tent-we do not quarrel about a word; but a Contrivance where means and end are both projected into being, is something very different from the contrivance of man, who, by means of certain muscular contractions, which to this day he does not understand, moves one thing to another thing and waits the result. Let us add, by way of parenthesis, that we have no intention, by anything we have said here, to represent the Creative power as limited to one first act--one first arrangement, so to speak, of matter and force, from which, by reason of the activities with which it is endowed, all that follows is evolved. For while we are able to observe a change of condition, a novelty of form or relations, brought about by such activities, we are also compelled to imagine new acts of creation-using the term creation in its most specific sense. There must have been a time, for instance, when sight, when vision came into the world-when an optic nerve, which, as a mere portion of matter, contains nothing but the ordinary chemical elements, was to be endowed with a quite new property. This new property, this marvellous susceptibility, this sensation of light and color, comes before us as a pure creation what the Duke of Argyll would call a creation without means. If we insist upon a strict analogy be tween the operations of the human and the Divine will, we are in danger of ewting our argument on the opinion srhich we hold on the nature of the human will. We have seen that the Duke of Argyll, in some brief extracts we have made, claims for it a certain supernatural character. Operating on nature, it is still not itself a part of that linked series of events which we call nature. And this view of the human will is necessary in order to make it a type of the creative will. But this position is incumbered with many difficul ties. The greater number of men, we suspect, hardly know whether they hold this position or not; and a large section of philosophical thinkers have, in all ages, pronounced it untenable. The Duke of Argyll himself holds to the position, as it seems to us, very insecurely, if he really holds it at all. Whatever may be thought of human will, it is indisputable that man's action upon the world depends upon his knowledge of nature, and this knowledge appears to grow up according to estab lished laws. In its initiation it is some operation of external objects on an internal susceptibility, and it grows with experience and memory, or what psychologists have always called the laws of association. Neither can the desires of man be supposed to share this supernatural character which is given to the will, unless we are prepared to assert that the hunger of a man, or of any animal whatever, is something supernatural. Thus knowledge and desire, the motives of the will, are presumed to be under the reign of law, or within what we may call the scientific cycle of events. Ou the other side of the will, so to speak, we have in the muscles a mechanism which it clearly belongs to physics to explain, however imperfect that expla nation may still be.*There is therefore left for us nothing but the one momentary state or mental energy between the motive and the act of the muscle-a state called technically volition (a state which many think unnecessarily introduced, because they trace the series directly from desire to action)-there is only this point, this instant of mental activity, to abstract from, and to set over, the current of events. Let us see how the Duke of Argyll has dealt with his problem. We have looked through his volume for a passage which should contain the most explicit statement of what he holds upon the *The author quotes from Dr. Radcliffe's Lec tures a theory of muscular action which may interest some of our readers, if they have not met with it before: "Recent investigations in physi ology seem to favor the hypothesis that our muscles are the seat of two opposing Forces, each so adjusted as to counteract the other, aud that this antagonism is itself so arranged as to enable us, by acting on one of these forces, to regulate the action of the other. One force-an elastic or con tractile force is supposed to be inherent in the muscular fibre; another force-that of animal electricity in statical condition--holds the contractile force in check; and the relaxed, or rather the restful condition of the muscle when not in use, is due to the balance so maintained. When, through the motor nerves, the will orders the muscles into action, that order is enforced by a discharge of the electrical force, and upon this discharge the contractile force is set free to act, and is desired." does accordingly produce the contraction which freedom of the will, and we select the motives to which man is subject, or following: "Is man's voluntary agency a delusion, or is it, on the contrary, just what we feel it to be, and is it only from misconception of its nature that we puzzle over its relation to law? We speak, and speak truly, of our wills being free; but free from what? It seems to be forgotten that freedom is not an absolute but a relative term. There is no such thing existing as absolute freedom-that is to say, there is nothing existing in the world, or possible even in thought, which is absolutely alone, entirely free from inseparable relationship to some other thing or things. Freedom, therefore, is only intelligible as meaning the being free from some particular kind of restraint or of inducement to which other beings are subject. From what, then, is it that our wills are free? Are they free from the influence of motives? Certainly not. And what are motives? A motive is that which moves or tends to move, the mind in a particular direction. "But here we come upon the