become the men and women whom we see around us, we must hold either the monstrous belief that all the vitalities, whether those of monads or of mites, of fishes or of reptiles, of birds or of beasts, are individually and inherently immortal and undying, or that human souls are not so. The difference between the dying and the undying-between the spirit of the brute that goeth downward, and the spirit of the man that goeth upward-is not a difference infinitesimally, or even atomically small. It possesses all the breadth of the eternity to come, and is an infinitely great difference. It cannot, if I may so express myself, be shaded off by infinitesimals or atoms; for it is a difference which-as there can be no class of beings intermediate in their nature between the dying and the undying-admits not of gradation at all. What mind, regulated by the ordinary principles of human belief, can possibly hold that every one of the thousand vital points which swim in a drop of stagnant water, are inherently fitted to maintain their individuality throughout eternity? Or how can it be rationally held that a mere progressive step, in itself no greater or more important than that effected by the addition of a single brick to a house in the building state, or of a single atom to a body in the growing state, could ever have produced immortality? And yet, if the spirit of a monad or of a mollusc be not immortal, then must there either have been a point in the history of the species at which a dying brute-differing from its offspring merely by an inferiority of development, represented by a few atoms, mayhap by a single atom-produced an undying man, or man in his present state must be a mere animal, possessed of no immortal soul, and as irresponsible for his actions to the God before whose bar he is, in consequence, never to appear, as his presumed relatives and progenitors, the beasts that perish. Nor will it do to attempt escaping from the difficulty, by alleging that God at some certain link in the chain might have converted a mortal creature into an immortal existence, by breathing into it a "living soul;" seeing that a renunciation of any such direct interference on the part of Deity in the work of creation forms the prominent and characteristic feature of the scheme-nay, that it constitutes the very nucleus round which the scheme has originated. And thus, though the development theory be not atheistic, it is at least practically tantamount to atheism. For, if man be a dying creature, restricted in his existence

to the present scene of things, what does it really matter to him, for any one moral purpose, whether there be a God or no? If, in reality, on the same religious level with the dog, wolf, and fox, that are by nature atheists—a nature most properly coupled with irresponsibility-to what one practical purpose should he know or believe in a God whom he, as certainly as they, is never to meet as his Judge? or why should he square his conduct by the requirements of the moral code, farther than a low and convenient expediency may chance to demand?

Nor does the purely Christian objection to the development hypothesis seem less, but even more insuperable, than that derived from the province of natural theology. The belief which is, perhaps of all others, most fundamentally essential to the revealed scheme of salvation, is the belief that "God created man upright," and that man, instead of proceeding onward and upward from this high and fair beginning, to a yet higher and fairer standing in the scale of creation, sank, and became morally lost and degraded. And hence the necessity for that second dispensation of recovery and restoration which forms the entire burden of God's revealed message to man. If, according to the development theory, the progress of the "first Adam" was an upward progress; the existence of the "second Adam,”that " happier man," according to Milton, whose special work it is to "restore" and "regain the blissful seat" of the lapsed race, is simply a meaningless anomaly. Christianity, if the development theory be true, is exactly what some of the more extreme Moderate divines of the last age used to make it an idle and unsightly excrescence on a code of morals that would be perfect were it away.

I may be in error in taking this serious view of the matter; and, if so, would feel grateful to the man who could point out to me that special link in the chain of inference at which, with respect to the bearing of the theory on the two theologies--natural and revealed the mistake has taken place. But if I be in error at all, it is an error into which I find not a few of the first men of the age-represented, as a class, by our Professor Sedgwicks and Sir David Brewsters -have also fallen; and until it be shown to be an error, and that the development theory is in no degree incompatible with a belief in the immortality of the soul-in the responsibility of man to God as the final Judge, or in the Christian

scheme of salvation-it is every honest man's duty to protest against any ex parte statement of the question that would insidiously represent it as ethically an indifferent one, or as unimportant in its theologic bearing, save to "little religious sects and scientific coteries." In an address on the fossil flora, made in September last by a gentleman of Edinburgh, to the St Andrew's Horticultural Society, there occurs the following passage on this subject:- "Life is governed by external conditions, and new conditions imply new races; but then, as to their creation, that is the mystery of mysteries.' Are they created by an immediate fiat and direct act of the Almighty? or has He originally impressed life with an elasticity and adaptability, so that it shall take upon itself new forms and characters, according to the conditions to which it shall be subjected? Each opinion has had, and still has, its advocates and opponents; but the truth is, that science, so far as it knows, or rather so far as it has had the honesty and courage to avow, has yet been unable to pronounce a satisfactory decision. Either way, it matters little, physically or morally; either mode implies the same omnipotence, and wisdom, and foresight, and protection; and it is only your little religious sects and scientific coteries which make a pother about the matter,sects and coteries of which it may be justly said, that they would almost exclude God from the management of his own world, if not managed and directed in the way that they would have it." Now, this is surely a most unfair representation of the consequences, ethical and religious, involved in the development hypothesis. It is not its compatibility with belief in the existence of a Great First Cause that has to be established, in order to prove it harmless; its compatibility with certain other all-important beliefs, without which simple Theism is of no moral value whatever -a belief in the immortality and responsibility of man, and in the scheme of salvation by a Mediator and Redeemer. Dissociated from these beliefs, a belief in the existence of a God is of as little ethical value as a belief in the existence of the great sea-serpent.

