LITERARY NOTICES. 



121 



proper object of his book. These papers 

 were written from time to time as results 

 began to come from the " new method," 

 and they are of necessity incomplete. The 

 only object in giving them in their original 

 form is to show exactly Mr. Lockyer's re- 

 lation to the progress of discovery and re- 

 search. But the history of the subject is 

 very well known among all interested in it, 

 and Mr. Lockyer's foremost place in cer- 

 tain branches of it is too well established 

 to need a repetition of the formal proofs. 



To the scientific worker these papers 

 are already accessible in the original, and, 

 for general purposes, they should have 

 been entirely recast, as they are decidedly 

 not in the best form now. 



With regard to the first part of the work 

 we may say that much of it is a repetition 

 of matter which has been thoroughly treated 

 in other books. Some of it consists of ac- 

 counts of eclipse-work which the author 

 himself did, and the story of this is told in 

 a thoroughly good and interesting way. Mr. 

 Lockyer's accounts of the work of others 

 are eminently fair, and exhibit good feeling 

 and entire appreciation. The chapter on 

 Mr. Carrington's researches on solar spots 

 is an example, and the author's account of 

 the discovery of the new method of viewing 

 prominences which was applied by Janssen 

 and himself, though first conceived by Lock- 

 yer, is thoroughly admirable for fairness 

 and candor. 



Part T., however, has more serious de- 

 fects than the final section of the book. It 

 is entirely deficient in judicious arrange- 

 ment, and its perusal can only confuse the 

 ideas of the learner. It is, in fact, a reprint 

 of essays (each of them good in itself and in 

 its place), which Mr. Lockyer, sometimes 

 alone, sometimes in concert with Mr. Bal- 

 four Stewart, contributed to English peri- 

 odicals, and of occasional lectures. 



It abounds in repetitions ; sometimes 

 whole paragraphs, almost pages, are printed 

 at least twice, and the whole seems to show 

 a desire, to speak plainly, to "make a 

 book." 



We must insist that, while it is, ab- 

 stractly, a thing to be grateful for that Mr. 

 Lockyer should give his valuable time to 

 the popular exposition of scientific truths, 

 some of which he has been so fortunate as 



to discover, it is, in the case before us, stil^ 

 a fact that he has added scarcely any thing 

 to the ample information in regard to them 

 which is now accessible, and nothing at aU 

 to his scientific reputation. 



His character as a man seems to be 

 shown, in his account of his relation to 

 other scientific men — his friends — and that 

 is almost the only outcome of this expensive 

 volume, whose principal fault is a want of a 

 sufficient raison d'etre. 



The Martyrdom of Man. By Wi.vwooo 

 Reade. New York: Asa K. Butts & 

 Co. 543 pp. Price, $3.00. 



The reader of this book is long puzzled 

 to discover the fitness of the title to the 

 matter presented for his consideration, nor 

 can he, until, near the end, the author's view 

 is revealed to him, that each generation 

 of mankind, from the conditions of its ex- 

 istence, is subjected to physical persecution 

 — or martyrdom — that the condition of the 

 succeeding generation may be improved. 

 The curi'ent theology is repudiated, and 

 with it the idea of the individual existence 

 of the human soul after death. The idea 

 of a God, impersonal, indefinable, and un- 

 knowable, is, however, retained and strong- 

 ly enforced ; and with it there seems to be 

 connected in the author's mind, though it 

 is not clearly expressed, an idea that the 

 human soul is immortal in the sense of being 

 a materially embodied part of the great ani- 

 mating power of the universe, into which it 

 lapses — losing its individuality — after the 

 death of the body. To expound these 

 views is really the aim of the book, although 

 it ostensibly purports to be a kind of uni- 

 versal history of human progress, written 

 to show the influence of Africa upon civ- 

 ilization. It is divided into four chapters. 

 The first presents a panoramic portrayal of 

 the ancient civilizations of Egypt and the 

 north of Africa, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, 

 their rise, maturity, and decay, and the in- 

 fluence they exercised upon each other. 

 The second chapter deals, after the same 

 manner, with mythology, Judaism, Christi- 

 anity, Mohammedanism. The third traces 

 the progress of Liberty, giving a compara- 

 tively extended account of the origin of the 

 slave-trade and the antislavery movement, 

 and their influence upon American affairs. 



