one, fact is alleged that is open to the test of experiment; on the reality of which fact therefore the whole theory may be considered as staked. It is asserted that Oats, if kept constantly mown down during the summer, will, the next year, become Rye. And this being the only instance adduced that is not, confessedly, a mere conjecture, it is consequently the basis-supposing it established-of all the conjectures thrown out. Now I would suggest to some of our Agriculturists to offer a trial of the experiment, proposing to the speculators a wager on its success. If the Oats do become Rye, the conjectures as to other transmutations will at least be worth listening to should it prove-as I have no doubt it will—a failure, the key stone of the whole structure will have been taken away.

It may be worth while to add, that I have seen it suggested-apparently as a hasty conjecture-that there may perhaps be different Species or Varieties of Mankind; of which some are capable of originating civilization by their own natural powers, while others are only capable of receiving it by instruction. What I wish chiefly to point out, is, that admitting-and it would be a great deal to admit-the possibility of the supposition, it would leave unsolved the main problem; to produce an instance of Savages who have civilized themselves. None can be found and the supposed capability of selfcivilization, if it has ever existed, seems never to have been called into play.

Of the hypothesis itself, the utmost that can be said is, that it cannot be demonstrated to be impossible. There is not only no proof of it whatever, but all the evidence that the case admits of is on the opposite side.

Great as are the differences in respect of size, colour, and outward appearance, in those different Races of Animals (such as dogs and horses of different breeds) which are capable, as we know is the case with the human Races-of free intermixture, there is no case, I think, of so great and essential a difference in these, as there would be between the supposed two varieties of Man; the "Self-civilizing," and Man such as we know to exist. That difference indeed would hardly be less than between Man and Brute. If a good Physiologist were convinced of the existence of two such Races, (whether called Species or Varieties,) one of them, a Being, capable-when left, wholly untrained, to the mere spontaneous exercise of his natural endowments, of emerging from the Savage state, so as to acquire, in the course of successive generations, the highest point of civilization, and the other, such as actual experience presents to us, would, I think, assign to this latter an intermediate place between the self-civilizing Man and the Oran-otang; and nearly equi-distant from each and he would not conceive the possibility of an intermixture of any two of the three Races.

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However, allowing the abstract possibility of the conjecture I have been alluding to, the main argument, as I have said, remains un

touched. If man generally, or some particular Race, be capable of "self-civilization," in either case it may be expected that some record, or tradition, or monument, of the actual occurrence of such an event, should be found and all attempts to find any have failed. See Dr. TAYLOR's Natural History of Society.

[DDD.] Part I. Chap. ii. § 4. p. 60.

"Witnesses are divided into incompetent, suspicious, (verdachtig,) and sufficient, (vollgultig.) Children under the age of eight years, those who have accepted any reward or promise for their evidence, those who have an immediate and certain interest in the success or failure of the prosecution, those who have been accused of calumny, of giving false information or of perjury, and have been convicted or not fully acquitted, and those who, in any material part of their evidence, have been guilty of falsehood or of inconsistency, are all incompetent witnesses. Their evidence is to be rejected in toto. Persons under the age of eighteen, the injured party, informers, (unless officially bound to inform.) accomplices, persons connected with the party for whom they depose, by blood, by marriage, by friendship, by office, or by dependence-persons opposed to the party against whom they depose, by strife or by hatred, those who may obtain by the result of the inquiry any remote or contingent benefit, persons of suspicious character, persons unknown to the court, and those whose manner gives the appearance of insincerity or of partiality-are all suspicious witnesses.

"The testimony of two sufficient witnesses, stating not mere inferences, but facts which they have perceived with their own senses, amounts to proof. That of one sufficient witness amounts to half

proof.

"Two suspicious witnesses, whose testimony agrees, are equal to one sufficient witness. Therefore the testimony of two suspicious witnesses agreeing with that of one sufficient witness, or the testimony of four suspicious witnesses by themselves, amounts to proof.

