# Popular Science Monthly/Volume 45/August 1894/Literary Notices

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Social Evolution, By Benjamin Kidd. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 348. Price, $2.50.
This is a work marked to a more than usual extent by independence and originality of thought, and one which will set a great many persons thinking on new lines. After a careful perusal of it, however, we are led to doubt whether the author's own conclusions are very well matured. He has caught sight, as he believes, of some important principles hitherto unrecognized, or but imperfectly recognized, in the field of social philosophy, and with the eagerness natural to a discoverer he has communicated them to the world without waiting to determine their exact scope and application. The result is more or less of incoherence and not a little of apparent self-contradiction in what nevertheless is from first to last an interesting and impressive dissertation upon a most important subject.
Mr. Kidd's first chapter deals with The Outlook. He believes the world to be on the eve of great changes. "Social forces,", he says, "new, strange, and altogether immeasurable, have been released among us. . . . The old bonds of society have been loosened; old forces are becoming extinct. . . . The air is full of new battle cries, of the sound of the gathering and marshaling of new forces and the reorganization of old ones." What is the meaning of it all? Science herself, Mr. Kidd tells us, "has obviously no clear perception of the nature of the social evolution we are undergoing." Well, then, who has? If Mr. Kidd, who claims above all things to be pursuing rigorously scientific methods, why should he deny science any share in his work? It seems to us that if Mr. Kidd, as a scientific man, can forecast the future of society, it would be only using words in their usual acceptation to say that "science" has, in a certain measure, solved the problem. Of course, if Mr. Kidd claimed to have a revelation from heaven, that would be a different thing; he claims, on the contrary, to be an out-and-out evolutionist, a Darwinian of the Darwinians, and a Weismannian to boot. He tells us a little further on that "the definition of the laws which have shaped, and are still shaping, the course of progress in human society is the work of Science, no less than it has been her work to discover the laws which have controlled the course of evolution throughout life in all the lower stages." So we have always thought; and we have felt sure that Science, as soon as she gathered and sifted a sufficiency of facts, would ​demonstrate to the world that the one was her sphere quite as much as the other. It should be needless to add that such has been the conviction of all who have had any tincture of social philosophy ever since the early years of the present century, not to go further back.
But without entering too much into criticism we must endeavor briefly to set forth a few of Mr. Kidd's leading ideas. He finds that science is strangely at a loss respecting the meaning and function of systems of religion in man's life and history. Well, of course science has much to learn, else it would not be science, but theology, or some such privileged branch of human knowledge; and, having much to learn, she is as willing to learn from Mr. Kidd as from any one else. Mr. Kidd has reflected deeply on this question of the significance of religious systems, and he finds that their main, if not only, function is to supply the lack of a rational sanction for the conditions of progress. His third chapter has for title There is no Rational Sanction for the Conditions of Progress, by which he means that, when men exercise the self-control or exhibit that regard for the interests of others on which social progress depends, they act foolishly from the individual point of view—their conduct has no rational sanction. Religion, however, steps in and supplies an "ultra-rational" sanction, and the maintenance of that sanction is of such importance to the life of societies that Religion pushes Reason aside and condemns it to a position of inferiority in order that her work may not be interfered with. "There never can be," observes our author, "such a thing as a rational religion"; seeing that "the essential element in all religious beliefs must apparently be the ultrarational sanction which they provide for social conduct." Or, as he puts it, with more precision, "a rational religion is a scientific impossibility, representing from the nature of the case a contradiction in terms." Different civilizations are simply the varying modes or systems of human life that have formed around different types of religious belief. When a religion dies the civilization dies also. It may linger for a while by virtue of the inertia of established forms, but the soul has gone out of it, and it soon falls into decay. Intellect the author speaks of as a "disintegrating principle" tearing asunder the fabrics which instinct has woven; but if we ask what useful function it performs, we do not get from the work before us—which, however, doubtless owes its origin more or less to intellect—any very satisfactory answer. It has had something to do, he seems to admit, with our progress in the arts and sciences; but its services are not acknowledged in any very liberal fashion; nor are we furnished with any indication of the limits which the author thinks should be set to the exercise of the intellect.
The author is emphatic in his assertion that social progress can only be made through the free action of natural selection, and he states that "the avowed aim of socialism is to suspend that personal rivalry and competition of life which not only is now, but has been from the beginning of life, the fundamental impetus behind all progress." One would suppose from this that he had no faith in socialism; and yet, in his chapter on Modern Socialism and elsewhere, he seems to anticipate great and beneficial results from a vast extension of socialistic legislation. The fact is that it is very difficult to fix with any certainty the author's position on many of the questions he discusses. The best chapter in the book, to our mind, is the one entitled Human Evolution not Primarily Intellectual, in which he points out, we think with truth, that "certain qualities, not in themselves intellectual, but which contribute to social efficiency, are apparently of greater importance" than purely intellectual ones in promoting civilization and strengthening the basis of national life. In a word, the race, on the whole, is not to the smart, but to the good, to those whose social instincts are strongest and social habits the best. The whole book is worth reading, but it should be read in a critical spirit, otherwise it will teach quite as much of error as of truth.
