by generous treatment, after defeat, must be rendered permanently harmless. It is not the levelling of the French fortresses on the east frontier of France, but their cession that can alone be of service to us."

The book is full of reports of what was said and done at Bismarck's quarters from the beginning to the end of the war; the conference with Jules Favre at Ferrières; the negotiations at Versailles which led to the treaties with the South German States, the proclamation of the German Emperor and Empire, the surrender of Paris, and the settlement of the conditions of peace. The German Chancellor would not be likely to employ for months, at such a period, an incompetent person. We see no evidence that the head of the officer thus employed was turned; or that he puts forward any pretensions to high social position. He represents himself throughout only as a trusted subordinatebut he had eyes, and ears, and he has given us in this book the results of the use he made of them.

GLEANINGS OF PAST YEARS.*-Mr. Charles Scribner's Sons have commenced a republication of a selection of the most valuable of the Articles which Mr. Gladstone has contributed, during the past forty years, to the different Reviews of the day. The series, we believe, is to extend to six or seven volumes. Two of themduodecimos of about three hundred pages each-have already appeared; and a glance even at the titles of the subjects which are discussed, cannot fail to awaken surprise at the versatility of the genius of the late British premier. Mr. Gladstone, as a party leader, and as a statesman, has been during a long life in the very thick of the fight; and his reputation, as a parliamentary orator, during all this period, has been second to that of no other man. But as becomes one who at Oxford carried off the honors of a "double first," he has never lost the tastes of a scholar, and as an author, has distinguished himself by his contributions in almost every field of literary investigation.

The first volume is made up of Papers which relate to the Throne, the Prince Consort, the Cabinet, and the Constitution. The discussions embodied in them have by no means lost their interest, and have a present value; among other things, for the light which they throw on the past policy of England in regard to Turkey; and the origin of the "imperial policy" which is now

* Gleanings of Past Years, 1844-1878. By the Right Hon. W. E. GLADSTONE, M. P. Two vols. 12mo. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 248, 363.

so manifestly in the ascendant in British counsels. The volume closes with the recent Article in the North American Review, "Kin Beyond Sea."

In the second volume, the versatility of Mr. Gladstone, of which we have spoken, is especially manifest. The first paper is a Review written in 1845, of the autobiography of that interesting pupil of the Spanish Jesuits, Blanco White, who passed through so many phases of religious belief, and was regarded for a time with so much interest in England.

This is followed by a learned criticism of the writings of the Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi; and other Papers follow on Tennyson, Wedgwood, Bishop Patteson, Macaulay, and Norman McLeod.

The reviews of Mr. Gladstone, even the oldest, have this characteristic, that whatever his theme, he finds opportunities suggested for the discussion of questions of general and lasting interest with regard to which he has always something fresh to communicate. For instance, the subject may be trite, but speaking of the effect which the study of pagan antiquity, under peculiar circumstances, had upon Leopardi, leading to his abandonment of all religious faith, he says "the question of the effect of such studies is too nearly related to the dearest interests of England, whose choicest youths are trained almost from infancy to read and digest both the thoughts and the diction of Latin and Greek authors to be dismissed without notice;" and he proceeds to give his reasons for holding the opinion that with the powerful correctives which Christian studies supply when carried on in connection with them, as is the custom in England, there is no danger. In the review of the memoir of Norman McLeod his statement of the difficulties with which the clergyman of these days has to contend, shows that the whole subject has received his careful consideration. He says the problem is how, in the face of the press, the tribune, the exchange, the club, the multiplied solicitations of modern life, to awaken in full the dormant powers of the pulpit, which though it has lost its exclusive privileges, has not in the least degree abated the grandeur of its function, and is as able as it ever was manfully to compete for and largely to share in the command of the human spirit and of the life it rules." We believe that this is the first time that a collection has been made of the writings of Mr. Gladstone.

FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.*-Rumor says that this anonymous poem comes from the pen of a professor of mathematics in a New England college, in which the taste for literature has always been conspicuous. Whether or not rumor is to be credited as uttering the truth, the poem itself is a gem, elaborately polished, indeed now and then revealing the mathematical lines too sharply, but often flashing with the reflections of poetic genius. We quote the following and commend the volume to our readers:

"Full oft the perfect gift of happy days,

That dazzling pass as stars across our sky,
Is the sweet after-thought, that still delays
When low the stars 'neath the horizon lie,
And all the tumult of our joy 's gone by.

Below the world's far edge dips from our view
The Sun, but leaves behind his softest hue."

BUTLER'S LECTURES ON THE HISTORY OF ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY.-Butler's Lectures on the history of Ancient Philosophy were warmly commended by us when they were first reprinted in this country, and we are gratified to find that the Messrs. Carter & Brothers are introducing them a second time to the public. We can only reaffirm the words in which we expressed our very high estimate of their value, and would add, that notwithstanding the very considerable contributions to the history of Ancient Philosophy which have been brought within the reach of the English reader, these Lectures, for their combination of eloquent illustration with exact knowledge, are the most useful introduction to the study of Ancient Philosophy.

