Chapter XXXIII: Part 33

_The Religion of the Present and the Future._ Sermons preached chiefly at Yale College, by THEODORE D. WOOLSEY. (New York: Charles Scribner and Co.) The name of the venerable and honoured President of Yale College is well known on this side the Atlantic. His authority as a jurist has been often cited in our international disputes with the United States. His articles on the _Alabama_ question have probably done as much as anything to convince his countrymen that there were two sides to it, and to induce the temper which has happily led to the recent convention. In the United States he is universally regarded as _facile princeps_ on all questions of international law. Connected with Yale College for forty years, its President for twenty-five, he has just retired from the latter office into private life, carrying with him a degree of public respect and of personal affection such as few men are permitted to win. This volume is a record of his more pastoral relations to the professors and alumni of Yale. None of his predecessors, not even Dr. Dwight, have won more religious respect and affection. His dignified and yet gentle wisdom, his high purity and deep spirituality, and especially the affectionate sympathy called forth by his unusual domestic sorrows--for, like Archbishop Tait, his children have been taken from him more than one at once; his last bereavement was two daughters, who died last December, in Jerusalem, within two days of each other--these have gathered round his name and his home a peculiar reverence, love, and influence on the part not only of many hundreds of young men who have been under his care, but of many thousands of his countrymen besides. This volume is a memorial of his College-chapel preaching, compiled at the request of members of his classes. It consists of twenty-five sermons on ordinary but diversified Christian themes; all, however, indirectly having respect to a collegiate audience. The circumstances of the publication place the volume beyond our criticism, and were there anything in it to find fault with, we should simply refrain from commendation. As it is, we do not hesitate to say that its qualities of thoughtful, earnest, catholic, practical religiousness, combined with finished scholarship, high-toned simplicity, and cultured grace, are of a very high character--every word is pure gold. We trust that it will find its way into the hands of English readers. We cannot forbear transcribing the elegant, touching, and characteristic dedication--'To those who have now and then heard my voice in the pulpit of Yale College, and especially to the graduates who have gone forth from these halls, leaving me here until now, when my time of graduation is nearly come, I affectionately inscribe these discourses as an acknowledgment of the respect and love which they have shown me.'--_The Training of the Twelve; or, Passages out of the Gospels, exhibiting the twelve Disciples of Jesus under discipline for the Apostleship._ By the Rev. ALEXANDER B. BRUCE, Broughty Ferry. (Edinburgh: T. and T. Clark.) Mr. Bruce has hit upon a good idea, and has wrought it out in a stronger manner than his preface, which is somewhat fussy and egotistical, gives promise of. He selects for elucidation the passages in the Gospels which set forth our Lord's relations with the Twelve, and examines them in the light of his great purpose to teach and train these selected men as the founders of his Church and the Apostles of his religion. Mr. Bruce's treatment is homiletical rather than scientific, most of his chapters having evidently done duty in the pulpit. He is, however, an intellectual and well-read expositor. If there be nothing in his discoursing that is very penetrating; neither is there anything inane. His predominant characteristic is sound, practical common sense. He belongs to the school of Dr. John Brown. His book is too big. An octavo volume of 550 pages is a great undertaking for a reader, unless redeemed by originality, or power of vivid presentation. Mr. Bruce is thoroughly orthodox, even according to Scottish standards. But he is not blind. He has clearly thought for himself, and he puts the result with intelligence and independence. It must, however, have been a difficult task to speak of our Lord's doctrine of Sabbath-keeping, and to refrain from a rebuke of the Sabbatarianism into which some of his own countrymen have fallen, which is surely as superstitious and burdensome as that which our Lord rebuked; but Mr. Bruce has achieved this. His remarks on liturgies, which, he thinks, are for private rather than public use, are moderate and wise. Indeed, Mr. Bruce holds the balance in most things very fairly. As we have said, a more profound, scientific treatment of his subject is conceivable. At the hands of a man like Neander, for instance, it would have received it; but as a practical exposition, conducted on a high level of common sense, the book is a very good one. It touches on multitudinous questions, and always intelligently and wisely. Sometimes Mr. Bruce does not quite get to the heart of the matter, as for instance, in the section on Peter's sifting. The true nature of the crisis is brought out by Whateley, in his 'Lectures on the Apostles,' much more fully and distinctly. But the book is worthy a place by the side of Dr. Brown's expository volumes.