134 
Notices of Books. 
[January, 
The author answers his own question — the momentous 
character of which we do not seek to under estimate — in the 
affirmative. An evolutionist, a believer in the mere phenomenal 
character of life and mind, and a disbeliever — if we understand 
him aright — in teleology, at least as it has been hitherto taught ; 
he accepts, “ on supernatural authority, the knowledge of the 
existence of personal conscious-thinking beings other than man, 
and whose substance is non-material, and that man in a personal, 
conscious, and responsible state shall live again for ever.” He 
shows that man’s utmost power and skill applied to the inter- 
pretation of the Universe only leave him the choice between 
materialistic Pantheism, as expounded, e.g ., by Haeckel, Deism, 
and “ negative Atheism.*” After pointing out the utterly un- 
satisfactory character of the two former hypotheses he declares 
his conviction that the third “is not incompatible with dogmatic 
theology, and not even unfavourable for the reception of it. 
Our attitude in this category may be compared to that of the 
humble publican who prostrates himself on the floor of the 
Temple, and cries aloud in agony, overwhelmed by the cruel and 
crushing power of natural laws, and the blank emptiness of all 
visible signs of the presence of God in nature. Is the cry to 
go up to Pleaven for ever and no answer to be vouchsafed ? 
No ! a thousand times No ! For from the depths of the unseen 
world the voice of the Almighty Himself has been heard, de- 
claring His will and Flis nature and purpose, so far as seemed 
to Him good, and as we are fitted to comprehend. . . It is 
only in the external bearing of revelation, in contrast to science, 
that we are at present concerned, and therefore we must speak of 
it explicitly, as the special revelation bound up with the history 
of Moses and of Christ. Whatever may be the defects of historic 
evidence in comparison with the proofs, repeatable at will, of 
physical science, it is obviously all we have to depend on, and 
by it the whole of dogmatic religion as something apart from all 
other knowledge and truth must stand or fall. For the — to us 
— supernatural revelation is inseparably bound up with the 
historic truth of the persons and miracles of Moses and of Christ ; 
the so-called internal evidence of the truth of the teachings of 
Christ, valuable as they may be, are wholly insufficient of them- 
selves ; and no rational thinker can accept the Gospels without 
accepting the miracles, which form an essential part the narra- 
tive, or rather, they are the essence of Christianity itself. This 
is conclusively shown by the destructive criticism of the German 
school represented by Strauss and Baur. That the moral 
elements of Christianity could survive the destruction of the 
historic personality of Christ and the whole supernatural element 
* Ey this term we presume the author means net the dcpmatic denial of a 
god, but merely a confession of inability to infer from tl e Universe the exis^ 
tence of a First Cause, personal, just, and benevolent. 
