give themselves up to the license of "reconciling" at all hazards, they are able to say with sufficient certainty what this narrative means. If, then, a fair reconciliation is ever to be effected, the science of geology must confess that it has made many important mistakes with respect to the periods and order of creation. In the meantime we insist upon the truth of the declaration of Professor Guyot with respect to the main intent of the Bible. Its chief design is "to give us light upon the great truths needed for our spiritual life. Its teachings are essentially of a spiritual, religious character." Because we thus believe, we warn the readers of this noble little volume not to be turned away from their confidence in the Bible by the failure of its conclusions in the attempt at reconciliation. For in this way the work of its devout author would sadly miss of its admirable intention. Its readers should not refuse to listen to the one exhortation (p. 6), which is the wisest thing in the book: "Let us not, therefore, hope, much less ask, from science the knowledge it can never give; nor seek from the Bible the science which it does not intend to teach."

CURRENT DISCUSSIONS IN THEOLOGY.* The purpose of this volume is to give an intelligible account of current theological discussions in this and other countries during the present year. It is the second volume of a series, the first of which appeared last year. At the same time, we are not to be left in ignorance of the views of the writers concerning the topics discussed. It is evidently their desire that the influence of the Seminary they represent shall be felt in critical efforts to correct false views and to point the way to what the writers suppose to be the true views. Prof. Curtiss discusses somewhat elaborately questions relating to the history of Israel. He deals with particular classes of opinion upon questions involved in this general theme, chiefly German opinions of course, and cites from works with which Americans are supposed to be relatively unfamiliar. He deals critically with their views, and upon many points gives us his own opinions, which, as always, are characterized by a certain caution, if not breadth and thoroughness, and insight and fidelity to facts. Prof. Hyde contents himself with a brief statement of the contents of the more important recent works in the different departments of New Testament study, and is less concerned to record his own

* Current Discussions in Theology. By the Professors of Chicago Theological Seminary. Chicago: Fleming H. Revell. 1884.

critical opinions. Prof. Scott, who fills the chair of Ecolesiastical History, has given us a valuable statement of the position of the chief theological parties in Germany, in our time, and intimates the importance, to the intelligent study of the history of Christian doctrine, of some knowledge of these parties. Prof. Fisk, without much reference, critical or otherwise, to late important works in the deparment of Homiletics, gives us his own views of current preaching, what it is and what it ought to be, and leaves behind the savor of his lecture room. Prof. Wilcox treats of Practical Theology, defining its nature and scope, and indicating its present work in several particulars in our own country. The most significant part of the volume, however, because proceeding from the chair of Dogmatics, is from the hand of Prof. Boardman. It may be supposed to be significant not only of his own theological attitude, but of the attitude of the Seminary, toward current theological questions. If we may judge from the spirit of the present discussion, it is certainly the attitude of a genuinely candid man. Prof. Boardman deals with only two topics, Theism and Revelation. He refers to several late works on Theism, but chiefly to the work of Prof. Harris, "The Philosophical Basis of Theism." He criticises the author's views of the Absolute, and succeeds, if in nothing else, in demonstrating the difference in the philosophical training of the two men and the difficulty in grasping ideas and estimating arguments without a clear understanding of the meaning of philosophical terms. The larger part of this portion of the volume is devoted to Revelation. Prof. Boardman here reviews and criticises Prof. Ladd's late work, "The Doctrine of Sacred Scripture." The outline of the main positions taken in this work is for the most part accurate, and bears the marks of admirable candor and of more than ordinary capacity to understand another's point of view and to state his position. In this respect it is in striking contrast with many of the recent statements by theological journals, and particularly by religious newspapers, concerning the character and scope of this important work. The writer has, however, unintentionally misstated the position of the author with respect to miracles. It is stated as Prof. Ladd's position that "even a miracle is to be believed only on the ground of its ethical value as a work of God." This statement does not cover the ground. The credibility of the alleged miracle is, ac cording to Prof. Ladd, not determined solely by its ethical worth, but rather by its ethico-religious worth and by its relation with

the history of redemption. Nor is it true, as Prof. Boardman states, that, according to the author, it is the moral consciousness alone that tests and determines the true doctrine of inspiration. The Christian consciousness, or that ultimate knowledge which is the gift of the Spirit of Christ, is surely something more and other than a moral consciousness. After a statement of the author's views, in the main, despite the above exceptions, so appreciative and so correct, it is the more surprising that Prof. Boardman should develope the singular line of criticism that follows, and should think himself able to discover difficulties connected with the author's views which to us are simply impossible and even inconceivable. These difficulties are of his own invention. They are not at all involved in the positions which he has so well stated. Has he after all failed to grasp the central and regulative positions of the work, and is there only the semblance of a real appre hension of its character and scope? Or is it that, after having passed over into the current of the author's thought and moved on with him to the end, he returns to his own point of view and finds himself so trapped and imprisoned by his own prepossessions and methods of thinking that he unwittingly perverts, as by a mental necessity, the very views he has so faithfully and candidly stated? We will accept the latter as the true explanation. There is a wide difference between the starting-points of the two men. It is the difference between two irreconcilable views of the supernatural and its relation to history. It is the difference, not so much between two conflicting views of religion, as between two conflicting views of revelation. It is the difference between a semi-rationalistic and a semi-deistic theology on the one hand and a historic and Christian theology on the other hand, a theology that has for its point of view the whole scope of the divine rev elation as disclosed by historic redemption. It is in the necessity of his position that Prof. Boardman should emphasize and honor natural theology so-called. But it involves him in a mischievously rationalistic position. It is in the necessity of his position that Prof. Ladd should emphasize and honor revelation. It puts him in the Christian point of view and gives him a clear outlook upon the whole of human history and upon prehistoric and historic redemption. It makes redemption the key-fact of revelation and history. It exalts Christ into centrality, where the Scriptures put him. That any man should deny or question the christo-centric point of revelation, of history, or of theology, shows what poor

