The Scientific Spit-it of the Age, and other Pleas and
Discussions. By Frances Power Cobbe. (Smith, Elder and Co.)—The first of these "Pleas," as the writer calls them, was published in the Contemporary Review, and excited, as it well might, some hostile criticism from men of science. It is a powerful indictment of the influence of science on the mind, supported by proof of remark- able cogency, none of them being more powerful than Charles Darwin's candid confessions. Surely it was an evil result when a man lost all his delight in poetry, in art, and in music. "The Education of the Emotions" is an excellent essay, but we own ourselves unable to follow the reasoning of "Progressive Judaism." It was received, the writer candidly confesses, "with the utmost possible disfavour by the Jewish Press." Christian critics will hardly be more friendly, if they are required to accept the position that Judaism, ceasing to be tribal and absorbing the moral and spiritual essence of Christianity, "may solve the great problem of combining a theology consonant to modern philo- sophy with a worship hallowed by the sacred association of the remotest past." This is what Unitarianism has attempted to do, but has not succeeded. The other essays are all worth reading.
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