upon by something not itself. A combustible material does not stop or change its course to avoid a consuming fire. An intelligent being will of itself stop or change its action to avoid painful consequences. To the action of a being with a faculty of effort, wants demanding effort, and knowledge to apply its effort to the desired ends, no extrinsic or prior application of power or force is requisite; for all that is necessary is that it should perceive that there is an occasion -a reason for putting forth its own inherent power" (Eng. ed. pp. 137, 138; Germ. ed. p. 149).

"It is urged by the advocates of necessity that the volitions are, and must be, in accordance with the disposition, inclination, desires, and habits; and, being thus necessitated, are not, and cannot be, free" (Eng. ed. p. 164; Germ. ed. p. 178). If this were true, we could not make criminals responsible for their offences; and society could do no more than to lock up criminals so long as there would be reason to expect criminal acts from them. In this connection, the author shows that we are logically reduced to the necessity of believing that the volition is conformed to the want and knowledge, not by any extrinsic power or force, but by the willing being himself; and such conforming being, in fact, the controlling or directing of his volition or effort, he in such volition or effort acts freely" (Eng. ed. p. 203; Germ. ed. p. 220). "The determination of a volition by the character is, in fact, the determination by the willing being" (Eng. ed. p. 210; Germ. ed. p. 227).

....

'The great question as to the relation between human freedom and the Divine government of the world receives the following answer from the author: "If there was any necessary incompatibility of Divine prescience with man's freedom in willing, he had, of these two alternatives, elected not to foreknow our volitions. A Being of infinite wisdom does not require time to prepare in advance for what may arise, but can perceive at the instant what action is best; and if this preparation were necessary such a Being could anticipate every possible combination of conditions, and determine in advance what his action in each should be" (Eng. ed. p. 213; Germ. ed. p. 231). "God, even if he could foreknow the volitions of finite conative beings, may have chosen to limit his own knowledge, and not to foreknow them; and hence such volitions as they actually occur may become additions to his knowledge and the occasions of corresponding variations in his action. I have, however, also endeavored to show that all these variations may still be embraced in general rules of action in a more extended and complex uniformity, and that our efforts to ascertain the laws of nature, by which we are enabled to predict the recurrence of physical events, are only efforts to learn the uniform modes of God's action in reference to them. Even though there is a sphere in which his actions may be varied by that of other free agents, still there is a large material domain in which he may act as a sole First Cause,

and in which his action is not liable to be varied by increase of knowledge" (Eng. ed. pp. 220, 221; Germ. ed. p. 239). These are statements of philosophy in no respect inconsistent with the doctrines of Scripture. They find room for what the Scriptures tell us from the first page to the last that the love of God wisely limits human freedom, but never in any wise destroys it. The Appendix (Eng. ed. pp. 255-281; Germ. ed. pp. 275-315) adds two interesting essays on the Existence of Matter, and our Notions of Infinite Space.'

ARTICLE XIII.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

A. GERMAN WORKS.

Böhmer's "History of the Development of the Scientific View of the World in Germany" (Geschichte der Entwickelung der natur-wissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung in Deutschland), though of course not professedly polemical, is to a considerable extent so in reality. The author does not, indeed, take the idealistic or spiritualistic side in scientific questions; on the contrary, his sympathies seem in the main to be with the mechanical, sensualistic view of man's nature; but still he does not form the high estimate of the theories of Darwin to which such men as Häckel and others incline. He allows the value of Darwin's investigations, but does not think his speculations altogether valid. It is an interesting contribution to the general subject.

Professor Karl Völker, in his " Popular Cosmogonic Lectures" (Populäre Kosmogonische Vorträge) favors a totally different view of the primeval development of our planet from that of the advocates of the theory of transmutation; namely, that which is based on the theory of ice ages, propounded by Schmidt. In this respect he is said to be akin to, if not a follower of, the celebrated botanist and palaeontologist, Professor Heer of Zürich.

