and disturbers of expression," referring to his earlier work the
"Physiology of Pain" for further details. In the next chapter he
treats of the criteria for the determination of the strength of an
emotion with reference to the accompanying expression. In addition to
the _force_ and the _persistency_ of the contraction of the expressing
muscles, there is a diffusion of expression in gradually increasing
circles from the face downwards to the legs, and lastly, alternate
contractions and relaxations of the muscles according to the intensity
of the central movement which accompanies the emotion. The expression
of pleasure is always centrifugal, that of pain being centripetal,
tending to bring the arms and lower limbs towards the median line of
the body. In dealing with the criteria for judging the moral work of
a physiognomy, we are told that the two most certain signs of a good
face, are the permanent expression of benevolence, and the absolute
absence of all hypocrisy. Let us add the remark, accredited to Charles
Dickens, that it is advisable to see how a person looks when silent
and apparently unobserved. There are two sources of error in forming
that judgment, one arising from the fact that beautiful things give
pleasure, the chances of error increasing when a man has to judge a
woman, or _vice versa_; the other is due to a false induction, from
the observed association in one individual of a particular physical
feature with a special moral character. The anatomical characters of
the intelligent face and of the stupid face are given in a tabulated
form, but M. Mantegazza states that the most important characters are
those drawn from the expression, the two great centres of which are
the eye and the mouth. Probably the non-observation of the expression
accounts for the mistake made by Goethe, who, when dining at the house
of an Englishman, was struck with the intellectual appearance of one of
the guests and thought he must be a man of genius. Goethe anticipated
pleasure in hearing him speak, but great was his horror, when apple
dumplings were placed on the table, to hear the guest shout out "them's
the jockies for me"!
In an appendix the author treats of the eyes, hair, and beard among
the Italian races, which gives numerous statistics collected by the
Italian Anthropological Society. It appears that the men of Tuscany as
well as of Piedmont are noted for scantiness of beard. Probably this
fact is due to the existence of a special race element, rather than a
difference of climate as would seem to be suggested. The presence of
red hair in all parts of Italy, although only in small quantities, is
also difficult of explanation. Strange to say it is the most common in
regions which are poorest in fair hair. From this we must suppose it
to have some relation to dark hair, an opinion which agrees with the
observation that in England dark hair in young children is sometimes
interspersed with red hairs, which either change or disappear with age.
The hair is known to darken considerably after puberty is reached,
and possibly red hair may be due to the persistence, through special
conditions of which we are not aware, of an infantile character.
We must not leave M. Mantegazza's excellent and entertaining work
without referring to the plates given in the Appendix, among which are
morphological, æsthetic, and intellectual trees of the human race, and
figures of ethnic types illustrative of remarks made in the text. It
also has a good index.
Ω.
IN DARKEST ENGLAND AND THE WAY OUT. By _Gen. Booth_, of the Salvation
Army. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
In this book,—which is considered by many to be the most profound,
serious, and comprehensive study of the social problem that has
yet appeared, as much so because it seems to strike at the root of
the grievance as because it offers a practical remedy,—the author
proposes to so ameliorate the conditions of the abandoned classes
in England as not only to make the members of them self-supporting
and respectable, but after a twenty years' trial of his scheme to so
change the industrial condition of the kingdom that there will not
be found an able-bodied man or woman in all England unable to find
work or food. What politico-economical reformers have had most to
contend with is the poverty or lack of opportunity for labor which
seems to be inherent in the present social structure,—a condition
where, to express it clearly, there seems to be not enough work for
all the people. Hence the standing army of tramps to the number of
30,000 in America and more than 20,000 in the city of London alone.
The submerged class that the author of this book seeks to elevate or
save from sin and utter uselessness has been variously estimated. Mr.
