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bad example which, alas, too many on both sides followed. There are plain signs that a better day has dawned.

Mr. Buchan is very sharp upon Dr. Stalker for saying that "all sane science admits" the doctrine of Biogenesis, and asks if Prof. Tyndall is then to be considered "insane" for his famous sentence in the Belfast address concerning the "promise and potency of all terrestrial life." We need not dwell upon a sentence of which the Professor has probably heard enough. But our friend has forgotten the words of Prof. Huxley, "I refuse to run the risk of insulting any sane man by supposing "-that he declines to accept evolution as the theory of the universe. One might easily mention high names and inquire whether these also are insane? But such pickings at an adjective are unworthy of a great theme. The present state of the case is that Abiognesis is not only without proof, but, so far as latest research goes, absolutely without any "promise or potency" of proof. That being so, Biogenesis may, in all modesty, be pronounced the only reasonable doctrine.

To say, "There is nothing supernatural, all the phenomena of nature are natural,” is a mere instance of verbal jugglery, until and unless we know what we are to understand by natural. If Butler's definition be deficient, by all means let us have a better. Without some definition, such fine-sounding aphorisms do but saw the air. It can hardly be considered the death and burial of the supernatural to say that Mr. Wallace was a spiritualist and "people in general have not much faith in spiritualism."

MORAL TEACHINGS OF SCIENCE.-The scientific works of Arabella Buckley on behalf of children have been long and widely appreciated not only by younger but by older people. Now, however, she has definitely addressed adults, and a class of adults which, it is to be feared, is growing ever larger, viz., “those who feel puzzled and adrift in the present chaos of opinion." There is very much in this modest little volume to encourage the hope that such may find in it more than "a partial solution, from a scientific point of view, of the difficulties which oppress their minds."

Such a contribution as this to the religio-scientific thought of our day is as valuable as welcome. The borderland between science and religion is not easy ground to cultivate. Thorns and briers seem to spring up with a prolific persistency that sets at defiance the best-intended efforts. And it must be said-with, however, great respect for the feelings of many who attempt itthat most pulpit references and many religious lectures fail to render any adequate service. Even when-and this occurs but seldom-the preacher has honestly set himself to face all the facts, there is an almost incurable habit of so referring to modern science as to create or confirm the notion that, after all, science is against religion, and must be watched continually as a foe. The lecturer who declared recently that in matters of religious experience he would rather trust a Methodist old woman than the foremost scientist in the world, of course, had his reward in the plaudit of an audience that could only hear of science from afar. But the subtle insinuation would

do more harm than any well-meant assertion could do good. It is so pitifully easy to make in public broad, strong statements to the advantage of popular religion, which every honest student of science would know in a moment could not bear the test of facts. Competent knowledge, thoroughgoing honesty, sympathy as broad as deep, and a brave heart, these are the qualifications which Mrs. Fisher-née Arabella Buckley-brings to her task, and without which it were ever better that religionist or scientist should hold his peace.

These half-dozen chapters are well up to date. Their attitude towards evolution is what might be expected from a thorough modern naturestudent. The present day conception of the universe and its laws, which Mr. Herbert Spencer embodies in his "Consciousness of an Inscrutable Power manifested to us through all phenomena," is, of course, adopted. But it is immediately and, as one must think, rightly qualified. "To allege, as some able men have done, that it is idle for us to attempt to discern the purposes and will of such a cause in ourselves, or in the natural world around us, has always appeared to me to create a difficulty where none exists." "If then we can understand the working of the laws of the universe even in the lowest and simplest stage, we have just so far entered into the Will of which they form part. If they can guide our conduct by them we must be moving in the line of least resistance and tending towards perfection." However insufficient this doctrine may seem to the theologian, it is firm ground for the starting-point of a theory of morals which no man can despise. If one thing be more certain than another in these matters, it is that no readymade Eirenicon can be dropped deductively from heaven to bridge over the differences between transcendentalism and natural science. The structure which is to unite them will have to be reared inductively, and to commence with humble strands of truth and facts which, worth little perhaps in the eyes of an ultramontane from either side, carry with them the only possibilities of further reliable advance.

To accept natural selection, with its concomitant law of the survival of the fittest, and build up from it at least an analogy to our conceptions of selfishness and altruism, as also our convictions of duty and of hope, is a delicate and difficult task, best perhaps attempted in few pages than in many. But scarcely anything appears here that one could either wish unsaid or put in any more forceful way. It is, doubtless, paradoxical to say with one breath that "every living thing must strive to the utmost," and with the next, that "we have only recognized mechanical action in plants." We cannot conceive of striving as mechanical. But the parable may be allowed to Mrs. Fisher even as we permit Dr. Taylor to speak of "the sagacity and morality of plants." It is the same lesson, and it is a very real

one.

