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Sardinian Constitution.

387

collectively. The Chambers must be convoked every year, but the king has the power of dissolving the Chamber of Deputies. The initiation of laws is common to all three branches of the Legislature. The civil list of the king shall be fixed by the Chambers on his accession to the throne, when he shall take a solemn oath of allegiance to the constitution.

"The Chamber of Deputies is chosen by electors of all classes, who pay a very small amount of direct taxes, all heads of trading or industrial establishments, and parties engaged in arts and professions, (employment in which is assumed to indicate capacity and education.) The Deputies are required to be thirty years of age; they are inviolable during Session except for flagrant crime; they are representatives, not delegates bound by authoritative instructions; they are chosen for five years; and have the right of impeachment over the Ministers.

"The Senate is composed of Members nominated by the King for life, out of a variety of classes; e.g., the Archbishops and Bishops, President and experienced Members of the Chamber of Deputies, the Ambassadors and Ministers of State, the Chief Magistrates and Judges, Generals and Admirals, Members of the Academy of Sciences, and generally all who have rendered eminent services, or done honour to their country. The Senate is, like our House of Lords, the Supreme Court of Judicature of the Realm.

"All citizens, of every class, are equal before the law, and all contribute to the State in proportion to their means. No man can be arrested without legal warrant. The press is free; the right of public meeting is guaranteed; and no taxes can be imposed without the consent of the Chambers.

"The Judges are irremovable after they have served three years. All judicial proceedings are to be conducted in strict conformity to the written law."

This constitution, which secures civil rights and equal freedom to every citizen-and is, in fact, our own, minus an hereditary House of Peers - has now been in active operation for more than three years, to the general satisfaction of all parties. The Marquis Massimo d'Azeglio, who is at the head of the Ministry, is an able, popular, and well-tried man, who appears thoroughly to comprehend the working of free institutions, and can generally command in the Chambers a majority of two to one. As long as he lives and remains at the helm we have little fear of any mismanagement or serious imbroglio; and it is to be hoped that a few years' practice may train up many statesmen fitted to succeed him when he shall retire or die. It is scarcely possible, we think, to estimate too highly the ultimate gain to the cause of liberty and good government throughout Italy, by this establishment of a constitutional limited monarchy in one corner of the Peninsula. It will be impossible for either Austria or the smaller states to govern so despotically as they have done, with 2 c

VOL. XV. NO. XXX.

such a reproach and such an example at their side. It will be impossible, also, for the radical party any longer to declare that no substantial liberty can be enjoyed by Italy except under a Republic. On the one side it will shame tyrants: on the other, it will instruct freemen. In time of peace it will train up patriotic Statesmen for future emergencies; in time of disturbance it will be a banner to rally round. It will give Italians a definite example to follow-a definite object to demand. It will shew that even in Italy liberty is not incompatible with order and progress, and will, we trust, pave the way to a national prosperity, that may excite at once the admiration and the emulation of surrounding States. Piedmont, though defeated at Novara, may yet on another field, with nobler weapons, and in a higher sense, be the regenerator and emancipator of Italy.

In the other States of Italy, though not a trace remains of their transient liberal institutions, though the press is silenced, and every book of interest or value is prohibited, though the most stupid and cruel oppressions are daily accumulating wrath against the day of wrath, though the Pope has returned to his vomit, and the Neapolitan sow to its wallowing in the mire,yet no man who is acquainted with the internal feelings of the country has lost heart. The passion for liberty, independence, and nationality, has enormously gained ground; the municipal jealousies which divided the several sections and cities of the Peninsula have been materially weakened; the Papal tyranny is becoming daily more odious;-the Mazzini party, as it is called, is admitted even by its opponents to be rapidly spreading; and if the impatient man who is at its head can have forbearance to bide his time, and wait his opportunity, it may well prove that the day of deliverance is far nearer than is thought. When that day comes, it is more than probable that the conduct of the people, and the result to princes, will be very different from those last displayed.

Typical Forms: Goethe, Professor Owen, Mr. Fairbairn. 389

ART. IV.—1. A Manual of Botany, being an Introduction to the Study of the Structure, Physiology, and Classification of Plants. By JOHN HUTTON BALFOUR, M.D., F.L.S., F.R.S.E., Professor of Medicine and Botany in the University of Edinburgh. 1849.

2. The Plant: a Biography. By M. T. SCHLEIDEN, M.D., Professor of Botany in the University of Jena. Translated by ARTHUR HENFREY. 1848.

3. Principles of Scientific Botany; or Botany as an Inductive Science. By Dr. J. M. SCHLEIDEN. Translated by EDWIN LANKESTER, 1849.

4. On the Archetype and Homologies of the Vertebrate Skeleton. By RICHARD OWEN, F.R.S. 1848.

5. On the Nature of Limbs. A Discourse by RICHARD OWEN, F.R.S.

1849.

6. The Typology of Scripture. Investigation of Principles and Patriarchal Periods. By Rev. PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, Salton.

1847.

