school-boy, that every object that ever was, or will be, or possibly can be, must either possess reason or not possess it. He who fails to see this distinction may rest assured, that whatever may be his talents, the faculty of logical investigation is not to him an attainable accomplishment.

For surely, unless reason itself be a dream, and insanity the only wisdom, every substance must be either active or passive, have intelligence and volition, or not. And, therefore, matter and mind are two logical categories that encompass all thought and exhaust all nature. We demonstrate, then, I. That matter is passive, and consequently cannot be supposed to originate its motions. II. That no effect in nature can possibly occur without motion. We must, therefore, seek for causal force in the other category of universal substance, or nowhere. We find itin mind; and this is confirmed by our own inner consciousness, which assures us by the exercise of our voluntary activity, that the mind within us can and does produce motion, and cause effects as astonishing as they are beautiful. next demonstrate that nothing but the reason, which perceives its own operations, can possibly work mathematically. And then we show by inductions, as wide as the generalizations of science, that all natural motions are mathematical. Hence, they must be produced by a cause possessing reason. And the calculation of chances proves most conclusively that to deny this, is an absurdity a thousand times worse than the ravings of utter mad

ness.

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As to all that exuberant sophistry about the impossibility of predicating any thing out of our own actual sphere, we may observe that it is but a common trick of sceptics when driven from the field of fair argument. They assume a feigned humility, meeker than the most pious believers. Creation becomes a mere point, and life the flutter of a leaf in the sunbeam. They claim affinity with the blind-worm and droning beetle, and can do nothing but shiver with awe at the immensity above and beyond them. They ape all the ignorance of the child, without any of its trusting confidence-its ardent, innocent love, or its eager, soaring hope.

We admit the grandeur of eternity-we wonder at the infinitude of space; and we freely confess our own littleness when compared, not with those mighty masses of moving matter that wheel on high over our heads, but with that Omnipotent Being who guides them in their courses.

For although our life is as grass, and our globe but a dot on the map of the universe, we have the thought that wanders throughout eternity, and "before creation peopled earth," even now "rolls through chaos back;" and with a glance dilates o'er all to be in the vast fields of futurity, and climbs with winged feet the golden ladder of all the stars. Nothing material can do that-not the beam all light, shot from equatorial suns—not the lightning, which darts from heaven to earth in a moment. May we not assert, that although we be as nothing in the presence of that God "who wheels his throne upon the rolling worlds," yet one human soul of the countless millions of our species, is superior to all the worlds that God ever made or can make? It inherits the divine attribute of reason. They never knew the sublime "geometry of their own evolutions!"

But it is utterly untrue, that we can predicate nothing beyond the sphere of our own sensation. That is one of the follies of exploded materialism. Do we not know that everywhere a triangle must have three and only three angles? Can we not affirm this truth as certainly of the space a million leagues beyond the orb of solar day, beyond the farthest star that twinkles in blue ether, as of the little figure on the paper but six inches from our eyes? Must not the radii of every circle in the universe be equal? Is not the whole everywhere greater than any of its parts? Can there be any

phenomenon without a cause?—in any, the wildest of the wildernesses ?--in any, the remotest cycle of eternity? Can love be a crime, or murder virtue, in any conceivable sphere of existence? Can truth become a lie for any being to whom atheism is not reason? All spheres alike belong to the soul, when it puts on its beautiful wings, and goes forth through the open door of universal faith to universal triumph. Then the stars beckon it to their bosom, and legions of angels fly down to meet it. Then it becomes a note in the eternal anthem of sphere-melodies that hymn the universal Father; and in affirming God, it conquers even death, and is already one of the immortals!

But again, it may be objected, that although no mass of matter can be supposed to move itself, yet two masses or elements, when brought sufficiently near, may move each other.

But this is too shallow for a serious answer. For how shall the given masses, or elements, or separate atoms, be ever brought near, without first of all moving? And what cause may move them? Not other matter, for that would be to shift the difficulty without solving it. Such are all the arguments of atheism-fallacies that are their own refutation-quibbles that a modest monkey, were it gifted with speech, would blush to utter!

Another and very common objection of scientific sceptics may be expressed thus: It is true, say they, that we are irresistibly forced by our intellectual constitution to affirm a cause for this vast-flowing stream of phenomenal events that together constitute the universe. But we find that cause in nature; it is nature which does all this. She builds up and tears down her own systems. She evolves at once the life and the death which are but two different phases of one and the same fact, or as the opposite sections of an arc, where the universe plays as a pendulum betwixt birth and dissolution.

See how easy it is to use words without meaning. The shadows of language do not embarrass each other-do not impinge, so to speak, at all, when they have lost the substance of ideas that gave them soul.

Let us ask the objector-tell us seriously, what do you mean by the term Nature? Is it a reality, or only a relation? Hath it a substance? and if so, that substance, as we have seen, must be either matter or mind-must possess reason or not. And if it be without reason, how doth its mimicry of the attribute so far transcend all known originals? The difficulty loses nothing of its force by predicating nature as the cause of any conceivable operation. The question still comes up, whence this exquisite harmony which intellect alone could order? That will not down at the bidding of a lifeless word—that will not be solved by the art of a juggler that merely shifts his penny covertly from one hand to the other.

