though we fail to follow it conceptively, compacts itself into an abstract no ion for which we require a name ;-and we call it the Infinite, or Infinitude.

In

But an event of another kind may be imagined as possible. truth, it is an event which obtrudes itself upon our thoughts; and which, when once it has occurred, we find it impossible to dismiss entirely. The solid sphere which just now I had before me, and which I felt and saw, may not only disappear, or cease to be felt and seen, but it may have ceased to be. We may imagine this, at least; not that it has flown off, and so might be overtaken somewhere, but we may suppose that it is not. What is there, then, where it was, but where now it is not? The answer may be, Nothing; for I may imagine the atmosphere and every gas removed from where it was. But the word 'nothing,' if it be taken in its simple sense, does not quite satisfy the mind. The annihilated sphere has left a sort of residual meaning in its place, or a shadow of reality, which asks a name. This remainder of meaning is symbolised or represented by the word SPACE; and when we have accepted it, we feel as if an intellectual necessity had been supplied.

To the bare notion which the word 'space' enables us to retain some sort of hold of, we render back a portion of the properties of solid extension; and on this foundation build the most certain of the sciences. Thus we allow ourselves to think (or to speak, if not to think) of space as divisible into parts, and as susceptible of measurement; and also as capable of endless progression outwards from a centre. In this way we come to speak of INFINITE SPACE. Here, then, is an abstract notion, from which I have removed all sensible properties,-ray, all properties, whether sensible or only conceivable, and yet I am not content to call it-nothing; nor can I rid myself of it: it is like to nothing; it clings to my consciousness; it is or has become to me a law of my intellectual existence. I cannot think of myself or of any other existence otherwise than as occupying space.

Beyond this limit, and in this direction, no human mind has hitherto made any progress, or has shown us how we may analyse the notion represented by the word 'space.' The analytic faculty has at length fully done its office; and the result is an ultimate abstraction" (pp. 31-33).

Those who admit the justice of Mr. Taylor's previous reasoning, may perhaps on good grounds demur to this last assertion; and allowing space to be an abstraction, deny that it is an ultimate abstraction. We do not conceive it as simple, but as trinal extension,-extension, that is, in the three coexistent modes of length, breadth, and thickness, any one of which we may abstract and consider apart from the rest. This, in fact, is done in the different branches of geometry, where a line is defined to be length without breadth; a superficies, length and breadth without depth, and so on. We have no intention of allowing ourselves. to be betrayed into any discussion of the unending question, whether space is an à-priori form of thought, or an à-posteriori

datum of experience, or both the one and the other; our present business is to criticise Mr. Taylor's book; and we confine ourselves to the examination of his doctrine, which appears open to many unanswerable objections. In almost every word of his statement the previous existence of the notion, which he strives to show us in the process of formation, is implied. We begin with imagining a solid body. But what do we mean by "a solid body"? What is a solidity but the property of occupying space? We can give no other definition; we have no other idea of it than this. We are told to fancy solid extension spreading itself out beyond the limits of the stellar universe," without end and for ever;" and that then, by abstraction of the solidity from this conception, we shall come to the idea of space as infinite. But infinite expansion cannot take place, or be thought of as occurring, except in infinite space. The one idea, so far from being derived from the other, is logically prior to it, its necessary condition.

Mr. Taylor does not attempt to explain how it is that an abstract notion, without "properties sensible or conceivable," which is "like to nothing," and which he yet cannot make his mind to "call nothing," should "cling to his consciousness, and become a "law of his intellectual existence." He is lost in wonder at the fact; but he makes no effort to account for it. If space be an abstraction, it ought to resemble other abstractions. We can abstract from red bodies, for example, their property of redness; but if we imagine all red bodies to be destroyed, we do not attribute to the quality of redness even any remaining "shadow of reality," any independent existence. If all men die, humanity dies with them. How is it, then, that after having annihilated in thought all extended matter, extension remains behind? We have emptied space, and not destroyed it; we cannot think it away. Why the character of "intellectual necessity" which, Mr. Taylor admits, attaches to this notion, and to those of time and substance, should not be found in the case of all other abstractions, neither his nor any other merely empirical theory makes any approach to explaining.

In the section on "Mixed Abstractions," our author discusses the notion represented by the word power, which he refers to the mind's consciousness of a self-determining force within itself, and from which he traces the origin of our ideas of causation, liberty, necessity, freedom of the will, &c. If we find little that is strictly speaking new here, we find much that is true, and stated with remarkable discrimination and eloquence, and with great ingenuity of illustration. The author, in his vindication of human freedom, throws himself confidently on those primal intuitions which, if they do not admit of logical proof, are yet superior to logical disproof, and can never be permanently kept

in abeyance. Of this part of his work we have only assent and admiration to express, which we regret that the space at our disposal does not enable us to justify by copious extract. We make room instead for a passage which brings us on a step further, introducing us to the field of what Mr. Taylor calls CONCRETIVE

ABSTRACTIONS:

"In the exercise of this same faculty of abstraction, we may either, as in the various instances already mentioned, employ ourselves in setting off from some complex notion, one by one, its several constituents, until we arrive at that which admits of no further separation; or otherwise, we may take up an abstract idea or a principle, whether it be of the simplest order or not, and then look about for the same idea or principle as it is to be met with elsewhere, embodied under very different conditions, and combined with other elements.

Instances of this kind meet us at every step throughout the circle of the physical sciences: in truth, such instances constitute the staple of these sciences; and they are so abundant, that they need not be mentioned otherwise than briefly in illustration of what we now intend. The laws of nature,' as they are called, are, as to our mode of conceiving them, certain abstract notions, which we recognise as we find them taking effect in a multitude of diversified instances.

