do not contradict each other. There is nothing contrary to reason in them. The philosophic conception of God presents him before us as a being of infinite perfection and majesty. The anthropomorphic presents him as sustaining human relations, particularly as "Our Father in Heaven." He seems thereby to come into the closest relations to us, and reveals to us his great fatherly heart. He is the Father of the spirits of all flesh. "Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him." Probably no other view of God is so calculated to draw mankind to himself as this. It excites our noblest emotions, and promotes our confidence in him. But the Fatherhood of God simply expresses his love--his love to man. It is a revelation of the nature of God, which is love.

Now, as we have seen, a true philosophy of the infinite is impossible but by cognition. The revelation of God in Christ renders a cognition of God possible. Faith-knowledge of God is very important, for, along with intuition, it forms the basis of our knowledge of him. Reason, or thought-knowledge, of him is equally important. Faith-knowledge is principally gained by testimony. The speculative or rational faculty starts from testimony and intuition. All knowledge gained by reasoning is pure thought-knowledge. Before men can have a cognition of God, some degree of faith-knowledge and reason-knowledge must be possessed. Faith in God, in the theological sense, signifies trust or confidence in him, and not mere credit of the fact of his existence. A loving trust is absolutely necessary to a cognition of or fellowship with God. This faith receives the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Faith or trust in God is absolutely necessary to give man the highest and most satisfactory experimental knowledge of God. Moral agents cannot be satisfied without obtaining this complete and delightful experience of him.

But, how does Christ perfect man's knowledge of God by cognition? Although Christ's knowledge of God was not exclusively cognitive, yet he had a cognition of God to an extent immeasurably fuller than any person has realized in any preceding or succeeding age. The life and death of Christ were necessary to manifest the glory of God to the sons of men; but the Holy Ghost, in connection with the work of Christ, was fully as necessary to give man a real cognition of God. His miracles, teaching, and example reveal to man's understanding the Everlasting Father; but faith in Christ as God with us is as necessary to receive the Holy Ghost, whereby man receives a real experience of God. Christ himself said, "All things are delivered unto me of my Father;" that is, God intends to govern and save the world in and through the revelation of Jesus Christ: "for no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither knoweth any man the Father save

the Son;" the Father and the Son, from the specially vital union existing between them, have a perfect cognition of each other. But Jesus further adds, "and he to whom the Son shall reveal him;" which, above all, means, giving to the man a cognition of Christ himself, and of the Father. It is necessary that the Holy Ghost should be given, and that thereby God should dwell consciously in man's heart, as a well of water springing up to everlasting life.

Thus we see that Christianity is the Divine supplement to human philosophy. In consequence of his immediate contact with the world and his own soul, man can find out their various powers and operations. We only can know, however, and find out God satisfactorily by a special revelation of himself. Nature, certainly, reveals God; but man's moral depravity prevents him, to some considerable extent, from seeing him. Therefore it became especially necessary for God to reveal himself to man through manthe man Christ Jesus. He is the brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image of his person. He that rejects the Son, rejects the Father; but he that receives the Son, receives the Father. In Jesus Christ we see God, and God actively engaged in reconciling the world unto himself. There are many insolvable mysteries in the Godhead, and in Nature; but much, and much of the highest importance, is known; and much more can be known, both of God and his works.

In conclusion, we desire it to be particularly observed, that the terms "know" and "knowledge" have, like most other words, different shades and distinctions of meaning. Some, through not recognising these distinctions, have been involved in unprofitable debates. Knowledge of a thing gained by reasoning is very different from that gained by experience or direct contact with the thing itself; and yet both these kinds of knowledge are very different from that gained by testimony; though, properly speaking, we cannot gain any knowledge except by experience. If we hear or read a description of certain objects or events, which we have not seen personally, we have an experience of what we hear or read, and of the thoughts thereby produced, but not of the things in themselves. Again, in reasoning, there is a real experience, though the thoughts or knowledge thus gained have neither been produced by testimony, nor by direct contact with the object reasoned about. Though these distinctions are vital, they are not generally recognised, for the term "knowledge" is almost invariably used in each case. For want of better terms, we have characterised these distinctions by the terms "faith-knowledge," "thought-knowledge," and "cognition." In one sense, however, all knowledge is thought. But the distinctions are, in themselves, perfectly clear, nevertheless. And it must also be noted, that these different kinds

of knowledge do not exclude each other, even in relation to the same object or event. In the Holy Scriptures, the term "knowledge," when applied to God, very generally means cognition. We recommend all who are interested in this subject to read 2 Cor. ii. very carefully, and it will be clearly seen that, in addition to our knowledge of God by testimony, we possess much real knowledge of him by reasoning-reasoning based especially on the testimony of Christ, the operations of nature, and intuition; and, further, we can not only believe in the fact of God's existence and of his attributes; but we can likewise feel God-feel him to the joy of our souls. The knowledge of God, as set forth in this essay, though far from complete, may, we humbly venture to think, be called a Philosophy of the Infinite.

JOHN SNAITH.

ART. III.-SCIENTIFIC DREDGING IN THE
DEEP SEAS.

(Concluded from page 361.)

