Page:The Journal of English and Germanic Philology Volume 18.djvu/299

 Reviews and Notes 293 call him a Sophist, on the ground that he taught without a sufficient basis of knowledge. In this charge it must be admit- ted that there is some justice. Perhaps the full implication that he was slipshod and careless about his knowledge and was bent rather on attaining certain personal ends than on making the truth prevail, can hardly be sustained. We may readily concede to him absolute honesty and sincerity. But the fact remains that he recklessly attacked the Pentateuchal discussions of Bishop Colenso, a man vastly better qualified than he to discuss the historical and antiquarian features of the Bible; and it is a safe guess that in writing about St. Paul he knew little more about the subject than any average well-read man. What he liked counted with him for a great deal. He was a poor logician, but he never seems to have learned of it. His argument for the Establishment tells heavily in favor of Rome; but the fact did not disturb him in the least. He demanded science from the men of science and religion from the men of religion; it never seems to have occurred to him to ask where he, neither a scientist nor a priest, came in, serenely branding all inconvenient passages in the Bible as " human perversions." There is in his books much that is true; but coming from Arnold, of whom we might have expected so much, these volumes are strangely unreliable. His poetry and some of his critical essays on books and authors will live long; for the ordinary world the rest of his work is as dead as a medieval romance. This, finally, raises a question about Professor Sherman's book. What is the function of such a work? Is it to be wholly uncritical and merely interpretative, or is it to inform us of how the world has judged the works in question? If it ought to be the latter, then the present book, in spite of its lucid summaries and its highly intelligent exposition,, must be pronounced not quite satisfactory. 6 Professor Alden has had an easier task than Professor Sher- man had, since Tennyson was never anything but a poet. Alden's work is both expository and critical. 7 He has succeeded, we think, in producing a guide to the study and appreciation of 6 Even with Professor Sherman's exposition one may sometimes venture to differ. He says, for example: "The 'divinity' of Christ is not in the least proved by prophecy or miracle; it is proved by the experience of those who have followed him and have done his will" (p. 300). Mr. Robertson came nearer the truth, we think, when he remarked ("Modern Humanists," p. 151): "The father [Thomas Arnold] believed in a personal God, in a personal Devil, in the divinity of Jesus, in miracles, and in a resurrection; the son believed in none of these things. " 7 The following typographical and other errors have been noted: Page 4, line 6, for "a hundred pounds" read "twenty pounds"; the author has confused pounds and dollars. P. 4, 1. 9 f.b., after "different," the word "from" must be