would find there columns, pyramids, obelisks, and inscriptions in unknown characters. Would he say: "Men have never inhabited this place; the hand of man has never been employed here; it is chance that has formed these columns and placed them upon their pedestals, crowning them with capitals of such beautiful proportions; it is chance that has hewn these obelisks out of single stones, and that has engraved on them all these hieroglyphics"? Would he not say, on the contrary, with all the assurance of which the mind of man is capable: "These magnificent views are the remains of the majestic architecture that flourished in ancient Egypt"?

This is what our reason would proclaim at the first glance. It is the same when we first contemplate the universe. People perplex themselves with sophistry, and obscure their view of the simplest truths. But a glance is sufficient; such a work as this world could not have been made by chance. The bones, the tendons, the veins, the arteries, the nerves, the muscles, which compose the body of a single man, display more art and proportion than all the architecture of the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. The eye of the meanest animal surpasses the skill of all the artisans of the world. But before we proceed to the details of nature, fix our attention for a while upon the general structure of the universe. Cast your eyes upon the earth that supports us; raise them, then, to this immense vault of the heavens that surrounds us; these fathomless abysses of air and water, and these countless stars that give us light. Who is it that has suspended this globe of earth? Who has laid its foundations? If it were harder, its bosom could not be laid open by man for cultivation. If it were less firm, it could not support the weight of his footsteps. From it proceed the most precious things. This earth, so mean and unformed, is transformed into thousands of beautiful objects that delight our eyes; in the course of one year it becomes branches, buds, leaves, flowers, fruits, and seeds, thus renewing its beautiful favors to man. Nothing exhausts it. After yielding for so many ages its treasures, it experiences no decay; it does not grow old; it still pours forth riches from its bosom. Generations of men have grown old and passed away, while every spring the earth has renewed its youth. If it were cultivated, it would nourish a hundredfold more than it now does. But the body of man that seems the chef-d'œuvre of nature is not comparable to his soul. Whence comes it that beings so

unlike are united in his composition? Whence comes it that the movements of the body give so promptly and so infallibly certain thoughts to the soul? How is it that the thoughts of the soul produce certain movements of the body? Whence comes it that this harmonious connection exists without interruptions for seventy or eighty years? Whence comes it that two beings possessing such different operations make a whole so perfect that some are tempted to believe that they are one and indivisible?

What hand has united these two extremes? Matter could not make an agreement with spirit, the spirit has no recollection of having made any compact with matter. Nevertheless, it is certain that it is dependent on the body, and that it cannot be freed from its power, unless it destroys it by a violent death. This dependence is reciprocal. Nothing is more absolute than the empire of the soul over the body. The spirit wills, and every member of the body is instantly moved as if it were impelled by some powerful machine. What hand holding an equal power over both these natures has imposed this yoke upon them, and held them captive in a connection so nice and so inviolable? Can any one say, "Chance"? If they do, can they understand what they say themselves, and make others comprehend it? Has chance linked together by a concourse of atoms the particles of body with soul?

My alternative is this; if the soul and the body are only a composition of matter, whence is it that this matter, which did not think yesterday begins to think to-day? Who is it that has given it, what it did not before possess, and what is incomparably more noble than itself, when it was without thought? Does not that which bestows thought possess it? Suppose even that thought proceeded from a certain configuration and arrangement and motion of matter, what workman contrived these just and nice combinations so as to make a thinking machine? If, on the contrary, the soul and the body are two distinct substances, what power superior to both these different natures has bound them together? Who, with a supreme empire over both, has sent forth his command, that they should be linked together by a correspondence and in a civil subjection that is incomprehen

sible?

The empire of the mind over the body is despotic to a certain extent, since simple will can move every member by mechanical rules. As the Scriptures represent God in the creation

to have said: "Let there be Light, and there was Light," so the voice of my soul speaks and my body obeys. This is the power which men who believe in God attribute to him over the uni

verse.

This power of the soul over the body which is so absolute is at the same time a blind one. The most ignorant man moves his body as well as the best-instructed anatomist. The player on the flute who perfectly understands all the chords of his instrument, who sees it with his eyes and touches it with his fingers, often makes mistakes. But the soul that governs the mechanism of the human body can move every spring without seeing it, without understanding its figure, or situation, or strength, and never mistakes. How wonderful is this! My soul commands what it does not know, what it cannot see, and what it is incapable of knowing, and is infallibly obeyed! How great its ignorance and how great its power! The blindness is ours, but the power-whence is it? To whom shall we attribute it, if not to him, who sees what man cannot see, and gives him the power to perform what surpasses his own comprehension ?

