LITERARY NOTICES. 



559 



chapters the practical details of the various 

 problems of domestic sanitation are discussed 

 from the standpoint of personal experience. 



The author advocates, in the twelfth chap- 

 ter, the advantages of inhumation over cre- 

 mation, because the former is cheaper, sim- 

 pler, and quicker, and it is productive, not 

 destructive. 



The thirteenth chapter gives a brief bi- 

 ography of Nicolas Thomas Bremontier, and 

 describes his successful efforts in the recla- 

 mation of the sand wastes of Gascony. 



There is a great deal of sound common 

 sense in this volume, and the advice it gives 

 can not but be of advantage to every house- 

 holder. 



The Meaning and the Method of Life. A 

 Search for Religion in Biology. By 

 George M. Gould, A. M., M. D. New 

 York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1893. Pp. 

 297. Price, $1.75. 



It would seem that the anagram that 

 some schoolman of the middle ages made of 

 Pontius Pilate's question. Quid est vei-itas? 

 (What is truth ?) the letters being ingeniously 

 transposed into Est vir qui adest (It is the 

 man who is before you), anticipated the fun- 

 damental fact of Dr. Gould's philosophy. For 

 as in the life of Him that was tried by Pilate 

 is to be found an explanation of life's mean- 

 ing and a suggestion of its method, so in all 

 living matter does Dr. Gould find an evidence 

 of the Deity. He says, " It is plam that a 

 practically omnipresent, invisible, living, in- 

 telligent force is operating in and through 

 every living thing." He does not consider 

 that the inorganic world shows any hint of 

 design or of divinity. In the word Biologos 

 he would connate the purpose, wisdom, and 

 intelligence instinct in every living thing, 

 and his philosophy takes no heed of un- 

 known power and possibility. This is a wide 

 step beyond agnosticism, that the author 

 considers an unmanly resignation and despair 

 after a first defeat, and yet beyond monism 

 that he says is muddleism, or pantheism that 

 ignores the dead material, or materialism 

 that ignores the living worker. Rather than 

 an infinite there is a finite creative bemg, 

 aiming at the highest, encouraging all that 

 is good, and while combating the bad still 

 often baffled because of the refractoriness of 

 material laws. 



The world may be considered as a letter 

 direct from the Father's own hand, advising 

 us, telling us of himself, and urging us to 

 hasten our return to him. During the long 

 journey we read it over and over again, de- 

 lighted at the kindness it witnesses, and the 

 beautiful suggestions it gives of his thought- 

 fulness and wisdom and lovableness. 



The author's creed is that the extension 

 and perfection of healthy life over the globe 

 are the plainest aim and the most primary 

 work of Biologos. Whatever aids in that is 

 right and whatever opposes it is wrong. 



Many will not, can not accept Dr. Gould's 

 conclusions, but all must be impressed by his 

 earnestness that finds expression in such sen- 

 timents : " Dazzled and dazed the scientific 

 mind is at present like the aphakic, suddenly 

 brought to see, but not recognizing or know- 

 ing what he sees. It still sees men as trees 

 walking, and does not know that what it sees 

 is at last the benignant and beckoning God 

 himself." 



A Dictionary of Birds. By Alfred New- 

 ton, assisted by Hans Gadow. With 

 Contributions from Richard Lydekker, 

 Charles S. Roy, and Robert W. Shu- 

 feldt, M. D. Part I (A to Ga) and II 

 (Ga to Moa). London : Adam and Charles 

 Black ; New York : Macmillan & Co. 

 Pp. 304. Price, $2.60 each. 



This work is founded on a series of arti- 

 cles contributed to the ninth edition of the 

 Encyclopaedia Britannica, modified so as to 

 make them more continuous so far as al- 

 phabetical arrangement will admit, and sup- 

 plemented by the intercalation of a much 

 greater number. Of the additional articles 

 the most important, chiefly anatomical, are 

 furnished by Dr. Gadow. Dr. Shufeldt, of 

 Washington, who is well known to our read- 

 ers by his contributions to the Monthly, has 

 also furnished valuable aid. In the choice 

 of subjects for additional articles the author 

 has aimed to supply information which he 

 knows, from inquiries made of him, is 

 greatly needed. Hence he has had regard 

 to names found in books of travel and other 

 works, which no dictionary will explain. 

 But there are other names, compounded 

 (mostly of late years) by writers on orni- 

 thology, which have not come, and are not 

 likely to come, into general use ; and these 

 are left out, for " these clumsy inventions 



