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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tional; but they are, nevertheless, bar- 

 barians : for the degree of barbarism in 

 any community is measured by the im- 

 punity with which its members seek 

 tbeir gratification at each other's ex- 

 pense. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



George Ripley. By Octayius Brooks 

 Frothingham. Boston : Houghton, Mif- 

 flin & Co. Pp. 321. Price, $1.50. 



Mr. Frothingham's life of Ripley is a very 

 pleasant and entertaining, if not in the high- 

 est degree instructive, book upon its sub- 

 ject. As a biographer, in this case he has 

 the advantage of having been long and inti- 

 mately acquainted with the man whose life 

 he delineates, of having a similar culture 

 and a broad sympathy with his aims. But 

 while these qualifications are favorable to 

 the appreciation of Mr. Ripley's character, 

 they are not so favorable to that criticism 

 of it which is perhaps necessary to extract 

 the highest lesson from its career. Mr. 

 Frothingham has given us a model biogra- 

 phy from a literary point of view, but we 

 suspect that in future the work of describ- 

 ing men's lives must more and more pass 

 into the hands of those who have a scien- 

 tific preparation for the work. We must 

 have something more than the mere narra- 

 tion of a career in a fine literary form ; we 

 must have analysis and a critical judgment 

 of character in relation to the circumstances 

 in which it was displayed. 



Mr. Ripley's life was divided into several 

 stages. He was a bright, clear-headed boy 

 of unusual capacity, fond of books, and 

 learning from them with great facility. He 

 accepted the customary course of study, 

 and went through college early and with 

 distinction. He was absorbed in classical 

 studies, and paid very little attention to 

 science of any kind. His culture was there- 

 fore one-sided, and he was in consequence 

 to no small degree the victim to his uni- 

 versity education. 



From college he passed into professional 

 life, taking the line of divinity. In prepara- 

 tion for this he had crammed German meta- 

 physics to an inordinate degree, and brought 

 a large theological erudition to his pulpit 



labors. He worked zealously and most con- 

 scientiously in this field for upward of a 

 dozen years, and, being dissatisfied with the 

 result, decided to abandon it. We are of 

 opinion that with his strong common sense, 

 if he had any fair share of scientific culti- 

 vation, he would either have kept out of the 

 clerical profession or would have succeeded 

 in it by subordinating theology to truth and 

 making an independent career. He had abun- 

 dant talent for this purpose. But, as it was, 

 his theology broke down and he left it. 



Mr. Ripley then entered upon the third 

 stage of his career, which was both very nat- 

 ural and not a little remarkable. Earnestly 

 desiring to realize a nobler ideal of life than 

 is fulfilled by the present state of society, 

 even under a religious organization which 

 he had faithfully tried, he resolved to em- 

 bark in a new social project that promised 

 to yield higher satisfactions than are derived 

 from the existing state of society. 



He joined the association at Brook Farm, 

 now a curiosity of history, and resolved to 

 devote himself to the practical realization 

 of a more harmonious social life by an ex- 

 perimental trial of what is possible in this 

 direction. He had eminent coadjutors, who 

 were animated by the same high aspirations, 

 but Ripley was the life and soul of the 

 movement. Never, perhaps, was before 

 gathered a more sincere and unselfish band 

 of devotees than those who made the at- 

 tempt to carry out a reconstructive social 

 reform at Brook Farm. The experiment 

 failed, of course, and Ripley was left sad- 

 dled with its debts, all of which he after- 

 ward most honorably discharged. 



We say Brook Farm failed " of course," 

 and this for the very simple reason that 

 ideal states of society implying natures of a 

 high grade can not be suddenly manufactured 

 out of materials long shaped and adapted 

 to a lower social condition. The adventurers 

 of Brook Farm were sentimentalists, enthu- 

 siasts, and philanthropists, amiable and ear- 

 nest, but of the literary type which implies 

 a highly cultivated ignorance of all the nat- 

 ural laws by which terrestrial affairs are 

 governed. If George Ripley had studied 

 natural things when in college for half the 

 time, and got some tolerable idea of the 

 limitations of human nature under inexora- 

 ble natural ordinances, he would not have 



