Popular Science Monthly/Volume 34/January 1889/Literary Notices
English Composition and Rhetoric. Part II. Emotional Qualities of Style. By Alexander Bain. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 325. Price, $1.40.
The discussion of the subject of this volume is considerably amplified from that given in the original work, with a more precise classification and fuller detail of examples. The subject is confessed to be beset with peculiar difficulties, arising from the vague and indefinable character of the human feelings, which can not be described directly or accurately analyzed; it can be approached only by the way of wide comparison and illustration. The first step taken by the author is to classify the emotions common to poetry and the fine arts; and in this we find at the outset that the lines are hazy and discernible only by the aid of acquired faculties. Next to be studied are the aids to emotional qualities, the common end of which is the evoking of emotions of the pleasurable kind. The conditions of treatment under which they are brought into effect are representative force, concreteness and objectivity, personification, harmony, ideality, novelty and variety, plot, and refinement. The qualities themselves are designated as strength or sublimity, beauty, feeling or pathos, humor, wit, and melody; of which melody and feeling are perhaps the least ambiguous, while most of the others are liable to complications that make scientific precision in the language of criticism very difficult. Under the first head are brought the contrasted emotions of love, tender feeling, and sociability, on the one hand, and irascibility, malevolence, and antipathy on the other. It may seem paradoxical to enumerate the emotions of the latter category among the promotives of pleasure, but an analysis of the best literary works will show that these darker aspects of feeling are as essential as the shadows in a picture. Feeling includes the varieties of love, friendship, patriotism, compassion, religion, personified feeling, and sorrow or pathos; humor, the group of qualities centering in the ludicrous. When place is given to all these qualities, there still remains a region of effects not fully accounted for—beauty; the sense qualities; utility, which can hardly be divorced from the special emotions, but stands to a certain degree remote from any one interest; and imitation, which lends itself to further the special qualities, but has also an independent charm. Next to the minute and methodical treatment of the emotional qualities, the chief peculiarity of the present work is the line-by-line method of examining passages with a view to assigning merits and defects. These passages occupy a considerable proportion of the space, and are representative, both of the rhetorical qualities which they illustrate, and of the classical authors of all times, including the best-known contemporary authors of the literary nations. This feature, while completing the value of the book for study, makes it also attractive for leisurely reading.
Realistic Idealism in Philosophy itself. By Nathaniel Holmes. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. In Two Volumes. Pp. 621 and 499. Price, $5.
Starting with the presumption that man aspires after and must have some theory of himself, of the universe in which he lives, and of life, duty, and destiny in it, the author disposes of all the ancient theories—intuitional systems, he calls them—as vague and not competent to stand the test of a truly philosophical criticism. But the stream of thought and light that poured through antiquity, gathering strength from the various ethnic sources by which it was fed, was transmuted "into the learning and wisdom of the Christian era, such as they have been." Exactly how much the knowledge or culture of the present time has been indebted to either of the ancient systems, or how much to those of the Christian centuries alone, it would be difficult and perhaps unimportant to specify. "The one most certain thing of all is that the knowledge of nature, the insight into any true theory of this universe, or into any true wisdom in the conduct of life in this world, or into any assurance of life hereafter, that has been gained within the last five hundred years, is of more worth and value to mankind than all the rest put together." The modern speculations of philosophical theists are declared to have been too much biased by preconceived notions concerning biblical revelation, by influences growing out of reverence for Christian beliefs and popular opinion, or by subjection to an established church, to be of the value that they should be. The class of writers of which Voltaire may be taken as a representative—being mainly literary and iconoclastic—have failed to present a statement of universal philosophy or a conception of the Deity that need detain much the critical thinker of this century. Scientific methods deal with facts as facts, and are not directly concerned about a theory of God or the universe. "Physical science