,a ,,century ,,of ,,science ,and ,other ,essays ,,by ,,john ,,fiske ,out of the shadows of night ,the world rolls into light3 ,it is daybreak everywhere4 ,,longfellow4 ,,boston ,,and ,,new ,,york ,,houghton1 ,,mifflin ,,and ,,company ,the ,riverside ,press1 ,cambridge #ahii ,,copyright1 #ahii1 ,,by ,,john ,,fiske ,,all ,,rights ,,reserved ,,dedicatory ,,epistle ,,to ,,thomas ,,sergeant ,,perry1 ,,professor ,,of ,,english ,,literature ,,in ,,the ,,keio ,,gijuku1 ,,at ,,tokyo4 ,,dear ,,tom1--,it has long been my wish to make you the patron saint or tutelar divinity of some book of mine1 and it has lately occurred to me that it ought to be a book of the desultory and chatty sort that would remind you1 in your present exile at the world's eastern rim1 of the many quiet evenings of old1 when1 over a tankard of mellow ,october and pipe of fragrant ,virginia1 while ,yule logs crackled blithely and the music of pattering sleet was upon the window-pane1 we used to roam in fancy through the universe and give free utterance to such thoughts1 sedate or frivolous1 as seemed to us good4 ,i dare say the present volume may serve as an epitome of many such old-time sessions of sweet discourse1 which ,i trust we shall by and by repeat and renew4 ,but there is one link of association which in my mind especially connects you with the present occasion4 ,my theory of the causes and effects of the prolongation of human infancy1 with reference to the evolution of man1 was first published in the ,north ,american ,review for ,october1 #ahgc1 when you were the editor of that periodical4 ,the article1 which was entitled ,the ,progress from ,brute to ,man1 was made up of two chapters of my ,outlines of ,cosmic ,philosophy 7part ii4 chaps1 xxi41 xxii471 which was published a year later1 in ,october1 #ahgd4 ,the value of the theory therein set forth was at once recognized by many leading naturalists4 ,in the address of ,vice-,president ,edward ,morse1 before the ,american ,association1 at its meeting at ,buffalo in #ahgf1 my theory receives extended notice as one of the most important contributions yet made to the ,doctrine of ,evolution2 and it is declared that ,i have given for the first time a rational explanation of the origin and persistence of family relations1 and thence communal i4 e41 clan relations1 and1 finally1 of society4#a ,uncontrollable circumstances have prevented my giving to the further elaboration of this infancy theory the time and attention which it deserves and demands2 but in my little book1 ,the ,destiny of ,man1 published in #ahhd1 ,i gave a popular exposition of it which has made it widely known in all ,english-speaking countries and on the continent of ,europe1 as well as among your worthy ,japanese neighbours1 ,tom1 who have done me the honour to translate some of my books into their vernacular4 ,the theory has become still further popularized through having furnished the starting-point for some of the most characteristic speculations of the late ,henry ,drummond4 ,in these and other ways my infancy theory has so far entered into the current thoughts of the present age that people have 7naturally enough7 begun to forget with whom it originated4 ,for example1 in the recent book1 ,through ,nature to ,god1 while criticising a remark of ,huxley's1 ,i found it desirable to make a restatement of the infancy theory2 whereupon a friendly reviewer1 referring to that particular part of the book1 observes that of course it makes no pretensions to originality1 but is simply my lucid summary of speculations with which every reader of ,darwin1 ,spencer1 ,huxley1 ,romanes1 and ,drummond is familiar6 ,in point of fact1 not the faintest suggestion of this infancy theory can be found in all the writings of ,darwin1 ,huxley1 and ,romanes4 ,in ,spencer's ,sociology1 vol4 i4 p4 #fcj1 it is briefly mentioned with approval as an important contribution originating with me2 and in ,drummond's ,ascent of ,man1 which is really built upon it1 credit is cordially given me4#b ,indeed1 down to the present time1 ,i have been left almost in exclusive possession of that area of speculation which is occupied with the genesis of ,man as connected with that prolongation of infancy which first began to become conspicuous in the manlike apes4 ,there are many who assent to what ,i have put forth1 but few who seem inclined to enter that difficult field on the marchland between biology1 psychology1 and sociology4 ,doubtless this is because the attention of the scientific world has for forty years been absorbed in the more general questions concerning the competency of natural selection1 the causes of variation1 the agencies alleged by ,lamarck1 and in these latter days ,weismannism1 etc4 ,in course of time1 however1 the more special problems connected with man's genesis will surely come uppermost1 and then we may hope to see the causes of the lengthening of infancy investigated by thinkers duly conversant alike with psychology and embryology4 ,questions of priority in originating new theories may not greatly interest the general reader1 but you and ,i feel interested in preventing any misconception in the present case2 and it was thus that the careless remark of the friendly reviewer led me to insert in the present volume the shorthand report of some autobiographical remarks on the infancy theory4 ,in reading the proof-sheets ,i have noticed that the book contains elsewhere many allusions to personal experiences4 ,this feature1 which was quite unforeseen1 will not fail to commend it all the more strongly to you1 my ancient friend and comrade4 ,as for readers in general1 ,i may best conclude in the words of old ,aaron ,rathbone1 whose book entitled ,the ,surveyor was dated from my lodging at the house of ,m4 ,roger ,bvrgis1 against ,salisburie-house-gate1 in the ,strand1 this sixt of ,nouember1 #afaf4 ,this wise and placid philosopher saith3 ,to perswade the courteous were causelesse1 for they are naturally kind2 and to diswade the captious were bootless1 for they will not be diverted4 ,let the first make true vse of these my labours1 and they shall find pleasure and profit therein2 let the last 7if they like not7 leave it1 and it shall not offend them4 ,wherefore let me1 without further ado1 subscribe myself1 ,ever yours1 ,,john ,,fiske4 ,,cambridge1 ,october #be1 #ahii4 ,,contents ,,page ,i4 ,a ,,century ,,of ,,science #a ,,ii4 ,,the ,,doctrine ,,of ,,evolution3 ,,its ,,scope ,,and ,,purport #ci ,,iii4 ,,edward ,,livingston ,,youmans #fd ,,iv4 ,,the ,,part ,,played ,,by ,,infancy ,,in ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,man #ajj ,v4 ,,the ,,origins ,,of ,,liberal ,,thought ,,in ,,america #abb ,,vi4 ,,sir ,,harry ,,vane #aed ,,vii4 ,,the ,,arbitration ,,treaty #aff ,,viii4 ,,francis ,,parkman #aid ,,ix4 ,,edward ,,augustus ,,freeman #bfe ,x4 ,,cambridge ,,as ,,village ,,and ,,city #bhf ,,xi4 ,a ,,harvest ,,of ,,irish ,,folk-,,lore #cai ,,xii4 ,,guessing ,,at ,,half ,,and ,,multiplying ,,by ,,two #ccc ,,xiii4 ,,forty ,,years ,,of ,,bacon-,,shakespeare ,,folly #cej ,,xiv4 ,,some ,,cranks ,,and ,,their ,,crotchets #dje ,,note #dfa ,,index #dfg ,a ,,century ,,of ,,science ,i ,a ,,century ,,of ,,science#c ,in the course of the year #aggd ,dr4 ,priestley found that by heating red precipitate1 or what we now call red oxide of mercury1 a gas was obtained1 which he called dephlogisticated air1 or1 in other words1 air deprived of phlogiston1 and therefore incombustible4 ,this incombustible air was oxygen1 and such was man's first introduction to the mighty element that makes one fifth of the atmosphere in volume and eight ninths of the ocean by weight1 besides forming one half of the earth's solid crust1 and supporting all fire and all life4 ,i know of nothing which can reveal to us with such startling vividness the extent of the gulf which the human mind has traversed within little more than a hundred years4 ,it is scarcely possible to put ourselves back into the frame of mind in which oxygen was unknown1 and no man could tell what takes place when a log of wood is burned on the hearth4 ,the language employed by ,dr4 ,priestley carries us back to the time when chemistry was beginning to emerge from alchemy4 ,it was ,newton's contemporary1 ,stahl1 who invented the doctrine of phlogiston in order to account for combustion4 ,stahl supposed that all combustible substances contain a common element1 or fire principle1 which he called phlogiston1 and which escapes in the process of combustion4 ,indeed1 the act of combustion was supposed to consist in the escape of phlogiston4 ,whither this mysterious fire principle betook itself1 after severing its connection with visible matter1 was not too clearly indicated1 but of course it was to that limbo far larger than purgatory1 the oubliette wherein have perished men's unsuccessful guesses at truth4 ,stahl's theory1 however1 marked a great advance upon what had gone before1 inasmuch as it stated the case in such a way as to admit of direct refutation4 ,little use was made of the balance in those days1 but when it was observed that zinc and lead and sundry other substances grow heavier in burning1 it seemed hardly correct to suppose that anything had escaped from these substances4 ,to this objection the friends of the fire principle replied that phlogiston might weigh less than nothing1 or1 in other words1 might be endowed with a positive attribute of levity1 so that to subtract it from a body would increase the weight of the body4 ,this was a truly shifty method of reasoning1 in which your phlogiston1 with its plus sign to-day and its minus sign to-morrow1 exhibited a skill in facing both ways like that of an ,american candidate for public office4 ,into the structure of false science that had been reared upon these misconceptions ,dr4 ,priestley's discovery of oxygen came like a bombshell4 ,as in so many other like cases1 the discovery was destined to come at about that time2 it was made again three years afterward by the ,swedish chemist ,scheele1 without knowing what ,priestley had done4 ,the study of oxygen soon pointed to the conclusion that1 whatever may escape during combustion1 oxygen is always united with the burning substance4 ,then came ,lavoisier with his balance1 and proved that whenever a thing burns it combines with ,priestley's oxygen1 and the weight of the resulting product is equal to the weight of the substance burned plus the weight of oxygen abstracted from the air4 ,thus combustion is simply union with oxygen1 and nothing escapes4 ,no room was left for phlogiston4 ,men's thoughts were dephlogisticated from that time forth4 ,the balance became the ruling instrument of chemistry4 ,one further step led to the generalization that in all chemical changes there is no such thing as increase or diminution1 but only substitution1 and upon this fundamental truth of the indestructibility of matter all modern chemistry rests4 ,when we look at the stupendous edifice of science that has been reared upon this basis1 when we consider the almost limitless sweep of inorganic and organic chemistry1 the myriad applications to the arts1 the depth to which we have been enabled to penetrate into the innermost proclivities of matter1 it seems almost incredible that a single century can have witnessed so much achievement4 ,we must admit the fact1 but our minds cannot take it in2 we are staggered by it4 ,one thing stands out prominently1 as we contrast this rapid and coherent progress with the barrenness of ancient alchemy and the chaotic fumbling of the ,stahl period3 we see the importance of untrammelled inquiry1 and of sound methods of investigation which admit of verification at every step4 ,that humble instrument the balance1 working in the service of sovereign law1 has been a beneficent ,jinni unlocking the portals of many a chamber wherein may be heard the secret harmonies of the world4 ,it is not only in chemistry1 however1 that the marvellous advance of science has been exhibited4 ,in all directions the quantity of achievement has been so marked that it is worth our while to take a brief general survey of the whole1 to see if haply we may seize upon the fundamental characteristics of this great progress4 ,in the first place1 a glance at astronomy will show us how much our knowledge of the world has enlarged in space since the day when ,priestley set free his dephlogisticated air4 ,the known solar system then consisted of sun1 moon1 earth1 and the five planets visible to the naked eye4 ,since the days of the ,chaldan shepherds there had been no additions except the moons of ,jupiter and ,saturn4 ,herschel's telescope was to win its first triumph in the detection of ,uranus in #agha4 ,the ,newtonian theory1 promulgated in #afhg1 had come to be generally accepted1 but there were difficulties remaining1 connected with the planetary perturbations and the inequalities in the moon's motion1 which the glorious labours of ,lagrange and ,laplace were presently to explain and remove1--labours which bore their full fruition two generations later1 in #ahde1 when the discovery of the planet ,neptune1 by purely mathematical reasoning from the observed effects of its gravitation1 furnished for the ,newtonian theory the grandest confirmation known in the whole history of science4 ,in ,priestley's time1 sidereal astronomy was little more than the cataloguing of such stars and nebul as could be seen with the telescopes then at command4 ,sixty years after the discovery of oxygen the distance of no star had been measured4 ,in #ahcf1 ,auguste ,comte assured his readers that such a feat was impossible1 that the ,newtonian theory could never be proved to extend through the interstellar spaces1 and that the matter of which stars are composed may be entirely different in its properties from the matter with which we are familiar4 ,within three years the first part of this prophecy was disproved when ,bessel measured the distance of the star #fa ,cygni2 since then the study of the movements of double and multiple stars has shown them conforming to ,newton's law2 and as for the matter of which they are composed1 we are introduced to a chapter in science which even the boldest speculator of half a century ago would have derided as a baseless dream4 ,the discovery of spectrum analysis and the invention of the spectroscope1 completed in #ahfa by ,kirchhoff and ,bunsen1 have supplied data for the creation of a stellar chemistry2 showing us1 for example1 hydrogen in ,sirius and the nebula of ,orion1 sodium and potassium1 calcium and iron1 in the sun2 demonstrating the gaseous character of nebul2 and revealing chemical elements hitherto unknown1 such as helium1 a mineral first detected in the sun's atmosphere1 and afterward found in ,norway4 ,a still more wonderful result of spectrum analysis is our ability to measure the motion of a star through a slight shifting in the wave-lengths of the light which it emits4 ,in this way we can measure1 in the absence of all parallax1 the direct approach or recession of a star2 and in somewhat similar wise has been discovered the cause of the long-observed variations of brilliancy in ,algol4 ,that star1 which is about the size of our sun1 has a dark companion not much smaller1 and the twain are moving around a third body1 also dark3 the result is an irregular series of eclipses of ,algol1 and the gravitative forces exerted by the two invisible stars are estimated through their effects upon the spectrum of the bright star4 ,in no department of science has a region of inference been reached more remote than this4 ,from such a flight one may come back gently to more familiar regions while remarking upon the manifold results that have begun to be attained from the application of a sensitive photograph plate to the telescope in place of the human eye4 ,it may suffice to observe that we thus catch the fleeting aspects of sun-spots and preserve them for study2 we detect the feeble self-luminosity still left in such a slowly cooling planet as ,jupiter2 and since the metallic plate does not quickly weary1 like the human retina1 the cumulative effects of its long exposure reveal the existence of countless stars and nebul too remote to be otherwise reached by any visual process4 ,by such photographic methods ,george ,darwin has caught an equatorial ring in the act of detachment from its parent nebula1 and the successive phases of the slow process may be watched and recorded by generations of mortals yet to come4 ,to appreciate the philosophic bearings of this vast enlargement of the mental horizon1 let us recall just what happened when ,newton first took the leap from earth into the celestial spaces by establishing a law of physics to which moon and apple alike conform4 ,it was the first step1 and a very long one1 toward proving that the terrestrial and celestial worlds are dynamically akin1 that the same kind of order prevails through both alike1 that both are parts of one cosmic whole4 ,so late as ,kepler's time1 it was possible to argue that the planets are propelled in their elliptic orbits by forces quite unlike any that are disclosed by purely terrestrial experience1 and therefore perhaps inaccessible to any rational interpretation4 ,such imaginary lines of demarcation between earth and heavens were forever swept away by ,newton1 and the recent work of spectrum analysis simply completes the demonstration that the remotest bodies which the photographic telescope can disclose are truly part and parcel of the dynamic world in which we live4 ,all this enlargement of the mental horizon1 from ,newton to ,kirchhoff1 had reference to space4 ,the nineteenth century has witnessed an equally notable enlargement with reference to time4 ,the beginnings of scientific geology were much later than those of astronomy4 ,the phenomena were less striking and far more complicated2 it took longer1 therefore1 to bring men's minds to bear upon them4 ,antagonism on the part of theologians was also slower in dying out4 ,the complaint against ,newton1 that he substituted ,blind ,gravitation for an ,intelligent ,deity1 was nothing compared to the abuse that was afterwards lavished upon geologists for disturbing the accepted ,biblical chronology4 ,at the time when ,priestley discovered oxygen1 educated men were still to be found who could maintain with a sober face that fossils had been created already dead and petrified1 just for the fun of the thing4 ,the writings of ,buffon were preparing men's minds for the belief that the earth's crust has witnessed many and important changes1 but there could be no scientific geology until further progress was made in physics and chemistry4 ,it was only in #agfc that ,joseph ,black discovered latent heat1 and thus gave us a clue to what happens when water freezes and melts1 or when it is turned into steam4 ,it was in #aghf that the publication of ,james ,hutton's ,theory of the ,earth ushered in the great battle between ,neptunians and ,plutonists which prepared the way for scientific geology4 ,when the new science won its first great triumph with ,lyell in #ahcj1 the philosophic purport of the event was the same that was being proclaimed by the progress of astronomy4 ,newton proved that the forces which keep the planets in their orbits are not strange or supernatural forces1 but just such as we see in operation upon this earth every moment of our lives4 ,geologists before ,lyell had been led to the conclusion that the general aspect of the earth's surface with which we are familiar is by no means its primitive or its permanent aspect1 but that there has been a succession of ages1 in which the relations of land and water1 of mountain and plain1 have varied to a very considerable extent2 in which soils and climates have undergone most complicated vicissitudes2 and in which the earth's vegetable products and its animal populations have again and again assumed new forms1 while the old forms have passed away4 ,in order to account for such wholesale changes1 geologists were at first disposed to imagine violent catastrophes brought about by strange agencies1--agencies which were perhaps not exactly supernatural1 but were in some vague1 unspecified way different from those which are now at work in the visible and familiar order of nature4 ,but ,lyell proved that the very same kind of physical processes which are now going on about us would suffice1 during a long period of time1 to produce the changes in the inorganic world which distinguish one geological period from another4 ,here1 in ,lyell's geological investigations1 there was for the first time due attention paid to the immense importance of the prolonged and cumulative action of slight and unobtrusive causes4 ,the continual dropping that wears away stones might have served as a text for the whole series of beautiful researches of which he first summed up the results in #ahcj4 ,as astronomy was steadily advancing toward the proof that in the abysses of space the physical forces at work are the same as our terrestrial forces1 so geology1 in carrying us back to enormously remote periods of time1 began to teach that the forces at work have all along been the same forces that are operative now4 ,of course1 in that early stage when the earth's crust was in process of formation1 when the temperature was excessively high1 there were phenomena here such as can no longer be witnessed1 but for which we must look to big planets like ,jupiter2 in that intensely hot atmosphere violent disturbances occur1 and chemical elements are dissociated which we are accustomed to find in close combination here4 ,but ever since our earth cooled to a point at which its solid crust acquired stability1 since the earliest mollusks and vertebrates began to swim in the seas and worms to crawl in the damp ground1 if at almost any time we could have come here on a visit1 we should doubtless have found things going on at measured pace very much as at present1--here and there earthquake and avalanche1 fire and flood1 but generally rain falling1 sunshine quickening1 herbage sprouting1 creatures of some sort browsing1 all as quiet and peaceful as a daisied field in ,june1 without the slightest visible presage of the continuous series of minute secular changes that were gradually to transform a ,carboniferous world into what was by and by to be a ,jurassic world1 and that again into what was after a while to be an ,eocene world1 and so on1 until the aspect of the world that we know to-day should noiselessly steal upon us4 ,when once the truth of ,lyell's conclusions began to be distinctly realized1 their influence upon men's habits of thought and upon the drift of philosophic speculation was profound4 ,the conception of ,evolution was irresistibly forced upon men's attention4 ,it was proved beyond question that the world was not created in the form in which we find it to-day1 but has gone through many phases1 of which the later are very different from the earlier2 and it was shown that1 so far as the inorganic world is concerned1 the changes can be much more satisfactorily explained by a reference to the ceaseless1 all-pervading activity of gentle1 unobtrusive causes such as we know than by an appeal to imaginary catastrophes such as we have no means of verifying4 ,it began to appear1 also1 that the facts which form the subject-matter of different departments of science are not detached and independent groups of facts1 but that all are intimately related one with another1 and that all may be brought under contribution in illustrating the history of cosmic events4 ,it was a sense of this interdependence of different departments that led ,auguste ,comte to write his ,philosophie ,positive1 the first volume of which appeared in #ahcj1 in which he sought to point out the methods which each science has at command for discovering truth1 and the manner in which each might be made to contribute toward a sound body of philosophic doctrine4 ,the attempt had a charm and a stimulus for many minds1 but failed by being enlisted in the service of sundry sociological vagaries upon which the author's mind was completely wrecked4 ,positivism1 from being the name of a potent scientific method1 became the name of one more among the myriad ways of having a church and regulating the details of life4 ,while the ponderous mechanical intellect of ,comte was striving to elicit the truth from themes beyond its grasp1 one of the world's supreme poets had already discerned some of the deeper aspects of science presently to be set forth4 ,by temperament and by training1 ,goethe was one of the first among evolutionists4 ,the belief in an evolution of higher from lower organisms could not fail to be strongly suggested to a mind like his as soon as the classification of plants and animals had begun to be conducted upon scientific principles4 ,it is not for nothing that a table of classes1 orders1 families1 genera1 and species1 when graphically laid out1 resembles a family tree4 ,it was not long after ,linnus that believers in some sort of a development theory1 often fantastic enough1 began to be met with4 ,the facts of morphology gave further suggestions in the same direction4 ,such facts were first generalized on a grand scale by ,goethe in his beautiful little essay on ,the ,metamorphoses of ,plants1 written in #agij1 and his ,introduction to ,morphology1 written in #agie1 but not published until #ahjg4 ,in these profound treatises1 which were too far in advance of their age to exert much influence at first1 ,goethe laid the philosophic foundations of comparative anatomy in both vegetal and animal worlds4 ,the conceptions of metamorphosis and of homology1 which were thus brought forward1 tended powerfully toward a recognition of the process of evolution4 ,it was shown that what under some circumstances grows into a stem with a whorl of leaves1 under other circumstances grows into a flower2 it was shown that in the general scheme of the vertebrate skeleton a pectoral fin1 a fore leg1 and a wing occupy the same positions3 thus was strongly suggested the idea that what under some circumstances developed into a fin might under other circumstances develop into a leg or a wing4 ,the revelations of palontology1 showing various extinct adult forms1 with corresponding organs in various degrees of development1 went far to strengthen this suggestion1 until an unanswerable argument was reached with the study of rudimentary organs1 which have no meaning except as remnants of a vanished past during which the organism has been changing4 ,the study of comparative embryology pointed in the same direction2 for it was soon observed that the embryos and larv of the higher forms of each group of animals pass1 in the course of their development1 through a series of stages in which they more or less completely resemble the lower forms of the group4#d ,before the full significance of such facts of embryology and morphology could be felt1 it was necessary that the work of classification should be carried far beyond the point at which it had been left by ,linnus4 ,in mapping out the relationships in the animal kingdom1 the great ,swedish naturalist had relied less than his predecessors upon external or superficial characteristics2 the time was arriving when classification should be based upon a thorough study of internal structure1 and this was done by a noble company of ,french anatomists1 among whom ,cuvier was chief4 ,it was about #ahag that ,cuvier's gigantic work reached its climax in bringing palontology into alliance with systematic zology1 and effecting that grand classification of animals in space and time which at once cast into the shade all that had gone before it4 ,during the past fifty years there have been great changes made in ,cuvier's classification1 especially in the case of the lower forms of animal life4 ,his class of ,radiata has been broken up1 other divisions in his invertebrate world have been modified beyond recognition1 his vertebrate scheme has been overhauled in many quarters1 his attempt to erect a distinct order for ,man has been overthrown4 ,among the great anatomists concerned in this work the greatest name is that of ,huxley4 ,the classification most generally adopted to-day is ,huxley's1 but it is rather a modification of ,cuvier's than a new development4 ,so enduring has been the work of the great ,frenchman4 ,with ,cuvier the analysis of the animal organism made some progress in such wise that anatomists began to concentrate their attention upon the study of the development and characteristic functions of organs4 ,philosophically1 this was a long step in advance1 but a still longer one was taken at about the same time by that astonishing youth whose career has no parallel in the history of science4 ,when ,xavier ,bichat died in #ahjb1 in his thirty-first year1 he left behind him a treatise on comparative anatomy in which the subject was worked up from the study of the tissues and their properties4 ,the path thus broken by ,bichat led to the cell doctrine of ,schleiden and ,schwann1 matured about #ahdj1 which remains1 with some modifications1 the basis of modern biology4 ,the advance along these lines contributed signally to the advancement of embryology1 which reached a startling height in #ahbi with the publication of ,baer's memorable treatise1 in which the development of an ovum is shown to consist in a change from homogeneity to heterogeneity through successive differentiations4 ,but while ,baer thus arrived at the very threshold of the law of evolution1 he was not in the true sense an evolutionist2 he had nothing to say to phylogenetic evolution1 or the derivation of the higher forms of life from lower forms through physical descent with modifications4 ,just so with ,cuvier4 ,when he effected his grand classification1 he prepared the way most thoroughly for a general theory of evolution1 but he always resisted any such inference from his work4 ,he was building better than he knew4 ,the hesitancy of such men as ,cuvier and ,baer was no doubt due partly to the apparent absence of any true cause for physical modifications in species1 partly to the completeness with which their own great work absorbed their minds4 ,often in the history of science we witness the spectacle of a brilliant discoverer travelling in triumph along some new path1 but stopping just short of the goal which subsequent exploration has revealed4 ,there it stands looming up before his face1 but he is blind to its presence through the excess of light which he has already taken in4 ,the intellectual effort already put forth has left no surplus for any further sweep of comprehension1 so that further advance requires a fresher mind and a new start with faculties unjaded and unwarped4 ,to discover a great truth usually requires a succession of thinkers4 ,among the eminent anatomists who in the earlier part of our century were occupied with the classification of animals1 there were some who found themselves compelled to believe in phylogenetic evolution1 although they could frame no satisfactory theory to account for it4 ,the weight of evidence was already in favour of such evolution1 and these men could not fail to see it4 ,foremost among them was ,jean ,baptiste ,lamarck1 whose work was of supreme importance4 ,his views were stated in #ahji in his ,philosophic ,zologique1 and further illustrated in #ahae1 in his voluminous treatise on invertebrate animals4 ,lamarck entirely rejected the notion of special creations1 and he pointed out some of the important factors in evolution1 especially the law that organs and faculties tend to increase with exercise1 and to diminish with disuse4 ,his weakest point was the disposition to imagine some inherent and ubiquitous tendency toward evolution1 whereas a closer study of nature has taught us that evolution occurs only where there is a concurrence of favourable conditions4 ,among others who maintained some theory of evolution were the two ,geoffroy ,saint-,hilaires1 father and son1 and the two great botanists1 ,naudin in ,france and ,hooker in ,england4 ,in #aheb the case of evolution as against special creations was argued by ,herbert ,spencer with convincing force1 and in #ahee appeared ,the ,principles of ,psychology1 by the same author1 a book which is from beginning to end an elaborate illustration of the process of evolution1 and is divided from everything that came before it by a gulf as wide as that which divides the ,copernican astronomy from the ,ptolemaic4 ,the followers of ,cuvier regarded the methods and results of these evolutionists with strong disapproval4 ,in the excess of such a feeling1 they even went so far as to condemn all philosophic thinking on subjects within the scope of natural history as visionary and unscientific4 ,why seek for any especial significance in the fact that every spider and every lobster is made up of just twenty segments8 ,is it not enough to know the fact8 ,children must not ask too many questions4 ,it is the business of science to gather facts1 not to seek for hidden implications4 ,such was the mental attitude into which men of science were quite commonly driven1 between #ahcj and #ahfj1 by their desire to blink the question of evolution4 ,a feeling grew up that the true glory of a scientific career was to detect for the two hundredth time an asteroid1 or to stick a pin through a beetle with a label attached bearing your own latinized name1 ,browni1 or ,jonesii1 or ,robinsoniense4 ,this feeling was especially strong in ,france1 and was not confined to physical science4 ,it was exhibited a few years later in the election of some ,swedish or ,norwegian naturalist 7whose name ,i forget7 to the ,french ,academy of ,science instead of ,charles ,darwin3 the former had described some new kind of fly1 the latter was only a theorizer6 ,the study of origins in particular was to be frowned upon4 ,in #ahfc the ,linguistic ,society of ,paris passed a by-law that no communications bearing upon the origin of language would be received4 ,in the same mood1 ,sir ,henry ,maine's treatise on ,ancient ,law was condemned at a leading ,american university3 it was enough for us to know our own laws2 those of ,india might interest ,british students who might have occasion to go there1 but not ,americans4 ,such crude notions1 utterly hostile to the spirit of science1 were unduly favoured fifty years ago by the persistent unwillingness to submit the phenomena of organic nature to the kind of scientific explanation which facts from all quarters were urging upon us4 ,during the period from #ahcj to #ahfj1 the factor in evolution which had hitherto escaped detection was gradually laid hold of and elaborately studied by ,charles ,darwin4 ,in the nature of his speculations1 and the occasion that called them forth1 he was a true disciple of ,lyell4 ,the work of that great geologist led directly up to ,darwinism4 ,as long as it was supposed that each geologic period was separated from the periods before and after it by ,titanic convulsions which revolutionized the face of the globe1 it was possible for men to acquiesce in the supposition that these convulsions wrought an abrupt and a wholesale destruction of organic life1 and that the lost forms were replaced by an equally abrupt and wholesale supernatural creation of new forms at the beginning of each new period4 ,but1 as people ceased to believe in the convulsions1 such an explanation began to seem improbable1 and it was completely discredited by the fact that many kinds of plants and animals have persisted with little or no change during several successive periods1 side by side with other kinds in which there have been extensive variation and extinction4 ,in connection with this a fact of great significance was elicited4 ,between the fauna and flora of successive periods in the same geographical region there is apt to be a manifest family likeness1 indicating that the later are connected with the earlier through the bonds of physical descent4 ,it was a case of this sort that attracted ,darwin's attention in #ahce4 ,the plants and animals of the ,galapagos ,islands are either descended1 with specific modifications1 from those of the mainland of ,ecuador1 or else there must have been an enormous number of special creations4 ,the case is one which at a glance presents the notion of special creations in an absurd light4 ,but what could have caused the modification8 ,what was wanted was1 to be able to point to some agency1 similar to agencies now in operation1 and therefore intelligible1 which could be proved to be capable of making specific changes in plants and animals4 ,darwin's solution of the problem was so beautiful1 it seems now so natural and inevitable1 that we may be in danger of forgetting how complicated and abstruse the problem really was4 ,starting from the known experiences of breeders of domestic animals and cultivated plants1 and duly considering the remarkable and sometimes astonishing changes that are wrought by simple selection1 the problem was to detect among the multifarious phenomena of organic nature any agency capable of accomplishing what man thus accomplishes by selection4 ,in detecting the agency of natural selection1 working perpetually through the preservation of favoured individuals and races in the struggle for existence1 ,darwin found the true cause for which men were waiting4 ,with infinite patience and caution1 he applied his method of explanation to one group of organic phenomena after another1 meeting in every quarter with fresh and often unexpected verification4 ,after more than twenty years1 a singular circumstance led him to publish an account of his researches4 ,the same group of facts had set a younger naturalist to work upon the same problem1 and a similar process of thought had led to the same solution4 ,without knowing what ,darwin had done1 ,alfred ,russel ,wallace made the same discovery1 and sent from the ,east ,indies1 in #aheh1 his statement of it to ,darwin as to the man whose judgment upon it he should most highly prize4 ,this made publication necessary for ,darwin4 ,the vast treasures of theory and example which he had accumulated were given to the world1 the notion of special creations was exploded1 and the facts of phylogenetic evolution won general acceptance4 ,under the influence of this great achievement1 men in every department of science began to work in a more philosophical spirit4 ,naturalists1 abandoning the mood of the stamp collectors1 saw in every nook and corner some fresh illustration of ,darwin's views4 ,one serious obstacle to any general statement of the doctrine of evolution was removed4 ,it was in #ahfa that ,herbert ,spencer began to publish such a general systematic statement4 ,his point of departure was the point reached by ,baer in #ahbi1 the change from homogeneity to heterogeneity4 ,the theory of evolution had already received in ,spencer's hands a far more complete and philosophical treatment than ever before1 when the discovery of natural selection came to supply the one feature which it lacked4 ,spencer's thought is often more profound than ,darwin's1 but he would be the first to admit the indispensableness of natural selection to the successful working-out of his own theory4 ,the work of ,spencer is beyond precedent for comprehensiveness and depth4 ,he began by showing that as a generalization of embryology ,baer's law needs important emendations1 and he went on to prove that1 as thus rectified1 the law of the development of an ovum is the law which covers the evolution of our planetary system1 and of life upon the earth's surface in all its myriad manifestations4 ,in ,spencer's hands1 the time-honoured ,nebular ,theory propounded by ,immanuel ,kant in #agee1 the earliest of all scientific theories of evolution1 took on fresh life and meaning2 and at the same time the theories of ,lamarck and ,darwin as to organic evolution were worked up along with his own profound generalization of the evolution of mind into one coherent and majestic whole4 ,mankind have reason to be grateful that the promise of that daring prospectus which so charmed and dazzled us in #ahfj is at last fulfilled2 that after six-and-thirty years1 despite all obstacles and discouragements1 the ,master's work is virtually done4 ,such a synthesis could not have been achieved1 nor even attempted1 without the extraordinary expansion of molecular physics that marked the first half of the nineteenth century4 ,when ,priestley discovered oxygen1 the undulatory theory of light1 the basis of all modern physics1 had not been established4 ,it had indeed been propounded as long ago as #afgh by the illustrious ,christian ,huyghens1 whom we should also remember as the discoverer of ,saturn's rings and the inventor of the pendulum clock4 ,but ,huyghens was in advance of his age1 and the overshadowing authority of ,newton1 who maintained a rival hypothesis1 prevented due attention being paid to the undulatory theory until the beginning of the present century1 when it was again taken up and demonstrated by ,fresnel and ,thomas ,young4 ,about the same time1 our fellow countryman1 ,count ,rumford1 was taking the lead in that series of researches which culminated in the discovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat by ,dr4 ,joule in #ahdc4 ,one of ,priestley's earliest books1 the one which made him a doctor of laws and a fellow of the ,royal ,society1 was a treatise on electricity1 published in #agfg4 ,it was a long step from that book to the one in which the ,danish physicist ,oersted1 in #ahbj1 demonstrated the intimate correlation between electricity and magnetism1 thus preparing the way for ,faraday's great discovery of magneto-electric induction in #ahca4 ,by the middle of our century the work in these various departments of physics had led to the detection of the deepest truth in science1--the law of correlation and conservation1 which we owe chiefly to ,helmholtz1 ,mayer1 and ,grove4 ,it was proved that light and heat1 and the manifestations of force which we group together under the name of electricity1 are various modes of undulatory motion transformable one into another2 and that1 in the operations of nature1 energy is never annihilated1 but only changed from one form into another4 ,this generalization includes the indestructibility of matter1 and thus lies at the bottom of all chemistry and physics and of all science4 ,returning to that chemistry with which we started1 we may recall two laws that were propounded early in the century1 one of which was instantly adopted1 while the other had to wait for its day4 ,dalton's law of definite and multiple proportions has been ever since #ahjh the corner stone of chemical science1 and the atomic theory by which he sought to explain the law has exercised a profound influence upon all modern speculation4 ,the other law1 announced by ,avogadro in #ahaa1 that1 under the same conditions of pressure and temperature1 equal volumes of all gaseous substances1 whether elementary or compound1 contain the same number of molecules1 was neglected for nearly fifty years1 and then1 when it was taken up and applied1 it remodelled the whole science of chemistry1 and threw a flood of light upon the internal constitution of matter4 ,in this direction a new world of speculation is opening up before us1 full of wondrous charm4 ,the amazing progress made since ,priestley's day may be summed up in a single contrast4 ,in #agha ,cavendish ascertained the bare fact that water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen2 within ninety years from that time ,sir ,william ,thomson was able to tell us that if the drop of water were magnified to the size of the earth1 the constituent atoms would be larger than peas1 but not so large as billiard balls4 ,such a statement is confessedly provisional1 but1 allowing for this1 the contrast is no less striking4 ,concerning the various and complicated applications of physical science to the arts1 by which human life has been so profoundly affected in the present century1 a mere catalogue of them would tax our attention to little purpose4 ,as my object in the present sketch is simply to trace the broad outlines of advance in pure science1 ,i pass over these applications1 merely observing that the perpetual interaction between theory and practice is such that each new invention is liable to modify the science in which it originated1 either by encountering fresh questions or by suggesting new methods1 or in both these ways4 ,the work of men like ,pasteur and ,koch cannot fail to influence biological theory as much as medical practice4 ,the practical uses of electricity are introducing new features into the whole subject of molecular physics1 and in this region1 ,i suspect1 we are to look for some of the most striking disclosures of the immediate future4 ,a word must be said of the historical sciences1 which have witnessed as great changes as any others1 mainly through the introduction of the comparative method of inquiry4 ,the first two great triumphs of the comparative method were achieved contemporaneously in two fields of inquiry very remote from one another3 the one was the work of ,cuvier1 above mentioned2 the other was the founding of the comparative philology of the ,aryan languages by ,franz ,bopp1 in #ahaf4 ,the work of ,bopp exerted as powerful an influence throughout all the historical fields of study as ,cuvier exerted in biology4 ,the young men whose minds were receiving their formative impulses between #ahbe and #ahdj1 under the various influences of ,cuvier and ,saint-,hilaire1 ,lyell1 ,goethe1 ,bopp1 and other such great leaders1 began themselves to come to the foreground as leaders of thought about #ahfj3 on the one hand1 such men as ,darwin1 ,gray1 ,huxley1 and ,wallace2 on the other hand1 such as ,kuhn and ,schleicher1 ,maine1 ,maurer1 ,mommsen1 ,freeman1 and ,tylor4 ,the point of the comparative method1 in whatever field it may be applied1 is that it brings before us a great number of objects so nearly alike that we are bound to assume for them an origin and general history in common1 while at the same time they present such differences in detail as to suggest that some have advanced further than others in the direction in which all are travelling2 some1 again1 have been abruptly arrested1 others perhaps even turned aside from the path4 ,in the attempt to classify such phenomena1 whether in the historical or in the physical sciences1 the conception of development is presented to the student with irresistible force4 ,in the case of the ,aryan languages1 no one would think of doubting their descent from a common original3 just side by side is the parallel case of one sub-group of the ,aryan languages1 namely1 the seven ,romance languages which we know to have been developed out of ,latin since the ,christian era4 ,in these cases we can study the process of change resulting in forms that are more or less divergent from their originals4 ,in one quarter a form is retained with little modification2 in another it is completely blurred1 as the ,latin metipsissimus becomes medesimo in ,italian1 but mismo in ,spanish1 while in modern ,french there is nothing left of it but mme4 ,so in ,sanskrit and in ,lithuanian we find a most ingenious and elaborate system of conjugation and declension1 which in such languages as ,greek and ,latin is more or less curtailed and altered1 and which in ,english is almost completely lost4 ,yet in ,old ,english there are quite enough vestiges of the system to enable us to identify it with the ,lithuanian and ,sanskrit4 ,so the student who applies the comparative method to the study of human customs and institutions is continually finding usages1 beliefs1 or laws existing in one part of the world that have long since ceased to exist in another part2 yet where they have ceased to exist they have often left unmistakable traces of their former existence4 ,in ,australasia we find types of savagery ignorant of the bow and arrow2 in aboriginal ,north ,america1 a type of barbarism familiar with the art of pottery1 but ignorant of domestic animals or of the use of metals2 among the earliest ,romans1 a higher type of barbarism1 familiar with iron and cattle1 but ignorant of the alphabet4 ,along with such gradations in material culture we find associated gradations in ideas1 in social structure1 and in deep-seated customs4 ,thus1 some kind of fetishism is apt to prevail in the lower stages of barbarism1 and some form of polytheism in the higher stages4 ,the units of composition in savage and barbarous societies are always the clan1 the phratry1 and the tribe4 ,in the lower stages of barbarism we see such confederacies as those of the ,iroquois2 in the highest stage1 at the dawn of civilization1 we begin to find nations imperfectly formed by conquest without incorporation1 like aboriginal ,peru or ancient ,assyria4 ,in the lower stages we see captives tortured to death1 then at a later stage sacrificed to the tutelar deities1 then later on enslaved and compelled to till the soil4 ,through the earlier stages of culture1 as in ,australasia and aboriginal ,america1 we find the marriage tie so loose and paternity so uncertain that kinship is reckoned only through the mother2 but in the highest stage of barbarism1 as among the earliest ,greeks1 ,romans1 and ,jews1 the more definite patriarchal family is developed1 and kinship begins to be reckoned through the father4 ,it is only after that stage is reached that inheritance of property becomes fully developed1 with the substitution of individual ownership for clan ownership1 and so on to the development of testamentary succession1 individual responsibility for delict and crime1 and the substitution of contract for status4 ,in all such instances--and countless others might be cited--we see the marks of an intelligible progression1 a line of development which human ideas and institutions have followed4 ,but in the most advanced societies we find numerous traces of such states of things as now exist only among savage or barbarous societies4 ,our own ancestors were once polytheists1 with plenty of traces of fetishism4 ,they were organized in clans1 phratries1 and tribes4 ,there was a time when they used none but stone tools and weapons2 when there was no private property in land1 and no political structure higher than the tribe4 ,among the forefathers of the present civilized inhabitants of ,europe are unmistakable traces of human sacrifices1 and of the reckoning of kinship through the mother only4 ,when we have come to survey large groups of facts of this sort1 the conclusion is irresistibly driven home to us that the more advanced societies have gone through various stages now represented here and there by less advanced societies2 that there is a general path of social development1 along which1 owing to special circumstances1 some peoples have advanced a great way1 some a less way1 some but a very little way2 and that by studying existing savages and barbarians we get a valuable clue to the interpretation of prehistoric times4 ,all these things are to-day commonplaces among students of history and archology2 sixty years ago they would have been scouted as idle vagaries4 ,it is the introduction of such methods of study that is making history scientific4 ,it is enabling us to digest the huge masses of facts that are daily poured in upon us by decipherers of the past1--monuments1 inscriptions1 pottery1 weapons1 ethnological reports1 and all that sort of thing1--and to make all contribute toward a coherent theory of the career of mankind upon the earth4 ,in the course of the foregoing survey one fact stands out with especial prominence3 it appears that about half a century ago the foremost minds of the world1 with whatever group of phenomena they were occupied1 had fallen1 and were more and more falling1 into a habit of regarding things1 not as having originated in the shape in which we now find them1 but as having been slowly metamorphosed from some other shape through the agency of forces similar in nature to forces now at work4 ,whether planets1 or mountains1 or mollusks1 or subjunctive moods1 or tribal confederacies were the things studied1 the scholars who studied them most deeply and most fruitfully were those who studied them as phases in a process of development4 ,the work of such scholars has formed the strong current of thought in our time1 while the work of those who did not catch these new methods has been dropped by the way and forgotten2 and as we look back to ,newton's time we can see that ever since then the drift of scientific thought has been setting in this direction1 and with increasing steadiness and force4 ,now1 what does all this drift of scientific opinion during more than two centuries mean8 ,it can1 of course1 have but one meaning4 ,it means that the world is in a process of development1 and that gradually1 as advancing knowledge has enabled us to take a sufficiently wide view of the world1 we have come to see that it is so4 ,the old statical conception of a world created all at once in its present shape was the result of very narrow experience2 it was entertained when we knew only an extremely small segment of the world4 ,now that our experience has widened1 it is outgrown and set aside forever2 it is replaced by the dynamical conception of a world in a perpetual process of evolution from one state into another state4 ,this dynamical conception has come to stay with us4 ,our theories as to what the process of evolution is may be more or less wrong and are confessedly tentative1 as scientific theories should be4 ,but the dynamical conception1 which is not the work of any one man1 be he ,darwin or ,spencer or any one else1 but the result of the cumulative experience of the last two centuries1--this is a permanent acquisition4 ,we can no more revert to the statical conception than we can turn back the sun in his course4 ,whatever else the philosophy of future generations may be1 it must be some kind of a philosophy of evolution4 ,such is the scientific conquest achieved by the nineteenth century1 a marvellous story without any parallel in the history of human achievement4 ,the swiftness of the advance has been due partly to the removal of the ancient legal and social trammels that beset free thinking in every conceivable direction4 ,it is largely due also to the use of correct methods of research4 ,the waste of intellectual effort has been less than in former ages4 ,the substitution of ,lavoisier's balance for ,stahl's a priori reasoning is one among countless instances of this4 ,sound scientific method is a slow acquisition of the human mind1 and for its more rapid introduction1 in ,priestley's time and since1 we have largely to thank the example set by those giants of a former age1 ,galileo and ,kepler1 ,descartes and ,newton4 ,the lessons that might be derived from our story are many4 ,but one that we may especially emphasize is the dignity of ,man whose persistent seeking for truth is rewarded by such fruits4 ,we may be sure that the creature whose intelligence measures the pulsations of molecules and unravels the secret of the whirling nebula is no creature of a day1 but the child of the universe1 the heir of all the ages1 in whose making and perfecting is to be found the consummation of ,god's creative work4 ,may1 #ahif4 ,,ii ,,the ,,doctrine ,,of ,,evolution3 ,,its ,,scope ,,and ,,purport#e ,it was not strange that among the younger men whose opinions were moulded between #ahcj and #ahdj there should have been one of organizing genius1 with a mind inexhaustibly fertile in suggestions1 who should undertake to elaborate a general doctrine of evolution1 to embrace in one grand coherent system of generalizations all the minor generalizations which workers in different departments of science were establishing4 ,it is this prodigious work of construction that we owe to ,herbert ,spencer4 ,he is the originator and author of what we know to-day as the doctrine of evolution1 the doctrine which undertakes to formulate and put into scientific shape the conception of evolution toward which scientific investigation had so long been tending4 ,in the mind of the general public there seems to be dire confusion with regard to ,mr4 ,spencer and his relations to evolution and to ,darwinism4 ,sometimes1 ,i believe1 he is even supposed to be chiefly a follower and expounder of ,mr4 ,darwin6 ,no doubt this is because so many people mix up ,darwinism with the doctrine of evolution1 and have but the vaguest and haziest notions as to what it is all about4 ,as ,i explained above1 ,mr4 ,darwin's great work was the discovery of natural selection1 and the demonstration of its agency in effecting specific changes in plants and animals2 and in that work he was completely original4 ,but plants and animals are only a part of the universe1 though an important part1 and with regard to universal evolution or any universal formula for evolution ,darwinism had nothing to say4 ,such problems were beyond its scope4 ,the discovery of a universal formula for evolution1 and the application of this formula to many diverse groups of phenomena1 have been the great work of ,mr4 ,spencer1 and in this he has had no predecessor4 ,his wealth of originality is immense1 and it is unquestionable4 ,but as the most original thinker must take his start from the general stock of ideas accumulated at his epoch1 and more often than not begins by following a clue given him by somebody else1 so it was with ,mr4 ,spencer when1 about forty years ago1 he was working out his doctrine of evolution4 ,the clue was not given by ,mr4 ,darwin4 ,darwinism was not yet born4 ,mr4 ,spencer's theory was worked out in all its parts1 and many parts of it had been expounded in various published volumes and essays before the publication of the ,origin of ,species4 ,the clue which ,mr4 ,spencer followed was given him by the great embryologist1 ,karl ,ernst von ,baer1 and an adumbration of it may perhaps be traced back through ,kaspar ,friedrich ,wolf to ,linnus4 ,hints of it may be found1 too1 in ,goethe and in ,schelling4 ,the advance from simplicity to complexity in the development of an egg is too obvious to be overlooked by any one1 and was remarked upon1 ,i believe1 by ,harvey2 but the analysis of what that advance consists in was a wonderfully suggestive piece of work4 ,baer's great book was published in #ahbi1 just at the time when so many stimulating ideas were being enunciated1 and its significant title was ,entwickelungsgeschichte1 or ,history of ,evolution4 ,it was well known that1 so far as the senses can tell us1 one ovum is indistinguishable from another1 whether it be that of a man1 a fish1 or a parrot4 ,the ovum is a structureless bit of organic matter1 and1 in acquiring structure along with its growth in volume and mass1 it proceeds through a series of differentiations1 and the result is a change from homogeneity to heterogeneity4 ,such was ,baer's conclusion1 to which scanty justice is done by such a brief statement4 ,as all know1 his work marked an epoch in the study of embryology2 for to mark the successive differentiations in the embryos of a thousand animals was to write a thousand life histories upon correct principles4 ,here it was that ,mr4 ,spencer started4 ,as a young man1 he was chiefly interested in the study of political government and in history so far as it helps the study of politics4 ,a philosophical student of such subjects must naturally seek for a theory of evolution4 ,if ,i may cite my own experience1 it was largely the absorbing and overmastering passion for the study of history that first led me to study evolution in order to obtain a correct method4 ,when one has frequent occasion to refer to the political and social progress of the human race1 one likes to know what one is talking about4 ,mr4 ,spencer needed a theory of progress4 ,he could see that the civilized part of mankind has undergone some change from a bestial1 unsocial1 perpetually fighting stage of savagery into a partially peaceful and comparatively humane and social stage1 and that we may reasonably hope that the change in this direction will go on4 ,he could see1 too1 that along with this change there has been a building-up of tribes into nations1 a division of labour1 a differentiation of governmental functions1 a series of changes in the relations of the individual to the community4 ,to see so much as this is to whet one's craving for enlarged resources wherewith to study human progress4 ,mr4 ,spencer had a wide1 accurate1 and often profound acquaintance with botany1 zology1 and allied studies4 ,the question naturally occurred to him1 ,where do we find the process of development most completely exemplified from beginning to end1 so that we can follow and exhaustively describe its consecutive phases8 ,obviously in the development of the ovum4 ,there1 and only there1 do we get the whole process under our eyes from the first segmentation of the yolk to the death of the matured individual4 ,in other groups of phenomena we can only see a small part of what is going on2 they are too vast for us1 as in astronomy1 or too complicated1 as in sociology4 ,elsewhere our evidences of development are more or less piecemeal and scattered1 but in embryology we do get1 at any rate1 a connected story4 ,so ,mr4 ,spencer took up ,baer's problem1 and carried the solution of it much further than the great ,esthonian naturalist4 ,he showed that in the development of the ovum the change from homogeneity to heterogeneity is accompanied by a change from indefiniteness to definiteness2 there are segregations of similarly differentiated units resulting in the formation of definite organs4 ,he further showed that there is a parallel and equally important change from incoherence to coherence2 along with the division of labour among the units there is an organization of labour3 at first1 among the homogeneous units there is no subordination1--to subtract one would not alter the general aspect2 but at last1 among the heterogeneous organs there is such subordination and interdependence that to subtract any one is liable to undo the whole process and destroy the organism4 ,in other words1 integration is as much a feature of development as differentiation2 the change is not simply from a structureless whole into parts1 but it is from a structureless whole into an organized whole with a consensus of different functions1 and that is what we call an organism4 ,so while ,baer said that the evolution of the chick is a change from homogeneity to heterogeneity through successive differentiations1 ,mr4 ,spencer said that the evolution of the chick is a continuous change from indefinite incoherent homogeneity to definite coherent heterogeneity through successive differentiations and integrations4 ,but ,mr4 ,spencer had now done something more than describe exhaustively the evolution of an individual organism4 ,he had got a standard of high and low degrees of organization2 and the next thing in order was to apply this standard to the whole hierarchy of animals and plants according to their classified relationships and their succession in geological time4 ,this was done with most brilliant success4 ,from the earliest records in the rocks1 the general advance in types of organization has been an advance in definiteness1 coherence1 and heterogeneity4 ,the method of evolution in the life history of the animal and vegetal kingdoms has been like the method of evolution in the life history of the individual4 ,to go into the inorganic world with such a formula might seem rash4 ,but as the growth of organization is essentially a particular kind of redistribution of matter and motion1 and as redistribution of matter and motion is going on universally in the inorganic world1 it is interesting to inquire whether1 in such simple approaches toward organization as we find1 there is any approach toward the characteristics of organic evolution as above described4 ,it was easy for ,mr4 ,spencer to show that the change from a nebula into a planetary system conforms to the definition of evolution in a way that is most striking and suggestive4 ,but in studying the inorganic world ,mr4 ,spencer was led to modify his formula in a way that vastly increased its scope4 ,he came to see that the primary feature of evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion4 ,according to circumstances1 this process may or not be attended with extensive internal rearrangements and development of organization4 ,the continuous internal rearrangement implied in the development of organization is possible only where there is a medium degree of mobility among the particles1 a plasticity such as is secured only by those peculiar chemical combinations which make up what we call organic matter4 ,in the inorganic world1 where there is an approach to organization there is an adumbration of the law as realized in the organic world4 ,but in the former1 what strikes us most is the concentration of the mass with the retention of but little internal mobility2 in the latter1 what strikes us most is the wonderful complication of the transformations wrought by the immense amount of internal mobility retained4 ,these transformations are to us the mark1 the distinguishing feature1 of life4 ,having thus got the nature of the differences between the organic and inorganic worlds into a series of suggestive formulas1 the next thing to be done was to inquire into the applicability of the law of evolution to the higher manifestations of vital activity1--in other words1 to psychical and social life4 ,here it was easy to point out analogies between the development of society and the development of an organism4 ,between a savage state of society and a civilized state1 it is easy to see the contrasts in complexity of life1 in division of labour1 in interdependence and coherence of operations and of interests4 ,the difference resembles that between a vertebrate animal and a worm4 ,such analogies are instructive1 because at the bottom of the phenomena there is a certain amount of real identity4 ,but ,mr4 ,spencer did not stop with analogies2 he pursued his problem into much deeper regions4 ,there is one manifest distinction between a society and an organism4 ,in the organism1 the conscious life1 the psychical life1 is not in the parts1 but in the whole2 but in a society1 there is no such thing as corporate consciousness3 the psychical life is all in the individual men and women4 ,the highest development of this psychical life is the end for which the world exists4 ,the object of social life is the highest spiritual welfare of the individual members of society4 ,the individual human soul thus comes to be as much the centre of the ,spencerian world as it was the centre of the world of medival theology2 and the history of the evolution of conscious intelligence becomes a theme of surpassing interest4 ,this is the part of his subject which ,mr4 ,spencer has handled in the most masterly manner4 ,nothing in the literature of psychology is more remarkable than the long-sustained analysis in which he starts with complicated acts of quantitative reasoning and resolves them into their elementary processes1 and then goes on to simpler acts of judgment and perception1 and then down to sensation1 and so on resolving and resolving1 until he gets down to the simple homogeneous psychical shocks or pulses in the manifold compounding and recompounding of which all mental action consists4 ,then1 starting afresh from that conception of life as the continuous adjustment of inner relations within the organism to outer relations in the environment1--a conception of which he made such brilliant use in his ,principles of ,biology1--he shows how the psychical life gradually becomes specialized in certain classes of adjustments or correspondences1 and how the development of psychical life consists in a progressive differentiation and integration of such correspondences4 ,intellectual life is shown to have arisen by slow gradations1 and the special interpretations of reflex action1 instinct1 memory1 reason1 emotion1 and will are such as to make the ,principles of ,psychology indubitably the most suggestive book upon mental phenomena that was ever written4 ,toward the end of the first edition of the ,origin of ,species1 published in #ahei1 ,mr4 ,darwin looked forward to a distant future when the conception of gradual development might be applied to the phenomena of intelligence4 ,but the first edition of the ,principles of ,psychology1 in which this was so successfully done1 had already been published four years before1--in #ahee1--so that ,mr4 ,darwin in later editions was obliged to modify his statement1 and confess that1 instead of looking so far forward1 he had better have looked about him4 ,i remember hearing ,mr4 ,darwin laugh merrily over this at his own expense4 ,this extension of the doctrine of evolution to psychical phenomena was what made it a universal doctrine1 an account of the way in which the world1 as we know it1 has been evolved4 ,there is no subject1 great or small1 that has not come to be affected by the doctrine1 and1 whether men realize it or not1 there is no nook or corner in speculative science where they can get away from the sweep of ,mr4 ,spencer's thought4 ,this extension of the doctrine to psychical phenomena is by many people misunderstood4 ,the ,principles of ,psychology is a marvel of straightforward and lucid statement2 but1 from its immense reach and from the abstruseness of the subject1 it is not easy reading4 ,it requires a sustained attention such as few people can command1 except on subjects with which they are already familiar4 ,hence few people read it in comparison with the number who have somehow got it into their heads that ,mr4 ,spencer tries to explain mind as evolved out of matter1 and is therefore a materialist4 ,how many worthy critics have been heard to object to the doctrine of evolution that you cannot deduce mind from the primeval nebula1 unless the germs of mind were present already6 ,but that is just what ,mr4 ,spencer says himself4 ,i have heard him say it more than once1 and his books contain many passages of equivalent import4#f ,he never misses an opportunity for attacking the doctrine that mind can be explained as evolved from matter4 ,but1 in spite of this1 a great many people suppose that the gradual evolution of mind must mean its evolution out of matter1 and are deaf to arguments of which they do not perceive the bearing4 ,hence ,mr4 ,spencer is so commonly accredited with the doctrine which he so earnestly repudiates4 ,but there is another reason why people are apt to suppose the doctrine of evolution to be materialistic in its implications4 ,there are able writers who have done good service in illustrating portions of the general doctrine1 and are at the same time avowed materialists4 ,one may be a materialist1 whatever his scientific theory of things2 and to such a person the materialism naturally seems to be a logical consequence from the scientific theory4 ,we have received this evening a communication from ,professor ,ernst ,haeckel1 of ,jena1 in which he lays down five theses regarding the doctrine of evolution3-- #a4 ,the general doctrine appears to be already unassailably founded2 #b4 ,thereby every supernatural creation is completely excluded2 #c4 ,transformism and the theory of descent are inseparable constituent parts of the doctrine of evolution2 #d4 ,the necessary consequence of this last conclusion is the descent of man from a series of vertebrates4 ,so far1 very good2 we are within the limits of scientific competence1 where ,professor ,haeckel is strong4 ,but now1 in his fifth thesis1 he enters the region of metaphysics1--the transcendental region1 which science has no competent methods of exploring1--and commits himself to a dogmatic assertion3 #e4 ,the beliefs in an 'immortal soul' and in 'a personal ,god' are therewith 7i4 e41 with the four preceding statements7 completely ununitable 7vllig unvereinbar74 ,now1 if ,professor ,haeckel had contented himself with asserting that these two beliefs are not susceptible of scientific demonstration2 if he had simply said that they are beliefs concerning which a scientific man1 in his scientific capacity1 ought to refrain from making assertions1 because ,science knows nothing whatever about the subject1 he would have occupied an impregnable position4 ,his fifth thesis would have been as indisputable as his first four4 ,but ,professor ,haeckel does not stop here4 ,he declares virtually that if an evolutionist is found entertaining the beliefs in a personal ,god and an immortal soul1 nevertheless these beliefs are not philosophically reconcilable with his scientific theory of things1 but are mere remnants of an old-fashioned superstition from which he has not succeeded in freeing himself4 ,here one must pause to inquire what ,professor ,haeckel means by a personal ,god4 ,if he refers to the ,latin conception of a ,god remote from the world of phenomena1 and manifested only through occasional interference1--the conception that has until lately prevailed in the ,western world since the time of ,st4 ,augustine1--then we may agree with him2 the practical effect of the doctrine of evolution is to abolish such a conception4 ,but with regard to the ,greek conception entertained by ,st4 ,athanasius2 the conception of ,god as immanent in the world of phenomena and manifested in every throb of its mighty rhythmical life2 the deity that ,richard ,hooker1 prince of ,english churchmen1 had in mind when he wrote of ,natural ,law that her seat is the bosom of ,god1 and her voice the harmony of the world1--with regard to this conception the practical effect of the doctrine of evolution is not to abolish1 but to strengthen and confirm it4 ,for1 into whatever province of ,nature we carry our researches1 the more deeply we penetrate into its laws and methods of action1 the more clearly do we see that all provinces of ,nature are parts of an organic whole animated by a single principle of life that is infinite and eternal4 ,i have no doubt ,professor ,haeckel would not only admit this1 but would scout any other view as inconsistent with the monism which he professes4 ,but he would say that this infinite and eternal principle of life is not psychical1 and therefore cannot be called in any sense a personal ,god4 ,in an ultimate analysis1 ,i suspect ,professor ,haeckel's ubiquitous monistic principle would turn out to be neither more nor less than ,dr4 ,bchner's mechanical force 7,kraft74 ,on the other hand1 ,i have sought to show--in my little book ,the ,idea of ,god--that the ,infinite and ,eternal ,power that animates the universe must be psychical in its nature1 that any attempt to reduce it to mechanical force must end in absurdity1 and that the only kind of monism which will stand the test of an ultimate analysis is monotheism4 ,while in the chapter on ,anthropomorphic ,theism1 in my ,cosmic ,philosophy1 ,i have taken great pains to point out the difficulties in which 7as finite thinkers7 we are involved when we try to conceive the ,infinite and ,eternal ,power as psychical in his nature1 ,i have in the chapter on ,matter and ,spirit1 in that same book1 taken equal pains to show that we are logically compelled thus to conceive ,him4 ,one's attitude toward such problems is likely to be determined by one's fundamental conception of psychical life4 ,to a materialist the ultimate power is mechanical force1 and psychical life is nothing but the temporary and local result of fleeting collocations of material elements in the shape of nervous systems4 ,into the endless circuit of transformations of molecular motion1 says the materialist1 there enter certain phases which we call feelings and thoughts2 they are part of the circuit2 they arise out of motions of material molecules1 and disappear by being retransformed into such motions3 hence1 with the death of the organism in which such motions have been temporarily gathered into a kind of unity1 all psychical activity and all personality are ipso facto abolished4 ,such is the materialistic doctrine1 and such1 ,i presume1 is what ,professor ,haeckel has in mind when he asserts that the belief in an immortal soul is incompatible with the doctrine of evolution4 ,the theory commonly called that of the correlation of forces1 and which might equally well or better be called the theory of the metamorphosis of motions1 is indispensable to the doctrine of evolution4 ,but for the theory that light1 heat1 electricity1 and nerve-action are different modes of undulatory motion transformable one into another1 and that similar modes of motion are liberated by the chemical processes going on within the animal or vegetal organism1 ,mr4 ,spencer's work could never have been done4 ,that theory of correlation and transformation is now generally accepted1 and is often appealed to by materialists4 ,a century ago ,cabanis said that the brain secretes thought as the liver secretes bile4 ,if he were alive to-day1 he would doubtless smile at this old form of expression as crude1 and would adopt a more subtle phrase2 he would say that thought is transformed motion4 ,against this interpretation ,i have maintained that the theory of correlation not only fails to support it1 but actually overthrows it4 ,the arguments may be found in the chapter on ,matter and ,spirit1 in my ,cosmic ,philosophy1 published in #ahgd1 and in the essay entitled ,a ,crumb for the ,modern ,symposium1 written in #ahgg1 and reprinted in ,darwinism and ,other ,essays4#g ,their purport is1 that in tracing the correlation of motions into the organism through the nervous system and out again1 we are bound to get an account of each step in terms of motion4 ,unless we can show that every unit of motion that disappears is transformed into an exact quantitative equivalent1 our theory of correlation breaks down2 but when we have shown this we shall have given a complete account of the whole affair without taking any heed whatever of thought1 feeling1 or consciousness4 ,in other words1 these psychical activities do not enter into the circuit1 but stand outside of it1 as a segment