{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40590/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40590","id":"gutenberg_40590","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40590","summary":null,"tags":["Arbitration (International law)","Cambridge (Mass.) -- Description and travel","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Science - Chemistry/Biochemistry","Cook, Joseph, 1838-1901","Evolution","Folklore -- Ireland","Freeman, Edward A. (Edward Augustus), 1823-1892","Parkman, Francis, 1823-1893","Science -- History","Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 -- Authorship","Vane, Henry, Sir, 1613-1662","Youmans, Edward Livingston, 1821-1887"],"text":"A CENTURY OF SCIENCE\n\nAnd Other Essays\n\nBY\n\nJOHN FISKE\n\u03b5\n      _Out of the shadows of night\n      The world rolls into light:\n        It is daybreak everywhere._\n\n      LONGFELLOW.\n\n\nBOSTON AND NEW YORK\nHOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY\nThe Riverside Press, Cambridge\n1899\n\n\nCOPYRIGHT, 1899, BY JOHN FISKE\nALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATORY EPISTLE TO THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY,\n\nPROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE KEIO GIJUKU, AT TOKYO.\n\n\nDEAR TOM,--It has long been my wish to make you the patron saint or\ntutelar divinity of some book of mine, and it has lately occurred to me\nthat it ought to be a book of the desultory and chatty sort that would\nremind you, in your present exile at the world's eastern rim, of the\nmany quiet evenings of old, when, over a tankard of mellow October and\npipe of fragrant Virginia, while Yule logs crackled blithely and the\nmusic of pattering sleet was upon the window-pane, we used to roam in\nfancy through the universe and give free utterance to such thoughts,\nsedate or frivolous, as seemed to us good. I dare say the present volume\nmay serve as an epitome of many such old-time sessions of sweet\ndiscourse, which I trust we shall by and by repeat and renew.\n\nBut there is one link of association which in my mind especially\nconnects you with the present occasion. My theory of the causes and\neffects of the prolongation of human infancy, with reference to the\nevolution of man, was first published in the \"North American Review\" for\nOctober, 1873, when you were the editor of that periodical. The article,\nwhich was entitled \"The Progress from Brute to Man,\" was made up of two\nchapters of my \"Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy\" (part ii. chaps, xxi.,\nxxii.), which was published a year later, in October, 1874. The value of\nthe theory therein set forth was at once recognized by many leading\nnaturalists. In the address of Vice-President Edward Morse, before the\nAmerican Association, at its meeting at Buffalo in 1876, my theory\nreceives extended notice as one of the most important contributions yet\nmade to the Doctrine of Evolution; and it is declared that I have given\n\"for the first time a rational explanation of the origin and persistence\nof family relations, and thence communal [_i. e._, clan] relations, and,\nfinally, of society.\"[1]\n\nUncontrollable circumstances have prevented my giving to the further\nelaboration of this infancy theory the time and attention which it\ndeserves and demands; but in my little book, \"The Destiny of Man,\"\npublished in 1884, I gave a popular exposition of it which has made it\nwidely known in all English-speaking countries and on the continent of\nEurope, as well as among your worthy Japanese neighbours, Tom, who have\ndone me the honour to translate some of my books into their vernacular.\nThe theory has become still further popularized through having furnished\nthe starting-point for some of the most characteristic speculations of\nthe late Henry Drummond. In these and other ways my infancy theory has\nso far entered into the current thoughts of the present age that people\nhave (naturally enough) begun to forget with whom it originated. For\nexample, in the recent book, \"Through Nature to God,\" while criticising\na remark of Huxley's, I found it desirable to make a restatement of the\ninfancy theory; whereupon a friendly reviewer, referring to that\nparticular part of the book, observes that \"of course\" it makes no\npretensions to originality, but is simply my lucid summary of\nspeculations with which every reader of Darwin, Spencer, Huxley,\nRomanes, and Drummond is familiar! In point of fact, not the faintest\nsuggestion of this infancy theory can be found in all the writings of\nDarwin, Huxley, and Romanes. In Spencer's \"Sociology,\" vol. i. p. 630,\nit is briefly mentioned with approval as an important contribution\noriginating with me; and in Drummond's \"Ascent of Man,\" which is really\nbuilt upon it, credit is cordially given me.[2]\n\nIndeed, down to the present time, I have been left almost in exclusive\npossession of that area of speculation which is occupied with the\ngenesis of Man as connected with that prolongation of infancy which\nfirst began to become conspicuous in the manlike apes. There are many\nwho assent to what I have put forth, but few who seem inclined to enter\nthat difficult field on the marchland between biology, psychology, and\nsociology. Doubtless this is because the attention of the scientific\nworld has for forty years been absorbed in the more general questions\nconcerning the competency of natural selection, the causes of variation,\nthe agencies alleged by Lamarck, and in these latter days Weismannism,\netc. In course of time, however, the more special problems connected\nwith man's genesis will surely come uppermost, and then we may hope to\nsee the causes of the lengthening of infancy investigated by thinkers\nduly conversant alike with psychology and embryology.\n\nQuestions of priority in originating new theories may not greatly\ninterest the general reader, but you and I feel interested in preventing\nany misconception in the present case; and it was thus that the careless\nremark of the friendly reviewer led me to insert in the present volume\nthe shorthand report of some autobiographical remarks on the infancy\ntheory. In reading the proof-sheets I have noticed that the book\ncontains elsewhere many allusions to personal experiences. This feature,\nwhich was quite unforeseen, will not fail to commend it all the more\nstrongly to you, my ancient friend and comrade. As for readers in\ngeneral, I may best conclude in the words of old Aaron Rathbone, whose\nbook entitled \"The Surveyor\" was dated \"from my lodging at the house of\nM. Roger Bvrgis, against Salisburie-house-gate, in the Strand, this sixt\nof Nouember, 1616.\" This wise and placid philosopher saith: \"To perswade\nthe courteous were causelesse, for they are naturally kind; and to\ndiswade the captious were bootless, for they will not be diverted. Let\nthe first make true vse of these my labours, and they shall find\npleasure and profit therein; let the last (if they like not) leave it,\nand it shall not offend them.\"\n\nWherefore let me, without further ado, subscribe myself,\n\nEver yours,\nJOHN FISKE.\n\nCAMBRIDGE, _October 25, 1899_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                                           PAGE\n\nI. A CENTURY OF SCIENCE                                       1\n\nII. THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION: ITS SCOPE AND PURPORT         39\n\nIII. EDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS                               64\n\nIV. THE PART PLAYED BY INFANCY IN THE EVOLUTION OF MAN      100\n\nV. THE ORIGINS OF LIBERAL THOUGHT IN AMERICA                122\n\nVI. SIR HARRY VANE                                          154\n\nVII. THE ARBITRATION TREATY                                 166\n\nVIII. FRANCIS PARKMAN                                       194\n\nIX. EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN                                 265\n\nX. CAMBRIDGE AS VILLAGE AND CITY                            286\n\nXI. A HARVEST OF IRISH FOLK-LORE                            319\n\nXII. GUESSING AT HALF AND MULTIPLYING BY TWO                333\n\nXIII. FORTY YEARS OF BACON-SHAKESPEARE FOLLY                350\n\nXIV. SOME CRANKS AND THEIR CROTCHETS                        405\n\nNOTE                                                        461\n\nINDEX                                                       467\n\n\n\n\nA CENTURY OF SCIENCE\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nA CENTURY OF SCIENCE[3]\n\n\nIn the course of the year 1774 Dr. Priestley found that by heating red\nprecipitate, or what we now call red oxide of mercury, a gas was\nobtained, which he called \"dephlogisticated air,\" or, in other words,\nair deprived of phlogiston, and therefore incombustible. This\nincombustible air was _oxygen_, and such was man's first introduction to\nthe mighty element that makes one fifth of the atmosphere in volume and\neight ninths of the ocean by weight, besides forming one half of the\nearth's solid crust, and supporting all fire and all life. I know of\nnothing which can reveal to us with such startling vividness the extent\nof the gulf which the human mind has traversed within little more than a\nhundred years. It is scarcely possible to put ourselves back into the\nframe of mind in which oxygen was unknown, and no man could tell what\ntakes place when a log of wood is burned on the hearth. The language\nemployed by Dr. Priestley carries us back to the time when chemistry was\nbeginning to emerge from alchemy. It was Newton's contemporary, Stahl,\nwho invented the doctrine of phlogiston in order to account for\ncombustion. Stahl supposed that all combustible substances contain a\ncommon element, or fire principle, which he called phlogiston, and which\nescapes in the process of combustion. Indeed, the act of combustion was\nsupposed to consist in the escape of phlogiston. Whither this mysterious\nfire principle betook itself, after severing its connection with visible\nmatter, was not too clearly indicated, but of course it was to that\nlimbo far larger than purgatory, the oubliette wherein have perished\nmen's unsuccessful guesses at truth. Stahl's theory, however, marked a\ngreat advance upon what had gone before, inasmuch as it stated the case\nin such a way as to admit of direct refutation. Little use was made of\nthe balance in those days, but when it was observed that zinc and lead\nand sundry other substances grow heavier in burning, it seemed hardly\ncorrect to suppose that anything had escaped from these substances. To\nthis objection the friends of the fire principle replied that\nphlogiston might weigh less than nothing, or, in other words, might be\nendowed with a positive attribute of levity, so that to subtract it from\na body would increase the weight of the body. This was a truly shifty\nmethod of reasoning, in which your phlogiston, with its plus sign to-day\nand its minus sign to-morrow, exhibited a skill in facing both ways like\nthat of an American candidate for public office.\n\nInto the structure of false science that had been reared upon these\nmisconceptions Dr. Priestley's discovery of oxygen came like a\nbombshell. As in so many other like cases, the discovery was destined to\ncome at about that time; it was made again three years afterward by the\nSwedish chemist Scheele, without knowing what Priestley had done. The\nstudy of oxygen soon pointed to the conclusion that, whatever may escape\nduring combustion, oxygen is always united with the burning substance.\nThen came Lavoisier with his balance, and proved that whenever a thing\nburns it combines with Priestley's oxygen, and the weight of the\nresulting product is equal to the weight of the substance burned plus\nthe weight of oxygen abstracted from the air. Thus combustion is simply\nunion with oxygen, and nothing escapes. No room was left for phlogiston.\nMen's thoughts were dephlogisticated from that time forth. The balance\nbecame the ruling instrument of chemistry. One further step led to the\ngeneralization that in all chemical changes there is no such thing as\nincrease or diminution, but only substitution, and upon this fundamental\ntruth of the indestructibility of matter all modern chemistry rests.\n\nWhen we look at the stupendous edifice of science that has been reared\nupon this basis, when we consider the almost limitless sweep of\ninorganic and organic chemistry, the myriad applications to the arts,\nthe depth to which we have been enabled to penetrate into the innermost\nproclivities of matter, it seems almost incredible that a single century\ncan have witnessed so much achievement. We must admit the fact, but our\nminds cannot take it in; we are staggered by it. One thing stands out\nprominently, as we contrast this rapid and coherent progress with the\nbarrenness of ancient alchemy and the chaotic fumbling of the Stahl\nperiod: we see the importance of untrammelled inquiry, and of sound\nmethods of investigation which admit of verification at every step. That\nhumble instrument the balance, working in the service of sovereign law,\nhas been a beneficent Jinni unlocking the portals of many a chamber\nwherein may be heard the secret harmonies of the world.\n\nIt is not only in chemistry, however, that the marvellous advance of\nscience has been exhibited. In all directions the quantity of\nachievement has been so marked that it is worth our while to take a\nbrief general survey of the whole, to see if haply we may seize upon the\nfundamental characteristics of this great progress. In the first place,\na glance at astronomy will show us how much our knowledge of the world\nhas enlarged in space since the day when Priestley set free his\ndephlogisticated air.\n\nThe known solar system then consisted of sun, moon, earth, and the five\nplanets visible to the naked eye. Since the days of the Chald\u00e6an\nshepherds there had been no additions except the moons of Jupiter and\nSaturn. Herschel's telescope was to win its first triumph in the\ndetection of Uranus in 1781. The Newtonian theory, promulgated in 1687,\nhad come to be generally accepted, but there were difficulties\nremaining, connected with the planetary perturbations and the\ninequalities in the moon's motion, which the glorious labours of\nLagrange and Laplace were presently to explain and remove,--labours\nwhich bore their full fruition two generations later, in 1845, when the\ndiscovery of the planet Neptune, by purely mathematical reasoning from\nthe observed effects of its gravitation, furnished for the Newtonian\ntheory the grandest confirmation known in the whole history of science.\nIn Priestley's time, sidereal astronomy was little more than the\ncataloguing of such stars and nebul\u00e6 as could be seen with the\ntelescopes then at command. Sixty years after the discovery of oxygen\nthe distance of no star had been measured. In 1836, Auguste Comte\nassured his readers that such a feat was impossible, that the Newtonian\ntheory could never be proved to extend through the interstellar spaces,\nand that the matter of which stars are composed may be entirely\ndifferent in its properties from the matter with which we are familiar.\nWithin three years the first part of this prophecy was disproved when\nBessel measured the distance of the star 61 Cygni; since then the study\nof the movements of double and multiple stars has shown them conforming\nto Newton's law; and as for the matter of which they are composed, we\nare introduced to a chapter in science which even the boldest speculator\nof half a century ago would have derided as a baseless dream. The\ndiscovery of spectrum analysis and the invention of the spectroscope,\ncompleted in 1861 by Kirchhoff and Bunsen, have supplied data for the\ncreation of a stellar chemistry; showing us, for example, hydrogen in\nSirius and the nebula of Orion, sodium and potassium, calcium and iron,\nin the sun; demonstrating the gaseous character of nebul\u00e6; and revealing\nchemical elements hitherto unknown, such as helium, a mineral first\ndetected in the sun's atmosphere, and afterward found in Norway. A still\nmore wonderful result of spectrum analysis is our ability to measure the\nmotion of a star through a slight shifting in the wave-lengths of the\nlight which it emits. In this way we can measure, in the absence of all\nparallax, the direct approach or recession of a star; and in somewhat\nsimilar wise has been discovered the cause of the long-observed\nvariations of brilliancy in Algol. That star, which is about the size of\nour sun, has a dark companion not much smaller, and the twain are moving\naround a third body, also dark: the result is an irregular series of\neclipses of Algol, and the gravitative forces exerted by the two\ninvisible stars are estimated through their effects upon the spectrum of\nthe bright star. In no department of science has a region of inference\nbeen reached more remote than this. From such a flight one may come back\ngently to more familiar regions while remarking upon the manifold\nresults that have begun to be attained from the application of a\nsensitive photograph plate to the telescope in place of the human eye.\nIt may suffice to observe that we thus catch the fleeting aspects of\nsun-spots and preserve them for study; we detect the feeble\nself-luminosity still left in such a slowly cooling planet as Jupiter;\nand since the metallic plate does not quickly weary, like the human\nretina, the cumulative effects of its long exposure reveal the existence\nof countless stars and nebul\u00e6 too remote to be otherwise reached by any\nvisual process. By such photographic methods George Darwin has caught an\nequatorial ring in the act of detachment from its parent nebula, and the\nsuccessive phases of the slow process may be watched and recorded by\ngenerations of mortals yet to come.\n\nTo appreciate the philosophic bearings of this vast enlargement of the\nmental horizon, let us recall just what happened when Newton first took\nthe leap from earth into the celestial spaces by establishing a law of\nphysics to which moon and apple alike conform. It was the first step,\nand a very long one, toward proving that the terrestrial and celestial\nworlds are dynamically akin, that the same kind of order prevails\nthrough both alike, that both are parts of one cosmic whole. So late as\nKepler's time, it was possible to argue that the planets are propelled\nin their elliptic orbits by forces quite unlike any that are disclosed\nby purely terrestrial experience, and therefore perhaps inaccessible to\nany rational interpretation. Such imaginary lines of demarcation between\nearth and heavens were forever swept away by Newton, and the recent work\nof spectrum analysis simply completes the demonstration that the\nremotest bodies which the photographic telescope can disclose are truly\npart and parcel of the dynamic world in which we live.\n\nAll this enlargement of the mental horizon, from Newton to Kirchhoff,\nhad reference to space. The nineteenth century has witnessed an equally\nnotable enlargement with reference to time. The beginnings of scientific\ngeology were much later than those of astronomy. The phenomena were less\nstriking and far more complicated; it took longer, therefore, to bring\nmen's minds to bear upon them. Antagonism on the part of theologians was\nalso slower in dying out. The complaint against Newton, that he\nsubstituted Blind Gravitation for an Intelligent Deity, was nothing\ncompared to the abuse that was afterwards lavished upon geologists for\ndisturbing the accepted Biblical chronology. At the time when Priestley\ndiscovered oxygen, educated men were still to be found who could\nmaintain with a sober face that fossils had been created already dead\nand petrified, just for the fun of the thing. The writings of Buffon\nwere preparing men's minds for the belief that the earth's crust has\nwitnessed many and important changes, but there could be no scientific\ngeology until further progress was made in physics and chemistry. It was\nonly in 1763 that Joseph Black discovered latent heat, and thus gave us\na clue to what happens when water freezes and melts, or when it is\nturned into steam. It was in 1786 that the publication of James Hutton's\n\"Theory of the Earth\" ushered in the great battle between Neptunians and\nPlutonists which prepared the way for scientific geology. When the new\nscience won its first great triumph with Lyell in 1830, the philosophic\npurport of the event was the same that was being proclaimed by the\nprogress of astronomy. Newton proved that the forces which keep the\nplanets in their orbits are not strange or supernatural forces, but just\nsuch as we see in operation upon this earth every moment of our lives.\nGeologists before Lyell had been led to the conclusion that the general\naspect of the earth's surface with which we are familiar is by no means\nits primitive or its permanent aspect, but that there has been a\nsuccession of ages, in which the relations of land and water, of\nmountain and plain, have varied to a very considerable extent; in which\nsoils and climates have undergone most complicated vicissitudes; and in\nwhich the earth's vegetable products and its animal populations have\nagain and again assumed new forms, while the old forms have passed away.\nIn order to account for such wholesale changes, geologists were at first\ndisposed to imagine violent catastrophes brought about by strange\nagencies,--agencies which were perhaps not exactly supernatural, but\nwere in some vague, unspecified way different from those which are now\nat work in the visible and familiar order of nature. But Lyell proved\nthat the very same kind of physical processes which are now going on\nabout us would suffice, during a long period of time, to produce the\nchanges in the inorganic world which distinguish one geological period\nfrom another. Here, in Lyell's geological investigations, there was for\nthe first time due attention paid to the immense importance of the\nprolonged and cumulative action of slight and unobtrusive causes. The\ncontinual dropping that wears away stones might have served as a text\nfor the whole series of beautiful researches of which he first summed up\nthe results in 1830. As astronomy was steadily advancing toward the\nproof that in the abysses of space the physical forces at work are the\nsame as our terrestrial forces, so geology, in carrying us back to\nenormously remote periods of time, began to teach that the forces at\nwork have all along been the same forces that are operative now. Of\ncourse, in that early stage when the earth's crust was in process of\nformation, when the temperature was excessively high, there were\nphenomena here such as can no longer be witnessed, but for which we must\nlook to big planets like Jupiter; in that intensely hot atmosphere\nviolent disturbances occur, and chemical elements are dissociated which\nwe are accustomed to find in close combination here. But ever since our\nearth cooled to a point at which its solid crust acquired stability,\nsince the earliest mollusks and vertebrates began to swim in the seas\nand worms to crawl in the damp ground, if at almost any time we could\nhave come here on a visit, we should doubtless have found things going\non at measured pace very much as at present,--here and there earthquake\nand avalanche, fire and flood, but generally rain falling, sunshine\nquickening, herbage sprouting, creatures of some sort browsing, all as\nquiet and peaceful as a daisied field in June, without the slightest\nvisible presage of the continuous series of minute secular changes that\nwere gradually to transform a Carboniferous world into what was by and\nby to be a Jurassic world, and that again into what was after a while\nto be an Eocene world, and so on, until the aspect of the world that we\nknow to-day should noiselessly steal upon us.\n\nWhen once the truth of Lyell's conclusions began to be distinctly\nrealized, their influence upon men's habits of thought and upon the\ndrift of philosophic speculation was profound. The conception of\nEvolution was irresistibly forced upon men's attention. It was proved\nbeyond question that the world was not created in the form in which we\nfind it to-day, but has gone through many phases, of which the later are\nvery different from the earlier; and it was shown that, so far as the\ninorganic world is concerned, the changes can be much more\nsatisfactorily explained by a reference to the ceaseless, all-pervading\nactivity of gentle, unobtrusive causes such as we know than by an appeal\nto imaginary catastrophes such as we have no means of verifying. It\nbegan to appear, also, that the facts which form the subject-matter of\ndifferent departments of science are not detached and independent groups\nof facts, but that all are intimately related one with another, and that\nall may be brought under contribution in illustrating the history of\ncosmic events. It was a sense of this interdependence of different\ndepartments that led Auguste Comte to write his \"Philosophie Positive,\"\nthe first volume of which appeared in 1830, in which he sought to point\nout the methods which each science has at command for discovering truth,\nand the manner in which each might be made to contribute toward a sound\nbody of philosophic doctrine. The attempt had a charm and a stimulus for\nmany minds, but failed by being enlisted in the service of sundry\nsociological vagaries upon which the author's mind was completely\nwrecked. \"Positivism,\" from being the name of a potent scientific\nmethod, became the name of one more among the myriad ways of having a\nchurch and regulating the details of life.\n\nWhile the ponderous mechanical intellect of Comte was striving to elicit\nthe truth from themes beyond its grasp, one of the world's supreme poets\nhad already discerned some of the deeper aspects of science presently to\nbe set forth. By temperament and by training, Goethe was one of the\nfirst among evolutionists. The belief in an evolution of higher from\nlower organisms could not fail to be strongly suggested to a mind like\nhis as soon as the classification of plants and animals had begun to be\nconducted upon scientific principles. It is not for nothing that a table\nof classes, orders, families, genera, and species, when graphically laid\nout, resembles a family tree. It was not long after Linn\u00e6us that\nbelievers in some sort of a development theory, often fantastic enough,\nbegan to be met with. The facts of morphology gave further suggestions\nin the same direction. Such facts were first generalized on a grand\nscale by Goethe in his beautiful little essay on \"The Metamorphoses of\nPlants,\" written in 1790, and his \"Introduction to Morphology,\" written\nin 1795, but not published until 1807. In these profound treatises,\nwhich were too far in advance of their age to exert much influence at\nfirst, Goethe laid the philosophic foundations of comparative anatomy in\nboth vegetal and animal worlds. The conceptions of metamorphosis and of\nhomology, which were thus brought forward, tended powerfully toward a\nrecognition of the process of evolution. It was shown that what under\nsome circumstances grows into a stem with a whorl of leaves, under other\ncircumstances grows into a flower; it was shown that in the general\nscheme of the vertebrate skeleton a pectoral fin, a fore leg, and a wing\noccupy the same positions: thus was strongly suggested the idea that\nwhat under some circumstances developed into a fin might under other\ncircumstances develop into a leg or a wing. The revelations of\npal\u00e6ontology, showing various extinct adult forms, with corresponding\norgans in various degrees of development, went far to strengthen this\nsuggestion, until an unanswerable argument was reached with the study of\nrudimentary organs, which have no meaning except as remnants of a\nvanished past during which the organism has been changing. The study of\ncomparative embryology pointed in the same direction; for it was soon\nobserved that the embryos and larv\u00e6 of the higher forms of each group of\nanimals pass, \"in the course of their development, through a series of\nstages in which they more or less completely resemble the lower forms of\nthe group.\"[4]\n\nBefore the full significance of such facts of embryology and morphology\ncould be felt, it was necessary that the work of classification should\nbe carried far beyond the point at which it had been left by Linn\u00e6us. In\nmapping out the relationships in the animal kingdom, the great Swedish\nnaturalist had relied less than his predecessors upon external or\nsuperficial characteristics; the time was arriving when classification\nshould be based upon a thorough study of internal structure, and this\nwas done by a noble company of French anatomists, among whom Cuvier was\nchief. It was about 1817 that Cuvier's gigantic work reached its climax\nin bringing pal\u00e6ontology into alliance with systematic zo\u00f6logy, and\neffecting that grand classification of animals in space and time which\nat once cast into the shade all that had gone before it. During the past\nfifty years there have been great changes made in Cuvier's\nclassification, especially in the case of the lower forms of animal\nlife. His class of _Radiata_ has been broken up, other divisions in his\ninvertebrate world have been modified beyond recognition, his vertebrate\nscheme has been overhauled in many quarters, his attempt to erect a\ndistinct order for Man has been overthrown. Among the great anatomists\nconcerned in this work the greatest name is that of Huxley. The\nclassification most generally adopted to-day is Huxley's, but it is\nrather a modification of Cuvier's than a new development. So enduring\nhas been the work of the great Frenchman.\n\nWith Cuvier the analysis of the animal organism made some progress in\nsuch wise that anatomists began to concentrate their attention upon the\nstudy of the development and characteristic functions of organs.\nPhilosophically, this was a long step in advance, but a still longer one\nwas taken at about the same time by that astonishing youth whose career\nhas no parallel in the history of science. When Xavier Bichat died in\n1802, in his thirty-first year, he left behind him a treatise on\ncomparative anatomy in which the subject was worked up from the study\nof the tissues and their properties. The path thus broken by Bichat led\nto the cell doctrine of Schleiden and Schwann, matured about 1840, which\nremains, with some modifications, the basis of modern biology. The\nadvance along these lines contributed signally to the advancement of\nembryology, which reached a startling height in 1829 with the\npublication of Baer's memorable treatise, in which the development of an\novum is shown to consist in a change from homogeneity to heterogeneity\nthrough successive differentiations. But while Baer thus arrived at the\nvery threshold of the law of evolution, he was not in the true sense an\nevolutionist; he had nothing to say to phylogenetic evolution, or the\nderivation of the higher forms of life from lower forms through physical\ndescent with modifications. Just so with Cuvier. When he effected his\ngrand classification, he prepared the way most thoroughly for a general\ntheory of evolution, but he always resisted any such inference from his\nwork. He was building better than he knew.\n\nThe hesitancy of such men as Cuvier and Baer was no doubt due partly to\nthe apparent absence of any true cause for physical modifications in\nspecies, partly to the completeness with which their own great work\nabsorbed their minds. Often in the history of science we witness the\nspectacle of a brilliant discoverer travelling in triumph along some new\npath, but stopping just short of the goal which subsequent exploration\nhas revealed. There it stands looming up before his face, but he is\nblind to its presence through the excess of light which he has already\ntaken in. The intellectual effort already put forth has left no surplus\nfor any further sweep of comprehension, so that further advance requires\na fresher mind and a new start with faculties unjaded and unwarped. To\ndiscover a great truth usually requires a succession of thinkers. Among\nthe eminent anatomists who in the earlier part of our century were\noccupied with the classification of animals, there were some who found\nthemselves compelled to believe in phylogenetic evolution, although they\ncould frame no satisfactory theory to account for it. The weight of\nevidence was already in favour of such evolution, and these men could\nnot fail to see it. Foremost among them was Jean Baptiste Lamarck, whose\nwork was of supreme importance. His views were stated in 1809 in his\n\"Philosophic Zo\u00f6logique,\" and further illustrated in 1815, in his\nvoluminous treatise on invertebrate animals. Lamarck entirely rejected\nthe notion of special creations, and he pointed out some of the\nimportant factors in evolution, especially the law that organs and\nfaculties tend to increase with exercise, and to diminish with disuse.\nHis weakest point was the disposition to imagine some inherent and\nubiquitous tendency toward evolution, whereas a closer study of nature\nhas taught us that evolution occurs only where there is a concurrence of\nfavourable conditions. Among others who maintained some theory of\nevolution were the two Geoffroy Saint-Hilaires, father and son, and the\ntwo great botanists, Naudin in France and Hooker in England. In 1852 the\ncase of evolution as against special creations was argued by Herbert\nSpencer with convincing force, and in 1855 appeared \"The Principles of\nPsychology,\" by the same author, a book which is from beginning to end\nan elaborate illustration of the process of evolution, and is divided\nfrom everything that came before it by a gulf as wide as that which\ndivides the Copernican astronomy from the Ptolemaic.\n\nThe followers of Cuvier regarded the methods and results of these\nevolutionists with strong disapproval. In the excess of such a feeling,\nthey even went so far as to condemn all philosophic thinking on subjects\nwithin the scope of natural history as visionary and unscientific. Why\nseek for any especial significance in the fact that every spider and\nevery lobster is made up of just twenty segments? Is it not enough to\nknow the fact? Children must not ask too many questions. It is the\nbusiness of science to gather facts, not to seek for hidden\nimplications. Such was the mental attitude into which men of science\nwere quite commonly driven, between 1830 and 1860, by their desire to\nblink the question of evolution. A feeling grew up that the true glory\nof a scientific career was to detect for the two hundredth time an\nasteroid, or to stick a pin through a beetle with a label attached\nbearing your own latinized name, _Browni_, or _Jonesii_, or\n_Robinsoniense_. This feeling was especially strong in France, and was\nnot confined to physical science. It was exhibited a few years later in\nthe election of some Swedish or Norwegian naturalist (whose name I\nforget) to the French Academy of Science instead of Charles Darwin: the\nformer had described some new kind of fly, the latter was only a\ntheorizer! The study of origins in particular was to be frowned upon. In\n1863 the Linguistic Society of Paris passed a by-law that no\ncommunications bearing upon the origin of language would be received. In\nthe same mood, Sir Henry Maine's treatise on \"Ancient Law\" was condemned\nat a leading American university: it was enough for us to know our own\nlaws; those of India might interest British students who might have\noccasion to go there, but not Americans. Such crude notions, utterly\nhostile to the spirit of science, were unduly favoured fifty years ago\nby the persistent unwillingness to submit the phenomena of organic\nnature to the kind of scientific explanation which facts from all\nquarters were urging upon us.\n\nDuring the period from 1830 to 1860, the factor in evolution which had\nhitherto escaped detection was gradually laid hold of and elaborately\nstudied by Charles Darwin. In the nature of his speculations, and the\noccasion that called them forth, he was a true disciple of Lyell. The\nwork of that great geologist led directly up to Darwinism. As long as it\nwas supposed that each geologic period was separated from the periods\nbefore and after it by Titanic convulsions which revolutionized the face\nof the globe, it was possible for men to acquiesce in the supposition\nthat these convulsions wrought an abrupt and a wholesale destruction of\norganic life, and that the lost forms were replaced by an equally abrupt\nand wholesale supernatural creation of new forms at the beginning of\neach new period. But, as people ceased to believe in the convulsions,\nsuch an explanation began to seem improbable, and it was completely\ndiscredited by the fact that many kinds of plants and animals have\npersisted with little or no change during several successive periods,\nside by side with other kinds in which there have been extensive\nvariation and extinction.\n\nIn connection with this a fact of great significance was elicited.\nBetween the fauna and flora of successive periods in the same\ngeographical region there is apt to be a manifest family likeness,\nindicating that the later are connected with the earlier through the\nbonds of physical descent. It was a case of this sort that attracted\nDarwin's attention in 1835. The plants and animals of the Galapagos\nIslands are either descended, with specific modifications, from those of\nthe mainland of Ecuador, or else there must have been an enormous number\nof special creations. The case is one which at a glance presents the\nnotion of special creations in an absurd light. But what could have\ncaused the modification? What was wanted was, to be able to point to\nsome agency, similar to agencies now in operation, and therefore\nintelligible, which could be proved to be capable of making specific\nchanges in plants and animals. Darwin's solution of the problem was so\nbeautiful, it seems now so natural and inevitable, that we may be in\ndanger of forgetting how complicated and abstruse the problem really\nwas. Starting from the known experiences of breeders of domestic animals\nand cultivated plants, and duly considering the remarkable and sometimes\nastonishing changes that are wrought by simple selection, the problem\nwas to detect among the multifarious phenomena of organic nature any\nagency capable of accomplishing what man thus accomplishes by selection.\nIn detecting the agency of natural selection, working perpetually\nthrough the preservation of favoured individuals and races in the\nstruggle for existence, Darwin found the true cause for which men were\nwaiting. With infinite patience and caution, he applied his method of\nexplanation to one group of organic phenomena after another, meeting in\nevery quarter with fresh and often unexpected verification. After more\nthan twenty years, a singular circumstance led him to publish an account\nof his researches. The same group of facts had set a younger naturalist\nto work upon the same problem, and a similar process of thought had led\nto the same solution. Without knowing what Darwin had done, Alfred\nRussel Wallace made the same discovery, and sent from the East Indies,\nin 1858, his statement of it to Darwin as to the man whose judgment upon\nit he should most highly prize. This made publication necessary for\nDarwin. The vast treasures of theory and example which he had\naccumulated were given to the world, the notion of special creations was\nexploded, and the facts of phylogenetic evolution won general\nacceptance.\n\nUnder the influence of this great achievement, men in every department\nof science began to work in a more philosophical spirit. Naturalists,\nabandoning the mood of the stamp collectors, saw in every nook and\ncorner some fresh illustration of Darwin's views. One serious obstacle\nto any general statement of the doctrine of evolution was removed. It\nwas in 1861 that Herbert Spencer began to publish such a general\nsystematic statement. His point of departure was the point reached by\nBaer in 1829, the change from homogeneity to heterogeneity. The theory\nof evolution had already received in Spencer's hands a far more complete\nand philosophical treatment than ever before, when the discovery of\nnatural selection came to supply the one feature which it lacked.\nSpencer's thought is often more profound than Darwin's, but he would be\nthe first to admit the indispensableness of natural selection to the\nsuccessful working-out of his own theory.\n\nThe work of Spencer is beyond precedent for comprehensiveness and depth.\nHe began by showing that as a generalization of embryology Baer's law\nneeds important emendations, and he went on to prove that, as thus\nrectified, the law of the development of an ovum is the law which covers\nthe evolution of our planetary system, and of life upon the earth's\nsurface in all its myriad manifestations. In Spencer's hands, the\ntime-honoured Nebular Theory propounded by Immanuel Kant in 1755, the\nearliest of all scientific theories of evolution, took on fresh life and\nmeaning; and at the same time the theories of Lamarck and Darwin as to\norganic evolution were worked up along with his own profound\ngeneralization of the evolution of mind into one coherent and majestic\nwhole. Mankind have reason to be grateful that the promise of that\ndaring prospectus which so charmed and dazzled us in 1860 is at last\nfulfilled; that after six-and-thirty years, despite all obstacles and\ndiscouragements, the Master's work is virtually done.\n\nSuch a synthesis could not have been achieved, nor even attempted,\nwithout the extraordinary expansion of molecular physics that marked the\nfirst half of the nineteenth century. When Priestley discovered oxygen,\nthe undulatory theory of light, the basis of all modern physics, had not\nbeen established. It had indeed been propounded as long ago as 1678 by\nthe illustrious Christian Huyghens, whom we should also remember as the\ndiscoverer of Saturn's rings and the inventor of the pendulum clock. But\nHuyghens was in advance of his age, and the overshadowing authority of\nNewton, who maintained a rival hypothesis, prevented due attention being\npaid to the undulatory theory until the beginning of the present\ncentury, when it was again taken up and demonstrated by Fresnel and\nThomas Young. About the same time, our fellow countryman, Count Rumford,\nwas taking the lead in that series of researches which culminated in the\ndiscovery of the mechanical equivalent of heat by Dr. Joule in 1843. One\nof Priestley's earliest books, the one which made him a doctor of laws\nand a fellow of the Royal Society, was a treatise on electricity,\npublished in 1767. It was a long step from that book to the one in which\nthe Danish physicist Oersted, in 1820, demonstrated the intimate\ncorrelation between electricity and magnetism, thus preparing the way\nfor Faraday's great discovery of magneto-electric induction in 1831. By\nthe middle of our century the work in these various departments of\nphysics had led to the detection of the deepest truth in science,--the\nlaw of correlation and conservation, which we owe chiefly to Helmholtz,\nMayer, and Grove. It was proved that light and heat, and the\nmanifestations of force which we group together under the name of\nelectricity, are various modes of undulatory motion transformable one\ninto another; and that, in the operations of nature, energy is never\nannihilated, but only changed from one form into another. This\ngeneralization includes the indestructibility of matter, and thus lies\nat the bottom of all chemistry and physics and of all science.\n\nReturning to that chemistry with which we started, we may recall two\nlaws that were propounded early in the century, one of which was\ninstantly adopted, while the other had to wait for its day. Dalton's law\nof definite and multiple proportions has been ever since 1808 the corner\nstone of chemical science, and the atomic theory by which he sought to\nexplain the law has exercised a profound influence upon all modern\nspeculation. The other law, announced by Avogadro in 1811, that, \"under\nthe same conditions of pressure and temperature, equal volumes of all\ngaseous substances, whether elementary or compound, contain the same\nnumber of molecules,\" was neglected for nearly fifty years, and then,\nwhen it was taken up and applied, it remodelled the whole science of\nchemistry, and threw a flood of light upon the internal constitution of\nmatter. In this direction a new world of speculation is opening up\nbefore us, full of wondrous charm. The amazing progress made since\nPriestley's day may be summed up in a single contrast. In 1781 Cavendish\nascertained the bare fact that water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen;\nwithin ninety years from that time Sir William Thomson was able to tell\nus that \"if the drop of water were magnified to the size of the earth,\nthe constituent atoms would be larger than peas, but not so large as\nbilliard balls.\" Such a statement is confessedly provisional, but,\nallowing for this, the contrast is no less striking.\n\nConcerning the various and complicated applications of physical science\nto the arts, by which human life has been so profoundly affected in the\npresent century, a mere catalogue of them would tax our attention to\nlittle purpose. As my object in the present sketch is simply to trace\nthe broad outlines of advance in pure science, I pass over these\napplications, merely observing that the perpetual interaction between\ntheory and practice is such that each new invention is liable to modify\nthe science in which it originated, either by encountering fresh\nquestions or by suggesting new methods, or in both these ways. The work\nof men like Pasteur and Koch cannot fail to influence biological theory\nas much as medical practice. The practical uses of electricity are\nintroducing new features into the whole subject of molecular physics,\nand in this region, I suspect, we are to look for some of the most\nstriking disclosures of the immediate future.\n\nA word must be said of the historical sciences, which have witnessed as\ngreat changes as any others, mainly through the introduction of the\ncomparative method of inquiry. The first two great triumphs of the\ncomparative method were achieved contemporaneously in two fields of\ninquiry very remote from one another: the one was the work of Cuvier,\nabove mentioned; the other was the founding of the comparative philology\nof the Aryan languages by Franz Bopp, in 1816. The work of Bopp exerted\nas powerful an influence throughout all the historical fields of study\nas Cuvier exerted in biology. The young men whose minds were receiving\ntheir formative impulses between 1825 and 1840, under the various\ninfluences of Cuvier and Saint-Hilaire, Lyell, Goethe, Bopp, and other\nsuch great leaders, began themselves to come to the foreground as\nleaders of thought about 1860: on the one hand, such men as Darwin,\nGray, Huxley, and Wallace; on the other hand, such as Kuhn and\nSchleicher, Maine, Maurer, Mommsen, Freeman, and Tylor. The point of\nthe comparative method, in whatever field it may be applied, is that it\nbrings before us a great number of objects so nearly alike that we are\nbound to assume for them an origin and general history in common, while\nat the same time they present such differences in detail as to suggest\nthat some have advanced further than others in the direction in which\nall are travelling; some, again, have been abruptly arrested, others\nperhaps even turned aside from the path. In the attempt to classify such\nphenomena, whether in the historical or in the physical sciences, the\nconception of development is presented to the student with irresistible\nforce. In the case of the Aryan languages, no one would think of\ndoubting their descent from a common original: just side by side is the\nparallel case of one sub-group of the Aryan languages, namely, the seven\nRomance languages which we know to have been developed out of Latin\nsince the Christian era. In these cases we can study the process of\nchange resulting in forms that are more or less divergent from their\noriginals. In one quarter a form is retained with little modification;\nin another it is completely blurred, as the Latin _metipsissimus_\nbecomes _medesimo_ in Italian, but _mismo_ in Spanish, while in modern\nFrench there is nothing left of it but _m\u00eame_. So in Sanskrit and in\nLithuanian we find a most ingenious and elaborate system of conjugation\nand declension, which in such languages as Greek and Latin is more or\nless curtailed and altered, and which in English is almost completely\nlost. Yet in Old English there are quite enough vestiges of the system\nto enable us to identify it with the Lithuanian and Sanskrit.\n\nSo the student who applies the comparative method to the study of human\ncustoms and institutions is continually finding usages, beliefs, or laws\nexisting in one part of the world that have long since ceased to exist\nin another part; yet where they have ceased to exist they have often\nleft unmistakable traces of their former existence. In Australasia we\nfind types of savagery ignorant of the bow and arrow; in aboriginal\nNorth America, a type of barbarism familiar with the art of pottery, but\nignorant of domestic animals or of the use of metals; among the earliest\nRomans, a higher type of barbarism, familiar with iron and cattle, but\nignorant of the alphabet. Along with such gradations in material culture\nwe find associated gradations in ideas, in social structure, and in\ndeep-seated customs. Thus, some kind of fetishism is apt to prevail in\nthe lower stages of barbarism, and some form of polytheism in the\nhigher stages. The units of composition in savage and barbarous\nsocieties are always the clan, the phratry, and the tribe. In the lower\nstages of barbarism we see such confederacies as those of the Iroquois;\nin the highest stage, at the dawn of civilization, we begin to find\nnations imperfectly formed by conquest without incorporation, like\naboriginal Peru or ancient Assyria. In the lower stages we see captives\ntortured to death, then at a later stage sacrificed to the tutelar\ndeities, then later on enslaved and compelled to till the soil. Through\nthe earlier stages of culture, as in Australasia and aboriginal America,\nwe find the marriage tie so loose and paternity so uncertain that\nkinship is reckoned only through the mother; but in the highest stage of\nbarbarism, as among the earliest Greeks, Romans, and Jews, the more\ndefinite patriarchal family is developed, and kinship begins to be\nreckoned through the father. It is only after that stage is reached that\ninheritance of property becomes fully developed, with the substitution\nof individual ownership for clan ownership, and so on to the development\nof testamentary succession, individual responsibility for delict and\ncrime, and the substitution of contract for status. In all such\ninstances--and countless others might be cited--we see the marks of an\nintelligible progression, a line of development which human ideas and\ninstitutions have followed. But in the most advanced societies we find\nnumerous traces of such states of things as now exist only among savage\nor barbarous societies. Our own ancestors were once polytheists, with\nplenty of traces of fetishism. They were organized in clans, phratries,\nand tribes. There was a time when they used none but stone tools and\nweapons; when there was no private property in land, and no political\nstructure higher than the tribe. Among the forefathers of the present\ncivilized inhabitants of Europe are unmistakable traces of human\nsacrifices, and of the reckoning of kinship through the mother only.\nWhen we have come to survey large groups of facts of this sort, the\nconclusion is irresistibly driven home to us that the more advanced\nsocieties have gone through various stages now represented here and\nthere by less advanced societies; that there is a general path of social\ndevelopment, along which, owing to special circumstances, some peoples\nhave advanced a great way, some a less way, some but a very little way;\nand that by studying existing savages and barbarians we get a valuable\nclue to the interpretation of prehistoric times. All these things are\nto-day commonplaces among students of history and arch\u00e6ology; sixty\nyears ago they would have been scouted as idle vagaries. It is the\nintroduction of such methods of study that is making history scientific.\nIt is enabling us to digest the huge masses of facts that are daily\npoured in upon us by decipherers of the past,--monuments, inscriptions,\npottery, weapons, ethnological reports, and all that sort of thing,--and\nto make all contribute toward a coherent theory of the career of mankind\nupon the earth.\n\nIn the course of the foregoing survey one fact stands out with especial\nprominence: it appears that about half a century ago the foremost minds\nof the world, with whatever group of phenomena they were occupied, had\nfallen, and were more and more falling, into a habit of regarding\nthings, not as having originated in the shape in which we now find them,\nbut as having been slowly metamorphosed from some other shape through\nthe agency of forces similar in nature to forces now at work. Whether\nplanets, or mountains, or mollusks, or subjunctive moods, or tribal\nconfederacies were the things studied, the scholars who studied them\nmost deeply and most fruitfully were those who studied them as phases in\na process of development. The work of such scholars has formed the\nstrong current of thought in our time, while the work of those who did\nnot catch these new methods has been dropped by the way and forgotten;\nand as we look back to Newton's time we can see that ever since then the\ndrift of scientific thought has been setting in this direction, and with\nincreasing steadiness and force.\n\nNow, what does all this drift of scientific opinion during more than two\ncenturies mean? It can, of course, have but one meaning. It means that\nthe world _is_ in a process of development, and that gradually, as\nadvancing knowledge has enabled us to take a sufficiently wide view of\nthe world, we have come to see that it is so. The old statical\nconception of a world created all at once in its present shape was the\nresult of very narrow experience; it was entertained when we knew only\nan extremely small segment of the world. Now that our experience has\nwidened, it is outgrown and set aside forever; it is replaced by the\ndynamical conception of a world in a perpetual process of evolution from\none state into another state. This dynamical conception has come to stay\nwith us. Our theories as to what the process of evolution is may be more\nor less wrong and are confessedly tentative, as scientific theories\nshould be. But the dynamical conception, which is not the work of any\none man, be he Darwin or Spencer or any one else, but the result of the\ncumulative experience of the last two centuries,--this is a permanent\nacquisition. We can no more revert to the statical conception than we\ncan turn back the sun in his course. Whatever else the philosophy of\nfuture generations may be, it must be some kind of a philosophy of\nevolution.\n\nSuch is the scientific conquest achieved by the nineteenth century, a\nmarvellous story without any parallel in the history of human\nachievement. The swiftness of the advance has been due partly to the\nremoval of the ancient legal and social trammels that beset free\nthinking in every conceivable direction. It is largely due also to the\nuse of correct methods of research. The waste of intellectual effort has\nbeen less than in former ages. The substitution of Lavoisier's balance\nfor Stahl's _a priori_ reasoning is one among countless instances of\nthis. Sound scientific method is a slow acquisition of the human mind,\nand for its more rapid introduction, in Priestley's time and since, we\nhave largely to thank the example set by those giants of a former age,\nGalileo and Kepler, Descartes and Newton.\n\nThe lessons that might be derived from our story are many. But one that\nwe may especially emphasize is the dignity of Man whose persistent\nseeking for truth is rewarded by such fruits. We may be sure that the\ncreature whose intelligence measures the pulsations of molecules and\nunravels the secret of the whirling nebula is no creature of a day, but\nthe child of the universe, the heir of all the ages, in whose making and\nperfecting is to be found the consummation of God's creative work.\n\n_May, 1896._\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nTHE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION: ITS SCOPE AND PURPORT[5]\n\n\nIt was not strange that among the younger men whose opinions were\nmoulded between 1830 and 1840 there should have been one of organizing\ngenius, with a mind inexhaustibly fertile in suggestions, who should\nundertake to elaborate a general doctrine of evolution, to embrace in\none grand coherent system of generalizations all the minor\ngeneralizations which workers in different departments of science were\nestablishing. It is this prodigious work of construction that we owe to\nHerbert Spencer. He is the originator and author of what we know to-day\nas the doctrine of evolution, the doctrine which undertakes to formulate\nand put into scientific shape the conception of evolution toward which\nscientific investigation had so long been tending. In the mind of the\ngeneral public there seems to be dire confusion with regard to Mr.\nSpencer and his relations to evolution and to Darwinism. Sometimes, I\nbelieve, he is even supposed to be chiefly a follower and expounder of\nMr. Darwin! No doubt this is because so many people mix up Darwinism\nwith the doctrine of evolution, and have but the vaguest and haziest\nnotions as to what it is all about. As I explained above, Mr. Darwin's\ngreat work was the discovery of natural selection, and the demonstration\nof its agency in effecting specific changes in plants and animals; and\nin that work he was completely original. But plants and animals are only\na part of the universe, though an important part, and with regard to\nuniversal evolution or any universal formula for evolution Darwinism had\nnothing to say. Such problems were beyond its scope.\n\nThe discovery of a universal formula for evolution, and the application\nof this formula to many diverse groups of phenomena, have been the great\nwork of Mr. Spencer, and in this he has had no predecessor. His wealth\nof originality is immense, and it is unquestionable. But as the most\noriginal thinker must take his start from the general stock of ideas\naccumulated at his epoch, and more often than not begins by following a\nclue given him by somebody else, so it was with Mr. Spencer when, about\nforty years ago, he was working out his doctrine of evolution. The clue\nwas not given by Mr. Darwin. Darwinism was not yet born. Mr. Spencer's\ntheory was worked out in all its parts, and many parts of it had been\nexpounded in various published volumes and essays before the publication\nof the \"Origin of Species.\"\n\nThe clue which Mr. Spencer followed was given him by the great\nembryologist, Karl Ernst von Baer, and an adumbration of it may perhaps\nbe traced back through Kaspar Friedrich Wolf to Linn\u00e6us. Hints of it may\nbe found, too, in Goethe and in Schelling. The advance from simplicity\nto complexity in the development of an egg is too obvious to be\noverlooked by any one, and was remarked upon, I believe, by Harvey; but\nthe analysis of what that advance consists in was a wonderfully\nsuggestive piece of work. Baer's great book was published in 1829, just\nat the time when so many stimulating ideas were being enunciated, and\nits significant title was _Entwickelungsgeschichte_, or \"History of\nEvolution.\" It was well known that, so far as the senses can tell us,\none ovum is indistinguishable from another, whether it be that of a man,\na fish, or a parrot. The ovum is a structureless bit of organic matter,\nand, in acquiring structure along with its growth in volume and mass, it\nproceeds through a series of differentiations, and the result is a\nchange from homogeneity to heterogeneity. Such was Baer's conclusion, to\nwhich scanty justice is done by such a brief statement. As all know, his\nwork marked an epoch in the study of embryology; for to mark the\nsuccessive differentiations in the embryos of a thousand animals was to\nwrite a thousand life histories upon correct principles.\n\nHere it was that Mr. Spencer started. As a young man, he was chiefly\ninterested in the study of political government and in history so far as\nit helps the study of politics. A philosophical student of such subjects\nmust naturally seek for a theory of evolution. If I may cite my own\nexperience, it was largely the absorbing and overmastering passion for\nthe study of history that first led me to study evolution in order to\nobtain a correct method. When one has frequent occasion to refer to the\npolitical and social _progress_ of the human race, one likes to know\nwhat one is talking about. Mr. Spencer needed a theory of progress. He\ncould see that the civilized part of mankind has undergone some change\nfrom a bestial, unsocial, perpetually fighting stage of savagery into a\npartially peaceful and comparatively humane and social stage, and that\nwe may reasonably hope that the change in this direction will go on. He\ncould see, too, that along with this change there has been a building-up\nof tribes into nations, a division of labour, a differentiation of\ngovernmental functions, a series of changes in the relations of the\nindividual to the community. To see so much as this is to whet one's\ncraving for enlarged resources wherewith to study human progress. Mr.\nSpencer had a wide, accurate, and often profound acquaintance with\nbotany, zo\u00f6logy, and allied studies. The question naturally occurred to\nhim, Where do we find the process of development most completely\nexemplified from beginning to end, so that we can follow and\nexhaustively describe its consecutive phases? Obviously in the\ndevelopment of the ovum. There, and only there, do we get the whole\nprocess under our eyes from the first segmentation of the yolk to the\ndeath of the matured individual. In other groups of phenomena we can\nonly see a small part of what is going on; they are too vast for us, as\nin astronomy, or too complicated, as in sociology. Elsewhere our\nevidences of development are more or less piecemeal and scattered, but\nin embryology we do get, at any rate, a connected story.\n\nSo Mr. Spencer took up Baer's problem, and carried the solution of it\nmuch further than the great Esthonian naturalist. He showed that in the\ndevelopment of the ovum the change from homogeneity to heterogeneity is\naccompanied by a change from indefiniteness to definiteness; there are\nsegregations of similarly differentiated units resulting in the\nformation of definite organs. He further showed that there is a parallel\nand equally important change from incoherence to coherence; along with\nthe division of labour among the units there is an organization of\nlabour: at first, among the homogeneous units there is no\nsubordination,--to subtract one would not alter the general aspect; but\nat last, among the heterogeneous organs there is such subordination and\ninterdependence that to subtract any one is liable to undo the whole\nprocess and destroy the organism. In other words, integration is as much\na feature of development as differentiation; the change is not simply\nfrom a structureless whole into parts, but it is from a structureless\nwhole into an organized whole with a consensus of different functions,\nand that is what we call an organism. So while Baer said that the\nevolution of the chick is a change from homogeneity to heterogeneity\nthrough successive differentiations, Mr. Spencer said that the evolution\nof the chick is a continuous change from indefinite incoherent\nhomogeneity to definite coherent heterogeneity through successive\ndifferentiations and integrations.\n\nBut Mr. Spencer had now done something more than describe exhaustively\nthe evolution of an individual organism. He had got a standard of high\nand low degrees of organization; and the next thing in order was to\napply this standard to the whole hierarchy of animals and plants\naccording to their classified relationships and their succession in\ngeological time. This was done with most brilliant success. From the\nearliest records in the rocks, the general advance in types of\norganization has been an advance in definiteness, coherence, and\nheterogeneity. The method of evolution in the life history of the animal\nand vegetal kingdoms has been like the method of evolution in the life\nhistory of the individual.\n\nTo go into the inorganic world with such a formula might seem rash. But\nas the growth of organization is essentially a particular kind of\nredistribution of matter and motion, and as redistribution of matter and\nmotion is going on universally in the inorganic world, it is interesting\nto inquire whether, in such simple approaches toward organization as we\nfind, there is any approach toward the characteristics of organic\nevolution as above described. It was easy for Mr. Spencer to show that\nthe change from a nebula into a planetary system conforms to the\ndefinition of evolution in a way that is most striking and suggestive.\nBut in studying the inorganic world Mr. Spencer was led to modify his\nformula in a way that vastly increased its scope. He came to see that\nthe primary feature of evolution is an integration of matter and\nconcomitant dissipation of motion. According to circumstances, this\nprocess may or not be attended with extensive internal rearrangements\nand development of organization. The continuous internal rearrangement\nimplied in the development of organization is possible only where there\nis a medium degree of mobility among the particles, a plasticity such as\nis secured only by those peculiar chemical combinations which make up\nwhat we call organic matter. In the inorganic world, where there is an\napproach to organization there is an adumbration of the law as realized\nin the organic world. But in the former, what strikes us most is the\nconcentration of the mass with the retention of but little internal\nmobility; in the latter, what strikes us most is the wonderful\ncomplication of the transformations wrought by the immense amount of\ninternal mobility retained. These transformations are to us the mark,\nthe distinguishing feature, of life.\n\nHaving thus got the nature of the differences between the organic and\ninorganic worlds into a series of suggestive formulas, the next thing\nto be done was to inquire into the applicability of the law of evolution\nto the higher manifestations of vital activity,--in other words, to\npsychical and social life. Here it was easy to point out analogies\nbetween the development of society and the development of an organism.\nBetween a savage state of society and a civilized state, it is easy to\nsee the contrasts in complexity of life, in division of labour, in\ninterdependence and coherence of operations and of interests. The\ndifference resembles that between a vertebrate animal and a worm.\n\nSuch analogies are instructive, because at the bottom of the phenomena\nthere is a certain amount of real identity. But Mr. Spencer did not stop\nwith analogies; he pursued his problem into much deeper regions. There\nis one manifest distinction between a society and an organism. In the\norganism, the conscious life, the psychical life, is not in the parts,\nbut in the whole; but in a society, there is no such thing as corporate\nconsciousness: the psychical life is all in the individual men and\nwomen. The highest development of this psychical life is the end for\nwhich the world exists. The object of social life is the highest\nspiritual welfare of the individual members of society. The individual\nhuman soul thus comes to be as much the centre of the Spencerian world\nas it was the centre of the world of medi\u00e6val theology; and the history\nof the evolution of conscious intelligence becomes a theme of surpassing\ninterest.\n\nThis is the part of his subject which Mr. Spencer has handled in the\nmost masterly manner. Nothing in the literature of psychology is more\nremarkable than the long-sustained analysis in which he starts with\ncomplicated acts of quantitative reasoning and resolves them into their\nelementary processes, and then goes on to simpler acts of judgment and\nperception, and then down to sensation, and so on resolving and\nresolving, until he gets down to the simple homogeneous psychical shocks\nor pulses in the manifold compounding and recompounding of which all\nmental action consists. Then, starting afresh from that conception of\nlife as the continuous adjustment of inner relations within the organism\nto outer relations in the environment,--a conception of which he made\nsuch brilliant use in his \"Principles of Biology,\"--he shows how the\npsychical life gradually becomes specialized in certain classes of\nadjustments or correspondences, and how the development of psychical\nlife consists in a progressive differentiation and integration of such\ncorrespondences. Intellectual life is shown to have arisen by slow\ngradations, and the special interpretations of reflex action, instinct,\nmemory, reason, emotion, and will are such as to make the \"Principles of\nPsychology\" indubitably the most suggestive book upon mental phenomena\nthat was ever written.\n\nToward the end of the first edition of the \"Origin of Species,\"\npublished in 1859, Mr. Darwin looked forward to a distant future when\nthe conception of gradual development might be applied to the phenomena\nof intelligence. But the first edition of the \"Principles of\nPsychology,\" in which this was so successfully done, had already been\npublished four years before,--in 1855,--so that Mr. Darwin in later\neditions was obliged to modify his statement, and confess that, instead\nof looking so far forward, he had better have looked about him. I\nremember hearing Mr. Darwin laugh merrily over this at his own expense.\n\nThis extension of the doctrine of evolution to psychical phenomena was\nwhat made it a universal doctrine, an account of the way in which the\nworld, as we know it, has been evolved. There is no subject, great or\nsmall, that has not come to be affected by the doctrine, and, whether\nmen realize it or not, there is no nook or corner in speculative science\nwhere they can get away from the sweep of Mr. Spencer's thought.\n\nThis extension of the doctrine to psychical phenomena is by many people\nmisunderstood. The \"Principles of Psychology\" is a marvel of\nstraightforward and lucid statement; but, from its immense reach and\nfrom the abstruseness of the subject, it is not easy reading. It\nrequires a sustained attention such as few people can command, except on\nsubjects with which they are already familiar. Hence few people read it\nin comparison with the number who have somehow got it into their heads\nthat Mr. Spencer tries to explain mind as evolved out of matter, and is\ntherefore a materialist. How many worthy critics have been heard to\nobject to the doctrine of evolution that you cannot deduce mind from the\nprimeval nebula, unless the germs of mind were present already! But that\nis just what Mr. Spencer says himself. I have heard him say it more than\nonce, and his books contain many passages of equivalent import.[6] He\nnever misses an opportunity for attacking the doctrine that mind can be\nexplained as evolved from matter. But, in spite of this, a great many\npeople suppose that the gradual evolution of mind _must_ mean its\nevolution out of matter, and are deaf to arguments of which they do not\nperceive the bearing. Hence Mr. Spencer is so commonly accredited with\nthe doctrine which he so earnestly repudiates.\n\nBut there is another reason why people are apt to suppose the doctrine\nof evolution to be materialistic in its implications. There are able\nwriters who have done good service in illustrating portions of the\ngeneral doctrine, and are at the same time avowed materialists. One may\nbe a materialist, whatever his scientific theory of things; and to such\na person the materialism naturally seems to be a logical consequence\nfrom the scientific theory. We have received this evening a\ncommunication from Professor Ernst Haeckel, of Jena, in which he lays\ndown five theses regarding the doctrine of evolution:--\n\n1. \"The general doctrine appears to be already unassailably founded;\n\n2. \"Thereby every supernatural creation is completely excluded;\n\n3. \"Transformism and the theory of descent are inseparable constituent\nparts of the doctrine of evolution;\n\n4. \"The necessary consequence of this last conclusion is the descent of\nman from a series of vertebrates.\"\n\nSo far, very good; we are within the limits of scientific competence,\nwhere Professor Haeckel is strong. But now, in his fifth thesis, he\nenters the region of metaphysics,--the transcendental region, which\nscience has no competent methods of exploring,--and commits himself to a\ndogmatic assertion:\n\n5. \"The beliefs in an 'immortal soul' and in 'a personal God' are\ntherewith\" (_i. e._, with the four preceding statements) \"completely\nununitable (_v\u00f6llig unvereinbar_).\"\n\nNow, if Professor Haeckel had contented himself with asserting that\nthese two beliefs are not susceptible of scientific demonstration; if he\nhad simply said that they are beliefs concerning which a scientific man,\nin his scientific capacity, ought to refrain from making assertions,\nbecause Science knows nothing whatever about the subject, he would have\noccupied an impregnable position. His fifth thesis would have been as\nindisputable as his first four. But Professor Haeckel does not stop\nhere. He declares virtually that if an evolutionist is found\nentertaining the beliefs in a personal God and an immortal soul,\nnevertheless these beliefs are not philosophically reconcilable with his\nscientific theory of things, but are mere remnants of an old-fashioned\nsuperstition from which he has not succeeded in freeing himself.\n\nHere one must pause to inquire what Professor Haeckel means by \"a\npersonal God.\" If he refers to the Latin conception of a God remote\nfrom the world of phenomena, and manifested only through occasional\ninterference,--the conception that has until lately prevailed in the\nWestern world since the time of St. Augustine,--then we may agree with\nhim; the practical effect of the doctrine of evolution is to abolish\nsuch a conception. But with regard to the Greek conception entertained\nby St. Athanasius; the conception of God as immanent in the world of\nphenomena and manifested in every throb of its mighty rhythmical life;\nthe deity that Richard Hooker, prince of English churchmen, had in mind\nwhen he wrote of Natural Law that \"her seat is the bosom of God, and her\nvoice the harmony of the world,\"--with regard to this conception the\npractical effect of the doctrine of evolution is not to abolish, but to\nstrengthen and confirm it. For, into whatever province of Nature we\ncarry our researches, the more deeply we penetrate into its laws and\nmethods of action, the more clearly do we see that all provinces of\nNature are parts of an organic whole animated by a single principle of\nlife that is infinite and eternal. I have no doubt Professor Haeckel\nwould not only admit this, but would scout any other view as\ninconsistent with the monism which he professes. But he would say that\nthis infinite and eternal principle of life is not psychical, and\ntherefore cannot be called in any sense \"a personal God.\" In an ultimate\nanalysis, I suspect Professor Haeckel's ubiquitous monistic principle\nwould turn out to be neither more nor less than Dr. B\u00fcchner's mechanical\nforce (_Kraft_). On the other hand, I have sought to show--in my little\nbook \"The Idea of God\"--that the Infinite and Eternal Power that\nanimates the universe must be psychical in its nature, that any attempt\nto reduce it to mechanical force must end in absurdity, and that the\nonly kind of monism which will stand the test of an ultimate analysis is\nmonotheism. While in the chapter on Anthropomorphic Theism, in my\n\"Cosmic Philosophy,\" I have taken great pains to point out the\ndifficulties in which (as finite thinkers) we are involved when we try\nto conceive the Infinite and Eternal Power as psychical in his nature, I\nhave in the chapter on Matter and Spirit, in that same book, taken equal\npains to show that we are logically compelled thus to conceive Him.\n\nOne's attitude toward such problems is likely to be determined by one's\nfundamental conception of psychical life. To a materialist the ultimate\npower is mechanical force, and psychical life is nothing but the\ntemporary and local result of fleeting collocations of material elements\nin the shape of nervous systems. Into the endless circuit of\ntransformations of molecular motion, says the materialist, there enter\ncertain phases which we call feelings and thoughts; they are part of the\ncircuit; they arise out of motions of material molecules, and disappear\nby being retransformed into such motions: hence, with the death of the\norganism in which such motions have been temporarily gathered into a\nkind of unity, all psychical activity and all personality are _ipso\nfacto_ abolished. Such is the materialistic doctrine, and such, I\npresume, is what Professor Haeckel has in mind when he asserts that the\nbelief in an immortal soul is incompatible with the doctrine of\nevolution. The theory commonly called that of the correlation of forces,\nand which might equally well or better be called the theory of the\nmetamorphosis of motions, is indispensable to the doctrine of evolution.\nBut for the theory that light, heat, electricity, and nerve-action are\ndifferent modes of undulatory motion transformable one into another, and\nthat similar modes of motion are liberated by the chemical processes\ngoing on within the animal or vegetal organism, Mr. Spencer's work could\nnever have been done. That theory of correlation and transformation is\nnow generally accepted, and is often appealed to by materialists. A\ncentury ago Cabanis said that the brain secretes thought as the liver\nsecretes bile. If he were alive to-day, he would doubtless smile at this\nold form of expression as crude, and would adopt a more subtle phrase;\nhe would say that \"thought is transformed motion.