down to our own day; we behold the tide of discovery rolling onwards with accelerated rapidity; discoveries crowding upon us, not as "chance discovereth new inventions by one and one, but as science does, by knots and clusters." Need we mention the application

before, he maintains, that " it would surely be to take a very mean view of the creative power to suppose an immediate exertion of it one time to produce zoophytes, another time to add a few mollusks," &c., (p. 154.) And again, to the same effect, at p. 161, "The more solitary commencements of species would have been the most inconceivably paltry exercise for an immediately creative power." And, a few lines further on, he asks, "Is it conceivable, as a fitting mode of exercise for creative intelligence, that it should be constantly moving from one sphere to another, to form and plant the various species which may be required in each situation at particular times?"

Now, when we use the words ridiculous, mean, paltry, as being applicable to any course of action, we must refer action to a certain standard. Here, these epithets being applied to a mode of operation attributed to the Deity, the standard is evidently Human reason. What is this, but to be guilty of the very error with which he charges those who take an opposite view from his own-that of anthropomorphizing the Deity, an attempt to circumscribe Omniscience by our finite capacities-to guage, as it were, infinity by a rule and compass; and as to the divine intelligence contemporaneously exerting its powers in innumerable places, without "constantly moving from one sphere to another," although we cannot understand the way in which it is accomplished, yet this is no argument against the reality of such simultaneous operations of creative intelligence; for, as Bishop Butler has well observed, (Analogy, part 2, chap. 2,) " that things lie beyond the natural reach of our faculties, is no sort of presumption against the truth and reality of them; because it is certain there are innumerable things in the constitution and government of the universe, which are thus beyond the natural reach of our faculties." Nor are such views now for the first time advanced; Aristotle, or whoever was the author of the treatise Exоoμov, asserts, with equal force," that it would be a lowering of the divine dignity were the Deity αυτουργειν ἅπαντα - to put his hand to every thing. If it were not congruous in respect of the state and majesty of Xerxes, the great King of Persia, that he should condescend to do all the meanest offices himself, much less can it be thought suitable in respect of God." What is this but the same argument, borrowed from the analogy of human operations.

I am very far indeed from asserting that the author was aware, at the time he wrote, that he had been anticipated in those speculations; nor do such inquiries, as to priority of discovery, at all affect the truth or falsehood of such theories. But it is very important, in another sense, to show that those views presented themselves to the minds of speculative men, who, with but few data at their command, boldly drew conclusions the most unwarrantable and the most rash; that so, such views may not be set down by the unthinking as the last results elaborated by refined deduction from the perfected processes of matured science,

of Steam to the purposes of material locomotion; or of Electricity to those of mental transmission? We shall see (at no very distant time perhaps,) the Earth overlaced with a net-work of nerves, so to speak, realizing in one sense, as it were, the dream of the Stoics, who held that the earth was an animal endued with powers of sensation.

And

Yes! such are the gifts of science to man. whether they are appreciated now, like gold from the mine- or thrown aside neglected, to be sought for and valued by a future age, like those precious minerals we read of, which the ignorance of the unskilful cast away as worthless-to them is the growth of civilization, fostered by the mild spirit of Christianity, mainly indebted; so that, as has been somewhere remarked, to blow a durable soap-bubble may be the most serious employment of the philosopher, though scoffed at by the shallow as trifling. In truth, such experiments can be justly called neither serious nor trifling; hueless and colourless in themselves, they derive all their brightness or obscurity from the reflexion of our own intellectual attributes.

"Another error is a distrust," says the Master of Wisdom, "that any thing should be now to be found

built up on a wide induction cautiously pursued, but rather as they are, in truth, some of the earliest speculations which the minds of ardent and ingenious theorists indulged in.

