Popular Science Monthly/Volume 26/December 1884/Literary Notices
The Relations between Religion and Science. Eight Lectures preached before the University of Oxford in the Year ] 884, on the Foundation of the late Rev. John Bampton, M.A., Canon of Salisbury, by the Right Rev. Lord Bishop of Exeter. New York: Macmillan & Co. Pp. 252. Price, $1.50.
It is now upward of a century since the Rev. John Bampton bequeathed his lands and estates to the authorities of Oxford University, the income of which was to be used forever in paying for a course of eight annual sermons or lectures devoted to the following objects: "To confirm and establish the Christian faith, and to confute all heretics and schismatics; upon the divine authority of the Holy Scriptures; upon the authority of the writings of the primitive fathers, as to the faith and practice of the primitive Church; upon the divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ; upon the divinity of the Holy Ghost; upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as comprehended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds."
If the well-intentioned founder of the celebrated Bampton Lectures could have foreseen what would be the result of a hundred years' experience in confirming the Christian faith and confuting heretics, according to the plan laid down, it is more than doubtful if he would have ventured upon the experiment. Had it been possible for him even to dream as to what sort of lectures his estate would pay for in one hundred and four years, he would have shrunk with horror from the awful result. For, although nothing more earnest or able or wise in defense of Christianity has been given by any of his predecessors than this last series of discussions by Dr. Temple, yet such has been the revolution of theological thought in a century that his book, if it had appeared in 1780, would have been execrated as the rankest conceivable infidelity. And yet, we repeat, no more skillful or powerful defense of fundamental Christian doctrine than these last Bampton Lectures has appeared in a long time. But the issues have been profoundly changed; and theological ground has been abandoned which a hundred years ago was regarded as the most essential part of the Christian faith.
There are of course plenty of living theologians who stick by the old—and the older the better—and with whom the intellectual progress of the last century goes for nothing. But among these the Bishop of Exeter does not belong. He is a liberal-minded, conscientious, and thoroughly trained thinker, who recognizes the tendencies and fully grasps the great results of modern scientific progress, which has opened a new world of truth to the human mind, and altered the point of view from which all the highest questions of human concernment are to be regarded. Instead of deploring the tendencies of advanced inquiry, and dreading the consequences of that deep and unwearying study of nature which characterizes our age, he regards it as something not to be reluctantly accepted, but to be welcomed and rejoiced in as the working out of a great providential dispensation. His lectures are characterized by this lofty and catholic spirit. They are widely contrasted in tone with that theological narrowness which has hitherto marked the controversial work of divines on the questions of the relations of religion and science.
We are here speaking of the temper and quality of Dr. Temple's work as a professed theologian, and not of the logical character of his argument. That will be regarded by many as in various points unsatisfactory. The work is highly instructive, and much important light is thrown on numerous points of controversy. But our chief interest in it is its striking significance in marking the progress of religious liberality. His attitude toward science is thoroughly untheological, using that term in its past and generally accepted sense. Dr. Temple professes his belief in miracles, but he declares that "Science can never, in its character of Science, admit that a miracle has happened." But he holds that all alleged miracles, on some possibly higher view yet to be reached, may disappear as miracles, and be shown conformed to a more enlarged view of the natural order. We may say generally that the force of his reasoning is derived from the present limitations and incompleteness of scientific truth.
It is especially noteworthy that the Lord Bishop of Exeter broadly accepts the doctrine of evolution. But it is not enough to say that he merely accepts it. He maintains that it is not irreligious, that it is not hostile to Christianity; but, on the contrary, is the highest and noblest view of the universe, that it exalts the Divine character, and is, in fact, a great revelation, which among its many grand effects must exert an elevating and ennobling influence upon religious thought. We print a portion of the bishop's argument, which bears upon this question, in the present number of the "Monthly."
Cottages; or, Hints on Economical Building. Compiled and edited by A. W. Brunner, Architect. New York: William T. Comstock. Pp. 54, with Twenty-three Plates.
