divine economy of the whole it is so admirably contrived, that every being in different degrees possesses this double character, and not only needs assistance, but is able in its turn to afford it. Nothing is so mighty, as to subsist without help; nothing so minute, as not at times to have its use. Thus as connections reciprocate, and are everywhere blended, the concatenation of relations grows in fact universal, and the world becomes (as above described) one city or commonwealth.

Instances of this double relation occur (as we have said) in every particular being. The ewe is related to the grass, as to the being which supplies her wants; to her lamb, as to the being whose wants she herself supplies. The grass again is related to the earth, as to the being which affords it aliment; while it is related to the ewe, by becoming itself aliment to her. The earth is related to vegetables, as she is both their parent and their nurse; while she is related to the sun, as to the fountain of her genial warmth. The relations of the sun are finely represented by Epictetus, who makes the Sovereign of the Universe thus address that noble luminary: "Thou (saith he) art sun: thou art able, by going round, to form the year and the seasons; to enlarge and nourish the fruits; to raise and still the winds; to warm in due degree the bodies of men: arise, go round, and beginning from the greatest, extend after this manner thy influence to the most minute."i

Nor, when we mention the earth, ought we to forget that equitable discharge of her relations, for which Virgil well distinguishes her by the character of most just :

Fundit humo facilem victum justissima tellus.

Georg. ii. 460.

The Attic historian and philosopher will be found the best commentator on this elegant passage of the Roman poet: "The earth, too, (says Xenophon,) being a divinity, teacheth those that can learn it of her, justice: for such as cultivate her best, she requiteth with most goods."

When we view the relation of the male to the female, and of the female to the male, and add to this the common relation extending from both to their offspring, we view the rise of families through the whole animal race. Among the more social, such as sheep and cattle, these families by fresh relations are combined into larger multitudes, under the name of flocks and herds. Among those of higher order still, (such as the bee,' the ant, the beaver, and, above all, the social and rational

1 Arrian. Epict. 1. iii. c. 24. p. 444. edit. Upton. Σὺ ἥλιος εἶ· δύνασαι, κ. τ. λ. * Ετι δὲ ἡ γῆ, θεὸς οὖσα, τοὺς δυναμένους καταμανθάνειν, καὶ δικαιοσύνην διδάσ κει· τοὺς γὰρ ἄριστα θεραπεύοντας αὐτὴν, πλeîoтa àyaðà àνTITоieî. Xenoph. Econom. p. 35. edit. Oxon.

I Virgil speaks of the bee, as he would of

man:

Mores et studia et populos et pralia dicam.
Georg. iv.

Aristotle, distinguishing these animals from those which do no more than barely herd together, elegantly calls them (wα TO

being, man,) these herds and flocks by relations more excellent are improved into civil polities, where there is a general interest or common good, a good to which either willingly or unwillingly every individual cooperates."

If we descend below animals down to vegetables, we shall discover in the vine, the ivy, the woodbine, and all the plants of slender stalk, a manifest relation to those of a trunk more solid, such as the oak, the elm, and the several trees of the forest. It is with a power which appears almost a conscious one, that the former of these tribes, recognising their relation, apply to the latter for a support, and spontaneously twine their bodies, or at least their tendrils, around them."

When therefore we contemplate the various relations already hinted, and mark in how friendly a manner they bring the most distant beings together, we may be tempted to say with the philosopher, that "all things are full of friendly principles." But we must not suffer this sentiment to carry us too far. Things are not only full of friendly principles, but of hostile likewise.

The fangs of the lion are as much the work of nature as the tendrils of the vine, or the nurturing teats of the ewe. To what then have these formidable weapons relation; for nature, we are assured, makes nothing in vain? If to offence, then is the lion himself a source of hostile relation; if to defence, then is he the object of injury from some other; so that hostility in either case is necessarily implied. Were it possible to doubt as to the offensive here, we could never doubt as to the structure of the spider's web; a structure clearly taught her by nature for offence alone. These and the like preparations, such as the boar's tusk,

Where, then, were these ends, when the things themselves first appeared? In external and visible nature? This from the hypothesis is impossible, for the hypothesis makes them subsequent. No other place then remains, but either the Sovereign Mind, or a mind subordinate, according as the work itself is a work of nature or of art." See before, p. 281, 282.

