Prof. _J. E. Creighton_, to undergraduate classes in Cornell
University; is intended primarily as a text-book for students, and
aims at being both practical and theoretical. The broad view is taken
in the definition of the subject that logic is the science of thought,
or the science that investigates the process of thinking; and the
author expresses himself convinced that, in spite of some
difficulties, formal logic is one of the most valuable instruments in
modern education for promoting clear thinking and for developing
critical habits of mind. To doubters of the advisability of attempting
to include a theory of thought or a philosophy of mind in an
elementary course in logic, Professor Creighton replies that
psychology having differentiated itself from philosophy and become a
"natural" science, no longer undertakes to describe all that the mind
is and does. "It belongs to logic to investigate intelligence as a
knowing function, just as it is the task of ethics to deal with the
practical or active mental faculties." Logic must first be a science
before it can become an art, but it can not be regarded as an art in
the sense that it furnishes a definite set of rules for thinking
correctly. What it can do is to show the method by which new truths
have been discovered and the general conditions that must always be
fulfilled in reasoning correctly. The treatment in the text follows
the usual order, except that the author, keeping clear of artificial
diction, writes in talking English that is easy to be comprehended.
There are no more vital problems in the evolution of society than
those connected with the point of view, the outlook, of the great
masses of the "working people." These people form the backbone, the
potential energy of society; an acquaintance with their views of
ethics and life, and manner of living, is of the utmost importance,
not only _per se_, but especially because of the efficient direction
which such a knowledge can give the attempts at improving these
latter, and through them society at large. Mr. Walter Wyckoff has,
apparently actuated by some such view as this, in combination perhaps
with a desire for a novel experience, made a two years' trip across
the continent, living chiefly among the lowest and most improvident
class of manual laborers; making his own living by their methods, and,
by means of the close contact, studying them from a vantage point of
unusual value. The account of this expedition[47] is, as it could not
fail to be, no matter who the traveler might have been, of great
interest and value. But in Mr. Wyckoff's hands the story has an added
attraction through the literary ability of the author. There is much
material of practical scientific value in the volume; it should prove
especially suggestive and useful to some of our charity organization
workers who apparently find it so difficult to govern their work by
reason rather than emotion. There are one or two rather unpleasant
lapses, the most marked of which advertises in a Chicago police
station Mr. Wyckoff's great linguistic attainments, but the work is
generally free from this sort of weakness, and is on the whole very
well worth reading for instruction as well as entertainment.
The _Manual of Determinative Mineralogy_ of Professors _George J.
Brush_ and _Samuel L. Penfield_[48] is intended primarily to be used
in the identification of minerals, and that purpose has been kept
prominently in view. The present edition is a complete revision of
Professor Brush's original work, the value of which and the estimation
in which it is held by its constituency are attested by the fact that
fourteen editions of it have been issued since it first appeared in
1874. A revision of the parts devoted to blowpipe analysis and the
chemical reactions of the elements was published in 1896. To the
present edition a chapter is added on the physical properties of
minerals, devoted chiefly to crystallography, in which the endeavor
has been made to present the subject as simply as possible. Importance
has been attached to the description of those forms which are of most
frequent occurrence, and the examples chosen to illustrate the
different systems represent, as a rule, the simple forms that prevail
in specimens of common minerals, while rare and complex forms are
treated very briefly. The introduction of a large number of species
since 1874 has made a complete rearrangement necessary in the
analytical tables; and they have been so developed that tests for
characteristic chemical constituents furnish the chief means of
identification. Stress is laid upon the importance of determining the
chemical constituents as a factor in securing accuracy in
identification.
Demonstrator _G. S. Newth_ opens his _Manual of Chemical Analysis_[49]
with a protest against the thought of "doing" analysis without
learning more than the minimum amount of chemistry, and against
teaching and practicing it in such a manner as to degrade it to the
level "of a purely mechanical and often unintelligible series of
rule-of-thumb operations." He says he has done his best to make it "as
little of a cram book as possible," and has endeavored "to teach
analytical chemistry as well as analysis"--that is, the theoretical as
well as the practical side of the subject. He begins with emphasizing
the importance of the student making himself _practically_ familiar
with certain simple operations he will have to perform constantly, and
gives clear, concise definitions of such terms as filtration,
solution, evaporation, fusion, precipitation, ignition, etc., which
relate to those operations. He condemns slovenly formulas and
mechanical notes, but commends real notes of the student's own
observations. In his treatment he excludes merely descriptive details
that have no bearing on analysis; and in quantitative analysis,
prefers describing fully a few typical methods and processes to
covering much ground slightly.
