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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



stop half-way, and, having taken latitu- 

 dinarian ground in regard to the extent 

 of true religious influences, why should 

 he not complete the work of rational- 

 ization by recognizing the religious ele- 

 ment as a necessary and indestructible 

 part of the constitution of human na- 

 ture ? 



The question of the agencies by 

 which man has been civilized or failed 

 to become so, and which determine his 

 present advancement or retrogression, 

 involves forces which do not belong to 

 an imaginary sphere of mystical ca- 

 price, but to the orderly course of nat- 

 ural things which it is the proper office 

 of Science to explore. The religious 

 agency must submit to this ordeal, and 

 be dispassionately studied in its laws 

 of action in connection with and in 

 the same way as all the other agencies 

 which enter into the great result, and 

 which are just as divinely ordained as 

 that to which theologians are wont to 

 ascribe everything, and of which they 

 claim to be the special guardians. Pres- 

 ident Seelye reechoes the old assump- 

 tion, although in a manner which shows 

 how far his law of decay has already 

 taken effect upon orthodoxy under 

 the liberalizing influence of Science. 

 But if the reader desires to obtain a 

 better idea of the progress that the sci- 

 entific method has really made in its 

 application to the study of civilization, 

 and to contrast its results with those 

 of preceding methods, let him carefully 

 read the opening article of the maga- 

 zine in his hand. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



NoMisMA ; OR, Legal Tender. By Henri 

 Cernuschi. New York : D. Appletou & 

 Co. Price, $1.25. 



This book contains the testimony given 

 by M. Cernuschi, the well-known French bi- 

 metallist, before the United States Monetary 

 Commission in February last, together with 

 several of his essays reprinted from other 

 sources. Although the work of an ardent 



advocate of a double standard, defending 

 his views with ability, the book is not one 

 which would afford much comfort to .he sil- 

 ver party of this country. "We commend 

 it to them for perusal ; they will find well 

 stated the extent of the mischief which 

 would come from the adoption of the double 

 standard by the United States, unless a simi- 

 lar step be taken by all commercial nations. 

 From it also the greenback-men might learn 

 that a prime essential of good money is that 

 its issue be an automatic issue which no one 

 can control something independent of hu- 

 man agency and this, of course, is an attri- 

 bute that paper-money can never possess. 

 As to the merits of a bi-metalhc system, if it 

 could be made universal if the same ratio 

 between gold and silver, and the same mint 

 laws, could be established the world over 

 it is a question upon which a great deal is 

 to be said on both sides, and certainly M. 

 Cernuschi puts his side of the case very 

 strongly. But we cannot help thinking 

 that, practically, it is of about as much im- 

 portance to us as a question of lunar poli- 

 tics. The prospect of England, for exam- 

 ple, abandoning the single gold standard is 

 too remote for this phase of the question to 

 be taken into present account. It is an in- 

 teresting economic speculation, and nothing 

 more. 



It may be added that M. Cernuschi pro- 

 poses to make silver just as good as gold for 

 all purposes of money ; worth just as much. 

 He has, therefore, little in common with our 

 silver-men : they would cease to care about 

 the " dollar of our fathers " if it were made 

 as good as gold ; they want it only because 

 it is worth less, and can be made the means 

 of forcing a composition upon their credit- 

 ors at something less than one hundred 

 cents. 



Scientific Basis of Delusions. By G. M. 

 Beard, M. D. Pp. 47. New York: 

 Putnam's Sons. Price, 50 cents. 



The author, in the introduction to this 

 little work, tells us that it is preliminary to 

 a " work on the Philosophy of Delusions, 

 which will aim to unfold in detail the phe- 

 nomena of the Involuntary Life, including 

 Trance, and to give practical suggestions 

 for the reconstruction of the principles of 

 evidence in their application to history and 



