mote questions of life, and thought, and being,-in a word, the ultimate principles of origin, and order, and design, and consummation. At last, as at the first, these questions meet us: What are the laws of thought? What are the principles of faith? Where can Science find a restingplace? Where can religion find repose? Toward this goal we are to direct impartial inquiry. INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. DR. R. WELCH is a very calm writer; he is also remarkably clear. Both of these qualities of style are characteristic of strength. Without pretentiousness, or anything like polemical display, they indicate the confidence of strong conviction and of thorough insight. The questions presented are fairly as well as ably treated. The reader will find here no underrating the strength, or the positions, of those with whom the author is contending. There is no declamation about the extinction of the purest hopes, and of the most elevated motives of human conduct, that must be the result of the universal prevalence of a soulless materialism. The authors and defenders of such a hopeless view of the human origin and destiny are supposed to know all that. There is a keen sarcasm in some parts of this book, but no trifling witticism, as though the opinions of Spencer and Tyndall could be refuted by a jest or a ludicrous illustration. There is no |