All men of sense now agree that nature is but a general term-a mere abstraction. It means but the totality of phenomena that constitute the universe. It is the very order which it is used by the sophist to account for-nothing more. It is an ideal exponent, a symbol in the mind's algebraic notation for all the motions of the universal whole. It does not and cannot give the unknown X which lies beneath them.

It is the same with the phrase, "laws of nature." No philosopher since the publication of Bacon's Organon, has regarded these as anything other than the very facts themselves generalized. They are merely classifications of observed phenomena. How ridiculously absurd is it then, to use the word law to account for the facts that constitute the law, and without which it were not. It is a law of nature that the sun rises in the morning. But that is nothing more than a general assertion of the particular fact; and to

say the fact is so because it is a law of nature, is precisely equivalent to the identical proposition, "the sun rises because the sun rises!"

Nor is the case at all different, if we use the word property instead of the word law. For recollect, that matter and mind are the only two substances possible, even in imagination. And when you affirm that a certain property in one body causes motion in another, before you look wise and raise a shout of gratulation at the fancied success of your own ingenuity, pause a moment, and ask yourself the short, simple question-what is a property? Is it matter or is it mind? Is it an entity or an abstraction? Has it color and form, or hands and feet? Has it consciousness and a will? And above all, for that will touch, as with a ray of electrical light, the secret heart of the matter, be sure and ask, "has the given or supposed property reason, and does it understand mathematics?

But we feel that on this part of our argument among these sceptical objections, we have wandered far from the sunlight of the common earth and air, into a dim world of empty abstractions. A cold wind breathes in our faces, like "the difficult air of the iced mountain tops, where the birds dare not build, nor insect's wing flits o'er the herbless granite," or rather like the stifling vapors of sepulchral vaults, where shadows come and go, as in a dance of mocking wild-fires. Never mind; let us proceed. The children of the mist will vanish before the torch of Reason, and the firmest pillars of the capitol of atheism melt away into mere negation.

I will now state an objection to the mathematical argument, urged in a private conversation, by an eminent atheistical writer of Boston, during a recent visit to New-England.

He said it is true I cannot pretend to answer your demonstration by laying my finger on a palpable logical law in the reasoning. But I can do more. I can show that it must be false, since it contradicts the evidence of the senses. You undertake to prove that one body cannot move another. Every man's eyes behold the contrary. Yonder is a barrel of gunpowder. Let a spark fall on its surface, and the whole detonates instantaneously, with a deafening explosion, producing light, heat and sound."

To this we reply, that in such cases as these, and all others of sensible motion, our eyes truly see nothing but the visible phenomena. We behold the appearance, not the power which produced it. The surface is plain enough to the view; the solid centre eludes our vision. Yet we know there is a producing power-we believe with absolute certainty in a centre. We cannot help doing so, unless we would turn maniacs. The veriest atheist does the same. Ask him what causes the gunpowder to deflagrate on the application of a spark of fire? He will not answer, unless in the last stage of lunacy--" there is no cause for it, in good sooth.” That would be too much for even an atheist of the modern Athens. He will respond, "there is a secret property in the spark to ignite the powder, and therefore, it must be ignited;" and ten to one, he will then launch boldly out into a learned dissertation concerning the chemical composition of the powder, and hidden qualities of the fire, showing with consummate ingenuity, how well suited they are to be joined in wedlock-how much they desire to be married, and what a flame-progeny they must necessarily beget between them! Now ask him what is that secret property in the spark, which evolves such results? He will surely respond-"it is the unknown cause, which has the power of production." One more question and the problem is solved. Is that property or cause matter or mind? Doth it know what it doeth? Hath it a will to originate motion? Can it move itself? And so still on and forever, there can be but one solution for the

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universal enigma, and that alone is afforded in the infinite reason. can never hope to meet with action, save in that which is essentially active. The pure passive cannot furnish it.

But finally, as a last resort, the sceptic flies in a sudden panic, as it were, from his own objections, and takes refuge in blasphemy. "If there be a God," says he, in the maddened language of Shelley," that God must be the author of all evil; and such a proposition is more revolting than the worst forms of atheism. I would rather," he continues to urge, "credit any absurdity, or commit any conceivable folly, than acknowledge a creed like that. Can we suppose that a God of infinite reason and unlimited power, would voluntarily create such a universe as this? Would he give life to beings, only to confer an acquaintance with its exquisite sweetness, and then almost instantly take it away? Would he plant in quivering hearts, not only those burning tortures, which are of the very essence of hate, but those arrowy stings that follow the rosy feet of gliding love also? Tell me that God made some other world, where perfection is the order of nature, and I may, perhaps, believe you. But ask me not to admit a divine origin for such a desolate sphere as this. Somewhere else, for aught I know or care, there may be harmony. Here I behold nothing but sin and disorder. Pestilence and famine-volcanoes and devouring war-tempest and earthquake alone reign around us. A wild, wailing howl of agony resounds throughout all the lands; and even brute instinct echoes the appalling cry of the human. Vanity is written in fire-letters of ruin, even on yon starry azure, where pale suns burst in shivered bubbles, and vanish away. Urge not that a Deity dug, in void space, this universal sepulchre, haunted alone by the ghosts of mourners, by the incalculable million. Say that it is the work of some dreadful demon, and I may entertain the proposition !"

