Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 18.djvu/721

Rh doubt quite long enough, our enterprising spiritualistic friends have decided that it must be solved. And as speculation seems to have failed to settle it satisfactorily, they are bound to do it in the clearest and completest possible manner by experiment, so that the conclusion shall have the same validity that is conceded to strict scientific investigations. It would seem that Professor Zöllner had got tired of being shut into the common field of natural law as a theatre of research, and was determined to break out and get into a larger and more promising field. Hence he properly terms his new results "Transcendental Physics," that is, physics beyond the sphere of the senses. We doubt if the time has quite come for so ambitious an adventure. Old-fashioned physics is still in its infancy, though its growth is vigorous, its accomplishments already vast, and its legitimate promises boundless. After thousands of years of groping to find the true method of arriving at the truth of nature, that method has at last been found and abundantly verified as opening the right path of future inquiry. Yet the method has been really but just mastered, and we think it would be wise if our physicists could content themselves to pursue it humbly and faithfully—for say the next thousand years. Nor does Professor Zöllner's experience encourage us in the least to qualify this recommendation; for it looks as if he had not yet served half his apprenticeship to the existing and well-attested method. The proneness to indulge in wayward fancies, in groundless conjectures, in imaginary explanations and insane speculations, has always been the great obstacle to sober and cautious science, and we think it is the great office of science to discipline and subdue this tendency. But Professor Zöllner has hardly yet learned the rudiments of his scientific lesson. Nature, as disclosed to the common intellect of man, is not sufficient for him. He scorns its limitations, and is bound to know what is outside. So at the very opening of his book he makes a grand transcendental somersault, and comes down—Heaven save us!—in the fourth dimension of space. Zöllner is free, but we poor worms of the dust can not follow him. We have all we can possibly do in three dimensions of space, and it will be a considerable period before this is exhausted. Let those who are inclined buy the "Transcendental Physics," and follow its author if they can. Yankee enterprise is proverbial, and there will no doubt be many who hold to the inspiring motto of the daring Sam Patch, that "some things can be done as well as others."

little monograph is aimed at the prevention of the most destructive of all diseases. It offers an explanation of the nature of consumption, and then takes up the various hygienic agencies which are potent to protect the system from its invasion. The author epitomizes his book as follows: "In summing up the considerations in the preceding pages, I think it appears conclusive that consumption, or the tendency to it which exists in many individuals, is essentially a premature dissipation of the force and matter of the body, and that improper food, bad air, deprivation of sunlight, poor clothing, want of physical exercise, disease, imperfect digestion, all accelerate this process of waste. Therefore, in all our efforts at prevention, the path of duty lies straight before us, and consists in conserving these two elements of the body by laying a good foundation in infancy, by preserving the organs of digestion, by eating an abundance of rich and nutritious food, such as fat, butter, meat, milk, eggs, etc., by breathing pure air, by living on dry soil, by wearing warm and comfortable clothing, by taking plenty of physical exercise, and by avoiding disease and injurious occupation."

volume is founded on some lectures lately delivered before a mixed audience of ladies and gentlemen at the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. It professes to be introductory rather than exhaustive—an invitation to reflective and systematic