character, when we consider all that properly goes with it, there can be no doubt. Under these circumstances, it was but natural that the world should be flooded with the attempts of peace-makers. And to such an extent was it flooded, that people came to have an instinctive, and in many instances well-founded, aversion to books proposing to "reconcile Science and Religion." Quite superior to most of the books of this class, in its grasp of the full meaning of the new truth, was Professor Joseph Le Conte's "Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought," which has now appeared in a second and revised edition. The book has a logical arrangement in three parts, devoted respectively to answering the questions, What is Evolution? What are the evidences of its truth? What is its relation to religious thought? Evolution is defined as, " (1) continuous, progressive change, (2) according to certain laws, (3) and by means of resident forces" (p. 8). The account of the nature and evidences of the truth of Evolution contained in the first two parts is perhaps the best concise account in English. The discussion omits nothing of importance; the material is presented with remarkable clearness, and is thoroughly accessible to the general reader. The critical discussion of the empirical evidences of Evolution is of course a special field, and we must not be understood as commenting, favorable or otherwise, upon the author's position on controverted points.

Of chief interest in this connection is, of course, part three, on the bearings of the doctrine of Evolution upon religious thought. The key to Le Conte's handling of this question the thought that constantly reappears on his pages is that Evolution is creation by a process of law. It will be seen, therefore, that he believes equally in Evolution and Creation. There are three views which may be taken of the origin of organic forms. They may be thought of, (1) as made without natural process, (2) as derived simply, or (3) as created by a process of evolution. "The first view asserts divine agency, but denies natural process; the second asserts natural process, but denies divine agency; the third asserts divine agency by natural process" (p. 292). The first two views are at once right and wrong, right in what each asserts, wrong in what it denies; the third combines and reconciles the other two. By a strange perversity, we no sooner find out how a thing was made than we forthwith declare that it was not created at all.

Evolution is the divine process of creation. The old notion of creation is mythological. Its explanation is entirely arbitrary. It points out no series of causes and effects, the connections between which can be followed in thought. It is therefore, in reality, no explanation at all. On the other hand, materialism is a hasty inference. Because a natural explanation can be given of every event, we are not to conclude that Nature needs no God. For what is Nature herself? What is necessary is that we reconstruct our conception of the Divine Being, and of creation. We must substitute for the thought of God as separate from the world, and as dealing arbitrarily with it, the thought of the Divine immanency; and for the notion of an arbitrary, unintelligible creation out of nothing by mere fiat of will, the thought of a creation by a process of law. That God brings things into existence by a process of law should no more seem to exclude his divine agency than the fact that He sustains the created universe by the law of gravitation, does so. "If evolution be materialism, then is gravitation also materialism" (p. 295). God is immanent in creation, and manifests his divine creative agency in and through natural processes.

After the defense of the general theistic character of Evolution, the most difficult point is, of course, the problem of the origin of the selfconscious spirit of man. The chapter on "The Relation of Man to Nature," in which this question is discussed, the author accordingly regards as the most important in the whole book. The view which he maintains, and which is foreshadowed in the general view of Evolution already indicated, can fortunately be concisely stated in its own words:

"I believe that the spirit of man was developed out of the anima or conscious principle of animals, and that this, again, was developed out of the lower forms of life-force, and this in its turn out of the chemical and physical forces of nature: and that at a certain stage in this gradual development, viz., with man, it acquired the property of immortality precisely as it now, in the individual history of each man at a certain stage, acquires the capacity of abstract thought" (pp. 313-14).

On the whole, considering its scope and the variety of questions discussed, Professor Le Conte's book does ample justice to its title. It is heartily to be commended to the general reader for the remarkably clear and forcible style in which the matter is presented, and for the general soundness of the philosophical principles which underlie its interpretation of the great law of Evolution.