I have taken the preceding extract from a manuscript of that able scholar and philosopher George Gemistus, otherwise called Pletho, who flourished in the fifteenth century, both before and after the taking of Constantinople. If it apply not immediately to the subject, it has at least the merit of being something rare and ingenious. It is a morsel of that controversy among the learned Greeks of this period, whether the preference in philosophy was due to Plato or to Aristotle. Scholarius, among others, was for Aristotle; Pletho for Plato; from whose work on this subject (which was an answer to Scholarius) this extract is taken. There is another small work of Pletho's upon the same subject, entitled, Περὶ ὧν ̓Αριστοτέλης πρὸς Πλάτωνα διαpépera, printed at Paris, 1541; and Bessario (a learned Greek of that age, who went over to the Latin church, and became a cardinal) wrote a large tract to defend the Platonic doctrine, entitled, Contra Calumniatorem Platonis. The printed edition is in Latin, but the whole work is extant in Greek among the manuscripts of St. Marc's library at Venice, to which library Bessario bequeathed his own. There is, too, a fine letter remaining of the same Bessario, addressed to Michael Apostolius; who, though he took Bessario's side, and

defended Plato, yet appears to have done it, according to Bessario's letter, with a zeal and bitterness not becoming him; a zeal and bitterness too frequent in controversy, and (unfortunately for the cause of letters) nowhere more than among learned men, and those in particular whom we call professors of humanity.

The epistle above mentioned may be found in Greek and Latin, published by the learned Boivinus, in the second tome of l'Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Inscriptions, &c. p. 455; and it is well worth perusal, for its temper and elegance.

See also Cicero de Senectute, c. 15. Vitis quidem, &c.

• Πάντα δὲ φίλων μεστά. Arrian. Εpict. 1. iii. c. 24. p. 486. edit. Upt.

P This was an axiom inculcated everywhere by Aristotle; and more especially when he is speaking of final causes, which, though now they make a small part of philosophy, were never omitted by the Stagirite, as often as they could be introduced. His own words deserve attention: 'H púσis οὐθὲν ποιεῖ μάτην, ἀλλ ̓ ἀεὶ ἐκ τῶν ἐνδεχο μένων τῇ οὐσίᾳ περὶ ἕκαστον γένος ζώου Tò &pioTov: "Nature makes nothing in vain; but with respect to each animal genus, out of the several ways practicable, she always makes that which is best." De Animal. Ingressu, p. 28. edit. Sylb. And again, in the same tract: 'H púσis oveèv dnμiovpyeî μάτην, ὥσπερ εἴρηται πρότερον, ἀλλὰ πάντα πρὸς τὸ βέλτιον ἐκ τῶν ἐνδεχομένων : "Nature creates nothing in vain, but (as has been said already) all things for the best, out of the several ways that are practicable." Ibid. p. 141. edit. Sylb.

the eagle's talons, the viper's venom, &c. are all founded on such wants as can never be satisfied amicably. The wants, therefore, of this character naturally rouse up similar instincts, and thus the world becomes filled as well with hostile relations, as friendly.

Torva leæna lupum sequitur, lupus ipse capellam.

Virg. Ecl. ii.

It appears to have been these relations of hostility that first gave rise to the phenomena of natural and moral evil. Now whether real evil exist at all, or whether we should confine it, with the Stoics, to evil purely moral, are questions beyond the scope of this treatise to examine. It will be sufficient to say, that much evil is imaginary, and founded merely on false opinion that of the evils more real, there are many which have their end, and so may be said to partake, ultimately, the nature of good. Many of the difficulties and distresses which befall the human species, conduce to save it from sloth, and to rouse it up to action; to action which is, in fact, the very life of the universe.

Pater ipse colendi

Haud facilem esse viam voluit, primusque per artem
Movit agros, curis acuens mortalia corda,
Nec torpere gravi passus sua regna veterno.

Virg. Georg. i.

If there were no dangers, then could there be no fortitude; if no temptations, then no temperance; if no adverse accidents, nor loss of what we love, then no submissive resignation, no pious acquiescence.

Οὐκ ἂν γενοῖτο χωρὶς ἐσθλὰ καὶ κακά·

̓Αλλ ̓ ἔστι τις σύγκρασις, ὥστ ̓ ἔχειν καλῶς.
"Things good and ill can ne'er exist apart;
But such the mixture, that they well accord."

