Charming was so impressed by the work, that he sought the author out, made his acquaintance, and found that, notwithstanding his "few advantages of early education," he gave better promise of ability to grapple with a profound metaphysical problem, and make more progress in its analysis, than any of the regulation scholars with whom he was acquainted. An authoritative critic speaks as follows of Mr. Hazard's first work, the essay on language:
Yielding to the earnest injunction of Dr. Channing, Mr. Hazard early in life took up the question of free-will, and published the results of his studies in two solid volumes, "Freedom of the Mind in Willing, etc." (1864); and two letters on "Causation," and "Freedom in Willing," addressed to John Stuart Mill (1869). Those who desire to become familiar with Mr. Hazard's reasoning in its full elaboration must consult these works; in the volume before us the results are necessarily much epitomized.
Into the merits of the great question of free-will we can not, of course, here enter. It is alleged that modern science, by its vast extension of the idea of natural law, has strengthened the conceptions of necessity and fatalism at the expense of moral freedom, But determinism never had a more powerful champion than Jonathan Edwards, and he certainly did not draw his inspiration from modern science. Mr. Hazard takes broad issue with Edwards. Professor Huxley, a leading "automatist," and representing the latest science, admits that "volition counts for something"—but the philosophical question is, For how much? Nobody claims that the will is unlimited. The title of Mr. Hazard's book, "Man a Creative First Cause," seems rather startling at first, but it is because of our theological connotations of the term "creative." His obvious implication is of the mind willing and working in its own sphere, where we properly speak of creative genius and originating capacity. Indeed, Mr. Hazard explicitly says: "Exterior to itself, it (the human mind) may not have the power to execute what it wills; it may be frustrated by other external forces, since in the external the ideal incipient creation may not be consummated by finite effort. But, as in our moral nature the willing, the persevering effort, is itself the consummation, there can be no such failure; and the mind in it is therefore not only a creative but a supreme creative first cause.
Mr. Hazard's book is tersely and vigorously written, and takes a somewhat wide range both of philosophical and practical suggestion. The author has a sturdy faith in the value of metaphysical studies for practical utility as a mental training, and also in their disciplinary power for the formation of human character. This view is incidentally presented, and we only regret that he has not more fully and formally developed it. Such a discussion would be valuable to education, and we are not without hope that Mr. Hazard may yet find it practicable to give fuller expression to his views and reasonings upon the subject.
INTERNATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SERIES. VOL. XLVI.
The Organs of Speech, and their Application in the Formation of Articulate Sounds. By G. H. von Meyer, Professor in the University of Zurich. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 349. Price, $1.75.
There has long been wanted a first-class work on this interesting subject, treated with reference to the requirements of ordinary intelligent readers. It has, of course, been familiar in a certain way to the anatomists who have dissected the vocal structures with reference to pathology and surgery, and given the representations of the parts in their text-books. But the com-
