12 MARCH 1864, Page 24

The Analogy of Thought and Nature. Investigated by E. Vansittart

Neale. (Williams and Norgate.)—This gentleman, taking the logic of

Hegel as his guide, has first examined the process of thought in our own minds, then followed it through the great series of metaphysical theories from Tholes to our own day, and having deduced a law of thought there- from (which we nowhere find categorically stated), he examines natural phenomena to see whether they have the characteristics which they ought to have if produced by a power acting according to this law.

These characteristics, he says, are that the phenomena should be-1.

"Unities arising from combinations of opposites." 2. "Constituted by ideal judgments, in virtue of which lines of diverse motion are united into individualities." How far this is likely to be a work suited to our readers they can best judge, but it should be remembered that the extraction of the dogmata from a book on moral science gives no idea of its style. The writer is certainly a man of considerable reading and thought, and his aim, which is to put religion into fresh harmony with science, extremely praiseworthy.