LITERARY NOTICES. 



849 



system, and their poisonous action often 

 brings on a fever similar to typhoid. The 

 organism is poisoned by its own products. 

 Repose brings cessation of painful frictions 

 of nerve-fibers and shocks of muscle-fibers, 

 and allows time for the elimination of waste 

 products and the repair of the tissues. The 

 construction and action of the bodily organs 

 become so modified by training that they can 

 do more work without fatigue than before. 

 Dr. Lagrange classifies exercises as those of 

 strength, of speed, and of endurance. Be- 

 fore passing to the general effects of exer- 

 cise, he tells what groups of muscles are 

 brought into action in the common exercises. 

 Exercise produces salutary effects, he says, 

 alike in those who assimilate too little and 

 in those who do not dissimilate enough. 

 The enlargement of the chest cavity is one 

 of the most beneficial results of exercise, 

 and many suppose that it can be best secured 

 by the use of the arms, but Dr. Lagrange 

 argues that exercises of the legs are most 

 effective in expanding the lungs, because the 

 legs can do more work than the arms, and 

 thus create a greater respiratory need. The 

 author then points out how some popular 

 exercises cause deformity, and names others 

 which do not have this tendency. It has 

 been found that brain-work, like muscular 

 exertion, is attended by a greater flow of 

 blood to the working organ, an increase of 

 heat, more vigorous combustion, and hence 

 increased formation of waste materials. 

 Mental overwork, also, leads to feverish 

 states, which must be attributed to the ac- 

 cumulation of products of combustion, as in 

 the case of physical overwork. Now, while 

 the muscles are the immediate agents in 

 bodily movements, the exciting cause of the 

 movements is the will. In executing a diffi- 

 cult feat much brain-work is demanded in 

 order to co-ordinate the muscles employed, 

 and, if the brain is already overworked, the 

 author concludes, such an additional mental 

 task is injurious. Hence, for persons suffer- 

 ing from mental overwork, exercises which 

 can be performed automatically should be 

 prescribed, rather than exercises of skill. 

 The volume furnishes practical information 

 which will enable the reader to so regulate 

 the amount and kind of his exercise as to 

 benefit and not injure himself. Its style is 

 simple, and the reader is led along by such 

 vol. xxxvi. 54 



easy steps that the course of the exposition 

 can be readily followed. This latest addi- 

 tion to the International Scientific Series 

 ranks with the best of its companions in im- 

 portance and general interest. 



The Continuous Creation. An Application 

 of the Evolutionary Philosophy to 

 the Christian Religion. By Muyron 

 Adams. Boston and New York : Hough- 

 ton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 259. Price, 

 $1.50. 



The author of this work, who is pastor 

 of a Congregational church in Rochester, 

 N. Y., believes that the " inevitable revolu- 

 tion which Matthew Arnold declares is be- 

 falling the religion in which we have been 

 brought up, is part of that evolution by 

 which God continues the higher processes of 

 creation." He conceives the possibility of 

 thinking under the principle of evolution and 

 at the same time as a Christian believer, and 

 believes that before long it will be found 

 impossible to think clearly in any other way. 

 The book is the outcome of a course of Sun- 

 day evening lectures which he delivered to 

 his congregation on evolution and its re- 

 lation to religion. A key to the central 

 thought of the work may be found in a com- 

 parison, in the second chapter, between the 

 former and more recent theories of creation. 

 "According to the old story of creation, 

 which was based upon no facts, but only 

 upon a misinterpretation of revelation, God 

 made man at one stroke, not as a sculptor 

 makes a statue, not as an inventor makes a 

 machine, but as the magician makes his 

 prodigy. Accordingly, God is no constant 

 and necessary factor of creation, but is a 

 being who may be dispensed with, except 

 for occasional irruptions into our region of 

 space to perform wonders. Now r , in place 

 of such a conception, evolution offers a far 

 nobler one ; and produces an array of facts, 

 ever increasing in bulk and significance, to 

 substantiate it. The process of change 

 which goes on generation after generation, 

 and age upon age, is creation. The Creator 

 does not act as a magician, suddenly, as by 

 mere impulse, but as the steady, eternal en- 

 ergy, and ever according to that purpose 

 which we begin to consider." Again, in the 

 chapter on " The Idea of God " : " When we 

 are told that evolution abolishes God, or 

 renders him superfluous, we see, on the con- 