Chamberlain says that there is in England a population equal to that of
the metropolis—between four and five millions—who are in a state of
abject destitution and misery. Mr. Griffin estimates the number to be
1,800,000, while the author of "In Darkest England" thinks 3,000,000 to
be a moderate statement. Many causes may be ascribed to this deplorable
state of humanity, such as natural incapacity for work, predisposition
to idleness, enforced beggary, crime, misfortune, poverty, drunkenness,
and waste,—all of which operate to drag these unfortunate ones to
the lowest level of life. He thinks that the inability of a large
proportion of the people to obtain work drives them either into
despair, sin, crime, and suicide, or to merely exist, carrying with
them, year by year, the bitter ashes of a life from which the furnace
of misfortune has burned away all joy and hope and strength. They are a
helpless and pathetic class,—men and women who "are being sucked down
into the quicksands of modern life." And when it is known that England
is rich enough to drink rum in quantities which appal the chancellor
of the exchequer and yet not rich enough to provide any other shelter
for her homeless ones and outcasts than the midnight sky, modern
civilisation with all its boasted Christianity and humanitarianism
presents indeed a deplorable aspect, appearing to be but a mockery and
a farce.
The method which this book seeks to popularise and use as the means
of elevating to usefulness the outcasts, the indigent, and unemployed
classes of England and of the civilised world, is none other than the
scheme originally applied in Bavaria by Count Rumford—an American
better known as Benjamin Thompson, a graduate of Harvard, who, having
entered the Bavarian service at the close of the war for independence,
became the governor of Munich. The scheme is threefold. It is proposed
to organise the submerged classes, with their consent of course, into
a gigantic co-operative society, subdivided into (1) The City Colony,
(2) The Farm Colony, (3) The Over-Sea Colony. "The scheme in its
entirety," we are informed, "may aptly be compared to a great machine
foundationed in the lowest slums and purlieus of our great towns and
cities, drawing up into its embrace the depraved and destitute of all
classes; receiving thieves, harlots, paupers, drunkards, prodigals,
all alike, on the simple conditions of their being willing to work and
conform to discipline. Drawing up these poor outcasts, reforming them,
and creating in them habits of industry, honesty, and truth; teaching
them methods by which alike the bread that perishes and that which
endures to everlasting life can be won; forwarding them from the city
to the country and there continuing the process of regeneration and
then pouring them forth on the virgin soils that await their coming
in other lands." The scheme is so comprehensive that it includes
slum crusades, wagon hospitals, a brigade of Christian apostles near
prison-gates to meet and help discharged prisoners, rescue homes for
unfallen girls when on the danger line between sin and starvation,
bureaus of intelligence, refuges for street children, industrial
schools, asylums for moral lunatics, a matrimonial bureau, and banks
for the poor. The project is not to be summarily rejected as utopian.
It is a gigantic effort to utilise the human refuse that sieves itself
through all the means available for enlightenment to the very bottom of
the social structure. Into this vast machine the whole mass of soiled
humanity would be taken and by the refining process which is clearly
elaborated in the book we could touch this material with a new spirit
and thus reclaim the men, women, and children to self-support, honor,
honesty, and usefulness. For the success of the project "General" Booth
has asked for one million pounds.
Three serious objections may be made to the scheme. The first is the
placing into the hands of one man or one organisation the power of
disposing, and the custody, of five millions of dollars—an objection
which Professor Huxley makes with good reason. The second is, the
theological environment which is a seeming part and parcel of the whole
machine. And the third is, the superficial and unradical character of
the remedy. Concerning the first objection it may be simply said, that
history proves that the experiment which the "General" is about to make
is a dangerous one. Professor Huxley maintains with more than usual
gravity, that the unquestionable obedience which every soldier in the
Salvation Army is expected, and by verbal contract is duly bound, to
maintain for all orders from headquarters, gives the most suspicious
aspect to the probable tyrannical development of his army in the
future, as was illustrated for example in the Franciscan order founded
in the thirteenth century by St. Francis. After his death, although the
order was pledged by him to mendicancy and absolute separation from all
worldly entanglements, it became "one of the most powerful, wealthy,
and worldly corporations in all Christendom, with their fingers in
every sink of political and social corruption." What guarantee is there
that the Salvation Army may not become likewise involved and exercise
an imperialism and fanaticism not to be exceeded even by the Jesuits
or Mormons? "It is" writes Professor Huxley in the _London Times_, "a
greater evil to have the intellect of a nation put down by organised
fanaticism, to see its political and industrial affairs at the mercy
of a despot whose chief thought is to make that fanaticism prevail, to
watch the degradation of men who should feel themselves individually
responsible for their own and their country's fate, to mere brute
instruments ready to the hand of a master for any use to which he may
put them."