Again, the jaws of the lion, the poison of the rattle-snake, the sword of the conqueror, and every instrument of destruction, may be said incidentally to prepare the way for generation; and that not only by making room for new comers, but by furnishing fresh materials towards their respective production. For though the theatre of the world so far resembles other theatres, that it is perpetually filled with successions of new spectators; yet has it this in peculiar, that the spectators which succeed here, are made out of those that went before." Every particular birth, or

4 The fine distich here translated is from Euripides, quoted by Plutarch, De Isid. et Osirid. p. 369. edit. Xyland.

As to the speculations here offered, and the solutions suggested, we may well apply to them that just reflection of the Stagirite, though used by him on a different occasion. Ἴσως δὲ χαλεπὸν καὶ περὶ τῶν τοιούτων σφοδρῶς ἀποφαίνεσθαι, μὴ πολλάκις ἐπεσκεμμένον· τὸ μέντοι διηπορηκέναι περὶ ἑκάστου αὐτῶν, οὐκ ἄχρηστόν ἐστι:

"Perhaps it is difficult to prove any thing clearly upon subjects such as these, without having often considered and examined them. And yet to have thrown out doubts concerning them, is a thing not altogether without its use." Aristot. Præd. p. 40. edit. Sylb.

r

The subject-matter is the same in many succeeding beings ; as the river is the same, which, as it fows along, reflects many dif ferent objects. It is in this sense we are to

natural production, appears an act, if not of hostility, at least of separation; a secession from the general mass; a kind of revolt from the greater bulk in favour of a smaller; which smaller would detach itself, and, were it able, be independent.

In a word, as friendship, by cementing multitude, produces union; so strife, by dissolving union, produces multitude; and it is by multitude that the world becomes diversified and replenished.

And hence we may perceive the meaning of what Heraclitus says in Plutarch, where he calls "war, the father and king and lord of all things ;" and asserts, " that when Homer prayed,

That strife be banished both from gods and men,

he was not aware that he was cursing the generation of all things; as, in fact, they deduce their rise out of contest and antipathy." The same philosopher adds immediately, "that the sun could not pass his appointed bounds: that otherwise, if he could,

Tongues he would find to patronise the cause:"

meaning, by this mythological way of talking, that the sun could not desert his course, because so much depended on it; or otherwise, if he could, that being himself one of the primary authors of generation upon this earth, and well knowing how much strife cooperated in the same work, he would surely look out for an advocate (were such any where existing) to defend the cause of strife against the calumnies of Homer.s

understand the following assertion, and not with the least view to equivocal production.

Οὐκοῦν διὰ τὸ τὴν τοῦδε φθορὰν ἄλλου εἶναι γένεσιν, καὶ τὴν τοῦδε γένεσιν ἄλλου εἶναι φθορὰν, ἅπαυστον ἀναγκαῖον εἶναι τὴν μETABOληY: "Wherefore, from the dissolution of one thing being the generation of another, and the generation of one thing being the dissolution of another, it necessarily follows that the change must be perpetual, and never cease." Arist. de Gen. et Corr. 1. i. c. 3. p. 10. edit. Sylb.

The change here alluded to is the common course of nature in the production of beings, which, were it not for the process above mentioned, would either soon be at a stand, or would require a perpetual miracle for the supply of new materials.

'Нpákλeiтos μèv yàp ǎvтiкρus tóλeμov ὀνομάζει πατέρα καὶ βασιλέα καὶ κύριον πάντων· καὶ τὸν μὲν Ομηρον, εὐχόμενον,

Εκ τε θεῶν ἔριν, ἔκ τ ̓ ἀνθρώπων ἀπολέσθαι,

λανθάνειν φησὶ τῇ πάντων γενέσει καταρώμενον, ἐκ μάχης καὶ ἀντιπαθείας τὴν γένεσιν ἐχόντων· ἥλιον δὲ μὴ ὑπερβήσεσθαι τοὺς προσήκοντας ὅρους· εἰ δὲ μὴ,

Γλώττας μιν δίκης ἐπικούρους ἐξευρήσειν.

Plutarch. de Isid. et Osir. p. 370. edit. Xyland. fol.

Dr. Squire, the late bishop of St. David's, has given a fair edition of this tract in the original, to which he has subjoined an English translation ; but (according to a practice too frequent with the best critics) he has, in the passage above quoted, attempted to mend, where no emendation was wanting.

Chalcidius plainly alludes to the same sentiment of Heraclitus in the following extract from his commentary on Plato's Timæus Proptereaque Numenius laudat Heraclium (lege Heraclitum) reprehendentem Homerum, qui optaverit interitum et vastitatem malis vitæ, quod non intelligeret mundum sibi deleri placere: si quidem sylva, quæ malorum fons est, exterminaretur. Chal. p. 396. edit. Meurs. 1617.

In the Greek quotation Homer is supposed to wish inadvertently against the generation of all things ; in the Latin, he wishes, in the same inadvertent manner, against the existence of sylva, that is, of " matter." The difference is easily reconciled, if we suppose matter to be the basis of generation, and to be essentially requisite to the existence of things generable and pe

Y