"When the evidence on each side, taken per se, amounts to proof, the decision is to be in favour of the accused. In other cases, contradictory testimonies neutralize one another. So that if there be two sufficient witnesses on one side, and two suspicious witnesses on the other, it is as if there were a single sufficient witness, and conseqently a half-proof. But if the number of sufficient witnesses had been three, it would have amounted to proof-the two suspicious witnesses merely neutralizing the evidence of one of the three sufficient witnesses, and therefore still leaving the fact proved. So, the testimony of seven suspicious witnesses, opposed only by three similar witnesses, amounts to proof-that of six to half-proof. Circumstantial evidence amounts to proof when each fact of which it consists is fully proved, (that is to say, by two sufficient witnesses, or

by one such witness and two suspicious ones, or by four suspicious ones,) and when these facts cannot be rationally accounted for on any hypothesis except the prisoner's guilt. If any other is possible, though it may be improbable, or if the facts are imperfectly proved, the circumstantial evidence is imperfect." The Code does not state with its usual arithmetical preciseness, the gradations in value of imperfect circumstantial evidence. It seems, however, that it may amount to half-proof; for (by Art. 324) if it coalesce with direct evidence amounting to half-proof, the mixture amounts to whole proof. The most complete circumstantial evidence, however, does not authorise the infliction of death."

"Let us now see how such rules may work. A man meets two others in a path through a wood. Soon after he has passed and lost sight of them, he hears screams. He turns back and finds one of them lying senseless on the ground, and sees the other running away. He overtakes him, and finds on him the purse and watch of the wounded man, who, by this time, is dead. The murderer and robber, unless he will confess, must escape. In the first place, the evidence is only circumstantial-no one saw him give the fatal blow; and secondly, as there is only one witness, there is only a half-proof even of the circumstances to which the witness deposes. We will suppose, however, that the wounded man revives, and deposes that the prisoner demanded his watch and purse, and on his refusal struck him down, and took them. Even then the prisoner, unless, we repeat it, he will confess, cannot be convicted even of the robbery. the only direct evidence is that of the injured person, and he is, as we have seen, a suspicious witness; his testimony, therefore, amounts to only half of a half-proof, and as that of the other witness amounts to only a half-proof, the prisoner must be discharged for defect of evidence. Well might Feuerbach say, that unless a man choose to perpetrate his crimes in public, or to confess them, he need not fear a conviction."-Edinb. Rev. Oct. 1845, pp. 328–330.

For

Another Country might have been mentioned, in which though great stress is laid by many persons on the utility of Oaths, and much outcry is raised at any proposal for doing away with the numerous Oaths of office, &c., that are required, as if the safety of the Community depended on these, yet, at the same time, with strange inconsistency, it is taken for granted that every individual without exception, is not merely likely, but-certain to be ready to perjure himself for the value of a penny: the evidence of any one in a cause in which he has an interest, however small, being not only regarded with suspicion, but totally rejected and disallowed.

As for promissory Oaths of office, it would have been beside the purpose of this treatise to enter on the question how far any one is likely to be induced to do his duty, by swearing to do so, who would not have been induced by a sense of duty itself:-how far e. g. any

6 Art. 328.

7 Art. 327.

8 Art. 330.

king is likely to have been induced by the Oath taken at his Coronation (which, be it remembered. he can defer, or wholly omit, at his own pleasure) to be more attentive to his duties as a sovereign than he felt bound to be before.

The objections which have been brought against Oaths of this class, lie against them, in fact, rather as promises, than simply as Oaths. A man is then only, strictly speaking, bound by (i. e. in consequence of) a promise, when he engages to do something which he was not bound to previously; as, to deliver such and such articles of merchandize at a stipulated price,-to vote for a certain candidate, &c. But any promise to fulfil a previous obligation, should be understood (and it would be much better that it should be so expressed) as merely a declaration that he owns, and is sensible of that obligation; which he does not-as in the other case-then take upon him. But Oaths of Office are often made to supply topics for rhetorical purposes, in the worst sense of the word. A man will try to convince others, and often, himself also, that the course he prefers is one to which he is bound by Oath; and will maintain or insinuate that all who do not agree with him are perjured.

