NATURE'S TEACHINGS. 



1S9 



outside of " man" (as the solar system is outside 

 of him) for the purpose of discovering himself 

 to be " dead." Argue round about it as we will, 

 we are merely changing the counters from hand 

 to hand. 1 



A similar criticism holds with regard to Mr. 

 Hinton's " Mystery of Pain " (we think), and 

 another of his favorite views — namely, that there 

 is goodness enough in the world to regenerate 

 the world, if it would change its direction. James 

 Hinton was no trifler, God knows ; but this sounds 

 like trifling. The want of the " direction " goes 

 to the very centre of the case, and reduces the 

 doctrine to this formula : There would be good- 

 ness enough in the world to regenerate the world 

 — if there were. But at present there is not. 

 Then, with regard to the mystery of pain — all 

 that can be said upon that subject may be 

 summed up in a sentence. Mr. Hinton's book is 

 one of the most beautiful of reasoned rhapsodies ; 

 it is an inspired restatement of an old argument 

 — but it is nothing more. It could not possibly be 

 more. It is of the very nature of the case that 

 there is no room for fresh discoveries. Of course 

 that does not hinder that restatements by beauti- 

 ful souls and men and women of genius may have 

 the most precious value — the little book in ques- 

 tion is most choice and beautiful; but the help 

 we get from it is in its quality, not in the argu- 

 ment ; which we all learned — in other terms — in 

 our hornbooks. 



Serious readers who may go through this 

 memoir of James Hinton will await with earnest 

 and regretful curiosity the publication of his re- 



mains. He seems to us to have wasted much of 

 his noble powers on impossible tasks — to have 

 taken, over and over again, restatements for solu- 

 tions of questions that could not, in the nature 

 of things, be any nearer the kind of solution de- 

 sired by Hinton than they were when the book 

 of Job was written. The kind of solution he 

 sought we may perhaps describe as a general ab- 

 stract formula, susceptible of infallible particular 

 applications. Alas ! alas ! In his last letter to his 

 eldest son, the all but dying father wrote thus : 



" But, How., there is a wrong, an intense 

 wrong, in our society, running all through our life, 

 and it will be made righter some day. I dashed 

 myself against it; but it is not one man's strength 

 that can move it. It was too much for my brain ; 

 but it is by failure of some that others succeed, 

 and through my very foolishness, perhaps more 

 than any cleverness or wisdom of mine could have 

 wrought. And I hope I have learned, too, to be 

 wiser. We have not come to the end ; though 1 

 am so exhausted that I seem scarcely able to be- 

 lieve in anything more before me." 



These words, " full of hope and full of heart- 

 break " — for they are full of hope, for all their 

 sadness — are too sad. James Hinton lived a no- 

 ble life, and his genius and goodness have been 

 and will continue to be productive forces on the 

 right side. Not in vain are offerings like his laid 

 upon the great altar. And the longing eyes that 

 look out upon us from that beautiful, inspired 

 face will yet see of the travail of the soul that 

 lit them up with those tender fires. — Contempo- 

 rary Review. 



NATUEE'S TEACHINGS. 



FN a curious and instructive book which we 

 -*- have just read, entitled " Nature's Teach- 

 ings," by Mr. Wood, we are shown that scientific 

 inventions, no matter how original and ingenious 

 they may appear to be, have each and all been 

 anticipated in the world of Nature. 



Countless inventions have been made by man 

 without his having any knowledge of the fact 



1 Mr. Hinton ha?, in this connection, been com- 

 pared to Swedenborp. But, first, the doctrine differs ; 

 and, secondly, Swedenborg is logical : he reports a 

 change of conditions before he sees and hears what he 

 relates ; and, in the case of the Seer and Revealer, the 

 ground shifts from argument to authority: which, if 

 we accept it, shuts up the questions both of truth and 

 use. 



that the machine, which in its first idea sprang 

 from a single brain, and was afterward, during 

 the progress of time, slowly improved and per- 

 fected perhaps by many successive generations 

 of inventors, had been in use in Nature in a 

 more perfect form than art could accomplish for 

 ages before man existed on the earth. There is 

 scarcely a principle or part in architecture that 

 has not its natural parallel — walls, floors, towers, 

 doors and hinges, porches, eaves, and windows ; 

 thatch, slates, and tiles, girders, ties, and but- 

 tresses, bridges, dams, the pyramid, and even 

 mortar, paint, and varnish, are all there. The 

 Esquimaux snow-house is an exact copy of the 

 dwelling the seal builds for her tender young ; 



