author's doctrine of the nature of consciousness. On page 17, he says, 66 Consciousness is commensurate with all mental states and acts. It accompanies feeling as thinking, and volition as much as either. The only possible way in which a mental state or act can be testified to, is by consciousness." "Consciousness is neither a knowing, nor a feeling, nor a willing; is neither this nor that mental act, but a condition common to them all, a field in which they appear, in which they arise and make proof of their existence." "Consciousness gives-we use familar language, a more careful expression would be, in consciousness is found-the mere fact of a mental state, whether one of thought, feeling, or volition."

On page 18, he speaks of "wrongly regarding consciousness as a faculty giving direct testimony to certain things, instead of something involved in the very fact of knowing and feeling, making them what they are." Still further: "It is with most an unusual effort of mind to direct attention to interior phenomena ;”. and again, "Neither are the several phases of mind observed as transpiring, but as remembered."

On page 30, after insisting on page 29 that consciousness not only is not a form of knowing, nor the power a faculty of knowing, but that it has no more to do with knowing than with feeling, so that we might as properly say, "we feel that we know," or that " we know that we feel ;" he proceeds to assert, "mind, by virtue of its own nature as mind, does and suffers what it does and suffers, consciously under this simple, peculiar, and inexplicable condition of being aware of its own acts, etc."

On page 50, in speaking of the faculties of the intellect and of sense as the first class of these faculties, he thus defines: "The sense includes two and quite diverse sources of knowledge, the power of perception, and the immediate cognizance which the mind has of its own states," asserting most clearly that whether consciousness be a power of knowledge or not, there is a power by which we do know these states.

But on page 76, he calls this very inner sense by the name of consciousness, and says, "Consciousness, or the inner sense, the remaining means of a direct knowledge of phenomena, requires but a brief notice;" and then, in the second sentence after, "self-consciousness, or consciousness or the inner sense, is not a method of the mind's action, is not a faculty of perception." And again. "We cannot readily speak of this knowledge which the mind has

of its own phases of activity, without seeming to imply more than we intend; to imply an explicit form or faculty, or means of knowing."

On pages 154, 5, 6, the author endeavors to explain what he contends is the necessary "confusion of language," by making consciousness to be one of the regulative ideas of the reason. The reasons for this view are, that as an essential condition of mental or physical phenomena it is analogous to space in its relation to material objects. "What space is to material facts, consciousness is to intellectual facts, the interpreting light under which they occur. The words we constantly apply to it recognize this relation--we say, 'the field of consciousness,' 'transpiring in consciousness,' 'coming up into the light of consciousness,' the flow of consciousness-that is of thought, feeling in consciousness. These and like expressions are shaped under an image in which consciousness is presented as an arena of mental movements, as is space of physical events." There is much more to the same purport in which we are struck with the singular facility with which the writer interchanges the language of imagery with the language of science, and leaps from loose resemblances to well-grounded analogies. The reason why space should be classed among what in the language of Kant are called regulative ideas, and why consciousness should not be so classed, in our opinion, lies in this-that space, or its relations, belongs to the class which he denominates "synthetic ideas, a priori;" the difference, when expressed in other language, being that space is necessary, a priori, to the conception of matter, because we necessarily presuppose it in order that any conception of matter may be possible, while consciousness is found by the analysis of mental phenomena to be an element constantly present, and therefore always evolved from an analysis of a mental state. It is not known, a priori, to be a condition essential to the conception of mental phenomena, but only actually observed to be a constituent attendant in fact.

We are by no means certain that this distinction will satisfy the author that he has inadvertently classed consciousness among the ideas of the Reason. On our part, we must confess ourselves entirely unconvinced that the consciousness which is so often spoken of by him as that which is "aware of," "testifies of," "takes immediate cognizance of," "observes," "directs attention

to," "is the means of a direct knowledge of" the mental or psychical state, is neither an act nor a power of knowledge.

Whether the criticism which we have offered only results "from the facile application of previous opinions to detached points," or whether it proceeds from a "discussion of the principles involved, less penetrative and systematic than that here presented" by the author, we must leave others to decide.

