510 A BRIEF SCIIEME OF ONTOLOGY. insipid canon, because it is contained in the very definition of a cause.. Besides it is a very odd and uncouth manner of speak- ing, to say, that a whetstone contains in it Mlle sharpness of a scythe, not formally but eminently, because it can make a scythe sharp. Yet this is the case in a multitude of these metaphysical axioms ; 1 mention this only as an . Istance at present and as a reason why I have past so many of them over in silence. III. The third kind of cause i§ an instructive cause. This works either by way of manifestation of truth, or direction in practice, and may be called manifestatioe or directive. 1. In the manifestation of truth this cause sometimes ope- rates in silence; as a book, a diagram, a picture, à map, a mariner's compass, or magnetic needle: Sometimes it is vocal ; as a tutor, or a watchman in the night, or perhaps a cuckow giving notice of the spring, or a crowing cock of the morning. 2. In the direction of practice this cause is either a rule which teaches us to act whether by speech or writing ; or it is á pattern or example for us to imitate and copy after. Sometimes this is a living example which by acting shows us to act the same ; or it is a guide which seems to include both the former (viz,) teaching and showing, or rule and example. Many times the instructive causes which primarily manifest truth are in some sense directive also, as they are designed also ultimately to direct our practice ; so a mariner's needle pointing where the north lies, directs the pilot to steer the ship. Note, Active instructive causes approach toward the idea of an efficient canse ; the unactive are quite distinct. Note, All this sort of causality works its effect chiefly in intellectual agents. Query, But may not an instructive cause sometimes he at- tributed to brutes? Dogs or horses will teach one another what man has taught them. Note, The word directive may sometimes' be applied to physical causality, as when a pilot or steers -man guides a ship by the rudder, or when a tube or ring guides an arrow to the mark, when a canal conveys water to a cistern, or when any hard body by repelling or reflecting, determines any moving body to a particular point. But all these are more properly ranked under efficient causes than directive, because they do it by mere mechanism, without so much as the appearance of any intellec- tual influence upon the thing directed, and can never be called instructive. Query, when a sun-dial shews the hour, the sun and the style of thedial seem to be social efficient causes ; the sun by giving light and the style by limiting it with shade : But what sort of cause is the dial-plane ? Is it not instructive ? 1V. A suasive case is properly something from without,
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