New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, January 31, 1849.

New Zealand Spectator and Cook's Strait Guardian, Volume V, Issue 365, 31 January 1849, Page 2

New Zealand Spectator, AND COOK'S STRAIT GUARDIAN. Wednesday, January 31, 1849.

H.M.Steamer Acheron arrived this morning from Auckland, which she left on Thursday for Waiaki to take in water, and remained until Saturday, when she sailed for Wellington. His Excellency Sir George .Grey arrived at Auckland the 15th instant. The Duke of Poitland arrived at Auckland on the same day from London, ancfil"advertized to sail immediately~ ( fqr Wellington. The Thomas Fielden arrived, at Auckland t the 16th instant, with stock from Sydney, liWing made the passage' in eight days. m> ,Sh\e has brought English news up to a late date. The Government trig Victoria, which sailed from . same, day as the Fly, arrived at Auckland three days afterwards, having called at Taranaki onJier way, where she remained "two day s;- sailing onr the 1 lth instant for Auckland.

In our notice of the article on the Savings Bank, published in last'WedAesßa^s'!##•pendent, we reserved fo another opportunity (as interfering with bur, general,, 'argument) the exposure of a piece of t ignorance :so gross, that no one but a 'political empiric could have been guilty of it,' writer, after condemning the use of' personal,yit;uperatib'n, while indulging in it himself to "an unmeasured extent, attempts to justify the

infidel (which, if we may judge [from his sensitiveness on the point, he appears to have had a hand. in) that its au-thbr&^have-chosen to designate a tion from a Chaldee manuscript, jii^the following manner : — •'i " For their information, and also for theconsolation of the tianslator of the Chaldaic manuscript, it may be as well to state, that Arch' bishop Whateley related the deedt of Napoleon in the same Biblical phraseology ; so that if the translator of the manuscript in question be considered by them an Infidel foe such a document, -he will at any rate be in much better company, than they are ever likely^to be." In order to serve the interests of Christianity, by exposing the fallacies of Hume's Essay on Miracles, a work of some authority with sceptics and infidels, Archbishop Whately, several" years "before" he likcf attained his present elevation, published anonymously a work, in which he showed that, on Hume's principles, such a person as Napoleon never existed. Now we know that Napoleon existed, consequently Hume's principles must be unsound. In his Elements of Logic, when treating of fallacies in argument, where there will be frequently an apparent connection of premises with a conclusion which does not in reality follow from them ; the question respecting the validity of' the argument being, not whether the conclusion be true, but whether it follows from the premises adduced; Archbishop Whately adds the following note :—: — " An exposure of some of Hume's fallacies, in his Essay on Miracles," and elaewhere, was attempted, on this plan (viz., to expose a fallacy, by bringing forward a similar one whose conclusion is obviously absurd), a few years ago, in a pamphlet (published anonymously, as the nature of the argument required, but which I see no reason against acknowledging) entitled, " Historic Doubts relative to Napoleon Buonaparte;" in which it was shown that the existence of that extraordinary person could not, on Hume's principles, be received as a w^ell authenticated fact; since it rests on evidence less strong than that which supports the Scripture histories. Our readers will learn the nature of Archbishop Whateley's work from the above account, which is partly in his own words, and by contrasting it with the statement in the Independent, be able in some degree to estimate the ignorance of the political quack who thus impudently attempts to shelter himself behind so respectable an authority, and who, when next he presumes to give an opinion about any work, may be expected at least first to read it ; we will not ask so much of him as to understand it, since that would be imposing too severe a condition. . .