Non-Classifiable Books

HE histories of the mechanical clock and the magnetic compass must be accounted amongst the most tortured of all our efforts to understand the origins of man's important inventions. Ignorance has too often been replaced by conjecture, and conjecture by misquotation and the false authority of "common knowledge" engendered by the repetition of legendary histories from one generation of... more...

Until the middle of this (the nineteenth) century the favorite theory with those who attempted to explain the phenomena of History was the Great-Man-Theory. This theory was that once in a while through infinite mercy a great man was sent to the earth who yanked humanity up a notch or two higher, and then we went along in a humdrum way on that level, or even sank back till another great man was... more...

INTRODUCTION I. LIFE Thomas de Quincey was born in Manchester on the 15th of August, 1785. His father was a man of high character and great taste for literature as well as a successful man of business; he died, most unfortunately, when Thomas was quite young. Very soon after our author's birth the family removed to The Farm, and later to Greenhay, a larger country place near Manchester. In 1796 De... more...

EVOLUTION VERSUS CREATION In any consideration of the origin of man we are necessarily restricted to two views: one, that he is the outcome of a development from the lower animals; the other, that he came into existence through direct creation. No third mode of origin can be conceived, and we may safely confine ourselves to a review of these two claims. They are the opposites of each other in every... more...

Bebel's work, "Die Frau und der Socialismus," rendered in this English version with the title "Woman under Socialism," is the best-aimed shot at the existing social system, both strategically and tactically considered. It is wise tactics and strategy to attack an enemy on his weakest side. The Woman Question is the weakest link in the capitalist mail. The workingman, we know, is a... more...

CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. Assaying has for its object the determination of the quantities of those constituents of a material which add to or detract from its value in the arts and manufactures. The methods of assaying are mainly those of analytical chemistry, and are limited by various practical considerations to the determination of the constituents of a small parcel, which is frequently only a few... more...

According to Plato's famous myth, two gifts of the gods equipped man for living: the one, arts and inventions to supply him with the means of livelihood; the other, reverence and justice to be the ordering principles of societies and the bonds of friendship and conciliation. Agencies for mastery over nature and agencies for coöperation among men remain the two great sources of human power. But... more...

I ON PRESENTING THE INDIAN BUDGET (HOUSE OF COMMONS. JUNE 6, 1907) I am afraid I shall have to ask the House for rather a large draft upon its indulgence. The Indian Secretary is like the aloe, that blooms once in 100 years: he only troubles the House with speeches of his own once in twelve months. There are several topics which the House will expect me to say something about, and of these are two or... more...

ANGELS COULDN'T SWEAR IT RIGHT. The President was once speaking about an attack made on him by the Congressional Committee on the Conduct of the War for a certain alleged blunder in the Southwest—the matter involved being one which had fallen directly under the observation of the army officer to whom he was talking, who possessed official evidence completely upsetting all the conclusions of the... more...

ESSAY ON TOBACCO. In the great kingdom of living nature, man is the only animal that seeks to poison or destroy his own instincts, to turn topsy-turvy the laws of his being, and to make himself as unlike, as possible, that which he was obviously designed to be. No satisfactory solution of this extraordinary propensity has been given, short of a reference to that— "first disobedience and the fruit... more...