"It is pretty obvious that they asked him simply because he amused them, and that he left neither respect nor love behind him," said Mr. Fudge.

I

"I can fancy," Mr. Mathews went on to say, "the small amount of sensation made at the time by his death. can fancy some man coming to announce it to an assembly of wits and belles of the period, saying,

"I hear that the ingenious Mr. Sterne hath departed this life.'

"And left a plentiful crop of debts behind him,' says Lady Betty.

"They do tell me,' continues the first speaker, 'that there is not wherewithal to pay for his funeral, or the rent of his lodgings in Bond Street.'

"He was, indeed, shamefully extravagant and selfish,' says somebody else.

"And little mindful of his duties as a clergyman,' puts in another."

"And then I can fancy," continued the imaginative Mr. Mathews; "I can fancy a certain just and merciful personage who has been sitting by, and who all this time has been swaying his body backwards and forwards, and making many uncouth sounds as if about to speak. I can imagine his bursting out at last :

“Sir, sir, let us hear no more of this. This disparagement of the dead is mighty offensive.""

The tall man in the dress coat, who has drawn nearer when Mr. Mathews began to speak, seems vastly interested in this imaginary dialogue, which was given latterly in a loud key. He is evidently much disappointed at Mr. Mathews' next remark.

"This is very shocking," says that gentleman. "Let us go."

"By all means," answers Mr. Fudge, with astonishing alacrity.

The tall man is evidently sorry to lose these two gentlemen, and to be left to the deadly solitude in which he lives. He presses other graves upon their attention, is liberal in his offer of interesting epitaphs, and will, especially, scarcely take "no" for an answer in the matter of Sir Thomas Picton. But

it is getting dark, and Mr. Fudge is especially resolved on flight. They reach once more the chapel which looks like a coach-house, and Mr. Fudge has his hand upon the lock to let himself out, when the tall man makes a last attempt. "The monument of Mrs. Radcliffe," he says, or rather sighs in the distance.

"No," shudders Mr. Fudge, who has by this time rushed into the Bayswater Road. "No-an east wind-the evening closing in-nearly dark-a tall thin man in a swallow-tailed coat- -a burying ground-and the tomb of Ann Radcliffe -these things taken all together would be more than mortal nerves could stand."

He

It would surely be very interesting if any light could be thrown on this mysterious affair. The body of the unfortunate Mr. Sterne was but a poor prize for purposes of dissection. speaks of his spider legs himself, and the portrait and description of him give one the idea of a lean and emaciated presence. Can any one tell who was this anatomy professor of Cambridge, who had so ardent a desire to examine Sterne's remains that he employed resurrection men to exhume the deceased gentleman's body? Is there any one at Cambridge who could afford information on this subject? It must at least be possible to find out who were the

anatomy professors at the University in the year of Sterne's decease.

It would, indeed, be a curious thing, if the information contained in the above-quoted paragraph should really prove to be true; and it would add one more ghastly element to the already

melancholy tale of Sterne's death and burial, if we should ascertain that the body which was deposited in the grave with so small an amount of ceremonial, was not even allowed to rest there, but was handed over to the surgeons after all.

Philoc. So, Philalethes, it is true that you are a convert to this new theory! You are a believer in a doctrine which makes the struggle of a selfish competition the sole agency in naturewhich, taking one of the most unfortunate, if inevitable, results of an old civilization, transfers it to that world where we hoped to find a beauty and order to which civilization has not yet attained! Poets have spoken of the face of nature as serene and tranquil; you paint it scarred by conflict and furrowed by sordid care! You turn the pure

stream where we have been accustomed to find the reflection of heaven, into a turbid current where we can perceive nothing but the dark hues of earth!

Philal. If I did not happen to know what book you had been reading, my dear Philocalos, I should have some difficulty in guessing your meaning. Not that you can have read much of any book so widely removed from all your subjects of interest.

Philoc. That a man feels but slight interest in tracing the ramifications of science is no proof that he may not wish to ascend to the fountain head. I confess, however, that I did not read the whole book,-that I did not master all the details, but I made out quite enough of the scope of each chapter to leave little room for doubt as to the general purport of the whole work. And have I misrepresented it in what I said just now?

Philal. That may admit of question; it is not a theory which can be fairly judged from a single point of view. But if I, looking at the theory in a different light, learn from it to regard the strife which unquestionably exists in nature as the fire in which her masterpieces are to be tested, her failures destroyed, will you deny that this is also a fair version of the author's doctrine?

Philoc. I should not need to do so in order to justify my horror of such a creed. For, Philalethes, on this hypothesis, selfishness and progress are inseparably linked. Every self-sacrificing impulse, every generous care for the sick or infirm, every pause in the selfish struggle for ascendancy, are so many drags on the wheels of progress; and if that day ever arrives on earth when the love of self shall be swallowed up in wider and deeper love, then those wheels will be finally arrested. The death of selfishness will be the barrier beyond which the human race will remain for ever stationary.