Let the universe be overthrown and annihilated, let there be no minds to reason upon these truths, they will still remain equally true, as the rays of the sun would be no less real if men should be blind and not see them. "In feeling assured," says Saint Augustine, "that two and two make four, we are not only certain that we say what is true, but we have no doubt that this proposition has been always, and will continue to be eternally true."

Let man then admire what he understands, and let him be silent when he cannot comprehend. There is nothing in the universe that does not equally bear these two opposite characters, the stamp of the Creator and the mark of the nothingness from whence it is drawn, and into which it may at any moment be resolved.

DAVID DUDLEY FIELD

(1805-1894)

FTER the surrender of Lee's army at Appomattox, the great question which forced itself on the thinkers of America was the restoration of civil government. Throughout the Southern States all government had been practically suspended, and in the Northern States, where no actual hostilities had occurred, frequent attempts had been made to supplant civil law and constitutional government with "martial law." To demonstrate that "martial law" cannot exist under a civil government; to vindicate through the courts the spirit of civil law as supreme against the attempts of military power to transgress its limitations, and to reassert the fundamental principles of American liberty founded on law, was the work of a few great jurists, whose courage, sanity, and far-seeing devotion to freedom, justice, and progress is one of the chief glories of the civilization they did so much to perpetuate. Among them hardly any one was readier or more efficient than David Dudley Field, who in the Milligan case, the McCardle case, and other great cases growing out of the arbitrary habits fostered by the Civil War, struggled for law, liberty, and progress with a courage and devotion for which Americans of the present and the future can never thank him too much.

He was born at Haddam, Connecticut, February 13th, 1805. After graduating at Williams College in 1825, he was admitted to the bar in 1828. When he retired in 1885, his name was familiar to all educated Americans, and he was ranked as one of the greatest lawyers the country has produced. He died in New York, April 13th, 1894.

IN RE MILLIGAN MARTIAL LAW AS LAWLESSNESS (From the Speech of David Dudley Field in the Milligan Case, in the Supreme Court of the United States. By Permission from the Speeches, Arguments, and Miscellaneous Papers of David Dudley Field, New York, 1884. Copyrighted by D. Appleton & Co., Publishers)

THE

HE authority to suspend the privilege of the habeas corpus is derived, it is said, from two sources: first, from the martial power; and, second, from the second subdivision of the ninth section of the first article of the Federal Constitution.

As to the martial power, I have already discussed it so fully that I need not discuss it again. I trust it has been shown that this power-the war power, as it is fashionable to call it-belongs to Congress, and not to the President, and that his function is to execute, in that respect, the will of Congress. His power is no more the war power than is that of General Grant, or any other subordinate; for the President, as commander-inchief, is only, as Hamilton describes him, the "first general and admiral of the confederacy."

If the President, as commander-in-chief of the army, navy, and militia in the Federal service, has not the power of martial rule over others than martial persons, he cannot control them either by trial or arrest, or detain them, against the interposition or in defiance of the judicial power. As a question, therefore, under what has been incorrectly called the war power of the President, I submit that it is no longer worth considering.

How, then, stands the question, upon the text of the Constitution? This is the language: "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." My argument will be confined to this phrase and its true interpretation. Its importance, upon the present occasion, consists in this: If the President, and he alone, is invested by this clause with the power of suspending the privilege-if he cannot be controlled by Congress in its exercise, then I know not how the petitioners could be relieved from the custody of the Provost Marshal, however illegal their trial and conviction may have been.

Each of the three great departments of Government is independent in its own sphere, and, if it be once granted that the power in this respect belongs to the President alone, I am unable to perceive that Congress can rightfully control him in its exercise, or subject his discretion to theirs.

The clause in question certainly either grants the power or implies that it is already granted, and in either case it belongs to the legislative, executive, and judicial departments, concurrently, or to some, excluding the rest.

There have been four theories: one that it belongs to all the departments; a second, that it belongs to the Legislature; a third, that it belongs to the Executive; and the fourth, that it belongs to the Judiciary.