happy combination of the materials of this work, we may notice that "considerable parts of it were composed long ago as amplifications of an argument pursued in some articles in a periodical," and that these portions have been connected together by new matter so as to form a series. Such "conglomerates" are seldom equable in composition or proportionate in design. The volume itself professes to be sufficiently distinct to be regarded as a separate work, though it is numbered as the third of a series "mainly directed to the great object of illustrating the true fundamental principles of the inductive philosophy." In the previous volumes, published within the last five years, "special reference was made to several points in which physical science and religious belief were brought into peculiar contact with each other." The first and chief of these was the grand inference of natural theology respecting the being of a God from an extended study of the laws of the material universe. After a rather strained criticism of the Theistic argument, he concludes that "science cannot conduct to the idea of a creation out of nothing, or of a personal being with the attributes of Divinity." Such ideas he derives exclusively from revelation through faith. But besides this main topic, another, involving purely theological considerations, was discussed in a second volume, where the facts of geology were shown "necessarily to contravene the historical character of a very essential portion of the Jewish Scriptures-the six days' work of creation and the seventh day's rest-points so vitally wound up with their whole tenor that if we would maintain any faith in the New Testament we must entirely disconnect it from the Old."+ It is, however, in this third volume of the series that his fundamental principle of "an order in nature which admits of no interruption is applied to the grounds of religious belief, and especially of our faith in miracles." He endeavors to supply what he thinks is "wanting in our theological and philosophical literature: a perfectly impartial, candid, unpolemical discussion of the subject of miracles, in immediate connection with the

* Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy, the Unity of Worlds, and the Philosophy of Creation. By the Rev. Baden Powell, M. A., etc. London, 1855. + Christianity without Judaism, a Second Series of Essays, being the substance of Sermons delivered in London and other places. By the Rev. Baden Powell. London, 1858.

vast progress of physical knowledge." He is "thus involved in the larger consideration of the whole relations of physical to spiritual and revealed truth." He first takes a general survey of the history of inductive science, noticing throughout how each class of events, which once seemed casual or supernatural, has gradually been resolved by science and traced to natural laws. Though this essay occupies nearly half the volume, it adds very little to the interest or power of the main argument, for those who needed information on such a subject might better have been referred to more detailed narratives; and intelligent scholars, for whose satisfaction he evidently wrote, would have conceded at first all that he asks in his conclusion. He next contends that "the provinces of natural and religious truth are so independent of each other that the former can yield only the lowest conclusions respecting a Supreme Mind, which is the original cause of natural order; and that the more sublime conceptions of a personal, omnipotent, and moral Governor, who can be worshiped and hold intercourse with men, must be derived, not from natural, not even from moral or metaphysical sources, but from direct revelation." Reason, he thinks, could never infer a supernatural cause from any event, however extraordinary, but only refer every outstanding case, which transcends its existing powers, to some province of nature yet unknown; and if anything could be conceived of not referable to natural law, we should be compelled to look upon it not as supernatural but chaotic and atheistic. He then reviews the theories proposed by various writers to avoid an entire rejection of our Scriptures, by explaining their origin in a way which admits their miraculous history. The naturalistic system of Paulus, the mythic of Strauss, the subjective of Feuerbach, the psychologic of Ewald, and the doctrinal of Neander, he finds each attended with insuperable difficulties, because they receive the scriptural account in some literal sense inconsistent either with the facts of science or the honesty of its authors. Ecclesiastical miracles, however distinguished from the scriptural in dignity and purpose, he contends, can be discredited only on principles applicable equally to all. In a concluding essay he endeavors to present a more rational basis for our faith. He refers to a distinct order of impressions or intimations which may be afforded to some highly gifted individu

als, and worthily ascribed a divine source. The truths communicated "must refer exclusively to moral and spiritual conceptions, to what we experience within ourselves, or to some more extended and undefined world of spiritual, unseen, eternal existence, above and beyond all that is matter of sense or reason, of which science gives no intimation-apart from the world of material existence, of ordinary human action, or even of metaphysical speculation, wholly the domain and creation of faith and inspiration." The only miracles which the author acknowledges are wholly in our minds, and, so far as we can see, aim only at that spiritual elevation of our natural powers which some have named inspiration.

The views of the school to which he belongs have been more fully developed in the "Essays and Reviews," to which he contributed an essay "On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity;" but as we wish to confine ourselves at present to a single subject, and one logically fundamental to the whole discussion, we prefer to review this volume of our author. It is the last distinct work in which he expressed his views previous to his departure to a world where he surveys his favorite universal order from another point of view. It is also the best statement in plain English of the present position of those who assail miracles on the ground of natural science. We shall omit most of what might be said of a personal nature, or which is unessential to the argument, and confine ourselves to a criticism of its main positions.

