in the pages of technical journals, particularly of the Revue Celtique, buried in the unwieldy, if learned, volumes of Rhys, and barred to many readers by the foreign garb of the Cours de Littérature Celtique of d'Arbois de Jubainville, it has hitherto been a task of considerable difficulty to gain a clear presentment of the faith of our Celtic forefathers. This is now happily obviated by Charles Squire's Mythology of the British Islands, a book written without pretence at learning, but simply as a guide for the tyro in Celtic lore. Passing over with slight mention the Gaulish religion, which is known only from allusions in the Commentaries of Cæsar and a few other classical authors, supplemented to some extent by the inscriptions which have been discovered in Gaul, Mr. Squire confines his attention to the great fountainheads of Celtic myth-Ireland and Britain. Herein he is entirely justified, for Britain, as Cæsar himself noted, was believed by the Gallic druids to have been the parent-land of their faith, while Ireland retained its religion long after its sister-island had bowed before the new Semitic creed. Celtic religion as a whole was a naturecult, for it clearly represents the worldold struggle between light and darkness existing in the Hindu Rig-Veda, the most ancient religious record of our race, and present still, though dimly, in the legends of the Celtic Arthurian cycle. Yet no religion is free from an admixture of elements which originally were foreign to it, and as the Aryans, sweeping down the Indian Punjab, conquered the non-Aryan Dravidians, only to assimilate portions of their faith, so the Celts crushed the Iberians, who held the islands before them, but adopted phases of the belief of the subjugated race. In the divine struggle between the powers of light and darkness, the former are represented by the Tuatha Dé Danonn, "the people of the goddess Danu," who may be compared to the Greek Demeter, "Mother Earth." This feature of Celtic religion, which at an early stage lays such stress on the allmother, is almost peculiar to this branch of the Indo-Germanic family. The mother goddess plays but a secondary rôle in the mythology of Greece, while in India it is only in the late and perhaps Dravidian cult of the çaktis, or female principles of the gods, that she gains any real importance. This phase of Celtic belief seems almost Semitic, although it is certainly independent in origin, and this curious chance analogue between two unrelated systems of religion becomes still more striking in the case of the powers of darkness. The gods of Hades, the Fomors, or "folk from under sea," are the children of the goddess Domnu, who is curiously like the Babylonian Tiamat, the personification of chaos and the watery deep. From these two divine mothers and their more shadowy lords sprang the gods, whose general attributes are clear, although different clans applied different names to the same gods and told slightly varying tales concerning them, thus leading to confusion in the course of time. This is especially true of the later period of the religion, so that in the legends of Arthur, himself a solar deity, the same god is found serving simultaneously on either side under different appellations. Into the struggles of the Celtic divinities it is impossible here to go in detail, yet many an interesting phase of the development of religion may be traced, and more than one analogy may be drawn with other systems of belief. The author, however, has excluded from his book any comparative study of the Celtic myths, and this is perhaps the one flaw in his admirable volume. Take, for example, the "harrowing of Hell." In Irish legend the culturehero Cuchulainn, a sun-god, invades Dún Scaith, the "shadowy town" of Hades, and robs it of its choicest treasures, while a similar exploit is performed by the British solar deities Gwydion and Arthur. In gentler mood, and for the winning of wisdom, Nachiketas in India, Arda-i Viraf in Persia, Odysseus in Greece, and Dante in Italy descended to the lower world. In Semitic tradition one thinks. immediately of the conquest of Hell by the risen Christ as recorded in the Gospel of Nicodemus. As in Teutonic mythology, after the wars of the gods and all their glory comes their fall. The Tuatha Dé Danonn had triumphed over the dynasties of Partho lon, Nemed and the Fir Bolg, but in their turn they were forced to yield to the invasions of the mortal Milesians and Fenians. Euhemerised into kings and knights by Geoffrey of Monmouth and his fellows, or reduced to Christian saints and holy men by the monks of a new and hostile creed, the Celtic gods live but as pale ghosts in the folk-myths of the Irish, Scotch and Welsh peasantry, although in one cycle they still retain some measure of their pristine greatness, lingering to this day in the legends of Arthur, with their tales of the Table Round and the achievement of the Holy Grail. A book which brings together so great a store of knowledge on an obscure and fascinating subject in so readable a fashion is indeed a treasure, and one cannot but praise the author for his work. III. Louis H. Gray. MAX NORDAU'S "MORGANATIC."