they seem sometimes appointed by Divine Providence to antagonize the spirit of their age, and achieve moral revolutions. Still, physical surroundings impart individuality to national character; and this is well exemplified in the Hellenic traits. The central question of Greece in the civilized world led to a commercial development, and this was favored by a maritime climate. The configuration of the surface and the shore line contributed to individuality; its scenery impressed the œsthetic character. The Athenians were ardent, vivacious, and of independent spirit. Their intellect tended to observation and thought, and their language was adapted to be the vehicle of the highest philosophy, and the medium of the loftiest civilization attainable without Christianity.

Before proceeding to discuss the religion of the Athenians, our author furnishes a condensed and masterly exhibit of the philosophy of religion in general. Defining religion as a form of thought, feeling, and action which has the Divine for its object, basis, and end," and enunciating the fact of history and ethnology, that "religious ideas and sentiments have prevailed among all nations," he runs his scalpel through the joints of the various theories of religious phenomena which do not recognize their germs in the constitution of the human mind. This chapter, by itself, is a neat, clean-cut monograph, and might well be made a tract for more general reading. The Comtean theory that religious phenomena have arisen from the fear of unseen powers, falls with the overthrow of Comte's theory of the "law of the three states " in human development -the "theological," the "metaphysical," and the positive."* The Hegelian theory that religion is a part of an evolution of the Absolute, attaining its fullest self-consciousness in philosophy, next receives an exposition (if exposition be possible) and an exposure t―for propositions which categorically contradict the axioms of reason‡ admit only of exposure, and

*Pages 57-65. See also a sharp criticism of this fundamental position in Huxley's "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," pp. 156–164; and for a consummate dissection of the "Philosophie Positive," see "Martineau's Essays," vol. i, pp. 1-62. Pages 65-69.

Like this: "Being and nothing are identical." The fundamental principle of Hegelianism is the paradox that "contraries are identical." But, since the time of Aristotle, the "law of non-contradiction" has been accepted by all logicians as a fundamental law of thought.

not of refutation. The theory of Jacobi and Schleiermacher, that religion has its foundation in feeling is indefensible, since feeling cannot be the source of ideas; and further, any cognition of Deity alleged as correlated to the feeling of the Divine, must be logically preceded by ideas of reason.* The theory of Cousin, that religion has its outbirth in the spontaneous apperceptions of the reason, is stated and substantiated as a rational account of the genesis of the idea of God, but found defective as a philosophy of the phenomena of religion. (Pp. 78-86.) Finally, the theory that religious phenomena had their origin in external revelation, is shown to be unsatisfactory, because, 1. It is improbable that truths so important should have been intrusted to tradition alone; 2. The theory does not account for the universality of religious habits and practices; 3. Verbal revelation could convey no ideas to a being destitute of antecedent notions of divine things. (Pp. 86-95.)

As the result of this survey, our author concludes with the following proposition: "The universal phenomenon of religion has originated in the à priori apperceptions of reason, and the natural, instinctive feelings of the heart, which from age to age have been vitalized, unfolded, and perfected by supernatural communications and testamentary revelations."-P. 97. It thus contains an element of REASON, an element of FEELING, and an element of REVELATION.

The way is now opened for a statement of the higher characteristics of the religion of the Athenians. Numerous evidences, presented to the eyes of St. Paul as he entered their

*Pages 70-77. Is not this criticism based on a misconception of the sense in which Jacobi employs the term "feeling?" All mental states may be regarded as "feeling." Brown uses "feeling" for consciousness, ("Philosophy of the Human Mind," sect. xi.) All cognition involves a kind of intellectual feeling-the subjective factor of consciousness. J. S. Mill uses the term in this sense. "Every thing is a feeling, of which the mind is conscious," ("System of Logic," Am. Ed., p. 34. The sensus numinis evidently is not supposed to be a distinct definable cognition, but only the analogue of the sensus vagus, or vital sense, in the field of sensations. Jacobi calls it "Glaube," and compares it with our "faith" in the intuitions of sense; and, finally, in a later work, (ueber das Unternehmen des Kriticis mus, die Vernunft zu Verstande zu bringen, 1802,) the faculty which he had before called "Faith," he now named "Reason."— Vernunft. This would make the corresponding "feeling" something much more specific than the sensus vagus—a real intuition of God.

On this, see also Cocker in "Methodist Quarterly Review," April, 1862.

city, convinced him that they were every way more than ordinarily religious."* This character the apostle had reason to ascribe to them in a sense entirely strict and legitimate, religion in its essential character being something more than a system of dogmatic teaching, and consisting in "a mode of thought, feeling, and action determined by our consciousness of dependence on a Supreme Being," (p. 107;) the numberless temples and shrines of Athens testified to their excessive "carefulness about religion." Leaving their idolatries and superstitions for the moment in the back-ground, certain noble and normal outcrops of the religious nature were clearly discernable in the religious philosophy of the Athenians. They had some faith in the being and providence of God. (Pp. 107–109.) They felt a consciousness of dependence upon God. (Pp. 110-117.) One of their own poets (Aratus) had said:

"Jove's presence fills all space, upholds this ball;
All need his aid; his power sustains us all,

For we his offspring are."t

The same sentiment had been hymned in the same city by Cleanthes. This feeling of dependence and sense of obligation lie at the foundation of all religion. The Athenians also possessed the religious emotions flowing from the feeling of depend ence-fear of offending the divinity which they felt over them, and an instinctive yearning after the Invisible. Finally, they felt a consciousness of sin and made piacular sacrifices.

