5 20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Matthew Arnold aptly expresses his own point of view when he speaks 

 of himself as 



" Wandering between two worlds, one dead, 

 The other powerless to be born, 

 "With nowhere yet to rest my head." 



or, again 



"... The sea of faith 

 "Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore 

 Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled, 

 But now I only hear 

 Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, 

 Ketreating to the breath 



Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear 

 And naked shingles of the world." 



Meanwhile, as the old faith began to lose power, art, science, and 

 the religion of humanity stepped forward into prominence, at first in 

 antagonism to Christianity. The struggle became critical during the 

 years 1873-74, and left a feeling of despair and pessimism for a time 

 on men's minds. But with time this feeling has begun to wear off, 

 and we see that the allegiance formerly claimed for the old theology 

 is claimed now by its rivals. The interval of pessimism, the period of 

 dormant anarchy, was marked by many gropings in different direc- 

 tions. Scholars drew attention to the great rivals of Christianity, to 

 Judaism, to Mohammedanism, to Buddhism. To this we owe in part 

 such books as " Daniel Deronda " (1876) and " The Light of Asia " 

 (1879). The theories of great philosophers of the past began to be 

 studied with fresh attention, especially the writings of Plato and Aris- 

 totle, of Berkeley, Spinoza, and Kant. Even spiritualism and the doc- 

 trine of metempsychosis were found to give the support needed to un- 

 scientific souls who lacked the courage to stand by the old orthodoxy 

 which the Zeit-geist had condemned. 



The need of some reconstruction was felt even by philosophy's of 

 the new school. Spencer propounded an evolution theory of morals in 

 his " Data of Ethics " (1879) ; and George Eliot, as a reconstructive 

 radical, in her " Theophrastus Such " (1879), drew attention to the 

 fact that " ideas acquired long ago reappear as the sequence of an 

 awakened interest or a line of inquiry which is really new to us." As 

 stable elements of the religion of the future, she pointed to the love of 

 ideals, and specially to the constantly renewed ideal self ; to the value 

 of external nature, as exercising a soothing influence, of family life, 

 and of national sentiments. We are thus led to the work before us. 

 Its importance is due to its recognition of the facts which this short 

 review of the religious thought of the last thirty years has brought 

 into prominence, and it takes up and makes a part of its system the 

 ideas on culture and civilization, which Matthew Arnold has reiterated 

 at intervals, ever since his publication in 18G9 of " Culture and An- 



