the name of an economic principle. Instead of labourers fighting for more wages, Mr. Moffat proposes they should fight for the disposal of their time. This may be good or bad advice, and the policy may be sound or the reverse, but how it can be called a principle we wholly fail to see. Labourers quite as often fight- —even now—for time as for wages. In the recent strike in Lancashire the alternatives were shorter hours or reduced wages, and the labourers fought for the former. Mr. Moffat-we must repeat-gives us commonplaces for principles when he does not innovate, and when he does his innovations are absurdities or paradoxes.

Anatomy for Artists. By JOHN MARSHALL, F.R.S., F.R.C.S. With 200 Original Drawings by T. S. CUTHBERT. Smith, Elder, and Co.

This fine work, which might be taken for, and indeed would serve well as, a systematic treatise on human anatomy, is nevertheless designed strictly for the guidance of higher students in art. The extreme difficulty of drawing accurately the human frame, in all its countless positions in action and at rest, is well known to the many who have tried it. Not a few of the old masters, who surpassed in the almost equally difficult task of drawing drapery, made serious mistakes in relative proportion, as well as in the muscular developments of their figures. This was in great measure due to the superstitious disfavour in which the scientific examination of the human subject was long held. For there is no doubt that, although the author says much of artists and anatomists combining their efforts towards a common end, not a few of the greatest colourists, as Raffaelle, Titian, Correggio, did make serious mistakes in posture and proportion, and that they sometimes show a real ignorance of human anatomy. To supply such a want for those whose education or opportunities keep them away from the dissecting-room, is the meritorious object of the author.

In his intro duction he dwells on the fact that though man is physically an animal, yet he is one more beautiful than other animals. This truth, or some may say rather, this sentiment, is expressed in p. 2 in somewhat 'grandiose' language, and not all, perhaps, will know exactly what is meant by animals resembling man in exhibiting axial simplicity, serial repetition, and manifold homologies, with contrasts, of parts.' In similar strain we read of 'a placid generalization of form, a smooth negation of underlying structural details " being" compatible with a certain amount of beauty, sentiment, and grace, and preferable to bringing such details too near to the surface represented, and too plainly into view.' Such passages perhaps show a slight tendency to what is called 'fine writing,' which is always a mistake in a scientific book. Nevertheless, the author's treatment of his subject is both full and painstaking. There is hardly a bone or a muscle in the complex human form which he has not described or illustrated either by drawing or minute descriptions. Of course, the extremely technical nature of the subject makes a great

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part of the work unintelligible to any but professed experts, and it is just possible that a more popular treatment of the subject--a book with less of the doctor and more of the artist in it-might have been successfully achieved.

In pp. 180, 181, 185, remarkably beautiful illustrations are given of the full-length human skeleton. Their artistic value is greatly enhanced by outlines of the normal fleshy integument; indeed, these plates form a fine study in themselves. Equally good is the muscular system of the man, as shown in action by a full-length figure in p. 253, and the halffigures with upraised arms in pp. 350, 351, except that the fore-arm in the latter seems to us a trifle too short. Erect figures also showing the muscles are given on pp. 422, 423. Throughout, the work is beautifully as well as copiously illustrated, 200 original drawings giving an average of one woodcut to nearly every other page. The author, as a lecturer for more than twenty years in the Government Schools of Design, speaks with an authority which few will venture to gainsay. The artist of the future must be scientific.' This is true; and the author shows himself able to lead his audience in the right track to fame.

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The Laws of Therapeutics; or, The Science and Art of Medicine. A Sketch. By JOSEPH KIDD, M.D. C. Kegan Paul and Co.

