nebula to life and mind if our faculties were a little keener. The proof of the fact entitles Darwin to be considered "one of the greatest benefactors of the race," and the contemplation of it fills Strauss with "the purest, most exalted, spiritual delight." Man is a "chaos of atoms and casualities; to prove it is one of the leading aims of the book. Man is an "absolutely dependent" creature; nature is a "machine" ruled by "blind necessity." The only excuse for Strauss is that, being "absolutely dependent " himself, he cannot help talking so; but, in that case, the universe which brings about this farcical result can hardly be viewed as "the reasonable." If Strauss chooses to shoulder the responsibility himself, we must accord to him transcendent insight, for it is not every man who can unite both sides of a contradiction in some transcendental unity.

"Yet thou art human-what means this, however?" In answering this question Strauss's Hegelianism proves too much for his materialism, and he proceeds to disembowel his philosophy in the following instructive fashion. "The most important general result," says Moritz Wagner, "which comparative geology and paleontology"-and the natural sciences in general, we may add-"reveals to us is the grand law of progress pervading all nature." In this inherent aspiration of nature after an unceasingly progressive improvement and refinement of her organic forms, lies the real proof of her divinity. In man nature endeavoured, not merely to exalt, but to transcend herself. He must not, therefore, be merely an animal repeated; he must be something more and better. He ought, because he can: The sensual efforts and enjoyments are already fully developed and exhausted in the animal kingdom; it is not for their sakes that man exists-as, in fact, no creature exists for the sake of that which was already attained on lower stages of existence, but for that which has been newly conquered through itself.—Vol. ii, p. 57. Man not only can and should know nature, but should rule both external nature, as far as his powers admit, and the natural within himself.-P. 58. Man ought, as we said, to rule nature within as well as without him. Nature in man is his sensuousness. This he should essay to rule, not to mortify, so surely as nature in him did not forsake but transcend herself.-P. 60.

The limits of absurdity have not only been reached, but transcended. Man is an absolutely dependent creature, but he must rule that nature on which he depends. Nature is a "ponderous machine," which not only "seeks to transcend itself," but actually accomplishes it. Nature is a blind necessity, and yet it has aims, is reasonable, is good, is free, transcends itself, and performs a variety of interesting feats besides. What does the author mean by talking of a duty to a creature who is absolutely dependent? What does he mean by telling man to rule nature, when the whole drift of his work is to prove that nature absolutely rules him? What does he mean by the "great law of progress pervading all nature," when there is no standard of judgment? What does he mean by attributing aims and reason to a blind necessity? What does he mean by commanding us to reverence the good, when he has told us that the good is the offspring of selfish fear?

Does he really think that this paltry, sentimental buffoonery covers up the nakedness of his doctrines? The logic of materialism is an interesting psychological study. A kind of mental imbecility, which is blind to all absurdity and contradiction, seems ever to attend it like a clinging curse; while at the same time, like those unfortunate beings in mad-houses, who, tricked out in cast-off rags, imagine they are throned kings, it apes such regal airs on the strength of its pitiful finery, that the human bystander can only view its ludicrous grimaces with feelings of profoundest compassion.

