was not enough for Professor Green to have shown that current systems of philosophy which ignored Hume were an anachronism. He felt bound to do so by a direct examination of them and a criticism of their contents. Hence his examination of the works of Spencer and of Lewes republished in the first volume of his collected works. The works of Spencer have called forth many criticisms. But, from his own point of view, there has been no attack so deadly or so triumphant as that made by Professor Green. He does prove that Mr. Spencer's psychology involves an anachronism, that his premises are not to be distinguished from those of Hume, and that his conclusion ought to be scepticism. Mr. Spencer had tried to explain knowledge from the independent action of object on subject, and yet he presupposes their mutual relation. Mr. Spencer had been constrained to make mind secondary and derivative, for in no. other way could he bring mind under the general formula of evolution which his system endeavours to establish. He is compelled, therefore, to give a new meaning to consciousness, to make his "object" to be both in and out of consciousness, and to translate an aggregate of states of consciousness into an "unknowable reality beyond consciousness." In this way he has been able to construct such a view of the genesis of mind as made it wholly dependent on matter and motion. If Professor Green had done nothing else than set forth the incompetency of such a method of philosophising, he would have done incomparable service. He has done this with such conspicuous power that there is a hope of our getting rid in due time of the Spencerian psychology and its popular imitations. It is only a hope, however, for, like the Bourbons, this kind of philosophy learns nothing and forgets nothing. It has survived the criticism of history; it may for a time survive the criticism of Green. It may continue to build as if the foundations of it were not destroyed, but the true student of the history of thought will always know how much of an anachronism it is.

From Green we have also got a vivid and real account of the German answer to Hume. An English student can now really know Kant, and what Kant has done, better, we had almost said,

than a German student not acquainted with English can. From the works of Caird, Stirling, Adamson, Watson, and Wallace, to mention only the chief English expositors of Kant, we can know what was the problem of philosophy set to Kant, what his solution of it was, how far he had succeeded, and how far he did not succeed. We can appreciate the great historical position of Kant and his significance for psychology. Green's contribution to this great theme is a significant one. He has thought out the matter for himself, and his aim always is "to see in philosophy a progress in effort towards a fully-articulated of the world as rational." He says "the past history of philosophy is of interest as representing steps in this progress which have been already taken for us, and which, if we will make them our own, carry us so far on our way towards the freedom of perfect understanding; while to ignore them is not to return to the simplicity of a prephilosophic age, but to condemn ourselves to grope in the maze of "cultivated opinion" itself, the confused result of those past systems of thought which we will not trouble ourselves to think out" (Works, vol. i. pp. 4, 5). His study of historical philosophical systems are of unique value, just because he set himself to make his own, and to think out every system in its given historical position and relations. Whether he deals with Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Kant, or Hegel, we always find him striving to look at the problem set to these great thinkers as it appeared to them. For them it was a real problem, and Green always tries to see the reality of it. There is, therefore, no more instructive writer on the history of philosophy. It is true that his mode of writing the history of philosophy has its inconveniences. For we have in it partly expositions of the theory he is dealing with, partly expositions of Green's own view, and partly criticisms of the one theory from the point of view of the other. The style, too, is sometimes far from lucid; it is too much weighed with thought to be perspicuous at a first reading, and the exposition is so entangled with criticism that one can hardly tell sometimes which is which. But the meaning is always there, and does disclose itself to patient study, and when we get it we always find it to be worth the toil.

I.

By the Rev. J. F. B. TINLING, B.A., Crouch End, London.

My impression is that the work has not taken any general hold of the Bible-reading public. I am a good deal away from home on mission, deputation, and other service, and I have not found the new version superseding the old in any considerable number of instances, either in the pulpit or in the home. I would not speak confidently, but I seem to meet with it less frequently than I did a few years ago.

As to my own opinion of its value, I will only venture to say of the Old Testament translation that I regard it as by far the more important and valuable part of the work, throwing much needed light upon some very dark passages, especially of Job and Isaiah, in which, however, I doubt if they added much to the splendid translation of the Swiss Professor Segond, which seems to have more acceptance among French Christians, especially ministers, than the Revised Version has with us.

Speaking generally, I think the changes in the New Testament are an improvement, though the work fails to combine increased verbal accuracy with English as worthy of Queen Victoria's reign as that of the Authorised Version was worthy of King James I.; and the reason of minute changes is not always apparent, and so seems a regrettable disturbance of hallowed forms of speech and previous associations.

