'systematic solution of the principal problems connected with the 'Will.' . . . 'In the conviction that Necessarianism is as unsound in 'Philosophy as it is fatal to Religion, I have sought for some strong and unassailable position for the doctrine of liberty.' These sentences explain the general design of the undertaking. Our author enters upon his task by endeavouring to determine articulately 'The point at issue between the Libertarians and Necessarians.' This chapter contains remarks worthy the attention of both parties in the controversy. After certain explanations, criticisms, and eliminations, he brings out the following as the most scientific formula of Necessarianism: The whole human soul is subject to the law of causality.' This he proposes in the belief that it will receive the unqualified assent of the writers who contend for the doctrine of necessity. We do not undertake to say whether they will all accept the statement as a just exposition of their ultimate principle. If we accept this theory, Mr. Solly shows that there can be no liberty properly so called. It is not liberty to do as a person' wills,' when his willing' is under the domain of causal law. The fundamental principle of Libertarianism must therefore be opposed to this feature of Necessarianism-the subjection of the whole soul to the dominion of causal law. Mr. Solly, therefore, submits the following as an essential part of the formula of the theory of liberty: Every human soul contains a principle of action not dependent on the law of causality.' This statement, our author admits, is only a negative proposition; and he thinks it better to take the question in this form than to attempt a positive definition of liberty by means of the Will, and of the Will by means of liberty, as is usually done. Throwing out of the argument the terms liberty and will, Mr. Solly holds that the discussion would be simplified and rendered more scientific if the Libertarians would merely assert that the human soul contains an element independent of causality.' This being the case, he maintains that the issue should be joined on the Necessarian formula; and the business of the Libertarians would thus be to show that the whole human soul is not subject to the law of causality. The full determination of this point necessarily involves an investigation into the nature of conditioned causality.

The second chapter is occupied with a reply to the question, What is the nature of the conception of causality? Mr. Solly here first points out the errors and defects of Dr. Thomas Brown's theory of causation; other views are also examined with great acuteness, and the doctrine which he holds to be correct explained. This is substantially the same as that of Kant. It follows,' he concludes, 'from 'the nature of causality, as explained above, that, though it arises in 'the subject, it can only be predicated of objects. Our author next examines the grounds of our belief in causality. This subject is discussed elaborately and with great ability. In showing that it is not based on experience, he exposes the fallacies in the notable doctrine of Hume and his followers. He reaches the conclusion that 'It is not only in the subject then that we must look for the ground of causality, 'but in some à priori knowledge.' The influence of the Kantian

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method and principles is very evident in this inquiry. The wellknown views on this subject advanced by J. S. Mill, in his Logic, are severely criticised; and the whole disquisition forms a masterly defence of the à priori origin of some elements of our knowledge. The next step in our author's argument, is to prove that causality is an à priori conception. He then advances, in the fourth chapter-Liberty a self-determination of the subject'-to the main point raised in the investigation. It is here that he propounds his peculiar theory or doctrine respecting the liberty of the Will. The subject is a difficult one, and Mr. Solly's discussion is marked by rare analytical power and logical precision. We cannot say that his solution of the difficulty is satisfactory to us, although we have not space to enter into criticisms of it. Mr. Solly contends for a self-determining power in the Will, in a sense essentially different from that of the English and American writers who advocate the same side. The mode of discussion will be new to most English readers, and the theory advanced is an ingenious, consistent, philosophical effort to solve the difficult problem. It deserves the patient examination of the student of philosophy and theology. Although our author's views cannot be exhibited in a short extract, perhaps the following sentences, which state the result of his explanation of the sphere of law and liberty, may be intelligible to philosophical readers.

'The result at which we have arrived may be stated as follows. Every action, in as far as it is a pure act of the will, and cannot be objectivised, consists in a modification of the empirical character of the action through the determination of the subject, and is thus the exponent of the individual personality for the moment in which it takes place ;-and up to this point it is free. In so far, however, as it is an object of the senses, either external or internal, it follows according to laws of human nature from the character so determined as above, and like the latter, therefore, is the product of law and liberty combined.'

