BY T.A.

II.

In my former article (published Nov. 8th) I briefly sketched the method adopted by Mr. Mallock in his treatment of his subject. But such matters as Deterministic science, Molecular conditions and pre-arrangements, etc., are so highly technical and purely scientific that I do not propose to go into any of the arguments so ably advanced by the author, contenting myself with to some extent summarizing the conclusions at which he has arrived as the outcome of his analysis. Even to do this with thoroughness would probably result in too lengthy a paper to be of interest to the general reader, while at the same time it would be of little use to the student who would be wishful to study the arguments carefully.

The arguments on pre-arrangement and chance, and pre-arrangement and purpose are of great interest, and the author sees himself the task of confuting the conclusions of Professor Haeckel with much ability. He denies the existence of such a thing chance, and states that "the objective certainties are forewritten and potentially visible before any special chance is thought of." As an illustration of this he takes the case of two pedestrians who come on an unknown railway, and stop to bet on whether the next train that passes will be a passenger train or a goods train. While for the pedestrians this will be a matter of pure chance, for the railway officials it is a matter of certainty. So the conclusion is drawn that chance as applied to human nature is a doctrine of human nature, not of any facts external to it. But this and many other instances of what are called change, such as tossing of a coin, the movements of a roulette ball, etc., may be explainable by known physical laws. If Mr. Mallock had, instead of the railway trains, instanced the case of two sportsmen betting upon whether a sparrow or a starling would be the next bird to fall to the gun of one, and had explained how foreknowledge of the result came about, he would have dealt with a more difficult phase of the question. Sir Oliver Lodge, in a recent lecture on "Science and Religion" delivered at the Lecture Hall of the City Temple, London (the Rev. R J. Campbell, M A. presiding), in speaking of another very difficult problem – free will and foreknowledge – gave his hearers the following advice: "If you cannot reconcile free will with foreknowledge, think carefully whether you have reason to believe in both, and if you have, if your experience lead you to believe that both are true, then hold both, and wait for the reconciliation." In the "Fortnightly Review" for last month Mr. Mallock say that Sir Oliver Lodge has not arrived at his conclusions scientifically. Site Oliver replied that he must have arrived at them scientifically if at all; for he has had no other training worth speaking of. Perhaps some day Mr. Mallock will have taken a further step in advance, that will bring him into line with the more progressive scientific thought of the day. At present his spiritual perceptions seem somewhat undeveloped and the concluding chapter of the book, on Religion and Religions, is one of the least value to the student, and not, to be compared in clearness of argument with what has gone before. I have somewhat digressed for the purpose of making a comparison which appears to me a very apposite one. Returning to the question with which I was dealing, Mr. Mallock sums up the arguments on Chance and Purpose thus:–

For it the universe is, as according to Spence and Haeckel it must be, the soil and sufficient cause of every human intelligence and if each intelligence only is what it is, and only does what it does likewise, and always was what it was, and always did what is did, the universe itself, as a whole, actually is the intelligence which the human being manifests, and the human being as distinct from it, is nothing more than its instrument. Thus the very science, which as expounded by Spencer and Professor Haeckel has oppressed religious thought from the days of Darwin onwards, which is denounced by its enemies as the grossest form of materialism, which is in reality the strictest form of determinism, and for all practical purposes is the completest form of atheism, is found to hatch itself, under the incubation of its own principles, into the re-affirmation of a Power to which, since it feels and purposes, no other name is applicable than that of a living Deity.

A short chapter following is devoted to a statement of the difficulties connected with the moral character of the Cosmic Intelligence and the relation of it to the human mind. The following extract gives the pith of this matter: –

This Intelligence must, from all time, so have arranged the universe that not only saints and martyrs, philosophers, heroes, poets shall think its thoughts, feel with it, and will its will, but that every savage and lecherous monster shall feel, think, will with it also. The universe, in short, appears to us as a sort of cosmic Briareus, with a hundred heads, instead of a hundred hands, each head talking a different language, and its eyes regarding us with a look of different meaning. Here the eyes of love; here are the eyes of hatred; one mouth whispers a prayer, its neighbor mouth is blaspheming; yet the blood in the brains of all of them comes from the same heart. What can the heart be that ministers to so mad a discord?

