Genre:

Regular Feature, Abstract

Publications abstracted:

Balfour 1895

Relevant illustrations:

eng. [5]

Subjects:

Religion, Scientific Naturalism, Unbelief, Darwinism, Agnosticism, Christianity, Piety, Creation, Soul, Physiological Psychology, Psychical Research, Ethics, Morality, Aesthetics, Music

People mentioned:

Pope Pius IX , Ernst H P A Haeckel , Arthur J Balfour , Herbert Spencer

Publications cited:

Haeckel 1894 , Romanes 1878 , Romanes 1895

    Finds several signs that 'a religious revival is in the air', and foresees the beginning of the end for the 'science that was nescience so far as the soul of man was concerned [and] has been swaggering in the foretop of civilisation'. Over the last few decades, in 'the phraseology of the Stock Exchange, religious stock has been depressed with a tendency downward, while the ring engaged in bulling the shares in the Joint Stock Bank of Naturalistic Agnosticism'. The 'intolerance of the bigot of the Churches was succeeded by the even more detestable superciliousness of the Brahmin of science'. However, in recent years the 'barbaric thunder of the scientific tom-tom' has begun to be silenced by religious thinkers such as Marie F Brunetière and William E Gladstone, as well as the recantation of his naturalistic philosophy made by the late George J Romanes, and 'signs are multiplying that the winter of our discontent is passing away; the song of the birds, the heralds of the spring, is heard in our midst, and, in short, religion seems to be once more gaining its lost prestige'. (274)