Nov. 1, 1885.] 



KNOWLEDGE 



having taueht tlie majority of ttose who bore for coal to 

 bid farewell to their prospects of finding it when this is 

 reached. Nevertheless, in other places good workable coal 

 is found below this, in the mountain limestone and lime- 

 stone shales, such as the Yoredale rocks and Scaw lime- 

 stone of the great northern coal-fields of Durham and 

 Northumberland, and still more productively in Scot- 

 land. 



It would be entering too much into detail to tabulate 

 and specify particularly where coal is found in the later 

 geological ages. I may simply name the oolitic coal 

 field of Whitby in Yorkshire, as one of our British 

 exceptions to the occurrence of coal-seams only in the 

 coal measures. The coal-fields of Richmond, Virginia, 

 is of the same date. Many others of the most important 

 coal-seams of the world, violate the traditions of the 

 British collier by occurring still higher, in the "Wealden, 

 the Cretaceous, and higher still in nearly every great 

 series of the Tertiary rocks. 



If we fail to find anj- coal in the Wealden, Cretaceous, 

 and Tertiarj- deposits south of London, it is not because 

 the existence of coal is there forbidden by any general 

 geological law, but on account of local conditions that pre- 

 vailed when these rocks were deposited. There are great 

 forests in some parts of the world at the present moment, 

 and a lack of such forests in other parts, even in corre- 

 sponding latitudes. There are coal-seams now in course 

 of formation in certain limited regions (as I .shall describe 

 in my next), but by no means everj-where. This appears 

 to have been ever the case since vegetation began to 

 flourish on the earth. 



as 



< 



O 



o 



c 

 c 



63 



^ Permian ob 

 JIagnesiax Lime- 

 stone. 



Caebonifeeovs. 



Devonian ob 

 < Old Bed Sandstone. 



Upper Silurian. 

 Middle Silurian. 

 Lower Silibian. 



Cambrian..,. 

 Laueentian. 



{ 



Eed sand and marl. 



Magnesian limestone. 



Marl slate. 



Lower red sandstone. 



Cbitl measures. 



Millstone grit. 



Mountain limestone. 



Limestone shales. 



Upper Devonian. 



Jliddle Devonian. 



Lower Devonian and Tilestones. 



Ludlow and A\-mestr_v rocks. 



Wenlock rocks. 



Woolhope series. 



Llandovery and Mav Hill rock.>. 



Caradoc and Bala rocks. 



Llandeilo rocks. 



Lingula flags and Tremadoc beds 



Llongm™d and Cambrian rocks. 



Laurentian rocks. 



MR, 



HERBERT SPENCER 

 STATE, 



ON CHURCH AND 



IJUST now, when the question of Church 

 and State in England is somewhat pro- 

 minently before the public, the philo- 

 .sophical discussion of thegentiv.l question 

 by Mr. Herbert .Spencer, in the just- 

 issued sixth part of the " Principles of 

 Sociology " (Ecclesiastical Institution), 

 has special interest, — though it has not 

 any real bearing on the particular problem aboat which 

 party politics are disturbed. Mr. Spencer manifestly 

 does not consider the Disendowment of the Established 

 Church a matter of vital moment. He does not even 

 mention it in his chapter on Church and State. 



The influence of the Church within a State began' 



when men began to believe in the necessity of propitiating 

 the ancestral dead, learning their wishes, and carrying 

 them out. T^^lether Mr. Spencer is right in giving to 

 the belief in ancestral ghosts so marked a precedence 

 as he does over the belief in the presence of will and 

 power in various natural objects (in the near at 

 first, and afterwards in those more remote) may 

 possibly be questioned, even in full view of the array 

 of facts he has for evidence. That the wor.ship of dead 

 ancestors long preceded the worship cf nature, of the 

 heavenly bodies, of animals, and so forth, is, however, 

 certain — as Schlegel discovered in dealing with Hindoo 

 mythology. And it is equally certain tha,t the first 

 priests, in all nations which have left any records of 

 ancient beliefs, were emplf)yed in ministntions for the 

 propitiation tif the spirits of dead chiefs : the first altars 

 were mausoleums. Thus we ca,n understand how in those 

 diys the kingly and the priestly power would be united 

 in the same per.son. The secular rule was in the begin- 

 ning little ntore thaii the instrument of the sacred mle, — 

 and, as Mr. Spencer remarks, " where the normr.l rule has 

 not beeu broken, the org;;nisations for scored rule and for 

 practical rule remain practically blended. 



When pantheism took the place of ancestor worship, 

 or when almost from the beginning pantheism and 

 ancestor worship were parts of the same primeval system, 

 the priest's duty would still be to propiti .te, to interju-et, 

 to intercede with, and in some cnses even to influence 

 the departed rulers of the people. Thus the power 

 of the priesthood would be immense, their influence 

 wide. We are told that in Egypt, where those great 

 tombs the piyramids, with their astronomical charac- 

 teristics, tell us of a time when ancestor worship was 

 merging into nature worship, "the priesthood took a 

 prominent part in everything .... nothing was 

 beyond their jurisdiction : the king himself was subject 

 to the laws established for his conduct, and even for 

 his mode of living." And it was the s^.me in other 

 ancient nations, while they remained wor-shippers of their 

 ancestors or of natural objects. " That this blending of 

 Chnjch and State is not limited," s.^ys Mr. Spencer, " to 

 societies in which the gods are apotheosised rulers more 

 or less ancient, but is found also in cults which are not 

 indigenous, and that it continues as long as religious 

 beliefs are accepted without criticism, we are shown by 

 the history of mediaeval Europe. 



Among the causes of the maintenance and growth of 

 Church power in the State, Mr. Spencer cites : — • 



1. The claim of the jiriest to give a sanction to the 

 authority of the civil ruler. 



2. The influence which the priest is supposed to exert 

 over supernatural beings, by his jjrayers and invocations, 

 — alike for evil as for good. 



3. The assumed power to grant or refuse forgiveness of 

 sins. 



4. The attainment of more knowledge than other 

 classes possess, — and in particular the art of writing. 

 Under this head may also be included the circumstance 

 that the civil rulers from the highest downwards, in the 

 earlier times we are considering, receive their teaching 

 from the priesthood. 



5. The power resulting from the accumul.ition of 

 property, — beginning with the accumuL.tion of money 

 paid to them as exorcisers and diviners, " progressing to 

 fees in kind to sacrificing priests, r.nd growing by-md-by 

 into gifts made to temples and bribes to their officiils, 

 wealth everywhere tends to flow to the ecclesiiistic;;! 

 organisL^tion." 



With such powers, natural and supernaliiral, it might 



