explanation of the phenomena, does not clash with history" (by which we presume he means Scripture history)," and is sustained by tradition." Nevertheless he apprehends that "this view will be combated as much from the point of view of Scriptural exegesis as of scientific speculation."

The theological objections which our author presumes he will have to meet he meets by anticipation. The sudden blackening of Chanaan is not "more revolting" than the sudden damnation of Lucifer, or the sudden reduction of Adam to shame and want and decay and the doom of death. Besides, he argues, they who admit the veracity of the Bible must admit that, if not directly, at least indirectly blackness was a result of the curse. For, as Latham shows in his "Ethnology," "certain conditions not merely of colour but moral and intellectual, are the inseparable accompaniments of geographical location." But it is laid down in Deuteronomy (xxxii. 8) that God himself arranged the distribution of the human race. The same fact is mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (xvii. 26). Since, therefore, God apportioned the sons of Chanaan to a particular district, He is accountable for the blackness that followed their location there. "If then," concludes the author (page 90), "the different races of mankind according to their merits or demerits were apportioned to or miraculously directed or impelled to respective portions of the earth which necessarily superinduced certain effects, is not the curse as apparent in its indirect operation as it would have been in its suddenness and directness?"

Not quite so apparent in its indirect operation, we should at once answer, unless it be properly proved that there is either a divine command or a divinely-ordained necessity obliging the children of the curse to keep to those regions where alone from geographical location" their blackness would be properly ensured. Such a command or such a necessity the author is at liberty to assume, if he pleases. But he has not proved the existence of either. He has not proved the existence of the command. Neither has he proved the existence of the necessity. He could not prove it. For, as a matter of fact, sons of Chanaan did retire from those portions of the earth to which they "were apportioned or miraculously directed or impelled." But if the sons of Chanaan were at liberty to leave the "black country" whenever they chose, blackness was not even on the "indirect" theory a part of their malediction.

It is evident, however, that the theory on which it is only indirectly that blackness becomes a part of the Chanaanitish curse, does not satisfy Lord Arundell. It is equally evident that logically he cannot maintain it except as an argumentum ad hominem. For, in it, the blackness is really ascribed to climate and special

external conditions. But Lord Arundell is of opinion, as we have seen further back, that no union of external conditions is competent to account for the blackness. Evidently he must and evidently he does maintain, that the blackness of Chanaan and of Chanaan's posterity was the direct effect of the curse of Noah. Immediately that Noah pronounced the malediction Chanaan's externals completely changed. He was smitten with blackness as suddenly as Lucifer was smitten into hell.

We are bound to confess that our author supports his position well. He surrounds it with a very formidable array of facts found in tradition. We have great hesitation in pronouncing against his view. We can hardly say that we pronounce against it. Still we cannot share the confidence with which Lord Arundell regards it. It appears to us that he has forgotten to estimate a few important things that apparently weigh against him. If we suggest these it may enable him to make his argument more complete in a second edition.

In the first place, then, blackness is not the only quality which distinguishes the negro branch from the other branches of the human family. Negroes have many other physical peculiarities, not perhaps quite so striking, but quite as distinctive as their colour. Now, these peculiaritics may require a curse to account for them just as much as the blackness requires one. From a note of the author (page 78), it would appear that they do. Yet, throughout his argument, it is to the blackness alone that our author attends, and it is the blackness alone that is touched by his facts of tradition.

In the second place, if the blackness be the result of a curse, the curse must have fallen not only on Chanaan, but on Chanaan's wife, and on any wife other than a black one, which he or his sons might select. For, following the natural order of things, no matter how black was Chanaan himself, a child of his by (for instance) a white woman would not be black. But it should be black by the curse. Therefore, the male Chanaanites should marry none but black women; or, if they did marry white women, the offspring of the marriage should be blackened by miracle. We should not like to be responsible for either conclusion.

In the third place, though we do not think that such a curse, with such a consequence as Lord Arundell supposes, could be proved to be inconsistent with the supreme perfection of God, still, we cannot admit to Lord Arundell that he has shown its "perfect conformity to Scripture, and to what we know of the secrets of the Divine judgments." The awful suddenness of the retribution, to which alone Lord Arundell refers, would not make us uneasy. The "picture of Chanaan stricken with blackness," is not, to our mind, as terrible as the picture of Oza stricken with death. We

would not much min the colouring (for we have no very pressing pale-face prejudice), if it were only the guilty that suffered. But that the retribution should follow, not only Chanaan, but Chanaan's posterity, branding them for no fault of theirs with the indelible brand of inferiority, shaming them before sons of Shem not more guiltless than they, is what we find, not incredible, but credible only in the last extremity. Lord Arundell instances as parallel the cases of Adam and Lucifer. But once more he is only, what he was never created to be, rhetorical. Lucifer and his followers are not to the point. They suffered for their own sin. Nor does the case of Adam avail. We do not insist upon the clear fact that God's conduct in respect of the race is no standard for His conduct in respect of one of its little families, just as His judgments in regard of a nation are no standard of His judgments in regard of a city. But we insist upon this. The consequences of originals in fall upon all men alike, with, of course, that glorious exception, which, following the example of S. Augustin, we do not mention here. If one man was shamed and degraded, so were all his neighbours. But the peculiar hardship of the case of Chanaan is, that his posterity were degraded and shamed, while the posterity of Shem and the posterity of Japhet were kept in honour, though the posterity of Chanaan were not a whit more guilty than the posterity of Japhet or the posterity of Shem. In so far as the sin of Chanaan is concerned, a son of Chanaan is quite as blameless as if he had been begotten by Shem. And yet because his father happens to be Chanaan, he must not only be inferior to Shem, but must carry on his person, before all the world, the hideous mark of his father's guilt and of his own inferiority!

