This work was originally published in 1841, and comprised an Exposition of the Doctrine of the Philosophy of Necessity, or the Law of Consequences, first, in its relation to Mental Science, secondly, in its relation to Ethics, and thirdly, an application of its principles to the social questions of the day. The third part has been omitted from the present edition, as being out of date, but many of its statistics and observations are given as an Appendix. In a prefatory note it is stated as a reason for preserving in an accessible form the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Bray, that he "worked out for himself a theory as to the purpose of existence that satisfied his own mind, and became to him a cheerful philosophy which intensified his enjoyment of all things good and pleasant, helped him to bear the troubles of life, and to meet the end in a spirit as bright as it was resigned"—a statement which those who knew him personally will heartily endorse. Mr. Bray's theory is embodied in the title of the work under review, and its key-note is "order in nature." His object is to show "that the mind of man is not an exception to nature's other works; that like everything else it has received a determinate character; that all our knowledge of it is precisely of the same kind as that of material things, and consists in the observation of _its order_ of action, or of the relation of cause and effect." According to this view we can know the real nature of neither matter nor mind, Nature herself having fixed the boundaries beyond which human knowledge cannot extend. It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that Mr. Bray regarded Nature as something apart, giving to man laws from the operation of which it is itself free. A little consideration shows that such is not his idea. Nature is with Mr. Bray only another name for God. Moreover, man is nothing, God is all; "individuality, or anything separate from Him, is a mode of thought, and has no real existence." Electricity, heat, light, and other forces of nature are modes of the Unknowable, and are transformable into each other and into the other modes which we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought. The qualities or properties of matter are mere force or power, and as they are qualities of God, the assumption of the existence of matter is not necessary. God "is the Universal Being, of which all things are the manifestations. Every thing is a mode of God's attribute of extension; every thought, wish, or feeling, is a mode of His attribute of thought."