28 o 
Notices of Books. 
[April, 
The Origin of the World , according to Revelation and Science. 
By J. W. Dawson, LL.D., F.R.S., &c. London : Hodder 
and Stoughton. 
This work may be characterised as one of the many attempts to 
reconcile the doCtrines of revealed religion with the results of 
modern science, or, as the author himself puts it, to “ aid 
thoughtful men perplexed v/ith the apparent antagonisms of 
science and religion, and to indicate how they may best har- 
monise our great and growing knowledge of Nature with our old 
and cherished beliefs as to the origin and destiny of man.” 
To those who hold fast the luminous principle laid down by 
Galileo, that on what may be called scientific subjects the Hebrew 
and Greek Scriptures speak merely the ideas of the times when 
they were written, and, though a moral, have no claim to be re- 
garded as a physical revelation, such books as that before us 
present a curious and not altogether pleasing phenomenon. We 
may well ask whether Dr. Dawson and those who agree with him 
are not to a great extent responsible for the perplexity which they 
seek to remove ? We deprecate as much as any one the gratu- 
itous, and in our opinion unscientific, attacks upon religion to 
which such writers as Buchner have given way. But it is still 
very probable that much of this spirit springs from disgust at the 
attempts made to extraCt from Hebrew roots, under high-pressure 
philology, doCtrines conformable with or anticipatory of the 
teachings of modern science. 
To go through Dr. Dawson’s treatise paragraph by paragraph 
would be a tedious and not very remunerative task, and could 
only be fairly undertaken by a writer well versed in theology, 
mythology, and philology. 
It is very significant that we find the cosmogony of Laplace — 
the so-called nebular hypothesis — accepted, and proclaimed in 
harmony with the teachings of the Scriptures ! But the other 
day, so to speak, this doCtrine was denounced by Sir D. Brewster 
and others as an atheistical speculation, and an attempt to con- 
struct the universe without God. Just as Brewster opposed the 
nebular hypothesis, Dr. Dawson struggles against the doCtrine of 
Evolution, each in turn insinuating that to throw a novel light on 
God’s modus operandi is to deny His existence. The moral of 
this coincidence is too plain to be missed. 
The author is, perhaps, in this work less magniloquent thanpn 
some of his former productions, but towards those who do not 
see what he sees — or rather who see what he cannot, or will not 
— he is scantily courteous. “ Shallowness,” “ mere folly and 
presumption, ”|are the attributes which he finds in all dissentients. 