of a circle may stand outside a portion of an entire circumference with which it is concentric4 ,motion is never transformed into thought1 but only into some other form of measurable 7in fact1 or at any rate in theory1 measurable7 motion that takes place in nerve-threads and ganglia4 ,it is not the thought1 but the nerve-action that accompanies the thought1 that is really transformed motion4 ,i say that if we are going to verify the theory of correlation1 it must be done 7actually or theoretically7 by measurement2 quantitative equivalence must be proved at every step2 and hence we must not change our unit of measurement2 from first to last it must be a unit of motion3 if we change it for a moment1 our theory of correlation that moment collapses4 ,i say1 therefore1 that the theory of correlation and equivalence of forces lends no support whatever to materialism4 ,on the contrary1 its manifest implication is that psychical life cannot be a mere product of temporary collocations of matter4 ,the argument here set forth is my own4 ,when ,i first used it1 ,i had never met with it anywhere in books or conversation4 ,whether it has since been employed by other writers ,i do not know1 for during the past fifteen years ,i have read very few books on such subjects4 ,at all events1 it is an argument for which ,i am ready to bear the full responsibility4 ,some doubt has recently been expressed whether ,mr4 ,spencer would admit the force of this argument4 ,it has been urged by ,mr4 ,s4 ,h4 ,wilder1 in two able papers published in the ,new ,york ,daily ,tribune1 ,june #ac and ,july #d1 #ahij1 that the use of this argument marks a radical divergence on my part from ,mr4 ,spencer's own position4 ,it is true that in several passages of ,first ,principles there are statements which either imply or distinctly assert that motion can be transformed into feeling and thought1--e4 g43 ,those modes of the ,unknowable which we call heat1 light1 chemical affinity1 etc41 are alike transformable into each other1 and into those modes of the ,unknowable which we distinguish as sensation1 emotion1 thought2 these1 in their turns1 being directly or indirectly retransformable into the original shapes2#h and again1 it is said to be a necessary deduction from the law of correlation that what exists in consciousness under the form of feeling is transformable into an equivalent of mechanical motion1 etc4#i ,now1 if this1 as literally interpreted1 be ,mr4 ,spencer's deliberate opinion1 ,i entirely dissent from it4 ,to speak of quantitative equivalence between a unit of feeling and a unit of motion seems to me to be talking nonsense1--to be combining terms which severally possess a meaning into a phrase which has no meaning4 ,i am therefore inclined to think that the above sentences1 literally interpreted1 do not really convey ,mr4 ,spencer's opinion4 ,they appear manifestly inconsistent1 moreover1 with other passages in which he has taken much more pains to explain his position4#aj ,in the sentence from page #eeh of ,first ,principles1 ,mr4 ,spencer appears to me to mean that the nerve-action1 which is the objective concomitant of what is subjectively known as feeling1 is transformable into an equivalent of mechanical motion4 ,when he wrote that sentence perhaps he had not shaped the case quite so distinctly in his own mind as he had a few years later1 when he made the more elaborate statements in the second edition of the ,psychology4 ,though in these more elaborate statements he does not assert the doctrine ,i have here maintained1 yet they seem consistent with it4 ,when ,i was finishing the chapter on ,matter and ,spirit1 in my room in ,london1 one afternoon in ,february1 #ahgd1 ,mr4 ,spencer came in1 and ,i read to him nearly the whole chapter1 including my argument from correlation above mentioned4 ,he expressed warm approval of the chapter1 without making any specific qualifications4 ,in the course of the chapter ,i had occasion to quote a passage from the ,psychology1#aa in which ,mr4 ,spencer twice inadvertently used the phrase nervous shock where he meant psychical shock4 ,as his object was to keep the psychical phenomena and their cerebral concomitants distinct in his argument1 this colloquial use of the word nervous was liable to puzzle the reader1 and give querulous critics a chance to charge ,mr4 ,spencer with the materialistic implications which it was his express purpose to avoid4 ,accordingly1 in my quotation ,i changed the word nervous to psychical1 using brackets and explaining my reasons4 ,on showing all this to ,mr4 ,spencer1 he desired me to add in a footnote that he thoroughly approved the emendation4 ,i mention this incident because our common1 every-day speech abounds in expressions that have a materialistic flavour2 and sometimes in serious writing an author's sheer intentness upon his main argument may lead him to overlook some familiar form of expression which1 when thrown into a precise and formal context1 will strike the reader in a very different way from what the author intended4 ,i am inclined to explain in this way the passages in ,first ,principles which are perhaps chiefly responsible for the charge of materialism that has so often and so wrongly been brought up against the doctrine of evolution4 ,as regards the theological implications of the doctrine of evolution1 ,i have never undertaken to speak for ,mr4 ,spencer2 on such transcendental subjects it is quite enough if one speaks for one's self4 ,it is told of ,diogenes that1 on listening one day to a sophistical argument against the possibility of motion1 he grimly got up out of his tub and walked across the street4 ,whether his adversaries were convinced or not1 we are not told4 ,probably not2 it is but seldom that adversaries are convinced4 ,so1 when ,professor ,haeckel declares that belief in a personal ,god and an immortal soul is incompatible with acceptance of the doctrine of evolution1 ,i can only say1 for myself--however much or little the personal experience may be worth--,i find that the beliefs in the psychical nature of ,god and in the immortality of the human soul seem to harmonize infinitely better with my general system of cosmic philosophy than the negation of these beliefs4 ,if ,professor ,haeckel1 or any other writer1 prefers a materialistic interpretation1 very well4 ,i neither quarrel with him nor seek to convert him2 but ,i do not agree with him4 ,i do not pretend that my opinion on these matters is susceptible of scientific demonstration4 ,neither is his4 ,i say1 then1 that his fifth thesis has no business in a series of scientific generalizations about the doctrine of evolution4 ,far beyond the limits of what scientific methods1 based upon our brief terrestrial experience1 can demonstrate1 there lies on every side a region with regard to which ,science can only suggest questions4 ,as ,goethe so profoundly says3-- ,willst du ins ,unendliche streiten1 ,geh' nur im ,endlichen nach allen ,seiten4#ab ,it is of surpassing interest that the particular generalization which has been extended into a universal formula of evolution should have been the generalization of the development of an ovum4 ,in enlarging the sphere of life in such wise as to make the whole universe seem actuated by a single principle of life1 we are introduced to regions of sublime speculation4 ,the doctrine of evolution1 which affects our thought about all things1 brings before us with vividness the conception of an ever present ,god1--not an absentee ,god who once manufactured a cosmic machine capable of running itself1 except for a little jog or poke here and there in the shape of a special providence4 ,the doctrine of evolution destroys the conception of the world as a machine4 ,it makes ,god our constant refuge and support1 and ,nature his true revelation2 and when all its religious implications shall have been set forth1 it will be seen to be the most potent ally that ,christianity has ever had in elevating mankind4 ,march1 #ahij4 ,,iii ,,edward ,,livingston ,,youmans#ac ,in one of the most beautiful of all the shining pages of his ,history of the ,spanish ,conquest in ,america1 ,sir ,arthur ,helps describes the way in which1 through some fitness of the season1 whether in great scientific discoveries or in the breaking into light of some great moral cause1 the same processes are going on in many minds1 and it seems as if they communicated with each other invisibly4 ,we may imagine that all good powers aid the 'new light1' and brave and wise thoughts about it float aloft in the atmosphere of thought as downy seeds are borne over the fruitful face of the earth4#ad ,the thinker who elaborates a new system of philosophy1 deeper and more comprehensive than any yet known to mankind1 though he may work in solitude1 nevertheless does not work alone4 ,the very fact which makes his great scheme of thought a success1 and not a failure1 is the fact that it puts into definite and coherent shape the ideas which many people are more or less vaguely and loosely entertaining1 and that it carries to a grand and triumphant conclusion processes of reasoning in which many persons have already begun taking the earlier steps4 ,this community in mental trend between the immortal discoverer and many of the brightest contemporary minds1 far from diminishing the originality of his work1 constitutes the feature of it which makes it a permanent acquisition for mankind1 and distinguishes it from the eccentric philosophies which now and then come up to startle the world for a while1 and are presently discarded and forgotten4 ,the history of modern physics--as in the case of the correlation of forces and the undulatory theory of light--furnishes us with many instances of wise thoughts floating like downy seeds in the atmosphere until the moment has come for them to take root4 ,and so it has been with the greatest achievement of modern thinking1--the doctrine of evolution4 ,students and investigators in all departments1 alike in the physical and in the historical sciences1 were fairly driven by the nature of the phenomena before them into some hypothesis1 more or less vague1 of gradual and orderly change or development4 ,the world was ready and waiting for ,herbert ,spencer's mighty work when it came1 and it was for that reason that it was so quickly triumphant over the old order of thought4 ,the victory has been so thorough1 swift1 and decisive that it will take another generation to narrate the story of it so as to do it full justice4 ,meanwhile1 people's minds are apt to be somewhat dazed with the rapidity and wholesale character of the change2 and nothing is more common than to see them adopting ,mr4 ,spencer's ideas without recognizing them as his or knowing whence they got them4 ,as fast as ,mr4 ,spencer could set forth his generalizations they were taken hold of here and there by special workers1 each in his own department1 and utilized therein4 ,his general system was at once seized1 assimilated1 and set forth with new illustrations by serious thinkers who were already groping in the regions of abstruse thought which the master's vision pierced so clearly4 ,and thus the doctrine of evolution has come to be inseparably interfused with the whole mass of thinking in our day and generation4 ,i do not mean to imply that people commonly entertain very clear ideas about it1 for clear ideas are not altogether common4 ,i suspect that a good many people would hesitate if asked to state exactly what ,newton's law of gravitation is4 ,among the men in ,america whose minds1 between thirty and forty years ago1 were feeling their way toward some such unified conception of nature as ,mr4 ,spencer was about to set forth in all its dazzling glory1--among the men who were thus prepared to grasp the doctrine of evolution at once and expound it with fresh illustrations1--the first in the field was the man to whose memory we have met here this evening to pay a brief word of tribute4 ,it is but a little while since that noble face was here with us1 and the tones of that kindly voice were fraught with good cheer for us4 ,to most of you1 ,i presume1 the man ,edward ,livingston ,youmans is still a familiar presence4 ,there must be many here this evening who listened to the tidings of his death three years ago with a sense of personal bereavement4 ,no one who knew him is likely ever to forget him4 ,but for those who remember distinctly the man it may not be superfluous to recount the principal incidents of his life and work4 ,it is desirable that the story should be set forth concisely1 so as to be remembered2 for the work was like the man1 unselfish and unobtrusive1 and in the hurry and complication of modern life such work is liable to be lost from sight1 so that people profit by it without knowing that it was ever done4 ,so genuinely modest1 so utterly destitute of self-regarding impulses1 was our friend1 that ,i believe it would be quite like him to chide us for thus drawing public attention to him1 as he would think1 with too much emphasis4 ,but such mild reproof it is right that we should disregard2 for the memory of a life so beautiful and useful is a precious possession of which mankind ought not to be deprived4 ,edward ,livingston ,youmans was born in the town of ,coeymans1 ,albany ,county1 ,n4,y41 on the #c;d of ,june1 #ahba4 ,from his father and mother1 both of whom survived him1 he inherited strong traits of character as well as an immense fund of vital energy1 such that the failure of health a few years ago seemed 7to me1 at least7 surprising4 ,his father1 ,vincent ,youmans1 was a man of independent character1 strong convictions1 and perfect moral courage1 with a quick and ready tongue1 in the use of which earnestness and frankness perhaps sometimes prevailed over prudence4 ,the mother1 ,catherine ,scofield1 was notable for balance of judgment1 prudence1 and tact4 ,the mother's grandfather was ,irish2 and while ,i very much doubt the soundness of the generalizations we are so prone to make about race characteristics1 ,i cannot but feel that for the impulsive--one had almost said explosive--warmth of sympathy1 the enchanting grace and vivacity of manner1 in ,edward ,youmans1 this strain of ,irish blood may have been to some extent accountable4 ,both father and mother belonged to the old ,puritan stock of ,new ,england1 and the father's ancestry was doubtless purely ,english4 ,nothing could be more honourably or characteristically ,english than the name4 ,in the old feudal society1 the yeoman1 like the franklin1 was the small freeholder1 owning a modest estate1 yet holding it by no servile tenure2 a man of the common people1 yet no churl2 a member of the state who knew his rights1 and knowing dared maintain4 ,few indeed were the nooks and corners outside of merry ,england where such men flourished as the yeomen and franklins who founded democratic ,new ,england4 ,it has often been remarked how the most illustrious of ,franklins exemplified the typical virtues of his class4 ,there was much that was similar in the temperament and disposition of ,edward ,youmans1--the sagacity and penetration1 the broad common sense1 the earnest purpose veiled but not hidden by the blithe humour1 the devotion to ends of wide practical value1 the habit of making in the best sense the most out of life4 ,when ,edward was but six months old1 his parents moved to ,greenfield1 near ,saratoga ,springs4 ,with a comfortable house and three acres of land1 his father kept a wagon shop and smithy4 ,in those days1 while it was hard work to wring a subsistence out of the soil or to prosper upon any of the vocations which rural life permitted1 there was doubtless more independence of character and real thriftiness than in our time1 when cities and tariffs have so sapped the strength of the farming country4 ,in the family of ,vincent ,youmans1 though rigid economy was practised1 books were reckoned to a certain extent among the necessaries of life1 and the house was one in which neighbours were fond of gathering to discuss questions of politics or theology1 social reform or improvements in agriculture4 ,on all such questions ,vincent ,youmans was apt to have ideas of his own2 he talked with enthusiasm1 and was also ready to listen2 and he evidently supplied an intellectual stimulus to the whole community4 ,for a boy of bright and inquisitive mind1 listening to such talk is no mean source of education4 ,it often goes much further than the reading of books4 ,from an early age ,edward ,youmans seems to have appropriated all such means of instruction4 ,he had that insatiable thirst for knowledge which is one of ,god's best gifts to man2 for he who is born with this appetite must needs be grievously ill made in other respects if it does not constrain him to lead a happy and useful life4 ,after ten years at ,greenfield the family moved to a farm at ,milton1 some two miles distant4 ,until his sixteenth year ,edward helped his father at farm work in the summer1 and attended the district school in winter4 ,it was his good fortune at that time to fall into the hands of a teacher who had a genius for teaching1--a man who in those days of rote-learning did not care to have things learned by heart1 but sought to stimulate the thinking powers of his pupils1 and who in that age of canes and ferules never found it necessary to use such means of discipline1 because the fear of displeasing him was of itself all-sufficient4 ,experience of the methods of such a man was enough to sharpen one's disgust for the excessive mechanism1 the rigid and stupid manner of teaching1 which characterize the ordinary school4 ,in after years ,youmans used to say that ,uncle ,good--as this admirable pedagogue was called--first taught him what his mind was for4 ,through intercourse and training of this sort he learned to doubt1 to test the soundness of opinions1 to make original inquiries1 and to find and follow clues4 ,but even the best of teachers can effect but little unless he finds a mind ready of itself to take the initiative4 ,it is doubtful if men of eminent ability are ever made so by schooling4 ,the school offers opportunities1 but in such men the tendency to the initiative is so strong that if opportunities are not offered they will somehow contrive to create them4 ,when ,edward ,youmans was about thirteen years old he persuaded his father to buy him a copy of ,comstock's ,natural ,philosophy4 ,this book he studied at home by himself1 and repeated many of the experiments with apparatus of his own contriving4 ,when he made a centrifugal water wheel1 and explained to the men and boys of the neighbourhood the principle of its revolution in a direction opposite to that of the stream which moved it1 we may regard it as his earliest attempt at giving scientific lectures4 ,it was natural that one who had become interested in physics should wish to study chemistry4 ,the teacher 7who was not ,uncle ,good7 had never so much as laid eyes on a textbook of chemistry2 but ,edward was not to be daunted by such trifles4 ,a copy of ,comstock's manual was procured1 another pupil was found willing to join in the study1 and this class of two proceeded to learn what they could from reading the book1 while the teacher asked them the printed questions1--those questions the mere existence of which in textbooks is apt to show what a low view publishers take of the average intelligence of teachers6 ,it was not a very hopeful way of studying such a subject as chemistry2 but doubtless the time was not wasted1 and the foundations for a future knowledge of chemistry were laid4 ,the experience of farm work which accompanied these studies explains the interest which in later years ,mr4 ,youmans felt in agricultural chemistry4 ,he came to realize how crude and primitive are our methods of making the earth yield its produce1 and it was his opinion that when men have once learned how to conduct agriculture upon sound scientific principles1 farming will become at once the most wholesome and the most attractive form of human industry4 ,along with the elementary studies in science there went a great deal of miscellaneous reading1 mostly1 it would appear1 of good solid books4 ,apparently there was at that time no study of languages1 ancient or modern4 ,at the age of seventeen the young man had shown so much promise that it was decided he should study law1 and he had already entered upon a more extensive course of preparation in an academy in ,saratoga ,county when the event occurred which changed the whole course of his life4 ,he had been naturally gifted with keen and accurate vision1 was a good sports-man and an excellent shot with a rifle2 but at about the age of thirteen there had come an attack of ophthalmia1 which left the eyes weak and sensitive4 ,perpetual reading probably increased the difficulty and hindered complete recovery4 ,at the age of seventeen violent inflammation set in2 the sight in one eye was completely lost1 while in the other it grew so dim as to be of little avail4 ,sometimes he would be just able to find his way about the streets1 at other times the blindness was almost total2 and this state of things lasted for nearly thirteen years4 ,this dreadful calamity seemed to make it impossible to continue any systematic course of study1 and the outlook for satisfactory work of any sort was extremely discouraging4 ,the first necessity was medical assistance1 and in quest of this ,mr4 ,youmans came in the autumn of #ahci to ,new ,york1 where for the most part he spent the remainder of his life4 ,until #ahea he was under the care of an oculist4 ,under such circumstances1 if a man of eager energy and boundless intellectual craving were to be overwhelmed with despondency1 we could not call it strange4 ,if he were to become dependent upon friends for the means of support1 it would be ungracious1 if not unjust1 to blame him4 ,but ,edward ,youmans was not made of the stuff that acquiesces in defeat4 ,he rose superior to calamity2 he won the means of livelihood1 and in darkness entered upon the path to an enviable fame4 ,at first he had to resign himself to spending weary weeks over tasks that with sound eyesight could have been dispatched in as many days4 ,he invented some kind of writing machine1 which held his paper firmly1 and enabled his pen to follow straight lines at proper distances apart4 ,long practice of this sort gave his handwriting a peculiar character which it retained in later years4 ,when ,i first saw it in #ahfc it seemed almost undecipherable2 but that was far from being the case1 and after ,i had grown used to it ,i found it but little less legible than the most beautiful chirography4 ,the strokes1 gnarled and jagged as they were1 had a method in their madness1 and every pithy sentence went straight as an arrow to its mark4 ,while conquering these physical obstacles ,mr4 ,youmans began writing for the press1 and gradually entered into relations with leading newspapers which became more and more important and useful as years went on4 ,he became acquainted with ,horace ,greeley1 ,william ,henry ,charming1 and other gentlemen who were interested in social reforms4 ,his sympathies were strongly enlisted with the little party of abolitionists1 then held in such scornful disfavour by all other parties4 ,he was also interested in the party of temperance1 which1 as he and others were afterward to learn1 compounded for its essential uprightness of purpose by indulging in very gross intemperance of speech and action4 ,the disinterestedness which always characterized him was illustrated by his writing many articles for a temperance paper which could not afford to pay its contributors1 although he was struggling with such disadvantages in earning his own livelihood and carrying on his scientific studies4 ,those were days when leading reformers believed that by some cunningly contrived alteration of social arrangements our human nature1 with all its inheritance from countless ages of brutality1 can somehow be made over all in a moment1 just as one would go to work with masons and carpenters and revamp a house4 ,there are many good people who still labour under such a delusion4 ,though ,mr4 ,youmans was brought into frequent contact with reformers of this sort1 it does not seem to me that his mind was ever deeply impressed with such ways of thinking4 ,science is teaching us that the method of evolution is that mill of ,god1 of which we have heard1 which1 while it grinds with infinite efficacy1 yet grinds with wearisome slowness4 ,it was ,mr4 ,darwin's discovery of natural selection which first brought this truth home to us2 but ,sir ,charles ,lyell had in #ahcj shown how enormous effects are wrought by the cumulative action of slight and unobtrusive causes1 and this had much to do with turning men's minds toward some conception of evolution4 ,it was about #ahdg that ,mr4 ,youmans was deeply interested in the work of geologists1 as well as in the ,nebular ,theory1 to which recent discoveries were adding fresh confirmation4 ,some time before this he had read that famous book ,vestiges of ,creation1 and although ,professor ,agassiz truly declared that it was an unscientific book1 crammed with antiquated and exploded fancies1 ,i suspect that ,mr4 ,youmans felt that amid all the chaff there was a very sound and sturdy kernel of truth4 ,among the books which ,mr4 ,youmans projected at this time1 the first was a compendious history of progress in discovery and invention2 but1 after he had made extensive preparations1 a book was published so similar in scope and treatment that he abandoned the undertaking4 ,another work was a treatise on arithmetic1 on a new and philosophical plan2 but1 when this was approaching completion1 he again found himself anticipated1 this time by the book of ,horace ,mann4 ,this was discouraging enough1 but a third venture resulted in a brilliant success4 ,we have observed the eagerness with which1 as a schoolboy1 ,mr4 ,youmans entered upon the study of chemistry4 ,his interest in this science grew with years1 and he devoted himself to it so far as was practicable4 ,for a blind man to carry on the study of a science which is preminently one of observation and experiment might seem hopeless4 ,it was at any rate absolutely necessary to see with the eyes of others1 if not with his own4 ,here the assistance rendered by his sister was invaluable4 ,during most of this period she served as amanuensis and reader for him4 ,but1 more than this1 she kept up for some time a course of laboratory work1 the results of which were minutely described to her brother and discussed with him in the evenings4 ,the lectures of ,dr4 ,john ,william ,draper on chemistry were also thoroughly discussed and pondered4 ,the conditions under which ,mr4 ,youmans worked made it necessary for him to consider every point with the extreme deliberation involved in framing distinct mental images of things and processes which he could not watch with the eye4 ,it was hard discipline1 but he doubtless profited from it4 ,nature had endowed him with an unusually clear head1 but this enforced method must have made it still clearer4 ,one of the most notable qualities of his mind was the absolute luminousness with which he saw things and the relations among things4 ,it was this quality that made him so successful as an expounder of scientific truths4 ,in the course of his pondering over chemical facts which he was obliged to take at second hand1 it occurred to him that most of the pupils in common schools who studied chemistry were practically no better off4 ,it was easy enough for schools to buy textbooks1 but difficult for them to provide laboratories and apparatus2 and it was much easier withal to find teachers who could ask questions out of a book than those who could use apparatus if provided4 ,it was customary1 therefore1 to learn chemistry by rote2 or1 in other words1 pupils' heads were crammed with unintelligible statements about things with queer names1--such as manganese or tellurium1--which they had never seen1 and would not know if they were to see them4 ,it occurred to ,mr4 ,youmans that if visible processes could not be brought before pupils1 at any rate the fundamental conceptions of chemistry might be made clear by means of diagrams4 ,he began devising diagrams in different colours1 to illustrate the diversity in the atomic weights of the principal elements1 and the composition of the more familiar compounds4 ,at length1 by uniting his diagrams1 he obtained a comprehensive chart exhibiting the outlines of the whole scheme of chemical combination according to the binary or dualist theory then in vogue4 ,this chart1 when published1 was a great success4 ,it not only facilitated the acquirement of clear ideas1 but it was suggestive of new ideas4 ,it proved very popular1 and kept the field until the binary theory was overthrown by the modern doctrine of substitution1 which does not lend itself so readily to graphic treatment4 ,the success of the chemical chart led to the writing of a textbook of chemistry4 ,this laborious work was completed in #ahea1 when ,mr4 ,youmans was thirty years old4 ,professor ,silliman was then regarded as one of our foremost authorities in chemistry1 but it was at once remarked of the new book that it showed quite as thorough a mastery of the whole subject of chemical combination as ,silliman's4 ,it was a textbook of a kind far less common then than now4 ,there was nothing dry about it4 ,the subject was presented with beautiful clearness1 in a most attractive style4 ,there was a firm grasp of the philosophical principles underlying chemical phenomena1 and the meaning and functions of the science were set forth in such a way as to charm the student and make him wish for more4 ,the book had an immediate and signal success2 in after years it was twice rewritten by the author1 to accommodate it to the rapid advances made by the science1 and it is still one of our best textbooks of chemistry4 ,it has had a sale of about one hundred and fifty thousand copies4 ,the publication of this book at once established its author's reputation as a scientific writer1 and in another way it marked an era in his life4 ,the long1 distressing period of darkness now came to an end4 ,sight was so far recovered in one eye that it became possible to go about freely1 to read1 to recognize friends1 to travel1 and make much of life4 ,i am told that his face had acquired an expression characteristic of the blind1 but that expression was afterward completely lost4 ,when ,i knew him it would never have occurred to me that his sight was imperfect1 except perhaps as regards length of range4 ,youmans' career as a scientific lecturer now began4 ,his first lecture was the beginning of a series on the relations of organic life to the atmosphere4 ,it was illustrated with chemical apparatus1 and was given in a private room in ,new ,york to an audience which filled the room4 ,probably no lecturer ever faced his first audience without some trepidation1 and ,youmans had not the mainstay and refuge afforded by a manuscript1 for his sight was never good enough to make such an aid available for his lectures4 ,at first the right words were slow in finding their way to those ready lips1 and his friends were beginning to grow anxious1 when all at once a happy accident broke the spell4 ,he was remarking upon the characteristic inertness of nitrogen1 and pointing to a jar of that gas on the table before him1 when some fidgety movement of his knocked the jar off the table4 ,he improved the occasion with one of his quaint bons mots1 and1 as there is nothing that greases the wheels of life like a laugh1 the lecture went on to a successful close4 ,this was the beginning of a busy career of seventeen years of lecturing1 ending in #ahfh2 and ,i believe it is safe to say that few things were done in all those years of more vital and lasting benefit to the ,american people than this broadcast sowing of the seeds of scientific thought in the lectures of ,edward ,youmans4 ,they came just at the time when the world was ripe for the doctrine of evolution1 when all the wondrous significance of the trend of scientific discovery since ,newton's time was beginning to burst upon men's minds4 ,the work of ,lyell in geology1 followed at length in #ahei by the ,darwinian theory2 the doctrine of the correlation of forces and the consequent unity of nature2 the extension and reformation of chemical theory2 the simultaneous advance made in sociological inquiry1 and in the conception of the true aims and proper methods of education1--all this made the period a most fruitful one for the peculiar work of such a teacher as ,youmans4 ,the intellectual atmosphere was charged with conceptions of evolution4 ,youmans had arrived at such conceptions in the course of his study of the separate lines of scientific speculation which were now about to be summed up and organized by ,herbert ,spencer into that system of philosophy which marks the highest point to which the progressive intelligence of mankind has yet attained4 ,in the field of scientific generalization upon this great scale1 ,youmans was not an originator2 but his broadly sympathetic and luminous mind moved on a plane so near to that of the originators that he seized at once upon the grand scheme of thought as it was developed1 made it his own1 and brought to its interpretation and diffusion such a happy combination of qualities as one seldom meets with4 ,the ordinary popularizer of great and novel truths is a man who comprehends them but partially1 and illustrates them in a lame and fragmentary way4 ,but it was the peculiarity of ,youmans that while on the one hand he could grasp the newest scientific thought so surely and firmly that he seemed to have entered into the innermost mind of its author1 on the other hand he could speak to the general public in an extremely convincing and stimulating way4 ,this was the secret of his power1 and there can be no question that his influence in educating the ,american people to receive the doctrine of evolution was great and widespread4 ,the years when ,youmans was travelling and lecturing were the years when the old lyceum system of popular lectures was still in its vigour4 ,the kind of life led by the energetic lecturer in those days was not that of a ,sybarite1 as may be seen from a passage in one of his letters3 ,i lectured in ,sandusky1 and had to get up at five o'clock to reach ,elyria2 ,i had had but very little sleep4 ,to get from ,elyria to ,pittsburg ,i must take the five o'clock morning train1 and the hotel darky said he would try to waken me4 ,i knew what that meant1 and so did not get a single wink of sleep that night4 ,rode all day to ,pittsburg1 and had to lecture in the great ,academy of ,music over footlights4444 ,the train that left for ,zanesville departed at two in the morning4 ,i had been assured a hundred times 7for ,i asked everybody ,i met7 that ,i could get a sleeping-car to ,zanesville1 and when ,i was all ready to start ,i was informed that this morning there was no sleeping-car4 ,by the time ,i reached here ,i was pretty completely used up4 ,such a fatiguing life1 however1 has its compensations4 ,it brings the lecturer into friendly contact with the brightest minds among his fellow countrymen in many and many places1 and enlarges his sphere of influence in a way that is not easy to estimate4 ,clearly1 an earnest lecturer1 of commanding intelligence and charming manner1 with a great subject to teach1 must have an opportunity for sowing seeds that will presently ripen in a change of opinion or sentiment1 in an altered way of looking at things on the part of whole communities4 ,no lecturer has ever had a better opportunity of this sort than ,edward ,youmans1 and none ever made a better use of his opportunity4 ,his gifts as a talker were of the highest order4 ,the commonest and plainest story1 as told by ,edward ,youmans1 had all the breathless interest of the most thrilling romance4 ,absolutely unconscious of himself1 simple1 straightforward1 and vehement1 wrapped up in his subject1 the very embodiment of faith and enthusiasm1 of heartiness and good cheer1 it was delightful to hear him4 ,and when we join with all this his unfailing common sense1 his broad and kindly view of men and things1 and the delicious humour that kept flashing out in quaint1 pithy phrases such as no other man would have thought of1 and such as are the despair of any one trying to remember and quote them1 we can seem to imagine what a power he must have been with his lectures4 ,when such a man goes about for seventeen years1 teaching scientific truths for which the world is ripe1 we may be sure that his work is great1 albeit we have no standard whereby we can exactly measure it4 ,in hundreds of little towns with queer names did this strong personality appear and make its way and leave its effects in the shape of new thoughts1 new questions1 and enlarged hospitality of mind1 among the inhabitants4 ,the results of all this are surely visible to-day4 ,in no part of the ,english world has ,herbert ,spencer's philosophy met with such a general and cordial reception as in the ,united ,states4 ,this may no doubt be largely explained by a reference to general causes2 but as it is almost always necessary1 along with our general causes1 to take into the account some personal influence1 so it is in this case4 ,it is safe to say that among the agencies which during the past fifty years have so remarkably broadened the mind of the ,american people1 very few have been more potent than the gentle and subtle but pervasive work done by ,edward ,youmans with his lectures1 and to this has been largely due the hospitable reception of ,herbert ,spencer's ideas4 ,it was in #ahef that ,youmans fell in with a review of ,spencer's ,principles of ,psychology1 by ,dr4 ,morell1 in ,the ,medico-,chirurgical ,review4 ,this paper impressed him so deeply that he at once sent to ,london for a copy of the book1 which had been published in the preceding year4 ,it will be observed that this was four years before the ,darwinian theory was announced in the first edition of the ,origin of ,species4#ae ,after struggling for a while with the weighty problems of this book1 ,youmans saw that the theory expounded in it was a long stride in the direction of a general theory of evolution4 ,his interest in this subject received a new and fresh stimulus4 ,he read ,social ,statics1 and began to recognize ,spencer's hand in the anonymous articles in the quarterlies in which he was then announcing and illustrating various portions or segments of his newly discovered law of evolution4 ,one evening in ,february1 #ahfj1 as ,youmans was calling at a friend's house in ,brooklyn1 the ,rev4 ,samuel ,johnson1 of ,salem1 handed him the famous prospectus of the great series of philosophical works which ,spencer proposed to issue by subscription4 ,mr4 ,johnson had obtained this from ,edward ,silsbee1 who was one of the very first ,americans to become interested in ,spencer4 ,the very next day ,youmans wrote a letter to ,spencer1 offering his aid in procuring ,american subscriptions and otherwise facilitating the enterprise by every means in his power4 ,with this letter and ,spencer's cordial reply began the lifelong friendship between the two men4 ,it was in that same month that ,i first became aware of ,spencer's existence1 through a single paragraph quoted from him by ,lewes1 and in that paragraph there was immense fascination4 ,i had been steeping myself in the literature of modern philosophy1 starting with ,bacon and ,descartes1 and was then studying ,comte's ,philosophie ,positive1 which interested me as suggesting that the special doctrines of the several sciences might be organized into a general body of doctrine of universal significance4 ,comte's work was crude and often wildly absurd1 but there was much in it that was very suggestive4 ,in ,may1 #ahfj1 in the ,old ,corner ,bookstore in ,boston1 ,i fell upon a copy of that same prospectus of ,spencer's works1 and read it with exulting delight2 for clearly there was to be such an organization of scientific doctrine as the world was waiting for4 ,it appeared that there was some talk of ,ticknor ,fields undertaking to conduct the series in case subscriptions enough should be received4 ,spencer preferred to have his works appear in ,boston2 but when in the course of #ahfj his book on ,education was offered to ,ticknor ,fields1 they declined to publish it1--which was1 of course1 a grave mistake from the business point of view4 ,youmans1 however1 was not sorry for this1 for it gave him the opportunity to place ,spencer's books where he could do most to forward their success4 ,some years before1 during his blindness1 his sister had led him one day into the store of ,messrs4 ,d4 ,appleton ,co4 in quest of a book1 and ,mr4 ,william ,appleton had become warmly interested in him4 ,i believe the firm now look back to this chance visit as one of the most auspicious events in their annals4 ,youmans became by degrees a kind of adviser as regarded matters of publication1 and it was largely through his far-sighted advice that the ,appletons entered upon the publication of such books as those of ,buckle1 ,darwin1 ,huxley1 ,tyndall1 ,haeckel1 and others of like character2 always paying a royalty to the authors1 the same as to ,american authors1 in spite of the absence of an international copyright law4 ,as publishers of books of this sort the ,appletons have come to be preminent4 ,it is obvious enough nowadays that such books are profitable from a business point of view2 but thirty years and more ago this was by no means obvious4 ,we ,americans were terribly provincial4 ,reprints of ,english books and translations from ,french and ,german were sadly behind the times4 ,in the ,connecticut town where ,i lived1 people would begin to wake up to the existence of some great ,european book or system of thought after it had been before the world anywhere from a dozen to fifty years4 ,in those days1 therefore1 it required some boldness to undertake the reprinting of new scientific books2 and none have recognized more freely than the ,appletons the importance of the part played by ,youmans in this matter4 ,his work as adviser to a great publishing house and his work as lecturer reinforced each other1 and thus his capacity for usefulness was much increased4 ,when ,spencer's book on ,education failed to find favour in ,boston the ,appletons took it1 and thus presently secured the management of the philosophical series4 ,this brought ,youmans into permanent relations with ,spencer and his work4 ,in #ahfa ,youmans was married1 and in the course of the following year made a journey in ,europe with his wife4 ,it was now that he became personally acquainted with ,spencer1 and found him quite as interesting and admirable as his books4 ,friendships were also begun with ,huxley and other foremost men of science4 ,from more than one of these men ,i have heard the warmest expressions of personal affection for ,youmans1 and of keen appreciation of the aid that they have obtained in innumerable ways from his intelligent and enthusiastic sympathy4 ,but no one else got so large a measure of this support as ,spencer4 ,as fast as his books were republished ,youmans wrote reviews of them1 and by no means in the usual perfunctory way2 his reviews and notices were turned out by the score1 and scattered about in the magazines and newspapers where they would do the most good4 ,whenever he found another writer who could be pressed into the service1 he would give him ,spencer's books1 kindle him with a spark from his own magnificent enthusiasm1 and set him to writing for the press4 ,the most indefatigable vender of wares was never more ruthlessly persistent in advertising for lucre's sake than ,edward ,youmans in preaching in a spirit of the purest disinterestedness the gospel of evolution4 ,as long as he lived1 ,spencer had upon this side of the ,atlantic an alter ego ever on the alert with vision like that of a hawk for the slightest chance to promote his interests and those of his system of thought4 ,among the allies thus enlisted at that early time were ,mr4 ,george ,ripley and the ,rev4 ,henry ,ward ,beecher1 both of whom did good service1 in their different ways1 in awakening public interest in the doctrine of evolution4 ,in those days of the ,civil ,war it was especially hard to keep up the list of subscribers in an abstruse philosophical publication of apparently interminable length4 ,youmans now and then found it needful to make a journey in the interests of the work1 and it was on one of these occasions1 in ,november1 #ahfc1 that ,i made his acquaintance4 ,i had already published1 in #ahfa1 an article in one of the quarterly reviews1 in which ,spencer's work was referred to2 and another in #ahfc1 in which the law of evolution was illustrated in connection with certain problems of the science of language4 ,the articles were anonymous1 as was then the fashion1 and ,youmans' curiosity was aroused4 ,there were so few people then who had any conception of what ,spencer's work meant that they could have been counted on one's fingers4 ,at that time ,i knew of only three3 the late ,professor ,gurney1 of ,harvard2 ,mr4 ,george ,litch ,roberts1 now an eminent patent lawyer in ,boston2 and ,mr4 ,john ,spencer ,clark1 now of the ,prang ,educational ,company4 ,i have since known that there were at least two or three others about ,boston1 among them my learned friend the ,rev4 ,william ,rounseville ,alger1 besides several in other parts of the country4 ,when we sometimes ventured to observe that ,spencer's work was as great as ,newton's1 and that his theory of evolution was going to remodel human thinking upon all subjects whatever1 people used to stare at us and take us for idiots4 ,any one member of such a small community was easy to find2 and ,i have always dated a new era in my life from the ,sunday afternoon when ,youmans came to my room in ,cambridge4 ,it was the beginning of a friendship such as hardly comes but once to a man4 ,at that first meeting ,i knew nothing of him except that he was the author of a textbook of chemistry which ,i had found interesting1 in spite of its having been crammed down my throat by an old-fashioned memorizing teacher who1 ,i am convinced1 never really knew so much as the difference between oxygen and antimony4 ,at first it was a matter of breathless interest to talk with a man who had seen ,herbert ,spencer4 ,but one of the immediate results of this interview was the beginning of my own correspondence and intimate friendship with ,spencer4 ,and from that time forth it always seemed as if1 whenever any of the good or lovely things of life came to my lot1 somehow or other ,edward ,youmans was either the cause of it1 or at any rate intimately concerned with it4 ,the sphere of his unselfish goodness was so wide and its quality so potent that one could not come into near relations with him without becoming in all manner of unsuspected ways strengthened and enriched4 ,in the autumn of #ahfe we were dismayed by the announcement that ,spencer would no longer be able to go on issuing his works4 ,in ,london they were published at his own expense and risk1 and those books which now yield a handsome profit did not then pay the cost of making them4 ,by the summer of #ahfe there was a balance of #aajj against ,spencer1 and his property was too small to admit of his going on and losing at such a rate4 ,as soon as this was known1 ,john ,stuart ,mill begged to be allowed to assume the entire pecuniary responsibility of continuing the publication2 but this1 ,mr4 ,spencer1 while deeply affected by such noble sympathy1 would not hear of4 ,he consented1 however1 with great reluctance1 to the attempt of ,huxley and ,lubbock1 and other friends1 to increase artificially the list of subscribers by inducing people to take the work just in order to help support it4 ,but after several months the sudden death of ,spencer's father added something to his means of support1 and he thereupon withdrew his consent to this arrangement1 and determined to go on publishing as before1 and bearing the loss4 ,but as soon as the first evil tidings reached ,america ,youmans made up his mind that #eejj must be forthwith raised by subscription1 in order to make good the loss already incurred4 ,it is delightful to remember the vigour with which he took hold of this work4 ,the sum of #gjjj was raised and invested in ,american securities in ,spencer's name4 ,if he did not see fit to accept these securities1 they would go without an owner4 ,the best of ,waltham watches was procured for ,spencer by his ,american friends2 a letter1 worded with rare delicacy and tact1 was written by the late ,robert ,minturn2 and ,youmans sailed for ,england to convey the letter and the watch to ,spencer4 ,it was a charming scene on a summer day in an ,english garden when the great philosopher was apprised of what had been done4 ,it was so skilfully managed that he could not refuse the tribute without seeming churlish4 ,he therefore accepted it1 and applied it to extending his researches in descriptive sociology4 ,of the many visits which ,youmans made to ,england1 now and then extending them to the ,continent1 one of the most important was in #ahga1 for the purpose of establishing the ,international ,scientific ,series4 ,this was a favourite scheme of ,youmans4 ,he realized that popular scientific books1 adapted to the general reader1 are apt to be written by third-rate men who do not well understand their subject2 they are apt to be dry or superficial1 or both4 ,no one can write so good a popular book as the master of a subject1 if he only has a fair gift of expressing himself and keeps in mind the public for which he is writing4 ,the master knows what to tell and what to omit1 and can thus tell much in a short compass and still make it interesting2 moreover1 he avoids the inaccuracies which are sure to occur in second-hand work4 ,masters of subjects are apt1 however1 to be too much occupied with original research to write popular books4 ,it was ,youmans' plan to induce the leading men of science in ,europe and ,america to contribute small volumes on their special subjects to a series to be published simultaneously in several countries and languages4 ,furthermore1 by special contract with publishing houses of high reputation1 the author was to receive the ordinary royalty on every copy of his book sold in every one of the countries in question2 thus anticipating international copyright upon a very wide scale1 and giving the author a much more adequate compensation for his labour4 ,to put this scheme into operation was a task of great difficulty1 so many conflicting interests had to be considered4 ,youmans' brilliant success is attested by that noble series of more than fifty volumes1 on all sorts of scientific subjects1 written by men of real eminence1 and published in ,england1 ,france1 ,italy1 ,germany1 and ,russia1 as well as in the ,united ,states4 ,a word is all that can be spared for other parts of our friend's work1 which deserve many words1 and those carefully considered4 ,his book on ,household ,science is not the usual collection of scrappy comment1 recipe1 and apothegm1 but a valuable scientific treatise on heat1 light1 air1 and food in their relations to every-day life4 ,in his ,correlation of ,physical ,forces he brings together the epoch-making essays of the men who have successively established that doctrine1 introducing them with an essay of his own1 in which its history and its philosophical implications are set forth in a masterly manner4 ,in his book on the ,culture demanded by ,modern ,life we have a similar collection of essays with a similar excellent original discussion1 showing the need for wider and later training in science1 and protesting against the excess of time and energy that is spent in classical education where it is merely the following of an old tradition4 ,as a crown to all this useful work1 ,youmans established1 in #ahgb1 ,the ,popular ,science ,monthly1 which has unquestionably been of high educational value to the general public4 ,it was not the aim of this magazine to give an account of every theory expounded1 every fact observed1 every discovery made1 from year to year1 whether significant or insignificant4 ,the mind of the people is not educated by dumping a great unshapely mass of facts into it4 ,it needs to be stimulated rather than crammed4 ,education in science should lead one to think for one's self4 ,the scientific magazine1 therefore1 should present articles from all quarters that deal with the essential conceptions of science or discuss problems of real theoretical or practical interest1 no matter whether every particular asteroid or the last new species of barnacle receives full attention or not4 ,the ,popular ,science ,monthly has now been with us eighteen years2 its character has always been of the highest1 and it must have exerted an excellent influence not only as a diffuser of valuable knowledge1 but in training its readers to scientific habits of thought in so far as mere reading can contribute to such a result4 ,in concluding our survey of this useful and noble life1 what impresses us most1 ,i think1 is the broad democratic spirit and the absolute unselfishness which it reveals at every moment and in every act4 ,to ,edward ,youmans the imperative need for educating the great mass of the people so as to use their mental powers to the best advantage came home as a living1 ever present fact4 ,he saw all that it meant and means in the raising of mankind to a higher level of thought and action than that upon which they now live4 ,to this end he consecrated himself with unalloyed devotion2 and we who mourn his loss look back upon his noble career with a sense of victory1 knowing how the good that such a man does lives after him and can never die4 ,march1 #ahij4 ,,iv ,,the ,,part ,,played ,,by ,,infancy ,,in ,,the ,,evolution ,,of ,,man#af ,the remarks which my friend ,mr4 ,clark has made with reference to the reconciling of science and religion seem to carry me back to the days when ,i first became acquainted with the fact that there were such things afloat in the world as speculations about the origin of man from lower forms of life2 and ,i can recall step by step various stages in which that old question has come to have a different look from what it had thirty years ago4 ,one of the commonest objections we used to hear1 from the mouths of persons who could not very well give voice to any other objection1 was that anybody1 whether he knows much or little about evolution1 must have the feeling that there is something degrading about being allied with lower forms of life4 ,that was1 ,i suppose1 owing to the survival of the old feeling that a dignified product of creation ought to have been produced in some exceptional way4 ,that which was done in the ordinary way1 that which was done through ordinary processes of causation1 seemed to be cheapened and to lose its value4 ,it was a remnant of the old state of feeling which took pleasure in miracles1 which seemed to think that the object of thought was more dignified if you could connect it with something supernatural2 that state of culture in which there was an altogether inadequate appreciation of the amount of grandeur that there might be in the slow creative work that goes on noiselessly by little minute increments1 even as the dropping of the water that wears away the stone4 ,the general progress of familiarity with the conception of evolution has done a great deal to change that state of mind4 ,even persons who have not much acquaintance with science have at length caught something of its lesson1--that the infinitely cumulative action of small causes like those which we know is capable of producing results of the grandest and most thrilling importance1 and that the disposition to recur to the cataclysmic and miraculous is only a tendency of the childish mind which we are outgrowing with wider experience4 ,the whole doctrine of evolution1 and in fact the whole advance of modern science from the days of ,copernicus down to the present day1 have consisted in the substitution of processes which are familiar and the application of those processes1 showing how they produce great results4 ,when ,darwin's ,origin of ,species was first published1 when it gave us that wonderful explanation of the origin of forms of life from allied forms through the operation of natural selection1 it must have been like a mental illumination to every person who comprehended it4 ,but after all it left a great many questions unexplained1 as was natural4 ,it accounted for the phenomena of organic development in general with wonderful success1 but it must have left a great many minds with the feeling3 ,if man has been produced in this way1 if the mere operation of natural selection has produced the human race1 wherein is the human race anyway essentially different from lower races8 ,is not man really dethroned1 taken down from that exceptional position in which we have been accustomed to place him1 and might it not be possible1 in the course of the future1 for other beings to come upon the earth as far superior to man as man is superior to the fossilized dragons of ,jurassic antiquity8 ,such questions used to be asked1 and when they were asked1 although one might have a very strong feeling that it was not so1 at the same time one could not exactly say why4 ,one could not then find any scientific argument for objections to that point of view4 ,but with the further development of the question the whole subject began gradually to wear a different appearance2 and ,i am going to give you a little bit of autobiography1 because ,i think it may be of some interest in this connection4 ,i am going to mention two or three of the successive stages which the whole question took in my own mind as one thing came up after another1 and how from time to time it began to dawn upon me that ,i had up to that point been looking at the problem from not exactly the right point of view4 ,when ,darwin's ,descent of ,man was published in #ahga1 it was of course a book characterized by all his immense learning1 his wonderful fairness of spirit and fertility of suggestion4 ,still1 one could not but feel that it did not solve the question of the origin of man4 ,there was one great contrast between that book and his ,origin of ,species4 ,in the earlier treatise he undertook to point out a vera causa of the origin of species1 and he did it4 ,in his ,descent of ,man he brought together a great many minor generalizations which facilitated the understanding of man's origin4 ,but he did not come at all near to solving the central problem1 nor did he anywhere show clearly why natural selection might not have gone on forever producing one set of beings after another distinguishable chiefly by physical differences4 ,but ,darwin's co-discoverer1 ,alfred ,russel ,wallace1 at an early stage in his researches1 struck out a most brilliant and pregnant suggestion4 ,in that one respect ,wallace went further than ever ,darwin did4 ,it was a point of which1 indeed1 ,darwin admitted the importance4 ,it was a point of which nobody could fail to understand the importance1 that in the course of the evolution of a very highly organized animal1 if there came a point at which it was of more advantage to that animal to have variations in his intelligence seized upon and improved by natural selection than to have physical changes seized upon1 then natural selection would begin working almost exclusively upon that creature's intelligence1 and he would develop in intelligence to a great extent1 while his physical organism would change but slightly4 ,now1 that of course applied to the case of man1 who is changed physically but very slightly from the apes1 while he has traversed intellectually such a stupendous chasm4 ,as soon as this statement was made by ,wallace1 it seemed to me to open up an entirely new world of speculation4 ,there was this enormous antiquity of man1 during the greater part of which he did not know enough to make history4 ,we see man existing here on the earth1 no one can say how long1 but surely many hundreds of thousands of years1 yet only during just the last little fringe of four or five thousand years has he arrived at the point where he makes history4 ,before that1 something was going on1 a great many things were going on1 while his ancestors were slowly growing up to that point of intelligence where it began to make itself felt in the recording of events4 ,this agrees with ,wallace's suggestion of a long period of psychical change1 accompanied by slight physical change4 ,well1 in the spring of #ahga1 when ,darwin's ,descent of ,man came out1 just about the same time ,i happened to be reading ,wallace's account of his experiences in the ,malay ,archipelago1 and how at one time he caught a female orang-outang with a new-born baby1 and the mother died1 and ,wallace brought up the baby orang-outang by hand2 and this baby orang-outang had a kind of infancy which was a great deal longer than that of a cow or a sheep1 but it was nothing compared to human infancy in length4 ,this little orang-outang could not get up and march around1 as mammals of less intelligence do1 when he was first born1 or within three or four days2 but after three or four weeks or so he would get up1 and begin taking hold of something and pushing it around1 just as children push a chair2 and he went through a period of staring at his hands1 as human babies do1 and altogether was a good deal slower in getting to the point where he could take care of himself4 ,and while ,i was reading of that ,i thought1 ,dear me6 if there is any one thing in which the human race is signally distinguished from other mammals1 it is in the enormous duration of their infancy2 but it is a point that ,i do not recollect ever seeing any naturalist so much as allude to4 ,it happened at just that time that ,i was making researches in psychology about the organization of experiences1 the way in which conscious intelligent action can pass down into quasi-automatic action1 the generation of instincts1 and various allied questions2 and ,i thought1 ,can it be that the increase of intelligence in an animal1 if carried beyond a certain point1 must necessarily result in prolongation of the period of infancy1--must necessarily result in the birth of the mammal at a less developed stage1 leaving something to be done1 leaving a good deal to be done1 after birth8 ,and then the argument seemed to come along very naturally1 that for every action of life1 every adjustment which a creature makes in life1 whether a muscular adjustment or an intelligent adjustment1 there has got to be some registration effected in the nervous system1 some line of transit worn for nervous force to follow2 there has got to be a connection between certain nerve-centres before the thing can be done1 whether it is the acts of the viscera or the acts of the limbs1 or anything of that sort2 and of course it is obvious that if the creature has not many things to register in his nervous system1 if he has a life which is very simple1 consisting of few actions that are performed with great frequency1 that animal becomes almost automatic in his whole life2 and all the nervous connections that need to be made to enable him to carry on life get made during the ftal period or during the egg period1 and when he comes to be born1 he comes all ready to go to work4 ,as one result of this1 he does not learn from individual experience1 but one generation is like the preceding generations1 with here and there some slight modifications4 ,but when you get the creature that has arrived at the point where his experience has become varied1 he has got to do a good many things1 and there is more or less individuality about them2 and many of them are not performed with the same minuteness and regularity1 so that there does not begin to be that automatism within the period during which he is being developed and his form is taking on its outlines4 ,during prenatal life there is not time enough for all these nervous registrations1 and so by degrees it comes about that he is born with his nervous system perfectly capable only of making him breathe and digest food1--of making him do the things absolutely requisite for supporting life2 instead of being born with a certain number of definite developed capacities1 he has a number of potentialities which have got to be roused according to his own individual experience4 ,pursuing that line of thought1 it began after a while to seem clear to me that the infancy of the animal in a very undeveloped condition1 with the larger part of his faculties in potentiality rather than in actuality1 was a direct result of the increase of intelligence1 and ,i began to see that now we have two steps3 first1 natural selection goes on increasing the intelligence2 and secondly1 when the intelligence goes far enough1 it makes a longer infancy1 a creature is born less developed1 and therefore there comes this plastic period during which he is more teachable4 ,the capacity for progress begins to come in1 and you begin to get at one of the great points in which man is distinguished from the lower animals1 for one of those points is undoubtedly his progressiveness2 and ,i think that any one will say1 with very little hesitation1 that if it were not for our period of infancy we should not be progressive4 ,if we came into the world with our capacities all cut and dried1 one generation would be very much like another4 ,then1 looking round to see what are the other points which are most important in which man differs from the lower animals1 there comes that matter of the family4 ,the family has adumbrations and foreshadowings among the lower animal1 but in general it may be said that while mammals lower than man are gregarious1 in man have become established those peculiar relationships which constitute what we know as the family2 and it is easy to see how the existence of helpless infants would bring about just that state of things4 ,the necessity of caring for the infants would prolong the period of maternal affection1 and would tend to keep the father and mother and children together1 but it would tend especially to keep the mother and children together4 ,this business of the marital relations was not really a thing that became adjusted in the primitive ages of man1 but it has become adjusted in the course of civilization4 ,real monogamy1 real faithfulness of the male parent1 belongs to a comparatively advanced stage2 but in the early stages the knitting together of permanent relations between mother and infant1 and the approximation toward steady relations on the part of the male parent1 came to bring the family1 and gradually to knit those organizations which we know as clans4 ,here we come to another stage1 another step forward4 ,the instant society becomes organized in clans1 natural selection cannot let these clans be broken up and die out1--the clan becomes the chief object or care of natural selection1 because if you destroy it you retrograde again1 you lose all you have gained2 consequently1 those clans in which the primeval selfish instincts were so modified that the individual conduct would be subordinated to some extent to the needs of the clan1--those are the ones which would prevail in the struggle for life4 ,in this way you gradually get an external standard to which man has to conform his conduct1 and you get the germs of altruism and morality2 and in the prolonged affectionate relation between the mother and the infant you get the opportunity for that development of altruistic feeling which1 once started in those relations1 comes into play in the more general relations1 and makes more feasible and more workable the bonds which keep society together1 and enable it to unite on wider and wider terms4 ,so it seems that from a very small beginning we are reaching a very considerable result4 ,i had got these facts pretty clearly worked out1 and carried them around with me some years1 before a fresh conclusion came over me one day with a feeling of surprise4 ,in the old days before the ,copernican astronomy was promulgated1 man regarded himself as the centre of the universe4 ,he used to entertain theological systems which conformed to his limited knowledge of nature4 ,the universe seemed to be made for his uses1 the earth seemed to have been fitted up for his dwelling place1 he occupied the centre of creation1 the sun was made to give him light1 etc4 ,when ,copernicus overthrew that view1 the effect upon theology was certainly tremendous4 ,i do not believe that justice has ever been done to the shock that it gave to man when he was made to realize that he occupied a kind of miserable little clod of dirt in the universe1 and that there were so many other worlds greater than this4 ,it was one of the first great shocks involved in the change from ancient to modern scientific views1 and ,i do not doubt it was responsible for a great deal of the pessimistic philosophizing that came in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries4 ,now1 it flashed upon me a dozen years or so ago--after thinking about this manner in which man originated--that man occupies certainly just as exceptional a position as before1 if he is the terminal in a long series of evolutionary events4 ,if at the end of the long history of evolution comes man1 if this whole secular process has been going on to produce this supreme object1 it does not much matter what kind of a cosmical body he lives on4 ,he is put back into the old position of theological importance1 and in a much more intelligent way than in the old days when he was supposed to occupy the centre of the universe4 ,we are enabled to say that while there is no doubt of the evolutionary process going on throughout countless ages which we know nothing about1 yet in the one case where it is brought home to us we spell out an intelligible story1 and we do find things working along up to man as a terminal fact in the whole process4 ,this is indeed a consistent conclusion from ,wallace's suggestion that natural selection1 in working toward the genesis of man1 began to follow a new path and make psychical changes instead of physical changes4 ,obviously1 here you are started upon a new chapter in the history of the universe4 ,it is no longer going to be necessary to shape new limbs1 and to thicken the skin and make new growths of hair1 when man has learned how to build a fire1 when he can take some other animal's hide and make it into clothes4 ,you have got to a new state of things4 ,after ,i had put together all these additional circumstances with regard to the origination of human society and the development of altruism1 ,i began to see a little further into the matter4 ,it then began to appear that not only is man the terminal factor in a long process of evolution1 but in the origination of man there began the development of the higher psychical attributes1 and those attributes are coming to play a greater and greater part in the development of the human race4 ,just take this mere matter of altruism1 as we call it4 ,it is not a pretty word1 but must serve for want of a better4 ,in the development of altruism from the low point1 where there was scarcely enough to hold the clan together1 up to the point reached at the present day1 there has been a notable progress1 but there is still room for an enormous amount of improvement4 ,the progress has been all in the direction of bringing out what we call the higher spiritual attributes4 ,the feeling was now more strongly impressed upon me than ever1 that all these things tended to set the whole doctrine of evolution into harmony with religion2 that if the past through which man had originated was such as has been described1 then religion was a fit and worthy occupation for man1 and some of the assumptions which underlie every system of religion must be true4 ,for example1 with regard to the assumption that what we see of the present life is not the whole thing2 that there is a spiritual side of the question beside the material side2 that1 in short1 there is for man a life eternal4 ,when ,i wrote the ,destiny of ,man1 all that ,i ventured to say was1 that it did not seem quite compatible with ordinary common sense to suppose that so much pains would have been taken to produce a merely ephemeral result4 ,but since then another argument has occurred to me3 that just at the time when the human race was beginning to come upon the scene1 when the germs of morality were coming in with the family1 when society was taking its first start1 there came into the human mind--how one can hardly say1 but there did come--the beginnings of a groping after something that lies outside and beyond the world of sense4 ,that groping after a spiritual world has been going on here for much more than a hundred thousand years1 and it has played an enormous part in the history of mankind1 in the whole development of human society4 ,nobody can imagine what mankind would have been without it up to the present time4 ,either all religion has been a reaching out for a phantom that does not exist1 or a reaching out after something that does exist1 but of which man1 with his limited intelligence1 has only been able to gain a crude idea4 ,and the latter seems a far more probable conclusion1 because1 if it is not so1 it constitutes a unique exception to all the operations of evolution we know about4 ,as a general thing in the whole history of evolution1 when you see any internal adjustment reaching out toward something1 it is in order to adapt itself to something that really exists2 and if the religious cravings of man constitute an exception1 they are the one thing in the whole process of evolution that is exceptional and different from all the rest4 ,and this is surely an argument of stupendous and resistless weight4 ,i take this autobiographical way of referring to these things1 in the order in which they came before my mind1 for the sake of illustration4 ,the net result of the whole is to put evolution in harmony with religious thought1--not necessarily in harmony with particular religious dogmas or theories1 but in harmony with the great religious drift1 so that the antagonism which used to appear to exist between religion and science is likely to disappear4 ,so ,i think it will before a great while4 ,if you take the case of some evolutionist like ,professor ,haeckel1 who is perfectly sure that materialism accounts for everything 7he has got it all cut and dried and settled2 he knows all about it1 so that there is really no need of discussing the subject672 if you ask the question whether it was his scientific study of evolution that really led him to such a dogmatic conclusion1 or whether it was that he started from some purely arbitrary assumption1 like the ,french materialists of the eighteenth century1 ,i have no doubt the latter would be the true explanation4 ,there are a good many people who start on their theories of evolution with these ultimate questions all settled to begin with4 ,it was the most natural thing in the world that after the first assaults of science upon old beliefs1 after a certain number of ,bible stories and a certain number of church doctrines had been discredited1 there should be a school of men who in sheer weariness should settle down to scientific researches1 and say1 ,we content ourselves with what we can prove by the methods of physical science1 and we will throw everything else overboard4 ,that was very much the state of mind of the famous ,french atheists of the last century4 ,but only think how chaotic nature was to their minds compared to what she is to our minds to-day4 ,just think how we have in the present century arrived where we can see the bearings of one set of facts in nature as collated with another set of facts1 and contrast it with the view which even the greatest of those scientific ,french materialists could take4 ,consider how fragmentary and how lacking in arrangement was the universe they saw compared with the universe we can see to-day1 and it is not strange that to them it could be an atheistic world4 ,that hostility between science and religion continued as long as religion was linked hand in hand with the ancient doctrine of special creation4 ,but now that the religious world has unmoored itself1 now that it is beginning to see the truth and beauty of natural science and to look with friendship upon conceptions of evolution1 ,i suspect that this temporary antagonism1 which we have fallen into a careless way of regarding as an everlasting antagonism1 will come to an end perhaps quicker than we realize4 ,there is one point that is of great interest in this connection1 although ,i can only hint at it4 ,among the things that happened in that dim past when man was coming into existence was the increase of his powers of manipulation2 and that was a factor of immense importance4 ,anaxagoras1 it is said1 wrote a treatise in which he maintained that the human race would never have become human if it had not been for the hand4 ,i do not know that there was so very much exaggeration about that4 ,it was certainly of great significance that the particular race of mammals whose intelligence increased far enough to make it worth while for natural selection to work upon intelligence alone was the race which had developed hands and could manipulate things4 ,it was a wonderful era in the history of creation when that creature could take a club and use it for a hammer1 or could pry up a stone with a stake1 thus adding one more lever to the levers that made up his arm4 ,from that day to this1 the career of man has been that of a person who has operated upon his environment in a different way from any animal before him4 ,an era of similar importance came probably somewhat later1 when man learned how to build a fire and cook his food2 thus initiating that course of culinary development of which we have seen the climax in our dainty dinner this evening4 ,here was another