Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/872

852 tersely expressed in the final chapter of this work:

"The end which the statesman should keep in view as higher than all other ends is the formation of character. And if there is entertained a right conception of the character which should be formed, and of the means by which it may be formed, the exclusion of multiplied state agencies is necessarily implied."

As we ponder upon the wise counsels of this noble exposition and defense of the principles of justice, we may well congratulate ourselves, as Americans, that we were early to discover the genius and ability of him whom Mr. Darwin well named "our great philosopher." We may likewise congratulate Mr. Spencer on the renewal of health which has enabled him to make this most important contribution to the literature of ethics and philosophy. May we not hail it as a harbinger of hope that his strength will be husbanded and his life prolonged for the complete accomplishment of that self-imposed task which, even in its present unfinished state, constitutes unquestionably the greatest literary achievement of the present century?

studies were originally given in eight lectures delivered in 1890 at the Lowell Institute. They were repeated before various universities, colleges, and societies in the United States, and are now published with corrections and notes, the fruit of a year's deliberation. The author seems to be inspired by an enthusiasm for the Greek religion similar to that which Schliemann had for its Homeric associations. To him it was the beautiful and ennobling religion, first of Greece, and then—through Greece and Rome—of all the ancient world; and the sanctuaries where it had its growth were places "where that old-time worship of ideals, by some miscalled idolatry, grew pure and yet more pure, broad and broader still, until its inner significance and truth were no longer to be confined within old forms, could be fettered no longer by old deeds; and lo! Christianity was there to gather in a heritage of high-born thoughts from Greece." To the religion of Greece and Rome, the author says in another place, "to the Eleusinian mysteries, to the worship of Æsculapius and Apollo, to the adoration of Aphrodite, is due more of the fullness and comforting power of the Church to-day than many of her leaders have been willing to allow." In the spirit revealed by these words, of judging Greek religion not by all its moods, but by all its highest and most characteristic ones, are discussed the worship of Demeter and Persephone, and of Dionysus at Eleusis, of Æsculapius at Athens and Epidaurus, of Aphrodite at Old Paphoe, and of Apollo at Delos, on all of which light has been cast by recent excavations at their particular shrines. Various corollaries of the main subject are considered in appendixes; and plans are given of three of the temples.

volume appeals to the large class of educated readers without scientific training who may wish for some comprehension of electrical principles. No mathematical computations or technical processes are given, but the resultant laws are clearly stated, illustrated by interesting experiments and explanations of recent inventions. The author has made four divisions of her work: Static Electricity; Magnetism; Current Electricity; and Appliances of Electricity. Under the first head a brief outline of electrical development and elementary facts is followed by a description of frictional machines and the "electrophorus." A "charge" is produced because "all bodies are not equally good conductors," and the storing of electricity is compared to the accumulation of water, the insulator acting similarly to a dam. As the existence of air is shown by the wind-storm, so the presence of electricity is exhibited in discharge. "Potential" is defined as the comparative electrical condition of a body. If the same amount of electricity be conveyed to two different bodies, the smaller one may be at high potential and the larger at low potential, "potential" bearing the same relation to electricity that level bears