،، the truth of god!" How perfectly in keep- It is a singular circumstance that three parties from one firm, and that not a very extensive one, evidently opposed to anything like socialism, should have attended a lecture upon "Home Colonization," wherein there was not much probability that theology would be touched upon, unless introduced by questioning at the conclusion; which, singularly enough, took place, and very probably formed a part of the plan. Unless one of the trio was a reporter, I can speak from pretty extensive experience in these matters, it is somewhat unusual for journeymen to furnish editors with reports of lectures or public meet ings, voluntarily; the intimacy between the two parties not generally leading to such results. But supposing one to be a reporter, the other two would still appear to have gone as witnesses. sive, that they delayed his arrest in the hope that he would, by reiterating his former opinions, or by defending them, furnish a better pretext for his detention. An attempt was made to revive the question of "the existence of deity, but Mr. Holyoake declined entering into the question at that time as the meeting was called for another object." Query.--Is the person who induced Pearce to attend the lecture the same with the superintendent? The coincidence is singular, if not so. The sapient Mr. Capper believed any person had a right to arrest the prisoner without a warrant, and upon his belief he does not scruple to interfere with the liberty of the subject, and send a couple of blue-coated ruffians to drag an "unresisting youth" before him, whom he insulted and disgusted with his ignorance and want of decency. "No heathen in the world,” said this Midas, deuies the existence of a god," and for this reason he thinks it "not only wickedness but folly" to dispute it. Henceforward philosophy must be tested by ignorance, and that only be considered true which the heathen will admit. I would suggest the test being applied to Christianity, and acted upon. 66 The following is from the editor's remarks in the Free Press :-" A young man, named Holyoake, who had become embittered against "religionists" through the imprison ment of a friend who avowed atheistical principles, publicly denied, in answer to a question, his belief in the existence of a god. Such an avowal called for a visit from some minister of religion, to reason and converse with him, in order that he might be convinced that there is a god who ruleth over all, and that the spirit of christianity is holy, just, and right. Such was not the course adopted, but policemen were despatched to bring the unresisting youth before the civil magistrates, and he is now committed to take his trial for the offence, and his punishment will probably be a long term of imprisonment. And is this calculated to soften his heart? No. His sense of the injustice which he endures will harden him in unbelief, and he will walk forth from his dungeon with his heart steeled against conviction, and with a stronger determina tion than ever to obtain converts to his mode of thinking. Oh! when will Christians cease to act as though they disbelieved the power of those doctrines they profess ? " Dismissing the idea of malice aforethought, and looking upon it as unpremeditated, how like a well-paid son of the "scarlet whore," Again, we are told that the police were is the resort to physical force instead of ar "ordered to use every exertion to bring him gument; to the brutal instruments of magis(Mr. H.) to justice," and yet they allow him terial tyranny, instead of the influence of the to attend a public meeting, and speak there holy ghost; to the dungeon, instead of the for some time (when he might have again church! Do those in authority imagine they blasphemed) and never attempt to interfere will ever be allowed the exclusive use of with him. This fact. to my mind, is conclu- | physical force, and that the insulted and in XVI. jured multitude will not, at no distant period, | THEORY OF REGULAR GRADATION. turn and rend them? Do they imagine that the examples of violence they so industriously set, will not be copied, and practised upon the teachers? Every prosecution for blasphemy, by producing feelings of disgust and indignation in the minds of the intelligent members of society, and in its re-action upon the public mind, obliges bigotry to moderate its fury, and restrain its thirst for freemen's blood! Every gross outrage against the common rights of humanity, by the surpliced bandits that infest society, or in support of their interests, proves the absolute necessity, if we ever expect to emancipate ourselves and our children, of declaring war, uncompromising and exterminating to the altar and the priest! Aye, even WAR TO THE KNIFE ! Those who would be free, themselves must strike the blow! The enemies of tyranny, and friends and advocates of freedom of expression, are again called upon to exert themselves, as they did in the case of Mr. SOUTHWELL, with the certainty that similar good will be the result; and that the means taken to stop these opinions only accelerate their diffusion. No sooner was Mr. H. arrested than an order was sent by a party at Cheltenham, to a bookseller, for a large supply of the chief atheistical and Infidel works, which was immediately supplied. Thus, books which otherwise would not have been heard of for months or years, are now generally diffused in an important and extensive locality; and through the channel which is opened a constant and healthy stream of knowledge will not cease to flow. One word at parting, every exertion made in SOUTHWELL'S cause should be trebled on the present occasion, for Holyoake "has given hostages to fortune"-having a wife and two children; whereas his friend had neither. The last remarks made by G. J. H., on Thursday evening last, were to the following effect: I have always found a great deal of kindness and courtesy in this room. Should anything happen to me it is not unlikely attempts will be made to traduce my moral character. I have a wife and two children of whom I am fond. If I have periled my liberty it is not without knowing the truth of those principles. We have attended meetings; I want to know whether the principles of liberty exist as they are talked about, and I have taken up the pen of Charles Southwell; I believe my wife would take a pleasure in my suffering if she knew it was caused by my daring to be an honest man, w.c. 