204 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. XI. No. 



the banshee. It is of some interest to see how a good matter-of- 

 fact fisherman has deprived the legend of ' Gray Man's Isle ' of all that 

 is wonderful. The book is of considerable importance as showing the 

 remarkable transformation which legends undergo under the in- 

 fluence of modern ideas. 



A 



of German Prefixes and Suffixes. By J. S. BlaCK- 

 WELL. New York, Holt. i6°. 

 The present collection of German prefixes is designed as a prac- 

 tical aid to students of German, and meets this purpose very well. 

 It gives to the student a clearer sense of the meaning of many 

 German words than even the best dictionaries can do. The man- 

 ual is founded principally on Sanders's and Grimm's dictionaries of 

 the German language. The meaning of each prefix and suffix is 

 ■defined very clearly ; and the s-light variations of sense conveyed by 

 suffixes — as -vidssig and -gemdss, or -lein and -chen — are shown 

 by well-selected examples. As the book is designed for practical 

 ■purposes, no attempt has been made to give the etymology of the 

 prefixes and suffixes. The manual will be of great value to stu- 

 dents of German. 



Principles and Practice of Morality. By EZEKIEL GiLMAN 

 Robinson. Boston, Silver, Rogers, & Co. 12°. $1.50. 

 This work by the president of Brown University consists of the 

 lectures which he has given in past years to his classes in ethics, 

 and, as a text-book on the science, it has some decided merits. 

 The style is good, to begin with, being clear and direct, and free 

 from ostentation. The author is good-tempered also ; and though 

 ■he sometimes criticises other thinkers, and expresses his dissent 

 from them in decided terms, he treats them all with eminent fair- 

 ness. The book opens with a preliminary discussion of the object 

 and scope of ethics; then follow a series of chapters on conscience, 

 moral law, the will, the ultimate ground of obligation, and other 

 topics in the theory of morals ; and a brief account of the leading 

 duties of man closes the volume. The chapter on the ultimate 

 ground of obligation is, of course, the most important of all ; and 

 we are obliged to say that we do not find it satisfactory. Dr. 

 Robinson examines the various theories that have been propounded 

 by other writers, including the intuitional, the utilitarian, and others, 

 all of which he rejects for one reason or another, and then gives it 

 as his own view that the ultimate ground of moral obligation is to 

 be found in the nature of God as a perfectly righteous being. But, 

 surely, if we have no ground of obligation in our own souls, if such 

 ground exists only in the nature of God, we can have no means of 

 knowing that God is righteous. If the ground of right and duty is 

 in God's nature alone, then when we say that God is righteous, we 

 can only mean that he always acts according to his own nature ; 

 which might with equal truth be predicated of every thing else in 

 the universe. We do not think that Dr. Robinson has contributed 

 any thing to the solution of the fundamental ethical problem ; and 

 there are other points in his work to which objections might easily 

 be raised. Yet it contains much that is suggestive ; and it will 

 doubtless be useful to students and also for popular reading. 



A History of Political Economy. By JOHN KellS INGRAM. 



With preface by E. J. James. New York, Macmillan, 18SS. 



8". 

 A HISTORY of political economy in the English language was 

 undoubtedly needed, for the existing works on the subject were by 

 no means satisfactory. We have many good histories of practical 

 ■economy in its various branches ; but a good history of economic 

 theories, such as Mr. Ingram here undertakes to give us, has long 

 ■been a desideratum. In many respects this treatise is excellent. 

 The author shows a very wide acquaintance with the literature of 

 the subject in all the leading languages, and he has evidently given 

 a great deal of study to all the various schools. He sketches in 

 brief the course of economic thought in ancient and media;val times, 

 but agrees with all other writers in recognizing economic science as 

 strictly a product of modern times. He remarks that the mercan- 

 tile system was the natural outgrowth of certain social conditions 

 acting on unscientific minds, and then proceeds to trace the origin 

 and progress of scientific economics, beginning with the physiocrats 

 and other writers of the eighteenth century. The leading contrib- 

 utors to the science are all passed in review, and the works of 



most of them well characterized. Unfortunately, however, Mr. 

