a corrollary from Dr. Burkitt's erroneous critical conclusions. Correct them, and there remains no basis for such a pronouncement. There are manifest advantages in starting, for instance, from Luke. We know who Luke was; we know something of the opportunities he enjoyed for obtaining trustworthy information on the matters about which he wrote; we have from him a much more extensive document and can subject what he tells us to more external tests. But we need not go further. It is inevitable that Dr. Burkitt's entire article should need rewriting from any other viewpoint than precisely his own rather individual one. We agree heartily, however, when he writes as follows (p. 344a): "The history of Christianity was not a simple advance from an original unitarian 'philanthropy' to the ultimate recognition of the Deity of Christ. Naturally it took many generations of Christian thought to evolve a form of words which should satisfactorily define the exceptional nature of the Founder of the new religion in terms of current philosophical conceptions. But from the first there existed the sentiment of devotion, the temper of mind which was assured that no title was too high to give, no homage too high to pay, to the Son of God, who had been sent from heaven to overcome death and open the gates of everlasting life to those who believed on Him." We must recognize that Jesus was the Divine Son of God come to earth on a mission of saving mercy, which involved the giving of his life as a ransom for men-if, that is, we wish to be true to the records.

Immediately before the article Gospels a short article (two pages) is inserted on Gospel, by Mr. James Strahan. It is a good article and fairly covers its subject; but it is not without some shortcomings. The first and larger portion of it is taken up with an account of "the content of the Gospel", as preached by the disciples and by Jesus Himself. We are very truly told that it is now generally agreed that "the good tidings preached in the very earliest Apostolic Church was a gospel regarding the incarnate, atoning, judging, redeeming, glorified Christ"; and if we understand Mr. Strahan aright he wishes his readers to understand that he himself accords with the contention that there is no antithesis to be drawn between "the religion of Jesus" and "the gospel of Christ". But in his further remarks on the Gospel whether of the disciples or of Jesus Himself, he appears to permit the very core of it to slip through his fingers—what Dr. Denney has so strongly insisted on under the broad name of "the death of Christ": and the emphasis is shifted to the personality of Jesus, in the manner of the Ritschlians. Not what Christ did but what He was, we are led to believe is the essence of the Gospel: which is distinctly not the case, if, that is, we wish to be true to the records.

Ernst Troeltsch gives us an interesting and instructive article on Free-Thought in which the origin of the Free-Thinking Societies is traced and the reason for their existence pointed out. The following sentences near the close of the article are suggestive: "It stands to reason that, if modern thought should continually prove unable to

remodel the Churches, and find itself totally incapable of coming to terms with them, it must find something to take their place. The alternative organizations which it has hitherto produced have been mainly imitations of the Church in one or other of its aspects, and a really sufficient substitute has not yet been found." It will probably be long before "modern thought" can invent a cement with the cohesive power of the blood of Christ: those who have shared the common great experience of redemption in the blood of Jesus do not need to be made into a society, they are already and intrinsically one Body of which the Living Lord is the Head. Troeltsch writes also a characteristically profound (and somewhat heavy) article on Historiography in which he endeavors to reduce the whole historiographic process to an exact science, as the causal explanation of all happenings. With much that he says we are in the fullest accord. We grant that the truly scientific character of historiography must be strictly guarded, and we should not draw back when we are told that "the sole task of history in its specifically theoretical aspect is to explain every movement, process, state, and nexus of things by reference to the web of its causal relations." But somehow we do not feel greatly enlightened by Troeltsch's labored article, and are conscious of wishing for some things and some emphases which we do not find in it. There is a teleology in history as well as in nature and its unitary character cannot be preserved when this teleology is excluded: neglected it may be and yet present, but excluded it cannot be without chaos.

We observe with satisfaction a marked tendency in Professor George A. Coe's article on Moral and Religious Growth to recede from the extravagances which have attended most writing on this subject in the recent past. The "culture-epoch" and "recapitulation" theories of mental and moral growth, the exploitation of which has formed such a feature in a certain class of paedagogical theorizing, are repudiated (pp. 446a.b.), and the "puberty" theory of conversion is decisively rebuked (p. 448b). These are encouraging symptoms where encouraging symptoms are much needed.

