merely a question whose opinion on such a matter is worth most, Mr. Lewes's or his reviewer's. We have a strong conviction that in philosophic opinion Mr. Lewes is still in a transition state; and we doubt not that a few years, if we are spared to see them, will find him one of the most eloquent, most subtle, and most learned of the adherents and advocates of the system of common sense. And we have felt with pleasure in reading his book that it was no mere musty metaphysician whose pen had written these attractive pages. The skill and ease of the accomplished author were apparent everywhere. Mr. Lewes has won laurels in other fields than the now little-trodden one of speculative philosophy. The accomplished biographer, the keen observer, and the graceful narrator of physical changes and appearances, the generous appreciator of struggling genius, will number many readers whom the name of philosophy, grim and repellent, will keep off from ever opening a volume so grave as this. And surely when Mr. Lewes, in days devoted to new Seaside Studies, shall look out upon sunny waves and golden sunsets, he will feel a gentle remorse that, in his ardour to support a point of pure speculation, he should ever have so far maligned nature as to maintain that she appears to us distorted and deformed.' Outward nature, we think, will suffice as she is, even in a fallen world. It is a beautiful world after all. On blue skies and blossoming trees there is no apparent taint cast from the dark domain of evil. It is the world of mind that needs amending. It is there that we trace an ever-recurring stain, for which no philosophy can

account, and which no philosophy can remove. And in a higher Presence than that of human intellect or its results we render thanks for a gracious system which can enlighten and comfort simple hearts which could make nothing of metaphysics. In the true philosophy, the grand Positivism of Christianity, there is rest at last; and rest within the reach of all.

80

III.

THORNDALE; OR, THE CONFLICT OF OPINIONS.

*

AUTHORS, moral and political, have of late

Most

years been recognising the fact, that abstract truths become much more generally attractive when something of human interest is added to them. people feel as if thoughts and opinions gain a more substantial being, and lose their ghost-like intangibility, when we know something of the character and history of the man who entertained them, and something of the outward scenery amid which he entertained them. Very many persons feel as if, in passing from fact, or what purports to be fact, to principle, they were exchanging the firm footing of solid land for the yielding and impalpable air; and a framework of scenes and persons is like a wing to buoy them up in traversing that unaccustomed medium. And there are few indeed to whom a peculiar interest does not result when views and opinions, instead of standing nakedly on the printed page, are stated and discussed in friendly council by

* Thorndale ; or, the Conflict of Opinions. By William Smith. Edinburgh: 1857.

individual men, seated upon a real grassy slope, canopied by substantial trees, and commanding a prospect of real hills, and streams, and valleys. It is not entirely true that argument has its weight and force in itself, quite apart from its author. In the matter of practical effect, on actual human beings, a good deal depends on the lips it comes from.

The author of Thorndale has recognised and acted upon this principle. Mr. William Smith is a philosopher and a poet; and whoever sits down to read his new book as an ordinary work of fiction, to be hurried through for its plot-interest, will probably not turn many pages before closing the volume. The great purpose of the work is to set out a variety of opinions. upon several matters which concern the highest interests of the individual man and of the human race; but, instead of presenting them in naked abstractness, Mr. Smith has set them in a slight story, and given them as the tenets or the fancies of different men, whose characters are so drawn that these tenets and fancies appear to be just their natural culmination and result. If we were disposed to be hypercritical, we might say that the different characters sketched by Mr. Smith are too plainly built up to serve as the substrata of the opinions which they express. There is hardly allowance enough made for the waywardness and inconsistency of human conclusion and action. Given any one of Mr. Smith's men in certain circumstances, and we are only too sure of what he will do or say. The Utopian is always hopeful; the desponding philosopher is never brightened up by a ray of hope. But

G

this, it is obvious, is a result arrived at upon system; for we shall find abundant proof in the volume that Mr. Smith has read deeply and accurately into human nature, in all its weaknesses, fancies, hopes, and fears. It is long since we have met with a more remarkable or worthy book. Mr. Smith is always thoughtful and suggestive: he has been entirely successful in carrying out his wish to produce a volume in reading which a thoughtful man will often pause with his finger between the leaves, and muse upon what he has read. We judge that the book must have been written slowly, and at intervals, from its affluence of beautiful thought. No mind could have turned off such material with the equable flow of a stream. We know few works in which there may be found so many fine thoughts, light-bringing illustrations, and happy turns of expression, to invite the reader's pencil. A delicate refinement, a simple and pathetic eloquence, a kindly sympathy with all sentient things, are everywhere apparent: but the construction of the book, in which the most opposite opinions are expressed by the different characters, without the least editorial comment, approval or disapproval, renders it difficult to judge what are truly the opinions of the author himself. Mr. Smith's English style is of classic beauty: nothing can surpass the delicate grace and finish of many passages of description and reflection; and although it was of course impossible, and indeed not desirable, that equal pains should be bestowed upon the melody of all the pages of the book, still the language is never slovenly; the hand of the tasteful scholar is everywhere. Nor