'Tis the saint's godly maxim to beg for the pelf In behalf of the poor, and then keep it himself. In reference to the phenomena of organic life, they had a classification and structure of their own, often not the same we now behold; but it was impossible to doubt that the same class of agencies were concerned in influencing their forms and modes of life."-PHILLIPS, on Fossils. In my last, I gave Cuvier's and Grant's classification of the existing animal kingdom, which will be found of great value to the reader in considering the gradation and classification of extinct animals, or what are generally called fossils, found in the earth's strata. At the commencement of my labours (in No. 9) I stated my conviction, that animals were originally produced from the earth in consequence of a favourable condition of matter at the time, and that their lives were subsequently sustained from the same reason; but that whenever any material alteration of the locality in which certain animals resided took place, they either ac commodated themselves to the different circumstances, or became extinct. This opinion or hypothesis, the arguments and illustrations I shall now bring forward, in connection with the discoveries of geology will, I think, fully substantiate, or at any rate amply support. In fact, an unbiassed examination of fossil remains, taken in connection with the state of the earth at the period of their animated existence, and the changes which took place when they would appear to have been destroyed, must lead to such conclusion. + At one time, we find the earth unfitted for the existence of any condition of animal or vegetable life, the matter then consolidated having evidently been subjected to so great a heat as to melt or fuse it, and is thence called the plutonic series, consisting of the various granites. To these succeed deposits which may have contained organ ised forms, but from their proximity to the former series they have been so changed as to obliterate their remains, The next, or transition series, being further removed from these unfavourable circumstances, and ap parently fitted for the support of life, is found to contain plants and animals. And as we proceed. from the lower to the higher strata, so do we find the life-producing and lifesustaining properties of the strata increased; or, if this be not the case, we have evidence of a gradual increase in the varieties of organised matter, and an approximation to those forms which now inhabit our sphere. The following extract from a lecture delivered a few weeks since, by Professor Phillips, at the Manchester Royal Institu tion, beautifully illustrates my views, and is valuable as showing the heavy blows the progress of science is dealing to superstition generally, and more particularly to the Mosaic creatorial folly. He says: But, in reference to the causes which govern organic life, in reference to the degree in which these operate in a given time, it was tolerably apparent from the magnitude of some of the dislocations which have affected thousands of feet in height, and an immense extent of area-and it appeared to be clear from the evidence as to change of climate over a large surface of the ancient globe, derived from the study of organic remains-that the conditions under which these canses influenced life, and those influences and agencies of the aqueous and igneous rocks were different in the ancient world from what we now behold; and accordingly, it was probable therefore that the rate of progress must also be different. Now, upon this view, two speculations seemed naturally to arise:-Should we have the present state of the earth, its temperature, and the aspect of organic life, as one of a circle of changes which there may have been previously to it, in which some may be more violent than others? Or shall we suppose that the evidence leads to a different conclusion, and, instead of geological phenomena forming a circle, regard them as flowing on in a series, having something like a beginning, and tracing a series of alterations from the most ancient times to the present? First, in reference to the grand distinction between the stratified and unstratified rocks, the evidence was, that below all the stratified rocks there was a very extensive system of rocks produced by heat, but not such as any volcanos were now producing; and not only did that ancient period produce a far greater mass, but the rucks produced by heat appear to underlie all the stratified rocks, and were subject to fusion in consequence, as was supposed, of the communication of heat from the interior of the earth. Another fact was, that the most ancient stratified rocks very unequivocally showed themselves derived from the disintegration of the igneous rocks; those parts having been aggregated in water. This looked like the beginning of a series. The millstone grit was evidently a rock derived from disintegrated granite, and it was supposed that the sandstone rocks, if melted again, would form a granite. Perhaps it was hardly worth making a supposition about, unless the fact was found largely existing in nature. But he had shown the probability that there was au original condition of things totally different, in which the rocks, formed by the action of heat, were disintegrated, and again aggregated