October 1, 1887.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



283 



be much better employed. The last few exercises on corre- 

 lation, distinctions, synonyms, and references in phrases 

 and words, will severely test the knowledge of not a few 

 teachers. 



D. Mauer's Xew Mode of Geometrical Demonstration 

 (Brown, Abardeen) is ingenious and worthy of a perusal. 



The Commonhealth. By Benjamin Ward Eichardson, 

 M.D.,r.R.S. (London : Longmans, Green, it Co. 1887.) — 

 The extent to which we hold our health — nay, the duration 

 of our very lives — in our own hands is in no way more 

 forcibly iOusti-ated than by the returns of mortality issued 

 by the Registrar-General ; and, to take a simple illustration, 

 the comparison of the death-rate in the metropolis in 1827 

 with that in 1887 can scarcely fail profoundly to astonish 

 any one who makes it for the first time. Dr. Richardson is 

 among the best known of our sanitary reformers, and, if we 

 are sometimes tempted to credit him with an amount of 

 enthusia.sm and optimism not wholly according to know- 

 ledge, no one can dem- or ignore the yeoman's service he has 

 done towards improving the health of his fellow-countrymen. 

 His latest volume, of which the title heads this notice, cor- 

 sists of a collection of essays and addresses, most of which 

 have previously been delivered in public, but one and all of 

 which are well worthy of perusal in their collected form. 

 Very notably is this the case with regard to his " Essays on 

 Education," the cooimon-sense of his remarks on the School 

 Board system commending itself to every one not afflicted 

 with our present Chinese craze for cramming and competitive 

 examination. Dr. Richardson's papers on " Diseases in- 

 cidental to Public Life " ; " Woman as a Sanitary Re- 

 former " ; " Dress in relation to Health " ; and " Cycling as 

 a Health Pursuit " must each appeal to a large circle of 

 readers. That on •' Upper and Lower London," of all those 

 in the volume, appears to us a little too Utopian. 



History of the Boers in South A frica. By George McCall 

 Theal. (London : Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, & Co. 

 1887.) — We have only to read any Parliamentary debate on 

 our South African difficulties during the past few years to 

 be convinced how curiously ignorant Englishmen, as a rule, 

 are of the true history and present condition of affairs in 

 the vast country or countries surrounding our colony at 

 the Cape. We welcome, then, a history of people with 

 whom our relations have been so lai-gely of a hostile 

 character, written by an impartial observer, with neither 

 party ties nor prepossessions to warp his judgment. In fact, 

 it is the rigid impartiality of Mr. Theal's book which con- 

 stitutes its chief value, and imparts to it its highest interest. 

 While he recognises the value of missionary effort, the 

 missionaries themselves, as depicted in his pages, certainly 

 would not seem to be fairly describable in the words of 

 !Malachi, ii. 6 ; while, as for the Boers, many of their 

 utterances, even in public documents, evoke irresistible 

 reminiscences of the exclamation of the Irishman : " Dthrunk 

 or sober, thank the Lord, no one niver gat the thruth out o' 

 me ! " Mr. Theal has made an addition of real value to our 

 knowledge of the existing state of Southern Africa, and a 

 study of his pages might even conceivably enable us to 

 avoid one of the wretched little wars which are imminent 

 wherever civilised and semi-ci\ilised or savage races are 

 conterminous. 



A Misunderstood Miracle. By Rev. A. Sjitthe Palmer, 

 B.A. (London : Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey, «fc Co. 1887.) 

 — Here is a melancholy instance of time wasted and scholar- 

 ship perverted in an attempt to explain the mythical 

 legend in Joshua x. 12-1-t. Verily Mr. Palmer's title 

 is an appropriate one, inasmuch as we can scarcely conceive 

 any much more serious misunderstanding of this story than 

 to regard it as the record of a miracle at all. We wonder 



whether the author of this Uttle book has ever reflected on 

 the impious audacity of supposing that the Infinite Author 

 of the L'niverse would suspend the inexorable laws of 

 Nature in order that one semi-Siivage tribe might the more 

 eff"ectually slaughter another in a valley in a corner of Asia. 

 Presumably Mr. Palmer preaches the doctrine of forgive- 

 ness of our enemies, the while illustrating the justice of 

 the command by the assumption that He who uttered it 

 darkened the very sun in the sky, that He might exter- 

 minate those who oflTended Him I This is playing into the 

 hands of " Saladin" and Company with a vengeance. 



The Temperaments : their Sticdi/ and their Teaching. By 

 Alex. Stewart, F.R.C.S. Edin. (London: Crosby Lock- 

 wood ife Co. 1887.) — Inasmuch as the word " tempera- 

 ment" is often employed in a manner or sense in which it 

 can only be regarded as a solecism, Mr. Stewart, who is 

 clearly an enthusiast on his subject, has set himself rigidly 

 to define the four orthodox " temperaments " (the Sanguine, 

 the Bilious, the Lymphatic, and the Nervous) and their 

 various combinations ; to indicate by what external physical 

 signs their existence may be inferred ; and to show in what 

 manner intellectual capacity and character are modified by 

 them. In a tabular "scheme " of the four simple tempera- 

 ments, our author sets forth in parallel columns the physical 

 and mental characteristics which distinguish them ; and sub- 

 sequently shows how combinations of these temperaments 

 give rise to corresponding changes both in mind and body. 

 Illustrations in support of his contention are derived by 

 Mr. Stewart from various eminent men and women, some 

 of whose portraits appear in the plates bound in with the 

 book. That a large substratum of fict underlies his hypo- 

 thesis can scarcely be doubted ; and assuredly the study of 

 the temperaments must be at once a more profitable and 

 scientific one than an investigation of the vagaries and 

 puerilities of cheiromancy, which is — or has recently been 

 — so fashionable. A good deal of information of an odd 

 and out-of-the-way kind, to say nothing of amusement, may 

 be gathered from the pages before us. The book is beauti- 

 fully printed and got up. 



Outlines of Quantitative Aiuib/sis. By A. Humboldt 

 Sexton. (London : Charles Griffin & Co. 1887.) — In this 

 unpretending little volume Mr. Sexton introduces the 

 student who has familiarised himself more or less with 

 qualitative analysis to the more practically useful and inte- 

 resting methods of analysing both organic and inorganic 

 substances quantitatively. His directions are simple and 

 perspicuous, and his illustrations sufficiently numerous and 

 good. It is well suited to its purpose. 



The Theories oj Anarchy and of Law : A Midnight 

 Debate. By H. B. Brewster. (London: Williams & 

 Norgate. 1887.) — What Goldsmith said of Johnson — that 

 he made his little fishes talk like whales — is applicable, to a 

 considerable extent, to the author of the curious book whose 

 title heads this notice. Certainly Mr. Brewster would have 

 secured more attention and consideration for his views had 

 he cast his dialogue in a somewhat less pedantic and 

 academic form ; for surely no four liring men ever talked 

 for the hour together in the stilted periods and with the 

 scholastic diction of his interlocutors, Ralph, Wilfrid, 

 Lothaire, and Harold. We must refer the reader to the 

 book itself for its author's theory of life and ethics, and 

 leave him, or her, to decide how far the reduction of that 

 theory to practice would conduce to the happiness of man- 

 kind at large. 



Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. By W. Carew 

 Hazlitt. (London : Elliot Stock. 1887.) — All lovers of 

 the innocent pleasures of a garden will revel in Mr. Hazlitt's 

 quaint and curious extracts from forgotten horticultural 



