in respect of order, of a foot-ball match, as played at the wall at Eton, but it is destitute of the vigour and force of that onset. As for symmetry, we should sooner look to find it in a potato. If the author's object, in the arrangement of the initial index to matter and form, which one expects in a table of contents, was to hinder one from seeing through his drift without reading his work, he has undoubtedly attained it. If it was to deter one from such perusal, he has certainly done it efficiently. But if it was to clear one's notions of his purpose, and suggest to the gentle reader the expediency of following the wake of his method, then this page is waste-paper.

6

Chapter I. Astronomical Discoveries.'-Very good: what next? Chapter II.' The Conclusions they suggest? Oh no, 'Astronomical Objection to Religion.'-Why, this must be a treatise on the various fruits and tendencies of Astronomy. Chapter III.' may probably be Astronomy in its Relations to Chemistry,-or, Astronomy versus Common Sense. But no, it is, The Answer from the Microscope.' Chapter IV. Further Statement of the Difficulty.' What difficulty? Well, perhaps the objection took the form of a difficulty; and in that case we shall look in Chapter V. for Further Answer from the Kaleidoscope. But no such symmetry prevails. We are now conducted into Geology,' and The Argument [pray, or what?] from Geology;' and next, by a leap, like that with which mathematicians are familiar, from + ∞ to ∞, we find ourselves in The Nebula 'whence we are brought down again, by gradual steps, to The Solar System,' and 'The Argument from Design,' The Unity of the World,' and The Future;' titles vague enough to be prefixed to chapters in almost any conceivable writing on almost any conceivable subject.

6

The work opens with some comments on the sublime passage which we have already quoted from the eighth Psalm, in which natural religion assumes its best and wisest form, and descants on the comparative insignificance of the creature who enjoys God's grace and favour, rather than on his dignity and worth. There is nothing very remarkable in our author's disquisition on this magnificent aspiration; except that, as is usual in paraphrase, commentary, and the like, the grandeur of the sentiment is frittered away, and well-nigh evaporated, in the dissertation; and that there is a most unwarrantable assumption in the observation: We may be certain that the Psalmist regarded 'the stars as things [things!] having a reference to the earth, and yet not resembling the earth; as works of God's fingers, very different from the earth with its tribes of inhabitants; as luminaries, not worlds.' We beg to demur to this comment on King David's meaning. We beg to assert, at least, an equal

'certainty,' that he understood nothing of the kind. We are far from asserting that inspired authors had necessarily any peculiar insight into the laws of nature; but, at the same time, it is most true that, even under the influence of poetry or enthusiasm, men rise above themselves, and enunciate daring conceptions, which nothing appears at the time to warrant to ordinary minds, but which the progress of science fully justifies. Why less should be attributed to the effusions of men moved by the Holy Ghost, it would be hard for our author to show.

However, this may pass. The author of the essay leaves his criticisms on the astral theology of the royal Hebrew, and proceeds to raise, or, as he would say, to state, a difficulty propounded in the form of an objection to religion. We should imagine that there are very few people now-a-days who would base an objection to revealed truth on the assumption, that other worlds besides our own are inhabited. Such an objector it has never been' our misfortune to meet, either in person or in print. However, it seems that Dr. Chalmers considered such a fault-finder as representing a class not unworthy of refutation.

'He supposes an objector to take his stand upon the multiplicity of worlds, assumed or granted as true; and to argue that, since there are so many worlds beside this, all alike claiming the care, the government, the goodness, the interposition, of the Creator, it is in the highest degree extravagant and absurd, to suppose that he has done, for this world, that which religion, both natural and revealed, represents Him as having done, and as doing.

