152 Reviews, 



mote as well to advocate the education of the people in the high- 

 est and best sense of that term. Along with Maurice and Ruskin 

 he has taken an active part in conducting the studies of the 

 Working Men's College, and now that his zeal and abilities have 

 obtained, we believe from the imperial government, a position 

 which, in modern times, is regarded by its fortunate possessors 

 with just pride, we may expect from his pen works of a more 

 mature and, it may be, of a better order of literature than any he 

 has yet published. This inaugural lecture is a promise of what 

 may be expected from him in the course of his historical prelec- 

 tions. To the phenomena of human life in all its complex rela- 

 tions he would apply, as a method of investigation, the principles 

 of strict induction as opposed to the methods of theory and ab- 

 stract philosophy. He plainly opposes himself to the apparent 

 tendency of modern scientific philosophy, which aims at reduc- 

 ing social life and progress to the rank of phenomena which are 

 the result of fixed and inevitable laws. Our author insists on 

 the limitation of the idea of law, so justly applicable to the exact 

 or physical sciences, in its application to historical questions. In 

 the treatment of these he would introduce the higher factors of 

 an all-pervading providence and a moral free agency in man. 

 While he recognises in social life, as well as in physical pheno- 

 mena, order and progress, he yet regards these as results not so 

 much of fixed and inevitable laws as of a direct divine agency 

 and the moral afi'ections of individual men. In history he would 

 search for efi'ective rather than final causes, is content to see God 

 working everywhere without impertinently demanding of him 

 a reason for his deeds, he would have students to study in a frame 

 of mind equally removed from superstition on the one hand and 

 necessitarianism on the other. He fears not to confess natural 

 agencies, but neither is he afraid to confess those supernatural 

 causes which underlie all existence, save God's alone. This lec- 

 ture is admirable as well for its lucid and profound thought as 

 for its plain common sense. 



The Life of William Scoreshy, M.A., D.D., F.E.SS.L. and 



E.^ <kc. — ^By his nephew, R. E. Scoresby Jackson, M.D.» 



&c. London : T. Nelson & Sons. Montreal : B. Dawson 



& Son. 



This book has been compiled from an autobiographical sketch 



of the early days of the subject of it, written in the Green- 



