Contracts partly Spiritual and partly Civil.

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competently as they could compel him to demit his civil office. Although the holding of office according to the statute implied that a spiritual act was to be performed, yet the illegal disregard of this obligation did not give to the civil courts the power to compel the performance of the spiritual act, but only left them the power of enforcing the civil penalty. In like manner, the holding of the office of Lord Chancellor of England, according to the Emancipation Act, is, in our own day, fettered with the condition that the holder of it make profession of the Protestant faith. If the present eminent lawyer who fills the position were to go over to the Roman Catholic Church, the law, notwithstanding the statutory connection between the office and the spiritual character, would never contemplate the possibility of enforcing by means of civil authority his return to a purer religious profession, although it might contemplate the application of its power and authority to the depriving him of his official position. Or, to take a case still more similar in its character to the one under review: a domestic chaplain, hired on the condition of ministering to a family according to the faith and rites of the Established Church, might abjure its doctrine, and yet insist on retaining his salary. In such a case the aggrieved employer would find it hard to persuade the civil courts to send the offender to prison to unlearn his heterodoxy, although quite easy to induce them to lend their proper authority to deprive him of his salary. The argument is not different with respect to the contract which may be alleged to exist between some non-established churches and their ministers, in which the Church gives ordination and pecuniary support, as the condition on its part of certain spiritual services being rendered on theirs. The civil courts have power to enforce the civil element in the obligation, but not the spiritual: they might, on the one hand, protect the Church in withholding the pecuniary payment, if, in their estimation, the religious duties had not been performed, but they could not compel the performance of these duties; or, on the other hand, they might authorize the minister when deposed to exact the payment, if they believed the duties to have been performed, but could not compel the Church to renew and continue the ordination.

It is the line drawn by the finger of God between things spiritual and things civil that must ever limit the power of the Church on the one side, and that of the State on the other. The landmarks between were not set up and adjusted by contract, but of old had their foundations laid deep in the nature of things. Make light of the distinction, and practically disregard it, and there is no length to which it may not lead in the way of spiritual domination on the part of the Church in the concerns of civil

life, or Erastian encroachment on the part of the State in the province of religious right and duty. If a power of any kind, direct or indirect, is conceded to the Church of disposing to the smallest extent of temporal matters, there can be no limit set to its encroachments: it may pervade every department of the State with its tyranny, and subject all in turn to its control, creeping like a palsy over a nation's heart, and extinguishing all that is valuable in the civil liberty, the individual independence, and the manly energies of a people. Or if a power, however small, of rightful authority in spiritual things is acknowledged to belong to the State, it will soon come to make itself to be felt as the weightiest and least tolerable part of its sovereignty. If the liberties of religious bodies in the way of discipline or government are denied to them, and handed over to the civil magistrate, it is a concession which can plead for itself no argument not equally available for dealing in the same way with their doctrine: their conscience, when once fettered in its religious actings, can show no cause why it should be free in religious opinions; and with the independence of its courts and officers, the sound faith, and the living piety, and the active power for spiritual good of the Church must die out also. These are not the deductions of reason only, but the lessons of history as well, and lessons which the nations that have not been taught from the past are learning at the present day. Between the extreme which makes the State to be the slave of the Church, and that other extreme which makes the Church to be the slave of the State, there is no position that is safe or consistent with sound principle, except that which asserts their mutual and equal independence.

The Origin of Species.

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ART. VII.—On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races, in the Struggle for Life. By CHARLES DARWIN, M.A., F.R.S., F.G.S., F.L.S., Author of Journal of "Researches during H. M. S. Beagle's Voyage round the World." London: John Murray. 1860. 5th Thousand.

IF notoriety be any proof of successful authorship, Mr Darwin has had his reward. Seldom has an avowedly scientific work had public attention turned to it so speedily as Mr Darwin's "Origin of Species." His Theory has already become historical. It has assumed a position in which it commands the attention of all who take an interest in the generalizations of natural science. Some leading naturalists affirm that it is incontrovertible; others, less bold, yield a qualified assent. Royal Societies discuss it, and it is talked over at the Clubs. It is received with smiles in drawing-rooms, and frowned down in churches as "a second edition of the Vestiges." "1 Has this wide-spread notice been gained by the work as one of true science? Or has the substantial food which, without doubt, it contains, been received for the sake of the spice mixed up with it? If so, is the attractive element to be chiefly found in a somewhat unreverential walk in fields of investigation, into which the greatest thinkers have never entered but with bent body and head uncovered?

Mr Darwin's well-earned reputation as an accomplished zoologist, was sure to gain for him a patient hearing from all who are working in any one of those branches of natural science, from which he profusely draw sillustrations in proof of the soundness of his theory. The whole subject under discussion is, moreover, in every respect, one of the most difficult which can engage the attention of a philosophic naturalist. But, on this very account, it is also one which will lavishly reward the student who shall be able to shed new light on it. Has Mr Darwin done so ?—is the query for which we propose to seek an answer in the work now before us.