and deposited in new forms by the action and influences of water. As to organic life, he had shown that plants and animals had formed several series of créations; that we were able to class them into several successive groups of life; and it was very interesting to know that those west in the series were the most unlike existing types, and that most of the plants and animals of the lowest parts of the series were extinct; their general conformation unlike what we now behold, and we could trace a certain order of change; not like that of repetition, moving in a circle, but rather such as would belong to a series. We trace these forms of organic life rising higher and higher, till we could connect the whole in one general classification. This looked like a series and not a circle, Another thing looked still more important in this particular consideration, viz., the numbers of these organic remains. He had shown that in the lowest rocks, in a hundred feet of thickness, there were perhaps two or three species of shells; in the next above them, four or five; in the next they increased to eight or ten; and, in the tertiary series, he thought they exceeded 140 species. These lowest were not disturbed, but well preserved amongst the rocks, yet showing that the circumstances of then existing nature permitted but few species of organic life; yet they continually augmented, till, in the upper parts of the series, the numbers of species became extremely large; showing that, at that period, circumstances were extremely favourable to organic life. He Then, as to the forms of plants and animals, those found in the upper series were most like what we have now; so that the present aspect of the earth was most like the most recent change. Below these last the strata were of vast thickness, and in these were no traces of life; not that they were peculiarly unfit to preserve them, quite the contrary. would only, in conclusion, venture to place before his audience, in a very few words, the causes according to which a great number of geologists think, when fully worked out, we might have a tolerably clear knowledge of the series of these phenomena, and their way of influence. If we first consider the fact proved, that over the greatest portion of the northern zones of the world, during a large portion of time when the stratified rocks were accumulated, there was a high temperature both on the land and on the sea. If, further, we consider that, in the breaking up of the crust of the globe, the enormous effects of which operation were connected with the action of heat, and below all the stratified rocks there are proofs of the existence of immense masses of igneous rock; these considerations would link themselves into one general scale of speculationthat the earth must originally have been of the nature of a body so highly heated, that neither the atmosphere nor the water (if water existed at all) would be fit for organic life; and that, as the globe cooled down, both the atmosphere and water might acquire a condition more and more favourable continually to the development of organic life; so that the temperature, still going on cooling and breaking up the bed of the sea, dividing the mass of water into land, there would be introduced upon the globe that great variety of climates and combinations of circumstances which did not obtain in the earliest periods. That view, if worked out, would be found exceedingly interesting and fruitful of resultsmuch more so than was at present supposed. This, he might mention, was a view not thought unfa'vourably of by astronomers, but rather the contrary. However, there was this general speculation thrown out, in the hope that eventually the facts might be thus united. He believed that we had to pass through long periods of time before the establishment of any one general view as the explanation of this long series of phenomena. Another important feature in this inves Zechstein New Red Sandstone. Red conglomerate Coal .. Iguanodon Carboniferous Group. .. Zoophytes Shale Grauwacke TRANSITION. Grauwacke Group. or lowest fossiliferous tigation must not be overlooked. It is Whether or not I am justified in using the terms inferior and superior in relation to organisations, is not worthy of consideration here; in every instance I have, and shall continue to use the words in the popular senses, the better to convey my ideas. Although I shall begin from the fossils of the lowest stratum, and proceed upwards to the tertiary, the following table will be found of service to the reader, forming an appropriate companion to those given last week, and scarcely to be dispensed with in out present inquiry. FOSSILIFEROUS. AQUEOUS. Polypi Ammonites, nautili NON-FOSSILIFEROUS. PRIMARY. Inferior Stratified Series. Metamorphic The table reads from the bottom upwards. Commencing then with the transition series, composed of the grauwacke group, we first find vegetable and animal remains. former consist of algæ, or sea weeds, showing that seas like our own then existed; some land plants of simple structure, as ferns the flora of the era to have been of a and club mosses, are also found, showing very simple kind, and suited to live in marshy grounds. Amongst the animals there were abundance of polypi resem bling plants; but the most numerous class consisted of shell-fish, possibly, because better calculated for preservation. Also, the lily-encrinite a remarkable example of the radiated tribes; it is so called from its resemblance to a lily resting on its stalk. "It is supposed," says Mr. Gesner, "that the auimal resided in the bottom of the flower; and those portions of it which were moveable, stood stretched out like arms to seize its prey." It is altogether extinct, and has been so for many ages. Of the shell-fish, there were the ammonite and nautilus, the former receiving its name from the curved horn