wives, daughters, and sisters put off their shopping, in too many instances, till they come home. But with what advantage? It can be no great gratification to a man, after the anxieties and toils of the day, to go and spend his evening in a succession of shops. Most men would rather remain in the bosom of their families; while many a foolish purchase would be avoided. Evening is not the time to distinguish the character and quality of articles unnumbered. What may seem to be attractive and good amid the declining rays of light, or under the artificial blaze, may, on returning day, exhibit something very different. The purchaser gains nothing by late hours. The chance is on the other side. Nor can any thing exceed the mortification of having been deceived and taken in. There are very few indeed, among any class of people, who might not give up the practice of making purchases in the evening-and that, too, with real advantage to themselves as well as to others.

HUMANITY demands that this should be done. The present late-hour system involves no common expenditure of health-no trifling sacrifice of life. The impure atmosphere of our shops,-the standing position continued through so long a period,—the speed with which every article of diet is consumed, the crowded dormitory or sleeping apartment, with other equally injurious agencies, bring hundreds on hundreds of our young men to a premature grave. How soon does the bloom fade from the cheek, brightness from the eye, and strength from the system! How pale and sickly is the countenance !-how emaciated and reduced the whole frame! After a few years' continuance in such situations, young men have returned to the domestic roof so changed as scarcely to be recognized even by their nearest relations:-have, in fact, gone home to die. No constitution can long bear up under such a system. It makes rapid inroads on the healthiest and most robust. In many-many instances, the shop is but a nearer passage to the tomb. How many more of those who are the flower of their country shall we consign to the narrow house? Over how many more of their graves shall we be called to plant the cypress? Is there no one who, taking his life in his hand, will rush in between the living and the dead, that the plague may be stayed? It must be done at once.

WOMEN OF ENGLAND! We make our appeal to you. It cannot be said, that there is no flesh in the heart of WOMAN to feel for man. Woman is but another term for all that is tender and kind:-her sympathies are ever on the side of suffering and distress. She has only to be told that misery exists, and her deepest feelings are awakened. We avail ourselves of this fact. To women we look with intense solicitude. Let every wife imagine that her husband, every mother that her son,-every sister that her brother-is doomed to the same fate as those young men for whose emancipation we now plead, and where is the British female who will not from this day resolve that the present system shall no longer be continued? It is in your power to terminate it. You have done much for the improvement of society; but your work is not done. To the youth employed in our shops and other places of business, you owe a heavy debt. The time has come to discharge it. You have the means, and we cannot but hope the disposition. We shall not appeal in vain. Females were the most constant, most faithful, most devoted followers of that incarnate One who "went about doing good." They were last at His cross, and first at His tomb;—and since then, they have ever been most forward in every scheme undertaken to ameliorate and improve the condition of man.

We are aware that objections have been taken to the measure we now contemplate. It is conceived that we shall throw our young men on the stream of time, to be borne away by the tide of corruption,-that their evenings will be spent in the haunts of dissipation and vice; and thus their health be more seriously damaged, their constitution undermined, their habits vitiated and depraved, and their incompetency for business become more apparent. This may be the case in some instances; but as a general rule we believe it not. It is contradicted by facts. There is in the metropolis an establishment consisting of nearly ONE HUNDRED young men, the proprietor of which recently stated, at a public meeting, that he found the shortenings of the hours of labour a positive good. He had witnessed not only a great improvement in the health of the young men, but in their general conduct. The reading room and library had been better attended— time was devoted to mental cultivation, or to invigorating exercise in the open air. Even the junior members of the establishment had formed themselves into classes for improvement in different branches of education. In other instances our young men are in the habit of meeting, and by the free interchange of thought and sentiment, on the most interesting and important subjects, of acting on each other's minds and hearts. Such associations are being formed in growing numbers. Away then with the fabrication, that, if our young men are set at liberty, they will use their liberty for licentiousness. It is a libel. They are not that turpe pecus which some would represent them. They are partakers of our common humanity; and that humanity can be educated, and improved, and refined, and elevated. Give them the time and the opportunities necessary for self-culture. Deliver them from a system beneath which the intellect shrinks and shrivels-the heart ossifies and becomes obdurate.

MINISTERS OF RELIGION! This is a cause worthy of your most hallowed energies. Those on whom is now the dew of their youth are to be your most active and efficient auxiliaries in every scheme of benevolence and piety. Assert their cause. Lift up your voice on their behalf. Employ your influence to elevate them in the scale of being. They have claims upon you-strong and irresistible. Their youth-their position-their circumstances their prospects—their destiny-all-all appeal to you to befriend and help them.