And, if we succeed in harmonizing this multitude of moral contradictions in the Deity there still remains the question of the moral nature of man.

The author's endeavours to solve these questions form the concluding part of his book.

The first chapter in Book IV. is entitled "Current Evasion of Difficulties," and Mr. Mallock greatly mare the effect of his argument by the language he permits himself to use respecting clerical methods. Although he guards himself in the first instance by saying, "If it were not for the fact that this method is practised in perfect good faith and that those who practise it are the first people to be taken in by it, we might call it the method of theological conjuring or – to speak even more plainly – theological card sharping," yet this suggestions of conjuring appears again and again throughout the chapter, while the good faith received no further mention. The author's logic is merciless, but his way of enforcing his arguments is calculated to cause needless irritation. The following chapter elaborates "the great truth upon which Spencer himself insists viz. that human religion is the product of far-reaching and deep-seated causes, and that there must be something which corresponds to it in the general constitution of the universe." Much in this chapter is well worth quoting, but I will confine myself to stating the conclusion arrived at: "Is," says Mr. Mallock, "all deep-seated and widely-spread beliefs have, as according to strict science they must have, some equally general fact in the constitution of things as their origin; if moreover the religious assertion that the supreme principle is good, represents as it does, once of the most powerful instincts of human nature; and further, if this assertions, when assumed in practical life, results in what by all is recognized as human development, whilst the denial of it results in what is similarly recognised as decay; then in spite of the difficulties which the facts of evil present to us, the balance of probabilities in favor of the religious assertion is, from some points of view, overwhelming."

The great question of reconciling the undoubted existence of evil with the Divine Goodness is next considered or rather shirked, for the chapter in which it is professedly dealt with is devotes to showing how impossible it is to form a conception of the Infinite, and that even "Christ himself, though proclaimed as the word by which the worlds were made, is not represented even in John's Gospel as manifesting to men any knowledge of what the cosmic process was," and the only answer given to the difficulty is this: – "The intellect is incompetent to solve the contradiction, but is nevertheless competent, with its eyes open, to disregard it. All solutions of it are hopeless. They are shame subterfuges, the nostrums of theological quacks." As Sir Oliver Lodge contends, we must wait for the reconciliation, but with Sir Oliver, as I have already said, Mr. Mallock is not in agreement.

In the chapter on Personality and the Universe, the author shows how little his spiritual perceptions are developed, by attacking Sir Oliver, who, he says, is one of those who believe in the reality of telepathy and other so-called spiritualistic phenomena." The chapter is an interesting one, but opens up so many questions and deals with so many theories, that I must leave it for readers of the book to consider, and not attempt to indicate their complex nature.

"Science," says Mr. Mallock, "will play a direct part in the stimulation of active religion by forcing the waters of belief to flow in a given channel, and thus become capable like a mill-stream of doing active and definite work, instead of wasting themselves on impotent rivulets, or stagnating in a shallow flood." No doubt it will, but, after all, what has the author done to justify the title of his book? He has elaborately criticized Haeckel, Spencer, Lodge and others, has quoted Dean Mansell and other theologians, but the promise of attempted construction appears to be confined to predictions similar to the one I have just quoted, and little beyond. Nor could it well have been otherwise. Where Spencer failed, others are hardly likely to succeed, and until scientists follow the example of Sit Oliver Lodge and Professor James, and recognize the spiritual forces that come to man's aid when science fails to satisfy the soul's hunger, so long will they fail to formulate any belief that can be acceptable to the seeker after truth. None the less is Mr. Mallock's book one of great value to the student and far in advance of Haeckel and his theories. (Concluded.)

The Fayoum is a large circular depression in the Libyan Desert, situated immediately to the west of the Nile Valley and occupying the site of the ancient Lake Moeris, which has now shrunk to the much smaller sheet of water known as the Birket-el-Qurun.

