410 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XIV. No. 358 



— The contents of the Modern Science Essayist for October, 

 November, and December are, respectively, " Evolution as Related 

 to Religious Thought," by John W. Chadwick ; " The Philosophy 

 •of Evolution," by Starr Hoyt Nichols ; and " The Effects of Evo- 

 lution on the coming civilization," by Minot J. Savage. The Essay- 

 ist is published by the New Ideal Publishing Company of Boston, 

 Mass. The publication of this series of fifteen essays on evolution 

 '(which were delivered as lectures under the auspices of the Brook- 

 lyn Ethical Association) was undertaken in response to a demand 

 for a correct statement, in popular form, of the leading ideas, in- 

 iferences, and tendencies involved in the acceptance of the evolution 

 philosophy, together with a clear statement of the main lines of 

 ■evidence or proof by which the conception of evolution is sustained. 

 The plan of the series involved not only the treatment of the 

 physical and biological phases of the subject, but also its ethical, 

 ■social, religious, and philosophical aspects ; the whole being intro- 

 duced by biographical sketches of the two men of our time whose 

 names are most intimately associated with the evolution hypothesis, 

 — Spencer and Darwin. The three numbers mentioned above 

 ■complete the series of fifteen. They will be followed by other 

 ■essays of a similar tenor. 



— The December number of the Political Science Quarterly 

 ■opens with an article on the deferred constitutional convention of 

 New York State, by the Hon. Seth Low, president of Columbia 

 ■College. George Gunton attacks the economic basis of socialism ; 

 Tiamely, Karl Marx's theory of " surplus value ; " the Rev. Samuel 

 W. Dike reviews the new and important government report on 

 Tnarriage and divorce ; Worthington C. Ford (late of the State De- 

 partment) criticises and opposes the scheme of substituting silver 

 for legal tender notes ; Professor F. W. Maitland of Cambridge, 

 England, completes his valuable survey of the materials of English 

 legal history ; and Professor F. J. Goodnow of Columbia College 

 begins a description of the recent re-organization of local govern- 

 ment in Prussia. Twenty-two recent American, English, German, 

 French, and Italian works are reviewed. Among the reviewers, 

 'besides the editors, are Professors Hadley of Yale, Giddings of 

 Bryn Mawr, and Ashley of Toronto University ; J. B. Moore, as- 

 ■sistant secretary of State ; and Sir George Baden-Powell, M.P. 

 The " Record of Political Events " (previously published in the 

 J^ew Prittceton Review) is continued to Nov. i. 



— Messrs. Putnam have published a work on the pleasures of 

 -country life by Philip G. Hubert, jun., entitled " Liberty and a 

 Living." The author had been engaged in constant work as a 

 journalist, but abandoned a portion of his work, and took a small 

 -country home on Long Island, where he lives for eight months of 

 the year occupied with gardening, fishing, etc. He still does some 

 writing, however, and in the winter spends four months in the city 

 in journalistic work. Thus his income still comes mainly from his 

 pen, his country work being carried on chiefly for pleasure ; and 

 the life he thus leads he holds up as the true ideal. He sings its 

 praises with no little fervor ; and, so far as mere enjoyment is con- 

 cerned, there is something to be said for it. But then, we are not 

 placed in this world for selfish enjoyment, but to serve humanity ; 

 ^nd the life that Mr. Hubert describes is wholly destitute of any 

 such object. It is a life of idleness and sport, with only so much 

 work as is necessary to support existence ; and such a life is even 

 'less honorable than that of the money-getter whom Mr. Hubert so 

 •much despises. 



— A work will shortly be issued anonymously by the J. B. Lip- 

 pincott Company, Philadelphia, which may excite widespread in- 

 terest in political circles. It is entitled " Justice and Jurisprudence : 

 An Inquiry concerning the Constitutional Limitations of the Thir- 

 teenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments." Advance sheets 

 show an inside political knowledge of events and allusions which in- 

 dicate a close connection between the author and the present ad- 

 ministration, and it bids fair to have an important bearing upon 

 the policy and future of parties in this country. The book is free 

 from partisanship or sectionalism, and is a bold and original 

 treatment of the race question. As a legal argument on one of 

 the most important subjects of the day in America, and as a criti- 

 ■cism of the. decisions of the highest judicial tribunal of the land, 

 ithe work will commend itself. An appendix contains a state- 



ment of all legislation, National and State, and a digest with 

 table of every case. Federal and State, touching the race question 

 or civil rights. The volume may become an authority upon con- 

 stitutional liberty, and a guide for foreign as well as American 

 statesmen, not less than an educational work for the general public, 

 for whose benefit ostensibly it has been prepared. 



