Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/725

Rh subjunctive mood as to how they might, could, would, or should do. It is time that the economists of every country had ceased to be a sect antagonizing the statesmen; especially is it time that the economists of America, France, and Germany had ceased, in antagonizing the statesmen of their own country, to fall into a species of disloyal alliance with the statesmen of countries whose economic interests may not be in harmony, in certain important and vital aspects, with their own"—the familiar cry of the practical politicians against the "literary fellers." In spite of this one-sidedness, there is a great deal that is valuable in the book, in the fullness of the historical presentations of the various questions, the ample citations of facts, the author's own lucid comments where his bias does not overrule him, and the notes giving views of nearly all economists, all going to justify his belief that it may prove "convenient as a book of reference to the very large number of persons who, if amply supplied with facts, find it not difficult to arrive at their own conclusions." One feature that we can commend in the highest degree is the excellence and fullness of the table of contents and the two indexes. Among the subjects specifically treated are "Wealth," "Value and Prices," "Title and Use," "Profit and Loss," "Capital," "Land," "Labor," "Money," "Crises," "The State" as a factor in various ways, and the different aspects of taxation, protection, and free trade.

has been known for twenty-five years as a writer on the various subjects that fall under the heading of the title of this book. While some of the papers have appeared in special journals and the transactions of societies, many of them have been published in channels through which they went at once to general readers. In all his work he has sought to improve the standard of American manhood and womanhood. Two of the papers in this volume—"Changes in New England Population" and "The Law of Human Increase"—appeared first in "The Popular Science Monthly"; and the former paper, with the one on "The New England Family," attracted very general attention, and were extensively copied and commented upon. They exposed a sore spot in the domestic economy of Americans, and pointed out an evil concerning which there was more sorrowing in silence than brave remarking. There is no doubt that their influence was wholesome, and that in publishing them Dr. Allen did a service to his-country. The other papers—there are twenty-four in all—if of less pronounced importance, are valuable as teaching truths bearing upon the health and longevity of the race, and presenting them in such a literary form as to commend them to general reading. We observe that they have been edited in such a manner as to constitute the volume, instead of a mere collection of scattered essays, a compact and harmonious book. The papers are preceded by a biographical sketch of the author, which is accompanied with an excellent steel-engraved portrait.

is engaged in publishing, by subscription, the complete works of the French socialistic philosopher, in fifty volumes, of which this is in order the fourth, although the second and third volumes have not yet been published in English. As implied in the title, the book is in reality a budget of contradictions, beginning with the question of the existence of God, in respect to which positive and negative statements are hypothecated. Social economy is distinguished by an opposition between fact and right; the science is real, but it is "an immense plain, strewn with materials prepared for an edifice. The laborers await the signal, full of ardor and burning to commence the work; but the architect has disappeared without leaving the plan." The principle of value is discussed in the light of the opposition of value in use and value in exchange. Division of labor is studied as the economic fact which influences most perceptibly profits and wages. The machine and the workshop having given the laborer a master and reduced him from the rank of artisan to that of common workman, the problem is in place