on the head of the statue of Jupiter Ammon; they are very common, and are called some parts "snake stones." The trilobite, another of the early species deserving particular attention, is now extinct, but the class to which it belongs (crustacea) serves to afford some knowledge of its habits. "The trilobite had a head and eyes, below which there was a body of no great length, covered with shelly plates in the manner of a lobster's tail, and terminating in a narrow rounded point. It is supposed that it had soft paddles to make way through the lands which existed were probably low and marshy, with a hot, moist atmosphere, so as to present an appropriate field of existence only for lizards, crocodiles, and creatures of similar character. It is also to be supposed that the land was at this period undergoing frequent changes and convulsions, so that only a class of creatures to which submersions and deluges were matters of indifference, could reside upon it without a great waste of life.* the water, which have not of course been pre- | posed to have been under so high a temperserved. But the most interesting feature inature as to be unsuitable for mammalia: the trilobite was its eyes, of which several specimens have been obtained in a nearly entire state. The eye of the trilobite has been formed with 400 spherical lenses in separate compartments on the surface of a cornea projecting conically upwards, so that the animal, in its usual place at the bottoms of waters, could see every thing around. As there are two eyes, one of the sides of each would have been useless, as it could only look across to meet the vision of the other; but on the inner sides there are no lenses, that nothing may, in accordance with a principle observable throughout nature, be throw away. It is found that in the serolis, a surviving kindred genus, the eyes are constructed on exactly the same principle, except that they are not so high, which seems a proper difference, as the back of the serolis is lower, and presents less obstruction to the creature's vision. It is also found that in all the trilobites of the later rocks, the eyes are the same." "A few bones of fishes have been found in the grauwacke; but some obscurity rests on the point. If such really have been the case, the remains of this era may be said to include specimens of all the four divisions of the animal kingdom-radiated, jointed, pulpy, and verterbrated animals, or radiata, articulata, mollusca, and vertabrata."* In the carboniferous group of the secondary series, the animal remains are much the same as those of the grauwacke. The vegetable remains of the new red sandstone group are much the same as the preceding; but in the department of animal, when we arrive at the muschelkalk, or shell limestone, we find a great difference, leading to the supposition that, at this era of geological chronology, "circumstances had arisen changing the character of marine life over certain portions of Europe; that certain animals abounding previously, and for a great length of time, disappeared never to reappear, at least as far as we can judge from our knowledge of organic remains;" + and that certain new forms of a very remarkable kind were added. The new creatures were of such a class as we might expect to be the first added to the few specimens of fish which had hitherto existed; they were of the class of reptiles, creatures whose organization places them next in the scale of creation to fish, but yet below the higher class of animals which bring forth their young alive and nourish them by suck (mammalia). The earth was as yet only fit to be a partial habitation to creatures breathing its atmosphere and living upon its productions. It is sup • Chambers's Information. "When we see," says Dr. Buckland, "that so large and important a range has been assigned to reptiles among the former population of our planet, we cannot but regard with feelings of new and unusual interest the comparatively diminutive existing orders of that most ancient family of quadrupeds, with the very name of which we usually associate a sentiment of disgust. We shall view them with less contempt, when we learn from the records of geological history, that there was a time when reptiles not only constituted the chief tenants and most powerful possessors of the earth, but extended their dominion also over the waters of the seas; and that the annals of their history may be traced back thousands of years antecedent to that latest point in the progressive stages of animal creation, when the first parents of the human race were called into existence."+ One of the most remarkable of these reptiles has received the name of ichthyosaurus (fish-lizard), seven species of which have been discovered. The head is like a crocodile's, body like a fish, with four paddles, like those of the whale tribe, instead of feet. It is mainly allied to the lizard tribe, but combined in itself the fish, the whale, and the ornithorynchus."‡ "As the form of the vertabræ by which it is associated with the class of fishes seems to have been introduced for the purpose of giving rapid motion in the water to a lizard inhabiting the element of fishes, so the further adoption of a structure in the legs, resembling the paddles of a whale, was superadded, in order to convert these extremities into powerful fins. The still further addition of a furcula and clavicles, like those of the ornithorynchus, offers a third and not less striking example of selection of contrivances, to enable animals of one class to live in the element of another class." § Such deviations, says Chambers, cannot be considered as monstrosities; they are perfect adaptations of a creature to its pur Chambers's Information. Bridgwater Treatise, i. 167. An aquatie of New Holland, enabled to descend to the bottoms of water to search for food. § Bridgwater Treatise, i. 185. |