So far as I am aware, only two theories are held on this subject among the readers of Swedenborg. I shall endeavour fairly to describe both.

Feeling the force of the foregoing argument, and in order to evade its application, some who still cling to the notion of the evolution of species, have shifted their ground, and assert that "the Creator may have superadded these interior planes to the offspring of that pair of animals which were already the most highly developed on the natural plane;" and they contend that thus both Darwin and Swedenborg may be reconciled. This theory attempts to account for the similarities between man and animals by making man a compound, allied, as to his body and the whole natural plane of his being, to the animals, and in so far the result of "development by natural and sexual selection;" but discreted from the animals by the special act of creation as respects the interior degrees of his spiritual constitution. In this fashion, they contend, man sprang, as to his body, directly from the ape, as the ape developed through many gradations, from the jelly-fish; but, at the same time, all that differentiates him as a man from his animal progenitors and congeners was the result of a special act of creation. They thus give to the facts of similarity, which Darwin and others set forth, the greatest possible weight, and allow to his inference, the greatest possible authority, while fully accepting the opposing array of facts of difference.

This hypothesis really imports a new and very interesting question into the discussion. It admits the special act of creation in the production of man, which, however, the Lamarkian hypothesis was framed to get rid of, and which evolutionists generally would most strenuously oppose. To this extent it coalesces with the position assumed by the opponents of the development theory. The most serious question which it introduces, stated in the strongest manner, is the following:Whether is it more reasonable to believe that God created man's natural organism-so similar to that of the animals in so many respects -by using, as an intermediate means, that species of animal which was, on the natural plane, already the most highly developed of then existing creatures; endowing the embryotic offspring of such a pair, either at the instant of conception, or at some subsequent stage of its fœtal life, with the interior degrees or planes, by superadding them to whatever else the embryotic being derived by ordinary hereditary transmission from its parents, and in this way rendered man properly a member of the animal kingdom, and thus allied to the whole of the natural

world; and yet endowed with all that differentiates him from the animals, as a rational, spiritual, free, and immortal being:-or to believe that in creating man, God began altogether de novo, making his body out of nothing, or out of some previously existing mineral, or vegetable substance, and that He then planted within this material form or shape, all three, celestial, spiritual, and natural planes of existence, and then breathed into the creature thus wonderfully built up and constructed, the breath of lives, so that the material, and spiritual planes became animated, and the thenceafter immortal creature thus began to be?

On referring to the first article of this series (Intellectual Repository for May), it will be found that the theory stated in the first half of the question adopts "inference No. 3" as to immortality, and asserts that at some period in the career of development the offspring of an animal was endowed with immortality, and became man. It further attempts to define the period and the animal, the plastic embryotic state of an offspring of the most highly developed pair of animals then existing. It likewise implies a repetition of the process, in order to produce a human pair, so to render the future production of man in this way unnecessary. It further renders the supposition possible of a dozen or more of such human beings, springing in the same way from the same pair of progenitors; though it limits the number of progenitors of the first group of human beings to this one hypothetic, "most highly developed pair” of, it may be, anthropoidal apes. It is almost needless to say that this is only a compromise of the two theories,—it is the theory of evolution, plus “a special act of creation.” Like all compromises, its supporters may expect the antagonism of both parties. All that I need say on this theory at present is, that before such a notion deserves serious refutation, very much more evidence than has been yet discovered must be produced to prove that the offspring of parents can ever differ as to species from their parents, that creatures ever bring forth something utterly unlike themselves as to species, or that the son of a monkey could ever be a man! Certainly Swedenborg lends no countenance to such a compromise. Let those who believe the theory produce well accredited facts in its support. The dilemma stated in the question has no real existence. Those who reject a theory are not bound to propose an alternative theory; for very often to confess one's ignorance is a better proof of wisdom than to invent an hypothesis, and immediately to insist that the hypothesis "must be true!"

The second mode of explaining the similarity between the animal kingdom and man is that so broadly set forth by Swedenborg, and which underlies the whole of his philosophy. This theory bases all its propositions in the very nature of God. God is in the human form; everything which He has made does with greater or less clearness effigy the form of its Creator. There is also an "effort or

conatus" in all things to assume the human form; and from the "ultimates" of the mineral kingdom, through the "mediates" of the vegetable kingdom, and the "primaries" of the animal kingdom, the uses of all created things ascend by degrees to man, and through man to God, the Creator, from whom they had their origin. Hence the forms of all lower things were more than prophetic types of man: the forms of both the lower things of nature and of man are themselves determined by the all-embracing principle, that God is in the human form, and that all things must more or less clearly effigy the form of Him who made them.

