CONTEMPORARY LITERATURE.

Introduction to the Catholic Epistles. By PATON J. GLOAG, DD., Minister of Galashiels. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1887. Twelve years ago Dr. Gloag published an Introduction to the Epistles of St. Paul, and to that volume the present one is intended to form a companion. As he very truly remarks in his preface, Introductions are in England rare. Scotland might have been added to England without doing her any injustice. So far as we know Dr. Gloag is the only scholar in Scotland who has written anything of permanent value or in a permanent shape in this particular line of theological study. Introductions translated from the French and German, but more especially from the latter, we have in abundance, but besides Dr. Gloag only three theologians of the United Kingdom have published Introductions to the New Testament or to parts of it, if we except such as are to be found in works like Dean Alford's Greek New Testament, or Bishop Ellicott's Epistles of St. Paul. In fact, so little are Introductions known that Dr. Gloag has deemed it necessary to set out in his preface the exact scope and intention of his work. The topics which it discusses, he tells us, are 'such as the authenticity of the Catholic Epistles, their authorship, the readers to whom they are addressed, the design and intention of the writings, the peculiarities which belong to them, and the time when and the place from which they were written.' The fact that this should need to be stated or that a writer of such wide knowledge as Dr. Gloag should deem it necessary to say it, may or may not prove that theological studies are not in a satisfactory condition amongst us, but the paucity of Introductions by English authors would certainly seem to leave no room for doubt that Introductions and the study of them are not in any great favour. Dr. Gloag's scholarship and ability are admittedly great. His industry is indefatigable. Of that the four pages of authorities which he prints at the beginning of his volume, and his constant reference to the opinions of the writers included in his list, are a sufficient indication. On the principal topics which fall to be discussed in his pages, Dr. Gloag as a rule holds and maintains the traditionary opinions. The authorship of the Epistle of St. James, he attributes to the Apostle of that name; the second Epistle of St. Peter he assigns, though not without hesitation, along with its companion Epistle to the Apostle of the Circumcision. He decides also in favour of the opinion that St. Peter resided at Rome and there suffered Martyrdom. On the other hand he rejects the tradition that the author of the Epistle of St. James was not the actual brother of our Lord, though admitting that it cannot be denied that there is a feeling of repugnance at the supposition that the Virgin, the Mother of our Lord should ever afterwards have been the mother of children.' Besides the learning and arguments proper to an Introduction the volume before us contains a number of dissertations more or less connected with the Epistles or arising out of their contents. To the student these dissertations will be not the least valuable part of the book. Among them are excursus on the Eschatology of St. Peter, his residence at Rome, Gnosticism as referred to in the first Epistle of St. John, the Three Heavenly Witnesses, the Assumption of Moses, and the Book of Enoch. These topics are all illustrated with considerable learning and are discussed in a fair, reverent, and candid spirit. Dr. Gloag writes with great clearness

and takes the utmost pains to be just to those whose opinions he rejects. He may be said, indeed, to be as cautious and unbiassed as it is possible for a writer to be.

Moses: His Life and Times. By GEORGE RAWLINSON, M.A., etc., etc. London: Jas. Nisbet & Co.

During recent years the materials for the history of the life and times of Moses have been rapidly accumulating. The discoveries made within the last few years of Egyptian papyri, their decipherment and the decipherment of the monuments of the Egyptians, of Babylonia, and of the Hittites, have thrown quite a flood of light upon the Scripture narratives respecting the early history of Israel and its prince of leaders. These narratives, though comparatively full, are all too scant, and in supplementing or explaining them, modern science and research has rendered essential service. Moses is unquestionably one of the most magnificent figures of the ancient world, and anything that throws light either upon his history or his times deserves to be heartily welcomed. For a long period it would seem that he was almost, if not entirely, forgotten even in Israel, and it is only within comparatively recent years that his real greatness has begun to be properly realised amongst ourselves. Of the new material relating to his subject, Canon Rawlinson has, as might have been expected, while adhering closely to the Scripture narrative, made large and skillful use. The accounts of Josephus, Philo, and Artapanus have not been neglected, but of the non-biblical Hebrew sources less use has been made than might have been desired. Of the many beautiful legends which have gathered round the name of Moses, only one is given. Though probably not of much historical importance, some of them are highly suggestive and instructive. A full and interesting description is given of Egypt, and of the Egyptian wars in which Moses is said to have taken part, and equally graphic is the account given of the Hebrews and their oppression. The theory that the children of Israel struck northward after leaving Egypt and passed by the famed 'Serbonian bog' is rejected, the author being of opinion that the route taken was, as is usually held, to the south. Towards the end is a chapter well worth reading devoted to a description of Hebrew art at the time of Moses, and here and there throughout the volume an interesting parallel is drawn, as for instance on page 81, between the return of Moses into Egypt and the flight of Joseph and Mary with the Young Child.

