608 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



would never know of their existence — if it be supposed that 

 they could have an incorporeal life. There is no escape for 

 the phenomenalist ; he must conclude that, like the material 

 universe itself, the minds and bodies of his friends exist merely 

 in his own consciousness. Phenomenalism must pass over into 

 solipsism, for it can make no provision for the actual existence 

 of other minds and animals. With solipsism comes chaos. 

 Smith is part of Jones, and Jones is part of Smith. The world 

 exists as many times as it has inhabitants, since it is an excerpt 

 from the consciousness of each. The simple fact that he is 

 one of a crowd makes shipwreck of Dr. Merz's phenomenalism, 

 by logically constraining him into solipsism, which, as Prof. 

 C. A. Strong remarks, 1 is " a psychological truism, but an 

 ontological absurdity." 



ROSCOE AND MELDOLA, by Frederick A. Mason, B.A. (Oxon), 

 Ph.D.: on 

 The Right Honourable Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, PC., D.C.L., F.R.S. 



A biographical sketch, by Sir Edward Thorpe, C.B., F.R.S. 

 [Pp. viii + 208, with photogravure frontispiece.] (London : Long- 

 mans, Green & Co., 19 16. Price ^s. 6d. net.) 

 Raphael Meldola, D.Sc., F.R.S. Reminiscences of his worth and work 

 by those who knew him, together with a chronological list of 

 his publications, mdccclxix . . . mdccccxv. Edited by James 

 Marchant; preface by the Right Hon. Lord Moulton, K.C.B., 

 F.R.S. [Pp. xv -I- 225, with photogravure frontispiece.] (London: 

 Williams & Norgate, 1916. Price 55. net.) 



To judge from the effusions of certain modern novelists, one 

 would suppose that Bloomsbury must be populated entirely — ■ 

 or almost entirely — by fortune-stricken heroes and heroines 

 interred there in lodgings or back attics during such times as 

 the authors of their existences are thickening the plot in the 

 intervening chapters of their stories. To such a pass have 

 things indeed come, that one playwright makes his character 

 remark : — " Bloomsbury, my dear — the place you pass through 

 on the way to St. Pancras." " Heavens ! " cries her companion, 

 " I would rather die than live in Bloomsbury ! " 



It comes therefore as something of a relief to find that other 



and more famous persons than the ill-starred victims of a 



novelist's imagination have had their abode in this corner of 



the metropolis. Chemists in particular have a special interest 



1 Why the Mind has a Body, Macmillan Co., New York, 1908. 



