SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 231 



the first book of Horace, fragments of the fourth yEneid, passages 

 from the Metamorphoses and Fasti of Ovid, and the first eclogue 

 of Vergil, will possess the requisite novelty to the class of students 

 for whdm this book is professedly intended. 



Common Sense Science. By Grant Allen. Boston, Lothrop, 



12°. 

 Studies in Life mid Sense. By ANDREW Wilson. London. 



If the question, ' What is the ideal method of popularizing sci- 

 ence .'' ' were raised at any of our large scientific meetings, about as 

 many minds as men would probably be heard. Everybody admits 

 the importance of the topic ; everybody recognizes that science 

 is all along getting popularized and gradually rendered digestible 

 by the average man : but there is much difference as to the rela- 

 tive value of the several agencies by which this result is being 

 produced, and the direction which these efforts should take in the 

 future. There is a great deal of false popular science, — a class of 

 writing in which the difficult points are always skipped, and the 

 light and temporarily interesting ones unduly magnified ; in which 

 the interest is attracted towards certain minor points, and the whole 

 doctrine set forth in a pen'erted perspective. One can dress up the 

 facts of science in as attractive a garb as one likes ; but the aim 

 must be to bring home the fact, and not the study of the costume. 

 The spirit of accuracy by w'hich science is differentiated from un- 

 critical knowing is the sine qua nan of a real interest in scientific 

 work. 



Into what category of ' popular-science ' writing one will put this 

 work of Grant Allen's will depend largely on one's conception of the 

 purposes of such literature. The geniality and attractiveness of his 

 style are well known. They are important factors in the success of 

 his works. The present series of essays exhibit the strength and 

 the weakness of this class of writing. Its strength consists in its 

 power to bring home simple truths in a way that suggests their real 

 significance to the average mind ; its weakness, in the fact that so 

 much of it is not ' common-sense ' science, but ' common-place ' 

 science : it says very little for the amount of words. 



A striking feature of this and other recent general works is the 

 great rdle w'hich psychological subjects are now playing in science. 

 Of the twenty-eight essays here printed, ten are distinctly psycho- 

 logical, and many others partly so. The main reason of this in- 

 creased interest in the scientific study of mental phenomena is the 

 recognition of their intimate relation with education. We are be- 

 ginning to appreciate that the requisite for rationally educating the 

 mind is to accurately know it. 



It is only just to Mr. Allen to give a sample of some of the essays. 

 A very typical one is that on self-consciousness, the tone of which 

 will be readily gathered from the following sentences : " A philan- 

 thropist who had it in his power to abolish, if he chose, with a sin- 

 gle wave of his hand, either small-pox or self-consciousness, would 

 probably do more in the end to diminish human suffering and to 

 increase human happiness if he elected to get rid, by an heroic 

 choice, of the less obtrusive but more insidious and all-pervading 

 disease ; for small-pox, at the worst, attacks only a veiy insignifi- 

 cant fraction of the whole community ; while every second person 

 that one meets in society, especially below the age of fifty years, is a 

 confirmed sufferer from the pangs of self-consciousness." The es- 

 say on memory sets forth in apt illustrations the complexity of 

 human knowledge ; that on the balance of nature, the inter-relation 

 between the various classes of organic life. Under the title ' Big 

 and Little,' is a lesson on the relativity of knowledge. The ' Origin 

 of Bowing ' traces the gradual refinement of a savage's slavish 

 obeisance into the modern gentlemanly courtesy. ' The Pride of 

 Ignorance ' teaches an admirable lesson, as also does the essay on 

 home-life. Other sufficiently suggestive titles are ' Holly and Mistle- 

 toe,' ' Sleep,' ' Amusements,' ' Evening Flowers,' ' Genius and Tal- 

 ent,' and so on. 



Like all his works, this collection of papers will doubtless find a 

 large and appreciative public. To those who do not already know 

 the facts which it contains, it will offer an attractive method of ac- 

 quiring them. 