--_Young Men and Maidens; a Pastoral for the Times._ By J. BALDWIN BROWN, B.A. (Hodder and Stoughton.) These sermons are only partially designated in this title, for in addition to the two on young men and women, a third is devoted to 'our elders.' What Mr. Brown has to say to these will be anticipated by all who know his writings. His intense earnestness almost irresistibly takes a monitory form. He stands in the midst of his generation, like a Hebrew prophet, saying noble and eloquent things; but he would speak more effectually if he spoke in a more hopeful spirit of faith. There is evil enough in our life, God knows! but there is also much good, more, perhaps, than ever there was; and the most effectual of all inspirations in the battle with evil is the inspiration of faith. Is it not saying too much of any vice among us, that 'England is likely to die of it'? This is a rhetorical exaggeration from which the good dissent, at which the evil laugh. Mr. Brown's very intensity betrays him into this characteristic fault. Few men, however, speak better things; and those three sermons cannot fail to stimulate nobly all into whose hands they fall.--_Sermons_, by the Rev. FERGUS FERGUSON, Dalkeith. (Edinburgh: Andrew Elliott.) We have a dim recollection of reading some newspaper paragraph anent the heresy of Mr. Ferguson, and some proceedings taken thereupon by the Presbytery of his Church; and in this volume Mr. Ferguson prints a request of 450 members of his congregation for the publication of it, on the ground that such a charge was brought. We have utterly failed, either to recall the nature of the charge, or to gather it from the request, or from Mr. Ferguson's preface. We had no alternative, therefore, but to examine the sermons themselves with the eyes of a lynx-like orthodoxy. We have done so, selecting such as from their subject seemed most likely to betray the cloven-foot. Our sagacity is at fault. We have found nothing even suspicious, but only the sermons of a strong, intelligent, devout man, everywhere fresh, and everywhere wholesome and stimulating, occasionally fanciful in their ingenuity; as for instance, in the sermon entitled the 'Centre of the Universe,' the idea of which, derived from his position between two thieves, is that Christ is the centre of the visible and invisible worlds, and of the interstice between the two. We very heartily commend these true sermons of a true man. God help the orthodoxy that is intolerant of such teaching as this!--_Sermons_, by JAMES MCDOUGALL, Pastor of the Belgrave Congregational Church, Darwen, Lancashire. (Williams and Norgate.) Mr. McDougall's sermons are remarkable for their independence and strength--a wonderful contrast to the puny pietisms that are so often put forth under the name of sermons. Conceived in unconventional modes, expressed in unconventional, albeit sometimes rugged, phrase--_e.g._, 'eld-time,' 'age-lasting,' and similar terms--they have a breadth, vigour, and independence that are quite refreshing, and that are as creditable to hearers as to the preacher. Mr. McDougall lays hold firmly upon the incarnation, but seems to attribute the expiation of Christ unduly to it, rather than to his death upon the cross. Doubtless, the entire human life of our Lord enters into it; but the language employed by Mr. McDougall is distributed and guarded compared with the enthusiastic emphasis given to the cross by the sacred writers. This, however, may be merely accidental. Perhaps the finest sermon in the volume is that on Christian Theism, suggested by the British Association addresses of Professors Huxley and Tyndall. With a feeling of true theistic conservatism, Mr. McDougall seeks for points of sympathy rather than of difference, and while uncompromising in his own religious recognitions, is courteous and sympathetic towards those who fall short of them. Readers of Mr. McDougall's sermons must feel great respect for the Church that can produce such men, and rejoice in their teaching.--_The Companions of St. Paul._ By JOHN S. HOWSON, D.D., Dean of Chester. (Strahan and Co.) Dean Howson has made the sphere of Paul's life pre-eminently his own. It is the field of literary and theological culture to which he has devoted the best energies of his life. Beside his life of the Apostle, written conjointly with Mr. Conybeare, he has published, as a Hulsean lecture, 'The Character of St. Paul: a Series of Papers on the Metaphors of St. Paul;' another on 'Scenes from the Life of St. Paul.' Now he portrays the companions of St. Paul, Barnabas, Lydia, Luke, Apollos, Titus, Phoebe, &c. Dean Howson is not a very fervid writer: he presents us with no glowing pictures; but all that scholarly care, clear good sense, and elegant simplicity can do, he does. Everything that he writes is instructive and interesting. These sketches, especially of subordinate and little-regarded characters will have a special value to all curious about the bye-ways of Scripture history.