are, as a religious people, timid and terrified like the startled hare of the forest. We are closing our ears to the new revelation, as the old world closed its ears to the revelation which God made by the mouth of Luther, and Zuingle and Calvin.

But still, in spite of us, the majestic wave of progress moves on, submerging the worn-out beliefs and crumbling superstitions of the past. Strong and irresistible as the rolling tides of the sea come the new impulses, and we may not stay them. We deem them wild and lying spirits; they care not, they pass us by, they are full of holy scorn; they speak to their own and their own receive them, and we may go hence and mutter our threats, and tremble in the darkness and spiritual gloom of our empty churches; but outside our churches the bright light is shining, and the blessed winds of heaven are full of songs from the open gates of paradise, and men hear them and rejoice. How many are there, religious people, who never go to church, who despise Christianity, because they have only known it in connection with the forms of a barren worship, who despise Christianity, and yet are living high Christian lives. Thus we begin to see that although man has tried to imprison this glorious and free spirit in his Creeds and Articles, yet he cannot do it. There is a Christian spirit-be it said to our shameworking outside the Christian Church, an unacknowledged and anathematized Christianity still going on its triumphant way, leaving us alone in our orthodox sepulchres with the bones and ashes of bigotry and formalism.

the most characteristic form of the religious spirit in the present age? If I look at the bright side I should say it is Philanthropy; and where do we get this word "Philanthropy?" Men used to care for themselves, their own family, their own society, and their own nation, but Jesus Christ revealed a moral tie and a spiritual communion which was superior even to the bond which bound together the members of one family. He told us that there were no bars between nations, that we were all of one blood, and one in the sight of God. Every philanthropic movement, every hospital that rises, every church erected in this great and populous city, has its roots deep down in the principle, announced by Jesus Christ, of the constraining love of our brother men. That philanthropy is the great principle upon which the Church of Jesus Christ is founded; we can say literally, with regard to all deeds of mercy, love, self-sacrifice, "the love of Christ constraineth us." This survives, the spirit of a Divine life is still operative.

Christianity has survived many shocks. Let me once more remind you how many. It has survived the metaphysical speculations of the Alexandrine school and the subtleties of a mongrel Greek and Asian philosophy, those speculations which were so true to their authors, and which are so unintelligible to us; it has survived the winking of saints, and the mediæval Mariolatry, and the handkerchiefs of St. Veronica, and all kinds of silly visions and foolish revelations; it has survived historical criticism, and it will survive what are called the attacks But whose is still the figure that inspires all of modern science. It will go on still as it has that is best and wisest in modern philanthropy gone on; you never can annihilate the princiand modern faith? The ideal form of the ples upon which the Christian Church is foundChrist still moves before us, and still we strug-ed. Reduced to their simplest terms, stripped gle after the forever attainable yet unattained. of casuistry, priestcraft, and superstition, they His life doctrine of the universal brotherhood of man is still the latest cry. Have we not but just now (1871) had a hideous parody of it in the Communism of the late revolution in Paris? Do not our own legislators begin to feel that peace and good-will can only be established between workmen and masters, between rich and poor, between learned and ignorant, by caring for all alike, by rescuing class from the oppression of class and then binding all classes together by common interests as members of a sacred polity of justice and mercy? What is

are seen to be the ultimate principles upon which human society depends for its happiness, I had almost said for its prolonged existence. Therefore, He who is Himself the incarnation of these principles, He who loved His fellowman as never man loved another, He who spake as never man spake, He who was at one with God as man has never been since, He is still the Way, the Life, and the Truth to us; "Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever."

And, lastly, I come to trace the Law of Pro

BOOK REVIEWS.

CALIBAN: THE MISSING LINK. By Daniel Wil-
son, LL.D., Professor of English Literature and
History in University College, Toronto. London:
MacMillan & Co.

It is needless to remark that it is next to impossible for a critic to do adequate justice to such a manysided work as the present one. We shail, therefore, deal with it exclusively as a very important contribution to the ever increasing literature of "Darwinisms." Of the literary merits of the work it is quitè unnecessary for us to pass any judgment, since the author is dealing with a subject which he has made peculiarly his own.

