whence, a cause of its origination be assumed. But a cause is present, when through any force whatever a negation is cancelled and a something put in its place. In truth, therefore, the sentence, out of nothing comes nothing, has been falsely opposed to the notion of creation, as if the two were logically incompatible. The notion of creation in nowise involves that something comes out of nothing, or that nothing of itself passes into something; but that through something, God, the negation of the world is cancelled, and thereby the world established. Only the sentence, something is originated by nothing, would contradict the laws of causation, and render the notion of creation impossible. But this notion in nowise affirms that something is produced by nothing; but rather that through God the world was originated. And to this assertion it is plainly impossible to oppose either the maxim, from nothing comes nothing, or any logical law whatever. For it lies neither in the principle of identity and contradiction, nor in the law of causation or the sufficient ground, that the through (the causal power) is not sufficient for the production of anything, but that an out-of (a stuff) must be also added." (S. 651.)

"By the Word of the Lord were the heavens made." By His power that which was not, was made to be. The notion involves no contradiction; all that can be said is that it is incomprehensible. This is indeed true, but we are beset on every side with incomprehensibilities. Every change, every event, every becoming involves riddles which neither philosophy nor science can answer. We know the fact and nothing more. Who can tell how, from the union of oxygen and hydrogen, water can be produced? What science can make it in the slightest degree comprehensible? Who knows what happens with these gases when they suddenly lose all their peculiar properties, exchange their powers of repulsion for the contradictory ones of attraction, and that too under the influence of a force of repulsion (heat)? Who has the slightest insight into the sudden production, through these incomprehensible processes, of qualities which did not exist before? We see the fact and are forced to admit it, but all attempts fail to explain or comprehend it. Now we are in no worse position with reference to the doctrine of creation. It

involves no contradiction, and is hence possible. It does involve incomprehensibilities, but so does every fact. The opposing theories of atheism and pantheism involve, first, the same difficulties, and second, involve also decided and insuperable contradictions. It is, then, impossible to hold them in the light of clear and steady thought. We must, then, admit the only remaining doctrine, as one which, while we cannot explain or comprehend it, must still be held as the only lasting plan upon which our thought can rest.

In the section upon the relation of God to the world, the author seems at times to waver a little in his determination not to construct the absolute a priori. Along with much acute criticism, the a priori conception of the absolute sometimes presents itself. We agreed, at the start, to determine the content of this notion entirely from the facts of experience, as interpreted by the laws of thought. By a rigorous interpretation of these facts, in accordance with these laws, we find ourselves forced to assume the existence of an omnipresent, ever-working supernatural Force, who once established, and now coordinates and controls, all nature according to the methods of a rational mind. This is the only content which the facts warrant us in putting into the notion of the absolute; and this content we are forced to attribute to it. We hardly think it necessary, therefore, to answer the objection (p. 662) that the absolute must necessarily be the one and only being. For by the law of causation, we cannot view a thing as at once cause and effect; hence for the conditioned existences of nature, we are forced to assume an unconditioned existence separate from them. What need, then, to reply to the objection, which can only be raised by the theoriser on the a priori conception of the absolute, that the absolute must be the only being, when we are forced to conceive the absolute as distinct from the conditioned. Equally unnecessary is it, from our point of view, to reply to the objection (s. 664) that the absolute as such excludes all relativity; and therefore can stand in no relation to the world. This objection is completely answered when we remember that we know the absolute only in relation and in causal relation. There is no warrant for believing in an absolute which excludes all relation. We postulate the absolute

