tions we have named. Meantime, this subject may be looked at in another light.—The logic of historical analysis has been greatly advanced of late; the science of criticism, philological, and historical, has been matured; a vast mass of actual facts, literary, historical, philological, numismatic, ethnical, physical, and these bearing upon every period within the range of actual history, has been accumulated and rendered accessible. During the same time the crusted prejudices of well-intending but superstitious ages, have been exposed to powerful solvents, and if they have not actually been broken up, they have parted and are fast melting away. It cannot, then, be imagined, or be granted as probable or possible, that a body of documents, copious and various, and belonging to a bright historic era, should remain to defy all logic and to baffle every engine of historical and critical analysis. We think it utterly preposterous to suppose that a mass of writings such as the Christian Scriptures, should for ever, or indeed should much longer, stand over as a case of interminable ambiguity. If, indeed, our modern methods, severe as they are, must still fail before this problem, the progress assumed to have been made in our times by human reason in all departments of science, is far less real than has been supposed. On the contrary, we believe this progress to be real, and modern methods of inquiry to be genuine and effective, and, therefore, hold that there needs only a rigid application of them to the Christian evidences, to bring forth a result never again to be questioned, and which, when announced and assented to, will be of a kind that must diffuse a new life through the moral world.

or to our readers, would occupy a space larger than that which we have already filled. We can only say, that our scrutiny on this ground, while it has borne out our author's general assumptions, has convinced us of the urgent necessity of a far more searching, elaborate, and cautious treatment of it than he has seemed to think requisite. Apart from some such reconstruction and enlargement of his Tract, it will, as we predict, if it excite the attention of Strauss' adherents, be spoken of slightingly, and as undeserving of a formal refutation-a refutation which they well know they could never furnish should the facts on which it rests be fully made out and set clear of all ambiguity. We earnestly hope that the subject may forthwith be taken up by Dr. Dobbin himself, or by some other.

Should he himself do so, we would suggest that, in place of the wholly unsatisfactory method which he professes (p. 58) to have followed, in adducing the evidence of the Fathers, and which can bring forth nothing better than a fortuitous and negative result, he would, through and through, examine the earlier writers;-for, as to the later, the practice of individuals, governed by taste or caprice, can be of no significance whatever in such an argument:-Some modern writers-and of a certain school, have affected the name "Jesus;" but such whims can mean nothing in an historical sense. The middle of the third century is the very latest date that can be allowed to bear upon the question at issue. Let Dr. Dobbin look again to Origen, and especially to the "Contra Celsum," and he will understand what we mean in advising him to bestow more pains upon his Tentamen. This treatise, analogous as it is, in some respects, to Justin Martyr's Dialogue with Trypho (an earlier work by almost a century) would, when therewith compared, serve well to bring out the critical rule that should be applied to the entire mass of evidence under this head. But we must refrain.

It has been customary with writers on the Christian evidences to prepare the minds of their readers for an inconclusive issue of the argument, by premising the principle, too easily assumed, That, after all, and although proof of the divine mission of Jesus may be, and is sufficient, it will never reach a higher point of certainty; it will not, say such persons, for this deep reason, that Christianity itself is designedly adapted to the purposes of moral discipline, and is intended to come to us as a trial-a severe trial, of the principle of faith, and of humble submission to an authority veiled in darkness. There is a truth, no doubt, involved in such representations, and we may be quite sure that the man of faith and piety, in the present scene of things, will never want occasion for the exercise of the disposi

tions we have named. Meantime, this subject may be looked at in another light. The logic of historical analysis has been greatly advanced of late; the science of criticism, philological, and historical, has been matured; a vast mass of actual facts, literary, historical, philological, numismatic, ethnical, physical, and these bearing upon every period within the range of actual history, has been accumulated and rendered accessible. During the same time the crusted prejudices of well-intending but superstitious ages, have been exposed to powerful solvents, and if they have not actually been broken up, they have parted and are fast melting away. It cannot, then, be imagined, or be granted as probable or possible, that a body of documents, copious and various, and belonging to a bright historic era, should remain to defy all logic and to baffle every engine of historical and critical analysis. We think it utterly We think it utterly preposterous to suppose that a mass of writings such as the Christian Scriptures, should for ever, or indeed should much longer, stand over as a case of interminable ambiguity. If, indeed, our modern methods, severe as they are, must still fail before this problem, the progress assumed to have been made in our times by human reason in all departments of science, is far less real than has been supposed. On the contrary, we believe this progress to be real, and modern methods of inquiry to be genuine and effective, and, therefore, hold that there needs only a rigid application of them to the Christian evidences, to bring forth a result never again to be questioned, and which, when announced and assented to, will be of a kind that must diffuse a new life through the moral world.