\"\n\nAgainst this interpretation I have maintained that the theory of\ncorrelation not only fails to support it, but actually overthrows it.\nThe arguments may be found in the chapter on Matter and Spirit, in my\n\"Cosmic Philosophy,\" published in 1874, and in the essay entitled \"A\nCrumb for the Modern Symposium,\" written in 1877, and reprinted in\n\"Darwinism and Other Essays.\"[7] Their purport is, that in tracing the\ncorrelation of motions into the organism through the nervous system and\nout again, we are bound to get an account of each step in terms of\nmotion. Unless we can show that every unit of motion that disappears is\ntransformed into an exact quantitative equivalent, our theory of\ncorrelation breaks down; but when we have shown this we shall have given\na complete account of the whole affair without taking any heed whatever\nof thought, feeling, or consciousness. In other words, these psychical\nactivities do not enter into the circuit, but stand outside of it, as a\nsegment of a circle may stand outside a portion of an entire\ncircumference with which it is concentric. Motion is never transformed\ninto thought, but only into some other form of measurable (in fact, or\nat any rate in theory, measurable) motion that takes place in\nnerve-threads and ganglia. _It is not the thought, but the nerve-action\nthat accompanies the thought, that is really \"transformed motion._\" I\nsay that if we are going to verify the theory of correlation, it must be\ndone (actually or theoretically) by measurement; quantitative\nequivalence must be proved at every step; and hence we must not change\nour unit of measurement; from first to last it must be a unit of motion:\nif we change it for a moment, our theory of correlation that moment\ncollapses. I say, therefore, that the theory of correlation and\nequivalence of forces lends no support whatever to materialism. On the\ncontrary, its manifest implication is that psychical life cannot be a\nmere product of temporary collocations of matter.\n\nThe argument here set forth is my own. When I first used it, I had never\nmet with it anywhere in books or conversation. Whether it has since been\nemployed by other writers I do not know, for during the past fifteen\nyears I have read very few books on such subjects. At all events, it is\nan argument for which I am ready to bear the full responsibility. Some\ndoubt has recently been expressed whether Mr. Spencer would admit the\nforce of this argument. It has been urged by Mr. S. H. Wilder, in two\nable papers published in the \"New York Daily Tribune,\" June 13 and July\n4, 1890, that the use of this argument marks a radical divergence on my\npart from Mr. Spencer's own position.\n\nIt is true that in several passages of \"First Principles\" there are\nstatements which either imply or distinctly assert that motion can be\ntransformed into feeling and thought,--_e. g._: \"Those modes of the\nUnknowable which we call heat, light, chemical affinity, etc., are alike\ntransformable into each other, and into those modes of the Unknowable\nwhich we distinguish as sensation, emotion, thought; these, in their\nturns, being directly or indirectly retransformable into the original\nshapes;\"[8] and again, it is said \"to be a necessary deduction from the\nlaw of correlation that what exists in consciousness under the form of\nfeeling is transformable into an equivalent of mechanical motion,\"\netc.[9] Now, if this, as literally interpreted, be Mr. Spencer's\ndeliberate opinion, I entirely dissent from it. To speak of quantitative\nequivalence between a unit of feeling and a unit of motion seems to me\nto be talking nonsense,--to be combining terms which severally possess a\nmeaning into a phrase which has no meaning. I am therefore inclined to\nthink that the above sentences, literally interpreted, do not really\nconvey Mr. Spencer's opinion. They appear manifestly inconsistent,\nmoreover, with other passages in which he has taken much more pains to\nexplain his position.[10] In the sentence from page 558 of \"First\nPrinciples,\" Mr. Spencer appears to me to mean that the nerve-action,\nwhich is the objective concomitant of what is subjectively known as\nfeeling, is transformable into an equivalent of mechanical motion. When\nhe wrote that sentence perhaps he had not shaped the case quite so\ndistinctly in his own mind as he had a few years later, when he made the\nmore elaborate statements in the second edition of the Psychology.\nThough in these more elaborate statements he does not assert the\ndoctrine I have here maintained, yet they seem consistent with it. When\nI was finishing the chapter on Matter and Spirit, in my room in London,\none afternoon in February, 1874, Mr. Spencer came in, and I read to him\nnearly the whole chapter, including my argument from correlation above\nmentioned. He expressed warm approval of the chapter, without making any\nspecific qualifications. In the course of the chapter I had occasion to\nquote a passage from the Psychology,[11] in which Mr. Spencer twice\ninadvertently used the phrase \"nervous shock\" where he meant \"psychical\nshock.\" As his object was to keep the psychical phenomena and their\ncerebral concomitants distinct in his argument, this colloquial use of\nthe word \"nervous\" was liable to puzzle the reader, and give querulous\ncritics a chance to charge Mr. Spencer with the materialistic\nimplications which it was his express purpose to avoid. Accordingly, in\nmy quotation I changed the word \"nervous\" to \"psychical,\" using brackets\nand explaining my reasons. On showing all this to Mr. Spencer, he\ndesired me to add in a footnote that he thoroughly approved the\nemendation.\n\nI mention this incident because our common, every-day speech abounds in\nexpressions that have a materialistic flavour; and sometimes in serious\nwriting an author's sheer intentness upon his main argument may lead him\nto overlook some familiar form of expression which, when thrown into a\nprecise and formal context, will strike the reader in a very different\nway from what the author intended. I am inclined to explain in this way\nthe passages in \"First Principles\" which are perhaps chiefly responsible\nfor the charge of materialism that has so often and so wrongly been\nbrought up against the doctrine of evolution.\n\nAs regards the theological implications of the doctrine of evolution, I\nhave never undertaken to speak for Mr. Spencer; on such transcendental\nsubjects it is quite enough if one speaks for one's self. It is told of\nDiogenes that, on listening one day to a sophistical argument against\nthe possibility of motion, he grimly got up out of his tub and walked\nacross the street. Whether his adversaries were convinced or not, we are\nnot told. Probably not; it is but seldom that adversaries are convinced.\nSo, when Professor Haeckel declares that belief in a \"personal God\" and\nan \"immortal soul\" is incompatible with acceptance of the doctrine of\nevolution, I can only say, for myself--however much or little the\npersonal experience may be worth--I find that the beliefs in the\npsychical nature of God and in the immortality of the human soul seem to\nharmonize infinitely better with my general system of cosmic philosophy\nthan the negation of these beliefs. If Professor Haeckel, or any other\nwriter, prefers a materialistic interpretation, very well. I neither\nquarrel with him nor seek to convert him; but I do not agree with him. I\ndo not pretend that my opinion on these matters is susceptible of\nscientific demonstration. Neither is his. I say, then, that his fifth\nthesis has no business in a series of scientific generalizations about\nthe doctrine of evolution.\n\nFar beyond the limits of what scientific methods, based upon our brief\nterrestrial experience, can demonstrate, there lies on every side a\nregion with regard to which Science can only suggest questions. As\nGoethe so profoundly says:--\n\n      \"Willst du ins Unendliche streiten,\n      Geh' nur im Endlichen nach allen Seiten.\"[12]\n\nIt is of surpassing interest that the particular generalization which\nhas been extended into a universal formula of evolution should have been\nthe generalization of the development of an ovum. In enlarging the\nsphere of life in such wise as to make the whole universe seem actuated\nby a single principle of life, we are introduced to regions of sublime\nspeculation. The doctrine of evolution, which affects our thought about\nall things, brings before us with vividness the conception of an ever\npresent God,--not an absentee God who once manufactured a cosmic\nmachine capable of running itself, except for a little jog or poke here\nand there in the shape of a special providence. The doctrine of\nevolution destroys the conception of the world as a machine. It makes\nGod our constant refuge and support, and Nature his true revelation; and\nwhen all its religious implications shall have been set forth, it will\nbe seen to be the most potent ally that Christianity has ever had in\nelevating mankind.\n\n_March, 1890._\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nEDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS[13]\n\n\nIn one of the most beautiful of all the shining pages of his \"History of\nthe Spanish Conquest in America,\" Sir Arthur Helps describes the way in\nwhich, through \"some fitness of the season, whether in great scientific\ndiscoveries or in the breaking into light of some great moral cause, the\nsame processes are going on in many minds, and it seems as if they\ncommunicated with each other invisibly. We may imagine that all good\npowers aid the 'new light,' and brave and wise thoughts about it float\naloft in the atmosphere of thought as downy seeds are borne over the\nfruitful face of the earth.\"[14] The thinker who elaborates a new system\nof philosophy, deeper and more comprehensive than any yet known to\nmankind, though he may work in solitude, nevertheless does not work\nalone. The very fact which makes his great scheme of thought a success,\nand not a failure, is the fact that it puts into definite and coherent\nshape the ideas which many people are more or less vaguely and loosely\nentertaining, and that it carries to a grand and triumphant conclusion\nprocesses of reasoning in which many persons have already begun taking\nthe earlier steps. This community in mental trend between the immortal\ndiscoverer and many of the brightest contemporary minds, far from\ndiminishing the originality of his work, constitutes the feature of it\nwhich makes it a permanent acquisition for mankind, and distinguishes it\nfrom the eccentric philosophies which now and then come up to startle\nthe world for a while, and are presently discarded and forgotten. The\nhistory of modern physics--as in the case of the correlation of forces\nand the undulatory theory of light--furnishes us with many instances of\nwise thoughts floating like downy seeds in the atmosphere until the\nmoment has come for them to take root. And so it has been with the\ngreatest achievement of modern thinking,--the doctrine of evolution.\nStudents and investigators in all departments, alike in the physical and\nin the historical sciences, were fairly driven by the nature of the\nphenomena before them into some hypothesis, more or less vague, of\ngradual and orderly change or development. The world was ready and\nwaiting for Herbert Spencer's mighty work when it came, and it was for\nthat reason that it was so quickly triumphant over the old order of\nthought. The victory has been so thorough, swift, and decisive that it\nwill take another generation to narrate the story of it so as to do it\nfull justice. Meanwhile, people's minds are apt to be somewhat dazed\nwith the rapidity and wholesale character of the change; and nothing is\nmore common than to see them adopting Mr. Spencer's ideas without\nrecognizing them as his or knowing whence they got them. As fast as Mr.\nSpencer could set forth his generalizations they were taken hold of here\nand there by special workers, each in his own department, and utilized\ntherein. His general system was at once seized, assimilated, and set\nforth with new illustrations by serious thinkers who were already\ngroping in the regions of abstruse thought which the master's vision\npierced so clearly. And thus the doctrine of evolution has come to be\ninseparably interfused with the whole mass of thinking in our day and\ngeneration. I do not mean to imply that people commonly entertain very\nclear ideas about it, for clear ideas are not altogether common. I\nsuspect that a good many people would hesitate if asked to state exactly\nwhat Newton's law of gravitation is.\n\nAmong the men in America whose minds, between thirty and forty years\nago, were feeling their way toward some such unified conception of\nnature as Mr. Spencer was about to set forth in all its dazzling\nglory,--among the men who were thus prepared to grasp the doctrine of\nevolution at once and expound it with fresh illustrations,--the first in\nthe field was the man to whose memory we have met here this evening to\npay a brief word of tribute. It is but a little while since that noble\nface was here with us, and the tones of that kindly voice were fraught\nwith good cheer for us. To most of you, I presume, the man Edward\nLivingston Youmans is still a familiar presence. There must be many here\nthis evening who listened to the tidings of his death three years ago\nwith a sense of personal bereavement. No one who knew him is likely ever\nto forget him. But for those who remember distinctly the man it may not\nbe superfluous to recount the principal incidents of his life and work.\nIt is desirable that the story should be set forth concisely, so as to\nbe remembered; for the work was like the man, unselfish and unobtrusive,\nand in the hurry and complication of modern life such work is liable to\nbe lost from sight, so that people profit by it without knowing that it\nwas ever done. So genuinely modest, so utterly destitute of\nself-regarding impulses, was our friend, that I believe it would be\nquite like him to chide us for thus drawing public attention to him, as\nhe would think, with too much emphasis. But such mild reproof it is\nright that we should disregard; for the memory of a life so beautiful\nand useful is a precious possession of which mankind ought not to be\ndeprived.\n\nEdward Livingston Youmans was born in the town of Coeymans, Albany\nCounty, N.Y., on the 3d of June, 1821. From his father and mother, both\nof whom survived him, he inherited strong traits of character as well as\nan immense fund of vital energy, such that the failure of health a few\nyears ago seemed (to me, at least) surprising. His father, Vincent\nYoumans, was a man of independent character, strong convictions, and\nperfect moral courage, with a quick and ready tongue, in the use of\nwhich earnestness and frankness perhaps sometimes prevailed over\nprudence. The mother, Catherine Scofield, was notable for balance of\njudgment, prudence, and tact. The mother's grandfather was Irish; and\nwhile I very much doubt the soundness of the generalizations we are so\nprone to make about race characteristics, I cannot but feel that for the\nimpulsive--one had almost said explosive--warmth of sympathy, the\nenchanting grace and vivacity of manner, in Edward Youmans, this strain\nof Irish blood may have been to some extent accountable. Both father and\nmother belonged to the old Puritan stock of New England, and the\nfather's ancestry was doubtless purely English. Nothing could be more\nhonourably or characteristically English than the name. In the old\nfeudal society, the _yeoman_, like the _franklin_, was the small\nfreeholder, owning a modest estate, yet holding it by no servile tenure;\na man of the common people, yet no churl; a member of the state who\n\"knew his rights, and knowing dared maintain.\" Few indeed were the nooks\nand corners outside of merry England where such men flourished as the\nyeomen and franklins who founded democratic New England. It has often\nbeen remarked how the most illustrious of Franklins exemplified the\ntypical virtues of his class. There was much that was similar in the\ntemperament and disposition of Edward Youmans,--the sagacity and\npenetration, the broad common sense, the earnest purpose veiled but not\nhidden by the blithe humour, the devotion to ends of wide practical\nvalue, the habit of making in the best sense the most out of life.\n\nWhen Edward was but six months old, his parents moved to Greenfield,\nnear Saratoga Springs. With a comfortable house and three acres of\nland, his father kept a wagon shop and smithy. In those days, while it\nwas hard work to wring a subsistence out of the soil or to prosper upon\nany of the vocations which rural life permitted, there was doubtless\nmore independence of character and real thriftiness than in our time,\nwhen cities and tariffs have so sapped the strength of the farming\ncountry. In the family of Vincent Youmans, though rigid economy was\npractised, books were reckoned to a certain extent among the necessaries\nof life, and the house was one in which neighbours were fond of\ngathering to discuss questions of politics or theology, social reform or\nimprovements in agriculture. On all such questions Vincent Youmans was\napt to have ideas of his own; he talked with enthusiasm, and was also\nready to listen; and he evidently supplied an intellectual stimulus to\nthe whole community. For a boy of bright and inquisitive mind, listening\nto such talk is no mean source of education. It often goes much further\nthan the reading of books. From an early age Edward Youmans seems to\nhave appropriated all such means of instruction. He had that insatiable\nthirst for knowledge which is one of God's best gifts to man; for he who\nis born with this appetite must needs be grievously ill made in other\nrespects if it does not constrain him to lead a happy and useful life.\n\nAfter ten years at Greenfield the family moved to a farm at Milton, some\ntwo miles distant. Until his sixteenth year Edward helped his father at\nfarm work in the summer, and attended the district school in winter. It\nwas his good fortune at that time to fall into the hands of a teacher\nwho had a genius for teaching,--a man who in those days of rote-learning\ndid not care to have things learned by heart, but sought to stimulate\nthe thinking powers of his pupils, and who in that age of canes and\nferules never found it necessary to use such means of discipline,\nbecause the fear of displeasing him was of itself all-sufficient.\nExperience of the methods of such a man was enough to sharpen one's\ndisgust for the excessive mechanism, the rigid and stupid manner of\nteaching, which characterize the ordinary school. In after years Youmans\nused to say that \"Uncle Good\"--as this admirable pedagogue was\ncalled--first taught him what his mind was for. Through intercourse and\ntraining of this sort he learned to doubt, to test the soundness of\nopinions, to make original inquiries, and to find and follow clues.\n\nBut even the best of teachers can effect but little unless he finds a\nmind ready of itself to take the initiative. It is doubtful if men of\neminent ability are ever made so by schooling. The school offers\nopportunities, but in such men the tendency to the initiative is so\nstrong that if opportunities are not offered they will somehow contrive\nto create them. When Edward Youmans was about thirteen years old he\npersuaded his father to buy him a copy of Comstock's Natural Philosophy.\nThis book he studied at home by himself, and repeated many of the\nexperiments with apparatus of his own contriving. When he made a\ncentrifugal water wheel, and explained to the men and boys of the\nneighbourhood the principle of its revolution in a direction opposite to\nthat of the stream which moved it, we may regard it as his earliest\nattempt at giving scientific lectures. It was natural that one who had\nbecome interested in physics should wish to study chemistry. The teacher\n(who was not \"Uncle Good\") had never so much as laid eyes on a textbook\nof chemistry; but Edward was not to be daunted by such trifles. A copy\nof Comstock's manual was procured, another pupil was found willing to\njoin in the study, and this class of two proceeded to learn what they\ncould from reading the book, while the teacher asked them the printed\nquestions,--those questions the mere existence of which in textbooks is\napt to show what a low view publishers take of the average intelligence\nof teachers! It was not a very hopeful way of studying such a subject as\nchemistry; but doubtless the time was not wasted, and the foundations\nfor a future knowledge of chemistry were laid. The experience of farm\nwork which accompanied these studies explains the interest which in\nlater years Mr. Youmans felt in agricultural chemistry. He came to\nrealize how crude and primitive are our methods of making the earth\nyield its produce, and it was his opinion that when men have once\nlearned how to conduct agriculture upon sound scientific principles,\nfarming will become at once the most wholesome and the most attractive\nform of human industry.\n\nAlong with the elementary studies in science there went a great deal of\nmiscellaneous reading, mostly, it would appear, of good solid books.\nApparently there was at that time no study of languages, ancient or\nmodern. At the age of seventeen the young man had shown so much promise\nthat it was decided he should study law, and he had already entered upon\na more extensive course of preparation in an academy in Saratoga County\nwhen the event occurred which changed the whole course of his life. He\nhad been naturally gifted with keen and accurate vision, was a good\nsports-man and an excellent shot with a rifle; but at about the age of\nthirteen there had come an attack of ophthalmia, which left the eyes\nweak and sensitive. Perpetual reading probably increased the difficulty\nand hindered complete recovery. At the age of seventeen violent\ninflammation set in; the sight in one eye was completely lost, while in\nthe other it grew so dim as to be of little avail. Sometimes he would be\njust able to find his way about the streets, at other times the\nblindness was almost total; and this state of things lasted for nearly\nthirteen years.\n\nThis dreadful calamity seemed to make it impossible to continue any\nsystematic course of study, and the outlook for satisfactory work of any\nsort was extremely discouraging. The first necessity was medical\nassistance, and in quest of this Mr. Youmans came in the autumn of 1839\nto New York, where for the most part he spent the remainder of his life.\nUntil 1851 he was under the care of an oculist. Under such\ncircumstances, if a man of eager energy and boundless intellectual\ncraving were to be overwhelmed with despondency, we could not call it\nstrange. If he were to become dependent upon friends for the means of\nsupport, it would be ungracious, if not unjust, to blame him. But Edward\nYoumans was not made of the stuff that acquiesces in defeat. He rose\nsuperior to calamity; he won the means of livelihood, and in darkness\nentered upon the path to an enviable fame. At first he had to resign\nhimself to spending weary weeks over tasks that with sound eyesight\ncould have been dispatched in as many days. He invented some kind of\nwriting machine, which held his paper firmly, and enabled his pen to\nfollow straight lines at proper distances apart. Long practice of this\nsort gave his handwriting a peculiar character which it retained in\nlater years. When I first saw it in 1863 it seemed almost\nundecipherable; but that was far from being the case, and after I had\ngrown used to it I found it but little less legible than the most\nbeautiful chirography. The strokes, gnarled and jagged as they were, had\na method in their madness, and every pithy sentence went straight as an\narrow to its mark.\n\nWhile conquering these physical obstacles Mr. Youmans began writing for\nthe press, and gradually entered into relations with leading newspapers\nwhich became more and more important and useful as years went on. He\nbecame acquainted with Horace Greeley, William Henry Charming, and other\ngentlemen who were interested in social reforms. His sympathies were\nstrongly enlisted with the little party of abolitionists, then held in\nsuch scornful disfavour by all other parties. He was also interested in\nthe party of temperance, which, as he and others were afterward to\nlearn, compounded for its essential uprightness of purpose by indulging\nin very gross intemperance of speech and action. The disinterestedness\nwhich always characterized him was illustrated by his writing many\narticles for a temperance paper which could not afford to pay its\ncontributors, although he was struggling with such disadvantages in\nearning his own livelihood and carrying on his scientific studies. Those\nwere days when leading reformers believed that by some cunningly\ncontrived alteration of social arrangements our human nature, with all\nits inheritance from countless ages of brutality, can somehow be made\nover all in a moment, just as one would go to work with masons and\ncarpenters and revamp a house. There are many good people who still\nlabour under such a delusion.\n\nThough Mr. Youmans was brought into frequent contact with reformers of\nthis sort, it does not seem to me that his mind was ever deeply\nimpressed with such ways of thinking. Science is teaching us that the\nmethod of evolution is that mill of God, of which we have heard, which,\nwhile it grinds with infinite efficacy, yet grinds with wearisome\nslowness. It was Mr. Darwin's discovery of natural selection which first\nbrought this truth home to us; but Sir Charles Lyell had in 1830 shown\nhow enormous effects are wrought by the cumulative action of slight and\nunobtrusive causes, and this had much to do with turning men's minds\ntoward some conception of evolution. It was about 1847 that Mr. Youmans\nwas deeply interested in the work of geologists, as well as in the\nNebular Theory, to which recent discoveries were adding fresh\nconfirmation. Some time before this he had read that famous book\n\"Vestiges of Creation,\" and although Professor Agassiz truly declared\nthat it was an unscientific book, crammed with antiquated and exploded\nfancies, I suspect that Mr. Youmans felt that amid all the chaff there\nwas a very sound and sturdy kernel of truth.\n\nAmong the books which Mr. Youmans projected at this time, the first was\na compendious history of progress in discovery and invention; but, after\nhe had made extensive preparations, a book was published so similar in\nscope and treatment that he abandoned the undertaking. Another work was\na treatise on arithmetic, on a new and philosophical plan; but, when\nthis was approaching completion, he again found himself anticipated,\nthis time by the book of Horace Mann. This was discouraging enough, but\na third venture resulted in a brilliant success. We have observed the\neagerness with which, as a schoolboy, Mr. Youmans entered upon the study\nof chemistry. His interest in this science grew with years, and he\ndevoted himself to it so far as was practicable. For a blind man to\ncarry on the study of a science which is pre\u00ebminently one of observation\nand experiment might seem hopeless. It was at any rate absolutely\nnecessary to see with the eyes of others, if not with his own. Here the\nassistance rendered by his sister was invaluable. During most of this\nperiod she served as amanuensis and reader for him. But, more than this,\nshe kept up for some time a course of laboratory work, the results of\nwhich were minutely described to her brother and discussed with him in\nthe evenings. The lectures of Dr. John William Draper on chemistry were\nalso thoroughly discussed and pondered.\n\nThe conditions under which Mr. Youmans worked made it necessary for him\nto consider every point with the extreme deliberation involved in\nframing distinct mental images of things and processes which he could\nnot watch with the eye. It was hard discipline, but he doubtless\nprofited from it. Nature had endowed him with an unusually clear head,\nbut this enforced method must have made it still clearer. One of the\nmost notable qualities of his mind was the absolute luminousness with\nwhich he saw things and the relations among things. It was this quality\nthat made him so successful as an expounder of scientific truths. In the\ncourse of his pondering over chemical facts which he was obliged to take\nat second hand, it occurred to him that most of the pupils in common\nschools who studied chemistry were practically no better off. It was\neasy enough for schools to buy textbooks, but difficult for them to\nprovide laboratories and apparatus; and it was much easier withal to\nfind teachers who could ask questions out of a book than those who could\nuse apparatus if provided. It was customary, therefore, to learn\nchemistry by rote; or, in other words, pupils' heads were crammed with\nunintelligible statements about things with queer names,--such as\nmanganese or tellurium,--which they had never seen, and would not know\nif they were to see them. It occurred to Mr. Youmans that if visible\nprocesses could not be brought before pupils, at any rate the\nfundamental conceptions of chemistry might be made clear by means of\ndiagrams. He began devising diagrams in different colours, to illustrate\nthe diversity in the atomic weights of the principal elements, and the\ncomposition of the more familiar compounds. At length, by uniting his\ndiagrams, he obtained a comprehensive chart exhibiting the outlines of\nthe whole scheme of chemical combination according to the binary or\ndualist theory then in vogue. This chart, when published, was a great\nsuccess. It not only facilitated the acquirement of clear ideas, but it\nwas suggestive of new ideas. It proved very popular, and kept the field\nuntil the binary theory was overthrown by the modern doctrine of\nsubstitution, which does not lend itself so readily to graphic\ntreatment.\n\nThe success of the chemical chart led to the writing of a textbook of\nchemistry. This laborious work was completed in 1851, when Mr. Youmans\nwas thirty years old. Professor Silliman was then regarded as one of our\nforemost authorities in chemistry, but it was at once remarked of the\nnew book that it showed quite as thorough a mastery of the whole subject\nof chemical combination as Silliman's. It was a textbook of a kind far\nless common then than now. There was nothing dry about it. The subject\nwas presented with beautiful clearness, in a most attractive style.\nThere was a firm grasp of the philosophical principles underlying\nchemical phenomena, and the meaning and functions of the science were\nset forth in such a way as to charm the student and make him wish for\nmore. The book had an immediate and signal success; in after years it\nwas twice rewritten by the author, to accommodate it to the rapid\nadvances made by the science, and it is still one of our best textbooks\nof chemistry. It has had a sale of about one hundred and fifty thousand\ncopies.\n\nThe publication of this book at once established its author's reputation\nas a scientific writer, and in another way it marked an era in his life.\nThe long, distressing period of darkness now came to an end. Sight was\nso far recovered in one eye that it became possible to go about freely,\nto read, to recognize friends, to travel, and make much of life. I am\ntold that his face had acquired an expression characteristic of the\nblind, but that expression was afterward completely lost. When I knew\nhim it would never have occurred to me that his sight was imperfect,\nexcept perhaps as regards length of range.\n\nYoumans' career as a scientific lecturer now began. His first lecture\nwas the beginning of a series on the relations of organic life to the\natmosphere. It was illustrated with chemical apparatus, and was given in\na private room in New York to an audience which filled the room.\nProbably no lecturer ever faced his first audience without some\ntrepidation, and Youmans had not the mainstay and refuge afforded by a\nmanuscript, for his sight was never good enough to make such an aid\navailable for his lectures. At first the right words were slow in\nfinding their way to those ready lips, and his friends were beginning to\ngrow anxious, when all at once a happy accident broke the spell. He was\nremarking upon the characteristic inertness of nitrogen, and pointing to\na jar of that gas on the table before him, when some fidgety movement of\nhis knocked the jar off the table. He improved the occasion with one of\nhis quaint _bons mots_, and, as there is nothing that greases the wheels\nof life like a laugh, the lecture went on to a successful close.\n\nThis was the beginning of a busy career of seventeen years of lecturing,\nending in 1868; and I believe it is safe to say that few things were\ndone in all those years of more vital and lasting benefit to the\nAmerican people than this broadcast sowing of the seeds of scientific\nthought in the lectures of Edward Youmans. They came just at the time\nwhen the world was ripe for the doctrine of evolution, when all the\nwondrous significance of the trend of scientific discovery since\nNewton's time was beginning to burst upon men's minds. The work of Lyell\nin geology, followed at length in 1859 by the Darwinian theory; the\ndoctrine of the correlation of forces and the consequent unity of\nnature; the extension and reformation of chemical theory; the\nsimultaneous advance made in sociological inquiry, and in the conception\nof the true aims and proper methods of education,--all this made the\nperiod a most fruitful one for the peculiar work of such a teacher as\nYoumans. The intellectual atmosphere was charged with conceptions of\nevolution. Youmans had arrived at such conceptions in the course of his\nstudy of the separate lines of scientific speculation which were now\nabout to be summed up and organized by Herbert Spencer into that system\nof philosophy which marks the highest point to which the progressive\nintelligence of mankind has yet attained. In the field of scientific\ngeneralization upon this great scale, Youmans was not an originator; but\nhis broadly sympathetic and luminous mind moved on a plane so near to\nthat of the originators that he seized at once upon the grand scheme of\nthought as it was developed, made it his own, and brought to its\ninterpretation and diffusion such a happy combination of qualities as\none seldom meets with. The ordinary popularizer of great and novel\ntruths is a man who comprehends them but partially, and illustrates them\nin a lame and fragmentary way. But it was the peculiarity of Youmans\nthat while on the one hand he could grasp the newest scientific thought\nso surely and firmly that he seemed to have entered into the innermost\nmind of its author, on the other hand he could speak to the general\npublic in an extremely convincing and stimulating way. This was the\nsecret of his power, and there can be no question that his influence in\neducating the American people to receive the doctrine of evolution was\ngreat and widespread.\n\nThe years when Youmans was travelling and lecturing were the years when\nthe old lyceum system of popular lectures was still in its vigour. The\nkind of life led by the energetic lecturer in those days was not that of\na Sybarite, as may be seen from a passage in one of his letters: \"I\nlectured in Sandusky, and had to get up at five o'clock to reach Elyria;\nI had had but very little sleep. To get from Elyria to Pittsburg I must\ntake the five o'clock morning train, and the hotel darky said he would\n_try_ to waken me. I knew what that meant, and so did not get a single\nwink of sleep that night. Rode all day to Pittsburg, and had to lecture\nin the great Academy of Music over footlights.... The train that left\nfor Zanesville departed at two in the morning. I had been assured a\nhundred times (for I asked everybody I met) that I could get a\nsleeping-car to Zanesville, and when I was all ready to start I was\ninformed that _this_ morning there was no sleeping-car. By the time I\nreached here I was pretty completely used up.\"\n\nSuch a fatiguing life, however, has its compensations. It brings the\nlecturer into friendly contact with the brightest minds among his fellow\ncountrymen in many and many places, and enlarges his sphere of influence\nin a way that is not easy to estimate. Clearly, an earnest lecturer, of\ncommanding intelligence and charming manner, with a great subject to\nteach, must have an opportunity for sowing seeds that will presently\nripen in a change of opinion or sentiment, in an altered way of looking\nat things on the part of whole communities. No lecturer has ever had a\nbetter opportunity of this sort than Edward Youmans, and none ever made\na better use of his opportunity. His gifts as a talker were of the\nhighest order. The commonest and plainest story, as told by Edward\nYoumans, had all the breathless interest of the most thrilling romance.\nAbsolutely unconscious of himself, simple, straightforward, and\nvehement, wrapped up in his subject, the very embodiment of faith and\nenthusiasm, of heartiness and good cheer, it was delightful to hear\nhim. And when we join with all this his unfailing common sense, his\nbroad and kindly view of men and things, and the delicious humour that\nkept flashing out in quaint, pithy phrases such as no other man would\nhave thought of, and such as are the despair of any one trying to\nremember and quote them, we can seem to imagine what a power he must\nhave been with his lectures.\n\nWhen such a man goes about for seventeen years, teaching scientific\ntruths for which the world is ripe, we may be sure that his work is\ngreat, albeit we have no standard whereby we can exactly measure it. In\nhundreds of little towns with queer names did this strong personality\nappear and make its way and leave its effects in the shape of new\nthoughts, new questions, and enlarged hospitality of mind, among the\ninhabitants. The results of all this are surely visible to-day. In no\npart of the English world has Herbert Spencer's philosophy met with such\na general and cordial reception as in the United States. This may no\ndoubt be largely explained by a reference to general causes; but as it\nis almost always necessary, along with our general causes, to take into\nthe account some personal influence, so it is in this case. It is safe\nto say that among the agencies which during the past fifty years have\nso remarkably broadened the mind of the American people, very few have\nbeen more potent than the gentle and subtle but pervasive work done by\nEdward Youmans with his lectures, and to this has been largely due the\nhospitable reception of Herbert Spencer's ideas.\n\nIt was in 1856 that Youmans fell in with a review of \"Spencer's\nPrinciples of Psychology,\" by Dr. Morell, in \"The Medico-Chirurgical\nReview.\" This paper impressed him so deeply that he at once sent to\nLondon for a copy of the book, which had been published in the preceding\nyear. It will be observed that this was four years before the Darwinian\ntheory was announced in the first edition of the \"Origin of\nSpecies.\"[15]\n\nAfter struggling for a while with the weighty problems of this book,\nYoumans saw that the theory expounded in it was a long stride in the\ndirection of a general theory of evolution. His interest in this subject\nreceived a new and fresh stimulus. He read \"Social Statics,\" and began\nto recognize Spencer's hand in the anonymous articles in the quarterlies\nin which he was then announcing and illustrating various portions or\nsegments of his newly discovered law of evolution. One evening in\nFebruary, 1860, as Youmans was calling at a friend's house in Brooklyn,\nthe Rev. Samuel Johnson, of Salem, handed him the famous prospectus of\nthe great series of philosophical works which Spencer proposed to issue\nby subscription. Mr. Johnson had obtained this from Edward Silsbee, who\nwas one of the very first Americans to become interested in Spencer. The\nvery next day Youmans wrote a letter to Spencer, offering his aid in\nprocuring American subscriptions and otherwise facilitating the\nenterprise by every means in his power. With this letter and Spencer's\ncordial reply began the lifelong friendship between the two men. It was\nin that same month that I first became aware of Spencer's existence,\nthrough a single paragraph quoted from him by Lewes, and in that\nparagraph there was immense fascination. I had been steeping myself in\nthe literature of modern philosophy, starting with Bacon and Descartes,\nand was then studying Comte's \"Philosophie Positive,\" which interested\nme as suggesting that the special doctrines of the several sciences\nmight be organized into a general body of doctrine of universal\nsignificance. Comte's work was crude and often wildly absurd, but there\nwas much in it that was very suggestive. In May, 1860, in the Old Corner\nBookstore in Boston, I fell upon a copy of that same prospectus of\nSpencer's works, and read it with exulting delight; for clearly there\nwas to be such an organization of scientific doctrine as the world was\nwaiting for. It appeared that there was some talk of Ticknor & Fields\nundertaking to conduct the series in case subscriptions enough should be\nreceived. Spencer preferred to have his works appear in Boston; but when\nin the course of 1860 his book on \"Education\" was offered to Ticknor &\nFields, they declined to publish it,--which was, of course, a grave\nmistake from the business point of view. Youmans, however, was not sorry\nfor this, for it gave him the opportunity to place Spencer's books where\nhe could do most to forward their success.\n\nSome years before, during his blindness, his sister had led him one day\ninto the store of Messrs. D. Appleton & Co. in quest of a book, and Mr.\nWilliam Appleton had become warmly interested in him. I believe the firm\nnow look back to this chance visit as one of the most auspicious events\nin their annals. Youmans became by degrees a kind of adviser as regarded\nmatters of publication, and it was largely through his far-sighted\nadvice that the Appletons entered upon the publication of such books as\nthose of Buckle, Darwin, Huxley, Tyndall, Haeckel, and others of like\ncharacter; always paying a royalty to the authors, the same as to\nAmerican authors, in spite of the absence of an international copyright\nlaw. As publishers of books of this sort the Appletons have come to be\npre\u00ebminent. It is obvious enough nowadays that such books are profitable\nfrom a business point of view; but thirty years and more ago this was by\nno means obvious. We Americans were terribly provincial. Reprints of\nEnglish books and translations from French and German were sadly behind\nthe times. In the Connecticut town where I lived, people would begin to\nwake up to the existence of some great European book or system of\nthought after it had been before the world anywhere from a dozen to\nfifty years. In those days, therefore, it required some boldness to\nundertake the reprinting of new scientific books; and none have\nrecognized more freely than the Appletons the importance of the part\nplayed by Youmans in this matter. His work as adviser to a great\npublishing house and his work as lecturer reinforced each other, and\nthus his capacity for usefulness was much increased.\n\nWhen Spencer's book on \"Education\" failed to find favour in Boston the\nAppletons took it, and thus presently secured the management of the\nphilosophical series. This brought Youmans into permanent relations with\nSpencer and his work. In 1861 Youmans was married, and in the course of\nthe following year made a journey in Europe with his wife. It was now\nthat he became personally acquainted with Spencer, and found him quite\nas interesting and admirable as his books. Friendships were also begun\nwith Huxley and other foremost men of science. From more than one of\nthese men I have heard the warmest expressions of personal affection for\nYoumans, and of keen appreciation of the aid that they have obtained in\ninnumerable ways from his intelligent and enthusiastic sympathy. But no\none else got so large a measure of this support as Spencer. As fast as\nhis books were republished Youmans wrote reviews of them, and by no\nmeans in the usual perfunctory way; his reviews and notices were turned\nout by the score, and scattered about in the magazines and newspapers\nwhere they would do the most good. Whenever he found another writer who\ncould be pressed into the service, he would give him Spencer's books,\nkindle him with a spark from his own magnificent enthusiasm, and set him\nto writing for the press. The most indefatigable vender of wares was\nnever more ruthlessly persistent in advertising for lucre's sake than\nEdward Youmans in preaching in a spirit of the purest disinterestedness\nthe gospel of evolution. As long as he lived, Spencer had upon this\nside of the Atlantic an _alter ego_ ever on the alert with vision like\nthat of a hawk for the slightest chance to promote his interests and\nthose of his system of thought.\n\nAmong the allies thus enlisted at that early time were Mr. George Ripley\nand the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, both of whom did good service, in their\ndifferent ways, in awakening public interest in the doctrine of\nevolution. In those days of the Civil War it was especially hard to keep\nup the list of subscribers in an abstruse philosophical publication of\napparently interminable length. Youmans now and then found it needful to\nmake a journey in the interests of the work, and it was on one of these\noccasions, in November, 1863, that I made his acquaintance. I had\nalready published, in 1861, an article in one of the quarterly reviews,\nin which Spencer's work was referred to; and another in 1863, in which\nthe law of evolution was illustrated in connection with certain problems\nof the science of language. The articles were anonymous, as was then the\nfashion, and Youmans' curiosity was aroused. There were so few people\nthen who had any conception of what Spencer's work meant that they could\nhave been counted on one's fingers. At that time I knew of only three:\nthe late Professor Gurney, of Harvard; Mr. George Litch Roberts, now an\neminent patent lawyer in Boston; and Mr. John Spencer Clark, now of the\nPrang Educational Company. I have since known that there were at least\ntwo or three others about Boston, among them my learned friend the Rev.\nWilliam Rounseville Alger, besides several in other parts of the\ncountry. When we sometimes ventured to observe that Spencer's work was\nas great as Newton's, and that his theory of evolution was going to\nremodel human thinking upon all subjects whatever, people used to stare\nat us and take us for idiots. Any one member of such a small community\nwas easy to find; and I have always dated a new era in my life from the\nSunday afternoon when Youmans came to my room in Cambridge. It was the\nbeginning of a friendship such as hardly comes but once to a man. At\nthat first meeting I knew nothing of him except that he was the author\nof a textbook of chemistry which I had found interesting, in spite of\nits having been crammed down my throat by an old-fashioned memorizing\nteacher who, I am convinced, never really knew so much as the difference\nbetween oxygen and antimony. At first it was a matter of breathless\ninterest to talk with a man who had seen Herbert Spencer. But one of\nthe immediate results of this interview was the beginning of my own\ncorrespondence and intimate friendship with Spencer. And from that time\nforth it always seemed as if, whenever any of the good or lovely things\nof life came to my lot, somehow or other Edward Youmans was either the\ncause of it, or at any rate intimately concerned with it. The sphere of\nhis unselfish goodness was so wide and its quality so potent that one\ncould not come into near relations with him without becoming in all\nmanner of unsuspected ways strengthened and enriched.\n\nIn the autumn of 1865 we were dismayed by the announcement that Spencer\nwould no longer be able to go on issuing his works. In London they were\npublished at his own expense and risk, and those books which now yield a\nhandsome profit did not then pay the cost of making them. By the summer\nof 1865 there was a balance of \u00a31100 against Spencer, and his property\nwas too small to admit of his going on and losing at such a rate. As\nsoon as this was known, John Stuart Mill begged to be allowed to assume\nthe entire pecuniary responsibility of continuing the publication; but\nthis, Mr. Spencer, while deeply affected by such noble sympathy, would\nnot hear of. He consented, however, with great reluctance, to the\nattempt of Huxley and Lubbock, and other friends, to increase\nartificially the list of subscribers by inducing people to take the work\njust in order to help support it. But after several months the sudden\ndeath of Spencer's father added something to his means of support, and\nhe thereupon withdrew his consent to this arrangement, and determined to\ngo on publishing as before, and bearing the loss.\n\nBut as soon as the first evil tidings reached America Youmans made up\nhis mind that $5500 must be forthwith raised by subscription, in order\nto make good the loss already incurred. It is delightful to remember the\nvigour with which he took hold of this work. The sum of $7000 was raised\nand invested in American securities in Spencer's name. If he did not see\nfit to accept these securities, they would go without an owner. The best\nof Waltham watches was procured for Spencer by his American friends; a\nletter, worded with rare delicacy and tact, was written by the late\nRobert Minturn; and Youmans sailed for England to convey the letter and\nthe watch to Spencer. It was a charming scene on a summer day in an\nEnglish garden when the great philosopher was apprised of what had been\ndone. It was so skilfully managed that he could not refuse the tribute\nwithout seeming churlish. He therefore accepted it, and applied it to\nextending his researches in descriptive sociology.\n\nOf the many visits which Youmans made to England, now and then extending\nthem to the Continent, one of the most important was in 1871, for the\npurpose of establishing the International Scientific Series. This was a\nfavourite scheme of Youmans. He realized that popular scientific books,\nadapted to the general reader, are apt to be written by third-rate men\nwho do not well understand their subject; they are apt to be dry or\nsuperficial, or both. No one can write so good a popular book as the\nmaster of a subject, if he only has a fair gift of expressing himself\nand keeps in mind the public for which he is writing. The master knows\nwhat to tell and what to omit, and can thus tell much in a short compass\nand still make it interesting; moreover, he avoids the inaccuracies\nwhich are sure to occur in second-hand work. Masters of subjects are\napt, however, to be too much occupied with original research to write\npopular books. It was Youmans' plan to induce the leading men of science\nin Europe and America to contribute small volumes on their special\nsubjects to a series to be published simultaneously in several countries\nand languages. Furthermore, by special contract with publishing houses\nof high reputation, the author was to receive the ordinary royalty on\nevery copy of his book sold in every one of the countries in question;\nthus anticipating international copyright upon a very wide scale, and\ngiving the author a much more adequate compensation for his labour. To\nput this scheme into operation was a task of great difficulty, so many\nconflicting interests had to be considered. Youmans' brilliant success\nis attested by that noble series of more than fifty volumes, on all\nsorts of scientific subjects, written by men of real eminence, and\npublished in England, France, Italy, Germany, and Russia, as well as in\nthe United States.\n\nA word is all that can be spared for other parts of our friend's work,\nwhich deserve many words, and those carefully considered. His book on\n\"Household Science\" is not the usual collection of scrappy comment,\nrecipe, and apothegm, but a valuable scientific treatise on heat, light,\nair, and food in their relations to every-day life. In his \"Correlation\nof Physical Forces\" he brings together the epoch-making essays of the\nmen who have successively established that doctrine, introducing them\nwith an essay of his own, in which its history and its philosophical\nimplications are set forth in a masterly manner. In his book on the\n\"Culture demanded by Modern Life\" we have a similar collection of essays\nwith a similar excellent original discussion, showing the need for wider\nand later training in science, and protesting against the excess of time\nand energy that is spent in classical education where it is merely the\nfollowing of an old tradition.\n\nAs a crown to all this useful work, Youmans established, in 1872, \"The\nPopular Science Monthly,\" which has unquestionably been of high\neducational value to the general public. It was not the aim of this\nmagazine to give an account of every theory expounded, every fact\nobserved, every discovery made, from year to year, whether significant\nor insignificant. The mind of the people is not educated by dumping a\ngreat unshapely mass of facts into it. It needs to be stimulated rather\nthan crammed. Education in science should lead one to think for one's\nself. The scientific magazine, therefore, should present articles from\nall quarters that deal with the essential conceptions of science or\ndiscuss problems of real theoretical or practical interest, no matter\nwhether every particular asteroid or the last new species of barnacle\nreceives full attention or not. \"The Popular Science Monthly\" has now\nbeen with us eighteen years; its character has always been of the\nhighest, and it must have exerted an excellent influence not only as a\ndiffuser of valuable knowledge, but in training its readers to\nscientific habits of thought in so far as mere reading can contribute to\nsuch a result.\n\nIn concluding our survey of this useful and noble life, what impresses\nus most, I think, is the broad democratic spirit and the absolute\nunselfishness which it reveals at every moment and in every act. To\nEdward Youmans the imperative need for educating the great mass of the\npeople so as to use their mental powers to the best advantage came home\nas a living, ever present fact. He saw all that it meant and means in\nthe raising of mankind to a higher level of thought and action than that\nupon which they now live. To this end he consecrated himself with\nunalloyed devotion; and we who mourn his loss look back upon his noble\ncareer with a sense of victory, knowing how the good that such a man\ndoes lives after him and can never die.\n\n_March, 1890._\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE PART PLAYED BY INFANCY IN THE EVOLUTION OF MAN[16]\n\n\nThe remarks which my friend Mr. Clark has made with reference to the\nreconciling of science and religion seem to carry me back to the days\nwhen I first became acquainted with the fact that there were such things\nafloat in the world as speculations about the origin of man from lower\nforms of life; and I can recall step by step various stages in which\nthat old question has come to have a different look from what it had\nthirty years ago. One of the commonest objections we used to hear, from\nthe mouths of persons who could not very well give voice to any other\nobjection, was that anybody, whether he knows much or little about\nevolution, must have the feeling that there is something degrading about\nbeing allied with lower forms of life. That was, I suppose, owing to the\nsurvival of the old feeling that a dignified product of creation ought\nto have been produced in some exceptional way. That which was done in\nthe ordinary way, that which was done through ordinary processes of\ncausation, seemed to be cheapened and to lose its value. It was a\nremnant of the old state of feeling which took pleasure in miracles,\nwhich seemed to think that the object of thought was more dignified if\nyou could connect it with something supernatural; that state of culture\nin which there was an altogether inadequate appreciation of the amount\nof grandeur that there might be in the slow creative work that goes on\nnoiselessly by little minute increments, even as the dropping of the\nwater that wears away the stone. The general progress of familiarity\nwith the conception of evolution has done a great deal to change that\nstate of mind. Even persons who have not much acquaintance with science\nhave at length caught something of its lesson,--that the infinitely\ncumulative action of small causes like those which we know is capable of\nproducing results of the grandest and most thrilling importance, and\nthat the disposition to recur to the cataclysmic and miraculous is only\na tendency of the childish mind which we are outgrowing with wider\nexperience.\n\nThe whole doctrine of evolution, and in fact the whole advance of\nmodern science from the days of Copernicus down to the present day, have\nconsisted in the substitution of processes which are familiar and the\napplication of those processes, showing how they produce great results.\n\nWhen Darwin's \"Origin of Species\" was first published, when it gave us\nthat wonderful explanation of the origin of forms of life from allied\nforms through the operation of natural selection, it must have been like\na mental illumination to every person who comprehended it. But after all\nit left a great many questions unexplained, as was natural. It accounted\nfor the phenomena of organic development in general with wonderful\nsuccess, but it must have left a great many minds with the feeling: If\nman has been produced in this way, if the mere operation of natural\nselection has produced the human race, wherein is the human race anyway\nessentially different from lower races? Is not man really dethroned,\ntaken down from that exceptional position in which we have been\naccustomed to place him, and might it not be possible, in the course of\nthe future, for other beings to come upon the earth as far superior to\nman as man is superior to the fossilized dragons of Jurassic antiquity?\n\nSuch questions used to be asked, and when they were asked, although one\nmight have a very strong feeling that it was not so, at the same time\none could not exactly say why. One could not then find any scientific\nargument for objections to that point of view. But with the further\ndevelopment of the question the whole subject began gradually to wear a\ndifferent appearance; and I am going to give you a little bit of\nautobiography, because I think it may be of some interest in this\nconnection. I am going to mention two or three of the successive stages\nwhich the whole question took in my own mind as one thing came up after\nanother, and how from time to time it began to dawn upon me that I had\nup to that point been looking at the problem from not exactly the right\npoint of view.\n\nWhen Darwin's \"Descent of Man\" was published in 1871, it was of course a\nbook characterized by all his immense learning, his wonderful fairness\nof spirit and fertility of suggestion. Still, one could not but feel\nthat it did not solve the question of the origin of man. There was one\ngreat contrast between that book and his \"Origin of Species.\" In the\nearlier treatise he undertook to point out a _vera causa_ of the origin\nof species, and he did it. In his \"Descent of Man\" he brought together a\ngreat many minor generalizations which facilitated the understanding of\nman's origin. But he did not come at all near to solving the central\nproblem, nor did he anywhere show clearly why natural selection might\nnot have gone on forever producing one set of beings after another\ndistinguishable chiefly by physical differences. But Darwin's\nco-discoverer, Alfred Russel Wallace, at an early stage in his\nresearches, struck out a most brilliant and pregnant suggestion. In that\none respect Wallace went further than ever Darwin did. It was a point of\nwhich, indeed, Darwin admitted the importance. It was a point of which\nnobody could fail to understand the importance, that in the course of\nthe evolution of a very highly organized animal, if there came a point\nat which it was of more advantage to that animal to have variations in\nhis intelligence seized upon and improved by natural selection than to\nhave physical changes seized upon, then natural selection would begin\nworking almost exclusively upon that creature's intelligence, and he\nwould develop in intelligence to a great extent, while his physical\norganism would change but slightly. Now, that of course applied to the\ncase of man, who is changed physically but very slightly from the apes,\nwhile he has traversed intellectually such a stupendous chasm.\n\nAs soon as this statement was made by Wallace, it seemed to me to open\nup an entirely new world of speculation. There was this enormous\nantiquity of man, during the greater part of which he did not know\nenough to make history. We see man existing here on the earth, no one\ncan say how long, but surely many hundreds of thousands of years, yet\nonly during just the last little fringe of four or five thousand years\nhas he arrived at the point where he makes history. Before that,\nsomething was going on, a great many things were going on, while his\nancestors were slowly growing up to that point of intelligence where it\nbegan to make itself felt in the recording of events. This agrees with\nWallace's suggestion of a long period of psychical change, accompanied\nby slight physical change.\n\nWell, in the spring of 1871, when Darwin's \"Descent of Man\" came out,\njust about the same time I happened to be reading Wallace's account of\nhis experiences in the Malay Archipelago, and how at one time he caught\na female orang-outang with a new-born baby, and the mother died, and\nWallace brought up the baby orang-outang by hand; and this baby\norang-outang had a kind of infancy which was a great deal longer than\nthat of a cow or a sheep, but it was nothing compared to human infancy\nin length. This little orang-outang could not get up and march around,\nas mammals of less intelligence do, when he was first born, or within\nthree or four days; but after three or four weeks or so he would get\nup, and begin taking hold of something and pushing it around, just as\nchildren push a chair; and he went through a period of staring at his\nhands, as human babies do, and altogether was a good deal slower in\ngetting to the point where he could take care of himself. And while I\nwas reading of that I thought, Dear me! if there is any one thing in\nwhich the human race is signally distinguished from other mammals, it is\nin the enormous duration of their infancy; but it is a point that I do\nnot recollect ever seeing any naturalist so much as allude to.\n\nIt happened at just that time that I was making researches in psychology\nabout the organization of experiences, the way in which conscious\nintelligent action can pass down into quasi-automatic action, the\ngeneration of instincts, and various allied questions; and I thought,\nCan it be that the increase of intelligence in an animal, if carried\nbeyond a certain point, must necessarily result in prolongation of the\nperiod of infancy,--must necessarily result in the birth of the mammal\nat a less developed stage, leaving something to be done, leaving a good\ndeal to be done, after birth? And then the argument seemed to come along\nvery naturally, that for every action of life, every adjustment which a\ncreature makes in life, whether a muscular adjustment or an intelligent\nadjustment, there has got to be some registration effected in the\nnervous system, some line of transit worn for nervous force to follow;\nthere has got to be a connection between certain nerve-centres before\nthe thing can be done, whether it is the acts of the viscera or the acts\nof the limbs, or anything of that sort; and of course it is obvious that\nif the creature has not many things to register in his nervous system,\nif he has a life which is very simple, consisting of few actions that\nare performed with great frequency, that animal becomes almost automatic\nin his whole life; and all the nervous connections that need to be made\nto enable him to carry on life get made during the f\u0153tal period or\nduring the egg period, and when he comes to be born, he comes all ready\nto go to work. As one result of this, he does not learn from individual\nexperience, but one generation is like the preceding generations, with\nhere and there some slight modifications. But when you get the creature\nthat has arrived at the point where his experience has become varied, he\nhas got to do a good many things, and there is more or less\nindividuality about them; and many of them are not performed with the\nsame minuteness and regularity, so that there does not begin to be that\nautomatism within the period during which he is being developed and his\nform is taking on its outlines. During prenatal life there is not time\nenough for all these nervous registrations, and so by degrees it comes\nabout that he is born with his nervous system perfectly capable only of\nmaking him breathe and digest food,--of making him do the things\nabsolutely requisite for supporting life; instead of being born with a\ncertain number of definite developed capacities, he has a number of\npotentialities which have got to be roused according to his own\nindividual experience. Pursuing that line of thought, it began after a\nwhile to seem clear to me that the infancy of the animal in a very\nundeveloped condition, with the larger part of his faculties in\npotentiality rather than in actuality, was a direct result of the\nincrease of intelligence, and I began to see that now we have two steps:\nfirst, natural selection goes on increasing the intelligence; and\nsecondly, when the intelligence goes far enough, it makes a longer\ninfancy, a creature is born less developed, and therefore there comes\nthis plastic period during which he is more teachable. The capacity for\nprogress begins to come in, and you begin to get at one of the great\npoints in which man is distinguished from the lower animals, for one of\nthose points is undoubtedly his progressiveness; and I think that any\none will say, with very little hesitation, that if it were not for our\nperiod of infancy we should not be progressive. If we came into the\nworld with our capacities all cut and dried, one generation would be\nvery much like another.\n\nThen, looking round to see what are the other points which are most\nimportant in which man differs from the lower animals, there comes that\nmatter of the family. The family has adumbrations and foreshadowings\namong the lower animal, but in general it may be said that while mammals\nlower than man are gregarious, in man have become established those\npeculiar relationships which constitute what we know as the family; and\nit is easy to see how the existence of helpless infants would bring\nabout just that state of things. The necessity of caring for the infants\nwould prolong the period of maternal affection, and would tend to keep\nthe father and mother and children together, but it would tend\nespecially to keep the mother and children together. This business of\nthe marital relations was not really a thing that became adjusted in the\nprimitive ages of man, but it has become adjusted in the course of\ncivilization. Real monogamy, real faithfulness of the male parent,\nbelongs to a comparatively advanced stage; but in the early stages the\nknitting together of permanent relations between mother and infant, and\nthe approximation toward steady relations on the part of the male\nparent, came to bring the family, and gradually to knit those\norganizations which we know as clans.\n\nHere we come to another stage, another step forward. The instant society\nbecomes organized in clans, natural selection cannot let these clans be\nbroken up and die out,--the clan becomes the chief object or care of\nnatural selection, because if you destroy it you retrograde again, you\nlose all you have gained; consequently, those clans in which the\nprimeval selfish instincts were so modified that the individual conduct\nwould be subordinated to some extent to the needs of the clan,--those\nare the ones which would prevail in the struggle for life. In this way\nyou gradually get an external standard to which man has to conform his\nconduct, and you get the germs of altruism and morality; and in the\nprolonged affectionate relation between the mother and the infant you\nget the opportunity for that development of altruistic feeling which,\nonce started in those relations, comes into play in the more general\nrelations, and makes more feasible and more workable the bonds which\nkeep society together, and enable it to unite on wider and wider terms.\n\nSo it seems that from a very small beginning we are reaching a very\nconsiderable result. I had got these facts pretty clearly worked out,\nand carried them around with me some years, before a fresh conclusion\ncame over me one day with a feeling of surprise. In the old days before\nthe Copernican astronomy was promulgated, man regarded himself as the\ncentre of the universe. He used to entertain theological systems which\nconformed to his limited knowledge of nature. The universe seemed to be\nmade for his uses, the earth seemed to have been fitted up for his\ndwelling place, he occupied the centre of creation, the sun was made to\ngive him light, etc. When Copernicus overthrew that view, the effect\nupon theology was certainly tremendous. I do not believe that justice\nhas ever been done to the shock that it gave to man when he was made to\nrealize that he occupied a kind of miserable little clod of dirt in the\nuniverse, and that there were so many other worlds greater than this. It\nwas one of the first great shocks involved in the change from ancient to\nmodern scientific views, and I do not doubt it was responsible for a\ngreat deal of the pessimistic philosophizing that came in the\nseventeenth and eighteenth centuries.\n\nNow, it flashed upon me a dozen years or so ago--after thinking about\nthis manner in which man originated--that man occupies certainly just\nas exceptional a position as before, if he is the terminal in a long\nseries of evolutionary events. If at the end of the long history of\nevolution comes man, if this whole secular process has been going on to\nproduce this supreme object, it does not much matter what kind of a\ncosmical body he lives on. He is put back into the old position of\ntheological importance, and in a much more intelligent way than in the\nold days when he was supposed to occupy the centre of the universe. We\nare enabled to say that while there is no doubt of the evolutionary\nprocess going on throughout countless ages which we know nothing about,\nyet in the one case where it is brought home to us we spell out an\nintelligible story, and we do find things working along up to man as a\nterminal fact in the whole process. This is indeed a consistent\nconclusion from Wallace's suggestion that natural selection, in working\ntoward the genesis of man, began to follow a new path and make psychical\nchanges instead of physical changes. Obviously, here you are started\nupon a new chapter in the history of the universe. It is no longer going\nto be necessary to shape new limbs, and to thicken the skin and make new\ngrowths of hair, when man has learned how to build a fire, when he can\ntake some other animal's hide and make it into clothes. You have got to\na new state of things.\n\nAfter I had put together all these additional circumstances with regard\nto the origination of human society and the development of altruism, I\nbegan to see a little further into the matter. It then began to appear\nthat not only is man the terminal factor in a long process of evolution,\nbut in the origination of man there began the development of the higher\npsychical attributes, and those attributes are coming to play a greater\nand greater part in the development of the human race. Just take this\nmere matter of \"altruism,\" as we call it. It is not a pretty word, but\nmust serve for want of a better. In the development of altruism from the\nlow point, where there was scarcely enough to hold the clan together, up\nto the point reached at the present day, there has been a notable\nprogress, but there is still room for an enormous amount of improvement.\nThe progress has been all in the direction of bringing out what we call\nthe higher spiritual attributes. The feeling was now more strongly\nimpressed upon me than ever, that all these things tended to set the\nwhole doctrine of evolution into harmony with religion; that if the past\nthrough which man had originated was such as has been described, then\nreligion was a fit and worthy occupation for man, and some of the\nassumptions which underlie every system of religion must be true. For\nexample, with regard to the assumption that what we see of the present\nlife is not the whole thing; that there is a spiritual side of the\nquestion beside the material side; that, in short, there is for man a\nlife eternal. When I wrote the \"Destiny of Man,\" all that I ventured to\nsay was, that it did not seem quite compatible with ordinary common\nsense to suppose that so much pains would have been taken to produce a\nmerely ephemeral result. But since then another argument has occurred to\nme: that just at the time when the human race was beginning to come upon\nthe scene, when the germs of morality were coming in with the family,\nwhen society was taking its first start, there came into the human\nmind--how one can hardly say, but there did come--the beginnings of a\ngroping after something that lies outside and beyond the world of sense.\nThat groping after a spiritual world has been going on here for much\nmore than a hundred thousand years, and it has played an enormous part\nin the history of mankind, in the whole development of human society.\nNobody can imagine what mankind would have been without it up to the\npresent time. Either all religion has been a reaching out for a phantom\nthat does not exist, or a reaching out after something that does exist,\nbut of which man, with his limited intelligence, has only been able to\ngain a crude idea. And the latter seems a far more probable conclusion,\nbecause, if it is not so, it constitutes a unique exception to all the\noperations of evolution we know about. As a general thing in the whole\nhistory of evolution, when you see any internal adjustment reaching out\ntoward something, it is in order to adapt itself to something that\nreally exists; and if the religious cravings of man constitute an\nexception, they are the one thing in the whole process of evolution that\nis exceptional and different from all the rest. And this is surely an\nargument of stupendous and resistless weight.\n\nI take this autobiographical way of referring to these things, in the\norder in which they came before my mind, for the sake of illustration.\nThe net result of the whole is to put evolution in harmony with\nreligious thought,--not necessarily in harmony with particular religious\ndogmas or theories, but in harmony with the great religious drift, so\nthat the antagonism which used to appear to exist between religion and\nscience is likely to disappear. So I think it will before a great while.\nIf you take the case of some evolutionist like Professor Haeckel, who is\nperfectly sure that materialism accounts for everything (he has got it\nall cut and dried and settled; he knows all about it, so that there is\nreally no need of discussing the subject!); if you ask the question\nwhether it was his scientific study of evolution that really led him to\nsuch a dogmatic conclusion, or whether it was that he started from some\npurely arbitrary assumption, like the French materialists of the\neighteenth century, I have no doubt the latter would be the true\nexplanation. There are a good many people who start on their theories of\nevolution with these ultimate questions all settled to begin with. It\nwas the most natural thing in the world that after the first assaults of\nscience upon old beliefs, after a certain number of Bible stories and a\ncertain number of church doctrines had been discredited, there should be\na school of men who in sheer weariness should settle down to scientific\nresearches, and say, \"We content ourselves with what we can prove by the\nmethods of physical science, and we will throw everything else\noverboard.\" That was very much the state of mind of the famous French\natheists of the last century. But only think how chaotic nature was to\ntheir minds compared to what she is to our minds to-day. Just think how\nwe have in the present century arrived where we can see the bearings of\none set of facts in nature as collated with another set of facts, and\ncontrast it with the view which even the greatest of those scientific\nFrench materialists could take. Consider how fragmentary and how lacking\nin arrangement was the universe they saw compared with the universe we\ncan see to-day, and it is not strange that to them it could be an\natheistic world. That hostility between science and religion continued\nas long as religion was linked hand in hand with the ancient doctrine of\nspecial creation. But now that the religious world has unmoored itself,\nnow that it is beginning to see the truth and beauty of natural science\nand to look with friendship upon conceptions of evolution, I suspect\nthat this temporary antagonism, which we have fallen into a careless way\nof regarding as an everlasting antagonism, will come to an end perhaps\nquicker than we realize.\n\nThere is one point that is of great interest in this connection,\nalthough I can only hint at it. Among the things that happened in that\ndim past when man was coming into existence was the increase of his\npowers of manipulation; and that was a factor of immense importance.