a law which runs through all created that on them, as elsewhere, Scripture and things, down to the moss which struggles science will be ultimately found to coinfor existence on the rock? cide. Do I say that this is all? That man is merely a part of Nature, the puppet of circumstances and hereditary tendencies? That brute competition is the one law of his life? That he is doomed for ever to be the slave of his own needs, enforced by an internecine struggle for existence? God forbid. I believe not only in Nature, but in Grace. I believe that this is man's fate only as long as he sows to the flesh, and of the flesh reaps corruption. I believe that if he will

"strive upward, working out the beast, And let the ape and tiger die;"

*

if he will be even as wise as the social animals; as the ant and the bee, who have risen, if not to the virtue of all-embracing charity, at least to the virtues of self-sacrifice and patriotism, then he will rise to a higher sphere; toward that kingdom of God of which it is written, "He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him."

Whether that be matter of natural theology, I cannot tell as yet. But as for all the former questions · all that St. Paul means when he talks of the law, and how the works of the flesh bring men under the law, stern and terrible and destructive, though holy and just and good-they are matter of natural theology; and I believe

But here we have to face an objection which you will often hear now from scientific men and still oftener from nonscientific men; who will say It matters not to us whether Scripture contradicts or does not contradict a scientific natural theology; for we hold such a science to be impossible and naught. The old Jews put a God into Nature, and therefore of course they could see, as you see, what they had already put there. But we see no God in Nature. We do not deny the existence of a God; we merely say that scientific research does not reveal him to us. We see no marks of design in physical phenomena. What used to be considered marks of design can be better explained by considering them as the results of evolution according to necessary laws; and you and Scripture make a mere assumption when you ascribe them to the operation of a mind like the human mind.

as

Now, on this point I believe we may answer fearlessly — If you cannot see it we cannot help you. If the heavens do not declare to you the glory of God, nor the firmament show you His handiwork, then our poor arguments about them will not shew it. "The eye can only see that which it brings with it the power of seeing." We can only reassert that we see design everywhere, and that the vast majority of the human race in every age and clime has seen it. Analogy from experiI am well aware what a serious question is opened up in these words. The fact that the great ence, sound induction (as we hold) from majority of workers among the social insects are the works not only of men but of animals, barren females or nuns, devoting themselves to the has made it an all but self-evident truth to care of other individuals' offspring, by an act of self-sacritice, and that by means of that self-sacri- us, that wherever there is arrangement, fice these communities grow large and prosperous, there must be an arranger; wherever ought to be well weighed just now; both by those there is adaptation of means to an end, who hold that morality has been evolved from perceptions of what was useful or pleasurable, and by there must be an adapter; wherever an those who hold as I do that morality is one, immu- organization, there must be an organizer. table and eternal. Those who take the former view The existence of a designing God is no more (confounding, as Mr. Mivart well points out, "material" and formal" morality) have no difficulty demonstrable from Nature than the existin tracing the germs of the highest human morality in animals; for self-interest is, in their eyes, the ulence of other human beings independent timate ground of morality, and the average animal of ourselves, or, indeed, the existence of is utterly selfish. But certain animals perform acts, our own bodies. But, like the belief in as in the case of working bees and ants, and (as I hold) in the case of mothers working for and protecting their offspring, which at least seem formally moral: because they seem founded on self-sacrifice I am well aware, I say again, of the very serious admissions which we clergymen should have to make, if we confessed that these acts really are that which they seem to be. But I do not see why we should not be as just to an ant as to a human being; I am ready, with Socrates, to follow the Logos whithersoever it leads; and I hope that Mr Mivart will reconsider the two latter paragraphs of p. 196, and let his thoughts play freely round this cu

rious subject. Perhaps, in so doing, he may lay his hand on an even sharper weapon than those which

he has already used against the sensationalist theory

of morals.

them, the belief in Him has become an article of our common sense. And that this designing mind is, in some respects, similar to the human mind, is proved to us (as Sir John Herschel well puts it) by the mere fact that we can discover and comprehend the processes of Nature.

But here again, if we be contradicted, If the old words, we can only reassert.

