Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/679

Rh our lives into harmony with that order, to arrive at the verities of things which all men can witness as true, will be the supreme aspiration. When we remember how universal is the tendency to take crude opinions for facts—to substitute hasty inferences for well-grounded principles—it will be obvious that he who helps us to separate them—to obtain the valued and reject the valueless—performs one of the highest services which man can do for man.

In physiology, especially, is this danger great and this aid invaluable. A complex and difficult subject; one of the latest and most imperfect of the sciences, and making all others tributary to its elucidation; shading off into all the higher questions of human nature and human action, and, at the same time, rapidly progressive, it is far from an easy task either to fix its lines of limitation or to disentangle the merely conjectural elements, and define the trustworthy and the reliable. There is, besides, on the part of active, half-instructed minds, a craving for explanations—a thirst for theories and solutions, which, whether true or not, shall satisfy curiosity. Any explanation is thought better than none at all. That highest discipline of scientific study, which issues in the suspension of judgment; which teaches that there are hosts of questions to which a sharp yes or no cannot be given, is something of which the masses of mankind never dream. Unfortunately, political, theological, and literary education takes small pains to inculcate these salutary lessons. Hence, the temptation of the compilers of physiological books, in suiting them to popular wants, is to explain far more than they can explain, and to accept specious hypotheses where research is still incomplete and problems unsolved.

In digesting the leading facts and principles of physiological science into this compendious and reliable form for the use of students, Prof. Huxley has made an excellent contribution to the cause of education. Time is too valuable to be wasted upon acquisitions which may be discredited in a few years, and it is not the worst that they have subsequently, with great trouble, to be unlearned, for the consequence is, that science itself is at last undervalued as uncertain, and containing little or nothing that is permanently settled.

Prof. Huxley's work has a further decided merit in its compressed and vigorous style, so different from the loose and careless statements of ordinary class-books, and which is well adapted to rouse intellectual effort, and to train the student to habits of close and accurate thinking.

Part II. of the work on Elementary Hygiene, by Dr. W. J. Youmans, comprises seven chapters, in which the applications of physiology to the art of preserving health are presented in an agreeable and attractive form. The influence of air, water, food, clothing, and exercise are dealt with systematically, and the work closes with an elaborate chapter on mental hygiene, or the healthful management of the mind, which is an important feature of the book. This subject ought unquestionably to be taken up somewhere in the course of education, as an independent branch of study demanding prominent attention, but, as there is little prospect of this in a long time yet, we are glad to see it recognized and embodied in a text-book of this character. E. L. Y.

the pleasant studio receptions were commenced, about two years ago, the exhibitions of the National Academy of Design have lost much of the interest and importance they once possessed. Many circumstances have contributed to this result. The artists found that by throwing open their studios once a week, or once a month, they could display their pictures to much greater advantage than by sending them to the Academy, where an unfriendly or unappreciative committee might hang them out of sight, or in bad company, or even reject them altogether. In his own studio the artist is master of the situation. He hangs his picture in the light best suited to bring out its full effect, and surrounds it with harmonious accessories. In addition to all this, he stands by to interpret the mysteries of his work, so that none may incur the mortification of mistaking a sunset for a morning effect—especially if they have the courage to ask questions, or he the tact