Newton's falling apple suggested to him a law,' which he perceived to take effect in determining the revolution of the moon in her orbit, and then again to prevail throughout the planetary system. When the ascent of water under a vacuum came to be truly understood, the rise of mercury in a tube, under the same conditions, was seen to be an instance explicable by means of the same law; and then the heights respectively to which the two fluids will rise in vacuo were found to correspond to the specific gravity of the two as weighed against the terrestrial atmosphere, thus confirming the principle that had been assumed. Those innumerable analogies which are found to prevail between vegetable and animal organisations, are instances of the same kind; as, for example, the several processes of nutrition, excretion, respiration, secretion, are found to be, to a certain extent, identical in principle; that is to say, a law which, as we apprehend it, is not a reality any where existing, but is a pure abstraction, is recognised in this, in that, in many instances, which at the first view of them differ in many respects; and they so differ, that it is with an emotion, first of surprise, and then of pleasure, that we catch the identity which has been concealed, as we might say, hitherto within the folds of many exterior diversities.

Abstractions of this kind may properly be called cONCRETIVE, because their tendency is to gather around themselves other adjuncts than those with which they may at first have presented themselves to our view....

In those departments of science which are observational and experimental, we find what we are seeking for. In those which are inventive and constructive, we make what we are seeking for. In chemistry, for

example, we find the laws of definite proportions in the combination of elements. In mechanics, when its principles are apprehended, we create the applications of them in such forms as may suit our purpose" (pp. 54-57).

The substance of these remarks applies with no less force to the recognition and discrimination of moral qualities, under their various manifestations and disguises in actual life, and to their versatile embodiment in the several poetic arts, than to the instances just cited. When the fundamental idea which animates any work is once apprehended, the value of its several parts is tested by their bearing upon this idea, by the degree in which they contribute to carry out and convey it. In this criticism of means in their relation to an end, of single conceptions in respect of a larger design that includes them, "the sense of fitness and order" takes its rise. It is satisfied by simple sufficiency; it is wounded alike by defeat and redundance. Exertions which go beyond, and exertions which fail to reach, their aim equally shock it. It is in it that our author finds an escape from the perplexities and scepticisms which follow on too much metaphysics, and attains "grounds of certainty,"-a sure pathway of transition to the highest and most guiding truths of morals and religion. "The very structure of the mind," he maintains, compels it "to accept as true and real that which bears upon itself the characteristics of coherence, congruity, fitness, order." This principle, which in another work-The Restoration of BeliefMr. Taylor had ingeniously applied to the confirmation of the historical evidences of Christianity, is here made the basis of a pure moral theology. In barest outline, his argument may be stated thus. We shall use, where we can incorporate them, the author's own words. "The sense of fitness and order may be disturbed as well by a redundancy in any organism as by a deficiency. If there be a wheel in a machine which has no duty to perform, or if a wheel be wanting at any point on the pathway of motion, we disallow the unity of the whole" (p. 91). On the supposition that man is not a free agent, the master of his own sentiments and conduct, but on the contrary subject to those laws of physical causation which rule in the material world,-conscience, the moral sense, though an essential part of his nature, has no function in it. It bids him do this, and refrain from that; though he has no power to determine what he shall do, being himself absolutely disposed of by laws as inviolable as those which keep the earth in her orbit, and provide that summer and winter, seedtime and harvest, shall not fail. Any theory which fails to recognise man's moral freedom converts his nature into an incoherent delusion, to which we find nothing analogous in the other arrangements of the universe. Admit, however, human free

agency, and this incongruity vanishes. Conscience ceases to be 66 a redundant endowment."

Now," says our author, "the moral sense leads us directly to the conception, however vague, of AN AUTHORITY to which we are related. . . . The idea of an authority beyond and above us conjoins itself with the conception of a POWER, and of a purpose too, to vindicate itself, whether immediately or at some future time. It is this set of notions which gives coherence to the moral sense. Without them, no aspect of fitness presents itself on this side of human nature. . . The idea of authority or of a relationship between two beings each endowed with intelligence and moral feeling-supposes that the will of the one who is the more powerful of the two has been in some way declared. It also demands an independence of some kind in the other nature, intervening between the one will and the other will. Where the relationship of law, not as a physical principle, but as a rule and motive is brought in, there we must find a break-an interval, and a reciprocal counteraction. . . . . A scheme of government taking its bearing upon the moral sense is not a chain along which sequences follow in a constant order; but it is a standing on the one side and a standing on the other side, with a clear distance interposed. If we take fewer elements than these as the ground of moral government, the entire vocabulary of morals-popular and scientific-loses its significance."

....

From all this the conclusion is drawn, that

"a system of government has no completeness or reason, it exhibits no fitness or order, until we recognise its source in the SOVEREIGN RECTITUDE-the DIVINE PERSONAL WISDOM and GOODNESS."

This brief abstract conveys no adequate idea of the telling argument of which it is a summary. The two sections in which it is developed, on "the Sense of Fitness and Order," and "the Grounds of Certainty," are models of moral reasoning; and the thoughtful and sober eloquence of the style is in perfect keeping with the character of the subjects. At the same time, we are not able to assent without qualification to all that is advanced, even in the passage we have quoted, if we are strictly to interpret its every word. If we are to understand by the Moral Sense a conviction of the ineffaceable distinction between right and wrong, and of the intrinsic obligation of rectitude, we must demur to the assertion that-if taken absolutely alone, and separated from the framework of actual human experience-it necessarily "indicates that which is above itself and beyond itself," or "leads directly to the conception of an AUTHORITY," to which the mind experiencing it is subject. For such a moral sense we must attribute to God himself. And this Mr. Taylor, we presume, intends to do when he speaks of the Divine Being and man as "each endowed with intelligence and moral feeling,”— or else he is using the same phrase in the same connection in a