is a kind of external ladder by which the human mind endeavors to ascend, step by step, to the topmost height (as it were) of all knowledge. The higher it mounts, the more certain it is to find itself entering into the still higher realm of the internal and metaphysical, ending only in the universal and absolute." A metaphysical system is likewise insufficient without the verification of its conclusions by a thorough science of external nature. If philosophy has hitherto failed to furnish a satisfactory theory, the greater is the need that it should still endeavor to accomplish it. A condition is that "it must be able to take up all science, all nature, all humanity, into clear solution, leaving nothing out, or nothing but nothing." Of the four theories of the universe that stand before the world for consideration, the biblical-supernatural theory leaves philosophy to become impossible and impertinent; the materialistic-machine theory has no room for anything but physical science; and in the mystical-idealistic theory—which supposes that we have no certain knowledge of external nature, but only of the ideas or images which are formed in our minds on sensation and sense-perception—the business of philosophy is to make it as intelligible, credible, and acceptable as possible. The realistic-ideal theory, or realistic idealism, which gives the name to the book, holds that the real and the ideal are not two distinct worlds, but only the two sides or aspects of one and the same whole actuality of real essence and power. "Its method is both analytical and synthetical, is neither exclusively dialectical and deductive, nor wholly experimental and inductive, but is both at once; it is, in short, the universal method of the metaphysical logic which takes up all science into intelligible and clear solution." It is the purpose of the work to unfold, explain, and establish this theory. The book is a hard one to read, but the difficulty lies in the nature of the subject, and the fullness of the author's thought, requiring corresponding fullness in expression, and not in any defect of the workmanship. The author has studied the subject, and has mastery of his thought and knowledge of what he wishes to say.
The Tenth and Twelfth Books of the Institutes of Quintilian. With Explanatory Notes. By Henry S. Frieze. New edition, revised and improved. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 294. Price, $1.40.
The value of Quintilian in classical study consists in the opportunity which his work furnishes for at once getting knowledge which has a direct bearing on professional life, and for attaining a higher scholarship in the Latin language. The Institutio Oratoria, or "Education of the Orator," is an invaluable contribution both to polite literature and to liberal education, and capable of being made practically useful to young men in their preliminary training for public life. The tenth and twelfth books are selected for the purposes of the present text because of the interest and importance of the topics discussed in them: the former book relating to the practical studies and exercises that contribute to the formation of a good style, and the twelfth presenting a kind of outline of what the character and life of an orator should be. Prof. Frieze's work in this preparation is based most largely on the labors of Prof. Bonnell and those German scholars who have given most attention to Quintilian. The present new edition has been revised in view of the later labors of Carl Halm and G. T. A. Krüger; and the notes have been amplified, with the view to making them helpful wherever help may seem to be needed.
Antiquities of the State of Ohio. By Henry A. Shepherd. Cincinnati: John C. Yorston & Co. Pp. 139.
This monograph is a portion of the author's "Popular History of the State of Ohio." It deals with the ancient inclosures, mounds, caches, tombs, etc., located in that State, and the objects found within them. In Ohio alone there have been till recently not less than ten thousand mounds and from fifteen hundred to two thousand inclosures. In other parts of the Mississippi Valley they are so numerous that no attempt has ever been made to count them all. The inclosures are usually regular in outline, and vary in size from an acre or less to three hundred and fifty or four hundred acres. Most of them appear to have been designed for religious purposes, while others were apparently places of defense. The mounds have been classified as sacrificial mounds, mounds of sepulture, temple-mounds, and anomalous mounds. To these may be added the effigy-mounds, of which there are only three or four in Ohio, the most remarkable of them being the "Great Serpent" mound. In his descriptions of these works and the objects found in them the author quotes frequently from Squier and Davis, and from later explorers recognized as authorities on this subject. Plans, diagrams, and views illustrate the text.
Hygiene of the Nursery. By Louis Starr, M. D. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 212. Price, $1.50.