--_Synoptical Lectures on the Books of Holy Scripture._ First Series. Genesis--Song of Songs. By the Rev. DONALD FRASER, M.A. (James Nisbet.) Mr. Fraser has attempted to work out a very good idea. We quite agree with him as to the pernicious effects of the proof-text system, as inducing fragmentary knowledge, capricious interpretations, and arbitrary dogma. Preaching from sentences was a thing unknown to the early Church. Mr. Fraser has attempted to bring the whole scope of a book of Scripture within the compass of a pulpit lecture. Perhaps a medium course, the treatment of a single narrative or subject, would have been best. We do not think that he has succeeded greatly. He has necessarily extended historical exposition at the cost of religious instruction. It is, of course, important to understand the Bible; but understanding the Bible is not an end in itself; the preacher fails when the meanings of the Bible are not applied either formally or by necessary suggestions to practical religious life. It is no sufficient justification of a preacher dealing with an audience of living souls that he has explained the Bible to them. Mr. Fraser's discourses are necessarily too much like a table of contents to be of much practical religious use. On the other hand the popular character of spoken addresses deprives his book of scholastic value. The points of difficulty, some of them, at least, are popularly touched, and judgment is pronounced upon them, generally in the light of sufficient reading; but Mr. Fraser settles nothing. His chapter on the canon is very superficial. We cannot but think that these exercises would have been more suitable for a Bible-class than for sermons. Sometimes, as in the lecture on Ruth, Mr. Fraser, in his desire to be practical, is driven to allegorizing. Mr. Fraser, however, has failed only comparatively, and in what is intrinsically impracticable. There is great positive value in his synthetical attempt, in the habit of broad general views which it necessitates, and in the exhibition of the successive links of the grand chain of the revelation of God. Men sceptically inclined, and men not sceptically inclined, who feel deeply and painfully, literary, scientific, and religious difficulties in connection with the Pentateuch and the Jewish histories, will be impatient with Mr. Fraser; but those who feel no such difficulties will be benefited by his generalizations, the more because they proceed upon intelligent conclusions of his own.--_Vital Truths from the Book of Jonah._ By a Labourer in the Lord's Vineyard. (S. W. Partridge and Co.) Those addresses make no pretence to scholarly criticism; they are simply practical exhortations by a lady to a Sunday class of young women, delivered without notes, and written down from memory. Accepting them for what they profess to be, they are to be commended as calculated for practical religious usefulness. Criticism of their positions would be out of place; the history is wholly subordinated to spiritual uses.--_Sermons preached at Auckland, New Zealand._ By SAMUEL EDGER, B.A., London. Second Series. (Bartlett.) Mr. Edger has produced a second series of very thoughtful and interesting sermons, but, to our mind, has spoiled them by a sour, angry, impertinent preface. Why arrogate so exclusive a monopoly of Christian feeling, intelligence, and candour? Why impute vulgar and base motives to all chapel-goers? Why strive so hard to appear heterodox, and not succeed very well after all? Many of the discourses are full of fine feeling and ingenious speculation.--_Sermons chiefly on Subjects from the Sunday Lessons._ By HENRY WHITEHEAD, Vicar of St. John's, Limehouse. (Strahan and Co.) We have only commendation to give to these sermons, and commendation of a high character. We do not mean that they indicate a very high degree of mental power, or that they deal with high theological speculations. Their great merit is not that they run along lofty levels of thought, but that they are sermons eminently adapted for ordinary hearers, and yet as eminently satisfactory to the most cultured. They are simple and easy, giving no impression of effort; but they are full of a quiet, natural thoughtfulness, spirituality, and suggestiveness, which are eminently adapted to the nurture of the spiritual life. Intuitively, Mr. Whitehead apprehends the spiritual significance of things. Every incident is presented in its spiritual root and fruit. The sermons are consequently full of a fine catholicity of spiritual sympathy, which, while it is infinitely above all mere ecclesiasticism, is very refreshing and very winning. The little volume is a genuine help to all that is best in the spiritual life.--_Sermons preached in Rugby School Chapel in 1862-1867._ By the Right Rev. FREDERICK TEMPLE, D.D., Lord Bishop of Exeter. Second series. (Macmillan and Co.) Dr. Temple published his first series of Rugby sermons immediately after the publication of 'Essays and Reviews'--that indirectly he might vindicate himself from the wild charges of heresy and infidelity brought against him. They were published, therefore, exactly as they had been preached. This second series has presumably been more specially prepared for the press. They are distinctively sermons to boys, and their characteristics are a penetrating and direct practicalness--informed by a rare intuitive sympathy with boy nature--its keen perception of reality and earnestness, its equally keen sympathy with what is noblest in sentiment and feeling. Avoiding all doctrinal disquisition, Dr. Temple is in every sermon intensely practical--doctrine, however, apparently ordinary evangelical doctrine, being implied--as for instance in the sermons about 'Abiding in Christ' and 'The Comforter.' It is needless to say that Dr. Temple looks at things in a fresh, unconventional way, and puts things with cultured vigour. The sermons would be better were the motive-force of the evangelical element more present, but they are stimulating and instructive, in the best sense.