means of acting upon the environment4 ,here was the beginning of the working of endless physical and chemical changes through the application of heat1 just as the first use of the club or the crowbar was the beginning of an enormous development in the mechanical arts4 ,now1 at the same time1 to go back once more into that dim past1 when ethics and religion1 manual art and scientific thought1 found expression in the crudest form of myths1 the sthetic sense was germinating likewise4 ,away back in the glacial period you find pictures drawn and scratched upon the reindeer's antler1 portraitures of mammoths and primitive pictures of the chase2 you see the trinkets1 the personal decorations1 proving beyond question that the sthetic sense was there4 ,there has been an immense sthetic development since then4 ,and ,i believe that in the future it is going to mean far more to us than we have yet begun to realize4 ,i refer to the kind of training that comes to mankind through direct operation upon his environment1 the incarnation of his thought1 the putting of his ideas into new material relations4 ,this is going to exert powerful effects of a civilizing kind4 ,there is something strongly educational and disciplinary in the mere dealing with matter1 whether it be in the manual training school1 whether it be in carpentry1 in overcoming the inherent and total depravity of inanimate things1 shaping them to your will1 and also in learning to subject yourself to their will 7for sometimes you must do that in order to achieve your conquests2 in other words1 you must humour their habits and proclivities74 ,in all this there is a priceless discipline1 moral as well as mental1 let alone the fact that1 in whatever kind of artistic work a man does1 he is doing that which in the very working has in it an element of something outside of egoism2 even if he is doing it for motives not very altruistic1 he is working toward a result the end of which is the gratification or the benefit of other persons than himself2 he is working toward some result which in a measure depends upon their approval1 and to that extent tends to bring him into closer relations to his fellow man4 ,in the future1 to an even greater extent than in the recent past1 crude labour will be replaced by mechanical contrivances4 ,the kind of labour which can command its price is the kind which has trained intelligence behind it4 ,one of the great needs of our time is the multiplication of skilled and special labour4 ,the demand for the products of intelligence is far greater than that for mere crude products of labour1 and it will be more and more so4 ,for there comes a time when the latter products have satisfied the limit to which a man can consume food and drink and shelter1--those things which merely keep the animal alive4 ,but to those things which minister to the requirements of the spiritual side of a man there is almost no limit4 ,the demand one can conceive is well-nigh infinite4 ,one of the philosophical things that have been said1 in discriminating man from the lower animals1 is that he is the one creature who is never satisfied4 ,it is well for him that he is so1 that there is always something more for which he craves4 ,to my mind1 this fact most strongly hints that man is infinitely more than a mere animate machine4 ,may1 #ahie4 ,v ,,the ,,origins ,,of ,,liberal ,,thought ,,in ,,america#ag ,in approaching the subject of the origins of liberal thought in ,america1 one cannot help remembering that the discovery of the new continent was itself such a stimulus to free thinking as the world had never before witnessed4 ,from time immemorial1 the trade between ,europe and the remote parts of ,asia had followed certain customary routes4 ,from ancient days1 long before ,olympiads were heard of1 when ,assyrian kings with curly beards commemorated their victories in arrow-headed inscriptions1 men had used those same routes4 ,up the ,red ,sea1 in the early prime of hundred-gated ,thebes1 came ships from the ,indian ,ocean1 with gems and spices to exchange for ,egyptian fine linens and amulets of amber from the ,baltic2 and five thousand years later ,venetian argosies at ,alexandria were laden with just such gems and spices to distribute to the merchants of ,augsburg1 the royal household at ,paris1 the lords and ladies of ,haddon ,hall4 ,empires rose and fell1 creeds and pantheons came and went1 stately temples reared their heads for centuries and slowly crumbled in ruins1 and still amid all the secular change the world's great stream of trade flowed through the same unshifting channels1 and there was nothing to show that this state of things1 to which men's ideas and habits had always been adjusted1 was not to endure forever4 ,so it was in that recent time when ,henry ,v4 of ,england was smiting the ,french chivalry at ,agincourt1 and his cousin ,prince ,henry of ,portugal was beginning the search for an ocean route to the ,indies4 ,never did the human mind get such a wrench out of its ancient grooves1 never were such vistas of new possibilities laid open1 never was beheld such glorious hardihood1 such startling romance1 as in the time when ,columbus sailed westward to find the ,east1 and ,cortes met warriors of the ,stone ,age face to face4 ,the men of ,europe suddenly found themselves placed in new and unsuspected relations to the planet on which they lived2 worlds of barbarism and savagery1 unheard of and unspeakably bizarre1 were brought to their notice2 strange constellations arose in the firmament2 strange beasts and birds were encountered amid outlandish trees and shrubs in new climates beyond unknown seas4 ,the old familiarity with nature's aspects received an abrupt shock4 ,on every side loomed up new questions to be answered1 new practical problems to be solved4 ,all man's inventive faculty1 all his patient inquisitiveness1 all the courage he could summon1 were forthwith called into play4 ,the dreams of boundless riches1 the eager thirst for new knowledge1 the superhuman bravery1 which characterized the epoch of maritime discovery1 are symptoms that reveal to us the highly wrought condition of the ,european mind at the time4 ,a study of contemporary chronicles and letters cannot fail to bring home to us the singular intensity with which the thrill of venturesome romance was felt in every fibre of man's being4 ,the impulse thus given to free thinking must have been extremely powerful4 ,it is customary to attribute the brilliant efflorescence of the human mind in the sixteenth century to the revival of ,greek learning4 ,without seeking to diminish the respect due to that mighty cause1 it may be contended that the influence of maritime discovery was equally important4 ,while the ,greek renaissance brought men into wholesome and stimulating intercourse with the highest achievements of literature1 art1 and philosophy1 the discovery of the ,new ,world impressed upon them1 as nothing had ever done before1 the feasibleness of doing things in novel ways4 ,with the wholesale displacement of commercial relations1 the ,european mind burst the bounds of the snug little world to which its habits and theories1 its politics civil and ecclesiastical1 its science and its theology1 had been adapted4 ,the sudden and unprecedented widening of the environment soon set up a general fermentation of ideas4 ,there was nothing accidental in ,martin ,luther's coming in the next generation after ,columbus4 ,nor was it strange that in the following age the ,english mind1 wrought to its highest tension under the combined influences of ,renaissance1 ,reformation1 and maritime adventure1 should have put forth a literature the boldest and grandest that had ever appeared2 that the era of ,raleigh and ,frobisher and the early ,puritans should have seen even the highest mark of ,greek achievement surpassed by ,shakespeare4 ,the gigantic revolution set on foot by ,copernicus was already in full progress1 the era of ,descartes was just arriving1 and the next century was to see modern scientific method receive its supreme illustration at the hands of ,newton1 while the principles of freedom in thought and speech were to find invincible champions in ,milton and ,locke4 ,such was the age in which the work of ,english colonization in ,america was beginning4 ,in looking for the origins of liberal thought in ,america1 it is chiefly with ,english-speaking ,america that we are concerned4 ,the ,spanish mind1 indeed1 felt strongly the stimulus of the maritime discoveries and the contact with strange races of men1 until an age of chivalrous enterprise bloomed forth in the literature of ,calderon and ,lope de ,vega and ,cervantes2 but the new spirit was not strong enough to prevail over an ecclesiastical organization that had been growing in power since the ,visigothic times4 ,the higher intellectual life of ,spain perished in the fires of the ,inquisition1 and art and song failed to lead the way to science and free thought2 no ,spanish ,locke or ,newton followed in the train of a ,lope and a ,murillo1 but so lately as the year #agga the ,university of ,salamanca prohibited the teaching of the law of gravitation as discordant with revealed religion4#ah ,with such a state of things in the mother country1 liberal thought in the ,spanish colonies was a plant of very slow growth4 ,as for ,france at the end of the sixteenth century1 there was a sturdy intellectual life there which no efforts of tyranny could more than partially repress2 but circumstances threw the work of colonization into the hands of the ,jesuits1 and accordingly the history of ,new ,france1 while eminent for devoted bravery and heroic endurance1 shows scarcely a trace of liberal thinking either in politics or in matters pertaining to religion4 ,not with the ,french and ,spanish portions of ,america1 therefore1 but with the colonies that developed into the ,united ,states1 is our inquiry concerned4 ,the first and most obvious consideration which strikes us is that while the two centuries following the discovery of ,america witnessed an unprecedented awakening of the ,european mind1 yet it was only with those nations that had retained self-government that this intellectual awakening was to come to prompt and full fruition4 ,from the ,british islands and the ,netherlands came the kind of public policy that allowed free thinking to take deep root and send up a thrifty tree of liberty4 ,the planting of such seed in the spacious virgin soil of the ,new ,world was doubtless the greatest of all the manifold unforeseen results for which ,columbus opened the way4 ,it made political freedom the strongest power on earth1 and thus favoured the attainment of that equable flexibility of mind which allows the thought to play freely about the facts which are laid before it4 ,not in a moment was such a grand result achieved2 its complete realization has not yet come1 and none of us may live to see it1 yet toward that goal the whole impetus of men's civilizing work is tending1 and there is no power that can prevent the consummation4 ,year by year1 no matter how grave the questions with which we have to deal1 we are becoming more and more able to let our minds play freely with them1 to turn them hither and thither till all sides be seen and all aspects duly considered4 ,not all in a moment1 ,i say1 has such a desirable result been achieved4 ,so far is it1 moreover1 from having been brought about by conscious human effort that mankind have in general struggled desperately against it4 ,compared with the mass of men1 it is only a few minds that have learned to regard absolute freedom of thought as something to be desired4 ,though the colonization of ,america came at a time when men's minds were stirred by novel ideas as never before1 though the men of that generation were moving irrepressibly toward liberality of thought1 yet there were very few who had any liking for liberal thought1 or any good word to bestow upon it4 ,there were few who doubted that absolute truth was attainable concerning the most abstruse questions of philosophy and religion1 and an exactly true belief on minute points of theology was deemed necessary for one's personal salvation4 ,changes in opinion simply wrought a transfer of allegiance from one orthodoxy to another1 and the new orthodoxy felt bound as much as the old one to persecute all who refused such allegiance4 ,from this point of view the history of the progress of liberal thought becomes curiously interesting1 for it shows how one of the most momentous revolutions in human life has steadily gone on in spite of the inveterate antagonism of the very men concerned in bringing it about6 ,to a considerable extent1 the history has been the same over a large part of the globe4 ,the causes which have been at work in ,america have also been at work in ,europe1 and even beyond2 and the liberal thought with which we are familiar is characteristic not so much of ,america as of the latter part of the nineteenth century4 ,but along with the general causes there have been local causes which have especially concerned the ,new ,world1 and a clear account of the matter requires us to indicate both the one and the other4 ,from the revolt of ,henry ,,viii4 against the ,papacy down to the ,revolution of #afhh1 there was in ,england a progressive movement toward liberal thought4 ,it was at first a crude unconscious movement in the direction of toleration1 which is a necessary condition for the development of free thinking4 ,when we have arrived at a truly cordial toleration of opinions1 allowing to all free play to stand or fall1 just as hypotheses in science are suffered to stand or fall1 then is men's thought for the first time really untrammelled4 ,whatever1 therefore1 tended toward toleration of diverse forms of creed or worship was a step in the path that led to free thinking2 and whatever tended to democratize the church and relieve it from state control was a step toward toleration4 ,the revolt of ,henry ,,viii4 at first but realized what the prmunire statutes of ,edward ,i4 and ,edward ,,iii4 had threatened4 ,but by breaking up the religious orders1 expelling abbots from ,parliament1 and making the headship of the church a subject of fierce dispute1 it contributed immensely to weaken and relax the bonds of conservatism1 and it afforded a rare opportunity for the thoughts of laymen and small preachers to assert themselves4 ,thus the ,lollardism which had been partially suppressed for more than a century now reared its head again defiantly1 and1 after learning lessons in democracy from ,calvin1 came forth as ,puritanism1 clad in full panoply for one of the world's most fateful contests4 ,in the course of ,elizabeth's reign we find this ,puritanism taking three different shapes4 ,there were the moderate reformers1 whose wish was simply to trim and prune the tree of ,episcopacy2 and secondly1 those who were afterward known as root and branch men1 whose name is descriptive enough4 ,instead of pruning they would uproot the tree and cast it away4 ,to these ,presbyterians the royal supremacy was no more than the papal a part of the living growth of ,christ's church2 it was but stubble fit for burning4 ,kings looked with horror upon such views1 which threatened political danger no less than ecclesiastical4 ,a ,scottish presbytery1 cried ,james ,i41 agreeth as well with a monarchy as ,god and the ,devil4 ,then ,jack and ,tom and ,will and ,dick shall meet1 and at their pleasures censure me and my council and all our proceedings4 ,the case could not have been more pithily stated1 yet even ,presbyterianism stopped short of full-fledged democracy4 ,for ,jack and his friends1 by means of synods and general assemblies1 could create a governing body with power of enforcing conformity upon unwilling congregations4 ,in protest against this somewhat oligarchical method1 ,puritanism assumed its third form1 that of ,independency4 ,the beginnings of ,independency are to be sought among the ,brownists of ,elizabeth's reign1 though their day of glory first came with the ,civil ,war4 ,in the theory of the ,independents1 as fully developed1 any group of persons wishing to worship ,god in common might come together and organize themselves into a ,congregational church1 existing by as good a warrant as any other church1 and entirely free from the control of any bishop1 or synod1 or council4 ,no outside power could prescribe its creed or interfere with its ceremonial4 ,each church became1 therefore1 a little self-governing republic1 as completely autonomous as an ancient ,greek city1 and the union of such churches was based solely upon the spirit of spontaneous ,christian fellowship4 ,such was the theory of ,independency4 ,in these successive stages of ,protestantism we may see the preliminary steps toward general toleration and toward liberal thought4 ,in each stage the strength of the coercive power that could be exercised over men's opinions and expressions of opinion was sensibly diminished4 ,from the coercive power of the universal ,church1 which had once been able to direct a crusade against the ,albigenses1 it was a long step downward to the coercive power of ,queen ,elizabeth1 whose will to suppress ,puritanism was perpetually held in check by motives of public policy4 ,it was a yet further step downward from the coercive power of a sovereign to that of a synod1 and thence again to that of a congregation4 ,so striking is the progress that one who knew nothing of history might easily mistake the theory of ,independency as providing practically for something like complete toleration4 ,history tells us that this was far from being the case4 ,heresy1 or dissent from the commonly accepted orthodoxy1 has been no more tolerated in ,independent churches than elsewhere2 and even in the absence of serious differences in dogma1 persecution has been visited upon divergences from the customary ritual1 as for example in the treatment long accorded to ,baptists4 ,in their militant days1 neither ,presbyterianism nor ,independency ever professed to be tolerant4 ,the gravest reproach they could imagine was to be charged with encouraging free thinking4 ,the eminent ,scottish divine ,rutherford gave expression to the prevailing sentiment when he declared1 ,we regard toleration of all religions as not far removed from blasphemy4 ,nevertheless1 the movement which gave rise to ,presbyterianism and to ,independency was sure to advance to the announcement of the principle of universal toleration4 ,that movement was itself the expression of a vast amount of free thinking1 and it was not to stop short of recognizing the claims of free thought4 ,the century that witnessed the beginnings of an ,english-speaking ,america saw also the genuine principles of toleration laid down by ,roger ,williams and ,william ,penn1 and demonstrated with resistless wealth of learning and logic by ,milton and ,locke4 ,in an account of the origins of liberal thought in ,america this ,english development is all-important1 but it does not cover the whole field4 ,america's inheritance from ,europe comes chiefly1 but not entirely1 from the ,british islands4 ,in the early days of the ,protestant ,reformation1 there were ,european countries in which religious toleration had advanced practically much further than in ,england4 ,the ,england of ,henry ,,viii4 as compared with the ,netherlands was in a crude and backward condition4 ,the contrast might be likened to that between rural life with its narrow mental horizon and the varied cosmopolitan life of the city4 ,england politically was a land of unrivalled promise1 but she was not quite abreast with the most advanced culture of the time4 ,her government was mainly in the hands of country gentlemen1 who lacked some valuable elements of experience that were possessed by the burghers of commercial ,antwerp and ,ghent4 ,a careful survey of the ,middle ,ages shows plainly an abiding antagonism between commerce and the ecclesiastical spirit4 ,a general connection between the predominance of international trade and the secularization of public life is distinctly traceable4 ,on the map of medival ,europe one may point out peculiar spots where the ,papacy never gained complete sway4 ,in some of these1 as in ,bohemia and southern ,gaul1 the resistance was due to ,manichan heresies brought in from the ,eastern ,empire1 giving rise to a kind of medival ,puritanism2 in these we do not find a spirit of liberal thought developed1 but rather an anti-,catholic fanaticism4 ,the other peculiar spots lie in the great pathway of commerce between the ,levant and the northern seas4 ,in the free cities of northern ,italy and southern ,germany1 in the ,hansa towns1 and in the ,netherlands1 priestcraft had less sway than elsewhere1 and the general tone of thought was more liberal and modern4 ,no city came so completely under the secularizing influences of maritime commerce as ,venice2 and it is significant that the ,papacy1 at the very pinnacle of its power and arrogance in the thirteenth century1 utterly failed in its attempt to force the ,inquisition upon that republic of merchants4 ,in similar wise1 we find the commercial ,netherlands in the sixteenth century exhibiting practically such toleration in matters of religion as the ,british islands attained only much later1 and after prolonged and distressing struggle4 ,from the time of ,edward ,,iii4 commercial intercourse with the great ,dutch and ,flemish cities was one of the most potent civilizing influences at work in ,england4 ,it was a liberalizing influence in religion and in politics1 and must be named among the causes which made the eastern counties preminent for heresy4 ,in later days1 when the ,dutch provinces had saved their ,protestantism and recovered political freedom1 they adopted a policy of toleration so broad as to seem to most contemporaries very eccentric4 ,their noble country was stigmatized as the common harbour of all heresies and a cage of unclean birds4 ,how it harboured heretics escaping from ,england is something that no ,american is ever likely to forget4 ,if1 after this glance at ,european conditions1 we cross the ,atlantic and observe the group of twelve colonies that were planted during the seventeenth century1 we find that five of them were especially notable for pursuing from the outset a policy of toleration1--a policy favourable to liberal thought4 ,these five1 naming them in order of seniority1 were ,new ,netherland1 ,maryland1 ,rhode ,island1 and ,pennsylvania1 with ,delaware4 ,in ,new ,netherland the ,dutch simply maintained their traditional secularized policy4 ,on the hospitable island of ,manhattan all the varieties of ,european religion met on terms of equality1--,lutherans and ,catholics1 ,quakers#ai and ,puritans1 ,moravians and ,jews4 ,after the ,english conquest this liberal policy was continued by the bigoted ,duke of ,york1 for reasons similar to those which made toleration a necessity in the province of the liberal and sagacious ,calverts4 ,the ,catholic proprietors of ,maryland wished to make their province a desirable home for ,catholics who were inclined to leave ,england1 and the only possible way of accomplishing this1 without interference from the ,british government1 was to pursue a policy broad enough to include ,catholics along with all other kinds of ,christians in its benefits4 ,a similar necessity confronted ,charles ,,ii4 and ,james ,,ii4 ,in order to secure as much protection as possible for ,catholics without interference from ,parliament1 it was necessary to pursue a policy broad enough to include ,quakers along with ,catholics4 ,for such reasons ,james refrained from disturbing the liberal ,dutch policy in ,new ,york4 ,for such reasons both ,stuart kings supported the schemes of ,william ,penn1 in whose proprietary colonies of ,pennsylvania and ,delaware the principles of toleration were carried out1 on the whole1 more completely than anywhere else in ,english-speaking ,america4 ,it is interesting in this connection to observe that the mother of ,william ,penn was a ,dutch lady1 though perhaps it is possible to make too much of such a fact4 ,the ,quakers1 who formed the strength of the colony1 represented a phase of ,puritanism more liberal than ,independency4 ,as contrasted with ,independency1 ,quakerism was a notable advance in the direction of ,individualism2 it had outgrown the set of notions according to which a civic community ought to consist of a united body of believers4 ,pennsylvania1 therefore1 and its appendage ,delaware1 profited by the late date at which they were founded2 they represented a more advanced stage of opinion than the colonies which started in the time of ,james ,i4 ,their proprietary government remained undisturbed until the ,declaration of ,independence1 and in #aggf these two states were the only ones in which all ,christians1 whether ,protestant or ,catholic1 stood socially and politically on an equal footing4 ,for after the accession of ,william and ,mary had made the ,episcopal ,church supreme in ,new ,york and ,maryland1 the ,catholic inhabitants of those colonies were disfranchised and made the subject of various oppressive enactments4 ,even the laws of ,rhode ,island1 as first printed1 early in the eighteenth century1 expressly prohibit ,roman ,catholics from voting4 ,the date of this statute is not accurately known1 but it was certainly between #afhh and #agje1bj and may be due to the strong antagonism aroused by the conduct of ,james ,,ii4 and his ,jacobites4 ,however that may be1 the statute was not repealed until #aghd4 ,the disfranchisement of ,catholics was contrary to the spirit of the ,rhode ,island charter and to the views of ,roger ,williams1 who certainly understood the rational grounds for religious toleration better than any other man of his time1 save perhaps ,milton and ,vane4 ,he represents the ,protestant principle of the sacred right of private judgment carried out with unflinching logical consistency4 ,in him the transition from ,independency to ,individualism is completed4 ,the contrast between the two is illustrated in the controversy between ,williams and ,cotton which was called forth by the publication in #afdd of ,williams's book entitled ,the ,bloudy ,tenent of ,persecution4 ,john ,cotton was a typical ,independent1 and by no means a man of persecuting temperament1 but his view of the matter is extremely one-sided4 ,he admits that it is wrong for error to persecute truth1 but he holds it to be the sacred duty of truth to persecute error6 ,williams1 on the other hand1 sees that truth stands in no need of violent or artificial support1 and that error contains within itself the seeds of death4 ,he feels1 too1 that when ,i venture to persecute what ,i call error in others1 ,i virtually assume my own infallibility4 ,thus not until pure ,individualism is reached is the fundamental fallacy of ,catholicism escaped4 ,in order to protect this sacred ,individualism1 ,williams would have a complete separation between church and state4 ,under no pretext whatever should the civil government interfere with religious matters4 ,there should be no more statutes against heresy or heretics1 no enforced attendance upon public worship1 no support of churches by taxation4 ,roger ,williams not only proclaimed such doctrines1 but he lived up to them4 ,he never took pains to conceal his dislike of ,quaker doctrines2 in his seventy-third year he once rowed himself in a boat the whole length of ,narragansett ,bay1 in order to conduct a dispute against three valiant ,quaker champions2 yet1 in spite of vehement pressure from the neighbouring colonies1 he resolutely refused to allow the civil power of ,rhode ,island to be used against ,quakers4 ,massachusetts in fury threatened to cut off the trade of the weaker colony1 but nothing could intimidate ,williams into what he termed exercising a civil power over men's consciences4 ,among the public men of the seventeenth century ,roger ,williams deserves a preminent place2 he was the first to conceive thoroughly and carry out consistently1 in the face of strong opposition1 a theory of religious liberty broad enough to win assent and approval from advanced thinkers of the present day4 ,the separation of church from state1 which was effected with such remarkable success in the founding of ,rhode ,island1 did not become general in the ,united ,states until after the winning of independence4 ,on this issue the eighteenth century had its memorable struggle1 in which the protagonist was ,virginia1 and the victory was achieved under the leadership of ,jefferson and ,madison4 ,the early policy of ,virginia was to drive out dissentients1 or subject them to civil disabilities2 and of the ,puritans who went thither for a while the greater part left the colony1 many of them retreating into tolerant ,maryland4 ,after #affj1 for three generations the ,episcopal folk had it all their own way4 ,but about #agbj began the wholesale immigration of ,presbyterians and ,lutherans into the ,shenandoah ,valley1 and after the middle of the century trouble began when the tide-water ,cavaliers tried to impose taxes upon these people for the support of the ,established ,church4 ,the most numerous and powerful opponents of this narrow policy were the ,presbyterians2 and inasmuch as these had come1 not from ,scotland where their own church was established1 but from ,ireland where it was persecuted1 their experience had led them to approve the separation of church from state4 ,their political notions were also strongly democratic1 and with the aid of their votes ,jefferson's party not only abolished primogeniture and entail and other old ,english customs1 but also carried the disestablishment of the ,episcopal ,church in ,virginia4 ,madison's ,religious ,freedom ,act of #aghe1 which not only effected this1 but likewise did away with all religious tests1 is a very important event in the history of the ,united ,states4 ,the statute1 which declared that opinion in matters of religion shall in no wise diminish1 enlarge1 or affect civil capacities1 attracted attention far and wide2 it was translated into several ,european languages1 and published with admiring comments2 and in the course of the next forty years it was imitated by one state after another1 until all over the land religious freedom came to be almost as complete as legislation could make it4 ,the qualifying adverb is still needed2 for1 by the constitutions of ,pennsylvania and ,tennessee1 no man can hold office unless he believes in ,god and a future state of rewards and punishments2 in ,texas1 ,arkansas1 ,mississippi1 the two ,carolinas1 and ,maryland1 belief in ,god is required2 and in ,arkansas and ,maryland a man who does not believe in ,god and a future state of retribution is deemed incompetent as a witness or juror4#ba ,such curiosities of law-making--survivals from a lower state1 like the caudal vertebra in man and the higher apes--are common enough in history4 ,the various stages here mentioned in the progress toward religious toleration1 and toward the separation of church and state1 are important symptoms of the progress of liberal thought4 ,of course ,madison's ,religious ,freedom ,act could not have been proposed by an ,endicott1 or sustained by a community that would not endure the presence of ,baptists or ,quakers4 ,the sketch here given shows an enormous advance in liberal thought in the course of two centuries and a half4 ,but such a survey is far from telling us the whole story4 ,a further inquiry into causal agencies is needed1 and the best field for it is furnished by that theocratic ,puritanism which cast out ,roger ,williams1--the ,puritanism of the four confederated ,new ,england colonies1 and especially of ,massachusetts4 ,no one can deny that in ,massachusetts1 during the nineteenth century1 liberal thought has advanced further and has permeated the community more thoroughly than in any other state of the ,american ,union4 ,for at least three generations the intellectual ferment upon which liberal thought in the ,united ,states has thriven has come chiefly from ,massachusetts4 ,yet among our colonies which attained social maturity during the seventeenth century there was none which made such emphatic exhibitions of intolerance and bigotry as ,massachusetts4 ,she was as clearly and avowedly founded upon an illiberal principle as ,rhode ,island was founded upon a principle of liberality4 ,the ,endicott type of mind is the very antipodes of the ,roger ,williams type2 yet it was in the land of ,endicott1 and in a congenial soil1 that ,theodore ,parker lately flourished4 ,whence came so great a change8 ,the answer will remind us that there are two sources from which liberal thought is nourished4 ,the one is the secularized ,gallio spirit that deems it folly to interpose obstacles in the way of the natural working of reason and common sense2 the other is the intense devotion to spiritual ideals which1 in spite of all inherited encumbrances of bigotry and superstition1 never casts off its allegiance to reason as the final arbiter4 ,the former spirit is of vast use in the world1 although its tendency is to deaden into mere worldliness as typified in a ,franklin2 the latter spirit may commit many an error1 but its drift is toward light and stimulus and exaltation of life as typified in an ,emerson4 ,in the darkest days of ,new ,england ,puritanism the paramount allegiance to reason was never lost sight of2 and out of this fact came the triumph of free thinking1 although no such result was ever intended4 ,the aims of the ,puritans who settled in ,new ,england were not all alike1 but one dominant aim with many was the founding of a commonwealth in which church and state should be identified1 somewhat after the pattern of the old ,hebrew theocracy4 ,to this end the suffrage in ,massachusetts and ,new ,haven was limited to persons qualified to receive the sacrament in ,congregational churches4 ,this ,massachusetts idea was never adopted by ,plymouth1 and the founding of ,connecticut was at least in part a liberal protest against it4 ,in ,new ,haven it was soon suppressed by the act of ,charles ,,ii4 which put an end to the separate existence of the colony4 ,in ,massachusetts1 where this theocratic policy prevailed for half a century1 the result was the growth of an unenfranchised class which came to include four fifths of the community4 ,during the first generation1 when the policy was administered by broad-minded1 sagacious men like ,winthrop and ,cotton1 its evils were not flagrant4 ,but after #afej1 with such fanatics as ,norton and the aged ,endicott at the helm1 it soon became evident that the rulers were at variance on many points with the mass of the people4 ,this was shown with glaring force in the ,quaker persecution1 when the violence of ,endicott's party produced a popular reaction of feeling1 which enabled the ,quakers to carry their point and remain in the colony in defiance of statutes4 ,it was further shown in the ,half-way ,covenant and the founding of the ,old ,south ,church in #affi1 as parts of a movement toward extending the suffrage2 and again in the rise of the ,tory party under the lead of ,joseph ,dudley1 opposed to the pretensions of the clergy4 ,the magnificent work of the ,massachusetts theocracy in resisting the crown throughout the whole reign of ,charles ,,ii4 can never be forgotten4 ,nothing was ever done in ,america that contributed more toward the maintenance of political freedom4 ,but in spite of its merits1 the faults of the theocracy were such that we cannot regret its speedy overthrow4 ,when that overthrow was effected1 by the charter of #afib1 there were a great many people in ,massachusetts more or less hostile to the kind of ,puritanism entertained by their grandfathers1 and thus prepared for a more liberal mental habit4 ,there was also a marked secularization of thought1 a diminution of interest in theological problems1 and a deadening of religious zeal4 ,a wonderful series of changes was set on foot by the writings and preaching of ,jonathan ,edwards1 and the group of revivals between #agce and #agej known as the ,great ,awakening4 ,few figures in history are more pathetic or more sublime than that of ,jonathan ,edwards in the lonely woodlands of ,northampton and ,stockbridge1 a thinker for depth and acuteness surpassed by not many that have lived1 a man with the soul of a poet and prophet1 wrestling with the most terrible problems that humanity has ever encountered1 with more than the courage and candour of ,augustine or ,calvin1 with all the lofty inspiration of ,fichte or ,novalis4 ,an interesting historical essay might be devoted to tracing the effects wrought upon ,new ,england by this giant personality4 ,the ,great ,awakening1 in which he took part1 and to which his preaching powerfully contributed1 revived the popular interest in theological questions1 disencumbered of the ever present political implications of the previous century4 ,in many ways his theories acted as a disintegrating solvent upon the beliefs of the time4 ,for example1 the prominence which he gave to spiritual conversion1 or what was called change of heart1 brought about the overthrow of the doctrine of the ,half-way ,covenant4 ,it also weakened the logical basis of infant baptism1 and led to the winning of hosts of converts by the ,baptists4 ,moreover1 the uses to which ,edwards put his doctrine of the will produced a reaction toward ,arminianism1 which not only affected the teachings of the ,baptists1 but predisposed many persons to join in the wave of ,methodism which was just about to sweep over the country4 ,a similar reaction against ,edwards's views of divine justice1 reinforced by some first faint inklings of ,biblical criticism1 pointed the way toward ,universalism4 ,still more1 the discussions aroused by ,edwards's speculations on original sin and the atonement began to undermine the doctrine of the ,trinity and prepare men's minds for the ,unitarian movement4 ,no such results would have been possible save in a country where education was universal and the ,sunday sermon a favourite theme of discussion4 ,sooner or later1 the perpetual appeal to reason1 with the familiar use of metaphysical arguments and citations of ,scripture1 must lead to novelties of doctrine and to negative criticism2 while for the education of the popular intelligence nothing could be more effective4 ,in seventeenth-century ,puritanism1 therefore1 in spite of its rigid narrowness1 there were latent the speculations of an ,edwards1 the further conclusions to which some of them were pushed1 the reactions against them1 the keen edge of the critical faculty in ,new ,england1 and much of the free thinking of a later age4 ,in the course of the eighteenth century some influence was doubtless exercised in ,america by the ,english deists1 and at the very end of the century by ,thomas ,paine4 ,there is no reason to suppose that any appreciable effect was produced by the atheism of the ,french encyclopdists1 which was mainly a reaction1 largely emotional and aided by the shallowest of metaphysics1 against the effete ecclesiastical system in ,france4 ,it was too remote from ,american ideas to exert much influence here4 ,the deism of ,voltaire found a few scattered admirers4 ,a quiet religion of humanity1 which set little store by miracles1 or abstruse doctrines1 or the divine authority of ,scripture1 was held by a number of eminent persons of strong prosaic common sense and feeble spirituality1 among whom may be named ,franklin and ,jefferson and ,john ,adams4 ,this phase of free thought was of considerable importance1 but the dominant influence in ,new ,england down to the rise of the transcendental movement was that which could be traced back to ,edwards4 ,in the early part of the present century1 the most advanced phase of liberal thought1 represented by the ,unitarians in ,massachusetts1 was trying to hold an utterly untenable position1 halfway between narrow orthodoxy and untrammelled free thinking1 when the ground began to be cut from under it by the transcendentalists1 whose native temperaments1 not wanting in kinship with that of ,edwards1 were stimulated by a brief contact with ,kantian and post-,kantian speculation in ,germany4 ,in ,emerson's poetic soul the result was a seminal influence upon high thinking1 in ,america and in the ,old ,world1 the power of which we cannot but feel1 but which it is as yet too soon to estimate4 ,in the middle of the century some wholesome destructive work still needed to be done1 and it was well done4 ,when ,german criticism1 with the other weapons in the powerful hands of ,theodore ,parker1 freed us from the spectre of bibliolatry1 it might indeed be said that the promise of the ,protestant ,reformation was at length fulfilled4 ,the change wrought in the ,unitarian church since ,parker began his preaching has been to some extent followed by analogous changes in other churches4 ,on every side1 the last quarter of the nineteenth century has been preminently the age of the decomposition of orthodoxies4 ,here and there and everywhere they are crumbling into ruins2 and as the world has long since left behind the age of trilobites and the age of dinosaurs1 so in the world to which we are coming there will be neither a place nor a use for orthodoxies4 ,for1 as ,i must observe in conclusion1 there is all about us a resistless and world-wide influence at work1 to which all the temporary and local causes ,i have mentioned have been but the ministering servants4 ,from age to age1 our knowledge is growing from more to more4 ,from the discovery of ,america1 from the astronomy of ,copernicus and the physics of ,galileo1 down to the universal doctrine of evolution in our own time1 there has been one grand coherent and consecutive tale of ever enlarging1 ever more organized knowledge of the world in which we live4 ,by this enlarged experience our minds are affected1 from day to day and from year to year1 in more ways than we can detect or enumerate4 ,it opens our minds to some notions1 and makes them incurably hostile to others2 so that1 for example1 new truths well-nigh beyond comprehension1 like some of those connected with the luminiferous ether1 are accepted1 and old beliefs once universal1 like witchcraft1 are scornfully rejected4 ,vast changes in mental attitude are thus wrought before it is generally realized4 ,into the new scheme of things old beliefs no longer fit1 and are therefore thrown aside and forgotten4 ,now our orthodoxies are of older date than the goodly fabric of modern knowledge4 ,they are the outcome of more primitive and childlike thinking1 they have ceased to fit the world as we know it1 and therefore they fade and fall away from us1 in spite of all our efforts to retain undisturbed the venerable and hallowed associations4 ,in this inevitable struggle there has always been more or less pain1 and hence free thought has not usually been popular4 ,it has come to our life feast as a guest unbidden and unwelcome2 but it has come to stay with us1 and already proves more genial than was expected4 ,deadening1 cramping finality has lost its charm for him who has tasted of the ripe fruit of the tree of knowledge4 ,in this broad universe of ,god's wisdom and love1 not leashes to restrain us are needed1 but wings to sustain our flight4 ,let bold but reverent thought go on and probe creation's mysteries1 till faith and knowledge make one music as before1 but vaster4 ,october1 #ahie4 ,,vi ,,sir ,,harry ,,vane#bb ,with the single exception of ,cromwell1 the greatest statesman of the heroic age of ,puritanism was unquestionably the younger ,henry ,vane4 ,he did as much as any one to compass the downfall of ,strafford2 he brought the military strength of ,scotland to the aid of the hard-pressed ,parliament2 he administered the navy with which ,blake won his astonishing victories2 he dared even withstand ,cromwell at the height of his power1 when his measures savoured too much of violence4 ,after the death of ,pym in #afdc1 ,sir ,henry ,vane1 then thirty-one years of age1 was the foremost man in the ,long ,parliament1 and so remained as long as that ,parliament controlled the march of events4 ,as ,baxter said1 he was that within the ,house that ,cromwell was without4 ,yet before the beginning of his brilliant career in ,england1 this young man had written his name indelibly upon one of the earliest pages in the history of the ,american people4 ,it is pleasant to remember that this admirable man was once the chief magistrate of an ,american commonwealth4 ,thorough republican and enthusiastic lover of liberty1 he was spiritually akin to ,jefferson and to ,samuel ,adams4 ,his career furnishes an excellent illustration of ,mr4 ,doyle's remark1 that by looking at the colony of ,massachusetts1 we can see what sort of a commonwealth was constructed by the best men of the ,puritan party1 and to some extent what they would have made of the government of ,england if they could have had their way unchecked4 ,an adequate biography of this great statesman was a thing much to be desired4 ,half a century ago ,mr4 ,c4 ,w4 ,upham contributed to ,sparks's ,american ,biography an interesting life of ,vane2 and about the same time ,mr4 ,john ,forster1 in his ,statesmen of the ,commonwealth1 made a sketch characterized by his usual brilliancy4 ,but both these writers indulged themselves in that kind of indiscriminate eulogy which used in those days to be thought necessary for biographers2 and by way of foil to their hero they seemed to feel bound to underrate and misinterpret ,cromwell1 even as ,carlyle seemed to think he was exalting the great1 ,protector in belittling ,vane4 ,the remarkable advance in fairness and breadth of view which historical studies have made within the last fifty years is nowhere better illustrated than in the spirit in which the seventeenth century in ,england is treated by ,masson and ,gardiner as contrasted with ,macaulay4 ,it is no longer the fashion to depict individuals or parties as wholly saintlike or quite the reverse1 and it is beginning to be practically recognized that there are two sides to almost every question4 ,the need for an adequate life of ,sir ,harry ,vane has been most thoroughly and admirably satisfied by ,mr4 ,hosmer4 ,as a biography and as a historical monograph1 it deserves to be ranked among the best books of the day4 ,it paints a lifelike picture of the man1 and it describes1 in a broad1 generous spirit and with keen philosophical insight1 the causal succession of events in one of the most momentous political contests the world has ever seen4 ,we are getting far enough away from the seventeenth century to realize the critical importance of the struggle in which kingship was struck down in ,england just as it was attaining unchecked supremacy in all the other great nations of ,europe4 ,we can put the ,great ,rebellion into its proper place in the series of conflicts which have so far resulted in spreading constitutional government far and wide over two hemispheres2 and we can begin to see how disastrous in its consequences would have been the victory of the ,cavaliers1 true and gallant men as most of them doubtless were4 ,without dealing too much in generalities1 ,mr4 ,hosmer's narrative keeps before us the gravity of the issues at stake1 while our attention is seldom drawn away from the powerful but quiet and gracious personality that occupies the centre of the canvas4 ,it is customary for great eras to live in the twilight of popular memory in association with some one surpassing name1 while other heroes of the time are dimly remembered or quite forgotten4 ,the work of these other men gets unconsciously transferred to the credit of the most brilliant or striking hero1 as ,hamilton1 for example1 is apt to get associated not merely with his own all-important achievements1 but likewise with those of ,madison and the ,federal ,convention generally4 ,in accordance with this labour-saving habit of mind1 the ,great ,rebellion in popular memory means ,oliver ,cromwell1 while such men as ,eliot and ,pym1 ,fairfax and ,ireton1 are passed over2 and if ,hampden stays1 it is partly due to the often-quoted line of the poet ,gray4 ,so there are many who know ,vane only through ,milton's sonnet1--itself perhaps the noblest literary tribute ever paid to a statesman4 ,in ,mr4 ,hosmer's pages ,sir ,harry lives again1 one of the brightest figures of the ,puritan age1 cheerful and affectionate1 full of sacred enthusiasm1 yet shrewd and self-contained4 ,he was indeed a man of extraordinary parts1 a pleasant wit1 a great understanding which pierced into and discerned the purposes of men with wonderful sagacity1 whilst he had himself vultum clausum1 that no man could make a guess of what he intended4 ,so says ,clarendon1 who loved him not1 but could not help admiring the skill which1 at the most critical moment of the war1 when many stout adherents of the parliamentary cause were inclined to abandon it as lost1 all at once brought light out of darkness1 as the signing of the ,solemn ,league and ,covenant summoned ,alexander ,leslie and twenty thousand brawny ,scots across the border to stand side by side with ,cromwell and ,fairfax at ,marston ,moor4 ,in later days it became matter of common report that the northern ,covenanters had fallen a prey to the wiles of that sweet youth1 and allowed themselves to be hoodwinked and cozened by sly ,sir ,harry1 until1 in the hope of establishing ,presbyterianism south of the ,tweed1 they lent themselves to the work of setting the monster ,independency upon its feet4 ,mr4 ,hosmer carefully examines this charge1 and1 we think1 successfully refutes it4 ,it was neither the first nor the last contract on record which has afterward come to receive conflicting interpretations from the two parties without any tricksome intent on either side4 ,the ,scots1 says ,mr4 ,hosmer1 understood that ,england assumed their own narrow ,presbyterianism1 with its complete intolerance2 ,vane and his friends gave the instrument a different interpretation1 which they honestly felt it would bear4 ,the amendments which ,vane partly succeeded in engrafting upon the ,scottish proposals at ,edinburgh are sufficient evidence of his straightforwardness4 ,it was plain enough that1 in making a league to overcome the ,king1 the ,scots wanted one thing1 while the ,english wanted another4 ,vane did not hide this fact2 to have emphasized it would have been to forfeit all claim to diplomatic tact4 ,his part in the memorable negotiation is tersely summed up by ,clarendon3 ,sir ,harry ,vane was one of the commissioners1 and therefore the others need not be named1 since he was all in any business where others were joined with him4 ,in the ,committee of ,both ,kingdoms which the league created he was equally effective1 and it was mainly through his persistent dexterity that the committee acquired the control of military affairs1 and thus gave to the operations of the parliamentary army that unity which they had hitherto lacked4 ,the firstfruits of ,vane's diplomacy were ,marston ,moor and ,naseby1 and it would be unreasonable to find fault with ,mr4 ,hosmer for pausing to describe those battles4 ,they are brilliant episodes in his narrative4 ,we have nowhere seen the two battles more lucidly explained4 ,the author has been himself a soldier1 and has looked at the ground with a military eye4 ,one quite envies him the pleasant journey1 as on his tricycle he follows the route of the ,ironsides over the smooth roads and smiling fields of ,merry ,england4 ,his pages are redolent of the mellow cheer and fragrance of the summer day under that mild northern sun4 ,one catches1 with the author1 the spirit of the deadly fight1 and realizes1 as ,naseby spire fades away in the distance1 the gravity of the crisis and the completeness of the victory4 ,said stout old ,sir ,jacob ,astley1 when the ,roundheads took him captive a few months afterward1 ,gentlemen1 ye may now sit down and play1 for you have done all your work1 if you fall not out among yourselves4 ,they were already falling out among themselves2 how seriously1 ,dunbar and ,worcester were by and by to show4 ,their own generation1 says ,mr4 ,hosmer1 believed that the ,independents drew their origin from ,america4 ,certainly there had been witnessed in ,boston1 in the year when ,harvard ,college was founded1 some noteworthy manifestations of ,independency1 and scenes had been enacted which had left a deep impress upon ,sir ,harry's youthful mind4 ,in #afce the gossips wrote3 ,sir ,henry ,vane hath as good as lost his eldest son1 who is gone into ,new ,england for conscience' sake2 he likes not the discipline of the ,church of ,england2444 no persuasions of our bishops nor authority of his parents could prevail with him3 let him go4 ,the fascinating boy arrived in ,boston in ,october1 #afce1 and in the following ,march1 having won all hearts1 was elected governor of ,massachusetts4 ,he witnessed the ,pequot war1 the beautiful heroism and rare diplomacy of ,roger ,williams1 and the bitter strife which ensued upon the teachings of ,mrs4 ,hutchinson4 ,mr4 ,hosmer gives a vivid picture of the life in the little colony1 the theological warfare1 and the passionate tears of the young man as the difficulties thickened around him4 ,perhaps his indiscreet threat of an appeal to the throne in favour of the ,antinomians1 as he sailed for ,england in the summer of #afcg1 may have served to hasten the banishment of ,mrs4 ,hutchinson2 but the lesson of toleration was already taking shape in his mind1 as was clearly shown in his controversy with ,winthrop4 ,his friendly relations with ,roger ,williams began at the time of the ,pequot war2 and in #afdc1 when ,williams visited ,england in quest of a charter for ,rhode ,island1 he was ,vane's guest at his house in ,london1 and also at his country seat in ,lincolnshire4 ,it was then that ,williams wrote that noble book1 ,the ,bloudy ,tenent of ,persecution for ,cause of ,conscience1 in the preface to which he thus refers to his friend3 ,mine ears were glad and late witnesses of an heavenly speech of one of the most eminent of that ,high ,assembly of ,parliament3 ,why should the labours of any be suppressed1 if sober1 though never so different8 ,we now profess to seek ,god1 we desire to see light6#bc ,mr4 ,hosmer gives in facsimile a touching letter from ,vane to ,winthrop in #afde1 in which he urges his friends in ,new ,england to respect the liberty of conscience4 ,in #afdh1 in order to save the cause of liberty from losing to intrigue and chicanery all the ground it had won by the sword1 the ,ironsides felt themselves called upon to take things into their own hands4 ,this period of the story1 extending to the forcible dissolution of the ,rump ,parliament in #afec1 ,mr4 ,hosmer treats under the rubric of ,american ,england4 ,for the moment1 the spirit of ,independency1 which reigned supreme in ,massachusetts1 asserted itself in ,england in the temporary overthrow of the crown and the aristocracy4 ,in this period ,sir ,harry appears as the opponent of the extreme measures of his party4 ,he heartily disapproves of such irregular proceedings as ,pride's ,purge and the execution of the ,king4 ,here is shown the strong conservatism of temperament of this law-abiding ,american-,englishman4 ,he had all the ingrained reverence of our sturdy practical race for constitutional methods1 and withal a far-sighted intelligence that could discern ways of settling the difficulty which were for the moment impracticable1 because his contemporaries had not grown up to them4 ,in his mind were the rudiments of the idea of a written constitution1 upon which a new government for ,england might be built1 with powers neatly defined and limited4 ,one fancies that in some respects he would have felt himself more at home if he could have been suddenly translated from the ,rump ,parliament of #afec to the ,federal ,convention of #aghg1 in which immortal assembly there sat perhaps no man of loftier spirit than his4 ,it was natural enough that ,cromwell1 whose stern common sense discerned the practical need of the moment and reluctantly fulfilled it1 should cry1 ,the ,lord deliver me from ,sir ,harry ,vane6 ,in spite of this antagonism at the supreme crisis1 however1 the ,protector recognized the worth of his opponent1 and seems to have borne him no deep-seated ill will4 ,there was no downright break between them until the ,healing ,question came up1 in #afef4 ,in ,vane's last years there seemed to be some good reasons for distrusting his judgment on practical questions4 ,the element of dreamy enthusiasm always present in him began to come into the foreground as his more sober ideas and plans were thwarted4 ,some of his latest utterances are like the rhapsodies of the ,fifth ,monarchists4 ,herein again appears his spiritual kinship with his friends in ,massachusetts4 ,the theocratic ideal of the founders of ,massachusetts1 as developed freely in the ,american wilderness1 was kept within rational bounds2 but if hemmed in by such inexorable circumstances as checked the early growth of republicanism in ,england1 it would very likely have flowered grotesquely enough in ,fifth ,monarchist vagaries4 ,from ,edward ,johnson1 of ,woburn1 author of the ,wonder-,working ,providence1 there often came the dithyrambic utterances of an extreme ,fifth ,monarchy man4 ,when ,charles ,,ii4 came back to his father's throne1 there was but one thing to be done with such a representative republican as ,sir ,harry ,vane4 ,his head must come off1 for there was not room enough in ,england to hold him and the son of ,charles ,i4 at the same time4 ,he died on ,tower ,hill1 with all the fearlessness and charming sweetness that had always marked his life4 ,his memory is a precious possession for all coming generations2 and the book in which ,mr4 ,hosmer has told the story of his life1 with such warm sympathy and such broad intelligence1 is worthy of its subject4 ,january1 #ahhi4 ,,vii ,,the ,,arbitration ,,treaty ,after negotiations which had been pending for nearly two years1 the general ,arbitration ,treaty between the ,united ,states and ,great ,britain was signed on the #aath of ,january #ahig by ,mr4 ,richard ,olney and ,sir ,julian ,pauncefote1 representing the two countries concerned2 and on the following day the document was sent by ,president ,cleveland to the ,senate for ratification4 ,the provisions of this important treaty may be summarized as follows3-- ,it is expected that differences arising between the two countries will ordinarily admit of settlement by the customary methods of diplomacy4 ,it is only with cases where such customary methods fail that the provisions of the present treaty are concerned2 and the parties hereby agree to submit all such cases to arbitration after the manner herein provided4 ,the questions in difference that are liable to arise are arranged in three grades or classes3 7#a7 small pecuniary claims2 7#b7 large pecuniary claims1 and others not involving questions of territory2 7#c7 territorial claims4 ,for each of these grades there is to be a special method of settlement4 ,first1 all pecuniary claims or groups of claims1 which in the aggregate do not exceed #ejj1jjj in amount and do not involve the determination of territorial claims1 shall be decided by a tribunal constituted as follows3 ,each party shall nominate one arbitrator1 who shall be a jurist of repute1 and the two arbitrators so nominated shall1 within two months of their nomination1 select an umpire4 ,in the event of their failing to do so within the limit of time1 the umpire shall be appointed by agreement between the members of the ,supreme ,court of the ,united ,states and the members of the ,judicial ,committee of the ,privy ,council in ,great ,britain4 ,in case these persons fail to agree upon an umpire within three months1 the ,king of ,sweden and ,norway shall appoint one4 ,among public personages of unquestionable dignity and importance1 this sovereign is as likely as any to be free from bias against either the ,united ,states of ,great ,britain2 but should either party object to him1 they may adopt a substitute1 if they can agree upon one4 ,it does not seem likely that the failure to select an umpire would often reach the stage where an appeal to the ,swedish ,king would be necessary4 ,the umpire1 when and however appointed1 shall be president of the tribunal of three1 and the award of a majority of the members shall be final4 ,under these provisions1 it may be expected that all petty claims can be disposed of without unreasonable delay1 and with as little risk of unfairness as one would find in any court whatever4 ,secondly1 all pecuniary claims or groups of claims exceeding #ejj1jjj1 and all other matters in respect whereof either of the parties shall have rights against the other1 under the treaty or otherwise1 provided they do not involve territorial claims1 shall be dealt with as follows3 ,such claims must be submitted to the tribunal of three1 as above described1 and its award1 if unanimous1 shall be final4 ,if the award is not unanimous1 either party may demand a review of it1 but such demand must be made within six months from the date of the award4 ,in such case1 the appellate tribunal shall consist of five jurists of repute1 no one of whom has been a member of the tribunal of three whose award is to be reviewed4 ,of these five jurists1 two shall be selected by each party1 and these four shall agree upon their umpire within three months after their nomination4 ,in case of their failure1 the umpire shall be selected 7as in the former case7 by the members of the ,supreme ,court and the ,judicial ,committee of the ,privy ,council2 and if these do not agree within three months1 the selection shall be left 7as before7 to the ,king of ,sweden and ,norway4 ,the umpire1 when selected1 shall preside4 ,the award of the tribunal of three shall be reviewed by this tribunal of five1 and the award of a majority of the five shall be final4 ,thirdly1 any controversy involving the determination of territorial claims shall be submitted to a tribunal of six members1 three of whom shall be judges of the ,supreme ,court or of ,circuit ,courts1 to be nominated by the ,president of the ,united ,states4 ,the other three shall be members of the highest ,british court or members of the ,judicial ,committee of the ,privy ,council1 to be nominated by the ,queen4 ,their award by a majority of not less than five to one shall be final4 ,if there is less than the prescribed majority1 the award shall also be final1 unless either party within three months protests that the award is erroneous4 ,if the award is protested1 or if the members of the tribunal are equally divided1 there shall be no recourse to hostile measures of any description until the mediation of one or more friendly powers shall have been invited by one or the other party4 ,it is also provided that where one of the ,united ,states or a ,british colony is specially concerned1 the ,president or ,queen may make a judicial officer of the state or colony an arbitrator4 ,in some cases1 a question may be removed from the jurisdiction of the tribunal of three or the tribunal of five1 and transferred to that of the tribunal of six4 ,if1 prior to the close of the hearing of the claim before the lower tribunal1 it shall be decided by the tribunal1 upon the motion of either party1 that the determination of the claim necessarily involves a decision of some disputed question of principle of grave general importance1 affecting the national rights of such party as distinct from its private rights1 of which it is merely an international representative1 then the jurisdiction of the lower tribunal over the claim shall at once cease1 and it shall be dealt with by the tribunal of six4 ,with regard to territorial claims1 a special article defines them as including not only all claims to territory1 but also all other claims involving questions of servitude1 rights of navigation1 access to fisheries1 and all rights and interests necessary to control the enjoyment of either's territory4 ,the treaty is to remain in force for five years from the date at which it becomes operative1 and until a year after either party shall have notified the other of its wish to terminate it4 ,the first impression which one gets from reading the treaty is that it is strictly defined and limited in its application4 ,yet1 when duly considered1 it seems to cover all chances of controversy that are likely to arise between the ,united ,states and ,great ,britain4 ,under such a treaty as this1 nearly all the questions at issue between the two countries since #aghc might have been satisfactorily adjusted1--the payment of private debts to ,british creditors1 the relinquishment of the frontier posts by ,british garrisons1 the northeastern boundary1 the partition of the ,oregon territory1 the questions concerning the ,newfoundland fisheries1 the navigation of the ,great ,lakes1 the catching of seals in ,bering ,sea1 the difference of opinion over the ,san ,juan boundary1 etc4 ,possibly some of the old questions growing out of the ,african slave trade might have been brought within its purview1 but that is now of small consequence1 since no issues of that sort are likely ever to rise again4 ,differences attending the future construction of a ,nicaragua canal1 regarded as an easement or a servitude possibly affecting vested rights1 might1 under a liberal interpretation1 be dealt with2 and one may suppose that the ,venezuela question is meant to be covered1 since it relates to territorial claims in which1 though they may not obviously concern the ,united ,states either immediately or remotely1 our government has with unexpected emphasis declared itself interested4 ,on the other hand1 one does not seem to find in the treaty any provision which would have covered two or three of the most serious questions that have ever been in dispute between the ,united ,states and ,great ,britain4 ,one of these questions1 concerning the right of search and the impressment of seamen1 was conspicuous among the causes of the ill-considered and deplorable ,war of #ahab4 ,but it may be presumed1 with strong probability1 that no difficulty of that kind can again arise between these two powers4 ,the affair of the ,trent in #ahfa seems also to be a kind of case not provided for4 ,but that affair1 most creditably settled at a moment of fierce irritation and under aggravating circumstances1 was settled in such wise as to establish a great principle which will make it extremely difficult for such a case to occur again4 ,as for the ,alabama ,claims1 they could apparently have been adjusted under the present treaty1 as large pecuniary claims involving international principles of grave general importance4 ,on the whole1 there seems to be small likelihood of any dispute arising between this country and ,great ,britain which cannot be amicably settled1 with reasonable promptness1 under the provisions of this new ,arbitration ,treaty4 ,once chief desideratum in any such instrument is to secure impartiality in the arbitrating tribunals1 and here the arrangements made in our treaty will doubtless yield as good results as can ever be achieved through mere arrangements4 ,in such matters1 the best of machinery is of less consequence than the human nature by which the machinery is to be worked4 ,impartiality1 not only real1 but conspicuous and unmistakable1 is the prime requisite in a court of arbitration4 ,its life and health can be sustained only in an atmosphere of untainted and unsuspected integrity4 ,but in an age which does not yet fully comprehend the damnable villainy of such maxims as ,our country1 right or wrong1 gross partisanship is not easy to eliminate from human nature4 ,even austere judges1 taken from a ,supreme ,court1 have sometimes shown themselves to be men of like passions with ourselves4 ,it would need but few awards made on the eight to seven principle1 as in the ,electoral ,commission of #ahgg1 to make our arbitrating tribunal the laughing-stock of the world1 and to set back for a generation or two the hand upon the timepiece of civilization4 ,a general experience1 however1 justifies us in hoping much better things from the group of international tribunals contemplated in our present treaty4 ,there is no doubt that the good work is undertaken in entire good faith by both nations2 both earnestly wish to make international arbitration successful1 and there is little fear that the importance of fair dealing will be overlooked or undervalued4 ,if the present proceedings result in the establishment of a tribunal whose integrity and impartiality shall win the permanent confidence of ,british and ,americans alike1 it will be an immense achievement1 fraught with incalculable benefit to mankind4 ,for the first time1 the substitution of international lawsuits for warfare will have been systematically begun by two of the leading nations of the world2 and an event which admits of such a description cannot be without many consequences1 enduring and profound4 ,for observe that the interest of the present treaty lies not so much in the fact that it provides for arbitration as in the fact that it aims at making arbitration the regular and permanent method of settling international disputes4 ,in due proportion to the gravity of the problem is the modest caution with which it is approached4 ,the treaty merely asks to be tried on its merits1 and only for five years at that4 ,only for such a brief period is the most vociferous ,jingo in the ,united ,states ,senate or elsewhere asked to put a curb upon his sanguinary propensities and see what will happen4 ,nay1 if we really prefer war to peace2 if1 like the giant in the nursery tale1 we are thirsting for a draught of ,british blood1 neither this nor any other treaty could long restrain us4 ,as ,hosea ,biglow truly observes1-- ,the right to be a cussed fool ,is safe from all devices human4 ,it has been rumoured that some ,senators will vote against the treaty1 in order to show their spite against ,president ,cleveland and ,mr4 ,olney4 ,if the treaty should fail of confirmation through such a cause1 it would be no more than has happened before4 ,members of the ,sapsea family have sat in other chambers than those of the ,capitol at ,washington4 ,but1 as a rule1 good causes have not long been hindered through such pettiness1 and should the treaty thus fail for the moment1 it would not be ruined1 but only delayed4 ,in any event1 it is not likely to be long in acquiring its five years' lease of life4 ,if during that time nothing should occur to discredit it1 even should no cases arise to call it into operation1 its purpose is so much in harmony with the most enlightened spirit of the age that it is pretty sure to be renewed4 ,should cases arise under it1 the machinery which it provides is confessedly provisional and tentative1 and upon renewal can be modified in such wise as may seem desirable4 ,other human institutions have been moulded by experience1 and so1 doubtless1 it will be with international courts of arbitration4 ,the working of the tribunals created by the present treaty will be carefully watched by other nations than the two parties directly concerned1 and should it achieve any notable success it will furnish a precedent likely to be imitated4 ,the removal of any source of irritation at all comparable to the ,alabama ,claims would be1 of course1 a success of the first magnitude2 great good1 with far-reaching consequences1 might be wrought by a much smaller one4 ,probably few readers are aware of the extent to which the arbitration at ,geneva in #ahgb has already served as a precedent for the peaceful solution of international difficulties4#bd ,already the moral effect of that event has been such as to suggest that it may hereafter be commemorated as the illustrious herald of a new era4 ,the ,geneva event was brought about by a treaty specially framed for the purpose1 and might thus be regarded as exceptional or extraordinary in its nature4 ,still greater1 then1 would be the moral effect of a similar success achieved by a tribunal created under the provisions of a permanent treaty4 ,the commission to arbitrate between the ,argentine ,republic and ,brazil1 #ahhf4 ,arbitration by ,spain between ,colombia and ,venezuela1 #ahhg4 ,arbitration by the minister of ,spain at ,bogot between ,italy and ,colombia1 #ahhg4 ,arbitration by ,president ,cleveland between ,nicaragua and ,costa ,rica1 #ahhh4 ,arbitration by the ,queen of ,spain between ,peru and ,ecuador1 #ahhh4 ,arbitration by ,baron ,lambermont between ,england and ,germany2 affair of ,lamoo1 #ahhh4 ,arbitration by the ,czar of ,russia between ,france and the ,netherlands2 affair of the boundaries of ,guinea1 #ahhh4 ,arbitration by ,sir ,edward ,momson between ,denmark and ,sweden1 #ahhh4 ,compromise between the ,united ,states and ,venezuela1 #ahij4 ,compromise between ,germany1 the ,united ,states1 and ,great ,britain2 affair of ,terranova1 #ahia4 ,arbitration by ,switzerland between ,england1 the ,united ,states1 and ,portugal2 affair of the railroads at ,delagoa ,bay1 #ahia4 ,arbitration between ,great ,britain and the ,united ,states relating to the question of the delimitation of territorial power in ,bering ,sea1 #ahic4 ,it may be urged that arbitration cannot often succeed in dealing with difficulties so formidable as those connected with the ,alabama ,claims4 ,the questions hitherto settled by arbitration have for the most part been of minor importance1 in which national honour has not been at stake1 and the bestial impulse to tear and bruise1 which so many light-headed persons mistake for patriotism1 has not been aroused4 ,the ,london ,spectator tells us that if the ,united ,states should ever repeat the ,mason and ,slidell incident1 or should feel insulted by the speech of some ,british prime minister1 there would be war1 no matter how loudly the lawyers in both countries might appeal to the ,arbitration ,treaty4 ,the two illustrations cited are not happy ones1 since from both may be deduced reasons why war is not likely to ensue4 ,the ,mason and ,slidell incident was a most impressive illustration of the value of delay and discussion in calming popular excitement4 ,the principle of international law which the ,united ,states violated on that occasion was a principle for which the ,united ,states had long and earnestly contended against the opposition of ,great ,britain4 ,a very brief discussion of the affair in the ,american press made this clear to every one1 and there was no cavilling when our government disowned the act and surrendered the prisoners with the noble frankness which characterized ,president ,lincoln's way of doing things4 ,what chiefly tended to hinder or prevent such a happy termination of the affair was the unnecessary arrogance of ,lord ,palmerston's government in making its demand of us4 ,what chiefly favoured it was the absence of an ocean telegraph1 affording the delay needful for sober second thought4 ,i remember hearing people say at the time that the breaking of the first ,atlantic cable in #aheh had thus turned out to be a blessing in disguise6 ,now1 should any incident as irritating as the ,trent affair occur in future1 the ,arbitration ,treaty can be made to furnish the delay which the absence of an ocean cable once necessitated2 and ,i have enough respect for ,english-speaking people on both sides of the water to believe that in such case they will behave sensibly1 and not like silly duellists4 ,so1 too1 as regards feeling insulted by the speech of a prime minister1 there is a recent historic instance to the point4 ,our ,british cousins may have had reason to feel insulted by some expressions in ,president ,cleveland's message of ,december1 #ahie1 but they took the matter very quietly4 ,had the boot been on the other leg1 a few pupils of ,elijah ,pogram might have indulged in ,barmecide suppers of gore1 but there the affair would probably have ended4 ,the reason is that deliberate public opinion in both countries feels sure that nothing is to be gained1 and much is to be lost1 by fighting4 ,under such conditions1 the growing moral sentiment which condemns most warfare as wicked has a chance to assert itself4 ,thus the delay which allows deliberate public opinion to be brought to bear upon irritating incidents is a great advantage2 and the mere existence of a permanent arbitration treaty tends toward insuring such delay4 ,people who prefer civilized and gentleman-like methods of settling disputes to the savage and ruffian-like business of burning and slaughtering are sometimes stigmatized by silly writers as sentimentalists4 ,in the deliberate public opinion which has come to be so strong a force in preventing war between the ,united ,states and ,great ,britain1 sentiment has as yet probably no great place2 but it is hoped and believed that it will by and by have much more4 ,in the days of ,alexander ,hamilton1 there was very little love for the ,federal ,union in any part of this country2 it was accepted as a disagreeable necessity4 ,but his policy brought into existence a powerful group of selfish interests binding men more and more closely to the ,union1 and more so at the ,north than at the ,south4 ,when ,webster made his reply to ,hayne1 there was a growing sentiment of ,union for him to appeal to1 and stronger at the ,north than at the ,south4 ,when the ,civil ,war came1 that sentiment was strong enough to sadden the heart of many a ,southerner whose sense of duty made him a secessionist2 at the ,north it had waxed so powerful that men were ready to die for it1 as the ,mussulman for his ,prophet or the ,cavalier for his ,king4 ,thus sentiment can quickly and sturdily grow when favoured by habits of thought originally dictated by self-interest4 ,obviously a state of things in favour of which a strong sentiment is once enlisted has its chances of permanence greatly increased4 ,i therefore hope and believe that in the deliberate public opinion above mentioned sentiment will by and by have a larger place than it has at present4 ,as feelings of