"The intention is to make the discipline and studies established in our English universities, with so much benefit to the cause of true religion and sound learning, the basis of the constitution of the college near Calcutta ; and to raise upon them such a superstructure, as the circumstances of this country and the particular destination of the students may require. The site of the college ensures seclusion and freedom from interruption: the students will be constantly within their own walls or grounds, except by special permission, and be subject to a system of order and restraint; and the chapel, the hall, and the lecture rooms, will claim their regular attendance at specified hours. In their studies, theology, with all that is subsidiary to it, will form the prominent employment of those who are designed for the ministry; combining with the study of the Holy Scriptures, Hebrew and the learned languages, ecclesiastical and profane history, the elements of natural philosophy, and so much of mathematical knowledge as may tend to invigorate their minds and facilitate all other acquirements. They who shall be destined to be schoolmasters, will have their studies in like manner directed to their future efficiency: they will be well grounded in classical learning, and be furnished with all those branches of knowledge which may conduce to open the minds and dissipate the prejudices of the native population of India. By both classes of students, however, the Oriental languages, those especially used in the districts, which may be expected to become the scene of their future labours, will be cultivated with the greatest application; and all will be familiarised with the principles which attach British subjects to their national establishments, and be trained in feelings of respect and deference for the constituted authorities in India: and it is hoped, that with the divine blessing, early habits of piety and industry, and self-control, combined with an affectionate remembrance of the place of their education, will give to the students a character of mind and sentiment which they will never lose, and by which they shall be marked and known in all future life." P. 131.

"The society for founding the college, contemplates the establishment of missionary stations, wherever an opening shall seem to present itself for accomplishing their benevolent purposes. To supply such stations with missionaries and their proper assistants, and to keep up a never-failing succession of them, is their primary object; to which every thing else is collateral and subsidiary. But before this can be effected, it is obvious that students must be maintained in the college and duly prepared for their allotted labours. It may seem, therefore, that the question of supplying stations is posterior to that of maintaining students, and may thus be for the present postponed; it must be considered, however, that the admission of students into the college must in a great measure be regulated by the prospect of a provision for them afterwards; and such provision will be generally (although not invariably in respect of schoolmasters,) by their appointment to some missionary station. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance, that the public benevolence as applicable to this head, should shew itself early, and in truth it is the point, to which above

all others, the society may be presumed to wish, that attention should be directed: benefactions, therefore, made specially applicable to this department will be suffered to accumulate, until such stations can be actually formed.

"The foundation of scholarships is only second in importance to the preceding head, and even prior to it in actual operation. A scholarship, it is computed, taking the average on the difference of expence in maintaining European students, (or those of European habits,) and natives, and reckoning on a moderate rate of interest, may be founded and endowed for 5,000 sicca rupees. On the interest of this sum one student at a time may be constantly educated in the college, free of every charge: and every scholarship so endowed will, as in our English universities, be for ever denominated from the name of the founder, who moreover will have the privilege of recommending the first scholar, being a youth duly qualified according to the statutes, and to be subject in all respects to their operation. Other sums, however small, being directed to be appropriated to this object, will be applied to the maintenance of a student, when the aggregate shall be found sufficient." P. 134.

"The college press will, is is hoped, embrace an important and efficient department of the college labours. For the expence of printing versions of the Holy Scriptures, if a statement already alluded to may be credited, provision for some time will probably have been made; but for printing versions of the liturgy, of short religious treatises and tracts, such as those of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, of elementary books of science, and of school books, a considerable fund will in time be required; and from the very commencement of the college labours, something may be attempted in this way.

"Both Christian and native schools are within the contemplation of the society. One of the former kind will be indispensable to every missionary station, and such might be established to great advantage in some instances, where no missionary station could conveniently be formed. In native schools the elements of useful knowledge and the English language will be taught, wherever it may seem desirable, without any immediate reference to Christianity. In either case, it will be among the objects of the college to supply masters well qualified for the undertaking. The provision for such while they remain in college, will fall under the second head of expenditure; and for those who should be attached to stations, under the first head: all other schools would form a distinct concern." P. 135.

After a mature examination of this plan, are we not justified in saying that it must be adopted? Is it possible, not merely that any Churchman, but that any Dissenter, except he be under the influence of an all-powerful fanaticism, can wish to see Bishop Middleton's schemes defeated, or believe they can be abandoned without injury to the

