law which makes it, when unduly ignited, the food of a destructive conflagration.

This instance affords a striking illustration of the manner in which the physical and organic laws are constituted in harmony with, and in subserviency to, the moral law. We see clearly that the leading cause of the construction of such erections as the houses in the Old Town of Edinburgh (with the deprivation of free air, and liability to combustion that attend them) arose from the excessive predominance of Combativeness, Destructiveness, Self-Esteem, and Acquisitiveness, in our ancestors; and although the ancient personages who erected these monuments of animal supremacy had no conception that, in doing so, they were laying the foundations of a severe punishment to themselves and their posterity, yet, when we compare the comforts and advantages that would have accompanied dwellings constructed under the inspiration of Benevolence, Ideality, and enlightened Intellect, with the contaminating, debasing, and dangerous effects of their actual workmanship, we perceive most clearly that our ancestors were really the instruments of chastising their own transgressions, and of transmitting that chastisement to their posterity so long as the animal supremacy shall be prolonged.

Another example may be given. Men, by uniting under one leader, may, in virtue of the social law, acquire prodigious advantages to themselves, which singly they could not obtain; and, as formerly stated, the condition under which the benefits of that law are permitted is, that the leader shall know and obey the natural laws connected with his enterprize: If he neglect these, then the same principle which gives the social body the benefit of his observing them, involves it in the punishment of his infringement; and this is just, because, under the natural law, the leader must necessarily be chosen by his followers, and they are responsible for not attending to his natural qualities. Some illustrations of the consequences of neglect of this law may be stated, in which the mixed operation of the physical and moral laws will appear.

During the French war, a squadron of English ships was sent to the Baltic with military stores, and, in returning home up the North Sea, they were beset, for two or three days, by a thick fog. It was about the middle of Decem

ber, and no correct knowledge of their exact situation was possessed. Some of the commanders proposed lying-to all night, and proceeding only during day, to avoid running ashore unawares. The commodore was exceedingly attached to his wife and family, and, stating his determination to pass Christmas with them in England if possible, ordered that the ships should sail straight on their voyage. The very same night they all struck on a sand-bank off the coast of Holland; two ships of the line were dashed to pieces, and every man on board perished. The third ship, drawing less water, was forced over the bank by the waves and stranded on the beach; the crew was saved, but led to a captivity of many years' duration. Now, these vessels were destroyed under the physical laws; but this calamity owed its origin to the predominance of the animal over the moral and intellectual faculties in the commodore. The gratification which he sought to obtain was individual and selfish; and, if his Benevolence, Veneration, Conscientiousness, and Intellect, had been as alert as his domestic affections, and carried as forcibly home to his mind the welfare of the men under his charge as that of his own family; nay, if these faculties had been sufficiently alive to see the danger to which he exposed even his own life, and the happiness of his wife and children, he never could have followed the precipitate course which consigned himself, and so many brave men, to a watery grave, within a few hours after his resolution was formed.

Some years ago, the Ogle Castle East Indiaman was offered a pilot coming up the Channel, but the captain refused assistance, professing his own skill to be sufficient. In a few hours the ship ran aground on a sand-bank, and every human being on board perished in the waves. This accident also arose from the physical laws, but the unfavourable operation of it sprang from Self-Esteem, pretending to knowledge which the intellect did not possess; and, as it is only by employing the latter that obedience can be yielded to the physical laws, the destruction of the ship was indirectly the consequence of the infringement of the moral and intellectual laws.

An old sailor, whom I met on the Queensferry passage, told me, that he had been nearly fifty years at sea, and once was in a fifty gun ship in the West Indies.

A a

The

captain, he said, was a "fine man ;" he knew the climate, and foresaw a hurricane coming, by its natural signs;-on one occasion in particular, he struck the topmasts, lowered the yards, lashed the guns, and made each man supply himself with food for thirty-six hours; and scarcely was this done when the hurricane came. The ship lay for four hours on her beam-ends in the water, but all was prepared; the men were kept in vigour during the storm, and fit for every exertion; the ship at last righted, suffered little damage, and proceeded on her voyage. The fleet which she convoyed was dispersed, and a great number of the ships foundered. Here we see the benefits accruing from the supremacy of the moral and intellectual faculties, and discover to what a surprising extent these present a guarantee even against the fury of the physical elements in their highest state of agitation.