_Body and Mind; being the Gulstonian Lectures for 1870._ By Dr. MAUDSLEY. Macmillan and Co.

In reading the volume before us we have been forcibly reminded of the truth of the statement made by Lecky, in his 'History of Rationalism,' that 'the discoveries of physical science form a habit of mind which is carried far beyond the limits of physics;' for Dr. Maudsley, while professing to confine himself within the domain of physiology, is constantly pronouncing on psychological matters, and that, too, with a dogmatism which is quite as genuine as that against which he repeatedly protests. We admit that, from his general intelligence and culture, he is eminently qualified to judge of psychological subjects, but not as a professed physiologist. As long as he keeps to his own science, we are prepared to listen to his statements, and to bow to his authority; and when discoursing on these topics he is always clear, interesting, and instructive; but whenever he meddles with mental facts, those qualities seem to forsake him, and he involves both himself and his readers in a maze. After perusing a previous work of Dr. Maudsley on a kindred subject, we were quite prepared for a violent tirade against metaphysical psychologists, and are therefore not surprised to find them abused in terms which are neither very correct nor very scientific. In the preface he says, 'The physiological inquirer into mind may, if he care to do so, justly protest against the easy confidence with which some metaphysical psychologists disdain physiological inquiry, and ignore its results, without having ever been at the pains to make themselves acquainted with what these results are, and with the steps by which they have been reached.... The very terms of metaphysical psychology have, instead of helping, oppressed and hindered him (the physiologist) to an extent which it is impossible to measure; they have been hob-goblins, to frighten him from entering on his path of inquiry; phantoms, to lead him astray at every turn, after he has entered upon it; deceivers lurking to betray him, under the guise of seeming friends tendering help.' Again, 'Without speculating at all concerning the nature of mind, I do not shrink from saying that we shall make no progress towards a mental science, if we begin by depreciating the body; not by disdaining it, as metaphysicians, religious ascetics, and maniacs have done, but by labouring in an earnest and inquiring spirit to understand it, shall we make any step forwards,' &c. We deny the correctness of these statements, in their application to psychologists of the present day. There was a time, it is true, when the old dualistic principle was supreme, when mind and body were regarded as two distinct essences, formed and developed by entirely different agencies, and adapted to each other for a time by some intelligent power distinct from and superior to both; but as regards the present time, of which Dr. Maudsley is here speaking, we do not hesitate to state (if we may take the writer as a fair representative of his class) that the metaphysical psychologists, who disdain physiological facts, are neither half so numerous nor so bigoted as the physiological psychologists, who pour contempt on psychological science, without ever having acquainted themselves with its results, and do not hesitate to express their disdain for the testimony of consciousness, the only direct evidence we can ever possess in psychical matters. Surely the masterly treatise of James Mill, the voluminous expositions of Professor Bain, and the far more acute and comprehensive analyses of Herbert Spencer,--all of whom regard mental phenomena as so necessarily and essentially springing out of physical conditions, that very little room is left to insinuate, even the mildest form of spiritualism between them--are a sufficient refutation of such assertions as the above. Is it a truly scientific procedure, because the old dualistic hypothesis proved dull, incorrect, and unfruitful, to refuse the evidence of self-consciousness, and to treat with contempt all psychological inquiry?

