regards their dermal covering, yet in their dentition they are less so; while the Cape ant-eater (or aard-vark, orycteropus) has teeth such as exist in no other mammal, though its hairy coat exhibits no marked peculiarity. Again, the pangolins* stand alone amongst mammals as regards their scaly covering, yet their mouth is like that of the hairy ant-eaters, i.e., edentulous. Again, the dugong and manatee are dermally alike, yet extremely different as regards the structure and number of their teeth. The porcupine also, in spite of its enormous armature of quills, is supplied with as good a mouthful of teeth as are the hairy members of the same family; and in spite of the deficiency of teeth in the hairless dogs, no converse redundancy of teeth has been remarked, so far as we know, in Angora cats and rabbits.

Leaving, however, on one side these latter points, it is, we think, evident from the facts of homology—especially when considered in its relations to pathology that some innate and substantial cause exists in each organism, which may at the same time account for both specific resemblance and specific divergence. In obedience to the law of parsimony, it is more desirable to make use of one such conception than to imagine a number of, to all appearance, separate and independent "laws of correlation" between different parts of each animal. We think that enough has been said to show that what we believe to be the complex results of this tendency cannot have been produced by "Natural Selection" alone.

If, then, in spite of Mr. Darwin's theory, it is still necessary to conceive a substantial form moulding each organic being, and directing its development as a crystal is built up, only in an indefinitely more complex manner, then the claim of "Natural Selection" to explain by itself the evolution of each animal form, or the "origin of species" must fall to the ground. Many phenomena have been shown to exist, for which the Darwinian. theory is quite unable satisfactorily to account. And a principle regulating the successive evolution of different organic forms, such as we believe exists, is not one whit more mysterious than is this innate tendency which, as we have seen reason to think, each several form possesses, while the existence of the latter favours the probability of the existence of the former. The rest of our observations we must reserve for a third and last article.

* Scaly ant-eaters of the Old World.

Father Faber as a Writer.

THE author of the very interesting Life of Father Faber lately published, tells us that Wordsworth, who was for some years an intimate friend of the late distinguished Oratorian, said that England had lost a poet when Mr. Faber left Ambleside and the Lake country for the flats of Huntingdonshire and the parochial charge of Elton. Men like Wordsworth are sometimes apt to overestimate the young aspirants whom, in a certain sense, they take under their protection. We may be permitted to doubt whether the author of Sir Lancelot could ever have produced anything very much better; and without saying anything disrespectful, we may fairly ask whether the number of persons who can return to Sir Lancelot with satisfaction is large enough to warrant any very high-flown statement as to the poetic genius of its author.

hardly think, then, that under any circumstances, Father Faber would have been "the poet of the age," or, indeed, a poet who would have left his mark upon his generation. His mind was, we think, intelligent and appreciative rather than inventive and original. As a writer of poetry, it may be doubted whether he would have been capable of that industry and self-restraint, that severe self-discipline and self-judgment, which are essential for the highest and most lasting success. He displayed these qualities in a remarkable degree in the composition and elaboration of his devotional writings, but he never entirely conquered mannerism-perhaps he did not even think it a thing to be conquered-and he could bear to speak of one of his own works as "a wildish Faberian book." It may easily be imagined that as a poet he would have put less restraint upon his fluent and graceful idiosyncrasy than as a religious writer, and this would certainly have stood in the way of his attaining the severe and serene beauty of

the greater poets. But we have mentioned Wordsworth's. prediction, not so much for the purpose of questioning its probable accuracy as for that of drawing from it the reflection which, as it seems to us, must always lie at the bottom of our consideration of Father Faber's character and works. He was undoubtedly in training, as we may say, for a poetic career when he accepted the College living, his practical work at which had so much influence in determining his course to the gates of the Catholic Church. His training as a poet, in the widest sense of the word training, coloured his whole life and influenced every page of his writings. He would not have been what he was, and he would not have written as he did, but for his great love and deep study of natural scenery, and the other chief sources of poetic inspiration. Nothing of that preparation to which Wordsworth so fondly looked as ensuring his future success as a poet, was, in reality, thrown away.

