of the sea, like banditti, seize and appropriate the wealth of the rich and the little all of the poor with the same accompaniments of stripping, wounding, and killing, as their human antitypes. Everything, in short, which the worst men commit either against life or property, is perpetrated on a larger scale by natural agents. Nature has noyades more fatal than those of Carrier; her explosions of fire-damp are as destructive as human artillery; her plague and cholera far surpass the poison-cups of the Borgias. Even the love of 'order,' which is thought to be a following of the ways of Nature, is, in fact, a contradiction of them. All which people are accustomed to deprecate as 'disorder' and its consequences, is precisely a counterpart of Nature's ways. Anarchy and the Reign of Terror are overmatched in injustice, ruin, and death, by a hurricane and a pestilence."-Three Essays, pp. 28-31.

The opinion that the world would be either physically or morally improved were gravitation to cease when men went by, were fire not always to burn and were water occasionally to refuse to drown, were laws few and miracles numerous, may safely be left to refute itself. Therefore, let me simply set over against Mr Mill's cersure of Nature Wordsworth's praise :

"Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,
Through all the years of this our life, to lead
From joy to joy; for she can so inform
The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
The dreary intercourse of daily life,
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore, let the moon
Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain winds be free
To blow against thee: and, in after years,
When these wild ecstasies shall be matured
Into a sober pleasure, when thy mind
Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,
Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh then,

If solitude, or fear, or pain, or grief,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts
Of tender joy wilt thou remember me
And these my exhortations!"

NOTE XXXII., page 241.

NO BEST POSSIBLE CREATED SYSTEM.

IBRARY

UNIVER

TY

CALIFORNIA

Dante has given magnificent expression to the truth that no created system can be absolutely perfect :—

"Colui che volse il sesto

Allo stremo del mondo, e dentro ad esso
Distinse tanto occulto e manifesto,

Non poteo suo valor sì fare impresso
In tutto l'universo, che il suo verbo
Non rimanesse in infinito eccesso.
E ciò fa certo, che il primo Superbo,
Che fu la somma d' ogni creatura,
Per non aspettar lume, cadde acerbo :
E quinci appar ch' ogni minor natura
È corto recettacolo a quel bene
Che non ha fine, e se in se misura.
Dunque nostra veduta, che conviene

Essere alcun de' raggi della mente
Di che tutte le cose son ripiene,
Non può di sua natura esser possente
Tanto, che suo principio non discerna
Molto di là, da quel ch' egli è, parvente.

Però nella giustizia sempitern.a

La vista che riceve il vostro mondo,
Com' occhio per lo mare, entro s' interna;
Che, benchè dalla proda veggia il fondo,
In pelago nol vede; e nondimeno
Egli è; ma cela lui l'esser profondo."

-Del Paradiso, cant. xix. 40-63.

"He his compasses who placed

At the world's limit, and within the line
Drew beauties, dimly or distinctly traced-
Could not upon the universe so write

The impress of his power, but that His Word
Must still be left in distance infinite:
And hence 'tis evident that he in heaven
Created loftiest his fate incurred

Because he would not wait till light was given.
And hence are all inferior creatures shown
Scant vessels of that Goodness unconfined
Which nought can measure save Itself alone.
Therefore our intellect-a feeble beam,

Struck from the light of the Eternal Mind,
With which all things throughout creation teem,—

Must by its nature be incapable,

Save in a low and most remote degree,
Of viewing its exalted principle.

Wherefore the heavenly Justice can no more
By mortal ken be fathomed than the sea:
For though the eye of one upon the shore
May pierce its shallows, waves unfathomed bound
His further sight, yet under them is laid

A bottom, viewless through the deep profound."

-WRIGHT.

NOTE XXXIII., page 245.

DEFECTS IN THE ORGANIC WORLD.

The objections to final causes from alleged defects in the organic world have been answered with wisdom and success by M. Janet, in his 'Causes Finales,' pp. 313-348.

The views of Professor Helmholtz as to the defects of the eye will be found stated at length in his popular lectures on scientific subjects. The chief defects enumerated are: 1. Chromatic aberration, connected with 2. Spherical aberration and defective centring of the cornea and lens, together producing the imperfection known as astigmatism; 3. Irregular radiation round the images of illuminated points; 4. Defective transparency; 5. Floating corpuscles, and 6. The "blind spot" with other gaps in the field of vision. "The eye has every possible defect that can be found in an optical instrument, and even some which are peculiar to itself." "It is not too much to say that if an optician wanted to sell me an instrument which had all these defects, I should think myself quite justified in blaming his carelessness in the strongest terms, and giving him back his instrument. Of course I shall not do this with my eyes, and shall be only too glad to keep them as long as I can-defects and all. Still, the fact that, however bad they may be, I can get no others, does not at all diminish their defects, so long as I maintain the narrow but indisputable position of a critic on purely optical grounds."

Helmholtz himself, however, points out that the defects of the eye are "all so counteracted, that the inexactness of the image which results from their presence very little exceeds, under ordinary conditions of illumination, the limits which are set to the delicacy of sensation by the dimensions of the retinal cones;" that "the adaptation of the eye to its function is most complete, and is seen in the very limits which are set to its defects." In fact, were the eye more perfect as an instrument of optical precision, it would be less perfect as an eye. Its absolute defects are practical merits. To be a useful eye

ments.

it must be neither a perfect telescope nor a perfect microscope, but a something which can readily serve many purposes, and which can be supplemented by many instruThe delicate finish of a razor renders it unfit for cutting wood. All man's senses and organs are inferior to those possessed by some of the lower animals, but the inferiority is of a kind which is a real and vast advantage. It is of a kind which allows them to be put to a greater variety of uses than could more perfect senses and organs. It is the very condition of their capacity to be utilised in manifold directions by an inventive and progressive reason. Further, no man can see at all merely with a so-called perfect optical instrument. He must have in addition the imperfect instrument, composed of a soft, watery, animal substance, and designated the eye. There is that in the eye which immeasurably transcends all mere physics and chemistry, all human mechanism and contrivance; there is life; there is vision.

NOTE XXXIV., page 252.

EPICUREAN DILEMMA.

The Epicurean dilemma has been often dealt with. I shall content myself with quoting Mr Bowen's remarks on the subject: "Omnipotence and benevolence are apparently very simple and very comprehensive terms, though few are more vaguely used. The former means a power to do everything; but this does not include. the ability to do two contradictory things at the same moment, or to accomplish any metaphysical impossibility. Thus, the Deity cannot cause two and two to