he has rendered as profitable as could be, a subject as to which almost nothing is known and in regard to which you can discover almost anything that you would like to find. The great and the supremely important fact which stands out on all his pages and which makes them worth while is that religion is rooted always and necessarily in the sense of the Supernatural. Princeton.

WILLIAM BRENTON GREENE, JR.

Can We Still Be Christians? By RUDOLPH EUCKEN, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Jena, Nobel Prizeman, 1908, Author of "The Meaning and Value of Life,” “Life's Basis and Life's Ideal," etc. Translated by LUCY JUDGE GIBSON, Classical and Oriental Triposes, Cambridge. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1914. 8vo; pp. ix, 238. $1.25.

This is apparently a vindication of the Christian religion; for the author's answer to his question is "that we not only can but must be Christians". It is, however, a determined and insidious attack upon it; for the writer tries to show that the Christianity which we can and must accept is a Christianity which has been so evolved and emasculated as to retain not one of what, historically at least, have been regarded as its essentials. This may seem to be a bold statement, but it is born out by the following among many like facts and contrasts in all ages Christians have looked to Christ as the founder of Christianity, as himself "the way, the truth, and the life", but, according to Professor Eucken, he merely gave content to “a movement that was as old as the race"; we are accustomed to think that, so far as that was true, this movement was exemplified in Israel and the ancestors of that race, but the author tells us that the sources of Christianity are several; the creeds of Christendom hold that Christ is both God and man, two distinct natures in one person, but this our author emphatically rejects; Christianity Greek, Roman and Protestant has found its center in the cross, but Professor Eucken ridicules the idea of atonement as barbarous for our modern notions; Christianity has characteristically based itself on the Bible as "the only and infallible rule of faith and practice", but our author, while admitting that there are some things in religion which transcend reason, makes it the supreme guide. That is, the Christianity which we must fall back on and hold to is just Christianity with its Christianity left out.

But this raises at once at the outset a question as to the propriety of Professor Eucken's course. Has any one, has even a professor so deservedly eminent as Professor Eucken, the right to play fast and loose with terms having a definite historical meaning? The Christianity of the creeds and of the ages may be all wrong; it may be specially wrong in claiming to be the only way of salvation; it may be hopelessly antique,-all this one may try to show, and should try to show if he really thinks thus: but one may not claim that this is not Christianity and that Christianity is the avowed contradiction of

all this. It is as though one were to argue, not that a protective tariff was unsound economically, but that when rightly understood it was the free trade position. Such reasoning the man of the street would stigmatize as both unsound and dishonest; and with all due respect to our distinguished author we are constrained to ask whether in his zeal for modernity he has not laid himself open to the same criticism.

Is, however, Professor Eucken right philosophically? Granted that Christianity is outrun and that we cannot fall back on it any more than we can on monism or pantheism-how about the fundamental principles of the early universal religion to which he would have us return and which, in his view, constitute the Christianity which abides? When we examine these principles we find that they constitute, not religion, but the capacity for it, the condition of it. As such, they are, of course, indispensable. They are, then, a part of Christianity, in that it presupposes them. To believe on Christ one must have a religious nature. But this does not imply that our universal religious nature can ever take the place of religion and still less that it can supplement and make good a dying Christianity. In a word, the capacity for religion presupposes the revelation of religion. Were God to speak from heaven, we could not hear without the spiritual ear, but the spiritual ear could not help us if he did not speak. Unless, therefore, religion be used in a sense quite different from that in which it is ordinarily employed, its universal principle cannot take the place of Christianity or of any other of its historic manifestations. That is, religion and revelation are bound up together, and revelation in proportion as it becomes adequately definite will be historic.

Princeton.

WILLIAM BRENTON GREENE, Jr.

The Assurance of Immortality. York: The Macmillan Co. This is a delightful book in which the author has accomplished a great thing by putting the old arguments into such attractive form. A prominent element in its attractiveness is that we find on its every page the freshness and pleasing virility of our author's public utterance. It is persuasive in every paragraph. One thing the student misses is the definite references. In this particular Mr. Fosdick has followed the instincts of public address rather than the opportunity afforded by the essay form. The chief defect of the book is its modified view of the Deity of Jesus which is to be found not so much in open statement as in fair inferences. There is also (pp. 12, 18, 109, 112, 126, 134-5 a favored use of the words "universe" and "world" where one would rather see the word God, which gives some intimation of the type of philosophy in the background.

By HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK. New 1913. Pp. 141. $1.00.

There are three chapters dealing respectively with the "Significance", the "Possibility", and the “Assurance" of immortality. The outline is followed with fidelity throughout and the reader is seldom left in

doubt as to the meaning. The practical aspect is never lost to the view. The quotation from William James, "It feels like a real fight", is in perfect keeping with the atmosphere of the book. In the latter pages the pragmatic aspect is prominent.

In the first chapter there is recognition to the full of the forces which have made it more difficult to believe in immortality. The inadequacy of perpetuation in influence and the absurdity of absorption are set forth. Likewise the insufficiency of "virtue its own reward" is shown. All the elements of "the greatness of man" are cumulative evidence of the necessity of immortality. The moral influence of faith in the future and the implications of a faithless view are well argued. The first chapter closes with, "the creed of annihilation induces many a thoughtful man . . . to assert the truth of immortality not because he can prove it. . . but because he finds it necessary as an adventure of faith, to make the world reasonable". The appeal of the book is to "live as though immortality were true" (p. 137). In view of the modesty of the title of the book and the acknowledgement (pp. 98, 136) that "absolute verification" of the proofs of immortality "is impossible", it is more than passing strange that Doctor Andrew D. White, founder of Cornell University, as reported in the Continent (Feb. 26, 1914, p. 273) should speak of the book, however helpful it may have been to him personally, as a scientific demonstration of the soul's future life.

The first step in the argument is to show that it is impossible to show that immortality is impossible. The triumph of insight over sight in the physical sciences presages much for the spiritual realm. The argument by illustration is eloquent. It remains to be said that the argument gets no further when sustained by evolution than when it denies evolution, just as physiological psychology can neither help nor hinder.

When in the early part of the third essay we find (pp. 96-7) emphasis upon the belief in immortality to the end that there may be the practice of immortality, the query rises as to essential immortality. In this connection we find some spoken of as "those destined to live forever" implying that some are not immortal.

The argument of the book rests on the orderliness of nature's order and the reasonableness of the venture of faith to explain the facts. Mr. Fosdick insists that the interpretation of God shall be in man's highest possible experience and that if this be done "Never will he have to take a path lower than the personal, or than holiness and love" (119).

Our author does not consider the "faith of the vast, obscure masses" of great importance as compared with the judgment of "those elevated souls" who from their altitude have assured us. This does not seem to signify more than that the testimony of the highest is in keeping with the ordinary on this point. It is not a question of "elevated" or ordinary. It is practically a universal soul experience. The thought which appears of greatest concern to Mr. Fosdick is, "Does a man at his best tend to think-that the earth throws away

with utter carelessness personality, her most precious treasure”. An adequate definition of God would make this reasoning superfluous. On page 135 the argument is made to hang on “profoundest instincts" and that is where it must always ultimately rest philosophically. Though one would like to endorse the book in its entirety, so timely and so forceful is it, it is not quite clear that the honest moral man of the "preface" will experience any great advance toward Christlikeness, as indicated in the closing pages, by the acceptance of immortality either on merely a philosophical basis or as merely the pragmatic solution of a spiritual exigency. This fallacy is all the more significant because it is related to the deeper fallacy concerning the person of Christ. It seems assumed possible to have a divine personality without a divine person. Much is made of the "belief" of Jesus in immortality. "Jesus never stopped to argue but taking it for granted as an immediate and unquestionable intuition lived as though it were undoubtedly true." "Jesus lived immortality as one might play Mozart perfectly." There appears nowhere the recognition that Jesus lived in the full consciousness of immortality, much less in the consciousness of eternity, as when He said, "Before Abraham was I am" and as in the promised abiding Presence, and unquestionably in his high priestly prayer in the seventeenth of John. We cannot be quite satisfied to say that Jesus "believed" nor that He "assumed” and "practiced" immortality, nor to limit his knowledge to the "intuitional" nor to particularize in any other way. We can never over evaluate the teaching and example of Jesus but there is something greater than these. It is Jesus Himself. Not even in so great an interest as the assurance of immortality can we afford to neglect the Deity of Jesus nor leave it to be inferred that his deity, whatever He has, is an attained Deity, which is no Deity.

