in the last analysis as that due to an abridgment of the right to
think and act, the evils of ecclesiastical and bureaucratic despotism
do not differ from those of excessive taxation. Nevertheless, they
receive separate attention at the hands of Tolstoi. As a proof of the
blight of a church that the peasants have no part in directing, he
points to the profound and beneficent change wrought the moment they
fall in with a sect of dissenters. "Their spirits at once rise," he
says, "and at the same time the foundation of their material
prosperity is laid." A blight of the same kind can be traced to the
attempt of the state to play the paternal rôle. "Nominally," says
Tolstoi again, "there exist for the peasants special laws with regard
to the possession and division of land, to inheritance, and to all the
duties connected with it, but in reality there is a kind of
hodge-podge of regulations, explanation, customary laws, decrees of
courts of cassation, and so on, which naturally makes the peasants
feel their absolute dependence on the will of innumerable officials."
Knowing that they are powerless to resist the Government, which is
constantly flogging them for disobedience or stupidity, they comply as
best they can with the thousand rules and regulations made for them.
Seldom do they think of acting upon their own responsibility. Thus
they lose the power of private initiative. What the impoverishment of
taxation has not done to ruin them is left to ecclesiastical and
bureaucratic despotism to complete.
It is curious to note that Tolstoi's remedy for these evils is the one
that Herbert Spencer himself might have suggested. With one stroke he
dismisses the prescriptions that the social reformer in the United
States as well as in Russia attaches so much importance to. It is not,
in his opinion, "the ministry of agriculture, with all its
contrivances," that will reclaim the peasants, nor is it "exhibitions
nor schools for rural economy," nor that "unfailing" remedy "for all
evils," i. e., parish schools. The thing they need is freedom. "It is
necessary," says Tolstoi, "to give them religious liberty, to subject
them to common instead of special laws--the will of rural officials;
it is necessary to give them liberty of education, liberty of reading,
liberty of moving about, and, above all, to remove the power to
torture brutally by flogging grown-up people simply because they
belong to the peasant class." But to give them such freedom means to
deliver them not only from excessive taxation but from vexatious rules
and regulations. It is to apply to them the same remedy that must be
applied in the United States to save the American people, now so
heavily taxed and so oppressed by countless laws, from the same social
decadence that afflicts Russia.
_THE ADVANCE OF SCIENCE._
The paper by Sir J. Norman Lockyer, which we publish in this number,
recounts in an interesting manner the steps by which science gained a
place for itself in the educational systems of the world. To us, in
the latter years of the nineteenth century, it is apt to seem strange
that the recognition of science as an essential element in all
education should have come so late in the world's history; but
reflection shows that it could not well have been otherwise. To view
and examine any subject scientifically involves not only a deliberate
and prolonged mental effort, but the holding in check of some of the
most active propensities of the human mind, such as imagination and
what Bagehot has called "the emotion of belief." In a certain sense
imagination is the precursor of science; but, in the early stages of
human development the precursor is mistaken for the true teacher. The
lesson that there is no royal road to truth, nothing but a highway on
which much wearisome plodding must be done, is one which human nature
in general does not take to kindly. Even in the present day how many
there are who chafe at the restraints which Science imposes on belief,
whose disposition is to break her bonds asunder and have none of her
reproof! When we think, indeed, of what the intellectual condition of
the world is to-day, with the wonders which science has wrought
raising their testimony on every hand, it is hardly surprising that, a
couple of centuries ago, it was difficult to get any systematic
provision made for the teaching of science. However, that battle has
been fought and won, and Science has long since definitely entered on
her career of beneficent conquest. Systems founded on imagination, or
on merely abstract reasoning, come and go, wax and wane; but the
empire of science once set up can never be subverted. We must hope
that some day it will rule in the realm of morals as now it does in
that of material things. Not till then will its perfect work be done.
Scientific Literature.
SPECIAL BOOKS.
Prof. _Dean C. Worcester_, of the University of Michigan, spent eleven
months, beginning in September, 1887, in the Philippine Islands in
connection with the second scientific expedition of Dr. J. B. Steere.
