534 REVIEWS — TYPICAL FORMS AND 



tion of the typical forms in nature to our minds is denied. On the 

 contrary, that is not only recognised, but is held as demonstrating 

 that man — intellectually as well as morally — was made in the image 

 of God. The patterns according to which creation is fashioned, and 

 which we may therefore regard as expressing what is pleasing in the 

 Divine sight, are the very same with those which afford the highest 

 gratification to a pure and cultivated human taste. God would thus 

 appear — it is contended — to have constituted our understandings 

 with as great a conformity to himself, as it was possibly for finite in- 

 tellects to have to the infinite. In regard to this interpretation of 

 the order of nature, our authors express themselves as follows : 

 " "We are indisposed to advance a single word against this view ; 

 possibly it may be as true, as it is certainly striking and sublime. 

 It is certainly a doctrine which cannot be disproved ; we may ven- 

 ture to doubt whether it admits of absolute proof. Do we know so 

 much of the Divine nature as, a priori, to be able to affirm with cer- 

 tainty, how that nature must manifest itself in creation ? There may 

 even be presumption implied in declaring, in some cases, that the 

 harmonies of nature are after the taste or character of God ; for ex- 

 ample, that complementary colors are more beautiful to His eye, as 

 they are to ours, when seen in collocation, than non-complementary 

 colors." 



The theory upon which Professors McCosh and Dickie here — some- 

 what hesitatingly — pass sentence of disapproval, is one which — 

 striking and sublime as it undoubtedly is, and calculated, when first 

 announced, to fill and carry away the mind — we cannot accept. Our 

 authors, indeed, have said nothing tending to shew that it is errone- 

 ous. The only thing which they adduce in the shape of argument 

 against it, is contained in the sentence about complementary colors 

 above quoted — a sentence which, as it stands, is pointless. There 

 may be presumption (we are told) in declaring that it is a character 

 of the Divine mind to delight in certain arrangements of colors, rather 

 than in others. Now, perhaps there may : but surely it is too slight 

 a mode of dealing with the subject, to assert this without a word of 

 explanation, and, having done so, to pass on Why may there be pre- 

 sumption in making the declaration in question ? In the absence of 

 anything to evince that the declaration is presumptuous, those 

 against whom the statement of our authors is directed, might answer 

 —and it would be sufficient — that they cannot see where the pre- 

 sumption lies. The main objection which we feel to the theory under 

 consideration, is, that the typical forms which we discern in nature 

 depend upon our sensitive modes of perception, and therefore exist 