T THE number of Vertebrates secured by the dredgings of the Lightning and Porcupine was very limited; but this apparent scarcity of the higher forms of life most probably arose from the unsuitableness of the apparatus for entrapping the wary fish, rather than indicating the absence of such from the ocean depths. A few species, however, hitherto unknown, were brought up from a depth of 540 fathoms in the cold area of the "Lightning Channel." A trawl-net, although not a very satisfactory contrivance, has been used in the Challenger with some success; and when some instrument has been devised more suitable for the purpose, it may tell its story of the finny races that occupy the abyss, perhaps not less strange than that revealed by the dredge and tangles.

It is amongst the Invertebrate orders that the greatest variety and most important prizes have been obtained. The MOLLUSCA are found to be moderately abundant, and in the deep water they are mostly of an arctic or northern type. In the Porcupine expedition to the north and west, 117 new species were added to the British Mollusca, 44 of which were common to both the warm and cold regions, and 11 were found in the cold alone; whilst some can be specifically identified with forms obtained from the Mediterranean and American Seas. From the ECHINODERMATA an enormous addition has been made to our British types by these researches. A number of sea-urchins and feather-stars, that had been previously found only within Norwegian or Arctic waters, were brought up in

the area of the cold underflow as far south as the Porcupine dredged; and the Challenger has found the same species crowding the bed of the ocean on the southern side of the Equator, revealing a most astonishing range of territory in the occupation of the same species. The effects of temperature are very distinctly marked in this group, both in the absence of many forms from the cold area, which are characteristic of the warm, and in the dwarfing of such as had strayed into the uncongenial conditions of the arctic current. The discovery of Calveria hystrix and the Apicrinite Crinoids, already referred to, are especially important from their close relationship to geological forms. Some important additions to the latter group have been secured in the progress of the Challenger investigations.

In the sub-kingdom PROTOZOA a very great variety of new and interesting forms have been added to our knowledge, and although Occupying the humble position of the lowest link in the chain of animal life, yet, in the multitude of individuals, the variety of species, and the persistency with which they have maintained their typical characteristics from a remote antiquity, they occupy a very important place in these inquiries. The vitreous sponges were found to be very common over the warm region, their glassy roots often permeating the mud like a complicated net work; and Dr. Carpenter describes "a peculiar and novel form of sponge that is one of the most generally diffused inhabitants of the cold area. This sponge is distinguished by the possession of a firm branching axis, of a pale sea-green colour, rising from a spreading Toot, and extending itself like a shrub or a large branching Gorgonia. The axis is loaded with silicious spicules; and spicules of the same form are contained in the soft flesh which clothes it." The variety and peculiar forms of these beautiful objects, obtained by the dredge, indicate that our knowledge of this class is but in its infancy-we have but just discovered the true sponge region. The Foraminifera were often procured in countless numbers (especially Globigerina bulloides) the white chalky mud of the warm region being almost entirely composed of these microscopic shells. Those constructing calcarious tests are most common in the warm water, and such as build up their shells from arenaceous material are most plentiful in the cold-some of the latter were obtained of a gigantic size in comparison with the generality of their order.

Prof. Thomson had concluded from his cruises to the North Atlantic that the Foraminifera, whose remains compose the principal part of the sea bottom, lived and died upon the floor of the ocean; but we now learn from the "notes" sent home from the Challenger, that his researches in the southern hemisphere has induced the Professor to alter his opinion in this respect, it being

pretty satisfactorily proved by Mr. Murray, one of the scientific staff, that the majority of these elegant little creatures sport upon or near the surface during their life time, and only at death do they sink through the water, down and down, till they reach in the abyss the sepulchre of their race. "Mr. Murray," Prof. Thomson . goes on to say, "has been induced by the observations which have been made in the Atlantic, to combine the use of the towing-net at various depths from the surface to 150 fathoms, with the examination of the samples from the soundings. And this double work has led him to a conclusion (in which I am now forced entirely to concur, although it is certainly contrary to my former opinion) that the bulk of the material of the bottom in deep water is in all cases derived from the surface. Mr. Murray has demonstrated the presence of Globigerina, Pulvinulina, and Urbulina throughout all the upper layers of the sea over the whole of the area where the bottom consists of 'Globigerina-ooze,' or of the red clay produced by the decomposition of the shells of the Foraminifera; and their appearance when living on the surface is so totally different from that of the shells at the bottom, that it is impossible to doubt that the latter, even although they frequently contain organic matter, are all dead. I mean this to refer only to the genera mentioned above, which particularly form the ooze. Many other Foraminifera undoubtedly live in comparatively small numbers, along with animals of higher groups, on the bottom."*

Foraminifera with arenacious tests must certainly be restricted to the bottom, for in no other position would they be able to secure material wherewith to construct their abodes. Examples of this class were found on the sandy bed of the "Lightning Channel," and were described by Prof. Thomson as "of large size and numerous." If the Foraminifera, which mainly make up the ooze, live on the surface, then the difference of sediment occuring in the warm and cold areas in the neighbourhood of Faroe, must arise, not from the influence of temperature restricting these minute organisms to the former region (for we cannot grant them selective powers after death), but we may suppose that the arctic current which flows through the narrows between Shetland and Faroe to be sufficiently strong as to carry away the light and delicate shells of these orders to distant and quieter regions. The warm water abutting on to the cold stream is banked in so as to be almost motionless, and thus permits the fine organic dust to accumulate within its area.

There is also found very widely distributed over the bed of the Ocean 66 a soft, gelatinous, organic matter, enough to give a slight viscosity to the mud of the surface layer," which substance,. * "Nature," June 25th, 1874.