right of any other religion to be called a divine revelation. Of course the author, in carrying his theory out, comes continually to conclusions which we cannot admit. On page 83, On page 83, he says, "The divine life-delights in sacrifice. It was with this mind that St. Peter wrote of Jesus, 'He was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.' We can claim then as divine truth the Brahmanic belief that creation was an act of sacrifice." Just as truly can the ordinary belief of men that something can not be obtained for nothing, which is the real idea of the Brahmanic sacrifice, be considered as divine truth.

Mr. Park's admiration of Zoroastrianism is intense, but one remark in his chapter on that religion makes one inclined to drop the book in disgust. On page 241 he says, "it may be questioned whether the resurrection of Jesus could have found acceptance, had not Zoroastrianism prepared a nidus for that belief."

The two last chapters contain a plea for a return to the " apostolic" method and spirit of missions, by which our author apparently means that we must teach all men that their old beliefs really contain the basis of Christianity and only need to be evolved a little more. The usual horror of dogmatism is expressed, which leads one to long for that glorious time when no man shall have any dogmas of any kind, but shall calmly and peacefully agree with every one else.

This book is pleasant reading but does not carry conviction to our mind.

Adelbert College.

S. B. PLATNER.

REALISTIC PHILOSOPHY.*-This work has received the highest commendation from the religious and secular press. Therefore, passing over the merits of the treatise, we shall endeavor to criticize the author's fundamental position, which may be called materialistic realism. Such statements will be selected from the two volumes as are characteristic rather than exceptional.

The first volume opens with the assumption that Yankees are practical, and therefore the American Philosophy should be Realism. We think such a statement as the author makes in vol. ii., p. 202, refutes the above inference. "Truth is truth whether we observe it or no." We may have an American Tariff or Monroe Doctrine, but philosophy, if it deal with objective, eternal truth, should be the same in America and Germany.

* Realistic Philosophy. By JAMES MCCOSH, D.D., LL.D., President of Princeton College. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

The author evidently prefers the dogmatic to the critical method. He admits, for example, (on pages 5 and 6, vol. i.) that there is reason for doubt as to what is perceived, directly, by the senses; but explains that we must resolutely hold that it is something external to the mind that is thus perceived. See also vol. ii., pages 4, 29, 103, etc. Now that certain states of my mind are produced by something not myself, is a metaphysical assumption which may be valid. But it is altogether dogmatic and unfair to state, on the basis of that assumption, that we know matter, as extended, directly. (vol. ii., p. 29.) And it does not help Dr. McCosh's Realism to postulate something extra-mental; for he thereby cuts off all connection between the "space" or "thing" and his mind. As T. H. Green has said, "How can energy and extension be at the same time apart from consciousness and in it ?" We do not think that he has annihilated Kant, either in his treatment of the senses or of the categories. In vol. i., p. 52, e. g., Dr. McCosh says: "In all these intuitive conceptions there can be no mistakes." Still, on the same page, he admits mistakes in judgAnd he does not seem to have considered the fact that all perception involves judgment. Why should vibrations be sensed as colors?

ments.

Again he says, (p. 206, vol. ii.): "I have the same evidence of the existence of the thing appearing as I have of the appearance." This is not true if "thing" is considered extra-mental. That I refer a state of self-consciousness to myself as subject is a fact universally admitted. That some extra-mental reality produced that state may be true. But it does not rest on the "same evidence." "There can be no pledge for the truth of our thinking that lies outside of all our thought."*

We do not see how Dr. McCosh can consistently speak of Berkeley's idea of power as "vague" when he himself tells us that " a hammer comes in contact with a stone," (vol. ii., p. 107) as if the statement were philosophically true.

Unless Dr. McCosh should drop his materialistic realism, and go over to ideal-realism, it would be interesting to see him attempt to refute, critically, Mr. Spencer's hypothesis (which the Dr. heartily dislikes),—the evolution of mind from physical powers. (vol. ii., p. 277.) If the atoms are wholly outside of any mind; if they think nothing, feel nothing, know nothing,-how can the assumption that one atom does anything at all in view of * Lotze: Grundzüge der Logik, etc., S. 148. Leipzig, 1883.

what other atoms are doing, rid itself of self-contradiction? Perhaps Dr. McCosh's irony against Mr. Spencer recoils upon himself: "Perhaps they had loving attachments to each other, perhaps they had some morality, say a sense of justice," etc. (i., 182.) We know the unity of consciousness directly; but not, external to mind, the unity of a bundle of atoms.

CLARENCE D. GREELEY.

EDWARDS ON FIRST CORINTHIANS.*-The author presents his treatise with the utmost modesty, alleging his remoteness from any great literary center as an excuse for his lack of acquaintance with "the latest researches and speculations." However that may be, he has what is far more important, good scholarship of his own, independence of judgment, a sound historical and critical sense and a reverent Christian spirit. He has not taken up the epistle in merely scholastic methods, but in a way which is at once scientific and practical. He pleads in the preface for a fresh study of the New Testament as containing the principles which alone can vitalize our religion and theology. He would not handle the epistle before him in the manner or in the spirit of controversy, but would try to draw from it, as from a living spring, living truths of Christian thinking and Christian life. He has constantly in mind the work of the Christian teacher. "To determine the worth of a doctrine, we must ask, not whether it can be argued about, but whether it can be preached." (p. 6).

