CURRENT LITERATURE.
British Quarterly Review. January. (Hodder and Stoughton.)— The contents of the number before us are, for the most part, of the gravest kind, and though not inferior in ability to the high average of the review, somewhat wanting in variety of interest The writer of " Modern Scientific Inquiry and Religions Thought" conducts an able argument against Mr. Darwin's theory of evolution from the scientific point of view. At the same time, he holds it to be compatible with Christian belief, a view in which we readily acquiesce, though we doubt -whether it can be extended to that development of the theory which professes to account for the origin and growth of Morality. Philosophy and metaphysics are further represented by essays on "Inductive Theology" and "Mind and the Scielle0 of Energy." We may note as an especially able and useful article that which deals with the "Revision of the Text of the New Testament." The writer supports the claims of the more ancient manuscripts to a pre- ponderating authority, as against the pretensions sot up by Mr. Scrivener and those who think with him on behalf of the cur= elves, which are supposed by a bold hypothesis to represent an an- tiquity greater than that of the famous codices of the fourth and fifth centuries. The writer illustrates the general importance of a courageous revision of the text by some well-chosen instances. We sincerely hope that such views may have prevailed among the "New' Testament Company." The two reviews of Mr. Masson's "Milton" and Mr. J. S. Mill's " Autobiography " have necessarily been anticipated in-a great degree by what the reader must have already seen. The most pleasing article of the number is a very bright and graphic sketch of "Henry Thoreau, the Poet-Naturalist." Thoreau was one of those naturalists who love to study the life rather than the death of animals, to whom the habits of the inhabitants of the fields and woods are more interesting than are the arrangement of their stomachs, or brains, or nerves, or sinews. Ho built himself a hut that he might dwell in the midst of them, and was rewarded by gaining their trust and love in a way that reminds one of some of those quaint stories of ecclesias- tical legend which delight to relate how solitary saints made friends with the birds and beasts of the wilderness. "The fishes name, as it seemed, into his hand, if he but dipped it into the stream ; the mice would come and playfully eat out of his fingers, and the very mole paid him friendly visits; sparrows alighted on his shoulder at his call ; phcebes built in his shed ; and the partridge with her brood came and fed quietly beneath his window as he sat and looked at them." The writer of "Mr. Bright's Return to the Ministry" deals 'with topics which have been, and will doubtless hereafter be, abundantly discussed in this journal and elsewhere. We feel inclined to say of him, as was said of the Bourbons, that he has learnt nothing, though it is true that he has forgotten something. He has forgotten, for instance, the letters of "Amiens Veritatis," when he says that Mr. Bright "cleared himself from responsibility on the ground that while that measure [the Education Act] was in course of preparation, he was little more than a nominal member of the Cabinet." But events seem wholly powerless to teach him anything. Surely it must be clear to all but the wilfully blind that it is not the conciliation of the more advanced Liberals that is wanted to restore the fortunes of the party. It is the "Moderates" who have to be reassured. To believe that the policy of the Liberals at the next election will be to go to the country *with a cry of Disestablishment, reduction of the Army, and compulsory a3cular education, shows an almost unique capacity for shutting out from view disagreeable facts.
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