24 DECEMBER 1904, Page 23

Life and Energy. By Walter Hibbert. (Longmans and Co 2s.

6d. net.)—The definition of life at which Mr. Hibbert arrives is this : "Life is not energy, but an unceasing non-factorial directive control of it and its transformations." The important application of this is to the religious idea. "God," he suggests, "may act exclusively by a non-forceful, non-factorial method." This accounts for the "remoteness and seeming indifference to his relation to us." Mr. Hibbert seeks to account for the obliga- tion of prayer ; but any theory of prayer that makes it purely subjective halts. No man can go on praying if he knows that he cannot expect an answer. And on this hypothesis all idea of miracles must, as it seems to us, be abandoned.