a priori philosophies of history have arbitrarily and excessively simplified their course and succession,-their slow, multiple, unequal, and troubled march. He gives us his views of the duties and laws of historical criticism when applied to religions, and especially when required to deal with miracles, revelations, and prophets, with myths, symbols, and legends. He sets aside various erroneous or inadequate hypotheses as to primitive religion, inquires as to how the primitive man probably looked upon nature, and endeavours to define and account for fetichism. He shows that it is not at all necessary to suppose that religion originated with fetichism; and he describes the tribal religions -African, Boreal, Polynesian, and American-in which fetichism has prevailed. He compares, and analyses somewhat minutely, the religious and ethical systems of the Chinese and Egyptians.

The whole of the third part is occupied with the religions (understood as inclusive of the ethical and speculative conceptions or theories) of the Aryan world,-chiefly, indeed, with those of India, Greece, and Rome, but also with those of the Germans, Celts, &c.

The fourth part deals exclusively with the religions of the Semitic world. Here M. Renouvier begins by instituting an inquiry as to the chronological data, the traditions, and the documents which have to be taken into account. This inquiry he conducts in the spirit of the higher criticism, and with an obvious desire not to yield to any theological bias. He then discourses on the unity, divisions, and characteristics of the Semites. He thinks that, on merely physiological grounds, no one would pronounce the Semites and Aryans essentially distinct; that their intellectual and moral differences, both negative and positive, are, on the other hand, strongly marked, although they are not of such a character that we cannot easily suppose them to have originated at a greater or less distance from a basis of common qualities; but that the grammatical system common to the Aryan languages and that of the Semitic tongues are irreducible, and require us to regard the Aryan and Semitic peoples as primitive, until much stronger reasons to the contrary have been adduced than has yet been done. He proceeds carefully to characterise the Semitic race both intellectually and morally; to lay bare the roots of its

idea of Deity, and to determine the content of that idea, by the analysis of its names for Deity; and to connect the chief intellectual and moral division of the Semites with a "cruel scission," going back to the remotest age of which they retained any recollection. This "scission " may have been comparatively slight at first, but becoming ever deeper, it in time produced profound ethical and spiritual changes, and parted the race into two branches the one monotheistic and the other polytheistic. He is thus naturally led to treat specially, first, of Semitic monotheism; and, secondly, of Semitic polytheism.

M. Renouvier does not carry his study of religions beyond what he calls primary epochs. He does not follow them into secondary epochs, those in which beliefs are developed into fully formed dogmas; or into tertiary epochs, those in which faith is revolutionised by the progress of science and the commingling of peoples. But the field of his investigation, even when thus limited, is a wide one. The number of distinct inquiries which he institutes is very great. And they are carefully, learnedly, and ably conducted. At the same time, their relations to one another and their bearings on the general aims of the Essay, are never lost sight of. Notwithstanding the merits, however, of the contributions to the Science of Religions contained in his treatise, M. Renouvier must, of course, find, in re-editing it, a good deal to alter in them, owing to the great advances made by this science in all directions since 1864.

In the last division of his history M. Renouvier sums up the conclusions to which his investigations have led him. His exposition of his views of progress is of special interest. The subject is treated with the earnestness which naturally springs from a clear view of its importance. He recognises how strongly the belief in progress differentiates the present from preceding ages, and how inevitably it must be either invigorating or enervating, either a source of virtue or a cause of demoralisation, according as it is of a rational and moral character, or the reverse. If it be a belief in a progress which produces good of necessity, which uses men as mere instruments, which does not require their self-devotion, their watchfulness, restraint, endurance, and labour, and, in a word, their virtue, it must be prejudicial to virtue, and to progress

itself. Profoundly convinced of this, M. Renouvier has been indefatigable in contending for truth and in assailing errors as to progress. What he says on the subject in the Fourth Essay is but a small part of what he has written concerning it. His papers in the 'Critique Philosophique' on the various questions connected with it are very numerous. In fact no writer has treated the theme with equal closeness or fulness. He is quite entitled to hold that his predecessors have in general dealt with it very superficially, his own treatment of it being so much more. searching and profound.1

All forms of the doctrine of a continuous progress, and all theories of physical and mechanical, fatalistic and predestinarian, necessitarianism, from which it derives support, have found in him a most formidable assailant. He has been always ready to expose the optimistic illusions which abound on the subject. He admits the possibility of progress. "We must work for progress, therefore it is possible, and necessary at least that we believe it possible." It is possible for individuals and nations, in all spheres of human life and activity. And it is not only possible, but the analysis of facts shows that it has actually taken place during certain periods in the history of many peoples. No facts warrant us, however, to ascribe to it universality, continuity, or necessity. Deterioration has been as prevalent as amelioration. There has not been anywhere or in any respect uninterrupted progress. If we compare medieval Europe with ancient Greece and Rome in their prime, and apply proper criteria in an impartial manner, the former must be acknowledged to have been on a lower intellectual and moral level. If we examine into the history even of such a phenomenon as slavery, it will be found that for long periods and over wide spaces it was not liberty which gained ground. Europe is no more entitled to believe herself at present secure against future slow decadence or rapid collapse than Asia was when in her glory. France still requires to struggle with anxiety if she would even retain the liberties, rights, and