The Ingersoll Lectureship at Harvard University is constituted on a
legacy by Miss Caroline H. Ingersoll, carrying out the wishes of her
father, George G. Ingersoll, for the foundation of an annual
lectureship on the "Immortality of Man," to which no conditions as to
doctrine or method of treatment are attached. The purpose of the
lectures, or perhaps their operation, as defined by Prof. _William
James_, is that out of the series may emerge a collective literature
worthy of the theme. Professor James took as the special subject of
his lecture[50] the answer to two objections to the doctrine of
immortality: first, the absolute dependence of our spiritual life, as
we know it here, on the brain; and the second relating to "the
incredible and intolerable number of beings which, with our modern
imagination, we must believe to be immortal, if immortality be true."
To the former objection the author replies that thought is not a
productive but a permissive or transmissive function of the brain;
when the brain decays, the sphere of being that supplied the
consciousness is still intact, and the stream still goes on; to the
second, that spiritual being is not as material being, that each new
mind brings "its own edition of the universe of space" along with it,
that there is no crowding or interference, and that the supply of
individual life in the universe can never possibly exceed the demand.
The first number of _In Lantern Land_, a monthly journal "devoted to
literature, the fine arts, the play, with some discussion of passing
events," _Charles Dexter Allen_ and _William Newnham Carleton_,
editors, gives promise of a literary journal of elevated tone. It
holds its aim to be unprejudiced and independent. (Published at
Hartford, Conn., by Charles Dexter Allen, for one dollar a year.)
Mr. _Henry Carr Pearson_ presents in his _Greek Prose Composition_
(American Book Company, 90 cents) results of his own experience in the
class room. The aim of the book is to combine study of the essentials
of Greek syntax with practice in translating connected English into
Attic Greek, and to afford convenient practice in writing Greek at
sight. The work is in three parts: Part I, containing, in graded
lessons, the principal points of Greek syntax, designed for use at the
beginning of the second year's study of Greek; Part II, short simple
English sentences modeled after sentences in Xenophon's Anabasis, for
daily use in connection with reading of the text; and Part III,
connected English prose, graded, also based on the Anabasis. Review
lessons are introduced, and a Greek-English vocabulary is provided.
Mr. _James W. Crook_, in the introduction to his history of the
development of _German Wage Theories_ (Columbia University Studies in
History, Economics, and Public Law), remarks upon the slowness with
which political economy, and particularly the study of questions
concerning wages, has advanced in Germany. Hardly any original work
on wages is to be found there for half a century after the publication
of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, although numerous text-books
bearing upon the subject were issued--all for the most part only
summarizing or slightly modifying the reasonings and conclusions of
the English master. The conditions of economic life in the two
countries were different, and the "industrial revolution was slow in
developing on the Continent, and in Germany the old industrial order
with its restrictions and conservative methods prevailed long after
England had replaced the old with the new." These differences between
the two countries may adequately account for the great disparity in
theoretic development. And Germany is still largely dependent upon
other countries in its discussions. In the present work, the chief
object being to discover progress of thought on the subject,
chronology had to be sacrificed, in some instances, to a logical
treatment. Those writers are grouped who appear to show the largest
number of points of contact, and this leads to placing all the German
writers treated in two groups, in one of which a real unity of method
and interest prevails, and Hermann is the most important center,
while the other group includes von Thünen, Karl Marx, and
Schulze-Gaevernitz, authors who do not belong together in the sense
that the others do.
Among the articles in the _Columbia University Bulletin_ for June,
1898, are those on the Department of History, the Preparatory Schools
(by G. R. Carpenter), Columbia Non-Graduates (H. G. Paine), the
Teaching of Anatomy (by George S. Huntington), and the second of Mr.
H. A. Cushing's historical papers on King's College in the American
Revolution.
The report of _Filibert Noth_, special agent of the Division of
Forestry, on _Forestry Conditions_ and _Interests of Wisconsin_, and
the _Third Annual Report of the Chief Fire Warden of Minnesota, C. C.
Andrews_, furnish many facts and suggestions of value to persons
interested in the maintenance and protection of our forests.
D. Appleton and Company publish as one of their Home Reading Books
_The Story of Rob Roy_, by _Sir Walter Scott_, condensed for home and
school reading by Edith D. Harris. The editor of the series, Dr. W. T.