The great design of this book is to establish the proposition that there are laws which should regulate the action of medicines-a knowledge of which is the paramount necessity for the physician-constituting, as the author puts it, a special key' to the treatment of any case of disease. This, for the physician, is a delightful conception, which, if realisable, will give him a kind of potestas clavium, only less enviable than that of which the Pontiff boasts. There will be no difference among physicians as to the desirability of discovering such laws. The only difference amongst them will be, whether Dr. Kidd has either proved their existence, or placed the question in a good sound form for further investigation and study. And we fear there will be little difference among them on these points. The book shows that Dr. Kidd himself is not bound by law in his treatment of any particular case, but draws for his guidance from experience. He has the reputation of being one of those who try to make the best of both worlds.' He denounces orthodox medicine, but uses it not the less, and shapes his practice very much on its experience. He professes to see proofs of a law, which he calls the law of Hahnemannthat of similia similibus curantur-and indeed acts upon it with such frequency as to make him the favoured consultant of homoeopaths and homœopathic practitioners; but finding that many of the most striking and valuable actions of medicines do not answer to that law, he has formulated another, which he calls the law of Galen. Strange to say, this other law of therapeutics is exactly the opposite of Hahnemann's law, and is described by Dr. Kidd as the law of contraria contrariis

curantur. To plain people this attempt to find a law, and then finding two which contradict each other, will appear very doubtful science. It would be far better to confess that the law is not yet discovered, and to work away honestly and hard in the accumulation of facts.

The book will not damage the author as a physician, but it will not conduce to his immortality as a therapeutist. It contains a number of cases in which he has succeeded where other physicians, without the special key,' have failed. But his key does not always seem to have been at hand, for in many cases he had to try two or three keys before he succeeded. And it is to be supposed that any physician with a head upon his shoulders-especially one with two opposite and alternative principles -in a practice of thirty years, will be able to record such cases. The record here, by the way, would not satisfy any medical society, and is often seriously unjust to individuals. It is worthy of notice that the author throws overboard the doctrines of dynamisation and dilution. It is these, after all, that have so prejudiced scientific and sensible men against this therapeutical school. It is to be regretted that in giving them up Dr. Kidd did not see his way to further admissions as to the arbitrary conceits and mystical doctrines' of Hahnemann, which, however, judging from the records of his cases, never hinder him using any measures suggested by experience. Medicine is a highly difficult art. It is doubtful whether physicians will ever find a law, or two laws, by which to regulate the administration of medicine, any more than we shall find one or two laws by which to regulate the administration of food. Be this as it may, the conditions of the discovery are not yet complete, and the attempt to formulate laws is premature and somewhat immodest.

The Gamekeeper at Home. A Series of Rural Sketches. Smith, Elder, and Co.

This is really a delightful volume-one which could have been written only by a true lover of nature, a genuine sportsman, and, in some sense, a naturalist. He has at all events a gift essential to the popular writer in natural history, and which naturalists proper only too often lack— the power of observing, and of transcribing with a quiet poetic sympathy, which imparts colour and grace, but never robs the picture of its essential and prosaic truth. It is the cultivation of this faculty which the crammings of competitive examinations and the rage for mere book-learning so decisively tend to discourage. Here we are in the open air: we observe once again the same objects and creatures that in our youth we were more familiar with, and now behold them with a new interest. All the various phases of life as it may be presumed to present itself to the eye of the gamekeeper at the different seasons of the year are here very faithfully pourtrayed. We wish we had space to give some extracts to show what we mean. The quiet of morning; the hush of evening, only broken intermittently by well-known cries; the various enemies of the gamekeeper; every chapter of the book would tempt us, for its variety and interest are almost unlimited. We can only add that, while nowhere technical or

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inclined to hard science, the book abounds in that kind of refined observation, lucid description, and simple, graceful writing, which should do much to secure it a place beside such books as White's Selborne; and surely no better fate could we wish it, or give it higher praise. It is another instance of the truth that genius will make itself felt in treating of the most ordinary and prosaic themes.

Lucullus, or Palatable Essays, in which are merged The Oyster, The Lobster, and Sport and its Pleasures.

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By the

Author of the Queen's Messenger,' &c. Two Vols.
Remington and Co.

These are really a series of gastronomical essays, a little after the style of M. Brillat-Savarin, who was recently introduced to the English public. But the author lacks the delicacy and point of the French avocat--his ease and grace and airy nonchalance. He collects his information with great care and from varied points, and he arranges it fairly well; but the penchant for facetiousness is too powerful in him, and his determination to be clever and funny becomes at length tedious. Certainly, we did not think there was so much to be said concerning oysters and lobsters, though we faithfully read the reports on the oyster fisheries, which were big enough, and we admire the thoroughness and comprehensiveness which the author exhibits. It is clear that, in spite of some rather suspicious touches, he is not sentimental. Witness the following new (gastronomic) version of the Babes in the Wood: '