dislike between the peoples of two countries are always unintelligent and churlish1 so feelings of friendship are sure to be broadening and refining4 ,the abiding sentiment of ,scotchmen toward ,england was for many centuries immeasurably more rancorous than any ,yankee schoolboy ever gave vent to on the ,fourth of ,july4 ,there is no reason why the advent of the twenty-first century should not find the friendship between the ,united ,states and ,great ,britain quite as strong as that between ,scotland and ,england to-day4 ,toward so desirable a consummation a permanent policy of arbitration must surely tend4 ,the fact that deliberate public opinion in both countries can be counted upon as strongly adverse to war is the principal fact which makes such a permanent policy feasible4 ,it is our only sufficient guarantee that the awards of the international tribunal will be respected4 ,these considerations need to be borne in mind1 if we try to speculate upon the probable influence upon other nations of a successful system of arbitration between the ,united ,states and ,great ,britain4 ,upon the continent of ,europe a considerable interest seems already to have been felt in the treaty1 and1 as ,i observed above1 its working is sure to be carefully watched2 for the states of ,europe are suffering acutely from the apparent necessity of keeping perpetually prepared for war1 and any expedient that holds out the slightest chance of relief from such a burden cannot fail to attract earnest attention4 ,the peoples of ,europe are not unfamiliar with the principles of arbitration4 ,indeed1 like many other good things which have loomed up conspicuously in recent times1 arbitration can be traced back to the ancient ,greeks1 for whom it occasionally mitigated the evils attendant upon frequent warfare between their city-states4 ,among the ,italian republics of the ,middle ,ages1 disputes were sometimes submitted to the arbitration of learned professors in the universities at ,bologna and other towns4 ,but such methods could not prevail over the ruder fashions of ,europe north of the ,alps4 ,as medival ,italy was the industrial and commercial centre of the world1 so in our day it is the nations most completely devoted to industry and commerce1 the ,english-speaking nations1 that are foremost in bringing into practice the methods of arbitration4 ,the settlement of the ,alabama ,claims is the most brilliant instance on record1 and we have already cited examples of the readiness of sundry nations1 great and small1 to imitate it4 ,such examples1 even when concerned with questions of minor importance1 are to some extent an indication of the growing conviction that war1 and the unceasing preparations for it1 are becoming insupportable burdens4 ,it is the steadily increasing complication of industrial life1 and the heightened standard of living that has come therewith1 that are making men1 year by year1 more unwilling to endure the burdens entailed by war4 ,in the ,middle ,ages1 human life was made hideous by famine1 pestilence1 perennial warfare1 and such bloody superstitions as the belief in witchcraft2 but men contrived to endure it1 because they had no experience of anything better1 and could not even form a conception of relief save such as the ,church afforded4 ,deluges of war1 fraught with horrors which stagger our powers of conception1 swept at brief intervals over every part of the continent of ,europe1 and the intervals were mostly filled with petty waspish raids that brought robbery and murder home to everybody's door2 while honest industry1 penned up within walled towns1 was glad of such precarious immunity as stout battlements eked out by blackmail could be made to afford4 ,fighting was incessant and ubiquitous4 ,the change wrought in six centuries has been amazing1 and it has been chiefly due to industrial development4 ,private warfare has been extinguished1 famine and pestilence seldom occur in civilized countries1 mental habits nurtured by science have banished the witches1 the land is covered with cheerful homesteads1 and the achievement of success in life through devotion to industrial pursuits has become general4 ,wars have greatly diminished in frequency1 in length1 and in the amount of misery needlessly inflicted4 ,we have thus learned how pleasant life can become under peaceful conditions1 and we are determined as far as possible to prolong such conditions4 ,we have no notion of submitting to misery like that of the ,middle ,ages2 on the contrary1 we have got rid of so much of it that we mean to go on and get rid of the whole4 ,such is the general feeling among civilized men4 ,it may safely be said not only to that no nation in ,christendom wishes to go to war1 but also that the nations are few which would not make a considerable sacrifice of interests and feelings rather than incur its calamities4 ,for reasons such as these1 the states of ,continental ,europe are showing an increasing disposition to submit questions to arbitration1 and in view of this situation the fullest measure of success for our ,arbitration ,treaty is to be desired1 for the sake of its moral effect4 ,the method at present in vogue on the continent of ,europe for averting warfare is the excessively cumbrous expedient of keeping up great armaments in time of peace4 ,the origin of this expedient may be traced back to the leve en masse to which revolutionary ,france resorted in the agonies of self-defence in #agib4 ,the leve en masse proved to be a far more formidable engine of warfare than the small standing armies with which ,europe had long been familiar2 and so1 after the old military system of ,prussia had been overthrown in #ahjf1 the reforms of ,stein and ,scharnhorst introduced the principle of the leve en masse into times of peace1 dividing the male population into classes which could be kept in training1 and might be successively called to the field as soon as military exigencies should demand it4 ,the prodigious strength which ,prussia could put forth under this system was revealed in #ahff and #ahgj1 and since then similar methods have become universally adopted1 so that the commencement of a general ,european war to-day would doubtless find several millions of men under arms4 ,the progress of invention is at the same time daily improving projectiles on the one hand1 and fortifications on the other2 we may perhaps hope that some of us will live long enough to see what will happen when a ball is fired with irresistible momentum against an impenetrable wall6 ,to keep up with the progress of invention enormous sums are expended on military engines1 while each nation endeavours to avert war by making such a show of strength as will deter other nations from attacking it4 ,a mania for increasing armaments has thus been produced1 and although this state of things is far less destructive and demoralizing than actual war1 it lays a burden upon ,europe which is fast becoming intolerable4 ,for the modern development of industry has given rise to problems that press for solution1 and no satisfactory solution can be reached in the midst of this monstrous armed peace4 ,competition has reached a point where no nation can afford to divert a considerable percentage of its population from industrial pursuits4 ,each nation1 in order to maintain its rank in the world1 is called upon to devote its utmost energies to agriculture1 manufactures1 and commerce4 ,moreover1 the economic disturbances due to the withdrawal of so many men from the work of production are closely connected with the discontent which finds vent in the wild schemes of socialists1 communists1 and anarchists4 ,there is no other way of beginning the work of social redemption but by a general disarmament2 and this opinion has for some years been gaining strength in ,europe4 ,it is commonly felt that in one way or another the state of armed peace will have to be abandoned4 ,in a lecture at the ,royal ,institution of ,great ,britain in #ahhj1 ,i argued that the contrast between the ,united ,states1 with a population quite freed from the demands of militarism1 and the continent of ,europe1 with its enormous armaments useless for productive purposes1 could not long be maintained2 that ,american competition would soon come to press so severely upon ,europe as to compel a disarmament1 and in this way the swords would get beaten into ploughshares4 ,american competition is less effective than it might be1 owing to our absurd tariffs and vicious currency1 but its tendency has undoubtedly been in the direction indicated4 ,i suspect1 however1 that the process will be less simple4 ,within the last twenty years the operations of production and distribution have been assuming colossal proportions4 ,syndicates1 trusts1 and other huge combinations of capital have begun carrying on business upon a scale heretofore unprecedented4 ,already we see symptoms that such combinations are to include partners in various parts of the earth4 ,business1 in short1 is becoming more and more international2 and under such circumstances the era of general disarmament is likely to be hastened4 ,in the long run1 peace has no other friend so powerful as commerce4 ,while every successful resort to arbitration is to be welcomed as a step toward facilitating disarmament1 it seems probable that institutions of somewhat broader scope than courts of arbitration will be required for the settlement of many complex international questions4 ,in the ,european congresses which have assembled from time to time to deal with peculiar exigencies1 we have the precedent for such more regular and permanent institutions4 ,an example of what is meant was furnished by the ,congress of ,paris in #ahef1 when it dealt summarily with the whole group of vexed questions relating to the rights and duties of neutrals and belligerents upon the ocean1 and put an end to the chaos of two centuries by establishing an international code relating to piracy1 blockades1 and seizures in times of naval war4 ,this code has been respected by maritime powers and enforced by the world's public opinion1 and its establishment was a memorable incident in the advance of civilization4 ,now1 such work as the ,congress of ,paris did can be done in future by other congresses1 but it is work of broader scope than has hitherto been undertaken by courts of arbitration4 ,i am inclined to think that both these institutions--the ,international ,congress and the ,tribunal of ,arbitration--are destined to survive1 with very considerable increase in power and dignity1 in the political society of the future1 long after disarmament has become an accomplished fact4 ,about the time that a small party of ,englishmen at ,jamestown were laying the first foundation stones of the ,united ,states1 one of the greatest kings and one of the greatest ministers of modern times were deeply engaged in what they called the ,great ,design1 a scheme for a ,european ,confederation4 ,the plan of ,henry ,,iv4 of ,france and the ,duke of ,sully contemplated a federal republic of ,christendom1 comprising six hereditary crowns 7,france1 ,england1 ,spain1 ,sweden1 ,denmark1 ,lombardy71 five elective crowns 7the ,empire1 the ,papacy1 ,bohemia1 ,hungary1 ,poland71 and four republics 7,venice1 the small ,italian states1 ,switzerland1 and the ,netherlands74 ,there was to be a federal government in three branches1 legislative1 executive1 judicial2 a federal army of about three hundred thousand men1 and a powerful federal fleet4 ,the purpose of the federation was to put an end once and forever to wars1 both civil and international4 ,probably the two great statesmen were not sanguine as to the immediate success of their ,great ,design1 and doubtless none knew better than they that it would cost at least one mighty war to establish it4 ,but there is a largeness of view about the scheme that is refreshing to meet in a world of arid and narrow commonplaces4 ,with all their breadth of vision1 however1 ,henry and ,sully would surely have been amazed had they been told that the handful of half-starved ,englishmen at ,jamestown were inaugurating a political and social development that in course of time would contribute powerfully toward the success of something like their ,great ,design4 ,in human affairs a period of three centuries is a brief one1 and the progress already made in the direction toward which the two great ,frenchmen were looking is significant and prophetic4 ,the vast armaments now maintained on the continent of ,europe cannot possibly endure4 ,economic necessities will put an end to them before many years4 ,but disarmament1 apparently1 can only proceed pari passu with the establishment of peaceful methods of settling international questions4 ,the machinery for this will probably be found in the further development of two institutions that have already come into existence1 the ,international ,congress and the ,court of ,arbitration4 ,the existence of these institutions1 which is now occasional1 will tend to become permanent3 the former will deal preferably with the establishment of general principles1 the latter with their judicial application to special cases4 ,as ,european congresses meet now upon extraordinary occasions1 so once it was with the congresses of the ,american colonies1 such as the ,new ,york ,congress of #afij and the ,albany ,congress of #aged for concerting measures against ,new ,france1 and the ,new ,york ,congress of #agfe for protesting against the ,stamp ,act4 ,then came the ,continental ,congress of #aggd1 which circumstances kept in existence for fifteen years1 until a political revolution reached its consummation in replacing it by a completely organized federal government4 ,in #aged the possibility of a permanent federation of ,american states was derided as an idle dream of ,benjamin ,franklin and ,thomas ,hutchinson4 ,very little love was lost between the people of different colonies2 and when the crisis came on1 after #aghc1 the majority hated and dreaded a permanent ,federal ,union1 and accepted it only as the alternative to something worse1 namely1 anarchy and civil war4 ,in like manner1 it may be surmised as not improbable that in course of time the occasions for summoning ,european congresses will recur with increasing frequency until the functions which they are called upon to discharge will convert them into a permanent institution4 ,such a development1 combined with the increased employment of arbitration1 must ultimately tend toward the creation of a ,federal ,union in ,europe4 ,the fact that such a result will be hated and dreaded by many people1 perhaps by the great majority1 need not prevent its being accepted and acquiesced in as the alternative to something worse1 namely1 the indefinite continuance of the system of vast armaments4 ,by the time when such a result comes clearly within sight1 it will very likely have been made evident that the policy of isolation which our country has wisely pursued for the century past cannot be maintained perpetually4 ,when ,washington wrote his ,farewell ,address1 the danger of our getting dragged into the mighty struggle then raging in ,europe was a real and serious danger1 against which we needed to be solemnly warned4 ,since then times have changed1 and they are changing still4 ,from a nation scarcely stronger than ,portugal we have become equal to the strongest4 ,railways1 telegraphs1 and international industries are making every part of the world the neighbour of every other part4 ,to preserve a policy of isolation will not always be possible1 nor will it be desirable4 ,situations will arise 7if they have not already arisen7 in which such moral weight as the ,united ,states can exert will be called for4 ,the pacification of ,europe1 therefore1 is not an affair that is foreign to our interests4 ,in that1 as in every other aspect of the ,christian policy of peace on earth and good will to men1 we are most deeply concerned2 and every incident1 like the present ,arbitration ,treaty1 that promises to advance us even by one step toward the sublime result1 it is our solemn duty to welcome and encourage by all the means within our power4 ,february1 #ahig4 ,,viii ,,francis ,,parkman#be ,in the summer of #ahfe ,i had occasion almost daily to pass by the pleasant windows of ,little1 ,brown ,co41 in ,boston1 and it was not an easy thing to do without stopping for a moment to look in upon their ample treasures4 ,among the freshest novelties there displayed were to be seen ,lord ,derby's translation of the ,iliad1 ,forsyth's ,life of ,cicero1 ,colonel ,higginson's ,epictetus1 a new edition of ,edmund ,burke's writings1 and the tasteful reprint of ,froude's ,history of ,england1 just in from the ,riverside ,press4 ,one day1 in the midst of such time-honoured classics and new books on well-worn themes1 there appeared a stranger that claimed attention and aroused curiosity4 ,it was a modest crown octavo1 clad in sombre garb1 and bearing the title ,pioneers of ,france in the ,new ,world4 ,the author's name was not familiar to me1 but presently ,i remembered having seen it upon a stouter volume labelled ,the ,conspiracy of ,pontiac1 of which many copies used to stand in a row far back in the inner and dusky regions of the shop4 ,this older book ,i had once taken down from its shelf1 just to quiet a lazy doubt as to whether ,pontiac might be the name of a man or a place4 ,had that conspiracy been an event in ,merovingian ,gaul or in ,borgia's ,italy1 ,i should have felt a twinge of conscience at not knowing about it2 but the deeds of feathered and painted red men on the ,great ,lakes and the ,alleghanies1 only a century old1 seemed remote and trivial4 ,indeed1 with the old-fashioned study of the humanities1 which tended to keep the ,mediterranean too exclusively in the centre of one's field of vision1 it was not always easy to get one's historical perspective correctly adjusted4 ,scenes and events that come within the direct line of our spiritual ancestry1 which until yesterday was all in the ,old ,world1 thus become unduly magnified1 so as to deaden our sense of the interest and importance of the things that have happened since our forefathers went forth from their homesteads to grapple with the terrors of an outlying wilderness4 ,we find no difficulty in realizing the historic significance of ,marathon and ,chalons1 of the barons at ,runnymede or ,luther at ,wittenberg2 and scarcely a hill or a meadow in the ,romans ,europe but blooms for us with flowers of romance4 ,literature and philosophy1 art and song1 have expended their richest treasures in adding to the witchery of ,old ,world spots and ,old ,world themes4 ,but as we learn to broaden our horizon1 the perspective becomes somewhat shifted4 ,it begins to dawn upon us that in ,new ,world events1 also1 there is a rare and potent fascination4 ,not only is there the interest of their present importance1 which nobody would be likely to deny1 but there is the charm of a historic past as full of romance as any chapter whatever in the annals of mankind4 ,the ,alleghanies as well as the ,apennines have looked down upon great causes lost and won1 and the ,mohawk ,valley is classic ground no less than the banks of the ,rhine4 ,to appreciate these things thirty years ago required the vision of a master in the field of history2 and when ,i carried home and read the ,pioneers of ,france1 ,i saw at once that in ,francis ,parkman we had found such a master4 ,the reading of the book was for me1 as doubtless for many others1 a pioneer experience in this ,new ,world4 ,it was a delightful experience1 repeated and prolonged for many a year1 as those glorious volumes came one after another from the press1 until the story of the struggle between ,france and ,england for the possession of ,north ,america was at last completed4 ,it was an experience of which the full significance required study in many and apparently diverse fields to realize4 ,by step after step one would alight upon new ways of regarding ,america and its place in universal history4 ,first and most obvious1 plainly visible from the threshold of the subject1 was its extreme picturesqueness4 ,it is a widespread notion that ,american history is commonplace and dull2 and as for the ,american red man1 he is often thought to be finally disposed of when we have stigmatized him as a bloodthirsty demon and grovelling beast4 ,it is safe to say that those who entertain such notions have never read ,mr4 ,parkman4 ,in the theme which occupied him his poet's eye saw nothing that was dull or commonplace4 ,to bring him vividly before us1 ,i will quote his own words from one of the introductory pages of his opening volume3-- ,the ,french dominion is a memory of the past2 and when we evoke its departed shades1 they rise upon us from their graves in strange romantic guise4 ,again their ghostly camp fires seem to burn1 and the fitful light is cast around on lord and vassal and black-robed priest1 mingled with wild forms of savage warriors1 knit in close fellowship on the same stern errand4 ,a boundless vision grows upon us3 an untamed continent2 vast wastes of forest verdure2 mountains silent in primeval sleep2 river1 lake1 and glimmering pool2 wilderness oceans mingling with the sky4 ,such was the domain which ,france conquered for civilization4 ,plumed helmets gleamed in the shade of its forests1 priestly vestments in its dens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism4 ,men steeped in antique learning1 pale with the close breath of the cloister1 here spent the noon and evening of their lives1 ruled savage hordes with a mild parental sway1 and stood serene before the direst shapes of death4 ,men of courtly nurture1 heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry1 here with their dauntless hardihood put to shame the boldest sons of toil4 ,when a writer in sentences that are mere generalizations gives us such pictures as these1 one has much to expect from his detailed narrative1 glowing with sympathy and crowded with incident4 ,in ,parkman's books such expectations are never disappointed4 ,what was an uncouth and howling wilderness in the world of literature he has taken for his own domain1 and peopled it forever with living figures1 dainty and winsome1 or grim and terrible1 or sprightly and gay4 ,never shall be forgotten the beautiful earnestness1 the devout serenity1 the blithe courage1 of ,champlain2 never can we forget the saintly ,marie de l',incarnation1 the delicate and long-suffering ,lalemant1 the lionlike ,brbeuf1 the chivalrous ,maisonneuve1 the grim and wily ,pontiac1 or that man against whom fate sickened of contending1 the mighty and masterful ,la ,salle4 ,these1 with many a comrade and foe1 have now their place in literature as permanent and sure as ,tancred or ,st4 ,boniface1 as the ,cid or ,robert ,bruce4 ,as the wand of ,scott revealed unsuspected depths of human interest in ,border castle and ,highland glen1 so it seems that ,north ,america was but awaiting the magician's touch that should invest its rivers and hillsides with memories of great days gone by4 ,parkman's sweep has been a wide one1 and many are the spots that his wand has touched1 from the cliffs of the ,saguenay to the ,texas coast1 and from ,acadia to the western slopes of the ,rocky ,mountains4 ,i do not forget that earlier writers than ,parkman had felt something of the picturesqueness and the elements of dramatic force in the history of the conquest of our continent4 ,in particular1 the characteristics of the red men and the incidents of forest life had long ago been made the theme of novels and poems1 such as they were2 ,i wonder how many people of to-day remember even the names of such books as ,yonnondio or ,kabaosa8 ,all such work was thrown into the shade by that of ,fenimore ,cooper1 whose genius1 though limited1 was undeniable4 ,but when we mention ,cooper we are brought at once by contrast to the secret of ,parkman's power4 ,it has long been recognized that ,cooper's ,indians are more or less unreal2 just such creatures never existed anywhere4 ,when ,corneille and ,racine put ancient ,greeks or ,romans on the stage they dressed them in velvet and gold lace1 flowing wigs and high buckled shoes1 and made them talk like ,louis ,,xiv4's courtiers2 in seventeenth-century dramatists the historical sense was lacking4 ,in the next age it was not much better4 ,when ,rousseau had occasion to philosophize about men in a state of nature he invented the ,noble ,savage1 an insufferable creature whom any real savage would justly loathe and despise4 ,the noble savage has figured extensively in modern literature1 and has left his mark upon ,cooper's pleasant pages as well as upon many a chapter of serious history4 ,but you cannot introduce unreal ,indians as factors in the development of a narrative without throwing a shimmer of unreality about the whole story4 ,it is like bringing in ghosts or goblins among live men and women3 it instantly converts sober narrative into fairy tale2 the two worlds will no more mix than oil and water4 ,the ancient and medival minds did not find it so1 as the numberless histories encumbered with the supernatural testify2 but the modern mind does find it so4 ,the modern mind has taken a little draught1 the prelude to deeper draughts1 at the healing and purifying well of science2 and it has begun to be dissatisfied with anything short of exact truth4 ,when any unsound element enters into a narrative1 the taint is quickly tasted1 and its flavour spoils the whole4 ,we are then brought1 ,i say1 to the secret of ,parkman's power4 ,his ,indians are true to the life4 ,in his pages ,pontiac is a man of warm flesh and blood1 as much so as ,montcalm or ,israel ,putnam4 ,this solid reality in the ,indians makes the whole work real and convincing4 ,here is the great contrast between ,parkman's work and that of ,prescott1 in so far as the latter dealt with ,american themes4 ,in reading ,prescott's account of the conquest of ,mexico1 one feels one's self in the world of the ,arabian ,nights2 indeed1 the author himself1 in occasional comments1 lets us see that he is unable to get rid of just such a feeling4 ,his story moves on in a region that is unreal to him1 and therefore tantalizing to the reader2 his ,montezuma is a personality like none that ever existed beneath the moon4 ,this is because ,prescott simply followed his ,spanish authorities not only in their statements of physical fact1 but in their inevitable misconceptions of the strange ,aztec society which they encountered2 the ,aztecs in his story are unreal1 and this false note vitiates it all4 ,in his ,peruvian story ,prescott followed safer leaders in ,garcilasso de la ,vega and ,cieza de ,leon1 and made a much truer picture2 but he lacked the ethnological knowledge needful for coming into touch with that ancient society1 and one often feels this as the weak spot in a narrative of marvellous power and beauty4 ,now it was ,parkman's good fortune at an early age to realize that in order to do his work it was first of all necessary to know the ,indian by personal fellowship and contact4 ,it was also his good fortune that the right sort of ,indians were still accessible4 ,what would not ,prescott have given1 what would not any student of human evolution give1 for a chance to pass a week or even a day in such a community as the ,tlascala of ,xicotencatl or the ,mexico of ,montezuma6 ,that phase of social development has long since disappeared4 ,but fifty years ago1 on our great western plains and among the ,rocky ,mountains1 there still prevailed a state of society essentially similar to that which greeted the eyes of ,champlain upon the ,st4 ,lawrence and of ,john ,smith upon the ,chickahominy4 ,in those days the ,oregon ,trail had changed but little since the memorable journey of ,lewis and ,clark in the beginning of the present century4 ,in #ahdf1 two years after taking his bachelor degree at ,harvard1 young ,parkman had a taste of the excitements of savage life in that primeval wilderness4 ,he was accompanied by his kinsman1 ,mr4 ,quincy ,shaw4 ,they joined a roving tribe of ,sioux ,indians1 at a time when to do such a thing was to take their lives in their hands1 and they spent a wild summer among the ,black ,hills of ,dakota and in the vast moorland solitudes through which the ,platte ,river winds its interminable length4 ,in the chase and in the wigwam1 in watching the sorcery of which their religion chiefly consisted1 or in listening to primitive folk tales by the evening camp fire1 ,parkman learned to understand the red man1 to interpret his motives and his moods4 ,with his naturalist's keen and accurate eye and his quick poetic apprehension1 that youthful experience formed a safe foundation for all his future work4 ,from that time forth he was fitted to absorb the records and memorials of the early explorers1 and to make their strange experiences his own4 ,the next step was to gather these early records from government archives1 and from libraries public and private1 on both sides of the ,atlantic1--a task1 as ,parkman himself called it1 abundantly irksome and laborious4 ,it extended over many years and involved several visits to ,europe4 ,it was performed with a thoroughness approaching finality4 ,already in the preface to the ,pioneers the author was able to say that he had gained access to all the published materials in existence4 ,of his research among manuscript sources a notable monument exists in a cabinet now standing in the library of the ,massachusetts ,historical ,society1 containing nearly two hundred folio volumes of documents copied from the originals by expert copyists4 ,ability to incur heavy expense is1 of course1 a prerequisite for all undertakings of this sort1 and herein our historian was favoured by fortune4 ,against this chiefest among advantages were to be offset the hardships entailed by delicate health and inability to use the eyes for reading and writing4 ,parkman always dictated instead of holding the pen1 and his huge mass of documents had to be read aloud to him4 ,the heroism shown year after year in contending with physical ailments was the index of a character fit to be mated1 for its pertinacious courage1 with the heroes that live in those shining pages4 ,the progress in working up materials was slow and sure4 ,the ,conspiracy of ,pontiac1 which forms the sequel and conclusion of ,parkman's work1 was first published in #ahea1 only five years after the summer spent with the ,indians2 fourteen years then elapsed before the ,pioneers made its appearance in ,little1 ,brown ,co4's window2 and then there were yet seven-and-twenty years more before the final volumes came out in #ahib4 ,altogether1 about half a century was required for the building of this grand literary monument4 ,nowhere can we find a better illustration of the ,french critic's definition of a great life1--a thought conceived in youth1 and realized in later years4 ,this elaborateness of preparation had its share in producing the intense vividness of ,parkman's descriptions4 ,profusion of detail makes them seem like the accounts of an eye-witness4 ,the realism is so strong that the author seems to have come in person fresh from the scenes he describes1 with the smoke of the battle hovering about him and its fierce light glowing in his eyes4 ,such realism is usually the prerogative of the novelist rather than of the historian1 and in one of his prefaces ,parkman recognizes that the reader may feel this and suspect him4 ,if at times1 he says1 it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy1 it is so in appearance only1 since the minutest details of narrative or description rest on authentic documents or on personal observation4 ,this kind of personal observation ,parkman carried so far as to visit all the important localities1 indeed well-nigh all the localities1 that form the scenery of his story1 and study them with the patience of a surveyor and the discerning eye of a landscape painter4 ,his strong love of nature added keen zest to this sort of work4 ,from boyhood he was a trapper and hunter2 in later years he became eminent as a horticulturist1 originating new varieties of flowers4 ,to sleep under the open sky was his delight4 ,his books fairly reek with the fragrance of pine woods4 ,i open one of them at random1 and my eye falls upon such a sentence as this3 ,there is softness in the mellow air1 the warm sunshine1 and the budding leaves of spring2 and in the forest flower1 which1 more delicate than the pampered offspring of gardens1 lifts its tender head through the refuse and decay of the wilderness4 ,looking at the context1 ,i find that this sentence comes in a remarkable passage suggested by ,colonel ,henry ,bouquet's western expedition of #agfd1 when he compelled the ,indians to set free so many ,french and ,english prisoners4 ,some of these captives were unwilling to leave the society of the red men2 some positively refused to accept the boon of what was called freedom4 ,in this strange conduct1 exclaims ,parkman1 there was no unaccountable perversity2 and he breaks out with two pages of noble dithyrambics in praise of savage life4 ,to him who has once tasted the reckless independence1 the haughty self-reliance1 the sense of irresponsible freedom1 which the forest life engenders1 civilization thenceforth seems flat and stale4444 ,the entrapped wanderer grows fierce and restless1 and pants for breathing room4 ,his path1 it is true1 was choked with difficulties1 but his body and soul were hardened to meet them2 it was beset with dangers1 but these were the very spice of his life1 gladdening his heart with exulting self-confidence1 and sending the blood through his veins with a livelier current4 ,the wilderness1 rough1 harsh1 and inexorable1 has charms more potent in their seductive influence than all the lures of luxury and sloth4 ,and often he on whom it has cast its magic finds no heart to dissolve the spell1 and remains a wanderer and an ,ishmaelite to the hour of his death4#bf ,no one can doubt that the man who could write like this had the kind of temperament that could look into the ,indian's mind and portray him correctly4 ,but for this inborn temperament all his microscopic industry would have availed him but little4 ,to use his own words3 ,faithfulness to the truth of history involves far more than a research1 however patient and scrupulous1 into special facts4 ,such facts may be detailed with the most minute exactness1 and yet the narrative1 taken as a whole1 may be unmeaning or untrue4 ,these are golden words for the student of the historical art to ponder4 ,to make a truthful record of a vanished age patient scholarship is needed1 and something more4 ,into the making of a historian there should enter something of the philosopher1 something of the naturalist1 something of the poet4 ,in ,parkman this rare union of qualities was realized in a greater degree than in any other ,american historian4 ,indeed1 ,i doubt if the nineteenth century can show in any part of the world another historian quite his equal in respect of such a union4 ,there is one thing which lends to ,parkman's work a peculiar interest1 and will be sure to make it grow in fame with the ages4 ,not only has he left the truthful record of a vanished age so complete and final that the work will never need to be done again1 but if any one should in future attempt to do it again he cannot approach the task with quite such equipment as ,parkman4 ,in an important sense1 the age of ,pontiac is far more remote from us than the age of ,clovis or the age of ,agamemnon4 ,when barbaric society is overwhelmed by advancing waves of civilization1 its vanishing is final2 the thread of tradition is cut off forever with the shears of ,fate4 ,where are ,montezuma's ,aztecs8 ,their physical offspring still dwell on the table-land of ,mexico1 and their ancient speech is still heard in the streets1 but that old society is as extinct as the trilobites1 and has to be painfully studied in fossil fragments of custom and tradition4 ,so with the red men of the ,north3 it is not true that they are dying out physically1 as many people suppose1 but their stage of society is fast disappearing1 and soon it will have vanished forever4 ,soon their race will be swallowed up and forgotten1 just as we overlook and ignore to-day the existence of five thousand ,iroquois farmers in the state of ,new ,york4 ,now the study of comparative ethnology has begun to teach us that the red ,indian is one of the most interesting of men4 ,he represents a stage of evolution through which civilized men have once passed1--a stage far more ancient and primitive than that which is depicted in the ,odyssey or in the ,book of ,genesis4 ,when ,champlain and ,frontenac met the feathered chieftains of the ,st4 ,lawrence1 they talked with men of the ,stone ,age face to face4 ,phases of life that had vanished from ,europe long before ,rome was built survived in ,america long enough to be seen and studied by modern men4 ,behind ,mr4 ,parkman's picturesqueness1 therefore1 there lies a significance far more profound than one at first would suspect4 ,he has portrayed for us a wondrous and forever fascinating stage in the evolution of humanity4 ,we may well thank ,heaven for sending us such a scholar1 such an artist1 such a genius1 before it was too late4 ,as we look at the changes wrought in the last fifty years1 we realize that already the opportunities by which he profited in youth are in large measure lost4 ,he came not a moment too soon to catch the fleeting light and fix it upon his immortal canvas4 ,thus ,parkman is to be regarded as first of all the historian of ,primitive ,society4 ,no other great historian has dealt intelligently and consecutively with such phases of barbarism as he describes with such loving minuteness4 ,to the older historians all races of men very far below the ,european grade of culture seemed alike2 all were ignorantly grouped together as savages4 ,mr4 ,lewis ,morgan first showed the wide difference between true savages1 such as the ,apaches and ,bannocks on the one hand1 and barbarians with developed village life1 like the ,five ,nations and the ,cherokees4 ,the latter tribes in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries exhibited social phenomena such as were probably witnessed about the shores of the ,mediterranean some seven or eight thousand years earlier4 ,if we carry our thoughts back to the time that saw the building of the ,great ,pyramid1 and imagine civilized ,egypt looking northward and eastward upon tribes of white men with social and political ideas not much more advanced than those of ,frontenac's red men1 our picture will be in its most essential features a correct one4 ,what would we not give for a historian who1 with a pen like that of ,herodotus1 could bring before us the scenes of that primeval ,greek world before the cyclopean works at ,tiryns were built1 when the ancestors of ,solon and ,aristides did not yet dwell in neatly joinered houses and fasten their door-latches with a thong1 when the sacred city-state was still unknown1 and the countryman had not yet become a bucolic or tender of cows1 and butter and cheese were still in the future6 ,no written records can ever take us back to that time in that place2 for there1 as everywhere in the eastern hemisphere1 the art of writing came many years later than the domestication of animals1 and some ages later than the first building of towns4 ,but in spite of the lack of written records1 the comparative study of institutions1 especially comparative jurisprudence1 throws back upon those prehistoric times a light that is often dim1 but sometimes wonderfully suggestive and instructive4 ,it is a light that reveals among primeval ,greeks ideas and customs essentially similar to those of the ,iroquois4 ,it is a light that grows steadier and brighter as it leads us to the conclusion that five or six thousand years before ,christ white men around the gean ,sea had advanced about as far as the red men in the ,mohawk ,valley two centuries ago4 ,the one phase of this primitive society illuminates the other1 though extreme caution is necessary in drawing our inferences4 ,now ,parkman's minute and vivid description of primitive society among red men is full of lessons that may be applied with profit to the study of preclassic antiquity in the ,old ,world4 ,no other historian has brought us into such close and familiar contact with human life in such ancient stages of its progress4 ,in ,parkman's great book we have a record of vanished conditions such as hardly exists anywhere else in literature4 ,i say his great book1 using the singular number2 for1 with the exception of that breezy bit of autobiography1 ,the ,oregon ,trail1 all ,parkman's books are the closely related volumes of a single comprehensive work4 ,from the adventures of ,the ,pioneers of ,france a consecutive story is developed through ,the ,jesuits in ,north ,america and ,the ,discovery of the ,great ,west4 ,in ,the ,old ,rgime in ,canada it is continued with a masterly analysis of ,french methods of colonization in this their greatest colony1 and then from ,frontenac and ,new ,france under ,louis ,,xiv4 we are led through ,a ,half-,century of ,conflict to the grand climax in the volumes on ,montcalm and ,wolfe1 after which ,the ,conspiracy of ,pontiac brings the long narrative to a noble and brilliant close4 ,in the first volume we see the men of the ,stone ,age at that brief moment when they were disposed to adore the bearded newcomers as ,children of the ,sun2 in the last we read the bloody story of their last and most desperate concerted effort to loosen the iron grasp with which these palefaces had seized and were holding the continent4 ,it is a well-rounded tale1 and as complete as anything in real history1 where completeness and finality are things unknown4 ,between the beginning and the end of this well-rounded tale a mighty drama is wrought out in all its scenes4 ,the struggle between ,france and ,england for the soil of ,north ,america was one of the great critical moments in the career of mankind1--no less important than the struggle between ,greece and ,persia1 or between ,rome and ,carthage4 ,out of the long and complicated interaction between ,roman and ,teutonic institutions which made up the history of the ,middle ,ages1 two strongly contrasted forms of political society had grown up and acquired aggressive strength when in the course of the sixteenth century a ,new ,world beyond the sea was laid open for colonization4 ,the maritime nations of ,europe were naturally the ones to be attracted to this new arena of enterprise2 and ,spain1 ,portugal1 ,france1 ,england1 and ,holland each played its interesting and characteristic part4 ,spain at first claimed the whole1 excepting only that ,brazilian coast which ,borgia's decree gave to ,portugal4 ,but ,spain's methods1 as well as her early failure of strength1 prevented her from making good her claim4 ,spain's methods were limited to stepping into the place formerly occupied by the conquering races of half-civilized ,indians4 ,she made aboriginal tribes work for her1 just as the ,aztec ,confederacy and the ,inca dynasty had done4 ,where she was brought into direct contact with ,american barbarism without the intermediation of half-civilized native races1 she made little or no headway4 ,her early failure of strength1 on the other hand1 was due to her total absorption in the fight against civil and religious liberty in ,europe4 ,the failure became apparent as soon as the absorption had begun to be complete4 ,spain's last aggressive effort in the ,new ,world was the destruction of the little ,huguenot colony in ,florida in #aefe1 and it is at that point that ,parkman's great work appropriately begins4 ,from that moment ,spain simply beat her strength to pieces against the rocks of ,netherland courage and resourcefulness4 ,as for the ,netherlands1 their energies were so far absorbed in taking over and managing the great ,eastern empire of the ,portuguese that their work in the ,new ,world was confined to seizing upon the most imperial geographical position1 and planting a cosmopolitan colony there that1 in the absence of adequate support1 was sure to fall into the hands of one or the other of the competitors more actively engaged upon the scene4 ,the two competitors thus more actively engaged were ,france and ,england1 and from an early period it was felt between the two to be a combat in which no quarter was to be given or accepted4 ,these two strongly contrasted forms of political society had each its distinct ideal1 and that ideal was to be made to prevail1 to the utter exclusion and destruction of the other4 ,probably the ,french perceived this somewhat earlier than the ,english2 they felt it to be necessary to stamp out the ,english before the latter had more than realized the necessity of defending themselves against the ,french4 ,for the type of political society represented by ,louis ,,xiv4 was preminently militant1 as the ,english type was preminently industrial4 ,the aggressiveness of the former was more distinctly conscious of its own narrower aims1 and was more deliberately set at work to attain them1 while the ,english1 on the other hand1 rather drifted into a tremendous world fight without distinct consciousness of their purpose4 ,yet after the final issue had been joined1 the refrain ,carthago delenda est was heard from the ,english side1 and it came fraught with impending doom from the lips of ,pitt as in days of old from the lips of ,cato4 ,the ,french idea1 had it prevailed in the strife1 would not have been capable of building up a pacific union of partially independent states1 covering this vast continent from ocean to ocean4 ,within that rigid and rigorous bureaucratic system there was no room for spontaneous individuality1 no room for local self-government1 and no chance for a flexible federalism to grow up4 ,a well-known phrase of ,louis ,,xiv4 was1 ,the state is myself4 ,that phrase represented his ideal4 ,it was approximately true in ,old ,france1 realized as far as sundry adverse conditions would allow4 ,the ,grand ,monarch intended that in ,new ,france it should be absolutely true4 ,upon that fresh soil was to be built up a pure monarchy without concession to human weaknesses and limitations4 ,it was a pet scheme of ,louis ,,xiv41 and never did a philanthropic world-mender contemplate his grotesque phalanstery or pantarchy with greater pleasure than this master of kingcraft looked forward to the construction of a perfect ,christian state in ,america4 ,the pages of our great historian are full of examples which prove that if the ,french idea failed of realization1 and the state it founded was overwhelmed1 it was not from any lack of lofty qualities in individual ,frenchmen4 ,in all the history of the ,american continent no names stand higher than some of the ,french names4 ,for courage1 for fortitude and high resolve1 for sagacious leadership1 statesmanlike wisdom1 unswerving integrity1 devoted loyalty1 for all the qualities which make life heroic1 we may learn lessons innumerable from the noble ,frenchmen who throng in ,parkman's pages4 ,the difficulty was not in the individuals1 but in the system2 not in the units1 but in the way they were put together4 ,for while it is true--though many people do not know it--that by no imaginable artifice can you make a society that is better than the human units you put into it1 it is also true that nothing is easier than to make a society that is worse than its units4 ,so it was with the colony of ,new ,france4 ,nowhere can we find a description of despotic government more careful and thoughtful1 or more graphic and lifelike1 than ,parkman has given us in his volume on ,the ,old ,rgime in ,canada4 ,seldom1 too1 will one find a book fuller of political wisdom4 ,the author never preaches like ,carlyle1 nor does he hurl huge generalizations at our heads like ,buckle2 he simply describes a state of society that has been4 ,but ,i hardly need say that his description is not--like the ,dryasdust descriptions we are sometimes asked to accept as history--a mere mass of pigments flung at random upon a canvas4 ,it is a picture painted with consummate art2 and in this instance the art consists in so handling the relations of cause and effect as to make them speak for themselves4 ,these pages are alive with political philosophy1 and teem with object lessons of extraordinary value4 ,it would be hard to point to any book where ,history more fully discharges her high function of gathering friendly lessons of caution from the errors of the past4 ,of all the societies that have been composed of ,european men1 probably none was ever so despotically organized as ,new ,france1 unless it may have been the later ,byzantine ,empire1 which it resembled in the minuteness of elaborate supervision over all the pettiest details of life4 ,in ,canada the protective1 paternal1 socialistic1 or nationalistic theory of government--it is the same old cloven hoof1 under whatever specious name you introduce it--was more fully carried into operation than in any other community known to history except ancient ,peru4 ,no room was left for individual initiative or enterprise4 ,all undertakings were nationalized4 ,government looked after every man's interests in this world and the next3 baptized and schooled him2 married him and paid the bride's dowry2 gave him a bounty with every child that was born to him2 stocked his cupboard with garden seeds and compelled him to plant them2 prescribed the size of his house and the number of horses and cattle he might keep1 and the exact percentages of profit he might be allowed to make1 and how his chimneys should be swept1 and how many servants he might employ1 and what theological doctrine he might believe1 and what sort of bread the bakers might bake1 and where goods might be bought and how much might be paid for them2 and if in a society so well cared for it were possible to find indigent persons1 such paupers were duly relieved1 from a fund established by government4 ,unmitigated benevolence was the theory of ,louis ,,xiv4's ,canadian colony1 and heartless political economy had no place there4 ,nor was there any room for free thinkers2 when the ,king after #afhe sent out word that no mercy must be shown to heretics1 the governor1 ,denonville1 with a pious ejaculation1 replied that not so much as a single heretic could be found in all ,canada4 ,such was the community whose career our historian has delineated with perfect soundness of judgment and wealth of knowledge4 ,the fate of this nationalistic experiment1 set on foot by one of the most absolute of monarchs and fostered by one of the most devoted and powerful of religious organizations1 is traced to the operation of causes inherent in its very nature4 ,the hopeless paralysis1 the woeful corruption1 the moral torpor1 resulting from the suppression of individualism1 are vividly portrayed2 yet there is no discursive generalizing1 and from moment to moment the development of the story proceeds from within itself4 ,it is the whole national life of ,new ,france that is displayed before us4 ,historians of ordinary calibre exhibit their subject in fragments1 or they show us some phases of life and neglect others4 ,some have no eyes save for events that are startling1 such as battles and sieges2 or decorative1 such as coronations and court balls4 ,others give abundant details of manners and customs2 others have their attention absorbed by economics2 others again feel such interest in the history of ideas as to lose sight of mere material incidents4 ,parkman1 on the other hand1 conceives and presents his subject as a whole4 ,he forgets nothing1 overlooks nothing2 but whether it is a bloody battle1 or a theological pamphlet1 or an exploring journey though the forest1 or a code for the discipline of nunneries1 each event grows out of its context as a feature in the total development that is going on before our eyes4 ,it is only the historian who is also philosopher and artist that can thus deal in block with the great and complex life of a whole society4 ,the requisite combination is realized only in certain rare and high types of mind1 and there has been no more brilliant illustration of it than ,parkman's volumes afford4 ,the struggle between the machine-like socialistic despotism of ,new ,france and the free and spontaneous political vitality of ,new ,england is one of the most instructive object lessons with which the experience of mankind has furnished us4 ,the depth of its significance is equalled by the vastness of its consequences4 ,never did ,destiny preside over a more fateful contest2 for it determined which kind of political seed should be sown all over the widest and richest political garden plot left untilled in the world4 ,free industrial ,england pitted against despotic militant ,france for the possession of an ancient continent reserved for this decisive struggle1 and dragging into the conflict the belated barbarism of the ,stone ,age1--such is the wonderful theme which ,parkman has treated4 ,when the vividly contrasted modern ideas and personages are set off against the romantic though lurid background of ,indian life1 the artistic effect becomes simply magnificent4 ,never has historian grappled with another such epic theme1 save when ,herodotus told the story of ,greece and ,persia1 or when ,gibbon's pages resounded with the solemn tread of marshalled hosts through a thousand years of change4 ,the story of ,mr4 ,parkman's life can be briefly told4 ,he was born in ,boston1 in what is now known as ,allston ,street1 ,september #af1 #ahbc4 ,his ancestors had for several generations been honourably known in ,massachusetts4 ,his great-grandfather1 ,rev4 ,ebenezer ,parkman1 a graduate of ,harvard in #agda1 was minister of the ,congregational church in ,westborough for nearly sixty years2 he was a man of learning and eloquence1 whose attention was not all given to ,calvinistic theology1 for he devoted much of it to the study of history4 ,a son of this clergyman1 at the age of seventeen1 served as private in a ,massachusetts regiment in that greatest of modern wars which was decided on the ,heights of ,abraham4 ,how little did this gallant youth dream of the glory that was by and by to be shed on the scenes and characters passing before his eyes by the genius of one of his own race and name6 ,another son of ,ebenezer ,parkman returned to ,boston and became a successful merchant1 engaged in that foreign traffic which played so important and liberalizing a part in ,american life in the days before the ,enemy of mankind had invented forty per cent tariffs4 ,the home of this merchant1 ,samuel ,parkman1 on the corner of ,green and ,chardon streets1 was long famous for its beautiful flower garden1 indicating perhaps the kind of taste and skill so conspicuous afterwards in his grandson4 ,in ,samuel the clerical profession skipped one generation1 to be taken up again by his son1 ,rev4 ,francis ,parkman1 a graduate of ,harvard in #ahjg1 and for many years after #ahac the eminent and beloved pastor of the ,new ,north ,church4 ,dr4 ,parkman was noted for his public spirit and benevolence4 ,bishop ,huntington1 who knew him well1 says of him3 ,every aspect of suffering touched him tenderly4 ,there was no hard spot in his breast4 ,his house was the centre of countless mercies to various forms of want2 and there were few solicitors of alms1 local or itinerant1 and whether for private necessity or public benefactions1 that his doors did not welcome and send away satisfied4444 ,for many years he was widely known and esteemed for his efficient interest in some of our most conspicuous and useful institutions of philanthropy4 ,among these may be especially mentioned the ,massachusetts ,bible ,society1 the ,society for ,propagating the ,gospel1 the ,orphan ,asylum1 the ,humane ,society1 the ,medical ,dispensary1 the ,society for the ,relief of ,aged and ,destitute ,clergymen1 and the ,congregational ,charitable ,society4 ,he also took an active interest in ,harvard ,university1 of which he was an ,overseer4 ,in #ahbi he founded there the professorship of ,pulpit ,eloquence and the ,pastoral ,care1 familiarly known as the ,parkman ,professorship4 ,a pupil and friend of ,channing1 he was noted among ,unitarians for a broadly tolerant disposition4 ,his wealth of practical wisdom was enlivened by touches of mirth1 so that it was said that you could not meet ,dr4 ,parkman in the street1 and stop a minute to exchange words with him1 without carrying away with you some phrase or turn of thought so exquisite in its mingled sagacity and humour that it touched the inmost sense of the ludicrous1 and made the heart smile as well as the lips4 ,such was the father of our historian4 ,mr4 ,parkman's mother was a descendant of ,rev4 ,john ,cotton1 one of the most eminent of the leaders in the great ,puritan exodus of the seventeenth century4 ,she was the daughter of ,nathaniel ,hall1 of ,medford1 member of a family which was represented in the convention that framed the ,constitution of ,massachusetts in #aghj4 ,caroline ,hall was a lady of remarkable character1 and many of her fine qualities were noticeable in her distinguished son4 ,of her the late ,octavius ,frothingham says3 ,humility1 charity1 truthfulness1 were her prime characteristics4 ,her conscience was firm and lofty1 though never austere4 ,she had a strong sense of right1 coupled with perfect charity toward other people2 inflexible in principle1 she was gentle in practice4 ,intellectually she could hardly be called brilliant or accomplished1 but she had a strong vein of common sense and practical wisdom1 great penetration into character1 and a good deal of quiet humour4 ,of her six children1 the historian1 ,francis ,parkman1 was the eldest4 ,as a boy his health was delicate4 ,in a fragment of autobiography1 written in the third person1 he tells us that his childhood was neither healthful nor buoyant1 and his boyhood1 though for a time active1 was not robust4 ,there was a nervous irritability and impulsiveness which kept driving him into activity more intense than his physical strength was well able to bear4 ,at the same time an inborn instinct of self-control1 accompanied1 doubtless1 by a refined unwillingness to intrude his personal feelings upon the notice of other people1 led him into such habits of self-repression that his friends sometimes felicitated him on having no nerves4 ,there was something rudely stoical in his discipline4 ,as he says3 ,it was impossible that conditions of the nervous system abnormal as his had been from infancy should be without their effects on the mind1 and some of these were of a nature highly to exasperate him4 ,unconscious of their character and origin1 and ignorant that with time and confirmed health they would have disappeared1 he had no other thought than that of crushing them by force1 and accordingly applied himself to the work4 ,hence resulted a state of mental tension1 habitual for several years1 and abundantly mischievous in its effects4 ,with a mind overstrained and a body overtasked1 he was burning his candle at both ends4 ,the conditions which were provided for the sensitive and highly strung boy during a part of his childhood were surely very delightful1 and there can be little doubt that they served to determine his career4 ,his grandfather ,hall's home in ,medford was situated on the border of the ,middlesex ,fells1 a rough and rocky woodland1 four thousand acres in extent1 as wild and savage in many places as any primeval forest4 ,the place is within eight miles of ,boston1 and it may be doubted if anywhere else can be found another such magnificent piece of wilderness so near to a great city4 ,it needs only a stray ,indian or two1 with a few bears and wolves1 to bring back for us the days when ,winthrop's company landed on the shores of the neighbouring bay4 ,in the heart of this shaggy woodland is ,spot ,pond1 a lake of glorious beauty1 with a surface of three hundred acres1 and a homely name which it is to be hoped it may always keep1--a name bestowed in the good old times before the national vice of magniloquence had begun to deface our maps4 ,among the pleasure drives in the neighbourhood of ,boston1 the drive around ,spot ,pond is perhaps foremost in beauty4 ,a few fine houses have been built upon its borders1 and well-kept roads have given to some parts of the forest the aspect of a park1 but the greater part of the territory is undisturbed1 and will probably remain so4 ,seventy years ago the pruning hand of civilization has scarcely touched it4 ,to his grandfather's farm1 on the outskirts of this enchanting spot1 the boy ,parkman was sent in his eighth year4 ,there1 he tells us1 ,i walked twice a day to a school of high but undeserved reputation1 about a mile distant1 in the town of ,medford4 ,here ,i learned very little1 and spent the intervals of schooling more profitably in collecting eggs1 insects1 and reptiles1 trapping squirrels and woodchucks1 and making persistent though rarely fortunate attempts to kill birds with arrows4 ,after four years of this rustication ,i was brought back to ,boston1 when ,i was unhappily seized with a mania for experiments in chemistry1 involving a lonely1 confined1 unwholesome sort of life1 baneful to body and mind4 ,no doubt the experience of four years of plastic boyhood in ,middlesex ,fells gave to ,parkman's mind the bent which directed him toward the history of the wilderness4 ,this fact he recognized of himself in after life1 while he recalled those boyish days as the brightest in his memory4 ,at the age of fifteen or so the retorts and crucibles were thrown away forever1 and a reaction in favor of woodland life began2 a fancy1 he says1 which soon gained full control over the course of the literary pursuits to which he was also addicted4 ,here we come upon the first mention of the combination of interests which determined his career4 ,a million boys might be turned loose in ,middlesex ,fells1 one after another1 there to roam in solitude until our globe should have entered upon a new geological period1 and the chances are against any one of them becoming a great historian1 or anything else above mediocrity4 ,but in ,parkman1 as in all men of genius1 the dominant motive power was something within him1 something which science has not data enough to explain4 ,the divine spark of genius is something which we know only through the acts which it excites4 ,in ,parkman the strong literary instinct showed itself at ,chauncy ,hall ,school1 where we find him1 at fourteen years of age1 eagerly and busily engaged in the study and practice of ,english composition4 ,it was natural that tales of heroes should be especially charming at that time of life1 and among ,parkman's efforts were paraphrasing parts of the neid1 and turning into rhymed verse the scene of the tournament in ,ivanhoe4 ,from the artificial stupidity which is too often superinduced in boys by their early schooling he was saved by native genius and breezy woodland life1 and his progress was rapid4 ,in #ahdj1 having nearly completed his seventeenth year1 he entered ,harvard ,college4 ,his reputation there for scholarship was good1 but he was much more absorbed in his own pursuits than in the regular college studies4 ,in the summer vacation of #ahda he made a rough journey of exploration in the woods of northern ,new ,hampshire1 accompanied by one classmate and a native guide1 and there he had a taste of adventure slightly spiced with hardship4 ,how much importance this ramble may have had one cannot say1 but he tells us that before the end of the ,sophomore year my various schemes had crystallized into a plan of writing the story of what was then known as the ',old ,french ,war1'--that is1 the war that ended in the conquest of ,canada2 for here1 as it seemed to me1 the forest drama was more stirring1 and the forest stage more thronged with appropriate actors1 than in any other passage of our history4 ,it was not until some years later that ,i enlarged the plan to include the whole course of the ,american conflict between ,france and ,england1 or1 in other words1 the history of the ,american forest2 for this was the light in which ,i regarded it4 ,my theme fascinated me1 and ,i was haunted with wilderness images day and night4 ,the way in which true genius works could not be more happily described4 ,when the great scheme first took shape in ,mr4 ,parkman's mind1 he reckoned that it would take about twenty years to complete the task4 ,how he entered upon it may best be told in his own words3-- ,the time allowed was ample2 but here he fell into a fatal error1 entering on this long pilgrimage with all the vehemence of one starting on a mile heat4 ,his reliance1 however1 was less on books than on such personal experience as should in some sense identify him with his theme4 ,his natural inclinations urged him in the same direction1 for his thoughts were always in the forest1 whose features1 not unmixed with softer images1 possessed his waking and sleeping dreams1 filling him with vague cravings impossible to satisfy4 ,as fond of hardships as he was vain of enduring them1 cherishing a sovereign scorn for every physical weakness or defect1 deceived moreover by a rapid development of frame and sinews which flattered him with the belief that discipline sufficiently unsparing would harden him into an athlete1 he slighted the precautions of a more reasonable woodcraft1 tired old foresters with long marches1 stopped neither for heat nor rain1 and slept on the earth without a blanket4 ,in other words1 a highly irritable organism spurred the writer to excess in a course which1 with one of different temperament1 would have produced a free and hardy development of such faculties and forces as he possessed4 ,along with the irritable organism perhaps a heritage of fierce ancestral ,puritanism may have prompted him to the stoical discipline which sought to ignore the just claims of the physical body4 ,he tells us of his undoubting faith that to tame the ,devil1 it is best to take him by the horns2 but more mature experiences made him feel less sure of the advantages of this method of dealing with that subtle personage4 ,under these conditions1 perhaps the college vacations which he spent in the woods of ,canada and ,new ,england may have done more to exhaust than to recruit his strength4 ,in his ,junior year1 some physical injury1 the nature of which does not seem to be known1 caused it to be thought necessary to send him to ,europe for his health4 ,he went first to ,gibraltar in a sailing ship1 and a passage from his diary may serve to throw light upon the voyage and the man3 ,it was a noble sight when at intervals the sun broke out over the savage waves1 changing their blackness to a rich blue almost as dark2 while the foam that flew over it seemed like whirling snow wreaths on the mountain4444 ,as soon as it was daybreak ,i went on deck4 ,two or three sails were set4 ,the vessel was scouring along1 leaning over so that her lee gunwale scooped up the water2 the water in a foam1 and clouds of spray flying over us1 frequently as high as the main yard4 ,the spray was driven with such force that it pricked the cheek like needles4 ,i stayed on deck two or three hours1 when1 being thoroughly salted1 ,i went down1 changed my clothes1 and read ',don ,quixote' till ,mr4 ,snow appeared at the door with ',you are the man that wants to see a gale1 are ye8 ,now is your chance2 only just come up on deck4' ,accordingly ,i went4 ,the wind was yelling and howling in the rigging in a fashion that reminded me of a storm in a ,canadian forest4444 ,the sailors clung1 half drowned1 to whatever they could lay hold of1 for the vessel was at times half inverted1 and tons of water washed from side to side of her deck4 ,mr4 ,parkman's route was from ,gibraltar by way of ,malta1 to ,sicily1 where he travelled over the whole island1 and thence to ,naples1 where he fell in with the great preacher ,theodore ,parker4 ,together they climbed ,vesuvius and peered into its crater1 and afterwards in and about ,rome they renewed their comradeship4 ,here ,mr4 ,parkman wished to spend a few weeks in a monastery1 in order to study with his own eyes the priests and their way of life4 ,more than once he met with a prompt and uncompromising refusal1 but at length the coveted privilege was granted him2 and1 curiously enough1 it was by the strictest of all the monastic orders1 the ,passionists1 brethren addicted to wearing hair shirts and scourging themselves without mercy4 ,when these worthy monks learned that their visitor was not merely a ,protestant1 but a ,unitarian1 their horror was intense2 but they were ready for the occasion1 poor souls6 and tried their best to convert him1 thereby doubtless enhancing their value in the historian's eyes as living and breathing historic material4 ,this visit was surely of inestimable service to the pen which was to be so largely occupied with the ,jesuits and ,franciscans of the ,new ,world4 ,mr4 ,parkman did not leave ,rome until he had seen temples1 churches1 and catacombs1 and had been presented to the ,pope4 ,he stopped at ,florence1 ,bologna1 ,modena1 ,parma1 and ,milan1 and admired the ,lake of ,como1 to which1 however1 he preferred the savage wildness of ,lake ,george4 ,he saw something of ,switzerland1 went to ,paris and ,london1 and did a bit of sight-seeing in ,edinburgh and its neighbourhood4 ,from ,liverpool he sailed for ,america2 and in spite of the time consumed in this trip we find him taking his degree at ,cambridge1 along with his class1 in #ahdd4 ,probably his name stood high in the rank list1 for he was at once elected a member of the ,phi ,beta ,kappa ,society4 ,after this he entered the ,law ,school1 but stayed not long1 for his life's work was already claiming him4 ,in his brief vacation journeys he had seen tiny remnants of wilderness here and there in ,canada or in lonely corners of ,new ,england2 now he wished to see the wilderness itself in all its gloom and vastness1 and to meet face to face with the dusky warriors of the ,stone ,age4 ,at this end of the nineteenth century1 as already observed1 such a thing can no longer be done4 ,nowhere now1 within the ,united ,states1 does the primitive wilderness exist1 save here and there in shreds and patches4 ,in the middle of the century it covered the western half of the continent1 and could be reached by a journey of sixteen or seventeen hundred miles1 from ,boston to the plains of ,nebraska4 ,parkman had become an adept in woodcraft and a dead shot with the rifle1 and could do such things with horses1 tame or wild1 as civilized people never see done except in a circus4 ,there was little doubt as to his ability to win the respect of ,indians by outshining them in such deeds as they could appreciate4 ,early in #ahdf he started for the wilderness with ,mr4 ,quincy ,shaw4 ,a passage from the preface to the fourth edition of ,the ,oregon ,trail1 published in #ahgb1 will here be of interest3-- ,i remember1 as we rode by the foot of ,pike's ,peak1 when for a fortnight we met no face of man1 my companion remarked1 in a tone anything but complacent1 that a time would come when those plains would be a grazing country1 the buffalo give place to tame cattle1 houses be scattered along the watercourses1 and wolves1 bears1 and ,indians be numbered among the things that were4 ,we condoled with each other on so melancholy a prospect1 but with little thought what the future had in store4 ,we knew that there was more or less gold in the seams of those untrodden mountains2 but we did not foresee that it would build cities in the ,west1 and plant hotels and gambling houses among the haunts of the grizzly bear4 ,we knew that a few fanatical outcasts were groping their way across the plains to seek an asylum from ,gentile persecution2 but we did not imagine that the polygamous hordes of ,mormons would rear a swarming ,jerusalem in the bosom of solitude itself4 ,we knew that more and more1 year after year1 the trains of emigrant wagons would creep in slow procession towards barbarous ,oregon or wild and distant ,california2 but we did not dream how ,commerce and ,gold would breed nations along the ,pacific1 the disenchanting screech of the locomotive break the spell of weird1 mysterious mountains1 woman's rights invade the fastnesses of the ,arapahoes1 and despairing savagery1 assailed in front and rear1 veil its scalp locks and feathers before triumphant commonplace4 ,we were no prophets to foresee all this2 and had we foreseen it1 perhaps some perverse regret might have tempered the ardour of our rejoicing4 ,the wild tribe that defiled with me down the gorges of the ,black ,hills1 with its paint and war plumes1 fluttering trophies and savage embroidery1 bows1 arrows1 lances1 and shields1 will never be seen again4 ,those who formed it have found bloody graves1 or a ghastlier burial in the maws of wolves4 ,the ,indian of to-day1 armed with a revolver and crowned with an old hat1 cased possibly in trousers or muffled in a tawdry shirt1 is an ,indian still1 but an ,indian shorn of the picturesqueness which was his most conspicuous merit4 ,the mountain trapper is no more1 and the grim romance of his wild1 hard life is a memory of the past4 ,this first of ,parkman's books1 ,the ,oregon ,trail1 was published in #ahdg1 as a series of articles in the ,knickerbocker ,magazine4 ,its pages reveal such supreme courage1 such physical hardiness1 such rapturous enjoyment of life1 that one finds it hard to realize that even in setting out upon this bold expedition the writer was something of an invalid4 ,a weakness of sight--whether caused by some direct injury1 or a result of widespread nervous disturbance1 is not quite clear--had already become serious and somewhat alarming4 ,on arriving at the ,indian camp1 near the ,medicine ,bow range of the ,rocky ,mountains1 he was suffering from a complication of disorders4 ,i was so reduced by illness1 he says1 that ,i could seldom walk without reeling like a drunken man2 and when ,i rose from my seat upon the ground the landscape suddenly grew dim before my eyes1 the trees and lodges seemed to sway to and fro1 and the prairie to rise and fall like the swells of the ocean4 ,such a state of things is not enviable anywhere4 ,in a country where a man's life may at any moment depend on the strength of his arm1 or it may be on the activity of his legs1 it is more particularly inconvenient4 ,nor is sleeping on damp ground1 with an occasional drenching from a shower1 very beneficial in such cases4 ,i sometimes suffered the extremity of exhaustion1 and was in a tolerably fair way of atoning for my love of the prairie by resting there forever4 ,i tried repose and a very sparing diet4 ,for a long time1 with exemplary patience1 ,i lounged about the camp1 or at the utmost staggered over to the ,indian village1 and walked faint and dizzy among the lodges4 ,it would not do1 and ,i bethought me of starvation4 ,during five days ,i sustained life on one small biscuit a day4 ,at the end of that time ,i was weaker than before1 but the disorder seemed shaken in its stronghold1 and very gradually ,i began to resume a less rigid diet4 ,it did not seem prudent to ,parkman to let the signs of physical ailment become conspicuous1 since in that case a horse1 a rifle1 a pair of pistols1 and a red shirt might have offered temptations too strong for aboriginal virtue4 ,therefore1 in order that his prestige with the red men might not suffer diminution1 he would hunt buffalo on horseback over a broken country1 when without the tonic of the chase he could scarcely sit upright in the saddle4 ,the maintenance of prestige was certainly desirable4 ,the ,ogillalah band of ,sioux1 among whom he found himself1 were barbarians of a low type4 ,neither their manners nor their ideas were in the slightest degree modified by contact with civilization4 ,they knew nothing of the power and real character of the white men1 and their children would scream in terror when they saw me4 ,their religion1 superstitions1 and prejudices were the same handed down to them from immemorial time4 ,they fought with the weapons that their fathers fought with1 and wore the same garments of skins4 ,they were living representatives of the ,stone ,age2 for1 though their lances and arrows were tipped with iron procured from the traders1 they still used the rude stone mallet of the primeval world4 ,these savages welcomed ,parkman and one of his white guides with cordial hospitality1 and they were entertained by the chieftain ,big ,crow1 whose lodge in the evening presented a picturesque spectacle4 ,a score or more of ,indians were seated around it in a circle1 their dark1 naked forms just visible by the dull light of the smouldering fire in the middle4 ,the pipe glowed brightly in the gloom as it passed from hand to hand4 ,then a squaw would drop a piece of buffalo fat on the dull embers4 ,instantly a bright flame would leap up1 darting its light to the very apex of the tall conical structure1 where the tops of the slender poles that supported the covering of hide were gathered together4 ,it gilded the features of the ,indians1 as with animated gestures they sat around it1 telling their endless stories of war and hunting1 and displayed rude garments of skins that hung around the lodge2 the bow1 quiver1 and lance suspended over the resting place of the chief1 and the rifles and powderhorns of the two white guests4 ,for a moment all would be bright as day2 then the flames would die out2 fitful flashes from the embers would illumine the lodge1 and then leave it in darkness4 ,then the light would wholly fade1 and the lodge and all within it be involved again in obscurity4 ,from stories of war and the chase the conversation was now and then diverted to philosophic themes4 ,when ,parkman asked what makes the thunder1 various opinions were expressed2 but one old wrinkled fellow1 named ,red ,water1 asseverated that he had always known what it was4 ,it was a great black bird2 and once he had seen it in a dream