He that made the eye, shall he not see? he that planted the ear, shall he hear?" do not at once commend them

not

selves to the intellect of any person, wej men than I have fears on this point. I shall never convince that person by any cannot share in them. arguments drawn from the absurdity of All, it seems to me, that the new docconceiving the invention of optics by a trines of evolution demand is this. We blind race, or of music by a deaf one. all agree, for the fact is patent, that our own bodies, and indeed the body of every living creature, are evolved from a seem

So we will assert our own old-fashioned notion boldly; and more: we will say, in spite of ridicule, that if such a God ex-ingly simple germ by natural laws without ists, final causes must exist also. That the whole universe must be one chain of final causes. That if there be a Supreme Reason, he must have a reason, and that a good reason, for every physical phenome

But if it be said, After all, there is no Why the doctrine of evolution, by doing away with the theory of creation, does away with that of final causes, -let us answer, boldly, Not in the least. We might accept all that Mr. Darwin, all that Professor Huxley, has so learnedly and so acutely written on physical science, and yet preserve our natural theology on ex-nute and often imaginary shades of difactly the same basis as that on which Butler and Paley left it. That we should have to develop it, I do not deny. That we should have to relinquish it, I do.

to physical students. It is not for us means, the How of Creation, is nowhere clergymen to limit the power of God. specified. Scripture, again, says that "Is anything too hard for the Lord? organized beings were produced each asked the prophet of old and we have a according to their kind. But it nowhere right to ask it as long as time shall last. defines that term. What a kind includes, If it be said that natural selection is too whether it includes or not the capacity of simple a cause to produce such fantastic varying (which is just the question in variety: that, again, is a question to be point), is nowhere specified. And I think settled exclusively by physical students. it a most important rule in scriptural All we have to say on the matter is, that exegesis, to be most cautious as to limitwe always knew that God works by very ing the meaning of any term which Scripsimple, or seemingly simple, means; that ture itself has not limited, lest we find ourthe whole universe, as far as we could selves putting into the teaching of Scripdiscern it, was one concatenation of the ture our own human theories or prejudices. most simple means; that it was wonder- And consider, Is not man a kind? And ful, yea, miraculous, in our eyes, that a has not mankind varied, physically, intelchild should resemble its parents, that the lectually, spiritually? Is not the Bible, raindrops should make the grass grow, from beginning to end, a history of the that the grass should become flesh, and variations of mankind, for worse or for the flesh sustenance for the thinking brain better, from their original type? of man. Ought God to seem less or more Let us rather look with calmness, and august in our eyes, when we are told that even with hope and goodwill, on these His means are even more simple than we new theories; for, correct or incorrect, supposed? We held him to be Almighty they surely mark a tendency toward a and Allwise. Are we to reverence Him more, not a less, scriptural view of Nature. less or more, if we hear that His might Are they not attempts, whether successful is greater, His wisdom deeper, than we or unsuccessful, to escape from that shalever dreamed? We believed that His low mechanical notion of the universe and care was over all His works; that His its Creator which was too much in vogue Providence watched perpetually over the in the eighteenth century among divines whole universe. We were taught some as well as philosophers; the theory which of us at least by Holy Scripture, to be- Goethe (to do him justice), and after him lieve that the whole history of the uni- Mr. Thomas Carlyle, have treated with verse was made up of special Providences. such noble scorn; the theory, I mean, that If, then, that should be true which Mr. God has wound up the universe like a Darwin writes-"It may be metaphori- clock, and left it to tick by itself till it cally said that natural selection is daily runs down, never troubling Himself with and hourly scrutinizing throughout the it, save possibly - for even that was only world, every variation, even the slightest; half believed by rare miraculous interrejecting that which is bad, preserving and ferences with the laws which He Himself adding up that which is good, silently and had made? Out of that chilling dream incessantly working whenever and wher- of a dead universe ungoverned by an ever opportunity offers at the improvement of every organic being," - if that, I say, were proven to be true, ought God's care and God's providence to seem less or more magnificent in our eyes? Of old it was said by Him without whom nothing is made,My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Shall we quarrel with Science if she should show how those words are true? What, in one word, should we have to say but this? We knew of old that God was so wise that He could make all things: but behold, He is so much wiser than even that, that He can make all things make themselves.

