the author, will perhaps reject the truth that is incompatible with his theories, and thus lose their time in pursuit of chimeras, if they do not jeopardise their happiness by vicious conduct. But we now come to the concluding and crowning folly of this volume. Man is to make way for higher animals.

'He is only a new guest, who has entered and sat down at a feast where other guests were before him, and which goes on and on continually may there not be other guests to come and take their places at this perennial banquet of the High and Bountiful Master? Meaning by other guests, beings, not descending (as common genealogical language would have it), but ascending, from the now living mankind,— possessing a superior development of the human character, in accordance with the better external conditions which shall then have come into play,-favoured latter children of Nature, who have not lived till the throes and troubles of her maternal state were past. But is the improvement of these conditions to be left to the advance of physical nature, as that was seen before the existence of man? I suspect not. When man came upon the scene, a new agency was evidently added to those formerly operating to this effect. Men, by the work of their thoughtful brains and busy hands, modify external nature in a way never known before. Under the operations of tillage, of mechanism, of building, making and inventing; of those applications of natural powers and forces which human wit turns to account in so many ways; of all the results of social experience, of knowledge, and of arrangement; the earth tends to become a much serener field of existence than it was in the earlier ages of man's history. Its progress in this respect may not be clearly seen at a particular time, through the obscuring effect of temporary and accidental causes; but that the tendency of the physical improvements wrought by man upon the surface, and of the mechanic movements which he sets agoing for the saving of his own labour, is to improve the daily comforts, and allow room for the intellectual and moral advancement of earth's children, cannot be denied without something like flying in the face of Providence itself. These improvements, then, thus partly wrought out by the exertions of the present race, I conceive as at once preparations for, and causes of, the possible development of higher types of humanity, -being less strong in the impulsive parts of our nature, physical nature giving less matter for that nature to contend with and subdue to its needs, more strong in the reasoning and the moral, because there will be less of the opposite to keep these in check,—more fitted for the delights of social life, because society will then present less to fear and more to love.'

We need not criticise this passage. The probability of its truth depends on what has been previously advanced, and we trust we have succeeded in showing at least the extreme improbability, not to say the absurdity, of many of the author's minor generalisations. It is on these that the higher one of development rests, and with

them it must fall to the ground. The author does not, however, appear to think thus. In many places in this third edition of his work, we observe very considerable alterations and additions which seem to show that, in his judgment, though all his facts were wrong, it would not affect his general principles. Perhaps, after all, he is right, and we have been in error in supposing that such a theory could be damaged by any deficiency in the details of which it is composed. We have endeavoured, however, for the benefit of those who have read and recommended this volume so eagerly that three editions were called for in two months, to point out the untenable nature of this theory of creation. That there is such a thing as development, we do not deny, but that there is not development in the author's sense of the word, we think is proved by the entire want of consistency in the various parts of his argument. His reasoning from analogy has been shown to be deficient; his statement of facts, erroneous; his selection of illustrations, as evincing a want of discrimination; and his manifest practical ignorance of the science on which he writes,-all prove his incompetency to give an opinion on scientific subjects, and his unworthiness of public confidence. We might have dwelt more on the religious bearings of the subject, but as the author has written as a man of science, we have been anxious to meet him purely on that ground; and we feel justified in calling on every one who has inconsiderately spoken well of this work, to reconsider their opinion, and to do what they can to obviate its pernicious influence. We do not ask them to do this in the spirit of bigotry, but in the spirit of men earnest for truth, whether it be in the region of the natural sciences, or in those which involve the moral and spiritual relations of man.*

Since the above article has been in type, we have received a copy of a pamphlet with the following title: A Lecture on the Arguments for Christian Theism, from Organized Life, and Fossil Osteology; containing remarks on a work entitled 'Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation.' By John Sheppard, author of Thoughts on Devotion,' &c. Jackson and Walford, London. This production is eminently creditable to the learning and acuteness, and to the candour and Christian feeling of the writer. To the lecture, a considerable body of pertinent and valuable notes is appended; and the argument in favour of miracles, as deduced from the distinction and succession of species, is admirably conducted. Altogether, we have no doubt that this Vestiges' production will be very serviceable to the cause of Christian theism. The manifest falsehood of its theories, contrasted with the sudden and wide popularity which the book has obtained, will serve to put men more on their guard against those sceptical applications of the scattered points and crudities of modern science of which we have seen so much.

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ART. VIII. (1.) Petition of the Merchants of the City of London, to the House of Commons. May, 1820.

(2.) Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, appointed to inquire into the several Duties levied on Imports into the United Kingdom. August, 1840.

(3.) Speech of the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, in the House of Commons, March 11, 1842.

(4.) Speech of the Right Honourable Sir Robert Peel, in the House of Commons, February 14, 1845.

(5.) Remarks upon Recent Commercial Legislation. By the Right Honourable W. E. GLADSTONE, M.P. Murray, 1845.

(6.) American Corn and British Manufactures. Clarke, 1845. (7.) The Economist Newspaper.

