WATTS’S LITERARY GUIDE. B E I N G A M O N T H L Y R E C O R D O F L I B E R A L A N D A D V A N C E D P U B L I C A T IO N S .

I

No. 52.]

MARCH 15, 1890.

[ P r i c e O n e P e n n y .

N E W P U B L I C A T IO N S .

OUR L I B R A R Y SH E L V E S .

Messrs. Watts & Co. will publish immediately an interesting work o f travel from the pen o f Dr. Hardwicke, the talented author of “ The Popular Faith Unveiled.” The title of the volume will be “ Rambles Abroad ” (5s.). A full list of the contents will be found in our advertising columns.

Messrs. Sonnenschein have issued Mr. Lloyd Jones’s “ Life o f Robert Owen ” (6s.). The book will be reviewed in these columns at an early date.

M r. Forder has published in pamphlet form Colonel Ingersoll’s “ Why I am an Agnostic” (2d.), and also “ Marriage and Divorce” (2d.), by the same author.

Dr. Martineau is about to publish through Messrs. Longman a new work, entitled “ The Seat of Authority in Religion.” It represents the author’s attempt to make clear to himself the ultimate ground of pure religion in the human mind, and the permanent essence of the religion of Christ in history. The work is addressed not to philosophers or scholars, but to educated persons interested in the results o f modern thought.

Mr. J. H. M’Carthy, who has been for some years an ardent and enthusiastic student of the period of the French Revolution, is about to publish the first instalment of the results of his researches. The aim of the author has been to produce a history of the French Revolution which shall be at the same time exhaustive, thorough, and popular.

T he new edition o f “ William George Ward and the Oxford Movement,” by Mr. Wilfrid Ward, contains an addition to the last chapter dealing with the modern Agnostic controversy, which the author maintains was in great measure anticipated by the Oxford Society fifty years ago.

Mr. H erbert Spencer has just prepared for the press a new edition of his astronomical essays.

Mr. C hari.es Watts’s recent debate with the editor of the Halifax Reporter (Ont.) will immediately be issued, under the title of “ Secularism and Christianity” (is.). Both Colonel Ingersoll and Mr, G. J. Holyoake have pronounced Mr. Watts’s defence of the Secularist position to be the best yet published.

M r . G. W. Foote has issued, in volume form, the first scries of his “ Letters to the C lergy” (is.).

Messrs. R egan Paul, T rubner, & Co. have just published a succinct “ Buddhist Catechism ” (2s.), giving an outline of the doctrine of the Buddha Gotama, in the form o f question and answer.

DR. H ardwicke has written a preface to Mr. Moss’s “ Bible and Evolution.” The book will be issued at once.

It may at first sight seem a little incongruous that Mr. Buckle’s work on

“ C IV IL IS A T IO N IN E N G L A N D ”

should concern itself (as is the case in the second volume) with the history of France and Spain. But it was the author’s design first to display the typical features in the national genius of France, Spain, Scotland, Germany, and America ; then to educe the fundamental laws of European thought; and, lastly, to apply those laws to the particular sphere of England. His skilful manipulation of the French intellect and literature would in itself suffice to make a writer famous. The climax of this division of the book is the great Revolution. Buckle harks back as far as Henry of Navarre and the Edict of Nantes (1598), and, by the light of four dominant principles, he unfolds the causes and conditions and events which culminated in the revolt of 1789. The principles are :— (1) That progress is concurrent with the knowledge o f natural laws. (2) That this knowledge is acquired in obedience to a spirit of scepticism or inquiry. (3) That intellectual discoveries advance, while moral truths are stationary. (4) That the great enemy of progress is the protective spirit— that is, the tendency of Church and State to dictate what shall be the opinions and practices of society.

The first great arch in the intellectual bridge was Montaigne, whose graceful and vigorous essays were published, in 1586. Charron tried to disentangle ethics from theology. Richelieu set politics on a higher plane than the claims of the Church. Descartes, “ the most profound among the many eminent thinkers France has produced,” originated Modern Philosophy, and erected a grand metaphysical system, which, though unproductive of directly valuable fruit, yet gave a wonderful impulse to the European mind. Cardinal Mazarin continued Richelieu’s liberal methods, and during his administration no Frenchman was punished on account of religion. Nevertheless, the French people were more burdened by despotic, centralising, protective ideas and institutions than the English ; and the second chapter o f this volume is a comparison o f the two nations in the later mediaeval period, with a view to clenching the fact. The same comparison is pursued in an examination of the social characteristics that came to the surface among the French in the war of the Fronde, and among the English in the Parliamentary rebellion. A very fine illus* tration of the same theme is brought to view in the decline of literary vitality under Louis X IV ., who, while patronising men o f letters, really fettered their liberty of action. But after his death the breath of English freedom was wafted across the Channel. French thinkers caught inspiration from our shores. They attacked the weaknesses of Catholic Christianity, and they began to write history with a fresh and wider tendency. This naturally brings us to Voltaire, who “ is probably the greatest historian Europe has yet produced.” Here, as elsewhere, Buckle coolly disregards traditional prejudices and misrepresentations; and when he thinks a man deserves a high place he freely accords it