The author of this volume is one of the representative men of the left section of Unitarianism in this country. He is distinguished by a clear style, a finely-cultivated imagination, and his writings are characterized by a pervading placidity which is only occasionally ruffled by a mocking scepticism that suggests the too close proximity of Dr. Faust’s intimate friend.
The volume abounds in sweeping assertions, slovenly-expressed ideas, and lacks throughout the cement of a sound logic. It fosters on Cardinal Wiseman and Dr. Newman opinions which can only be accounted for on the supposition of the author’s inaccurate scholarship or his contempt for the intelligence of his readers. (See preface, page 5.) Among other things, he informs his readers that “it has been customary with Christians to widen as much as possible the gulf between the Old and the New Testaments, in order that Christianity might appear in the light of a fresh and transcendent revelation, supplementing the ancient, but supplanting it” (page 10). The custom of St. Augustine, St. Thomas, and Catholic theologians generally is precisely the contrary. There is a remarkable book by a Catholic on this very point, published in our own day, entitled De l’Harmonie entre l’Eglise et la Synagogue, par Le Chevalier P. L. B. Drach, a converted rabbi. The rabbi, in his two volumes, aims at showing that a Jew, in becoming a Catholic, does not deny or change his religion, but follows out, completes, and perfects it. The Jewish Church and the Catholic Church are identically one, and the former is to the latter as the bud to the full-blown flower.
With a criticism that kills beforehand the life it would dissect, Mr. O. B. Frothingham ends by coolly telling his readers that Christianity is extinct. And with a self-satisfied air he naïvely exhorts them, by the efforts of their imagination, to build up a new and superior religion to Christianity. His readers will, we opine, politely decline this task, and leave to him who had the genius to conceive the idea its accomplishment. What a pity he did not tell them what he means by the imaginative faculty! For if in this, as in other things, he follows his foreign masters, we have no reason to expect as the result of its exercise in this direction, other than an additional illusion to the long list of religious vagaries given to the world, from Simon Magus down to Joe Smith and the Fox girls.
A scholar who has read the volume describes its contents as “theological, philosophical, and speculative old shreds picked up in German and French tailor-shops and cunningly sewed together in the shape of a cloak by a 'cute’ Yankee apprentice, in order to cover the nudity of the latest form of the unbelief of New England.”
The book before us shows no mean literary skill, but contains nothing original in the way of thought or erudition, not even an original error, though its errors are many more than the number of its pages.
The Problem of Problems, and its Various Solutions; or, Atheism, Darwinism, and Theism. By Clark Braden, President of Abingdon College, Ill. 8vo. pp. 480. Cincinnati: Chase & Hall. 1877.
Recent scientific research has at last put the orthodox world on its mettle and elicited expressions of opinion from all shades of believers. Coquetting with dangerous premises, even in the guise of science, toleration of views implicitly or indirectly infidel, and a general disposition to compromise, are not indicative of a healthy tone in any organization avowedly Christian. Yet such tendencies have for a long time characterized the relation of the various Protestant sects towards scientism, and one of the greatest outcries raised against the Syllabus proceeded from its alleged intolerance of, and general hostility to, unhampered scientific inquiry. But coaxing and cajoling, and a concurrent cry against the stupidity of Catholics, had no weight with Messrs. Spencer, Huxley, Tyndall, and Draper, who went on just as ever dealing their blows against revelation and all positive forms of belief, as though his Lordship of Canterbury were a myth and his faith a sham.
At length consistency compelled the representative men of the various denominations to resist the further encroachments of an irreligious philosophy, and they are beginning to do so with the bitter consciousness that they were the very ones who most ridiculed the sagacity of the Holy Father when he censured the tone and tendency of modern scientism. But it is better late than never; and if the gentlemen who, from Princeton to Abingdon, feel themselves called upon to do the work will only graciously allow that they are eleventh-hour workers, we will find no fault with their intention, but confine ourselves to a criticism of its execution.