Such blasphemies are horrible to hear. What sort of heart must he own, who dares give them utterance? I confess with sorrow 1 have no charity for the atheist, who attempts the propagation of such opinions. I can listen to any other creed with patience. I can bear with the poor Pagan, who honestly bows the knee to his idol, painted with blood, though it be. I can sympathise with the Polytheist, who beholds a separate god in every object of beauty, and of wonder. I recognize a brother man struggling through the deep gloom of superstition, striving to reach the light. But I recoil instinctively from the chill breath of an atheist. I realize the fearful presence of some dark spirit of a different order. My heart shudders at the glare of his eye, and I shrink from contact with the white foam on his lips, as if it were the juice of hemlock!

But let us trace the objection seriously, according to the strictest rules of logic.

We remark, in the first place, that it is not an objection to the argument as such, but a mere truculent tirade against the conclusion established. And even as to this, it is wholly irrelevant. It lies, if it be of any worth at all, not against the being, but the attributes of the Deity. The presence of evil may, or may not, furnish a valid reason for pronouncing as to the moral character of a power. It certainly does not touch the question of existence at a single point whatsoever. The dullest intellect must perceive this at once, without illustration, on the bare statement. The problem of the origin of evil has positively nothing to do with the proposition, that God is. It belongs to a very different category, the inquiry as to whether God is good.

The problem of evil has been professedly solved in many opposite ways. Every creed presents its own solution. Free will, predestination, opti

mism, the fall of man, transitive progress, and several minor theories, are so many methods of explanation. We shall not presume to attempt an account of it. Such a tentative, however ingenious, can at best be but pure hypothesis. Nay, it is demonstrably insolvable without a direct revelation from heaven; and for the obvious reason, that the existence of evil is a contingent, not a necessary truth, in the metaphysical sense. It is not based upon any principle of eternal reason, from which it may be educed, and expressed in analytical formulas. It is, on the contrary, a fact of experience, the origin of which can only be comprehended by actual or historical survey. But when or where, or how it originated, who shall declare? The true question, embodying the whole difficulty, is this-"Why did the Deity purpose to permit it, or to cause it, if the wording suit you better?" And this, beyond all controversy, no one in the universe, not the oldest cherubim of knowledge, can possibly tell, unless the Deity see fit to reveal it to the creature.

For this cause, all metaphysical solutions of the origin of evil must ever continue to be mere hypotheses, and as such, founded on very meagre data. We have not framed such; we have essayed to do better-to demonstrate their insufficiency, and unfold the reasons why they are so. But with this frank admission to back it, the objection, even as to the divine attributes, remains futile as ever.

We cannot judge of the moral character of the Deity, from one manifestation of his power alone, unless we are thoroughly familiar with the whole compass of its design. The act reveals the attribute only in connection with the purpose that put forth the act. This is evidently true of even a finite fellow-creature. Suppose that the history of some ancient nation simply informs us, "that Zanoni killed Uelika," and informs us nothing more. Can we, therefore, pronounce with unerring, or even probable certainty, that Zanoni must have been a bad man? Assuredly not, unless we know also, in addition to the fact, the cause and motive of the killing. Uelika may have been a traitor to his country, and Zanoni put him to death, as a minister of the law. The slaying may have been in self-defence, or in open and honorable war. Nay, on some glorious field of victory, where the heroic patriot fought for the redemption of his race, and to protect the hearth of his home, and the wife and children of his bosom. It may have been, for anything we can allege to the contrary, an act of the loftiest virtue, rather than one of the lowest criminality, or indeed of any guilt at all. Thus we reason in relation to our finite fellow-men. Wherefore, then, apply a totally different sort of ratiocination to the ways and purposes of the infinite Father?

He may have permitted evil as a condition of the greatest good. He may have suffered it in order to the necessary display of that wondrous mercy, which could be revealed alone through its partial or general prevalence. Nay, he may have ordained it, in order to enhance our everlasting happiness hereafter. The shooting pang of this fleeting moment of life may form the point of comparison, by which to reckon the raptures of a whole eternity. In fine, a thousand suppositions may be conceived to avoid the follies of atheism and the sins of blasphemy. Doth the sceptic get rid of evil, by denying God? On the contrary, he affirms its endless perpetuity -the utter impossibility of its termination. He does not circumscribe its boundaries-he cures not one pain in the bleeding bosom of humanity; but he extends the grizzly terror into all other spheres of existence; since what blind matter, and crude, unconscious force has accomplished here, it must accomplish everywhere, and forever!

But the shuddering horror we experience at the bare idea of God's will