REVIEWS 675 



but resulted from the interaction of blind mechanical forces. Admitting that an 

 organism is an adapted, and in so far a purposive, existence, natural selection 

 showed how purpose could be represented in purely mechanical terms, altogether 

 apart from conscious desire. 



Now if we were to go so far as to accept Prof. Lloyd's view that there is no 

 essential difference between human and non-human purpose, two possibilities 

 would then confront us. Either purpose may be looked upon as running through 

 the entire universe ; or human purpose may also be expressible in mechanistic 

 terms by some mode of statement, in the same way that natural selection expresses 

 adaptation in mechanistic terms. Prof. Lloyd does not consider the second 

 alternative ; he discusses only the first, which leads him straight into metaphysics, 

 where few men of science will care to follow him. If we assume that his basis is 

 sound, which we are not yet prepared to do, then in the arguments founded upon 

 it he appears to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick : and, indeed, to be 

 almost unconscious that the stick in question has any other end at all. 



In smaller details he is sometimes equally difficult to follow. He says, for 

 instance, that science has " two distinct aims. The one is towards explanation of 

 life or cosmogony ; the other is towards knowledge of the manifestations of life, 

 with a view to control." Now I for one would deny both propositions. Science 

 has only one aim, and that the discovery of truth. It does not specially seek an 

 explanation of life : indeed any such explanation seems so remote at present, that 

 few but metaphysicians inquire into the question. Nor does it work " with a view 

 to control," though that knowledge may be a very happy result of science. But 

 we may surely claim for science an aim much higher than the merely utilitarian. 

 Is it not the highest motive for any man to seek to know truth, to accumulate new 

 knowledge ? And that without any arriere-pensee of advantage to be derived from 

 its applications. In justice to the author it must be added that his own work 

 bears every sign of being inspired by that ideal, even though we may not agree 

 with its conclusions. 



Hugh Elliot. 



The Differential Essence of Religion. By Theodore Schroeder. Reprinted 

 from the New York Truth Seeker, October 31 and November 7 and 14, 

 1914. [Pp. 28.] 



This pamphlet is reprinted from articles of the author published towards the end 

 of 1 91 4 in the New York Truth Seeker. The author's purpose is to discover some 

 factor common to all varieties of religion, such factor being then considered as the 

 element of truth from which all error has been shorn away. In the pursuit of this 

 purpose he discusses in turn the various factors which religions might be supposed 

 to have in common ; and makes short work of those which would be most readily 

 suggested. Belief in outward manifestations is rejected : even belief in God is 

 rejected as a non-essential element in religion, for no such belief is entertained by 

 Buddhists : belief in personal immortality is also inessential ; morals are not in the 

 essence of religion ; and religion is "always non-scientific." We begin to wonder 

 what is left; and finally we learn that religion is "a subjective ecstatic experience" 

 of a particular character further defined. 



The method of procedure recalls Herbert Spencer's attempt to find a common 

 factor between science and religion. That attempt failed, because when he pro- 

 duced his common factor divines were unable to recognise in it anything that they 

 understood by religion, while men of science in not a few cases failed equally to 

 detect in it any resemblance to science. Like most compromises, it satisfied 



