inconsistent with it; impurity is destructive of it; marriage acquires a spiritual and mystic nature in virtue of the sanctification of the family life in Christ; eating meat offered to idols brings the man into sacramental union with the antagonists of Christ; the Lord's Supper is the emblem of union. Finally, the headship of Christ over a restored humanity, based on his union with humanity, implies a subordination in the Church that demands order even in the assemblies, and brings about in the end a subjection of all created things to Christ that assures us of victory over death."

We have no space to follow Mr. Edwards through the rest of his introduction or the excellent sketch which he gives of the merits of previous interpreters. But we regard this introduction as the most valuable part of the book. The commentary itself is founded on grammatical and exegetical notes read to various theological classes in Wales. It is conscientious and learned, and not without a certain freshness of occasional illustration. I cannot agree with some of Mr. Edwards' conclusions, but no one can consult his notes without finding them thoughtful and suggestive.

We need do little more than refer to the translation of the seventh volume of Ewald's "History of Israel." This is one of the few books of the century to which we may fairly apply the epithet of "epochmaking." Ewald was at once a prophet and a critic. He stood haughtily alone on a peculiar eminence, and combining in an unusual degree the gifts of learning, originality and eloquence, he flung over every part of Scripture the meteoric gleam of his stormy genius. Of all his writings, the "History of Israel" will probably be the most permanent memorial of his lifelong toil. It has already exercised a profound influence over English theology, and it gave one of its chief impulses to the "picturesque sensibility" of the late Dean Stanley. The reader may dissent again and again from the conclusions of his imperious teacher, and may entirely refuse to endorse the dictatorial decisions with which Ewald in many cases sweeps aside the current opinions; but he will feel himself to be in contact with a mind at once lofty and intense, and it is impossible that he should study Ewald's writings without being sensible of their influence and charm. The present volume is equal to any of its predecessors in interest and variety. It traces the history of a period as important as any in the whole world's history-namely, that which witnesses the spread of Christianity and the growth of Christian institutions. We have here the picture of the effect produced on the minds of the Apostles by the appearance of the risen Christ; the narrative of Pentecost; the formation and dissolution of the Church in its primitive form; and a vivid outline of the marvellous life and labours of St. Paul. Interwoven with these we find a most brilliant sketch of the philosophy of Philo; the eventful romance of the life of Agrippa and his strange connection with the reigns of Caius and Claudius, and a detailed picture of " the end of the age" in the siege and conquest of Jerusalem, with its total overthrow of the Jewish nationality. All who are familiar with the previous volumes of this great work will be able to anticipate the pleasure which they cannot but derive from the treatment of such

"The History of Israel." By Heinrich Ewald. Vol. VII. : The Apostolic Age. Trans. lated by J. Frederick Smith. Longmans.

episodes of history by a master-hand; and no one will read this volume without a desire to read and to re-read those to which it furnishes so powerful and tragic a conclusion.

F. W. FARRAR.

II.-SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.

ENGLAND has, during the past season, been less productive than usual in the field of social and economic science. Two of its most important contributions, however, are made to a branch of the subject in which our literature has hitherto been unaccountably defectivethe branch of taxation. We are not, indeed, so poor as Professor Walker, the American economist, represented us when he declared, not long ago, that Mr. Gladstone's "Financial Statements" was the only work we possessed on the subject; but it is true that we have no systematic works like those of Parieu or Wagner, and that up till now we have had no good historical works on English taxation. This want is at last considerably supplied by the appearance of a general history of taxes in England, by Mr. Dowell, of the Inland Revenue, and a more special and minute history of the Custom Revenue, by Mr. Hubert Hall, of the Record Office.t Mr. Dowell's book has its faults, mainly of omission and arrangement, but it is much superior to any previous work on the subject. Sir John Sinclair's "History of the Revenue" ends with last century, and, besides, gives us far more disquisition than fact. This Mr. Dowell avoids-perhaps too muchcontenting himself with a simple narration of the movement of taxation. Local taxation is not touched on at all, and for the earlier period the record of imperial taxation is rather meagre. In so wide a field absolute freedom from error is impossible, but the author has manifestly been at great pains to be accurate, and his work is at once important and readable. Mr. Hall's exhaustive treatise is compiled exclusively from original authorities, and throws considerable light on many obscure points in connection with the Customs, hitherto the least. understood of the early sources of the Revenue.