This volume has it quota, naturally, of Biographical Articles. Passing by some Oriental names, we note here articles on Goethe, Green, Grotius, Halevi, Hegel, Heine, Heraclitus, Herodotus, Herder, Hesiod, Hillel, Hobbes, Homer, Hooker, Horace, Hume. They are in the main good and sufficing articles. One comes with a kind of shock on such names as Heine and Horace in such an Encyclopaedia and is inclined to ask if they also are among the prophets. The excellence of the two articles goes far, however, to reconcile us to their inclusion in a list of religious and ethical leaders, notable for the omission of names which we should have thought must have been included. Francis of Assisi will no doubt find some mention in the article or articles on Religious Orders where we are bidden to look for an account of the Franciscans. George Fox is dealt with in the article on Friends, Society of. But not to go out of the F's, might not Francis de Sales put in a claim to mention equal to that of Heine; Theodore Fliedner,

Sebastian Franck or August Hermann Francke, one almost equal to that of Horace? We note in passing the excellence of the summary of the religion and ethics of the Iliad and Odyssey given in the article on Homer, and the well-advised entire passing over of the literary question. We have been attracted too by the article on Grotius, although the author, Dr. G. C. Joyce, stumbles over the definition of "Satisfaction" in his account of Grotius' theory of the Atonement (p. 441). "Satisfaction" does not differ from "Solution" in offering something less in value than enough to meet the needs of the case (which would be in conflict with the very term, "satis-factio"), but something other in kind than what the bond requires. It is as Grotius puts it briefly, distinctively "a refusable payment”—a payment indeed, but a refusable payment. "Solution" is a payment which, because it is the exact thing nominated in the bond, cannot be refused; but "when another man pays for a debtor and pays another thing than what was due, a double act of will is required to liberate"-as Grotius elaborately explains, endeavoring to cover the Satisfaction of Christ in all its elements. Mr. Joyce's definition of "Satisfaction" confuses it with what is commonly, but not quite accurately, known as "acceptilatio", and thus assimilates Grotius here with the Scotists, which is unjust to him.

We have touched, of course, on only a few of the articles in this well-packed volume; and those we have touched on have been selected on no other principle than that we have been led by our natural interests to read them first. No doubt they will provide a fair sample of the whole; at any rate from the point of view of the student of theology. It must be borne in mind, however, that it is not to the student of theology merely, or indeed mainly, that this Encyclopaedia appeals. It may be enough to say of it here, therefore, that to the student of theology who would keep abreast of his science, too, it is indispensable.

Princeton.

BENJAMIN B. WARFIELD.

APOLOGETICAL THEOLOGY

Der religiöse Unsterblichkeitsglaube. Sein Wesen und seine Wahrheit, religionsvergleichend und kulturphilosophisch untersucht. Von LIC. THEOPHIL STEINMANN. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 1912. Pp. viii+166. M. 3.60. Second edition.

The first edition of this work, published in 1908, limited itself to a description, according to the method of Comparative Religion, of the belief in immortality; the second edition (1912) is a reprint of the first with the addition of ninety pages given to a consideration of the "truth" of this belief.

The first half of the book is an interesting account of the "Phäno

menologie" of immortality, or the ways in which this belief manifests itself concretely in the customs and institutions of religious life. Steinmann begins with the faith of the so-called primitive peoples in the continued existence of the soul after death; describes the changes caused in this faith by the belief in magic; explains how ethical concepts modify and extend it; and, finally, with many striking details, completes his exposition by showing in what ways it is transformed by the Christian faith in God, becoming a conviction of the future perfecting of a present fellowship with God.

This method of approaching the question shows that the centre of gravity, so to say, is not the proving of the "so-called immortality of the soul" (which Steinmann looks upon as a piece of traditional, popular metaphysics) but the meaning of the belief in immortality for the social and cultural life of man, together with what the belief implies. Steinmann is a "Kulturphilosoph" and his aim is to place before us the transcendent implications of the belief in immortality using the treasure of knowledge accumulated by Sociology and Comparative Religion.