The plans given in this book are intended to respond to a change which the author conceives to have come within the past few years over our conception of what a country home should be. "Simplicity, elegance, and refinement of design are demanded, and outward display, overloading with cheap ornamentation, is no longer in favor. . . . Now that English gables and dormers have spread so widely; now that we realize the beauty of our own colonial architecture, and that the Queen Anne craze is subsiding so that only its best features remain, the less ambitious dwellings must not be left to the mercy of those builders whose ideas of beauty are limited to scroll-saw brackets and French roofs." The designs are presented to show what can be done with modest means, and have been contributed by different New York architects. They are accompanied by a descriptive letterpress giving practical suggestions for cottage building, and are supplemented by a chapter on heating, ventilation, drainage, etc., by William Paul Gerhard.
Commentaries on Law. By Francis Wharton, LL. D. Philadelphia; Kay & Brother. Pp. 866.
Dr. Wharton, member of the Institute of International Law, is known as the author of several works on jurisprudence which have attained a high repute in the legal profession. The present treatise is a kind of introduction to the general subject of law and its authority, and embraces chapters on "The Nature, the Source, and the History of Law; on International Law, Public and Private; and on Constitutional and Statutory Law." It might be as well, while we are revising our courses of school and college instruction, to make some provision for teaching the people what law really is, and upon what it rests; for there seems to be nothing on which their minds are more at sea, and on which American citizens are more in need of sound instruction. Those who believe that it is anything that Legislatures may enact and interested parties try to evade—and there are apparently many such—will find new light shed upon the subject by the perusal of Dr. Wharton's book. Here the principle is asserted, and illustrated in discussion and citations, that "law as a rule of action is the product of the nation by which it is adopted," the nation not acting intermittingly and at particular times, but developing its statutes in the regular course of its life. "The laws which are really operative, and of which all efficient and enduring statutes are merely declaratory, are emanations rather than efforts; are the products and not the molders of custom; are the instinctive and unconscious outgrowth of the nation, and not the creatures either of a priori political speculation or of arbitrary sovereign decree"; and that not only must law both precede and define sovereignty, but "no law imposed by a sovereign can be permanently operative, unless it is declaratory of existing conditions."
Diseases of the Throat and Nose. By Morell Mackenzie, M. D. Vol. II. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 550. Price, $4.
Aside from the scientific value of its discussions and the adequacy of treatment, there is one feature of this book that deserves unalloyed commendation. "It is now twelve years," says the author, "since this work was commenced, and during that period there is scarcely a page that has not been written and rewritten several times." The treatise is intended to include affections of the pharynx, larynx, trachea, œsophagus, nose, and naso-pharynx. The present volume embraces diseases of the œsophagus, nose, and naso-pharynx, with an index of authors and formulas for topical remedies. Each kind of affection is taken up separately, and subjected to a full treatment in all of its aspects. The author has had an "unrivaled experience" of twenty years' practice in the class of diseases of which he treats; and this, with the conscientious labor he confesses to have put upon it, seems to be all that should be needed to certify it a work of most eminent merit and value.
An Outline of the Future Religion of the World. With a Consideration of the Facts and Doctrines on which it will probably be based. By T. Lloyd Stanley. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 588. Price, $3.
The author assumes that theological criticism having demonstrated the unsound foundations of many of the hitherto received dogmatic beliefs, it is in place to indicate a philosophically sound basis for religious trust in the future. The Hebrew, Vedic, Zoroastrian and Buddhist religious systems are reviewed, in a spirit friendly to all; the Christian system is considered at greater length, as superior to them all, and the conclusion arrived at that the world's religion of the future is destined "to rest mainly on the teaching of Christ, as that teaching becomes separated by criticism from the additions made to it by his disciples and by the early Church, and more fully expounded and understood. The Great Unity, the Unity of Life, physical and spiritual, will be recognized as a prominent feature of the Master's teaching. But the Christianity of the future will be relieved from the incubus of the marvelous and the legendary." This Principle of Life—"that all lives form part of one endlessly progressive Universal Life, culminating in Supreme Mind"—is asserted to be the essential truth of religion, "whose law is declared by the voice of conscience in each heart," and has been expounded as altruism.
Mineral Resources of the United States. By Albert Williams, Jr. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 813.
This is one of the reports of the United States Geological Survey. The statistical department contains a section devoted to each of the economical minerals of the country, of length and fullness proportioned to the importance of the mineral and the magnitude of its commercial production. This is followed by special papers on "The Divining Rod," by R. W. Raymond; "Electrolysis in the Metallurgy of Copper, Lead, Zinc, and other Metals," by C. O. Mailloux; "The Minor Minerals of North Carolina," by W. C. Kerr; "Minor Minerals of the Pacific Coast"; and a table of localities of the useful minerals of the United States,
Education by Doing. By Anna Johnson. New York: E. L. Kellogg & Co. Pp. 109.
