And we take it for a physical truth which cannot be gainsaid, that the world of such creatures as the primeval geological eras reveal, was a world abounding with suffering.* And we have seen, that the eminent geologist, with whom our business lies, assigns that suffering to no cause such as the deterioration of the natures of the animals : he makes the creatures, armed with their stings, to start, not mediately, but immediately-directly, and without any interventionfrom the hands of their Creator. In the same way, in the Heathen Mythology, Minerva sprang full grown, clothed with armour, sive and defensive, from the head of her parent Jove. The conclusion from the whole is very evident. offen If all be as Hugh Miller has represented, Nature may be thought of as vested in her funeral pall. Suffering and death were from the first of created life: Suffering and death shall be to the last. Suffering and death exist independently of sin; i.e., physical evil is independent of moral evil. In short, suffering and death have been for no other cause than the good pleasure of the Creator. If all this be really so, would it not be the best of boons to man could he be rendered incapable from henceforth of speculating at all on such subjects? The greatest of blessings would be complete withdrawal from all this phenomenal life. The Nirwâna for which our Buddhist brethren pine and pray would be indeed our highest heaven. The unspeakable happiness would be a condition of absolute torpor as to the world of primæval-ay, and mediæval, and postremæval-suffering and death in the midst of which each man finds himself. If all this be really so-But, thank GOD, it is not so,—and we breathe again. Such views as those entertained by Hugh Miller must have told on any mind and organism. It is impossible to say what were the effects on a deeply pondering mind which was oppressed by the belief of such fearful secrets touching the moral order of that universe to which man is related. What a deep hold those instruments of torture, so exquisitely constructed, had taken of Hugh Miller's mind is very evident. Nothing can be more so. He recurs to the idea so often: bringing it in frequently when one is little prepared for it: it appears under such emphatic words. You almost see him thrill with horror when he is depicting some of those fishy stings, or reptilian apparatus of torture, so admirably adapted to kill, and, in killing, to cause the severest pain. And he thrills with horror, not once, but again and again. Let us select from the volume at random, a few passages in addition to those already cited,† touching the carnivorous, in some cases, omnivorous, propensities of the creatures, whose likeness is fixed in stone; and let us take the passages in the order in which they occur. "In the Oolitic ages, however, insects become greatly more numerous, so numerous that they seem to have formed almost exclusively * Miller himself calls it " an economy of warfare and suffering."-See above. † See previous No. the food of the earliest mammals, and apparently also of some of the flying reptiles of the time. The magnificent dragon flies,* the carnivorous tyrants of their race, were abundant; and we now know, that while they were, as their name indicates, dragons to the weaker insects, they themselves were devoured by dragons as truly such as were ever yet feigned by romancer of the middle ages."—Pp. 53–4. "In the times of the Oolite it was the reptilian class that possessed itself of all the elements. Its gigantic enaliosaurs, huge reptilian whalest mounted on paddles, were the tyrants of the ocean, and must have reigned supreme over the already reduced class of fishes; its pterodactyles, dragons as strange as were ever feigned by romancer of the middle ages, and that to the jaws and teeth of the crocodile, added the wings of a bat and the body and tail of an ordinary mammal, had the power of the air,' and, pursuing the fleetest insects in their flight, captured and bore them down; its lakes and rivers abounded in crocodiles and fresh-water tortoises of ancient type and fashion; and its woods and plains were the haunts of a strange reptilian fauna of what has been well termed 'fearfully great lizards.' -Pp. 80, 81. "Shapes that more than rival in strangeness the great dragons, and griffins, and 'laithly worms,' of medieval legend, or, according to Milton, the 'gorgons, hydras, and chimeras dire,' of classical fable, frown on the passing visitor, and, though wrapped up their dead and stony sleep of ages, seem not only the most strange, but also the most terrible things on which his eye ever rested.|| Enormous jaws, bristling with pointed teeth, gape horrid in the stone, under staring eye-sockets a full foot in diameter. Necks that half in equal in length the entire body of the boa-constrictor, stretch out from bodies mounted on fins like those of a fish, and furnished with tails somewhat resembling those of the mammals. Here we see a winged dragon, that, armed with sharp teeth and strong claws, had careered through the air on leathern wings like those of a bat; there an enor mous crocodilian whale, that, mounted on many-jointed paddles, had traversed, in quest of prey, the green depths of the sea."-P. 142. 