The Supremacy of Man. (Hamilton and Adams.)—The author describes his
book as a suggestive inquiry into the philosophy and religion of the future. There is too much of mystical rhapsody about it, to suit our taste. Dogmatic religion, he thinks, is on the wane, and in the future the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man will be the " crown-faith " of the creed of the world. "The universe culminates in man, the kingdom of God and the kingdom of united mankind are the same,—man is God's direct method of manifestation," and thus the doctrine of the incarnation is at once the crown and climax of both philosophy and theology. The author's hopes for our future are of the brightest, and in the material progress of our age as well as in its more promising moral tendencies he sees a prophecy of one great end, the unity and victory of humanity. He reminds us of Comtism, but he is not a Comtist. He believes in a personal immortality, and is persuaded that Christianity is the only religion which can be universal. Of course some would object that his Christianity is a trifle vague. But this he has himself led us to expect, in his denunciation of what he calls dog- matic and arbitrary forms of religion. He seems to think there is ground for hoping that some day our earth " may be bathed in an atmo- sphere" which shall convert it into a paradise, and that the poles will exchange their ice for verdure. It is hardly too much to say that he is at times boldly speculative, as well as mystical and obscure. Occasion- ally he refers to the Logos doctrine, which we imagine lies at the basis of his thought. Sacraments, he holds,have their use and value, as forms of sensuous manifestation suitable to certain persons. Thus Catholicism appeals powerfully to the emotions, while Protestantism, especially Dissenting Protestantism, appeals chiefly to the understanding. In this we may admit there to be at least a partial truth. For the masses, Catholicism, perhaps, as is here hinted, may have a superior attraction. We wonder at not having met the now trite phrase, "the enthusiasm of humanity." The idea specially pervades the last chapter, on the "One Body." The author's grandiloquence is a little tiresome, and now and then obscures his meaning.
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