THE COLLAPSE OF SCIENTIFIC ATHEISM. By J. M. Winn, M.D., M.R.C.S. London: David Bogue. Pp. 36.

1880.

THIS interesting pamphlet, one of several by the same author, on the doctrines propounded by Professors Huxley and Tyndall, and by Mr. Darwin and others, is a very able reply to some of the principal arguments and theories of scientific sceptics. Dr. Winn is no tyro in this matter. He has given prolonged and anxious consideration to it; and his professional status and acknowledged ability, specially in relation to mind, its functions and disorders, entitle his statements to respectful consideration. We could have wished that he had allowed himself ampler space for the discussion of the facts which he adduces (for he is thoroughly well-informed on the subject of which he treats), since the general reader, whose information is necessarily limited, would be greatly assisted by an extended illustration of the arguments to a clearer apprehension of their validity and force. Dr. Winn, moreover, is a firm and devout believer in Divine revelation.

There are certain axioms about which reasonable people have no doubt—as, for example, that there can be no laws without a law-giver, and no effect without a cause. Now, all scientific atheists admit that the universe is regulated by laws, but, by a strange perversion of reasoning, they ignore a Law-giver. They also deny a superintending Providence. In maintaining this latter opinion they are perfectly consistent, since, as they would have it, laws once

put in force can go on doing their work by themselves. But what becomes of the power which first called them forth? Does that cease to act at the moment they begin to operate? Selforiginated and self-acting law appears to us both an absurdity and a contradiction.

The universe is often spoken of as a vast machine whose wheels revolve with the utmost precision. Is it incredible that, if any engine of human construction requires constant and careful supervision, this world and all other worlds, whose movements are so vast and yet so regular, are governed "by a Being of infinite intelligence and power"? "We would be the last," says Dr. Winn, "to limit the power of the Creator; and it is quite conceivable, as has been often suggested, that the machinery of the universe was created in such a manner that it could go on without further help. It is an authenticated fact* that there is a constant dissipation of energy from the sun; that its heat is constantly passing away into space, and no compensation has yet been discovered. Who can restore this lost energy save He who first called it forth? But the Positivists believe the so-called physical energies now in operation on the earth are allsufficient, and do not need a constant renewal, and that there is no Almighty Force above them all. But surely faith in an eternal omnipotent power is more consonant with the commonsense of mankind than the atheistical

*See Mr. Justice Grove's address before the meeting of the British Association in 1866.

doctrine that the laws and physical forces of the universe are eternal and unalterable” (p. 7).

The very limited space at our command precludes more than an enumeration of the topics discussed by Dr. Winn-such as the Omnipotence of Atoms and Physical Forces, Bathybius, Spontaneous Generation, Evolution, Antiquity of Man, Physiological Psychology, which last topic. especially is handled in a masterly manner, being one which has largely engaged his attention through his professional life. The following extract will show how he deals with this matter:

"The phenomena of insanity have been referred to on insufficient grounds by materialistic physiologists in proof of their theory.

That bodily

disorders will affect the mind is unquestioned, but the converse is equally true that mental causes will produce derangement of the bodily organs; and the physiological psychologists are asked to explain how it happens that in many cases of acute mania, ending rapidly in death, a post-mortem examination cannot detect any change in the substance of the brain" (p. 32).

Dr.

Many instances have been known of persons suffering from incurable brain disease exhibiting singular intelligence and accomplishments notwithstanding, and becoming perfectly rational during the last moments of their life. Winn cites a case in confirmation of this fact, which came under his own notice, of an old lady who had passed the greater part of her life in an asylum, and who had never been one moment coherent, speaking, just before her death, most sensibly. The brain is one of the most fragile portions of the body, and one of the first to decom

pose after death. It is subject to the same law of renewal which generally obtains in the soft tissues of the body. If this be so, how is it possible, as Materialists maintain, "that the images or ideas impressed by any merely physical process on the cells of the brain could be vividly recalled after a long period of time, when the matter of the very cells which are supposed to have received them had been replaced by new matter"?

The strange phraseology adopted by these Materialistic writers is justly ridiculed by our author. Thus he asks whether the title of "the Apostle of the Understanding," given by Professor Tyndall to Mr. Herbert Spencer, is justified because he defines life “as a continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations," or when he informs us that "evolution is a change from indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity through continuous differentiations and integrations." The great masters of science have been distinguished for simplicity of style and clearness of expression. But the sentence just quoted is, to our apprehension, utter nonsense. In fact these gentlemen are fast corrupting the English language in their efforts to make their theories intelligible. "They call poetic emotion the thrill of a ganglion; thought, cerebration; life, molecular force; creation, evolution; crime, a cerebral disease; the Deity, a primordial germ!" We shall soon need a glossary of these new terms which are so rapidly accumulating.