Philal. You overlook considerations which materially interfere with the operation of the principle in regard to

man.

Philoc. I am astonished at such hesitation in one of your logical mind! What does the theory make of man but a superior vertebrate animal?

Philal. Do you not see that a discussion concerning the tools of the builder

affords no legitimate inference as to the plan of the architect?-that an examination of the workshop of nature includes no notice of the models which have been set before her to copy?

Philoc. The workshop of nature! Is that the quarter to which we should look for the origin of man?

Philal. The very point I am so anxious to impress upon you. I look to the plan of the architect for the origin of a house, not to the tools of the builder.

Philoc. Are we then twice removed from our Creator? Is creation so analogous to the laborious efforts of man?

Philal. Let me answer you in the words of Bacon: "For as in civil actions "he is the greater and deeper politique "that can make other men the instru"ments of his will and ends, and yet

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never acquaint them with his purpose, "... so is the wisdom of God more "admirable when nature intendeth one "thing, and Providence draweth forth "another, than if He had communicated "to particular creatures and motions "the characters and impressions of His "providence.

Philoc. But, tell me, how does your view of the theory admit of the exception which you claim for the case of man?

Philal. Because I believe it to be part of the plan of man laid down by the great Architect, that there should be that within him which, holding communion with the supernatural, raises him above the influence of mere natural powers.

Philoc. And does not that very fact supply a confutation of the theory? Nature, working by a system of antagonistic influences, produces an agent whose highest glory it is to set those influences at defiance. The typical man-the highest ideal of manhoodacts upon motives not only different from, but utterly opposed to those which have made him what he is. Must there not be some flaw in the premisses from which such a conclusion may be derived ?

Philal. I see no reductio ad absur

dum in your inference. In crossing the barrier which separates matter from spirit, you introduce a new element, to which the former grounds of reasoning will no longer apply.

Philoc. But is it true that the theory of natural selection does apply to material creation alone? It professes, at least, to account for instinct; and it must be admitted that instinct and reason blend insensibly into each other. How then is it possible to draw any line which shall cut off man from the influences which have been omnipotent over his ancestors?

Philal. My dear Philocalos, I am far from asserting that that objection is unimportant; but I want you to feel that, in making it, you are transplanting the discussion to a region where the author of the hypothesis is not bound to follow you. All that he is bound to do, is to show that his hypothesis supplies an adequate explanation of all facts lying within the science which it professes to explain. For him to adjust it to other views of truth, would be as if the maker of this microscope had endeavoured to contrive such a combination of lenses as should allow of its being used, under certain circumstances, as a telescope. We may rest assured that, in the one case, our knowledge of the stars and the infusoria would suffer equally; and in the other, that we should have a medley of very poor moral philosophy, and very poor natural science.

Philoc. Without being prepared with a logical reply to such a vindication, I must confess that kind of argument is always unsatisfactory to me. It seems to me like saying that a certain proposition may be true in one language and not in another; surely, Truth is one harmonious whole.

Philal. Your objection is one with which I have the greatest sympathy. No doubt all the lines of Truth converge, but it is at too small an angle, and too vast a distance, for us to be able in all cases to perceive the tendency to unite. Moreover, it is the indispensable requisite of the man of science-not that he should ignore or forget this com

munity of direction in all the clues of Truth-but that he renounce any attempt at making his own investigations subordinate to the proof of that conclusion. I do not decide whether such a subject is capable of proof; I only say that, when the student of physical science undertakes it, he is renouncing his own proper study as effectually as the pilot who should attempt to decide on the most favourable market for the goods with which his vessel is freighted. I must repeat in another form what I said just now.

You know it is a law of physiology that, as any animal ascends in the scale of being, all its organs become more and more specialized to their peculiar functions. Thus, the four hands of the monkey are used indifferently as organs of prehension or locomotion, while in man, at the summit of the scale, each function has its proper organ exclusively appropriated to it. Now this fact is the expression of a law which is universal. No machine which is adapted to two purposes will fulfil either of them so perfectly as one which should be constructed solely with a view to that one. No man who combines the professions of a lawyer and a physician will make so able a lawyer, so skilful a physician, as one who should have devoted his life to the study of either profession. And science, believe me, is not less exacting than physic or law. The researches of the man of science must not be cramped by fears of trespassing on the entangled boundary of a neighbouring domain. If he allow his course to be broken by claims on behalf of a superior authority to exclusive occupancy of the ground, not only will the powers be distracted which, when in perfect harmony, are not more than adequate to the work before them-not only will his step be feeble and uncertain on his own special province, but his conviction of the harmony of the creation will be destroyed; the suspicion, fatal to all science, will be forced upon him, that truth can ever be inconsistent with truth.

