ligent as that its human action is. It maintains rational order and subordinates means to ends as well in nature as in man; and its rationality cannot be denied in one realm without overthrowing it in the other. This conclusion can be escaped only by breaking down consciousness altogether, and denying that consciousness and purpose in any way condition our action. Consciousness must be reduced to a powerless and illusive attendant upon the underlying mechanical processes, which are entirely independent of any thing external to themselves. That is to say, we escape the conclusion by plunging all science into utter skepticism. Some speculators have gone to this length, and repudiated consciousness as delusive. That they fail to see the suicidal nature of this position is a striking illustration of the blindness which a speculative mania produces. A singular delusion masters most atheistic cosmologists. They forget that man is a part of the system, and must be explained by it. But when they come to explain man they involve themselves in a contradiction of their own first principles. They set out to explain the intelligent by the unintelligent, and make all fundamental action mechanical. Of course, they deny the substantiality of the intelligent, and reduce it to a phase of the universal activity. But they cannot deny without mental suicide that our activity is conditioned by conscious purpose, and hence that the ultimate acts with conscious purpose in human action. Hence the being which acts only mechanically is allowed to be one which can foresee results, form plans, and arrange means for their execution. But such activity, though called mechanical, is precisely what is meant by conscious and rational activity. Thus the doctrine, by its inner contradiction, passes over into its opposite and cancels itself. The only alternative is to break down consciousness and plunge into hopeless skepticism. Even if consciousness were allowed to stand, no science could live on the principles of the no-design argument. All objective science is based on the assumption. of the openness and fairness of nature. Light and heat act as if there were an ether. The fire rocks look as if they had been exposed to heat. Matter behaves as if it were composed of atoms. The visible system looks as if evolution had been the method of the development. Animals act as if they were sensitive, in spite of Descartes and Huxley. Our neighbors act

as if they were intelligent. The power which underlies all things, also, acts as if it knew what it is doing. The argument is identical throughout. We hold, therefore, not that theism is demonstrated, but that it is the only rational and satisfactory solution of the problem of the universe. The alternative is now, what it always has been, intelligence or non-intelligence; and when we consider what the latter implies, we decide for theism.

We have confined ourselves to the author's alleged scientific arguments. Nearly half the work is composed of appended criticisms upon one thing and another, which call for no examination. Indeed, there is a sense of humiliation in having to consider arguments of the kind which form the staple of the book. But we cannot take leave of our author without expressing our opinion, that for swaggering ignorance his work is unsurpassed. In this respect it is one of the signs of the times. A large and growing herd of scientific and philosophical quacks is making itself prominent in speculation. Already they have become a serious infestation in current literature. Without the slightest claim to either scientific or philosophical knowledge, they yet affect to speak in the name of both, and to give us the latest results of "advanced science" and "modern thought." In this way science and philosophy are debauched by the camp-followers and bummers of both. We think that scientists and philosophers owe a duty both to themselves and to the public in this respect, which has been too much neglected. They must meet these insolent pretenders with deserved rebuke, and unmask the shallowness of their claims. Doubtless their feeling is that truth itself is mighty and must prevail; but, honorable as the sentiment is, we think it susceptible of abuse. There are pachydermatous minds, which are opaque to truth, unless error be visited with deserved severity and exposure; just as there are persons who are impervious to the dictates of decency, unless those dictates are reinforced by a possible cowhiding. It would help to abate the nuisance if the quacks were given to understand that their manifestoes will be promptly and vigorously dealt with. Irreligion is a great recommendation to a work; but it cannot be allowed to serve as logic, science, philosophy, and advertisement all at once.

ART. III.-POPULAR ASTRONOMY.

Popular Astronomy. By SIMON NEWCOMB, LL.D., Professor in the United States Naval Observatory. With One Hundred and Twelve Engravings, and Five Maps of the Stars. Octavo, pp. 566. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1878. WE are prepossessed with this volume at first sight. We like the theme: "The works of the Lord are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein." Astronomy is the science of grand ideas. It deals with vast magnitudes, immeasurable distances, and inconceivable durations. The author names it Popular Astronomy; that is, knowledge for the people; and for all the people, not merely the select few. Certainly, and emphatically, among the American people, and measurably throughout the broad earth, the spirit of the age demands light on all possible subjects, and the universal diffusion of light. Nor can we complain that science is slow to respond to the call. She comes out of her cell. "Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets; she crieth in the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates."

