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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. 126.] JU N E 1, 1896. [P rice One Penny. N E W P U B L I C A T I O N S . 0 U R L I B R A R Y S I I E L VES. Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein have in preparation a work entitled “ Five Great Sceptical Dramas of History,” by the late Rev. John Owen, author of “ Sceptics of the French Renaissance,” “ Sceptics of the Italian Renaissance,” and other books. In the coming one, which he had just finished before his death, he deals, among the great Sceptical plays, with “ Hamlet ” and “ Faust.” Another volume promised by Messrs. Sonnenschein is a translation from the German of Professor Kiilpe’s “ Introduction to the Study of Philosophy,” a book holding a high place in Germany. Professor T. W. R hys Davids has published, through Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, the first series of his American lectures on the History of Religions, the subject being “ Buddhism : its History and Literature ” (6s.). A popular edition is issued of the “ Biography of John Stuart Blackie” (6s,), a volume which contains much of interest to Rationalists, including reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh. Messrs. \V. B lackwood announce as ready Professor Tyler’s Morse Lectures of 1895, dealing with “ The Whence and the Whither of Man ” (6s.). The volume furnishes a brief history of man’s origin and development through conformity to environment. “ S elected Essays from the Writings of John Stuart M ill’’ will be the title of a forthcoming volume of Bohn’s “ Libraries.” Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. include in their new announcements “ The Antichrist Legend : A Chapter in Jewish and Christian Folk-lore ” (6s.), Englished from the German of Herr W. Bousset, with a Prologue on the Babylonian Dragon Myth by A. H. Deane, F’.R .G .S. Messrs. D ighy, L ong, & Co. have published a work on “ The Tyrannies of Opinion and the Fixities of Belief.” The author writes under the pseudonym of “ Zero.” Messrs. S mith, E lder, & Co. issue a somewhat remarkable volume under the title, “ Cosmic E th ics; or, The Mathematical Theory of Evolution” (10s. 6d.). The author— W. Cave Thomas, F.S.S., F.Imp.Ins.—professes to show the full import of the Doctrine of the Mean, and includes in his argument the Principia of the Science of Proportion. Mr. R. Forder has published, under the title of “ The Coming Civilisation ” (3d.), Colonel Ingersoll’s recent address to the “ Church Militant ” at Chicago, U.S.A. T he latest addition to the Religion of Science Library is “ On Germinal Selection” (is. 6d.), by August Weismann, HUXLEY’S COLLECTED ESSAYS.— VIII. C halk, schoolmaster’s chalk ; the chalk whh which urchins scribble esoteric symbols on walls to the indignation of lawabiding citizens— this prosaic topic gives a text to a delightful lecture in Huxley’s discourses : ihological and geological (Macmillan ; 388 pp., 5s.). Bright and picturesque is this description of the inland and coast scenery in the chalk districts :— “ The undulating downs and rounded coombs, covered with sweet-grassed turf, of our inland chalk country have a peacefully domestic and muttonsuggesting prettiness, but can hardly be called either grand or beautiful. But on our southern coasts the wall-sided cliffs, many hundred feet high, with vast needles and pinnacles standing out in the sea, sharp and solitary enough to serve as perches for the wary cormorant, confer a wonderful beauty and grandeur upon the chalk headlands.” What is this chalk ? and what is the secret of its genesis ? Chalk dissolves into carbonic acid and lime; it is composed of carbonate of lime ; and carbonate of lime is found in solution in sea-water. Very well; the next step is to slice up a piece of chalk, and gaze at it under the microscope. Interspersed in its substance one perceives multitudes of bodies—Globigerime—resembling badly-grown raspberries. Next, Huxley tells how, in 1853, Lieutenant Brooke, of the American navy, dredged from the oceanbottom specimens of mud, which, scanned under the magic glass, revealed a host of the remains of these same Globigerinre. Such mud lies all along the plateau that stretches under the Atlantic from Valentia to Newfoundland. Age after age, the little jelly creatures—the Globigerinse— assimilate lime for skeletons, and live, and die, and sink to the awful depths; and their infinite remains form huge banks which rise above water, pushed by inner forces and upheaved by insensible degrees, until the downs and wolds and dykes lend variety to the landscape. This beautiful lecture, far more interesting than a portmanteau-full of sermons, closes thus:— “ A small beginning has led us to a great ending. If I were to put the bit of chalk with which we started into the hot but obscure flame o f burning hydrogen, it would presently shine like the sun. It seems tp me that this physical metamorphosis is no false image of what has been the result of our subjecting it to a jet of fervent, though nowise brilliant, thought to-night.” [The lecture was delivered to an audience of Norwich working folk.] “ It has become luminous, and its clear rays, penetrating the abyss of the remotest past, have brought within our ken some stages of the evolution of the earth. And in the shifting ‘ without haste, but without rest ’ of the land and sea, as in the endless variation of the forms assumed by living beings, we

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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. 126.]

JU N E 1, 1896.

