The Press.
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a different one ; or whether we are to believe that the
whole race perished without reproducing itself, while, inde-
pendent of it, another new race, or other new individuals
(by whatever means), csme into existence, of a nature
closely allied to the last, and differingoften by the slightest
shades, yet unconnected with them by descent; whether
there was a continuation and propagation of the same
principle of vitality (in whatever germ it may be imagined
to have been conveyed), or whether a new principle or
germ originated independently of any preceding, out of its
existing inorganic elements.

The Professor himself favours the theory of
development or continuity; and to the objec-
tion that there has been no change of species
within human experience, he replies :

Within the limits of the existing period we observe a
permanence of species ; just as much as we find evidence
of it within like limits in ancient periods of the earth's
history; but beyond such limits of time, and the influence
of certain conditions accompanying those changes, and
differently affecting the several species, we have no such
evidence in the one case, and direct apparent evidence to
the contrary in the other.

We cannot Bay that we hare no experience of a change
of species in a due length of time, and under adequate and
appropriate changes of external condition.

As a mere philosophical conjecture, the idea of trans-
mutation of species under adequate changes of condition,
and in incalculably long periods of time, seems supported
b) fair analogy and probability.

In a passage we cannot at the moment find,
the Professor, if we rightly understood him,
supposes it to be not unlikely that a ruder
form of man may yet be discovered by geolo-
gical research. He thinks it as probable that
men should—of course in incalculable periods
of time, and under favorable external condi-
tions—grow out of fishes, as that coal should
be formed from beds of vegetable matter.
There are expressions in these essays which,
allowing all latitude to scientific speculation,
seem scarcely decent as proceeding from a
person of Professor Powell's station. Thus,
he says that the " prevalent theology is too
" deeply immersed in an indiscriminate and
" unthinking bibliolatry." Such expressions
cannot, we imagine, he allowed to pass with-
out serious notice. Many of the ideas he puts
forth, if not new in themselves, are certainly
new as proceeding from a Christian writer,
and likely to be productive of much mischief.
Whether it be possible so to separate the
body of man from his moral or spiritual
nature, as to hold that the former has been
evolved in the course of countless ages by the
orderly procession of physical laws, without
any direct and immediate act of creative
power, while the latter is subject to Divine
influences, and made the special care of
Deity, may reasonably be doubted. To our
view the whole tenor of this volume tends to
weaken or dispel that confidence in the near-
ness of God, in His fatherly care and autho-
rity, and in His actual superintending Pro-
idence, which is the foundation of all religious
feeling.
It is significant of the wildness of Professor
Powell's views on many subjects, that ho sup-
ports what he calls the " theory of conjecture."
The existence of man upon earth must be, to
adopt a favorite expression of the Professor,
an evidence to "all sane reasoners " that a
physical miracle, or act of sovereign creative
power, was at some time exercised to call him
into being, and this view is supported by
those facts of geology which show that his
existence must date from a comparatively
recent period in the changes which the earth
has undergone. To suppose that man may
have existed in a ruder form than he at
present possesses, that physical conditions
of which we have no knowledge may have
effected changes in species of which we have
no experience, is to overlook established facts
in favour of vague conjecture. The volume
will certainly excite great attention, for though
the general views are as old as practical in
fidelity, they derive new importance from
being sanctioned by so ingenious a theorist
and dexterous logician as the Rev. Baden
Powell.

Lives of Philosophers of the Tune of George 111.
The Works of Henry Lord Brougham.
Vol. I. London: Griffin and Co.

