Illustrations of Paley's Natural Theology, with descriptive Letter-press. By JAMES PAXTON, Member of the Royal College of Surgeons, London. 1 vol. 8vo. 12s. London. Whittaker.

THIS is a small but well conceived work, containing plates of the principal subjects of anatomy and physiology, adduced by Paley. The author speaks of them as made from nature; and they are obviously a very useful and illustrative explanation. The volume deserves to be in the hands of every one who takes the "Natural Theology" as a guide in one of the most interesting studies that can be offered to the mind of piety and wisdom.

Paley was probably the most popular theologian of his age; and his popularity is so far from being diminished by his death, that his works now fill a still larger space in the public eye, than when he was present to sustain them by his connexion, opulent means, and knowledge of the ways of authorship. Yet the last century possessed some very able theologians, some very learned, and some very dextrous in their solicitation of popularity. Paley has undoubtedly thrown them all into the shade, if celebrity is to be measured by public acceptance, and general utility. Not contending, or not desiring to contend, with the learned fame of Lowth and Warburton, or with the vigorous and controversial prowess of Horsley, he turned his powers to a simpler but more extensive triumph, and has found it a more permanent one. He devoted himself to the humbler occupation of clearing away the difficulties that beset the general path of divine knowledge. A sufficient scholar, and a capable inquirer into the workings of the human understanding, he was thus furnished with all the materials necessary for his task. His residence as a parish priest may have suggested the subjects of his principal works, and possibly taught him somewhat of the simplicity of his mode of illustration. But he seems to have had no remarkable original faculty; to have been altogether destitute of brilliancy or striking invention, and to have found his most congenial employment in explaining and combining the thoughts of other men. Enterprize and vivid discovery were out of the question with his rank of mind; he makes no attempt to master any new power, he soars into no new province of the world of intellect; he leaves the depths and heights to the adventure of more hazardous spirits, and restricts himself to converting the surface into productiveness and beauty, with the implements and after the manner of his fathers.

NO. VIII. VOL. IV.

X

This is no degradation to his memory. The true honour is not in the multitude of the "talents," but in their exercise. In Theology, beyond all other studies, the useful ought to be the great object; and he who leads but one darkened mind to the truth, achieves a nobler fame than if he were master of all the ostentatious ability and showy knowledge that ever busied themselves in swelling the pride of man. Standing in the immediate presence of Revelation, all the vanities of worldly applause are tenfold vanities; the mighty wisdom of the Divine Spirit, and the awful responsibility of our nature, extinguish all minor things: we are under the eye of God, and must think no more of the eye of man.

The moral to be derived from Paley's success, is the good within the means of the majority. What he might have been qualified to do, we may not so easily decide; but nothing can be more unquestionable than that what he did, many others could have done, and many may still do. We are in no degree inclined to charge the British clergy with wilful indolence; but there are hundreds at this hour restrained from literary effort by presumed inadequacy, who should be stimulated by the present proof of what can be done by powers and opportunities apparently not ranking above their own. We do not hesitate to place Paley among the most valuable theologians of the last century, distinguished as it was in theological labours. Yet his "Evidences," the work on which his chief utility rests, was within the competence of perhaps any divine, who would have had patience enough to read and abridge "Lardner's Credibility." The "Hora Paulina" has higher claims; it is original and ingenious, but it is the least popular, and therefore the least useful of his works. Let no man, then, with the education of an English clergyman, and with the leisure of a parish priest, venture to feel himself justified in inaction, by the difficulties of literary success. He has here the proof of what can be done by the simple means of choosing a judicious subject, and of treating it in a style of common sense and plain elucidation. If Paley had powers beyond this, we only honour him the more for his sacrifice of ambition.

The "Natural Theology" was the work of his later studies, and was intended to round that system of moral and religious wisdom, which he had begun in the "Evidences of Christianity." We are, of course, not about to detail a work so well known. The wide circulation of the volume is a sufficient mark of its public importance; but that circulation has rendered unnecessary all analysis of its contents. Its popularity is partly to be explained by the same causes, which have ren

dered popular nearly all the works of this intelligent writer; but it also arises in some measure from the attractive nature of the statements by which the argument is supported; since it may be observed every where in society, that natural history. forms an object of perpetual curiosity and attraction, as if, like gardening, it had been one of the original instincts or feelings of our common nature.

We might still be surprised that this work should have so entirely superseded those of Ray, Derham, Bonnet, and others; and that it has superseded them is certain, since they are scarcely to be found except in libraries; while to the public at large, entertaining as they are, independently of their valuable collection of facts, and their theological views, they are as if they had never existed. That the work before us was entitled thus to supersede them, we must not say; but there is a good fortune attending books, as men. A new public, and a reading public, had started up, demanding food; and while that class of merchants, which is generally sufficiently watchful over such a demand, was not prepared to satisfy it with new editions of the works in question, it was Paley's fortune to step into the vacancy, and thus to anticipate a revived competition. But, feeling a sincere respect for this author, we yet may not falsify our own opinion, that the work before us is not of a character to have superseded all the former productions of the same nature; neither do we think that it is entitled, in either form or matter, to supersede the efforts of future writers. In fact, that, in an age like ours, it should so long have monopolized this subject, does surprise us; since its faults must be fully sensible to the now numerous cultivators of physical knowledge, Be the causes of this indolent acquiescence what they may, we lament it: the public should not be deprived of the further knowledge of these subjects, and the further pleasures awaiting it, from any cause.

