LITERARY NOTICES. 



701 



that is, stars can be seen at Cordoba, which 

 have less than tour tenths of the light of the 

 faintest of Argelander's stars. There arc 

 10,649 stars visible to the naked eye at 

 Cordoba, and of these 8,198 are given in 

 the catalogue and in the maps of Dr. Gould. 



The work before us consists, first, of a 

 full description of the methods of obser- 

 vation and the stellar phenomena of the 

 southern heavens, and this is followed by 

 a tabulated catalogue of the stars. It is 

 accompanied by a large atlas of fourteen 

 charts, which " gives an exact pictorial rep- 

 resentation of the state of the sky at the 

 epoch of the work. Besides giving a rep- 

 resentation of the isolated stars, the shad- 

 ings and gradations of the milky way are 

 given with the greatest detail from repeated 

 observations and revisions." 



These stellar maps, though South Ameri- 

 can work, are executed with great beauty 

 and perfection. The obstacles in the way 

 of their production were very formidable, 

 and the genius of Dr. Gould is perhaps as 

 much seen in the skill and perseverance 

 with which he overcame them as in the 

 scientific faithfulness of the labor and the 

 artistic finish of the machanical results. 

 The whole of the printing was executed at 

 a distance of 500 miles from Cordova, and 

 the proofs, frequently requiring three and 

 four corrections, had to be passed back- 

 ward and forward with long delay, so 

 that the project, which should have been 

 completed in 1877, actually required two 

 years longer. The quarto volume contain- 

 ing the catalogue is in the Spanish and Eng- 

 lish languages, side by side in double col- 

 umns. 



The production of such a work, of 

 course, involved very heavy expenses, which 

 were liberally met by the Argentine Govern- 

 ment. A few copies have been left on sale 

 with D. Appleton & Co., at a comparatively 

 nominal price, for the use of such observa- 

 tories, libraries, and astronomers as may 

 desire to procure them. 



An Examination of the Law of Per- 

 sonal Rights, to discover the Prin- 

 ciples of the Law. By A. J. Willard. 

 New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1882. 

 Pp. 429. Price, 82.50. 

 This is a work written by a lawyer, and, 



it may be assumed, written mainly for law- 



yers, although it claims to have an interest 

 for a wider circle of readers. There are 

 two great categories of law : those regulari- 

 ties of process in things around, which we 

 call laws of nature and which execute them- 

 selves ; and those rules of conduct laid down 

 by civil authorities as laws of society, and 

 which are executed by the machinery of 

 government. The term law, as thrice used 

 in the title-page cf this book, belongs to the 

 latter category that is, to statutory regula- 

 tions. Now, it has ever been a problem of 

 great interest to find out the relations which 

 these two systems of law sustain to each 

 other, and this seems to be the fundamental 

 question to which Judge Willard has ad- 

 dressed himself in the preparation of this 

 volume. Although, as a discussion of the 

 principles of personal rights, and the gen- 

 eral policy of law in connection therewith, 

 the treatise has practical claims upon the 

 legal profession ; yet its broader interest is 

 to be found in the author's attempt to af- 

 filiate the system of law upon the natural 

 conditions of society. The idea of the law 

 which the work endeavors to bring into view 

 and illustrate, by an examination of the 

 present body of law, is that legal ordinances 

 are but a formulation of those habits of a 

 community that are essential to the continu- 

 ance of social life. Judge Willard repudi- 

 ates the idea, which he holds to be widely 

 entertained, that law is nothing more than 

 a set of merely arbitrary rules. " In every 

 community of men," he says, " the habits 

 of its individuals constitute a general law. 

 These habits have been mainly derived by 

 heredity, modified by various means. Cer- 

 tain tendencies have taken forms more or 

 less developed in their habits, and still con- 

 tinue to operate as modifying causes in the 

 further development of habit. So far as 

 these habits are essential to maintain the 

 social state, and attain its ends, they are 

 imperative, or assume the form of law that 

 is, are embodied in the common will. Be- 

 yond this there must be an authority to 

 select the means of maintaining the society, 

 and the ends it shall pursue, and to prescribe 

 the conduct of individuals in reference to 

 the community and to each other. This is 

 the public law of society. Though recog- 

 nizing that law is a growth, the author is 

 not here concerned with tracing out its 