Dr. Maudsley lays great emphasis on the close connection between the mind and body; this is, in fact, the foundation-stone of the whole of his fabric. We fully admit their intimate union, and their mutual action and reaction on each other. Nay, more, we can conceive of mental operations only in conjunction with some corporeal form; but we nevertheless refuse to be shut up to the alternative that all mental phenomena are strictly and absolutely dependent on physical conditions, and to set aside all questions respecting the nature of the mind as wholly futile and transcendental. Is it not much nearer the truth to regard the mind as the formative principle, pervading and adapting the body as its instrument, to its own nature and requirements? Again, we fully admit that the author does not attach too much weight to the statement that the abnormal phenomena of mind, omitted by the earlier philosophers, as well as the normal, should be included in a complete system of mental analysis, and that both should form a part of the same inquiry. But this has been done (and successfully we think), even by psychologists. Does Dr. Maudsley ignore, or is he unacquainted with, the labours of Herbart, Beneke, and J. H. Fichte, which do ample justice to this department of mind? Would it not be well for him to take them into his counsel? We come now to that which is in some respects the most important part of the work, viz., where it treats of the well-known phenomena of reflex action. In dealing with this subject, Dr. Maudsley's method is to proceed from the lower nerve-centres to the higher, and to explain the latter as developments of the former; to show that in the highest nervous centres, the hemispherical ganglia, the organic properties, and the various processes are essentially the same as in the lowest, and that in all the different centres of action there is a simple and necessary change in response to the external impulses. He sets out with an examination of the 'purposive' movements of a decapitated frog, from which he deduces the conclusion, 'that actions bearing the semblance of design may be unconscious and automatic.' After remarking that faculties are not innate in the case of man to the same degree and extent as in the lower animals, and have therefore to be acquired by education, but that when acquired they become as purely automatic as the primitive reflex actions of the frog, he adds another conclusion, 'that acts consciously designed at first, may, by repetition become unconscious and automatic, the faculties of them being organized in the constitution of the nerve-centres, and they being then performed as reflex effects of an external stimulus.' Here we expected to meet with a careful distinction drawn between automatic, voluntary, and volitional movements, and a cautious handling of the explanations and teachings of these facts; but we are disappointed. Many explanations of them have been given. According to some, the second conclusion is an explanation of the first; the education of the 'sensory and motor nuclei,' in conjunction with the law of inherited qualities, may make it conceivable that the various 'purposive movements' of the decapitated frog represent the experience of its ancestors applied to purposes of self-preservation. Others have ascribed the purposive faculties to a creative mind, external to the organization, which chose its own instruments with a view to its own ends. Others, again, have held that there is a twofold life of the soul--a pre-conscious and a conscious; that the pre-conscious manifests itself not simply in the building up of the organization, but in all 'instinctive' action, and in all the involuntary workings of the intelligence. Lastly, granting that there is no _opposition_, but only a distinction in _degree_ between the conscious and unconscious activities, is that mode of procedure above all question, or is it not rather contrary to experience, to regard the mental changes which respond to external stimulus as the mere result of an outer mechanical and necessary influence exerted upon the soul? Is it not more correct to consider the mind, by virtue of its original powers as reacting independently, and that, too, with purpose and design--not simply within the province of self-conscious thought, but also in the unconscious region of our mental activities? Dr. Maudsley does not even discuss this question, but with a dogmatism which equals that of any of the metaphysical psychologists, he assumes that the only explanation of the conscious and voluntary is to be found in the unconscious and involuntary acts. On page 17, he tells us, 'The highest functions of the nervous system are those to which the hemispherical ganglia minister. These are the functions of intelligence, of emotion, and of will; they are the strictly neutral functions. The question at once arises, whether we have to do in these supreme centres with fundamentally different properties and different laws of evolution from those which belong to the lower nerve-centres? We have to do with different functions certainly, but are the organic processes which take place in them essentially different from, or are they identical with, those of the lower nerve-centres? They appear to be essentially