all-comprehending agency, to which every other attribute, however high in the scale of intellectual greatness, is but as a ministering spirit, subordinate and subservient.

To make this apparent, in reference to the present subject, we may consider what judgment we should form of the governor of a province if we were told that his ample powers and resources, his extensive knowledge and consummate wisdom, were all employed in promoting the highest happiness of those he governed; that in every department of his administration, and through all the diversities of procedure which circumstances might require, this end was kept steadily in view. Such a representation, it is plain, would excite in our minds a sentiment of entire approval and confidence. If, on the contrary, we were informed of an individual holding such an office, and possessed of powers and capacities for filling it, that his arrangements were not on the principle of benevolence exclusively, a sentiment of doubt and distrust would instantly arise in our minds; and this would not be removed by our informant adding that they were in harmony with the constitution of those who were under his government. In order to inspire us with confidence, we should require something beyond this and paramount over it.

The illustration that follows, taken from the operation of extracting a tooth, is indeed abundantly conclusive; but to the very opposite purpose, as it seems to me, from that for which it is introduced. For, what is the case here represented, but that of several persons engaged in inflicting temporary suffering on an individual, for the sole purpose of procuring for him permanent ease and advantage? The actors are in perfect unison, and the whole transaction is directed to a benevolent end. This is admitted, and it is clearly shewn that nothing but total ignorance of the design of the operation could lead to an opposite conclusion. Yet it is strangely added, "If the world had been created on the principle of benevolence exclusively, the tooth-ache could not have existed." This assertion, I own, surprises me. Can it be needful to insist on what no one surely denies, that the most fervent as well as the most enlightened affection frequently inflicts present pain on its object, for the sake of promoting the future permanent good of that object? And can a faculty of destructiveness (so named by phrenologists) be required to place man in harmony with the existence of evil, thus confessedly "used for a benevolent end"? Such faculties, on the contrary, as those of veneration, ideality and hope, would in this case seem most fitted to be called into exercise, and best adapted to bring the mind into harmony with the Divine arrangements. It might as well be said, If the whole science and practice of surgery were arranged on the principle of benevolence exclusively, dentists could not exist: but as there are dentists, the surgical profession are provided with an organ of destructiveness to place them in harmony with the existence of this class of operators. But the question would here also occur, what occasion can surgeons have for an organ of destructiveness, to reconcile them to the existence of dentists, while the operations of the latter are acknowledged by them (as we cannot doubt they are) to be directed, not to a destructive, but to a benevolent end?

On the whole, there appears throughout this paragraph, a confusion

of ideas, and consequent want of precision in the use of words, which in such a writer can be ascribed only to the influence of a theory previously adopted and established in his mind, and to which he has unconsciously conformed his views and reasonings.

There is, in fact, no principle, but that of benevolence, to which absolute pre-eminence, as an ultimate end, can be assigned. The production of the greatest sum of happiness, is, on maturest reflection, felt and acknowledged to be the noblest end at which the highest intelligence can aim. In the most advanced and advancing states of society, the current of thought and feeling, the great stream of public opinion, flows ceaselessly towards this point. The hard abstractions of law, with its strict and stern requirements-of inexorable justice, yielding nothing of its utmost demands, are fast vanishing before the dictates of a pure and enlightened philanthropy, which not the less venerates law and justice, because it recognizes in their wise administration a sure support to the exercise of its own inherent and rightful sovereignty. Laws, institutions and usages, are themselves wearing more and more of this complexion. The greatest minds find their progress most in approximation to it; and the unreflecting are carried. forward in the same direction by an impulse which they may be little conscious of, but cannot withstand. The great warfare of virtue is with all tendencies, internal and external, that are opposed to it. And man, enlightened, elevated and acted upon by all these influences, and perceiving them to be in accordance with the clearest dictates of reason and revelation, ascribes, by an inevitable necessity, to the great Object of his adoration, the largest measure of the divinest attribute of which he can form any conception; and rests at last, without qualification or reserve, in the all-sustaining truth, in which alone both mind and heart can rest, that GOD IS LOVE.

