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Akt. IV.—The Freedom of the Will, as a basis of Human Responsibility and a Divine Government, elucidated and maintained in its issue with The Necessitarian TJieories of Hobbes, Edwards, the Princeton Essayists, and other Leading Advocates. New York: Carlton & Lanahan.

This is, in many respects, a very remarkable work of a very remarkable man. We learn from the Eeview of which he is the editor, (The Methodist Quarterly Keview,) that' for terse, clear, comprehensive statements of doctrines, and for just analysis and brief interpretations, Dr. Whedon is without a rival. He gives the result of protracted study, and not the studies themselves.' Now it is not very wonderful, it seems to us, that 'Dr. Whedon should have given the result of hia studies, and not the studies themselves;' since this is exactly what every author does. But what shall we say to the exalted eulogy that, in such high attributes of mind, D. D. Whedon D. D. 'is without a rival'?

We shall say, in the first place, that it is a newspaper puff, not of the book before us, but of the first two volumes of his Commentary; and is placed under the advertisement of the forthcoming third volume of that wonderful production, which is to embrace ' Acts and Romans.' We have not, as yet, seen either volume of his Commentary; and are, therefore, not entitled to express an opinion whether, among all the great expounders of Revelation, he is really 'without a rival.' But we are inclined to imagine, that if the history of all ages and all nations were diligently searched, some one expounder, at least, might be found almost equal to Dr. Whedon.

But, if this be a mistake, then we must say, in the second place, that we people of the South have been most strangely insensible to the claims of so unparalleled a genius. It is to be feared, indeed, that we have scarcely been sufficiently sensible of his existence, to say nothing of his vast erudition and

powers of condensed thought. \Ve are the more inclined to this opinion, because when Dr. \Vhedon asked us, before the war, if he was not very much abused down South,’ we were compelled to reply that ‘ we could not tell,’ as we had never heard his name mentioned in the South.’ To remove, as far as possible, this most disgraceful ignorance, we shall proceed to introduce Dr. Whedon to our readers. The book is the man. Surely, if Buffon could say,-‘ the style is the man,’ we may, with still greater'e1nphasis, assert, that the book is the man ;’ especially in the case of a book like the one before us. The book is D. D. Whedon D. D This is a great name. If any one can doubt lthis, for a mcment, only let him read the first page of the llhthodisl Quarterly Review, which consists of notices of itself, and of its renowned editor D. D. \Vhedon, D. D. One of these notices re

sounds ‘with his rare literary, classical, and theological abili

ties ;’ and another declares that no man in the Methodist Church has done so much as its editor, Dr. \Vhedon, to elevate the standard of scholarship among the clergy.’ ‘ In some departments,’ says the lVew England Ilistorical and Genealogical Register, ‘this Quarlerly surpasses all others. . . A denomination possessing the present resources of men and money enjoyed by this one ought to make (certainly it ought) its chiet publication the foremost one in the land. If it is not, we are sure it is no fault of the present editor.’ \Ve sec no reason,’ says The Independent, ‘to retract our judgment that Dr. \Vhedon is, perhaps, the best review editor there is in this country. ’ Even the Pittsburgh Daily Gazelle, as we learn from Dr. Whedon’s own Review, endorses him as an author of high repute and an able scholar.’ Now if, instead of being overwhelmed by so many imposing newspaper authorities, we had only been permitted to form our own calm, deliberate, and conscientious opinion, we should, from the book before us, have come to the conclusion, that Dr. \Vhedon is a dull man. He may be a learned man; but then read, reflect, and say, if any thing could be more offensive than wich learned dulness. Not learned dulness merely, but dulness assuming the solemn guise of profound and original

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thought, and concealing itself, from superficial eyes, under a disgusting pedantry as cold as it is conceited. Such precisely, unless we are greatly mistaken, is the asinine mask which the learning of our author is accustomed to wear. ln the discussion of this question, we shall endeavor to show :First, that ‘ the style is the pedant,’ and not the scholar; secondly, that ‘the book is the pretender,’ and not the philosopher. ' We have not gone out of our Way in quest of such an antagonist. His book, T he Freedom of tlw Will, was handed to us by one of the publishers; and till then We had never received the least intimation of its existence. Having read it, in the discharge of our ordinary duty as reviewers, we shall now, under a sense of the same duty, notice what we conceive to be its gross sins against the purity of the English language, and its flagrant departures from the rectitude of clear honest thinking. First, then, ‘ the style is the man,’ and, in the case before us, the man is a pedant. Why is it, that our author shows an evident terror of plain, simple, pure, good English 2 Does he fear, that if he uses the good old English of ordinary mortals, he will be taken for one himself, and that, consequently, he feels secure in his exalted position in the world of letters only when he is tricked out in the trumpery of un-English words and phrases? Be this as it may, it is certain that, in point of fact, he shuns the path of ‘good usage ’ both in his diction and his style. His whole book, indeed, everywhere bristles with a barbarous jargon, which is to be found in no other writer of cultivated taste, or sound educationf Open his book anywhere, and we shall be sure to light on words and expressions, which can be found in no dictionary, much less in any good writer, of the English language. On page 302, for example, Dr. Whedon says: ‘No moral being ever held connnand of the entirely of his moral nature ’, &c. A lawyer may, perhaps, be permitted to speak of the moity, or the entirety, of an estate. Blackstone is the only author, who has been produced for the use of the term entirety ,' it is entirely out of place in a philosophical discourse. We

