This portion of the text brings a heavy charge against the memory of La Place; but it is only too well founded. It is fearful and revolting to record of such a man, perhaps the greatest of all astronomers except Newton, that he sought to banish God Almighty out of the Heavenly world which He had permitted him to scan so exactly. Throughout the whole of his Système du Monde, (a synopsis of the Newtonian philosophy), he carefully abstains, says a distinguished British philosopher, from all reference to a Contriver, Creator, or Governor of the universe in pointed contrast to the sublime reflections with which the noble Newton accompanied his revelations. -Thus spoke that mighty one, in his immortal Principia: God is eternal and infinite, omnipotent and omniscient; that is, He endures from everlasting to everlasting, and is present from infinity to infinity. He is not eternity or infinity, but eternal and infinite. He is not duration or space, but He endures, and is present. He endures always, and is present everywhere, and by existing always and everywhere, constitutes duration and space.' La Place, on the contrary, would wretchedly insinuate that the doctrine of a Deity, the Maker and Governor of this world, and of His peculiar attention to the conduct of man, is not consistent with truth! And that the sanctions of Religion, long venerated as the great security of society, are as little consistent with justice. The duties which we owe to this imaginary Deity, and the terrors of punishment in a future state of existence for the neglect of them, he regarded as fictions invented to enslave mankind. He has given abundant proof of these being his sentiments, developing their horribly-blooming deadliness, be it remarked, in the time of the French Revolution. I was grieved, said the philosopher already referred to, with touching simplicity, when I first saw M. de la Place, after having so happily epitomised the philosophy of Sir Isaac Newton, conclude his performance with such a marked and ungracious parody on the closing reflections [some of them given above] of our illustrious Master. As the scholars of Newton, as the disciples of our illustrious Master, we will join with him in considering, unlike La Place, universal Gravitation as a noble proof of the existence and superintendence of a Supreme Mind, and a conspicuous mark of His transcendent wisdom. La Place would resolve everything into the irresistible operation of the primitive and essential properties of matter; and insist that it could not be anything but what it is. He labours assiduously to effect this impression on the mind! Nay, he impiously insinuates, that the supposed useful purposes of the solar system might have been much better accomplished in some other than the existing mode! He was spared long enough, however, as we learn on unquestionable authority, to entertain awful misgivings on this subject. In the solitude of his sick chamber, and not long before his death, came Reflection; and with it, salutary results. The eminent gentleman on whose authority this fact rests, Mr Sedgwick, has recently recorded, that not long before the death of the great Frenchman-for great he was, though darkened-he was inquiring of the distinguished geologist concerning the nature of our endowments, and our course of academic study. He then, says Mr Sedgwick, dwelt earnestly on the religious character of our endowments; and added, (as nearly as I can translate his words), I think this right; and on this point I deprecate any great organic changes in your system: for I have lived long enough to know what at one time I did not believe-that no society can be upheld in happiness and honour, without the sentiments of Religion." The Marquis had also endeavoured to resolve the religious convictions of his great predecessor, into the delusions of old age, or an intellect disorganised by madness; and this especially with reference to his work on the Prophecies. Sir David Brewster, however, has annihilated the injurious calumny, by infallible proof that Newton was always a devout Christian, and had commenced his researches on the prophecies, when in the plenitude of his marvellous intellect-in his forty-ninth year. In the inscription on his monument in Westminster Abbey, it stands truly recorded, that he was an assiduous, sagacious, and faithful interpreter of Nature, Antiquity, and the Holy Scriptures: he asserted, in his philosophy, the majesty of God, mental imbecility, or judicial blindness. (XIX.)-PAGE 42, col. 2. GOLDEN TRUTH IN THE MIST OF MYTHOLOGY. However much, observes Schlegel, amidst the growing degeneracy of mankind, the primeval word of Revelation may have been falsified, by the admixture of various errors, or overlaid and fictions, inextricably confused, and disfigured almost beyond the power of recognition, still a profound inquiry will discover in heathenism many luminous vestiges of primitive truth.- -We find in the Grecian mythology many things capable of a deeper import, and more spiritual signification: appearing as but and exhibited, in his conduct, the simplicity of the Gospel.' A French philosopher of the present day, M. Auguste Comte, has constructed a system based on the exclusion from the universe, of a God! It may be regarded as an attempted demonstration of the truth of atheism, however anxious the writer may be to disclaim the hideous imputation. "When such a work," justly observes Sir David Brewster, in reviewing it in the Edinburgh Review (No. 136), "re-obscured by numberless and manifold cords the dread sentiment that the universe displays no proofs of an all-directing Mind; and records it, too, as the deduction of unbiassed reason, the appalling note falls upon the ear like the sounds of desolation and of death. The life-blood of the affections stands frozen in its strongest and most genial current; and reason and feeling resume their as-rare vestiges of ancient truth-vague cendancy only when they have pictured presentiments-fugitive tones-momenthe consequences of so frightful a delu- tary flashes-revealing a belief in a sion. If man be thus an orphan at his Supreme Being, an Almighty Creator of birth, and an outcast in his destiny; if the Universe, and the common Father knowledge is to be his punishment, and of mankind.- -In Prometheus, says not his pride; if all his intellectual that able scholar, Mr Keightley, in his achievements are to perish with him in excellent Mythology, we have a Grecian the dust; if the brief tenure of his being myth of the Fall of Man, and in Panis to be renounced amid the wreck of dora the introduction of evil into the vain desires, of blighted hopes, and of world by means of a woman !-Accordbleeding affections, then, in reality, as ing to Buttman and other eminent Gerwell as in metaphor, is life a dream." mans, the resemblance between this The author would close this note with myth and the Scripture narrative of an expression of his profound conviction, Eve and the forbidden fruit, is so very that he who cannot see, in the opera- striking, that one might be induced to tions of nature, Supreme Intelligence, regard it as a rivulet from the original may regard himself as labouring under fount of tradition.' END OF THE LILY AND THE BEE. AND MORAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE PRESENT AGE BY SAMUEL WARREN D. C. L. F. R. S. "Within, without, and far around he look'd How fair! quoth he, how dread." -THE PILGRIM, A NEW EDITION WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MDCCCLIV PREFACE. THE origin of this little work is indicated in a passage which may be seen near the commencement. It would be unbecoming in the Author to print a copy of the too flattering Resolution of the President and Council of the Hull Literary and Philosophical Society there referred to, and partly in consequence of which, the paper in question, somewhat modified and amplified, is now presented to the public. It treats of subjects which have occupied his thoughts for many years; and all he begs to be given credit for, is a good intention. For the rest, he must surrender himself to criticism with what fortitude he may. Two-thirds of the paper were read on the evening of Tuesday, the 28th December 1852, and listened to with an attention amply repaying the Author's efforts to present an extensive and difficult subject, in an acceptable manner, to a mixed and very large audience. A deputation, in considerable numbers, from the Mechanics' Institute of Hull, formed part of that audience, in pursuance of a liberal and friendly invitation from the President and Council of the Literary and Philosophical Society: a circumstance which afforded the Author peculiar gratification. INNER TEMPLE, LONDON, January 1853. |