It is further urged, that though our consciousness is not caused by the outer world, it is, nevertheless, occasioned by it. The soul may well contain in it the laws of its development, so that upon proper occasion it shall develop only in certain directions; yet this development depends both for its impulse and for its continuance upon the co-working of an external world. Externality is, therefore, absolutely necessary for the production of consciousness; hence it is concluded that the first cause, for whom there is no objective world, cannot be conscious. The reply is, first, that the continuance of our intellectual life does not depend on external impulse. When once the stream of association is formed, and the constructive powers of the mind are awakened, there is thenceforth no further need of external impulse to maintain the stream of conscious life at its full. In the second place, while our consciousness has a beginning, it does not lie in the notion of consciousness that it should have a beginning. To the question, What originally started the stream of thought in the eternal mind? we reply, It never was started. Of course, the objector's hands go up at this, but before he breaks out we beg leave to call one or two points to his attention. Credit is very unequally divided between scientists and theologians. The metaphysical difficulties involved in scientific statements are generally overlooked or taken on trust; while the moment statements are made on the other side, which involve no greater difficulties, these objections are brought out in a mass. Every system of the world must begin with something of which it is impossible to give any further account than that it is. The necessary assumption of every materialistic or mechanical system is an eternal motion either in the world substance or among the physical elements. The theistic system, on the contrary, postulates as its primal fact, back of which it cannot go, an eternal mind, whose consciousness and whose thoughts, like itself, are from everlasting. Now it is plain that the metaphysical objections against the latter doctrine are at least no greater than those against that of an eternal mechanical motion; and we object, therefore, to bringing them forward as fatal in one case, while every thing is taken on trust in the other. The objections against it are merely the incomprehensibility of all ultimate facts, or they consist in transferring to the infinite the limitations of our finite minds.

The objection that consciousness implies finiteness is a mere quibble based upon the mistaken notion that the real infinite must be the all. It is, in brief, a striking proof of the inverted position of our philosophy that it is necessary to prove that the conditions of self-knowledge, and of knowledge in general, are not lacking to the infinite power which we are told contains the fullness of being and transcends all limitations. Indeed, we must say with Lotze,* that full personality is possible only to the infinite. We ourselves are more passive than active. But a small part of the powers that work within us are our own. We are the theater upon which mysterious forces appear. We have but the scantiest insight into our own nature. In so far we are machines rather than persons. Pure personality exists only where the nature is transparent to self; where all the powers are under absolute control; where the spirit remains ever by itself, and where past and present are equally transparent. Such personality is not ours; it can belong only to the infinite, of whose full personality ours is but the faint and imperfect image.

Returning to Mr. Fiske, his solution of the materialistic question demands attention. He fairly labors in repelling the charge of materialism to find words to express himself; we must, therefore, believe that Mr. Fiske does not mean to be a materialist. In attempting to determine, however, what Mr. Fiske's doctrine is, the chronic difficulties of his exposition still beset us. We understand that his formula of evolution is intended to cover the whole field of mind as well as of physics, and according to that formula the development of mind is only a special case of the "redistribution of matter and motion." Mental phenomena appear only in connection with material phenomena, and both disappear together. The mental action is a function of nervous organization, and disappears along with it. This is undoubtedly the doctrine of a good part of Mr. Fiske's exposition, and this is what common people mean by materialism. The name is indifferent so long as the matter be understood. If the redistribution of matter and motion includes and accounts for all phenomena, then the world will continue to regard this system as materialistic in spite of Mr. Fiske's protest.

On the other hand Mr. Fiske's views, like *"Mikrokosmus," vol. iii, S. 573 ff.

those of Mr. Spencer, appear to have undergone an evolution in the course of the discussion, and we find toward the close of his work the most emphatic denial of the possibility of expressing mental phenomena in terms of material ones.* In a recent work," The Unseen World," Mr. Fiske has the following emphatic passages:

Modern discovery, so far from bridging over the chasm between mind and matter, tends rather to exhibit the distance between them as absolute. . . . But what has been less commonly remarked, is the fact that when the thought and the molecular movement thus occur simultaneously, in no scientific sense is the thought the product of the molecular movement. . . . To be sure, the thought is always there when summoned, but it stands outside the dynamic circuit as something utterly alien from and incomparable with the events which summon it.-Pp. 41, 42.

