OUR BOOK TABLE. 



IT is, perhaps, superfluous to draw the attention of 

 readers of Kxowledge to the fact that the output of 

 the press is, year by year, an increasing quantity — 

 an increase or progression more alsin to the 

 geometrical function than the arithmetical. At the 

 present moment we ourselves are particularly impressed 

 with the fact, because a great number of books are still 

 heaped up on our table, waiting to be reviewed, and this in 

 face of the fact that we have so far exerted ourselves as to 

 issue a special supplement in order to begin the new year 

 with a conscience void of offence in this matter. 



On the top of the heap is a volume labelled " Differential 

 and Integral Calculus," a title, by the way, which, both 

 orally and visually, strikes one as being no mere empty 

 phrase ; but the one thing it recalls to us on the instant 

 is that " necessity is the mother of invention." Newton, 

 the greatest philosopher and mathematician of modern 

 times, felt the need of some means of dealing with the 

 limiting values of the ratios of small quantities in exact 

 physical science, and his inventive faculty evolved the 

 method of ihtxions. It is therefore two hundred years 

 since the progenitors of this class of books were first 

 launched into the world, and now the number of such 

 books is legion. 



The next book is a little treatise on the X rays. There 

 are already many books on this subject, which is truly 

 marvellous in its revelations of the heretofore impenetrable 

 recesses of the living animal organization ; but the 

 fascination with which it has held the popular mind 

 seems to have been inspired chiefly by a morbid curiosity 

 — a curiosity the gratification of which certain enterprising 

 individuals have not been slow in recognizing as a short 

 cut to wealth. Prof. Eontgen's discovery, however, affords 

 an excellent illustration as to the way in which scientific 

 literature is propagated. During the short period which 

 has elapsed since Eontgen first enunciated his achieve- 

 ments in this new departure, hundreds of ephemeral 

 articles have appeared in the papers. 



In the same way, by other books, we are reminded of 

 the drastic changes and new developments in scientific 

 literature by the introduction of the conservation of energy 

 and the correlation of forces. It is to such men as the late 

 James Prescott Joule that the fountain head of a very large 

 portion of the deluge of modern literatiure may be traced. 

 The investigations of these men have taught us that to do 

 work is merely to transform energy; that whatever process 

 is employed to change the form of matter, it cannot change 

 the total quantity of matter ; that the total quantity of 

 electricity — which may, of course, be transformed into 

 energy so as to do work — in the universe is invariable, its 

 distribution alone varying. 



But why multiply instances of this kind ? Indeed, the 

 pressure on our available space forbids further dilation in 



this direction. It is, however, plain that scientific books, 

 like rivers in the drainage system of a country, have, 

 comparatively speaking, a few main sources and an 

 immense number of tributaries which flow into and swell 

 the principal streams. 



While the great mass of books drop from the press still- 

 born, and many others are mere compilations for specific 

 purposes, and often produced without any claims to ability 

 on the part of their authors, but solely on account of the 

 prestige of their position, it is quite impossible to estimate 

 the influence exercised on the world by such books as 

 Adam Smith's "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the 

 Wealth of Nations,'' which established the law of supply 

 and demand— made labour, not land or precious metals, 

 the source of wealth. In a word, Smith's writings laid the 

 foundation of political economy. 



And what is the fate of this great product of the press ? 

 Is there a demand equal to the supply, and if so, how ? 

 To answer these questions satisfactorily would be to trace 

 the history of education during the Victorian era. In 

 1837 two-thirds of the working population of England 

 were unable to read and write, and those who did possess 

 acquisitions of this kind knew nothing of science. Previous 

 to 1839 the poor received their education mainly in 

 Simday schools, but in that year, in spite of much opposi- 

 tion from the upper classes, a little State aid was first 

 given to lift the masses above the mists of intellectual 

 gloom. Working from five in the morning till seven or 

 eight at night, what opportunity, or even inclination, could 

 there be for intellectual employments among the workers ? 

 A little space, in early years, was afl'orded chiefly by the 

 generosity of private indinduals for acquiring the rudiments 

 of education, but it has been said that the teachers were 

 generally persons who were either unfit for anything else, 

 or who could find no other means of obtaining a hving. 

 Books, to be of any use, must be read, and ignorance 

 therefore does not lend itself to their distribution. _ In 

 these days, however, of State-aided schools, technical 

 institutions, and free libraries distributed all over the 

 country like parish churches, there is, perhaps, not one 

 individual in twenty who is unable to read, and there is, 

 moreover, a large proportion of the people who cull their 

 chief pleasures in life from books. Education has also 

 enabled people to recognize in it a lever, and in many 

 cases the only lever, which can raise them in the social 

 scale. And so it is that the book producers have in 

 these latter days a constituency to cater for which 

 resembles that in former years in a way comparable to 

 that which obtains between the acorn and the oak ; and 

 the vast avalanche of books which, taken collectively, are 

 enough to overwhelm any single individual, are after all 

 only commensurate with the increased demand — an index 

 of the progi'ess of tlie nation. 



