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gion has uniformly maintained that there is a uni-verse, giving new and still newer significance to that term held in common both by science and religion-the universe.

It is, then, the more remarkable with what refinement of self-conceit a certain set of thinkers now-a-days monopolize the merit of modern thought, and gratuitously assume that all other thinking in these times is archaic and obsolete; who talk boastingly of philosophical radicalism that shall reverse the world's estimate of more than twenty centuries, proclaim a new definition of truth, ostracize the old leaders, repudiate and banish the established method of thought, and reconstruct the whole empire of knowledge; 1 who ostentatiously parade a" New Philosophy"; and consistently with such pretension sneer at conservative thought as superstitious veneration for the past, arrogating to themselves the purpose and the spirit of progress; who would confine science to the field of experience the field of sense- and then patronize this bantling as the sum of all knowledge and as their own private possession. Lest their bantling be not sufficiently dwarfed, they talk evermore of material science, as if science were only material.2 Sometimes, in more liberal mood, they mention both mind and matter, but both attenuated to the slightest phenomenal consistency (Mill); while, in severer moods, they declare feeling and even thought to be material secretions of the brain, as the liver secretes bile (Vogt, etc.).

From such premises, self-styled modern thought would proceed to divorce science and Christianity as incompatible, framing its bill of indictment, and trumping up its testimony in irrelevant and inconsequential conflicts between science and religion. With inflamed zeal it would banish theology as a hoary intruder upon the domain of scientific thought, slay theologians as enemies of scientific progress, and brand metaphysics as an outlaw doomed to fetters and perpetual imprisonment. Having thus cleared the field, it would consummate the new regime by enthroning " The New Philosophy."

1 See Comte, and Lewes, and positivists everywhere.
2 See Büchner, Moleschott, Maudsley, and Virchow, etc.

The effrontery of such pretension becomes more manifest when we remember that the greatest philosophers of modern times, like Newton and Bacon and Locke and Leibnitz and Descartes and Kepler and Galileo, have been sincere Christians, and that the greatest thinkers of all times have been most earnest believers in the supernatural; and still more manifest, when we remember that the greatest theologians, like Augustine and Calvin and Edwards and Bishop Butler and Chalmers, have been valiant champions of progress; while Christianity has been the very parent of modern civilization, more industrious in its promotion than any other agent, and more successful than all other agencies, and most industrious and most successful when most thoroughly imbued with the spirit of Christ, the Master; seeking to-day with sublime zeal and courage and self-denial to extend Christian civilization and Christian progress over all the earth; desiring at once to plant the school and the church everywhere, at home and abroad; and still more remarkable, when we remember that Christianity, not satisfied with even the present degree of progress, points to the better time coming, when the knowledge of the Lord shall fill the whole earth; bids us, as sons of God, "Be strong and of good courage," "laying aside the first principles of the doctrine of Christ, go on unto perfection," when, as full inheritors of the truth of God, men shall"grow up into the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ," speaking to us evermore of the supreme value of the soul, and stimulating us and the world evermore with the significant words of Jesus: "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"

On the other hand, self-styled modern thought, with shameful contradiction of its pretensions to progress, goes back to heathen scepticism for its philosophy, revives the defunct notions of Democritus and Leucippus, exalts nature above God, and matter above mind, asserts the descent of man from the monkey; and, as if not satisfied with such debasement, declares that the monkey was once a slimy ascidian, and that the ascidian- the low, but living ascidian -- had a

spontaneous generation, taking its life from that which was positively and utterly lifeless; so that the human soul and body equally are material and alike subject to death and decay; while" modern thought" completes the vicious circle of contradictions by declaring that the future shall be not a progress, but a regress along the receding curve in the cycle of evolution and revolution. Such is the pretension and such is the mockery of self-styled modern thought. If this be "advanced thinking," what, we ask, is the direction? What a system, we submit, is this to be proud of! How well it is authorized to despise Christ and Christians, theology and theologians, civilization such as Christianity has produced and perfected, progress such as Christianity promises - illimitable in the opening field of the future, in a purer moral life and a better moral atmosphere and "a better country, even an heavenly," saying to each and to all evermore: "Be ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect"!

