but in its relation to his fixed and eternal being. . . . In this view our conviction of the real existence of other conscious beings, and of the externality of the source of the voice that speaks in conscience, will repose on our certainty that God would not deceive us, that all his revelations are revelations of truth and not of falsehood" (p. 180).

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The Religious Sentiments of the Human Mind. By DANIEL GREENLEAF THOMPSON, Author of A System of Psychology,' The Problem of Evil,' &c. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1888. Pp. viii., 176. Mr. Thompson's present work is a study of the "science, not of religions as they exist or have existed, but of religion as a general fact of conscious experience". His aim is rather to determine what beliefs can rationally be held about the supernatural, than to describe the process by which the supernatural comes to be believed in; though, in accordance with his traditional view of philosophic method, he makes an investigation of this preliminary to his determination of the limits of rational belief, and, more generally, bases his religious philosophy on his previous work in psychology and ethics (see MIND X. 115 and xii. 465). Religion is defined (p. 4) as "the aggregate of those sentiments in the human mind arising in connexion with the relations assumed to subsist between the order of nature (inclusive of the observer) and a postulated supernatural". The notion of the supernatural is found to be the inevitable background of all positive knowledge. "The distinguishing characteristic of the notion is the negation of the natural. It is the non-A of which nature is the A." We can only think of it by ascribing to it the attributes of nature; but “whatever attributes are assigned to supernatural existence, those upon which the reflective mind rests with the least uncertainty and the most confidence are the most general and the farthest from particular sensational experience". The impulse to imaginative constructions of a supernatural world is the desire to remove the limitations to knowledge and activity. The test of the truth of these, as of all constructions, is verification; "and this verification is in the last resort the presentative experience of the individual". We can have no experience of a supernatural world during life. The condition of any such experience being possible is, then, the continuity of consciousness after death. Is there any ground for asserting this? "On every side, from beginning to end," the author concludes, "this subject is beset with difficulties; but altogether I am inclined to the opinion that the ground for the assertion of post-mortem personal self-consciousness in identity with ante-mortem self-consciousness is firmer than for the contrary belief" (p. 70). (And, on the same ground, we may have to "return to the pre-existence doctrines of the ancient philosophers".) An examination of the rational conditions of the construction of a supernatural world reveals " the necessity of testing all ideals and hypotheses respecting the supernatural by the canons of utility". "It thus becomes our duty to examine the bearing of the different leading constructions of the supernatural upon human life and conduct" (p. 82). This is the point reached at the end of the general investigation of parts i. and ii. ("Religion and Religious Sentiments," "Religious Sentiments in relation to Knowledge"). In parts iii. and iv. ("Religious Sentiments in relation to Feeling and Conduct," "The Scientific Education of Religious Sentiments") the effects of actual and possible types of belief about the supernatural world are considered, with the result that there is a conceivable type of belief that is highly favourable to morality. The whole interest of the investigation is found to centre in the question of personal immortality, a belief in which,

though not necessary for the existence of altruism, tends powerfully to promote it, in so far as it opens up the possibility of a more complete realisation of the moral ideal. When we speculate about a future world, we are obliged to affirm the continuance of some kind of human society, and this may be conceived either as monarchical, oligarchical or democratic. In the first two cases we have monotheism or polytheism; in the third case there is no assertion of a personal Deity. In no case has the search for the grounds of existence found its term; for "every conception we can have of a supernatural world is a symbolical or hypothetical image of another natural world with a supernatural unknown behind" (p. 78). The tendency of a belief in Deity is (or will become in the future) more moralising in proportion as the idea of "cause" or of "sovereignty" recedes and God is thought of as "the guarantor of the realisation of ideals". Christianity and Buddhism, the two religions whose founders were most thoroughly altruistic in their teachings, furnish no exception, but only confirmation of the truth that the notion of authority and sovereignty in religion is damaging both to individual and social development, and should never be regarded under the best circumstances as of more than temporary and provisional value, to be dispensed with as quickly as possible" (pp. 119-20). A very good summary of the author's most general conclusions as to rational religion is given in chap. 38 (pp. 146-7). The final chapter on "Religious Education" (pp. 157-176) deals with the question of the teaching of religion in American schools and universities, and is of no little practical interest.

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By F. MAX MÜLLER. Pp. xxvii., 278.

