whereby the sovereignty of Fatherhood is brought out in all "the greatness of its motives" and "the awfulness of its sway." In the heartiest manner possible I commend the book,-learned without being pedantic, systematic without being dull, and spiritual without ever becoming unctuous or unreal.

"The Pathway to Reality" is the title of the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews University, by the Rt. Hon. R. B. Haldane, M.P.1 This volume, so beautifully printed and admirably got up by the famous publisher, must take rank as one of the best Gifford Lectures yet issued. Its treatment is another welcome token of that revived interest in metaphysical inquiries which we hail as one of the most hopeful features of the time. In Mr. Haldane's hands we have metaphysics made delightful,—an extremely difficult thing to do. His exposition of Ultimate Reality-a theme of deepest and most unceasing interest is so clear, so timely, so excellent, that St. Andrews University may well be congratulated on its choice of a lecturer. The Gifford Lectures will never grow stale while such fresh fruits rise from this foundation. These lectures are not less valuable for the criticism they contain, than for their expository virtues and constructive excellences. They are most cordially to be commended to all readers of the BIBLIOTHECA SACRA, who have any special interest in the great themes which they so powerfully and instructively expound, and present in so attractive a garb. These terms of praise are perhaps more to the author's credit, because they proceed from one not quite in entire agreement with all Mr. Haldane's criticisms or his estimate of Hegel. Our author eschews the method of certain well-known neo-Hegelian expositions, in which the Universe is presented in terms of universals or thought relations. Mr. Haldane's method secures more justice to the individual experience. And, while the relations of Aristotle to Hegel are, of course, not new to any philosophical scholar, yet Mr. Haldane's mode of setting them side by side is very interesting and serviceable, even though one feels it 1 London: John Murray. Pp. xix, 316. IOS. 6d., net.

strange at times to have Hegelian idealism-as we have so often known it-set in such relation. It seems to me Mr. Haldane will have to do with much more than Trendelenburg's criticism in showing that the Hegelian system does not make experience a thing really of universals. He will have to justify, on this score, almost every neo-Hegelian exposition of note in the English tongue. Nor do I think Mr. Haldane wholly succeeds in his criticisms of Professor Pringle Pattison. Take the second of these (p. 124). It is a much too easy way of criticising Professor Pringle Pattison's objection merely to say, that it is founded on a "too narrow view" of the case, and "seems to assume" separation of "the universal of thought from the particular." The matter cannot be glossed over in this way. It is not a question of assumption at all. On page 123, we are told "Hegel took human experience as he found it." But that is just the point. Has Hegel done so, and been true to its needs and its claims in setting forth its relations to the Universal Thinker? Mr. Haldane has not, at any rate, justified him. Again, as to the third objection of Professor Pringle Pattison, that reason or thought has a too exclusive stress in Hegel's system, it is certainly no settlement of the difficulty to show that Hegel did not divorce intelligence from will. The real point is, that a system may yet be too much under the one dominating aspect as its ruling idea to be either adequate or satisfactory. And indeed this intellectualistic tendency or defect colors Mr. Haldane's own treatment of "personality"; "reflection" plays the whole part, and the elements of moral self-determination are, as so often with Hegelian expounders, rather painfully wanting. And these things I say as a theologian who takes God for the Absolute Reason, and believes the universe to be shot through and through with reason. For intellectual apprehension is another thing from moral will or personality.

A point which strikes one as rather curious is the earnest and persistent way in which Mr. Haldane's Lectures contend for the reality of the individual experience, and then, as soon

Vol. LXI. No. 241. 12

as this has been secured, go on-in Bradleyan fashion-to show that this self-same reality is, after all, "mere appearance" (pp. 131, 137). Also, Mr. Haldane seems too uncritical of writers like Professors Royce and James, and too inappreciative of Lotze's criticism of Hegelian dialectic. And, further, his vindication of the troublesome Hegelian philosophy of nature is more clever than wholly convincing. But, despite these and other detailed points of criticism, Mr. Haldane's work remains a most interesting, able, and substantial contribution to the subject of which it treats, and it will amply repay every reader who goes to its fresh, well-informed, and suggestive pages.

