March 20, li85] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



243 



The Zodiacal light has been very bright, though with 

 an abnormally ill-defined outline, on every clear evening, 

 after sunset, for the last week or two. 



Everyone concerned for the advancement of that scien- 

 tific knowledge which is so preeminently power ; everyone 

 who regards the life of a human being as of infinitely 

 greater impoitance than the temporary sutTering of a dozen 

 rabbits or guinea-pigs ; everyone, in short, unprepared to 

 swallow camels of portentous size, while scrupulously 

 straining at gnats of the most microscopic dimensions, must 

 rejoice at the defeat of bigotry and fanaticism at Oxford on 

 Tuesday week, when, as the result of their almost super- 

 human exertions, the anti-vivisectionists contrived to 

 muster 2-4-t votes in opposition to the -112 given by the 

 advocates of humanity and of the progress of physiological 

 science. There is nothing so otiensive as cant, be it 

 religious, social, literary, scientific, or political, and j>ro- 

 bably as much of it has been uttered in connection with 

 this question of vivisection as in that of any one which has 

 recently agitated the public mind. That, to take a tingle 

 illustration, unnumbered thousands must have died of 

 aneurism but for John Hunter's experiments upon live 

 animals, weighs as nothing with those whose real hatred 

 of science is clothed in the garb of sickly senti- 

 mentality. Had we nothing but the action of the 

 party which has just been so ignominiously defeated 

 at Oxford to guide us, it might well be imagined 

 that Dr. Burdon Sanderson was a mere callous 

 brute, whose business and delight at once it was to cut 

 and carve li\-ing domestic animals daily on his lecture- 

 table, invariably and studiously avoiding the use of anes- 

 thetics ; instead of a physiologist of European reputation, 

 whose kindness and tenderness of heart will not suffer in 

 comparison with those of the most blatant of his opponents 

 in the Sheldonian Theatre. I suspect, though, that, as I 

 have said, hatred of science altogether was at the bottom 

 of no little of the opposition olfered, by men who regard 

 their Alma Mat«r as a mere "grinding" house to turn 

 out by the hundred those pass-men who form the average 

 curates with whom we are afflicted; and as a means of 

 providing Fellowships for the comparatively few of superior 

 mental endowments who can render " Sing a Song of 

 Sixpence " into Alcaic metre, or give a bran-new reading 

 of some fragment of Theognis. Stare super vias antiquus 

 is (as Mrs. Gamp so impressively faid) their " mortar which 

 they sticks to." Construing, indifTerent verse-making, and 

 " Aldrich " served their fathers. Why .should a new genera- 

 tion ask, like Oliver Twist, for more 1 



It is just 158 years to-day since one of the greatest men 

 that England — or, in fact, the whole world — has produced, 

 passed over to the majority; for on March 20, 1727, died 

 Sir Isaac Newton, at Kensington. 



The recent considerable fire which has occurred in 

 Oxford-street, and the great exertions and very large 

 amount of engine-power required to subdue it, afTord a 

 striking illustration of the small progress which science 

 has enaVjled u.-', so far, to make in overcoming conflagrations 

 of any magnitude. Since the construction, about 1G8-4, of 

 an engine with an air-chamber to protect the library of 

 Louis XIV., no real advance has been made in this direc- 

 tion. Of course, increa.sed power has been obtained, but 

 we still run isi the old groove, and trust to flooding our 

 burning structures with a sufliciency of water to extingui.^h 



the fire (such sufficiency, of course, depending largely on 

 the nature of the inflammable material to be quenched). A 

 piece of apparatus which I have seen, called, I fancy, 

 " L'Extincti'ur," appears to bo a move in th(^ right direc- 

 tion ; but the only specimen that has come under my jier- 

 sonal observation was far too small to cope with anything 

 more extensive than an incipient blaze in a room. Surely, 

 in days when chemistry is so hideously perverted for the 

 destruction of human life, it may reasonably be asked if 

 she is impotent, in this direction, to help to save if! 



lEltbfetosf* 



SOME BOOKS ON OUR TABLE. 



Wood-C(trv{n<j. Edited by Fred. MiLLEit. {Wyinau's 

 'rechnical Series.) (London; Wyman ifc Sons. 1885) — 

 That art to which we are indebted for the glories of the 

 choir-stalls, rood-screens, and episcopal thrones in the 

 grandest of our old cathedrals, which adorned the halh of 

 the media;val nobility, the great ecclesiastical corporations 

 and the civic guilds, the art of carving in wood, had gradu- 

 ally fallen into comparative desuetude when the so called 

 "Gothic revival " resuscitated a taste for a means of deco- 

 ration so obviously in accord with it, and created a demand 

 which, for a time, could scarcely be adequately supplied. 

 And, speaking now more particularly of its application to 

 ecclesiastical adornment, when the supply did come, ahis ! 

 it was largely in the form of machine-made ornament ; 

 bosses by the thousand, finiala by the hundred, and eagles 

 for lecterns by the score, being turned out all precisely 

 alike by mechanism. How far these productions merit the 

 name of art, it nerds but small scrutiny to discover. Not 

 a feather on the wooden eagle is out of i)lace, but he is a 

 very wooden eagle indeed for all that. The ancient craftsman 

 did produce artistic work, because he put his whole heart 

 into it, and a framework with rapidly-rotating drills has no 

 heart to put there at all. Happily, though, there is a 

 pretty rapidly increasing public who are not content with 

 merely conventional automatic productions, and latterly 

 wood- carving has become a more or less fashionable 

 amusement. To all who wish to pursue this charming 

 recreation Mr. Miller offers himself as a guide, philosopher, 

 and friend ; and assuredly the careful study of his book, 

 coupled, of course, with adequate practice, will enable the 

 least-enlightened tyro to acquire no mean proficiency as a 

 wood-carver. The instructions given are as plain and 

 detailed as they can be, and the forty-seven illustrations 

 leave nothing to be desired. Every beginner and mode- 

 rately advanced student in the art of wood-carving should 

 obtain Mr. Miller's book straightway. 



An Analysis of the Principles of Economics (Part I.). 

 By Patrick Geddes. (London : Williams it Norgate. 

 1885.) — That there is an empirical art of economic sta- 

 tistics is, of cour.se, a mere truism. That anything worthy 

 of the name of a science of economics exi.st3 may bo 

 gravely doubte;!, and it is to lay the foundation of such a 

 science that Mr. Geddes's work is written. The physical 

 and psychological principles upon which that science must 

 of necessity be based are here set forth, and the bearing of 

 the doctrines of evolution, the conservation of energy, etc., 

 upon the methods of investigation is developed and insisted 

 upon. It is impossible to give even a precis of the author's 

 chain of reasoning here. All interested in the subject on 

 which this T^ork treats, should obtain and read it. 



Wliat the Boy Thought. (Second edition.) (London: 

 W. Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 1881.)— This brochure 

 consists of a series of the imaginary utterances (many of 