I reckon it, however, a considerable service to have undone the strange and persistent fault of the earlier translators by which the same Greek word is translated variously in the same passage to the concealment more or less of the sense. Sometimes, however, the Revisers have fallen into the old error. I will take a few examples of what I reckon the merits and faults of the work from the Epistle to the Romans.

The great subject of the epistle being the Righteousness of God, "a righteousness" in chap. a righteousness" in chap. i. 17 seems a miserable beginning. True, there is no article; but, as Winer says, "the article is omitted before such words as, signifying objects of which there is but one in existence, are nearly

equivalent to proper names," and he cites ȧperý and owopoon as examples. Besides, ópy without the article immediately follows, and is translated. "the wrath," although to be consistent "a wrath! is absurdly put in the margin.

As the idea of righteousness is expressed by the same root no less than fifty-two times in the first eight chapters of this epistle, the constant thought might have been made more evident if the word just or justified had not been substituted in chap. ii. 13, iii. 4, 20, 24, 26, 28, 30.

On the other hand, the identical translation of Taρédwкev (suggesting successive stages of degradation), chap. i. 24, 26, 28; пapaßárns, ii. 25, 27; καταργέω, iii. 3, 31; ἐπιθυμέω, vii. 7, 8; and especially κavɣóμela, indicating a progressive glorying which finds its climax in the appreciation of God Himself, chap. v. 2, 3, 11, is a distinct and helpful improvement.

In chap. iii. 11, "seeketh" allows nothing for the intensive prefix. We find this even removed from Heb. xi. 6, and yet left and emphasised in xii. 17 of the same epistle by the change of "carefully" to "diligently."

In Rom. v. 15, 16, xápioμa, "the free gift" of the Authorised Version is left, though the word occurs fifteen times elsewhere, and is always rendered gift in the Authorised Version; while of the four instances occurring in Romans, only one has the word "free" prefixed by the Revised Version, and in any case the expression is redundant.

In chap. i. 20, "that they may be" is a harsh and, as the margin confesses, a needless alteration. I cannot but think a relation is intended and should be shown between roùs alôvas (xi. 36) and To aiŵvi TOUT (xii. 2), showing the passing and exceptional character of "this present evil age," and corresponding with 1 Cor. ii. 6, 7, and I Pet. i. 18, 20 (πατροπαράδοτος and πρὸ καταβ. κόσμου).

One very slight point, not without significance, is the variation of "establish" (i. 12), and "stablish " (xvi. 21), where the exact recurrence of the word would remind, as the writer probably intended, that God only could do that of which He desired to be the instrument.

II.

By the Rev. D. C. TOVEY, M. A., Worplesdon Rectory, Guildford.

I do not see that the Revised Version can be considered to be a failure in any sense but one. The beauty of language has, in the New Testament Version, been sacrificed to increased accuracy. The Old Testament Revisers have been more careful, as far as my observation goes, in this respect.

Every one who is anxious to know the real meaning of the original ought to be infinitely obliged to the Revisers. In some places the true sequence of thought is revealed to many readers for the first time, e.g. "As my Father knoweth me, and I know the Father," etc., for which the average reader (I do not include the reader of the Greek Testament) had previously to seek in F. W. Robertson's sermon on the text. Those of us who love the English of 1611 and earlier, are sorry to miss certain idioms which we understand, but which are now either obsolete or rustic. Of the first an instance is, "Take no thought;" of the second, "I know nothing by myself." 1

Is it, or is it not, of importance that the world. at large should know what is the true meaning of verses of the Psalms which are read in our churches daily, some of which, as they appear in the Prayer-Book Version are absolutely unmeaning? Is it, or is it not, important that we should see the force of St. Paul's argument, and really trace his train of thought, as in several passages of the Authorised Version we cannot? If the answer to these questions must be "yes," how can the Revised Version be accounted a failure?

III.

By Rev. A. C. G. RENDELL, Long Buckby Baptist Church.

Thank you much for the series of letters on the use of the Revised Version, which I find in THE EXPOSITORY TIMES for March. I think your efforts in that line will prove very interesting and, I hope, instructive.

1 This may be mere dilettantism in the second case; in the first we have the significant lesson that there was a time when "thought," "think," in our English speech, meant "anxious thought."