Still, we are not without an object of worship. It is "the enormous machine of the universe, amid the incessant whirl and hiss of whose jagged iron wheels, amid the deafening crush of whose ponderous stamps and hammers, man finds himself placed, not secure for a moment that, on an imprudent motion a wheel may not seize and rend him, or a hammer crush him to powder." To this deity man is urged to "surrender himself in loving trust," and, to make the task easy and delightful, this "machine "is styled the "reasonable and the good." Whoever cannot be satisfied with this is silenced by being told that he is low down in the moral and intellectual scale. Having thus triumphed over all his enemies, and having, in particular, achieved a signal victory over logic and good sense, Strauss next proceeds to discuss more general subjects. Here, like a judicious tradesman, he offers "something to suit every taste." He discusses the labour question, and finds room for great apprehension in the present outlook. The trouble is that "the patient," that is, the labourer, will not "suffer himself to be cured." "Quacks, and pre-eminently French quacks, have completely turned his head." The horrors of the "socialistic boil" in Paris have not cured him, and hence the author styles these restless lower classes "the Huns and Vandals of modern civilization." Doubtless, however, the new faith will have a most soothing effect upon these "Huns and Vandals; " and as soon as they find out that there is no God, no soul, nothing higher than sensual pleasure, they will become as harmless as doves. He also inquires after the best form of government, and concludes that republicanism has been greatly overrated. At all events, republics are unfavourable to high culture, and probaby also to moral improvement. Neither Switzerland nor the United States manifests anything like high culture, and what it has is borrowed; while, in addition, "the air of the United States is infected by a corruption of its leading classes only to be paralleled in the most abandoned parts of Europe." -Vol. ii. p. 86. He discusses the late French war, and war in general. The question of capital punishment is also examined, and a vehement protest recorded against the prevailing sentimentalism upon the subject. To desire its abolition he considers a crime against society, and, at a time like the present, as sheer

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madness.-P. 112. These ideas 66 are a luxuriant hotbed of robbery and murder." The variety which the author offers is beyond all praise. The suffrage and property questions are not passed by; and even the freethinkers are lectured for their dry meetings. "I have attended several services of the free congregations in Berlin, and found them terribly dry and unedifying. I quite thirsted for an allusion to the Biblical legend or the Christian calendar, in order to get at least something for the heart and imagination."-P. 118. The Christian law of divorce is declared too stringent entirely; and, finally, he demands that the Church let him alone. He does not want anything to do with it. It must not cross his path in any way. He feels "annoyed at being still forced into some sort of contact with her, especially as regards certain ritualistic observances."-P. 119. He describes his rule of life thus:

We study history, which has now been made easy even to the unlearned by a series of attractively written works; at the same time we endeavour to enlarge our knowledge of the natural sciences; and lastly, in the writings of our great poets, in the performances of our great musicians, we find a stimulus for the intellect and heart, for wit and imagination, which leaves nothing to be desired.-P. 120.

This leads him to vindicate poetry and music as vastly superior to the Bible for purposes of culture and comfort, and he closes with a long appendix upon "Our Great Poets" and "Our Great Composers." If it were not for his assurance to the contrary, we should certainly have looked upon this appendix as padding put in to stuff out the book; but he declares it was composed for its present place and purpose. The elevating and soothing influence of art is dwelt upon at great length, and the comparative merits of the different poets and composers discussed. This it is which is more than a substitute for the old religion. And this is all. Poetry and music for the aching heart and gloomy conscience: poetry and music for desolate homes and ruined hopes: poetry and music for the dying and dead. It does occur to him at times that humanity could wish for more; that the old faith, with its Father in heaven and its belief in immortality, is more satisfactory to most hearts than either of these; that one drawing near the borders of the shadowy land, with his conscience filled with sad and solemn suspicions, would find more comfort in the doctrine of a forgiving God than in reading Goethe or Schiller. But, then, art is all that he has got, and that ought to be enough. Indeed, if it is not, it is only a proof that men are selfish, degraded creatures, "who must be referred to Moses and the prophets " until they conquer these degrading desires.-P. 215. Hearts break, and homes are desolate; the cry of the mourner goes up from every quarter under heaven; memory is loaded with sad recollections, and conscience filled with gloomy forbodings. Meanwhile the new faith pipes and

sings, and to every cry for help and comfort it has only an insulting and brutal answer.

