A subsidiary thought in respect to the nature of punishment as consisting "primarily in a deeper and deeper involvement in sin "2 requires a passing notice. If this were so, it might support somewhat the theory of annihilation. It might appear that God had put within us certain forces, tending finally to destroy us, and then left us to the outworking of those forces. But the impression of the Bible is that the punishment of the future world is inflicted by God, and has an objective character. It is a voluntary act on God's part, and immediately so. It is an expression of something on the part of God, and is of such a character that, whether external or internal to the soul, it must be felt as coming directly from him. Pain, if that word be used quite generally, pain inflicted by God as an expression of his disapproval of the sinner is the proper definition of punishment. As God's rewards are not the mere outworking of natural laws, but he smiles upon his children; so his punishments are not the mere outworking of natural laws, but he frowns upon his enemies. The biblical images of the gnawing worm and burning fire are not meaningless, but refer to the positive character of punishment. If it were enough to interpret these figures as referring to remorse, it must be a remorse which could not wear itself out. Even if remorse of itself would tend to die away, God must, according to these representations, so afflict the lost that their remorse will ever be excited afresh. If the redeemed will look upon Christ, and reflecting upon his grace be filled with wonder and praise, the lost, in contemplation of him whom they have pierced, must be filled with confusion and despair. Much of the deadening effect of constant feeling in our present state arises from our bodies. It may be that the spiritual body will be fitted to promote all spiritual exercises, whether in heaven or in hell. Punishment, therefore, instead of tending to a close, may increase with the increase of sin. Here, again, the rational argument, when properly conceived, fails to support annihilationism.

1 p. 52.

One or two feeble attempts are made to bring exegesis to the support of this part of the essay. An argument is derived1 from 1 John v. 16," sin unto death." Death is the result of sin. Therefore it cannot be that death which is sin, as men are said to be dead in trespasses and sins. Therefore it refers to extinction. The last is too great a leap. The argument is sufficiently refuted by pointing out the fact that our author has fallen into a confusion of ideas in comparing death in sins with the death spoken of in this passage. Death in trespasses and sins has nothing to do with it one way or the other. Such a death is not referred to in the context, and in fact the phrase is not Johannean. The word "death" is used, here as elsewhere, of punishment; and the only possible argument for annihilationism which can be derived from this text is from the word "death" itself. Our author does not present this, knowing how valueless it is. The teaching of the text is perfectly plain. If the Christian falls away after conversion his case is beyond the reach of prayer.

Another argument, still more feeble, is derived from the fact that the Bible never joins αἰώνιος with θάνατος. Death itself is not said to be eternal. But if it had been, how easy for our author to interpret such a phrase in perfect accordance with his own views! It would be simply death in a coming acon. Thus there would have been no force in the phrase if it had been used.

1 p. 57.

[An unexpected want of space compels us to omit a paragraph which was designed to close this Article. The paragraph acknowledges that Mr. Whiton intends to be perfectly candid, and to hold the balance with judicial equity. Still he seems to have been warped by his feelings more than he is aware. This ap pears in such expressions.as p. ix, "God as distinct from some of his exposi tors"; p. 61, "doctrine fraught with horror"; p. 22, "tremendous burden;" in the general implication throughout the book that the defenders of the orthodox doctrine are laboring under prepossessions; vid. pp. 28, 34, 37, 38, 43, 66, 72; in his treatment of Prof. (President) Bartlett, vid. spec. pp. 6, 27, 72; in the quotation made upon p. 66 from a Roman Catholic author.]

ARTICLE VII.

MR. JOSEPH COOK'S LECTURES ON BIOLOGY AND TRANSCENDENTALISM.

[The following notice of the work on Biology was prepared by a scientist especially interested in the subject of the work; and the notice of the volume on Transcendentalism was prepared by a scholar who, having listened to Mr. Cook's words as spoken, is so much the better qualified to speak of them as written].

1. BIOLOGY; with Preludes on Current Events. By Joseph Cook. With three colored Plates, after Beale and Frey. Fifteenth Edition. 12mo. pp. 325. Boston: James R. Osgood and Co. 1878.

The scientific portion of this work is embraced under two heads: the facts of recent biology, and the endeavor to prove therefrom, by the scientific method of reasoning, the existence of a soul in man.

In order to form an estimate of these lectures that shall be at once clear and just, it is needful to keep before the mind these general considerations:

