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VII. NEW BOOKS. [These Notes (by various hands) do not exclude Critical Notices later on.] Letters and Journals of W. Stanley Jevons. Edited by his WIFE. Lon- don: Macmillan, 1886. Pp. xi., 473. Mrs. Jevons has here done almost everything that was possible to make the inner life of her distinguished husband known to those who knew him before only as the logician and economist, and better known to those who knew him as a friend of somewhat reserved habit. The Journal which Jevons began to keep as a lad, with the earlier Letters in which he freely expanded to the members of his own family, gives all the information that could be desired as to the course of his mental development ; and the Letters of his maturer time commonplace as the occasion of most of them is are so strung together, with simple directness, by the editor that they not only show the inmost nature of the man but serve also to mark clearly the stages of a career of rare intellectual activity, so sadly broken off in the middle. Though not more eventful than the life of professors commonly is, Jevons's yet included one episode of an unusual character that brings strongly into relief the call he had to the work of thinking. At the early age of 18, while prosecuting college-studies in physical (chiefly chemical) science, he was suddenly offered, and in his circumstances was induced not to refuse, a post as mint-assayer at the other side of the world, with the result that by the age of 20 he had a handsome and assured income with plenty of leisure for the scientific pursuits in which he took delight. The temptation to resign himself to practical life in such easy conditions would have been too much for an ordinary man, but Jevons never faltered in the determination to get back to pure study as soon as he had put by a little hoard of savings for use. A thoughtfulness already manifested in him as a boy had in the meantime been steadily deepening, till the conviction began to dawn upon him, with a curious confidence, that he was marked out to do original work in the way of applying scientific methods to problems of human nature. When five years had passed at Sydney he, accordingly, cut himself free, and, after seeing what he could of Australia and of South and North America on the way home, took his seat again on the benches of University College, at the age of 24, determined first of all to complete his education by working up the variety of literary as well as scientific subjects necessary for the London B.A.degree. His Latin and Greek did not however divert him from the thoughts with which he had already more than half convinced himself that he was destined to revolutionise the theory of political economy ; and, when after a year his ambition widened towards the M.A. degree in the philosophical Branch III., the instinct of the logician next began to stir within him, passing almost immediately into consciousness of a special task of reconstruction in logical theory also. From the age of 27 his twofold path lay clearly defined before him, and during the years of production that followed he is seen alternately pursuing the one line or the other with consuming activity till overtaken by his sudden fate. The story of the previous years, as told in Journal or Letters, has a peculiar interest because of the perfect light that it throws on the limitations as well as the strength of Jevons's remarkable work in the world. Mrs. Jevons has added a chronological list of his various writings, smaller as well as greater. In case it has been overlooked, it may be well to note the omission of the short reply he made, in MIND,