He went there again, with an expedition of which he was chief, in
July, 1890, and spent two years and eight months. His object in both
expeditions was the study of birds. In the course of them he visited
twenty-two islands. The first expedition was unofficial and was
regarded suspiciously by the authorities of the islands; the second
was armed with a special permission from the Spanish Minister of the
Colonies and enjoyed every advantage. The scientific results of both
were reported to the United States National Museum, and the
collections were deposited in its cabinet. The general results, the
story of the adventures of the members of the expedition, with their
observations on the geographical features of the islands, their
peoples, and the social conditions prevailing there, are given in a
popular style in the volume before us.[50] The account is preceded by
a short sketch of the history of the islands, as an aid to the better
comprehension of their present condition and the reasons for it. Of
the natives, who form the bulk of the 8,000,000 of the population of
the islands, there are more than eighty distinct tribes, each with its
own peculiarities, scattered over hundreds of islands. The more
important of these islands may be reached by lines of mail and
merchant steamers, which afford tolerably frequent communication
between them. The difficulties begin when one attempts to make his way
into the interior of the large and less explored of them, or desires
to reach ports at which vessels do not call. Roads are scarce and to a
large extent impracticable, while enemies and dangers are many, and
such boats as one can find off the regular routes are precarious. As
to climate, if one is well, able to live as he pleases, and most
scrupulously observes all sanitary rules, keeping the most healthy
spots, he may escape disease; but if he steps a little aside at any
point he is in danger. It is very doubtful, in the author's judgment,
if many successive generations of European or American children could
be reared there. Evidences of the action of earthquakes and volcanoes
are seen almost everywhere, and elevation and subsidence are going on
with great rapidity at the present time. Hence it is not safe to build
substantial houses in Manila. The soil is astonishingly fertile:
fruits--in about fifty varieties--are the chief luxury; the value of
the forest products is enormous; the mineral wealth is great, but has
never been developed. Professor Worcester speaks of five millions of
civilized natives of the Philippines. They belong for the most part to
three tribes: the Tagalogs, Ilocanos, and Visayans. Without drawing
fine distinctions between these, they are regarded as showing
sufficient homogeneity to be treated as a class. They have their bad
qualities and their good, which are reviewed with an apparent
inclination on the part of the author to like them, and the conclusion
that, having learned something of their power, they will now be likely
to take a hand in shaping their own future. There are also barbarians,
of whom the Moros of Sulu are a type--bloodthirsty and faithless, and
as careless of human life as one would be of weeds in a field; and
savages of all degrees, down to the lowest. The government is various,
according to the particular governor and the people he has to deal
with, but all of the Spanish or Moro type. The clergy are the dominant
class; and of these the friars or brethren of the orders exert an evil
influence, while the Jesuits are believed to be a distinctive power
for good. Much can be said in favor of the insurgents' demand that the
friars be expelled from the colony and their places taken by secular
clergymen not belonging to any order. Professor Worcester has made a
very lively, interesting, and instructive book, which is marred,
however, by occasional evidences that, while begun with serious
purpose, it has been hurried to meet a passing demand, and by the too
frequent intrusion of trivialities and slang.
* * * * *
We are often surprised at manifestations of individuality and
intelligence in domestic animals and pets, and are accustomed to
attribute extraordinary qualities to the beasts in which we perceive
them; as if each animal could not have its peculiar traits and talents
as well as each man. We hardly imagine that there are any special
differences in wild animals, and that idiosyncrasies of character and
diversities of gifts and powers of adaptation may run through the
whole animal kingdom. A closer acquaintance with Nature would teach us
better. Certain stories and myths of savages show that they had a fair
appreciation of the individual peculiarities of animals, and farmers'
boys, who live in natural surroundings, know something of these
things. The subject is now presented to us in a fairly clear light by
Mr. _Ernest Seton Thompson_, as illustrated in the careers of a number
of typical specimens of animals and birds whose characters and acts,
as they came under his observation, are related in _Wild Animals I
have Known_.[51] The stories, he avers, are true; the animals in the
book are all real characters. They lived the lives he has depicted,
and showed the stamp of heroism and personality more strongly by far
than it has been in the power of his pen to tell. Among them was Lobo,
the wolf, of the Corrumpaw Cattle Range, New Mexico, the leader of a
gang, who exhibited some of the qualities of an able general, and was
a beast of influence, powerful, vigilant, crafty, and the terror of
the settlement; and who was only trapped when grief for the loss of a
female companion deprived him of the wit by which he had escaped all
previous efforts to take him. Silverspot, the crow, was the leader of
a large band. He had his calls, which the other crows obeyed, and was
always to be seen at the head of his company in their incursions into
the fields, and guiding them in their journeys northward and
southward. Raggylug, the rabbit, is acknowledged to be a composite,
embodying in one the ways of several rabbits, their nesting habits and
ways of concealment and devices to baffle pursuers. Bingo, the dog,
had associates as well as enemies among the wolves, and different
characters by day and by night. In a similar way to these, the traits
of the fox, the pacing mustang, other dogs than Bingo, and the
partridge are portrayed. In all the stories the real personality of
the individual and his view of life are the author's theme, rather
than the ways of the race in general, as viewed by a casual and
hostile human eye. The moral is suggested by the lives and emphasized
by Mr. Thompson, that "we and the beasts are kin. Man has nothing that
the animals have not at least a vestige of; the animals have nothing
that man does not at least in some degree share. Since, then, the
animals are creatures with wants and feelings differing only in degree
from our own, they surely have their rights." It would be hard to
speak too well of the graphic expressiveness of the illustrations.
