LITERARY NOTICES. 



117 



stand. Dr. Smith never paid much atten- 

 tion to the elegances of literature, and cared 

 only to make his statements clear, intelli- 

 gible, and adapted to the wants of his read- 

 ers, and, while the pages of this little volume 

 will be found to contain no fine writing, they 

 are filled with compressed and simplified 

 statements of extreme importance in rela- 

 tion to Food, Diet, Clothing, Exercise, Rest 

 and Sleep, Cleanliness and Bathing, Venti- 

 lation, Mental Work, the Hygiene of the 

 Senses, Personal Habits and Conduct, Sick- 

 room Management, etc., etc. The volume 

 is freely illustrated, and we know of no 

 hand-book of health that contains within 

 its compass more of the knowledge that 

 should be universally difl'used than this. It 

 would be an excellent primary text-book of 

 health for adoption in schools. 



The Natural History of Man. By A. 

 De Quatrefages. Translated from the 

 French by Eliza A. Yocmans. r2mo. 

 Pp. 152. With Numerous Illustrations. 

 New York : D, Appleton & Co. 



popular science library, no. II. 



This volume contains the substance of a 

 course of lectures delivered to working- 

 men by A. De Quatrefages, a distinguished 

 Professor of Natural History at the Museum, 

 in Paris, and one of the eminent founders 

 of anthropological science. These lectures 

 have been extensively circulated on the 

 Continent, in different languages ; and the 

 translations of several of them, printed in 

 this magazine, were received with such 

 favor as to induce their republication in a 

 connected form. Prof. De Quatrefages is 

 an acute and discriminating observer, and 

 an ardent cultivator of science, but with 

 strong conservative tendencies of thought. 

 At the outset he announces that he shall 

 treat the subject not as a philosopher or a 

 theologian, but in the pure light of natural 

 science. 



Contrary to Agassiz, he takes the 

 ground that all men form but a single 

 species, though of different races. He 

 holds that the origin of man must be re- 

 ferred to a date much more remote than 

 has usually been allowed, and that his origi- 

 nal locality was confined to a narrow spot 

 in Central Asia. As to the origin of man, 

 Prof. De Quatrefages believes that science 

 is unable to furnish any clew to the mys- 



tery, although he insists that, if science 

 cannot say whence man came, it can say 

 positively whence he did not come, and as 

 a teacher of science he opposes the idea 

 that man is a transformed and perfected 

 animal. That the book may fairly repre- 

 sent the present state of opinion upon this 

 subject the arguments on the other side of 

 this question are briefly given in an appen- 

 dix. As an elementary work upon this sub- 

 ject, these lectures will be found remarkable 

 for clearness and simplicity of statement, 

 felicity of illustration, vivacity of style, and 

 skill in bringing large questions within the 

 range of ordinary apprehension. It is the 

 most admirable popular introduction to the 

 races of mankind that has yet appeared. 



Heredity : A Psychological Study of its 

 Phenomena, Laws, Causes, and Conse- 

 quences. From the French of Th. Ri- 

 BOT, author of " Contemporary English 

 Psychology." New York : D. Apple- 

 ton & Co. Pp. 393. Price, $2.00. 



We cannot be too often reminded that it 

 is the essential character of science to win- 

 now, limit, verify, and extend the ordinary 

 knowledge of mankind. The germs of sci- 

 ence are given in common experience, and 

 undergo gradual development, until they 

 take the shape of proved and formulated 

 principles. The subject of the volume be- 

 fore us forms an excellent illustration of 

 this tendency. Heredity, or the transmis- 

 sion of qualities from parents to offspring, 

 has been vaguely recognized as a verity of 

 Nature for thousands of years ; but it was 

 at the same time considered so obscure and 

 capricious a thing, that it could never be 

 reduced to law, or become the proper sub- 

 ject-matter of science. But all that is now 

 past. The principles of physiological her- 

 edity have been elucidated, and are now 

 so clear and well established that they are 

 brought to the test of every-day practice ; 

 and the law is so sure, that the skillful 

 breeder is able to mould his stock in any 

 direction, and to realize almost any ideal 

 of desirable physiological characters. 



In the world of mind, also, there has 

 long been an uncertain recognition of the 

 fact of heredity, and the descent of special 

 mental traits in families is within nearly 

 everybody's observation. But it was cur- 

 rently believed that such observations were 



