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WATTS’S LITERARY GUIDE. 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. 85.]
D EC EM BER 15, 1892.
[ P r i c e O n e P e n n y .
N E W P U B L I C A T IO N S .
O U R L I B R A R Y S H E L V E S .
M e s s r s . W a t t s & Co. have in the press a valuable treatise dealing with “ The Philosophy of History.” Mr. T. Whittaker, the author of the brochure, is a man of very wide reading, especially in philosophy; and he was for a long time the assistant of the late Professor Croom Robertson in editing M in d .
A n e w volume of writings by James Thomson (B.V.), entitled “ Poems and Prose ” (6s.), will be issued immediately. Mr. John M. Robertson will edit the volume, and wiff also contribute a preface.
T h e Positivists are to have an organ of their own. The first number of the magazine is to appear on January 1st. It will be entitled the P o s it iv is t R ev iew , and will be published at threepence. Professor Beesly is to be the editor, and his contributors will include Mr. Frederic Harrison, Mr. J . H. Bridges, and others.
M r . W. S. L i l l y ’s work on “ The Great Enigma ” (14s.) is published. It deals, in consecutive order, with the Twilight of the Gods; Atheism; Critical Agnosticism; Scientific Agnosticism; Rational Theism ; the Inner L ight; and the Christian Synthesis. Mr. John Murray is the publisher.
M e s s r s . W. B l a c k w o o d & S o n s have published a deeplyinteresting work on “ The Distinctive Messages of the Old Religions,” by Dr. George Matheson. The author’s object has been, not to describe the old religions, but to photograph their spirit. The book is permeated by a spirit of liberality and a remarkable breadth of thought.
“ T he National Secular Society’s Almanack for 18 9 3 ” (6d.) contains a series of papers from the leading representatives of organised Freethought. It has, as usual, an excellent calendar.
A v o l u m e of selections from the writings of the late Miss Constance Naden, in prose and verse, will be issued by Messrs. Watts & Co. early in the new year.
M r . Forder has published, under the title of “ Life, Death, and Immortality” (2d.), two essays, an extract, and a sonnet by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
A p o s t h u m o u s work by M. Renan, entitled “ Studies of Religious History ” (7s. 6d.), has just been published in English for the first time. In the preface the author pleads, with great persuasiveness, for liberty of thought, and sighs for some “ corner of the world where we can think at ease.”
M e s s r s . W i l l i a m s & N o r g a t e have published a new and cheaper edition of Strauss’s “ Life of Jesus ” (formerly issued at 24s., now reduced to 10s. 6d.).
T he first volume of “ The Rationalist’s Handbook ” maybe expected about the end of January.
I n s t e a d of denouncing, with harsh words and flushed face, all forms of religious doctrine and ritual, the newer learning chooses the better part, and quietly analyses the beliefs of the ages, and gives them a rational re-arrangement in the science of mythology. A simple and most attractive introduction to the science is afforded in Mr. E . Clodd’s
“ MYTHS AND DREAMS”
(Chatto & Windus; first edition, 1885 ; 251 pp .; 5s. A second edition appeared in 1891). “ The main design of this book,” says the author, “ is to show that in what is for convenience called myth lie the germs of philosophy, theology, and science, the beginnings of all knowledge that man has attained, or ever will attain, and, therefore, that in myth we have his serious endeavour to interpret the meaning of his surroundings and of his own actions and feelings.” It does not take Mr. Clodd long to prove that children and savages quite naturally regard things animate and inanimate as equally alive, and he proceeds to give abundance of examples illustrating the Personification of the Powers of Nature—i.e., of Sun, Moon, Stars, Earth, Sky, etc. It should be noted that the writer does not tie himself to the apron-strings of the school of mythology, of which Professor Max Muller may be entitled the leader. Mr. Clodd, like Mr. Andrew Lang, traces the origin of myth much further back than the poetic metaphors of Vedic or other sacred scriptures, and searches among the encampments of the Redskins or the rude villages of the Negroes for the faint beginnings of mythic lore. Thus the peculiarly brutal legend of Cronus separating Uranus and Gaia by the rough process of castration is not a product of the politer period of Greek history. It is a survival from pre-historic savagery—a fact sufficiently supported by a parallel myth brought to light among the Maories of New Zealand. Those who are interested in the Devil (and who is not ?) will find at the conclusion of chapter iii. a sketch of the rise and progress of that unhappy personage. Mr. Clodd renews his caution against complete acceptance of the Mullerite interpretation of Aryan myth in his chapter on “ The Solar Theory,” and in succeeding pages throws open the evidence for the origination of myth under quite savage conditions. The familiar stories of the metamorphoses of classic gods into bulls, swans, ants, and the like, are found to be survivals from a far-off antiquity, when the ancestors of the Greek and Latin races believed, as non-civilised people of the present day believe, in the most intimate kinship between men and animals. Some useful facts are added on the subject of the migration of folk-tales from land to land and age to age, such as that of the immortal Reynard. Even the Ass in the Lion’s Skin has his pedigree, and his ancient prototype has been discovered in the Buddhist Birth Stories. Survivals of a more serious kind are exemplified in the Tell tradition in Switzerland.
The second half of the volume is occupied with “ Dreams: Their Place in the Growth of Beliefs in the Supernatural.”
