cord with his religion. He sees that the theory of development demands a reconstruction of theology, and frankly says so. His own conceptions of the reconstruction necessary are modestly and clearly stated. His idea of Deity is that of a Being resident and immanent in Nature, who creates by means of natural law in a perfectly intelligible order. At the point in evolution where man became a morally responsible being, he deems the human soul to have been born. As physical evil has been the means, through the pain and struggle it has involved, of racial elevation, so he holds moral evil to be equally necessary for the growth of character. How, otherwise, he asks, than by the possibility of fall, could man have gained the strength to rise? Prof. Le Conte is instructive, suggestive, and candid throughout every chapter of his book. It will be fruitful and helpful to many who fear that the progress of science means the abolition of religion; that Darwin and Spencer have come to uproot sentiments which Galileo, Kepler, and Newton only elevated and deepened.
Wealth and Progress: A Critical Examination of the Labor Problem. By George Gunton. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 382. Price, $1.
In this book the author undertakes to establish a natural basis for industrial reform; to show how to increase wages without reducing profits or lowering rents; and to expound the economic philosophy of the eight-hour movement. Whatever may be thought of the sufficiency of his conclusions, the critic must admit that his doctrines and proofs are well thought out and clearly stated, without passion and without prejudice. The book really has a duplex origin, for its central thought was conceived and the first effort to state it was made by the late Ira Steward, the leader of the labor reform movement in Massachusetts. Just before his death, in 1883, he made a request that Mr. Gunton should complete his unfinished work. This author had the advantage of extensive experience and exceptional opportunities for observation with industrial affairs, and had been a close student of economic questions. He perceived the magnitude and perplexity of the task imposed upon him, and has met it in the fashion of a manly thinker. This book contains about half of what he has to say, the presentation of the principles of social economics being reserved for another volume. The precise points considered in the present volume are the definition of the law and cause of increasing production, and the theoretical statement and historical establishment of the law of wages. Under the former head, the socialistic postulate, that "labor is the creator of all wealth," is shown to be fallacious, and it is maintained that—inversely to the general conception—the prosperity of the laborer is the basis of the capitalist's success. The "wages fund," Francis A. Walker's, and Mr. George's theories of the law of wages, are all dismissed as unsound, and the true theory is defined to be that "the chief determining influence in the general rate of wages in any country, class, or industry is the standard of living of the most expensive families furnishing a necessary part of the supply of labor in that country, class, or industry." This law is illustrated and enforced by a review of the conditions of workingmen's wages and modes of living in Asia and in Europe in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and down to the nineteenth century. The standard of living is determined by the daily wants of the people concerned—not what they have vague desires to have, but what they will struggle to get. These wants regulate consumption, and that regulates production, and thus the prosperity of the capitalist and the community is determined. The standard of the wants is elevated by enlarging the social opportunities of the masses, but not by enlarging them faster than the capacity for enjoying them is augmented. The first step toward this end is a reduction of the hours of labor, for, without time to improve them, other means for promoting the same object—education, free lectures, public libraries, parks, museums, and art-galleries—are necessarily ineffectual. Yet this must be done wisely, and commensurably with the enlargement of other facilities; for, to give. idle hours to a man who does not know how to use them aright, is only a curse. With this reduction, which it is proposed to make to eight hours a day, should go half-time, schools for children at work under sixteen years of age. Among the immediate effects
