would distinguish between the men and their work. A great man is a great man for ever; the mind-scale remains, but the rating, or value of the produce, alters. There is no sliding-scale for the mind, it keeps its permanent place in all ages; it is, in its way, complete: not so the value of mind product, that is affected by what is to come afterwards. A great mind shall think greatly, and from the given premises justly; but let future discoveries overturn those premises, and what becomes of the deduction? As we have said, the mind-rank remains, but its conclusions, its outward work, falls. It must ever be so, for incomplete data are only known to be incomplete by the accession of that light which makes their darkness visible. No century elapses without leaving science in a very different state to that in which it found it; and in no science but medicine have we felt ourselves irrevocably pledged to the past. It is matter of notoriety how much reform has ever been opposed in medicine, and while enough alterations have been effected in its theory and practice to show that it can lay claim to no papal infallibility, no exemption from the universal law-progress, or death-yet the spirit in which all such change has been met, affords a serious warning, and an impressive lesson to the present day. Homœopathists bring us their statements, and we content ourselves with crying 'absurd.' 'Inquire,' say they; 'by no means,' say we. 'Examine;' not to be thought of. Try it for yourselves;' 'do you mean to insult us? Opinions that might fairly have weight if they were the result of earnest inquiry, are worse than valueless given as pre-judgments. We cannot have those who have never even been up to the starting-post, claiming to have reached the goal.

Another objection, or rather opposition raised, is that the cures of homœopathy are effected through the imagination; and people go on talking of belief and unbelief, 'faith, and want of faith,' as if they spoke of some mysterious abracadabra, some mystic incantation, which could only take effect upon the faithful. As to this imagination hypothesis, it must surely have been a lively one which originated it. Anything more unpretendingly simple, never was propounded in medicine. What the imagination can find to feed on in homœopathic globules, rather than in the potent pill-boxes, and many coloured draughts of allopathy, we confess ourselves unable to discover. But it is something that the cures are admitted, and only the means questioned; while such a suggestion from the administrators of those precious simples,' laudanum and calomel, comes strangely. If imagination can cure disease, by all means let her work, and give her all the credit, but don't give her the calomel, for you

see she does not need it. If globules, or bread pills suffice, anything more becomes superfluous cruelty.

At any rate there is one class of patients who cannot well be supposed to be victimized by the freaks and vagaries of the imagination—that of young children, in the treatment of whom homœopathists have always laid claim to signal success. Let

this be looked into. If correct, there is at once a moral gain in the absence of irritation and annoyance, and consequent habits of peevishness, which we too often see superinduced in them under severe medical treatment.

But, in fact, we suspect imagination has favoured allopathic practice far more than the homoeopathic may venture to expect. Many people like the formalities and etiquettes of invalidism, its fuss, and sympathy, and importance; and if they do not positively enjoy their miseries, they do most indubitably like something of excitement and outward appliance in getting out of them. We once heard an invalid lady gravely founding her distrust of the efficacy of homoeopathy on the absence of all suffering. 'Why,' said she, with the manner of one stating an unanswerable argument,' I never should know I was really cured in that way.' We ventured with becoming diffidence to suggest, that a fact of that kind might be allowed to speak for itself. No, no,' said she, with an air of logical acuteness, there is no satisfaction in that sort of thing.'

We agree with her, that there is to the many so little satisfaction in that sort of thing,' that it is not calculated to attract. It is certain, that be homoeopathy true or be it false, it would be far more rapid in progress, find a far readier and more general acceptance, if it dealt more in tangibilities. Something refreshingly nauseous, re-assuringly unpalatable, would find more favour, absurd as the assertion may appear; for to many, in medicine as in morals, good is not good until it has been duly absinthiated. It is somewhat to the credit of homeopathists that they have so strictly abstained from playing into the popular weakness. To communicate something of colour, taste, and substance to their medicines would be the easiest thing in the world-but what then?

And why should witless man so much mis-ween
That nothing is but that which he hath seen ?'*

Glasses of what looks like pure water, and tiny boxes of fractional globules may seem weak agents, but if the retreat of a malady is effected, and its return prevented, then the absence

* Spenser.

of a more marked agency need not act more unfavourably on our serenity than the fact that we do not see the grass grow nor hear the snow fall. The effects may be gradual, and thus less striking, but they are so far in accordance with those of Nature, which does not generally work by convulsions. All her more usual and most beneficent operations are silent, gradual, and progressive. To the same class of objectors or demurrers belong those who would refer the cures of homœopathy to superior attention to minor rules, simplicity of diet, &c. If this be so, why was it not sooner found out and acted upon? How thankful we may be for the innovation; but if diet can cure disease, what becomes of allopathy?

