LITERARY NOTICES. 



561 



pict a stage of its existence. There are 

 other times when it does not fly, but crawls, 

 or else is wrapped in a web of indifference. 

 The preface contains the lesson of the book 

 the way to Utopia is for all of us over the 

 difficult road of moral improvement. 



According to strict definition, pure indi- 

 vidualism separates man from his kind, calls 

 government an evil, and tends toward anar- 

 chy, while socialism makes man dependent, 

 exalts government, and ends in communism. 

 Either alone is impracticable as a method of 

 life. The wise man therefore uses both as 

 he employs his two eyes or hands. In the 

 domain of politics and property, the indi- 

 vidualist seeks liberty, private capital, own- 

 ership, and competition ; the socialist de- 

 mands authority, common possessions, and 

 collective capital. The thorough American 

 is an opportunist, wary of extremes, caring 

 little for theory, and adopting only what is 

 successful in practice. The tendency of the 

 time, however, is in all countries distinctively 

 socialistic. 



Mr. Oilman deprecates the pseudo-scien- 

 tific method in treating politics, economics, 

 and ethics. The right order of things has 

 been strangely mistaken by scientists 

 more properly sciolists. The knowledge of 

 man is of more importance than the most 

 astonishing development of natural science. 

 Pure individualism, he conceives, is best illus- 

 trated by the struggles of brute man in pre- 

 historic ages. We have, or ought to have, 

 outgrown this struggle-for-existence ethics. 

 It is a blunder in thought to introduce the 

 evolution philosophy in place of the higher 

 law for man. 



The social problem, largely due to unre- 

 stricted immigration, belongs to the city. 

 The labor question does not trouble the farm- 

 er, and it must be remembered that three 

 fourths of the population still dwell outside 

 the large cities. A difference is noted be- 

 tween English and American individualism. 

 Twenty-five years ago liberal Americans 

 avowed Mr. Spencer's political creed. No 

 longer do they belong to the Suspenceru- 

 maru-homi the sect that swallowed Spencer 

 whole! Government is not a monstrosity, 

 but the organ which expresses the intelli- 

 gence and will of a reflecting community. 

 Elsewhere the author states that to take any- 

 thing out of politics in civilized countries 

 VOL. XLIV. 43 



means to take it out of corruption into hon- 

 esty ! 



Among socialistic measures the Ameri- 

 can accepts free schools, free libraries, and 

 free text-books as benefits, while he rejects 

 the state publication of books as a failure. 



Nationalism, or romantic socialism, flour- 

 ishes chiefly on paper. It was doomed to 

 failure since it ignored the separate common- 

 wealths. Christian socialism aims to accom- 

 plish by religious influence what socialism 

 attempts in the reconstruction of society. 



Without violent reforms the industrial 

 situation may be much improved by means of 

 boards of arbitration, building associations, 

 life insurance, and a better form of labor 

 contract. There are now over three hun- 

 dred business firms that practice some 

 form of profit sharing. We may expect the 

 functions of the state to be enlarged, but 

 purification of existing method should pre- 

 cede this extension. As a way of escape from 

 present evils, the author directs us to a 

 higher individualism, properly Christian. 

 This favors voluntary co-operation, and aims 

 at fraternalism. 



Mr. Joseph John Murphy is the author of 

 a book entitled The Scientific Bases of Faith, 

 published twenty years ago, the purpose of 

 which was to show that the new ideas of the 

 nature and origin of things, including the en- 

 tire doctrine of evolution, constitute a better 

 basis for Theistic and Christian faith than 

 the old. Since the book was published 

 much has been thought, said, and written on 

 the subjects of which it treats ; and a second 

 book, Natural Selection and Spiritual Free- 

 dom, is now presented by the author to set 

 forth his newer thoughts on the same class 

 of subjects. In it Prof. Drummond's Natu- 

 ral Law in the Spiritual World receives promi- 

 nent attention, and Mr. Murphy has to " re- 

 mark with wonder over the vast change that 

 must have come over the religious mind of 

 the English-speaking people before Prof. 

 Drummond's work could have been received 

 as an orthodox book," which, we may say 

 by the way, it is not, because " there is not 

 one of Drummond's characteristic passages 

 which might not have been written by a 

 denier of the characteristic doctrines of 

 apostolic and Nicene Christianity." Drum- 

 mond's doctrine of conversion is first ex- 



