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the first or the last occasion when the old orthodoxy, after vainly combating the new criticism has at last turned about and claimed the conclusions of their criticism as essentially its own.

The writer of this notice remembers how complete a failure was the result of his own attempt to use for this purpose a similar "critical exposition" of Kant's Critique of Pure Reason. Statement and interpretation of Kant's views had been so blended with the interpreter's criticism, personal opinions, and philosophical "stand-point," that the class could not be taught to distinguish which belonged to the doctrine of the great teacher they were studying, and what to the opinion of his expositor.

POETRY, COMEDY, AND DUTY.*-Under this title Professor Everett has given us a series of delightful essays on "the Imagination," "the Philosophy of Poetry," "the Poetic Aspect of Nature," "Magic Forces in Life and Literature," "the Philosophy of the Comic," the "Ultimate Facts of Ethics," and "the New Ethics." In a concluding chapter he considers Poetry, Comedy, and Duty, in their relation to one another. The author has that blending of the power of reflective thought with a fine sense of the beautiful which constitutes peculiar fitness for the work of dealing with such themes. We find little attempt at strictness of definition; but the light is thrown upon the subject from various and changing points of view.

Professor Everett treats the imagination as the power which creates and reveals the ideal. The highest truth is in the ideal, whether it be truth of science, truth of experience, truth of art. If, then, we would attain the truth, "the imagination, the discerning and creating power of the soul, should rouse itself to a higher work. Poetry, like painting and sculpture, is a representative art." "Even in its lyrical form, it does not directly express passion; it represents passion." It deals, then, not with individual and actual life, but with life become universal and ideal. Rhyme and rhythm form the material with which poetry works. It is the power of nature also to represent this universal life which gives it the poetic aspect which it wears.

The secret of tragedy is that it shows us personality struggling with the destiny it has drawn upon itself. The tragic elements

* Poetry, Comedy, and Duty. By C. C. EVERETT, D.D. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Co.

of necessity, blindness, and retribution, "form the great roof of life." Hence the life-likeness of true tragedy. But, as has been almost uniformly recognized, there is a close kinship between tragedy and comedy. How shall, then, their likeness and their differences be described? Professor Everett's reply is, in brief, as follows: "Both the comic and the tragic are based upon incongruities; the difference between them lies in the fact that the comic is found in an incongruous relation, considered merely as to its form, while the tragic is found in an incongruous relation taken as to its reality. It is interesting in this connection to refer to Lotze's view. "Tragedy and comedy," says he, "have, fundamentally considered, the same end;-namely, to show that it is the general metaphysical weakness of every finite creature to come to harm, as soon as it deems itself capable of playing the part of Providence, and of laying hold on the coherent system of the world's course, as a formative and guiding principle. Only that in tragedy, great and powerful characters, with plans of much moment, are shattered, being overthrown by the vast forces of the world's ongoing course, while, in comedy, insignificant figures with their petty intrigues are overthrown by the ordinary accidents of life."

In the two essays on ethics, Professor Everett contrasts and, in a measure, attempts to harmonize the new and the old. The consciousness of human responsibility is the chief characteristic of the old morality; a certain practicality, that comes from the development of the science of political economy, characterizes the new morality. The old principle of personal relationship must find expression in methods that accord with the practical wisdom derived from statistics, social data, etc. Thus will harmony result between the two types of ethical theory and conduct.

It would be difficult to find a more refreshing and quickening little book among those of the year past than this collection of essays by Professor Everett.

THEOLOGICAL AND RELIGIOUS.

DODS' NEW TESTAMENT INTRODUCTION* is one of a series of theological hand-books which are appearing under the title of the "Theological Educator," and are edited by Rev. W. Robertson Nicoll of the "Expositor." The book limits itself to special in* An Introduction to the New Testament. By Rev. MARCUS DODS, D.D. Thomas Whittaker, New York: 1888. pp. 247.

troduction to the various New Testament books.

The treatment

is necessarily brief, but is not meager. The various critical opin ions held by scholars upon important disputed points are quite fully stated. The effort has been to put the reader in possession of the problems rather than of the author's opinions upon them. The book is primarily intended as a guide for professional students and others who may be presumed to be able to weigh evidence and make a study of the questions involved on their own account. Of course it is not so elaborate as the works of Weiss and Bleek, but it is much better adapted than either of these for class-room use, both by reason of its brevity and by reason of its dispassionate presentation of all sides.

The author has placed before his readers the data on which judgment is to be based, but has kept his own judgment in the background of his discussions. We do not learn his views of the relation of the Logia to the first gospel, nor his opinion of the authorship of James and the Hebrews. Yet we have the data on which every opinion must be based.

We consider the book-within its limitations-an excellent and serviceable one. It fills a place not exactly occupied before, and may be commended as a guide to those critical and literary questions which meet the student of New Testament literature.

