PART I.--Teacher: "We shall learn about opening the door." General

subjective phrase, "Pay attention." Explanation of the phrase through stories.

Teaching of _verbs_.

First subjective phrase before recitation, "Please begin." Explanation through stories.

Recitation.

First subjective phrase after recitation, "Very good." Explanations through stories.

After the teaching of the _sentences_, the subjective phrases are spoken by the pupils.

It lies in the intelligence of the teacher to recognize the moment for introducing phrases.

The lesson then proceeds to the movements of the door as Part II, and to our leaving the door as Part III. The scheme is the same.

All this is a copy (systematized, of course) of the method employed by the mother. Now, first, can the grammarian be useful to us? Let us remember that to begin with his method is to put the cart before the horse. He must play the second but also an important part. The child learns to speak first, but he also learns to read and to write. We will give the same lesson to the pupil in printed form; he will be asked to read it, and then to copy it or write it from dictation. He will receive the new speech through the sense of hearing; it will then be communicated to the sight, and then to the touch. In this manner a class of twenty girls of about thirteen years had been taught English. After about thirty printed lessons had been mastered with the anecdotes, riddles, etc., which had occupied about half a German school year, they were not only able to read and write without many mistakes, but showed a strong desire to express themselves in the new tongue, and were, indeed, able to do so very satisfactorily, as compared with the results obtained by the grammarian after a seven years' course.

Who first thought of combining the two original methods of language teaching in this way? A Frenchman, named François Gouin. He gave it the name of the "Series Method," because each lesson contains a series of actions. After the pupil has learned to express himself in regard to his immediate surroundings he continues to learn in series in regard to the lives of animals and of plants, the processes of housekeeping, traveling, trade, etc. It is all presented simply, but each has its own appropriate words and expressions. As soon as the pupil has mastered the rudiments he will also have the subjective matter presented in a series; in one lesson the teacher will be inclined to mirth, in another to (mock) anger, in another to hope, in another to (mock) despair.

The most important result of education being the evolution of the character already present in the child, let us not consider him a little empty jug to be filled with knowledge; rather let us seek to draw out the riches of his character. When he is able to _live_ in a new language, he will be ever broadened, refreshed, and renewed.

This method, resting on a psychological basis, is, with modifications of manner, which it remains the duty of the teacher to recognize, just as good for an adult as for a child. Rules of grammar will be earlier given to the adult, because he will notice correspondences and differences sooner than the child. But no rule will ever be given to a pupil of any age till he himself can appreciate its value, till he is mentally beginning to ask "why?" This questioning state of mind is one highly to be desired, as it is a state of receptivity.

* * * * *

The highest point yet reached by a kite was attained by the leader of a tandem sent up from the Blue Hill Observatory by Messrs. Clayton and Ferguson, August 26th, 12,124 feet above the sea, 277 feet higher than had previously been reached by any kite. The five miles of line weighed seventy-five pounds, and the weight of the whole was one hundred and twelve pounds. With a temperature of 75° and wind velocity thirty-two miles an hour on the ground, the temperature was 38° and the wind velocity thirty-two miles an hour at the highest point reached, while the highest wind velocity recorded was forty miles an hour at 11,000 feet.

THE EARLIEST WRITING IN FRANCE.

BY M. GABRIEL DE MORTILLET.

The ancient Celts and Gauls of France had no real letters. A few Celtiberian pieces of money bear characters belonging to the Phœnician and Carthaginian alphabets. In Cisalpine Gaul we find Gallic written in ancient Italian characters. The Greeks, when they founded Massilia and spread themselves along the Mediterranean coast of France, brought their language and writing into the country. The Gauls took advantage of this, and many Gallic inscriptions in Greek characters occur scattered through the south of France, among much more numerous inscriptions in the Greek language and character.

When the Romans came, the Latin alphabet rapidly took the place of the Greek, and the few Gauls that continued faithful to the old tongue used Latin characters in engraving the inscriptions they have left us. Similar changes took place in Gallic pieces of money. Excepting the Celtiberian coins with their Semitic legends and characters, which are found only in a very limited district in the southwest of France, Gallic coins, when they have characters upon them, may be classified as those with Greek and those with Latin legends. The former are very abundant in the south of France, and extend, growing more rare, as we go on into the center and north. Gallic coins with legends in Roman characters gradually become more numerous, and were general after the conquest of Gaul by Julius Cæsar, some of the Gallic populations having only begun to coin money during the earlier period of the Roman occupation.

There are some evidences of the use of a symbolical and hieroglyphical writing before alphabetical writing. On some of the megalithic monuments, principally in Morbihan, stones are found bearing incised engravings, and sometimes sculptures in relief. Are the engravings simply ornamental motives, have they a symbolical meaning, or are they hieroglyphic emblems? Opinions are divided.

The supports of the large and handsome dolmen of the little island of Gavrinis, Morbihan, are filled with engraved lines running into one another and conforming to the shape of the stone or to its composition--all the siliceous and consequently very hard parts being free from them. This indicates a simple ornamentation or decoration executed without any special plan made in advance, according to the nature and form of the stone worked upon. Yet, among the lines of the apparently fanciful ornament a number of polished stone hatchets are very distinctly represented. In all the other dolmens the carvings are much less numerous and not so close. Sometimes they are distributed around, and sometimes they are isolated. Among them we remark the frequent repetition of some forms in groups or singly, which suggest the thought of signs with a determined sense. Upon a large support of the dolmen of the Petit-Mont at Arzan (Morbihan) there are at the lower left hand three crosses, a sign of frequent occurrence on the megalithic carvings. Above these are two very wide open U's. Seidler sees in these signs letters of the Libyan alphabet, the cross corresponding to C, and the other sign to M. Some persons have further thought they could distinguish an Egyptian letter in the cross. Taking a more general view of the question, Letourneau[34] has tried to prove that the sculptures on the megaliths are inscriptions, and the engraved signs correspond to letters of the ancient alphabets, most probably Semitic. Adrien de Mortillet answered that the thought of writing involved arrangement, and no arrangement could be predicated of the signs.