Harris, furnishes a preface, pointing out the essential qualities of
Scott's works on which their fame rests, and analyzing the features of
Scottish and English life of the age to which they relate and which
give these stories of the border their interest and charm. In
explanation of the plan and reason of the present condensation, he
says that "it has been found possible to condense the Waverley novels
by omitting all lengthy descriptions of scenery, historical
disquisitions on the times, and a few passages of dialogue and
monologue that do not contribute directly to the progress of the
story, or throw light upon the character of the persons who enter upon
the scene. It is believed that by this method the interest is
preserved intact, and that after a year's interval the story in its
unabridged form may be read with as lively an interest as the youth
will feel in reading this version." Price, 60 cents.
A paper, _Indices Ponderaux de la Crane_ (Weight Indexes of the
Brain), in the Bulletin of the Anthropological Society of Paris,
comprises the results of a study of the weight and capacity of the
brain, the weight of the mandible, and the cranio-mandibular and
cranio-cerebral indices, etc., made upon sixty-four heads of animals
by _George Grant McCurdy_, of New Haven, with the collaboration of M.
_Nicolas Mohyliansky_.
The pamphlet embodying the _Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Session of
the Association of American Anatomists_, held at Cornell University in
December, 1897, contains a portrait and notice, with bibliography of
the late Dr. Harrison Allen, the reports of the majority and the
minority of the committee on anatomical nomenclature, and seventeen
papers contributed by members of the association.
The _University Geological Survey of Kansas_ is conducted under the
authority of the Board of Regents of the State University, and has
issued already several large and elegant volumes recording the
operations and results of its work. The fourth volume, now before us,
embraces the paleontology of the Upper Cretaceous, and is by _Samuel
W. Williston_, paleontologist. Kansas is famous for its fossils, no
equal area in the United States, perhaps, presenting such varied and
remarkable records of this kind. Yet, while the State has furnished
much of interest to the sciences of geology and paleontology, the
published accounts in these departments are confined to scattered and
abstruse papers accessible only to the specialist. The present
publication is an effort to put this knowledge, so far as the
particular formation to which it relates is concerned, within the
reach of students. Professor Williston has been engaged for twelve
years in the study of the geology and paleontology of the State,
having spent more than three years in field exploration, and has been
eight years collecting material for his book, enjoying the advantage
of access to the very important collection of the university. Much of
the information is here published for the first time. The fossils of
the western part of the State only are described in it, for the sole
reason that more preparatory work has been done on them in the
university in recent years; but other departments are in preparation
and will appear in due course. The fossils described are birds,
dinosaurs, crocodiles, mosasaurs, turtles, microscopic organizations,
and invertebrates, all of the Upper Cretaceous.
In a paper on _The Relations of the People of the United States to the
English and the Germans_, read before the Thursday Club of Chicago,
Mr. _William Vocke_ undertakes a defense of the Germans against a
supposition that they are hostile to the United States. This is right,
if the Germans need defense, which we doubt; but to give his thesis
the shape of an attack on England, as is done in the paper, is
unnecessary.
The account of the investigations conducted by Dr. _D. N. Bergey_
under the supervision of Drs. J. S. Billings and S. Weir Mitchell, on
the _Influence upon the Vital Resistance of Animals to the
Micro-organisms of Disease, brought about by a Long Sojourn in Impure
Atmosphere_, already referred to in the Monthly, is published under
the Hodgkins Fund in the Smithsonian Miscellaneous Contributions.
The _Report of the United States National Museum_ which we are called
upon to notice is for the year 1895, and bears the signature of _G.
Brown Goode_. It embraces accounts of the origin and development of
the museum, its organization and scope, and its work in public
education; reviews of the special topics in its operations for the
year; synopses of the scientific work in various departments; the
administrative reports; appendixes relating to accessions to the
collections, lectures, meetings, etc.; and a number of special papers
of great value and interest, including an account of the Kwakiutl
Indians, by Franz Boas; The Graphic Art of the Eskimos, by W. J.
Hoffman; The Geology and Natural History of Lower California, by G. P.
Merrill; The Tongues of Birds, by F. A. Lucas; The Ontonagon Copper
Bowlder in the United States Museum, by Charles Moore; The Antiquity
of the Red Race in America, by Thomas Nilsen; and accounts of the
Mineralogical Collections in the Museum, by Wirt Tassin, and of the
Taxidermical Methods in the Leyden Museum, Holland, by Dr. Shufeldt.
