nation of deductions he supposes: and if there be such catenation of deductions, then he has written, not the work of Rules which he intended, but the work of Philosophy he disclaims.

"Still," it may be said, "this only shows that he described his first step in terms of Science, instead of the more applicable terms of Art: and that, from this cause, he may have aimed at the wrong kind of arrangement of internal parts in this preliminary work. But is not his main idea of order well-founded? must not art precede philosophy and did not Mensuration exist before Geometry?" Yes; but not books on Mensuration. The attempt to compute and compare spaces of different dimensions was certainly prior to any treatise on the properties of figure; the measurer's act to the geometer's thought: for in an analysis of this act did the said thought at first consist. And, in like manner, morality must exist in fact, deeds just and unjust must awaken their appropriate sentiments in men; before these sentiments can be made objects of self-consciousness, and be reflected on in relation to the causes that excite them. But, in either case,verbal lists and descriptions of the actions done, whether mensurative or moral, are by no means requisite to the origination and growth of science. It is the life of man as a voluntary agent, not any treatise on that life, which Ethical Philosophy undertakes to analyse.

One remark more will perhaps bring us to the source of suggestion, which supplied this unfortunate analogy. The "Philosophy of geometry," that is, the theory of mathematical evidence, is a psychological study: it is an examination of the procedure of the human understanding, when making or when communicating discoveries about quantity. The "Philosophy of Morality," that is, the theory of the sentiments of right and wrong, is also a psychological study: it is an examination of the procedure of the human conscience, when judging the springs of action and their results. From this resemblance of the two "philosophies,"-both dealing with the faculties of man, arose, no doubt, our author's impression, that they must hold corresponding positions on the spheres of knowledge to which they respectively belong. And so in truth they do only, let us observe, the thing studied by the

first of these "philosophies" is, man geometrically thinking; the thing studied in the second is, man morally acting.' The prerequisite of the one is geometrical thought; the prerequisite of the other is moral action. These are the human arts, the one intellectual, the other practical,which supply materials to the analytic skill of the philosophers undertaking their investigation. But between these two arts there is this difference: The practical one is an art simply, going straight among external conditions, and at a single step putting the Will in possession of its end. The intellectual one, on the other hand, is the art of constructing a science; the art of geometric thought is not hand-work, but head-work: the head-work must have taken place, the science must be formed, before the art which has wrought it can be examined. A science, an organized system of truths, cannot be formed without registering the successive steps as they succeed each other, in other words, without making a book: nor can we enable another person to examine our intellectual actions, to see how we perform them, if we do not record them in language. With practical processes it is evidently otherwise: they display themselves, and dispense with the medium of words. This is the reason why books on Geometry are prerequisites to a Philosophy of Geometry;" while books on Morality are not necessary to a " Philosophy of Morality." For these reasons we think that the analogy which Dr. Whewell has adopted as the corner-stone of his system is entirely unsound.

66

In treating this work of an eminent and able man, we have deliberately avoided the course which would have been most easy to ourselves, and, we fear, most agreeable to our readers. We might have given ourselves no concern about the way in which he lays out his subject; have slurred over the loose junctures between the parts; have lightly sped across the slippery logic; and stopped our breath till we were clear of the metaphysic fogs. There would have remained room enough, and more than enough, for a critical ramble through the particular moral and political tenets which characterise the book. The author's leaning towards the highest doctrines of authority, and the evident zest with which he propounds them, are remarkable even in a Churchman. Not Wolsey himself could CHRISTIAN TEACHER.-No. 30.

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find more magnificent pleas for state prerogatives; and scarcely Innocent, had he lived now, make grander claims for an exclusive Church. Passive obedience, or something which we cannot distinguish from it, is enjoined; no scope is allowed to individual Conscience in resistance to any law, however iniquitous. The governors of a country are to select One Church as the true one; to endow it with wealth and dignities; to entrust it with the education of the people; to limit all national offices to its members; to protect it by a law against "religious sedition." We should gladly have adverted to these symptomatic peculiarities of doctrine, and to some better things, equally earnest and hearty, especially the indignant severity with which Slavery is everywhere treated. But we thought it our duty to look rather into the structure of the book, on which its pretensions mainly rest, than into the details, which, unless the method be good, become a collection of unauthorised opinions. We shall watch the destination of this work with some anxiety. The author has distinguished himself, with some other members of his University, by his strictures on the moral studies entering into the Cambridge course. He occupies a position likely to give effect to his opinions. We do not profess to think that Locke, much less Paley, presents the best guidance to the young men of the present age into the domain of intellectual and moral philosophy. But we should be sorry to hear that the "Elements of Morality" had taken any portion of their place. The "Moral and Political Philosophy" at least starts courageously, and pursues with some freedom questions of civil right and religious liberty. And the "Essay on the Human Understanding" can never be read without giving clearer insight into the contents of the mental world within us, and a nobler ambition to devote the powers it reveals to the fearless pursuit of truth and the free service of God.

