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According to Mr. Spencer, for instance, we can have an idea of a relative beginning of existence, a beginning, that is relative to this or that existence; but an absolute beginning, a beginning, that is, of all phenomenal existence, creation, and the absence of an absolute beginning, are alike, to use a favourite word of his, unthinkable by us. This is only one out of many alleged necessary and insoluble contradictions which he brings forward, and which Mr. Birks attacks with more or less good fortune; the more difficult of solution among them are merely borrowed from Sir William Hamilton and Dr. Mansel; those which are original to Spencer himself are plain and therefore somewhat contemptible fallacies, and if they were as impregnable as he imagines them to be, their effect would be to destroy his own theory, by leaving no room for the positive statements respecting "the Unknowable" which we have quoted above.

Herbert Spencer's position that an absolute beginning of the universe and its existence through infinite past time are equally unthinkable, brings us to the second part of Mr. Birks's book, in which he treats of the fact of creation attacking the opinion that nothing can be known respecting the origin of things. This part, which consists of four chapters, completes the treatment of "Religious Nihilism." The first of these chapters is entitled "The Beginning"; its object is to prove that not only is it not inconceivable that there should have been an absolute beginning to the whole series of changes which the universe presents to us, but also that science favours such a supposition, while it is metaphysically impossible that past time should have been infinite an assertion better left out, and savouring too much of the system of thought contended against. The three succeeding chapters are on "The Creation of Matter," "Infinite Space," and "Force, Law, and Necessity." "Materialism, in its naked form, hardly deserves a formal refutation." It is " a maggot theory of the universe," a "dirt philosophy," as one might

e.g., a red minimum visibile, we are conscious only of three things respecting it that it exists; that it is known by us; and that it has, or is, a peculiar talitas, if we may so speak, which is commonly to be expressed only by the name of the attribute, and is in the above case redness. If, however, we in like manner isolate some particular substance, e.g., the Ego, we find that we are here also conscious of these three things, and neither more nor fewer that it exists; that it is known by us; and that it has a peculiar talitas, which, when we compare it with other objects of thought, we find not to exist in them. So that what we know of attribute, that we know of substance; and if we say that we know more of attributes than we do of substances, this is because there are more attributes than there are substances, and because a multitude of relations arise in thought when we compare attributes together. The Ego itself, for instance, is but one, while it has for attributes an infinity of emotions, volitions perceptions, &c.; and therefore we know more of these than we do of it, just as we know a greater number of facts concerning a particular branch of study, e.g., mathematics, than we do concerning any one single part of it, e.g., the properties of the straight line. And this appears to be the true reason of the misapprehension that we have no knowledge of substance. Besides, to know that a thing is a substance is of comparatively little use; to know what its attributes are is practically all-important; to that we pay more attention to this second head of knowledge than to the first.

say. It therefore naturally has recourse to "Nihilism," in order to conceal a little of its shame; for "God may perhaps be only matter, and matter may perhaps be the only God, if the true nature of God and of matter is equally inscrutable, and veiled from us for ever in total darkness." So, in order to refute Materialism, our author attempts to determine what the real nature of matter is; the theory adopted being that of Boscovitch. The argument against Materialism and for Theism, which can now be securely brought forward, is thus seen to rest on two simple premises, that "it is impossible to avoid making the assumption of self-existence somewhere," and that "this conception wholly disagrees with the known characters of material atoms, their almost inconceivable number, their minuteness, unconsciousness, and dependence." The creation of matter was the endowing of positions with force (p. 126), as indeed anyone who follows Boscovitch must hold. But if we would to the best advantage maintain the createdness of matter, we must reject certain errors about infinite space whence the chapter on that subject. "The conception of space as a real existence, prior to matter, and independent of the Divine will, seems often to be a covert defence of Atheistic Materialism. If this mighty void,-Infinite Space,has a real and necessary existence before any creation, and wholly independent of the Creator, is it much harder to conceive that matter, the shifting and variable contents of this Infinite Space, may also be uncreated, and exist from all eternity?" The difficulty is met by a conclusion (p. 137) which differs only verbally from the Scholastic thesis that space (Spatium imaginarium) is the possibility of extended substance, and to this is tacked on a fanciful speculation that the fact of space having three dimensions strengthens the Theistic argument, for that these three dimensions typify the three persons of the Blessed Trinity. Force, Law, and Necessity are then considered, because on the view taken of them "the main contrast between the Scripture doctrine of creation and the theories of modern scepticism

turns."

