and misrepresent the views of Mr. Herbert Spencer, even upon points in
regard to which he has made every possible effort to avoid occasion
for misapprehension. The term "survival of the fittest" is one which
Mr. Spencer himself introduced as being, perhaps, a little less open
to misunderstanding than the Darwinian expression "natural selection."
The latter seemed to imply purposive action, and Mr. Spencer thought
that this implication would be less prominent if the phrase were
changed to "survival of the fittest." From the very first, however, he
recognized that the difference between the two terms in this respect
was, if we may so express it, purely quantitative; and he took care to
make it clear that by "the fittest" he did not in the least intend to
signify any form of ideal or subjective fitness, but simply a superior
degree of adaptation, as a matter of actual fact, to environing
conditions. The conditions at any given moment are as they are, and
the "fitness" of any particular organism is such a correspondence with
those conditions as permits and favors its perpetuation. The
conditions do not create fitness; they merely eliminate unfitness; nor
does Mr. Spencer conceive any agency as producing _ab extra_ the
fitness which enables an organism or a number of organisms to survive.
He differs, however, from what is perhaps the dominant school of
biology to-day, in holding that the higher forms of organic life are,
as he expresses it, "directly equilibrated" with their surroundings
through the inheritance of physical features resulting from effort and
habit.
To whatever cause it may be attributed, few writers whose intellectual
activity has extended over so long a term of years as Mr. Spencer's
have been so consistent in their utterances at different stages as he.
The "Synthetic Philosophy" is the realization of a scheme of thought
no less wonderful in its coherence and solidity than in its compass,
the author having planted himself from the first at a point of view
which gave him a clear command of his entire field. To say that no
other system of thought equally comprehensive and equally coherent
exists in the world to-day would be to make a statement which few
competent and dispassionate authorities would deny. Notwithstanding
this, there are writers not a few, particularly of the class "who
write with ease," who, as we said at the outset, have a propensity for
misunderstanding Mr. Spencer, and who consequently accuse him of
inconsistencies and self-contradictions for which nothing that he has
ever said affords any warrant. One of these gentlemen is the Duke of
Argyll, who has lately offered the world another superfluous book
under the title of Organic Evolution Cross-examined. The duke
particularly concerns himself with Mr. Spencer's teaching in regard to
the "survival of the fittest," and Mr. Spencer, in the columns of
Nature, replies to him in a brief but sufficient manner. It is safe to
say that Mr. Spencer's philosophy will show Cyclopean remains
generations after the name of his ducal critic shall have passed
forever into the mists of oblivion; and the "survival of the fittest"
will thus be illustrated in a sense in which Mr. Spencer himself never
used the words.
Scientific Literature.
SPECIAL BOOKS.
The study of the methods through which the topographical features and
rock forms of particular districts have been worked out, as presented
in numerous popular monographs, is a fascinating one; and we can
hardly doubt that many persons who would never otherwise have thought
of it have been made interested in geology by some of these masterly
picturesque descriptions of regions with which they were superficially
familiar. Other treatises on the origin of surface features, dealing
with the subject more fundamentally, but likewise of limited scope,
are not wanting. Yet, as Prof. _James Geikie_ well says, there is no
English work to which readers not skilled in geology can turn for a
general account of the whole subject. Professor Geikie has therefore
prepared his elaborate book on _Earth Sculpture_[14] to supply this
want, to furnish an introductory treatise for those persons who may be
desirous of acquiring some broad knowledge of the results arrived at
by geologists as to the development of land forms generally. A vast
number of geological questions are involved in the exhaustive
treatment of the subject. All the forces with which geologists become
acquainted in the study of the earth, and their operation, come into
consideration. The effects of these forces assume aspects that vary
according to the nature of the material on which they operate, and
they are again modified according to the peculiar combinations of
forces at work. The subject is therefore not the easy one it may be
supposed at first sight to be, and the reader who peruses Professor
Geikie's work with the intention of mastering it will find he has some
studying to do. Yet Professor Geikie is clear, and it is only because
he has gone deeper than the others that he may be harder. The first
point he insists upon is that in the fashioning of the earth's surface
no hard-and-fast line separates past and present. The work has been
going on for a long time, and is still in progress, under a law of
evolution as true for the crust of the globe as for the plants and
animals. In setting out upon our inquiry we must in the first place
know something about rocks and the mode of their arrangement, of the
structure or architecture of the earth's crust. This leads to the
distinction between the igneous and the subaqueous, the volcanic,
plutonic, and metamorphic, and the derivative rocks on which epigene
agencies have performed their shaping work. These rocks have been
modified in various ways, and the surface appearance of the earth has
been affected by forces operating from the interior, and by external
factors, the work of which is called denudation. The agents of
denudation are described--air, water, heat, frost, chemical action,
plants, and animals--often so closely associated in their operations
that their individual shares in the final result can hardly be
determined. The various influences of these factors as exerted upon
different forms of geological structure and different sorts of rocks
are then taken up and described as applied to land forms in regions of
horizontal, or gently inclined, and of highly folded and disturbed
strata, and in regions affected by normal faults or vertical
displacements. Land forms due directly or indirectly to igneous action
and the influence of rock character on the determination of land forms
are subjects of special chapters. Glacial action is one of the most
important factors in modifying the forms of northern lands, and is
treated with considerable fullness. Æolian action--of the air and
wind--has peculiar and important effects in arid regions, and
underground water in limestone districts, and these receive attention.
