WATTS’S LITERARY GUIDE ■
I
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 IC A T IO N S .
No. 88.]
MARCH is , 1893.
[ P r i c e O n e P e n n y .
N E I V P U B L I C A T IO N S .
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M e s s r s . W a t t s & Co. have issued what is announced as a preliminary list towards the compilation of “ A Rationalist Bibliography” (3d.). In an introductory note it is stated that the numerous inquiries which continue to be addressed to the Rationalist Press Committee, under whose auspices the little work is published, as to the best books to read upon various subjects connected with Rationalism have demonstrated the necessity of such a list; and, while it is far from being complete, hundreds of standard works having been intentionally omitted, it is hoped that the bibliography may be of service to many inquirers and students anxious to arrive at intelligible views upon the important religious and ethical questions of the day.
M e s s r s . C h a p m a n & H a l l are publishing a re-issue of Thomas Carlyle’s works, in twenty volumes, at half-a-crown each. The first volume comprises “ Sartar Resartus ” and “ Latter-day Pamphlets.”
M r . W a l t e r S c o t t has added to the Contemporary Science Series Professor Weismann’s “ The Germ Plasm : A Theory of Heredity” (6s.). The translation has been made by W. D. Newton-Parker and Harriet Ronnfcldt.
T h e author of “ A Plea for Truth in Religion,” reviewed in a recent issue of the L ite ra ry Guide, has published a sequential volume, entitled “ Religion and the Present Hour” (7s. 6d.).
A v o l u m e containing some five hundred unpublished letters of Voltaire is being prepared for publication. The letters were, it is stated, found in the library of M. Tronchin, a descendant of the great heretic’s medical correspondent of the same name.
M e s s r s . M u r r a y & S o n have in the press a book by the late Professor Minto treating of logic, deductive and inductive. It will be issued as one of their University Extension Series.
T h e first number of Mr. Frederick Millar’s new quarterly, The Liberty Review (6d.), contains articles from representative writers in the Individualist movement. Even Socialists, against whose propaganda the magazine is professedly directed, will welcome this powerful and scholarly literary organ. There is a wealth of information in every paper, and the mantle of genius sits lightly but unmistakably on nearly all the contributors. The editor’s “ Book Notices and Reviews” are an admirable feature, and are remarkably well done.
M e s s r s . S o n n e n s c h e i n & Co. are about to publish a volume of essays on philosophical subjects by Mr. D. G. Ritchie, of Jesus College, Oxford. They arc written from the point of view of evolutionist Idealism.
OUR L I B R A R Y S H E L V E S .
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C h a r m i n g and eloquent as are the writings of Professor F . Max Müller, and great as are the services he has rendered to philology and the rationalisation of modern religious views, he is yet largely responsible for erroneous ideas as to the early history and relations of the leading races of India and Europe. These errors are very candidly and very sternly exposed in Dr. Isaac Taylor’s
“ ORIGIN OF TH E ARYANS ”
(Walter Scott; Contemporary Science Series; 1889; 339 PP-i 3s- 6d.). Max Müller has always spoken of the bulk of the European population as of kindred blood with the Hindus, and has traced the nativity of this Aryan race, as he has himself named it, to some locality in Asia. Sir Monier Williams, with more daring, has fixed the Aryan birthplace in the table-lands which rise round the sources of the River Oxus. All this large structure of theory was raised upon affinities of the languages spoken by Teutonic, Latin, Celtic, Slavic, Persian, and Hindu nations. Now, as Dr. Taylor demonstrates, language is a very mutable factor in human history. It passes from a conquering race to a subject race, from a more highly civilised race to a less cultured race, and is greatly modified in the process. Amid all these changes, the physical characteristics of nations are much more constant, especially in the direction of bony structure. The socalled Aryan race contains several distinct varieties of cephalic form. There are long skulls (dolicho-cephalic), as in the Swedes; broad skulls (brachy-cephalic), as in the Celts ; and medium skulls (meso-cephalic), as in the English. On examining the ancient skulls which archaeologists have preserved in our museums, we find the same types exhibited in these pre-historic remains as in the living men and women who now move across the stage of existence in the very same regions. The conclusion is that from very remote times the various ethnological sections of Europe and Asia have been settled pretty much where they are now found. If that is the case, then no migrations from Asia could have supplied Europe with its Aryanspeaking inhabitants. There was, of course, a race which first framed the Aryan tongue; but this probably emerged from barbarism on the central plains of Europe. Dr. Taylor, from the scanty evidence at his command, gives us a rough, but sufficiently vivid, picture of this far-away people. They were a pastoral folk, and had domesticated the dog, sheep, and cattle. Mats were plaited from plantfibres. Clothing was made out of skins, sewn by the aid of bone or wooden needles. Food consisted of flesh and milk; and mead, prepared from wild honey, was the only fermented drink. In winter the Aryans dwelt in sheltered pits; in summer under roofs of reed or tree-boughs. Across the plains they travelled in clumsy wagons drawn by oxen. Their weapons were chiefly of stone, their shields of osier. Religion was merely the practice of magic. Intellectual development was so little advanced that no number higher than a hundred was conceived. To Asia and to various 'Jjarts of Europe the Aryans sent out their victorious warriors,
