630 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cipline of men when they were moved 

 only by the lowest motives. But, with 

 the advance of knowledge, and the cul- 

 tivation of the humaner sentiments, the 

 doctrine has become anomalous and out 

 of harmony with the advance of human 

 nature. Hence, though still a cardinal 

 tenet of orthodoxy, it is now general- 

 ly entertained in a vague and loose 

 way, and with reservations and protests 

 that virtually destroy it. Only revival 

 preachers of the 'Moody type still affirm 

 the literal " lake of fire and brimstone," 

 and it is certain that the doctrine in any 

 shape recurs much less prominently in 

 current preaching than it did a genera- 

 tion or two ago. Sober-minded clergy- 

 men have got in the way of neglecting 

 it, except now and then when rehearsing 

 the creed, or, as at present, under the 

 spur of controversy, or Avhen rallied 

 about the decay of the old theology. 

 The hell of Jonathan Edwards is gone. 

 That sturdy theologian wrote: "The 

 world will probably be converted into 

 a great lake, or liquid globe of fire a 

 vast ocean of fire in which the wicked 

 shall be overwhelmed, which will al- 

 ways be in tempest, in which they shall 

 be tossed to and fro, having no rest day 

 or night, vast waves or billows of fire 

 continually rolling over their heads, of 

 which they shall forever be full of a 

 quick sense within and without : their 

 heads, their eyes, their tongues, their 

 feet, their loins, and their vitals, shall 

 forever be full of a glowing, melting 

 fire fierce enough to melt the very rocks 

 and elements; and also they shall eter- 

 nally be full of the most quick and live- 

 ly sense to feel the torments; not for 

 one minute, nor for one day, nor for 

 one age, nor for two ages, nor for a 

 hundred ages, nor for ten thousands of 

 millions of ages, one after another, but 

 for ever and ever without any end at 

 all, and never, never be delivered.'" ' 



This is sufficiently explicit, but no 

 man of the rank of its author talks in 

 such a strain nowadays. In the cnr- 



Edwards's Works, vol. viii., p. 166. 



rent pulpit utterance there is a perfect 

 chaos of discordant speculation, open 

 repudiation, tacit disavowal, and ingen- 

 ious refining away, but no stern and 

 sturdy defense of it, in the old form and 

 spirit, from any source that commands 

 respect. The doctrine of hell is still 

 conserved in popular creeds, but, if not 

 eliminated, it will be pretty certain to 

 carry the creeds with it into the limbo 

 of abandoned superstitions. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Pessimism : A History and a Criticism. 

 By James Sully, M. A. London : C. 

 Keegan Paul & Co., 1877. Pp. 470. 



Mr. Sully, who is already well known 

 for his investigations of aesthetic feeling 

 from the psychological point of view, here 

 undertakes to give us an account of the 

 modern pessimistic philosophy which has 

 spread so widely of late years in Germany, 

 and also thoroughly to criticise its basis, its 

 procedure, and its results. He begins witli 

 an analysis of the two antithetical frames 

 of thought among the unphilosophic public 

 which he aptly designates as " unreasoned 

 optimism and pessimism." By the first of 

 these terms Mr. Sully understands that joy- 

 ous and vigorous view of life which belongs 

 to moments of exaltation, or to the consti- 

 tutionally happy; by the opposite expres- 

 sion he means the gloomy standpoint which 

 we all naturally assume in periods of grief 

 or depression. Passing on from these primi- 

 tive and unsystematic beliefs, each the tran- 

 sitory expression of a fleeting emotional 

 tone, our author traces the growth of a more 

 deliberately pessimistic creed through the 

 literature of Hebrew and classical antiqui- 

 ty, the middle ages, and the modern world. 

 Next, he attacks the various forms of " rea- 

 soned optimism and pessimism," the con- 

 scious attempts to appraise the worth of 

 the universe as absolutely good or bad. The 

 origin of evil is shown to be the main prob- 

 lem which the optimistic Israelitish religion 

 set itself to solve ; while the pessimistic ten- 

 dencies of Aryan thought in India, reaching 

 its furthest development in Buddhism, are 

 well pointed out. Through Greece and Rome, 



