phy;-though none surely but those to whom philosophy is utterly alien, would undertake to pronounce categorically on the extent to which modifications of organism, through influences connected with physical changes in our globe, are limited; or contend for a fixity of species on grounds which leave out of the question the all-important elements of time, and new outward conditions.

While there is abundant evidence in the past history of the earth, that innumerable species both of plants and animals have made their appearance at various successive periods, it is easy enough to confront the enigma by resolving the whole into miracle; but this, unfortunately, is too often the fool's key to phenomena which he does not understand. At all events, creation being a work which God is incessantly carrying on in every department of nature, there is no more of divinity, so to speak, in one particular mode or season of operation than another.*

Coleridge, in one of those inspired passages not unfrequent in his writings, has a beautifully poetic and profound conception, shadowing out the features of a bordering region of inquiry.t

Perhaps it is unnecessary to remind the reader of the serio-satirical prolusions of Southey, in sundry quaint chapters of the "Doctor," on a species of progressive existence

* Sir John Herschel, in a letter to his friend Lyell so far back as Feb. 20, 1836, referring to what he calls "that mystery of mysteries, the replacement of extinct species by others," says, "For my own part, I cannot but think it an inadequate conception of the Creator, to assume it as granted that his combinations are exhausted upon any one of the theatres of their former exercise, though in this, as in all his other works, we are led, by all analogy, to suppose that he operates through a series of intermediate causes, and that in consequence the origination of fresh species, could it ever come under our cognizance, would be found to be a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process-although we perceive no indications of any process actually in progress which is likely to issue in such a result."-Babbage's Ninth Bridgewater Treatise: Appendix, p. 226-7, sec. ed.

† Aids to Reflection: Comment on the xxxvith Aphorism.

related to the old doctrine of metempsychosis, opening out, amid the general airiness and extravagance of the speculation, glimpses of things that have no doubt passed through many a fanciful if not reflective brain before. Curiously enough, in a posthumous part of the work written long before the "Vestiges" appeared, he notices as among the possibilities of a certain moral and intellectual expansion of the race, "a corresponding organic evolution :"*-a passage every way remarkable; though the scientific view would rather reverse the order of sequence, by putting the organic evolution before the mental expansion.

From an observation in the autobiographical memorials prefixed to the Life of that extraordinary writer, published since the foregoing reflections were penned, I perceive that the notion of the living principle in man passing through successive states of existence anterior to the present, was not a mere pleasantry, thrown out from the exuberance of a sportive humour, but veritably entertained by him as a probable opinion; who, though without much philosophy in his composition, yet, like most persons of high mental gifts, had an insight or fancy often more suggestive.t

The notion is not the same with that of Origen, who made the pre-existence of souls an element in his theological system; though the Platonic theory, which resolves all knowledge into reminiscence, has but a counterpart in the poetically conceived sentiment of Wordsworth's beautiful Ode on the "Intimations of Immortality:"

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.

But, all visionary excursions of imagination apart, a philosophy based on the analogy of the past, would scarcely disdain the hypothesis, unlinked with speculations about the * The Doctor, vol. vii. p. 448.

† Life and Correspondence of Southey, vol. i. p. 91.

modus operandi, that the next great epoch in the evolutions of our globe, whether brought about in a slow or less protracted way, will perchance serve to usher in an order of beings far superior to any that have marked its previous history.

For a luminous and truly candid disquisition on the philosophy of creation, I have much pleasure in referring to an essay with that title by the Rev. Baden Powell, the late Savilian Professor of Geometry at Oxford, and which forms part of an admirable volume that has appeared since the preceding observations were written. If I might venture to qualify the praise, it would be chiefly in regard to a remark or two in the piece "On the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy." For instance, Causation, justly represented as invariable or unconditional sequence of events, is said to admit of degrees; the real or only valid meaning evidently being, that our knowledge of sequences admits of degrees.

- Again, the sequences are affirmed to have a necessary connexion in reason or logical dependence; which, as distinct from the inductive assurance of certain events following certain other events, is not true of any sequences whatever, except in some teleological sense, or as implying that the phenomena of the universe are characterised by order or law; which is hardly the sentiment intended, and in no way belongs to the nature or definition of Causation. The sophism also which lurks in the objection about day being the cause of night, or vice versa, is not adequately met by alleging-what, by the by, is not compatible with the terms of the definition, even if sustainable in strict philosophy-that Causation has no relevancy to succession "in time;" the fallacy lying essentially in the ambiguity of the words day and night as so employed, which, resolved into the ideas they denote, as including a number of complex circumstances or appearances, require to be analytically

traced before the question of correlation can be properly discussed. An observation too towards the close of the second essay, in reference to the distinction between the spiritual and the physical nature of man, seems to overlook the fact, that all the propositions in the former department -that is, all the propositions which make up what is called theology are to be judged by the same faculties that are applied to the examination of principles in the latter so that it is difficult to conceive how the maxim quoted from Bacon, dignius credere quam scire, can be more applicable in one case than the other.

OLD ENGLISH DIVINES, THE FATHERS,

AND SCRIPTURE CRITICISM.

F works that with profound and vivid appreciation unfold the phases and inner experiences of the

spiritual life, including a varied range of ethical phenomena, religiously treated, there is at least no dearth in the English language. The theological writings of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in particular, besides wonderful stores of learning, often wastefully enough poured out, and a plentiful sprinkling, it must be granted, of dogmatic alloy, more or less impairing the pleasure of their perusal,display a noble vein of Scriptural sentiment, a depth of devotional piety, with a vigour and manliness of thought and diction unparalleled in the religious performances of recent times. In biblical criticism, indeed, we have made no trivial advances, balanced however by tendencies little to be desired. The over-refinements of this art, in certain works, bear some affinity to the subtleties and wire-drawn distinctions of the Schoolmen; and may suggest to an imaginative intellect the case of a virtuoso professing to give an illustration of an ancient cathedral, but who confines his notices to an account of the stones, timber, or other materials, or to its minuter appendages and time-worn inscriptions; while the general dimensions and magnificence of the edifice, its symmetry and decorations, and the solemn and enchanting spirit which breathes through the whole, are utterly overlooked. The