“It is easy to dislike his book, it is possible to dislike it
furiously; but the book is so honest, so earnest, so stimulating in its
tolerant but convinced unconventionality, that it claims for itself a
like sincerity and seriousness in the reader.... Mr. Ellis has produced
a book which will be hotly discussed, no doubt, for it is nothing if
not initiative, we might almost say revolutionary; but it is not a book
to be disregarded.... It has sincerity and it has power; and sincerity
and power compel at least attention.”--_Speaker._
“Mr. Havelock Ellis has discovered a ‘New Spirit.’ We have read him
with care and patience, and we should be sorry to describe it; we only
know that it is not intoxicating.”--_Scots Observer._
“Welcome is warmly due to this fresh, buoyant, and sincere volume of
essays by Mr. Havelock Ellis.... There are parts of the study of Heine
which are not unworthy to be named--it is high praise--with Matthew
Arnold’s inimitable paper upon that writer, a paper almost as classic
as Heine himself.... The last word upon so suggestive and finished a
piece of work ought to be one of ungrudging praise.”--_Academy._
“Mr. Carlyle described, it seems to us, Mr. Havelock Ellis himself with
great exactness in the person of a certain biographer of Voltaire, ‘an
inquiring, honest-hearted character, many of whose statements must have
begun to astonish even himself.’ Mr. Ellis must be very ‘inquiring,’
for we have seldom met with one who knows so many things that other
people do not know.”--_Athenæum._
“Each of these essays is a thorough and well-considered piece of
work, admirable in information, firm in grasp, stimulating in style,
appreciative in matter, and the survey afforded is broad.... It
is an altogether unusual work, both for its ambition and for its
matter; it brings the reader near to some of the marked ideas of the
time.”--_Nation._
“The points of the New Spirit are its passion for getting things
right in the matter of property and in the matter of true human
worth.”--_Daily News._
PRESS OPINIONS ON “THE NEW SPIRIT.”
(_Continued._)
“The only coherent constituent of the New Spirit which this book
professes to set forth, is a vehement hatred, amounting to a passion,
against conventional unveracities, and a determination that they should
be swept away.... We cannot imagine anything of which it could be more
necessary for human nature, so taught [by our Lord], to purge itself,
than the New Spirit of Havelock Ellis.”--_Spectator._
“Mr. Havelock Ellis has written an interesting and significant book,
which it is quite easy to ridicule, but which certainly deserves a
fair hearing.... Apparently these writers are chosen because they
all agree in a hatred of shams, in looking facts in the face, and in
demanding provision for the healthy satisfaction of animal wants....
Mr. Ellis writes with force and insight; but, whether from brevity or
want of caution, he leaves with regard to these subjects an impression
which he would probably not himself desire to produce.”--_Murray’s
Magazine._
“The concluding chapter, wherein Mr. Ellis expresses his own ‘intimate
thought and secret emotion,’ is one of the best utterances of the New
Spirit which we have ever read.”--_Echo._
“Un volume de haute critique littéraire qui rappelle le style fort et
la méthode stricte de Hennequin.”--_Mercure de France._
“A more foolish, unwholesome, perverted piece of sentimental cant we
have never wasted our time over.”--_World._
“Excellent examples of appreciative criticism of an exceedingly
interesting series of authors, of whom every one ought to know
at least as much as Mr. Ellis here tells us so freshly and
vivaciously.”--_Scottish Leader._
“We only refer to this unpleasant compilation of cool impudence and
effrontery to warn our readers against it.”--_Dundee Advertiser._
“Beautiful both in thought and expression. But Mr. Ellis seems to have
laid aside altogether the wise restraint which characterises his volume
on ‘The Criminal.’... The scientific spirit, of which at other times he
has shown himself a distinguished exponent, should have prevented him
from such error.”--_Arbroath Herald._
“Ardent, enthusiastic, and eloquent.”--_Boston Literary World._
“It is not often that the weary and heart-sore reviewer, struggling to
keep abreast of the Protean outpourings of the press, falls in with
anything so well-informed, so rich in thought and suggestion as _The
New Spirit_.”--_Wit and Wisdom._
London: WALTER SCOTT, LIMITED, Paternoster Square.
The Contemporary Science Series.
Edited by Havelock Ellis.
I. THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Prof. PATRICK GEDDES and J. A.
THOMSON. With 90 Illustrations. Second Edition.
“The authors have brought to the task--as indeed their names
guarantee--a wealth of knowledge, a lucid and attractive method of
treatment, and a rich vein of picturesque language.”--_Nature._
II. ELECTRICITY IN MODERN LIFE. By G. W. DE TUNZELMANN. With
88 Illustrations.
“A clearly-written and connected sketch of what is known about
electricity and magnetism, the more prominent modern applications, and
the principles on which they are based.”--_Saturday Review._
III. THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS. By Dr. ISAAC TAYLOR.
Illustrated. Second Edition.
“Canon Taylor is probably the most encyclopædic all-round scholar now
living. His new volume on the Origin of the Aryans is a first-rate
example of the excellent account to which he can turn his exceptionally
wide and varied information.... Masterly and exhaustive.”--_Pall Mall
Gazette._