trary, that evolution can not proceed one step without God. The materialist may declare that evolution proceeds by material energy or force. The agnostic may say that we do not know and can not know. The theist identifies the universal Power and Intelligence, proceeding by universal laws, as the Being of whom men have had imperfect intuitions, of whom men have had inspirations." As to the bearing of evolution on religion, we are told: "There is a feeling that evolution is dangerous. The exaggeration of that feeling is that evolutionary philosophy comes as a whirlwind to destroy religion; on the contrary, it comes to restore and revive it. My friends, evolution will prove itself dangerous to the kind of religion which treats it in that way. The religion that seeks to stand on the ground of opposition to light, on the ground of resistance, will find itself more and more threatened and undermined by it." The evolution of the idea of immortality is also regarded as of the highest importance, as showing the consummation of the works of creation. Other special topics considered include the Bible as a record of religious gradual growth, "the problem of evil," the relations of evolution with Christianity and with special features and aspects of Christian faith, and its relations with social institutions and development. Finally, criticism, both higher and lower, and that of all shades and grades between, is declared really to have but the one purpose of coming at the abiding and the useful. The law of development being all-inclusive, "truth, sacred truth, must also have its course of development and progress. It can not long be contained in any statement or mass of statements. It increases by its own vitality and outgrows the most elaborate and finished form in which any age can put it. And, above all, religious truth is not stationary—a jewel cut and fashioned by skillful device; it is in the nature of seed, inclosing the elements of growth, else it is no vital truth. . .. The serious concern of all men ought to be to know the truth, and to commit themselves to it. Not to commit themselves to the uncertainties, but to the certainties. So far as they do that, they will have no fear of the thrashing process of criticism which comes at various periods, and has now come."
Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy. By F. Howard Collins, with a Preface by Herbert Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 571. Price, $2.50.
We have here an eminently useful idea carried out in a very satisfactory manner. Mr. Collins has undertaken the by no means inconsiderable labor of going over the ten published volumes of Mr. Spencer's system of philosophy and summarizing them page by page. As he states in the "Compiler's Preface," "The object of this volume is to give in a condensed form the general principles of Mr. Herbert Spencer's philosophy as far as possible in his original words. In order to carry out this intention, each section (§) has been reduced, with but few exceptions, to one tenth; the five thousand and more pages of the original being thus represented by a little over five hundred. The 'Epitome' consequently represents 'The Synthetic Philosophy' as it would be seen through a diminishing glass; the original proportion holding between all its varied parts." Mr. Collins has aimed to present every salient point, to omit no essential link in the argument by which the celebrated exponent of the doctrine of Evolution deduces the whole course of history and the laws that govern all nature, animate and inanimate, from certain fundamental postulates of the most abstract or at least of the most general kind. The first thing that strikes us is the severity of the test to which Mr. Spencer's philosophy has thus been subjected. Stripping off all externals and non-essentials, Mr. Collins has laid bare the very framework of the system. He has reduced the Synthetic Philosophy to a series of almost naked propositions, the connection or lack of connection of each of which with those that precede and follow can be seen at a glance. Opinions will doubtless differ as to the degree of logical coherence thus brought to light; but we must declare, for our own part, that we are impressed anew, not only with the wonderful grasp of Mr. Spencer's mind, but with the philosophic unity of his thought. The apostle of Evolution has afforded us, in his successive volumes and in the successive chapters of each volume, one of the most magnificent examples of evolution. The success with which he has developed his system speaks power-