General Scott. Great Commanders Series. By General Marcus J. Wright. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 349. Price, $1.50.
Born a few years after the close of the Revolution, and living through the period of the civil war, Winfield Scott was contemporary with nearly all the important military ​events in our country's history. He was a Virginian by birth, of Scotch ancestry. That the belligerent faculty which was afterward so valuable to his country was early developed, is shown in an anecdote of young Scott punishing a bully who was abusing the youth's Quaker teacher. Young Scott entered the legal profession, but in 1807 one of the incidents that foreshadowed the War of 1812 caused him to join a troop of militia cavalry. When a more serious incident occurred a year or two later, Scott received a commission as captain. When war was actually declared, he was made a lieutenant colonel, although being then only twenty-five years of age. General Wright gives a detailed account of the operations of this war, in which Scott won an enviable record for gallantry and a promotion to a generalship. General Scott had gained some experience in Indian fighting during the war with England, and saw more of the same kind of service in the troubles with the Sacs and Foxes, the Seminoles, and the Cherokees. He was sent to South Carolina at the nullification time to act in case of an outbreak. The chief part of General Scott's reputation was made in the round of successes constituting the war with Mexico. The siege and capture of Vera Cruz, the battle of Cerro Gordo, and the operations around the capital city ending in Scott's triumphal entry, are described with gratifying fullness. The rest of the volume is occupied with minor events, including his nominations for the presidency, his honors, travels, administration of various military affairs, his retirement from the chief command of the army at the beginning of the civil war, etc. The various controversies in which a strong will and somewhat choleric disposition involved him are not concealed, and a wealth of anecdote illustrates all sides of his character. A frontispiece, portrait, and several maps illustrate the chronicle.
Aphorisms from the Writings of Herbert Spencer. Selected and arranged by Julia Raymond Gingell. With Portrait. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 166. Price, $1.
"How to live? that is the essential question for us Not how to live in the mere material sense only, but in the widest sense. The general problem which comprehends every special problem is the right ruling of conduct in all directions, under all circumstances." (Education, chap, i.)
This is the first selection in the volume. For many centuries man has been working out the solution of the problem to which it refers, and has made the best progress within the past generation. Just as his empirical knowledge of bodily hygiene has been greatly extended by the discovery of micro-organisms, so has his understanding of right conduct been broadened and systematized by the doctrine of evolution. Miss Gingell has made her book of extracts bear largely upon the management of life. Mr. Spencer being the chief exponent of evolution, the principles of conduct found in his writings are coordinated and unified by that great luminous truth which both lights up the past and enables us to peer into the future. This collection of aphorisms consists of brief, pithy sentences and paragraphs culled from the whole range of Mr. Spencer's writings and grouped under such headings as education, evolution, politics, justice, sympathy, happiness, etc. It has never been any part of Mr. Spencer's plan to prepare material that could be used in this way. The units of his writings are the chapters, and a passage taken out from its context is apt to give a misleading impression when standing alone. Yet Miss Gingell has carried out her undertaking with much tact, and the volume furnishes a sample of Spencer's quality from which readers may decide whether or not they desire to read any of his connected works.
Materials for the Study of Variation, treated with especial regard to discontinuity in the Origin of Species. By W. Bateson, M. A. Cambridge. London: Macmillan & Co., 1894. Pp. 598. Price, $6.50.
The first portion of the above title is printed on the back of the book, and, considered under this title alone, Mr. Bateson has made a most valuable contribution to the study of variation. He has classified the phenomena, so to speak, and given some new and convenient terms to express the kinds of variation. The phenomenon of the repetition of parts he terms merism; numerical and geometrical changes are called meristic ​changes; changes in the constitution or substance he calls substantive variation, and these various changes may be continuous or discontinuous. The word homæosis is substituted for metamorphy—this term being applied to cases such as the eye of a crustacean developing into an antenna, or the petal of a flower into a stamen, etc. He has systematized the sports, freaks, and redundancies of Nature, and has done an amazing amount of hard work in a field to which few have been hitherto attracted. He has also emphasized in the most telling way one of the most important factors in the doctrine of natural selection—namely, variation. As to the author's conception that the discontinuity of species is at all sustained by this evidence, we can not agree. His introductory pages—and there are many of them—are as laborious reading as similar portions of Buckle's History of Civilization. Man's power of apprehension, nowadays, has so far advanced that there is no longer any necessity for iterating and reiterating self-evident propositions.