Professor Häckel of Jena, who almost out-Darwins Darwin in his popular lectures on the natural history of creation has met with some sharp criticism. In the course of these lectures he maintains that Goethe taught something like Darwinism; but Dr. Oscar Schmidt proves him to have confounded ideal transmutation, a metamorphosis of the animal and vegetable types, with the now popular doctrine of the descent of all living things from one or more original germs.

Between Häckel and the celebrated traveller and ethnologist Dr. Bastian, who edits the valuable Ethnologische Zeitschrift, there have also been some hot skirmishes. Bastian says it is "childishness in the advocates of the VOL. XXXIV. No. 135.

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theory of evolution or descent to suppose themselves able to see through the plan of the law of the universe on the ground of the fragmentary knowledge afforded by this little corner the earth, and to attempt to trace out a regular development from protoplasms to man," and, amongst other things, describes Darwin's work on man as the "dreams of an afternoon napper." Häckel, in return, charges Bastian with ignorance of the facts in question, incapability of understanding the theory, lack of philosophical acquaintance with the world of phenomena, immeasurable confusion; and concludes his tirade with the words: "It is an interesting and instructive circumstance that those men are chiefly indignant at the discovery of the natural development of man from the monkey, between whom and our common tertiary ancestors there is the least observable difference, whether as to intellectual capacity or cerebral characteristics." Verily, our scientific men ought not now to talk about an odium theologicum, but about an cdium scientificum. They certainly equal even the seventeenth-century theologians, which is saying a good deal.

Prof. Dr. F. Körner's “ Animal Soul and Human Mind" (Thierseele und Menschengeist) is an attempt to show that there is truth in common both in the materialistic and what he terms the idealistic view of the world; but, though in many respects commendable, fails to show any sympathy with a positive Christian view of religion and morals. His point of view is the humanistic one so common in Germany.

To the same school, in the main, belongs Dr. Edward Reich's "Man and the Soul (Der Mensch und die Seele); or, Studies in Physiological and Philosophical Anthropology and in the Physics of Daily Life."

Dr. Albert Wigand endeavors to reconcile the fundamental idea of Darwinism with the assumption of a distinct creation of species, in his "Genealogy of the Primitive Cells as a Solution of the Problem of Descent or the Rise of Species with Natural Selection."

In the pamphlet entitled "The Dissolution of Species by Natural Selection," the anonymous author aims to show that the necessary result of a development in accordance with the principle of natural selection will be the final reduction of all organic species to one single, universal organism, in which meet the respective characteristics of plant, animal, and man; the final abolition of everything positive in the domain of culture and morals; and the complete conversion of man into an animal a complete reductio ad absurdum.

Not because of its value,- for scientifically it is a mere hash-up of other men's thoughts, but because of its violence, would we notice the work of C. A. Specht, entitled "Theology and Science" (Theologie und Wissenschaft). The following are samples of his expectorations: "It is against those black sons of night, those authors of intellectual bondage, the parsons, that the weapons of free thought, reason, and science must be directed."

"The whole of parsondom, no matter of what creed, must be

sent to the right-about; that bogy theology must be cast into the lumberroom of monstrosities and absurdities." "Therefore," cries he, "O men of the earth, purify yourselves at last from blind faith, so that an end may be put to the swindling existence of those greedy blackguards, the parsons." The anonymous author of " Creation and Man" indulges in very similar language, though he is not so completely carried away by his passion. He maintains that "a religious confession has never more than a very subordinate value, inasmuch as it misleads men to hypocrisy, indolence, and cruelty. In the great struggle between impulse and emotion, will and conscience, lie and truth, it is the fastness into which impulse, will, and lie retreat after every defeat, in order to collect strength for new attack." He also talks about delivering the people from "the claws of a demagogic parsondom." How a man in his senses can discover demagogues among the Protestant clergy of Germany is a mystery.