'Cromwell, in commissioning a friend to send him a helmet, shrewdly stipulated that it should be a 'fluted pot;' and we find that the Holoptychius had got the principle of the fluted pot exemplified in the outer plate of each of its scales, untold ages before. The spongy * There is a wood-cut representation of the fossil representation of one of those magnificent tyrants. Of the Ichthyosaurus communis, a representation is given. Representations are given of the Plesiosaurus Dolichodeirus, and of Pterodactylus Crassirostris. This almost reminds one of the terrific description, in the prophet, of the "creeping things, and abominable beasts," which the seer saw "pourtrayed upon the wall round about,' "When by the vision led His eye surveyed the dark idolatries See Ezekiel viii. 10, 11, 12, with the preceding verses. middle plate must, like the diploe of the skull, have served to deaden the vibrations of a blow dealt from the outside."—P. 231. It is a positive relief, in reading such a work, to come upon an animal that lies down, and dies in its bed-of gypsum mud. In the gypsum quarries of Velay and Montmartre, in the Paris basin, which represent to us the gypsum once soft, "the smaller animals occur,' writes our author, "often in a state of preservation so peculiar and partial as to excite the curiosity of even the untaught workmen. Only half the skeleton is present. The limbs and ribs of the under side are found lying in nearly their proper places; while of the limbs and ribs of the upper side usually not a trace can be detected, even the upper side of the skull is often awanting." "The reading of the enigma seems to be, that when the creatures lay down and died, the gypsum in which their remains occur was soft enough to permit their under sides to sink into it, and that then gradually hardening, it kept the bones in their places; while the uncovered upper sides, exposed to the disintegrating influences, either mouldered away piece-meal, or were removed by accident."-Pp. 93–4. The idea of a butcher, and his work, occur to our geologist's mind, as things by which to illustrate the phenomenon. "It would almost seem as if some pre-Adamite butcher had divided the carcasses longitudinally, and carried away with him all the upper halves."-Ibid. This fancy of a butcher, with his knife, dividing the carcass, in the pre-Adamic period, when there were no butchers, nor men to make butchers of, shows how the iron had entered into our palæontologist's soul.* It is remarkable, that Miller makes Lucifer, the fallen son of the morning, considered as an unembodied spirit-spectator,+ stand aghast at the sight of but a fractional part of the economy of warfare and suffering. "With what wild thoughts must that restless and unhappy spirit have wandered amid the tangled mazes of the old carboniferous forests!" [Lucifer wandering in forests, and yet an unembodied spirit: is not this "an inconceivable idea?"] "With what bitter mockeries must he have watched THE FIERCE WARS which raged in their sluggish waters, among ravenous creatures horrid with trenchant teeth, BARBED STING, and sharp spine, and enveloped in glittering armour of plate and scale !"-Lecture Sixth, p. 261. "Even at this That the particular idea of the butcher, and his weapon, was a familiar one, is evident. We had the idea presented in the course of the long citation from our author, whose words are:-"Ever since animal life began upon our planet, there existed, in all the departments of being, carnivorous classes, who could not live but by the death of their neighbours, and who were armed, in consequence, for their destruction, like the butcher with his axe and knife." "Dead matter exists, and in the unembodied spirits vitality exists; but not yet in all the universe of God has the vitality been united to the matter: animal life, to even the profound apprehension of the fallen angel, is an inconceivable idea."-Lect. VI. p. 259. It is passing strange that though Miller brings so significantly together Lucifer, "the sullen lord of the first revolt," and that dire economy of warfare and slaughter, the relation of cause and effect between the two seems never to have shot across the mind of the paleontologist. Surely it might have been late period, how strange may not the doubts and uncertainties have been that remained to darken the mind of the lost spirit! It was according to his experience,-stretched backwards to the first beginnings of organic vitality, ... that all animals should die."-P. 262. Miller makes, you see, even his Lucifer to stand aghast at the contemplation of that economy of warfare and suffering-and well he might make the sad, sad contemplation to have drawn even "Iron tears down Pluto's cheek." And when Miller does so, who sees not that Miller, himself, in the depths of his being, recoiled from the dreadful contemplation supplied by his mind's eye? Indeed the one- -Lucifer's imagined contemplation-is but the exponent of the other-Miller's own contemplation. We have said, that Hugh Miller thrills with horror as he depicts those fishy stings, and reptilian apparatus for torturing. And it is to be remembered, that his primeval geological eras were a perfect store-house of such weapons for the production of pain. He had been, many a long day, a diligent collector of specimens, and the mementos of that dismal economy, which had so impressed, and indeed oppressed, his spirit, would be ever meeting his eye all round the walls of his museum-room. Would it be a wonder, then, that the dreadful idea, pondered so long, should at last produce its natural fruits?