 Ingram is an extreme partisan of the historical school ; and his 

 partisanship has led him to underestimate the work of some of the 

 great English writers, especially of Malthus, Ricardo, and Mill, 

 whose defects he sees far more clearly than their merits. We find 

 no fault with the author for treating his subject from the stand- 

 point of his own school ; but then he ought to do it in good temper, 

 and without that irritation against men of opposite views which this 

 book sometimes exhibits. Nevertheless, the work contains much 

 valuable information, and will fill a useful place. 



The Study of Politics. By Wil.LlAM P. ATKINSON. Boston, 

 Roberts. 16°. 50 cents. 



This little work is the introduction to a course of lectures on 

 constitutional history, delivered by the author at the Massachusetts 

 Institute of Technology. What particular benefit its publication 

 will confer upon the general public we are unable to see. The 

 book is written in bad temper throughout, with constant inuendoes 

 against the men and classes with whom the author disagrees. It 

 is mainly devoted to practical politics and the duties of citizenship, 

 with very little in it that can be called scientific. Moreover, what 

 Mr. Atkinson says about the corruption of public life and the duty 

 of good citizens to engage in political work has been said so often 

 by the newspapers in all parts of the country, that its repetition in 

 a book at this late day seems to be unnecessary. If, instead of 

 such matter as this, Mr. Atkinson had given us an introduction to 

 the political and social sciences and to the proper mode of studying 

 them, his work would have been of far more value. 



A Mayiual of Physiology. A Text-Book for Students of Medicine. 

 By Gerald F. Yeo, M.D. 3d ed. Philadelphia, Blakiston. 

 \i°. $3. 



Yeo's manual was originally written to supply an elementary 

 treatise on physiology for the series of students' manuals issued by 

 this firm of publishers. Professor Yeo has succeeded in supplying 

 a book which is well adapted to the wants of medical students. 

 He has fully carried out the task which he undertook ; viz., to avoid 

 theories which have not borne the test of time, and such details of 

 methods as are unnecessary for junior students. He has also 

 omitted the history of the progressive steps in the growth of physi- 

 ological science and the names of authorities, all of which would 

 be but confusing to the student. In doing this he has taken care not 

 to omit any important facts that are. necessary to a clear under- 

 standing of the principles of physiology. The first edition, which 

 appeared in 1884, being exhausted, a second has been prepared in 

 which all important advances have been noted. The principal 

 change which we observe is the entire revision of the chapters on 

 the central nervous system, and their fuller illustration by means 

 of drawings of the microscopical structure of the spinal cord. Yeo's 

 manual has from the first stood in the front rank, but this recent 

 edition will cause it to occupy a still higher position among the 

 manuals of physiology. 



Education in Bavaria. By Sir PHILIP MAGNUS. New York, 

 Industrial Education Association. 12''. 



We hear a great deal about education in Germany, and not un- 

 frequently overlook the fact that in matters of considerable impor- 

 tance the practice of the several German states is at variance. 

 Prussia usually serves as the model for the rest, and but little atten- 

 tion is directed to Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, and Saxony. As 

 a member ofjthe late Royal Commission on Technical Instruction, 

 Sir Philip Magnus was led to make a careful examination of the 

 educational practice in Bavaria, and it has been deemed of sufficient 

 importance to be published as the second number of the Educa- 

 tional Monograph Series. Mr. Magnus suggests that the title is 

 somewhat too general for the subject of which his paper treats ; 

 for his main object has been to show his English and American 

 readers what is meant by a 'school system ' in which each element 

 bears a definite relation to all the others. The Bavarian school sys- 

 tem is a typical one of these, in which organization and interde- 

 pendence are pushed as far as they will go. The plan of the sys- 

 tem is made very clear by an illustrative diagram. The paper is 

 extremely compact, and does not lend itself to abridgment or con- 