THE future historian will note, as a remarkable characteristic of the politics of this generation, the prominence assumed in popular feeling and legislative debate by a class of questions heretofore confined to the closet of the philosopher, the counting-house of the merchant, or the bureau of the secretary of state. We allude to the predominant and growing public interest of commercial, industrial, and fiscal matters. All our politics run now into economics. Questions of trade and taxation are agitated in popular assemblies, turn the event of elections, make and unmake cabinets. We have seen one ministry go out on a Budget, and two new tariffs are the principal work of another. Sugar duties and ten-hours bills are debated, both in and out of parliament, with an interest as eager and lively as that with which our fathers discussed the policy or criticised the conduct of a French war. Sliding scales and differential duties create new party distinctions and combinations, obliterating the ancient political landmarks of Whig and Tory. The great event of the parliamentary session is the financial statement. The hero of the day, addressed and feted by all classes of our people, from the artisan to the cabinet minister, is the statesman who negotiates a commercial treaty that opens new markets to our cottons and hardware. The most powerful political combination of the day is a League for the assertion and realization of the truths of economical science. And the most enthusiastic popular gatherings of the day are those of the thousands who, weekly or monthly, year after year, throng our largest metropolitan theatres to learn the philosophy of Adam Smith.

This absorption of politics in economics is quite a new social phenomenon, and has all the appearance of being a permanent one. Often, indeed, before now, from the time of Wat Tyler downwards, has a particular obnoxious tax been agitated or re

belled against; and it is nothing new for commercial and industrial distress to operate as an element of political discontent. But here we have an agitation directed less against any single impost than against a false and pernicious principle of legislation, of which two or three particular fiscal arrangements are the most conspicuous embodiment. And-which is still more worthy of notice the agitation, though it dates from a period of national distress, and probably never could have grown to its present size and strength without the original stimulus of acute and prolonged public suffering, seems now perfectly independent of the power which first gave it life. The distress is gone, but the agitation remains more vigorous, resolute, and formidable than ever. Bread at free-trade prices is of no avail to still the cry for freetrade; and the Corn-law is not a jot less heartily assailed in these months, or years, of its suspended animation, than when it was last in full activity, doing its work of artificial famine. The present movement of the national mind towards commercial and industrial freedom has nothing fortuitous or temporary about it. Public opinion has evidently taken a set in this direction, which it is now scarcely within the power of events to reverse. There is nothing ephemeral in the elements of this agitation, though it may have been accident that gave occasion to their combination at the present time and in the present form. Perhaps there never was a social movement constituted of a greater number and variety of durable elements, or more fitted to win and retain the adhesion of widely different classes of minds. The speculations of the philosopher; the facts and figures of the statistician; the financial exigencies of the statesman; the business-experience and necessities of the merchant and manufacturer; the sympathies of the philanthropist with hungry and unrewarded labour; the indignation of every honest mind against a public injustice enacted for a private gain; and the aspirations of every religious mind towards a state of things which shall realize divine purpose, by subduing and replenishing the earth, and fulfil divine promise by cementing the bands of peace and goodwill among men;-all tend consentaneously in one direction. Freedom of industry and exchange is the idea of this age-the business which the age has taken in hand, and will not put out of hand till it is fairly finished,-as truly as the business of former periods of our history was the abolition of the papal power, or the establishment of representative government.

The parliamentary documents and other publications whose titles are prefixed to this article, will sufficiently indicate our purpose in the following pages. We wish to give a summary

view of the more important topics comprised under the general designation of COMMERCIAL REFORM; tracing in outline the history of the subject during the last quarter of a century, with especial reference to the events of recent years-and showing what yet remains to be done to bring our legislation into accordance with truths that have been expounded by every economical philosopher from Adam Smith downwards, and are now assented to by every one of our leading statesmen.

The history of our present subject presents no exception to that general rule which ordains that the truths of social and moral science shall win their way to public recognition and legislative establishment only through long years, first of neglect, and then of obloquy and opposition. It is now nearly three-quarters of a century since the publication of the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations' laid the foundation of our modern science of political economy: we are still in the heat and thick of a struggle for the application of its first principles to the chief articles of human necessity. Of the reception of his work its author had little apparent reason to complain. He lived to see it translated into all the languages of Europe, quoted in the House of Commons, and eulogised by the first minister of the crown. But its doctrines struck no root downwards; took no hold of the popular mind; and were vainly expounded even by the eloquence of Burke, to a generation incapable of comprehending them. The most remarkable result of those more liberal principles of commercial and fiscal legislation which then began to commend themselves to the attention of statesmen, Mr. Pitt's treaty with France, in 1786-decidedly the most liberal commercial treaty on record-was shortly afterwards nullified by the revolution; and for the next quarter of a century European war left governments no leisure for busying themselves with the 'wealth of nations,' otherwise than by exhausting and anticipating its sources, in the crusade for legitimacy and the balance of power. The return of peace brought a renewal and continuance of some of the worst calamities of war, in the shape of the Cornlaw of 1815; a law whose flagrant sin against the first principles of economical science one almost forgets in the view of its enormous immorality. Rarely has the ultima ratio of governments been invoked to give legal right to a more flagitious moral wrong, than when, in the last days of March, 1815, fixed bayonets lined the approaches of the halls of legislation, where the law-givers of an empire enacted artificial famine for the sake of improving their rentals.

The revival of the long neglected doctrines of Adam Smith, their practical applications to fiscal and commercial legislation,