As a reader interested in the matter, I have pleasure in acceding to your request on page 241. I use the Revised Version a little, both in the study and the pulpit. It may be execrably bad taste, but I certainly do not take kindly to the "paragraphic" method of printing. It is most difficult to find quickly any given passage, or even sometimes to light upon the beginning of the chapter. I know, of course, that the division into chapter and verse is a comparatively modern device, and that, in some instances, the divisions are absolutely senseless and misleading; but, notwithstanding all this, my affections practically lean towards this method in preference to the other. I do not know if there is a Revised Version printed in the same way as the Authorised Version, but my humble opinion is, that if there were such an edition its chances of superseding the Authorised Version would be doubled if not trebled. Like many others, I live in hopes of a not long-distant retranslation. And if an entire rearrangement of "chapters,” at any rate, could be made at the same time on sounder and more sensible principles, I for one would be greatly delighted.

IV.

By the Rev. H. DARRELL S. SWEETAPPLE, M.A., St. James' Vicarage, Gloucester.

The experience I have had as to the value and use of the Revised Version has not led me to alter in any degree the opinion I formed about it at its first issue. I always considered it a very valuable production, coming from an assembly of our best and most accurate scholars, and that it was a right and fit thing that there should be such a translation amongst us bearing the stamp of authority, and containing, or professing to contain, the best and latest results of modern criticism on the New Testament. I think the production of such a book has tended to increase the confidence of those who are not scholars, but who are yet intelligent and thinking people, in the holy words of Scripture. As to its ever being read in public, or taking the place of the Authorised Version, this was a thing that one would have thought its most ardent admirers could not have hoped for it. Surely all men can see that it is a book for the study, and not for the church. "Let all things be done decently," says the apostle, and it is not decent to read such bad English in church. It

can, in fact, hardly be expected that Englishmen should patiently listen to what is confessedly not English at all. The translation which is most literally exact (and if the Revised Version is not this, it is nothing), and which is the greatest assistance to the scholar plodding away at his Greek Testament, or to the one who refers to it for a painfully accurate rendering of the Greek into his own tongue, is always the one which is least fitted for intelligent public reading. The attempt at extreme literalism, I have always considered, put the most effectual bar to its ever being accepted in the Church.

Besides this, the fearful wreck of grammar which the Version presents, and its dreadful vulgarity, would be simply intolerable to ears accustomed to the grand roll and rhythm and Saxon English of our magnificent Authorised Version. I believe the English people have quietly noted and estimated these things, and have placed the translation in its proper position, where I apprehend it will remain. For my own part, I consider the public generally have taken a just and right view of the matter. They appreciate the efforts scholars have made on their behalf, they are very glad to have the little shilling edition (a book whose appearance is certainly not calculated to kindle devotion) in their houses, but they utterly decline, and always will decline, to use it, except for reference. Books, like water, soon find their proper level. The Revised Version has found its place, a place which I believe it will long continue to occupy.

It is, sir, perhaps rather beside the point you have in view to remark that amongst many scholars there is a widespread dissatisfaction as to the principles on which the translation has been made. For instance, the critical value of the MSS. whose authority is implicitly followed has been seriously impeached, and many of us think successfully impeached. Secondly, the principle of always translating the same Greek word by the same English one appears to many an unsound principle, however reasonable it appears at first sight. It has been found impossible to carry it out consistently, and often, where it has been done, nonsense has been the result. A word in Greek, as in English, does not always bear one fixed and definite meaning, and it is not always possible to find an English equivalent which exactly, and in every way, covers the Greek. This being the case, it may well be that the true sense is better expressed

by the employment of different, instead of similar, words. And thirdly, persons who are not very learned, and who cannot fathom the inscrutable depths of learned minds, are sometimes perplexed at some phenomena they meet with. They marvel and smile at the funny word "basketfuls" in St. Mark vi. 43, and wonder why it is so much better a translation of κοφίνους πλήρεις or even of κοφίνων πληρώματα, than the “baskets full of the fragments" of the old Authorised Version. And as for the treatment of the tenses, they often find it irritating and confounding to the last degree.

V.

By the Rev. GEORGE S. BARRETT, B.A.,
Norwich.