Demonstrating, as he does, sudden and spontaneous modifications in animals, he assumes, without sufficient proof, that the divergent characters of many species have originated in this way. He asks, May not specific differentiation have resulted from individual variation? The answer to this would be that if these extraordinary jumps are ever perpetuated for a time even, like the double operculum in Buccinum undatum, for example, which he cites, the wildest species-maker has never dreamed of making a separate species of such freaks. They are hardly accounted varieties.
The author says that Lamarck's view points out that living things can in some measure adapt themselves, both structurally and physiologically, to new circumstances, and that in certain cases the adaptability is present in a high degree. He also formulates Darwin's theory as showing the survival of those adapted to the environment. "According to both theories, specific diversity of form is consequent upon diversity of environment, and diversity of environment is thus the ultimate diversity of specific form. Here, then, we meet the difficulty that diverse environments often shade into each other insensibly and form a continuous series, whereas the specific forms of life which are subject to them on the whole form a discontinuous series." We should question this latter statement. We have, for example, the two great provinces of land and water; we have also marked and emphatic divergencies in these larger provinces; the deep, moist canon in an arid plain, the sharp line between light and darkness with their appropriate forms salt and fresh water, with the intermediate brackish water and the paucity of brackish water forms, and these pointing to their evident origin and subsequent adaptation; and rivers flowing through limy and granitic regions, with examples of mud lakes, sand lakes, and salt lakes. Indeed, the zones of demarcation are often so narrow that the varieties due to these selective features struggle almost hopelessly to keep up an existence.
Mr. Bateson seems to think that physical environment is the only selective action in the struggle for existence; but to those who have studied Darwin there are many other features to be taken into account, of which no mention is made. Ignoring the theory of natural selection, but recognizing the prime importance of variation as the essential phenomenon of evolution, he says, "Variation, in fact, is evolution." He overlooks the importance of all other factors upon which the theory of natural selection rests—inheritance, without which the theory would fall; the numerical proportion of individuals remaining the same, without which fact it could not be shown that an infinitely greater number of individuals perish than survive.
These equally important factors are laid aside, and he emphasizes the statement that variation, in fact, is evolution. This is as logical as if one should say evolution could not exist without life, life could not exist without oxygen (omitting certain forms of bacilli), and hence oxygen is evolution.
He repudiates the law of Von Baer, and says "it has been established almost entirely by inference, and it has been demonstrated in scarcely a single instance." Mr. Bateson can not understand why one species of moth differs a little in pattern from another species. He can not understand the utility of small differences which distinguish species. In his regard for species he should be reminded of the large number of species formerly considered good which have merged ​into others as varieties or subvarieties. Many of these species, furthermore, were made by keen observers who devoted their whole time to mailing them, and were adepts at the work, and yet in the light of the studies of Baird, Coues, Allen, Ridgway, Brewer, and others these specific distinctions have been broken down, and many of these formerly well-recognized species are now known as geographical varieties.
His work is filled with a large number of cases of deformation, atrophy, hypertrophy, duplication of parts, etc. Varietal groups are one thing; double-headed monsters, supernumerary digits, etc., are quite another thing, and no one has ever been tempted to look in that direction for new species; indeed, the collector has rarely been inclined to save such freaks, and so Mr. Bateson's book is all the more remarkable for presenting such a large array of material.
After turning the last page we say to ourselves, If such profound structural divergencies can arise, how elastic the organism must be, and how infinite must be the number of minor variations of strength, endurance, color, proclivities, etc., which is all the material the Darwinian demands to sustain the doctrine of natural selection as an all-sufficient cause!
Total Eclipses of the Sun. By Mabel Loomis Todd. Columbian Knowledge Series. Number 1. Edited by Prof. David P. Todd. Boston: Roberts Brothers Pp. 244. Price, $1.
The opening volume of the Columbian Knowledge Series is a remarkably picturesque book. Dealing with those impressive moments, of infrequent occurrence in any one locality, when the face of Nature seems transformed, it appeals strongly to popular interest. Moreover, the fact that these occasions afford rare and precious opportunities for valuable scientific observations makes the subject doubly attractive to all intelligent minds. Mrs. Todd has made excellent use of her opportunities. With rare powers of description she tells how eclipses occur, describes their phenomena, and relates the incidents of various expeditious for observation. A historical sketch of eclipses from the remote past down to 1893 is given. Considerable is told about instruments and photographic appliances used in observing eclipses. A notably interesting feature is a list of future total eclipses of the sun, with a chart showing where they will be visible, and there is a similar list and chart of past eclipses since 1842. The proofs of the book have passed under the scrutiny of Prof. C. A. Young as well as that of Prof. Todd, so that readers need have no fears of inaccuracies. The volume is copiously illustrated and has an index.
Popular Lectures and Addresses. Vol. II. Geology and General Physics. By Sir William Thomson (Baron Kelvin). London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 599.
