are consequently peculiarly exposed to mutilation and injury. As a compensation for this, they are endowed (the simplicity of their structure admitting it) with the most astonishing powers of recovery; entire limbs, and in some instances the eyes even, being reproduced in a short time after they have been lost. As we rise in the scale of organized being, we meet with animals of a more complex structure, possessing a wider range of faculties, and having greater power of avoiding the dangers by which they are surrounded. These suffer less frequently in the integrity of their parts. Their power of repairing injuries and supplying losses when such occur, is also less remarkable. At the same time, they are more liable to disease, on account of the greater number and delicacy of the relations subsisting between their several parts, and the vis medicatrix naturae, it would seem, is also stronger with them, owing, it is probable, to the same cause. We have this type of character most strongly exemplified in man, who stands at the head of the organic creation and who besides combining in his structure a greater number and variety of parts, than any other animal, is also endowed with intellectual and moral faculties, which add still further to the elaborateness of his constitution. His life is also more varied and takes in a far wider range, both of character and of circumstances, than that of any other animal. We accordingly find him more liable to disease, oftener suffering from organic or fundamental derangement. At the same time his system, including within it more numerous checks and balances, possesses greater recuperative powers; so that disorders, though more various and more frequent, do not so generally prove fatal with him, as with the lower animals. Now all this, we say, is not only perfectly reconcilable with the goodness of Deity, but furnishes a new and beautiful illustration of it, if we suppose the properties of matter to be inherent and unalterable. The liability to suffer from injury and disease, growing immediately out of these properties, belongs necessarily to every form of organic life. Vegetables are no more exempt from it than animals. The evils naturally arising from it may be in various ways checked and limited, but they cannot be altogether prevented even by the wisest and most benevolent provisions. They are incidental to our existence as organized beings and no degree of care or attention on our part can enable us wholly to avoid them. They are however only incidental. We do not find them aimed at and provided for. There is nothing to indicate that they are in any manner objects of the Divine intention. But if on the contrary we suppose the phenomena connected with matter, to be immediately dependent upon the power of God, we must レイ 1848.] Simplicity characteristic of the Creator's works. 355 then refer these evils directly to his will, and suppose them to be as really and as fully intended by him, as any of the most obvious ends of our creation; an idea not only contradicted by everything which we behold around us, but one from which our whole moral nature revolts; for it makes God responsible for the evil in the world, not as inseparably connected with the means employed for the production of a greater amount of good but as existing by itself and for its own sake. There is one other point of view from which we would glance at our subject before dismissing it. Simplicity is one of the most striking characteristics of the Creator's works. It is found everywhere and pervades everything; so true is this, that any theory, whether in morals or physics, which fails in this attribute may be presumed from that circumstance alone to be without foundation in nature. Now if we apply this test to the hypothesis we have been considering, there can be no question which of the two should be preferred. One refers the changes continually going on in the natural world, to the action of a few elements; deducing from their various properties all its most complicated phenomena. It supposes results transcending in variety and magnificence our powers of conception, to be brought about by means so simple, that a child may comprehend them. It presents in the different kinds of matter, considered with reference to the purposes for which they were formed, a sublime generalization of constitutions and powers, of which every advance in the physical sciences, gives us only a more exalted conception. The other hypothesis refers the same phenomena immediately to the power of the Deity. It supposes that power to be exerted every moment about each one of all the innumerable atoms contained in the universe. Nay more. It requires that the power of Deity should everywhere attend these atoms; that it should follow them through all their combinations and changes, varying its manifestation with every new condition under which they are placed. The idea which is thus presented of the Divine agency in the natural world, is intricate and involved, beyond the power of language to express. The mind even is pained and bewildered in its efforts to take it in. It is wholly wanting in that beautiful simplicity which, as we have said, characterizes all the operations of nature. It cannot therefore be true. The foregoing considerations are, we think, sufficient to justify us in regarding as false every supposition which requires the interposition of Divine power in the production of material phenomena. Matter is a reality. It possesses properties and acts by virtue of those properties. It is in truth what our senses affirm it to be. Their testimony is to be regarded as having equal authority with the voice of inspiration. It comes from the Author of nature and is strengthened and confirmed by all that we know of His character, and by all that we learn of His works. It is more especially in perfect accordance with the manner in which he has employed matter in framing our globe and in organizing the different tribes of plants and animals placed upon it. In concluding our remarks upon the relations of matter to Deity, it may be proper to advert very briefly to the question of its origin. Whence is it? Has it always existed, or were the spaces now filled with it, once unoccupied and void? Are we to regard it as eternal and