The object and spirit of this book can not be better expressed than in the following extract from its preface:
The first chapter, describing the normal appearances of the infant in health, is written with the object of hinting to the mother when by deviations from such conditions she may be apprised of the onset of disease, and call in professional counsel. The last chapter, on emergencies, is offered as a guide in cases where immediate action will save much pain and danger. Besides ordinary accidents and disorders, those which occur only at birth or soon after are treated of, and directions for making various poultices and plasters are given. The other chapters tell how to manage everything that affects the every-day life of the infant. The choice and furnishing of a room for the nursery, the selection of a nurse-maid, the infant's clothing, exercise, and amusements, sleep, bathing, and feeding, are all treated with full details. The subject of food occupies the most space, and recipes for preparing quite a variety of foods are given. Throughout the volume the directions are clear, simple, and complete, and the expectant mother who possesses this book, with a fair share of common sense, is well equipped for the care of her baby.
The Virtues and their Reasons. By Austin Bierbower. Chicago: George Sherwood & Co. Pp. 294. Price, $1.35.
This book is designed both as a treatise for the general reader and as a text-book of ethics for schools. In arrangement, it follows a classification of duties which divides them first into duties regarding others chiefly, and those regarding self chiefly. The five subdivisions of the former class are: kindness, truth, honesty, family duties, and public duties. Duties to self comprise self-development, industry, self-support, self-control, temperance, self-respect, purity, and conscientiousness. "Moral instruction is often excluded from the public schools," says the author, "on account of the different religions represented, and the want of textbooks acceptable to them all." Hence he has purposely adopted such a method of treatment that "Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and unbelievers may use this book with equal approval." He does not go into the question what constitutes right; "it is enough now to observe," he says, "that, whatever men's opinions touching the ground of right, they all deem those things right which are thought best for men, and consider that course morality which will bring them most happiness." Accordingly, the matter under each head throughout the book may be described as a statement of those things which are thought best for men. The volume is without an index.
The Advance-Guard of Western Civilization. By James R. Gilmore (Edmund Kirke). New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 343. Price, $1.50.
This volume has a close relation with the two previous historical works by the same author—"The Rear-Guard of the Revolution" and "John Sevier as a Commonwealth-Builder," the three together presenting, as is remarked, a phase of American history to which sufficient prominence has not been given—the story of the foundation and growth of the Tennessee commonwealth. The title of the first volume is justified in the fact that, but for the enterprise and courage of the hardy pioneers who broke their way into the woods of the Southwest and formed settlements there, the rear of the American colonies during the Revolution would have been exposed to Indian attacks in the interest of Great Britain, while such attacks were relied upon as a part of the scheme of subjugation. The present volume relates to the emigration of James Robertson as leader of a party of three hundred and eighty men, women, and children from the Watauga foundation to the Cumberland River, the settlement of Nashville, "the first civilized settlement in the valley of the Mississippi," and the subsequent fortunes of that post and the neighboring stations, down to the conclusion of peace, through Robertson's efforts, between the Creeks and Chickasaws, in 1795. Robertson lived till 1814, and had the privilege of giving eminent services to the Government, by holding the Choctaws and Chickasaws to their allegiance against Tecumseh's efforts to engage them in his conspiracy; and of him the author claims that, judging by the standard of fidelity to duty and devotion to the good of men, there have been few greater characters in American history.
Hand-Book of Historical and Geographical Phthisiography, with Special Reference to the Distribution of Consumption in the United States. Compiled and arranged by George A. Evans, M. D., New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 295. Price, $2.
In this volume the author has attempted to present a sketch of the development of our knowledge of pulmonary consumption from the time of Hippocrates to the present day, together with the ascertained facts respecting the geographical distribution of the affection. The historical portion, which is mostly a translation from Waldenburg's work, gives the results of the several studies that have been made of the subject, from the days of the "father of medicine" down, with summaries of observations and theories in the order and under the names of their authors; closing with the present aspect of the question as represented by Koch, and the views of other contemporary authors. In the chapters on geographical distribution, the data for countries other than the United States are compiled from Hirsch; and those for the United States from the reports of the census. In discussing the question of "locality in relation to deaths" in the United States, the country is divided into twenty-one "regions," each of which has its peculiar features of climate, soil, topography, prevailing diseases, and death-rate. The general statistics of the United States and the principal cities, in respect to mortality by consumption and other diseases, and the topography and climate, and death-rate, by counties, from consumption, are given separately. The etiology of consumption is next taken up; and the conclusion is expressed, in the last chapter that the antiseptic treatment—natural, by living at high altitude, which is only negatively antiseptic; or artificial, by breathing medicated air—is the best.