The volume of Lord Kelvin's Popular Lectures now issued completes the set of three volumes. Among the subjects discussed in the geological papers and addresses are geological time, geological dynamics and climate, the doctrine of uniformity, the internal condition of the earth, and polar icecaps. In one of the addresses delivered before the British Association, Lord Kelvin has discussed the sources of available energy in Nature, designating them briefly as tides, food, fuel, wind, and rain, all but the first of which are derived from the sun. There are also addresses, more general in character, delivered at the opening of the Bangor laboratories, at the unveiling of a statue of Joule, and at three anniversary meetings of the Royal Society.
Public Libraries in America. By William I. Fletcher. Columbian Knowledge Series. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1894. Pp. 169. Illustrated. Price, $1.
Every essential fact regarding the public libraries of America is here told in brief compass by the eminent librarian of Amherst College. The claims of the public library as a means of refined entertainment, as a gainful partner to the school, the workshop, and the studio, as here set forth, are certainly weighty enough for national conviction. To the public-spirited men and women who either wish to improve a library already established, or who desire to found one, Mr. Fletcher's chapters are indispensable. He concisely passes in review the selection of books, their fit housing, and the management of a library, this last task now much lightened for trustees and ​Committees by the library schools at Albany, Brooklyn, and at Amherst, where Mr. Fletcher himself presides. In discussing library foundations our author commends those created by gift, yet he observes that an institution is nearer the popular heart when spontaneously built up and controlled by the community it serves. Basing a forecast upon the recent rapid growth of public libraries, not only in number but in usefulness, Mr. Fletcher expects in the future a still further expansion for them. In this connection a list published last April by the Public Library of Paterson, N. J., is significant. This list presents works on astronomy, selected by Prof. C. A. Young, of Princeton, who appends brief notes to the principal titles. Lists such as this, ampler in range and fuller in annotation, would double the value of every public Library incorporating them in its catalogue. At one pole of education are the teachers of mark who can appraise the working literature of instruction, at the other pole are unnumbered inquiries at library desks who know not what to choose; to bring together the trustworthy guides and the baffled wanderers would mark a new era in popular enlightenment, would Break down another wall dividing those who need from those who have and are willing to give.
Pain, Pleasure and Æsthetics: An Essay concerning the Psychology of Pain and Pleasure. By Henry Rutgers Marhall, M. A. London and New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. xxi-364. Price, $3.
There is a certain smoothness, sobriety, and clearness about this work of Mr. Marshall that appeals with peculiar emphasis alike to the artist and the scientist. At once the æsthetic taste and the spirit of scientific inquiry are in a large measure satisfied. The author, indeed, is open to admit that this is by no means a subordinate aim in the volume under consideration. As is plainly manifest, he comes as a peace-maker between the artistic aspirant who misconceives or deems the teachings of science antagonistic to his favorite pursuit, and the scientific investigator who suspects artistic predilections as either inimical to or in the way of science. Nothing that ministers to the melioration of that harmonious understanding which ought to have obtained where it was lacking, has been kept out of sight, and happily for two great departments of learning, a literary link has been added to the chain of progress. While the work, in its seven tersely written chapters, treats mainly of psychological problems, the undertone, apart from the author's prominent design, is essentially æsthetic in its tendencies, a fact that forms almost imperceptibly a mental meeting ground for scientist and artist. Chiefly, the latter is impelled by an inner and perpetual voice which expressly commands him to act. But he is primarily a listener, an interpreter of high and noble promptings. As such, he can have naught against the "physical discoverer," to whom, as Tyndall has admirably put it, "imagination becomes the mightiest instrument." In turn, the scientist is indebted beyond measure to the genius of art, and gains from it in regions decidedly æsthetic many of the joys of life, which indirectly contribute and betimes directly suggest his boldest flights and most clearly conceived problems.
The book abounds with interesting comparisons grouped within well-defined limitations. With a psychological classification of pleasure and pain, the reader is asked to contemplate the instincts and emotions, the field of æsthetics, the physical basis of pleasure and pain, and algedonic æsthetics. The work as a whole is a general as well as technical survey of comparatively new ground.
The Law of Psychic Phenomena. By Thomson Jay Hudson. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co. Pp. 409. Price, $1.50.