The robin redbreast, instead of being, as people generally suppose, the most amiable little bird, is one of the most quarrelsome and pugnacious of winged animals, and ornithologists agree in the fact of his loneliness being the natural result of his pugnacity. Nevertheless the public generally, and many sportsmen in particular, would be horrified at the idea of eating a robin. Be it so. I assert that he is a quarrelsome little vagabond, and ought to be eaten as well as other birds. In fact, I have serious thoughts of enticing nine dozen this winter, if it is a hard one (delicate touch that!), to my window, and having fattened them to repletion with bread-crumbs steeped in cognac, some fine morning I shall drop a net over their agreeable existence, and desire my cook to convert them into a salmi. In the mean time let me assure you that their flesh is remarkable for a delicate and bitter flavour.'

Poor robins! their fate, we fear, is decreed at last. Romance and sentiment have, perhaps, been tender of them too long! Lucullus is really smart and readable, and reflects, let us seriously add, none of the bitter flavour of the judgment upon the poor robins.

The Philosophy of War. By JAMES RAM. (C. Kegan Paul and Co.) Mr. Ram's little book, which is written with a good deal of vigour and acuteness, is a practical vindication of the survival of the fittest' theory,

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and a formal avowal of the Gospel of War. Whether it was intended to be in any way auxiliary to Lord Beaconsfield's Eastern Policy, we cannot tell. One or two indirect eulogies, and its peculiar drift, lead us to imagine that it was. Mr. Ram's philosophy is that the world ought to belong to those who can win it by fighting; that all evil is only lesser good, for good and evil are but different degrees of the same thing,' and 'all human motives taken singly are good.' 'Mind is a condition of matter.' War is only incidentally an evil-it has been the means of the greatest human progress -and therefore ‘every child should learn how to be a soldier.' It is an instinct and ordinance of nature that men should fight, nothing tends more to human progress, inasmuch as the victor is the strongest, and it is best that the weakest should be conquered, if not destroyed. Russia is eulogised for her ambition. England and America ought never to have separated, but ought to form a great Pan-Anglican fighting nation, so as to conquer the world. The best men of a nation should be its fighters. We should seek to refine rather than abolish war, for 'habitual war and fitness for war are an integral portion of the conditions of creature advancement.' The 400,000,000 of Chinese ought to be dealt with as nature intended, for nature has yet much to do in this respect.' England ought at once to seize Asia Minor, for 'in matters of territorial possession the worthiest is the mightiest.' We are no advocates of peace at any price.' War may be a high religious duty, and we are far from denying the half truths that lie in Mr. Ram's paradoxical philosophy; but moral ideas have no place in it, and according to it the gospel of Jesus Christ is the greatest heresy ever taught to men, and the angels' song the greatest twaddle. A more utterly pagan book, a book characterized by a more entire absence of moral sentiment, has never fallen into our hands.- -At Home and Abroad; or, First Lessons in Geography. By J. K. LAUGHTon, M.A. (Rivingtons.) Mr. Laughton has succeeded in an unusual degree in putting elementary lessons in geography into lucid and interesting forms. In a simple, orderly, pictorial way, he describes a country-England, for instance-by following the outline of its map, its rivers, its headlands, its counties and great towns; and so with the countries of the world, contriving to introduce all needful information of an incidental kind. He is simple without being puerile, and instructive without being formal. Teachers of little folk will find his book a welcome help.- -Science Lectures at South Kensington. Vol. I. (Macmillan and Co.) Captain Abney lectures on Photography; Professor Stokes on the Absorption of Light and the Colours of Natural Bodies, and on Fluorescence; Professor A. D. W. Kennedy on the Kinematics of Machinery; T. J. Bramwell on the Steam Engine; Professor G. Forbes on Radiation; H. C. Sorby on Microscopes; J. T. Bottomley on Electrometers; Sydney H. Vines on the Apparatus relating to Vegetable Physiology; Professor Carey Foster on Electrical Measurement. We cannot even characterize such diversified contents of a volume, nor is it necessary. The names of the lecturers will, for the most part, be a sufficient intimation of the value of the lectures. -Animals and their Social Powers. Illustrated by Authentic Anecdotes.