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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ness of a nation; our present duty in 

 the Philippines is pacification rather 

 than warfare, and in arranging a civil 

 government, Congress has been largely 

 concerned with questions of applied 

 science. The matter next in general in- 

 terest before Congress was the isthmian 

 canal, where legislation has been defi- 

 nitely based on the report of a commit- 

 tee of experts. Nearly of equal impor- 

 tance was the subject of irrigation, 

 where the law enacted and its execu- 

 tion depend entirely on scientific ad- 

 vance. So other important measures, 

 such as the establishment of a perma- 

 nent census bureau, and a large part of 

 the routine conduct of the business of 

 the nation, may be regarded as direct 

 applications of science. It is interest- 

 ing to note that questions which be- 

 long to the more backward political and 

 social sciences did not fare as well as 

 those resting on the natural and exact 

 sciences. There was less agreement as 

 to tariff, subsidies, franchise, currency, 

 etc., and legislation concerning these 

 questions was mostly dropped as post- 

 poned. It seems curious that when 

 legislative and executive work depend 

 so largely on science so few men 

 of scientific training should be found 

 in Congress or in the Cabinet. The re- 

 tiring prime minister of the British 

 Empire has been president of the Brit- 

 ish Association for the Advancement of 

 Science, and it is said that he retires to 

 engage in scientific work; his succes- 

 sor is the author of books in which the 

 fundamental problems of science are 

 treated. In France men of science have 

 taken an active part in government. 

 Here, where the government is more 

 dependent on science than in any 

 other nation, there can scarcely be 

 found a single scientific man in any 

 elective position. Perhaps it is just as 

 well under existing conditions that men 

 of science should not be politicians. 

 We have, however, in fact four main 

 branches of the government— the execu- 

 tive, the legislative, the judiciary and 

 the scientific; and there is reason to 



suppose that the expert or scientific 

 department may at some time be recog- 

 nized as coordinate with the others. 



AN UNFORTUNATE TRANSLATION. 



A translation of Laplace's ' Phil- 

 osophical Essay on Probabilities '* has 

 been issued by Messrs. Wiley and 

 Sons, this being its first appearance, 

 as far as we know, in English. No 

 algebra is used in this essay, its aim 

 being to present the fundamental prin- 

 ciples and the general results of the 

 theory of probability in a simple and 

 popular manner. This aim is at- 

 tained in some portions, especially in 

 those relating to judicial decisions, 

 elections, insurance statistics and 

 annuities. Other discussions, partic- 

 ularly those treating of the adjust- 

 ment of observations and Laplace's 

 method of generating functions, are 

 not clear. In fact the last-mentioned 

 subject is so obscurely presented that 

 Todhunter in his 'History of Prob- 

 ability ' characterizes it as a waste of 

 space, while Langsdorf's German 

 translation devotes eight pages of 

 notes to its elucidation. The present 

 translation, however, has no notes, and 

 the obscurities of the original are 

 often rendered darker yet by render- 

 ings into imperfect English. 



The work of translation has been 

 done by F. W. Truscott and F. L. 

 Emory, of the West Virginia Univer- 

 sity, the former being professor of 

 Germanic languages and the latter 

 professor of mechanics and applied 

 mathematics. A combination of this 

 kind should produce the best results, 

 for the competent linguist will see 

 that idiomatic English is used, while 



* C A Philosophical Essay on Prob- 

 abilities,' b Y Pierre Simon, Marquis de 

 Laplace. Translated from the Sixth 

 French Edition by Frederick Wilson 

 Truscott, Ph.D. (Harv.), and Frederick 

 Lincoln Emory, M.E. (Wor. Poly. 

 Inst.). New York, John Wiley & 

 Sons. 1002. Duodecimo, clotn, Lvo 

 pages. Price, $2.00. 



