Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/77

One of the worst features of the present times is the separation that has taken place between science and religion. During the early part of the history of English literature, we find great talents combined with a sublime piety, and the most enlightened philosophy with a fervent and glowing devotion; and they who explained to us the system of nature, defended the cause, and venerated the authority, of revelation. The piety of Milton, of Boyle, and of Newton, was not less remarkable than the superiority of their other endowments; and it will ever be regarded as a striking circumstance, that those giant minds, who have exalted the glory of English literature above that of all other nations, and whom we are accustomed to consider as an honour to the species itself, were distinguished above all other men for their habitual and solemn veneration of religion.

Since the age of these distinguished writers the connexion between science and religion seems gradually to have been becoming less intimate. We are unwilling to arrange ourselves with those gloomy individuals who are found in every age to declaim against the peculiar depravity of their own times; but it is impossible not to see, that the profound reverence for sacred things, which distinguished the illustrious characters of a former age, is not now the characteristic of those by whom science is promoted, and knowledge extended. An enlarged acquaintance with the works of nature is no longer the assured token of that deep-toned and solemn piety, which elevated the character, and purified the manners, of the fathers of our philosophy. Science is now seen without religion, and religion without science; and the consequence is, that the sacred system of revelation, however magnificent and beautiful in itself, is in danger of being considered as fitted only to be the creed of less enlightened minds, and of failing in some measure, from this unfortunate opinion, to produce those important effects upon mankind, for the accomplishment of which it is so pre-eminently adapted.

The volume before us is calculated, we think, in no common degree, to counteract this unhappy declension. It is written with an enthusiasm, and an eloquence, to which we scarcely know where to find any parallel; and there is, at the same time, so constant a reference to the improved philosophy of modern times, that it possesses an air of philosophical grandeur and truth, which the productions of a more popular and declamatory eloquence can never attain. Were the taste of the author equal to his genius, and his judgment always sufficient to control the fervours of his imagination, the labours of Dr Chalmers could not fail to be infinitely beneficial. But here lies our author's chief deficiency. His genius is of the kind that is marked by its peculiarities as much as by its superiority; and this circumstance, we think, is the more to be regretted, as there is manifestly no necessary connexion between the excellencies and defects by which his works are characterised. The natural relations of the intellectual powers might have been more correctly maintained in his mind, while all his faculties continued to be exerted with the same constancy and vigour,—and the same originality and invention might have been combined with greater dignity, and more uniform elegance.—We have therefore but a short process to institute, in order to admit our readers into a knowledge of the character of our author's mind. In our intercourse with the world, we often meet with persons in whom what we call genius predominates over every other feature; and who, though not superior to their fellows in taste, judgment, or understanding, are yet infinitely superior to them in the capacity of forming striking combinations of ideas, or in the endowments of an excur-