After describing the physical characters of the province, which is watered by a branch of the Nile, the author discusses the proposal to utilize the Wadi Rayan, a deep depression to the westward, as a Nile reservoir in the same manner as Lake Moeris was employed in former times.

The geology is then dealt with in considerable detail. Overlying nummulitio limestone of middle Eocene age is a fluviomarine series which referred to the upper Eocene and Oligocene. The Miocene is absent, but is represented by similar deposits in the depression of Mogara some 100 kilometres to the north-west. The Oligocene is covered by marine Pliocene and by beds of gypsum probably deposited from sea water, but in Pleistocene times the depression appears to have been occupied by the fresh water lake which persisted into the historical period. At the base of the fluviomarine beds Dr. C. W. Andrews, of the British Museum (Natural History), found extensive remains of mammals and reptiles which he has since described.

The book is illustrated by a number of plans and sections as well as by sixteen full-page reproductions of photographs.

AMERICAN OPINION.

Washington Nov. 15.

The reports of the Egyptian cotton crop for 1905 show that it has not reached the maximum attained before the construction of the Assouan Reservoirs. The Department of State has instructed the diplomatic agent and consul-general at Cairo, Mr. Iddings, to ascertain the exact area, if any, added to the cultivated land as the result of the Assouan Reservoir; the increased area, if any. Of land converted from inundated to perennially irrigated land on which cotton can grown; and how much of the cotton raised since 1903 was grown on land previously used for sugar cane.

Lord Cromer states that the excess of imported sugar, in 1904-05, over that of the preceding year was 20,000 tons, largely due to the substitution of cotton, requiring less water per acre, for sugar cane. Instructions have also been sent, at the request of Mr. Cope Whitehouse to ascertain the exact situation of his Raiyan project, with a view to its creation by American constructors and engineers, in case the work has not been commenced by the Egyptian Public Works Ministry.

It if be true that the Assouan Reservoir is a total failure, it is a triumph for the French representative on the technical commission of 1984; but it will cause keen distress to the artistic world; which will have now more reason than ever to denounce the submergence of Phileas useless vandalism.

Once more (says the "Globe") the Egyptian Budget is a triumph for the skill and patience of Lord Cromer and his able subordinated in replacing financial instability by its opposites. It has been, no doubt, labour of love to them throughout, but none the less does the obligation rest on the nation which sent them forth to testify its warm appreciation of the splendid work they have accomplished. Withan estimated revenue of fourteen and half millions for next year. The Cairo Treasury comes into sight of a half million surplus, although taxation is remitted to an appreciable extent. And so it goes on, year after year; there is no longer any swing of the pendulum in either Egyptian finance or in the economic improvement which has gradually occurred. There are some authorities who argue that such a prosperous condition of affairs should be taken advantage of to hasten the liquidation of the State's indebtedness to it bondholders. But although much might be said for that policy in the case of other countries suffering from inflated national debts, Egypt occupies a wholly different position. By spending surpluses on irrigation works, railway construction, and the economic development of the Sudan, the Cairo Treasury puts them to a more profitable use, even from a purely monetary standpoint, than if it were to devote them to the liquidation of the external debt.

Mrs. Mary Hallock Greenewalt has written a most attractive little essay on a subject that has, as yet, received little attention, even from poets and musicians-the basis of rhythm in poetry and music. This she finds in the human heart beat, with its reiteration on the brain, which unconsiously communicate themselves to any rhythmical expression whether sung, chanted, recited, or played upon an instrument.

Here is an explanation: "Clearly time is neccesary to verse. Too much of it is disatrous. Uttered at the rate of fifty quantities a minute an impossible drone meets the ear. One hunddred and twenty quantities a minute is unnaturally fast, so that, roughly speaking, the limit of speed at which verbal quantities are possible stands at a time rate of between sixty and one hundred beats to the minute. Just this is true of musical rythms. Just this scope of beat confronts the physician when he feels a normal pulse."

"It is strange," asks the writer later on, "if with such rigorous instruction on the heart should have taught the head regular recorrence." Differences in rhythm when due to the subject correspond to the differences in the cardiac pulse which is raised by exhilaration and lowered by greif or weariness.

