Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/722

706 which he published some thirty years ago, and the substance of which he presented before the American Association, to have its principle found inadequate by the committee to whom the subject was referred. For this treatment and for other evidences of lack of appreciation which he has received at the hands of men of science, he is still grieved. He continues to press his theory, and now expands it and extends it to solar storms and their influence. It presupposes vortexes in the ethereal medium in connection with the motions of the earth and the planets, and the exertion by the moon of disturbing influences upon the terrestrial vortexes, producing electrical action and storms. The author believes that he has ascertained the law of the disturbances, and can accurately predict the occurrence of storms in any part of the earth. A common origin in similar phenomena is hypothecated for solar spots and the corona and for atmospheric changes and cyclones. Those may test the theory who are able to master it and wish to try the experiment; four tables are given for computing the maximum and minimum epochs of solar activity and "the passage in time and place of the chief disturbances from the equator to the poles in both hemispheres."

work comes to us very highly commended for its admirable spirit, its masterly criticism, and its exalting views, by such men of thought as President Porter, Rev. Robert Collyer, and Professor Swing, and we have no doubt that many people will enjoy it, and find themselves helped and encouraged in their religious aspirations by the views it presents. The author has mastered the tendencies of modern science, and finds that the profoundest lesson to be drawn from them is that the most real, lasting, and powerful things are invisible, and on the basis of all that science has revealed he claims to gain strong confirmation of the belief in a future state of existence, and the immortality of conscious being. But while it is no doubt possible to appeal in this way to science for consoling encouragements in regard to the future and everlasting life, it can only be by great freedom and boldness of speculation that reassuring responses can be returned. It is not in the power of science to prove the truth of immortality. Science can only deal with the phenomena of time and experience, and whatever transcends these must be left to the sphere of faith.

volume has a claim to the attention of readers, first, because of the information which it contains on the subject of government revenue; next, because it is a hot polemic in behalf of protection, and against free trade, full of ingenious arguments; and, lastly, because its contents have been delivered as lectures before the students of Cornell University and of Hamilton College.

The book abounds with facts upon financial and economical subjects, indicating the author's wide and critical reading. But facts with him are valuable only as tributary to theories. Accordingly, he argues broadly on the basis of his multitudinous data against the freedom of commerce, and in favor of the protective system, and the political regulation of the industries of the country.

The delivery of his views before college classes was by no means a bad idea. Something is, indeed, to be said in favor of limiting collegiate study to subjects which are settled in their principles; and political economy has long been recognized as fitted for college study because it involved established truths of great public importance. But among these have been the principles of free trade, so that these institutions have become centers of propagandism of this doctrine. That the advocates of protection should not be satisfied with this, is only natural; but, instead of trying to suppress the objectionable teachings, they have more wisely attempted, as in this case, to correct the evil by presenting the claims of the