as they often do, of all phenomena being governed by invariable laws, they use language which is ambiguous, and in most cases they use it in a sense which covers an erroneous idea of the facts. There are no phenomena visible to man, of which it is true to say, that they are governed by any invariable force. That which does govern them is always some variable combinations of invariable forces. But this makes all the difference in reasoning on the relation of will to law,-this is the one essential distinction to be admitted and observed. There is no observed order of facts which is not due to a combination of forces, and there is no combination of forces which is invariablenone which are not capable of change in infinite degrees. In these sensesand these are the common senses in which law is used to express the phenomena of nature-law is not rigid, it is not immutable, it is not invariable, but it is, on the contrary, pliable, subtle, various. In the only sense in which laws are immutable, this immutability is the very characteristic which makes them subject to guidance through endless cycles of design. We know this in our own case. It is the very certainty and invariableness of the laws of nature which alone enables us to use them, and to yoke them to our service.' -Pp. 98-101.

Thus we see that what some may call the inviolability of natural laws is the very reason why such infinite variety can be produced by their application. They are so trustworthy that they can always be employed with confidence. What would the science of gunnery be, for example, if the law of gravitation were not perfectly trustworthy-absolutely invariable in its operation? The dislike which is often felt, and the disbelief which is sometimes expressed, with regard to the doctrine of the immutability of natural laws, arises from the notion that it tends to destroy the freedom of will. But freedom of will is no better than a chimera, unless it have power to execute its intentions; and it is the very fact that natural laws are immutable which gives scope to will to exercise its power. At the same time it must be remembered that each particular law is, so far as its own operation is concerned, a restraint upon, nay an insuperable obstacle to the exercise of the freedom of will; e. g. if a man hold a stone over the mouth of a well, and, simply relaxing his hold of it, should will that it rise upwards, or go off in a horizontal direction, instead of falling downwards, the law of gravitation would thwart his will. But there is another law, which he can make use of, which would enable him to carry out his purpose the law of motion. He can apply this law by the exercise of muscular action; and thus these laws in combination empower his will to cast a stone in what direction he pleases. Now, whatever abstract notion we may have of the freedom of will, it is only through experience that we can learn what it is able to effect; and experience teaches us that the will can effect an infinite, an ever-increasing variety of results by combining in numberless ways the operations of natural laws, each one of which operates in an invariable manner independent of any exercise of mere will to the contrary. If, however, it should be

maintained in opposition to this doctrine that the very necessity of combining natural laws in order to bring about the purposes of the will is destructive of the freedom of the will, then it may reasonably be asked, by way of rejoinder, Have we any right to speak of freedom of will irrespective of the teachings of experience? It is quite true that a man may picture in his imagination the stone rising upwards when the hand is withdrawn, and he may will that that impossibility should take place; and the objector may assert that there can be no freedom of will where the will is not free to carry out whatever the imagination can conceive. But this objection involves a fallacious notion of what the imagination and its freedom are. Because it is generally supposed that the imagination is free to conceive anything-anything beyond, as well as within, the range of experience--it is assumed that it obeys no laws, is subject to no restraints. This, however, is not true. The imagination is, indeed, able to picture to itself things and processes which never have, never will, and never can exist. But if its wildest fancies be analysed, they will be found to be made up of materials which experience has furnished it with. In the case in question, a man can imagine a stone rising upwards, or moving horizontally, because he has seen it take place; and in his imagination he can separate this motion of the stone which is really the result of a combination of forces, from the action of those forces, and keep the result in his picture and discard the forces; and the freedom of imagination lies in this power to separate cause and effect, and retain the effect and exclude the cause. But here is the limit of its freedom. Strange as its pictures are, imagination never yet painted one that did not consist of materials which experience had furnished, though its combinations of those materials may be as ridiculous, impossible, and fanciful as you please. All the fabulous animals of mythology are the works of imagination, but experience provided the parts. Imagination could not have pictured a centaur if experience had not shown it a man and a bull. Thus we see that the will is free to imagine in a way closely analogous to that in which it is free to act. A man is free to make what pictures he likes out of the materials which experience furnishes, and he is in like manner free to produce what results he likes by the combination of the forces which nature places at his service; but he is not free to make pictures absolutely independent of experience, nor is he free to work absolutely independent of the laws of nature. If anyone chose to say that there is no such thing existing as freedom, then he is welcome to his crotchet, and we shall not trouble him to answer the question whence he obtained the idea of freedom.

Seeing, then, that the forces of nature are constant in their operation, or, in other words, that the laws of nature are immutable; seeing also that this constancy and immutability make them trustworthy servants of will, and facile instruments of purpose, by the power of combination; it follows that this combining power is necessary to the action of will in all cases wherein natural forces do not directly serve its purpose.

This power of combination is called contrivance, and our author very clearly and succinctly states the necessity of contrivance arising out of the reign of law,' in the commencement of the third chapter. After making this statement, he proceeds to illustrate it by an 'example in the machinery of flight,' which occupies the remainder of the chapter. It is impossible by any analysis or quotations to do justice to the interest and beauty of this section of the Duke of Argyll's book, and we will not mar the pleasure the reader will certainly experience in reading it, by attempting to give it in outline.