\nAnaxagoras, it is said, wrote a treatise in which he maintained that the\nhuman race would never have become human if it had not been for the\nhand. I do not know that there was so very much exaggeration about\nthat. It was certainly of great significance that the particular race of\nmammals whose intelligence increased far enough to make it worth while\nfor natural selection to work upon intelligence alone was the race which\nhad developed hands and could manipulate things. It was a wonderful era\nin the history of creation when that creature could take a club and use\nit for a hammer, or could pry up a stone with a stake, thus adding one\nmore lever to the levers that made up his arm. From that day to this,\nthe career of man has been that of a person who has operated upon his\nenvironment in a different way from any animal before him. An era of\nsimilar importance came probably somewhat later, when man learned how to\nbuild a fire and cook his food; thus initiating that course of culinary\ndevelopment of which we have seen the climax in our dainty dinner this\nevening. Here was another means of acting upon the environment. Here was\nthe beginning of the working of endless physical and chemical changes\nthrough the application of heat, just as the first use of the club or\nthe crowbar was the beginning of an enormous development in the\nmechanical arts.\n\nNow, at the same time, to go back once more into that dim past, when\nethics and religion, manual art and scientific thought, found\nexpression in the crudest form of myths, the \u00e6sthetic sense was\ngerminating likewise. Away back in the glacial period you find pictures\ndrawn and scratched upon the reindeer's antler, portraitures of mammoths\nand primitive pictures of the chase; you see the trinkets, the personal\ndecorations, proving beyond question that the \u00e6sthetic sense was there.\nThere has been an immense \u00e6sthetic development since then. And I believe\nthat in the future it is going to mean far more to us than we have yet\nbegun to realize. I refer to the kind of training that comes to mankind\nthrough direct operation upon his environment, the incarnation of his\nthought, the putting of his ideas into new material relations. This is\ngoing to exert powerful effects of a civilizing kind. There is something\nstrongly educational and disciplinary in the mere dealing with matter,\nwhether it be in the manual training school, whether it be in carpentry,\nin overcoming the inherent and total depravity of inanimate things,\nshaping them to your will, and also in learning to subject yourself to\ntheir will (for sometimes you must do that in order to achieve your\nconquests; in other words, you must humour their habits and\nproclivities). In all this there is a priceless discipline, moral as\nwell as mental, let alone the fact that, in whatever kind of artistic\nwork a man does, he is doing that which in the very working has in it an\nelement of something outside of egoism; even if he is doing it for\nmotives not very altruistic, he is working toward a result the end of\nwhich is the gratification or the benefit of other persons than himself;\nhe is working toward some result which in a measure depends upon their\napproval, and to that extent tends to bring him into closer relations to\nhis fellow man.\n\nIn the future, to an even greater extent than in the recent past, crude\nlabour will be replaced by mechanical contrivances. The kind of labour\nwhich can command its price is the kind which has trained intelligence\nbehind it. One of the great needs of our time is the multiplication of\nskilled and special labour. The demand for the products of intelligence\nis far greater than that for mere crude products of labour, and it will\nbe more and more so. For there comes a time when the latter products\nhave satisfied the limit to which a man can consume food and drink and\nshelter,--those things which merely keep the animal alive. But to those\nthings which minister to the requirements of the spiritual side of a man\nthere is almost no limit. The demand one can conceive is well-nigh\ninfinite. One of the philosophical things that have been said, in\ndiscriminating man from the lower animals, is that he is the one\ncreature who is never satisfied. It is well for him that he is so, that\nthere is always something more for which he craves. To my mind, this\nfact most strongly hints that man is infinitely more than a mere animate\nmachine.\n\n_May, 1895._\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nTHE ORIGINS OF LIBERAL THOUGHT IN AMERICA[17]\n\n\nIn approaching the subject of the origins of liberal thought in America,\none cannot help remembering that the discovery of the new continent was\nitself such a stimulus to free thinking as the world had never before\nwitnessed. From time immemorial, the trade between Europe and the remote\nparts of Asia had followed certain customary routes. From ancient days,\nlong before Olympiads were heard of, when Assyrian kings with curly\nbeards commemorated their victories in arrow-headed inscriptions, men\nhad used those same routes. Up the Red Sea, in the early prime of\nhundred-gated Thebes, came ships from the Indian Ocean, with gems and\nspices to exchange for Egyptian fine linens and amulets of amber from\nthe Baltic; and five thousand years later Venetian argosies at\nAlexandria were laden with just such gems and spices to distribute to\nthe merchants of Augsburg, the royal household at Paris, the lords and\nladies of Haddon Hall. Empires rose and fell, creeds and pantheons came\nand went, stately temples reared their heads for centuries and slowly\ncrumbled in ruins, and still amid all the secular change the world's\ngreat stream of trade flowed through the same unshifting channels, and\nthere was nothing to show that this state of things, to which men's\nideas and habits had always been adjusted, was not to endure forever. So\nit was in that recent time when Henry V. of England was smiting the\nFrench chivalry at Agincourt, and his cousin Prince Henry of Portugal\nwas beginning the search for an ocean route to the Indies. Never did the\nhuman mind get such a wrench out of its ancient grooves, never were such\nvistas of new possibilities laid open, never was beheld such glorious\nhardihood, such startling romance, as in the time when Columbus sailed\nwestward to find the East, and Cortes met warriors of the Stone Age face\nto face. The men of Europe suddenly found themselves placed in new and\nunsuspected relations to the planet on which they lived; worlds of\nbarbarism and savagery, unheard of and unspeakably bizarre, were brought\nto their notice; strange constellations arose in the firmament; strange\nbeasts and birds were encountered amid outlandish trees and shrubs in\nnew climates beyond unknown seas. The old familiarity with nature's\naspects received an abrupt shock. On every side loomed up new questions\nto be answered, new practical problems to be solved. All man's inventive\nfaculty, all his patient inquisitiveness, all the courage he could\nsummon, were forthwith called into play. The dreams of boundless riches,\nthe eager thirst for new knowledge, the superhuman bravery, which\ncharacterized the epoch of maritime discovery, are symptoms that reveal\nto us the highly wrought condition of the European mind at the time. A\nstudy of contemporary chronicles and letters cannot fail to bring home\nto us the singular intensity with which the thrill of venturesome\nromance was felt in every fibre of man's being.\n\nThe impulse thus given to free thinking must have been extremely\npowerful. It is customary to attribute the brilliant efflorescence of\nthe human mind in the sixteenth century to the revival of Greek\nlearning. Without seeking to diminish the respect due to that mighty\ncause, it may be contended that the influence of maritime discovery was\nequally important. While the Greek renaissance brought men into\nwholesome and stimulating intercourse with the highest achievements of\nliterature, art, and philosophy, the discovery of the New World\nimpressed upon them, as nothing had ever done before, the feasibleness\nof doing things in novel ways. With the wholesale displacement of\ncommercial relations, the European mind burst the bounds of the snug\nlittle world to which its habits and theories, its politics civil and\necclesiastical, its science and its theology, had been adapted. The\nsudden and unprecedented widening of the environment soon set up a\ngeneral fermentation of ideas. There was nothing accidental in Martin\nLuther's coming in the next generation after Columbus. Nor was it\nstrange that in the following age the English mind, wrought to its\nhighest tension under the combined influences of Renaissance,\nReformation, and maritime adventure, should have put forth a literature\nthe boldest and grandest that had ever appeared; that the era of Raleigh\nand Frobisher and the early Puritans should have seen even the highest\nmark of Greek achievement surpassed by Shakespeare. The gigantic\nrevolution set on foot by Copernicus was already in full progress, the\nera of Descartes was just arriving, and the next century was to see\nmodern scientific method receive its supreme illustration at the hands\nof Newton, while the principles of freedom in thought and speech were to\nfind invincible champions in Milton and Locke.\n\nSuch was the age in which the work of English colonization in America\nwas beginning. In looking for the origins of liberal thought in America,\nit is chiefly with English-speaking America that we are concerned. The\nSpanish mind, indeed, felt strongly the stimulus of the maritime\ndiscoveries and the contact with strange races of men, until an age of\nchivalrous enterprise bloomed forth in the literature of Calderon and\nLope de Vega and Cervantes; but the new spirit was not strong enough to\nprevail over an ecclesiastical organization that had been growing in\npower since the Visigothic times. The higher intellectual life of Spain\nperished in the fires of the Inquisition, and art and song failed to\nlead the way to science and free thought; no Spanish Locke or Newton\nfollowed in the train of a Lope and a Murillo, but so lately as the year\n1771 the University of Salamanca prohibited the teaching of the law of\ngravitation as discordant with revealed religion.[18] With such a state\nof things in the mother country, liberal thought in the Spanish colonies\nwas a plant of very slow growth. As for France at the end of the\nsixteenth century, there was a sturdy intellectual life there which no\nefforts of tyranny could more than partially repress; but circumstances\nthrew the work of colonization into the hands of the Jesuits, and\naccordingly the history of New France, while eminent for devoted bravery\nand heroic endurance, shows scarcely a trace of liberal thinking either\nin politics or in matters pertaining to religion. Not with the French\nand Spanish portions of America, therefore, but with the colonies that\ndeveloped into the United States, is our inquiry concerned.\n\nThe first and most obvious consideration which strikes us is that while\nthe two centuries following the discovery of America witnessed an\nunprecedented awakening of the European mind, yet it was only with those\nnations that had retained self-government that this intellectual\nawakening was to come to prompt and full fruition. From the British\nislands and the Netherlands came the kind of public policy that allowed\nfree thinking to take deep root and send up a thrifty tree of liberty.\nThe planting of such seed in the spacious virgin soil of the New World\nwas doubtless the greatest of all the manifold unforeseen results for\nwhich Columbus opened the way. It made political freedom the strongest\npower on earth, and thus favoured the attainment of that equable\nflexibility of mind which allows the thought to play freely about the\nfacts which are laid before it. Not in a moment was such a grand result\nachieved; its complete realization has not yet come, and none of us may\nlive to see it, yet toward that goal the whole impetus of men's\ncivilizing work is tending, and there is no power that can prevent the\nconsummation. Year by year, no matter how grave the questions with which\nwe have to deal, we are becoming more and more able to let our minds\nplay freely with them, to turn them hither and thither till all sides be\nseen and all aspects duly considered.\n\nNot all in a moment, I say, has such a desirable result been achieved.\nSo far is it, moreover, from having been brought about by conscious\nhuman effort that mankind have in general struggled desperately against\nit. Compared with the mass of men, it is only a few minds that have\nlearned to regard absolute freedom of thought as something to be\ndesired. Though the colonization of America came at a time when men's\nminds were stirred by novel ideas as never before, though the men of\nthat generation were moving irrepressibly toward liberality of thought,\nyet there were very few who had any liking for liberal thought, or any\ngood word to bestow upon it. There were few who doubted that absolute\ntruth was attainable concerning the most abstruse questions of\nphilosophy and religion, and an exactly true belief on minute points of\ntheology was deemed necessary for one's personal salvation. Changes in\nopinion simply wrought a transfer of allegiance from one orthodoxy to\nanother, and the new orthodoxy felt bound as much as the old one to\npersecute all who refused such allegiance. From this point of view the\nhistory of the progress of liberal thought becomes curiously\ninteresting, for it shows how one of the most momentous revolutions in\nhuman life has steadily gone on in spite of the inveterate antagonism of\nthe very men concerned in bringing it about! To a considerable extent,\nthe history has been the same over a large part of the globe. The causes\nwhich have been at work in America have also been at work in Europe, and\neven beyond; and the liberal thought with which we are familiar is\ncharacteristic not so much of America as of the latter part of the\nnineteenth century. But along with the general causes there have been\nlocal causes which have especially concerned the New World, and a clear\naccount of the matter requires us to indicate both the one and the\nother.\n\nFrom the revolt of Henry VIII. against the Papacy down to the Revolution\nof 1688, there was in England a progressive movement toward liberal\nthought. It was at first a crude unconscious movement in the direction\nof toleration, which is a necessary condition for the development of\nfree thinking. When we have arrived at a truly cordial toleration of\nopinions, allowing to all free play to stand or fall, just as hypotheses\nin science are suffered to stand or fall, then is men's thought for the\nfirst time really untrammelled. Whatever, therefore, tended toward\ntoleration of diverse forms of creed or worship was a step in the path\nthat led to free thinking; and whatever tended to democratize the church\nand relieve it from state control was a step toward toleration. The\nrevolt of Henry VIII. at first but realized what the _pr\u0153munire_\nstatutes of Edward I. and Edward III. had threatened. But by breaking up\nthe religious orders, expelling abbots from Parliament, and making the\nheadship of the church a subject of fierce dispute, it contributed\nimmensely to weaken and relax the bonds of conservatism, and it afforded\na rare opportunity for the thoughts of laymen and small preachers to\nassert themselves. Thus the Lollardism which had been partially\nsuppressed for more than a century now reared its head again defiantly,\nand, after learning lessons in democracy from Calvin, came forth as\nPuritanism, clad in full panoply for one of the world's most fateful\ncontests.\n\nIn the course of Elizabeth's reign we find this Puritanism taking three\ndifferent shapes. There were the moderate reformers, whose wish was\nsimply to trim and prune the tree of Episcopacy; and secondly, those who\nwere afterward known as \"root and branch\" men, whose name is descriptive\nenough. Instead of pruning they would uproot the tree and cast it away.\nTo these Presbyterians the royal supremacy was no more than the papal a\npart of the living growth of Christ's church; it was but stubble fit for\nburning. Kings looked with horror upon such views, which threatened\npolitical danger no less than ecclesiastical. \"A Scottish presbytery,\"\ncried James I., \"agreeth as well with a monarchy as God and the Devil.\nThen Jack and Tom and Will and Dick shall meet, and at their pleasures\ncensure me and my council and all our proceedings.\" The case could not\nhave been more pithily stated, yet even Presbyterianism stopped short of\nfull-fledged democracy. For Jack and his friends, by means of synods and\ngeneral assemblies, could create a governing body with power of\nenforcing conformity upon unwilling congregations. In protest against\nthis somewhat oligarchical method, Puritanism assumed its third form,\nthat of Independency. The beginnings of Independency are to be sought\namong the Brownists of Elizabeth's reign, though their day of glory\nfirst came with the Civil War. In the theory of the Independents, as\nfully developed, any group of persons wishing to worship God in common\nmight come together and organize themselves into a Congregational\nchurch, existing by as good a warrant as any other church, and entirely\nfree from the control of any bishop, or synod, or council. No outside\npower could prescribe its creed or interfere with its ceremonial. Each\nchurch became, therefore, a little self-governing republic, as\ncompletely autonomous as an ancient Greek city, and the union of such\nchurches was based solely upon the spirit of spontaneous Christian\nfellowship. Such was the theory of Independency.\n\nIn these successive stages of Protestantism we may see the preliminary\nsteps toward general toleration and toward liberal thought. In each\nstage the strength of the coercive power that could be exercised over\nmen's opinions and expressions of opinion was sensibly diminished. From\nthe coercive power of the universal Church, which had once been able to\ndirect a crusade against the Albigenses, it was a long step downward to\nthe coercive power of Queen Elizabeth, whose will to suppress Puritanism\nwas perpetually held in check by motives of public policy. It was a yet\nfurther step downward from the coercive power of a sovereign to that of\na synod, and thence again to that of a congregation. So striking is the\nprogress that one who knew nothing of history might easily mistake the\ntheory of Independency as providing practically for something like\ncomplete toleration. History tells us that this was far from being the\ncase. Heresy, or dissent from the commonly accepted orthodoxy, has been\nno more tolerated in Independent churches than elsewhere; and even in\nthe absence of serious differences in dogma, persecution has been\nvisited upon divergences from the customary ritual, as for example in\nthe treatment long accorded to Baptists. In their militant days, neither\nPresbyterianism nor Independency ever professed to be tolerant. The\ngravest reproach they could imagine was to be charged with encouraging\nfree thinking. The eminent Scottish divine Rutherford gave expression to\nthe prevailing sentiment when he declared, \"We regard toleration of all\nreligions as not far removed from blasphemy.\" Nevertheless, the movement\nwhich gave rise to Presbyterianism and to Independency was sure to\nadvance to the announcement of the principle of universal toleration.\nThat movement was itself the expression of a vast amount of free\nthinking, and it was not to stop short of recognizing the claims of\nfree thought. The century that witnessed the beginnings of an\nEnglish-speaking America saw also the genuine principles of toleration\nlaid down by Roger Williams and William Penn, and demonstrated with\nresistless wealth of learning and logic by Milton and Locke.\n\nIn an account of the origins of liberal thought in America this English\ndevelopment is all-important, but it does not cover the whole field.\nAmerica's inheritance from Europe comes chiefly, but not entirely, from\nthe British islands. In the early days of the Protestant Reformation,\nthere were European countries in which religious toleration had advanced\npractically much further than in England. The England of Henry VIII. as\ncompared with the Netherlands was in a crude and backward condition. The\ncontrast might be likened to that between rural life with its narrow\nmental horizon and the varied cosmopolitan life of the city. England\npolitically was a land of unrivalled promise, but she was not quite\nabreast with the most advanced culture of the time. Her government was\nmainly in the hands of country gentlemen, who lacked some valuable\nelements of experience that were possessed by the burghers of commercial\nAntwerp and Ghent. A careful survey of the Middle Ages shows plainly an\nabiding antagonism between commerce and the ecclesiastical spirit. A\ngeneral connection between the predominance of international trade and\nthe secularization of public life is distinctly traceable. On the map of\nmedi\u00e6val Europe one may point out peculiar spots where the Papacy never\ngained complete sway. In some of these, as in Bohemia and southern Gaul,\nthe resistance was due to Manich\u00e6an heresies brought in from the Eastern\nEmpire, giving rise to a kind of medi\u00e6val Puritanism; in these we do not\nfind a spirit of liberal thought developed, but rather an anti-Catholic\nfanaticism. The other peculiar spots lie in the great pathway of\ncommerce between the Levant and the northern seas. In the free cities of\nnorthern Italy and southern Germany, in the Hansa towns, and in the\nNetherlands, priestcraft had less sway than elsewhere, and the general\ntone of thought was more liberal and modern. No city came so completely\nunder the secularizing influences of maritime commerce as Venice; and it\nis significant that the Papacy, at the very pinnacle of its power and\narrogance in the thirteenth century, utterly failed in its attempt to\nforce the Inquisition upon that republic of merchants.\n\nIn similar wise, we find the commercial Netherlands in the sixteenth\ncentury exhibiting practically such toleration in matters of religion as\nthe British islands attained only much later, and after prolonged and\ndistressing struggle. From the time of Edward III. commercial\nintercourse with the great Dutch and Flemish cities was one of the most\npotent civilizing influences at work in England. It was a liberalizing\ninfluence in religion and in politics, and must be named among the\ncauses which made the eastern counties pre\u00ebminent for heresy. In later\ndays, when the Dutch provinces had saved their Protestantism and\nrecovered political freedom, they adopted a policy of toleration so\nbroad as to seem to most contemporaries very eccentric. Their noble\ncountry was stigmatized as \"the common harbour of all heresies\" and a\n\"cage of unclean birds.\" How it harboured heretics escaping from England\nis something that no American is ever likely to forget.\n\nIf, after this glance at European conditions, we cross the Atlantic and\nobserve the group of twelve colonies that were planted during the\nseventeenth century, we find that five of them were especially notable\nfor pursuing from the outset a policy of toleration,--a policy\nfavourable to liberal thought. These five, naming them in order of\nseniority, were New Netherland, Maryland, Rhode Island, and\nPennsylvania, with Delaware. In New Netherland the Dutch simply\nmaintained their traditional secularized policy. On the hospitable\nisland of Manhattan all the varieties of European religion met on terms\nof equality,--Lutherans and Catholics, Quakers[19] and Puritans,\nMoravians and Jews. After the English conquest this liberal policy was\ncontinued by the bigoted Duke of York, for reasons similar to those\nwhich made toleration a necessity in the province of the liberal and\nsagacious Calverts. The Catholic proprietors of Maryland wished to make\ntheir province a desirable home for Catholics who were inclined to leave\nEngland, and the only possible way of accomplishing this, without\ninterference from the British government, was to pursue a policy broad\nenough to include Catholics along with all other kinds of Christians in\nits benefits. A similar necessity confronted Charles II. and James II.\nIn order to secure as much protection as possible for Catholics without\ninterference from Parliament, it was necessary to pursue a policy broad\nenough to include Quakers along with Catholics. For such reasons James\nrefrained from disturbing the liberal Dutch policy in New York. For\nsuch reasons both Stuart kings supported the schemes of William Penn, in\nwhose proprietary colonies of Pennsylvania and Delaware the principles\nof toleration were carried out, on the whole, more completely than\nanywhere else in English-speaking America. It is interesting in this\nconnection to observe that the mother of William Penn was a Dutch lady,\nthough perhaps it is possible to make too much of such a fact. The\nQuakers, who formed the strength of the colony, represented a phase of\nPuritanism more liberal than Independency. As contrasted with\nIndependency, Quakerism was a notable advance in the direction of\nIndividualism; it had outgrown the set of notions according to which a\ncivic community ought to consist of a united body of believers.\nPennsylvania, therefore, and its appendage Delaware, profited by the\nlate date at which they were founded; they represented a more advanced\nstage of opinion than the colonies which started in the time of James I.\nTheir proprietary government remained undisturbed until the Declaration\nof Independence, and in 1776 these two states were the only ones in\nwhich all Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, stood socially and\npolitically on an equal footing. For after the accession of William and\nMary had made the Episcopal Church supreme in New York and Maryland,\nthe Catholic inhabitants of those colonies were disfranchised and made\nthe subject of various oppressive enactments. Even the laws of Rhode\nIsland, as first printed, early in the eighteenth century, expressly\nprohibit Roman Catholics from voting. The date of this statute is not\naccurately known, but it was certainly between 1688 and 1705,[20] and\nmay be due to the strong antagonism aroused by the conduct of James II.\nand his Jacobites. However that may be, the statute was not repealed\nuntil 1784.\n\nThe disfranchisement of Catholics was contrary to the spirit of the\nRhode Island charter and to the views of Roger Williams, who certainly\nunderstood the rational grounds for religious toleration better than any\nother man of his time, save perhaps Milton and Vane. He represents the\nProtestant principle of the sacred right of private judgment carried out\nwith unflinching logical consistency. In him the transition from\nIndependency to Individualism is completed. The contrast between the two\nis illustrated in the controversy between Williams and Cotton which was\ncalled forth by the publication in 1644 of Williams's book entitled \"The\nBloudy Tenent of Persecution.\" John Cotton was a typical Independent,\nand by no means a man of persecuting temperament, but his view of the\nmatter is extremely one-sided. He admits that it is wrong for error to\npersecute truth, but he holds it to be the sacred duty of truth to\npersecute error! Williams, on the other hand, sees that truth stands in\nno need of violent or artificial support, and that error contains within\nitself the seeds of death. He feels, too, that when I venture to\npersecute what I call error in others, I virtually assume my own\ninfallibility. Thus not until pure Individualism is reached is the\nfundamental fallacy of Catholicism escaped. In order to protect this\nsacred Individualism, Williams would have a complete separation between\nchurch and state. Under no pretext whatever should the civil government\ninterfere with religious matters. There should be no more statutes\nagainst heresy or heretics, no enforced attendance upon public worship,\nno support of churches by taxation. Roger Williams not only proclaimed\nsuch doctrines, but he lived up to them. He never took pains to conceal\nhis dislike of Quaker doctrines; in his seventy-third year he once rowed\nhimself in a boat the whole length of Narragansett Bay, in order to\nconduct a dispute against three valiant Quaker champions; yet, in spite\nof vehement pressure from the neighbouring colonies, he resolutely\nrefused to allow the civil power of Rhode Island to be used against\nQuakers. Massachusetts in fury threatened to cut off the trade of the\nweaker colony, but nothing could intimidate Williams into what he termed\n\"exercising a civil power over men's consciences.\" Among the public men\nof the seventeenth century Roger Williams deserves a pre\u00ebminent place;\nhe was the first to conceive thoroughly and carry out consistently, in\nthe face of strong opposition, a theory of religious liberty broad\nenough to win assent and approval from advanced thinkers of the present\nday.\n\nThe separation of church from state, which was effected with such\nremarkable success in the founding of Rhode Island, did not become\ngeneral in the United States until after the winning of independence. On\nthis issue the eighteenth century had its memorable struggle, in which\nthe protagonist was Virginia, and the victory was achieved under the\nleadership of Jefferson and Madison. The early policy of Virginia was to\ndrive out dissentients, or subject them to civil disabilities; and of\nthe Puritans who went thither for a while the greater part left the\ncolony, many of them retreating into tolerant Maryland. After 1660, for\nthree generations the Episcopal folk had it all their own way. But\nabout 1720 began the wholesale immigration of Presbyterians and\nLutherans into the Shenandoah Valley, and after the middle of the\ncentury trouble began when the tide-water Cavaliers tried to impose\ntaxes upon these people for the support of the Established Church. The\nmost numerous and powerful opponents of this narrow policy were the\nPresbyterians; and inasmuch as these had come, not from Scotland where\ntheir own church was established, but from Ireland where it was\npersecuted, their experience had led them to approve the separation of\nchurch from state. Their political notions were also strongly\ndemocratic, and with the aid of their votes Jefferson's party not only\nabolished primogeniture and entail and other old English customs, but\nalso carried the disestablishment of the Episcopal Church in Virginia.\nMadison's Religious Freedom Act of 1785, which not only effected this,\nbut likewise did away with all religious tests, is a very important\nevent in the history of the United States. The statute, which declared\nthat \"opinion in matters of religion shall in no wise diminish, enlarge,\nor affect civil capacities,\" attracted attention far and wide; it was\ntranslated into several European languages, and published with admiring\ncomments; and in the course of the next forty years it was imitated by\none state after another, until all over the land religious freedom came\nto be _almost_ as complete as legislation could make it. The qualifying\nadverb is still needed; for, by the constitutions of Pennsylvania and\nTennessee, no man can hold office unless he believes in God and a future\nstate of rewards and punishments; in Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, the\ntwo Carolinas, and Maryland, belief in God is required; and in Arkansas\nand Maryland a man who does not believe in God and a future state of\nretribution is deemed incompetent as a witness or juror.[21] Such\ncuriosities of law-making--survivals from a lower state, like the caudal\nvertebra in man and the higher apes--are common enough in history.\n\nThe various stages here mentioned in the progress toward religious\ntoleration, and toward the separation of church and state, are important\nsymptoms of the progress of liberal thought. Of course Madison's\nReligious Freedom Act could not have been proposed by an Endicott, or\nsustained by a community that would not endure the presence of Baptists\nor Quakers. The sketch here given shows an enormous advance in liberal\nthought in the course of two centuries and a half. But such a survey is\nfar from telling us the whole story. A further inquiry into causal\nagencies is needed, and the best field for it is furnished by that\ntheocratic Puritanism which cast out Roger Williams,--the Puritanism of\nthe four confederated New England colonies, and especially of\nMassachusetts. No one can deny that in Massachusetts, during the\nnineteenth century, liberal thought has advanced further and has\npermeated the community more thoroughly than in any other state of the\nAmerican Union. For at least three generations the intellectual ferment\nupon which liberal thought in the United States has thriven has come\nchiefly from Massachusetts. Yet among our colonies which attained social\nmaturity during the seventeenth century there was none which made such\nemphatic exhibitions of intolerance and bigotry as Massachusetts. She\nwas as clearly and avowedly founded upon an illiberal principle as Rhode\nIsland was founded upon a principle of liberality. The Endicott type of\nmind is the very antipodes of the Roger Williams type; yet it was in the\nland of Endicott, and in a congenial soil, that Theodore Parker lately\nflourished. Whence came so great a change? The answer will remind us\nthat there are two sources from which liberal thought is nourished. The\none is the secularized Gallio spirit that deems it folly to interpose\nobstacles in the way of the natural working of reason and common sense;\nthe other is the intense devotion to spiritual ideals which, in spite of\nall inherited encumbrances of bigotry and superstition, never casts off\nits allegiance to reason as the final arbiter. The former spirit is of\nvast use in the world, although its tendency is to deaden into mere\nworldliness as typified in a Franklin; the latter spirit may commit many\nan error, but its drift is toward light and stimulus and exaltation of\nlife as typified in an Emerson. In the darkest days of New England\nPuritanism the paramount allegiance to reason was never lost sight of;\nand out of this fact came the triumph of free thinking, although no such\nresult was ever intended.\n\nThe aims of the Puritans who settled in New England were not all alike,\nbut one dominant aim with many was the founding of a commonwealth in\nwhich church and state should be identified, somewhat after the pattern\nof the old Hebrew theocracy. To this end the suffrage in Massachusetts\nand New Haven was limited to persons qualified to receive the sacrament\nin Congregational churches. This Massachusetts idea was never adopted by\nPlymouth, and the founding of Connecticut was at least in part a liberal\nprotest against it. In New Haven it was soon suppressed by the act of\nCharles II. which put an end to the separate existence of the colony. In\nMassachusetts, where this theocratic policy prevailed for half a\ncentury, the result was the growth of an unenfranchised class which came\nto include four fifths of the community. During the first generation,\nwhen the policy was administered by broad-minded, sagacious men like\nWinthrop and Cotton, its evils were not flagrant. But after 1650, with\nsuch fanatics as Norton and the aged Endicott at the helm, it soon\nbecame evident that the rulers were at variance on many points with the\nmass of the people. This was shown with glaring force in the Quaker\npersecution, when the violence of Endicott's party produced a popular\nreaction of feeling, which enabled the Quakers to carry their point and\nremain in the colony in defiance of statutes. It was further shown in\nthe Half-way Covenant and the founding of the Old South Church in 1669,\nas parts of a movement toward extending the suffrage; and again in the\nrise of the Tory party under the lead of Joseph Dudley, opposed to the\npretensions of the clergy. The magnificent work of the Massachusetts\ntheocracy in resisting the crown throughout the whole reign of Charles\nII. can never be forgotten. Nothing was ever done in America that\ncontributed more toward the maintenance of political freedom. But in\nspite of its merits, the faults of the theocracy were such that we\ncannot regret its speedy overthrow. When that overthrow was effected, by\nthe charter of 1692, there were a great many people in Massachusetts\nmore or less hostile to the kind of Puritanism entertained by their\ngrandfathers, and thus prepared for a more liberal mental habit. There\nwas also a marked secularization of thought, a diminution of interest in\ntheological problems, and a deadening of religious zeal. A wonderful\nseries of changes was set on foot by the writings and preaching of\nJonathan Edwards, and the group of revivals between 1735 and 1750 known\nas \"the Great Awakening.\" Few figures in history are more pathetic or\nmore sublime than that of Jonathan Edwards in the lonely woodlands of\nNorthampton and Stockbridge, a thinker for depth and acuteness surpassed\nby not many that have lived, a man with the soul of a poet and prophet,\nwrestling with the most terrible problems that humanity has ever\nencountered, with more than the courage and candour of Augustine or\nCalvin, with all the lofty inspiration of Fichte or Novalis. An\ninteresting historical essay might be devoted to tracing the effects\nwrought upon New England by this giant personality. The Great\nAwakening, in which he took part, and to which his preaching powerfully\ncontributed, revived the popular interest in theological questions,\ndisencumbered of the ever present political implications of the previous\ncentury. In many ways his theories acted as a disintegrating solvent\nupon the beliefs of the time. For example, the prominence which he gave\nto spiritual conversion, or what was called \"change of heart,\" brought\nabout the overthrow of the doctrine of the Half-way Covenant. It also\nweakened the logical basis of infant baptism, and led to the winning of\nhosts of converts by the Baptists. Moreover, the uses to which Edwards\nput his doctrine of the will produced a reaction toward Arminianism,\nwhich not only affected the teachings of the Baptists, but predisposed\nmany persons to join in the wave of Methodism which was just about to\nsweep over the country. A similar reaction against Edwards's views of\ndivine justice, reinforced by some first faint inklings of Biblical\ncriticism, pointed the way toward Universalism. Still more, the\ndiscussions aroused by Edwards's speculations on original sin and the\natonement began to undermine the doctrine of the Trinity and prepare\nmen's minds for the Unitarian movement. No such results would have been\npossible save in a country where education was universal and the Sunday\nsermon a favourite theme of discussion. Sooner or later, the perpetual\nappeal to reason, with the familiar use of metaphysical arguments and\ncitations of Scripture, must lead to novelties of doctrine and to\nnegative criticism; while for the education of the popular intelligence\nnothing could be more effective. In seventeenth-century Puritanism,\ntherefore, in spite of its rigid narrowness, there were latent the\nspeculations of an Edwards, the further conclusions to which some of\nthem were pushed, the reactions against them, the keen edge of the\ncritical faculty in New England, and much of the free thinking of a\nlater age.\n\nIn the course of the eighteenth century some influence was doubtless\nexercised in America by the English deists, and at the very end of the\ncentury by Thomas Paine. There is no reason to suppose that any\nappreciable effect was produced by the atheism of the French\nencyclop\u00e6dists, which was mainly a reaction, largely emotional and aided\nby the shallowest of metaphysics, against the effete ecclesiastical\nsystem in France. It was too remote from American ideas to exert much\ninfluence here. The deism of Voltaire found a few scattered admirers. A\nquiet religion of humanity, which set little store by miracles, or\nabstruse doctrines, or the divine authority of Scripture, was held by a\nnumber of eminent persons of strong prosaic common sense and feeble\nspirituality, among whom may be named Franklin and Jefferson and John\nAdams. This phase of free thought was of considerable importance, but\nthe dominant influence in New England down to the rise of the\ntranscendental movement was that which could be traced back to Edwards.\n\nIn the early part of the present century, the most advanced phase of\nliberal thought, represented by the Unitarians in Massachusetts, was\ntrying to hold an utterly untenable position, halfway between narrow\northodoxy and untrammelled free thinking, when the ground began to be\ncut from under it by the transcendentalists, whose native temperaments,\nnot wanting in kinship with that of Edwards, were stimulated by a brief\ncontact with Kantian and post-Kantian speculation in Germany. In\nEmerson's poetic soul the result was a seminal influence upon high\nthinking, in America and in the Old World, the power of which we cannot\nbut feel, but which it is as yet too soon to estimate. In the middle of\nthe century some wholesome destructive work still needed to be done, and\nit was well done. When German criticism, with the other weapons in the\npowerful hands of Theodore Parker, freed us from the spectre of\nbibliolatry, it might indeed be said that the promise of the Protestant\nReformation was at length fulfilled. The change wrought in the Unitarian\nchurch since Parker began his preaching has been to some extent followed\nby analogous changes in other churches. On every side, the last quarter\nof the nineteenth century has been pre\u00ebminently the age of the\ndecomposition of orthodoxies. Here and there and everywhere they are\ncrumbling into ruins; and as the world has long since left behind the\nage of trilobites and the age of dinosaurs, so in the world to which we\nare coming there will be neither a place nor a use for orthodoxies.\n\nFor, as I must observe in conclusion, there is all about us a resistless\nand world-wide influence at work, to which all the temporary and local\ncauses I have mentioned have been but the ministering servants. From age\nto age, our knowledge is growing from more to more. From the discovery\nof America, from the astronomy of Copernicus and the physics of Galileo,\ndown to the universal doctrine of evolution in our own time, there has\nbeen one grand coherent and consecutive tale of ever enlarging, ever\nmore organized knowledge of the world in which we live. By this enlarged\nexperience our minds are affected, from day to day and from year to\nyear, in more ways than we can detect or enumerate. It opens our minds\nto some notions, and makes them incurably hostile to others; so that,\nfor example, new truths well-nigh beyond comprehension, like some of\nthose connected with the luminiferous ether, are accepted, and old\nbeliefs once universal, like witchcraft, are scornfully rejected. Vast\nchanges in mental attitude are thus wrought before it is generally\nrealized. Into the new scheme of things old beliefs no longer fit, and\nare therefore thrown aside and forgotten. Now our orthodoxies are of\nolder date than the goodly fabric of modern knowledge. They are the\noutcome of more primitive and childlike thinking, they have ceased to\nfit the world as we know it, and therefore they fade and fall away from\nus, in spite of all our efforts to retain undisturbed the venerable and\nhallowed associations. In this inevitable struggle there has always been\nmore or less pain, and hence free thought has not usually been popular.\nIt has come to our life feast as a guest unbidden and unwelcome; but it\nhas come to stay with us, and already proves more genial than was\nexpected. Deadening, cramping finality has lost its charm for him who\nhas tasted of the ripe fruit of the tree of knowledge. In this broad\nuniverse of God's wisdom and love, not leashes to restrain us are\nneeded, but wings to sustain our flight. Let bold but reverent thought\ngo on and probe creation's mysteries, till faith and knowledge \"make one\nmusic as before, but vaster.\"\n\n_October, 1895._\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nSIR HARRY VANE[22]\n\n\nWith the single exception of Cromwell, the greatest statesman of the\nheroic age of Puritanism was unquestionably the younger Henry Vane. He\ndid as much as any one to compass the downfall of Strafford; he brought\nthe military strength of Scotland to the aid of the hard-pressed\nParliament; he administered the navy with which Blake won his\nastonishing victories; he dared even withstand Cromwell at the height of\nhis power, when his measures savoured too much of violence. After the\ndeath of Pym in 1643, Sir Henry Vane, then thirty-one years of age, was\nthe foremost man in the Long Parliament, and so remained as long as that\nParliament controlled the march of events. As Baxter said, \"he was that\nwithin the House that Cromwell was without.\" Yet before the beginning of\nhis brilliant career in England, this young man had written his name\nindelibly upon one of the earliest pages in the history of the American\npeople. It is pleasant to remember that this admirable man was once the\nchief magistrate of an American commonwealth. Thorough republican and\nenthusiastic lover of liberty, he was spiritually akin to Jefferson and\nto Samuel Adams. His career furnishes an excellent illustration of Mr.\nDoyle's remark, that \"by looking at the colony of Massachusetts, we can\nsee what sort of a commonwealth was constructed by the best men of the\nPuritan party, and to some extent what they would have made of the\ngovernment of England if they could have had their way unchecked.\"\n\nAn adequate biography of this great statesman was a thing much to be\ndesired. Half a century ago Mr. C. W. Upham contributed to Sparks's\n\"American Biography\" an interesting life of Vane; and about the same\ntime Mr. John Forster, in his \"Statesmen of the Commonwealth,\" made a\nsketch characterized by his usual brilliancy. But both these writers\nindulged themselves in that kind of indiscriminate eulogy which used in\nthose days to be thought necessary for biographers; and by way of foil\nto their hero they seemed to feel bound to underrate and misinterpret\nCromwell, even as Carlyle seemed to think he was exalting the great,\nProtector in belittling Vane. The remarkable advance in fairness and\nbreadth of view which historical studies have made within the last fifty\nyears is nowhere better illustrated than in the spirit in which the\nseventeenth century in England is treated by Masson and Gardiner as\ncontrasted with Macaulay. It is no longer the fashion to depict\nindividuals or parties as wholly saintlike or quite the reverse, and it\nis beginning to be practically recognized that there are two sides to\nalmost every question.\n\nThe need for an adequate life of Sir Harry Vane has been most thoroughly\nand admirably satisfied by Mr. Hosmer. As a biography and as a\nhistorical monograph, it deserves to be ranked among the best books of\nthe day. It paints a lifelike picture of the man, and it describes, in a\nbroad, generous spirit and with keen philosophical insight, the causal\nsuccession of events in one of the most momentous political contests the\nworld has ever seen. We are getting far enough away from the seventeenth\ncentury to realize the critical importance of the struggle in which\nkingship was struck down in England just as it was attaining unchecked\nsupremacy in all the other great nations of Europe. We can put the Great\nRebellion into its proper place in the series of conflicts which have so\nfar resulted in spreading constitutional government far and wide over\ntwo hemispheres; and we can begin to see how disastrous in its\nconsequences would have been the victory of the Cavaliers, true and\ngallant men as most of them doubtless were. Without dealing too much in\ngeneralities, Mr. Hosmer's narrative keeps before us the gravity of the\nissues at stake, while our attention is seldom drawn away from the\npowerful but quiet and gracious personality that occupies the centre of\nthe canvas. It is customary for great eras to live in the twilight of\npopular memory in association with some one surpassing name, while other\nheroes of the time are dimly remembered or quite forgotten. The work of\nthese other men gets unconsciously transferred to the credit of the most\nbrilliant or striking hero, as Hamilton, for example, is apt to get\nassociated not merely with his own all-important achievements, but\nlikewise with those of Madison and the Federal Convention generally. In\naccordance with this labour-saving habit of mind, the Great Rebellion in\npopular memory means Oliver Cromwell, while such men as Eliot and Pym,\nFairfax and Ireton, are passed over; and if Hampden stays, it is partly\ndue to the often-quoted line of the poet Gray. So there are many who\nknow Vane only through Milton's sonnet,--itself perhaps the noblest\nliterary tribute ever paid to a statesman. In Mr. Hosmer's pages Sir\nHarry lives again, one of the brightest figures of the Puritan age,\ncheerful and affectionate, full of sacred enthusiasm, yet shrewd and\nself-contained. \"He was indeed a man of extraordinary parts, a pleasant\nwit, a great understanding which pierced into and discerned the purposes\nof men with wonderful sagacity, whilst he had himself _vultum clausum_,\nthat no man could make a guess of what he intended.\" So says Clarendon,\nwho loved him not, but could not help admiring the skill which, at the\nmost critical moment of the war, when many stout adherents of the\nparliamentary cause were inclined to abandon it as lost, all at once\nbrought light out of darkness, as the signing of the Solemn League and\nCovenant summoned Alexander Leslie and twenty thousand brawny Scots\nacross the border to stand side by side with Cromwell and Fairfax at\nMarston Moor. In later days it became matter of common report that the\nnorthern Covenanters had fallen a prey to the wiles of \"that sweet\nyouth,\" and allowed themselves to be hoodwinked and cozened by \"sly Sir\nHarry,\" until, in the hope of establishing Presbyterianism south of the\nTweed, they lent themselves to the work of setting the monster\nIndependency upon its feet. Mr. Hosmer carefully examines this charge,\nand, we think, successfully refutes it. It was neither the first nor the\nlast contract on record which has afterward come to receive conflicting\ninterpretations from the two parties without any tricksome intent on\neither side. \"The Scots,\" says Mr. Hosmer, \"understood that England\nassumed their own narrow Presbyterianism, with its complete intolerance;\nVane and his friends gave the instrument a different interpretation,\nwhich they honestly felt it would bear.\" The amendments which Vane\npartly succeeded in engrafting upon the Scottish proposals at Edinburgh\nare sufficient evidence of his straightforwardness. It was plain enough\nthat, in making a league to overcome the King, the Scots wanted one\nthing, while the English wanted another. Vane did not hide this fact; to\nhave emphasized it would have been to forfeit all claim to diplomatic\ntact. His part in the memorable negotiation is tersely summed up by\nClarendon: \"Sir Harry Vane was one of the commissioners, and therefore\nthe others need not be named, since he was all in any business where\nothers were joined with him.\" In the Committee of Both Kingdoms which\nthe league created he was equally effective, and it was mainly through\nhis persistent dexterity that the committee acquired the control of\nmilitary affairs, and thus gave to the operations of the parliamentary\narmy that unity which they had hitherto lacked.\n\nThe firstfruits of Vane's diplomacy were Marston Moor and Naseby, and it\nwould be unreasonable to find fault with Mr. Hosmer for pausing to\ndescribe those battles. They are brilliant episodes in his narrative. We\nhave nowhere seen the two battles more lucidly explained. The author has\nbeen himself a soldier, and has looked at the ground with a military\neye. One quite envies him the pleasant journey, as on his tricycle he\nfollows the route of the Ironsides over the smooth roads and smiling\nfields of Merry England. His pages are redolent of the mellow cheer and\nfragrance of the summer day under that mild northern sun. One catches,\nwith the author, the spirit of the deadly fight, and realizes, as Naseby\nspire fades away in the distance, the gravity of the crisis and the\ncompleteness of the victory. Said stout old Sir Jacob Astley, when the\nRoundheads took him captive a few months afterward, \"Gentlemen, ye may\nnow sit down and play, for you have done all your work, if you fall not\nout among yourselves.\"\n\nThey were already falling out among themselves; how seriously, Dunbar\nand Worcester were by and by to show. \"Their own generation,\" says Mr.\nHosmer, \"believed that the Independents drew their origin from America.\"\nCertainly there had been witnessed in Boston, in the year when Harvard\nCollege was founded, some noteworthy manifestations of Independency, and\nscenes had been enacted which had left a deep impress upon Sir Harry's\nyouthful mind. In 1635 the gossips wrote: \"Sir Henry Vane hath as good\nas lost his eldest son, who is gone into New England for conscience'\nsake; he likes not the discipline of the Church of England;... no\npersuasions of our bishops nor authority of his parents could prevail\nwith him: let him go.\" The fascinating boy arrived in Boston in October,\n1635, and in the following March, having won all hearts, was elected\ngovernor of Massachusetts. He witnessed the Pequot war, the beautiful\nheroism and rare diplomacy of Roger Williams, and the bitter strife\nwhich ensued upon the teachings of Mrs. Hutchinson. Mr. Hosmer gives a\nvivid picture of the life in the little colony, the theological warfare,\nand the passionate tears of the young man as the difficulties thickened\naround him. Perhaps his indiscreet threat of an appeal to the throne in\nfavour of the Antinomians, as he sailed for England in the summer of\n1637, may have served to hasten the banishment of Mrs. Hutchinson; but\nthe lesson of toleration was already taking shape in his mind, as was\nclearly shown in his controversy with Winthrop. His friendly relations\nwith Roger Williams began at the time of the Pequot war; and in 1643,\nwhen Williams visited England in quest of a charter for Rhode Island, he\nwas Vane's guest at his house in London, and also at his country seat in\nLincolnshire. It was then that Williams wrote that noble book, \"The\nBloudy Tenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience,\" in the preface to\nwhich he thus refers to his friend: \"Mine ears were glad and late\nwitnesses of an heavenly speech of one of the most eminent of that High\nAssembly of Parliament: _Why should the labours of any be suppressed, if\nsober, though never so different? We now profess to seek God, we desire\nto see light!_\"[23] Mr. Hosmer gives in facsimile a touching letter from\nVane to Winthrop in 1645, in which he urges his friends in New England\nto respect the liberty of conscience.\n\nIn 1648, in order to save the cause of liberty from losing to intrigue\nand chicanery all the ground it had won by the sword, the Ironsides felt\nthemselves called upon to take things into their own hands. This period\nof the story, extending to the forcible dissolution of the Rump\nParliament in 1653, Mr. Hosmer treats under the rubric of American\nEngland. For the moment, the spirit of Independency, which reigned\nsupreme in Massachusetts, asserted itself in England in the temporary\noverthrow of the crown and the aristocracy. In this period Sir Harry\nappears as the opponent of the extreme measures of his party. He\nheartily disapproves of such irregular proceedings as Pride's Purge and\nthe execution of the King. Here is shown the strong conservatism of\ntemperament of this law-abiding American-Englishman. He had all the\ningrained reverence of our sturdy practical race for constitutional\nmethods, and withal a far-sighted intelligence that could discern ways\nof settling the difficulty which were for the moment impracticable,\nbecause his contemporaries had not grown up to them. In his mind were\nthe rudiments of the idea of a written constitution, upon which a new\ngovernment for England might be built, with powers neatly defined and\nlimited. One fancies that in some respects he would have felt himself\nmore at home if he could have been suddenly translated from the Rump\nParliament of 1653 to the Federal Convention of 1787, in which immortal\nassembly there sat perhaps no man of loftier spirit than his. It was\nnatural enough that Cromwell, whose stern common sense discerned the\npractical need of the moment and reluctantly fulfilled it, should cry,\n\"The Lord deliver me from Sir Harry Vane!\" In spite of this antagonism\nat the supreme crisis, however, the Protector recognized the worth of\nhis opponent, and seems to have borne him no deep-seated ill will. There\nwas no downright break between them until the Healing Question came up,\nin 1656.\n\nIn Vane's last years there seemed to be some good reasons for\ndistrusting his judgment on practical questions. The element of dreamy\nenthusiasm always present in him began to come into the foreground as\nhis more sober ideas and plans were thwarted. Some of his latest\nutterances are like the rhapsodies of the Fifth Monarchists. Herein\nagain appears his spiritual kinship with his friends in Massachusetts.\nThe theocratic ideal of the founders of Massachusetts, as developed\nfreely in the American wilderness, was kept within rational bounds; but\nif hemmed in by such inexorable circumstances as checked the early\ngrowth of republicanism in England, it would very likely have flowered\ngrotesquely enough in Fifth Monarchist vagaries. From Edward Johnson, of\nWoburn, author of the \"Wonder-Working Providence,\" there often came the\ndithyrambic utterances of an extreme Fifth Monarchy man.\n\nWhen Charles II. came back to his father's throne, there was but one\nthing to be done with such a representative republican as Sir Harry\nVane. His head must come off, for there was not room enough in England\nto hold him and the son of Charles I. at the same time. He died on Tower\nHill, with all the fearlessness and charming sweetness that had always\nmarked his life. His memory is a precious possession for all coming\ngenerations; and the book in which Mr. Hosmer has told the story of his\nlife, with such warm sympathy and such broad intelligence, is worthy of\nits subject.\n\n_January, 1889._\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nTHE ARBITRATION TREATY\n\n\nAfter negotiations which had been pending for nearly two years, the\ngeneral Arbitration Treaty between the United States and Great Britain\nwas signed on the 11th of January [1897] by Mr. Richard Olney and Sir\nJulian Pauncefote, representing the two countries concerned; and on the\nfollowing day the document was sent by President Cleveland to the Senate\nfor ratification. The provisions of this important treaty may be\nsummarized as follows:--\n\nIt is expected that differences arising between the two countries will\nordinarily admit of settlement by the customary methods of diplomacy. It\nis only with cases where such customary methods fail that the provisions\nof the present treaty are concerned; and the parties hereby agree to\nsubmit all such cases to arbitration after the manner herein provided.\n\nThe \"questions in difference\" that are liable to arise are arranged in\nthree grades or classes: (1) small pecuniary claims; (2) large pecuniary\nclaims, and others not involving questions of territory; (3)\nterritorial claims. For each of these grades there is to be a special\nmethod of settlement.\n\nFirst, \"all pecuniary claims or groups of claims, which in the aggregate\ndo not exceed $500,000 in amount and do not involve the determination of\nterritorial claims,\" shall be decided by a tribunal constituted as\nfollows: \"Each party shall nominate one arbitrator, who shall be a\njurist of repute, and the two arbitrators so nominated shall, within two\nmonths of their nomination, select an umpire. In the event of their\nfailing to do so within the limit of time, the umpire shall be appointed\nby agreement between the members of the Supreme Court of the United\nStates and the members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in\nGreat Britain.\" In case these persons fail to agree upon an umpire\nwithin three months, the King of Sweden and Norway shall appoint one.\nAmong public personages of unquestionable dignity and importance, this\nsovereign is as likely as any to be free from bias against either the\nUnited States of Great Britain; but should either party object to him,\nthey may adopt a substitute, if they can agree upon one. It does not\nseem likely that the failure to select an umpire would often reach the\nstage where an appeal to the Swedish King would be necessary. The\numpire, when and however appointed, shall be president of the tribunal\nof three, and the award of a majority of the members shall be final.\nUnder these provisions, it may be expected that all petty claims can be\ndisposed of without unreasonable delay, and with as little risk of\nunfairness as one would find in any court whatever.\n\nSecondly, \"all pecuniary claims or groups of claims exceeding $500,000,\nand all other matters in respect whereof either of the parties shall\nhave rights against the other, under the treaty or otherwise, provided\nthey do not involve territorial claims,\" shall be dealt with as follows:\nSuch claims must be submitted to the tribunal of three, as above\ndescribed, and its award, if unanimous, shall be final. If the award is\nnot unanimous, either party may demand a review of it, but such demand\nmust be made within six months from the date of the award. In such case,\nthe appellate tribunal shall consist of five jurists of repute, no one\nof whom has been a member of the tribunal of three whose award is to be\nreviewed. Of these five jurists, two shall be selected by each party,\nand these four shall agree upon their umpire within three months after\ntheir nomination. In case of their failure, the umpire shall be selected\n(as in the former case) by the members of the Supreme Court and the\nJudicial Committee of the Privy Council; and if these do not agree\nwithin three months, the selection shall be left (as before) to the King\nof Sweden and Norway. The umpire, when selected, shall preside. The\naward of the tribunal of three shall be reviewed by this tribunal of\nfive, and the award of a majority of the five shall be final.\n\nThirdly, \"any controversy involving the determination of territorial\nclaims shall be submitted to a tribunal of six members,\" three of whom\nshall be judges of the Supreme Court or of Circuit Courts, to be\nnominated by the President of the United States. The other three shall\nbe members of the highest British court or members of the Judicial\nCommittee of the Privy Council, to be nominated by the Queen. \"Their\naward by a majority of not less than five to one shall be final. If\nthere is less than the prescribed majority, the award shall also be\nfinal, unless either party within three months protests that the award\nis erroneous. If the award is protested, or if the members of the\ntribunal are equally divided, there shall be no recourse to hostile\nmeasures of any description until the mediation of one or more friendly\npowers shall have been invited by one or the other party.\" It is also\nprovided that \"where one of the United States or a British colony is\nspecially concerned, the President or Queen may make a judicial officer\nof the state or colony an arbitrator.\"\n\nIn some cases, a question may be removed from the jurisdiction of the\ntribunal of three or the tribunal of five, and transferred to that of\nthe tribunal of six. If, prior to the close of the hearing of the claim\nbefore the lower tribunal, it shall be decided by the tribunal, upon the\nmotion of either party, that the determination of the claim necessarily\ninvolves a decision of some \"disputed question of principle of grave\ngeneral importance, affecting the national rights of such party as\ndistinct from its private rights, of which it is merely an international\nrepresentative,\" then the jurisdiction of the lower tribunal over the\nclaim shall at once cease, and it shall be dealt with by the tribunal of\nsix.\n\nWith regard to territorial claims, a special article defines them as\nincluding not only all claims to territory, but also \"all other claims\ninvolving questions of servitude, rights of navigation, access to\nfisheries, and all rights and interests necessary to control the\nenjoyment of either's territory.\"\n\nThe treaty is to remain in force for five years from the date at which\nit becomes operative, and \"until a year after either party shall have\nnotified the other of its wish to terminate it.\"\n\nThe first impression which one gets from reading the treaty is that it\nis strictly defined and limited in its application. Yet, when duly\nconsidered, it seems to cover all chances of controversy that are likely\nto arise between the United States and Great Britain. Under such a\ntreaty as this, nearly all the questions at issue between the two\ncountries since 1783 might have been satisfactorily adjusted,--the\npayment of private debts to British creditors, the relinquishment of the\nfrontier posts by British garrisons, the northeastern boundary, the\npartition of the Oregon territory, the questions concerning the\nNewfoundland fisheries, the navigation of the Great Lakes, the catching\nof seals in Bering Sea, the difference of opinion over the San Juan\nboundary, etc. Possibly some of the old questions growing out of the\nAfrican slave trade might have been brought within its purview, but that\nis now of small consequence, since no issues of that sort are likely\never to rise again. Differences attending the future construction of a\nNicaragua canal, regarded as an easement or a servitude possibly\naffecting vested rights, might, under a liberal interpretation, be dealt\nwith; and one may suppose that the Venezuela question is meant to be\ncovered, since it relates to territorial claims in which, though they\nmay not obviously concern the United States either immediately or\nremotely, our government has with unexpected emphasis declared itself\ninterested.\n\nOn the other hand, one does not seem to find in the treaty any provision\nwhich would have covered two or three of the most serious questions that\nhave ever been in dispute between the United States and Great Britain.\nOne of these questions, concerning the right of search and the\nimpressment of seamen, was conspicuous among the causes of the\nill-considered and deplorable War of 1812. But it may be presumed, with\nstrong probability, that no difficulty of that kind can again arise\nbetween these two powers. The affair of the Trent in 1861 seems also to\nbe a kind of case not provided for. But that affair, most creditably\nsettled at a moment of fierce irritation and under aggravating\ncircumstances, was settled in such wise as to establish a great\nprinciple which will make it extremely difficult for such a case to\noccur again. As for the Alabama Claims, they could apparently have been\nadjusted under the present treaty, as large pecuniary claims involving\ninternational principles of grave general importance.\n\nOn the whole, there seems to be small likelihood of any dispute arising\nbetween this country and Great Britain which cannot be amicably\nsettled, with reasonable promptness, under the provisions of this new\nArbitration Treaty. Once chief desideratum in any such instrument is to\nsecure impartiality in the arbitrating tribunals, and here the\narrangements made in our treaty will doubtless yield as good results as\ncan ever be achieved through mere arrangements. In such matters, the\nbest of machinery is of less consequence than the human nature by which\nthe machinery is to be worked. Impartiality, not only real, but\nconspicuous and unmistakable, is the prime requisite in a court of\narbitration. Its life and health can be sustained only in an atmosphere\nof untainted and unsuspected integrity. But in an age which does not yet\nfully comprehend the damnable villainy of such maxims as \"Our country,\nright or wrong,\" gross partisanship is not easy to eliminate from human\nnature. Even austere judges, taken from a Supreme Court, have sometimes\nshown themselves to be men of like passions with ourselves. It would\nneed but few awards made on the \"eight to seven\" principle, as in the\nElectoral Commission of 1877, to make our arbitrating tribunal the\nlaughing-stock of the world, and to set back for a generation or two the\nhand upon the timepiece of civilization.\n\nA general experience, however, justifies us in hoping much better things\nfrom the group of international tribunals contemplated in our present\ntreaty. There is no doubt that the good work is undertaken in entire\ngood faith by both nations; both earnestly wish to make international\narbitration successful, and there is little fear that the importance of\nfair dealing will be overlooked or undervalued. If the present\nproceedings result in the establishment of a tribunal whose integrity\nand impartiality shall win the permanent confidence of British and\nAmericans alike, it will be an immense achievement, fraught with\nincalculable benefit to mankind. For the first time, the substitution of\ninternational lawsuits for warfare will have been systematically begun\nby two of the leading nations of the world; and an event which admits of\nsuch a description cannot be without many consequences, enduring and\nprofound.\n\nFor observe that the interest of the present treaty lies not so much in\nthe fact that it provides for arbitration as in the fact that it aims at\nmaking arbitration the regular and permanent method of settling\ninternational disputes. In due proportion to the gravity of the problem\nis the modest caution with which it is approached. The treaty merely\nasks to be tried on its merits, and only for five years at that. Only\nfor such a brief period is the most vociferous Jingo in the United\nStates Senate or elsewhere asked to put a curb upon his sanguinary\npropensities and see what will happen. Nay, if we really prefer war to\npeace; if, like the giant in the nursery tale, we are thirsting for a\ndraught of British blood, neither this nor any other treaty could long\nrestrain us. As Hosea Biglow truly observes,--\n\n      \"The right to be a cussed fool\n        Is safe from all devices human.\"\n\nIt has been rumoured that some Senators will vote against the treaty, in\norder to show their spite against President Cleveland and Mr. Olney. If\nthe treaty should fail of confirmation through such a cause, it would be\nno more than has happened before. Members of the Sapsea family have sat\nin other chambers than those of the Capitol at Washington. But, as a\nrule, good causes have not long been hindered through such pettiness,\nand should the treaty thus fail for the moment, it would not be ruined,\nbut only delayed. In any event, it is not likely to be long in acquiring\nits five years' lease of life. If during that time nothing should occur\nto discredit it, even should no cases arise to call it into operation,\nits purpose is so much in harmony with the most enlightened spirit of\nthe age that it is pretty sure to be renewed. Should cases arise under\nit, the machinery which it provides is confessedly provisional and\ntentative, and upon renewal can be modified in such wise as may seem\ndesirable. Other human institutions have been moulded by experience, and\nso, doubtless, it will be with international courts of arbitration.\n\nThe working of the tribunals created by the present treaty will be\ncarefully watched by other nations than the two parties directly\nconcerned, and should it achieve any notable success it will furnish a\nprecedent likely to be imitated. The removal of any source of irritation\nat all comparable to the Alabama Claims would be, of course, a success\nof the first magnitude; great good, with far-reaching consequences,\nmight be wrought by a much smaller one. Probably few readers are aware\nof the extent to which the arbitration at Geneva in 1872 has already\nserved as a precedent for the peaceful solution of international\ndifficulties.[24] Already the moral effect of that event has been such\nas to suggest that it may hereafter be commemorated as the illustrious\nherald of a new era. The Geneva event was brought about by a treaty\nspecially framed for the purpose, and might thus be regarded as\nexceptional or extraordinary in its nature. Still greater, then, would\nbe the moral effect of a similar success achieved by a tribunal created\nunder the provisions of a permanent treaty.\n\n      The commission to arbitrate between the Argentine Republic\n      and Brazil, 1886.\n\n      Arbitration by Spain between Colombia and Venezuela, 1887.\n\n      Arbitration by the minister of Spain at Bogot\u00e1 between\n      Italy and Colombia, 1887.\n\n      Arbitration by President Cleveland between Nicaragua and\n      Costa Rica, 1888.\n\n      Arbitration by the Queen of Spain between Peru and Ecuador,\n      1888.\n\n      Arbitration by Baron Lambermont between England and\n      Germany; affair of Lamoo, 1888.\n\n      Arbitration by the Czar of Russia between France and the\n      Netherlands; affair of the boundaries of Guinea, 1888.\n\n      Arbitration by Sir Edward Momson between Denmark and\n      Sweden, 1888.\n\n      Compromise between the United States and Venezuela, 1890.\n\n      Compromise between Germany, the United States, and Great\n      Britain; affair of Terranova, 1891.\n\n      Arbitration by Switzerland between England, the United\n      States, and Portugal; affair of the railroads at Delagoa\n      Bay, 1891.\n\n      Arbitration between Great Britain and the United States\n      relating to the question of the delimitation of territorial\n      power in Bering Sea, 1893.\n\nIt may be urged that arbitration cannot often succeed in dealing with\ndifficulties so formidable as those connected with the Alabama Claims.\nThe questions hitherto settled by arbitration have for the most part\nbeen of minor importance, in which \"national honour\" has not been at\nstake, and the bestial impulse to tear and bruise, which so many\nlight-headed persons mistake for patriotism, has not been aroused. The\nLondon \"Spectator\" tells us that if the United States should ever repeat\nthe Mason and Slidell incident, or should feel insulted by the speech of\nsome British prime minister, there would be war, no matter how loudly\nthe lawyers in both countries might appeal to the Arbitration Treaty.\nThe two illustrations cited are not happy ones, since from both may be\ndeduced reasons why war is not likely to ensue. The Mason and Slidell\nincident was a most impressive illustration of the value of delay and\ndiscussion in calming popular excitement. The principle of international\nlaw which the United States violated on that occasion was a principle\nfor which the United States had long and earnestly contended against the\nopposition of Great Britain. A very brief discussion of the affair in\nthe American press made this clear to every one, and there was no\ncavilling when our government disowned the act and surrendered the\nprisoners with the noble frankness which characterized President\nLincoln's way of doing things. What chiefly tended to hinder or prevent\nsuch a happy termination of the affair was the unnecessary arrogance of\nLord Palmerston's government in making its demand of us. What chiefly\nfavoured it was the absence of an ocean telegraph, affording the delay\nneedful for sober second thought. I remember hearing people say at the\ntime that the breaking of the first Atlantic cable in 1858 had thus\nturned out to be a blessing in disguise! Now, should any incident as\nirritating as the Trent affair occur in future, the Arbitration Treaty\ncan be made to furnish the delay which the absence of an ocean cable\nonce necessitated; and I have enough respect for English-speaking people\non both sides of the water to believe that in such case they will behave\nsensibly, and not like silly duellists. So, too, as regards \"feeling\ninsulted\" by the speech of a prime minister, there is a recent historic\ninstance to the point. Our British cousins may have had reason to feel\ninsulted by some expressions in President Cleveland's message of\nDecember, 1895, but they took the matter very quietly. Had the boot been\non the other leg, a few pupils of Elijah Pogram might have indulged in\nBarmecide suppers of gore, but there the affair would probably have\nended. The reason is that deliberate public opinion in both countries\nfeels sure that nothing is to be gained, and much is to be lost, by\nfighting. Under such conditions, the growing moral sentiment which\ncondemns most warfare as wicked has a chance to assert itself. Thus the\ndelay which allows deliberate public opinion to be brought to bear upon\nirritating incidents is a great advantage; and the mere existence of a\npermanent arbitration treaty tends toward insuring such delay.\n\nPeople who prefer civilized and gentleman-like methods of settling\ndisputes to the savage and ruffian-like business of burning and\nslaughtering are sometimes stigmatized by silly writers as\n\"sentimentalists.\" In the deliberate public opinion which has come to be\nso strong a force in preventing war between the United States and Great\nBritain, sentiment has as yet probably no great place; but it is hoped\nand believed that it will by and by have much more. In the days of\nAlexander Hamilton, there was very little love for the Federal Union in\nany part of this country; it was accepted as a disagreeable necessity.