The author of this manual is a teacher in the Children's Aid Society schools of this city. Believing that Froebel's discovery of education by occupation is capable of being extended to the public school and adapted to a later age, she has endeavored to show some of the ways and suggest others in which the children may be kept pleasantly and profitably employed. We have in the course exercises with blocks, beans, cards, pins, shoe-pegs, etc., to teach number; similar exercises with appropriate tools to teach weights and measures, form and geography, and color and form; exercises with pictures and cards to teach language; "busy work" to teach reading, writing, spelling, and correct speech; and miscellaneous exercises and "slate-work."
Life and Labor in the Far, Far West. Notes of a Tour in the Western States, British Columbia, Manitoba, and the Northwest Territory. By W. Henry Barneby. London and New York: Cassell & Co. Pp. 432. Price, $2.
Mr. Barneby is a young Englishman, with not much experience in literary work, but a good traveler. With two companions he traveled in 1883 through the regions named, saw much that was new to him, though it might not all be new to older travelers, and enjoyed his trip. He made regular notes of what he saw and sent them to his wife, who set them down in a book. The value of the sketches lies in the unaffected accuracy with which the author's off-hand impressions are recorded. Some suggestive glimpses are given of conditions of frontier life that are being pushed farther and farther away from the States. There is, for instance, the British Columbian justice, who, when he had to preserve order at Cariboo during the gold-fever, did it so well that he was said to spend his leisure hours on Sunday looking out for trees on which to hang criminals on Monday; and there is a story of a photographer in Washington Territory "taking views" of the lynchers hanging some men, and "making quite a pile" by the sale of copies. The descriptions of country and scenery are terse and definite, and something may be gathered from the narrative concerning the economical value of the various districts to which it relates.
Correspondences of the Bible. The Animals. By John Worcester. Boston: Massachusetts New Church Union. Pp. 294.
In the view of the author of this book, "the natural objects of the world about us are images, or manifestations to bodily sense, of the spiritual things in human minds. . . . Every branch of science, with all the particulars of it, is a physical emblem of deeper things than itself; and, if interiorly opened, it presents to our view a corresponding branch of spiritual science, with its particulars. . . Common speech testifies to a general recognition of relationship between animals and human feelings"—as when we emblematically use the names of different animals in describing various human qualities. The traits and peculiarities of all the animals named in the Bible are considered under this aspect.
Geology and Mineral Resources of the James River Valley, Virginia. By J. L. Campbell, LL. D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 119, with Map and Geological Sections.
The object of the author of this report is to lay before the minds of capitalists, immigrants, his fellow-citizens, and others who are interested in Virginia, "a concise yet comprehensive statement of the great extent and variety of available resources within the area under review, which only await capital, enterprise, and labor, to make them productive." The report reveals a great wealth in iron-ores, limestones, and forest products, with manganese, gold, slates, granite, steatite, mica, kaolin, barytes, white-sand, and asbestus, which are doubtless destined to have a large development in the future, and which are brought within reach of the market by means of the Richmond and Alleghany Railroad.
Arithmetical Aids. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. In box.
The "Aids" consist of single counters and strips of ten counters each, and of cards expressing quantities of goods supposed to be sold, and values. The counters are used in solving problems in the four arithmetical rules; the goods-cards furnish stock to the pupil, who is supposed to keep a store; and the value-cards represent money in the hands of the supposed buyer of the goods. By a judicious use of the two kinds of cards, with the addition of such other goods-cards as it may suit the players to devise, all the transactions of store-keeping can be performed. Thus exercises in the learning of business, as well as amusement, may be had out of the Aids. A tract packed in the box explains the use of the Aids, and gives suggestions of other "arithmetical diversions."
A Grammar of the German Language. For High-Schools and Colleges. By H. C. G. Brandt. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 278. Price, $1.50.
This grammar, which is designed both for beginners and advanced students, embodies the results of philological research during the last twenty years, so far as it concerns the German language, and draws from the works of eminent modern writers on the subject. From the brief examination we have been able to give it, it strikes us as a systematic and well-matured work, that can not fail to be useful to those who wish to study the language critically.