* During the recent discussion of divorce in the newspapers, positive statements were made that the Church of England regarded marriage almost as a sacrament, and that therefore there should be no divorces; that if for good reasons a separation of husband and wife occurred, the innocent party should accept the hardships of the situation, living a lonely life with Christian fortitude; and that a "remarriage" of either of the parties to a divorce should never be solemnised by a priest of the English Church, or of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States. The impression was given by some of the clergymen who were interviewed by the press that the Church of England had always entertained the opinions expressed in these statements. At the London diocesan conference held in Westminster in June, 1905, the Bishop of London stated his reluctance to countenancing as a marriage the "remarriage" of the innocent party to a divorce, although admitting that such a party who, under civil sanction according to the English Divorce Act of 1857, had been married, should be allowed to par*Morganatic. By Max Nordau. Philadelphia J. B. Lippincott Company. take of the sacrament of the Lord's Supper and to enjoy all the privileges of the church. His Lordship added: "In my opinion, the law which offends the consciences of so many clergy and laity should be amended; what the state has done in decreeing a divorce, the state, if it wishes, must undo, but the church should not be compromised in the matter at all; the convenience of the world is one thing, the standard and teaching of the church is quite another." Yet in spite of this statement of sentiment and conviction, we have seen instances of the setting aside on a trivial pretext of a morganatic wife and her children, that her partner might gain an advantage or might advantage the state by marrying a woman of royal blood. Thus the Archbishop of Canterbury officiated at the wedding of the Duke of Clarence to his dead brother's fiancée, Princess May of Teck, in spite of the fact that the Duke had put away his wife and their children that he might contract the second marriage, Queen Victoria approving the divorce and making financial provision for the divorced morganatic wife. Max Nordau, author of Degeneration, has written a novel, Morganatic, in which he demonstrates that the wife's position should be made absolutely equal with that of her husband, even at the expense of considerable renunciation by one of the parties to the union. In this book he emphasises these points: (1) the loose morals of certain members of royal families; (2) the curious fact that women, otherwise irreproachable, become unwisely infatuated with princes; and (3) the heartburnings, disappointments, and misery that may arise from a morganatic alliance under existing conditions. A German prince is cured of his melancholy by the act of a young pianist, daughter of a music-master. It becomes necessary for him to marry her, and after overcoming his family's determined opposition, she becomes his wife, with the title of baroness. Of course, she understood that in becoming his lawful wife she was not elevated to his rank. Yet after the prince's death the baroness made a long struggle for recognition and income to which she had no right, and was gradually transformed from an affectionate, prudent, sensible and tactful woman into. a weak, arrogant, irritable and vindictive pretender. Her son Siegfried, who would have been a sensible and successful man if properly guided, foolishly joined his mother in her campaign of arrogant demand and general offensiveness. Nicoline, the natural daughter of a German prince, cultivates the musical ability inherited from her mother, a member of an opera troupe in a small town, and by means of diligent study-aided by beauty, wit and a magnificent presence-creates a sensation as an operatic vocalist of high rank. Meeting her during her student days, Siegfried falls in love with Nicoline. But he is too weak to profit by her example of independence and industry, and his self-love prevents the development of character that she justly expects of him. He becomes insultingly insistent that he be invested with his dead father's title and position, alienates his family, falls a victim to flatterers, and after suffering chagrin, defeat and financial ruin, enters a monastery. Siegfried's foolish mother lives beyond her means in trying to support a style in keeping with her assumed title of princess. She succeeds in publishing attacks on her husband's family, which only react on herself. She is inveigled into a damaging political alliance with General Boulanger, who appears as as General Ménard in the story. Finally, after forfeiting the respect even of her son and her servants, she dies. Nicoline, meanwhile, rises to prominence. Upon the death of her mother's husband (the royal lover having insisted upon a marriage to a nonentity pour conserver les convenances), Nicoline successfully demands that her father marry her mother, whose simplicity of heart, selfrenunciation and absorbing love for the prince precluded the possibility of her ever contemplating making a personal request for such simple justice. Nicoline. is easily the central figure and the best character of the novel, and her portrait is drawn with elaborate yet delightful detail. A striking character is that of an American millionaire, Edwin Mallock Gray. It is interesting to learn Nordau's idea of a typical American. He writes: Mr. Gray had learned