WATTS’S LITERARY GUIDE. B E IN G A M O N T H L Y R E C O R D O F L IB E R A L A N D A D V A N C E D PU B L IC A T IO N S .
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No. 56.]
JULY 15, 1890.
[ P r ic e O n e P e n n y .
N E W PU B L IC A T IO N S .
OUR L I B R A R Y SH E L V E S .
D r . L o u is E n g e l ’ s volume, “ From Handel to H allé” <14s.), contains an interesting autobiography of Professor Huxley.
Mr. S a m u e l L a in g will contribute the opening paper to the forthcoming issue of “ The Agnostic Annual.” The subject will be, “ An Agnostic View of the Bible.”
A n ew volume of essays by Professor Huxley will shortly be published by Messrs. Macmillan. The essays themselves will be reprints of those that have already appeared in the monthly reviews ; but they will be preceded by an elaborate introduction which is altogether new, and should give the book a special interest. ' M e s s r s . G r i f f i t h , F a r r a n , & Co. have just issued a movel in two volumes, entitled “ Paul Nugent. Materialist,” tby H. F. Hetherington (Gullifer) and the Rev. H. D. Burton, and intended as a rejoinder to “ Robert Elsmere.” The work professes to be written in a thoroughly orthodox -spirit, and to be quite abreast of the latest theories of physical ’science and German anti-Christian criticism.
Dr. Büchner, author of “ Force and Matter,” in his new work “ Zwei Gekrönte Freidenker” (“ Two Crowned Freethinkers ”), gives an account of the Emperor Akbar of Hindustan and Frederick the Great of Prussia.
Mr. G. W. F o o t e has published an entirely new edition ^>f his “ Creation Story” (2d.).
M e s s r s . W a t t s & Co. will publish early in September, for the Propagandist Press Committee, a reprint of Mr. S. Laing’s paper, “ Agnosticism and Immortality” (2d.), which .appeared in last year’s “ Agnostic Annual.” This will be followed by a new edition of “ The Curse of Conventionalism.”
T he Freethought Publishing Company have issued a new .edition of Mr. C. Bradlaugh’s “ A Few Words About the Devil” (id.).
Mr. T. F i sh e r U nwin announces a reprint of Mary Wollstonecraft’s “ Rights of Women,” the original edition o f which was issued nearly a hundred years ago. Mrs. Fawcett has contributed a critical introduction to the new edition, in which she discusses the social condition of women then and now.
Mr. A r t h u r B. Moss has in preparation a companion volume to his “ Bible and Evolution,” to be entitled “ Christianity and Evolution.”
D r . P a u l C a r u s , the editor of the Chicago Open Court, is about to issue a booklet dealing with “ The Ethical Problem.”
D r. A l b e r t M o l l , of Berlin, is publishing, through Walter Scott, a valuable work on “ Hypnotism ” (3s. 6d.).
E s s a y s on Mythology, Traditions, and Customs form the second volume of Professor Max Muller’s
“ c h ip s from a g e r m a n w o r k sh o p .” The gist of these essays may be shortly stated :— Our Aryan ancestors, seeking to utter the thoughts and emotions excited by a view of natural phenomena, and, above all, of the sun and its changes during the course of the day and year, personified these phenomena, and described them as invested with human attributes and passions, and actuated by human motives. The primitive anthropomorphic expressions, passing into common usage, furnished materials for poetic legends, in which the sun, moon, stars, earth, sea, rivers, etc., played the part of gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines. When the great Aryan race split up into migrating hosts, and colonised various regions in Asia and Europe, they carried with them the old legends, which they modified and expanded according to their peculiar national and intellectual genius. Thus, under many diverse forms, the Hindoos, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Germans, Celts, and other Indo-European peoples have for ages cherished essentially the same myths and traditions. The tracing of the historical links between the folk lore of different nationalities has given birth to the fascinating science of Comparative Mythology.
In the first essay of the second volume (numbered xvi., in continuation of the articles in the first volume) an interesting example is given of a myth which found its way from the Rig-Veda to Greek poetry. The old Aryans fabled that Indra, the sun-god, pursued the young and beautiful Dahana, and that she died in the embrace of her celestial lover. The story arose from fanciful descriptions of the pale light of the dawn fading and dying before the approach of the rising sun. By a change of literation, which governed the passage of sounds from ancient Aryan to later Greek lips, the name Dahana became Daphne. The Greeks, in their turn, fabled that Apollo, the sun-god, was enamoured of the nymph Daphne, and that, as she fled, she was transmuted into a laurel. The introduction of the laurel was an accidental circumstance; for it happened that Daphne, or the burning, was a name applied both to the dawn and to the laurel, the wood of which burns easily. So the idea sprang up that, as they bore the same name, there must be some close historical relation between the dawn and the laurel-tree. The development of other legends is worked out in detail in this essay, as also in the succeeding articles on “ Greek Mythology,” “ Greek Legends,” and “ Bellerophon.” The same theme is discussed in the Professor’s chapters on Dr. Dasent’s “ Norsemen in Iceland,” and “ Popular Tales from the Norse,” and Mr. Campbell’s “ Tales of the West Highlands.” We do not envy the man who could be wanting in a sense of wonderment, one might almost say awe, at the extraordinary evolution of legend which wafted solar myths and fairy tales from Central Asia to Iceland and the Hebrides.
One of the most attractive things in this volume is Max
