June 15, 1883.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



3G1 



It is pleasing to find something like justice rendered to 

 the greatest philosopher of the age, the much misunder- 

 stood teacher of the best, the most reasonable, and the 

 happiest system of moral philosophy. It is indeed singular — 

 though it ought not to bo so — to find the atheist (whom, 

 however, I take to be an almost imaginary being) met with 

 weapons drawn from the armoury of one whom foolish folk 

 regard as the chief of atheists. Those who call thenisidvcs 

 atheists, and imagine that they are so, are usefully reminded 

 here that if Herbert Spencer has shown theistic views to 

 be inconceivable, so also has he shown those views to be 

 inconceival>k- which have been opposed to them. An 

 infinite universe is inconceivable ; but the idea of boundaries 

 beyond which there is neither occupied nor unoccupied 

 space is not inconceivable only, but unthinkable. Eternity 

 is inconceivable ; a beginning or end of time is unthink- 

 able. In like manner, no mind can conceive the idea of 

 Diety ; yet to reject the idea is akin to insanity. ' 



Dr. Cotterill's \ iews about other worlds are interesting. 

 He accepts as reasonable the intermediate theory to which 

 I was led — or rather forced— while writing my little book, 

 " Other Worlds than Ours " ; but he thinks that this 

 theory may be held, while yet we may believe that at this 

 present time our earth is the only inhabited world — or, at 

 least, the only world inhabited by reasoning beings. Thi.s 

 is doubtless possible, however unlikely. The reasons, how- 

 ever, which have led Dr. Cotterill to try to maintain this 

 opinion are not scientific, but depend on that particular 

 form of religious belief which is his. 



The book is carefully and thouijhtfully written — evi- 

 dently after careful study of some of the best modern 

 authorities. 



THE HEAVENLY BODIES.* 



A BOOK so largely made up of extracts as to show rather 

 what the author has read than what he thinks — though he 

 evidently thinks wrongly on a great number of the subjects 

 he has here dealt with. If his mistakes were limited to 

 his own opinions, little harm would be done ; but, misun- 

 derstanding what others have written, he assigns wrong 

 opinions to them, and so does them injustice. Thus, he 

 remarks that " ilr. Proctor, in his work on the Moon, 

 shows that supposing the moon had an atmosphere equal 

 to our own, it would, under the small attractive power of 

 tlie body, extend to a height of twenty-two miles," whicli 

 is absurd. We also learn that Mr. Proctor "supposes the 

 gas corresponding to the line D,, in the solar spectrum, is 

 a form of hydrogen, diftering from the ordinary forms of 

 that gas as known to us," which, if we know anything of 

 Mr. Proctor"s opinions, he does not at all suppose. So 

 with other writers. Then he mixes up his authorities in 

 a way which must be particularly unpleasant to actual 

 students of science. In company with Huggins and Secchi, 

 he quotes the idiocies of Jlr. Knapp about the perihelion 

 passages of the planets. Instead of Young or Langley, 

 Secchi, Faye, or Huggins, he takes as his )uost trustworthy 

 authority on the sun, one who has blundered more about 

 the sun and sun-surrounding space than any one now 

 living. 



It will be readily inferred how much weight is to be 

 attached to the opinion of ilr. Miller, that this earth is 

 the only inhabited world — the question to which all his 

 quotations, and such reasoning as he advances, are directed. 



* " The Heavenlv Bodies j their Nature and Habitability." By 

 William Miller, S.S.C. (London : Hodder & Stonghton.) 



THE COMMERCIAL PHODUCTS OF THE SEA.* 



IX the authors preface to the first edition of this work, 

 we are informed that it is, in effect, a collection of his 

 papers from the Art Journal and his serial publications, 

 the raison d'etre of which was to supply a handy volume, 

 uniform with his other works, on an important subject, 

 which had hitherto remained unrepresented, by a compact 

 and easily accessible form. 



That he has admirably fulfilled his promises may be 

 gathered from even a passing glance at the pages now 

 before us, especially with regard to items of statistical 

 and economic value, which form one of the principal 

 features of the entire volume, and fully warrant its happy 

 title, " The Commercial Products of the Sea." We must 

 congratulate the author on the success which has attended 

 his eflbrts ; success which has induced his publishers to 

 issue a new edition, with the hope that it may prove useful 

 to those concerned with the increasing " interest excited 

 by the International Fisheries Exhibition," and we feel 

 assured that, although such interest often proves but 

 evanescent, the intrinsic value of the work will assert its 

 independence, and find a fitting place on the shelves of 

 every student of commercial economy and natural history 

 who is made aware of its existence. 



In plan the work is well arranged. The general intro- 

 duction opens with a brief discourse upon the importance 

 of marine products, the uses of animals, etc., and the only 

 objection we can make with regard to this is, that the 

 biological terminology adopted is somewhat loosely dis- 

 played, and is not always accurate. As an example of 

 this we may give one quotation from pp. 2, 3, where the 

 author says : — 



The animals aro among the mightiest and among the smallest. 

 There aro swimming beasts, as whales, seals, and walruses ; there 

 are fishes of various kinds and sizes, crustaceans, soft or jolly 

 fishes, the molluscs, down to those creatures resembling live plants 

 — the zoophytes or corallines, which partake of the qualities of 

 plant, animal, and mammal. 



Here the molluscs, instead of being placed in immediate 

 descending series after the fishes, are made to separate the 

 jelly fishes from their relatives the zoophytes. Again, the 

 term " corallines " is used in its obsolete sense to signify 

 the I'ohjzoa, whose affinities with the molluscs on the one 

 hand, and the worms on the other, are entirely disregarded 

 when they are linked with the zoophytes, which are 

 strangely said to " partake of the qualities of plant, animal, 

 and matninal" whereas the biologi.st now understands by the 

 term " corralines " a genus of calcareous sea-weeds belong- 

 ing to the Floride.ce, 



The rest of the introduction is excellent in the statistical 

 and other data which it furnishes. We would, however, 

 have liked to have seen a little more concerning the fisheries 

 of India, which are here dispatched in a couple of lines, eked 

 out by a short stanza from Milton. We urge this because 

 the records of Indian fisheries are far from scanty, and are 

 most readily accessible, t 



There is yet another suggestion which we would offer in 

 this place. Although it may be argued in justification of 

 the plan adopted, that it is a prevalent custom in English 

 literature iwt to note the sources of the information which 

 has been collated, it is a fact to be deplored rather than 



* "The Commercial Products of the Sea; or, Marine Contri- 

 butions to Food, Industry, and Art." By P. L. Simmonds. New 

 and Cheaper Edition, with Thirty-two Illustrations. 8vo, pp. 4S4. 

 (London: Griffith & Farran, St. Paul's-churchyard. 1883.) 



t Sec Dr. Francis Day's Introduction, Official Catalogue, Inter- 

 national Fisheries Exhibition, London, 1883, 1st edition, pp. 260 

 et sequentes. 