FOOTNOTES:
[50] The Philippine Islands and their People. A Record of Personal
Observation and Experiences, with a Short Summary of the More
Important Facts in the History of the Archipelago. By Dean C.
Worcester. New York: The Macmillan Company. Pp. 529. Price, $4.
[51] Wild Animals I have Known, and 200 Drawings. By Ernest Seton
Thompson. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons. Pp. 358. Price, $2.
GENERAL NOTICES.
"An unscientific account of a scientific expedition" is what Mrs.
Mabel Loomis Todd happily styles the story of the Amherst Eclipse
Expedition, told in _Corona_ and _Coronet_[52]--"Corona" being what
the expedition went to see, and "Coronet" the vessel that took it to
the observing station. Professor Todd was the astronomer of the party,
and Mrs. Todd, who has published a work on astronomy, was his
companion. She believes that certain aspects of the trip, covering as
it did more than ten thousand miles of sailing for the party, and at
least forty-five thousand miles of deep-sea voyaging for the Coronet,
were worthy of narration. The astronomical purposes of the expedition,
the objects it sought to obtain, the scientific bearings of the
observations, and the methods, are intelligibly set forth in the
introduction to the book. The rest is devoted mostly to narrative, the
social aspects of the voyage, and the incidents. A short sojourn was
made at the Sandwich Islands, where the more interesting objects were
visited. Mrs. Todd was with Kate Field when she died there, and gives
an account of her last hours. A voyage of four weeks carried the party
to Yokohama, whence some of the members went to the capital and other
interesting points in Japan, while the rest were preparing the
observing station at Esashi, eleven hundred miles north of
Yokohama--"a village on the shores of the Sea of Okotsk, among the
hairy Ainu," in a region so remote that the native steamers had only
recently begun to go there at all. Besides the account of the
observations, descriptions are given of such Japanese experiences as
life in Kioto, cormorant fishing, yachting in the Inland Sea, the
tidal wave, and observations among the Ainu, with a visit on the way
home to an Arizona copper mine.
The late Prof. _James D. Dana_ had begun a revision of his _Text-Book
of Geology_ a short time before his death. Prof. William North Rice
was requested by his family to complete the revision, and the result
is the present volume.[53] It was intended in the original plan of
revision to preserve as far as possible the distinctive
characteristics of the book. It was to be brought down to date as
regards its facts, but was still to express the well-known opinions of
its author, with the general plan of arrangement kept unchanged. It
soon became evident, however, that more and greater changes than had
been contemplated would be required. The zoölogical and botanical
classifications would have to be modified; the theory of evolution
must have more recognition than it had received, especially as
Professor Dana himself had adopted some of its features before his
death; and the treatment of metamorphism was believed to require
considerable modification. In the present edition the bearing of
various events in geological history upon the theory of evolution is
pointed out in the appropriate places, and the general bearing of
paleontology upon evolution is discussed in the concluding chapter.
All these changes seem to be in the line of continuing the usefulness
of Professor Dana's most excellent and standard work, and of keeping
his name before students as that of "one of the greatest of geologists
and one of the noblest of men."
A true son of Nature is Mr. _F. Schuyler Mathews_, and he shows
himself at his best in his _Familiar Life in Field and Forest_.[54]
"There are few things," he says, "more gratifying to the lover of
Nature than these momentary glimpses of wild life which he obtains
while passing through the field or forest. Wild animals do not confine
themselves exclusively to the wilderness; quite frequently they
venture upon the highway, and we are apt to regard the meeting of one
of them there as a rare and fortunate occurrence. The daisy and the
wild rose appear in their accustomed places on the return of summer,
and the song sparrow sings in the same tree he frequented the year
before; but the wood-chuck, the raccoon, and the deer are not so often
found exactly where we think they belong. To seek an interview with
such folk is like taking a chance in a lottery; there are numerous
blanks and but few prizes. But because wild life is not in constant
evidence, like the wild flower, is no proof that it is uncommon. To
those who keep in touch with Nature, it becomes a very familiar thing,
and to live a while where the wild creatures make their homes is to
cross their paths continually." Mr. Mathews is in touch with Nature.
