It is difficult to over-estimate the value to science and society of the investigations and studies into the physiology and pathology of the nervous centres which are being conducted all over the world. Among the students of these interesting subjects Dr. Clymer ranks high as an observer, and chief in this country as annalist and critic. He holds a position in the world of medicine analogous to that held by Brownson in the domain of philosophy and theology, and his services are of inestimable value in correcting the hasty, crude, and ill-advised speculations of men who have neither acquired knowledge nor powers of original observation and reflection.
It is obviously out of place to pursue the subject in its medical aspects in this place, but we commend the pamphlet to physicians, scientists, and jurists, and also to theologians.
From this class of works they can learn the basis on which medicine rests as a science, and the essential immorality of all forms of quackery.
Out of the Past. (Critical and Literary Papers.) By Parke Godwin. New York: G. P. Putnam & Sons. 1870.
This is a collection of nineteen articles written for different magazines—principally for the Democratic Review and Putnam's Monthly—at various periods from 1839 to 1856. The experiment of publishing in book form an author's fugitive essays is seldom successful. True, it was so in the cases of Carlyle and Macaulay. How far Mr. Godwin may resemble them in this respect remains to be seen. Should any reviewer come to the treatment of this book strong in the Vicar of Wakefield's celebrated canon of criticism—that the picture would have been better if the painter had taken more pains—he will find himself disarmed by Mr. Godwin's prefatory apology, that these essays "are more imperfect than they would have been with a larger leisure at my command." The subjects are generally interesting, and their treatment instructive. The style of these essays is excellent, and their author's opinions and criticisms on literature and art generally of a healthy tone. We cannot precisely agree with Mr. Godwin when he credits a certain work of Dutch art (p. 375) with the inspiration of patriotism, but are glad to see with his eyes that Thackeray
"Took no satyr's delight in offensive scenes and graceless characters; that he was even sadder than the reader could be at the horrible prospect before him; that his task was one conscientiously undertaken, with some deep, great, generous purpose; and that, beneath his seeming scoff and mockeries, was to be discovered a more searching wisdom and a sweeter, tenderer pathos than we found in any other living writer. We saw that he chastised in no ill-natured or malicious vein, but in love; that he cauterized only to cure; and that, if he wandered through the dreary circles of Inferno, it was because the spirit of Beatrice, the spirit of immortal beauty, beckoned him to the more glorious paradise."
A Compendium of the History of the Catholic Church. By Rev. Theodore Noethen. Baltimore: John Murphy & Co. 1870. Pp. 587.
A hasty glance through the contents of this work seems to justify these conclusions: The chief merit of the book is its numerous anecdotes. These illustrate the particular customs and dangers of Christians in different nations and centuries. Compendiums usually fatigue the mind with dates and uninteresting details. Father Noethen has carefully avoided this fault. He leads us into the homes and by the hearth-side of the Catholics of former times. Nothing can be more useful than this. History cannot be learned until we imagine ourselves living at that very time and taking our part in the scenes which are described. So the words of a martyr, or a sentence from a letter, or a pious custom will often throw more light upon history than whole pages of detailed facts and speculations. In regard to those more delicate questions which every writer of a church history must solve in some way, Father Noethen appears to have acted with great discretion. We were particularly pleased with the remarks concerning Origen. In this work that illustrious hero of the early church is given the praise which he has so long deserved, but which has been so long denied him. By an oversight, however, there is one unfortunate sentence in this book. It speaks of Constantine as "convening a general council." Without doubt this expression is incorrect; the Christian emperors aided the meeting of œcumenical councils; they never convened them. That power was always reserved to the sovereign pontiff alone. But apart from this clerical error the book is very praiseworthy, and will do good both to Catholics and to Protestants.