We said in beginning that we expected some valuable teaching from Mr. Strauss, but we have been greviously disappointed. Blank assertion without any proof, without any logical coherence, without any philosophical foundation, is the chief factor of the new faith. The air with which it gathers up threadbare atheistic arguments, and parades them as something new, is amusing. The assurance with which it retails the old scoffs, of which rationalism itself has grown ashamed, affects one with a sense of degradation. The new faith turns out to be an old bankrupt, who has failed a thousand times, and who now seeks to cover his lack of capital by extensive advertising and insolent pretence. Its creed runs somewhat as follows:- -1. I believe there is no God. 2. I believe there is no soul. 3. I believe that religion springs from selfish fear. 4. I believe that such a religion can develop the loftiest and most unselfish lives. 5. I believe in the cosmos, which is at once a product of blind necessity and also free; which is nothing but matter, yet has aims, plans, reason; which seeks to transcend itself, and actually succeeds. 6. I believe that man is a product of necessity, and that he ought to rule the nature which governs him; I believe that he cannot do otherwise than he does, but that he ought to do otherwise. I believe that the cosmos is a machine, and that man ought to resign himself with loving trust and submission to it. 7. I believe that art is more than an equivalent for the Bible. 8. I believe that all who are not satisfied with these teachings are low in the mental and moral scale. 9. I believe that cause and effect are one-as, otherwise, I should be under the disagreeable necessity of believing in God.

The new faith does not seem to hit it off any more happily with reason than the old faith did; and, indeed, it is not inaptly termed a faith. For pure believing-power, Mr. Strauss must be accorded the very highest praise. Logic and reason protest in vain, and he counts contradictions a very little thing. Nothing can withstand his mountain-removing faith. We have not found such mighty faith anywhere among the Churches, where there still seems to be a carnal weakness in favour of at least a little logic and reason. But while we are willing to accord all praise to the author on this point, we cannot in conscience call him a philosopher; at least, if the most marvellous power of contradicting himself, and the most miraculous inability to see it, is any warrant for such a judgment.

ART. II.-MR. GLADSTONE AS AN ORATOR.

T is needless to say that Mr. Gladstone is a great orator.

The criterion is ready. Did the audience feel? were they excited? did they cheer? These questions, and others such as these, can be answered without a mistake. A man who can move the House of Commons-still, after many changes, the most severe audience in the world—must be a great orator. The most sincere admirers and the most eager depreciators of Mr. Gladstone are agreed on this point, and it is almost the only point on which they are agreed.

Mr. Gladstone has, beyond any other man in this generation, what we may call the oratorical impulse. We are in the habit of speaking of rhetoric as an art, and also of oratory as a faculty, and in both cases we speak quite truly. No man can speak without a special intellectual gift, and no man can speak well without a special intellectual training. But neither this gift of the intellect nor this education will suffice of themselves. A man must not only know what to say, he must have a vehement longing to get up and say it. Many persons, rather sceptical persons especially, do not feel this in the least. They see before them an audience—a miscellaneous collection of odd-looking men-but they feel no wish to convince them of anything. "Are not they very well as they are? They believe what they have been brought up to believe." 66 Confirm every man in his own manner of conceiving," said one great sage; "A savage among savages is very well," remarked another. You may easily take away one creed and then not be able to implant another. "You may succeed in unfitting men for their own purposes without fitting them for your purposes :”—thus thinks the cui bono sceptic. Another kind of sceptic is distrustful, and speaks thus: “I know I can't convince these people; if I could, perhaps I would, but I can't. Only look at them! they have all kinds of crotchets in their heads. There is a wooden-face man in spectacles? How can you convince a wooden-face man in spectacles? And see that other man with a narrow forehead and compressed lips—is it any use talking to him? It is of no use; do not hope that mere arguments will impair the prepossessions of nature and the steady convictions of years." Mr. Gladstone would not feel these sceptical arguments. He would get up to speak. He has the didactic impulse. He has the "courage of his ideas." He will convince the audience. He knows an argument which will be effective, he has one for one and another for another; he has an enthusiasm which he feels will rouse the apathetic, a demonstration which he thinks must convert the incredulous, an illustration which he hopes will drive his meaning even into the heads of the