After critically examining, in the light of his theory, the various schemes for the liberty of the Will, and having devoted a chapter to the consideration of the relation of the Will to the intellect, Mr. Solly proceeds to treat of the relation of the Will to God,-its relation to the Omnipotent and to the Omniscient. His concluding chapters are on 'The Divine Will.' These parts of his book embrace the discussion of the most abstruse and difficult, yet sublime questions that can engage the mind of man. Several of the particular conclusions which Mr. Solly reaches in these speculations we could not accede to; but the investigations are prosecuted with a deep seriousness and great philosophical power. Discussions respecting the nature of the Will, its freedom, &c., have not of late engaged as much attention in this country as they have on the Continent, or even in America. During recent years several valuable treatises on the subject have been published in America. Those of Tappan, Upham, and Day, may especially be mentioned. These writers have conducted the inquiry on the principles of the Anglo-Scottish philosophy, or as psychological questions. In Mr. Solly's book the matter is examined chiefly as a metaphysical question. He has treated it more profoundly, and in a more rigidly scientific manner. Throughout the whole discussion he

takes the ground of the higher philosophy. We think the book all the more valuable on this account. In view of some tendencies in our philosophy towards what is called Positive science, we cannot but regard the publication of a work of this nature as a valuable and opportune service to the philosophy of man's spiritual nature and higher relations.

The Curability of Consumption. By FRANCIS H. RAMADGE, M.D., Oxon, &c., &c. Longmans.-A new edition of this treatise, which has gone through four or five editions in as many years, demands a word or two from us. In the preface to the first edition the author expressed himself as follows:

'After an experience of upwards of thirty years, during which time not less than 30,000 cases of consumption, in all its various stages, have come before me, I have no hesitation in asserting-notwithstanding a different opinion is entertained by many medical practitioners-that this disease, when judiciously and skilfully treated, is as curable as any other disease, the curability of which is not disputed.'

In maintaining such a position at that time, Dr. Ramadge stood almost alone; but already has a more hopeful view of this wide-spread malady begun to obtain among professional men. The results arrived at by Laennec, the celebrated French surgeon, have produced some effect. Sir Charles Clark, in his Treatise on Pulmonary Affections, admits the services of the Frenchman, and declares himself unable to resist the evidence which points to the possibility of cure. Dr. Ramadge endeavours to restore the healthy action of the chest by respiration through a tube. The artificial action gradually induced in this way enlarges the capacity of the lung, prevents the formation of fresh tubercle, and tends to bring together the lips of any cavity which may have been formed, so as to effect by art what post-mortem examinations abundantly declare to be often produced by nature-a cicatrising of the injured part. The efficacy of this plan depends not so much upon any medicated vapours which may be inhaled, as on the construction of the inhaling tube itself, which retards the expiration, and so fills out the air-cells. Medical men are already beginning to recognise the fact that change of climate can avail only in the very beginning of the disorder. Italy, Madeira, and the South of France, so full of the graves of our countrymen, show how fallacious is the hope, in the great majority of cases, of any lasting benefit from the mere influence of climate. Dr. Ramadge has had much prejudice to contend with, but our English love of fair play will, we believe, secure him a final, though a tardy, justice. He has not caught up a theory on any partial or inadequate basis of induction. His plan has now been subjected for a long time to a practical test. It has sustained that test with honour. We cannot regard it as a crime if the autho of a discovery that will save multitudes of lives, follows the dictate of humanity and reason, and desires to make it widely known. If it be a sin to cure patients who ought, by right, to have died in the regular way, then Dr. Ramadge is a most notorious sinner-and may the catalogue of his sins be seven-fold multiplied! We are quite dis

Theology-Böhringer's Wykliffe.

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posed to believe that some years hence his plan will be in general adoption, and his name enrolled among the benefactors who have adorned the healing art.

THEOLOGY.