Dr. Wilson begins by pointing out that the most eminent zoologists agree in the statement that man is separated from the Anthropoid Apes as regards his physical and merely anatomical peculiarities, by a gulf less wide than that which separates the latter from the lower Quadrumana. This is certainly true, as far as mere brain-characters are concerned; but in other respects man does differ anatomically from the higher apes more than these do from the lower ones; and, as the author pertinently remarks, the acceptance of the above dictum "may well raise a doubt as to the fitness of a test which admits of such close affinities physically, and such enormous diversities morally and intellectually." On the Darwinian

Dr. Wilson's new work is an admirable example of how two apparently diverse and disconnected departments of human knowledge may be brought together and welded into a homogeneous whole, by one who has an equally far-reaching knowledge of both subjects. Equally eminent in literature and science, Dr. Wilson has achieved in the present work the intellectual feat of bringing his knowledge of an apparently purely literary subject to bear in a most effective manner upon a doctrine which has hitherto been regarded as belonging exclusively to the domain of science. "Caliban" treats of two entirely different subjects; and yet the two are so artfully interwoven, that it might find a place with equal propriety in the library of the literary student or in that of the more scientific observer. The work, therefore, may be re- | garded from two points of view: Ist, as a powerful and cogent piece of argumentation against the modern Theory of Evolution as applied to man, and, 2ndly, as an elaborate literary criticism of Shake-hypothesis, man is descended from the same stock as speare's "Tempest," and Browning's "Caliban on the higher apes; these from still lower mammals; Setebos." From the first point of view, the author these again from more degraded types of vertebrate endeavours to show that Shakespeare "had present-life; and so downwards, till the vertebrata are found ed, in the clear mirror of his matchless realizations alike of the natural and supernatural, the vivid conception of that amphibious piece between corporal and spiritual essence,' by which, according to modern hypothesis, the human mind is conjoined in nature and origin with the very lowest forms of vital organism." He shows that Shakespeare has thus left for us 66 materials not without their value in discussing, even prosaically and literally, the imaginary perfectability of the irrational brute; the imaginable degradation of rational man.” Side by side with the Caliban of Shakespeare, he places the Caliban of Browning; and he shows us how "the new ideal of the same intermediate being" has been altered, almost beyond recognition, by the mighty change in thought and belief which has swept over the civilized world since the Elizabethan era. From the second point of view, the author devotes himself to a careful exposition of "the literary excellences and the textual difficulties of the two dramas of Shakespeare chiefly appealed to in illustration of the scientific element of enquiry."

to take their rise in some marine groups of invertebrates, probably nearly allied to the existing seasquirts or ascidians. The immediate progenitors of man, according to Darwin, "were no doubt once covered with hair, both sexes having beards: their ears were pointed and capable of movement, and their bodies were provided with a tail having the proper muscles." They are supposed to have lived mainly in trees in "some warm, forest-clad land," and the males must have been provided with great canine teeth which served as formidable weapons of offence and defence. This product of the imagination of the evolutionist is, however, not as yet man : he "is still irrational and dumb, or at best only entering on the threshold of that transitional stage of anthropomorphism which is to transform him into the rational being endowed with speech." The vastness of the transformation demanded by the Darwinian theory is thus described by Dr. Wilson :On the one hand we have "the irrational creature naturally provided with clothing-hairy, woolly, feathery or the like, armed and furnished in its own

structure with every needful tool; and endowed with the requisite weaving, cell-making, mining, nest-building instincts, independent of all instruction, experience, or accumulated knowledge. On the other hand is man, naked, unarmed, unprovided with tools, naturally the most helpless, defenceless of all animals; but by means of his reason, clothing, arming, housing himself, and assuming the mastery over the whole irrational creation, as well as over inanimate nature. With the aid of fire he can adapt not only the products but the climates of the most widely severed latitudes to his requirements. He cooks, and the ample range of animal and vegetable life in every climate yields him wholesome nutriment. Wood, bone, flint, shells, stone, and at length the native and unwrought metals, arm him, furnish him with tools-with steamships, railroads, telegraphic cables. He is lord of all this nether world."

