they seem. No halting philosophy can ever satisfy high thought. If the Nebular Hypothesis does not furnish to the human eye the conditions that underlie the definiteness and magnitude of Alcyone, we shall not, surely, assume the indefiniteness of the "primal star-dust." Metaphysically speaking, the star material is just as definite as the greatest of the seven stars. The higher intelligence sees the definite underlying and informing the seeming indefinite. Nothing more, nothing less; be it a stick in the hands of human reason, or seeming chaos in the hand of divine reason. But, to get nearest this error. It confounds the unfolding of knowledge with the unfolding of pure-being. Whether it appear in the borrowed, altruistic ethics that tries to teach a definite, evolved conscience from so-called indefinite conditions already in humanity. Or, whether it stop with the worm developed from decaying flesh, by the theory of spontaneity, the error is the same. "Motion" cannot transform this non-entity, pure-being into activity. So that, thus confused, unconsciously, on our part, this old, delusive error cheats, if it cheat us, as insinuatingly as if it had never been punctured by the keenness of correct thought. Knowledge increases, but purebeing is a myth. There is no such thing or power. It has no development, because it is nothing, and nothing can come out of it. It is only a mould of thought, and even the word "mould" is unfortunate, and misleads. The analogy of a word breaks; no word should be used to tell what it is not. For, the very affirmation, necessary to its demolition, slips this subtle nothing into an existence. Perhaps the word purebeing must be blotted out of the language it infests, ere it shall cease to allure us into thinking it does mean something. Philosophically, or, rather, unphilosophically, it plays fast and loose with us. It apparently draws an imaginary hard and fast line, until, as we approach its shifting bounds, it recedes into the unknown remote. Finally, two or three removes are as bad as confusion confounded. Practically, it leads to Agnosticism. For, with a worshipful respect for being that has no being, and, with a disrespect for that which has, some thinkers mock the final cause, as they stand mute in the arcana of the seeming indefinite in its progress to the definite. Until their very silence cries, like Montaigne, "What know I?"

Or, else, with a faith that is not faith, they strip the seeming complex of its rightful mask, not to find the definite there, still working, but again, by this shift, to foist into recognition this baseless structure of pure-being, which has no law of activity, growth or government. The fact is, we are morally certain that English Materialism and Positivism ignore some of the simple laws of the Notion. To conform to correct logic binds a Spencerian as tightly as a Thomist. Whether the failing be racial, or, one of perversity; be they parologists or sophists, these are not in discussion. It is hard to kick against the goads. It would be harder and more pathetic, could we not charm away the pain and pathos with "loving laughter." And yet the goads are just as sharp as though our laughter were restrained.

While it would be false and unfair to say there has been no advance in Positivistic thinking from M. Comte to M. Littré, it is only fair to say that the living exponents of their system ought to free themselves from those fallacies that lie deeper than any philosophy to which they attach.

For, as the whole scope of Positivism is to seek and classify facts, it stultifies itself when it refuses to work its notions to find whether they be fact or fancy. Those were honest words of M. Papillion, a disciple of Comte, who said, "Whatever the Positivist may say, there are certitudes out of the region of experimental methods. There is a temple of light in which neither calculation nor experiment can ever open the door to man, but into which the Soul can penetrate with authority and ease." Needing a metaphysics, openly demanded at home, and, covertly, abroad, it should find one that does not break with contradictions at the very center of its system.

As children of a mother who fostered a Hume and bore a Locke, stepping stones to the immortal Kant, the American thinkers try to be thinkingly filial. But sometimes the children outgrow the parent in this regard, a certain result, when they have been tutored in a metaphysics valid the world over. We shall not presume too much, that in the popular, reflex civilization we give to England, we shall also modestly and patiently reflect a ray of that sunlight we have borrowed in a metaphysical way from Germany.

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ARTICLE XI.-NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

HOLLAND'S LOGIC AND LIFE.*-This title seems well chosen; for the first sermon aptly names the others, as well as itself. The book is full of logic, but not logic divorced from life-indeed the position it takes is, that formal logic is not of much account apart from the life of him who wields it, or rather of those who give heed to it.

In form and matter these sermons are unconventional. The first, for instance, covers fourteen pages before there is any allusion to a text. And when, on the fifteenth page, the text is quoted, it seems to come in by way of an incidental remark, instead of being the root idea of the discussion. But, for the persons addressed, and for the end of the discussion, this may be no drawback, as the preacher is evidently bent upon propounding a philosophy, rather than upon discussing a Scripture. And he does what he undertakes to do, in a masterly way. Starting with the fact of movement in all things, he maintains that "man does not feel as he once felt, any more than he thinks as he once thought' that "he does not depend [for his conclusions] upon possible argument, on producible proofs;" but letting go "an infallible and universal logic, to the convincing necessities of which all must bow," he propounds reason as "a living and pliable process, by and in which man brings himself into rational and intelligent relation with his surroundings, and with his experience." And the "final test" of reason, thus described, "lies in the actual harmony which is found to result from its better endeavors between the life at work within and the life at work without."