Those who are interested in the outlying parts of the field of psychology will welcome this book. It is a treatise on hypnotism, mental healing, spiritism, telepathy, clairvoyance, and allied subjects, by one who is convinced of the reality of such manifestations and seeks to explain them as caused by natural, though unfamiliar workings of the human mind. The "law" referred to in the title is also described as a working hypothesis which is expected to guide further study of psychic phenomena. It is stated in three propositions: First, "Man has, or appears to have, two minds, each endowed with separate and distinct attributes and powers; each capable, under certain conditions, of independent action. . . . The second proposition is. ​that the subjective mind is constantly amenable to control by suggestion. The third, or subsidiary, proposition is, that the subjective mind is incapable of inductive reasoning." The author proceeds to discuss the various classes of psychic phenomena on the basis of these propositions, especial attention being given to "psycho-therapeutics," or healing by suggestion. He analyzes carefully the results obtained by the prominent investigators of hypnotism, rejecting many of the inferences of certain too enthusiastic hypnotists. He denies that a hypnotic subject can be led into criminal acts by suggestion when the subject would not commit such acts independently. The common principle underlying the healing effect of the faith cure, mind cure. Christian science, etc., is sought for, and a new system of mental therapeutics is then set forth. The author accepts the phenomena of spiritism as realities, but denies that they are produced by the agency of the dead. In the closing chapters the physical manifestations and the spiritual philosophy of Christ are discussed. The book is temperate in tone, and its style is graceful and concise.
Minerva. Jahrbuch der gelehrten Welt (Minerva. Year-Book of the Learned World). Edited by Dr. R. Kukula and K. Trübner. Third Year: 1893-'94. Strasburg, Germany: Karl J. Trübner. Pp. 861.
The compilers profess in this, the third year's issue of their work, to have endeavored to approach still nearer to their purpose, which is defined to be to furnish the most authentic and complete data possible concerning the scientific institutions of the whole world. The accounts of many institutions have been made more complete, and others which were wanting have been added. Of German institutions the more important archives have been revised and a number of libraries not before included; of Austrian, the archives and the university institutes; of French, the provincial libraries, for which last the special services of Ulysses Robert, inspector-general of French libraries and archives, are acknowledged. Other additional and fuller facts have been furnished concerning Scandinavian and Russian institutions by Prof. Lundell, of Upsala. Assistance has been given by Signor Chilovi, of the National Central Library in Florence; Prof. T. E. Holland, of Oxford; Prof. J. E. Sandys, of Cambridge; Prof. Gallie, of Utrecht; Prof Nicholas Murray Butler, of New York; and others in Bucharest and Vienna. Dr. Reinold Rost, of the India Office, London, describes the institutions of India, and Dr. Vallers, of Cairo, the Arabian Academy of that place. The volume contains a list of the institutions arranged geographically; descriptions of technical and agricultural high schools, veterinary schools, academies of forestry, and other independent scientific institutions, libraries, and archives, arranged in alphabetical order; statistics of students attending the institutions; and a personal register. In the United States are described twenty-eight universities and colleges, two technical schools, two theological seminaries, twenty-seven libraries (not college libraries), nineteen independent observatories, four learned societies (in New York and Philadelphia), six museums, and the department institutions in Washington.
The Report for 1892, of the Board of Control of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station notices the improvements that were made in the property of the station, and carries with it, in the reports of the director and others, accounts of the researches that were carried on. These researches, which were also the subject of bulletins, concern the feeding of hens and chickens, black knot on the plum and cherry, spraying with fungicides, analyses of materials used in spraying and the influence of copper compounds in soils on vegetation, analysis of commercial fertilizers, the manufacture of cheese, and diseases of the bean. An address by Director Peter Collier on What is the New York Agricultural Experiment Station doing for the Farmer? is published in the report, and conveys much information concerning the general working of the station and its usefulness.
Dr. Eduard Suess, Professor of Geology at the University of Vienna, published a volume a few years ago on The Future of Gold, in which he tried to show that from geological indications we must expect in the future a scarcity of gold and an abundance of silver, and that the extension of the gold standard to all civilized, states is impossible. ​In 1892 he published a work on the Future of Silver, which, translated by Robert Stein into English, is now printed and circulated by the Finance Committee of the United States Senate. In this essay the author reaches the conclusion that, assuming that the system of metallic coinage continues to exist, silver will become the standard metal of the earth, and that "the question is no longer whether silver will again become a full-value coinage metal over the whole earth, but what are to be the trials through which Europe is to reach that goal."
Charles Denison's Climates of the United States, in colors, already well known in its form in charts, has been revised and condensed in dimensions, and is now published in a convenient little volume by the W. T. Keener Company, Chicago. It gives in maps, with scales of colors graphically showing the intensity of the phenomena in the different regions, the average annual cloudiness, rainfall, temperature, and winds, the elevations of different regions, and the combined atmospheric humidities and seasonal isotherms and wind indications for each of the seasons throughout the whole United States, excepting Alaska.
Dr. Adolf Brodbeck, of Zurich, believes that in his little pamphlet. Die Zehn Gebote der Jesuiten (The Ten Commandments of the Jesuits), the truth about the Jesuits and their relation to Christendom is said for the first time. The authorities on which he relies are the classical writings of the order.