Another objection and one equally as fatal is the religious aspect
which is given to the movement. As such it bears a relation to the
problem of civilisation which is all important. To insist that every
wicked man or woman in order to be righteous and happy must, ought,
or will, believe in historical Christianity, is absurd enough, and to
project or infuse into the whole character of a social reform movement
a theological idea as a necessary element in its efficacy is certainly
ridiculous, but to make the work of the elevation of the degenerate
masses of mankind a mere accessory to a belief in an irrational and
already obsolete religious doctrine or contingent upon it,—at least
to emphasize it as a means to the adoption of the unfortunates into
one organisation where all believe alike, or where by virtue of the
gratitude they bear to those who have materially helped them, they
conform or try to conform to their mode of thinking,—is indeed one
of the sad mistakes upon which the "General's" social project is
built. For in the submerged class, there are doubtless many who are
not Christians in belief, who indeed, however fortunate they may
become, yet could not subscribe to the creed of the Evangelical Church
or honestly engage in a work organised in the interest of so-called
historical Christianity. It is not necessary in order to make man good
to make him a Christian, or a Jew, or a Buddhist, in belief. The point
to emphasise is goodness of character and not merely an intellectual
profession of faith. Once get a man to be good, or to hate sin and love
righteousness, and he will, if he never makes a Christian profession,
be as useful a man as society might wish. Righteousness will take any
man or woman safely and happily through the world. The truth is just as
the poet stated it:
"A man may cry 'Church! Church!' at every word,
And have no more grace than other people;
The daw's not reckoned a religious bird
Because he keeps a-cawing in the steeple."
It is not, therefore, necessary, to the success of "General" Booth's
scheme that it should be hitched to some popular, although unscientific
and unreasonable religious conception of life; or that he should
consider a reform in the life of any man a miracle, and therefore
attribute all such to the direct interposition of God. The scheme, if a
success at all, will depend, as the organisation of the Salvation Army
has depended, upon the enthusiasm and enterprise of the "General" and
his constituency. And all reliance upon God without any intelligent
human effort in behalf of the outcasts of society would only gorge a
greater multitude of humanity into the bogs and sinks of iniquity. As
well might we expect a locomotive to move by tacking scripture all over
it, as to expect any great social reform movement to be a success by
associating it or making it depend upon some sort of religious creed.
Still whatever may be said against religious interference with social
problems, the work of "General" Booth puts to shame the church whose
trifling doctrinal and polemical controversies have so blinded its
judgment as to neglect its duties toward the submerged classes and
leave them to so enormously increase that in order to save the world
from almost hopeless ruin a new organisation such as the Salvation Army
had to come forth. The church has a far more important duty to perform
than that of merely existing, and it will never emblason the record
which its founder gave it by his self-sacrificing life and his noble
death upon the cross until it takes its wealth of brain, heart, and
money, and becomes indeed the modern Saviour of the world.
The third objection and doubtless the most important one of all is
the superficial and unradical character of the remedy. It is not here
implied that the project is useless although inclusive. The point made
is this, that whatever the "General" may do to dredge the bogs of sin
and clean the streets of beggars, the idlers, the unemployed, the
waifs, the prostitutes, the drunkards, and the criminal class, and put
all such in the way of usefulness, manliness, and respectability, what
does he do or what is to be done to keep the new or fresh material from
sinking into mire? While the "General" is working among the lowest,
thousands are being prepared among the highest for the inevitable
fate from which he is plucking the helpless ones as brands from the
burning. While he is gathering up the submerged and placing them in
his machine, the mill without still grinds on and on, crushing as
large a number year by year as he may help and save. His method might
consistently be compared to one where a man would transform rotten
apples into good ones without affecting the tree that produces them.
