2 



ductorn of that publication, but is solely destined to show that 

 some of my opinions have been misrepresented, and that others 

 have been undeservedly condemned. 



It is in the Chapter on the " Nature and Causes of Vital 

 Actions," that all the more important passages occur, which are 

 spoken of with reprobation, as containing doctrines of an injurious 

 tendency. This Chapter is but an amplification, in a more popular 

 form, of an Essay " On the Laws regulating Vital and Physical 

 Phenomena," to which the Students' Prize was awarded two 

 years since by the Professors of the University of Edinhurgh ; and 

 the^ greater part of which was published in the Edinhurgh New 

 Philosophical Journal (April, 1838), edited by Professor Jameson. 

 There is not a single principle in the Chapter just referred to, 

 which is not contained, and emphatically stated, in that Essay. 

 The Professors of the University of Edinburgh are virtually charged, 

 therefore, by the Reviewer of my Principles of Physiology, with 

 having sanctioned opinions which are "detrimental to the best 

 interests of mankind," and which prevent my work (whatever may 

 be its value in other respects) from being "held up as a safe guide 

 in the study of those sciences, the principles of which it professes 

 to place before the reader." — {Review^ p 228). It is very probable 

 that all these gentlemen may not agi-ee in the opinions I have 

 expressed; but it is not to be conceived that they should have 

 selected for the Prize, out of the many Essays sent in for compe- 

 tition, one which advocated doctrines of so dangerous a tendency as 

 those imputed to me by the Reviewer. 



The chief misrepresentation of which I have to complain, is the 

 imputation to me of the opinion " that all the visible creation was 

 at first made so perfect, that the machine of nature runs its allotted 

 course, without requiring the continued superintendence of the 

 Creator" {Review^ p. 219) ; — an opinion which, if really expressed 

 by me, would certainly imply my disbelief in Revelation. No 

 passage is quoted by the Reviewer in support of this imputation ; 

 but the concluding paragraph in my volume is referred to as justi- 

 fying it. This paragi'aph, which formed the conclusion of my 

 Essay when sent in for competition, I shall give in full, that my 

 readers may judge for themselves : — 



" If, then, we can conceive that the same Almighty /za^ which created 

 matter out of nothing, impressed upon it one simple law which should 

 regulate the association of its masses into systems of almost illimitable 

 extent, controlling their movements, fixing the times of the commence- 

 ment and cessation of each world, and balancing against each other 

 the perturbing influences to which its own actions give rise, — should 

 be the cause, not only of the general uniformity, but of the particular 

 variety of their conditions, governing the changes in the form and structure 

 of each individual globe protracted through an existence of countless 

 centuries, and adjusting the alternation of ' seasons and times, and months 

 and years,' — should people all these worlds with living beings of endless 

 diversity of nature, providing for their support, their happiness, their 

 mutual reliance, ordaining their constant decay and succession, not merely 

 as individuals but as races, and adapting them in every minute particular 

 to the conditions of their dwelling, — and should harmonise and blend 

 together all the innumerable multitude of these actions, making their very 

 perturbations sources of new powers ; — when our knowledge is sufficiently 

 advanced to comprehend these things, then shall we be led to a far higher 

 and nobler conception of the Divine Mind than we have at present the 

 means of forming. But, even then, how infinitely short of the reahty will 



