WATTS’S LITERARY GRIDE ■

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B E I N G A M O N T H L Y R E C O R D O F L I B E R A L A N D A D V A N C E D P U B L I C A T IO N S .

No. 66.]

M AY i s , 1891.

[Price One Penny.

N E W P U B L I C A T IO N S .

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0 UR L I B R A R Y S1I E L VES.

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Messrs. Watts & Co. will publish immediately a cheap popular edition of the prize essays on “ The Practical Value o f Christianity ” written by the Rev. J. Broadhurst Nichols (from the Christian standpoint) and Mr. C. W. Dymond, F.S.A. (from the Sceptical standpoint). The competition was instituted by Thomas Allsop, whose generous support o f Freethought is well known; and the adjudicators— Mr. Clair J. Grece, LL.D ., and the Rev. Septimus Hansard, M .A .— had to make their selection from fifty-five essays. The forthcoming edition will be issued in boards at one shilling, and in cloth at two shillings. The volume extends to 152 pages.

D r. P aul C arus, the editor o f the Monist, has just published an important work, “ The Soul of M an” (12s. 6d.), being an investigation o f the facts of physiological and experimental psychology. The book is embellished with 152 illustrative cuts and diagrams.

M r. G. W. F o o te has, after revision and considerable additions, reprinted his “ Reminiscences o f Charles Bradlaugh ” (6d.).

M r. F order announces a new edition of the “ Autobiography o f Charles Bradlaugh” (4d.), written in 1873, and long out o f print.

“ P agan Mythology ; or, The Wisdom of the Ancients ” (is.), by Lord Bacon, is the attractive title of a new brochure issued by the enterprising firm of Stonecutter Street.

M essrs. G. P. P utnam’s Sons have published Professor C. F. Holder’s “ Life of Charles Darwin,” which is written principally for the younger class o f readers.

T he recent debate on “ The Legal Eight Hours,” between Messrs. G. W. Foote and G. Bernard Shaw, is published. The price is sixpence.

M essrs. R outledge & Sons are issuing the hundred good books (not best, as is generally represented) recommended by Sir John Lubbock. The first volume is “ Herodotus ” (3s. 6d.), to which the venerable author of “ Prehistoric Times ” contributes an introduction. We advise our readers to support this great and laudable undertaking.

T he new edition of “ Religious Systems of the World,” which is shortly to be published by Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co., will contain, with other fresh matter, a lecture on “ The Religion o f Nature as Taught by J. J. Rousseau,” by Mrs. Macdonald, who contributed two papers, on “ Old Indian Poetry ” and “ Buddhism,” to the first edition. Mrs. Macdonald has for some time past been making a careful study o f Rousseau’s life and writings, and proposes in due course to issue a work giving a more favourable view of him than Mr. John Morley.

Now that the legend of Adam and Eve is seriously believed1 by so few intelligent people, one naturally turns to the anthropologists for information concerning the early condition of mankind. We have already noticed Dr. Tylor’s “ Anthropology” and Sir John Lubbock’s “ Prehistoric Times.” Another interesting volume on the subject is C. N. Starcke’s

“ primitive fam ily”

in its origin and development (Kegan P au l ; International Scientific Series, vol. lxv i .; 1889; 315 pp.; 5s.). The author possesses a theoretical turn of mind, which leads him to collect and handle an immense number o f facts, not somuch for their immediate human interest, as for the bearing they have on certain conclusions he desires to work out. These conclusions lie along two main lines, which originate the sections of this volume :— (1) Definition of Kinship, (2) The Primitive Family. We are unable to allow that the author (apparently a Danish professor) is successful in stating his results with remarkable clearness. On various moot points he disagrees with such authorities as Sir Henry Maine, Lubbock, McLennan, etc., and the ordinary reader will be quite content to leave the doctors to dispute among, themselves on such questions as whether, in primitive ages,, kinship was reckoned through the female line or by “ agnation ” (i.e., through the father). But as our author proceeds by induction, and travels into every quarter of the globe in search o f evidence, he turns up a great deal of readable matter on the topic of home-life and clan-life among savage and semi-savage peoples. He tells us little or nothing of barbaric arts and sciences, weapons, dances, musical instruments, modes of hunting and warfare. His whole concern is with sexual, parental, and tribal relations. While, therefore, his range is narrow, the information he affords is very full, and useful for reference on the special topic.

The six chapters of the first section summarise the ideas and traditions which attach to kinship in Australia, America, Africa, Asia, Polynesia, and among the (ancient) Aryan race. The second section might be called the history of marriage among uncivilised nations. It is far from being a merely popular account of wedding customs. It discusses barbarian methods of affiliation; the cause and extent of polyandry; the curious obligation of the Jewish and Hindoo Levirate (the custom which enjoins a man to marry the widow of his brother, if he die childless); the system of names employed in primitive communities for various degrees of family relationship ; and the character and meaning o f exogamy and endogamy. Exogamy is the forbidding of marriage among members of the same family group, while endogamy prohibits marriage outside the group. Those theologians who are fond of arguing that the Divine light of conscience penetrates to every branch of the human race will be somewhat puzzled to account for the extraordinary differences of sentiment and practice manifested in numerous races on so vital a relation as marriage. How astonishing is it, for example, to hear that, among the Veddahs, marriage