REVIEWS 185 



and system, as the facts of magnetism and gravitation. This would not of itself 

 exclude the spiritualist explanation ; but in the proportion that his faith in the 

 universe as rational is firm and abiding, he will hesitate before a hypothesis which 

 gives such a depressing and unattractive picture of life after death, and which 

 looks upon the souls of the departed as actively competing for attention with the 

 fraudulent medium, and unable to provide us with any certain criterion to dis- 

 tinguish between them. Our own opinion is that to many who were previously in 

 doubt and perhaps inclined to the spiritualist hypothesis, Raymond will bring an 

 absolutely settled conviction that, whatever may be the real explanation of these 

 phenomena, they have at any rate no connection with a future life or with the 

 spirits of the departed. And as the true explanation of any phenomena is nearly 

 always more wonderful and beautiful than the false hypotheses which preceded it 

 and which it dethrones, so we may trust it will be in this case. Surely, if one did 

 indeed rise from the dead and speak to us earthly men of his life behind the veil, 

 he would tell us something, not fashioned after the vain imaginings of spiritualist 

 or theosophist, but something utterly unexpected, yet so simple and probable, so 

 convincing and compelling, that we should accept it at once, without doubt or 

 hesitation, in virtue of its revealing self-evidence. 



W. Arnison Slater. 



BOOKS RECEIVED 



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Differential Calculus. By H. B. Phillips, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Mathe- 

 matics iin the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. New York : John 

 Wiley & Sons ; London : Chapman & Hall, 1916. (Pp. v 4- 162.) Price 

 5-r. 6d. net. 



X-Rays. By G. W. C. Kaye, M.A., D.Sc, Capt. R.E. (T.), Head of the Radium 

 and X-Ray Department at the National Physical Laboratory. Second Edition, 

 with Illustrations. London : Longmans, Green & Co., 39, Paternoster Row, 

 1917. (Pp. xxi + 285.) Price gs. net. 



An Introduction to the Use of Generalised Co-ordinates in Mechanics and Physics. 

 By William Elwood Byerly, Perkins Professor of Mathematics Emeritus in 

 Harvard University. London : Ginn & Co., and Boston, New York, and 

 Chicago. (Pp. vii + 118.) Price $s. 6d. 



Ozone : Its Manufacture, Properties, and Uses. By A. Vosmaer, Ph.D., Chemical 

 and Electrical Engineer, Member of the American Institute of Electrical 

 Engineers, Member of the Iron and Steel Institute (London). London : 

 Constable & Co., 10, Orange Street, Leicester Square, W.C., 1916. (Pp. xii + 

 197.) Price 10s. 6d. net. 



Annual Chemical Directory of the United States. Editor, B. F. Lovelace. Balti- 

 more, U.S.A. : Williams & Wilkins Company. (Pp. 305.) Price $5. 



Some Main Lines of Advance in the Domain of Modern Analytical Chemistry. 

 A Lecture delivered before the Chemical Society on March 15, 1916, by A. 

 Chaston Chapman. From the Transactions of the Chemical Society, 1917. 

 Vol. III. (Pp. 203-20.) 



Proceedings of the Yorkshire Geological Society. Vol. XIX. Part III. with 17 

 plates. Edited by W. Lower Carter, M.A., F.G.S. Issued March 1917. 



(Pp- 75-253-) 



