therefore, to a state of primeval superiority. Fetishism, polytheism and idolatry have succeeded monotheism and a pure worship.

Finally, the author concludes: if the unity of nature is not a unity which consists in mere sameness of material, or in mere identity of composition, or in mere uniformity of structure, but a unity which the mind recognizes as the result of operations similar to its own; if man, not in his body only, but in the highest as well as the lowest attributes of his spirit, is inside this unity and a part of it; if all his mental powers are, like the instincts of the beasts, founded on an organic harmony between his faculties and the realities of creation; if the limits of his knowledge do not affect its certainty; if its accepted truthfulness in the lower fields of thought arises out of correspondence and adjustments which are applicable to all the energies of his intellect and all the aspirations of his spirit; if the moral character of man as it exists now is the one great anomaly in nature a state of perpetual rebellion against the authority on which all this order rests; if all ignorance and error and misconception respecting the nature of that authority and of its commands has been and must be the cause of increasing deviation, disturbance, and perversion, and these consequences must accumulate by inheritance and increasing momentum, then we have, by all the evidences adduced of the unity of nature, a firm assurance that the system of things involves a full explanation of the mystery of evil, and extrication from its consequences, as well as a body of instruction higher than any discoverable by our rational faculties, which may be suited to lead us back into harmony with the authority felt to be immanent around us and within us.

This digest of the author's views and method shows that the work is one of wide scope, ranging over the fields of science, psychology, and philosophy, and combining in one mind-illuminated system the whole body of knowable data. Though characterized by independence of opinion, the author is ecclesiastically orthodox, and shapes his evidences in defense of several of the disputed positions of orthodoxy-such as the assertion of some special creative work in man, the corruption of man through a moral lapse, primeval purity and excellence, the degeneracy of savagism and of savage and ethnic religions, and the truth and authority of inspired revelation. It is, in fact, the modern statement of the "Analogy of Revealed Religion," so well presented by Butler to the intelligence of a former generation. It is just to say, also, that the discussion is learned, logical, and lucid. The Duke's scientific knowledge is varied and adequate; his philosophic perceptions are clear and correct; his style is

easy and elegant, and occasionally rises to an elevation which stirs the emotions. The discussion abounds in terse and impressive, often beautiful passages. Speaking of the oak-gall, which grows around the egg of the gal-fly, he says:

"The oak has yielded up its juices to protect a stranger; they overflow it without venturing to involve it-circling around it and bending over it as if in awe before a life which is higher than its own. * * * For the nurture and protection of this poor maggot, the most secret of nature's living powers are held to labor. The forces of vegetable growth work for it as they never work even for their own natural organs.

They secrete for it a peculiar substance; they mould it

into a peculiar form; they hang it out in the light and air as if it were their own fruit; they even exhaust themselves in the service, and their own flowers and

leaves are often cankered in their support."

In reference to that philosophy which regards instinct as only experience organized in the race, he says: "To account for instinct by experience is nothing but an Irish bull." Speaking of instincts in the lower animals, he says: "Reason is, as it were, brooding over them and working through them, whilst at the same time it is wanting in them." Seeing that, under the Darwinian principle, some individuals must go down, the Duke gives us this aphorism: "Natural rejection is the inseparable correlative of natural selection." On another point he writes: "The purest monotheism has a pantheistic side. To see all things in God is very closely related to seeing God in all things." And again: "If there be one truth more certain than another, one conclusion more securely founded than another, not on reason only, but on every other faculty of our nature, it is this-that there is nothing but mind that we can respect, nothing but heart that we can love, nothing but a perfect combination of the two that we can adore." In one further passage the author is considering the significance of our sense of limitation:

"There are some remarkable features connected with our consciousness of limitation, pointing to the con

clusion that we have faculties enabling us to recognize

certain truths when they are presented to us, which we could never have discovered for ourselves. The sense of mystery which is sometimes so oppressive to us, and which is never more oppressive than when we try to fathom and understand some of the commonest questions affecting our own life and nature, suggests and confirms this representation of the facts. For this sense of oppression can only arise from some organs of mental vision watching for a light which they have been formed to see, but from which our own investigations cannot lift the veil. If that veil is to be lifted at all, the evidence is, that it must be lifted for us. Physical science does not even tend to solve any one of the ultimate questions which it concerns us most to know. and which it interests us most to ask. It is according

to the analogy and course of nature that to these questions there should be some answering voice, and that it should tell things such as we are able in some measure to understand."