It is for this reason that we have here undertaken to note some of the deficiencies of the "Natural Theology ;" and if, in doing this, we shall show that a better work may be produced, and at the same time stimulate some capable writer to produce it, we consider that we shall have rendered a service to our generation, and that even Paley, were he now alive, would be the first to sanction our call on the religious philosopher. It is a generous feeling which pronounces, that the dead must not be censured, yet it is a thoughtless axiom; since, while we must all correct our knowledge by the errors of others, what errors can we so harmlessly point out as those of one who is now alike beyond the applause and the censure of man. It will, howeyer,

be our chief task to mark, as far as our space will admit, such topics and facts as we desire to see added to a work of this nature; designating, rather than discussing, what would, in reality, occupy another volume of equal magnitude.

It must be allowed by philosophy, that the Existence of a Creator, designing or adapting means to ends, is as clearly established by a single well chosen fact, as by the whole range of natural history. He who made the eye for seeing, or the ear for hearing, intended, chose, and effected. And if, from a single fact, we can prove DESIGN; so, from a range as limited, can we prove POWER; power, of whose means or extent we can form no conception; wisdom, far beyond our utmost stretch of thought, and benevolence spontaneous, unwearied, and unlimited.

But, for this narrow yet satisfactory view, the materials of even the book before us would be superfluous. Of the mere existence of a Creator, the proofs are accumulated beyond necessity: while as a general view of natural providence, the work is even meagre: the facts are comparatively few, are often imperfectly stated, and generally divested of that interest which the subject permitted and required; and the omissions of whole branches of natural science have deprived this great argument of its due variety; thus enfeebling and circumscribing to the general reader the range of the Divine power, contrivance, and wisdom.

By the marks of power and design visible, we conceive primarily the existence of a Supreme Being; or, in other words, of a Being of wisdom unlimited, and power unlimited, omniscience, and omnipotence; with the necessary consequences, omnipresence, eternity, spirituality, and unity. From other facts, we prove Beneficence; a design to produce happiness simply, where the same ends, the existence and continuation of this order might, as far as we can judge, have been effected without happiness, or even by means of direct misery.

It is obvious that a work giving evidence of those great truths, might be a noble auxiliary to Christianity. That the Deity is omnipresent, that he is about our bed, and spieth out all our ways, all men calling themselves Christians are required to believe: yet, it is to be feared, that a vast majority act as if the eye of God was not for ever on us, or a future judgment not inevitable, and even near to us all. This is not the true Christian conviction on reflection; religion requires something more distinct, vigorous, and practical-the habitual impression, the feeling, never asleep, that we live in the presence of God, that not an action, not a thought is con

cealed from him, that we shall be solemnly answerable for our offences, and that with him alone is reward. How difficult it is thus to live, let the best of us answer; and how necessary it is that we should adopt every means in our power of cultivating this feeling, we surely need not say. It ought to be our perpetual effort to view the hand of God in every thing that surrounds us; for this is one powerful mode of making us feel that our hearts also are in his hand. In moral nature, this is not always an easy effort; since it is of the nature of moral relations to pervert or obscure our affections and thoughts; and further, to make us forget the Creator in the creature, whose influencé on us is the most immediate and sensible. Physical nature, on the contrary, exerts no such pernicious influences. In contemplating the wide range of this universe, our minds are free, at liberty to contemplate the Might by which it was arranged and supported. Nature thus becomes that perpetual temple of the living God, which it has so often been called; and the philosopher who has been accustomed to view it as under the immediate guidance of that Power which created it; who sees the hand of God every where, who scans his designs and his bounties in every object, every movement, every change around him, who lives in that universe of nature as in the temple of God, is of all men that one who will feel daily, hourly, every minute of his existence most alive to his moral supremacy, feel that HE indeed is about our path and about our bed, that his eye searches our inmost thoughts, and that salvation and immortality are the gifts of his omnipotent hand.

Hence it is, that while we desire that works of this kind should become popular, that they should even be multiplied as to the form and manner; we are also desirous that they should embrace, as far as it can be done, the whole range of nature, that the hand of God may be seen in every thing. If accumulated proofs of his existence, or even of his wisdom, are superfluous, since, once proved at all, we know that they must be boundless; it is not superfluous to hold forth the variety of his wisdom, the endless modes in which his power and his beneficence are exerted, and those more secret, yet still more sublime, indications of states of being, when all around us shall have passed away.

There are no works in existence which give such a general view of the great kingdom of nature, divested of systems and technicalities, as the public can understand. Scattered writings on many particular subjects there are, but not one which embraces the whole: while on that branch of natural history called