696 



NATURE 



[February 25, 19 15 



suggestive section. The importance of selection 

 of seed to meet the varying- needs of the different 

 markets for coco-nut products is insisted on in 

 a very interesting chapter. 



A pleasing omission from the book is the oft- 

 encountered estimate of "cost of establishing a 

 plantation," and the author explains the absence 

 of statistics of coco-nut production on the grounds 

 of their untrustworthiness. On the other hand, it 

 should have been found possible to include, in the 

 brief chapter on "Coco-nut Products," a reference 

 to the now important trade in "desiccated coco- 

 nut." It is interesting to note that the author 

 follows Cook in regarding the American tropics 

 as the home of the coco-nut palm ; that he finds 

 no evidence that salt is necessary for the full 

 development of the plant; and that he discounts 

 the view that sea-shores are the only proper 

 localities for a plantation. S. E. Chandler. 



MAN AND THE UNIVERSE. 

 (i) The Concept of Sin. By Dr. F. R. Tennant. 

 Pp. iv+281. ■ (Cambridge University Press, 

 1912.) Price 45. 6d. net. 



(2) God and the Universe : a Physical Basis for 

 Religion and Ethics. By Prof. G. W. de Tun- 

 zelmann. Pp. 256. (London: S.P.C.K., 1912.) 

 Price 45. 



(3) The Principia or the First Principles of 

 Natural Things, to which are added the Minor 

 Principia and Summary to the Principia. By 

 Emanuel Swedenborg. Translated from the 

 Latin by J. R. Rendell and L Tansley, with an 

 introduction by Isaiah Tansley, and a foreword 

 by Sir William F. Barrett. Vol. i., pp.. cv + 

 545; vol. ii., pp. xxi + 699. (London: The 

 Swedenborg Society, 1912.) 



(4) Outlines of the History of Psychology. By 

 Prof. Max Dessoir. Authorised translation by 

 Donald Fisher. Pp. xxix + 278. (New York: 

 The Macmillan Co. ; London : Macmillan and 

 Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price ys. net. 



(i) T N Dr. Tennant's lucid and fair-minded dis- 

 X cusslon of the meaning of sin particular 

 points might indeed be criticised. But the query 

 in one's mind is rather the general one as to the 

 value of the concept — why has there been a 

 "decay of the sense of sin"? This is dealt with 

 in an appendix, but quite other reasons than those 

 there recognised must, one feels, be faced. 



There are two views of the world ; as a slough 

 to be crossed or a marsh to be drained. On the 

 first indeed we shall assign ethical value to re- 

 sults "only in so far as these are exponents of 

 the goodness of the will whence they spring." 

 On the second, such things as suffering and 

 NO. 236s, VOL. 941 



ignorance are evil, not merely as "exponents," or 

 in a "quasi-aesthetic" sense (indeed a Kipling 

 may find a pleasing symmetry in the "widow in 

 sleepy Chester " compensated by an expiatory 

 heap of skulls in Cathay). The present war may 

 be due rather to a collective fallacy than to sin ; 

 if its miseries would in that case have no interest 

 for ethics — well, so much the worse for ethics. 

 Just as the deadliest false witness is borne in 

 good faith, so man's cruellest inhumanity to man 

 has been done with approving conscience. Con- 

 versely Huck Finn, one supposes, sinned in aiding 

 the runaway Jim, as did the Precentor in failing 

 to enlighten the Little Minister's mother. 



From this point of view, again, we shall ask 

 first and last, What is feasible, what is modifiable ? 

 Now a man's standard of right is indefinitely 

 alterable, but the degree of his conformity to it, 

 his native conscientiousness, may, like his native 

 retentiveness or intelligence, be fixed. So with the 

 race; the standard changes while the deviation of 

 individuals — the moral scatter — remains fairly 

 constant. And in moulding the race of the future 

 we cannot (apart from eugenics) assume the possi- 

 bility of influence more direct than through the 

 social environment. Further, the goodwill cannot 

 be only formal if we are to avoid the circularities 

 of the will to believe. And just as the "paradox 

 of hedonism " has a psychological as well as a 

 logical meaning, so the constant query " How 

 shall I acquire merit? " though it need not produce 

 the Pharisee, is yet far from that objectivity which 

 is the mark perhaps of genius and surely of the 

 idealist and love. To the mother the child is not 

 an " exponent " of the parental instinct, but an 

 end. Finally, even if life is an examination we are 

 only candidates. To divide the sheep from the 

 goats may be God's business; that it cannot be 

 ours is indeed emphasised by Dr. Tennant. He 

 warns us, too, that he writes for theological 

 students rather than social reformers. But that is 

 just it; we are all social reformers. 



(2) Dr. Tunzelmann attempts to provide a 

 "physical" demonstration of the existence of 

 God. The mechanical view, or "model," of the 

 universe has had to be supplemented by the energy 

 model, and this, in its turn, fails to explain the 

 initial distribution of energy that it presupposes. 

 There remains only the mind model. That mind 

 does affect the distribution of energy is " proved " 

 by practically assuming interactionism. But even ' 

 interactionism only refers to the relation of mind 

 and brain, so that the argument would seem at 

 best to suggest that the material universe is, or 

 was, the cortex of Universal Mind. And mind 

 does not will or know its own nervous correlates. ■ 

 Dr. Tunzelmann 's argumentation is strangely un-] 