Another noteworthy philosophical work is "Spinoza's Political and Ethical Philosophy," by Robert A. Duff, M. A., Lecturer on Moral and Political Philosophy in the University of Glasgow.1 Mr. Duff's work is a model of what detailed and patient exposition of a great system should be. It is a genuine pleasure to commend a work which owes its existence to no more exterior demand than the author's continuous, careful, and sympathetic study of a most worthy subject. In the excellence of its detailed exposition, Mr. Duff's work leaves nothing to be desired. Even philosophical scholars will rise from its perusal with a heightened sense of the intellectual grandeur and imposing consistency of Spinoza's system. The writing is always good, the thought often acute, and the exposition very lucid and frequently most suggestive. One hardly needs to say that the name of the publisher is guarantee for the excellence of the entire get-up of the book, which is admirably printed and finished in every respect. Mr. Duff has laid all admirers of Spinoza's splendid devotion to the life of philosophic thought under obligation by his excellent contribution to the literature of this important subject. There can be no finer justification of our universities than the appearance of such works as this from time to time.

Mr. Duff's attitude is that of being content to elucidate the

1Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, Publishers to the University. Pp. xii, 516. 1903. IOS. 6d., net.

thought of Spinoza without constituting himself either critic or advocate of it. Still, his exposition is so sympathetic that most readers, I fancy, will think him more closely related to the latter function than the former. If criticism is to be,and it is certainly most difficult not to criticise Spinoza,-it must be after such work as Mr. Duff's, and on its basis. His position, that Spinoza was interested in metaphysics, not for its own sake, but for its bearing on those ethical and political problems which profoundly interested him, will certainly provoke questioning. And indeed, if the opposite view were maintained, and his ethical system held to be included to his metaphysics, I think a great deal could be said in support of it, so purely and clearly metaphysical is the system on which his ethical interpretations rest. However, as Mr. Duff has held off from criticism, I shall do the same, contenting myself with the expression of regret that a thinker so careful, acute, and ingenious, should not have entered the list of Spinozan critics also. We have had none too much of learned and minute exposition, however, and we therefore accord Mr. Duff's patient and brilliant exposition a cordial welcome. Our philosophical heroes we must have, and Spinoza will always be one of them, albeit he can be no more guide to us than is involved in being a schoolmaster to bring us to some better form of idealism than his own.

Kilmarnock, Scotland.

JAMES LINDSAY.

ARTICLE IX.

NOTICES OF RECENT PUBLICATIONS.

LIGHT FROM BABEL ON THE BIBLE.

BABEL UND BIBLE. Ein Vortrag. Von FRIEDRICH DELITZSCH. Mit 52 Abbildungen. 51. bis 55. Tausend. Vierte durchgesehene Ausgabe. Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs. 1903. M. 2. This is the title of the lecture which the famous Assyriologist gave before the German Emperor on January 13, 1902, and which created such a profound sensation in Germany. Delitzsch could not anticipate this result, since he had intended merely to state within the compass of a lecture the relation of the great results of the excavations in Assyria and Babylonia to the study of the Old Testament, and in this way arouse more interest in these excavations. That he has done this in a brilliant manner no one will deny who has read this lecture, which is very beautifully written. But the people did not know that Delitzsch merely summarized well-known materia!, and that not all the conclusions which he had reached were shared by other specialists. The fact that the lecture had been delivered before the Emperor, who was so much interested in it that he asked Delitzsch to repeat it, gave extraordinary prominence to it. The press seized upon this; it was widely discussed, everybody spoke about it, the scholars in the universities and the cabbies on the street, even the comic papers adding their share to the discussion. Quickly party cries arose. Instead of Delitzsch's Babel and Bible, Babel against Bible was heard. The Bible was said to be refuted by the Babylonian excavations, and the conclusion was at once drawn that the Bible had to go. On the other hand, many Christian laymen and clergymen protested vehemently against Babel, denying emphatically that the Bible had ever been influenced by Babel; they felt very much alarmed that the