1883 .] Analyses of Books. 363 
distinctly and super-eminently utilitarian. We shall regret should 
such be the case. Strictly speaking there is no “ utilitarian ” or 
“ applied ” Science. What commonly bears the name is indus- 
trial art. The writer admits that “ the man who discovers 
nothing for himself, but only applies to useful purposes the prin- 
ciples which others have discovered, stands upon a lower plane 
than the investigator.” Yet he continues : — “ But when the in- 
vestigator becomes himself the utiliser, when the same mind 
that made the discovery contrives also the machine by which it 
is applied to useful purposes, the combined achievement must 
be ranked as superior to either of its separate results.” No, we 
reply, a thousand times no. The highest discoveries are inca- 
pable of diredt utilisation. What “ machine ” can apply to use- 
ful purposes the life-work of Darwin, the periodic system of 
Mendelejeff, the atomic theory, the doCtrine of gravitation, the 
discovery of the circulation of the blood, the researches of Joule, 
of Lyell, and, in faCt, all the great “ epoch-maching ” triumphs 
of research ? It is only the smaller discoveries, the bye-issues, 
which fall, as it were, crumb-like from the table of Science, that 
can take the form of direCt inventions. 
We must further consider that if the investigator forsakes his 
own task to devote himself to inventions and patents, he sins 
against the great principle of the division of labour. 
The writer in “ Science ” touches closely upon the ridiculous 
when he writes : “ While the scientific cynic may condemn the 
utilitarianism of our age, the more liberal man rejoices in it.” 
Surely we have here a gross perversion of language. The man 
who rejects selfish considerations cannot rationally rank as a 
“ cynic,” whilst he whose motive is greed can scarcely claim to 
be called, in any honourable sense of the term, “liberal.” We 
hope that this ill-advised essay does not strike the key-note of 
“ Science.” 
Sound. By John Tyndall, D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., Professor 
of Natural Philosophy in the Royal Institution of Great 
Britain. Fourth Edition. London : Longmans and Co. 
This work, which has already reached its fourth edition, is cha- 
racterised by its clearness — we might say elegance — of exposi- 
tion, and by the total absence of mathematical formulas. To 
take an illustration, the reader finds here the completed building, 
free from the ladders and scaffolding used in its construction. 
Hence it is intelligible not merely to the physical specialist, but 
to a much wider circle. This is doubtless the author’s purpose 
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