great difficulty which besets every attempt to reduce to system the laws or forces which operate on the mind of man. It is the immense, the almost boundless, variety and number of them. This variety corresponds with the variety of powers with which his mind is gifted. For preëstablished relations are necessary to the effect of every force, whether in the material or the moral world. Special forces operate upon special forms of matter, and except upon these they exert no action whatever. The polar force of magnetism acts on different metals in different degrees, and there is a large class of substances which are almost insensible to its power. In like manner there are a thousand things that exercise an attractive power on the mind of a civilized man, which would exercise no power whatever on the mind of a savage. And in this lies the only difference between the sub jection to law under which the lower animals are placed and the subjection to law which is equally the condition of mankind. Free will, in the only sense in which this expression is intelligible, has been erroneously represented as the peculiar prerogative of man. But the will of the lower animals is as free as ours. A man is not more free to go to the right hand or to the left than the eagle, or the wren, or the mole, or the bat. The only difference is that the will of the lower animals is acted upon by fewer and simpler motives. Hence it is that the conduct and choice of animals-that is, the decision of their will under given conditions-can be predicted with almost perfect certainty." P. 328. rather we should say of which he is capable. But what we have quoted stands complete in itself. It is only, it seems, from the greater subtlety and variety of his motives that the conduct of man is less easily predicted than the conduct of the mole or the mollusk. We need not enter into a close examination of this passage. The few italics we have inserted will be sufficient to guide the attention of one practised in these controversies. To speak of freedom as matter of degree is at once to desert the lofty position of the uncaused will. The reader will perceive at a glance that the account here given of the freedom of the will is very much like that which he has often read under the title of philosophical necessity. If the knowledge or desires of man are not out of the reign of law, and if they are paramount over the will, what is left for nature? us, in man, to place beside or above What becomes of that supernatural power which was approved of in Dr. Bushnell? or that spontaneity which Professor Tyndall was rebuked for overlooking? We have no desire at present to enter into a more elaborate discussion of this interminable question, still less have we any wish to criticise our author with the least severity because he manifests some indecision on a question whereon many of our best thinkers have honestly confessed themselves at fault. Some men have been held in equipoise between what seemed two opposite truths till they brought themselves to the desperate conclusion that it was the duty of the philosopher to believe them both ! There were, they concluded, certain cases in which the only right or possible belief was a belief in contradictory proposi tions! If we notice the obscurity or vacillation of our author on this difficult theme, it is merely to point out the danger of resting our great theological argument on one view of the human will-namely, that which supposes it to be an agency out of the order which the rest of creation observes. "There is no art but nature makes that art."' On this we are all agreed. Then some one adds, "And the artist too." Here disputes arise. Well, let us even grant that the human artist himself is but a part of the great mechanism of the universe; this artist has been made to think. He can embrace the past, the present, the future, in his thought, and he says to himself, This whole of things of which I am a part, must have in it, or over it, a Power, a Being who has a faculty like this with which I feel myself endowed, but of an indescribably higher character. He sees that the remote in space, and the remote in time, form one plan-that is, one thought. One of the earliest chapters in this essay is occupied with a variety of definitions of the term Law. We did not engage ourselves in an examination of these Definitions, for we felt persuaded that if we did we should never get beyond that early chapter, so intricate were the discussions in which they involved us. But there is one of these Definitions the fourth-which we can not conclude without referring to, because it is calculated to lead to some confusion of thought. This Fourth Definition runs thus: "And so we come upon another sensethe Fourth sense-in which Law is habitually used in science, and this perhaps the commonist and most habitual of all. It is used to designate not merely an observed order of facts, not merely the bare abstract idea of Force, not merely individual Forces according to ascertained measures of operation, but a number of Forces in the condition of mutual adjustment-that is to say, as combined with each other and fitted to each other for the attainment of special ends. The whole science of mechanics, for example, deals with Law in this sense, with natural Forces as related to Purpose and subservient to the discharge of function. And this is the highest sense of all-Law in this sense being more perfectly intelligible to us than in any other, because, although we know nothing of the real nature of Force, even of that Force which is resident in ourselves, we do know for what ends we exert it, and the principle that governs our devices for its use. principle is Combination for the accomplish ment