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POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
THE MARTYRDOM OF MAN.* 
M R. WINWOODE READE, in his early work on Africa, while his style 
was repulsive to many readers, nevertheless gave a good account of his 
travels. In the present work he has given us over five hundred pages of 
matter, which is simply a very shallow rendering, in one volume, of the more 
immoral portions of the popular histories of some four or five nations. The 
hook, while intentionally it has an aim, has really none whatever. It is 
marvellously constructed, no succeeding chapter having any relation to its 
predecessor, nor anything in the form of a vein of continuity running 
through the hook. Towards the end we are treated to the author’s views 
upon religion, and in this portion, while we agree with him in some of his 
views, we must say that he has not the slightest novelty to introduce, and 
that he argues in favour of his views with a poverty of logic that is some- 
what astonishing in one who writes upon such a subject at all. There is 
hut one good thing in the hook, and that is the style in which it is written. 
Evidently the author has been at pains in the mode of expressing his ideas, 
and has doubtless paused considerably and erased much ere he gave his 
copy to the printer. So that on the whole a feeling of unpleasantness 
steals over the writer as he imagines the pain and difficulty of composition. 
Still we must admit that it is very good, the mode of expression being 
throughout terse, clear, and sometimes even epigrammatic. But when we 
have said this we have given every particle of praise which can be bestowed 
on a book that is really without aim or object of any kind save the 
gratification of the foolish ambition of having written. It seems to us as 
though Mr. Reade wanted experience, as though he had but a capacity of 
seeing himself and his own views alone, and thus he was led to write for 
others that which they themselves understand^infinitely more fully and better 
than he does. While we agree with him in the doctrines he holds, so far 
as we can see, we are somewhat astonished at the logical accuracy of some of 
his stated conclusions. u In the first place,” says he, “ we shall state as an 
incontrovertible maxim in morality that a God has no right to create men 
except for their own good.” Now we should very much like to know on 
what principle or by what data in the laws of morality Mr. Reade arrives 
at this conclusion. Most assuredly we fail entirely to see it, as indeed we 
fail throughout his whole argument to perceive any but the most shallow 
reasoning, put forward in terse style, and an intense amount of egotism 
unalloyed by anything in the shape of respect for the opinions of others. 
Nevertheless it is an amusing, well-written book, which those who agree; 
with the author will be interested by reading. There is a freshness in its 
want of generalisation, and an amusing absence of consideration for others 
which we doubt not will prove refreshing to the mind of an average reader. 
* The Martyrdom of Man. By Winwoode Reade. London : Triibner 
and Co., 1872. 
