time. During the period between the supremacy of Robespierre and that of Napoleon, the press rose again to power, and was effectually used against the Jacobins and in support of order.

In the foregoing sketch, enough has been given, we trust, to indicate the character of the book named at the head of this article. Only a part of the topics could be selected, and those touched upon but lightly.

MOODS AND TENSES OF THE GREEK VERB.1

THE treatise which Mr. Goodwin has furnished on the Greek moods and tenses, was much needed. There is no part of the Greek grammar where the student finds himself more perplexed than in regard to the right use of these. The more general and simple usage is understood; but beyond this, the feeling has been quite prevalent in our institutions of learning, that the system is like the oriental hieroglyphics, the key to which has not yet been found.

The use of the tenses present fewer difficulties than that of the moods. There is comparatively little obscurity in the tenses of the Indicative; and yet many a student stumbles over the use of an Imperfect, where he sees no distinction between it and the Aorist; or finds himself embarrassed in showing why the Aorist often occurs where he would have expected the Pluperfect; or does not see why the Pluperfect or Future Perfect is of so infrequent occurrence; or how the relations which would seem to require the frequent use of these tenses, are indicated without them.

But there is still greater difficulty in comprehending the use of the tenses not in the Indicative. The Imperative Present, Perfect, and Aorist, has each its own force; the Present, Perfect, Future, and Aorist Optative, are each different. But the moods themselves present greater difficulties than the tenses. The Indicative is easily mastered; but when is the Subjunctive, and when the Optative, to be used? There are general principles here which the diligent student soon makes his own; while there are so many usages, apparently subject to no law, outside of these general principles, that but few of the students in our schools and colleges will readily point out the reason which governs the writer in the use of them. A college officer remarked, a few years since, that, at the time he entered upon his duties in the college, if all the Greek Subjunctives had been changed into Optatives, and the Optatives into Subjunctives, he would have detected no difference in the meaning. And one needs only to ask close questions on this subject, in any of our institutions, to learn that the deficiencies here are very great. There is nothing like the facility in explaining the use of moods in Greek that there is in Latin. The distinction between apparently similar but really different expressions, or expressions that present the thought from a different point of view, too often escape notice. So, too, cases supposed as possible,

1 Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb. By W. W. Goodwin, Ph. D. Cambridge: Sever and Francis, 1860. 12mo. pp. 311.

and mere suppositions, are confounded; and also general truths and single or particular acts. But when the student has made himself master of the subject, he finds an appreciable difference between such expressions as the following: ἠρώτησεν αὐτὸν μὴ ποιεῖν ταῦτα and ποιῆσαι ταῦτα ; οὕτως ποιοῖεν and ποιήσαιεν; ἔλεγον ὅτι τεθνήκοι and τέθνηκε; ἔαν λέγῃ τοῦτο and λέξῃ, or εἰ λέγοι τοῦτο and εἰ λέξαι; τοῦτο ἔπραξε ἵνα μὴ διδοίη δίκην and δοίη; and so many other expressions and formulas, which are too often regarded as being of the same purport.

This difficult subject Mr. Goodwin has treated very ably, and has brought it within a more definite and tangible form than we have before seen it. The principles or rules are stated with great clearness, and are fully illustrated by pertinent examples. The careful study of the work will extricate the student from the mazes in which he usually finds himself on this subject; his written exercises will soon be made to conform more closely to good classical usage; and the author studied will be better understood the precise shape of the thought often turning on the use of a particular mood or tense.

The book is in a very attractive form, and is printed with unusual accuracy. The few typographical errors we have detected, are not important

ones.

