any idea, there would certainly be nothing remaining to enliven and engage the mind. It was in gracious accommodation to the same peculiarities of our nature, that the greatest of all teachers, "He who knew what was in man," taught the people by parables.

The right conclusion has been drawn by one in whose history difficulties have merely been "Schools and Schoolmasters" to strengthen his native genius. "As the veil slowly rises," says Dr. Hugh Miller, "a new significancy seems to attach to all creation. The Creator, in the first ages of his workings, appears to have been associated with what he wrought simply as the producer or author of all things; but even in these ages, as scene rose after scene, and one dynasty of the inferior animals succeeded another, there were strange typical indications, which pre-Adamic students of prophecy, among the spiritual existences of the universe, might possibly have aspired to read,-symbolical indications to the effect that the Creator was, in the future, to be more intimately connected with his material works than in these ages, through a glorious creature made in his own image and likeness. And to this semblance and portraiture of the Deitythe first Adam-all the merely natural symbols seem to refer. But in the eternal decrees, it had been for ever determined that the union of the Creator with creation was not to be a mere union by proxy or semblance; and no sooner had the first Adam appeared and fallen, than a new school of prophecy began, in which type and symbol were mingled with what had now its first existence on earth; and all pointed to the second Adam, 'the Lord from Heaven.'1 In Him creation and the Creator

1 This extract is from a notice by Dr. Miller of the Article in the North British Review previously referred to. In the same article he shews wherein Oken had erred." Hence the remark of Oken, that man is the sum total of all the animals.' Hence, too, but with a still broader appreciation of the homologies which bear upon the lord of creation

met in reality, and not in semblance; on the very apex of the finished pyramid of being sits the adorable Monarch of all;-as the Son of Mary, of David, of the first Adam, the created of God,—as God and the Son of God, the eternal Creator of the universe. And these—the two Adams-form the main theme of all prophecy, natural and revealed. And that type and symbol should refer not only to the second, but, as held by such men as Agassiz and Owen, to the first Adam also, exemplifies, we are disposed to hold, the unity of the style of Deity, and serves to shew that it was He who created the worlds, that dictated the Scriptures."

SECT. II.-TYPICAL NUMBERS.

There is no subject on which a greater amount of extravagant statement has been made, both in ancient and modern times, than the significance of numbers. The Pythagoreans, and later Platonists, evidently sought for some inherent power in numbers to account for the numeral relations that appear in nature. In the pages of Philo-Judæus and Josephus, numbers have a theosophic signification. In more than one country, certain

as their central type, his essentially profane and erroneous remark, that man is God manifest in the flesh.' Let the reader, however, observe in what the error and profanity consists. There is a loose sense in which man is God manifest in the flesh;-he is God's image manifested in the flesh; and an image or likeness is a manifestation, or making evident, of that which it represents, whether it be an image or likeness of body or mind. Originally, at least in moral character, man was a manifestation of his Maker, and in intellect he is a manifestation of his Maker still. But the error and profanity of Oken consists in applying that to man, the image,--man, the being in whom merely the homologues or natural prophecies converge,-which is exclusively applied, in revelation, to a higher and more real manifestation of God in the flesh-that manifestation of very God himself which has formed the subject, not of natural, but of the revealed prophecies. The transcendentalist has gone, in his irreverent ignorance, a step too far; and yet his meaning seems real, though he himself mistook its nature, and employed improper language to convey it."-Wilness, Aug. 1851. We may here be permitted to express a wish that the author will some time or other republish a selection from the articles in the Witness newspaper; they would be acknowledged not to be inferior to the republications from any of the periodicals of our age.

numbers have been supposed to have a magical power. Commentators have discovered a mystical meaning in the special numbers which appear and reappear so constantly in the Word of God. Others have not known what to make of Scripture numbers, while not a few have looked with suspicion upon the passages which contain them, or the Bible, because it is so full of them.