The Problem of Problems is the latest addition to the religio-scientific controversy, and it is entitled to serious consideration because of the earnestness of the author and the elaborate character of the work. This elaborateness is, however, more apparent than real, and consists in a measure of diluted thought and diffuse expression. Whether it is unfortunately a peculiarity of Western authors to strip a thought entirely bare and leave nothing to suggestion, as the charge is made, we are not prepared to say, but certain it is that Mr. Clark Braden has gone far towards justifying such a suspicion. He is not satisfied with a placid presentment of his own views, nor with a brief arraignment of what he deems to be the errors of others, but he must reiterate, emphasize, and in general lash himself into a state of incandescence not at all needful for his purpose. Dignified opposition, even if a little tame, is somewhat more congenial to the frigid tastes of persons living east of the Alleghenies than those fervid utterances which mistake sound for sense. This, however, is an error of form which does not necessarily militate against the intrinsic value of the work, nor do we think that an allusion to it is likely to discompose the learned author; for in a little prologue, addressed to “Reviewers and Critics,” he courts and solicits dispassionate and impartial criticism. In addition he requests that all publishers send him a copy of what their imprimatur has allowed critics to say concerning his book. We presume this is right; but when the request comes coupled with the condition that every one undertaking to comment on his work must not do so before having read it from cover to cover, we fear that it will not always be faithfully complied with, or that he will have to read some pages in which gall and wormwood abound more than the milk of human kindness. The reason of this we have hinted at. The book is prolix and repeats to a fault. Many excellent thoughts are covered up in a mass of verbiage which emasculates and obscures them. We wish the author had the academic fitness to cope with his antagonists—whose culture has made their productions marvels of composition and terribly enhanced their influence for evil. We are sorry that this charge should be the main one to prefer against a book which was prompted by the best of motives and which really exhibits rare evidences of argumentative power. Take even the opening sentence, and we find ourselves face to face with a flagrant grammatical inaccuracy: “One of the wise utterances of one whom his contemporaries declared spoke as never man spoke was, that no wise man, etc.” Here, apart from the slovenly repetition of “one” we find no subject for the first “spoke,” unless it be “whom,” and that is in the objective case. Similar mistakes occur throughout, and give painful evidence that Mr. Braden began his scientific investigations before he had made himself familiar with Blair or Lord Kames. We would, in connection with this same matter of style, suggest that the too frequent use of interrogation not only mars the beauty of a page, but has an inevitable tendency to wearisome diffuseness. Lest, however, we may be suspected of harshness towards the author, we select a passage at random, that the reader may judge for himself how little Mr. Braden is acquainted with the quality of a good style. On page 171 he says: “We have no horses on the pampas of the New World, although they existed as the most adapted to horses of any portion of the globe for ages, and there were equine types in the New World for several geologic epochs. Multitudes of cases might be given where man has carried animals into places where they did not exist and they flourished, and even improved, thus showing that the conditions were especially fitted for them, yet had not produced them, although they had existed for vast ages. Hence conditions have failed to evolve what was especially fitted to them, and just what they would produce, did they produce anything.” We submit that these sentences are not only clumsy in construction, but are positively ungrammatical, and no one who undertakes the guidance of others along the thorny paths of scientific research has a right to tax the general patience with slipshod composition of this kind. Such examples as those given are not isolated, but disfigure nearly every page. On page 87 we find the following; “There was at first use of bodily organs in appropriating food and slaying for food animals, and the use of spontaneous productions of the earth, like animals.”
So much for the form of the book. The matter is indeed better, though necessarily much impaired by the many faults of style. In consideration of fair play towards the author we will not accept his own standard of judgment while passing an opinion on his book; for we would then have either to mistrust our own intelligence entirely or to utter unqualified censure of all that he has written. In his appeal to “Reviewers and Critics” he says: “If there is censure or condemnation of what is written, let it be only after the critic understands what he condemns, and because he understands it.” Now, we do not propose to condemn any portion of the book because we understand it; for we freely confess that there is much valuable thought to be found in its pages, and the author gives proof of having a good logical mind, not hampered, indeed, by the subtleties of Port Royal or the Grammar of Assent, but sturdy and vigorous, with a Western breadth and freedom. We have not space to give even an outline of the plan Mr. Braden has mapped out for himself. Method is an important feature of a scientific and argumentative work, and, when judiciously adopted, goes far to promote the purpose of the author.