1884.] 
Analyses of Books. 
293 
Bulletin of the Philosophical Society of Washington. Vol. IV. 
This volume, containing the minutes of the Society from October 
g, 1880, to June 11, 1881, has been late in making its appearance. 
The first memoir we notice is on the “ Animal Population of 
the Globe,” — a somewhat ambiguous title. It is here taken to 
mean a census of the domestic mammalia throughout the woild. 
The "rand total is taken at about 1500 millions, or substantially 
the same as the number of human beings. The writer concludes 
with some remarks on the moral bearings of domestication.^ He 
contends that man creates more life than he destroys, ana that 
his methods of destruction are less painful than those of Nature. 
It may however, we think, be fairly questioned whether any 
creatures existing in a wild condition lead lives so miserable as 
those of the majority of beasts of burden. ... 
Profs. Pumpelly and Smythe have been investigating certain 
important sanitary problems. They find that the filtration of 
water through many leet of fine sand is insufficient to remove 
“ badteroidal organisms — a proof that irrigation, or “ inteimittent 
downwards filtration,” does not deprive sewage of its dangerous 
properties. The authors confirm Wernfehs results, viz., that 
air passing over putrefying fluids does not take up organisms 
therefrom — a conclusion which seems to show that the danger of 
living near a polluted river has been over-rated. 
Mr. Simon Newcomb communicated a paper on the “ Relation 
of Scientific Method to Social Progress.” The bulk of this paper 
scarcely comes within our cognizance, but we may legitimately 
and approvingly quote the following passage “ I make bold to 
say that the greatest want of the day, from a purely practical 
point of view, is the more general introduction of the scientific 
spirit and the scientific method into the discussion of those poli- 
tical and social problems which we encounter on our road to a 
higher plane of public well-being.” The same writer further 
remarks “ I think Prof. Clifford was very happy in defining 
science as organised common sense. The foundation of its 
widest general creations is laid, not in any artificial theories, but 
in the natural beliefs and tendencies of the human mind. Is 
this so ? Was not the doCtrine of the rotundity and the rotation 
of the earth a flat revolt against these same “ natural beliefs and 
tendencies”'* Is not “ common sense ” still vaunted as being 
the safeguard of the British Philistine against Evolutionism ? 
Mr. S. M. Burnett, discussing colour-perception and colour- 
blindness, objected to the Young-Helmholtz theory, and also to 
the view of Prof. Hering, who assumes that there are in the 
retina three chemical compounds, which he names the black- 
white, the red-green, and the blue-yellow He has devised a plan 
(published in full in the “ Archives of Ophthalmology ) for the 