The fact is that neither the vocabulary of science nor of religion is adequate to express an explanation of the facts described in saying that, e.g., "the plum or the cherry provide a luscious feast for birds, in order that they may carry the stone away, and drop it in a new place to grow!" We

cannot possibly conceive of purpose without inherent consciousness. Nor can we, on the other hand, any more conceive of such a sequence of events as is here hinted at, without some definite controlling agency. If "a plant secretes a bitter poison in order to save its leaves from being devoured," how is there less intelligence connected with such a process than when a man throws water on flames to prevent the burning of his whole house? If we cannot conceive of such a plant with such life powers leaping e nihilo into the air at a moment's notice by Divine fiat, no more can we deny that the facts are before us, and that it is a travesty of all reason to ascribe them to mere fortuitous concurrences through an infinite but mindless past.

Without assenting to every detail of statement or inference, we may heartily commend the earnest suggestions of the talented authoress to the attention of all thoughtful people. The mysteries which will ever baffle human intelligence are frankly acknowledged. Here is no superficial and hasty assumption that by a few theoretical deductions life's whole tangled maze can swiftly be unravelled. Very much more to the point, here are plain facts and sober reasonings, as modest and moderate as Bishop Butler's immortal work, and withal for that very reason well nigh as satisfactory. However great the blessedness of believing, these are days in which it is something to see. To see that the invariability and steady unswerving action of the Will of the Author of all, as expressed in the laws of the universe," is really, unmistakably on the side of virtue; that from the lowest through all to the highest of living things, laziness and selfishness are branded as failures; to mark a dim yet definite unfolding from the farthest, lowliest past, of the Power that makes for righteousness, and recognize its solemn yet blessed culmination in our own throbbing conciousness, of a choicefaculty for highest good or deepest ill; to discover reasonably in our own life-caused bodily organization the promise and potency of blessed immortality; these are precious realities indeed, the sight of which could never come more opportunely than now to poor humanity. It is eminently worth while that one who for years has with patient thoroughness looked Nature in the face should crown the previous work by showing how

"The great world's altar stairs

Slope thro' darkness up to God,"

and why we may surely trust the largest hope that has ever entered into the heart of man.

THE BOOK CRITIC.

MANUAL OF THE SCIENCE OF RELIGION.

By P. D. CHAUTIPIE DE LA

SAUSSAYE. Translated from the German by BEATRICE S. COLYER-FERGUSSON née MAX MÜLLER. Longmans, Green & Co., London. THIS is a translation of Professor Saussaye's excellent Manual of the Science of Religion. We have, however, only the first volume, and the translator says in her preface, "It will depend on the success of this volume whether it may be followed

by the translation of the second volume." We hope that by this time the success of the first volume has been so great that the second volume is already in hand. The treatment of the religions of Persia, Greece, Rome, Germany, and Islam, which forms the contents of the second volume, ought to be accessible to the English reader; for they are as good as anything we have in the past here translated. The author has grouped, arranged, and classified the material, and presented it in the most lucid order, and the reader may rest assured that he will find all that is known at present of the religions of Rome, Greece, &c., presented in such a form that he can readily master it.

This Manual appears at a fit time. For many people have been at work on the subject of religions and their history; and the material already gathered is immense. It was time that some one should take hold of the subject, set the vast material in some sort of order, set forth the general principles which ought to regulate the study of religions, and state what are the conclusions which in our present state of knowledge are most probable. This the author has done in a most admirable way. If we had looked at the state of the matter before he wrote his book, if we had read some of the many works, such as Tyler's, or Spencer's, or Reville's works, or looked at the reports of the scientific societies, and had some notion of the theories advocated, and of the material accumulated by the earnest labours of many workers, and then had come to the reading of the present volume our first feeling would be one of surprise. The author enables us to see that here too we have a cosmos, that science is on the way to disclose to us a new world where law and order reign, and that even in what at first sight seemed most chaotic there is a method. The most superstitious vagaries of the human mind become intelligible, and we can in some measure begin to understand them.

