which wildly flamed out first in France, then in Ireland, spreading commotion everywhere. Questions of government and social organization became the topics of most urgent and varied consideration. The leading minds were roused to fresh activity, and literature, reflecting the ardent desire for freedom, was influenced profoundly. Society. - Literature began to be addressed to the common miscellaneous public, and became in consequence more simple and independent. Authors, relying upon the patronage of the people, advocated the claims of their new allies with unusual boldness. Having previously assailed public men by their initials only, they now attacked them by name. The demand for amusement and instruction was increasing, and democratic principles were spreading. The year 1769 witnessed the first public meeting ever assembled in England to enlighten Englishmen respecting their political rights. Nothing more clearly indicates the prevalence of the spirit of inquiry than the bitter war which the gov ernment carried on against every kind of free discussion. Men were fined, imprisoned, transported, for the use of language such as in our time is employed with perfect impunity. In 1795, a law was passed conferring upon any common magistrate the power to dissolve a public gathering. If the meeting should consist of twelve persons, or upwards, a refusal to disperse one hour after being ordered to do so was punishable with death. But liberal opinions had taken root in the popular mind, and it was impossible either to stifle them or to prevent their increase. While the political movement went back, the intellectual movement went on, and eventually produced those legislative reforms which signalize the present century. More effective police measures were adopted for the preservation of order. While the country highways were still infested with robbers, Browne, writing in 1757, was able to say that the reigning evil of street robberies has been almost wholly sup pressed.' The law which condemned a prisoner, who refused to plead on a capital charge, to be slowly pressed to death, was repealed in 1771; and in 1790, that which condemned women to be publicly burned for the murder of their husbands. The improvement in the moral tone of society at the end of the century, is happily illustrated by a well-known anecdote of Sir Walter Scott. His grand-aunt assured him that, when led by curiosity to turn over the forgotten pages of a novel in which she had delighted in her youth, she was astonished to find that, sitting alone at the age of eighty, she was unable to read without shame a book which sixty years before she had heard read out for amusement in large circles consisting of the best society in London. Religion. Methodism created a higher regard for spiritual matters. The movement begun by Wesley and Whitefield was essentially a popular one, exercising its deepest influence over the lower and middle classes. But the seed cast here germinated largely among the upper. It produced many forms of charity, many holy lives, many triumphant deaths. It implanted a fervid and enduring religious sentiment amid brutality and neglect; it imparted a warmer and more energetic tone to the devotion and philanthropy of every denomination. Poetry.-In Burns and Cowper, poetry returned to the paths she had long deserted, to 'Thoughts that voluntary move Harmonious numbers,' and to some it had never traversed. After many years, a man speaks as men speak, without premeditation, whose voice is the echo of nature, whose verse is full of personal emotions genuinely felt. Stars and clouds, streams and forests, blossoming vine and mantling green, joy and sorrow, hope and despair, love and kindness, higher beauty and ideal happiness,- these become the inspiration of the poet. We no longer listen, but sympathize. Poetry, from being artificial, has become natural. Drama.-Only here and there do we meet with a name, eminent in literary art, that is at all associated with the stage. The dramatic literature consists chiefly of comedies and farces of modern life, all in prose. Much was written, but the only addition to the classic comedy of Congreve was Sheridan's School for Scandal (1777). It is a continual discharge of malice and witticism, a brilliant fire-work, skilfully constructed of society materials. Hear Mrs. Candour: Creator. So wonderful for its beauty, for its skilful statement, for its common sense, so valuable as a logical basis for the Christian faith, that the world will not willingly let it die. If we do not believe in a God, it is utterly impossible to believe in a Revelation. There must be somebody to speak before a message can come. Hence the question, whether there be a God, is not only the sublimest that can employ the mind, but is one of transcendent import, to Christians as well as to others. What evidence have we of the being of God as a real existence essentially distinct from other beings? Evidence, says Paley, of the same kind and degree as that by which we conclude that a given piece of machinery must have had an intelligent maker. We must infer a designing mind wherever, in any object, we see fitness and use:' In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever; nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz: that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it. . . . This mechanism being observed, . . . the inference, we think is inevitable; that the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction, and designed its use." Now, to apply the argument: 'Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. . . I know no better method of introducing so large a subject, than that of comparing a single thing with a single thing; an eye, for example, with a telescope. As far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it. They are made upon the same principles; both being adjusted to the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays of light are regulated. . . . 