Mansell's compromise, recognizing the acts and attributes of God as true for us but not true in the absolute. Yet he holds that these spurious additions which religion, constantly but diminuendo, gathers around the pure Absolute idea, are temporarily allowable and justifiable as best in their day. But the scientist and the philosopher are playing their proper part in trimming those additions to ever narrowing dimensions preparatory to the reduction to the pure idea of the Unknowable.

Mr. Spencer earnestly rejects all identification with Comte. The former treats religion with respect; while the latter takes his stand upon positive science as the sole totality of valid knowledge, and rejects all metaphysics or theology as vapory nothings, with silent contempt. But the difference between them appears to us an essential nothing. Mr. Spencer takes a single metaphysical dogma, the bare affirmation of an underlying unknowable Absolute, and a very doubtful one at that, and sets it apart to be called and respectfully treated as Religion, while he treats with plentiful though patronizing sneer all that claims to be religion besides. Give us Comte's frank contempt rather than Mr. Spencer's impudent condescension.

A slight examination of Mr. Spencer's Psychology, not yet published in this country, induces us to anticipate that his greatest service to truth will be achieved in that domain. If we mistake not he possesses a critical and metaphysical style of mind which will make its mark in the science of thought.

It is fair for us to say, that while the Introduction to the present volume expresses the enthusiastic expectation that "Mr. Spencer is to find his largest and fittest audience among "the young men of our country," he hails in England from the ranks of the Westminster Review section, and is sternly pronounced "an atheist" by even the rationalistic National. Those benevolent spirits, then, who hopefully look to our country as the source of a future Atheistic millennium, may rightly hail Mr. Spencer as "the coming Man." It is also fair for us to add, that, in our view, Mr. Spencer's theology is perfectly separable from his Physical Theory. His theory possesses a mechanical lumbering character which repels the imagination, and a dreary vastness which chills the heart. His Universe is an awful tenement to inhabit. It is not until it is warmed and cheered by a living, ruling God that we can feel safe, or can make it an endurable home. We therefore deal very unceremoniously with Mr. Spencer's almighty Dead-Head, yclept the Absolute. An unintelligent absolute is an infinite Fool, and fools be they who accept its supremacy.

The range of Mr. Spencer's philosophy, as yet to be published, is

vast and comprehensive. Two volumes on Biology, or the Science of Life, are to show how spontaneous unintelligent causes, grounded upon the unknowable base, wind nature through the complexities of Physiology, regulating the process of growth and forms, and evolving production and generation. Two volumes on Psychology are to show how Life graduates into Mind, and trace the transitions from nervous conditions to consciousness. Three volumes on Sociology are to trace the Laws whence social, ecclesiastical, and other organizations take origin among the living beings whom under the name of Man we find lodged upon our planet in its transition through the present temporal cycle from nebula to nebula, as well as the Lingual, Intellectual, Esthetic, and Ethical progress through which the race is navigated by necessary and unintelligent Law. Two volumes, finally, are to deduce the principles of all ethics from the temporal well-being of the race. Thus the entire system of the Universe, both physical and mental, is to be revealed and demonstrated as based on absolute and inherently necessary laws and causes by the transcendant genius of Mr. Spencer. A library is to roll forth from his brain which is to be an outline of the Universe.

Freedom of Mind in Willing; or, Every Being that Wills, a Creative First Cause. By RoWLAND G. HAZARD. Pp. 456. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 443 and 445 Broadway. London: 16 Little Britain. 1864. This is a new and, in many respects, original work on the old and mighty theme. Ostensibly treating of the Will, it really enters into an extensive discussion of human nature, interweaving collateral topics, such as the nature of matter and of spirit, considered as cause, instinct, habit, etc. The handling of those side-themes, involving manifold moral and metaphysical discussions, is thorough and thoughtful, if not always satisfactory, yet frequently retards the progress of the work, and unnecessarily taxes the reader's attention. The style is generally clear, though occasionally somewhat involved and repe

titious.

Book I gives us the author's view, with arguments in its favor, elaborated through fifteen chapters. Book II, in thirteen chapters, is devoted to a review of Edwards.

The leading position of the author is set forth in the title on the first page: "FREEDOM OF MIND IN WILLING; OR, EVERY BEING THAT WILLS, A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE." At the outset he shows that the "combination which each individual calls 'I'" is made up of "knowledge, thought, sensation, emotion, want, and effort." KnowlFOURTH SERIES, VOL. XVI.-44

edge, sensation, and emotion are independent of will, though will may bring about the conditions favorable to their production. Knowledge is "a simple mental perception," all efforts after knowledge being but endeavors to clear the way for such perception. Feeling, whether in sensation or emotion, is not a faculty but a susceptibility; memory, judgment, reasoning, imagination, conception are but names of different forms of knowledge, or of modes of mental action to acquire or reproduce it. Effort to produce such changes, internal or external, such as will bring any of these different kinds of knowledge within the mind's view, is an act of the faculty of will. So the names of the supposed faculties of reasoning, imagination, etc., do but designate varied acts of will. The mind has but one real faculty, the will. "Will is the power or faculty of the mind for effort." "The willing, or act of will, is the condition of the mind in effort, and is the only effort of which we are conscious."

