Theism in the Light of Present Science and Philosophy. By
James Iverach, D.D. (Hodder and Stoughton. 65.)—Here we have the inaugural series of lectures delivered on the Charles F. Deems Foundation, in the University of New York, by Professor Iverach, of the Free Church College, Aberdeen. The University is to be congratulated on the choice of the first Deems Lecturer. Professor Iverach is well equipped by scientific and philosophical reading for dealing with his great theme, and he has an intel- lectual grasp and a faculty of exposition which give not only con- nection, but something of cumulative force, to the several stages of his reasoning, as he passes successively from "the inorganic world a preparation for life" to " life : its genesis, growth, and meaning," and so to "rational life and its implications," "the making of man," personality, and religion. He firmly claims, as against Mr. Kidd and Mr. Arthur Balfour, that religion need not be relegated to the support of "ultra-rational" sanctions, and contends with much ingenuity that the latter author's anti- thesis between "authority" and " reason " is misleading, and no more in accordance with reality than an antithesis between, say, language and reason. The keynote of this powerful series of lectures is, perhaps, given in the sentence which speaks of religion as "looking back on the history of the past as a story of divine toil and striving toward the making of a world to which God could communicate Himself, and which would have the capacity of receiving Him." That is a synthesis full of inspiration, and it is maintained by Professor Iverach with remarkable force and argumentative skill.
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