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May 12, I860.] The Leader and Saturday A...
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MR. GILFILLAN'S THEOLOGY.* T HE reputati...
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* Alpha and Omeqa; or, a Serins of Sorip...
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HABITS AND THEIR WEAKNESS.* MTJSTG1LPIN,...
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• La. Via do Plaisir. Tar Paul Foochhr. ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Popular Physiology* Mr Lewes's " Physiol...
incident is able to produce . Having arrived at a " sensation * quite different from that contemplated by Mr . JV S . Mill , Mr . Lewes claims for each ganglion the . ability to give rise to sensations , and observes , —" when a wasp is cut in two both halves live , and manifest sensibility ( if we assume a wasp ever manifests it , and is not a mere machine ) during three or four days . If yon irritate one half— -the head , it will bite : if you irritate the other half—the tail , it jvill sting . " In another place he describes experiments with a triton , whose brain was removed , and claims for the movements of this and similarly situated creatures both " spontaneity and choice , " ' sensibility and volition . " In the case of another triton , whose spine was divided , he supposes the same qualities to have been exercised by the posterior portion . The cases cited by Mr . Lewes , no doubt , present great difficulties , but his own theories rather add to than remove them . The subject is worth the attention of a profonnd physiologist , and cannot be treated with advantage in a few chapters of a popular work .
May 12, I860.] The Leader And Saturday A...
May 12 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 451
Mr. Gilfillan's Theology.* T He Reputati...
MR . GILFILLAN'S THEOLOGY . * T HE reputation of Mr . Gilfillan as an eloquent writer and ambitious critic stands so high , that any work from his pen must excite more than ordinary interest : when that work combines ,, with a flowery and enthusiastic style , what is evidently intended to be an entire system of Christian theology , it ought to command the Berious attention of thinkers . We have , therefore , set ourselves to the earnest study of the two volumes before us ; and if we rise from our task not altogether satisfied , it is with regret that we are compelled to withhold our unqualified approbation from a work of great talent , but more showy than profound . attraction for
The poetical aspects of religion have evidently more ¦ Mr . Gilfillan than the philosophical . None the less , however , does he seek the peculiar topics that belong to the latter . The introductory section is headed , " The solitary God inhabiting Eternity /' Here he proposes to contemplate the Deity , " stripped of his garment of suns , '' and as prior to creation ; He desires to separate his view from the Pantheistic one , ; but we soon find that he starts with an erroneous notion of Eternity . He thinks of it , and speaks of it , as if it were Time , and assumes successive periods with an ease which is positively alarming . He boldly says , " Enough if it ; be conceded that there was a period when as yet no creative fiat "had gone forth ; " more than enough , and no danger of Pantheism axiom which
either . Does not Mr . Gilfillan recollect the important Coleridge has announced in his a Friend P" " The very words-There is nothing ! or—There was a time when there was nothing ! are self-contradictory . There is that within us which repels the proposition with as full and instantaneous a light as if it bore evidence against the fact in the right of its . awn eternity . " Mr . Gilfillan does not see this self-contradiction . Is it not possible for him to consider Eternity as a state , . and get rid altogether of the notion of periods and times ? . Can . lie not rise to the Hebrew abstraction of " The beginning , " and then identify it with "The Eternal ? " Can he not then find the Eternal in his own self-consciousness as the mode of self-perception , and the especial law of his conscience ? If he cannot do this , then he must needs multiply words without knowledge . —ia ~ £ Ke ~ T > ivln ^ " ^ irutre ~ MTt ^^
• o mpanionship ; first , in the Three Persons , and secondly , in the Platonic " ideas , plans , purposes , foresights , " with which that solitude was peopled . It is evident that Mr . Gilfillan does not seo what he admits by this , and has not conceived how , that these ideas are in themselves creative , and already the realities of which timehistory is but the shadow . He refunds them all into the faculty of Divino prescience , and passes them all in review with much graphic power and dramatic effect . Wo have , indeed , rather too much of the orator aud too little of the-logician . The chief companion of the Solitary Deity is , according to him , the Logos ; and he cites in proof Solomon ' s affirmation of Wisdom . Now , we know there are divines who have thus confounded the Logos with Wisdom ;
but the Scriptural distinction is as sharply drawn as tho philosophical . The Logos is expressly the intelligence that enlightens every man that comes into the world , however latent it may romnin j but Wisdom is the power that instructs the select few , in whom that intelligence is developed , and who constitute the Church . AH Others constitute the world . The Hebrew writers , apocryphal and canonical , agroo in adding to the Divino Triad this fourth personage , " Who was set up from everlasting , from the beginning , ere ever the earth was . " And without this wisdom , or aelf-lmowledge , it would be indeed impossible to recogijise the Triad itself , winch is but the living formula of the Divino Intelligence . We regret to find , in the very first section of Mr . Gilfillan s book , admix
ao much of arbitrary nnd needless assumption , with such an - ture of contradictory propositions , ns if , by a hopeless eclecticism , truth would best appear as the result of their conflict . To escape from Puntheism no such violence , no such confusion , is needed . Nothing is wanted but a Socratie method , involving a careful dohnition of Eternity , and a no less careful distinction between thnig-s yrluch , though not ordinarily separate in sensible exporionoe , are not identical in essence . Mr . Gilfillun next proceeds to tho Fnll of tho Angela , and adopts the narrative of Milton ' s " Paradise Lost , " as if it were the same with tho biblical statotnent , which competent critics know it is not . The revolt and expulsion of the angels described in the Apocalypse
