NA TURK 



2 17 



HURSDAV, JLLV 5, 



.SOME RECENT PHILOSOPHY. 



(1) riic World's Desires, or The Kesiilts of Monism. 

 By Kdgar A. Ashcroft. Pp. xii + 440. (London : Kegan 

 I'.iiil, Trench, Trubncr ,-md Co., Lid., 1905.) Price 

 lo.s. ()(/. net. 



(2) The .Scientific Temper in Religion, and Other 

 Addresses. By the Rev. P. N. Wagsett- Pp- 

 xii + 286. (London: Lontjni.ins, (IreiMi and Co., nio.s-) 

 Price 4s. 6d. net. 



(.1) The Reconstruction of Beliej. By \V. 11. MaJhuU. 



Pp. xii + 314. (London : Cli.ipman and Hall, Lid., 



rc)o5.) Price J2S. net. 

 (4) Ihe Unit of Strife. By E. K. Garrod. Pp. 



\ + ii)4. (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 



I 105.) Price 3^. 6d. net. 



rHE first of these volumes need not detain us. 

 The work is dedicated, by permission, to 

 Prof. Haeckel, and Mr. Ashcroft emulates his master 

 in the range and discursiveness of his work. One 

 would have thought that the " Riddle of the Uni- 

 verse " had settled, at least for a modern monist 

 ur re.ilist, the majority of the topics here discussed 

 unless, indeed, the presence of two books in many 

 ways so similar is a part of the riddle to which it 

 is desirable to direct attention. We note that Mr. Ash- 

 croft is able to tell us that " the system of Plato 

 dis|)l;ivs few living qualities." 



(2) .Mr. VVaggett's work is one of the very best of 

 its type, viz. of the books that seek to reconcile re- 

 liyion and science. The author's chief characteristics 

 .ire his boldness and his anxiety that there should be 

 no nervousness or hysteria among the religious- 

 minded when their faith is confronted by the facts 

 of science. " We ought to be positively alarmed at 

 anv .appearance of unbroken agreement between re- 

 ligion and science." " There is not in the Bible ever 

 anv contrast between reason and faith. ... In point 

 of fact, faith is a kind of knowledge, and not only so, 

 Ijiit it is the model and type of all sure knowledge." 

 There is no theological interest, Mr. Waggett main- 

 lains, in weakening any particular theory about the 

 physical world. In regard to the gulf between the 

 organic and the inorganic — the classical treatment 

 of which is a famous chapter in " Natural Law in 

 the .Spiritual World " — Mr. Waggett has already made 

 terms even with Mr. Burke's radium experiments on 

 sicrilised bouillon, e.xperiments on which, at the same 

 time, he passes some acute criticisms. " Our faith 

 would not be shaken if the gulf which lies for thought 

 between organic and inorganic matter were for 

 thought to be bridged ; for it has never rested upon 

 this or any other interval." Mr. Waggett is sug- 

 gestive, too, in dealing with the problem of freedom, 

 pointing out that without freedom there can be no 

 error and no knowledge. 



(3) .\ small part of Mr. Mallock's work was 

 dealt w illi in the " NoUs " columns of this journal 



NO. 19 14, VOL. 74] 



when it appeared in the pages of the Forinii;htly 

 Review. Both Ihe clerical and the philosophical 

 attack on the negative conclusions of science have 

 failed, Mr.' Mallock declares. On the other hand, 

 current science has no influence on practical life, and 

 all that is best in modern civilisation is to be traced 

 to the three beliefs of theism, viz. the belief in human 

 freedom, in God, and in human immortality. But if 

 the principles of science be only carried to their logical 

 conclusion, it is clear that everything that now 

 happens must have been pre-arranged in all previous 

 molecular conditions of things, and that this pre- 

 arrangement is due to mind and purpo.se. The last 

 part of the work deals not unsuccessfully with the 

 difliculties generally urged against a belief in the 

 goodness of the Deity, and the author concludes his 

 suggestive volume with forecasting the difificulties 

 which Christianity has still to face — most of all, the 

 difficulty of competing with a new religious eclec- 

 ticism. Mr. Mallock is to be congratulated on .1 

 work whicli will undoubtedly add to his reputation, 



(4) The strife of which the title of this work 

 speaks is the struggle for existence. The title is 

 the one ambiguity, perhaps the one defect, of what 

 is, on the whole, a very clear and suggestive book. 

 Its writer is concerned mainly with the problem 

 that in man as compared with the lower creation 

 " the quality of fitness to survive has in some 

 way become modified"; "an agency has come into 

 play which had not asserted itself on the same 

 lines in the struggle for life before the appear- 

 ance of man." What are the modification and the 

 agency referred to? The answer seems to be that 

 in man most clearly of all living things the unit in 

 the struggle is not the individual, but the community, 

 gradually expanding from the family to the tribe, the 

 nation, the empire, and that in close correspondence 

 with this development and expansion there has gone 

 the increasing recognition of law and of some higher 

 power, which is the kernel of all religion. 



But this brief analysis almost does injustice to the 

 closeness of the argument and the excellence of the 

 illustrations by which the argument is enforced. Th( 

 scientific analogies are not overdrawn — the great de- 

 fect of some similar works — not even in one amusing 

 passage where the author compares the walls of 

 Babylon to the external defences of the crustacean, 

 and points out that at a more advanced stage of 

 development protection is given rather by moving 

 masses acting on the offensive, just as for the most 

 part the vertebrate organisms have abandoned the 

 methods of the crustaceans and of insects protected 

 bv a horn-like covering. 



One statement on p. qo appears somewhat in- 

 exact. The author, showing how an ideal may lose 

 the power of e.xpansion by being enclosed and case- 

 hardened, writes thus : — " Thus to the Israelite, 

 while they retained their lofty monotheistic concep- 

 tion, Jehovah became the Deity exclusively of their 

 own race. He was the Lord of Hosts who warred 

 always on their side against their enemies." On the 

 whole it seems wise to distinguish some things which 



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