use the balance pole of introspection while walking the crack of moral platitude and automatic reasoning. He crossed and recrossed the pedantic wire with such dexterity that the act became monotonous; the audience longed for a slit in the silk tights, or a sudden head-over-heels, or a sprain of the ankle, to give a human turn to the performance. But no incident of the kind ever occurred. The critic, like the poet, received the decorous applause of hands enveloped in white kids and throats incased in Victorian collars.

Arnold's narrowness is thus commented on:

His ideas of life were based on insular methods and customs. If he had spent five years of his youth in France and Germany, and five years more in America, he would have seen the world in a truer light. He knew no more of the world and its ways than he knew of psychology. He visited America when he was too old to receive any practical benefit from his visit. The academical seal was burned into his youth by a fiery discipline. With classicism on one hand, and a stiff-necked mechanical age on the other, it is no wonder that he produced criticism without literary creation and poetry without passion. Writers who live under restraint never attain the supreme. The faintest idea of fear is enough to put a damper on the creative instinct. The fear of this or that school, this or that critic, this or that belief, puts out the fire of inspiration. Arnold imitated Wordsworth, and Wordsworth imitated Milton, but Milton imitated no one. The spirit of originality and fearlessness are one. Arnold lived at a time when preaching was not yet dead and modern psychology not yet born. It was not his fault that he knew so little of the world and human nature, but it will be our fault if we continue to accept his strictures and judgments as the pronouncements of a scientific or philosophic authority.

IN the Critical Review (London) for November, 1902, H. R. Mackintosh furnishes an excellent review of Personal Idealism, a volume of philosophical essays by eight members of the University of Oxford, approving especially Dr. Rashdall's striking essay on "Personality, Human and Divine," which is truly called the production of a masculine and penetrating mind, containing definite and reasoned conclusions presented with incisiveness and force. His argument is regarded as having suffered somewhat from excessive condensation. His vindication of the reality of the Self is indeed “a powerful piece of writing." One of his conclusions is that "the Absolute is a society which includes God and all other spirits." The eight inspiring dissertations all face and move in the same direction as William James's The Will to Believe, and taken together make a fresh and forcible volume, exhibiting, as is said, "the unwearied vigor and progressive vitality of present-day philosophy" in England; and similar vigor is displayed in the activities of the foremost philosophic minds in American universities. Dr. Mackintosh quotes a recent saying of Professor William James's: "So long as we deal with the cosmic and the general, we deal only with the symbols of reality, but as soon as we deal with private and personal phenomena, as such, we deal with realities in the completest sense of the term.”

BOOK NOTICES.

RELIGION, THEOLOGY, AND BIBLICAL LITERATURE.

Babel and Bible. A Lecture on the Significance of Assyriological Research for Religion. Delivered before the German Emperor by Dr. FRIEDRICH DELITZSCH, Professor of Assyriology in the University of Berlin. Translated from the German by THOMAS J. MCCORMACK. Profusely illustrated. 8vo, pp. 66. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. Price, boards, 50 cents net.

The Creation Story of Genesis I. A Sumerian Theogony and Cosmogony by Dr. HUGO RADAU. 8vo, pp. 70. Chicago: The Open Court Publishing Company. Price, boards, 50 cents net.

When Austen Henry Layard and George Smith were busily engaged in utilizing the newly discovered and deciphered Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions all England was deeply stirred by the confirmations of the Old Testament Scriptures which they produced. From that day to this we have heard much of the importance of archæology to the Christian apologist, and in quite recent times a battle royal has been fought over the question as to whether archæology would be able to slay the dragon of Higher Criticism. But behold in these two small books specimens of a new kind of archæology-a kind of archæology which does not attack Higher Criticism but aids it; a kind of archæology which does not prove the overmastering value of the Old Testament, but which tends decidedly to minimize its value. The first of these two books is a lecture which Professor Friedrich Delitzsch delivered in the "Sengakademie" of Berlin, January 13, 1902, before a large audience, with William II, German emperor, personally present. The emperor was so profoundly impressed that he commanded Professor Delitzsch to repeat the lecture on February 1, 1902, in the Royal Palace in Berlin. The object of the lecture was to arouse interest in and secure subscriptions for the great excavations at Babylon which the Orient Society was then beginning. It was promptly printed in a cheap edition and also in an edition de luxe, illustrated by excellent half-tones, and printed on good paper. The English translation is printed in larger type and contains nearly all the illustrations of the German original (we miss only three unimportant pictures of the recent Babylonian excavations), and also some extra illustrations, not particularly well reproduced. The translation is well done, and the English reader has before him a reasonably good opportunity to learn exactly what Delitzsch said. So much for the externals; now come we to the root of the matter. Delitzsch begins inspiringly. He asks: "Why all this expense in ransacking to their uttermost depths the rubbish heaps of forgotten centuries, where we know neither treasures of gold nor of silver exist? . . . Whence, too, that constantly increasing interest, that burning enthusiasm, born of generous sacrifice, now being bestowed on both sides of the