The second great principle of Swedenborg's philosophy likewise comes to the support of this view. The original intention of all creation was the existence of a race of beings who should be formed in the image and likeness of the Creator, capable of perceiving, appre ciating, and reciprocating His love for ever and ever. Hence the one grand idea running through all creation, underlying all the harmonies of nature, dominating all its uses, and determining all its forms, was MAN! Man was to be the microcosm, nature the macrocosm. Hence nature is but the elaboration, in distinctive species and varieties of things, of that of which man is the unitary embodiment. All kingdoms, mineral, vegetable, and animal, meet and concentrate in man. He is the condensed aggregate, of which they are the specific integers. Man is what he is, only because he is the potential image and likeness of God; and natural things are what they are only, because of their relation to both man and God. Girt around with this all-embracing principle of creation, all things are representative of man, and through man of God. Thus all creation is both girdled and permeated with symbolism; each thing in man corresponding at once to some Divine principle in God, and to some created effect in nature; each thing in nature corresponding to something in man and in the Creator. This symbolism or correspondence is therefore not arbitrary or fanciful, but absolute, founded in the very nature and origin of things, unalterable, eternal. The science of correspondences is the splendid attempt to classify, arrange and interpret the human significance or relationship

of external nature, and the divine significance or relationship of the affections and thoughts and deeds of man.

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The third great principle of Swedenborg's philosophy likewise comes to the support of this view. There are three degrees in man, essentially distinct or discrete from each other, each one utterly incapable of ever becoming the other, though each two approaching the other by continuous degrees. These three discrete degrees are as distinct from each other as "end, cause, and effect," or as "soul, body, and operation," or as "love, wisdom, and power," or as "will, understanding, and life." These three degrees are effigied in nature by the three kingdoms, which, consequently, are essentially distinct and discreted one from the other. Hence to talk of the mineral becoming, by evolution, the vegetable, or the vegetable developing into the animal, or the animal developing into the man, is as unreasonable as to talk of the effect developing into the cause, and the cause into the end or the operations of soul and body developing into the body, and the body developing into the soul! These things are all discretely distinct and un-interchangeable. To produce each, required a special act of creation, the making of something to outwardly and naturally exist which previously only divinely existed in God. Yet these discreted things each approach each other, so as to render it most difficult for man to say where the body ends and the soul begins, where the cause ends and the effect begins; and, consequently, it is equally difficult to determine where each kingdom of nature terminates and another commences, or whether some objects are rightly classed as mineral or vegetable, and some others as vegetable or animal. This difficulty is, however, only as to classification, and arises solely from the defect of our discriminatory powers and the deficiency of our knowledge. As knowledge increases, and as our faculties of distinguishing between diverse things improve, the difficulty will be swept away. An impassable gulf exists between those things which belong to two different planes or degrees of existence. By no process of evolution or gradual development by the means of "natural and sexual selection," or otherwise, can the one become the other.

Yet intellectual honesty demands that it should be pointed out that this insuperable objection does not lie against the doctrine of development of forms 'from lower to higher, by continuous degrees, on the same plane. With things existing on the same plane, development is not necessarily impossible; hence it becomes a philosophically legitimate question for scientific research to answer, whether on the same plane such a development does really take place? or, in other words,

How far the diversity of species in any one kingdom is the result of development by natural, sexual, or other form of selection? At present, the scientific evidence seems quite in favour of regarding many species as distinct and fixed things, and of assigning only relatively narrow limits to the effects of evolution or development. Thus is justified the antagonism which Mr. Darwin's wide-sweeping conclusions from totally insufficient data have provoked. The world does not supply the "missing links" in the theoretic chain with which he fain would girdle animated nature. The blanks are destructive of his theory, judged of merely as a theory; they are fatal to the supposition that his theory is the true explanation of nature.

In a previous article (Intellectual Repository for October 1870), an attempt was made to suggest how Swedenborg's philosophy as to the continual operation of the spiritual into the natural world, ever varying according to the conditions of the latter, might account for the production of species. It did not attempt to deal with this question -Whether a new influx of life from the spiritual world operates into previously existing species, and thus first modifies them, and afterwards produces, by development, new species; or begins de novo, and produces a really new creation? The reason of this omission may now be seen; for before any plausible grounds for considering the first half of the question can exist, very much more proof of its possibility must be offered than has yet been amassed. Those who contend for "development" must supply more facts.

We stand, I think, on solid ground in asserting :

1. That a specific act of creation was needed to produce man.

2. That a specific act of creation was also needed to produce each of the three kingdoms of nature, existing as they do, in three discreted and distinct planes.

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3. That the argument from analogy is rather in favour of the necessity of specific acts of creation for the production of distinctly different species on each plane, than in favour of the contrary notion of development. Until there can be produced indisputable proof that spawn of a fish did ever become vitalized into a bird, or that the egg of a bird did ever produce a reptile; or that the offspring of an amphibian did ever become anything other than an amphibious creature, belief in the distinctness and unchangeableness of species is more reasonable than the contrary hypothesis. Here we may safely rest, demanding proof as to this point, and confident that no proof can be brought to overturn conclusions Nos. 1 and 2. J. H.

MANCHESTER.