ART. V.-DIFFERENT VIEWS OF THE

ATONEMENT.

Of the Moral Principle of the Atonement: also of Faith; and of its two Sorts, Conviction and Confidence, and of the connection between them. By the Rev. JOHN PENROSE, M.A., formerly of Corpus Christi College, Oxford; author of the Bampton Lecture Sermons for 1808, &c. London: Fellowes, 1843, pp. 494.

Lectures on the Scripture Doctrine of Atonement, or of Reconciliation through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. By the late LANT CARPENTER, LL.D. London: Green, 1843, pp. 234.

We have here two of the latest productions on the subject of the Atonement, proceeding from Divines of a very different school-one, a clergyman of the Establishment, the other, an Unitarian Minister-and yet exhibiting in their general conclusions no great or irreconcileable discrepancy from each other. The work of Mr. Penrose is evidently the result of long, patient, and anxious thought, and expresses throughout a spirit of candour and conscientiousness, which deserves the highest praise. Every page discovers the earnest wish of the author to treat all opposed to him with perfect fairness, and to do justice to the honest varieties of religious opinion. Indeed, his dread of over-statement and misrepresentation renders him at times scrupulous to a fault. When he has been encountering some view with great show of reason, we often find him-to disarm hostility-willing, after all, to concede that it may be true, though questioning the propriety of insisting upon it, if not positively taught in Scripture. This excess of caution seems to spring from the natural reverence of a gentle and affectionate spirit for the forms of thought, in which the system of Christian doctrine had been first made familiar to it: and in no respect is the book of Mr. Penrose more interesting, or, psychologically considered, more instructive, than as exhibiting the difficulty with which even earnest and truthful minds overcome

the bias of early education, and the efforts they will make, to force it into agreement with the impressible suggestions of their moral nature, and to find out some sense in which they may still receive the language of established formularies of opinions as true. The learning of Mr. Penrose is extensive, but never ostentatiously displayed. His favourite maxim of interpretation is to acquiesce, without aspiring to be wise above what is written, in the simple statements of Scripture-a principle which is more specious than sound, and rather causes difficulties than solves them; since the ideas, no less than the words, of ancient writers, to become intelligible—especially on abstract and spiritual themes-often require translation into some equivalent expression of our modern theories. To us, we must confess, our author's Scripturalism appears to exceed all reasonable bounds. With many satisfactory and well-reasoned passages, and an admirable tone of feeling pervading every part of it-the work, as a whole, wants compactness and unity. The observations on the same point, instead of being gathered up into one view, are dispersed and desultory; and the various parts of the argument lose much of their force and coherence from not being exhibited in a clear and well-digested method. There is an absence of scientific order and distinctness in the distribution of its materials, which makes the book almost painful to read; and in the language, too, we notice occasionally a similar deficiency of perspicuity and precision. Some of these defects may not be unconnected with the moral qualities of the author's mind-his meekness and caution, and religious apprehension of giving unnecessary offence, and would probably disappear under the influence of a bolder, more decisive and less scrupulous judgment.

The result of his investigation of the doctrine of the Atonement may be thus stated:-that the work of the Gospel is purely moral—to turn men from sin to righte

* As when, for example, in his Preface, p. ix., he regards the exemption of the New Testament writers from any error, even in the mere argumentation, rightly interpreted, of what they say'-to be 'scarcely anything less than a demonstration of the absolute truth of the doctrines which they affirm.' And yet, with his usual aversion from absolute decision, he qualifies this assertion of the infallibility of the apostolic penman, both in his text and in a note, by admitting the possibility of an exception to it.