type of goodness which exercises the most powerful effect on most of those who are capable of being much influenced by sympathy. It is not quite easy to forgive him for missing this evident truth, in his anxiety to give proof that would satisfy a court of justice of the fact of miracles having been performed; but this ought not to blind people, as it often does, to the real force of his argument, which we think is greater than it is usually supposed to be, notwithstanding this defect.

His observations on the small importance which the early Christians appeared to attach to the whole question of miracles are closely connected with this moral obtuseness. It never seems to occur to him that there was, or indeed could be, much difference between Englishmen in the end of the eighteenth, and Jews in the middle of the first century. His argument all along is continually built upon the assumption that the twelve Apostles were a sort of special jury, as much accustomed to the rules of evidence, and as fully determined never to believe any fact whatever without judicial proof of it, as Lord Thurlow or Lord Ellenborough. The reason why they did not make more of the argument of miracles, he says, was because the prevalent belief in magic disinclined the Pagan world to pay attention to it. Hence they insisted upon other topics better suited to their taste. How far they themselves shared in the views of the Pagan world, and especially how far they were superior to their neighbours, in the

critical investigation or appreciation of facts, is a question of first-rate importance, but it is one which Paley either avoided designedly, or which he did not appreciate in its full strength and importance.

These, no doubt, are great defects, and, when joined to the critical imperfections of the book, may account for, and to some degree justify, the decline of its popularity. But they are also defects of which the temper of our own generation is likely to exaggerate the importance, and they ought never to lead us to forget the solidity of the principal part of the argument, the extreme acuteness which every part of it displays in almost too great profusion, and, above all, the exquisite and masterly style in which it is written a style which shows not merely the possession of wonderful literary power, but the consciousness of addressing a critical, well-instructed, and deeply-interested audience, already well acquainted with the main points of the subject. The more the theological and moral discussions of the eighteenth century are studied, the stronger will be the impression received, not merely of their depth and importance, and of the extraordinary ability of the disputants, but also of the keen and profoundly intelligent attention with which a great mass of readers must have followed the debate. The pleadings of advocates give a good measure of the intelligence of juries; and the thoroughness, the calmness, and the plain straightforward emphatic vigour, both of the believing and of the unbelieving writers of that

day, give us a feeling of envy when we turn to them from the diffuse, heated, inconclusive declamation and picturesque Scriptural renovations of our own age. With all its defects, Paley's Evidences is worth a cartload of Ecce Homos.

VI

THE WORKS OF BURKE1

IN the whole range of English literature there is no name which can be put upon precisely the same level with that of Burke. He is the one Englishman who has succeeded in attaining first-rate eminence both in politics and in literature by one and the same set of writings. We have great statesmen and great writers, and of our many literary statesmen, some few persons have combined the two characters, but hardly any one except Burke has given to his Parliamentary speeches and political pamphlets a literary form which has secured to him and to them a prominent place in the permanent literature of the country.

Burke, moreover, is one of those writers with whom almost every one is to a certain extent acquainted. There are passages in the Reflections on the Revolution in France, and in the Letter to a Noble Lord, which are perhaps as well known as almost anything in English prose; but there is also a good deal of terra incognita in his works. He is generally read in snatches, and 1 Works of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke.

12 vols. 1815.

probably comparatively few persons take the trouble to go straight through his works in their chronological order. It is, however, well worth while to do so, as such a process gives a far better notion of the man and of his writings than is to be obtained in any other We propose to give a short sketch of his writings, in the order of their publication, and also to extract from them and to discuss a few of the more important of the doctrines which he preached, in different forms, with so much effect and pertinacity, for nearly forty years.

manner.

The earliest of Burke's works is his parody of Bolingbroke, called the Vindication of Natural Society. The book is written with the double object of parodying Bolingbroke's style, and of suggesting an argument which may be used to answer a good many of his theories: 'The design was' (says Burke) 'to show that, without the exertion of any considerable force, the same engines which were employed for the destruction of religion might be employed with equal success for the subversion of government, and that specious arguments might be used against those things which they who doubt of everything else will never permit to be questioned.'

No one, he thinks, will deny the advantages of civil society, yet something may be said to show that savage life is superior to it. The pamphlet itself is rather long for a parody, as it fills about eighty pages. It is no doubt a vigorous imitation of Bolingbroke's style, but, inasmuch as no one ever wrote more purely