-

But it may be said These notions are contrary to Scripture. I must beg very humbly, but very firmly, to demur to that opinion. Scripture says that God created. But it nowhere defines that term. The

absent God, the human mind, in Germany especially, tried during the early part of this century to escape by strange roads; roads by which there was no escape, because they were not laid down on the firm ground of scientific facts. Then, in despair, men turned to the facts which they had neglected, and said, We are weary of philosophy: we will study you, and you alone. As for God, who can find Him? And they have worked at the facts like gallant and honest men; and their work, like all good work, has produced, in the last fifty years, results more enormous than they even dreamed. But what are they finding, more and more, below their facts, below all phenomena which the scalpel and the microscope can show? A something nameless, invisible, imponderable, yet seemingly omnipresent and omnip

66

that

But let us have patience and faith; and not suppose in haste, that when those hands are stretched out it will be needful for us to leave our standing-ground, or to cast ourselves down from the pinnacle of the temple to earn popularity; above all, from earnest students who are too highminded to care for popularity themselves.

otent, retreating before them deeper and seen?-but by the only metaphor adedeeper, the deeper they delve: namely, quate to express the perpetual and omnithe life which shapes and makes- present miracle) The Breath of God; which the old-school men called "forma The Spirit who is The Lord and Giver of formativa," which they call vital force and Life. what not metaphors all, or rather count- In the rest, gentlemen, let us think, and ers to mark an unknown quantity, as if let us observe. For if we are ignorant, they should call it r or y. One saysIt not merely of the results of experimental is all vibrations; but his reason, unsatis- science, but of the methods thereof, then fied, asks And what makes the vibra- we and the men of science shall have no tions vibrate? Another - It is all physi- common ground whereon to stretch out ological units; but his reason asks, What kindly hands to each other. is the "physis," the nature and "innate tendency "of the units? A third- It may be all caused by infinitely numerous 'gemmules;" but his reason asks him, What puts infinite order into these gemmules, instead of infinite anarchy? I mention these theories not to laugh at them. No man has a deeper respect for those who have put them forth. Nor would it interfere with my theological creed, if any or all of them were proven to be true to-morrow. I mention them only to show that beneath all these theories true or false still lies the unknown x. Scientific men are becoming more and more aware of it; I had almost said, ready to worship it. More and more the noblestminded of them are engrossed by the mystery of that unknown and truly miraculous element in Nature, which is always escaping them, though they cannot escape it. How should they escape it? Was it not written of old "Whither shall I go from Thy presence, or whither shall I flee from Thy spirit?

Ah that we clergy would summon up conrage to tell them that! Courage to tell them what need not hamper for a moment the freedom of their investigations, what will add to them a sanction, I may say a sanctity that the unknown x which lies below all phenomena, which is for ever at work on all phenomena, on the whole and on every part of the whole, down to the colouring of every leaf and the curdling of every cell of protoplasm, is none other than that which the old Hebrews called (by a metaphor, no doubt for how can man speak of the unseen, save in metaphors drawn from the

--

True, if we have an intelligent belief in those Creeds and those Scriptures which are committed to our keeping, then our philosophy cannot be that which is just now in vogue. But all we have to do, I believe, is to wait. Nominalism, and that "Sensationalism" which has sprung from nominalism, are running fast to seed; Comtism seems to me its supreme effort: after which the whirligig of Time may bring round its revenges; and Realism, and we who hold the Realist creeds, may have our turn. Only wait. When grave, able, and authoritative philosopher explains a mother's love of her newborn babe, as Professor Bain has done, in a really eloquent passage of his book on the "Emotions and the Will," then the end of that philosophy is very near: and an older, simpler, more human, and, as I hold, more philosophic explanation of that natural phenomenon, and of all others, may get a hearing.

a

THE Island of Sicily seems to be very fairly supplied with newspapers. Not fewer thin a hundred journals, daily, weekly, fortnightly, and monthly, are published in Sicily, thirtyeight in Palermo itself, thirteen in Messini, seven or eight in Catania, five in Syracuse, a

large portion of them more or less scientific or literary. In Palermo alone, omitting the commercial periodicals, there are five journals for medicine, two for literature, one for architecture, two for art, and one for jurisprudence.