H. REUCHLIN'S HISTORY OF ITALY, from the Establishment of the reigning Dynasties to the Present Time. In two Parts. Part First, 1859. Part Second, first division, 1860.1

IN examining the above-named work we recognize, at once, the able and skilful historian of the Port-Royalists, and biographer of Pascal. We find the s me thoroughness and completeness of investigation, the same massive strength and vigor of i tellect, and the same sound judgment and love of truth which distinguish his former productions. These small volumes form the third and fourth parts of Bredermann's Political History of the most Recent Times, mentioned in a former number, in connection with von Rochau's recent History of France. We hardly know which most to admire, the labor spent in examining and sifting the vast amount of Italian and foreign documents, which occupied the author many years a part of which were passed in Italy · -or the historical fidelity and candor with which he has weighed the authority of conflicting accounts given by different classes of writers. Whatever difference of opinion there may be in respect to the views of the author, no one will accuse him of being superficial in his knowledge or flippant in his judgments. After giving a clear statement of the condition of Italy as it was before, during, and immediately after the French

1 Geschichte Italiens von Gründung der regierenden Dynasten bis zur Gegenwart von Hermann Reuchlin, in Zwie Theilen. Erster Theil, Leipzig, 1859. Zweiter Theil, erste Abtheilung, 1860.

Revolution, he takes up its history at the restoration of the old order of things on the overthrow of the Napoleon dynasty, and carries the narration forward, in Part first, to the revolution of 1848. Part second gives the history of that revolution; and will, probably, in the unfinished division of it, include the revolution of 1859. His German sympathies do not blind him to the true character of the Austrian rule in Italy; nor, on the other hand. does he overlook the rashness and feebleness of those premature efforts of the Italian insurgents which, ten years ago, prejudiced their cause in the estimation even of the friends of liberty abroad. He intimates that, as the Italians have, at last, done justice to themselves and to their character, he will not fail to do the same, when he shall mark the glorious part of their history. The story is too long a one for us to enter upon at all; and we will only add that the work of Reuchlin forms a complete supplement to Leo's admirable History of Italy.

S. ABEL'S FALL OF THE KINGDOM OF THE LONGOBARDS IN ITALY. Göttingen, 1859.1

THE author here presents an essay of special interest to the professed historian. It is an attempt to throw new light upon a very obscure period of Italian and German history. The decline of the Greek power in Italy; the beginning of the territorial possessions of the bishops of Rome; the renewal of the Western Roman empire by a pretended transfer of it, by the papal authority, to Pepin and Charlemagne these points are all involved in the subject of this historical essay. The materials for a new and more complete history of this period are now furnished by the Monumenta Germanica Historica, edited by Pertz. We only regret that the young author, who gives evidence of possessing such superior qualifications, and who has really made such a valuable though limited contribution to our knowledge, has not given us a much more extended work. It is to be hoped that, having made so good a beginning, this critical historian will proceed, in his peculiar line of investigation, and reduce to greater certainty the history of the period which he seems to have chosen for his studies.

W. BESSEL ON THE LIFE OF ULFILAS and the Conversion of the Goths to Christianity. Göttingen, 1860.1

THE work of Professor Waitz, on the same subject is surpassed by this. He himself put into the hands of Mr. Bessel, additional authorities which he received after his own work was published. All that is now known of the life, character, doctrines, and influence of the man, whose translation of the scriptures is nearly the only remaining monument of the Gothic language, can be found in this small but highly elaborate volume.

1 Der Untergang der Langobardenreiches in Italien von Dr. Sigurd Abel. ? Ueben das Leben des Ulfilas und die Bekehrung der Gothen zum christenthum.

M'COSH ON THE INTUITIONS.'

THE present work of Dr. M'Cosh is a contribution throughout to Metaphysics, as he defines the term: " The science which inquires into the original and intuitive convictions of the mind with a view of generalizing and expressing them, and also of determining what are the objects revealed by them" (p. 320). This science admits, therefore, in his view, of only one method of investigation. He objects to the method of Critical Analysis, introduced by Kant and adopted by Sir William Hamilton, and claims to keep closely to the Inductive Method.

The work is divided into three Parts. The First Part is devoted to a general view of the nature of the Intuitive Convictions of the mind. The points on which most stress is laid are these: The Intuitions are innate, in the sense that the mind has them according to its original constitution. But the mind does not have them directly before the consciousness, in their abstract form. It has them in their spontaneous form, when in contact with some object, and afterwards, by Abstraction and Generalization, comes to hold them as ideas, principles, and axioms.

