562 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



knowledge of philosophic truth, and to work 

 for the elevation of the mind from the 

 sphere of the sensuous life into that of 

 virtue and justice, etc. Its members, it 

 will be discerned, are to a large extent 

 students of the Platonic philosophy. The 

 most important paper in the pre^^ent num- 

 ber is by J. B. Turner, and is on " Differ- 

 entiation of Energy as the Basis of Philoso- 

 phy and Religion." Mr. D. A. Wasson dis- 

 cusses the possibility of teaching virtue by 

 verbal precept, with a decided inclination 

 to the negative view. 



A Political Crime. By A. M. Gibson. 

 New York : William S. Gottsberger. 

 Pp. 402. 



This book is further entitled " The His- 

 tory of the Great Fraud," by which is meant 

 the " counting in " of Ilaycs and Wheeler as 

 President and Vice-President of the United 

 States in 1876, when half of the American 

 people believed that the candidates on the 

 opposing ticket had been fairly elected. Its 

 fundamental proposition, embodied in its 

 opening sentence, is that Tilden and Hen- 

 dricks were elected, and " were deprived of 

 their choice by illegal methods, bolstered 

 by frauds, perjuries, and forgeries." The 

 author adds, " The surprising thing is that 

 within less than a decade an almost com- 

 plete revulsion in the opinions of the mi- 

 nority [the Roptiblicans] should have taken 

 place." Mr. Tilden's case is presented in 

 full. The proceedings of the Returning 

 Boards are narrated in detail, and con- 

 spiracy is freely charged against many of 

 the men who figured prominently in the 

 transactions relative to the election. As 

 no election is now pending, the book can 

 not be regarded as a campaign document ; 

 and the author is entitled to the presump- 

 tion that his purpose in preparing it is to 

 preserve what he regards as important facts 

 and materials for history. 



SOMETniXG ABOUT NATURAL GaS : ItS Ad- 



VAXTAGKS, Use, Supply, and Economiks. 

 By George H. Thurston. Pp. 32. 



A PAMPHLET which applies more partic- 

 ularly to the natural gas of Tarentum, near 

 Pittsburg, and which also sets forth the 

 advantage of that place as a manufacturing 

 center. 



A Mortal Antipathy : First Opening of 

 the New Portfolio. By Oliver Wendell 

 Holmes. Boston : Houghton, Milfiin & 

 Co. Pp. S07. Price, ill. 50. 

 A NEW book by Dr. Holmes, redolent of 

 his versatile genius and worthy of his fame. 

 Happy are they who survive to enjoy this 

 ripest product of the author's exquisite 

 thought, for verily, this world has pro- 

 duced but one Dr. Holmes, and verily, veri- 

 ly, there will never be another, no matter 

 how long it takes the solar system to run 

 down ! Great genius is never duplicated in 

 the present economy of things, and the in- 

 dividuality of Dr. Holmes will forever stand 

 alone in the history of creative literature. 

 So let us all thank God for our good for- 

 tune in getting another of his charming and 

 peerless books. 



The contents of the new volume ap- 

 peared as a serial in the " Atlantic Month- 

 ly " last year, under the title of " The New 

 Portfolio." The scientific element which 

 has been so striking and peculiar a charac- 

 teristic of the former writings of Dr. Holmes 

 here appears in the delineation of the ca- 

 reer of a young man who, in infancy, had 

 suffered a nervous disturbance so " sudden, 

 overwhelming, unconquerable, appalling," 

 from the carelessness of a pretty girl, that 

 its effect remained in the system, so that 

 afterward the sight of any young lady 

 caused a repetition of the organic shock 

 and deadly collapse. He was sent to a boys' 

 school, and grew up to manhood the victim 

 of this " mortal antipathy." The develop- 

 ment of the story brings the young man, 

 himself a physician of exquisite traits of 

 mind and character, into such relations as, 

 in the first place, to throw into a clear light 

 all the physiological and medical aspects of 

 the ease, and then, with the most perfect 

 art, the author relates the history of his 

 restoration. The book is of absorbing in- 

 terest, as well from its curious instructive- 

 ness as from the fascination of the story. 



Milk Analysis and Infant Feeding. By 

 Arthur W. Meigs, M. D. Philadel- 

 phia : P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 

 102. Price, $1. 



Du. Meigs publishes this little volume 

 in the hope of contributing something to- 

 ward the solution of the question of the 

 composition of human milk, believing that, 

 Lf some uniformity of opinion could be ar- 