LECKY'S HISTORY OF EUROPEAN MORALS.*-These two volumes exhibit abundant evidence of very extensive and various reading, and of rapid and rather superficial generalization; the results of which are expressed in a very clear but somewhat artificial style. The History of European Morals may not be as brilliant or as thoughtful as the History of Rationalism, but it gives evidence of the same superior powers which caused that work to produce so profound an impression. If judged of by the promise of its title, however, it can by no means be pronounced a superior work. As a history of the theory of morals, it has few claims to consideration. As a history of the practical doctrines, or of the practices of Christendom, it is singularly unfaithful to its theme, abounding as it does in extraneous matter, and wandering off into manifold discussions which are far from being pertinent to the subject. The title of the book should be, a Discourse on the influence of Christianity upon the Morals of Europe, being an argument to show that from both the good which it achieved and failed to achieve, its claims to supernatural origin are not made good. This position is nowhere distinctly avowed. Indeed, the author seems to shrink from avowing what his own opinion is-giving the impression, notwithstanding other tokens of a frank and noble mind, that he dares not take his position and come squarely up to it and defend it. He insinuates rather than asserts, he intimates rather than argues. When he seems brought by the force of his own arguments very nearly to the point of avowing a conclusion, he turns off the attention of the reader in the opposite direction by some vague declamation, or surprises him by some concession which was the last thing which in such a connection the reader would look for. In short, the whole tone of the author, with respect to the question which he is all the while arguing, is timid and

* History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. By WILLIAM HARTPOLE LECAY, M. A. Two Volumes. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1870.

evasive, and clearly shows, either that he has not formed definite opinions upon the most important positions connected with the subject which he discusses, or has not the manliness to avow them. One conspicuous instance of this cannot escape the most superficial reader. Chapter III. he devotes to the conversion of Rome, occupying one hundred and fifty pages exclusively with this subject, giv ing pause the meanwhile to the History of Morals in Europe. Most of this chapter is occupied with the consideration of the "Theory which attributes the conversion of the Empire to the evidences of Miracles." In the discussion of this topic he takes ground in regard to the influence and credibility of miracles which would be entirely incompatible with the truth of the gospel history. He takes it so broadly, and reaffirms it so often, and enforces and reënforces it by such a variety of considerations as to leave the impression that it would be the height of unreason for any saue man to believe that the gospel records are true. And yet he is careful to call the attention of his readers to the fact that the origin of Christianity does not come within the range of his argument; that he is concerned only with its progress in the third century, and the miracles by which some believe it to have been aided at that late period. But he does not remind them, that the positions which he has taken in respect to their credibility would be fatal to their reception when reported by any class of witnesses, and in support of any doctrines. At this juncture he treats his readers, on pp. 412-13, to one of the most eloquent, as it is one of the most truthful, passages of the work, on the manifold adaptations of Christianity to the moral and affectional nature of man. But that a system so wonderfully fitted to attract and move man could have had a human origin, he does not stay to demonstrate, nor does he make a suggestion to support the theory which he manifestly would have his readers receive by "induction," that its origin could not be supernatural. We are at a loss to understand why, in a History of European Morals, the question of the miraculous in Christianity should have been introduced at all, and more particularly why, if its supernatural origin should have been incidentally treated, the peculiarities of Christianity as a moral system, should not have been fully set forth and carefully discriminated from those of the Pagan system, and the bearing of these peculiarities upon its claims to divine origination squarely met and frankly disposed of. We respect the manliness if we do not share in the views of Theodore Parker, when he says of the

miracles of the Gospels, "I cannot receive such facts on such evidence;" as well as when he refers the marvelous moral superiority of their doctrines to the elevated and purified intuitional power of the great teacher. But we do not respect the indirection of a writer who drags in the question of miracles in the last century, and does not choose to face it as it presents itself in the first, and only casually notices the only aspect of Christianity with which he was directly concerned. Is it because the English pluck is dying out, or is it because the fear of social ostracism is so terrible to literary men, or is it because conscience and the traditions of childhood still retain so strong a hold, that the Rationalism of so many English writers is indirectly avowed and so sneakingly defended?

We observe, again, that in the prosecution of what we have stated to be Mr. Lecky's real theme, he dwells at great length on the frightful abuses both of doctrine and practice which prevailed in the Christian church, and were sanctioned by its leading teachers and rulers. The picture, as he presents it, is at once disgusting and revolting in the extreme. These details, we are sorry to say, are so presented, and the argument founded on them is so managed as to enforce the impression that the system and the society which could err so grossly and so perseveringly in respect to points of such great importance, could lay no claim to divine origination or superintendence. We would remind our readers, and would like to be able to suggest to all the readers of Mr. Lecky's History, that the moral perversions and corruptions of morals in the early Christian church, are as fully exposed and as impressively set forth by modern Christian writers as they are by this half paganized, ethical critic of the school of Shaftesburythat among others the well known Isaac Taylor has dwelt upon them as fully and as frankly as Mr. Lecky, but with a different application of the facts to the argument than that which is insinuated, but not avowed, by the latter.

Mr. Lecky belongs to a peculiar school of historical writers, whose numbers are increasing, and whose influence is rapidly augmented in English literature, of whom Buckle and Draper are representatives; who are enormous readers, hasty generalizers, superficial critics, credulous receivers of second-hand facts and inferences, men who owe in part their ability to make an im pression as writers by the very recklessness with which they use facts, provided they are effective in an ambitious period, or round