Genre:

Regular Feature, Review

Publications reviewed:

Réville 1884 Speedy 1884

Subjects:

Religion, Evolution, Anthropology, Popularization, Lecturing, Chemistry, Hunting, Natural History

    Observes that 'Though the modern interest in the history and evolution of Religion is pretty widely spread among the educated and curious, that interest is still, on the whole, thoroughly "popular" and unscientific. The level of knowledge on which M. Reville's audience, or the audiences of Mr. Max Müller, live, is apparently not higher than the level of chemical science attained by visitors to the Polytechnic'. Complains that, in his series of six Hibbert Lectures, Reville was too often 'content not to advance science, nor to consolidate it, but merely to popularise the elements of knowledge'. (964) Notes that 'Mr. Speedy's remarks on the breeding grounds chosen by grouse, show a practical acquaintance with natural history, to acquire a knowledge of which study is among the chief advantages of the sportsman's existence' (966).