ture; but that the very degradation which makes him a savage, removes him far from the normal, natural man on the one hand, and still further from the brute on the other hand. On the contrary, the savage "exhibits just such an abnormal deterioration from his true condition as is consistent with the perverted free-will of the rational free agent that he is. He is controlled by motives and impulses radically diverse from any brute instinct. This very capacity for moral degradation is one of the distinctions which separate man by a no less impassable barrier than his latent aptitude for highest intellectual development, from all other living creatures.”

Developing his argument still further, the author points out that, in constructing their hypothetical ladder between man and the higher mammals, the disciples of Darwin have to face the almost insuperable difficulty, that their imaginary semi-human transition form would necessarily have a worse chance of surviving in "the struggle for existence" than either the fully developed man or the fully developed brute. The transition can only be effected by the medium of some form in which neither the mental powers of the man nor the physical powers of the brute are present to an extent sufficient for the exigences of bare existence. In the supposed process "of exchanging native instincts and weapons, strength of muscle, and natural clothing for the compensating intellect, the transmuted brute must have reached a stage in whieh it was inferior in intellect to the very lowest existing savages, and in brute force to the lower animals." It has yet to be shown by the advocates of evolution how any imaginable process of "selection" could have preserved a being so helpless.

The enormous difficulty presented by this supposed transition is laid bare by Dr. Wilson, in the most convincing and masterly manner. He points out that "it is not merely that intermediate transitional forms are wanting: the far greater difficulty remains by any legitimate process of induction to realise that evolution which consistently links, by natural gradations, the brute in absolute subjection to the laws of matter, and the rational being ruling over animate and inanimate nature by force of intellect." He points out that "the difficulty is not to conceive of the transitional form, but of the transitional mind;" and he strongly expresses the opinion, which his great ethnological knowledge renders of special value, that the lowest savage can be regarded as nothing less than man, and that “it can with no propriety be said of him that he has only doubtfully attained the rank of manhood." The savage, however degraded, is in no stage of transition; he is not half brute and half man; and "his mental faculties are only dormant, not undevel-acter of the hypothetical being which is supposed to oped." All his mental energies are expended in maintaining a precarious existence, in keeping up a daily fight against the forces of nature and his living enemies. Nevertheless, "the infant, even of the savage, ere it has completed its third year, does daily and hourly, without attracting notice, what surpasses every marvel of the 'half-reasoning' elephant or dog. In truth, the difference between the Australian savage and a Shakespeare or a Newton is trifling, compared with the unbridged gulf which separates im from the very wisest of dogs or apes."

Dr. Wilson again lays great stress upon an argument which, to our mind, is extremely weighty, though it has been wholly ignored by the advocates of evolution. He points out, namely, that the savage is not to be regarded as being the nearest approach which we have to man in a state of na

The scientific man has hitherto failed to depict in sufficiently bold outlines, the form and mental char

have formed the intermediate link between the man and the brute. Dr. Wilson, however, points out that the genius of Shakespeare has “dealt with the very conception which now seems so difficult to realize, and, untrammelled alike by Darwinian theories, or anti-Darwinian prejudices, gave the airy nothing a local habitation and a name.'” Caliban is the "missing link."

Reluctantly leaving the subtle analysis and brilliant reasoning of the first two chapters of this fascinating work, we are introduced in Chapter III. to "Caliban's Island." The curtain rises, and we see "the ocean tides rise and fall upon the yellow sands of Prospero's Island,” as yet unmarked in any sailor's chart. If space permitted, we would gladly linger a while upon the enchanted isle; we would study Caliban, first as the monster of Shakespeare's drama,

then as the metaphysician and theologian of Browning's poem. We will not, however, do Dr. Wilson the injustice of attempting to give in brief what must be read in his own graceful and eloquent words to be properly appreciated. We will only say that no cultivated mind can fail to feel the living charm of our author's analysis of the poetical conceptions of Shake

speare and Browning; whilst the work will be welcomed by every scientific man who believes in the ultimate victory of the Spiritual as opposed to the Materialistic Philosophy. The world has to thank Dr. Wilson for a work which is in itself both a poem and a valuable contribution to science.

