Whether this little volume will find sufficient patrons to defray
the cost of its production is at least doubtful. The writer whose
essays it contains lived in obscurity and will never be popular. But
he possessed a fine intellect, however frustrated by circumstances;
he belonged to an illustrious family; and it is well to let the public
have access to the opinions of a brother of Cardinal Newman and of
Professor Newman, a brother who took his own course, as they did,
and thought out for himself an independent philosophy.
All Charles Robert Newman's writings that are known to have been
printed, appeared in the Reasoner, edited by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake,
at various dates during 1860-61. With trifling exceptions they are
all reprinted in this collection.
Mr. Holyoake has kindly supplied a brief account of the atheistic
Newman, and Mr. J. M. Wheeler has gathered all the information that
is obtainable as to his life and personality.