ART. VI.--REVIEW OF STUART ON THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews. In two Volumes. By Moses STUART, Associate Professor of Sacred Literature in the Theological Seminary at Andover. Andover: Mark Newman. Vol. I. 1827. pp. 288. Vol. II. 1828. pp. 388. 8vo.

THIS work has already been noticed in several of our most respectable literary journals, and, we are glad to observe, is spoken of in terms of no measured commendation, as a work of great labor and of lasting worth. Such praise will not be withheld from it by any who are at all acquainted with the department of literature to which it belongs, and who consider its connexion with the general literary interests of our country. Philological pursuits, connected with either sacred or profane literature, have never been very highly estimated, or very extensively popular among us. If this fact were not every where admitted, it would be sufficiently obvious, to one capable of judging, from the scanty philological apparatus of our public institutions and libraries, and the very limited demand for works of this character among our scholars at large. Very few among us have pushed their classical researches to such an extent, as to derive a scholarlike satisfaction from the analysis of language, or from a minute and critical illustration of classic authors. The small number who know from experience the pleasure and profit of such studies, are for the most part scattered over the country, laboring in solitude, and prevented from bringing their efforts to any practical result, if not by the want of means for prosecuting them, yet by the absence of any adequate demand for their productions. The call even for works of established and pre-eminent worth in this department, is too limited to authorize so much as their translation from a foreign language. To our literary public generally, Thiersch and Schneider are but hard names, and Heyne and Schütz known only from the catalogues of the booksellers, as commentators upon Homer and Aeschylus. We do not mention these facts now for the purpose of finding fault with them, nor can we stop to point out their causes. We only say that such is the condition of classical learning and its kindred studies among us; though we hope, that a better taste and a love for more deep and critical research are growing up with the younger generation.

The same remarks are true, though with some limitations in regard to sacred literature. Philological pursuits, indeed, in their general character, are the same, whether connected with

sacred or with profane writers, whether directed to the illustration of Aeschylus and Plato, or of the still more sublime poetry, and more profound mysteries of Isaiah, of Paul, and of John. Where a general taste for these pursuits, therefore, is not found and cultivated by the prevailing system of education, we can'not expect to witness its effects extensively in any department of learning. If this taste is to be formed by the biblical student after he commences the study of his profession, it will in most cases be nothing better than a professional taste, and even his theological opinions will become fixed, before he learns the principles of interpretation, or the use of his critical apparatus. Such has hitherto been the fact, for the most part, in relation to the study of sacred philology. It has been pursued almost exclusively from professional considerations, and regard to professional duty. The interest which the public at large, even the literary public, take in it, extends only to its practical results when applied to the doctrines and duties of revealed religion. But conscientious motives and religious interests, if not in the view of the scholar the most congenial, have been found in this country, and indeed in all countries, the most efficient causes in the promotion of really profound and useful learning. They are deep and permanent, and no one can question the assertion, that we owe directly to their influence the origin and advancement among us of this great and important branch of literary enterprise. Fortunately for the literary, as well as for the religious interests of the country, our theological institutions have at the outset taken high ground in supporting the claims of philology as a branch of professional study. The effects are already observable, not only in the publication of more valuable works connected with biblical criticism, than with any other department of philology, but in its reaction upon our colleges and the earlier literary tastes and habits of those who are aiming at professional life. The work before us, we trust, will do much, as it ought to do, both to cultivate the taste and guide the efforts of such young men, and to awaken the attention of the community at large to the eminent importance and merit of such investigations. In the existing state of public feeling and of literary taste it seems peculiarly calculated to produce these effects. Considered as the first or at least the most marked and prominent result of the department of labor to which it belongs, that has yet appeared in this country, it claims moreover the special attention of those who watch, the signs in our literary horizon, with a view to guide the progress of public taste and improvement; and perhaps we cannot discharge our own duty towards it in this respect better, or occupy a part of the space allotted to it more profitably, than by

directing the attention of our readers to some of the peculiar advantages, resulting from philological pursuits generally, and from biblical criticism in particular, of which the work of Professor Stuart furnishes both proof and illustration.

We are the more disposed to dwell a few moments upon these general topics, because we cannot but be aware, that there' exists in our community, to a considerable extent, not merely a deficiency of taste for philological inquiries, but a prejudice against them. So little is known too, by the community at large, of the true nature and design of these studies, that prejudice is easily excited, and school-boy objections, or the mere opinions of those who never were school-boys, are sufficient to bring into disrepute the most sage maxims of experience, and the dictates of the soundest philosophy. To such an extent has this effect been already produced indeed that its influence is but too obvious in the prevailing popular notions, and in many labored discussions on the subject of education. A system of philosophy, miscalled Baconian, has been made auxiliary to the prevailing opinions, some of our public literary institutions have favored them, and others have been established on the plan of excluding almost entirely this department of study. We are told that the spirit of the age, the accumulated knowledge, and the more enlightened and practical philosophy of the nineteenth century, require us to have done with the antiquated jargon of dead languages, and to teach something that can be understood; that our minds can no longer be satisfied with a knowledge of words, but require a more practical acquaintance with things.