but

Let us see whether we cannot determine what the testimony of geology on this question of creation by development really is. It is always perilous to under estimate the strength of an enemy; and the danger from the development hypothesis to an ingenious order of minds, smitten

with the novel fascinations of physical science, has been under estimated very considerably indeed. Save by a few studious men, who to the cultivation of geology, and the cognate branches, add some acquaintance with metaphysical science, the general correspondence of the line of assault taken up by this new school of infidelity, with that occupied by the old, and the consequent ability of the assailants to bring, not only the recently forged, but also the previouslyemployed artillery into full play along its front, has not only not been marked, but even not so much as suspected. And yet, in order to show that there actually is such a correspondence, it can be but necessary to state, that the great antagonist points in the array of the opposite lines are simply the law of development versus the miracle of creation. The evangelistic churches cannot, in consistency with their character, or with a due regard to the interests of their people, slight or overlook a form of error at once exceedingly plausible and consummately dangerous, and which is telling so widely on society, that one can scarce travel by railway or in a steam-boat, or encounter a group of intelligent mechanics, without finding decided trace of its ravages.-HUGH Miller.

BYRON.

If the finest poetry be that which leaves the deepest impression on the minds of its readers-and this is not the worst test of its excellence-Lord Byron, we think, must be allowed to take precedence of all his distinguished contemporaries. He has not the variety of Scott, nor the delicacy of Campbell, nor the absolute truth of Crabbe, nor the polished sparkling of Moore; but in force of diction, and inextinguishable energy of sentiment, he clearly surpasses them all. "Words that breathe, and thoughts that burn," are not merely the ornaments, but the common staple of his poetry; and he is not inspired or impressive only in some happy passages, but through the whole body and tissue of his composition. It was an unavoidable condition, perhaps, of this higher excellence, that his scene should be narrow, and his persons few. To compass such ends as he had in view, it was necessary to reject all ordinary agents, and all trivial combinations. He could not possibly be amusing, or ingenious, or playful; or hope to maintain the requisite

pitch of interest by the recitation of sprightly adventures, or the opposition of common characters. To produce great effects, in short, he felt that it was necessary to deal only with the greater passions-with the exaltations of a daring fancy, and the errors of a lofty intellect—with the pride, the terrors, and the agonies of strong emotion-the fire and air alone of our human elements.

In this respect, and in his general notion of the end and the means of poetry, we have sometimes thought that his views fell more in with those of the Lake poets than of any other existing party in the poetical commonwealth. And, in some of his later productions especially, it is impossible not to be struck with his occasional approaches to the style and manner of this class of writers. Lord Byron, however, it should be observed, like all other persons of a quick sense of beauty, and sure enough of their own originality to be in no fear of paltry imputations, is a great mimic of styles and manners, and a great borrower of external character. He and Scott, accordingly, are full of imitations of all the writers from whom they have ever derived gratification; and the two most original writers of the age might appear, to superficial observers, to be the most deeply indebted to their predecessors. In this particular instance, we have no fault to find with Lord Byron; for undoubtedly the finer passages of Wordsworth and Southey have in them wherewithal to lend an impulse to the utmost ambition of rival genius; and their diction and manner of writing is frequently both striking and original. But we must say, that it would afford us still greater pleasure to find these tuneful gentlemen returning the compliment which Lord Byron has here paid to their talents, and forming themselves on the model rather of his imitations, than of their own originals. In those imitations they will find that, though he is sometimes abundantly mystical, he never, or at least very rarely, indulges in absolute nonsense-never takes his lofty flights upon mean or ridiculous occasions-and, above all, never dilutes his strong conceptions, and magnificent imaginations, with a flood of oppressive verbosity. On the contrary, he is, of all living writers, the most concise and condensed; and, we would fain hope, may go far, by his example, to redeem the great reproach of our modern literature-its intolerable prolixity and redundance. In his nervous and manly lines, we find no elaborate amplification of common sentiments-no ostenta