SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 413 



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SPECIAL BOOKS. 



Under the able editorship of Sir Henry E. Roscoe the Century Science 

 series continues to afford popular biographies of the leading European 

 scientists of the nineteenth century, written by those who are to-day filling 

 the places of their departed masters.* The life of Lyell was a steady and 

 comfortable progress in knowledge and fame. He did not have congenital 

 poverty or other serious obstacle to contend with, and his talents were high 

 enough and his opportunities broad enough to insure his efforts a rich 

 reward. The English universities had little of science to give in the second 

 decade of the present century, so that Lyell's training in geology was 

 picked up from outside sources in vacations and during his few years of 

 not very arduous practice of the law. Prof. Bonney gives us a vivid sense 

 of the paralyzing influence which was still exerted upon geology and all 

 other branches of science in Lyell's early life by the supposed necessity for 

 making all discoveries in the realm of Nature conform to the language of 

 the Scriptures. Lyell was always in the van of the advanced thinkers in his 

 chosen field, and apparently maintained this position without open rupture 

 with the theologians. In describing his epoch-making work, the Principles 

 of Geology, Prof. Bonney says, "It proved the writer to be not only a 

 careful observer and a reasoner of exceptional inductive power, but also a 

 man of general culture and a master of his mother tongue." Doubtless his 

 literary ability joined with a happy endowment of tact enabled him to con- 

 tribute greatly to the scientific revolution which culminated in Darwin, 

 without being pilloried as Darwin was. Most of the events of Lyell's life 

 are given in chronological order, but the author departs from this plan to 

 give in one chapter a connected history of the eleven editions of the Prin- 

 ciples that appeared in Lyell's lifetime. That he was a scientist of a high 

 order is shown by the fact that he was able to change his opinion on an 

 important question late in life, namely, the origin of species, when such 

 evidence as Darwin presented was brought to bear upon it. This conduct 

 caused Darwin to write, " Considering his age, his former views, and posi- 

 tion in society, I think his action has been heroic"; and Prof. Bonney 

 estimates as perhaps a greater service than any of his contributions to 

 knowledge the constant readiness of Lyell to learn from others, and the 

 manifestation of a judicial mind raised far above all partisanship and pride 

 of opinion. 



It needs but a glance at the finely cut features and long, high-vaulted 

 cranium represented in the portrait of James Clerk Maxwell to show that 

 his biographer has to record the life and labors of a genius. No one but a 

 genius could have united Maxwell's mathematical penetration with his 

 poetical ability, and the fact that his intellect was not well rounded on all 

 sides is also characteristic of genius. His chief defects were a weakness in 

 analysis and an inability to bring his teaching down to the level of the 



* Charles Lyell and Modern Geology. By Prof. T. G. Bonney. Pp. 224, 12mo. James Clerk 

 Maxwell and Modern Physics. By R. T. Glazebrook, P. R. S. Pp. 221, 12mo. London : Cassell & 

 Co., Ltd. New York : Macmillan & Co. Price, $1.25 each. 



