Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/872

848 descriptions of the classes of that division. The chapter on the Philosophy of Zoölogy includes an exposition of the system of evolution, and that on the history a running account of what each student and author has contributed to the subject, A Guide to Modern Zoölogical Literature is given as an appendix.



object of Professor Shaler's Outlines of the Earth's History is to provide the beginner in the study of the subject with a general account of those actions which can be readily comprehended and which will afford him clear understandings as to the nature of the processes that have made this and the other planetary bodies. Those series of facts have been selected that serve to show the continuous operation of energy. The author believes that the progress of science has been much retarded by the prejudices that have grown out of the idea that the existing condition of the earth is the finished product of forces no longer in action—the "static conception of the earth," as he calls it. A special attempt is made to guard the student against such misconception by presenting clear ideas of successions of events that are caused by forces operating in and on the sphere, of which what relates to the work done by the heat of the sun is the most interesting. The influence upon the history of the earth of the fate of man is also made prominent, and the author has sought to show the way in which geological processes and results are related to ourselves. Lastly, writing for the beginner, Mr. Shaler has avoided going beyond his depth. It is greatly to the advantage of the book that the author commands an easy, flowing style that is an attraction in itself. The first chapter opens as An Introduction to the Study of Nature, which the author insists, in the second chapter—Ways and Means of Studying Nature—should be begun outdoors with familiar objects. Next an account is given of the realm of the stars, and this is followed by a general description of the earth. The chapter on the Atmosphere includes so much more than is indicated by the bare title as to embrace all the work by the air, rain, rivers, lakes, the sea, and the geological work of water. The chapter on Glaciers is also correspondingly comprehensive, and could not be passed by without a notice of the Glacial period and the causes of the peculiar phenomena it afforded. In a similar vein are considered The Work of Underground Water, The Soil, and The Rocks and their Order. Here the length of the story already told compelled the author to stop, without presenting the accounts he had contemplated of the geological ages and the succession of organic life. The book is a full one as to all the subjects it covers.

As in the volume on Aristotle of The Great Educators Series Mr. Thomas Davidson tried to give an account of ancient classical and social education, so in the present volume on Rousseau he has endeavored to set forth the nature of modern, romantic, and unsocial education. This education originated with Rousseau. The proper consideration of it involves the necessity of taking Rousseau's life into the review, and this is dwelt upon at considerable length, with the end of showing that his educational structure "rests, not upon any broad and firm foundation of well-generalized and well sifted experience, but upon the private tastes of an exceptionally capricious and self-conceited nature." Hence Mr. Davidson is moved to say that if his estimate of Rousseau's value as an educator proves disappointing to those who believe in his doctrines, he is more disappointed than they are. In estimating the measure of Rousseau's influence, the author finds that upon religion it was incalculable, "supplementing, and in some ways counteracting, that of Voltaire"; in art and literature, it has been "almost paramount throughout Christendom," and, on the whole, beneficial; in the sphere of economics, "though entirely averse to socialism and anarchism, he was in a large degree the parent of both"; in politics he was the father of democracy; 