I. The grand principle, with the admission of which he confesses his whole ensuing discussion must stand or fall, is, that all things and events in nature are governed by laws which admit of no interruption. If any are not prepared to accept this principle in its fullest extent, he hardly condescends to reason with them, but refers them to the most ordinary school of inductive science. Now, fortunately, we are willing to admit his principle, but it must be with our own understanding of it. And yet it may help us all to go back for a while to such a school to ascertain what its precise instructions are. Even with the restrictions which, in the spirit of the most rigid, posi

* "Essays and Reviews," by eminent English Churchmen, reprinted at Boston, from the second Loudon edition, under the title of "Recent Inquiries in Theology." With an Introduction by Rev. F. H. Hedge, D.D.

tive philosophy, he has assigned it, it may afford us some fundamental principles for our discussion.

The word nature, as used by our author, includes only the material universe, and man is intended by it only so far as his corporeal structure is concerned. A corresponding definition would probably coincide with that of Dr. Bushnell, and the more restricted signification which Sir William Hamilton gives the word. We may notice, also, that it always applies in this work not to a mere mass of elements, which might be a chaos, but to a Cosmos, a system of things pervaded by laws. These laws are simply the modes in which things uniformly act, though they imply some necessity, which our author recognizes but never attempts to account for. It may be because of qualities inherent in the things themselves, or of some divine power present with them; but any inquiry on this point he regards as belonging not to physical but to metaphysical philosophy. The whole range of science then is confined to simple facts, that is, things and events, and its object is to observe these and to classify them according to the most perfect principles. Strictly speaking, on this supposition it can assert nothing but what relates to matters of direct experience. We see not how it could infer anything respecting the future; how it could arrive at any conviction of the uniformity of nature's laws we do not know. The same principle on which the physical inquirer is forbidden to infer a cause, and required to know nothing but what comes within the province of the understanding, mere antecedents and consequents, we should think would exclude all recognition of a necessary uniformity. When I perceive that fire burns my flesh as often as the experiment is tried, why do I conclude that it will always do so? Why am I surprised when I read that the Fire-king enters the flame unhurt, or that the three Israelites in Babylon, being cast into it, came forth uninjured? If it be replied that a belief in the constancy of nature is a conviction of the primary reason, and not an inference of the understanding, we inquire, What then has it to do with science, and ought it not to be removed to the doubtful region of metaphysics?

But without taking advantage of an obvious inconsistency in our author's reasoning, let us inquire whether science teaches that all nature's laws are equally unchangeable. Even if the

primary laws of matter are invariable, must those which we call derivative be so also? Some of these are exceedingly complex, and no human intellect can trace all the simple elements included in them. To a Divine mind, indeed, a complex law is as invariable as any, because each element in it can be distinctly known. It can never be the same with a human observer. What he ranks among the most unchangeable derivative laws may be in reality mutable. We might be sure that matter always will be extended, will attract, and will be divisible, but we cannot be sure that the sun will continue to rise and set as usual for a century hence. The law of the sun's rising and setting has been in operation each day for thousands of years; but there are too many elements in it for us to be certain of its permanence for the future. We may be satisfied that the offspring of African parents will be human, for this is according to a fundamental law of animal nature; but how can we have equal assurance that it will be black? Even the permanence of specific types in some extraordinary cases is by our author put in jeopardy. And yet some of the most complex derivative laws have been ranked among the greatest certainties of nature, and any interruption of them would have been at some periods reported as miraculous. One of the most remarkable fruits of modern science is the discovery of many new laws of nature, and the combination of others, so as to produce results beyond human power with only the knowledge of other times.

Nothing also is more common than for us to witness one law of nature apparently interrupted by another. Seldom do we see laws operating separately, but almost always together, or in conflict with one another. Not unfrequently they appear entirely to annihilate each other's influence, as when two bodies in motion come into such direct opposition that both are brought to a state of rest. In such cases we say not that there is a violation, but only a conflict of nature's laws. Two forces in the solar system are sometimes so exactly balanced that a planet is made to move in its orbit for ages; they are not annihilated, for each continues to act so as to hold the other in equilibrium. There is scarcely a law in the universe which is not in this manner in conflict with others. In some instances this seems so great as utterly to confound all our notions of order. A thousand regular processes are in a few moments