LITERARY NOTICES. 



629 



studying intelligently its own welfare. This 

 portion of the work was prepared on the heels 

 of the terrible epidemic of cerebro-spinal 

 meningitis in New York during the first six 

 months of last year, when, out of 790 per- 

 sons attacked, 607 died. Availing himself 

 of the records of the Health Department, 

 and of the observations of Dr. Russell, 

 Registrar of Vital Statistics, the author has 

 been able, in this appendix, to throw much 

 light upon the vexed question of the causes 

 of the disorder. Thorough investigation 

 proved these to be filth, overcrowding, de- 

 fective sewage-pipes, and the like. It would 

 appear that the disease is not propagated 

 by contagion or infection, and consequently 

 its origin must be ascribed to unwholesome 

 conditions in the household or neighbor- 

 hood where it manifests itself. If the pub- 

 lic would be awake to the dangers they may 

 themselves be creating, they would do well 

 to procure this book, and give the appendix, 

 at least, a careful perusal. 



The following discriminating notice of 

 " Physics and Politics," from the pen of 

 Prof. John Fiske, appeared in the February 

 Atlantic. It gives so clear an insight into 

 the quality of that remarkable little volume, 

 that our readers will thank us for reprodu- 

 cing it : 



"If the International Scientific Series pro- 

 ceeds as it has begun, it will more than ful- 

 fil the promise given to the reading public 

 in its prospectus. The first volume, by 

 Prof. Tyndall, was a model of lucid and at- 

 tractive scientific exposition ; and now we 

 have a second, by Mr. Walter Bagehot, 

 which is not only very lucid and charming, 

 but also original and suggestive in the high- 

 est degree. Nowhere, perhaps, since the 

 publication of Sir Henry Maine's ' Ancient 

 Law,' have we seen so many fruitful thoughts 

 suggested in the course of a couple of hun- 

 dred pages. 



" The principal aim of Mr. Bagehot's book 

 is to point out some of the conditions essen- 

 tial to progress in civilization, and to show 

 how it is that so small a portion of the hu- 

 man race has attained to permanent pro- 

 gressiveness. It has been customary to con- 

 trast man with inferior animals as alone ca- 

 pable of improving his condition from age 

 to age; the implication being that, while 

 none of the inferior animals show any ca- 

 pacity for progress, on the other hand all 



men, without distinction save as to degree, 

 possess such capacity. And some meta- 

 physical writers have gone so far as to de- 

 scribe progressiveness as a tendency inher- 

 ent in humanity. The gulf between man 

 and other animals, wide enough in any 

 event, has in this way been unduly exag- 

 gerated. In reality it need not take a very 

 lon^ survey of human societies, past and 

 present, to assure us that beyond a certain 

 point stagnation has been the rule, and prog- 

 ress the exception. Over a large part of 

 the earth's surface the slow progress pain- 

 fully achieved during thousands of prehis- 

 toric ages has stopped short with the savage 

 state, as exemplified by those African, Poly- 

 nesian, and American tribes which can 

 neither work out a civilization for them- 

 selves, nor appropriate the civilization of 

 higher races with whom they are brought 

 into contact. Half the human race, having 

 surmounted savagery, have been arrested 

 in an immobile type of civilization, as in an- 

 cient Egypt, modern China, and in the East 

 generally. It is only in the Aryan race, 

 with the Jews and Magyars, that we can find 

 evidences of a persistent tendency to pro- 

 gress; and that there is no inherent race- 

 tendency at work in this is shown by the 

 fact that some of the Aryans, as the Hindoo, 

 and Persians, are among the most unpro- 

 gressi ve of men. The progress of the Euro- 

 pean Aryans, like the evolution of higher 

 forms of life, has been due only to a concur- 

 rence of favorable circumstances. 



"It is one of the puzzles of sociology that 

 the very state of things which is preeminent- 

 ly useful in bringing men out of savagery, 

 is also likely to be preeminently in the way 

 of their attaining to a persistently progressive 

 civilization. 'No one,' says Mr. Bagehot, 

 ' will ever comprehend the arrested civili- 

 zations unless he sees the strict dilemma of 

 early society. Either men had no law at all, 

 and lived in confused tribes, hardly hanging 

 together, or they had to obtain a fixed law 

 by processes of incredible difficulty. Those 

 who surmounted that difficulty soon de- 

 stroyed all those that lay in their way who 

 did not. And then they themselves were 

 caught in their own yoke. The customary 

 discipline, which could only be imposed on 

 any early men by terrible sanctions, contin- 

 ued with those sanctions, and killed out of 

 the whole society the propensities to varia- 

 tion, which are the principle of progress.' 



" A word to the wise will suffice to show 

 that Mr. Bagehot has here struck nearer to 

 the explanation of the arrested civilizations 

 than any previous writer. Among numer- 



