extremes: one, the inorganic and stable; the other, the organic and unstable; the former, the oxygen extreme; the latter, the carbon extreme. In inorganic Nature, as oxygen is the element of strongest affinity, the tendency is mostly to combination with oxygen or an analogous change, and this occasions the speedy dissolution of the organic structure when life disappears, and continued interchanges until the stable oxyds are produced. In life, on the contrary, there is a constant rising in the scale; that is, a movement in just the reverse direction, to compounds of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, or carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, of greater and greater complexity; the stem of the plant thus preceding the formation of the higher material of the flower; or, in the animal, the albumen of the germ preceding the multiplied compounds of the structure and the highest of all compounds, as we believe it, the material of the brain. Inorganic and organic nature thus move in opposite directions.

Again, in inorganic Nature, increase of size is only accretion, and does nothing more than increase gravity. In the plant-kingdom of life, increase from the germ, besides increasing gravity, develops and sustains the organic structure, and produces a rising scale of chemical compositions. In the animal-kingdom, in addition to all the results just mentioned, there is a gradual development of mechanical force, from zero in the germ to its maximum in each species, besides also the force necessary to sustain the growth and functions of the individual, including mental action.

On scientific ground we should, therefore, conclude that physical force could not, by any metamorphosis or genesis, give rise to LIfe.

But again, suppose life to exist. This means simply living beings, as plants and animals, and implies conditions of chemical change, growth, and decay, in such beings. But we have no right to assert that any aggregation of such living beings, or amount of life, is capable of more than simply living and reproducing itself. The greatest possible result is accomplished when a living organism produces its like, in its young; for it is a result precisely equivalent, in power, to the

parent itself; that is, the power at work. Let there be a universe of worlds, full of living beings, and we still have no authority, from science, to assert the existence of a principle of life actuating that universe, beyond what belongs severally to each living being in it.

A study of Nature gives us, therefore, no basis for the notion of a living universal nature, capable more or less completely of self-development. Suppose the world to be in its condition of inorganic progress; we have no scientific ground for supposing that it could pass to a higher state, possessing living beings, by any parturient powers within. Or if life exists; we still get no hint as to the evolution of the four Sub-kingdoms of animal life from a universal germ; nor as to the origin of the Class-types, Order,-Family,—or Genus-types, or those of Species, each of which is a distinct idea in the plan of creation.

Nature in fact pronounces such a theory of evolution false, absolutely false, as we observe more particularly on a following page. It also proves the Divinity to be present at every step in creation, in the ordering of the globe in each physical feature, as well as in the plan and evolution of the life-kingdoms. The perpetual presence of Mind, infinite in power, wisdom, and love, and ever-acting, is so manifest in the whole history of the past, that the pantheistic theory which makes Nature God, is much the least absurd of the two. It regards Nature more in accordance with the analogies of a being like man, in which mind is uninterruptedly immanent, instead of an entity only now and then roused by an external mind. From the pantheistic doctrine we rise to true theism, by recognizing that whatever perfections belong to Nature, must be in or of God, as his power and attributes, and in an infinite degree. Hence physical attributes do not constitute God: for if we reject the idea that a sense of justice, truth, and love is evinced by the physical world, still man has these moral qualities; and therefore they must be among the attributes of Deity. And in addition, man has over all a free will; and therefore this also, but in its infinitude, must be an attribute of the God of Nature. Such a

Deity is not Nature itself, which is only a plan in development, but a personal being above Nature, while ever in nature by his power and wisdom.

Our conclusion therefore is, that Nature, self-existent and self-propagating, now and then requiring a jog from the supernatural, may be an interesting myth, but cannot rise to the same point of view with Biblical truth or sound philosophy. But let us pass on. We need better argument than Prof. Lewis has brought forward, to convince us that the phrase, "In the beginning," does not mean what it says. We have regarded the announcement, in the first verse, of creation out of nothing by the will of God, a will free, supreme, omnific, as the grand point distinguishing the Mosaic cosmogony from the Egyptian and all others; almost like the very hand itself of God on the first line of the new revelation. But he would have us suppose that matter was made at some earlier beginning; and perhaps had had its ups and downs, and finally was worked over at a new beginning announced in the first verse. It is true the Hebrew word used in this place for create, does not signify, necessarily, creation out of nothing. Yet such an inference cannot be resisted without doing violence to the spirit of the text, and the fundamental laws of human belief. We would ask Prof. Lewis, what Hebrew word he could substitute for the one used, that would convey the precise idea of creation out of nothing? When he has found such a one, his reasoning may then demand consideration. "In the beginning" refers directly to the existing "heavens and earth" mentioned in the following part of the verse; that is, the existing universe. We may suspect the existence of a previous universe that came to nought before this began; but it cannot be made a question of reasonable belief, or a basis for argument.