It must be, to those who look hopefully to the advancement of science, a source of unfeigned regret to witness those obsolete theories, long since buried in the dust of forgetfulness, revivified in our own day, and presented in modern garb, as the legitimate offspring of a sound and matured philosophy; guesses which had presented themselves to the minds of ingenious men, when Revelation had not been given, when Science was unknown.

out, which the world should have missed, and passed over so long a time."* This opinion, so flattering to the pride, and soothing to the ignorance of man, has had no small share in perpetuating the evils of misdirected speculation. For why should men toil, and grope in the dark, where all was void, and nothing to be discovered? Had they been vividly impressed with the conviction, that unspeakable wonders were without them, they would not have remained contented so long in their position, but have endeavoured to emerge from their dark cave, to use the fine image of Plato, and view the magnificence of nature in her works. No tenet more fatal to all progression can be held, than that we have reached the boundaries of knowledge, † that there remains little more to be discovered, and that we should rest contented with the practical application of what is known, acknowledged, and approved, rather than lose ourselves in the pursuit of the unknown, the indefinite, and the obscure. Such has been ever the cry of the sciolist and dogmatist, looking with suspicion on any progress in advance of themselves. Yet, notwithstanding, there is this progression; that which was doubted in one age becoming universally admitted in the next. "The discoveries, which in one age were

* Gloriæ vanissimæ et perditissimæ dantes operam, scilicet ut quicquid adhuc inventum, et comprehensum non sit, id omnino nec inveniri nec comprehendi posse in futurum credatur.—BACON, Nov. Org., lib. 1, aph. 88.

+ Itaque sperandum omnino est, esse adhuc in naturæ sinu, multa excellentis usus recondita, quæ nullam cum jam inventis cognationem habent, aut parallelismum; sed omnino sita sunt extra vias phantasiæ; quæ tamen adhuc inventa non sunt; quæ proculdubio per multos sæculorum circuitus et ambages et ipsa quandoque prodibunt, sicut illa superiora prodierunt. - BACON, Nov. Org., lib. 1, aph. 109.

confined to the studious and enlightened few, becoming, in the next, the established creed of the learned; and in the third, forming part of the elementary principles of education." As when we ascend from the surface of the earth, our sensible horizon continually expands, bringing new tracts and regions, gradually into view, unseen before; while the mountains, seas, and rivers, that lie beyond, are not cognizable by the organs of sense: so in every successive age mankind believed, that the boundaries of knowledge had in their own time been reached, their mental vision penetrating not into the illimitable regions, which lay beyond their ken. And if this opinion is now adhered to, with somewhat less tenacity, than in an earlier age, it is chiefly owing to the force of the argument, cumulative in its nature, that must press itself on the notice even of the most prejudiced and obtuse, from the crowd of brilliant discoveries constantly passing in rapid succession before

their eyes;

eyes; - discoveries that appear to be rather the characteristic of our time, than the result of any extraordinary pre-eminence of genius; so that, in the words of the writer so often referred to, "potius pro temporis partu haberi debeant, quam pro partu ingenii."

If it be truly affirmed, that we are through life mainly influenced by early associations, the most enduring of all, it would seem a wise and natural policy, on the part of a prudent and far-seeing government, to hold out every inducement to our Colonial youth, to repair to our colleges and schools, to complete their education amongst us; a course formerly almost impracticable, but

which the discoveries of modern science have rendered facile and comparatively inexpensive. We should thus, without any effort on our part, insensibly, yet powerfully, influence the minds of the future leaders in our Colonial possessions. We should endeavour to cherish feelings of friendship, originating in community of interests, religion, and descent; to arouse and foster a spirit of nationality, springing from identity of race, not from the accidental circumstances of casual aggregation, a spirit more rational, as founded on the enduring qualities of blood, than that which arises from mere contiguity of local habitation; such a spirit as that which animated the Greeks of old, who, whether settled on the inhospitable shores of Thrace, or under the genial skies of Sicily, along the coasts of Epirus, or amid the forests of that land lying "further west," still were Greeks, and not Barbarians, entitled to share in all the privileges attached to the Hellenic name. So should our colonists be taught to look upon themselves as members of one body, as subjects of our Queen; not to localize, as it were, their feelings of nationality, not to enrol themselves under the appellation of Canadians, or West Indians, or Australians, or any other merely local designation; but to hold themselves Englishmen.

To educate solely with regard to local and temporary considerations, or to present expediency, is a policy short-sighted, as it is narrow. We have outgrown our ancient institutions. The men by whom our universities and affiliated schools were moulded into their present