It will at once be apparent that the Duke's

conclusions lie within a field so earnestly contested that very diverse estimates will be formed of the cogency of his logic. A critical notice is not a very suitable place for the exposition of the critic's personal opinions; but it is certainly legitimate for a reviewer to point out the positions of his author which seem to be most open to assault. Some, probably, will object to the claim that man, in distinction from the brutes, is inherently more prone than they to depravity. Man, through the use of his superior intelligence, has certainly devised means unknown to the brutes for the gratification of animal appetites, and has thus increased the effectiveness of his search for gratifications. But as this happens through the exercise of his natural powers, even his more efficient practice of indulgences falls within the scope of nature's unity. Nor will the Duke's dictum settle the proposition that evil practices exist among men which are unknown among brutes. So far as these claims of the author are weakened, his argument for inbred corruption and for cultural and religious degeneracy is weakened. Furthermore, it is entirely conceivable, and by some deemed probable, that man's depravity, instead of being extra-brutal, is nothing but a strictly animal character inherited from a still more brutal ancestry; and in confirmation of this will be cited those nobler and purer aspirations and moral lives which ever look upward and away from the brutes, and signalize man as in the midst of a glorious progress rather than an ignoble descent. Assuredly, too, a whole school of thinkers will dissent from the Duke's frequent intimation that animal instinct is merely a mind not the animal's, brooding over it and acting through it. Nor will that suggestion pass without challenge, in which the author affirms the probability that many rudimentary organs, like the pelvis in the whale, are anticipatory of functional structures yet to be, rather than vestiges of structures disappearing through disuse. Certainly, if the Duke could entertain such a view of the rudimentary pelvis of a cetacean, he should not have forgotten his philosophy when he came to the case of the water-ousel practicing the art of diving before the develop ment of the webbed feet so needful to a swimming bird. Other points are open to attack either from the scientific or the philosophic side-particularly some of his statements and implications of the necessary teaching of evolution, or especially of agnostic evolution; his assumption of the low ethnic stage of the Eskimo, with the inference based on it, and of the existence of any general correlation between tribal degradation and the natural advantages of the situation. But there is no ground for pronouncing this important work

"a dreary failure," as has been done by a recent scientific reviewer, who seems to enjoy his recognized reputation for saucy dogmatism.

In a work so voluminous as this, the author owes it to his readers to make his thought as accessible as possible. This book is not adapted to that end. It conforms, indeed, to that fashion, or affectation, which is horrified at subordinate and marginal headings, and divisions and subdivisions, and diversifications of type suited to show readily the order of subordination in the different branches of the discussion; and runs smoothly along from paragraph to paragraph, from subject to subject, and from chapter to chapter, without visible intimation of any joints in the structure. Just so far the reader requires watchful attention, frequent re-reading, and an enlightened judgment in constant exercise. The result is weariness, only relieved by good vigorous thought and an occasional flash in the style. But in spite of all possibility of adverse criticism, the Duke of Argyll's "Unity of Nature" is one of the great works of this generation, and will do good service toward the enlightenment of theology and the strengthening of fundamental truth. ALEXANDER WINCHELL.

THE GREATEST OF THE RUSSIAN TSARS.*

Mr. Eugene Schuyler, the present representative of the United States at the court of Athens, has rendered a distinguished service to students of Russian history, which will be gratefully appreciated. Mr. Schuyler was attached for a number of years to the American Legation of St. Petersburg, and during his term of residence there acquired a command of the Russian language, and by travel and study turned to a valuable account the unusual opportunities afforded for an acquaintance with the genius and character of the great Slavic nation. In 1876 he published a work on Turkestan, the result of extended observation and inquiry, which was an important contribution to our knowledge of the vast region in Central Asia which the Tsars have added to their domain within the present century. He has now produced a still more noteworthy and acceptable book, comprising a study of the life and times of Peter the Great, the most renowned of the strong-minded and powerful rulers who have at intervals controlled the destinies of the Russian Empire.