1 Once more we are reminded of the ever recurring circle of human science. In the Memorabilia, Xenophon has preserved a conversation of Socrates with Aristodemus, in which he develops this proof at great length: Canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of parts like this in the human body) should be the work of chance, or of wisdom and contrivance?' The resemblance between the two cases is still more accurate, and obtains in more points than we have yet represented, or than we are, on the first view of the subject, aware of. In dioptric telescopes there is an imperfection of this nature. Pencils of light, in passing through glass lenses, are separated into different colors, thereby tingeing the object, especially the edges of it, as if it were viewed through a prism. To correct this inconvenience had been long a desideratum in the art. At last it came into the mind of a sagacious optician, to inquire how this matter was managed in the eye; in which there was exactly the same difficulty to contend with as in the telescope. His observation taught him that, in the eye, the evil was cured by combining lenses composed of different substances, i. e. of substances which possessed different refracting powers. Our artist borrowed thence his hint, and produced a correction of the defect by imitating, in glasses made from different materials, the effects of the different humours through which the rays of light might pass before they reach the bottom of the eye. Could this be in the eye without purpose, which suggested to the optician the only effectual means of attaining that purpose?' But animal anatomy is an accumulation of such instances. Indeed, they may be seen on every hand; in the structural plan of the whole solar system,- for every orb moves forever in its calculated track, which is shaped by the joint action of the sun and each planet, all of which act constantly by their law of motion; in the formation of crystals, in the growth of plants. What wisdom in the structure of a leaf, how admirable its architecture, how nice its frame-work, how exquisite its finish, how wonderful the chemistry by which it assimilates the particles of earth, air, and water, a little mason, building up the stem of the tree, and preparing the substance of its flower and fruit! No city government could get a steam-engine to pump water with such economy! Yet, if there were but one watch in the world, we must infer a human artisan. So from natural contrivances, singly or jointly considered, we must by the same reasoning infer a divine one. The proofs of divine agency are separately supplied by every separate example. This, then, is the argument: -- Whatever is by its constitution adapted to a particular end supposes contrivance, and hence a contriver. Natural objects, and especially organized creatures, are adapted to certain ends; and must, therefore, be the product of a Being who contrived them for the ends to which their adaptation points. Furthermore, as the means by which those ends are effected far surpass all human power and skill, their contriver is a Being whose power and skill are infinite. The cause must be adequate to the effect. If now the sceptic tells me that the order of nature is fixed, I am able to ask him, By whom or by what is it fixed? By an Creator. So wonderful for its beauty, for its skilful statement, for its common sense, so valuable as a logical basis for the Christian faith, that the world will not willingly let it die. If we do not believe in a God, it is utterly impossible to believe in a Revelation. There must be somebody to speak before a message can come. Hence the question, whether there be a God, is not only the sublimest that can employ the mind, but is one of transcendent import, to Christians as well as to others. What evidence have we of the being of God as a real existence essentially distinct from other beings? Evidence, says Paley, of the same kind and degree as that by which we conclude that a given piece of machinery must have had an intelligent maker. We must infer a designing mind wherever, in any object, we see fitness and use:' In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever; nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer which I had before given, that, for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. Yet why should not this answer serve for the watch as well as for the stone? Why is it not as admissible in the second case, as in the first? For this reason, and for no other, viz: that, when we come to inspect the watch, we perceive (what we could not discover in the stone) that its several parts are framed and put together for a purpose, e. g. that they are so formed and adjusted as to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day; that if the different parts had been differently shaped from what they are, or placed after any other manner, or in any other order than that in which they are placed, either no motion at all would have been carried on in the machine, or none which would have answered the use that is now served by it. . . . This mechanism being observed, . . . the inference, we think is inevitable; that the watch must have had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction, and designed its use." Now, to apply the argument: 'Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation. . . I know no better method of introducing so large a subject, than that of comparing a single thing with a single thing; an eye, for example, with a telescope. As far as the examination of the instrument goes, there is precisely the same proof that the eye was made for vision, as there is that the telescope was made for assisting it. They are made upon the same principles; both being adjusted to the laws by which the transmission and refraction of rays of light are regulated. . . 1 Once more we are reminded of the ever recurring circle of human science. In the Memorabilia, Xenophon has preserved a conversation of Socrates with Aristodemus, in which he develops this proof at great length: Canst thou doubt, Aristodemus, whether a disposition of parts like this (in the human body) should be the work of chance, or of wisdom and contrivance?' |