Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/451



T will be no news to the readers of this monthly that the volume entitled "The Nature and Reality of Religion; a Controversy between Herbert Spencer and Frederic Harrison," published by D. Appleton & Co. last March, has been suppressed by order of Mr. Spencer. This catastrophe was the result of a public correspondence carried on between these gentlemen in the columns of the London "Times." Fragments of the letters were cabled to this country as they appeared, and were widely disseminated by the newspapers, producing some suspense, and giving a confused impression of the affair. At length came the announcement that the disagreeable difference was happily composed; but with it came also a dispatch ordering the destruction of the book—copies, plates, and all—the damage to be charged to Mr. Spencer. This seemed a curious way of bringing an unpleasant difference between two authors to a harmonious termination; but, without waiting for explanations, the mandate was obeyed and the book suppressed. The letters themselves are now before us, and as they have not all been previously published in this country, they are herewith submitted to the reader in full:

Mr. Frederic Harrison has forwarded to us for publication the inclosed letter which he has addressed to Mr. Herbert Spencer:

2em " I can not admit that there is anything to justify you in being a party to the American reprint of articles of mine, without my