Thus in the Introductory Section we are brought face to face with religion. What it is, what is its origin, what have been its main forms, and what are the main theories which have been held with regard to religion, these are the questions discussed in the opening part. Then we pass to what the author calls the "Phenomenological Section," and we have a lucid classification of the objects of worship, of the rites of worship, and of the meanings of sacred places, times, persons, communities, and writings, and a chapter on "Mythology," which is both wise in what it affirms and conspicuous for its scientific caution in its refusal to commit itself exclusively to any of the theories most in vogue at the present time. As to the objects of religion we make one quotation:—

“Religion has, in reality, but one object-the living God who manifests Himself among all nations as the only real God. Though by man He is but partially known, or not known at all, because Divine honour is paid to His works and His powers rather than to Himself; yet in the end all worship is meant for Him, and man cannot conceive anything divine that is not really derived from Him. Considered from this point of view, the many gods worshipped by the heathen become either empty, meaningless, and even hostile beings, no-gods, false gods, or real divine powers and qualities only separated from their subject and represented singly. The former point of view was more common among the prophets of Israel, while so-called heathen thinkers in India, Egypt, and Greece were often led to look upon the many gods as manifestations of the one Divine power" (pp. 71, 72).

The author then passes to the "Ethnographic Section." Here one has occasion to admire afresh the author's power of condensation, and of presenting in a few pages the results of many years of labour in this wide field. A reader of Tyler's Primitive Culture, of Spencer's Sociology, or of Wäitz and Gerland's great work, knows how vast is the material and how numerous the facts already collected with regard to the uncultured races of mankind. In somewhat less than eighty pages the author gives

us the essential facts with regard to the various races of mankind and their bearing on the question of religion. Having treated in this summary but, at the same time, lucid and masterly way the Ethnographic Section, the author passes to the Historic Section, and treats of the religions of those races which have left historical records of their beliefs, in monuments, in literature, or in some other way. In this volume we have accounts of the religions of the Chinese, the Egyptians, the Babylonians and Assyrians, and the Hindus. In all cases the accounts are reliable, trustworthy, objective. In truth, as a whole the "Manual" is invaluable, and ought to be in the hands of every one who takes an interest in such questions. It ought to be in the hands of missionaries, who ought to know something of the beliefs of the people among whom they labour. It ought to be in the hands of students of apologetics, for they should know something of the path which religions take when they are growing wild; while all students will gather from such a book as this some knowledge of the nature and conditions of belief, and its relation to action, not only in the sphere of religion, but in all other spheres also. All who desire to know what men have actually thought, felt, and believed in the past, and how men were led to false and inadequate beliefs, and, as a consequence, to unnatural and obnoxious courses of conduct, ought to read this book. Nor is such a history of recorded human beliefs about the objects of worship, and the modes and spirit of worship, without a lesson for all of us. What that lesson is need not be pointed out here, but we are sure that every thoughtful reader will rise from the study of this book a sadder and a wiser man, grateful for the emancipation from the superstitions of the past won for him or by him, and filled with a sense of responsibility because his conduct ought to be in correspondence with his light and knowledge. J. IVERACH, D.D.

THE JEWISH RELIGION. By M. FRIEDLänder.

Trübner & Co.

Kegan Paul, Trench,

THIS book, dated from the Jews' College, is a popular exposition of Judaism, which will well serve the purpose of any one who wishes to know what really is taught in the present day as the religion of Israel. It is divided into two parts-the first entitled "Our Creed," and the second, "Our Duties." In the first part Dr. Friedländer expounds "The Thirteen Principles of Faith." His standpoint is that of enlightened conservatism. He so perfectly repudiates that he almost ignores the rationalistic views that have found favour with a very different school of Jews, and he demands faith with something of the insistence we are most accustomed to associate with the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. "Faith," he writes, "is the implicit and absolute belief in the truth of the communication made to us, and in the trustworthiness of him who makes it to us" (p. 5); and he quotes some strong sayings of the Rabbis in praise of faith. The sources from which we are to derive our knowledge are Revelation and Tradition. The importance of the second of these two sources is evident throughout the book; it is repeatedly appealed to. Where it shows discordant views they are clearly stated, but the verdict is in favour of the view that has won the esteem of the leading Rabbis in successive ages. Dr. Friedländer scarcely refers to modern historical criticism. While his book teems with the names of Rabbis even when he is discussing Old Testament questions, the critics who are familiar to Christian readers are ignored. The Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch is set forth as a matter of faith, to be believed as a religious duty. Yet Dr. Friedländer treats his subject in an enlightened and elevated spirit. He just touches on the relation of the first chapter of Genesis to science, and mentions the various familiar theories of reconciliation. He is too cautious to adopt any of them, but he

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