mortality" lit up with an increasing glow all his spiritual aspirations. If he never regained the faith of his religious youth, the Divine thought yet grew in him to a passionate yearning. "He believed in God-he hoped for immortality." We could have wished to extend the study to other aspects of Smith's philosophy, and especially to bring into clearer light his advancing optimism. The very interesting discussions in Gravenhurst' on good and evil, the true nature of religion, and on the progress of society, both in that volume and in Thorndale,' all merit attention. But we have said enough to indicate Smith's general character as a thinker, and how far he may be said to have belonged to the Modern School. He stood on the steps of the new Philosophy, but he refused to tear himself away from the threshold of the old. He impersonated in much the peculiar struggle of an age that may be said to hesitate between Nature and God. He gave, in our opinion, so much to the one, that he left no adequate or secure hold of the other. Yet to the last he clung to both. For it is his own saying in the last sentence of 'Gravenhurst,' "We have but two conceptions: the world as a whole, and God as its Author." MODERN SCIENTIFIC MATERIALISM. IT would seem as if the human mind, with all its restless activity, were destined to revolve in an endless circle. Its progress is marked by many changes and discoveries; it sees and understands far more clearly the facts that lie along the line of its route, and the modes or laws under which these facts occur; but this route in its higher levels always returns upon itself. Nature and all its secrets become better known, and the powers of Nature are brought more under human control; but the sources of Nature and life and thought—all the ultimate problems of being-never become more clearly intelligible. Not only so, but the last efforts of human reasoning on these subjects are even as the first. Differing in form, and even sometimes not greatly in form, they are in substance the same. Bold as the course of scientific adventure has seemed for a time, it ends very much as it began; and men of the nineteenth century look over the same abysses of speculation as did their forefathers thousands of years before. No philosophy of Theism can be said to have advanced beyond the Book of Job; and Professor Tyndall, addressing the world from the throne of modern science-which the chair of the British Association ought to be-repeats the thoughts of Democritus and Epicurus, as the last guesses of the modern scientific mind. Professor Tyndall is well known as an eloquent lecturer on scientific subjects. He is especially distinguished as a popular a popular Expositor of science; and whatever doubts may have been expressed as to the soundness and sobriety of some of his conclusions, none can well question that he has succeeded brilliantly in his chosen line. Both in this country and in America vast audiences have listened with enthusiasm to his expositions; and the wide-spreading interest in scientific education is largely indebted to his activity and zeal. It is not our present purpose to enter upon any estimate of Dr Tyndall's position as a man of science. The real or permanent value of his scientific labours are beyond our scope. But when he comes forth from his lecture-room to address the world on those old and great subjects which lie at the foundation of all human knowledge and belief, his utterances necessarily provoke criticism. Not content with the function of expositor, he has again, as occasionally before, affected the rôle of Prophet, and invited men to look beyond the facts and laws of science to the origin of things in its highest sense. It may be questioned whether Nature has fitted him for this higher rôle. A man may have a keen and bright intelligence eminently fitted for scientific observation and discovery, and a fertile and lucid power of |