MÜLLER ON THE ORIGIN AND GROWTH OF RELIGION.-This is the first series of the "Hibbert Lectures," which are courses of lectures to be given in successive years 66 on the various historical religions of the world." In this volume the lecturer gives his A Poem. By A. S. H. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippin

*Francesca of Rimini. cott & Co. 1878. 46 pp. + Lectures on the History of Ancient Philosophy. By WILLIAM ARCHER BUTLER, M. A., late Professor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Dublin. Edited from the Author's MSS. with Notes, by William Hepworth Thompson, M.A., Fellow of Trinity College, etc. In two volumes. New York: Robert Carter & Brothers. 1879.

Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Religions of India; delivered in the Chapter House, Westminster Abbey, in April, May, and June, 1878. By F. MAX MÜLLER, M.A. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1879. xvi and 382 pp.

theory of the historical origin and growth of religion and supports and illustrates it by a study of the early religion of India.

In the first lecture, he criticises several well-known definitions of religion, and concludes that because religion "has passed and is still passing through an historical evolution," "it is imposssible to give a definition that should be applicable to all that has ever been called religion." "What is possible is to give some specific characteristic which distinguishes the objects of the religious consciousness from all other objects," and distinguishes the religious consciousness itself "from our consciousness when dealing with other objects." This characteristic he supposes to be the apprehension of the infinite, though under different names and disguises. Assuming the position of the skeptic that all consciousness begins in sensuous perception, and that there is nothing in intelligence or in faith which has not first been in the sense, he claims "without any fear of contradiction that it is man's senses which give him the first impression of infinite things and supply him in the end with an intimation of the infinite." 'Begin with a man living on high mountains, or in a vast plain, or on a coral island. . . . surrounded by the ocean, and screened above by the unfathomable blue of the sky; and we shall then understand how, from the images thrown upon him by the senses, some idea of the infinite would arise in his mind, earlier even than the concept of the finite, and would form the omnipresent background of the faintly dotted picture of his monotonous life." "If I differ from Kant, it is only in going a step beyond him. With him the supersensuous or the infinite would be a mere Noumenon, not a Phainomenon. I maintain that before it becomes a Noumenon it is an Aistheton, though not a Phainomenon.” He modifies his definition of religion given in his "Introduction to the Science of Religion." He seems hardly to hold the same belief throughout this lecture. On one page he says: "To admit faith as a separate religious faculty, or theistic instinct, in order to explain religion as a fact, would be a mere playing with words." another page he says: "Faith is simply another development of sensuous perception quite as much as reason is." This development "is possible under certain conditions, and these conditions correspond to what we call the potential energy of faith. Without this third potential energy" (sense and reason are the first two) "the facts which are before us in religion seem to me inex

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plicable." The difference between a third "faculty," and a third "potential energy necessary to the development of sense into faith," hardly justifies the emphatic antithesis in which he presents the two positions.

In the second lecture he refutes the theory that all religion had its origin in Fetichism. "How do these people when they have picked up their stone or shell, pick up at the same time the concept of a supernatural power, of spirit, of God, and of worship paid to an unseen being? If the fetich-worshiper brings us a stone and says it is his god, our question is the same: Where did you ever hear of God and what do you mean by such a name? It is curious to observe how little this difficulty seems to have been felt by writers on ancient religion." He also refutes the theory by facts, showing that fetich-worshipers in Africa have higher ideas of God than many polytheists--ideas in some cases closely approximating to monotheism. He adduces evidence from Waite (Anthropologie) and other careful investigators, "showing how the very tribes who were represented to us as living instances of fetich-worship, possessed religious ideas of a simplicity and, sometimes, of a sublimity such as we look for in vain even in Homer and Hesiod."

In the remaining five lectures he supports his theory of the origin and growth of religion by large citations from the ancient sacred writings of India. He divides sensible objects into three classes, the tangible, the semi-tangible, and the intangible. Tangible objects "can be touched all around." In these the savage man finds nothing unknown or unknowable. Semitangible objects can be touched, but not "touched all around;" trees, rivers, mountains, the sea. In these is something unknown and mysterious, carrying the mind out to the infinite. Intangible objects like the sun, moon, stars, the firmament, the thunder and lightning, are entirely beyond the reach of man, and especially waken wonder, and force on the mind the idea of the infinite. And thus is formed the idea of a God, above and beyond us, supersensuous, supernatural and infinite. "When man has once arrived at a stage of thought where he can call anything, be it one or many, god, he has achieved more than half his journey."

"The earliest form of religion among the Vedic Indians was Henotheism, that is a, belief and worship of those single objects, whether semi-tangible or intangible, in which man first suspected the presence of the invisible and infinite; each of which was raised