That about the philosophic essays which interests us is their freshness, and the clear, easily lucid, and charmingly illustrated style in which the doctrines are conveyed. They assuredly are a very happy commentary upon Locke, from whom he often separates, as in the essay on “Innate Ideas;” he agrees with Locke in the main, and then proceeds to discourse upon many simple ideas which are innate in some sense. His essay to prove that the “Soul never Sleeps,” and “On the Place and Motion of Spirits, and the Power of a Spirit to move Matter,” are interesting; that on the “Departing and Separate Soul” is a sublime piece of writing, and on the “Resurrection of the same Body,” and on the “Production and Nourishment of Plants and Animals.” Few persons now, it may be supposed, even know of the existence of these essays; they seem to us pieces of truly delightful reading, most instructive, suggestive, and entertaining, singularly free from hard and unpleasant lines of dogmatism, full of delightful and suggestive pictures; take the following: SUNBEAMS AND STARBEAMS. “What a surprising work of God is vision, that notwithstanding all these infinite meetings and crossings of starbeams and sunbeams night and day, through all our solar world, there should be such a regular conveyance of light to every eye as to discern each star so distinctly by night, as well as all other objects on earth by day! And this difficulty and wonder will be greatly increased by considering the innumerable double, triple, and tenfold reflections and refractions of sunbeams, or daylight, near our earth, and among the various bodies on the surface of it. Let ten thousand men stand round a large elevated amphitheatre; in the middle of it, on a black plain, let ten thousand white round plates be placed, of two inches diameter, and at two inches distance; every eye must receive many rays of light reflected from every plate, in order to perceive its shape and colour; now, if there were but one ray of light came from each plate, here would be ten thousand rays falling on every single eye, which would make twenty thousand times ten thousand, that is, two hundred millions of rays crossing each other in direct lines in order to make every plate visible to every man. But if we suppose that each plate reflected one hundred rays, which is no unreasonable supposition, this would rise to twenty thousand millions. What an amazing thing is the distinct vision of the shape and colour of each plate by every eye, notwithstanding these confused crossings and rays! What an astonishing composition is the eye in all the coats and all the humours of it, to convey those ten thousand white images, or those millions of rays so distinct to the retina, and to impress and paint them all there! And what further amazement attends us if we follow the image on