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A RATIONALIST REVIEW.
[ESTABLISHED 1885.]
No. 10. (New Series.)
APRIL i, 1897.
Monthly ; T wopence.
IRcw publications.
The Rev. Alexander Craufurd, M.A., has issued, through Messrs. Clarke & Co., a noteworthy work, entitled Christian In stin cts and Modern Doubt. Although intended to re habilitate the orthodox faith, its damaging admissions no less than its plea for a tolerant and purified creed, will make for Rationalism, and we cordially welcome its appearance
Messrs. B lackwood & Sons have issued a volume entitled M an 's P la ce in Nature, and O ther Essays written by Professor Andrew Seth.
A u n i f o r m cheap edition of the Hibbert Lectures is now being issued by Messrs. Williams & Norgate, in monthly volumes, at 3s. 6d each. Professor A. II. Sayce’s Religion o f Ancient Assyria and Babylonia, and the Rev. Dr. Hatch’s Influence o f Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, form the first two o f the series. Renan, Beard and Drummond’s lectures are already issued in cheap form ’• th rest of the series will be published during the year ’ 6
M r. C. Cohen, the author of A n Outline o f Evolutionary E th ic s , has published a pamphlet on Evolution and Christianity, the object of which is to demonstrate the irreconu u n u j ) — j . cilability o f these two opposing forces.
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a life o f her father, Richard Carlile, who su f fe red^ n e^ eâ î imprisonment in defence of a free press. She has lat I come into possession of a mass of correspondence and oth y documents relating to him, the reading of which ch “ “ f “ •!The proposed book will deal largely with Richard Carlile’s private life.
T he University Press has issued, as its first undertaking, a work by Mr. Hugh Mortimer Cecil, entitled PseudoP h i l o s o p h y a t the E n d o f the Nineteenth Century’. It claims to be a refutation of the well-known pseudo-philosophical works— Socia l Evolution, The Ascent o f Man, and The F o u n d a t i o n s o f B e lie f, and to show “ the absurdity of the methods adopted by these would-be philosophers.” The book is reviewed in another column.
A s e c o n d and revised edition of Mr. Edward Clodd’s P i o n e e r s o f E v o l u t i o n is in the press, and will be issued immediately. The first edition has had a phenomenal sale for a Rationalist publication.
Messrs. Smith, Elder, & Co. are publishing the second volume (completing the work) of Professor Charles Foster Kent’s H istory o f the Hebrew People. The book is devoted to a consideration of “ the Divided Kingdom ” under four heads : 1. The Pre-Assyrian Period of Hebrew History ; 2. The Assyrian Period of Israel’s History; 3. The Assyrian Period o f Judah’s History ; 4. The Babylonian Period of Judah’s History. It is illustrated by maps and a chart.
Mr. Edward A rnold has in the press two volumes by Professor Karl Pearson. The volumes contain several scientific essays dealing with chance in various aspects, from the chances of death to games of chance, the problems of modern political progress, and those in connection with the position of women.
Messrs. Watts & Co. will issue immediately A Rationalis t Catechism, compiled by “ Aletheia, M.D.,” author of The Agnostic’s Prim er.
Dr. Fritz Hommel, the Assyriologist, has been engaged for some time past on an extensive work on the ancient Hebrew tradition, in which he proposes to demonstrate the inadequacy of the purely literary methods employed by the “ higher critics ” of the Old Testament. The book will be published early in May in Germany, England, and the United States.
T he Open Court Publishing Co. have issued a translation, by E. M. Williams, of Dr. Ernst Mach’s Contributions to the Analysis o f the Sensations.
Mr. White, in his forthcoming Sketches o f the Inner L ife o f the House o f Commons, will combat the view that John Stuart Mill was a failure in his Parliamentary capacity. Some interesting facts are expected to be disclosed.
Dr. Moncure Conway, who was a friend of the author, is writing a sketch of General Meredith Reed for his posthumous volume of H isto rica l Sketches. Rousseau, Gibbon, Voltaire, and Madame de Staël are among the eighteenth-century celebrities dealt with.
T he latest additions to the Religion of Science Library include Dr. Ernst Mach’s Popular Scientific Lectures, Professor H. Oldenberg’s Ancient In d ia : I ts Language and Religions, Professor E. H. Cornill’s The Prophets o f Israel, and Dr. Paul Carus’s Homilies o f Science.
Christian ©riflins.
A Concise H isto ry o f R e lig ion . By F. J. Gould. Vol. iii. Containing a History of Christian Origins, and of Jewish and Christian Literature to the end of the Second Century. (Watts & Co.) 292 pp.; 5s. T hose who have essayed the task of writing a small book on a great subject will best appreciate the labour of compression of materials with avoidance of dryness, and of observance of that art of proportion which, in all things, is saving grace. These conditions Mr. Gould seems to us to have fulfilled with acuteness and skill in the compendious series of volumes of which the third lies before us.
The first volume was occupied with a preliminary sketch of the origin and varied expression of the religious sentiment— a sketch in which the complexity of a subject tco often treated as easy of solution, by reference to one set of factors, was recognized. This was followed by outlines of the features of dead and living non-Christian faiths, from the valleys of the Euphrates and the Nile to the heart of the New World. The second volume dealt with Judaism and its sacred literature, with anticipatory glances at the conditions attending the reformation which resulted from the teaching of Jesus and the mission work of the earliest disciples. In the present volume we have a masterly resume of the story of “ the progress of that religion in conjunction with the course of political events and the march of secular literature. For religion forms part of sociology, and the story of the Church connects itself intimately with the life of the world at large.”
In this passage Mr. Gould strikes a true note. He recognizes continuity and interrelation, the non-recognition of which is the fatal defect of all official histories of Christianity. For these confuse the issues by assuming that