These views, it cannot be doubted, are substantially those of the author of the present treatise. It is therefore the more to be regretted that he should have advanced opinions bearing a different calculated in any degree to shake the foundation of the beautiful superstructure he has reared.

aspect, and

I at another opportunity, to investigate the organ of destructiveness; only premising that I have no hostility to phrenology, believing it to be founded in fact, and capable of most useful application, although not yet matured as a science, and erroneous in some of its details.

C.

RELIGION FOR CHILDREN.

As to religion-the true, deep-felt and delightful religion, whose essence is that perfect love which casteth out fear-the well-taught child cannot but possess it. The spirit will as surely rise in blessed elevation towards its Heavenly Father, as filial tenderness gushes spontaneously forth toward the dear earthly parent. Let the Most High be no longer girt with the metaphorical clouds of antiquity, let the thunders cease to roll, the lightnings to flash, and hailstones and coals of fire to fall from the thick darkness; let God be known as the light, the life, the love of the universe, and he will be loved as certainly as that an effect must follow its appointed and adequate cause.-(From "Cheering Views of Man and Providence," by Warren Burton, Boston, U. S. 1832. 12mo. Pp. 216, 217.)

ON VISITING A SCENE BY THE BANKS OF WINDERMERE,
AFTER ILLNESS.

On! ever-loved and ever-beauteous scene!
How long those russet moorlands, curtained round
With weeping clouds and dreary shade, have frowned
Thee and my fond, admiring gaze between!
Wandering with weary step those heights beneath,
To snatch a glance beyond their murky screen,
Hopeless again to pass their rugged bound,

I marked the last pale flower of Autumn's wreath
Bend o'er the dusky tarns on the lone heath;
The darling of the wild-its glory gone,
Its stately strength of youth departed, like my own.

And then I thought those mystic bonds, entwined.
Around my heart from being's earliest hour,

That wedded to all beauteous forms my mind, Would in strong thraldom bind that heart no more; For I had stood upon the utmost shore

Of mortal life, and all those joys resigned.
That held it captive with a powerful spell,
And calmly thought to look a long farewell;

But now that thou, bright vision, through the gloom
Emergest, smiling in unwithering bloom,

When I must turn and leave thee,-oh! the swell
Of deep emotion rises as of yore,

And that unbroken chain still binds me as before!
Unveiled amidst the wild, oh! lovely scene,
Serene, as thou hadst never felt the blast,

Like Joy's bright form, long years of sadness passed;
Gladness and beauty are thy covering now,
Adorned as with immortal youth art thou!

Even those majestic trees, amid the sheen,
Spread their luxuriant sweep of verdant bough

As if endowed with never-fading prime,

That neither change, nor time, nor tempest fears;
And lift to the blue dome their heads sublime,
As though in scorn of man, and his few fleeting years.
In scorn-stay the rash thought! Let Faith divine.
Interpret Nature's "still, small voice" aright,
And she will prove a monitress benign,
Meek handmaid at Religion's holy shrine!
Her long-enduring forms that Time defy-
Her soft and blissful scenes, serene and bright
Through rolling ages-tell the enraptured eye
That gladness, beauty, are undying things,

Perpetual as His power from whom all being springs: "Life, love and joy," are treasured up in heaven,

And man, frail man hath hope through the Restorer given!

* The grass of Parnassus.

I. L.

ON THE MATERIALITY OF THE HUMAN SOUL.

THE progress of discovery has repeatedly shewn that we are prone to exaggerate the importance of whatever is most intimately connected with ourselves; and it has ever been the office of true science to moderate our exaggerated conceptions, to strip nature of its mysticism, and display it in correct proportions and sublime simplicity. By this means we have at length arrived at correct ideas of the relations and comparative importance of the several parts of external nature; civilized man no longer regards his own land as comprising the earth, and the earth as centre and chief of the universe; it has cost the mightiest intellects severe and protracted struggles to remove the prejudices of man on these and other such subjects, to place in his hand the telescope which would lower his estimate of the world on which he dwelt, but would make abundant compensation in the relations beyond which it pointed out, and the glorious whole it. revealed. But while we are delighted with the vast design and wonderful adaptations of external nature, the mind itself, like the eye, is so prone to receive magnified and confused impressions from the objects most adjacent, that its own nature still remains unknown. The question of its materiality must ever lie at the entrance of any investigation of its nature and constitution; and as it is generally assumed to be immaterial, on what appear to me decidedly insufficient grounds, I have endeavoured to state the question comprehensively, but in a few words, and as impartially as I can.

