out a defective argument. Their attitude toward Christianity is decorous and respectful-nay, it is emphatically such, because they conceal their real opinions, and rather insinuate than declare them out of the very excess of their candor and moral refinement. We do not know which to dislike the most, the infidelity which they hesitate to avow, or the want of manliness which they cannot conceal.

We ought not to omit the very long introductory discussion upon ethical theories with which the author begins his history. The author's want of critical ability and of philosophical discrimination is most obvious in his treatment of this topic. His failures to do justice to the doctrines which he rejects is very conspicuous, when it is compared with that of any able historian of ethical systems-whether English or German. Kant, for example, belongs to the same ethical school with Mr. Lecky, but Kant's representations of the doctrines of the opposite party are immeasurably more profound and just than those of the latter. While in the last there are abundant quotations, much parade of reading, and no little plausibility in the impression which he makes, there is the most decisive evidence that he is not at home in the field in which he so ambitiously bears himself with such assured confidence.

It is not to be overlooked, that Mr. Lecky, like Miss Cobbe, the author of the "Essay upon Intuitive Morals," really, though not avowedly, urges the Kautian theory in its Anti-Christian application in the introduction, and throughout his entire treatise.

PROFESSOR EVERETT'S "SCIENCE OF THOUGHT" is not a System of Logic in the ordinary sense of the phrase as it is used by English students. It is not a treatise upon the Art of Deduction or the Methods of Induction, nor upon "the Science of the Laws of Thought as Thought," as Logic is defined by Hamilton. In the language of the author, it is the Science of Sciences-or "the Science of those generalized conceptions and relations which are present in all the Sciences." This Science, as thus treated, is coincident with Metaphysics whenever Metaphysics is either intelligently or carefully discriminated from Logic on the one hand, or the ultimate principles of a special Science on the other

*The Science of Thought; A System of Logic. By CHARLES CARROLL EVERETT. Boston: William V. Spencer. 1669.

hand. The abundant and varied applications of this First Science, first of all to the methods of reasoning, and next to the special Sciences which are arranged under its categories, is the justification of the author for calling his work "The Science of Logic." In this he follows Hegel, who has been followed by a great number of German writers. Not only does he follow Hegel in this respect, but he avowedly adopts his method of developing the Science, as well as in many of his special doctrines. That he does not do this blindly or implicitly, is manifest from his original method of treating many themes, and from some important deviations from Hegel's own doctrines. The work is admirably written, so far as simplicity and finish of style, variety of illustrations, and amplitude of knowledge are concerned. No reader who is competent to understand the volume, can fail to be delighted with much that it contains. The Hegelian method of beginning with the highest generalizations is, in our view, practically objectionable, because it frightens many a reader at the outset who is fully qualified to understand the subject when differently treated, and because it exposes him to be misled by fanciful analogies. No writer has the confiding reader so completely in his power as the dealer in nebulous abstractions, if only he can make them iridescent with the varied hues reflected from a brilliant imagination, and apparently real by the multiform shadows cast upon them by skillfully managed illustrations. Cloudland is thus not only made a gorgeous land to the admiring pupil, but it is easily confounded with solid land when it is passed off as such by dexterous manipulations which often may deceive even the magician himself.

We have neither room nor inclination for special criticisms upon the volume before us. To be at all satisfactory, they must be given at length. Reserving to ourselves the liberty to do this on another occasion, we have no hesitation in recommending the volume as one of marked ability and interest to the students of Philosophy.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL.

MOMMSEN'S HISTORY OF ROME.*-This work, at its first appearance, seventeen or eighteen years ago, took the German public by surprise. Its author was known as a learned and profound investigator in the fields of Roman law, history, and archæology. But few probably had suspected the force and fire that he had in him. The powers evinced in this history, the masterly grouping and massing of his material, the skill with which he subordinates details to general effects, the vivid reality of his conceptions, the glowing intensity of his language, these are qualities very different from those which we are wont to associate with the legist and the antiquarian. The book was intended to be popular in the best sense of the word, one that could be read and understood by all persons of sufficient intelligence to feel a real interest in its subject. The author throws aside his whole apparatus of learned research, and addresses himself to the task of setting forth in the simplest, clearest, most effective way the results of his study, the view of Roman antiquity which he has been led to form in his own mind. He gives very few notes and fewer references to authorities. He carries on no polemic, either against prevailing opinions from which he finds occasion to dissent, or in vindication of opinions which are peculiar to himself. He trusts to the general impression of coherence, harmony, and probability which his views presented in order will make on the mind of the reader. It is not to be denied that this method has certain advantages over that of Grote and Arnold, who allow us to see something of the nature and degree of the evidence on which their statements are founded, and, where opinions vary, something of the arguments by which they are supported. Unity of effect and distinctness of impression are doubtless more or less impaired by this process of criticism. Yet we must confess a preference, on the whole, for the less brilliant and impressive method. We like to know the character of the ground which we have to traverse, whether it is a rock on which we may tread firmly, or a bog which may give way under our footsteps. We wish to have the means of distinguishing what

