naturalists and by the Rationalists; the changes which came in with Schleiermacher and with the German critics; how their methods and results were accepted in England in the "Essays and Reviews" and by Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch; these various movements are presented in a most instructive manner. In the last lecture we find a general estimate of the results of critical biblical study and their relations to the faith and life of the Church. The author is in sympathy with the historico-critical method, yet he does not attempt to advance any theories of his own. He seeks rather to trace the history of theories, some of which have become defunct and others have been generally accepted.

The titles of the intervening six lectures cover the great biblical questions, which have been raised in the last century and are still the center of discussion. In the Old Testament he shows how literary and then historical criticism was applied to its books on the presupposition that they were literature like any other ancient writings. Such a test of the biblical literature at once affected the traditional theories of their authorship, time of composition, and integrity. Various documents were found combined in the Pentateuch as well as in the historical books. These new views of their origins changed naturally, to some extent, the interpretation of their contents. We get, accordingly, new histories of Israel, notable among which was the history by Welhausen. The same method is pursued in the presentation of the various views of prophecy, from the old dictation theory to the present historical interpretation.

The many intricate problems, which have arisen in the study of the Gospels, the Synoptists and John, are sketched in the order of their origin and according to the men and schools who advanced them. For the purpose of finding one's bearings in the maze of modern hypotheses and critical theories, these lectures are the most readable and satisfactory that we have yet found. Some work of this kind is indispensable for the pastor or student, if he desires to discuss the questions of the hour with any show of intelligence. So many men condemn the critical study of the Scriptures without having the least conception of its origin, purpose, and results. They constitute themselves little protestant Popes and with a magisterial wave of the hand brush aside any argument, however well substantiated by undeniable facts, as so much rationalism, error, and infidelity. One cannot but feel that even such infallible authorities might get some information by the careful perusal of the historic accounts of biblical investigation contained in these lectures. We commend it both to ministers and laymen; for the latter the lectures were originally prepared. GEORGE W. RICHARDS, D.D.

THE NEW

יזרי

THE

REFORMED CHURCH REVIEW

No. 3.-JULY, 1904.

I.

HERBERT SPENCER,

B. APRIL 27, 1820, D. DEC. 8, 1903.

BY RICHARD C. SCHIEDT.

The death of Herbert Spencer with its flood of mementos, eulogistic and otherwise, call to my mind reminiscences from my early student days. Darwinism, as we called the whole evolutionary movement, was then the central topic of all serious discussions. I was scarcely more than eighteen years of age when our professor of German literature, aroused by the dangerous tendencies toward agnosticism so prevalent among the students in the gymnasium, gave us as a topic for our monthly essay Rueckert's noted epigram:

"Die Natur ist Gottes Buch!

Doch ohne Gottes Offenbarung

Misslingt daran der Leseversuch,

Den anstellt menschliche Erfahrung."

This was a rare opportunity for some of us to show the profundity of our wisdom and learning by attempting a thorough refutation of the great poet's statement. The result was somewhat disastrous to our conceit, but rather wholesome to our subsequent mode of thinking. We were made to feel

