A RATIONALIST REVIEW.

[ESTABLISHED 1883.]

No. i. (New Series.)

JULY i, 1896.

Monthly; Twopence.

IRcw publications. Mr. G. J. Hoi.yoake has written a remarkable little work, entitled The Warpath o f Opinion: Strange Things Thereon, as Shown in the “ L ife o f I! radio ugh" and the “ Memoirs ” o f L in ton. It is really a series of biographical chapters, in the course of which Mr. Holyoake corrects many statements concerning himself in Mrs. Bonner’s Life of her distinguished father. The book is a curiosity in many ways, particularly from a literary standpoint. Messrs. Watts & Co. will be the publishers.

M r. T. F i s h e r U n w i n is about to publish a volume of H istory and Criticism, by Mr. H. Schiitz Wilson. It will include essays on “ Goethe and Carlyle,” “ Carlyle and Taine on the French Revolution,” and “ Faust.”

Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons have issued an edition of Thomas Paine’s The Age o f Reason, edited by Dr. Moncure D. Conway.

Mr. L eopold Wagnf.r has edited a small volume of Modern P o litic a l Orations, published by Mr. T. Fisher Unwin. One of the twenty-four examples given of great speeches is by the late Charles Bradlaugh.

Mr. A. E. Waite has issued, through Mr. George Redway, a volume giving an account of D e v i l Worship in France.

Messrs. Cassell & Co. have published a cheap edition of Conversations with Carlyle, by Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, who has written a new preface, embodying the opinions of Mr. Lecky and Sir Walter Besant.

Messrs. George Bell & Sons have issued a translation, by Mr. Samuel W. Dyde, M.A., D.Sc., of Hegel’s Philosophy o f Right.

T he July issue of the Fortnightly will contain a revised version of Professor Max Muller’s recent remarkable lecture on “ Concidences,” in which he traced the origin of the Buddhist and Christian maxims.

Messrs. W. Blackwood & Sons have issued a work by Mr. William Caldwell, M.A., D.Sc., dealing with Schopenhauer's System in its Philosophical Significance.

Messrs. Longmans announce a work on Education and Modern Secularism, by the Rev. F. W. Formby.

T he Rev. G. A. Zahm, Ph.D., has published a work on Evolution and Dogma, which professes to be an attempt to reconcile religion and science. Mr. Gladstone has written a congratulatory letter to the author, in the course of which he expresses the opinion that “ evolution tends to elevate and not to depress the gospel.”

Messrs. R ivington, Percival, & Co. issue A New N a tu ra l Theology, based upon the Doctrine o f Evolution, by the Rev. J. Morris.

S ir T homas Dyke Acland has, under the title of Kncmdcdge, Duty, and Faith, written a useful work, containing suggestions for the study of principles taught by typical thinkers, ancient and modern.

Miss K ingsley, a daughter of the late Charles Kingsley, has written for the July number of the Cornhill Magazine a paper entitled “ Black Ghosts,” being an account of West African superstitious beliefs, based upon personal observation.

21 SplcnMb Battle.

A History o f the Warfare o f Science with Theology in Christendom.

By A n d r e w D. W h i t e , L L .D . (Vale), late President and Professor of History at Cornell University. In two volumes, (Macmillan.) Vol. i., 415 pp.; vol. ii., 474 pp.; 2is.

F IR S T V O L U M E .

O n the one side of the field stand popes, cardinals, inquisitors, bishops, priests, deacons, commentators, doctors of divinity ; over them curl clouds of incense, and the banners o f all the creeds and catechisms wave ; and they launch the thunders of excommunication. On the other side are arrayed explorers, astronomers, mathematician's, chemists, geologists, physiologists, Æsculapians, philologists, Biblical critics. Theology at first triumphs. The feeble folk of the scientists increase and multiply and develop new daring. Ages pass, and still the stars look down on the fateful conflict. The earth trembles. Truth bleeds, but dies not. The star of hope glitters over the phalanxes of science. Theology quails, and, as the nineteenth century closes, ominously sounds a retreat.

The incidents in this war are related by (if one may so speak) a gifted Special Correspondent, Dr. Andrew White. In two elaborate volumes he gives us the history of the campaign. In some of the engagements he has had the honour of personally assisting. He and Ezra Cornell founded a university which barred out sectarian dogmas. The clergy raged furiously, and the religious Press imagined vain things. Cornell and White made no sign of yielding. Dr. White, indeed, assumed the offensive. His artillery took the form of a book, The Warfare o f Science, to the English edition of which Professor Tyndall wrote a preface. Draper followed with his well-known Conflict between Science and Religion. With this description of the hostilities Dr. White is not disposed to agree. He gently removes the tender form of Religion from the scene of combat. Not against her, but against the tyranny of Dogmatic Theology, must Reason take up arms.

The great war resolves itself into a series of battles, which supply Dr. White with topics for so many divisions of his work— Creation theories, Geography, Astronomy, Geology, Anthropology, Ethnology, Meteorology, Chemistry, and Physics ; and (in vol. ii.) Medicine, Hygiene, Philology, Mythology, Political Economy, and the Higher Criticism. In each case he traces the phases of the struggles from early times to modern enlightenment. The Christian fathers and the doctors and Aristotelians of the Middle Ages play the part of villain in the piece. The spectator divides his time between execrating their bigotry and tittering at their folly, and applauding the exploits of the heroes of science. No doubt Dr. White would concede that the Christian opponents of knowledge did good work in other spheres of life ; but that is a question which does not immediately concern him in the present work. Huge and portentous is the mass of facts which rises in accusation against these saints and confessors and schoolmen. For all his facts Dr. White adduces ample authority. The references in his notes would catalogue a library.

Both astonishing and pathetic was the medineval attempt to describe the earth and the animal world. Even in the seventeenth century clericalism still allowed absurdity to run riot in its geography :—

In the seventeenth century Eugène Roger published his Travels in Palestine. As regards the utterances of Scripture he is soundly orthodox, l ie prefaces his work with a map showing, among other important points referred to in Biblical history, the place where Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, the cavern which Adam and Eve inhabited after their expulsion from Paradise, the spot