i 88s.j 
Analyses of Books. 
483 
ment, places the human infant in too sharp a contrast with thp 
fo Mr g Watc anim ?' S - He f0r » etS that ‘heVaby 
human T^fant ’ ™ ^ S ° me m0nths almost as bdpbsss as the 
are unable to agree with Mr. Laing when he says : “ When 
that th^ a " al 7 se , the sum of faculties of the adult man we find 
ascomnL^ der ‘ Ved , t0 a surprisingly small extent from heredity 
as compared with education." If W e take a negro or Fuegian 
seem e^flTn^ Eur0pea " education > it may for a few years 
abnm- th the young Briton, German, or Frenchman ; but 
ShSnor InK P , ty !t fallS h °P elessl yinto the rear, -nature 
to aimn and keeping the upper-hand over nurture. 
.h, ;„fl,t SeCOn ? pa, 'i ° f hiS - WOI ' k the “thor passes on to consider 
ue t l R° m o SC !. enC f. ° n re)i S ious . mor al> and social 
Tho n °h, M Fr0 T h 'v'i ery headll) gs of the chapters — “ Modern 
thought Miracles, Christianity without Miracles, Practical 
L 11 appear that there is much which lies altogether 
coming C0 - mzance : There is much, also, even in matters 
Hp a a T hm 0U [ T P urview > from which we must record our 
decided dissent. We find the “ Gospel of Modern Thought ” 
presen ed as summarised in certain passages from Lord Tennyson’s 
, Ien J 01iam ’ which are here said to “describe the real 
“j.° f ™ 0sd of th e thinking and earnest minds of the present 
generation. I he author, in making mention of Carlyle, Renan, 
and George Eliot, remarks that the whole nature of the first of 
these writers was “ antipathetic to Science.” He quotes Froude 
1 *, he effec , 1 , that (Carlyle) liked ill men like Humboldt, 
aplace, and the author of the ‘ Vestiges.’ He refused Darwin’s 
£ nS r T tat ‘™ ° f Sp f cie f as un Proved; he fought against it, 
u £ h * could see that he dreaded that it might turn out to be 
tiue. What is said concerning Renan and George Eliot need 
not concern us. 
The Spencerian philosophy is declared to be the highest form 
of Agnosticism,— “ a very different thing from Atheism.’’ 
“Positivism” is very fairly judged. Mr. Laing reminds us 
that as we widen the sphere of patriotism or philanthropy we find 
tiem evaporate in a mist of high-sounding phrases. “The 
friend of man ’ is very apt to be the friend of no one man in par- 
ticulai and to make universal philanthropy an excuse for 
neglecting individual charity.” Comte’s religion, “ Catholicism 
without Christianity,” as it has been not unhappily called, is said 
to “ savour too much of the Goddess of Liberty and the theo- 
philanthropy of the French Revolution, when the disciples of 
Rousseau cut off heads in the name of universal benevolence.” 
1 he author’s estimate of Spiritualism as “ another wide-spread 
modern delusion ” is scarcely in harmony with the facts of the 
case. He writes : — “ In vain medium after medium is detected 
and the machinery by which ghosts are manufactured exposed in 
police-courts; in vain the manifestations of the so-called spirits 