In the series of papers entitled "Politique et Socialisme," published in the 'Critique Philosophique,' he has passed in review the systems of the chief theorists of progress,-Herder, Kant, Hegel, Turgot, Condorcet, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Comte, and Spencer.-See Années ix., t. xi. ; x., t. i.-xi. ; and xii., t. i.-xi.

advantages which she has with so much labour and difficulty gained. Those who have discoursed on progress have generally erred as to its point of departure. They have supposed it to have started from conditions which can only have been gradually produced. They have imagined a perfectible brutality for which there is no evidence to be found in history. They have not deemed it necessary to inquire by what marks societies are to be ranked as superior or inferior to others. They have not seriously endeavoured to determine what constitutes progress, and have, consequently, failed to see how inseparable it is from morality, and how necessarily it must be the work of individuals and of societies themselves. They have announced so-called laws of progress, but they have not proved that there is any such law in the proper sense of the term, any necessary rule and invariable succession of phenomena. Those which they have propounded either do not apply to, or are contradicted by, numbers of facts.

These theses, and others of a kindred nature, Renouvier has laboured on many occasions, and with great ability, to establish by critical and analytical disquisitions on the relevant data. A mere statement of them can do scarcely any justice to his theory of progress. To make it fully intelligible would require a long series of quotations, and of long quotations, such as would show the character of the method, and the general course of the argumentation, pursued. I must content myself with a single extract from the Fourth Essay. By simply transcribing the author's words I shall enable my readers to form some conception of his style as a philosophical writer,-a style to which neither a literal nor a free translation will do justice.

"Ce n'est qu'après avoir parcouru les périodes principales des faits, des idées et des croyances dans les différentes séries de l'humanité que je pourrai justifier en quel sens et sur quels sujets, dans quelles limites, pour quelles raisons, il y a eu progrès jusqu'à nous, et en quoi nous devons espérer que ce progrès se continuera à l'avenir. Les prestiges de la loi fatale se dissipant à nos yeux, avec les fausses relations historiques, qui ont été imaginées pour la servir, nous verrons cette grande loi se réduire pour l'expérience à un fait déjà bien considérable, savoir que la civilisation européenne est héritière des conquêtes morales et des travaux de plusieurs grandes races diversement douées et diversement méritantes; qu'elle est

parvenue sur ce fondement à prendre la conscience et la possession de ses propres fonctions à un degré jusqu'ici inconnu, à s'appuyer sur la notion même du progrès, et à créer des méthodes, à composer graduellement des sciences et des arts qui deviennent à leur tour des aides puissants de son perfectionnement.

"Au-dessus de ce fait immense, mais auquel l'humanité tout entière est si loin d'avoir participé, on peut ensuite concevoir deux lois; l'une serait la donnée divine et providentielle d'une destinée pour les hommes envisagés en un seul corps, destinée qu'ils attendraient indépendamment des fluctuations de la liberté, et peut-être par l'organe de certains d'entre eux seulement. L'autre serait une simple loi psychologique en vertu de laquelle l'action constante des bons mobiles, des bonnes passions fondamentales de la nature humaine, jointe à l'accumulation des mérites et des connaissances, pendant que toutes les déterminations fausses ou perverses de la volonté se détruirait mutuellement ou ne produiraient que des ondulations bientôt interrompues, conduirait infailliblement les sociétés à l'amelioration croissante de leurs relations et à la moralité de plus en plus grande de leurs membres.

"La croyance à une destinée est de l'essence de toute religion développée. Mais la fin que l'humanité doit atteindre, selon les croyances de ce genre, n'est pas toujours terrestre; elle n'est jamais promise à tous les hommes sans conditions; elle n'est pas attendue de leur seule vertu, mais il faut l'intervention d'un Dieu. Un but infaillible n'est fixé religieusement, soit à un homme, soit à une société, qu'autant que l'on croit à l'action divine sur l'âme ou sur le monde. Sans cela les vertus humaines individuelles ne suffiraient point, et les vices, à plus forte raison, demeureraient un empêchement. La destinée en ce sens ne peut donc être ni affirmée, ni combattue que dans la sphère des religions et de la critique religieuse. En un mot, ce ne saurait être une loi reconnaissable de l'histoire. Mais ceux qui posent la destinée temporelle sur une notion vague d'optimisme, avec une idée vague de Dieu pour garant, ou plutôt n'ayant pour tout Dieu que le Progrès même, ceux qui d'ailleurs effacent l'individu et son vrai caractère, qui méconnaissent la liberté et ses œuvres, qui exténuent le mal en le déclarant indifferent à l'obtention définitive du bien, ceux-là ne sortent du fatalisme vulgaire que par une religiosité sans base où manquent les éléments essentiels de la foi aussi bien que de la science et de l'histoire.

"Au premier aperçu, une loi psychologique, telle que je l'indiquais, paraîtrait se distinguer du fatalisme. Les produits de la liberté y sont reçus à condition de se neutraliser quand ils se dirigent en sens contraire du bien et du progrès; et il est très-vrai que l'accumulation des actes favorables, tant pour le mérite morale que pour les connaissances acquises et les œuvres réalisées, chez les nations comme chez les individus, est une loi qui se comprend clairement, et d'ail