ceeding on what he believes to be the structural principles of Mr. Spencer's philosophy, and it can plainly lead to no useful result to alter Mr. Spencer's doctrine of one entity under two manifestations into that of two separate entities.

Accordingly when Mr. Ground (p. 73) demands whether it is in the category of mind or matter that Mr. Spencer places the force out of which he constructs the universe, we conceive that a reply will be refused. It will be said that the words mind and matter, intelligent and unintelligent, alike belong to manifestations, and not to the ultimate reality which is manifested. And even if it were conceded that we must attribute to the Unknowable something akin to mind as well as to matter, that something which lies behind mindstuff would be of so indescribable a character, and so utterly unlike its future developments in the human intellect, that our gain in attaining it would not be large.

We might not have greatly cared to dwell on the misconceptions of Mr. Spencer's teaching which we cannot but believe Mr. Ground to display, if it were not that in doing so we reinstate the credit of those replies to the Cosmic philosophy which are based upon the belief that it is materialistic. Mr. Ground considers this to be a misconception. Even if Mr. Spencer spoke the language of Professor Tyndall, and discerned in matter the promise and potency of all forms of life, he would bid us take into account the notion of matter which such teaching implies, and recognize it as rather endowing matter with life than degrading life to the mechanism of matter. Now, mind is plainly a form of life. Does Mr. Ground, then, in spite of his wide distinctions between mind and matter, conceive it possible to regard matter as endowed with mind? We thought he considered them as wide asunder as the poles. Even were this possible, it would not justly relieve these authors from the charge of materialism. It goes without saying that a philosopher who regards thought as a function of matter must describe matter less grossly than one who relegates mind to another region. But if he regards life and will as dependent upon those changes of matter which we all know to be evanescent, and as vanishing with its dissolution, it matters very little to us what fine terms he may apply to matter. Whatever elegant descriptions the wolf may give of himself, the essential question is whether he is going to eat us up. And if Professor Tyndall, or even Mr. Spencer himself, chains our existence in all its forms, bodily, mental, and spiritual, to the arrangement of material atoms, we must regard him as a genuine materialist. Lucretius finds matter to be instinct with poetry, but he is not the less a materialist.

It will be gathered from these observations that we do not believe Mr. Ground to have produced an unassailable reply to his illustrious antagonist. Nor do we believe that previous attempts in the same direction are so entirely useless as Mr. Ground confidently pronounces them. At the same time we should be sorry to deny that his work contains many highly suggestive chapters. We should place first among them Chapter X., in which Mr. Spencer is indicted, and

we think convicted, of inconsistency, in declaring that the Ego is nothing more at any given moment than 'the aggregate of feelings, actual and nascent, which then exists.' We do not, indeed, quite see why Mr. Ground encumbers the argument with the discussion on substance and phenomena which occupies the preceding chapter. Mr. Spencer's own nomenclature would have formed a sufficient foundation for the argument upon the Ego, without insisting upon very debateable terms which he has deliberately avoided. But it is plainly inconsistent in Mr. Spencer to deny that the aggregate of feelings and ideas makes up the Ego, when he has previously applied that term to the 'principle of continuity forming into a whole the faint states of consciousness, moulding and modifying them by some unknown energy.' That to which such very real functions as those of moulding and modifying are assigned cannot be pushed away when Mr. Spencer pleases behind the aggregate of feelings which it has itself moulded. Here Mr. Ground occupies a strong position indeed, and the point is one of supreme importance.

Anti-theism: Remarks on its Modern Spirit. By RICHARD HILL SANDYS, M.A., of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law. (London : Pickering and Co., 1883.)

OUR attention was first drawn to this volume, a small octavo of some two hundred pages, by a notice in a contemporary. The reviewer seemed to be rather shocked and scandalized at the tone of the book. The author had, it appeared, occasionally indulged in sarcasm respecting the position and arguments of some of the champions of unbelief. This is no new phenomenon, nor can we expect that it will not from time to time recur. That Ahab should freely scatter taunts against a prophet of the Lord, and stigmatize him as the troubler of Israel, is in some quarters deemed only right and natural. But that Elijah should mock the prophets of Baal, and be sarcastic on the powerlessness of the false god on behalf of his votaries-this is indeed a sad specimen of irreverence, a transfer of weapons which were only, it seems, intended for the benefit of one side in the contest between opposing creeds, or between belief and scepticism.