This second work is memorable for the amount of fresh material it contains, for the

PETER THE GREAT, EMPEROR OF RUSSIA. A Study in Historical Biography. By Eugene Schuyler, PH.D., LL.D. In two volumes. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

diligent research it discloses, and for its trustworthy tone. Its statements differ widely in a multitude of instances from those given in former versions of the life of Peter, but they are as a rule so strongly fortified by well-sifted evidence that we cannot refuse them our confidence. In the preparation of the biography, Mr. Schuyler has consulted a mass of original documents preserved in the archives of Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Holland, and other countries, together with a long list of published writings in various tongues, the titles of which are in each case named at the close of the chapters drawing upon their stock of information. The products of this painstaking investigation are woven into a narrative which is as pleasing as it is instructive, and still is not entirely free from occasion for criticism.

In the beginning, a sense of disappointment arises from the lack of a proper prelude to the biography. There are few, even among our most intelligent readers, who are familiar with the early history of Russia. It follows, therefore, that in a book of the scope and aim of the present one, a summary of the chief events in the career of the country prior to the era under special consideration, is essential to its completeness. Above all, a review of the dynasty of the Romanofs was to be desired in the life of a sovereign who stood in the third remove only from the founder of that royal house. It is impossible to judge fairly of Peter's character and achievements without at least a tolerable understanding of the peculiarities of the Russian people, of the condition of their civilization at his advent, of the origin of the power enjoyed by their princes, of the use they had made of it, and especially of the records of Peter's immediate ancestors. This information could have been condensed into a few pages, and thereby afforded a background against which his colossal figure would have come out in clear relief. But this is not all we miss in Mr. Schuyler's essay in portraiture. He deprives us almost wholly of the help of his own convictions. Occasionally he lets fall a word which indicates the drift of his opinion, but otherwise his narrative is destitute of the force, the warmth, the magnetism of personal feeling. It is, as we have said, a conscientious, faithful study, but not a creation - scarcely an interpretation. When he has done, the reader is left to evoke from the recital, with whatever power of comprehension and of sympathy he may have within himself, the spirit of the living man whose traits and deeds have been related by Mr. Schuyler more accurately than by any previous historian.

Peter the First was the grandson of Michael Romanof, who at the age of sixteen, in a moment of dire peril to the nation, was elected

to the throne by delegates freely chosen by the people and representing all the cities and towns in Russia. Peter's father, the Tsar Alexis, had five sons by his first wife, all of whom were sickly and feeble, only two of them surviving him and successively wearing the crown. Peter himself, the offspring of a second marriage, was born June 9, 1672, and proved a remarkably sturdy and healthy child, walking when six months old, and exhibiting through boyhood extraordinary precocity in body and mind. His education began with picture-books placed in his hands at the end of his first year, and became a serious affair as soon as he had completed his third year. He learned to read, and committed portions of Scripture to memory, was taught to sing by note and to draw with considerable skill; but his hand-writing, as Mr. Schuyler relates, "was always extremely bad," for he did not begin to guide the pen until he " was already seven years old." He acquired a general knowledge of Russian history, some idea of the course of ancient and modern nations, a little geography and less arithmetic. This comprised the learning bestowed upon Russian youths of the upper class in his day, and all that was furnished the young prince by those in charge of his training.

Alexis died when the child was four years old, and was succeeded in power by his son Theodore, then a boy of fourteen. At the death of Theodore after a reign of six years, Peter was elected Tsar; and within a month. his half-brother, the blind, lame, half-imbecile Ivan, was elevated to the same rank, having, despite his infirmities, a claim to the crown as the senior of Peter by six years. The two brothers ever remained, notwithstanding the disparity in their condition, united by tender ties of affection. They sat side by side on a silver throne during state ceremonials, wearing duplicate insignia of royalty, and sharing equally the duties and burdens of their position. A German traveller who was given an audience in the first year of their accession, states that poor Ivan sat with his cap drawn down over his eyes and his looks cast on the floor, silent and immovable. But Peter "had a frank and open face, and his young blood rose to his cheeks as often as anyone spoke to him. He constantly looked about, and his great beauty and his lively manner which sometimes brought the Muscovite magnates into confusion-struck all of us so much that had

he been an ordinary youth and no imperial personage we would gladly have laughed and talked with him." A Saxon dignitary who saw Peter about the same time, testifies :

"He is a remarkably good-looking boy, in whom nature has shown her power. . . He has a beauty which gains the heart of all who see him, and a mind which, even in his early years, did not find its like."

In 1685, the Dutch minister at the Russian court wrote of him :

"The young Tsar has now entered his thirteenth year nature develops herself with advantage and good fortunes in his whole personality; his stature is great and his mien fine; he grows visibly, and advances as much in intelligence and understanding as he gains the

affection and love of all."