the same: there is a reception of impressions, and there is a reaction to impressions, and there is a registration of the effects both of the impressions and of the reactions to them.' He then defines on this principle the various mental operations as follows: 'The impressions which are made there--_i.e._, in the higher nervous centres--are the physiological conditions of _ideas_; the feeling of the ideas is _emotion_, for I hold emotion to mean the special sensibility of the vesicular neurine to ideas; the registration of them is memory; and the reaction to them is _volition_. _Attention_ is the maintenance of the tension of an idea, or a group of ideas, before the mind; and _reflexion_ is the successive transference of energy from one to another of a series of ideas.' Precluded from assuming the co-operation of mind, and barred from appealing to self-consciousness, we are at a loss to understand where he gets these definitions from. There are things included in them which physiology alone could never discover. For all we know, a microscope may reveal a 'vesicular neurine,' but surely not a 'group of ideas.' But all this is eclipsed by his interpretation of memory, on pp. 19-20 (space will not allow us to give the passage entire), where he says: 'A ganglionic centre, whether of mind, sensation, or movement, which was without memory, would be an idiotic centre, incapable of being taught its functions. In every nerve-cell there is memory, and not only so, but there is memory in every organic element of the body. The virus of the small-pox makes its mark on the constitution for the rest of life.' 'And so,' he adds, 'is the scar of a cut on a child's finger; the organic element of the past remembers the change which it has suffered.' Again, 'the more sure and perfect memory becomes, the more unconscious it becomes.' In our opinion, it would be difficult to find a greater confusion of ideas than this passage contains. If, as Dr. Maudsley implies, memory is to be assigned to any ganglionic centre, whether accompanied by consciousness or not, then a rose has a memory of its being budded, an apple-tree of its being grafted, the earth of its being ploughed--in fact, every material thing which bears the impression of any action upon it whereby its future destiny will be affected, is endowed with memory. If we accept the statement that 'the more sure and perfect memory becomes, the more unconscious it becomes,' then it seems the more memory we have the less we remember. In the former statement the author seems to confound memory as a conscious act, and the sign by means of which the conscious act is performed; and in the latter to give an undue extension to the term memory--viz., that we _remember_ all which under certain circumstances we might recall, but have really forgotten; and is therefore equal to potential memory.

These confusions and contradictions establish the one-sidedness of the method of investigation. The author has expended all his efforts on the search for some single force which would afford adequate explanation of all known phenomena. He has attempted to account for the product of two factors by means of one, and the least important of them. Physiology tells us that there is a contrivance for the transmission of impressions from the tips of the fingers to the brain, and that certain physical changes ensue, but here physiology comes to a standstill. Further than this physiological investigations cannot carry us. There is an impassable gulf between it and the facts beyond--the facts of consciousness. Consciousness knows nothing of the action of the brain and of the motor nerves. Dr. Maudsley has tried to bridge the chasm by physiology alone; in that he has attempted the impossible. Professor Tyndall, in the Report of the British Association, says: 'The passage from the physics of the brain to the corresponding facts of consciousness is unthinkable. Granted that a definite thought and the definite molecular action in the brain occur simultaneously, we do not possess the intellectual organ, nor apparently any rudiment of the organ, which would enable us to pass by a process of reasoning from the one phenomena to the other. They appear together, but we know not why.' He denies that any acquaintance with the action of the brain can show how 'these physical processes are connected with the facts of consciousness.' The dissecting knife, the forceps, and the microscope can render us no aid here. In the paper on 'Life or Vitality,' the next greatest mystery to that of consciousness, we find the same tendency and attempt to account for all its phenomena by a combination of forces, necessary laws, nerves, and muscles. Here, we are tempted to quote from Huxley's 'Lay Sermons,' page 373; when men 'begin to talk about there being (or as if there were) nothing else in the universe but matter and force and necessary laws, and all the rest of their "grenadiers," I decline to follow them.' When treating of the physical causes of insanity, Dr. Maudsley is always interesting and instructive, and this work so far will be gladly accepted as a valuable contribution to the alleviation of this darkest and most blighting of human ills.

_The Public School Latin Grammar._ Longmans, Green and Co. 1871.