崇 * If religion requires us to assume, that one particular corner of the universe has been thus singled out, and made an exception to the general rules by which all other parts of the universe are governed; she makes, it may be said, a demand upon our credulity, which cannot fail to be rejected by those who are in the habit of contemplating and admiring those general laws. Can the earth be thus the centre of the moral and religious universe, when it has been shown to have no claim to be the centre of the physical universe? Is it not as absurd to maintain this, as it would be to hold, at the present day, the old Ptolemaic hypothesis, which places the earth in the centre of the heavenly motions, instead of the newer Copernican doctrine, which teaches that the earth revolves around the sun? Is not religion disproved, by the necessity under which she lies of making such an assumption as this?'

Now the obvious answer to the fancied objector-this man of straw whom Dr. Chalmers erected to knock down, and whom the essayist sets on his legs again, in order that he may have

1 We believe that there have been such; Tom Paine and, it is said, Horace Walpole raised the difficulty. And there may be some few pious and humble minds by whom it is really felt as one. That it should be a formidable one to any can only arise from a confusion of thought, and a forgetfulness that no guess, however probable it might appear to reason, can be a legitimate stumbling-block to Faith. Nothing but mental infirmity will find scruples in a probability, in which, if a revealed certainty, the mind would humbly acquiesce.

a bout with him-lies in a brief compass. In the first place, the assumption is not that of religion, but entirely that of the objector. If the multiplicity of worlds leads him into difficulties, let him remember that that doctrine, however probable, is only an assumption when used as the basis for an argument. In the next place, we may freely admit that such a further assumption,' as is here imputed to religion, would be absurd, and is not one which religion requires us to assume.' It might be added, by way of retort, that there are religious considerations, as we have before suggested, which seem rather to discountenance than to support the notion, that the earth is the centre of the moral and religious universe.'

But, instead of proceeding in any such fashion, the author of the essay deals with the objectors very much as ill-natured people say we have been dealing with our Russian foes. One would think this imaginary sceptic was a friend of forty years' standing!' Perhaps, however, we shall make our reasonings and speculations apply to a wider class of readers, if we consider the view now spoken of, not as an objection, urged by an opponent of religion, but rather,' as a difficulty, felt by a friend of religion.' And then, like a fighter who has shaken hands with his antagonist on entering the lists, he proceeds to contest the difficulty. But how? In the following chapter, by alleging an argument which, so far forth as it is an argument, can only strengthen it; and in the rest of an elaborate, learned, but ill-arranged essay, by advancing various considerations and many arbitrary speculations, with the single purpose of cutting away from the objector the ground on which he built his objection; the position, assumed or granted as true,' of the existence of a multiplicity of worlds.

In all this there is a marvellous confusion of purpose and design-not to say a generally deficient apprehension of the subject-matter. Or the plurality of worlds, this essay does indeed dispute, albeit in a roundabout manner. But the introduction of Chalmers, and the imaginary sceptic, and the 'friend to religion,' is ovdèv πpòs Atóvvo ov. It is worse, for it is not simply otiose; it embarrasses and perplexes the argument. We have to complain, then, not merely of a careless arrangement and inelegant style, but, (1.) That the objection proposed is non-existent or unimportant. (2.) That the objection is not summarily disposed of, as it obviously might be, by the plea that it is based on an assumption- the multiplicity of worlds, assumed or granted as true." (3.) Nor yet is it met by showing that such assumption is perfectly consistent with religious

1 The punctuation, we take leave to observe, is not our own.

truth. (4.) But it is transmogrified from an inimical objection into a friendly difficulty.' (5.) And it is met by adducing microscopical researches, which do but enhance it. (6.) And it is made the ground for a dissertation on a perfectly distinct, though deeply interesting question, whether the assumption be probably correct.

Truly a most clumsy and confused way of entering upon what is really the subject-matter of the book! As clumsy as the following sentences, and as confused as the ideas which induced their writer to embody identical propositions in so elaborate and unwieldy a form. Of course,' says our author, at the close of his chapter on the objection, 'Of course it is • natural that the views which are used by unbelievers as argu'ments against religious belief, should create difficulties and troubles in the minds of believers; at least, till the argument 'is rebutted. And, of course, also, the answers to the arguments, considered as infidel arguments, would operate to remove the difficulties which believers entertain on such grounds.'Of course!1

We have asserted that the answer which the microscope is supposed to furnish to the difficulty, is no answer at all. This point deserves some elucidation.