It is difficult, we might almost say impossible, to predict the effect of different books, or sights, or events upon individual minds. Voltaire made merry with the earthquake of Lisbon. To him it showed the absurdity of any plea for the existence of divine judgments. Here was Lisbon overwhelmed, while at Paris, a city just as guilty, people were dancing. A vision of the coming Reign of Terror might have made even Voltaire hesitate about the immunity of Paris from spectacles of misery and awe. It is the same with sights. The form of worship which attracts one temperament is found to a different cast of mind to be absolutely repellent. And books occasionally remind us of those fruits, such as black currants, which are heartily appreciated, or else as thoroughly disliked.

The essay of Mr. Sandys may probably be complained of by one class of sceptical readers as somewhat discursive, and as passing too lightly over some difficulties, as, for example, those connected with VOL. XVII.NO. XXXIV. ΙΙ

revelation. Yet we cannot but think that some really thoughtful minds might probably find attention more forcibly arrested by portions of this book than by many a more formal and elaborate treatise. The believer may likewise find suggestive hints very capable of being worked up into an apologetic discourse or address. The index at its conclusion is very useful, and a real help to the student. A single extract will give some idea, if not of the main argument, at least of the many interesting obiter dicta scattered through its pages. Here, for instance, is a thoughtful word on behalf of a faculty which has always seemed to us to fare rather badly at the hands of even so great a thinker as Bishop Butler. (That eminent philosopher speaks of imagination as 'that forward and delusive faculty.' But even he admits that it is 'of some use to apprehension.')

'It has been said that the imagination only recalls and deals with the shadows of things we have seen, the ideas or images of past impressions, and cannot therefore add to our knowledge, or do other than distract us in our search for it. That may be in part true, but it is an undue limiting of the faculty itself to the instruments with which it works. These shadows or images are not the imagination itself, nor do they present any full measure of its work. The imagination is not an isolated faculty, nor ever perhaps in full action except in association with others from which it receives force and grace continually. With some of these it is in such close affinity that it is difficult to draw any hard-and-fast line of . division between them. We know not that we can invent or even reason without some aid from the imagination; and that aid, until we have so developed ourselves as to be able to perceive the whole world of possible ideas carpeted out before us according to their tribes and relations, so as to be taken in at a glance, we had better perhaps hope always to receive until philosophy or ourselves have come to an end' (p. 21).

There is much real power in the last forty pages of Mr. Sandys' essay, but extracts would not fairly represent it. In passing, we cannot help saying that the author's own lines of thought seem so often tinctured with metaphysics that we question whether he is justified in his reproaches (p. 25) against that branch of mental science. Assuredly, Plato and Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Dante, Descartes, with many more, were all metaphysicians, and owe to their studies in that direction a great part of the empire which they have exercised over their own and subsequent generations.

Materialism, Ancient and Modern. By a late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1881.) THIS little book is barely the length of an ordinary paper to be read at the meetings of a scientific or literary society. As a paper it would deserve commendation and might do good service, especially in the way of awakening discussion; but it may be doubted whether it was worth publishing in its present form. The author's description of ancient materialism-that of Lucretius-is clear, and his exposition of its shortcomings satisfactory; but then nobody now holds the Lucretian theory. Of modern materialism he knows but little. It is needless to spend words in showing that nothing is gained by

supposing a blind unintelligent power, called Nature, to be the cause of phenomena, for nobody makes such a supposition. When a modern materialist says that a phenomenon is due to a 'law of nature,' he means one of two things. He either has a hazy notion that law itself is a cause sufficient to account for things happening according to law; or he has a clear notion that there is no need to account for things at all, but only to classify and compare them. In order to get rid of the troublesome prejudice of mankind, that after all things have a cause somewhere, he assumes that causation is the same thing as association; and thenceforward to those who ask for causes he simply serves out uniformities. It is as if the governor of a besieged city should label sawdust as 'flour,' and then deal it out to famishing citizens. This, however, is the real position of modern materialism, and on this the author before us says nothing. Nor are his physics more complete than his metaphysics; for he says (p. 16) 'no one at the present day believes that the ultimate particles received by modern science actually come into collision with each other'; whereas in what has been styled the Atomo-mechanical school of physics (now somewhat fashionable) all change is supposed to be due to such collisions. It is to be regretted that the author should not have read more deeply in the subject he treats, for his style is terse and good, his reasoning clear and thoughtful; but unfortunately it is in most cases wide of the mark.

