21 OCTOBER 1876, Page 23

The Physical Basis of Immortality. By Antoinette Brown Blackwell. (G.

F. Putnam and Sons, New York.)—A man should be able to compre- hend all knowledge properly to criticise or, let us say, to appreciate this volume. It is an "earnest attempt to answer in the affirmative the following question,--' Is there an actual, continuous, unchanging personal unity, the living one, which is also indestructible ? Science and religion are equally interested in grounding themselves upon the basis of an imperishable selfhood, if this be possible." It "presumes to offer a new theory of reconciliation between the facts of personal identity, and the associated facts of the mutual convertibility of equiva- lent physical energies." The writer looks for her "chosen public in that large and now rapidly-growing class of intelligent, independent, inquiring, and possibly half skeptical [sic] minds who know something of science," but who have only time to "appreciate the scientific dis- credit which has been brought latterly upon the subject of continuous personal life." The question occurs, will these " skeptics " have time to follow these three hundred and more closely-printed and possibly closely-reasoned pages? We cannot attempt an abstract of them ; the table of contents is almost enough to make one's brain reel ; we shall await with interest the verdict of the "chosen public" to whom they are addressed.