1874.} Notices of Books. 403 
ideas. We have seen it somewhere stated that no physician 
who had reached the age of 50, at the time when Harvey made 
public his discovery of the circulation of the blood, could ever be 
induced to give it his recognition. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, 
one of the most original thinkers that America has produced, 
says— New ideas build their nests in young brains; revolutions 
are not made by men in spectacles, as I have heard it remarked ; 
and the whisperings of new truths are not caught by those wha 
begin to feel the need of an ear-trumpet.” 
We have thus far expounded Dr. Beard’s opinions, and we 
fully admit their value. The evidence he has brought forward to 
prove that early life is the season for original work scarcely 
admits of doubt; but we still question whether the development 
and the decline of the various faculties of the human system are 
so strictly synchronous as he maintains. We have known a man 
of powerful frame and active habits, who, in the sixties, had be- 
come quite childish, and ‘‘babbled o’ green fields” in a style 
very unedifying; yet his pedestrian powers were the envy of 
many men on the sunny side of 40. Conversely, our readers 
will doubtless recall cases of men, physically feeble, but yet re- 
taining their memory and their reasoning powers, little, if at all, 
impaired. It seems to us that if any faculty is naturally strong, 
and has been judiciously cultivated, it will preserve its vigour 
after the system in other respects shows manifest symptoms of 
decay. 
Into the application of the doctrines above explained to foren- 
sic medicine and to jurisprudence we do not propose to enter. 
The author raises the questions—‘“ To what extent is the average 
responsibility of men impaired by the change that the mental 
faculties undergo in old age?”’ And—‘* How shall the effects of 
age on the mental faculties be best brought to the attention of 
our courts of justice?”’ That these questions will have to be 
taken into account by the legislation of the future is undeniable. 
The Year-Book of Facts in Science and Art. By Joun Timps. 
London: Lockwood and Co. 
Tuis annual still pursues the even tenour of its way, giving a 
yearly summary of discoveries, inventions, and what are sup- 
posed to be the most important facts connected with science and 
industrial art. The utility of such a work is indisputable, and 
that it meets a recognised want may be inferred from the fac 
that it has regularly appeared for a quarter of a century. We 
cannot, however, but regret that much matter is inserted on 
authority which the scientific public can scarcely recognise. The 
origin of many of the paragraphs and extracts is not stated, 
whilst very many others are drawn from ordinary newspapers, 
English and American. Now the inaccuracy of the scientific 