of Purpose. That Now, throughout his essay the Duke of Argyll habitually speaks of the divine Mind or Power employing the Laws, balancing, opposing, combining them, for given purposes. Here the very purpose itself is included in the significance of the term Law. In this sense there could be no dealing with laws as means for a purpose-the law and the purpose Of course the Duke of Argyll is not responsible for the varieties of meaning he finds attached to any popular word. But is the term Law "habitually used in science" in the sense of this Fourth Definition? "Combination for the accomplishment of Purpose" may be everywhere apparent in the universe, and in that sense be the law of the universe. But what is scientifically understood by laws, and what the present writer generally understands by them, are those fixed relations or invariable sequences which are found alike in every combination, which are never departed from, whatever be the purpose. We make abstraction from every individual purpose in order to form the conception of them. It is the same law of gravity whether a stone falls to the earth or a planet is retained in its orbit. It is the same law of affinity whether the carbon and oxygen unite in the lungs for the purposes of respiration, or in the candle before us for the purpose of illumination. It is in the sense of these wide generalizations that the term law is "habitually used in science." From our stand-point of philosophyor of theology, if you will-we are very solicitous to keep in view that the laws of science are just these generalizations and nothing more. Law-on the theory of creation, or with relation to a Creatoris nothing more than repetition; a certain uniformity in the acts of God; sustained uniformities with ever new varieties of combination.. In his treatment of the great theme in contact with the Darwinian theory of creation, our author naturally comes of Natural Selection. Of this he gives a fair and enlightened estimate. As he justly observes, they were the opponents of the theory who vaguely extended its author of it never dreamt of. application, giving it a scope which the "It has not," says the Duke of Argyll, "been sufficiently observed that the theory of Mr. Darwin does not even profess to trace the origin of new Forms to any definite law. His theory gives an explanation, not of the but only of the processes by which, when processes by which new Forms first appear, they have appeared, they acquire a preference over others, and thus become established in the world. A new species is, indeed, according to his theory, as well as the older theories of development, simply an unusual birth, The bond of connection between allied specific and generic Forms is, in his view, simply the bond of inheritance. But Mr. Darwin does not pretend to have discovered any law or rule according to which new Forms have been born from old Forms. He does not hold that outward conditions, however changed, are sufficient to account for them. His theory seems to be far better than a mere theory-to be an established scientific truth-in so far as it accounts, in part at least, for the success, and establishment, and spread of new Forms when they have arisen. But it does not even suggest the law under which,or by which, or according to which, such new Forms are introduced. Natural Selection can do nothing except with the materials presented to its hands. Strictly speaking, therefore, Mr. Darwin's theory is not a theory on the Origin of Species at all, but only a theory on the causes which lead to the relative success or failure of such new forms as may be born into the world." The criticism is not quite correct. So far as the doctrine, or fact, is concerned, of Natural Selection, Mr. Darwin's book affords, it is true, no theory of the origin of species. But we find this in his great and favorite speculation, that the higher or later species have been born from their predecessors by some law of growth applicable to life in general. Coupled with the law of inheritance, there is some law of Accession and Modification. Their conjoint operation leads to that development of related and yet diversified forms of life which the naturalist has to study. He finds species fixed by the law of inheritance; he also finds them advancing one beyond the other, as if, at certain stages, the law of inheritance were supplemented by some law of further growth. Such law of progressive development, it will be said, we know nothing of. But in the same sense that this is true, it is equally true that we know nothing of the law of Inheritance. That the seed of a plant reproduces in exactness lineaments of the parent plant which dropped it to the ground, is not less a mystery because it is incessantly repeated. When we reflect upon it, the exactness of reproduction to the precise curve or indentation of every leaf, to the most delicate pencilling of every petal, stands just as much in need of explanation as this other factif observation warrant it to be a factthat, from time to time, that cell we call a seed receives some modification in the parent plant, owing to which it more than reproduces its progenitor. As to the phrase Natural Selection, we are not surprised that it has called forth some objection. It seems to imply that the struggle for existence really selects which kind of animal is to continue and which is to disappear. Whereas the struggle for existence only carries into execution a Selection that was made when the stronger, or the more favorably endowed animal, was called into existfor a moment, and overlooking the inapence. Setting aside the claims of theology propriateness of applying the term Selection to the operations of nature, it is the progressive law of