EEYIEWS. 
477 
no means new, and the new ones are certainly not true.” Dr. Hartwig’s book 
is really a very popular natural history, which, like others of its kind, is in 
most respects behind the age, and bears evidence of being a fricassee of 
Rymer Jones’s “ Animal Kingdom,” Gosse’s sea-side books, and Wood’s 
“ Homes without Hands.” It is a rechauffee of old books ; it is light and 
digestible in matter, oily and creamy in style, but terribly innutritious, — a dish 
which looks and smells well, but which is decidedly to be avoided. Still it 
is a nicely “got-up” book, abounding in wood-cuts from “ Milne-Ed wards’s” 
manual, and with lithographs which bear a startling resemblance to some 
recently issued with another work which Messrs. Longmans have published. 
Dr. Hartwig’s treatise would form an instructive reading-book for children ; 
but such passages as the following utterly preclude its ever attaining to any 
reputation as a scientific work : — 
“ Insect life gives us the most convincing proofs, not only of the wisdom 
and power of the Almighty, but also of His ineffable goodness ; for these 
numberless species, so variously gifted, have all been born for a far greater 
share of happiness than of sorrow. The pangs of death are generally short — a. 
fleeting moment ; while their life, which, at least in the larval state, is frequently 
prolonged during several years, is almost entirely devoted to agreeable occupa- 
tion. When a caterpillar is feasting on a succulent leaf, or a bee is sucking 
the nectar of a flower, they are surely enjoying life ; and who can doubt of 
the happiness of a swarm of gnats , maintaining for hours together their 
dances in the air ; or of the butterfly, lightly hovering through the forest 
glades in the warm sunshine. The hum of the beetle and the shrill tone of 
the cicada, the cricket’s chirp, and the buz of the bee give expression to 
sensations which are evidently of no gloomy nature : and as every moderate 
exertion of our mental or bodily faculties calls forth agreeable feelings, we 
can be well assured that the rapid course of the tiger-beetle, the prodigious 
leap of the grasshopper, or the aerial velocity of the dragon-fly are continual 
sources of enjoyment for these active little creatures.” 
All praise to Dr. Hartwig for his conviction of the wisdom and power of 
God, but might he not have spared us the above maundering effusion on 
the sesthetic delights of insects ? 
MIND AND FORCE* 
I F it be not true as a general proposition that much learning is apt to 
turn the human mind from the channels of sane thought and argu- 
ment, it is at all events unquestionable that to some mental organizations 
the study of metaphysics is fraught with much danger. Over and over again 
we have seen men of no ordinary intellectual ability run into the veriest 
twaddle of psychical speculation, through endeavouring to discover for them- 
selves the why and the wherefore of the universe. There are too many of 
us who think that a careful inquiry into the constitution of mind will 
* On “ Force and its Mental and Moral Correlates.” By Charles Bray, 
London : Longmans, 1866. 
