that image is the moral sense and the power of distinction between right and wrong in man; that therefore man, in spite of himself, and because he is what he is, man made in the image of God, is responsible to God, who is the personal standard of right, of which man is spontaneously conscious; that man is not yet at the goal of his own existence, but is now in progress towards a condition of things yet higher, in which the dim though unambiguous perception he now has of God will be changed for a vision face to face, in which he will perceive more clearly than at present the full relation in which he stands to God; that with a view to training man for the enjoyment of this higher state, and in order to develop that faculty without which no moral creature of God can exist, the faculty of faith or dependence on God and trust in Him, God has given man a law which is found to be in complete harmony with what he can by investigation discover of himself or God, which, however, is ultimately dependent for its acceptance upon the exercise and perception of that very moral sense which it is presumedly given to educate; that God has made the entire constitution and well-being of society to be dependent upon the recognition of the laws concerning the relation between man and man, which run up into and involve the recognition of Himself as the moral governor of the world; that He has thus made the evidence of His own existence to be confirmed by the character of the laws most nearly affecting society, while by the twofold form of the law in which it has been given, He has shown that religion and morality are interdependent; that there is no true recognition of God which does not enjoin the well-being of society, and no permanent guarantee for or enforcement of morality which does not depend on and lead up to the religious recognition of God?

STANLEY LEATHES.

ART. IV.-Evolution, Viewed in Relation to Theology. Habit and Intelligence: a Series of Essays on the Laws of Life and Mind. By JOSEPH JOHN MURPHY. Second Edition. Illustrated. Thoroughly Revised and mostly Re-written. Macmillan and Co.

1879.

READERS Who have made acquaintance with Mr. Murphy's valuable work in its former edition will welcome its reappearance in the deeply interesting volume before us. The author has not merely executed the revision which in a work

of this nature becomes necessary through the progress of biological research, he has added much new and valuable matter. Then, in order to concentrate attention upon his main subject, he has omitted, as stated in his Preface, all the chapters of the first edition which treated of merely physical science, as distinguished from the science of life and mind.' Of the new and important chapters which have been added, three contain most valuable summaries of interesting facts, mostly abstracted from the enormous mass of detail noted in Darwin's works,' and here selected in order to illustrate Mr. Murphy's argument.

The following chapters, altogether new and original, are of special interest: Classification and Parallel Variation;' 'Classification and the Fixation of Characters; Structure in Anticipation of Function;'The Origin of Man;' and 'Automatism.'

According to the fundamental idea of the work, habit and intelligence are primary laws of both life and mind, habit being the perpetuating, and intelligence the progressive, factor in all life, conscious or unconscious. We cannot, by merely quoting isolated passages, do justice to the ability with which this opinion is supported; but we can indicate the importance of the entire theory by stating the fundamental positions which it leads the author to maintain. It places him in opposition to two great schools of thought, the merits of which, under other aspects, he fully recognizes. Mr. Murphy's theory of habit and intelligence involves, in the science of biology, that important difference from Darwin which forms one main topic of interest in his present work. In the philosophy of mind, it places him in fundamental opposition to the psychological school to which Mill, Bain, and Herbert Spencer belong.

It may thus be seen how important are the conclusions to which the present volume leads. We characterize it as a truly noble work, not only for the elevation of its aim, but for the admirable force of its reasoning. We cannot but remark Mr. Murphy's rare clearness and directness of style. His power of lucid statement does not forsake him even in the discussion of the most abstract questions. The chapter on 'Automatism,' in which he discusses consciousness, will, and freedom, contains a most masterly refutation of the automatist theory. Other philosophical chapters, such as that on 'Time, Space, and Causation,' tempt us, by their value, to linger over them; but we must turn from these, and from the general suggestiveness and interest of the work, in order to concentrate attention upon our immediate subject.

In again bringing his theory of evolution into the light of recent science, Mr. Murphy, while modifying a few minor points, has the satisfaction of not only maintaining, but confirming, his original conclusion. How important that conclusion is, especially in a theological point of view, it is the object of this paper to suggest. The doctrine of evolution, in the special form presented in Habit and Intelligence,' is full of interest to students of physical science. But it claims our attention for other, more important, reasons than any that can arise from the mere investigation of nature, accurate and profound though that investigation may be. In Mr. Murphy's leading idea may be found a clue which leads theological thought in a promising though almost untrodden path. Although deeply interested in theological questions, as may be known through his other writings, he repudiates the idea of attempting on his part to reconcile science with scripture; * and in the work before us he never allows himself to wander from his one object-that of tracing by methods of observation alone the efficient causes of the phenomena of life. This he has done with a unity of purpose which not only renders his work extremely interesting and valuable from a scientific standpoint, but which gives a singular interest to the coincidence of his views with certain leading doctrines of Evangelical theology. Mr. Murphy's object in the present instance has been to find the truth of nature: shall we wonder if, in so doing, he has shed light upon the truth of grace? Truth is Divine thought.' There cannot fail to be harmony between the two voices which declare that thought-the voice of nature and the voice of grace. Though existing as diversities of operation, they are of the same God.