George H. Boehner prefaces an interesting study of the Prehistoric Naval Architecture of the North of Europe (United States National Museum) with a brief notice of Greek and Roman boats, the constructions of the Germans, and such ancient boats as have been found in England. By far the largest part of the paper is devoted to Scandinavian boats, of which a considerable number have been found in the northern countries. This gives opportunity to describe the situations and positions of these boats, their surroundings, and the articles which were found with or near them, so that incidentally much information is conveyed concerning Scandinavian archæology in general.
Christ, the Patron of all Education, is the title of a sermon preached by the Rev. Charles Frederick Hoffmann before St. John's Guild of Hobart College, on the occasion of the commencement of that institution in 1893. It is published, by request of the guild and of members of the college faculty, by E. and J. B. Young & Co., New York. In company with it the same house publishes, also by request, an address delivered by Dr. Hoffmann on the occasion of the laying of the corner stone of St. Stephen's College, Annandale-on-the-Hudson. The subject is The Library of a Divine Child.
The composition of The Study of the Biology of Ferns by the Collodion Method was begun by George F. Atkinson after he had been successful in applying the method in his classes to the preparation of the very delicate tissues of ferns, and especially to the infiltration of prothallia without shrinkage. He started to prepare a simple laboratory guide, giving directions for preparing the various tissues, with a few illustrations, made chiefly from preparations put up by students in their regular work, together with some descriptive matter. Gradually other features were added, and the book grew to its present volume of 1 34 pages, constituting a fairly full technical manual. The first part is descriptive of the life cycle of ferns, their reproductive organs, parts, growth, and functions. The second part relates to methods of preparation and examination. The study is published by Macmillan & Co., New York, at the price of $2.
The Eighteenth Annual Report of the Secretary of the Michigan State Board of Health for 1889-'90, besides the regular matter of official routine in the first part, contains in a second part a number of papers, abstracts, and reports, among which are one on the Principal Meteorological Conditions in Michigan in 1889; one on the Time of Greatest Prevalence of each Disease, being a study of the causes of sickness in the State; and one on Dangerous Communicable Diseases in Michigan in 1889, relating to diphtheria, smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, typhoid fever, whooping-cough, pneumonia, dysentery, glandular hydrophobia, and lump-jaw. Henry B. Baker, Secretary, Lansing.
The Rev. T. W. Webb very useful and convenient work on Celestial Objects for Common Telescopes—a fitting companion for Mr. Serviss's Astronomy with an Opera ​Glass—has been revised and greatly enlarged for the fifth edition by the Rev. T. E. Espin, and is now published by Longmans, Green k Co. in two volumes. Preparatory to beginning his work on the new edition the author invited suggestions from amateurs, obtained advice from the Astronomical and Statistical Society of Toronto, and received assistance from special students of the sun, the moon, the planets, the comets, and meteorites. The original text has been left unaltered as far as possible, and the new matter added is placed in footnotes. The catalogue of Struve has been used as a basis. The objects have been arranged in the order of their right ascensions in the constellations.
The most important event mentioned in the Report of the Harvard Astronomical Observatory for 1893 is the completion of the new fireproof brick building, and the transfer to it of about 13,000 stellar photographs. The entire income of the Paine fund has become available for the use of the observatory. Photographing celestial objects under the Henry Draper memorial continues. The most important object taken is a new star in the constellation Norma, July 10th, which has a spectrum appearing idencal with that of Nova Aurigæ. A higher meteorological station has been established in Peru than even Chachani. It is on the summit of the volcano El Misti, 19,200 feet above the sea. The latest publications of the Annals of the Observatory received by us are Vol. XIX, Part I, Researches on the Zodiacal Light and on a Photographic Determination of the Atmospheric Absorption; Vol. XXV, Comparison of Positions of the Stars between 49º 50' and 55º 10' North Declination, between 1870 and 1884, by W. A. Rogers; Vol. XXIX, Miscellaneous Researches made during the Years 1883-93; Vol. XXX, Part III, Measurements of Cloud Heights and Velocities at Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory, by H. H. Clayton and S. P. Ferguson; Vol. XXXI, Part II, Investigations of the New England Meteorological Society for the year 1891; Vol. XL, Part II, Observations made at the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in the year 1892.
It is only by degrees and with difficulty that the study of natural science has been able to draw away from the domination of older subjects of instruction. The early guides in the experimental method unavoidably retained too much of the character of text-books. In Laboratory Studies in Elementary Chemistry, prepared by Prof. LeRoy C. Cooley (American Book Company, 50 cents), an especial effort has been made to secure purely experimental study, which is something more than verifying statements found in books. Directions for a hundred and fifty experiments are given, and the student is told the object of each, but not what he is expected to see. At the close the application to qualitative analysis of the facts and principles learned is pointed out.