German at Harvard, and after the completion of his studies in America, had spent two years at German high schools, and so spoke German fluently. He was possibly about thirty-five, but it was not easy to judge his age from his appearance. In repose he looked older; in animated talk, younger. He was a typical American to look at; tall, thin, almost lanky in figure, a cleanshaven face, his fair hair, sprinkled with grey, parted at the side, a massive chin, hard mouth, proud, imposing brow, but remarkably soft, dreamy brown eyes, which gave his face at times an almost paradoxical, gentle expression. On short acquaintance, Mr. Gray tries to give Nicoline a superb diamond necklace, as a trifling token of his appreciation and his admiration, and without her knowledge at once commences building a house for her in New York. By the time several obstacles are surmounted and many difficulties cleared away with a startling dis play of power, lavish expenditure of money and unalterable determination, and after Mr. Gray has become successful in his suit and has been married to Nicoline, the new house is completed, just in time for their occupancy on reaching New York. Nordau expresses no opinions as he tells his story; his characters speak for themselves. His keen analyses, vigorous treatment and frank chronicle of events interest the reader deeply, and leave open the way to but one logical conclusion as to the evil of morganatic alliances. The novel would undoubtedly be better were it shorter, and were its style more sympathetic and imaginative. Hesiod told of the morganatic alliances of Zeus and his daughters in gossipy style and alluring phrase. Nordau's story is a forcible presentation of stern facts by an apparently disinterested observer. Albert Warren Ferris. IV. LONDON'S "WAR OF THE CLASSES." Whether human or canine, the heroes of Jack London's purely literary works are, to use one of his favourite phrases, "rampant individualists." They seem *War of the Classes. By Jack London. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1905. created for no other purpose than to proclaim the doctrine: "Du musst herrschen und gewinnen Whence comes it, then, that the author of such forceful and even ferocious types should be himself an advocate of socialism? In part, no doubt, the explanation may be found in the fact that a vigorous, opposition-loving person can most easily get all of the latter he wants by taking up the championship of some radical social doctrine. The true reason probably lies deeper than this, however. It was one of the London Fabians who coined the phrase "intellectual proletariat," and applied it to the younger radicals who had won success in literature or the learned professions at such a cost of toil and struggle that the bitterness of it made them socialists. Something of the same experience Jack London has had, and it is precisely for this reason, doubtless, that he is capable on the one hand of portraying so vividly the characteristics. necessary for victory amid the fiercest phases of the struggle for existence, and on the other of wishing with all his heart for the establishment of "a new law of development" which shall forever supersede the present competitive régime. Jack London's socialistic sympathies were patent in his earlier work, The People of the Abyss. It was a powerful picture of the life of the East End of London, a black and white sketch in which the black almost entirely predominated. His later volume, The War of the Classes, is not so much description as an attempt at social philosophy, or rather at a popular version of Marxian philosophy brought down to date and illustrated by references to contemporary radical movements chiefly in the United States, but also to a less extent in foreign countries. From this point of view are discussed the class struggle, the significance of the tramp and the scab, the world crisis to be expected when world over-production occurs, and the possibility that socialism may follow it. It cannot be maintained that the War of the Classes presents much on these subjects that is novel, either in point of fact or of opinion. London himself would hardly make such a claim, for his socialism is decidedly orthodox and his obligation to German authorities is frankly avowed. The list of these authorities, by the way, does not seem to include Bernstein, whose criticism from within the camp of the Genossen is now very materially modifying both their theory and practice. Moreover, the War of the Classes suffers considerably from the fact that it is not a book so much as a collection of articles written at various times and apparently without a definite common purpose beyond the general advancement of the socialistic propaganda. As a consequence it is marred somewhat by repetition and lacks the coherence and cogency of a logical whole. With all these defects, however, the War of the Classes is no whit inferior in the vigour of its style and the sweep and rapid movement of its thought to any of Jack London's work. Certainly no other American, and probably no English writer, has produced anything in the advocacy of socialism that can compare with it in forcefulness and literary merit. With these qualities in its favour, the many inaccuracies and inconsistencies of the War of the Classes will hardly prevent its attaining that