Although the criminal and sinful classes influence the innocent and
unsophisticated, yet it cannot be proven that the bulk of the people
will remain pure, true, honest, upright, if there were no sinful or
criminal class! And hence even if all such who are avowedly sinful were
made better and their pernicious influence removed from the world by
the method here proposed, sin itself would still inhere in the nature
of man's life and would drag thousands down to ruin and misery. Like
the mosaic paintings which can only be destroyed by destroying the
stones upon which they are impressed, so sin seems to be bound up
in human nature. To get at it and destroy it utterly by one _coup_
one must annihilate the constitution of the universe. The problem of
civilisation is such that it cannot be solved by one specific reform.
For to develop man it seems to be necessary that he should pass through
the treatment which the long and inevitable process of experience and
education can give. Although sin like poverty is but relative, yet it
is the name for the conduct into which man is led either by a neglect
or abuse of opportunity, or by some inevitable fatality. It is not here
contended that man cannot rid himself or society of any disposition to
sin. What is maintained is that it cannot be abolished from the world
by any spasmodic effort such as that which characterises the present
project, but that it will pass away only where and when humanity
becomes perfectly educated. And this state of civilisation, by the way,
does not seem to be so surprisingly near at hand. Nor can material
help, such as food, shelter, clothing, and what not, altogether effect
or even change the moral status of a man's life. Thousands whose
material wants are amply provided for revel in sin and corruption,
and the dreadful orgy where vice holds carnival reels and swaggers in
the palaces where amid gilded refinements and dazzling splendor the
so-called better classes disport themselves. It is true that when a
man is starving or naked, bread and clothing are the things which will
satisfy his most immediate wants, and not prayers or sermons. To supply
such wants is easy enough, but to so arouse or kindle into a flame of
fortitude and manliness, the diseased conscience and the perverted
judgment, to so operate upon the will as to make the man able to not
only choose but do the right, is the great and radical difficulty which
is not so easily overcome. Psychology and medicine seem to have no
remedy to offer, while religion for these many years has simply touched
the hem of the garment—while the abandoned classes have seemingly
multiplied on our hands.
In concluding these remarks we cannot forbear to express our regret
that the real author of the book has given it over to "General" Booth
and allowed him not only the credit of authorship, but most likely also
the privilege of mixing up a scheme of social reform with the politics
of the Salvation Army. The book was "boomed" in this way, but we fear
that it will at the same time be doomed in this way. The Salvation Army
and its founder have reaped much undeserved praise. "General" Booth
has received incredible sums from enthusiasts to support the scheme,
and these sums have to a great extent been used to advertise it. It
appears to us that "General" Booth has contracted a debt which he will
be unable to pay. The better situated classes of society do not lack in
sympathy for their wretched fellow-men, and it sets us thinking, how
strong human sentimentality must be that the propagation of the mere
idea of curing the evils of mankind proposed in this book as feasible
with the aid of one million pounds furnishes ample means to a religious
enthusiast whose method of salvation is rather noisy than thorough,
representing a kind of barbarous relapse and only adapted to the lowest
and most uneducated classes. We should know that sentimentality cannot
save. Sentiment and sympathy are good things, but unless they are
backed by a cold consideration of fact and rational foresight, they are
worse than useless.
It will be wise to consider the propositions made in "In Darkest
England" without taking into consideration the rôle to be played in the
scheme by the Salvation Army. But while the reader may be just enough
to consider the plan of social reform on its own merits, "General"
Booth is in possession of the funds and will be the general manager of
the experiment.
Γκ.
PLANKTON-STUDIEN. Vergleichende Untersuchungen ueber die Bedeutung
und Zusammensetzung der pelagischen Fauna und Flora. By _Ernst
Haeckel_. Jena: Gustav Fischer.
The first systematic studies of the innumerable organisms which almost
everywhere drift about in the ocean, were made by Professor Johannes
Müller who some forty years ago made excursions in the North Sea.
Haeckel, then a student twenty years old, accompanied him on one of
these excursions to Heligoland. Since then these investigations have
been conducted on a larger scale. The English vessel "Challenger"
cruised in different oceans for no less than forty months, and the
results of this great undertaking were published by John Murray in
the "Voyage of H. M. S. Challenger"—a voluminous work consisting
of eighty-two zo-ological reports, to which Professor Haeckel also
has contributed his "Report on the Deep-Sea Keratosa." The German
government sent out the German cruiser "National" on the same errand.