head Biblical religion may make against a semi-rationalistic theology which is philosophically untenable. It shows what poor use a Christian teacher may make of the Book which he professes to recognize as the infallibly inspired and final appeal in all his theological opinions.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE UNKNOWABLE.*-This book is designed to separate Mr. Spencer's doctrine of the Unknowable from his general system of evolution, and to refute the former while leaving the latter to stand as "a law of things" and not "only a law of appearances." Its author sums up his conclusions in about the following terms (p. 211 f.): Every argument that is used, or that can be used, in proof of the existence of the objective Unknowable is based on the very knowledge which the argument purports to prove impossible (Chap. II.). A number of problems which Mr. Spencer supposes peculiar to Ontology and considers insoluble, the author finds to be capable of solution by Phenomenology (Chaps. III.-VI.). Actual nature does not exclude realities from its sphere (Chap. VII.). The unknowableness deduced by Mr. Spencer is the unknowableness of something neither in existence nor capable of existence (Chap. VIII.). Spencer's deduction of the unknowableness of things outside of consciousness from the conception of life, Mr. Lacy considers meaningless and erroneous (Chap. IX.). Absolute knowledge is possible and can be accounted for (Chapter X.). The author justly declares that Spencer's "reconciliation" is a "high" (he might have said a pompous and meaningless) abstraction; but he himself believes that "Science and the Religion of to-day shall pass into something more worthy than either, which shall take their place" (p. 235).

Mr. Lacy has studied this doctrine of Spencer with painstaking care, and his refutations of its details are tolerably successful in consideration of the fact that he so largely looks upon metaphysical problems in Spencer's way, and almost-it might be said— with borrowed eyes. The "Synthetic Philosophy" he considers as perhaps the noblest speculative product of a single mind" (p. 4). Yet he does not hesitate to criticise it with commendable thoroughness. This estimate of the "Synthetic Philosophy," in

* An Examination of the Philosophy of the Unknowable as Expounded by Herbert Spencer. By WILLIAM M. LACY. Philadelphia: Benjamin F. Lacy, 121 Seventh St. 1883.

connection with many other tokens, would seem to indicate that the author is not familiar with the masters in modern philosophy; especially that he, like the one master whom he so admiringly but sharply criticises, little knows or appreciates the critical method and results of Kant, or the process of thought in the solution of metaphysical problems since the time of Kant. We are quite willing to have Mr. Spencer's theory of the Unknowable so thoroughly refuted by one avowedly an admirer of the "Synthetic Philosophy." For ourselves, we are looking to see this entire system of philosophy speedily disintegrate and deliver over its elements, so far as they have any stable quality, to a new and different process of philosophical integration.

LOCKE'S THEOry of KnowlEDGE.* This fifth number in the "Philosophic Series" by President McCosh begins the second or historical part of the series; "in this part the same questions (that is, as those discussed in the first or didactic part) are treated historically." In his "General Introduction" the author treats of "divers aspects of first principles"; in the following sections are brief, chatty lives of Locke and of Berkeley, and a similar discussion of the principal opinions of these philosophers as seen from the author's point of view. As the program on the cover of the book informs us: "The systems of the philosophers . . are stated and examined, and the truth and error in each of them carefully pointed out." In particular: "It is shown that Locke held by a body of truth, and that he has often been misunderstood; but that he has not by his experience theory laid a sure foundation of knowledge." The very indefinite expectation excited by this promise may be said to be fairly well fulfilled. We will only add our wish that the author would be more precise in his scholarship than to translate the words of Descartes-" Lorsque je dis que quelque idée est née avec nous, ou qu'elle est naturellement empreinte en nos âmes, je n'entends pas qu'elle se présente toujours à notre pensée, car ainsi il n'y en aurait aucune; mais j'entends seulement que nous avons en nous-mêmes la faculté de la produire"-as follows: "While I say that some idea is born with us, or that it is naturally imprinted on our souls, I do not understand that it presents itself always to our thought, for there is no thought it does so, but I understand that we have in ourselves the faculty to produce it" (pp. 5 and 43).

* Locke's Theory of Knowledge, with a Notice of Berkeley. By JAMES MCCOSE, D.D., LL.D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

1884.