swooping down from the ,black ,hills1 with its loud roaring wings2 and when it flapped them over a lake1 they struck lightning from the water4 ,another old man said that the wicked thunder had killed his brother last summer1 but doggedly refused to give any particulars4 ,it was afterwards learned that this brother was a member of a thunder-fighting fraternity of priests or medicine men4 ,on the approach of a storm they would take their bows and arrows1 their magic drum1 and a sort of whistle made out of the wing bone of the war eagle1 and1 thus equipped1 run out and fire at the rising cloud1 whopping1 yelling1 whistling1 and beating their drum1 to frighten it down again4 ,one afternoon a heavy black cloud was coming up1 and they repaired to the top of a hill1 where they brought all their magic artillery into play against it4 ,but the undaunted thunder1 refusing to be terrified1 darted out a bright flash1 which struck the aforesaid brother dead as he was in the very act of shaking his long iron-pointed lance against it4 ,the rest scattered1 and ran yelling in an ecstasy of superstitious terror back to their lodges4 ,one should read ,mr4 ,parkman's detailed narrative of the strange life of these people1 and the manner of his taking part in it3 how he called the villagers together and regaled them sumptuously with boiled dog1 and made them a skilful speech1 in which he quite satisfied them as to his reasons for coming to dwell among them2 how a warm friendship grew up between himself and the venerable ,red ,water1 who was the custodian of an immense fund of folk lore1 but was apt to be superstitiously afraid of imparting any of it to strangers2 how war parties were projected and abandoned2 how buffalo and antelope were hunted1 and how life was carried on in the dull intervals between such occupations4 ,if one were to keep on quoting what is of especial interest in the book1 one would have to quote the whole of it4 ,but one characteristic portrait contains so much insight into ,indian life that ,i cannot forbear giving it4 ,it is the sketch of a young fellow called the ,hail-,storm1 as ,parkman found him one evening on his return from the chase3 his light graceful figure reclining on the ground in an easy attitude1 while 444 near him lay the fresh skin of a female elk which he had just killed among the mountains1 only a mile or two from camp4 ,no doubt the boy's heart was elated with triumph1 but he betrayed no sign of it4 ,he even seemed totally unconscious of our approach1 and his handsome face had all the tranquillity of ,indian self-control1--a self-control which prevents the exhibition of emotion without restraining the emotion itself4 ,it was about two months since ,i had known the ,hail-,storm1 and within that time his character had remarkably developed4 ,when ,i first saw him1 he was just emerging from the habits and feelings of the boy into the ambition of the hunter and warrior4 ,he had lately killed his first deer1 and this had excited his aspirations for distinction4 ,since that time he had been continually in search for game1 and no young hunter in the village had been so active or so fortunate as he4 ,all this success had produced a marked change in his character4 ,as ,i first remembered him1 he always shunned the society of the young squaws1 and was extremely bashful and sheepish in their presence2 but now1 in the confidence of his new reputation1 he began to assume the airs and arts of a man of gallantry4 ,he wore his red blanket dashingly over his left shoulder1 painted his cheeks every day with vermilion1 and hung pendants of shells in his ears4 ,if ,i observed aright1 he met with very good success in his new pursuits2 still the ,hail-,storm had much to accomplish before he attained the full standing of a warrior4 ,gallantly as he began to bear himself before the women and girls1 he was still timid and abashed in the presence of the chiefs and old men2 for he had never yet killed a man1 or stricken the dead body of an enemy in battle4 ,i have no doubt that the handsome smooth-faced boy burned with desire to flesh his maiden scalping knife1 and ,i would not have encamped alone with him without watching his movements with a suspicious eye4 ,mr4 ,parkman once told me that it was rare for a young brave to obtain full favour with the women without having at least one scalp to show2 and this fact was one of the secret sources of danger which the ordinary white visitor would never think of4 ,peril is also liable to lurk in allowing one's self to be placed in a ludicrous light among these people2 accordingly1 whenever such occasions arose1 ,parkman knew enough to maintain a rigid1 inflexible countenance1 and thus wholly escaped their sallies4 ,he understood that his rifle and pistols were the only friends on whom he could invariably rely when alone among ,indians4 ,his own observation taught him the extreme folly of confidence1 and the utter impossibility of foreseeing to what sudden acts the strange1 unbridled impulses of an ,indian may urge him4 ,when among this people1 danger is never so near as when you are unprepared for it1 never so remote as when you are armed and on the alert to meet it at any moment4 ,nothing offers so strong a temptation to their ferocious instincts as the appearance of timidity1 weakness1 or security4 ,the immense importance of this sojourn in the wilderness1 in its relation to ,parkman's life work1 is obvious4 ,knowledge1 intrepidity1 and tact carried him through it unscathed1 and good luck kept him clear of encounters with hostile ,indians1 in which these qualities might not have sufficed to avert destruction4 ,it was rare good fortune that kept his party from meeting with an enemy during five months of travel through a dangerous region4 ,scarcely three weeks after he had reached the confines of civilization1 the ,pawnees and ,comanches began a systematized series of hostilities1 and attacked 444 every party1 large or small1 that passed during the next six months4 ,during this adventurous experience1 says ,parkman1 my business was observation1 and ,i was willing to pay dearly for the opportunity of exercising it4 ,a heavy price was exacted of him1 not by red men1 but by that subtle personage whom he had tried to take by the horns1 and who seems to have resented such presumption4 ,toward the end of the journey ,parkman found himself ill in much the same way as at the beginning1 and craved medical advice4 ,it was in mid-,september1 on a broad meadow in the wild valley of the ,arkansas1 where his party had fallen in with a huge ,santa ,f caravan of white-topped wagons1 with great droves of mules and horses2 and we may let ,parkman tell the story in his own words1 in the last of our extracts from his fascinating book4 ,one of the guides had told him that in this caravan was a physician from ,st4 ,louis1 by the name of ,dobbs1 of the very highest standing in his profession4 ,without at all believing him1 ,i resolved to consult this eminent practitioner4 ,walking over to the camp1 ,i found him lying sound asleep under one of the wagons4 ,he offered in his own person but indifferent evidence of his skill2 for it was five months since ,i had seen so cadaverous a face4 ,his hat had fallen off1 and his yellow hair was all in disorder2 one of his arms supplied the place of a pillow2 his trousers were wrinkled halfway up to his knees1 and he was covered with little bits of grass and straw upon which he had rolled in his uneasy slumber4 ,a ,mexican stood near1 and ,i made him a sign to touch the doctor4 ,up sprang the learned ,dobbs1 and sitting upright rubbed his eyes and looked about him in bewilderment4 ,i regretted the necessity of disturbing him1 and said ,i had come to ask professional advice4 ',your system1 sir1 is in a disordered state1' said he solemnly1 after a short examination4 ,i inquired what might be the particular species of disorder4 ',evidently a morbid action of the liver1' replied the medical man4 ',i will give you a prescription4' ,repairing to the back of one of the covered wagons1 he scrambled in2 for a moment ,i could see nothing of him but his boots4 ,at length he produced a box which he had extracted from some dark recess within1 and opening it presented me with a folded paper4 ',what is it8' said ,i4 ',calomel1' said the doctor4 ,under the circumstances ,i would have taken almost anything4 ,there was not enough to do me much harm1 and it might possibly do good2 so at camp that night ,i took the poison instead of supper4 ,after the return from the wilderness ,parkman found his physical condition rather worse than better4 ,the trouble with the eyes continued1 and we begin to find mention of a lameness which was sometimes serious enough to confine him to the house1 and which evidently lasted a long time2 but from this he seems to have recovered4 ,my personal acquaintance with him began in #ahgb1 and ,i never noticed any symptoms of lameness1 though ,i remember taking several pleasant walks with him4 ,perhaps the source of lameness may be indicated in the following account of his condition in #ahdh1 cited from the fragment of autobiography in which he uses the third person3 ,to the maladies of the prairie succeeded a suite of exhausting disorders1 so reducing him that circulation of the extremities ceased1 the light of the sun became insupportable1 and a wild whirl possessed his brain1 joined to a universal turmoil of the nervous system which put his philosophy to the sharpest test it had hitherto known4 ,all collapsed1 in short1 but the tenacious strength of muscles hardened by long activity4 ,in #ahea1 whether due or not to disordered circulation1 there came an effusion of water on the left knee1 which for the next two years prevented walking4 ,it was between #ahdh and #ahea that ,parkman was engaged in writing ,the ,conspiracy of ,pontiac4 ,he felt that no regimen could be worse for him than idleness1 and that no tonic could be more bracing than work in pursuance of the lofty purpose which had now attained maturity in his mind4 ,he had to contend with a triple-headed monster3 first1 the weakness of the eyes1 which had come to be such that he could not keep them open to the light while writing his own name2 secondly1 the incapacity for sustained attention2 and thirdly1 the indisposition to putting forth mental effort4 ,evidently1 the true name of this triple-headed monster was nervous exhaustion2 there was too much soul for the body to which it was yoked4 ,to be made with impunity1 the attempt must be made with the most watchful caution4 ,he caused a wooden frame to be constructed of the size and shape of a sheet of letter paper4 ,stout wires were fixed horizontally across it1 half an inch apart1 and a movable back of thick pasteboard fitted behind them4 ,the paper for writing was placed between the pasteboard and the wires1 guided by which1 and using a black lead crayon1 he could write not illegibly with closed eyes4 ,he was at the time absent from home1 on ,staten ,island1 where1 and in the neighbouring city of ,new ,york1 he had friends who willingly offered their aid4 ,it is needless to say to which half of humanity nearly all these kind assistants belonged4 ,he chose for a beginning that part of the work which offered fewest difficulties and with the subject of which he was most familiar2 namely1 the ,siege of ,detroit4 ,the books and documents1 already partially arranged1 were procured from ,boston1 and read to him at such times as he could listen to them2 the length of each reading never without injury much exceeding half an hour1 and periods of several days frequently occurring during which he could not listen at all4 ,notes were made by him with closed eyes1 and afterwards deciphered and read to him till he had mastered them4 ,for the first half-year the rate of composition averaged about six lines a day4 ,the portion of the book thus composed was afterwards partially rewritten4 ,his health improved under the process1 and the remainder of the volume--in other words1 nearly the whole of it--was composed in ,boston1 while pacing in the twilight of a large garret1 the only exercise which the sensitive condition of his sight permitted him in an unclouded day while the sun was above the horizon4 ,it was afterwards written down from dictation by relatives under the same roof1 to whom he was also indebted for the preparatory readings4 ,his progress was much less tedious than at the outset1 and the history was complete in about two years and a half4 ,the book composed under such formidable difficulties was published in #ahea4 ,it did not at once meet with the reception which it deserved4 ,the reading public did not expect to find entertainment in ,american history4 ,in the ,new ,england of those days the general reader had heard a good deal about the ,pilgrim ,fathers and ,salem ,witchcraft1 and remembered hazily the stories of ,hannah ,dustin and of ,putnam and the wolf1 but could not be counted on for much else before the ,revolution4 ,i remember once hearing it said that the story of the ,old ,french ,war was something of no more interest or value for ,americans of to-day than the cuneiform records of an insurrection in ancient ,nineveh2 and so slow are people in gaining a correct historical perspective that within the last ten years the mighty world struggle in which ,pitt and ,frederick were allied is treated in a book entitled ,minor ,wars of the ,united ,states6 ,in #ahea the soil was not yet ready for the seed sown by ,parkman1 and he did not quickly or suddenly become popular4 ,but after the publication of the ,pioneers of ,france in #ahfe his fame grew rapidly4 ,in those days ,i took especial pleasure in praising his books1 from the feeling that they were not so generally known as they ought to be1 particularly in ,england1 where he has since come to be recognized as foremost among ,american writers of history4 ,in #ahgi ,i had been giving a course of lectures at ,university ,college1 ,london1 on ,america's ,place in ,history1 and shortly afterwards repeated this course at the little ,hawthorne ,hall1 on ,park ,street1 in ,boston4 ,one evening1 having occasion to allude briefly to ,pontiac and his conspiracy1 ,i said1 among other things1 that it was memorable as the theme of one of the most brilliant and fascinating books that have ever been written by any historian since the days of ,herodotus4 ,the words were scarcely out of my mouth when ,i happened to catch sight of ,mr4 ,parkman in my audience4 ,i had not observed him before1 though he was seated quite near me4 ,i shall never forget the sudden start which he gave1 and the heightened colour of his noble face1 with its curious look of surprise and pleasure1--an expression as honest and simple as one might witness in a rather shy schoolboy suddenly singled out for praise4 ,i was so glad that ,i had said what ,i did without thinking of his hearing me4 ,in ,may1 #ahej1 while at work upon this great book1 ,mr4 ,parkman married ,catherine1 daughter of ,jacob ,bigelow1 an eminent physician of ,boston4 ,of this marriage there were three children1--a son1 who died while an infant1 and two daughters1 who still survive4 ,mrs4 ,parkman died in #aheh1 and her husband never married again4 ,during these years1 when his complicated ailments for a time made historical work impossible even to this man of ,titanic will1 he assuaged his cravings for spiritual creation by writing a novel1 ,vassall ,morton4 ,of his books it is the only one that ,i have never seen1 and ,i can speak of it only from hearsay4 ,it is said to be not without signal merits1 but it did not find a great many readers1 and its author seems not to have cared much for it4 ,the main current of his interest in life was too strong to allow of much diversion into side channels4 ,meanwhile1 to cite his own words1 the ,faculty of ,medicine were not idle1 displaying that exuberance of resource for which that remarkable profession is justly famed4 ,the wisest1 indeed1 did nothing1 commending his patient to time and faith2 but the activity of his brethren made full amends for this masterly inaction4 ,one was for tonics1 another for a diet of milk2 one counselled galvanism1 another hydropathy2 one scarred him behind the neck with nitric acid1 another drew red-hot irons along his spine with a view of enlivening that organ4 ,opinion was divergent as practice4 ,one assured him of recovery in six years2 another thought that he would never recover4 ,another1 with grave circumlocution1 lest the patient should take fright1 informed him that he was the victim of an organic disease of the brain which must needs dispatch him to another world within a twelvemonth2 and he stood amazed at the smile of an auditor who neither cared for the announcement nor believed it4 ,another1 an eminent physiologist of ,paris1 after an acquaintance of three months1 one day told him that from the nature of the disorder he had at first supposed that it must1 in accordance with precedent1 be attended with insanity1 and had ever since been studying him to discover under what form the supposed aberration declared itself2 adding1 with a somewhat humorous look1 that his researches had not been rewarded with the smallest success4 ,soon after his marriage ,mr4 ,parkman became possessor of a small estate of three acres or so in ,jamaica ,plain1 on the steep shore of the beautiful pond4 ,it was a charming place1 thoroughly ,english in its homelike simplicity and refined comfort4 ,the house stood near the entrance1 and on not far from the same level as the roadway2 but from the side and rear the ground fell off rapidly1 so that it was quite a sharp descent to the pretty little wharf or dock1 where one might sit and gaze on the placid1 dreamy water4 ,it is with that lovely home that ,parkman is chiefly associated in my mind4 ,twenty years ago1 while ,i was acting as librarian at ,harvard ,university1 he was a member of the corporation1 and ,i had frequent occasion to consult with him on matters of business4 ,at such times ,i would drive over from ,cambridge or take a street car to ,jamaica ,plain1 sure of a cordial greeting and a pleasant chat1 in which business always received its full measure of justice1 and was then thrust aside for more inspiring themes4 ,the memory of one day in particular will go with me through life1--an enchanted day in the season of apple blossoms1 when ,i went in the morning for a brief errand1 taking with me one of my little sons4 ,the brief errand ended in spending the whole day and staying until late in the evening1 while the world of thought was ransacked and some of its weightiest questions provisionally settled6 ,nor was either greenhouse or garden or pond neglected4 ,at such times there was nothing in ,parkman's looks or manner to suggest the invalid4 ,he and ,i were members of a small club of a dozen or more congenial spirits who now for nearly thirty years have met once a month to dine together4 ,when he came to the dinner he was always one of the most charming companions at the table2 but ill health often prevented his coming1 and in the latter years of his life he never came4 ,i knew nothing of the serious nature of his troubles2 and when ,i heard the cause of his absence alleged1 ,i used to suppose that it was merely some need for taking care of digestion or avoiding late hours that kept him at home4 ,what most impressed one1 in talking with him1 was the combination of power and alertness with extreme gentleness4 ,nervous irritability was the last thing of which ,i should have suspected him4 ,he never made the slightest allusion to his ill health2 he would probably have deemed it inconsistent with good breeding to intrude upon his friends with such topics2 and his appearance as always most cheerful4 ,his friend 7our common friend71 the late ,octavius ,frothingham1 says of him3 ,again and again he had to restrain the impulse to say vehement things1 or to do violent deeds without the least provocation2 but he maintained so absolutely his moral self-control that none but the closest observer would notice any deviation from the most perfect calm and serenity4 ,i can testify that until after ,mr4 ,parkman's death ,i had never dreamed of the existence of any such deviation4 ,garden and greenhouse formed a very important part of the home by ,jamaica ,pond4 ,mr4 ,parkman's love for ,nature was in no way more conspicuously shown than in his diligence and skill in cultivating flowers4 ,it is often observed that plants will grow for some persons1 but not for others2 one man's conservatory will be heavy with verdure1 gorgeous in its colours1 and redolent of sweet odours1 while his neighbour's can show nothing but a forlorn assemblage of pots and sticks4 ,the difference is due to the loving care which learns and humours the idiosyncrasies of each individual thing that grows1 the keen observation of the naturalist supplemented by the watchful solicitude of the nurse4 ,among the indications of rare love and knowledge of ,nature is marked success in inducing her to bring forth her most exquisite creations1 the flowers4 ,as an expert in horticulture ,parkman achieved celebrity4 ,his garden and greenhouse had extraordinary things to show4 ,as he pointed out to me on my first visit to them1 he followed ,darwinian methods and originated new varieties of plants4 ,the ,lilium ,parkmani has long been famous among florists4 ,he was also eminent in the culture of roses1 and author of a work entitled ,the ,book of ,roses1 which was published in #ahff4 ,he was ,president of the ,horticultural ,society1 and at one time ,professor of ,horticulture in ,harvard ,university4 ,there can be no doubt as to the beneficial effects of these pursuits4 ,it is wholesome to be out of doors with spade and trowel and sprinkler2 there is something tonic in the aroma of fresh damp loam2 and nothing is more restful to the soul than daily sympathetic intercourse with flowering plants4 ,it was surely here that ,parkman found his best medicine4 ,when he entered1 in #ahea1 upon his great work on ,france and ,england in the ,new ,world1 he had before him the task of tracing out1 collecting1 indexing1 arranging1 and digesting a great mass of incongruous material scattered on both sides of the ,atlantic4 ,a considerable portion of this material was in manuscript1 and involved much tedious exploration and the employment of trained copyists4 ,it was necessary to study carefully the catalogues of many ,european libraries1 and to open correspondence with such scholars and public officials in both hemispheres as might be able to point to the whereabouts of fresh sources of information4 ,work of this sort1 as one bit of clue leads to another1 is capable of arousing the emotion of pursuit to a very high degree2 and ,i believe the effect of it upon ,parkman's health must have been good1 in spite of1 or rather because of1 its difficulties4 ,the chase was carried on until his manuscript treasures had been brought to an extraordinary degree of completeness4 ,these made his library quite remarkable4 ,in printed books it was far less rich4 ,he had not the tastes of a bibliophile1 and did not feel it necessary1 as ,freeman did1 to own all the books he used4 ,his library of printed books1 which at his death went to ,harvard ,university1 was a very small one for a scholar1--about twenty-five hundred volumes1 including more or less of ,greek and ,latin literature and theology inherited from his father4 ,his manuscripts1 as ,i have already mentioned1 went to the library of the ,massachusetts ,historical ,society4 ,when the manuscripts had come into his hands1 an arduous labour was begun4 ,all had to be read to him and taken in slowly1 bit by bit4 ,the incapacity to keep steadily at work made it impossible to employ regular assistants profitably2 and for readers he either depended upon members of his own family or called in pupils from the public schools4 ,once he speaks of having had a well-trained young man1 who was an excellent linguist2 on another occasion it was a schoolgirl ignorant of any tongue but her own1 and the effect1 though highly amusing to bystanders1 was far from being so to the person endeavouring to follow the meaning of this singular jargon4 ,the larger part of the documents used in preparing the earlier volumes were in seventeenth-century ,french1 which1 though far from being ,old ,french1 is enough unlike the nineteenth-century speech to have troubled ,parkman's readers1 and thus to have worried his ears4 ,as ,frothingham describes his method1 when the manuscripts were slowly read to him1 first the chief points were considered1 then the details of the story were gone over carefully and minutely4 ,as the reading went on he made notes1 first of essential matters1 then of non-essential4 ,after this he welded everything together1 made the narrative completely his own1 infused into it his own fire1 quickened it by his own imagination1 and made it1 as it were1 a living experience1 so that his books read like personal reminiscences4 ,it was certainly a slow and painful process1 but the result more than justified the labour4 ,in the fragment of autobiography already quoted1 which ,mr4 ,parkman left with ,dr4 ,ellis in #ahfh1 but which was apparently written in #ahfe1 he says3 ,one year1 four years1 and numerous short intervals lasting from a day to a month represent the literary interruptions since the work in hand was begun4 ,under the most favourable conditions it was a slow and doubtful navigation1 beset with reefs and breakers1 demanding a constant lookout and a constant throwing of the lead4 ,of late years1 however1 the condition of the sight has so far improved as to permit reading1 not exceeding on the average five minutes at one time4 ,this modicum of power1 though apparently trifling1 proves of the greatest service1 since by a cautious management its application may be extended4 ,by reading for one minute1 and then resting for an equal time1 this alternate process may generally be continued for about half an hour4 ,then after a sufficient interval it may be repeated1 often three or four times in the course of the day4 ,by this means nearly the whole of the volume now offered ,pioneers has been composed4444 ,how far1 by a process combining the slowness of the tortoise with the uncertainty of the hare1 an undertaking of close and extended research can be advanced1 is a question to solve which there is no aid from precedent1 since it does not appear that an attempt under similar circumstances has hitherto been made4 ,the writer looks1 however1 for a fair degree of success4 ,after #ahfe the progress was certainly much more rapid than before4 ,the next fourteen years witnessed the publication of ,the ,jesuits1 ,la ,salle1 ,the ,old ,rgime1 and ,frontenac1 and saw ,montcalm and ,wolfe well under way2 while the ,half-,century of ,conflict1 intervening between ,frontenac and ,montcalm and ,wolfe1 was reserved until the last-mentioned work should be done1 for the same reason that led ,herbert ,spencer to postpone the completing of his ,sociology until he should have finished his ,principles of ,ethics4 ,in view of life's vicissitudes1 it was prudent to make sure of the crowning work1 at all events leaving some connecting links to be inserted afterwards4 ,as one obstacle after another was surmounted1 as one grand division of the work after another became an accomplished fact1 the effect upon ,parkman's condition must have been bracing1 and he seems to have acquired fresh impetus as he approached the goal4 ,for desultory work in the shape of magazine articles he had little leisure2 but two essays of his1 on ,the ,failure of ,universal ,suffrage and on ,the ,reasons against ,woman ,suffrage1 are very thoughtful1 and worthy of serious consideration4 ,in questions of political philosophy1 his conclusions1 which were reached from a very wide and impartial survey of essential facts1 always seemed to me of the highest value4 ,when ,i look back upon ,parkman's noble life1 ,i think of ,mendelssohn's chorus1 ,he that shall endure to the end1 with its chaste and severely beautiful melody1 and the calm1 invincible faith which it expresses4 ,after all the harrowing years of doubt and distress1 the victory was such in its magnitude as has been granted to but few mortals to win4 ,he lived to see his life's work done2 the thought of his eighteenth year was realized in his sixty-ninth2 and its greatness had come to be admitted throughout the civilized world4 ,in ,september1 #ahic1 his seventieth year was completed1 and his autumn in the lovely home at ,jamaica ,plain was a pleasant one4 ,on the first ,sunday afternoon in ,november he rowed on the pond in his boat1 but felt ill as he returned to the house1 and on the next ,wednesday1 the #hth1 he passed quietly away4 ,thus he departed from a world which will evermore be the richer and better for having once had him as its denizen4 ,the memory of a life so strong and beautiful is a precious possession for us all4 ,as for the book on which he laboured with such marvellous heroism1 a word may be said in conclusion4 ,great in his natural powers and great in the use he made of them1 ,parkman was no less great in his occasion and in his theme4 ,of all ,american historians he is the most deeply and peculiarly ,american1 yet he is at the same time the broadest and most cosmopolitan4 ,the book which depicts at once the social life of the ,stone ,age1 and the victory of the ,english political ideal over the ideal which ,france inherited from imperial ,rome1 is a book for all mankind and for all time4 ,the more adequately men's historic perspective gets adjusted1 the greater will it seem4 ,strong in its individuality1 and like to nothing else1 it clearly belongs1 ,i think1 among the world's few masterpieces of the highest rank1 along with the works of ,herodotus1 ,thucydides1 and ,gibbon4 ,february1 #ahig4 ,,ix ,,edward ,,augustus ,,freeman ,the sudden death of ,professor ,freeman1 last ,march #ahib1 was a great calamity to the world of letters4 ,although his achievements in the field of historical writing had been so varied and voluminous1 yet some of his most important themes--some of those which had been slowly ripening and most richly developed in his mind--were still awaiting literary treatment at his hands1 and at the time of his death he had just finished the third volume of a colossal work which was still in its earlier stages4 ,his end was premature1 and it is with a keen sense of bereavement that we take this occasion to pay a brief word of tribute to so dear and honoured a teacher4 ,edward ,augustus ,freeman1 son of ,john ,freeman of ,redmore ,hall1 in ,worcestershire1 was born at ,harborne1 ,staffordshire1 ,august #b1 #ahbc4 ,his life was always purely that of a scholar and teacher1 and a chronicle of its events would consist chiefly of the record of books published and offices held at the ,university of ,oxford4 ,he was graduated at ,trinity ,college in #ahde1 and remained there as a ,fellow until #ahdg4 ,in #aheg1 #ahfc1 and #ahgc he served as ,examiner in ,modern ,history4 ,in #ahhj he was chosen honorary ,fellow of ,trinity1 and in #ahhd ,fellow of ,oriel4 ,in the latter year he was appointed ,regius ,professor of ,modern ,history1 succeeding ,bishop ,stubbs in that position4 ,it is not necessary to enumerate the honorary degrees which he received from ,oxford and ,cambridge1 and from universities in various ,european countries4 ,at the time of his death he was a member of learned societies in nearly all parts of the world4 ,for many years he had been a ,knight ,commander of the ,greek ,order of the ,saviour4 ,he had also received honours of knighthood from ,servia and ,montenegro4 ,in #ahfh he was a candidate for ,parliament1 but failed of election2 and that seems to have been his sole venture in the world of politics4 ,his travels upon the continent of ,europe were many and extensive4 ,when at home he lived in rural seclusion1--far from the madding crowd1--upon his estate at ,somerleaze1 near ,wells and its noble cathedral2 only in these latter years he made a home for himself1 during the ,oxford terms1 at ,st4 ,giles in that city4 ,from the very beginning ,freeman's historical studies were characterized on the one hand by philosophical breadth of view1 and on the other hand by extreme accuracy of statement1 and such loving minuteness of detail as is apt to mark the local antiquary whose life has been spent in studying only one thing4 ,it was to the combination of these two characteristics that the preminent greatness of his historical work was due4 ,we see the combination already prefigured1 and to some extent realized1 in his first book1 ,a ,history of ,architecture1 published in #ahdi1 although this can hardly be called such a work of original research as the books of his maturer years4 ,two years afterward appeared the learned ,essay on the ,origin and ,development of ,window ,tracery in ,england1 a work which ,i do not feel able to criticise1 but which ,i am sure is very charming to read4 ,i believe that this book was followed by at least three others in the same department1 ,architectural ,antiquities of ,gower1 ,the ,antiquities of ,st4 ,david's1 and ,the ,architecture of ,llandaff ,cathedral1 but ,i have never seen them4 ,in the preface to the essay on window tracery ,mr4 ,freeman alludes to ,rev4 ,g4 ,w4 ,cox as his friend and coadjutor in many undertakings1 and ,i have heard of a volume of poems by ,g4 ,w4 ,c4 and ,e4 ,a4 ,f4 published in those days1 but ,i know no more about it4 ,it is to be hoped that these early works1 which have become very scarce1 will before long be collected and reprinted4 ,when1 after these publications on architecture1 ,freeman began publishing books and articles on ancient ,greece and on the ,saracens1 ,i presume there were many of his readers who thoughtlessly assumed that he had changed his vocation2 he must more than once have had to answer the stupid question why he had gone over from architecture to history4 ,but in his mind the evolution of architecture was never separated from the course of political history2 and the effect of these early studies in architecture1 which were indeed never abandoned1 but kept up with enthusiasm in later years1 was to give increased definiteness and concreteness to his presentation of historical events4 ,when ,i use such a word as evolution in this connection1 ,i do not mean that ,mr4 ,freeman was in any sense a disciple of the modern evolution philosophy4 ,there is nothing to show that he ever gave any time or attention to the study of that subject1 or that he had any technical knowledge even of its terminology4 ,whether consciously or unconsciously1 however1 he was an evolutionist in spirit4 ,from the outset he was deeply impressed with the solidarity of human history1 and no student of political development in our time has made more effective use of the comparative method4 ,from #ahej to #ahfc ,freeman's published writings were chiefly concerned with ,mediterranean history viewed on the broadest scale in relation to all those movements of progressive humanity which have had that great inland sea for a common centre4 ,here came those brilliant essays on ,ancient ,greece and ,medival ,italy1 ,homer and the ,homeric ,age1 ,the ,athenian ,democracy1 ,alexander the ,great1 ,greece during the ,macedonian ,period1 ,mommsen's ,history of ,rome1 ,the ,flavian ,csars1 and others since collected in the second series of his ,historical ,essays4 ,to this period also belongs the little book on the ,history of the ,saracens1 based upon lectures given at the ,philosophical ,institution in ,edinburgh4 ,from these ,mediterranean studies may be said to have grown two of ,freeman's three great works1--both of them1 unfortunately1 left incomplete at his death1--the ,history of ,federal ,government and the ,history of ,sicily4 ,freeman was remarkably free from the common habit--common even among eminent historians--of concentrating his attention upon some exceptionally brilliant period or so-called classical age1 to the exclusion of other ages that went before and came after4 ,such a habit is fatal to all correct understanding of history1 even that of the ages upon which attention is thus unwisely concentrated4 ,freeman understood that in some respects1 if not in others1 the history of ,greece is just as important after the battle of ,chronea as before2 and he became especially interested in the history of the ,achaian ,league and other ,greek attempts at federation4 ,thence grew the idea of studying the development of federal union as the highest form of nation-building1 beginning with its germs in the leagues among ,greek autonomous cities4 ,the enterprise was arduous1 involving as it did the determination of obscure points in the history of many ages and countries1 more particularly ,greece1 ,switzerland1 and ,america4 ,the first volume1 containing the general introduction and the history of the ,greek federations1 was published in #ahfc1 a stalwart octavo of #gba pages4 ,it bore upon the title-page a motto from ,the ,federalist1 ,no4 ,,xviii41--,could the interior structure and regular operation of the ,achaian ,league be ascertained1 it is probable that more light might be thrown by it on the science of federal government than by any of the like experiments with which we are acquainted4 ,this book is of priceless value1 and if ,freeman had never published anything more1 it would have entitled him to a place in the foremost rank of historians4 ,it deals thoroughly with a very important portion of the world's history to which no one before had even begun to do justice4 ,its admirable philosophical spirit is matched by its keen critical insight and its minute and exhaustive control of all sources of information4 ,its narrative1 moreover1 is full of human interest4 ,yet it never became a popular book4 ,it was hard to make people believe that the ,achaian ,league could be interesting1 and in order to realize the philosophical value of the whole story most readers would need to have the later portions of it set before their eyes4 ,but this noble work1 in some respects the grandest of the author's conceptions1 was never completed4 ,the first volume was all that ever was published4 ,for this fact ,i have sometimes heard ,americans offer a grotesque explanation4 ,the volume published in #ahfc1 in the middle of our ,civil ,war1 bore the title ,history of ,federal ,government1 from the ,foundation of the ,achaian ,league to the ,disruption of the ,united ,states4 ,this title gave offence in ,america4 ,it was too hastily taken to indicate that the author wished well to the ,southern ,confederacy1 and regarded its independence as an accomplished fact4 ,there can be no doubt that the title was ill chosen2 but to suppose1 as some people did1 that chagrin at the success of the ,union arms prevented ,freeman from going on with his book was simply ridiculous4 ,it was not anything that happened in ,america1 but something that happened in ,europe1 which caused him to defer the completion of his second volume4 ,that volume was to deal with federal government as exemplified in ,switzerland and otherwise in ,germany2 and the war of #ahff between ,prussia and ,austria marked the beginning of organic changes in ,germany which ,freeman was anxious to watch for a while before finishing his book4 ,he therefore turned aside and took up the third of his three great works1--the only one that he lived to complete1--the ,history of the ,norman ,conquest of ,england1 its ,causes and its ,results4 ,upon this subject he had thought and studied for nearly twenty years1 or ever since the time when he was publishing works on architecture4 ,as one turns the leaves of these stout volumes1 each of seven or eight hundred pages1 crowded with minute and accurate erudition1 one marvels that the author could carry along so many researches and of such exhaustive character at the same time4 ,alike in ,greek1 in ,german1 and in ,english history1 along with abundant generalizations1 often highly original and suggestive1 we find investigations of obscure points in which every item of evidence is weighed as in an apothecary's scale1 and in all these directions ,freeman was working at once4 ,when it came to publishing1 volume followed volume with surprising quickness4 ,turning aside in #ahff from the second volume of the ,federal ,government when a large part of it was already written1 ,freeman brought out the first volume of the ,norman ,conquest in #ahfg1 the second in #ahfh1 the third in #ahfi1 the fourth in #ahga1 the fifth more leisurely in #ahgf4 ,the proportions of this work are eminently characteristic of the author's historical perspective4 ,in order to understand the ,norman ,conquest1 a survey of all previous ,english history1 and especially of the struggle between ,englishmen and ,danes1 is essential2 and the first volume carries us in one great sweep from the landing of ,hengist to the accession of ,edward the ,confessor1 while the early history of ,normandy also receives due attention4 ,we now enter the region of proximate causes1 which require more detailed specification1 and the second volume takes us through the four-and-twenty years of ,edward's reign4 ,his death hurries the situation to its dramatic climax1 and the whole of the third volume is devoted to the events of the single year #ajff4 ,the completion of the ,conquest down to the death of the ,conqueror is treated with less detail1 and the twenty-one years are comprised within a volume4 ,finally1 in summing up the results of the great event1 the last volume covers two centuries1 and leaves us in the reign of ,edward ,i41 the king who did so much to make modern ,english history the glorious tale that it has been4 ,in finishing his work upon these proportions1 ,freeman encountered many points in the reign of ,william ,rufus that needed fuller treatment1 and so in #ahhb he published in two volumes the history of that reign as a sequel to the ,norman ,conquest4 ,taken as a whole1 the seven volumes give us such a masterly philosophic analysis and such a picturesque and vivid narrative of the history of ,england in the eleventh century that it must be pronounced the monumental work upon which ,freeman's reputation will chiefly rest4 ,while these volumes were in course of publication1 there was scarcely a year when its busy author1 from his wealth of knowledge1 did not bring out some other book4 ,sometimes it was what men count a slight affair1 such as a textbook1--albeit the textbook is perhaps the hardest kind of book to write well2 sometimes it was a brief monograph or course of lectures2 sometimes a collection of earlier writings4 ,there was an ,old ,english ,history for ,children 7#ahfi71 a ,short ,history of the ,norman ,conquest 7#ahhj71 and a ,general ,sketch of ,european ,history 7#ahgc74 ,the ,growth of the ,english ,constitution was suggestively treated in a small volume 7#ahgb74 ,there was a ,history of the ,cathedral ,church at ,wells 7#ahgj71 and there was a collection of ,historical and ,architectural ,sketches1 chiefly from ,italy 7#ahgf71 followed by ,sketches from the ,subject and ,neighbour ,lands of ,venice 7#ahha74 ,in these two last-named volumes1 illustrated chiefly from the author's own drawings1 one sees that his interest in ,diocletian and ,theodoric was scarcely less keen than in ,alfred of ,wessex or ,william the ,norman4 ,no other modern traveller has done such justice to ,istria and ,dalmatia4 ,i am not joking1 he writes1 when ,i say that the best guide to those parts is still the account written by the ,emperor ,constantine ,porphyrogenitus more than nine hundred years back4 ,but it is surely high time that there should be another4 ,freeman's accurate knowledge of southeastern ,europe and its peoples1 coupled with his wide and comprehensive study of the contact between ,christians and ,mussulmans in all ages1 led him to take very sound and wholesome views of the unspeakable ,turk and the everlasting ,eastern ,question2 and in #ahgg1 when public attention was so strongly directed toward the ,balkans1 he published a lucid and graphic little volume on ,the ,ottoman ,power in ,europe4 ,this book was a companion to the ,history of the ,saracens1 above mentioned1 and the two together make as good an introduction to ,mussulman history in its relations to ,europe as the general reader is likely to find4 ,among the host of side works which were issued during these years1 two call for especial mention4 ,in the lectures on ,comparative ,politics1 given at the ,royal ,institution in #ahgc1 ,freeman analyzed and described the different forms assumed by ,aryan institutions among ,greeks1 ,romans1 and ,teutons4 ,this book is his most distinct attempt to make his central theme the career of an institution1 such as kingship or representative assemblies1 rather than the career of a state or a people4 ,in the ,history of ,federal ,government1 the two kinds of treatment1 analytical and synthetical1 were combined in a way that would1 ,i think1 have made that his grandest work1 had it been completed4 ,in the lectures we get an able analysis and comparison1 full of fruitful suggestions1 and in our author's happiest style4 ,there is not the originality of scholarship here that we find in ,sir ,henry ,maine1 nor do we find the breadth of view that can be gained only when the barbaric non-,aryan world is taken into account4 ,such breadth was not to be expected twenty years ago1 and before the path-breaking work of the ,american scholar ,lewis ,morgan4 ,freeman's outlook was confined to the ,aryan domain2 but he did not attempt more than he knew4 ,his task was conceived with so clear a consciousness of his limitations1 and every point was so richly illustrated1 that the ,comparative ,politics remains one of his most useful and charming books4 ,the other work calling for especial mention is ,the ,historical ,geography of ,europe1 published in #ahhj4 ,its object was to trace out the extent of territory which the different states and nations of ,europe have held at different times in the world's history2 to mark the different boundaries which the same country has had1 and the different meanings in which the same name has been used4 ,such work is of great and fundamental importance1 because men are perpetually making grotesque mistakes through ignorance or forgetfulness of the changes which have occurred on the map2 as1 for example1 when somebody speaks of ,lyons in the twelfth century as a ,french city1 or supposes that ,charles the ,bold invaded ,swiss territory4 ,historical writings fairly swarm with blunders based upon unconscious errors of this sort1 and nowhere did ,freeman do better service than in pointing them out on every possible occasion4 ,no writer has so effectively warned the historical student against that besetting sin of bondage to the modern map4 ,his exposition of historical geography is a book of purest gold1 and no serious student of history can safely neglect it4 ,in #ahha ,mr4 ,freeman visited the ,united ,states1 and gave lectures on ,the ,english ,people in its ,three ,homes and ,the ,practical ,bearings of ,european ,history1 which were afterward published in a volume4 ,after returning home he published ,some ,impressions of the ,united ,states 7#ahhc71 a very entertaining book because of the author's ingrained habit of comparing and discriminating social phenomena upon so wide a scale4 ,gauls and ,illyrians1 ,wessex and ,achaia1 come in to point each a moral1 and show how to this great historian the whole ,european past was almost as much a present and living reality as the incidents occurring before his eyes4 ,in the same year1 #ahhc1 ,freeman published his ,english ,towns and ,districts1 a series of addresses and sketches in which he had from time to time embodied the results of his antiquarian and architectural studies in many parts of ,england and ,wales4 ,it is a book of rare fascination as illustrating how largely national history is made up of local history1 and how it is impossible to understand the former correctly without paying much attention to the latter4 ,in further illustration of the same point1 ,freeman projected the well-known series of monographs on ,historic ,towns1 to which he himself contributed the opening volume1 on ,exeter 7#ahhf74 ,having been called to the ,regius ,professorship at ,oxford in #ahhd1 ,freeman's next publications were university lectures on ,methods of ,historical ,study1 ,the ,chief ,periods of ,european ,history1 ,fifty ,years of ,european ,history1 ,teutonic ,conquest in ,gaul and ,britain1 ,greater ,greece and ,greater ,britain1 and ,george ,washington the ,expander of ,england 7#ahhf-hh74 ,meanwhile1 the colossal work on ,sicily was rapidly assuming its final shape4 ,this topic obviously touched upon ,freeman's other two chief topics at two points4 ,ancient ,sicily was part of that ,greek world which he had so thoroughly studied in connection with the beginnings of federal government4 ,medival ,sicily was one of the most important of the ,norman's fields of activity4 ,but the thought of writing the history of that fateful island did not come to ,freeman as an afterthought suggested by his other two great works4 ,on the contrary1 the conception of the historic position of ,sicily was among the first that stimulated his philosophic mind to undertake comprehensive studies4 ,the contact between the ,aryan and ,semitic civilizations along the coasts of the ,mediterranean is surely the most interesting topic in the history of mankind1 as the reader will at once admit when he reflects that it involves the origin and rise of ,christianity4 ,but1 restricting ourselves to the political aspects of the subject1 how full of dramatic grandeur it is6 ,how stirring were the scenes of which ,sicily has been the theatre6 ,there struggled ,carthage1 first against ,greek1 and then against ,roman2 and in later times the conflict was renewed between ,arabic-speaking ,mussulmans and ,greek-speaking ,christians1 until the ,norman came to assert his sway over both1 and to loosen the clutch of the ,saracen upon the centre of the ,mediterranean world4 ,the theme1 in its manifold bearings1 was worthy of ,freeman1 and he was worthy of it4 ,his design was to start with the earliest times in which ,sicily is known to history1 and to carry on the narrative as far as the death of the ,emperor ,frederick ,,ii4 and the final overthrow of the ,hohenstaufen dynasty4 ,the scheme lay ripening in his mind for nearly half a century1 and its consummation was begun with characteristic swiftness and vigour4 ,two noble volumes were published in #ahia1 and the third was out of the author's hands by the end of last ,january4 ,but for a death most lamentably sudden and premature there was no reason why the whole task should not have been soon accomplished4 ,the author seems to have fallen a victim to his superabundant zeal and energy4 ,he had always been a traveller1 visiting in person the scenes of his narratives1 narrowly scrutinizing each locality with the eye of an antiquarian1 exploring battlefields and making drawings of churches and castles1 running from one end of ,europe to the other to verify some mooted point4 ,it was1 ,i believe1 on some such expedition as this that he found himself1 last ,march1 at ,alicante1 where an attack of smallpox suddenly ended his life4 ,to the faithful students of his works the tidings of ,freeman's death must have come like the news of the loss of a personal friend4 ,to those who enjoyed his friendship even in a slight way the sense of loss was keen1 for he was a very lovable man4 ,some people1 indeed1 seem to think of him as a gruff and growling pedant1 ever on the lookout for some culprit to chastise2 but1 while not without some basis1 this notion is far from the truth4 ,freeman's conception of the duty of a historian was a high one1 and he lived up to it4 ,he had a holy horror of slovenly and inaccurate work2 pretentious sciolism was something that he could not endure1 and he knew how easy it is to press garbled or misunderstood history into the service of corrupt politics4 ,he found the minds of ,english-speaking contemporaries full of queer notions of ,european history1 especially as to the ,middle ,ages1--notions usually misty and often grotesquely wrong2 and he did more than any other ,englishman of our time to correct such errors and clear up men's minds4 ,such work could not be done without attacking blunders and the propagators of blunders4 ,freeman's assaults were not infrequent1 and they were apt to be crushing2 but they were made in the interests of historic truth1 and there were none too many of them4 ,like ,mr4 ,f4's ,aunt1 the great historian did hate a fool2 and it is clearly right that fools should be silenced and made to know their place4 ,not only foolishness and inaccuracy did ,freeman hate1 but also tyranny1 fraud1 and social injustice1 under whatever specious disguises they might be veiled4 ,in matters of right and wrong his perceptions were rather clouded4 ,he never could be duped into admiring a charlatan like the late ,emperor of the ,french4 ,upon the ,eastern ,question he wielded a ,varangian axe1 and had his advice been heeded1 the ,commander of the ,faithful would ere now have been sent back to ,brusa1 or beyond4 ,but while in politics and in criticism he could hit hard1 his disposition was as tender and humane as ,uncle ,toby's4 ,eminently characteristic is the discussion on fox-hunting which he carried on with ,anthony ,trollope some years ago in the ,fortnightly ,review1 in which he condemned that time-honoured sport as intolerably cruel4 ,mr4 ,freeman was very domestic in his habits4 ,when not travelling1 he was to be found in his country home1 writing in his own library4 ,when he was in the ,united ,states1 it amused him to see people's surprise when told that he did not live in a city1 and did not spend his time deciphering musty manuscripts in public libraries or archives4 ,he used to say that1 even in point of economy1 he thought it better to dwell among pleasant green fields and to consult one's own books than to take long journeys or be stifled in dirty cities in order to consult other people's book4 ,his chief subjects of study favoured such a policy1 for most of the sources of information on the eleventh century1 as well as upon ancient ,greece1 are contained in printed volumes4 ,now and then he missed some little point upon which a manuscript might have helped him4 ,but one cannot help wishing he might have stayed among the quiet fields of ,somerset instead of taking that last fatal journey to ,alicante4 ,it was chiefly with the political aspects of history that ,freeman concerned himself2 not in the old-fashioned way1 as a mere narrative of the deeds of kings and cabinets1 but in scientific fashion1 as an application of the comparative method to the various processes of nation-building4 ,i do not mean that his narrative was subordinated to scientific exposition1 but that it was informed and vitalized by the spirit and methods of science4 ,in pure description ,freeman was often excellent2 his account of the death of ,william ,rufus1 for example1 is a masterpiece of impressive narrative4 ,in description and in argument alike ,freeman usually confined his attention to political history1 except when he dealt in his suggestive way with architecture and archology4 ,to art in general1 to the history of philosophy and of scientific ideas1 to the development of literary expression1 of manners and customs1 of trade and the industrial arts1 he devoted much less thought4 ,i believe he did not fully approve of his friend ,green's method of carrying along political1 social1 and literary topics abreast in his ,history of the ,english ,people4 ,few will doubt1 however1 that in this respect ,green's artistic grasp upon his subject was stronger than ,freeman's4 ,it is some slight consolation for our bitter loss to know that many of the great historian's books were in large part written long before he felt the time to be ripe for completing and publishing them4 ,some of the unfinished portions may be brought toward completeness and edited by other hands4 ,in this way ,i hope we may look for one or two more volumes of the ,sicily1 and perhaps for the second volume of the ,federal ,government1 dealing with the ,swiss and other ,german federations4 ,probably no other ,englishman1 and few other men anywhere in our time1 knew anything like so much as ,freeman about the history of ,switzerland4 ,i once or twice begged him to make haste and finish that volume1 but desisted2 for it was evident that ,sicily was absorbing him1 and an author does not like to be pestered with advice to turn aside from the work that is uppermost in his mind4 ,november1 #ahib4 ,x ,,cambridge ,,as ,,village ,,and ,,city#bg ,we have met together this evening on one of those occasions1 which keep recurring1 for communities as well as for individuals1 when it is desirable to take a retrospect of the past1 to call attention to some of the characteristic incidents in our history1 to sum up the work we have done and estimate the position we occupy in the world4 ,as long as we retain the decimal numeration that is natural to ten-fingered creatures1 we shall encounter such moments at intervals of half centuries and centuries1 and happy are the communities that can meet them without shameful memories that shun the light of history2 happy are the people that can look back upon the work of their fathers and in their heart of hearts pronounce it good6 ,what a blot it was upon the civic fame of every ,greek community that took part in putting out the brightest light of ,hellas in the wicked ,peloponnesian ,war6 ,can any right-minded ,venetian look without blushing at the bronze horses that surmount the stately portal of ,st4 ,mark's8--a perpetual memento of that black day when ravening commercial jealousy decoyed an army of ,crusaders to the despoiling of the chief city of ,christendom1 and thus broke away the strongest barrier in the path of the advancing ,turk6 ,what must the citizen of ,paris think to-day of cowardly massacres of unresisting prisoners1 such as happened in #adah and in #agib8 ,is there any dweller in ,birmingham who would not gladly expunge from the past that summer evening which witnessed the burning of the house and library of ,dr4 ,priestley8 ,from such melancholy scenes1 and from complicity in political crime1 our community1 our neighbourhood1 has been notably free4 ,the annals of ,massachusetts1 during its existence of nearly three centuries1 are written in a light that is sometimes dull or sombre1 but very seldom lurid4 ,in particular the career of ,cambridge has been a placid one4 ,we do not find in it many things to startle us2 but there is much that we can approve1 much upon which1 without falling into the self-satisfied mood that is the surest index of narrowness and provincialism1 we may legitimately pride ourselves4 ,in commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the incorporation of ,cambridge as a city1 a retrospect of the half century is needful2 but we shall find it pleasant to go farther back1 and start with a glimpse of the beginnings of our town4 ,i came near saying humble beginnings2 it is a stock phrase1 and perhaps savours of tautology1 since beginnings are apt to be humble as compared with long-matured results4 ,but an adjective which better suits the beginnings of our ,cambridge is dignified4 ,circumstances of dignity attended the selection of this spot upon the bank of ,charles ,river as the site of a town1 and there was something peculiarly dignified in the circumstances of the change of vocation which determined the change in its name4 ,the story is a very different one from that of the founding of towns in the ,old ,world1 in the semi-barbarous times when the art of nation-making was in its infancy4 ,in those earlier ages1 it was only through prolonged warfare against enemies nearly equal in prowess and resources that a free political life could be maintained2 and it was only after numberless crude experiments that nations could be formed in which political rights could be efficiently preserved for the people4 ,all the training that such long ages of turbulence could impart had been gained by our forefathers in the ,old ,world4 ,to the founders of our ,cambridge it had come as a rich inheritance4 ,they were not as the rough followers of ,alaric or ,hengist4 ,they had profited by the work of ,roman civilization1 with its vast and subtle nexus of legal and political ideas4 ,in the hands of their fathers had been woven the wonderful fabric of ,english law2 they were familiar with parliamentary institutions2 they had been brought up in a country where the king's peace was better preserved than anywhere else in ,europe1 and where at the same time self-government was maintained in full vigour4 ,they had profited1 moreover1 by the scholastic learning of the ,middle ,ages and the ,greek scholarship of the ,renaissance2 nor was the newly awakening spirit of scientific inquiry1 visible in ,galileo and ,gilbert1 lost upon their keen and inquisitive minds4 ,these ,puritans1 heirs to what was strongest and best in the world's culture1 came to ,massachusetts ,bay in order to put into practice a theory of civil government in which the interests both of liberty and of godliness seemed to them likely to be best subserved4 ,they came to plant the most advance civilization in the midst of a heathen wilderness1 and thus the selection of a seat of government for the new commonwealth was an affair of dignity and importance4 ,half a dozen towns1 including ,boston1 had already been begun1 when it was decided that a site upon the bank of ,charles ,river1 three or four miles inland1 would be most favourable for the capital of the ,puritan colony4 ,it would be somewhat more defensible against a fleet than the peninsulas of ,boston and ,charlestown4 ,the warships to be dreaded at that moment were not so much those of any foreign power as those of ,king ,charles himself2 for none could tell that the grim clouds of civil war then lowering upon the horizon of ,england and ,scotland might not also darken the coast of ,massachusetts ,bay4 ,when the site was selected1 on the #bhth of ,december1 #afcj1 it was agreed that the governor1 deputy governor1 and all the ,court of ,assistants 7except ,endicott1 already settled at ,salem7 should build their houses here4 ,fortunately no name was bestowed upon the new town4 ,it was known simply as the ,new ,town1 and here in the years before #afch the ,general ,court was several times assembled4 ,during those seven years the number of ,puritans in ,new ,england increased from about #aejj to nearly #bj1jjj4 ,it was also clear that the ,king's troubles at home were likely to keep him from molesting ,massachusetts4 ,with the increased feeling of security1 ,boston came to be preferred as the seat of government1 and only two of its members ever fulfilled the agreement to build their houses in the ,new ,town4 ,the building of the ,new ,town1 however1 furnished the occasion for determining at the outset what kind of government the ,puritan commonwealth should have4 ,it was to be a walled town1 for defence against frontier barbarism of the ,new ,world type2 not the formidable destructive power of an ,attila or a ,bayazet1 but the feeble barbarism of the red men and the ,stone ,age1 so that a wall of masonry was not required1 but a wooden palisade would do4 ,in #afcb the ,court of ,assistants imposed a tax of #fj for the purpose of building this palisade2 but the men of ,watertown refused to pay their share1 on the ground that they were not represented in the taxing body4 ,the ensuing discussion resulted in the establishment of a ,house of ,deputies1 in which every town was represented4 ,henceforth the ,court of ,assistants together with the ,house of ,deputies formed the ,general ,court4 ,there was no authority for such a representative body in the charter1 which vested the government in the ,court of ,assistants2 but1 as ,hutchinson tells us1 the people assumed that the right to such representation was implied in that clause of the charter which reserved to them the natural rights of ,englishmen4 ,thus the building of a wooden palisade from ,ash ,street to ,jarvis ,field furnished the occasion for the first distinct assertion in the ,new ,world of the principles that were to bear fruit in the independence of the ,united ,states4 ,but the most interesting event in the history of the ,new ,town before it became ,cambridge was the brief sojourn of the ,rev4 ,thomas ,hooker and his company1 from ,braintree in ,england4 ,in popular generalizations it is customary to allude to our ,puritan forefathers as if they were all alike in their ways of thinking1 whereas in reality it would be difficult to point out any group of men and women among whom individualism has more strongly flourished4 ,among the numberless differences of opinion and policy1 it was only a few--and mostly such as were related to vital political questions--that blazed up in acts of persecution4 ,for the disorganization wrought by ,mrs4 ,hutchinson swift banishment seemed the only available remedy2 but slighter differences could be healed by a peaceful secession1 which some people deprecated as the removal of a candlestick4 ,such a secession was that of ,hooker and his friends4 ,the difference between ,hooker's ideal of government and ,winthrop's has come to be recognized as in some measure foreshadowing the different conceptions of ,jefferson and ,hamilton in later days4 ,but of controversy between the two eminent ,puritans only slight traces are left4 ,one act of omission on the part of the friendly seceders is more forcible than reams of argument3 the founders of ,connecticut did not see fit to limit the suffrage by the qualification of church membership4 ,the removal of so many people to the banks of the ,connecticut left in the ,new ,town only eleven families of those who had settled here before #afce4 ,but depopulation was prevented by the arrival of a new congregation from ,england4 ,there stands on our common a monument in commemoration of ,john ,bridge1 who was for many years a selectman of ,cambridge1 and dwelt beyond the western limits of the town1 on or near the site since famous as the headquarters of ,washington and the home of ,longfellow4 ,this ,john ,bridge1 deacon of the ,first ,church1 was one of the earliest settlers of the ,new ,town1 and one of the eleven householders that stayed behind1 a connecting link between the old congregation of ,thomas ,hooker and the new congregation of ,thomas ,shepard4 ,the coming of this eminent divine was undoubtedly an event of cardinal importance in the history of our community1 for in the ,hutchinson controversy1 which shook the little colony to its foundations1 his zeal and vigilance in exposing heresy were conspicuously shown2 and1 if we may believe ,cotton ,mather1 it was this circumstance that led to the selection of the ,new ,town as the site for the projected college4 ,it was well for students of divinity to sit under the preaching of such a man1 and of such as he might train up to succeed him4 ,how vain were all such hopes of keeping this ,new ,english ,canaan free from heresy was shown when ,henry ,dunster1 first president of the college1 was censured by the magistrates and dismissed from office for disapproving of infant baptism6 ,in the great ,english universities at that time ,royalism and ,episcopacy prevailed at ,oxford1 while ,puritanism more or less allied with ,republicanism was rife at ,cambridge4 ,ever since the fourteenth century a superior flexibility in opinion had been observable in the eastern counties1 whence came so many of the people that founded ,new ,england4 ,not only ,hooker and ,shepard1 but most of our clergy1 among whom individualism was so rife1 were graduates of ,cambridge4 ,when it was decided that the ,new ,town was to be the home of our college1 it was natural for people to fall into the habit of calling it ,cambridge2 and this name1 so long enshrined already in their affections1 already made illustrious by ,erasmus and ,fisher1 by ,latimer and ,cranmer1 by ,burghley and ,walsingham and the two ,bacons1 by ,edmund ,spenser and ,ben ,jonson1--this name of such fame and dignity was adopted in #afch by an order of the ,general ,court4 ,the map of the ,united ,states abounds in town names taken at random from the ,old ,world1 often inappropriate and sometimes ludicrous from the incongruity of associations4 ,the name of our city is connected by a legitimate bond of inheritance with that of the beautiful city on the ,cam4 ,it was given in the thought that the work for scholarship1 for godliness1 and for freedom1 which had so long been carried on in the older city1 was to be continued in the younger4 ,the name thus given was a pledge to posterity1 and it has been worthily fulfilled4 ,into the history of the town of ,cambridge during the two centuries after it received its name ,i do not propose to enter4 ,but a glimpse of its general appearance during the greater part of that period is needful1 in order to give precision and the right sort of emphasis to the contrast which we see before us to-day4 ,the ,cambridge of those days was simply the seat of the college1 not yet developed into a university4 ,within the memory of persons now living1 ,old ,cambridge was commonly alluded to as the village4 ,in the original laying out of the township we seem to see a reminiscence of the ancient threefold partition into town mark1 arable mark1 and common4 ,the east gate1 near the corner of ,harvard and ,linden streets1 and the west gate1 at the corner of ,ash and ,brattle1 marked the limits of the town in those directions4 ,the town was at first comprised between ,harvard ,street and the marshes which cut off approach to the river bank4 ,afterward1 the ,west ,end1 from ,harvard ,square to ,sparks ,street1 was gradually covered with homesteads4 ,the common began1 as now1 hard by ,god's ,acre1 the venerable burying ground1 and afforded pasturage for the village cattle as far as ,linnan ,street4 ,the regions now occupied by ,cambridgeport and ,east ,cambridge contained the arable district with many farms1 small and large1 but everywhere salt marshes bordered the river1 and much of the country was a wild woodland4 ,the tale of wolves killed in ,cambridge for the year #afif was seventy-six1 and a bear was seen roaming as late as #aged4 ,it was a rough country which the ,british first encountered when they landed at ,lechmere ,point in #agge1 on their night march to ,lexington4 ,cambridge then turned its back toward ,boston1 to which the only approach was by a causeway and bridge at what we now call ,boylston ,street1 and by this route the distance was eight miles1 as we still read upon the ancient milestone in ,god's ,acre4 ,to complete our outline of the village1 we must recall the principal public buildings4 ,the meetinghouse1 a little south of the site of ,dane ,hall1 was used both as church and as townhouse until #agjh1 when a building was erected in the middle of ,harvard ,square to serve for town meetings and courts4 ,a little eastward1 near the east gate1 stood the parsonage4 ,the schoolhouse was behind the site of ,holyoke ,house4 ,the jail stood on then west side of ,winthrop ,square1 which was then an open market4 ,between this market and ,harvard ,square1 in the sanded parlour of the ,blue ,anchor ,tavern1 then selectmen held their meetings2 and on the corner of the street which still bears the name of ,harvard's first president was something rarely to be seen in so small a village1 the printing press now known as the ,university ,press1 established in #afci1--the only one in ,english ,america until ,boston followed the example in #afgf4 ,until the beginning of the present century these outlines of ,cambridge remained with but little change1 save for the building of noble houses on spacious estates toward ,mount ,auburn in one direction1 and upon ,dana ,hill in the other4 ,the occupants of many of these estates were members of the ,church of ,england1 and the building of ,christ ,church in #agei was one marked symptom of the change that was creeping over the little ,puritan community4 ,it was a change toward somewhat wider views of life1 and toward the softening of old animosities4 ,in contrast with the age in which we live the whole eighteenth century in ,new ,england seems a slow and quiet time1 when the public pulse beat more languidly1 or at any rate less feverishly1 than now4 ,the people of ,new ,england led a comparatively isolated life4 ,thought in our college town did not keep pace with ,european centres of thought1 as it does in our day4 ,there was less hospitality toward foreign ideas4 ,few people visited ,europe4 ,life in ,new ,england was thrown upon its own resources1 and this was in great measure true of ,cambridge in the days when it was eight miles from ,boston1 and indefinitely remote from the mother country4 ,one of the surest results of social isolation is the acquirement of peculiarities of speech1 often shown in the retaining of archaisms which fashionable language had dropped4 ,that quaint ,yankee dialect1 of which ,hosea ,biglow says that1 ,for puttin' in a downright lick ',twixt ,humbug's eyes1 ther's few can metch it1 ,an' then it helves my thoughts ez slick ,ez stret-grained hickory doos a hetchet1-- that dialect so sweet to the ears of every true child of ,new ,england may still be heard1 if we go to seek it2 but in ,lowell's boyhood it must have been a familiar sound in the neighbourhood of ,elmwood4 ,but the work done in this rustic college community1 if done within somewhat narrow horizons1 was eminently a widening and liberalizing work4 ,the seeds of the nineteenth century were germinating in the eighteenth4 ,two or three indications must suffice1 out of many that might be cited4 ,in #affi there was a schism in the ,first ,parish of ,boston1 brought about by an attempt to revise the conditions of church membership1 in order to obviate some of the difficulties arising from the restriction of the suffrage to church members1 and the founding of the ,old ,south ,church by the more liberal party was a result of this schism4 ,one hundred and sixty years later1 in #ahbi1 there was a schism in the ,first ,parish of ,cambridge1 which resulted in the founding of the ,shepard ,church by the more conservative party4 ,the questions at issue between the two parties were the questions that divide ,unitarian theology from ,trinitarian1 and the distance between the kind of interests at stake in the earlier controversy and in the later may serve as a fair measure of the progress which the mind of ,massachusetts had been making during that interval of a hundred and sixty years4 ,in all that time1 the chief training school for the ministers by whom the speculative minds of ,massachusetts were stimulated and guided was ,harvard ,college4 ,but it was here1 too1 that men eminent in civic life were trained2 and among the various illustrations of the type thus nurtured may be cited ,samuel ,adams and ,thomas ,hutchinson1 foemen worthy of one another1 ,warren and ,hancock1 ,jonathan ,trumbull and ,john ,adams4 ,so far as ,new ,england was concerned1 the chief work in bringing on the ,revolution was done by graduates of ,harvard4 ,in the convention which framed our ,federal ,constitution1 three important delegates were the ,harvard men1 ,gerry1 ,strong1 and ,king2 and in this connection we cannot fail to recall names so closely associated with our national beginnings as ,timothy ,pickering and ,fisher ,ames1 nor can we omit the noble line of jurists from ,parsons to ,story1 and so on to ,curtis1 whom so many of us well remember2 or1 going back to that ,massachusetts convention1 of which the work is commemorated in the name of ,federal ,street1 we may single out for mention the great minister and statesman1 type of what is best in ,puritanism1 ,samuel ,west1 of ,new ,bedford4 ,such names speak for the kind of quiet1 unobtrusive work that was going on in ,cambridge during those two centuries of rural existence4 ,such strengthening and unfolding of the spirit is the only work that is truly immortal4 ,in a town like ours the material relics of the past are inspiring1 and it is right that we should do our best to preserve them2 but they are perishable4 ,the gambrel-roofed house from the door of which ,president ,langdon asked ,god's blessing upon the men that were starting for ,bunker ,hill1 in later days the birthplace and homestead of our beloved ,autocrat1 has vanished from the scene2 the venerable elm under which ,washington drew the sword in defence of ,american liberty is slowly dying1 year by year4 ,but for the spiritual achievement that has marked the career of our community there is no death1 and they that have turned many to righteousness shall shine in our firmament as the stars forever and ever4 ,in contrasting the ,cambridge of the nineteenth with that of the two preceding centuries1 the first fact which strikes our attention is the increase in the rate of growth4 ,in #afhj the population of ,cambridge seems to have been about #hej1 and the graduating class for that year numbered five4 ,in #agic the population--not counting the parishes that have since become ,brighton and ,arlington--was about #abjj1 and there was a graduating class of #ch4 ,thus in more than a century the population had increased barely fifty per cent4 ,in #agic there were only four houses east of ,dana ,street1 but that year witnessed an event of cardinal importance1 the opening of ,west ,boston ,bridge4 ,the distance between ,boston and ,old ,cambridge was thus reduced from eight miles to three1 and a direct avenue was opened between the interior of ,middlesex ,county and the ,boston markets4 ,the effect was shown in doubling the population of ,cambridge by the year #ahji1 when another bridge was completed from ,lechmere ,point to the north end of ,boston4 ,these were toll bridges1 in the hands of private corporations1 and their success led to further bridges1--the one at ,river ,street in #ahaa1 the one at ,western ,avenue in #ahbe1 and ,brookline ,bridge so lately as #ahej4 ,the principal thoroughfares south and east of ,old ,cambridge were built as highways connecting with these bridges3 thus ,river ,street and ,western ,avenue were tributary to ,west ,boston ,bridge1 and to that point the ,concord ,turnpike was prolonged by ,broadway1 the ,middlesex ,turnpike by ,hampshire ,street1 and the ,medford ,road by ,webster ,avenue2 while ,cambridge ,street1 intersecting these avenues1 formed a direct thoroughfare from the ,concord and ,watertown roads to the northern part of ,boston4 ,the completion of these important works led to projects for filling up the marshes and establishing docks in rivalry of ,boston1--plans but very slightly realized before circumstances essentially changed them4 ,in this way1 ,cambridge1 which had hitherto faced the ,brighton mainland1 turned its face toward the ,boston peninsula1 and two new villages began to grow up at the ,port and the ,point1 otherwise ,cambridgeport and ,east ,cambridge4 ,it was not long before the new villages began in some ways to assert rivalry with the old one4 ,the corporation which owned the bridge and large tracts of land at ,lechmere ,point naturally wished to increase the value of its real estate4 ,middlesex ,county needed a new courthouse and jail4 ,in #ageg a new courthouse had been built on the site of ,lyceum ,hall1 but in #ahac there was a need for something better2 whereupon the ,lechmere ,point ,corporation forthwith built a courthouse and jail in ,east ,cambridge1 and presented them1 with the ground on which they stood1 to the county4 ,in #ahah1 a lot of land in the ,port1 bounded by ,harvard1 ,prospect1 ,austin1 and ,norfolk streets1 was appropriated for a poorhouse4 ,soon afterward it was proposed to inclose our common1--which with the lapse of time had shrunk to about its present size1--and to convert it from a grazing ground into an ornamental park4 ,the scheme met with vehement opposition1 and the town meetings in this growing community suddenly became so large that the old courthouse in ,harvard ,square would not hold them4 ,accordingly1 a bigger townhouse was built in #ahcb on the eastern part of the poorhouse lot1 and thus was the civic centre removed from ,old ,cambridge4 ,this event served to emphasize the state of things which had been growing up with increasing rapidity since the beginning of the century4 ,instead of a single village1 with a single circle of interests1 there were now three villages1 with interests diverse and sometimes conflicting as regards the expending of public money1 so that feelings of sectional antagonism were developed4 ,in ,new ,england history1 the usual remedy for such a state of things has been what might be called spontaneous fission4 ,the overgrown town would divide into three1 and the segments would go on pouting at each other as independent neighbours4 ,we need not be surprised to learn that in #ahdb the people of ,old ,cambridge petitioned to be set off as a separate town2 but this attempt was successfully opposed1 with the result that in #ahdf a city government was adopted4 ,in that year the population had reached #ac1jjj1 and was approaching the point at which town meetings become unmanageable from sheer bulk4 ,for small communities1 ,thomas ,jefferson was probably right in holding that the town meeting is the best form of government ever devised by man4 ,it was certainly the form best loved in ,new ,england down to #ahbb1 when ,boston1 with its population of #dj1jjj1 reluctantly gave it up1 and adopted a representative government instead4 ,the example of ,boston was followed in #ahcf by ,salem and ,lowell1 and next in #ahdf by ,roxbury and ,cambridge4 ,from that time forth the making of cities went on more rapidly4 ,it was the beginning of a period of urban development1 the end of which we cannot as yet even dimly foresee4 ,this unprecedented growth of cities is sometimes spoken of as peculiarly ,american1 but it is indeed not less remarkable in ,europe1 and it extends over the world so far as the influence of railroad and telegraph extends4 ,the influence of these agencies of communication serves to diffuse over wide areas the effects wrought by machinery at different centres of production4 ,with increased demand for human energy1 the earth's power of sustaining human life has vastly increased1 and there is a strong tendency to congregate about centres of production and exchange4 ,in #ahdf there were but five cities in the ,united ,states with a population exceeding #ajj1jjj2 ,new ,york had not yet reached half a million4 ,to-day ,new ,york is approaching the two-million mark1 three other cities#bh have passed the million1 and not less than thirty have passed the hundred-thousand4 ,during this half century the #ac1jjj of ,cambridge have increased to more than #hj1jjj4 ,the ,cambridge of to-day contains as many people as the ,boston of sixty years ago4 ,the causes of this growth of ,cambridge might be treated1 had we space for it1 under three heads4 ,our city has grown because of its proximity to ,boston2 it has grown by reason of its flourishing manufactures2 and it has grown with the growth of the ,university4 ,that ,cambridge should have shared in the general prosperity of this whole suburban region is but natural4 ,but persons at a distance are apt to show surprise when we speak of it as a manufacturing city4 ,this feature in our development belongs to the period subsequent to #ahdf1 and has much to do with the growth of the eastern portions of ,cambridge1 where the combined facilities for railroad and water communication have been peculiarly favourable to manufactures4 ,in the early part of this century1 the glassworks at ,east ,cambridge1 which have since departed1 were somewhat famous1 considerable manufactures of soap and leather had been begun1 and cars and wagons were made here4 ,at the present time some of our chief manufactures are of engine boilers and various kinds of machinery1 of which the annual product exceeds #b1jjj1jjj4 ,among the industries which produce in yearly value more than #a1jjj1jjj may be mentioned printing and publishing1 musical instruments 7especially pianos and organs71 furniture1 clothing1 carpenter's work1 soap and candles1 biscuit-baking2 while among those that produce #ejj1jjj or more are carriage-making and wheelwright's work1 plumbing and plumber's materials1 bricks and tiles1 and confectionery4 ,not only our own new ,harvard ,bridge1 but most of the steel railway bridges in ,new ,england1 have been built in ,cambridge4 ,we supply a considerable part of the world with hydraulic engines2 the ,united ,states ,navy comes here for its pumps1 and our pumping machines may be seen at work in ,honolulu1 in ,sydney1 in ,st4 ,petersburg4 ,in the dimensions of its pork-packing industry1 ,cambridge comes next after ,chicago and ,kansas ,city4 ,in #ahdb all the fish-netting used in ,america was made in ,england2 to-day it is chiefly made in ,east ,cambridge1 which also furnishes the twine prized by disciples of ,izaak ,walton in many parts of the world4 ,last year the potteries on ,walden ,street turned out seven million flower-pots4 ,such facts as these bear witness to the unusual facilities of our city1 where coal can be taken and freight can be shipped at the very door of the factory1 where taxes and insurance are not burdensome and the fire department is unsurpassed for efficiency1 where skilled labour is easy to get because good workmen find life comfortable and attractive1 with excellent sanitary conditions and unrivalled means of free education1 even to the ,latin ,school and the ,manual ,training ,school4 ,it is well said1 in one of the reports in our semi-centennial volume1 that to ,cambridge herself1 as much as to any other one thing1 is the success of all her manufacturing enterprises due1 and all agree in acknowledging it4 ,among ,cambridge industries1 two may be mentioned as especially characteristic and famous4 ,of the printing establishments now existing1 not many can be more venerable than our ,university ,press1 of which we have spoken as beginning in #afci4 ,of the wise and genial founder of the ,riverside ,press--who once was mayor of our city1 and whose memory we love and revere--it may be said that few men of recent times have had a higher conception of bookmaking as one of the fine arts4 ,these two institutions have set a lofty standard for the ,athenum ,press1 which has lately come to bear them company4 ,the past half century has seen ,cambridge come into the foremost rank among the few publishing centres of the world1 where books are printed with faultless accuracy and artistic taste4 ,the visitor to ,cambridge from ,brookline1 as he leaves the bridge at ,brookline ,street1 comes upon a pleasant dwelling house1 with a private observatory1 and hard by it a plain brick building4 ,that is the shop of ,alvan ,clark ,sons1 who have carried the art of telescope-making to a height never reached before4 ,there have been made the most powerful refracting telescopes in the world1 and one of the firm1 more than thirty years ago1 himself acquired fame as an astronomer for his discovery of the companion of ,sirius4 ,from this quiet nook in the ,port one's thoughts naturally turn to the ,harvard ,observatory1 which in those days the two ,bonds made famous for their accurate methods of research1 their discoveries relating to the planet ,saturn1 and their share in the application of photography to telescopic observation4 ,the honourable position then taken by the ,observatory has been since maintained2 but as we note this1 we find ourselves brought to the consideration of the ,university and its last half century of growth4 ,and here my remarks cannot help taking the form1 to some extent1 of personal reminiscences4 ,when ,i first came to ,old ,cambridge1 in #ahfj1 it still had much of the village look1 which it has since been fast losing4 ,pretty much all the spaces now covered by street after street of wooden ,queen ,anne houses1 in such proximity as to make one instinctively look for the whereabouts of the nearest fire alarm1 were then open1 smiling fields4 ,the old house where the ,shepard ,church stands was rural enough for the ,berkshire ,hills2 and on the site of ,austin ,hall1 in the doorway of a homestead built in #agaj1 one might pause for a cosy chat with the venerable and courtly ,royal ,morse1 whose personal recollections went back into the eighteenth century4 ,the trees on the common were the merest saplings1 but an elm of mighty sweep1 whose loss one must regret1 shaded the whole of ,harvard ,square4 ,horse cars came and went on week days1 but on ,sunday he who would visit ,boston must either walk or take an omnibus1 in which riding was a penance severe enough to atone for the sin4 ,blue ,laws in the ,university were in full force2 the student who spent his ,sundays at home in ,boston must bring out a certificate showing that he had attended divine service twice2 no discretion was allowed the parents4 ,college athletics were in their infancy1 as the little gymnasium still standing serves to remind us4 ,there were rowing matches1 but baseball had not come upon the scene1 and football had just been summarily suppressed4 ,the first college exercise in which ,i took part was the burial of the football1 with solemn rites1 in a corner of this ,delta4 ,on ,class ,day there was no need for closing the yard2 there was room enough for all1 and groups of youths and maidens in light summer dress1 dancing on the green before ,holworthy1 made a charming picture1 like that of an ancient ,may ,day in merry ,england1 save for the broiling heat4 ,the examination days which followed were more searching than at other ,american colleges4 ,the courses of study were on the whole better arranged than elsewhere1 but during the first half of the course everything was prescribed1 and in the last half the elective system played but a subordinate part4 ,the system of examinations did not extend to the ,law ,school1 where a simple residence of three terms entitled a student to receive the bachelor's degree4 ,the library at ,gore ,hall had less than one fifth of its present volumes1 with no catalogue accessible to the public1 while one small table accommodated all the readers4 ,for laboratory work the facilities were meagre1 and very little was done4 ,we all studied a book of chemistry2 how many of us ever really looked at such things as manganese or antimony8 ,for the student of biology the provision was better1 for the ,botanic ,garden was very helpful1 and in the autumn of #ahfj was opened the first section of our glorious ,museum of ,comparative ,zology4 ,here one is naturally led to the reflection that in that day of small things1 as some might call it1 there were spiritual influences operative at ,harvard which more than made up for shortcomings in material equipment4 ,there is a kind of human presence1 all too rare in this world1 which is in itself a stimulus and an education worth more than all the scholastic artifices that the wit of man has devised2 for in the mere contact with it one's mind is trained and widened as if by enchantment4 ,such a human presence in ,cambridge was ,louis ,agassiz4 ,can one ever forget that beaming face as he used to come strolling across the yard1 with lighted cigar1 in serene obliviousness of the ,university statutes8 ,scarcely had one passed him1 when one might exchange a pleasant word with ,asa ,gray1 or descry in some arching vista the picturesque figures of ,sophocles or ,peirce1 or1 turning up ,brattle ,street1 encounter1 with a thrill of pleasure not untinged with awe1 ,longfellow and ,lowell walking side by side4 ,in such wise are the streets and lawns of our city hallowed by the human presences that once graced them2 and few are the things to be had for which one would exchange the memories of those days6 ,my class of #ahfc1 with #abj members1 was the largest that had been graduated here4 ,it would have been larger but for the ,civil ,war1 and a period followed with classes of less than #ajj members1--a sad commentary upon the times4 ,boundless possibilities of valuable achievement must be sacrificed to secure the supreme end1 that the commonwealth should not suffer harm4 ,how nobly ,harvard responded to the demand is recorded upon the solemn tablets in this ,memorial ,hall4 ,for those who are inclined to dally with the thought that war is something that may be undertaken lightly and with frolicsome heart1 this sacred precinct and the monument on yonder common have their lesson that may well be pondered4 ,the vast growth of our country since the ,civil ,war has been attended with the creation of new universities and the enlargement of the old ones to such an extent as to show that the demand for higher education more than keeps pace with the increase of population4 ,the last graduating class in our ,quinquennial ,catalogue numbered #cej members4 ,the ,university contains more than #cjjj students4#bi ,the increase in number of instructors1 in courses of instruction1 in laboratories and museums1 in facilities and appliances of every sort1 has wrought changes like those in a fairy tale4 ,the ,annual ,catalogue is getting to be as multifarious as ,bradshaws ,guide1 and a trained intellect is required to read it4 ,the little college of half a century ago has bloomed forth as one of the worlds foremost universities4 ,such things can come from great opportunities wielded and made the most of by clearness of vision and administrative capacity4 ,to this growth of the ,university must be added the most happy inception and growth of ,radcliffe ,college1 marking as it does the maturing of a new era in the education of women4 ,we may well wish for ,radcliffe a career as noble and as useful as that of ,harvard1 and ,i doubt not that such is in store for it4 ,a word must be said of the ,episcopal ,theological ,school1 based upon ideas as sound and broad as ,christianity2 and of the ,new-,church ,theological ,school1 more recently founded4 ,we must hail such indications of the tendency toward making our ,cambridge the centre for the untrammelled study of the most vital problems that can occupy the human mind4 ,but the day we are celebrating is a civic1 not a university occasion1 and ,i must dwell no longer upon academic themes4 ,we are signalizing the anniversary of the change which we once made from government by town meeting to city government4 ,have we a good reason for celebrating that change8 ,has our career as a civic community been worthy of approval8 ,in answering this question1 ,i shall not undertake to sum up the story of our public schools and library2 our hospital and charity organizations2 the excellent and harmonious work of our churches1 ,protestant and ,catholic2 our ,prospect ,union1 warmly to be commended2 our arrangements for water supply and sewage2 and our admirable park system 7in which we may express a hope that ,elmwood will be included74 ,this interesting and suggestive story may be read in the semi-centennial volume1 ,the ,cambridge of ,eighteen ,hundred and ,ninety-,six1 just issued from the ,riverside ,press4 ,it is an enlivening story of progress1 but like every story it has a moral1 and ,i am going to pass over details and make straight for that moral4 ,americans are a bragging race because they have enjoyed immense opportunities1 and are apt to forget that the true merit lies1 not in the opportunity1 but in the use we make of it4 ,much gratifying progress can be achieved in spite of the worst sort of blundering and sinning on the part of governments4 ,the greater part1 indeed1 of human progress within historic times has been thus achieved4 ,a good deal of the progress of which ,americans are wont to boast has been thus achieved4 ,now the moral of our story is closely concerned with the fact that in the city of ,cambridge such has not been the case4 ,our city government has from the outset been upright1 intelligent1 and helpful4 ,we are satisfied with it4 ,we do not wish to change it4 ,in this respect the experience of ,cambridge is very different from that of many other ,american cities4 ,the government of our cities is acknowledged to be a problem of rare difficulty1 so that it has begun to seem a natural line of promotion for a successful mayor to elect him governor1 and then to send him to the ,white ,house6 ,in some cities one finds people inclined to give up the problem as insoluble4 ,i was lately assured by a gentleman in a city which ,i will not name1 but more than a thousand miles from here1 that the only cure for the accumulated wrongs of that community would be an occasional coup d'tat1 with the massacre of all the city officers4 ,so the last word of our boasted progress1 when it comes to municipal government1 is declared to be the ,oriental idea of despotism tempered by assassination6 ,now to what cause or causes are we to ascribe the contrast between ,cambridge and the cities that are so wretchedly governed8 ,the answer is1 that in ,cambridge we keep city government clear of politics1 we do not mix up municipal questions with national questions4 ,if ,i may repeat what ,i have said elsewhere1 since the object of a municipal election is simply to secure an upright and efficient municipal government1 to elect a city magistrate because he is a ,republican or a ,democrat is about as sensible as to elect him because he believes in homopathy or has a taste for chrysanthemums4 ,upon this plain and obvious principle of common sense our city has acted1 on the whole with remarkable success1 during its half century of municipal existence4 ,the results we see all about us1 and the example may be commended as an object lesson to all who are interested in the most vital work that can occupy the mind of an ,american1--the work of elevating the moral tone of public life4 ,for it is neither wealth1 nor power1 nor cunning1 nor craft that exalts a nation1 but righteousness and the fear of the ,lord4 ,may1 #ahif4 ,,xi ,a ,,harvest ,,of ,,irish ,,folk-,,lore ,since the days when ,castrn made his arduous journeys of linguistic exploration in ,siberia1 or when the brothers ,grimm collected their rich treasures of folk-lore from the lips of ,german peasants1 an active quest of vocables and myths has been conducted with much zeal and energy in nearly all parts of the world4 ,we have tales1 proverbs1 fragments of verse1 superstitious beliefs and usages1 from ,greenland1 from the southern ,pacific1 from the mountaineers of ,thibet and the freedmen upon ,georgia plantations4 ,we follow astute ,reynard to the land of the ,hottentots1 and find the ubiquitous ,jack planting his beanstalk among the ,dog-,rib ,indians4 ,at the same time1 the nooks and corners of ,europe have been ransacked with bountiful results2 so that whereas our grandfathers1 in speculating about the opinions and mental habits of people in low stages of culture1 were dealing with a subject about which they knew almost nothing1 on the other hand1 our chief difficulty to-day is in shaping and managing the enormous mass of data which keen and patient inquirers have collected4 ,it is well that this work has been carried so far in our time1 for modern habits of thought are fast exterminating the ,old ,world fancies4 ,railroad1 newspaper1 and telegraphic bulletin of prices are carrying everything before them4 ,the peasant's quaint dialect and his fascinating myth tales are disappearing along with his picturesque dress2 and savages1 such of them as do not succumb to fire-water1 are fast taking on the airs and manners of civilized folk4 ,it is high time to be gathering in all the primitive lore we can find1 before the men and women in whose minds it is still a living reality have all passed from the scene4 ,the collection of ,irish myth stories lately published by ,mr4 ,jeremiah ,curtin#cj is the result of a myth-hunting visit which the author made in ,ireland in #ahhg1 and is one of the most interesting and valuable contributions to the study of folk-lore that have been made for many years4 ,all the tales in my collection1 says ,mr4 ,curtin1 of which those printed in this volume form but a part1 were taken down from the mouths of men who1 with one or two exceptions1 spoke only ,gaelic1 or but little ,english1 and that imperfectly4 ,these men belong to a group of persons all of whom are well advanced in years1 and some very old2 with them will pass away the majority of the story-tellers of ,ireland1 unless new interest in the ancient language and lore of the country is roused4 ,for years previous to my visit of #ahhg ,i was not without hope of finding some myth tales in a good state of preservation4 ,i was led to entertain this hope by indications in the few ,irish stories already published1 and by certain tales and beliefs that ,i had taken down myself from old ,irish persons in the ,united ,states4 ,still1 during the earlier part of my visit in ,ireland1 ,i was greatly afraid that the best myth materials had perished4 ,inquiries as to who might be in possession of these old stories seemed fruitless for a considerable time4 ,the persons whom ,i met that were capable of reading the ,gaelic language had never collected stories1 and could refer only in a general way to the districts in which the ancient language was still living4 ,all that was left was to seek out the old people for whom ,gaelic is the every-day speech1 and trust to fortune to find the story-tellers4 ,thus ,mr4 ,curtin was led to explore the counties of ,kerry1 ,galway1 and ,donegal4 ,comforting myself with the ,russian proverb that 'game runs to meet the hunter1' ,i set out on my pilgrimage1 giving more prominence to the study and investigation of ,gaelic1 which1 though one of the two objects of my visit1 was not the first4 ,in this way ,i thought to come more surely upon men who had myth tales in their minds than if ,i went directly seeking for them4 ,i was not disappointed1 for in all my journeyings ,i did not meet a single person who knew a myth tale or an old story who was not fond of ,gaelic1 and specially expert in the use of it1 while ,i found very few story-tellers from whom a myth tale could be obtained unless in the ,gaelic language2 and in no case have ,i found a story in the possession of a man or woman who knew only ,english4 ,there is something so interesting in this fact1 and so pathetic in the explanation of it1 that we are tempted to quote further3 ,since all mental training in ,ireland is directed by powers both foreign and hostile to everything ,gaelic1 the moment a man leaves the sphere of that class which uses ,gaelic as an every-day language1 and which clings to the ancient ideas of the people1 everything which he left behind seems to him valueless1 senseless1 and vulgar2 consequently he takes no care to retain it1 either in whole or in part4 ,hence the clean sweep of myth tales in one part of the country1--the greater part1 occupied by a majority of the people2 while they are still preserved in other and remoter districts1 inhabited by men who1 for the scholar and the student of mankind1 are by far the most interesting in ,ireland4 ,the fate of the ,gaelic language has1 indeed1 been peculiarly sad4 ,in various parts of ,europe1 and especially among the western ,slavs1 the native tongues have been to some extent displaced by the speech of conquering peoples2 yet it is only in ,erin that1 within modern times1 a language of ,aryan stock has been driven first from public use1 and then dropped from the worship of ,god and the life of the fireside4 ,hence1 while in many parts of ,europe the ancient tales live on1 often with their incidents more or less dislocated and their significance quite blurred1 on the other hand1 in ,english-speaking ,ireland they have been cleared away as a forest is felled by the axe4 ,nevertheless1 in the regions where ,irish myths have been preserved1 they have been remarkably well preserved1 and bear unmistakable marks of their vast antiquity4 ,one very noticeable feature in these myths is the definiteness and precision of detail with which the personages and their fields of action are brought before us4 ,this is a characteristic of mythologies which are1 comparatively speaking1 intact2 and1 as ,mr4 ,curtin observes1 it is to be seen in the myths of the ,american ,indians4 ,as long as a mythology remains intact it puts its imprint on the whole region to which it belongs4 ,every rock1 every spring1 is the scene of some definite incident2 every hill has its mythical people1 who are as real to the narrators as the flesh-and-blood population which one finds there4 ,in this whole world of belief and sentiment there is the vigour of fresh life1 and the country is literally enchanted ground4 ,but when1 through the invasion of alien peoples1 there is a mingling and conflict of sacred stories1 and new groups of ideas and associations have partly displaced the old ones1 so that only the argument or general statement of the ancient myth is retained1 and perhaps even that but partially1 then all precision and details with reference to persons and places vanish2 they become indefinite2 are in some kingdom1 some place1--nowhere in particular4 ,there is this vagueness in the folk-tales of eastern and central ,europe as contrasted with those of ,ireland4 ,where there was or where there was not1 says the ,magyar1 there was in the world2 or1 if the ,russian hero goes anywhere1 it is simply across forty-nine kingdoms1 etc42 but in the ,irish tales he is always a person of known condition in a specified place 7for example1 ,there was a blacksmith in ,dunkenealy1 beyond ,killybegs1 etc41 page #bdd74 ,as to the antiquity and the primitive character of ,mr4 ,curtin's stories an experienced observer can entertain no doubt4 ,his book is certainly the most considerable achievement in the field of ,gaelic mythology since the publication1 thirty years ago1 of ,campbell's ,tales of the ,west ,highlands2 and it does for the folk-lore of ,ireland what ,asbjrnsen and ,moe's collection 7the ,english translation of which is commonly1 and with some injustice1 known by the name of the translator as ,dasent's ,norse ,tales7 did for the folk-lore of ,norway4 ,this is1 of course1 very high praise1 but we do not believe it will be called extravagant by any competent scholar who reads ,mr4 ,curtin's book4 ,the stories have evidently been reduced to writing with most scrupulous and loving fidelity4 ,in turning the ,gaelic into ,english some of the characteristic ,hibernian phrases and constructions of our language have been employed1 and this has been done with such perfect good taste that the effect upon the ear is like that of a refined and delicate brogue4 ,the mythical material in the stories is largely that with which the student of ,aryan folk-lore is familiar4 ,we have variants of ,cinderella1 the swan maidens1 the giant who had no heart in his body1 the cloak of darkness1 the sword of light1 the magic steed which overtakes the wind before and outstrips the wind behind2 the pot of plenty1 from which one may eat forever1 and the cup that is never drained2 the hero who performs impossible tasks1 and wooes maidens whose beauty hardly relieves their treacherous cruelty3 ,i must tell you now that three hundred king's sons1 lacking one1 have come to ask for my daughter1 and in the garden behind my castle are three hundred iron spikes1 and every spike of them but one is covered with the head of a king's son who couldn't do what my daughter wanted of him1 and ,i'm greatly in dread that your own head will be put on the one spike that is left uncovered4 ,the princess in this story--,shaking-,head--is such a wretch1 not a bit better than ,queen ,labe in the ,arabian ,nights1 that one marvels at the hero for marrying her at last1 instead of slicing off her head with his two-handed sword of darkness1 and placing it on the three-hundredth spike4 ,but moral as well as physical probabilities are often overstrained in this deliciously riotous realm of folk-lore4 ,along with much material that is common to the ,aryan world there is some that is peculiar to ,ireland1 while the ,irish atmosphere is over everything4 ,the stories of ,fin ,mac,cumhail 7pronounced ,mac,cool7 and the ,fenians of ,erin are full of grotesque incident and inimitable drollery4 ,fin and his redoubtable dog ,bran1 the one-eyed ,gruagach1 the hero ,diarmuid1 the old hag with the life-giving ointment1 the weird hand of ,mal ,mac,mulcan1 and the cowherd that was son of the king of ,alban make a charming series of pictures4 ,among ,fin's followers there is a certain ,conn ,maol1 who never had a good word in his mouth for any man1 and for whom no man had a good word4 ,this counterpart of ,thersites1 as ,mr4 ,curtin tells us1 figures as conspicuously in ,north ,american as in ,aryan myths4 ,conn was always at ,fin's side1 and advising him to mischief4 ,once it had like to have gone hard with ,conn4 ,the ,fenians had been inveigled into an enchanted castle1 and could not rise from their chairs till two of ,fin's sons had gone and beheaded three kings in the north of ,erin1 and put their blood into three goblets1 and come back and rubbed the blood on the chairs4 ,conn had no chair1 but was sitting on the floor1 with his back to the wall1 and just before they came to him the last drop of blood gave out4 ,the ,fenians were hurrying past without minding the mischief-maker1 when1 upon his earnest appeal1 ,diarmuid took him by one hand1 and ,goll ,mac,mornee by the other1 and1 pulling with all their might1 tore him from the wall and the floor4 ,but if they did1 he left all the skin of his back1 from his head to his heels1 on the floor and the wall behind him4 ,but when they were going home through the hills of ,tralee1 they found a sheep on the way1 killed it1 and clapped the skin on ,conn4 ,the sheepskin grew to his body2 and he was so well and strong that they sheared him every year1 and got wool enough from his back to make flannel and frieze for the ,fenians of ,erin ever after4 ,this is a favourite incident1 and recurs in the story of the laughing ,gruagach4 ,in most of the ,fenian stories the fighting is brisk and incessant4 ,it is quite a ,donnybrook fair4 ,everybody kills everybody else1 and then some toothless old woman comes along and rubs a magic salve on them1 when1 all in a minute1 up they pop1 and go at it again4 ,one of the quaintest conceits1 and a pretty one withal1 is that of ,tir na n-,og1 the ,land of ,youth1 the life-giving region just beneath the ground1 whence mysteriously spring the sturdy trees1 the soft green grass1 and the bright flowers4 ,the journey thither is not long2 sometimes the hero just pulls up a root and dives down through the hole into the blessed ,tir na n-,og1--as primitive a bit of folk-lore as one could wish to find6 ,a lovely country1 of course1 was that land of sprouting life1 and some queer customs did they have there4 ,the mode of running for office was especially worthy of mention4 ,once in seven years all the champions and best men met at the front of the palace1 and ran to the top of a hill two miles distant4 ,on the top of that hill was a chair1 and the man that sat first in the chair was king of ,tir na n-,og for the next seven years4 ,this method enabled them to dispense with nominating conventions and campaign lies1 but not with intrigue and sorcery1 as we find in the droll story of ,oisin 7or ,ossian71 which concludes the ,fenian series4 ,the story of the ,fisherman's ,son and the ,gruagach of ,tricks is substantially the same with the famous story of ,farmer ,weathersky1 in the ,norse collection translated by ,sir ,george ,dasent4 ,gruagach 7accented on the first syllable7 means the hairy one1 and1 as ,mr4 ,curtin cautiously observes1 we are more likely to be justified in finding a solar agent concealed in the person of the laughing ,gruagach or the ,gruagach of ,tricks than in many of the sun myths put forth by some modern writers4 ,he reminds one of ,hermes and of ,proteus1 and in the wonderful changes at the end of the story we have1 as in ,farmer ,weathersky1 a variant of the catastrophe in the story of the ,second ,royal ,mendicant in the ,arabian ,nights2 but the ,irishman gives us a touch of humour that is quite his own4 ,the ,gruagach and his eleven artful sons are chasing the fisherman's son through water and air1 and various forms of fish and bird are assumed1 until at length the fisherman's son1 in the shape of a swallow1 hovers over the summerhouse where the daughter of the king of ,erin is sitting4 ,weary with the chase1 the swallow becomes a ring1 and falls into the girl's lap2 it takes her fancy1 and she puts it on her finger4 ,then the twelve pursuers change from hawks into handsome men1 and entertain the king in his castle with music and games1 until he asks them what in the world he can give them4 ,all they want1 says the old ,gruagach1 is the ring which he once lost1 and which is now on the princess's finger4 ,of course1 says the king1 if his daughter has got the ring1 she must give it to its owner4 ,but the ring1 overhearing all this1 speaks to the princess1 and tells her what to do4 ,she gets a gallon of wheat grains and three gallons of the strongest potheen that was ever brewed in ,ireland1 and she mixes them together in an open barrel before the fire4 ,then her father calls her and asks for the ring2 and when she finds that her protests are of no avail1 and she must give up1 she throws it into the fire4 ,that moment the eleven brothers made eleven pairs of tongs of themselves2 their father1 the old ,gruagach1 was the twelfth pair4 ,the twelve jumped into the fire to know in what spark of it would they find the old fisherman's son2 and they were a long time working and searching through the fire1 when out flew a spark1 and into the barrel4 ,the twelve made themselves men1 turned over the barrel1 and spilled the wheat on the floor4 ,then in a twinkling they were twelve cocks strutting around4 ,they fell to1 and picked away at the wheat1 to know which one would find the fisherman's son4 ,soon one dropped on one side1 and a second on the opposite side1 until all twelve were lying drunk from the wheat4 ,one seems to see the gleam in the corner of the eye and the pucker in the ,gaelic visage of the old narrator4 ,to be sure1 it was the wheat4 ,it couldn't have been the mountain dew2 it never is4 ,well1 when things had come to this pass1 the spark that was the fisherman's son just turned into a fox1 and with one smart bite he took the head off the old ,gruagach1 and the eleven other boozy cocks he finished with eleven other bites4 ,then he made himself the handsomest man in ,erin1 and married the princess and succeeded to the crown4 ,there is a breezy freshness about these tales1 which will make the book a welcome addition to young people's libraries4 ,it is safe to predict for it an enviable success4 ,in the next edition there ought to be an index1 and we wish the author need not feel it necessary to be so sparing with his own notes and comments4 ,his brief ,introduction is so charming1 from its weight of sense and beauty of expression1 that one would gladly hear more from the author himself4 ,it is to be hoped that the book lately published is the forerunner of many4 ,august1 #ahij4 ,,xii ,,guessing ,,at ,,half ,,and ,,multiplying ,,by ,,two ,the small philosopher is a great character in ,new ,england4 ,his fundamental rule of logical procedure is to guess at the half and multiply by two4 ,applause4#ca ,it is in #ahhj only two or three years since the philosopher from whom this text is quoted was himself a great character in ,new ,england1 inasmuch as he could give a lecture once every week1 in one of the largest halls of ,new ,england's principal city1 and could entertain his audience of two or three thousand people with discussions of the most vast and abstruse themes of science and metaphysics4 ,the success with which he entertained his audience is carefully chronicled for us in the volumes made up from the reports of his lectures1 in which parenthetical notes of laughter1 applause1 or sensation occur as frequently as in ordinary newspaper reports of stump speeches or humorous convivial harangues4 ,as a social phenomenon this career of the ,rev4 ,joseph ,cook possesses considerable interest1--enough1 at any rate1 to justify a brief inquiry as to his fundamental rule of procedure4 ,among the wise and witty sayings of the ancients with which our children are puzzled and edified in the first dozen pages of the ,greek ,reader1 there is a caustic remark attributed to ,phokion1 on the occasion of being very loudly applauded by the populace4 ,dear me1 said the old statesman1 can it be that ,i have been making a fool of myself8 ,so1 when three thousand people are made to laugh and clap their hands over statements about the origin of species or the anatomy of the nervous system1 the first impulse of any scientific inquirer of ordinary sagacity and experience is to ask in what meretricious fashion these sober topics can have been treated1 in order to have produced such a result4 ,the inference may be cynical1 but is none the less likely to be sound4 ,in the present case1 one does not need to read far in the published reports of these lectures to see that the fundamental rule of procedure is something very different from any of the rules by which truth is wooed and won by scientific inquirers4 ,among ,mill's comprehensive canons of logical method one might search in vain for a specimen of the method employed by ,mr4 ,cook4 ,of the temper of mind1 indeed1 in which scientific inquiries are conducted1 he has no more conception than ,laura ,bridgman could have of ,pompeian red or a chord of the minor ninth4 ,the process of holding one's judgment in suspense over a complicated problem1 of patiently gathering and weighing the evidence on either side1 of subjecting one's own first-formed hypotheses to repeated verification1 of clearly comprehending and fairly stating opposing views1 of setting forth one's conclusions at last1 guardedly and with a distinct consciousness of the conditions under which they are tenable1--all this sort of thing is quite foreign to ,mr4 ,cook's nature4 ,to him a scientific thesis is simply a statement over which it is possible to get up a fight4 ,the gamecock is his totem2 to him the bones of the vertebrate subkingdom are only so many bones of contention1 and the sponge is interesting chiefly as an emblem which is never1 on any account1 to be thrown up4 ,he talks accordingly of scientific men lying in wait for ,mr4 ,darwin1 ready to pounce on him like a tiger on its prey2 he is very fond of exhibiting what he calls the strategic point of a scientific book or theory2 and altogether his attitude is bellicose to a degree that is as unbecoming in a preacher of the gospel as it is out of place in a discussion of scientific questions4 ,his favourite method of dealing with a scientific writer is to quote from him all sorts of detached statements and inferences1 and1 without the slightest regard to the writer's general system of opinions or habits of thought1 to praise or vituperate the detached statements according to some principle which it is not always easy for the reader to discover1 but which has always doubtless some reference to their supposed bearings upon the peculiar kind of orthodoxy of which ,mr4 ,cook appears as the champion4 ,there are some writers whom he thinks it necessary always to scold or vilify1 no matter what they say4 ,if they happen to say something which ought to be quite satisfactory to any reasonable person of orthodox opinions1 ,mr4 ,cook either accuses them of insincerity or represents them as making concessions4 ,this last device1 ,i am sorry to be obliged to add1 is not an uncommon one with theological controversialists1 when their zeal runs away with them4 ,when a man makes a statement which expresses his deepest convictions1 there is no easier way of seeming to knock away the platform on which he stands than to quote his statement1 and describe it as something which he has reluctantly conceded4 ,in dealing with the principal writers on evolution1 ,mr4 ,cook is continually found resorting to this cheap device4 ,for example1 when ,professor ,tyndall declares that if a right-hand spiral movement of the particles of the brain could be shown to occur in love1 and a left-hand spiral movement in hate1 we should be as far off as ever from understanding the connection of this physical motion with the spiritual manifestations1--when ,professor ,tyndall declares this1 he simply asserts what is a cardinal proposition with the group of ,english philosophers to which he belongs4 ,with ,professor ,huxley1 as well as with ,mr4 ,spencer1 it is a fundamental proposition that psychical phenomena cannot possibly be interpreted in terms of matter and motion1 and this proposition they have at various times set forth and defended4 ,in the chapter on ,matter and ,spirit1 in my work on ,cosmic ,philosophy1 ,i have fully expounded this point1 and have further illustrated it in ,the ,unseen ,world4 ,with the conclusions there set forth the remark of ,professor ,tyndall thoroughly agrees1 and it does so because all these expressions of opinion and all these arguments are part and parcel of a coherent system of anti-materialistic thought adopted#cb by the ,english school of evolutionists4 ,yet when ,mr4 ,cook quotes ,professor ,tyndall's remark1 he does it in this wise3 ,it is notorious that even ,tyndall concedes1 etc41 etc4 ,by proceeding in this way1 ,mr4 ,cook finds it easy to make out a formidable array of what he calls the concessions of evolutionists4 ,he first gives the audience a crude impression of some sort of theory of evolution1 such as no scientific thinker ever dreamed of2 or1 to speak more accurately1 he plays upon the crude impression already half formed in the average mind of his audience1 and which he evidently shares himself4 ,the average notion of the doctrine of evolution1 possessed in common by an audience big enough to fill ,tremont ,temple1 would no doubt seem to ,darwin or to ,spencer something quite fearful and wonderful4 ,playing with this sort of crude material1 ,mr4 ,cook puts together a series of numbered propositions1 which remind one of those interminable auction catalogues of ,walt ,whitman1 which some of our ,british cousins1 more ardent than discriminating1 mistake for a truly ,american species of inspired verse4 ,in this long catena of statements1 almost everything is easily seen to disagree with the crude general impression to which the speaker appeals1 and almost everything is accordingly set down as a concession4 ,and as the audience go out after the lecture1 they doubtless ask one another1 in amazed whispers1 how it is that sensible men who make so many concessions can find it in their hearts to maintain the doctrine of evolution at all6 ,sometimes ,mr4 ,cook goes even farther than this1 and1 in the very act of quoting an author's declared opinions1 expressly refuses to give him credit for them4 ,thus he has the hardihood to say3 ,even ,herbert ,spencer1 who would be very glad to prove the opposite1#cc says1 in his ,biology1 ',the proximate chemical principles or chemical units--albumen1 fibrine1 gelatine1 or the hypothetical proteine substance--cannot possess the property of forming the endlessly varied structures of animal forms4' ,mr4 ,cook here lays claim to a knowledge of his author's innermost thoughts and wishes which is quite remarkable4 ,for a fit parallel one would have to cite the instance of the ,german who flogged his son for profanity1 though the boy had not opened his mouth4 ,you dinks tamn1 exclaimed the irate father1 and ,i vips you for dat6 ,as there are some writers whom ,mr4 ,cook thinks it always necessary to vituperate1 no matter what they say1 so there are others whom he finds it convenient to quote1 as foils to the former1 and to mention with praise on all occasions1 though it is difficult to assign the reasons for this preference1 except on the hypothesis that the lecturer has an implicit faith in the simple and confiding nature of his audience4 ,before giving these lectures ,mr4 ,cook had studied awhile in ,germany1 and his citations of ,german writers show how far he deems it safe to presume on ,new ,england's ignorance of what the ,fatherland thinks4 ,it is nice to have such a learned country as ,germany at one's disposal to hurl at the heads of people whose outlook in philosophy does not reach beyond the ,straits of ,dover2 it saves a great deal of troublesome argument1 and still more painful examination of facts4 ,this ,english opinion is all very well1 you know1 but it comes from a philosopher whose star is just touching the western pines1 and a ,german professor whom ,i am about to quote1 whose book ,i hold in my hand1 and whose star is in the ascendant1 does not agree with it4 ,all this is extremely neat and convincing1 apparently1 to the crowd in ,tremont ,temple4 ,with all ,germany at his disposal1 however1 it must be acknowledged that our lecturer makes a very sparing use of his resources4 ,he quotes ,helmholtz and ,wundt every now and then with warm approval1 though wherein they should be found any more acceptable to the orthodox world than ,tyndall and ,spencer it is not easy to see1 save that the ill repute of ,german free thinkers takes somewhat longer to get diffused in ,new ,england than the ill repute of ,english free thinkers4 ,then1 among these ,germans who are to set the ,english-speaking world aright we have ,delitzsch6 ,to speak of ,wundt and ,delitzsch is as if one were to bracket together ,john ,stuart ,mill and ,frederick ,denison ,maurice4 ,and then comes the admirable ,lotze1 whom ,mr4 ,cook is continually setting off as a foil to ,herbert ,spencer4 ,on page #agi of the lectures on ,heredity he enumerates1 with emphasis1 those opinions of ,lotze which he deems of especial importance with regard to the relations between matter and mind1 and then proceeds to deprecate the thunder which he presumes he has evoked from all quarters of the ,spencerian sky4 ,but1 considering that the propositions he quotes from ,lotze express the very views of ,herbert ,spencer1 only somewhat inadequately worded1 it would seem that the lecturer's alarm cannot be very real1 and the thunder in question is only a kind of comic-opera thunder manufactured behind the curtain for the benefit of the acquiescent audience4 ,for example1 the fourth proposition quoted with approval from ,lotze reads thus3 ,physical phenomena point to an underlying being to which they belong1 but do not determine whether that being is material or immaterial4 ,now this is ,spencerism1 pure and simple1 and it is a crucial proposition1 too1 pointing out the drift of the whole philosophy before which it is set up4 ,the fact that ,mr4 ,cook adopts such an opinion when stated by ,lotze1 but vituperates the same opinion when stated by ,spencer1 reveals to us1 with a pungent though not wholly delicious flavour1 the true inwardness of his fundamental method of procedure4 ,that method1 it must be acknowledged with due regard to the bon mot of the old ,greek statesman1 is a method well adapted to conciliate the favour of an immense audience1--even in ,boston4 ,we are all descended from fighting ancestors1 and many of us1 who care little for the disinterested discussion of scientific theories1 still like to see a man knocked down or impaled1 provided the knocking down be done with a syllogistic club1 or the impaling be restricted to such a hard substance as is afforded by the horns of a dilemma4 ,it satisfies our combative instincts1 without shocking our physical sympathies or making any great demand on our keener thinking powers1 which most people do most of all dislike to be called upon to exercise4 ,to this kind of feeling ,mr4 ,cook's lectures appeal1 and the peculiar character of his success seems to show that he knows well how to deal with it4 ,in a moment of winning frankness he exclaims3 ,do you suppose that ,i think that this audience can be cheated8 ,i do not know where in ,america there is another weekly audience with as many brains in it2 at least1 ,i do not know where in ,new ,england ,i should be so likely to be tripped up1 if ,i were to make an incorrect statement1 as here4#cd ,after this coaxing little dose1 ,mr4 ,cook proceeds to show his respect for the learning of his audience in some remarks on bathybius1 which1 as he condescendingly explains1 is a name derived from two ,greek words1 meaning deep and sea66 ,the profound knowledge of ,greek thus exhibited is quite equalled by his account of bathybius from the zological point of view4 ,he begins by telling his hearers that1 in a paper published in the ,microscopical ,journal in #ahfh1 ,professor ,huxley announced his belief that the gelatinous substance found in the ooze of the beds of the deep seas is a sheet of living matter extending around the globe4 ,furthermore1 of this amazingly strategic 66 and haughtily trumpeted substance 444 ,huxley assumed that it was in the past1 and would be in the future1 the progenitor of all the life on the planet4 ,now it is not true that1 in the paper referred to1 ,huxley announces any such belief or makes any such assumption as is here ascribed to him2 but we shall see1 in a moment1 that ,mr4 ,cook's system of quotation is peculiar in enabling him to extract from the text of an author any meaning whatever that may happen to suit his purposes4 ,this ingenious garbling enables the lecturer to come in with telling effect at the close of his third lecture1 and earn an ignoble round of applause by holding up the current number of the ,american ,journal of ,science and ,arts 7which he would appear to have picked up at a bookstall on his way to the lecture room7 and citing from it1 as the fifty-first and closing concession of evolutionists1 that bathybius has been discovered in #ahge1 by the ship ,challenger1 to be--hear1 ,o heavens6 and give ear1 ,o earth6--sulphate of lime2 and that when dissolved it crystallizes as gypsum4 ,applause4 ,this is what ,mr4 ,cook calls striking1 with the latest scientific intelligence1 at the bottom stem of the great tree of evolution4 ,the latest scientific intelligence1 with him1 means the last book or article which he has glanced over without comprehending its import1 but from which he has contrived to glean some statement calculated to edify his audience and scatter the hosts of ,midian4 ,in point of fact1 the identification of bathybius with sulphate of lime was set down by ,sir ,wyville ,thomson only as a suspicion1 to which ,huxley1 like a true man of science1 at once accorded all possible weight1 while leaving the question open for further discussion4 ,only a mountebank1 dealing with an audience upon whose ignorance of the subject he might safely rely1 could pretend to suppose that the fate of the doctrine of evolution was in any way involved in the question as to the organic nature of bathybius4 ,the amazing strategy was all ,mr4 ,cook's own1 and the haughty trumpeting appears to have been chiefly done with his own very brazen instrument4 ,i said a moment ago that ,mr4 ,cook's system of quotation is peculiar4 ,the following instance is so good that it will bear citing at some length4 ,according to ,mr4 ,cook1 ,professor ,huxley says1 in his article on ,biology in the ninth edition of the ,encyclopdia ,britannica3 ,throughout almost the whole series of living beings1 we find agamogenesis1 or not-sexual generation4 ,after a pause1 ,mr4 ,cook proceeded in a lower voice3 ,when the topic of the origin of the life of our ,lord on the earth is approached from the point of view of the microscope1 some men1 who know not what the holy of holies in physical and religious science is1 say that we have no example of the origin of life without two parents4 ,he went on to cite the familiar instances of parthenogenesis in bees and silk moths1 and then proceeded as follows3 ,take up your ,mivart1 your ,lyell1 your ,owen1 and you will read where8 this same important fact which ,huxley here asserts1 when he says that the law that perfect individuals may be virginally born extends to the higher forms of life4 ,i am in the presence of ,almighty ,god2 and yet1 when a great soul like that tender spirit of our sainted ,lincoln1 in his early days1 with little knowledge but with great thoughtfulness1 was troubled by his difficulty1 and almost thrown into infidelity by not knowing that the law that there must be two parents is not universal1 ,i am willing to allude1 even in such a presence as this1 to the latest science concerning miraculous conception4 ,sensation4 ,the vulgarity of this rhetoric is as glaring as its absurdity4 ,all that concerns me now1 however1 is to point out the ,brobdignagian dimensions of the misstatement of facts4 ,let us look back for a moment at the italicized quotation from ,huxley1 upon which ,mr4 ,cook builds up the wondrous assertion that the law that perfect individuals may be virginally born extends to the higher forms of life4 ,then let us turn to ,huxley's article and see what he really does say4 ,treating of the whole subject of agamogenesis in the widest possible way by including it under the more general process of cell-multiplication1 ,huxley says3 ,common as the process is in plants and in the lower animals1 it becomes rare among the higher animals4 ,in these1 the reproduction of the whole organism from a part1 in the way indicated above1 ceases4 ,at most we find that the cells at the end of an amputated portion of the organism are capable of reproducing the lost part1 and in the very highest animals even this power vanishes in the adult4444 ,throughout almost the whole series of living beings1 however1 we find concurrently with the process of agamogenesis1 or asexual generation1 another method of generation1 in which the development of the germ into an organism resembling the parent depends on an influence exerted by living matter different from the germ4 ,this is gamogenesis1 or sexual generation4#ce ,comparing the italicized passage here with ,mr4 ,cook's italicized quotation1 we see vividly illustrated the fundamental method of procedure by which the ,monday ,lectureship jumps from a statement about the reproduction of a lobster's claw to the inference that a man may be born without a father4 ,it reminds one of that worthy clergyman who introduced a scathing sermon on a new-fangled variety of ladies' headdress by the appropriate text1 ,top-knot come down6 ,on being reminded by one of his deacons that the full verse seemed to read1 ,let him that is upon the housetop not come down1 the pastor boldly justified his abridgment on the ground that any particular collocation of words in ,scripture is as authoritative as any other1 since all parts of the ,bible are equally inspired4 ,perhaps there are some who would justify ,mr4 ,cook's peculiar principle of abridgment on the familiar ground that the end sanctifies the means1 and that if a statement seems helpful to the truth in general1 it is no matter whether the statement itself is true or not4 ,enough of this4 ,if we were to go through with these volumes in detail1 we should find little else but misrepresentations of facts1 misconceptions of principles1 and floods of tawdry rhetoric1 of which the specimens here quoted are quite sufficient to illustrate the lecturer's fundamental method of procedure4 ,if ,i have treated him somewhat lightly1 it is because there is nothing in his matter or in his manner that would justify1 or even excuse1 a more serious style of treatment4 ,the only aspect of his career which affords matter for grave reflection is the ease with which he succeeded for a moment in imposing on the credulity and in appealing to the prejudices of his public4 ,the eagerness with which the orthodox world hailed the appearance of this new champion could not but remind one1 with sad emphasis1 of ,oxenstjern's famous remark3 ,quam parva sapientia mundus regitur6 ,it is comforting to remember that one of the world's greatest naturalists1 ,asa ,gray1--whose orthodoxy is as unimpeachable as his science1--very promptly declared in print that such championship is something of which orthodoxy has no reason to feel proud4 ,december1 #ahhj4 ,,xiii ,,forty ,,years ,,of ,,bacon-,,shakespeare ,,folly#cf ,some time ago1 while ,i happened to be looking over a wheelbarrow-load of rubbish written to prove that such plays as ,king ,lear and ,the ,merry ,wives of ,windsor emanated from one of the least poetical and least humorous minds of modern times1 ,i was reminded of a story which ,i heard when a boy4 ,i forget whether it was some whimsical man of letters like ,charles ,lamb1 or some such professional wag as ,theodore ,hook1 who took it into his head one day to stand still on a ,london street1 with face turned upward1 gazing into the sky4 ,thereupon the next person who came that way forthwith stopped and did likewise1 and then the next1 and the next1 until the road was blocked by a dense crowd of men and women1 all standing as if rooted in the ground1 and with solemn sky-ward stare4 ,the enchantment was at last broken when some one asked what they were looking at1 and nobody could tell4 ,it was simply an instance of a certain remnant of primitive gregariousness of action on the part of human beings1 which exhibits itself from time to time in sundry queer fashions and fads4 ,so when ,miss ,delia ,bacon1 in the year which saw the beginning of ,the ,atlantic ,monthly1 published a book purporting to unfold the philosophy of ,shakespeare's dramas1 it was not long before other persons began staring intently into the silliest mare's nest ever devised by human dulness2 and the fruits of so much staring have appeared in divers eccentric volumes1 of which more specific mention will presently be made4 ,neither in number nor in quality are they such as to indicate that the ,bacon-,shakespeare folly has yet become fashionable1 and we shall presently observe in it marked suicidal tendencies which are likely to prevent its ever becoming so2 but there are enough of such volumes to illustrate the point of my anecdote4 ,another fad1 once really fashionable1 and in defence of which some plausible arguments could be urged1 was the ,wolfian theory of the ,homeric poems1 which dazzled so many of our grandparents4 ,it is worth our while to mention it here by way of prelude4 ,the theory that the ,iliad and ,odyssey are mere aggregations of popular ballads1 collected and arranged in the time of ,pisistratus1 was perhaps originally suggested by the philosopher ,vico1 but first attracted general attention in #agie1 when set forth by ,friedrich ,august ,wolf1 one of the most learned and brilliant of modern scholars4 ,thus eminently respectable in its parentage and quite reasonable on the surface1 this ballad theory came to be widely fashionable2 forty years ago it was accepted by many able scholars1 though usually with large modifications4 ,the ,wolfians urged that we know absolutely nothing about the man ,homer1 not even when or where he lived4 ,his existence is merely matter of tradition1 or of inference from the existence of the poems4 ,but as the poems know nothing of ,dorians in ,peloponnesus1 their date can hardly be so late as #aajj ,b4 ,c4 ,what happened1 then1 when an edition of ,homer was made at ,athens1 about #ecj ,b4 ,c41 by ,pisistratus1 or under his orders8 ,did the editor simply edit two great poems already six centuries old1 or did he make up two poems by piecing together a miscellaneous lot of ancient ballads8 ,wolf maintained the latter alternative1 chiefly because of the alleged impossibility of composing and preserving such long poems in the alleged absence of the art of writing4 ,having thus made a plausible start1 the ,wolfians proceeded to pick the poems to pieces1 and to prove by internal evidence that there was nothing like unity of design in them1 etc42 and so it went on1 till poor old ,homer was relegated to the world of myth4 ,as a schoolboy ,i used to hear the belief in the existence of such a poet derided as uncritical and unscholarly4 ,in spite of these terrifying epithets1 the ballad theory never made any impression upon me2 for it seemed to ignore the most conspicuous and vital fact about the poems1 namely1 the style1 the noble1 rapid1 simple1 vivid1 supremely poetical style1--a style as individual and unapproachable as that of ,dante or ,keats4 ,for an excellent characterization of it1 read ,matthew ,arnold's charming essays ,on ,translating ,homer4 ,the style is the man1 and to suppose that this ,homeric style ever came from a democratic multitude of minds1 or from anything save one of those supremely endowed individual natures such as get born once or twice in a millennium1 is simply to suppose a psychological impossibility4 ,i remember once talking about this with ,george ,eliot1 who had lately been reading ,frederick ,paley's ingenious restatement of the ballad theory1 and was captivated by its ingenuity4 ,i told her ,i did not wonder that old dry-as-dust philologists should hold such views1 but ,i was indeed surprised to find such a literary artist as herself ignoring the impassable gulf between ,homer's language and that which any ballad theory necessarily implies4 ,she had no answer for this except to say that she should have supposed an evolutionist like me would prefer to regard the ,homeric poems as gradually evolved rather than suddenly created6 ,a retort so clever and amiable most surely entitled her to the woman's privilege of the last word4 ,the ,wolfian theory may now be regarded as a thing of the past2 it has had its day and been flung aside4 ,if ,wolf himself were living1 he would be the first to laugh at it4 ,its original prop has been knocked away1 since it has become pretty clear that the art of writing was practised about the shores of the gean ,sea long before #aajj ,b4 ,c4 ,even ,wolf would now admit that it might have been a real letter that ,bellerophon carried to the father of ,anteia4#cg ,all attempts to show a lack of unity in the design of the ,iliad and the ,odyssey have failed irretrievably1 and the discussion has served only to make more and more unmistakable the work of the mighty master4 ,the ballad theory is dead and buried1 and he who would read its obituary may find keen pleasure1 as well as many a wholesome lesson in sound criticism1 in the sensible and brilliant book by ,andrew ,lang on ,homer and the ,epic4 ,the ,bacon-,shakespeare folly has never been set forth by scholars of commanding authority1 like ,wolf and ,lachmann1 or ,niese and ,wilamowitz ,moellendorff4 ,among ,delia ,bacon's followers not one can by any permissible laxity of speech be termed a scholar1 and their theory has found acceptance with very few persons4 ,nevertheless1 it illustrates as well as the ,wolfian theory the way in which such notions grow4 ,it starts from a false premise1 hazily conceived1 and it subsists upon arguments in which trivial facts are assigned higher value than facts of vital importance4 ,mr4 ,lang's remark upon certain learned ,homeric commentators1 that they pore over the hyssop on the wall1 but are blind to the cedar of ,lebanon1 applies with tenfold force to the ,bacon-,shakespeare sciolists4 ,in them we always miss the just sense of proportion which is one of the abiding marks of sanity4 ,the unfortunate lady who first brought their theory into public notoriety in #aheg was then sinking under the cerebral disease of which she died two years later1 and her imitators have been chiefly weak minds of the sort that thrive upon paradox1 closely akin to the circle-squarers and inventors of perpetual motion4 ,underlying all the absurdities1 however1 there is something that deserves attention4 ,like many other morbid phenomena1 the ,bacon-,shakespeare folly has its natural history which is instructive4 ,the vagaries of ,delia ,bacon and her followers originated in a group of conditions which admit of being specified and described1 and which the historian of nineteenth-century literature will need to notice4 ,in order to understand the natural history of the affair1 it is necessary to examine the ,delia ,bacon theory at greater length than it would otherwise deserve4 ,let us see how it is constructed4 ,it starts with a syllogism1 of which the major premise is that the dramas ascribed to ,shakespeare during his lifetime1 and ever since believed to be his1 abound in evidences of extraordinary book-learning4 ,the minor premise is that ,william ,shakespeare of ,stratford-on-,avon could not have acquired or possessed so much book-learning4 ,the conclusion is that he could not have written those plays4 ,the question then arises1 ,which of ,shakespeare's contemporaries had enough book-lore to have written them8 ,no doubt ,francis ,bacon had enough4 ,the conclusion does not follow1 however1 that he wrote the plays2 for there were other contemporaries with learning enough and to spare1 as for example ,george ,chapman and ,ben ,jonson4 ,these two men1 to judge from their acknowledged works1 were great poets1 whereas in ,bacon's fifteen volumes there is not a paragraph which betrays poetical genius4 ,why not1 then1 ascribe the ,shakespeare dramas to ,chapman or ,jonson8 ,here the ,baconizers endeavour to support their assumption by calling attention to similarities in thought and phrase between ,francis ,bacon and the writer of the dramas4 ,up to this point their argument consists of deductions from assumed premises2 here they adduce inductive evidence1 such as it is4 ,we shall see specimens of it by and by4 ,at present we are concerned with the initial syllogism4 ,and first1 as to the major premise1 it must be met with a flat denial4 ,the ,shakespeare plays do not abound with evidences of scholarship or learning of the sort that is gathered from profound and accurate study of books4 ,it is precisely in this respect that they are conspicuously different from many of the plays contemporary with them1 and from other masterpieces of ,english literature4 ,such plays as ,jonson's ,sejanus and ,catiline are the work of a scholar deeply indoctrinated with the views and mental habits of classic antiquity2 he has soaked himself in the style of ,lucan and ,seneca1 until their mental peculiarities have become like a second nature to him1 and are unconsciously betrayed alike in the general handling of his story and in little turns of expression4 ,or take ,milton's ,lycidas3 no one but a man saturated in every fibre with ,theocritus and ,virgil could have written such a poem4 ,an extremely foreign and artificial literary form has been so completely mastered and assimilated by ,milton that he uses it with as much ease as ,theocritus himself1 and has produced a work that even the master of idyls had scarcely equalled4 ,after the terrific invective against the clergy and the beautiful invocation to the flowers1 followed by the triumphant hallelujah of ,christian faith1 observe the sudden reversion to pagan sentiment where ,lycidas is addressed as the genius of the shore4 ,only profound scholarship could have written this wonderful poem1--could have brought forth the ,christian thought as if spontaneously through the medium of the pagan form4 ,now there is nothing of this sort in ,shakespeare4 ,he uses classical materials1 or anything else under the sun that suits his purpose4 ,he takes a chronicle from ,holinshed1 a biography from ,north's translation of ,plutarch1 a legend from ,saxo ,grammaticus through ,belleforest's ,french version1 a novel of ,boccaccio1 a miracle play1--whatever strikes his fancy2 he chops up his materials and weaves them into a story without much regard to classical models2 defying rules of order and unity1 and not always heeding probability1 but never forgetful of his abiding purpose1 to create live men and women4 ,these people may have ,greek or ,latin names1 and their scene of action may be ,rome or ,mitylene1 decorated with scraps of classical knowledge such as a bright man might pick up in miscellaneous reading2 but all this is the superficial setting1 the mere frame to the picture4 ,the living canvas is human nature as ,shakespeare saw it in ,london and depicted with supreme poetic faculty4 ,among the new books within his reach was ,chapman's magnificent translation of the ,iliad1 which at a later day inspired ,keats to such a noble outburst of encomium2 and in ,troilus and ,cressida we have the ,greek and ,trojan heroes set before us with an incisive reality not surpassed by ,homer himself4 ,this play shows how keenly ,shakespeare appreciated ,homer1 how delicately and exquisitely he could supplement the picture2 but there is nothing in its five acts that shows him clothed in the garment of ancient thought as ,milton wore it4 ,shakespeare's freedom from such lore is a great advantage to him2 in ,troilus and ,cressida there is a freedom of treatment hardly possible to a professional scholar4 ,it is because of this freedom that ,shakespeare reaches a far wider public of readers and listeners than ,milton or ,dante1 whose vast learning makes them in many places caviare to the general4 ,book-lore is a great source of power1 but one may easily be hampered by it4 ,what we forever love in ,homer is the freshness that comes with lack of it1 and in this sort of freshness ,shakespeare agrees with ,homer far more than with the learned poets4 ,it is not for a moment to be denied that ,shakespeare's plays exhibit a remarkable wealth of varied knowledge4 ,the writer was one of the keenest observers that ever lived4 ,in the woodland or on the farm1 in the printing shop or the alehouse1 or up and down the street1 not the smallest detail escaped him4 ,microscopic accuracy1 curious interest in all things1 unlimited power of assimilating knowledge1 are everywhere shown in the plays4 ,these are some of the marks of what we call genius1--something that we are far from comprehending1 but which experience has shown that books and universities cannot impart4 ,all the colleges on earth could not by combined effort make the kind of man we call a genius1 but such a man may at any moment be born into the world1 and it is as likely to be in a peasant's cottage as anywhere4 ,there is nothing in which men differ more widely than in the capacity for imbibing and assimilating knowledge4 ,the capacity is often exercised unconsciously4 ,when my eldest son1 at the age of six1 was taught to read in the course of a few weeks of daily instruction1 it was suddenly discovered that his four-year-old brother also could read4 ,nobody could tell how it happened4 ,of course the younger boy must have taken keen notice of what the elder one was doing1 but the process went on without attracting attention until the result appeared4 ,this capacity for unconscious learning is not at all uncommon4 ,it is possessed to some extent by everybody2 but a very high degree of it is one of the marks of genius4 ,i remember one evening1 many years ago1 hearing ,herbert ,spencer in a friendly discussion regarding certain functions of the cerebellum4 ,abstruse points of comparative anatomy and questions of pathology were involved4 ,spencer's three antagonists were not violently opposed to him1 but were in various degrees unready to adopt his views4 ,the three were3 ,huxley1 one of the greatest of comparative anatomists2 ,hughlings ,jackson1 a very eminent authority on the pathology of the nervous system2 and ,george ,henry ,lewes1 who1 although more of an amateur in such matters1 had nevertheless devoted years of study to neural physiology1 and was thoroughly familiar with the history of the subject4 ,spencer more than held his ground against the others4 ,he met fact with fact1 brought up points in anatomy the significance of which ,huxley confessed that he had overlooked1 and had more experiments and clinical cases at his tongue's end than ,jackson could muster4 ,it was quite evident that he knew all they knew on the subject1 and more besides4 ,yet ,spencer had never been through a course of regular training in the studies concerned2 nor had he ever studied at a university1 or even at a high school4 ,where did he learn the wonderful mass of facts which he poured forth that evening8 ,whence came his tremendous grasp upon the principles involved8 ,probably he could not have told you4 ,a few days afterward ,i happened to be talking with ,spencer about history1 a subject of which he modestly said he knew but little4 ,i told him ,i had often been struck with the aptness of the historic illustrations cited in many chapters of his ,social ,statics1 written when he was twenty-nine years old4 ,the references were not only always accurate1 but they showed an intelligence and soundness of judgment unattainable1 one would think1 save by close familiarity with history4 ,spencer assured me that he had never read extensively in history4 ,whence1 then1 this wealth of knowledge1--not smattering1 not sciolism1 but solid1 well-digested knowledge8 ,really1 he did not know1 except that when his interest was aroused in any subject he was keenly alive to all facts bearing upon it1 and seemed to find them whichever way he turned4 ,when ,i mentioned this to ,lewes1 while recalling the discussion on the cerebellum1 he exclaimed3 ,oh1 you can't account for it6 ,it's his genius4 ,spencer has greater instinctive power of observation and assimilation than any man since ,shakespeare1 and he is like ,shakespeare for hitting the bull's-eye every time he fires4 ,as for ,darwin and ,huxley1 we can follow their intellectual processes1 but ,spencer is above and beyond all2 he is inspired6 ,those were ,lewes's exact words1 and they made a deep impression upon me4 ,the comparison with ,shakespeare struck me as a happy one1 and ,i can understand both ,spencer and ,shakespeare the better for it4 ,concerning ,spencer one circumstance may be observed4 ,since his early manhood he has lived in ,london1 and has had for his daily associates men of vast attainments in every department of science4 ,he has thus had rare opportunities for absorbing an immense fund of knowledge unconsciously4 ,it is evident that the author of ,shakespeare's plays possessed an extraordinary instinctive power of observation and assimilation4 ,there was nothing strange in such a genius growing up in a small ,warwickshire town4 ,the difficulty is one which the ,delia-,baconians have created for themselves4 ,as it is their chief stock in trade1 they magnify it in every way they can think of4 ,shakespeare's parents1 they say1 were illiterate1 and he did not know how to spell his own name4 ,it appears as ,shagspere1 ,shaxpur1 ,shaxberd1 ,chacsper1 and so on through some thirty forms1 several of which ,william ,shakespeare himself used indifferently4 ,the implication is that such a man must have been shockingly ignorant4 ,the real ignorance1 however1 is on the part of those who use such an argument4 ,apparently1 they do not know that in ,shakespeare's time such laxity in spelling was common in all ranks of society and in all grades of culture4 ,the name of ,elizabeth's great ,lord ,treasurer1 ,cecil1 and his title1 ,burghley1 were both spelled in half a dozen ways4 ,the name of ,raleigh occurs in more than forty different forms1 and ,sir ,walter1 one of the most accomplished men of his time1 wrote it ,rauley1 ,rawleyghe1 ,ralegh1 and in yet other ways4 ,the talk of the ,baconizers on this point is simply ludicrous4 ,equally silly is their talk about the dirty streets of ,stratford4 ,they seem to have just discovered that ,elizabeth's ,england was a badly drained country1 with heaps of garbage in the streets4 ,shakespeare's father1 they tell us1 was a butcher1 and evidently from a butcher's son1 living in an ill-swept town1 and careless about the spelling of his name1 not much in the way of intellectual achievement was to be expected6 ,in point of fact1 ,shakespeare's parents belonged to the middle class4 ,his father owned several houses in ,stratford and two or three farms in the neighbourhood4 ,as a farmer in those days1 he would naturally have cattle slaughtered on his premises and would sell wool off the backs of his own flocks1 whence the later tradition of his having been