mate inference from his theory. Thus at the beginning of the last chapter of his work On the Origin of Species we have the following passage:-" Nothing at first can appear more difficult to believe than that the more complex organs and instincts should have been perfected, not by means superior to, though analogous with, human reason, but by the accumulation of innumerable slight variations, each good for the individual possessor." "Surely," observes Martineau, commenting on this passage, "the antithesis could not be more false were we to speak of some patterned damask as made, not by the weaver, but by the loom; or, of any methodised product as arising, not from its primary, but from its secondary source. All the determining conditions of species-viz.: (1) The possible range of variation; (2) its hereditary preservation; (3) the extrusion of inferior rivals—must be conceived as already contained in the constituted laws of organic life; in, and through which, just as well as by unmediated starts [or, as he says elsewhere, "creative paroxysms"], reason superior to the human, may evolve the ultimate results." To which I would add that some of the laws of organic life, upon the assumption of which Darwin works out his explanations, are in themselves so marvellous-for example, a taste for beauty in the female pheasant coincident with our own-that we may well transfer our wonder from the "patterned damask" to the "loom" itself. And behind these postulated laws a power, as we have seen, is wanted. As Max Müller reminds us, "even Charles Darwin requires a Creator to breathe life into matter,"-and, indeed, a good deal more than mere life. No scientific explanation even touches the ultimate dynamical question. Light is thrown on the methods of creation, but the creative power remains a mystery beyond the sphere of science.

I have thus endeavoured, I fear at too great length, to * Essays, First Series, p. 144.

present you with a sketch of one branch of the argument against corpuscular Materialism (the only popular form of the doctrine of Materialism), as it presents itself to my mind. We are, I have contended, absolutely unable to conceive that the organic and sentient wholes which make up the animal world can have sprung from inorganic, nonsentient atoms, without a new infusion of power, still less that the self-conscious minds which constitute the world of man can have had such an origin. To the difficulties thus raised the Materialist has only one reply, which consists in the hypothesis that the atoms themselves are, from the beginning, endowed with all the powers, including the power of thought, which ultimately make their appearance on the stage of Being. I have endeavoured to show, with the help of better illustration than I myself could bring to bear upon the subject, that even this hypothesis is insufficient to account for the facts and the phenomena, either of sentiency or intellect. The attempt to reform the hypothesis so as to supply at the beginning a cause adequate to all that is finally developed in the result, can only end in that very supposition of a Divine Original which Materialism repudiates. Nothing less than God can be the adequate cause of Man. It has, indeed, latterly been attempted to evade this conclusion in a strange way. To secure the sufficiency of a mechanic force as the origin of things, Man, as the supreme effect, is degraded to the level of an automaton. There is a sort of consistency in thus completely banishing mind from the universe; yet it is strange to think of the trouble these acute intellects are taking to persuade us that we and they alike are mere magnetic mockeries—the ephemeral result of unstable combinations of matter. By first giving the lie to our perceptive constitution, and then inviting us to confide in suicidal conclusions founded upon data furnished by this discredited witness, they involve themselves in a tissue of contradic

tions, and we may safely leave their refutation to the common sense of mankind.

The secret sources of disbelief, as of belief, often lie beyond the reach of logic, deep in men's character and history. What appears to me convincing argument may find no way to the recesses of another's mind, may fail to break through the crust of inveterate mental habit, or prove futile in presence of deficiencies which are organic. Yet I hope that to a few, to whom the argument may not have been familiar, and who may have been drawn in what seems to me the wrong direction by prevailing tendencies, I may, perhaps, have succeeded in showing that the difficulties of the question are in reality enormous; and that it is at least utterly unwise to draw from materialistic premises conclusions which are repugnant to practical good sense, or, what is still worse, which seem to liberate us from obligations hitherto deemed sacred.

C. W. RICHMOND.

DR. MICHAUD ON THE SEVEN ECUMENICAL

COUNCILS.*

HEN the Old Catholics had their great congress at

WH

Cologne in 1872 it was a question still open on what ground they were to stand after rejecting the authority of the Vatican Council. Regarding themselves as Catholic, they refused to be satisfied with the Protestant ground of the Bible and the Bible alone. Some proposed to stand by the Council of Trent, as representing the Catholic Church until July 1870; but others wished to go further back and take the first seven General Councils, as representing the whole Catholic Church before the separation of the East and West. Those who proposed Trent were probably the more advanced party, as they simply took provisional ground, leaving their ultimate destination to the course of events. At the Bonn Conference of 1874 it was expressly abandoned by the great Munich leader of the movement, who said that he also spoke in behalf of his brethren.t

Dr. Michaud, who, at Cologne, was known as the young French Abbé fresh from the Madeleine, was one of those who advocated going back at once to the undivided Church, represented by the decisions of the first seven Ecumenical

*Discussion sur les Sept Conciles Ecumeniques. Par E. MICHAUD, Docteur en Theologie. Berne: Jent et Reinert. 1878.

+ His words were, "As regards the Council of Trent, I think I may declare, not only in my own name, but also in the name of my colleagues, that we hold ourselves in no way bound by all the decrees of that Council, which cannot be considered as Ecumenical" (Report, p. 6, English trans. lation).

Councils. That position he still holds, and the present work is a defence of it against Romanists, High Church Anglicans, and all Protestants. These seven Councils appear to him to offer the only true basis for the reunion of the Churches. "Here," he says, "East and West, Catholic and Protestant, may all be one, and enjoy with the necessary unity that variety which is also necessary."

We shall first dispose of Dr. Michaud's arguments against the Romanists. It is not without wisdom that the Church of Rome has adopted the principle formulated by Cardinal Manning that history must give place to dogma; which really means that history must go for nothing when it tells against the dogmas of the Church of Rome. The era of the first seven General Councils covers the first five centuries of the activity of the Christian Church, after its deliverance from Roman persecution. We have here the mind, or rather minds, for we must use the plural, of the Christian community during the time of its greatest prosperity, and while the Church was ostensibly one visible body. Dr. Michaud shows that all these Councils were convoked by emperors, and that, with rare exceptions, they were presided over by emperors or their legates. No Bishop of Rome appears in any of them, except by his representatives, and the decisions received the confirmation of all the patriarchs. The Bishop of Rome has a precedence, in virtue of his being bishop of the imperial city; but this is simply a political precedence, and not one involved in his ecclesiastical position. The arguments of Ultramontane writers against these statements are examined and found to be largely grounded on writings the genuineness of which is not now admitted even by the great scholars of the Roman Catholic community.

In the first Council Constantine said expressly, "I have called you together." The letter to the Churches of Alexandria, Egypt, and Libya said that the Council was