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In One Volume, Crown 8vo

Its Successes and Failures

BY

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE

LL.D., Dubl.; D.C.L., Oxon.; F.R.S., etc.

The object of this volume is to give a short descriptive sketch of the more important mechanical inventions and scientific discoveries which are distinctive of the nineteenth century; and especially to enable those who have lived only in the latter half of it to realise its full significance in the history of human progress.

The author maintains that our century is altogether unique; that it differs from the eighteenth or the seventeenth centuries, not merely as those differed from the centuries which [immediately preceded them, but that it has initiated a new era, and that it may be more properly compared with the whole preceding historical period.

His estimate of the advances made during the present century is, therefore, higher than that of previous writers; but he points out that it is almost wholly a material and intellectual progress, and that, even intellectually, it is very imperfect. The second part of the work discusses the intellectual and moral failures of the century, which are shown to be as conspicuous and deplorable as its successes are admirable and unprecedented.

SWAN SONNENSCHEIN &.