\nBut his policy brought into existence a powerful group of selfish\ninterests binding men more and more closely to the Union, and more so at\nthe North than at the South. When Webster made his reply to Hayne,\nthere was a growing sentiment of Union for him to appeal to, and\nstronger at the North than at the South. When the Civil War came, that\nsentiment was strong enough to sadden the heart of many a Southerner\nwhose sense of duty made him a secessionist; at the North it had waxed\nso powerful that men were ready to die for it, as the Mussulman for his\nProphet or the Cavalier for his King. Thus sentiment can quickly and\nsturdily grow when favoured by habits of thought originally dictated by\nself-interest. Obviously a state of things in favour of which a strong\nsentiment is once enlisted has its chances of permanence greatly\nincreased. I therefore hope and believe that in the deliberate public\nopinion above mentioned sentiment will by and by have a larger place\nthan it has at present. As feelings of dislike between the peoples of\ntwo countries are always unintelligent and churlish, so feelings of\nfriendship are sure to be broadening and refining. The abiding sentiment\nof Scotchmen toward England was for many centuries immeasurably more\nrancorous than any Yankee schoolboy ever gave vent to on the Fourth of\nJuly. There is no reason why the advent of the twenty-first century\nshould not find the friendship between the United States and Great\nBritain quite as strong as that between Scotland and England to-day.\nToward so desirable a consummation a permanent policy of arbitration\nmust surely tend.\n\nThe fact that deliberate public opinion in both countries can be counted\nupon as strongly adverse to war is the principal fact which makes such a\npermanent policy feasible. It is our only sufficient guarantee that the\nawards of the international tribunal will be respected. These\nconsiderations need to be borne in mind, if we try to speculate upon the\nprobable influence upon other nations of a successful system of\narbitration between the United States and Great Britain. Upon the\ncontinent of Europe a considerable interest seems already to have been\nfelt in the treaty, and, as I observed above, its working is sure to be\ncarefully watched; for the states of Europe are suffering acutely from\nthe apparent necessity of keeping perpetually prepared for war, and any\nexpedient that holds out the slightest chance of relief from such a\nburden cannot fail to attract earnest attention.\n\nThe peoples of Europe are not unfamiliar with the principles of\narbitration. Indeed, like many other good things which have loomed up\nconspicuously in recent times, arbitration can be traced back to the\nancient Greeks, for whom it occasionally mitigated the evils attendant\nupon frequent warfare between their city-states. Among the Italian\nrepublics of the Middle Ages, disputes were sometimes submitted to the\narbitration of learned professors in the universities at Bologna and\nother towns. But such methods could not prevail over the ruder fashions\nof Europe north of the Alps. As medi\u00e6val Italy was the industrial and\ncommercial centre of the world, so in our day it is the nations most\ncompletely devoted to industry and commerce, the English-speaking\nnations, that are foremost in bringing into practice the methods of\narbitration. The settlement of the Alabama Claims is the most brilliant\ninstance on record, and we have already cited examples of the readiness\nof sundry nations, great and small, to imitate it. Such examples, even\nwhen concerned with questions of minor importance, are to some extent an\nindication of the growing conviction that war, and the unceasing\npreparations for it, are becoming insupportable burdens.\n\nIt is the steadily increasing complication of industrial life, and the\nheightened standard of living that has come therewith, that are making\nmen, year by year, more unwilling to endure the burdens entailed by war.\nIn the Middle Ages, human life was made hideous by famine, pestilence,\nperennial warfare, and such bloody superstitions as the belief in\nwitchcraft; but men contrived to endure it, because they had no\nexperience of anything better, and could not even form a conception of\nrelief save such as the Church afforded. Deluges of war, fraught with\nhorrors which stagger our powers of conception, swept at brief intervals\nover every part of the continent of Europe, and the intervals were\nmostly filled with petty waspish raids that brought robbery and murder\nhome to everybody's door; while honest industry, penned up within walled\ntowns, was glad of such precarious immunity as stout battlements eked\nout by blackmail could be made to afford. Fighting was incessant and\nubiquitous. The change wrought in six centuries has been amazing, and it\nhas been chiefly due to industrial development. Private warfare has been\nextinguished, famine and pestilence seldom occur in civilized countries,\nmental habits nurtured by science have banished the witches, the land is\ncovered with cheerful homesteads, and the achievement of success in life\nthrough devotion to industrial pursuits has become general. Wars have\ngreatly diminished in frequency, in length, and in the amount of misery\nneedlessly inflicted. We have thus learned how pleasant life can become\nunder peaceful conditions, and we are determined as far as possible to\nprolong such conditions. We have no notion of submitting to misery like\nthat of the Middle Ages; on the contrary, we have got rid of so much of\nit that we mean to go on and get rid of the whole. Such is the general\nfeeling among civilized men. It may safely be said not only to that no\nnation in Christendom wishes to go to war, but also that the nations are\nfew which would not make a considerable sacrifice of interests and\nfeelings rather than incur its calamities. For reasons such as these,\nthe states of Continental Europe are showing an increasing disposition\nto submit questions to arbitration, and in view of this situation the\nfullest measure of success for our Arbitration Treaty is to be desired,\nfor the sake of its moral effect.\n\nThe method at present in vogue on the continent of Europe for averting\nwarfare is the excessively cumbrous expedient of keeping up great\narmaments in time of peace. The origin of this expedient may be traced\nback to the _lev\u00e9e en masse_ to which revolutionary France resorted in\nthe agonies of self-defence in 1792. The _lev\u00e9e en masse_ proved to be a\nfar more formidable engine of warfare than the small standing armies\nwith which Europe had long been familiar; and so, after the old military\nsystem of Prussia had been overthrown in 1806, the reforms of Stein and\nScharnhorst introduced the principle of the _lev\u00e9e en masse_ into times\nof peace, dividing the male population into classes which could be kept\nin training, and might be successively called to the field as soon as\nmilitary exigencies should demand it. The prodigious strength which\nPrussia could put forth under this system was revealed in 1866 and 1870,\nand since then similar methods have become universally adopted, so that\nthe commencement of a general European war to-day would doubtless find\nseveral millions of men under arms. The progress of invention is at the\nsame time daily improving projectiles on the one hand, and\nfortifications on the other; we may perhaps hope that some of us will\nlive long enough to see what will happen when a ball is fired with\nirresistible momentum against an impenetrable wall! To keep up with the\nprogress of invention enormous sums are expended on military engines,\nwhile each nation endeavours to avert war by making such a show of\nstrength as will deter other nations from attacking it. A mania for\nincreasing armaments has thus been produced, and although this state of\nthings is far less destructive and demoralizing than actual war, it lays\na burden upon Europe which is fast becoming intolerable. For the modern\ndevelopment of industry has given rise to problems that press for\nsolution, and no satisfactory solution can be reached in the midst of\nthis monstrous armed peace. Competition has reached a point where no\nnation can afford to divert a considerable percentage of its population\nfrom industrial pursuits. Each nation, in order to maintain its rank in\nthe world, is called upon to devote its utmost energies to agriculture,\nmanufactures, and commerce. Moreover, the economic disturbances due to\nthe withdrawal of so many men from the work of production are closely\nconnected with the discontent which finds vent in the wild schemes of\nsocialists, communists, and anarchists. There is no other way of\nbeginning the work of social redemption but by a general disarmament;\nand this opinion has for some years been gaining strength in Europe. It\nis commonly felt that in one way or another the state of armed peace\nwill have to be abandoned.\n\nIn a lecture at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in 1880, I argued\nthat the contrast between the United States, with a population quite\nfreed from the demands of militarism, and the continent of Europe, with\nits enormous armaments useless for productive purposes, could not long\nbe maintained; that American competition would soon come to press so\nseverely upon Europe as to compel a disarmament, and in this way the\nswords would get beaten into ploughshares. American competition is less\neffective than it might be, owing to our absurd tariffs and vicious\ncurrency, but its tendency has undoubtedly been in the direction\nindicated. I suspect, however, that the process will be less simple.\nWithin the last twenty years the operations of production and\ndistribution have been assuming colossal proportions. Syndicates,\ntrusts, and other huge combinations of capital have begun carrying on\nbusiness upon a scale heretofore unprecedented. Already we see symptoms\nthat such combinations are to include partners in various parts of the\nearth. Business, in short, is becoming more and more international; and\nunder such circumstances the era of general disarmament is likely to be\nhastened. In the long run, peace has no other friend so powerful as\ncommerce.\n\nWhile every successful resort to arbitration is to be welcomed as a step\ntoward facilitating disarmament, it seems probable that institutions of\nsomewhat broader scope than courts of arbitration will be required for\nthe settlement of many complex international questions. In the European\ncongresses which have assembled from time to time to deal with peculiar\nexigencies, we have the precedent for such more regular and permanent\ninstitutions. An example of what is meant was furnished by the Congress\nof Paris in 1856, when it dealt summarily with the whole group of vexed\nquestions relating to the rights and duties of neutrals and belligerents\nupon the ocean, and put an end to the chaos of two centuries by\nestablishing an international code relating to piracy, blockades, and\nseizures in times of naval war. This code has been respected by maritime\npowers and enforced by the world's public opinion, and its establishment\nwas a memorable incident in the advance of civilization. Now, such work\nas the Congress of Paris did can be done in future by other congresses,\nbut it is work of broader scope than has hitherto been undertaken by\ncourts of arbitration. I am inclined to think that both these\ninstitutions--the International Congress and the Tribunal of\nArbitration--are destined to survive, with very considerable increase in\npower and dignity, in the political society of the future, long after\ndisarmament has become an accomplished fact.\n\nAbout the time that a small party of Englishmen at Jamestown were laying\nthe first foundation stones of the United States, one of the greatest\nkings and one of the greatest ministers of modern times were deeply\nengaged in what they called the Great Design, a scheme for a European\nConfederation. The plan of Henry IV. of France and the Duke of Sully\ncontemplated a federal republic of Christendom, comprising six\nhereditary crowns (France, England, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Lombardy),\nfive elective crowns (the Empire, the Papacy, Bohemia, Hungary, Poland),\nand four republics (Venice, the small Italian states, Switzerland, and\nthe Netherlands). There was to be a federal government in three\nbranches, legislative, executive, judicial; a federal army of about\nthree hundred thousand men, and a powerful federal fleet. The purpose of\nthe federation was to put an end once and forever to wars, both civil\nand international. Probably the two great statesmen were not sanguine as\nto the immediate success of their Great Design, and doubtless none knew\nbetter than they that it would cost at least one mighty war to establish\nit. But there is a largeness of view about the scheme that is refreshing\nto meet in a world of arid and narrow commonplaces. With all their\nbreadth of vision, however, Henry and Sully would surely have been\namazed had they been told that the handful of half-starved Englishmen at\nJamestown were inaugurating a political and social development that in\ncourse of time would contribute powerfully toward the success of\nsomething like their Great Design.\n\nIn human affairs a period of three centuries is a brief one, and the\nprogress already made in the direction toward which the two great\nFrenchmen were looking is significant and prophetic. The vast armaments\nnow maintained on the continent of Europe cannot possibly endure.\nEconomic necessities will put an end to them before many years. But\ndisarmament, apparently, can only proceed _pari passu_ with the\nestablishment of peaceful methods of settling international questions.\nThe machinery for this will probably be found in the further development\nof two institutions that have already come into existence, the\nInternational Congress and the Court of Arbitration. The existence of\nthese institutions, which is now occasional, will tend to become\npermanent: the former will deal preferably with the establishment of\ngeneral principles, the latter with their judicial application to\nspecial cases. As European congresses meet now upon extraordinary\noccasions, so once it was with the congresses of the American colonies,\nsuch as the New York Congress of 1690 and the Albany Congress of 1754\nfor concerting measures against New France, and the New York Congress of\n1765 for protesting against the Stamp Act. Then came the Continental\nCongress of 1774, which circumstances kept in existence for fifteen\nyears, until a political revolution reached its consummation in\nreplacing it by a completely organized federal government. In 1754 the\npossibility of a permanent federation of American states was derided as\nan idle dream of Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Hutchinson. Very little\nlove was lost between the people of different colonies; and when the\ncrisis came on, after 1783, the majority hated and dreaded a permanent\nFederal Union, and accepted it _only as the alternative to something\nworse_, namely, anarchy and civil war. In like manner, it may be\nsurmised as not improbable that in course of time the occasions for\nsummoning European congresses will recur with increasing frequency until\nthe functions which they are called upon to discharge will convert them\ninto a permanent institution. Such a development, combined with the\nincreased employment of arbitration, must ultimately tend toward the\ncreation of a Federal Union in Europe. The fact that such a result will\nbe hated and dreaded by many people, perhaps by the great majority, need\nnot prevent its being accepted and acquiesced in _as the alternative to\nsomething worse_, namely, the indefinite continuance of the system of\nvast armaments.\n\nBy the time when such a result comes clearly within sight, it will very\nlikely have been made evident that the policy of isolation which our\ncountry has wisely pursued for the century past cannot be maintained\nperpetually. When Washington wrote his Farewell Address, the danger of\nour getting dragged into the mighty struggle then raging in Europe was a\nreal and serious danger, against which we needed to be solemnly warned.\nSince then times have changed, and they are changing still. From a\nnation scarcely stronger than Portugal we have become equal to the\nstrongest. Railways, telegraphs, and international industries are making\nevery part of the world the neighbour of every other part. To preserve a\npolicy of isolation will not always be possible, nor will it be\ndesirable. Situations will arise (if they have not already arisen) in\nwhich such moral weight as the United States can exert will be called\nfor. The pacification of Europe, therefore, is not an affair that is\nforeign to our interests. In that, as in every other aspect of the\nChristian policy of \"peace on earth and good will to men,\" we are most\ndeeply concerned; and every incident, like the present Arbitration\nTreaty, that promises to advance us even by one step toward the sublime\nresult, it is our solemn duty to welcome and encourage by all the means\nwithin our power.\n\n_February, 1897._\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nFRANCIS PARKMAN[25]\n\n\nIn the summer of 1865 I had occasion almost daily to pass by the\npleasant windows of Little, Brown & Co., in Boston, and it was not an\neasy thing to do without stopping for a moment to look in upon their\nample treasures. Among the freshest novelties there displayed were to be\nseen Lord Derby's translation of the Iliad, Forsyth's Life of Cicero,\nColonel Higginson's Epictetus, a new edition of Edmund Burke's writings,\nand the tasteful reprint of Froude's History of England, just in from\nthe Riverside Press. One day, in the midst of such time-honoured\nclassics and new books on well-worn themes, there appeared a stranger\nthat claimed attention and aroused curiosity. It was a modest crown\noctavo, clad in sombre garb, and bearing the title \"Pioneers of France\nin the New World.\" The author's name was not familiar to me, but\npresently I remembered having seen it upon a stouter volume labelled\n\"The Conspiracy of Pontiac,\" of which many copies used to stand in a row\nfar back in the inner and dusky regions of the shop. This older book I\nhad once taken down from its shelf, just to quiet a lazy doubt as to\nwhether Pontiac might be the name of a man or a place. Had that\nconspiracy been an event in Merovingian Gaul or in Borgia's Italy, I\nshould have felt a twinge of conscience at not knowing about it; but the\ndeeds of feathered and painted red men on the Great Lakes and the\nAlleghanies, only a century old, seemed remote and trivial. Indeed, with\nthe old-fashioned study of the humanities, which tended to keep the\nMediterranean too exclusively in the centre of one's field of vision, it\nwas not always easy to get one's historical perspective correctly\nadjusted. Scenes and events that come within the direct line of our\nspiritual ancestry, which until yesterday was all in the Old World, thus\nbecome unduly magnified, so as to deaden our sense of the interest and\nimportance of the things that have happened since our forefathers went\nforth from their homesteads to grapple with the terrors of an outlying\nwilderness. We find no difficulty in realizing the historic significance\nof Marathon and Chalons, of the barons at Runnymede or Luther at\nWittenberg; and scarcely a hill or a meadow in the Romans Europe but\nblooms for us with flowers of romance. Literature and philosophy, art\nand song, have expended their richest treasures in adding to the\nwitchery of Old World spots and Old World themes.\n\nBut as we learn to broaden our horizon, the perspective becomes somewhat\nshifted. It begins to dawn upon us that in New World events, also, there\nis a rare and potent fascination. Not only is there the interest of\ntheir present importance, which nobody would be likely to deny, but\nthere is the charm of a historic past as full of romance as any chapter\nwhatever in the annals of mankind. The Alleghanies as well as the\nApennines have looked down upon great causes lost and won, and the\nMohawk Valley is classic ground no less than the banks of the Rhine. To\nappreciate these things thirty years ago required the vision of a master\nin the field of history; and when I carried home and read the \"Pioneers\nof France,\" I saw at once that in Francis Parkman we had found such a\nmaster. The reading of the book was for me, as doubtless for many\nothers, a pioneer experience in this New World. It was a delightful\nexperience, repeated and prolonged for many a year, as those glorious\nvolumes came one after another from the press, until the story of the\nstruggle between France and England for the possession of North America\nwas at last completed. It was an experience of which the full\nsignificance required study in many and apparently diverse fields to\nrealize. By step after step one would alight upon new ways of regarding\nAmerica and its place in universal history.\n\nFirst and most obvious, plainly visible from the threshold of the\nsubject, was its extreme picturesqueness. It is a widespread notion that\nAmerican history is commonplace and dull; and as for the American red\nman, he is often thought to be finally disposed of when we have\nstigmatized him as a bloodthirsty demon and grovelling beast. It is safe\nto say that those who entertain such notions have never read Mr.\nParkman. In the theme which occupied him his poet's eye saw nothing that\nwas dull or commonplace. To bring him vividly before us, I will quote\nhis own words from one of the introductory pages of his opening\nvolume:--\n\n\"The French dominion is a memory of the past; and when we evoke its\ndeparted shades, they rise upon us from their graves in strange romantic\nguise. Again their ghostly camp fires seem to burn, and the fitful\nlight is cast around on lord and vassal and black-robed priest, mingled\nwith wild forms of savage warriors, knit in close fellowship on the same\nstern errand. A boundless vision grows upon us: an untamed continent;\nvast wastes of forest verdure; mountains silent in primeval sleep;\nriver, lake, and glimmering pool; wilderness oceans mingling with the\nsky. Such was the domain which France conquered for civilization. Plumed\nhelmets gleamed in the shade of its forests, priestly vestments in its\ndens and fastnesses of ancient barbarism. Men steeped in antique\nlearning, pale with the close breath of the cloister, here spent the\nnoon and evening of their lives, ruled savage hordes with a mild\nparental sway, and stood serene before the direst shapes of death. Men\nof courtly nurture, heirs to the polish of a far-reaching ancestry, here\nwith their dauntless hardihood put to shame the boldest sons of toil.\"\n\nWhen a writer in sentences that are mere generalizations gives us such\npictures as these, one has much to expect from his detailed narrative,\nglowing with sympathy and crowded with incident. In Parkman's books such\nexpectations are never disappointed. What was an uncouth and howling\nwilderness in the world of literature he has taken for his own domain,\nand peopled it forever with living figures, dainty and winsome, or grim\nand terrible, or sprightly and gay. Never shall be forgotten the\nbeautiful earnestness, the devout serenity, the blithe courage, of\nChamplain; never can we forget the saintly Marie de l'Incarnation, the\ndelicate and long-suffering Lalemant, the lionlike Br\u00e9beuf, the\nchivalrous Maisonneuve, the grim and wily Pontiac, or that man against\nwhom fate sickened of contending, the mighty and masterful La Salle.\nThese, with many a comrade and foe, have now their place in literature\nas permanent and sure as Tancred or St. Boniface, as the Cid or Robert\nBruce. As the wand of Scott revealed unsuspected depths of human\ninterest in Border castle and Highland glen, so it seems that North\nAmerica was but awaiting the magician's touch that should invest its\nrivers and hillsides with memories of great days gone by. Parkman's\nsweep has been a wide one, and many are the spots that his wand has\ntouched, from the cliffs of the Saguenay to the Texas coast, and from\nAcadia to the western slopes of the Rocky Mountains.\n\nI do not forget that earlier writers than Parkman had felt something of\nthe picturesqueness and the elements of dramatic force in the history of\nthe conquest of our continent. In particular, the characteristics of the\nred men and the incidents of forest life had long ago been made the\ntheme of novels and poems, such as they were; I wonder how many people\nof to-day remember even the names of such books as \"Yonnondio\" or\n\"Kabaosa\"? All such work was thrown into the shade by that of Fenimore\nCooper, whose genius, though limited, was undeniable. But when we\nmention Cooper we are brought at once by contrast to the secret of\nParkman's power. It has long been recognized that Cooper's Indians are\nmore or less unreal; just such creatures never existed anywhere. When\nCorneille and Racine put ancient Greeks or Romans on the stage they\ndressed them in velvet and gold lace, flowing wigs and high buckled\nshoes, and made them talk like Louis XIV.'s courtiers; in\nseventeenth-century dramatists the historical sense was lacking. In the\nnext age it was not much better. When Rousseau had occasion to\nphilosophize about men in a state of nature he invented the Noble\nSavage, an insufferable creature whom any real savage would justly\nloathe and despise. The noble savage has figured extensively in modern\nliterature, and has left his mark upon Cooper's pleasant pages as well\nas upon many a chapter of serious history. But you cannot introduce\nunreal Indians as factors in the development of a narrative without\nthrowing a shimmer of unreality about the whole story. It is like\nbringing in ghosts or goblins among live men and women: it instantly\nconverts sober narrative into fairy tale; the two worlds will no more\nmix than oil and water. The ancient and medi\u00e6val minds did not find it\nso, as the numberless histories encumbered with the supernatural\ntestify; but the modern mind does find it so. The modern mind has taken\na little draught, the prelude to deeper draughts, at the healing and\npurifying well of science; and it has begun to be dissatisfied with\nanything short of exact truth. When any unsound element enters into a\nnarrative, the taint is quickly tasted, and its flavour spoils the\nwhole.\n\nWe are then brought, I say, to the secret of Parkman's power. His\nIndians are true to the life. In his pages Pontiac is a man of warm\nflesh and blood, as much so as Montcalm or Israel Putnam. This solid\nreality in the Indians makes the whole work real and convincing. Here is\nthe great contrast between Parkman's work and that of Prescott, in so\nfar as the latter dealt with American themes. In reading Prescott's\naccount of the conquest of Mexico, one feels one's self in the world of\nthe \"Arabian Nights;\" indeed, the author himself, in occasional\ncomments, lets us see that he is unable to get rid of just such a\nfeeling.\n\nHis story moves on in a region that is unreal to him, and therefore\ntantalizing to the reader; his Montezuma is a personality like none that\never existed beneath the moon. This is because Prescott simply followed\nhis Spanish authorities not only in their statements of physical fact,\nbut in their inevitable misconceptions of the strange Aztec society\nwhich they encountered; the Aztecs in his story are unreal, and this\nfalse note vitiates it all. In his Peruvian story Prescott followed\nsafer leaders in Garcilasso de la Vega and Cieza de Leon, and made a\nmuch truer picture; but he lacked the ethnological knowledge needful for\ncoming into touch with that ancient society, and one often feels this as\nthe weak spot in a narrative of marvellous power and beauty.\n\nNow it was Parkman's good fortune at an early age to realize that in\norder to do his work it was first of all necessary to know the Indian by\npersonal fellowship and contact. It was also his good fortune that the\nright sort of Indians were still accessible. What would not Prescott\nhave given, what would not any student of human evolution give, for a\nchance to pass a week or even a day in such a community as the Tlascala\nof Xicotencatl or the Mexico of Montezuma! That phase of social\ndevelopment has long since disappeared. But fifty years ago, on our\ngreat western plains and among the Rocky Mountains, there still\nprevailed a state of society essentially similar to that which greeted\nthe eyes of Champlain upon the St. Lawrence and of John Smith upon the\nChickahominy. In those days the Oregon Trail had changed but little\nsince the memorable journey of Lewis and Clark in the beginning of the\npresent century. In 1846, two years after taking his bachelor degree at\nHarvard, young Parkman had a taste of the excitements of savage life in\nthat primeval wilderness. He was accompanied by his kinsman, Mr. Quincy\nShaw. They joined a roving tribe of Sioux Indians, at a time when to do\nsuch a thing was to take their lives in their hands, and they spent a\nwild summer among the Black Hills of Dakota and in the vast moorland\nsolitudes through which the Platte River winds its interminable length.\nIn the chase and in the wigwam, in watching the sorcery of which their\nreligion chiefly consisted, or in listening to primitive folk tales by\nthe evening camp fire, Parkman learned to understand the red man, to\ninterpret his motives and his moods. With his naturalist's keen and\naccurate eye and his quick poetic apprehension, that youthful\nexperience formed a safe foundation for all his future work. From that\ntime forth he was fitted to absorb the records and memorials of the\nearly explorers, and to make their strange experiences his own.\n\nThe next step was to gather these early records from government\narchives, and from libraries public and private, on both sides of the\nAtlantic,--a task, as Parkman himself called it, \"abundantly irksome and\nlaborious.\" It extended over many years and involved several visits to\nEurope. It was performed with a thoroughness approaching finality.\nAlready in the preface to the \"Pioneers\" the author was able to say that\nhe had gained access to all the published materials in existence. Of his\nresearch among manuscript sources a notable monument exists in a cabinet\nnow standing in the library of the Massachusetts Historical Society,\ncontaining nearly two hundred folio volumes of documents copied from the\noriginals by expert copyists. Ability to incur heavy expense is, of\ncourse, a prerequisite for all undertakings of this sort, and herein our\nhistorian was favoured by fortune. Against this chiefest among\nadvantages were to be offset the hardships entailed by delicate health\nand inability to use the eyes for reading and writing. Parkman always\ndictated instead of holding the pen, and his huge mass of documents had\nto be read aloud to him. The heroism shown year after year in contending\nwith physical ailments was the index of a character fit to be mated, for\nits pertinacious courage, with the heroes that live in those shining\npages.\n\nThe progress in working up materials was slow and sure. \"The Conspiracy\nof Pontiac,\" which forms the sequel and conclusion of Parkman's work,\nwas first published in 1851, only five years after the summer spent with\nthe Indians; fourteen years then elapsed before the \"Pioneers\" made its\nappearance in Little, Brown & Co.'s window; and then there were yet\nseven-and-twenty years more before the final volumes came out in 1892.\nAltogether, about half a century was required for the building of this\ngrand literary monument. Nowhere can we find a better illustration of\nthe French critic's definition of a great life,--a thought conceived in\nyouth, and realized in later years.\n\nThis elaborateness of preparation had its share in producing the intense\nvividness of Parkman's descriptions. Profusion of detail makes them seem\nlike the accounts of an eye-witness. The realism is so strong that the\nauthor seems to have come in person fresh from the scenes he describes,\nwith the smoke of the battle hovering about him and its fierce light\nglowing in his eyes. Such realism is usually the prerogative of the\nnovelist rather than of the historian, and in one of his prefaces\nParkman recognizes that the reader may feel this and suspect him. \"If at\ntimes,\" he says, \"it may seem that range has been allowed to fancy, it\nis so in appearance only, since the minutest details of narrative or\ndescription rest on authentic documents or on personal observation.\"\n\nThis kind of personal observation Parkman carried so far as to visit all\nthe important localities, indeed well-nigh all the localities, that form\nthe scenery of his story, and study them with the patience of a surveyor\nand the discerning eye of a landscape painter. His strong love of nature\nadded keen zest to this sort of work. From boyhood he was a trapper and\nhunter; in later years he became eminent as a horticulturist,\noriginating new varieties of flowers. To sleep under the open sky was\nhis delight. His books fairly reek with the fragrance of pine woods. I\nopen one of them at random, and my eye falls upon such a sentence as\nthis: \"There is softness in the mellow air, the warm sunshine, and the\nbudding leaves of spring; and in the forest flower, which, more delicate\nthan the pampered offspring of gardens, lifts its tender head through\nthe refuse and decay of the wilderness.\" Looking at the context, I find\nthat this sentence comes in a remarkable passage suggested by Colonel\nHenry Bouquet's western expedition of 1764, when he compelled the\nIndians to set free so many French and English prisoners. Some of these\ncaptives were unwilling to leave the society of the red men; some\npositively refused to accept the boon of what was called freedom. In\nthis strange conduct, exclaims Parkman, there was no unaccountable\nperversity; and he breaks out with two pages of noble dithyrambics in\npraise of savage life. \"To him who has once tasted the reckless\nindependence, the haughty self-reliance, the sense of irresponsible\nfreedom, which the forest life engenders, civilization thenceforth seems\nflat and stale.... The entrapped wanderer grows fierce and restless, and\npants for breathing room. His path, it is true, was choked with\ndifficulties, but his body and soul were hardened to meet them; it was\nbeset with dangers, but these were the very spice of his life,\ngladdening his heart with exulting self-confidence, and sending the\nblood through his veins with a livelier current. The wilderness, rough,\nharsh, and inexorable, has charms more potent in their seductive\ninfluence than all the lures of luxury and sloth. And often he on whom\nit has cast its magic finds no heart to dissolve the spell, and remains\na wanderer and an Ishmaelite to the hour of his death.\"[26]\n\nNo one can doubt that the man who could write like this had the kind of\ntemperament that could look into the Indian's mind and portray him\ncorrectly. But for this inborn temperament all his microscopic industry\nwould have availed him but little. To use his own words: \"Faithfulness\nto the truth of history involves far more than a research, however\npatient and scrupulous, into special facts. Such facts may be detailed\nwith the most minute exactness, and yet the narrative, taken as a whole,\nmay be unmeaning or untrue.\" These are golden words for the student of\nthe historical art to ponder. To make a truthful record of a vanished\nage patient scholarship is needed, and something more. Into the making\nof a historian there should enter something of the philosopher,\nsomething of the naturalist, something of the poet. In Parkman this rare\nunion of qualities was realized in a greater degree than in any other\nAmerican historian. Indeed, I doubt if the nineteenth century can show\nin any part of the world another historian quite his equal in respect of\nsuch a union.\n\nThere is one thing which lends to Parkman's work a peculiar interest,\nand will be sure to make it grow in fame with the ages. Not only has he\nleft the truthful record of a vanished age so complete and final that\nthe work will never need to be done again, but if any one should in\nfuture attempt to do it again he cannot approach the task with quite\nsuch equipment as Parkman. In an important sense, the age of Pontiac is\nfar more remote from us than the age of Clovis or the age of Agamemnon.\nWhen barbaric society is overwhelmed by advancing waves of civilization,\nits vanishing is final; the thread of tradition is cut off forever with\nthe shears of Fate. Where are Montezuma's Aztecs? Their physical\noffspring still dwell on the table-land of Mexico, and their ancient\nspeech is still heard in the streets, but that old society is as extinct\nas the trilobites, and has to be painfully studied in fossil fragments\nof custom and tradition. So with the red men of the North: it is not\ntrue that they are dying out physically, as many people suppose, but\ntheir stage of society is fast disappearing, and soon it will have\nvanished forever. Soon their race will be swallowed up and forgotten,\njust as we overlook and ignore to-day the existence of five thousand\nIroquois farmers in the state of New York.\n\nNow the study of comparative ethnology has begun to teach us that the\nred Indian is one of the most interesting of men. He represents a stage\nof evolution through which civilized men have once passed,--a stage far\nmore ancient and primitive than that which is depicted in the Odyssey or\nin the Book of Genesis. When Champlain and Frontenac met the feathered\nchieftains of the St. Lawrence, they talked with men of the Stone Age\nface to face. Phases of life that had vanished from Europe long before\nRome was built survived in America long enough to be seen and studied by\nmodern men. Behind Mr. Parkman's picturesqueness, therefore, there lies\na significance far more profound than one at first would suspect. He has\nportrayed for us a wondrous and forever fascinating stage in the\nevolution of humanity. We may well thank Heaven for sending us such a\nscholar, such an artist, such a genius, before it was too late. As we\nlook at the changes wrought in the last fifty years, we realize that\nalready the opportunities by which he profited in youth are in large\nmeasure lost. He came not a moment too soon to catch the fleeting light\nand fix it upon his immortal canvas.\n\nThus Parkman is to be regarded as first of all the historian of\nPrimitive Society. No other great historian has dealt intelligently and\nconsecutively with such phases of barbarism as he describes with such\nloving minuteness. To the older historians all races of men very far\nbelow the European grade of culture seemed alike; all were ignorantly\ngrouped together as \"savages.\" Mr. Lewis Morgan first showed the wide\ndifference between true savages, such as the Apaches and Bannocks on the\none hand, and barbarians with developed village life, like the Five\nNations and the Cherokees. The latter tribes in the seventeenth and\neighteenth centuries exhibited social phenomena such as were probably\nwitnessed about the shores of the Mediterranean some seven or eight\nthousand years earlier. If we carry our thoughts back to the time that\nsaw the building of the Great Pyramid, and imagine civilized Egypt\nlooking northward and eastward upon tribes of white men with social and\npolitical ideas not much more advanced than those of Frontenac's red\nmen, our picture will be in its most essential features a correct one.\nWhat would we not give for a historian who, with a pen like that of\nHerodotus, could bring before us the scenes of that primeval Greek world\nbefore the cyclopean works at Tiryns were built, when the ancestors of\nSolon and Aristides did not yet dwell in neatly joinered houses and\nfasten their door-latches with a thong, when the sacred city-state was\nstill unknown, and the countryman had not yet become a bucolic or\n\"tender of cows,\" and butter and cheese were still in the future! No\nwritten records can ever take us back to that time in that place; for\nthere, as everywhere in the eastern hemisphere, the art of writing came\nmany years later than the domestication of animals, and some ages later\nthan the first building of towns. But in spite of the lack of written\nrecords, the comparative study of institutions, especially comparative\njurisprudence, throws back upon those prehistoric times a light that is\noften dim, but sometimes wonderfully suggestive and instructive. It is a\nlight that reveals among primeval Greeks ideas and customs essentially\nsimilar to those of the Iroquois. It is a light that grows steadier and\nbrighter as it leads us to the conclusion that five or six thousand\nyears before Christ white men around the \u00c6gean Sea had advanced about as\nfar as the red men in the Mohawk Valley two centuries ago. The one phase\nof this primitive society illuminates the other, though extreme caution\nis necessary in drawing our inferences. Now Parkman's minute and vivid\ndescription of primitive society among red men is full of lessons that\nmay be applied with profit to the study of preclassic antiquity in the\nOld World. No other historian has brought us into such close and\nfamiliar contact with human life in such ancient stages of its progress.\nIn Parkman's great book we have a record of vanished conditions such as\nhardly exists anywhere else in literature.\n\nI say his great book, using the singular number; for, with the exception\nof that breezy bit of autobiography, \"The Oregon Trail,\" all Parkman's\nbooks are the closely related volumes of a single comprehensive work.\nFrom the adventures of \"The Pioneers of France\" a consecutive story is\ndeveloped through \"The Jesuits in North America\" and \"The Discovery of\nthe Great West.\" In \"The Old R\u00e9gime in Canada\" it is continued with a\nmasterly analysis of French methods of colonization in this their\ngreatest colony, and then from \"Frontenac and New France under Louis\nXIV.\" we are led through \"A Half-Century of Conflict\" to the grand\nclimax in the volumes on \"Montcalm and Wolfe,\" after which \"The\nConspiracy of Pontiac\" brings the long narrative to a noble and\nbrilliant close. In the first volume we see the men of the Stone Age at\nthat brief moment when they were disposed to adore the bearded newcomers\nas Children of the Sun; in the last we read the bloody story of their\nlast and most desperate concerted effort to loosen the iron grasp with\nwhich these palefaces had seized and were holding the continent. It is a\nwell-rounded tale, and as complete as anything in real history, where\ncompleteness and finality are things unknown.\n\nBetween the beginning and the end of this well-rounded tale a mighty\ndrama is wrought out in all its scenes. The struggle between France and\nEngland for the soil of North America was one of the great critical\nmoments in the career of mankind,--no less important than the struggle\nbetween Greece and Persia, or between Rome and Carthage. Out of the long\nand complicated interaction between Roman and Teutonic institutions\nwhich made up the history of the Middle Ages, two strongly contrasted\nforms of political society had grown up and acquired aggressive strength\nwhen in the course of the sixteenth century a New World beyond the sea\nwas laid open for colonization. The maritime nations of Europe were\nnaturally the ones to be attracted to this new arena of enterprise; and\nSpain, Portugal, France, England, and Holland each played its\ninteresting and characteristic part. Spain at first claimed the whole,\nexcepting only that Brazilian coast which Borgia's decree gave to\nPortugal. But Spain's methods, as well as her early failure of strength,\nprevented her from making good her claim. Spain's methods were limited\nto stepping into the place formerly occupied by the conquering races of\nhalf-civilized Indians. She made aboriginal tribes work for her, just as\nthe Aztec Confederacy and the Inca dynasty had done. Where she was\nbrought into direct contact with American barbarism without the\nintermediation of half-civilized native races, she made little or no\nheadway. Her early failure of strength, on the other hand, was due to\nher total absorption in the fight against civil and religious liberty in\nEurope. The failure became apparent as soon as the absorption had begun\nto be complete. Spain's last aggressive effort in the New World was the\ndestruction of the little Huguenot colony in Florida in 1565, and it is\nat that point that Parkman's great work appropriately begins. From that\nmoment Spain simply beat her strength to pieces against the rocks of\nNetherland courage and resourcefulness. As for the Netherlands, their\nenergies were so far absorbed in taking over and managing the great\nEastern empire of the Portuguese that their work in the New World was\nconfined to seizing upon the most imperial geographical position, and\nplanting a cosmopolitan colony there that, in the absence of adequate\nsupport, was sure to fall into the hands of one or the other of the\ncompetitors more actively engaged upon the scene.\n\nThe two competitors thus more actively engaged were France and England,\nand from an early period it was felt between the two to be a combat in\nwhich no quarter was to be given or accepted. These two strongly\ncontrasted forms of political society had each its distinct ideal, and\nthat ideal was to be made to prevail, to the utter exclusion and\ndestruction of the other. Probably the French perceived this somewhat\nearlier than the English; they felt it to be necessary to stamp out the\nEnglish before the latter had more than realized the necessity of\ndefending themselves against the French. For the type of political\nsociety represented by Louis XIV. was pre\u00ebminently militant, as the\nEnglish type was pre\u00ebminently industrial. The aggressiveness of the\nformer was more distinctly conscious of its own narrower aims, and was\nmore deliberately set at work to attain them, while the English, on the\nother hand, rather drifted into a tremendous world fight without\ndistinct consciousness of their purpose. Yet after the final issue had\nbeen joined, the refrain _Carthago delenda est_ was heard from the\nEnglish side, and it came fraught with impending doom from the lips of\nPitt as in days of old from the lips of Cato.\n\nThe French idea, had it prevailed in the strife, would not have been\ncapable of building up a pacific union of partially independent states,\ncovering this vast continent from ocean to ocean. Within that rigid and\nrigorous bureaucratic system there was no room for spontaneous\nindividuality, no room for local self-government, and no chance for a\nflexible federalism to grow up. A well-known phrase of Louis XIV. was,\n\"The state is myself.\" That phrase represented his ideal. It was\napproximately true in Old France, realized as far as sundry adverse\nconditions would allow. The Grand Monarch intended that in New France it\nshould be absolutely true. Upon that fresh soil was to be built up a\npure monarchy without concession to human weaknesses and limitations. It\nwas a pet scheme of Louis XIV., and never did a philanthropic\nworld-mender contemplate his grotesque phalanstery or pantarchy with\ngreater pleasure than this master of kingcraft looked forward to the\nconstruction of a perfect Christian state in America.\n\nThe pages of our great historian are full of examples which prove that\nif the French idea failed of realization, and the state it founded was\noverwhelmed, it was not from any lack of lofty qualities in individual\nFrenchmen. In all the history of the American continent no names stand\nhigher than some of the French names. For courage, for fortitude and\nhigh resolve, for sagacious leadership, statesmanlike wisdom, unswerving\nintegrity, devoted loyalty, for all the qualities which make life\nheroic, we may learn lessons innumerable from the noble Frenchmen who\nthrong in Parkman's pages. The difficulty was not in the individuals,\nbut in the system; not in the units, but in the way they were put\ntogether. For while it is true--though many people do not know it--that\nby no imaginable artifice can you make a society that is better than the\nhuman units you put into it, it is also true that nothing is easier than\nto make a society that is worse than its units. So it was with the\ncolony of New France.\n\nNowhere can we find a description of despotic government more careful\nand thoughtful, or more graphic and lifelike, than Parkman has given us\nin his volume on \"The Old R\u00e9gime in Canada.\" Seldom, too, will one find\na book fuller of political wisdom. The author never preaches like\nCarlyle, nor does he hurl huge generalizations at our heads like Buckle;\nhe simply describes a state of society that has been. But I hardly need\nsay that his description is not--like the Dryasdust descriptions we are\nsometimes asked to accept as history--a mere mass of pigments flung at\nrandom upon a canvas. It is a picture painted with consummate art; and\nin this instance the art consists in so handling the relations of cause\nand effect as to make them speak for themselves. These pages are alive\nwith political philosophy, and teem with object lessons of extraordinary\nvalue. It would be hard to point to any book where History more fully\ndischarges her high function of gathering friendly lessons of caution\nfrom the errors of the past.\n\nOf all the societies that have been composed of European men, probably\nnone was ever so despotically organized as New France, unless it may\nhave been the later Byzantine Empire, which it resembled in the\nminuteness of elaborate supervision over all the pettiest details of\nlife. In Canada the protective, paternal, socialistic, or nationalistic\ntheory of government--it is the same old cloven hoof, under whatever\nspecious name you introduce it--was more fully carried into operation\nthan in any other community known to history except ancient Peru. No\nroom was left for individual initiative or enterprise. All undertakings\nwere nationalized. Government looked after every man's interests in this\nworld and the next: baptized and schooled him; married him and paid the\nbride's dowry; gave him a bounty with every child that was born to him;\nstocked his cupboard with garden seeds and compelled him to plant them;\nprescribed the size of his house and the number of horses and cattle he\nmight keep, and the exact percentages of profit he might be allowed to\nmake, and how his chimneys should be swept, and how many servants he\nmight employ, and what theological doctrine he might believe, and what\nsort of bread the bakers might bake, and where goods might be bought and\nhow much might be paid for them; and if in a society so well cared for\nit were possible to find indigent persons, such paupers were duly\nrelieved, from a fund established by government. Unmitigated benevolence\nwas the theory of Louis XIV.'s Canadian colony, and heartless political\neconomy had no place there. Nor was there any room for free thinkers;\nwhen the King after 1685 sent out word that no mercy must be shown to\nheretics, the governor, Denonville, with a pious ejaculation, replied\nthat not so much as a single heretic could be found in all Canada.\n\nSuch was the community whose career our historian has delineated with\nperfect soundness of judgment and wealth of knowledge. The fate of this\nnationalistic experiment, set on foot by one of the most absolute of\nmonarchs and fostered by one of the most devoted and powerful of\nreligious organizations, is traced to the operation of causes inherent\nin its very nature. The hopeless paralysis, the woeful corruption, the\nmoral torpor, resulting from the suppression of individualism, are\nvividly portrayed; yet there is no discursive generalizing, and from\nmoment to moment the development of the story proceeds from within\nitself. It is the whole national life of New France that is displayed\nbefore us. Historians of ordinary calibre exhibit their subject in\nfragments, or they show us some phases of life and neglect others. Some\nhave no eyes save for events that are startling, such as battles and\nsieges; or decorative, such as coronations and court balls. Others give\nabundant details of manners and customs; others have their attention\nabsorbed by economics; others again feel such interest in the history of\nideas as to lose sight of mere material incidents. Parkman, on the other\nhand, conceives and presents his subject as a whole. He forgets nothing,\noverlooks nothing; but whether it is a bloody battle, or a theological\npamphlet, or an exploring journey though the forest, or a code for the\ndiscipline of nunneries, each event grows out of its context as a\nfeature in the total development that is going on before our eyes. It is\nonly the historian who is also philosopher and artist that can thus deal\nin block with the great and complex life of a whole society. The\nrequisite combination is realized only in certain rare and high types\nof mind, and there has been no more brilliant illustration of it than\nParkman's volumes afford.\n\nThe struggle between the machine-like socialistic despotism of New\nFrance and the free and spontaneous political vitality of New England is\none of the most instructive object lessons with which the experience of\nmankind has furnished us. The depth of its significance is equalled by\nthe vastness of its consequences. Never did Destiny preside over a more\nfateful contest; for it determined which kind of political seed should\nbe sown all over the widest and richest political garden plot left\nuntilled in the world. Free industrial England pitted against despotic\nmilitant France for the possession of an ancient continent reserved for\nthis decisive struggle, and dragging into the conflict the belated\nbarbarism of the Stone Age,--such is the wonderful theme which Parkman\nhas treated. When the vividly contrasted modern ideas and personages are\nset off against the romantic though lurid background of Indian life, the\nartistic effect becomes simply magnificent. Never has historian grappled\nwith another such epic theme, save when Herodotus told the story of\nGreece and Persia, or when Gibbon's pages resounded with the solemn\ntread of marshalled hosts through a thousand years of change.\n\nThe story of Mr. Parkman's life can be briefly told. He was born in\nBoston, in what is now known as Allston Street, September 16, 1823. His\nancestors had for several generations been honourably known in\nMassachusetts. His great-grandfather, Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, a graduate\nof Harvard in 1741, was minister of the Congregational church in\nWestborough for nearly sixty years; he was a man of learning and\neloquence, whose attention was not all given to Calvinistic theology,\nfor he devoted much of it to the study of history. A son of this\nclergyman, at the age of seventeen, served as private in a Massachusetts\nregiment in that greatest of modern wars which was decided on the\nHeights of Abraham. How little did this gallant youth dream of the glory\nthat was by and by to be shed on the scenes and characters passing\nbefore his eyes by the genius of one of his own race and name! Another\nson of Ebenezer Parkman returned to Boston and became a successful\nmerchant, engaged in that foreign traffic which played so important and\nliberalizing a part in American life in the days before the Enemy of\nmankind had invented forty per cent tariffs. The home of this merchant,\nSamuel Parkman, on the corner of Green and Chardon streets, was long\nfamous for its beautiful flower garden, indicating perhaps the kind of\ntaste and skill so conspicuous afterwards in his grandson. In Samuel the\nclerical profession skipped one generation, to be taken up again by his\nson, Rev. Francis Parkman, a graduate of Harvard in 1807, and for many\nyears after 1813 the eminent and beloved pastor of the New North Church.\nDr. Parkman was noted for his public spirit and benevolence. Bishop\nHuntington, who knew him well, says of him: \"Every aspect of suffering\ntouched him tenderly. There was no hard spot in his breast. His house\nwas the centre of countless mercies to various forms of want; and there\nwere few solicitors of alms, local or itinerant, and whether for private\nnecessity or public benefactions, that his doors did not welcome and\nsend away satisfied.... For many years he was widely known and esteemed\nfor his efficient interest in some of our most conspicuous and useful\ninstitutions of philanthropy. Among these may be especially mentioned\nthe Massachusetts Bible Society, the Society for Propagating the Gospel,\nthe Orphan Asylum, the Humane Society, the Medical Dispensary, the\nSociety for the Relief of Aged and Destitute Clergymen, and the\nCongregational Charitable Society.\" He also took an active interest in\nHarvard University, of which he was an Overseer. In 1829 he founded\nthere the professorship of \"Pulpit Eloquence and the Pastoral Care,\"\nfamiliarly known as the Parkman Professorship. A pupil and friend of\nChanning, he was noted among Unitarians for a broadly tolerant\ndisposition. His wealth of practical wisdom was enlivened by touches of\nmirth, so that it was said that you could not \"meet Dr. Parkman in the\nstreet, and stop a minute to exchange words with him, without carrying\naway with you some phrase or turn of thought so exquisite in its mingled\nsagacity and humour that it touched the inmost sense of the ludicrous,\nand made the heart smile as well as the lips.\" Such was the father of\nour historian.\n\nMr. Parkman's mother was a descendant of Rev. John Cotton, one of the\nmost eminent of the leaders in the great Puritan exodus of the\nseventeenth century. She was the daughter of Nathaniel Hall, of Medford,\nmember of a family which was represented in the convention that framed\nthe Constitution of Massachusetts in 1780. Caroline Hall was a lady of\nremarkable character, and many of her fine qualities were noticeable in\nher distinguished son. Of her the late Octavius Frothingham says:\n\"Humility, charity, truthfulness, were her prime characteristics. Her\nconscience was firm and lofty, though never austere. She had a strong\nsense of right, coupled with perfect charity toward other people;\ninflexible in principle, she was gentle in practice. Intellectually she\ncould hardly be called brilliant or accomplished, but she had a strong\nvein of common sense and practical wisdom, great penetration into\ncharacter, and a good deal of quiet humour.\"\n\nOf her six children, the historian, Francis Parkman, was the eldest. As\na boy his health was delicate. In a fragment of autobiography, written\nin the third person, he tells us that \"his childhood was neither\nhealthful nor buoyant,\" and \"his boyhood, though for a time active, was\nnot robust.\" There was a nervous irritability and impulsiveness which\nkept driving him into activity more intense than his physical strength\nwas well able to bear. At the same time an inborn instinct of\nself-control, accompanied, doubtless, by a refined unwillingness to\nintrude his personal feelings upon the notice of other people, led him\ninto such habits of self-repression that his friends sometimes\nfelicitated him on \"having no nerves.\" There was something rudely\nstoical in his discipline. As he says: \"It was impossible that\nconditions of the nervous system abnormal as his had been from infancy\nshould be without their effects on the mind, and some of these were of a\nnature highly to exasperate him. Unconscious of their character and\norigin, and ignorant that with time and confirmed health they would have\ndisappeared, he had no other thought than that of crushing them by\nforce, and accordingly applied himself to the work. Hence resulted a\nstate of mental tension, habitual for several years, and abundantly\nmischievous in its effects. With a mind overstrained and a body\novertasked, he was burning his candle at both ends.\"\n\nThe conditions which were provided for the sensitive and highly strung\nboy during a part of his childhood were surely very delightful, and\nthere can be little doubt that they served to determine his career. His\ngrandfather Hall's home in Medford was situated on the border of the\nMiddlesex Fells, a rough and rocky woodland, four thousand acres in\nextent, as wild and savage in many places as any primeval forest. The\nplace is within eight miles of Boston, and it may be doubted if anywhere\nelse can be found another such magnificent piece of wilderness so near\nto a great city. It needs only a stray Indian or two, with a few bears\nand wolves, to bring back for us the days when Winthrop's company landed\non the shores of the neighbouring bay. In the heart of this shaggy\nwoodland is Spot Pond, a lake of glorious beauty, with a surface of\nthree hundred acres, and a homely name which it is to be hoped it may\nalways keep,--a name bestowed in the good old times before the national\nvice of magniloquence had begun to deface our maps. Among the pleasure\ndrives in the neighbourhood of Boston, the drive around Spot Pond is\nperhaps foremost in beauty. A few fine houses have been built upon its\nborders, and well-kept roads have given to some parts of the forest the\naspect of a park, but the greater part of the territory is undisturbed,\nand will probably remain so. Seventy years ago the pruning hand of\ncivilization has scarcely touched it. To his grandfather's farm, on the\noutskirts of this enchanting spot, the boy Parkman was sent in his\neighth year. There, he tells us, \"I walked twice a day to a school of\nhigh but undeserved reputation, about a mile distant, in the town of\nMedford. Here I learned very little, and spent the intervals of\nschooling more profitably in collecting eggs, insects, and reptiles,\ntrapping squirrels and woodchucks, and making persistent though rarely\nfortunate attempts to kill birds with arrows. After four years of this\nrustication I was brought back to Boston, when I was unhappily seized\nwith a mania for experiments in chemistry, involving a lonely, confined,\nunwholesome sort of life, baneful to body and mind.\" No doubt the\nexperience of four years of plastic boyhood in Middlesex Fells gave to\nParkman's mind the bent which directed him toward the history of the\nwilderness. This fact he recognized of himself in after life, while he\nrecalled those boyish days as the brightest in his memory.\n\nAt the age of fifteen or so the retorts and crucibles were thrown away\nforever, and a reaction in favor of woodland life began; \"a fancy,\" he\nsays, \"which soon gained full control over the course of the literary\npursuits to which he was also addicted.\" Here we come upon the first\nmention of the combination of interests which determined his career. A\nmillion boys might be turned loose in Middlesex Fells, one after\nanother, there to roam in solitude until our globe should have entered\nupon a new geological period, and the chances are against any one of\nthem becoming a great historian, or anything else above mediocrity. But\nin Parkman, as in all men of genius, the dominant motive power was\nsomething within him, something which science has not data enough to\nexplain. The divine spark of genius is something which we know only\nthrough the acts which it excites. In Parkman the strong literary\ninstinct showed itself at Chauncy Hall School, where we find him, at\nfourteen years of age, eagerly and busily engaged in the study and\npractice of English composition. It was natural that tales of heroes\nshould be especially charming at that time of life, and among Parkman's\nefforts were paraphrasing parts of the \u00c6neid, and turning into rhymed\nverse the scene of the tournament in \"Ivanhoe.\" From the artificial\nstupidity which is too often superinduced in boys by their early\nschooling he was saved by native genius and breezy woodland life, and\nhis progress was rapid. In 1840, having nearly completed his seventeenth\nyear, he entered Harvard College. His reputation there for scholarship\nwas good, but he was much more absorbed in his own pursuits than in the\nregular college studies. In the summer vacation of 1841 he made a rough\njourney of exploration in the woods of northern New Hampshire,\naccompanied by one classmate and a native guide, and there he had a\ntaste of adventure slightly spiced with hardship.\n\nHow much importance this ramble may have had one cannot say, but he\ntells us that \"before the end of the Sophomore year my various schemes\nhad crystallized into a plan of writing the story of what was then known\nas the 'Old French War,'--that is, the war that ended in the conquest of\nCanada; for here, as it seemed to me, the forest drama was more\nstirring, and the forest stage more thronged with appropriate actors,\nthan in any other passage of our history. It was not until some years\nlater that I enlarged the plan to include the whole course of the\nAmerican conflict between France and England, or, in other words, the\nhistory of the American forest; for this was the light in which I\nregarded it. My theme fascinated me, and I was haunted with wilderness\nimages day and night.\" The way in which true genius works could not be\nmore happily described.\n\nWhen the great scheme first took shape in Mr. Parkman's mind, he\nreckoned that it would take about twenty years to complete the task. How\nhe entered upon it may best be told in his own words:--\n\n\"The time allowed was ample; but here he fell into a fatal error,\nentering on this long pilgrimage with all the vehemence of one starting\non a mile heat. His reliance, however, was less on books than on such\npersonal experience as should in some sense identify him with his theme.\nHis natural inclinations urged him in the same direction, for his\nthoughts were always in the forest, whose features, not unmixed with\nsofter images, possessed his waking and sleeping dreams, filling him\nwith vague cravings impossible to satisfy. As fond of hardships as he\nwas vain of enduring them, cherishing a sovereign scorn for every\nphysical weakness or defect, deceived moreover by a rapid development of\nframe and sinews which flattered him with the belief that discipline\nsufficiently unsparing would harden him into an athlete, he slighted the\nprecautions of a more reasonable woodcraft, tired old foresters with\nlong marches, stopped neither for heat nor rain, and slept on the earth\nwithout a blanket.\" In other words, \"a highly irritable organism spurred\nthe writer to excess in a course which, with one of different\ntemperament, would have produced a free and hardy development of such\nfaculties and forces as he possessed.\" Along with the irritable organism\nperhaps a heritage of fierce ancestral Puritanism may have prompted him\nto the stoical discipline which sought to ignore the just claims of the\nphysical body. He tells us of his undoubting faith that \"to tame the\nDevil, it is best to take him by the horns;\" but more mature experiences\nmade him feel less sure \"of the advantages of this method of dealing\nwith that subtle personage.\"\n\nUnder these conditions, perhaps the college vacations which he spent in\nthe woods of Canada and New England may have done more to exhaust than\nto recruit his strength. In his Junior year, some physical injury, the\nnature of which does not seem to be known, caused it to be thought\nnecessary to send him to Europe for his health. He went first to\nGibraltar in a sailing ship, and a passage from his diary may serve to\nthrow light upon the voyage and the man: \"It was a noble sight when at\nintervals the sun broke out over the savage waves, changing their\nblackness to a rich blue almost as dark; while the foam that flew over\nit seemed like whirling snow wreaths on the mountain.... As soon as it\nwas daybreak I went on deck. Two or three sails were set. The vessel was\nscouring along, leaning over so that her lee gunwale scooped up the\nwater; the water in a foam, and clouds of spray flying over us,\nfrequently as high as the main yard. The spray was driven with such\nforce that it pricked the cheek like needles. I stayed on deck two or\nthree hours, when, being thoroughly salted, I went down, changed my\nclothes, and read 'Don Quixote' till Mr. Snow appeared at the door with\n'You are the man that wants to see a gale, are ye? Now is your chance;\nonly just come up on deck.' Accordingly I went. The wind was yelling and\nhowling in the rigging in a fashion that reminded me of a storm in a\nCanadian forest.... The sailors clung, half drowned, to whatever they\ncould lay hold of, for the vessel was at times half inverted, and tons\nof water washed from side to side of her deck.\"\n\nMr. Parkman's route was from Gibraltar by way of Malta, to Sicily, where\nhe travelled over the whole island, and thence to Naples, where he fell\nin with the great preacher Theodore Parker. Together they climbed\nVesuvius and peered into its crater, and afterwards in and about Rome\nthey renewed their comradeship. Here Mr. Parkman wished to spend a few\nweeks in a monastery, in order to study with his own eyes the priests\nand their way of life. More than once he met with a prompt and\nuncompromising refusal, but at length the coveted privilege was granted\nhim; and, curiously enough, it was by the strictest of all the monastic\norders, the Passionists, brethren addicted to wearing hair shirts and\nscourging themselves without mercy. When these worthy monks learned that\ntheir visitor was not merely a Protestant, but a Unitarian, their horror\nwas intense; but they were ready for the occasion, poor souls! and tried\ntheir best to convert him, thereby doubtless enhancing their value in\nthe historian's eyes as living and breathing historic material. This\nvisit was surely of inestimable service to the pen which was to be so\nlargely occupied with the Jesuits and Franciscans of the New World.\n\nMr. Parkman did not leave Rome until he had seen temples, churches, and\ncatacombs, and had been presented to the Pope. He stopped at Florence,\nBologna, Modena, Parma, and Milan, and admired the Lake of Como, to\nwhich, however, he preferred the savage wildness of Lake George. He saw\nsomething of Switzerland, went to Paris and London, and did a bit of\nsight-seeing in Edinburgh and its neighbourhood. From Liverpool he\nsailed for America; and in spite of the time consumed in this trip we\nfind him taking his degree at Cambridge, along with his class, in 1844.\nProbably his name stood high in the rank list, for he was at once\nelected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. After this he entered\nthe Law School, but stayed not long, for his life's work was already\nclaiming him. In his brief vacation journeys he had seen tiny remnants\nof wilderness here and there in Canada or in lonely corners of New\nEngland; now he wished to see the wilderness itself in all its gloom and\nvastness, and to meet face to face with the dusky warriors of the Stone\nAge. At this end of the nineteenth century, as already observed, such a\nthing can no longer be done. Nowhere now, within the United States, does\nthe primitive wilderness exist, save here and there in shreds and\npatches. In the middle of the century it covered the western half of the\ncontinent, and could be reached by a journey of sixteen or seventeen\nhundred miles, from Boston to the plains of Nebraska. Parkman had become\nan adept in woodcraft and a dead shot with the rifle, and could do such\nthings with horses, tame or wild, as civilized people never see done\nexcept in a circus. There was little doubt as to his ability to win the\nrespect of Indians by outshining them in such deeds as they could\nappreciate. Early in 1846 he started for the wilderness with Mr. Quincy\nShaw. A passage from the preface to the fourth edition of \"The Oregon\nTrail,\" published in 1872, will here be of interest:--\n\n\"I remember, as we rode by the foot of Pike's Peak, when for a fortnight\nwe met no face of man, my companion remarked, in a tone anything but\ncomplacent, that a time would come when those plains would be a grazing\ncountry, the buffalo give place to tame cattle, houses be scattered\nalong the watercourses, and wolves, bears, and Indians be numbered among\nthe things that were. We condoled with each other on so melancholy a\nprospect, but with little thought what the future had in store. We knew\nthat there was more or less gold in the seams of those untrodden\nmountains; but we did not foresee that it would build cities in the\nWest, and plant hotels and gambling houses among the haunts of the\ngrizzly bear. We knew that a few fanatical outcasts were groping their\nway across the plains to seek an asylum from Gentile persecution; but we\ndid not imagine that the polygamous hordes of Mormons would rear a\nswarming Jerusalem in the bosom of solitude itself. We knew that more\nand more, year after year, the trains of emigrant wagons would creep in\nslow procession towards barbarous Oregon or wild and distant California;\nbut we did not dream how Commerce and Gold would breed nations along the\nPacific, the disenchanting screech of the locomotive break the spell of\nweird, mysterious mountains, woman's rights invade the fastnesses of the\nArapahoes, and despairing savagery, assailed in front and rear, veil its\nscalp locks and feathers before triumphant commonplace. We were no\nprophets to foresee all this; and had we foreseen it, perhaps some\nperverse regret might have tempered the ardour of our rejoicing.\n\n\"The wild tribe that defiled with me down the gorges of the Black Hills,\nwith its paint and war plumes, fluttering trophies and savage\nembroidery, bows, arrows, lances, and shields, will never be seen again.\nThose who formed it have found bloody graves, or a ghastlier burial in\nthe maws of wolves. The Indian of to-day, armed with a revolver and\ncrowned with an old hat, cased possibly in trousers or muffled in a\ntawdry shirt, is an Indian still, but an Indian shorn of the\npicturesqueness which was his most conspicuous merit. The mountain\ntrapper is no more, and the grim romance of his wild, hard life is a\nmemory of the past.\"\n\nThis first of Parkman's books, \"The Oregon Trail,\" was published in\n1847, as a series of articles in the \"Knickerbocker Magazine.\" Its pages\nreveal such supreme courage, such physical hardiness, such rapturous\nenjoyment of life, that one finds it hard to realize that even in\nsetting out upon this bold expedition the writer was something of an\ninvalid. A weakness of sight--whether caused by some direct injury, or a\nresult of widespread nervous disturbance, is not quite clear--had\nalready become serious and somewhat alarming. On arriving at the Indian\ncamp, near the Medicine Bow range of the Rocky Mountains, he was\nsuffering from a complication of disorders. \"I was so reduced by\nillness,\" he says, \"that I could seldom walk without reeling like a\ndrunken man; and when I rose from my seat upon the ground the landscape\nsuddenly grew dim before my eyes, the trees and lodges seemed to sway to\nand fro, and the prairie to rise and fall like the swells of the ocean.\nSuch a state of things is not enviable anywhere. In a country where a\nman's life may at any moment depend on the strength of his arm, or it\nmay be on the activity of his legs, it is more particularly\ninconvenient. Nor is sleeping on damp ground, with an occasional\ndrenching from a shower, very beneficial in such cases. I sometimes\nsuffered the extremity of exhaustion, and was in a tolerably fair way of\natoning for my love of the prairie by resting there forever. I tried\nrepose and a very sparing diet. For a long time, with exemplary\npatience, I lounged about the camp, or at the utmost staggered over to\nthe Indian village, and walked faint and dizzy among the lodges. It\nwould not do, and I bethought me of starvation. During five days I\nsustained life on one small biscuit a day. At the end of that time I was\nweaker than before, but the disorder seemed shaken in its stronghold,\nand very gradually I began to resume a less rigid diet.\" It did not seem\nprudent to Parkman to let the signs of physical ailment become\nconspicuous, \"since in that case a horse, a rifle, a pair of pistols,\nand a red shirt might have offered temptations too strong for aboriginal\nvirtue.\" Therefore, in order that his prestige with the red men might\nnot suffer diminution, he would \"hunt buffalo on horseback over a broken\ncountry, when without the tonic of the chase he could scarcely sit\nupright in the saddle.\"\n\nThe maintenance of prestige was certainly desirable. The Ogillalah band\nof Sioux, among whom he found himself, were barbarians of a low type.\n\"Neither their manners nor their ideas were in the slightest degree\nmodified by contact with civilization. They knew nothing of the power\nand real character of the white men, and their children would scream in\nterror when they saw me. Their religion, superstitions, and prejudices\nwere the same handed down to them from immemorial time. They fought with\nthe weapons that their fathers fought with, and wore the same garments\nof skins. They were living representatives of the Stone Age; for, though\ntheir lances and arrows were tipped with iron procured from the traders,\nthey still used the rude stone mallet of the primeval world.\" These\nsavages welcomed Parkman and one of his white guides with cordial\nhospitality, and they were entertained by the chieftain Big Crow, whose\nlodge in the evening presented a picturesque spectacle. \"A score or more\nof Indians were seated around it in a circle, their dark, naked forms\njust visible by the dull light of the smouldering fire in the middle.\nThe pipe glowed brightly in the gloom as it passed from hand to hand.\nThen a squaw would drop a piece of buffalo fat on the dull embers.\nInstantly a bright flame would leap up, darting its light to the very\napex of the tall conical structure, where the tops of the slender poles\nthat supported the covering of hide were gathered together. It gilded\nthe features of the Indians, as with animated gestures they sat around\nit, telling their endless stories of war and hunting, and displayed rude\ngarments of skins that hung around the lodge; the bow, quiver, and lance\nsuspended over the resting place of the chief, and the rifles and\npowderhorns of the two white guests. For a moment all would be bright as\nday; then the flames would die out; fitful flashes from the embers would\nillumine the lodge, and then leave it in darkness. Then the light would\nwholly fade, and the lodge and all within it be involved again in\nobscurity.\" From stories of war and the chase the conversation was now\nand then diverted to philosophic themes. When Parkman asked what makes\nthe thunder, various opinions were expressed; but one old wrinkled\nfellow, named Red Water, asseverated that he had always known what it\nwas. \"It was a great black bird; and once he had seen it in a dream\nswooping down from the Black Hills, with its loud roaring wings; and\nwhen it flapped them over a lake, they struck lightning from the water.