A short time afterward, Adrien de Mortillet, in a paper on the Figures sculptured on the Megalithic Monuments of France, proved that the figures are more or less rude designs representing a well-determined series of objects. Thus the U's, with branches very widely separated, represent boats, and are emblems of migrations by sea; the crosses are shipmasters' staffs, or insignia of chiefs similar in character to bishops' crosses. The polished hatchet is frequently figured, and often with a handle, and is the emblem of labor, or, more probably, of combat. The scutcheons, which are also frequent, are bucklers, or military symbols. They are usually adorned on the inner side with a variety of symbolical figures variously grouped, which evidently served as the owner's coat of arms, and are the most ancient known specimens of the kind, going back to the stone age, or at least to the transition age from stone to bronze. After that time the custom of putting their owners' arms upon bucklers spread widely. It lasted till the end of the middle ages. The painted vases of classical antiquity furnish numerous and very curious examples of such marks. The interpretation of the megalithic sculptures may furnish probable if not certain details concerning an epoch which is very little known to us. Thus, the scutcheon of the dolmen _des Marchands_, containing four series of crosses, one above the other, and each series divided into two parts, fifty-six crosses in all, may have been the arms of a chief of a powerful confederation having fifty-six less important chiefs under his orders. The supposition is confirmed by the dimensions of the monument and a large handled hatchet engraved under the tablet between two other crosses.

Near the dolmen _des Marchands_, and not far from the sea, is the large tumulus of Marie-Hroeck, which includes a small dolmen containing rich funerary furnishings. In front of the entrance to the cavern is a rectangular slab that bears on its face a scutcheon containing two crosses, symbolical of power, and several very rudely drawn representations of boats. The engravers of this period were not artists, but stone-cutters, working upon a very hard rock with very poor tools. Unable to figure distinctly what they wanted to, they did the best they could. Handled hatchets were distributed irregularly all round the scutcheons. Does not this epitaph seem to mean that the tomb was erected in memory of a powerful maritime chief by soldiers, his companions in arms?

From these bucklers we pass to generalized feminine representations characterized by concentric necklaces and pairs of prominent globular breasts. Such sculptures, which are repeated in various dolmens and artificial mortuary caves in the valley of the Seine, may be of religious import. They seem to be replaced in the south of France by attempts at statues. Of such character are the two sculptures of the dolmen of Collorgues in Gard, which also have the symbolical cross on their breasts.

Whatever they may be, the megalithic engravings are the earliest graphic historical documents of the country. It is therefore important to collect and preserve them.

They may be divided into simple ornamental motives, which may further suggest interesting resemblances; figurative engravings representing known and definite objects and forming commemorative pictures capable of affording important historical or legendary hints--the most ancient documents in our archives; and symbolical engravings of more difficult determination, and independent of any alphabet.

Among the specimens of the last class, one sort, the cupule, is extremely widespread. It is a very regularly shaped hemispherical cup, generally represented by itself, but sometimes mingled with other figures, most usually occurring in groups without arrangement, but very rarely isolated. Entire surfaces are sometimes covered with this design. It is a very ancient design, as such cupules are found on the dolmens. In the dolmen of Kériaval, at Locmariquer, the lower side of the horizontal slab is starred with numerous cupules, which antedate the construction of the monument, for they appear on the parts that rest on the supports. There may also, however, be more recent cupules. We are totally in the dark as to what they represent.

Cupules are sometimes cut on the surface of rocks in place. Engravings similarly cut have been designated sculptures on rocks, and are found almost everywhere. Those which have been most studied and afford the most features of interest for us are on the Scandinavian coasts, and these have been largely utilized by Adrien de Mortillet for the determination of the figures of megaliths. We cite only one example from Gaul, the sculptures in the rocks of the Lago dei Maraviglie, in a lateral valley on the left, going from San Dalmazo to Tende, in Piedmont. Some of the walls of the rock there and large surfaces of detached blocks are covered with extremely rude figures formed by the accumulation of dints resulting from frequently repeated blows. Among these figures, which are without order in the grouping, and in which no regard is paid to proportions, are stags, rams, human figurines, hatchets, pikes, baskets, and lance points. These sculptures have been ascribed to the neolithic or the bronze age; but the existence of figures of similar style on the walls of a lead mine near Valauri has suggested that they may be more recent. Human figurines are numerous, but heads of horned animals are more so. Some are perhaps stags and rams, while bulls and cows are abundant. The shepherds are accustomed to take their herds and keep them for two or three months every year in this valley, which is so lonely and melancholy in aspect that it has been called Vallée d'Enfer, or Hell Valley. It would not be strange if these herdsmen, for want of something better to do, should have amused themselves delineating the things that were before their eyes--the cattle, the miners, and things appertaining to the mine. As to special traits, the representations are so badly executed as to leave a wide range open for interpretation.--_Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Book Formation de la Nation française_ (Paris: Félix Alcan).

FOOTNOTE:

[34] Ch. Letourneau. Alphabet Forms in Megalithic Inscriptions. Bulletin of the Society of Anthropology, 1893.

* * * * *

An old Newcomen steam engine at North Ashton, near Bristol, England, as described by Mr. W.H. Pearson in the British Association, is still doing practical work after an active career of nearly one hundred and fifty years, it having been erected in 1750 at a cost of seventy pounds. The piston is packed with rope, and has a covering of water on the top to make it steam tight. The working of the engine is aided by the vacuum formed by the injection of water into the cylinder. The old man now engaged in working this engine has held his post since he was a lad, and his father and grandfather occupied the same position.

* * * * *

The excavation of the Roman town of Calleva Attrebatum at Silchester, near Reading, England, has brought to light nearly forty complete houses, a private bathing establishment, two square temples, the west gate, a Christian church possibly of the fourth century, a basilica and forum, an extensive system of dye works, a series of drains, other works, and a multitude of ornaments and utensils--remains of Roman civic life and institutions, complementing previous discoveries of Roman monuments in England, which have been mostly military.

SKETCH OF GABRIEL DE MORTILLET.

"The École d'Anthropologie feels with a profound emotion the loss of the eminent master, one of its glories, whose labors have contributed in so large a measure to honor and magnify it, and to extend and confirm its legitimate authority, and who had the exceedingly rare merit of constituting a science which by means of him has become a French science--that of prehistoric archæology." Such is the eminently fitting tribute spoken by the professors of the Paris École d'Anthropologie through their _Revue Mensuelle_ to the memory of Gabriel de Mortillet.