[P rice One Penny.

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

0 U R L I B R A R Y S I I E L VES.

Messrs. Swan Sonnenschein have in preparation a work entitled “ Five Great Sceptical Dramas of History,” by the late Rev. John Owen, author of “ Sceptics of the French Renaissance,” “ Sceptics of the Italian Renaissance,” and other books. In the coming one, which he had just finished before his death, he deals, among the great Sceptical plays, with “ Hamlet ” and “ Faust.” Another volume promised by Messrs. Sonnenschein is a translation from the German of Professor Kiilpe’s “ Introduction to the Study of Philosophy,” a book holding a high place in Germany.

Professor T. W. R hys Davids has published, through Messrs. G. P. Putnam’s Sons, the first series of his American lectures on the History of Religions, the subject being “ Buddhism : its History and Literature ” (6s.).

A popular edition is issued of the “ Biography of John Stuart Blackie” (6s,), a volume which contains much of interest to Rationalists, including reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh.

Messrs. \V. B lackwood announce as ready Professor Tyler’s Morse Lectures of 1895, dealing with “ The Whence and the Whither of Man ” (6s.). The volume furnishes a brief history of man’s origin and development through conformity to environment.

“ S elected Essays from the Writings of John Stuart M ill’’ will be the title of a forthcoming volume of Bohn’s “ Libraries.”

Messrs. Hutchinson & Co. include in their new announcements “ The Antichrist Legend : A Chapter in Jewish and Christian Folk-lore ” (6s.), Englished from the German of Herr W. Bousset, with a Prologue on the Babylonian Dragon Myth by A. H. Deane, F’.R .G .S.

Messrs. D ighy, L ong, & Co. have published a work on “ The Tyrannies of Opinion and the Fixities of Belief.” The author writes under the pseudonym of “ Zero.”

Messrs. S mith, E lder, & Co. issue a somewhat remarkable volume under the title, “ Cosmic E th ics; or, The Mathematical Theory of Evolution” (10s. 6d.). The author— W. Cave Thomas, F.S.S., F.Imp.Ins.—professes to show the full import of the Doctrine of the Mean, and includes in his argument the Principia of the Science of Proportion.

Mr. R. Forder has published, under the title of “ The Coming Civilisation ” (3d.), Colonel Ingersoll’s recent address to the “ Church Militant ” at Chicago, U.S.A.

T he latest addition to the Religion of Science Library is “ On Germinal Selection” (is. 6d.), by August Weismann,

HUXLEY’S COLLECTED ESSAYS.— VIII.

C halk, schoolmaster’s chalk ; the chalk whh which urchins scribble esoteric symbols on walls to the indignation of lawabiding citizens— this prosaic topic gives a text to a delightful lecture in Huxley’s discourses : ihological and geological (Macmillan ; 388 pp., 5s.). Bright and picturesque is this description of the inland and coast scenery in the chalk districts :—

“ The undulating downs and rounded coombs, covered with sweet-grassed turf, of our inland chalk country have a peacefully domestic and muttonsuggesting prettiness, but can hardly be called either grand or beautiful. But on our southern coasts the wall-sided cliffs, many hundred feet high, with vast needles and pinnacles standing out in the sea, sharp and solitary enough to serve as perches for the wary cormorant, confer a wonderful beauty and grandeur upon the chalk headlands.” What is this chalk ? and what is the secret of its genesis ?

Chalk dissolves into carbonic acid and lime; it is composed of carbonate of lime ; and carbonate of lime is found in solution in sea-water. Very well; the next step is to slice up a piece of chalk, and gaze at it under the microscope. Interspersed in its substance one perceives multitudes of bodies—Globigerime—resembling badly-grown raspberries. Next, Huxley tells how, in 1853, Lieutenant Brooke, of the American navy, dredged from the oceanbottom specimens of mud, which, scanned under the magic glass, revealed a host of the remains of these same Globigerinre. Such mud lies all along the plateau that stretches under the Atlantic from Valentia to Newfoundland. Age after age, the little jelly creatures—the Globigerinse— assimilate lime for skeletons, and live, and die, and sink to the awful depths; and their infinite remains form huge banks which rise above water, pushed by inner forces and upheaved by insensible degrees, until the downs and wolds and dykes lend variety to the landscape. This beautiful lecture, far more interesting than a portmanteau-full of sermons, closes thus:—

“ A small beginning has led us to a great ending. If I were to put the bit of chalk with which we started into the hot but obscure flame o f burning hydrogen, it would presently shine like the sun. It seems tp me that this physical metamorphosis is no false image of what has been the result of our subjecting it to a jet of fervent, though nowise brilliant, thought to-night.” [The lecture was delivered to an audience of Norwich working folk.] “ It has become luminous, and its clear rays, penetrating the abyss of the remotest past, have brought within our ken some stages of the evolution of the earth. And in the shifting ‘ without haste, but without rest ’ of the land and sea, as in the endless variation of the forms assumed by living beings, we

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