Then come basins--those due to crustal deformation, crater lakes,
river lakes, glacial basins, and others, and coast lines. Finally, a
classification is given of these land forms as plains or plateaus of
accumulation and of erosion, original or tectonic and subsequent or
relict hills and mountains, original or tectonic and subsequent or
erosion valleys, basins, and coast lines, and the conclusions are
reached that we do not know, except as a matter of probability,
whether we have still visible any original wrinkles of the earth's
crust; and that some of the estimates of the time it has taken to
produce the changes of which we witness the results have been very
much exaggerated.
The curious conclusions obtained by Dr. _Le Bon_ in his psychological
investigations,[15] delivered to us in startling language, are said to
be the fruit of extensive travel and of the personal measurement of
thousands of skulls. His memoir on cervical researches, published in
1879, upholds the theory that the volume of the skull varies with the
intelligence. This theory has perhaps suffered a permanent
adumbration. Facts seem to prove that the bony structure of the skull,
or even its cranial capacity, gives no positive indication of
intellect.
In the present volume the theme of discussion is the soul of races.
Anthropological classification is set aside and mankind is divided
into four groups according to mental characteristics: the primitive,
inferior, average, and superior races--the standard of judgment being
the degree of their aptitude for dominating reflex impulses. It is
perhaps worthy of note that while the Frenchman belongs to a superior
race, the Semitic peoples are placed in the class below, or the
average sort. For the primitive varieties it is not necessary to
observe a South Sea islander, the lower strata of Europeans furnishing
numerous examples. When greater differentiation is reached, the word
"race" is used in a historical sense. It requires, however, more
complete fusion than some nations exhibit to earn this title; for,
although there are Germans and Americans, "it is not clear as yet that
there are Italians." The race having been once evolved, acquires
wondrous potentialities with Dr. Le Bon. He compares it to the
totality of cells constituting a living organism, asserts that its
mental constitution is as unvarying as its anatomical structure, that
it is a permanent being independent of time and founded alone by its
dead. It is a short step to endow this entity with a soul consisting
of common sentiments, interests, and beliefs--what in brief, robbed of
hyperbole, we should call national character. He states that the
notion of a country is not possible until a national soul is formed.
This, in time, like germ-plasm, becomes so stable that assimilation
with foreign elements is impossible. Like natural species, it has
secondary characteristics that may be modified, but its fundamental
character is like the fin of the fish or the beak of the bird. The
acquisition of this soul marks the apogee of the greatness of a
people. Psychological species, however, are not eternal, but may decay
if the functioning of their organs is troubled profoundly.
The soul of the race is best expressed in its art, not in its history
or institutions, and, as it can not bequeath its soul, so it can not
impress its civilization or art upon an alien race. It was on account
of this incompatibility of soul that Grecian art failed to be
implanted in India. The unaltering constituent of the soul corresponds
to character, while intellectual qualities are variable. By character
is meant perseverance, energy, power of self-control, also morality.
The latter is hereditary respect for the rules on which a society is
based. This definition would make polygamy a moral notion for Mormons.
The knowledge of character "can be acquired neither in laboratories
nor in books, but only in the course of long travel." Whence it is
learned that different races can not have mutual comprehension.
Luckily for the student who is unable to travel, the same phenomenon
may be observed in the gulf that separates the civilized man and
woman. Although highly educated, "they might converse with each other
for centuries without understanding one another." These differences
between races and individuals demonstrate the falsity of the notion of
equality. Indeed, through _science_ "man has learned that to be slaves
is the natural condition of all human beings." Naturally he becomes
dispirited, anarchy seizes upon the uneducated and sullen indifference
the more cultivated. "Like a ship that has lost its compass, the
modern man wanders haphazard through the spaces formerly peopled by
the gods and rendered a desert by science." In France morality is
gradually dying out, while the United States is threatened by a
gigantic civil war. What to do is problematical, since we are informed
"that people have never derived much advantage from too great a desire
to reason and think," and what is most harmful to a people is to
attain too high a degree of intelligence and culture, the groundwork
of the soul beginning to decline when this level is reached. The
remedy suggested to us is "the organization of a very severe military
service and the permanent menace of disastrous wars." But if we fail
to see the improving tendency of this advice, it is probably because
we are like historians, "simple-minded," while Dr. Le Bon is much too
complex for our understanding. According to his own theory, there is
no hope that we may comprehend him, since the outpourings of a soul of
the Latin race can not be transferred by a simple bridge of
translation to the apprehension of an Anglo-Saxon mind, separated, as
he would term it, by "the dead weight of thousands of generations."