What our author designates "want," occupies a prominent place in his theory. This is an essential prerequisite to effort; the mind will make no effort, put forth no volition to do anything that it does not want done. Want and knowledge he shows to be essential to volition. "Without want, the mind would have no object to accomplish by effort; without knowledge, it would have no means of directing its efforts to the accomplishment of that object." Without want and knowledge the mind would be no cause, or only a blind cause, like matter. Knowledge enables the mind to form preconceptions of the effects of willing, of the changes in the future to be produced by effort; and this prophetic view, spreading before the mind the results of action, fits it to be a first cause. Drawn by inducements before it, it does not need propulsion from behind. Acting from its own perception of the effects of its action upon its own wants, it needs no extraneous force to insure action. Want is essential to action, but it is immaterial to the action how that want arose. Not the motives that precede, but the effects that, succeed the action, lying in the mind's view, move it to exert its causal influence, and so, up to the point of effort, mind is a first cause, an independent power.

There are only three conceivable modes of influencing the mind of another in willing, and these are reducible to two, of which the first is willing in the stead of the mind so controlled, an influence inconsistent with any exercise of will when words are used in their proper sense. The second mode is by changing the knowledge, including the knowledge of those feelings which are elements of want, so that in consequence of this change the mind may will freely. But this second mode can be effective only in case the mind wills freely. So that whether mind in willing is influenced by something extrinsic or not, in

either case it wills freely. The author's whole treatment of this subject will be found fresh and suggestive.

66

In Book II the author makes a thorough and often successful search for flaws in Edwards's armor. He is especially successful in tracking out and following up the fluctuations and ambiguities of the celebrated "Inquirer" in the use of important words, such as "motive," "choice," necessity." We think that he overdoes (as does Bledsoe) in reducing Edwards's whole doctrine of motives to the bald truism, "whatever is a motive, is a motive." Although passages can be quoted from the inquiry which give ample foundation for such a criticism, and furnish fair specimens of circular reasoning, yet such reply does not completely answer Edwards's argument. The author shows also that Edwards's doctrine of motives involves an infinite series as much as the self-determining theory of the freedomists.

In the chapter on foreknowledge the author fully admits the claim of the necessitarian, namely, that the prescience of volitions would involve their necessitation. Man wills under the impression that he can make some change in the future, and if his volitions are foreseen, says Mr. Hazard, this impression is an illusion. [How an illusion we cannot understand, for what difference can it make to him whether any being knows anything about it or not?] His theory of the divine government is, in brief, that God sees, in his infinite knowledge, all the possible results of all possible volitions in all beings, and arranges his plans accordingly. The author ingeniously illustrates his theory from an imaginary automatic chess-board, on which each square covers a spring to be operated by the gravitation of the piece there stationed, the springs and men being so adjusted, that for any given move made by, say a black rook or pawn, the best possible move will be made automatically on the other side; so that a person playing against the white would be sure to be checkmated eventually. Such a piece of mechanism is conceivable, and it is also conceivable, he argues, that the Divine Being has so constructed the universe as to be constantly prepared for all possible volition of created beings. The author does not attempt to reconcile this theory of foreknowledge (or lack of foreknowledge) with the Scripture predictions.

The work is written in a calm philosophical spirit, wholly free from controversial sharpness, avoids hackneyed phraseology, is sometimes dull or wearisome, but to the reader really interested in the theme gratifying by its profundity and suggestiveness.

N.

History, Biography, and Topography.

Savage Africa: being the Narrative of a Tour in Equatorial, South-western, and North-western Africa; with Notes on the Habits of the Gorilla; on the Existence of Unicorns and Tailed Men; on the Slave-Trade; on the Origin, Character, and Capabilities of the Negro; and of the Future Civilization of Western Africa. By W. WINWOOD READE. 8vo., pp. 452. New York: Harper & Brothers. 1864.

This is one of the Harpers' extensive series of books on Africa, all of which are valuable; some scientific in their just pretensions, and others more remarkable for travelers' zest than for profound observation. Mr. Reade belongs to the class of gay and jaunty travelers who may not add largely as Barth to science, but who contrive to be decidedly more readable. He claims that if he has "any merit, it is that of having been the first young man about town to make a bona fide tour in Western Africa-to travel in that agreeable and salubrious country with no special object and at his own expense; to flâner in the virgin forest; to flirt with pretty savages, and to smoke his cigar among cannibals." Graver readers will infer, correctly, that Mr. Reade has several loose screws. He evidently imagines that he is a believer in Darwin; takes care to let us know, incidentally, that he carries Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary as a pocket fellow-traveler, and furnishes a variety of flippancies to match. Among his opinions, so called, he thinks that beyond all question "Africa will be redeemed:" not by colonization, for that is a humbug; not by Christian missions, for they are a failure; but "by a religion;" yes, "by the Mohammedan religion." This gives them just what they need: abstinence from liquors, gravity of character, heroism, and polygamy. Africa will be redeemed, for England will take one half, and France the other. The swamps, the miasmas, the forests will all be removed by the labors of her children, who will "possibly be exterminated" in the process by that "beneficent law of nature that the weak must be devoured by the strong." Yet Mr. Reade has after his order produced a spicy book, and it is likely to be, deservedly or not, one of the most popular of the series.

Educational.

Appleton's Mathematical Series: An Elementary Arithmetic. By G. P. QUACKENBOS, A. M. Upon the basis of the works of George R. Perkins. 12mo., pp. 144. New York: Appleton & Co. 1864.

The First Three Books of Xenophon's Anabasis: With Explanatory Notes, and References to Hadley and Kühner's Greek Grammars, and to Goodwin's Greek Modes and Tenses, a copious Greek-English Vocabulary,