the most complete religious toleration the world has ever seen, without falling a prey to religious marasmus-such a century need not shrink from comparison with any other, even in the glorious annals of English history.-Pp. 11, 12.

THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW for JANUARY contains a very able article, entitled "The Metaphysics of Science," by Prof. Alexander Winchell. Its aim is to show that Science can exist only under assumption of a basis of metaphysical principles, and that that basis is in its nature truly teleological. The contempt so often expressed by scientists in regard to metaphysics is, therefore, suicidal; for the scientist can neither draw an induction nor propound a demonstration without the due metaphysical postulates. Metaphysical truths are to science what the nails are to the planks of a ship, the fasteners which enable the totality of said planks to be a ship. Agib, the son of Cassib, we are veraciously told in the "Arabian Nights," sailed his ship so near to a loadstone mountain that its nails were all pulled out; and what became of Agib the son of Cassib's ship? Just what would become of science if its metaphysical nails were extracted. It would tumble to pieces, and cease to be science. Dr. Winchell's style is sententious, embracing a large proportion of Latin words, rendering his thought difficult of attainment to the popular reader; but the language is very uniformly the exact expression of the thought.

Inquirers are sometimes perplexed as to the doctrine of theisin implied in the theory of EVOLUTION, as evolution presents itself both in the animal system by heredity, and in the astronomic system by the nebular hypothesis. Dr. Winchell thus finds theism in both:

All that we know of fundamental plans of structure in the organic world is but a body of facts exemplifying adjustment of parts, not alone to each other, but to an archetypal conceptionan intelligential standard. It is frequently suggested that fundamental relationships have resulted from the law of heredity, with progressive divergence. That, probably, is a valid scientific account to give of what have been styled plans of organization; and every one is free to rest in the finality of science. But if our minds are so constituted that we irresistibly conclude design from co-ordination, regardless of the instrumentality or means by which the co-ordination becomes expressed in matter, then heredity with divergence is not an ultimate explanation, and every man is at liberty, without reproach, to pass beyond the pale of science, and recognize heredity as a thoughtful determination

fixed for the purpose of introducing order and method into the organic world, as we find them. So the mathematical order of the solar system is explicable in scientific terms, by ascribing it to the cooling of a primitive nebula; but the forces engaged in the evolution of a planetary system must be rationally conceived as merely the instruments which work out symmetrical results co-ordinated to a general concept or plan. If, finally, the deepest law of nature is the law of evolution, we may recognize that as the all-embracing principle under which events emerge into being; but reason can never be divested of the simple conviction that events co-ordinated on so comprehensive a scale, and co-ordinated to so vast a scheme, give expression to purpose equally vast and comprehensive. The explanations of science are held to be valid, but they do not go far enough; they are not ultimate explanations. By the inherent principles of our mental being we postulate and posit motive and agency behind the last explanation of science.-P. 81.

The following is his exposition of the nature of FORCE:

As design is the necessary implication of parts co-ordinated to each other, or to a general concept, so metaphysical cause is the only rational explanation of those ultimate physical antecedents which belong to the category of sub-causes or scientific causes. Of metaphysical cause science professes to have no knowledge, holding that invariable antecedence is the scientific conception of causation. But, manifestly, no phenomenon comes into existence because another phenomenon precedes. The precedence is the sign of antecedent efficiency. So the law under which a phenomenon arises is modal, not causal, and implies prior ordination, as the subordinated event implies transcendent causation. The conditio sine qua non of a phenomenon is not its essential cause, but the condition of the operativeness of a certain law which expresses a method of activity of essential cause. The notion of metaphysical cause is therefore the underlying ground of all the ultimate conceptions of science.