very keenly that we utterly lacked the essential quality of unbiased reasoning, having allowed ourselves to be captivated by a few brilliant deductions attached to the shiboleth of evolution and paraded before private circles of students by one of the overly enthusiastic members of the faculty. Fortunately the first German translation of Herbert Spencer's works had made its appearance only a few years before, in 1875, and had created a profound impression, although known only to a chosen few. To us immature seekers after truth Spencer's message came as a welcome solace in the midst of great distress. Current German philosophy, notably that of Schelling, was purely speculative, basing its deductions entirely upon the supposedly omniscient human mind and looking with disdain upon all the hard labor of modern science; wherever experimental results differed from a priori deductions the error was credited to the experimentalist. Kant's dictum that natural laws are laws of thought, i. e., subjective interpretations of the manifoldness of natural phenomena, was reversed and laws of thought were interpreted as natural laws. His humble confession, that the absolute, i. e., the objective essence of nature is unknowable was discarded and the metaphysicians loudly proclaimed that they indeed knew the unknowable, had discovered the undiscoverable, and comprehended the incomprehensible. But it was a pity, indeed, that each one had found a different solution, viz., Fichte the ego, Schelling the absolute identity of subject-object, Hegel the self-development of the logos, Herbert the reality of things, Schopenhauer the will, Hartman the unconscious, Lotze the monad and Fechner and Paulsen the universal soul. This dissension among the learned philosophers had driven many unconditionally into the extreme evolutionary camp, under the leadership of Ludwig Fuerbach, who held that God did not create man in His own image but men created their Gods in their own image. It was, therefore, exceedingly refreshing to most of us, when Herbert Spencer's Synthetic Philosophy appeared. It delightfully ignored the great German speculators and trans

cendentalists emphasizing with Kant, that nature cannot be apprehended without experiment and concrete investigation. Moreover, with him man again became the measure of all things, but in a sense different from the Greek ideal, not above and separate from nature but as a part of nature. If-some

what in his own words*-without knowledge of terrestrial phenomena and their laws Newton had attempted a theory of planetary and stellar equilibrium he might have cogitated to all eternity without result. Such an attempt, however, would have been far less absurd than to find out the principles of public polity by a direct examination of that wonderfully intricate combination-society. In order to understand society, it is necessary to comprehend man, the instrument by which and the material on which laws are to act. Over against Hegel who had glorified the blessings of absolute state rights Herbert Spencer asserted that civilization is a progress towards that constitution of man and society required. for the complete manifestation of everyone's individuality. Applying his principle of individuation to all forms of life he clearly demonstrated that the present complex conditions of human society are the result of a struggle toward individuation that began millions of years ago in lower forms of life gradually becoming more complex, until it reached its completion in man. Here, then, we had more than mere speculation on the one hand and more than mere physicism on the other. It was a stupendous attempt not only at the unification of all knowledge, but especially at the explanation in terms of evolutionary science of the development which human society is undergoing and towards the elucidation of which development all work of science in lower fields should be preliminary. Here we also had an attempt at least at reconciliation between religion and science. In his discussion on the relativity of all knowledge, he asserts that "though the absolute cannot in any manner or degree be known, in the strict sense of knowing, yet we find that its positive existence is a *"Social Statics," p. 13.

necessary datum of consciousness and that the belief which this datum constitutes has a higher warrant than any other whatever," and further, "we are obliged to regard every phenomenon as a manifestation of some Power by which we are acted upon; though omnipresence is unthinkable, yet, as experience discloses no bounds to the diffusion of phenomena, we are unable to think of limits to the presence of this Power; while the criticisms of science teach us that this Power is incomprehensible. And this consciousness of an incomprehensible Power called omnipresent from inability to assign its limits, is just that consciousness on which Religion dwells. In Religion let us recognize the high merit that from the beginning it has dimly discerned the ultimate verity, and has never ceased to insist upon it."*

Thus Herbert Spencer rendered invaluable service to the younger generation of students who directly came under the influence of the most radical school of evolutionists, seeking in despair ideals in the world of thought which materialism pure and simple could not furnish, but for which an enthusiastic youth was ever striving. It is with the full consciousness of this indebtedness that I venture upon the difficult task of rehearsing the life and work of Herbert Spencer.

Spencer's first book on "Social Statics," published in 1850, already pointed to a progress in human civilization according to definite natural laws as expressed, e. g., in the now well known statement "we are alike taught, as the law of right social relationship, that every man has freedom to do all he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man."+ Much more frequent does this tendency become in his "Principles of Psychology," published in 1855, in which he attempts to explain the complex phenomena of the human mind as the result of a progressive transformation of like nature with the progressive transformation traced in the universe as a whole no less than in each of its parts. If

*"First Principles," pp. 100, 101.

"Social Statics," p. 55.