called, can be very conveniently put into this form. In the formation of planets around the sun, according to the nebular hypothesis, the chances were small against an order which should tend to preserve the stability of the system; and the present harmony of distances must be referred, directly or indirectly, to presiding thought. In the formation of the solar system, the chances were small that this particular planet should have its elements mingled in precisely that proportion which has resulted in so full a development of life and of human activity; and the arguments of Prof. Cooke's "Religion and Chemistry" derive from this consideration a demonstrative force.

In the course of this successive development of vegetable and animal life upon the earth, there has been, with frequent mutation, a general permanence. Scientific speculation at the present time busies itself with the question whether the permanence has been real, and the changes sudden; or whether the stability is seeming, and the mutations have always been going on with stealthy step. Whichever of these theories proves to be true, that of Plato, or that of Democritus, there is a seeming stability in the present species, which have lasted without sensible change, except the extinction of some kinds, for thousands of years. According to the theory of Democritus, as revived in our days, this arises from the fact that the species at present existing are the fittest for the existing epoch, and thus survive. According to the rival theory this fitness arose from no blind struggle for life, but in accordance with a Divine plan, fulfilled by divine power. In ordinary cases the judgment may possibly remain suspended, whether to suppose the Divine Will acted in reference to the perpetuation of a species by some general law, covering many species, or by special adaptations to one. These cases may therefore be dismissed from the argument. If we grant that a blind evolution by natural variation and survival of the fittest will explain them, it must also be conceded that an intelligent adaptation of the organism to its medium will also explain them. But there are other cases, in which the imagination runs riot in vain for any "sufficient reason" outside of the will and purpose of the Creator, fulfilling an original plan. These cases are like "experimenta crucis," the theory that fails to hint at a possible explanation fails to explain the universe.

Such, it appears to me, are the cases in which the fecundity of a creature is in inverse proportion to its chances of life. I would by no means say that these are the only points in the animal and vegetable economy which the evolution theories appear to me to be utterly incapable of explaining; but they are the cases which fall under the head of average and chances, and demonstrate that the Eternal Thought which planned this present world comprehended all and more than all which is included in our modern calculus of probabilities.

If the ovaries of the Dodo contained one thousand ova, and if, on an average, less than one of these grew into an adult female Dodo, with equal chances of propagating her kind, it is evident that the Dodo must become extinct. If, on the other hand, two of these ova were impregnated, and came to maturity, it would take but a few generations of the bird to cover the earth, and exclude all other beings. This is prevented, it may be said, by the struggle for life. But the fecundity of each species must be exactly proportioned to the chances of failure in that struggle.

The horse-hair eel is said to lay several millions of eggs; let us say five million. Why this enormous fecundity? Because the chances of the eggs coming to maturity, as eels, is so small. In order to keep the species in existence, two in five millions (if the sexes are of equal numbers) must succeed in escaping all the dangers which beset the eggs and the young in the brook, and then succeed in finding, near the brook, crickets or grasshoppers into which they may penetrate. These grasshoppers must escape their enemies, and survive the depredations of the hair eels, until the latter reach maturity, when they must escape near enough to a brook to find their way there, and meet hair eels of the opposite sex. The chances are two in five millions, let us say, and the creature lays five millions of eggs. Did she average but four millions, the race would in a few years become extinct; did she average six, the creatures would multiply in a few years beyond all bounds. The permanence of the species for so many years demonstrates the accuracy with which its fecundity is proportioned to the slimness of its chance in the falsely-called struggle for life.

THOMAS HILL.

TWO DAYS IN TRANSYLVANIA.

It was my good fortune to be able, in the months of August and September of last year, to make a journey of about six weeks through Transylvania. During nearly the whole time I was traveling in company with Mr. John Kovács, professor of history in the Unitarian college at Klausenburg, a circumstance which added very much to the profit and pleasure of the journey. I was for the greater part of the time among the Unitarians. It is to give a faint picture of their condition, and still more to show their interest in us American Unitarians, as manifested by the kindness with which they received one of our number, that I would give a simple narrative of two days (September 6th and 7th) which I spent among them.

