The Health of Nations. A Review of the Works of
Edwin Chad- wick, with a Biographical Dissertation. By Benjamin Ward Richard- son. 2 vole. (Longmans.)—Mr. Chadwick was a most industrious worker and most prolific writer. Dr. Richardson has taken much pains to collect his works, and has got together a library of them which, as he says, " the most industrious scholar could not read through, with any hope of being master of it, in less than from two or three years." And yet he feels sure that there is a good deal which has escaped his search. There being so much to deal with, the whole could not, of course, be included in any reasonable compass. Accordingly, he has had to select, and having selected, further to epitomise, when this was possible, and generally to give the substance of Mr. Chadwick's views in as concentrated a form as could be devised. He divides the whole under two heads, describing the contents of the first volume as "Directive Science," with the sub-heads of "Political and Economical " and " Educational and Social ;" and those of the second as " Preventative Science," subdivided into " Prevention of Disease," "Prevention of Pauperism," and "Prevention of Crime." The editor has prefixed an interesting biographical essay which will materially assist an intelligent appreciation of Mr. Chadwick's work. To discuss the essays themselves would be to traverse the whole field of " Social Science," and we must be content with commending Dr. Richardson's useful work to our readers.
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