The same attempt to get a closer hold upon

reality, and to attain a simpler expression of spiritual possessions, that characterizes the movement toward reconstruction in religion, shows itself also in the sphere of philosophy proper "The Spirit of Modern Philosophy," by Professor Josiah Royce, signalizes the successive triumphs of modern thought in its attempt to win rational freedom. The readers of Professor Royce's "Religious Aspect of Philosophy" will expect nothing else from him but a book of suggestiveness and solidity. We think that they will not be disappointed. To a series of most felicitous expository essays on the representative modern thinkers, he appends a Second Part-"Suggestions of Doctrine "presenting what is at present tangible in his own philosophical creed. The value of these suggestions-chief of which, perhaps, is the thought that we are now to return, enriched by the conquests of Idealism, to a patient study of the outer order (pp. 268, 305-7),—it will be impossible here to discuss. But in publishing the series of historical sketches which consti

tute Part First, Professor Royce has unquestionably performed a real service. Original work in the History of Philosophy has been a desideratum in this country. And thoroughly readable, entertaining accounts of the History of Philosophy have been a desideratum the world over. Professor Royce writes with real style. He possesses the faculty not only of embuing his account with a fulness of vivid human interest, but of making the difficult points wonderfully simple, without in the least impairing the statement of the full, hard truth. A good instance of this is the account of Kant. Especially noteworthy is the summary on page 131. Particularly felicitous, in the Second Part, are the author's account of the larger or universal self (p. 373), and the development of the world of appreciation (pp. 407–10). WILLISTON S. HOUGH.

BRIEFS ON NEW BOOKS.

FEW characters in history have more often attracted the biographer than Sir Walter Raleigh. That the subject still holds its fascination is shown by the recent large octavo of four hundred pages by William Stebbing, M.A., called "Sir Walter Ralegh: A Biography" (Macmillan). The author has evidently desired to avoid being beguiled into describing an era as well as its representative; has striven to refrain from writing history and to restrict himself to the presentment of a life. Raleigh's multifarious activity, with the width of the area in

which it operated, constantly involved him in a web of other men's fortunes and in national crises. And, even within the strictly biographical province, the

difficulties are very great; it is a confusing task to keep at once independent and in unison the poet,

statesman, courtier, schemer, patriot, soldier, sailor, freebooter, discoverer, colonist, castle-builder, historian, philosopher, chemist, prisoner, and visionary. Another confusion results from the discovery that not an action ascribed to him, not a plan he is reputed to have conceived, not a date in his multifarious career, but is matter of controversy. Posterity and his contemporaries have equally been unable to agree on his virtues and his vices, the nature of his motives, the spelling of his name, and the amount of his genius. He had a poet's inspirations, and the title to most of the verses ascribed to him is contested. He was one of the creators of modern English prose; and his disquisitions have for two centuries ceased to be read. He and Bacon are coupled by Dugald Stewart as beyond their age for their emancipation from the fetters of the schoolmen, their originality, and the enlargement of their scientific conceptions; yet a single phrase, "the fundamental laws of human knowledge," is the only philosophical idea connected with him. But amid existence, our author has succeeded in unravelling all the tangled threads of this wonderfully versatile

so much of its secret that we agree with him that "if less various, Ralegh would have been less attractive. If he had shone without a cloud in any one direction, he would not have pervaded a period with the splendor of his nature, and become its type. More smoothness in his fortunes would have shorn them of their tragic picturesqueness. With all the shortcomings, no figure, no life, gathers up in itself more completely the whole spirit of an epoch; none more firmly enchains admiration for invincible individuality, or ends by winning a more personal tenderness and affection."

THE swelling tide of books of Asiatic travel has recently been acceptably increased by Julius M. Price's "From the Arctic Ocean to the Yellow

Sea," a handsome English publication imported by Messrs. Scribner's Sons. Mr. Price, as special correspondent of the "Illustrated London News," accompanied a tentative expedition despatched by the "Anglo-Siberian Trading Syndicate" across the Kara Sea and up the river Yenesei to the city of Yeneseisk in the heart of Siberia, whence he journeyed independently through Mongolia, the Gobi desert, and North China, touching en route Krasnoiarsk, Irkutsk, Durga, and Peking. The writer tells his story in a lively journalistic way, with a plentiful peppering of French phrases, and occasional lapses into rather slip-shod English. Mr. Price is a capital observer. It was no part of his plan in entering Siberia to ferret out Russian barbarities with a view of harrowing the souls and tickling the sensibilities of a humane British public. He touches, however, en passant, on the Russian prison and ex