\"\nAnother old man said that the wicked thunder had killed his brother last\nsummer, but doggedly refused to give any particulars. It was afterwards\nlearned that this brother was a member of a thunder-fighting fraternity\nof priests or medicine men. On the approach of a storm they would \"take\ntheir bows and arrows, their magic drum, and a sort of whistle made out\nof the wing bone of the war eagle, and, thus equipped, run out and fire\nat the rising cloud, whopping, yelling, whistling, and beating their\ndrum, to frighten it down again. One afternoon a heavy black cloud was\ncoming up, and they repaired to the top of a hill, where they brought\nall their magic artillery into play against it. But the undaunted\nthunder, refusing to be terrified, darted out a bright flash, which\nstruck [the aforesaid brother] dead as he was in the very act of shaking\nhis long iron-pointed lance against it. The rest scattered, and ran\nyelling in an ecstasy of superstitious terror back to their lodges.\"\n\nOne should read Mr. Parkman's detailed narrative of the strange life of\nthese people, and the manner of his taking part in it: how he called the\nvillagers together and regaled them sumptuously with boiled dog, and\nmade them a skilful speech, in which he quite satisfied them as to his\nreasons for coming to dwell among them; how a warm friendship grew up\nbetween himself and the venerable Red Water, who was the custodian of\nan immense fund of folk lore, but was apt to be superstitiously afraid\nof imparting any of it to strangers; how war parties were projected and\nabandoned; how buffalo and antelope were hunted, and how life was\ncarried on in the dull intervals between such occupations. If one were\nto keep on quoting what is of especial interest in the book, one would\nhave to quote the whole of it. But one characteristic portrait contains\nso much insight into Indian life that I cannot forbear giving it. It is\nthe sketch of a young fellow called the Hail-Storm, as Parkman found him\none evening on his return from the chase: \"his light graceful figure\nreclining on the ground in an easy attitude, while ... near him lay the\nfresh skin of a female elk which he had just killed among the mountains,\nonly a mile or two from camp. No doubt the boy's heart was elated with\ntriumph, but he betrayed no sign of it. He even seemed totally\nunconscious of our approach, and his handsome face had all the\ntranquillity of Indian self-control,--a self-control which prevents the\nexhibition of emotion without restraining the emotion itself. It was\nabout two months since I had known the Hail-Storm, and within that time\nhis character had remarkably developed. When I first saw him, he was\njust emerging from the habits and feelings of the boy into the ambition\nof the hunter and warrior. He had lately killed his first deer, and this\nhad excited his aspirations for distinction. Since that time he had been\ncontinually in search for game, and no young hunter in the village had\nbeen so active or so fortunate as he. All this success had produced a\nmarked change in his character. As I first remembered him, he always\nshunned the society of the young squaws, and was extremely bashful and\nsheepish in their presence; but now, in the confidence of his new\nreputation, he began to assume the airs and arts of a man of gallantry.\nHe wore his red blanket dashingly over his left shoulder, painted his\ncheeks every day with vermilion, and hung pendants of shells in his\nears. If I observed aright, he met with very good success in his new\npursuits; still the Hail-Storm had much to accomplish before he attained\nthe full standing of a warrior. Gallantly as he began to bear himself\nbefore the women and girls, he was still timid and abashed in the\npresence of the chiefs and old men; for he had never yet killed a man,\nor stricken the dead body of an enemy in battle. I have no doubt that\nthe handsome smooth-faced boy burned with desire to flesh his maiden\nscalping knife, and I would not have encamped alone with him without\nwatching his movements with a suspicious eye.\" Mr. Parkman once told me\nthat it was rare for a young brave to obtain full favour with the women\nwithout having at least one scalp to show; and this fact was one of the\nsecret sources of danger which the ordinary white visitor would never\nthink of. Peril is also liable to lurk in allowing one's self to be\nplaced in a ludicrous light among these people; accordingly, whenever\nsuch occasions arose, Parkman knew enough to \"maintain a rigid,\ninflexible countenance, and [thus] wholly escaped their sallies.\" He\nunderstood that his rifle and pistols were the only friends on whom he\ncould invariably rely when alone among Indians. His own observation\ntaught him \"the extreme folly of confidence, and the utter impossibility\nof foreseeing to what sudden acts the strange, unbridled impulses of an\nIndian may urge him. When among this people, danger is never so near as\nwhen you are unprepared for it, never so remote as when you are armed\nand on the alert to meet it at any moment. Nothing offers so strong a\ntemptation to their ferocious instincts as the appearance of timidity,\nweakness, or security.\"\n\nThe immense importance of this sojourn in the wilderness, in its\nrelation to Parkman's life work, is obvious. Knowledge, intrepidity, and\ntact carried him through it unscathed, and good luck kept him clear of\nencounters with hostile Indians, in which these qualities might not have\nsufficed to avert destruction. It was rare good fortune that kept his\nparty from meeting with an enemy during five months of travel through a\ndangerous region. Scarcely three weeks after he had reached the confines\nof civilization, the Pawnees and Comanches began a systematized series\nof hostilities, and \"attacked ... every party, large or small, that\npassed during the next six months.\"\n\nDuring this adventurous experience, says Parkman, \"my business was\nobservation, and I was willing to pay dearly for the opportunity of\nexercising it.\" A heavy price was exacted of him, not by red men, but by\nthat \"subtle personage\" whom he had tried to take by the horns, and who\nseems to have resented such presumption. Toward the end of the journey\nParkman found himself ill in much the same way as at the beginning, and\ncraved medical advice. It was in mid-September, on a broad meadow in the\nwild valley of the Arkansas, where his party had fallen in with a huge\nSanta F\u00e9 caravan of white-topped wagons, with great droves of mules and\nhorses; and we may let Parkman tell the story in his own words, in the\nlast of our extracts from his fascinating book. One of the guides had\ntold him that in this caravan was a physician from St. Louis, by the\nname of Dobbs, of the very highest standing in his profession. \"Without\nat all believing him, I resolved to consult this eminent practitioner.\nWalking over to the camp, I found him lying sound asleep under one of\nthe wagons. He offered in his own person but indifferent evidence of his\nskill; for it was five months since I had seen so cadaverous a face. His\nhat had fallen off, and his yellow hair was all in disorder; one of his\narms supplied the place of a pillow; his trousers were wrinkled halfway\nup to his knees, and he was covered with little bits of grass and straw\nupon which he had rolled in his uneasy slumber. A Mexican stood near,\nand I made him a sign to touch the doctor. Up sprang the learned Dobbs,\nand sitting upright rubbed his eyes and looked about him in\nbewilderment. I regretted the necessity of disturbing him, and said I\nhad come to ask professional advice.\n\n\"'Your system, sir, is in a disordered state,' said he solemnly, after a\nshort examination. I inquired what might be the particular species of\ndisorder. 'Evidently a morbid action of the liver,' replied the medical\nman. 'I will give you a prescription.'\n\n\"Repairing to the back of one of the covered wagons, he scrambled in;\nfor a moment I could see nothing of him but his boots. At length he\nproduced a box which he had extracted from some dark recess within, and\nopening it presented me with a folded paper. 'What is it?' said I.\n'Calomel,' said the doctor.\n\n\"Under the circumstances I would have taken almost anything. There was\nnot enough to do me much harm, and it might possibly do good; so at camp\nthat night I took the poison instead of supper.\"\n\nAfter the return from the wilderness Parkman found his physical\ncondition rather worse than better. The trouble with the eyes continued,\nand we begin to find mention of a lameness which was sometimes serious\nenough to confine him to the house, and which evidently lasted a long\ntime; but from this he seems to have recovered. My personal acquaintance\nwith him began in 1872, and I never noticed any symptoms of lameness,\nthough I remember taking several pleasant walks with him. Perhaps the\nsource of lameness may be indicated in the following account of his\ncondition in 1848, cited from the fragment of autobiography in which he\nuses the third person: \"To the maladies of the prairie succeeded a suite\nof exhausting disorders, so reducing him that circulation of the\nextremities ceased, the light of the sun became insupportable, and a\nwild whirl possessed his brain, joined to a universal turmoil of the\nnervous system which put his philosophy to the sharpest test it had\nhitherto known. All collapsed, in short, but the tenacious strength of\nmuscles hardened by long activity.\" In 1851, whether due or not to\ndisordered circulation, there came an effusion of water on the left\nknee, which for the next two years prevented walking.\n\nIt was between 1848 and 1851 that Parkman was engaged in writing \"The\nConspiracy of Pontiac.\" He felt that no regimen could be worse for him\nthan idleness, and that no tonic could be more bracing than work in\npursuance of the lofty purpose which had now attained maturity in his\nmind. He had to contend with a \"triple-headed monster:\" first, the\nweakness of the eyes, which had come to be such that he could not keep\nthem open to the light while writing his own name; secondly, the\nincapacity for sustained attention; and thirdly, the indisposition to\nputting forth mental effort. Evidently, the true name of this\ntriple-headed monster was nervous exhaustion; there was too much soul\nfor the body to which it was yoked.\n\n\"To be made with impunity, the attempt must be made with the most\nwatchful caution. He caused a wooden frame to be constructed of the\nsize and shape of a sheet of letter paper. Stout wires were fixed\nhorizontally across it, half an inch apart, and a movable back of thick\npasteboard fitted behind them. The paper for writing was placed between\nthe pasteboard and the wires, guided by which, and using a black lead\ncrayon, he could write not illegibly with closed eyes. He was at the\ntime absent from home, on Staten Island, where, and in the neighbouring\ncity of New York, he had friends who willingly offered their aid. It is\nneedless to say to which half of humanity nearly all these kind\nassistants belonged. He chose for a beginning that part of the work\nwhich offered fewest difficulties and with the subject of which he was\nmost familiar; namely, the Siege of Detroit. The books and documents,\nalready partially arranged, were procured from Boston, and read to him\nat such times as he could listen to them; the length of each reading\nnever without injury much exceeding half an hour, and periods of several\ndays frequently occurring during which he could not listen at all. Notes\nwere made by him with closed eyes, and afterwards deciphered and read to\nhim till he had mastered them. For the first half-year the rate of\ncomposition averaged about six lines a day. The portion of the book thus\ncomposed was afterwards partially rewritten.\n\n\"His health improved under the process, and the remainder of the\nvolume--in other words, nearly the whole of it--was composed in Boston,\nwhile pacing in the twilight of a large garret, the only exercise which\nthe sensitive condition of his sight permitted him in an unclouded day\nwhile the sun was above the horizon. It was afterwards written down from\ndictation by relatives under the same roof, to whom he was also indebted\nfor the preparatory readings. His progress was much less tedious than at\nthe outset, and the history was complete in about two years and a half.\"\n\nThe book composed under such formidable difficulties was published in\n1851. It did not at once meet with the reception which it deserved. The\nreading public did not expect to find entertainment in American history.\nIn the New England of those days the general reader had heard a good\ndeal about the Pilgrim Fathers and Salem Witchcraft, and remembered\nhazily the stories of Hannah Dustin and of Putnam and the wolf, but\ncould not be counted on for much else before the Revolution. I remember\nonce hearing it said that the story of the \"Old French War\" was\nsomething of no more interest or value for Americans of to-day than the\ncuneiform records of an insurrection in ancient Nineveh; and so slow are\npeople in gaining a correct historical perspective that within the last\nten years the mighty world struggle in which Pitt and Frederick were\nallied is treated in a book entitled \"Minor Wars of the United States\"!\nIn 1851 the soil was not yet ready for the seed sown by Parkman, and he\ndid not quickly or suddenly become popular. But after the publication of\nthe \"Pioneers of France\" in 1865 his fame grew rapidly. In those days I\ntook especial pleasure in praising his books, from the feeling that they\nwere not so generally known as they ought to be, particularly in\nEngland, where he has since come to be recognized as foremost among\nAmerican writers of history. In 1879 I had been giving a course of\nlectures at University College, London, on \"America's Place in History,\"\nand shortly afterwards repeated this course at the little Hawthorne\nHall, on Park Street, in Boston. One evening, having occasion to allude\nbriefly to Pontiac and his conspiracy, I said, among other things, that\nit was memorable as \"the theme of one of the most brilliant and\nfascinating books that have ever been written by any historian since the\ndays of Herodotus.\" The words were scarcely out of my mouth when I\nhappened to catch sight of Mr. Parkman in my audience. I had not\nobserved him before, though he was seated quite near me. I shall never\nforget the sudden start which he gave, and the heightened colour of his\nnoble face, with its curious look of surprise and pleasure,--an\nexpression as honest and simple as one might witness in a rather shy\nschoolboy suddenly singled out for praise. I was so glad that I had said\nwhat I did without thinking of his hearing me.\n\nIn May, 1850, while at work upon this great book, Mr. Parkman married\nCatherine, daughter of Jacob Bigelow, an eminent physician of Boston. Of\nthis marriage there were three children,--a son, who died while an\ninfant, and two daughters, who still survive. Mrs. Parkman died in 1858,\nand her husband never married again.\n\nDuring these years, when his complicated ailments for a time made\nhistorical work impossible even to this man of Titanic will, he assuaged\nhis cravings for spiritual creation by writing a novel, \"Vassall\nMorton.\" Of his books it is the only one that I have never seen, and I\ncan speak of it only from hearsay. It is said to be not without signal\nmerits, but it did not find a great many readers, and its author seems\nnot to have cared much for it. The main current of his interest in life\nwas too strong to allow of much diversion into side channels.\n\n\"Meanwhile,\" to cite his own words, \"the Faculty of Medicine were not\nidle, displaying that exuberance of resource for which that remarkable\nprofession is justly famed. The wisest, indeed, did nothing, commending\nhis patient to time and faith; but the activity of his brethren made\nfull amends for this masterly inaction. One was for tonics, another for\na diet of milk; one counselled galvanism, another hydropathy; one\nscarred him behind the neck with nitric acid, another drew red-hot irons\nalong his spine with a view of enlivening that organ. Opinion was\ndivergent as practice. One assured him of recovery in six years; another\nthought that he would never recover. Another, with grave circumlocution,\nlest the patient should take fright, informed him that he was the victim\nof an organic disease of the brain which must needs dispatch him to\nanother world within a twelvemonth; and he stood amazed at the smile of\nan auditor who neither cared for the announcement nor believed it.\nAnother, an eminent physiologist of Paris, after an acquaintance of\nthree months, one day told him that from the nature of the disorder he\nhad at first supposed that it must, in accordance with precedent, be\nattended with insanity, and had ever since been studying him to discover\nunder what form the supposed aberration declared itself; adding, with a\nsomewhat humorous look, that his researches had not been rewarded with\nthe smallest success.\"\n\nSoon after his marriage Mr. Parkman became possessor of a small estate\nof three acres or so in Jamaica Plain, on the steep shore of the\nbeautiful pond. It was a charming place, thoroughly English in its\nhomelike simplicity and refined comfort. The house stood near the\nentrance, and on not far from the same level as the roadway; but from\nthe side and rear the ground fell off rapidly, so that it was quite a\nsharp descent to the pretty little wharf or dock, where one might sit\nand gaze on the placid, dreamy water. It is with that lovely home that\nParkman is chiefly associated in my mind. Twenty years ago, while I was\nacting as librarian at Harvard University, he was a member of the\ncorporation, and I had frequent occasion to consult with him on matters\nof business. At such times I would drive over from Cambridge or take a\nstreet car to Jamaica Plain, sure of a cordial greeting and a pleasant\nchat, in which business always received its full measure of justice, and\nwas then thrust aside for more inspiring themes. The memory of one day\nin particular will go with me through life,--an enchanted day in the\nseason of apple blossoms, when I went in the morning for a brief\nerrand, taking with me one of my little sons. The brief errand ended in\nspending the whole day and staying until late in the evening, while the\nworld of thought was ransacked and some of its weightiest questions\nprovisionally settled! Nor was either greenhouse or garden or pond\nneglected. At such times there was nothing in Parkman's looks or manner\nto suggest the invalid. He and I were members of a small club of a dozen\nor more congenial spirits who now for nearly thirty years have met once\na month to dine together. When he came to the dinner he was always one\nof the most charming companions at the table; but ill health often\nprevented his coming, and in the latter years of his life he never came.\nI knew nothing of the serious nature of his troubles; and when I heard\nthe cause of his absence alleged, I used to suppose that it was merely\nsome need for taking care of digestion or avoiding late hours that kept\nhim at home. What most impressed one, in talking with him, was the\ncombination of power and alertness with extreme gentleness. Nervous\nirritability was the last thing of which I should have suspected him. He\nnever made the slightest allusion to his ill health; he would probably\nhave deemed it inconsistent with good breeding to intrude upon his\nfriends with such topics; and his appearance as always most cheerful.\nHis friend (our common friend), the late Octavius Frothingham, says of\nhim: \"Again and again he had to restrain the impulse to say vehement\nthings, or to do violent deeds without the least provocation; but he\nmaintained so absolutely his moral self-control that none but the\nclosest observer would notice any deviation from the most perfect calm\nand serenity.\" I can testify that until after Mr. Parkman's death I had\nnever dreamed of the existence of any such deviation.\n\nGarden and greenhouse formed a very important part of the home by\nJamaica Pond. Mr. Parkman's love for Nature was in no way more\nconspicuously shown than in his diligence and skill in cultivating\nflowers. It is often observed that plants will grow for some persons,\nbut not for others; one man's conservatory will be heavy with verdure,\ngorgeous in its colours, and redolent of sweet odours, while his\nneighbour's can show nothing but a forlorn assemblage of pots and\nsticks. The difference is due to the loving care which learns and\nhumours the idiosyncrasies of each individual thing that grows, the keen\nobservation of the naturalist supplemented by the watchful solicitude of\nthe nurse. Among the indications of rare love and knowledge of Nature\nis marked success in inducing her to bring forth her most exquisite\ncreations, the flowers. As an expert in horticulture Parkman achieved\ncelebrity. His garden and greenhouse had extraordinary things to show.\nAs he pointed out to me on my first visit to them, he followed Darwinian\nmethods and originated new varieties of plants. The _Lilium Parkmani_\nhas long been famous among florists. He was also eminent in the culture\nof roses, and author of a work entitled \"The Book of Roses,\" which was\npublished in 1866. He was President of the Horticultural Society, and at\none time Professor of Horticulture in Harvard University. There can be\nno doubt as to the beneficial effects of these pursuits. It is wholesome\nto be out of doors with spade and trowel and sprinkler; there is\nsomething tonic in the aroma of fresh damp loam; and nothing is more\nrestful to the soul than daily sympathetic intercourse with flowering\nplants. It was surely here that Parkman found his best medicine.\n\nWhen he entered, in 1851, upon his great work on \"France and England in\nthe New World,\" he had before him the task \"of tracing out, collecting,\nindexing, arranging, and digesting a great mass of incongruous material\nscattered on both sides of the Atlantic.\" A considerable portion of\nthis material was in manuscript, and involved much tedious exploration\nand the employment of trained copyists. It was necessary to study\ncarefully the catalogues of many European libraries, and to open\ncorrespondence with such scholars and public officials in both\nhemispheres as might be able to point to the whereabouts of fresh\nsources of information. Work of this sort, as one bit of clue leads to\nanother, is capable of arousing the emotion of pursuit to a very high\ndegree; and I believe the effect of it upon Parkman's health must have\nbeen good, in spite of, or rather because of, its difficulties. The\nchase was carried on until his manuscript treasures had been brought to\nan extraordinary degree of completeness. These made his library quite\nremarkable. In printed books it was far less rich. He had not the tastes\nof a bibliophile, and did not feel it necessary, as Freeman did, to own\nall the books he used. His library of printed books, which at his death\nwent to Harvard University, was a very small one for a scholar,--about\ntwenty-five hundred volumes, including more or less of Greek and Latin\nliterature and theology inherited from his father. His manuscripts, as I\nhave already mentioned, went to the library of the Massachusetts\nHistorical Society.\n\nWhen the manuscripts had come into his hands, an arduous labour was\nbegun. All had to be read to him and taken in slowly, bit by bit. The\nincapacity to keep steadily at work made it impossible to employ regular\nassistants profitably; and for readers he either depended upon members\nof his own family or called in pupils from the public schools. Once he\nspeaks of having had a well-trained young man, who was an excellent\nlinguist; on another occasion it was a schoolgirl \"ignorant of any\ntongue but her own,\" and \"the effect, though highly amusing to\nbystanders, was far from being so to the person endeavouring to follow\nthe meaning of this singular jargon.\" The larger part of the documents\nused in preparing the earlier volumes were in seventeenth-century\nFrench, which, though far from being Old French, is enough unlike the\nnineteenth-century speech to have troubled Parkman's readers, and thus\nto have worried his ears.\n\nAs Frothingham describes his method, when the manuscripts were slowly\nread to him, \"first the chief points were considered, then the details\nof the story were gone over carefully and minutely. As the reading went\non he made notes, first of essential matters, then of non-essential.\nAfter this he welded everything together, made the narrative completely\nhis own, infused into it his own fire, quickened it by his own\nimagination, and made it, as it were, a living experience, so that his\nbooks read like personal reminiscences. It was certainly a slow and\npainful process, but the result more than justified the labour.\"\n\nIn the fragment of autobiography already quoted, which Mr. Parkman left\nwith Dr. Ellis in 1868, but which was apparently written in 1865, he\nsays: \"One year, four years, and numerous short intervals lasting from a\nday to a month represent the literary interruptions since the work in\nhand was begun. Under the most favourable conditions it was a slow and\ndoubtful navigation, beset with reefs and breakers, demanding a constant\nlookout and a constant throwing of the lead. Of late years, however, the\ncondition of the sight has so far improved as to permit reading, not\nexceeding on the average five minutes at one time. This modicum of\npower, though apparently trifling, proves of the greatest service, since\nby a cautious management its application may be extended. By reading for\none minute, and then resting for an equal time, this alternate process\nmay generally be continued for about half an hour. Then after a\nsufficient interval it may be repeated, often three or four times in the\ncourse of the day. By this means nearly the whole of the volume now\noffered [\"Pioneers\"] has been composed.... How far, by a process\ncombining the slowness of the tortoise with the uncertainty of the hare,\nan undertaking of close and extended research can be advanced, is a\nquestion to solve which there is no aid from precedent, since it does\nnot appear that an attempt under similar circumstances has hitherto been\nmade. The writer looks, however, for a fair degree of success.\"\n\nAfter 1865 the progress was certainly much more rapid than before. The\nnext fourteen years witnessed the publication of \"The Jesuits,\" \"La\nSalle,\" \"The Old R\u00e9gime,\" and \"Frontenac,\" and saw \"Montcalm and Wolfe\"\nwell under way; while the \"Half-Century of Conflict,\" intervening\nbetween \"Frontenac\" and \"Montcalm and Wolfe,\" was reserved until the\nlast-mentioned work should be done, for the same reason that led Herbert\nSpencer to postpone the completing of his \"Sociology\" until he should\nhave finished his \"Principles of Ethics.\" In view of life's\nvicissitudes, it was prudent to make sure of the crowning work, at all\nevents leaving some connecting links to be inserted afterwards. As one\nobstacle after another was surmounted, as one grand division of the work\nafter another became an accomplished fact, the effect upon Parkman's\ncondition must have been bracing, and he seems to have acquired fresh\nimpetus as he approached the goal.\n\nFor desultory work in the shape of magazine articles he had little\nleisure; but two essays of his, on \"The Failure of Universal Suffrage\"\nand on \"The Reasons against Woman Suffrage,\" are very thoughtful, and\nworthy of serious consideration. In questions of political philosophy,\nhis conclusions, which were reached from a very wide and impartial\nsurvey of essential facts, always seemed to me of the highest value.\n\nWhen I look back upon Parkman's noble life, I think of Mendelssohn's\nchorus, \"He that shall endure to the end,\" with its chaste and severely\nbeautiful melody, and the calm, invincible faith which it expresses.\nAfter all the harrowing years of doubt and distress, the victory was\nsuch in its magnitude as has been granted to but few mortals to win. He\nlived to see his life's work done; the thought of his eighteenth year\nwas realized in his sixty-ninth; and its greatness had come to be\nadmitted throughout the civilized world. In September, 1893, his\nseventieth year was completed, and his autumn in the lovely home at\nJamaica Plain was a pleasant one. On the first Sunday afternoon in\nNovember he rowed on the pond in his boat, but felt ill as he returned\nto the house, and on the next Wednesday, the 8th, he passed quietly\naway. Thus he departed from a world which will evermore be the richer\nand better for having once had him as its denizen. The memory of a life\nso strong and beautiful is a precious possession for us all.\n\nAs for the book on which he laboured with such marvellous heroism, a\nword may be said in conclusion. Great in his natural powers and great in\nthe use he made of them, Parkman was no less great in his occasion and\nin his theme. Of all American historians he is the most deeply and\npeculiarly American, yet he is at the same time the broadest and most\ncosmopolitan. The book which depicts at once the social life of the\nStone Age, and the victory of the English political ideal over the ideal\nwhich France inherited from imperial Rome, is a book for all mankind and\nfor all time. The more adequately men's historic perspective gets\nadjusted, the greater will it seem. Strong in its individuality, and\nlike to nothing else, it clearly belongs, I think, among the world's few\nmasterpieces of the highest rank, along with the works of Herodotus,\nThucydides, and Gibbon.\n\n_February, 1897._\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nEDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN\n\n\nThe sudden death of Professor Freeman, last March [1892], was a great\ncalamity to the world of letters. Although his achievements in the field\nof historical writing had been so varied and voluminous, yet some of his\nmost important themes--some of those which had been slowly ripening and\nmost richly developed in his mind--were still awaiting literary\ntreatment at his hands, and at the time of his death he had just\nfinished the third volume of a colossal work which was still in its\nearlier stages. His end was premature, and it is with a keen sense of\nbereavement that we take this occasion to pay a brief word of tribute to\nso dear and honoured a teacher.\n\nEdward Augustus Freeman, son of John Freeman of Redmore Hall, in\nWorcestershire, was born at Harborne, Staffordshire, August 2, 1823. His\nlife was always purely that of a scholar and teacher, and a chronicle of\nits events would consist chiefly of the record of books published and\noffices held at the University of Oxford. He was graduated at Trinity\nCollege in 1845, and remained there as a Fellow until 1847. In 1857,\n1863, and 1873 he served as Examiner in Modern History. In 1880 he was\nchosen honorary Fellow of Trinity, and in 1884 Fellow of Oriel. In the\nlatter year he was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History,\nsucceeding Bishop Stubbs in that position. It is not necessary to\nenumerate the honorary degrees which he received from Oxford and\nCambridge, and from universities in various European countries. At the\ntime of his death he was a member of learned societies in nearly all\nparts of the world. For many years he had been a Knight Commander of the\nGreek Order of the Saviour. He had also received honours of knighthood\nfrom Servia and Montenegro. In 1868 he was a candidate for Parliament,\nbut failed of election; and that seems to have been his sole venture in\nthe world of politics. His travels upon the continent of Europe were\nmany and extensive. When at home he lived in rural seclusion,--\"far from\nthe madding crowd,\"--upon his estate at Somerleaze, near Wells and its\nnoble cathedral; only in these latter years he made a home for himself,\nduring the Oxford terms, at St. Giles in that city.\n\nFrom the very beginning Freeman's historical studies were characterized\non the one hand by philosophical breadth of view, and on the other hand\nby extreme accuracy of statement, and such loving minuteness of detail\nas is apt to mark the local antiquary whose life has been spent in\nstudying only one thing. It was to the combination of these two\ncharacteristics that the pre\u00ebminent greatness of his historical work was\ndue. We see the combination already prefigured, and to some extent\nrealized, in his first book, \"A History of Architecture,\" published in\n1849, although this can hardly be called such a work of original\nresearch as the books of his maturer years. Two years afterward appeared\nthe learned \"Essay on the Origin and Development of Window Tracery in\nEngland,\" a work which I do not feel able to criticise, but which I am\nsure is very charming to read. I believe that this book was followed by\nat least three others in the same department, \"Architectural Antiquities\nof Gower,\" \"The Antiquities of St. David's,\" and \"The Architecture of\nLlandaff Cathedral,\" but I have never seen them. In the preface to the\nessay on window tracery Mr. Freeman alludes to Rev. G. W. Cox as his\n\"friend and coadjutor in many undertakings,\" and I have heard of a\nvolume of poems \"by G. W. C. and E. A. F.\" published in those days, but\nI know no more about it. It is to be hoped that these early works,\nwhich have become very scarce, will before long be collected and\nreprinted.\n\nWhen, after these publications on architecture, Freeman began publishing\nbooks and articles on ancient Greece and on the Saracens, I presume\nthere were many of his readers who thoughtlessly assumed that he had\nchanged his vocation; he must more than once have had to answer the\nstupid question why he had gone over from architecture to history. But\nin his mind the evolution of architecture was never separated from the\ncourse of political history; and the effect of these early studies in\narchitecture, which were indeed never abandoned, but kept up with\nenthusiasm in later years, was to give increased definiteness and\nconcreteness to his presentation of historical events. When I use such a\nword as \"evolution\" in this connection, I do not mean that Mr. Freeman\nwas in any sense a \"disciple\" of the modern evolution philosophy. There\nis nothing to show that he ever gave any time or attention to the study\nof that subject, or that he had any technical knowledge even of its\nterminology. Whether consciously or unconsciously, however, he was an\nevolutionist in spirit. From the outset he was deeply impressed with the\nsolidarity of human history, and no student of political development in\nour time has made more effective use of the comparative method.\n\nFrom 1850 to 1863 Freeman's published writings were chiefly concerned\nwith Mediterranean history viewed on the broadest scale in relation to\nall those movements of progressive humanity which have had that great\ninland sea for a common centre. Here came those brilliant essays on\n\"Ancient Greece and Medi\u00e6val Italy,\" \"Homer and the Homeric Age,\" \"The\nAthenian Democracy,\" \"Alexander the Great,\" \"Greece during the\nMacedonian Period,\" \"Mommsen's History of Rome,\" \"The Flavian C\u00e6sars,\"\nand others since collected in the second series of his \"Historical\nEssays.\" To this period also belongs the little book on the \"History of\nthe Saracens,\" based upon lectures given at the Philosophical\nInstitution in Edinburgh.\n\nFrom these Mediterranean studies may be said to have grown two of\nFreeman's three great works,--both of them, unfortunately, left\nincomplete at his death,--the \"History of Federal Government\" and the\n\"History of Sicily.\" Freeman was remarkably free from the common\nhabit--common even among eminent historians--of concentrating his\nattention upon some exceptionally brilliant period or so-called\n\"classical age,\" to the exclusion of other ages that went before and\ncame after. Such a habit is fatal to all correct understanding of\nhistory, even that of the ages upon which attention is thus unwisely\nconcentrated. Freeman understood that in some respects, if not in\nothers, the history of Greece is just as important after the battle of\nCh\u00e6ronea as before; and he became especially interested in the history\nof the Achaian League and other Greek attempts at federation. Thence\ngrew the idea of studying the development of federal union as the\nhighest form of nation-building, beginning with its germs in the leagues\namong Greek autonomous cities. The enterprise was arduous, involving as\nit did the determination of obscure points in the history of many ages\nand countries, more particularly Greece, Switzerland, and America. The\nfirst volume, containing the general introduction and the history of the\nGreek federations, was published in 1863, a stalwart octavo of 721\npages. It bore upon the title-page a motto from \"The Federalist,\" No.\nXVIII.,--\"Could the interior structure and regular operation of the\nAchaian League be ascertained, it is probable that more light might be\nthrown by it on the science of federal government than by any of the\nlike experiments with which we are acquainted.\" This book is of\npriceless value, and if Freeman had never published anything more, it\nwould have entitled him to a place in the foremost rank of historians.\nIt deals thoroughly with a very important portion of the world's\nhistory to which no one before had even begun to do justice. Its\nadmirable philosophical spirit is matched by its keen critical insight\nand its minute and exhaustive control of all sources of information. Its\nnarrative, moreover, is full of human interest. Yet it never became a\npopular book. It was hard to make people believe that the Achaian League\ncould be interesting, and in order to realize the philosophical value of\nthe whole story most readers would need to have the later portions of it\nset before their eyes.\n\nBut this noble work, in some respects the grandest of the author's\nconceptions, was never completed. The first volume was all that ever was\npublished. For this fact I have sometimes heard Americans offer a\ngrotesque explanation. The volume published in 1863, in the middle of\nour Civil War, bore the title \"History of Federal Government, from the\nFoundation of the Achaian League to the Disruption of the United\nStates.\" This title gave offence in America. It was too hastily taken to\nindicate that the author wished well to the Southern Confederacy, and\nregarded its independence as an accomplished fact. There can be no doubt\nthat the title was ill chosen; but to suppose, as some people did, that\nchagrin at the success of the Union arms prevented Freeman from going\non with his book was simply ridiculous. It was not anything that\nhappened in America, but something that happened in Europe, which caused\nhim to defer the completion of his second volume. That volume was to\ndeal with federal government as exemplified in Switzerland and otherwise\nin Germany; and the war of 1866 between Prussia and Austria marked the\nbeginning of organic changes in Germany which Freeman was anxious to\nwatch for a while before finishing his book.\n\nHe therefore turned aside and took up the third of his three great\nworks,--the only one that he lived to complete,--the \"History of the\nNorman Conquest of England, its Causes and its Results.\" Upon this\nsubject he had thought and studied for nearly twenty years, or ever\nsince the time when he was publishing works on architecture. As one\nturns the leaves of these stout volumes, each of seven or eight hundred\npages, crowded with minute and accurate erudition, one marvels that the\nauthor could carry along so many researches and of such exhaustive\ncharacter at the same time. Alike in Greek, in German, and in English\nhistory, along with abundant generalizations, often highly original and\nsuggestive, we find investigations of obscure points in which every item\nof evidence is weighed as in an apothecary's scale, and in all these\ndirections Freeman was working at once. When it came to publishing,\nvolume followed volume with surprising quickness. Turning aside in 1866\nfrom the second volume of the \"Federal Government\" when a large part of\nit was already written, Freeman brought out the first volume of the\n\"Norman Conquest\" in 1867, the second in 1868, the third in 1869, the\nfourth in 1871, the fifth more leisurely in 1876. The proportions of\nthis work are eminently characteristic of the author's historical\nperspective. In order to understand the Norman Conquest, a survey of all\nprevious English history, and especially of the struggle between\nEnglishmen and Danes, is essential; and the first volume carries us in\none great sweep from the landing of Hengist to the accession of Edward\nthe Confessor, while the early history of Normandy also receives due\nattention. We now enter the region of proximate causes, which require\nmore detailed specification, and the second volume takes us through the\nfour-and-twenty years of Edward's reign. His death hurries the situation\nto its dramatic climax, and the whole of the third volume is devoted to\nthe events of the single year 1066. The completion of the Conquest down\nto the death of the Conqueror is treated with less detail, and the\ntwenty-one years are comprised within a volume. Finally, in summing up\nthe results of the great event, the last volume covers two centuries,\nand leaves us in the reign of Edward I., the king who did so much to\nmake modern English history the glorious tale that it has been. In\nfinishing his work upon these proportions, Freeman encountered many\npoints in the reign of William Rufus that needed fuller treatment, and\nso in 1882 he published in two volumes the history of that reign as a\nsequel to the \"Norman Conquest.\" Taken as a whole, the seven volumes\ngive us such a masterly philosophic analysis and such a picturesque and\nvivid narrative of the history of England in the eleventh century that\nit must be pronounced the monumental work upon which Freeman's\nreputation will chiefly rest.\n\nWhile these volumes were in course of publication, there was scarcely a\nyear when its busy author, from his wealth of knowledge, did not bring\nout some other book. Sometimes it was what men count a slight affair,\nsuch as a textbook,--albeit the textbook is perhaps the hardest kind of\nbook to write well; sometimes it was a brief monograph or course of\nlectures; sometimes a collection of earlier writings. There was an \"Old\nEnglish History for Children\" (1869), a \"Short History of the Norman\nConquest\" (1880), and a \"General Sketch of European History\" (1873). The\n\"Growth of the English Constitution\" was suggestively treated in a small\nvolume (1872). There was a \"History of the Cathedral Church at Wells\"\n(1870), and there was a collection of \"Historical and Architectural\nSketches,\" chiefly from Italy (1876), followed by \"Sketches from the\nSubject and Neighbour Lands of Venice\" (1881). In these two last-named\nvolumes, illustrated chiefly from the author's own drawings, one sees\nthat his interest in Diocletian and Theodoric was scarcely less keen\nthan in Alfred of Wessex or William the Norman. No other modern\ntraveller has done such justice to Istria and Dalmatia. \"I am not\njoking,\" he writes, \"when I say that the best guide to those parts is\nstill the account written by the Emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus\nmore than nine hundred years back. But it is surely high time that there\nshould be another.\" Freeman's accurate knowledge of southeastern Europe\nand its peoples, coupled with his wide and comprehensive study of the\ncontact between Christians and Mussulmans in all ages, led him to take\nvery sound and wholesome views of the unspeakable Turk and the\neverlasting Eastern Question; and in 1877, when public attention was so\nstrongly directed toward the Balkans, he published a lucid and graphic\nlittle volume on \"The Ottoman Power in Europe.\" This book was a\ncompanion to the \"History of the Saracens,\" above mentioned, and the two\ntogether make as good an introduction to Mussulman history in its\nrelations to Europe as the general reader is likely to find.\n\nAmong the host of side works which were issued during these years, two\ncall for especial mention. In the lectures on \"Comparative Politics,\"\ngiven at the Royal Institution in 1873, Freeman analyzed and described\nthe different forms assumed by Aryan institutions among Greeks, Romans,\nand Teutons. This book is his most distinct attempt to make his central\ntheme the career of an institution, such as kingship or representative\nassemblies, rather than the career of a state or a people. In the\n\"History of Federal Government,\" the two kinds of treatment, analytical\nand synthetical, were combined in a way that would, I think, have made\nthat his grandest work, had it been completed. In the lectures we get an\nable analysis and comparison, full of fruitful suggestions, and in our\nauthor's happiest style. There is not the originality of scholarship\nhere that we find in Sir Henry Maine, nor do we find the breadth of view\nthat can be gained only when the barbaric non-Aryan world is taken into\naccount. Such breadth was not to be expected twenty years ago, and\nbefore the path-breaking work of the American scholar Lewis Morgan.\nFreeman's outlook was confined to the Aryan domain; but he did not\nattempt more than he knew. His task was conceived with so clear a\nconsciousness of his limitations, and every point was so richly\nillustrated, that the \"Comparative Politics\" remains one of his most\nuseful and charming books.\n\nThe other work calling for especial mention is \"The Historical Geography\nof Europe,\" published in 1880. Its object was \"to trace out the extent\nof territory which the different states and nations of Europe have held\nat different times in the world's history; to mark the different\nboundaries which the same country has had, and the different meanings in\nwhich the same name has been used.\" Such work is of great and\nfundamental importance, because men are perpetually making grotesque\nmistakes through ignorance or forgetfulness of the changes which have\noccurred on the map; as, for example, when somebody speaks of Lyons in\nthe twelfth century as a French city, or supposes that Charles the Bold\ninvaded Swiss territory. Historical writings fairly swarm with blunders\nbased upon unconscious errors of this sort, and nowhere did Freeman do\nbetter service than in pointing them out on every possible occasion. No\nwriter has so effectively warned the historical student against that\nbesetting sin of \"bondage to the modern map.\" His exposition of\nhistorical geography is a book of purest gold, and no serious student of\nhistory can safely neglect it.\n\nIn 1881 Mr. Freeman visited the United States, and gave lectures on \"The\nEnglish People in its Three Homes\" and \"The Practical Bearings of\nEuropean History,\" which were afterward published in a volume. After\nreturning home he published \"Some Impressions of the United States\"\n(1883), a very entertaining book because of the author's ingrained habit\nof comparing and discriminating social phenomena upon so wide a scale.\nGauls and Illyrians, Wessex and Achaia, come in to point each a moral,\nand show how to this great historian the whole European past was almost\nas much a present and living reality as the incidents occurring before\nhis eyes.\n\nIn the same year, 1883, Freeman published his \"English Towns and\nDistricts,\" a series of addresses and sketches in which he had from time\nto time embodied the results of his antiquarian and architectural\nstudies in many parts of England and Wales. It is a book of rare\nfascination as illustrating how largely national history is made up of\nlocal history, and how it is impossible to understand the former\ncorrectly without paying much attention to the latter. In further\nillustration of the same point, Freeman projected the well-known series\nof monographs on \"Historic Towns,\" to which he himself contributed the\nopening volume, on \"Exeter\" (1886).\n\nHaving been called to the Regius Professorship at Oxford in 1884,\nFreeman's next publications were university lectures on \"Methods of\nHistorical Study,\" \"The Chief Periods of European History,\" \"Fifty Years\nof European History,\" \"Teutonic Conquest in Gaul and Britain,\" \"Greater\nGreece and Greater Britain,\" and \"George Washington the Expander of\nEngland\" (1886-88). Meanwhile, the colossal work on \"Sicily\" was rapidly\nassuming its final shape. This topic obviously touched upon Freeman's\nother two chief topics at two points. Ancient Sicily was part of that\nGreek world which he had so thoroughly studied in connection with the\nbeginnings of federal government. Medi\u00e6val Sicily was one of the most\nimportant of the Norman's fields of activity. But the thought of writing\nthe history of that fateful island did not come to Freeman as an\nafterthought suggested by his other two great works. On the contrary,\nthe conception of the historic position of Sicily was among the first\nthat stimulated his philosophic mind to undertake comprehensive studies.\nThe contact between the Aryan and Semitic civilizations along the coasts\nof the Mediterranean is surely the most interesting topic in the history\nof mankind, as the reader will at once admit when he reflects that it\ninvolves the origin and rise of Christianity. But, restricting ourselves\nto the political aspects of the subject, how full of dramatic grandeur\nit is! How stirring were the scenes of which Sicily has been the\ntheatre! There struggled Carthage, first against Greek, and then against\nRoman; and in later times the conflict was renewed between\nArabic-speaking Mussulmans and Greek-speaking Christians, until the\nNorman came to assert his sway over both, and to loosen the clutch of\nthe Saracen upon the centre of the Mediterranean world. The theme, in\nits manifold bearings, was worthy of Freeman, and he was worthy of it.\nHis design was to start with the earliest times in which Sicily is known\nto history, and to carry on the narrative as far as the death of the\nEmperor Frederick II. and the final overthrow of the Hohenstaufen\ndynasty. The scheme lay ripening in his mind for nearly half a century,\nand its consummation was begun with characteristic swiftness and vigour.\nTwo noble volumes were published in 1891, and the third was out of the\nauthor's hands by the end of last January. But for a death most\nlamentably sudden and premature there was no reason why the whole task\nshould not have been soon accomplished. The author seems to have fallen\na victim to his superabundant zeal and energy. He had always been a\ntraveller, visiting in person the scenes of his narratives, narrowly\nscrutinizing each locality with the eye of an antiquarian, exploring\nbattlefields and making drawings of churches and castles, running from\none end of Europe to the other to verify some mooted point. It was, I\nbelieve, on some such expedition as this that he found himself, last\nMarch, at Alicante, where an attack of smallpox suddenly ended his life.\n\nTo the faithful students of his works the tidings of Freeman's death\nmust have come like the news of the loss of a personal friend. To those\nwho enjoyed his friendship even in a slight way the sense of loss was\nkeen, for he was a very lovable man. Some people, indeed, seem to think\nof him as a gruff and growling pedant, ever on the lookout for some\nculprit to chastise; but, while not without some basis, this notion is\nfar from the truth. Freeman's conception of the duty of a historian was\na high one, and he lived up to it. He had a holy horror of slovenly and\ninaccurate work; pretentious sciolism was something that he could not\nendure, and he knew how easy it is to press garbled or misunderstood\nhistory into the service of corrupt politics. He found the minds of\nEnglish-speaking contemporaries full of queer notions of European\nhistory, especially as to the Middle Ages,--notions usually misty and\noften grotesquely wrong; and he did more than any other Englishman of\nour time to correct such errors and clear up men's minds. Such work\ncould not be done without attacking blunders and the propagators of\nblunders. Freeman's assaults were not infrequent, and they were apt to\nbe crushing; but they were made in the interests of historic truth, and\nthere were none too many of them. Like \"Mr. F.'s Aunt,\" the great\nhistorian did \"hate a fool;\" and it is clearly right that fools should\nbe silenced and made to know their place.\n\nNot only foolishness and inaccuracy did Freeman hate, but also tyranny,\nfraud, and social injustice, under whatever specious disguises they\nmight be veiled. In matters of right and wrong his perceptions were\nrather clouded. He never could be duped into admiring a charlatan like\nthe late Emperor of the French. Upon the Eastern Question he wielded a\nVarangian axe, and had his advice been heeded, the Commander of the\nFaithful would ere now have been sent back to Brusa, or beyond. But\nwhile in politics and in criticism he could hit hard, his disposition\nwas as tender and humane as Uncle Toby's. Eminently characteristic is\nthe discussion on fox-hunting which he carried on with Anthony Trollope\nsome years ago in the \"Fortnightly Review,\" in which he condemned that\ntime-honoured sport as intolerably cruel.\n\nMr. Freeman was very domestic in his habits. When not travelling, he was\nto be found in his country home, writing in his own library. When he was\nin the United States, it amused him to see people's surprise when told\nthat he did not live in a city, and did not spend his time deciphering\nmusty manuscripts in public libraries or archives. He used to say that,\neven in point of economy, he thought it better to dwell among pleasant\ngreen fields and to consult one's own books than to take long journeys\nor be stifled in dirty cities in order to consult other people's book.\nHis chief subjects of study favoured such a policy, for most of the\nsources of information on the eleventh century, as well as upon ancient\nGreece, are contained in printed volumes. Now and then he missed some\nlittle point upon which a manuscript might have helped him. But one\ncannot help wishing he might have stayed among the quiet fields of\nSomerset instead of taking that last fatal journey to Alicante.\n\nIt was chiefly with the political aspects of history that Freeman\nconcerned himself; not in the old-fashioned way, as a mere narrative of\nthe deeds of kings and cabinets, but in scientific fashion, as an\napplication of the comparative method to the various processes of\nnation-building. I do not mean that his narrative was subordinated to\nscientific exposition, but that it was informed and vitalized by the\nspirit and methods of science. In pure description Freeman was often\nexcellent; his account of the death of William Rufus, for example, is a\nmasterpiece of impressive narrative. In description and in argument\nalike Freeman usually confined his attention to political history,\nexcept when he dealt in his suggestive way with architecture and\narch\u00e6ology. To art in general, to the history of philosophy and of\nscientific ideas, to the development of literary expression, of manners\nand customs, of trade and the industrial arts, he devoted much less\nthought. I believe he did not fully approve of his friend Green's method\nof carrying along political, social, and literary topics abreast in his\n\"History of the English People.\" Few will doubt, however, that in this\nrespect Green's artistic grasp upon his subject was stronger than\nFreeman's.\n\nIt is some slight consolation for our bitter loss to know that many of\nthe great historian's books were in large part written long before he\nfelt the time to be ripe for completing and publishing them. Some of the\nunfinished portions may be brought toward completeness and edited by\nother hands. In this way I hope we may look for one or two more volumes\nof the \"Sicily,\" and perhaps for the second volume of the \"Federal\nGovernment,\" dealing with the Swiss and other German federations.\nProbably no other Englishman, and few other men anywhere in our time,\nknew anything like so much as Freeman about the history of Switzerland.\nI once or twice begged him to make haste and finish that volume, but\ndesisted; for it was evident that \"Sicily\" was absorbing him, and an\nauthor does not like to be pestered with advice to turn aside from the\nwork that is uppermost in his mind.\n\n_November, 1892._\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nCAMBRIDGE AS VILLAGE AND CITY[27]\n\n\nWe have met together this evening on one of those occasions, which keep\nrecurring, for communities as well as for individuals, when it is\ndesirable to take a retrospect of the past, to call attention to some of\nthe characteristic incidents in our history, to sum up the work we have\ndone and estimate the position we occupy in the world. As long as we\nretain the decimal numeration that is natural to ten-fingered creatures,\nwe shall encounter such moments at intervals of half centuries and\ncenturies, and happy are the communities that can meet them without\nshameful memories that shun the light of history; happy are the people\nthat can look back upon the work of their fathers and in their heart of\nhearts pronounce it good! What a blot it was upon the civic fame of\nevery Greek community that took part in putting out the brightest light\nof Hellas in the wicked Peloponnesian War! Can any right-minded Venetian\nlook without blushing at the bronze horses that surmount the stately\nportal of St. Mark's?--a perpetual memento of that black day when\nravening commercial jealousy decoyed an army of Crusaders to the\ndespoiling of the chief city of Christendom, and thus broke away the\nstrongest barrier in the path of the advancing Turk! What must the\ncitizen of Paris think to-day of cowardly massacres of unresisting\nprisoners, such as happened in 1418 and in 1792? Is there any dweller in\nBirmingham who would not gladly expunge from the past that summer\nevening which witnessed the burning of the house and library of Dr.\nPriestley? From such melancholy scenes, and from complicity in political\ncrime, our community, our neighbourhood, has been notably free. The\nannals of Massachusetts, during its existence of nearly three centuries,\nare written in a light that is sometimes dull or sombre, but very seldom\nlurid. In particular the career of Cambridge has been a placid one. We\ndo not find in it many things to startle us; but there is much that we\ncan approve, much upon which, without falling into the self-satisfied\nmood that is the surest index of narrowness and provincialism, we may\nlegitimately pride ourselves. In commemorating the fiftieth anniversary\nof the incorporation of Cambridge as a city, a retrospect of the half\ncentury is needful; but we shall find it pleasant to go farther back,\nand start with a glimpse of the beginnings of our town.\n\nI came near saying \"humble beginnings;\" it is a stock phrase, and\nperhaps savours of tautology, since beginnings are apt to be humble as\ncompared with long-matured results. But an adjective which better suits\nthe beginnings of our Cambridge is \"dignified.\" Circumstances of dignity\nattended the selection of this spot upon the bank of Charles River as\nthe site of a town, and there was something peculiarly dignified in the\ncircumstances of the change of vocation which determined the change in\nits name. The story is a very different one from that of the founding of\ntowns in the Old World, in the semi-barbarous times when the art of\nnation-making was in its infancy. In those earlier ages, it was only\nthrough prolonged warfare against enemies nearly equal in prowess and\nresources that a free political life could be maintained; and it was\nonly after numberless crude experiments that nations could be formed in\nwhich political rights could be efficiently preserved for the people.\nAll the training that such long ages of turbulence could impart had been\ngained by our forefathers in the Old World. To the founders of our\nCambridge it had come as a rich inheritance. They were not as the rough\nfollowers of Alaric or Hengist. They had profited by the work of Roman\ncivilization, with its vast and subtle nexus of legal and political\nideas. In the hands of their fathers had been woven the wonderful fabric\nof English law; they were familiar with parliamentary institutions; they\nhad been brought up in a country where the king's peace was better\npreserved than anywhere else in Europe, and where at the same time\nself-government was maintained in full vigour. They had profited,\nmoreover, by the scholastic learning of the Middle Ages and the Greek\nscholarship of the Renaissance; nor was the newly awakening spirit of\nscientific inquiry, visible in Galileo and Gilbert, lost upon their keen\nand inquisitive minds. These Puritans, heirs to what was strongest and\nbest in the world's culture, came to Massachusetts Bay in order to put\ninto practice a theory of civil government in which the interests both\nof liberty and of godliness seemed to them likely to be best subserved.\nThey came to plant the most advance civilization in the midst of a\nheathen wilderness, and thus the selection of a seat of government for\nthe new commonwealth was an affair of dignity and importance.\n\nHalf a dozen towns, including Boston, had already been begun, when it\nwas decided that a site upon the bank of Charles River, three or four\nmiles inland, would be most favourable for the capital of the Puritan\ncolony. It would be somewhat more defensible against a fleet than the\npeninsulas of Boston and Charlestown. The warships to be dreaded at that\nmoment were not so much those of any foreign power as those of King\nCharles himself; for none could tell that the grim clouds of civil war\nthen lowering upon the horizon of England and Scotland might not also\ndarken the coast of Massachusetts Bay. When the site was selected, on\nthe 28th of December, 1630, it was agreed that the governor, deputy\ngovernor, and all the Court of Assistants (except Endicott, already\nsettled at Salem) should build their houses here. Fortunately no name\nwas bestowed upon the new town. It was known simply as the New Town, and\nhere in the years before 1638 the General Court was several times\nassembled. During those seven years the number of Puritans in New\nEngland increased from about 1500 to nearly 20,000. It was also clear\nthat the King's troubles at home were likely to keep him from molesting\nMassachusetts. With the increased feeling of security, Boston came to be\npreferred as the seat of government, and only two of its members ever\nfulfilled the agreement to build their houses in the New Town.\n\nThe building of the New Town, however, furnished the occasion for\ndetermining at the outset what kind of government the Puritan\ncommonwealth should have. It was to be a walled town, for defence\nagainst frontier barbarism of the New World type; not the formidable\ndestructive power of an Attila or a Bayazet, but the feeble barbarism of\nthe red men and the Stone Age, so that a wall of masonry was not\nrequired, but a wooden palisade would do. In 1632 the Court of\nAssistants imposed a tax of \u00a360 for the purpose of building this\npalisade; but the men of Watertown refused to pay their share, on the\nground that they were not represented in the taxing body. The ensuing\ndiscussion resulted in the establishment of a House of Deputies, in\nwhich every town was represented. Henceforth the Court of Assistants\ntogether with the House of Deputies formed the General Court. There was\nno authority for such a representative body in the charter, which vested\nthe government in the Court of Assistants; but, as Hutchinson tells us,\nthe people assumed that the right to such representation was implied in\nthat clause of the charter which reserved to them the natural rights of\nEnglishmen. Thus the building of a wooden palisade from Ash Street to\nJarvis Field furnished the occasion for the first distinct assertion in\nthe New World of the principles that were to bear fruit in the\nindependence of the United States.\n\nBut the most interesting event in the history of the New Town before it\nbecame Cambridge was the brief sojourn of the Rev. Thomas Hooker and his\ncompany, from Braintree in England. In popular generalizations it is\ncustomary to allude to our Puritan forefathers as if they were all alike\nin their ways of thinking, whereas in reality it would be difficult to\npoint out any group of men and women among whom individualism has more\nstrongly flourished. Among the numberless differences of opinion and\npolicy, it was only a few--and mostly such as were related to vital\npolitical questions--that blazed up in acts of persecution. For the\ndisorganization wrought by Mrs. Hutchinson swift banishment seemed the\nonly available remedy; but slighter differences could be healed by a\npeaceful secession, which some people deprecated as the \"removal of a\ncandlestick.\" Such a secession was that of Hooker and his friends. The\ndifference between Hooker's ideal of government and Winthrop's has come\nto be recognized as in some measure foreshadowing the different\nconceptions of Jefferson and Hamilton in later days. But of controversy\nbetween the two eminent Puritans only slight traces are left. One act of\nomission on the part of the friendly seceders is more forcible than\nreams of argument: the founders of Connecticut did not see fit to limit\nthe suffrage by the qualification of church membership.\n\nThe removal of so many people to the banks of the Connecticut left in\nthe New Town only eleven families of those who had settled here before\n1635. But depopulation was prevented by the arrival of a new\ncongregation from England. There stands on our common a monument in\ncommemoration of John Bridge, who was for many years a selectman of\nCambridge, and dwelt beyond the western limits of the town, on or near\nthe site since famous as the headquarters of Washington and the home of\nLongfellow. This John Bridge, deacon of the First Church, was one of the\nearliest settlers of the New Town, and one of the eleven householders\nthat stayed behind, a connecting link between the old congregation of\nThomas Hooker and the new congregation of Thomas Shepard. The coming of\nthis eminent divine was undoubtedly an event of cardinal importance in\nthe history of our community, for in the Hutchinson controversy, which\nshook the little colony to its foundations, his zeal and vigilance in\nexposing heresy were conspicuously shown; and, if we may believe Cotton\nMather, it was this circumstance that led to the selection of the New\nTown as the site for the projected college. It was well for students of\ndivinity to sit under the preaching of such a man, and of such as he\nmight train up to succeed him. How vain were all such hopes of keeping\nthis New English Canaan free from heresy was shown when Henry Dunster,\nfirst president of the college, was censured by the magistrates and\ndismissed from office for disapproving of infant baptism!\n\nIn the great English universities at that time Royalism and Episcopacy\nprevailed at Oxford, while Puritanism more or less allied with\nRepublicanism was rife at Cambridge. Ever since the fourteenth century a\nsuperior flexibility in opinion had been observable in the eastern\ncounties, whence came so many of the people that founded New England.\nNot only Hooker and Shepard, but most of our clergy, among whom\nindividualism was so rife, were graduates of Cambridge. When it was\ndecided that the New Town was to be the home of our college, it was\nnatural for people to fall into the habit of calling it Cambridge; and\nthis name, so long enshrined already in their affections, already made\nillustrious by Erasmus and Fisher, by Latimer and Cranmer, by Burghley\nand Walsingham and the two Bacons, by Edmund Spenser and Ben\nJonson,--this name of such fame and dignity was adopted in 1638 by an\norder of the General Court. The map of the United States abounds in town\nnames taken at random from the Old World, often inappropriate and\nsometimes ludicrous from the incongruity of associations. The name of\nour city is connected by a legitimate bond of inheritance with that of\nthe beautiful city on the Cam. It was given in the thought that the work\nfor scholarship, for godliness, and for freedom, which had so long been\ncarried on in the older city, was to be continued in the younger. The\nname thus given was a pledge to posterity, and it has been worthily\nfulfilled.\n\nInto the history of the town of Cambridge during the two centuries after\nit received its name I do not propose to enter. But a glimpse of its\ngeneral appearance during the greater part of that period is needful, in\norder to give precision and the right sort of emphasis to the contrast\nwhich we see before us to-day. The Cambridge of those days was simply\nthe seat of the college, not yet developed into a university. Within the\nmemory of persons now living, Old Cambridge was commonly alluded to as\n\"the village.\" In the original laying out of the township we seem to\nsee a reminiscence of the ancient threefold partition into town mark,\narable mark, and common. The \"east gate,\" near the corner of Harvard and\nLinden streets, and the \"west gate,\" at the corner of Ash and Brattle,\nmarked the limits of the town in those directions. The town was at first\ncomprised between Harvard Street and the marshes which cut off approach\nto the river bank. Afterward, the \"West End,\" from Harvard Square to\nSparks Street, was gradually covered with homesteads. The common began,\nas now, hard by God's Acre, the venerable burying ground, and afforded\npasturage for the village cattle as far as Linn\u00e6an Street. The regions\nnow occupied by Cambridgeport and East Cambridge contained the arable\ndistrict with many farms, small and large, but everywhere salt marshes\nbordered the river, and much of the country was a wild woodland. The\ntale of wolves killed in Cambridge for the year 1696 was seventy-six,\nand a bear was seen roaming as late as 1754. It was a rough country\nwhich the British first encountered when they landed at Lechmere Point\nin 1775, on their night march to Lexington. Cambridge then turned its\nback toward Boston, to which the only approach was by a causeway and\nbridge at what we now call Boylston Street, and by this route the\ndistance was eight miles, as we still read upon the ancient milestone in\nGod's Acre. To complete our outline of the village, we must recall the\nprincipal public buildings. The meetinghouse, a little south of the site\nof Dane Hall, was used both as church and as townhouse until 1708, when\na building was erected in the middle of Harvard Square to serve for town\nmeetings and courts. A little eastward, near the \"east gate,\" stood the\nparsonage. The schoolhouse was behind the site of Holyoke House. The\njail stood on then west side of Winthrop Square, which was then an open\nmarket. Between this market and Harvard Square, in the sanded parlour of\nthe Blue Anchor Tavern, then selectmen held their meetings; and on the\ncorner of the street which still bears the name of Harvard's first\npresident was something rarely to be seen in so small a village, the\nprinting press now known as the University Press, established in\n1639,--the only one in English America until Boston followed the example\nin 1676.\n\nUntil the beginning of the present century these outlines of Cambridge\nremained with but little change, save for the building of noble houses\non spacious estates toward Mount Auburn in one direction, and upon Dana\nHill in the other. The occupants of many of these estates were members\nof the Church of England, and the building of Christ Church in 1759 was\none marked symptom of the change that was creeping over the little\nPuritan community. It was a change toward somewhat wider views of life,\nand toward the softening of old animosities. In contrast with the age in\nwhich we live the whole eighteenth century in New England seems a slow\nand quiet time, when the public pulse beat more languidly, or at any\nrate less feverishly, than now. The people of New England led a\ncomparatively isolated life.\n\nThought in our college town did not keep pace with European centres of\nthought, as it does in our day. There was less hospitality toward\nforeign ideas. Few people visited Europe. Life in New England was thrown\nupon its own resources, and this was in great measure true of Cambridge\nin the days when it was eight miles from Boston, and indefinitely remote\nfrom the mother country. One of the surest results of social isolation\nis the acquirement of peculiarities of speech, often shown in the\nretaining of archaisms which fashionable language had dropped. That\nquaint Yankee dialect, of which Hosea Biglow says that,\n\n      \"For puttin' in a downright lick\n        'Twixt Humbug's eyes, ther's few can metch it,\n      An' then it helves my thoughts ez slick\n        Ez stret-grained hickory doos a hetchet,\"--\n\nthat dialect so sweet to the ears of every true child of New England may\nstill be heard, if we go to seek it; but in Lowell's boyhood it must\nhave been a familiar sound in the neighbourhood of Elmwood.\n\nBut the work done in this rustic college community, if done within\nsomewhat narrow horizons, was eminently a widening and liberalizing\nwork. The seeds of the nineteenth century were germinating in the\neighteenth. Two or three indications must suffice, out of many that\nmight be cited. In 1669 there was a schism in the First Parish of\nBoston, brought about by an attempt to revise the conditions of church\nmembership, in order to obviate some of the difficulties arising from\nthe restriction of the suffrage to church members, and the founding of\nthe Old South Church by the more liberal party was a result of this\nschism. One hundred and sixty years later, in 1829, there was a schism\nin the First Parish of Cambridge, which resulted in the founding of the\nShepard Church by the more conservative party. The questions at issue\nbetween the two parties were the questions that divide Unitarian\ntheology from Trinitarian, and the distance between the kind of\ninterests at stake in the earlier controversy and in the later may serve\nas a fair measure of the progress which the mind of Massachusetts had\nbeen making during that interval of a hundred and sixty years. In all\nthat time, the chief training school for the ministers by whom the\nspeculative minds of Massachusetts were stimulated and guided was\nHarvard College. But it was here, too, that men eminent in civic life\nwere trained; and among the various illustrations of the type thus\nnurtured may be cited Samuel Adams and Thomas Hutchinson, foemen worthy\nof one another, Warren and Hancock, Jonathan Trumbull and John Adams. So\nfar as New England was concerned, the chief work in bringing on the\nRevolution was done by graduates of Harvard. In the convention which\nframed our Federal Constitution, three important delegates were the\nHarvard men, Gerry, Strong, and King; and in this connection we cannot\nfail to recall names so closely associated with our national beginnings\nas Timothy Pickering and Fisher Ames, nor can we omit the noble line of\njurists from Parsons to Story, and so on to Curtis, whom so many of us\nwell remember; or, going back to that Massachusetts convention, of which\nthe work is commemorated in the name of Federal Street, we may single\nout for mention the great minister and statesman, type of what is best\nin Puritanism, Samuel West, of New Bedford. Such names speak for the\nkind of quiet, unobtrusive work that was going on in Cambridge during\nthose two centuries of rural existence. Such strengthening and unfolding\nof the spirit is the only work that is truly immortal. In a town like\nours the material relics of the past are inspiring, and it is right that\nwe should do our best to preserve them; but they are perishable. The\ngambrel-roofed house from the door of which President Langdon asked\nGod's blessing upon the men that were starting for Bunker Hill, in later\ndays the birthplace and homestead of our beloved Autocrat, has vanished\nfrom the scene; the venerable elm under which Washington drew the sword\nin defence of American liberty is slowly dying, year by year. But for\nthe spiritual achievement that has marked the career of our community\nthere is no death, and they that have turned many to righteousness shall\nshine in our firmament as the stars forever and ever.\n\nIn contrasting the Cambridge of the nineteenth with that of the two\npreceding centuries, the first fact which strikes our attention is the\nincrease in the rate of growth. In 1680 the population of Cambridge\nseems to have been about 850, and the graduating class for that year\nnumbered five. In 1793 the population--not counting the parishes that\nhave since become Brighton and Arlington--was about 1200, and there was\na graduating class of 38. Thus in more than a century the population\nhad increased barely fifty per cent. In 1793 there were only four houses\neast of Dana Street, but that year witnessed an event of cardinal\nimportance, the opening of West Boston Bridge. The distance between\nBoston and Old Cambridge was thus reduced from eight miles to three, and\na direct avenue was opened between the interior of Middlesex County and\nthe Boston markets. The effect was shown in doubling the population of\nCambridge by the year 1809, when another bridge was completed from\nLechmere Point to the north end of Boston. These were toll bridges, in\nthe hands of private corporations, and their success led to further\nbridges,--the one at River Street in 1811, the one at Western Avenue in\n1825, and Brookline Bridge so lately as 1850. The principal\nthoroughfares south and east of Old Cambridge were built as highways\nconnecting with these bridges: thus River Street and Western Avenue were\ntributary to West Boston Bridge, and to that point the Concord Turnpike\nwas prolonged by Broadway, the Middlesex Turnpike by Hampshire Street,\nand the Medford Road by Webster Avenue; while Cambridge Street,\nintersecting these avenues, formed a direct thoroughfare from the\nConcord and Watertown roads to the northern part of Boston. The\ncompletion of these important works led to projects for filling up the\nmarshes and establishing docks in rivalry of Boston,--plans but very\nslightly realized before circumstances essentially changed them.