66 tablish the religion of the Christ, or would call himself a Christian, who thinks that the Christ, in his miracles, employed "shrewdness and management," and "suitable evasions," though not guilty of direct fraud,-who thinks, "that Jesus in triumph might have given different lessons to mankind," from those of "Jesus in suffering," (p. 448,) -that "David's Son, if he had reached David's throne, might have been, like his supposed progenitor, no less exacting of homage to himself, than punctilious of rendering it to the King of heaven," (p. 447,)—and that we may rejoice that the tempter was never really permitted to expose Jesus to this most severe ordeal; that an untimely fate, in the world's sense, preserved him from being lost in a common crowd of kings and conquerors." (P. 449.) Why should our Author wish to serve the religion of one who, in his lifetime, claimed no higher office than that of Jewish Messiah,-who would have shrunk from the liberality of Paul,-and would not have been "prepared to go so far in the path of reformation," or "to admit that in Christ there was neither circumcision nor uncircumcision?" (P. 426.) 66 We conclude by bearing our willing testimony to the spirit of earnest and reverent seriousness in which the work is written. There is nowhere a trace that candour was wilfully set aside. There are several passages in the concluding reflections," which prove their author to be of a refined, elevated, and spiritual order of mind. Indeed we think that his sympathy with the spirit and character of Christ has led him into not a few inconsistencies between his concessions and his denials. ART. III.—VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OF CREATION. London: John Churchill, Princes-st., Soho. 1844. PHILOSOPHERS of the present day have an inestimable advantage, if they know how to use it, in the history of the philosophy which has preceded them. Believing, as we do, that our present knowledge is but fractional and preparatory, it would be rash indeed to speak of it as (absolutely) in an adult state: yet in comparison with the earlier essays at reading the book of nature, we may call our attainments the opinions of manhood, and the speculative philosophy of the Greeks, or of the European schoolmen, the fancies of infancy. In nothing, perhaps, do those earlier sages appear more helpless, than in the want of any means of testing and verifying their happiest divinations. A Pythagoras might anticipate the discoveries of Copernicus, or a Democritus those of Dalton; but as neither had any means of guaranteeing their theories to the common human understanding, they were worth no more than other arbitrary opinions, and took no permanent hold on thoughtful minds. In other words, they had attained no just Logic, applicable to the subjects which they took in hand. And this evidently rose out of the error of running away from the easy and near, into the region of the difficult and remote. Unaware to themselves, they undertook the most arduous speculations first, and had no conception of the very gradual steps by which we must mount up towards truth, in regard to so mighty a universe. To the Greeks we are indebted for Geometry and elementary Astronomy; a legacy so valuable, that there may be danger of seeming ungracious, when we dwell on their deficiencies, instead of repaying them with thanks. Unfortunately, however,though at least one master-mind among them understood perfectly well, that accumulated experience must be the foundation of all theory, and exemplified his doctrine by a long life of unintermitting research, the majority of philosophers utterly misunderstood the true relation between genius and assiduity. We now know well that the auguries of genius are useless, or are even false and seducing CHRISTIAN TEACHER.-No. 27. E lights, when not based on an ample store of facts; and that no theory, however deservedly great the authority of him who propounded it, must be allowed to stand, when it is found to clash with the fresh discoveries of experience. If diligence goes first, and genius follows afterwards, great advances will be made; but if the order be reversed, there cannot be a more lamentable thing than undue veneration for the original dicta of ancient sages. This was the cause which kept back sound knowledge for fifteen hundred years. What Aristotle and Ptolemy had believed, was imposed as a law on the mind; and infinite industry in observing nature then conferred no benefit on science, because the observers were deliberately bent on forcing all phenomena to agree with the principles consecrated by tradition. If assiduous observation could have attained truth, the followers of Ptolemy would have attained it; but that was impossible, while the mind itself was fettered, -while, instead of investigating Nature, in the dignity of an interpreter of God's works, it was engaged unawares in idolizing the forestalled conclusions of man. But from the moment when the chains of Authority fell off from the human mind, a progress commenced, alike steady and rapid, of which no end can be seen. We have learned to begin science independently from every quarter at which we come into contact with Fact; in the faith that no truths are despicable, and that every established principle may prove a stepping-stone to something beyond. In this way a great number of independent sciences arise, and each develops within itself a Logic of its own. No doubt there