708 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



scriptions given in the text. Illustrations 

 are freely used, and the figures are all drawn 

 with the author's own hand. 



Natural Law in the Business World. By 

 Henry Wood. Boston : Lee & Shep- 

 ard. 18S7. Pp. 211. Price, 75 ceDts. 

 In its way, and so far as it goes, this is 

 an excellent book. It is in no sense origi- 

 nal, the truths it teaches being already fa- 

 milar to students of economics. Indeed, the 

 author makes no claim to originality, but 

 characterizes his work as "an honest effort 

 to trace out the working and application of 

 natural law, as it runs through the eco- 

 nomic and social fabric, in a plain and 

 simple, though, it is hoped, practical man- 

 ner." He speaks of himself as having had 

 only a practical business training, though 

 it is evident that he is familiar with the 

 standard economic writers ; and his literary 

 style, if not so polished as some, is charac- 

 terized by clearness and a certain epigram- 

 matic point which makes some of his ex- 

 pressions very effective. 



Mr. Wood is a thorough disbeliever in 

 social nostrums and in all plans of reform 

 that run counter to natural law. He says : 

 " The ills of our social system, the hardships 

 of labor, and the inequalities of fortune, can 

 not be got rid of by any short-cut route of 

 social revolution or industrial transforma- 

 tion. Circumstances and conditions may 

 change, but principles never. Wealth has 

 always been the natural sequence to indus- 

 try, temperance, and perseverance, and it 

 will always so continue." He calls atten- 

 tion to the fact, so obvious to all thinking 

 men, but so often overlooked or ignored 

 by agitators, that brain-labor is far more 

 important to the world than hand-labor, and 

 consequently that the assertion so often 

 made, that all wealth is the product of man- 

 ual labor, is not true. 



Of course, the author condemns social- 

 ism in unsparing terms ; but he evidently 

 has no fear of its being practically adopted. 

 He is also strongly opposed to labor-unions, 

 and seems to think there is almost no good 

 in them. He declares that "their entire 

 action and effort are in the direction of vainly 

 trying to combat the natural principle of 

 supply and demand " (page 53). He also 

 condemns them because they interfere with 

 the free action of the individual laborer, are 



tyrannous toward non-unionists, and an- 

 tagonistic to capital. In what he says on 

 this subject there is much that is true, and 

 would be profitable for labor agitators to 

 read ; but, like all who take a similar view 

 of the matter, he seems to forget that the 

 labor-unions themselves are a product of 

 natural law just as truly as corporations 

 are, and that they w r ould not have grown up 

 and lasted so long if there were not some 

 solid foundation for them. 



The author has done well to call atten- 

 tion once more to the reign of natural law 

 in economic affairs ; and if his work is not 

 quite satisfactory, it is because he has too 

 much overlooked the reign of moral law in 

 the same field. We can not prosper eco- 

 nomically unless we conform to economic 

 laws ; but neither can we unless we conform 

 to moral laws, so far as these are involved 

 in the production and distribution of wealth. 

 On one point of business morality, indeed, 

 the author speaks out in emphatic language 

 in regard to the conduct of railway direct- 

 ors in speculating in the stock of their 

 roads. His view is that " railroad man- 

 agers control a valuable ti-ust, and, if they 

 profit by their superior knowledge, to the 

 detriment of other stockholders, it is a mor- 

 al wrong, which it seems proper to make a 

 legal offense." If this principle had actu- 

 ally been applied in our industrial history, 

 many of the colossal fortunes now existing 

 in the country would never have been ac- 

 cumulated ; and this shows the importance 

 of moral law in the business world. 



Henry Draper Memorial. First Annual 

 Report of the Photographic Study of 

 Stellar Spectra, conducted at the Har- 

 vard College Observatory. Edward C. 

 Pickering, Director. Cambridge : John 

 Wilson & Son. Pp. 10, with Plates. 



Mrs. Henry Draper, early in 1886, made 

 a liberal provision for carrying on the pho- 

 tographic investigation of stellar spectra at 

 the Harvard College Observatory, as a me- 

 morial to her husband, who did the first 

 work of this kind in 1S72, and continued it 

 with great skill and ingenuity till his death, 

 ten years later. The results of the year's 

 work have been so encouraging, that Mrs. 

 Draper has decided greatly to extend the 

 original plan of work, and have it conducted 

 on a scale suited to its importance. The 