Biographies of Words and The Home of the Aryas. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1888. So much space was given in the last No. to a consideration of Prof. Max Müller's philosophising in The Science of Thought, that it may suffice here to chronicle the appearance of the present volume, which seeks to illustrate, in a popular fashion, his views of the deeper import of linguistic study. It reproduces some magazine-articles on the fortunes of particular words (as the word 'fortune' itself, person,' the words for weighing, buying, selling, &c.), written with all his wonted interest of style; and adds to these a new discussion of the question of the original Aryan home so much debated in recent years, with an ordered scheme of the word-" statistics" that give a clue to "the earliest Aryan civilisation". On both questions, he finds himself able to stand, in the main, by his earlier conclusions. As to the philosophical import claimed for word-history, he lets drop at the beginning a remark that gives a fair suggestion not more of its range than of its limits. He there speaks (p. i.) of words as "the materials of thought only". That seems pretty clearly to imply that there is a fact of "thought" that needs independent consideration; and for such consideration the name 'philosophical' may well be retained, even though it is true, as he goes on to urge, that the words which we know and use as "materials" of thought are no rough blocks, but themselves instinct with thought that has gone to their fashioning.

The Story of Creation: A Plain Account of Evolution. By EDWARD CLODD, Author of The Childhood of the World,' &c. London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1888. Pp. xv., 242.

The purpose of this volume is to give a popular account of the theory of Evolution. It is in two parts-"descriptive" and "explanatory," and in the latter a chapter on Social Evolution" deals with Mind, Society, Language, Art and Science, Morals and Theology. The prin

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cipal points here are, that man owes the possibility of high mental develop. ment in great part to the prolongation of infancy (pp. 210, 214); that "the moral sense or conscience is the outcome of social relations, them. selves the outcome of the need of living" (p. 218); that the “heightened tone" which is a "note of our time" is "in the main due to the progress of science, using the term as including not merely knowledge of the operations of nature, but knowledge of human life as affected by divers causes, and of the community of blood in all mankind" (p. 221); and, lastly, that "the evolution of belief in spiritual beings is a thing apart from the evolution of morals" (p. 225), so that "in the end, when it is seen that theories about gods and all other spiritual beings have nothing whatever to do with man's duty to his fellows, theology and morals will again become distinct" (p. 228). "We began," the author sums up, "with the primitive nebula, we end with the highest forms of consciousness; the story of creation is shown to be the unbroken record of the evolution of gas into genius" (p. 228). That is one way of putting the matter.

The Morality of Nations: A Study in the Evolution of Ethics. By HUGH TAYLOR. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1888. Pp. 316.

The special object of the present work is to study morality as a science. "The science of morality," or the study of the actual conduct of men, the author premises in his first chapter, is to be carefully distinguished from "the art of morality," or the determination of what ought to be. This distinction coincides with the distinction between "the evolutional" and "the educational standpoint in morals". Morality, as a science, is concerned with the social conditions to which the evolution of morality is due, while morality as an art consists essentially in educational precepts, laid down as ideal rules to which actual conduct ought to conform. The fundamental law of social, as of biological, evolution is found to be "the law of antagonism" (c. ii.). This is still manifested in international morality, as seen in practice; for what rules here is "the primary instinct of antagonism," which moralists condemn when it is manifested by individuals (cc. iii.-iv.). Yet it is precisely the struggles between nations that give occasion for those actions of individuals that moralists regard as the noblest. And both fact and theory lead to the conclusion that, "given a tendency to individual antagonism, the antagonism of opposing combinations ensures the mutual harmony of the parts". On tracing the series of causes further back, it is seen that within the nation itself, morality—or at least the morality of highly civilised nations—can only have been developed out of primitive antagonism between individuals, and only as the result of political control, that is, of the coercive action of a central power (cc. v.-x.). "We are thus forced to substantially the same conclusion as that reached, by a different method, long ago by Hobbes " (p. 139). "If Hobbes had trusted more to his educated ideas of right and wrong and less to his observation, he might have been misled. But, forming a general conclusion from the average action of mankind rather than from self-interrogation, he did not shrink from the conclusion that the average virtue of mankind is the result of a state-adjustment of pains and penalties, and that if that state-adjustment be disturbed, anarchy is the result, and justice has no place" (p. 143). "Communities which show traces of another relation between morality and law, such as those village communities where law appears to be merely fossilised custom, in so far as they have been subjected to this form of law alone, have lacked the conditions which develop a high form of morality and civilisation, since no such morality and civilisation

The

has resulted. Whatever causes may be assigned for the failure, the fact of that failure is sufficient to justify the evolutionist in his disregard for these communities, since he is not concerned with the possible human relations which might have given rise to a morality, but with the actual human relations which have given rise to the most advanced forms of morality" (p. 201). "The antagonism of combinations is the indispens able condition of vitality. To keep this antagonism within bounds, there is need of a political control, and it is in the growing need for this political control that the early communities of the West differed from those of the East" (p. 205). In the later chapters (cc. xi.-xiv., “First Moral Combination: The Family"; "Forms of Moral Composition"; "Economic Morality"; "Political Morality") the effects of the struggle among social groups within particular societies are considered. general conclusion is that, while morality is not developed in the first instance apart from the struggle among conflicting social groups as well as individuals, the new formation of groups within an advanced society is always accompanied by a reversion towards the primitive relation of antagonism, that is, towards the present character of international as distinguished from individual morality. This is illustrated in cc. xiii. and xiv. from commercial competition and the relations between political parties. The concluding chapter (c. xv.) is to the effect that, though the process may be long, yet "if individuals have so far modified their fatally antagonistic propensities as to be in harmony and co-operation with one another, there is equally good reason for believing that the evolution of international morality will take the same course (p. 314). As regards improvement within each particular society, the author's conclusion is, "that if advance is to take place, it must be general, and that beyond a certain point_moral progress without social readjustment is impossible" (p. 259). It is a noteworthy "study".