In this sense we may say of Father Faber, that his life was not what that of so many converts outwardly appears to be, a life "cut in two." In this sense rather the words of his great friend just now mentioned have their application to him, that his years were

Linked each to each in natural piety.

The young man who might, after all, have been but a second-rate poet, grew into one of the most charming and poetical writers on higher subjects than those which ordinarily occupy the poetic faculty. There was a romance and a poetry about his life, about his monastic attempts as a Protestant parson, his devotion to his poor, the manner in which he gave up his living, his attempt at a Religious Order of his own before, most happily for the cause of religion in England, he offered himself and his followers to Dr. Newman and the Oratory. But we are speaking rather of his literary character. The ascetic and theological value of his books may be variously estimated, and time has yet to show how long their popularity will survive the absence of his winning and fascinating influence to find them admirers. But there can be no doubt as to

the charm of their style and the beauty of their language, qualities comparatively wanting in most writings of this kind, and which, we cannot doubt, gave them that peculiar character and attraction which caught many a reader who would not otherwise have paid them any attention. has often been said, that the prose of writers who have practised poetical composition, even unsuccessfully, has a beauty and force of its own, and that remark applies with much precision to the case of Father Faber.

We

His writings have also another characteristic, which will perhaps have far more to do with their permanent popularity than that of which we have spoken. Father Faber was always a hard worker, and his books, light and graceful as they appear, are the fruit of severe and constant labour. Circumstances made him very much his own teacher both in theology and in spirituality. find no space in his life, from the time that he became a Catholic to the end, when he sat on the forms of a theological lecture-room, and learnt in the Church's own peculiar way the systematised doctrines of truth. Again, he was for a very few months a Novice at Maryvale, and was then made himself Master of Novices. But he compensated these great disadvantages as far as his own industry could make up for them. We find him also exhibiting a remarkable and sensitive caution in theological statements, and we may be sure that he would have been the last to lay down the law on the strength of his own deductions, or to be either severe or reckless in the allotment to others of censure and condemnation. We do not pretend to sufficient familiarity with all his volumes to say that he had never occasion to acknowledge that he had written on a question without having sounded its depths, or to withdraw an opinion confidently asserted, but we are not aware of any instance in his case of this penitential nemesis, which falls (only too seldom as far as publicity is concerned) upon the reckless and presumptuous. When we consider how great was Father Faber's popularity, and how little there was to fear for him of any very strict theological censorship, it is certainly very remarkable that he should have kept back

his works so long before he published them. Those who are to any extent acquainted with the literature of the subjects on which he wrote are best able to testify to the wide extent of his reading, and the care with which the thoughts and ideas of various writers are collected and re-arranged in his works. There is, of course, great originality about these; but their characteristic is that they are so learned as well as so original, so stored with treasures gathered on all sides, as well as so individual and so fresh.

We can hardly find any greater proof of the power exercised over the minds of ordinary readers by a light and fascinating style such as that of Father Faber's works, than that which is contained in the contrast between the reception which those works met with and that which has been accorded to the series of Saints' lives commonly called the Oratorian Lives, though begun before Father Faber was a member of the Congregation of St. Philip. Biography has almost always a peculiar charm, second only to that of fiction. But the Lives of the Saints positively repelled their readers. There were some, indeed, who objected to parts of the contents of these volumes, but we do not now speak of these. But the translations were usually bald, not well revised, and with occasional obvious blunders; above all, they were translations from works written under a foreign atmosphere, and in many points uncongenial to that of England. The idea was excellent, and the good which has been done by the series is enormous. It is one of Father Faber's highest honours to have conceived and carried out this undertaking. But what might he not have done if he had given. us two or three original biographies! His powers, and those of some of his colleagues, were shown in the series. Lives of English Saints which they wrote before their conversion. It is certainly much to be regretted that the idea of the earlier work was not carried out. The writers. in question had, in fact, other things to do, and they were obliged to trust to comparatively unskilful hands for the translations which became, in a certain sense, the substitutes for the series originated at Oxford. We are, as we have intimated, far from undervaluing the work that has been