development that has really decided which kind of animal shall survive. For it cannot surely be the method of nature to give out blindly, as it were, from time to time, all possible varieties, without any law of successive or progressive development (a law in harmony with the rest of creation), and leave it simply to the actual state of things to decide which of her new forms shall hold its ground. The expression Natural Selection becomes still more irrelevant when we refer this law of progressive development to the Creative Intelligence, which alone can really have selected. But the expression as used by Mr. Darwin does not necessarily imply any more than this, that the struggle for existence carries out a selection already made: the stronger, or the more ingenious, or the better adapted animal, came prepared to win. There is a race of Red Indians living upon game. On the same soil is introduced a race of men more prospective in their thoughts, more observant and ingenious, who cultivate the earth. These cut down the forest and grow wheat. The Red man disappears. Is it the struggle for existence that has selected which of these two shall possess the soil? The selection was made when the more intelligent race was introduced. Yet, in common parlance, and without any disparagement to this, the real selection, we may still speak of the struggle for subsistence between them deciding which shall remain and which shall depart. There are other interesting topics canvassed in the Duke of Argyll's book; but we will not break new ground. We have adhered to the leading idea of the work, and by so doing secured some kind of unity to our own notice of it. We ought, perhaps, to add that the essay appeared originally in that very spirited periodical "Good Words." It is highly creditable to that magazine that it should give its readers a composition of this sterling character. This mode of publication may also probably in part explain that want of complete consistency, or of perfect decision, which we have alluded to, and which slightly, and only slightly, detracts from the merits of the performance. From the Spectator. EDGAR QUINET'S REVOLUTION.* prehending, that (to use M. Quinet's own words) "Democracy has need of justice." It is difficult to give a satisfactory idea to the reader of a work so truly individual that it stands really by itself. If we looked to its intellectual character only, Montesquieu's Grandeur et Décadence des Romains would be the nearest parallel. But there is a solemn height of purpose, a depth of personal feeling about M. Quinet, which render such a parallel wholly superficial. On the whole--and great as are the contrasts between the style and manner of the Frenchman and those of the Roman on the one hand, or the modern Italian on the other-it is difficult not to feel that the former's two next of kin on either side are rather Tacitus and Dante. There is in all three the same proud looking down of a great spirit over the miseries and the degeneracy of his people; stung often to bitterness, seldom if ever stooping to grief. The Frenchman has the THIS is the noblest work yet published high poetical feeling of the Italian, but on its great subject. It is not, nor pre- not his fiery hates, his faith, or his love; tends to be, a history. It is but a study he has much of the Roman's stoical enduupon a history, needing, to be fully ap rance, he is self-wrapped equally, almost preciated, some familiarity with the his- equally forlorn of hope; he has of his tory itself. But beside it Carlyle's own what the Roman would have disFrench Revolution is but as a magic dained, what the Italian could only cling lantern to a great thoughtful picture. It to when raised into doctrines, theories, would be vain to seek even in Carlyle's or to use his own term, des idées. Put pages for anything more vivid than M. Tacitus into nineteenth-century France, Quinet's sketch of a day's work of the give him, instead of his old hereditary Convention (Book xv., ch. iii.), but it is feelings of Roman justice, des idées, only the highest prose-poetry, without a would he have written much otherwise particle of stage effect. There is not a than this, which concludes the work?catch-word through the whole two volumes. Whilst the English force-worshipper can dismiss September massacres with a warning to "blockheads" not to "shriek," and the fallen Girondins with the stigma of "pedants," M. Quinet stops over those to show that they were only possible through the servility of mind engendered by previous despotism, and over the others to point out that the Girondins were "a necessary organ of the Republic," failing which it must fail. And throughout the whole work breathes the feeling which Mr. Carlyle, in his restless hunt after heroes, each succeeding one less worthy than the last, becomes more and more incapable of com *La Revolution. Par Edgar Quinet. Paris: Librairie Internationale. 1865. 2 vols. "But, you will say, your ideas have not had force on their side. They have not triumphed. You are one of the vanquished. I deny it. I remain alone, it is true, but I have had this good luck, that losing all, I have seen confirmed, all my principles consecrated and all my presentiments realized, all my warnings crowned by my voluntary ruin. That is not being vanquished." In using the word "theories," it is by no means intended that M. Quinet is one of those, far too frequent amongst his countrymen, who set theories in the place of facts, or square facts to them. On the contrary, he stands preeminent among writers on the French Revolu tion for candor and impartiality, for reverence for historic truth. What is meant is, that whilst he rises to the truest supia or contemplation, he cannot, |