invented to exclude from man a knowledge of an "extra-mental" or external world.

In view of the shuffling methods idealism is compelled to adopt to get along one would suppose that its friends might in time become ashamed of it and abandon it. It is claimed, for instance, that should one hold that this common world consists of nothing more than a similarity of impressions, in finite minds, and that apart from these impressions the world would be nothing, this view could not be disproved; and yet it is affirmed that to hold such views "is impossible." Why impossible to hold a specified view if it cannot be disproved? Does idealism also annihilate the force of facts and logic?

It would seem from this concession that idealism is inherently so absurd that, though supported by the strongest arguments its advocates can command, it drops to pieces without being touched when fully stated. Take the following as another example of its absurdity: "Is, then, the world of things a continuous existence of some kind independent of finite thought and consciousness? This claim cannot be demonstrated, but it is the only view which does not involve insuperable difficulties." Surely a new era of logic has dawned upon the world, or at least upon Boston. Idealism has discovered that the only view of the world that does not "involve insuperable difficulties" is the view which cannot be demonstrated to be true; that is, the necessary and the practical have become the impossible.

If, then, "spontaneous thought" and "unreasoned observation" must abandon the idea of the existence of material things and of a universe in space, what is the conception that is to take their place? The same high authority above quoted, on which we implicitly rely, replies as follows:

The subjectivity of space carries with it, of course, complete idealism as to all that appears in space, or that is spacially deter mined. Hence not only the world of sense qualities, the world of sounds, and colors and odors and temperature, but also the world of form and extension-the world of apparent things, in short-are to be viewed as having only subjective existence, that is, as existing only for and in consciousness. By this time not a shred of every-day realism remains. The entire world of objects has become phenomenal. Their laws and inter-relations remain as important subjects of study, and they may express a universal order; but neither the phenomena nor their laws have any signifi

cance except with reference to intelligence. And if it be absurd to suppose that these phenomena exist only for our intelligence, and equally absurd to suppose that they exist apart from all intelligence, it only remains to infer that an all-embracing intelligence is the cosmic being, not only its original cause, but its constitutive condition, apart from which it would not even have meaning, to say nothing of existence.

Before examining the above, that we may be sure of our footing, and that we understand the idealist, a few brief quotations further will not be out of place:

Between the phenomena and the fundamental spiritual reality there is no place for any dependent impersonal existence. We should find all such being vanishing into law and process, without any proper substantiality beyond continuity, uniformity, and universality.... The cause [of phenomena] cannot be thought of as spacial or mechanical, but must be of an essentially spiritual or rational nature. . . For just as surely as the world of things in space is phenomenal, just so surely can it have its existence only in intelligence; and just so surely as it don't depend upon our intelligence, just so surely must we affirm a cosmic intelligence as to its abridgment and condition. . . . The world exists only in and for a supreme mind. . . . The fundamental reality is not merely mind or understanding, it is also will or agent. We may say, then, that the world is not merely an idea; it is also an act. It exists not only as a conception in the divine understanding, but also as a form of activity in the divine will. It is this fact which constitutes its real existence in distinction from a purely conceptional one. The outcome of this activity is the phenomenal world.

We are now prepared to reconstruct our conceptions of the world, of God, of man, and government, and place the universe upon a new basis. The world in which we were born, and "spon

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which was manifest to unreasoned observation" and " taneous thought," has disappeared-been annihilated by the magic wand of the metaphysician. "All that appears in space” is unreal, simply to us a fictitious appearance, and, further than that, a deception and a fraud. "Not a shred of every-day realism remains." "Reality and intelligence are opposed beyond any possibility of reconciliation." Once we supposed we stood on the solid ground-this "lumpish" globe--but now we find ourselves -whatever there may be of us-afloat in airy nothingness.

Some pages back we called attention to the lamentable fact that the idealist undeifies God by reducing him to a metaphysical element, and then using him, or fitting him in, as a factor