_The Dawn of the Twentieth Century_ is a poem, described by the
author, _Charles P. Whaley_, as his first sermon, dedicated to
rationalism. He describes himself as having recovered from "a severe
attack of orthodoxy," which deprived him for the time of the power of
logical reason, and to have at last discerned a theology, "founded
upon absolute, demonstrable scientific facts," which is to prevail in
the next century. His poem presents his view of that theology.
In the September number of the Quarterly Review, _The New World_, an
article by Prof. _Otto Pfleiderer_ on Evolution and Theology, defines
the task of Ecclesiastical Protestantism after having abandoned the
ethical ideals of mediæval Christianity, as being "for a still wider
development, to strike off the dogmatic fetters of ecclesiastical
criticism, and to clothe its religious principle in new forms of
thought, which shall render for our age the same service that the
Greek and Roman dogmas rendered for the earlier time." In an article
on Social and Individual Evolution, Mr. _Henry Jones_ maintains that
the social tendencies of the present day point to a limitation of
individual independence and enterprise.
A contribution to the anthropology of the Jesup North Pacific
Expedition, _Facial Paintings of the Indians of Northern British
Columbia_, by _Franz Boas_, forms the first part of Volume II of the
Memoirs of the American Museum of Natural History. The Jesup
expedition has been organized under the patronage of Mr. Morris K.
Jesup, president of the museum, and under the direction of that
institution, to study what relations may exist or may have existed
between the natives of the northwest coasts of America and the peoples
of the neighboring Asiatic coasts. The general likeness, in the midst
of their special minor diversities, of all the Indians of the American
continent points to an ultimately common origin for them, while the
differences indicate that this may not have been precisely identical
in time and place, and seem to have required a very long time for
their development and establishment. The purpose of the expedition is
to collect all the information that can be obtained by its method of
exploration contributing to this end. The present contribution
embodies the fruits of a study of the arts, as applied to facial
decoration, of the Thompson River Indians, the Chilcotin, the Bella
Coola, the Kakiutl, and the Nootka. This art is almost exclusively
based on animal motives, is highly conventionalized, and has the
unique peculiarity of seeking to fit the whole figure of the animal to
the surface on which it is applied; whence it presents some curious
effects. In this effort to illustrate the principles of its
conventionalism Dr. Boas has selected as the most difficult and
complicated surface the human face, of which he gives in six plates
eighty-eight figures of as many different styles of decoration.
FOOTNOTES:
[45] Elementary Zoölogy. By Frank E. Beddard. New York: Longmans,
Green & Co. Pp. 208. Price, 90 cents.
[46] An Introductory Logic. By James Edwin Creighton. New York: The
Macmillan Company, pp. 392. $1.10.
[47] The Workers: an Experiment in Reality. The West. By Walter A.
Wyckoff. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 878. $1.50.
[48] Manual of Determinative Mineralogy, with an Introduction on
Blowpipe Analysis. By George J. Brush. Revised and enlarged, with
entirely new tables for the identification of minerals. Fifteenth
edition, first thousand. New York: John Wiley & Sons, pp. 312.
[49] A Manual of Chemical Analysis, Qualitative and Quantitative. By
G. S. Newth. New York: Longmans, Green & Co., pp. 462. $1.75.
[50] Human Immortality. Two Supposed Objections to the Doctrine. By
William James. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co., pp. 70. $1.
PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED.
Agricultural Experiment Stations. Bulletins and Reports. Cornell
University: No. 154. Tables for Computing Rations for Farm Animals. By
J. L. Stone. Pp. 20; No. 155. The San José Scale. By H. P. Gould. Pp.
12; No. 156. Potato Culture. By I. P. Roberts and L. A. Clinton. Pp.
12; No. 157. The Grapevine Flea Beetle. By M. V. Slingerland. Pp. 24;
No. 158. Bacteria in Cheese Curd. By V. A. Moore and A. R. Ward. Pp.
20. with plate; No. 159. Report on Progress of Work. Pp. 32.--Hatch
Station of Massachusetts Agricultural College: No. 56. Concentrated
Feed Stuffs. Pp. 24.--New Jersey: No. 132. Fertilizer Analyses. Pp.
