Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 35.djvu/143

Rh and psychological changes that occur when the girl attains the age of puberty are described. Mental and physical culture are the next two subjects considered, and under the latter Lead certain gymnastic exercises adapted to develop various parts of the body are specified. Woman's dress, the hygiene of the monthly period, marriage, the hygiene of pregnancy, and the change of life, are treated in a simple practical fashion. The last chapter is devoted to beauty, and tells women the most effective ways of securing beauty for themselves, and of transmitting it to their children. The treatment is plain, practical, and popular throughout.

is the most important scientific work that has appeared in many months. It follows in logical sequence upon the author's former book, "Mental Evolution in Animals," and is intended to be the first installment of a series which the writer says will deal with the intellect, emotions, volition, morals, and religion. The present volume is concerned chiefly with the origin of human faculty, as distinguished from its development, and is mostly limited to the psychology of the subject, postponing anthropological evidences for the nest installment.

Dr. Romanes takes for granted the general theory of evolution, including the evolutional doctrine of descent "as regards the whole of organic nature, morphological and psychological, with the one exception of man." Even with man this assumption is continued so far as his bodily organization is concerned; it being thus only with reference to the human mind that this exception is allowed. The effort is then made to show that the same doctrine is applicable also to the mind of man, or to "human faculty."

In the last number of "The Popular Science Monthly" extracts were given from the work before us sufficient to indicate the main positions taken and the line of argument pursued, which circumstance renders it unnecessary for us to give in this place even an outline of the course of exposition. One thing, however, ought to be observed, which did not appear in the article referred to. The controversy centers around the problem of language and the mental acts involved in predication. The task of proving that these require and exemplify nothing more than higher and more perfect developments of powers the same in kind as those found lower down in the scale of animal life, is pursued with great ability and thoroughness, and with a conclusiveness which will impress itself upon every thoughtful and candid mind. The greater part of the volume is taken up with this examination of language and the mental processes involved therein. The result is to bring out in a manner never hitherto accomplished that language itself, its formation and constitution, furnishes a demonstration of the necessary continuity of development from the animal intelligence, to explain the "origin of human faculty."

This splendid work of scientific achievement brings forward into full view of the world of science a second Darwin. No doubt such an assertion is a bold one, but we are persuaded that it is just. Not only is the work done a continuation of that of the author of "The Descent of Man"; but in his single-mindedness in the search for truth, in his careful, conservative judgment, in the thoroughness of his analysis, in his readiness to hear and patiently examine objections, in his plain, clear style of expression. Dr. Romanes more nearly approaches Darwin than has any other scientific writer. The present work is a magnificent one, and we shall await with eagerness the others that are to follow.

young or old reader who takes up this book can not fail to be charmed with the vivid scenes of animal life which it portrays. It contains the experiences of the author in a trip through the forests of Brazil to collect native natural history specimens for a national museum in Rio Janeiro. Both entertainment and information are afforded by its accounts of the doings and habits of monkeys, boas, various members of the cat family, birds, manatees, insects, ant-eaters, and the scarcely more domesticated children of the forest—the Indians. The surprising toleration which pet-keepers and pet-dealers