is dated at the time of the Messiah ' s ascension into heaven ; and Milton , with the mystics whom he followed , were in error in placing the grand celestial battle before creation , and supposing that the second verse of Genesis described a chaotic state of the earth as its consequence . All this , it has been proved , is merely fantastic assumption , and has no warranty-in the " 'Scriptures , critically'interpreted . The Satan of the Old Testament is merely a tempter and a seducer of women , not a warrior . On the origin of evil , indeed , Mr . Gilfillan is confessedly heretical . " Manicheeism , " he says , " is not the truth , but it is nearer the truth than those theories which maJce God the author of sin . " Evil came from some other " quarter , " is the undignified phrase by which Mr . Gilfillan announces his belief in a second Creator , who introduced " a new thing into the universe . "
We must leave Mr . Gilfillan to fight this battle out with more orthodox commentators , and particularly with the prophet Isaiah , who strenuously affirms all that Mr . Gilfillan denies . We now come to his doctrine of Creation , which , as we have seen , he makes to take place in Time , and not in Eternity ; suspecting that , by the latter assumption , the eternity of matter is implied . Here , again , is an error arising purely from the want of definition . What is matter ? or rather what is meant by the term ? Is it the phenomenal that is intended , or the substantial ? The former is but temporary sensation , the latter is a spiritual being . Mr . Gilfillan would not like this
to have urged home upon him the conclusion to which error naturally leads . He would not like to be convinced what a thoroughgoing and exclusive Materialist he really is . But such physical views of theological altitudes necessarily lead to the grossest materialism and the most degrading superstition . Mr . Gilfillan's private belief comprises itself in this : — " The gradual creative work occupied the Creator for Millions of ages . This we gather not from the Bible , but from the discoveries of geology . " Surely "here is a candid confession ; but we have yet to learn that theology and geology are identified . For our own part , we believe that the Mosaic cosmogony and the discoveries of the geologist have no
relation whatever . . . _ At length j Mr . Gilfillan delivers himself from his geological reveries , and appeals to Scripture . Man , he boldly says , " whs not the child of Development , but the son of God . « Adanvsays Luke , ' was the ^ son of God . '" From this point we have fewer objections-to make to Mr . Gilfillan ' s reasonings . When no ^ longer meddling with transcendental topics he is clear and lucid , and threads his way , as might have been expected , through the poetic and imao-iiiative portions of Scripture with a true and sympathetic value the ot
appreciation . He appreciates at its just immortality the soul ; he appreciates the dignity of human intelligence , the excellence of its origin , and the wonderful phases of its progress . He appreciates the end and purpose of creation and respects the sense of beauty in the mind . This he seeks to gratify by all the graces of a rich and picturesque style . No metaphysician , but a fine orator ; when once we get over the difficulties of the opening sections , we know no reading more fascinating than that which Mr . Gilfillan has provided in these volumes .
* Alpha And Omeqa; Or, A Serins Of Sorip...
* Alpha and Omeqa ; or , a Serins of Soripturo Studies . By GEORCjK QihvihUAX , Minister of tho Goapol , Dundoo . Two vela . Arthur Hull , Virtue , and Oo .
Habits And Their Weakness.* Mtjstg1lpin,...
HABITS AND THEIR WEAKNESS . * MTJSTG 1 LPIN , when about ~ rp - s ^ et"OTit ^ Trher-evei--memovabl ^ excursion , notwithstanding the enormous excitement natural on such an occasion , would not allow it to divert the usual course of domestic economy , and as her chronicler informs us , " though she was on pleasure bent she had a frugal mind . " In this respect the female Gilpiu seems to us to have been an exception to the rule , for though it is true that habit is second nature , yet this second nature is far from being ineradicable , and , in spite of Cowpev s heroine , most commonly any unexpected incident which changes even for a time only surrounding circumstances , throws the second nature into the background , and brings out the undisputed power
of the first . For example , the teacher of philosophy in MohSre s comedy , who had probably lived in a purely speculative atmosphere hitherto , and whose habits were proportionately pacific , after boasting that the true sage is above all insults that may be offered to him , and ought only to answer them by moderation and patience , m a few moments becomes so exasperated by the presumption of the fencing-master in comparing the sword-exercisa with the science ot Wisdom , that moderation and pattenco are interpreted and illustrated by a vigorous physical onslaught . The supposed second nature , whose weakness had never been suspected , on a slight i ielded at once to the old Adam , / rhero is a difference
howpque , _ y ever , between the frailty of physical and moral habits ; the former are much more difficult to overthrow by a sudden attack than the hitter , though they surrender in less time when the siege is deliberate nnd acknowledged . A startling rise or full in life , or some striking evont in our own immediate sphere , will seldom ol" » ng « ' » physical , or , as we may call it , a mechanical habit , whilst the moral constitution mny be revolutionized at a "low- A -Lu-enctt footmuu who hud made an enormous fortune in Law ' s Bank witum « w * Mr lAftf no time in ' -fretting a fine carnago , and lor a . long
time , whenever it was brought to tho door , ho ^ could not resist the force of life-long custom , nnd leapt with professional agility on to tho epring-boarS behind . -La Trappe , the founder of tho austere sect of the Trappists , was in his youth a reckless profligate , but the sudden death oP « l"dy to whom le was betrothed at-once convulsed his whole moral stnte , and from being tho gayest he became . the severest of men . We might cite Luther and a hundred other in-
• La. Via Do Plaisir. Tar Paul Foochhr. ...
• La . Via do Plaisir . Tar Paul Foochhr . Pwia : LC-yy , 1860 .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 12, 1860, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_12051860/page/15/
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