14: REVIEWS. 



ferences continually to diminish in re-ascending towards the first origin of the 

 germ ; until they vanish from the homogeneous particle of matter, as the uni- 

 form primordial state of every organism. Yet, even if our limited senses, with 

 all the aids and appliances we can command, should fail at some stage to 

 detect a difference of form or composition, we are not, however, entitled to 

 conclude that there is absolute identity ; and, indeed, the specific relation 

 between different germs and the media, or conditions indispensable for their 

 vital preservation aud organical development, points to a more intimate, 

 original, and permanent difference in the germs, corresponding to their re- 

 spective parentage. 



But although man is so unlike, and in many respects so superior to all 

 other animals, there is nothing in his frame that is not typified by 

 creatures whose existence was long antecedent to his ; so that it may be 

 truly said in this application, that all his members were written in the 

 Book, when as yet there was none of them. What the final cause may be of 

 this order and system of development, it is impossible for us to say. We 

 are unable even fully to understand why the Omnipotent Creator should 

 ever employ means towards an end, although we can see that those means, 

 by their fitness and exquisite contrivance, may afford additional illustra- 

 tions of His wisdom and benevolence, by furnishing to beings of the most 

 exalted intelligence exhaustless subjects of contemplation and employ- 

 ment for their highest faculties. 



The authors, however, are not always sufficiently careful to avoid relying 

 upon unproved facts and uncertain arguments. They have been sometimes 

 carried away by their prepossessions, in a way which not only offers to an 

 opponent an almost irresistible temptation to seize upon one such instance 

 as a specimen of all, but has a tendency to weaken the effect of the argu- 

 ments which are borne out by proof, in the mind even of unprejudiced or- 

 dinary readers. An instance of this precipitancy may be found at p. 65, 

 where the names of Bemouilli, De l'Hopital, Leibnitz, and Newton are 

 brought in to enhance the interest the reader is to take in the Cycloid, as 

 the line of quickest descent of a falling body, — and then comes this state- 

 ment, " Now, it is believed that it is by this very swoop that the eagle de- 

 scends upon its prey. The question presses itself upon us. Who taught 

 the birds of the air the line of swiftest descent, the discovery of which was 

 believed to test the highest mathematical skill ?" But, may not the Atheist, 

 who is more ready to discover the mote in his brother's eye than the beam 

 in his own eye, demand why, or on what grounds, it is believed that the 

 eagle desceuds in a cycloid ? If it is merely because that curve is the line 