That notion, in spite of the formal restriction of the logic of science, has found constant expression in scientific language under the name of force. This, like the assumed atom and molecule of physics, the ethereal medium and the ultimate incompressibility of matter, is a purely metaphysical conception. It is a name which the necessities of thinking have impelled us to adopt for the efficiency transmitted from or through the phenomenon which stands in the place of invariable antecedent. Yet there are questions still deeper which offer themselves as subjects of analytic thought. Is force an entity or an attribute? If an entity, is it self-acting or subordinated? If subordinated, what is the nature of the power which subordinates it? If self-acting, then the discernment and design revealed in the results of its activity are attributes which characterize a demiurge. But, if we say force

is an entity which produces results, what is the means by which it produces them? Are not all results produced by force, and is not our reasoning thus reduced to the proposition that the entity force employs force to produce results? This proposition is unintelligible, and shows that the conception of force as an entity is absurd. Force is an attribute.-Pp. 81, 82.

Dr. Chalmers opined that theism is proved, not so much by the existence of matter, as by its "collocations" into an intellective system; but Dr. Winchell finds the following proof of theism in material existence:

But, if force must be conceived as an attribute, what is the nature of its subject? What is it which exerts or manifests force? To say that the attribute force exerts itself is to make it both attribute and subject. Something which is not force, but which is capable of exerting force, is therefore necessarily implied in the conception of force. Is matter the subject? Then, first, it is a subject which thinks and purposes; for the results of force are thoughtful and purposive, and matter does thus possess a "power and potency" of psychic results. But, secondly, we are not certain that matter possesses a subjective nature. We only know matter phenomenally, and it may easily be that phenomena constitute all there is of matter in itself. Yet phenomena are manifestations of something possessing the power to produce them. The phenomena which we cognize as matter are manifestations of force. If there be no subject matter, there must be some other subject revealing itself in the phenomena which we group under the designation of matter. We are driven, then, to the recognition of an intelligent subject as the ground of the attribute of force manifesting its activities in the being of what we call matter, as well as in the changes which are impressed upon

matter.

The inquiry does not end even here; for it remains to ascertain what is the mode of origin of force from its subject. What is the method by which the subject reveals the attribute of force? Is forceful emanation from the subject an unconscious and continuous necessity of its being; or is it a conscious and voluntary activity? If necessary, then some higher power has imposed the necessity; if unconscious, then some higher intelligence directs according to the laws of conscious thought; for co-ordination of products implies at least two things consciously apprehended both in their separateness and in their relation; unconscious intelligence is a nugatory expression, for consciousness is the prime moment of intelligence. If forceful manifestations are effected through the method of volition, then the subject which constitutes the ground of all cosmical force is possessed of will as well as intellect and susceptibility to motive, and is consequently a personal entity-an entity thinking, feeling, and willing with reference to that which is not itself.-Pp. 82, 83.

QUARTERLY REVIEW OF THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH, January, 1880. (Nashville, Tenn.)-1. Methodist Episcopacy. 2. Development of Monotheism among the Greeks. 3. Studies in Shakspeare. 4. The Conflict. 5. Bible Revision. 6. The Problem of Life-The Book of Ecclesiastes. 7. Spencer's First Principles. 8. Providential Uses of Pain. 9. Social Life of our Forefathers. The welcome return of Dr. T. O. Summers to the editorial chair of the Southern Quarterly suggests some old antebellum, we had almost said antediluvian, recollections. The bitter antislavery contest was then at its height, and the presages of war were growing more and more distinct. Now the question of slavery is settled, even if the question of serfdom is not. We cherish the hope of prospective peace, not without recognition of lowering omens in the coming presidential contest.

This Quarterly is externally done up in good taste, has nearly two hundred octavo pages, with articles of a high character, and an extended editorial department, such as Dr. S. can furnish, priced at three dollars, in advance. The only fault which we have to find with it is the oppressive omission of the names of the writers, sustained by unreasonable reasons. The practice of furnishing the names exists in all parts of Europe, excepting England, and with, we believe, every Quarterly and Monthly in America, except the Southern Methodist.

English Reviews.

BRITISH AND FOREIGN EVANGELICAL REVIEW, January, 1880. (London.)-1. Richard Baxter; by the Rev. Donald Fraser, D.D. 2. Evolution in Religion; by the Rev. Dunlop Moore, D.D. 3. Testimony of St. Paul to Jesus Christ; by the Rev. J. Oswald Dykes, D.D., 4. The Unity of the Human Race, Considered from an American Stand-point; by the Rev. Prof. John Campbell. 5. Poetry of Edmund Spenser; by M. H. Towry. 6. Righteousness of Life. 7. The Formal and the Vital in the Bible; by the Rev. I. E. Dwinell. 8. The Lord's Supper; by Prof. Peck, D.D.