The hypothesis generally received is, that the mind is an immaterial substance; that it is the origin of thought, volition, sensation, and all the properties which distinguish the animate from the inanimate creation: whether or not it is possessed of extension, and in what part of the body it resides, are controverted; it is, however, united to it during the period of human life in such a way that they mutually affect each other, and produce all the appearances of living beings. Let us first examine the reasoning on which this theory rests, and then view the objections to which it is liable. With the scriptural arguments. adduced in favour of it, we have at present nothing to do. They are in themselves so equivocal, and the employment of texts of scripture in support of doctrines of natural philosophy has proved so very fallacious, that we may leave that argument for the present, fully assured that sound deductions from the phenomena of nature can never contradict correct interpretations of the revelations of its Author.

The argument from reason is very forcibly and fully, though obliquely, stated by Bishop Butler in his Analogy of Religion, Chap. I. Pt. i., on a Future Life. He argues that as we are possessed of sensation and reflection immediately before death, we must suppose they will continue after that event, unless some reason can be shewn why it should cause their destruction; and then proceeds, "All presumption of death's being the destruction of living beings must go upon the supposition of their being compounded and so discerptible. But since consciousness is single and indivisible, it should seem that the being in which it resides must be so too. For were the motion of any particle of matter absolutely one and indivisible, so as that it should imply a contradiction to suppose part of this motion to exist and part

not to exist, i. e. part of this matter to move and part to be at rest, then would its power of motion be indivisible; and so also would the subject in which the power inheres, namely, the particle of matter: for if this could be divided into two, one part might be moved and the other at rest, which is contrary to the supposition." The analogy here drawn between consciousness and motion is exceedingly imperfect, because the motion of a body consists of the motion of its particles, just as the existence of a mass does of the existence of its parts; but consciousness is not a property of the separate particles of which the thinking matter is composed, but arises from the complete organization of those particles which, as a whole-that is, with reference to the property, consciousness-is as strictly one, as the ultimate particles are with reference to their attributes of motion, existence, &c. Did man consist of a number of complete and distinct organisms-in other words, had two or more individuals a common consciousness of every sensation experienced by every member of each-then I would allow that the sentient principle which could actuate these several bodies and yet possess consciousness of perfect unity, must have an existence separate from the distinct organisms; but the very fact that no such animals are to be found; that consciousness is always found inherent in complete organisms; that when the completeness is destroyed, the consciousness ceases,-is in itself a very strong presumption that it is strictly a property of matter under these organizations. The unity of consciousness, then, affords no ground for asserting the immateriality of the conscious being.

Bishop Butler then proceeds to argue that the senses are merely the means of conveying impressions to the mind, and that they have no innate power of perception, any more than the instruments which have been invented to assist them;-which is of course allowed, but is inconclusive, unless it can be shewed that the brain to which the impressions are all conveyed is also destitute of the power of perception.

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(C But," it is said, man exists in another state, that of reflection, in which he is perfectly unconnected with the organs of sense; they may be destroyed, and he remains the same." Here is the same omission of the most important part which the brain performs in the animal economy. With reference to that organ, the observation completely fails; for if it be injured, all the powers of the mind are at once suspended. This power of thought is what is principally insisted upon by immaterialists. "Nothing," they say, "is more certain than that the elementary particles of matter are not possessed of the power of thought, and it is inconceivable that any juxtaposition of the particles should endow them with it. The essential properties of matter are found to be solidity, extension, divisibility, mobility, passiveness, &c. In all its forms and mutations, from the granite rock to the yielding atmosphere and rapid lightning, these essential properties are discovered; they take an infinite variety of accidental modes, but give no indication of intelligence, or approach to intelligence." Now this reasoning about the abstract properties of matter has been repeatedly shewn in the annals of science to be most inconclusive. Had a mariner 1000 years ago been shewn a needle, and told that that piece of steel would invariably of its own accord point northwards, he might