NEW BOOKS

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXVI, Issue 21, 28 May 1908, Page 33

NEW BOOKS

From Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs (Christchurch, Wellington, and Dunedin) we have received a cheap reprint of Cardinal Newman's ' Apologia Pro Vita Sua.' This work is recognised as an English classic, and the public are indebted to the publishers (Longmans, Green, and Co.) for issuing it in a popular form, and thus bringing it within the reach of all. With the exception' of the omission of a portion of the index, and the inclusion of a hitherto unpublished letter of the author to a friend, the text of the present volume is verbally and in arrangement precisely identical with the original and high-priced editions. The issue of a popular edition of the ' Apologia ' is at the present time particularly opportune, as some of the Modernist writers have been attempting to prove that the author's opinions were, in some way or other, similar to their own theories — a contention which has been thoroughly disproved in the able pamphlet by the Bishop of Limerick, which was referred to in our columns a few weeks ago, and for which the author received the thanks of the Holy Father. From the same firm we have also received a cheap issue of Father Gerard's ' The Old Riddle and the Newest Answer,' which is a complete answer to the theories of Haeckel and the Rationalistic school. The purpose of the volume, as the author points out, is simply to examine in the light of reason and common sense the consequences which some would have us draw from the facts revealed by science. For those facts themselves the great majority of men must necessarily depend upon expert testimony— upon the evidence of the original investigators who, each in his own special department, have advanced our knowledge of nature and its laws. But every educated man endowed with what Newton called ' a competent faculty of thinking,' is capable of judging for himself how far the inferences drawn from such facts are warranted by them, and this we must endeavor to do, if we would be true to the first principles of reason and science itself. The learned author examines some of the more fundamental far-reaching conclusions advocated at the present day, with the result that he is able to show that many of the most cherished opinions of alleged scientists are neither supported by science nor common sense. Another interesting book which we have received from Messrs. Whitcombe and Tombs is ' The Christ, the Son of God : A Life of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,' by the Abbe Fouard. The original work was in French, and the Messrs. Longmans have published an English translation at a price which brings it within the reach of all. It is a singularly able and excellent work, and needs little recommendation. When it first appeared the Cardinal-Archbishop of Rouen said of it that it united the consolations of piety with the explanations of true science on the text of Scripture. The work was blessed by the late Pope, many Cardinals and members of the French hierarchy have given it their approbation, and the late Cardinal Manning wrote an introduction to the English translation.