1. The novelty of their scope and method. The literature of apologetics would make a library of vast proportions; but through it all, one would vainly look for a work like this. An attempt to hold large popular audiences, by the discussion of the relations of modern science to theology, on the avowed basis of the scientific method, has never before been made; indeed, from the nature of the subject, could not, until these latter days, have been made; and even now the number of those who combine sufficient knowledge of the various sciences, of theology, of metaphysics, and of logic, with the power of popularizing such knowledge in public discourse, before the learned and the unlearned alike, to even essay such a task, must be very limited. On every man of genius, who has a new thought, or a new method of expressing thought, to give to the world, these three burdens are laid: he must prepare for his work, he must do it, and, what is hardest and most wearying of all, he must educate his audience, develop the standard by which he is to be measured, preside over the school in which his critics are to be trained, charge the jury who are to pass upon his claims. Upon this latter task, in the accomplishment of which time, together with the infinite and interacting forces of society, must co-operate, Mr. Cook, by the publication of this volume, now enters. There is no other work on biology, there is no other work on theology with which this volume of lectures can well be compared; it is a book that

no biologist, whether an originator or a mere middle man in science, would ever have written. Traversing a very wide field, cutting right across the territories of rival specialists, it contains not one important scientific misstatement, either of fact or theory; not only the propositions, but the dates, the references, the names, and the histories of scientific discoveries and speculations are presented as they are found in the sources whence they are taken, or at least with only verbal and minor changes. But while Mr. Cook does not state the biological facts erroneously, he does not always state them well; he dys-states rather than misstates; that is, he presents facts out of due relation and proportion to each other, and to the reasonings derived from them, magnifying some, minifying others, and sometimes, in the revolution of his arguments, allowing one to eclipse another. Every year, almost, the committee for arranging the pictures at our art exhibitions is censured, justly or unjustly, for not classing these pictures with wisdom and taste and impartiality: the leading positions are given to inferior pictures, while the corners and out-of-the-way spaces are assigned to works of solid merit; and thus while each artist may have done his best, the average impression may be unfortunate. Some such charge as this may rightly be made on these lectures, which, with all their phenomenal excellences, yet, from the scientific point of view, are extraordinarily unsystematic in their arrangement. Scientific enthusiasm and the scientific sense are not identical, and do not always co-exist. Mr. Cook will cross the continent for a fresh discovery in science, which, when obtained, he may not always use scientifically; in the laboratory of the specialist, and in the theories of the scientific philosopher, in chemistry, in the microscope, in electricity, from sources the most recent and out of the way, he gathers the family of facts which, from the antagonism of their natures, cannot dwell together in perfect unity. It would not be a hard task for one whose mind is under the rigid control of the scientific sense by which is meant the faculty of seeing things as they are, and in their just proportion and relation, without reference to real or fancied tendencies to take this work, and by various transpositions and elisions and changes in phraseology comparatively slight, but without extensive addition or subtraction, to prepare therefrom a systematic compend of the central facts and problems of modern biology.

This analysis is not censorious, nor even critical; but rather descriptive and explanatory of the difficulty that friends and foes alike encounter in this volume. As a master in painting may get satisfaction from an exhibition, and be able to assign proper credit to each artist, however unwisely the pictures may have been arranged, so one fully versed by experiment and research and practical experience with biological science can from the present work obtain correct views on the matters involved, while a non-expert may misinterpret both its science and its philosophy.

To reduce these lectures from their fragmentary, poetical, and conversa

tional form to a systematic epitome of biology would, however, be to destroy their popularity and their usefulness with the class to whom they are chiefly addressed. Neither in this country nor in any other country are there at present any considerable number of experts in all the branches of science here touched upon. Mr. Cook's listeners are learners, not critics, receiving for the first time the facts and speculations of science as he brings them fresh from the closet and the laboratory. It is a result, as well as a sign and proof, of the limitations of the human mind that it sooner receives and better retains new ideas in science when they are presented unsystematically, incidentally, even accidentally. A systematic teaching of science implies and involves on the student's part a triple task: reception, rumination, and anticipation—an understanding of each thought as given, a carrying in the memory of what has already been given, a foreboding of what is to come; under these combined burdens even the disciplined intellect often bends and breaks; such is the psychological elucidation of the admitted evils of cramming. On the other hand, science unsystematically taught avoids the stress of recollection, and the pain of responsibility for what is yet to be imposed, and requires only that each fact be considered as it rises to view; the combining, the co-ordinating, the adjusting of the facts, the building of the edifice out of the materials thus gathered, must take place subsequently, perhaps unconsciously, in the learner's mind at a later stage of its development. Hence it is that from the perusal of even the lightest and flimsiest novel, where a plot is to be traced and characters are to be watched, we find rest and relief in the tit-bits and gossip of an ordinary newspaper, where we can read what and when and as much as we please, and stop at any moment. Hence it is that in the study of medicine it is proved more and more that clinical lectures are better for the student, in many respects, and on subjects where they are admissible, than didactic instruction; and more and more they are assuming prominence in hospitals and colleges. Hence it is, also, that the selftaught scholar, despite all the defects of self-teaching, outstrips, for a time, in compass, if not exactness, of learning the favored scholar of the university.

In this work, from the opening chapter on bathybius to the closing remarks on the enswathement speculations of Ulrici, very little can be anticipated by the reader, or probably was fully anticipated by the lecturer; everything is unexpected, abrupt, sometimes precipitous; a series of constant surprises, which are much more delightful to the common mind than a logical setting forth of facts would be, as oftentimes a glance at a shop picture, on suddenly turning a corner, causes intenser aesthetic pleasure than a wearisome march through the noblest galleries. From all this it follows that to read these lectures as one would read a systematic treatise on science by a scientific man is to caricature their purpose; to criticise them by the conventional standards for works of science would be a satire on criticism.