Analyses of Books . 
1882.] 
231 
of the earth must have been higher than it is at present is, how- 
ever, indubitable. 
The author asks, with reference to the idea of design in 
Nature, — “ Could a being, acting from goodness and benevo- 
lence, endow the cat, the spider, and man with a nature capable 
of all these horrors and cruelties ? ” Dr. Biichner seems here to 
fall into the error of judging natural phenomena from a narrow 
and exclusively human point of view. Why should we pity the 
animal that is eaten more than the plant which is devoured and 
trodden down ? That the one is conscious of feeling and the 
other not are assumptions far from demonstrated. To us per- 
sonally it is far more revolting to see a carnation destroyed by 
earwigs, or a rose spoiled by Aphides, than to behold the earwig 
seized by a Goerius olens or the Aphides massacred by a lady- 
bird. 
In a passage quoted from Count Goertz the negro is pro- 
nounced “ devoid of any religious feeling.” This is scarcely 
correct. 
In the chapter on the “ Brain and the Soul ” we find the inte- 
resting and very just remark that “ short-necked persons are 
lively and passionate ; long-necked persons are calm and 
sedate.” 
Spiritualism meets in this work with scant courtesy. Says the 
author, “ What the belief in sorcery, witchcraft, demoniac pos- 
session, vampirism, &c., was in former centuries, reappears now 
under the agreeable forms of table-moving, spirit-rapping, psycho- 
graphy, somnambulism, &c.” Anyone reading this book, or 
“ Aus dev neuen Hexenkilchef will see that Mrs. Kingsford’s word 
of abuse is nothing novel, and that in hurling it at Modern Science 
she is merely using that vulgar flower of rhetoric “ Y’ are 
another.” 
The author’s assertion that the common house-fly is deaf may 
be doubted. It has been observed that these unpleasant insects 
seem to recognise the peculiar buzz made by one of their num- 
ber which has got ensnared in a cobweb, and at once take their 
departure. With Dr. Biichner’s remarks on “ Instinct ” we 
heartily concur. 
The question of free will is not one which can be discussed in 
the “Journal of Science.” 
“ Force and Matter” possesses no small interest as character- 
istic of a certain school of modern thought, but in our opinion it 
requires very considerable revision. Certain of the conclusions 
reached are put forward with a confidence scarcely befitting the 
not unimpeachable evidence upon which they rest. 
