what is contained in the reading-books, but that they may be able to read through life; so, let enough of the leading branches be taught, if no more, to enable the pupil to pursue whatever he may need most in afterlife. Let, then, an amount of geometry commensurate with its importance be taught even in the common schools; let it be taught at the same time with arithmetic; let as much time be given to it, and we shall find thousands who, instead of closing their mathematical books on leaving school, will be led to pursue the higher mathematics in their maturer years."
The Mystery of Matter and Other Essays. By J. Allanson Picton. 12mo, pp. 482. Price $3.50. Macmillan & Co.
The purpose of this work is to reconcile the essential principles of religious faith with the present tendencies of thought in the sphere of positive and physical science. Mr. Picton is not a votary of modern skepticism, although he recognizes the fact of its existence, and its bearing on vital questions. Nor is he a partisan of any of the current systems of philosophy or science, but discusses their various pretensions in the spirit of intelligent and impartial criticism. He has no fear of their progress or influence; he accepts many of their conclusions; he honors the earnestness and ability of their expounders; while he believes that their results are in harmony with the essential ideas of religion. It is possible, he affirms, that all forms of finite existence may be reduced to modes of motion. But this is of no consequence in a religious point of view, for motion itself is only the visible manifestation of the energy of an infinite life. "To me," he says, "the doctrine of an eternal continuity of development has no terrors; for, believing matter to be in its ultimate essence spiritual, I see in every cosmic revolution a 'change from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord.' I can look down the uncreated, unbeginning past, without the sickness of bewildered faith. I want no silent dark eternity in which no world was; for I am a disciple of One who said, 'My Father worketh hitherto.' My sense of eternal order is no longer jarred by the sudden appearance in the universe of a dead, inane substance, foreign to God and spiritual being. And if, with a true insight, I could stand so high above the world as to take any comprehensive survey of its unceasing evolutions—here a nebula dawning at the silent fiat 'be light,' there the populous globe, where the communion of the many with the One brings the creature back to the Creator—I am sure that the oneness of the vision, so far from degrading, would unspeakably elevate my sense of the dignity and blessedness of created being. I have no temptation, therefore, to join in cursing the discoverer who tracks the chain of divine forces by which finite consciousness has been brought to take its present form; because I know he can never find more than that which was in the beginning, and is, and ever shall be—the 'power of an endless life.'"
With regard to the speculations of Prof. Huxley, the author, so far from bewailing their effects, pronounces them decidedly favorable to the interests of religion. They present a formidable barrier to the encroachments of materialism. In this respect, he thinks that Prof. Huxley has rendered services to the Church, if less signal, not less valuable, than those which he has rendered to science. He has brought the religious world face to face with facts with a vigor and a clearness peculiar to himself. Not only so. In the opinion of the author, he has made suggestions concerning those facts of vast importance to the future of religion. He has defined the only terms on which harmony is possible between spiritual religion and physical science. Equalling Berkeley in transparent distinctness of statement, while he far surpasses him in knowledge of physical phenomena, Mr. Huxley has shown that, whether we start with materialism or idealism, we are brought at length to the same point. He has thus proved himself one of the most powerful opponents that materialism ever had. All that he did in his celebrated discourse on the "Physical Basis of Life" was, to call attention to certain indisputable facts. "And perhaps it was the impossibility of denying these facts which was a main cause of the uneasiness that most of us felt. Thus he told us that all organizations, from the lichen up to the man, are all composed mainly of one sort of matter, which in all
