or propagation of the same principle of vitality (in whatever germ it may be imagined to have been conveyed) or whether a new principle or germ originated independently of any preceding, out of its existing inorganic elements: to which the principle of vitality (in whatever it may consist) was superadded in some way as yet unknown."

Quoting from Professor Owen the same author, farther on, writes* :

"To what natural laws, and secondary causes, the order by succession and progression of such organic phenomena may have been committed we as yet are ignorant. But if without derogation of the Divine power we may conceive the existence of such ministers and personify them by the term nature, we learn from the past history of our globe that she has advanced with slow and stately steps, guided by the archetypal sight, amidst the wreck of worlds, from the first embodiment of the vertebrate idea, under its old Ichthyic vestiment, until it became arrayed in the glorious garb of the human form."+

"To this noble passage I cannot forbear adding the single comment that, according to my view, not only without derogation of the Divine power, may we entertain the ideas so beautifully expressed : but if there be any truth in what has been before advanced, so far from anything derogatory, such a view constitutes the very proof and manifestation of that power and is just what enables us legitimately to trace its operations-as alone we can worthily trace them-in the indications of law and unity, order and system: while without such evidence of Universal Mind and Supreme Reason, arbitrary intervention might be only irresistible fate, and sudden revolutionary change and convulsions, only atheistical anarchy.”

One more quotation and we have done: the same writer in another work, alluding to this subject says:

"But the successive introduction of new species of organic life, in the epochs of past terrestrial changes, are imagined by some to be instances of direct intervention. In the first place such commencement of new forms of existence were events not arbitrary, nor disconnected, but regularly recurring in successive epochs, always connected with other physical changes going on in these epochs, however little the laws connecting and regulating them are as yet known. But this mere fact of the frequent regular recurrence of such changes proves distinctly that they were not casual suspensions or interruptions of the order of nature, but essential parts of it. As indeed is rendered more undeniably evident by the circumstance that they were in every instance not isolated acts but the commencement and establishment of a series of simply natural results—and succession and continuance of the species so generated, by ordinary natural

causes.

"On all sound inductive principles these events must be held to have taken place in strict accordance with natural laws, and with the regular order of physical causes, however little we may at present be able to trace precisely what the laws of their production actually were; and even without alluding to any theory of development, we must look to some GREAT UNKNOWN LAW OF LIFE at which the permanence of species under certain conditions, is only a subordinate part, and particular case."

* Unity of Worlds, 2nd Ed., p. 477.

+ Owen on Limbs, Cit., p. 86.

The Order of Nature, p. 252.

This "great unknown law of life," Mr. Darwin has, we think, discovered, and on so truly great an achievement we heartily congratulate him, rejoicing at the same time that men of science among us have shared in its elaboration, and that from the East its first light dawned upon Europe.

We have been led into the discussion of the application of our author's theory to prevailing religious doctrines only by his critics. No thing in the work itself would have invited such a discussion. By broaching such topics we have opened the floodgates, and know not how far we may be carried. An excellent comment is suggested by our difficulties on the pre-eminent prudence of Mr. Darwin's reticence. Certainly the wise and the honest way to proceed in all such matters is to confine physical research, and inductive science strictly within their own domains; if properly conducted they must lead to truth, they ever have and always will do so. Why then this nervous anxiety about the bearing of Holy Scripture on these things? Can truth be inconsistent with itself? Shall we the sooner reap the fruits of our laboriously sown seed, if we pull up the little plants to measure their tender roots by some typical scale of perfection? Such considerations no doubt have suggested the course followed by Mr. Darwin and by far the larger number of the most distinguished men of science of our time; indeed they go further, as a rule, and seldom trouble themselves to reply to attacks made on them from under the shield of religion, too often borrowed for such an occasion by persons not otherwise familiar with its use. Unwarned by the example thus set us we have thought it right to descend into the arena and defend (as we think) the right, but to have done this completely it seems to us that there is still one question to touch upon, one doubt whereon to throw what light we can.

It will unquestionably have suggested itself to the reader that Mr. Darwin's theory cannot be supposed to stop short where he has left it. If, as he says, analogy would lead him to reduce the origin of all organic existence from eight or ten, to a single, point, what about the other end of the scale? What of Man? It will be recollected that Lamarck was reviled as a misanthrope because he, unlike Mr. Darwin, did entertain definite opinions, and did expressly teach that man too was but a link in the long chain of progressively developed life.

We are left to draw our own conclusions as to what Mr. Darwin would say on this question, and, judging as best we may, we venture to suggest that he might, in accordance with the spirit of philosophic induction which seems to us to have been by him so rigidly followed, have pointed out that, consi

