LITERARY NOTICES. 



125 



evidence of the fact. But, on the other 

 hand, if a lowly-organized animal docs learn 

 by its own individual experience, we are in 

 possession of the best available evidence of 

 conscious memory leading to intentional 

 adaptation." 



Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics. By 

 Frederic Pollock, M. A., LL. D. Mac- 

 millan & Co. Pp. 377. Price, $3. 

 Although but little oneness of form 

 will be expected in a work like this, com- 

 posed of occasional pieces which have ap- 

 peared in divers journals and reviews, yet 

 so much unity of purpose and thought are 

 to be found in it as to give a considerable 

 measure of coherence. The essays fall into 

 two divisions, in the first of which legal 

 topics predominate, in the second ethical. 

 In the first, it has been the author's aim to 

 consider legal ideas and institutions as af- 

 fected by or as affecting the wider interests 

 of history, politics, and practical legisla- 

 tion. In the second division he has endeav- 

 ored to bring to a better-defined issue cer- 

 tain points of ethical discussion, by the help 

 of distinctions founded on familiar legal 

 conceptions, and by specifically applying 

 those conceptions and distinctions to ad- 

 mitted facts. In both subjects he has pre- 

 ferred to use the historical method taking 

 the term in a pretty wide sense. Yet, in re- 

 spect to the method followed, whether criti- 

 cal or analytical, the author takes no narrow 

 view, and it will help to the understanding 

 of the character of his book if we quote his 

 prefatory remarks upon this subject : 



There may be an apparent inconsistency in 

 the points of view taken in some of the legal 

 essays. I have started sometimes from the pure 

 analysis of the modern English school of juris- 

 prudence, sometimes from history, sometimes 

 from practical expediency. My own opinion is 

 that all these methods are legitimate, and that, 

 if their results fail to agree, it is the fault, not 

 of the instrument, but of the worker; No doubt 

 there exists a tendency to conflict between the 

 historical and the analytical manner of consider- 

 ing legal phenomena. The historical student is 

 tempted to regard analytical jurisprudence as 

 shallow sciolism, while the analytical jurist is 

 apt to charge the historical and comparative 

 method with laxity of thought and antiquarian 

 pedantry < Both methods are, in truth, useful 

 and necessary, and either of them alone is im- 

 perfect; the modern developments of legal the- 

 ory have shown them in their power and in their 

 shortcomings. 



The history of law was by no means neglect- 



ed before the rise of modern critical jurispru- 

 dence ; but its results were of little value so 

 long as they could not be read in the light of 

 general ideas and principles. Blackstone gives 

 the history of English law from the thirteenth 

 century onward, with sufficient fullness for all 

 ordinary purposes, and, as a rule, with great 

 accuracy; the historical merit of his "Com- 

 mentaries" has been too much overlooked in 

 the discussion of his faulty arrangement and in- 

 adequate theories. Montesquieu not only col- 

 lects a great quantity of materials for legal his- 

 tory, but has a notion of historical method and 

 comparative research far in advance of other 

 writers of his time. Yet all this work remained 

 unfruitful for the best part of a century. It had 

 to be fertilized by the ideas of the analytical 

 school. Bentham, on the other band, bad no 

 room in bis mind for history. He would have 

 liked to make a clean sweep of all the laws 

 and customs of Europe, and start afresh with a 

 code warranted to secure the greatest happi- 

 ness. Even language had for him no continuity 

 to be respected. He seriously drafted specimens 

 of legislation in a style invented by himself as 

 the most appropriate for the purpose, and defy- 

 ing all the usages of common syntax. A system 

 proceeding from this habit of mind could not 

 easily adapt itself to the facts of different ages 

 and societies. Its general propositions were, 

 in truth, like those of political economy, drawn 

 from the conditions of a particular society at a 

 particular time, or, rather, those conditions as 

 they would be in the absence of disturbing ele- 

 ments. These conditions have still their pecul- 

 iar value for scientific jurisprudence, insomuch 

 as they are those which more and more tend to 

 be realized in the progress of modern civilized 

 communities. But this value can not be rightly 

 perceived, and set on its true footing, until the 

 extreme claims of abstract analysis have broken 

 down in the presence of unforeseen and refrac- 

 tory elements of fact. 



Among the papers in this interesting 

 volume we have been most impressed with 

 those on the " Laws of Nature and Laws of 

 Man," " The Theory of Persecution," " The 

 Casuistry of Common Sense," and a " Review 

 of Spencer's ' Data of Ethics.' " 



A History of the People of the United 

 States, from the Revolution to the 

 Civil War. By John Bach McMaster. 

 In five volumes. Vol. I. New York : D. 

 Appleton & Co. Pp. 622. Price, $2.50. 



In two provinces of thought, not for- 

 merly regarded as scientific, a powerful in- 

 fluence has, nevertheless, been exerted by 

 the physical science of the present century 

 we refer to philology and to history. It 

 is not the students of these subjects that 

 have initiated the changes they have re- 

 spectively undergone : the influence exerted 