LOUIS LAURENT GABRIEL DE MORTILLET was born at Meylan, Isère, France, August 29, 1821, and died September 25, 1898. He began his studies with the Jesuits at Chambéry, and continued them in Paris at the Museum of Natural History and at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers. He was interested in the revolutionary movements of 1848; and in the insurrectionary demonstration of the 13th of June, 1849, which followed the presentation by Ledru Rollin, on the 11th, of a resolution of impeachment against President Louis Napoleon for repressing the republican movement in Rome, it was with his help that the eminent deputy was enabled to escape arrest. In the same year he was condemned for a press offense and took refuge in Savoy. During his exile he classified the collections of the Natural History Museum in Geneva; had charge of the arrangement of the Museum at Annecy in 1854; directed an exploitation of hydraulic lime in Italy; and served as geological adviser in the construction of the northern railways of that country. He was also associated with Agassiz in his studies of the glaciers of Switzerland. He returned to Paris in 1864, and in 1867 was charged with the organization of the first hall or prehistoric department of the History of Labor at the Universal Exposition of 1867. In 1868 he was called to the Museum of National Antiquities at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he continued till 1885. It is specially mentioned that he carried this institution safely through the perils of the war of 1870-'71. While engaged in these museum tasks he was struck with the insufficiency of the then universally accepted paleontological and prehistoric classifications, and his attention became fully absorbed in the subject. He held long consultations with Edouard Lartet, the eminent paleontologist and his learned friends concerning it. As a result of these deliberations, after careful study of the formations and specimens, he proposed a scheme of classification in 1869, which was completed at the congress held in Brussels in 1872, and has become generally accepted in its fundamentals, after having withstood the often-repeated attacks of persistent criticism, and has received confirmation after confirmation from innumerable discoveries made throughout the world. "Had his activity concerned only the classification of the different stone ages," says Dr. Capitan, whose eulogy of M. de Mortillet we follow most largely in our sketch, "de Mortillet would for that work alone have been by good right considered a great man of science. Actually to illuminate a number of dark points, to group a thousand scattered facts in regular order, to synthesize numerous isolated researches, to constitute a cohesive theory of them--that is what de Mortillet did. Thus he became long ago the uncontested master, the leader of a school, who was able to group and hold around him the scientific students and workers of the entire world."

M. de Mortillet was in 1866 one of the founders of the International Congress of Prehistoric Archæology. He was one of the first professors in the École d'Anthropologie founded by Broca in 1875, the greatest achievement, as he writes in the preface to his _Formation de la Nation française_, of the Association for the Teaching of Anthropological Sciences. The school was opened in November, 1875, in a building gratuitously lent it by the École de Médecine, to give instruction free of tuition charges, and was to be maintained by a fund subscribed by anthropological societies and private persons, a gift of fifteen hundred dollars a year by M. Wallon for laboratory purposes, and a grant of twenty-five hundred dollars from the Municipal Council of Paris for the payment of professors' salaries. Five courses of lectures were to be delivered, to be increased as the resources of the association multiplied. The association and the school were recognized as of public utility by a law of 1889; the school being the first establishment of private instruction, Dr. Capitan said in his memorial address, "and up to this time (1897) the only one that has had that honor, an honor that creates duties for us. We are under obligation to clarify and extend our teaching." De Mortillet's work was so true to the sentiment expressed in this sentence that one of the characteristics attributed to him in the short biography published in Vaporeau's _Dictionnaire Universel des Contemporains_ is that he was one of the men who contributed most to the popularizing of prehistoric studies in France. During the more than twenty years of his professorship of prehistoric anthropology in the École, de Mortillet "gave precious instruction to numerous students, many of whom, foreigners, have in their turns become masters in their own countries." He was also president of the Society of Anthropology, subdirector of the École d'Anthropologie, president of the Association for Teaching Anthropological Sciences, and president of the Commission on Megalithic Monuments--the various functions of which offices he filled with remarkable exactness and distinction. "In all these important positions," says Dr. Capitan in his eulogy, "de Mortillet unfailingly brought a uniform ardor to his work, a uniform activity, a clear and acute wit, and a remarkable precision. He performed his numerous duties almost to the end of his life. Only last month (July, 1898) he made another journey for the execution of a mission which the commission on megalithic monuments had intrusted to him."

In connection with these multifarious labors, M. de Mortillet published a considerable number of memoirs and of books of the highest order. He was a transformist from the very first, and performed all his various researches in the spirit of an evolutionist. His first publications were on conchology, and numerous memoirs between 1851 and 1862 related to subjects in that branch. During the same period he contributed many important works on the geology and mineralogy of Savoy. Among these were the History of the Land and Fresh-water Mollusks of Savoy and the Basin of Lake Leman, and a Guide to the Traveler in Savoy. His attention was afterward more entirely directed to prehistoric archæology and anthropology, and he published in 1866 a curious Study on the Sign of the Cross previous to Christianity. Of this period, too, are his Promenades, or Walks, in the Universal Exposition of 1867, and his Walks in the Museum of Saint-Germain, 1869. He founded, in 1864, the Recueil, or Collection of Materials for the Positive History of Man, which was afterward continued at Toulouse by M.E. Cartailhac. In 1879 he published a work on pottery marks--_Potiérs allobroges, ou les Sigles figulins étudiés par les Méthodes de l'Histoire naturelle_. In 1881, in co-operation with his son, Adrien de Mortillet, as artist, he published a magnificent illustrated work or album, _Le Musée Préhistorique_ (The Prehistoric Museum); and in 1883, the volume _Le Préhistorique_ (Prehistoric Archæology); two books which have taken rank as master works. A second edition of the _Préhistorique_ appeared in 1885, and at the time of his death he was preparing a third, in which he was taking great pains to bring the matter up to the present condition of the science. Another important work was the _Origines de la Chasse et de la Pêche_ (Origin of Hunting and Fishing). A considerable number of memoirs by M. de Mortillet appeared in various scientific journals, especially in the two founded by him--_Les Matériaux pour l'Histoire primitive et naturelle de l'Homme_, already mentioned, and _L'Homme_, which was established in 1884.

An epoch in M. de Mortillet's life was marked in 1873, when a discussion took place at the Anthropological Congress, in Lyons, between him and M. Abel Hovelacque concerning the precursors of man. The researches of the two masters had already led them, by a series of observations and deductions, to regard as certain the geological existence of a being intermediate between man and the monkey, which they called the _Anthropopithecus_, and they were trying to indicate, hypothetically, its leading characteristics.

M. de Mortillet's reasons for believing in the existence of this precursor of man as a definite being were presented in the _Revue d'Anthropologie_, in an article which was translated and published in the Popular Science Monthly for April, 1879. In this paper the author summarized the evidence, already copious, in favor of the existence of Quaternary man, and then took up the question, "Did there exist in the Tertiary age beings sufficiently intelligent to perform a part of the acts which are characteristic of man?" He then reviewed the researches of the Abbé Bourgeois at Thenay in the light of a collection of fire-marked flints which he had exhibited at the International Congress of Prehistoric Archæology and Anthropology held in Paris in 1867, and deduced from the result that "during the Middle Tertiary there existed a creature, precursor of man, an anthropopithecus, which was acquainted with fire, and could make use of it for splitting flints. It also was able to trim the flint flakes thus produced, and to convert them into tools. This curious and interesting discovery for a long time stood alone, and arguments were even drawn from its isolated position to favor the rejection of it. Fortunately, another French observer, M.J.B. Rames, has found in the vicinity of Aurillac (Cantal), in the strata of the upper part of the Middle Tertiary--here, too, in company with mastodons and dinotheriums, though of more recent species than those of Thenay--flints which also have been redressed intentionally. In this case, however, the flints are no longer split by fire, but by tapping. It is something more than a continuation, it is a development. Among the few specimens exhibited by M. Rames, whose discoveries are quite recent, is one which, had it been found on the surface of the ground, would never have been called in question." The evidence afforded by these flints was confirmed by a collection of flints from the Miocene and the Pliocene of the valley of the Tagus shown by Señor Ribeiro in the same exhibition, a considerable proportion of which bore evidence of intentional chipping.