And astronomy is not only among the most fascinating of the sciences, but is even better adapted than some others for general cultivation. Mathematics, for instance, deals in abstract numbers and quantities; it requires intense application, and few minds grow enthusiastic over its problems. Chemistry requires costly apparatus and materials. Botany is loaded down with names and definitions, and demands meadow and marsh and forest, and leisure to explore them. But the glorious heaven is over all heads, and open to all eyes. The deep things of astronomy, indeed, involve study such as few are able to devote to them. The time is probably somewhat distant when every village lyceum will own a telescope of twenty-six inch aperture, and the arithmetic class of every country school calculate eclipses. Nevertheless, the sun in its glory, and the moon in its beauty, and the stars in their faroff realms of silence, shine for all; the wandering comets, and the auroral flames, the marvels of the day and the night, and the revolving seasons, are visible to all that look upon them; and the mind must be slow to perceive, and the heart slow to feel, which are not moved by the wonders of earth and sky.

When we hear the Psalmist exclaim: "O Lord, how wondrous are thy works; in wisdom hast thou made them all," we think of the author not as the wise king reigning in Jerusalem, but rather as the simple shepherd-boy, watching his flocks by night in the fields of Bethlehem the Fruitful. In this our day any man of average mental power, and as ignorant on the subject as any such man can be, and yet willing to listen for an hour to a lecturer like Dr. Newcomb, or devote an hour to the thoughtful perusal of a book like his, will go from the lecture, or rise from the book, a larger man, with more of thought and more of mental breadth than he before possessed.

Professor Newcomb divides his work into four parts. The first, entitled, "The System of the World Historically Developed," traces the growth of astronomy as a science. China puts forth claims to the greatest antiquity, asserting that two thousand years before the Christian era the science was cultivated there to such an extent that the Government maintained astronomers, whose duty was to note the motions of the heavenly bodies, and give timely notice of any unusual phenomenon, that the religious ceremonies proper on such occasions might be performed; and that two of these scientific officials, whose names were Hi and Ho, gave themselves up to riotous living, and neglected their duty; and that an eclipse of the sun came which had not been announced, and religious rites were not performed, and the whole empire was consequently exposed to the wrath of the gods, and that the royal scientists were put to death for their crime. This tradition may possibly be authentic. If true, it is the earliest of its kind on record. The Hindus, also, claim to have cultivated astronomy in very ancient times, but their records are vague and unreliable. The Chaldeans and the Egyptians were close observers of the heavenly bodies, and it is surprising to see how much was learned without the aid of telescopes or other instruments now indispensable.

It is, in fact, difficult to tell where or when the science of astronomy originated. As we follow the line back through the ages we find Copernicus learning of Ptolemy, and Ptolemy of Hipparchus, and Hipparchus of Pythagoras, and Pythagoras of Egyptian and Chaldean priests, until all traces are lost in the shadow of wild tradition and fable. Ptolemy, an Egyp

tian astronomer of the second century after Christ, taught a theory which was universally accepted for fourteen centuries. after the death of its author. His system describes the Earth as the center of the universe, and the Sun, Moon, and other heavenly bodies as making a daily revolution around it. In 1543 Copernicus, a Prussian astronomer, published a work entitled, "The Revolution of the Celestial Orbs," in which he attacked, somewhat timidly, the Ptolemaic theory, and advocated another, which places the Sun in the center of the system, and reduces our world to the position of a planet circling about it.

The new view met with great opposition. Every body has heard how Galileo was arrested by the Inquisition, compelled to recant, and to promise, under oath, to teach no more the dangerous doctrines of Copernicus. A fact not so well known is that the opposition was not confined to the reactionary guides of the Romish Church, but was found, also, among scientists and the adherents of the Reformation. Years after the death of Copernicus his theory was debated and opposed; one mighty reasoner among the rest stoutly arguing that the earth cannot revolve daily on its axis, else all manner of confusion would follow; for instance, the sky-lark, rising on its wings to sing its morning carol, would never find its nest again, the revolving surface having meanwhile borne it miles away. The discovery of Newton, that all the worlds of the family to which the Earth belongs are bound together by one law, that of universal gravitation, may be said to complete the theory of the solar system, considered as a piece of enginery. This is the mysterious force which marshals the worlds “in order infinite," and attunes their motions to a harmony which is the true music of the spheres.

Part second treats of Practical Astronomy. Under this head the author discusses the telescope and its uses, also the motion of light, and the spectroscope. When Galileo, in the year 1610, discovered the moons of Jupiter, the instrument which he used magnified objects only thirty times, and was a mere spy-glass. Now the astronomer scans the heavens with telescopes which magnify a thousand times or more. There is, indeed, no theoretical limit to the size of the telescope, and its magnifying power. Herschel is said to have employed