A Reader of German Literature. Prepared, with Notes, by W. H. Rosenstengel. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 402. Price, $1.50.
The Reader is intended for students who have mastered a German grammar and an elementary reader, and are at home in using the dictionary. It aims to confine the selections to masterpieces; to give a full representation to modern literature; to add selections from the best and latest works on German history and the history of the civilization and language of the country; and to set forth accurate texts. Biographical sketches arc given of some of the authors, and analyses of the more important works quoted from; and a chronology of German
literature is added. Tableaux de la Révolution Française (Pictures of the French Revolution). Edited, with Notes, by T. F. Crane and S. J. Brun. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, Pp. 311. Price, $1.50.
The object of this volume is to furnish the student with French reading of not a difficult nature, and at the same time to give some insight into the great historical epoch to which it relates. It does not give a continuous history of the Revolution, but a series of sketches, the gaps between which can easily be filled up, and it closes with the end of the Reign of Terror. We are surprised not to find the name of Lamartine among the authors quoted from.
Elements of Analytic Geometry. By Simon Newcomb. New York: Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 356. Price, $1.50.
Professor Newcomb has endeavored to arrange this work so that it shall be adapted both to those who do and to those who do not wish to make a special study of advanced mathematics. Beginning with a summary of the new ideas associated with the use of algebraic language, which the student is to encounter, it gives the usual college course in plane analytic geometry; a part on geometry of three dimensions; and an introduction to the modern projective geometry.
Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution for 1882. Pp. 855. Washington: Government Printing-Office. 1884.
This volume contains reports of the Executive Committee of the Board of Regents and of the Secretary of the Institution, the latter being an extended summary of the work done during the year by the various scientific departments connected with the Institution. It contains also a "Record of Recent Scientific Progress," and numerous anthropological papers, some of which are illustrated, nearly all describing excavations in ancient American mounds.
Mental Contagion in Inebriety. By T. D. Crothers. M. D., Hartford, Conn. Pp. 9.
Public Relief and Private Charity. By Josephine Shaw Lowell. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 111. 40 cents.
Religious Unrest. By M. J. Savage. Boston: George H. Ellis. Pp. 14.
The Late Attacks upon the Coast and Geodetic Survey. Philadelphia: L. R. Hamersley & Co. Pp. 52.
International Health Exhibition. Catalogue of Exhibits of the Department of Education. Empire of Japan. Pp. 80. General Outlines of Education in Japan. Pp. 29. London: William Clowes & Co.
The Ellipticon. By J. L. Naish. New York; John Wiley & Sons. Two-page Chart.
"The Canadian Record of Science." Vol. I. No. 1, Quarterly. Montreal: Dawson Brothers. Pp. 64. $8 for eight numbers.
A Sketch of the Geology of Philadelphia and its Surroundings. By Professor Angelo Heilprin. Pp. 6, with Map.
A Contribution to the Study of Corvza Vasomotoria Periodica, or "Hay-Fever." By John N. Mackenzie, M. D. Pp. 16.
Notes on Injurious Insects. From the Entomological Laboratory of the Michigan Agricultural College. Pp. 31.
Transactions of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty of the State of Maryland. Baltimore, April, 1884. G. Lane Taneyhill, Secretary. Pp. 248.
Protection and Communism. By William Rathbone. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 42. 10 cents.
Home School for Physical Culture. D. L. Dowd, 19 East Fourteenth Street, New York. Pp. 24.
Microscopic Observations on Internal Parasites In Fowls and on Butter and Fats. By Thomas Taylor, M. D. Washington: Department of Agriculture. Pp. 7.
Sponge Spicules; A Supposed New Species of Cristatelia. By Edward Potts, Philadelphia. Pp. 12, with Plate.
The Azoic System and its Proposed Subdivisions. By J. D. Whitney and M. E. Wadsworth, Cambridge Museum of Comparative Zoölogy. Pp. 200.
National Educational Association, Department of Superintendence, February, 1884. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 176.
Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Department, Quarterly Report to June 80, 1884. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 160.
The Effect of Wind-Currents on Rainfall. By G. E. Curtis, Signal Corps, U. S. Army. Washington: Signal-Office. Pp. 11.
