this sentence: "The will will will a will;" and in this sentence the first will and the last will are our critic's two wills. We framed the sentence in order to banish the latter use of the word from the language, and to secure our unequivocality we spell the noun Will throughout our volume with an initial capital. And now we confess that we shrink into utter discouragement and despair at being at last told by an eminent metaphysician in this year, 1880, that by Will we do not mean Will but the "action" of the Will.*

Our learned critic next takes issue with a statement imputed by him to us, and thus printed by him, as ours, in quotation marks: "The common sense of mankind recognizes morality in VOLITION alone." And on this he comments thus: "Volition is not the will itself, but an act of the will; and morality'-that is, moral properties--can properly be predicated, according to this theory, not of persons, nor of their characters, but only of their volitions. In himself Judas was no worse than his Master, only his volitions were worse; and when both were asleep, because their volitions had ceased, there was no more 'morality' about the one than the other."

Now it is with deep regret we say that the words above adduced by Dr. Curry, and marked as ours, are a false quotation; being falsified by omission of words essential to the real meaning. And, what is worse, the validity of his criticism is attained by the cutting out of words which, if retained, would have neutralized it. His criticism is valid only by scissors. Our words were, (the omitted words being italicized:) "The common sense of mankind recognizes morality primarily in volition [not capitalized in the original] alone, and not in mere perception, because it recognizes in volition alone non-necessitation." By his striking out primarily we are made to say what we neither say nor believe, namely: that morality is recognized in volition alone, unqualifiedly; whereas we imply a qualification by the primarily which we soon expand and explain secondarily on a following page, which we shall soon quote. The words and not in perception alone are carved out, so as to shut off the fact that morality is by us ascribed to

We are not sure that we rightly understand Dr. C. in attributing to him belief in a will-faculty. His fullest exposition of Will that we find is on pp. 193, 194, arriving at this conclusion: "To the soul thus revealed by its own exercises, in the dialect of philosophy, is given the name of WILL." But we suppose that this means "the soul," as endowed with the power of volition, the will-faculty. So that the will is the ego in volitionating. This is the only sense in which we use the word Will. See our "Will,” p. 22.

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the volitions alone, not in distinction from the "person" or acter," but in distinction from the other faculties. And the detruncation of the last member of the sentence shuts off the fact that the direct object of the sentence is not to show where the morality lies, but to show that it is the non-necessitation of the volition which renders it the subject of morality rather than the other faculties. And so, by use of scissors, we are monstrously made to teach that a man's bad volitions do not demoralize or inculpate his character! The inferences next drawn in his comment which follows from such an assumption are carefully moderate. Such an assumption would teach that Judas was as good as Jesus not only "when asleep," but when awake. The crucifiers on Calvary, in the very act, would be as good as He the Crucified; for neither their bad volitions nor his good ones would render them any worse or him any better. Is it possible for any man to believe that we teach such a monstrosity? Universally when men speak of a guilty act, an immoral volition, they mean that the free-agent himself is guilty and his character immoral.

But after this primarily in our chapter there follows (p. 387) a secondarily, in which it is subsidiarily shown that morality inheres not in "volitions alone," but to other psychological parts. The volitions may so modify "the intellections, emotions, and desires," as that they become responsible, for good or evil, and so the man "would be volitionally and morally responsible." The responsibility is expressly predicated of the man, since the volitions are truly the man himself in action. We add: "Even his automatic faculties would thence derive a sort of secondary responsible character." And we further add (as if to preclude all excuse for overlooking our words) in italics: “It is thus that a man's sensibilities, intellections, emotions, and beliefs become secondarily and consequentially responsible." When thus we see how it is, by cutting out and cutting off our words and sentences in this short chapter, that our critic makes a case against us, our readers may conclude that he handles a very dexterous, if not very scrupulous, pair of scissors.

But Dr. Curry's maintenance of the most explicit basal justification of necessitarian fatalism occurs on p. 223: "Moral worth is itself the ground of merit, regardless of the genesis of that characteristic of the soul." This maxim is, indeed, attributed by him to "many persons generally supposed to possess that characteristic of rationality," common sense. But he states it as a counter-position to ours, and as agreeable to what he calls his "very dull sense." The maxim means, if it means any thing to

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the purpose, that "merit," desert, responsibility, punishability, may justly exist in or upon any agent who is bad, regardless of the genesis of that badness, whether he became freely so by his own will, or by creation, birth, forced infusion, necessitated nature, or divine decree.

It means that God may make a man bad, and then damn him for being the bad he has made him. It means that an infant may be born bad, and damned for the badness in which he is born. And Dr. Curry's maxim is the very fundamental maxim on which Edwards bases his entire defense of the rightfulness of necessitated responsibility and punishability. To this maxim as stated by Edwards, pages 402-408 of our "Will" are a reply. We there quote the maxim as stated by Chalmers: "How the disposition got there is not the question, etc. It is enough... that the disposition is there." Edwards' form is: "The viciousness of an act of Will lies not in its cause, but in its own intrinsic nature." Hence it makes no difference as to responsibility whether it was necessitated or not. Our counter maxim is, that power to avoid the act is necessary to the merit or demerit of the act. Responsibility cannot be "regardless of genesis."