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A striking illustration of the kind of protection afforded by high moral and intellectual qualities, even amidst the most desperate physical circumstances, is furnished by the following letter written by the late Admiral Lord Exmouth to a friend. Why do you ask me to relate the wreck of the Dutton ?" says his Lordship. "Susan (Lady Exmouth) and I were driving to a dinner-party at Plymouth, when we saw crowds running to the Hoe; and learning it was a wreck, I left the carriage to take her on, and joined the crowd. I saw the loss of the whole five or six hundred men was inevitable without somebody to direct them, for the last officer was pulled on shore as I reached the surf. I urged their return, which was refused; upon which I made the rope fast to myself, and was hauled through the surf on board,-established order, and did not leave her until every soul was saved but the boatswain, who would not go before me. I got safe, and so did he, and the ship went all to pieces."

Indeed, there is reason to believe that the human intellect will, in time, be able, by means of science and observation, to arrive at a correct anticipation of approaching storms, and thus obtain protection against their effects. The New Zealanders, it is said, predict the changes of the weather with extraordinary skill. "One evening, when Captain Cruise and some of his friends were returning from a long excursion up one of the rivers, although the

sky was at the time without a cloud, a native, who sat in the boat with them, remarked that there would be heavy rain the next day; a prediction which they were the more inclined to believe by finding, when they returned on board the ship, that the barometer had fallen very much, and which the deluge of the following morning completely confirmed."*

The utility of the marine barometer, or the sympiesometer, in indicating approaching storms, is strikingly shewn by the following extract from the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.

"The correspondent (Mr Stevenson, civil engineer) to whom we are indebted for the notice regarding the Scotch fisheries, inserted in this number (p. 129), informs us, that having occasion, towards the conclusion of his voyage, in the beginning of September last, to visit the Isle of Man, he beheld the interesting spectacle of about three hundred large fishing-boats, each from fifteen to twenty tons' burden, leaving their various harbours at that island in an apparently fine afternoon, and standing directly out to sea, with the intention of prosecuting the fishery under night. He at the same time remarked, that both the common marine barometer, and Adie's sympiesometer, which were in the cabin of his vessel, indicated an approaching change of weather, the mercury falling to 29.5 inches. It became painful, therefore, to witness the scene; more than a thousand industrious fishermen, lulled to security by the fineness of the day, scattering their little barks over the face of the ocean, and thus rushing forward to imminent danger, or probable destruction. At sunset, accordingly, the sky became cloudy and threatening; and in the course of the night it blew a very hard gale, which afterwards continued for three days successively. This gale completely dispersed the fleet of boats, and it was not without the utmost difficulty that many of them reached the various creeks of the island. It is believed no lives were lost on this occasion; but the boats were damaged, much tackle was destroyed, and the men were unnecessarily exposed to danger and fatigue. During the same storm, it may be remarked, thirteen vessels were either totally lost or stranded * Library of Entertaining Knowledge; The New Zealanders, p. 381.

between the Isle of Anglesey and St Bee's Head in Lancashire. Mr Stevenson remarks how much it is to be regretted that the barometer is so little in use in the mercantile marine of Great Britain, compared with the trading vessels of Holland; and observes, that though the common marine barometer is perhaps too cumbersome for the ordinary run of fishing and coasting vessels, yet Adie's sympiesometer is so extremely portable, that it may be carried even in a Manx boat. Each lot of such vessels has a commodore, under whose orders the fleet sails; it would therefore be a most desirable thing that a sympiesometer should be attached to each commodore's boat, from which a pre-concerted signal of an expected gale or change of weather, as indicated by the sympiesometer, could easily be given."-Edin. Phil. Journ. ii. 196.

Dr Neil Arnot, in mentioning the great utility of the marine barometer, states that he himself was 66 one of a numerous crew who probably owed their preservation to its almost miraculous warning. It was in a southern latitude. The sun had just set with placid appearance, closing a beautiful afternoon, and the usual mirth of the evening watch was proceeding, when the captain's order came to prepare with all haste for a storm. The barometer had begun to fall with appalling rapidity. As yet, the oldest sailors had not perceived even a threatening in the sky, and were surprised at the extent and hurry of the preparations; but the required measures were not completed, when a more awful hurricane burst upon them than the most experienced had ever braved."—" In that awful night, but for the little tube of mercury which had given the warning, neither the strength of the noble ship, nor the skill and energies of the commander, could have saved one man to tell the tale."*

One of the most instructive illustrations of the connexion between the different natural laws is presented in Captain Lyon's Brief Narrative of an unsuccessful attempt to reach, Repulse Bay, in his Majesty's ship Griper, in the year 1824.

Captain Lyon mentions, that he sailed in the Griper on. 13th June 1824, in company with his Majesty's surveying vessel Snap, as a store-tender. The Griper was 180 tons

*Arnot's Elements of Physics, i. 350.