After all, let success be the test. To use the words of a German writer, though in a sense which he certainly never contemplated, Everything through which we are bettered is true.' Whether this test would prove favourable to homeopathy we cannot decide, nor are we solicitous to do so in this place. We have only entered on the subject as one belonging to our day, and which calls for investigation. We have no favour to one party more than the other, and have wished to show none, unless something of a desire to befriend the oppressed, as 'oppressed,' rather than the oppressor as 'oppressor,' should be so construed. We have sincerely desired to keep simply to the truth, and all we wish is the examination of the subject by competent inquirers. In objective science there is not the same ground, or shadow of a ground for opposing inquiry, which some minds find for disliking its incursions into the regions of speculative philosophy. In science, inquiry and error must ever act antagonistically-one will and must extinguish the other. Errors in science, in their very nature, have a limited life. By allowing their free development we secure their removal; by suppressing it we prolong their existence, and cherish a vital energy which their natural growth would never have supplied. Let homœopathy be investigated in a spirit and manner suited to the subject. It may be a mixture of truth and error, if so let us accept the good without caring whence it comes, and reject the evil in the same way; or it may be a great truth, in which case let us have it by all means. Or, finally, it may be altogether erroneous; if so, in the name of common sense, let that be made clear, and the whole concern swept into nonentity, to leave the path clear for something better.

29

ART. III.-1. Addresses and Charges of Edward Stanley, D.D., late Bishop of Norwich. With a Memoir. By his son, Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of University College, Oxford. London: John Murray.

2. Brief Memoir of Edward Stanley, D.D., Bishop of Norwich. By John Alexander, Minister of Princes'-street chapel, Norwich. Norwich: Josiah Fletcher, and Jarrold and Sons. London: Jackson and Walford.

1850.

WE presume that Mr. Stanley's elevation to the episcopal bench must have surprised his friends as it evidently did surprise himself. For the clerical office generally, he had no strong predilection. His son tells us

'It was obvious that, under ordinary circumstances, the clerical calling would not have been deemed his natural vocation.'-p. 6.

For the episcopal office he appears to have had a strong personal distaste. In his case we verily believe that the nolo episcopari was a profession accordant with truth. We are not sure that he would have appeared on the hustings in Anglesey to aid a ministerial candidate on an emergency, had he imagined that his efforts there would conduce to his promotion to the episcopate. From an entry in his journal in 1842, it is certain he still repented having taken on himself the office of Bishop.

However, we find reason in the volumes before us to rejoice that he did so. His elevation provided the opportunity for ascertaining how far an upright and simple-minded man could render the occupation of a bishopric subservient to the furtherance of charity and truth.

That Mr. Stanley would surely aim to further them, might have been known from his previous clerical career. Not many country clergymen have used their influence as the Rector of Alderley had been accustomed to use his. Introduced to his parishioners with all the advantages connected with a valuable "family living," he devoted himself assiduously to their welfare, and for nearly thirty years spared no pains to promote their temporal and spiritual good.

We have rarely been more interested than by some of the incidents of the rector's life. The following is a specimen:

To repress the great evil of drunkenness he spared no personal sacrifice." "Whenever," such was the homely expression of the people, "whenever there was a drunken fight down at the village, and he knew of it, he would always come out to stop it-there was such a spirit in him."

On one of these occasions, tidings were brought to him of a riotous crowd which had assembled to witness a desperate prize fight, adjourned to the outskirts of his parish, and which the respectable inhabitants were unable to disperse.

"The whole field," so one of the humbler neighbours represented it, “was filled, and all the trees round about-when, in about a quarter of an hour, I saw the rector coming up the road, on his little black horse, as quick as lightning, and I trembled for fear they should harm him. He rode into the field, and just looked quick round to see who there was who would be on his side. But it was not needed-he rode into the midst of the crowd, and in one moment it was all over: there was a great calm : the blows stopped; it was as if they would all have wished to cover themselves up in the earth-all from the trees they dropped down directly-no one said a word, and all went away humbled. The next day he sent for the two men, not to scold them, but to speak to them, and sent them away each with a Bible. The effect on the neighbourhood was very great."'—p. 140.

The influence he exerted when an emergency arose was a very natural consequence of the course which his biographer thus describes :

"He made himself not only the minister but the friend of his parishioners. Without losing, for a moment, the advantage which birth and station always give to an English gentleman in his dealings with the poor, he yet descended to the level of their tastes and pursuits-he entered into their humour, and tried to make them enter into his-he caressed their children, and through them won the hearts of their parents-he accommodated his addresses in the pulpit, and his conversation in the cottages, to their simple apprehensions When he looked into the schools

it was not merely to glance round the classes, nor to ask a few formal questions, but he had something to say to each individual scholar, of encouragement or rebuke. In his rides round the parish the children used to run out of the houses to catch the wonted smile or gesture of the rector as he passed In the winter evenings he lent out books to read; and generally for anything that was wanted, whether in the way of advice or relief, his house was the constant resort of all who were in difficulty.'-pp. 12, 13.

But though thus actively employed in his parish, he was not indifferent to more public and general claims. He became known as a church reformer, and published several pamphlets on matters of passing interest. He travelled, and wrote most graphic accounts of his travels. He took a highly reputable position amongst our scientific men. Nothing indeed seemed wanting to render him the beau ideal of an English rector. Philanthropy, intelligence, and moral excellence were remarkably blended with ample resources and honourable rank. It must be allowed us to record also, that in Mr. Stanley's conjugal and