Here, indeed, is a vast lowering of the demand- and with less
than this no writer of refined taste should content himself.
As this subject is not only in itself of great importance, but
will have at all points a bearing upon what we shall say hereafter, in
the examination of various plays, we shall be pardoned for quoting
from the "Democratic Review" some passages (of our own which enter
more particularly into the rationale of the subject:-
"All the Bridgewater treatises have failed in noticing the great
idiosyncrasy in the Divine system of adaptation:- that idiosyncrasy
which stamps the adaptation as divine, in distinction from that
which is the work of merely human constructiveness. I speak of the
complete mutuality of adaptation. For example:- in human
constructions, a particular cause has a particular effect- a
particular purpose brings about a particular object; but we see no
reciprocity. The effect does not react upon the cause- the object does
not change relations with the purpose. In Divine constructions, the
object is either object or purpose as we choose to regard it, while
the purpose is either purpose or object; so that we can never
(abstractly- without concretion- without reference to facts of the
moment) decide which is which.
"For secondary example:- In polar climates, the human frame, to
maintain its animal heat, requires, for combustion in the capillary
system, an abundant supply of highly azotized food, such as train oil.
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