We are willing to believe that this book may contain much valuable information in regard to the history of philosophy, physiology, and psychological phenomena. But as a text-book of "Mental Science," it is an utter absurdity, since its fundamental principle destroys all metaphysical certainty. It is the quintessence of the worst and most absurd opinions of the empirical school of Herbert Spencer and Mill, and therefore simply a dose of intellectual strychnine. For the refutation of this miscalled "Mental Science," we refer to all the philosophical articles of this magazine.
Light On The Last Things.
By William B. Hayden.
Publishing House of the New Jerusalem.
20 Cooper Union. 1869.
We are rather surprised not to see on the title-page of this book, "published by order of the archangel Gabriel." It gravely informs us that the "Last Judgment foretold by Daniel, and in the book of Revelation, took place as described in that book, in the World of Spirits, in the year 1757, upon those who had accumulated there since the Lord's first appearing thus finishing the dispensation in hades. The last judgment once inaugurated, continues to 'sit,' as expressed in Daniel; it constantly proceeds hereafter, as explained in chapter vii.; the vast accumulation of the evil communities there will no more be allowed; it takes effect upon the multitudes who arise, at longest, in a very few years." (P. 188.) We are glad to have authentic intelligence of such a gratifying nature. But this is not the best of it. "This removed evil influences, for the most part, from the intermediate world, replacing them with good influences. The heavens by the increase of numbers, and by an increased endowment of love and wisdom from the Lord, became more powerful, and began immediately, as a consequence, to shed down their influences more powerfully upon mankind, the church and the world. And they were moved nearer to men by the Lord that they might effect this purpose." We shrewdly suspect that our author has taken a moonlight ride on Mohammed's Alborac. Whoever has the curiosity to seek for a brief and easily readable summary of that fantastic system called Swedenborgianism will find it in this little volume. In point of credibility and reasonableness the doctrine of the New Jerusalem Church is about on a level with that of the Koran and the Book of Mormon, though more elevated and pure in its morality. There was never anything more ridiculous than the pretension of its adepts to be the true gnostics or spiritual men, and to look down on Catholics as the psychical or half carnal. Their doctrine of the incorporation of the Godhead is a crude and gross notion incompatible alike with the principles of reason and revelation, and rendering the formation of either a sound theology or a sound philosophy impossible. The rest of their system is a tissue of dreams and fancies resting on nothing more solid than the imagination of Swedenborg, and without the slightest claim on the attention of any reasonable man.
Life Of The Blessed Charles Spinola, S.J., with a sketch of the other Japanese Martyrs beatified on the 9th of July, 1867.
By Joseph Brockaert, S.J.
New York. John G. Shea. 1869.
The subject of this memoir was a Jesuit missionary in Japan in the seventeenth century, illustrious by birth but still more so by his virtue. Interwoven with the sketch of his life and martyrdom are many incidents of the history of Christianity and its glorious confessors in Japan, and an interesting account of the recent discovery of many thousands of Christians who have preserved the faith handed down by their ancestors from the days of persecution until the present time. The history of Japanese Christianity will compare with that of the first ages of the church, and is by itself a sufficient and overwhelming proof of the divine truth of the Catholic religion. Such books as this might be read with profit by every Catholic and by all who profess the name of Christ.
The Conscript: A Story of the French War of 1813.
By MM. Erckmann-Chatrian.
Translated from the twentieth Paris edition. With eight full-page illustrations.
New York: Charles Scribner & Co. 1869.
Those of our readers who have already perused this story in our pages, will doubtless be pleased to learn that it is at length issued in a permanent and separate form. The volume needs no commendation from us; and we believe that many American readers will find in its pages new ideas of war and its horrors, even although our own battle-fields are yet scarcely green.