\n\nIn this way, Cambridge, which had hitherto faced the Brighton mainland,\nturned its face toward the Boston peninsula, and two new villages began\nto grow up at \"the Port\" and \"the Point,\" otherwise Cambridgeport and\nEast Cambridge. It was not long before the new villages began in some\nways to assert rivalry with the old one. The corporation which owned the\nbridge and large tracts of land at Lechmere Point naturally wished to\nincrease the value of its real estate. Middlesex County needed a new\ncourthouse and jail. In 1757 a new courthouse had been built on the site\nof Lyceum Hall, but in 1813 there was a need for something better;\nwhereupon the Lechmere Point Corporation forthwith built a courthouse\nand jail in East Cambridge, and presented them, with the ground on which\nthey stood, to the county. In 1818, a lot of land in the Port, bounded\nby Harvard, Prospect, Austin, and Norfolk streets, was appropriated for\na poorhouse. Soon afterward it was proposed to inclose our\ncommon,--which with the lapse of time had shrunk to about its present\nsize,--and to convert it from a grazing ground into an ornamental park.\nThe scheme met with vehement opposition, and the town meetings in this\ngrowing community suddenly became so large that the old courthouse in\nHarvard Square would not hold them. Accordingly, a bigger townhouse was\nbuilt in 1832 on the eastern part of the poorhouse lot, and thus was the\ncivic centre removed from Old Cambridge.\n\nThis event served to emphasize the state of things which had been\ngrowing up with increasing rapidity since the beginning of the century.\nInstead of a single village, with a single circle of interests, there\nwere now three villages, with interests diverse and sometimes\nconflicting as regards the expending of public money, so that feelings\nof sectional antagonism were developed.\n\nIn New England history, the usual remedy for such a state of things has\nbeen what might be called \"spontaneous fission.\" The overgrown town\nwould divide into three, and the segments would go on pouting at each\nother as independent neighbours. We need not be surprised to learn that\nin 1842 the people of Old Cambridge petitioned to be set off as a\nseparate town; but this attempt was successfully opposed, with the\nresult that in 1846 a city government was adopted. In that year the\npopulation had reached 13,000, and was approaching the point at which\ntown meetings become unmanageable from sheer bulk. For small\ncommunities, Thomas Jefferson was probably right in holding that the\ntown meeting is the best form of government ever devised by man. It was\ncertainly the form best loved in New England down to 1822, when Boston,\nwith its population of 40,000, reluctantly gave it up, and adopted a\nrepresentative government instead. The example of Boston was followed in\n1836 by Salem and Lowell, and next in 1846 by Roxbury and Cambridge.\nFrom that time forth the making of cities went on more rapidly. It was\nthe beginning of a period of urban development, the end of which we\ncannot as yet even dimly foresee. This unprecedented growth of cities is\nsometimes spoken of as peculiarly American, but it is indeed not less\nremarkable in Europe, and it extends over the world so far as the\ninfluence of railroad and telegraph extends. The influence of these\nagencies of communication serves to diffuse over wide areas the effects\nwrought by machinery at different centres of production. With increased\ndemand for human energy, the earth's power of sustaining human life has\nvastly increased, and there is a strong tendency to congregate about\ncentres of production and exchange. In 1846 there were but five cities\nin the United States with a population exceeding 100,000; New York had\nnot yet reached half a million. To-day New York is approaching the\ntwo-million mark, three other cities[28] have passed the million, and\nnot less than thirty have passed the hundred-thousand. During this half\ncentury the 13,000 of Cambridge have increased to more than 80,000. The\nCambridge of to-day contains as many people as the Boston of sixty years\nago.\n\nThe causes of this growth of Cambridge might be treated, had we space\nfor it, under three heads. Our city has grown because of its proximity\nto Boston; it has grown by reason of its flourishing manufactures; and\nit has grown with the growth of the University. That Cambridge should\nhave shared in the general prosperity of this whole suburban region is\nbut natural. But persons at a distance are apt to show surprise when we\nspeak of it as a manufacturing city. This feature in our development\nbelongs to the period subsequent to 1846, and has much to do with the\ngrowth of the eastern portions of Cambridge, where the combined\nfacilities for railroad and water communication have been peculiarly\nfavourable to manufactures. In the early part of this century, the\nglassworks at East Cambridge, which have since departed, were somewhat\nfamous, considerable manufactures of soap and leather had been begun,\nand cars and wagons were made here. At the present time some of our\nchief manufactures are of engine boilers and various kinds of machinery,\nof which the annual product exceeds $2,000,000. Among the industries\nwhich produce in yearly value more than $1,000,000 may be mentioned\nprinting and publishing, musical instruments (especially pianos and\norgans), furniture, clothing, carpenter's work, soap and candles,\nbiscuit-baking; while among those that produce $500,000 or more are\ncarriage-making and wheelwright's work, plumbing and plumber's\nmaterials, bricks and tiles, and confectionery. Not only our own new\nHarvard Bridge, but most of the steel railway bridges in New England,\nhave been built in Cambridge. We supply a considerable part of the world\nwith hydraulic engines; the United States Navy comes here for its pumps,\nand our pumping machines may be seen at work in Honolulu, in Sydney, in\nSt. Petersburg. In the dimensions of its pork-packing industry,\nCambridge comes next after Chicago and Kansas City. In 1842 all the\nfish-netting used in America was made in England; to-day it is chiefly\nmade in East Cambridge, which also furnishes the twine prized by\ndisciples of Izaak Walton in many parts of the world. Last year the\npotteries on Walden Street turned out seven million flower-pots. Such\nfacts as these bear witness to the unusual facilities of our city, where\ncoal can be taken and freight can be shipped at the very door of the\nfactory, where taxes and insurance are not burdensome and the fire\ndepartment is unsurpassed for efficiency, where skilled labour is easy\nto get because good workmen find life comfortable and attractive, with\nexcellent sanitary conditions and unrivalled means of free education,\neven to the Latin School and the Manual Training School. It is well\nsaid, in one of the reports in our semi-centennial volume, that \"to\nCambridge herself, as much as to any other one thing, is the success of\nall her manufacturing enterprises due, and all agree in acknowledging\nit.\"\n\nAmong Cambridge industries, two may be mentioned as especially\ncharacteristic and famous. Of the printing establishments now existing,\nnot many can be more venerable than our University Press, of which we\nhave spoken as beginning in 1639. Of the wise and genial founder of the\nRiverside Press--who once was mayor of our city, and whose memory we\nlove and revere--it may be said that few men of recent times have had a\nhigher conception of bookmaking as one of the fine arts. These two\ninstitutions have set a lofty standard for the Athen\u00e6um Press, which has\nlately come to bear them company. The past half century has seen\nCambridge come into the foremost rank among the few publishing centres\nof the world, where books are printed with faultless accuracy and\nartistic taste.\n\nThe visitor to Cambridge from Brookline, as he leaves the bridge at\nBrookline Street, comes upon a pleasant dwelling house, with a private\nobservatory, and hard by it a plain brick building. That is the shop of\nAlvan Clark & Sons, who have carried the art of telescope-making to a\nheight never reached before. There have been made the most powerful\nrefracting telescopes in the world, and one of the firm, more than\nthirty years ago, himself acquired fame as an astronomer for his\ndiscovery of the companion of Sirius.\n\nFrom this quiet nook in the Port one's thoughts naturally turn to the\nHarvard Observatory, which in those days the two Bonds made famous for\ntheir accurate methods of research, their discoveries relating to the\nplanet Saturn, and their share in the application of photography to\ntelescopic observation. The honourable position then taken by the\nObservatory has been since maintained; but as we note this, we find\nourselves brought to the consideration of the University and its last\nhalf century of growth. And here my remarks cannot help taking the form,\nto some extent, of personal reminiscences.\n\nWhen I first came to Old Cambridge, in 1860, it still had much of the\nvillage look, which it has since been fast losing. Pretty much all the\nspaces now covered by street after street of wooden \"Queen Anne\" houses,\nin such proximity as to make one instinctively look for the whereabouts\nof the nearest fire alarm, were then open, smiling fields. The old house\nwhere the Shepard Church stands was rural enough for the Berkshire\nHills; and on the site of Austin Hall, in the doorway of a homestead\nbuilt in 1710, one might pause for a cosy chat with the venerable and\ncourtly Royal Morse, whose personal recollections went back into the\neighteenth century. The trees on the common were the merest saplings,\nbut an elm of mighty sweep, whose loss one must regret, shaded the whole\nof Harvard Square. Horse cars came and went on week days, but on Sunday\nhe who would visit Boston must either walk or take an omnibus, in which\nriding was a penance severe enough to atone for the sin. \"Blue Laws\" in\nthe University were in full force; the student who spent his Sundays at\nhome in Boston must bring out a certificate showing that he had attended\ndivine service twice; no discretion was allowed the parents.\n\nCollege athletics were in their infancy, as the little gymnasium still\nstanding serves to remind us. There were rowing matches, but baseball\nhad not come upon the scene, and football had just been summarily\nsuppressed. The first college exercise in which I took part was the\nburial of the football, with solemn rites, in a corner of this Delta. On\nClass Day there was no need for closing the yard; there was room enough\nfor all, and groups of youths and maidens in light summer dress, dancing\non the green before Holworthy, made a charming picture, like that of an\nancient May Day in merry England, save for the broiling heat.\n\nThe examination days which followed were more searching than at other\nAmerican colleges. The courses of study were on the whole better\narranged than elsewhere, but during the first half of the course\neverything was prescribed, and in the last half the elective system\nplayed but a subordinate part. The system of examinations did not extend\nto the Law School, where a simple residence of three terms entitled a\nstudent to receive the bachelor's degree. The library at Gore Hall had\nless than one fifth of its present volumes, with no catalogue accessible\nto the public, while one small table accommodated all the readers. For\nlaboratory work the facilities were meagre, and very little was done. We\nall studied a book of chemistry; how many of us ever really looked at\nsuch things as manganese or antimony? For the student of biology the\nprovision was better, for the Botanic Garden was very helpful, and in\nthe autumn of 1860 was opened the first section of our glorious Museum\nof Comparative Zo\u00f6logy.\n\nHere one is naturally led to the reflection that in that day of small\nthings, as some might call it, there were spiritual influences operative\nat Harvard which more than made up for shortcomings in material\nequipment. There is a kind of human presence, all too rare in this\nworld, which is in itself a stimulus and an education worth more than\nall the scholastic artifices that the wit of man has devised; for in the\nmere contact with it one's mind is trained and widened as if by\nenchantment. Such a human presence in Cambridge was Louis Agassiz. Can\none ever forget that beaming face as he used to come strolling across\nthe yard, with lighted cigar, in serene obliviousness of the University\nstatutes? Scarcely had one passed him, when one might exchange a\npleasant word with Asa Gray, or descry in some arching vista the\npicturesque figures of Sophocles or Peirce, or, turning up Brattle\nStreet, encounter, with a thrill of pleasure not untinged with awe,\nLongfellow and Lowell walking side by side. In such wise are the streets\nand lawns of our city hallowed by the human presences that once graced\nthem; and few are the things to be had for which one would exchange the\nmemories of those days!\n\nMy class of 1863, with 120 members, was the largest that had been\ngraduated here. It would have been larger but for the Civil War, and a\nperiod followed with classes of less than 100 members,--a sad commentary\nupon the times. Boundless possibilities of valuable achievement must be\nsacrificed to secure the supreme end, that the commonwealth should not\nsuffer harm. How nobly Harvard responded to the demand is recorded upon\nthe solemn tablets in this Memorial Hall. For those who are inclined to\ndally with the thought that war is something that may be undertaken\nlightly and with frolicsome heart, this sacred precinct and the monument\non yonder common have their lesson that may well be pondered.\n\nThe vast growth of our country since the Civil War has been attended\nwith the creation of new universities and the enlargement of the old\nones to such an extent as to show that the demand for higher education\nmore than keeps pace with the increase of population. The last\ngraduating class in our Quinquennial Catalogue numbered 350 members. The\nUniversity contains more than 3000 students.[29] The increase in number\nof instructors, in courses of instruction, in laboratories and museums,\nin facilities and appliances of every sort, has wrought changes like\nthose in a fairy tale. The Annual Catalogue is getting to be as\nmultifarious as Bradshaws Guide, and a trained intellect is required to\nread it. The little college of half a century ago has bloomed forth as\none of the worlds foremost universities. Such things can come from great\nopportunities wielded and made the most of by clearness of vision and\nadministrative capacity.\n\nTo this growth of the University must be added the most happy inception\nand growth of Radcliffe College, marking as it does the maturing of a\nnew era in the education of women. We may well wish for Radcliffe a\ncareer as noble and as useful as that of Harvard, and I doubt not that\nsuch is in store for it. A word must be said of the Episcopal\nTheological School, based upon ideas as sound and broad as Christianity;\nand of the New-Church Theological School, more recently founded. We must\nhail such indications of the tendency toward making our Cambridge the\ncentre for the untrammelled study of the most vital problems that can\noccupy the human mind.\n\nBut the day we are celebrating is a civic, not a university occasion,\nand I must dwell no longer upon academic themes. We are signalizing the\nanniversary of the change which we once made from government by town\nmeeting to city government. Have we a good reason for celebrating that\nchange? Has our career as a civic community been worthy of approval? In\nanswering this question, I shall not undertake to sum up the story of\nour public schools and library; our hospital and charity organizations;\nthe excellent and harmonious work of our churches, Protestant and\nCatholic; our Prospect Union, warmly to be commended; our arrangements\nfor water supply and sewage; and our admirable park system (in which we\nmay express a hope that Elmwood will be included). This interesting and\nsuggestive story may be read in the semi-centennial volume, \"The\nCambridge of Eighteen Hundred and Ninety-Six,\" just issued from the\nRiverside Press. It is an enlivening story of progress, but like every\nstory it has a moral, and I am going to pass over details and make\nstraight for that moral. Americans are a bragging race because they have\nenjoyed immense opportunities, and are apt to forget that the true merit\nlies, not in the opportunity, but in the use we make of it. Much\ngratifying progress can be achieved in spite of the worst sort of\nblundering and sinning on the part of governments. The greater part,\nindeed, of human progress within historic times has been thus achieved.\nA good deal of the progress of which Americans are wont to boast has\nbeen thus achieved. Now the moral of our story is closely concerned with\nthe fact that in the city of Cambridge such has not been the case. Our\ncity government has from the outset been upright, intelligent, and\nhelpful. We are satisfied with it. We do not wish to change it. In this\nrespect the experience of Cambridge is very different from that of many\nother American cities. The government of our cities is acknowledged to\nbe a problem of rare difficulty, so that it has begun to seem a natural\nline of promotion for a successful mayor to elect him governor, and then\nto send him to the White House! In some cities one finds people inclined\nto give up the problem as insoluble. I was lately assured by a\ngentleman in a city which I will not name, but more than a thousand\nmiles from here, that the only cure for the accumulated wrongs of that\ncommunity would be an occasional _coup d'\u00e9tat_, with the massacre of all\nthe city officers. So the last word of our boasted progress, when it\ncomes to municipal government, is declared to be the Oriental idea of\n\"despotism tempered by assassination\"! Now to what cause or causes are\nwe to ascribe the contrast between Cambridge and the cities that are so\nwretchedly governed? The answer is, that in Cambridge we keep city\ngovernment clear of politics, we do not mix up municipal questions with\nnational questions. If I may repeat what I have said elsewhere, \"since\nthe object of a municipal election is simply to secure an upright and\nefficient municipal government, to elect a city magistrate because he is\na Republican or a Democrat is about as sensible as to elect him because\nhe believes in hom\u0153opathy or has a taste for chrysanthemums.\" Upon\nthis plain and obvious principle of common sense our city has acted, on\nthe whole with remarkable success, during its half century of municipal\nexistence. The results we see all about us, and the example may be\ncommended as an object lesson to all who are interested in the most\nvital work that can occupy the mind of an American,--the work of\nelevating the moral tone of public life. For it is neither wealth, nor\npower, nor cunning, nor craft that exalts a nation, but righteousness\nand the fear of the Lord.\n\n_May, 1896._\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nA HARVEST OF IRISH FOLK-LORE\n\n\nSince the days when Castr\u00e8n made his arduous journeys of linguistic\nexploration in Siberia, or when the brothers Grimm collected their rich\ntreasures of folk-lore from the lips of German peasants, an active quest\nof vocables and myths has been conducted with much zeal and energy in\nnearly all parts of the world. We have tales, proverbs, fragments of\nverse, superstitious beliefs and usages, from Greenland, from the\nsouthern Pacific, from the mountaineers of Thibet and the freedmen upon\nGeorgia plantations. We follow astute Reynard to the land of the\nHottentots, and find the ubiquitous Jack planting his beanstalk among\nthe Dog-Rib Indians. At the same time, the nooks and corners of Europe\nhave been ransacked with bountiful results; so that whereas our\ngrandfathers, in speculating about the opinions and mental habits of\npeople in low stages of culture, were dealing with a subject about which\nthey knew almost nothing, on the other hand, our chief difficulty\nto-day is in shaping and managing the enormous mass of data which keen\nand patient inquirers have collected. It is well that this work has been\ncarried so far in our time, for modern habits of thought are fast\nexterminating the Old World fancies. Railroad, newspaper, and\ntelegraphic bulletin of prices are carrying everything before them. The\npeasant's quaint dialect and his fascinating myth tales are disappearing\nalong with his picturesque dress; and savages, such of them as do not\nsuccumb to fire-water, are fast taking on the airs and manners of\ncivilized folk. It is high time to be gathering in all the primitive\nlore we can find, before the men and women in whose minds it is still a\nliving reality have all passed from the scene.\n\nThe collection of Irish myth stories lately published by Mr. Jeremiah\nCurtin[30] is the result of a myth-hunting visit which the author made\nin Ireland in 1887, and is one of the most interesting and valuable\ncontributions to the study of folk-lore that have been made for many\nyears. \"All the tales in my collection,\" says Mr. Curtin, \"of which\nthose printed in this volume form but a part, were taken down from the\nmouths of men who, with one or two exceptions, spoke only Gaelic, or but\nlittle English, and that imperfectly. These men belong to a group of\npersons all of whom are well advanced in years, and some very old; with\nthem will pass away the majority of the story-tellers of Ireland, unless\nnew interest in the ancient language and lore of the country is roused.\n\n\"For years previous to my visit of 1887 I was not without hope of\nfinding some myth tales in a good state of preservation. I was led to\nentertain this hope by indications in the few Irish stories already\npublished, and by certain tales and beliefs that I had taken down myself\nfrom old Irish persons in the United States. Still, during the earlier\npart of my visit in Ireland, I was greatly afraid that the best myth\nmaterials had perished. Inquiries as to who might be in possession of\nthese old stories seemed fruitless for a considerable time. The persons\nwhom I met that were capable of reading the Gaelic language had never\ncollected stories, and could refer only in a general way to the\ndistricts in which the ancient language was still living. All that was\nleft was to seek out the old people for whom Gaelic is the every-day\nspeech, and trust to fortune to find the story-tellers.\"\n\nThus Mr. Curtin was led to explore the counties of Kerry, Galway, and\nDonegal. \"Comforting myself with the Russian proverb that 'game runs to\nmeet the hunter,' I set out on my pilgrimage, giving more prominence to\nthe study and investigation of Gaelic, which, though one of the two\nobjects of my visit, was not the first. In this way I thought to come\nmore surely upon men who had myth tales in their minds than if I went\ndirectly seeking for them. I was not disappointed, for in all my\njourneyings I did not meet a single person who knew a myth tale or an\nold story who was not fond of Gaelic, and specially expert in the use of\nit, while I found very few story-tellers from whom a myth tale could be\nobtained unless in the Gaelic language; and in no case have I found a\nstory in the possession of a man or woman who knew only English.\"\n\nThere is something so interesting in this fact, and so pathetic in the\nexplanation of it, that we are tempted to quote further: \"Since all\nmental training in Ireland is directed by powers both foreign and\nhostile to everything Gaelic, the moment a man leaves the sphere of that\nclass which uses Gaelic as an every-day language, and which clings to\nthe ancient ideas of the people, everything which he left behind seems\nto him valueless, senseless, and vulgar; consequently he takes no care\nto retain it, either in whole or in part. Hence the clean sweep of myth\ntales in one part of the country,--the greater part, occupied by a\nmajority of the people; while they are still preserved in other and\nremoter districts, inhabited by men who, for the scholar and the student\nof mankind, are by far the most interesting in Ireland.\"\n\nThe fate of the Gaelic language has, indeed, been peculiarly sad. In\nvarious parts of Europe, and especially among the western Slavs, the\nnative tongues have been to some extent displaced by the speech of\nconquering peoples; yet it is only in Erin that, within modern times, a\n\"language of Aryan stock has been driven first from public use, and then\ndropped from the worship of God and the life of the fireside.\" Hence,\nwhile in many parts of Europe the ancient tales live on, often with\ntheir incidents more or less dislocated and their significance quite\nblurred, on the other hand, in English-speaking Ireland they have been\ncleared away \"as a forest is felled by the axe.\"\n\nNevertheless, in the regions where Irish myths have been preserved, they\nhave been remarkably well preserved, and bear unmistakable marks of\ntheir vast antiquity. One very noticeable feature in these myths is the\ndefiniteness and precision of detail with which the personages and their\nfields of action are brought before us. This is a characteristic of\nmythologies which are, comparatively speaking, intact; and, as Mr.\nCurtin observes, it is to be seen in the myths of the American Indians.\nAs long as a mythology remains intact it \"puts its imprint on the whole\nregion to which it belongs.\" Every rock, every spring, is the scene of\nsome definite incident; every hill has its mythical people, who are as\nreal to the narrators as the flesh-and-blood population which one finds\nthere. In this whole world of belief and sentiment there is the vigour\nof fresh life, and the country is literally enchanted ground. But when,\nthrough the invasion of alien peoples, there is a mingling and conflict\nof sacred stories, and new groups of ideas and associations have partly\ndisplaced the old ones, so that only the argument or general statement\nof the ancient myth is retained, and perhaps even that but partially,\nthen \"all precision and details with reference to persons and places\nvanish; they become indefinite; are in some kingdom, some\nplace,--nowhere in particular.\" There is this vagueness in the\nfolk-tales of eastern and central Europe as contrasted with those of\nIreland. \"Where there was or where there was not,\" says the Magyar,\n\"there was in the world;\" or, if the Russian hero goes anywhere, it is\nsimply across forty-nine kingdoms, etc.; \"but in the Irish tales he is\nalways a person of known condition in a specified place\" (for example,\n\"There was a blacksmith in Dunkenealy, beyond Killybegs,\" etc., page\n244).\n\nAs to the antiquity and the primitive character of Mr. Curtin's stories\nan experienced observer can entertain no doubt. His book is certainly\nthe most considerable achievement in the field of Gaelic mythology since\nthe publication, thirty years ago, of Campbell's \"Tales of the West\nHighlands;\" and it does for the folk-lore of Ireland what Asbj\u00f6rnsen and\nMoe's collection (the English translation of which is commonly, and with\nsome injustice, known by the name of the translator as Dasent's \"Norse\nTales\") did for the folk-lore of Norway. This is, of course, very high\npraise, but we do not believe it will be called extravagant by any\ncompetent scholar who reads Mr. Curtin's book. The stories have\nevidently been reduced to writing with most scrupulous and loving\nfidelity. In turning the Gaelic into English some of the characteristic\nHibernian phrases and constructions of our language have been employed,\nand this has been done with such perfect good taste that the effect upon\nthe ear is like that of a refined and delicate brogue.\n\nThe mythical material in the stories is largely that with which the\nstudent of Aryan folk-lore is familiar. We have variants of Cinderella,\nthe swan maidens, the giant who had no heart in his body, the cloak of\ndarkness, the sword of light, the magic steed which overtakes the wind\nbefore and outstrips the wind behind; the pot of plenty, from which one\nmay eat forever, and the cup that is never drained; the hero who\nperforms impossible tasks, and wooes maidens whose beauty hardly\nrelieves their treacherous cruelty: \"I must tell you now that three\nhundred king's sons, lacking one, have come to ask for my daughter, and\nin the garden behind my castle are three hundred iron spikes, and every\nspike of them but one is covered with the head of a king's son who\ncouldn't do what my daughter wanted of him, and I'm greatly in dread\nthat your own head will be put on the one spike that is left uncovered.\"\nThe princess in this story--Shaking-Head--is such a wretch, not a bit\nbetter than Queen Labe in the \"Arabian Nights,\" that one marvels at the\nhero for marrying her at last, instead of slicing off her head with his\ntwo-handed sword of darkness, and placing it on the three-hundredth\nspike. But moral as well as physical probabilities are often\noverstrained in this deliciously riotous realm of folk-lore.\n\nAlong with much material that is common to the Aryan world there is some\nthat is peculiar to Ireland, while the Irish atmosphere is over\neverything. The stories of Fin MacCumhail (pronounced MacCool) and the\nFenians of Erin are full of grotesque incident and inimitable drollery.\nFin and his redoubtable dog Bran, the one-eyed Gruagach, the hero\nDiarmuid, the old hag with the life-giving ointment, the weird hand of\nMal MacMulcan, and the cowherd that was son of the king of Alban make a\ncharming series of pictures. Among Fin's followers there is a certain\nCon\u00e1n Maol, \"who never had a good word in his mouth for any man,\" and\nfor whom no man had a good word. This counterpart of Thersites, as Mr.\nCurtin tells us, figures as conspicuously in North American as in Aryan\nmyths. Con\u00e1n was always at Fin's side, and advising him to mischief.\nOnce it had like to have gone hard with Con\u00e1n. The Fenians had been\ninveigled into an enchanted castle, and could not rise from their chairs\ntill two of Fin's sons had gone and beheaded three kings in the north of\nErin, and put their blood into three goblets, and come back and rubbed\nthe blood on the chairs. Con\u00e1n had no chair, but was sitting on the\nfloor, with his back to the wall, and just before they came to him the\nlast drop of blood gave out. The Fenians were hurrying past without\nminding the mischief-maker, when, upon his earnest appeal, Diarmuid\n\"took him by one hand, and Goll MacMornee by the other, and, pulling\nwith all their might, tore him from the wall and the floor. But if they\ndid, he left all the skin of his back, from his head to his heels, on\nthe floor and the wall behind him. But when they were going home through\nthe hills of Tralee, they found a sheep on the way, killed it, and\nclapped the skin on Con\u00e1n. The sheepskin grew to his body; and he was so\nwell and strong that they sheared him every year, and got wool enough\nfrom his back to make flannel and frieze for the Fenians of Erin ever\nafter.\" This is a favourite incident, and recurs in the story of the\nlaughing Gruagach. In most of the Fenian stories the fighting is brisk\nand incessant. It is quite a Donnybrook fair. Everybody kills everybody\nelse, and then some toothless old woman comes along and rubs a magic\nsalve on them, when, all in a minute, up they pop, and go at it again.\n\nOne of the quaintest conceits, and a pretty one withal, is that of Tir\nna n-Og, the Land of Youth, the life-giving region just beneath the\nground, whence mysteriously spring the sturdy trees, the soft green\ngrass, and the bright flowers. The journey thither is not long;\nsometimes the hero just pulls up a root and dives down through the hole\ninto the blessed Tir na n-Og,--as primitive a bit of folk-lore as one\ncould wish to find! A lovely country, of course, was that land of\nsprouting life, and some queer customs did they have there. The mode of\n\"running for office\" was especially worthy of mention. Once in seven\nyears all the champions and best men \"met at the front of the palace,\nand ran to the top of a hill two miles distant. On the top of that hill\nwas a chair, and the man that sat first in the chair was king of Tir na\nn-Og for the next seven years.\" This method enabled them to dispense\nwith nominating conventions and campaign lies, but not with intrigue and\nsorcery, as we find in the droll story of Oisin (or Ossian), which\nconcludes the Fenian series.\n\nThe story of the Fisherman's Son and the Gruagach of Tricks is\nsubstantially the same with the famous story of Farmer Weathersky, in\nthe Norse collection translated by Sir George Dasent. Gruagach (accented\non the first syllable) means \"the hairy one,\" and, as Mr. Curtin\ncautiously observes, \"we are more likely to be justified in finding a\nsolar agent concealed in the person of the laughing Gruagach or the\nGruagach of Tricks than in many of the sun myths put forth by some\nmodern writers.\" He reminds one of Hermes and of Proteus, and in the\nwonderful changes at the end of the story we have, as in Farmer\nWeathersky, a variant of the catastrophe in the story of the Second\nRoyal Mendicant in the \"Arabian Nights;\" but the Irishman gives us a\ntouch of humour that is quite his own. The Gruagach and his eleven\nartful sons are chasing the fisherman's son through water and air, and\nvarious forms of fish and bird are assumed, until at length the\nfisherman's son, in the shape of a swallow, hovers over the summerhouse\nwhere the daughter of the king of Erin is sitting. Weary with the chase,\nthe swallow becomes a ring, and falls into the girl's lap; it takes her\nfancy, and she puts it on her finger. Then the twelve pursuers change\nfrom hawks into handsome men, and entertain the king in his castle with\nmusic and games, until he asks them what in the world he can give them.\nAll they want, says the old Gruagach, is the ring which he once lost,\nand which is now on the princess's finger. Of course, says the king, if\nhis daughter has got the ring, she must give it to its owner. But the\nring, overhearing all this, speaks to the princess, and tells her what\nto do. She gets a gallon of wheat grains and three gallons of the\nstrongest _potheen_ that was ever brewed in Ireland, and she mixes them\ntogether in an open barrel before the fire. Then her father calls her\nand asks for the ring; and when she finds that her protests are of no\navail, and she must give up, she throws it into the fire. \"That moment\nthe eleven brothers made eleven pairs of tongs of themselves; their\nfather, the old Gruagach, was the twelfth pair. The twelve jumped into\nthe fire to know in what spark of it would they find the old fisherman's\nson; and they were a long time working and searching through the fire,\nwhen out flew a spark, and into the barrel. The twelve made themselves\nmen, turned over the barrel, and spilled the wheat on the floor. Then in\na twinkling they were twelve cocks strutting around. They fell to, and\npicked away at the wheat, to know which one would find the fisherman's\nson. Soon one dropped on one side, and a second on the opposite side,\nuntil all twelve were lying drunk from the wheat.\"\n\nOne seems to see the gleam in the corner of the eye and the pucker in\nthe Gaelic visage of the old narrator. To be sure, it was the wheat. It\ncouldn't have been the mountain dew; it never is. Well, when things had\ncome to this pass, the spark that was the fisherman's son just turned\ninto a fox, and with one smart bite he took the head off the old\nGruagach, and the eleven other boozy cocks he finished with eleven other\nbites. Then he made himself the handsomest man in Erin, and married the\nprincess and succeeded to the crown.\n\nThere is a breezy freshness about these tales, which will make the book\na welcome addition to young people's libraries. It is safe to predict\nfor it an enviable success. In the next edition there ought to be an\nindex, and we wish the author need not feel it necessary to be so\nsparing with his own notes and comments. His brief Introduction is so\ncharming, from its weight of sense and beauty of expression, that one\nwould gladly hear more from the author himself. It is to be hoped that\nthe book lately published is the forerunner of many.\n\n_August, 1890._\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nGUESSING AT HALF AND MULTIPLYING BY TWO\n\n\n\"The small philosopher is a great character in New England. His\nfundamental rule of logical procedure is to guess at the half and\nmultiply by two. [Applause.]\"[31] It is [in 1880] only two or three\nyears since the philosopher from whom this text is quoted was himself a\ngreat character in New England, inasmuch as he could give a lecture once\nevery week, in one of the largest halls of New England's principal city,\nand could entertain his audience of two or three thousand people with\ndiscussions of the most vast and abstruse themes of science and\nmetaphysics. The success with which he entertained his audience is\ncarefully chronicled for us in the volumes made up from the reports of\nhis lectures, in which parenthetical notes of \"laughter,\" \"applause,\"\nor \"sensation\" occur as frequently as in ordinary newspaper reports of\nstump speeches or humorous convivial harangues. As a social phenomenon\nthis career of the Rev. Joseph Cook possesses considerable\ninterest,--enough, at any rate, to justify a brief inquiry as to his\n\"fundamental rule of procedure.\"\n\nAmong the wise and witty sayings of the ancients with which our children\nare puzzled and edified in the first dozen pages of the Greek Reader,\nthere is a caustic remark attributed to Phokion, on the occasion of\nbeing very loudly applauded by the populace. \"Dear me,\" said the old\nstatesman, \"can it be that I have been making a fool of myself?\" So,\nwhen three thousand people are made to laugh and clap their hands over\nstatements about the origin of species or the anatomy of the nervous\nsystem, the first impulse of any scientific inquirer of ordinary\nsagacity and experience is to ask in what meretricious fashion these\nsober topics can have been treated, in order to have produced such a\nresult. The inference may be cynical, but is none the less likely to be\nsound. In the present case, one does not need to read far in the\npublished reports of these lectures to see that the fundamental rule of\nprocedure is something very different from any of the rules by which\ntruth is wooed and won by scientific inquirers. Among Mill's\ncomprehensive canons of logical method one might search in vain for a\nspecimen of the method employed by Mr. Cook. Of the temper of mind,\nindeed, in which scientific inquiries are conducted, he has no more\nconception than Laura Bridgman could have of Pompeian red or a chord of\nthe minor ninth. The process of holding one's judgment in suspense over\na complicated problem, of patiently gathering and weighing the evidence\non either side, of subjecting one's own first-formed hypotheses to\nrepeated verification, of clearly comprehending and fairly stating\nopposing views, of setting forth one's conclusions at last, guardedly\nand with a distinct consciousness of the conditions under which they are\ntenable,--all this sort of thing is quite foreign to Mr. Cook's nature.\n\nTo him a scientific thesis is simply a statement over which it is\npossible to get up a fight. The gamecock is his totem; to him the bones\nof the vertebrate subkingdom are only so many bones of contention, and\nthe sponge is interesting chiefly as an emblem which is never, on any\naccount, to be thrown up. He talks accordingly of scientific men lying\nin wait for Mr. Darwin, ready to pounce on him like a tiger on its prey;\nhe is very fond of exhibiting what he calls the \"strategic point\" of a\nscientific book or theory; and altogether his attitude is bellicose to a\ndegree that is as unbecoming in a preacher of the gospel as it is out of\nplace in a discussion of scientific questions. His favourite method of\ndealing with a scientific writer is to quote from him all sorts of\ndetached statements and inferences, and, without the slightest regard to\nthe writer's general system of opinions or habits of thought, to praise\nor vituperate the detached statements according to some principle which\nit is not always easy for the reader to discover, but which has always\ndoubtless some reference to their supposed bearings upon the peculiar\nkind of orthodoxy of which Mr. Cook appears as the champion. There are\nsome writers whom he thinks it necessary always to scold or vilify, no\nmatter what they say. If they happen to say something which ought to be\nquite satisfactory to any reasonable person of \"orthodox\" opinions, Mr.\nCook either accuses them of insincerity or represents them as making\n\"concessions.\"\n\nThis last device, I am sorry to be obliged to add, is not an uncommon\none with theological controversialists, when their zeal runs away with\nthem. When a man makes a statement which expresses his deepest\nconvictions, there is no easier way of seeming to knock away the\nplatform on which he stands than to quote his statement, and describe\nit as something which he has reluctantly \"conceded.\" In dealing with the\nprincipal writers on evolution, Mr. Cook is continually found resorting\nto this cheap device. For example, when Professor Tyndall declares that\n\"if a right-hand spiral movement of the particles of the brain could be\nshown to occur in love, and a left-hand spiral movement in hate, we\nshould be as far off as ever from understanding the connection of this\nphysical motion with the spiritual manifestations,\"--when Professor\nTyndall declares this, he simply asserts what is a cardinal proposition\nwith the group of English philosophers to which he belongs. With\nProfessor Huxley, as well as with Mr. Spencer, it is a fundamental\nproposition that psychical phenomena cannot possibly be interpreted in\nterms of matter and motion, and this proposition they have at various\ntimes set forth and defended. In the chapter on Matter and Spirit, in my\nwork on \"Cosmic Philosophy,\" I have fully expounded this point, and have\nfurther illustrated it in \"The Unseen World.\" With the conclusions there\nset forth the remark of Professor Tyndall thoroughly agrees, and it does\nso because all these expressions of opinion and all these arguments are\npart and parcel of a coherent system of anti-materialistic thought\nadopted[32] by the English school of evolutionists. Yet when Mr. Cook\nquotes Professor Tyndall's remark, he does it in this wise: \"It is\nnotorious that even Tyndall _concedes_,\" etc., etc.\n\nBy proceeding in this way, Mr. Cook finds it easy to make out a\nformidable array of what he calls \"the concessions of evolutionists.\" He\nfirst gives the audience a crude impression of some sort of theory of\nevolution, such as no scientific thinker ever dreamed of; or, to speak\nmore accurately, he plays upon the crude impression already half formed\nin the average mind of his audience, and which he evidently shares\nhimself. The _average_ notion of the doctrine of evolution, possessed in\ncommon by an audience big enough to fill Tremont Temple, would no doubt\nseem to Darwin or to Spencer something quite fearful and wonderful.\nPlaying with this sort of crude material, Mr. Cook puts together a\nseries of numbered propositions, which remind one of those interminable\nauction catalogues of Walt Whitman, which some of our British cousins,\nmore ardent than discriminating, mistake for a truly American species of\ninspired verse. In this long catena of statements, almost everything is\neasily seen to disagree with the crude general impression to which the\nspeaker appeals, and almost everything is accordingly set down as a\n\"concession.\" And as the audience go out after the lecture, they\ndoubtless ask one another, in amazed whispers, how it is that sensible\nmen who make so many \"concessions\" can find it in their hearts to\nmaintain the doctrine of evolution at all!\n\nSometimes Mr. Cook goes even farther than this, and, in the very act of\nquoting an author's declared opinions, expressly refuses to give him\ncredit for them. Thus he has the hardihood to say: \"Even Herbert\nSpencer, _who would be very glad to prove the opposite_,[33] says, in\nhis Biology, 'The proximate chemical principles or chemical\nunits--albumen, fibrine, gelatine, or the hypothetical proteine\nsubstance--cannot possess the property of forming the endlessly varied\nstructures of animal forms.'\" Mr. Cook here lays claim to a knowledge of\nhis author's innermost thoughts and wishes which is quite remarkable.\nFor a fit parallel one would have to cite the instance of the German who\nflogged his son for profanity, though the boy had not opened his mouth.\n\"You dinks tamn,\" exclaimed the irate father, \"and I vips you for dat!\"\n\nAs there are some writers whom Mr. Cook thinks it always necessary to\nvituperate, no matter what they say, so there are others whom he finds\nit convenient to quote, as foils to the former, and to mention with\npraise on all occasions, though it is difficult to assign the reasons\nfor this preference, except on the hypothesis that the lecturer has an\nimplicit faith in the simple and confiding nature of his audience.\nBefore giving these lectures Mr. Cook had studied awhile in Germany, and\nhis citations of German writers show how far he deems it safe to presume\non New England's ignorance of what the Fatherland thinks. It is nice to\nhave such a learned country as Germany at one's disposal to hurl at the\nheads of people whose \"outlook in philosophy does not reach beyond the\nStraits of Dover;\" it saves a great deal of troublesome argument, and\nstill more painful examination of facts. This English opinion is all\nvery well, you know, but it comes from a philosopher \"whose star is just\ntouching the western pines,\" and a German professor whom I am about to\nquote, whose book I \"hold in my hand,\" and \"whose star is in the\nascendant,\" does not agree with it. All this is extremely neat and\nconvincing, apparently, to the crowd in Tremont Temple. With all Germany\nat his disposal, however, it must be acknowledged that our lecturer\nmakes a very sparing use of his resources. He quotes Helmholtz and\nWundt every now and then with warm approval, though wherein they should\nbe found any more acceptable to the orthodox world than Tyndall and\nSpencer it is not easy to see, save that the ill repute of German free\nthinkers takes somewhat longer to get diffused in New England than the\nill repute of English free thinkers.\n\nThen, among these Germans who are to set the English-speaking world\naright we have Delitzsch! To speak of Wundt and Delitzsch is as if one\nwere to bracket together John Stuart Mill and Frederick Denison Maurice.\nAnd then comes the admirable Lotze, whom Mr. Cook is continually setting\noff as a foil to Herbert Spencer. On page 179 of the lectures on\n\"Heredity\" he enumerates, with emphasis, those opinions of Lotze which\nhe deems of especial importance with regard to the relations between\nmatter and mind, and then proceeds to deprecate the \"thunder\" which he\npresumes he has evoked \"from all quarters of the Spencerian sky.\" But,\nconsidering that the propositions he quotes from Lotze express the very\nviews of Herbert Spencer, only somewhat inadequately worded, it would\nseem that the lecturer's alarm cannot be very real, and the thunder in\nquestion is only a kind of comic-opera thunder manufactured behind the\ncurtain for the benefit of the acquiescent audience. For example, the\nfourth proposition quoted with approval from Lotze reads thus: \"Physical\nphenomena point to an underlying being to which they belong, but do not\ndetermine whether that being is material or immaterial.\" Now this is\nSpencerism, pure and simple, and it is a crucial proposition, too,\npointing out the drift of the whole philosophy before which it is set\nup. The fact that Mr. Cook adopts such an opinion when stated by Lotze,\nbut vituperates the same opinion when stated by Spencer, reveals to us,\nwith a pungent though not wholly delicious flavour, the \"true\ninwardness\" of his fundamental method of procedure.\n\nThat method, it must be acknowledged with due regard to the _bon mot_ of\nthe old Greek statesman, is a method well adapted to conciliate the\nfavour of an immense audience,--even in Boston. We are all descended\nfrom fighting ancestors, and many of us, who care little for the\ndisinterested discussion of scientific theories, still like to see a man\nknocked down or impaled, provided the knocking down be done with a\nsyllogistic club, or the impaling be restricted to such a hard substance\nas is afforded by the horns of a dilemma. It satisfies our combative\ninstincts, without shocking our physical sympathies or making any great\ndemand on our keener thinking powers, which most people do most of all\ndislike to be called upon to exercise. To this kind of feeling Mr.\nCook's lectures appeal, and the peculiar character of his success seems\nto show that he knows well how to deal with it. In a moment of winning\nfrankness he exclaims: \"Do you suppose that I think that this audience\ncan be _cheated_? I do not know where in America there is another weekly\naudience with as many brains in it; at least, I do not know where in New\nEngland I should be so likely to be tripped up, if I were to make an\nincorrect statement, as here.\"[34] After this coaxing little dose, Mr.\nCook proceeds to show his respect for the learning of his audience in\nsome remarks on _bathybius_, which, as he condescendingly explains, is a\nname derived from two Greek words, meaning _deep_ and _sea_!! The\nprofound knowledge of Greek thus exhibited is quite equalled by his\naccount of bathybius from the zo\u00f6logical point of view. He begins by\ntelling his hearers that, in a paper published in the \"Microscopical\nJournal\" in 1868, Professor Huxley \"announced his belief that the\ngelatinous substance found in the ooze of the beds of the deep seas is a\nsheet of living matter extending around the globe.\" Furthermore, of\n\"this amazingly strategic [!!] and haughtily trumpeted substance ...\nHuxley assumed that it was in the past, and would be in the future, the\nprogenitor of all the life on the planet.\" Now it is not true that, in\nthe paper referred to, Huxley announces any such belief or makes any\nsuch assumption as is here ascribed to him; but we shall see, in a\nmoment, that Mr. Cook's system of quotation is peculiar in enabling him\nto extract from the text of an author any meaning whatever that may\nhappen to suit his purposes. This ingenious garbling enables the\nlecturer to come in with telling effect at the close of his third\nlecture, and earn an ignoble round of applause by holding up the current\nnumber of the \"American Journal of Science and Arts\" (which he would\nappear to have picked up at a bookstall on his way to the lecture room)\nand citing from it, as the fifty-first and closing \"concession\" of\nevolutionists, \"that bathybius has been discovered in 1875, by the ship\nChallenger, to be--hear, O heavens! and give ear, O earth!--sulphate of\nlime; and that when dissolved it crystallizes as gypsum. [Applause.]\"\nThis is what Mr. Cook calls striking, with the \"latest scientific\nintelligence,\" at the \"bottom stem\" of the great tree of evolution. The\n\"latest scientific intelligence,\" with him, means the last book or\narticle which he has glanced over without comprehending its import, but\nfrom which he has contrived to glean some statement calculated to edify\nhis audience and scatter the hosts of Midian. In point of fact, the\nidentification of bathybius with sulphate of lime was set down by Sir\nWyville Thomson only as a suspicion, to which Huxley, like a true man of\nscience, at once accorded all possible weight, while leaving the\nquestion open for further discussion. Only a mountebank, dealing with an\naudience upon whose ignorance of the subject he might safely rely, could\npretend to suppose that the fate of the doctrine of evolution was in any\nway involved in the question as to the organic nature of bathybius. The\namazing strategy was all Mr. Cook's own, and the haughty trumpeting\nappears to have been chiefly done with his own very brazen instrument.\n\nI said a moment ago that Mr. Cook's system of quotation is peculiar. The\nfollowing instance is so good that it will bear citing at some length.\nAccording to Mr. Cook, Professor Huxley says, in his article on Biology\nin the ninth edition of the \"Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica:\" \"_Throughout\nalmost the whole series of living beings, we find agamogenesis, or\nnot-sexual generation._\" After a pause, Mr. Cook proceeded in a lower\nvoice: \"When the topic of the origin of the life of our Lord on the\nearth is approached from the point of view of the microscope, some men,\nwho know not what the holy of holies in physical and religious science\nis, say that we have no example of the origin of life without two\nparents.\" He went on to cite the familiar instances of parthenogenesis\nin bees and silk moths, and then proceeded as follows: \"Take up your\nMivart, your Lyell, your Owen, and you will read [where?] this same\nimportant fact which Huxley here asserts, when he says that the law that\nperfect individuals may be virginally born extends to the higher forms\nof life. I am in the presence of Almighty God; and yet, when a great\nsoul like that tender spirit of our sainted Lincoln, in his early days,\nwith little knowledge but with great thoughtfulness, was troubled by his\ndifficulty, and almost thrown into infidelity by not knowing that the\nlaw that there must be two parents is not universal, I am willing to\nallude, even in such a presence as this, to the latest science\nconcerning miraculous conception. [Sensation.]\"\n\nThe vulgarity of this rhetoric is as glaring as its absurdity. All that\nconcerns me now, however, is to point out the Brobdignagian dimensions\nof the misstatement of facts. Let us look back for a moment at the\nitalicized quotation from Huxley, upon which Mr. Cook builds up the\nwondrous assertion \"that the law that perfect individuals may be\nvirginally born extends to the higher forms of life.\" Then let us turn\nto Huxley's article and see what he really does say.\n\nTreating of the whole subject of agamogenesis in the widest possible way\nby including it under the more general process of cell-multiplication,\nHuxley says: \"Common as the process is in plants and in the lower\nanimals, it becomes rare among the higher animals. In these, the\nreproduction of the whole organism from a part, in the way indicated\nabove, ceases. At most we find that the cells at the end of an amputated\nportion of the organism are capable of reproducing the lost part, and in\nthe very highest animals even this power vanishes in the adult....\n_Throughout almost the whole series of living beings, however, we find\nconcurrently with the process of agamogenesis, or asexual generation_,\nanother method of generation, in which the development of the germ into\nan organism resembling the parent depends on an influence exerted by\nliving matter different from the germ. This is _gamogenesis_, or sexual\ngeneration.\"[35]\n\nComparing the italicized passage here with Mr. Cook's italicized\nquotation, we see vividly illustrated the fundamental method of\nprocedure by which the \"Monday Lectureship\" jumps from a statement\nabout the reproduction of a lobster's claw to the inference that a man\nmay be born without a father. It reminds one of that worthy clergyman\nwho introduced a scathing sermon on a new-fangled variety of ladies'\nheaddress by the appropriate text, \"Top-knot come down!\" On being\nreminded by one of his deacons that the full verse seemed to read, \"Let\nhim that is upon the housetop not come down,\" the pastor boldly\njustified his abridgment on the ground that any particular collocation\nof words in Scripture is as authoritative as any other, since all parts\nof the Bible are equally inspired. Perhaps there are some who would\njustify Mr. Cook's peculiar principle of abridgment on the familiar\nground that the end sanctifies the means, and that if a statement seems\nhelpful to \"the truth\" in general, it is no matter whether the statement\nitself is true or not.\n\nEnough of this. If we were to go through with these volumes in detail,\nwe should find little else but misrepresentations of facts,\nmisconceptions of principles, and floods of tawdry rhetoric, of which\nthe specimens here quoted are quite sufficient to illustrate the\nlecturer's \"fundamental method of procedure.\" If I have treated him\nsomewhat lightly, it is because there is nothing in his matter or in\nhis manner that would justify, or even excuse, a more serious style of\ntreatment. The only aspect of his career which affords matter for grave\nreflection is the ease with which he succeeded for a moment in imposing\non the credulity and in appealing to the prejudices of his public. The\neagerness with which the orthodox world hailed the appearance of this\nnew champion could not but remind one, with sad emphasis, of\nOxenstjern's famous remark: \"Quam parva sapientia mundus regitur!\" It is\ncomforting to remember that one of the world's greatest naturalists, Asa\nGray,--whose orthodoxy is as unimpeachable as his science,--very\npromptly declared in print that such championship is something of which\northodoxy has no reason to feel proud.\n\n_December, 1880._\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nFORTY YEARS OF BACON-SHAKESPEARE FOLLY[36]\n\n\nSome time ago, while I happened to be looking over a wheelbarrow-load of\nrubbish written to prove that such plays as \"King Lear\" and \"The Merry\nWives of Windsor\" emanated from one of the least poetical and least\nhumorous minds of modern times, I was reminded of a story which I heard\nwhen a boy. I forget whether it was some whimsical man of letters like\nCharles Lamb, or some such professional wag as Theodore Hook, who took\nit into his head one day to stand still on a London street, with face\nturned upward, gazing into the sky. Thereupon the next person who came\nthat way forthwith stopped and did likewise, and then the next, and the\nnext, until the road was blocked by a dense crowd of men and women, all\nstanding as if rooted in the ground, and with solemn sky-ward stare. The\nenchantment was at last broken when some one asked what they were\nlooking at, and nobody could tell. It was simply an instance of a\ncertain remnant of primitive gregariousness of action on the part of\nhuman beings, which exhibits itself from time to time in sundry queer\nfashions and fads.\n\nSo when Miss Delia Bacon, in the year which saw the beginning of \"The\nAtlantic Monthly,\" published a book purporting to unfold the\n\"philosophy\" of Shakespeare's dramas, it was not long before other\npersons began staring intently into the silliest mare's nest ever\ndevised by human dulness; and the fruits of so much staring have\nappeared in divers eccentric volumes, of which more specific mention\nwill presently be made. Neither in number nor in quality are they such\nas to indicate that the Bacon-Shakespeare folly has yet become\nfashionable, and we shall presently observe in it marked suicidal\ntendencies which are likely to prevent its ever becoming so; but there\nare enough of such volumes to illustrate the point of my anecdote.\n\nAnother fad, once really fashionable, and in defence of which some\nplausible arguments could be urged, was the Wolfian theory of the\nHomeric poems, which dazzled so many of our grandparents. It is worth\nour while to mention it here by way of prelude. The theory that the\nIliad and Odyssey are mere aggregations of popular ballads, collected\nand arranged in the time of Pisistratus, was perhaps originally\nsuggested by the philosopher Vico, but first attracted general attention\nin 1795, when set forth by Friedrich August Wolf, one of the most\nlearned and brilliant of modern scholars. Thus eminently respectable in\nits parentage and quite reasonable on the surface, this ballad theory\ncame to be widely fashionable; forty years ago it was accepted by many\nable scholars, though usually with large modifications.\n\nThe Wolfians urged that we know absolutely nothing about the man Homer,\nnot even when or where he lived. His existence is merely matter of\ntradition, or of inference from the existence of the poems. But as the\npoems know nothing of Dorians in Peloponnesus, their date can hardly be\nso late as 1100 B. C. What happened, then, when \"an edition of Homer\"\nwas made at Athens, about 530 B. C., by Pisistratus, or under his\norders? Did the editor simply edit two great poems already six centuries\nold, or did he make up two poems by piecing together a miscellaneous lot\nof ancient ballads? Wolf maintained the latter alternative, chiefly\nbecause of the alleged impossibility of composing and preserving such\nlong poems in the alleged absence of the art of writing. Having thus\nmade a plausible start, the Wolfians proceeded to pick the poems to\npieces, and to prove by \"internal evidence\" that there was nothing like\n\"unity of design\" in them, etc.; and so it went on, till poor old Homer\nwas relegated to the world of myth. As a schoolboy I used to hear the\nbelief in the existence of such a poet derided as \"uncritical\" and\n\"unscholarly.\"\n\nIn spite of these terrifying epithets, the ballad theory never made any\nimpression upon me; for it seemed to ignore the most conspicuous and\nvital fact about the poems, namely, the _style_, the noble, rapid,\nsimple, vivid, supremely poetical style,--a style as individual and\nunapproachable as that of Dante or Keats. For an excellent\ncharacterization of it, read Matthew Arnold's charming essays \"On\nTranslating Homer.\" The style is the man, and to suppose that this\nHomeric style ever came from a democratic multitude of minds, or from\nanything save one of those supremely endowed individual natures such as\nget born once or twice in a millennium, is simply to suppose a\npsychological impossibility. I remember once talking about this with\nGeorge Eliot, who had lately been reading Frederick Paley's ingenious\nrestatement of the ballad theory, and was captivated by its ingenuity.\nI told her I did not wonder that old dry-as-dust philologists should\nhold such views, but I was indeed surprised to find such a literary\nartist as herself ignoring the impassable gulf between Homer's language\nand that which any ballad theory necessarily implies. She had no answer\nfor this except to say that she should have supposed an evolutionist\nlike me would prefer to regard the Homeric poems as gradually evolved\nrather than suddenly created! A retort so clever and amiable most surely\nentitled her to the woman's privilege of the last word.\n\nThe Wolfian theory may now be regarded as a thing of the past; it has\nhad its day and been flung aside. If Wolf himself were living, he would\nbe the first to laugh at it. Its original prop has been knocked away,\nsince it has become pretty clear that the art of writing was practised\nabout the shores of the \u00c6gean Sea long before 1100 B. C. Even Wolf would\nnow admit that it might have been a real letter that Bellerophon carried\nto the father of Anteia.[37] All attempts to show a lack of unity in the\ndesign of the Iliad and the Odyssey have failed irretrievably, and the\ndiscussion has served only to make more and more unmistakable the work\nof the mighty master. The ballad theory is dead and buried, and he who\nwould read its obituary may find keen pleasure, as well as many a\nwholesome lesson in sound criticism, in the sensible and brilliant book\nby Andrew Lang on \"Homer and the Epic.\"\n\nThe Bacon-Shakespeare folly has never been set forth by scholars of\ncommanding authority, like Wolf and Lachmann, or Niese and Wilamowitz\nMoellendorff. Among Delia Bacon's followers not one can by any\npermissible laxity of speech be termed a scholar, and their theory has\nfound acceptance with very few persons. Nevertheless, it illustrates as\nwell as the Wolfian theory the way in which such notions grow. It starts\nfrom a false premise, hazily conceived, and it subsists upon arguments\nin which trivial facts are assigned higher value than facts of vital\nimportance. Mr. Lang's remark upon certain learned Homeric commentators,\n\"that they pore over the hyssop on the wall, but are blind to the cedar\nof Lebanon,\" applies with tenfold force to the Bacon-Shakespeare\nsciolists. In them we always miss the just sense of proportion which is\none of the abiding marks of sanity. The unfortunate lady who first\nbrought their theory into public notoriety in 1857 was then sinking\nunder the cerebral disease of which she died two years later, and her\nimitators have been chiefly weak minds of the sort that thrive upon\nparadox, closely akin to the circle-squarers and inventors of perpetual\nmotion. Underlying all the absurdities, however, there is something that\ndeserves attention. Like many other morbid phenomena, the\nBacon-Shakespeare folly has its natural history which is instructive.\nThe vagaries of Delia Bacon and her followers originated in a group of\nconditions which admit of being specified and described, and which the\nhistorian of nineteenth-century literature will need to notice. In order\nto understand the natural history of the affair, it is necessary to\nexamine the Delia Bacon theory at greater length than it would otherwise\ndeserve. Let us see how it is constructed.\n\nIt starts with a syllogism, of which the major premise is that the\ndramas ascribed to Shakespeare during his lifetime, and ever since\nbelieved to be his, abound in evidences of extraordinary book-learning.\nThe minor premise is that William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon could\nnot have acquired or possessed so much book-learning. The conclusion is\nthat he could not have written those plays.\n\nThe question then arises, Which of Shakespeare's contemporaries had\nenough book-lore to have written them? No doubt Francis Bacon had\nenough. The conclusion does not follow, however, that he wrote the\nplays; for there were other contemporaries with learning enough and to\nspare, as for example George Chapman and Ben Jonson. These two men, to\njudge from their acknowledged works, were great poets, whereas in\nBacon's fifteen volumes there is not a paragraph which betrays poetical\ngenius. Why not, then, ascribe the Shakespeare dramas to Chapman or\nJonson? Here the Baconizers endeavour to support their assumption by\ncalling attention to similarities in thought and phrase between Francis\nBacon and the writer of the dramas. Up to this point their argument\nconsists of deductions from assumed premises; here they adduce inductive\nevidence, such as it is. We shall see specimens of it by and by. At\npresent we are concerned with the initial syllogism.\n\nAnd first, as to the major premise, it must be met with a flat denial.\nThe Shakespeare plays do not abound with evidences of scholarship or\nlearning of the sort that is gathered from profound and accurate study\nof books. It is precisely in this respect that they are conspicuously\ndifferent from many of the plays contemporary with them, and from other\nmasterpieces of English literature. Such plays as Jonson's \"Sejanus\" and\n\"Catiline\" are the work of a scholar deeply indoctrinated with the\nviews and mental habits of classic antiquity; he has soaked himself in\nthe style of Lucan and Seneca, until their mental peculiarities have\nbecome like a second nature to him, and are unconsciously betrayed alike\nin the general handling of his story and in little turns of expression.\nOr take Milton's \"Lycidas:\" no one but a man saturated in every fibre\nwith Theocritus and Virgil could have written such a poem. An extremely\nforeign and artificial literary form has been so completely mastered and\nassimilated by Milton that he uses it with as much ease as Theocritus\nhimself, and has produced a work that even the master of idyls had\nscarcely equalled. After the terrific invective against the clergy and\nthe beautiful invocation to the flowers, followed by the triumphant\nhallelujah of Christian faith, observe the sudden reversion to pagan\nsentiment where Lycidas is addressed as the genius of the shore. Only\nprofound scholarship could have written this wonderful poem,--could have\nbrought forth the Christian thought as if spontaneously through the\nmedium of the pagan form. Now there is nothing of this sort in\nShakespeare. He uses classical materials, or anything else under the sun\nthat suits his purpose. He takes a chronicle from Holinshed, a biography\nfrom North's translation of Plutarch, a legend from Saxo Grammaticus\nthrough Belleforest's French version, a novel of Boccaccio, a miracle\nplay,--whatever strikes his fancy; he chops up his materials and weaves\nthem into a story without much regard to classical models; defying rules\nof order and unity, and not always heeding probability, but never\nforgetful of his abiding purpose, to create live men and women. These\npeople may have Greek or Latin names, and their scene of action may be\nRome or Mitylene, decorated with scraps of classical knowledge such as a\nbright man might pick up in miscellaneous reading; but all this is the\nsuperficial setting, the mere frame to the picture. The living canvas is\nhuman nature as Shakespeare saw it in London and depicted with supreme\npoetic faculty. Among the new books within his reach was Chapman's\nmagnificent translation of the Iliad, which at a later day inspired\nKeats to such a noble outburst of encomium; and in \"Troilus and\nCressida\" we have the Greek and Trojan heroes set before us with an\nincisive reality not surpassed by Homer himself. This play shows how\nkeenly Shakespeare appreciated Homer, how delicately and exquisitely he\ncould supplement the picture; but there is nothing in its five acts that\nshows him clothed in the garment of ancient thought as Milton wore it.\nShakespeare's freedom from such lore is a great advantage to him; in\n\"Troilus and Cressida\" there is a freedom of treatment hardly possible\nto a professional scholar. It is because of this freedom that\nShakespeare reaches a far wider public of readers and listeners than\nMilton or Dante, whose vast learning makes them in many places \"caviare\nto the general.\" Book-lore is a great source of power, but one may\neasily be hampered by it. What we forever love in Homer is the freshness\nthat comes with lack of it, and in this sort of freshness Shakespeare\nagrees with Homer far more than with the learned poets.\n\nIt is not for a moment to be denied that Shakespeare's plays exhibit a\nremarkable wealth of varied knowledge. The writer was one of the keenest\nobservers that ever lived. In the woodland or on the farm, in the\nprinting shop or the alehouse, or up and down the street, not the\nsmallest detail escaped him. Microscopic accuracy, curious interest in\nall things, unlimited power of assimilating knowledge, are everywhere\nshown in the plays. These are some of the marks of what we call\n_genius_,--something that we are far from comprehending, but which\nexperience has shown that books and universities cannot impart. All the\ncolleges on earth could not by combined effort make the kind of man we\ncall a genius, but such a man may at any moment be born into the world,\nand it is as likely to be in a peasant's cottage as anywhere.\n\nThere is nothing in which men differ more widely than in the capacity\nfor imbibing and assimilating knowledge. The capacity is often exercised\nunconsciously. When my eldest son, at the age of six, was taught to read\nin the course of a few weeks of daily instruction, it was suddenly\ndiscovered that his four-year-old brother also could read. Nobody could\ntell how it happened. Of course the younger boy must have taken keen\nnotice of what the elder one was doing, but the process went on without\nattracting attention until the result appeared.\n\nThis capacity for unconscious learning is not at all uncommon. It is\npossessed to some extent by everybody; but a very high degree of it is\none of the marks of genius. I remember one evening, many years ago,\nhearing Herbert Spencer in a friendly discussion regarding certain\nfunctions of the cerebellum. Abstruse points of comparative anatomy and\nquestions of pathology were involved. Spencer's three antagonists were\nnot violently opposed to him, but were in various degrees unready to\nadopt his views. The three were: Huxley, one of the greatest of\ncomparative anatomists; Hughlings Jackson, a very eminent authority on\nthe pathology of the nervous system; and George Henry Lewes, who,\nalthough more of an amateur in such matters, had nevertheless devoted\nyears of study to neural physiology, and was thoroughly familiar with\nthe history of the subject. Spencer more than held his ground against\nthe others. He met fact with fact, brought up points in anatomy the\nsignificance of which Huxley confessed that he had overlooked, and had\nmore experiments and clinical cases at his tongue's end than Jackson\ncould muster. It was quite evident that he knew all they knew on the\nsubject, and more besides. Yet Spencer had never been through a course\nof \"regular training\" in the studies concerned; nor had he ever studied\nat a university, or even at a high school. Where did he learn the\nwonderful mass of facts which he poured forth that evening? Whence came\nhis tremendous grasp upon the principles involved? Probably he could not\nhave told you. A few days afterward I happened to be talking with\nSpencer about history, a subject of which he modestly said he knew but\nlittle. I told him I had often been struck with the aptness of the\nhistoric illustrations cited in many chapters of his \"Social Statics,\"\nwritten when he was twenty-nine years old. The references were not only\nalways accurate, but they showed an intelligence and soundness of\njudgment unattainable, one would think, save by close familiarity with\nhistory. Spencer assured me that he had never read extensively in\nhistory. Whence, then, this wealth of knowledge,--not smattering, not\nsciolism, but solid, well-digested knowledge? Really, he did not know,\nexcept that when his interest was aroused in any subject he was keenly\nalive to all facts bearing upon it, and seemed to find them whichever\nway he turned. When I mentioned this to Lewes, while recalling the\ndiscussion on the cerebellum, he exclaimed: \"Oh, you can't account for\nit! It's his genius. Spencer has greater instinctive power of\nobservation and assimilation than any man since Shakespeare, and he is\nlike Shakespeare for hitting the bull's-eye every time he fires. As for\nDarwin and Huxley, we can follow their intellectual processes, but\nSpencer is above and beyond all; he is inspired!\"\n\nThose were Lewes's exact words, and they made a deep impression upon me.\nThe comparison with Shakespeare struck me as a happy one, and I can\nunderstand both Spencer and Shakespeare the better for it. Concerning\nSpencer one circumstance may be observed. Since his early manhood he has\nlived in London, and has had for his daily associates men of vast\nattainments in every department of science. He has thus had rare\nopportunities for absorbing an immense fund of knowledge unconsciously.\n\nIt is evident that the author of Shakespeare's plays possessed an\nextraordinary \"instinctive power of observation and assimilation.\" There\nwas nothing strange in such a genius growing up in a small Warwickshire\ntown. The difficulty is one which the Delia-Baconians have created for\nthemselves. As it is their chief stock in trade, they magnify it in\nevery way they can think of. Shakespeare's parents, they say, were\nilliterate, and he did not know how to spell his own name. It appears as\nShagspere, Shaxpur, Shaxberd, Chacsper, and so on through some thirty\nforms, several of which William Shakespeare himself used indifferently.\nThe implication is that such a man must have been shockingly ignorant.\nThe real ignorance, however, is on the part of those who use such an\nargument. Apparently, they do not know that in Shakespeare's time such\nlaxity in spelling was common in all ranks of society and in all grades\nof culture. The name of Elizabeth's great Lord Treasurer, Cecil, and his\ntitle, Burghley, were both spelled in half a dozen ways. The name of\nRaleigh occurs in more than forty different forms, and Sir Walter, one\nof the most accomplished men of his time, wrote it Rauley, Rawleyghe,\nRalegh, and in yet other ways. The talk of the Baconizers on this point\nis simply ludicrous.\n\nEqually silly is their talk about the dirty streets of Stratford. They\nseem to have just discovered that Elizabeth's England was a badly\ndrained country, with heaps of garbage in the streets. Shakespeare's\nfather, they tell us, was a butcher, and evidently from a butcher's son,\nliving in an ill-swept town, and careless about the spelling of his\nname, not much in the way of intellectual achievement was to be\nexpected! In point of fact, Shakespeare's parents belonged to the middle\nclass. His father owned several houses in Stratford and two or three\nfarms in the neighbourhood. As a farmer in those days, he would\nnaturally have cattle slaughtered on his premises and would sell wool\noff the backs of his own flocks, whence the later tradition of his\nhaving been butcher and wool dealer. That his social position was good\nis shown by the facts that he was chief alderman and high bailiff of\nStratford, and justice of the peace, and was styled \"Master John\nShakespeare,\" or (as we should say) \"Mr.;\" whereas, had he been one of\nthe common folk, his style had been \"Goodman Shakespeare.\" A visit to\nhis home in Henley Street, and to Anne Hathaway's cottage at Shottery,\nshows that the two families were in eminently respectable circumstances.