LAUGEL'S PROBLEMS OF NATURE AND LIFE. 313 



scientific pedantry about him. He comes at once to 

 his subject without parade of preface, and puts what he 

 has to say fairly in front. Whatever be thought of his 

 doctrines, they are at least honestly and clearly pro- 

 nounced. If expressed sometimes too dogmatically, 

 you see that they are really his opinions, and reached 

 by study and earnest thought on the several subjects 

 before him. 



In our review of these volumes we do not think it 

 necessary to follow M. Laugel's course through all the 

 topics with which he deals, but shall rather seek to 

 select such as may best illustrate those methods and at- 

 tainments of physical science which so strikingly cha- 

 racterise the age in which we are living. A summary 

 view of the progress and state of this vast department 

 of human knowledge we gave in an article some twelve 

 years ago. Since that time the steps in advance have 

 been not less gigantic than those we then described ; 

 rendering the present century, still not near its end, 

 the most remarkable in the history of mankind. Happy 

 would it be could we record commensurate change and 

 progress in the moral conditions of human existence, 

 of men and of nations of men ! Such golden age is 

 yet a Utopian dream of the future. The narrative of 

 the year just expired tells nothing of it ; save in the 

 solitary hope that the horrors of warfare, thus aug- 

 mented by the new weapons which science has fur- 

 nished, may check at least, if not annul, the repetition 

 of such calamities to the civilised world. 



The first and second of M. Laugel's volumes, 



