“It is not to be denied that there may be a regret and disturbance naturally felt at having to give up our belief that the planets and the stars probably contain servants and worshippers of God. It must always be a matter of pain and trouble, to be urged with tenderness, and to be performed in time, to untwine our reverential religious sentiments from erroneous views of the constitution of the Universe with which they have been involved. But the change once made, it is found that religion is uninjured, and reverence undiminished. And therefore we trust that the reader will receive with candour and patience the argument which we have to offer with reference to this view, or, rather, this sentiment.” In this tone of manly modesty is expressed the whole of this really remarkable work; but all competent readers will also be struck by the dignified consciousness of power associated with that modesty. These two characteristics have invested this book with a certain charm, in our eyes, which we cannot but thus avow, after having given his _Essay_, and the _Dialogue_, in which he deals with various objectors to his _Essay_, due consideration. A calm perusal of that _Dialogue_ may suggest to shrewd opponents the necessity of approaching the writer of it with caution. Here, then, we have a man of first-rate intellectual power, a practised and skilful dialectician, formidably familiar with almost every department of physical science, in its latest and highest development; an eminent moral writer and academical teacher, and an orthodox clergyman in the Church of England, coming forward deliberately to commit himself to opinions which he acknowledges he does not publish “without some fear of giving offense:”—opinions at variance with those not only popularly held, but maintained by perhaps three-fourths of even scientific persons who have bestowed attention on the subject. Who can doubt his _right_ to do so, especially in a calm and temperate spirit, as contradistinguished to one of arrogance and dogmatism? None but a fool would rush angrily forward, to encounter such an author with harsh and heated language, or derogatory and uncharitable insinuations and imputations. A philosophical and duly qualified opponent would act differently. He would say, In this age of free inquiry, no matter how bold and serious the attack on preconceptions and long-established opinion and belief, if it be made in a grave and manly spirit of inquiry and argument, and especially by one whose eminent character, qualifications, and position, entitle his suggestions and speculations to deliberate consideration, that deliberate consideration they must have. “I have presented,” says the writer of the _Essay_, in the _Dialogue_, “gravely and calmly, the views and arguments which occurred to my mind, on a question which many persons think an interesting one; and if any one will introduce any other temper into the discussion of