treatise on the marriages of Henry VIII, or lectured on the domestic economy of the four Georges.

The fact may be, that the noblest qualities of mankind rarely find a niche in history: virtue in man, like peace in the affairs of a nation, offers little to the narrator, and so it comes to pass that the mass of history is as a dark background of stormy ever-changing evils setting off with enhanced brilliancy the lustre of a few fine characters.

Repudiating, however, all squeamishness at the rough facts of history, and taking as they come the sins and follies, the virtues and generosities, the triumphs and calamities of mankind, we find all these may be grouped under a single head in the category of mental exercitations-they are all stimulantsfor warning or encouragement, arousing love or fear, admiration or hatred, all that has been done by man, or that has befallen man, acts by sympathy not only to instruct but to impel the mind.

The exercise of the pure unbiased intellect requires some other field than the study of man. It may be replied that it is quite possible for the intellect to decide with perfect impartiality in questions of human affairs, else how could juries deliver a true verdict, or judges equitably decide a case? I admit readily the possibility of subjecting the emotional to the intellectual. The question is whether the emotional is not called into exercise; and I believe in every such case, to a certain extent, it is. In a legal tribunal partiality or impartiality matters little; the case is decided according to certain rules of evidence, often solely against the feelings of the court.

In matters historical I doubt not the supreme authority of the intellect chastening directing subduing and with equal frequency enhancing and intensifying the natural sympathies of the mind, but never acting with perfect independence. that could write the fate of Mary Queen of Scots or of the

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French Revolution as he would work a sum in arithmetic is not a man to be envied, if such an individual ever existed. And if these are extreme cases, yet in all questions relating to human affairs sympathy will be enlisted on one side or on the other.

Hence we may discern how valuable is the study of natural science, not to speak of its objective results, as a means of mental culture. In its higher branches natural science affords scope for the most sublime contemplations. So arduous are the paths of thought in astronomy, geology, and chemistry, that master minds alone are able to follow even where others have gone before to lead the way; and it is equally true of natural history, that it trains the perceptive faculties to powers of observation surpassed only by that creative power which throughout nature man learns to recognise and observe. It is doubtful whether the study of mankind offers equal advantages for the education of the understanding, much less the course pursued by those who aspire to be called men of the world; for shrewdness capacity for intrigue astuteness and diplomatic skill are poor substitutes for the true philosophy of man.

At all events the other line of study has a claim altogether its own, for the philosophy of nature is the province where alone the intellect, the brightest daughter of the soul, claims perfect freedom; there the grave monitions of conscience are uncalled for; there those wayward sisters, the affections, need no looking after; there the pranks of that mental Ariel, imagination, no longer worry; but there, with truth for a guide, and the universe for a limit, intellect roams, "in maiden meditation, fancy free."

We may take other ground, and affirm the study of man itself to be in some measure dependent upon the study of natural science; for many amongst the most distinguished of mankind have gained their honours as interpreters of nature and her laws; and of these men how impoverished a con

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ception only can be formed at second hand! He who of himself knows nothing of the response of nature, when invoked by inductive science, can scarcely hope to appreciate our greatest philosophers, nor will any amount of the study of man alone enable him to understand the men who have devoted their lives and labours to the cause of natural science. Very much of poetry and of painting also must be unintelligible to any one who has not diligently sought acquaintance with nature. In short, he who seeks to exalt the study of mankind by limiting the proper sphere of man's study defeats his own

intention.

We may indeed be asked to draw a comparison between the investigation of the thoughts and actions of mankind and the pursuit of natural history, and to decide whether it is not altogether more worthy of man's position in creation for him to bestow his attention upon his equals than upon things inferior to himself. But this way of putting the question is nothing better than a specious fallacy; for by a parity of reasoning, since there is One higher even than man, it must be still more worthy of him to fix his thoughts exclusively upon the Divine Being. The best reply may be found in the words of the Preacher: "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

It has not been thought necessary to dwell upon the two most obvious reasons for the study of natural science, namely, the design of the Creator in giving man so glorious a field as nature for his study; and secondly, the influence which the results of scientific inquiry have had on the welfare and happiness of mankind; because arguments so weighty seemed ill adapted to meet the sort of ratiocination illustrated in the common misuse of the quotation, "The proper study of mankind is man."

It is, indeed, too true that there is much in the so-called study of man which sorely stands in need of anything to

recommend it, but to which, nevertheless, some are partial, finding a certain morbid gratification in overhauling heaps of moral refuse, to the great discomfort and disgust of all whose tastes are less depraved than their own.

Leaving, however, all such propensities out of consideration, it also seems to me that the general estimate of human character is too unfavourable. For, as soon as we become intimately acquainted with any one, we find in him much good which we are sure is unknown to others. The opposite result occurs, but is comparatively rare. Hence it follows that there is more undiscerned good than evil in mankind, or, which is the same thing, that our estimate of human character is below the reality.

These two circumstances, a taste for dwelling on the darker aspects of humanity, and the inconspicuous character of many virtues, do, no doubt, affect injuriously the study of mankind, which after all is incomparably the noblest and most necessary employment of the understanding. If it be an excellence in natural science to leave the intellect wholly free, it is a far higher excellence in the study of man to animate and constrain the soul to follow whatever is beautiful and good and true. It is because we feel that abstract conceptions are powerless, inefficient things that we personify what we most fear and hate, and also what we most desire and love. The excellency of the Christian faith itself lies not so much in the superiority of its moral lessons as in the mighty influence exerted on human sympathies by the incarnation, through which the contemplation of perfect goodness is forever bound up with the study of man. No position, then, can be more false than his who sets in competition the study which is designed to train the heart to all things great and good, and the study which is fitted to strengthen and develop the powers of the intellect. Far more justly it may be maintained, that neither can accomplish its high purpose without the assistance and co-operation of the other.

ON THE BASEMENT BED

OF THE KEUPER FORMATION IN WIRRAL AND THE SOUTHWEST OF LANCASHIRE.

BY GEORGE H. MORTON, F.G.S.

THE Trias is so called from the threefold division of its rocks, in the typical district of Germany, where it is most fully developed. It is the upper half of the New Red Sandstone of the earlier English Geologists, and was constituted a separate system on account of its Flora and Fauna, presenting close analogies to Mesozoic types; while the lower part (now the Permian system) belongs to the Paleozoic period. Though on the continent there are three distinct divisions of the Trias-the Keuper, the Muschelkalk, and the Bunter-in the British Islands there are only two, the middle one being absent. Professor Sedgwick says, "That the absence of the Muschelkalk is a blot upon the escutcheon of English geology;" and when we consider that it is a limestone series, replete with the remains of the prevailing forms of life that existed at the time of its formation, it certainly is a subject of regret that it is wanting.

Uninteresting as this neighbourhood has long been pronounced to be in a geological point of view, it at least affords very great facilities for an enquiry into the cause of this singular omission of the Muschelkalk. The Bunter formation beneath its zone, is well developed, and so also is the Keuper, which reposes directly upon it without any trace of the limestones of the central division. This omission may have arisen from three separate causes. The Muschelkalk may have thinned out at a distance from the area of its greatest develop