These general criticisms are more than verified by a reference to specific results reached by modern thought in regard to science, philosophy, morals, and religion. This reference must, of course, be restricted by the limits of a review Article; and it need be the less extended by reason of the notoriety industriously given to their conclusions by these new schoolmen.

In science, which is their especial boast, they tell us that we can know nothing but phenomena, their antecedents and sequents. Indeed, this is all we can know of the laws of nature. In fact, this is the law of nature, according to their formal definition-the invariable succession and resemblance of phenomena (Comte and Lewes and Mill). After all the vaunted talk of laws, their sum is this, and nothing more.

According to "modern thought," so extremely tenuous and insubstantial a thing is law. And yet we are told by these "advanced thinkers" not only to study the laws of nature, but to study only the laws of nature, since this is all we can know. At the same time, we are oracularly informed that we ourselves are only a series of feelings and sensations,

and that material nature the universe of worlds- is but the possibility of sensations (See Mr. Mill).

But if "modern thought" makes the realm of knowledge thus phenomenal and fleeting, still more unstable does it make science itself. Even so simple a fact as that 2+2 = 4 they tell us is not fixed, but that at some other time or place 22 may make 5, that two lines which are parallel may meet somewhere and at some time, and that effects may happen without any cause. Like the old sceptics, they cannot affirm; they cannot deny. In this uncertainty of knowledge, which is more tantalizing than ignorance, " modern thought" is driven like a shuttle, between phantasms without and phantasms within, weaving its own winding-sheet of nescience; so that even Mr. Mill, coolest and steadiest of modern thinkers, as he looks in one direction resolves all knowledge into outward experience, and as he looks in another direction resolves it all into self-knowledge, and then, as he pauses to look at his theory, denies the knowledge of self and the knowledge of things. Driven by his theory of nescience, he concludes, with the notorious sophists of twenty centuries ago, that nothing is truly known; and now, driven by the necessity of thought, or, as he styles it, "irresistible association," he refers every sensation to mind and matter the subject and object; affirming, "I cannot be conscious of the sensation, without being conscious of it as related to these two things." 1

In his posthumous essay on "Nature," he says: "The nature of a thing means its entire capacity of exhibiting phenomena. Nature means the sum of all phenomena, together with the causes which produce them." Thus, in common with all phenomenalists, he fully recognizes both the principle and the terminology of causation. Yet, driven by his theory, in common with all phenomenalists, he repudiates the principle, and emasculates the term "cause" of its meaning: "I do not mean a cause which is not itself a phenomenon." 2 His logic should have saved him from contra

1 Mill's Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy, pp. 214, 215. 2 Logic, i. p. 358.

dictions. It should at least have prevented his false play between the general and the special use of such a term as "cause," and from the convenient fallacy of shifting premises. The teacher of logic should not allow his own. practice to illustrate the ignoratio elenchi. More than this, if he disregards the claim of consistency, he should respect the claim of honesty ; and, in a question so manifestly essential, be careful neither to deceive himself nor to mislead others.

Herbert Spencer, driven by the necessity of thought, asserts that there cannot be appearing without an underlying reality or ground of the appearance, that is unthinkable "1; - striving thus to give validity to science; and now, driven by his theory of nescience, asserts that the ultimate ground is unknowable, and thus concludes, with the sophists, that nothing is truly known. His whole scientific superstructure, which seemed so fair and firm, only deceives us by concealing from our view the fathomless abyss of nescience; and as we enter it, seeking scientific repose and security, the false foundation suddenly sinks, precipitating us and all into the frightful vortex of the unknown.

Lewes, who, with his modern definition of truth as the order of ideas corresponding to the order of phenomena,2 asserts that we know only phenomena, and should therefore study their laws, and would make science at least legitimate, informs us that law is only invariable succession, having no vital connection nor real power. When asked whether there is an external world or an internal conscious being, he replies that we know only phenomena - that whether there is really anything within or anything without, we know not. Driven by his theory of verification, Lewes would make science legitimate. Driven by his theory of nescience, he would make the internal and the external world merely phenomenal, and science itself - however legitimate by hypothesis - invalid in fact; concluding, with the sophists, that nothing is truly known, and even pausing to applaud the sophists in their remarkable conclusion.

1 First Principles.

2 History of Philosophy, i. p. 31.