s of the will, nor that, so far as we
do understand it, we should accept it. But we agree with him entirely,
that it is precisely by means of and in connection with a correct
analysis of these impelling forces that the real nature and import of
the will can be satisfactorily evolved. Mr. Hazard seems to us to make
too little difference between the power of the soul to act and its power
to will or choose. He conceives the will as the capacity which qualifies
for effort of every kind, as the conative power in general, instead of
emphasizing it as the capacity for a special kind of effort, namely,
that of moral selection.

The second part of the volume is devoted to a criticism of Edwards, the
author on whose "steel cap," as on that of Hobbes of old, every advocate
of liberty is impelled to try the strength and temper of his weapons.
For a critical antagonist, Edwards is admirable, his use of language
being far from precise and consistent, and his definitions and
statements, through his extreme wariness, being vague and vacillating
enough to allow abundant material for comment. Of these advantages Mr.
Hazard knows how to avail himself, and shows not a little acuteness in
exposing the untenable positions and the inconsequent reasoning of the
New-England dialectician. The most ingenious of the chapters upon
Edwards is that in which he refutes the conclusions drawn from the
foreknowledge of God. His position is the following:--If we concede that
the foreknowledge of God were inconsistent with liberty, and involved
the necessity of human volitions, we may suppose the Supreme Being to
forego the exercise of foreknowledge in respect to such events. But it
would not therefore follow that God would be thereby taken by surprise
by any such volitions, or would be incompetent to regulate His own
actions or to control the issues of them in governing the universe. This
he seeks to show, very ingeniously, by asserting that the Supreme Being
must be competent to foresee not the actual volition that will be made,
but every variety that is possible; and as a consummate chess-player
provides by comprehensive forecast against every possible move which his
antagonist can make, and has ready a counter-move, so may we, on the
supposition suggested, conceive the Supreme Being as fully competent,
without the foreknowledge of the actual, by means of His foreknowledge
of the possible, to control and govern the course of the future. This
solution is