The very appearance of this book is decidedly unattractive, and we fear that much of its contents cannot fail to intensify one's first impressions. It consists of 540 duodecimo pages, crammed with matter enough to fill two volumes of the same dimensions. It bears all the marks of an attempt to put the greatest amount of information into the smallest possible compass, and, as a natural consequence, its pages are over-crowded, and its contents much more dull and unreadable than even a Latin grammar need be. From the same cause, we presume, we have frequently an appalling number of facts strung together, without the enunciation of any well-defined connecting principles to guide and assist the student in retaining and applying them; and that, too, while professedly aiming, by systematic arrangement and philosophical definitions, to bring into active exercise the reflective faculties. It thus becomes chargeable with the faults of most of the older grammars, which burdened the memory without quickening the intellect. In addition to these general features of the work, we have noticed that almost every subject is broken up into divisions, and subdivisions, which are endless in number and far from definite in character. They are enough to frighten the most courageous student at the outset, and to bewilder him in his studies. Examples of this are furnished on almost every page. Take, _e.g._, pp. 55-6, the gender of consonant-nouns and clipt I-nouns, which are divided into three classes, denoted by A, B, and C. A is again divided into (1), (2), and (3), and (1) is again subdivided into (a) α, β, and (b) α, β. B and C also undergo a similar dissection. Again, the pronouns are divided into six classes, the sixth being universalia: the universalia are again subdivided into five, called--relativa, libitiva, distributiva, inclusiva, and exclusiva.

The adverbs are, first of all, divided into nine classes; and the ninth, consisting 'of various logical adverbs used to modify discourse,' is further divided into six kinds--the significative, the concessive, the dubitative, the corrective, the affirmative, the negative; a division which, if logically tested, will be found as faulty as the much-criticised categories of Aristotle. In fact, if there be as many principles as there are divisions in this book, the student may justly conclude that Latin grammar is as boundless as the ocean. For the same feature in syntax see the division of simple sentences on p. 252.

Our readers, if they have had the patience to follow us thus far, will have observed the occurrence of many new grammatical terms in the quotations we have given; which is another characteristic of this volume. They can be counted by the dozen, of which the following will serve as specimens:--Phonology, or sound-lore; and morphology, which the author renders _word-lore_; trajective adjectives, quotientive adverbs, factitive and static verbs, annexive relativa, oblique complement, circumstantive entheses, synesis, &c. The author has aimed at a revolution rather than a reform. Novelty, however, should constitute no objection to a terminology, provided it justifies its own existence by its superiority over the old. The advantage of the new terms should be such as to compensate for the trouble of learning what they mean. We do not hesitate to say that in the 'Public School Grammar' novelty has been carried to excess.

Once more we have observed great irregularity in the amount of explanation given in different subjects; disappointing us both by its abundance and deficiency; _e.g._, we have the origin and history of cases explained by the ordinary diagram, as well as additional explanation; but there is no explanation of mood, tense, and conjugation. We are also informed in a foot-note that the names given by grammarians to the cases are ill-chosen, but the meaning of the terms--_e.g._, of genitive and accusative, is not interpreted. We turn, accidentally, to the verbs, and we are told that _possum_ is from _pote-sum_, and that _pote_ is from _pati_, lord, whence Greek πόσις ποτνία (lord, lady); that _fero_ is from _bhar_, Gr. φερ; but of _volo_, which comes between, we have no such explanation. Of this verb the author only says that _vis_ is for _vol-i-s_, and _vult_ for _vol-i-t_, but he omits to add that _vellem_ and _velle_ are for _vellĕrem_ and _vellĕre_. The above we consider to be some of the main defects of this work. A grammar brought out under such auspices as the one before us, cannot fail to have many excellences. No doubt it meets one of the great wants of the times--viz., a manual of convenient size, and easy of reference, presenting a fuller account of the structure of the language than the ordinary class-room grammars, and containing, in a condensed form, the best results of the linguistic discoveries of modern philologists. The syntax is copious, and carefully arranged, and every important rule is illustrated by a profusion of well-selected examples, in which the idiomatic characteristics of Latin are clearly exhibited. One of the greatest merits of the work is the vast amount of classical Latinity embodied in its pages, taken directly from the best classical authors. The Appendix, treating of 'Latin Orthography,' Latin 'pronunciation,' Affinities in the 'Aryan family,' 'Umbrean' and 'Oscar dialects,' &c., furnishes valuable information to the advanced student. It is, in fact, a complete and comprehensive manual containing the most recent and useful information on all subjects coming within the province of a Latin grammar.