Atlantic on the excavations of Babylonia and Assyria? One answer echoes to all these questions-one answer which, if not absolutely adequate, is yet largely the reason and consummation of it all: The Bible." That is perfectly just. But for the deep and earnest desire of men to see the Bible supported, or at least illustrated, these excavations would have ceased long ago. It is well to remind the world and also to remind independent scholars of that fact now and again. It has a bearing of importance on affairs even now. After his introduction Delitzsch proceeds to cite a number of instances in which the biblical narrative has received illustration and even confirmation. It is well done, as was to be expected, but there is nothing new or exciting in it. All these Assyrian parallels to the biblical history concerning Sargon and Sennacherib and Merodach-baladan have been told hundreds of times. We are glad to have them repeated. But they only fill a small part of the little book. Let us look at some other parts of it. To begin with Criticism, we may well observe that Delitzsch emphatically takes his stand with the exponents of the analysis of the Pentateuch into documents of varying dates. Thus he says: "These are facts which from the point of view of science are as immutable as rock, however stubbornly people on both sides of the Atlantic may close their eyes to them. When we remember that minds of the stamp of Luther and Melanchthon once contemptuously rejected the Copernican system of astronomy, we may be certain that the results of the scientific criticism of the Pentateuch will tarry long for recognition. Yet it is just as certain that some day they will be openly admitted." With such statements we have no quarrel at present. We quote the paragraph only to show how very different is Delitzsch in his attitude to criticism from a large number who continually assert that archæology will destroy Higher Criticism. It is well to have the attention called sharply to the fact that in almost every case criticism and archæology are neither enemies nor handmaids. The views of Delitzsch concerning the Pentateuchal analysis have been formed by a study of the critics and of the books of the Old Testament on which they have written. His views, in his own opinion, do not conflict with archæology. If the views are incorrect they can only be shown to be incorrect by direct attack on the arguments used by higher critics to establish their position. Archæology is useless for this purpose. It may be, and often is, useful in an attack upon certain extreme forms of historical criticism. For literary criticism it is useless. But we must get closer still in order to see the real significance of this little book of Delitzsch. On page 37 he says: "When the twelve tribes of Israel invaded the land of Canaan, they entered a country which belonged absolutely to the domain of Babylonian civilization." In that we can discern the keynote of the book. Delitzsch believes that nearly everything which for ages has been considered a part of Israel's own peculiar possession and contribution to the world was really derived from Babylonia. He be

