abject a conceit of this common way of existence, this retaining to the sun and elements, I cannot think this to be a man, or to have according to the dignity of humanity. In expectation of a better, I can with patience embrace this life, yet, in my best meditations, do often defy death."

The man who wrote thus, and lived and died in the spirit of his words, was, by certain of our matter-of-fact friends, called an atheist. Why, it seems impossible to conjecture, unless toleration is considered to be an indication of unbelief. No man, at any rate, has breathed a more exalted religious sentiment into his writings, and it is impossible to study them without at once smiling at him and loving him.

A few remarks on his peculiar style may be added. Johnson, though generally appreciative, calls him "obscure," "rugged," and "pedantic." The last epithet is obviously more or less deserved. He has the propensity, common to the learned men of his day, to coin amazing Latinisms. Here, for example, are a few taken pretty much at random from his posthumous work, the Christian Morals:- "assuefaction," "minorates," "exantlation," "quodlibetically," "salvifically," "longevous," "exuperances." He says elsewhere that "omneity informed nullity into an essence" at the creation; and in discussing the interesting question of the mode of Haman's death, defines the obscure term "hanging" by the circumlocution, "illaqueation or pendulous suffocation." But setting aside such freaks, which belong nearly as much to his period as to his individual taste, he can hardly be called an obsure, and still less, a "rugged" writer. There are occasional faults of construction, it is true, which would naturally shock an Addisonian taste, and blemishes which would have been removed by a more careful polish. But he is generally intelligible without an effort; and "ruggedness" is a decidedly infelicitous epithet. His sentences move, it may be, with rather too elaborate a stateliness; they are crammed with the remote allusions that are constantly thronging into his mind, and have a certain sententious and epigrammatic turn; but they are full of a subtle and stately melody, bespeaking a fine musical ear. They have not the impetuous energy of a true rhetorician; they do not expand into the diffuse eloquence of Jeremy Taylor, nor are they animated by the indignant passion of Mil

ton; but they are the grave, quiet utterances of a meditative mind, and their form would be more suitable for a lecture-room than for a pulpit or the floor of a senate, and most suitable for a closet. He must be read in a corresponding spirit; one must stop often to appreciate the flavor of a quaint allusion, and lay down the book at intervals to follow out some sharply diverging line of thought. So read, in the quiet of a retired study, or beneath the dusty shelves of some ancient library— and books, to be thoroughly enjoyed, require appropriate scenery as well as appropriate moods-no congenial student will find fault with Sir Thomas's stately periods. Rather he will admit that the form is in admirable harmony with the matter; and that the sentences march to a most appropriate air. As a general description, it may perhaps be said that they are just too diffuse and too far-fetched to be aphorisms. The Christian Morals, for example, consists of a series of maxims, which fail for want of a little concentration. They are to the genuine aphorism what a nebulous system is to a sun. Every now and then we find some striking and genuine aphorism, as this, for example, which almost reminds us in language and policy of a modern French epigram-"Natural parts and good judgments rule the world; states are not governed by ergotisms;" but as a rule, the thought has not quite enough specific gravity. He wants that concentrated force of mind which gives immortality to Bacon's essays.

But we have perhaps dwelt long enough upon Sir Thomas's peculiar qualities of style. Whatever they may be, he must certainly be ranked amongst the great masters of our language. If some shade of oblivion has passed over him, as we have drifted further from the order of thought in which he most delighted, the result is not surprising. Immortality, or, indeed, life beyond a couple of centuries, is given to few literary artists. If we are disposed to complain, Sir Thomas shall himself supply the answer, in a passage from the Hydriotaphia, which, though described by Hallam as the best written of his treatises, seems to be scarcely so characteristic as the Religio Medici. It contains, however, many eloquent passages, and here are some of his reflections on posthumous fame. The end of the world, he says, is approaching, and

"Charles V. can never hope to live within two Methuselahs of Hector." "And, therefore, useless inquietude for the diuturnity of our memories with present considerations seems a vanity out of date, and a superannuated piece of folly. We cannot hope to live as long in our names, as some have done in their persons. One face of Janus holds no proportion to the other. 'Tis too late to be ambitious. The great mutations of the world are acted, or time may be too short for our designs. To extend our memories by monuments, whose death we daily pray for, and whose duration we cannot hope

without injury to our expectations in the advent of the last day, were a contradiction to our beliefs. We, whose generations are ordained in this setting part of time, are providentially taken off from such imaginations; and being necessitated to eye the remaining particle of futurity, are naturally constituted into thoughts of the next world, and cannot excusably decline the consideration of that duration, which maketh pyramids pillars of snow, and all that's past a moment."