self-existent? Or shall we suppose it to have had a beginning, and to have derived its existence from a power without itself? The question, if we mistake not, is one upon which, aside from revelation, we have no means of forming an opinion. It lies wholly beyond the reach of our faculties. It is one of those questions which the human mind naturally and instinctively asks, but to which she gains no answer either from within or from without. Considered abstractly, the reason does not take hold of it; as a question of fact, there are no analogies bearing upon it. It is true that matter is employed by the Creator as if it already existed, and was, if we may so speak, furnished to His hands. It is taken just as it is. Its properties are made use of, but not modified. Even when the most complex arrangements and combinations are necessary to attain a proposed end in accordance with its laws, these latter are not changed, but the combinations and arrangements are uniformly resorted to. In a word, as we have already seen, matter is employed by God in the same manner as we ourselves should employ it for like purposes. This fact however affords no just ground for the inference that it was not originally created by Him. Having formed it and endowed it with properties, we should naturally expect that He would make use of it in such a manner as to make these properties available to the purposes of its creation. Any alteration of them, the resort in any emergency to new elements or new properties would imply either defect in the constitution of matter or want of skill in employing it. We can therefore gain no indications from this source in regard to its origin. The vast scale upon which matter exists, the sublime ends to which it ministers, as well as the ceaseless round of changes through which it is constantly passing, without itself undergoing change or diminution naturally impress upon the mind the idea of permanence, and it is not surprising that those who derived their light solely from nature should generally have believed it to be eternal. Such appears to have been the opinion of the ancient Egyptian philosophers. They were 1848.] According to the Bible, Matter not Eternal. 357 accustomed to trace the world back, through a series of transformations to an original chaos, in which the materials composing it already existed, though enveloped in profound darkness, and without relation, order or end. In this state they believed matter to be coëval with God, and limited the work of creation to educing from its chaotic elements the beauty, arrangement and harmony of the universe. These cosmological ideas, although originating on the banks of the Nile, like many other of the Egyptian doctrines, passed over to Greece and Italy where they were incorporated, with slight alterations, into the prevailing mythological and philosophical systems. The highest conception of Deity which seems to have been formed on either side of the Mediterranean, was that of a Power intimately pervading all matter and continually evolving from it life, motion, order and beauty. Coelum, ac terras, camposque liquentes Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus For the sublime idea of a Being, who was able by the simple exertion of His power to give existence to matter, "who spake and it was done, who commanded and it stood fast," who said, "Let there be light and there was light," we are indebted to the Hebrew Scriptures. Dictated originally by inspiration, the idea has come down to us through the channel of these writings, along with other conceptions of the Divine character, as far surpassing in grandeur anything we find in heathen mythologies. No speculations introduce it. No arguments are offered in support of it. But the doctrine is made to rest upon the only foundation capable of sustaining it, the word of God. It is presented to us as a revealed truth, which we have no natural means of ascertaining, which the Author of all things could alone have made known to us. ARTICLE VIII. THE ADVANCEMENT OF SOCIETY IN KNOWLEDGE AND VIRTUE. By Prof. B. B. Edwards. THE Christian philanthropist, when he casts his eye on the history of the world, or on its present condition, is apt to be despondent. If he be not conscious of this feeling on a cursory view, he may awake to the sad reality on a further examination. In proportion, indeed, as he is a true man, cordially devoted to the best interests of his fellow creatures, he will be sustained by the goodness of his cause. The arm of the faithful soldier is nerved mainly by the justice of his cause. In the darkest hours, he is cheered by the consciousness that he is contending for the true interests of his country. Still, the moral strength of an army consists very much in the degree in which they expect success. Sometimes victory is taken for granted. All the previous arrangements are made with a distinct understanding that there will be a favorable result. To each division of the host is assigned the duty of following up the victory and of reaping all its possible fruits. In such cases a defeat is nearly impossible. A triumph is generally certain where it is confidently expected. So in the spiritual warfare. The Christian philanthropist, who commences his work with the cheerful anticipation of success, will commonly win his object. A hopeful frame of spirit is one of God's best gifts to man. A morbid anticipation of defeat, or of small success, is followed almost always by the expected result. But in proportion as one is fitted to his particular work by an enlightened education, by enlarged views of the dispensation of grace which is committed to him, by a fraternal interest for his brethren elsewhere, by compassion for a world which must perish without the light of revelation, he will derive encouragement from the general spread of Christianity, or become faint-hearted from the prevalence of sin and error. His success as an individual will be very much in proportion to his expectation of the universal triumph of the Redeemer. If animated by the great hopes which should fill his bosom, he will perform his work with an energy and authority which is possible in no other circumstances. If he looks with a despairing or indifferent eye on the mass of mankind, he will be apt to do so on the |