allowing her to stamp upon their minds the impress of her own actual order and laws by the evidence of facts carefully observed, and of phenomena exactly ascertained. It was the difference of these two views of man's relation to nature, the magisterial and the ministerial, which made the main difference between the spirit and method of the old and the new philosophies of the old, which accomplished little or nothing; and of the new, which has accomplished so much and wrought such marvels, that its admirers begin now apparently to think that it is the only light of the world, the only teacher and saviour

of mankind.

But is there anything of this ministerial posture and habit of mind in such views of nature as Powell has announced-anything of this entire submission of the understanding to the evidence of facts and phenomena? All the facts and phenomena of nature have reference only to the forces and laws included within her own system; and allowing that, so far as these are concerned, there is uniformity and constancy, does that amount to a proof that there is no power in the universe higher than nature, and that it is impossible for the higher power to interfere with her, to suspend her order for a time, or to bring her order to a termination? Can such an assertion be called the submission of the mind to the facts of nature? Is it not palpably a going immensely beyond the facts? This is not surely allowing nature to speak for herself, and to govern our thoughts and conclusions about her, but is an entire perversion and misinterpretation of her testimony. This is to make her say, not what she is and has long been, but to say that she cannot be otherwise than she is, and never was otherwise, and never will be. This is to make her speak not only about herself as she is, but about the purposes and plans of her Almighty Maker and Author, not only for all past time, but for all eternity too; that it never was his mind to make a change in her present order, and never will be; that he never once wrought a miracle within her sphere and system, and never will to all eternity Is this the interpretation of nature? Is not this rather to put thoughts into nature which we have no evidence that she ever conceived, and to put words into her mouth which she never was heard to utter? Is this the ministerial position and function of man's understanding in relation to nature ? Verily, this is to play the magister naturæ in a style of dictation and domineering worse than anything that Bacon ever laid to the charge of the old philosophy, ancient or modern. The truth is, this is to make nature impious in her own despite; to make her set herself above God and assert her independence of Him, against her own obvious design to laud and glorify him; to make her deify herself and her own order and laws, instead

of "the heavens declaring the glory of God, and the earth shewing his handiwork."

The ultimate fact regarding man's position in the universe, and intellectual relation to it-the fact which rules that he can only be the minister and interpreter of the universe, and nothing more-the fact therefore which lies at the lowest foundation of the Baconian philosophy and all inductive science, is this, that man comes into the world as an intelligent spectator and observer of it. He finds the system of things in existence when he opens his eyes; he finds on inquiry that it has been in existence long before he came into being; he is introduced into this wonderful theatre of things, with eyes to see it, with reason to search and understand it, and with emotions of delight and admiration to be stirred by its outer and inner glories. It follows inevitably that he must be content to take the universe as he finds it, to accept the objective evidence of things which tells him what they are, instead of prejudging and divining beforehand what they must be, or must ever have been, or must ever continue to be. A man who visits the empire of China does not go there to dogmatise as to what China must be, and must always have been, but to use his eyes and other senses-to look, and see, and find what China actually is. A man who goes into a theatre does not go to dogmatise about the play and the actors; to prejudge what the play must be, and what the actors and what the scenery, and what the successive acts and phases of the drama: he goes to take all things as he finds them, and to use his judgment upon them after he has used his eyes and his ears to ascertain what they are. And exactly similar is the position of man in the system of nature; a spectator, and nothing more; a spectator with eyes to look, and a judgment to pronounce upon what he sees, but without any power or competency to dictate to things what they shall be, or must be; without any authority or competency, e.g., to assert in regard to the system of nature, that not only he has never himself seen it change or vary, but that it is absolutely unchangeable; and that this, too, is a primary law of belief, insomuch that it shall be irrational and absurd for any man to think the contrary. Surely such language can only proceed from forgetfulness of the real position and relation of the human mind to the system of things. It is language such as could only befit the Lord of nature to use, not man, the spectator and student of it. Let the Lord of nature declare her order to be immutable, and no one can challenge his competency to declare it, for nature is subject to his will, and his own purposes regarding her are intimately known to himself, But till he speaks to that effect, let man be silent. And if it is alleged, as the whole Christian church alleges, that there is

good and adequate proof that he has spoken the exact opposite of that language, both by word and deed; nay, that he has supernaturally interfered with the order of nature frequently in the past, and that he designs to interfere with it again in the time to come; then let the proof of the fact which the church alleges and appeals to be fairly weighed and considered; and if the proof is good and valid when tried by the ordinary principles of evidence, let it be frankly accepted and submitted to; let no violence be done to it; let no attempt be made to gag or forestall its utterance, or to prevent it from getting a candid hearing; let no prejudication upon the subject so enormous and immense as the absolute canon that nature is immutable be set up in anticipation of the evidence which waits for an audience. For that is merely to speak wildly and unwarrantably under the guise of philosophising; that is merely to speak a language which falls below the average of common reason and good sense, while speaking in the name and with the pretensions of the loftiest wisdom and the highest philosophy.

