RELIGIOUS SENTIMENTS.*-This book shows that Mr. Thompson's acknowledged indebtedness to Herbert Spencer (see the notice of the "System of Psychology," given above) extends to certain of the implications and inferences of psychological science in the field of religion. The entire subject is treated in four Parts. In the first Part the nature of the religious sentiments is defined; in the second, the relation of these sentiments to knowledge is treated; in the third Part, their relation to feeling and conduct; and in the fourth, their scientific education. In answer to the question, What is religion? we are told (p. 4): "Religion is the aggregate of those sentiments in the human mind arising in connection with the relations assumed to subsist between the order of nature (inclusive of the observer) and a postulated supernatural." This answer has elements of great value; its defect is that it resolves religion into an affair of the "sentiments" merely. The supernatural is indeed said to be postulated, and certain relations are assumed to exist between it and the order of nature. But these seem to enter, in no respect, into the essence of religion, but only to be "connected with " it.

The author affirms that we cannot think of a world of material objects as existing without postulating a supernatural (p. 23), and that the existence of intelligence argues a source of that intelligence," "an unlimited condition for conscious existence, the potentiality of knowledge, feeling, will" (p. 74). And yet, after quoting Professor Fisher to the effect that the essential characteristic of personality is self-consciousness, he affirms that Herbert Spencer and Dean Mansel have conclusively shown that personal consciousness means nothing without limitation. The conclusion of the book is then agnostic,-not, however, so dogmatically and self-confidently agnostic as are certain other forms of the same general view. It affords, in our judgment, additional proof of the almost purely arbitrary character of modern agnosticism. No rational line is drawn to show where knowledge or reasonable belief must stop; the limit is left, unfixed by any scientific theory of cognition, to the caprice, or prejudice, or timidity, of each man's temporary opinion.

THE ETHICAL IMPORT OF DARWINISM.-Professor Schurman *The Religious Sentiments of the Human Mind. By DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON. London and New York: Longmans, Green, & Co. 1888.

The Ethical Import of Darwinism. By JACOB GOULD SCHURMAN, Sage Professor of Philosophy in Cornell University. New York: Chas. Scribner's Sons.

has given us a lucid, entertaining and instructive book; it should be read by all students both of ethics and of the modern theory of evolution. He himself advises that the first chapter ("Methods of Ethics, evolutionary and other") be omitted by the general reader not interested in the logic of ethics. On the contrary we advise every reader to go through with this chapter; it will not be found tedious even by those who are not special students of the particular subject with which it deals. It is here maintained -quite the contrary of Dr. Stuckenberg's view referred to above -that ethics, as a science even, has scarcely as yet founded itself securely, and that no progress in "moral philosophy" (the metaphysics of ethics) can be expected until a science of ethics exists. We would add to Professor Schurman's description of the science of ethics as a "branch of history," that it is also preeminently a branch of psychology. Until we have a scientific psychological ethics we can have no well-founded moral philosophy.

The gist of the author's well-argued contention against the conclusions of evolutionary ethics is given in chapter IV (see p. 152 f.) Natural selection "takes advantage of the utility of morality, but no more determines its content and meaning than a positivist who passes over the essence of things." The mechanical theory of conscience regards the germ of morals as merely an action, and not-what it really is-as an ideal of action." In other words, while the facts and theory of Darwinism help us understand how men come to hold this or that opinion as to what I ought, they throw absolutely no light on the origin of the feeling that I ought.

EVOLUTION.*-In the words of its author: "The subject of the following work may be expressed in three questions: What is evolution? Is it true? What then ?" (See Preface). Professor LeConte finds the answer to his first question in the enunciation of the three laws of differentiation, progress, and cyclical movement. The differentiation consists in the increasing variety of form and limitation of function, or division of labor; the law of progress is true only of the whole, and not necessarily of all the parts, except from the point of view of the whole: and the advance is not made uniformly, "but by successive waves, each higher than the last." Not only this, however, but in order to complete his description of evolution, the author is obliged to * Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought. By JOSEPH LECONTE. New York: D. Appleton and Co. 1888.

affirm that all these marvellous changes are accomplished by means of resident forces; in other words, "they are natural, not supernatural" (p. 28). The obstacle of supernaturalism, existing anywhere in the realm of nature, having been removed in these modern times by the application of the doctrine of the correla tion of natural forces to life, Darwinism has been enabled to demonstrate the evolution of species by purely natural causes, through divergent variations and natural selection.

On considering Professor LeConte's very comprehensive view of evolution we find it involving various assumptions that have by no means the same evidence in their favor. When he proceeds, then,-in answer to the question, "Is evolution true ?"-to affirm that "evolution is no longer a school of thought; . . for the law of evolution is as certain as the law of gravitation; nay it is far more certain" (p. 66), he goes far beyond the point where the present position of scientific discovery can sustain him. Indeed, he seems, in some sort to suppose, that the hypothesis which derives all forms of animal life from one form or from a very few forms, of the lowest life, by direct descent, under the principles of chance variation and natural selection, is equivalent to grounding all existence in the two principles of continuity and sufficient reason.

Professor LeConte's treatment of the special proofs of evolution seems to us admirable,-clear, thorough, compact, and yet popular. Nor are the candor and vigor less admirable, with which he treats the question: In case evolution be true, what follows with regard to our religious belief? In his answer to this last question we find little from which to dissent. Indeed the principal fault to be found with the book concerns its strong overstatement of the confidence which can at present be had, or probably can ever be attained, in any theory which derives, by natural descent, all the existing forms of life from preexisting forms. Darwinian evolution has still a great many formidable obstacles to overcome. We are willing to wait for it to overcome them; but it is as yet quite too early to think of putting it, for certainty, above the law of gravitation.

All who are interested in the question of evolution will, nevertheless, profit much by reading Professor LeConte's works.

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