LITERARY NOTICES. 



55i 



the highest interest to the research. It i3 

 of no little importance to find out how much 

 these tiny creatures know which are capable 

 of elaborating such curious and extensive 

 social arrangements. Are they really next to 

 man in the scale of intelligence ? Sir John 

 Lubbock seems to have arrived at this con- 

 clusion, but he opens his introductory chap- 

 ter thus : " The anthropoid apes no doubt 

 approach nearer to man in bodily structure 

 than to any other animals ; but when we 

 consider the habits of ants, their social 

 organization, their large communities, and 

 elaborate habitations ; their roadways, their 

 possession of domestic animals, and even, 

 in some cases, of slaves, it must be admit- 

 ted that they have a fair claim to rank next 

 to man in the scale of intelligence.'' 



We have no space either to explain Sir 

 John's interesting method of procedure 

 in these researches, nor to intimate his re- 

 sults. But we may say that the author has 

 thoroughly caught the spirit of his country 

 neighbor, Mr. Darwin, and that his book is 

 quite of the Darwinian order, evincing the 

 most minute, painstaking, and patient ob- 

 servation, and reasoning no further or faster 

 than the facts will warrant. 



Capital and Population : A Study of the 

 Economic Effects of their Relations 

 to Each Other. By Frederick B. Haw- 

 ley. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 

 Pp. 267. 



The author confesses his position, as 

 exemplified in his treatise, to be a peculiar 

 one. While considering himself a disciple 

 of what is called the English and orthodox 

 school in political economy, he has arrived 

 at results which are in many instances dia- 

 metrically opposed to those of that school ; 

 especially on the subjects of free trade and 

 taxation. On the other hand, his reasoning 

 presupposes the falsity of most of the ar- 

 guments heretofore advanced in support of 

 the very conclusions he upholds. These 

 singular results are obtained by his taking 

 up the -reasonings of Mill and Ricardo, and 

 others of their school, and carrying them 

 out on their lines beyond the limits where 

 they stopped, and by taking up and giving 

 importance to factors that were unconsid- 

 ered or overlooked by them. Having point- 

 ed out an important variation in the defini- 

 tion of capital as given x by Ricardo and Mill, 



he makes the deduction that over-accumula- 

 tion, or the increase of capital beyond the 

 needs of population, is not only possible, but 

 of frequent and periodic occurrence in all 

 civilized nations ; that there is, in fact, a 

 tendency to it. He then undertakes to show 

 that proportional and real wages vary in- 

 versely instead of together, as has hereto- 

 fore been assumed, and that it is not a high 

 rate of proportional wages, but of real wages, 

 that is a stimulus to population. He fur- 

 ther reaches conclusions opposed to free 

 trade and in favor of the protective policy ; 

 that manufactures are more advantageous as 

 a national pursuit than agriculture, and com- 

 merce is more advantageous than either ; 

 and finds a basis for a positive decision in 

 favor of bi-metallism. 



John Stuart Mill. A Criticism, with Per- 

 sonal Recollections. By Alexander 

 Bain, LL. D. Henry Holt & Co. Pp. 

 201. Price, $1.25. 



This volume is precisely what was need- 

 ed to supplement Mill's "Autobiography." 

 While, on the one hand, that work is inval- 

 uable as a disclosure of personality, and as 

 an interpreter of mental experience, such 

 as none but the author himself could give, 

 on the other hand it is full of the neces- 

 sary bias and the limitations of an auto- 

 representation, and contains defects and 

 omissions which only another mind could 

 supply. Dr. Bain was pre-eminently the 

 man to add this counterpart to Mill's own 

 sketch of his life. He knew the man inti- 

 mately, was himself an independent student 

 of the whole range of questions to which 

 Mill devoted himself, while the two men 

 were in such sympathy that Mr. Mill in- 

 trusted to Professor Bain the revision of 

 the proof-sheets of the "Logic," his great- 

 est and most important work. With such 

 a preparation, Professor Bain could not fail 

 to give us a most interesting sketch, and 

 which is at the same time a critical estimate 

 of Mill's publications. Much light is thrown 

 on the circumstances of the production of 

 each work how the author was led to the 

 subject, how his views were modified or ex- 

 panded, and how he wa3 influenced by the 

 leading contemporary minds of his time. 

 There is an interesting analysis of Mill's 

 relation to Comte, and a still more inter- 