The book is not free from inaccuracies, for example (p. 182): "Paul uses the Hebrew, not the Greek Bible." On the contrary, Paul's citations are almost uniformly from the Septuagint.

GEORGE B. STEVENS.

ABBOTT ON ROMANS.*-This volume is the product of prolonged and careful study and, therefore, of firm conviction on the author's part concerning the character and bearing of Paul's teaching. Its appearance has been long delayed in order that the views which it embodies might be well matured. Dr. Abbott starts from the assumption that Paul was "an evangelist rather than a philosopher, a poet rather than a scholastic " (p. 5). He believes that "scholastic theology has been imputed to Paul's writings, not deduced from them," and that Paul is "essentially a Christian mystic" (p. 5). The author considers the disputes over the Pauline conception of "righteousness" and "justification" largely a war of words and in general he dissents from

*The Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Romans, with notes, comments, maps, and illustrations. By Rev. LYMAN ABBOTT. A.S. Barnes & Co., New York and Chicago, 1888. pp. 230.

the views of the "forensic interpreters." He endeavors to penetrate to the substance of spiritual truth which underlies the apostle's conceptions and arguments, an attempt most praiseworthy in our judgment, but often leading him to disregard the form of Paul's thoughts. We like the theology of this commentary better than its exegesis. It is well to point out the vital and spiritual contents of Paul's thought-forms, but it is not well to explain away those forms or to make them identical with our own. For practical purposes the essential content is the main interest, but for critical and historical interpretation, it is needful to follow the very lines of the apostle's own thinking, and, for the time, to run our thought into his moulds. We think Dr. Abbott has too frequently run Paul's thought into his own moulds. The work is one of much vigor and vivacity. It is an excellent and useful book, but it takes too little account of the peculiarities of the apostle's thought to be always reliable for critical study. Paul was certainly a mystic, but not a nineteenth century mystic. His mysticism was determined in its peculiarities by both his Jewish training and his own qualities of mind. His modes of reasoning were largely "forensic," and the "forensic interpreters" so far have an advantage in interpreting his forms of thought, though they have always been in danger of identifying the forms with the substance and of building their systems as much upon the former as upon the latter.

The volume is nearly equally divided between expository remarks and essays or excursus on topics related to the course of thought in the epistle or bearing more generally upon the apostle's doctrine. The strictures which we should pass upon the work are no disparagement of its deep spiritual earnestness and practical helpfulness.

GEORGE B. STEVENS.

STEARNS' INTRODUCTION TO THE OLD TESTAMENT* is a brief handbook designed as a guide for the students of the English Old Testament. The general character of each book is succinctly described, its contents analyzed, and the literary and historical problems connected with it indicated. Copious references are given to literature bearing upon the various books as well as to discussions of special topics connected with them.

Introduction to the Books of the Old Testament. By O. S. STEARNS, D.D., Professor in Newton Theological Institution. Silver, Burdett & Co., Boston. pp. 148

Great difficulties beset the preparation of a really useful volume of this kind. There are so many problems connected with the subjects treated that to omit them and try to state only what is certain often reduces the author's affirmations to a few meagre generalities. The shortest section is that noted as §5, under the article on Canticles. It reads: "Difficulties-many and unsolvable."

Within the limits which the author set for himself he has certainly provided the student who seeks a general familiarity with Old Testament literature with much useful information and still further, has pointed out to him the sources from which he may obtain an immense amount of discussion and argument, if not always, information.

GEORGE B. STEVENS.

DR. BRADFORD'S SPIRIT AND LIFE.*-The best modern preaching deals with spiritual wants and vital truths. Judged by this test the sermons before us are worthy to be classed among the best sermons of the day. The author is already well known to the churches, and is respected and beloved for the catholicity of his spirit, for his Christian benevolence and enterprise, and for the sincerity, earnestness, and manliness of his preaching. The volume before us discloses the heart of a Christian pastor and lets us into the secret of the hold he has upon his people and the influence he exerts beyond the borders of his parish. The sermons are fresh, concrete, earnest, practical. They are constructed according to no conventional standard, but utter themselves naturally and freely and simply. The author had something which was important to himself, and which he regarded as important to say, and he has said it with a tone of reality and a straightforwardness which are very attractive. The sermons are not elaborate, but suggestive. They deal not with arguments but with experience. They are not and do not profess to be profound, but they are helpful. Their range is not great but their insight is good. In rhetorical quality they are sometimes homely but they are vigorous and here and there are passages of genuine eloquence.

L. O. BRASTOW.

* Spirit and Life. Thoughts for to-day. By AMORY H. Bradford, D.D., First Congregational Church, Montclair, N. J. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert. 1888.

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