[262] Even Copernicus had said the same thing long before "_Equidem existimo Gravitatem non aliud esse quam appetentiam quandam naturalem, partibus inditam a divina providentia opificis universorum, ut in unitatem integritatemque suam se conferant, in formam Globi coeuntes. Quam affectionem credibile est etiam Soli, Lunæ cæterisque errantium fulgoribus, inesse, ut ejus efficacia, in ea qua se repraesentant rotunditate permaneant; quæ nihilominus multis modis suos efficiunt circuitus_" ("Nicol. Copernici revol." Lib. I, Cap. IX. Compare "Exposition des Découvertes de M. le Chevalier Newton par M. Maclaurin; traduit de l'Anglois par M. Lavirotte," Paris, 1749, p. 45). Herschel evidently saw, that if we hesitate to explain gravity, as Descartes did, by an impulse from outside, we are absolutely driven to admit a will inherent in bodies, _Non datur tertium_. [Add. to 3rd ed.] The writer who reviewed Herschel's book in the October number of the "Edinburgh Review" of 1833, anxious, as a true Englishman, before all things to prevent the Mosaic record[263] from being imperilled, takes great umbrage at this passage, rightly observing that it cannot refer to the will of God Almighty, who has called Matter and all its properties into being; he utterly refuses to recognise the validity of the proposition itself, and denies that it follows consistently from the preceding § upon which Herschel wishes to found it. My opinion is, that it undoubtedly would logically follow from that § (because the contents of a conception are determined by its origin), but that the antecedent itself is false. It asserts namely, that the origin of the conception of causality is experience, more especially such experience as we ourselves make in acting by means of our own efforts upon bodies belonging to the outer world. It is only in countries like England, where the light of Kantian philosophy has not yet begun to dawn, that the conception of causality can be thought of as originating in experience (professors of philosophy who pooh-pooh Kant's doctrines and think me beneath their notice being left out of the question); least of all can it be thought of by those who are acquainted with my proof of the _à priority_ of that conception, which differs completely from Kant's proof and rests upon the fact, that knowledge of causality must necessarily precede all perception of the outer world itself as its condition; since perception is only brought about through the _transition_--effected by the understanding--from the sensation in the organ of sense to its _cause_, which cause now presents itself as an _object_ in Space, itself likewise an _à priori_ intuition. Now, as the perception of objects must be anterior to our conscious action upon them, the experience of that conscious action cannot be the origin of the conception of causality; for, before I can act upon