gins with the Sabbath, and asserts that there can be "scarcely the shadow of a doubt that in the last resort we are indebted to this ancient nation on the banks of the Euphrates and the Tigris for the plenitude of blessings that flows from our day of Sabbath or Sunday rest." From this he proceeds point by point to show how first this and then that were derived from Babylonia. Finally he claims that the idea of God is Babylonian, and that the meaning of the old word El = god was originally "goal"-the goal of man's desires and hopes. And he asserts that this goal is one, and hence monotheism was a procession of the early Canaanites, "from whom the Israelites afterward sprang." He believes also that he has found in early Babylonian texts the words Ia-ah-ve-ilu and Ia-hu-um-ilu, which he translates, "Yahveh is God." If this be true even the divine name is Babylonian. What have we to say to this! Our reply is that we believe none of this extensive borrowing from Babylonia. We grant freely that the Old Testament does show some parallels with Babylonian literature and life, but we believe them to be comparatively few. The religion of Israel did not grow out of the Babylonian religion, but continually was opposed to it. Israel's monotheism did not come from Babylon. Delitzsch quotes the words "Yahveh is God" from an inscription of the Hammurabi period. But Hammurabi was a polytheist, and calls himself a favorite of Shamash and Marduk. His father was Sin-muballit, and Sin is the moon god, while his son was Shamshu-iluna, which means "the Sun is our god." As to the reading "Yahveh is God" we need only observe that it is too uncertain to be used to carry such tremendous consequences. It may just as well be translated "God may defend," if we read the words Ia-a'-mi-ilu. Or they may be read Ia-'a-me. Our only regret about the book is that Delitzsch wrote it. It gives far too much aid and comfort to a new school of wild criticism of which the talented Hugo Winckler is the chief exponent. The whole aim of Winckler at present seems to be to prove the utter dependence of Israel upon Babylon. The second of the books named above is written quite in Winckler's manner. Radau is an exceedingly ingenious and withal learned Assyriologist, whose book on Early Babylonian History we have already reviewed in this journal. His present venture is as learned as the former, and it is equally hard and technical reading. It is also disfigured by a sort of polemic that needs to be banished altogether from Assyriology. Here is a specimen of what we mean. He quotes a passage from Professor Hommel and then adds: "The nonsense that follows is too great to be reproduced here, and has, I suppose, been given up by Hommel himself." Radau is sorely mistaken if he thinks that this is either argument or reasoning or good manners. We freely admit that Hommel was wrong in the opinion quoted, but none the less was he worthy, by reason of his services to science, of respectful treatment. As to the main thesis of Radau's little book we can only say that it is too fanciful to be taken seriously.

Dr.

We are accustomed to learning every little while that Israel's cosmology was derived from Egyptian or Indian or Greek or even from Irish mythology. But we are too hardened to believe in any of them. Radau has found a few more interesting and ingenious parallels, and this is all. Let us conclude this notice, which has extended too far already, with the approving quotation of a few sane and sober words of wisdom from Professor Karl Budde: "Babylonian literature may swell up into infinity, but it will have nothing to equal our prophets, nor even the historical portions of our oldest sources. Grateful as we, the representatives of Old Testament science, are to the excavations for each new ray of light and every enlargement of the scope of ancient history, we do not feel that the time has come to let our beautiful village be swallowed up overnight, so to speak, by the metropolis of Babylon; much less are we inclined to ask for this incorporation ourselves."

The Grounds of Theistic and Christian Belief. By GEORGE PARK FISHER, D.D., LL.D., Emeritus Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale University. Pp. xxii and 460. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Price, cloth, $2.50.

Few theological writers have rendered more notable service to evangelical Christianity in this country than Professor Fisher, and this has been one of his most widely read and useful works. In this new edition the whole has been carefully rewritten, the order of treatment changed, important additions made, and an appendix of seventy-five pages added. The first three chapters discuss the grounds of theistic belief. Of especial interest is the elaborate treatment of the argument from design, especially as affected by the theory of evolution. The author quotes Professor Carpenter's apt statement, that "evolution simply transfers the notion of design and end from the region of facts to that of laws; that is, from the particular cases to the general plan" (p. 46). The old teleology argued from the single instance, the eye or the wing taken by itself showing evident purpose and demanding a creative mind as explanation. Evolution simply shows us creative intelligence working through a system of laws to secure gradually such ends. The strength of the teleological argument to-day is in the system. Nature, whether viewed in its present state or in its development, is a system of thoroughgoing purposefulness. Philosophical evolutionism proffers an explanation for the single instance. It has none for the system. Whether as philosophy or science, evolution must assume, as stock in trade to begin with, matter of a particular constitution, laws of this kind and the other, variability, heredity, and all the rest. It simply crowds the problem a little further back. And so we are driven to an intelligent world-ground, which so constituted matter and framed its laws as that a purposeful world should result. The strength of this work lies, however, in the discussion of the grounds of Christian belief. We note, first, a significant change in order from the former edition, by which the first place is given to