Enigma Vitae; or, Christianity and Modern Thought. By JOHN WILSON, M.A. London: Hodder & Stoughton. 1887.

This work is clearly the product of a mind of high reflective power, of great culture, and of admirable temper. While its author is a firm believer in the doctrines of 'Evangelical Christianity,' he nowhere treats the sceptic and agnostic with contempt or scorn, and nowhere hurls at them a term of opprobrium. He speaks of them, when he has occasion to do so, in tones of compassionate sorrow, not of anger, and tries only to reason with them in the hope of persuading them. He realises the difficulties that beset human thought in the presence of the vexing problems that meet it in its search after truth, and has therefore a very genuine sympathy with those who may, as he thinks, have wandered out of the way. Here he only wishes to be helpful to such. His book takes the form of a spiritual autobiography. He traces in its pages what he calls the pilgrimage of his Ego in the quest after Truth. This pilgrimage is admirably described,

and always in language of great simplicity, yet of wondrous philosophic depth and beauty.

Modern Hinduism: Being an Account of the Religion and Life of the Hindus of Northern India. By W. J. WILKINS. London: T. Fisher Unwin.

1887.

Mr. Wilkins very wisely warns his readers against supposing that all that he has here to say is true of the natives of India generally. Vast masses of the population of that great and marvellous country never come within his view. The religion and life of these he leaves aside, and confines himself to those of the people with whom he is best acquainted, the native population of the northern Province of Bengal. Another caution he puts in is against the idea that what is true of one class, community or district, is true also of other classes or communities in the same province. It should be remembered,' he observes, that descriptions absolutely true of certain classes of certain districts may not be strictly correct of other classes or other districts; and also that some classes are grossly ignorant of the customs of other classes, and the residents of one district, whilst familiar with the practices common there, are totally ignorant of what prevails in other parts of the country.' These cautions are not entirely unnecessary, as in many quarters there is a tendency to suppose that the natives of India form one homogeneous people, and that what is usually called the religion of India is the common faith of the whole of its inhabitants. Mr. Wilkins information is partly first-hand and partly borrowed from writers who have preceded him in the same field. His own opportunities of studying the Hindus of Northern India have been spread over a considerable period, having lived among them many years as a missionary; and having met and conversed with all classes in the cities and villages, in their own language, he has learned much about them which is not to be found in books. The works he has consulted are among the best, some of them belonging to the native literature, and others of them being by Europeans. Life and religion are so inseparably connected among the Hindus that it is impossible to describe the one, without describing the other. A Hindu's birth is preceded by religious rites and ceremonies; it is attended by them; religion prescribes most of the acts of his daily life; and his fate in the world beyond is supposed to depend to a large extent on the due performance of the rites of religion by those whom he leaves behind him. Indeed, unless he leaves a son, and the son performs the prescribed sacrifices, both he and his ancestors for several generations suffer. Such, at least, is among other things the belief inculcated by the following story from the Mahābhārata: A Hindu had remained unmarried for years after he had attained to manhood. Passing into the spirit-world he came upon a number of men hanging by their heels from the branch of a tree, with their heads overhanging a deep precipice, whilst rats were gnawing at the ropes which bound them, in momentary fear of being dashed to pieces. Inquiring whom (sic) they were, he was told that they were his ancestors for several generations, who were doomed thus to suffer because he had not married, and so failed to procure a son whose proper performance of the funeral would have saved them from this pain and secured entrance for them into heaven.' Generally speaking, Mr. Wilkins's descriptions are clear and interesting. Here and there, however, his pages are cumbered by needless repetitions, and, as in the passage above cited, his sentences are not always constructed according to the ordinary rules of grammar. Beginning with the rites which precede a Hindu's birth, Mr. Wilkins gives a very full account of his social and

religious life, of the duties of the astrologer and family priest, of the gurn or spiritual guide, of the Hindu's home, of his marriage, of the temple at which he worships, and of the ceremonies performed at his death. The description is rendered all the more attractive by the frequent citation of the stories or legends to which many of the practices are said to owe their origin. Religious sects are as numerous in Hinduism as they are in Christendom. Mr. Wilkins gives a long list of them and the personal marks by which their adherents may be distinguished. One of the best chapters in the volume contains a condensed account of the comparatively recent Theistic movement in India, the best known representative of which was the late Keshub Chunder Sen. Of the morality of the Hindus, Mr. Wilkins has a far from flattering account to give. Murder, infanticide, and abortion, notwithstanding the strenuous efforts of the Government to suppress them, are rife. The habit of lying seems to have become a second nature to the Hindu. The following story is significant: A friend of my own told me,' says Mr. Wilkins, that when living at Cachar, a friend came and complained to him that a Sirdar on the estate had burned some of his charcoal. On asking how he knew this, the reply was, "Bholonātha saw him do it." Going directly to Bholonātha, and asking if he had seen this transaction, he denied all knowledge of it; but when the aggrieved party came upon the scene, the witness said, "Why did you not tell me that you wished me to give evidence?" Other stories are given of a similar kind. It would appear, however, that though the Hindu still retains his Oriental antipathy to change, signs are not wanting of the dawn of better things. The Science of Thought. By F. MAX MÜLLER. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1887.