The argument is worthy of Dr. Cumming; the language and the sentiment, of Milton.

Ar last Mr. Darwin's long-promised work on "Man" is given to the world, and there is no longer any question as to the views which he entertains concerning the lineal descent of our race from the lower animals. To some, who have always "hoped against hope," from the previous silence maintained on this subject in successive editions of the "Origin of Species," this may come as a startling blow: but to the majority it will be nothing more than a direct statement of a conclusion which followed necessarily from the Darwinian theory. If the evolution hypothesis is to be received at all as regards the organic creation, there is no possibility of stopping short when we come to man, at least so far as his bodily structure is concerned. Professor Huxley, as long ago as 1863, pointed out that "man, in all parts of his organization, differs less from the higher apes than these do from the lower members of the same group;" and the mass of overwhelming evidence brought forward in the present work to prove our intimate connection with the lower animals does but strengthen a conviction, slowly and reluctantly yielded to by all who accept any phase, whether Darwinian or otherwise, of the theory of evolution.

If Mr. Darwin, therefore, had confined his speculations to the bodily structure of man, his new work, though strengthening his previous theory by many new facts and arguments, would not have enunciated any novel or startling principle. But he had already hinted at another subject of inquiry when in the last edition of the "Origin"

(p. 577) he said, "In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation."

Into these fields of speculation he enters boldly in the present work, and arrives at the conclusion that the mental powers of man, though so different in degree to those of the higher animals, are yet the same in kind; while in the social instincts existing so strongly in many animals, he finds a basis for the moral sense or conscience of the human race. "The following proposition," he says, "seems to me in a high degree probable—namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man." For, firstly, the social instincts lead an animal to take pleasure in the society of its fellows, to feel a certain amount of sympathy with them, and to perform various services for them. these feelings and services are by no means extended to all individuals of the same species, only to those of the same association. Secondly-As soon as the mental faculties had become highly developed, images of all past actions and motives would be incessantly passing through the brain of each individual, and that feeling of dissatisfaction which invariably results from any unsatisfied instinct would arise as often as it was perceived

But

that the ever-present social instinct had yielded to some other instinct at the time stronger, such as hunger, or the desire of vengeance, but less enduring in its nature, and not leaving behind a very vivid impression. Thirdly-After the power of language had been acquired, and the wishes of any small community could be distinctly expressed, the impulse to act for the good of the community would be strengthened and directed by public opinion, the power of which rests on instinctive sympathy. Lastly, habit in each individual would strengthen the social instincts and impulses, as it does all other instincts. The social instincts themselves Mr. Darwin considers as probably an extension of the parental and filial affections, and on the origin of these last he says it "is hopeless to speculate, though we may infer that they have been to a large extent gained through natural selection."

He

This short summary, though extremely inadequate to express even the leading features of the theory as traced out by Mr. Darwin, suffices to show that he derives not only our bodily but also our mental and moral nature by development from the lower animals. The difference, he acknowledges, between us and them "is enormous;' nor is there the slightest tendency in any part of his work to detract from all that is noble in our nature. takes for his text the soul-stirring words of Kant, and elevates the unselfish virtues to the highest rank to which moralists have ever assigned them. Yet many who would concede without hesitation the evolutionary origin of their bodily frame, shrink with great pain from such a derivation of their mental and moral nature. They fear that if the noble gift of conscience can be traced back in all its gradations to the humbler instincts, the human race will become the victims of a gross Materialism, and that all communion with God and all hope of immortality will be blotted out of our existence.

I believe that this fear, if it be founded upon the theory of the moral sense, as set forth in the "Descent of Man," is a groundless one; and the object of the present essay is to attempt to show

Firstly: That the nobility of our conscience as a gift from God, and our power of communion with Him, are in no way impugned by this theory.

Secondly: That our hope of immortality

stands on precisely the same basis on the hypothesis of evolution as on that of separate creation.

