plete than that which has been shown to exist between nerveforce and electricity; and we are led to the same conclusion by a careful appreciation of the fact, which all physiological knowledge of the conditions of mental activity tends to establish, that this activity, like the exertion of muscular force, can only be sustained, as man is at present constituted, at the expense of the death and disintegration of the nervous substance. This idea of " correlation" once started, is found to give a scientific expression to a vast mass of facts demonstrative of the intimate connection between body and mind, which, though accepted as conformable to the universal experience of mankind, have not yet found their place in systematic treatises; since they occupy that "debatable ground" between metaphysics and physiology, which the votaries of each of these sciences, far from wishing to claim it for themselves, are desirous to cede to the dwellers on the other side of the border. Take, for example, the production of temporary insanity by intoxicating agents, on the one hand; the influence of the emotions, not merely on the quantity, but also on the quality, of the secretions, on the other. Here are unmistakable phenomena, that have just as great a claim to be examined and accounted for as those of ordinary mental or corporeal activity; and which have yet been passed by, simply because no one has yet been able to suggest any other than a "material" explanation of them.

We shall have greatly failed in our purpose, however, if we have not by this time led our readers to perceive how complete is the distinction between matter and force, and how close is the relation between force and mind. Matter is in no case more than the embodiment or instrument of force; all its (so-called) active states being merely the manifestations of an energy, which, under different forms, is unceasingly operative. Nor can it be fairly said, that in substituting the doctrine of force for that of the "imponderables," we are only setting up one hypothetical entity in place of another. Force is truly more of a reality to us than matter itself; for we cannot become cognisant even of the most fundamental property of matter-its occupation of space-without the consciousness of resistance. We cannot, it is true, isolate force from matter; but we have two modes of judging of it-one objective, the other subjective; one based on observation of external phenomena, the other on the direct revelation of our own consciousness. And we hold it to be by the combination of both sets of considerations, that our truest and most definite ideas of dynamical agency are to be attained. We are conscious of the exertion of a power, when we either produce or resist motion; whenever, therefore, we see bodies in motion, we infer that only by a like exertion of power could that motion have originated;

so when the retardation of motion gives rise to heat, or heat (in ceasing to manifest itself as such) gives rise to expansive force, we perceive that it is only the mode of manifestation that is changed, the fundamental power remaining the same. And as we are thus led by the "correlation" doctrine to consider the various agencies of nature as the expression of a conscious Will, we find the highest science completely according with the highest religion, in directing us to recognise the omnipresent and constantly sustaining energy of a personal Deity in every phenomenon of the universe around us,-the pantheistic and the anthropomorphic conceptions of His character being thus brought into harmony, when we view "nature" as the embodiment of the Divine Volition, the "forces of nature" as so many diversified modes of its manifestation, and the "laws of nature" as nothing but man's expressions of the uniformities which his limited observation can discern in its phenomena.

ART. VI. THE MUTUAL RELATION OF HISTORY AND RELIGION.

Gott in der Geschichte, oder der Fortschritt des Glaubens an eine sittliche Weltordnung. (God in History, or the Growth of the Faith in a Moral Order of the World.) By C. C. J. Bunsen. First Part. First and Second Book. Leipsic: Brockhaus, 1857. Comparative Mythology. By Max Müller, M.A., Taylorian Professor, Oxford. (Oxford Essays, contributed by Members of the University, 1856.)

No one who mixes in general society and talks freely with all men, can be ignorant of the fact, that disquietude and uncertainty largely and powerfully affect the religious mind of the present day. But our age, though weak in faith, is not deficient at least in those classes where its moral force residesin deep and fervid earnestness. That on many points it is sceptical, is unhappily true; but we can hardly pronounce it an irreligious age. The destructive revolutions of the last seventy years have not swept over Europe without leaving a profound impression on the minds of serious and thoughtful men. Providence is teaching its highest lessons through the sorrowful experiences of History. Whatever may be men's doubts and difficulties with respect to the traditional faiths, they have learned that Religion is a reality which must not be

lightly dealt with; that mere science, mere intellectual culture, and all the resources of material wealth, however indispensable as the conditions of social progress, do not satisfy the deepest wants, and cannot insure the permanent tranquillity and blessedness, of the human spirit. France, emerging from a century of moral dissolution and unbelieving levity, is confessedly addressing its best intellect at this time to religious questions. If Germany, the cradle of religious freedom and the centre of theological light, present for the moment a less favourable aspect, it is because the political and spiritual despotism under which she is languishing, perverts and vitiates the natural and genuine results of deep learning and fearless inquiry; because the wild and eccentric-sometimes, it must be admitted, the pernicious and destructive-views that have been thrown off by an overworked intelligence, limited to a single sphere of thought, and forced into morbid activity by excessive competition in the field of pure speculation-have had no opportunity of testing their practical worth and validity under the free ventilation of an honest public opinion, or by coming into contact with the confessions and experiences of ordinary humanity in the daily business of life. Taking Europe as a whole, however, and our own country in particular, we cannot deny, that society has greatly improved in moral depth and earnestness of purpose within the last century. D'Holbach and Diderot find no counterpart in Comte, notwithstanding the atheism of his Philosophie Positive; and Thomas Carlyle, with all his scorn of existing faiths and worships, is at every point of his character the complete antithesis of Voltaire. All this is perfectly compatible with the fact, that many of the researches and studies which particularly distinguish our age, are not favourable in their immediate influence to a settled and definite belief. Geology and physiology are gradually uprooting many long-established convictions. That brilliant résumé of the actual results of modern science, Dr. Whewell's Plurality of Worlds, though put forth with the ostensible design of upholding the popular faith, left no stronger impression on the mind of the reader than the vastness of our ignorance. Scripture itself, on whose assumed infallibility the faith of earlier generations of Protestants securely reposed, and which shone in their eyes as a pure unbroken thread of heavenly light through the dark thick mass of human ignorance and doubt, has not escaped the application of those new canons of historical criticism-inevitably modifying the conception of its whole character and the principle of its treatment which the learning and genius of a series of distinguished men, from Herder and Heyne to Niebuhr and Otfried Müller,

