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 408 CEITICAL NOTICES: have really heard what the Idea (if I may be allowed to use a metaphor) has to say at least to the present generation of Germans or Englishmen. Even where Wallace does venture to express a thought which is not merely a criticism or an interpretation, he seems to be oppressed by a consciousness that even the least dogmatic of dogmas are destined to be swept away by the never ceasing dialectical movement. Even Hegelianism, even the last word that the last and least dogmatic prophet of Hegelianism may have uttered, is destined to be " transcended " to be transcended so soon that it really seems hardly w r orth while to utter it. The result of this attitude of mind is that the Gifford Lectures on Natural Eeligion resemble rather a series of " Pensees " or a ''Journal Intime " than a systematic treatise; they would posi- tively gain in effectiveness if their discontinuity were marked by occasional rows of stars. It is scarcely possible to exaggerate their literary brilliancy, their penetration and suggestiveness, or the impression they give of the power, the imagination, the digested learning of the man. They often remind one of Amiel ; yet, with a stronger head and a stronger character than Amiel's, the rugged Scotchman lacks the pathetic lovableness of the ineffectual Genevan Professor. Wallace's thought too breathes a profound melancholy ; but he is too strong to appeal for our sympathy. Although averse to positive conclusions, it must not be supposed that Wallace shrunk from facing problems : he was not the man to take refuge in the subterfuges of metaphysical rhetoric. He saw that the issue that the plain man has to face " God or no God " was not to be evaded by vague protests against an " anthropo- morphic deity" on the one hand and vague talk about an under- lying Unity on the other. He puts the problem, and yet it is doubtful whether even in his own mind he gives a consistent and unvarying answer to it. We all know that among those who (whether they call themselves Hegelians or not) are content to use the language of Hegelianism upon the central problems of religious thought, there are to be found those who mean by that language much the same as the plain man means when he thinks of God as " a person or a spirit," and others who, ridiculing the idea of any other self-consciousness in the Universe besides the spirit of man, mean by "the Absolute" simply Nature as Nature must needs be understood by any one who knows what Metaphysic means. Wallace clearly belonged to neither of these classes. He attempted to steer a course midway between the two tendencies. If God was not to him a Person, he was not exactly a thing to be spoken of in the neuter. But beyond this it is scarcely possible to say much. Our author does little to help those who find such a position difficult or unintelligible. There is a continual oscilla- tion between the opposite tendencies. God is not a cause but he is " the life and thought and spirit of all causes," and yet there are things in the book which make us doubt whether " spirit " is to