The Problem of Manflight is considered by James Means (W. B. Clarke & Co., Boston, publishers, 1 cents) from the point of view that the solution is to be sought in the principle of the soaring of birds. The author calls attention to the fact that the feat of safely sliding down a long and gentle incline upon an aëroplane has been performed by Otto Lilienthal, of Steglitz, Prussia, and adds that "in order to travel long distances in the air it is only necessary to improve the dirigibility of the aëroplane so that the angle of descent can be brought to a minimum." This can be done by making repeated experiments with very simple and inexpensive mechanical contrivances called soaring machines, these to be dropped from a height. Experiments with machines of this kind should be encouraged, with regattas and large prizes. With machines made automatic in their steering action, flights like Lilienthal's will be no more dangerous than football, quite as interesting, and far less barbarous.
A preliminary study of The Derivation of the Pineal Eye is published by William A. Locey, of Lake Foyest, 111., in the Anatomische Anzeiger, of Jena.
The State Library Bulletin, Legislation, comprises a classified summary of new legislation, with a subject index, which is prepared by entries on cards made as fast as proofs or advance copies of the session laws can be secured. This index is printed at the beginning of each year in order to inform legislators and other State officers what of special value in the subject under consideration in the publications of other States is available in the New York State library. The references in Bulletin No. 4, January, 1894, ​cover the laws enacted in 1893 by thirty-nine States and one Territory. In most cases the laws arc briefly summarized as well as cited, in order to present clearly and concisely material for comparative study of the most recent phases of State legislation on all subjects of general interest. (Published by the University of the State of New York, Albany. Price, 20 cents.)
In a paper on the Prevention of Tuberculosis in Ontario, read before the Ontario Medical Association, Dr. E. Herbert Adams advocates such measures of administration and education as will make sure the total destruction of the products of expectoration, and of the germs of the disease in every other form.
The Journal of Social Science, No. XXXI, January, 1894, includes more than half of the Saratoga papers of 1893. The one occupying the first place, and probably of widest general interest, is the tribute of Mr. Edward B. Merrill to the life and public service of George William Curtis. Other papers are the report of F. B. Sanborn on Socialism and Social Science; a review of recent progress in Medicine and Surgery, by Dr. Frederick Peterson; Compulsory Arbitration, by H. L. Way land, D. D.; three papers in the Finance Department, relating to the silver question, bimetallism, and The Three Factors of Wealth; three papers in the Social Economy Department—two of them relating to Mutual Benefit Societies and the Sweating System; three papers in the Jurisprudence Department; and The Education of Epileptics, by Dr. L. F. Bryson. (Pubhshed by G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, and Damrell & Upham, Boston.)
In planning his First Course in Science, the author, John F. Woodhull, believing that the study of text-books alone can not be classed as work in science, and that illustrative or object teaching can be so classed only in part, has attempted to devise means by which apparatus could be put into the hands of each pupil as early as possible. A text-book, however, is essential, and it is given here in two separate but mutually dependent volumes. One volume contains directions to pupils for performing their experiments, sufficient to prevent aimless work, and yet not so full as to interfere with the inductive method. The other volume, the Text-book, is similar to the ordinary textbook, telling how the experiments should result, giving the pupil a correct form of statement for the conclusions and laws which he has learned in a practical way, and furnishing other information. The experiments are on light. On every right hand page in the Book of Experiments is left a space for the insertion of the pupil's own notes. (Published by Henry Holt & Co., New York. Price of the parts, 50 cents and 65 cents.)
Prof. Max Müller, replying to an accusation that his book on the Science of Thought was thoroughly revolutionary and opposed to all recognized authorities in philosophy, describes it as rather evolutionary, the outcome of that philosophical and historical study of language which began with Leibnitz and has now spread and ramified so as to overshadow nearly all sciences. The fundamental principle of the book is that language and thought are identical, and one can not be without the other. The three lectures on the subject published by the Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago, are regarded by the author as a kind of preface or introduction to the larger work. To these lectures are added in an appendix the correspondence between Prof. Müller and Francis Galton, the Duke of Argyll, George J. Romanes, and others, on Thought without Words. The lectures are sold, bound in paper, for 25 cents.
The papers in the fourth number of Volume II of the Bulletin from the Laboratories of Natural History of the State University of Iowa are technical. Mr. B. Shimek's account of A Botanical Expedition to Nicaragua has a few features of general interest, but the author's mind was too singly fixed upon his collections to permit him to enlarge upon them. Of the other papers, four are upon the slime-molds and other fungi of Nicaragua, Central America, eastern Iowa, and Colorado; two relate to the physiology of the Coleoptera; two, by F. S. Aby, relate to the physiology of the Domestic Cat, and to observations on a case of Leucæmia; and A New Cycad is described by Thomas H. McBride. (Iowa City, Iowa. Price, 50 cents.)
