3JG 



DISC.OVl-.HY 



carefully placed on top took fifteen seconds to sink 

 into the coffee below. But the things that mattered : 

 her University and institutes of learning, her men and 

 women, all the beauty and the wonder and the power, 

 then so high and great, and now — what a contrast I 

 • * ♦ * * 



It almost passes belief. We have been accustomed 

 to sec red when we think of Austria, and all the muck 

 and misery into which the war she started has plunged 

 us and herself : but when we reflect upon her present 

 misery, the lack of an adequate supply of food, of 

 clothing, and of fuel, which most of her inhabitants 

 are experiencing ; her students, professors, and inves- 

 tigators, famous in time past for their learning and 

 their discoveries, now with barely enough, many of 

 them, to keep body and soul together ; without the 

 means of buying books or of getting the necessary 

 apparatus, in some cases dying of starvation ; we feel 

 that the advancement of learning is not yet so great 

 and general a thing that the world without loss can 

 let even one of its cities go down-hill. We rejoice 

 that so many generous spirits have come forward 

 with real offers of help and service, and we pray that 

 they and others may have the power and means to 

 save Vienna even yet from a fate which appears 

 inevitable. 



***** 



To turn to another matter. 



There is a certain class of books against which, it 

 seems to us, protest with some vigour should be 

 directed, because we believe they are in their tone 

 against the advancement of the subject with which 

 they deal and of the esteem in which it is held, and 

 in their facts ill-informed, misleading, and erroneous. 

 The books we refer to are those in which a rough hash 

 of truths, heresies, and misstatements concerning pre- 

 sent-day science is used to set-off and make topical 

 and interesting the theories and ideas of their authors 

 upon the particular subject which interests them. 

 No one minds very much — although, personally, we 

 think people should mind a good deal more than they 

 do — how wild and wonderful a man may be in his ideas 

 and theories. They arc interesting to somebody ; 

 interesting psychologically, for example, if in no other 

 way. But when a book is published in which the 

 patient work and ascertained results of investigators 

 in such subjects as history, anthropology, biology, or 

 chemistry are gently thrust aside merely because they 

 interfere in some way with the particular bee in the 

 author's bonnet, it seems high time for a protest to 



be made. 



***** 



The book • before us, which we have selected to 



' The Origin and Evolution of Freemasonry. By Albert Church- 

 ward, M.D., .M.K.C.r. (Allen & Unwin, 12s. bd.) 



illustrate our point (which we hope is a sound one, and 

 not just a bee in our own bonnet), is not a particularly 

 bad example of the class, but that it could be written 

 as it has been by a doctor, and published by an emi- 

 nent firm of publishers in these difficult days, is, we 

 think, an occasion for surprise. The Origin and I:io- 

 liilion of rrccmasoyiry is a good subject, and this book 

 deals, we are told, not only with freemasonry, but also 

 with the history of the human race ; it shows whence 

 man originated, and how he progressed in evolution, 

 and reveals how the various religious cults have been 

 evolved. This sounds excellent. Wc are going to be 

 told all about the origins of freemasonry, and we antici- 

 pate reference to, and rt'sumes of, the work of Darwin, 

 Sir J. G. Fraser, Edward Carpenter, and others. .\nd 

 so wc commence the book at Chapter I. 



***** 

 But Chapter I gave us a shock — well, no, not a 

 shock, but a surprise. At first we thought that by 

 an accident another book had been bound in our 

 cover, an idea which turned out to be wrong. The 

 book did deal with freemasonry, but not in Chaj)- 

 tcr 1. There was, secondlj', the possibility that the 

 book was a conscious skit on the subject. This view 

 also we abandoned. Chapter I, liowever, was c\'i- 

 dently a digression. It dealt with the periodic law, 

 corpuscles, and Socialists — a somewhat somnambulistic 

 mixture. Not our old friend the periodic law of 

 chemistry ? Yes, the vcrj' same. Not by any chance 

 the dear old corpuscles of the blood ? No, the cor- 

 puscles or electrons of the atom instead. Good ! And 

 Socialists ? Ah ! it was very evident from the first 

 that they were in for it. In the sequel they were 

 going to get it pretty badly in the neck. 



***** 



Chapter I commenced with an excellent but 

 solemn warning to avoid the pitfalls of humbug and 

 falsehood. " Knavery puts on the face of justice," 

 we arc told, and " Hypocrisy and superstition wear 

 the vizard of piety." Wondering by what 0. Henry- 

 dhiouement the author was going to connect these 

 aphorisms with his subject, we read on, and came to the 

 corpuscles and a somewhat out-of-date account of the 

 structure of the atom. For this no blame need be 

 attached to the author. It is not right to say, how- 

 ever, that there are 16,000 electrons in an oxygen 

 atom. Divide this number by 2,000. Nor can elec- 

 trons penetrate " the biggest block of steel " ; a 

 quarter of an inch would stop them all. But it is not 

 to the author's knowledge of physics that we object ; 

 it is to the application of this business of corpuscles 

 or electrons to everything. He univcrsalises the 

 periodic law of chemistry, whatever that may be. He 

 calls it God's Law, the Law of Nature. It is true and 