GENERAL NOTICES.
In preparing the new edition of his _Text-Book of Mineralogy_[16]
first published in 1877, Prof. _E. S. Dana_ has found it necessary to
rewrite the whole as well as to add much new matter and many new
illustrations. The work being designed chiefly for use in class or
private instruction, the choice of topics discussed, the order and
fullness of treatment, and the method of presentation have been
determined by that object. The different types of crystal forms are
described under the thirty-two groups now accepted, classed according
to their symmetry. In the chapters on physical and chemical
mineralogy, the plan of the former edition is retained of presenting
somewhat fully the elementary principles of the science on which the
mineral characters depend, and the author has tried to give the
student the means of becoming practically familiar with the modern
means of investigation. Especial attention is given to the optical
qualities of crystals as revealed by the microscope; and frequent
references are introduced to important papers on the different
subjects discussed. The descriptive part of the volume is essentially
an abridgment of the sixth edition of Dana's System of Mineralogy,
published in 1892, to which the student is referred for fuller and
supplementary information. A full topical index is furnished in
addition to the usual index of species.
The title, _The Story of the Railroad_,[17] carries with it the
suggestion of an eventful history. The West, in the author's view,
begins with the Missouri River. The story of its railroad is the story
of the line, now very multiple, that leads to the Pacific Ocean. The
beginning of white men's travels in these routes is traced by the
editor to the Spanish adventurers of the sixteenth century, who made
miserable journeys in search of gold or visionary objects, through
regions now traversed by some of the more southern lines. Then came
trappers; next costly and painfully undertaken Government expeditions
into the then regions of the unknown, the stories of which were the
boyhood delight of men now living. The period of practical traversing
of the continent began with the raging of the California gold fever,
when the journey of many weeks was tiresomely made with ox teams, in
the face of actual perils of the desert, starvation, thirst, and the
Indians. After California became important, stage and express lines
were put on; but still, at the time Mr. Warman takes up the story,
less than sixty years ago, the idea of building a railroad to the
Pacific was regarded as too visionary to be entertained, and Asa
Whitney sacrificed a fortune trying to induce somebody to take it up.
The first dreams were for a short route to the Orient. Eventually the
idea was developed that the American West might be worth going after,
and then the idea of a railroad to it began to assume practical form.
Young Engineer Dodge, afterward Major General, began surveys before
the civil war; after it General Sherman gave the scheme a great
impulse, and the Union Pacific Railroad was built--when and how are
graphically and dramatically told in Mr. Warman's book. Next came the
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fé, and other transcontinental lines, the
histories of all of which are related in similar style, with stories
of adventures, perils encountered, and lively incidents, including the
war between two of the lines for the possession of the Arkansas Cañon;
financial mishaps, and political scandal. Then came the settlement of
the plains, road-making in Mexico, and the opening of Oklahoma, all of
which were made possible by the railroads, and have in turn
contributed to support them. The beginnings and growth of the express
business are described, and the later lines that have penetrated the
plains are mentioned.
Prof. _William Benjamin Smith's_ treatise on the _Infinitesimal
Analysis_[18] has been written, the author says, on what appeared, in
the light of ten years' experience in teaching the calculus, to be
lines of least resistance. The aim has been, within a prescribed
expense of time and energy, to penetrate as far as possible into the
subject, and in as many directions, so that the student shall attain
as wide knowledge of the matter, as full comprehension of the methods,
and as clear consciousness of the spirit and power of this analysis as
the nature of the case would admit. The author has accordingly often
followed what seemed to be natural suggestions and impulses toward
near-lying extensions or generalizations, and has even allowed them to
direct the course of the discussion. In accordance with the plan and
purpose of the book as given, "Weierstressian rigor" has been excluded
from many investigations, and the postponement has been compelled of
some important discussions, which were considered too subtle for an
early age of study. Real difficulties, however, have not been
knowingly disguised, and pains have been taken on occasion to warn the
reader that the treatment given is only provisional, and must await
further precision or delimitation. Where the subject has been found
too large for the compass of the intended work, or too abstruse or
difficult for the contemplated students, the treatment has been
compressed or curtailed. The book is, in fact, written for such as
feel a genuine interest in the subject; and the illustrations and
exercises have been chosen with frequent reference to practical or
theoretic importance or to historic interest.