Whether the Christian view is true or not-the topic of the latter half of the book-depends on the definition of truth. Our author, meaning by truth, fitness to form an integral part of a unified world view, endeavors to prove that the Christian belief in immortality, forming as it does an indispensable part of that social and cultural life of humanity, which, in turn, is an integral episode in the existence of the universe, must be true. The details of the proof are as follows. The social and cultural ego of modern civilization is described with great detail in its struggle for perfection, and the question is asked, apart from immortality has the struggle any meaning. One set of answers, ignoring immortality and reducing the meaning of the contest to the aesthetic (and therefore momentary) experience of him who is exercised thereby, is dismissed, because, overlooking the fact that our cultural conflict is under the law of duty and so must look beyond itself, it becomes unfruitful in a satisfactory explanation of spiritual progress. Other answers do not ignore the transcendent implications but assign wrong meanings to immortality; like Plato who exemplifies the mistake of conceiving spiritual perfection as a regress to the eternal of an eternal that in some way had become entangled in phenomena; and like Fries who represents those who confusedly interpret perfection as meaning that sub specie aeternitatis the ego is already complete. Our author's own opinion is (pp. 137 seq.) that in all the problems of cultural development the chief problem is that of the inner purification of the good will and the evergrowing development of personal life. No limits can be set to this development; the soul is rooted in a distant land; the belief in immortality is the symbol of this fact, and as such is indispensable in a consistent account of our universe.

Thus in the last analysis immortality is for Steinmann a postulate. In this he follows Kant, but, whereas the latter introduces it as part

of the logic of morality, the former sees in it an indispensable moment in the metaphysics of culture. He says many true and suggestive things but the question still remains whether the immortality that has been really effective in the life of humanity is that whose reality is based on a postulate or on faith in Him "who abolished death, and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel". Lincoln University, Pa.

GEORGE JOHNSON.

The Miracles of Unbelief. By FRANK BALLARD, D.D., M.A., B.Sc. (London), F.R.M.S., Double Prizeman in Hebrew and New Testament Greek in the University of London, Author of "Haekel's Monism False", "Theomonism True", "Clarion Fallacies", "Guilty", "The True God", "The New Theology", "The People's Religious Difficulties", "Does it Matter What a Man Believes?" "Does Faith need Reasons?” “Eddyism—A Delusion and a Snare", The Christian Why Not? Series, etc. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street. 1914. Popular edition (the eighth). 8vo, pp. xvi, 382. We welcome heartily this "popular" edition of this not undeservedly most popular apologetic work of the last quarter of a century. A full review of it will be found in the predecessor of THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW, the Presbyterian and Reformed Review, for October

1901.

Princeton.

WILLIAM BRENTON GREENE, Jr.

The Fitness of the Environment. An Inquiry into the Biological Significance of the Properties of Matter. By LAWRENCE J. HENDERSON, Assistant Professor of Biological Chemistry in Harvard University. In part delivered as lectures in the Lowell Institute, February 1913. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1913. $1.50 net.

The primary object of the writer of this book is to show that "the properties of matter and the course of cosmic evolution are intimately related to the structure of the living being and to its activities; they become therefore far more important in biology than has been previously suspected. For the whole evolutionary process both cosmic and organic, is one, and the biologist may now rightly regard the universe as biocentric."

The proof of this is given by a careful and thoroughly scientific study of what is meant by fitness and of the wonderful fitness of the environment to the living structures that exist in the world. After a short discussion of the greater environment we proceed to see that the chief elements that are concerned with the continuance or the very existence of life on this planet are carbon, hydrogen and oxygen; the latter two as they form water; the former as it becomes the chief element in the hydrocarbons and organic chemistry. The argument abounds in illustration, is remarkably clear, and is convincing. The material brought together is varied and the author while seeking proof from many fields shows a splendid working knowledge in them all.