not informed us. Palcy in his celebrated analogy with the watch, insists that if the timepiece were so constructed as to produce other similar watches, after a manner of generation in animals, the argument from design would be all the stronger. What is to hinder Mr. Darwin from giving Paley's argument a further a-fortiori extension to the supposed case of a watch which sometimes produces better watches, and contrivances adapted to successive conditions, and so at length turns out a chronometer, a town clock, or a series of organisins of the same type? From certain incidental expressions at the close of the volume, taken in connection with the motto adopted from Whewell, we judge it probable that our author regards the whole system of Nature as one which had received at its first formation the impress of the will of its Author, forcseeing the varied yet necessary laws of its action throughout the whole of its existence, ordaining when and how each particular of the stupendous plan should be realized in effect, and-with Him to whom to will is to do-in ordaining doing it. Whether profoundly philosophical or not, a view maintained by eminent philosophical physicists and theologians, such as Babbage on the one hand and Jowett on the other, will hardly be denounced as atheism. Perhaps Mr. Darwin would prefer to express his idea in a more general way, by adopting the thoughtful words of one of the most eminent naturalists of this or any age, substituting the word action for "thought," since it is the former (from which alone the latter can be inferred) that he has been considering. "Taking Nature as exhibiting thought for my guide, it appears to me that

while human thought is consecutive, Divine thought is simultaneous, embracing at the same time and for ever, in the past, the present and the future, the most diversified relations among hundreds of thousands of organized beings, each of which may present compli cations again, which to study and understand even imperfectly-as for instance man himself-mankind has already spent thousands of years." In thus conceiving of the Divine Power in act as coctaneous with Divine Thought, and of both as far as may be apart from the human element of time, our author may regard the intervention of the Creator either as, humanly speaking, done from all time, or else as doing through all time. In the ultimate analysis wo supposo that every philosophical theist must adopt one or the other conception.

A perversion of the first view leads toward athoism, the notion of an eternal sequence of cause and effect, for which there is no first cause-a view which few sane persons can long rest in. The danger which may threaten the second view is pantheism. We feel safe from either error, in our profound conviction that there is order in the universe; that order presupposes mind; design, will; and mind or will, personality. Thus guarded, wo much prefer the second of the two conceptions of causation, as the more philosophical as well as Christian view-a view which leaves us with the same difliculties and the same mysteries in Nature as in Providence, and no other. Natural law, upon this view, is the human conception of continued and orderly Divine action.

1 Op. cit., p. 130.

We do not suppose that less power, or other power, s required to sustain the universe and carry on its operations, than to bring it into being. So, while conceiving no improbability of "interventions of Creative mind in Nature," if by such is meant the bring ing to pass of new and fitting events at fitting times, we leave it for profounder minds to establish, if they can, a rational distinction in kind between his working in Nature carrying on operations, and in initiating those operations.

We wished, under the light of such views, to examine more critically tlie doctrine of this book, especially of some questionable parts; for instance, its explanation of the natural development of organs, and its implication of a "necessary acquirement of mental power" in the ascending scale of gradation. But there is room only for the general declaration that we cannot think the Cosmos a series which began with chaos and ends with mind, or of which mind is a result: that, if, by the successive origination of species and organs through natural agencies, the author means a series of events which succeed each other irrespective of a continued directing intelligenceevents which mind does not order and shape to des tined ends-then he has not established that doctrine, nor advanced toward its establishment, but has accumulated improbabilities beyond all belief. Take the formation and the origination of the successive degrees of complexity of eyes as a specimen. The treatment of this subject (pp. 188, 189), upon one interpretation, is open to all the objections referred to; but, if, on the other hand, we may rightly compare the eye "to

a telescope, perfected by the long-continued offorts of the highest human intellects," we could carry out tho analogy, and draw satisfactory illustrations and infer ences from it. The essential, the directly intellectual thing is the making of the improvements in the telescope or the steam-engine. Whether the successivo improvements, being small at each step, and consistent with the general type of the instrument, are applied to some of the individual machines, or entire new machines are constructed for cach, is a minor matter. Though, if machines could engender, the adaptive method would be most economical; and economy is said to bo a paramount law in Naturo. The origination of the improvements, and tho suecessive adaptations to meet new conditions or subservo other ends, are what answer to the supernatural, and therefore remain inexplicable. As to bringing them into use, though wisdom foresces the result, the cir cumstances and the natural competition will take caro of that, in the long-run. The old ones will go out of use fast enough, except where an old and simple ma chino remains still best adapted to a particular pur pose or condition-as, for instance, the old Newcomen engine for pumping out coal-pits. If there's a Divinity that shapes these ends, the whole is intelligible and reasonable; otherwise, not.

We regret that the necessity of discussing philo sophical questions has prevented a fuller examination of the theory itself, and of the interesting scientific points which are brought to bear in its favor. Ono of its neatest points, certainly a very strong one for the local origination of species, and their gradual diffu

sion under natural agencies, we must reserve for some other convenient opportunity.

The work is a scientific one, rigidly restricted to its direct object; and by its science it must stand or fall. Its aim is, probably, not to deny creative intervention in Nature-for the admission of the inde pendent origination of certain types does away with all antecedent improbability of as much intervention as may be required-but to maintain that Natural Selection, in explaining the facts, explains also many classes of facts which thousand-fold repeated independent acts of creation do not explain, but leave more mysterious than ever. How far the author has succeeded, the scientific world will in due time be able to pronounce.

As these sheets are passing through the press, a copy of the second edition has reached us. We notice with pleasure the insertion of an additional motto on the reverse of the title-page, directly claiming the theistic view which we have vindicated for the doc trine. Indeed, these pertinent words of the eminently wise Bishop Butler comprise, in their simplest ex-. pression, the whole substance of our later pages:

"The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fred, or settled; sinco what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent mind to render it so, i. e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once."