Finley's Tornado Predictions. By G. K. Gilbert. Detroit, Mich.: W. II. Burr & Co. Pp. 8.
The Miners Fund of New Almaden. By Samuel B. Christy, Berkeley, Cal. Pp. 8.
American Society of Civil Engineers. Address of President J. D. Whittemore. Pp. 18.
How to Study. By Professor S. T. Skidmore, Philadelphia. Pp. 16.
Suggestions for computing the Speed of Chemical Reactions. By Robert B. Warder, North Bend, Ohio. Pp. 4.
Emblematic Mounds. By Stephen B. Peet. Pp. 68.
Sex in Mind and in Education. By Henry Maudsley, M. D. Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 30. 10 cents.
Bulletin of the Bussey Institution, Harvard University. Boston: John Allyn. Pp. 120. 75 cents.
Papers on American Grasses. By Dr. George Vasey and Clifford Richardson. Washington: U. S. Department of Agriculture. Pp. 144, with 120 Plates.
Ottawa Field Naturalists' Club. Transactions, No. 5. Ottawa, Can.: Citizen Printing and Publishing Company. Pp. 152.
Catalogue of North American Hepatiæ. By Lucien M. Underwood. Peoria, Ill.: J. W. Franks & Sons. Pp. 138.
The Human Body, and how to take Care of it. By James Johonnot and Eugene Bouton. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 102. 50 cents. Book of Cats and Dogs and other Friends. By James Johonnot. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 96 20 cents.
A Compend of Geology. By Joseph Le Conte New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 399. $1.50.
Forestry of the Ural Mountains. Compiled by John Croumbie Brown. Edinburgh: Oliver & Boyd; Montreal: Dawson Brothers. Pp. 182.
Occult Science in India and among the Ancients. By Louis Jacolliot. New York: John W. Lovell & Co. Pp. 275.
Icaria: A Chapter in the History of Communism. By Albert Shaw, Ph.D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 219. $l.
My Farm at Edgewood. By the author of "Reveries of a Bachelor." New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 339. $1.25.
Country Cousins. By Ernest Ingersoll. New York: Harper & Brothers. Pp. 252.
U. S. Life-Saving Service. Report for 1883. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 519.
There was once a Man. By R. H. Newell. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert. Pp. 520. $1.50.
An Appeal to Cæsar. By Albion W. Tourgee. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert. Pp. 422. $1.
Black and White. By T. Thomas Fortune. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert. Pp. 310. $1.
The Physician's Visiting List for 1885. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co.
The Northern Sugar Industry during the Season of 1883. By H. W. Wiley. Pp. 120, with 11 Charts. Composition of American Wheat and Corn. Second report by Clifford Richardson. Pp. 98. Washington: Department of Agriculture, Bureau of Chemistry.
Popular Fallacies regarding Precious-Metal Ore-Deposits. By Albert Williams, Jr. Pp. 16.
Comprehensive Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene. By John C. Cutter, M.D. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co. Pp. 376. $1.
The Eclectic Physiology. By Eli F. Brown, M.D. Cincinnati and New York: Van Antwerp, Bragg &, Co. Pp. 180.
A Thousand Questions on American History. Syracuse, N.Y.: C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 247.
Bread-Making, By T. N. T. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 64. 50 cents.
The Lock-Jaw of Infants. By J. F. Hartigan, M.D. New York: Bermingham & Co. Pp. 123.
Outlines of Roman Law. By William C. Morey, Ph.D. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 433. $1.75.
Report of the Commissioner of Education. 1882-'83. Washington: Government Printing-Office. Pp. 872.
Magneto-and Dvnamo-Electric Machines. By Dr. H. Schellen. New York: D. Van Nostrand. Pp. 518.
Our Birds and their Haunts. By the Rev. J. Hibbert Langille. Boston: S. E. Cassino & Co. Pp. 624.
A Migration Legend of the Creek Indians. By Albert S. Gatschet. Vol. I. Philadelphia: D. G. Brinton. Pp. 251.
A System of Psychology. By Daniel Greenleaf Thompson. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Two vols. Pp. 613 and 589. 30s.
The Destiny of Man viewed in the Light of his Origin. By John Fisk. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. Pp. 121. $1.
Thomas Carlyle: A History of his Life in London, 1834-1881. By James Anthony Froude. M.A. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. 1884. Pp. 417. $1.50.