Bo,ton Monday Lectures, in Scepticism, Biology, Transcendentalism. By the Rev.
Joseph Cook. Second Series. (Dickinson.)—As another volume of Mr. Cook's lectures has been lately reviewed in the Spectator, it is only necessary to indicate hero some salient features of this one. The principal subject which Mr. Cook discusses is the life after death. We name it thus,rather than the " immortality of the soul," because it is Mr. Cook's thesis that after death the soul does not exist apart from the body, but that death is the separation from the flesh of a "spiritual body," "an ethereal enswrethement " of the soul. Mr. Cook's chief authority on this subject is the German philosopher Ulrici. His arguments, physical and other, we have not space to follow. Some of them are of a kind which will provoke many readers to dismiss the subject with a sneer. This, however, will be a mis- take. The thesis which Mr. Cook maintains is one which sonic of the best modern divines, Mr. Maurice among them, hold to be the doctrine of Scripture; and though the lecturer's method of supporting it is sometimes extravagant and fanciful, yet he has undoubtedly given many valuable suggestions, and has explored, though in random fashion, the borders of a land where great discoveries are to be made. Mr. Cook's style, which decidedly rises sometimes to the "high falutin' " kind, is much against him with English readers, who, however, are bound to remember, in extenuation, the demands of a certain Hall.
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