WATTS’S LITERARY GDIDE «
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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. 92.]
JU L Y 15 , 1893.
[ P r ic e One Penny.
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 .
A b o o k deserving of special mention is “ The Witness of Assyria; or, The Bible Contrasted with the Monuments ” (2s. 6d.). The author is Chilperic Edwards, whose scholarly contributions to the N a t io n a l R e fo rm er have elicited general commendation. The work deals with accounts of the Creation, the Deluge, Babel, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Israel, and Egypt, Jewish Religion and Ritual, Shishak, Moabite Stone, Israel and Assyria, Lost Ten Tribes, Sennacherib, Book of Daniel; and contains appendices on the Kings and Dynasties of Assyria, Babylonia, Persia, and Egypt.
T he H um an ita ria n, edited by Victoria Woodhull (Mrs. John Biddulph Martin), and which has for its object the discussion of all subjects appertaining to the well-being and improvement of humanity, appears in a new and enlarged form this month. Among the contributors are Mr. Walter Besant, Mrs. Henry Fawcett, and the Rev. Dr. Momerie. The magazine is now issued at sixpence.
M r . W. M. S a lt e r , who is prominently associated with the ethical movement in America, has published through Messrs. Sonnenschein & Co., an English edition of his “ First Steps in Philosophy, Physical and Ethical ” (2s. 6d).
Mr. A rthur B. Moss, encouraged by the reception accorded to his volumes on “ The Bible and Evolution” and “ Christianity and Evolution,” contemplates issuing a sequential work on “ Man and Evolution.”
M r . G eorge M. McC r ie will contribute a lengthy introductory paper to the volume of “ Selections from Constance Naden ” now announced to be published on the 25th inst.
M essrs. Watts & Co. will issue immediately, under the title of “ The Construction of the Bible and the Koran ” (id .) a pamphlet containing valuable information as to the origin and compilation of the two books. The Rationalist Press Committee intend to circulate the pamphlet widely among the liberal religious public.
T he cheap edition of Mr. George Jacob Holyoake’s Autobiography, “ Sixty Years of an Agitator’s Life,” will be issued early in the autumn in two handsome volumes at 3s. 6d. each.
Mr. F. W. H. M y e r s , M.A., of the Psychical Research Society, has written an interesting work entitled “ Science and a Future Life, and Other Essays” (5s.). Messrs. Macmillan & Co. are the publishers.
M e ssr s . Swan Sonnenschein will issue in the autumn a new edition of Mr. G. J . Holyoake’s “ Public Speaking and Debate.” The work, being probably one of the most useful and popular of the author’s treatises, should, in its revised form, be cordially welcomed by the large constituency to which it appeals.
One of the highest authorities on the early history of mankind is Professor A. H. de Quatrefages. We propose to give an outline of his work on
“ th e human species ”
(translated from the French; Kegan Paul, Trench, & Co. ; International Scientific Series; fourth edition, 18 86 ; 497 pp.; 5s.). Of the ten “ books” into which it is divided, the first two books are theoretical, and even controversial, and might be skipped without any severe loss. It will be sufficient to deduce from these introductory portions that M. de Quatrefages is a monogenist— i.e ., he regards the human species as derived from one sole original; and that, unlike Darwin and Haeckel, he will not attempt to trace man’s pre-human ancestry. More interesting matter crops up in Book I I I . , which discusses the antiquity of the species, and takes it as certain that man existed all through pliocene times, all through the glacial age; and expects that with the accumulation of future proofs he will be traced into miocene deposits. Where did man first dwell? This question is answered by the fourth book, which considers that the species arose in, and sent out branches from, some region in Northern Asia. Is it possible, then, that from one such limited area the whole globe could have been peopled? In Book V. the author collects extremely interesting facts on the subject of migrations across land and water. His two most striking points are made in connection with the Kalmucks and the Chinese. Some 600,000 souls fled from Russia in 17 7 1 , in order to find asylum in China; and they accomplished the journey, naturally marked as it was by great privation and numerous deaths, in eight months. As to the Chinese, there is good evidence to show that, in medimval times, they crossed the Pacific to the shores of America. Can migratory races acclimatise themselves well enough to furnish continents with populations ? Proofs in the affirmative are given in Book VI., though the illustration of a supposed Aryan race springing from Central Asia and penetrating to, and settling permanently in, both the tropics and Northern Europe must be cautiously used. This Aryan radiation is not now accepted as an adequate account of the birth of the European nations. Book V II. takes up the problem of modification by climate and other external agents, and concludes that these factors are sufficient to account for diversities of races. A curious, and almost alarming, possibility is mooted, that the citizens of the United States and Canada, succumbing to the influences of nature, will eventually evolve into Red-skins, without, of course, recurring to Indian barbarism 1 M. de Quatrefages is of opinion that the human species can never be fused into complete uniformity of type and habit, though the mankind of the future will possess far more tastes and wants and interests in common than is the case at present. While of tertiary man we know little, of quaternary man abundant fossilised witness is forthcoming, and it is reviewed in Book V I I I . Separate examinations are made of the Canstadt race (exemplified by the famous Neanderthal skull),
