coveted flash of memory, of judgment, or of fancy, does not always come at our bidding. To account for this group of phenomena, modern psychologists have propounded various theories of "latent mental action" or "unconscious cerebration;" but no one now resorts to the hypothesis that such phenomena are due to the operation of some outside spirit or intelligence acting upon the mind. Hypotheses of this sort do not harmonize with the accumulated experience of modern times, and they have become utterly and hopelessly discredited.

In ancient times, however, the case was entirely different. In one of the most enlightened and skeptical communities of antiquity we find one of the most enlightened and skeptical minds habitually explaining the suggestions of its own supreme common-sense by ascribing them to the dictation of an indescribable external agency. The daimonion, or familiar warning spirit, of Socrates shows how consonant with the general theories of the ancients was the conception of inspiration in its full and literal sense. In the stage of culture thus exemplified every bright stroke of genius was interpreted as the result of inspiration, though it was naturally in cases of supreme practical importance that the interpretation was most forcibly felt and most thoroughly believed. The poet's invocation to the Muse was at first no doubt much more than a faded metaphor; but it is beyond question that men like Isaiah and Mohammed believed themselves to be mere mouth-pieces of the living word of God.

The belief in inspiration, as thus generally cherished in ancient times, seems to have grown out of a more primitive belief in possession, which is found everywhere current among savage and barbarous tribes, and which, until within a few generations, has maintained itself even in the Christian world. The subject has been treated in an elaborate and masterly manner by Mr. Tylor in the second volume of his great work on "Primitive Culture." In the lower stages of culture, the morbid phenomena of hysteria, epilepsy, and mania, are explained by the hypothesis of a foreign spirit, which is supposed to have taken temporary possession of the body or earthly tabernacle of the patient. In Christian cases of exorcism, this foreign spirit was naturally supposed to be of diabolical character; but in the cruder theory of the barbarian no such uncanny suspicion is attached to it. On

the contrary, the possessed person is usually regarded as an exceptionally valuable source of information concerning the supernatural world to which the possessing spirit belongs. Alike in the medicine-man of the American Indian, and in the Pythian priestess of Delphi, may be seen the close theoretical connection between disease-possession and oracle-possession. The Zulu diviners ascribe their hysterical symptoms to possession by "amatongo," or ancestral spirits; and the Siberian shamans select epileptic children to be educated for the priesthood, which is thus "apt to become hereditary along with the epileptic tendencies it belongs to." In the primitive theory, the diviner or prophet can give information from the supernatural world because his own personality is for the time being supplanted by the personality of the foreign spirit which has come to dwell in his body. This is the theory of oracle-possession, and from this to the theory of inspiration, as generally current in antiquity, it is evidently but a short step. Instead of supplanting the personality of the prophet, the foreign spirit has but to be conceived as swaying or influencing the prophet's mind from without, and this step is taken; instead of possession we have inspiration.

Thus in its origin the word "inspiration " is implicated with a whole theory of the universe-or, to speak more appropriately, with a general way of looking at natural phenomena. In the lower stages of culture men know nothing of a universe, but they contemplate natural phenomena as under the capricious direction of innumerable ghostly beings similar to men. In most cases, indeed, these demons or deities are supposed to be the ghosts of ancestral chieftains. The philosophy which interprets Nature in this way is extremely crude, but it is quite intelligible and consistent with itself; and, when a barbarian speaks of his prophet as "inspired" by the tutelary deity of the tribe, we know exactly what he means. He means that the words are whispered or otherwise suggested to the prophet by the ghost of some old chief of the tribe; and, when he himself has thoughts, waking or sleeping, which he cannot readily account for, he thinks that these are similarly suggested to him by some ghostly demon or deity. The daimonion of Socrates was a specimen of just this sort of barbaric psychology.

Now, in modern times and among Christian peoples, this

primitive philosophy of Nature is pretty thoroughly superseded. The tendency of modern thought is strongly toward a very strict monotheism. An imperfect monotheism had long ago driven out the general notion of innumerable ghost-deities; but Christianity arose at a time when the primitive philosophy was still very strong, and it has always been more or less incrusted with heathen conceptions. In recent times, however, the prolonged study of physical science has begun to tell powerfully upon all our habits of thought; and one effect of this is, that we have at last really begun to grasp the conception of the unity of God, in the only sense in which such a conception can have any validity. We have begun to conceive of Divine action as uniform, incessant, and general, throughout each and every region of the universe, however vast or however tiny, so that the infinite whole is animated forever by one immutable principle of life; and this conception we call, in common parlance, the conception of a government of law and not of caprice. So strong has this habit become that we look with distrust upon any hypothesis which implies a conception of Divine action as in any sense local, or special, or transitory.

