It is a chronic affection of the English mind to suffer at certain times from Panic; and as a result of our too great devotion to physical pursuits, the panic which has cast its shadow of fear over the intelligent English mind is that of Materialism. We fear that Matter is destroying Mind. This is but a temporary eclipse, which, if we wait patiently, will soon pass away; and we need not imitate the barbarians, who in their panic, with discordant cries and beating of drums, strive to drive away an eclipse from off the face of the sun.

Let us not be afraid of free investigation, but welcome Truth when it appears in any shape, and follow it whithersoever it may lead; for we have nothing to fear from increased knowledge. The grand truths of the world, like the pillars of heaven, support themselves; for truth is great and mighty above all things. "Know ye not," says Milton, "that truth is strong, next to the Almighty? Though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so truth be in the field we injure her to misdoubt her strength." To understand the measure of human knowledge, to restrain himself within the limits of the comprehensible-to avoid mixing up science with those questions which can only end in guesses—is the true work of a man of science; for half the controversies upon religion and philosophy are of such a nature as can never be settled; and were we to argue until Doomsday, these questions would remain as unanswered as ever. However daring may be our speculations, we are stopped at the onset by the ignorance which encompasses us as with a cloud: "For mystery is everywhere around us, and in us, under our feet, among our hands."

In entering into the consideration of this subject we may remark that we have to deal only with the speculations, and not with the discoveries, of our scientific men.

We dare not be so presumptuous as to speak a single word against the legitimate discoveries of science. People may rail at science and philosophy, but the lover of truth will not listen to railing but to reasoning, and in everything he has mastered he has ever a straightforward decision in acting, which is sure as insight and rapid as instinct. Thus it is related of a celebrated naturalist and philosopher that some students once took it into their heads to play a trick upon him. One of them adopted the cloven foot and horns of a certain mythical personage, and in that disguise went to him at midnight when he was alone to frighten him. "I am the devil," said the figure, "and I am come to eat you up." "I defy you," said the man of science; cloven foot and horns you are herbivorous, and you cannot do it." Science has discovered the cloven foot, tail, and horns, in many of our myths.

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It has been remarked, perhaps a little too triumphantly, that every scientific discovery has to pass through three stages. First, people deny the truth of it; next, it is declared to be contrary to religion, and, therefore, the work of the devil (what a benefactor of the human race this devil has been); and, lastly, it is said that nobody ever denied it. This may be sometimes truly said of the discoveries of our scientific men, but not of their speculations.

It has ever been a dream of the human mind to elaborate from the depth of its nature the secret of its own existence-to solve the greatest of all physiological

riddles, the Secret of Life. This is a vain endeavour: for life is a mystery, and man is not capable of explaining his own existence; nor shall we ever be able to say what Life is, and all our attempted explanations fall short of explanation.

"Life," says Herbert Spencer, "is the definite combination of heterogeneous changes, both simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with external coexistences and sequences." This is an explanation which, like all others of the same kind, requires explanation. Professor Huxley has endeavoured, in his article on Protoplasm, to deal with the question of, What is Life? but he has not spanned the chasm which separates Life from Death.

The gulf of all gulfs, that gulf which Mr. Huxley's Protoplasm is as powerless to efface as any other material expedient that has ever been suggested since the eyes of men first looked into it—the mighty gulf between death and life. Life in itself is as great a mystery now as it was in the days of Plato and Aristotle. We know that we exist, although that is denied by some of our modern philosophers. We can define, in some measure, the conditions of our existence; but Life in its essence eludes our grasp : nor shall we ever know, for we cannot dissect a living body. Goethe says,

"Who seeks to learn, or gives
Descriptions of, a thing that lives,
Begins with 'murdering, to dissect '
The lifeless parts he may inspect—
The limbs are there beneath his knife

And all-but that which gives them life."

As with physical, so with moral life—it is a mystery:

" will

"And as to anatomise the body," says Froude, not reveal the secret of animation, so with the actions of the moral man. The spiritual life, which alone gives them meaning and being, glides away before the logical dissecting knife, and leaves it but a corpse to work upon."

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In passing from the phenomena of Life to those of Mind, we enter a region as profoundly mysterious. 'Man," says Pascal, ❝is to himself the mightiest prodigy of nature, for he is unable to conceive what is body, still less what is mind; but least of all is he able to conceive how a body can be united to a mind-yet this is his proper being." Ontological speculations and the problems of existence remain as inexplicable as ever.

There are many curious speculations as to the origin of Life and Thought. One philosopher has asserted that the principle of Life must be ascribed to a gas. We have been taught to believe that "the inspiration of the Almighty giveth understanding." But one of our modern professors* has discovered "that the brain secretes thought, as the liver secretes bile;" and that "poetry and religion are a product of the smaller intestines." Another resolves Thought into a chemical substance, and declares that "Thought is Phosphorus." Another puts forth the astounding Theory that "man is what he eats ;" and it has been suggested "that our successors may even dare to speculate on the changes that converted a crust of bread or a bottle of wine, in the brain of Swift, Molière, or Shakespeare, into the conception of the gentle Glumdal

*Dr. Cabanis.

† Moleschott.

Feuerbach.

"

clitch, the rascally Sganarelle, or the immortal Falstaff," in much the same way, we suppose, as Scrooge attributed the ghost of Marley "to a diseased stomach, to a bit of indigestible beef, a blot of mustard, or a fragment of underdone potato."

"A certain high priest can explain

How the soul is but nerve at the most,
And how Milton had glands in his brain
Which secreted the Paradise Lost."

After disposing of Life and Mind and converting them both into Matter, some of our Physical Philosophers are beginning now very politely to bow GOD out of the universe for none but a Philosopher can reason away the existence of a Maker. "Your God impedes you,"

says an eminent Frenchman. "He is the Supreme Cause, and you dare not reason on Causes out of respect for Him. He is the most important personage in England, and I see clearly that He merits His position, for He forms part of your Constitution. He is the Guardian of your morality. He judges in final appeal on all questions whatsoever. He replaces with advantage the prefects and gendarmes with whom the nations on the Continent are still encumbered. Yet this high rank has the inconvenience of all official positions-it produces a cant, prejudice, intolerance, and courtiers."

We notice the half-apologetic way in which some scientific men introduce the idea of a Creator, as if He had been disposed of; and the argument of Paley as to the evidence of a Creator from design was obsolete; but

* Professor Haughton.