Academy.

From Chambers' Journal.
AT THE MORGANS'.

IN TWO CHAPTERS.

CHAPTER II.

mustered-had been solicited to keep or to break the peace-to assault or to protect the electors, I'm not sure which. I have no doubt that, well supplied and fortified with beer, they did all that was I WAS wont after the fatigues of the day required of them, and probably something to smoke a pipe in the kitchen at the more. Elections were often rather wild Morgans'. My acquaintance with old and desperate work in that part of the Becky, however, I am bound to say, did country, and generally tended to the innot advance very much for one reason, crease of Dr. Jenkins's list of patients. perhaps, that she could not or would not However, I was not much interested in the speak English, and my command of Welsh matter the proceedings were carried on, was certainly circumscribed. I had picked indeed, at a considerable distance from up a few words, and dealt these out very Llanberig so I had returned to the incessantly. Becky would nod and laugh, farm some hours in advance of my usual but she generally contented herself with time, and Becky, quickly interpreting my replying "Dim Sassenach," let me ad- pantomimic request for refreshment, had dress her in what tongue I would. She just supplied my wants, when Davy enwas heedful of my requirements, if no tered, conversationally inclined in regard great cordiality characterized her bearing to his past life as a wine-merchant at towards me. I was often tempted to sus- Cardiff. pect that Becky for one would not be sorry when the time arrived for my turning my back upon Llanberig. Still, she was noway deficient in those hospitable efforts for which Wales is noted, and at what may be called "cottage cooking' for the little farm-house did not really pretend to much more- Becky was supreme. The breakfasts and suppers she prepared for my consumption were perfect in their

way.

"When I was at Cardiff, I did not care for malt liquors. You find the ale to your liking? I'm glad of that. It seems to me rather poor stuff. I only wish I could offer you something more worthy of your drinking. In my time I've drunk of the best -the very best. We had a fine stock of very choice wines at Cardiff; there was no one to compare with us in the whole principality; we did an excellent business. I might have driven my carriage, if I had been so minded. The best of everything was to be found at my table: some of the wines that I was able to set before my guests were unique quite unique though I say it. But times are changed-times are sadly changed." Davy Morgan was the speaker. I had returned from the works rather earlier than usual; the men had "knocked off," and made half holiday- I forget now the precise reason for this proceeding, but I'm inclined to think that there was some election business on hand. One of my directors had, I know, been canvassing the county, or a division of it, with a view to representing it in parliament. Very likely the nomination or the polling came off about this period, and the aid of my navvies as many of them as could be

He sighed as he finished speaking, and passed his hand across his forehead. He seemed somewhat moved and distressed by the nature of his reminiscences. I settled in my own mind that he had seen better days, and that a collapse had at some time or other afflicted the flourishing business at Cardiff. Somehow, very flourishing businesses, I've noticed, have a curious predisposition to collapse. I quietly continued the process of emptying my jug of beer.

"I daresay, now, you've tasted very good wine in your time?" he said presently.

I replied that, for a poor man, leading rather a rough and uncertain life, I had upon the whole done very fairly in that respect. I had sat at rich men's feasts now and then, and found myself fronted by very excellent drinks.

"You don't prefer beer to wine, then? I avowed that I did not, while admitting the admirable character of the malt liquors in the jug on the table as good a brew of malt, I said, as a man could wish to drink.

"And you've got a good palate for wine - for port wine, say ?

I thought I was fairly provided for as to palate, and knew a good glass of wine when I found one. He seemed to grow

more and more interested in the conversation to be even somewhat excited by it. He came quite close up to me as he said: May I ask, now, if you have ever tasted Comet Port?"

66

I said I believed that upon some special occasion-probably at some City Company's dinner, so far as I could recollect, but I wasn't quite sure -I had tasted, as a curiosity, some port wine so described.