the Britannica, to hold that the fullest apprehension of God involves the exercise of all the faculties of the human constitution, will, affection, conscience, intellect; and that our theistic convictions rest, not simply upon the intuitive recognition of God's presence which comes from his entrance into the realm of consciousness, but also upon our idea of causality springing from our own wills, our idea of goodness which springs from our affections, and our idea of a moral governor necessitated by our consciences. Dr. Wentworth, in our judgment, however, presents the best single argument for God which the human race possesses. He does not hold that our consciousness furnishes a complete knowledge of God. His conclusions are characterized by singular sobriety. He simply holds that God and the world so enter the domain of human consciousness that we have, not a complete knowledge of either by intuition, but an intuitive recognition of both involved in our very consciousness of self. He says:

I am aware that declarations relating to the nature and processes of these spiritual facts of consciousness should be cautiously uttered. . . . The spiritual is the deepest and the most central element of our being; and the phenomena therein produced seem to lie at the profoundest depths in consciousness. And on this account, probably, it is, that during all the ages of philosophic activity and development religious and spiritual phenomena have rarely been the subject of careful psychologic examination. . . Let this department of consciousness be as carefully searched. and reflected upon in the true spirit of scientific inquiry as that which includes the intellective processes, and I think that then psychology would be compelled as decisively to declare that we have as immediate and unmistakable intuitions of the being of God as we have of mind or of body. For it seems plain to my reflective thinking, that God as positively enters the domain of human consciousness through the religious or spiritual faculties of man's nature, as that matter or body does by the powers of sense-perception. And we may have as emphatic a subjective sense of the divine nature as we have of self, if we will but listen attent to the voices that speak to the ear of spiritual self-consciousness.

In confirmation of this fact, our author makes his appeal to each man's spiritual consciousness, to the religious history of the race, and to the assumptions of this faculty in all parts of the Scripture and by Christ. Upon these points we wholly agree with the writer. We are sure he did not begin his work with

the conscious aim of reaching the biblical ground of theistic belief. He has simply logically applied his method. But the strongest argument for the soundness of a method is, that its logical application secures results in exact harmony with revelation. At this point Dr. Wentworth surpasses Kant in not making a division between the pure reason, which knows not God, and the practical reason, which affirms his existence. He agrees in part with Jacobi, who held to man's intuitive visions of unseen realities; with Professor Harris, in his Self-Revelation of God; with Dr. Pope, who writes:

The constitution of human nature is such, that it naturally develops a consciousness of God when God presents himself, even as it grows up into a consciousness of self and of the outer world;

and with Professor Bowne, in his admirable treatise on Theism: Just as sensation needs reason to interpret and arrange it, and without reason remains chaotic, so the feeling of the divine needs reason to interpret it; and without reason and conscience it remains a confused suspicion of an object which can be neither escaped nor understood. But just as sensation is an absolute condition of perception, so this feeling of God is an absolute condition of theistic belief. The reflective reason does not originate it, but justifies and rectifies it. The arguments for theism have never originated the belief, but have only aimed to give reasons for the belief already there.

It is objected, by the followers of the common-sense school, that if we break down the validity of our sense-perceptions of matter we destroy the entire force of this argument for theism. The criticism is directed with force against Professor Bowne in an article on "Idealism in Christianity" in The Methodist Review for November, 1888. The followers of the common-sense school, therefore, demand that we shall maintain that sense perceptions are intuitive and infallible, or else abandon all intuitive arguments for God.

But ideal-realists are not the rude innovators who break down the infallibility of sense-perception. Modern science and the universal experience of the race show that our sense-perceptions are sometimes mistaken. If we held that our first convictions in regard to propositions and our first impressions as to the nature and attributes of God were infallible, we should then join the common-sense school in contending for the infalli

bility of our sense-perceptions. But we hold to no one of these three positions. It is quite possible to grant that our senses may sometimes be mistaken as to the nature of physical objects, and yet maintain that in our very consciousness of self there is involved a consciousness of not-self or of the world. So it is possible to admit that our impressions of God's attributes may be wrong, and yet maintain that the recognition of God is a part of the consciousness of the race. Even Herbert Spencer contends for such a recognition of the unknown in the fifth chapter of his First Principles. We are no more driven to accept one of the extremes-infallibility or skepticism - in philosophy, than in religion.