\nThe son of the high bailiff would see the best people in the\nneighbourhood. There was in the town a remarkably good free grammar\nschool, where he might have learned the \"small Latin and less Greek\"\nwhich his friend Ben Jonson assures us he possessed. This expression, by\nthe way, is usually misunderstood, because people do not pause to\nconsider it. Coming from Ben Jonson, I should say that \"small Latin and\nless Greek\" might fairly describe the amount of those languages\nordinarily possessed by a member of the graduating class at Harvard in\ngood standing. It can hardly imply less than the ability to read Terence\nat sight, and perhaps Euripides less fluently. The author of the plays,\nwith his unerring accuracy of observation, knows Latin enough at least\nto use the Latin part of English most skilfully; at the same time, when\nhe has occasion to use Greek authors, such as Homer or Plutarch, he\nusually prefers an English translation. At all events, Jonson's remark\ninforms us that the man whom he addresses as \"sweet swan of Avon\" knew\n_some_ Latin and _some_ Greek,--a conclusion which is so distasteful to\none of our Baconizers, Mr. Edwin Reed, that he will not admit it. Rather\nthan do so, he has the assurance to ask us to believe that by the\nepithet \"sweet swan of Avon\" Jonson really meant Francis Bacon! Dear me,\nMr. Reed, do you really mean it? And how about the editor of Beaumont\nand Fletcher in 1647, when, in his dedication to Shakespeare's friend\nthe Earl of Pembroke, he speaks of \"Sweet Swan of Avon Shakespear\"? Was\nhe too a participator in the little scheme for fooling posterity? Or was\nhe one of those who were fooled?\n\nWhether Shakespeare had other chances for book-lore than those which the\ngrammar school afforded, whether there was any interesting parson at\nhand, as often in small towns, to guide and stimulate his unfolding\nthoughts,--upon such points we have no information. But there were\nthings to be learned in the country town quite outside of books and\npedagogues. There, while the poet listened to the \"strain of strutting\nchanticleer,\" and watched the \"sun-burn'd sicklemen, of August weary,\"\nputting on their rye-straw hats and making holiday with rustic nymphs,\nhe could rejoice in\n\n      \"Earth's increase, foison plenty,\n      Barns and garners never empty;\n      Vines with clust'ring bunches growing;\n      Plants with goodly burthen bowing;\"\n\nthere he could see the \"unbacked colts\" prick their ears, advance their\neyelids, lift up their noses, as if they smelt music; there he knew,\ndoubtless, many a bank where the wild thyme grew and on which the\nmoonlight sweetly slept; there he watched the coming of \"violets dim,\"\n\"pale primroses,\" flower-de-luce, carnations, with \"rosemary and rue\" to\nkeep their \"savour all the winter long,\"\n\n      \"When icicles hang by the wall,\n        And Dick the shepherd blows his nail,\n      And Tom bears logs into the hall,\n        And milk comes frozen home in pail.\"\n\nSuch lore as this no books or college could impart.\n\nIt was this that Milton had in mind when he introduced Shakespeare and\nBen Jonson into his poem \"L'Allegro.\" Milton was in his thirtieth year\nwhen Jonson, poet laureate, was laid to rest in Westminster Abbey; he\nwas only a boy of eight years when Shakespeare died, but the beautiful\nsonnet written fourteen years later shows how lovingly he studied his\nworks:--\n\n      \"What needs my Shakespeare, for his honoured bones,\" etc.\n\nThe poem \"L'Allegro\" and its fellow \"Il Penseroso\" describe the delights\nof Milton's life at his father's country house near Windsor Castle. He\nused often to ride into London to hear music or pass an evening at the\ntheatre, as in the following lines:--\n\n      \"Then to the well-trod stage anon,\n      If Jonson's learned sock be on,\n      Or sweetest Shakespeare, fancy's child,\n      Warble his native woodnotes wild.\"\n\nThis accurate and happy contrast exasperates the Baconizers, for it\nspoils their stock in trade, and accordingly they try their best to\nassure us that Milton did not know what he was writing about. They\nasseverate with vehemence that in all the seven-and-thirty plays there\nis no such thing as a native woodnote wild.\n\nBut before leaving the contrast we may pause for a moment to ask, Where\ndid Ben Jonson get his learning? He was, as he himself tells us, \"poorly\nbrought up\" by his stepfather, a bricklayer. He went to Westminster\nSchool, where he was taught by Camden, and he may have spent a short\ntime at Cambridge, though this is doubtful. His schooling was nipped in\nthe bud, for he had to go home and lay brick; and when he found such an\nexistence insupportable he went into the army and fought in the\nNetherlands. At about the age of twenty we find him back in London, and\nthere lose sight of him for five years, when all at once his great\ncomedy \"Every Man in his Humour\" is performed, and makes him famous.\nNow, in such a life, when did Jonson get the time for his immense\nreading and his finished classical scholarship? Reasoning after the\nmanner of the Delia-Baconians, we may safely say that he could not\npossibly have accumulated the learning which is shown in his plays:\ntherefore he could not have written those plays; therefore Lord Bacon\nmust have written them! There are daring soarers in the empyrean who do\nnot shrink from this conclusion; a doctor in Michigan, named Owen, has\npublished a pamphlet to prove, among other things, that Bacon was the\nauthor of the plays which were performed and printed as Jonson's.\n\nTo return to Shakespeare. Somewhere about 1585, when he was\none-and-twenty, he went to London, leaving his wife and three young\nchildren at Stratford. His father had lost money, and the fortunes of\nthe family were at the lowest ebb. In London we lose sight of\nShakespeare for a while, just as we lose sight of Jonson, until literary\nworks appear. The work first published is \"Venus and Adonis,\" one of the\nmost exquisite pieces of diction in the English language. It was\ndedicated to Henry, Earl of Southampton, by William Shakespeare, whose\nauthorship of the poem is asserted as distinctly as the title-page of\n\"David Copperfield\" proclaims that novel to be by Charles Dickens, yet\nsome precious critics assure us that Shakespeare \"could not\" have\nwritten the poem, and never knew the Earl of Southampton. Some years\nago, Mr. Appleton Morgan, who does not wish to be regarded as a\nBaconizer, published an essay on the Warwickshire dialect, in which he\nmaintained that since no traces of that kind of speech occur in \"Venus\nand Adonis,\" therefore it could not have been written by a young man\nfresh from a small Warwickshire town. This is a specimen of the loose\nkind of criticism which prepares soil for Delia-Baconian weeds to grow\nin. The poem was published in 1593, seven or eight years after\nShakespeare's coming to London; and we are asked to believe that the\nworld's greatest genius, one of the most consummate masters of speech\nthat ever lived, could tarry seven years in the city without learning\nhow to write what Hosea Biglow calls \"citified English\"! One can only\nexclaim with Gloster, \"O monstrous fault, to harbour such a thought!\"\n\nIn those years Shakespeare surely learned much else. It seems clear that\nhe had a good reading acquaintance with French and Italian, though he\noften uses translations, as for instance Florio's version of Montaigne.\nIn estimating what Shakespeare \"must have\" known or \"could not have\"\nknown, one needs to use more caution than some of our critics display.\nFor example, in \"The Winter's Tale\" the statue of Hermione is called \"a\npiece ... now newly performed by that rare Italian master, Julio\nRomano.\" Now, since Romano is known as a great painter, but not as a\nsculptor, this has been cited as a blunder on Shakespeare's part. It\nappears, however, that the first edition of Vasari's \"Lives of the\nPainters,\" published in 1550 and never translated from its original\nItalian, informs us that Romano did work in sculpture. In Vasari's\nsecond edition, published in 1568 and translated into several languages,\nthis information is not given. From these facts, the erudite German\ncritic Dr. Karl Elze, who is not a bit of a Delia-Baconian, but only an\noccasional sufferer from _vesania commentatorum_, introduces us to a\nsolemn dilemma: either the author of \"The Winter's Tale\" must have\nconsulted the first edition of Vasari in the original Italian, or else\nhe must have travelled in Italy and gazed upon statues by Romano. Ah!\nprithee not so fast, worthy doctor; be not so lavish with these \"musts.\"\nIt is, I think, improbable that Shakespeare ever saw Italy except with\nthe eyes of his imperial fancy. On the other hand, there are many\nindications that he could read Italian, but among them we cannot attach\nmuch importance to this one. Why should he not have learned from\n_hearsay_ that Romano had made statues? In the name of common sense, are\nthere no sources of knowledge save books? Or, since it was no unusual\nthing for Italian painters in the sixteenth century to excel in\nsculpture and architecture, why should not Shakespeare have assumed\nwithout verification that it was so in Romano's case? It was a tolerably\nsafe assumption to make, especially in an age utterly careless of\nhistorical accuracy, and in a comedy which provides Bohemia with a\nsea-coast, and mixes up times and customs with as scant heed of\nprobability as a fairy tale.\n\nIn arguing about what Shakespeare \"must have\" or \"could not have\" known,\nwe must not forget that at no time or place since history began has\nhuman thought fermented more briskly than in London while he was living\nthere. The age of Drake and Raleigh was an age of efflorescence in\ndramatic poetry, such as had not been seen in the twenty centuries since\nEuripides died. Among Shakespeare's fellow craftsmen were writers of\nsuch great and varied endowments as Chapman, Marlowe, Greene, Nash,\nPeele, Marston, Dekker, Webster, and Cyril Tourneur. During his earlier\nyears in London, Richard Hooker was master of the Middle Temple, and\nthere a little later Ford and Beaumont were studying. The erudite\nCamden was master of Westminster School; among the lights of the age\nfor legal learning were Edward Coke and Francis Bacon; at the same time,\none might have met in London the learned architect Inigo Jones and the\nlearned poet John Donne, both of them excellent classical scholars;\nthere one would have found the divine poet Edmund Spenser, just come\nover from Ireland to see to the publication of his \"Faerie Queene;\" not\nlong afterward came John Fletcher from Cambridge, and the acute\nphilosopher Edward Herbert from Oxford and one and all might listen to\nthe incomparable table-talk of that giant of scholarship, John Selden.\nThe delights of the Mermaid Tavern, where these rare wits were wont to\nassemble, still live in tradition. As Keats says:--\n\n      \"Souls of poets dead and gone,\n      What Elysium have ye known,\n      Happy field or mossy cavern,\n      Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?\"\n\nIt has always been believed that this place was one of Shakespeare's\nfavourite haunts. By common consent of scholars, it has been accepted as\nthe scene of those contests of wit between Shakespeare and Jonson of\nwhich Fuller tells us when he compares Jonson to a Spanish galleon,\nbuilt high with learning, but slow in movement, while he likens\nShakespeare to an English cruiser, less heavily weighted, but apt for\nvictory because of its nimbleness,--the same kind of contrast, by the\nway, as that which occurred to Milton.\n\nBut our Baconizing friends will not allow that Shakespeare ever went to\nthe Mermaid, or knew the people who met there; at least, none but a few\nfellow dramatists. We have no documentary proof that he ever met with\nRaleigh, or Bacon, or Selden. Let us observe that, while these sapient\ncritics are in some cases ready to welcome the slightest circumstantial\nevidence, there are others in which they will accept nothing short of\nabsolute demonstration. Did Shakespeare ever see a maypole? The word\noccurs just once in his plays, namely, in the \"Midsummer Night's Dream,\"\nwhere little Hermia, quarrelling with tall Helena, calls her a \"painted\nmaypole;\" but that proves nothing. I am not aware that there is any\nabsolute documentary proof that Shakespeare ever set eyes on a maypole.\nIt is nevertheless certain that in England, at that time, no boy could\ngrow to manhood without seeing many a maypole. Common sense has some\nrights which we are bound to respect.\n\nNow, Shakespeare's London was a small city of from 150,000 to 200,000\nsouls, or about the size of Providence or Minneapolis at the present\ntime. In cities of such size, everybody of the slightest eminence is\nknown all over town, and such persons are sure to be more or less\nacquainted with one another; it is a very rare exception when it is not\nso. Before his thirtieth year, Shakespeare was well known in London as\nan actor, a writer of plays, and the manager of a prominent theatre. It\nwas in that year that Spenser, in his \"Colin Clout's Come Home Again,\"\nalluding to Shakespeare under the name of A\u00ebtion, or \"eagle-like,\" paid\nhim this compliment:--\n\n      \"And there, though last, not least, is A\u00ebtion;\n        A gentler shepherd may nowhere be found;\n      Whose muse, full of high thought's invention,\n        Doth, like himself, heroically sound.\"\n\nFour years after this, in 1598, Francis Meres published his book\nentitled \"Palladis Tamia,\" a very interesting contribution to literary\nhistory. The author, who had been an instructor in rhetoric in the\nUniversity of Oxford, was then living in London, near the Globe Theatre.\nIn this book Meres tells his readers that \"the sweet witty soul of Ovid\nlives in mellifluous and honey-tongued Shakespeare; witness his 'Venus\nand Adonis,' his 'Lucrece,' his sugared sonnets among his private\nfriends, etc.... As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy\nand tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the\nmost excellent in both kinds for the stage: for comedy, witness his\n'Gentlemen of Verona,' his 'Errors,' his 'Love's Labour's Lost,' his\n'Love's Labour's Wonne,'[38] his 'Midsummer Night's Dream,' and his\n'Merchant of Venice;' for tragedy, his 'Richard II.,' 'Richard III.,'\n'Henry IV.,' 'King John,' 'Titus Andronicus,' and his 'Romeo and\nJuliet.' As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speak with Plautus's\ntongue if they would speak Latin, so I say that the Muses would speak\nwith Shakespeare's fine filed phrase if they would speak English.\" In\nother passages Meres mentions Shakespeare's lyrical quality, for which\nhe likens him to Pindar and Catullus; and the glory of his style, for\nwhich he places him along with Virgil and Homer. It thus appears that,\nat the age of thirty-four, this poet from Stratford was already ranked\nby critical scholars by the side of the greatest names of antiquity. Let\nme add that the popularity of his plays was making him a somewhat\nwealthy man, so that he had relieved his father from pecuniary troubles,\nand had just bought for himself the Great House at Stratford where the\nlast years of his life were spent. His income seems already to have been\nequivalent to $10,000 a year in our modern money. His position had come\nto be such that he could extend patronage to others. It was in 1598 that\nthrough his influence Ben Jonson obtained, after many rebuffs, his first\nhearing before a London audience, when \"Every Man in his Humour\" was\nbrought out at Blackfriars Theatre, with Shakespeare acting one of the\nparts.\n\nTo suppose that such a man as this, in a town the size of Minneapolis,\nconnected with a principal theatre, writer of the most popular plays of\nthe day, a poet whom men were already coupling with Homer and\nPindar,--to suppose that such a man was not known to all the educated\npeople in the town is simply absurd. There were probably very few men,\nwomen, or children in London, between 1595 and 1610, who did not know\nwho Shakespeare was when he passed them in the street; and as for such\nwits as drank ale and sack at the Mermaid, as for Raleigh and Bacon and\nSelden and the rest, to suppose that Shakespeare did not know them\nwell--nay, to suppose that he was not the leading spirit and brightest\nwit of those ambrosial nights--is about as sensible as to suppose that\nhe never saw a maypole.\n\nThe facts thus far contemplated point to one conclusion. The son of a\nwell-to-do magistrate in a small country town is born with a genius\nwhich the world has never seen surpassed. Coming to London at the age\nof twenty-one, he achieves such swift success that within thirteen years\nhe is recognized as one of the chief glories of English literature.\nDuring this time he is living in the midst of such a period of\nintellectual ferment as the world has seldom seen, and in a position\nwhich necessarily brings him into frequent contact with all the most\ncultivated men. Under such circumstances, there is nothing in the\nsmallest degree strange or surprising in his acquiring the varied\nknowledge which his plays exhibit. The major premise of the\nDelia-Baconians has, therefore, nothing in it whatever. It is a mere\nbubble, an empty vagary,--only this, and nothing more.\n\nBefore leaving this part of the subject, however, there are still one or\ntwo points of interest to be mentioned. Shakespeare shows a fondness for\nthe use of phrases and illustrations taken from the law; and on such\ngrounds our Delia-Baconians argue that the plays must have been written\nby an eminent lawyer, such as the Lord Chancellor Bacon undoubtedly was.\nThey feel that this is a great point on their side. One instance, cited\nby Nathaniel Holmes and other Baconizers, is the celebrated case of Sir\nJames Hales, who committed suicide by drowning, and was accordingly\nburied at the junction of crossroads, with a stake through his body,\nwhile all his property was forfeited to the Crown. Presently his widow\nbrought suit for an estate by survivorship in joint-tenancy. Her case\nturned upon the question whether the forfeiture occurred during her late\nhusband's lifetime: if it did, he left no estate which she could take;\nif it did not, she took the estate by survivorship. The lady's counsel\nargued that so long as Sir James was alive he had not been guilty of\nsuicide, and the instant he died the estate vested in his widow as\njoint-tenant. But the opposing counsel argued that the instant Sir James\nvoluntarily made the fatal plunge, and therefore before the breath had\nleft his body, the guilt of suicide was incurred and the forfeiture took\nplace. The court decided in favour of this view, and the widow got\nnothing.\n\nThere can be little doubt that this decision is travestied in the\nconversation of the two clowns in \"Hamlet\" with regard to Ophelia's\nright to Christian burial. The first clown makes precisely the point\nupon which the ingenious counsel for the defendant had rested his\nargument: \"If I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act, and an act\nhath three branches; it is to act, to do, and to perform.\" In making\nthis distinction the counsel had maintained that the second branch, or\nthe doing, was the only thing for the law to consider. The talk of the\nclowns brings out the humour of the case with Shakespeare's inimitable\nlightness of touch.\n\nThe report of the Hales case was published in the volume of \"Plowden's\nReports\" which was issued in 1578; and Mr. Holmes informs us that \"there\nis not the slightest ground for a belief, on the facts which we know,\nthat Shakespeare ever looked into 'Plowden's Reports.'\" This is one of\nthe cases where your stern Baconizer will not hear of anything short of\nabsolute demonstration. Mere considerations of human probability might\ndisturb the cogency of a neat little pair of syllogisms:--\n\n(1.) The author of \"Hamlet\" must have read Plowden. Shakespeare never\nread Plowden. Therefore Shakespeare was not the author of \"Hamlet.\"\n\n(2.) The author of \"Hamlet\" must have read Plowden. The lawyer, Bacon,\nmust have read Plowden. Therefore Bacon wrote \"Hamlet.\"\n\nWith regard to the major premise here, one might freely deny it. The\nauthor of \"Hamlet\" might easily have got all the knowledge involved from\nan evening chat with some legal friend at an alehouse. Then as to the\nminor premise, what earthly improbability is there in Shakespeare's\nhaving dipped into Plowden? Can anybody but lawyers or law students\nenjoy reading reports of law cases? I remember that, when I was about\nten years old, a favourite book with me was one entitled \"Criminal\nTrials of All Countries, by a Member of the Philadelphia Bar.\" I read it\nand read it, until forbidden to read such a gruesome book, and then I\nread it all the more. One of the most elaborate reports in it was that\nof the famous case of Captain Donellan, tried in 1780 on a charge of\npoisoning his wife's brother, Sir Theodosius Boughton, a dissipated and\ndiseased young man, who died very suddenly one day. A post-mortem\ninspection showed spots in the intestine, which three ordinary country\ndoctors ascribed to poisoning by laurel water, while Sir John Hunter,\none of the greatest authorities in Europe, testified that they might\nequally well have ensued upon death from apoplexy. The judge, Sir\nFrancis Buller, saw fit, in his charge, to reckon this as the testimony\nof three experts against one; and thus the jury were driven to a verdict\nof murder, though it was not proved that any murder had been committed.\nCaptain Donellan, who lived in his brother-in-law's house, was a man of\nblameless life, an amateur chemist, much given to fooling with odorous\nliquids and hissing retorts. It was proved that he had been distilling\nlaurel water, and one or two other suspicious circumstances were\nalleged. The whole trial was begun and ended on the same day, the jury\nwere about twenty minutes in finding the captain guilty, and three days\nafterward he was hung. It was a case where reason was submerged and\ndrowned under a wave of angry prejudice shrieking for a victim.\n\nNow, if I did not forthwith write a play, and take the occasion to\nridicule the judge's charge to the jury, it was because I could not\nwrite a play, not because I did not fully appreciate the insult to law\nand common sense which that unfortunate case involved. In view of this\nand other experiences, when I now read a play or a novel that contains\nan intelligent allusion to some law case, I am far from feeling driven\nto the conclusion that it must have been written by a lord chancellor.\n\nIf Shakespeare's dramas are proved by such internal evidence to have\nbeen written by a lawyer, that lawyer, by parity of reasoning, could\nhardly have been Francis Bacon. For he was pre\u00ebminently a chancery\nlawyer, and chancery phrases are in Shakespeare conspicuously absent.\nThe word \"injunctions\" occurs five times in the plays, once perhaps with\na reference to its legal use (\"Merchant of Venice,\" II. ix.); but\nnowhere do we find any exhibition of a knowledge of chancery law. His\nallusions to the common law are often very amusing, as when, in \"Love's\nLabour's Lost,\" at the end of a brisk punning-match between Boyet and\nMaria, he offers to kiss her, laughingly asking for a grant of pasture\non her lips, and she replies, \"Not so; my lips are no common, though\nseveral they be.\" Again, in \"The Comedy of Errors,\" \"Dromio asserts that\nthere is no time for a bald man to recover his hair. This having been\nwritten, the law phrase suggested itself, and he was asked whether he\nmight not do it by fine and recovery, and this suggested the efficiency\nof that proceeding to bar heirs; and this started the conceit that thus\nthe lost hair of another man would be recovered.\"[39] In such quaint\nallusions to the common law and its proceedings Shakespeare abounds, and\nwe cannot help remembering that Nash, in his prefatory epistle to\nGreene's \"Menaphon,\" printed about 1589, makes sneering mention of\nShakespeare as a man who had left the \"trade of Noverint,\" whereunto he\nwas born, in order to try his hand at tragedy. The \"trade of Noverint\"\nwas a slang expression for the business of attorney; and this passage\nhas suggested that Shakespeare may have spent some time in a law office,\nas student or as clerk, either before leaving Stratford, or perhaps\nsoon after his arrival in London. This seems to me not improbable. On\nthe other hand, \"The Merchant of Venice\" contains such crazy law that it\nis hard to imagine it coming even from a lawyer's clerk. At all events,\nwe may safely say that the legal knowledge exhibited in the plays is no\nmore than might readily have been acquired by a man of assimilative\ngenius associating with lawyers. It simply shows the range and accuracy\nof Shakespeare's powers of observation.\n\nLet us come now to the second part of the Delia Bacon theory. Having\nsatisfied herself that William Shakespeare could not have written the\npoems and plays published under his name, she jumped to the conclusion\nthat Francis Bacon was the author. Surely, a singular choice! Of all\nmen, why Francis Bacon?[40] Why not, as I said before, George Chapman or\nBen Jonson, men who were at once learned scholars and great poets?\nChapman, like Marlowe, could write the \"mighty line.\" Jonson had rare\nlyric power; his verses sing, as witness the wonderful \"Do but look on\nher eyes,\" which Francis Bacon could no more have written than he could\nhave jumped over the moon. To pitch upon Bacon as the writer of\n\"Twelfth Night\" or \"Romeo and Juliet\" is about as sensible as to assert\nthat \"David Copperfield\" must have been written by Charles Darwin. After\na familiar acquaintance of more than forty years with Shakespeare's\nworks, of nearly forty years with Bacon's, the two men impress me as\nsimply antipodal one to the other. A similar feeling was entertained by\nthe late Mr. Spedding, the biographer and editor of Bacon; and no one\nhas more happily hit off the vagaries of the Baconizers than the\nforemost Bacon scholar now living, Dr. Kuno Fischer, in his recent\naddress before the Shakespeare Society at Weimar.[41] I used to wonder\nwhether the Bacon-Shakespeare people really knew anything about Bacon,\nand, now that chance has led me to read their books, I am quite sure\nthey do not. To their minds, his works are simply a storehouse of texts\nwhich serve them for controversial missiles, very much as scattered\ntexts from the Bible used to serve our uncritical grandfathers.\n\nFrancis Bacon was one of the most interesting persons of his time, and,\nas is often the case with such many-sided characters, posterity has held\nvarious opinions about him. On the one hand, his fame has grown brighter\nwith the years; on the other hand, it has come to be more or less\ncircumscribed and limited. Pope's famous verse, \"The wisest, brightest,\nmeanest of mankind,\" may be disputed in all its three specifications.\nBacon's treatment of Essex, which formerly called forth such bitter\ncondemnation, has been, I think, completely justified; and as for the\ntaking of bribes, which led to his disgrace, there were circumstances\nwhich ought largely to mitigate the severity of our judgment. But if\nBacon was far from being a mean example of human nature, it is surely an\nexaggeration to call him the wisest and brightest of mankind. He was a\nscholar and critic of vast accomplishments, a writer of noble English\nprose, and a philosopher who represented rather than inaugurated a most\nbeneficial revolution in the aims and methods of scientific inquiry. He\nis one of the real glories of English literature, but he is also one of\nthe most overrated men of modern times. When we find Macaulay saying\nthat Bacon had \"the most exquisitely constructed intellect that has ever\nbeen bestowed on any of the children of men,\" we need not be surprised\nto find that his elaborate essay on Bacon is as false in its fundamental\nconception as it is inaccurate in details. For a long time it was one of\nthe accepted commonplaces that Bacon inaugurated the method by which\nmodern discoveries in physical science have been made. Early in the\npresent century, such writers on the history of science as Whewell began\nto show the incorrectness of this notion, and it was completely exploded\nby Stanley Jevons in his \"Principles of Science,\" the most profound\ntreatise on method that has appeared in the last fifty years. Jevons\nwrites: \"It is wholly a mistake to say that modern science is the result\nof the Baconian philosophy; it is the Newtonian philosophy and the\nNewtonian method which have led to all the great triumphs of physical\nscience, and ... the 'Principia' forms the true Novum Organon.\" This\nstatement of Jevons is thoroughly sound. The great Harvey, who knew how\nscientific discoveries are made, said with gentle sarcasm that Bacon\n\"wrote philosophy like a lord chancellor;\" yet Harvey would not have\ndenied that the chancellor was doing noble service as the eloquent\nexpounder of many sides of the scientific movement that was then\ngathering strength. Bacons mind was eminently sagacious and fertile in\nsuggestions, but the supreme creative faculty, the power to lead men\ninto new paths, was precisely the thing which he did not possess. His\nplace is a very high one among intellects of the second order; but to\nrank him with such godlike spirits as Newton, Spinoza, and Leibnitz\nsimply shows that one has no real knowledge of the work which such men\nhave done.\n\nSo much for Bacon himself. With regard to him as possible author of the\nShakespeare poems and plays, it is difficult to imagine so learned a\nscholar making the kind of mistakes that abound in those writings. Bacon\nwould hardly have introduced clocks into the Rome of Julius C\u00e6sar; nor\nwould he have made Hector quote Aristotle, nor Hamlet study at the\nUniversity of Wittenberg, founded five hundred years after Hamlet's\ntime; nor would he have put pistols into the age of Henry IV., nor\ncannon into the age of King John; and we may be pretty sure that he\nwould not have made one of the characters in \"King Lear\" talk about\nTurks and Bedlam. In this severely realistic age of ours, writers are\nmore on their guard against such anachronisms than they were in\nShakespeare's time; in his works we cannot call them serious blemishes,\nfor they do not affect the artistic character of the plays, but they are\ncertainly such mistakes as a scholar like Bacon would not have\ncommitted.\n\nDeeper down lies the contrast involved in the fact that Bacon was in a\nhigh degree a subjective writer, from whom you are perpetually getting\nrevelations of his idiosyncrasies and moods, whereas of all writers in\nthe world Shakespeare is the most completely objective, the most\nabsorbed in the work of creation. In the one writer you are always\nreminded of the man Bacon; in the other the personality is never thrust\ninto sight. Bacon is highly self-conscious; from Shakespeare\nself-consciousness is absent.\n\nThe contrast is equally great in respect of humour. I would not deny\nthat Bacon relished a joke, or could perpetrate a pun; but the bubbling,\nseething, frolicsome, irrepressible drollery of Shakespeare is something\nquite foreign to him. Read his essays, and you get charming English,\nwide knowledge, deep thought, keen observation, worldly wisdom, good\nhumour, sweet serenity; but exuberant fun is not there. In writing these\nessays Bacon was following an example set by Montaigne, but, as\ncontrasted with the delicate effervescent humour of the Frenchman, his\nstyle seems sober and almost insipid. Only fancy such a man trying to\nwrite \"The Merry Wives of Windsor\"!\n\nBoth Shakespeare and Bacon were sturdy and rapacious purloiners. They\nseized upon other men's bright thoughts and made them their own without\ncompunction and without acknowledgment; and this may account for sundry\nsimilarities which may be culled from the plays and from Bacon's works,\nupon which Baconizing text-mongers are wont to lay great stress as proof\nof common authorship. Some such resemblances may be due to borrowing\nfrom common sources; others are doubtless purely fanciful; others\nindicate either that Shakespeare cribbed from Bacon or _vice versa_.\nHere are a few miscellaneous instances:--\n\nWhere Bacon says, \"Be so true to thyself as thou be not false to others\"\n(\"Essay of Wisdom\"), Shakespeare says:--\n\n                  \"To thine own self be true,\n      And it must follow, as the night the day,\n      Thou canst not then be false to any man.\"\n\n      (Hamlet, I. iii.)\n\nThis looks as if one writer might have copied from the other. If so, it\nis Bacon who is the thief, for the lines occur in the quarto \"Hamlet\"\npublished in 1603, whereas the \"Essay of Wisdom\" was first published in\n1612.\n\nAgain, where Bacon, in the \"Essay of Gardens,\" says, \"The breath of\nflowers comes and goes like the warbling of music,\" it reminds one\nstrongly of the exquisite passage in \"Twelfth Night\" where the Duke\nexclaims:--\n\n      \"That strain again! it had a dying fall:\n      O, it came o'er my ear like the sweet south,\n      That breathes upon a bank of violets,\n      Stealing and giving odour.\"\n\nI have little doubt that Bacon had this passage in mind when he wrote\nthe \"Essay of Gardens,\" which was first published in 1625, two years\nlater than the complete folio of Shakespeare. This effectually disposes\nof the attempt to cite these correspondences in evidence that Bacon\nwrote the plays.\n\nAnother instance is from \"Richard III.:\"--\n\n      \"By a divine instinct men's minds mistrust\n      Ensuing danger; as, by proof, we see\n      The waters swell before a boisterous storm.\"\n\nBacon, in the \"Essay of Sedition,\" writes, \"As there are ... secret\nswellings of seas before a tempest, so there are in states.\" But this\nessay was not published till 1625, so again we find him copying\nShakespeare. Many such \"parallelisms,\" cited to prove that Bacon wrote\nShakespeare's works, do really prove that he read them with great care\nand remembered them well, or else took notes from them.\n\nAn interesting illustration of the helpless ignorance shown by\nBaconizers is furnished by a remark of Sir Toby Belch in \"Twelfth\nNight.\" In his instructions to that dear old simpleton, Sir Andrew\nAguecheek, about the challenge, Sir Toby observes, \"If thou thou'st him\nsome thrice, it shall not be amiss.\" In Elizabethan English, to address\na man as \"thou\" was to treat him as socially inferior; such familiarity\nwas allowable only between members of the same family or in speaking to\nservants, just as you address your wife, and likewise the cook and\nhousemaid, by their Christian names, while with the ladies of your\nacquaintance such familiarity would be rudeness. The same rule for the\npronoun survives to-day in French and German, but has been forgotten in\nEnglish. In the trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1604, Justice Coke\ninsulted the prisoner by calling out, \"Thou viper! for I _thou_ thee,\nthou traitor!\" Now, one of our Baconizers thinks that his idol, in\nwriting \"Twelfth Night,\" introduced Sir Toby's suggestion in order to\nrecall to the audience Coke's abusive remark. Once more, a little\nattention to dates would have prevented the making of a bad blunder. We\nknow from Manningham's Diary that \"Twelfth Night\" had been on the stage\nnearly two years before Raleigh's trial. On the other hand, to say that\nthe play might have suggested to Coke his coarse speech would be\nadmissible, but idle, inasmuch as the expression \"to _thou_ a man\" was\nan every-day phrase in that age.\n\nHere it naturally occurs to me to mention the \"Promus,\" about which as\nmuch fuss has been made as if it really furnished evidence in support\nof the Baconian folly. There is in the British Museum a manuscript, in\nBacon's handwriting, entitled \"Promus of Formularies and Elegancies.\"\n\"Promus\" means \"storehouse\" or \"treasury.\" A date at the top of the\nfirst page shows that it was begun in December, 1594; there is nothing,\nI believe, to show over how many years it extended. It is a scrap-book\nin which Bacon jotted down such sentences, words, and phrases as struck\nhis fancy, such as might be utilized in his writings. These neatly\nturned phrases, these \"formularies and elegancies,\" are gathered from\nall quarters,--from the Bible, from Virgil and Horace, from Ovid and\nSeneca, from Erasmus, from collections of proverbs in various languages,\netc. As there is apparently nothing original in this scrap-bag, Mr.\nSpedding did not think it worth while to include it in his edition of\nBacon's works, but in the fourteenth volume he gives a sufficient\ndescription of it, with illustrative extracts. In 1883 Mrs. Henry Pott\npublished the whole of this \"Promus\" manuscript, and swelled it by\ncomments and dissertations into a volume of 600 octavo pages. She had\nfound in it several hundred expressions which reminded her of passages\nin Shakespeare, and so it confirmed her in the opinion which she already\nentertained that Bacon was the author of Shakespeare's works. Thus,\nwhen the \"Promus\" has a verse from Ovid, which means, \"And the forced\ntongue begins to lisp the sound commanded,\" it reminds Mrs. Pott of\ndivers lines in which Shakespeare uses the word \"lisp,\" as for example,\nin \"As You Like It,\" \"you lisp and wear strange suits;\" and she jumps to\nthe conclusion that when Bacon jotted down the verse from Ovid, it was\nas a preparatory study toward \"As You Like It,\" and any other play that\ncontains the word \"lisp:\" therefore Bacon wrote all those plays, _Q. E.\nD._! On the next page we find Virgil's remark, \"Thus was I wont to\ncompare great things with small,\" made the father of Falstaff's \"base\ncomparisons,\" and Fluellen's \"Macedon and Monmouth,\" as well as honest\nDogberry's \"comparisons are odorous.\" When one reads such things,\nevidently printed in all seriousness, one feels like asking Mrs. Pott,\nin the apt words of Shakespeare's friend Fletcher, \"What mare's nest\nhast thou found?\" (\"Bonduca,\" V. ii.)\n\nThere are many phrases, however, in the \"Promus\" which undoubtedly agree\nwith phrases in the plays. They show that Bacon heard or read the plays\nwith great interest, and culled from them his \"elegancies\" with no\nstinted hand. As for Mrs. Pott's bulky volume, it brings us so near to\nthe final _reductio ad absurdum_ of the Bacon theory that we hardly\nneed spend many words upon the gross improbabilities which that theory\ninvolves. The plays of Shakespeare were universally ascribed to him by\nhis contemporaries; many of them were published during his lifetime with\nhis name upon the title-page as the author; all were collected and\npublished together by Hemminge and Condell, two of his fellow actors,\nseven years after his death; and for more than two centuries nobody ever\ndreamed of looking for a different authorship, or of associating the\nplays with Bacon. But this Chimborazo of _prima facie_ evidence becomes\na mere mole-hill in the hands of your valiant Baconizer. It is all clear\nto him. Bacon did not acknowledge the authorship of these works because\nsuch literature was deemed frivolous, and current prejudices against\ntheatres and playwrights might injure his hopes of advancement at the\nbar and in political life. Therefore, by some sort of private\nunderstanding with the ignorant and sordid wretch Shakespeare,[42] at\nwhose theatre they were brought out, their authorship was ascribed to\nhim, the real author died without revealing the secret, and the whole\nworld was deceived until the days of Delia Bacon.\n\nBut there are questions which even this ingenious hypothesis fails to\nanswer. Why should Bacon have taken the time to write those thirty-seven\nplays, two poems, and one hundred and fifty-four sonnets, if they were\nnever to be known as his works? Not for money, surely, for that grasping\nShakespeare seems to have got the money as well as the fame; Bacon died\na poor man. His principal aim in life was to construct a new system of\nphilosophy; on this noble undertaking he spent such time as he could\nsave from the exactions of his public career as member of Parliament,\nchancery lawyer, solicitor-general, attorney-general, lord chancellor;\nand he died with this work far from finished. The volumes which he left\nbehind him were only fragments of the mighty structure which he had\nplanned. We may well ask, Where did this overburdened writer find the\ntime for doing work of another kind voluminous enough to fill a\nlifetime, and what motive had he for doing it without recompense in\neither fame or money? Baconizers find it strange that Shakespeare's will\ncontains no reference to his plays as literary property. The omission is\ncertainly interesting, since it seems to indicate that he had parted\nwith his pecuniary interest in them,--had perhaps sold it out to the\nGlobe Theatre. If this omission can be held to show that Shakespeare\nwas lacking in fondness for the productions of his own genius, what\nshall be said of the notion that Bacon spent half his life in writing\nworks the paternity of which he must forever disown?\n\nThis question is answered by Mr. Ignatius Donnelly, a writer who\nspeculates with equal infelicity on all subjects, but never suffers for\nlack of boldness. He published in 1887 a book even bigger than that of\nMrs. Pott, for it has nearly 1000 pages. Its title is, \"The Great\nCryptogram,\" and its thesis is, that Bacon really did claim the\nauthorship of the Shakespeare plays. Only the claim was made in a\ncipher, and if you simply make some numbers mean some words, and other\nwords mean other numbers, and perform a good many sums in what the Mock\nTurtle called \"ambition, distraction, uglification, and derision,\" you\nwill be able to read this claim between the lines, along with much other\nwonderful information. Thus does the arithmetical Donnelly carry us\nquite a long stride nearer to the _reductio ad absurdum_, or suicide\npoint, than we were left by Mrs. Pott, with her lisping and limping\ncomparisons.\n\nBut before we come to the jumping-off place, let us pause for a moment\nand take a retrospective glance at the natural history of the\nBacon-Shakespeare craze. What was it that first unlocked the\nsluice-gates, and poured forth such a deluge of foolishness upon a\nsorely suffering world? It will hardly do to lay the blame upon poor\nDelia Bacon. Her suggestions would have borne no fruit had they not\nfound a public, albeit a narrow one, in some degree prepared for them.\nWho, then, prepared the soil for the seeds of this idiocy to take root?\nWho but the race of fond and foolish Shakespeare commentators, with\ntheir absurd claims for their idol? During the eighteenth century\nShakespeare was generally underrated. Voltaire wondered how a nation\nthat possessed such a noble tragedy as Addison's \"Cato\" could endure\nsuch plays as \"Hamlet\" and \"Othello.\" In the days of Scott and Burns a\nreaction set in; and Shakespeare worship reached its height when the\nGermans took it up, and, not satisfied with calling him the prince of\npoets and peerless master of dramatic art, began to discover in his\nworks all sorts of hidden philosophy and impossible knowledge. Of the\naverage German mind Lowell good-naturedly says that \"it finds its\nkeenest pleasure in divining a profound significance in the most\ntrifling things, and the number of mare's nests that have been stared\ninto by the German _Gelehrter_ through his spectacles passes\ncalculation.\"[43] But the Germans are not the only sinners; let me cite\nan instance from near home. In the quarto \"Hamlet\" of 1603 we read:--\n\n      \"Full forty years are past, their date is gone,\n      Since happy time joined both our hearts as one:\n      And now the blood that filled my youthful veins\n      Runs weakly in their pipes,\" etc.\n\nWhereupon Mr. Edward Vining calls upon us to observe how Shakespeare,\n\"to whom all human knowledge seems to be but a matter of instinct, in\n[these lines] asserts the circulation of the blood in the veins and\n'pipes,' a truth which Harvey probably did not even suspect until at\nleast thirteen years later,\" etc.[44] Does Mr. Vining really suppose\nthat what Harvey did was to discover that blood runs in our veins? A\nlittle further study of history would have taught him that even the\nancients knew that blood runs in the veins.[45] About fourteen hundred\nyears before \"Hamlet\" was written, Galen proved that it also runs in\nthe arteries. After Galen's time, it was believed that the dark blood\nnourishes such plebeian organs as the liver, while the bright blood\nnourishes such lordly organs as the brain, and that the interchange\ntakes place in the heart; until the sixteenth century, when Vesalius\nproved that the interchange does not take place in the heart, and the\nmartyr Servetus proved that it does take place in the lungs; and so on\ntill 1619, when Harvey discovered that dark blood is brought by the\nveins to the right side of the heart, and thence driven into the lungs,\nwhere it becomes bright and flows into the left side of the heart,\nthence to be propelled throughout the body in the arteries. That it then\ngrows dark and returns through the veins Harvey believed, but no one\ncould tell how, until, forty years later, Malpighi with his microscope\ndetected the capillaries. Now to talk about Shakespeare discerning as if\nby instinct a truth which Harvey afterward discovered is simply silly.\nInstead of showing rare scientific knowledge, his remark about blood\nrunning in the veins is one that anybody might have made.\n\nThis is a fair specimen of the ignorant way in which doting commentators\nhave built up an impossible Shakespeare, until at last they have\nprovoked a reaction. Sooner or later the question was sure to arise,\nWhere did your Stratford boy get all this abstruse scientific knowledge?\nThe keynote was perhaps first sounded by August von Schlegel, who\npersuaded himself that Shakespeare had mastered \"all the things and\nrelations of this world,\" and then went on to declare that the accepted\naccount of his life must be a mere fable. Thus we reach the point from\nwhich Delia Bacon started.\n\nIt may safely be said that all theories of Shakespeare's plays which\nsuppose them to be attempts at teaching occult philosophical doctrines,\nor which endow them with any other meanings than those which their words\ndirectly and plainly convey, are a delusion and a snare. Those plays\nwere written, not to teach philosophy, but to fill the theatre and make\nmoney. They were written by a practised actor and manager, the most\nconsummate master of dramatic effects that ever lived; a poet\nunsurpassed for fertility of invention, unequalled for melody of\nlanguage, unapproached for delicacy of fancy, inexhaustible in humour,\nprofoundest of moralists; a man who knew human nature by intuition, as\nMozart knew counterpoint or as Chopin knew harmony. The name of that\nwriter was none other than William Shakespeare of Stratford-on-Avon.\n\nIt was inevitable that the Bacon folly, after once adopting such methods\nas those of Mrs. Pott and Mr. Donnelly, should proceed to commit suicide\nby piling up extravagances. By such methods one can prove anything, and\naccordingly we find these writers busy in tracing Bacon's hand in the\nwritings of Greene, Marlowe, Shirley, Marston, Massinger, Middleton, and\nWebster. They are sure that he was the author of Montaigne's Essays,\nwhich were afterward translated into what we have always supposed to be\nthe French original. Mr. Donnelly believes that Bacon also wrote\nBurton's \"Anatomy of Melancholy.\" Next comes Dr. Orville Owen with a new\ncipher, which proves that Bacon was the son of Queen Elizabeth by Robert\nDudley, and that he was the author of the \"Faerie Queene\" and other\npoems attributed to Edmund Spenser. Finally we have Mr. J. E. Roe, who\ndoes not mean to be outdone. He asks us what we are to think of the\nnotion that an ignorant tinker, like John Bunyan, could have written the\nmost perfect allegory in any language. Perish the thought! Nobody but\nBacon could have done it. Of course Bacon had been more than fifty years\nin his grave when \"Pilgrim's Progress\" was published as Bunyan's. But\nyour true Baconizer is never stopped by trifles. Mr. Roe assures us\nthat Bacon wrote that heavenly book, as well as \"Robinson Crusoe\" and\nthe \"Tale of a Tub;\" which surely begins to make him seem ubiquitous and\neverlasting. If things go on at this rate, we shall presently have a\nreligious sect holding as its first article of faith that Francis Bacon\ncreated the heavens and the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh\nday.\n\n_November, 1896._\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nSOME CRANKS AND THEIR CROTCHETS\n\n                        \"Now, by two-headed Janus,\n      Nature hath framed strange fellows in her time!\"\n\n      _Merchant of Venice_, I. i.\n\n\nAbout five-and-twenty years ago, when I was assistant librarian at\nHarvard University, much of my time was occupied in revising and\nbringing toward completion the gigantic pair of twin catalogues--of\nauthors and subjects--which my predecessor, Dr. Ezra Abbot, had started\nin 1861. Twins they were in simultaneity of birth, but not in likeness\nof growth. Naturally, the classified catalogue was much bigger than its\nbrother, filled more drawers, cost more money, and made a vast deal more\ntrouble. For while some books were easy enough to classify, others were\nnot at all easy, and sometimes curious questions would arise.\n\nOne day, for example, I happened to be looking at a pamphlet on the\nvalue of Pi; and, should any of my readers ask what that might mean, I\nshould answer that Pi (\u03c0) is the Greek letter which geometers\nuse to denote the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its\ndiameter. The arithmetical value of this symbol is 3.1415926536, and so\non in an endless fraction. Is it not hard to see what there can be in\nsuch an innocent decimal to irritate human beings and destroy their\npeace of mind? Yet so it is. Many a human life has been wrecked upon Pi.\nTo a certain class of our fellow-creatures its existence is maddening.\nIt interferes with the success of a little scheme on which they have set\ntheir hearts,--nothing less than to construct a square which shall be\nexactly equivalent in dimensions to a given circle. Nobody has ever done\nsuch a thing, for it cannot be done. But when mathematicians tell these\npoor people that such is the case, they howl with rage, and, dipping\ntheir pens in gall, write book after book bristling with figures to\nprove that they have \"squared the circle.\" The Harvard library does not\nbuy such books, but it accepts all manner of gifts, and has thus come to\ncontain some queer things.\n\nWhen I consulted the subject catalogue, to see under what head it had\nbeen customary to classify these lucubrations on Pi, I found, sure\nenough, that it was Mathematics \u00a7 Circle-Squaring. Following this cue, I\nexplored the drawers in other directions, and found books on \"perpetual\nmotion\" formed a section under Physics, while crazy interpretations of\nthe book of Daniel were grouped along with works of solid Biblical\nscholarship by such eminent writers as Reuss and Kuenen and Cheyne.\nClearly, here was a case for reform. The principle of classification was\nfaulty. In one sense, the treatment of the quadrature of the circle may\nbe regarded as a section under the general head of mathematics; as, for\nexample, when Lindemann, in 1882, showed that Pi cannot be represented\nas the root of any algebraic equation with rational coefficients. But\nour circle-squaring literature is very different. It is usually written\nby persons whose mathematical horizon scarcely extends beyond long\ndivision: just as the writers on perpetual motion know nothing of\nphysics; just as so many expositors have dealt with the ten-horned beast\nin blissful ignorance alike of ancient history and of the principles of\nliterary criticism. What all such books illustrate, however various may\nbe their ostensible themes, is the pathology of the human mind. They are\nspecimens of Insane Literature. As such they have a certain sort of\ninterest; and to any rational being it is the only sort they can have.\n\nSo I culled from many a little drawer the cards appertaining to divers\nprinted products of morbid cerebration, and gathered them into a class\nof Insane Literature; and under this rubric such sections as\nCircle-Squaring, Perpetual Motion, Great Pyramid, Earth not a Globe,\netc., were evidently in their proper place. The name of the class was\nduly inscribed on the outside of its drawer, and the matter seemed\nhappily disposed of.\n\nThe way of the reformer, however, is beset with difficulties, and it is\nseldom that his first efforts are crowned with entire success. Not many\ndays had elapsed since this emendation of the catalogue, when one of my\nassistants brought me the card of a book on the Apocalypse, by a certain\nMr. Smallwit, and called my attention to the fact that it was classified\nas Insane Literature.\n\n\"Very well,\" I said, \"so it is.\"\n\n\"I don't doubt it, sir,\" said she; \"but the author lives over in\nChelsea, and I saw him this morning in one of the alcoves. Perhaps, if\nhe were to look in the catalogue and see how his book is classified, he\nmightn't altogether like it. Then, as I looked a little further along\nthe cards, I came upon this pamphlet by Herr Dummkopf, of Breslau,\nupsetting the law of gravitation; and--do you know?--Herr Dummkopf is\nspending the winter here in Cambridge!\"\n\n\"To be sure,\" said I, \"it was very stupid of me not to foresee such\ncases. Of course we can't call a man a fool to his face. In a catalogue\nwhich marshals the quick along with the dead some heed must be paid to\nthe amenities of life. Pray get and bring me all those cards.\"\n\nBy the time they arrived a satisfactory solution of the difficulty had\nsuggested itself. I told the assistant simply to scratch out \"Insane,\"\nand put \"Eccentric\" instead. For while the harsh Latin epithet would of\ncourse infuriate Messrs. Dummkopf, Smallwit & Co., it might be doubted\nif their feelings would be hurt by the milder Greek word. Some people of\ntheir stripe, to whom notoriety is the very breath of their nostrils,\nwould consider it a mark of distinction to be called eccentric. At all\nevents, the harshness would be delicately veiled under a penumbra of\nambiguity.\n\nThus the class Eccentric Literature was established in our catalogue,\nand there it has remained, while the books in the library have increased\nfrom a hundred thousand to half a million. Once or twice, I am told, has\nsome disgusted author uttered a protest, but the quiet of Gore Hall has\nnot been disturbed thereby. Care is needed in treating such a subject,\nand my rule was that no amount of mere absurdity, no extremity of\ndissent from generally received opinions, should consign a book to the\nclass of Eccentric Literature, unless it showed unmistakable symptoms of\ncrankery, or the buzzing of a bee in the author's bonnet. This rule has\nbeen strictly followed. One lot of books--the Bacon-Shakespeare\nstuff--which I intended to put in this class, but forgot to do so\nbecause of sore stress of work, still remain absurdly grouped along with\nthe books on Shakespeare written by men in their senses. With this\nexception, the class offers us a fairly comprehensive view of the\nliterature of cranks.\n\nJust where the line should be drawn between sanity and crankery is not\nalways easy to determine, and must usually be left to soundness of\njudgment in each particular case, as with so many other questions of all\ngrades, from the supreme court down to the kitchen. One of the most\nfrequent traits of your crank is his megalomania, or self-magnification.\nHis intellectual equipment is so slender that he cannot see wherein he\nis inferior to Descartes or Newton. Without enough knowledge to place\nhim in the sixth form of a grammar school, he will assail the\nconclusions of the greatest minds the world has seen. His mood is\nbelligerent; since people will not take him at his own valuation, he is\napt to regard society as engaged in a conspiracy to ignore and belittle\nhim. Of humour he is pretty sure to be destitute; an abounding sense of\nthe ludicrous is one of the best safeguards of mental health, and even a\nslight endowment will usually nip and stunt the fungus growth of\ncrankery.\n\nThe slightest glimmering sense of humour would have restrained that\ninveterate circle-squarer, James Smith, from publishing (in 1865) his\npamphlet entitled \"The British Association in Jeopardy, and Dr. Whewell,\nthe Master of Trinity, in the Stocks without Hope of Escape.\" His case,\nwith those of many other ingenious lunatics, was racily set forth by the\nlate Professor De Morgan in his \"Budget of Paradoxes\" (London, 1872), a\nbulky book dealing with the author's personal experiences with cranks\nand their crotchets. It was De Morgan's lot as an eminent mathematician\nto be outrageously bored by circle-squarers and their kin, and it was a\nhappy thought to put on record the queer things that happened. His\nfriends asked him again and again why he took the trouble to mention and\nexpose such absurdities. He replied that, when your crank publishes a\nbook \"full of figures which few readers can criticise, a great many\npeople are staggered to this extent, that they imagine there must be the\nindefinite _something_ in the mysterious _all this_. They are brought to\nthe point of suspicion that the mathematicians ought not to treat _all\nthis_ with such undisguised contempt, at least. Now I have no fear for\n\u03c0; but I do think it possible that general opinion might in\ntime demand that the crowd of circle-squarers, etc., should be admitted\nto the honours of opposition; and this would be a time-tax of five per\ncent. one man with another, upon those who are better employed.\" At any\nrate, continues De Morgan, with a twinkle in the corner of his eye,\nwhether in chastising cranks he has any motive but public good \"must be\nreferred to those who can decide whether a missionary chooses his\npursuit solely to convert the heathen.\" He confesses that perhaps he may\nhave a little of the spirit of Colonel Quagg, whose principle of action\nwas thus succinctly expressed: \"I licks ye because I kin, and because I\nlike, and because ye's critters that licks is good for!\"\n\nAmong the creatures whose malady seemed to call for such drastic\ntreatment was Captain Forman, R. N., who in 1833 wrote against the law\nof gravitation, and got not a word of notice. Then he wrote to Sir John\nHerschel and Lord Brougham, asking them to get his book reviewed in some\nof the quarterlies. Receiving no answer from these gentlemen, he\naddressed in one of the newspapers a card to Lord John Russell,\ninveighing against their \"dishonest\" behaviour. Still getting no\nsatisfaction, the valorous captain wrote to the Royal Astronomical\nSociety with a challenge to controversy. To this letter came a polite\nbut brief answer, advising him to study the rudiments of mechanics. It\nwas not in the paradoxer's nature to submit tamely to such treatment;\nand he replied in a printed pamphlet, wherein he called that learned\nsociety \"craven dunghill cocks,\" and bestrewed them, with other choice\nflowers of rhetoric, much to the relief of his feelings.\n\nOne of this naval officer's fellow sufferers was a farm labourer, who\ntook it into his head that the Lord Chancellor had offered \u00a3100,000\nreward to any one who should square the circle. So Hodge went to work\nand squared it, and then hied him to London, blissfully dreaming of\nsudden wealth. Hearing that De Morgan was a great mathematician, he left\nhis papers with him, including a letter to the Lord Chancellor, claiming\nthe \u00a3100,000. De Morgan returned the papers with a note, saying that no\nsuch prize had ever been offered, and gently hinting that the worthy\nHodge had not sufficient knowledge to see in what the problem consisted.\nThis elicited from the rustic philosopher a long letter, from which I\nmust quote a few sentences, so characteristic of the circle-squaring\ntalent and temper:--\n\n      Doctor Morgan, Sir. Permit me to address you\n\n      Brute Creation may perhaps enjoy the faculty of beholding\n      visible things with a more penitrating eye than ourselves.\n      But Spiritual objects are as far out of their reach as\n      though they had no being Nearest therefore to the brute\n      Creation are those men who Suppose themselves to be so far\n      governed by external objects as to believe nothing but what\n      they See and feel And Can accomedate to their Shallow\n      understanding and Imaginations\n\n      ... When a Gentleman of your Standing in Society ... Can\n      not understand or Solve a problem That is explicitly\n      explained by words and Letters and mathematacally operated\n      by figuers He had best consult the wise proverd\n\n      Do that which thou Canst understand and Comprehend for thy\n      good.\n\n      I would recommend that Such Gentleman Change his business\n\n      And appropriate his time and attention to a Sunday School\n      to Learn what he Could and keep the Litle Children form\n      durting their Close\n\n      With Sincere feelings of Gratitude for your weakness and\n      Inability I am\n\n      Sir your Superior in Mathematics.\n\n      X. Y.\n\nA few days after this elegant epistle there came to De Morgan another\nfrom the same hand. Hodge had sent his papers to some easy-going\nAmerican professor, whose reply must clearly have been too polite. It is\nnever safe to give your crank an inch of comfort; it will straightway\nbecome an ell of assurance. This American savant, crows Rusticus,\n\"highly approves of my work. And Says he will Insure me Reward in the\nStates I write this that you may understand that I have knowledge of the\nunfair way that I am treated in my own nati County I am told and have\nreasons to believe that it is the Clergy that treat me so unjust. I am\nnot Desirious of heaping Disonors upon my own nation. But if I have to\nLeave this kingdom without my Just dues. The world Shall know how I am\nand have been treated\n\n\"I am Sir Desirous of my Just dues\n\n      \"X. Y.\"\n\nA cynical philosopher once said that you cannot find so big a fool but\nthere will be some bigger fool to swear by him; and so our agricultural\nfriend had his admiring disciple who felt bound to break a lance for him\nwith the unappreciative De Morgan:--\n\n\"He has done what you nor any other mathematician as those who call\nthemselves such have done. And what is the reason that you will not\ncandidly acknowledge to him ... that he has squared the circle shall I\ntell you? it is because he has performed the feat to obtain the glory of\nwhich mathematicians have battled from time immemorial that they might\nencircle their brows with a wreath of laurels far more glorious than\never conqueror won it is simply this that it is a poor man a humble\nartisan who has gained that victory that you don't like to acknowledge\nit you don't like to be beaten and worse to acknowledge that you have\nmiscalculated, you have in short too small a soul to acknowledge that he\nis right.... I am backed in my opinion not only by Mr. Q. a\nmathematician and watchmaker residing in the boro of Southwark but by no\nless an authority than the Professor of mathematics of ... College\nUnited States Mr. Q and I presume that he at least is your equal as an\nauthority and Mr. Q says that the government of the U. S. will\nrecompense X. Y. for the discovery he has made if so what a reflection\nupon Old england the boasted land of freedom the nursery of the arts and\nsciences that her sons are obliged to go to a foreign country to obtain\nthat recompense to which they are justly entitled.\"[46]\n\nOrdinarily, the aim of the paradoxers is to achieve renown by doing\nwhat nobody ever did. Hence the fascination exercised upon them by those\napparently simple problems which already in ancient times were\nrecognized as \"old stickers,\" the quadrature of the circle, the\ntrisection of angles, and the duplicature of the cube. The ancients\nfound these geometric problems insolvable, though it was left for modern\nalgebra to point out the reason, namely, that no quantities can be\ngeometrically constructed from given quantities, except such as can be\nformed from them algebraically by the solution of quadratic equations;\nif the algebraic solution comes as the root of a cubic or biquadratic\nequation, it cannot be constructed by geometry. Against this hopeless\nwall the crowd of paradoxers will doubtless continue to break their\nheads until the millennium dawns.\n\nSometimes, however, our crank has a practical end in view, as in the\nnumerous attempts to discover \"perpetual motion,\" or, in other words, to\ninvent a machine out of which you can get indefinitely more energy than\nyou put in. It is not strange that many thousands of dollars have been\nwasted in this effort to recover Aladdin's lost lamp. The notorious\nKeely motor is but one of a host of contrivances born and bred of crass\nignorance of the alphabet of dynamics. But perpetual motion is not the\nonly form assumed by wealth-seeking crankery. In 1861 a Captain Roblin,\nof Normandy, having ascertained to his own satisfaction, from the\nprolonged study of the zodiac of Denderah, the sites of sundry\ngold-mines, came forward with proposals for a joint stock company to dig\nand be rich. The labours of Herr Johannes von Gumpach were of a more\nphilanthropic turn. He published in 1861 a pamphlet entitled \"A\nMillion's Worth of Property and Five Hundred Lives annually lost at Sea\nby the Theory of Gravitation. A Letter on the True Figure of the Earth,\naddressed to the Astronomer Royal.\" Next year this pamphlet grew into a\nstout volume. It maintained that a great many shipwrecks were occasioned\nby errors of navigation due to an erroneous conception of the shape of\nthe earth. Since Newton's time, it has been supposed to be flattened at\nthe poles, whereas the amiable Gumpach calls upon his fellow-creatures\nto take notice that it is elongated, and to mend their ways accordingly.\n\nThe desire to prove great men wrong is one of the crank's most frequent\nand powerful incentives. The name of Newton is the greatest in the\nhistory of science: how flattering to one's self it must be, then, to\nprove him a fool! In eccentric literature the books against Newton are\nlegion. Here is a title: \"David and Goliath, or an Attempt to prove\nthat the Newtonian System of Astronomy is directly opposed to the\nScriptures. By William Lander, Mere, Wilts, 1833.\" And here is De\nMorgan's terse summary of the book: \"Newton is Goliath; Mr. Lander is\nDavid. David took five pebbles; Mr. Lander takes five arguments. He\nexpects opposition; for Paul and Jesus both met with it.\"\n\nThere are few subjects over which cranks are more painfully exercised\nthan the figure of the earth, and its relations to heavenly bodies.\nAristotle proved that the earth is a globe; Copernicus showed that it is\none of a system of planets revolving about the sun; Newton explained the\ndynamics of this system. But at length came a certain John Hampden, who\nwith dauntless breast maintained that all this is wrong! His pamphlet\nwas prudently dedicated \"to the unprofessional public and the common\nsense men of Europe and America;\" he knew that it could find no favor\nwith bigoted men of science. This Hampden, like his great namesake, is\nnothing if not bold. \"The Newtonian or Copernican theory,\" he tells us,\n\"from the first hour of its invention, has never dared to submit to an\nappeal to facts!\" Again, \"Defenders it never had; and no threats, no\ntaunts or exposure, will ever rouse the energies of a single champion.\"\nIn other words, astronomers do not waste their time in noticing Mr.\nHampden's taunts and threats. Why is this so? His next sentence reminds\nus that \"cowardice always accompanies conscious guilt.\" He goes on to\ntell us the true state of the case: \"The earth, as it came from the\nhands of its Almighty Creator, is a motionless Plane, based and built\nupon foundations which the Word of God expressly declares cannot be\nsearched out or discovered.... The stars are hardly bigger than the gas\njets which light our streets, and, if they could be made to change\nplaces with them, no astronomer could detect the difference.\" The North\nPole is the centre of the flat earth, and its extreme southern limit is\nnot a South Pole, but a circle 30,000 miles in circumference. Night is\ncaused by the sun passing behind a layer of clouds 7000 miles thick. It\nis not gravitation which makes a river run down hill, but the impetus of\nthe water behind pressing on the water before. Is not this delicious? As\nfor Newton, poor fellow, he \"lived in a superstitious age and district;\nhe was educated among an illiterate peasantry.\" This is like the way in\nwhich the Baconizing cranks dispose of Shakespeare. So zealous was Mr.\nHampden that in 1876 he began publishing a periodical called \"The Truth\nSeeker's Oracle.\" Similar views were set forth by one Samuel Rowbotham,\nwho wrote under the name of \"Parallax,\" and by a William Carpenter,\nwhose pamphlet, \"One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is not a Globe\"\n(Baltimore, 1885), is quite a curiosity; for example, Proof 33: \"If the\nearth were a globe, people--except those on top--would certainly have to\nbe fastened to its surface by some means or other;... but as we know\nthat we simply walk on its surface, without any other aid than that\nwhich is necessary for locomotion on a plane, it follows that we have\nherein a conclusive proof that Earth is not a globe.\" Since Mr.\nCarpenter understands the matter so thoroughly, can we wonder at the\nearnestness with which he rebukes the late Richard Proctor? \"Mr.\nProctor, we charge you that, whilst you teach the theory of the earth's\nrotundity, you KNOW that it is a plane!\"\n\nMore original than Messrs. Hampden and Carpenter are the writers who\nmaintain that the earth is hollow, and supports a teeming population in\nits interior. Early in the present century this idea came with the force\nof a revelation to the mind of Captain John Cleves Symmes, a retired\narmy officer engaged in trade at St. Louis. In 1818 he issued a\ncircular, of which the following is an abridgment: \"TO ALL THE WORLD I\ndeclare the earth is hollow and habitable within; containing a number of\nsolid concentric spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at\nthe poles twelve or sixteen degrees. I pledge my life in support of this\ntruth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and\naid me in the undertaking.... My terms are [Hear, Messrs. Quay and\nPlatt! and give ear, O Tammany!] _the_ PATRONAGE _of_ THIS _and the_ NEW\nWORLDS.... I select Dr. S. L. Mitchell, Sir H. Davy, and Baron Alexander\nvon Humboldt as my protectors. I ask one hundred brave companions, well\nequipped, to start from Siberia, in the fall season, with reindeer and\nsleighs, on the ice of the frozen sea. I engage we find a warm and rich\nland, stocked with thrifty vegetables and animals, if not men, on\nreaching one degree northward of latitude 82\u00b0. We will return in the\nsucceeding spring.\"\n\nThis circular was sent by mail to men of science, colleges, learned\nsocieties, legislatures, and municipal bodies, all over the United\nStates and Europe; for when it comes to postage, your crank seems always\nto have unlimited funds at his disposal. At Paris, the distinguished\ntraveller, Count Volney, doubtless with a significant shrug, presented\nthe precious document to the Academy of Sciences, by which it was\nmirthfully laid upon the table. Nowhere did learned men take it\nseriously; it was generally set down as a rather stupid hoax. But,\nnothing daunted by such treatment, the worthy Symmes began giving\nlectures on the subject, and succeeded in making some impression upon an\nuninstructed public. In 1824 his audience at Hamilton, Ohio, at the\nclose of a lecture, \"_resolved_, that we esteem Symmes' Theory of the\nEarth deserving of serious examination and worthy of the attention of\nthe American people.\" At a theatre in Cincinnati, a benefit was given\nfor the proposed polar expedition, and verses were recited suitable to\nthe occasion:--\n\n      \"Has not Columbia one aspiring son\n      By whom the unfading laurel may be won?\n      Yes! history's pen may yet inscribe the name\n      Of SYMMES to grace her future scroll of fame.\"\n\nThe captain's petitions to Congress, however, praying for ships and men,\nwere heartlessly laid on the table, and nothing was left him but to keep\non crying in the wilderness, which he did until his death in 1829. In\nthe cemetery at Hamilton, the freestone monument over his grave, placed\nthere by his son, Americus Symmes, is surmounted with a hollow globe,\nopen at the poles.\n\nHalf a century later the son published a pamphlet,[47] in which he gave\na somewhat detailed exposition of his father's notions. From this we\nlearn that the interior world is well lighted; for the sun's rays,\npassing through \"the dense cold air of the verges\" (that is, the\ncircular edge of the big polar hole), are powerfully refracted, and\nafter getting inside they are forthwith reflected from one concave\nsurface to another, with the result that the whole interior is\nilluminated with a light equal to 3600 times that of the full moon. We\nlearn, too, that the famous Swedish geographer, Norpensjould (_semper\nsic!_), after passing the magnetic pole, found a timbered country with\nlarge rivers and abundant animal life. Afterward one Captain Wiggins\nvisited this country, where he found flax and wheat, highly magnetic\niron ore, and rich mines of copper and gold. The trees are as big as any\nin California; hides, wool, tallow, ivory, and furs abound. The\ninhabitants are very tall, with Roman noses, and speak Hebrew. Yes,\nechoes Captain Tuttle, an old whaler, who also has visited this new\ncountry, they speak Hebrew, and are a smart people. \"Would it not be\nlogical,\" writes Americus, \"to think that this was one of the lost\ntribes of Israel? for we read in the Bible that they went up the\nEuphrates to the north and dwelt in a land where man never dwelt\nbefore.\" Just so; evidently, Messrs. \"Norpensjould,\" Wiggins, and Tuttle\nsailed \"across the verge\" and into the interior country, the concave\nworld, which shall henceforth be known as Symmzonia! The book ends with\nthe triumphant query, \"Where were those explorers if not in the Hollow\nof the Earth, and would they not have come out at the South Pole if they\nhad continued on their course?\"\n\nIt is sad to have such positive conclusions disputed, but even in\neccentric lore the doctors are found to disagree. Scarcely had Americus\nput forth his revised edition, when a pamphlet entitled \"The Inner\nWorld,\" by Frederick Culmer, was published at Salt Lake City (1886). Its\nchapters have resounding titles: \"I. The Universal Vacuity of Centres;\nII. The Polar Orifices of the Earth; III. The Alleged Northwest Passage\nand Symmes' Hole.\" We are told that although the polar orifices have\ndiameters of about a thousand miles each, nevertheless, in spite of\nWiggins and Tuttle, \"there is no passage to the inner world on the north\nof America;\" on the contrary, it must be sought within the antarctic\ncircle. But Mr. Culmer would discourage rash attempts at exploration,\nand believes that \"no man will be able to plant the standard of his\ncountry on any land in that region worth one dime to himself or any one\nelse at present.\" For this gloomy outlook we must try to console\nourselves with the knowledge that Mr. Culmer has detected the true\nexplanation of the Aurora Borealis: \"It is the sun's rays shining on a\nplacid interior ocean and reflecting upon the outer atmosphere.\"\n\nA favourite occupation of cranks is the discovery of hidden meanings in\nthings. Whether we are to say that the passionate quest of the occult\nhas been prolific in mental disturbances, or whether we had better say\nthat persons with ill-balanced minds take especial delight in the search\nfor the occult, the practical result is about the same. The impelling\nmotive is not very different from that of the circle-squarers; it is\npleasing to one's self-love to feel that one discerns things to which\nall other people are blind. Hence the number of mare's-nests that have\nbeen complacently stared into by learned donkeys is legion. Mere\nerudition is no sure safeguard against the subtle forms which the\ntemptation takes on, as we may see from the ingenuity that has been\nwasted on the Great Pyramid. In 1864, Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal for\nScotland, published his book entitled \"Our Inheritance in the Great\nPyramid,\" and afterward followed it with other similar books. Whatever\nmay have been the original complexion of this gentleman's mind, it was\nnot such as to prevent his attaining distinction and achieving\nusefulness as a practical astronomer. But the pyramids were too much for\nhis mental equilibrium. As De Morgan kindly puts it, \"his work on Egypt\nis paradox of a very high order, backed by a great quantity of useful\nlabour, the results of which will be made available by those who do not\nreceive the paradoxes.\"\n\nThe pyramidal tombs of Egyptian kings were an evolution in stone or\nbrick from the tumulus of earth which in prehistoric ages was heaped\nover the body of the war chief. They are objects of rare dignity and\ninterest, not only from their immense size, but from sundry\npeculiarities in their construction. In their orientation great care was\ntaken, though usually with imperfect success. Their sides face the four\ncardinal points, and the descending entry-way forms a kind of telescope,\nfrom the bottom of which an observer, sixty centuries ago, could look\nout at what was then the polestar. These and other features of the\npyramids are no doubt connected with Egyptian religion, and may very\nlikely have subserved astrological purposes. But what say the pyramid\ncranks, or \"pyramidalists,\" as they have been called?\n\nAccording to them, the builders of the Great Pyramid were supernaturally\ninstructed, probably by Melchizedek, King of Salem. Thus they were\nenabled to place it in latitude 30\u00b0 N.; to make its four sides face the\ncardinal points; to adopt the sacred cubit, or one twenty millionth part\nof the earth's polar axis, as their unit of length; \"and to make the\nside of the square base equal to just so many of these sacred cubits as\nthere are days and parts of a day in a year. They were further by\nsupernatural help enabled to square the circle, and symbolized their\nvictory over this problem by making the pyramid's height bear to the\nperimeter of the base the ratio which the radius of a circle bears to\nthe circumference.