Some other points in Professor Lewis's cosmology (he will excuse us if we substitute his own name for the term " scriptural") demand from us a passing remark.

With singular inconsistency, Professor Lewis admits a "huge nebulosity" for the "formless and void" state of the earth, makes the progress mainly one by natural causes, and

then speaks contemptuously (p. 107) of nebular condensations, the very process required to evolve solidity from his nebulosity. He speaks of the power of cohesion in the nebulous matter as preceding chemical and other kinds of attraction, not knowing but that the existence of cohesion involves the existence of the rest.

Professor Lewis supposes that, on the third day, the world was finished so far as to have its seas and lands, mountains and valleys, and urges a general theory of evolutions; yet he thinks that this does not necessarily imply that, at that time, the central body, to which the earth is a satellite, was already in its place. The worlds, on such a view, were not evolved according to the analogy of embryogeny, by eliminating the systems and then their parts; but first the scattered parts, and then these, were afterwards put into systems. Science, as well as reason, most plainly teaches, that if any evolution-theory is to be adopted (and such our author aims at), the former is the

true one.

In the Mosaic record it is said that, on the third day, dry land appeared; but nowhere does it announce, like our author, that the land was diversified with mountains and vallies and neither does science.

It is remarkable, that, in a work on the six days of creation, the author's system should have led him so far away from the record, as to place under the fifth day, both his remarks on the creation of vegetation (the work of the third day), and all he has to say on the quadrupeds or mammalia (the work of the sixth). The convenience of his theory of life from the waters and earth, appears to have been, in part, the occasion of it. But is this reason sufficient, in a work entitled "The Six Days of Creation, or the Scriptural Cosmology," by an author who expresses great devotion to the Scriptures? - a work exegetical, profound, claiming to sift the Hebrew, and offered as a contribution to our Biblical literature? Can we be satisfied that the word of God has been sufficiently studied and apprehended, when not even a mention of the creation of quadrupeds is introduced into the chapter on the sixth day?

He says:

Besides this, the author doubts, on grounds he so contemns, -scientific grounds-whether the higher kinds of vegetation, if any, were created before the sun. "For the development of these, if not for their origination, there is needed the orderly arrangement of the seasons and the regularlyadjusted light and heat of some great luminary."

Moreover, he mentions no reason for the wonderful fact, that two so diverse creations as that of vegetation and the dividing the land from the seas took place in one day; nor for the equally marvellous fact, that the creation of quadrupeds took place on the same day with that of man.

On the creation of man, we have the crude speculations that have already been cited (p. 98), a miserable substitute for wisdom that comes from above.

Temptations to remark and criticism follow one, all through the pages of such a work; there is so much to complain of, in the author's philosophy, his exegesis, his ready way of making the Mosaic record literal or "phenomenal," to suit his theory; his misapprehension of science, and denunciation of established truth. We therefore have had to cull sparingly, not to run to a tedious length.

Is it not a marvel that a learned Professor should accord, in his cosmogony, with the views of science in all their grander points, and yet lose no opportunity to denounce science should adopt, with science, the idea of indefinite periods for days, and then pick a quarrel because geologists make the days, he thinks, too long; should build up a system out of Nature and natural causes, or what he supposes to be natural causes, and still abuse a science that also uses Nature and natural causes, and studies not to stretch those causes beyond what is warranted by direct observation; should attempt to grasp a subject that requires the highest knowledge of natural possibilities, without the least investigation as to what are the actual powers or capabilities of Nature? An honest doubt of the conclusions of geologists, in the mind' of one who has not pursued the subject, is reasonable enough; but for such a one, in his acknowledged emptiness, to turn around and charge science or the students of Nature with flippancy and ignorance, is at least to prove