LITERARY NOTICES. 



411 



tion, which are, therefore, of fundamental 

 importance. It is estimated that there are 

 a thousand million cells in the human brain, 

 all bound into a living unity by four or 

 five thousand million nerve-fibrils of amaz- 

 ing tenuity, and this is the grand mechan- 

 ism of registering, conserving, and elabo- 

 rating impressions and turning them out as 

 groups and systems of ideas. Conscious- 

 ness is merely a door through which a small 

 part of these cerebral elaborations emerge. 

 Mind grows as this organism grows ; its ca- 

 pacities are at bottom organic capacities, 

 and its diseases are breaks, failures, debili- 

 ties, and degenerations of the nervous sub. 

 stratum of all psychical operations. 



Memory is therefore not the faculty of 

 an abstraction, but a phenomenon of nerv- 

 ous dynamics ; and it is dependent upon 

 the soundness, vigor, nutrition, and organic 

 perfection of the nervous structure. It is 

 not one thing, but our memories are innu- 

 merable. Investigating the problem from 

 the biological point of view, our author is 

 able to throw light on the many forms of fail- 

 ure to which the control of mental acquisi- 

 tions is subject. He is, in fact, prepared 

 to announce a law of the decay of memory, 

 which explains the order in which acquire- 

 ments disappear as the organ of thought 

 declines in force by age or from various 

 other causes. The import of the book is 

 therefore highly practical, for in proportion 

 as we have a correct understanding of the 

 subject shall we be saved from the conse- 

 quences of erroneous views. The subject 

 is far enough from being cleared up, but 

 this little book ' gives us more trustworthy 

 knowledge about it than can be found in 

 any preceding treatise upon it. 



The Present Religious Crisis. By Au- 

 gustus Blauvelt. G. P. Putnam's Sons. 

 Pp. 196. Price, $1. 



This is not at all a scientific book in the 

 usual sense, but it raises the question in a 

 very emphatic way that is fundamental to 

 all science, namely, the question of liberty 

 of thought. Whatever we may say in re- 

 gard to the alleged conflict between relig- 

 ion and science, of one thing there can not 

 be the slightest doubt : there is a radical 

 and a desperate conflict between theology 

 and liberty of thought. It is historic, and 



it is contemporaneous; and, if any doubt 

 its inveteracy, let them read Mr. Blauvelt's 

 book, which may be taken, in one of its 

 aspects, as but a new illustration of the old 

 experience in which religious bigotry is 

 arrayed against free and independent in- 

 quiry. 



In his preface, Mr. Blauvelt remarks : 

 " "When the author says that he was gradu- 

 ated from Rutgers College, at New Bruns- 

 wick, New Jersey, and also from the Peter 

 Hertzog Theological Seminary connected 

 with the same institution, he has given a 

 sufficient guarantee that his original instruc- 

 tion in divinity was of the most hyper-or- 

 thodox description. Nor does he concede 

 that any alumnus of either Alma Mater 

 ever went forth who was, to begin with, a 

 more devout and implicit believer than he 

 was in both the essentials and the non-es- 

 sentials of the general orthodox theology, 

 and notably that of the Calvinistic order. 



" It is needless to assure the reader that, 

 while he was a student at New Brunswick, 

 the author was most securely guarded 

 against all contamination from modern in- 

 fidelity, lie does not remember, for ex- 

 ample, that in those days he ever heard so 

 much as the mention of the name of Strauss. 

 At the same time, he does have an indis- 

 tinct recollection that, in a vague and gen- 

 eral way, he was taught at once to dread 

 and to abhor that modern theological mon- 

 strosity, namely, German rationalism." 



It was not to be expected that an active- 

 minded man like Mr. Blauvelt, when he be- 

 gan to think for himself, would be content 

 to remain in the mental condition induced 

 by the theological seminary. Upon assum- 

 ing the function of a public religious teach- 

 er, he found the necessity of a more thor- 

 ough equipment for his work than his 

 theological instructors had provided, and 

 he therefore entered upon the systematic 

 study of the traditional theology, from the 

 point of view of modern criticism. The 

 spirit in which he engaged upon the work of 

 biblical and religious research is thus indi- 

 cated. He says that " the specific purpose 

 with which he originally took up these in- 

 vestigations was to vindicate the traditional 

 Protestant conceptions about the Bible and 

 religion against all the assaults of the mod- 

 ern unbelievers. But from the very outset 