The third part, which deals with the theory of evolution, and treats of the manner of creation, consists, like the second, of four chapters, an introductory chapter on "Creation and Life" being followed by three chapters on "Creation and Evolution," "Evolution as an Inductive Theory," and "Creation by Law." The burden of this last chapter is that creation by law is, in reality, a contradiction in terms (p. 249), which is a good verbal criticism; and the main positions assailed in the second and third are set forth in the following passage from Herbert Spencer's "Principles of Biology?"—

"The belief in special creations of organisms is a belief that arose among men during the era of profoundest darkness, and belongs to a family of beliefs which have nearly all died out as enlightenment has increased. It is without a solitary established fact on which to stand, and when the attempt is made to put it into definite shape, it turns out to be only a pseudo-idea. The mere verbal hypothesis, which men idly accept as real or thinkable, is of the same nature as would be one based on a day's observation of human life, that each man or woman was specially created, an hypothesis not suggested by evidence, but by lack of evidence, formulating absolute ignorance into a semblance of positive knowledge. This hypothesis, wholly

without support, essentially inconceivable, and thus failing to satisfy men's intellectual need, fails also to satisfy their moral sentiment. It is quite inconsistent with those conceptions of the divine nature which they profess to entertain. If infinite power was to be demonstrated, then either by the special creation of individuals, or the production of species after a method akin to that of individuals, it would be better demonstrated than by the two methods the hypothesis assumes to be necessary. If infinite goodness was to be demonstrated, not only do the provisions of organic structure, if specially devised, fail to demonstrate it, but there is an enormous mass of them which imply malevolence rather than benevolence.

Thus the hypothesis of special creations turns out to be worthless; worthless by its derivation, worthless in its intrinsic incoherence, worthless as absolutely without evidence, worthless as not supplying an intellectual need, worthless as not satisfying a moral want. -p. 344.

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We conclude by extracting two passages, which contain Mr. Birks's reply to the sentence we have underlined. The first is the answer to that part of it which concerns special creation of each individual; the second the answer to that concerning the evolution of species:

"The first maxim of Christian Theism is that the design of creation is to glorify the great Creator by the wonderful works of His hands. This end must be secured, in the largest degree, by every increase in the fulness and variety of the gifts He bestows; but subject to this one condition,- that the mode of their bestowment shall not wholly conceal their true source, and make it easy and natural to rest in second causes, and ascribe to them an origin independent of the Creator's will and good pleasure. The creation of plants and animals, with an imparted power to increase and multiply in successive generations without limit, plainly magnifies the power, wisdom, and foresight of the Creator in a very high degree. The gift of parentage, in every case, amplifies and redoubles the simpler gift of being. Nor is this the only gain. That scheme of nature, over which man is gifted with sovereignty and large control, is vastly extended, compared with a constart creation of individual plants and animals, by which all the higher arts of human life would at once expire. Human existence is enriched and ennobled by various ties of race, brotherhood, conjugal and parental love, and filial honour and obedience, far beyond what a scheme of mere individualism could attain."-pp. 212, 213.

"Its disciples [i.e., the disciples of the evolution system] maintain that it

* The modesty of these assertions, remarks Mr. Birks, needs no comment Undoubtedly; for it is idle to comment on the non-existent. The first head worthless by derivation, would considerably enlarge the field of discussion; for it would array against Mr. Spencer the evidences for Revelation, as, if special creations are supported by Revelation, it is beside the mark to urge that the revelation was made before Mr. Darwin's speculations became popular with a certain class of persons. The second, that special creations are inconceivable, is merely an example of a bad habit of Mr. Spencer's, to call things inconceivable which are not inconceivable at all. The third, that they are without evidence, begs the question. As to the last, infinite goodness, wisdom and power, must have foreknown the consequences of the evolving process which it nevertheless set agoing; so that if anything-e.g., the existence of venomous animals-would on the hypothesis of special creations imply malevolence, it would on the hypothesis of evolution imply the same thing. We cannot, however, agree with Mr. Birks that evolution weakens the argument from design by spreading the design over a longer tract of time. For the quantity of design remains the same.

is unworthy of the Divine Workman to construct the machine of the universe in such a way as to need repeated repairs from His more immediate hand; and that it would be a nobler triumph of wisdom and power to construct it from the first as complete and perfect in its own latent powers, as to need no corrective or interference whatever. The reasoning would be sound, if we were at liberty to assume that the whole aim of the Creator is to form a wonderful piece of machinery, and not to reveal Himself to intelligent moral creatures, made in His own image. It is a scheme of providence, which implies that God is only the Supreme Carpenter of the universe, but not the Supreme Lawgiver, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. To reveal a more perfect and wonderful mechanical skill and physical foresight, by throwing back every act of creative power to innumerable ages before the birth of man,-to hide Himself wholly from view by the very depth of His engineering skill, and leave mankind nothing within their reach to gaze upon but self-evolving powers of matter alone, might be a wise scheme of providence, if the purpose of God were only to develop a race of self-satisfied atheists. But certainly it is not the likeliest plan to weaken the notes of that celestial song from the dwellers upon earth; 'Thou art worthy to receive honour, and glory, and power; for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they are and were created.""

