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LITERARY NOTICES.
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and a ventilator. We used one of moderate size, which, as tested by the anemometer, gave from eight to ten thousand cubic feet of air per hour in the room, and thus secured excellent ventilation. The difference between an ordinary stove and this ventilating stove in an occupied apartment was most marked to all the inmates, while to gain its advantages it is only needful to incur the small outlay necessary for bringing in the outer air. Fresh air is happily very cheap, but it must have a channel for introduction. If people will not go to the small trouble and expense required to give it entrance, they should not complain of the difficulties and imperfections of ventilation.


THE WORKS OF PROFESSOR VAUGHAN.

We have received various communications from widely different and distant sources in relation to the reputation and works of the late Professor Daniel Vaughan. Severe animadversions have been passed upon the depreciatory tone of comment that has been indulged in with regard to his personality and life; and there has been inquiry as to where his writings may be obtained. Several suggestions have been made respecting the publication of an edition of the most important and popular of his scientific contributions. A correspondent of Salem, Massachusetts, suggests that a very attractive and valuable volume could be made up by his papers on "The Tides," "The Rings of Saturn," "The Origin and End of the World," "The Advent and Appearance of New Stars," "The Nebular Hypothesis," "The Plurality of Worlds," "The Primitive Earth," "The Ancient Atmosphere," "Physics of the Internal Earth," "Volcanoes," "The Moon," "Revelations of Spectrum Analysis," and "The Catastrophes in Celestial Space."

These are certainly interesting topics, and they were handled by Professor Vaughan not only with the ability of an able expositor, but with the freshness of an independent thinker, who had formed his own opinions upon many of the questions involved. Professor Vaughan, as we, however, understand, left no property to pay for the publication of his works, and whether such a volume can be issued will depend upon how publishers regard the venture, or whether he has any friends sufficiently interested in his memory and productions to cooperate in bringing out a collection of his essays.


LITERARY NOTICES.

Ethics, or Science of Duty. By John Bascom, author of "Principles of Psychology," etc. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons. Pp. 385. Price, $1.75.

Dr. Bascom has here given us a freshly-reasoned and excellent manual of morals. It is attractively written, and very judicious as an exposition of practical duty.

But the title chosen raises expectations, at the present time, which the work seems to us hardly to fulfill. The author recognizes that the subject he is dealing with belongs among the sciences, and is therefore a branch of improvable or progressive knowledge. He, moreover, admits that there is some force in the claim that ethics requires both a new foundation and a new method. The subject is therefore confessedly in a state of transition, or is undergoing a development such as all sciences experience from a less perfect to a more perfect form. Dr. Bascom does not give sufficient prominence to this fact and its important implications. Had he confined himself merely to summarizing the empirical rules of morality as they have been arrived at in social practice, this objection would be less pertinent; but he goes analytically into the subject, works out its principles, reviews ethical systems, discusses ethical methods, and reasons his way to full conclusions respecting the right and wrong of conduct, and the grounds of moral obligation. The whole subject being thus opened, we think the author should have gone fur-