In reference to this point I subjoin a passage from a Charge containing the substance of a Speech in the House of Lords on the tion of the increased grant to Maynooth College:

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"The solemn vow by which we are bound to banish and drive out all erroneous and strange doctrines, contrary to God's word,' has been again and again brought forward on this and several other analogous occasions; and it has been either distinctly asserted, or by implication insinuated, that any one who has taken that vow, cannot, without a violation of it, support such a measure as the one lately passed. For there are some, I am sorry to say, among the loudest censurers of Romish claims to infallibility, who yet have such full confidence in their own infallibility, as to make no scruple of imputing breach of a vow to any one who does not interpret that vow in the same sense as themselves. And since such imputations are, I suppose, listened to by some persons, (as may be inferred from their being on so many occasions, and so pertinaciously urged,) I feel bound to protest against them, in behalf not only of myself but also of many of my brother-Clergy who think with me on these points, and among whom are to be found some of the most truly pious and able, and unostentatiously zealous and useful Christian ministers.

"I am not, I trust, more forgetful of the vows I have made than those whose interpretation of them are utterly at variance with mine. But, from their interpretation would follow consequences, from which not only I, but probably most of themselves also would recoil. We have vowed not merely not to promote and encourage, but to banish and drive out, erroneous doctrines.' This vow therefore cannot, at any rate, be fulfilled by simply voting against a pecuniary grant. We are actively to drive out doctrines contrary to

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God's word.' But whence are we to drive them out? and by what means? Is it by penal laws,-by secular coercion,-by the point of the bayonet,-that we are to drive out religious error? And again, is it from these islands-from the soil of the British empire— that we are bound to banish false doctrines? This can only be effectually done by banishing the professors of them; as Ferdinand and Isabella expelled from Spain the Moors and Jews. And are these the measures which Christian Bishops, and other Clergy, are bound to recommend, and the Legislature, to adopt?

"We have heard of late much complaint of the unscriptural and immoral, and indeed seditious and dangerous doctrines taught at Roman Catholic Seminaries; and we have been called upon, on that ground, by virtue of our vows, to-vote against an increased grant to such seminaries! Manifestly, if the statements be admitted and the reasoning assented to, we must not stop there. All allowances to Roman Catholic Chaplains of regiments, jails, and workhouses, must be stopped; as well as the grants and endowments enjoyed by Roman Catholic Ministers, in the Colonies and dependencies. Nor can we consistently stop at the withdrawing of all grants to Roman Catholic Seminaries: we must call for the total suppression of the Seminaries. Nor will even this be enough: we must go on to prohibit the teaching, in any way, or in any place, at home or abroad, of the obnoxious doctrines: in short, we must urge the total suppression of the Roman Catholic religion, by the forcible expulsion of all its adherents.

"If such were the vow proposed to me, sooner than fulfil or undertake so unchristian an engagement, I would resign my office,--I would abandon my profession,-I would abjure the Church that imposed such vows. But I have always considered the vows I have taken as binding me, or rather as reminding me of the duty,-to drive out, as far as lies in me, erroneous doctrines from my own Church, and especially from that portion of it committed to my own immediate superintendence.

"By instruction,-by admonition and remonstrance, and finally by ecclesiastical censure, when applicable and necessary-a bishop is bound to endeavour to drive away from among those of his own Communion, 'all strange doctrines contrary to God's Word.' Over those of another Communion I claim no control. But I have expressed, openly, in many works which are before the Public, my utter disapprobation of what appear to me erroneous doctrines, and have given my reasons for thinking them such: without indeed any poIemical bitterness, but without any suppression, through fear of man's censure, of what I hold to be God's truth! endeavouring, according to the Apostolic precepts, to be 'gentle unto all men, in meekness instructing them that oppose themselves,' and 'speaking the truth in love.' "But though I presume not to pass any authoritative censure on

See Speech of the Lord Bishop of St. David's.