It was the custom at this period for Russian women to live in oriental seclusion. Wives were expected to be blindly obedient to their husbands, and for their faults were directed by the law to be "severely whipped, though not in anger." The princesses of the royal family were subjected to particular restraints, were seldom married, and, immured in their apartments, enjoyed little more liberty than cloistered nuns. A remarkable exception occurred in the case of Sophia, the half-sister of Peter, a woman of strong mind, masculine education, and not unnatural ambition. She had been appointed regent during the minority of the young Tsar, and, according to the evidence brought forward by Mr. Schuyler, administered the government on the whole wisely. It has been asserted by former historians that Sophia strove, for selfish purposes, to corrupt and debase the mind of Peter, that he might become unfit to rule and unpopular with the people; but the present writer asserts that she treated the boy kindly and judiciously. He dwelt with his mother in the royal villa of Preobrazhensky, three miles from the heart of Moscow, while Ivan remained near his sister in the Kremlin. Peter early manifested that intense eagerness for knowledge which ever characterized him, and at the age when the average boy is absorbed in pastimes, was drilling his companions in military exercises, practicing at the lathe, hammering at the forge, hunting out foreign residents who could teach him arts and sciences unknown to his countrymen, and working under their instruction with a zeal and perseverance and aptitude which demonstrated his extraordinary endowments. Although a Tsar and the prospective autocrat of a great empire, he was a docile and affectionate son, asking permission of his mother for any unaccustomed liberty, and submitting to her commands even when they interfered with his fondest occupations.

At the age of sixteen, Peter was provided with a wife; but she had no sympathy with his feelings or pursuits, and in a short time transformed his indifference into antipathy by an ignorant and narrow opposition to his plans. The year after his marriage, Peter deposed the regent Sophia because of her schemes to secure the crown, and thenceforth, although his infirm half-brother survived until 1696, was the sole ruler of the country. He had always courted the society of foreigners, from a just estimation of their superior attainments and an enjoyment of their more easy and cultivated

manners. He frequented the suburb at Moscow to which their residence was restricted, and sought friends and counsellors among the most agreeable and enlightened of those he encountered. He attached to his service General Gordon, an able Scotchman of noble descent; General Lefort, a Swiss gentleman whose amiable and sterling qualities gained his friendship and trust; with many others of high or low degree, whose abilities could be of use to him in the government and development of his subjects. It was integrity and intellect that commended men to Peter's favor. He cared not how humble might be their origin, provided they were honest, progressive, and efficient.

Mr. Schuyler declares that for five years after the deposition of Sophia, the Tsar left the affairs of state to the management of his ministers, while he gave himself wholly to the indulgence of boyish inclinations. If so, it is hard to reconcile the fact with the earnest, energetic, and far-sighted operations of both his earlier and later career. He was busy all these years building boats and training soldiers, with the consciousness, we may believe, that out of what seemed the simple toys of his leisure the future army and navy of Russia were to be constructed.

Peter obeyed the law of his nature by engaging as heartily in pleasure as in labor, and frequent illnesses were induced by his excessive toil followed by equally excessive dissipation. From a grave malady which attacked him in his twenty-first year, there resulted the fits of melancholy, the convulsive movements of the muscles, and sudden outbursts of passionate anger, which afflicted him during his after life.

In

In the summers of 1693 and 1694, Peter visited Archangel, the only seaport Russia owned, and there industriously pushed forward his studies in commerce and navigation. 1695 he inaugurated a campaign against the fortress of Azov, situated on the river Don, ten miles above the Sea of Azov. This was the beginning of the great series of military enterprises by which he eventually opened a convenient pathway for Russian commerce to the ocean. During the centuries in which Russia had been enslaved by Mongol hordes from Asia, she had been despoiled of her border provinces on every side save the north. the accession of Peter, the Tartars held a vast territory on her eastern frontier; the Turks divided with fierce native tribes the region along the Black sea; and the Swedes and Poles had possession of a broad strip on the west stretching north of the Baltic. In view of these facts, Peter has not been idly playing with ships and soldiers through his boyhood. His incessant and unstinted toil to make himself master of the science of military and naval warfare was

At

underlaid by a grand object. It meant the recovery of the lands which had been rent from his country in her hour of weakness and prostration. It meant, as we read by the afterinterpretation, that Russia should regain her old outlets to the high seas, through which, intercommunication being again established with the outer world, her ancient equality with European nations might be restored.