The theory is extremely attractive- unfortunately it explains too little. If all rithmal utterance be the product, in a sense, of the unconsious muscular action of the heart, why does human utterant tend to become less and less rythmic? Assuming the earliest man to have communicated by cries of varying intensity and timbre to his fellows and noting that animal sounds are usually rythmical, how is it that unrythmical speech exists? By the authors theory it should have been abandoned at an early stage - if ever attempted- in favor of a rythmical expression. Or can it be proved that the rhythm still underlies spoken word? Amultitude of phonograghic records can alone elucidate this point.

Another point-"In the travail of poetis workmanship, the rhythmis light has pales and faded and all but died." Surley, the high the workmanship the more perfect and subtle the rhythm, for Browning and Carlyle have not- thank Heavan! said the last word in poetry ad prose. Taking out modern English poets and versifiers let us select aline from Mr. Yeats, who assuradly belong to the first class: "And the names of the demons, whose hammers made armour for Conor of old." The caesura would here fall naturally after "hammers", but the sense of the line carries one on through the caesure with an accelerated tampo imitating, as it were, the rapid strokes on the glowing bronze. Then to Mr.Kipling-usually a versifier and at times a poet- does not the couplet.

"Where the sea egg flames in the coral and the long backed breakers croon,

Their endless Ocean welcomes to the lazy locked lagoon"

Even if its artifice is a little too obviousus, it rhythm to sense most admirably? And, remember, we can have too much of a rhythm- rythmically no more perfect poem of its kind than "A'alant in Calydon' exists in the language, but it was not Lowell, greatest of American critics, who remarked that a poem might be too poetical?

Football

Victoria College F.C

St.Andrew FC

These teams met on the college ground on Saturday afternoon, the meeting resulting n a very enjoyable game all around, and ending in a goal less draw. Play for the greater part was confined to midfield; so strong was the play of both defenses that the opposing forwards were sledom able to get through. Occasional visits were made to both custodians, however, but the custodians were never found wanting, and play was quickly transferred. The college team played a very effective long passing game, and the forwards were always quick to take up the ball. The Saints, on the other hand adopted the short passing game, but the college halves were always on alert to intercept. The play was even throughout, and the result is fully representative of the play of both sides. The game was entirely free from the rough element, and the school team are to be complimented on the excelent stand they made against the heavier St. Andrew men.The following were the teams:

St. Andrew F.C.- Curtis, Hopkins, Davis, Mace, Cowie, Williams, Tulloch, Ecclestone, Clark, Jones, and Rofe.

Victoria College F.C.- F. Sabd, A. Mustard, Aly Hias, A. Valassopoulo, A. Verney, A. Nasher, Moheen Salah Yaghen, M. Abou el Azz, A. Morrison, A.E. Aubrey, J. Checri.

Referee- J. Lees

We do not hold ourselves responsible for the oinions expressed by our correspondance, but we wish, in spirit of fair play to all, to permit free speech.

A new Model of this well-known TYPEWRITER is now ready. Many improvements. Has no Ribbon. Its types strike direct from an inkpad on to the paper, giving beautifully clear outlines, and it has therefore been termed THE TYPEWRITER FOR BEAUTIFUL WORK.

Made of Best Materials only.

Illustrated Booklet post free.

THE YOST TYPEWRITER Co., Ltd.

H. Holborn, Viaduct, London, E.C,

THE BRITISH AERATED & MINERAL WATER MANUFACTORY.

CAIRO Exbekieh ALEXANDRIA Rue Avernoff

Soda Water, Lemonade, Ginger Ale, Ginger Beer. Tonic Water

Pomegranade, Orangeade, Pineapple, Champagne, Cider, etc., etc.

Water guaranteed by Chamberlain's Filter (Pasteur's System).

Inventor of WHISKY & SODA and BRANDY & SODA, bottled ready for use.

Depot for Prince Metternich's "Richardsquelle," the best mineral table water in the world.

Great assortment of Wines, Spirits, Liqueurs, of the finest Brands, etc