Abstract
THIS is a readable discourse on things in general, from physics and astronomy to ethics and politics. As the title indicates, the author expounds certain musical analogies, such as the relation between intervals in the octave and distances in the solar system; but, after the first few sections, the matter of the book becomes more general. There is a good deal of amusingly-put speculation about the kind of world that a “flatland” of two dimensions would be (as sketched by Mr. Hinton), and this, of course, leads to fourth-dimensional space and what might happen there. Then, after a chapter on sexual ethics in which a more or less Schopenhauerian doctrine is taught—with much apt illustration, historical and geographical—we come to the female suffrage question, on which the author has vigorous opinions. If women get the vote, “there is every probability that female Members of Parliament would soon be elected; these would decide to elect female Prime Ministers, and as Parliament claims to be omnipotent, there is the prospect of having autocratic female rulers” (p. 507). Also on the disproportionate number of lawyers in Parliament Mr. Stromeyer has some cutting and probably justified remarks; and on education he enters a wise protest against too much classicism. The punctuation of the book leaves something to be desired, and on p. 104 “bromide” appears several times when “bromine” is meant; but these are small details. The author shows wide culture and has a pleasant style.
Unity in Nature: an Analogy between Music and Life.
By C. E. Stromeyer. Pp. x + 589. (London and Manchester: Sherratt and Hughes, 1911.) Price 12s. 6d. net.
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Unity in Nature: an Analogy between Music and Life . Nature 89, 86 (1912). https://doi.org/10.1038/089086a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/089086a0