butcher and wool dealer4 ,that his social position was good is shown by the facts that he was chief alderman and high bailiff of ,stratford1 and justice of the peace1 and was styled ,master ,john ,shakespeare1 or 7as we should say7 ,mr42 whereas1 had he been one of the common folk1 his style had been ,goodman ,shakespeare4 ,a visit to his home in ,henley ,street1 and to ,anne ,hathaway's cottage at ,shottery1 shows that the two families were in eminently respectable circumstances4 ,the son of the high bailiff would see the best people in the neighbourhood4 ,there was in the town a remarkably good free grammar school1 where he might have learned the small ,latin and less ,greek which his friend ,ben ,jonson assures us he possessed4 ,this expression1 by the way1 is usually misunderstood1 because people do not pause to consider it4 ,coming from ,ben ,jonson1 ,i should say that small ,latin and less ,greek might fairly describe the amount of those languages ordinarily possessed by a member of the graduating class at ,harvard in good standing4 ,it can hardly imply less than the ability to read ,terence at sight1 and perhaps ,euripides less fluently4 ,the author of the plays1 with his unerring accuracy of observation1 knows ,latin enough at least to use the ,latin part of ,english most skilfully2 at the same time1 when he has occasion to use ,greek authors1 such as ,homer or ,plutarch1 he usually prefers an ,english translation4 ,at all events1 ,jonson's remark informs us that the man whom he addresses as sweet swan of ,avon knew some ,latin and some ,greek1--a conclusion which is so distasteful to one of our ,baconizers1 ,mr4 ,edwin ,reed1 that he will not admit it4 ,rather than do so1 he has the assurance to ask us to believe that by the epithet sweet swan of ,avon ,jonson really meant ,francis ,bacon6 ,dear me1 ,mr4 ,reed1 do you really mean it8 ,and how about the editor of ,beaumont and ,fletcher in #afdg1 when1 in his dedication to ,shakespeare's friend the ,earl of ,pembroke1 he speaks of ,sweet ,swan of ,avon ,shakespear8 ,was he too a participator in the little scheme for fooling posterity8 ,or was he one of those who were fooled8 ,whether ,shakespeare had other chances for book-lore than those which the grammar school afforded1 whether there was any interesting parson at hand1 as often in small towns1 to guide and stimulate his unfolding thoughts1--upon such points we have no information4 ,but there were things to be learned in the country town quite outside of books and pedagogues4 ,there1 while the poet listened to the strain of strutting chanticleer1 and watched the sun-burn'd sicklemen1 of ,august weary1 putting on their rye-straw hats and making holiday with rustic nymphs1 he could rejoice in ,earth's increase1 foison plenty1 ,barns and garners never empty2 ,vines with clust'ring bunches growing2 ,plants with goodly burthen bowing2 there he could see the unbacked colts prick their ears1 advance their eyelids1 lift up their noses1 as if they smelt music2 there he knew1 doubtless1 many a bank where the wild thyme grew and on which the moonlight sweetly slept2 there he watched the coming of violets dim1 pale primroses1 flower-de-luce1 carnations1 with rosemary and rue to keep their savour all the winter long1 ,when icicles hang by the wall1 ,and ,dick the shepherd blows his nail1 ,and ,tom bears logs into the hall1 ,and milk comes frozen home in pail4 ,such lore as this no books or college could impart4 ,it was this that ,milton had in mind when he introduced ,shakespeare and ,ben ,jonson into his poem ,l',allegro4 ,milton was in his thirtieth year when ,jonson1 poet laureate1 was laid to rest in ,westminster ,abbey2 he was only a boy of eight years when ,shakespeare died1 but the beautiful sonnet written fourteen years later shows how lovingly he studied his works3-- ,what needs my ,shakespeare1 for his honoured bones1 etc4 ,the poem ,l',allegro and its fellow ,il ,penseroso describe the delights of ,milton's life at his father's country house near ,windsor ,castle4 ,he used often to ride into ,london to hear music or pass an evening at the theatre1 as in the following lines3-- ,then to the well-trod stage anon1 ,if ,jonson's learned sock be on1 ,or sweetest ,shakespeare1 fancy's child1 ,warble his native woodnotes wild4 ,this accurate and happy contrast exasperates the ,baconizers1 for it spoils their stock in trade1 and accordingly they try their best to assure us that ,milton did not know what he was writing about4 ,they asseverate with vehemence that in all the seven-and-thirty plays there is no such thing as a native woodnote wild4 ,but before leaving the contrast we may pause for a moment to ask1 ,where did ,ben ,jonson get his learning8 ,he was1 as he himself tells us1 poorly brought up by his stepfather1 a bricklayer4 ,he went to ,westminster ,school1 where he was taught by ,camden1 and he may have spent a short time at ,cambridge1 though this is doubtful4 ,his schooling was nipped in the bud1 for he had to go home and lay brick2 and when he found such an existence insupportable he went into the army and fought in the ,netherlands4 ,at about the age of twenty we find him back in ,london1 and there lose sight of him for five years1 when all at once his great comedy ,every ,man in his ,humour is performed1 and makes him famous4 ,now1 in such a life1 when did ,jonson get the time for his immense reading and his finished classical scholarship8 ,reasoning after the manner of the ,delia-,baconians1 we may safely say that he could not possibly have accumulated the learning which is shown in his plays3 therefore he could not have written those plays2 therefore ,lord ,bacon must have written them6 ,there are daring soarers in the empyrean who do not shrink from this conclusion2 a doctor in ,michigan1 named ,owen1 has published a pamphlet to prove1 among other things1 that ,bacon was the author of the plays which were performed and printed as ,jonson's4 ,to return to ,shakespeare4 ,somewhere about #aehe1 when he was one-and-twenty1 he went to ,london1 leaving his wife and three young children at ,stratford4 ,his father had lost money1 and the fortunes of the family were at the lowest ebb4 ,in ,london we lose sight of ,shakespeare for a while1 just as we lose sight of ,jonson1 until literary works appear4 ,the work first published is ,venus and ,adonis1 one of the most exquisite pieces of diction in the ,english language4 ,it was dedicated to ,henry1 ,earl of ,southampton1 by ,william ,shakespeare1 whose authorship of the poem is asserted as distinctly as the title-page of ,david ,copperfield proclaims that novel to be by ,charles ,dickens1 yet some precious critics assure us that ,shakespeare could not have written the poem1 and never knew the ,earl of ,southampton4 ,some years ago1 ,mr4 ,appleton ,morgan1 who does not wish to be regarded as a ,baconizer1 published an essay on the ,warwickshire dialect1 in which he maintained that since no traces of that kind of speech occur in ,venus and ,adonis1 therefore it could not have been written by a young man fresh from a small ,warwickshire town4 ,this is a specimen of the loose kind of criticism which prepares soil for ,delia-,baconian weeds to grow in4 ,the poem was published in #aeic1 seven or eight years after ,shakespeare's coming to ,london2 and we are asked to believe that the world's greatest genius1 one of the most consummate masters of speech that ever lived1 could tarry seven years in the city without learning how to write what ,hosea ,biglow calls citified ,english6 ,one can only exclaim with ,gloster1 ,o monstrous fault1 to harbour such a thought6 ,in those years ,shakespeare surely learned much else4 ,it seems clear that he had a good reading acquaintance with ,french and ,italian1 though he often uses translations1 as for instance ,florio's version of ,montaigne4 ,in estimating what ,shakespeare must have known or could not have known1 one needs to use more caution than some of our critics display4 ,for example1 in ,the ,winter's ,tale the statue of ,hermione is called a piece 444 now newly performed by that rare ,italian master1 ,julio ,romano4 ,now1 since ,romano is known as a great painter1 but not as a sculptor1 this has been cited as a blunder on ,shakespeare's part4 ,it appears1 however1 that the first edition of ,vasari's ,lives of the ,painters1 published in #aeej and never translated from its original ,italian1 informs us that ,romano did work in sculpture4 ,in ,vasari's second edition1 published in #aefh and translated into several languages1 this information is not given4 ,from these facts1 the erudite ,german critic ,dr4 ,karl ,elze1 who is not a bit of a ,delia-,baconian1 but only an occasional sufferer from vesania commentatorum1 introduces us to a solemn dilemma3 either the author of ,the ,winter's ,tale must have consulted the first edition of ,vasari in the original ,italian1 or else he must have travelled in ,italy and gazed upon statues by ,romano4 ,ah6 prithee not so fast1 worthy doctor2 be not so lavish with these musts4 ,it is1 ,i think1 improbable that ,shakespeare ever saw ,italy except with the eyes of his imperial fancy4 ,on the other hand1 there are many indications that he could read ,italian1 but among them we cannot attach much importance to this one4 ,why should he not have learned from hearsay that ,romano had made statues8 ,in the name of common sense1 are there no sources of knowledge save books8 ,or1 since it was no unusual thing for ,italian painters in the sixteenth century to excel in sculpture and architecture1 why should not ,shakespeare have assumed without verification that it was so in ,romano's case8 ,it was a tolerably safe assumption to make1 especially in an age utterly careless of historical accuracy1 and in a comedy which provides ,bohemia with a sea-coast1 and mixes up times and customs with as scant heed of probability as a fairy tale4 ,in arguing about what ,shakespeare must have or could not have known1 we must not forget that at no time or place since history began has human thought fermented more briskly than in ,london while he was living there4 ,the age of ,drake and ,raleigh was an age of efflorescence in dramatic poetry1 such as had not been seen in the twenty centuries since ,euripides died4 ,among ,shakespeare's fellow craftsmen were writers of such great and varied endowments as ,chapman1 ,marlowe1 ,greene1 ,nash1 ,peele1 ,marston1 ,dekker1 ,webster1 and ,cyril ,tourneur4 ,during his earlier years in ,london1 ,richard ,hooker was master of the ,middle ,temple1 and there a little later ,ford and ,beaumont were studying4 ,the erudite ,camden was master of ,westminster ,school2 among the lights of the age for legal learning were ,edward ,coke and ,francis ,bacon2 at the same time1 one might have met in ,london the learned architect ,inigo ,jones and the learned poet ,john ,donne1 both of them excellent classical scholars2 there one would have found the divine poet ,edmund ,spenser1 just come over from ,ireland to see to the publication of his ,faerie ,queene2 not long afterward came ,john ,fletcher from ,cambridge1 and the acute philosopher ,edward ,herbert from ,oxford and one and all might listen to the incomparable table-talk of that giant of scholarship1 ,john ,selden4 ,the delights of the ,mermaid ,tavern1 where these rare wits were wont to assemble1 still live in tradition4 ,as ,keats says3-- ,souls of poets dead and gone1 ,what ,elysium have ye known1 ,happy field or mossy cavern1 ,choicer than the ,mermaid ,tavern8 ,it has always been believed that this place was one of ,shakespeare's favourite haunts4 ,by common consent of scholars1 it has been accepted as the scene of those contests of wit between ,shakespeare and ,jonson of which ,fuller tells us when he compares ,jonson to a ,spanish galleon1 built high with learning1 but slow in movement1 while he likens ,shakespeare to an ,english cruiser1 less heavily weighted1 but apt for victory because of its nimbleness1--the same kind of contrast1 by the way1 as that which occurred to ,milton4 ,but our ,baconizing friends will not allow that ,shakespeare ever went to the ,mermaid1 or knew the people who met there2 at least1 none but a few fellow dramatists4 ,we have no documentary proof that he ever met with ,raleigh1 or ,bacon1 or ,selden4 ,let us observe that1 while these sapient critics are in some cases ready to welcome the slightest circumstantial evidence1 there are others in which they will accept nothing short of absolute demonstration4 ,did ,shakespeare ever see a maypole8 ,the word occurs just once in his plays1 namely1 in the ,midsummer ,night's ,dream1 where little ,hermia1 quarrelling with tall ,helena1 calls her a painted maypole2 but that proves nothing4 ,i am not aware that there is any absolute documentary proof that ,shakespeare ever set eyes on a maypole4 ,it is nevertheless certain that in ,england1 at that time1 no boy could grow to manhood without seeing many a maypole4 ,common sense has some rights which we are bound to respect4 ,now1 ,shakespeare's ,london was a small city of from #aej1jjj to #bjj1jjj souls1 or about the size of ,providence or ,minneapolis at the present time4 ,in cities of such size1 everybody of the slightest eminence is known all over town1 and such persons are sure to be more or less acquainted with one another2 it is a very rare exception when it is not so4 ,before his thirtieth year1 ,shakespeare was well known in ,london as an actor1 a writer of plays1 and the manager of a prominent theatre4 ,it was in that year that ,spenser1 in his ,colin ,clout's ,come ,home ,again1 alluding to ,shakespeare under the name of ,ation1 or eagle-like1 paid him this compliment3-- ,and there1 though last1 not least1 is ,ation2 ,a gentler shepherd may nowhere be found2 ,whose muse1 full of high thought's invention1 ,doth1 like himself1 heroically sound4 ,four years after this1 in #aeih1 ,francis ,meres published his book entitled ,palladis ,tamia1 a very interesting contribution to literary history4 ,the author1 who had been an instructor in rhetoric in the ,university of ,oxford1 was then living in ,london1 near the ,globe ,theatre4 ,in this book ,meres tells his readers that the sweet witty soul of ,ovid lives in mellifluous and honey-tongued ,shakespeare2 witness his ',venus and ,adonis1' his ',lucrece1' his sugared sonnets among his private friends1 etc4444 ,as ,plautus and ,seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the ,latins1 so ,shakespeare among the ,english is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage3 for comedy1 witness his ',gentlemen of ,verona1' his ',errors1' his ',love's ,labour's ,lost1' his ',love's ,labour's ,wonne1'#ch his ',midsummer ,night's ,dream1' and his ',merchant of ,venice2' for tragedy1 his ',richard ,,ii41' ',richard ,,iii41' ',henry ,,iv41' ',king ,john1' ',titus ,andronicus1' and his ',romeo and ,juliet4' ,as ,epius ,stolo said that the ,muses would speak with ,plautus's tongue if they would speak ,latin1 so ,i say that the ,muses would speak with ,shakespeare's fine filed phrase if they would speak ,english4 ,in other passages ,meres mentions ,shakespeare's lyrical quality1 for which he likens him to ,pindar and ,catullus2 and the glory of his style1 for which he places him along with ,virgil and ,homer4 ,it thus appears that1 at the age of thirty-four1 this poet from ,stratford was already ranked by critical scholars by the side of the greatest names of antiquity4 ,let me add that the popularity of his plays was making him a somewhat wealthy man1 so that he had relieved his father from pecuniary troubles1 and had just bought for himself the ,great ,house at ,stratford where the last years of his life were spent4 ,his income seems already to have been equivalent to #aj1jjj a year in our modern money4 ,his position had come to be such that he could extend patronage to others4 ,it was in #aeih that through his influence ,ben ,jonson obtained1 after many rebuffs1 his first hearing before a ,london audience1 when ,every ,man in his ,humour was brought out at ,blackfriars ,theatre1 with ,shakespeare acting one of the parts4 ,to suppose that such a man as this1 in a town the size of ,minneapolis1 connected with a principal theatre1 writer of the most popular plays of the day1 a poet whom men were already coupling with ,homer and ,pindar1--to suppose that such a man was not known to all the educated people in the town is simply absurd4 ,there were probably very few men1 women1 or children in ,london1 between #aeie and #afaj1 who did not know who ,shakespeare was when he passed them in the street2 and as for such wits as drank ale and sack at the ,mermaid1 as for ,raleigh and ,bacon and ,selden and the rest1 to suppose that ,shakespeare did not know them well--nay1 to suppose that he was not the leading spirit and brightest wit of those ambrosial nights--is about as sensible as to suppose that he never saw a maypole4 ,the facts thus far contemplated point to one conclusion4 ,the son of a well-to-do magistrate in a small country town is born with a genius which the world has never seen surpassed4 ,coming to ,london at the age of twenty-one1 he achieves such swift success that within thirteen years he is recognized as one of the chief glories of ,english literature4 ,during this time he is living in the midst of such a period of intellectual ferment as the world has seldom seen1 and in a position which necessarily brings him into frequent contact with all the most cultivated men4 ,under such circumstances1 there is nothing in the smallest degree strange or surprising in his acquiring the varied knowledge which his plays exhibit4 ,the major premise of the ,delia-,baconians has1 therefore1 nothing in it whatever4 ,it is a mere bubble1 an empty vagary1--only this1 and nothing more4 ,before leaving this part of the subject1 however1 there are still one or two points of interest to be mentioned4 ,shakespeare shows a fondness for the use of phrases and illustrations taken from the law2 and on such grounds our ,delia-,baconians argue that the plays must have been written by an eminent lawyer1 such as the ,lord ,chancellor ,bacon undoubtedly was4 ,they feel that this is a great point on their side4 ,one instance1 cited by ,nathaniel ,holmes and other ,baconizers1 is the celebrated case of ,sir ,james ,hales1 who committed suicide by drowning1 and was accordingly buried at the junction of crossroads1 with a stake through his body1 while all his property was forfeited to the ,crown4 ,presently his widow brought suit for an estate by survivorship in joint-tenancy4 ,her case turned upon the question whether the forfeiture occurred during her late husband's lifetime3 if it did1 he left no estate which she could take2 if it did not1 she took the estate by survivorship4 ,the lady's counsel argued that so long as ,sir ,james was alive he had not been guilty of suicide1 and the instant he died the estate vested in his widow as joint-tenant4 ,but the opposing counsel argued that the instant ,sir ,james voluntarily made the fatal plunge1 and therefore before the breath had left his body1 the guilt of suicide was incurred and the forfeiture took place4 ,the court decided in favour of this view1 and the widow got nothing4 ,there can be little doubt that this decision is travestied in the conversation of the two clowns in ,hamlet with regard to ,ophelia's right to ,christian burial4 ,the first clown makes precisely the point upon which the ingenious counsel for the defendant had rested his argument3 ,if ,i drown myself wittingly1 it argues an act1 and an act hath three branches2 it is to act1 to do1 and to perform4 ,in making this distinction the counsel had maintained that the second branch1 or the doing1 was the only thing for the law to consider4 ,the talk of the clowns brings out the humour of the case with ,shakespeare's inimitable lightness of touch4 ,the report of the ,hales case was published in the volume of ,plowden's ,reports which was issued in #aegh2 and ,mr4 ,holmes informs us that there is not the slightest ground for a belief1 on the facts which we know1 that ,shakespeare ever looked into ',plowden's ,reports4' ,this is one of the cases where your stern ,baconizer will not hear of anything short of absolute demonstration4 ,mere considerations of human probability might disturb the cogency of a neat little pair of syllogisms3-- 7#a47 ,the author of ,hamlet must have read ,plowden4 ,shakespeare never read ,plowden4 ,therefore ,shakespeare was not the author of ,hamlet4 7#b47 ,the author of ,hamlet must have read ,plowden4 ,the lawyer1 ,bacon1 must have read ,plowden4 ,therefore ,bacon wrote ,hamlet4 ,with regard to the major premise here1 one might freely deny it4 ,the author of ,hamlet might easily have got all the knowledge involved from an evening chat with some legal friend at an alehouse4 ,then as to the minor premise1 what earthly improbability is there in ,shakespeare's having dipped into ,plowden8 ,can anybody but lawyers or law students enjoy reading reports of law cases8 ,i remember that1 when ,i was about ten years old1 a favourite book with me was one entitled ,criminal ,trials of ,all ,countries1 by a ,member of the ,philadelphia ,bar4 ,i read it and read it1 until forbidden to read such a gruesome book1 and then ,i read it all the more4 ,one of the most elaborate reports in it was that of the famous case of ,captain ,donellan1 tried in #aghj on a charge of poisoning his wife's brother1 ,sir ,theodosius ,boughton1 a dissipated and diseased young man1 who died very suddenly one day4 ,a post-mortem inspection showed spots in the intestine1 which three ordinary country doctors ascribed to poisoning by laurel water1 while ,sir ,john ,hunter1 one of the greatest authorities in ,europe1 testified that they might equally well have ensued upon death from apoplexy4 ,the judge1 ,sir ,francis ,buller1 saw fit1 in his charge1 to reckon this as the testimony of three experts against one2 and thus the jury were driven to a verdict of murder1 though it was not proved that any murder had been committed4 ,captain ,donellan1 who lived in his brother-in-law's house1 was a man of blameless life1 an amateur chemist1 much given to fooling with odorous liquids and hissing retorts4 ,it was proved that he had been distilling laurel water1 and one or two other suspicious circumstances were alleged4 ,the whole trial was begun and ended on the same day1 the jury were about twenty minutes in finding the captain guilty1 and three days afterward he was hung4 ,it was a case where reason was submerged and drowned under a wave of angry prejudice shrieking for a victim4 ,now1 if ,i did not forthwith write a play1 and take the occasion to ridicule the judge's charge to the jury1 it was because ,i could not write a play1 not because ,i did not fully appreciate the insult to law and common sense which that unfortunate case involved4 ,in view of this and other experiences1 when ,i now read a play or a novel that contains an intelligent allusion to some law case1 ,i am far from feeling driven to the conclusion that it must have been written by a lord chancellor4 ,if ,shakespeare's dramas are proved by such internal evidence to have been written by a lawyer1 that lawyer1 by parity of reasoning1 could hardly have been ,francis ,bacon4 ,for he was preminently a chancery lawyer1 and chancery phrases are in ,shakespeare conspicuously absent4 ,the word injunctions occurs five times in the plays1 once perhaps with a reference to its legal use 7,merchant of ,venice1 ,,ii4 ix472 but nowhere do we find any exhibition of a knowledge of chancery law4 ,his allusions to the common law are often very amusing1 as when1 in ,love's ,labour's ,lost1 at the end of a brisk punning-match between ,boyet and ,maria1 he offers to kiss her1 laughingly asking for a grant of pasture on her lips1 and she replies1 ,not so2 my lips are no common1 though several they be4 ,again1 in ,the ,comedy of ,errors1 ,dromio asserts that there is no time for a bald man to recover his hair4 ,this having been written1 the law phrase suggested itself1 and he was asked whether he might not do it by fine and recovery1 and this suggested the efficiency of that proceeding to bar heirs2 and this started the conceit that thus the lost hair of another man would be recovered4#ci ,in such quaint allusions to the common law and its proceedings ,shakespeare abounds1 and we cannot help remembering that ,nash1 in his prefatory epistle to ,greene's ,menaphon1 printed about #aehi1 makes sneering mention of ,shakespeare as a man who had left the trade of ,noverint1 whereunto he was born1 in order to try his hand at tragedy4 ,the trade of ,noverint was a slang expression for the business of attorney2 and this passage has suggested that ,shakespeare may have spent some time in a law office1 as student or as clerk1 either before leaving ,stratford1 or perhaps soon after his arrival in ,london4 ,this seems to me not improbable4 ,on the other hand1 ,the ,merchant of ,venice contains such crazy law that it is hard to imagine it coming even from a lawyer's clerk4 ,at all events1 we may safely say that the legal knowledge exhibited in the plays is no more than might readily have been acquired by a man of assimilative genius associating with lawyers4 ,it simply shows the range and accuracy of ,shakespeare's powers of observation4 ,let us come now to the second part of the ,delia ,bacon theory4 ,having satisfied herself that ,william ,shakespeare could not have written the poems and plays published under his name1 she jumped to the conclusion that ,francis ,bacon was the author4 ,surely1 a singular choice6 ,of all men1 why ,francis ,bacon8#dj ,why not1 as ,i said before1 ,george ,chapman or ,ben ,jonson1 men who were at once learned scholars and great poets8 ,chapman1 like ,marlowe1 could write the mighty line4 ,jonson had rare lyric power2 his verses sing1 as witness the wonderful ,do but look on her eyes1 which ,francis ,bacon could no more have written than he could have jumped over the moon4 ,to pitch upon ,bacon as the writer of ,twelfth ,night or ,romeo and ,juliet is about as sensible as to assert that ,david ,copperfield must have been written by ,charles ,darwin4 ,after a familiar acquaintance of more than forty years with ,shakespeare's works1 of nearly forty years with ,bacon's1 the two men impress me as simply antipodal one to the other4 ,a similar feeling was entertained by the late ,mr4 ,spedding1 the biographer and editor of ,bacon2 and no one has more happily hit off the vagaries of the ,baconizers than the foremost ,bacon scholar now living1 ,dr4 ,kuno ,fischer1 in his recent address before the ,shakespeare ,society at ,weimar4#da ,i used to wonder whether the ,bacon-,shakespeare people really knew anything about ,bacon1 and1 now that chance has led me to read their books1 ,i am quite sure they do not4 ,to their minds1 his works are simply a storehouse of texts which serve them for controversial missiles1 very much as scattered texts from the ,bible used to serve our uncritical grandfathers4 ,francis ,bacon was one of the most interesting persons of his time1 and1 as is often the case with such many-sided characters1 posterity has held various opinions about him4 ,on the one hand1 his fame has grown brighter with the years2 on the other hand1 it has come to be more or less circumscribed and limited4 ,pope's famous verse1 ,the wisest1 brightest1 meanest of mankind1 may be disputed in all its three specifications4 ,bacon's treatment of ,essex1 which formerly called forth such bitter condemnation1 has been1 ,i think1 completely justified2 and as for the taking of bribes1 which led to his disgrace1 there were circumstances which ought largely to mitigate the severity of our judgment4 ,but if ,bacon was far from being a mean example of human nature1 it is surely an exaggeration to call him the wisest and brightest of mankind4 ,he was a scholar and critic of vast accomplishments1 a writer of noble ,english prose1 and a philosopher who represented rather than inaugurated a most beneficial revolution in the aims and methods of scientific inquiry4 ,he is one of the real glories of ,english literature1 but he is also one of the most overrated men of modern times4 ,when we find ,macaulay saying that ,bacon had the most exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever been bestowed on any of the children of men1 we need not be surprised to find that his elaborate essay on ,bacon is as false in its fundamental conception as it is inaccurate in details4 ,for a long time it was one of the accepted commonplaces that ,bacon inaugurated the method by which modern discoveries in physical science have been made4 ,early in the present century1 such writers on the history of science as ,whewell began to show the incorrectness of this notion1 and it was completely exploded by ,stanley ,jevons in his ,principles of ,science1 the most profound treatise on method that has appeared in the last fifty years4 ,jevons writes3 ,it is wholly a mistake to say that modern science is the result of the ,baconian philosophy2 it is the ,newtonian philosophy and the ,newtonian method which have led to all the great triumphs of physical science1 and 444 the ',principia' forms the true ,novum ,organon4 ,this statement of ,jevons is thoroughly sound4 ,the great ,harvey1 who knew how scientific discoveries are made1 said with gentle sarcasm that ,bacon wrote philosophy like a lord chancellor2 yet ,harvey would not have denied that the chancellor was doing noble service as the eloquent expounder of many sides of the scientific movement that was then gathering strength4 ,bacons mind was eminently sagacious and fertile in suggestions1 but the supreme creative faculty1 the power to lead men into new paths1 was precisely the thing which he did not possess4 ,his place is a very high one among intellects of the second order2 but to rank him with such godlike spirits as ,newton1 ,spinoza1 and ,leibnitz simply shows that one has no real knowledge of the work which such men have done4 ,so much for ,bacon himself4 ,with regard to him as possible author of the ,shakespeare poems and plays1 it is difficult to imagine so learned a scholar making the kind of mistakes that abound in those writings4 ,bacon would hardly have introduced clocks into the ,rome of ,julius ,csar2 nor would he have made ,hector quote ,aristotle1 nor ,hamlet study at the ,university of ,wittenberg1 founded five hundred years after ,hamlet's time2 nor would he have put pistols into the age of ,henry ,,iv41 nor cannon into the age of ,king ,john2 and we may be pretty sure that he would not have made one of the characters in ,king ,lear talk about ,turks and ,bedlam4 ,in this severely realistic age of ours1 writers are more on their guard against such anachronisms than they were in ,shakespeare's time2 in his works we cannot call them serious blemishes1 for they do not affect the artistic character of the plays1 but they are certainly such mistakes as a scholar like ,bacon would not have committed4 ,deeper down lies the contrast involved in the fact that ,bacon was in a high degree a subjective writer1 from whom you are perpetually getting revelations of his idiosyncrasies and moods1 whereas of all writers in the world ,shakespeare is the most completely objective1 the most absorbed in the work of creation4 ,in the one writer you are always reminded of the man ,bacon2 in the other the personality is never thrust into sight4 ,bacon is highly self-conscious2 from ,shakespeare self-consciousness is absent4 ,the contrast is equally great in respect of humour4 ,i would not deny that ,bacon relished a joke1 or could perpetrate a pun2 but the bubbling1 seething1 frolicsome1 irrepressible drollery of ,shakespeare is something quite foreign to him4 ,read his essays1 and you get charming ,english1 wide knowledge1 deep thought1 keen observation1 worldly wisdom1 good humour1 sweet serenity2 but exuberant fun is not there4 ,in writing these essays ,bacon was following an example set by ,montaigne1 but1 as contrasted with the delicate effervescent humour of the ,frenchman1 his style seems sober and almost insipid4 ,only fancy such a man trying to write ,the ,merry ,wives of ,windsor6 ,both ,shakespeare and ,bacon were sturdy and rapacious purloiners4 ,they seized upon other men's bright thoughts and made them their own without compunction and without acknowledgment2 and this may account for sundry similarities which may be culled from the plays and from ,bacon's works1 upon which ,baconizing text-mongers are wont to lay great stress as proof of common authorship4 ,some such resemblances may be due to borrowing from common sources2 others are doubtless purely fanciful2 others indicate either that ,shakespeare cribbed from ,bacon or vice versa4 ,here are a few miscellaneous instances3-- ,where ,bacon says1 ,be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others 7,essay of ,wisdom71 ,shakespeare says3-- ,to thine own self be true1 ,and it must follow1 as the night the day1 ,thou canst not then be false to any man4 7,hamlet1 ,i4 iii47 ,this looks as if one writer might have copied from the other4 ,if so1 it is ,bacon who is the thief1 for the lines occur in the quarto ,hamlet published in #afjc1 whereas the ,essay of ,wisdom was first published in #afab4 ,again1 where ,bacon1 in the ,essay of ,gardens1 says1 ,the breath of flowers comes and goes like the warbling of music1 it reminds one strongly of the exquisite passage in ,twelfth ,night where the ,duke exclaims3-- ,that strain again6 it had a dying fall3 ,o1 it came o'er my ear like the sweet south1 ,that breathes upon a bank of violets1 ,stealing and giving odour4 ,i have little doubt that ,bacon had this passage in mind when he wrote the ,essay of ,gardens1 which was first published in #afbe1 two years later than the complete folio of ,shakespeare4 ,this effectually disposes of the attempt to cite these correspondences in evidence that ,bacon wrote the plays4 ,another instance is from ,richard ,,iii43-- ,by a divine instinct men's minds mistrust ,ensuing danger2 as1 by proof1 we see ,the waters swell before a boisterous storm4 ,bacon1 in the ,essay of ,sedition1 writes1 ,as there are 444 secret swellings of seas before a tempest1 so there are in states4 ,but this essay was not published till #afbe1 so again we find him copying ,shakespeare4 ,many such parallelisms1 cited to prove that ,bacon wrote ,shakespeare's works1 do really prove that he read them with great care and remembered them well1 or else took notes from them4 ,an interesting illustration of the helpless ignorance shown by ,baconizers is furnished by a remark of ,sir ,toby ,belch in ,twelfth ,night4 ,in his instructions to that dear old simpleton1 ,sir ,andrew ,aguecheek1 about the challenge1 ,sir ,toby observes1 ,if thou thou'st him some thrice1 it shall not be amiss4 ,in ,elizabethan ,english1 to address a man as thou was to treat him as socially inferior2 such familiarity was allowable only between members of the same family or in speaking to servants1 just as you address your wife1 and likewise the cook and housemaid1 by their ,christian names1 while with the ladies of your acquaintance such familiarity would be rudeness4 ,the same rule for the pronoun survives to-day in ,french and ,german1 but has been forgotten in ,english4 ,in the trial of ,sir ,walter ,raleigh in #afjd1 ,justice ,coke insulted the prisoner by calling out1 ,thou viper6 for ,i thou thee1 thou traitor6 ,now1 one of our ,baconizers thinks that his idol1 in writing ,twelfth ,night1 introduced ,sir ,toby's suggestion in order to recall to the audience ,coke's abusive remark4 ,once more1 a little attention to dates would have prevented the making of a bad blunder4 ,we know from ,manningham's ,diary that ,twelfth ,night had been on the stage nearly two years before ,raleigh's trial4 ,on the other hand1 to say that the play might have suggested to ,coke his coarse speech would be admissible1 but idle1 inasmuch as the expression to thou a man was an every-day phrase in that age4 ,here it naturally occurs to me to mention the ,promus1 about which as much fuss has been made as if it really furnished evidence in support of the ,baconian folly4 ,there is in the ,british ,museum a manuscript1 in ,bacon's handwriting1 entitled ,promus of ,formularies and ,elegancies4 ,promus means storehouse or treasury4 ,a date at the top of the first page shows that it was begun in ,december1 #aeid2 there is nothing1 ,i believe1 to show over how many years it extended4 ,it is a scrap-book in which ,bacon jotted down such sentences1 words1 and phrases as struck his fancy1 such as might be utilized in his writings4 ,these neatly turned phrases1 these formularies and elegancies1 are gathered from all quarters1--from the ,bible1 from ,virgil and ,horace1 from ,ovid and ,seneca1 from ,erasmus1 from collections of proverbs in various languages1 etc4 ,as there is apparently nothing original in this scrap-bag1 ,mr4 ,spedding did not think it worth while to include it in his edition of ,bacon's works1 but in the fourteenth volume he gives a sufficient description of it1 with illustrative extracts4 ,in #ahhc ,mrs4 ,henry ,pott published the whole of this ,promus manuscript1 and swelled it by comments and dissertations into a volume of #fjj octavo pages4 ,she had found in it several hundred expressions which reminded her of passages in ,shakespeare1 and so it confirmed her in the opinion which she already entertained that ,bacon was the author of ,shakespeare's works4 ,thus1 when the ,promus has a verse from ,ovid1 which means1 ,and the forced tongue begins to lisp the sound commanded1 it reminds ,mrs4 ,pott of divers lines in which ,shakespeare uses the word lisp1 as for example1 in ,as ,you ,like ,it1 you lisp and wear strange suits2 and she jumps to the conclusion that when ,bacon jotted down the verse from ,ovid1 it was as a preparatory study toward ,as ,you ,like ,it1 and any other play that contains the word lisp3 therefore ,bacon wrote all those plays1 ,q4 ,e4 ,d46 ,on the next page we find ,virgil's remark1 ,thus was ,i wont to compare great things with small1 made the father of ,falstaff's base comparisons1 and ,fluellen's ,macedon and ,monmouth1 as well as honest ,dogberry's comparisons are odorous4 ,when one reads such things1 evidently printed in all seriousness1 one feels like asking ,mrs4 ,pott1 in the apt words of ,shakespeare's friend ,fletcher1 ,what mare's nest hast thou found8 7,bonduca1 ,v4 ii47 ,there are many phrases1 however1 in the ,promus which undoubtedly agree with phrases in the plays4 ,they show that ,bacon heard or read the plays with great interest1 and culled from them his elegancies with no stinted hand4 ,as for ,mrs4 ,pott's bulky volume1 it brings us so near to the final reductio ad absurdum of the ,bacon theory that we hardly need spend many words upon the gross improbabilities which that theory involves4 ,the plays of ,shakespeare were universally ascribed to him by his contemporaries2 many of them were published during his lifetime with his name upon the title-page as the author2 all were collected and published together by ,hemminge and ,condell1 two of his fellow actors1 seven years after his death2 and for more than two centuries nobody ever dreamed of looking for a different authorship1 or of associating the plays with ,bacon4 ,but this ,chimborazo of prima facie evidence becomes a mere mole-hill in the hands of your valiant ,baconizer4 ,it is all clear to him4 ,bacon did not acknowledge the authorship of these works because such literature was deemed frivolous1 and current prejudices against theatres and playwrights might injure his hopes of advancement at the bar and in political life4 ,therefore1 by some sort of private understanding with the ignorant and sordid wretch ,shakespeare1#db at whose theatre they were brought out1 their authorship was ascribed to him1 the real author died without revealing the secret1 and the whole world was deceived until the days of ,delia ,bacon4 ,but there are questions which even this ingenious hypothesis fails to answer4 ,why should ,bacon have taken the time to write those thirty-seven plays1 two poems1 and one hundred and fifty-four sonnets1 if they were never to be known as his works8 ,not for money1 surely1 for that grasping ,shakespeare seems to have got the money as well as the fame2 ,bacon died a poor man4 ,his principal aim in life was to construct a new system of philosophy2 on this noble undertaking he spent such time as he could save from the exactions of his public career as member of ,parliament1 chancery lawyer1 solicitor-general1 attorney-general1 lord chancellor2 and he died with this work far from finished4 ,the volumes which he left behind him were only fragments of the mighty structure which he had planned4 ,we may well ask1 ,where did this overburdened writer find the time for doing work of another kind voluminous enough to fill a lifetime1 and what motive had he for doing it without recompense in either fame or money8 ,baconizers find it strange that ,shakespeare's will contains no reference to his plays as literary property4 ,the omission is certainly interesting1 since it seems to indicate that he had parted with his pecuniary interest in them1--had perhaps sold it out to the ,globe ,theatre4 ,if this omission can be held to show that ,shakespeare was lacking in fondness for the productions of his own genius1 what shall be said of the notion that ,bacon spent half his life in writing works the paternity of which he must forever disown8 ,this question is answered by ,mr4 ,ignatius ,donnelly1 a writer who speculates with equal infelicity on all subjects1 but never suffers for lack of boldness4 ,he published in #ahhg a book even bigger than that of ,mrs4 ,pott1 for it has nearly #ajjj pages4 ,its title is1 ,the ,great ,cryptogram1 and its thesis is1 that ,bacon really did claim the authorship of the ,shakespeare plays4 ,only the claim was made in a cipher1 and if you simply make some numbers mean some words1 and other words mean other numbers1 and perform a good many sums in what the ,mock ,turtle called ambition1 distraction1 uglification1 and derision1 you will be able to read this claim between the lines1 along with much other wonderful information4 ,thus does the arithmetical ,donnelly carry us quite a long stride nearer to the reductio ad absurdum1 or suicide point1 than we were left by ,mrs4 ,pott1 with her lisping and limping comparisons4 ,but before we come to the jumping-off place1 let us pause for a moment and take a retrospective glance at the natural history of the ,bacon-,shakespeare craze4 ,what was it that first unlocked the sluice-gates1 and poured forth such a deluge of foolishness upon a sorely suffering world8 ,it will hardly do to lay the blame upon poor ,delia ,bacon4 ,her suggestions would have borne no fruit had they not found a public1 albeit a narrow one1 in some degree prepared for them4 ,who1 then1 prepared the soil for the seeds of this idiocy to take root8 ,who but the race of fond and foolish ,shakespeare commentators1 with their absurd claims for their idol8 ,during the eighteenth century ,shakespeare was generally underrated4 ,voltaire wondered how a nation that possessed such a noble tragedy as ,addison's ,cato could endure such plays as ,hamlet and ,othello4 ,in the days of ,scott and ,burns a reaction set in2 and ,shakespeare worship reached its height when the ,germans took it up1 and1 not satisfied with calling him the prince of poets and peerless master of dramatic art1 began to discover in his works all sorts of hidden philosophy and impossible knowledge4 ,of the average ,german mind ,lowell good-naturedly says that it finds its keenest pleasure in divining a profound significance in the most trifling things1 and the number of mare's nests that have been stared into by the ,german ,gelehrter through his spectacles passes calculation4#dc ,but the ,germans are not the only sinners2 let me cite an instance from near home4 ,in the quarto ,hamlet of #afjc we read3-- ,full forty years are past1 their date is gone1 ,since happy time joined both our hearts as one3 ,and now the blood that filled my youthful veins ,runs weakly in their pipes1 etc4 ,whereupon ,mr4 ,edward ,vining calls upon us to observe how ,shakespeare1 to whom all human knowledge seems to be but a matter of instinct1 in these lines asserts the circulation of the blood in the veins and 'pipes1' a truth which ,harvey probably did not even suspect until at least thirteen years later1 etc4#dd ,does ,mr4 ,vining really suppose that what ,harvey did was to discover that blood runs in our veins8 ,a little further study of history would have taught him that even the ancients knew that blood runs in the veins4#de ,about fourteen hundred years before ,hamlet was written1 ,galen proved that it also runs in the arteries4 ,after ,galen's time1 it was believed that the dark blood nourishes such plebeian organs as the liver1 while the bright blood nourishes such lordly organs as the brain1 and that the interchange takes place in the heart2 until the sixteenth century1 when ,vesalius proved that the interchange does not take place in the heart1 and the martyr ,servetus proved that it does take place in the lungs2 and so on till #afai1 when ,harvey discovered that dark blood is brought by the veins to the right side of the heart1 and thence driven into the lungs1 where it becomes bright and flows into the left side of the heart1 thence to be propelled throughout the body in the arteries4 ,that it then grows dark and returns through the veins ,harvey believed1 but no one could tell how1 until1 forty years later1 ,malpighi with his microscope detected the capillaries4 ,now to talk about ,shakespeare discerning as if by instinct a truth which ,harvey afterward discovered is simply silly4 ,instead of showing rare scientific knowledge1 his remark about blood running in the veins is one that anybody might have made4 ,this is a fair specimen of the ignorant way in which doting commentators have built up an impossible ,shakespeare1 until at last they have provoked a reaction4 ,sooner or later the question was sure to arise1 ,where did your ,stratford boy get all this abstruse scientific knowledge8 ,the keynote was perhaps first sounded by ,august von ,schlegel1 who persuaded himself that ,shakespeare had mastered all the things and relations of this world1 and then went on to declare that the accepted account of his life must be a mere fable4 ,thus we reach the point from which ,delia ,bacon started4 ,it may safely be said that all theories of ,shakespeare's plays which suppose them to be attempts at teaching occult philosophical doctrines1 or which endow them with any other meanings than those which their words directly and plainly convey1 are a delusion and a snare4 ,those plays were written1 not to teach philosophy1 but to fill the theatre and make money4 ,they were written by a practised actor and manager1 the most consummate master of dramatic effects that ever lived2 a poet unsurpassed for fertility of invention1 unequalled for melody of language1 unapproached for delicacy of fancy1 inexhaustible in humour1 profoundest of moralists2 a man who knew human nature by intuition1 as ,mozart knew counterpoint or as ,chopin knew harmony4 ,the name of that writer was none other than ,william ,shakespeare of ,stratford-on-,avon4 ,it was inevitable that the ,bacon folly1 after once adopting such methods as those of ,mrs4 ,pott and ,mr4 ,donnelly1 should proceed to commit suicide by piling up extravagances4 ,by such methods one can prove anything1 and accordingly we find these writers busy in tracing ,bacon's hand in the writings of ,greene1 ,marlowe1 ,shirley1 ,marston1 ,massinger1 ,middleton1 and ,webster4 ,they are sure that he was the author of ,montaigne's ,essays1 which were afterward translated into what we have always supposed to be the ,french original4 ,mr4 ,donnelly believes that ,bacon also wrote ,burton's ,anatomy of ,melancholy4 ,next comes ,dr4 ,orville ,owen with a new cipher1 which proves that ,bacon was the son of ,queen ,elizabeth by ,robert ,dudley1 and that he was the author of the ,faerie ,queene and other poems attributed to ,edmund ,spenser4 ,finally we have ,mr4 ,j4 ,e4 ,roe1 who does not mean to be outdone4 ,he asks us what we are to think of the notion that an ignorant tinker1 like ,john ,bunyan1 could have written the most perfect allegory in any language4 ,perish the thought6 ,nobody but ,bacon could have done it4 ,of course ,bacon had been more than fifty years in his grave when ,pilgrim's ,progress was published as ,bunyan's4 ,but your true ,baconizer is never stopped by trifles4 ,mr4 ,roe assures us that ,bacon wrote that heavenly book1 as well as ,robinson ,crusoe and the ,tale of a ,tub2 which surely begins to make him seem ubiquitous and everlasting4 ,if things go on at this rate1 we shall presently have a religious sect holding as its first article of faith that ,francis ,bacon created the heavens and the earth in six days1 and rested on the seventh day4 ,november1 #ahif4 ,,xiv ,,some ,,cranks ,,and ,,their ,,crotchets ,now1 by two-headed ,janus1 ,nature hath framed strange fellows in her time6 ,merchant of ,venice1 ,i4 i4 ,about five-and-twenty years ago1 when ,i was assistant librarian at ,harvard ,university1 much of my time was occupied in revising and bringing toward completion the gigantic pair of twin catalogues--of authors and subjects--which my predecessor1 ,dr4 ,ezra ,abbot1 had started in #ahfa4 ,twins they were in simultaneity of birth1 but not in likeness of growth4 ,naturally1 the classified catalogue was much bigger than its brother1 filled more drawers1 cost more money1 and made a vast deal more trouble4 ,for while some books were easy enough to classify1 others were not at all easy1 and sometimes curious questions would arise4 ,one day1 for example1 ,i happened to be looking at a pamphlet on the value of ,pi2 and1 should any of my readers ask what that might mean1 ,i should answer that ,pi 77 is the ,greek letter which geometers use to denote the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter4 ,the arithmetical value of this symbol is #c4adaeibfecf1 and so on in an endless fraction4 ,is it not hard to see what there can be in such an innocent decimal to irritate human beings and destroy their peace of mind8 ,yet so it is4 ,many a human life has been wrecked upon ,pi4 ,to a certain class of our fellow-creatures its existence is maddening4 ,it interferes with the success of a little scheme on which they have set their hearts1--nothing less than to construct a square which shall be exactly equivalent in dimensions to a given circle4 ,nobody has ever done such a thing1 for it cannot be done4 ,but when mathematicians tell these poor people that such is the case1 they howl with rage1 and1 dipping their pens in gall1 write book after book bristling with figures to prove that they have squared the circle4 ,the ,harvard library does not buy such books1 but it accepts all manner of gifts1 and has thus come to contain some queer things4 ,when ,i consulted the subject catalogue1 to see under what head it had been customary to classify these lucubrations on ,pi1 ,i found1 sure enough1 that it was ,mathematics ,circle-,squaring4 ,following this cue1 ,i explored the drawers in other directions1 and found books on perpetual motion formed a section under ,physics1 while crazy interpretations of the book of ,daniel were grouped along with works of solid ,biblical scholarship by such eminent writers as ,reuss and ,kuenen and ,cheyne4 ,clearly1 here was a case for reform4 ,the principle of classification was faulty4 ,in one sense1 the treatment of the quadrature of the circle may be regarded as a section under the general head of mathematics2 as1 for example1 when ,lindemann1 in #ahhb1 showed that ,pi cannot be represented as the root of any algebraic equation with rational coefficients4 ,but our circle-squaring literature is very different4 ,it is usually written by persons whose mathematical horizon scarcely extends beyond long division3 just as the writers on perpetual motion know nothing of physics2 just as so many expositors have dealt with the ten-horned beast in blissful ignorance alike of ancient history and of the principles of literary criticism4 ,what all such books illustrate1 however various may be their ostensible themes1 is the pathology of the human mind4 ,they are specimens of ,insane ,literature4 ,as such they have a certain sort of interest2 and to any rational being it is the only sort they can have4 ,so ,i culled from many a little drawer the cards appertaining to divers printed products of morbid cerebration1 and gathered them into a class of ,insane ,literature2 and under this rubric such sections as ,circle-,squaring1 ,perpetual ,motion1 ,great ,pyramid1 ,earth not a ,globe1 etc41 were evidently in their proper place4 ,the name of the class was duly inscribed on the outside of its drawer1 and the matter seemed happily disposed of4 ,the way of the reformer1 however1 is beset with difficulties1 and it is seldom that his first efforts are crowned with entire success4 ,not many days had elapsed since this emendation of the catalogue1 when one of my assistants brought me the card of a book on the ,apocalypse1 by a certain ,mr4 ,smallwit1 and called my attention to the fact that it was classified as ,insane ,literature4 ,very well1 ,i said1 so it is4 ,i don't doubt it1 sir1 said she2 but the author lives over in ,chelsea1 and ,i saw him this morning in one of the alcoves4 ,perhaps1 if he were to look in the catalogue and see how his book is classified1 he mightn't altogether like it4 ,then1 as ,i looked a little further along the cards1 ,i came upon this pamphlet by ,herr ,dummkopf1 of ,breslau1 upsetting the law of gravitation2 and--do you know8--,herr ,dummkopf is spending the winter here in ,cambridge6 ,to be sure1 said ,i1 it was very stupid of me not to foresee such cases4 ,of course we can't call a man a fool to his face4 ,in a catalogue which marshals the quick along with the dead some heed must be paid to the amenities of life4 ,pray get and bring me all those cards4 ,by the time they arrived a satisfactory solution of the difficulty had suggested itself4 ,i told the assistant simply to scratch out ,insane1 and put ,eccentric instead4 ,for while the harsh ,latin epithet would of course infuriate ,messrs4 ,dummkopf1 ,smallwit ,co41 it might be doubted if their feelings would be hurt by the milder ,greek word4 ,some people of their stripe1 to whom notoriety is the very breath of their nostrils1 would consider it a mark of distinction to be called eccentric4 ,at all events1 the harshness would be delicately veiled under a penumbra of ambiguity4 ,thus the class ,eccentric ,literature was established in our catalogue1 and there it has remained1 while the books in the library have increased from a hundred thousand to half a million4 ,once or twice1 ,i am told1 has some disgusted author uttered a protest1 but the quiet of ,gore ,hall has not been disturbed thereby4 ,care is needed in treating such a subject1 and my rule was that no amount of mere absurdity1 no extremity of dissent from generally received opinions1 should consign a book to the class of ,eccentric ,literature1 unless it showed unmistakable symptoms of crankery1 or the buzzing of a bee in the author's bonnet4 ,this rule has been strictly followed4 ,one lot of books--the ,bacon-,shakespeare stuff--which ,i intended to put in this class1 but forgot to do so because of sore stress of work1 still remain absurdly grouped along with the books on ,shakespeare written by men in their senses4 ,with this exception1 the class offers us a fairly comprehensive view of the literature of cranks4 ,just where the line should be drawn between sanity and crankery is not always easy to determine1 and must usually be left to soundness of judgment in each particular case1 as with so many other questions of all grades1 from the supreme court down to the kitchen4 ,one of the most frequent traits of your crank is his megalomania1 or self-magnification4 ,his intellectual equipment is so slender that he cannot see wherein he is inferior to ,descartes or ,newton4 ,without enough knowledge to place him in the sixth form of a grammar school1 he will assail the conclusions of the greatest minds the world has seen4 ,his mood is belligerent2 since people will not take him at his own valuation1 he is apt to regard society as engaged in a conspiracy to ignore and belittle him4 ,of humour he is pretty sure to be destitute2 an abounding sense of the ludicrous is one of the best safeguards of mental health1 and even a slight endowment will usually nip and stunt the fungus growth of crankery4 ,the slightest glimmering sense of humour would have restrained that inveterate circle-squarer1 ,james ,smith1 from publishing 7in #ahfe7 his pamphlet entitled ,the ,british ,association in ,jeopardy1 and ,dr4 ,whewell1 the ,master of ,trinity1 in the ,stocks without ,hope of ,escape4 ,his case1 with those of many other ingenious lunatics1 was racily set forth by the late ,professor ,de ,morgan in his ,budget of ,paradoxes 7,london1 #ahgb71 a bulky book dealing with the author's personal experiences with cranks and their crotchets4 ,it was ,de ,morgan's lot as an eminent mathematician to be outrageously bored by circle-squarers and their kin1 and it was a happy thought to put on record the queer things that happened4 ,his friends asked him again and again why he took the trouble to mention and expose such absurdities4 ,he replied that1 when your crank publishes a book full of figures which few readers can criticise1 a great many people are staggered to this extent1 that they imagine there must be the indefinite something in the mysterious all this4 ,they are brought to the point of suspicion that the mathematicians ought not to treat all this with such undisguised contempt1 at least4 ,now ,i have no fear for 2 but ,i do think it possible that general opinion might in time demand that the crowd of circle-squarers1 etc41 should be admitted to the honours of opposition2 and this would be a time-tax of five per cent4 one man with another1 upon those who are better employed4 ,at any rate1 continues ,de ,morgan1 with a twinkle in the corner of his eye1 whether in chastising cranks he has any motive but public good must be referred to those who can decide whether a missionary chooses his pursuit solely to convert the heathen4 ,he confesses that perhaps he may have a little of the spirit of ,colonel ,quagg1 whose principle of action was thus succinctly expressed3 ,i licks ye because ,i kin1 and because ,i like1 and because ye's critters that licks is good for6 ,among the creatures whose malady seemed to call for such drastic treatment was ,captain ,forman1 ,r4 ,n41 who in #ahcc wrote against the law of gravitation1 and got not a word of notice4 ,then he wrote to ,sir ,john ,herschel and ,lord ,brougham1 asking them to get his book reviewed in some of the quarterlies4 ,receiving no answer from these gentlemen1 he addressed in one of the newspapers a card to ,lord ,john ,russell1 inveighing against their dishonest behaviour4 ,still getting no satisfaction1 the valorous captain wrote to the ,royal ,astronomical ,society with a challenge to controversy4 ,to this letter came a polite but brief answer1 advising him to study the rudiments of mechanics4 ,it was not in the paradoxer's nature to submit tamely to such treatment2 and he replied in a printed pamphlet1 wherein he called that learned society craven dunghill cocks1 and bestrewed them1 with other choice flowers of rhetoric1 much to the relief of his feelings4 ,one of this naval officer's fellow sufferers was a farm labourer1 who took it into his head that the ,lord ,chancellor had offered #ajj1jjj reward to any one who should square the circle4 ,so ,hodge went to work and squared it1 and then hied him to ,london1 blissfully dreaming of sudden wealth4 ,hearing that ,de ,morgan was a great mathematician1 he left his papers with him1 including a letter to the ,lord ,chancellor1 claiming the #ajj1jjj4 ,de ,morgan returned the papers with a note1 saying that no such prize had ever been offered1 and gently hinting that the worthy ,hodge had not sufficient knowledge to see in what the problem consisted4 ,this elicited from the rustic philosopher a long letter1 from which ,i must quote a few sentences1 so characteristic of the circle-squaring talent and temper3-- ,doctor ,morgan1 ,sir4 ,permit me to address you ,brute ,creation may perhaps enjoy the faculty of beholding visible things with a more penitrating eye than ourselves4 ,but ,spiritual objects are as far out of their reach as though they had no being ,nearest therefore to the brute ,creation are those men who ,suppose themselves to be so far governed by external objects as to believe nothing but what they ,see and feel ,and ,can accomedate to their ,shallow understanding and ,imaginations 444 ,when a ,gentleman of your ,standing in ,society 444 ,can not understand or ,solve a problem ,that is explicitly explained by words and ,letters and mathematacally operated by figuers ,he had best consult the wise proverd ,do that which thou ,canst understand and ,comprehend for thy good4 ,i would recommend that ,such ,gentleman ,change his business ,and appropriate his time and attention to a ,sunday ,school to ,learn what he ,could and keep the ,litle ,children form durting their ,close ,with ,sincere feelings of ,gratitude for your weakness and ,inability ,i am ,sir your ,superior in ,mathematics4 ,x4 ,y4 ,a few days after this elegant epistle there came to ,de ,morgan another from the same hand4 ,hodge had sent his papers to some easy-going ,american professor1 whose reply must clearly have been too polite4 ,it is never safe to give your crank an inch of comfort2 it will straightway become an ell of assurance4 ,this ,american savant1 crows ,rusticus1 highly approves of my work4 ,and ,says he will ,insure me ,reward in the ,states ,i write this that you may understand that ,i have knowledge of the unfair way that ,i am treated in my own nati ,county ,i am told and have reasons to believe that it is the ,clergy that treat me so unjust4 ,i am not ,desirious of heaping ,disonors upon my own nation4 ,but if ,i have to ,leave this kingdom without my ,just dues4 ,the world ,shall know how ,i am and have been treated ,i am ,sir ,desirous of my ,just dues ,x4 ,y4 ,a cynical philosopher once said that you cannot find so big a fool but there will be some bigger fool to swear by him2 and so our agricultural friend had his admiring disciple who felt bound to break a lance for him with the unappreciative ,de ,morgan3-- ,he has done what you nor any other mathematician as those who call themselves such have done4 ,and what is the reason that you will not candidly acknowledge to him 444 that he has squared the circle shall ,i tell you8 it is because he has performed the feat to obtain the glory of which mathematicians have battled from time immemorial that they might encircle their brows with a wreath of laurels far more glorious than ever conqueror won it is simply this that it is a poor man a humble artisan who has gained that victory that you don't like to acknowledge it you don't like to be beaten and worse to acknowledge that you have miscalculated1 you have in short too small a soul to acknowledge that he is right4444 ,i am backed in my opinion not only by ,mr4 ,q4 a mathematician and watchmaker residing in the boro of ,southwark but by no less an authority than the ,professor of mathematics of 444 ,college ,united ,states ,mr4 ,q and ,i presume that he at least is your equal as an authority and ,mr4 ,q says that the government of the ,u4 ,s4 will recompense ,x4 ,y4 for the discovery he has made if so what a reflection upon ,old england the boasted land of freedom the nursery of the arts and sciences that her sons are obliged to go to a foreign country to obtain that recompense to which they are justly entitled4#df ,ordinarily1 the aim of the paradoxers is to achieve renown by doing what nobody ever did4 ,hence the fascination exercised upon them by those apparently simple problems which already in ancient times were recognized as old stickers1 the quadrature of the circle1 the trisection of angles1 and the duplicature of the cube4 ,the ancients found these geometric problems insolvable1 though it was left for modern algebra to point out the reason1 namely1 that no quantities can be geometrically constructed from given quantities1 except such as can be formed from them algebraically by the solution of quadratic equations2 if the algebraic solution comes as the root of a cubic or biquadratic equation1 it cannot be constructed by geometry4 ,against this hopeless wall the crowd of paradoxers will doubtless continue to break their heads until the millennium dawns4 ,sometimes1 however1 our crank has a practical end in view1 as in the numerous attempts to discover perpetual motion1 or1 in other words1 to invent a machine out of which you can get indefinitely more energy than you put in4 ,it is not strange that many thousands of dollars have been wasted in this effort to recover ,aladdin's lost lamp4 ,the notorious ,keely motor is but one of a host of contrivances born and bred of crass ignorance of the alphabet of dynamics4 ,but perpetual motion is not the only form assumed by wealth-seeking crankery4 ,in #ahfa a ,captain ,roblin1 of ,normandy1 having ascertained to his own satisfaction1 from the prolonged study of the zodiac of ,denderah1 the sites of sundry gold-mines1 came forward with proposals for a joint stock company to dig and be rich4 ,the labours of ,herr ,johannes von ,gumpach were of a more philanthropic turn4 ,he published in #ahfa a pamphlet entitled ,a ,million's ,worth of ,property and ,five ,hundred ,lives annually lost at ,sea by the ,theory of ,gravitation4 ,a ,letter on the ,true ,figure of the ,earth1 addressed to the ,astronomer ,royal4 ,next year this pamphlet grew into a stout volume4 ,it maintained that a great many shipwrecks were occasioned by errors of navigation due to an erroneous conception of the shape of the earth4 ,since ,newton's time1 it has been supposed to be flattened at the poles1 whereas the amiable ,gumpach calls upon his fellow-creatures to take notice that it is elongated1 and to mend their ways accordingly4 ,the desire to prove great men wrong is one of the crank's most frequent and powerful incentives4 ,the name of ,newton is the greatest in the history of science3 how flattering to one's self it must be1 then1 to prove him a fool6 ,in eccentric literature the books against ,newton are legion4 ,here is a title3 ,david and ,goliath1 or an ,attempt to prove that the ,newtonian ,system of ,astronomy is directly opposed to the ,scriptures4 ,by ,william ,lander1 ,mere1 ,wilts1 #ahcc4 ,and here is ,de ,morgan's terse summary of the book3 ,newton is ,goliath2 ,mr4 ,lander is ,david4 ,david took five pebbles2 ,mr4 ,lander takes five arguments4 ,he expects opposition2 for ,paul and ,jesus both met with it4 ,there are few subjects over which cranks are more painfully exercised than the figure of the earth1 and its relations to heavenly bodies4 ,aristotle proved that the earth is a globe2 ,copernicus showed that it is one of a system of planets revolving about the sun2 ,newton explained the dynamics of this system4 ,but at length came a certain ,john ,hampden1 who with dauntless breast maintained that all this is wrong6 ,his pamphlet was prudently dedicated to the unprofessional public and the common sense men of ,europe and ,america2 he knew that it could find no favor with bigoted men of science4 ,this ,hampden1 like his great namesake1 is nothing if not bold4 ,the ,newtonian or ,copernican theory1 he tells us1 from the first hour of its invention1 has never dared to submit to an appeal to facts6 ,again1 ,defenders it never had2 and no threats1 no taunts or exposure1 will ever rouse the energies of a single champion4 ,in other words1 astronomers do not waste their time in noticing ,mr4 ,hampden's taunts and threats4 ,why is this so8 ,his next sentence reminds us that cowardice always accompanies conscious guilt4 ,he goes on to tell us the true state of the case3 ,the earth1 as it came from the hands of its ,almighty ,creator1 is a motionless ,plane1 based and built upon foundations which the ,word of ,god expressly declares cannot be searched out or discovered4444 ,the stars are hardly bigger than the gas jets which light our streets1 and1 if they could be made to change places with them1 no astronomer could detect the difference4 ,the ,north ,pole is the centre of the flat earth1 and its extreme southern limit is not a ,south ,pole1 but a circle #cj1jjj miles in circumference4 ,night is caused by the sun passing behind a layer of clouds #gjjj miles thick4 ,it is not gravitation which makes a river run down hill1 but the impetus of the water behind pressing on the water before4 ,is not this delicious8 ,as for ,newton1 poor fellow1 he lived in a superstitious age and district2 he was educated among an illiterate peasantry4 ,this is like the way in which the ,baconizing cranks dispose of ,shakespeare4 ,so zealous was ,mr4 ,hampden that in #ahgf he began publishing a periodical called ,the ,truth ,seeker's ,oracle4 ,similar views were set forth by one ,samuel ,rowbotham1 who wrote under the name of ,parallax1 and by a ,william ,carpenter1 whose pamphlet1 ,one ,hundred ,proofs that the ,earth is not a ,globe 7,baltimore1 #ahhe71 is quite a curiosity2 for example1 ,proof #cc3 ,if the earth were a globe1 people--except those on top--would certainly have to be fastened to its surface by some means or other2444 but as we know that we simply walk on its surface1 without any other aid than that which is necessary for locomotion on a plane1 it follows that we have herein a conclusive proof that ,earth is not a globe4 ,since ,mr4 ,carpenter understands the matter so thoroughly1 can we wonder at the earnestness with which he rebukes the late ,richard ,proctor8 ,mr4 ,proctor1 we charge you that1 whilst you teach the theory of the earth's rotundity1 you ,,know that it is a plane6 ,more original than ,messrs4 ,hampden and ,carpenter are the writers who maintain that the earth is hollow1 and supports a teeming population in its interior4 ,early in the present century this idea came with the force of a revelation to the mind of ,captain ,john ,cleves ,symmes1 a retired army officer engaged in trade at ,st4 ,louis4 ,in #ahah he issued a circular1 of which the following is an abridgment3 ,,to ,,all ,,the ,,world ,i declare the earth is hollow and habitable within2 containing a number of solid concentric spheres1 one within the other1 and that it is open at the poles twelve or sixteen degrees4 ,i pledge my life in support of this truth1 and am ready to explore the hollow1 if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking4444 ,my terms are ,hear1 ,messrs4 ,quay and ,platt6 and give ear1 ,o ,tammany6 the ,,patronage of ,,this and the ,,new ,,worlds4444 ,i select ,dr4 ,s4 ,l4 ,mitchell1 ,sir ,h4 ,davy1 and ,baron ,alexander von ,humboldt as my protectors4 ,i ask one hundred brave companions1 well equipped1 to start from ,siberia1 in the fall season1 with reindeer and sleighs1 on the ice of the frozen sea4 ,i engage we find a warm and rich land1 stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals1 if not men1 on reaching one degree northward of latitude #hb4 ,we will return in the succeeding spring4 ,this circular was sent by mail to men of science1 colleges1 learned societies1 legislatures1 and municipal bodies1 all over the ,united ,states and ,europe2 for when it comes to postage1 your crank seems always to have unlimited funds at his disposal4 ,at ,paris1 the distinguished traveller1 ,count ,volney1 doubtless with a significant shrug1 presented the precious document to the ,academy of ,sciences1 by which it was mirthfully laid upon the table4 ,nowhere did learned men take it seriously2 it was generally set down as a rather stupid hoax4 ,but1 nothing daunted by such treatment1 the worthy ,symmes began giving lectures on the subject1 and succeeded in making some impression upon an uninstructed public4 ,in #ahbd his audience at ,hamilton1 ,ohio1 at the close of a lecture1 resolved1 that we esteem ,symmes' ,theory of the ,earth deserving of serious examination and worthy of the attention of the ,american people4 ,at a theatre in ,cincinnati1 a benefit was given for the proposed polar expedition1 and verses were recited suitable to the occasion3-- ,has not ,columbia one aspiring son ,by whom the unfading laurel may be won8 ,yes6 history's pen may yet inscribe the name ,of ,,symmes to grace her future scroll of fame4 ,the captain's petitions to ,congress1 however1 praying for ships and men1 were heartlessly laid on the table1 and nothing was left him but to keep on crying in the wilderness1 which he did until his death in #ahbi4 ,in the cemetery at ,hamilton1 the freestone monument over his grave1 placed there by his son1 ,americus ,symmes1 is surmounted with a hollow globe1 open at the poles4 ,half a century later the son published a pamphlet1#dg in which he gave a somewhat detailed exposition of his father's notions4 ,from this we learn that the interior world is well lighted2 for the sun's rays1 passing through the dense cold air of the verges 7that is1 the circular edge of the big polar hole71 are powerfully refracted1 and after getting inside they are forthwith reflected from one concave surface to another1 with the result that the whole interior is illuminated with a light equal to #cfjj times that of the full moon4 ,we learn1 too1 that the famous ,swedish geographer1 ,norpensjould 7semper sic671 after passing the magnetic pole1 found a timbered country with large rivers and abundant animal life4 ,afterward one ,captain ,wiggins visited this country1 where he found flax and wheat1 highly magnetic iron ore1 and rich mines of copper and gold4 ,the trees are as big as any in ,california2 hides1 wool1 tallow1 ivory1 and furs abound4 ,the inhabitants are very tall1 with ,roman noses1 and speak ,hebrew4 ,yes1 echoes ,captain ,tuttle1 an old whaler1 who also has visited this new country1 they speak ,hebrew1 and are a smart people4 ,would it not be logical1 writes ,americus1 to think that this was one of the lost tribes of ,israel8 for we read in the ,bible that they went up the ,euphrates to the north and dwelt in a land where man never dwelt before4 ,just so2 evidently1 ,messrs4 ,norpensjould1 ,wiggins1 and ,tuttle sailed across the verge and into the interior country1 the concave world1 which shall henceforth be known as ,symmzonia6 ,the book ends with the triumphant query1 ,where were those explorers if not in the ,hollow of the ,earth1 and would they not have come out at the ,south ,pole if they had continued on their course8 ,it is sad to have such positive conclusions disputed1 but even in eccentric lore the doctors are found to disagree4 ,scarcely had ,americus put forth his revised edition1 when a pamphlet entitled ,the ,inner ,world1 by ,frederick ,culmer1 was published at ,salt ,lake ,city 7#ahhf74 ,its chapters have resounding titles3 ,i4 ,the ,universal ,vacuity of ,centres2 ,,ii4 ,the ,polar ,orifices of the ,earth2 ,,iii4 ,the ,alleged ,northwest ,passage and ,symmes' ,hole4 ,we are told that although the polar orifices have diameters of about a thousand miles each1 nevertheless1 in spite of ,wiggins and ,tuttle1 there is no passage to the inner world on the north of ,america2 on the contrary1 it must be sought within the antarctic circle4 ,but ,mr4 ,culmer would discourage rash attempts at exploration1 and believes that no man will be able to plant the standard of his country on any land in that region worth one dime to himself or any one else at present4 ,for this gloomy outlook we must try to console ourselves with the knowledge that ,mr4 ,culmer has detected the true explanation of the ,aurora ,borealis3 ,it is the sun's rays shining on a placid interior ocean and reflecting upon the outer atmosphere4 ,a favourite occupation of cranks is the discovery of hidden meanings in things4 ,whether we are to say that the passionate quest of the occult has been prolific in mental disturbances1 or whether we had better say that persons with ill-balanced minds take especial delight in the search for the occult1 the practical result is about the same4 ,the impelling motive is not very different from that of the circle-squarers2 it is pleasing to one's self-love to feel that one discerns things to which all other people are blind4 ,hence the number of mare's-nests that have been complacently stared into by learned donkeys is legion4 ,mere erudition is no sure safeguard against the subtle forms which the temptation takes on1 as we may see from the ingenuity that has been wasted on the ,great ,pyramid4 ,in #ahfd1 ,piazzi ,smyth1 ,astronomer ,royal for ,scotland1 published his book entitled ,our ,inheritance in the ,great ,pyramid1 and afterward followed it with other similar books4 ,whatever may have been the original complexion of this gentleman's mind1 it was not such as to prevent his attaining distinction and achieving usefulness as a practical astronomer4 ,but the pyramids were too much for his mental equilibrium4 ,as ,de ,morgan kindly puts it1 his work on ,egypt is paradox of a very high order1 backed by a great quantity of useful labour1 the results of which will be made available by those who do not receive the paradoxes4 ,the pyramidal tombs of ,egyptian kings were an evolution in stone or brick from the tumulus of earth which in prehistoric ages was heaped over the body of the war chief4 ,they are objects of rare dignity and interest1 not only from their immense size1 but from sundry peculiarities in their construction4 ,in their orientation great care was taken1 though usually with imperfect success4 ,their sides face the four cardinal points1 and the descending entry-way forms a kind of telescope1 from the bottom of which an observer1 sixty centuries ago1 