PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

Otago Witness, Issue 2676, 28 June 1905, Page 59

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.

"Root Principles in Rational and Spiritual Things, including an Examination of Haockel's 'Kiddle.'" is the title of<=a bulky sixpenny received from Messrs Wliitcombe and Tombs, and published by H. R. Alleneon, London. The author. Mr Thomas C'hild r seems to have set out with other intentions, but as a matt-ei of fact he never gets far away from more or less critical lault-finding with Professor Haeckel's philosophical views. What the German author clearly expresses in a ohapter or two, this critic attempts to refute in a book larger than the "Riddle of the Universe" itself. -_ That a philosophical system beyond criticism hai yet to be evolved may be granted, but from both ■criticism and philosophy o! Mr Child's kind may tlie powers af goodness deliver us. Such a. wild welter of diaJeetit inundation is not ofter to be met in with', ' nor would it need to be. Alluding to his three introductory hapters, the aut-hoi says, "It is perhaps a ilttle "unfortunate foi some readers" that the subjects therein diis« cussed "are necessarily of a somewhat abV etraot character." He hints that the disinterested reader may find "both rnattei< and form probably more pleasing to him in the body of the book," but searoh does not show much difference of treatment fchere, op anywhere else. He treats in one chapter 1 of "Evolution: A New Theory," but nofe convincingly. A new theory of evolution: is scarcely called for at present. Mr Child! girds at the dominant school of evolutionists, ako at those teleolog'ists who accep the modern .theory, plus "purposive design," &f it is difficult to ima.gine of whom he hopes to make converts. He speakc. of "the reli/gionist on the one side, who is afraid of the facts, cannot answer them, 'and, without trying 1 to do so, takes refuge in the difficulties" ; and of "the evolutionist, on. the other, who discounts the difficulties, and holds the theory proved on the facts." Bub it is to be (feared that, however well-meaning 1 , he does not succeed in either maintaining the balance between them or in furnishing "a new theory" of any (^"^"""uence whatever.

The Pall Mall ilagazine for June is a remarkably interesting number in many Tvay*" — fiction, for example, is original to th« intensely alluring point, and well illustrated to book. In topics, the lead is taken bj» Mr Lewis Hind's dissertation on "Pictures and the Public," which in this instance concerns itself with "The Guildhall Gallery." "Hunting in the Himalayas," by Gaptain_ Kennion, is quite out of the usual ruts, botli 1 in letterpress and illustration, the latter being very fine. The current number of that excellent series of impressionist' sketches of "London at Prayer" embodies a mission service in the old Catholic chapel) of the Sardinian Ambassador, and is nof whit less interesting and unfamiliar than its predecessors In the" brief sketch "The Origin of Life," with its wierd, illumining pictures by that prince of grotesqueia Sydney Sime, we have an entree to' the 2?cpular taste in popular science, followed 1 at the distance of a page or tvrt by am uncanny — a very uncanny — story by Arthur Munson. "Studies in Personality" is in: this instance a study of Mr Lloyd-George, M.P., and the exquisite studies of the sea and "they that go down to the sea in! ships" contained in Joseph Conrad's "The Mirror of the Sea" series deal with rulers of east and west. But, in fine, one could' elaborate still further and etill leave much that is quite as good and quite as varied in the contents of the Juik Pall Mall. One may, however, mention in passing the interest and high standard of the programme promised for the July issue. The June number of the New Zealand Illustrated is with us, and opens s* far as literature is concerned with arf article on "Bier Game Hunting in Portuguese East' Africa," to whicb is appended a note which' should be read by any New Zealand sportsman of means and leisure who desires to .. make a- sporting trip to East Africa. There is a story by G. B. Lancaster, the usual - space devoted to "Passing Events," the same to "The Stage," an article on "Sea Fights' a Hundred Years Ago," some verses,and various other items which do not call for special mention.