61.--Ohio: Seventeenth Annual Report for 1898. Pp. 48.--Purdue
University: No. 73. Tests of Strawberries, Raspberries, Blackberries,
and Grapes. Pp. 16; No. 74. A Native White Bedding Plant (Starry
Grasswort). By J. C. Arthur. Pp. 12.--United States Department of
Agriculture: No. 16. The Hessian Fly in the United States. By Herbert
Osborn. Pp. 60, with plates; Miscellaneous Results of the Division of
Entomology. Pp. 102.--University of Wyoming: No. 39. Alkali Studies.
By E. E. Blosson and B. C. Buffum. Pp. 24.
Allen, Alfred H., and Leffmann, Henry. Commercial Organic Analysis.
Third edition. Revised. Vol. II, Part I. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston,
Sons & Co. Pp. 387. $3.50.
American, The, Kitchen Magazine. A Domestic Science Monthly, January,
1899. The Home Science Company, Boston, Mass. Monthly. 10 cents. $1 a
year.
Bailey, L. H., Editor. The Principles of Agriculture. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 300. $1.25.
Bardeen, C. W. Commissioner Hume. A Story of the New York Schools.
Syracuse, N. Y.: C. W. Bardeen. Pp. 210. $1.25.
Bates, Frank Greene. Rhode Island and the Formation of the Union. New
York: Columbia University (Studies in History, etc.). The Macmillan
Company. Pp. 220.
Brooks, William Keith. The Foundations of Zoölogy. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 339. $2.50.
Bulletins, Reports, etc. Atlanta University: Some Efforts of American
Negroes for their own Social Betterment (Report of the Third Atlanta
Conference). Pp. 66.--Bruner, Lawrence, University of Nebraska: Some
Notes on Nebraska Birds. Pp. 178.--City of Chicago: Report of the
Educational Commission. Pp. 248.--Connecticut: Fourteenth Annual
Report of the State Bureau of Labor Statistics. Pp. 234.--Harvard
Astrophysical Conference, August, 1898. By M. B. Snyder. Pp.
33.--Harvard College Astronomical Observatory: Annual Report of the
Director to September 30, 1898. By E. C. Pickering. Pp. 14.--Iowa
State University: Bulletin from the Laboratories of Natural History,
Vol. IV, No. 4. Pp. 96, with plates.--Jewish Training School of
Chicago: Ninth Annual Report. Pp. 45.--Michigan: Thirtieth Annual
Report of Registry and Return of Births, Marriages, and Deaths for
1896. By C. L. Wilbur. Pp. 188.--Model, the Gas and Gasoline Engine.
Garrett Works, Indiana. Pp. 22.--New York State Museum: A Guide to the
Geological Collections, By F. J. H. Merrill. Pp. 156, with
plates.--Society of American Authors: Monthly, January, 1899. Pp.
12.--Tokio, Japan, Imperial University Calendar. Pp. 250, with
map.--United States Commissioner of Education: Report for 1896-'97,
Vol. II. Pp. 1260.--United States Fish Commission Bulletin, Vol. XVII,
1897. George M. Bowers, Commissioner. Pp. 436.
Campbell, D. H. Lectures on the Evolution of Plants. New York: The
Macmillan Company. Pp. 319. $1.25.
Clinical Excerpts. Vol. I, No. 10. Pp. 16.
Coming Age, The. A Magazine of Constructive Thought. B. O. Flower and
Mrs. C. K. Reifsinder, Editors. Vol. I, No. 1, January. 1899. Boston:
The Coming Age Company. Pp. 122. 20 cents. $2 a year.
Dabney, Charles W., Jr. University of Tennessee. The Old College and
the New. Pp. 16.--A National Department of Science. Pp. 13.
Elliott, A. G., Editor. Gas and Petroleum Engines. Translated and
adapted from the French of Henry de Graffigny. New York: The Macmillan
Company. 75 cents.
Farrington, E. H., and Wall, F. W. Testing Milk and its Products.
Madison, Wis.: The Mendota Book Company. Pp. 256, $1. Pp. 140, 75
cents.
Haeckel, Ernst. The Last Link in our Present Knowledge of the Descent
of Man. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 156. $1.
Huntington, Harwood. The Yearbook for Colorists and Dyers. Vol. I. New
York: The Author. Pp. 309.--Some Notes on Chemical Jurisprudence. 260
West Broadway, New York. Pp. 24. 85 cents.
Index, The. Devoted to the Latest News and Gossip in the Field of Art
and Letters. G. B. Rogers, Editor. Vol. I, No. 10. Cleveland and New
York: The Hellman-Taylor Company. 50 cents a year.
Lee, Sidney, Editor. Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. LVII. Tom
to Tytler. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 461. $3.25.