But we suspect this manner makes easy
writing; in Mr. Trollope's books it certainly makes very easy reading.
_A Class-Book of Chemistry_; in which the Latest Facts and Principles of
the Science are explained and applied to the Arts of Life and the
Phenomena of Nature. A New Edition, entirely rewritten. By EDWARD L.
YOUMANS, M.D. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
Though Science has been often vaguely supposed to be something generally
distinct from ordinary knowledge, yet the slightest consideration will
suffice to show us that this is not the case. Scientific knowledge is
only a highly developed form of the common information of ordinary
minds. The specific attribute by which it is distinguished from the
latter is quantitative prevision. Mere prevision is not peculiar to
science. When the school-boy throws a stone into the air, he can predict
its fall as certainly as the astronomer can predict the recurrence of an
eclipse; but his prevision, though certain, is rude and indefinite:
though he can foretell the kind of effect which will follow the given
mechanical impulse, yet the quantity of effect--the height to which the
stone will ascend, and the rapidity with which it will fall--is
something utterly beyond his ken.
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