Dr. Edmund Montgomery (Obituary Notice).

MISCELLANEOUS. DR. EDMUND MONTGOMERY. Edmund Montgomery, the hermit philosopher, died April 17, [911, at Liendo Plantation, near Hempstead, Texas, where he had passed a great part of his life, having sought there a peaceful home near to nature like so many llis wife was other idealists after the fashion of the Brook Farm colony, the late Elizahet Ney, the artist, who retained her maiden name and was noted She has left some valfor her work in painting hut especially in sculpture. Dr. many of which now stand in her studio at Austin, Texas. Montgomery was of Scotch extraction and birth, hut he was educated Germany where he studied medicine. He came to the United States in 1X70, uable marhles, Dr. in LIENDO PLANTATION. and led here a retired while another son has his Texas home. They lost one child in infancy grown up on the farm and is the father of a family of life in three children. Dr. Montgomery has puhlished a number of books, among which we will mention his recent and most extensive work, Philosophical Problems in the Light of Vital Organization (New York, Putnam's Sons, 1909), which has been carefully summarized by Mr. Charles Alva Lane in an article in The Monist of October, 1909; and his last volume The^Jtevelation of Present Experience which the same writer has reviewed for the coming number of that quarterly (July, 191 1). Not the least valuable of his thoughts have been con- THE OPEN COURT. 382 The Monist and The Open Court in the articles entitled: "Monism Modern Philosophy and the Agnostic Attitude of Mind" {Open Court, I, 37, 65); "Are we Products of Mind?" (loc. cit., 423, 459, 480, 512, 587, tributed to in 9> "Karl "Cope's Theology of Evolution" {loc. cit., 160, 217, 274, 300) Theodor Bayrhoffer and His System of Naturalistic Monism" (loc. cit., II, "Psychical Monism" (Monist, II, 338) "Automatism and 831, 865, 914, 934) Spontaneity" (Monist, IV, 44) "To Be Alive, What Is It?" (Monist, V, 166) "Actual Experience" (Monist, IX, 359). The last of his contributions was a "Dialogue Between an Idealist and a Naturalist," which appeared in The Monist of January, 1909 For further references to his life see Open Court, I, 103, and Monist, XIX, 160 and 630. Judge Reese was with Dr. Montgomery in his last hours, and other friends would have come if the letter of his faithful servant written in German could 617) ; ; ; ; ; ; . have been deciphered. Mrs. Joseph B. Dibrell, wife of Judge Dibrell of the Texas Supreme Court and a friend of Elizabet Ney, sends us a photograph of the plantation house in which Dr. Montgomery lived and died, taken in August, 1908. THE HISTORICITY OF JESUS AGAIN QUESTIONED. Prof. William Benjamin Smith of Tulane University, New Orleans, is by profession a mathematician but by avocation a theologian. He is one of the best-informed men on New Testament criticism and he has come to the Others have held the same view but conclusion that Jesus never lived. Professor Smith introduces reached their conclusion by other arguments. modern methods and brings into the field a formidable array of critical theolHe could not find a publisher in the English speaking world for his ogy. first book The Pre-Christian Jesus, but he excited interest in his theory among personal acquaintances in Germany. Professor Schmiedel, an ortho- dox theologian, went so far as to encourage the publication of a German translation because he deemed it necessary to bring Smith's views broadly before the public so as to have them thoroughly refuted. Professor Smith's theory caught fire in another German scholar, Arthur Drews, professor of philosophy at Carlsruhe, and strange to say Drews sucHe concenceeded in attracting public attention where Smith had failed. trated the interest of all Germany upon this new conception of Jesus as a humanized god and now Smith becomes better known even in his own country. Drews lectured before large audiences and entered into debates with his orthodox opponents. The dailies were 'filled with reports and the ecclesiastical government of the German states became alarmed. Finally he published his theory under the title The Christ Myth (English edition, London, T. Fisher Unwin). In the meantime Professor Smith has written a second volume entitled Ecce Deus in which he takes the positive ground and shows that Jesus is originally a god and that all the stories reported in the Gospels will indicate the divinity of his character. a myth. whom Stories of gods are to It is typical for him he becomes acquainted. Testament and the superstition. Jew that he cannot accept He humanizes This can be seen of the Old this also is the character of the synoptic Gospels. Professor Smith's second work shares the fate of the appeared first in a German edition. As Horace the gods with in the stories says, Habcnt sua fata libclli, first one. It has "books have their destinies," but  (...truncated)