The number NINE is so wonderful a number, that The number nine, too, has the remarkable quality The Magi who were at Athens at the time of Pla- Plato considered the number TWELVE to be an im- The number ELEVEN is remarkable, inasmuch as it is entirely unknown in BOTANY; botanical arrangements ought, therefore, to leave the number entirely out thus, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, — 12, there being no flower that has eleven anthers or eleven pistyls. EUCLID, by connecting the elementary parts of geometry, as it were, in one circular chain, established the only perfect part of human knowledge. NAPIER invented logarithms; and so perfect did they emanate, that only one material improvement has been invented since, and of that improvement he had the honour of inventing a part; while TAYLOR, in one analytical formula, compressed a whole science into a single proposition, from which almost every method and truth of the new analysis may be deduced. These instances appear to me to afford more striking examples of intellectual unity of power than any others with which we are acquainted, save one; for, though NEWTON's discovery of fluxions might seem to bear as great an analogy to intellectual unity as any of these, yet the simple circumstance of LEIBNITZ having nearly at the same time made the same discovery, proves that the road leading towards the invention had been so opened that two persons, to use a homely expression, could walk abreast. But there is a more remarkable instance of intellectual unity than even these. JOHANNES, well known in Trinity College, Dublin, was nearly blind, and yet he could answer the question as to the day of the week on which any day of the month fell in any year, whether in the new or the old style, instanter; and BUXTON, the calculating peasant, could give the product of any arithmetical question by the simple operation of his mind as well as the best calculator could with his pen, and this, too, after employing a circuitous method. These are extraordinary instances; but that of BIDDER, the calculating boy, has in it so much of the wonderful, that to me he appears the greatest phenomenon in the history of mind. The most wonderful things are related of this boy's arithmetical genius; but he has never yet been able to explain the method by which he solves the various questions that have been proposed to him. In reference to these, one would imagine (says an elegant writer) that, "by some peculiar organization of his brain, a ray of omniscience had shot athwart it, giving us a glimpse of its Divine origin; as when the clouds are opened by lightning, we appear to get a momentary insight into the glories of heaven.' PASCAL invented an instrument for facilitating arithmetical processes; LEIBNITZ two. These reached from addition and subtraction, with some difficulty, to multiplication and division. BROWN's Rotula Arithmetica was more simple, but it went no farther. What was wanted in these instruments will, it is hoped, be supplied by one invented by a philosopher of our own times (BABBAGE), who, by substituting a mechanical operation for a mental one, is endeavouring to relieve the progress of science of what has been aptly styled "the overwhelming incumbrance of numerical detail." The mind has been described to be that which feels, thinks, wills, hopes, fears, and desires; and some philosophers insist that we have the same evidence for its separate existence that we have for that of the body. Though this may be very difficult to prove, I cannot but feel (conscious as I am that no evidence can ever be derived from anatomy) as positively assured of the existence of my own mind separate from the body, as I am of the existence of steam, before it is applied to the turning of an engine. Added to which, I cannot but think that nothing is more instinctive of a God than the mental faculties of man. Man nevertheless wants other organs than he yet possesses to enable him to see a thousand things. He connects, as it were, two worlds, his present life being the mere bud of his future being. The seat of the intellectual powers has been variously supposed to be in the pineal gland, or the cerebellum; in the vapour of the cerebral cavities; in the aqueduct of Silvius; in the heart; in the stomach; in the corpora striata; and in the commencement of the spinal marrow. Some have placed it in the great commissure of the brain, others in the cavities of the brain, and some in the cerebral membranes; but Pythagoras, Galen, and, above all, Haller, supposed it to be seated in the brain itself. Let the mansion of the mind, however, be where it will, the mind itself eludes research. The history of the mental philosophy of an age has been, for the most part, little better than the condensed essence of man's credulity; and this reminds me of Garofolo's picture of St. Augustine's vision. The saint dreamed that, as he was meditating by the seaside, he saw a child sitting on the shore with a table in his hand, who told him it would be as easy to empty the sea with his table, as it would be to penetrate the sublime mystery of the Trinity. This appears to me not wholly inapplicable to the science of METAPHYSICS, if that can be called a science in which all is conjecture. Simonides made an excellent remark: "There is but one metaphysician, and that is the Being who formed us." We must, indeed, consider it no other than "As a region all unknown, The study of METAPHYSICS is divided into two parts. The first is directed to examining the faculties, operations, essence, and powers of the mind, with a view to discover and explain the limits of moral and phys ical action, and the point of transition that exists between them. The second, beginning with external objects, endeavours to arrive at the same point of transition. The one may be called the science of thought, the other of sensation. The one glides from mind to matter, the other from matter to mind. The point of connexion and union is nevertheless as yet undiscovered. We may attempt to ascertain the laws which regulate the connexion between mind and matter, but we are constrained to leave untouched the manner in which they are united. In every region of Nature we recognise matter; in all the regions of Nature, too, we behold the effects of powers which seem as if they cannot belong to what we call matter. But there we stop. Sensation and reflection appear to be the foundations of all knowledge, and perception the first step towards it, as well as the inlet of all its materials. But, though sensation and reflection seem to be the foundations, as it were, of all we know, or possibly can know, in this sphere of existence, they do not enable us to form any positive idea in respect to infinite number, infinite expansion, infinite duration, infinite presence, infinite knowledge, or infinite power. Before we can expect to have even the most remote idea of these, or any one of them, we must possess all the faculties of man simultaneously combined in us attention, perception, consideration, reason, and reflection; discrimination and discernment; investigation, conception, contemplation, and abstraction; imagination, comprehension, judgment, and concentration, all in unity! It is sufficient for us to know that the great business of life is what Antoninus says of it-to improve our minds and govern our manners; since we are born, doubtless, for a more enlarged theatre, and carry (as Massillon so finely expresses it) on our very hearts "the |