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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



be changed, and the looker-on fancies 

 that the very body and soul are gone." 

 This is the view of science. Religion, 

 like other things, is progressive, and 

 proceeds from stage to stage, succes- 

 sively molting its integuments with in- 

 creasing expansion and a higher life, 

 or, by the figure of Dr. Haven, shedding 

 its worn-out clothing as occasion re- 

 quires. It is a great point gained in 

 this matter to discriminate between the 

 living body and its accidental and tem- 

 porary wrappings between perennial 

 truth and its obsolete accompaniments. 

 The credal habiliments are not the vital 

 thing they invest, and to cling to them 

 as if they were is superstition. Dr. 

 Haven's point of view enables us to 

 appreciate the triviality of denomina- 

 tional cuts, fits, and styles; and illus- 

 trates the futility of venerating theo- 

 logical rags and tatters instead of the 

 essential religious ideas which require 

 ever to be clothed anew as men grow 

 in grace. And what a pitiful spectacle, 

 moreover, it is to see people so con- 

 fused and perverted in their notions 

 as to actually worship the heaps of old 

 clothes that have been long ago worn 

 out and cast off ! 



We are glad to observe that Bishop 

 Haven does not recoil from the concep- 

 tion of creation as a continuous, ever- 

 unfolding work. He wisely accepts the 

 view of God, compelled by evolution, 

 as that of an eternally-creating Spirit. 

 He says, "Is there any reason what- 

 ever to believe that God at any past 

 period, large or small, had any more 

 or less to do than now with this earth 

 and all that it contains ? " And again : 

 "Had we all been educated in a theory 

 of gradualism and constancy and im- 

 provement, and thoroughly saturated 

 with it, and yet aroused into a pro- 

 found belief in God, as is certainly 

 conceivable on that theory, and then, 

 should the theory of a Deity sometimes 

 awake and sometimes asleep be suggest- 

 ed, it would shock some feeble minds 

 into atheism." But would not strong 



minds also be thus shocked, and justly 

 so ; and would not the atheism be 

 real ? When evolution has become an 

 established and familiar idea in the re- 

 ligious world, and the Creative Power 

 is conceived as far as such conception 

 is possible to finite faculties as the 

 mighty, ever-energizing spirit of which 

 the boundless universe is but the mani- 

 festation, a reversion to present cur- 

 rent notions of the method of creation 

 will assuredly be regarded as a lapse 

 into atheistic paganism, analogous to a 

 present backward plunge into fetichism. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Preadamites ; or a Demonstration of the 

 Existence op Man before Adam ; to- 

 gether with a Study of their Con- 

 dition, Antiquity, Racial Affinities, 

 and Progressive Dispersion over the 

 Earth. With Charts and other Illus- 

 trations. By Alexander Winchell, 

 LL. D., Professor of Geology and Pale- 

 ontology in the University of Michigan. 

 Chicago : S. C. Griggs & Co. Pp. 500. 

 Price, $3.50. 



The views of Dr. Winchell on the sub- 

 ject of preadamites, which he put forth 

 some time ago in a modest pamphlet, to 

 which we drew attention, he has now ma- 

 tured and brought out in a very handsome 

 and richly illustrated volume. We have 

 been more than pleased with a somewhat 

 critical perusal of it. The work is popular 

 in its best sense attractive in style, clear 

 in exposition, and eminently instructive in 

 its subject matter. Though drawing its 

 facts from wide sources, it is far from be- 

 ing a mere compilation ; it is dominated by 

 a large, original purpose, which is kept 

 steadily in view throughout the whole course 

 of its close and trenchant argument. 



Dr. Winchell's book has a double interest 

 which should not be overlooked. Though 

 making no claims of this nature, it is yet a 

 valuable exposition of ethnological science, 

 treating instructively a wide range of ques- 

 tions in relation to the origin, distribution, 

 characteristics, and natural history of the 

 human races. These subjects are now of 

 commanding interest. All modern knowl- 



