Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/149

 136 NEW BOOKS, This little work, intended for schools and sure to find an entrance where the master is intelligent enough, is a most useful yet simple piece of applied logic, in the way of "synonymous discrimination". About a hundred and fifty important words are taken (in alphabetical order) and, in the light of certain clear principles of logical definition set out in a short Introduction (18 pp.), all the words of more or less closely related import are marked off in short and pithy phrase, followed by a copious collection of illustrative examples, chosen or made. The author in no way exaggerates the importance of such discipline for the youthful intellect. S. Austin and his place in the History of Christian Thought. (The Hulsean Lectures, 1885.) By W. CUNNINGHAM, B.D., Chaplain and Birkbeck Lecturer, Trinity College, Cambridge. London : C. J. Clay & Sons, 1886. Pp. xiii., 283. In these " Hulsean Lectures," partly theological and partly philosophi- cal, the author aims above all at bringing out S. Augustine's essential difference from Calvin, his theological and philosophical moderation gene- rally, and his special influence at all periods on the English Church. It is for this reason that he has used the older English form of the name ; finding in it a difference of "theological associations". After an Introduc- tion (pp. 1-18), the Lectures are divided as follows : (i.) " Truth and the Possibility of attaining it " ; (ii.) " The Origin of Evil and the Punishment of Sin" (The Manicha3ari Controversy); (iii.) "Human Freedom and the Divine Will " (The Pelagian Controversy) ; (iv.) " The Kingdom of God and the Means of Grace'" (Philosophy of History; the Donatist Contro- versy). There is an Appendix (pp. 137-278) containing "brief discussions of several important points which could not be conveniently treated within the limits of the lectures". After " Excursus G" of the Appendix comes a reprint of a tract on " The Doctrine of S. Austin concerning the Christian Sacrifice," by " a divine of the University of Cambridge, who is identified by Lethbury with a non-juring clergyman named George Smith" (pp. 199- 276). The Lectures are throughout copiously illustrated with passages from the father's works printed at length in the footnotes. In dealing with S. Augustine as a philosopher, the author first contends that he " states with extraordinary clearness the same proof of the possibility of indubitable certainty, which Descartes was to bring forth once again, when more than a thousand years had passed away " (p. 25), while his manner of applying it is superior even to Descartes' (pp. u9-41). He also " seems- to have anticipated Kant in proclaiming the true Freedom of the Will" (p. 105). Again, as regards Philosophy of History " we may turn from the grandest modern account of the evolution of human progress turn from Hegel himself to S. Austin and feel that the historical system of the ancient father is more perfect and complete " (p. 115). The author further contends, in passages of the Lectures and also in " Excursus A," that S. Augustine (besides being a psychological observer) devoted much attention to the observation of nature. Towards the non-experimental physical science of his day " his whole attitude is not unlike that in which a modern might speak of the methods of fourth century physicists " (p. 138). Of the rest of the Appendix, "Excursus B " ("S. Austin's Influence in the Middle Ages ") and " Excursus F " (" The Freedom of the Will ") are the most ex- pressly philosophical. The Development of Taste and other Studies in ^Esthetics. By W. PROUD- FOOT BEGG. Glasgow : James Maclehose & Sons, 1887. Pp. . xx., 392. The author's purpose in this book is not to deal with " the progress of