We do not think that the consciential method, rightly interpreted and applied, wholly excludes the use of the inductive in reaching conclusions in the mental and spiritual realm. It forever dethrones that method in psychology, and even in our philosophy of physical facts. It declares that the mind itself contributes certain elements to the product which we call knowledge, and demands the recognition of the trustworthiness of these intuitions. It derides an attempt to reach by inference facts which the mind already knows by direct sight. It maintains the freedom of the will, and mocks at a method which assumes that a given external pressure will produce the same result upon all wills, or upon the same will at all times. In these regards the inductive method is doomed in mental and spiritual science; and we know no book which will do more to relegate materialistic theories of the mind to "innocuous desuetude" than the volume under consideration. But law holds in the spiritual as well as in the physical realm. After the will has once made its choice and spiritual forces are invoked, they respond in blessings or in penalties as unfailingly as the law of gravitation. Sin produces spiritual darkness and obedience brings light as certainly as filth produces disease or food gives strength. With this uniformity in the action of spiritual forces we can as clearly determine the nature of moral principles, when once we decisively choose them, by their fruits, as we can determine the nature of a drug by the results it produces. The doctrinal conquest of Methodism, which is one of the marvels of modern theology, is due to Wesley's application of Bacon's method to spiritual phenomena. His doctrine of experience corresponds

with Bacon's doctrine of experiments. Instead of attempting to abolish skepticism by à priori arguments, Wesley affirmed, in accordance not simply with Bacon's method, but with Christ's direction, "He that doeth his will shall know of the doctrine." Instead of attempting to exorcise Calvinism by logic, he applied his theory of free-will among the masses; and it produced results which led to the abandonment of the necessitarian theory. Instead of replying to Hume's argument for skepticism, he declared that, if men would repent, the divine Spirit would so witness with their spirits that they would be directly conscions of God. The consciential method is not at war with this subordinate use of the inductive method, which is authorized by the New Testament and is so brilliantly illustrated in the doctrinal victories of our denomination.

The style of the volume before us is clear and vigorous; but the author has pondered long before writing, and his conclusions are much in advance of the thinking of casual readers. Besides, he objects on principle to the use of physical illustrations of mental processes as seriously misleading, and seldom resorts to them. We confess that we have been compelled to read portions of the volume several times to fully master the thought. The author could have made the volume more intelligible to lay readers by giving more concrete illustrations of the mental processes which he describes. The outline of chapters under the table of contents is full and clear. But no such work is complete without a full index at the close of the volume. Perhaps the best tribute to the style of the volume is the fact that we seldom thought of the language in our interest in the reasoning. Earnest students in metaphysics and psychology will find this a rich and suggestive book. It will help inaugurate a new era in mental and spiritual science.

J.U.Bashford

ART. III. THE NEW EDUCATION: A SYMPOSIUM.

ADVANTAGES OF SCIENTIFIC EDUCATION.

To set forth with effective intelligibility the special advantages of scientific education would require many times the amount of space here at command; but I will endeavor, in a few pages, to outline the treatment. Education is provided by legislators and sought by learners for the value which it brings the learner in his own person, and in the power acquired to exert a beneficial influence over others. The personal result is culture, in the proper use of the term; and the power acquired proceeds from a more effective use of the faculties gained through culture, and from increased knowledge placed at the command of the faculties. Education must be contemplated in its cultural aspect and in its practical aspect. Neither should exclude the other. Theories of education exclusively cultural are an affectation. Theories of an education exclusively practical are illiberal.

The cultural result of education may be physical, intellectual, or moral. Certain modes of activity produce chiefly phys ical culture; others, chiefly intellectual; and others, chiefly ethical. Training deliberately physical in its aims is excluded from this discussion. But it is evident that those kinds of activity which incidentally involve physical culture possess thereby increased value; and I shall claim such an incidental result for certain forms of science. The form of culture most conspicuous among the results of scientific study is intellectual; and it is this which I will first consider. But almost equally important is the ethical culture which is received as an incident of scientific study. This I will explain in the sequel.

Intellectual culture consists in the culture of the various powers of the intellect. Viewing the acquisition of knowledge as the means of culture, the powers exercised will vary with the kind of knowledge sought. If we seek a knowledge of facts of observation, the percipient faculties will be brought foremost into activity. If we seek a knowledge of history, the memory will bear the brunt of the effort. If we seek a knowl edge of Latin, the verbal memory is most severely tasked.

13-FIFTH SERIES, VOL. V.