The hypothesis of inspiration has been retained by modern Protestant Christianity, chiefly as a means of accounting for the assumed infallibility or supernatural excellence of the literature gathered together in the canonical Scriptures. It is supposed that the writers of these works were in some way instructed by Divine action, so that their works are either entirely true in every statement, or at least may claim to be examined in accordance with different canons of criticism from those which we feel bound to apply to all other works. Now, this hypothesis most certainly implies a conception of Divine action as local, special, and transitory; and, in so far as it does this, it bears the marks of that heathen mode of philosophizing which was current when Christian monotheism arose, and which has incrusted Christianity with many of its conceptions. It is obviously not an hypothesis in accord with the very strict monotheism toward which modern thought is so manifestly tending, and it is not likely long to survive unless upheld by very weighty evidence. Such evidence might be forthcoming if the various books of the Bible had been found able to withstand every test of scientific and literary criti

cism that could be brought to bear upon them, and come out unscathed in every statement. Such a phenomenon would at least have been very remarkable, but in point of fact the outcome of Biblical criticism has been very different from this. A century of intense study and searching controversy has superabundantly proved that the Bible not only contains much that conflicts both with modern knowledge and with modern morality, but that the various parts of it often hopelessly contradict each other in matters of fact, and sometimes present irreconcilable divergences in matters of doctrine, while minor errors of historical or philological interpretation abound in it throughout. In view of such a conclusion there would seem to be no need for any hypothesis of special Divine action in the composition of the Bible. On the contrary, the belief in the peculiar inspiration of this collection of books should probably be regarded as one of the incumbrances with which Christianity has been loaded by the old heathen way of looking at things.

A sad incumbrance it certainly is to any one who truly loves and reveres the Bible. To make a fetich of the best of books does not, after all, seem to be the most reverent way of treating it. Take away the discredited hypothesis of infallibility, and the errors of statement and crudities of doctrine at once become of no consequence, and cease to occupy the attention. It no longer seems worth while to write puerile essays to show that the Elohist was versed in all the conclusions of modern geology, or that the books of Kings and Chronicles tell the same story. The spiritual import of this wonderful collection of writings becomes its most prominent aspect; and, freed from the exigencies of a crude philosophy and an inane criticism, the Bible becomes once more the book of mankind.

JOHN FISKE.

VIII.

CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

1.-Memorial and Biographical Sketches. By JAMES FREEMAN CLARKE. Boston: Houghton, Osgood & Co. The Riverside Press, Cambridge. 1878. Pp. 434.

THE nineteen articles that make up this handsome and readable book differ very much from each other in purpose and workmanship, yet they all illustrate the characteristics that give the author his distinguished and somewhat unique position among the liberal scholars and theologians of Massachusetts. Some of them are slight off-hand sketches, such as the notices of Susan Dimock, George Keats, and Drs. Gannett and Channing, while other articles are elaborate studies, such as the memorials of John A. Andrew, James Freeman, Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, and the essays upon Shakespeare, Rousseau, and Washington, which differ from all else. in the volume by dealing with historical celebrities instead of contemporaries and personal friends. But, however different are the subjects and the manner of these papers, they all show the same comprehensive judgment and disposition, with the same plucky temper and decided conviction. In fact, Dr. Clarke is in his way at once a Catholic and a Protestant, a liberal and a partisan, such as Boston has never before produced, and such as New England favors less than Old England. He belongs to the Unitarian denomination, yet he praises his parishioner, Governor Andrew, for associating in a cordial way with Roman Catholics and Methodists, and he pays a hearty tribute to Dr. R. J. Breckinridge, the Presbyterian, without implying that a Presbyterian, as such, needs to be apologized for by an enlightened Unitarian.

The author even carries his charity into the sphere of reform, where partisanship has been most bitter, and, after speaking of Dr. Gannett's sermon in favor of returning fugitives to slavery under the Constitution, he says: "His truthfulness was perfect. So against his sympathies, which were always with the unhappy, he had