The train of observation and reflection followed in this treatise, may help us to discover what is the true significancy of such numbers.

In comprehending and recollecting the isolated and scattered phenomena of nature, and in the scientific construction of them, in order to these ends, man's intellect needs such recurring numbers, and when he does not find them in nature, he places them there. Man seeks them, too, in chronology, as an aid at once to the memory, which calls up events by the law of correlation, and the contemplative intellect, which loves to collect objects into groups. So strong is this tendency, that when such relations are not found among events, mankind will create them from the stores of their own ingenuity, and will lengthen or shorten periods to suit them to the measure of their Procrustes' bed. Hence it is, that in the speculations of early philosophers, in history handed down by popular tradition, and in all mythic systems of religion, we have recurrent numbers, such as three and five, seven and ten. The existence of this mystical tendency in premature scientific speculation, should not lead us, by an extreme reaction, to affirm that numbers have no significancy in nature; it should merely guard us from adopting them too readily—that is, it should prevent us from receiving them without inductive evidence, which is now, however, superabundant. On a like principle, the numeral relations of mythic religions should not be

held as proving that biblical institutions and narratives are fabulous, simply because they contain recurrent numbers. It has been far too readily assumed, by certain neological critics in Germany and their followers in this country, who have shewn their dissecting acuteness by pruning away-on the pretence of improving it-the tree of life, till they have destroyed not only its lovely form, but its very vital principle, that every portion of the Old or New Testament is to be regarded as fabulous which contains a repetition of numbers.

Physical science shows that numbers have a significancy in every department of nature. Two appears as the typical number in the lowest class of plants, and regulates that pairing or marriage of plants and animals which is one of the fundamental laws of the organic kingdoms. Three is the characteristic number of that class of plants which have parallel veined leaves, and is the number of joints in the typical digit. Four is a significant number in those beautiful crystals which show that minerals (as well as stars) have their geometry. Five is the model number of the highest class of plantsthose with reticulated veins and branches, is the typical number of the fingers and toes of vertebrate animals, and is of frequent occurrence among star-fishes. Six is the proportional number of carbon in chemistry, and 3 × 2 is a common number in the floral organs of monocotyledonous plants, such as the lilies of the field, which we are exhorted to consider. Seven appears as significant only in a single order of plants, (Heptandria,) but has an importance in the animal kingdom, where it is the number of vertebræ in the neck of mammalia, and according to M. Edwards, the typical number of rings in the head, in the thorax, and in the abdomen of crustacea. Eight is the definite number in chemical composition for

oxygen, the most universal element in nature, and is very common in the organs of sea-jellies. Nine seems to be rare in the organic kingdoms. Ten or 5 × 2 is found in star-fishes, and is the number of digits on the fore and hind limbs of animals. Without going over any more individual numbers, we find multiple numbers acting an important part in chemical compositions, and in the organs of flowers; for the elements unite in multiple relations, and the stamens are often the multiples of the petals. In the arrangement of the appendages of the plant we have a strange series, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, which was supposed to possess virtues of an old date, and before it was discovered in the plant. In natural philosophy the highest law, that of forces acting from a centre, proceeds according to the square of numbers. In the curves and relative lengths of branches of plants, there are evidently quantitative relations which mathematics have not been able to seize and express.

He must be a bold man who will insist, that should the God who fashioned nature be pleased to give to man a revelation of His will, in order to solve certain great problems started by the existence of sin in the world, He shall not be at liberty to make His dispensations of providence, and His institutions for instruction and worship, bear a certain relation to each other. It is presumptuous, above all things, in any one to condemn as mythic every part of the Bible narrative which contains a recurrent number. This principle would turn the discoveries of the most eminent scientific men in modern times-the discoveries of Kepler, of Newton, of Decan dolle, and Dalton, into myths. The constant recurrence of certain numbers in the self-devised history of tradition, and the self-formed religions embodied in myths, is an acknowledgment on the part of man, that he needs such relations