Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/580

562 Committees by the library schools at Albany, Brooklyn, and at Amherst, where Mr. Fletcher himself presides. In discussing library foundations our author commends those created by gift, yet he observes that an institution is nearer the popular heart when spontaneously built up and controlled by the community it serves. Basing a forecast upon the recent rapid growth of public libraries, not only in number but in usefulness, Mr. Fletcher expects in the future a still further expansion for them. In this connection a list published last April by the Public Library of Paterson, N. J., is significant. This list presents works on astronomy, selected by Prof. C. A. Young, of Princeton, who appends brief notes to the principal titles. Lists such as this, ampler in range and fuller in annotation, would double the value of every public Library incorporating them in its catalogue. At one pole of education are the teachers of mark who can appraise the working literature of instruction, at the other pole are unnumbered inquiries at library desks who know not what to choose; to bring together the trustworthy guides and the baffled wanderers would mark a new era in popular enlightenment, would Break down another wall dividing those who need from those who have and are willing to give.

There is a certain smoothness, sobriety, and clearness about this work of Mr. Marshall that appeals with peculiar emphasis alike to the artist and the scientist. At once the æsthetic taste and the spirit of scientific inquiry are in a large measure satisfied. The author, indeed, is open to admit that this is by no means a subordinate aim in the volume under consideration. As is plainly manifest, he comes as a peace-maker between the artistic aspirant who misconceives or deems the teachings of science antagonistic to his favorite pursuit, and the scientific investigator who suspects artistic predilections as either inimical to or in the way of science. Nothing that ministers to the melioration of that harmonious understanding which ought to have obtained where it was lacking, has been kept out of sight, and happily for two great departments of learning, a literary link has been added to the chain of progress. While the work, in its seven tersely written chapters, treats mainly of psychological problems, the undertone, apart from the author's prominent design, is essentially æsthetic in its tendencies, a fact that forms almost imperceptibly a mental meeting ground for scientist and artist. Chiefly, the latter is impelled by an inner and perpetual voice which expressly commands him to act. But he is primarily a listener, an interpreter of high and noble promptings. As such, he can have naught against the "physical discoverer," to whom, as Tyndall has admirably put it, "imagination becomes the mightiest instrument." In turn, the scientist is indebted beyond measure to the genius of art, and gains from it in regions decidedly æsthetic many of the joys of life, which indirectly contribute and betimes directly suggest his boldest flights and most clearly conceived problems.

The book abounds with interesting comparisons grouped within well-defined limitations. With a psychological classification of pleasure and pain, the reader is asked to contemplate the instincts and emotions, the field of æsthetics, the physical basis of pleasure and pain, and algedonic æsthetics. The work as a whole is a general as well as technical survey of comparatively new ground.

Those who are interested in the outlying parts of the field of psychology will welcome this book. It is a treatise on hypnotism, mental healing, spiritism, telepathy, clairvoyance, and allied subjects, by one who is convinced of the reality of such manifestations and seeks to explain them as caused by natural, though unfamiliar workings of the human mind. The "law" referred to in the title is also described as a working hypothesis which is expected to guide further study of psychic phenomena. It is stated in three propositions: First, "Man has, or appears to have, two minds, each endowed with separate and distinct attributes and powers; each capable, under certain conditions, of independent action. . . . The second proposition is.