to other factors in an argument, as needed. The terminology adopted is also metaphysical, and not theological. The names and titles of the God revealed in the Scriptures are mostly discarded, and we are introduced to such expressions as the "fundamental reality," an "all-embracing intelligence," "a cosmic intelligence," ," "will or agent," "cosmic being,”—and thus the designations of him or it vary so as to fit and strengthen the web of metaphysics. In close connection with this conception of God as a factor in the argument we should place the idealist's conception of the world. This "cosmic intelligence" "is the condition of cosmic being;" "its constitutive condition," "its abiding seat and condition;""the world is not merely an idea, it is an act," "a form of activity in the divine will." "It is this fact which constitutes its real existence;" and "between the phenomena and the fundamental spiritual reality there is no place for any dependent impersonal existence;" that is, between "the fundamental reality" and this "phenomenal" apparent but unreal world there is nothing-no real "existence." A snake, crawling on the ground, for example, is a direct and iminediate form of the "activity" of "the fundamental reality." A cyclone sweeping over the earth and whirling villages through the air is merely an appearance-" a phenomenon," and the only "reality" in the case is this "activity" of the "divine will." If the earth trembles, opens its jaws and swallows up a city, it is this "fundamental reality" whose "activity" creates or gets up such a "phenomenon," or appearance. As "the world exists only in and for a supreme mind," if two armies meet, and a line miles in length is strewn with dead or dying men, and human blood is found in puddles here and there shoe deep, it is because "an all-embracing intelligence is the condition of cosmic being; not only its original cause, but its constitutive condition, apart from which it would not even have meaning, to say nothing of existence." "The fundamental reality" must be ceaselessly active, and "the outcome of this activity is the continuous phenomenal world." There is but one reality— the idea of plurality "collides" with reason, and "the whole world" is phenomena, one cause-all else are effects or appearances. Before taking final leave of the world in which we have lived for some years, we will note two things that, with reluctance, we must leave behind.

1. We have always held that the creation of the material universe was, in an important sense, a complete work; that it was something, per se, and that it was no part of its Maker. 1 We have looked upon the universe as having received from its Creator a constitution composed of physical, mental, and moral laws; that these were an expression of infinite wisdom, and that all departments of the world were governed accordingly. We had regarded the crimes and sufferings of the world not as the outcome of its constitution, not as being in harmony with it, but as needless violations of it, for which the creature was responsible. There is no positive affirmative evil, but every good may be perverted, and then it becomes an evil. If I pervert the use of my hand by thrusting it into the stove and burning it to a crisp, I must suffer the consequences. This has seemed to me just, and this conception of the universe has given me satisfaction; but idealism sweeps it all away. I must accept the idea of "a fundamental reality," with or without a title, as the immediate, and from moment to moment the direct, cause of a world which is real only as an appearance.

2. The atheist is able to point out some things--floods, cyclones, etc.-in this universe which he can urge with force as reasons why its existence is not proof of infinite wisdom, power, and beneficence in its Creator; but we have been able to meet him on the ground that it is governed by law, and contains the moral element, involving human responsibility, and that we could see no way of governing it and establishing virtue but by the way adopted. Our footing here must be given up; for if the one" fundamental reality" is the cause of all things, then every thought and purpose and act of this universe is in the iron grip of fate, and there can be no place for a moral act. Some things may be good and others bad, but the moral quality pertains to neither class. From my new world virtue and vice take their departure. Will conscience stay behind, and be an unjust reprover here? How will one feel schooling himself to look upon the vile and the good with the same complacency, if not with equal admiration? Idealism may be, in name, an improvement upon the pantheism of Spinoza, or the fatalism. of Hume, but not in practical results.

4. H. Moore.

ART. VI.-CHRIST'S DESCENT TO HADES.

A BIBLICAL AND HISTORICAL STUDY.

ESCHATOLOGY is the dark continent of theology. It is largely the unexplored-" the land of darkness... where the light is as darkness;" and in terms may be described as the ancient poets pictured gloomy Avernus. That this will remain so from a scientific stand-point just so long as the eschatological data of the New Testament are inadequately dealt with or ignored, is a conclusion which has in it, at least, the virtue of logic.

The doctrine of Christ's visit to the spirit-world, or as it is stated in the Symbolic Books, Descensus Christi ad Inferos, is certainly destined to be, more than ever before, a conclusive factor in all discussions relating to the life beyond. Judging from the manner in which the doctrine has been treated by the orthodox, who generally regard it as if in mortal dread of some conclusion damaging to the analogy of faith, a critic of the latitudinarian school might be led to regard it as one of the most important, but undeveloped, doctrines of the evangelical system. For, like some unhappy prince who would seek his own, but is supported in his claims by the abettors of revolution rather than by the conservators of national traditions and law, this doctrine has found more defenders in those schools of religious thought whose views of sin, atonement, and retribution are on the low plane of ultra-rationalism than among those who glory in their scriptural orthodoxy, and think themselves believers of every thing contained in the word of God.

The Greek Church, maintaining her connection with the ancient faith of the Churches of Asia Minor, holds strenuously to the article expunged by us, as does also the later Lutheran theology; while the Reformed Churches and the Heidelberg Catechism, following the lead of John Calvin, have reduced the doctrine to a mere figure of speech. In English theology it has, considering its importance, scarcely had a hearing; in American Methodist literature a full inquiry into its biblical proofs has not been made. One thing we have done of a conspicuous nature, and that is, to expunge the passage from the Apos tles' Creed. The reason for this, considering the fact that the Apostles' Creed" is not the apostles' creed, but an inadequate

and