The work described in the Report of the Botanical Department of the New Jersey Agricultural College Experiment Station for 1892 ​relates chiefly to fungous diseases of plants and to weeds. One of the leading diseases investigated has been a serious trouble among beans, producing brown irregular pits on the pods and seeds. This was shown to be due to bacteria. Much attention has been given to fruit diseases and rose troubles; diseases of the violet, nasturtium, and sedum have been studied also. Under the study of weeds the root system has been an objective point. The great size attained by tap roots of some weeds, and the wide extent over which other species may spread under ground, have been shown. The manner in which weeds pass the winter and their agency in propagating fungi have also been looked into.
A thoroughly practical address on Heating and Ventilation of Residences, delivered by James R. Willett to the engineering societies of the University of Illinois, has been printed by the author. Three modes of heating—by hot water, steam, and hot air—are described in it. Mr. Willett tells how to estimate the amount of radiating surface or the sectional area of hot-air pipes required for a house, how to determine the grate area, the sizes of fittings, and the proper location for all parts of a heating apparatus. There are sixteen plates showing plans and elevations of heating apparatus in houses. Further information is given in tables and in cuts in the text.
In the belief that spelling would be learned incidentally from language lessons, the set study of this subject has been largely, discontinued. This belief has proved erroneous in many cases, and a return to the old practice is being made. The renewed demand for spelling books has led to the publication of The Limited Speller, by Henry R. Sanford, Ph. D. (Bardeen, 35 cents), designed to include all the words in common use which are frequently misspelled. The words are arranged in one alphabetical list, the accent is always marked, and the pronunciation is indicated wherever necessary by diacritics or respelling.
With its number for December, 1893, New Occasions began its second volume in a new form and with more pages (Charles H. Kerr & Co., $1 a year). It is edited by B. F. Underwood, and is devoted to social and industrial progress. The enlarged size was made necessary by an arrangement to print in the magazine the lectures of the Brooklyn Ethical Association for the past winter. The December number contains the first of these lectures, on Cosmic Evolution as related to Ethics, by Lewis G. Janes. Dr. Janes asks the question, "Can an ethical science be formulated in harmony with cosmic law sufficiently rational and broad to command the allegiance of all liberal-minded people?" and gives some considerations in favor of an affirmative answer. Other topics treated in this number of the magazine are the pardon system, immigration as affected by the tariff, the Eliot-Lewes marriage, and there are briefer articles under the general head of Occasions and Duties.
Many persons are looking to science for some kind of substitute for religion, and several attempts have been made to satisfy this expectation. Among the latest of these is that made by Dr. Paul Carus and embodied in The Religion of Science (Open Court Publishing Co., 25 and 50 cents). The author's system imitates the form of traditional religion quite closely, while rejecting revelation and anthropomorphism. The religion of science, he says, accepts "Entheism," and he defines this as "the view that regards God as inseparable from the world. He is the eternal in Nature." The authority for conduct in his plan is the system of laws of the universe. Its ethics is the ethics of duty. Its conviction as to immortality is that the soul persists—not as an individual existence—but that it becomes merged in the "soul of mankind." Further resemblances and differences between the new doctrine and the old are set forth in chapters on Mythology and Religion; Christ and the Christians, a Contrast; and The Catholicity of the Religious Spirit.
The Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers, United States Army, 1893, Part I, is occupied mainly with accounts of improvements in rivers and harbors on which work was done in the year ending June 30, 1893. Operations were carried on at many places along the Atlantic coast and the Gulf of Mexico, from the St. Croix River in Maine to the harbor at Brazos Santiago, Texas. The Western rivers, the lake harbors and rivers, and the Pacific coast also received considerable attention. Other work done by the engineer corps concerned the bridging of ​navigable waters of the United States, public works in the District of Columbia and the Yellowstone National Park, etc.
An essay on the History of the Philosophy of Pedagogics, by Charles W. Bennett, LL. D., has been published in book form (Bardeen, 50 cents). It sketches the attempts that have been made during the past four or five centuries to base education upon some one principle. The educational work of the religious reformers, abstract theological education, Jesuitism, Jansenism, pietism, realism, humanism, and deism are passed in review, and freedom of activity is described as the final stage. Portraits of leaders of educational thought, from Erasmus to Froebel, are inserted in the text.
In The Educational Labors of Henry Barnard, by Will S. Monroe (Bardeen, 50 cents), have been chronicled a series of efforts for the uplifting and advancement of education that have seldom been equaled in value. State Superintendent of Education in Connecticut from 1838 to 1842 and 1851 to 1855, holding the same office in Rhode Island from 1842 to 1849, President of the University of Wisconsin, and later of St. John's College at Annapolis, and United States Commissioner of Education from 1867 to 1870, Mr. Barnard has had many and important fields of usefulness. In 1855 he founded the American Journal of Education, of which thirty-one volumes have been issued. Four portraits of Mr. Barnard and a bibliography of his writings are included in the volume.