Botany for Academies and Colleges. By Annie Chambers Ketchum, A. M. Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Company. Pp. 324, with 250 Illustrations.
This is not a very large book, but it epitomizes the whole science of botany, with a copious inventory of botanical material. While the statements are extremely concise, they are intelligible, and well exhibit the connections and relations of facts. Following the inductive method of Jussieu, the author unfolds the development and describes the structure of plants, from the cryptogamia—"the green stain on our door-stone"—to the highest orders, the magnolia and the clematis, taking each stage in the order of its evolution. "Thus, at the outset, we see the principles upon which differentiation is based." The proof of the theory and the authority for the order followed are indicated in a special lesson on fossils, and this is accompanied by a geological table showing the successive periods of organic and inorganic development in which the predominances of the orders of animals and plants are exhibited side by side. Then, with the plant world thus outlined, the physiology of the subject is taken up, and the separate parts are studied—root, stem, leaf, flower, fruit, tissues, and the forces that govern them. A single deviation from the method of Jussieu—the one usually followed by systematic botanists—is made in the case of the gymnosperms, which are separated from the dicotyledons and made a distinct class, coming immediately after the cryptogams. "In nature," the author says, "we find gymnosperms associated with the higher cryptogams in the order of development; they form comprehensive types, including the characters of cryptogams, monocotyledons, and dicotyledons—they are not true dicotyledons"; and she believes that if Jussieu had known what has been discovered since his time, he would have favored the change. The "Manual of Plants," forming the second part of the volume (some 200 pages), contains lists of all the known orders with their representative genera—a very desirable feature, for few of our manuals give them so exhaustively—with tables of abbreviations and etymons, or roots of botanical terms and names of plants.
Soaps and Candles. Edited by James Cameron. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston, Son & Co. Pp. 306. Price, $2.25.
Like the other technical hand-books in the same series, this volume consists of the articles in Cooley's "Cyclopædia" on the subjects to which it is devoted, with added information from various sources. The user of the book is assumed to have some knowledge of general and analytical chemistry, hence details of many chemical processes are omitted. In the chapters devoted to soaps, the materials employed are enumerated, and the preliminary treatment of raw fatty substances is described. Lye-testing by the hydrometer and the chemistry of saponification are touched upon, and the apparatus and arrangement of the factory are then set forth. Processes are given for manufacturing a large number of household, toilet, medicinal, red-oil, soft, and industrial soaps, also a dozen methods of recovering glycerin from spent lyes. A chapter on testing soaps closes this part of the volume. In the same manner the manufacture of candles is described. The volume is illustrated with fifty-four cuts of apparatus.
Not only new but novel is Quick Cooking (Putnam, $1), which its author calls "a book of culinary heresies." Its chief departure from the established culinary creed is in asserting that "there is no waste in the kitchen so much to be deplored as wasted time." Many of the recipes in the common run of cook-books are extremely complicated, and few women have the faintest realization of the extravagant amount of time they consume in proportion to the results achieved. They have been made in the most random fashion by adding one substance and manipulation after another, according to the fancy of the maker, and then slavishly followed, without any intelligent effort to find a simpler process for attaining an equivalent result. "Quick Cooking" claims to furnish, in five, ten, or twenty minutes, dishes as delicate and appetizing as those elaborate affairs which one must potter over from twice to ten times as long. This book contains six hundred and thirty recipes, three hundred and forty of which "can, severally or in groups, be made ready for the table in from five to fifteen minutes, and two hundred and fifty of which require from fifteen to forty minutes, or, rarely, an hour's time. "A "Black List" of thirty-nine favorite recipes is appended, so called because the most strenuous efforts have not succeeded in materially reducing the time which these dishes require. Each of the three divisions is arranged alphabetically. The whole range of dishes, from soups to sweetmeats, is represented. Prefixed to the recipes are some practical suggestions of a general character, and a table of weights and measures.
