314 



NA TURE 



[February 6, 190: 



And I regret that a writer ordinarily so clear-sighted and 

 judicious has been misled by one whose services to the 

 study of Hindu relij,'ion and literature can hardly be 

 overrated, and whose contributions to philology and, 

 indeed, the science of religion it would be the veriest 

 ingratitude not to recognise. The rest of my task is 

 more pleasant. To discuss a subject so vast as religion 

 in a little volume of some four hundred pages is no mean 

 undertaking. It cannot be expected that the writer will 

 satisfy his critics on all points. No fulness of treatment 

 would probably enable him to do this, and where so 

 much has to be compressed or entirely passed over it is 

 hopeless to think of it. Besides, the questions dealt 

 with are such that at every point he encounters pre- 

 judice and runs the risk of wounding the innermost and 

 most sacred feelings. Among these difficulties Prof. 

 Jastrow has tried to find his way. Owing to his charity 

 and sympathy with the most diverse manifestations of 

 the religious spirit, to his circumspection, to his large 

 views of history and to his dispassionate judgment, he 

 has, on the whole, succeeded admirably. His opening 

 chapter on the history of the study, and those on religion 

 and history and religion and culture, display in full 

 measure all the qualities referred to. The practical sug- 

 gestions contained in the final section deserve careful 

 consideration. In the chapter on the study of the sources 

 the standard is fixed very high. It is well that it should 

 be so. But it is to be observed that the exhaustive 

 study demanded for the religion to which the student 

 proposes to dedicate himself will, in the case of most 

 students, leave but little time for that acquaintance which 

 the writer demands, and rightly demands, with other 

 religions. 



"In order to understand one religion," he says, "we 

 must be acquainted with more than one. Religions with 

 literatures differ far more from one another than those 

 which possess none. Hence it is not sufficient to study 

 merely one religion direct from the sources." 



By this expression the author means the study of the 

 religious literature in the original tongue. He does not 

 mention, though his illustration of the Hebrew word 

 god evidently implies, a study of the history and culture 

 of the people concerned outside their religion. To 

 continue the quotation : — 



" Studying two in this way may be set down as a 

 minimum for acquiring that firmness of method and 

 keenness of judgment needed for the chief problem of 

 religious research — the interpretation of facts. This does 

 not imply that the two are to be cultivated with equal 

 intensity, or that the entire field of both must be covered, 

 but only that in addition to the one religion which forms 

 one's special object of research, one should be able to 

 acquire a sufficient knowledge of a second religion, direct 

 fron) its sources, as to be able to penetrate into the 

 spirit of that religion." 



The ideal is excellent. And yet I am not sure that a 

 more important service may not sometimes be rendered 

 to the study of a religion by one who is ignorant even of 

 the original language, if he be able to bring to bear 

 upon a study of first-rate translations a wide ethno- 

 graphical knowledge, and therefore to compare the 

 practices of totally different races and cultures. How, 

 fore.xainple, would a study of the sources of Hebrew and 

 Egyptian religions, or Hebrew and Hindu religions, even 

 NO. 1684, VOL. 65] 



if we add Mohammedanism and Zoroastrianism, enable 

 us to solve the origin and meaning of the rite of circum- 

 cision ? Robertson Smith could never have written his 

 '■Religion of the Semites" if he had been simply :\ 

 student, from the sources, of the Hebrew and .Arab 

 religions. A general acquaintance with the results ui 

 anthropological study of savage peoples was of more 

 value to him than the study of the literatures of half-a- 

 dozen civilised religions would have been. 



1 have no space to do more than refer to the cogent 

 arguments with which the author enforces the need for 

 the scientific study of religion in higher education gene- 

 rally, and especially in mission-colleges, or to his ex- 

 position of the utility of museums in the study. These 

 chapters, not less than the earlier parts of the book, 

 deserve to be carefully read. The appendices illustrate 

 them by showing actual courses of lectures delivered at 

 the 6cole des Hautes ittudes at Paris, and the arrange- 

 ment of the Musee Guimet, which was specially formed 

 to aid the study of religion. To guide the student, a 

 bibliography is added of a remarkably catholic character. 

 E. Sidney Hartland. 



CHEMISTRY FOR COLLEGES. 



A College Text-Book of Chemistry. By Ira Remsen. 

 Pp. XX -f- 689. (London : Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 

 1 90 1.) Price 8j-. bd. net. 



THIS book is intended to fill a place between the 

 " Introduction to the Study of Chemistry" and 

 the "Inorganic Chemistry" by the same author. The 

 style and plan of the book may be estimated from the 

 author's remark in the preface, where he expresses the 

 opinion that "The time has not yet come for the aban- 

 donment of the study of elements and their compounds 

 in what some are pleased to call the old-fashioned way." 

 Intended, as its name implies, for the use of colleges, 

 the book ditifers in no essential particulars from other 

 textbooks of the same scope. The arrangement adopted 

 for the treatment of the subject is one that has in more 

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 and their compounds being studied in some detail in 

 the earlier chapters, and the main bulk of the subject 

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 a number of experiments to be carried out by the student, 

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 the manner in which many suggestive questions are 

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 the loose and inaccurate expressions that are more or 

 less characteristic of the book. Thus it is not the best 

 definition of energy to say that it is " that which causes 

 change in matter." Again, in discussing chemical 

 changes, the student is told to "consider the changes in- 

 cluded under the head of fire." Is not fire rather a 

 phenomenon accompanying these changes ? In discussing 

 the law of conservation of energy the incomplete state- 

 ment is made that "from a certain amount of heat 

 we can get a certain amount of motion, and that for a 