Consensus of opinion as to possibilities of immortality at most can be only confirmatory. On the other hand, consensus of desire for immortality is compelling. It is not merely an intellectual apprehension of philosophical conclusion but it is the whole soul seeking that which it must find. Our author (111) not only does not consider this a good line of argument but characterizes it as "utter perversion" and "caricature" and prefers to hold that it is of greater consequence that the "creative process" should not be thwarted than that the crown of creation should be crushed in the highest experience and deepest need. Furthermore if "creative process" means anything at all it is impossible that it should be thwarted. Practically Mr. Fosdick pins his faith to the intelligence in the cosmos. Though the book touches on the goodness of God, the "if" might well be changed to "since" (p. 115). The argument nowhere rises as high as the legitimate argument based on the famous verse from the Psalm, "Thou openest thy hand and satisfiest the desire of every living thing." Real assurance of immortality must rest ultimately on the goodness of God. The philosophies which do not have a conscious, good God have no immortality to offer which is worth the having. Full assurance of

hope of an individual personal immortality can be found only in faith in "Jesus Christ who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light through the gosepl."

Princeton.

CHARLES MCKEE CANTRALL,

Vital Problems of Religion. By THE REV. J. R. COHU, Rector of Ashton Clinton, Sometime Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford. With an Introduction by THE RIGHT REV. THE LORD BISHOP OF S. ASAPH. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street. 1914. 8vo; pp. xiv, 289.

No one will be disposed to question the propriety of the title of these chapters. Evolution, evil, religion and science, personality, freedom, conscience, religion and theology, God,-all are certainly "problems" of religion, and furthermore, all are "vital". They are not all that is vital in our religious construction of the universe, but each one is of tremendous significance. Perhaps the best that Mr. Cohu has done, is to make us see more clearly their intellectual importance.

Under ordinary conditions, it is unfair to an author to cull scattered quotations from his book and use these as criteria for determining the ultimate character of his conclusions. But now and then a writer appears who gathers his thought up into terse statements, often semi-epigrammatic, which give him away, stylistic straws showing which way his theology is blowing. Mr. Cohu has this art. Thus: "The Bible contains God's Word, but all of it is not God's Word" (p. 23). "We must spiritualize matter, not materialize mind” (p. 44). “What enters the heart must also satisfy the head. We cannot keep our heart-beliefs in one watertight compartment of our personality and our head-beliefs in another" (p. 222). "God and humanity are essentially at one" (p. 273). "Evolution shows animals can pass into men" (p, 276). "The Fall was akin to a Rise" (p. 283).

1. In sympathy Mr. Cohu is a pronounced evolutionist of the rather positive type. His assurance here is strikingly prominent. There is not the slightest vestige of doubt. "Missing Links" and "unbridgeable gulfs" do not occur in his theory. Not that he attempts any rational vindication of evolution: it is simply accepted as a thoroughly established conclusion of modern science (p. 102). This of course has its effect on the author's treatment of other subjects; as, for example, his view of evil (pp. 68-69), of inspiration, and of revelation (pp. 131, 134), and redemption.

2. The language in places is unguardedly pantheistic. The language, we say; and it is unguarded. For Mr. Cohu does not mean to be a pantheist, however pantheizing his language may be. For instance, the statement that "Our mind is God's Mind welling up in us" (pp. 129, 198), is open to the charge of the pantheistic taint, were it not that Mr. Cohu expressly repudiates Pantheism, clearly asserting his belief in a Divine immanence that in no way absorbs or destroys human personality (pp. 248-254. Cf. p. 67).

3. Mr. Cohu has a moral influence theory of the Atonement. His championship of this view is somewhat bold. God saves us from