We think Mr. Fiske quite correct in these statements; indeed, we doubt if the relation of the mind to the brain has ever been so clearly expressed. But who does not see that the original evolution formula has hopelessly broken down? The mind refuses in any way to be brought into line with matter, and the 'whole mental world lies outside of the redistribution of matter and motion; and the dreaded dualism of mind and matter re-. mains an impassable gulf. An attempt is made to bridge it by an appeal to the unknowable-that is, by an appeal to x, which is, in fact, an abandonment of the problem. Besides, the attempt to find a common cause for these incommensurable sets of phenomena is a sin against the first principles of empiricism. The great rule of empirical induction is, that like effects indicate like causes. The converse of this proposition is, that irreducible difference in the effects indicates difference in the causes, and the attempt to unite them in one is a failure. It may be possible to other philosophies, but never to empiricism.

Of the numberless other points that have puzzled us we will mention only one. In the chapter on Causation, Mr. Fiske expressly teaches that causation is nothing but unconditional and invariable sequence. The notion that the antecedent exercises any controlling force whatever upon the consequent is distinctly repudiated. We have really labored to imagine what need there is of a fundamental reality in such a scheme For as every phenomenon is really independent of every other

* Vol. ii, part iii, chap. iv.

-a self-creation, in fact-there is no need to assume a fundamental reality for its support. Besides, if we assume such a fundamental reality, it can contribute nothing to the production of the phenomenon, being itself only one more powerless antecedent. Plainly, if we are to abide by this notion of causation, we can get along as well without this new antecedent as with it; and inasmuch as the sum of phenomena has no real causal connection with this reality, their existence can never be any reason for postulating it. The same difficulty returns when we read the chapter on freedom of the will. There Mr. Fiske finds himself called upon in the name of causation to reject the notion of freedom. There would seem to be some warrant for this, if a compelling external force controlled all volitions; but surely there need be no difficulty with the doctrine of freedom if every phenomenon, as well those of volition as of the outer world, is strictly independent of external control. We have never been able to see what possesses empirical philosophers, after denying the reality of interaction, to lug in the notion when they treat of mental phenomena. Upon their principles, there is no more reason for assuming uniformity in either the outer or inner world, than there is for assuming non-uniformity. There can be no à priori reasoning upon the subject; and if experience point to freedom of the will, they can consistently urge nothing against it. The solution of this mystery, as well as of many others in Mr. Fiske's exposition, must be left to posterity. Possibly, however, posterity will never hear of the work; and in that case the secret will probably be buried with its author.

Thus we have touched upon the principal peculiarities of the cosmic philosophy. It goes without saying that its sensational psychology cannot stand the strain which the system makes upon it. Pure sensationalisin undermines the possibility of science and system, and its legitimate outcome is nihilism. Whenever, therefore, any one attempts to build up a system on such principles, it is inevitable that he should contradict his own theory at every step. The cosmic philosophers are no exception to this rule, and their contradictions are more numerous and glaring than others in proportion as their system is more ambitious. But this lies in the nature of the case, as we said at the beginning, FOURTH SERIES, VOL. XXVIII.—43

and we may therefore pass the point in silence. The peculiarities of the system we find unsatisfactory enough. They are expressed throughout in an ambiguous language which gives one a high idea of the advantages of a judicious looseness of statement; but when forced to speak one tongue, they either destroy themselves, or sink to commonplaces. We have no doubt that Mr. Spencer and Mr. Fiske really think that they have furnished a higher and truer conception of the world than that given by theistic philosophy; but unfortunately the theology of the unknowable contains so many affronts to reason, and still worse, its logic is so partial or amphibious, that we doubt if the new doctrine will much advance the interests of either religion or science.

ART. VI.—THE HISTORY OF PROTESTANT MISSIONS IN INDIA.

The History of Protestant Missions in India, from their Commencement in 1706 to 1871. By Rev. M. A. SHERRING, M.A., LL.B., London. London: Trübner & Co., Ludgate Hill.

1875.

IT was the small but willing hand of Denmark that first laid hold of the long lever of the Gospel in attempting to raise to a better life the benighted millions of India. It was this "little one" of the Protestant nations of Europe that stepped forth to sow broadcast the good seed of the word in this rich but neglected field, belonging then, as it has since, chiefly to England. It seems marvelously strange now, with near a thousand foreign missionaries, occupying more than a thousand stations and substations of this great land, and representing various Churches in England, Scotland, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, Canada, the United States, and Australia, with the Gospel preached in every dialect and printed in every tongue; with Christian schools, colleges, orphanages, and hospitals scattered over the land; with India so near London (thanks to the energy of the French canalmaker) that the heir apparent of the throne of Great Britain makes a pleasure trip to and through it, traveling thousands of miles in his palace car, and speaking every morning by submarine cable with her Royal Highness the Princess of Wales at Windsor Castle; it seems very strange that with the East India Company holding the keys to this vast empire so many scores