are out of human reach, although we knew the laws through which it was accomplished, would still be a miracle," then, again, everything is miraculous-the ebb and flow of the tide, for example, or the precession of the equinoxes. For here we know the "laws," but the "conditions" are "out of our reach." If "a work attesting superhuman power" and miracle are interchangeable terms, then Professor Tyndall and Mr. Herbert Spencer believe in miracle as much as Dr. McCosh. In other words, nothing is miraculous because everything is.

After the first chapter on "The Supernatural," comes an able discussion of the various senses in which the word Law may be used; but the general character of the argument is not changed, nor, in strictness, is any essential new element introduced into it after the first chapter. That is to say, we know at once, from what the Duke has to say of the Supernatural, what ground he will subsequently take, and how he will probably amplify his treatment of the topics that must arise. The chapter entitled "Contrivance a Necessity" we entirely accept, with much gratitude for the beauty of the illustrative facts about birds, and for a new view of the question of flying. The treatment of the subject of "Necessity" (the "Reign of Law in the Human Mind") is, in my opinion, masterly. The only thing I wonder at is the patience with which the Duke handles transparent fallacies. Up to a certain point, and that a decisive point, the subject itself is clear; beyond that point all talk about it is as "bootless as the Greek slave, and as hollow as a bamboo." But the Duke of Argyll has contrived to make his treatment of the topic interesting to the very last. It is more than a quarter of a century since I spent some careful thought upon the subject, and shelved it for ever, as far as my own doubts were concerned. Yet I have read every word of the Duke's with-to my own great surprise-re-awakened interest in the subject. It is said that two or more Scotchmen will discuss "Necessity" over the third tumbler, and then adjourn the question indefinitely for future tumblers. If so, it must surely be because they want something craggy to break their minds upon, as Byron put it. The elements of the question are really so ludicrously simple.

In the chapter on "Law in Politics," I, unhappily, lose hold of my author so completely, that any discussion of it would be worse than useless. I cannot even see how the question of what the Duke calls Law in Politics can be taken as co-ordinated with that of "Law" as it stands in the rest of the book. But in the "Notes at the end (replying to various criticisms), I find myself again at home; and in every one of them the Duke appears to me easily victorious over his critic. I am strongly tempted to do myself the honour of quoting one case of correspondence of comment between him and myself, which will at least prove that if I fail to follow him in a

few places, it is not for want of fundamental sympathy with his treatment of some of the wider questions. First, the Duke :

"Mr. Mill pleads [here] that he must use common language, but that the whole of this language has its own special meaning under the Psychological Theory. This may be true; but there are certain words which must have the same meaning under all theories; and, in spite of his efforts, he is compelled to employ words which show that neither he nor any one else can maintain consistently a purely subjective conception of matter, that is to say, a conception which dispenses with an external agency or force. He says that almost all philosophers, who have narrowly examined the subject, have decided that substance need only be postulated as a support for phenomena, or as a bond of connection to hold a group or series of otherwise unconnected phenomena together.' Mr. Mill goes on with much simplicity: Let us only then think away the support, and suppose the phenomena to remain, and to be held together in the same groups and series by some other agency, or without any agency but an internal law-and every consequence follows without substance, for the sake of which substance is assumed.' The demand here made upon us, to think away' the support of phenomena, is certainly made less formidable when, in the next breath, we are told to think it back again under another form of words, as agency,' or as an internal law.'

another

"The same vain attempt to get behind ultimate ideas may be traced in the word 'Permanent,' with which Mr. Mill qualifies matter considered as 'A possibility of sensation.' The new formula is 'A permanent possibility of sensation.' Why permanent? Permanent means enduring. But what has the element of time to do with it? The percipient minds are not permanent, so far as the sensations of their existing organism is concerned. In what sense, then, are the possibilities of sensation' permanent? What is it that is described as permanent? Not the sensations, not the individual sentient beings. What then? Clearly the power or agency which causes, or is capable of exciting sensations in organisms that are, or that are to be. Here, then, we have the ideas of externality and of causation brought back under the covering of time." And now the other, and much worse, writer :

"On page 251, a footnote of Mr. Spencer's exhibits, to my thinking, the difficulties into which we cannot but be driven if we attempt to get rid of what is called anthropomorphism' of expression. Mr. Spencer condemned, to Professor Huxley, the phrase 'conservation of force,' because it implies a conserver and an act of conserving; and also because it does not imply the existence of the force before that particular manifestation of it with which we commence.' Professor Huxley suggested persistence of force,' and Mr. Spencer adopted it, saying, This entirely meets the first of the two objections.' But I would ask, how does it? If conservation implies a conserver and an act of conserving, surely, 'persistence'—read the word as rigidly as you please—implies an entity that persists, and an act of persistency? The mere presence of the second objection (which, however, does not seem to me well-founded) should make this clear: does not imply the existence of the force before the particular manifestation of it with which we commence.' If for the word 'the force' you substitute Omnipotence, or God (striking out, for grammar's sake, the words of it'), you at once see that no phrase is possible which does not make the implication in question. Nor is there."

