26o 
SCIENCE. 
BOOKS RECEIVED. 
British Thoughts and Thinkers— Introductory 
Studies— Critical, Biographical and Phil- 
osophical. By George S. Morris, A. M. Lecturer 
on Philosophy in the Johns Hopkins University, Bal- 
timore — S. C. Griggs and Company, Chicago. 1880 
To trace the progress of the human mind and its high- 
est aspirations, must always demand the close attention 
of an author of the h’ghest intelligence and perfectly un- 
biased reasoning faculties ; because it is easy to under- 
stand that, with such a mass of material to draw from, de- 
ductions of the most varied character may be drawn, 
which may accord with almost any form of belief or sys- 
tem of philosophy, by a mere judicious selecting and re- 
jection ot authorities. 
The present author has evidently commenced his task 
with certain philosophical convictions strongly established 
in his own mind, and the purpose of his book is to place 
them in proper order before his readers, showing the high 
authorities that may be cited for their support and as evi- 
dence of their truth. 
The atm of Professor George S. Morris is to assert the 
idealism which is innate in the univeisal mind of raa”, 
which is no accident, but a constituent and necessary ele- 
ment of human nature, and in fact, that which constitutes 
it. This idealism teaches mind to have faith in itself, to 
know itself. He refers to mind, or conscious intelligence, 
as an active function, not simply a passive possession ; 
strictly passive, it were no longer intelligence, for then in- 
active, it would not have intelligence of itself. He states 
still fur. her that intelligence is only of the intelligible, 
reason apprehends only what is rational — mind therefore 
can comprehend no world which is not permeated with 
its own attributes; the absolutely unintelligible, irrational, 
being inconceivable, and hence utterly incapable of being 
brought into relation to mind is for it no better than the 
non-existent. 
Mind therefore seeks itself in the universe, chiefly in 
forms of law, order, purpose, beauty — it must rtduce its 
conception of the universe, given first in the form of iso- 
lated, unexplained impressions, to the Older and harmony 
of a rational and hence explicable apprehtnsible whole. 
And this search, this necessi y of mind, again, precisely, 
is idealism. 
Such in the view of Professor Morris, is the law, the 
universal tendency and the mhrrent necessity of mind. 
Man having no exact conception of an idea apart from 
the mind which possesses it, cannot conceive rationality, 
except as the attribute and living function of a mind or 
spiiit. The rationality therefore found in nature is an 
absurdum unless viewed as the direct or indirect effect 
and function of self-conscious spirit. The idealism (in 
theory) which holds fast to these axioms, acknowledges 
God, whose rational power and wis om it detects in all 
things. So man in his humble way is brought into di- 
rect and sympathetic relation with the universal, all-per- 
vading, all-explaining power. 
Such being the strong belief of Professor Moiris he 
naturally reads with horror, in the works of Mr. Herbert 
Spencer, of Man being merely sensi ive flesh, and 
morality the irresponsible result ot physico-organic 
evolution, and not the self sustaining work or require- 
ment of the ideal true man. 
As representatives of two opposite shades of opinion, it 
would scarcely be possible to select more appropriately, 
two men with more divulgent views than Professor 
Morris and Mr. Spencer. The former se s no limit to the 
possibilites of his sys’ein of reasoning, while the latter 
insists that whatever is not cognizable, through the in- 
vestigations of phenomena by the peculiar method, and 
with the peculiar and generally recognized limitations of 
physical science, is arbitarily held to be unknowable. 
It is clear that Professor Morris approaches the subject 
ot Mr. Spencer’s system of philosophy strongly biased 
against it. and when he stigmatizes Spencer's views as 
gratuitous, extra-scientific, absurd, contradictory and dog- 
matic, we would caution students, for whom this work is 
principally wriiten, to read the works of Spencer before 
accepiing Professor Morris’s conclusions. 
The work wh ch we now review will doubtless com- 
mand a large circulation. It was founded on a course of 
lectures delivered at the Johns Hopkins University, Bal- 
timore, and is, therefore, well adapted for students, but 
as a work for the general reader it will prove highly at- 
tractive, presenting in a small compass a synopsis of the 
works and record of the lives of such men as Edmund 
Spenser, Richard Hooker, Shakespeare, Bacon, Hobbes, 
John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, Sir William 
Hamilton, John Stewait Mill, Herbert Spencer, and 
others. 
Credit is due to Professor Morris for his skillful 
method of handling subjects presenting so many difficul- 
ties, and the general arrangement of the work is harmoni- 
ous, consistent and intelligible. The appearance of this 
work at the present time is most opportune, and as an in- 
troduction to the line of thought which speculative phil- 
osophy has taken, from Lord Bacon’s time tq the present 
day, a more useful book cannot be selected. The de- 
liberate opinions, so forcibly and ably engrafted through- 
out the work, while merely intended to point the 
way to correct views, considered from the position taken 
by the author, may even carry conviction with them. 
We, however, strongly advise the student to accept the 
book in the spirit in which it is offered, and to regard it as 
an invitation to reflection and more systematic study 
rather than as a substitute for it. 
PHYSICAL NOTES. 
Polar Electricity in the Hemihedrai. Crystals with 
Inclined Surfaces. — MM. Jacques and Pierre Curie have 
shown that all the facts hitherto observed agree in showing 
that in all the non-conductive substances with inclined sur- 
faces which have been examined there is the same connection 
between the position of the hemihedrai facettes and the di- 
rection of the phenomenon of polar electricity'. The physi- 
cal signification of the above will be better understood by 
saying more colloquially', but more tersely, that the more 
pointed extremity of the hemihedrai form corresponds to 
the positive pole by' contraction, whilst the more obtuse ex- 
tremity corresponds to the negative pole. — M. P. Thenard 
claims that the same phenomenon was observed by his son 
fifteen y'ears ago. 
Production of Crystals of Chromium Sesquichi.oride 
of a Persistent Green Color. — M. A. Mengeot allows 
hy'drochloric acid to act upon potassium bichromate dis- 
solved in water. If the solution is allowed to evaporate for 
about ten months the bottom of the vessel is found lined 
with deep violet crystals of chromium sesquichloride, but 
among these large violet crystals are some small green cry's- 
tals of a salt of chromium. According to all authorities the 
green salts are only' formed at loo° ; they are not crystalline, 
and they' gradually' pass into the violet condition. But the 
production of these green crystals takes place at common 
temperatures, and they' have remained green for more than 
two y r ears. 
Researches on Basic Salts and on Atacamite. — M. 
Berthelot considers that in this compound, CuCl,3CuO,- 
4HO, the water serves as the chief connecting link. A me- 
tallic salt may be completely precipitated and the resulting 
liquid neutralized without an equivalence between the pre- 
cipitating alkali and the acid of the metallic salt, a portion 
of the lattar being carried down in the precipitate. A great 
number of metallic salts behave in an analogous manner. 
M. Berthelot has also found that the transformation of the 
simple ethers into alcohols corresponds in a state of solu- 
tion to a thermic phenomenon, which is almost nil. 
