382 Notices of Books. [July,. 
mean, by entitling this essay—The Discovery of a New World 
of Being.” Surely very little more need be said. If the author 
could explain his discovery in a page, why does he talk for 
nearly three hundred? But this is but an additional proof how 
much is needed an essay on the limits of the use of the imagina- 
tion. ‘All the faculties of the mind,” says Mr. Thomson, “ are 
only a series of flashes of the imagination.” What will next be 
foisted upon the imagination, that convenient vantage-ground 
for all that is inexplicable. If the use of the imagination is to 
preclude good logic, and the ordinary courtesies due to the 
reader, there will not long be many in its favour. There is, 
however, some recommendation due to the work; Mr. Thomson 
has a delicate appreciation of the beauties of our religion. 
New Theory of the Figure of the Earth. By Wituiam OcIzsy, 
MAL, Trin. Coll. Camb, F.G.S:, F.Z:S., &c) ondone 
Longmans and Co. 1872. 
Tue author of this brochure presents a new theory of the figure 
of the earth, considered as a solid of revolution, founded upon 
the direct employment of the centrifugal force, instead of the 
common principles of attraction and variable density. Mr. 
Ogilby thinks mathematicians have not yet succeeded in solving 
the problem of the figure of the earth, and that they depend too 
much upon algebraic analysis when reasoning upon physical 
subjects. He says—‘‘It is high time that mathematicians 
should moderate these unwarrantable pretensions (the omnipo- 
tence of analysis to the exclusion of all other modes of philoso- 
phical reasoning), understand that the laws of Nature do not 
depend on the integration of a differential coefficient, or the 
solution of a transcendental equation, and learn that there are 
more secrets in Nature than are comprised in the analytical 
Shibpelediee 2 
dt? 
The purpose is to deprecate the abuse, not the use, of the 
science of mathematics, but ‘‘to employ it, according to the 
recommendation of Bacon, and in imitation of Newton, not as 
the mistress, but as the handmaid, of physics,—not as the 
maker of the laws of Nature, but as their humble interpreter.” 
With this view Mr. Ogilby sets out, making no hypothesis of any 
description, nor requiring other data than those which are fur- 
nished by observation and experience. Starting from the 
admitted phenomenon that the earth is a heterogeneous solid, 
whose mean density, magnitude, and periodic rotation are 
known quantities, the author proceeds to examine the action of 
centrifugal force in producing its present figure, determining 
the law of gravity at its surface, the variation of curvature, the 
length of the terrestrial axis, and the change of local ellipticity 