"Comfort on $150 a year" is an idea that will provoke from many an incredulous smile, but that this idea can be realized by intelligent management is demonstrated in How she did it, by Mary Cruger (Appleton, 50 cents). In pleasant story form is told how Faith Arden, with a few hundred dollars and borrowing $700 more on mortgage, buys an acre of rocky hill-side, erects a cottage upon it, which she supplies with furniture from her former home, and some articles constructed by herself, with the aid of a handy carpenter, and then begins housekeeping alone. She has an income of $300 a year, and at the end of six months finds that her living expenses, when there are no extra outlays, need not exceed $150 a year, leaving an equal sum for interest, taxes, and the reduction of her mortgage. This gives her a varied fare and many comforts. A former school-friend, with two children old enough to be helpful, then joins her, contributing at the rate of $350 a year to the expenses of the household, and the next quarter's account shows a balance of $63, which is increased to $139 for six months. The story is not a visionary one. The author states that it is "an actual portrayal, step by step, of her own experience, her own wonderful success in carrying out a long-cherished theory of comfortable economy. The every-day life described is not a poetically imagined affair, but one that she has absolutely lived and gloried in."
A second edition of the Chemical Lecture Notes of Prof. C. O. Curtman has been issued, and now includes notes on the metals. The volume is edited and published by Prof. H. M. Whelpley (St. Louis, $1.50), who has extended some of the lecturer's memoranda, and supplied a hundred cuts. Most of the cuts are in the division of chemical physics, which occupies about one third of the book. The chemistry proper is a course in general chemistry, and, although arranged for students in pharmacy and medicine, is quite full, more so than is generally given to these classes of students. Prof. Curtman's notes on organic chemistry are not included in this volume.
Mr. W. H. P. Phyfe, author of "How should I pronounce?" has now issued The School Pronouncer, based on Webster's unabridged dictionary (Putnam, $1.25). Mastering the 366 pages of this little text-book implies an amount of phonetic drill which should give the pupil a better command of English pronunciation than the average person generally has. The book is divided into three parts, in the first of which the sounds of the English language and the diacritical marks used to represent them are set forth, and extended exercises are given on the two hundred and thirty symbols, consisting of one or more letters, by which these sounds are represented in English spelling; also on the various ways, ranging from two to eighteen, of representing each one of the simple sounds. The lessons in this part are in catechetic form. The author enumerates forty-two sounds in the language, but the distinctions which he makes between e in ermine and u in urge, and between o in odd and o in dog, will be regarded by many as useless refinements. The second part comprises drills on the elementary sounds, and seventy-seven graded lists of twenty words each for phonetic analysis. Part third consists of twenty-four hundred words often mispronounced, arranged alphabetically, each word, both here and in part second, being respelled phonetically. Many names of persons and places are included in this list. Two appendixes treat of diacritics met with in other books, and eight sounds found in French and German words, but not in English. The volume is printed with large and clear type throughout, and there is no crowding of matter on its pages.
H. C. G. Brandt's First Book in German (Alleyn & Bacon, Boston, $1) is a selection from the same author's "Grammar," containing Part I, or the accidence and syntax, with new indexes, and Lodeman's exercises and the complete English vocabulary. These portions of the larger work have been put together for use in secondary schools, in place of some of the short grammars. The distinguishing feature of the part of the grammar here presented is the complete separation of inflection and syntax. The exercises for translating into German, by Prof. A. Lodeman, are intended for the double purpose of furnishing material for translation and of assisting in the analysis and translation of the more difficult illustrations in the "Grammar." They are framed upon the theory that examples from the German classics are the proper kind of illustrations for a text-book of this order.
"American Chemical Society, Journal." Monthly. New York: John Polhemus. Pp. 24. $5 a year.
American Institute of Architects. Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Convention, 1885. Pp. 124.
Besant, Walter. The Eulogy of Richard Jefferies, with a Portrait. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 854. $2.
Brinton, Daniel G., Media, Pa. The Language of Paleolithic Man. Pp. 16.
Cheritree, Olive E., Catskill, N. Y. Evolution. Pp. 32.