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should be exceedingly surprised, not to say astonished, to find such a word in the works of Dugald Stewart, Sir James Mackintosh, Robert Hall, Macaulay, or in those of any writer of good English. We are not at all surprised, however, to find it in the book of Dr. Whedon; it is indeed among the very least of his peccadilloes. This expression,'the entirety of his moral nature', has only one thing to recommend it, and that is, it is less simple than the word,—' the whole of his moral nature.' But this recommendation was sufficient for Dr. Whedon. Any man of plain, good sense would have said ' the whole'; and, consequently, the erudite and the profound Dr. Whedon must 6ay,—' the entirety'.

Again, on page .57, (we have opened the book at random,) the very learned author says: 'To cognize its necessity requires a pure intuity over and beyond the simple perception that it is'. Now, there is no such word as intuity in any dictionary of the English language, not even in Webster's. Why he should have preferred this word to the term intuition, it is impossible to conceive, unless it was because intuition is a good, old English noun, which has received the sanction of all the best writers, and of all the lexicographers, of the language. Our learned author, indeed, will not allow the mind, in the simple exercise of its intuitive faculty, or reason, to perceive any necessary truth, or existence as necessary. On the contrary, it must' intuit' it; or else go without this very important part of human knowledge. The noun intuity and the verb to intuit, do not belong to the English language. They are not Anglicisms, nor Gallicisms, nor even Americanisms. They possess none of those very doubtful characters; they are simply and purely Whedonisms. If Dr. Whedon should say, ' directly known by the consciousness ', he would talk like other people, and not like a learned Rabbi. Hence, he must sav, (p. SI), in genuine Whedonese,' directly known or intuited by the consciousness'. He does sometimes, however, in spite of himself, lapse into good English. Thus, on page 232, he actually condescends to say, like other people, that an 'intuitive truth', is ' intuitively seen'. This is not only good English, it is also free from our author's habitual confusion of thought. This is more than we can say for the expression, to cognize its necessity requires a pure intuity', or intuition; since to cognize a necessary truth, requires no such thing. It does not require, it is itself, a pure intuition. The necessary,'intuitive truth', is simply ' intuitively seen'; and this intuition does not require an intuition to clear up its vision. But Dr. Whedon, unless we are very greatly mistaken, requires a great many things, to relieve his learned mental vision from confusion of thought, and reduce his learned jargon to good English.

'A few thinkers there are', says he, (page 238,)' who abandon necessity, both causational arid uniformitarian, and maintain that counter choice may sup-posably happen,but nevertheless is an extraordinary or a prodigy'. Now this sentence is a fair specimen of Whedonese. It is, however, quite refreshing to find in such a sentence, the good old English word 1 happen'; for, in some other places of the same work, events do not happen ; they ' transpire'. In a note to the word transpire, Mr. Webster says,' This sense of the word, which is of recent introduction, is common in the United States, especially in the language of conversation and of newspaper writers'; and Dr. Whedon may have learned this use of the word from the Pittsburgh Daily Gazette, The Independent, or from some other of the newspapers, by which his'rare literature', and his profound 'classical' lore, are so highly eulogized. 'Its use, however,' as Mr. Webster justly adds, ' is condemned by the critics of both countries'; that is, by the critics of both England and America. Events 'happen ', and perspiration 'transpires'. We hope that Dr. Whedon will bear this in mind, and hereafter use both words properly, as he has here accidently used one of them.

But what shall we say to the term uniformitarian f This, as we had supposed was krown to every scholar, is a technical term which belongs to the science of geology, and which has no business in philosophy. But if this long, learned, technical term must be lugged into philosophy, it is desirable, one would suppose, that it should be used in its proper sense. It is, on the contrary, used by Dr. Whedon in a sense diametrically opposed to its proper one. According to Worcester, this word is

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