Bearing upon this point was a chart of the Palæolithic Age in Gaul, drawn up by M. de Mortillet in 1871, and published in the _Bulletin de la Société d'Anthropologie de Paris_--"the only work of the kind extant"--in which were recorded five localities in which occurred supposed traces of man in the Tertiary, forty-one alluvial deposits in the Quaternary yielding human bones and industrial remains, and two hundred and seventy-eight caverns containing Quaternary fauna with traces of prehistoric man.

M. de Mortillet gave in another form his view of the sort of creature the hypothetical anthropopithecus should be in a paper on Tertiary Man, read before the Anthropological Section of the French Association for the Advancement of Science in 1885, when he said the question was not to find whether man already existed in the Tertiary epoch as he exists at the present day. Animals varied from one geological epoch to another, and the higher the animals the greater was the variation. It was to be inferred, therefore, that man would vary more rapidly than the other mammals. The problem was to discover in the Tertiary period an ancestral form of man a predecessor of the man of historical times. There were, he affirmed, unquestionably in the Tertiary strata objects which implied the existence of an intelligent being--animals less intelligent than existing man, but much more intelligent than existing apes. While the skeleton of this ancestral form of man had not yet been discovered, he had made himself known to us in the clearest manner by his works. The general opinion of the meeting after hearing M. de Mortillet's paper is said to have been that there could be no longer any doubt of the existence of the supposed ancestral form of man in the Tertiary period.

The discovery in Java, announced by Dr. Dubois, in 1896, of fossil remains presenting structural characteristics between those of man and those of the monkey, to which the name _Pithecanthropus erectus_ was given, were accepted with hardly a question by M. de Mortillet and his colleagues as confirming his views.

At a banquet given to M. de Mortillet, May 1, 1884, by a number of anthropologists, when his portrait was presented to him, the hall was decorated for the occasion with a life-size picture of an ancient Gaul, executed according to his latest researches. The man was represented as having no hair on his body; with very long arms and very powerful muscles; his feet capable of being used in climbing trees, but with toes not opposable; his jaw strongly prognathous, but not at all equal to that of an anthropoid ape; his breadth strongly compressed laterally and his abdomen prominent; the skin not negroid, but of our present color; and the expression of his face was about as intelligent as that of an Australian.

In his _Le Préhistorique_ M. de Mortillet attempted to determine how far distant was the epoch when _Homo sapiens_ first appeared on the earth, by estimating the rate of progression of blocks which were carried by former ice fields, as he had observed them in Switzerland with Agassiz. His conclusion was that more than two hundred thousand years had elapsed since that event.

In 1894 M. de Mortillet proposed in the Société d'Anthropologie an important reform in chronology. Pointing out the inconvenience of using several different eras, such as the Foundation of Rome, the Flight of Mohammed, and the Proclamation of the French Republic, he suggested that ten thousand years before the Christian era be adopted as a general starting point. This would include all Egyptian chronology as known at the present day, and would leave five thousand years at the disposal of future discoverers.

"A spirit always youthful, a man of progress," says Dr. Capitan in his eulogy, "our dear master kept himself fully in the current with all work relating to prehistoric archæology. He knew how to profit by whatever would contribute to perfect his own work. He therefore, on different occasions, modified his classification so as to keep it up to date, realizing that a classification is an admirable instrument of study, which ought to go through the same evolution as the science to which it is applied." This high quality of his mind appears clearly in his last book, published in 1897--_Formation de la Nation française_ (Formation of the French Nation). This book comprised the substance of his lectures of the term 1889-'90. In publishing it he disavowed all intention of producing a new history of France. There were enough of these in all shapes and sizes, written in the most varied styles, with diverse tendencies, and from the most different points of view, and there were some most excellent works among them, particularly that of M. Henri Martin, which seemed to him to contain all the historical information known. But all these histories, even that of Henri Martin, although he had been president of the Anthropological Society of Paris, appeared to M. de Mortillet to be at fault in their starting point. They gave too much place in their beginnings to the legendary and the imaginary, and not enough to natural history and palæethnology. It was M. de Mortillet's purpose to follow an inverse method--to regard direct observation alone; and he would rest only on the impartial and precise discussion of texts and facts. "Texts, documents, and facts," he said, "become more and more rare as we go back in time. I shall collect and examine them with the greatest care in order to make our origins as clear as possible, and to enlarge the scale of our history. I shall appeal in succession to all the sciences of observation, and when I have recourse to the texts, I shall subject them to the closest criticism and the most complete analysis." The texts on which historians had so far relied did not go back far enough. They told of events three thousand or, including the Egyptian hieroglyphic texts, seven thousand years old, but what was this compared with the immense lapse of time during which man has lived, going back into the Quaternary epoch? On this vast period the texts furnish no information. They were, besides, inaccurate, tinged with fable and poetry, with local and personal prejudice and ignorance, even as to the times to which they relate after history is supposed to have come in. If we want light upon this unrecorded past, we must seek it by the aid of palæethnological data; and anthropology may be very advantageously united with palæethnology to furnish valuable instruction concerning the autochthonic race of France, its development, transformations, customs, and migrations, and the invasions it suffered in the most remote antiquity. "With the aid of these two sciences, both of wholly new origin, we are able to trace the earliest pages of the history of France." The book begins with a review of what the texts afford regarding the earlier peoples of France; then brings forward the evidence yielded by language and the study of the evolution of writing; next presents the results of research respecting the precursors of man, the rise and development of industries, societies, and civilization; and studies the primitive races of perhaps two hundred and thirty thousand or two hundred and forty thousand years ago; their mixture with the other races that came in from abroad and possessed the country; and, finally, the formation of the French population as we now find it.

M. de Mortillet's relations with his pupils and with his country, and his private character, are spoken of in the highest terms. For more than twenty years his lectures at the École d'Anthropologie, treating the most various questions respecting prehistoric times, attracted large and attentive audiences, often including students from abroad, who afterward became masters of the science in their own countries. "He was always ready to receive workers in the science, even the least and humblest, to bestow advice and encouragement upon them, and to give them the benefit of his experience and extensive erudition, and for this his pupils and friends lament him." Against his integrity no suspicion was ever breathed.