could look out at what was then the polestar4 ,these and other features of the pyramids are no doubt connected with ,egyptian religion1 and may very likely have subserved astrological purposes4 ,but what say the pyramid cranks1 or pyramidalists1 as they have been called8 ,according to them1 the builders of the ,great ,pyramid were supernaturally instructed1 probably by ,melchizedek1 ,king of ,salem4 ,thus they were enabled to place it in latitude #cj ,n42 to make its four sides face the cardinal points2 to adopt the sacred cubit1 or one twenty millionth part of the earth's polar axis1 as their unit of length2 and to make the side of the square base equal to just so many of these sacred cubits as there are days and parts of a day in a year4 ,they were further by supernatural help enabled to square the circle1 and symbolized their victory over this problem by making the pyramid's height bear to the perimeter of the base the ratio which the radius of a circle bears to the circumference4#dh ,in like manner1 by immediate divine revelation1 the builders of the pyramid were instructed as to the exact shape and density of the earth1 the sun's distance1 the precession of the equinoxes1 etc41 so that their figures on all these subjects were more accurate than any that modern science has obtained1 and these figures they built into the pyramid4 ,they also built into it the divinely revealed and everlasting standards of length1 area1 capacity1 weight1 density1 heat1 time1 and money1 and finally they wrought into its structure the precise date at which the millennium is to begin4 ,all this valuable information1 handed down directly from heaven1 was thus securely bottled up in the ,great ,pyramid for six thousand years or so1 awaiting the auspicious day when ,mr4 ,piazzi ,smyth should come and draw the cork4 ,why so much knowledge should have been bestowed upon the architects of ,king ,cheops1 only to be concealed from posterity1 is a pertinent question2 and one may also ask1 why was it worth while to bring a ,piazzi ,smyth into the world to reveal it1 since plodding human reason had after all by slow degrees discovered every bit of it1 except the date of the millennium8 ,why1 moreover1 did the revelation thus elaborately buried in or about ,b4 ,c4 #djjj come just abreast of the scientific knowledge of ,a4 ,d4 #ahfd1 and there stop short8 ,is it credible that old ,melchizedek knew nothing about the telephone1 or the ,roentgen ray1 or the cholera bacillus8 ,our pyramidalists should be more enterprising1 and elicit from their venerable fetish some useful hints as to wireless telegraphy1 or the ventilation of ,pullman cars1 or the purification of ,pennsylvania politics4 ,perhaps the last-named problem might vie in difficulty with squaring the circle6 ,the lucubrations of ,piazzi ,smyth1 like those of ,miss ,delia ,bacon1 called into existence a considerable quantity of eccentric literature4 ,for example1 there is ,skinner's ,key to the ,hebrew-,egyptian ,mystery in the ,source of ,measures originating the ,british ,inch and the ,ancient ,cubit1 published in ,cincinnati in #ahge1 a tall octavo of #cbd pages1 bristling with diagrams and decimals1 ,hebrew words and logarithms4 ,the book begins by getting the circle neatly squared1 and then goes on to aver that sundry crosses1 including the ,christian cross1 are an emblematic display of the origin of measures4 ,the mound-builders come in for a share of the author's attention2 for the mounds are alike ,typhonic emblems with the pyramid of ,egypt and with ,hebrew symbols4 ,a ,typhonic emblem relates to ,typhon1 the lord of sepulture1 whose ,egyptian representative was the crocodile1 as his ,hebrew representative was the hog2 exemplified in the ,christian books by the devil leaving the man and passing into the herd of swine1 which thereupon rushed into the sea1 another emblem of ,typhon4 ,yet another such emblem is a mound in ,ohio which simulates the contour of an alligator4 ,a certain ,aztec pyramid1 described by ,humboldt1 has #cah niches1 apparently in allusion to the days of the old ,mexican civil calendar4 ,mr4 ,skinner sees in this numeral the value of ,pi1 and furthermore informs us that #cah is the ,gnostic symbol for ,christ1 as well as the number of ,abraham's trained servants4 ,frequent use of it is made in the ,great ,pyramid2 for example1 multiplied by six it gives the height of the king's chamber1 and multiplied by two it gives half the base side of that apartment4 ,our author then puts the pyramid into a sphere1 and after this feat it is an easy transition to ,noah's flood1 the zodiac1 and modern ritualism4 ,of similar purport1 though more concise than this octavo1 is ,dr4 ,watson ,quinby's ,solomon's ,seal1 a ,key to the ,pyramid1 published at ,wilmington1 ,delaware1 in #ahhj4 ,from this little book we learn that in the early days of the world some one measured the earth1 and found its diameter1 in round numbers1 to be #da1efi1jjj feet1 or #dih1hbh1jjj inches2 also that ,vishnu means ,fish-,nuh1 ,noah-the-,fish1 in allusion to his sojourn in the ark4 ,moreover1 the ,institutes of ,manu were written by ,noah1 since ,maha-,nuh ,great-,noah6 ,with equal felicity1 ,rev4 ,edward ,dingle 7in his ,the ,balance of ,physics1 the ,square of the ,circle1 and the ,earth's ,true ,solar and ,lunar ,distances1 ,london1 #ahhe1 pp4 #bdf7 declares that my success1 let it be held what it may1 was secured by cleaving to the ,mosaic initiation of the ,sabbatic number for my radius4 ,at the end of his book ,mr4 ,dingle exclaims3 ,to the ,lord be all thanksgiving1 who has kept my intellect and the directing of its thoughts sound1 while seeking to deliver his word from the exulting shouts of his enemies and the seducers of mankind6 ,from these grotesque rigmaroles it is not a long step to the lucubrations of the writers in whose bonnets the bee of prophecy has buzzed until they have come to fancy themselves skilled interpreters4 ,there is apt to be the same droll mixing of arithmetic with history that we find among the pyramid cranks1 and to the performance of such antics the book of ,daniel and the ,apocalypse present irresistible temptations4 ,in my library days1 ,i never used to pick up a commentary on either of those books without looking for some of the stigmata or witch-marks of crankery4 ,many a feeble intellect has been toppled over by that shining image1 with head of gold and feet of iron and clay1 which ,nebuchadnezzar beheld in a dream4 ,for example1 let us take a few sentences from ,emmanuel3 ,an ,original and ,exhaustive ,commentary on ,creation and ,providence ,alike4 ,by an ,octogenarian ,layman1 ,london1 #ahhc1 pp4 #dbj3 ,upwards of thirty years ago1 a fancy for chronological research1 fostered by boundless leisure and a competent facility in mental calculation1 riveted my attention on the metallic image1 in the vague hope of symmetrizing the four sections of the collective emblem with the successive dominations of the individual empires4 ,failing in so shadowy an aspiration1 ,i seemed to be more than compensated by detecting an identity of duration1 equally pregnant and positive1 between the gold and the silver and the brass and the iron taken together on the one hand1 and the mountain that was to crush them all to powder on the other1--the former aggregate being assumed to stretch from ,nebuchadnezzar's succession in #fjf ,b4 ,c4 to the dethronement of ,augustulus in #dgf ,a4 ,d41 and the latter again from the epoch just specified to ,elizabeth's purgation of the ,sanctuary in #aeeh4 ,having thus taken two equal periods of #ajhb years1 our ,octogenarian proceeds to break them up 7,heaven knows why67 each into four periods of #fh1 #bjd1 #bfi1 and #eda years4 ,then we are treated to the following equations3-- #fh #b #cd #bjd #f #cd #bfi #e #cd #c #cc #eda #ac #cd #c #cc ,hence1 with such a fulcrum as the ,lamb slain before the foundation of the world1 and such a lever as the span of the ,victim's sublunary humiliation1 was ,i too rash in aiming at a result infinitely grander than ,archimedes's speculative displacement of the earth8 ,that eminent mathematician1 ,dr4 ,nathaniel ,bowditch1 used to say that sometimes1 when ,laplace passed from one equation to the next with an evidently1 he would find a week's study necessary to cross the abyss which the transcendent mind of the master traversed in a single leap4 ,i fancy that more than a week would be needed to fathom the ,octogenarian's hence1 and it would by no means be worth while to go through so much and get so little4 ,after a few pages of the ,octogenarian1 we are prepared to hear that in #agej one ,henry ,sullamar squared the circle by the number of the ,beast with seven heads and ten horns2 and that in #agec a certain ,french officer1 ,m4 de ,causans1 cut a circular piece of turf1 squared it1 and deduced original sin and the ,trinity4#di ,the reader is doubtless by this time weary of so much tomfoolery2 but as it is needful1 for the due comprehension of crankery and its crotchets1 that he should by and by have still more of it1 ,i will give him a moment's relief while ,i tell of a little game with which ,de ,morgan and ,whewell once amused themselves4 ,the task was to make a sentence which should contain all the letters of the alphabet1 and each only once4 ,no one1 says ,de ,morgan1 has done it with v and j treated as consonants2 but you and ,i can do it 7u and i3 oh1 monstrous pun674 ,dr4 ,whewell got only separate words1 and failed to make a sentence3 phiz1 styx1 wrong1 buck1 flame1 quid4 ,very pretty1 but ,de ,morgan beat him out of sight with this weird sentiment2 ,i1 quartz pyx1 who fling muck beds6 ,well1 what in the world can that mean8 ,i long thought that no human being could say it under any circumstances4 ,at last ,i happened to be reading a religious writer--as he thought himself--who threw aspersions on his opponents thick and threefold4 ,heyday6 came into my head1 this fellow flings muck beds3 he must be a quartz pyx4 ,and then ,i remembered that a pyx is a sacred vessel1 and quartz is a hard stone1 as hard as the heart of a religious foe-curser4 ,so that the line is the motto of the ferocious sectarian1 who turns his religious vessels into mud-holders for the benefit of those who will not see what he sees4#ej ,i cite this drollery to show the world-wide difference between the playful nonsense of the wise man and the strenuous nonsense of the monomaniac2 in this little cabbala alphabetica1 moreover1 a great deal of the cabalistic lore which cumbers library shelves is neatly satirized4 ,as already observed1 my rule was never to put into the class of eccentric literature any books save such as seemed to have emanated from diseased brains4 ,to hold and absurd belief1 to write in its defense1 to shape one's career in accordance with it1 is no proof of an unsound mind4 ,of the hundreds of enthusiasts who spent their lives in quest of the philosopher's stone1 many were doubtless cranks2 but many were able thinkers who made the best use they could of the scientific resources of the time4 ,wrong ways must often be tried before the right way can be found4 ,even the early circle-squarers cannot fairly be charged with crankery2 they sinned against no light that was accessible to them4 ,but anybody who to-day should advertise a recipe for turning base metals into gold would meet with a chill welcome from chemists4 ,he would speedily be posted as a quack1 though doubtless many weak heads would be turned by him4 ,it is the perverse sinning against light that is one of the most abiding features of crankery1 and from this point of view such a book as ,coin's ,financial ,school has many claims for admission to the limbo of eccentric literature4 ,about seventy years ago1 one ,john ,ranking published in ,london a volume entitled ,historical ,researches on the ,conquest of ,peru1 ,mexico1 ,bogota1 ,natchez1 and ,talomeco1#ea in the ,thirteenth ,century1 by the ,mongols1 accompanied with ,elephants4 ,it is well known that in #abha the ,mongols1 after conquering pretty much everything from the ,carpathian ,mountains and the river ,euphrates to the ,yellow ,sea1 invaded ,japan4 ,a typhoon dispersed their fleet2 and their army of more than #ajj1jjj men1 cut off from its communications1 was completely annihilated by the ,japanese4 ,but ,mr4 ,ranking believed that this wholesale destruction was a fiction of the chroniclers4 ,he maintained that most of the army escaped in a new fleet and crossed the ,pacific ,ocean1 taking with them a host of elephants1 with the aid of which they made extensive conquests in ,america and founded kingdoms in ,mexico and ,peru4 ,the widespread fossil remains of the ,american mastodon he took to be the bones of these ,mongolian elephants4 ,now1 this is an extremely wild theory1 unsound and untenable in every particular1 but it does not bring ,mr4 ,ranking's book within the class of eccentric literature4 ,the author was deficient in scholarship and in critical judgment1 but he was not daft4 ,a very different verdict must be rendered in the case of ,mr4 ,edwin ,johnson's book1 called ,the ,rise of ,christendom1 published in ,london in #ahij1 an octavo of #ejj pages4 ,according to ,mr4 ,johnson1 the rise of ,christendom began in the twelfth century of our era1 and it was preceded by two centuries of ,hebrew religion1 which started in ,moslem ,spain6 ,first came ,islam1 then ,judaism1 then ,christianity4 ,the genesis of both the latter was connected with that revolt against ,islam which we call the ,crusades4 ,what we suppose to be the history of ,israel1 as well as that of the first eleven ,christian centuries1 is a gigantic lie1 concocted in the thirteenth century by the monks of ,st4 ,basil and ,st4 ,benedict4 ,the ,roman emperors knew nothing of ,christianity1 and the multifarious allusions to it in ancient writers were all explained by ,mr4 ,johnson as fraudulent interpolations4 ,as for the ,greek and ,latin fathers1 they never existed4 ,the excellent stylist1 who writes under the name of ,lactantius1 not earlier than the fourteenth century2 the ,augustinian of the fourteenth or fifteenth century1 who writes the romantic ,confessions1--such is the airy way in which the matter is disposed of4 ,as for the ,new ,testament1 it is not yet clear whether the book was first written in ,latin or in ,greek4 ,this reminds me of something once said by ,rev4 ,robert ,taylor1 a crazy clergyman who in #ahba suffered imprisonment for blasphemy1 and came to be known as the ,devil's ,chaplain4 ,taylor declared that for the book of ,revelation there was no ,greek original at all1 but ,erasmus wrote it in ,switzerland1 in the year #aeaf4 ,the audience1 or part of it1 probably took ,taylor's word as sufficient2 and in like manner not a syllable of proof is alleged for ,mr4 ,johnson's prodigious assertions4 ,from cover to cover1 there is no trace of a consciousness that proof is needed2 it is simply1 ,thus saith ,edwin ,johnson4 ,the man who can write such a book is surely incapable of making a valid will4 ,another acute phase of insanity is exemplified in ,nason's ,history of the ,prehistoric ,ages1 written by the ,ancient ,historic ,band of ,spirits 7,chicago1 #ahhj74 ,this is a mediumistic affair4 ,the ancient band consists of four-and-twenty spirits1 the eldest of whom occupied a material body #df1jjj years ago1 and the youngest #cjjj years ago4 ,they dictated to ,mr4 ,nason the narrative1 which begins with the origin of the solar system and comes down to ,romulus and ,remus1 betraying on every page the preternatural dullness and ignorance so characteristic of all the spirits with whom mediums have dealings4 ,concerning the ,bacon-,shakespeare lunacy a word must suffice4 ,as ,i have shown in a previous essay1 the doubt concerning the authorship of ,shakespeare's plays was in part a reaction against the extravagances of doting commentators2 but in its original form it was simply an insane freak4 ,the unfortunate lady who gave it currency belonged to a distinguished ,connecticut family1 and the story of her malady is a sad one4 ,at the age of eight-and-forty she died in the asylum at ,hartford1 two years after the publication of her book1 ,the ,philosophy of ,shakespeare's ,plays ,unfolded4 ,the suggestion of her illustrious namesake1 and perhaps kinsman1 as the author of ,shakespeare's works1 was a clear instance of the megalomania which is a well-known symptom of paranoia2 and her book has all the hazy incoherence that is so quickly recognizable in the writings of the insane4 ,a friend of mine once asked me if ,i did not find it hard to catch her meaning4 ,meaning6 ,i exclaimed1 there's none to catch4 ,among the books of her followers are all degrees of eccentricity4 ,that of ,nathaniel ,holmes stands upon the threshold of the limbo2 while as for ,ignatius ,donnelly1 all his works belong in its darkest recesses4 ,the considerations which would lead one to consign a book to that limbo are often complex4 ,there is ,miss ,marie ,brown's book1 ,the ,icelandic ,discoverers of ,america2 or1 ,honour to whom ,honour is ,due4 ,in maintaining that ,columbus knew all about the voyages of the ,northmen to ,vinland1 and was helped thereby in finding his way to the ,bahamas1 there is nothing necessarily eccentric4 ,professor ,rasmus ,anderson has defended that thesis in a book which is able and scholarly1 a book which every reader must treat with respect1 even though he may not find its arguments convincing4 ,but when ,miss ,brown declares that the papacy has been partner in a conspiracy for depriving the ,scandinavians of the credit due them as discoverers of ,america1 and assures us that this is a matter in which the interests of civil and religious liberty are at stake1 one begins to taste the queer flavour2 and1 taking this in connection with the atmosphere of rage which pervades the book1 one feels inclined to place it in the limbo4 ,for example3 ,what but ,catholic genius1 the genius for deceit1 for trickery1 for secrecy1 for wicked and diabolical machinations1 could have pursued such a system of fraud for centuries as the one now being exposed6 ,what but ,catholic genius1 a prolific genius for evil1 would have attempted to rob the ,norsemen of their fame1444 and to foist a miserable ,italian adventurer and upstart upon ,americans as the true candidate for these posthumous honours1--the man or saint to whom they are to do homage1 and through this homage allow the ,church of ,rome to slip the yoke of spiritual subjection over their necks6 ,a shrill note of anger is sometimes the sure ear-mark of a book from ,queer ,street4 ,anger is1 indeed1 a kind of transient mania1 and eccentric literature is apt to be written in high dudgeon4 ,when you take up a pamphlet by ,vindex1 and read the title1 ,a ,box on ,both ,ears to the ,powers that ought not to be at ,washington1 you may be prepared to find incoherency4 ,i once catalogued an edition of ,plutarch's little essay on ,superstition1 and was about to let it go on its way1 along with ordinary ,greek books1 when my eye happened to fall upon the last sentence of the editor's preface3 ,i terminate this my ,preface by consigning all ,greek ,scholars to the special care of ,beelzebub4 ,oho6 ,i thought1 there's a cloven foot here2 perhaps1 if we explore further1 we may get a whiff of brimstone4 ,and it was so4 ,it thus appears that the topics treated in eccentric literature are numerous and manifold4 ,not only1 moreover1 has this department its vigorous prose-writers2 it has also its inspired poets4 ,witness the following lines from the volume entitled ,eucleia 7,salem1 #ahfa73-- ,hark1 hear that distant boo-oo-oo1 ,as1 walking by moonlight1 ,he whistles1 instructing ,carlo ,to be still1 and not bite4 ,but even this lofty flight of inspiration is out-flown by ,mr4 ,john ,landis1 who was limner and draughtsman as well as poet4 ,in his ,treatise on ,magnifying ,god 7,new ,york1 #ahdc7 he gives us an engraved portrait of himself surrounded by ministering angels1 and accompanies it by an ode to himself1 one verse of which will suffice3-- ,with ,messrs4 ,milton1 ,watts1 and ,wesley1 ,familiar thy ,name will e'er be4 ,of ,america's ,poets thou ,stand'st on the foremost list now2 ,on the pinions of fame does shine1 ,landis6 brightened by ev'ry line1 ,from thy poetic pen in rhyme1 ,thy name descends to the end of time4 ,immortality of fame is something desired by many1 but attained by few4 ,physical immortality is something which has hitherto been supposed to be inexorably denied to human beings4 ,the phrase ,all men are mortal figures in textbooks of logic as the truest of truisms4 ,but we have lately been assured that this is a mistake4 ,it is only an induction based upon simple enumeration1 and the first man who escapes death will disprove it4 ,so1 at least1 ,i was told by a very downright person who called on me some years ago with a huge parcel of manuscript1 for which he wanted me to find him a publisher4 ,he had been cruelly snubbed and ill-used1 but truth would surely prevail over bigotry1 as in ,galileo's case4 ,i took his address and let him leave his manuscript4 ,its recipe for physical immortality1 diluted through #fjj foolscap pages1 was simply to learn how to go without food6 ,usually such a regimen will kill you by the fifth day1 but if1 at that critical moment1 while at the point of death1 you make one heroic effort and stay alive1 why1 then you will have overcome the ,king of ,terrors once for all4 ,i returned the gentleman's manuscript with a polite note1 regretting that his line of research was so remote from those to which ,i was accustomed that ,i could not give him intelligent aid4 ,on one of the beautiful hills of ,petersham1 near the centre of ,massachusetts1 there dwelt a few years since a small religious community of persons who believed that they were destined to escape death4 ,not science1 but faith1 had won for them this boon4 ,they believed that the third person of the ,trinity was incarnated in their leader or high priest1 ,father ,howland4 ,this community1 ,i believe1 came from ,rhode ,island about forty years ago1 and at the height of its prosperity may have numbered twenty-five or thirty men and women4 ,their establishment consisted of one large mansard-roofed house1 with barns and sheds and a good-sized farm4 ,their housekeeping was tidy1 and they put up apple-sauce4 ,they maintained that the eighteen and a half centuries of the so-called ,christian era have really been the dispensation of ,john the ,baptist1 and that the true ,christian era was ushered in by the ,holy ,ghost in the person of ,father ,howland1 through believing in whom ,christians might attain to eternal life on this planet4 ,they had their ,sabbath on ,saturday1 and worked in the fields on ,sunday2 and they made sundry distinctions between clean and unclean foods1 based upon their slender understanding of the ,old ,testament4 ,for a few years these worthy people enjoyed the simple rural life on their pleasant hillside without having their dream of immortality rudely tested4 ,when one member fell ill and died1 and was presently followed by another1 it was easy to dispose of such cases by asserting that the deceased were not true believers2 they were black sheep1 hypocrites1 pretenders1 whited sepulchres1 and their deaths had purified the flock4 ,but the next one to die was ,father ,howland himself4 ,on a warm summer day of #ahgd1 as he was driving in his buggy over a steep mountain road1 the horse shied so violently as to throw out the venerable sage against a wood-pile1 whereupon sundry loose logs fell upon his head and shoulders1 inflicting fatal wounds4 ,then a note of consternation mingled with the genuine mourning of the little community4 ,it was a perplexing providence4 ,about twelve months afterward ,i made my first visit to these people1 in company with my friend ,dr4 ,william ,james and five carriage-loads of city folk who were spending the summer at ,petersham4 ,it was a ,saturday morning1 and all the worshippers were in their best clothes4 ,they received us with a quiet but cordial welcome1 and showed us into a spacious parlour that was simply brilliant with cheerfulness4 ,its west windows looked down upon a vast and varied landscape1 with rich pastures1 smiling cornfields1 and long stretches of pine forest covering range upon range of hills moulded in forms of exquisite beauty4 ,beyond the foreground of delicate yellow and soft green tints the eye rested upon the sombre green of the woodland1 and behind it all came the rich purple of the distant hills1 fitfully checkered with shadows from the golden clouds4 ,here and there gleamed the white church spires of some secluded hamlet1 while on the horizon1 seventy miles distant1 arose the lofty peak of old ,greylock4 ,thence to ,mount ,grace1 in one huge sweep1 the entire breadth of ,vermont was displayed1 a wilderness of pale-blue summits blending with the sky2 and over all1 and part of it all1 was the radiant glory of the ,september sunshine4 ,truly1 said ,i to one of the brethren1 a man of saintly face1 if you are expecting to dwell forever upon the earth1 you could not have chosen a more inspiring and delightful spot4 ,yes1 indeed1 he replied1 it seems too beautiful to leave4 ,the topic which agitated the little community was thus brought up for discussion1 and1 except for a brief prayer1 the ordinary ,sabbath exercises were set aside for this purpose4 ,all these people seemed polite and gentle in manner2 their simple-mindedness was noticeable1 and their ignorance was abysmal1 though ,i believe they could all read the ,bible and do a little writing and arithmetic4 ,in the facial expression of every one ,i thought ,i could see something that betrayed more or less of a lapse from complete sanity4 ,only one of the whole number showed any sense of humour1 a keen-eyed old woman1 yclept ,sister ,caroline1 who could argue neatly and make quaint retorts4 ,she and the man of saintly face were the only interesting personalities2 the rest were but soulless clods4 ,it soon appeared that the belief in terrestrial immortality had not yet been seriously shaken by ,father ,howland's demise4 ,there were some curious incipient symptoms of a resurrection myth4 ,their leader's death had been heralded by signs and portents4 ,one aged brother1 while taking his afternoon nap in a rocking-chair1 fell forward upon the floor1 bringing down the chair upon his back2 and at that identical moment another brother rushed in from the garden1 exclaiming1 ,i have seen with these eyes the glory of the ,lord revealed6 ,evidently1 the fall of the rocking-chair prefigured the fall of the wood-pile1 and the moment of ,howland's fatal injury was the moment of his glorification4 ,then it was remembered by ,sister ,caroline and others that he had lately foretold his apparent death1 and declared that it was to be only an appearance4 ,though ,i shall seem to be dead1 it will only be for a little while1 and then ,i shall return to you4 ,the morning's conversation made it clear that these simple folk were unanimous in believing that the completion of ,father ,howland's work demanded his presence for a short time in the other world1 and that he would within a few more weeks or months return to them4 ,it seemed to ,dr4 ,james and myself that the conditions were favourable to the sudden growth of a belief in his resurrection1 and for some time after that visit we half expected to hear that one or more of the household had seen him4 ,in this1 however1 we were disappointed4 ,i suspect that its mental soil may1 after all1 have been too barren for such a growth4 ,seven years elapsed before my second and last visit to these worthy people4 ,in the mean time a large addition had been made to the principal house1 nearly doubling its capacity2 and ,i was told that the community had been legally incorporated under the ,hebrew title of ,adoni-shomo1 or ,the ,lord is there4 ,one would naturally infer that the membership had increased1 but the true explanation was very different4 ,on a ,saturday afternoon in the summer of #ahhb1 in company with fifteen friends1 ,i visited the community4 ,our reception this time was something more than polite2 there was a noticeable warmth of welcome about it4 ,we were ushered into one of the newly built rooms1--a long chapel1 with seats on either side and a reading-desk at one end4 ,all the women1 both hosts and guests1 took their seats on one side1 all the men on the other4 ,a whisper from my neighbour informed me that the community was reduced to twelve persons3 thus the guests outnumbered the hosts4 ,the high priest1 ,father ,richards1 a venerable man of ruddy hue1 with enormous beard as white as snow1 stood by the reading-desk1 and in broken tones gave thanks to ,god1 while abundant tears coursed down his cheeks4 ,now1 he said1 at last the word of the ,lord was fulfilled4 ,two or three years ago the word had come that they must build a chapel and add to their living-rooms1 for they were about to receive a large accession of new converts4 ,so--just think of it1 gentle reader1 in the last quarter of this skeptical century--there was faith enough on that rugged mountain-side to put three or four thousand dollars1 earned with pork and apple-sauce1 into solid masonry and timber-work6 ,and now at last1 said ,father ,richards1 in the arrival of this goodly company the word of the ,lord was fulfilled6 ,it seemed cruel to disturb such jubilant assurance1 but we soon found that we need not worry ourselves on that score4 ,the old man's faith was a rock on which unwelcome facts were quickly wrecked4 ,though we took pains to make it clear that we had only come for a visit1 it was equally clear to him that we were to be converted that very afternoon1 and would soon come to abide with the ,adoni-shomo4 ,then ,sister ,caroline1 stepping forward1 made a long metaphysical harangue1 at the close of which she walked up one side of the room and down the other1 taking each person by the hand and saying to each a few words4 ,when she came to me she suddenly broke out with a stream of gibberish1 and went on for five mortal minutes1 pouring it forth as glibly as if it had been her mother tongue4 ,after the meeting had broken up1 ,i was informed that this speaking with tongues was not uncommon with the ,adoni-shomo4 ,a wicked wag in our party then asked ,sister ,caroline if she knew what language it was in which she had addressed me4 ,no1 sir1 she replied1 nor do ,i know the meaning of what ,i said3 ,i only uttered what the ,lord put into my mouth4 ,well1 said this graceless scoffer1 with face as sober as a deacon's1 ,i am thoroughly familiar with ,hebrew1 and ,i recognized at once the very dialect of ,galilee as spoken when our ,saviour was on the earth6 ,at this1 ,i need hardly add1 ,sister ,caroline was highly pleased4 ,by this time there had been so many deaths that induction by simple enumeration was getting to be too much for the ,adoni-shomo4 ,they were beginning to realize the old ,scotchman's conception of the elect3 ,eh1 ,jamie6 hoo mony d'ye thank there be of the elact noo alive on earth8 ,eh6 mabbee a doozen4 ,hoot1 mon1 nae sae mony as thot6 ,we found our worthy hosts less willing than of old to discuss their doctrine of terrestrial immortality1 and there were symptoms of a tendency to give it a ,pickwickian construction4 ,since that day1 their little community has vanished1 and its glorious landscape knows it no more4 ,it is a pity that before the end it should not have had a visit from ,mr4 ,hyland ,c4 ,kirk1 whose book on ,the ,possibility of ,not ,dying was published in ,new ,york in #ahhc4 ,in this book the philosophic plausibleness of the opinion that a time will come when we shall no longer need to shuffle off this mortal coil is argued at some length1 but the question as to how this is to happen is ignored4 ,mr4 ,isaac ,jennings1 in his ,tree of ,life 7#ahfg71 thinks it can be accomplished by total abstinence from alcohol1 tobacco1 coffee1 tea1 animal food1 spices1 and caraway4 ,this is sufficiently specific2 but ,mr4 ,kirk's treatment of the question is so hazy as to suggest the suspicion that he has nothing to offer us4 ,i once knew such a case of a delusion without any theory1 or1 if you please1 the grin without the ,cheshire cat4 ,in the course of a lecturing journey1 some thirty years ago1 ,i was approached by a refined and cultivated gentleman1 who imparted to me in strict confidence and with much modesty of manner the fact that he had arrived at a complete refutation of the undulatory theory of light6 ,to ask him for some statement of his own theory was but ordinary courtesy2 but whenever we arrived at this point--which happened perhaps half a dozen times--he would put on a smile of mystery and decline to pursue the subject4 ,i assured him that he need have no fear of my stealing his thunder1 for ,i had not the requisite knowledge2 but he grew more darkly mysterious than ever1 and said that the time for him to speak had not yet come4 ,a few months later1 this gentleman1 whom ,i will designate as ,mr4 ,flighty1 appeared in ,cambridge1 and came to my desk in the college library4 ,distress was written in his face4 ,he had called upon ,professor ,silliman and other professors in ,eastern colleges1 and had been shabbily treated4 ,nobody had shown him any politeness except ,professor ,youmans1 in whom he believed he had found a convert4 ,ah6 ,i exclaimed1 then you told him your theory2 perhaps the time has come when you can tell it to me4 ,but no2 again came the subtle smile1 and he began to descant upon the persecution of ,galileo1 a favourite topic with cranks of all sorts4 ,he asked me for some of the best books on the undulatory theory1 and ,i gave him ,cauchy1 whereat he stood aghast1 and said the book was full of mathematics which he could not read2 but he would like to see ,newton's ,opticks1 for that book did not uphold the undulatory theory4 ,oh6 said ,i1 then are you falling back on the corpuscular theory8 ,no1 indeed2 mine is neither the one nor the other1 and again came the ,sibylline smile4 ,as ,i went for the book1 ,i found ,professor ,lovering in the alcove1 halfway up a tall ladder4 ,hallo6 said ,i sotto voce4 ,there is a man in here who has upset the undulatory theory of light2 do you want to see him8 ,heavens1 no6 ,can't you inveigle him into some dark corner while ,i run away8 ,don't worry1 ,i replied1--make yourself comfortable2 ,i'll keep him from you4 ,so ,i lured ,mr4 ,flighty into a discourse on the bigotry of scientific folk1 while ,old ,joe1 whose fears were not so easily allayed1 soon stealthily emerged from his alcove and hurried from the hall4 ,the next time that ,i happened to be in ,new ,york1 chatting with ,youmans at the ,century ,club1 ,i alluded to ,mr4 ,flighty1 who believed he had made a convert of him4 ,ay1 ay1 rejoined ,youmans1 and he said the same of you4 ,indeed6 ,well1 ,i suspected as much4 ,unless you drive a crank from the room with cuffs and jeers1 he is sure to think you agree with him4 ,i do not yet know what ,mr4 ,flighty's theory is4 ,nor ,i1 said ,youmans4 ,do you believe he has any theory at all8 ,not a bit of it4 ,he is a madman1 and his belief that he has a theory is simply the form which his delusion takes4 ,exactly so1 ,i said2 and so it proved4 ,severe business troubles had wrecked ,mr4 ,flighty's mind1 and it was not long before we heard that he had killed himself in a fit of acute mania4 ,my story must not end with such a gruesome affair4 ,out of the many queer people ,i have known1 let me mention one who is associated with pleasant memories of childhood and youth4 ,this man was no charlatan1 but a learned naturalist1 of solid and genuine scientific attainments1 who came to be a little daft in his old age4 ,dr4 ,joseph ,barratt1 whose life extended over three fourths of the present century1 was born in ,england4 ,he was at one time a pupil of ,cuvier1 and cherished his memory with the idolatrous affection which that wonderful man seems always to have inspired4 ,dr4 ,barratt1 as a physician practising in ,middletown1 ,connecticut1 is one of the earliest figures in my memory1--a quaint and lovable figure4 ,his attainments in botany and comparative anatomy were extensive2 he was more or less of a geologist1 and well read withal in history and general literature1 besides being a fair linguist4 ,though eminently susceptible of the tender passion1 he never married2 he was neither a householder nor an autocrat of the breakfast table1 but dwelt hermit-like in a queer snuggery over somebody's shop4 ,his working-room was a rare sight2 so much confusion has not been seen since this fair world weltered in its primeval chaos4 ,with its cases of mineral and botanical specimens1 stuffed birds and skeletons galore2 with its beetles and spiders mounted on pins1 its brains of divers creatures in jars of alcohol1 its weird retorts and crucibles1 its microscopes and surgeon's tools1 its shelves of mysterious liquids in vials1 its slabs of ,portland sandstone bearing footprints of ,triassic dinosaurs1 and near the door a grim pterodactyl keeping guard over all1 it might have been the necromancing den of a ,sidrophel4 ,maps and crayon sketches1 mingled with femurs and vertebr1 sprawled over tables and sofas and cumbered the chairs1 till there was scarcely a place to sit down1 while everywhere in direst helter-skelter yawned and toppled the books4 ,and such books6 ,there ,i first browsed in ,geoffroy ,st4 ,hilaire and ,lamarck and ,blainville1 and passed enchanted hours with the ,rgne ,animal4 ,the doctor was a courtly gentleman of the old stripe1 and never did he clear a chair for me without an apology1 saying that he only awaited a leisure day to put all things in strictest order4 ,dear soul6 that day never came4 ,dr4 ,barratt was of course intensely interested in the ,portland quarries1 and they furnished the theme of the monomania which overtook him at about his sixtieth year4 ,he accepted with enthusiasm the geological proofs of the antiquity of man in ,europe1 and presently undertook to reinforce them by proofs of his own gathering in the ,connecticut ,valley4 ,an initial difficulty confronted him4 ,the red freestone of that region belongs to the ,triassic period1 the oldest of the secondary series4 ,it was an age of giant reptiles1 contemporary with the earliest specimens of mammalian life1 and not a likely place in which to look for relics of the highest of mammals4 ,but ,dr4 ,barratt insisted that this freestone is ,eocene1 thus bringing it into the tertiary series2 and while geologists in general were unwilling to admit the existence of man before the ,pleistocene period1 he boldly carried it back to the ,eocene4 ,thus1 by adding a few million years to the antiquity of mankind and subtracting a few million from that of the rocks1 he was enabled at once to maintain that he had discovered in the ,portland freestone the indisputable remains of an ancient human being with only three fingers1 upon whom he bestowed the name of ,homo tridactylus4 ,for companions he gave this personage four species of kangaroo1 and from that time forth discoveries multiplied4 ,such claims1 when presented before learned societies with the doctor's quaint enthusiasm1 and illustrated by his marvellous crayon sketches1 were greeted with shouts of laughter4 ,among the geologists who chiefly provoked his wrath was the celebrated student of fossil footprints1 ,dr4 ,edward ,hitchcock4 ,why1 sir1 he would exclaim1 ,dr4 ,hitchcock is a perfect fool1 sir6 ,i can teach ten of him1 sir6 ,in spite of all scoffs and rebuffs1 the old gentleman moved on to the end serene in his unshakable convictions4 ,a courteous listener was1 of course1 a rare boon to him2 and so1 in that little town1 it became his habit to confide his new discoveries to me4 ,when ,i was out walking1 if chary of my half hours 7as sometimes happened71 a long detour would be necessary1 to avoid his accustomed haunts2 and once1 on my return from a journey1 ,i had hardly rung the doorbell when he appeared on the veranda with an essay entitled ,an ,eocene ,picnic1 which he hoped to publish in ,the ,atlantic ,monthly1 and which he insisted upon reading to me then and there4 ,at one time a very large bone was found in one of the quarries1 which was pronounced by ,dr4 ,hitchcock to have belonged to an extinct batrachian2 but ,dr4 ,barratt saw in it the bone of a pachyderm4 ,why1 sir1 said he1 it was their principal beast of burden1--as big as a rhinoceros and as gentle as a lamb4 ,the children of ,homo tridactylus used to play about his feet1 sir1 in perfect safety4 ,i call him ,mega-ergaton docile1 'the teachable great-worker4' ,liddell and ,scott give only the masculine1 ergates1 but for a beast of burden1 sir1 ,i prefer the neuter form4 ,a gigantic pachyderm1 sir2 and ,dr4 ,hitchcock1 sir1 perfect fool1 sir1 says it was a bullfrog6 ,the mortal remains of this gentle palontologist rest in the beautiful ,indian ,hill ,cemetery at ,middletown1 and his gravestone1 designed and placed there by my dear friend1 the late ,charles ,browning1 is appropriate and noble4 ,for the doctor was after all a sterling man1 whose unobtrusive merits were great1 while his foibles were not important4 ,the stone is a piece of fossil tree-trunk1 brought over from ,portland1 imbedded in an amorphous block untouched by chisel1 save where1 on a bit of polished surface1 one reads the name and dates1 with the simple legend1 ,the ,testimony of the ,rocks4 ,november1 #ahih4 ,,note ,,an ,,account ,,of ,,the ,,adoni-,,shomo ,,community ,from the ,springfield ,republican4 7#ahgf47 ,as queer a people as are often met1 and apparently as upright and religious1 withal1 are the ,community situated on the stage-road between ,athol and ,petersham1 and commonly known thereabouts as ,howlandites or ,fullerites4 ,according to their account1 nearly twenty-one years ago1 two ,worcester women1 ,mrs4 ,sarah ,j4 ,hervey and her sister1 ,caroline ,e4 ,hawks1 had come to hope for a divine revelation to them1 and in expectation of it had gone to a camp-meeting at ,groton4 ,entering the meeting they heard a stranger talking in tongues1 who proved to be the man to meet their wants1 in the person of ,frederick ,t4 ,howland1 a ,quaker1 of good social standing1 from ,new ,bedford4 ,that day1 ,september #ae1 #ahee1 was the origin in the faith1 though not in temporal association1 of the ,community1 these three being the pioneers1 as ,sister ,hervey takes pride in calling herself and associates4 ,mrs4 ,hervey's husband died a year or two later1 though not in the faith1 these things1 as they say1 having been beyond him4 ,soon after1 the new belief received the addition of eight persons from ,athol1 among them ,leonard ,c4 ,fuller1 the present ,spiritual head of the ,community1 and his wife4 ,in ,may1 #ahfa1 having been moved by the ,spirit to form an association for living together1 they settled at ,fuller's1 at the south end of ,pleasant ,street in ,athol4 ,in ,august1 #ahfd1 they removed to their present farm in ,petersham4 ,brother ,howland held the position of head of the body till killed by a runaway horse1 not quite two years ago4 ,his people considered him a prophet1 and say the ,lord spoke by him1 and that he led them as ,moses led the people of ,israel4 ,their religious belief in many respects resembles that of the ,adventists1 but differs in the vital point1 that the reign of ,christ1 under the expected new dispensation1 is to be spiritual1 and not personal1 as the ,adventists hold4 ,they construe the saying of ,john the ,revelator1 ,i was in the ,spirit on the ,lord's day1 to refer to a period of time to begin with the #gjjjth year of the world1 which is near at hand4 ,the judgment day they believe has already begun1 and in a short time1 at the opening of the new dispensation1 the holy dead are to be raised4 ,when a man who has only received common salvation dies1 he has no consciousness till the resurrection2 but some1 who are specially saved1 will not die4 ,miracles will be performed commonly4 ,when the new dispensation begins they are to be of the #add1jjj spoken of by ,john1 and are to judge the nations4 ,they do not believe in a hypothetical heaven somewhere in space2 the earth is not to be destroyed but changed2 and finally the devil is to be bound for a thousand years4 ,they entirely denounce ,spiritualism1 saying that it is from the ,devil1 or ,antichrist4 ,brother ,howland1 they say1 lay down to rise with the prophets1 and they have written out what they claim to be prophecies made by him months or years before his death as to the manner in which it should occur1 which1 judged by the event1 are certainly striking4 ,the ,community live mostly upon farinaceous food2 they drink principally water1 sometimes herb tea4 ,no flesh is eaten1 because there is to be a restitution of the order of things that prevailed in the garden of ,eden1 and nothing that grows in the ground1 because the ground is cursed4 ,they live on the apostolic plan of having all property in common4 ,if any among them wish to get married1 they have to leave the ,community4 ,morning and evening they wait before the ,lord1 standing1 repeat the ,lord's prayer1 and read and explain the ,bible1 as the ,spirit gives utterance4 ,although the district public school is only a stone's throw away1 the half-dozen children of the ,community1 whom they have adopted1 as the ,lord sent them1 are taught at home by ,sister ,hervey4 ,sometimes1 the neighbours' children come in1 also1 and they are said to do better there than at the public school4 ,the school gives an occasional visit before the family1 and a ,christmas tree is provided4 ,no jewelry is worn1 and they dress very plainly2 though the world's people claim that the ,community wear as expensive fixin's and show as much pride as they do4 ,the ,community observe a seventh-day ,sabbath1 extending from #f ,p4 ,m41 ,friday1 to the same hour1 ,saturday4 ,the exercises begin at #aj o'clock1 ,saturday1 and continue without intermission till #c4 ,they are of the opinion that they need not go to a synagogue or where the minister has to go 'round and wake the people up1 as he did down to the ,advent ,church in ,athol1 last ,sunday4 ,the family seat themselves in the parlour on three sides of the room1 with the occasional visitors on the fourth side2 and the exercises consist of exhortations by the various members1 according as they are moved by the ,spirit1 with abundant amens from the rest4 ,if no one feels called upon to speak1 they study the ,bible4 ,often they break out into singing4 ,the house is free to visitors at all times4 ,last year from ,june to ,october1 they had over two hundred visitors1 among them nineteen1 unexpectedly1 one ,sabbath4#eb ,their number1 now about twenty1 varies from time to time4 ,they say they do not expect additions1 though recently they have received two or three which they count of considerable importance4 ,one of them is a woman1 formerly a member of the ,shaker ,community at ,dayton1 ,o41 where she was not satisfied1 who walked all the way from ,ohio to join them2 another is an ex-,baptist minister from ,athol4 ,they say they have suffered considerable persecution for righteousness' sake4 ,mrs4 ,fuller thinks she was cheated out of property which her mother left her1 and1 because of the faith1 two of their number1 while sick1 they say1 were turned out of a house on ,school ,street in this city4 ,they add1 however1 that those forward in opposing them have died sudden or violent deaths4 ,on the other hand1 they are prospering2 they own a farm of two hundred and ten acres1 and ,brother ,asa ,richards1 their ,temporal head1 raises stock1 grain1 fruits1 etc41 nearly sufficient to support them4 ,brother ,fuller1 though their ,spiritual head1#ec does the marketing1 principally in ,athol4 ,they have decided to enlarge the house and build a chapel in a short time1 if the ,lord permits4 ,last winter1 to protect their property1 they went to the secretary of the ,commonwealth and were organized under recent state laws as a corporation1 with all the powers of a chartered body1 under the name of ,adoni-shomo1 ,hebrew for the ,lord is there2 that name being found in ,ezekiel xlviii4 #ce4 ,all their property will now remain in the ,community while a single member of it is living4 ,it may be added that the views which outsiders hold of their ,community do not always agree with their own4 ,a brother named ,mann died1 last fall1 and1 by their own confession1 they had some difficulty with his heirs1 but finally settled for a nominal sum4 ,at first they refused to pay over anything1 but the heirs1 four in number1 threatening law1 they finally concluded that the ,lord willed them to give up #hjj4 ,the common belief is that ,mann was worth as many thousands2 at any rate1 the ,petersham property was deeded to him in connection with ,howland4 ,athol people scout the idea that ,howland had prophetic powers1 and think that the ,community was simply the result of a shrewd plan of his to get a living without working for it4 ,,index ,abbot1 ,ezra1 #dje4 ,adams1 ,john1 #aej4 ,adams1 ,samuel1 #aee1 #cjj4 ,adoni-shomo1 a religious community1 #ddi-deb4 ,agassiz1 ,louis1 #gg1 #cab4 ,agricultural chemistry1 #gc4 ,alabama ,claims1 #agb1 #agf4 ,albigenses1 crusade against the1 #acb4 ,alger1 ,w4 ,r41 #ic4 ,algol1 a multiple star1 #g4 ,alphabet puzzle1 #dce4 ,altruism1 #aac4 ,america1 discovery of1 #abc1 #abd2 effects of its discovery upon political freedom1 #abg4 ,american history1 picturesqueness of1 #aig-aii4 ,ames1 ,fisher1 #cjj4 ,anachronisms in ,shakespeare's plays1 #chi4 ,anaxagoras1 #aag4 ,anglophobia of ,scotchmen in former times1 #aha4 ,anthropocentric thought1 #aaa1 #aab4 ,appleton1 ,d41 ,co41 #hi-ia4 ,arbitration1 instances of1 #agf1 #agg2 among the ancient ,greeks1 #ahb2 among the ,italian republics1 #ahc4 ,arbitration ,treaty between the ,united ,states and ,great ,britain1 #afe-aic4 ,arnold1 ,matthew1 on translating ,homer1 #cec4 ,arts1 beginning of1 #aah-abj4 ,aryan languages1 #ca1 #cb4 ,asbjoernsen's folk-tales of ,norway1 #cbe4 ,astley1 ,sir ,jacob1 #afj4 ,astronomy at the ,harvard ,observatory1 #cji4 ,athanasius1 #ec4 ,athenum ,press1 the1 #cji4 ,atomic theory1 #bh4 ,augustine1 #ec4 ,avogadro's law of gaseous volumes1 #bh4 ,aztecs1 #bji4 ,bacon1 ,delia1 a paradoxer1 #cea1 #cef1 #che1 #cii1 #djb1 #ddj4 ,bacon1 ,francis1 #cef1 #ceg1 #cfg1 #cgj1 #cgd1 #cge1 #cgh1 #cgi1 #cha1 #chc1 #che-cih1 #djc1 #djd4 ,bacon-,shakespeare folly1 #cej-djd1 #daj4 ,baer1 ,k4 ,e4 von1 #ah1 #ai1 #be1 #da4 ,balance1 use of1 #b1 #c4 ,baptists1 #adh4 ,barbarism1 types of1 #cb-cd4 ,barratt1 ,joseph1 #dee-dei4 ,bathybius1 #cdc-cde4 ,baxter1 ,richard1 #aed4 ,beaumont1 ,francis1 #cgd4 ,beecher1 ,henry ,ward1 #ib4 ,bellerophon1 his letter1 #ced4 ,bessel1 ,f4 ,w41 #f4 ,biblical chronology disturbed by geologists1 #i4 ,bichat1 ,x41 his study of tissues1 #ag4 ,big ,crow1 a ,sioux chief1 #bdj4 ,biglow1 ,hosea1 on the right to be a fool1 #age2 on the ,yankee dialect1 #bih2 on citified ,english1 #cga4 ,black1 ,joseph1 his discovery of latent heat1 #aj4 ,blackfriars ,theatre1 #cgh4 ,blake1 ,robert1 #aed4 ,blue ,anchor ,tavern1 #big4 ,boccaccio1 ,g41 #cei4 ,bond1 ,g4 ,p41 #cji4 ,bond1 ,w4 ,c41 #cji4 ,bopp1 ,franz1 #cj4 ,boughton1 ,sir ,t41 #chb4 ,bouquet1 ,henry1 #bjg4 ,bowditch1 ,nathaniel1 #dcd4 ,brbeuf1 ,j41 #aii4 ,bridge1 ,john1 #bic4 ,bridges of ,cambridge1 #cjb4 ,bridgman1 ,laura1 #cce4 ,brougham1 ,lord1 #dab4 ,brown1 ,marie1 a paradoxer1 #dda4 ,browning1 ,charles1 #dei4 ,bchner1 ,l41 #ed4 ,buckle1 ,h4 ,t41 #bah4 ,buller1 ,sir ,francis1 his absurd charge to the jury1 #chb4 ,bunker ,hill1 #cja4 ,bunyan1 ,john1 #djc4 ,burghley1 ,lord1 #cfd4 ,burke1 ,edmund1 #aid4 ,burton1 ,robert1 #djc4 ,cabanis1 ,pierre1 #ee4 ,calvin1 ,j41 #acj4 ,cambridge1 ,mass41 its history1 #bhf-cah2 originally intended to be capital of ,massachusetts1 #bij2 in what sense the daughter of ,cambridge1 ,england1 #bie2 complex nature of its growth1 #cjf2 its extensive manufactures1 #cjg-cji2 excellence of its municipal government1 #caf1 #cag4 ,camden1 ,william1 #cgd4 ,carlyle1 ,thomas1 #bah4 ,caroline1 ,sister1 #ddg1 #dej1 #dea4 ,carpenter1 ,w41 a paradoxer1 #dba4 ,catastrophes in geology1 #ba4 ,catholics1 disfranchised in ,rhode ,island1 #aci4 ,causans1 ,m4 de1 a circle-squarer1 #dcd4 ,cavaliers in ,virginia1 #adb4 ,cavendish1 ,henry1 his analysis of water1 #bi4 ,champlain1 ,s41 #aii1 #bjc1 #baj4 ,chancery phrases seldom found in ,shakespeare1 #chc4 ,chapman1 ,george1 #ceg1 #cei1 #cgc1 #che4 ,charles ,i41 #bij4 ,charles ,,ii41 #acg1 #afe4 ,chemical chart1 devised by ,e4 ,l4 ,youmans1 #gi4 ,chemistry1 ,youmans's textbook of1 #hj1 #ha4 ,christ ,church in ,cambridge1 #bih4 ,cieza de ,leon1 #bjb4 ,circle-squaring1 #djf-djh1 #daa-dag4 ,cities in ,massachusetts1 #cje4 ,clan ownership1 #cc4 ,clarendon1 ,earl of1 #aeh4 ,clark1 ,j4 ,s41 #ic1 #ajj4 ,class ,day forty years ago1 #caa4 ,classification of organisms1 significance of1 #ad1 #ae4 ,cleveland1 ,grover1 #age2 his ,venezuela message1 #agi4 ,coin's ,financial ,school1 #dcf4 ,coke1 ,edward1 #cgd1 #cic4 ,columbus1 ,christopher1 #abc4 ,commercial spirit and ecclesiastical spirit1 antagonism between1 #acd-acf4 ,comparative method1 #cj-ce4 ,comte1 ,auguste1 his assertion that a stellar astronomy is impossible1 #f2 failure of his philosophy1 #ac1 #ad1 #hh4 ,conn ,maol1 #cbg4 ,congress of ,american ,colonies1 #aia4 ,congresses1 ,international1 #ahh1 #ahi4 ,connecticut1 founding of1 #ade4 ,controverted questions between the ,united ,states and ,great ,britain1 #aga1 #agb4 ,cook1 ,joseph1 #ccc-cdi4 ,cooper1 ,james ,fenimore1 unreality of his ,indians1 #bjj4 ,copernicus1 ,n41 #ajb1 #aaa1 #abe4 ,copyright1 international1 #ig4 ,correlation of forces1 #bg1 #bh1 #ee1 #ig4 ,cortes1 ,h41 #abc4 ,cotton1 ,john1 #aci1 #adf1 #bbe4 ,criminal trials1 #chb4 ,cromwell1 ,oliver1 #aed-afd4 ,culmer1 ,frederick1 a paradoxer1 #dbe1 #dbf4 ,culture1 early stages of1 #cb-cd4 ,cumulative action1 #aa1 #ab1 #gg1 #aja4 ,curtin1 ,jeremiah1 #cbj-ccb4 ,curtis1 ,b4 ,r41 #cjj4 ,cuvier1 his classification of animals in space and time1 #af1 #ag4 ,dalton's law of proportions1 #bh4 ,darwin1 ,charles1 #ba-bd1 #cj1 #dj1 #di1 #gg1 #ajc-aje1 #cce1 #cfc1 #chf4 ,darwin1 ,george ,howard1 #h4 ,defoe1 ,daniel1 #djd4 ,delitzsch1 ,franz1 #cda4 ,de ,morgan1 ,augustus1 #daa-dai1 #dbg1 #dce4 ,derby1 ,earl of1 #aid4 ,descartes1 ,ren1 #abe4 ,dickens1 ,charles1 #cgj4 ,differentiation1 #dd4 ,dingle1 ,edward1 a paradoxer1 #dca4 ,diogenes1 on the possibility of motion1 #fa4 ,disarmament1 #aia-aic4 ,disqualifications1 religious1 #adc4 ,dobbs1 a caravan doctor1 #bdg4 ,dogberry1 #cie4 ,donellan1 ,john1 famous case of1 #chb4 ,donne1 ,john1 #cgd4 ,donnelly1 ,ignatius1 a paradoxer1 #cih1 #djc1 #ddj4 ,doyle1 ,j4 ,a41 #aee4 ,dudley1 ,joseph1 #adf4 ,dummkopf1 ,herr1 substituted name for a paradoxer1 #djh1 #dji4 ,dunster1 ,henry1 #bid4 ,dying1 how to avoid1 #daa-deb4 ,dynamical conception of the world1 #cf4 ,east ,gate of ,cambridge1 #bif4 ,eccentric literature1 #dji-ddd4 ,ecclesiasticism and commercialism1 antagonism between1 #acd-acf4 ,edward ,i41 #acj4 ,edward ,,iii41 #acj1 #acf4 ,edwards1 ,jonathan1 #adg1 #adh1 #afd4 ,electoral ,commission of #ahgg1 #agc4 ,eliot1 ,george1 #cec1 #ced4 ,eliot1 ,john1 #aeg4 ,elizabeth1 ,queen1 #aca1 #acb4 ,elze1 ,k41 #cgb4 ,embryology1 its lessons1 #af4 ,emerson1 ,r4 ,w41 #ade1 #aej4 ,endicott1 ,john1 #adc1 #add4 ,evolution1 #ce-ch2 and the study of history1 #db1 #fe1 #ff4 ,facts vs4 theories1 #ba4 ,fairfax1 ,thomas1 #aeg4 ,faraday1 ,m41 his discovery of magneto-electric induction1 #bg4 ,farmer ,weathersky1 #cbi4 ,fenian legends1 #cbg4 ,fifth ,monarchists1 #afd4 ,fischer1 ,kuno1 #chf4 ,fletcher1 ,john1 #cgd1 #cie4 ,flighty1 ,mr41 substituted name for a paradoxer1 #deb-dee4 ,forman1 ,captain1 a paradoxer1 #dab1 #dac4 ,forsyth1 ,w41 #aid4 ,foster1 ,john1 #aee4 ,fox-hunting1 condemned by ,e4 ,a4 ,freeman1 #bhc4 ,france and ,england1 their struggle for ,north ,america1 #baf4 ,franklin1 ,benjamin1 #fi1 #ade1 #aej4 ,freedom of thought1 unpopularity of1 #abh1 #aeb4 ,freeman1 ,e4 ,a41 #cj2 his birth1 #bfe2 leading events of his life1 #bff2 his early work in architecture1 #bfg2 his breadth of view1 #bfh2 his historical essays1 #bfi2 his book on federal government1 #bfi-bgb2 his ,norman ,conquest and ,william ,rufus1 #bgb-bgd2 his miscellaneous work1 especially relating to eastern ,europe1 #bge2 his lectures on comparative politics1 #bgf2 his work on historical geography1 #bgg2 other work1 #bgh1 #bgi2 his history of ,sicily1 #bgi1 #bhj2 his premature death1 #bha2 his warfare against fools and tyrants1 #bha1 #bhb2 his wholesome view of the ,eastern ,question1 #bhb2 his condemnation of fox-hunting1 #bhc2 his domestic habits1 #bhc4 ,french heroism1 #bah4 ,french materialists of the #ahth century1 #aaf1 #aag4 ,french war of #agee-agfc2 its importance not generally comprehended1 #bea4 ,fresnel1 ,a4 ,j41 #bg4 ,frontenac1 ,count1 #baj4 ,frothingham1 ,octavius ,brooks1 #bbe1 #beg1 #bfj4 ,froude1 ,j4 ,c41 #aid4 ,fuller1 ,thomas1 #cgd4 ,gaelic language1 its pathetic fate1 #cbj-cbc4 ,galapagos ,islands1 #bc4 ,galen1 #djj4 ,galileo1 #ddd1 #dec4 ,garcilasso de la ,vega1 #bjb4 ,gardiner1 ,s4 ,r41 #aef4 ,gerry1 ,elbridge1 #cjj4 ,god's ,acre in ,cambridge1 #bif4 ,goethe1 ,johann ,wolfgang von1 one of the first among evolutionists1 #ad1 #ae1 #da1 #fb4 ,gravitation1 theory of1 called atheistic1 #i2 forbidden to be taught in ,spain1 #abf4 ,gray1 ,asa1 #cj1 #cab1 #cdi4 ,gray1 ,thomas1 #aeg4 ,great ,awakening1 the1 #adg1 #adh4 ,great ,design1 the1 of ,henry ,,iv41 #aij4 ,greece in primitive times1 #baa1 #bab4 ,greene1 ,robert1 #cgc1 #chd4 ,grove1 ,sir ,w41 #bg4 ,gruagach of ,tricks1 the1 #cbi-cca4 ,gumpach1 ,johannes1 a paradoxer1 #dah4 ,gurney1 ,e4 ,w41 #ic4 ,haddon ,hall1 #abc4 ,haeckel1 ,ernst1 his materialism refuted1 #ea-fb1 #aae1 #aaf4 ,hail-,storm1 a young warrior1 #bdc-bde4 ,hales1 ,sir ,james1 case of1 #cgi1 #chj4 ,half-way ,covenant1 #adf-adh4 ,hall1 ,caroline1 #bbe4 ,hall1 ,nathaniel1 #bbe4 ,hamilton1 ,alexander1 #aeg1 #ahj4 ,hampden1 ,john1 #aeg4 ,hampden1 ,john1 a paradoxer1 #dai4 ,harvard ,college1 founding of1 #afa1 #bid4 ,harvey1 ,william1 on the advance from simplicity to complexity1 #da2 his remark about ,bacon1 #chh2 his discovery of the circulation of blood1 #djj1 #dja4 ,hathaway1 ,anne1 her cottage at ,shottery1 #cfe4 ,helium1 #g4 ,helmholtz1 ,hermann ,ludwig ,ferdinand von1 #bg4 ,helps1 ,sir ,arthur1 #fd4 ,henry ,v4 of ,england1 #abe4 ,henry ,,viii4 of ,england1 #abi1 #acd4 ,henry the ,navigator1 ,prince1 #abc4 ,herbert1 ,edward1 #cgd4 ,herschel1 ,sir ,john1 #dab4 ,heterogeneity1 #dd4 ,higginson1 ,t4 ,w41 #aid4 ,hippocrates1 #djj4 ,historian1 requirements for making an1 #bjh4 ,hitchcock1 ,edward1 #deh1 #dei4 ,hodge1 a circle-squarer1 #dac-daf4 ,holinshed1 ,raphael1 #ceh4 ,holmes1 ,nathaniel1 a paradoxer1 #cgi-cha1 #ddj4 ,holmes1 ,o4 ,w41 his birthplace1 #cja4 ,homo tridactylus1 #deh4 ,homogeneity1 #dd4 ,hook1 ,theodore1 #cej4 ,hooker1 ,sir ,j41 #bj4 ,hooker1 ,richard1 #ec1 #cgc4 ,hooker1 ,thomas1 #bib4 ,hosmer1 ,j4 ,k41 #aef-afe4 ,household science1 #ig4 ,howland1 ,father1 #ddd1 #dde1 #ddh4 ,human sacrifices1 #cd4 ,human soul1 centre of ,spencerian world1 #dh4 ,humboldt1 ,alexander von1 #dbb4 ,humour1 ,bacon's deficiency in1 #dij2 seldom found in cranks1 #daj4 ,hunter1 ,sir ,john1 #chb4 ,hutchinson1 ,anne1 #afa1 #bib4 ,hutchinson1 ,thomas1 #bia1 #cjj4 ,hutton1 ,james1 his theory of the earth1 #aj4 ,huxley1 ,t4 ,h41 #ag1 #cj1 #ia1 #ie1 #ccg1 #cdc-cdh1 #cfa1 #cfc4 ,huyghens1 ,christian1 #bf1 #bg4 ,immortality of the soul1 #fa1 #aad4 ,independency1 #aca-acd4 ,indestructibility of matter1 #bh4 ,infancy1 chief causes of the prolongation of human1 #ajf-aji2 effect of the prolongation of human1 #aji2 of the orang-outang1 #aje4 ,inquisition in ,spain1 effects of1 #abf4 ,insane literature1 #djg-dji4 ,integration1 #dd4 ,international ,scientific ,series1 #if1 #ig4 ,ireton1 ,henry1 #aeg4 ,irish folk-lore1 #cai-ccb4 ,iroquois farmers in the ,state of ,new ,york1 #bji4 ,isolation of the ,united ,states1 impossibility of maintaining1 #aic4 ,jackson1 ,hughlings1 #cfa1 #cfb4 ,james ,i41 #aca4 ,james ,,ii41 #acg4 ,james1 ,william1 #ddf1 #ddh4 ,jamestown1 founding of1 #aij ,japan1 ,mongolian invasion of1 #dcg4 ,jefferson1 ,thomas1 #ada1 #adb1 #aej1 #cje4 ,jennings1 ,isaac1 a paradoxer1 #deb4 ,jesuits in ,new ,france1 #abg4 ,jevons1 ,stanley1 #chh4 ,johnson1 ,edwin1 a paradoxer1 #dch1 #dci4 ,johnson1 ,rev4 ,samuel1 #hh4 ,jones1 ,inigo1 #cgd4 ,jonson1 ,ben1 #ceg1 #cff-cgj1 #cgd1 #cgh1 #che4 ,joule1 ,j4 ,p41 #bg4 ,jupiter1 the planet1 still feebly self-luminous1 #h4 ,kabaosa1 #bjj4 ,kant1 ,immanuel1 #bf1 #aej4 ,keats1 ,john1 #cei1 #cgd4 ,keely motor1 #dag4 ,kelvin1 ,lord1 on the size of atoms1 #bi4 ,kepler1 ,johannes1 #h4 ,king1 ,rufus1 #cjj4 ,king of ,sweden1 as an umpire1 #afg4 ,kinship1 reckoned through the mother1 #cc4 ,kirk1 ,h4 ,c41 a paradoxer1 #deb4 ,koch1 ,robert1 #bi4 ,kuhn1 ,adolph1 #cj4 ,lalemant1 ,j41 #aii4 ,lamb1 ,charles1 #cej4 ,lander1 ,william1 a paradoxer1 #dai4 ,landis1 ,john1 eccentric poet1 #ddc4 ,lang1 ,andrew1 on the ,homeric poems1 #cee4 ,langdon1 ,samuel1 #cja4 ,laplace1 ,marquis ,pierre ,simon de1 #dcd4 ,la ,salle1 ,robert1 #aii4 ,lavoisier1 ,a4 ,l41 his theory of combustion1 #c1 #cg4 ,lecturer1 hardships of a1 #hd4 ,lectures on science by ,e4 ,l4 ,youmans1 #hb-hg4 ,leibnitz1 ,g4 ,w41 #chi4 ,leslie1 ,alexander1 #aeh4 ,leve en masse1 system of1 #ahe1 #ahf4 ,lewes1 ,g4 ,h41 #cfa-ccc4 ,lewis and ,clark1 #bjc4 ,light1 undulatory theory of1 #bg4 ,lindemann's researches on ,pi1 #djg4 ,linguistic ,society of ,paris1 #ba4 ,linnus1 his system of classification1 #af2 his relation to evolution1 #da4 ,little1 ,brown ,co41 #aid1 #bje4 ,locke1 ,john1 #abe1 #acd4 ,lollardism1 #acj4 ,london1 size of1 in ,shakespeare's time1 #cge4 ,longfellow1 ,h4 ,w41 #cab4 ,lotze1 ,h4 ,r41 #cda4 ,louis ,,xiv41 #baf4 ,lovering1 ,joseph1 #ded4 ,lowell1 ,j4 ,r41 #bii1 #cab1 #cii4 ,lubbock1 ,sir ,j41 #ie4 ,luther1 ,martin1 #abe4 ,lutherans1 #adb4 ,lyell1 ,sir ,charles1 greatness of his work1 #aj-ac2 #g4 ,macaulay1 ,lord1 #aef1 #chg4 ,madison1 ,james1 #ada-adc1 #aeg4 ,maine1 ,sir ,henry1 #ba1 #cj4 ,malpighi1 ,m41 #dja4 ,manipulation1 its importance in the evolution of man1 #aag1 #aah4 ,manuscripts used by ,parkman1 #bjd4 ,marie de l',incarnation1 #aii4 ,marlowe1 ,christopher1 #cgc1 #che4 ,maryland1 #acf4 ,massachusetts1 growth of liberal thought in1 #add-adi4 ,masson1 ,david1 #aef4 ,mastodon1 #dcg4 ,materialism1 attacked by ,herbert ,spencer1 #ej4 ,mather1 ,cotton1 #bid4 ,maurer1 ,k41 #cj4 ,maurice1 ,f4 ,d41 #cda4 ,mayer1 ,j4 ,r41 #bg4 ,maypoles1 #cge4 ,mega-ergaton docile1 #dei4 ,megalomania of cranks1 #daj4 ,memorial ,hall at ,cambridge1 ,mass41 #cac4 ,merchant of ,venice1 its crazy law1 #chf4 ,meres1 ,francis1 his praise of ,shakespeare1 #cgf1 #cgg4 ,mermaid ,tavern1 #cgd4 ,metamorphosis of motions1 #ee-eg4 ,methodism1 #adh4 ,mexico1 conquest of1 #bja1 #bjb4 ,middle ,ages1 accumulated misery in1 #ahc1 #ahd4 ,middlesex ,fells1 #bbg4 ,midsummer ,night's ,dream1 ,a1 #cge4 ,mill1 ,j4 ,s41 #id1 #cce4 ,milton1 ,john1 #abe1 #acd1 #aci2 his ,lycidas1 #ceh2 his verses on ,shakespeare1 #cfh1 #cfi4 ,minturn1 ,r4 ,b41 #ie4 ,mommsen1 ,t41 #cj4 ,montaigne1 ,m4 de1 #cij1 #djc4 ,montcalm1 #bja4 ,montezuma1 #bjc4 ,morality1 beginnings of1 #aaj4 ,morell1 ,j4 ,d41 #hg4 ,morgan1 ,appleton1 #cga4 ,morse1 ,royal1 #caj4 ,morphology1 #ae4 ,nash1 ,thomas1 #chd4 ,nason1 a paradoxer1 #dci4 ,natural selection1 #bd4 ,nebular theory1 #bf1 #de1 #df1 #gg4 ,neptune1 the planet1 discovery of1 #e4 ,netherlands1 toleration in1 #ace1 #acf4 ,new ,haven ,colony1 suppressed by ,charles ,,ii41 #adf4 ,new ,netherlands1 #acf4 ,newton1 ,sir ,isaac1 #b1 #e1 #f1 #i1 #bg1 #cg1 #ff1 #abe1 #abf1 #chh1 #dah1 #dai4 ,noble ,savage1 #bjj4 ,nordenskjld1 ,baron1 ,swedish explorer1 #dbd1 #dbe4 ,norton1 ,john1 #adf4 ,noverint1 trade of1 a slang expression1 #chd4 ,octogenarian layman1 an1 #dcb-dcd4 ,odyssey1 the1 #baj4 ,oersted1 ,h4 ,c41 #bg4 ,ogillalah ,indians1 #bdj4 ,old ,south ,church1 founding of1 #adf1 #bii4 ,olney1 ,richard1 #aff1 #age4 ,ophelia1 her right to ,christian burial1 #chj4 ,orang-outang1 an infant1 brought up by ,a4 ,r4 ,wallace1 #aje1 #ajf4 ,oregon ,trail1 ,the1 by ,francis ,parkman1 #bcf-bdh4 ,orion1 nebula of1 #g4 ,orthodoxies1 new and old1 #abi1 #aea4 ,ovum1 shows the process of development in all its stages1 #dc1 #dd4 ,owen1 ,orville1 a paradoxer1 #cgj1 #djc4 ,oxenstjern1 cynical remark of1 #cdi4 ,paine1 ,thomas1 #adi4 ,paley1 ,frederick1 #cec4 ,paris1 massacres of prisoners in1 #bhg4 ,parker1 ,theodore1 #add1 #aea1 #bcj4 ,parkman1 ,ebenezer1 #bbc4 ,parkman1 ,francis1 as an historian1 #aid-bbb2 his birth1 #bbc2 his boyhood1 #bbf-bcj2 his first journey to ,europe1 #bcc-bce2 his life among ,indians1 #bce-bdf2 his ill-health1 #bch1 #bci1 #bdf-bej1 #bed1 #bef1 #bfa2 how he composed ,the ,conspiracy of ,pontiac1 #bdi-bea2 his marriage1 #bec2 his house at ,jamaica ,plain1 #bee1 #bef2 his garden and greenhouse1 #beg1 #beh2 his eminence in horticulture1 #beh2 his pamphlets1 #bfc2 his death1 #bfd2 greatness of his work1 #bfd4 ,parkman1 ,rev4 ,francis1 #bbd1 #bbe4 ,parkman1 ,samuel1 #bbc4 ,parsons1 ,theophilus1 #cjj4 ,parthenogenesis1 #cde-cdh4 ,passionists1 a monastic order1 #bcd4 ,pasteur1 ,louis1 #bi4 ,pauncefote1 ,sir ,j41 #aff4 ,peaceful tendencies of commerce1 #ahg1 #ahh4 ,peirce1 ,benjamin1 #cac4 ,peloponnesian ,war1 #bhi4 ,pembroke1 ,earl of1 #cfg4 ,pendulum1 #bg4 ,penn1 ,william1 #acd1 #ach4 ,pennsylvania1 #acg4 ,perpetual motion1 #dag4 ,perspective1 historic1 #aie1 #aif4 ,petersham1 ,mass41 a religious community in1 #ddd-deb4 ,phlogiston1 doctrine of1 #b-d4 ,phokion1 his estimate of popularity1 #ccd4 ,photography1 application to the telescope1 #h4 ,pi1 a geometrical symbol1 #dje-djg1 #dab4 ,pickering1 ,timothy1 #cjj4 ,pisistratus1 #ceb4 ,platte ,river1 the1 #bjc4 ,plowden's ,reports1 #cha4 ,plutarch1 #ceh2 his essay on superstition1 edited by a paradoxer1 #ddb4 ,poetry1 eccentric1 #ddc4 ,pontiac1 ,the ,conspiracy of1 #aie1 #bdi-bea4 ,pope1 ,alexander1 #chg4 ,popular ,science ,monthly1 ,the1 #ih4 ,positivism1 weakness of1 #ad4 ,pott1 ,mrs4 ,h41 a paradoxer1 her edition of the ,promus manuscript1 #cid1 #cie4 ,prmunire statutes1 #acj4 ,precision of detail in myths1 #cbc-cbe4 ,presbyterianism1 #aca4 ,presbyterians1 #adb4 ,prescott1 ,william1 #bja1 #bjb4 ,pride's ,purge1 #afc4 ,priestley1 ,joseph1 his discovery of oxygen1 #a-d1 #bf1 #cg2 his treatise on electricity1 #bg2 burning of his house1 #bhg4 ,proctor1 ,richard1 #dba4 ,profanity1 silent1 #cci4 ,progressiveness of man1 explanation of the1 #ajh4 ,promus of ,formularies and ,elegancies1 #cid4 ,prophecy lunatics1 #dcb-dcd4 ,prospect ,union1 the1 #cae4 ,protection run mad1 #bai1 #bbj4 ,prussia1 revelation of her military strength1 #ahf4 ,psychology1 ,spencer's masterly treatment of1 #dh1 #di4 ,puritan theocracy1 #ade1 #adf4 ,puritanism1 origin of1 #acj-acb4 ,putnam1 ,israel1 #bja4 ,pym1 ,john1 #aeg4 ,pyramid lunatics1 #dbh-dca4 ,pyramids of ,egypt1 #baa4 ,quakerism1 wherein distinguished from ,independency1 #ach4 ,quimby1 ,w41 a paradoxer1 #dca4 ,radcliffe ,college1 #cad4 ,radiata1 #ag4 ,raleigh1 ,sir ,walter1 #abe1 #cfd1 #cgc1 #cic4 ,ranking1 ,john1 #dcg4 ,red ,water1 an ,indian warrior1 #bda4 ,reed1 ,edwin1 a paradoxer1 #cff1 #cfg4 ,reform of human nature1 slowness of1 #gf4 ,registration of experiences1 #ajg1 #ajh4 ,religion1 reality of1 #aad1 #aae4 ,renaissance1 #abd4 ,rhode ,island1 #acf2 ,catholics disfranchised in1 #aci4 ,richards1 ,father1 #ddi1 #dej4 ,ripley1 ,george1 #ib4 ,riverside ,press1 the1 #cjh4 ,roberts1 ,g4 ,l41 #ic4 ,roblin1 ,captain1 a paradoxer1 #dah4 ,roe1 ,j4 ,e41 a paradoxer1 #djc4 ,romano1 ,julio1 #cgb1 #cgc4 ,root and branch men1 #aca4 ,rousseau1 ,j4 ,j41 #bjj4 ,rowbotham1 ,samuel1 a paradoxer1 #dba4 ,rumford1 ,count1 #bg4 ,running for office in ,tir na n-,og1 #cbi4 ,russell1 ,lord ,john1 #dab4 ,rutherford1 ,samuel1 #acc4 ,saint-,hilaire1 tienne ,geoffroy1 #bj4 ,saint-,hilaire1 ,isidore ,geoffroy1 #bj4 ,saturn's rings1 #bg4 ,savage life1 delights of1 #bjg1 #bjh4 ,savagery1 types of1 #cb4 ,savages and barbarians1 #baa4 ,saxo ,grammaticus1 #cei4 ,scheele1 ,c4 ,w41 his relation to the discovery of oxygen1 #c4 ,schelling1 ,f4 ,w4 ,j41 #da4 ,schlegel1 ,august von1 #djb4 ,schleicher1 ,a41 #cj4 ,schleiden1 ,m4 ,j41 his cell doctrine1 #ah4 ,school-teacher1 a model1 #ga4 ,schwann's cell doctrine1 #ah4 ,science1 pure and applied1 #bi4 ,scofield1 ,catherine1 #fh4 ,scott1 ,sir ,walter1 #aii4 ,selden1 ,john1 #cgd4 ,servetus1 ,michael1 #dja4 ,shakespeare1 ,william1 #abe1 #cef-djd4 ,shaw1 ,quincy1 #bjc1 #bcf4 ,shenandoah ,valley1 settlement of1 #adb4 ,shepard1 ,thomas1 #bic4 ,shepard ,church in ,cambridge1 founding of1 #bii4 ,shocks1 nervous and psychical1 #fj4 ,silliman1 ,b41 #dec4 ,silsbee1 ,edward1 #hh4 ,skinner1 a paradoxer1 #dcj4 ,smallwit1 ,mr41 substituted name for a paradoxer1 #djh1 #dji4 ,smith1 ,james1 a circle-squarer1 #daa4 ,smith1 ,captain ,john1 #bjc4 ,smyth1 ,c4 ,piazzi1 a paradoxer1 #dbf-dbi4 ,society and organism1 deepest distinction between1 #dg4 ,solar system1 #e4 ,solemn ,league and ,covenant1 #aeh4 ,sophocles1 ,e4 ,a41 #cab4 ,southampton1 ,earl of1 #cgj4 ,spain1 her methods in ,america1 #bad1 #bae4 ,spanish literature and science1 #abf4 ,speaking with tongues1 #dea4 ,spectrum analysis1 #f1 #g4 ,spedding1 ,james1 #chf4 ,spencer1 ,herbert1 #bj1 #be1 #bf1 #ci-ea1 #ee1 #ff1 #fg1 #hf-if1 #cci1 #cda1 #cfa-cfc2 some ambiguities of expression1 #eh-fa4 ,spencerians1 forty years ago1 #ic4 ,spenser1 ,edmund1 #cgd2 his compliment to ,shakespeare1 #cgf4 ,spinoza1 ,b41 #chh4 ,spot ,pond1 #bbg4 ,stahl1 ,g4 ,e41 #b-d1 #cg4 ,standard of degrees of organization1 #de4 ,stars1 multiple1 #f1 #g4 ,stone ,age1 men of the1 #baj1 #bdj1 #bia4 ,story1 ,joseph1 #cjj4 ,strafford1 ,earl of1 #aed4 ,stratford1 its dirty streets1 #cfe4 ,strong1 ,caleb1 #cjj4 ,stuyvesant1 ,peter1 his treatment of ,quakers1 #acg4 ,suffrage1 limited to church members in ,massachusetts and ,new ,haven1 #ade1 #adf4 ,sullamar1 ,henry1 a circle-squarer1 #dcd4 ,sully1 ,duke of1 #aij4 ,swan of ,avon1 #cff1 #cfg4 ,swift1 ,jonathan1 #djd4 ,symmes1 ,americus1 a paradoxer1 #dbd1 #dbe4 ,symmes1 ,j4 ,c41 a paradoxer1 #dba-dbc4 ,synods and congregations1 #acc4 ,taylor1 ,robert1 imprisoned for blasphemy1 #dci4 ,telescope-making in ,cambridge1 #cji4 ,theocritus1 #ceh4 ,thirst for knowledge1 #gj4 ,thomson1 ,sir ,william4 ,see ,kelvin1 ,lord4 ,thomson1 ,sir ,wyville1 #cde4 ,thou and you in ,shakespeare's time1 #cib1 #cic4 ,thunder-fighters1 the1 #bdb4 ,ticknor ,fields1 #hi4 ,tir na n-,og1 the land of youth1 #cbh4 ,top-knot come down1 #cdh4 ,tory party in ,new ,england1 #adf4 ,tourneur1 ,cyril1 #cgc4 ,town meetings1 #cje4 ,trade between ,europe and ,asia1 #abb1 #abc4 ,trent1 affair of the1 #agb1 #agh1 #agi4 ,tribunals of arbitration1 #afg-agj4 ,troilus and ,cressida1 #cei4 ,trollope1 ,anthony1 his controversy with ,e4 ,a4 ,freeman as to fox-hunting1 #bhc4 ,tylor1 ,t4 ,b41 #cj4 ,tyndall1 ,john1 #ccg4 ,uncle ,good1 #ga4 ,uniformity in geology1 #aj4 ,union1 the sentiment of1 #ahj1 #aha4 ,unitarian movement1 the1 #adh-aea4 ,universalism1 #adh4 ,university ,press in ,cambridge1 #big1 #cjh4 ,upham1 ,c4 ,w41 #aee4 ,uranus1 the planet1 #e4 ,vane1 ,sir ,henry1 #aci1 #aed-afe4 ,vasari's ,lives of the ,painters1 #cgb4 ,venice1 would not accept the ,inquisition1 #ace2 her crime against ,constantinople1 #bhg4 ,venus and ,adonis1 #cgj1 #cga4 ,vesalius1 ,a41 #dja4 ,vestiges of ,creation1 #gg4 ,vico1 ,g4 ,b41 #ceb4 ,vindex1 a paradoxer1 #ddb4 ,vining1 ,edward1 #djj4 ,virginia and religious freedom1 #ada1 #adb4 ,volney1 ,count1 #dbb4 ,voltaire1 #adi2 his remark about ,shakespeare1 #cii4 ,wallace1 ,a4 ,r41 #bd1 #cj1 #ajb-ajd4 ,washington's ,farewell ,address1 #aic4 ,watertown1 its protest against taxation without representation1 #bia4 ,webster1 ,john1 #cgc4 ,west1 ,rev4 ,samuel1 #cjj4 ,west ,gate of ,cambridge1 #bif4 ,whewell1 ,william1 #daa1 #dce4 ,whitman1 ,walt1 #cch4 ,wilder1 ,s4 ,h41 #eh4 ,william and ,mary1 #ach4 ,williams1 ,roger1 #acd1 #aci-ada1 #afa1 #afb4 ,winthrop1 ,john1 #adf4 ,wolf1 ,f4 ,a41 #ceb2 his theory of the ,homeric poems1 #ceb-ced4 ,wolf1 ,k4 ,f41 #da4 ,wolves and bears in ,cambridge1 #bif4 ,xicotencatl1 #bjb4 ,yonnondio1 #bjj4 ,youmans1 ,e4 ,l41 #fg-ii1 #dec-dee4 ,youmans1 ,vincent1 #fg-ga4 ,young1 ,thomas1 #bg4 ,,electrotyped ,,and ,,printed ,,by ,h4 ,o4 ,,houghton ,,and ,,co4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the ,riverside ,press 99 99 99 99 99 ,,cambridge1 ,,mass41 ,u4 ,s4 ,a4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,morse1 ,what ,american ,zologists have done for ,evolution1 pp4 #cg1 #ci-da1 ,salem1 #ahgf2 ,proc4 ,amer4 ,assoc4 for ,adv4 of ,sci41 vol4 xxii4 #b ,the ,ascent of ,man1 pp4 #bhb-bia2 cf4 ,tyler1 ,the ,whence and the ,whither of ,man1 pp4 #agi1 #bag1 etc4 #c ,an address delivered in the ,first ,unitarian ,church of ,philadelphia1 ,may #ac1 #ahif1 at the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of its founding1 under the lead of the illustrious ,dr4 ,priestley4 #d ,balfour1 ,comparative ,embryology1 i4 #b4 #e ,part of an address before the ,brooklyn ,ethical ,association1 ,may #ca1 #ahia4 #f ,see1 for example1 ,principles of ,psychology1 second edition1 #ahgj-gb1 vol4 ii4 pp4 #ade-afb4 #g ,see also ,excursions of an ,evolutionist1 #ahhc1 pp4 #bgd-bhb4 #h ,first ,principles1 second edition1 #ahfg1 p4 #bag4 #i ,id4 p4 #eeh4 #aj ,see1 e4 g41 ,principles of ,psychology1 second edition1 vol4 i4 pp4 #aeh-afa1 #faf-fbg4 #aa ,vol4 i4 p4 #aeh4 ,cf4 my ,cosmic ,philosophy1 vol4 ii4 p4 #ddd4 #ab ,if thou wouldst press into the infinite1 go but to all parts of the finite4 #ac ,an address before the ,brooklyn ,ethical ,association1 ,march #bc1 #ahij4 #ad ,vol4 iii4 p4 #aac4 #ae ,see above1 p4 #di4 #af ,short-hand report of my speech at a dinner given for me by ,mr4 ,john ,spencer ,clark1 at the ,aldine ,club1 ,new ,york1 ,may #ac1 #ahie4 #ag ,an address delivered at the ,national ,conference of ,unitarian ,churches1 at ,washington1 ,d4,c41 ,october #bc1 #ahie4 #ah ,sempere1 ,monarchie ,espagnole1 ii4 #aeb4 #ai ,stuyvesant's brief persecution of ,quakers1 for which he was sternly rebuked by the home government1 constitutes an exception to the rule4 ,see my ,dutch and ,quaker ,colonies1 i4 #bcb-bcg4 #bj ,see ,arnold's ,history of ,rhode ,island1 ii4 #dij-dif4 #ba ,stimson1 ,american ,statue ,law1 #df4 #bb ,the ,life of ,young ,sir ,henry ,vane1 ,governor of ,massachusetts ,bay1 and ,leader of the ,long ,parliament4 ,with a ,consideration of the ,english ,commonwealth as a ,forecast of ,america4 ,by ,james ,k4 ,hosmer4 ,boston3 ,houghton1 ,mifflin ,co4 #ahhh4 #bc ,see my ,beginnings of ,new ,england1 p4 #ahe4 #bd ,the following list of instances within a period of twelve years is cited from an able article by ,professor ,pasquale ,fiore1 of the ,university of ,naples1 in the ,international ,journal of ,ethics1 ,october1 #ahif3-- ,arbitration by the ,emperor of ,austria between ,great ,britain and ,nicaragua1 #ahha4 ,a mixed commission to arbitrate between ,france and ,chili1 #ahhb4 ,arbitration by the ,president of the ,french ,republic between the ,netherlands and the ,republic of ,san ,domingo1 #ahhb4 ,arbitration by ,pope ,leo ,,xiii4 between ,germany and ,spain2 affair of the ,caroline ,islands1 #ahhe4 #be ,this paper originated in an address at ,sanders ,theatre1 ,cambridge1 ,december #f1 #ahic1 at a service commemorative of ,mr4 ,parkman4 ,in its presently greatly expanded shape it was printed as the ,introduction to the revised edition of ,parkman's ,works1 ,boston1 #ahig-ih1 #bj vols41 octavo4 #bf ,pontiac1 iii4 #aab4 #bg ,an oration delivered in ,sanders ,theatre1 ,june #b1 #ahif1 at the civic jubilee commemorating the incorporation of ,cambridge as a city4 #bh ,chicago1 ,philadelphia1 and ,brooklyn4 ,by the annexation of ,brooklyn1 the population of ,new ,york is now 7#ahii7 carried up to #c1ejj1jjj1 making it the second city in the world4 #bi ,in #ahih the number had risen to #dffj1 besides #daa women students in ,radcliffe4 #cj ,myths and ,folk-,lore of ,ireland4 ,by ,jeremiah ,curtin4 ,boston3 ,little1 ,brown ,co4 #ahij4 #ca ,cook's ,boston ,monday ,lectures3 ,biology1 p4 #ea4 ,after some hesitation ,i have decided to reprint this paper1 because the fundamental rule of procedure here criticised is a favourite one with other controversialists than ,mr4 ,cook1 and it is one against which readers sometimes need to be put on their guard4 #cb ,in spite of an occasional slip of the pen which may seem to imply the contrary4 ,see above1 pp4 #eh-fj4 #cc ,the italicizing is1 of course1 mine1 both here and below4 #cd ,biology1 p4 #fg4 #ce ,encyclopdia ,britannica1 ninth edition1 ,biology1 p4 #fhf4 #cf ,this article was published in the fortieth-anniversary number of ,the ,atlantic ,monthly1 ,november1 #ahig4 #cg ,iliad1 vi4 #afh4 #ch ,the comedy afterward developed into ,all's ,well that ,ends ,well4 #ci ,davis1 ,the ,law in ,shakespeare1 ,st4 ,paul1 #ahhd4 #dj ,there is reason for believing that this choice was an instance of the megalomania developed by ,miss ,bacon's malady4 ,she imagined a remote kinship between herself and ,lord ,bacon4 ,possibly there may have been such kinship4 #da ,fischer1 ,shakespeare und die ,bacon ,mythen1 ,heidelberg1 #ahie4 #db ,the ,baconizers usually delight in berating poor ,shakespeare1 making much of the deer-stealing business1 the circumstances of his marriage1 etc4 #dc ,literary ,essays1 ii4 #afc4 #dd ,the ,bankside ,shakespeare1 vol4 xi4 p4 xi4 #de ,the writings of ,hippocrates abound in examples1 as in his interesting explanation of congestion1 extravasation1 etc4 7,de ,ventis1 x4-xiv41 ,opera1 ed4 ,littr1 tom4 vi4 pp4 #ajd-aad71 to cite one instance out of a thousand3 1 1 1 1 etc4 #df ,budget of ,paradoxes1 pp4 #i1 #agh1 #bei1 #bfj1 #ccf4 #dg ,the ,theory of ,concentric ,spheres1 ,louisville1 #ahgh2 second edition1 #ahhe4 #dh ,proctor1 ,the ,great ,pyramid1 p4 #dc4 #di ,de ,morgan1 p4 #agi4 #ej ,de ,morgan1 p4 #afc4 #ea ,a site not far from that of ,evansville1 ,indiana4 #eb ,this was my first visit1 with ,dr4 ,james and other friends1 as above described4 #ec ,brother ,fuller resigned in #ahgg1 and was succeeded by ,brother ,richards as ,spiritual head1 or high priest of the ,adoni-shomo4