But while contrivance' is generally acknowledged to prevail throughout nature for the fulfilment of purpose, it has been objected by some that contrivance, in certain instances, is a failure, and that purpose' has been defeated. The very important chapter in which this subject is handled, should, like the precedent section, be read to be appreciated. In it the reader, who may have been fascinated by the charms of Mr. Darwin's book upon the Origin of Species' into accepting the theory he propounds therein, will find a most efficient balancing power. If he read attentively the arguments and illustrations there advanced, he will learn that there is no necessity for giving himself over unreservedly to the Darwinian hypothesis.

When we approach the question of purpose in the order and constitution of nature, we are entering that inner circle of controversy within which the disputations of the men of theology with the men of science, raise the most distinct issue. What is that issue? Even this: Are we competent to decide what is, or what is not, purpose in respect of the infinite varieties of contrivance which we behold in Nature? Men of science say, Yes: men of theology say, No. It may of course be denied by some on both sides of the controversy that this is a fair representation of the case. But that it is so we feel convinced by the fact, that the theories of the men of science which are looked upon with most disfavour by the men of theology, are just those which demand that this question should be answered in the affirmative as a basis of their stability. Now we are far from asserting that theologians are always wise when they frown upon scientific theories. History tells of instances in which they have been wondrously silly in so doing. But we think it will be found on

investigation, that in no case in which theologians have been in the wrong has the question been cast upon this issue. That there are some, nay many cases of contrivance, the purpose of which we may be quite certain about, theologians do not think of denying. The beautiful examples of contrivance in the adaptation of wings for the purpose of flight, so admirably described by our author, are sufficient proof. But what theologians do say, and are right in saying, is, that it is bad philosophy, as well as bad theology, to decide what shall be considered a purpose and what not; and to exclude as failures in the attainment of purpose those contrivances in nature which do not achieve the particular purpose predetermined for them. Mr. Darwin says that some naturalists have protested against the utilitarian doctrine, that 'every detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor. They believe that very many structures have been 'created for beauty in the eyes of man, or for mere variety. This 'doctrine, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory. Yet, I ' fully admit that many structures are of no direct use to their 'possessors.' In reference to this passage, the Duke of Argyll says, and we cordially go with him, So much the worse for his theory. Surely a more glaring example of what may be called the arbitrariness of scientific theory cannot be adduced; nor, indeed, a more candid confession of it. Mr. Darwin predetermines that usefulness is a purpose, and that beauty is not a purpose. His theory of development by natural selection demands that the purpose striven after in the developed structure, should be useful to its possessor; and as mere ornament is not useful to its possessor, the beauty which mere ornament produces is not a purpose. Nothing weaker than the tyranny of theory could withhold a man from accepting the pleasure which the contemplation of the beautiful affords, as a sufficient answer to the question, Has ornament a purpose?

'Ask the swain

Who journeys homeward from a summer-day's
Long labour, why, forgetful of his toils,
And due repose, he loiters to behold

The sunshine gleaming as through amber clouds,
O'er all the western sky; full soon, I ween,
His rude expression, and untutor'd airs,
Beyond the power of language, will unfold
The form of Beauty smiling at his heart.'

Pleasures of Imagination, iii. 526.

It is, indeed, open to him to reply that the beauty of creatures who may never meet the human eye, or at least so rarely, so late

in the history of their existence, that the pleasure which man derives from the observation of them bears an infinitesimal proportion to the causes which are said to have been created for producing that result, is an insufficient account of their purpose. But if he take up this position, he also assumes the responsibility of its consequences; and one of these is to prove that the beautiful has no independent existence, is not in itself a worthy purpose of natural law, but has only the relative value arising from its being seen and admired by man. This it will hardly be attempted to assert. Men have long ages ago assigned a place in the order of nature to beauty, quite irrespective of its enjoyment by human sight. Countless forms of ornament have adorned the universe, and have utterly perished, upon which the admiring gaze of man never rested. To say that these forms were thrown away merely because man received no benefit from them, would be absurd as well as arrogant. 'He that made the eye, shall He not see?' Is no purpose attained by the beauty of nature because one creature in it-man—may have missed the enjoyment of it? Surely a higher philosophy guided the ancients in giving to the universe the same names-kóσμos and mundus-which they also used to indicate ornament. Mere 'beauty, mere variety,' says the Duke of Argyll, 'for their own 'sake, are objects which we ourselves seek where we can make 'the forces of Nature subordinate to the attainment of them." And in so seeking for the beautiful we are not making it, we are only exploring the boundless resources of Nature; and if the discovery of the beautiful stimulate our energies in searching for it, that itself is purpose, and refutes the baseless assumption that there is no purpose in mere ornament. The poet is a better philosopher than the utilitarian naturalist :—

'Not content

With every food of life to nourish man,
With kind illusion of the wondering sense
Thou mad'st all nature beauty to his eye,
And music to his ear.'

In his fifth chapter the Duke of Argyll deals with the subject of Creation by Law.' On the first page of it, he sets forth this very important statement: These discoveries of physiology, though they are helpless to prove that law has ever been present as a master, are eminently suggestive of the idea that law has never been absent as a servant;-that as in governing the world, so in forming it, material forces have been always 'used as the instruments of will.' The regard of the whole chapter, like that of the former one, is towards Mr. Darwin's theory; and the point of attack at which it assails that theory may be understood from this single sentence: His theory gives 'an explanation, not of the processes by which new forms first