In political faith he was always advanced, and ever true to his convictions. He was _maire_ of Saint-Germain from 1882 to 1888, and deputy from the department of Seine-et-Oise from 1885 to 1889.

* * * * *

In the observations of the meteoric shower of November 13, 1897, at Harvard College Observatory, one of the meteors appeared, according to the calculations, at the height of 406 miles, and disappeared at the height of 43 miles, and at a distance of 196 miles. Another appeared at a height of 182 miles and disappeared at a height of 48 miles, and a distance of 74 miles. The first meteor was red or orange, or, to Prof. W.H. Pickering, the color of a sodium flame, and the other white. Both penetrated the atmosphere to about the same depth, and both were clearly Leonids. These facts go to show, Professor Pickering thinks, that the difference in color noted is not due to a mere grazing of our atmosphere in some cases, and a correspondingly low temperature, but to an actual difference in the chemical composition of the individual meteors.

Correspondence.

THE FOUNDATION OF SOCIOLOGY.

_Editor Popular Science Monthly_:

SIR: May I be permitted a word of comment upon your editorial entitled A Borrowed Foundation, published in the December number of the Popular Science Monthly? Whatever my readers and reviewers may have claimed for me, I myself have never claimed to be the discoverer of "the consciousness of kind." Not only Mr. Spencer, as he and you have shown; not only Hegel, as Professor Caldwell has shown; but also nearly every philosophical writer and psychologist from Plato and Aristotle down to the present time has more or less clearly recognized the phenomenon of "the consciousness of kind," although I do not know that any one but myself has called it by just this phrase. The only claim, then, that I put forward for my own work is that, in a somewhat systematic way, I have attempted to use the consciousness of kind as the postulate of sociology and to interpret more special social phenomena by means of it. In other words, I have used it as a "foundation"; and I am not aware that any other writer on sociology has ever done so. Mr. Spencer, I feel quite sure, makes no such claim for himself. The passage which he and you have quoted is taken from the Principles of Psychology; it is not repeated in the Principles of Sociology, where, if it had been regarded by Mr. Spencer as a "foundation," it should have been put forward as the major premise of social theory. Passing over the consciousness of kind, Mr. Spencer has chosen to build his system of sociology in part upon other psychological inductions, in part upon a biological analogy. The tables of the Descriptive Sociology are arranged in accordance with the organic conception, and nine and one half chapters of the Inductions of Sociology in the first volume of the Principles of Sociology are formulated in terms of it. Throughout the remaining parts of the Principles, however, sociological phenomena are explained in terms of two closely correlated generalizations that are psychological in character--namely, first, the generalization that "while the fear of the living becomes the root of the political control, the fear of the dead becomes the root of religious control"; and second, the generalization that militancy and industrialism produce opposite effects on mind and character, and, through them, on every form of social organization. The work that Mr. Spencer has done in elaborating these explanations is of inestimable value, but surely it is not an interpretation of society in terms of the consciousness of kind. Is it then quite fair to suggest that the use made of the consciousness of kind in my own work is a borrowed "foundation"?

However you and Mr. Spencer and my own readers may answer this question, I can sincerely subscribe to your affirmation that there is much more in Mr. Spencer's writings than most even of his truest admirers and most diligent readers have ever explored; and I should be sorry to be regarded as behind the foremost in appreciation of the great work which he has accomplished not only for philosophy in general, but especially for that branch of knowledge which has engaged my own interest.

FRANKLIN H. GIDDINGS.

NEW YORK, _December 19, 1898_.

Professor Giddings, in his Principles of Sociology, spoke of the "consciousness of kind" as the "new datum which has been hitherto sought without success." Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, showed that this was not a new datum, inasmuch as he had formulated it himself in a work published many years previously. Professor Giddings says that the passage to which Mr. Spencer referred occurred in his Principles of Psychology, and not in his Principles of Sociology, where, "if it had been regarded by Mr. Spencer as a foundation, it should have been put forward as the major premise of social theory." But Professor Giddings surely does not forget that Mr. Spencer, in laying out his system of synthetic philosophy, made the whole of psychology the basis of, and immediate preparation for, sociology. Quite naturally a writer who is dealing with sociology separately, and not as part of a philosophical system, will find it necessary in laying his foundations to fall back on data furnished by the immediately underlying science; and this explains why Professor Giddings makes use in his Principles of Sociology of a datum which, whether drawn from Mr. Spencer's Psychology or not, was at least to be found there very distinctly expressed. Mr. Spencer himself says that he regarded it as a "primary datum," and calls attention to the fact that he devoted "a dozen pages to tracing the development of sympathy as a result of gregariousness." We are quite prepared to recognize the valuable use which Professor Giddings has made of the doctrine in question, and to admit that, by the extensive development he has given to it, he has imparted a special character and a special interest both to his Principles of Sociology and to his Elements of Sociology noticed elsewhere.--ED. P.S.M.

EVOLUTION AND EDUCATION AGAIN.

_Editor Popular Science Monthly_:

SIR: I have not before this acknowledged your reference to me in a spirited and instructive editorial that appeared in the December number of your excellent magazine, because an immediate reply might have been taken to indicate a desire, on my part, for a controversy, which I expressly disclaim; and besides, I have desired that the public might read and consider your views dispassionately. I care but little for the effect upon myself, if the cause of truth shall be materially strengthened.

I am not surprised that you refer to me as "ignorant," "negligible," etc., because it has for a long time been painfully clear that the "scientific mind" is exceedingly sensitive, and while much given to praising forbearance and kindness, still resorts to language reasonably regarded as abusive. I have always found this to be true, and the present controversy is no exception to the rule. The "broadly scientific mind" is, alas! too often narrow and intolerant in treating opposing views. I do not wish, however, to find fault with the abuse--it may prove to be good discipline, and is, therefore, thankfully accepted; but I do very much desire to correct a mistaken inference that you drew from my reference to Herbert Spencer. There are some typographical errors in the quotations that you make, which, however, do not change the meaning. Allow me then to say that I have a great regard for Mr. Spencer; that I have read his writings with much profit, and that I have never failed to accord him full credit for the work he has accomplished. That I can not understand and accept all his teachings does not lessen my respect for him.

