No scientific subject can be so important to Man as that of his own Life. No knowledge can be so incessantly appealed to by the incidents of every day, as the knowledge of the processes by which he lives and acts. At every moment he is in danger of disobeying laws which, when disobeyed, may bring years of suffering, decline of powers, premature decay. Sanitary reformers preach in vain, because they preach to a public which does not understand the laws of life—laws as rigorous as those of Gravitation or Motion. Even the sad experience of others yields us no lessons, unless we understand the principles involved. If one Man is seen to suffer from vitiated air, another is seen to endure it without apparent harm; a third concludes that "it is all chance," and trusts to that chance. Had he understood the principle involved, he would not have been left to chance—his first lesson in swimming would not have been a shipwreck.
The work will be illustrated with from 20 to 25 woodcuts, to assist the exposition. It will be published in monthly numbers, uniform with Johnston's Chemistry of Common Life.
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The History of Civilization in England. By Henry Thos. Buckle. Vol.
I. 8vo. Cloth. $2.50
Whoever misses reading this book, will miss reading what is, in various respects, to the best of our judgment and experience, the most remarkable book of the day—one, indeed, that no thoughtful, inquiring mind would miss reading for a good deal. Let the reader be as adverse as he may to the writer's philosophy, let him be as devoted to the obstructive as Mr. Buckle is to the progress party, let him be as orthodox in church creed as the other is heterodox, as dogmatic as his author is sceptical,—let him, in short, find his prejudices shocked at every turn of the argument, and all his prepossessions whistled down the wind,—still, there is so much in this extraordinary volume to stimulate reflection, and excite to inquiry, and provoke to earnest investigation, perhaps (to this or that reader) on a track hitherto untrodden, and across the virgin soil of untilled fields, fresh woods and pastures new—that we may fairly defy the most hostile spirit, the most mistrustful and least sympathetic, to read it through without being glad of having done so, or, having begun it, or even glanced at almost any one of its 854 pages, to pass it away unread.—New Monthly (London) Magazine.
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Legends and Lyrics. By Anne Adelaide Proctor, (Daughter of the Poet,
Barry Cornwall.) One very neat volume, 12mo. Second edition. 75 cents.
This is the charming volume of fresh and tender poems, by the daughter of one of England's most honored and popular poets, which has lately been received with so hearty a welcome in England and America. Choice portions of it, copied by the press with lively praises, have found their way to the firesides.
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The Household Book of Poetry. Collected and Edited by Charles A. Dana. 1 vol. 8vo. 793 pages. Third edition. In half morocco. Gilt top. $3.50.