man.

have successively elaborated, and placed beyond the reach of reasonable cavil and objection, and deposited among the permanent instruments of future research. Ethnology, Comparative Grammar, and, closely allied to them both, the various theories of Mythology, that earliest phase and necessary transition-process of human reflection on the invisible realities of this marvellous Cosmos,-are continually throwing fresh light on the elementary workings of human nature, individually and socially, and developing principles of uniform application which must lead to a new and juster interpretation of the history of The old critical field of vision has been unavoidably enlarged; and it is not in the power of man to contract it again. The Bible can no longer be regarded as one book. It is emphatically a literature, and only as such can be rightly understood and thoroughly enjoyed; a record in myth and legend and song, in chronicle and law, in prophetic utterance and moral teaching, of the highest thought and action of a remarkable people, from the infancy of their national existence, in the dim twilight of antiquity, till its final consummation in the appearance of that wonderful life whose spirit for nearly two thousand years has been silently transforming the moral condition of the civilised world; a literature which, in spite of its diversified and multifarious contents, is still essentially one in the self-consistency of the profound religious consciousness which pervades every part of it. Regarded from this point of view, every book of which it consists must be treated as a whole by itself, in reference to its age and its author, the sources from which its materials are derived, and the influences of contemporaneous thought under which it grew up into its actual form. Such inquiries, inseparable from the modern criticism, cannot but materially influence the interpretation of a book, and the relation of its results to their apprehension and acceptance by the mind of a later day. The effects of this new direction of thought in all investigations respecting the past. are perceptible in very different regions of society. Oxford exhibits them, not only in the admirable volume of Essays published last year by members of the University, but still more prominently, and with all the recommendation of high official position, in Mr. Jowett's learned and philosophical work on the Epistles of St. Paul. That the same influence has reached the more popular quarter of the Independents, is evident from the proceedings recently instituted against Dr. Davidson.

All, however, is not pure gain in this freer movement of theological thought. The need of a Scripture is not superseded by the prevalence of uncertainty as to the nature and extent of its authority: for authority is, and must be, a large element

in the government of this world, especially in matters relating to the invisible and spiritual. There are times when all men like to feel that there is something higher and stronger than themselves on which they can lean. Faith lies beyond the reach of mere intellect. In many respects, present appearances cause pain and uneasiness to the religious mind. It cannot, we fear, be questioned, that the scientific spirit of the age is largely imbued with pantheistic tendencies. Numbers of thoughtful men are accustomed to look on this world as a simple fact which terminates in itself, of whose origin they know nothing, of whose issue they know nothing. Behind and beyond the narrow span of mortal life all is to them a blank. Churches and sects, whose proper function it is to uphold an opposite frame of mind, notwithstanding the semblance of an outward unity, are notoriously divided and weakened in their inner life; and Scripture, which was once believed to underlie them all as an immutable basis, appears itself, on a superficial glance at the present state of theological learning, to participate in the general dissolution. Let us look fearlessly at this anxious question of our time, and see if we can approximate to its solution.

There are some trusts and convictions, the certainty of which is not demonstrable by the ordinary processes of reasoning, though they involve the deepest verities of our being, and are essential to human peace and guidance ;-such are those of a living God, an absolute moral law, involving the consciousness of the absolute evil of sin, a progressive world-plan, an eternal life, in which death intervenes only as the crisis of transition from a lower to a higher stage of existence. These are the fundamental truths of religion, embraced within the province of faith; ever dimly latent in the human soul; capable of being overborne almost to apparent annihilation by an undue predominance of the sensuous and ratiocinative faculties; but ever reappearing in new forms, and with undiminished freshness, as a witness from age to age, and from land to land, of the indestructible religiousness of mankind. In the majority of men, immersed in sense and engaged with material objects, these latent perceptions of spiritual truth require to be awakened, invigorated, and called out into distinct expression by some outward utterance, which, though it comes with the authority of a higher mind and a holier life, still finds its witness and authentication in the spontaneous response of the moral nature to which it appeals. To excite and cherish such trusts and convictions is the special office of what we call a Scripture. In Scriptures, or sacred books, the prophetic minds of a people deposit the strongest and deepest of their religious