We need sensible and learned men to come forward and show the world what fools these pseudo-scientists are, and thus break the spell, which is as groundless as the Cock-lane Ghost, but which holds so many all-agape at their fantastic tricks.

Mr. Leifchild's book is popular, and yet sound and thoughtful. Its style is terse and clear. He represents the materialists and pantheists (the extremes are one) with fairness, and exposes the core of their absurdities, showing the higher ministry of Nature in declaring the glory of God, vindicating the equal authority of our intuitions and our senses, and the separateness, yet intimate connection, of mind and matter. It is a book that should find its way to every parlor, where the materialistic poison has been scattered, to straighten and strengthen the weak knees, and give color to the pallid cheek, letting the light upon the frightful spectre, and showing it to be but a man of straw. It is high time that this buffoonery in the name of science were played out. Scientific and religious men must join to put out the intruder with a brand upon his back. To hold serious talk with him is only to set him up in his assumption. Mr. Leifchild's book exposes him to the world, pulls off the lion's skin and turns the public fear into laughter. Let the voice of truth be heard through a thousand such books, and the cant of materialism shrink into silence.

HOWARD CROSBY.

PREFACE.

THE

HE work now laid before the reader requires an explanatory preface, although it sufficiently unfolds its purpose and plan upon perusal. It needs some apology for shortcomings in the fulfilment of the great design which the author had proposed to himself; but it may be allowably pleaded that the field of research is too extended, and the whole subject too vast for satisfactory treatment by any one writer in a volume of moderate compass. This book deals moreover, in many portions, with inevitable, and probably insuperable difficulties. It occasionally touches upon the extreme limits of human intelligence, where no thinker can hope for clear solution, in the present state of our knowledge. In such themes no author can accomplish so much as he ardently wishes, nor indeed do more than give,

as he thinks, a right direction to the minds of those who follow his course of meditation. Hence, too, it is certain that the treatment must to the inconsiderate appear fragmentary and incomplete; and, to employ a geological figure, the volume may seem a conglomerate of angular pieces rather than a slowly deposited and regularly formed sedimentary deposit, in which layer lies formally upon layer, and every layer denotes orderly succession and gradual subsidence.

A special difficulty has been felt in adapting the book to general perusal, while it so often treats of matters which are remote from common consideration. Had it been exclusively philosophical in its form and language, it would have repelled the mass of ordinary readers, and thus have missed its mark. As much, therefore, of popular treatment and interest has been imparted to it as lay within the author's powers and the volume's scope; and it is believed that no one of ordinary culture and habitual thoughtfulness will find any obstacle to his comprehension of the whole.

Many of the thoughts here recorded have dwelt in the writer's mind during long and solitary walks, through the valleys and over the

passes of the high Alps of Switzerland and the neighbouring countries. This is mentioned to account for the frequent occurrence of Alpine metaphors and illustrations.

The author is fully aware that his mode of controverting some current hypotheses, and of treating certain systems, will fail to satisfy those of his readers who regard them from other stand-points than his own. This is inevitable, since he often stands upon contested ground. He is in the condition of one who wishes to make peace between ardent combatants-between nations at war with each other. If he cannot find terms and conditions mutually acceptable-if he be charged by the one side with demanding too much, and by the other with yielding too much-if he be assured that the foes are practically irreconcileable, and that war must continue even to the extermination of the one party or the other-then he must retire discomfited for the present, although he fondly cherishes the conviction that ultimately peace will be secured on some such terms as he has proposed.

It is unhappily almost a settled conviction amongst a large portion of the various existing religious communities that modern Science, and

especially Natural and Physical Science, is pursued in a spirit hostile to Biblical belief and Christian faith; and that discoveries in Science. are available rather as weapons against Christian Faith, than as aids to it. Hence, there has arisen an indifference, and even a dread of, and an aversion to scientific studies which no Christian, who has himself gained a true conception of Science, can view without deep regret. Hence, too, that prevailing ignorance of Natural Science amongst even many educated persons, which eminent philosophers have so plainly exposed and so loudly lamented, has been too patiently tolerated.

Those, indeed, of the present generation who are advanced in life, and are likewise engaged in active and absorbing occupations, must be excepted from the charge of voluntary ignorance of Science, simply because during their educational period many important discoveries had not been made, and the books on Science, then commonly accessible, were few, and incomparably inferior to the numerous excellent volumes which now so frequently appear. Manuals, Handbooks, Elementary Treatises, and condensed and convenient Cyclopædias of Physical and Natural Science, and