240 



NATURE 



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\_yan. 24, 1878 



Prof. Monier Williams might not accept this view, but we 

 recommend his book as at once a scholarly and a practical 

 exposition of Hinduism, in a cheap and popular form. 



Mr. Rhys Davids has done his work well, but with a 

 difference, in his little volume on Buddhism. He has 

 rightly separated the facts (so far as we can ascertain 

 them) of the history of the founder from the modern legends 

 regarding him. He gives a careful and interesting nar- 

 rative of the life, explains the doctrines which Gautama 

 Buddha taught, and the system of morals which was sub- 

 sequently based upon his precepts and example. Nothing 

 could be better than some of the passages which bear 

 upon the aspects of Buddhism in Ceylon, China, and 

 Tibet. But it is to be regretted that the plan of the work 

 permitted of so little space for its influence upon the 

 mediaeval forms of Indian ritual and belief. One of the 

 most interesting pictures which we possess of a struggle 

 between two great faiths is to be found in Hiouen 

 Thsang's itinerary through India in the seventh century. 

 The narratives of the Chinese travellers form, indeed, the 

 first historical evidence of eye-witnesses with regard to 

 Indian manners and beliefs. They supply a key to the 

 subsequent religious developments among the Hindus, 

 and well merit a fuller notice. Another point of deep 

 interest on which Mr. Rhys Davids' volume is, perhaps 

 necessarily, silent, refers to the industrial aspects of 

 Buddhism. It is well known that architecture in India 

 began with the requirements of Buddhism, and that those 

 requirements profoundly affected its whole subsequent 

 history. Moreover, the Buddhist monks were not only 

 missionaries ; they were artists, or at any rate artisans, 

 who carried a new civilisation as well as a new faith to 

 the Asiatic races. Thus it was a Buddhist monk of Corean 

 ancestry who, between 662 and 672 a.d,, published the 

 secret of making translucent pottery in Japan. The ritual 

 of Buddhism stamped its influence on the characteristic 

 national industry both of Japan and China ; and as late 

 as 1 2 12 we hear of a celebrated Japanese potter, accom- 

 panied by a Buddhist monk, going on a mission to the 

 mainland to acquire the deeper mysteries of ceramic art. 

 The vast number of Buddhist records did much to develop 

 the art of writing, while the circumstance that its theology 

 centres around a single human life, gave a biographical 

 and historical impulse to the nations who adopted it, 

 which is unknown among the followers of the older 

 Brahmanical faith. Mr. Rhys Davids' book is silent on 

 these points. But it is only just to him to add that he 

 has managed to compress a vast amount of thought and 

 information, of a kind perhaps more important from the 

 Society's point of view, into his 250 pages. 



Mr. Stobart's Islam is conceived in a less philosophical 

 spirit. *' Light and darkness," he says, " are not more 

 opposed than the loving doctrines of the Gospel and the 

 vengeful spirit of the Koran." " Darkness and retro- 

 gression are engraved on every page of the Preserved 

 Book." This is his conclusion of the whole matter, but 

 it fails to explain the secret of one of the great his- 

 torical movements which has deeply influenced man- 

 kind. Scraps of piety are scattered throughout the book, 

 sometimes with a curious effect. Here is Mr. Stobart's 

 conception as to how a chapter on the Ancestry of Ma- 

 homet should begin : — " We have the assurance that 

 Noah was * a perfect man and walked with God' (Gen. 



vii. 9) ; and as a ' preacher of righteousness ' (2nd Peter, 

 ii., 5), having with his sons been witness of the flood, 

 handed down to his posterity the worship of the True 

 God." Further quotation is unsuitable. Mr. Stobart's 

 book will supply a convenient but misleading com- 

 pendium for those who wish to know a little about the 

 subject. It reproduces the bigotry which disfigured Sir 

 William Muir's " Life of Mahomet," on which it is chiefly 

 based, without the scholarship which rendered that 

 Indian civilian's four volumes the standard English work 

 on Islam. 



OUR BOOR SHELF 



Physical Chemistry. By N. N. Lubavin. Part II. 8vo. 

 460 pp. (Russian). (St. Petersburg, 1877.) 



We are glad to notice the appearance of the second 

 and last part of M. Lubavin's most valuable work, 

 which is devoted to the most important depart- 

 ments of physical chemistry. In this part the author 

 deals with chemical reactions in general and dis- 

 cusses under this head some of the various theories 

 advanced as to the distinctive characters of chemical 

 processes ; the stechiometrical laws of Dalton, Gay- 

 Lussac, Faraday, Dulong and Petit, &c., all figures 

 relative to these laws being given in a tabular form ; 

 chemical combinations, i.e., the formation of compounds 

 by heat, light, and electricity, and under the influence of 

 other bodies ; the development of energy during chemical 

 processes, this chapter containing nineteen very useful 

 tables ; changes of properties of bodies when entering 

 into chemical combinations ; the decomposition of bodies 

 by heat, electricity, and light ; mutual decomposition ; 

 and chemical isomerism. Under each of these heads we 

 find a considerable amount of most valuable information, 

 skilfully selected from the already immense literature of 

 that subject, and always giving the last results of recent 

 investigations. The work will be thus of a great value 

 for the student, giving in one volume of 800 pages of 

 compact print a reliable and often very complete exposi 

 of the results reached by science in this most important 

 department. 



/ Elemeyitary Theorems Relating to the Geomet>y of a Space 

 of Three Dimensions, and of Uniform Positive Cur- 

 vaiuj-e in the Fojcrth Dimension. By Simon Newcomb. 

 (From the Journal fir Mathematik, Band Ixxxiii., 

 Heft 4, 1877.) 



This is an interesting contribution to the subject treated 

 of by Riemann, Helmholtz, and others, and in this country 

 by Prof. Clifiord. The question is considered from the 

 standpoint of elementary geometry instead of by the 

 analytic method which has been commonly employed by 

 writers on non- Euclidian Geometry. 



Qnatre Modeles, representant des Surfaces developpables, 



avec des Renseignements stir la Construction des Modeles, 



et sur les Singularites quHls representent. Par V. 



Malthe-Bruun et C. Crone ; avec Quelques Remarques 



sur les Surfaces developpables et sur l Utilite des 



Modeles. Par M. le Dr. H. G. Zeuthen. (Copenhaguc, 



1877.) 



In the third edition of Salmon's " Geometry of Three 



Dimensions" there is (p. 289) a description of a simple way 



of making a model of a developable surface, aitributed 



by Prof. Cayley to Mr. Blackburn. This suggested to Dr. 



Zeuthen the idea of drawing on the same model curves 



having contact of different orders with the edge of 



regression {l'are,te de rebrousse-ment) and of constructing 



new models of a very elementary nature, showing the 



principal singularities of developable surfaces. 



Full accounts are given in a pamphlet (15 pp.) and direc- 