common cause of Christianity? Present appearances, we have admitted, are against us; but we feel convinced that Bishop Heber will not return from his visitation without having discovered that his predecessor was in the right. Whatever he may have been told to the contrary, he will see that Bishop's College is not calculated to check any missionary exertions. He will see that it offers a better education to the European clergy than they can obtain elsewhere. Its scholarships are not limited to this or that institution, but are so arranged that all charitable persons may contribute to them. The translation department will enable the Bishops of Calcutta to rescue the sacred volume from that patched and party-coloured dress which it now wears in Hindostan ; and the native preachers and native schools may not only do as much good as those which are patronised in other quarters, but they may do a great deal more; they may become models for the rest. Instituted by a chartered corporation, and controlled by episcopal authority, they may give a guarantee for orthodoxy of doctrine, and general propriety of conduct, which no agents of an association can furnish; they may raise the tone, and improve the utility of other teachers, in the same manner as the regular clergy at home have diminished the natural bad consequences of sectarian preaching, And when additional sees shall be erected in India, additional colleges will follow in their train. Additional missionary stations will be chosen; additional schools will be opened, and there will be a great body of European and Asiatic clergy and it may be hoped also, a great body of European and Asiatic laymen, attached to the Established Church, superintended by the proper ecclesiastical authorities, and united by many strong ties to an institution which derives its existence from the supreme power of the Crown. We are most ready to admit, that no system, as such, can prevent the failure of missionary undertakings; but, if conformity to the Scripture model, purity of intention, and a due submission to constituted authorities; if a careful use of all natural means of success, and an humble reliance upon Him who can furnish supernatural assistance; if these are good grounds for confidence in a religious undertaking, we are confident that the Church of England, if duly directed and encouraged, may be the blessed instrument of adding Hindostan to the spiritual dominions of our Redeemer.

ART. II. An Essay on Instinct, and its Physical and Moral Relations. By Thomas Hancock, M.D. London. Phillips. 1824. 8vo. pp.550.

DR. HANCOCK has here presented us with a book, whose title properly belongs to about one-third of it only. The first part, comprising about that proportion, treats of the power of instinct in Animals;—a highly curious topic of enquiry, and one on which a good work is much wanted. The second relates to what is termed instinct in Man, which the author understands to be a sort of light within; so that this part seems to us to apply chiefly to the Society of Friends. This the author considers by far the most important part, to which the other is merely an inroduction, put in to please "a certain class of readers;"-that is, we presume, the profane world. As we shall probably be included in this class, we shall confine our remarks chiefly to the first part.

In endeavouring to lay before our readers a brief outline. of that part of the work before us, which treats more immediately of the subject proposed, we shall not follow exactly the author's arrangement, for though it may be better suited for introducing his theory of human instinct or internal illumination, we conceive the instincts of inferior beings, might have been traced out in a more natural and more instructive course. We shall begin with our author's sixth chapter, where we are presented with many highly curious facts respecting the organic functions of those classes, which stand lowest in the scale, or what we may call by analogy, the instinct of plants.

We need not here particularize the apparent instinctive propensity to turn to the light, that and many similar phenomena being, doubtless, owing to the chemical influence of the sun's rays. The following facts are less easily explicable.

"If a vessel of water be placed within six inches of a growing cucumber, in twenty-four hours the cucumber alters the direction of its branches, and never stops till it comes into contact with the water. When a pole is placed at a considerable distance from an unsupported vine, the branches of which are proceeding a contrary direction from that towards the pole, in a short time it alters its course, and stops not till it clings round the pole. But the same vine will carefully avoid attaching itself to low vegetables nearer to it, as the cabbage; hence Pliny and Cicero remark, that the vine hates the colewort and cabbage: as if it possessed the faculty of perception and the power of choosing."

Instances are next adduced of roots, which have been observed to change their direction in order to avoid noxious, and approach salubrious, objects. These instances appear more like the result of some internal impulse, than of the action of an external cause. What this is, or how it acts, we may in vain attempt to enquire. But applying it to our present purpose we may observe, that it bears the closest analogy to some of the lowest manifestations of animal vitality in the class of zoophytes. Many other facts, such as the sensitiveness of some plants, &c. bear an equally close resemblance to the power of muscular irritability.

It

This last term, we must observe by the way, is one very badly calculated to convey its meaning. It conveys an idea of sensation, which is in fact meant to be wholly excluded. means the power inherent in animal muscle to contract when touched or excited, which it possesses quite independently of the nerves, or of sensation, and which it retains when the animal is dead. Our author has given a very good and clear account of this power; which is in fact very essential to be understood in reference to the present enquiry. We shall content ourselves by referring our readers to p. 122, et seq. and shall only mention the general conclusion, which the united labours of many distinguished physiologists have concurred to establish, viz. that muscular irritability is possessed in the greatest perfection by those animals which are the lowest in the scale of nervous structure, in the perfection of sensation and in the developement of the brain. Such phenomena of vegetables as are analogous in any degree to those of vitality, resemble the effects of irritability; and they are always directed to the attainment of certain ends necessary to the well being of the plant. Each plant displays its peculiar faculty in the preservation of its seeds and the selection of nutriment. Dr. H. observes,

"Plants imbibe food by the roots, (this has been controverted) the trunk, and the branches; and in the opinion of some also, by the leaves and flowers. The plant is compensated for every thing it has been denied, by the intensity of the single power that operates in it. It neither requires the faculty of loco-motion, nor the knowledge of other plants around it. But it attracts and enjoys after the manner of plants, heat, light, air, and the juices that nourish it: and the propensity to grow, to bloom, and to multiply its species, it exercises more truly and incessantly than any other creature." P. 132.

Out of all the various influences which may be in action, and the various objects which may be present, around it, the plant receives and is affected by only those which promote the continuance and the purposes of its existence; it