6 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 152 



man for horse-stealing under a statute for sheep- 

 stealing, and would laugh at you if you quibbled 

 about the distinction between a horse and a 

 sheep." This certainly is most solemnly true, and 

 is, among other things, the reason why people, as 

 a rule, care so little for philosophy, the vital air of 

 which is the persistent making of distinctions 

 long after the saturation-point of the average 

 human intellect has been reached. We all have 

 our philosophies, to be sure, such as they are ; but 

 we all refuse to discuss them in the light of dis- 

 tinctions finer than our own. Such distinctions 

 are ' cobwebs,' ' hair-splittings,' and the like ; and 

 we blankly ignore them with a perfectly good 

 conscience. This is why no amount of criticism, 

 however truly able, will shake the hold which 

 certain popular philosophies have on 'the gallery; ' 

 for there is a gallery in philosophy, as in livelier 

 spectacles. Mr. Shadworth Hodgson is certainly, 

 of all English-writing philosophers, the one who 

 makes the largest and most incessant demands on 

 his reader's ability to take a distinction. He dis- 

 tinguishes after most of us long for rest, and he 

 probably seems, in consequence, to the majority 

 of those who open his pages, over-subtle and 

 unreal, in spite of the extraordinary originality 

 and vigor of every thing he writes. Many, to our 

 knowledge, have wished that some discijDle would 

 come and issue his thoughts in the shape of small 

 change, since they seem so little likely to become 

 popular in the master's own massive statements. 

 Miss Handley has essayed this useful task in the 

 thin volume before us, which we recommend to all 

 who would like a glimpse into some of the main 

 features of Hodgson's system, but by no means to 

 those to whom the title ' First lessons in philoso- 

 phy ' suggests a text-book for high-school use. The 

 work is gracefully written in dialogue-form ; but 

 the contents are too technical to be touched upon 

 in our space. We must confess, that, after one 

 reading, we are still in some doubt as to whether 

 Miss Handley's pages have brought Mr. Hodgson 

 within range of those for whom his own are too 

 abstruse. 



NOTES AND NEWS. 

 A TELEGRAM from Dr. Swift, dated Dec. 27, 

 announces the discovery of a comparatively bright 

 telescopic comet, by Mr. W. R. Brooks, at Phelps, 

 N.Y., an easterly motion being 'strongly sus- 

 pected.' The discovery is confirmed by an obser- 

 vation at Harvard on Dec. 28. The comet is cir- 

 cular, about '.V in diameter, equivalent in bright- 

 ness to a star of the ninth magnitude, and it 

 \v,i> ;i strong, eccentrically placed condensation, 

 but no tail. The position given by Professor 

 Pickering for Dec •js.jfjyj. ( Jieemvich mean time, 



is, R. A. 19h59m 27s ; Dec. + 4° 31' 34" ; so that 

 the comet would now set, in this latitude, about 

 three hours after the sun. 



— ' Short studies from nature ' (New York, 

 Cassell, 1885) is one of many books intended to 

 interest general readers in the later scientific dis- 

 coveries. Six of the ten chapters treat of zo- 

 ological subjects, bats, dragon-flies, oak-apples, 

 birds of passage, glow-worms, and Zoraminifera. 

 They are generally well written, and contain much 

 that is interesting in a readable form. They treat 

 mainly or entirely of English animals ; but in most 

 cases the notes and description would apply 

 equally well, with a change of specific name, to 

 our American representatives, and be equally in- 

 teresting to our American readers. There are also 

 chemical and astronomical chapters, and one on 

 caves. 



— Any book which will draw the attention of 

 young or old to the habits of common animals 

 deserves all encouragement. We have a few such 

 already ; but any one who has examined other 

 books of this class will find, on comparison, that 

 Holder's work (' Marvels of animal life,' Scribner, 

 1885), while compact, has a wider scope, and con- 

 tains a large amount of fresh material. Very many 

 of the animals described are not members of our 

 fauna ; but there are enough familiar forms described 

 to encourage us to study the habits of more of our 

 common animals, and to hint of the possibility of 

 interesting discoveries awaiting patient observers. 

 The fact that the writer has been an eye-witness of 

 most which he describes, makes his work entirely 

 different from the mere compilations of winch 

 most similar books are composed, and makes one 

 almost forget while reading that he is not himself 

 an eye-witness. The writer's style is fresh and 

 attractive. It will surprise some readers to see man 

 and the Pteranodon represented on plate xxxi. as 

 contemporaneous. Possibly, however, the supposed 

 human figure may not be that of a man : it might 

 easily be almost any thing else. The plates, unfor- 

 tunately, never accompany the description, but 

 are the reward of patient search. 



— The prize of 500 francs left by M. A. P. de 

 Candolle is offered by the Societe physique et 

 d'histoire naturelle, of Geneva, for the best unpub- 

 lished monograph on a class or family of plants ; 

 the essays written in any of the four great 

 European languages or Latin, to be sent in on 

 Oct. 1, 1889. 



— A catalogue of the printed maps, plans, and 

 charts in the British museum has been prepared 

 by Professor Douglas, and will be issued in two 

 large volumes. 