THE graceful and dignified allusion recently
made by Lord Brougham to his advancing
years, little as his clear and active faculties
seem to have required it, excited in the

357

country a feeling in which mere party opinion
has no share. Lord Brougham is, without
doubt, not merely one of the most remarkable
men of the present age, but, to use his own
words of Hume and Smith, he "has had no
parallel, scarcely a forerunner." In politics
all men know that no rule of excellence can
be laid down, and with his lordship's career in
the storms of the last forty years a notice of
his published works has no concern ; but to
have achieved the reputation of a sound savant
—even of a discoverer in science—of a
successful lawyer, of a great orator, of a
supreme judge not one of whose decisions
has ever been reversed, of a legislator bold
and in many cases successful, an accomplished
critic and a pleasant biographer, surely con-
stitutes a claim to rank amongst the chief
notabilities of a generation. Lord Brougham's
published works alone compose a remarkable
collection of varied research and speculation
in a large range of subject of mental and moral
inquiry. The volume before us is the first of
a uniform series of his lordship's publications,
including the lives of men of letters of the
reign of George 111., the sketches of statesmen
of the same period, the dissertations, ad-
dresses, and speeches, and, for the first time,
the critical and historical essays contri-
buted to the Edinburgh Review. In the last
we anticipate matter of considerable interest
when we remember that his lordship's contri-
butions to the Blue and Yellow were in its
dashing days, when even by the rule of their
motto from Publius Syrus, taken, as Sidney
Smith has told us, ignotum pro magnifica, there
was no danger whatever that the Edinburgh
judges of literature should be condemned.

To this new edition of hie " Lives of
Philosophers of the Time of George III." the
author has contributed a preface written in
the present year, giving eloquently his reasons
for adopting the subjects he had chosen, and
assigning, we think, not an exaggerated place
to the period over which the long reign of
George 111. extended. Of that period Lord
Brougham says :

The reign of George 111. may in some important re-
spects be justly regarded as the Augustan age of modern
history. The greatest statesmen, the most consummate
captains, the most finished orators, the first historians, all
flourished during this period. For excellence in these de-
partments it was unsurpassed in former times, nor had it
even any rivals, if we except the warriors of Louis XlV.'s
day, one or two statesmen, and Bolingbroke and Massillon
as orators. But its glories were not confined to those
great departments of human genius. Though it could
show no poet like Dante, Milton, Talmo, or Dryden ; no
dramatist like Shakspeare or Corneille; no philosopher to
equal Bacon, Newton, or Locke,—it nevertheless in some
branches, and these not the least important of natural
science, very far surpassed the achievements of former
days, while of political science, the most important of all,
it firstlaid the foundations, and then reared the superstruc-
ture. The science of chemistry almost entirely, of pull.
tical economy entirely, were the growth of this remarkable
era; while even in the pure mathematics • progress was
made which nearly changed its aspect since the days of
Leibnitz and Newton. The names of Black, Watt,
Cavendish, Priestley, Lavoisier, Davy, may justly be placed
far above the Boyles, the Stahl., the Hales, the Hookea of
former times ; while Euler, Clairant, D'Alembert, Lagrange,
La Place, must be ranked as analysts next after Newtou
himself, and above Descartes, Leibnitz, or the Bernoulli. ;
and in economical science, Hume, Smith, and Quesnai
really bad no parallel, hardly any forerunner. It would also
be vain to deny great poetical and dramatic genius to
Goldsmith, Voltaire, Alfieri, Monti, and the German
school, how inferior soever to the older masters of song.
In his " Lives of Men of Letters " Lord
Brougham had to deal with the difficult sub-
jects of Voltaire and Rousseau. His treatment
of' these subjects raised some controversy when
the work originally appeared, and to that in
the conclusion of this preface he takes occasion
thus to allude :

But although I had no political animosities to encoun-
ter, I feared my historical statements and my commentaries
on some lives, as those of Voltaire, Rousseau, and Hume,
might find enemies among the two great parties whose
principles came in question. The Freethinkers might
object to the blame which I ventured to pronounce
upon their favourite authors ; the friends of the Church
might take exception to the praises occasionally bestowed.
It may, however, be expected from the justice of both these
conflicting bodies, that they will read with attention and
with calmness before they condemn. From the former
class I could expect no favour beyond what every one has a
right to claim from avowed adversaries; a fair hearing was
all I desired. To the latter a few words might be addressed
in the spirit of respectful kindness, as to those with whom
I generally agree.
Whoever feels disposed to treat a■ impious any writer
that has the misfortune not to be among the great body of
believers, like the celebrated men above named, should