LITERARY NOTICES. 



565 



lower of sect or leader. In many respects 

 his conclusions agree with those of Mr. Her- 

 bert Spencer ; but he is no imitator of Mr. 

 Spencer's style, and he docs not hesitate to 

 express a frank disagreement with his opin- 

 ions upon occasion as in the matter of 

 state education, which Mr. Thompson ad- 

 vocates, while Mr. Spencer condemns. A 

 multitude of the pressing problems of our 

 Bocial life are suggested and discussed in 

 this compact volume, with such frankness, 

 sincerity, ability, and good feeling, that we 

 can heartily commend it not only to the 

 professional scholar, but to all thoughtful 

 men and women. The interest which it 

 will awaken will doubtless bespeak far Mr. 

 Thompson's larger work "A System of 

 Psychology" a wider circle of readers 

 than it has hitherto had in this country. 



The Factors of Organic Evolution. By 

 Herbert Spencer. New York : D. Ap- 

 pleton & Co. Pp. 76. 



The two parts of which this essay con- 

 sists were originally published in succes- 

 sive numbers of " The Nineteenth Century," 

 and also of " The Popular Science Monthly." 

 They are now given in a single volume, 

 together with some passages of considerable : 

 length which were omitted, for the sake of ; 

 brevity, from the magazine publication. Mr. 

 Spencer believes that though mental phe- 

 nomena of many kinds are explicable only 

 as resulting from the natural selection of j 

 favorable variations there are others, still 

 more numerous, which can not be explained 

 otherwise than as the results of the inherit- 

 ance of functionally-produced modifications. 

 Not only the conceptions we form of the 

 genesis and nature of our higher emotions 

 and moral intuitions, but our sociological 

 beliefs, are profoundly affected by the con- 

 clusions we draw on this point. " If a na- 

 tion is modified en masse by transmission 

 of the effects produced on the natures of 

 its members by those modes of activity 

 which its institutions and circumstances in- 

 volve, then we must infer that such insti- 

 tutions and circumstances mold its members 

 far more rapidly and comprehensively than 

 they can do if the sole cause of adaptation 

 to them is the more frequent survival of 

 individuals who happen to have varied in 

 favorable ways." Considering the effects 



which the acceptance of one or other of 

 these hypotheses must have on our views, 

 life, mind, morals, and politics, the question 

 which of them is true, Mr. Spencer adds, 

 "demands, beyond all other questions what- 

 ever, the attention of scientific men." 



The Ruling Princi?le of Method applied 

 to Education. By Antonio Rosmini 

 Serbati. Translated by Mrs. William 

 Grey. Boston : D. C. Heath & Co. Pp. 

 363. Price, $1.50. 



Rosmini proposed to apply to education 

 the principles which were independently 

 worked out by Froebel into the Kinder- 

 garten the principles, as the translator 

 describes them, on which Nature herself 

 works. He contemplated a complete trea- 

 tise on pedagogy, to be worked out in de- 

 partments corresponding with the several 

 stages of the unfolding and building up of 

 the pupil's mind, having in view, however, 

 not only the child at school, but, to use the 

 words of Francesco Paoli, "the adult and 

 the old, the whole race, in short, because 

 in the man, at every stage of life, there ia 

 something of the child ; there is a new de- 

 velopment going on within him, which re- 

 quires to be guided and assisted that it may 

 reach a successful issue, and the man learn 

 to educate himself." With this view, he 

 divided his subjects into periods computed 

 by the degrees of cognition which the hu- 

 man mind successively attains in its intel- 

 lectual development. The first of these pe- 

 riods begins at birth, and includes about six 

 weeks, during which no definite cognitions 

 can be assigned to the child, except that 

 primary and fundamental one of being ; the 

 second begins with the first smile and tears, 

 with the simple perception of things as sub- 

 sisting constituting its cognitions, to which 

 correspond the volitions, which have these 

 things as their object. The third period is 

 marked by the acquisition of speech, which 

 shows that the child has attained the power 

 of analysis and abstraction, with volitions 

 having sensible qualities as their object. 

 The fourth period shows itself in the apti- 

 tude to learn to read, and is characterized by 

 the exercise of the faculties of judgment and 

 comparison, and by the development of the 

 moral sense, which was already existing in 

 the germ. Thence are developed conscience, 

 synthetic cognitions, and the free use of the 



