thing. His system, closely examined and pursued into its results, is the completest and most perfect piece of materialism, necessitarianism, scepticism and atheism combined, that has ever come under our notice.

And yet, there is in it a great deal of interesting information, accurately classified, and the author evidently wishes to guard it from the charge of atheistical impiety, by referring to the author of Nature, and supposing an original Framer of creative law. Whether this supposition, or the admiration expressed of the wisdom exercised in making such a law, is sufficient to redeem the system from such a charge, the readers of the book will judge for themselves. If atheism be judged by the Apostle's expression, without God in the world, this book is full of it; and that gloomy sentence, without God in the world, is in fact the one grand impression made by this book upon the mind. It goes far beyond the schemes of the old English Deists, and inasmuch as it is pushed forward under a form of profound scientific investigation, it is perhaps more dangerous than would be the same theory on controverted principles of morals. When a false and injurious system of morals comes by itself, the conscience and common sense of mankind reject it. But scientific absurdities are not so easily detected by the mass; and a bad morality pushed forward by an apparent body of science, and to some degree hidden by the same, may cause the feet of many to stumble unawares.

On the whole, we are reminded by this book of Lord Bacon's profound observation, that in knowledge without love there is ever something of malignity: and it makes us also think of Coleridge's remark, equally striking, that all the products of the mere understanding partake of DEATH, and are as the rattling twigs and sprays in winter, into which a sap is yet to be propelled from some root, to which evidently the author of this work has not yet penetrated, if they are to afford the soul either food or shelter. That root is Christ. And there is one declaration in the Word of God in regard to Christ, which is as a thunder-stroke of annihilation to this writer's speculations upon nature, and that is the sublime

66

opening of the Epistle to the Hebrews; "GOD, who at sundry times and in divers manners, SPAKE in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days SPOKEN unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, BY WHOM ALSO HE MADE THE WORLDS." Putting this beside Paul's sermon to the Epicureans and Stoics, in whose "sensual sty" this work on the vestiges of Creation properly belongs, we have a perfect answer to the whole system. God, that made the world and all things therein, giveth to all life and breath and all things, and hath made of one blood all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation, that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him, though He be not far from every one of us: For in Him we live and move and have our being." Instead, therefore, of the living to the dead, let the people seek unto their God.

Acquaint thyself with God, if thou would'st taste
His works. Admitted once to his embrace,
Thou shalt perceive that thou wast blind before.
Thine eye shall be instructed, and thy heart,
Made pure, shall relish with divine delight,
Till then unfelt, what hands divine have wrought.
Happy the man, who sees a God employed
In all the good and ill that checker life!
Resolving all events, with their effects
And manifold results, into the will

And arbitration wise of the Supreme.

Did not his eye rule all things, and intend

The least of our concerns (since from the least

The greatest oft originate): could chance

Find place in his dominions, or dispose
One lawless particle to thwart his plan;
Then God might be surprised, and unforeseen
Contingence might alarm him, and disturb
The smooth and equal course of his affairs.

This truth, philosophy, though eagle-eyed

In nature's tendencies, oft overlooks;
And, having found his instrument, forgets,
Or disregards, or, more presumptuous still,
Denies the power that wields it. God proclaims
His hot displeasure against foolish men

That live an Atheist life; involves the heaven
In tempests; quits his grasp upon the winds,
And gives them all their fury: bids the plague
Kindle a fiery boil upon the skin,.

And putrefy the breath of blooming health.
He calls for famine, and the meagre fiend
Blows mildew from between his shrivelled lips,
And taints the golden ear. He springs his mines
And desolates a nation at a blast.

Forth steps the spruce philosopher, and tells
Of homogeneal and discordant springs
And principles; of causes, how they work
By necessary laws their sure effects;

Of action and reaction; he has found

The source of the disease that nature feels,

And bids the world take heart, and banish fear.

Thou fool! will thy discovery of the cause Suspend th' effect or heal it? Has not God Still wrought by means, since first He made the world? And did he not of old employ his means To drown it? What is his creation less

Than a capacious reservoir of means

Formed for his use, and ready at his will?

Go, dress thine eyes with eye-salve; ask of him, Or ask of whomsoever he has taught;

And learn, though late, the genuine cause of all.

THE BODIES OF SPACE,

THEIR ARRANGEMENTS AND FORMATION.

It is familiar knowledge that the earth which we inhabit is a globe of somewhat less than 8000 miles in diameter, being one of a series of eleven which revolve at different distances around the sun, and some of which have satellites in like manner revolving around them. The sun, planets, and satellites, with the less intelligible orbs termed comets, are comprehensively called the solar system, and if we take as the uttermost bounds of this system the orbit of Uranus (though the comets actually have a wider range), we shall find that it occupies a portion of space not less than three thousand six hundred millions of miles in diameter. The mind fails to form an exact notion of a portion of space so immense; but some faint idea of it may be obtained from the fact, that, if the swiftest race-horse ever known had begun to traverse it, at full speed, at the time of the birth of Moses, he would only as yet have accomplished half his journey.

It has long been concluded amongst astronomers, that the stars, though they only appear to our eyes as brilliant points, are all to be considered as suns, representing so many solar systems, each bearing a general resemblance

to our own. The stars have a brilliancy and apparent magnitude which we may safely presume to be in proportion to their actual size and the distance at which they are placed from us. Attempts have been made to ascertain the distance of some of the stars by calculations founded on parallax, it being previously understood that if a parallax of so much as one second, or the 3600th of a degree, could be ascertained in any one instance, the distance might be assumed in that instance as not less than 19,200,000 millions of miles! In the case of the most brilliant star, Sirius, even this minute parallax could not be found; from which of course it was to be inferred that the distance of that star is something beyond the vast distance which has been stated. In some others, on which the experiment has been tried, no sensible parallax could be detected; from which the same inference was to be made in their case. But a sensible parallax

of about one second has been ascertained in the case of the double star, á á, of the constellation of the Centaur,* and one of the third of that amount for the double star, 61 Cygni; which gave reason to presume that the distance of the former might be about nineteen millions of millions of miles, and the latter of much greater amount. If we suppose that similar interval sexist between all the stars we shall readily see that the space occupied by even the comparatively small number visible to the naked eye must be vast beyond all powers of conception.

The number visible to the eye is about three thousand; but when a telescope of small power is directed to the

By the late Mr. Henderson, Professor of Astronomy in the Edinburgh University, and Lieutenant Meadows.