Hints and Facts on the Origin, Condition, and Destiny of Man. By Pius MELIA, D.D. Second edition.

N this edition (pp. xiv.-xxii.), Dr. Melia replies to the comment on his first edition, which we published in April 1872 (pp. 459, 460). We understand the respected writer to disavow one opinion, which we had thought not sufficiefltly repudiated by his language; and we will therefore do no more than express more at length what we urged in reference to that opinion.

Dr. Melia had said that social teaching is absolutely necessary to the first development of the faculties of speech and reason, as it is clearly proved that when social teaching has not been afforded, no speech is acquired nor the faculty of reason awakened. On this we remarked

"We wish he had explained where lies the precise difference between what he here intends to express and the disapproved Louvain traditionalism. Our readers will find the doctrine of the four Louvain professors, as put forth by themselves, in our number for April 1869 (pp. 532-536). And in regard to the authoritative disapproval of this doctrine, we would refer to the documents published by us in January 1868." (pp. 281-288).

We will here add that doctrine of the Louvain professors to which we referred, as expressed by themselves. The italics also are theirs :

"Mens humana vi pollet internâ sibique propriâ; per se et continuo actuosa est; attamen, ut homo hâc mente præditus perveniat ad expeditum usum rationis, opus habet externo aliquo intellectuali auxilio. Itaque opinamur, principia veritatum rationalium, metaphysicarum ac moraliuni, a Deo conditore humanæ menti indita esse; at simul arbitramur, hanc esse mentis nostræ legem naturalem sive psychologicam, ut homo indigeat institutione

aliquâ intellectuali ad obtinendum eum rationis usum, qui illi sufficiat ut distinctam Dei et veritatum moralium cognitionem sibi comparare possit. Non negamus, humanæ menti absque illâ institutione inesse confusum quemdanı harum veritatum sensum, et vagam quamdam apprehensionem ; sed loquimur hic de verâ cognitione, hoc est, de clarâ et certâ illarum veritatum notitiâ acquirendâ. Institutionem autem intelligimus externam quodvis intellectuale auxilium, sive de industriâ, sive non datâ operâ præstitum, idque sive voce, sive scripto, sive gestu, sive alio quovis modo, quem sociale commercium suppeditat. Îndigentiam porro intelligimus absolutam; at non eo sensu, ut putemus, Deum non potuisse aliter condere hominem, sed eo sensu, ut putemus, esse eam indigentiam omnibus hominibus, quales nunc nascuntur, communem. Hanc vero absolutam institutionis indigentiam extare affirmamus, si sermo sit de expedito rationis usu acquirendo; minime vero dicimus quod e contra falsum putamus, singularum veritatum ordinis naturalis cognitionem ope institutionis esse comparandam: nam ubi homo jam usu suæ rationis reapse fruitur, ipse suâ solâ ratione quamplurimus veritates detegere atque cognoscere potest. Præterea notamus institutionem illam, quam dicimus ex nostrâ sententiâ, non esse habendam tamquam efficientem causam per quam homo perveniat ad expeditum rationis suæ usum, sed tamquam meram conditionem sine quâ non possit ad expeditum illum usum pervenire; quemadmodum, verbi gratia, aer, calor, humor requiruntur tamquam conditio sine quâ non possit manifestari vita, quæ in aliquo grano seminis reapse inest, sed involuta ac latens."

It will be seen by any one who reads the documents published by us in January, 1868, that, according to a response given by Cardinal Patrizi in the Pope's name, this doctrine has been theologically condemned by the Holy See; and we are very glad to record that Dr. Melia disavows it (p. xvii.).

Etruscan Inscriptions analysed, translated, and commented upon. By ALEX. EARL OF CRAWFORD and BALCARRES, LORD LINDSAY, &c. London: Murray. 1872.

THE

object of this book, we are told, is not so much to give an accurate interpretation of Etruscan inscriptions, as to show that the language employed in those inscriptions is an ancient form of German, and thus to corroborate another argument derived from independent sources; namly that the Etruscans are a branch of the Teutonic race. The present volume was originally intended for private circulation only, but it has now been given to the public in order to prepare the way for a still more important work, in which the ancient German is employed as an instrument of etymological and mythological comparison and analysis. For, to employ the ancient German in this way, as the author points out, it is first of all necessary to prove "that it stands upon a par in point of antiquity with Greek and Latin, Zendic and Sanscrit, and that its written, or rather engraved monuments are centuries older than the Gospels of Ulphiles."

The Earl of Crawford and Balcarres is not the first to point out that the Etruscan is an Indo-European or even a Teutonic language, Dr. Pritchard, Mr. Bunbury, Dr. Donaldson, and others, having preceded him in more or

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