Very ambitious is the undertaking of Dr. Dulk in his book, "Animal or Man? A Word about the Essence and Destination of Humanity." Starting with the axiom that "the scientific question started by Darwin, which was a necessary product of the intellectual labor of the present century, bears a new world in its womb, and that if it be finally affirmed it must overthrow a view of the world and religious dogmas which have lasted thousands of years and were deemed everlasting," he proposes, "by drawing out from the source of the present consciousness of cultured man, and comparing the vital phenomena of the animal with those of man, to give such expression to the unity and distinction of the two as clearly to discover the boundary line where both creations meet and separate." In carrying out this design he collects a large number of facts, especially such as are due to religious fanaticism, which, in his view, show that man is merely a higher kind of brute. His own position seems to be a pantheistic one; and he speaks of "spirit as the brute-vanquishing ego of all men, or ego of humanity." A wretched production, but a sign of the times.

Dr. Alex. Braun, Professor of Botany at the University of Berlin, seeks in his brief treatise on "The Significance of Development in Natural History" to show that creation and development are not incompatible conceptions, if we regard creation not as belonging merely to the past, but as a continuous, omnipresent, divine activity. Darwin's theory, he believes, sets forth the history of this development or creation correctly in all essential features. To his mind it is an elevating, rather than a degrading, thought, to look upon man as the last and highest link in the great chain of development, and as thus so closely connected with the rest of nature as to be in the truest sense its son.

The philosopher K. Ch. Planck, who is a disciple of Schelling, declares open war against materialism in his work, "Truth and Superficiality of Darwinism," etc. He would have the law of development take its start from "the dominating inner concentration of the parts, and have its

essential nature in their progressive development"-whatever that may mean; whereas Darwin endeavors to explain "the organic from the co-operation of the individual inorganic elements." He does not complain of the effort to show that the development from the indifferentiated homogeneous whole to the complete differentiation and individualization is contained in the domain of the organic; but objects to the external, mechanical way of dealing with it. Herein, also, he seems to us to be right. An evolution, a development within the world, so to speak, would accord with the facts; the outward development advocated by Darwinists lacks, to say the least, adequate support in the region of fact. Planck's work contains much deep thought. Its chief defect is that too much German patriotism is mixed up with his philosophy and science for our

taste.

The new edition of Professor Ulrici's very able work, "God and Man,” contains some admirable remarks on the relation of Darwinism to morals and law. An idea of his position may be formed from the following words: "Law roots, it is true, immediately in the ethical nature of man; ultimately, however, in the nature of God. God himself is the absolute right, because he is the final ground and the absolute condition of human morality."

In the recent editions of his "Force and Matter," Dr. Büchner seems to favor the practice of abortion, and appeals as it were in its favor to the custom of such "natural" peoples as the Chinese and others.

The well-known traveller and anthropologist, Dr. Gustav Fritzsch, in his work on "The Natives of Africa Ethnographically and Anatomically described," laments that Darwin should have given up the caution observed by him in his earlier publications, and become untrue to himself by forsaking the soil of scientific observation for the great ocean of speculation. He also blames him for seeking to effect by bold theorizings what his investigations could never definitely settle.

The geologist, A. Stutz, of Zürich, raises his voice against the pantheistic theology of the Zeitstimmen party in Switzerland, and avows his belief in a God free from nature, and its Creator, in his revelation, in Christ, and in the miracles of the Bible, looked at from the point of view of science; and he is an able man as able as many who take the opposite side. The title of his work is "Natural Science, a Free God, and Miracles. An Apologetic Discussion from the Point of View of Natural Science."

In his "Anthropological Studies," Herr P. Rauch, of Augsburg, has shown that the assumption of the descent of the race from one pair is scientifically admissible. He criticizes very acutely the positions of men like Vogt, Häckel, and others who are both Darwinians and upholders of the multiple origin of mankind.

The third and concluding volume of Dr. Ludwig Weiss's " Anti-Materialism" contains much that has an apologetic value, though its author's