136 
The Fourth Edition , Revised and Enlarged., of “ THE UNSEEN 
UNIVERSE.” 
I'his Edition has just come to our hands ; and it is a duty to examine any 
points of difference, and place it side by side with “ Edition III.,” which 
we have hitherto used. 
P.S.— 71. We have read this new edition with considerable 
satisfaction. The course of the argument is exactly the same, 
but the sense of responsibility under which the writers (no 
longer anonymous) announce their views has given a maturity 
to some of their expressions, which anticipates objection, in 
some cases (p. 16), and imparts precision throughout. The 
anonymous editions take op far more the position of outsiders ; 
the present, with the more courageous and distinct moral 
avowals of its new “ Introduction,” throws a purer and clearer 
light on the meaning and intention of the work, as a check 
on the over-weening materialism of the day. A real check it 
certainly is ; nor — which is important — do its authors wish to 
insist on its theological inferences very rigidly, but, rather, 
acknowledging unfamiliarity with exact theological science, 
only indicate certain directions of Religious thought as not 
impossible, without speaking definitely. This was mentioned 
in t lie preface to the second edition, but it becomes felt in the 
fourth. 
72. The more noticeable portions added to the argument in 
this fourth edition are those connected with the atomic theory. 
In the former editions we had such assertions as these, without 
anything sufficiently to relieve them : “ The Visible Universe, 
after its production, is supposed to be left to . . . certain 
inorganic agencies, which we call forces, in virtue of which its 
development took place.”— “ As the various atoms approached 
each other, in virtue of the forces with which they were 
endowed, other and more complicated structures took the place 
of the perfectly simple primordial stuff” (pp. 127 and 128). 
This might seem to point too favourably to the theory of matter 
being alive. In the fourth edition, the authors distinctly attack 
that theory with vigour and success. Still we have to com- 
plam of obscurity in all this part of their statement (p. 101). 
lliey mention, for example, Lc Sage’s theory, as if it 
might be not impossible, that forces which set in motion the 
