CRITICAL NOTICES OP NEW PUBLICATIONS. 141 



some philosophers happen to have been free-thinkers) as if we were 

 to denounce the Bible as the parent of fanaticism, because some who 

 have been its most diligent readers have turned out fanciful enthu- 

 siasts, advocates for an immediate millenium, or eloquent in the 

 language of unknown tongues. The fact is, that the religion of 

 revelation and that of nature closely rememble each other in their 

 tendency and limits. In both, though there is much light and 

 abundant truth, we see nevertheless through the glass darkly ; and 

 though inquiry is not only permitted, but encouraged, we must not, 

 in this our imperfect state, expect perfection of knowledge in either 

 the one or the other. Hence, albeit nothing doubting, and firm in 

 faith, we should nevertheless add to our perseverance in research, 

 humility, and argue from the general impression of those glimpses 

 we are enabled to obtain of what will be, from the consideration 

 of what is and has been, that the rules by which the Deity regu- 

 lates the moral as well as the physical world, are as simple and uni- 

 versal as they are all -perfect and comprehensive in operation. And 

 that this impression will result from a perusal of Mr. Bakewell's 

 work, we confidently anticipate. The reader will find nothing to 

 jar against his feelings in the way of dogmatism or controversy. 

 He will, if he has a soul capable of being led on to higher thoughts, 

 and the loftier pursuits connected with an eternal world, thank us 

 for introducing him to a companion for his meditative hours, from 

 which we shall think it strange indeed if he does not derive as much 

 benefit as information. The metaphysician, it is true, discovers in 

 the powerful reasoning of Butler's Analogy, arguments in confirma- 

 tion of the immortality of the soul ; but metaphysical food is neither 

 agreeable to the taste, nor suited to the digestive intellectual organs 

 of a large portion of society ; and after all, connected more or less 

 as it is with abstract reasoning and imagination, its deductions may 

 or may not be always accurate. In physics, however, the case is 

 different; as many who are either unwilling or incompetent to dive 

 into the abstruse lore of a Bacon, a Locke, or a Butler, will be glad 

 to be directed to similar conclusions, by the more agreeable and 

 equally convincing path of the work to which we allude. 



We will now, therefore, proceed to give as comprehensive an 

 analysis of our author's plan, as our brief space will admit of. He 

 begins by reminding us that, although many works on natural the- 

 ology exist, few have ventured on the interesting field in which the 

 spiritual and material portions combined to form man appear so 

 intimately connected. " The exclusion of natural phenomena from 

 these considerations," he justly observes, "must therefore be ascribed 

 to the impression too hastily received, that the evidence to be de- 

 rived from the actions of matter, is either not favourable to, or at 

 least that it affords no satisfactory proof of, the immortality of the 

 soul." That such conclusions are unfounded, it is his object to 

 shew, laying it down as a fundamental position capable of proof, 

 that every phenomenon in physical science directs us to look beyond 

 material existences for its ultimate cause. " The manifestations of 