Because the subjects of which his volume treats do not at present excite much public sympathy either in England or on the continent, Professor Müller has written his preface in a somewhat desponding spirit. It is questionable, however, whether the subjects here discoursed of ever did excite much public sympathy, if by public sympathy is meant the sympathy of the public at large. But be that as it may, that there is any cause for despondency respecting philosophic studies we have the gravest doubts. Unless we are much mistaken it is many a long day since philosophy had as many students as it has in the present and it will be difficult to point a time when it had more. However, if anything be desired to awaken an interest in philosophy, or if anything be needed to deepen what interest survives, we could desire nothing better than the volume Professor Müller had now published. Philosophy has rarely appeared in a more attractive guise.

The Science of Thought is written with that felicity of style and fertility and aptness of illustration which have given most of its author's works a permanent place in our literature. Its leading idea, if we may so say, may be gathered from the two aphorisms or rather from the aphorism-for its two members must not be separated-which appears on the title-page: 'No reason without language; no language without reason.' The volume, which is somewhat bulky, running to over 650 pages, contains, besides appendices and indices, ten chapters, three of which are mainly devoted to the discussion of opposing theories and an exposition of the Kantian philosophy. The remaining seven, with the exception of the tenth which is for the most part a recapitulation, are occupied with the main argument and its illustration.

'I

Professor Müller's definition of thought is simplicity itself. mean by Thought,' he says, 'the act of thinking, and by thinking I mean no more than combining.' The proviso is added that bringing

together or combining always implies separating. The materials of thought are sensations, percepts, concepts, and names, and the acts of which these are the products are its constituent elements. But though sensations, percepts, concepts, and names are distinguishable in thought, they never exist as separate entities. 'No words are possible without concepts, no concepts without percepts, and no percepts without sensations.' Thought, in the usual sense of the word, is utterly impossible without the simultaneous working, of sensations, percepts, concepts, and

names

in reality the four are inseparable.' That in which thought inheres is mind, but by this Professor Müller observes, 'I mean nothing but that working which is going on within, embracing sensation, perception, conception and naming, as well as the various modes of combining and separating the results of these processes for the purpose of new discoveries.' Mind being the working, the worker in all this is the Ego as personating the Self, which in the highest sense is as yet only a spectator, not a worker, or it is that which has been called the Monon. This in order to be what it is and do what it does must be conscious of itself, that is, conscious of itself as modified by something not itself. The sensations thus produced, however, would be mere states or modifications of the Monon, unless the Monon postulated for them a cause without, and thus changed all sensations into objects, which objects being subject to the a priori conditions of our sensuous intuitions must be in time and space. Taking therefore the impacts of the Monon or of things not the Monon upon the Monon for granted, we may call the resistance and the concomitant vibrations of the self-conscious Monon, sensation, the change of sensations into intuitions of objects in space and time, perception, and the counting of such perceptions, and their addition and subtraction conception, this conception being always realized in signs or words. Here, accordingly, leaving aside the question what is behind the Monon, is all that is requisite to account for thought. We want no longer any innate ideas, any new faculties, or separate instruments in order to explain all the work that is going on within. Mind, memory, reason, understanding, etc., are but the names of certain modes of action on the part of a self-conscious Monon. Given the self-conscious Monon, which must be conscious, if it is to exist at all; everything else can be shown to be the result of an inevitable development.

Assuming that this analysis of the human mind is correct, and that all we call thought finds its consummation in language, Professor Müller next enquires how the growth of the human mind can be studied. His answer to this is: it must be studied in the history of language. 'The true archives,' he observes, in which alone the historical development of the human mind can be studied are the archives of language, and these archives reach in an uninterrupted line from our own latest thought to the first word that was ever uttered by our ancestors. It is here where the human mind has left us what may be called its true autobiography, if only we are able to decipher it.' To the question, was man ever without language, he replies: If our first tenet is right, if language and reason are identical, or two names or two aspects only of one and the same thing, and if secondly we cannot doubt that language had an historical beginning, and represents the work of man carried on through many thousands of years, we cannot avoid the conclusion that before those many thousands of years, there was a time when the first stone of the great temple of language was laid, and that before that time man was without language, and therefore without reason.' But unavoidable as these conclusions are, it does not follow, he maintains, that man was not always an animal rationabile. Though not always rationalis, he was always, and must have been, as Kant