LITERARY NOTICES. 



499 



polar antagonism, centripetal and centrifu- 

 gal forces. The intellect which gives origin 

 to science, and the sentiment of faith, or 

 instinct of worship, which gives origin to 

 religions, work in opposite spheres, and 

 work against each other by action and re- 

 action in historic periods, which the writer 

 designates as psychic cycles. IIow deep is 

 this necessity of contest, and how wide its 

 field of operation, in the author's opinion, 

 may be gathered from the following open- 

 ing passage of Chapter II. : " I have at- 

 tempted to show that the essential natures 

 of the religious and the intellectual forces 

 in man foreordain a species of antago- 

 nism ; that this perpetual antagonism is 

 not, nevertheless, an abnormal condition, 

 but a grand example of the universal econ- 

 omy of God, who has ordained antagonism 

 as the condition of progress in the natural 

 and the moral worlds. I have deduced 

 from the necessary relation of the ethical 

 and cognitive powers a necessary series of 

 oscillations in the relative dominance of re- 

 ligious and intellectual influences in the 

 lives of men ; and have indicated that the 

 exponent of these oscillations has been, as 

 it must be, a series of alternating periods 

 of religious and of intellectual activity and 

 progress. Such alternations, since the an- 

 tagonizing forces belong to humanity as 

 such, must characterize the history of all 

 nations, all races, and all times." 



He then proceeds " to show that the 

 facts of the religious and intellectual his- 

 tory of the human race illustrate and con- 

 firm these deductions, and become in real- 

 ity a broad inductive basis on which these 

 propositions may be rested as valid gener- 

 alizations. A prolonged and attentive 

 study of the facts which make up the re- 

 ligious and intellectual history of our race 

 has caused my attention to be directed 

 to the following facts subsidiary to the 

 general induction: 1. Religious faith re- 

 cedes from its normal condition to one of 

 abnormal subordination, or advances to 

 one of abnormal supremacy ; 2. Intellect 

 from its normal condition either advances 

 to a haughty dictatorship or falls into a 

 condition of servitude ; 3. These move- 

 ments of faith and intellect are reciprocal 

 and responsive; 4. The direction of the 

 movement is determined by the initiative : if 



faith lead in activity, a religious phase suc- 

 ceeds ; if intellect take precedence, reli- 

 gious pretensions shrink, and an intellectu- 

 al phase succeeds. The two phases com- 

 plete a psychic cycle." Four of these 

 psychic cycles are traced in the course of 

 Christian history. 



This is an original and ingenious con- 

 caption by which Dr. Winchell is enabled 

 to group and arrange the elements of his 

 discussion, historic, religious, philosophic, 

 and scientific, in a very instructive manner 

 for his purpose, and on this account the 

 exposition is certain to be read by general 

 students with interest and profit. Dr. 

 WinchelFs work will do especial service, 

 among religious readers, by making the 

 whole discussion, as we might say, a piece 

 of natural history ; that is, he treats it in 

 both its aspects, as a part of the method 

 and phenomena of Nature. While holding 

 to the inspiration of the Bible, and the su- 

 pernatural claims of Christianity, as mat- 

 ters of his own special faith, he neverthe- 

 less holds to the validity of the universal 

 religious sentiment in man, and which is as 

 much a subject of rational inductive in- 

 quiry as are the physical sciences them- 

 selves. We can hardly overrate the gain 

 thus secured, by bringing the whole inquiry 

 into the scientific sphere, and conducting 

 it in the broad judicial spirit which genuine 

 science always imposes. 



In one respect, we think Dr. Winchell's 

 work is open to critical objection : it fails 

 to state, as fully as the subject requires, 

 the bearing of the doctrine of Evolution 

 upon the questions in issue. He gives a 

 cautious adhesion to the biological aspect 

 of this theory in the following passage from 

 the preface : " In reference to the much- 

 mooted scientific question of the derivative 

 origin of species, the reader will detect in- 

 dications of a growing faith. A certain 

 class of proofs has been accumulating at a 

 rapid rate ; and the author's present con- 

 viction is, that the doctrine of the deriva- 

 tion of species should be accepted." 



Now, if the doctrine of descent, as here 

 referred to, is to be accepted at all, it is 

 on the ground of its truth ; and, if it be 

 true, it does not stand alone or as a propo- 

 sition with which we have no further con- 

 cern than simply to approve or reject it. 



