will rush into each other's embrace, and constitute little diamonds, which will grow bigger by accretion. I know that these carbon-atoms are very coy; no one has ever yet induced them to take the final step, but time, my friend,-time will work wonders. Again, the rubies for the holes are nothing more than alumina, with a small quantity of iron, and a trace of lime, which they can easily pick up; and pipe-clay is the handiest source of pure alumina that I can suggest to you."-Is not the unintentioned evolution of organised beings indefinitely more absurd, d fortiori, than this?

If any hearer or reader of this address should think that a little banter is out of place in so serious a subject, he may, with all due respect, be reminded of the opinion of a profound thinker of the olden time, that

In conclusion, as the adaptation of means to beneficent ends, such as those which have been imperfectly described, are the more special and recondite, it may fairly be assumed that in the same proportion they bear the stronger evidence of the boundless wisdom and goodness of the Creator; well indeed may the devout believer exclaim with heartfelt gratitude,

"When all Thy mercies, O my God,
My raptured soul surveys,
Transported with the view, I'm lost
In wonder, love, and praise."

BIBLIO

THE

PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY.

BY THE

REV. CANON BIRKS, M.A.,

PROFESSOR of moral PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN

RESPONSIBILITY.

S Man responsible at all for his conduct? On what

Is

fact or principle in his nature does this responsibility rest? Why must he make answer for himself, and to whom? Is there any ground in the reason of things to confirm the sayings of Scripture: "It is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment;" "So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God"? These are the questions now before us. They call for a grave examination, and, if possible, a clear reply; for they plainly involve an issue of immense importance to ourselves and to all mankind.

There is in these days, you are aware, a so-called philosophy, which denies that man is a responsible being. He is, in its view, a certain amount of developed protoplasm, or of transformed solar force, which has some strange dreams it mistakes for realities, and thus fancies itself to be an individual being, a respon