CHRISTIANS OF EVERY NAME! You cannot forget that the youth who are now rising around you into the manhood of life, are soon to be summoned to take the places and fill the situations which you occupy. And can you deny them the means by which they may prepare and qualify themselves for their high and mighty destiny? Let it never be said that a Christian is instrumental in enslaving their bodies, degrading their intellect, and hazarding their immortal souls. Resolve that they shall have the time and the facility for self-improvement. Surround them with moral agencies and influences. Aim at their regeneration. The virtuous youth will become the virtuous man,-the virtuous citizen,-the virtuous husband,—the virtuous father, the most enlightened member of society,-the most devoted agent in every work of faith and labour of love.

MEN OF PHILANTHROPY! Here is a field for noble enterprize. If ye love your species-if ye feel your country's woe and pray for your country's weal, then come to the deliverance of our young men. Beneath a system long perpetuated and yearly aggravated, they are groaning, pining, dying. They are doomed to breathe an atmosphere as impure as that of many a

prison, to toil during a longer period than that of the slave in the field,— to expose their most vital organs to the most injurious agencies,—and daily to carry about with them the seeds of disease and death. And has philanthropy no voice to lift on their behalf? Let that philanthropy become trumpet-tongued, and speak through the length and breadth of the land. Let it rise in the might of its power, and work out the salvation of our youth.

Let ENGLAND-enlightened and Christian England-co -come to the rescue of England's sons. To neglect THEM is to undermine the foundation on which the whole pyramid of society rests. Our young men are at once the strength and the glory of the nation. Every effort therefore should be put forth to render them strong in intellect and pure in heart. They will give impression and character to the race that is to follow. Their influence will be felt through the whole of the social circle. It will act on the most extreme parts of the body politic. The nation will be what they make it. The church will be what they leave it.

ON THE EVIDENCES OF UNITY AND DESIGN DISPLAYED IN THE ORGANIZATION OF ANIMALS.

BY A LECTURER ON PHYSIOLOGY.

"Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit."-Coloss. ii. 8.

[Note.-It formed a part of the plan of these papers to consider that most interesting branch of physiology, the development of the bodily organs, but in a more advanced part of the series. It being the wish of the conductors of The Student that the writer should notice a work lately published, having for its title Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a deviation from the original intention, so far as order is concerned, has become necessary. In this and one or two succeeding papers it is proposed to consider the merits of this work, and the subject to which it more especially relates.]

THERE are few things more difficult than to distinguish the seeming from the real. Such power belongs only to the most advanced and profound state of knowledge;-but although it is the last to be attained, it is the first to be attempted;-and as we are sincerely desirous to assist the many readers of this journal who are commencing their studious career, we can render them no better service than by giving from time to time suggestions as to the most profitable mode of applying their energies in the acquisition of knowledge. It is then, we repeat, a thing most difficult to distinguish the seeming from the real, and even in instances where (the senses being concerned) the matter would appear easy of attainment. A square tower at a distance seems to the eye round. A balloon moving rapidly through the air seems at rest. If one hand, having been kept in water nearly frozen, be suddenly plunged into water moderately warm, it will seem to be hot; if the other hand, having been placed in hot water, be plunged into water moderately warm, it will seem to be cold. If a child has been indulging in a treat of honey or treacle, and then taste tea ordinarily sweetened, this will seem to have no sugar. Take a case somewhat more intricate, the principle will apply. No one who reads this paper has

perhaps any doubt that he can at will perform the process of swallowing: let him try, and after a few rapid deglutitions he will find, having emptied the mouth of saliva, that by no voluntary effort, even the most determined, can the desired action be evoked: we seem to have the power of swallowing by a simple exertion of volition, but we have not.

There is a celebrated case related by one of the most illustrious of English surgeons, Cheseldon, which is both interesting and instructive. An intelligent young man who had grown up, blind from infancy, was operated upon by Cheseldon, and so successfully as to be restored to sight. Many instructive phenomena and experiments occurred interesting to the philosophic observer, but here only one shall be stated. To the patient, on exercising this new power, external objects, though distant, seemed to touch his eye. Now mark how he corrected this error-by experience; that is to say, by reaching out his hand and ascertaining that the body seemingly touching the eye was really distant. What this young man did in one case, it is desirable that we should do in all, we should by experience, which signifies information gained by direct observation of facts, test the truth of all knowledge which is temporal in its nature, and which is susceptible of this form of investigation.