is an all-embracing Logic; but this cannot be attained in an early stage: and a cardinal mistake of the Greek schools lay in not knowing that it must grow up out of discoveries, and cannot be forced. Hence the miserable meagreness of what they call Logic or Dialectics.The proofs to which modern science lays claim, are not (in the technical sense of the word) demonstrative, and cannot, from the nature of the case, be such; but they are proofs addressed to the ordinary understanding, and inevitably produce conviction on a man void of all pretensions to originality, if only he have adequate information and power of intelligence. Until a proof has such a measure of cogency, it is not received as valid, or at least as finally es tablished: hence the public at large have the unanimity of men of science as the great guarantee of truth. Here again we see how absolutely requisite for all stability in truth it is, that no Authority should be allowed to domineer; for where it does, this guarantee loses at once nearly all its value. While then we revere the genius of Newton and Leibnitz, of Haller and John Hunter, of Laplace and Cuvier, of Lavoisier, Franklin, Davy, and other more recent names, we have the more confidence in their truth, for the very reason that we yield little or nothing to their authority. Their honourable office has been, as priests of nature, so to interpret to us its before hidden mysteries, that we may know them for ourselves. Through the divinations of these great minds, generally guided by facts previously ascertained, practical research has taken more fruitful channels; and assiduous talent, instead of wasting itself in astrology, alchemy, and the endless toils of a Kepler, has stored up far more vast repositories of experience, because so many can labour together when a guiding principle has been found. Four brilliant trains of light, Astronomy, Physiology, Chemistry, and Geology, streaming for awhile parallel to each other, seem now about to mingle their glory into a common history of the marvellous past. They were long content to deal with the pettiest truths; and as the reward of faith, are about to attain the grandest. Beginning with inquiries concerning the movements of pendulums and collision of balls; from measuring heat and weighing substances; from trying what will burn, what will melt, what will combine, what will part; from making cabinets of shells, and counting the internal organs of dead animals; from examining rocks and digging up shell-fish ;—they have proceeded to investigate the physical nature of the heavenly bodies, to register the changes which have past on this globe, and the order in which animals were introduced upon it and are now inevitably impelled to consider, what law was at work in guiding the sequences which men of science at length unanimously recognize as fact. As in the training of children, so in all the early teaching of mankind, knowledge is imparted dictatorially, and proof is considered needless. The celebrated ipse dixit,-"The master declared it,"-though regarded as characteristic of the Pythagorean school, is in truth only one indication. that that school (the first which introduced the word "Philosophy,") had not effected its emancipation from the sacerdotal system out of which it sprung. We cannot wonder that all the early national religions of mankind incorporated with religion (properly so-called) much speculation which belongs to other branches of human knowledge; for a division of labour (so to say) had not been effected in these different branches; and the priest, legislator, prophet, or whatever other name might indicate his prevailing character, taught all human knowledge then attained or received. But whatever he taught, he of necessity taught with dogmatic authority; out of which arose the unexpected and often unpleasant result, that the later investigations of science disagreed with the enacted and canonized belief. A Hindoo legislator did not know that he was teaching geography, and not religion, when he told of the form and height of Mount Meru, of the course and length of the sacred Ganges, or of the successive seas of water, milk, wine, &c.—which girdle the flat terraqueous circle and a devout modern Hindoo is apt to regard it as a bold and impious invasion of consecrated ground, to claim the whole province of Geography as cognizable to the human intellect. Englishmen of ordinary information have little mercy on such timidity of understanding. Our most devout missionaries hesitate not to overbear, by modern Astronomy, or by the attested experience of Navigators, the erroneous philosophy of Hindooism. : It is to be regretted that those who see clearly that the demonstrations of science ought not to be set aside for other people's religion, are not always aware that they must apply the same rule to their own. Religion, in its highest, equally as in its lowest form, has its root in Faith: which is fed by the yearnings and aspirations of sentiment, but cannot affect positive proof, without losing its essential nature. It no longer needs faith to receive the doctrine of Gravitation; and if ever demonstration were attained for the propositions that "Truth is of all things best for man," and, "All things work together for good to them that love God,"—to adopt and act on them might be a triumph of intellect over sense, but would be no effort of faith. Hence with the progress of human knowledge, the |