Lastly: That Mr. Darwin, if his theory be even approximately true, has given a new impulse to the Utilitarian philosophy, in enunciating a proposition by which, as he says, "the reproach of laying the foundation of the most noble part of our nature in the base principle of selfishness is removed."

The fear that our conscience, if proved to have been developed by natural laws, will cease to be to us the voice of God, arises, I believe, either from our thinking too meanly of the laws involved, or from our endeavoring to separate them from their one great Source, and so to remove the necessity of an overruling Creator from the theory of the universe. Yet the truth is that those laws which we have to call to our aid for the supposed evolution of the moral sense, are the very highest which our capacities enable us to discern. The foundation of our conscience is made to rest upon the purest of instincts--that of parental and filial affection; while the powers through which it has been developed-intelligence, reason, memory (and the consequent power of reflection), language, imagination, and self-consciousness

all arise out of a network of laws so infinite in their complexity, so immeasurable in their grandeur, that, after all the utmost efforts of science, we still stand like the ignorant savage in presence of the thunderstorm, as he bows his head and exclaims, "It is the voice of a mighty God."

No one can appreciate our present incapacity as regards these points more fully than Mr. Darwin himself. He not only acknowledged from the first that the dawn of life was entirely beyond the scope of his speculations, and that "our ignorance of the laws of variation is profound;" but in the present work he recognizes at every step the narrow limits of our knowledge. "In what manner," he says, "the mental powers were first developed in the lower organisms, is as hopeless an inquiry as how life first originated. These are problems for the distant future, if they are ever to be solved by man. On the origin of the parental and filial affections," he also says, "it is hopeless to speculate." And again-"We cannot

decide at what age the new-born infant becomes self-conscious, or capable of reflecting on its own existence, neither can we decide this question in regard to the ascending organic scale." These and numberless other passages which might be quoted, serve to show how, in a true spirit of philosophy, he affirms constantly the still hidden and higher laws of our being.

But even supposing for a moment that these sentences might bear the interpretation that the higher laws are only as yet unknown to us; even if the more advanced intelligence of man should one day discover the laws of mind, and we should at last arrive at an 66 equivalent of consciousness"-shall we, therefore, drive out God, or make our conscience less a gift from him? If Paley's man, who found the imaginary self-reproducing watch, could by inductive research have traced back the mode of its formation until he was enabled to make its counterpart, he would still need the hypothesis of a designing mind behind the point he had reached for he would need a creator of those Laws by obeying which alone he could produce the mechanism. There is a fallacy, I believe, involved in the supposition that "evolution by law," whether organic or inorganic, can dispense with the necessity of a present overruling Creator. The watch, when it leaves the hand of the man who made it, is indeed separated from its immediate cause-i. e. the man working through laws; but it still remains governed by its more general cause-i. e. the laws by means of which its formation was rendered possible; which laws exist independently of the man. But when we speak of the laws which govern our universe we cannot regard them as separate entities independent of God, as watch-laws are of ourselves; for then they would depend upon some first cause other than God. We must look upon them as emanating from Him, and non-existent without Him. Here we find ourselves face to face with a deep mystery. "The consciousness of an Inscrutable Power," says Mr. H. Spencer, "manifested to us through all phenomena, has been growing ever clearer, and must eventually be freed from its imperfections. The certainty that on the one hand such a power exists, while on the other its nature tran

* Huxley on Descartes' Lay Sermons, p. 372.

scends intuition and is beyond imagination, is the certainty towards which intelligence has from the first been progressing."* On no hypothesis founded on the facts of nature can we shut out the ever-present action of the Infinite and all-perfect First Cause, nor shake the belief that, whether through a process of creation or the apparently less direct one of evolution, "in Him we live, and move, and have our being."