Only a continuous use of such a work can thoroughly test its merits in detail, but the examination of it upon a few points, leaves the impression of its worth. The introduction contains. not only a discussion of the time, place and occasion of writing, but a useful sketch of exegesis as applied to the epistle.

The commentary bears something of the form, as it includes the substance, of exegetical lectures delivered in the theological classroom. The textual and grammatical notes are sufficiently copious to put the student in possession of the chief critical data, while not overburdening the mind with a mass of learned material which can have no use for any except the specialist. The stress is laid upon the development of the doctrinal contents of the epistle. This end is well attained, and we predict for this work a permanent place in the literature of New Testament study.

GEORGE B. STEVENS.

* A Commentary on the First Epistle to the Corinthians, by THOS. CHAS. EDWARDS, M.A., Principal of the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. Second Ed. A. C. Armstrong & Son. New York, 1886. pp. 491.

WARFIELD'S INTRODUCTION TO THE TEXTUAL CRITICISM OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.*-This is one of a series of handbooks which is appearing under the name of "The Theological Educator," under the supervision of Rev. W. R. Nicoll, M.A., editor of the "Expositor." They are especially adapted to the needs of theological students, but are popular in style and sufficiently free from mere technical material to be available for intelligent readers of the Bible generally.

We are gratified that Professor Warfield does not leave the chair of New Testament criticism at Alleghany for that of Doctrinal Theology at Princeton, without giving the theological public some fruit of his diligent and successful labors in the field of Textual Criticism. This, indeed, he had already done in his thorough review of Westcott and Hort in the Presbyterian Review for April, 1882, and in his valuable contribution to Schaff's "Companion to the Greek Testament" on the "Geneological Method" of Textual Criticism, (pp. 208-224). But the little volume before us will render a yet wider and more important service. It supplies precisely the handbook which teachers in this field can place in the hands of their students, confident of its accuracy and conformity to the latest and best sources of information.

These handbooks are issued in elegant form by Mr. Thos. Whittaker, of New York, at 75 cents each. In the list of authors thus far published, Dr. Warfield's is the only American name.

GEORGE B. STEVENS.

VINCENT'S WORD STUDIES IN THE NEW TESTAMENT.-Since Archbishop Trench so forcibly taught us in his "Study of Words" that words are "fossil poetry" and "fossil history," we have been content to think that they might be much else besides, and have been firmly convinced of the dignity and value of their study. Especially is this true of the words of the New Testament which employs a heathen tongue for the expression of its peculiarly spiritual message and teaching. In the volume before us (which is to be followed by another treating of the words in the writings of Paul and John), Dr. Vincent has undertaken so to

* Warfield's Introduction to the Textual Criticism of the New Testament, by REV. BENJ. B. WARFIELD, D.D., Prof. of Theology, Princeton, N. J. Thomas Whittaker, 2 and 3 Bible House, New York, 1887. pp. 225.

Word Studies the New Testament. By MARVIN R. VINCENT, D.D. Vol. I. The Synoptic Gospels, Acts of the Apostles, Epistles of Peter, James, and Jude. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1887. pp. 822; price $4.00.

set forth the shades of meaning and peculiar force connected with the different words of the New Testament as to give to the English reader something of the better insight and clearer apprehension which come from a careful study of the original. The work is neither a dictionary nor a commentary, but, in the author's own language, stands "midway between," and seeks to open "the native force of the separate words of the New Testament in their lexical sense, their etymology, their history, their inflection, and the peculiarities of their usage by different Evangelists and Apostles." (Preface, p. 5.)

The book does not deal primarily with the Greek words, although a careful knowledge of the original and a careful study of critical authorities were necessary to the author and underlie his work. The book is for students of the English Bible, as distinguished from professional students who are trained in the Greek language. It is none the less true, however, that such students might derive from it much valuable aid. The work expressly disclaims any purpose or desire to take the place of the Lexicon and Critical Commentary for the scholar who is furnished with the means of working the Greek text for himself. Its claim is the modest one of explaining in as few words as possible the force and point of words which a translation can but inadequately preserve which the ordinary reader can readily appreciate when the critical student has sought them out and clearly presented them.

It results, of course, from the effort to comment on the whole dictionary of the New Testament, that many of the observations are trivial. But this is a necessary incident of all detail-work. Not all words in the New Testament have hidden and suggestive meanings, and it were a fanciful or forced process which should seek to make them appear so. Dr. Vincent, in the spirit of a true scholar, has drawn out occult meanings only where they exist, and has nowhere evolved meanings from his own consciousness while claiming to evolve them out of the text.

Although the work proceeds upon the basis of the older English version, the original Greek words, as well as those of the R. V., are also given. The book will be a valuable help to Bible study if those who need it will only use it. Many a preacher who does not have time or inclination to do thorough work on his Greek Testament would do well to go over a chapter a day with the aid of this "Word-Study." How many will have the