One Friday evening we had left the little city of Maros Vásárhely, by train at half-past ten, having taken our tickets for Gyeres, which is the nearest station to the town of Thorda, where we wished to visit one of the three Unitarian academies. But this latter part of our plan was destined not to be realized till a week later. At about a quarter before one in the morning we stopped to change cars at the station of Kocsárd, with no thought of seeing any one interested in us. But we found there waiting for us a Mr. Fodor, the Unitarian schoolmaster of the village of Bágyon, who told us that the Unitarians of that place, hearing that we were to go over the road about this time, being sure of the train (as there was but one), though not of the day, had sent him here, nearly twenty miles, with four horses, a vehicle and driver, to invite us to go back with him to Bágyon. After they had done all this for us there seemed, of course, but one thing to say, and at about two o'clock we started on our long drive. We were both of us tired enough, but sleep in that open, springless vehicle was out of the question. At first it was a beautiful clear moonlight night and pretty cool. Then it got darker, and then the moon, which under any circumstances ought to have set soon, hastened her work by getting behind a heavy cloud. There had been for some time beautiful, almost incessant distant lightning. This now be

came nearer, and was no longer without thunder. There seemed to be preparations for a violent storm, but it was not so severe as we had expected, and our umbrellas kept us tolerably dry. After the rain ceased, it was still very dark as we went up a long hill. Then followed what must always remain in my mind as a vivid picture of the expression "break of day." Just as we reached the top of this hill the clouds broke away in an instant; the light broke out in the east; and, from a darkness which hardly allowed us to see the horses, the whole valley in which Bágyon lay broke out into full view before us. It was now a down hill road, and we reached the house of Mr. Fodor at a little after five, having made so good time that when some people from the village went out to meet us we were already there and asleep. It had not been so lonely a drive as its time might seem to imply; for the people travel a great deal by night to avoid the heat and dust, and during the last hour we met them already going out to the fields to work.

After we had got a little sleep, we went to the house of the minister, Mr. Csegezy; and we here found about fifteen gentlemen, who had come together to receive us, and with whom we now spent an hour and a half at breakfast. Breakfast was generally a very simple meal of coffee and toast, but sometimes, as on that day, it was made more like an elaborate dinner, and accompanied by the drinking of healths, and speeches. From breakfast we went to see the church and the school-house. Throughout the country there seemed to be much more enterprise in improving the school-houses than the churches; and certainly with reason, for the school-houses were usually but very poorly adapted to their purposes. Bágyon had a new and good school-house; but in spite of a nominally compulsory education, of the one hundred and forty children which should attend it, it had really but about sixty; and these were not all Unitarians. Although the attendance seemed generally to fall short of what it should be, still in this village it was much worse than usual. The church was a little larger than common, being about seventy feet by twenty-five, and it would seat about five hundred; for the seats are very close together. In the first half of the last century, when the Unitarians lost so many of their churches, and when the planting of

a cross upon a Unitarian church by the Catholics was enough to give them possession of it, a body of Catholics from a neighboring village came to take this church, while most of the men were at work in the fields; but the women, who were at home, came out and successfully defended the church with hot water. A similar account had been told me of the church at Szent Gerlitze, which I had visited the day before. And this was not the only warlike part the Bágyon church had played. There was a wooden belfry in the church-yard, for the church tower was no longer strong enough to bear the weight, with places for three bells. There were, however, but two there, for the third had been given to be cast into cannon in the revolution of 1848.

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From Bágyon we were driven on, a mile or two, to the village of Kövend. Here the Unitarian minister, Mr. Gál, met me, as Mr. Csegezi had also done, with a formal address of welcome. And here let me say a word of the way in which a Hungarian receives a person into his house. It happened to me many times that day, as well as through my whole journey in Transylvania. He generally meets him outside the house, and gives him what we should call a very hearty welcome. But as soon as they cross the threshold of the house he grasps his hand again, and welcomes him with an address which may last five minutes. In the same way on leaving he bids him a hearty good-bye, with another address, when he leaves the house; then he shakes hands and bids him good-bye again on going out of the yard, and perhaps he may go further with him, and the leave-taking comes a third time. But it is always very hearty, and never stiff.

After Mr. Gál had received us at his house, he took us to see the church and school-house. The former was one of those striking features of some Transylvanian villages, a fortified church. These churches themselves are much like any others, but they have generally a more conspicuous position, and are surrounded by a wall about fifteen or twenty feet high. This was built as a defence against the Tartars and Turks. This church at Kövend was even more primitive than usual; for it had not even a floor there was merely flooring in the aisles, and in front of each seat a strip of board, that the feet might not rest on the bare ground. The Transylvanian winter must be very nearly as severe as our own, and yet no church is ever heated.