LITERARY NOTES.

One of the subjects connected with colonial affairs which has been long pressing for consideration and settlement in England is the question of Literary Copyright, and the right of Colonies to traffic in foreign reprints of English copyright works.

to his honour to give such remuneration as he might, from the sales in both his own and the Colonial market. Verily, a strange policy! The Act our Parliament passed last session to remove the disabilities under which the native trade lie, and to protect the Without opening the subject of the nature of Copy-author, has been disallowed by the Home authoriright, or desiring to question the right claimed for property so intangible-but which, fortunately, is limited by law in its privilege and operation-we, however, cannot refer to this matter without expressing our disapproval of the policy of the publishing trade in its management of that property.

As the trade regard the character of the property, it is a serious injury to the public, and a mistake in their business administration. Antagonistic to the principle of free trade, it is open to objection on that account; and as a monopoly, especially as it concerns education and intelligence, its policy is the more questionable.

ties, and the situation seems disheartening. The obtuseness and perversity of the official mind at Downing Street is proverbial, but it was hardly to have been expected that, after pressing the matter upon the attention of the Colonial Office for years, as has been done, in the interest of the author, and in justice to our native producing trade, so decided a repression of the liberty of self-government should be advised us. The impolicy of this course is the more apparent when it is considered that, while aiding our own industries, as against those of an alien people, we were, by the Act, making due provision for the author's remuneration, which has been disre

Particularly, however, in regard to Colonial Copy-garded hitherto. We understand that at last the right the action of British publishers, together with the Imperial Authorities, has been most impolitic and injurious to all interests. In the absence of an | universal Copyright Act, and especially while with the United States Government no international treaty existed, how short-sighted has been the conduct of the Mother Country in forcing, by its legislation, the conventionalities and conservative restrictions of a huge monopoly on the Colonial book trade, which is legally free, at the same time, to buy the untaxed reprint of American producers.

The position of Canada in regard to this subject, as our readers well know, has been most anomalous; and the fetters which have been placed upon the publishing trade of the country has been a serious check to the intellectual advancement of the community.

That this has been the case, while neither the British author or publisher has profited by the legal restrictions imposed upon the trade, shows the absurdity of the present state of things. We have had all the license to trade in cheap reprints of British copyrights, but we have not had the license to do that justice to the copyright owner which our native publishers would have willingly rendered, had they had the privilege extended to them of producing for their own market, even in competition with the American reprinter. Compensate the author, has always been the cry. But an embargo has always lain upon the native publisher to do justice, under legal penalties, while the American has had it left

subject has been referred by the Imperial authorities to the London Board of Trade, and we trust that the practical minds at the head of that Bureau will see the advantage and policy of adapting legislation to meet the exceptional circumstances of the case. Very modified opinions are now held by the British publishers in regard to the question, and we believe that, while conceding local publication of English copyrights in the Colonies-to compete with the American unauthorized reprints, which enter the Colonies under impracticable restrictions,-all that the British publisher now insists upon is to have the privilege, for a short period after publication of a copyright, of placing a popular English edition on the market so as to conserve the Colonial fields to himself. This privilege, we need not say, will be readily granted in the Colonies; and surely there should be no difficulty now in framing such legislation as will continue to the Colonial markets the boon of popular editions-of English or native manufacture, rather than American,--and which compensate the author in proportion to the extended fields secured to him.

The author, we dare say, will find it to his advantage to exchange in England the system of limited high-priced editions for extensive cheap ones; and thus remove the occasion for the charge that the English reader is taxed for himself and the Colonist, while literature would be made a more incalculable blessing to all than has hitherto been dreamt of.

By the time the present number reaches our read