uncritical public is such as to justify us in devoting a few
paragraphs to a book[13] which, on its own merits, is unworthy of
any notice whatever. "The To-morrow of Death"--if one were to put
his trust in the translator's prefatory note--discusses a grave
question upon "purely scientific methods." We are glad to see
this remark, because it shows what notions may be entertained by
persons of average intelligence with reference to "scientific
methods." Those--and they are many--who vaguely think that
science is something different from common-sense, and that any
book is scientific which talks about perihelia and asymptotes and
cetacea, will find their vague notions here well corroborated.
Quite different will be the impression made upon those--and they
are yet too few--who have learned that the method of science is
the common-sense method of cautiously weighing evidence and
withholding judgment where evidence is not forthcoming. If
talking about remote and difficult subjects suffice to make one
scientific, then is M. Figuier scientific to a quite terrible
degree. He writes about the starry heavens as if he had been
present at the hour of creation, or had at least accompanied the
Arabian prophet on his famous night-journey. Nor is his knowledge
of physiology and other abstruse sciences at all less remarkable.
But these things will cease to surprise us when we learn the
sources, hitherto suspected only in mythology, from which
favoured mortals can obtain a knowledge of what is going on
outside of our planet.

[13] The To-morrow of Death; or, The Future Life according to
Science. By Louis Figuier. Translated from the French by S. R.
Crocker. Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1872.