dered only as an animal, man's superiority to the brutes would not imply any necessity for reserving him from the category. Perhaps from man to the highest ape may not be a gap wider than may elsewhere in the sequence be naturally accounted for. The animal man has much in common with other animals, and in so far as we thus examine him we see nothing to leave a broad line of demarcation open. Man's physical development, even his intellectual nature, may be but questions of degree, and may be treated as legitimate subjects of inductive enquiry; but here we come to a great gulf; the very reasons which render it illogical to stop short of the point we have reached, peremptorily forbid a single step farther, and for this simple reason, that man's moral and spiritual nature takes us to subjects radically and of their very essence different. A very elemental condition of physical knowledge is requisite to avoid the attempt to measure heat with a cup, or a liquid with a footrule; childish as the illustration may seem, we conceive that the absurdity implied is surpassed by those who apply the machinery of inductive science to the discussion of the problems suggested by man's moral and spiritual nature. He is made in the image of God: not his animal structure and functions, they are of the earth; but his spiritual being belongs to a totally different order of things, apart from, and belonging to new and distinct regions, transcending all material ideas. To clearly lay down the limits of the legitimate field of inductive enquiry, and rigidly to adhere to those limits, is an example of the wisdom which renders to Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, well assured that by doing so we take the first step towards rendering to God the things which are God's. It carries its reward with it-obedience to our Creator's laws always does-in the satisfaction ever renewed, with which each fresh proof of HIS greatness is hailed, unalloyed by the miserable scepticism which, fettering Scripture with the ignorant interpretations imposed upon it by the insolent assumption of self-infallibility, has ever raised the cry of antagonism between the Word of God and the Book of Nature. These, as Archdeacon Pratt so eloquently teaches us,* "emanate from the same infallible author, and therefore cannot be at variance. But man is a fallible interpreter, and by mistaking one or both of these Divine Records, he forces them 'too often into unnatural conflict." Let us thus combining "reason with a humble mind and a patient spirit" seek truth and truth alone: moral and spiritual truth where alone it can be found, in the infallible guide given us by inspiration for that purpose, and physical truth in its own appropriate records.

* Scripture and Science Not at Variance. J. H. Pratt. 3rd edition, 1859.

ART. IV.-1. The Life of the Right Rev. DANIEL WILSON, D. D., late Lord Bishop of Calcutta and Metropolitan of India, with Extracts from his Journal and Correspondence. By the Rev. JOSIAH BATEMAN, M. A. (In two vols.) Murray: London. 1860.

2.

Sermons and Tracts, by DANIEL WILSON, M. A. (In two vols.) London: 1825.

3. Sermons, by DANIEL WILSON. 5th Edition, 1832.

4. Letters from an Absent Brother: by DANIEL WILSON, M. A. 3rd Edition, 1825. (In two vols.)

5. The Evidences of Christianity: by DANIEL WILSON. 4th Edition, 1841. (In two vols.)

6. Two Charges, delivered at the Primary Visitation, by D. WILSON, D. D., Bishop of Calcutta. (Madras.)

7. Charges delivered at the Second, Third, &c. Visitations: and also various. occasional Sermons. (Bishop's College Press.)

Sermons delivered in India 1834-6; by DANIEL WILSON, D. D. (Third Edition, 1840, Bishop's College Press.) 9. Sermons on the Lord's Day. (London: 1830.)

10. Lectures on the Epistle to the Colossians. 1844.

MR. BATEMAN had an extremely arduous office to discharge when he became his father-in-law's biographer. We are glad to say that he has done his work with great care and diligence, with a fair amount of abstinence from irritating topics, and with no attempts to set him up as the idol of a party. His moderation has been already rewarded. Almost every section of the Church at home has received his volumes in a friendly spirit. High-Church Journals like the Guardian and English Churchman have spoken in terms of frank admiration of the doings of one who for half-a-century had been the recognised champion and choregus of evangelicalism. This is all as it should be. Truth has been spoken, and yet charity not violated.

We are far, however, from thinking this Life perfect as a Biography. On the contrary we view it simply as a collection of "Memoires pour servir." This may not be felt by the few attached friends, who, like good Bishop M'Ilvaine,* read it “in

"I am reading day by day the most profitable Life of Bishop Wilson. I take it in daily portions, because it is too good and searching and weighty to be read in the ordinary way-and would be passed through too soon.' (Extract of a letter in the London Record.)

SEPTEMBER, 1860,

L

daily portions": but most readers will feel that the story of Daniel Wilson's life would have been more effectively told in half the number of pages. We do not think the worse-but all the better-of a man, because he is unable to write any other than a provisional memoir of a near relative. He is almost certain to print (partly from a mistaken notion of 'candour,') what had better for ever remain "intra penetralia ;" and yet his representation as a whole will err on the side of extravagant admiration. We predict that when the life of Bishop Wilson appears, it will not exceed one-third of the bulk of the present one; and that the rescissions will be in something like the following proportions,-three-fifths of the first volume and three-fourths of the second.

Meanwhile we propose in the present article to lay before our readers a sketch of the most salient points of the Biography, interspersed with references to the Bishop's own writings and with such occasional remarks as may help our readers to form a truthful picture of the man. We shall write nothing (need we say?) inconsistent with the most unfeigned respect and affection for the memory of one, who, from the bright example he has left behind him of piety and beneficence and diligence and self-sacrifice, is, and will remain, one of the greatest benefactors of the Indian Church.

Before beginning our narrative, however, we think it well to dispose at once of a point which might otherwise hamper our course. It is this. Whilst always kind-hearted, and generally courteous, he often raised a prejudice against himself by a peculiar mannerism, which amounted almost to "eccentricity:" and along with this there was sometimes a directness of personal remark, which, but for the earnestness of the man and the dignity of the Bishop, (for he rarely failed to maintain that,) would have been thought rudeness.

Now, if we are not much mistaken, this defect was very much attributable to his early intercourse with Mr. Newton, Mr. Cecil, Mr. Rowland Hill, and others; who had a remarkable talent for giving utterance to pointed and graphic illustrations of truth, couched in rough, homely, language. Such a talent is a dangerous one, if not guarded by tact and delicacy. It is strongly allied to what, in its ordinary exhibitions, is called humour; which is, in fact, in many cases, only a method of escape that certain keen and powerful minds resort to, when brought in contact with folly and weakness;-the way they take of bridging over the chasm which they see yawning between their will and their circumstances, their principles and their position, their views of ideal excellence and their actual experi