Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 44.djvu/140

132 The next chapter, entitled Fatty Acids, contains an account of these as they occur in the various essential oils used in soap-making. Chapter III, headed Materials, is devoted to a consideration of the various raw materials employed in the manufacture, the methods of preparing them for use (refining processes), and accounts and cuts of the necessary machinery. Chapter IV deals with the water used in soap manufacture, detailing the undesirable impurities and giving methods for removing them.

The next chapter, on The Manufacture of Soap, gives an account of the essentials of the art as it is practiced to-day. This is followed by a chapter on Packing and Stamping. Chapter VII considers special soaps; Chapter VIII, toilet soaps, and Chapter IX the perfumes commonly used. The next chapter is an account of the methods used for recovering the glycerin set free in the process of saponification. The last chapter consists of a systematic scheme of soap analysis.

The book, although not intended as a popular treatise, contains much that is suited to the untechnical reader, and for one with a little chemical knowledge, who desires to know something of the manufacture of this important article, it is a good text-book. The cuts and detailed descriptions also make it valuable to the manufacturer.

seek for happiness and to be happy is not only a legitimate aim in life, but, according to Dr. Brinton, there is no higher object; it alone makes life worth living. The altruist may label this pure selfishness and proclaim that our duty is to live for others; the ascetic may extol self-abnegation as the greatest of virtues; yet if we are to diffuse happiness, we must first be charged with it ourselves—"he wastes his life who devotes his time to anything else than the pursuit of happiness or the search for truth." These quests may be identical, for the first step in learning how to be happy is to get knowledge. Even through "the yearning for joy" evolution has come to us; in groping for pleasurable sensation the amœba has developed into man. The human individual attains happiness when his self-consciousness is brought into harmony with his faculties and surroundings. This involves growth and action. Happiness is not momentary pleasure, it is even compatible with physical pain and mental suffering if these enhance the realization of self. To be happy, one must work and fight as for the promised land. It follows that there is an art of felicity whose laws we may study.

The author considers m detail what are the conditions of happiness; how far it depends on Nature and fate, how far it may be controlled by ourselves and by others, and, finally, what are the consolations of affliction.

On the whole he is a cheerful philosopher, although his view of old age is somber—"a malady that is absolutely fatal," whose pleasures are tolerable. To women he accords justice rather than flattery, for which rare tribute they should be grateful. There is excellent advice to be found in the book, and, unlike many treatises that offer it, this is entertaining and free from pretense or cant of any sort. The range of topics, however, is wide and we meet strange maxims: less than your best will often answer the purpose, and good enough is good. We query whether the author would be satisfied to have these taken as the gauge of his work.

is a translation of a work that has gone through three editions in Germany, a statement that implies intrinsic merit in a work on a medical subject. This translation has had the further advantage of the author's revision, and thus includes his most recent studies on this subject.

The work is arranged in a series of twelve lectures as they were delivered in the author's course at the University of Berlin; the subjects include the methods of diagnosis and the various diseases of the stomach. The chapter on the neuroses of the stomach is by Prof. R. Ewald.

The author is a clear and logical writer, presenting all the facts that will assist the clinician in making his diagnosis. But he