stand. Dr. Smith never paid much attention to the elegances of literature, and cared only to make his statements clear, intelligible, and adapted to the wants of his readers, and, while the pages of this little volume will be found to contain no fine writing, they are filled with compressed and simplified statements of extreme importance in relation to Food, Diet, Clothing, Exercise, Rest and Sleep, Cleanliness and Bathing, Ventilation, Mental Work, the Hygiene of the Senses, Personal Habits and Conduct, Sickroom Management, etc., etc. The volume is freely illustrated, and we know of no hand-book of health that contains within its compass more of the knowledge that should be universally diffused than this. It would be an excellent primary text-book of health for adoption in schools.
The Natural History of Man. By A. De Quatrefages. Translated from the French by Eliza A. Youmans. 12mo. Pp. 152. With Numerous Illustrations. New York: D, Appleton & Co.
POPULAR SCIENCE LIBRARY, NO. II.
This volume contains the substance of a course of lectures delivered to workingmen by A. De Quatrefages, a distinguished Professor of Natural History at the Museum, in Paris, and one of the eminent founders of anthropological science. These lectures have been extensively circulated on the Continent, in different languages; and the translations of several of them, printed in this magazine, were received with such favor as to induce their republication in a connected form. Prof. De Quatrefages is an acute and discriminating observer, and an ardent cultivator of science, but with strong conservative tendencies of thought. At the outset he announces that he shall treat the subject not as a philosopher or a theologian, but in the pure light of natural science.
Contrary to Agassiz, he takes the ground that all men form but a single species, though of different races. He holds that the origin of man must be referred to a date much more remote than has usually been allowed, and that his original locality was confined to a narrow spot in Central Asia. As to the origin of man, Prof. De Quatrefages believes that science is unable to furnish any clew to the mystery, although he insists that, if science cannot say whence man came, it can say positively whence he did not come, and as a teacher of science he opposes the idea that man is a transformed and perfected animal. That the book may fairly represent the present state of opinion upon this subject the arguments on the other side of this question are briefly given in an appendix. As an elementary work upon this subject, these lectures will be found remarkable for clearness and simplicity of statement, felicity of illustration, vivacity of style, and skill in bringing large questions within the range of ordinary apprehension. It is the most admirable popular introduction to the races of mankind that has yet appeared.
Heredity: A Psychological Study of its Phenomena, Laws, Causes, and Consequences. From the French of Th. Ribot, author of "Contemporary English Psychology." New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 393. Price, $2.00.
We cannot be too often reminded that it is the essential character of science to winnow, limit, verify, and extend the ordinary knowledge of mankind. The germs of science are given in common experience, and undergo gradual development, until they take the shape of proved and formulated principles. The subject of the volume before us forms an excellent illustration of this tendency. Heredity, or the transmission of qualities from parents to offspring, has been vaguely recognized as a verity of Nature for thousands of years; but it was at the same time considered so obscure and capricious a thing, that it could never be reduced to law, or become the proper subject-matter of science. But all that is now past. The principles of physiological heredity have been elucidated, and are now so clear and well established that they are brought to the test of every-day practice; and the law is so sure, that the skillful breeder is able to mould his stock in any direction, and to realize almost any ideal of desirable physiological characters.
In the world of mind, also, there has long been an uncertain recognition of the fact of heredity, and the descent of special mental traits in families is within nearly everybody's observation. But it was currently believed that such observations were
