plishing, with what success remains to be seen. When we examine the extreme scientific position, we perceive it to be founded on the assertion that we are not brought intellectually into contact with any thing else than molecules and ether; that these, in fact, form the whole substance of the universe, and that besides them there is nothing else. We may here allow that if it could be shown that molecules and ether constitute the whole of things, and if life be impossible in the ether, the argument against immortality would, from the scientific side, be very strong indeed. But if it can be shown that these two entities do not constitute the sum total of the universe, but only a small portion of it, there will be of course room for other possibilities.

Now we think that this can be done-we believe it can be shown that there must be a vast unseen universe, and that, as far as we can judge from scientific analogy, this vast unseen is replete with intelligence and spiritual power. The extreme scientific school have therefore committed a very grave error in tying themselves down to molecules and ether.

On the other hand, a larger class of theologians have (with notable exceptions, however) tied themselves down to an equally untenable hypothesis regarding miracles, and we may here be allowed to quote the words which two recent writers use on this subject' "It was not exactly asserted that miracles were arbitrary events, or that they were not the results of purpose, but only that the purpose of which they were the accomplishment could not be realized without some physical break. In fine, with the view of removing spiritual confusion, intellectual confusion was introduced, as being the lesser evil of the two. Thus, if he submits to be guided by such interpreters, each intelligent being will forever continue to be baffled in any attempt to explain these phenomena, because they are said to have no physical relation to any thing that went before or that followed after. In fine, they are made to form a universe within a universe, a portion cut off by an unsurmountable barrier from the domain of scientific inquiry." So much for these writers. It will thus be perceived that a

1 "Unseen Universe," page 89.

school of theologians have unduly fettered themselves, not by asserting the occurrence of miracles, but rather by supplementing the assertion by an unfortunate hypothesis of their own. We have now tried to bring before the reader the positions of the rival hosts. On a future occasion we shall endeavor to show how a reconciliation may in our judgment be brought about.

BALFOUR STEWART.

JOHN STUART MILL AND THE DESTRUCTION OF THEISM.

Two

`WO intimately related movements of religious or anti-religious thought have been going forward for a quarter of a century and more in the English world-one having as its aim the destruction of theism, and the other the construction of an imposing and comprehensive system of anti-theism, or atheism. In the former, John Stuart Mill has been the leading spirit; in the latter, Herbert Spencer; and to these two men, more than to all others combined, the present atheistic trend of English thought in the more pretentious circles is, in the opinion of the best judges, to be ascribed. The fact that they have done their work in the name of science and philosophy has doubtless added very largely to their influence.

Five years ago Mr. Mill ruled with absolute despotism a large proportion of the so-called educated and thinking men in Great Britain. Indiscriminate laudation of his logic, his philosophy, his candor, his high motives, etc., was the order of the day to such an extent that it was safer to find fault with the sun itself than with this great philosophic light. His agnostic conclusions were widely accepted without question; his flings at theism were voted worth more than solid arguments in favor of it; his reticence in the statement of his atheistic views, though it had alienated Comte, had made such an impression of reserve force upon his worshippers, that faith in Mill seemed with them to have already superseded faith in God. But English thought, so far as Mr. Mill is its subject, has undergone a most remarkable change since his death. It is interesting to trace the grow ing sense of fear on the one side and of freedom on the other.

Immediately after his death, one of his most enthusiastic admirers, Miss Edith Simcox, a lady who holds a prominent place in the present English rationalistic literature for reasons similar to those which have given Mr. Mill his influence came before the public with what she was pleased to style

"an attempt to show not only that Mr. Mill's influence on the ordinary thought of the day is still undiminished, but also that it would indeed be a national calamity for that influence to become either weakened, warped, or forgotten."

After the publication of the Autobiography, Lord Blachford, an able writer of an opposite school, ventured to express his opinion with some degree of confidence, as follows:

"If the intellect of our universities (as I understand to be the case) is being moulded into accordance with this philosophy, it appears to me that we may expect some startling conclusions from the rising generation. Whether these conclusions will be long maintained, either by the thinking or by the unthinking part of the world outside, is another matter."

Upon the publication of the Three Essays, the Pall Mall Budget declared that Mill's followers in England received them "with mingled feelings of surprise, disappointment, and of something closely bordering on irritation."

The truth was evidently beginning to dawn on the minds of some of the “thinkers" and "philosophers." Three years more have now passed, and the growing sense of light and freedom has so increased that Professor W. Stanley Jevons, of University College, London, the man perhaps best fitted to dissect Mr. Mill and his logic, has risen to protest against the despotism which has compelled him for twenty years to use Mill's works as text-books in his college instruction. So intricate is the sophistry of these works, that ten years of study passed before he "began to detect their fundamental unsoundness.' But during the last ten years the conviction has been growing upon his mind, "that Mill's authority is doing immense injury to the cause of philosophy and good intellectual training in England." Professor Jevons, in the opening essay of a series in review of special points in Mill's logic and philosophy, writes:

But for my part, I will no longer consent to live silently under the incubus of bad logic and bad philosophy which Mill's works have laid upon us. On almost every subject of social importance-religion, morals, political phi

losophy, political economy, metaphysics, logic-he has expressed unhesitating opinions, and his sayings are quoted by his admirers as if they were the oracles of a perfectly wise and logical mind. Nobody questions, or at least ought to question, the force of Mill's style, the persuasive power of his words, the candor of his discussions, and the perfect goodness of his motives. If to all his other great qualities had been happily added logical accurateness, his writings would indeed have been a source of light for generations to But in one way or another Mill's intellect was wrecked. The cause of injury may have been the ruthless training imposed upon him in tender years; it may have been Mill's own life-long attempt to reconcile a false empirical philosophy with conflicting truth. But, however it arose. Mill's mind was essentially illogical."

come.

These plain words clearly indicate a radical revolution in the mind of Professor Jevons. That he does not at all underestimate Mr. Mill's logical acumen will be made to appear from a careful examination of that logician's criticism and supposed refutation of the theistic argument for a First Cause, found in the essay on Theism, one of his latest productions, professedly written in the name of exact science. It is far from clear, however, that Professor Jevons does not overestimate Mr. Mill's "candor" as well as the "goodness of his motives."

Mill's argument is undoubtedly one of the most dangerous ever constructed in opposition to Theism. There are those of his own party who are inclined to underestimate its strength, but until they furnish a stronger it may fairly be considered as the best that can be done from the destructive side. Moreover, it cannot justly be claimed that it omits any considerations of essential importance on the anti-theistic side. It even takes in, by anticipation, the latest conclusion of Professor Huxley and Tyndall, that man is a mere automaton, a machine run by necessary forces, so that the last vestige of the old anthropomorphic basis for argument to a First Cause is apparently swept away.

But the danger from the argument does not lie in the strength so much as in the marvellous combination of intricate sophistry and utter confusion of thought, with an extraordinary show of candor and fairness, and a tone of supreme confidence such as is ordinarily begotten only by a certain and infallible grasp of truth. It is this element in Mill's writings that enabled them for ten years to dazzle so clear an eye as that of the distinguished Professor in University College, and it is this that