Mr. _George Jacob Holyoake_ has written with much enthusiasm the
_Jubilee History of the Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society_.[19]
Many schemes have been started on lines similar to those of this one,
but very few besides it have grown from the very beginning, and,
having become to all appearance a permanent institution, can look back
upon a career of fifty years with complete satisfaction. The society
began in times of public distress. The ground was prepared for it by
the "Redemption" Society, which was founded at Leeds in 1845, by
admirers of Robert Owen, after the experiment at Queenswood had
failed. It practiced a kind of co-operation and had some distinguished
friends to wish it well. Among the speakers at its meetings was Dr.
Frederic Hollick, still living, now a resident of New York city. The
co-operative society was started as a means of getting cheaper flour
for its members. On February 25, 1847, an appeal headed "Holbeck
Anti-Corn Mill Association" was issued to the working classes of Leeds
and vicinity by the "working people of Messrs. Benyon & Co.'s mill,"
Holbeck, inviting combination and subscriptions for establishing a
mill to be the property of the subscribers and their successors, "in
order to supply them with flour and flour only." Meetings were held,
an organization was effected, and the mill was started. The history of
the society and how it grew, how "flour only" was stricken from its
scheme and other things were added and it branched out, how
co-operative stores were established, how it gained the confidence of
the public and the respect of rivals in business, its successes and
its mistakes, its triumphs and failures, are told by Mr. Holyoake,
year by year, in a detail in which everything is set down and nothing
covered up. In 1897 the cooperative society had productive departments
of flour, bakery, bespoke clothing, boot and shoe factory, brush
factory, cabinet making, building, millinery, and dressmaking,
employing 541 hands and turning over £26,949; 80 large stores for the
sale of these and various other kinds of goods in Leeds and vicinity;
drapery branches and boot and shoe stores; 43 butchering branches; and
37,000 subscribing purchasers. Its capital stood at £447,000; and its
sales for the year amounted to £1,042,616.
D. Appleton and Company have added to their Home Reading Series _The
Earth and Sky_, a primer of Astronomy for Young Readers, by Prof.
_Edward S. Holden_. It is intended to be the first of a series of
three or more volumes, all treating of astronomy in one form or
another, and suited for reading in the school. The treatment is based
on the principle that "it is not so simple as it appears to fix in the
child's mind the fundamental fact that it is Nature which is true, and
the book or the engraving which is a true copy of it. 'It says' is the
snare of children as well as of their more sophisticated elders. The
vital point to be insisted on is a constant reference from words to
things." The volume is written as a conversation with a young lad. He
is first shown how he may know for himself that the earth is not flat,
though it certainly appears to be so. The next step is to show him
that he may know that the earth is in fact round, and that it is a
globe of immense size. Its situation in space is next considered, and
the child's mind is led to some formal conclusions respecting space
itself. It is then directed to the sun, to the moon and its changes,
to the stars and their motions, to the revolution of the earth, etc.
In 1887 _E. S. Holden_ published through the Regents of the University
of California a list of recorded earthquakes on the Pacific coast, it
being the first systematic publication of the sort. The purpose of it
was to bring to light all the general facts about the various shocks,
and enable studies to be made of particular earthquake phenomena. It
was necessary at the Lick Observatory to keep a register of the times
of occurrence of all shocks on account of their possible effects on
the instruments. With this was associated in 1888, when the
observatory began its active work, the collection of reports of shocks
felt elsewhere on the Pacific coast. Mr. Holden now reprints this
pamphlet through the Smithsonian Institution in _A Catalogue of
Earthquakes felt on the Pacific Coast, 1769 to 1897_, with many
corrections and additions, including a complete account of the
earthquake observations at Mount Hamilton from 1887 to 1897, and an
abstract of the great amount of information that has been collected
regarding other Pacific coast earthquakes during the same interval.
The _Psychologie als Erfahrungs-Wissenschaft_ of _Hans Cornelius_ is
not intended for a complete account and review of the facts of
psychical life, but rather to present the fundamentals of a purely
empirical theory, excluding all metaphysical views. Such an account
should not start from any arbitrary abstractions or hypotheses, but
simply from actually ascertained, directly perceived psychical
experiences. On the other hand, an empirical definition should be
required for all the terms that are used in a comprehensive
description of the experience; and no term should be used without the
psychical manifestation described by it being pointed out. After an
introduction in which the method and place of psychology, subjective
and objective, physiological and genetic, are referred to, the
elementary facts of consciousness are discussed. The coherency of
knowledge is treated of in the next chapter, and in the third,
Psychical Analysis and the conception of unobserved consciousness; and
the succeeding chapters are devoted to Sensation, Memory, and Fancy;
The Objective World, Truth and Error, and Feeling and Will. (Published
at Leipsic, Germany: B. G. Teubner.)