Man is the interpreter of nature. This place has been assigned to him by the Creator, and, obeying his own instincts, he has ever been forward to occupy it. Here, however, it ought to be borne in mind, that, on the one hand, the interpreter is not infal

Whether justly or not, we hope to show in the sequel. Meanwhile it is but fair to quote Professor Huxley's caveat: "Lamark's conjectures, equipped with a new hat and stick, as Sir Walter Scott was wont to say of an old story renovated, formed the foundation of the biological speculations of the "Vestiges," a work which has done more harm to the progress of sound thought on these matters than any that could be named; and, indeed, I mention it here, simply for the purpose of denying that it has anything in common with what essentially characterizes Mr Darwin's work."

lible; and, on the other hand, that, even when in the main true, the interpretation will always be more or less marked by the intellectual, and often by the moral, characteristics of the one making it. It is all very well to talk of a perfectly unbiassed mind, complete impartiality, and the like, in the examination of questions in science which have necessary moral or theological relations. We believe that, in the circumstances, freedom from bias is impossible. But, granting all this, we are not to despair of ever attaining absolute truth even in such questions. Men will agree in admitting certain observations as in themselves reliable, who would widely differ as to the bearings of these on favourite theories. Given, we might say, the point of view of prejudice, and the amount and direction of divergence may be calculated as certainly as that of the ship's compass, when we know where the disturbing metal on board is. Some naturalists are satisfied with collecting facts; others are never satisfied till they have set these in relation to other facts, in order that they might have material for generalizations regarding laws of life. The former are apt to hold that this is the highest, and, indeed, the only legitimate work of a man of science, while the latter are convinced that facts are worthless until they are seen shedding light on the working of natural laws, or revealing to us the thoughts of the great Creator. Yet it is from those who really take the highest views of nature that truth has often most to dread, for it is here that the disturbing elements have scope. Kingsley represents

his Andromeda as

"Shading her face with her hands; for the eyes of the goddess

were awful.”

Such an effect has the first clear discovery of the thoughts of a present Creator in His works on many observers. They were faithfully questioning these, when, suddenly, they found themselves on a threshold upon which the glory of a Divine One was cast from the other side; but, instead of courting a clearer view, they drew back, "shading their face with their hands." From that moment the idea of a Creator is bearable only as they see it, as Edward Irving loved to see theological dogmas, "looming in the mist ;" and in all they write they seem ever distrustful of views of nature which, even remotely, tend to set them or their readers in direct relation with a personal God. Now, though we are very far from alleging that this must be a leading characteristic of the author of the theory now under review, we yet hope to show that the tendency of his book is very strongly in that direction. It would not be dealing fairly by our readers, and, especially, it would be unmindful of the apologetic value of natural theology, were we to look at this theory from any other point of view, than the twofold one of science and theology. We feel,

however, that, in making such a statement as this in the outset, we are liable to be misunderstood.

If called to dissent from Mr Darwin's views on the origin of species, we are not to be held as making light of his present work. On the contrary, we shall ever be found ready to acknowledge the great ability shown in it--the varied information contained in almost every page--the classic beauty of style in which the work is written and, above all, its value as suggesting new lines of investigation, and as pointing out all the weak points in present generally accepted systems of classification. The two characteristics last mentioned have, at one point and another, forced upon our notice the resemblance between "The Origin of Species," and the "Zoonomia" of the elder Darwin. We could point out many passages in both which warrant this statement. In both we find a skilful exposition of the scientific status quo, a bold dissent from it, and the proposal of theories which are brought out, not only as craving a hearing, but as the only satisfactory basis for the explanation of all the phenomena of the past, and the only key to all progress in the future. In the least attractive pages of both works, also-pages in which strong belief hankers on the very edge of weak credulity-you meet with most suggestive remarks, lying like bits of gold in lumps of quartz. In other respects the likeness holds good. In the midst of the physiological and psychological romance in "Zoonomia," are many hints, such as genius only makes, in which we can now recognise the foreshadowing of generalizations which have become generally acquiesced in by men foremost in such branches of human knowledge. Thoughtful readers of "The Origin of Species" will have an instinctive feeling of the presence of such hints in Mr Charles Darwin's work.

With this acknowledgment of the suggestive character of the work, we have a preliminary remark to make, on the general value of the facts in proof, which are scattered so freely over the volume, and which, though so numerous, we are informed, are but as one to a million, compared with what is in store, when the great work which is promised shall be given to the world. In almost every page we meet with facts which, as we shall have occasion to show, may be found as useful to an opponent as to an advocate of Mr Darwin's views; while of many of them one cannot help standing in doubt as to their value, when considered even from the author's point of view. Facts which call up the common expression, "much may be said on both sides," lead to a state of mind as unfavourable to correctness and precision of thought, as it is damaging to theories on the spread of which their authors are earnestly set. In the case now before us, however, there is a double disadvantage. In addition to what is now