These three aspects of the Intuitions our author claims to distinguish, and to express together for the first time. The Intuitions may be regarded, first, as Regulative Principles, that is, Laws in the mind belonging to it as such : secondly, as Spontaneous Convictions arising when individual objects are presented to it: thirdly, as framed into abstract statements or general formulas. From a confusion of these aspects, it is shown that the errors of philosophers have mainly arisen. Metaphysicians have applied language to the Intuitions in general, which is true of them only in one aspect, and have thus drawn inferences wide of the truth. Dr. M'Cosh holds it all-important that the intuitions, which assume the forms of abstract truths, should be carefully generalized and expressed, so as to include only what the Particular Intuition will warrant or demand.

The Second Part of the work gives the results of a Particular Examination of the Intuitions. They are here classed as Primitive Cognitions, Primitive Beliefs, Primitive Judgments, and Moral Convictions. It is the author's favorite thought and his fundamental position, that the mind in its first exercises acquires, not impressions, notions, or appearances, but knowledge, knowledge of objects. The mind is conscious at once of both Body and Spirit.

The Primitive cognitions of Body and of Self are held to guarantee the reality of both. But in taking this position, Dr. M'Cosh stands up for the trustworthiness of Original, not necessarily of Acquired Perceptions;

for

a

The Intuitions of the Mind Inductively Investigated. By the Rev. James M'Cosh, LL. D., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in Queen's College, Belfast, author of "The Method of the Divine Government Physical and Moral," and joint author of " Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation." New York Carter and Brothers. 1860. pp. 504. 8vo.

reality corresponding to the Perceptions as distinguished from Sensations and Feelings. And for a reality corresponding to each Sense as distinguished from its fellow Senses, and not for the same kind of reality for all the Senses.

The mind knows Body and Self in the concrete, but whenever the processes of Abstraction and Generalization are properly conducted with reference to existing objects whether of Body or Self, they yield Intuitions in the abstract form, which are enumerated as follows-of Being, Substance, Mode, Quality, Property, Essence, Personality, Extension, Number, Motion, Power. Each of these terms is particularly examined. They all represent realities. But the author carefully guards against Realism, by saying that they represent, not independently existing realities; realities, but not distinct from the individual objects, in which only they exist.

The Primitive Beliefs, as distinguished from Primitive Cognitions, are described as having reference to all those objects which are not now, or which cannot be directly before the mind. They refer to that which is distant or which cannot be fully known. Yet the Beliefs have their basis in the cognitions. Knowledge must be the starting point of Faith, though Faith transcends knowledge. The objects intuitively disclosed as realities, believed though not fully known, are Space, Time, and the Infinite. These we cannot conceive in the sense of image, as without bounds, but neither can we conceive, in the sense of believe, them to have bounds. They are realities of Intuition in the form of Faith.

The Primitive Judgments are formed from the Cognitions and Beliefs in the act of comparison; comparing with each other any objects known or believed, we intuitively perceive necessary relations, and the mind affirms these relations to be realities. Such relations are classified in this treatise as those of Identity, the Whole and its Parts, Space, Time, Quantity, Resemblance, Active Property, and Cause and Effect. These relations, and especially the last, are thoroughly discussed.

Dr. M'Cosh distinguishes next between the Appetences, the Will, and the Conscience. The Intuitions which come to the light of consciousness in the exercise of these powers, he styles Moral Convictions.

In the Third Part of the work, the Intuitions in their relations to the sciences pass in review. The science of the sciences, Metaphysics, is divided into two departments · Gnosiology, which "seeks to find what are our original powers," and Ontology, which seeks to determine what we know of things by these powers." Under the first, the author takes up such themes as The Origin of Ideas, The Lin its of Knowledge, Intuition and Experience, and The Kind of Necessity attaching to our primary convictions. Under the second, he seeks to adjust the problems of Idealism, Scepticism, and The Conditioned and Unconditioned.

This part of the book closes with an application of the whole discussion to the various sciences, and especially to the science of Theology.

We call attention to a few special points, always of prime interest, which are barely alluded to in the above outline.