he universe. Not a thousandth part so unreasonable would it
be to believe a real factory of this description, were one to exist, to be
a chance existence, as to believe this universe so. Sooner could I suppose
nature herself possessed of intelligence than admit the idea that there is
_no_ intelligence concerned in her organization and operations. There must
be a mind within or without her, or else we have no data by which to
distinguish mind. There must be a mind, or all the results of mind are
produced without any. There must be a mind, or chaos produces order, blind
power perfects effects, and non-intelligence the most admirable
correspondence and harmony imaginable. Skeptics pride themselves much on
their reason. They can't believe, they say, because it is unreasonable.
_What_ is unreasonable? To believe in a mind where there is every
appearance thereof that can be? Is it more reasonable to believe, then,
that every appearance of mind is produced without any mind at all?
Skeptics are the last men in all this wide world to pretend reason. They
doubt against infinite odds; they believe without evidence against
evidence, against demonstration, and then talk of reason!--_Origin
Bachelor's Correspondence with R. D. Owen._

BLUNDER ON AND BLUNDER ON--IT IS HUMAN TO BLUNDER.

Are all the mammoths one or two hundred thousand years old, as Sir Charles
Lyell conjectured? It was stated, in the bygone, that the "diluvium" was
very old, on account of the absence of human remains, but since man's
remains have been found there, it is inferred that man is very ancient;
whereas, the truth is, the mammoth is _very recent_. In many instances
their bones are so fresh that they contain twenty-seven per cent. of
animal substance; in some instances the flesh is still upon their bones,
with their last meal in their stomachs.

Mr. Boyd Dawkins has furnished us with a thrilling narrative of the
discovery of a mammoth in 1846, by Mr. Benkendorf, close to the mouth of
the Indigirka. This mammoth was disentombed during the great thaw of the
summer. The description is given in the following language: "In 1846 there
was unusually warm weather in the north of Siberia. Already in May unusual
rains poured over the moors and bogs; storms shook the earth, and the
streams carried not only ice to the sea, but also large tracts of land. We
steamed on the first day up the Indigirka, but there were no thoughts of
land; we saw around us only a sea