6

ile system, which he had a fair chance of observing, and his conclusions would seem to gain some a priori trustworthiness from the fact that the purveying of horrors was not his special mission as a correspondent. Words," says Homer, "may make this way or that way." So may statistics; and a touring Russian who should confine his English observations to Whitechapel might not unreasonably tell his gratified countrymen that "wife-beating is the common diversion of the English people." We cannot go into the details of Mr. Price's readable book. As to political prisoners in Irkutsk, he observes: "It was easy to distinguish which were the politicals,' for they were in ordinary civilian costume, and had no chains on, as far as I could see . . . To my astonishment for I had always read to the contrary I noticed that all these political prisoners were not only allowed books to read, but in most cases were smoking also, and in every instance had their own mattresses and bedding; so their cells, at any rate, looked cleaner and more cheerful than those of ordinary criminals, to whom filth seemed indifferent." One is glad to know that the Siberian picture has a brighter side than is usually shown us. Mr. Price's account of the perilous passage of the Kara sea, and of the trip up the Yenesei and across Mongolia, and his sketches of social life in Yeneseisk, Irkutsk, etc., are very entertaining; and the numerous illustrations (reproduced by permission from the "London News") are unusually vigorous and well-chosen.

his

AUGUSTINE BIRRELL'S "Res Judicata" (Scribner), a compact volume of reprinted lectures and essays which are mostly brief literary causeries in the style of the author's popular "Obiter Dicta," is a capital book for the impending dog-days, a season wherein the most savagely-serious student makes concessions in the way of "summer reading." Most of our readers are familiar with Mr. Birrell's pleasant, lively way of chatting about books and authors. It is not his critical humor to probe very deep or to carry analysis to the brink of distraction, author being to him not so much a "subject" for dissection as a pretext for pleasant fancies and apposite allusion and quotation. With the respectable but rather trying family of the Gradgrinds, Mr. Birrell has little in common. Not that we mean to imply that he is the mere sayer of good things, the delightful but futile "agreeable rattle "; his literary appreciations are usually sound and suggestive and imply a considerable gift of touching intuitively the salient features of a performance or a talent. Few writers of to-day have a better average of good things to the page than Mr. Birrell. He thus neatly touches off, in an effective paper on Cardinal Newman, a perhaps not unimportant aspect of Anglicanism: "If the Ark of Peter won't hoist the Union Jack, John Bull must have an Ark of his own, with a patriotic clergy of his own manufacture tugging at the oar, and with nothing foreign in the hold save some sound old port." "Sound old port!"

What a finely orthodox, ultra-clerical, ring that has! What an august tang of lawn sleeves, Hooker's "Polity," and the Thirty-Nine Articles! For that acute, vigorous, too-little-read author, William Hazlitt, Mr. Birrell has some handsome words: "It is true he does not go very deep as a critic, he does not see into the soul of the matter as Lamb and Coleridge occasionally do- but he holds you very tight-he grasps the subject, he enjoys it himself and makes you do so. Perhaps he does say too many good things. His sparkling sentences follow so quickly one upon another that the reader's appreciation soon becomes a breathless appreciation. There is something almost uncanny in such sustained cleverness."

A CERTAIN happy distinction of style is a quality we have learned to expect in all that comes from the pen of Robert Louis Stevenson, and his latest volume, "Across the Plains" (Scribner), does not disappoint us. For the secret of his art, we have his own confession made years ago: "Nobody had ever such pains to learn a trade as I had, but I slogged at it day in and day out, and I frankly believe (thanks to my dire industry) I have done more with smaller gifts than almost any man of letters in the world." Admitting this view of the case, we have to congratulate ourselves on this devotion to the "trade" of writing, when it became clear that he had no aptitude for the family calling, and that he was not likely to add fresh laurels to the name in the direction in which it was already illustrious, namely, lighthouse construction and illumination. The first of the twelve sketches which make up the present volume, and from which it takes its name, is the story of Mr. Stevenson's own travels from New York to San Francisco, in an emigrant train, thirteen years ago; this is followed by a description of "The Old Pacific Capital" and another of Fontainebleau. The later essays have to do rather with the inner than the outer life. Chapter on Dreams," in which Mr. Stevenson furnishes an account of his own mental processes during sleep, does much to discredit the author's own theory of his degree of indebtedness to "dire industry" in the mastery of his art, and reveals how large a factor in the matter must be his most unusual and fanciful order of mind.

