LITERARY NOTICES. 



699 



thus undermined the theoretical foundations 

 of socialism." Prof. Brentano has had ex- 

 ceptional facilities for the study of English 

 trades-unions, having spent several years in 

 the country, with free access to their records 

 and archives ; and he is master of the Eng- 

 lish language, and on familiar terms social- 

 ly with English manufacturers and laborers. 

 He also occupies (at Leipsic) one of the high- 

 est chairs of Political Economy in Europe. 

 At the beginning of the present treatise he 

 lays down, as the three principles which have 

 in turn sought to govern the economic life of 

 the ages, and struggled with each other for 

 the mastery, those of authority, individual- 

 ism, and socialism. Although each of these 

 principles claims absolute correctness and 

 exclusive control, no one of them has ever 

 governed exclusively, nor has any one of 

 them been entirely without effect. It is the 

 task of science and of this book to investi- 

 gate the relations, force, and operation of 

 these principles in life. The conclusion of 

 the whole is that the necessary key-note of 

 our age, as of every epoch of grand progress, 

 is individualism ; but there are minors who 

 need the protecting interference of the state, 

 and for them the control of authority is still 

 a necessity ; but it must not be stretched be- 

 yond what is necessary. It must not be ex- 

 tended to those weak ones who, not isolated, 

 but united, are able to guard their own in- 

 terests. The fundamental principle of the 

 economic order remains the free self-activity 

 of individuals for themselves, and the free 

 road necessary to the talented and the strong 

 for the full development of their powers lies 

 open to all. But the weak united arrive by it 

 to independence, the minors acquire through 

 it the necessary protection by means of legal 

 barriers against abuses of economic superior 

 power. " Wherefore this regulation of the 

 labor relation contradicts the efforts of the 

 feudal socialists who speak of the return of 

 the old control of authority, in order by pre- 

 venting the independence of the members of 

 the lower classes the better to guard their 

 own special interests. Wherefore, it con- 

 tradicts further the demand of the social 

 democrats to set aside all individual and so- 

 cial inequalities. But it corresponds with 

 the ideals which have produced the great 

 transformation of the entire social and po- 

 litical life since the end of the eighteenth 



century," and with the moral and political 

 ideals of the age and with the fundamental 

 principles of the law of to-day. 



Achievements in Engineering. By L. F. 



Vernon-Harcourt. New York : Charles 



Scribner's Sons. Pp. 311, with Plates. 



Price, $1.75. 



The author's purpose in this book has 

 been to describe briefly some of the princi- 

 pal engineering works carried on during the 

 last fifty years, in a style as free as possi- 

 ble from technical phraseology and intelli- 

 gible to the general reader, at the same time 

 introducing details and comparisons that 

 will be interesting to engineers as well. A 

 superabundance rather than a deficiency of 

 material has been met, for the chief engineer- 

 ing triumphs have been accomplished during 

 the last half century, and the variety of adap- 

 tation has been almost endless. The author 

 believes however, that an adequate variety of 

 engineering works of great magnitude, diffi- 

 culty, and importance have been described to 

 justify the view that engineers, in directing 

 the forces of Nature to the use and conveni- 

 ence of man, are among the greatest benefac- 

 tors of mankind. American works are well 

 represented, with descriptions of the New 

 York elevated railways, railways across the 

 Rocky Mountains and the Andes, the Detroit, 

 Iludson, and Sarnia Tunnels, the St. Louis 

 and Brooklyn Bridges, the operations at 

 Hell Gate, the improvement works on the 

 Mississippi, and the Panama and Nicaragua 

 Canals, and many other American works are 

 mentioned in illustration of principles. The 

 list of works abroad described or referred to 

 would be cumbrous to quote. In it all the 

 classes we have mentioned are represented 

 with the grandest achievements of foreign en- 

 gineering. All together, however, are only a 

 few remarkable instances chosen out of a 

 great number of important works which engi- 

 neers have carried on in almost every part of 

 the world. It is impossible, the author adds, 

 within a limited space, " to refer to various 

 other branches of engineering science in 

 which the skill of the engineer has conferred 

 inestimable benefits on the human race. It 

 has been shown how all the works facilitat- 

 ing locomotion on land, and affording access 

 from the sea to ports, and by water-ways to 

 the interior of a country, arc due to the 

 labors of engineers, and how the indispen- 