After the capture of Azov in 1696, Peter be gan the creation of a fleet with unmistakable intentions. His extremest need was for skilled assistants and workmen. He despatched fifty nobles to the maritime states of Europe, Italy, Venice, Holland, and England, to learn the arts of ship-building and navigation. Spurred on by an eager desire, he followed soon after to acquire the same knowledge. The story of his apprenticeship to ship-builders and carpenters in Holland and England is familiar to everyone. Many gross errors in accredited accounts are corrected in Mr. Schuyler's narration of the Tsar's adventures during the eighteen months he now spent in Europe. He was unused to the refinements of western civilization, and was rude and uncouth in many respects; yet he was not the barbarian he has been represented. The Electress of Hanover has bequeathed to us the following sketch of his appearance at that time:

The Tsar is very tall [he was nearly seven feet in height], his features are very fine, and his figure noble. He has great vivacity of mind, and a ready and just **We regretted that we could not stay longer, repartee. so that we could see him again, for his society gave us much pleasure. He is a very extraordinary man. It is impossible to describe him, or even to give an idea of him, unless you have seen him. He has a good heart, and remarkably noble sentiments."

Cardinal Kollowitz, of Hungary, wrote after meeting him:

"The Tsar** is tall, of an olive complexion, rather stout than thin, in aspect between proud and grave, and with a lively countenance."

Another witness adds these details to the picture:

There is one circumstance which is unpleasant he has convulsions, sometimes in his eyes, sometimes in his arms, and sometimes in his whole body. He at times turns his eyes so that one can see nothing but the whites. He is very well made, and goes about dressed as a sailor. in the highest degree simple, and wishing nothing else than to be on the water."

Mr. Schuyler remarks that

"Peter had a strange shyness, which seemed to grow upon him. He hated to be stared at as a curiosity, and the more he met people of refinement, versed in social arts, the more he felt his own deficiencies. Nothing but the excitement of a supper seemed to render general society possible to him. His visits of ceremony

were brief and formal."

Serious business had induced Peter to engage in severe and protracted work and travel in foreign lands, and he desired to devote his attention exclusively to the accomplishment of

his purpose.

On his return to Moscow in 1698, he proceeded by vigorous and despotic measures to introduce into his country the customs of dress and manners which had impressed him abroad as worthy of adoption. He had persuaded hundreds of foreign artists and artisans. to take up their residence in the towns of Russia, and while there founding trades and industries, to teach the practice of them to his ignorant subjects. From this time forward, a great part of his energies was employed in the herculean task of awakening a spirit of progress among his people, in rousing them from their sloth and apathy, and imbuing them with an ambition to appropriate the civilization of western nations. It was a sublime endeavor, and to accomplish it there was one man pitted against millions. They were benighted, obstinate, prejudiced; he was passionate, headstrong, tyrannical, and but dimly enlightened. It was an unequal struggle, conducted with dreadful barbarity at times, but with unwavering persistence.

The Tsar was able to produce no direct impression on the masses. They were too ignorant and bigoted and far-removed, and the methods used in his deplorable unwisdom were too rash and violent. But he did institute many reforms among the nobles and higher classes; he improved various features of the administration; he founded many beneficent and educational institutions; he broke the bars which imprisoned women as in an eastern harem; he let in the light of European civilization upon a people long isolated by their situation, their language, and a religion as inflexible and fanatical as Mohammedanism. Though he failed to work the radical changes he hoped for, because success was impossible in the time and with the instruments at his command, he drew a sharp dividing line between the Russia of his ancestors and the Russia of his descendants. All who turn over the pages of its past history must acknowledge that Peter inaugurated a new and nobler era in the life of the nation. He hurried it forward at a tremendous pace, that it might retrieve the ages lost in cruel servitute to Asia; and the impetus he imparted is felt to the present hour.

The latter part of Peter's life, narrated in the second volume of Mr. Schuyler's biography, is less interesting than the portion of which we have drawn a meagre outline. It was largely occupied with wars against the Swedes under Charles XII; with conquests on the eastern boundary of the empire and in Asia; and with diplomatic negotiations with foreign courts. Before it was ended, Peter had made his name known and feared by all Europe; he had received from his people the title of "the Great"; and he had dragged by his sole powerful hand his beloved country out of the darkness of the