head of which, is its devoted translator, Baboo Pratapa Chandra Roy, of Calcutta. This work has now reached upward of four thousand pages, and is hardly more than two thirds completed.
In subsequent seasons the association studied the historical development of the Rational Movement in Religion, Social Problems, viewed in the Light of History, and the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Carlyle, and "George Eliot." Its membership had expanded so far beyond the original thirty or forty who comprised the Sunday-school class that private parlors were too contracted for its meetings, and by the courtesy of the trustees of the Second Unitarian Church they were transferred, first to the vestry, and subsequently to the main auditorium of the church. Here were inaugurated, in the fall of 1888, on Sunday evenings, the noteworthy lectures and discussions on Evolution which attracted the favorable attention of many of the leading minds in Europe and America to the association and its work.
Mr. Herbert Spencer, to whom the programme of that year was submitted, gave it his cordial indorsement, saying in his very appreciative letter: "The spread of the doctrine of evolution is both surprising and encouraging. The mode of presentation seems to me admirably adapted for popularizing evolution views, and it will, I think, be a great pity if the effect of such presentation should be limited to a few listeners in Brooklyn." Acting upon this suggestion, the association, which had now formally adopted the less formidable title of "The Brooklyn Ethical Association," commenced the regular publication of its lectures, each one being first issued in cheap pamphlet form, and the lectures of each season subsequently compiled in handsome cloth bindings. Four noble volumes now constitute the lasting memorial of the work of the association for the past four years in popularizing evolution views. Under the titles, respectively, of Evolution, Sociology, Evolution in Science, Philosophy, and Art, and Man and the State, the leading problems of physics, biology, philosophy, sociology, religion, ethics, and practical politics have been ably treated from the standpoint of the philosophical evolutionist.
Much of the work, and admittedly some of the best work of the association, has been done by its active members, among whom distinctions would be invidious. This work, which has involved much time and study, has been rendered gratuitously by the lecturers. Others, not active members of the association, whose names stand in the first rank of the disciples of science and advocates of evolution, have cordially co-operated, among whom we may mention Prof. John Fiske,[1] Prof. Joseph Le Conte,[1] Prof. E. D. Cope,[1] Mr. Daniel Greenleaf Thompson, Mr. Garret P. Serviss,
