cially in its nomenclature, into a sort of chaotic condition, in which its difficulties and uncertainties must be very great until some master mind shall again come forward with fresh hypotheses adapted to its present advance. In this science absolute accuracy is so essential, the purity of material and of reagents so necessary to the reliability of investigations, and the perfection required at every step is so unattainable, that its further progress is encumbered with especial difficulties; and yet, in spite of them all, this progress is going on with great rapidity.

Biology is, perhaps, at this moment one of the most advancing branches of science, and yet none are more encumbered with difficulties. It is enough simply to cite the contradictory, and yet most careful experiments in regard to spontaneous generation, or the opposite theories and observations in regard to "protoplasm," to show how very difficult is the attainment of certain conclusions. It is abundantly evident that, in this science, truth can be arrived at only by the combined labors of many minds and most diligent sifting of the results supposed to have been attained by any one observer.

It is not necessary to speak further of the difficulties of special sciences. Each has its obstacles, each its reasons for holding conclusions a long time sub judice before attempting to store them away in the garner of established truth. But there are two points common to all investigations, in every branch of natural science, which call for, at least, a passing notice. One of them is personal to the investigator, the other is inherent in nature.

For the first, a degree of conscientiousness is required, which it sometimes seems too much to expect of man. This difficulty presses more upon those who have made some advance in years, and have expressed their views publicly, than upon younger men. It is certainly hard for one who has proposed and advocated a theory to listen quite as attentively to facts, or to attach as much value to observations, which are in conflict with his views, as to those which are favorable to them. It is very easy, on the one side, to suppose that there must have been some inaccuracy; or, on the other, to accept the reported fact without very rigid cross-examination, and to rely upon the observation without much verification. This difficulty increases just in proportion as men become eminent in their respective sciences. They must ordinarily have attained their eminence by the exercise of the strictest conscientiousness; but to retain this after they have won eminence, and seem entitled to a relaxation of labor, is too severe a task for all but the most remarkable men. It, hence, curiously happens that just in proportion as the public come

to rely upon the dicta of particular men, those dicta become, in this respect, unreliable.. Of course, science itself does not long suffer from this. There are too many able and eager minds engaged in its pursuit to allow error, from however high authority, to remain long unchallenged. But, so far as the public are concerned, the danger is a very real one, and should put us again on our guard against accepting as ascertained truth the opinions of a few even of the most eminent men.

The other difficulty presses alike upon all scientific investigators, and, as already said, is inherent in the very nature of their subject. The expression "natural law" is a convenient one, and whatever may be understood by that expression, the recognition of what is called law in nature is the very starting-point of all science. In accordance with these laws must all phenomena be examined, and by them must all theory be tested. They are the guide of observation, the standard to which all speculation must be referred, the steppingstones to all increase of knowledge. Yet, these laws, one and all, so far as we yet know them, are inexact. They are the expression of a certain general truth, to which phenomena more or less closely conform; but the theoretic law is never the precise statement of what is actually observed in nature. Some allowance may be made for the errors of observation, which it is always difficult or impossible wholly to avoid; but, beyond all this, there is certainly a real want of perfect agreement in the phenomena of nature with the law which is supposed to govern them. This has been very happily shown, with careful detail in regard to Mariotte's law of the expansion of gases, by Prof. Cooke, in his "Chemical Physics," and he tells us that he enters so minutely into the examination of one law, for the purpose of showing what is characteristic of them all. Even of the law of gravity, the most perfect of all natural laws, it is true that there are residual phenomena remaining to be accounted for after the application of the law of gravity has been exhausted. With each wider generalization, it is true, there is found a closer correspondence between the law and the phenomena. The wide discordance which would have been observed between the law of gravity, had it then been known, and the motions of the planets when they were supposed to revolve with uniform speed in circular orbits, was greatly reduced by Kepler's discovery of the ellipticity of those orbits, and of the law of the "radius vector." Each successive step in the progress of astronomy has brought about a closer approximation between the theoretic law and the observed phenomena. In our own day, a large stride was made in accounting for apparent irregularities in the

motions of the heavenly bodies, when Uranus was discovered. But still, in the case of this, as of every other natural law, residual, unexplained, phenomena remain, and doubtless must always remain, until we can contemplate nature in its entirety, looking out upon its vastness from its very centre,-even from before the throne of Him who has ordained it all.