* The History of Rome. By THEODOR MOMMSEN; translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. WILLIAM P. DICKSON, D. D. With a preface by Dr. LEONHARD SCHMITZ, New Edition, in four volumes. Volume I. New York: Charles Scribner & Co., 654 Broadway. 1869. 12mo. pp. xix. 635.

is certain from what is only more or less probable, what is agreed in by all the best writers from what is peculiar to one or two of them. And the effect on our mind of Mommsen's method is to inspire a vague feeling of distrust, which is anything but satisfactory; we hesitate to rely on many things which, if a course like Grote's had been pursued, we might have seen to be perfectly trustworthy.

It can hardly be said of Mommsen that he has a judicial mind. The intensity with which he holds his main conclusions makes it scarcely possible for him to be quite impartial as to matters connected with and bearing upon them. He sees everything in the light of those general opinions and convictions which he has been led to form. This is strikingly shown in his treatment of Julius Cæsar. He has been deeply impressed with the political sagacity of Cæsar, as comprehending better than any of his contemporaries the real circumstances of the time, its tendencies, necessities, and possibilities. But from this he goes on almost to the length of investing his hero with political omniscience and infallibility. He vindicates every step in his career, as inspired by profound wisdom, and demanded by the true interests of the Roman world. He fails to do justice to the really able and honest men of the senatorian party. Cicero and Cato he treats with undisguised contempt. The cynical scorn with which he speaks of all persons for whom he has conceived a feeling of dislike is often unpleasing when it is not wholly unjust, and is an undeniable blemish in his history.

The volume before us is the first of four, and comes down to the close of the war with Pyrrhus, and the subjection of Italy to the Roman power. The history of the Kings, from Romulus to Tarquin the Proud, our author looks upon as unhistorical and untrustworthy. He shows it less respect than Arnold, who gives us the traditional narrative, but in a quaint quasi-Biblical style, which is intended to mark its legendary character. A similar course has been taken by Dr. Ihne in his recently published history of early Rome. But Mommsen does not even tell the story; he alludes to it frequently; he presupposes an acquaintance with it on the part of his readers; but he omits it from his pages. Even the early history of the republic, down to the burning of the city by the Gauls, he regards as, to a great extent, mythical, and contents himself with the merest sketch, touching only on events which stand connected with constitutional changes.

On these changes he is very full, tracing political forms and institutions from their beginnings in times much earlier than the establishment of the republic. It is curious how much can be made out as to these points in long periods for which we have no history in the ordinary sense of the word. It is a fact which gives evidence of that genius for political organization which existed, to a degree never surpassed (perhaps never equaled) elsewhere, in these primitive Italican communities. There is a logical coherence in the political system of the early Romans, and an orderly progress and conservative steadiness about the changes it underwent, that make it possible to trace it back step by step through the twilight of the mythic and semi-historical periods. But Mommsen does not confine himself to the political life and progress of the Romans. Language, Law, Religion, Industry, Trade, Art, Literature, all the phases of Roman activity and civilization, receive his attention, and are discussed with masterly power. There is in these chapters a fullness of thought, an inexhaustible wealth of ideas and suggestions, which make the book a marvel of historic composition.

The translation, by Dr. Dickson, is one of the best which have been made from German into English; it may take rank with Carlyle's version of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister and Felton's version of Menzel's History of German Literature. It is described in Dr. Schmitz's Introduction as a labor of love on the part of the translator; and the comparison of a few pages with the German original is enough to show that it has been made with uncommon patience and painstaking. A long German sentence is often broken up into two or three English ones, a change imperatively demanded by the different genius of the two languages; but in other respects the translator follows very closely in the track of his author. The peculiarities of Mommsen's style are reflected with much skill and felicity. This is the more creditable to Dr. Dickson, because those peculiarities are such as to impose unusual difficulties on a translator. The style is not that dignified, decorous, conventional mode of expression which we find in most histories. Mommsen, like Grote, is ready to use any phraseology which most vividly or forcibly expresses his meaning. He draws freely from the language of the club room, the stock exchange, the daily newspaper. He goes beyond Grote in the freedom with which he introduces spicy and stinging colloquialisms which have hardly gained a place for themselves in polite literature. Dr. Dick