Again, Dr. Curry denies that there may be irresponsible wrong character or badness. Thus

If man is born with a moral character, of which one may correctly predicate such epithets as "wrong, sinful, depraved;" and if, as the result of this bad inheritance, he suffers many disadvantages, both temporal and spiritual, as confessedly he does, there does surely seem to be a kind of responsibility for that which we are told "is no fault of his own till fully appropriated by the act of his own free will." Could I trust my own apprehensions in these deep things I should suspect that the learned essayist is not entirely self-consistent. How there can be all forms and relations of sin without "just moral condemnality," is indeed beyond my powers of conception. If there are moral qualities and relations they must be judged by the divine law, and if there is found in them no cause of condemnation they must be approved; and so the law must approve of "disconformity to the law."

That is, however, caused, created, born, shaped, or necessitated, the evil quality is responsible and punishable. No power otherwise in the being, no alternative will, is necessary. We will here only say that as Dr. C. has publicly, and no doubt sincerely, rejoiced in and boasted of being the pupil of Dr. Wilbur Fisk, we quote Dr. Fisk's own language on that point:

We believe that the merits of the atonement are so available for and in behalf of the whole human family, that the guilt of depravity is not imputed to the subject of it until, by intelligent volition, he makes the guilt his own by resisting and rejecting the grace of the Gospel.

And again:

If the Creator should give existence to an intelligent being, and infuse into his created nature the elements of unrighteousness, and give to his faculties an irresistible bias to sin, and all this without providing a remedy, or a way for escape, then, indeed, all our notions of justice would decide that such a being ought not to be held responsible. But this is not the case with any of the sinful beings of God's moral government. Not of the fallen angels, for they had original power to stand, but abused it and fell; not of fallen man, for in the first place his is Lot a created depravity; but, in the case of Adam, it was contracted by voluntary transgression when he had power to stand; and in case of his posterity, it is derived and propagated in the ordinary course of generation; and in the second place, a remedy is provided which meets the exigencies of man's moral condition, at the very commencement of his being. This it does by graciously preventing imputation of guilt until man is capable of an intelligent survey of his moral condition. . . . And when man becomes capable of moral action, this same gracious remedy is suited to remove his native depravity, and to justify him from the guilt of actual transgression. . . . If the character and conduct of a being are not now and never have been avoidable, then, indeed, he ought not to have guilt imputed to him.

And this last extract may show our good doctor how persistently he misunderstands the doctrine of both Dr. F. and our chapter and book. We do not affirm that the badness is "approved" either by God or the law; we say that it is not held RESPONSIBLE. Our whole chapter by its very title and argument tries to show that the purely "automatic" excludes "desert," that is of penalty or just reward. And this, the very fundamental distinction, Dr. Curry ignores, blurs, and blunders over, sometimes assuming that we do not admit the automatic to be proper subject, as we constantly affirm it is, of love and admiration, and at other times himself maintaining that the "automatic " is justly responsible; which is necessitarian Calvinism. A watch or a living agent, we maintain, may be even ethically admired, (for a true watch tells the truth,) approved and petted; but has no moral "desert," is not responsible, cannot be rewarded or punished; and that simple truth, the very A B C of Arminian theology, Dr. Curry professes that he cannot understand.

And now, in conclusion, we cannot but most earnestly counsel the author in future editions to strike this chapter from this book; a chapter which increases neither the value of the volume nor the reputation of its author.

And this, our notice, is written in kindly personal feeling toward our friend of long years, for the purposes, first, of making clear to him why many of his best friends have entertained those impressions of which he publicly complains, that he "leaned too much to Calvinism;" and, second, to guard our Wesleyan-Arminianism from being held to be truly represented in Dr. Curry's two volumes, in consequence of their being published at our two houses.

The Origin and Growth of Religion as Illustrated by the Religion of Ancient Egypt. By P. LE PAGE RENOUF. [The Hibbert Lectures for 1879.] Small 12mo., pp. 270. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1880. $1 50.

The Hibbert Lectures were established for the purpose of enabling the "Broad Church," of the School of Max Müller, Dean Stanley, and Renouf, to give their expositions to the public. The central principle of this school is implied in the above title of the book, which assumes that religion is a natural "growth" of the human mind, rather springing up from the depths of our nature than coming down from God to our receptive will. With these thinkers all religion is natural religion; yet for that reason in its vital elements truly authentic; and, in fact, as implanted by the divinity in our nature, indirectly divinely derived. This is the religion of Intuitionalism, deriving its principles from the intuitions of our race as studied in the intellective and moral phases of human history and in the depths of our individual consciousness. The leaders of this school are men of genius, research, and earnest aspiration after truth. For the Christian student their works are worthy of discriminating study. They adopt Christianity, indeed, only as far forth as that religion comes within the range of their intuitionality. And we so far accord with them as to affirm that whatever dogma can be brought into absolute contradiction with the intuitive and axiomatic truth must be false. Revelation may disclose truths which our intuitive faculties could never discover, but can never authenticate doctrines which our intuitions positively contradict.

The present volume consists of six chapters. The first chapter gives a very interesting popular history of the discovery of the true nature of the Egyptian inscriptions by the genius of Champollion, and the investigations and disclosures made by a faithful school of followers. The second chapter essays to verify the correctness and general reliability of the antiquity of Egyptian civilization as recorded on the monuments and papyri. The third pictures to us the gods of Egypt as many, yet One. The fourth gives the Egyptians' various views of their relations and intercourses with the unseen world, by apparitions, dreams, possession, etc. The last two discuss the great Egyptian Bible, "The Book of the Dead," and other sacred records, with the doctrines they reveal. The whole work is written in a lucid and popular style, and, whatever we may think of some of its dicta given as conclusions, its facts and premises are full of interest to the Christian biblicist and theologian.

If human religions are a "growth," the example of Egypt sug