Amidst all the confusion, doubt, and irreligion produced by the daring speculations which are so constantly and unblushingly paraded before the public, it is a comfort to see men of

the greatest eminence in the varied walks of science, and particularly some of the highest repute in the medical profession, calmly and patiently examining them; testing them in a philosophic spirit, and showing how untruthful they are in the face of the grand array of indisputable facts which they have, from time to time, brought forth. These facts clearly prove that physical force cannot account for life; that spontaneous generation cannot explain the origin of bioplasm; that evolution is not the First Cause; that physiological psychology has not solved the mystery of Mind; and that our first parents were not ignoble savages. We think Dr. Winn has taken up a position from which he will not be soon dislodged "that, when tested by the inexorable logic of facts, the pseudo-philosophy of scientific atheism ignominiously collapses."

We would, therefore, earnestly advise our readers, who feel interested in these questions, and especially our thoughtful young people who may have been disturbed by them, to obtain-which they can do at a very small cost-this able pamphlet, and when they have got it to study it thoroughly. Its wide circulation would be an incalculable benefit to the cause of Truth and Righteousness.

THE CAMBRIDGE Bible for SCHOOLS : THE FIRST BOOK OF SAMUEL, with Maps, Notes, and Introduction. By the Rev. A. F. Kirkpatrick, M.A. London: Cambridge Warehouse, 17, Paternoster Row. 1880.

THE previously published volumes of the Cambridge Bible for Schools have been mainly on the New Testament. Now we may look for a series on the Old. Mr. Kirkpatrick has edited the

first book of Samuel in a thoroughly efficient manner. He has a competent acquaintance with the Hebrew language, and with the researches of Hebrew scholars. His "Introduction " discusses in a terse, succinct style, all questions relating to the authorship and canonocity of the book, the state of the text, the chronology, the mission of Samuel, and the prophetic order. The notes compress into brief space the results of lengthened investigations. The divergencies between the Hebrew text and the Septuagint are carefully marked; the criticism is sound and judicious; the doctrinal explanations are thoroughly evangelical; while the purely historical sections are illustrated with graphic picturesqueness. Advantage has been taken of the labours of Ewald, Stanley, and Kitto; and in relation to geographical details the invaluable work of Lieutenant Conder, of the Palestine Exploration Fund, has been constantly consulted. Mr. Kirkpatrick has also enriched his notes with illustrations from our great secular writers, and thus added to their value. We have received his small volume with sincere thankfulness.

gospel. The aid of an expositor so scholarly, candid, and judicious as Professor Plumptre will be invaluable. He is subtle and ingenious without being fanciful, original but never capricious, ready to face every difficulty and to attempt its solution. A wiser, more helpful interpreter of Scripture we do not know.

Canon Farrar's "Life of Christ" more than maintains its popularity.

CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL HANDBOOK TO THE EPISTLES TO THE EPHESIANS AND PHILEMON. By Heinrich W. Meyer, Th.D., &c. Translated by Rev. Maurice J. Evans, B.A. CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL HANDBOOK

TO THE EPISTLES OF ST. PAUL TO THE THESSALONIANS. By Dr. Gottlieb Lünemann. Translated by Rev. Paton J. Gloag, D.D. Edinburgh : T. & T. Clark, 38, George Street. 1880.

THE "Handbook to the Epistles to the Ephesians and Philemon " is the last of Meyer's own contributions to the magnum opus of his life. His Commentary is within its prescribed limits-unrivalled. No Biblical scholar has done so much as he to set before us the exact meaning of the sacred text apart from all critical and dogmatical prepossessions. His philological accuracy, his exegetical tact, his profound intuition, allied as they are with stern loyalty to the truth, have placed his volumes in the very foremost rank, and it will be long before they are equalled by the productions of a later day. They form

a monument of gigantic industry and immense erudition," and that one man should have been able to accomplish so much, and to accomplish it so well, is, to our thinking, marvellous.

On purely doctrinal points, we often

differ from Meyer, but even in this respect he affords us more help than the majority of more orthodox commentators. Nowhere does he allow his interpretation to be biassed by preconceived views. He is too thoroughly and too soundly in earnest to be swayed by prejudice. Here he vindicates the Pauline authorship of the Epistle to the Ephesians in the face of all objections based upon such grounds as that it abounds in passages which are simply repetitions or expansions of passages in other epistles; that it is not in Paul's literary style; that it contains no such personal allusions as we might expect, &c. He further vindicates the genuineness of the words ἐν Ἐφέσῳ against those who contend that the epistle was an encyclical or circularletter addressed to all the churches of the district. Meyer's dissertation on this point is masterly and complete, although on a related matter he is, we think, less successful. He has, in our opinion, failed to prove that the epistle was written from Cæsarea. Meyer's sympathies must have led him to look favourably on the doctrine of universal restoration. But he shows plainly that it finds no support in Eph. i. 10, and is, in his view, opposed to the general type of Scripture doctrine. Meyer never accepts a view because it is fashionable or congenial. His one aim is to know the mind of the Spirit, and, though he is not uniformly successful, there is no other critic who has laid us under weightier obligations.

Dr. Lünemann, who writes on the Thessalonians, was regarded by Meyer himself as an able and worthy coadjutor. His notes are of great value. Dean Alford followed largely in his track, and Bishop Ellicott, while feeling