In the present paper we do not propose to enter upon the details of biology, so ably discussed in 'Habit and Intelligence.' Criticism of these belongs to biologists proper, not to writers whose purpose in examining the data of physical research is merely to advance to the more general conclusions which such data must precede or sustain. It will be sufficient for our purpose to state succinctly the main theory of the work under review. As an evolutionist, Mr. Murphy differs from Darwin in the following important points. While believing that all living forms have been evolved from a small number of germs (possibly from a single germ), holding, we must also observe, that life is the cause, not the effect, of organization,' he considers that the process of evolution cannot be adequately accounted for by Darwin's natural

·

* See The Scientific Bases of Faith.' Introduction.

selection' or 'survival of the fittest; that, in addition to these, a further agency is required. This agency, which, according to Mr. Murphy's hypothesis, is co-extensive with life and peculiar to it,' is a moulding, guiding power, through whose formative and progressive influence the 'habit,' which is its co-factor in the kingdom of organic nature, is developed, differentiated, into the manifold forms of life. To this agency Mr. Murphy gives the name of organizing intelligence.' He thus defines it

It will not be questioned by any one that intelligence is found in none but living beings; but it is not so obvious that intelligence is an attribute of all living beings, and co-extensive with life. When I speak of intelligence, however, I mean not only the conscious intelligence of mind, but also the organizing intelligence which adapts the eye for seeing, the ear for hearing, and every part of an organism for its work. The usual belief is that the organizing intelligence and the mental intelligence are two distinct intelligences. I maintain, on the contrary, that they are not distinct, but are two separate manifestations of the same intelligence, which is coextensive with life, though it is for the most part unconscious, and only becomes conscious of itself in the mind of man (p. 2).

Here let it be observed that to this organizing intelligence, as traced through the whole realm of living nature, is to be attributed, in the author's view, no Pantheistic meaning whatever. The above theory is conceived and developed in an entirely theistic sense, with emphatic recognition of the living, personal God as the fountain of all life. Viewed superficially, it is true, it may recall the Pantheism of both ancient and modern thought, even as many, perhaps all, great lines of truth have, in the plane of human reason, their vanishing points in dangerous error. The organizing intelligence' of the work before us is not, as the late Dr. Hodge partially misinterpreted it, a power placed in nature, and not in God.'* Stated fully, it is conceived by the author as a power immanent in nature only through the will of the living God, and through that will alone an efficient cause of natural pheno

mena.

With regard to the numerous instances adduced by Mr. Murphy in justification of his differences from Darwin-as these differences form the crucial point of the theory in one important aspect, we ask the reader's careful attention to the deeply interesting discussion of them in chapters xii.-xxi. inclusive. There it will be found that in treating of organic variations, which he regards as having been evolved from more simple forms, the author calls special attention to the fact that Hodge's Systematic Theology,' vol. ii. chap. 1.

NO. CXLIII.

6

in many instances such variations are not of service to the species in which they first appear; that in some cases they may be even hindrances; that they seem to serve essentially as preparations for more complete development of function. Natural selection appears no more sufficient to account for such phenomena than it is able to meet the crux of Darwinism, namely, the origin of complex adaptations such as those of the eye and ear' (p. 400).

Referring to the agencies to which Darwin and Spencer ascribe all organic characters, Mr. Murphy remarks—

These two agencies, which we call self-adaptation and natural selection, though acting on living things and through the vital forces, yet act mechanically; and, moreover, they are unintelligent, and therefore incapable of foresight. Even if they are sufficient, which I maintain they are not, to account for the utmost elaborateness of development and exactness of adaptation, it is evident that they can account only for such perfection as is needed for the actual life of the individual; they cannot possibly account for any development which is not useful at the time when it occurs, but is made in anticipation of being useful either at a future period of the organism's existence or in a future generation. Habit, which is the acting power in the process of self-adaptation, caunot fit an organism for a life on which it has not yet entered; and natural selection can only select what is immediately useful. . . . It is here maintained that there are many cases in the organic world where structure has been laid down as a preparation for function before the function could be brought into action, as truly as the shipwright, when he lays the keel on the land, intends the future ship to float on the water (p. 340, chap. xviii., on 'Structure in Anticipation of Function').

The following is from the same interesting chapter. Referring to the curious characteristics which the researches of the past few years have brought to light in certain Ascidian larvæ, the author speaks of them as characteristics

which no possible benefit to the animal itself will account for, and which were at first introduced by the guiding intelligence that directs the work of evolution, not with a view to the benefit of the animals in which they first appeared, but with a view to the ultimate evolution of the vertebrate class of animals from this lowly beginning. Here, to quote the words of Schiller, we find in our search the Creator at His work' (p. 344).

It may be objected that intelligence, as a primary law of life, is but the old anima mundi, the demiurge of ancient philosophy. No; it is something better. But even if it were the fulfilment of an ancient dream, the visions of the old wisdom are not to be rejected merely because they were visions in their day. Many of them have been changed into the realities of true thought. The atomic philosophy of Anaxagoras was, no