LITERARY NOTICES. 



S65 





Charming was so impressed by the work, 

 that he sought the author out, made his 

 acquaintance, and found that, notwithstand- 

 ing his "few advantages of early educa- 

 tion," he gave better promise of ability to 

 grapple with a profound metaphysical prob- 

 lem, and make more progress in its analy- 

 sis, than any of the regulation scholars with 

 whom he was acquainted. An authoritative 

 critic speaks as follows of Mr. Hazard's 

 first work, the essay on language : 



The essay was not more worthy of attention 

 from the circumstances under which it was written 

 than from the interest and freshness, if not the ab- 

 solute originality, of some of its thinking. The tone 

 of the first essay is that of a refined and elevated 

 idealism in its underlying philosophy and in the 

 moral earnestness of its practical spirit. The essay 

 was highly esteemed in those days of transcendent- 

 al aspiration, and excited a very general curiosity 

 among the eager seekers after new truths and new 

 prophets. Unlike many of the effusions of the 

 taught and untaught seers of those effervescing 

 3*ears, this essay was in every line clear, analytic, 

 and severely reasoned. It was, however, as char- 

 acteristically idealistic in its philosophical spirit as 

 it was imaginative in its poetical and ethical por- 

 traitures. The essay put Dr. Channing upon the 

 quest to discover its author, and this discovery led 

 to a friendly intimacy between the two till tho 

 death of the philosophic divine, which was com- 

 memorated by an affectionate yet discriminating 

 essay from his philosophic protege and friend. 



Yielding to the earnest injunction of Dr. 

 Channing, Mr. Hazard early in life took up 

 the question of free-will, and published the 

 results of his studies in two solid volumes, 

 "Freedom of the Mind in Willing, etc." 

 (1864) ; and two letters on " Causation," and 

 "Freedom in Willing," addressed to John 

 Stuart Mill (1869). Those who desire to 

 become familiar with Mr. Hazard's reason- 

 ing in its full elaboration must consult 

 these works ; in the volume before us the 

 results are necessarily much epitomized. 



Into the merits of the great question of 

 free-will we can not, of course, here enter. 

 It is alleged that modern science, by its vast 

 extension of the idea of natural law, has 

 strengthened the conceptions of necessity 

 and fatalism at the expense of moral free- 

 dom, But determinism never had a more 

 powerful champion than Jonathan Edwards, 

 and he certainly did not draw his inspira- 

 tion from modern science. Mr. Hazard 

 takes broad issue with Edwards. Professor 

 Huxley, a leading " automatist," and rep- 

 resenting the latest science, admits that 



"volition counts for something" but the 

 philosophical question is, For how much? 

 Nobody claims that the will is unlimited. 

 The title of Mr. Hazard's book, "Man a 

 Creative First Cause," seems rather start- 

 ling at first, but it is because of our theo- 

 logical connotations of the term " creative." 

 His obvious implication is of the mind will- 

 ing and working in its own sphere, where 

 we properly speak of creative genius and 

 originating capacity. Indeed, Mr. Hazard 

 explicitly says : " Exterior to itself, it (the 

 human mind) may not have the power to 

 execute what it wills ; it may be frustrated 

 by other external forces, since in the exter- 

 nal the ideal incipient creation may not be 

 consummated by finite effort. But, as in 

 our moral nature the willing, the persever- 

 ing effort, is itself the consummation, there 

 can be no such failure ; and the mind in it 

 is therefore not only a creative but a su- 

 preme creative first cause. 



Mr. Hazard's book is tersely and vigor- 

 ously written, and takes a somewhat wide 

 range both of philosophical and practical 

 suggestion. The author has a sturdy faith 

 in the value of metaphysical studies for 

 practical utility as a mental training, and 

 also in their disciplinary power for the for- 

 mation of human character. This view is 

 incidentally presented, and we only regret 

 that he has not more fully and formally 

 developed it. Such a discussion would be 

 valuable to education, and we are not with- 

 out hope that Mr. Hazard may yet find it 

 practicable to give fuller expression to his 

 views and reasonings upon the subject. 



INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. 

 VOL. XLVI. 



The Organs of Speech, and their Appli- 

 cation in the Formation op Articulate 

 Sounds. By G. H. von Meyer, Profess- 

 or in the University of Zurich. New 

 York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 349. 

 Price, $1.75. 



There has long been wanted a first-class 

 work on this interesting subject, treated 

 with reference to the requirements of ordi- 

 nary intelligent readers. It has, of course, 

 been familiar in a certain way to the ana- 

 tomists who have dissected the vocal struc- 

 tures with reference to pathology and sur- 

 gery, and given the representations of the 

 parts in their text-books. But the com- 



