fect that he has no means of distinguishing after a certain interval between the literal and metaphorical application of words. With respect to anthropomorphic deities, Mr. Spencer argues that they are ancestors whose qualities are idealized and expanded.
"Ancestor-worship has never before been turned to such advantage in the interpretation of so many facts; and the ease with which the theory works gives it a certain charm. We see no reason, however, why Mr. Spencer should exclude every other cause in the production of early mythologies. The influences he has defined may all act as he describes; but they do not necessarily exhaust the sources of the religion of savages. He is as nearly angry as it is possible for so calm a thinker to be with 'the mythologists,' who represent uncivilized man as mistaking the names given to the forces and objects of Nature for the names of living beings. But surely this is not more strange than the process he himself has expounded, since in both cases the savage ends by finding in the outward world qualities which exist only in his own imagination. If he is unreasoning enough to suppose that the sun is his ancestor because his grandfather was so called, we need feel no surprise at his regarding the sun as alive merely on account of the effects it daily produces; and so of the moon, the dawn, or the wind. Mr. Spencer will not admit that the savage has any tendency to ascribe life to what is inanimate; but children constantly do so, and he insists that children and savages have a strong intellectual resemblance. We are not arguing for the theory which has been so persistently, if not always judiciously, advocated by Mr. Max Müller and Mr. Cox; we only say that within certain limits it may also be true. Religious phenomena are so complicated that it is improbable we shall be able to explain them by the modifications of any single principle.
"In several very interesting chapters Mr. Spencer uses the analogy between societies and organic bodies to illustrate the truth that 'social evolution forms a part of evolution at large.' He then passes to the domestic relations, in connection with which he discusses the many different forms of marriage and of marriage-ceremonies. To persons who believe that man has an intuitive perception of right and wrong in the relations of the sexes there could be no more suggestive study than that of exogamy and endogamy, promiscuity, polyandry, polygyny, and monogamy. Mr. Spencer does not so much argue against the intuitive theory as oppose to it the process by which, as a matter of fact, our present moral conceptions have been produced. This is, indeed, the characteristic of the whole work. Its method is throughout constructive; but for that reason it is much more effective in destroying popular doctrines regarding the origin and growth of many vital ideas than any amount of merely negative argument."
Electricity and the Electric Telegraph. By George B. Prescott. 564 Illustrations. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 978. Price, $5.
In this elaborate volume we have the detailed story of the telegraph, in a form suitable both for the instruction of general readers and for the guidance of those practically engaged in the art. The illustrations are copious and well executed, and all the curious complications of telegraphic mechanism, and the mysterious ways of electricity that are made available to the great end of the rapid transmission of intelligence, are described clearly and fully by the author. Mr. Prescott has been at great pains to bring forward the valuable contributions of foreign nations, especially the Germans, who have done more in telegraphy than they have had credit for, and his work may be commended for its comprehensiveness as well as that thoroughness of treatment which is indispensable to a first-class manual upon the subject.
Lessons in Electricity. At the Royal Institution. By John Tyndall, F. R. S. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 113. Price, $1.
For entering into physics through the experimental gateway, and by the use of simple apparatus, electricity has special advantages. Its experiments are simple, the effects distinct and striking, and the theoretical pathway to principles not difficult to follow, and well suited to exercise the reasoning powers. Dr. Tyndall has there-