The scientists of the expedition were Hensen, Brandt, Dahl, Schütt,
Fischer, Krümmel. They were at sea altogether ninety-three days making
a circuitous trip on the Atlantic ocean, touching at the Bermudas,
Brazil, and the Azores. The results of the expedition, published
in reports by Hensen, Brandt, Du Bois-Reymond, and Krümmel, were
considered as very satisfactory and received the unreserved applause
of the German press. Professor Haeckel is of a different opinion. He
considers the reports as standing in flat contradiction to former
valuable observations, especially to those of the English "Challenger"
and the Italian "Vettor Pisani" expeditions. Hensen's results rest upon
a weak supposition and contain wrong generalisations; even his method
is, according to Haeckel, entirely useless, giving a wrong presentation
of the problems of pelagic biology.
The word "plancton" was introduced by Hensen. Haeckel adopts it because
he considers the Greek term preferable to Johannes Müller's _Auftrieb_
or pelagic _Mulder_ (the latter has been adopted also by English,
French, and Italian planctologists). By plancton (πλαγκτόν), derived
from πλάζω, to roam about, is understood the drifting micro-organisms
of the sea.
Professor Haeckel in the present volume not only corrects Professor
Hensen's errors, but also gives a report of his own observations. Not
the least valuable part of the brochure is the exact terminology which
Professor Haeckel proposes in order to escape the confusion necessarily
resulting from a looseness of terms.
Κ.
DIE ALLGEMEINE WELTANSCHAUUNG IN IHRER HISTORISCHEN ENTWICKELUNG.
Charakterbilder aus der Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften. By
_Carus Sterne_. Mit zahlreichen Porträts und Textabbildungen.
Stuttgart: Otto Weisert.
Dr. Ernst Krause, better known by the _nom de plume_ of "Carus
Sterne," has here undertaken to present the modern world-conception
as contrasted with the olden one. We have scarcely ever met with a
book that contains in so popular a form all the noteworthy facts of
the great progress that has been achieved in science since the time
of Copernicus. The results of the evolution-theory are generally
known, but the road and the stations of the road on which science has
reached its present position, now almost universally recognised among
men, are almost forgotten. No one perhaps is better able to tell us
of this great struggle for truth than the enthusiastic disciple of
Darwin, Carus Sterne. Carus Sterne and his friend Prof. Ernst Haeckel,
have done no small work in obtaining recognition for the theory of
evolution in Germany. While Haeckel's work has been confined to the
field of exact science, Carus Sterne has complemented the labors of
his co-worker by pointing out the moral truths contained in Darwinism.
We are aware of the fact that Carus Sterne has also written purely
scientific works, "Werden und Vergehen," for instance; but what we
wish to emphasise as his especial merit is that he was, so far as we
know, the first to call attention to the moral workings of nature in
her great cosmic empire. As an article characteristic of this trait in
Carus Sterne's writings we refer the reader not familiar with German
literature to his article "The Education of Parents by their Children,"
a translation of which appeared in Nos. 22 and 23 of _The Open Court_.
The present book (over 400 pages) discusses the following subjects:
Pagan and Christian Cosmology; Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler;
The Controversy Concerning the Geo-centric View; The Infinitude of
Habitable Worlds; From Bacon to Newton; The Beginnings of an Animal-
and Plant-Geography; The Doctrine of Spontaneous Generation; The
Discussion Concerning the Origin of Birds; The Terrestrial Globe
and Its Fossils; Diluvianism; The Mongrel Theory; The Doctrines
of Preformation and Metamorphosis; The Doctrine of Catastrophes;
Persistence or Mutability; The Controversy on the Anthropocentric View;
The Origin of Language; On the History of Evolution.
Κ.
UEBER DIE AUFGABEN EINER ALLGEMEINEN RECHTSWISSENSCHAFT. By Dr. _Alb.
Herm. Post_. Oldenburg and Leipsic: A. Schwartz.