for entering on it, as is becoming, neither in an abject. spirit of superstition nor in an arrogant spirit of conceit. For this we must not forget: that, however clearly we trace the order of events, the mystery of their why remains where it was; however clearly we may follow "one first matter" through "various forms, and various degrees Of substance, and in things that live, of life, Till body up to spirit work, in bounds the power which determines why one tissue should supervene on another, why life should tend upwards, which inspires and guides the everlasting becoming of things, must ever remain past finding out. Man himself, with all his sorrows and sufferings, with all his hopes and aspirations, and his labours wherewith he has laboured under the sun, is but a little incident in the inconceivably vast operations of that primal central power which sent the planets on their courses, and holds the lasting orbs of heaven in their just poise and movement. Note to page 125.-Some of those who have done me the honour to criticise this address, have seemed to think that in saying that Milton held matter to be capable of intellectual function, I have not fairly represented his opinion. Let me add, therefore, the following quotations from his "Treatise on Christian Doctrine :"-" For the original matter of which we speak is not to be looked upon as an evil or a trivial thing, but as intrinsically good, and the chief productive stock of every subsequent good. . . . But that the spirit ... of man should be separate from the body, so as to have a perfect and intelligent existence independently of it, is nowhere said in Scripture, and the doctrine is evidently at variance both with nature and reason, as will be shown more fully hereafter. For the word soul is also applied to every kind of living being; Gen. i. 30, 'to every beast of the earth,' &c., 'wherein there is life;' vii. 22, all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died;' yet it was never inferred from these expressions that the soul exists separate from the body in any of the brute creation. . . . It would seem, therefore, that the human soul is not created daily by the immediate act of God, but propagated from father to son in a natural order. . . . There seems, therefore, no reason why the soul of man should be made an exception to the general law of creation. For, as has been shown before, God breathed the breath of life into other living beings, and blended it so intimately with matter, that the propagation and production of the human form were analogous to those of other forms, and were the proper effects of that power which had been communicated to matter by the Deity." See also Paradise Lost, Book V., v. 100 and v. 407. HAMLET.1 MUCH as has been written concerning "Hamlet" by the many who have sympathised with the different phases of his character, yet it would appear that no one who sets himself anew to the earnest study of the drama is content with what others have done, but believes that he can add something important from his own reflections. Were confession honestly made, it would most likely turn out that each sympathetic reader did at bottom consider himself to be the real Hamlet; no marvel, therefore, that he deems himself best capable of doing justice to the character. Though he fail to give an adequate idea of the Hamlet which Shakespeare created, each critic does unquestionably succeed in revealing his own intellectual range, and the sort of one-sided Hamlet which he would have created. Many of these criticisms or expositions would, however, have been rendered unnecessary if their authors had but borne it in mind that Hamlet is a poetical creation, and never was a living reality. Cer 1 WESTMINSTER REVIEW, No. 53-1. Shakespeare. Von G. G. Gervinus. Dritte Auflage. 2. A Study of Hamlet. By John Conolly, M.D., D.C.L. L |