Another important work of a historical kind comes to us from America, "A History of Money," by Mr. Del Mar, formerly Director of the Bureau of Statistics of the United States, and already favourably known in Europe by his "History of the Precious Metals." Reserving the history of money in modern countries for a future volume, Mr. Del Mar confines himself in the present one to ancient countries, such as China, Japan, India, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and gives evidence throughout of careful research and solid judgment. The most important part of the work is the elaborate and instructive examination of the successive monetary systems of ancient Rome, regarding which the author subjects accepted impressions to searching criticism, and, among other things, overturns

"A History of Taxation and Taxes in England, from the Earliest Times to the Present Day." By Stephen Dowell, Assistant Solicitor of Inland Revenue. 4 vols. London: Longmans, Green & Co.

"A History of the Custom Revenue in England, from the Earliest Times to the Year 1827." By Hubert Hall, of H. M. Public Record Office. 2 vols. London: Elliot Stock. A History of Money in Ancient Countries, from the Earliest Times to the Present." By Alexander Del Mar, C.E., &c. London: George Bell & Sons.

the account of the currency of the period of the Commonwealth which has been unquestioningly received from Pliny by modern historians, and according to which a double standard, of silver and copper, prevailed from 269 to 207 B.C., and a treble standard, of gold, silver, and copper, from the latter date down to the time of the Empire. It is impossible to give any notion of Mr. Del Mar's argument here, but he comes to the conclusion that "the Roman monetary system was a numerary one, and that the numismatic relics which have been so long regarded by the learned as copper coins were essentially irredeemable notes stamped (for lack of paper) on copper, and diffused and designed to pass on the exchanges for a much greater value than that of the material of which they were composed.' The silver denarii were also, in his opinion, over-valued in the same way, and were originally irredeemable notes passing for other irredeemable notes, just as in recent years a United States Treasury draft might have been drawn for a given sum of irredeemable "greenbacks." Mr. Del Mar draws many useful lessons from the experience of the ancients, who, he declares, understood the nature of money better than we do, and were not so apt to entertain impracticable ideas on the subject. This is certainly true as far as America is concerned, as we may see from an excellent and interesting little history, the best yet written, of the curious experiences and experiments of the United States in monetary legislation, which has just come from the pen of Mr. Upton, late Assistant-Secretary to the United States Treasury.*

In the present unsettled state of opinion as to the character and prospects of political economy, it is a pleasure to observe the firm grasp of the situation taken by Professor Marshall in his recent inaugural lecture at Cambridge on "The Present Position of Economics."t Rejecting the pretensions of the historical and sociological schools, he thinks political economy must still travel on its old English lines, with certain minor, though not unimportant, re-adjustments. His account of the English school is very true and discriminating. They never claimed for their doctrines the universality and necessity they are charged with claiming, but they failed to realize that the economic theory they were building up could never be a body of universal economic truth, but only an engine of universal application in the discovery of economic truth-"a machinery to aid us in reasoning about those motives of human action which are measurable" by money. Nor will Mr. Marshall admit that they disregarded history and statistics, as is alleged; on the contrary, they did a great deal for both; but they made too little account of the variability of human nature and circumstances. This of course was so far only the natural attitude of science; its interest is in the resemblances, and, when its view of the variations becomes more extensive, it is still the resemblances under these variations that science looks for. This, too, Mr. Marshall recognizes, for while it is common to speak as if ages of custom and ages of competition must be absolutely unlike, Mr. Marshall acutely points out that custom is in many cases, and will be found in many more to be, in reality a veiled

"Money in Politics." By J. K. Upton. With Preface by Edward Allinson. Boston: D. Lathrop & Co.

+ London: Macmillan & Co.

competition, to rest on a balance of forces, and to change with any dislocation of that balance.