He does not exactly know where to find the wild and shy, for they do
not come at call, but he can put himself where he will meet them if
they come around--and "one can never tell at what moment some
surprising demonstration of wild life will occur at one's very
doorstep." In this book Mr. Mathews records some of his meetings, at
home and in his daily walks, offering as his excuse for the record,
that he has lived long enough among wild animals to "respect their
rights of life, and speak a good word for them when occasion offers."
The _Short Manual of Analytical Chemistry_,[55] prepared by Mr. John
Muter, follows the course of instruction given in the South London
School of Pharmacy. Encouraged by the continued favor which the book
has received in Great Britain, the author offers a special edition of
it to American students, a concise and low-priced manual, designed to
introduce them to the chief developments of analytical chemistry from
the simplest operations upward. It includes many organic questions
generally overlooked in initiatory books. By working through it the
author claims the student may expect to become familiar with a great
variety of processes, and to be in a position to use with satisfaction
the more exhaustive treatises dealing with any special branch he may
desire to follow. In preparing it for American students, the
directions, wherever the British methods differ from the American,
have been modified to agree with the latter. The processes given
include the qualitative analysis, all the general operations and those
relating to detection of the metals, of acid radicals and their
separation, of unknown salts, of alkaloids and certain organic bodies
used in medicine--with a general sketch of toxicological procedure;
and in quantitative analysis, directions on weighing, measuring, and
specific gravity; gravimetric analysis of metals and acids, ultimate
organic analysis, special processes for the analysis of air, water,
and food; analysis of drugs, urine, and calculi; and analysis of
gases, polarization, spectrum analysis, etc.
The pure geometry of position is mainly distinguished, according to
Professor Reye's definition,[56] from the geometry of ancient times
and from analytical geometry, in that it makes no use of the idea of
measurement. Nothing is said in it "about the bisection of segments of
straight lines, about right angles and perpendiculars, about ratios
and proportions, about the computation of areas, and just as little
about trigonometric ratios and the algebraic equations of curved
lines, since all these subjects of the older geometry assume
measurement.... We shall be concerned as little with isosceles and
equilateral triangles as with right-angled triangles; the rectangle,
the regular polygon, and the circle are likewise excluded from our
investigations, except in the case of these applications to metric
geometry. We shall treat of the center, the axes, and the foci of
so-called curves of the second order, or conic sections, only as
incidental to the general theory; but, on the other hand, shall become
acquainted with many properties of these curves, more general and more
important than those to which most text-books upon analytical geometry
are restricted." Of all the other branches of geometry, the
descriptive is the most helpful in facilitating the study of the
geometry of position; and perspective or central projection plays an
important part in it. It stands in a certain antithetical relation to
analytical geometry on account of its method, which is synthetic, and
whence it is sometimes known as synthetic geometry. Since metric
relations are not considered in it, its theorems and problems are very
general and comprehensive. As presented in von Standt's complete work,
it is regarded by the author as an excellent aid to the exercise and
development of the imagination; and the important graphical methods
with which Professor Culmann has enriched the science of engineering
in his work on graphical statistics, being based for the most part
upon it, a knowledge of it has become important for students of that
science. In the present work, the outgrowth of his lectures, Professor
Reye has attempted to supply the want of a text-book which shall offer
to the student the necessary material in a concise form.
Prof. _Cyrus Thomas_ brings the qualification which a lifetime devoted
to study of the subject develops, to the preparation of an
_Introduction to the Study of North American Archæology_.[57] He is
known to all students in this branch as a careful, judicious
investigator whose work in the field has been supplemented by valuable
contributions to its literature. In this volume he presents a brief
summary of the progress that has been made in the investigation of
American antiquities--which has been recently great indeed, and well
calls for a new synopsis. His chief object has been to present the
data and arrange them so as to afford the student some means of
bringing his facts and materials into harmony, and of utilizing them.
He presents the theories that have been advanced, and mentions
opposing views; regarding it, he says, as important to the progress of
the student to know which of the questions that arise have been
answered, and which hypotheses have been eliminated from the class of
possibilities. The materials for the study and the methods are first
explained. The relics of ancient men and the mounds are then described
as under three divisions--the Arctic, the Atlantic, and the Pacific.
Local as well as regional characteristics and differences are pointed
out; as in the mounds as a whole, the special class of animal mounds,
the pueblos, the cliff dwellings, and the Mexican and Central American
monuments, the peculiar features of each are pointed out, and their
territorial limits are defined. All these various kinds of works are
ascribed to substantially the same people, who are supposed to have
come down from somewhere in the north or northwest (the extreme
northwest Pacific coast), although the different immigrations may
perhaps have arrived by various routes. The people were the present
Indians or their ancestors; the time of the immigration was not
extremely remote; and the "mound-building habit" is shown to have
persisted and been practiced till since the advent of the Europeans.