guarded explanation you have given of the term 'Law of Nature'; but 

 the original paragraph is so very clear to my mind, that I cannot con- 

 ceive it to stand in need of one syllable of further explanation. 



" With regard to the distinctive nature of the Vital Principle as it is 

 called, I cannot see anything of a dangerous tendency in any of the 

 opinions you have advanced. The whole question is one obviously of 

 Physiology, not of Psychology ; for the Vital Principle under discussion 

 is common to vegetable and animal natures, and therefore belongs to 

 beings confessedly destitute, not only of spiritual, but even of any mental 

 principle whatsoever." 



From the Rev. Baden Powell, F.R.S., ^c, Savilian Professor of 

 Mathematics in the University of Oxford. 



" The attack made upon you does certainly appear to me most shame- 

 ful ; and so manifestly unfair as to carry its own refutation along with it 

 to any candid person who has read your work. 



'^ The particular parts now adverted to claimed my attention from the 

 first ; and as far as my opinion of the philosophical or logical character of 

 the reasoning goes, I am most happy to give it. Having lately re-perused 

 these chapters with great attention, I can most truly say that I remain 

 fully impressed with a conviction, not only that no inference of any dan- 

 gerous tendency can be fairly made from these, but that the subject is so 

 illustrated as in my opinion to afford the firmest ground for establishing 

 those higher conclusions to which you more especially advert in the last 

 chapter. 



" In particular, the meaning of the term ' Law of Nature,* the notion 

 of the permanence and uniform action of the great mechanism of the 

 universe down to its minutest parts, appears to me most perfectly to 

 accord as well with the soundest philosophy as with the most elevated 

 notions of the Divine Attributes. It appears to me, that the more the 

 great questions connected with Natural Theology are dispassionately 

 studied, the more will it be seen that such views as these are the real 

 foundation on which its sublime conclusions rest." 



From the Rev. William Clark, M.D., Professor of Anatomy in the 

 University of Cambridge. 

 " I much regret that you have reason to complain of the opinion which 

 is published in the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal of your 

 Comparative Physiology ; for I read your work, when it first appeared, 

 with much delight, as that in which the greatest number of interesting 

 facts, most ably digested, has yet been brought together in our language ; 

 and certainly with the impression that it strongly enforces upon the 

 student the conviction of an omnipresent presiding First Cause — the 

 benevolent Creator and Preserver of all things. In consequence of your 

 letter, I have read the principal chapters over again, and still hold the 

 same impressions regarding it. Consequently I am greatly surprised that 

 charges should have been advanced against the religious tendency of your 

 work ; and cannot doubt that any candid person will, on even a cursory 

 examination, find such charges to be altogether unfounded." 



From the Rev. J. S. Henslow, Professor of Botany in the University 

 of Cambridge. 

 " I can see nothing in your account of the mode in which the Omni- 

 scient Creator may be supposed to interfere with the destiny of his 

 creatures, that can be considered, in the smallest degree, as militating 

 against the truths we derive from revelation. I can only suppose that the 

 close and narrow-minded views with which some persons are apt to look 

 upon the wonderful discoveries of modern times, prevent them from un- 

 derstanding how possible it is for a man to be duly impressed with the 

 truths of revelation, though he is equally satisfied that they were never 



