556 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



second volume is now before us. The pub- 

 lishers describe the latter series as a collec- 

 tion of books setting forth the achievements 

 of scientific and mechanical skill at the pres- 

 ent day. The volumes arc intended to be as 

 free as possible from technical terms, and to 

 deal but little with matters of theory. Prof. 

 Mcndenhall's Century of Electricity, already 

 issued, has been made the first volume of 

 the series. Mr. Kimball's book is devoted 

 to that department of physics usually known 

 as pneumatics. It gives the properties of 

 gases, and the current theories in regard to 

 their constitution and behavior, in language 

 that is readily understood and free from 

 mathematics. A chapter is devoted to Geiss- 

 lcr tubes and the phenomena of the radiant 

 condition of matter as developed by Prof. 

 Crookes. The text is illustrated with about 

 forty cuts of .apparatus. 



The Unknown God ; or, Inspiration among 

 Pre-Christian Races. By C. Loring 

 Brace. New York : A. C. Armstrong & 

 Son. Pp. 336. Price, $2.50. 



The author accepts the "modern meth- 

 od " of studying ethnic or heathen religions, 

 by looking for what is good in them rather 

 than searching for their defects or trying to 

 show their inferiority to the highest — or his 

 own — religion. He inquires how the man of 

 other races and times regarded the problems 

 of the universe ; what was his conception of 

 the primeval cause, how he considered his 

 relation to it, and how far that relation af- 

 fected his daily life and practical morals. 

 In pursuing this study he expects to find 

 with man in all ages and races some evi- 

 dences of the inspiration of the Divine 

 Spirit. Dealing first with the Hamitic and 

 Semitic races, a period is found in Egypt in 

 which a belief in the one God existed in the 

 minds of the scholars and priests. Then, 

 among the Semitic tribes of the valley of the 

 Euphrates, the penitential psalms and pray- 

 ers of the Accadians are stamped with a 

 monotheistic spirit. Among the Aryan 

 races the belief in God and a future judg- 

 ment is discovered in the mysteries of the 

 Greeks, and the faith in a spiritual God or 

 Zeus is discerned in their early poetry, before 

 the idea had been degraded by the myth- 

 making fancy. " The evidence from the 

 Greek dramatists and many of the ancient 



writers is here overwhelming that one spirit- 

 ual God was at certain periods adored by 

 considerable numbers of the Greek race." 

 Similar evidences are found in the religion 

 of Plato and Socrates, and of the Stoics. 

 Monotheism and moral purity are found to 

 be marked characteristics of the Persian 

 religion of Zoroastrianism. The old Vedic 

 hymns furnish the proof of Hindoo monothe- 

 ism in the worship of Varuna, the heaven-god. 

 The fullest descriptions are devoted to the 

 Buddhist faith, which the author regards as 

 " in a high degree inspired, and as an instru- 

 ment in the hands of Providence for the ele- 

 vation and purification of Asia." The final 

 chapter is on the biblical argument for the 

 inspiration of the heathen. The work is not 

 designed for an attack on the heathen re- 

 ligions, or as a defense of Christianity ; but 

 rather to show what great truths have in- 

 spired the pious heathen of the past. 



Midnight Talks at the Club. Reported 

 by Amos K. Fiske. New York : Fords, 

 Howard & Hulbert. Pp.298. Price, $1. 



The " talks " which this little volume 

 contains embody earnest and more or less 

 conflicting opinions on some of the more 

 serious subjects which are being discussed 

 at the present time. It is not the purpose 

 of the book to put forth judgments of start- 

 ling novelty, and many readers will find in 

 the utterances of one or another of the 

 speakers represented simply their own views, 

 though they may never have expressed them 

 in the same way, or, in fact, at all, or per- 

 haps were never quite conscious before that 

 they held these views. The first subject 

 discussed is temperance ; from that the talk 

 goes to the lack of practical work by the 

 churches, and is led through the question of 

 Sunday observance up to a discussion of re- 

 ligion in general. Political immorality is 

 the subject of the next conversation, and the 

 somewhat allied topic of the Irish Americans 

 comes up for attention later. Most of the 

 talks which follow concern religious matters, 

 such as superstition and worship, the Script- 

 ure fetich, the teachings of Moses and the 

 prophets, and the usefulness of religious de- 

 lusion. Other fields are entered in discus- 

 sions of the value of human evidence and 

 the power of personality. Throughout the 

 volume the modern progressive views are 