Mr. W. Cunningham's "Politics and Economics" bears some marks of the indecision spoken of. While hesitating absolutely to renounce the theoretical school, or to espouse the historical method for better for worse, he yet declares in favour of the purely practical nature of economics, and describes it-rather unsatisfactorily-as "a reasoned treatment of the fittest means of obtaining wealth." His book, however, is more concerned with a theory of politics than a theory of economics. It consists partly of inquiries into the conditions that rule, and in different ages have ruled, the economic policy of States, and partly of a review of recent economic and social legislation in England (since 1874) in the light of the principles ascertained in the previous portion of the work. This criticism is very careful and acute, and, whether we agree with it or not, will well repay perusal. His general principle is that the sole and proper business of the State is to enforce morality in the widest sense of the term, under one limitation, that the morality to be enforced is first recognized by public opinion. The State must see "that every man performs that minimum of duty which public opinion demands of every citizen." This covers such interferences as compelling parents to pay for their children's education, and manufacturers to provide healthy workshops for their hands. But besides its function as enforcer of morality-or perhaps as a particular example of it, for Mr. Cunningham leaves it doubtful how he regards it-the State has another office that justifies economic intervention: it is the steward of the national resources, including the physical vigour of posterity, and of this principle Mr. Cunningham makes much use. Strangely enough, he condemns the Irish land legislation throughout, although provisions against rackrenting and other oppressive conduct of the strong over the weak fall clearly, like slave emancipation, under the original and purely political duty of the State to promote justice between man and man. The educative theory of the State's office, which Mr. Cunningham to some extent represents, is more definitely propounded in a thoughtful and uncommonly well-written essay by Mr. F. C. Montague, on "The Limits of Individual Liberty," which, if it settles little conclusively, turns over the whole ground in a suggestive and stimulating way. His view is exactly that known in Germany as the "Cultur-Staat." Individuality, in his opinion, is promoted, not hindered, by State superintendence; the individual may be the best judge of what makes for his own opulence, but not of what is best for his happiness or his perfection; he must therefore, for these purposes, be supplied by the State with right intellectual and moral standards, and with adequate incentives and means of realizing them, for "the function of the State is education in the largest sense.' And this sense is large enough, for it includes not merely gratuitous national education, primary and secondary, but the concurrent endowment of all churches, the subsidy of the theatre, many sorts of provisions for fine arts, and direct promotion of a better distribution of wealth by means of a cautiously graduated income-tax and other expedients.

A still more thoroughgoing advocacy of positive social reforms in * London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. † London: Rivingtons.

a State-socialistic direction has just been undertaken by Professor Schaeffle. Eleven years ago the Professor published a little book called "The Quintessence of Socialism," which was taken up, translated, and widely circulated by the Socialists with much rejoicing over one Professor of Economics who repented, but their rejoicing was premature. They had only seen an unfinished work, which Dr. Schaeffle now at last completes by a more positive part, in which he first shows with great force and acuteness, under ten several heads, how Social Democracy is utterly incapable of fulfilling the promises it holds out to the working-class; and then unfolds his own views of social reform, which are entitled to every consideration which Schaeffle's authority as an important economist and a former Austrian Minister can confer. He condemns Liberalism because it is individualist, and he condemns Socialism (of the Marx type) because it is more individualist still, making the material happiness of individuals the sole end and aim of society, and failing to recognize a social organism of which individuals are but temporary members. For individualism in either of these forms he would substitute a Social Positivism, a work of comprehensive positive reform promoted partly by the Church, and other agencies, but mainly by the State. This work should include a national system of compulsory insurance against disease, want of employment, and old age; a scheme of State credit for agriculture, systematic emigration and colonization; nationalization of railways, banks, gas, coalmines, electric works, and fire insurance enterprises; bi-metallism; a fair trade union between Germany, Austria, and Russia against English and American competition; and, while he rejects the graduated incometax, he would instead impose heavy taxes on luxuries of the rich, like dress, furniture, pictures, houses. This is a good specimen of the kind of headlong State Socialism which is growing in Germany under the favour of Bismarck, and which Dr. Moriz Ströll has just tried to show to be merely a resumption of the old hereditary policy of the Prussian State.† The evidence he is able to produce in support of this view is much weaker than we expected to find it, and amounts to no more than a quotation from the old Prussian statutes acknowledging the right to assistance on the part of the weak and the right to employment on the part of the able-bodied, and a reference to the Stein-Hardenberg legislation. Ströll's work, though interesting, fails in its intention, and really proves that the State Socialism of the present day, so far from being a continuous development of the "Social Monarchy" of the Hohenzollerns, is a fruit of Lassalle's agitation, and of nothing else. On the subject of Socialism, we have to welcome an excellent English translation of M. de Laveleye's well-known and authoritative work by Mr. G. H. Orpen, who contributes to it personally a very good account of the various Socialistic movements at present working in England.‡ From America there comes a readable and independent exposition of the Socialism of the Marx school, from the pen of Mr. L. Gronlund, who deduces his system from the principles of the arch-enemy of "Die Aussichtslosigkeit der Social Demokratie: Drei Briefe an einem Staatsman." Von Dr. Albert L. Fr. Schaeffle. Tübingen: H. Laupp.

"Die Staatssocialistische Bewegung in Deutschland: ein historisch-kritisch Darstellung." Von Dr. Moriz Ströll. Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot.

"Socialism of To-day." By Emile de Laveleye. Translated into English by Goddard H. Orpen, Barrister-at-Law. Together with an Account of Socialism in England, by the Translator. London: Field & Tuer.