There is yet another and most prolific source of error in mental pursuits the tendency, namely, to receive what is plausible for what is true. The mind that has been disciplined by the study of physical science soon becomes emancipated from trammels of this nature which entangle and confuse less cultivated or more feeble intellects; and earnestly would we counsel the aspirants after elevated knowledge to acquire that wholesome frame of thought which, in scientific matters, demanding proof before assent is yielded, resolutely rejects all that is merely specious.

In physical and physiological research, one of the best tests of truth is experiment. Sir H. Davy, by experimenting on the alkalies and earths with a powerful galvanic battery, discovered the fact, till then unknown, that these bodies, instead of being simple, were compound substances, each of them having for their base a pure metal; in the case of common salt or muriate of soda, this base being sodium; in that of lime, calcium. The true course of the blood was demonstrated by such experiments as these: by tying a vein, and observing that the vessel became turgid on the side of the ligature farthest from the heart; by tying an artery, and observing that the vessel became distended on the side towards the heart; by seeing that if a vein were divided, the bleeding proceeded from the distal or remote end; whilst, in a wounded artery, the blood flowed from the cardiac end. Tests of this nature substantiated the notions of Harvey respecting the motion of the blood, and his theory of the circulation became a fact.

There are, however, many branches of knowledge where the experimental method cannot be applied. In these, frequently truth is discovered by direct observation; and although, to arrive at a safe conclusion, the observations must be multiplied and made under a variety of circumstances, yet, with these precautions, this is one of the most assured and valuable modes of inquiry.

Again-it is often necessary in every science to infer what can neither be discovered by experiment nor learnt by direct observation. This method has led to grand results, but it is of all means that which requires the highest talent and the most guarded mind. There are other and sub

ordinate processes by which science, learning, and art may variously be enriched, and which, although not to be neglected, need not in this place longer detain us.

We have felt it necessary to premise these introductory remarks, inasmuch as the seeming and the plausible play a leading part in the Vestiges of Creation; and if it be right, which none in these days will gainsay, to demand of the discoverers in science that they should by rigid demonstration establish their claims to novelty and truth, still more essential is such a requirement when an attempt is made, by diverting physical research from its legitimate objects, to sap the foundations on which reposes the blessed Gospel of Peace.

We have perused the Vestiges of Creation with mingled feelings of gratification and of pain-of gratification derived from the lucid exposition therein contained of some of the most interesting subjects of human research-of pain excited by the reflection that, amidst so much that is talented and commendable, there should be interwoven a tissue of hypothesis deserving equally the reproval of the Christian, as unnecessarily mixing up with worldly lore the infinitely higher interests of Divine revelation, and of the philosopher, as employing that vain system of speculation which, since the era of Bacon, has by common consent been banished from the investigations of science. Sorry should we be if, from this expression of a sincere conviction, it should be inferred that there is in our mind a lurking distaste for any of the varied topics upon which, with so much of freshness and vigour, the author has touched. We are not, and never have been, of the number of those well-meaning, but, as it seems to our conception, unwise persons, who would discourage inquiries connected with physical science as dangerous to the religion vouchsafed in mercy to the sinfulness and wants of man. On the contrary, we hold that the shining light of the Gospel of Christ never appears to our feeble observance so glorious or so fixed, as when, penetrating the mists arising from the sophisms and weaknesses of finite intelligence, it beams forth like the luminary of the earthly system, beautifying, reviving, and gladdening this otherwise vale of tears and sorrows.

We have also our fears. But here again, and more emphatically we say it, we would not be mistaken. Our fears are not for that Sacred Volume which rests on the Rock of Ages; they spring from our conviction of the pervading ignorance of the exquisite works of Nature, not only among the recognised uninstructed, but among a large proportion of the so-called educated classes of this centre of refinement and civilization. It has always appeared to us that a system of education, such as obtains in England, from which some of the fairest fields of knowledge are carefully excluded, must be essentially defective. By placing man as it were in contrast with his Maker-by showing the vastness, the variety, the perfection of the external creation, natural history compels to humility,-a feeling which, however distasteful it may be to the vanity of self-satisfaction, is the only fitting state for a being at once so finite and so feeble as And herein the study of natural objects favourably contrasts with the learning that knows but the laboured results of human wisdom, which, by leading us to compare ourselves with ourselves, and so hiding from our sight the Supreme Intelligence, tends only to engender prejudice, pride, and pedantry.

man.

Our fears, then, are for a society constituted like this, helpless for the