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 I O N S .
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No. S9.]
A P R IL 15 , 1893.
[P rice One P enny.
N E IV PUBLICA TIONS.
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Professor Momerie, who is such an interesting figure in the modern Rationalist movement, has issued through Messrs. Blackwood a new volume of essays, under the title of “ The Religion of the Future” (3s. 6d.). The volume contains his recent paper in the Fortn ig h tly, and also an account of his controversies with the King’s College authorities, who, it will be remembered, practically expelled the Professor for his heterodoxy.
Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co. announce for immediate publication a work by Mr. Arthur J . Dadson, to be entitled “ Evolution and Religion.” It covers a wide field, both of established facts and speculative thought, one of its chief objects being to invite the thoughtful mind to a consideration of the light which Evolution throws on some of the great problems that have hitherto been regarded as belonging solely to the province of religion. The author endeavours, from a wide induction of facts and much close reasoning, to show that the human soul is, like the body, a product of the earth, and that its existence in the future will be similar to its existence in the past. He also contends, from historical evidence, that the Christian power, by destroying the civilisation of the ancients, is responsible for the Dark Ages, and that it has thrown back the progress of the world at least a thousand years. Mr. Dadson’s name will be familiar to many of our readers as that of a frequent contributor to the Secu la r Review under the editorship of Mr. Charles Watts.
T he same firm has just published a new work by Professor John Owen, entitled “ The Sceptics of the Italian Renaissance” (10s. 6d.). It deals comprehensively with the chief types of Renaissance Freethought, including Boccaccio, Bruno, Guicciardini, Macchiavelli, Petrarch, Pomponazzi, and Vanini.
T he Right Hon. A. J . Balfour, author of “ Philosophic Doubt,” is about to publish through Mr. Douglas, of Edinburgh, a selection of “ Essays and Addresses,” which will include his biographical study on Berkeley. None of the essays have any special relation to politics.
Messrs. B ickers & Son have sent to press the selections from Miss Constance Naden’s works announced some time since. The volume will be issued about the end of next month.
Mr. A lbert S immons, better known to our readers as “ Ignotus,” the author of “ Agnostic First Principles,” has recently published an extraordinary novel, entitled “ Saint and Cynic” (6s.). The book, we understand, is attracting much attention. It will be reviewed in an early issue of the L it e ra ry Guide.
O U R L I B R A R Y S H E L V E S .
A work of much value, and yet not one which the average man would care to read from cover to cover, is
“ plutarch’s morals ”
(translated by C. W. K in g ; Bell & Sons ; “ Bohn’s Classical Library;” 287 pp.; 5s.). Of the whole “ Moralia” Mr. King only issues a selection, of which the most important treatise is the celebrated essay, “ On Isis and Osiris.” This, indeed, is worthy of full perusal. It is the only good account which has come down to modern times of the central myth of the Egyptian religion. Plutarch not only gives the substance of the Osiris story—the conspiracy of Typhon, the shutting up of Osiris in the coffin, the finding of the body by Isis, its recovery and dismemberment by Typhon, and the final conquest of the evil prince by Horus —but enters on a philosophic explanation of the legend. Rather, we ought to say, explanations, for our gossipping Greek is not a little discursive, and industriously collects other people’s opinions, such as that Osiris is the sun, or the moon, or the Nile, or moisture, etc. He winds up, however, with a mystical interpretation of the Platonic order. Osiris is the Intelligible and Good and Rational principle of the universe, Isis is the embodiment of this principle in nature, and Typhon is the emblem of disorder and deficiency. All this might have suited Egyptians of a theosophical turn of mind ; but probably the plainer intellects, if they looked for meanings at all, regarded Osiris as the sun after its setting, Isis as the dawn-goddess, and Typhon as the night. But, even if one does not obediently assimilate all Plutarch’s speculations, many interesting side-lights will be found thrown upon ancient religions, both in the Osiris essay and the treatises on oracles and “ The Apparent Face in the Orb of the Moon.” (It should be said, however, in passing, that all these pieces are not from Plutarch’s own hand.) Here, for example, we come upon curious bits of information about popular superstition on the subject of demons. When the moon was eclipsed the demons were thought to gather in the air, and so, at such a time, “ most people clatter their brass pots and clap their hands, and make a noise to scare away the ghosts.” Then we have a highly curious dissertation on the power of prophecy possessed by demons and by inspired priestesses, etc. Even in life the soul has occasional glimpses of the future flash in upon it, and this second sight is greatly increased when the body dies and the spirit rises to a more ethereal phase of existence. But the natural capacity to read the future may be brought into activity, even during the life of the body, by exposure to the influence of certain exhalations or gaseous streams which rise from the earth. Such wonder-working fumes issued from the ground at the temple of Delphi, and inspired the lips which returned oracular replies. But sometimes “ excessive rains extinguish these exhalations,” or they are turned out of their course by thunderbolts or earthquakes, and then the oracles become dumb.
A very amusing chapter is that “ On Superstition,” in which the writer draws from life rough sketches of the
