for motion becoming conscious of antecedent motions as anything other than motion? If consciousness is but the product of previous modes of motion, it must be in accord with the producing factors; or, to borrow Mr. Spencer's definition which sums up his systems of Biology and Psychology, "Life, includ ing consciousness and intelligence, is the progressive adjustment of interior to exterior relations." Now this adjustment may well be incomplete, but it can never be false, for force persists, and after the long ages during which it has gone on under the law of inheritance, it must now be approaching the full measure of the truth. Yet so far are we from this consummation, that consciousness to-day is as far astray, as completely in discord with the reality, as ever. Nay, the case is worse than this, for in every advance of the mind towards deeper and clearer self-consciousness, with increasing pertinacity does it recognize things as they are not and refuse to recognize them as they are. Progressive adjustment turns out progressive alienation and incongruity.

However, we have nothing to do here with the fatal conclusions flowing from Mr. Spencer's construction of the facts— that is a question which will come up farther on. We are dealing now with the facts themselves, and the question is, how can consciousness and the double delusion it rests under be accounted for as a redistribution of antecedent motion? There is no escape from the answer. The phenomena of consciousness are inexplicable in terms of the theory of Evolution. Now what are these phenomena? They are the very phenomena which the theory set out to explain. As was said in the beginning, "the materials of all thought, popular, scientific and philosophical, are the contents of consciousness, the impressions made upon it by the universe in all its co-existing and succeeding phases;" and now it appears that these impressions are unaccountable on the one hand and false on the other. Mr. Spencer, to be sure, comes to our relief in this predicament with the consoling doctrine of transfigured realism, which assures us that although sensation and perception give no true account of the world beyond consciousness, yet some sort of a world must be there; in the very act of misrepresenting the reality the existence of a reality is guaranteed, for were there

no reality there could be no misrepresentation; but the only result of this comforting demonstration, so far as the purposes of explanation are concerned, is that we have left on hand the double embarrassment of two correlated sets of phenomena neither of which throws any light on the other.

Has any other of the great systems of philosophy, from the days of Thales and Democritus to our own, ever landed in an anticlimax more surprising than this? We began by dismissing from consideration, as unknown and unknowable, the object of all earlier speculation, the essential nature and efficient cause of being. The infinite and absolute reality, we said, is not only out of consciousness but out of the reach of consciousness. From that inner world behind the veil it can bring only a conflicting multitude of empty conceptions. What then remains for consideration, we asked, if the ultimate reality of phenomena be abandoned? and the answer was the phenomena remain. For the pseud-ideas of a first cause, infinite, absolute, omnipotent, conscious, personal, loving, which have burdened and perturbed the mind of man so long, we substitute our universal generalization of persistent force. And what do we gain by the substitution? Unity among the causes instead of multitude? Congruity among the effects instead of discord? Our persistent force turns up on our hands an "incomprehensible duality;" unavailing at that until we have added to it indestructible matter, a non-evolving æther, and if not the laws of vitality and heredity, at any rate the irreducible mystery of sensation and self-consciousness; no one of which can be affiliated upon persistent force. And now, lastly, suppose that we have accepted and made the uttermost of our universal synthesis of phenomena; what then, if anything, remains for farther inquiry? Really, it would seem that our answer must be as before when we set aside the absolute reality-the phenomena remain; for the contents of consciousness are inexplicable as the mere redistribution of previous motions, and the universe beyond is inexplicable until the trustworthiness of consciousness is ascertained and accounted for.

As an orderly array of all the far-spreading analogies of nature, as a summary and unification of the latest results in all departments of science, Mr. Spencer's philosophy is the greatest

intellectual feat of the century; and this criticism fails in one of its purposes if it has questioned the certainty of such eminence. But by an inevitable necessity the theory of Evolution is stranded upon the reefs which beset any explanation of things that applies the methods of positive science to the problems of Life and Mind. The facts of the universe are too multitudinous and too divergent to be packed into a portable formula or to be derived from a single source. In spite of himself, Mr. Spencer has excluded, if not the phenomena, yet the more important aspects of the phenomena, those, namely, which they wear within the circuit of consciousness; and he has admitted, however unavowedly or under protest, the ontological question of essence, origin, and cause; the very omission and admission of all antecedent speculations. On the whole, there is reason to suspect that our philosophy of the Knowable is after all what its predecessors were, a philosophy of the Unknowable; a new metaphysic as vicious as the old one-and as futile.