Chester, John, M. D, D. D. Ruth, the Christian Scientist. Boston: H. U. Carter & Karrick. Pp. 343.
Clarke, J. M., State Hall, Albany, N. Y. Report on Bones of Mastodon or Elephas, found in Association with Human Relics in Attica, N. Y. Pp. 8.
Comstock. John Henry, Ithaca, N. Y. An Introduction to Entomology. Part I. Pp. 234. $2.
Cowles Electric Furnace Company, Lockport, N. Y. The Alloys of Aluminum and Silicon. Pp. 69.
Cooke, Martin W. The Human Mystery in Hamlet. New York: Fords, Howard & Hulbert Pp. 135.
Cragin, Francis W., Editor. Bulletin of the Washburn College Laboratory of Natural History, Topeka, Kansas. Nos. 1 to 7. Pp. 212, with Plates.
Cuthbertson, Archibald. How to prevent and cure Nervous Diseases. New York: William E. Jenkins. Pp. 50. 25 cents.
Dawson. George M. Recent Observations on the Glaciation of British Columbia and Adjacent Regions. Pp. 4.
Fiske, John. The Critical Period of American History, 1783-1789. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 368. $2.
Gardner, E. C. Town and Country School Buildings. New York and Chicago: E. L. Kellogg & Co. Pp. 128.
Hale, Edwin M., M.D., Chicago. The Cat and its Diseases. Pp. 16.
Harland, Marion, Editor. "The Home-Maker." Monthly. Nos. 1 and 2. New York: The Home-Maker Company. Pp. 80 each. 20 cents, $2 a year.
Hittell, John S. A Code of Morals. San Francisco: The Bancroft Company. Pp. 51.
Holbrook. M. L. Eating for Strength. New York: M. L. Holbrook Company. Pp. 236.
Hydrographic Office, U.S. Navy Department. Pilot Chart of the North Atlantic Ocean. November, 1888. Sheet.
Iowa State Board of Health. Monthly Bulletin. October, 1888. Pp. 16.
Kay, David. Memory: What it is and how to improve it. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 334. $1.50.
Keen, W. W., M.D., Philadelphia. Three Successful Cases of Cerebral surgery. Pp. 43.
Michigan, Agricultural College of. Experiment Station. Bulletins Nos. 40 and 41. Pp. 37 and 8.
Mills, T. Wesley, Montreal. Squirrels: Their Habits and Intelligence. With an Appendix, by Dr. R. Bell, on the Red Squirrel. Pp. 14.
Nettleship, R. L. Works of Thomas Hill Green. Vol. III. Miscellanies and Memoir. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 479. $7.
Oliver, Charles A., M.D., Philadelphia. Description of a Case of Coloboma of the Iris, Lens, and Choroid. Pp. 6.
Parloa, Maria. Miss Parloa's New Cook-Book. Boston: Estes & Lauriat. Pp. 56.
Proctor, Richard A. Old and New Astronomy. Parts VI and VII. New York: Longmans, Green & Co. Pp. 124.
Riley, Charles V. Report of the Entomologist, Department of Agriculture. Pp. 179. with Plates. Insect Life. November, 1888. Pp. 44. Washington: Government Printing-Office.
Rogers, James E. Thorold. The Economic Interpretation of History. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 517.
Salomon, Otto. The Slöjd in the Service of the School. Translated by William H. Carpenter. New York: Industrial Education Association. Pp. 28. 20 cents.
Schoppell's Modern Houses. No. 10. New York: Co-operative Building Plan Association. Pp. 24. 25 cents.
Serviss, Garrett P. Astronomy with an Opera-Glass. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 154. $1.50.
Shufeldt, R. W., M.D. Osteology of Arctic and Subarctic Water-Birds. Pp. 39. with Five Plates. The Osteology of Habia Melanocephala. Pp. 7.
A Tax-Payer. True or False Finance. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 41. 25 cents.
Wakefield, George W., Sioux City, Ia. Evolution of the Humane Sentiment (Poem). Pp. 7.
Ward. Prof. Lester F., Washington. Our Better Halves. Pp. 10.