kind of success which the author doubtless desires most of all, namely, as an effective text-book for the socialist propaganda. A typical instance of these inaccuracies may be found in the following: "The journalists, the preachers, and the professors are practically of one voice in declaring that there is no such thing as a class struggle now going on, much less that a class struggle will ever go on in the United States" (p. 5). Without answering for the journalists and the preachers, it may be said that a very elementary knowledge of the teaching of social science would have prevented the outrageous error of the rest of the statement. The difference between Jack London and the professors on this point is that the latter have tried to form some reasonably clear concept of social classes and then to apply this concept in the study of the very complex conditions that now exist, whereas London jumping im mediately to conclusions from his boxcar study of sociology, seems to assert that there are but two social classes, the capitalist class and the labouring class, both clearly defined, armed cap-a-pie, and ready to try conclusions to the death. If the situation were so simple, if these great protagonists faced each other in the United States, fully conscious and perfectly organised, there would seem to be very little class struggle left to write about, considerably less, one would think, than if the members of two football elevens should become inflamed with a simultaneous desire to kill the umpire. In this connection it will not do simply to quote the number of organised labourers. in a given country. We must know also how many remain unorganised, and what is the proportion of the former to the latter, together with other facts not developed in the War of the Classes. Nor need too great significance be attached to the socialist vote in 1904 "of 435,000—an increase of nearly 400 per cent. in four years" (p. x). Percentages worked out on small bases are often surprising, as in the case of the criminality of the Persian population of Philadelphia, which was found to be 300 per cent., a truly astounding result until a more careful study of the table containing this figure revealed the fact that there was but one Persian in the city and that he had been convicted three times within the year for petty theft. Even taking the exaggerated figure given later (p. 25) of 450,000 socialist voters in 1904, this would be but slightly over three per cent. of the total popular vote of that year. Surely here is a fact at least worth consideration, for, after all, the thing that most needs explanation is not that the socialist strength in the United States is what it is, but why it is so vastly inferior in comparison with the strength of the same movement in the principal countries of Europe. If it be replied that the author's purpose was merely to call attention to the recent growth of the party in this country, one may be pardoned for remarking that the phenomenon is in nowise particularly exceptional. An even more remarkable percentage of growth can be figured out for the Greenbackers between 1876 and 1880. As in the case of that party, social ism also may be side-tracked indefinitely in consequence of the espousal by one or both of the two great parties of certain of its doctrines, such as municipal ownership, nationalisation of telegraphs, railroads, etc. Moreover, occasional failures, which are practically certain to occur in experimenting with state ownership, may lead to alternations of reaction. One must admit, therefore, that the exulting faith in the continuous and rapid growth of the socialistic party which Mr. London bases upon its recent increase is perhaps too sanguine. In dealing with the tramp, which term is made very unjustly to include all kinds of out-of-works, Mr. London seems hopelessly involved in the sophistry commonly known to economists as the "lump of labour" fallacy. There is also great confusion as to the degree of potential labour efficiency among the unemployed, which on one page would seem to be considered little below that of the more fortunate possessors of jobs, while on another its actual inferiority is clearly presented. It is very difficult to grant unqualifiedly the contention that "Under the present system, if the weakest and least fit were as strong and fit as the best, and the best were correspondingly stronger and fitter, the same condition [i. e., of unemployment] would obtain" (p. 78). Considering this statement in connection with the many striking facts and figures later presented to show the recent world-wide growth of capital, a pretty good non sequitur can be made out, for this vast mass of capital must use labour in the processes of production. With labour efficiency increased, with expanding capital demanding its services, and assuming further, as may fairly be done, a continued progress of invention, there is every reason to believe that both the rate of interest and wages would increase and that the amount of unemployment would decrease. No confusion with regard to the law of diminishing returns, which is so often falsely applied historically, would seem to shake this conclusion. Mr. London's treatment of the scab is subject to the same constant and apparently unconscious shifting of ideas which makes his discussion of the tramp so |