i88 5 .J 
Analyses of Books. 
93 
jeas in the philosophy of the science. These considerations 
ough of necessity somewhat fragmentary, will, we hope, bring 
e meuts of the book into a sufficiently clear light, and justify 
the reader in undertaking its connected study. J } 
The Round Table Series. IV. Walt Whitman, Poet and Demo - 
oat. By John Robertson. Edinburgh : Wm. Brown. 
Ne\kr did we take up a book with so much hesitation and diffi- 
dence as the one before us. To our best knowledge the author 
a Vf ; v . a >' come in contadb with the interests which we 
Present. Unlike many poets and literary men of the present 
century— we need only mention, Campbell, Keats, Elliott, and 
Pennyson— he has not even sneered at Science. Of his writings 
we have encountered nothing beyond a few extracts and review! 
present ti^atise 313611 ° Ur memory ’ and what is t0 be found in the 
Ihe subjeffi of Mr. Robertson’s exposition is described on the 
title-page as “ Poet and Democrat.” Now we have little sym- 
pathy with democrats, or indeed with “ crats ” of any kind We 
would not here be misunderstood. We do not necessarily'avert 
our brom ’ ant J close our ears to, a man because he has de- 
cided political opinions, nor even because he seeks to enforce 
such opinions. But the man who is essentially a “ crat ” who 
cannot be truthfully described if we leave his “ crat ”isrn on one 
side— is as much outside our mental sphere as is Sulitelma, or 
-he fable Mountain, at the present moment outside the ran^e of 
our eyesight. & 
Mr. Robertson tells us that “his [Whitman’s] is the naif 
popular Theism of the day, which finds the universe made for 
man, and the land for the race.” Is this creed, the unphilosophic 
version of the old aphorism “ Man the measure of all thino- s ,” 
in need of any new preachers and advocates? Should it°not 
rather be zealously unpreached ? We fear that one of the ten- 
dencies of the “ fanaticism of democracy,” to quote Mr. Robert- 
son s expression, will be a return to the great Socratic apostasis, 
that is, an attempt to turn away attention from external nature 
to man. 
Against such a tendency we must earnestly protest, feeling 
that there is more salvation for our race in the labours of the 
student of physical and natural science (e.g., eugenism) than in 
a11 tbe jugglery of franchise-mongers, and all the frothy talk of 
the moral societies. 
We read— “ But Whitman is in nothing more remarkable than 