\"[48] In like manner, by immediate divine revelation,\nthe builders of the pyramid were instructed as to the exact shape and\ndensity of the earth, the sun's distance, the precession of the\nequinoxes, etc., so that their figures on all these subjects were more\naccurate than any that modern science has obtained, and these figures\nthey built into the pyramid. They also built into it the divinely\nrevealed and everlasting standards of \"length, area, capacity, weight,\ndensity, heat, time, and money,\" and finally they wrought into its\nstructure the precise date at which the millennium is to begin. All this\nvaluable information, handed down directly from heaven, was thus\nsecurely bottled up in the Great Pyramid for six thousand years or so,\nawaiting the auspicious day when Mr. Piazzi Smyth should come and draw\nthe cork. Why so much knowledge should have been bestowed upon the\narchitects of King Cheops, only to be concealed from posterity, is a\npertinent question; and one may also ask, why was it worth while to\nbring a Piazzi Smyth into the world to reveal it, since plodding human\nreason had after all by slow degrees discovered every bit of it, except\nthe date of the millennium? Why, moreover, did the revelation thus\nelaborately buried in or about B. C. 4000 come just abreast of the\nscientific knowledge of A. D. 1864, and there stop short? Is it credible\nthat old Melchizedek knew nothing about the telephone, or the Roentgen\nray, or the cholera bacillus? Our pyramidalists should be more\nenterprising, and elicit from their venerable fetish some useful hints\nas to wireless telegraphy, or the ventilation of Pullman cars, or the\npurification of Pennsylvania politics. Perhaps the last-named problem\nmight vie in difficulty with squaring the circle!\n\nThe lucubrations of Piazzi Smyth, like those of Miss Delia Bacon, called\ninto existence a considerable quantity of eccentric literature. For\nexample, there is Skinner's \"Key to the Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery in the\nSource of Measures originating the British Inch and the Ancient Cubit,\"\npublished in Cincinnati in 1875, a tall octavo of 324 pages, bristling\nwith diagrams and decimals, Hebrew words and logarithms. The book begins\nby getting the circle neatly squared, and then goes on to aver that\nsundry crosses, including the Christian cross, are an emblematic display\nof the origin of measures. The \"mound-builders\" come in for a share of\nthe author's attention; for the mounds are \"alike Typhonic emblems with\nthe pyramid of Egypt and with Hebrew symbols.\" A Typhonic emblem relates\nto Typhon, the \"lord of sepulture,\" whose Egyptian representative was\nthe crocodile, as his Hebrew representative was the hog; \"exemplified in\nthe Christian books by the devil leaving the man and passing into the\nherd of swine, which thereupon rushed into the sea, another emblem of\nTyphon.\" Yet another such emblem is a mound in Ohio which simulates the\ncontour of an alligator. A certain Aztec pyramid, described by Humboldt,\nhas 318 niches, apparently in allusion to the days of the old Mexican\ncivil calendar. Mr. Skinner sees in this numeral the value of Pi, and\nfurthermore informs us that 318 is the Gnostic symbol for Christ, as\nwell as the number of Abraham's trained servants. Frequent use of it is\nmade in the Great Pyramid; for example, multiplied by six it gives the\nheight of the king's chamber, and multiplied by two it gives half the\nbase side of that apartment. Our author then puts the pyramid into a\nsphere, and after this feat it is an easy transition to Noah's flood,\nthe zodiac, and modern ritualism. Of similar purport, though more\nconcise than this octavo, is Dr. Watson Quinby's \"Solomon's Seal, a Key\nto the Pyramid,\" published at Wilmington, Delaware, in 1880. From this\nlittle book we learn that \"in the early days of the world some one\nmeasured the earth, and found its diameter, in round numbers, to be\n41,569,000 feet, or 498,828,000 inches;\" also that \"Vishnu means\nFish-Nuh, Noah-the-Fish, in allusion to his sojourn in the ark.\"\nMoreover, the Institutes of Manu were written by Noah, since Maha-Nuh =\nGreat-Noah! With equal felicity, Rev. Edward Dingle (in his \"The Balance\nof Physics, the Square of the Circle, and the Earth's True Solar and\nLunar Distances,\" London, 1885, pp. 246) declares that \"my success, let\nit be held what it may, was secured by cleaving to the Mosaic initiation\nof the Sabbatic number for my radius.\" At the end of his book Mr.\nDingle exclaims: \"To the Lord be all thanksgiving, who has kept my\nintellect and the directing of its thoughts sound, while seeking to\ndeliver his word from the exulting shouts of his enemies and the\nseducers of mankind!\"\n\nFrom these grotesque rigmaroles it is not a long step to the\nlucubrations of the writers in whose bonnets the bee of prophecy has\nbuzzed until they have come to fancy themselves skilled interpreters.\nThere is apt to be the same droll mixing of arithmetic with history that\nwe find among the pyramid cranks, and to the performance of such antics\nthe book of Daniel and the Apocalypse present irresistible temptations.\nIn my library days, I never used to pick up a commentary on either of\nthose books without looking for some of the stigmata or witch-marks of\ncrankery. Many a feeble intellect has been toppled over by that shining\nimage, with head of gold and feet of iron and clay, which Nebuchadnezzar\nbeheld in a dream. For example, let us take a few sentences from\n\"Emmanuel: An Original and Exhaustive Commentary on Creation and\nProvidence Alike. By an Octogenarian Layman,\" London, 1883, pp. 420:\n\"Upwards of thirty years ago, a fancy for chronological research,\nfostered by boundless leisure and a competent facility in mental\ncalculation, riveted my attention on the metallic image, in the vague\nhope of symmetrizing the four sections of the collective emblem with the\nsuccessive dominations of the individual empires. Failing in so shadowy\nan aspiration, I seemed to be more than compensated by detecting an\nidentity of duration, equally pregnant and positive, between the gold\nand the silver and the brass and the iron taken together on the one\nhand, and the mountain that was to crush them all to powder on the\nother,--the former aggregate being assumed to stretch from\nNebuchadnezzar's succession in 606 B. C. to the dethronement of\nAugustulus in 476 A. D., and the latter again from the epoch just\nspecified to Elizabeth's purgation of the Sanctuary in 1558.\" Having\nthus taken two equal periods of 1082 years, our Octogenarian proceeds to\nbreak them up (Heaven knows why!) each into four periods of 68, 204,\n269, and 541 years. Then we are treated to the following equations:--\n\n       68 = 2 \u00d7 34\n      204 = 6 \u00d7 34\n      269 = 5 \u00d7 34 + 3 \u00d7 33\n      541 = 13 \u00d7 34 + 3 \u00d7 33\n\nHence, \"with such a fulcrum as the Lamb slain before the foundation of\nthe world, and such a lever as the span of the Victim's sublunary\nhumiliation, was I too rash in aiming at a result infinitely grander\nthan Archimedes's speculative displacement of the earth?\"\n\nThat eminent mathematician, Dr. Nathaniel Bowditch, used to say that\nsometimes, when Laplace passed from one equation to the next with an\n\"evidently,\" he would find a week's study necessary to cross the abyss\nwhich the transcendent mind of the master traversed in a single leap. I\nfancy that more than a week would be needed to fathom the Octogenarian's\n\"hence,\" and it would by no means be worth while to go through so much\nand get so little. After a few pages of the Octogenarian, we are\nprepared to hear that in 1750 one Henry Sullamar squared the circle by\nthe number of the Beast with seven heads and ten horns; and that in 1753\na certain French officer, M. de Causans, \"cut a circular piece of turf,\nsquared it, and deduced original sin and the Trinity.\"[49]\n\nThe reader is doubtless by this time weary of so much tomfoolery; but as\nit is needful, for the due comprehension of crankery and its crotchets,\nthat he should by and by have still more of it, I will give him a\nmoment's relief while I tell of a little game with which De Morgan and\nWhewell once amused themselves. The task was to make a sentence which\nshould contain all the letters of the alphabet, and each only once. \"No\none,\" says De Morgan, \"has done it with _v_ and _j_ treated as\nconsonants; but _you_ and _I_ can do it\" (_u_ and _i_: oh, monstrous\npun!). Dr. Whewell got only separate words, and failed to make a\nsentence: _phiz_, _styx_, _wrong_, _buck_, _flame_, _quid_. Very pretty,\nbut De Morgan beat him out of sight with this weird sentiment; _I,\nquartz pyx, who fling muck beds!_ Well, what in the world can that mean?\n\"I long thought that no human being could say it under any\ncircumstances. At last I happened to be reading a religious writer--as\nhe thought himself--who threw aspersions on his opponents thick and\nthreefold. Heyday! came into my head, this fellow flings muck beds: he\nmust be a quartz pyx. And then I remembered that a pyx is a sacred\nvessel, and quartz is a hard stone, as hard as the heart of a religious\nfoe-curser. So that the line is the motto of the ferocious sectarian,\nwho turns his religious vessels into mud-holders for the benefit of\nthose who will not see what he sees.\"[50]\n\nI cite this drollery to show the world-wide difference between the\nplayful nonsense of the wise man and the strenuous nonsense of the\nmonomaniac; in this little _cabbala alphabetica_, moreover, a great\ndeal of the cabalistic lore which cumbers library shelves is neatly\nsatirized.\n\nAs already observed, my rule was never to put into the class of\neccentric literature any books save such as seemed to have emanated from\ndiseased brains. To hold and absurd belief, to write in its defense, to\nshape one's career in accordance with it, is no proof of an unsound\nmind. Of the hundreds of enthusiasts who spent their lives in quest of\nthe philosopher's stone, many were doubtless cranks; but many were able\nthinkers who made the best use they could of the scientific resources of\nthe time. Wrong ways must often be tried before the right way can be\nfound. Even the early circle-squarers cannot fairly be charged with\ncrankery; they sinned against no light that was accessible to them. But\nanybody who to-day should advertise a recipe for turning base metals\ninto gold would meet with a chill welcome from chemists. He would\nspeedily be posted as a quack, though doubtless many weak heads would be\nturned by him. It is the perverse sinning against light that is one of\nthe most abiding features of crankery, and from this point of view such\na book as \"Coin's Financial School\" has many claims for admission to the\nlimbo of eccentric literature.\n\nAbout seventy years ago, one John Ranking published in London a volume\nentitled \"Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru, Mexico, Bogota,\nNatchez, and Talomeco,[51] in the Thirteenth Century, by the Mongols,\naccompanied with Elephants.\" It is well known that in 1281 the Mongols,\nafter conquering pretty much everything from the Carpathian Mountains\nand the river Euphrates to the Yellow Sea, invaded Japan. A typhoon\ndispersed their fleet; and their army of more than 100,000 men, cut off\nfrom its communications, was completely annihilated by the Japanese. But\nMr. Ranking believed that this wholesale destruction was a fiction of\nthe chroniclers. He maintained that most of the army escaped in a new\nfleet and crossed the Pacific Ocean, taking with them a host of\nelephants, with the aid of which they made extensive conquests in\nAmerica and founded kingdoms in Mexico and Peru. The widespread fossil\nremains of the American mastodon he took to be the bones of these\nMongolian elephants. Now, this is an extremely wild theory, unsound and\nuntenable in every particular, but it does not bring Mr. Ranking's book\nwithin the class of eccentric literature. The author was deficient in\nscholarship and in critical judgment, but he was not daft.\n\nA very different verdict must be rendered in the case of Mr. Edwin\nJohnson's book, called \"The Rise of Christendom,\" published in London in\n1890, an octavo of 500 pages. According to Mr. Johnson, the rise of\nChristendom began in the twelfth century of our era, and it was preceded\nby two centuries of Hebrew religion, which started in Moslem Spain!\nFirst came Islam, then Judaism, then Christianity. The genesis of both\nthe latter was connected with that revolt against Islam which we call\nthe Crusades. What we suppose to be the history of Israel, as well as\nthat of the first eleven Christian centuries, is a gigantic lie,\nconcocted in the thirteenth century by the monks of St. Basil and St.\nBenedict. The Roman emperors knew nothing of Christianity, and the\nmultifarious allusions to it in ancient writers were all explained by\nMr. Johnson as fraudulent interpolations. As for the Greek and Latin\nfathers, they never existed. \"The excellent stylist, who writes under\nthe name of Lactantius, not earlier than the fourteenth century;\" \"the\nAugustinian of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, who writes the\nromantic Confessions,\"--such is the airy way in which the matter is\ndisposed of. As for the New Testament, \"it is not yet clear whether the\nbook was first written in Latin or in Greek.\" This reminds me of\nsomething once said by Rev. Robert Taylor, a crazy clergyman who in 1821\nsuffered imprisonment for blasphemy, and came to be known as the Devil's\nChaplain. Taylor declared that for the book of Revelation there was no\nGreek original at all, but Erasmus wrote it in Switzerland, in the year\n1516. The audience, or part of it, probably took Taylor's word as\nsufficient; and in like manner not a syllable of proof is alleged for\nMr. Johnson's prodigious assertions. From cover to cover, there is no\ntrace of a consciousness that proof is needed; it is simply, Thus saith\nEdwin Johnson. The man who can write such a book is surely incapable of\nmaking a valid will.\n\nAnother acute phase of insanity is exemplified in Nason's \"History of\nthe Prehistoric Ages, written by the Ancient Historic Band of Spirits\"\n(Chicago, 1880). This is a mediumistic affair. The ancient band consists\nof four-and-twenty spirits, the eldest of whom occupied a material body\n46,000 years ago, and the youngest 3000 years ago. They dictated to Mr.\nNason the narrative, which begins with the origin of the solar system\nand comes down to Romulus and Remus, betraying on every page the\npreternatural dullness and ignorance so characteristic of all the\nspirits with whom mediums have dealings.\n\nConcerning the Bacon-Shakespeare lunacy a word must suffice. As I have\nshown in a previous essay, the doubt concerning the authorship of\nShakespeare's plays was in part a reaction against the extravagances of\ndoting commentators; but in its original form it was simply an insane\nfreak. The unfortunate lady who gave it currency belonged to a\ndistinguished Connecticut family, and the story of her malady is a sad\none. At the age of eight-and-forty she died in the asylum at Hartford,\ntwo years after the publication of her book, \"The Philosophy of\nShakespeare's Plays Unfolded.\" The suggestion of her illustrious\nnamesake, and perhaps kinsman, as the author of Shakespeare's works, was\na clear instance of the megalomania which is a well-known symptom of\nparanoia; and her book has all the hazy incoherence that is so quickly\nrecognizable in the writings of the insane. A friend of mine once asked\nme if I did not find it hard to catch her meaning. \"Meaning!\" I\nexclaimed, \"there's none to catch.\" Among the books of her followers are\nall degrees of eccentricity. That of Nathaniel Holmes stands upon the\nthreshold of the limbo; while as for Ignatius Donnelly, all his works\nbelong in its darkest recesses.\n\nThe considerations which would lead one to consign a book to that limbo\nare often complex. There is Miss Marie Brown's book, \"The Icelandic\nDiscoverers of America; or, Honour to whom Honour is Due.\" In\nmaintaining that Columbus knew all about the voyages of the Northmen to\nVinland, and was helped thereby in finding his way to the Bahamas, there\nis nothing necessarily eccentric. Professor Rasmus Anderson has defended\nthat thesis in a book which is able and scholarly, a book which every\nreader must treat with respect, even though he may not find its\narguments convincing. But when Miss Brown declares that the papacy has\nbeen partner in a conspiracy for depriving the Scandinavians of the\ncredit due them as discoverers of America, and assures us that this is a\nmatter in which the interests of civil and religious liberty are at\nstake, one begins to taste the queer flavour; and, taking this in\nconnection with the atmosphere of rage which pervades the book, one\nfeels inclined to place it in the limbo. For example: \"What but Catholic\ngenius, the genius for deceit, for trickery, for secrecy, for wicked and\ndiabolical machinations, could have pursued such a system of fraud for\ncenturies as the one now being exposed! What but Catholic genius, a\nprolific genius for evil, would have attempted to rob the Norsemen of\ntheir fame,... and to foist a miserable Italian adventurer and upstart\nupon Americans as the true candidate for these posthumous honours,--the\nman or saint to whom they are to do homage, and through this homage\nallow the Church of Rome to slip the yoke of spiritual subjection over\ntheir necks!\"\n\nA shrill note of anger is sometimes the sure ear-mark of a book from\nQueer Street. Anger is, indeed, a kind of transient mania, and eccentric\nliterature is apt to be written in high dudgeon. When you take up a\npamphlet by \"Vindex,\" and read the title, \"A Box on Both Ears to the\nPowers that ought not to be at Washington,\" you may be prepared to find\nincoherency. I once catalogued an edition of Plutarch's little essay on\nSuperstition, and was about to let it go on its way, along with ordinary\nGreek books, when my eye happened to fall upon the last sentence of the\neditor's preface: \"I terminate this my Preface by consigning all Greek\nScholars to the special care of Beelzebub.\" \"Oho!\" I thought, \"there's a\ncloven foot here; perhaps, if we explore further, we may get a whiff of\nbrimstone.\" And it was so.\n\nIt thus appears that the topics treated in eccentric literature are\nnumerous and manifold. Not only, moreover, has this department its\nvigorous prose-writers; it has also its inspired poets. Witness the\nfollowing lines from the volume entitled \"Eucleia\" (Salem, 1861):--\n\n      \"Hark, hear that distant boo-oo-oo,\n        As, walking by moonlight,\n      He whistles, instructing Carlo\n        To be still, and not bite.\"\n\nBut even this lofty flight of inspiration is out-flown by Mr. John\nLandis, who was limner and draughtsman as well as poet. In his \"Treatise\non Magnifying God\" (New York, 1843) he gives us an engraved portrait of\nhimself surrounded by ministering angels, and accompanies it by an ode\nto himself, one verse of which will suffice:--\n\n      \"With Messrs. Milton, Watts, and Wesley,\n      Familiar thy Name will e'er be.\n      Of America's Poets thou\n      Stand'st on the foremost list now;\n      On the pinions of fame does shine,\n      _Landis!_ brightened by ev'ry line,\n      From thy poetic pen in rhyme,\n      Thy name descends to the end of time.\"\n\nImmortality of fame is something desired by many, but attained by few.\nPhysical immortality is something which has hitherto been supposed to be\ninexorably denied to human beings. The phrase \"All men are mortal\"\nfigures in textbooks of logic as the truest of truisms. But we have\nlately been assured that this is a mistake. It is only an induction\nbased upon simple enumeration, and the first man who escapes death will\ndisprove it. So, at least, I was told by a very downright person who\ncalled on me some years ago with a huge parcel of manuscript, for which\nhe wanted me to find him a publisher. He had been cruelly snubbed and\nill-used, but truth would surely prevail over bigotry, as in Galileo's\ncase. I took his address and let him leave his manuscript. Its recipe\nfor physical immortality, diluted through 600 foolscap pages, was simply\nto learn how to go without food! Usually such a regimen will kill you by\nthe fifth day, but if, at that critical moment, while at the point of\ndeath, you make one heroic effort and stay alive, why, then you will\nhave overcome the King of Terrors once for all. I returned the\ngentleman's manuscript with a polite note, regretting that his line of\nresearch was so remote from those to which I was accustomed that I could\nnot give him intelligent aid.\n\nOn one of the beautiful hills of Petersham, near the centre of\nMassachusetts, there dwelt a few years since a small religious community\nof persons who believed that they were destined to escape death. Not\nscience, but faith, had won for them this boon. They believed that the\nthird person of the Trinity was incarnated in their leader or high\npriest, Father Howland. This community, I believe, came from Rhode\nIsland about forty years ago, and at the height of its prosperity may\nhave numbered twenty-five or thirty men and women. Their establishment\nconsisted of one large mansard-roofed house, with barns and sheds and a\ngood-sized farm. Their housekeeping was tidy, and they put up\napple-sauce. They maintained that the eighteen and a half centuries of\nthe so-called Christian era have really been the dispensation of John\nthe Baptist, and that the true Christian era was ushered in by the Holy\nGhost in the person of Father Howland, through believing in whom\nChristians might attain to eternal life on this planet. They had their\nSabbath on Saturday, and worked in the fields on Sunday; and they made\nsundry distinctions between clean and unclean foods, based upon their\nslender understanding of the Old Testament.\n\nFor a few years these worthy people enjoyed the simple rural life on\ntheir pleasant hillside without having their dream of immortality rudely\ntested. When one member fell ill and died, and was presently followed by\nanother, it was easy to dispose of such cases by asserting that the\ndeceased were not true believers; they were black sheep, hypocrites,\npretenders, whited sepulchres, and their deaths had purified the flock.\nBut the next one to die was Father Howland himself. On a warm summer day\nof 1874, as he was driving in his buggy over a steep mountain road, the\nhorse shied so violently as to throw out the venerable sage against a\nwood-pile, whereupon sundry loose logs fell upon his head and shoulders,\ninflicting fatal wounds. Then a note of consternation mingled with the\ngenuine mourning of the little community. It was a perplexing\nprovidence. About twelve months afterward I made my first visit to these\npeople, in company with my friend Dr. William James and five\ncarriage-loads of city folk who were spending the summer at Petersham.\nIt was a Saturday morning, and all the worshippers were in their best\nclothes. They received us with a quiet but cordial welcome, and showed\nus into a spacious parlour that was simply brilliant with cheerfulness.\nIts west windows looked down upon a vast and varied landscape, with rich\npastures, smiling cornfields, and long stretches of pine forest covering\nrange upon range of hills moulded in forms of exquisite beauty. Beyond\nthe foreground of delicate yellow and soft green tints the eye rested\nupon the sombre green of the woodland, and behind it all came the rich\npurple of the distant hills, fitfully checkered with shadows from the\ngolden clouds. Here and there gleamed the white church spires of some\nsecluded hamlet, while on the horizon, seventy miles distant, arose the\nlofty peak of old Greylock. Thence to Mount Grace, in one huge sweep,\nthe entire breadth of Vermont was displayed, a wilderness of pale-blue\nsummits blending with the sky; and over all, and part of it all, was the\nradiant glory of the September sunshine.\n\n\"Truly,\" said I to one of the brethren, a man of saintly face, \"if you\nare expecting to dwell forever upon the earth, you could not have chosen\na more inspiring and delightful spot.\" \"Yes, indeed,\" he replied, \"it\nseems too beautiful to leave.\" The topic which agitated the little\ncommunity was thus brought up for discussion, and, except for a brief\nprayer, the ordinary Sabbath exercises were set aside for this purpose.\nAll these people seemed polite and gentle in manner; their\nsimple-mindedness was noticeable, and their ignorance was abysmal,\nthough I believe they could all read the Bible and do a little writing\nand arithmetic. In the facial expression of every one I thought I could\nsee something that betrayed more or less of a lapse from complete\nsanity. Only one of the whole number showed any sense of humour, a\nkeen-eyed old woman, yclept Sister Caroline, who could argue neatly and\nmake quaint retorts. She and the man of saintly face were the only\ninteresting personalities; the rest were but soulless clods.\n\nIt soon appeared that the belief in terrestrial immortality had not yet\nbeen seriously shaken by Father Howland's demise. There were some\ncurious incipient symptoms of a resurrection myth. Their leader's death\nhad been heralded by signs and portents. One aged brother, while taking\nhis afternoon nap in a rocking-chair, fell forward upon the floor,\nbringing down the chair upon his back; and at that identical moment\nanother brother rushed in from the garden, exclaiming, \"I have seen with\nthese eyes the glory of the Lord revealed!\" Evidently, the fall of the\nrocking-chair prefigured the fall of the wood-pile, and the moment of\nHowland's fatal injury was the moment of his glorification. Then it was\nremembered by Sister Caroline and others that he had lately foretold his\napparent death, and declared that it was to be only an appearance.\n\"Though I shall seem to be dead, it will only be for a little while, and\nthen I shall return to you.\"\n\nThe morning's conversation made it clear that these simple folk were\nunanimous in believing that the completion of Father Howland's work\ndemanded his presence for a short time in the other world, and that he\nwould within a few more weeks or months return to them. It seemed to Dr.\nJames and myself that the conditions were favourable to the sudden\ngrowth of a belief in his resurrection, and for some time after that\nvisit we half expected to hear that one or more of the household had\nseen him. In this, however, we were disappointed. I suspect that its\nmental soil may, after all, have been too barren for such a growth.\n\nSeven years elapsed before my second and last visit to these worthy\npeople. In the mean time a large addition had been made to the principal\nhouse, nearly doubling its capacity; and I was told that the community\nhad been legally incorporated under the Hebrew title of Adoni-shomo, or\n\"The Lord is there.\" One would naturally infer that the membership had\nincreased, but the true explanation was very different. On a Saturday\nafternoon in the summer of 1882, in company with fifteen friends, I\nvisited the community. Our reception this time was something more than\npolite; there was a noticeable warmth of welcome about it. We were\nushered into one of the newly built rooms,--a long chapel, with seats on\neither side and a reading-desk at one end. All the women, both hosts and\nguests, took their seats on one side, all the men on the other. A\nwhisper from my neighbour informed me that the community was reduced to\ntwelve persons: thus the guests outnumbered the hosts. The high priest,\nFather Richards, a venerable man of ruddy hue, with enormous beard as\nwhite as snow, stood by the reading-desk, and in broken tones gave\nthanks to God, while abundant tears coursed down his cheeks. Now, he\nsaid, at last the word of the Lord was fulfilled. Two or three years ago\nthe word had come that they must build a chapel and add to their\nliving-rooms, for they were about to receive a large accession of new\nconverts. So--just think of it, gentle reader, in the last quarter of\nthis skeptical century--there was faith enough on that rugged\nmountain-side to put three or four thousand dollars, earned with pork\nand apple-sauce, into solid masonry and timber-work! And now at last,\nsaid Father Richards, in the arrival of this goodly company the word of\nthe Lord was fulfilled! It seemed cruel to disturb such jubilant\nassurance, but we soon found that we need not worry ourselves on that\nscore. The old man's faith was a rock on which unwelcome facts were\nquickly wrecked. Though we took pains to make it clear that we had only\ncome for a visit, it was equally clear to him that we were to be\nconverted that very afternoon, and would soon come to abide with the\nAdoni-shomo.\n\nThen Sister Caroline, stepping forward, made a long metaphysical\nharangue, at the close of which she walked up one side of the room and\ndown the other, taking each person by the hand and saying to each a few\nwords. When she came to me she suddenly broke out with a stream of\ngibberish, and went on for five mortal minutes, pouring it forth as\nglibly as if it had been her mother tongue. After the meeting had broken\nup, I was informed that this \"speaking with tongues\" was not uncommon\nwith the Adoni-shomo. A wicked wag in our party then asked Sister\nCaroline if she knew what language it was in which she had addressed me.\n\"No, sir,\" she replied, \"nor do I know the meaning of what I said: I\nonly uttered what the Lord put into my mouth.\" \"Well,\" said this\ngraceless scoffer, with face as sober as a deacon's, \"I am thoroughly\nfamiliar with Hebrew, and I recognized at once the very dialect of\nGalilee as spoken when our Saviour was on the earth!\" At this, I need\nhardly add, Sister Caroline was highly pleased.\n\nBy this time there had been so many deaths that induction by simple\nenumeration was getting to be too much for the Adoni-shomo. They were\nbeginning to realize the old Scotchman's conception of the elect: \"Eh,\nJamie! hoo mony d'ye thank there be of the elact noo alive on earth?\"\n\"Eh! mabbee a doozen.\" \"Hoot, mon, nae sae mony as thot!\" We found our\nworthy hosts less willing than of old to discuss their doctrine of\nterrestrial immortality, and there were symptoms of a tendency to give\nit a Pickwickian construction. Since that day, their little community\nhas vanished, and its glorious landscape knows it no more.\n\nIt is a pity that before the end it should not have had a visit from Mr.\nHyland C. Kirk, whose book on \"The Possibility of Not Dying\" was\npublished in New York in 1883. In this book the philosophic\nplausibleness of the opinion that a time will come when we shall no\nlonger need to shuffle off this mortal coil is argued at some length,\nbut the question as to how this is to happen is ignored. Mr. Isaac\nJennings, in his \"Tree of Life\" (1867), thinks it can be accomplished by\ntotal abstinence from \"alcohol, tobacco, coffee, tea, animal food,\nspices, and caraway.\" This is sufficiently specific; but Mr. Kirk's\ntreatment of the question is so hazy as to suggest the suspicion that he\nhas nothing to offer us.\n\nI once knew such a case of a delusion without any theory, or, if you\nplease, the grin without the Cheshire cat. In the course of a lecturing\njourney, some thirty years ago, I was approached by a refined and\ncultivated gentleman, who imparted to me in strict confidence and with\nmuch modesty of manner the fact that he had arrived at a complete\nrefutation of the undulatory theory of light! To ask him for some\nstatement of his own theory was but ordinary courtesy; but whenever we\narrived at this point--which happened perhaps half a dozen times--he\nwould put on a smile of mystery and decline to pursue the subject. I\nassured him that he need have no fear of my stealing his thunder, for I\nhad not the requisite knowledge; but he grew more darkly mysterious than\never, and said that the time for him to speak had not yet come.\n\nA few months later, this gentleman, whom I will designate as Mr.\nFlighty, appeared in Cambridge, and came to my desk in the college\nlibrary. Distress was written in his face. He had called upon Professor\nSilliman and other professors in Eastern colleges, and had been shabbily\ntreated. Nobody had shown him any politeness except Professor Youmans,\nin whom he believed he had found a convert. \"Ah!\" I exclaimed, \"then you\ntold him your theory; perhaps the time has come when you can tell it to\nme.\" But no; again came the subtle smile, and he began to descant upon\nthe persecution of Galileo, a favourite topic with cranks of all sorts.\nHe asked me for some of the best books on the undulatory theory, and I\ngave him Cauchy, whereat he stood aghast, and said the book was full of\nmathematics which he could not read; but he would like to see Newton's\nOpticks, for that book did not uphold the undulatory theory. \"Oh!\" said\nI, \"then are you falling back on the corpuscular theory?\" \"No, indeed;\nmine is neither the one nor the other,\" and again came the Sibylline\nsmile. As I went for the book, I found Professor Lovering in the alcove,\nhalfway up a tall ladder. \"Hallo!\" said I _sotto voce_. \"There is a man\nin here who has upset the undulatory theory of light; do you want to see\nhim?\" \"Heavens, no! Can't you inveigle him into some dark corner while I\nrun away?\" \"Don't worry,\" I replied,--\"make yourself comfortable; I'll\nkeep him from you.\" So I lured Mr. Flighty into a discourse on the\nbigotry of scientific folk, while Old Joe, whose fears were not so\neasily allayed, soon stealthily emerged from his alcove and hurried from\nthe hall.\n\nThe next time that I happened to be in New York, chatting with Youmans\nat the Century Club, I alluded to Mr. Flighty, who believed he had made\na convert of him.\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" rejoined Youmans, \"and he said the same of you.\"\n\n\"Indeed! Well, I suspected as much. Unless you drive a crank from the\nroom with cuffs and jeers, he is sure to think you agree with him. I do\nnot yet know what Mr. Flighty's theory is.\"\n\n\"Nor I,\" said Youmans.\n\n\"Do you believe he has any theory at all?\"\n\n\"Not a bit of it. He is a madman, and his belief that he has a theory is\nsimply the form which his delusion takes.\"\n\n\"Exactly so,\" I said; and so it proved. Severe business troubles had\nwrecked Mr. Flighty's mind, and it was not long before we heard that he\nhad killed himself in a fit of acute mania.\n\nMy story must not end with such a gruesome affair. Out of the many queer\npeople I have known, let me mention one who is associated with pleasant\nmemories of childhood and youth. This man was no charlatan, but a\nlearned naturalist, of solid and genuine scientific attainments, who\ncame to be a little daft in his old age. Dr. Joseph Barratt, whose life\nextended over three fourths of the present century, was born in England.\nHe was at one time a pupil of Cuvier, and cherished his memory with the\nidolatrous affection which that wonderful man seems always to have\ninspired. Dr. Barratt, as a physician practising in Middletown,\nConnecticut, is one of the earliest figures in my memory,--a quaint and\nlovable figure. His attainments in botany and comparative anatomy were\nextensive; he was more or less of a geologist, and well read withal in\nhistory and general literature, besides being a fair linguist. Though\neminently susceptible of the tender passion, he never married; he was\nneither a householder nor an autocrat of the breakfast table, but dwelt\nhermit-like in a queer snuggery over somebody's shop. His working-room\nwas a rare sight; so much confusion has not been seen since this fair\nworld weltered in its primeval chaos. With its cases of mineral and\nbotanical specimens, stuffed birds and skeletons galore; with its\nbeetles and spiders mounted on pins, its brains of divers creatures in\njars of alcohol, its weird retorts and crucibles, its microscopes and\nsurgeon's tools, its shelves of mysterious liquids in vials, its slabs\nof Portland sandstone bearing footprints of Triassic dinosaurs, and near\nthe door a grim pterodactyl keeping guard over all, it might have been\nthe necromancing den of a Sidrophel. Maps and crayon sketches, mingled\nwith femurs and vertebr\u00e6, sprawled over tables and sofas and cumbered\nthe chairs, till there was scarcely a place to sit down, while\neverywhere in direst helter-skelter yawned and toppled the books. And\nsuch books! There I first browsed in Geoffroy St. Hilaire and Lamarck\nand Blainville, and passed enchanted hours with the \"R\u00e8gne Animal.\" The\ndoctor was a courtly gentleman of the old stripe, and never did he clear\na chair for me without an apology, saying that he only awaited a\nleisure day to put all things in strictest order. Dear soul! that day\nnever came.\n\nDr. Barratt was of course intensely interested in the Portland quarries,\nand they furnished the theme of the monomania which overtook him at\nabout his sixtieth year. He accepted with enthusiasm the geological\nproofs of the antiquity of man in Europe, and presently undertook to\nreinforce them by proofs of his own gathering in the Connecticut Valley.\nAn initial difficulty confronted him. The red freestone of that region\nbelongs to the Triassic period, the oldest of the secondary series. It\nwas an age of giant reptiles, contemporary with the earliest specimens\nof mammalian life, and not a likely place in which to look for relics of\nthe highest of mammals. But Dr. Barratt insisted that this freestone is\nEocene, thus bringing it into the tertiary series; and while geologists\nin general were unwilling to admit the existence of man before the\nPleistocene period, he boldly carried it back to the Eocene. Thus, by\nadding a few million years to the antiquity of mankind and subtracting a\nfew million from that of the rocks, he was enabled at once to maintain\nthat he had discovered in the Portland freestone the indisputable\nremains of an ancient human being with only three fingers, upon whom he\nbestowed the name of _Homo tridactylus_. For companions he gave this\npersonage four species of kangaroo, and from that time forth discoveries\nmultiplied.\n\nSuch claims, when presented before learned societies with the doctor's\nquaint enthusiasm, and illustrated by his marvellous crayon sketches,\nwere greeted with shouts of laughter. Among the geologists who chiefly\nprovoked his wrath was the celebrated student of fossil footprints, Dr.\nEdward Hitchcock. \"Why, sir,\" he would exclaim, \"Dr. Hitchcock is a\nperfect fool, sir! I can teach ten of him, sir!\" In spite of all scoffs\nand rebuffs, the old gentleman moved on to the end serene in his\nunshakable convictions. A courteous listener was, of course, a rare boon\nto him; and so, in that little town, it became his habit to confide his\nnew discoveries to me. When I was out walking, if chary of my half hours\n(as sometimes happened), a long detour would be necessary, to avoid his\naccustomed haunts; and once, on my return from a journey, I had hardly\nrung the doorbell when he appeared on the veranda with an essay entitled\n\"An Eocene Picnic,\" which he hoped to publish in \"The Atlantic Monthly,\"\nand which he insisted upon reading to me then and there. At one time a\nvery large bone was found in one of the quarries, which was pronounced\nby Dr. Hitchcock to have belonged to an extinct batrachian; but Dr.\nBarratt saw in it the bone of a pachyderm. \"Why, sir,\" said he, \"it was\ntheir principal beast of burden,--as big as a rhinoceros and as gentle\nas a lamb. The children of Homo tridactylus used to play about his feet,\nsir, in perfect safety. I call him _Mega-ergaton docile_, 'the teachable\ngreat-worker.' Liddell and Scott give only the masculine, _ergates_, but\nfor a beast of burden, sir, I prefer the neuter form. A gigantic\npachyderm, sir; and Dr. Hitchcock, sir, perfect fool, sir, says it was a\nbullfrog!\"\n\nThe mortal remains of this gentle pal\u00e6ontologist rest in the beautiful\nIndian Hill Cemetery at Middletown, and his gravestone, designed and\nplaced there by my dear friend, the late Charles Browning, is\nappropriate and noble. For the doctor was after all a sterling man,\nwhose unobtrusive merits were great, while his foibles were not\nimportant. The stone is a piece of fossil tree-trunk, brought over from\nPortland, imbedded in an amorphous block untouched by chisel, save\nwhere, on a bit of polished surface, one reads the name and dates, with\nthe simple legend, \"The Testimony of the Rocks.\"\n\n_November, 1898._\n\n\n\n\nNOTE\n\nAN ACCOUNT OF THE ADONI-SHOMO COMMUNITY\n\nFrom the _Springfield Republican_. (1876.)\n\n\nAs queer a people as are often met, and apparently as upright and\nreligious, withal, are the Community situated on the stage-road between\nAthol and Petersham, and commonly known thereabouts as \"Howlandites\" or\n\"Fullerites.\" According to their account, nearly twenty-one years ago,\ntwo Worcester women, Mrs. Sarah J. Hervey and her sister, Caroline E.\nHawks, had come to hope for a divine revelation to them, and in\nexpectation of it had gone to a camp-meeting at Groton. Entering the\nmeeting they heard a stranger \"talking in tongues,\" who proved to be the\nman to meet their wants, in the person of Frederick T. Howland, a\nQuaker, of good social standing, from New Bedford. That day, September\n15, 1855, was the origin \"in the faith,\" though not in temporal\nassociation, of the Community, these three being the \"pioneers,\" as\nSister Hervey takes pride in calling herself and associates. Mrs.\nHervey's husband died a year or two later, though not in the faith,\n\"these things,\" as they say, \"having been beyond him.\" Soon after, the\nnew belief received the addition of eight persons from Athol, among them\nLeonard C. Fuller, the present Spiritual head of the Community, and his\nwife. In May, 1861, having been \"moved by the Spirit\" to form an\nassociation for living together, they settled at Fuller's, at the south\nend of Pleasant Street in Athol. In August, 1864, they removed to their\npresent farm in Petersham. Brother Howland held the position of head of\nthe body till killed by a runaway horse, not quite two years ago. His\npeople considered him a prophet, and say the Lord spoke by him, and that\nhe led them as Moses led the people of Israel.\n\nTheir religious belief in many respects resembles that of the\nAdventists, but differs in the vital point, that the reign of Christ,\nunder the expected new dispensation, is to be spiritual, and not\npersonal, as the Adventists hold. They construe the saying of John the\nRevelator, \"I was in the Spirit on the Lord's day,\" to refer to a period\nof time to begin with the 7000th year of the world, which is near at\nhand. The judgment day they believe has already begun, and in a short\ntime, at the opening of the new dispensation, the holy dead are to be\nraised. When a man who has only received \"common\" salvation dies, he has\nno consciousness till the resurrection; but some, who are \"specially\"\nsaved, will not die. Miracles will be performed commonly. When the new\ndispensation begins they are to be of the 144,000 spoken of by John, and\nare to judge the nations. They do not believe in a hypothetical heaven\nsomewhere in space; the earth is not to be destroyed but changed; and\nfinally the devil is to be bound for a thousand years. They entirely\ndenounce Spiritualism, saying that it is from the Devil, or Antichrist.\nBrother Howland, they say, lay down to rise with the prophets, and they\nhave written out what they claim to be prophecies made by him months or\nyears before his death as to the manner in which it should occur, which,\njudged by the event, are certainly striking.\n\nThe Community live mostly upon farinaceous food; they drink principally\nwater, sometimes herb tea. No flesh is eaten, because there is to be a\nrestitution of the order of things that prevailed in the garden of Eden,\nand nothing that grows in the ground, because the ground is cursed. They\nlive on the apostolic plan of having all property in common. If any\namong them wish to get married, they have to leave the Community.\nMorning and evening they \"wait before the Lord,\" standing, repeat the\nLord's prayer, and read and explain the Bible, \"as the Spirit gives\nutterance.\" Although the district public school is only a stone's throw\naway, the half-dozen children of the Community, whom they have adopted,\n\"as the Lord sent them,\" are taught at home by Sister Hervey. Sometimes,\nthe neighbours' children come in, also, and they are said to do better\nthere than at the public school. The school gives an occasional visit\nbefore the family, and a Christmas tree is provided. No jewelry is worn,\nand they dress very plainly; though the \"world's people\" claim that the\nCommunity wear as expensive \"fixin's\" and show as much pride as they do.\nThe Community observe a seventh-day Sabbath, extending from 6 P. M.,\nFriday, to the same hour, Saturday. The exercises begin at 10 o'clock,\nSaturday, and continue without intermission till 3. They are of the\nopinion that they need not go to a synagogue or \"where the minister has\nto go 'round and wake the people up, as he did down to the Advent Church\nin Athol, last Sunday.\" The family seat themselves in the parlour on\nthree sides of the room, with the occasional visitors on the fourth\nside; and the exercises consist of exhortations by the various members,\naccording as they are moved by the Spirit, with abundant \"amens\" from\nthe rest. If no one feels called upon to speak, they study the Bible.\nOften they break out into singing. The house is free to visitors at all\ntimes. Last year from June to October, they had over two hundred\nvisitors, among them nineteen, unexpectedly, one Sabbath.[52]\n\nTheir number, now about twenty, varies from time to time. They say they\ndo not expect additions, though recently they have received two or three\nwhich they count of considerable importance. One of them is a woman,\nformerly a member of the Shaker Community at Dayton, O., where she was\nnot satisfied, who walked all the way from Ohio to join them; another is\nan ex-Baptist minister from Athol. They say they have suffered\nconsiderable persecution \"for righteousness' sake.\" Mrs. Fuller thinks\nshe was cheated out of property which her mother left her, and, because\nof the faith, two of their number, while sick, they say, were turned out\nof a house on School Street in this city. They add, however, that those\nforward in opposing them have died sudden or violent deaths. On the\nother hand, they are prospering; they own a farm of two hundred and ten\nacres, and Brother Asa Richards, their Temporal head, raises stock,\ngrain, fruits, etc., nearly sufficient to support them. Brother Fuller,\nthough their Spiritual head,[53] does the marketing, principally in\nAthol. They have decided to enlarge the house and build a chapel in a\nshort time, \"if the Lord permits.\" Last winter, to protect their\nproperty, they went to the secretary of the Commonwealth and were\norganized under recent state laws as a corporation, with all the powers\nof a chartered body, under the name of \"Adoni-shomo,\" Hebrew for \"the\nLord is there;\" that name being found in Ezekiel xlviii. 35. All their\nproperty will now remain in the Community while a single member of it is\nliving.\n\nIt may be added that the views which outsiders hold of their Community\ndo not always agree with their own. A \"brother\" named Mann died, last\nfall, and, by their own confession, they had some difficulty with his\nheirs, but finally settled for a nominal sum. At first they refused to\npay over anything, but the heirs, four in number, threatening law, they\nfinally concluded that the Lord willed them to give up $800. The common\nbelief is that Mann was worth as many thousands; at any rate, the\nPetersham property was deeded to him in connection with Howland. Athol\npeople scout the idea that Howland had prophetic powers, and think that\nthe Community was simply the result of a shrewd plan of his to get a\nliving without working for it.\n\n\n\n\nINDEX\n\n\nAbbot, Ezra, 405.\n\nAdams, John, 150.\n\nAdams, Samuel, 155, 300.\n\nAdoni-shomo, a religious community, 449-452.\n\nAgassiz, Louis, 77, 312.\n\nAgricultural chemistry, 73.\n\nAlabama Claims, 172, 176.\n\nAlbigenses, crusade against the, 132.\n\nAlger, W. R., 93.\n\nAlgol, a multiple star, 7.\n\nAlphabet puzzle, 435.\n\nAltruism, 113.\n\nAmerica, discovery of, 123, 124;\n  effects of its discovery upon political freedom, 127.\n\nAmerican history, picturesqueness of, 197-199.\n\nAmes, Fisher, 300.\n\nAnachronisms in Shakespeare's plays, 389.\n\nAnaxagoras, 117.\n\nAnglophobia of Scotchmen in former times, 181.\n\nAnthropocentric thought, 111, 112.\n\nAppleton, D., & Co., 89-91.\n\nArbitration, instances of, 176, 177;\n  among the ancient Greeks, 182;\n  among the Italian republics, 183.\n\nArbitration Treaty between the United States and Great Britain, 165-193.\n\nArnold, Matthew, on translating Homer, 353.\n\nArts, beginning of, 118-120.\n\nAryan languages, 31, 32.\n\nAsbjoernsen's folk-tales of Norway, 325.\n\nAstley, Sir Jacob, 160.\n\nAstronomy at the Harvard Observatory, 309.\n\nAthanasius, 53.\n\nAthen\u00e6um Press, the, 309.\n\nAtomic theory, 28.\n\nAugustine, 53.\n\nAvogadro's law of gaseous volumes, 28.\n\nAztecs, 209.\n\n\nBacon, Delia, a paradoxer, 351, 356, 385, 399, 402, 440.\n\nBacon, Francis, 356, 357, 367, 370, 374, 375, 378, 379, 381, 383,\n    385-398, 403, 404.\n\nBacon-Shakespeare folly, 350-404, 410.\n\nBaer, K. E. von, 18, 19, 25, 41.\n\nBalance, use of, 2, 3.\n\nBaptists, 148.\n\nBarbarism, types of, 32-34.\n\nBarratt, Joseph, 455-459.\n\nBathybius, 343-345.\n\nBaxter, Richard, 154.\n\nBeaumont, Francis, 374.\n\nBeecher, Henry Ward, 92.\n\nBellerophon, his letter, 354.\n\nBessel, F. W., 6.\n\nBiblical chronology disturbed by geologists, 9.\n\nBichat, X., his study of tissues, 17.\n\nBig Crow, a Sioux chief, 240.\n\nBiglow, Hosea, on the right to be a fool, 175;\n  on the Yankee dialect, 298;\n  on citified English, 371.\n\nBlack, Joseph, his discovery of latent heat, 10.\n\nBlackfriars Theatre, 378.\n\nBlake, Robert, 154.\n\nBlue Anchor Tavern, 297.\n\nBoccaccio, G., 359.\n\nBond, G. P., 309.\n\nBond, W. C., 309.\n\nBopp, Franz, 30.\n\nBoughton, Sir T., 382.\n\nBouquet, Henry, 207.\n\nBowditch, Nathaniel, 434.\n\nBr\u00e9beuf, J., 199.\n\nBridge, John, 293.\n\nBridges of Cambridge, 302.\n\nBridgman, Laura, 335.\n\nBrougham, Lord, 412.\n\nBrown, Marie, a paradoxer, 441.\n\nBrowning, Charles, 459.\n\nB\u00fcchner, L., 54.\n\nBuckle, H. T., 218.\n\nBuller, Sir Francis, his absurd charge to the jury, 382.\n\nBunker Hill, 301.\n\nBunyan, John, 403.\n\nBurghley, Lord, 364.\n\nBurke, Edmund, 194.\n\nBurton, Robert, 403.\n\n\nCabanis, Pierre, 55.\n\nCalvin, J., 130.\n\nCambridge, Mass., its history, 286-318;\n  originally intended to be capital of Massachusetts, 290;\n  in what sense the daughter of Cambridge, England, 295;\n  complex nature of its growth, 306;\n  its extensive manufactures, 307-309;\n  excellence of its municipal government, 316, 317.\n\nCamden, William, 374.\n\nCarlyle, Thomas, 218.\n\nCaroline, Sister, 447, 450, 451.\n\nCarpenter, W., a paradoxer, 421.\n\nCatastrophes in geology, 21.\n\nCatholics, disfranchised in Rhode Island, 139.\n\nCausans, M. de, a circle-squarer, 434.\n\nCavaliers in Virginia, 142.\n\nCavendish, Henry, his analysis of water, 29.\n\nChamplain, S., 199, 203, 210.\n\nChancery phrases seldom found in Shakespeare, 383.\n\nChapman, George, 357, 359, 373, 385.\n\nCharles I., 290.\n\nCharles II., 137, 165.\n\nChemical chart, devised by E. L. Youmans, 79.\n\nChemistry, Youmans's textbook of, 80, 81.\n\nChrist Church in Cambridge, 298.\n\nCieza de Leon, 202.\n\nCircle-squaring, 406-408, 411-417.\n\nCities in Massachusetts, 305.\n\nClan ownership, 33.\n\nClarendon, Earl of, 158.\n\nClark, J. S., 93, 100.\n\nClass Day forty years ago, 311.\n\nClassification of organisms, significance of, 14, 15.\n\nCleveland, Grover, 175;\n  his Venezuela message, 179.\n\n\"Coin's Financial School,\" 436.\n\nCoke, Edward, 374, 393.\n\nColumbus, Christopher, 123.\n\nCommercial spirit and ecclesiastical spirit, antagonism between, 134-136.\n\nComparative method, 30-35.\n\nComte, Auguste, his assertion that a stellar astronomy is impossible, 6;\n  failure of his philosophy, 13, 14, 88.\n\nCon\u00e1n Maol, 327.\n\nCongress of American Colonies, 191.\n\nCongresses, International, 188, 189.\n\nConnecticut, founding of, 145.\n\nControverted questions between the United States and Great Britain,\n    171, 172.\n\nCook, Joseph, 333-349.\n\nCooper, James Fenimore, unreality of his Indians, 200.\n\nCopernicus, N., 102, 111, 125.\n\nCopyright, international, 97.\n\nCorrelation of forces, 27, 28, 55, 97.\n\nCortes, H., 123.\n\nCotton, John, 139, 146, 225.\n\nCriminal trials, 382.\n\nCromwell, Oliver, 154-164.\n\nCulmer, Frederick, a paradoxer, 425, 426.\n\nCulture, early stages of, 32-34.\n\nCumulative action, 11, 12, 77, 101.\n\nCurtin, Jeremiah, 320-332.\n\nCurtis, B. R., 300.\n\nCuvier, his classification of animals in space and time, 16, 17.\n\n\nDalton's law of proportions, 28.\n\nDarwin, Charles, 21-24, 30, 40, 49, 77, 103-105, 335, 363, 386.\n\nDarwin, George Howard, 8.\n\nDefoe, Daniel, 404.\n\nDelitzsch, Franz, 341.\n\nDe Morgan, Augustus, 411-419, 427, 435.\n\nDerby, Earl of, 194.\n\nDescartes, Ren\u00e9, 125.\n\nDickens, Charles, 370.\n\nDifferentiation, 44.\n\nDingle, Edward, a paradoxer, 431.\n\nDiogenes, on the possibility of motion, 61.\n\nDisarmament, 191-193.\n\nDisqualifications, religious, 143.\n\nDobbs, a caravan doctor, 247.\n\nDogberry, 395.\n\nDonellan, John, famous case of, 382.\n\nDonne, John, 374.\n\nDonnelly, Ignatius, a paradoxer, 398, 403, 440.\n\nDoyle, J. A., 155.\n\nDudley, Joseph, 146.\n\nDummkopf, Herr, substituted name for a paradoxer, 408, 409.\n\nDunster, Henry, 294.\n\nDying, how to avoid, 411-452.\n\nDynamical conception of the world, 36.\n\n\nEast Gate of Cambridge, 296.\n\nEccentric literature, 409-444.\n\nEcclesiasticism and commercialism, antagonism between, 134-136.\n\nEdward I., 130.\n\nEdward III., 130, 136.\n\nEdwards, Jonathan, 147, 148, 164.\n\nElectoral Commission of 1877, 173.\n\nEliot, George, 353, 354.\n\nEliot, John, 157.\n\nElizabeth, Queen, 131, 132.\n\nElze, K., 372.\n\nEmbryology, its lessons, 16.\n\nEmerson, R. W., 145, 150.\n\nEndicott, John, 143, 144.\n\nEvolution, 35-38;\n  and the study of history, 42, 65, 66.\n\n\nFacts vs. theories, 21.\n\nFairfax, Thomas, 157.\n\nFaraday, M., his discovery of magneto-electric induction, 27.\n\nFarmer Weathersky, 329.\n\nFenian legends, 327.\n\nFifth Monarchists, 164.\n\nFischer, Kuno, 386.\n\nFletcher, John, 374, 395.\n\nFlighty, Mr., substituted name for a paradoxer, 452-455.\n\nForman, Captain, a paradoxer, 412, 413.\n\nForsyth, W., 194.\n\nFoster, John, 155.\n\nFox-hunting, condemned by E. A. Freeman, 283.\n\nFrance and England, their struggle for North America, 216.\n\nFranklin, Benjamin, 69, 145, 150.\n\nFreedom of thought, unpopularity of, 128, 152.\n\nFreeman, E. A., 30;\n  his birth, 265;\n  leading events of his life, 266;\n  his early work in architecture, 267;\n  his breadth of view, 268;\n  his historical essays, 269;\n  his book on federal government, 269-272;\n  his \"Norman Conquest\" and \"William Rufus,\" 272-274;\n  his miscellaneous work, especially relating to eastern Europe, 275;\n  his lectures on comparative politics, 276;\n  his work on historical geography, 277;\n  other work, 278, 279;\n  his history of Sicily, 279, 280;\n  his premature death, 281;\n  his warfare against fools and tyrants, 281, 282;\n  his wholesome view of the Eastern Question, 282;\n  his condemnation of fox-hunting, 283;\n  his domestic habits, 283.\n\nFrench heroism, 218.\n\nFrench materialists of the 18th century, 116, 117.\n\nFrench war of 1755-1763;\n  its importance not generally comprehended, 251.\n\nFresnel, A. J., 27.\n\nFrontenac, Count, 210.\n\nFrothingham, Octavius Brooks, 225, 257, 260.\n\nFroude, J. C., 194.\n\nFuller, Thomas, 374.\n\n\nGaelic language, its pathetic fate, 320-323.\n\nGalapagos Islands, 23.\n\nGalen, 400.\n\nGalileo, 444, 453.\n\nGarcilasso de la Vega, 202.\n\nGardiner, S. R., 156.\n\nGerry, Elbridge, 300.\n\nGod's Acre in Cambridge, 296.\n\nGoethe, Johann Wolfgang von, one of the first among evolutionists, 14,\n    15, 41, 62.\n\nGravitation, theory of, called atheistic, 9;\n  forbidden to be taught in Spain, 126.\n\nGray, Asa, 30, 312, 349.\n\nGray, Thomas, 157.\n\nGreat Awakening, the, 147, 148.\n\nGreat Design, the, of Henry IV., 190.\n\nGreece in primitive times, 211, 212.\n\nGreene, Robert, 373, 384.\n\nGrove, Sir W., 27.\n\nGruagach of Tricks, the, 329-331.\n\nGumpach, Johannes, a paradoxer, 418.\n\nGurney, E. W., 93.\n\n\nHaddon Hall, 123.\n\nHaeckel, Ernst, his materialism refuted, 51-62, 115, 116.\n\nHail-Storm, a young warrior, 243-245.\n\nHales, Sir James, case of, 379, 380.\n\nHalf-way Covenant, 146-148.\n\nHall, Caroline, 225.\n\nHall, Nathaniel, 225.\n\nHamilton, Alexander, 157, 180.\n\nHampden, John, 157.\n\nHampden, John, a paradoxer, 419.\n\nHarvard College, founding of, 161, 294.\n\nHarvey, William, on the advance from simplicity to complexity, 41;\n  his remark about Bacon, 388;\n  his discovery of the circulation of blood, 400, 401.\n\nHathaway, Anne, her cottage at Shottery, 365.\n\nHelium, 7.\n\nHelmholtz, Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von, 27.\n\nHelps, Sir Arthur, 64.\n\nHenry V. of England, 125.\n\nHenry VIII. of England, 129, 134.\n\nHenry the Navigator, Prince, 123.\n\nHerbert, Edward, 374.\n\nHerschel, Sir John, 412.\n\nHeterogeneity, 44.\n\nHigginson, T. W., 194.\n\nHippocrates, 400.\n\nHistorian, requirements for making an, 208.\n\nHitchcock, Edward, 458, 459.\n\nHodge, a circle-squarer, 413-416.\n\nHolinshed, Raphael, 358.\n\nHolmes, Nathaniel, a paradoxer, 379-381, 440.\n\nHolmes, O. W., his birthplace, 301.\n\n_Homo tridactylus_, 458.\n\nHomogeneity, 44.\n\nHook, Theodore, 350.\n\nHooker, Sir J., 20.\n\nHooker, Richard, 53, 373.\n\nHooker, Thomas, 292.\n\nHosmer, J. K., 156-165.\n\nHousehold science, 97.\n\nHowland, Father, 444, 445, 448.\n\nHuman sacrifices, 34.\n\nHuman soul, centre of Spencerian world, 48.\n\nHumboldt, Alexander von, 422.\n\nHumour, Bacon's deficiency in, 490;\n  seldom found in cranks, 410.\n\nHunter, Sir John, 382.\n\nHutchinson, Anne, 161, 292.\n\nHutchinson, Thomas, 291, 300.\n\nHutton, James, his theory of the earth, 10.\n\nHuxley, T. H., 17, 30, 91, 95, 337, 343-348, 361, 363.\n\nHuyghens, Christian, 26, 27.\n\n\nImmortality of the soul, 61, 114.\n\nIndependency, 131-134.\n\nIndestructibility of matter, 28.\n\nInfancy, chief causes of the prolongation of human, 106-109;\n  effect of the prolongation of human, 109;\n  of the orang-outang, 105.\n\nInquisition in Spain, effects of, 126.\n\nInsane literature, 407-409.\n\nIntegration, 44.\n\nInternational Scientific Series, 96, 97.\n\nIreton, Henry, 157.\n\nIrish folk-lore, 319-332.\n\nIroquois farmers in the State of New York, 209.\n\nIsolation of the United States, impossibility of maintaining, 193.\n\n\nJackson, Hughlings, 361, 362.\n\nJames I., 131.\n\nJames II., 137.\n\nJames, William, 446, 448.\n\nJamestown, founding of, 190\n\nJapan, Mongolian invasion of, 437.\n\nJefferson, Thomas, 141, 142, 150, 305.\n\nJennings, Isaac, a paradoxer, 452.\n\nJesuits in New France, 127.\n\nJevons, Stanley, 388.\n\nJohnson, Edwin, a paradoxer, 438, 439.\n\nJohnson, Rev. Samuel, 88.\n\nJones, Inigo, 374.\n\nJonson, Ben, 357, 366-370, 374, 378, 385.\n\nJoule, J. P., 27.\n\nJupiter, the planet, still feebly self-luminous, 8.\n\n\nKabaosa, 200.\n\nKant, Immanuel, 26, 150.\n\nKeats, John, 359, 374.\n\nKeely motor, 417.\n\nKelvin, Lord, on the size of atoms, 29.\n\nKepler, Johannes, 8.\n\nKing, Rufus, 300.\n\nKing of Sweden, as an umpire, 167.\n\nKinship, reckoned through the mother, 33.\n\nKirk, H. C., a paradoxer, 452.\n\nKoch, Robert, 29.\n\nKuhn, Adolph, 30.\n\n\nLalemant, J., 199.\n\nLamb, Charles, 350.\n\nLander, William, a paradoxer, 419.\n\nLandis, John, eccentric poet, 443.\n\nLang, Andrew, on the Homeric poems, 355.\n\nLangdon, Samuel, 301.\n\nLaplace, Marquis Pierre Simon de, 434.\n\nLa Salle, Robert, 199.\n\nLavoisier, A. L., his theory of combustion, 3, 37.\n\nLecturer, hardships of a, 84.\n\nLectures on science by E. L. Youmans, 82-87.\n\nLeibnitz, G. W., 389.\n\nLeslie, Alexander, 158.\n\n_Lev\u00e9e en masse_, system of, 185, 186.\n\nLewes, G. H., 361-333.\n\nLewis and Clark, 203.\n\nLight, undulatory theory of, 27.\n\nLindemann's researches on Pi, 407.\n\nLinguistic Society of Paris, 21.\n\nLinn\u00e6us, his system of classification, 16;\n  his relation to evolution, 41.\n\nLittle, Brown & Co., 194, 205.\n\nLocke, John, 125, 134.\n\nLollardism, 130.\n\nLondon, size of, in Shakespeare's time, 375.\n\nLongfellow, H. W., 312.\n\nLotze, H. R., 341.\n\nLouis XIV., 216.\n\nLovering, Joseph, 454.\n\nLowell, J. R., 299, 312, 399.\n\nLubbock, Sir J., 95.\n\nLuther, Martin, 125.\n\nLutherans, 142.\n\nLyell, Sir Charles, greatness of his work, 10-13; 7.\n\n\nMacaulay, Lord, 156, 387.\n\nMadison, James, 141-143, 157.\n\nMaine, Sir Henry, 21, 30.\n\nMalpighi, M., 401.\n\nManipulation, its importance in the evolution of man, 117, 118.\n\nManuscripts used by Parkman, 204.\n\nMarie de l'Incarnation, 199.\n\nMarlowe, Christopher, 373, 385.\n\nMaryland, 136.\n\nMassachusetts, growth of liberal thought in, 144-149.\n\nMasson, David, 156.\n\nMastodon, 437.\n\nMaterialism, attacked by Herbert Spencer, 50.\n\nMather, Cotton, 294.\n\nMaurer, K., 30.\n\nMaurice, F. D., 341.\n\nMayer, J. R., 27.\n\nMaypoles, 375.\n\n_Mega-ergaton docile_, 459.\n\nMegalomania of cranks, 410.\n\nMemorial Hall at Cambridge, Mass., 313.\n\n\"Merchant of Venice,\" its crazy law, 386.\n\nMeres, Francis, his praise of Shakespeare, 376, 377.\n\nMermaid Tavern, 374.\n\nMetamorphosis of motions, 55-57.\n\nMethodism, 148.\n\nMexico, conquest of, 201, 202.\n\nMiddle Ages, accumulated misery in, 183, 184.\n\nMiddlesex Fells, 227.\n\n\"Midsummer Night's Dream, A,\" 375.\n\nMill, J. S., 94, 335.\n\nMilton, John, 125, 134, 139;\n  his \"Lycidas,\" 358;\n  his verses on Shakespeare, 368, 369.\n\nMinturn, R. B., 95.\n\nMommsen, T., 30.\n\nMontaigne, M. de, 390, 403.\n\nMontcalm, 201.\n\nMontezuma, 203.\n\nMorality, beginnings of, 110.\n\nMorell, J. D., 87.\n\nMorgan, Appleton, 371.\n\nMorse, Royal, 310.\n\nMorphology, 15.\n\n\nNash, Thomas, 384.\n\nNason, a paradoxer, 439.\n\nNatural selection, 24.\n\nNebular theory, 26, 45, 46, 77.\n\nNeptune, the planet, discovery of, 5.\n\nNetherlands, toleration in, 135, 136.\n\nNew Haven Colony, suppressed by Charles II., 146.\n\nNew Netherlands, 136.\n\nNewton, Sir Isaac, 2, 5, 6, 9, 27, 37, 66, 125, 126, 388, 418, 419.\n\nNoble Savage, 200.\n\nNordenskj\u00f6ld, Baron, Swedish explorer, 424, 425.\n\nNorton, John, 146.\n\n\"Noverint, trade of,\" a slang expression, 384.\n\n\nOctogenarian layman, an, 432-434.\n\nOdyssey, the, 210.\n\nOersted, H. C., 27.\n\nOgillalah Indians, 240.\n\nOld South Church, founding of, 146, 299.\n\nOlney, Richard, 166, 175.\n\nOphelia, her right to Christian burial, 380.\n\nOrang-outang, an infant, brought up by A. R. Wallace, 105, 106.\n\n\"Oregon Trail, The,\" by Francis Parkman, 236-248.\n\nOrion, nebula of, 7.\n\nOrthodoxies, new and old, 129, 151.\n\nOvum, shows the process of development in all its stages, 43, 44.\n\nOwen, Orville, a paradoxer, 370, 403.\n\nOxenstjern, cynical remark of, 349.\n\n\nPaine, Thomas, 149.\n\nPaley, Frederick, 353.\n\nParis, massacres of prisoners in, 287.\n\nParker, Theodore, 144, 151, 230.\n\nParkman, Ebenezer, 223.\n\nParkman, Francis, as an historian, 194-222;\n  his birth, 223;\n  his boyhood, 226-230;\n  his first journey to Europe, 233-235;\n  his life among Indians, 235-246;\n  his ill-health, 238, 239, 246-250, 254, 256, 261;\n  how he composed \"The Conspiracy of Pontiac,\" 249-251;\n  his marriage, 253;\n  his house at Jamaica Plain, 255, 256;\n  his garden and greenhouse, 257, 258;\n  his eminence in horticulture, 258;\n  his pamphlets, 263;\n  his death, 264;\n  greatness of his work, 264.\n\nParkman, Rev. Francis, 224, 225.\n\nParkman, Samuel, 223.\n\nParsons, Theophilus, 300.\n\nParthenogenesis, 345-348.\n\nPassionists, a monastic order, 234.\n\nPasteur, Louis, 29.\n\nPauncefote, Sir J., 166.\n\nPeaceful tendencies of commerce, 187, 188.\n\nPeirce, Benjamin, 313.\n\nPeloponnesian War, 289.\n\nPembroke, Earl of, 367.\n\nPendulum, 27.\n\nPenn, William, 134, 138.\n\nPennsylvania, 137.\n\nPerpetual motion, 417.\n\nPerspective, historic, 195, 196.\n\nPetersham, Mass., a religious community in, 444-452.\n\nPhlogiston, doctrine of, 2-4.\n\nPhokion, his estimate of popularity, 334.\n\nPhotography, application to the telescope, 8.\n\nPi, a geometrical symbol, 405-407, 412.\n\nPickering, Timothy, 300.\n\nPisistratus, 352.\n\nPlatte River, the, 203.\n\nPlowden's Reports, 381.\n\nPlutarch, 358;\n  his essay on superstition, edited by a paradoxer, 442.\n\nPoetry, eccentric, 443.\n\n\"Pontiac, The Conspiracy of,\" 195, 249-251.\n\nPope, Alexander, 387.\n\n\"Popular Science Monthly, The,\" 98.\n\nPositivism, weakness of, 14.\n\nPott, Mrs. H., a paradoxer, her edition of the Promus manuscript, 394, 395.\n\n_Pr\u0153munire_ statutes, 130.\n\nPrecision of detail in myths, 323-325.\n\nPresbyterianism, 131.\n\nPresbyterians, 142.\n\nPrescott, William, 201, 202.\n\nPride's Purge, 163.\n\nPriestley, Joseph, his discovery of oxygen, 1-4, 26, 37;\n  his treatise on electricity, 27;\n  burning of his house, 287.\n\nProctor, Richard, 421.\n\nProfanity, silent, 339.\n\nProgressiveness of man, explanation of the, 108.\n\n\"Promus of Formularies and Elegancies,\" 394.\n\nProphecy lunatics, 432-434.\n\nProspect Union, the, 315.\n\nProtection run mad, 219, 220.\n\nPrussia, revelation of her military strength, 186.\n\nPsychology, Spencer's masterly treatment of, 48, 49.\n\nPuritan theocracy, 145, 146.\n\nPuritanism, origin of, 130-132.\n\nPutnam, Israel, 201.\n\nPym, John, 157.\n\nPyramid lunatics, 428-431.\n\nPyramids of Egypt, 211.\n\n\nQuakerism, wherein distinguished from Independency, 138.\n\nQuimby, W., a paradoxer, 431.\n\n\nRadcliffe College, 314.\n\nRadiata, 17.\n\nRaleigh, Sir Walter, 125, 364, 373, 393.\n\nRanking, John, 437.\n\nRed Water, an Indian warrior, 241.\n\nReed, Edwin, a paradoxer, 366, 367.\n\nReform of human nature, slowness of, 76.\n\nRegistration of experiences, 107, 108.\n\nReligion, reality of, 114, 115.\n\nRenaissance, 124.\n\nRhode Island, 136;\n  Catholics disfranchised in, 139.\n\nRichards, Father, 449, 450.\n\nRipley, George, 92.\n\nRiverside Press, the, 308.\n\nRoberts, G. L., 93.\n\nRoblin, Captain, a paradoxer, 418.\n\nRoe, J. E., a paradoxer, 403.\n\nRomano, Julio, 372, 373.\n\n\"Root and branch\" men, 131.\n\nRousseau, J. J., 200.\n\nRowbotham, Samuel, a paradoxer, 421.\n\nRumford, Count, 27.\n\nRunning for office in Tir na n-Og, 329.\n\nRussell, Lord John, 412.\n\nRutherford, Samuel, 133.\n\n\nSaint-Hilaire, \u00c9tienne Geoffroy, 20.\n\nSaint-Hilaire, Isidore Geoffroy, 20.\n\nSaturn's rings, 27.\n\nSavage life, delights of, 207, 208.\n\nSavagery, types of, 32.\n\nSavages and barbarians, 211.\n\nSaxo Grammaticus, 359.\n\nScheele, C. W., his relation to the discovery of oxygen, 3.\n\nSchelling, F. W. J., 41.\n\nSchlegel, August von, 402.\n\nSchleicher, A., 30.\n\nSchleiden, M. J., his cell doctrine, 18.\n\nSchool-teacher, a model, 71.\n\nSchwann's cell doctrine, 18.\n\nScience, pure and applied, 29.\n\nScofield, Catherine, 68.\n\nScott, Sir Walter, 199.\n\nSelden, John, 374.\n\nServetus, Michael, 401.\n\nShakespeare, William, 125, 356-404.\n\nShaw, Quincy, 203, 236.\n\nShenandoah Valley, settlement of, 142.\n\nShepard, Thomas, 293.\n\nShepard Church in Cambridge, founding of, 299.\n\nShocks, nervous and psychical, 60.\n\nSilliman, B., 453.\n\nSilsbee, Edward, 88.\n\nSkinner, a paradoxer, 430.\n\nSmallwit, Mr., substituted name for a paradoxer, 408, 409.\n\nSmith, James, a circle-squarer, 411.\n\nSmith, Captain John, 203.\n\nSmyth, C. Piazzi, a paradoxer, 426-429.\n\nSociety and organism, deepest distinction between, 47.\n\nSolar system, 5.\n\nSolemn League and Covenant, 158.\n\nSophocles, E. A., 312.\n\nSouthampton, Earl of, 370.\n\nSpain, her methods in America, 214, 215.\n\nSpanish literature and science, 126.\n\nSpeaking with tongues, 451.\n\nSpectrum analysis, 6, 7.\n\nSpedding, James, 386.\n\nSpencer, Herbert, 20, 25, 26, 39-51, 55, 66, 67, 86-96, 339, 341, 361-363;\n  some ambiguities of expression, 58-61.\n\nSpencerians, forty years ago, 93.\n\nSpenser, Edmund, 374;\n  his compliment to Shakespeare, 376.\n\nSpinoza, B., 388.\n\nSpot Pond, 227.\n\nStahl, G. E., 2-4, 37.\n\nStandard of degrees of organization, 45.\n\nStars, multiple, 6, 7.\n\nStone Age, men of the, 210, 240, 291.\n\nStory, Joseph, 300.\n\nStrafford, Earl of, 154.\n\nStratford, its dirty streets, 365.\n\nStrong, Caleb, 300.\n\nStuyvesant, Peter, his treatment of Quakers, 137.\n\nSuffrage, limited to church members in Massachusetts and New Haven, 145, 146.\n\nSullamar, Henry, a circle-squarer, 434.\n\nSully, Duke of, 190.\n\nSwan of Avon, 366, 367.\n\nSwift, Jonathan, 404.\n\nSymmes, Americus, a paradoxer, 424, 425.\n\nSymmes, J. C., a paradoxer, 421-423.\n\nSynods and congregations, 133.\n\n\nTaylor, Robert, imprisoned for blasphemy, 439.\n\nTelescope-making in Cambridge, 309.\n\nTheocritus, 358.\n\nThirst for knowledge, 70.\n\nThomson, Sir William. _See_ Kelvin, Lord.\n\nThomson, Sir Wyville, 345.\n\n\"Thou\" and \"you\" in Shakespeare's time, 392, 393.\n\nThunder-fighters, the, 242.\n\nTicknor & Fields, 89.\n\nTir na n-Og, the land of youth, 328.\n\n\"Top-knot come down,\" 348.\n\nTory party in New England, 146.\n\nTourneur, Cyril, 373.\n\nTown meetings, 305.\n\nTrade between Europe and Asia, 122, 123.\n\nTrent, affair of the, 172, 178, 179.\n\nTribunals of arbitration, 167-170.\n\nTroilus and Cressida, 359.\n\nTrollope, Anthony, his controversy with E. A. Freeman as to fox-hunting, 283.\n\nTylor, T. B., 30.\n\nTyndall, John, 337.\n\n\n\"Uncle Good,\" 71.\n\nUniformity in geology, 10.\n\nUnion, the sentiment of, 180, 181.\n\nUnitarian movement, the, 148-151.\n\nUniversalism, 148.\n\nUniversity Press in Cambridge, 297, 308.\n\nUpham, C. W., 155.\n\nUranus, the planet, 5.\n\n\nVane, Sir Henry, 139, 154-165.\n\nVasari's \"Lives of the Painters,\" 372.\n\nVenice, would not accept the Inquisition, 135;\n  her crime against Constantinople, 287.\n\n\"Venus and Adonis,\" 370, 371.\n\nVesalius, A., 401.\n\n\"Vestiges of Creation,\" 77.\n\nVico, G. B., 352.\n\nVindex, a paradoxer, 442.\n\nVining, Edward, 400.\n\nVirginia and religious freedom, 141, 142.\n\nVolney, Count, 422.\n\nVoltaire, 149;\n  his remark about Shakespeare, 399.\n\n\nWallace, A. R., 24, 30, 102-104.\n\nWashington's Farewell Address, 193.\n\nWatertown, its protest against taxation without representation, 291.\n\nWebster, John, 373.\n\nWest, Rev. Samuel, 300.\n\nWest Gate of Cambridge, 296.\n\nWhewell, William, 411, 435.\n\nWhitman, Walt, 338.\n\nWilder, S. H., 58.\n\nWilliam and Mary, 138.\n\nWilliams, Roger, 134, 139-141, 161, 162.\n\nWinthrop, John, 146.\n\nWolf, F. A., 352;\n  his theory of the Homeric poems, 352-354.\n\nWolf, K. F., 41.\n\nWolves and bears in Cambridge, 296.\n\n\nXicotencatl, 202.\n\n\nYonnondio, 200.\n\nYoumans, E. L., 67-99, 453-455.\n\nYoumans, Vincent, 67-71.\n\nYoung, Thomas, 27.\n\nELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED\nBY H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n=The Riverside Press=\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nCAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Morse, _What American Zo\u00f6logists have done for Evolution_, pp. 37,\n39-41, Salem, 1876; _Proc. Amer. Assoc. for Adv. of Sci._, vol. xxii.\n\n[2] _The Ascent of Man_, pp. 282-291; cf. Tyler, _The Whence and the\nWhither of Man_, pp. 179, 217, etc.\n\n[3] An address delivered in the First Unitarian Church of Philadelphia,\nMay 13, 1896, at the celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of its\nfounding, under the lead of the illustrious Dr. Priestley.\n\n[4] Balfour, _Comparative Embryology_, i. 2.\n\n[5] Part of an address before the Brooklyn Ethical Association, May 31,\n1891.\n\n[6] See, for example, _Principles of Psychology_, second edition,\n1870-72, vol. ii. pp. 145-162.\n\n[7] See also _Excursions of an Evolutionist_, 1883, pp. 274-282.\n\n[8] _First Principles_, second edition, 1867, p. 217.\n\n[9] _Id._ p. 558.\n\n[10] See, e. g., _Principles of Psychology_, second edition, vol. i. pp.\n158-161, 616-627.\n\n[11] Vol. i. p. 158. Cf. my _Cosmic Philosophy_, vol. ii. p. 444.\n\n[12] \"If thou wouldst press into the infinite, go but to all parts of\nthe finite.\"\n\n[13] An address before the Brooklyn Ethical Association, March 23, 1890.\n\n[14] Vol. iii. p. 113.\n\n[15] See above, p. 49.\n\n[16] Short-hand report of my speech at a dinner given for me by Mr. John\nSpencer Clark, at the Aldine Club, New York, May 13, 1895.\n\n[17] An address delivered at the National Conference of Unitarian\nChurches, at Washington, D.C., October 23, 1895.\n\n[18] Sempere, _Monarchie Espagnole_, ii. 152.\n\n[19] Stuyvesant's brief persecution of Quakers, for which he was sternly\nrebuked by the home government, constitutes an exception to the rule.\nSee my _Dutch and Quaker Colonies_, i. 232-237.\n\n[20] See Arnold's _History of Rhode Island_, ii. 490-496.\n\n[21] Stimson, _American Statue Law_, \u00a746.\n\n[22] _The Life of Young Sir Henry Vane, Governor of Massachusetts Bay,\nand Leader of the Long Parliament._ With a Consideration of the English\nCommonwealth as a Forecast of America. By James K. Hosmer. Boston:\nHoughton, Mifflin & Co. 1888.\n\n[23] See my _Beginnings of New England_, p. 185.\n\n[24] The following list of instances within a period of twelve years is\ncited from an able article by Professor Pasquale Fiore, of the\nUniversity of Naples, in the _International Journal of Ethics_, October,\n1896:--\n\nArbitration by the Emperor of Austria between Great Britain and\nNicaragua, 1881.\n\nA mixed commission to arbitrate between France and Chili, 1882.\n\nArbitration by the President of the French Republic between the\nNetherlands and the Republic of San Domingo, 1882.\n\nArbitration by Pope Leo XIII. between Germany and Spain; affair of the\nCaroline Islands, 1885.\n\n[25] This paper originated in an address at Sanders Theatre, Cambridge,\nDecember 6, 1893, at a service commemorative of Mr. Parkman. In its\npresently greatly expanded shape it was printed as the Introduction to\nthe revised edition of Parkman's Works, Boston, 1897-98, 20 vols.,\noctavo.\n\n[26] _Pontiac_, iii. 112.\n\n[27] An oration delivered in Sanders Theatre, June 2, 1896, at the civic\njubilee commemorating the incorporation of Cambridge as a city.\n\n[28] Chicago, Philadelphia, and Brooklyn. By the annexation of Brooklyn,\nthe population of New York is now (1899) carried up to 3,500,000, making\nit the second city in the world.\n\n[29] In 1898 the number had risen to 4660, besides 411 women students in\nRadcliffe.\n\n[30] _Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland._ By Jeremiah Curtin. Boston:\nLittle, Brown & Co. 1890.\n\n[31] Cook's _Boston Monday Lectures: Biology_, p. 51. After some\nhesitation I have decided to reprint this paper, because the\n\"fundamental rule of procedure\" here criticised is a favourite one with\nother controversialists than Mr. Cook, and it is one against which\nreaders sometimes need to be put on their guard.\n\n[32] In spite of an occasional slip of the pen which may seem to imply\nthe contrary. See above, pp. 58-60.\n\n[33] The italicizing is, of course, mine, both here and below.\n\n[34] _Biology_, p. 67.\n\n[35] _Encyclop\u00e6dia Britannica_, ninth edition, \"Biology,\" p. 686.\n\n[36] This article was published in the fortieth-anniversary number of\n_The Atlantic Monthly_, November, 1897.\n\n[37] Iliad, vi. 168.\n\n[38] The comedy afterward developed into _All's Well that Ends Well_.\n\n[39] Davis, _The Law in Shakespeare_, St. Paul, 1884.\n\n[40] There is reason for believing that this choice was an instance of\nthe megalomania developed by Miss Bacon's malady. She imagined a remote\nkinship between herself and Lord Bacon. Possibly there may have been\nsuch kinship.\n\n[41] Fischer, _Shakespeare und die Bacon Mythen_, Heidelberg, 1895.\n\n[42] The Baconizers usually delight in berating poor Shakespeare, making\nmuch of the deer-stealing business, the circumstances of his marriage,\netc.\n\n[43] _Literary Essays_, ii. 163.\n\n[44] The Bankside _Shakespeare_, vol. xi. p. xi.\n\n[45] The writings of Hippocrates abound in examples, as in his\ninteresting explanation of congestion, extravasation, etc. (_De Ventis_,\nx.-xiv., _Opera_, ed. Littr\u00e9, tom. vi. pp. 104-114), to cite one\ninstance out of a thousand: \u1f19\u03c0\u03b5\u03b9\u03b4\u03b1\u03bd \u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03b5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03b1\u03c2 \u03c0\u03b1\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03c2 \u03ba\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03b1\u03b9\u03bc\u03bf\u03c5\u03c2 \u03c4\u03c9\u03bd\n\u03c6\u03bb\u03b5\u03b2\u03c9\u03bd \u03c0\u03bf\u03bb\u03c5\u03c2 \u03b1\u1f21\u03c1 \u03b2\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b7,\u03b2\u03c1\u03b9\u03c3\u03b1\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\u03b7, \u03ba\u03c9\u03bb\u03c5\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03bf \u1f01\u03b9\u03bc\u03b1 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b5\u03be\u03b9\u03b5\u03bd\u03b1\u03b9 \u03c4\u03b7 \u03bc\u03b5\u03bd\n\u03bf\u03c5\u03bd \u03b5\u03bd\u03b5\u03c3\u03c4\u03b7\u03ba\u03b5, \u03c4\u03b7 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03bd\u03c9\u03b8\u03c1\u03c9\u03c2 \u03b4\u03b9\u03b5\u03be\u03b5\u03c1\u03c7\u03b5\u03c4\u03b1\u03b9, \u03c4\u03b7 \u03b4\u03b5 \u03b8\u03b1\u03c3\u03c3\u03bf\u03bd etc.\n\n[46] _Budget of Paradoxes_, pp. 9, 178, 259, 260, 336.\n\n[47] _The Theory of Concentric Spheres_, Louisville, 1878; second\nedition, 1885.\n\n[48] Proctor, _The Great Pyramid_, p. 43.\n\n[49] De Morgan, p. 179.\n\n[50] De Morgan, p. 163.\n\n[51] A site not far from that of Evansville, Indiana.\n\n[52] This was my first visit, with Dr. James and other friends, as above\ndescribed.\n\n[53] Brother Fuller resigned in 1877, and was succeeded by Brother\nRichards as Spiritual head, or high priest of the Adoni-shomo.","title":"A Century of Science, and Other Essays","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":104834}