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A RATIONALIST REVIEW.
[ESTABLISHED 1885.]
No. 6. (New Series.)
D E C E M B E R i , 1896.
Monthly ; Twopence.
IRew publications. Mr. George Allen, under the title of Pen Portraits,
is publishing what are represented as concise descriptions of persons, selected from the works of Thomas Carlyle, and arranged by R. Brimley Johnson.
Messrs. Williams & Norgate have published the third and last volume of Mr. Herbert Spencer’s The Principles o f Sociology, being also the eighth and concluding volume of “ The System of Synthetic Philosophy.” It comprises three sections— “ Ecclesiastical Institutions,” “ Professional In stitutions,” and “ Industrial Institutions.” Mr. Spencer is to be heartily congratulated on the completion of his monu mental work.
A se le c t io n from the poems of the late Professor G. J. Romanes has been published, with an introduction by Mr. T. Herbert Warren.
T he fourth volume of The Writings o f Paine, collected by Dr. Moncure D. Conway, is issued.
Messrs. George Bell & Sons are adding to Bohn’s Standard Library Early Essays by John Stuart M il l, collected from various sources by J. W. M. Gibbs.
T he Open Court Publishing Company have issued a beautifully-illustrated little work entitled Karma : A Story o f Early Buddhism, written by Dr. Paul Carus. The book has been printed in Japan on Japanese paper, and the illustrations in colours (by T. Hasegawa, Tokyo, Japan) are fine specimens of Japanese art.
Early in the new year A. and H. Bradlaugh Bonner will launch a new monthly magazine. The price will be three pence.
Messrs. Macmillan & Co. will shortly publish a work by the Rev. Edwin A. Abbott, entitled The Sp ir it on the Waters ; or, the Evolution o f the D iv in e from the Human. It en d e a v o u r s to show that a believer in ¿volution may remain a believer in a natural Christianity unassailable by science and that one who may be unable to accept the miracles o f the Bible as historical may nevertheless retain his faith in the Incarnation, the Atonement, the Spiritual Resurrection of Christ, and the doctrine of the Trinity.
U nder the title of The D e v i l in B r ita in and America, Messrs. Ward and Downey have published a succinct account of demonology in England and America.
T he Hon. W. T. Harris, of Washington, U.S.A., has translated Fichte’s Science o f Ethics, and the work will be issued shortly by Messrs. Kegan Paul.
Messrs. Macmillan have published a collection of essays by Professor Goldwin Smith, entitled Guesses at the R iddle o f Existence.
P rofessor Max Müller has nearly completed his forthcoming Contributions to the Science o f Mythology, which will extend to two volumes.
Messrs. Blackwood & Sons have published the first volume of a H istory o f European Thought in the Nineteenth Century, by Mr. John Theodore Merz.
Messrs. Watts & Co. have published Mr. George Jacob Holyoake’s long announced work on The Origin and Nature o f Secularism. The volume is divided into twenty-three chapters, and includes Secularist ceremonies for the naming of children, marriage, and the burial of the dead.
Mr. J oseph McCabe’s remarkable paper in The Agnostic Annual, setting forth the reasons which induced him to renounce all belief in theology, has been considerably enlarged, and is now published in pamphlet form, under the title of From Rome to Rationalism.
T he tercentenary of the birth of Descartes will be cele brated by the publication of an edition of the works of that philosopher, including, together with his immortal system and scientific treatises, no less than five volumes of corre spondence. This monumental edition will be issued under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Instruction of France, and edited by Professor Adams, of Dijon, and M. Tannery of the College de France.
Messrs. Methuen & Co. have issued A n Introduction to the History o f Religion, by Dr. F. B. Jevons. The work treats of early religion, from the point of view of anthropology and folk-lore, and is the first attempt that has been made in any language to weave together the results of recent investi gations into such topics as Sympathetic Magic, Taboo, Totemism, Fetishism, etc., so as to present a systematic account of the growth of primitive religion and the develop ment of early religious institutions.
Dr. Eraser’s Xatcst (Sifforfc Xcctures.
Philosophy o f T h e ism : Being the Gifford Lectures delivered before the
University of Edinburgh in 1895-6. Second Series. By Alexander Campbell Fraser, l .L .D . (Blackwood.) 288 pp.; 7s. 6d. The curious reader, sauntering through the by-ways of a book, may oft-times linger with profit on the Index. To the hearing ear eloquence breathes in Indexes; to the seeing eye, suggestive emblems appear. So we turn to the Index of I)r. Fraser’s latest Gifford Lectures. The two first entries are portentously dramatic— Aischylus ; Ahriman. ¿Eschylus suggests the awful tragedy of Prometheus ; and why did Zeus torture the searcher after truth? Ahriman stands for the diabolic ; and, as Friday said to Robinson Crusoe, Why does not God kill the devil ? He who turns impatiently to Dr. Fraser’s sixth lecture, entitled “ E v i l : the Enigma of Theism,” must acknowledge the riddle is fairly stated :—
A c h e a p popular edition is issued of Mr. Charles T. Gorham’s dialogues on I s the B ib le a Revelation from God ? Since the book was originally published the author has become favourably known as the writer of various supplements to the L iterary Guide ; and his paper in the current number of The Agnostic Annual, on “ Immortality as the Object of Life,” has also attracted considerable notice. The dialogues are admirably sustained, and altogether the work will appeal to thoughtful and rational thinkers.
The greatest enigma presented in the experience of man is the existence in man himself of acts of consciousness which ought not to exist— in other words, the existence of what philosophers call moral evil, and what theologians call sin. And, lest this passage might seem to imply that the author ignores physical evil, let us add another :—
On this planet what is bad is mixed up with what is good. Capricious infliction of pain on beings susceptible of pain seems, at least in this region, to be as much the customary procedure of the Supreme Power as the secure happiness which the world supposed to be a