But, in the fourth place, we are opposed to Lord Arundell's view on still higher and less assailable ground. He objects to himself (page 89) that there is no proof in Scripture that Chanaan was blackened by the curse of Noah. He frankly admits that Scripture supplies no such proof; that, whilst it mentions the curse, it does not mention the blackness. We invite Lord Arundell (and we are surprised that he requires the invitation) to go one step further, and to admit that this very silence of Scripture regarding the supposed change in the appearance of Chanaan, is distinct evidence that that change never occurred. If it had occurred, the Scripture writer could not but have mentioned it. His account of the entire transaction is minute and graphic in the highest degree. But of all its circumstances, immeasurably the most startling would have been the sudden and awful change wrought on the person of Chanaan. The sole reason why that change is not noticed is because it did not occur.

On the question of Mythology, Lord Arundell finds himself opposed to a very large number of modern scholars. We think

his handling of the subject will do a great public service. It is fashionable nowadays-especially in our current poetry-to profess a great admiration of the Pagan divinities. With some, these divinities appear to be real objects of worship; with many, they are regarded as, at all events, beautiful and ennobling conceptions. This leads, as it has often led before, to the current critical cant about the wonderful creative energy of the ancient mind. It is well that the folly of this pagan worship should be exposed. And Lord Arundell exposes it. What are called the beautiful creations of the classic mind are shown to be simple corruptions of matter of fact. And this cannot help being productive of good. When the gods of Homer are known to be merely men of the Bible, they are sure to lose caste. It is a great modern discovery that nothing good can come out of Revelation.

But the really important portion of Lord Arundell's book is that portion which treats of the Law of Nations. It is rather a curious fact that out of fifteen chapters which make up the volume, the first two and the last two have been assigned to this subject. In the first two, the author does not do much more than state what he means by a Law of Nations, and what sanction he considers to attach itself to laws in general. But upon these matters he manages to differ with everybody, not excepting himself. Still the chapters are substantially good. But they are extremely straggling and accidental in form. In his assault upon Bentham, the author appears to us especially unfortunate. Lord Arundell's powers do not fit him for pure speculation. He has not attained the requisite precision, whether of thought or of language, to enable him to speak intelligibly on such a delicate question as that of Utilitarianism. He knows that himself. And, with a rare candour, he confesses the knowledge. He claims only to "open out fresh views," and thus "to contribute light to minds of greater precision." We are not blaming Lord Arundell. He has only followed a course that has been followed by many persons of great eminence before. Dr. Whewell had an opinion-generally a very dogmatic one-upon every subject under the sun, and Lord Macaulay spoke with the finished swing of assurance on Milton and Mill, the theology of Sir Thomas More, and the poetry of Mr. Robert Montgomery. But "ne sutor ultra crepidam." And it would have been quite as well for our author if he had let Bentham alone. While there is no doctrine more detestable than the doctrine of Utilitarianism, there is scarcely any doctrine which its opponents treat so unfairly. And that we may suppose to arise from the very fact that the doctrine is so detestable. It requires great power of philosophical self-repression to be altogether just to a doctrine one hates. The men who attack Bentham are very much given to mistake the will for the deed, and to substitute enthusiastic

language for logical reasoning. The result is unhappily that, despite the flashy and flimsy rhetoric of Macaulay, the doctrine of Bentham gains ground. Lord Arundell has done nothing to impede its progress. He quotes Macaulay and Malthus. But Macaulay did not understand Bentham, and Malthus is clearly unintelligible to Lord Arundell. A man who thinks infanticide the Malthusian method to prevent over-population, is carrying either his learning or his reason very loosely about him.

But it is only in the last two chapters of his volume that Lord Arundell really tries to do himself justice on the Law of Nations. There he speaks on his own chosen ground, the tangible ground of tradition. And there he speaks admirably. No one can rise from the study of these two chapters without a clear conviction that upon the subject of the Law of Nations Lord Arundell's position is, if not quite unassailable, at least secure against any serious assault. As the Geneva Judgments have made the topic peculiarly interesting, we shall, we think, be doing a service to the reader if we give him (but it must be on a small scale) Lord Arundell's views about it. We shall, wherever we think it necessary, take exception to our author's opinions. But we shall do so only for the purpose of pointing out where these opinions require to be defended."

Even students of the older and severer scholastics are familiar with the phrase "jus gentium," and we all have heard of the Law of Nations. But what is the Law of Nations? The idea underlying the phrase will explain. In that idea, nations are so many individuals making up the one great nation of man. That one great nation has laws determining the proper conduct for its individual nations just as a particular nation has its laws determining the proper conduct for its individual men. In the nation of England the individual Peter has laws forbidding him certain conduct in regard of the individual Paul. In the nation of Man the individual England has laws forbidding her certain conduct in regard of the individual France. And so on. As it is with men, so it is with nations of men. Both have their laws.

The view, then, which denies the existence of a Law of Nations may be at once put down as absurd. Since God has permitted the rise of States at all, He must have prescribed for them a law to follow in their relations with one another. We speak out thus because we are really disgusted with the sham theories of the sham thinkers of these sham times. It is simply disgraceful to have to accommodate one's self to their nonsense. Once for all, there is a God: He made the world, and He made men: He rules both the things that do not think and the things that do: and in all His universe things must go according to order and law. These are first principles which it is too late in the day to question now. From