"But how," the intuitionist inquires, "can my mind and conscience, if a mere development of the instincts of unconscious animals, hold communion, real personal communion, with this Inscrutable Power, whom you place at an infinite distance from intuition and even imagination ?" If the theory rendered such communion impossible or inconceivable, then indeed it must either be false, or cause the destruction of our highest and noblest aspirations. But surely this difficulty arises. not out of the theory itself, but from our want of power to adapt our previous conceptions to the new form in which the natural facts are presented to us. If we grant the evolution of animal forms at all, we must allow that vast powers of perception and sympathy have been produced in the dog which do not exist in the jellyfish. Yet we do not consider these powers as a special spiritual gift to the higher animal. So also with the power of communion. If a medusa be taken from the sea-shore and placed in a room inhabited by man, what will it comprehend of his movements, his actions, or his motives? How far will it be conscious of his presence? except when he touches it, or casts a shadow upon it, when it will shrink as it would from contact with any inanimate body. We feel at once that it would be absurd to say that the jelly-fish was conscious of the man as a man. But as we rise in the scale of life we can see that powers of perception begin to be developed, so that a toad or a fish is not only instantly conscious of the presence of man, but will acquire an instinctive perception of the cruelty or kindness which it may expect at his hand. In the dog this is far more fully developed. For who will say that a dog does not share the uneasiness or expressed joy of his master -does not look for benefits at his hand,

*First Principles, p. 108.

fly at any one who attacks him, feel fear when he has disobeyed him, remain faithful to him often for long years, watch by his sick-bed, and in many instances pine away and refuse to be comforted when separated from him by death? Surely, in so far as the powers of a dog correspond and attain to those of a human being, he does hold intercommunion with him. Why then should we find any difficulty in the fact that man-whose powers so infinitely transcend those of the dog, whom we know to have acquired the faculty of forming abstract ideas, so that he can conceive of space, time, and infinity; possessing also the highly developed moral ideas of truth, self-sacrifice, and dutyshould be able to hold communion with that Intelligence who, among all His infinite and often inscrutable attributes, must posess those from which originated the laws of our being?

It matters not how our higher faculties have been acquired-whether the germs of them exist in the lower animals, or whether the higher laws producing them only began to act at a later stage of development. So surely as we believe that our conception of the Deity, and our capability of discerning Him, though but faint and weak, yet infinitely transcend any like powers in a poor ignorant savage, so may we hold fast without wavering to that power, even though we could prove that it has been gradually developed from the instincts of the brute creation. And as we can make a dog understand our wishes, just so far as his capacity extends, there is nothing in the theory of evolution to cause us to doubt that the higher and nobler minds amongst us do, through the working of natural laws, receive more knowledge of a higher Power than the mass of mankind. This we call "Revelation," receiving it through poet, philosapher, or prophet, just so far as their mental and moral nature surpasses our

own.

The bearing of the theory of evolution upon a future individual existence is more difficult to discuss, because the hope of immortality is acknowledged by all to be more a conviction than a certainty. "I do not mean to affirm," says Bishop Butler, "that there is the same degree of conviction that our living powers will continue after death, as there is that our substances

will." Those views of the present moral government of the world which lead us not only to long and hope, but even to feel assured, that our life's history does not end in the grave, are far too comprehensive and complicated to be dealt with here. My object is merely to attempt to show that these hopes are no less consistent with the theory of evolution than with that of creation.

We have seen that the derivation of our higher faculties from animals is not necessarily any bar to revelation,* and therefore those who have always built their faith in immortality upon this foundation have no need to fear that it will be taken. away from them. No one ever contended that the revelation of God to man was complete, but only such as his mental powers can receive; therefore, in so far as we can have communion with God, there is nothing in this theory to prevent our receiving from Him our knowledge and hope of eternity. But they who, deriving their arguments from purely natural religion, base their hope of immortality upon the supposed essential difference between man and animals, feel as though the very ground of their faith were destroyed by the theory of a common origin. Yet, as Mr. Darwin truly says, "few people feel any anxiety from the impossibility of determining at what precise period in the development of the individual, from the first trace of the minute germinal vesicle to the child, either before or after birth, man becomes an immortal being; and there is no greater cause for anxiety, because the period in the gradually ascending scale cannot possibly be determined."†

They must indeed limit the power of an omnipotent Creator who do not believe it to be just as possible for Him to create a soul through gradual development from the capacities of the lower animals, as to create a body, with all its wondrous mechanism, from a germ-cell which does not possess a trace of organization. Indeed, so far as analogy can be trusted, this mode of development would seem to be most consistent with the general working of the laws known to us.

*By revelation I do not mean any special scheme of theology, but, as just explained, the communion of God with man.

+ Descent of Man, vol. ii. p. 395.