LITERARY NOTICES. 



415 



men arc failures and not a success, and that 

 they were created but a few years ago, 

 should comprehend the character and place 

 of Jesus in history." In the next chapter 

 the workability of the golden rule is in- 

 quired into, with the conclusion that it is 

 sure to be approximated, but never abso- 

 lutely attained ; in the next, is considered 

 the future of evolution, which "has to do 

 with a fact larger than man, even with life 

 itself " ; in the next, ethics is presented as 

 the aim of evolution. The author next 

 looks for " the self that is higher than our- 

 selves," and finds, not a final cause or God 

 outside of and apart from Nature, but that 

 " the magnificent reign of life and law that 

 is unfolding year by year and age by age is 

 but the pulsating presence of Him who is 

 over all, through all, interpenetrating all." 

 The final chapter relates to " that last ene- 

 my, death," and the question of immortality. 



Three Good Giants, whose Famous Deeds 

 are recorded in the ancient chroni- 

 CLES OF FRANgois Rabelais. By John 

 DiMiTRY. Boston : Ticknor & Co, Pp. 

 246. Price, 81.50. 



Unclean as Rabelais is, and wandering 

 seemingly without method around the sphere 

 of thought and coarse wit, the world has 

 agreed that there abound in him gems of 

 thought worth the having — if some one else 

 will dig them out. Mr. Dimitry finds in his 

 great work, too, three admirable characters, 

 whose lives and adventures constitute a 

 wondrous story ; and this he has dug out, 

 and presents to young readers free from all 

 that is gross, and untrammeled by philo- 

 sophical and other disquisitions that do not 

 help it along; or, as he himself expresses 

 it, has placed the famous trio, Grandgousier, 

 Gargantua, and Pantagruel, " high and dry 

 above the scum which had so long clogged 

 their rare good-fellowship, and which had 

 made men of judgment blind to the genuine 

 worth that was in them." He finds a kind 

 of evolutionary development going on in his 

 heroes as the generation proceeds from 

 grandfather to grandson. To these colossal 

 creatures, he says, " fashioned in ridicule of 

 the old fantastico-chivalric deeds of their 

 age, as they come down more and more from 

 the clouds, are more and more given the 

 feelings common to this earth's creatures. 

 All three bear, from their birth, a sturdy 



human sympathy not natural to their kind, 

 as mediiEval superstition classed it. Two 

 of them, in being brought to the level of 

 humanity, join with this a simple Christian 

 manliness and a childlike faith under all 

 emergencies, not set on their own massive 

 strength, but fixed on God. . . . From 

 Grandgousier, the good-hearted guzzler, 

 through Gargantua, through his heady youth 

 and wise old age, to ' the noble Pantagruel,' 

 the gain in purity and Christian manhood is 

 steady." The justification of this conclu- 

 sion may be sought in the story as the au- 

 thor has picked it out and arranged it. The 

 presentation is most attractive, in bright 

 pages and clear type, with illustrations by 

 Gustave Dore and A. Robida. 



The Relative Proportions of the Steam- 

 Engine. By William Dennis Marks, 

 C. E. Third edition, revised and en- 

 larged. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott 

 Company. Pp. 295. Price, $3. 



In the first edition of this book the au- 

 thor expressed regret at the failure of all 

 writers upon mechanics or the steam-engine 

 to give, in a simple and practical form, rules 

 and formulas for the determination of the 

 relative proportions of the component parts 

 of the engine. In this was the reason for 

 his own effort, the lectures which comprise 

 it having been written with the feeling that 

 a rational and practical method of deter- 

 mination was yet a desideratum in the Eng- 

 lish literature of the subject. In preparing 

 the lectures, he omitted the consideration of 

 such topics as had already been overwrit- 

 ten, and considered only those which seemed 

 not to have received the attention which 

 their importance demanded. The additions 

 made in the third edition are principally 

 concerning the limitations of the expansion 

 of steam. The importance of taking into 

 account the condensation of steam by the 

 walls of the cylinder is insisted upon. Keep- 

 ing this point in view, the author has en- 

 deavored to formulate the hitherto unknown 

 law of condensation inside of the cylinder. 

 He claims to have shown that the wide dif- 

 ferences in experimental results of tests of 

 different types and sizes of engines are not 

 irreconcilable ; and it has been sought by 

 quantitative weighing of results to define 

 the limitations of the various expedients 

 which engineers have made in the effort to 