BRITISH QUARTERLY REVIEW, January, 1880. (London.)-1. The Lords of Ardres. 2. Glimpses of the New Gold and Silver Mines. 3. Modern Greece. 4. Practical Esthetics. 5. Why is Scotland Radical? 6. The Christian Idea of God. 7. Nonconformist Psalmody. 8. Mr. Gladstone and the Nation. EDINBURGH REVIEW, January, 1880. (New York.)-1. Agricultural Depression. 2. Hamerton's Life of Turner. 3. The Military Position of Russia and England in Central Asia. 4. Ireland: her Present and Future. 5. The Persian Miracle Play. 6. British Light-houses. 7. Russia Before and After the War. 8. Lord Minto in India. 9. Plain Whig Principles.

WESTMINSTER REVIEW, January, 1880. (New York.)-1. Colonial Aid in War Time. 2. Early Greek Thought. 3. The Grand Dukes of Tuscany. 4. The Organization and Registration of Teachers. 5. Imperium et Libertas. 6. The Relation of Silver to Gold as Coin. 7. Social Philosophy. 8. Russia and Russian Reformers.

LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW, January, 1880. (New York.)-1. Lord Bolingbroke. 2. The Progress of Taste. 3. Bishop Wilberforce. 4. The Successors of Alexander and Greek Civilization in the East. 5. Prince Metternich. 6. The Romance of Modern Travel. 7. Mr. Bright and the Duke of Somerset on Monarchy and Democracy. 8. The Credentials of the Opposition.

LONDON QUARTERLY REVIEW, January, 1880. (London.)-1. Egyptian and Sacred Chronology. 2. Modern Realism. 3. A Victim of the Falk Laws. 4. The Transvaal and its People. 5. Charles Waterton. 6. Our Convict System. 7. St. John's Doctrine of Christian Sonship.

The following notice of a biography of St. Hugh of Avalon, by G. G. Perry, gives us an impressive idea of a model mediæval bishop:

Probably the ordinary conception of a monk is that of a man whose life, even when it happens to be free from vice, is passed away in indolent devotion; and probably few ordinary readers have fairly realized the immense obligations which literature owes to the monastic settlements of the dark ages. Not to mention the familiar fact that the literary treasures of all antiquity, both sacred and profane, have been preserved for us by the monks, it is right to remark that we owe our knowledge of Europe, from the days of Charlemagne to the revival of letters, mainly to the monasteries. Especially in our own country, from the times of Bede to those of the Edwards, we are indebted for almost all our information to a series of literary monks. The great works which were composed in the monasteries, above all at Peterborough and St. Albans, are an almost inexhaustible treasury of historical information. But for such writers as these, the days of William Rufus, Henry, and Stephen, would be almost as perfect a blank as the history of Peru a couple of centuries before the invasion of Pizarro. The great interest which is taken by this generation in historical inquiries has brought many of these works into circulation; and, among others, Professor Stubbs has earned the gratitude of students by the care and industry with which he has edited these relics of English antiquity. Some years ago Mr. Dimock published an edition of the Metrical Life and the Great Life of St. Hugh of Lincoln. He then began to prepare for publication the works of Geraldus Cambrensis, whom Mr. Green describes as the wittiest of court chaplains, the most troublesome of bishops, and the gayest and most amusing of all the authors of his day. On Mr. Dimock's death the work was delayed for some time, but afterward completed by Mr. Freeman. When the Great Life appeared, Mr. Perry, already favorably known by his life of Bishop Grossteste, wisely determined to give this interesting biography to the English reader; the work, however, was delayed in the expectation that Geraldus Cambrensis would supply additional information. As soon, then, as this author was published, Mr. Perry proceeded with his task, and the result is the present biography of St. Hugh of Avalon, the main builder of the Cathedral at Lincoln.