WATTS’S LITERARY GUIDE ■
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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 I O N S .
No. 69.]
AUGUST 15, 1891.
[Price O ne Penny.
N E W P U B L I C A T I O N S .
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O U R L I B R A R Y S 1 I E L V E S .
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T he forthcoming issue of “ The Agnostic Annual,” in addition to the opening paper by Professor Huxley, will contain a special article from the pen of Professor Momerie. The other contributors will include Mr. S. Laing, Dr. Bithell, the Hon. C. K. Tuckcrman, Mr. Charles Watts, Mr. W. Stewart Ross, Dr. Hardwicke, Mr. F. J. Gould, Mr. Amos Waters, Mr. Frederick Millar, and Captain McTaggart.
T here are two methods of studying the Darwinian system. One is to take up “ The Origin of Species ” or some epitome of the facts and conclusions propounded in Darwin’s works. Another, less precise and direct, but more calculated to enrich the mind as a whole and to touch the inner sympathies which make all mankind kin, is to devote a few diligent weeks to the
Mr. J. M. Wheeler has issued the second part of his “ Freethought Readings and Secular Songs ” (6d.).
Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall, & Co. announce that Mr. Charles C. Cattell’s “ Man of the Past ” (6d.) is published. The little work will be found exceedingly useful to Freethinkers.
Mr. J. II. L e v y (“ D .” of the N a tio na l Reformer) contemplates issuing a volume of his Freethought writings, under the title “ The Method of Unreason, and Other Essays.”
M r . G . J. H o l y o a k e ’ s sketch of “ The Life and Career of Charles Bradlaugh ” (6d.) is published, with considerable alterations and additions.
Professor T yndall has collected a number o f his detached essays, addresses, and reviews, which will be published by Messrs. Longmans in the autumn under the title of “ Fragments of Science.”
D r. Hardvvicke’s new volume, “ From Alps to Orient” (2s. 6d.), is now ready. It is even more entertaining than its companion w o r k ,R am b le s Abroad,” of which, as we mentioned recently, a cheaper edition is issued.
Under the title “ Practical Morals,” Messrs. Houghton, Miffln, & Co., of Boston, U.S.A., will publish the two manuscripts which recently divided the prize of ,£200 offered by the American Secular Union for the best work calculated to aid teachers in the important matter of moral instruction on a scientific basis. “ The Laws of Daily Conduct ” is by Nicholas P. Gilman ; and “ Character-Building : A Series of Talks between a Master and His Pupils,” by Edward P. Jackson.
D r. Bithell has prepared for the press, and will issue through Messrs. Watts & Co. early in the autumn, a booklet on “ Agnosticism and its Method.”
Messrs. C hatto & Windus have just published a new and cheaper edition, revised and corrected, of Edward C lodd’s “ Myths and Dreams ” (3s. 6d.).
Mrs. Bonner announces that she has in preparation several volumes of the late Mr. Bradlaugh’s writings. “ Doubts in Dialogue ” will be the title of one of the first to be issued.
“ LIFE AND LETTERS OF CHARLES DARWIN,” including an autobiographical chapter; edited by his son, Francis Darwin (Murray; 8 vo ; 3 vo ls .; revised edition, 1887; vol. i., 395 p p . ; ii., 393 pp.; iii., 418 pp., including index; 36s.). The Life is comprised within the first 160 pages o f the first volume; the remainder of the work consists of letters, mainly of scientific interest, from Darwin to such correspondents as Lyell, Asa Gray, Hooker, Huxley, Wallace, etc. A few letters from these gentlemen to Darwin are interspersed, and very numerous and valuable notes are inserted by the editor, so that one is never at a loss to follow allusions and “ asides.”
Charles Darwin was born at Shrewsbury in the year 1809, and died at Down in 1882. Darwin’s yeoman ancestry; his big, sociable father, the Shrewsbury doctor; Charles at school, where he was considered a very ordinary b o y ; his uneventful career at Cambridge; his beetle-hunting and bird-shooting ; the five years’ journey round the globe in the Beagle ; the quiet, happy marriage; and the long sojourn of nearly forty years in the remote Kentish hamlet— all this is pictured to the mental eye in the most interesting and natural way. We see Darwin in his work-room, we hear him speak, we follow him in his tours round his garden, experience his delight in tracing out natural laws, echo his doubts on the existence of God, feel something of the perpetual sorrow of his feeble health, catch the splendid glow of his patience, enter the shadow of his grief for the dear lost daughter, are touched by the heroism of his words the day before his departure, “ I am not the least afraid to die,” and thrill with a just pride as we move amid the stately procession which escorts his body along the aisles of Westminster Abbey. This was indeed a man — a gentleman from the crown of his head to the sole of his fo o t ; a man in intellect, in keenness of vision, in steady, unquenchable enthusiasm for truth ; a man in his rare modesty ; a man in his gentleness and compassion. What learned society did not honour him ? Yet he cared little for these things. He never appeared in public to court applause, and when he received the Copley medal his satisfaction was in the triumph of truth, and not, as he said, “ in the round bit o f gold.” Through all its minute labours and researches his nature never lost its human sweetness. Nothing more artless, more pathetic, was ever written than the little memoir of his ten-year-old Annie, that light of his household, whose girlish face smiled at him in his reveries until the day when such tears as he had wept for her dropped upon his own pale brow. He who could read the life of Darwin without being moved must have been born with a