Philoc. Of course, truth can never be inconsistent with truth, but a partial

view of truth may be inconsistent with the whole. The statement of one fact, apart from others, may give as false an impression as the sense of sight might give of the external world, if it could not be corrected by that of touch.

Philal. But you do not, therefore, attempt to make the eye the medium of touch. You do not suppose there can be such a thing as an excess of sight. The impressions of the external world are truest when all the senses are in their fullest exercise, and, even if some are absent or feeble, you gain nothing by diminishing the rest. I do not cease to see that round table oblong when I look at it obliquely, by becoming shortsighted.

Philoc. What I cannot agree to, is that parcelling-out of truth into divisions, between which no communication is possible; least of all, when the instance is one which concerns the nature of man. That any ingenuous mind should deny an antagonism between his spiritual nature and any hypothesis which ignores his distinct creation-this I cannot readily believe.

Philal. There is an antagonism, I believe, in all the views of man's spiritual and physical nature. Let me illustrate what I mean by a fact of my own experience.

I have often thought, as I stood beside a death-bed-still more, when I was consulted by a patient for whom I foresaw that death-bed within the space of a few months-how strange is the opposition between the spiritual and bodily life of man. I see a fellowcreature on the point of being submitted to the most momentous change, but wholly ignorant of the brief period still allowed for preparation. To me, the contracted limits of the course by which my patient is separated from the great ordeal is matter of absolute certainty. And yet that knowledge, which for myself I should desire above many added years of life, I must not only not communicate to the one so deeply interested, but (within the limit of actual deception) studiously withhold. I have undertaken to give advice with

reference to bodily health, and I feel, as I suppose you would feel in my place, no hesitation as to the neglect of any consideration, however superior in intrinsic importance, calculated to interfere with the object concerning which my advice is sought.

Philoc. No doubt you are called in as a physician, and you must not, as an honest man, act as a priest.

Philal. You have expressed in a few words the substance of what I have been urging all along. You cannot,

then, ask of the physician, in a larger sense, to act otherwise than as a physician?

Philoc. If, only, he does not forget that the priest has his appointed part also!

Philal. There is the danger of my profession, and still more that of my fellowstudents. I do not underrate it. But, just as I am certain that, in a world of order and law, it must be better for the whole being of man that one class should attend exclusively to his physical sufferings, so I believe that it is advantageous to truth, that one set of thinkers should attend exclusively to physical truths.

Philoc. Oh, Philalethes, I cannot answer such arguments otherwise than by the protest of my whole nature! If the study of the creation is to lead us away from the Creator; if the observation of law obliterates the view of the Lawgiver; if "ex majore lumine na"turæ et reseratione viarum sensus "aliquid incredulitatis et noctis animis "nostris erga divina mysteria oboria"tur;" then, I can only say, the sooner that study is abandoned, the sooner that path is closed, the better.

Philal. A danger which I and my fellow-students cannot contemplate too anxiously! But for you, and men of your tastes and interests, it is needful to look to the other side of the question. You, who look at nature simply for the beauty of nature, have you ever reflected what a different world you would inhabit but for the labours of the man of science? I am not, of course, speaking of material advantage. But take the No. 8.-VOL. II.

oldest and most complete of the sciences -astronomy, and compare the objects which every night presents to our eyes, as seen with and without its illumination. What were they to the eye of the wisest man of antiquity? Read the description of the eight whorls of the distaff of the universe, in the Republic of Plato, and remember that where he saw this confusion of concentric whorls and unknown impulses, you explore depths of space the remoteness of which thought refuses to conceive, and find those abysses filled with innumerable worlds, moved by the same power which detaches the withered leaf from its stalk, which moulds the faintest streak of vapour that we can scarcely distinguish against the sky. That he needed no such symbol as the law of gravitation to embody a conviction of one ruling power which

"Spreads undivided, operates unspent "

I readily believe; but, having that inward conviction, do we gain nothing by the outward type? In one word, does it make no difference whether we are shackled by a delusion of man, or in contact with an idea of God? Now this Divine idea is to you, and to men far less scientific than you, a material of thought, a belief which there is no more choice about receiving than there is about breathing oxygen. What was confused and indistinct to the finest genius of antiquity is orderly and harmonious to the most ordinary mind of to-day. I do not say that the deep significance of the law which is thus revealed to us is appreciated by every one who even reflects upon it; but I do assert that no mind can receive so grand an idea, even partially, without being in some degree enlarged by it, even if they do not see in it, what it seems to me to contain, a type and prophecy of the obedience which man shall yield to his Creator when harmony with the will of the Creator shall become the triumphant motive of his whole being, and law shall reign as certainly over every movement of his spirit, as over the orbits of the planets.

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