"A

THE "Great Educators Series," published by Messrs. Scribner's Sons, begins fitly with "Aristotle and the Ancient Educational Ideals"; also, most fitly, it is to Mr. Thomas Davidson, the thorough student of Aristotle, that the theme has been entrusted. It has been often said that Aristotle's greatness was not recognized till the Middle Ages. By a strange accident, his principal works disappeared from view for two centuries, till brought to Rome by Sylla and edited by Andronicus; in the turmoil of barbarian invasion, and during the building up of the Catholic Church, his name was almost forgotten. Averrhoes and the Jew Maimonides were his prin

a

cipal introducers to the Western world. The growth of positive science during the last three centuries has brought new insight into Aristotle's power. It has come to be recognized that in many fields of thought he was not merely the first to introduce positive method, but attained results by it to which thinkers of our own times have recurred, and will yet recur, with profit. Thus, Mr. Davidson's work is much more than a mere re-statement of what Aristotle says on the subject of education; it is treatise showing Aristotle's relation to ancient pedagogy as a whole. It traces briefly the whole history of Greek education up to Aristotle and down from Aristotle; it shows the past which conditioned his theories, and the future which was conditioned by them. It exhibits the close connection that existed at all times between Greek education and Greek social and political life, a connection which lends to the subject of Greek education its chief interest for us. In these days, when Church and State are contending for the right to educate, it cannot but aid us in settling their respective claims, to follow the process by which they came to have distinct claims at all, and to see just what these mean. The concluding chapters of the book deal with the period that passed between the loss of Greek autonomy and the triumph of Christianity, thus paving the way for the consideration of the rise of the Christian schools. Not one of the least valuable portions of the book is the Appendix devoted to the Seven Liberal Arts.

THE second volume in the series of "Great Educators" is on "Loyola and the Educational System of the Jesuits." The author is the Reverend Thomas Hughes, of the Society of Jesus, and his exposition of the principles and methods of his order is a very able and eloquent one. The book is divided into two portions, the first, a biographical and historical sketch, having for its chief subject Ignatius Loyola, the second, a critical analysis of the Ratio Studiorum, or System of Studies. The author explains the rise of the Jesuit system as resulting from two elements in the educational condition of Europe,-the fallen splendor of the great developed system of university learning in the sixteenth century, and the decline therein of the essential moral life. Had the universities of his

a grade and place of its own in evolution and look out, like others, on a progeny more favored than itself, the fair mother of fairer children. To the less partisan reviewer the prophecy seems somewhat bold; for has it not thus far conspicuously failed in the development of great men? has it not, when left to work freely, often shown its incompatibility with the best spirit of modern life and society?

It is forty-three years since Auguste Comte published his concrete view of the preparatory period of man's history, calling it the Positivist Calendar. Therein he arranged a series of typical names, illustrious in all departments of thought and power, beginning with Moses and ending with the poets and thinkers of the first generation of the present century. These names, 558 in all, were distributed into four classes of greater or lesser importance; they ranged over all ages, races and countries; and they embraced religion, poetry, philosophy, war, A collection statesmanship, industry, and science.

of condensed biographies of these 558 persons has now been issued under the title "The New Calendar of Great Men" (Macmillan), with Frederic Harrison as editor. The book does not enter into competition with works on biography of a voluminous and miscellaneous kind; the names are not given in alphabetical order but in historical sequence; the various biographies form a connected series of studies, being grouped in order of time within that branch of human progress to which their lives were dedicated. Consequently, each separate section of the book may be read in a continuous series as a distinct chapter dealing with a special subject. As a biographical manual of the general course of civilization, it serves an admirable purpose, and could hardly be bettered unless by going outside of Comte's list as a basis; and this is something that the writers and editor have disclaimed any wish to do.

POSSESSORS of Professor David Masson's recent admirable edition of De Quincey will hardly find it worth while to buy Mr. James Hogg's edition of "The Uncollected Writings of Thomas De Quincey (Macmillan). Its title is in fact misleading, since it contains little or nothing of importance that cannot be found in Masson. The articles not found there are the following: In Vol. I., "The Lake Dialect," "Storms in English History," "The English in India"; in Vol. II., "The English in China," "Shakespeare's Text," "How to Write En

total of 700, and are probably the most ephemeral of the writings, which have yet been resuscitated, of this most sketchy and fragmentary of great authors. The volumes contain some spirited and extended essays, and will be found to supplement all editions of De Quincey except Masson's.