The spirit of Dr. Wilson's book is quite a different one. There 

 are many who will listen to Mr. Allen who would not listen to Dr. 

 Wilson ; but those who choose the latter will not be sorry for their 



choice. There is in these essays an unusual amount of information, 

 well and attractively put together. It needs to be read attentively, 

 but leaves the reader with the same feeling of satisfaction that one 

 experiences when rising from a good and substantial meal. There 

 will follow a process of healthy digestion, and the food will con- 

 tribute some little to the making of its partaker. 



Dr. Wilson is a biologist, and the sixteen careful studies contained 

 in this volume touch portions of the entire field, from the ' Inner 

 Life of Plants ' and ' The Past and Present of the Cuttlefishes,' to 

 the ' Body and Mind.' In each topic the author writes as one per- 

 fectly at home ; avoiding the fault of attempting to tell too much, as 

 well as of having too little to tell. It is popular-science writing, a 

 very good type indeed. 



Like the former book, this, too, is characterized by a preponder- 

 ance of psychological subjects. Seven of the essays treat entirely 

 or mainly of mental phenomena, while several others touch upon 

 such topics. ' The Old Phrenology and the New ' is an unneces- 

 sarily painstaking refutation of the claims of the ' cranial-bump 

 examiners,' with a brief account of the evidence for the modem 

 doctrine of the localization of function in the cortex of the brain. The 

 old phrenology serves as an excellent type of the shoals, on which 

 the hasty wanderer, leaving the straight but slow path of scien- 

 tific advance, is likely to be wrecked. The nature of the relation 

 between nerve-tissue and mental phenomena is outlined in the 

 paper on body and mind ; the main point being to show by striking 

 examples the strange effects produced by intense expectation and 

 concentration, which furnishes the kernel of truth in the claims of 

 the mind-cure. ' The Mind's Mirror ' explains the development of 

 the expression of the emotions in animals and men, while ' The Coin- 

 ages of the Brain ' is a timely account of the part played by 

 hallucinations in such happenings as our psychic-research societies 

 are likely to record. 



The more strictly biological essays treat of the economies of 

 nature, showing, that, as conditions vary, nature utilizes every 

 trifle, and avoids waste, or scatters tons of pollen over a barren 

 soil. There are two excellent chapters on the zoological position of 

 monkeys and elephants ; while the volume closes with ' An Invita- 

 tion to Dinner,' which gives occasion to a lesson on the physiology 

 of digestion. 



In the present case the proverbially odious comparison can hardly 

 be avoided. Dr. Wilson's is in every way the better book ; but Mr. 

 Allen's will have the wider public, and, it is to be hoped, will incite 

 an appetite that will lead to the searching for the more substantial 

 food. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The American committee of the International Congress of 

 Geologists — a committee appointed by the American Association 

 — will present a report at the meeting of the American Association 

 in August concerning the positions to be taken by the representa- 

 tives of American geologists at the next session of the congress in 

 London (1888), upon the more important questions of nomen- 

 clature, classification, and coloring, which will there be discussed. 

 It requests that Section E set apart a day for the purpose of con- 

 sidering these questions to be submitted by the committee, and of 

 aiding that body to ascertain the direction of American opinion 

 thereon. In order the better to accomplish this object, it requests 

 Section E to issue an invitation to all American geologists (whether 

 members of the American Association or not) to attend this 

 session and participate in the work. The American committee also 

 request that members of the association be informed of the op- 

 portunity offered for obtaining the great geological map of Europe, 

 now preparing by a special committee of the International Con- 

 gress. This map will be issued in 49 sheets, which, combined, 

 will cover a space about 11 by 12 feet. The price is $20 a copy, 

 with additional charges of duty and expenses amounting to about 

 $6. Incorporated scientific institutions are of course exempt from 

 duty-charges. For further information address Dr. Persifor 

 Frazer, secretary of the American Committee, 201 South Fifth 

 Street, Philadelphia, Penn. 



— The Entomological Club of the American Association will meet 

 on the day prior to the meeting of the association, at 2 p.m. The 



