LITERARY NOTICES. 



62-) 



cause there are natural laws of society, 

 laws of social condition, social action, 

 and social change, and because human 

 societies are parts of the general order 

 of Nature ; and that science must sim- 

 ply consist in the elucidation and expo- 

 sition of these laws. So far from be- 

 ing of an isolated nature, which can be 

 considered alone, social science is in- 

 timately and vitally dependent upon 

 other sciences, and the proper prepara- 

 tion for it must consist in a knowledge 

 of these, and a thorough discipline in 

 scientific methods of thinking. The 

 student must be steeped in science, as he 

 is now steeped in classics. To thrust 

 social science into the old traditional 

 curriculum to charge the minds of 

 students with Latin and Greek litera- 

 ture, as a preparation for it is, there- 

 fore, to say the least, irrational. Agree- 

 ing with the writer in the Christian 

 Union as to the extreme importance 

 of these studies, and the need of giving 

 them a larger place in the collegiate 

 scheme, we go yet further, and de- 

 mand a reconstruction of the curricu- 

 lum itself, and an adequate prelimina- 

 ry course of scientific study which 

 shall be tributary to the end proposed. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Michael Faraday. Bv I. H. Gladstone, Ph. 

 D., F. R. S. New York: Macmillan & 

 Co. 



Whatever is truly great has an interest 

 that is inexhaustible. Again and again we 

 return to the mountain, the cataract, the 

 cathedral, the picture, the poem, with an 

 ever-deepening appreciation of their influ- 

 ence over us. And so it is even in a more 

 eminent degree with the grand in human 

 character, for a human life of noble impulse 

 and heroic achievement has also its peren- 

 nial interest. We read the story as told by 

 the skilful and sympathetic biographer, and 

 then come back to it again fascinated by 

 the majesty and the mystery of a powerful 

 personality. Michael Faraday was a man 

 of this heroic type, great among his coun- 

 trymen, illustrious in humanity. Prof. Tyn- 



dall has given us a vivid portraiture of him 

 as a man of science and a discoverer ; Dr. 

 Bence Jones, in two elaborate volumes, has 

 displayed to us his inner life as illustrated 

 in his private correspondence ; and now 

 Dr. Gladstone, in the neat little volume be- 

 fore us, has again told the Avonderful story 

 in a fresh and fascinating way. Drawing 

 freely upon the works of Professors Tyndall 

 and Jones, adding new information from 

 various sources, among which are his own 

 reminiscences, he ha3 make a book that 

 needed to be made and which is a model of 

 its kind clear, simple, discriminating, and 

 appreciative. It first gives us the " Story of 

 his Life," next the " Study of his Charac- 

 ter," then the " Fruits of his Experience," 

 again, his "Method of Working," and 

 finally the "Value of his Discoveries." 



We have no space here to give a sketch 

 of Faraday's life his humble birth and the 

 little education he got in early boyhood at 

 a common day-school his first occupation 

 as an errand-boy his apprenticeship to a 

 book-binder his thirst for knowledge and 

 how he commenced his scientific education 

 by reading the books that were given him 

 to bind his passion for experimenting his 

 application to Sir Humphrey Davy for a 

 chance to devote himself to science his 

 entrance to the Royal Institution, which was 

 to be the theatre of his career his rapid 

 ascent to an eminent place among savants 

 and philosophers his rejection of wealth 

 and titles, and his brilliant career as a dis- 

 coverer, which was crowned by honors 

 showered upon him by the learned societies 

 of all nations for the account of these 

 things the reader is referred to the pages of 

 Dr. Gladstone's book. But we cannot for- 

 bear quoting a few passages illustrative of 

 Dr. Faraday's character. The author says: 



As a source of success there stands 

 out also his enthusiasm. A new fact seemed 

 to charge him with an energy that gleamed 

 from his eyes and quivered through his 

 limbs, and, as by induction, charged for 

 the time those in his presence with the same 

 vigor of interest. Pliicker, of Bonn, was 

 showing him one da}', in the laboratory at 

 Albermarle Street, his experiments on the 

 action of a magnet on the electric discharge 

 in vacuum-tubes. Faraday danced round 

 them ; and, as he saw the moving arches of 

 light, he cried, " Oh ! to live always in it ! " 

 Mr. James Heywood once met him in the 

 thick of a tremendous storm at Eastbourne, 



