Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-08-04
BOOK REVIEWS.

James T. White & Co., San Francisco,
have ID. Appleton & Co.'s cheap go cents)
edition of Herbert Spencer's "Data of
Ethics.H We believe in cheap editions of
standard works. In fact the world is under
obligations to the publishers of the age for
the system they have set up of presenting the
best literature of the era in forms which
place it within the reach of the humhlest
We care very little what was tbs aotuating
cause probably it was taat OF gain-no
matter. the world benefits by it just thesame.
We know Of scarcely any modern work which
should be more widely known than the enc
under notice. The reception of the book by
scholars has been such az to make its popular
circulation al the more desirable, Il is
scarcely necessary to speak at length of the
volume itself-that has already been noticed !;
but it is timely to note a few points in pre-
sentiDg the new American edition. The
work does not profess to be system of mo.
raIity. but thu preliminary part of such a
SYSTEM. its aim being to verify and deepen
the scientific foundations Of an ethical
method. Scientific morality, though by many
held to be but one Of the Yagarie5 Of skepsi-
esl times, Is not novel; for. as Spencer
points out, morality is a fact within
the scope of human experience, and
to be reasoned about just like other SUBJ
jects In the introduction to the new edition
the writer holds that the railroads.&c. method
in morals is as old as the classification of &C.
lions into reasonable and unreasonable, pro-
per and improper. It has long been fully re-
cognizsd that ethical rules have basis in the
nature of thipgs, and that tho right and
wrong of human actions is to be determined
by their good and bad consequences. But
this involves the element of cause and effect,
which obviously opens the subject to legiti-
mate scientific inquiry. Moreover, we have
long beard Of moral laws and moral princi.
pies, yet the determination of laws and pin.
ciples is clearly the proper work of science.
That the scientific idea is valid in this sphere
has also been abuudantly attested, even by
theologians who have written treatises upon
moral science" and recognized the gcien-
tifc element of the subject in many ways
Spencsr's study Of ethics as a separate branch
Of science therefore is made IN the light not
only of scientific method, but Of all the other
sciences which will bear upon it. The intro
duction TO the volume contains also Goodwin
Smiths article on Scientific Morality, the
reply of Spencer to Professor Smith, and LIE
~, D
Volume LXV. of the international
Scientific Series, from the press of D. APP
pleton & Co.. New York. is at hand FROM
James T. White & Co.. San Francisco. It
from the pen Of Professor Jolly, the accom-
plished scientist of the faculty of Toulouse.
No more faithful or capable scholar could
have been chosen to treat Of the interesting
subject of the antiquity of the human race.
We have resd Professor Joly's work with
degree Of interest that by no means attaches
to books of this class as q rule, for he has
managed to invest his subject with an earn
estness of interest that the reader cannot fail
to respond to, and at the same time he has
employed simplicity of diction that is pe-
culisrly charming. Ia other words, this vol
ume is one that popularizes itself, and the
populaiization of scientific subjects is al
ways to be desired. The author. in treating
his subject, proceeds upon the theory that
the only trustworthy annals of primitive
humanity are these found in the written
book of Nature, and that therefore to it we
should have recourse in the search for truth
That these annals are very difHult of interpre-
tation he admits, but for that very reason their
study is the mora attractive. He holds that the
question of human origin owes no allegiance
to sdogma, but is a scientific thesis open
to discussion and to be considered from every
point of view. It must, therefore, be capable
of receiving that solution that best tallies
with fact and experimental proof. The pre-
else date Of the appearance of man upon
earth never has been, and probably never
viii be, satisfactorily established, but the
science of archaeology determines an approx
innate date which Jolly declares is certainly
prior to that indicated by any cosmogony.
OF course we cannot proceed with our author
in his considerations of the means by which
this approximate date ia determined They
are those which engage the deepest attention
from the outset, and possess sll the charm of
romance. The conclusion reached is that the
tertiary rocks show unmistakable traces Of
the appearance Of man upon the earth as
early az the miocens and pleiocane epochs,
as well as does the quaternary strata. We
are enabled 10 draw these conclusions, says
the author, although science cannot yet de.
termine the date Of mans advent, that
from the country now known as Picardy,
the ancient inhabitant of Abbeville or
Amiens could pass into Great Britain with
out crossing the Channel. The British
Isles were united to Gaul by an isthmus
which has been since submerged. The level
of thu Baltic and the North Sea was 400 feet
higher than it is at the present day. The
valley of the Somms was not followed TO the
depth it has now attained; Sicily was joined
to Africs, Bsrbsry TO Spain. Carthage, the
pyramids of Egypt, the palaces of Uxmal
oHN oAShpuo HSAS HOS } GU IL CAAoschOOs Gnu
the bold navigators of Tyre and SidOn who
at a later date vera to undertake their peril
Gus voyages along The coasts of Africa, were
yet unborn. What we know with certainty
| ia that European man was contemporsneous
with the extinct species of the quaternary
epoch (elephas primigeaius, rtinoceros ticbOr-
nus, ursus spelaas, feiiS spelosa, etc.,) that he
witnessed the upheaval of the Alps and the
extension of the glaciers in word, that he
lived for thousands of years before the dawn
of the Iemotest historical traditions. It is
even possible that man was the contemporary
of extinct mammslia of species yet more an
cient than those jgst mentioned, that is, of
the elephas meridionalis of the sands of Saint
Prest, or at the least of the elephas antiquus
assumed to be prior to the elephaS primigenios
since their bones are found in company with
carved fints in several English caves, assoc
ciated with those of the rkinoceros boenliteckus
and even OF the nachairodus latidens, which
is of still earlier date"
Through One Administration, is the
title of Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burn ett's last
novel. It is from the press of James r.
Osgood & Co., Boston, and is for sale by w.
A. & G. S. Houghton, Sacramento. The
story deals with Washington life during q