Imagine a man going to China, or into a theatre, and refusing to believe his own eyes,-even on the supposition that his eyes are in a sound state, and that he knows them to be So. But is not this the very thing that Professor Powell does when he says that he would not believe a miracle—i.e., a real violation or suspension of the order of nature-a real interference of supernatural power if he saw it with his own senses. Yes; he is not only the last, but the greatest of all the sceptics. He out-Humes Hume himself. Hume says in his famous Essay on Miracles, that "though a miracle can never be proved so as to be the foundation of a system of religion, there may possibly be miracles or violations of the usual order of nature of such a kind as to admit a proof from human testimony,"-i. e., to admit of being seen and attested by eye-witnesses; and he adds in the same place that "the decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature is an event rendered palpable by so many analogies that any phenomenon which seems to have a tendency towards that catastrophe comes within the reach of human testimony, if that testimony be very extensive and uniform." But if nature is subject to decay, corruption, and even dissolution, according to Hume, what are we to think of its immutability and invariableness according to Powell? Nor is it only Hume who admits that a violation of nature might be capable of proof. La Place, as before referred to, admits the same. If we ourselves," says he, "had been spectators of such an event, we should not believe our own eyes till we had scrupulously examined all the circumstances, and assured ourselves that there

was no trick or deception. After such an examination, we should not hesitate to admit it, notwithstanding its great improbability, and no one would have recourse to an inversion of the laws of vision in order to account for it." We do not mean, of course, to say that either Hume or La Place believed that in point of fact the order of nature has ever been violated, but we quote them to shew that it was no part of their philosophical creed that that order was absolutely inviolable and immutable, which appears to have been the creed of Powell. And he was quite sensible, be it remembered, of the advance he had made upon his unbelieving predecessors, but he regarded the advance as the progress of enlightenment and true science. He quotes the passage of La Place just given, and does so only to express his dissent from it. "In such cases," says he, (viz., as that supposed by La Place), we might imagine a misapprehension or exaggeration of some real event, or possibly some kind of ocular illusion, mental hallucination, or the like.' "Of old," he continues, "the sceptic professed he would be convinced by seeing a miracle. At the present day a visible miracle would but be the very subject of his scepticism. It is not the attestation, but the nature of the alleged marvel which is now the point in question. It is not the fallibility of human testimony, but the infallibility of natural order, which is now the ground of argument; and modern science cannot conceive religious truth confirmed by a violation of physical truth." Modern science, forsooth! as if all other professors of modern science agreed with him in such extreme views, and as if, while broaching such an enormous paradox of his own, he were only reporting the unanimous judgment of all living philosophers; or as if, even admitting the possibility that he may not stand quite alone even in England in this pantheising mode of thought, he were entitled, as the mouthpiece of a small coterie of metaphysical physicists, half Spinozists, half Baconians, to dogmatise in the name, and upon the credit of the whole Royal Society and British Association. The fact is, that he has no right to speak in the name of British philosophers. He is rather, as Dr Buchanan remarks, a bold than a sound thinker, a speculative theorist rather than an inductive inquirer. "His fundamental principle is not an inductive conclusion; it has no resemblance to a physical generalisation, such as the law of gravitation; it is rather an abstract metaphysical opinion, such as he is pleased to rank among the higher physical generalisations and contemplations,' which some have thought presumptuous and profane, but which we arraign as simply unphilosophical."

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But if it were really true that the physical science of our time is to any large extent in sympathy with such unbounded

generalisations and abstractions as this of the absolute immutability of nature, we should none the less be of opinion that the science of the age had ceased to that extent to be Baconian, and was beginning to return to the condition from which Bacon redeemed the philosophy of his own day. One of the greatest evils of the old philosophy was its excessive fondness for wide generalisations, which it was in the habit of forming from a very narrow and inadequate induction of facts; and one of the weightiest lessons which Bacon taught his own age and posterity, was to rise to such generalisations with caution and circumspection, step by step, and continuously, not per saltum; and that even when they are formed in this gradual and circumspect way, they should be held subject to modification or even supersession by the evidence of new and additional facts, if these should emerge. Generalise cautiously-generalise upon the broadest possible basis of facts and observations-generalise provisionally till the generalisation has been tested and verified beyond all possibility of doubt. Does this new generalisation of the immutability and infallibility of nature answer to these prescriptions or fulfil these Baconian conditions. Far from it; very far indeed. It is enough to shew this, that Professor Powell claims for it the axiomatic certainty of a primary law of belief, i. e., a law of belief which you are to take with you, even to the examination of all those alleged facts which appear to be a contradiction to itself, but which, a priori, you are not to imagine can really be any exception to it. Many Christian miracles are alleged to shew that in point of fact and history, nature has not been infallible and immutable, but the reverse. No matter, says Powell; they cannot be true, they must all be unreal, because the infallibility of nature is a primary law of belief, an antecedent first principle of knowledge-antecedent, he means, to all examination of these very alleged exceptions to it. But what is this but to turn the business of philosophising upside down, and to reverse all the best axioms of inductive science. What is this but to generalise before examining and justly estimating all the relevant facts? What is this but to pronounce sentence first, and then examine the witnesses only to brow-beat and abuse them? What else than an affectation of philosophical language can we call it, to give the name of a primary law of belief to what, even if it were a true law, could never surely be a primary law, inasmuch as it could only be arrived at after long study and search into the system of things.

L.