— Messrs. Munn & Co. announce as now ready " Experimental 

 Science," by George M. Hopkins. This book treats on the various 

 topics of physics in a popular and practical way. It describes the 

 apparatus in detail, and explains the experiments in full ; so that 

 teachers, students, and others interested in physics, may readily 

 make the apparatus, and perform the experiments without diffi- 

 culty. The aim of the writer has been to render physical experi- 

 mentation so simple and attractive as to induce both old and young 

 to engage in it for pleasure and profit. A few simple arithmetical 

 problems comprise all of the mathematics of the book. Many new 

 experiments are here described for the first time. 



— We glean the following news items from The Publishers' 

 Weekly. Egmont Hake has edited the diary kept by Gen. Gordon 



during the Tai-ping rebellion. It will be published shortly, illus- 

 trated with portraits, maps, and plans. R. D. Blackmore's recent 

 appearance in court as complainant against a man who had stolen 

 twenty-five dollars worth of his pears brings out the fact that the 

 author of " Lorna Doone " is better known at his home in Tedding- 

 ton as a market-gardener than as the author of some of the most 

 charming of contemporary works of fiction. Emile Ollivier, the ex- 

 minister of the French Empire, has in press his new work, " 1789 

 and 1889." The volume treats of the Revolution, and the social, 

 political, and religious work of the movement of 1789, concluding 

 with a programme of reforms to be effected in the political organi- 

 zation of latter-day France, and notably in the management of 

 universal suffrage and the present parliamentary system. Douglas 

 Sladen, the Australian poet, who has been making a tour of Canada 

 from Halifax to the Pacific, is now in Victoria, B.C., collecting in- 

 formation for a book which he intends writing on Canada. The 

 volume will contain his personal impressions of the Dominion, 

 statistics of her trade, her relations with the mother-country and 

 reciprocal benefits derived from the connection, besides the advan- 

 tages offered by Canada as a trade route between England and the 

 colonies of the Pacific. Gustav Freylag's "Der Kronprinz und die 

 deutsche Kaiserkrone " was printed in full in the Belletristisches 

 journal of this city of Nov. 14. It will be issued at once by 

 George Bell & Sons, in an English translation, under the title of 

 " The Crown Prince and the German Imperial Crown." A reply 

 to this book, by Dr. Otto Arendt, will be published shortly by 

 Walther cS: Assolant of Berlin. Freytag is a Conservative ; Dr. 

 Arendt, a Liberal ; and it is expected that the latter's reply will 

 make considerable sensation in the German political world. A 

 number of gentlemen interested in the University of Pennsylvania 

 have established a publishing company under the name of the 

 University Press. Their purpose is to control the present publica- 

 tions of the university, and to establish such new periodicals as the 

 needs of the institution may suggest. At least four new magazines 

 will be issued by the company soon after Jan. i. The Arena is 

 the title of a new monthly magazine, published in Boston, which 

 intends to devote itself to the serious discussion of serious public 

 questions. The first issue, published in November, and the De- 

 cember number, contained contributions from the Rev. M. J. 

 Savage, W. H. H. Murray, Mary A. Livermore, Helen Campbell, 

 O. B. Frothingham, N. P. Gilman, and others. For the January 

 number, articles by Col. IngersoU, Henry George, and Dion Bouci- 

 cault are promised. The American edition of Artistic Japan, 

 published by the Artistic Japanese Agency, 220 Fifth Avenue, will 

 hereafter be published simultaneously with the English, French, 

 and German editions issued abroad. The edition printed for this 

 country contains precisely the same engraved and colored plates 

 as the European editions, which are printed in color by M. Gillot 

 of Paris, under M. S. Bing's personal direction. The series of 

 plates issued with this journal will form a valuable collection on 

 various subjects, desirable for amateurs, architects, decorators, and 

 artists, as well as all industrial workers needing suggestions in 

 design, color, motive, or form. 



