Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 15.djvu/872

 coherency and efficiency to the movement was well presented by Mr. Francis E. Abbott in his address, which contains the following passage:

"The first and greatest need of all is that of a commanding and systematic philosophy of morals, of religion, and of life. We have not got it yet. It is still to be made. We have only hopes of it—only glimpses of it. The first serious task before us is to elaborate that philosophy. We don't know yet the power of system. We have been taught to despise system. We have been taught that system runs to dogma, that dogma runs to death, and that if we are radicals, if we are free religionists, we must steer clear of system above all. Why, friends, is not the universe a system? Is not the solar system—that part of the universe in which we live—a system? Is not science a system, more and more, as it obeys its own ideal? Thought must be systematic or it is powerless; and free religion will be powerless until it has learned the great lesson of nature, and become systematic. That is what philosophy means. We must introduce order, harmony, unity, sublimity into our thoughts, or we shall try in vain to affect the world's life, from this platform or from any other. First of all, let us comprehend the one great need of free religion, the need of intellectual unity, order, and concentration in our thinking. When we have got that, when we have reduced our principles to system, then we shall have unsealed the fountain-head, as it were, of all noble enthusiasm and all mighty power in the world—and not till then."

pamphlet is reprinted from the "Journal of the American Electrical Society," and it is especially interesting and useful as giving a clear account of Professor Henry's electrical and electro-magnetic investigations. We want a more considerable work in relation to the career and influence of Professor Henry, but in the absence of such a volume this paper will prove most instructive.

those who are unfamiliar with the state of European education this little monograph will be found worthy of attention. It is very brief, but gives a good general view of the subject, and may serve to dissipate some of the prejudices that have grown up in many minds against foreign educational systems under the patriotic notion that America leads the world in education.

Authors' Publishing Company, in their announcement of this book, recommend it as compact of "fact and logic, pure, clear, and irresistible." The impartial reader, however, will find it in nothing different from the average of works of its class. Its dominant idea is that, unless we "do something," the Pope will soon be master of the situation in America, and all our free institutions will be suppressed. The book does not contain a single idea that has not been proclaimed already ten thousand times from the rostrum and in the anti-Popery press. A less passionate survey of the situation might have developed grounds for not despairing of the commonwealth. There is a spirit of skepticism abroad among the people which will not permit the reestablishment of ecclesiastical despotism, whether Protestant or Papal.

Etudes Synthétiques de Geologie expérimentale. Par A. Daubrèe. Première partie, pp. 478. With numerous Illustrations. Paris: Dunod. 1879.

The Theory of Political Economy. By W. S. Jevons. Second edition, revised and enlarged. London: Macmillan. 1879. Pp. 315. $3.50.

Hygiene and Public Health. Edited by A. H. Buck, M. D. Two vols. New York: W. Wood & Co. 1879. Pp. 792 and 657.

The Silk Goods of America: Recent Improvements and Advances of Silk Manufacture in the United States. By W. C. Wyckoff. New York: Van Nostrand. 1879. Pp. 120. $1.50.

Scientific Lectures. By Sir John Lubbock. London: Macmillan. 1879. Pp. 196. $2.50.

Preliminary Investigation of the Properties of