At the time that I made my informal talk to the teachers of this city, I had no thought that my remarks would be published or would excite public criticism, or that I would be honored with so distinguished, so critical an audience, or I should have been more careful in the use of terms; but it does seem to me that there is no excuse for the distorted meaning that you and others have given to the quotations. I referred to Mr. Spencer's age to show that we could hope for no change in his philosophy, and the criticism that follows, if it may be styled a criticism at all, is that he has refused to recognize the Deity, and thereby fails to "bless, cheer, and comfort suffering humanity." You discuss it as if I had said that he had not _bettered_ the condition of his fellows; but that idea is not in the statement that you quote at all. The word "suffering" was intended to apply to those who, by reason of the misfortunes of this life, are compelled to look beyond themselves and their surroundings for comfort, and who in all ages and among all peoples have turned their thoughts toward a Divine Being for comfort. I merely intended to say, in a very mild and harmless way, that the consolations of a religion based upon a belief in a Divine Providence are necessary for _suffering_ humanity, and my immediate reference to Cardinal Newman by way of contrast in almost the same language clearly shows this to be the true meaning of my remarks. The emphasis was on the word "suffering," which was not intended to include more than a fraction of mankind.

I am obliged to you for your reference to Mr. Gladstone, who in his last illness illustrated most fully what I had in my mind. However great his pain, or cheerless the outlook, he continually with serene cheerfulness murmured, "I know that my Redeemer liveth," and "Our Father," etc. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that I am sorry that any one has been led to believe that I underrate the value of the life and work of Herbert Spencer.

Please allow me to refer to the statement in your editorial, "Again dealing with the modern scientific view, that in the development of the human individual all antecedent stages of human development are _in a manner_ passed through," etc., in order that I may express my regret that you seem to vitiate the force of the statement altogether by the use of the unscientific phrase "in a manner." The tremendous consequences growing out of the view make serious and exact definition and treatment imperative, and I had hoped that I was entering upon a helpful discussion of it, but was greatly disappointed. I am also unwilling to believe that students of Emerson will be easily convinced that he looked at life "from a stationary point of view," but I do not feel that I can claim your valuable time for a discussion of this point.

May I trust your forbearance in pointing out a manifest misconception in your statement, "We are not imposed upon by childish imitations of mature virtues"? The remark indicates that you have not been brought into immediate association with school children in a schoolroom, at least in recent years.

I refer very reluctantly, but I trust without seeming egotism, to your remarks touching my election to the position which I hold. I am innocent of all responsibility in the matter. I had no "pull" (is the term scientific?). I wrote to the board declining to be a candidate. I refused to allow my friends to speak to the members of the board in my behalf; I preferred the position (Principal of the St. Paul High School) which I had held for years, and I accepted the office with much hesitation; but the intimation that our Board of School Inspectors, composed of business men in every way highly esteemed by the citizens of St. Paul, and deemed worthy of all confidence, had been actuated by unworthy motives, is entirely gratuitous and out of place in a journal such as you would have us believe yours to be. Could there be offered better evidence of haste and unfairness than this uncalled-for assault upon those of whom you know absolutely nothing, and does it not show the scientific inclination to have theory with or without facts, but certainly theory?

Yours very truly, A.J. SMITH, _Superintendent of Schools_.

ST. PAUL, MINN., _January 4, 1899_.

We took the report of Superintendent Smith's address which appeared in the St. Paul papers. If there were any "typographical errors" in our quotations, they were not of our making; and Mr. Smith admits that, such as they were, they did not affect the sense. Well, then, we found Mr. Smith using his position as Superintendent of Schools to disparage a man whom the scientific world holds in the highest honor, and for whom he now tells us he himself has "a great regard"--whose writings he has "read with much profit." We judged the speaker by his own words, and certainly drew an unfavorable inference as to his knowledge and mental breadth. If Mr. Smith did injustice to himself by speaking in an unguarded way, or by not fully expressing his meaning, that was not our fault; and we do not think we can properly be accused of having lapsed into abuse. The explanation he offers of his language regarding Mr. Spencer is wholly unsatisfactory. He gave his hearers to understand that there was an "old man" in London who had devoted all his energies to creating a system of thought which should entirely ignore the name of the Deity, and of whom, after his death, it would not be remembered that he had "ever performed an act or said a word that blessed or comforted or relieved his suffering fellows." The stress, he now says, should be laid on the word "suffering." He did not wish to imply that Mr. Spencer had not bettered the condition of his fellows generally; he only meant that he had done nothing for the _suffering_. On this we have two remarks to make: First, it is not usual, when a man is acknowledged to have given a long lifetime to useful work, to hold him up to reprobation because he is not known to have had a special mission to the "suffering"; and, second, that no man can be of service to mankind at large without being of benefit to the suffering. It is mainly because Mr. Spencer believes so strongly in the broad virtues of justice and humanity, has so unbounded a faith in the efficacy of what may be called a sound social hygiene, that he has had, comparatively, so little to say upon the topics which most interest those who apply themselves specifically, but not always wisely, to alleviating the miseries and distresses of humanity.

As to the means by which Mr. Smith obtained his present position, we know nothing beyond what he now tells us. We saw his appointment criticised as an unsuitable one in the St. Paul papers; and his published remarks seemed to justify the criticism. There are "pulls"--the word is "scientific" enough for our purpose--even in school matters; and it seemed that this was just such a case as a "pull" would most naturally explain. We quite accept, however, Superintendent Smith's statement as to the facts; and we sincerely trust that the next address he delivers to his teachers will better justify his appointment than did the one on which we felt it a duty to comment.

EMERSON AND EVOLUTION.

_Editor Popular Science Monthly_:

SIR: The editorial in the December Popular Science Monthly on the relations of Emerson to evolution must have surprised many of the students of Emerson. A little over two years ago Moncure D. Conway pointed out (Open Court, 1896) that soon after his resignation from the pulpit of the Unitarian Church with which he was last connected, Emerson taught zoölogy, botany, paleontology, and geology, and that he was a pronounced evolutionist who used in his lectures the argument in favor of evolution drawn from the practical identity of the extremities of the vertebrates. That Emerson was an evolutionist of the Goethean type is clear from most of his essays. In an essay appearing before the Origin of Species, he wrote as follows:

"The electric word pronounced by John Hunter a hundred years ago, _arrested and progressive development_, indicating the way upward from the invisible protoplasm to the highest organisms, gave the poetic key to Natural Science, of which the theories of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, of Oken, of Goethe, of Agassiz and Owen and Darwin in zoölogy and botany are the fruits--a hint whose power is not exhausted, showing unity and perfect order in physics.

"The hardest chemist, the severest analyzer, scornful of all but the driest fact, is forced to keep the poetic curve of Nature, and his results are like a myth of Theocritus. All multiplicity rushes to be resolved into unity. Anatomy, osteology, exhibit arrested or progressive ascent in each kind; the lower pointing to the higher forms, the higher to the highest, from the fluid in an elastic sac, from radiate, mollusk, articulate, vertebrate, up to man; as if the whole animal world were only a Hunterian museum to exhibit the genesis of mankind."

