LITERARY NOTICES. 



271 



fort in the study of foreign languages, 

 and common sense declares that it was 

 because of it. In his defense of the 



' wholesale study of language, iD the 



, St. Andrew's address, Mr. Mill en- 

 countered this perplexing considera- 

 tion, and his treatment of it was hard- 

 ly more adroit than Lord Coleridge's 

 reference to Mr. Bright. Having point- 

 ed out the numberless advantages of 

 a knowledge of many languages, and 

 then having to explain how the Greeks 

 succeeded so remarkably without any 

 such knowledge, he is driven to the 

 shift of suggesting that these Greeks 

 were a very wonderful people. He 

 says, " I hardly know any greater proof 

 of the extraordinary genius of the 



- Greeks, than that they were able to 

 make such brilliant achievements in ab- 

 stract thought, knowing as they did no 

 language but their own." From which 

 we are to infer that if these clever 

 Greeks could have had a couple of 

 dead languages to train on, and three 



* or four living languages to expand on, 

 their achievements would have been 

 simply prodigious! Another illustra- 

 tion of the power of fetich-worship to 

 pervert the logical intellect. 



On the whole, we can not think the 

 Yale devotees have made much by try- 

 ing to play off the Lord Chief -Justice 

 of England against Mr. Adams on the 

 classical question. They are very much 

 in agreement. Mr. Adams said that 

 he had forgotten his Latin and Greek ; 

 Lord Coleridge says that by calling 

 in the aid of religion he has been able 

 to hold on to his classical acquisitions. 

 But Mr. Adams was before him, as 

 shown by the title of his address, in 

 recognizing the peculiar function of 

 religion in the case. 



"We owe thanks to our classical 

 friends for keeping the question in a 

 lively condition. They have had much 

 to say about the German experience 

 with classical and scientific studies ; we 

 will see how much they make by that 

 next month. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



What Social Classes owe to Each Other. 

 By William Graham Sumner, Professor 

 of Political and Social Science in Yale 

 College. New York : Harper & Brothers. 

 Pp. 169. Price, 60 cents. 



This little volume has exceptional claims 

 upon the attention of thinking people. It 

 is not of the current order of social science 

 literature, but is rather a trenchant protest 

 against its prevailing spirit, and an able 

 attempt to substitute the scientific for the 

 sentimental mode of studying the relations 

 of men in society. Professor Sumner finds 

 a very loose state of thinking in regard to 

 social obligations, their grounds, and their 

 extent, what people owe to each other, and 

 what they expect from each other, and he 

 shows very clearly that from erroneous views 

 upon these subjects spring a large number 

 of the worst evils of the social state. 



The general object of beings who recog- 

 nize evil as something to be avoided, and 

 good as something to be sought, and who 

 look forward to ends to be secured and 

 work for the accomplishment of these ends, 

 is undoubtedly to make things better, but 

 how to do this it is by no means so easy to 

 determine. The most conflicting projects 

 are offered for the attainment of the end, 

 and the discords of opinion as to what 

 things are socially best show that ignorance, 

 prejudice and passion have still a great 

 deal to do with the subject. In any treat- 

 ment of it, therefore, that can become in- 

 structive and helpful, the first thing is to 

 get at the facts and call things by their right 

 name. Professor Sumner has this unques- 

 tionable merit, that he refuses to be misled 

 by words, and insists upon stripping off the 

 illusions in which the subject is shrouded, 

 and getting at the real things represented. 

 This is not an agreeable task. It requires 

 some courage to encounter an ignorant pub- 

 lic sentiment which appropriates to itself 

 the whole terminology of charity, benevo- 

 lence, and sympathy for the poor and weak, 

 and denounces as cold and hard-hearted all 

 who do not share its sentimental views upon 

 social questions. Professor Sumner comes in 

 for a liberal amount of reprobation, the "Xew 

 York Tribune," for example, saying that 

 his book is characterized by "an insolent 