The second of the recent and more important books of the Duke of Argyll, "Primeval Man," is one which I should have thought would have been found more generally interesting than the "Reign

of Law," the nature of the argument lying very much more within the range of ordinary readers, and the facts being presented with masterly clearness. But probably the beautiful chapters which relate chiefly to birds and the mechanism of flight have made the "Reign of Law" a deeply attractive book to hundreds of readers who do not care much to consider "permanent possibilities of sensation" and similar matters. "Primeval Man" does not appear, in fact, to have commanded so large a circulation as the "Reign of Law," though a decidedly large one; and there is no accounting for the fortunes of books.

as a

In one place only can I distinctly assert that the Duke of Argyll is wrong. My estimate of " phrenology "science" is probably not unlike his own. But I know of no phrenological authority who ever said that the brain "manifested" the "moral sentiments in any such sense as that in which the Duke employs the word "manifested." Most of them have either adopted or gone near to adopting the error which he denounces (and which writers like Mr. Lewes adopt though they reject phrenology), namely, that psychology can ever find a physiological basis. Yet it will be found that Spurzheim constantly adopts the à priori method in constructing his scheme. He distinctly attributes his own superiority (as a psychologist) over Gall to his doing so. He constantly says in effect, "The facts of the Mind as we know them clearly demand that there should be such or such an organ, and by anatomical analogy it should be in such or such a part of the brain." And to his use of the process he attributes some of his most important "discoveries." It was quite impossible under those circumstances that he should really regard anatomy as the basis of psychology, whatever bent his words may occasionally have taken; and, indeed, he distinctly called the system "physiognomical." What its precise value was, supposing it to have been wholly true, is a wide question. But Spurzheim no more meant (I do not quite see how anybody can mean, though he may say he does) to treat physiology as the basis of psychology (per se) than Lavater intended so to treat the human face. He simply meant,-" The mind manifests itself through its organ, the brain; and this organ is subdivided." I may add that he does not profess to solve the problem of the Will, and that what he says of Necessity and Freedom might take the place of the Duke's chapter, and leave his argument essentially what it is now.

I must beg the reader not only to reject the idea that I suppose for one moment my remarks about the Duke's chief work are necessarily correct, but to add this too-namely, that I have no doubt whatever that I have somewhere mistaken him. It always is so, and it always must be so in these discussions. Accordingly they should, much more frequently than is now common, be regarded as merely tentative, as, in fact, attempts to approach to an understanding. It

1

is high time such attempts were made. Comte laid it down as probable that "a body of twenty thousand philosophers would always suffice for the spiritual wants of the five great Western nations." Let us hope, with trembling, that it may. But it won't, if we all go on at this rate. Yet who is to leave off first? I see just advertised a new System of Philosophy, by Mr. Shadworth H. Hodgson (I think)-Space, and Time, and the rest of it all over again. One thing is probable, that we may yet expect some fine work from the hand of the Duke of Argyll. And, whatever it is, it is sure to be touched with those deep-toned lights of seriousness and kindness, which go far towards making the "Reign of Law "the unusually attractive book it is.

I will just add that the Marquis of Lorne published a few years ago a book of travel, in which I certainly fancied I saw much of the peculiar equanimity and cautiousness of his father's own mind, and something too of another quality which I have often noticed as the promise of a late but powerful maturity.

HENRY HOLBEACH.

NOTE.-At the last moment, I add that the quotations from Mr. Mill which (as criticised by the Duke) are found in the first paragraph of this article, have rather an expository than a purely enunciatory ring with them. This is important; but the book itself is not before me.

PHIL BLOOD'S LEAP.

A TALE OF THE GAMBUSINOS.*

BY THE AUTHOR OF "ST. ABE AND HIS SEVEN WIVES."

"THERE'S Some think Injins pison . . [It was Parson Pete that

spoke,

As we sat there, in the camp-fire glare, like shadows among the smoke

'Twas the dead of night, and in the light our faces shone bright-red, And the wind all round made a screeching sound, and the pines roared overhead.

Ay, Parson Pete was talking: we called him Parson Pete,

For you must learn he'd a talking turn, and handled things so neat: He'd a preaching style, and a winning smile, and, when all talk was

spent,

Six-shooter had he, and a sharp bowie, to point his argument.

Some one had spoke of the Injin folk, and we had a guess, you bet, They might be creeping, while we were sleeping, to catch us in the

net;

And the half-asleep were snoring deep, while the others vigil kept, But devil a one let go his gun, whether he woke or slept.]

"There's some think Injins pison, and others fancy 'em scum,

And most would slay them out of the way, clean into Kingdom

Come ;

But don't you go and make mistakes, like many dern'd fools I've

known,

For dirt is dirt, and snakes is snakes, but an Injin's flesh and bone !"