But, turning to contemplate the dark side of the Athenian religion, we are confronted by the shocking realities of polytheism and idolatry. Modern inquiry, however, in penetrating beneath the exterior of these religious monstrosities, finds them to be mere excrescences upon a purer and simpler faith-a degeneracy from a state of primitive monotheism which seems to underlie the religion of humanity. And even during the

* This is Cudworth's rendering oἱ κατὰ πάντα ὡς δεισιδαιμονετέρους, (Acts xvii, 22,) and with this, exegetical writers substantially agree. The first chapter on the Religion of the Athenians appeared in the "Methodist Quarterly Review" for April, 1869.

Aratus: "The Phenomena," Book V, 5.

This position is earnestly controverted by certain writers, who hold that mankind has undergone a continuous and uniform development, religiously, from a state of fetichism, and that fetichism is incompatible with a sense of theistic unity. Having given this subject, however, an independent study, we have been surprised at the copiousness of the proof that Dr. Cocker's position is a valid one.

reign of these abominations, the elite in the realm of thought looked upon them with horror, and denounced them with a boldness tempered only by an instinctive respect for popular opinions. The genesis and significance of the Greek Mythology are discussed in this connection in words which ought to be made the preamble to every Christian text-book of the classical authors. (Pp.. 128-160.) We commend the discussion earnestly to the attention of those bees in the world of thought who love to extract the honey even of poisonous flowers. Our author regards the Grecian Mythology as a grand symbolic rep resentation of the Divine as manifested in nature and providence. (P. 139.)*

We reach here the heart of the discussion: Is God cogniza ble by reason? If a religious nature and destination appertain to man; if certain fundamental principles are found underlying the Grecian, and all other religions; if it be a clear presumption that the reason of man is furnished with necessary ideas or laws of thought correlated to the instinct and emotion of worship, let us see whether it be possible to give these ideas an articulate expression, and reproduce the spontaneous and instantaneous deduction by which reason bridges the gulf which separates the changeful and finite from the permanent, infinite, and eternal.

I. The idea of God is a common phenomenon of the universal intelligence. The proofs of this (pp. 89, 90) are found in common observation, in the voice of history, and in the concurrent testimony of travelers among savage tribes.

II. The idea of God, in its completeness, is not held to be a simple, direct, and immediate intuition of the reason alone, independently of all experience and all knowledge of the external world. It is a complex idea-a logical deduction from selfevident truths given in sense, conscience, and reason. The logical evolution of the theistic concept begins with the disengagement of certain ideas formulating themselves in primitive judgments which the mind intuitively perceives to be true necessarily and universally. Such are, "Every event implies a cause," ""Every attribute implies a substance." These a

*He draws largely from the learned dissertation on this subject by Cudworth: "Intellectual System of the Universe," especially chap. iv. The reader will fall upon a coincident line of thought in Müller: "Chips from a German Workshop,” vol. ii, pp. 142-169.

priori judgments constitute the major premise of the theistic syllogism. The minor premise is furnished by the facts of experience and observation. From these facts, the d priori laws of reason necessitate, as a conclusion, the affirmation of a God as the only valid explanation of the phenomena. Historically, or actually, the process is reversed. The phenomena of experience first come before the mind, and, in their presence, the latent laws of thought or primitive ideas of reason are roused into efficiency, and the judgment, by a natural and spontaneous logic, free from all reflection, and consequently from all possibility of error, affirms a necessary relation between the facts of experience and the à priori ideas of the reason.* The demonstration consists necessarily of à priori as well as a posteriori elements. It is of no use to point to the events and changes of the material universe as proof of the existence of a First Cause, unless we take account of the universal and necessary truth that "every change must have an efficient cause." There is no logical conclusiveness in the assertion of Paley, that "experience teaches us that a designer must be a person," because, as Hume justly remarks, our experience" is narrowed down to a mere point, and "cannot be a rule for a universe;" but there is an infinitude of force in that dictum of reason that "intelligence, self-consciousness, and self-determination necessarily constitute personality."

ena.

III. The universe demands a God as its adequate explanation. The attempts of Positivism are futile and absurd. Mankind cannot be prevented from striving to pass beyond phenomWe cannot even have a cognition of phenomena without the play of the regulative ideas of the reason. No notion of realities underlying phenomena can be given by phenomena themselves. It is given by reason in the presence of phenomena. These à posteriori and à priori data mutually condition each other. The relation between them is a law of thought and a law of things. It is a universal and necessary correlative which impels us to affirm that a living power is the correlation of the changing phases of the sensible world, and intelligence the correlative of the order which we discover in them. The author has given us an exhaustive table of the facts of the * For a lucid treatment of this subject, see Cocker: "Methodist Quarterly Review," April, 1862.