While this want of exact correspondence of law and fact has its direct, very embarrassing difficulties, it has also another indirect effect in rendering the existence of a supposed law itself uncertain, and making it an intricate and difficult question as to how wide a generalization of facts shall be considered necessary to establish the law around which they are grouped. The investigation of nature sometimes seems like the examination of some vast architectural work almost hidden in a fog. We catch here a pinnacle, and there a buttress; now a richly wrought doorway, and then a canopied window, and we put together our scraps of information, and make our plan of the whole. That plan may be good enough to serve a useful purpose, and enable us to trace out much more than we could otherwise have done of the half-hidden building; but when there is a lifting of the fog we see how utterly unlike the reality our speculations have been. There was a time when Bode's law was supposed accurately to represent the distances of the planets from the sun. This was before Uranus or the group of asteroids were known. It agreed with the position of all the known planets, and it agreed, too, with the distances of the secondary satellites from their primaries. But, if true, there should be another planet between Mars and Jupiter. Search was accordingly made, and rewarded by the discovery of the group of asteroids. Great confidence was now felt in the law. By and by, Uranus was discovered outside the previously known limits of the solar system, and its position was, also, in harmony with the law which now could not but be considered as triumphantly established. But the perturbations of the planets indicated the existence of still one more member of the system, outside them all. Calculations of extreme intricacy and difficulty were made, independently, by two mathematicians, both based upon Bode's law, and both agreeing in the result. The telescope was pointed to the place indicated for the unknown planet at the given hour, and there it was! The world echoed, as well it might, with astonishment. Here was no room for lucky accident. The planet had not been there for one hundred and sixty years before; it would not be there for one hundred and sixty years again, and, hitherto, no one knew of its existence; but it was found just where the mathematicians

predicted. But now comes the strange part of the story. The planet, when found, did not answer in any particular to the planet expected. It was much smaller, its orbit was nearly circular, instead of being extremely elliptical; its periodic time was different and, worse than all, instead of agreeing with Bode's law, it was actually 800,000,000 of miles (or more than Saturn's whole distance) nearer the sun than it ought to have been! And yet the real planet more completely explained the perturbations to be accounted for than the theoretic planet. So different may nature sometimes be from what she is expected to be, and still be true to herself.

Such are some of the reasons why it becomes scientific speculation to be modest. There is such a thing as scientific truth, and it is a very precious thing, because it is an unfolding to us in nature of the workings of the same God whom we adore as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. But theory and hypothesis are not necessarily truth. They may be, or they may not be. Many a theory has been current for ages, and yet has proved false; many an hypothesis has been generally accepted and yet has been found inconsistent with more lately discovered facts. There are also very ample opportunities for error in theological interpretation. There is the strong bias of prejudice; there is the possibility of choosing the wrong sense where there is fairly room for more than one; there is often an ignorance of facts; and there is here, as in science, the malign influence of previously received theories, which, at all hazards, are to be supported. But on these it is not necessary now to dwell. With interpretations in such ways rendered doubtful, scientific speculations may legitimately contend as on an open arena. But let not such contests be mistaken for an incongruity between natural and revealed truths. These proceed from one infallible source, and can never come into collision. Meanwhile, it behooves the theologian to inform himself, as far as he may, of the course of scientific speculation, and in view of it, to reëxamine his own interpretations; to determine, as far as he may, what really belongs to the truth of God's Word and what only to his own fallible understanding of that Word; and, meantime, to distinguish, and to lead others to distinguish, between scientific truth and scientific speculations. The former can never be proved false, and like the truths revealed in Scripture, will inevitably be established in the face of all opposition; while the latter, like the theological interpretations, are yet on trial. They are to be held modestly, to be controverted solely on the ground of truth, and never to be considered as inimical to Revelation, because they contradict an interpretation of it.

[The Bishop of Western New York, having been invited to take part in a (second) volume of "The Church and the Age," to be issued in January, by John Murray, London, has consented to a simultaneous publication of this essay in these pages. It will not be the less acceptable because originally designed for our English brethren. As suggesting the light in which they view some features of our Church, on which, perhaps, we have bestowed too little thought, it will serve a good purpose among ourselves. It will call our attention to points which, possibly, require amendment, or which need to be explained to foreign Churches. It will be understood that, appearing with the author's name, he only is responsible for the positions he has taken.-EDITOR.]

THE Churches in England's colonies have been children on whom

their parents smiled not. Theirs is a melancholy history of missions destitute of episcopal care for successive generations. Their mother did not regard them. Such a progeny was supposed to be forsaken of the gods, in heathen times, and banished from bed and board; but the Providence of our God is wise and merciful,-" When my father and my mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me up." Not that the Church of England literally forgot her offspring; a selfish and godless state-craft is chargeable with the wrong, and fearfully was that wrong visited "upon the part that sinned." I do not think, however, that the Church of England has ever properly recognized her dower of children as "arrows in the hand of a giant," as a weapon to be used in self-defence. "Bastard slips shall not thrive." That the reformed Church of England is no bastard, is