7. The Typology of Scripture. Mosaic Dispensation. By Rev. PATRICK FAIRBAIRN, Salton. 1847.

Two great principles, as it appears to us, run through every part of the works of God. The one is the principle of Order, or a General Plan, to which every given object is conformed with amazing skill. The other is the principle of Special Adaptation, by which each object, while formed after a general plan, is at the same time and by an equally wonderful skill, accommodated to the situation which it is meant to occupy, and the purpose which it is intended to serve.

These two principles are characteristic of intelligence. They may be discovered, though necessarily to a limited extent, in human workmanship. When circumstances admit, man constructs his works upon a general plan. We see it in the cornyard of the farmer, who builds up his grain in forms which are after a particular mould. We detect it in the shop or wareroom of the merchant, where the articles are disposed in drawers of a like shape, or bound up in parcels of equal weight. Human intelligence delights to employ itself in forming such models. They seem to have a beauty to the eye, or rather to the mind, which contemplates them. Human convenience requires them. It is only when his possessions are so arranged that man can be said to have the command of them. Were his property not so disposed, were his grain gathered into heaps of all sizes and

shapes, were his merchandize scattered in every corner of the apartment, the possessor would become bewildered in proportion to the profusion and variety of his wealth.

While we see so obviously in the works of man the general model, we may also discover the principle of special adaptation. The farmer's stacks are all formed after a general mould, but we may observe a departure from it on either side to suit the quantity or quality of the grain. The merchant's shop seems to be regulated by forms and weights, but there is a special form and a model weight for every separate article.

We insist on having these two principles of uniformity and variety in all the higher works of man. We have them in a well-furnished house, where we see the one side of the chair and table of the same shape and size as the other side, but where there is also a variety in one kind of chair or table being after a different model of beauty from another. We see both illustrated in those pieces of furniture, in which there is something on the one side not of the same shape as something on the other side, but the counterpart of it, and intended to balance it. It is in the way of exhibiting these great principles, that we find in all the higher forms of architecture, a general correspondence in the whole, with a graceful diversity of particular parts. It is possibly because we insist on having these two principles in all the higher kinds of art, as we certainly find them in all the nobler departments of nature, that we have a central figure with other figures grouping around it, in all our finest historical paintings. The mind naturally constructs its workmanship in accommodation to these rules, and finds as it does so that it is ministering at once to the convenience and the delight of all intelligent beings.

Now, if this world proceeds from intelligence, if it is addressed to intelligence, we may expect to find in it the same two grand principles. We do find, we think, abundant illustrations both of the one and of the other.

The Principle of Order assumes a great diversity of forms. It may be an order, for instance, in respect of number, as when we find the threefold and fivefold symmetry prevailing to such an extent in the vegetable kingdom, and find all the laws of nature capable of a quantitative expression. It may exhibit itself in a beautiful conformity of colours, such as we find in the plumage of so many birds, and the spots and stripes on the skins of so many wild beasts, a conformity which does not, as Mr. Ruskin tells us, follow the physiological or anatomical structure of the animal, but follows a beautiful order of its own. Or it may be a uniformity in respect of form, and it is this that we are now specially to investigate. It cannot surely be either an unpleasant

Types in the Inorganic World.

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or unprofitable inquiry which carries us into the very midst of that order and harmony which are so characteristic of works, which proceed, we must believe, from Infinite Intelligence.

But coincident with this principle, there is another, that of Special Adaptation, also running through the works of God. While there is a general form of limb, for instance, found in all mammals, there is a particular form to suit every given species, and the particular form is admirably suited to the circumstances. in which the animal is placed, to the food provided for it, and the purposes which it is meant to serve. It must be no less interesting surely to discover the exceptions as well as the rule, to perceive how the exceptions fall under a different rule, and to find that the diversity is as beneficent as the uniformity.

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After tracing this mingled uniformity and diversity throughout the more important kingdoms of nature, the vegetable and the animal, we may further inquire whether we do not meet with something similar in the dispensations of grace also, as revealed in the word of God, especially in the typical symbols, persons, and events described in the Old Testament. We say something similar for it will at once be seen, that if our views are correct, there will with the uniformity be also a diversity. The typical system of the animal kingdom is of a different order from the typical system of the vegetable kingdom; and when we rise from matter to mind, from nature to revelation, we may expect to find the typical system, if there be a typical system, of a higher kind than that which pervades the organic world. But we can shew that each furnishes like evidences of lofty intelligence, and that all are equally suited to the same or similar principles in the constitution of man's mind. With such diversities as we might anticipate, and these diversities meant to serve a special purpose, we find a system of types running through the works of God, and this system adapted with wonderful skill to the objects to which it is applied.

To begin with the inorganic world. According to the creed which has been commonly adopted in modern times, matter is composed of atoms, and these atoms have regular forms. According to Sir Isaac Newton they are spherical, according to Dalton each has a specific magnitude. If these views be correct, we discover forms playing an important part in the original structure and composition of the material universe. On breaking up the rocks of the earth, we find in most of them a regular or crystalline form in the component parts, from which it has been argued that they are crystalline throughout. It is distinctly ascertained that minerals crystallize in the most regular manner, and that each mineral has its own crystalline form. Haüy, Mohs, and others, have reduced these crystals to certain

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