(To be completed by a review of Mr. Spencer's Principles of Psychology, touching the question (II) whether the theory of Evolution is consistent with itself; that is, whether the mere inheritance in nervous structures of the effects of ancestral experiences justifies its wholesome use of a priori truths.)

ARTICLE VIII.—NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS.

THEOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, AND Religious.

AIDS TO THE STUDY OF GERMAN THEOLOGY.*-Since English thinking is empirical and German thinking supersensuous, the views of a German author cannot be unveiled by the mere translation of German words into the English vocabulary. For this reason the author of this anonymous little book proposes to aid English readers in attaining a knowledge of German theological thought by furnishing "a key to thought-translation," or a "transmutation of German ideas into the garb of English thought." He confines himself to theology as distinguished from philosophy, and aims not to controvert or criticise, but only to interpret He begins with a glance at the downward progress of Rationalism from Leibnitz to Semler, as the result of which "the empire of reason had extended itself alike to heaven and earth, had reduced all revelation to the realm of nature, and all morality to the one virtue of worldly prudence." He then proceeds concisely, but with great clearness, to present his interpretation of the course of theological thought in Germany from Kant to the present time. The course of thought treated is so extensive and profound, any outline of the interpretation possible in this notice would be unprofitable. Those who are beginning the study of the subject will read the book with interest and find it a stimulus and a help to further investigation.

The author, while recognizing Kant as "a great reconstructor" in philosophy, regards him only as a destroyer in theology, not only uprooting Rationalism but establishing a system which "resulted in the negation of all theology." But Kant himself attempted to "reëstablish the demonstration of God's existence on a new and higher basis-that of our moral nature." This was an utter, egregious failure." We think the author fails to estimate aright the theological position of Kant. If he "closed the ancient gates" through which thought had been wont to enter

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* Aids to the Study of German Theology. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. 1874. Crown 8vo, pp. vii, and 184. New York: Scribner, Welford, & Armstrong. Price $2.00.

into the knowledge of God, and attempted to open a "side-door" in our moral nature, it was at least an open door, and the one through which, in fact, human thought does enter into the knowledge of God. And even in the Critique of the Pure Reason we cannot regard his results so destructive of theism as our author represents them. I. H. Fichte, in his recent work on The Theistic View of the Universe, says: "Kant, far from denying the ontological argument, reëstablished it in its real power by his demonstration of the a priori origin of the idea of the Infinite." He demonstrated that the idea of God is necessary to the human reason; that without it reason cannot answer its necessary questions, nor solve its inevitable problems, but breaks down in hopeless contradiction. Thus he not only proved that it is a rational idea, that there is "room for it;" but also that there is a necessity for it to the completeness of human rationality; that the human reason demands it. This certainly is not destroying the intellectual or rational basis of the belief in a God.

Our author teaches that, consequent on the fact that "Kant left everything in a state of negation," two tendencies simultaneously appear; so that Kant was "the father of two schools." The first was the tendency to substitute for the limitations of the intellect the authority of faith. He presents Schleiermacher as the representative of this school, which is characterized by "the identification of religious belief with religious feeling." In saying that the transition to this school was through Jacobi, the author forgets that Jacobi, in an essay intended as a general introduction to his philosophical works, explicitly declares that what he called the faith faculty in former treatises, is the reason.

The other tendency arising from Kant's negations was to absolute unbelief. This is traced through J. G. Fichte to Schelling and Hegel. The author regards Hegel as the reconstructor of theology from the skepticism derived from Kant. Evidently with a loving sympathy, he points out the principles of Hegel's philosophy which sustain a true theism; and his chapters on this subject are very interesting. Yet he admits that it was the left wing, representing another side of the philosophy, which prevailed and was practically the principal representative of the system.

While the author generally adheres to his purpose to interpret without criticizing, yet in developing the mythical theory of Strauss and the theology of the school of Tübingen, he points out objections of great force. The mythical theory "contained within