Xttetarp (Butbe

A RATIONALIST REVIEW.

[ESTABLISHED 1885.]

No. 3. (New Series.)

S E P T EM B E R i, 1896.

Monthly ; Twopence.

ircw publications.

M r . G. J . H olyoake will publish next month, through Messrs. Watts & Co., a reminiscent and informing work on The O r ig in an d N a tu re o f Secularism . Not the least interesting feature will be the Secularist Ceremonies, forming the concluding chapter. The ceremonies comprise three divisions—On Marriage; Naming Children ; Over the Dead. .

M e s sr s . C hapman & Hall will begin in October the publication of a centenary edition of the works of Thomas Carlyle, in thirty large crown octavo volumes, under the editorship of Mr. H. D. Traill. It will be printed from the last text that was revised and amended by the author, and will also contain several essays that have not hitherto been republished, as well as additional portraits and plates.

A Mr. H. W. P a r k e r has issued a little work entitled The Agnostic G o sp e l: A R ev iew o f H u x le y on the B ib le .

T he Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg has commenced a series of unpublished texts representing the literature of Buddhism as preserved in Sanskrit (not merely Pali) works, of which so little is accurately known. The first number of this series is to be the Sikshdsam uccaya, a compendium of the teaching of the highly important school of the “ Great Vehicle,” compiled in the seventh century a.d., chiefly from older books now lost in their original form, though extant in ancient versions. Professor Cecil Bendall is preparing the text (the printing of which has commenced) from the archetype MS. lent by the University of Cambridge, with occasional references to the Tibetan version preserved in the Hodgson collections of the India Office. Another volume is in preparation by Professor S. d’Oldenburg, of St. Petersburg.

Messrs. Macmillan have undertaken to publish a D ic tion ary o f Psychology an d Philosophy, under the general editorship of Professor Baldwin, of Princeton University. The scheme of the work is that definitions shall be combined with historical explanations, and that the bibliographical part shall be very full. All the articles will be signed. Among those who have promised to contribute a r e : Professor Andrew Seth, of Edinburgh; Professor R. Adamson, of Glasgow; Professor W. R . Sorley, of Aberdeen; Professor John Dewey, of Chicago; Professor Josiah Royce, of Harvard; Professor J . M. Cattell, of Columbia; Professor E. B. Tichner, of Cornell; Professor Joseph Jastrow, of Wisconsin ; and Dr. Benjamin Rand.

D ean F a r r e r ’s new work, The B i b l e : What i t Is , and What i t is Not, while supporting “ the unique grandeur and inestimable value of the Scriptures,” will point out “ the dangerous errors which have sprung ftfom misrepresentation and from humanly-invented theories as to the nature of their inspiration.”

Mr. J . A llanson P icton, who is much improved in health, though still far from convalescent, is preparing for publication a booklet entitled The M an , Christ J e s u s : The G erm o f the Christia n M yth. It will probably be issued early in the new year.

flDoOcrn Christianity. A N ew N a tu ra l Theology, based upon the Doctrine o f E vo lu t io n . By the R e v . J . Morris, M .D . (Rivington, Percival, & Co.) 347 pp. ; I4S' D arw in ’s influence on religious thought has revolutionized apologetics. The disintegrating theory of evolution, after being denounced as atheistic, has so forced itself to the front that it is now put forward as the only safe basis of natural religion. The old argument from design finds little favour with the author of the somewhat formidable volume under notice. The facts of the universe are not to be placed on the Procrustean bed of Paleyism, and forced into compliance with mechanical theories. Nature is not a product of creative energy, but a process symbolizing the purpose of God. Agnostics and Christians alike err in their interpretations of the facts of life. Butler, Paley, Spencer, Kant, Janet, Ribot, Momerie, Flint, all come in for a certain amount of castigation ; in fact, the Rev. J . Morris hits out all round, and somewhat gives the impression that the only person who has succeeded in putting religion on a really sound basis is the Rev. J . Morris himself.

The function of natural theology is “ to interpret to man the spiritual significance of the universe.” Exact knowledge on this subject is difficult of attainment, but Mr. Morris will have no distinction between the knowable and the unknowable. I f we conclude that clear conceptions of the universe are impossible, we thereby involve ourselves in the very definite theory that accurate knowledge on the subject is beyond our reach, and so form an interpretation in the act of disclaiming it. Rationalists will find subtlety rather than strength in this reasoning. We are compelled to admit the unknowable, and, however opinions may vary as to its limits, it seems, in a religious sense, to increase instead of diminish. The fulness of medimval knowledge of God is now seldom, if ever, claimed. The stake and the rack were not the outcome of Agnosticism : they were the practical result of an assumed positive knowledge. Mr. Morris’s statement, that “ the doctrine of the unknowable is virtually a confession of the existence of God,” treats the two terms as equivalent, and so “ virtually confesses ” that God is unknowable, which is the substance of the Agnostic contention.

In discussing the possibility of natural theology, the author candidly confesses that the inferences of the theologian are incapable of being verified by experiment, and must therefore be left “ exposed to the testing influence of time "—a caution which, it is to be lamented, most theologians have overlooked. The author’s criticism of Paley’s design argument is both just and accurate. The fitness of the eye for the purpose of vision is undoubted ; but it is less indicative of direct adaptation than an accompanying circumstance of that gradual growth in complexity of structure and adaptation which is involved in the process of evolution. Design, however, is not destroyed; it is an ultimate, not a proximate, cause of adaptation ; it is shown by the intelligence manifested in originating the arrangements under which development proceeds. Evolution is a dynamic force, not a mechanical adjustment, and “ the only true method of procedure is to clear from the mind all ideas of design, and follow the teaching of evolution, whithersover it leads.”

Mr. Morris is a candid writer, and frequently makes admissions which it is difficult to reconcile with the lavish assumptions of his later chapters. “ Evolution,” he says, “ tells us the story of change, but behind change lie the unchanging constants of the universe, matter and energy—if, indeed, these be two, and not merely the two different conceptions we are constrained to take of what is really one and the same thing.” And the following is possibly a hit at