The Darwin to whom reference is made in this essay is not Charles, but his grandfather, one of the poets of evolution, Erasmus. The essay also shows the belief in evolution held by both Owen and Louis Agassiz before theological timidity made them unprogressive. The names quoted illustrate further the factors which influenced Emerson's thought in regard to evolution. Saint-Hilaire gave the _coup de grâce_ to Cuvier's fight against evolution. Oken is one of the great pioneers of evolution. Goethe shares with Empedocles, Lucretius, and Erasmus Darwin the great honor of being a poet of evolution. Of the four, Goethe was by all odds the greatest. To him, the doctrine of evolution was of more importance than the downfall of a despot. The eve of the Revolution of 1830 found him watching over the dispute between Cuvier and Saint-Hilaire with an interest that obscured every other.

"'Well,' remarked Goethe to Soret," (Conversations with Eckermann) "'what do you think of this great event? The volcano has burst forth, all in flames, and there are no more negotiations behind closed doors.' 'A dreadful affair,' I answered, 'but what else could be expected under the circumstances, and with such a ministry, except that it would end in the expulsion of the present royal family?' 'We do not seem to understand each other, my dear friend,' replied Goethe. 'I am not speaking of those people at all; I am interested in something very different. I mean the dispute between Cuvier and Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire, which has broken out in the Academy, and which is of such great importance to science.' This remark of Goethe's came upon me so unexpectedly that I did not know what to say, and my thoughts for some minutes seemed to have come to a complete standstill. 'The affair is of the utmost importance,' he continued, 'and you can not form any idea of what I felt on receiving the news of the meeting on the 19th. In Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire we have now a mighty ally for a long time to come. But I see also how great the sympathy of the French scientific world must be in this affair, for, in spite of a terrible political excitement, the meeting on the 19th was attended by a full house. The best of it is, however, that the synthetic treatment of Nature introduced into France by Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire can now no longer be stopped. This matter has now become public through the discussion in the Academy carried on in the presence of a large audience; it can no longer be referred to secret committees or be settled or suppressed behind closed doors.'"

It is obvious to any reader of Emerson's essays that Goethe exercised an enormous influence over him, and that Emerson was much more in sympathy with Goethe than was the fetichistic dualist Carlyle. This influence of Goethe over Emerson's views of evolution is clearly evident in the citation already made.

The evolutionary views of Emerson appear so frequently in his essays that it is astonishing that he should have been misunderstood. The citation by the Minneapolis clergyman from the essay on Nature that "man is fallen" does not refer to the Adamic fall, but the degenerating influence of cities. At the slightest glance, the evolutionary tendency of this essay on Nature is evident. In the paragraph immediately after that containing the reference to fallen man occurs the following:

"But taking timely warning and leaving many things unsaid on this topic, let us not longer omit our homage to the efficient Nature, _natura naturans_, the quick cause before which all forms flee as the driven snows, itself secret, its works driven before it in flocks and multitudes (as the ancient represented Nature by Proteus, a shepherd), and in indescribable variety. It published itself in creatures reaching from particles and spicula through transformation on transformation to the highest symmetries, arriving at consummate results without a shock or a leap. A little heat, that is a little motion, is all that differences the bald dazzling white and deadly cold poles of the earth from the prolific tropical climates. All changes pass without violence by reason of the two cardinal conditions of boundless space and boundless time. Geology has initiated us into the secularity of Nature and taught us to disuse our school-dame measure and exchange our Mosaic and Ptolemaic scheme for her large style. We knew nothing rightly for want of perspective. Now we learn what patient ages must round themselves before the rock is broken and the first lichen race has disintegrated the thinnest external plate into soil and opened the door for the remote flora, fauna, Ceres and Pomona to come in. How far off yet is the trilobite, how far the quadruped, how inconceivably remote is man! All duly arrive, and then race after race of men. It is a long way from granite to the oyster; farther yet to Plato and the preaching of the immortality of the soul. Yet all must come, as surely as the first atom has two sides."

It would be useless to multiply citations along this line to demonstrate not only that Emerson was an evolutionist, but that his whole philosophy was pervaded by the doctrine. It should be remembered that, at the time Emerson wrote, evolution had won wide favor among thinkers and that the success of the Origin of Species was an evidence, not of the creation of the evolution sentiment by that work, but of a pre-existing mental current in favor of evolution.

Very respectfully, HARRIET C.B. ALEXANDER.

CHICAGO, _December 20, 1898_.

Editor's Table.

_THE NEW SUPERSTITION._

The death of a prominent man of letters in the hands of certain individuals of the "Christian Science" persuasion has given rise to a good deal of serious discussion as to the principles and practices of that extraordinary sect. That a considerable number of persons should have banded themselves together to ignore medical science, and apply "thought" as a remedy for all physical ills, has excited no little alarm and indignation in various quarters. Some of the severest criticisms of this outbreak of irrationality have come from the religious press, which takes the ground that, while the Bible doubtless contains numerous accounts of miraculous healing, it nevertheless fully recognizes the efficacy of material remedies. A "beloved physician" is credited with the authorship of one of the gospels and of the book of Acts. An apostle recommends a friend to "take a little wine for his stomach's sake and his often infirmities." The man who was attacked by robbers had his wounds treated in the usual way. The soothing effect of ointments is recognized; and the disturbing effects of undue indulgence in the wine cup are forcibly described. The peculiar character of a miracle, it is contended, lies in the fact that it passes over natural agencies; but, because these may be dispensed with by Divine Power, they are not the less specifically efficacious in their own place.

These, and such as these, are the arguments which are urged by the representatives of orthodox religion against the new heresy, or, as we have called it, "the new superstition." To argue against it on scientific grounds would be almost too ridiculous. When people make a denial of the laws of matter the basis of their creed, we can only leave them to work it out with Nature. They will find that, like all the world, they are subject to the law of gravitation and to the laws of chemistry and physics. If one of them happens to be run over by a railway train the usual results will follow; and so of a multitude of conceivable accidents. A Christian Scientist who "blows out the gas" will be asphyxiated just like anybody else; and if he walks off the wharf into the water he will require rescue or resuscitation just as if he were a plain "Christian" or a plain "scientist." Like Shylock, he is "fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases" as the rest of the community; and little by little the eternal course of things will chastise his extravagant fancies into reasonable accord with facts.

