THE DIAL PUBLISHED BY JANSEN, MCCLURG & CO. A Monthly Journal of Current Literature CONTENTS. CHICAGO, MAY, 1884. Barbara Elbon's Bethesda.-James's French Poets and Novelists.-Grant Allen's Flowers and their Pedigrees.Crane's and Moses's Politics, an Introduction to the Study of Comparative Constitutional Law.--Bunce's My House, an Ideal.-Household Conveniences.-Roosevelt's Florida and Game Water Birds.-Roosevelt's The Game Fish of the Northern States and British Provinces.-With Rod and Line in Colorado Waters.-Sheppard's Darwinism as Stated by Himself.-Romanes's Mental Evolution in Animals.-Ploetz's Epitome of Ancient, Mediæval, and Modern History.-Bancroft's History of the United States, Volume IV., Revised Edition.-Allen's History Topics for High Schools and Colleges.-Stevenson's Treasure Island. LITERARY NOTES AND NEWSBOOKS OF THE MONTH PUBLISHERS' ANNOUNCEMENTS COÖRDINATION OF MIND WITH THE 4 8 9 13 15 19 20 22 The noble author of "The Reign of Law" promised his readers a later exposition of the subject within the domain of Christian Theol ogy. The present volume is a first installment of a fulfillment of the promise. "Nature" is conceived as the total system of material and intelligent existence. The "unity of nature" is not alone the conformity of the material universe to method and law, but also a consummate coördination between the method and law of the material universe and the method and law of mental life. Mind is responsive to the realities of the world. The world is the correlative, the fulfillment, and the sanction of the instincts, capacities and longings of psychic existence. Harmony and correspondence pervade the entire realm of being. In this reigns a principle of unity. *THE UNITY OF NATURE. By the Duke of Argyll. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. [VOL. V, No. 49.] TERMS $1.50 PER YEAR. More fully stated, the views of the author embrace the physical unity of the inorganic realm, as revealed in the phenomena of gravi 1 tation, light, the mechanism of the heavens, the laws of sound, chemical affinity, crystallization, atomic and molecular laws, and the correlation of the physical forces. They bring into account the structural elements of organic bodies and the fundamental processes of functional activity. The unity of man with the lower animals is considered, as also his psychic divergence; though in instincts and appetites, and in some of the sentiments and higher attributes, the author traces a degree of unity which may excite the alarm of some who are even more conservative than he. Some striking instances of the action of instinct are cited, in the gall-fly, the water-ousel, the dun-diver, the wild duck, and an Italian moth. These illustrate the intimate correlations established between the undeliberative instincts of animals and the circumstances by which they are surrounded, or are to be surrounded at some future period in the life of the individual. The author discusses the old problem of the limits of human knowledge, and shrewdly suggests that our consciousness of a reserve of power argues future opportunities for its adequate exercise. As to the knowability of the infinite, he enunciates the only common-sense view: that it certainly is apprehended but not comprehended by us. On the truthfulness of human knowledge and the anthropomorphic mould in which we apprehend it, the author's views seem entirely just, and rich in suggestiveness. All knowledge is necessarily anthropomorphic; not alone religious and theological, but quite as truly that which is denominated scientific and secular. A couple of chapters are devoted to the elementary constitution of matter, both in its relation to the inorganic and the organic. He recognizes in organization the presence and agency of some force which is supramaterial. There is too much coördination, too many anticipations, too many new beginnings of existence or attributes of existence, to admit the inference that life and organic structure exist only under the same conditions as minerals All the forces and and mechanical products. The ear path toward civilization, and by another toward conditions which determine inorganic modes of existence are recognized as operative in organization; but here their actions are grouped, coördinated, and directed, by some power which leads to the production of quite a different order of results. For all this, the author does not deny that the method of organic history, as well as that of inorganic, is a method of evolution. He inclines to affirm that evolution is a conception realized in universal nature; but it is a scheme implying mind — mind to originate, mind to administer. Penetrating to the deeper significance of the being and consciousness of man, he stands as a revelation and rep-ly located around the Asiatic region assigned resentative of the supernatural. The manifes tations of mind in nature urge themselves upon every attention, and cold science can give expression to its concepts only in the anthropomorphic phrase of teleology. Nature, being interpretable in terms of human intelligence, embodies the conceptions of human intelligence, and gives expression to a Mind. But before the human intellect rises to a logical interpretation of nature, it discovers in its own consciousness a testimony to the existence of superior being, and, coupled with this discovery, it feels a relation of dependence upon superior power, and of obligation toward it. In discussing more particularly the moral nature of man, the Duke points out the fact that man's proclivity to evil is in conflict with the unities of nature. In other departments of knowledge and research, man possesses a sense of ignorance and limitation; but in respect to his own unworthiness, he feels complete assurance. Of the distinction of good and evil, he has perfect knowledge; and yet he inclines continually toward the evil. Here is a dissonance to be accounted for. "Man has been, and still is, a constant prey to appetites which are morbid, to opinions which are irrational, to imaginations which are horrible, to practices which are destructive." Among savages, these sometimes reach such a degree of enormity that we are accustomed to pronounce them "brutal" and "beastly." But this, our author pronounces a libel on the brutes. None of the brutes have such perverted dispositions. They live in harmony with nature, while man continually runs into all kinds of excesses and abuses. The corruption of human nature appears, then, to be a conclusion of inductive science, and not a mere dogma of theology. This view of the downward bent of those powers which have the direction of all other human powers, opens the way to the doctrine of the downward evolution of humanity. The Duke of Argyll believes that barbarism and savagism are states of degradation from an original status. Evolution may lead by one are by tradition as the birthplace of man. Fuegians, Bushmen, Australians, Eskimo, — these among the lowest types of humanity, and these are crowded from all the preferred situations for human occupancy into the remotest and most inhospitable corners of the earth. While intellectual and social development are not caused by material forces, they are conditioning by material surroundings. This arises from the unity between man and nature. Adverse physical influences have been the conditionary causes of savagery. The rise of civilized man, therefore, from his primeval state, has not been a rise from so low a condition that the being could barely be called a man. So far, there exists evidence of discontinuity in the evolution of organic beings. The author traces the origin of religion to man's unity with nature. Its germs are planted in man's being, and they develop with his growth. The conception of religion as something superadded to man's constitution, is easily shown to be erroneous. Religion is not acquired, but connatural. As well inquire after the origin of memory and judgment. Its central principle is the cognition of superior being. This is first an intuition, then an impression from nature, then an inference of the judgment. The cognition is accompanied by awakened cognate sentiments. Prayer, thanksgiving, religious ceremonies, and a religious system more or less complicated,—these are the concomitants of a theistic cognition, and these characterize the lives of all grades of human beings. But the religious system and practice, like the civil cultus, are prone to degeneracy. The fetishism of savage tribes is not the type of the primitive religion, but the product of a downward evolution. All the great systems of religion have exemplified a degeneracy within. the periods of history and tradition. The present condition of Brahminism, Buddhism, Confucianism, and Mohammedism, are admitted lapses from primitive purity and excellence. Cultured religions have degenerated only in the same ratio as the cultureless. The history of religion. like that of civilization, points, |