16 REVIEWS. 



of necessity. If those numbers have an intrinsic significance, surely we 

 were entitled to expect some hint, at least, in explanation of the nature of 

 that significance. 



We have then, page 521, a burst of declamation, — " He must be a bold 

 man who will insist that should the God who fashioned nature be pleased 

 to give to man a revelation of His will, in order to solve certain great 

 problems started by the existence of sin in the world, He shall not be at 

 liberty to make his dispensations of Providence and his institutions for in- 

 struction and worship bear a certain relation to each other." No one is so 

 bold as to make such an assertion ; but it does not require much boldness 

 to assert that the authors have failed to produce the " superabundant in- 

 ductive evidence to show that numbers have a significancy in nature" in 

 any rational meaning we can put on the expression. 



We next meet with some remarks upon numbers mentioned in the Bible, 

 p. 523. " Five is found in the pillars of the court of the temple, which 

 were five cubits high, and five cubits apart ; and in the ten virgins, five 

 of which were wise, and five foolish." " Twelve was the number of the 

 sons of Joseph, of the tribes of God's people, and of the Apostles." "We 

 read of seven x ten disciples ; Peter was exhorted to forgive his brother, 

 not seven times, but seventy times seven, and the redeemed on Mount 

 Zion are twelve X twelve thousand." 



After such instances of their " superabundant inductive evidence," come 

 the following remarks, p. 525 — " We are not even inclined to look upon 

 these recurrent numbers as implying any mysterious connection, as the so- 

 phists have supposed, between objects which have the same number at- 

 tached to them." " Nor are we to look upon biblical events as related, 

 solely because they appear under the same number. It is possible, indeed, 

 that the events may have a connexion in themselves, and have both ap- 

 peared under the same number because of this connexion ; but the evidence 

 of their relation must be sought otherwise than in their numerical corres- 

 pondence. In vindicating the existence of these numerical relations we are 

 thus, at the same time, laying an effectual arrest on the abuse of them." 



Putting together the above extracts, we are compelled to ask, what do 

 the authors mean by the significance of numbers ? What proposition is it 

 that they desire to prove by their examples of coincident numbers ? Do 

 they vindicate thereby the existence of any numerical relation that has 

 ever been doubted by any one ? 



In a work like that before us, which has to deal with facts not patent 

 to the senses in their everyday use, and with propositions addressed to in- 