To tell the truth, we have not much apprehension that the health of the community will suffer, or the death rate go up, as the result of this new craze. On the contrary, we rather expect that any influence it may have in these respects will, on the whole, be for the better; and for a very simple reason: The laws of health are not so difficult to master, and, as every adherent of "Christian Science" will be anxious to reflect credit on it by the satisfactory condition of his or her personal health, we quite believe that in the new sect more diseases will be avoided than incurred. Moreover, the elevated condition of mind of these enthusiasts makes in itself for health, so long as it does not turn to hysteria. We certainly can not refuse all sympathy to people who make it a principle to enjoy good health. Of course, if they were thoroughly consistent, they might do mischief in direct proportion to their numbers. A "Christian-Science" school board who did not believe in ventilating or adequately warming school rooms, holding that it made no difference whether the children breathed pure air or air laden with carbon dioxide and ptomaines, or whether or not they were exposed to chills and draughts, would be about as mischievous a body of men as could well be imagined. If "Christian Science" in the house means an indifference to the ordinary physical safeguards of health, it will quickly make a very evil repute for itself. But, as we have already said, we do not anticipate these results. Having undertaken to avoid and to cure diseases by "thinking truth," we believe our friends of the new persuasion will think enough truth to get what benefit is to be got from cleanliness, fresh air, and wholesome food,--and that will be quite a quantity.

_EMERSON._

We publish on another page a letter from a correspondent who thinks that much injustice is done to Emerson in the remarks we quoted in our December number from Mr. J.J. Chapman's recent volume of essays. What Mr. Chapman said was, in effect, that Emerson had not placed himself in line with the modern doctrine of evolution--that he was probably "the last great writer to look at life from a stationary standpoint." Mrs. Alexander says in reply that Emerson was an evolutionist before Darwin, having learned the doctrine from Goethe and made it a fundamental principle of his philosophy. No one who has read Mr. Chapman's essay could think for a moment that there was any intention on his part to deal ungenerously or unfairly with the great writer of whom America is so justly proud; nor would many readers be disposed to question his competence to pronounce a sound judgment upon his subject. There must, therefore, it seems to us, be some way of reconciling the verdict of Mr. Chapman with the claims set forth in our correspondent's letter.

The true statement of the case doubtless is that Emerson received the doctrine of evolution--so far as he received it--as a poet. He welcomed the conception of a gradual unfolding of the universe, and a gradually higher development of life; but it dwelt in his mind rather as a poetical imagination than as a scientific theory. The consequence was that he was still able to speak in the old absolute manner of many things which the man of science can only discuss from a relative standpoint. When, for example, Emerson says, "All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the will; is the background of our being in which they lie--an immensity not possessed and that can not be possessed"--he may be uttering the sentence of a divine philosophy, or the deep intuition of a poet; but he is not speaking the language of science, nor evincing any sense of the restrictions which science might place on such expressions of opinion. Certainly he is not at the standpoint of evolution; and it is very hard to believe that the views he announces could in any way be harmonized with, say, Mr. Spencer's Principles of Psychology. Or take such a passage as the following: "All the facts of the animal economy--sex, nutriment, gestation, birth, growth--are symbols of the passage of the world into the soul of man, to suffer there a change and reappear a new and higher fact. He uses forms according to the life, and not according to the form. This is true science. The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation, and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as signs. He knows why the plain or meadow of space was strewn with those flowers we call suns and moons and stars; why the great deep is adorned with animals, with men, and gods; for in every word he speaks he rides on them as the horses of thought." Now, we should be sorry to crumple one leaf in the laurel wreath of the poet; but is there much sense in saying that he is our only astronomer, or that he could inform us why suns and planets were disposed through space so as to make the forms we see? We do not think Goethe held these ideas; if he did, they were certainly not part of his evolution philosophy. The doctrine of evolution is not at war, we trust, with poetic inspiration; but if it teaches anything, it teaches that the world is full of infinite detail, and that without a certain mastery of details general views are apt to be more showy than solid. It also brings home to the mind very forcibly that one can only be sure of carefully verified facts, and, even of these, ought not to be too sure. It teaches that time and place and circumstance are, for all practical purposes, of the essence of the things we have to consider; that nothing is just what it would be if differently conditioned. There is nothing of which Emerson discourses with so much positiveness as the soul, an entity of which the serious evolutionist can only speak with all possible reserve. The evolutionist labors to construct a psychology; but Emerson has a psychology ready-made, and scatters its affirmations with a liberal hand through every chapter of his writings. That these are stimulating in a high degree to well-disposed minds we should be sorry to deny. They are a source, which for many long years will not run dry, of high thoughts and noble aspirations. No one has more worthily or loftily discoursed of the value of life than has the New England philosopher; and for this the world owes him a permanent debt of gratitude. But he was not an evolutionist in the modern sense--that is, in the scientific sense. If, as Mr. Chapman says, he was the last great writer to look at life from a stationary standpoint, then we can only add that the old philosophy had a golden sunset in his pages.

Scientific Literature.

SPECIAL BOOKS.

There are a great many different ways of conceiving the science of society, and until the study of the subject is more advanced than it is as yet, it would be rash to set up any one method as superior to all others. All that can reasonably be asked is that the subject should be approached with a competent knowledge of what has previously been thought and written in regard to it, that the aspects presented should possess intrinsic importance, and that the treatment should be scientific. The work which Professor _Giddings_ has published under the title of _Elements of Sociology_[35] fulfills these conditions entirely, and we consider it, after careful examination, as admirably adapted to the purpose it is meant to serve--namely, as "a text book for colleges and schools." For use in schools--that is to say, in secondary schools of the ordinary range--the treatment may be a little too elaborate, but for college use we should say that it is, so far as method is concerned, precisely what is wanted. We do not know any other work which gives in the same compass so interesting and satisfactory an analysis of the constitution and development of society, or so many suggestive views as to the springs of social action and the conditions of social well-being. Professor Giddings writes in a clear and vigorous style, and the careful student will notice many passages marked by great felicity of expression. In a text-book designed to attract the young to a subject calling for considerable concentration of attention, this is an advantage that can hardly be overestimated.

In the first chapter the writer gives us his definition of society as "any group or number of individuals who cultivate acquaintance and mental agreement--that is to say, like-mindedness." The unit of investigation in sociology is declared to be the individual member of society, or, as the writer calls him, in relation to the investigation in hand, the "socius." Whether in strict logic the unit of investigation in _sociology_ can be the individual, even granting, as must be done, that he is born social, is a point on which we are not fully satisfied. We should be disposed to think that the study of the individual was rather what Mr. Spencer would call a "preparation" for sociology than an integral part of the science itself. From a practical point of view, however, it must be conceded that a treatise on sociology would begin somewhat abruptly if it did not present in the first place an adequate description of the "socius," especially setting forth those qualifications and tendencies which fit and impel him to enter into relations with other members of the human race.