† * Let there be no mistake about the ground we have been occupying. It is not to geology we have taken any objection. It may be truthfully affirmed, that Geology, distinguished from Mineralogy-which has long taken its place as an unquestionable science, that Geology, we say, is a science, or at least that it is destined, when perfected, to take rank as a permanent science. Those who are best acquainted shrewdly suspected that that sullen lord, in watching the momenta in the throes of that dire economy of "fierce wars," was occupied in looking upon his own han diwork. Could the direness, at least, of that economy have ascribed to it a more suitable parentage? The relation of causation as existing between the two never shot across our author's mind; but it must have been otherwise with "the comprehensive intellect of the great fallen spirit-profound and active beyond the lot of humanity."-P. 260. *We have seen Hugh Miller in his museum, while Mr Ruskin pays him a visit. And how did our geologist entertain his scientific brother? Even by pointing out one of those instruments of torture, the veritable effigies of the dorsal spine of the Gyracanthus. That dorsal spine "was a mighty spear-head, ornately carved like that of a New Zealand chief." (See former No.) It greatly excited the admiration of the visitor. And thus it was that Hugh Miller entertained that great art-critic. We should like to know how long the interview lasted, and how much of the time was occupied with what may have raised the wonder, and certainly excited the admiration, of the very devil-the "trenchant teeth, barbed sting, and sharp spine." What was it that was running through the mind of the Rev. Dr Anderson, when he wrote these words?" And so the mystery of a powerful intellect, combating with bodily disease and fanciful trains of thought, and the myriad-strewed battlefields of geological revolutions, piled up in every rock and cavern of earth beneath his (Hugh Miller's) feet, remains hidden and inscrutable as ever, stirring our deepest sympathies and hallowing our awe-struck regrets for departed genius."-Loc. supra cit. with the real state of matters will be the first to acknowledge that, up to the present time, the geological premises are not all educed : Neither are the collective existing premises arranged in one orderly and coherent system. Still, if physical sciences there be at all, a true science geology is, or will yet be. And all the sciences are divine, being from the God of all truth:-Just as the really Fine Arts are divine, inasmuch as they are derivations from the God who is All-beautiful--the First Fair, as well as the First Good.* If, therefore, the science of geology deliberately affirm, that the rocks with their fossil remains show it to be clear fact that, countless ages ere man existed on this earth, successive races of the lower animals lived and preyed on each other; then we must, of course, accept the fact, and digest it with what stomach we may. But geology, as a determinate science, hath necessarily its limits: and geology goes out of its province when it declares, that the ferocious carnivorous animals, represented by those fossils imbedded in those rocks, came, in that precise condition, from the hands of the great Creator. Geology is a science; but there are other sciences besides geology; and into their provinces it is but presumption on the part of any geologist to intrude his quasi geological conclusions. There are other sciences besides geology. There is, for instance, the science of Theology, in its twofold aspect of Natural and Revealed. Like geology, Natural Theology appeals not to authority; but it appeals to reason. Now, this science of Natural Theology has in it axiomatic truths which are as much entitled to acceptance as are any of the sensible truths of Geology. One of those truths of Natural Theology is this, That the First Cause of all is necessarily free from that imperfectness which is, at bottom, the only supposable cause of malignant feelings. Therefore, the Great First Cause could not create monstrous animal natures, delighting in the infliction of tortures on their fellows. Geology has no right to attempt to gainsay this certain conclusion of metaphysical-moral reasoning: it has no right to interfere with any axiom of Natural Theology. If what our author says be true, that "the geologist, as certainly as the theologian, has a province exclusively his own;"|| it is equally true, (as our author's words imply) that the theologian, as certainly as the geologist, has a province exclusively his own. § * Hear now Miller ascribing the fount of the chief Fine Arts to God: "I have already referred to mechanical contrivances as identically the same in the Divine and human productions; nor can I doubt that, not only in the pervading sense of the beautiful in form and colour which it is our privilege as men in some degree to experience and possess, but also in that perception of harmony which constitutes the musical sense, and in that poetic feeling of which Scripture furnishes us with at once the earliest and the highest examples, and which we may term the poetic sense, we bear the stamp and impress of the Divine image."-Lecture VI., p. 243. "How, we ask,"-asks Hugh Miller himself,-" could a lowness and inferiority resolvable into moral evil, have had any place in the decrees of that Judge who ever does what is right and in whom moral evil can have no place?"-Lecture VI., p. 246. Compare above, p. 202. Lecture VI., p. 265. ? Supposing that it were otherwise, then, indeed, a saying of Miller would be |