REVIEWS. 
299 
them appearing to "be excerpted from the u Proceedings of the Poyal Astro- 
nomical Society.” All the papers are good, some of them indeed are 
excellent ; hut they have all come before scientific . readers before, and 
are now addressed to the general public. The opening chapters are about 
the most generally interesting in the volume, as they deal with the life and 
labours of the late Sir John Herschel ; but all will be found interesting and 
profitable reading. 
BOTANY FOB BEGINNERS.* 
W E think that Dr. Masters has not been guilty of a commercial mistake 
in publishing the book before us, the greater part of which originally 
appeared in the pages of the “ Gardener’s Chronicle.” But altogether apart 
from the monetary aspect of the question we have reason to be grateful to 
the author for the trouble he has taken to write a genuinely popular work ; 
a book, be it understood, which is absolutely devoid of the abominable 
twaddle of most popular treatises, but which is couched in language intel- 
ligible to every reader, which is so arranged that each difficulty is provided 
for, and each technicality is explained as the young student goes on, and 
which, nevertheless, does not keep the pupil for days learning the inter- 
minably dry details of the flower and stem in the abstract, but which 
plunges in medias res of botany at once. The first six chapters deal with 
various plants so common as to be accessible to every one even in this huge 
city, and the remaining four treat of the physiology and classification of 
vegetables. The illustrations are most of them novel to the student, and 
are nearly eighty in number. We certainly thank the author very heartily 
for so admirable a little book as the “ Botany for Beginners.” 
ANTI-DABWINISTS.f 
W E have before us two books whose whole aim is to show us the errors 
of the Darwinism doctrines, and the truth of the older views. We 
cannot agree with the conclusions of either. In fact, neither has a single 
argument to adduce that, resolved to its simplest elements, can resist the 
general doctrines of evolutionists ; but the one is written in a true scientific 
spirit : we do not say that it has a great deal of science in its pages, but the 
spirit of science is there, calmness, coolness, patience. The other has not an 
atom of scientific value, and very little of mere literary worth either. 
* “Botany for Beginners: an Introduction to the Study of Plants.” 
By Maxwell T. Masters, M.D., F.R.S. London : Bradbury and Evans, 1872. 
t “The Higher Ministry of Nature, viewed in the light of Modern 
Science, and as au aid to advance Christian Philosophy.” By J. B. 
Leifchild, M.A. London : Hodder and Stoughton, 1872. 
“ Esse and Posse : a Comparison of Divine Eternal Laws and Powers, as 
severally indicated in Fact, Faith, and Record.” By H. T. Braithwaite, 
M.A. London : Longmans, 1872. 