THE eighth volume of Professor Henry Morley's English Writers" (Cassell) brings the story down to the year in which Spenser published his "Shep

herd's Calendar" (1579). The author modestly entitles this work "An Attempt towards a History of English Literature." This chronicle history is full of materials to serve, and its author lays all future writers upon the subject under a great debt. The great philosophical and critical history is yet to come, but this work is likely to hold its place as the most copious source of information for the student. This eighth volume treats of Surrey, Wyatt, and the other "courtly makers" in the reign of Henry VIII.; of the rise of the drama; of the great reformers and Bible translators; and of the busy and varied literary activity of the first twenty years of Elizabeth's reign. The ninth volume will be on Spenser and his time. It is much to be hoped that Professor Morley will be spared to complete the work as far, at least, as to the date of Shakespeare's death (1616), which will be reached in the tenth volume.

ONE of the recent numbers in Sonnenschein's convenient Social Science Series" (Scribner) is M. Rocquain's account of "The Revolutionary Spirit Preceding the French Revolution," condensed and translated by Miss J. D. Hunting. The original has for some time been recognized as a valuable contribution to the history of the eighteenth century. The author holds that "the state of public opinion which gave rise to the French Revolution was not the outcome of the teachings of the philosophers," who only "united in a Code of Doctrine the ideas that were fermenting in all minds. From the middle of the century the spirit of opposition had become the spirit of Revolution." In describing this spirit of opposition, M. Rocquain really traces the history of public opinion in France from 1715 to 1789, bringing to light much new information and presenting it clearly and impartially. The work of translation has not been well done, and the translator's explanatory notes are by no means satisfactory. The book deserves a better, and unabridged, translation.

THE collection of twenty-two papers by William Winter, called "Shakespeare's England" (Macmillan), have nearly all had previous publication either in books or magazines. Yet they are well worth their new and dainty setting, being a sympathetic study of English scenery as hallowed by the spirit of English poetry and letters. Beside the Warwickshire portions, which occupy the chief space, there are pleasing chapters on such subjects as "Literary Shrines of London," "A Haunt of Edmund Kean," "Stoke Pogis and Thomas Gray," and "A Glimpse of Canterbury."

TO GIVE one's days and nights to the volumes of Addison seems both less attractive and less feasible

than when Dr. Johnson advised it for the acquisition of English style. Nevertheless, everyone desires some acquaintance with Addison, and the volume of Selections from The Spectator" (Dutton) made by A. Meserole, LL.B., is a very convenient aid

in that direction. Although the larger number of the papers included in the present volume are from the pen of Addison, a considerable number are by Steele, while Budgell, Hughes, and others, are also represented. A comparative study is hardly favorable to Macaulay's famous verdict that "Addison's worst essay is as good as the best of any of his coadjutors." The volume is beautifully printed and bound, and contains a fine etched portrait of Addison printed on India linen, as a frontispiece.

THE DIAL-CHANGE OF OWNERSHIP. Messrs. A. C. McClurg & Co. beg to announce to the friends and readers of THE DIAL that with the present issue their interest in the paper is transferred to Mr. Francis F. Browne, who has been its editor and a part owner since its commencement. This change, which is the first since the founding of the paper in 1880, is made for business reasons, with which the public is concerned only so far as to know that the change looks wholly to the good of the paper, which it is believed will be better served by its publication as a separate and independent enterprise. Those who know anything of the history of THE DIAL know that it has from the start aimed

singly at the position of a high-grade and wholly independent journal of literary criticism; and they know, too, how absolutely and unvaryingly, and with what scrupulous freedom from constraint through publishers' or booksellers influence, it has lived up to its high ideals in this direction. Yet it is perhaps but natural that a critical literary journal like THE DIAL should be to some extent misunderstood through its connection with a book-publishing and book-selling house. To relieve the paper from this disadvantage, and to make its literary independence hereafter as obvious as it ever has been real, is the prime object of the present change. The retiring publishers are glad to be able to offer to the readers and friends of THE DIAL their assurance that, so far as the conduct of the paper is concerned, the change is but nominal. It will remain in the same experienced and judicious hands that have conducted it from the beginning, and with the same working force as heretofore. Its successful publication for twelve years, and its already acknowledged position as the foremost American critical journal," will remain a matter of pride to its original publishers, who now part from it with the most hearty good-will and best wishes for its future. A. C. MCCLURG & Co.

CHICAGO, June 30, 1892.