Among the thoughts, which, it was stated, might naturally arise in men's minds, when the telescope revealed to them an innumerable multitude of worlds, was this: That the Governor of the Universe, who has so many worlds under His management, cannot be conceived as bestowing upon this earth, and its various tribes of inhabitants, that care which, till then, natural religion had taught men that He does employ, to secure to man the possession and use of his faculties of mind and body; and to all animals, the requisites of animal existence and animal enjoyment. And upon this, Chalmers remarks, that just about the time when science gave rise to the suggestion of this difficulty, she also gave occasion to a remarkable reply to it. * * * * * The telescope brought into view worlds as numerous as the drops of water which make up the ocean; the microscope brought into view a world in almost every drop of water. Infinity in one direction was balanced by infinity in the other.'

It would surely be a very poor way of explaining to a learner his difficulty in conceiving how the branch of a parabola above the axis can be constantly bending towards it, yet ever receding from it, and that to an indefinite distance, if you told him that

1 Before leaving this chapter it deserves notice that the learned author appears to have made an error in stating the relative positions of the two exterior orbits of our system. Beyond Saturn, and almost twice as far from the Sun, Herschel discovers Uranus, another great planet; and again beyond Uranus, and again at nearly twice his distance, &c.' Now Bode's celebrated law asserted the intervals between each successive pair of orbits to be about double of the preceding interval. And this law is remarkably violated in the case of Neptune, as indeed our author has himself observed elsewhere.

.

the same thing occurs in the branch below the axis, and that infinity in one direction is balanced by infinity in the other.' The obvious deduction from the revelations of the microscope is this; that there is no such mean limit as man has been accustomed to place to his Creator's power and providence ; that what is ever more and more discovered in miniature may very probably have its counterpart in giant forms; that the discovery of new worlds close to us, renders nugatory any à priori objections against the existence of new worlds at vast distances from us; and that among the foolish thoughts which might naturally arise in men's minds,' the above-stated was one of the most foolish. Such would be the conclusion deduced by a man free from the alleged difficulty. But to a man who sincerely felt it, the discovery of microscopic worlds could only enhance and multiply it; in proportion as fresh worlds' were brought under the management of the Governor of the Universe to interfere with that care which, till then, natural religion, &c.' Yet our author concludes, The discovery of new worlds at vast distances from us, was accompanied by the discovery of new worlds close to us; and was thus rendered 'ineffective to disturb the belief of those who had regarded the ' world as having God for its Governor. This is a striking ' reflexion.'

6

Chiefly so from its extremely illogical conclusion. Wherefore we cannot but wish, for the credit of our writer, and the comfort and clearness of thought of his readers, that he had proceeded to his real subject without all this verbose introduction on astronomical discoveries, astronomical objections, and microscopical answers; more especially as the difficulty he raises has, after all, no great force. For, as he himself concludes, in a sentence whereof the readers will (in obedience to the old rule) count one at each comma: It is not likely that any one, who ⚫ had formed his conceptions of the Divine Mind from its manifestations in the production and sustentation of animal, as well as vegetable life, on this earth, would have his belief in the operation of such a mind, shaken, by any necessity which might be impressed, upon him, of granting the existence of animal life on other planets, as well as on the earth, or even on innumerable such planets, and on innumerable systems of planets and worlds, system above system.'

Yes, here we are at last; brought, no doubt, to the right result, though by a most crooked path, and at last by floundering through a perfect shingle of commas! What is our consternation on turning the page to meet with a further statement of the difficulty!' We shall not weary our readers with any lengthy disquisition of this extraordinary chapter.