12 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



[July 4, 1884. 



fence," and " Robinson, as arn't a haporth o' sense." Doubt- 

 less the Joneses and the Robinsons seemed to him to belong 

 to an inferior race, besides being individually and personally 

 contemptible. But family conceit is more widely spread 

 (as well as a wider form of conceit) than conceit of self. 

 We find it in races a grade higher than those which supply 

 the chief developments of personal conceit. It yields more 

 slowly before culture and knowledge. We see it in families 

 which have every means of recognising the inherent 

 absurdity of the feeling, who have before them as clearly 

 the evidence of the insignificance of particular families 

 as they have before them the evidence of the personal 

 insignificance of the individual man. It ia indeed true 

 that, among the worst developed races, family conceit 

 is more prevalent than in races which have had 

 better advantages. The Flanagans and Dohertys are 

 naturally full of pride of family, and prepared by 

 breaking heads after due coat-tail-treading to show the 

 superiority of the race which may be has not produced in 

 all time a single person above or even quite up to the 

 average ; and in like manner in our own country we find a 

 steady though dull form of family pride in the Noakeses 

 and Styleses of remote and undeveloped country districts. 

 But the failing is found outside such races as these. It 

 can not only be recognised in families called noble and 

 royal (it comes out amusingly for instance, so far as I can 

 judge from extracts, in some royal books which have 

 recently been published in this country) but it can be 

 recognised also in those whose opportunities of culture and 

 study should have taught them better. Nay, sometimes 

 even that special study of biological laws wliich should 

 show that each individual represents scores of families and 

 has qualities which can no more be assigned to one family 

 than the qualities of a river can be assigned to one out of 

 its hundred sources, fails to correct this foolish feeling, 

 which like others of our lower qualities is innate and 

 scarce to be corrected by culture, reasoning, or acquired 

 knowledge. 



What however can be much more absurd in reality than 

 to find a family claiming for its members — or quietly 

 assuming without claiming openly — superior qualities 1 

 We know that the very existence of family conceit is a 

 mark of want of sense, a sign of inferior culture. But 

 apart from this we know that every person born into the 

 world shares multitudinous faculties and qualities inherited 

 from hundreds, thousands, nay tens and hundreds of 

 thousands of foregoers. When a man boasts " I am a 

 Snillum or a Snobbig" he can really only mean that a 

 thousandth part of his blood comes from some remote 

 Snobbig or a Snillum, of presumably better qualities than 

 they recognise in themselves— so that their family history 

 has — by their own account — been one of descent. It is 

 sad for them, but they ought to know best. Still the idea 

 of a family strain is absurd on the face of it, and family 

 conceit is only less contemptible than personal vanity. 



In a description of the mowing and reaping machine works of 

 Mr. W. A. Wood the following occurs : — " Statement of materials 

 ■we consumed in the manufactm-e of 45,0.32 machines, our produc- 

 tion in 18S3. We give only the principal materials naed. Pig-iron, 

 10,500 tons; steel, 1,000 tons; wrought and cold rolled iron, 4,500 

 tons ; malleable iron, l,G0O tons ; coal, 7,000 tons ; coke, 1,000 tons ; 

 moulding sand, 4,000 tons; grinding stones, 225 tons; painting 

 material, 400,0001b.; spring wire, 00,000 lb. ; tacks and rivets, 

 120,0001b.; brass and composition, 120,0001b.; screws, 10,000 

 gross ; lubricating oils, 10,000 gallons ; lumber, 10,000,000 ft. ; 

 cotton duck, 90,000 yards ; carriage and plough bolts, 3,000,000. As 

 evidence of the magnitude that the use of self-binding machinery 

 in harvesting grain has attained, we will state that we foi-nished 

 our customers in 1883, 2,500 tons of twine." 



3^ebittD2f* 



SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. 



What is Art? By James Stanley Little. (London: 

 W. Swan, Sonnenschein <k Co. 18Si.) — If we may judge 

 from internal evidence, Mr. Little is an artist who, like the 

 unfortunate Haydon, believes that Society is wilfully blind 

 to his genius ; and in whose mind the rejection of his 

 works by the Royal Academicians has induced a feeling 

 the reverse of friendly towards that body. We may be 

 mistaken, and Mr. Little may be speaking in parables ; but 

 we can put no other interpretation upon certain passages 

 in his book. Be his object, however, what it may, he sets 

 down many things (in somewhat too inflated language) 

 which may well be laid to heart by all who are concerned 

 for Art progress in England. His claim for the pre- 

 eminent dignity of Landscape Art is not, in the present 

 condition of popular taste, likely to be conceded ; albeit the 

 study of his utterances on this point might not be without 

 profit to the devotees of the empty-perambulator and 

 kitten-playing-with-string school of painting. His protest 

 against shoddy is none too vigorous. 



A Short Text-Book of Inori/anic Chemistry. By Dr. 

 Hermann Kolbe. Translated and Edited by T. S. Hum- 

 PiDGE, Ph.D. (London: Longmans, Green i Co. 1884.) 

 — " This short te.xt-book," says its author in his preface, 

 "has been written to recall to the memory of students who 

 have attended a course of lectures on Experimental Chemis- 

 try what they have seen and heard, and to clear up any 

 ])oiuta which may not have been properly understood." 

 Assuredly both Dr. Kolbe and his translator may be con- 

 gratulated on the success with which they have fulfilled 

 their self-imposed task ; for in the 600 closely-printed 

 pages before us will be found the means of obtaining the 

 most thorough grounding in Inorganic Chemistry. Dr. 

 Humpidge has added to his lucid translation short accounts 

 of Gay Lussac's law, the law of Avogadro, and the manu- 

 factui-e of coal-gas ; and has further supplemented the 

 descriptions of vai'ious elements and compounds in the 

 text. He has also contributed an appendix containing an 

 account of the methods used for determining atomic and 

 molecular weights, of Prout's law and of the Periodic law, 

 as well as a series of useful tables. A beautifully litho- 

 graphed table of spectra forms the frontispiece : numerous 

 woodcuts are inserted in the text, and there is a good and 

 exhaustive index to the whole book. It forms no un- 

 worthy addition to the Messrs. Longmans' admirable series 

 of Text-books of Science. 



Rock History; a Note-hook of Geology. By C. L. Barnes, 

 M.A. (London: Edward Stanford. 1884.) It is long 

 since we have come across an introductory work on geology 

 at once so practical and attractive as this of Mr. Barnes. 

 While admitting his obligation to Lyell's " Student's 

 Elements of Geology," our author must be credited with 

 having employed his materials in about as convenient and 

 instructive a form for the student as he could well have 

 adopted. He commences with an enunciation of the 

 general principles of geology, and then proceeds to treat 

 of the physical structure, composition, stratification, and 

 ages of the various rocks. Ha\'ing thus familiarised the 

 beginner with the structure of the earth's crust as a whole, 

 Mr. Barnes goes on to apply and illustrate the knowledge 

 thus acquired in a way which has much, beyond its novelty, 

 to recommend it. He deals with the various formations 

 seriatim, commencing with a succinct account of eacL 

 This is followed by a table giving in the first column 

 the divisions of the formation described ; in the second 



