November 37, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



471 



lowing out his own interest as he views it, will at 

 the same time always promote in the most efficient 

 manner the pubhc interest. In speaking of owner- 

 ship in natural agents, he remarks (p. 81) that 

 ''under our actual system the care which every 

 prudent person takes of his own property is ex- 

 tended by the owners of natural agents to their 

 property, and thus the contents of the great store- 

 houses of nature are protected from waste." Surely 

 the author knows of the great devastation of our 

 forest lands by private owners, bent on following 

 their own interest to the exclusion of that of the 

 pubhc. He has surely heard of the revelations 

 recently made in England and Ireland which 

 showed that the productiveness of agricultural 

 lands was permanently lowered by the j:)olicy of 

 interference adopted by the landlords, and which 

 led to most vigorous restrictions on freedom of 

 contract in the interest of the community. Surely 

 the author knows that in nearly every state in the 

 union it has been necessary to pass laws for 

 compulsory drainage of swamps, whose owners 

 refused in some cases to have them drained 

 at all, even at others' expense. These are 

 illustrations of a law very different from that 

 enunciated by the author, and that is, that 

 the interest of the individual diverges at a 

 thousand points from that of the whole, and 

 that positive legislation is needed at all times 

 to secure the interests of the latter as against the 

 former. Professor Newcomb himself, indeed, 

 almost immediately takes back the statement 

 quoted above by admitting that we have to depend 

 upon law and public opinion to control private 

 interest ; but as he repeats the former statement 

 in many different forms, and founds his whole 

 system of laissez-faire upon it, we must accept it 

 as his real view. 



As a fair specimen of the mode of reasoning, we 

 may refer to the investigation begun on p. 513, 

 as to whether ''any system intended to limit the 

 liberty of any man to acquire all the wealth he 

 can by legal means, and to employ it in the way 

 he chooses, can conduce to the general good." 

 The question, as stated, involves apefitio principii. 

 By legal means ? What does this phrase ' legal ' 

 mean ? It is evident that the author is thinking 

 of the means which are legal under our present 

 system of laws in this country. But he is trying 

 to get formulas for a general political economy 

 which shall hold good of present, past, and future 

 societies ahke, and our laws are not the same as 

 they were a century ago, or as they will be a cen- 

 tury to come ; nor are they the same as Enghsh or 

 French or Gennan laws. Nobody denies a man's 

 right to get all he can by legal means, but very 

 many people deny that certain means now legal 



are judicious, and promotive of the X)ublic good. 

 The author evidently goes upon the assumxjtions 

 that our present laws are just and natural, and 

 that any thing which is legal under them is 

 also just and natural, — two assumptions which 

 constitute the whole point in dispute. He sums 

 up the discussion in the remark that ' '■ the fact is, 

 that on our present system the enjoyment of the 

 collected wealth of the community is as nearly in 

 accord with the ideal principles of equity as any 

 general system can be." This sounds like a voice 

 from the dead. It is worthy of the worst period 

 of ' Manchesterism.' It is this kind of pohtical 

 economy, which, regarding the case as closed in 

 favor of the existing order in its present form, 

 has done and is doing more to promote the most 

 dangerous type of communistic and socialistic 

 spirit and doctrine than all the vaporings of so- 

 called professorial socialism of the last generation. 

 Even John Stuart Mill declared that communism 

 or socialism could not be any worse than the 

 existing order, if this order is capable of no im- 

 provement. 



If, passing over this fundamental view, which 

 is, of course, the most important consideration in 

 the case, we look at the details of the book, we 

 shall find much to admire. The qualities wliich 

 have made the author one of the most eminent 

 astronomers of this generation serve him a good 

 turn in his discussion of several of the most im- 

 portant topics. There is a general tone of fair- 

 mindedness which is often lacking in works 

 written from the general stand-point of the author, 

 and which makes one only regret stih more 

 keenly the author's lack of special knowledge, 

 which, if it had been supplied, might have given us 

 a really valuable work. Some misstatements of 

 facts should perhaps be noticed. The discussion 

 of the national banking system was evidently 

 written several years ago, and not revised to date. 

 There is an unhappy confusion of the labor party 

 with the socialists, which again reveals the author's 

 ignorance of actual facts in the social organism of 

 which he treats. In his discussion of bimetal- 

 lism, he says that the government goes on the 

 assumption that " the values of equal weights of 

 the two precious metals have a certain fixed ratio," 

 — a statement which is not true as a matter of fact, 

 and is a gross caricature if intended to represent 

 the views of bimetaUists. E. J. James. 



TEXT-BOOK OF BOTANY. 



Notwithstanding the rapid multiphcation of 



text-books within recent years, it is a pleasure to 



Gray''s botanical text-book. Physiological botany, part 

 ii. By G. L. Goodale. Philadelphia, Ivison, Blakeman, 

 Taylor, dt Co., 1885. 