Natural Law in the Spiritual World. By HENRY DRUMMOND, F.R.S.E., F.G.S. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1883.) We will begin our notice of this most remarkable book by saying that everyone who is interested in religious questions should read and study it. Few will agree with it throughout, some may perhaps disagree with it altogether, but no one can fail to be impressed with the beauty of the thoughts, the skill of the illustrations, the fearlessness with which the analogical method is applied, and above all the deep moral and spiritual earnestness which animates the whole work. It is a book that throws one back upon oneself, and pierces through the crust of conventional and easy-going religion to lay bare the actual foundations of a man's principles and conduct. All really spiritual writing should resemble, however distantly, the Word of God,' which is quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, . . . and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart,' and we can give Mr. Drummond no higher praise than to say that this description was continually before the mind while reading his book.

Mr. Drummond's object may be described as the attempt to enlist the modern scientific conception of Law on the side of dogmatic religion. As a student and teacher of natural science he sees the 'Reign of Law' gradually extending itself till it covers the whole realm of knowledge and experience, and he recognizes the immense strength that is thereby given to our belief in scientific doctrines. Then he turns to theology and sees in it the Great Exception.'

'The Reign of Law has gradually crept into every department of Nature, transforming knowledge everywhere into Science. The process goes on, and Nature slowly appears to us as one great unity, until the borders of the Spiritual World are reached. There the Law of Continuity ceases, and the harmony breaks down.'

In a noteworthy passage he points out that this is the secret of that fear of science which is shown by theologians in the present day.

'Whence this dread when brought face to face with science? It cannot be dread of scientific fact. No single fact in science has ever discredited a fact in religion. . . . What, then, has science done to make theology tremble? It is its method. It is its system. It is its Reign of Law. It is its harmony and continuity. The attack is not specific. No one point is assailed. It is the whole system, which when compared with the other and weighed in its balance is found wanting. An eye which has looked at the first cannot look upon this. To do that, and rest in the contemplation, it has first to uncentury itself.'

With these convictions, therefore, Mr. Drummond endeavours to take away this reproach from Religion by extending the sphere of Law into the spiritual world. He gives us, so to speak, a chart, in which we may trace some of the laws which govern the natural world prolonged into the spiritual, and working there on different materials but in the same way as they work here, where science has discovered them. What is original in Mr. Drummond's book is the combination of this analogical method, which has generally been apologetic or at least scientific, with very great moral and spiritual force and insight. One forgets the evidential value of the method in the deep impression made by the spiritual tone of such papers as 'Biogenesis,' 'Growth,' Eternal Life,' 'Environment,' which start from some well-known scientific fact and reach the loftiest heights and the most profound depths of the spiritual life. A convenient, though by no means the most impressive, instance for our purpose is his development of Dr. Mozley's description of the two characters, the Christian and the merely moral character.

'We have all met these two characters-the one eminently respectable, upright, virtuous, a trifle cold perhaps, and generally, when critically examined, revealing somehow the mark of the tool: the other with God's breath still upon it, an inspiration; not more virtuous, but differently virtuous; not more humble, but different, wearing the meek and quiet spirit artlessly as to the manner born. The other-worldliness of such a character is the thing that strikes you; you are not prepared for what it will do or say or become next, for it moves from a far-off centre, and in spite of its transparency and sweetness, that presence fills you always with awe. A man never feels the discord of his own life, never hears the jar of the machinery by which he tries to manufacture his own good points, till he has stood in the stillness of such a presence. Then he discerns the difference between growth and work. He has considered the lilies, how they grow.'

With what insight, again, does he penetrate one of self-deception's favourite disguises in the remark, 'Our correspondences, as a whole, are not with evil, and in our calculations as to our spiritual