Die Vorreformatoren des vierzehnten und fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts, Erste Hälfte: Johannes von Wykliffe. Von FRIEDRICH BÖHRINGER. Zurich. (The Forerunners of the Reformation in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.' By FREDERICK BÖHRINGER. First Part: John de Wycliffe.) Nutt. Williams and Norgate.-Dr. Böhringer is the author of an extensive work, or series rather, entitled The Church of Christ and her Witnesses; or, Church History in Biographies. This biographical history of the Church was commenced in 1842, and seven of its parts have been already completed. The great names of the earlier centuries, from Ignatius and Polycarp down to Leo and Gregory the Great, occupy the first four; while the remaining three are devoted to the great missionaries and schoolmen, the saints and the mystics, of the Middle Age. The eighth part was to have included Wycliffe, Huss, Wessel, and Savonarola., But the biography of the first attained such dimensions as to require a volume to itself, so that the first half of the eighth part appears alone. Dr. Böhringer describes himself as induced to award so large a space to our great English Reformer, partly from the desire to present the learned public of Germany with an account of Wycliffe and his doctrine more thorough than anything hitherto produced in that country, and partly from his sense of the magnitude of the influence exerted by the Englishman in favour of reform upon the continent--an influence to which he thinks that even Neander has failed to render full justice. When we say that Dr. Böhringer belongs to the Dryasdust school, we do not mean to speak disparagingly, or, in so saying, at all to depreciate his well-directed and valuable labours. He is what we call 'dry,' on principle; and would gladly incur whatever blame any may attach to such a quality, if by so doing he is placed beyond all suspicion of superficiality or partiality. Whatever he may not have, he certainly does display both thoroughness and fairness. He goes wherever he can to the original sources of information, aided by the results of the latest research. His plan of writing history is altogether objective. He examines the documents, and rejecting such as are untrustworthy, weaves into his statement of fact or opinion a succession of quotations. His method is to mark out certain leading theological doctrines, and then to set down under each head a collection of sentences, by means whereof he conveys as exactly as possible the opinions of the particular father or schoolman with whom he is engaged, on the successive articles in question. Here then is the material, not only collected, but arranged, in a manner most serviceable for reference. Studies such as these are of great value, as furnishing careful and

readily available contributions to the history of dogmas. But the books which contain them are, we must confess, very heavy reading, and will only be approached by students occupied in recondite research for a special purpose. Such works give us the words of past times, but not the life. These scholars lay before you the mass of statements they have classified with such care, and go their way. They would think it an impertinence if they paused to tell you how they loved the martyr and how they loathed the persecutor to say such opinions were right and such were wrong or to mark off the point at which a truth was exaggerated into an error. They are labourers in the historic field who leave untouched the most difficult task of all. For their work, philological knowledge, due patience, and some measure of merely critical acumen, will suffice. But it is not from them that we gather lessons in the philosophy of history, that we learn how to find in bygone times varieties of the thoughts which stir our own, or to trace the connexion between men's passions and their theories, between the letter and the spirit of an age. The lack of a vital sympathy with the past may be evinced in two ways, either by an illiberal criticism which applies an accidental modern standard to old times, or by an indifference which coldly communicates dead facts, and calls itself philosophic. We do not suspect Dr. Böhringer of any actual defect in sympathy with the greatness and goodness of past ages. His great work has been a labour of love. But surely there is a medium between his unmoved scholastic manner, and that flippant vivacity which rather feels than sees, and which judges before it understands.

The scholars of Germany have not been slow to acknowledge the services of Dr. Vaughan with respect to Wycliffe. They are inclined sometimes to think us English unscientific and superficial, but there was a Gründlichkeit (a thoroughgoingness) about his investigation and disinterment of the Wycliffe MSS. quite after their own heart. Groneman's Latin work (Diatribe in T. W. reformationis prodromi vitam, ingenium, scripta, 1837) was confessedly based, in the main, on his Life and Opinions of John de Wycliffe. Lewald, who contributed to Niedner's Zeitschrift für Historische Theologie a systematised summary of the Trialogus, makes due mention of his merits. Last of all, Dr. Böhringer, using the 'Monograph' and Lewald, and examining the Trialogus for himself besides, indicates by most frequent reference the obligation due to his English predecessor. He does not seem to be aware that Dr. Vaughan had given to the English public the substance of the fourth and most important book of the Trialogus, in the first volume published by the Wycliffe Society (Tracts and Treatises of Wycliffe).

Though no new sources of information were open to Dr. Böhringer, his endeavour to present Wycliffe before us, especially as the scholastic divine, has been so persevering and so successful as to merit our cordial commendation. It is not that he shows us Oxford with its old lights and new lights (then as now)-with its riotous students at home, and its high pretensions abroad-it is not that he takes us into the lec