Ethical Forecasts: Essays by WILLIAM F. REVELL. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1887. Pp. 176.

These "Essays" are four in number:—(1) A Criterion of the Truth of Religion, (2) The Prospective Readjustment of Religion, (3) The Application of the Law of Causation to Moral Conduct, (4) The Safeguards of Morality. The criterion of the truth of religion, as of truth in general, is found to be "the correspondence of thoughts with things"; and to the author, on applying this criterion, "the agnostic position appears to be the only one that is, theoretically, thoroughly legitimate and unassailable" (p. 73). In the third essay he concludes that if conduct is determined entirely by "mechanical or physical causation" there can be no true moral responsibility, but that in reality the causation of moral conduct is higher in the scale of evolution than purely physical causation, and is not completely expressible in terms of physics but requires the introduction of terms of consciousness and human character. This being so, there is responsibility, moral and not merely legal, for as much of conduct as depends on "the moral self-determination of man". The conclusion of the last essay is that "the laws of the universe, including the laws of human evolution, are on the whole, and in the long run, on the side of human righteousness" (p. 163).

Memory: What it is and how to Improve it. By DAVID KAY, F.R.G.S., Author of Education and Educators,' &c. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1888. Pp. xiv., 336.

"Memory, in our view," the author says, "is not simply an intellectual faculty having its seat in the brain, but is, in a great measure, a sense

faculty, including in its seat the senses, the voluntary muscles, and other parts of the body"; so that "whatever parts are concerned in the production of sensation, or in effecting a movement, the same parts are necessary to a full and complete recollection of it". There are 'three

kinds or degrees of memory,--the local, the rational and the representative or imaginative". Of these the third, which is the highest, does not depend, like the first two, on associations, but simply on the original impression being "clear, distinct and vivid," and hence "readily reproduced with much of its original character and force". Since there is a separate memory for each sense, the method of training this last kind of memory must be to exercise the memories of the different senses separately, keeping them carefully apart. In education, therefore, "when we wish to exercise the visual memory we must be careful not to call forth the auditory or muscular memories, nor with the motor memory should the forms or even the sounds be awakened. . . . In order to train the auditory memory, the pupil should have the matter read or repeated to him till he has taken it in by the ear; in order to learn by sight he must take in the words by the eye, and form visual images of them, and to learn by means of the vocal organs he must have recourse to reading or repeating aloud” (p. 305). The chapters of the book-which are copiously illustrated by quotations from psychological and other writers in footnotes-are: (1) Memory: What it is; (2) Matter and Mind; (3) The Body; (4) The Senses; (5) Mental Images; (6) Mind, Conscious and Unconscious; (7) Attention; (8) Association of Ideas; (9) Memory: How to Improve it.

Practical Education. Treating of the Development of Memory, the Increasing Quickness of Perception, and Training the Constructive Faculty. By CHARLES G. LELAND, Late Director of the Public Industrial Art School of Philadelphia, and Author of The Minor Arts,' &c. London: Whittaker & Co., 1888. Pp. xiii., 280.

The author is well known as the advocate of a system of "practical education" or manual training, which, by his personal efforts, he has been able to get carried into effect on a considerable scale in America, and which is now, as may be seen from the Appendix to the present volume, attracting attention in Germany. Of this system the principle is that for all kinds of hand-work the best preparation is training in "the minor decorative arts," and that the common basis of all these is "design". The first part of the volume (pp. 1-119) is a description of the author's method, together with a statement of its theory. His method differs from that of the educational theorists who have advocated the teaching of particular trades to children (as he points out) by its recognition of the psychological principle that the generalised precede the specialised activities. As results, he expects, in the first place, to confer on the children themselves, not only a certain artistic culture, but, with increased aptitude for special activities, the capacity to take pleasure afterwards in any kind of practical work, provided it is understood in relation to its end, and not merely viewed as a mechanical operation; and in the second place, as this general artistic preparation for special technical instruction becomes common, a gradual infusion of the artistic spirit into the more mechanical kinds of industry. The remaining four parts of the book (pp. 120-241, “On Developing Memory," "On Creating Quickness of Perception," "Eye-Memory,' "On Taking an Interest") treat of general education, and are a plea for increased training of memory and of sense - perception for their own sakes, as "faculties," and independently of any particular knowledge to be