In my judgment the Revised Version has never yet had full justice done to it by the Churches of this country. The faults of the version, its defects in rhythm, its too minute scrupulosities of scholarship, its occasional textual deficiencies, and the unfortunate rule that in some cases has relegated to the margin both the better text and the better translation, have all been abundantly pointed out by its critics; but, on the other hand, the real nature and merits of the version have not been adequately acknowledged. For my own part, I can truly say that constant use of the Revised Version has only deepened my sense of its worth as a faithful translation of the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments.

The wonderful accuracy of the translation as a whole, the conscientiousness and thoroughness with which the work has been done, the large number of passages, especially in the prophetic portion of the Old Testament, which, for the first time, are made intelligible to the English reader, the new and unexpected light that a careful comparison of the Revised Version with the Authorised Version will often cast on many a familiar passage, all this and much else we owe to the Revised Version and to the men who, at large sacrifice of time and of strength, consecrated their learning to the sacred purpose of giving to the Englishspeaking nations of the world a faithful translation of the Word of God. Whether the Revised Version will ever become a popular version of the Scriptures may be doubted; of its value to the minister, the student, and to all who love Bible study there can, I imagine, be no doubt.

VI.

By the Rev. GEORGE DUNCAN, D.D., Hornsey Rise Baptist Church, London.

I always use the revised edition of the Bible in the class-room, at family worship, and in my private study of the Word; occasionally do I read it from the pulpit, but I always give its rendering of my texts. The more and the more closely I examine it, the better I like it. It quite grows on me, and is my close and much-prized companion. I venture to think that those who have most real need of it will value the work most highly. Many of its excellences lie on the surface; but hid away, as it were, from the mere casual reader, are gains of the first importance to Bible students. To the full extent of my influence do I urge my friends to read and to "search" the revised rendering of the Scriptures.

VII.

By the Rev. D. HOLLAND STUBES, Penwortham Vicarage, Preston.

I always use the Revised Version in private, in the preparation of my sermons. The first thing I do, after selecting a subject and text, is immediately to turn to the Revised Version to see whether the newer translation throws additional light upon the text, or upsets any preconceived . thoughts upon the subject. Several times have I had certain thoughts based upon the wording of the Authorised Version completely upset by the new light shed by the Revised Version. When discussing the two editions, I always refer to the 28th chapter of Job in the Authorised Version, and ask what it means verse by verse. It is astonishing what a variety of answers I get. Many can make nothing of some of the verses. turning to the Revised Version the matter is as clear as possible. As a description of mining operations, I think this chapter exceedingly fine; it might almost have been written as a description of them in the present day. It is the same with other portions of the book.

But upon

As far as the failure of the Revised Version is concerned (and by that I take it to mean its not having come into general use), I consider all the blame lies with the bishops. Had they sanctioned its use in Church, at the discretion of the clergy, hundreds would have read the lessons from it in

preference to the Authorised Version. I shall be exceedingly glad when that day comes.

You are doing a good work, and just at the right time in bringing the subject before both clergy and laity.

VIII.

By Rev. CHAS. WHITAKER, B.A., Natland
Parsonage, Kendal.

In reply to your inquiry, I cannot do less than acknowledge my indebtedness to the Revised Version of the New Testament, in regard to correct text and translation. But this has entirely to do with reference to the fifty or sixty men, who have read with me for Holy Orders, and to its critical value.

Even in this respect, however, I think it gives scarcely due weight to ancient versions, older than any MSS., and it certainly appears to me to give undue authority to two uncials above the others.

With regard to its public use, I am strongly of opinion that it is unsuitable. Many of the alterations are for the worse, as regards good English, and are pedantic. I prefer much the English of King James' Version.

Its critical value I acknowledge with limitations; its popular use I deprecate.

I could wish it were possible to revise it, and thus to make it acceptable for public use. You will have so many criticisms that I forbear to write further. The Old Testament seems to me to be more free from the criticisms which I have made on the New Testament revision. It is undoubtedly a great improvement, both for public and private

use.

IX.

By Rev. J. HART, The Manse, Aberlady.

I have used the Revised Version regularly in public worship, and in my Bible class, since shortly after its publication, and, I think, with advantage. In preaching, and especially in lecturing, and in the Bible class, where some members retain and read from the Authorised, the difference in the versions forms a subject of continual interest and instruction, and leads to the searching of the Scriptures.

I am aware that some public teachers complain of a want of rhythm or roll in the sentences of the Revised Version. It seems to me, however, that in such a book, sense is far more important