We do not say that this is a full representation of the popular view of this subject, nor can we stop now to give in detail the arguments on either side of the question at issue. We do think, however, that the above statement, as a general summary of the prevailing notions on the subject of education, is a fair one, and we are glad of the opportunity to lay our finger upon a work like this, and point it out, as a practical illustration of their fallacy. Are the critical discussions, which occupy these volumes, we ask. about words merely? Every one knows, that they relate to things, and that too of the deepest concernment. Now we ask again, whether there was any other possible method of arriving at a knowledge of the precise things communicated by the writer, than by a critical interpretation and consequent understanding of his words? If not, then the same question in regard to any author in any language must receive the same answer. His thoughts can be known only by understanding his words. It will perhaps be replied however, that aumitting this, and the consequent im

portance of having such works critically interpreted by qualified persons, it does not follow, that philology is a valuable study for all men, or that every student should have a knowledge of Greek. Let the question then be, whether philological pursuits and the critical study of language be in themselves, and without regard to the individual merits of the work or author read, a comparatively useful method of attaining knowledge and mental culture? With this question before us, we might again refer to these volumes, or to any standard criticism upon a classical author, and inquire, whether the process, by which the meaning of the author's words is therein determined and knowledge acquired, be not as well suited, as any other process, for developing and cultivating the best faculties of the mind, for forming the power and habit of acute and accurate discrimination, for escaping in fact from the perplexity and jargon, often occasioned by the vagueness or ambiguity of words, and attaining determinate notions of the kinds and degrees of things. But we venture to go farther, and to ask those who profess to hold words in so low estimation, to what extent they can communicate or acquire the knowledge of things without a critical understanding of words? We cannot discuss here the philosophy of language, but we must beg leave to make a few remarks upon it, as connected with this question. We shall not deny, that the objects of thought, their differences and relations, may be apprehended without words, nor that when apprehended they may be communicated by means of images, or other representatives, answering however the same purpose with words, as in teaching the deaf and dumb. It is obvious too, that in the gradual process, by which the riches of a language are accumulated, the observation of a thing must precede the application of its name, a thought must have existed in the mind before it could be fixed in the language by its appropriate word. But this is the end of our concessions on this point, and we proceed to observe, that, however the knowledge of individual objects or relations may have been originally acquired in the gradual formation of a language, it is obviously by words alone, or their equivalent substitutes, that the progress of the mind is recorded, and its acquisitions rendered permanent. Nor is it less obvious, that any considerable advancement in knowledge and mental culture would, without the use of words and the gradual formation of language, be impossible. Now it is precisely in the way indicated by these remarks, that the human mind comes itself forward in the progress of its developement by the help of words, which, by a corresponding developement, become regularly organized according to the

same law, which actuates the mind itself, and exhibit among every people the most useful and the most wonderful of all human productions, the complex structure and mutually dependent relations of an intelligible language. It is thus, that not only the universal principles of psychology, the laws of mental phenomena, and the relations of thought, but the most mature products of the intellectual efforts of a people, are to be found by those, who know how to look for them, fixed and enshrined in their language. The notices of the senses generalized by the understanding, the collected results of the experience, not of one generation only, but of ages, the products of art, the acquisitions of science, the principles and ideas, which their philosophic minds may have unfolded, and which have a living and life-giving energy for the minds of every succeeding age, this is the knowledge, these are the things, which are treasured up in the words of an intelligent and cultivated people. The language of a people is indeed, and must be to a very great extent at least, the index of its intellectual and moral cultivation, the adequate representative of its substantial knowledge and improvement. We speak now too, it must be observed, not of the aggregate production of its writers, but of that only, which is exhibited in the organic form and the separate words of a language, and is capable of being taught in its grammar and lexicography.

If these things be so, and we think no one will dispute it, we are prepared for the inquiry, how far these words and organized forms of language are necessary or useful to us in the cultivation of our minds and the acqusition of knowledge. We may perhaps admit, that to a very limited extent, and under certain conditions, we may acquire or communicate the notion of a thing without first employing the word by which it is designated. But, if we take the matter with any degree of strictness, it is obvious that an individual could make advances but little beyond the brutes, without availing himself of the use of words, as the guides and helps of his intellectual ef forts; and to all practical purposes, what Ernesti says was always the judgment of wise men is strictly true, that all our knowledge of things is attained by the understanding of words, and not the reverse. Situated as we are in society, we unavoidably learn words before we can have much insight into the meaning of them, and the consequence is, that we acquire a habit, of which the most critical and philosophical minds hardly divest themselves, of using them often without any definite and precise meaning. Hence, not only as a means of mental discipline, and for the correction of a habit so pernicious, though these are points of the first importance, but for