Notwithstanding the exhaustive rhetoric through which the preacher presses to his solemn conclusion, that we are deeply responsible for our reason, we cannot keep down the desire that he had distinguished more sharply between reason and reasoning. Had he done so, this able discourse had been as lucid and informing, as it is eloquent and powerful.

*Logic and Life, with other Sermons. By the Rev. H. S. HOLLAND, M.A., Senior Student of Christ Church, Oxford. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1882.

We commend the sermon on the Sword of St. Michael to all timid souls, especially to those in the Apologetic division of the church militant, in the thick of modern thought. As a specimen of the preacher's fervor, devotion, and inspiring eloquence, take the following:

.....

"O my God-God of the spirits of all flesh-pour down upon us, together with the holiness of priests, the power and inspiration of prophets! . . . . . . Enlighten our eyes that we may see the sins that encompass our days. Inflame our courage that we may without fear denounce what Thy light has made manifest. Draw us out of the easy waters of acquiescence-out of the chill shadows of distrust. Compel us to speak with a larger mind and a loftier purpose, that we may boldly rebuke vice and patiently suffer for Thy truth's sake, and so prepare a people for Thy coming, O dear Lord, who tarriest long, but to whom the Spirit and the Bride must forever say Come! and let him that thirsteth say Come! Even so, come, Lord Jesus."

THE PROOFS OF CHRIST'S RESURRECTION.*-This is an examination of the authorship of the Gospels and the Book of Acts, and a careful weighing of the evidence of Christ's resurrection according to the principles by which courts of justice estimate evidence. The author's conclusion is that the fact is fully established. The book is well fitted for popular use.

STUDIES IN SCIENCE AND RELIGION.t-This volume comprises seven chapters:-The Ground of Confidence in Inductive Reasoning; Darwinism as an Illustration of the Scientific Method; Objections to Darwinism and the Rejoinders of its advocates; The true Doctrine of Final Cause or Design in Nature; Some analogies between Calvinism and Darwinism; Prehistoric Man; Relation of the Bible to Science. The five first of these essays have been published in the New Englander or the Bibliotheca Sacra. The many readers who have been instructed and helped by the author's writings will welcome this republication as well as the additional essays which make the two last chapters. The book is illustrated with maps and cuts.

*The Proofs of Christ's Resurrection, from a Lawyer's Standpoint. By CHARLES R. MORRISON. Andover: Warren F. Draper. 1882. 155 pages.

+ Studies in Science and Religion. By G. FREDERICK WRIGHT, author of the Logic of Christian Evidences. Andover: Warren F. Draper. 1882. xvi. and

390 pages.

9a

THE PEAK IN DARIEN.*-Miss Cobbe is always sprightly and vivacious, and her writings are always interesting. The longest essay in this "octave" is on "Magnanimous Atheism," and discusses the influence of atheism on morals; the essays "Hygeiolatry" and "Zoophily" are aimed against vivisection;" "Pessimism and one of its professors" is on Schopenhauer and his doctrines; "Sacrificial Medicine" is an account of medical practice in former centuries, and contains curious prescriptions from old books for preparing the mummial quintessence, the arcanum of the blood, the quintessence of toads, and many others; "The fitness of women for the ministry of religion," while pointing out the disqualifications, presents in an exceedingly fresh and interesting manner the peculiar qualifications of women for the ministry; "The House on the Shore of Eternity" and "The Peak in Darien" relate to the immortality of the soul.

PURGATORY.-This volume contains an exposition of what the doctrine of purgatory is, the arguments by which it is defended, the legends of visitors from it and to it, its historical introduction, and the origin and significance of the doctrine of indulgences in its relation to the doctrine of purgatory. In further elucidation of the doctrine there are chapters severally on the purgatorial systems of the ancient Egyptians, Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, and on the influence of Gnosticism and Manicheism. The accounts of the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory consist chiefly of extracts from their own theologians, ancient, mediæval, and modern, including some published in this country with episcopal sanction in the last decade. The book is therefore a storehouse of information on the subject. With the general historical correctness of the volume we are surprised to notice the mistake (p. 8) that the Council of Trent was "the last ecclesiastical council of the church of Rome."

*The Peak in Darien, with some other inquiries touching concerns of the soul and the body. An Octave of Essays. By FRANCES POWER COBBE. Boston: George H. Ellis, 141 Franklin street. London: Williams & Norgate. 1882.

ix. and 303 pages.

Purgatory; doctrinally, practically, and historically opened. By WILLIAM BARROWS, D.D., author of "The Church and her Children." With an introduction by Alexander McKenzie, D.D. American Tract Society, 156 Nassau street, New York. ix. and 228 pages.