155 



My specimens of the work are not chosen on account of the 

 superlative presumption which they display, for in this respect they 

 do not stand out at all remarkably from the great mass of speculations 

 contained in the two volumes, but they are, or profess to be, purely 

 botanical, and therefore I select them for exhibition in a purely bo- 

 tanical magazine. Let us suppose the planets in question could really 

 be visited by a botanist, and that the undertaking had fairly been ac- 

 complished; what should we say to any one who gave the result of his 

 discoveries in such unintelligible jargon as this ? " The fourth class 

 [of plants] approximates still nearer to animal existence. Being more 

 perfect in composition than the others, it presents a variegated foliage, 

 the extracts from which enter essentially into the forms of the first 

 animals." The veriest tyro in botany knows that the more perfect a 

 plant the less it approximates to an animal; and that variegated foliage 

 indicates disease rather than perfection ; and how the extracts of va- 

 riegated foliage enter into the form of the first animals I cannot con- 

 ceive. In fact, the entire passage is neither more nor less than a 

 number of words purposely jumbled together to mystify the reader, 

 and perfectly incapable of conveying an idea to the mind of man. 

 When I lately quoted, in another place, some of the choicest morceaux 

 from Ok en's twin publication, a champion, willing to exonerate the Ger- 

 man, suggested that the English translator had mistaken his meaning, 

 — a reasonable suggestion, for Mr. Tulk were gifted with superhuman 

 powers could he understand the original : no such plea, however, 

 can be adduced in the present instance ; the volumes come before us 

 in the language in which they were written ; and however the trans- 

 cendentalists or their abettors may wince, they cannot evade the fact, that 

 the passages are quoted precisely as originally written, without abbre- 

 viation or alteration, and in every instance entire, and not piecemeal. 

 Some two hundred pages are occupied in what might be called 

 travestied science, after the fashion exhibited above, in the passage 

 about 'the extracts of variegated foliage entering essentially into ani- 

 mals;' as no portion of this is either botanical or logical, or can by 

 any possibility be true or instructive, I pass it over in silence. Then 

 from such premises comes the conclusion, thus ushered in. 



" I now descend to the birth of mythological theology — which theo- 

 logy is at the present day obscuring the highest and purest principles 

 of the internal nature of man, destroying all elements of true and na- 

 tural morality, and absolutely driving men into every species of vice, 

 folly, disunity of interests and consequent wretchedness." — i. 377. 



A pleasant picture of Christianity indeed ! a mythological theology 