ART. IV.-Indications of the Creator. Extracts bearing upon Theology, from the History and the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences. By WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., Master of Trinity College, and Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Cambridge. London, 1845.

THIS unpretending little work is as seasonable as it is excellent. Having been obliged so recently to expose the superficial views and infidel tendencies of a work, whose attractive style, and the very reveries, fantastic as they were, in which its author indulged, rendered it popular, we feel double satisfaction in meeting with one so different in its character and influence. Professor Whewell is well known as an author, who has made science, in its various branches and its highest relations, his constant and anxious study. He is a plain and even dry writer, seldom eloquent, indulging in few flights of fancy, in no captivating theories, and in no charms of diction; but his sober and accurate reasoning, and profound knowledge of his subject, make him a high authority and a safe guide, in comparison of those flowery and seductive writers, whose shallow draughts at the Pierian spring have served only to intoxicate them, and to give them presumption in proportion to their incapacity.

The present work is the more valuable, that it is not controversial in its conception, and, indeed, is not new, except in the shape which it has received. Dr. Whewell, desirous to afford, with most effect, his testimony as a man of science to the consistency of natural science with natural and revealed religion, has, with great judgment, thrown together with very little addition or alteration, those passages in his larger works on the History and on the Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, in which he was led by the course of his subject to treat of the theological bearing of the discoveries and reasonings embraced in the various departments of scientific research. If, by following this course, he has sacrificed some of the charms of composition, he has attained more solid advantages. He cannot be suspected of uncandid statements, or perverted reasoning, into which a controversialist, setting before him for attack or defence a set of disputed dogmas, and animated by the heat of conflict, may often justly be accused of falling. His reflections and reasonings, here brought together, formed parts of great works in which he reviewed in succession the progress and genius of all the great branches of science; and each extract, when in its original place, arose naturally and unforced out of a calm

survey

of the field of ascertained facts and laws; and so, when now separated, is stamped with the character of sobriety and truth which great knowledge, and comprehensive and repeated reflection, can alone impart. While therefore, as we might expect, the work is defective in system, a little disjointed, containing some repetitions, and some abrupt transitions, the countervailing advantage preponderates, that we are in the hands of one who writes from no affectation, or vanity, or pertinacity, but with an anxious desire to apprehend and express the truth.

A volume of this nature is of great value, not only as affording fresh refutation of the cavils of unbelievers, but as tending to reconcile and incite men of piety to the investigation of the wonders of creation. For one of the worst effects of infidel assaults has been that religious men have been led to look with suspicion and jealousy on such studies, and if not absolutely to proscribe them, at least to feel very little at ease in their prosecution, and to keep at a safe distance from their more recondite branches. They have thus been robbed of much pleasure and profit-the pleasure of contemplating with freedom and triumphant praise the works of their Almighty Father-the profit arising from deepened sensations of awe and reverence for his wisdom and almightiness. If there is any truth in the charge made against some men of fervent piety, that there is too great familiarity in their addresses to the Deity; no remedy surely can be so good for the fault, as a more frequent and definite contemplation of the displays of his awful attributes of power and wisdom.

Another important advantage, arising from an intimate knowledge of science, is the power which the Christian disputant thereby obtains of meeting and overthrowing the systems of paganism and idolatry. Ignorance of natural science is the mother of polytheism; and the most portentous system of pagan idolatry ever seen-that which prevails in Hindostan-is based on a complication of errors in physics and natural history; the exposure and removal of which are, humanly speaking, the only sure means of overthrowing the monstrous superstructure.

We shall run rapidly over some of the important questions treated of in the book before us, chiefly for the purpose of introducing a few quotations, to convey an idea of Professor Whewell's sentiments and style.

The first great province into which we enter is that assemblage of physical truths, classed together under the name of Natural Philosophy. The history of its growth is instructive. The unenlightened savage ascribes each natural operation and effect to the interposition of a Deity presiding over that particular domain of nature. With him every thing that occurs is a miracle, and