THE LITERARY GUIDE:

A M O N T H L Y R E C O R D A N D R E V I E W O F I N T E L L E C T U A L P R O G R E S S .

No. 10S.]

DECEM BER i, 1S94.

[Brick One Penny.

N E W P U B L I C A T IO N S .

T he new issue of “ The Agnostic Annual” having rapidly gone out of print, Messrs Watts & Co. have issued in separate form the symposium on “ Why Live a Moral L ife?" (6d.).

Mr. David Nutt has published a volume on “ The

Legend of Perseus” (7s. 6d.), dealing with the supernatural birth. The writer is Mr. E. Sidney Hartland. The same publisher announces “ Lectures on the Darwinian Theory ” (7s. 6d.), by Mr. A. M. Marshall.

M r. T. Fisher Unwin has issued a pamphlet on “ Religion and Bigotry ” (6d.).

M essrs. A. & C. Black announce a revised and enlarged edition of Dr. Cheyne’s “ Introduction to the Book of Isaiah,” and also “ The Religion of the Semites ” (15s.), b y ’ the late Robertson Smith.

T he late Professor G. J. Romanes left behind him the manuscript of a work styled “ Thoughts on Religious

Problems." The work is being edited, and will have a preface supplied, by the Rev. Charles Gore, of “ Lux Mundi ” fame.

A new volume of Triibner’s “ English and Foreign Philo­

sophical L ib rary” is a translation by Dr. Arthur Fair­

banks, of Yale University, of Professor Riehl’s “ Theory of Science and Metaphysics.” The author has contributed a preface to the English translation. The third volume of Miss Haldane’s translation of Hegel’s “ History of Philo­

sophy” is nearly ready for publication in this series. Messrs. T. & T. C lark, o f Edinburgh, are going to bring out a series o f commentaries on the Old and New Testament, under the editorship of Professor R.S. Driver, Professor Alfred Plummer, and Professor C . A. Briggs. Archaeology, criticism, and Biblical theology are included in the plan of the series, but not practical or homiletical exegesis.

T he sixth edition of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s “ Data of E th ics” in its original form having been exhausted, Mr. Spencer has decided to discontinue the dearer edition of the work, and has issued a cheap edition.

Mr. H. C roft Hiller, the author of “ Against Dogma and Free-will,” has issued, through Messrs. Williams and Norgate, a new work, entitled “ Rhythmic Heredity : Matter a Property of Energy (7s. 6d.). In the preface the author states that His object is to show that before matter existed a supermechanical force energised; that matter is the product of this fa ctor; that all response of matter is based on rhythmic synchronism with ethereal vibration ; and that ether is composed o f particles which are material representatives o f supcrincchanical potentialities.

Messrs. Longman & Co. have in preparation a new book by the Right Hon. A. J. Balfour, which they hope to publish early in January. The title will be “ The Foundations of Belief: being Notes Introductory to the Study of Theology.”

Messrs. Putnam’s Sons are bringing out Dr. C. H. Davis’s new translation, with introduction, of the ancient Egyptian “ Book of the Dead.”

Professor Maspero’s new work, entitled “ LesOrigines,” is an attempt to describe, in language at once accurate and popular, all that the monuments have revealed to us concerning the earliest civilisations in the two valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates. The period dealt with covers the history o f Egypt from the earliest times to the fourteenth dynasty, and the history of Chaldea down to the twentyfourth century b c. The discoveries of the present year are included in the volume, of which the English translation has been prepared by Mrs. McClure, under the editorship of Professor Sayce. The latter adds a preface, and there are profuse illustrations.

M r. Robert Forder is issuing a subscribers’ edition of 250 copies of “ Voltaire: His Life and Works” (2s. 6d.). We understand that the compiler is Mr. J. M. Wheeler, than whom a more competent writer could not have been chosen.

T he National Secular Society’s “ Almanack for 1895 ” (6d.) will, as usual, contain a mass of valuable information, and also papers by Mr. G. W. Foote, Mr. Charles Watts, Mr. J. M. Wheeler, and other leading representatives of popular Freethought.

Mr. Robert Forder will publish immediately Colonel Ingersoll's new lecture, on “ The Holy Bible.”

Mr. Bertram Dobell will issue at the end of this month a collected edition of the poems of James Thomson (B.V.).

Mrs. Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner’s life of her distinguished father will be published immediately by Mr. Fisher Unwin in two volumes (21s.).

O U R L I B R A R Y S H E L V E S .

T he strong, beautiful, clear-cut style of the late J. A. Fronde is nowhere more effectively manifested than in his

“ SHORT STUDIES ON GREAT SUBJECTS " (Longmans, 1878 edition, in 3 vols., 6s. each; vol.i., 662 pp.). On the present occasion we shall concern ourselves only with the first volume. As there is no very distinct concatenation in the Studies, and they can all be read independently, we shall not attempt to notice each in detail, and shall only select such as appeal more directly to Rationalist readers.

It will do no harm, and it may do some good, to those who worship Buckle over-much to read Professor Froude’s