General Books

INTRODUCTION No one who is interested in the growth of human ideas or the origins of human society can afford to neglect Maine's Ancient Law. Published some fifty-six years ago it immediately took rank as a classic, and its epoch-making influence may not unfitly be compared to that exercised by Darwin's Origin of Species. The revolution effected by the latter in the study of biology was... more...

INTRODUCTION. § 1. Industrial Science, its Standpoint and Methods of Advance. § 2. Capital as Factor in Modern Industrial Changes. § 3. Place of Machinery in Evolution of Capitalism. § 4. The Monetary Aspect of Industry. § 5. The Literary Presentment of Organic Movement. § 1. Science is ever becoming more and more historical in the sense that it becomes more studiously anxious to show that the... more...

The intelligent thought of the world is ever advancing to a fuller appreciation of the worth of the past to the present and the future. Never before have associations, societies and journals devoted to historical studies been so numerous. All times and tribes are searched for memorials; the remote corners of modern, medieval and ancient periods are brought under scrutiny; and going beyond these again,... more...

CHARACTERISTICS OF WOMEN. INTRODUCTION. Scene—A Library. ALDA. You will not listen to me? MEDON. I do, with all the deference which befits a gentleman when a lady holds forth on the virtues of her own sex.He is a parricide of his mother's name,And with an impious hand murders her fame,That wrongs the praise of women; that dares writeLibels on saints, or with foul ink requiteThe milk they lent... more...

Contrary to the advice of my friends, who caution me to avoid all appearance of singularity, I venture upon introducing a practice, the expediency of which I will submit to the judgment of the reader. It is one which has been adopted by musicians for more than a century—to the great convenience of all who are fond of music—and I observe that within the last few years two such distinguished painters... more...

The settlement of New Milford began in 1707, exactly a century after that of Jamestown, Va. At that time, although Milford and Stratford at the mouth of the Housatonic had been settled almost seventy years, and the river afforded a convenient highway into the interior, for much of the distance, this place, only thirty miles from the north shore of Long Island Sound, was still beyond the extreme... more...

CHAPTER I FREEDOM OF THOUGHT AND THE FORCES AGAINST IT IT is a common saying that thought is free. A man can never be hindered from thinking whatever he chooses so long as he conceals what he thinks. The working of his mind is limited only by the bounds of his experience and the power of his imagination. But this natural liberty of private thinking is of little value. It is unsatisfactory and even... more...

VOLUME I [p 2 is blank] p 3 TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. ———————————- I CAN not more appropriately introduce the Cosmos than by presenting a brief sketch of the life of its illustrious author.* While the name of Alexander von Humboldt is familiar to every one, few, perhaps, are aware of the peculiar circumstances of his scientific career and of the extent of his labors in almost... more...

THE WAR THAT NEVER ENDS If, at last the sword is sheathed,And men, exhausted, call it peace,Old Nature wears no olive wreath,The weapons change—war does not cease. The little struggling blades of grassThat lift their heads and will not die,The vines that climb where sunbeams pass,And fight their way toward the sky! And every soul that God has made,Who from despair their lives defendAnd struggling... more...

This history of woodworking hand tools from the 17th to the 20th century is one of a very gradual evolution of tools through generations of craftsmen. As a result, the sources of changes in design are almost impossible to ascertain. Published sources, moreover, have been concerned primarily with the object shaped by the tool rather than the tool itself. The resulting scarcity of information is somewhat... more...