LITERARY NOTICES. 



751 



On the religious side, the causes of con- 

 flict pointed out are : " 1. The absorbing 

 claims and responsibilities of the ministerial 

 calling, and the overshadowing weight of 

 great moral themes ; 2. A lingering half- 

 doubt as to the legitimacy of the spirit of 

 universal investigation ; and, 3. A want of 

 sympathy and intercourse with men of sci- 

 entific pursuits." To these is added the 

 want of a proper scientific education on the 

 part of religious students, and to this the 

 writer adds : " One of the last and most 

 important points worthy of especial men- 

 tion, as a cause of difficulty and alienation, 

 is the harsh and captious mode of speech 

 employed by many religious and other crit- 

 ics toward the views of men of science. 

 How freely are such terms as ' infidel,' ' ma- 

 terialist,' ' unbeliever,' etc., applied to men 

 who have really neither made nor intended 

 any unkind allusion to religious men or 

 religious truth, but whose discoveries have 

 led them to the presentation of views which, 

 marlving an advance in scientific concep- 

 tions, involve, perhaps, some changes in 

 the outward form of conceiving certain 

 scriptural statements ! Instead of calm and 

 fearless inquiry, they are met with stern 

 and positive denunciation. Instead of look- 

 ing to see what new and valuable expansion 

 of even our scriptural conceptions may be 

 found, many religious men at once raise the 

 cry of infidelity, and force the unhappy in- 

 vestigator of Nature into a position of hos- 

 tility which he never designed to assume. 

 I myself was never more surprised than on 

 finding the magnificent generalization of the 

 unity and convertibiUty of material forces 

 assailed on charges of this kind." 



The Philosophy of Spiritualism, and the 

 Treatment of Mediomania. Two Lect- 

 ures. By Frederic R. Marvin, M. D. 

 New York : Asa K. Butts & Co. 12mo, 

 63 pp. Price, 81.00. 



The well-known doctrine of the correla- 

 tion and equivalence of forces is here called 

 in to account for the phenomena of spir- 

 itualism. Assuming that thought is the 

 utilization by the brain of a force correla- 

 tive and interchangeable with the other 

 forces of the universe, it follows that the 

 force thus utilized may be converted into 

 other forms of force, and thereby made to 

 move a table, insensibly communicate the 



thoughts of one person to another, and do 

 many other seemingly inexplicable things. 

 In this light a table, dancing over the floor 

 by itself, and spelling out marvelous com- 

 munications, is a very natural performance. 

 It is the result of a train of forces set in 

 motion by the brain of the medium, con- 

 sciously or unconsciously, usually the lat- 

 ter. Thoughts long forgotten by a specta- 

 tor, but still unconsciously present in his 

 mind, may be unconsciously communicated 

 to the medium, and by him revealed. 



Mediomania is regarded as a species of 

 insanity allied to hysteria, chorea, etc. It 

 is produced generally by derangement of 

 the sexual organs. Like other disorders, it 

 is susceptible of treatment and cure. The 

 book is interesting, and its conclusions are 

 in accordance with the existing tendencies 

 of scientific thought. 



Manual of Geology : Treating of the Prin- 

 ciples of the Science, with Special Refer- 

 ence to American Geological History. 

 By James D. Dana. Second edition, with 

 over 1,100 Figures, and a Chart of the 

 World. 828 pages. Price, $5.00. New 

 York : Ivison, Blakeman, Taylor & Co. 

 1874. 



The first edition of this valuable work 

 and standard text-book of American geolo- 

 gy was pubhshed in 1862. It is now re- 

 vised, much extended, and brought down to 

 the present date, by incorporating the re- 

 sults arrived at by the most eminent inves- 

 tigators in various departments, among 

 whom acknowledgments are made to Meek, 

 Marsh, AVorthen, Lesquereux, Hall, New- 

 berry, Winchell, Gilbert, Wheeler, Collett, 

 Knapp, Broadhead, Dawson, Billings, John- 

 son, Yerrill, Hayden, Holmes, Gardner, 

 Hawes, and Bradley. From such a wide 

 range of contributions to so progressive a 

 science as geology, the task of revision was 

 most laborious, but it has been very thor- 

 oughly performed by the author, so that his 

 work stands alone as an exposition of the 

 present state, both of the general science 

 of geology and its American applications. 

 Nor is it merely a resume of the latest 

 facts ; they have all been incorporated into 

 the structure of the work, and, by contrib- 

 uting to the further advancement of the 

 science, they give to the present volume 

 greater unity and completeness than were 



