistible conviction would indeed take place, but not of the kind which Dr Brown has described. For if there were two trains of powder laid, and he saw one fired, by touching it with a match, he would inevitably conclude, that the other train would fire on being touched in the same manner; and when he saw the second experiment succeed, he would derive from it no other idea than a confirmation of his first conviction. But if we could examine precisely what took place, we should find, that in this conviction there was included no act of the mind looking far back and far forward, and contemplating |