for the express purpose of standing in causal relation to the conditioned facts of nature; and it would be a strange piece of ingratitude, if, after we have affirmed it upon the sole authority of the relative, it should now grow proud and disclaim all possibility of connection with the relative. In that case, the abso lute and not the relative must vanish; for we made the former only to support the latter; and if it refuses to do so, it is not worth keeping. The same reply holds for the objection considered (s. 665) that the relativity of God and the world involves the dependence of the former. We have been forced to postulate God as cause and world as effect; and it is certainly a remarkable discovery that an effect can in any wise condition its cause, at least so as to reduce it to dependence We first posit the effect in absolute dependence upon its cause, and then suggest that such a relation is destructive of the latter's independence! The question (s. 666) whether the existence of the world is compatible with the infinity and eternity of God, is equally inadmissible, for whatever content these words may have, it must be determined entirely from the facts. Surely to reason from the finite to the infinite, and then, after having reached the infinite by the aid of the finite, to insist that the latter is irreconcilable with the former, is a queer specimen of logic. Objections drawn from the notion of the omnipotence of the absolute move us less yet. A moment's reflection upon the way in which we come to this notion, relieves it of all difficulty. The facts of experience compel us to assume a power above all and which controls all; but there is no warrant for believing in that wretched concoction of contradictory nonsense which can accomplish with equal ease the reasonable and the unreasonable, the thinkable and the unthinkable, the possible and the impossible. We by no means assert that the author does not give sufficient answers to these questions; on the contrary, they are all acute and convincing. We do think, however, that a shorter way was possible. All these questions are inadmissible from our standpoint. They all rest upon an a priori construction of the absolute, which we have seen to be impossible. It is sufficient to say to all such objections that they are based on subjective nonsense, which has been mistaken for objective fact.

We began by

See, then, the point to which we have come. listening to science as it expounded its first principles and its conclusions. We found them very unsatisfactory, and in sad need of rectification. The notions of matter and force, and of their mutual relations, were seen to be utterly indefinite and in many cases contradictory. Upon inquiring into the teachings of science concerning the atoms, we again found much that was unthinkable, while the so-called explanations turned out, upon examination, to be only subjective confusion. We next found that scientific theories all postulate something above the conditioned forces with which science deals. Indeed, we are compelled to postulate an omnipresent, ever-active Intelligence, who is not only author, but also administrator, of the steady laws of nature. Instead of the deistic conception of God as apart from the world, we find ourselves forced to assume not only that by Him are all things, but also that in Him are all things. The attempt to make mechanically intelligible the phenomena of nature, was seen to be an utter failure; while the notion of an eternal mechanism was found to be a contradiction. How the phenomena of nature are produced, no science can tell; we know but this: the Power from whom nature flows works intelligently, and according to the methods of a rational mind. We are forced to conceive it as intelligent, self-conscious, and personal. In the attempt to think out this conception, we found that it does, indeed, involve incomprehensibilities, but no contradiction, and that it is the only conception which does not involve insuperable contradiction, and the only one upon which our thought can rest.

We cannot follow the author in his proof that science postulates God not only as free and intelligent, but also as having an ethical nature. The discussion of the relation of God to humanity, of the old problem of evil and its bearing upon God's power and goodness, and of the vexed question of freedom, must also be omitted. Indeed, we have given only the faintest hints of the author's extended discussions. But if any one wishes to see how confused the metaphysics of physics are, and how weak its atheistic arguments, we commend to him this work as a storehouse of scientific facts, of acute criticism, and of just speculation.

ARTICLE III.-ESCHATOLOGY OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.

THE want of a consistent and satisfactory view of the eschatology of the Old Testament has been widely felt. To avoid certain traditional errors which are fraught with serious mischief, we have run into anomalies of interpretation which have the appearance of caprice or of subterfuge. It is time to open the question again, whether it is not possible to carry a uniform system of interpretation through the Bible without violating the unity of its doctrine. To offer some suggestions pertinent to this inquiry will be the object of the present Article.

FIRST PRESENTATION.

The first mention of death is in the law of Eden. Man is presented to view as made in the image of his God, and but a little lower than the angels. The penalty of death is denounced to hold him back from disobedience.

FIRST NECESSARY CONCEPTIONS.

His conceptions of death as thus denounced, so long as his innocence remained, must have been wholly dark. It carried with it, of course, the displeasure of God; and he knew nothing of the dispensation of mercy kept in reserve. suppose that the sense of immortality in man, as at first endowed by his Creator, and in his condition of sinless purity, was weaker than in the best of his descendants.

We cannot

Dying, then, as a penal consequence of sin, could not have seemed to him any thing less than a painful exit from the known to the unknown; from the enjoyable to the terrible. Some sort of a death-realm was inseparable from the thought. Some of the miseries of that death-realm must have been obvious to his mind; such as the loss of a foot-hold in the visible, the privation of known good, the possibility of unknown evil, the distance of self-banishment from God, the pangs of conscious guilt, and that fear of God "which hath torment." In brief, the sentence "dying thou shalt die," as he must have