406 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



or have not a strong sense of individual liberty ; 

 nor should we care for the individual liberty of 

 Athens and Ionia, if it had not been accompanied 

 by all those other traits which have made Hellas 

 classic ground for our thinkers, our poets, and 

 our artists. In short, we feel an interest in the 

 Hellenes, not because their little communities were 

 politically separate, but because they produced a 

 culture never before known on the face of our 

 earth. The question for our solution is, not what 

 made their cities independent, but what made them 

 great and noble in every better sense of the word. 

 This question I have endeavored humbly to 

 treat in the present paper. I cannot for a mo- 

 ment suppose that it is fully answered here : my 

 only object is to throw some little light upon what 

 seems to me the proper method of seeking for an 



answer. Even so, a rough sketch for the general 

 reader must necessarily be drawn in the plainest 

 black and white, suppressing all that toning and 

 softening which might be attempted in an elabo- 

 rate historical painting. But it is worth while, 

 perhaps, even vaguely and indefinitely, to attack 

 some single sociological problem in the manner 

 here essayed, in order to shadow forth what ap- 

 pears like a possible solution. The deductive in- 

 terpretation of history must be the goal of all his- 

 torical inquiry; and it seems to me, rightly or 

 wrongly, that we can only finally attain to this 

 goal by asking ourselves in every concrete case, 

 " What were the physical differences in the en- 

 vironment which produced this or that particular 

 type of national development ? " 



— Gentleman's Magazine. 



KESULTS OF THE ENGLISH AKCTIC EXPEDITION OF 



THE publication of the work of Sir George 

 Nares, containing a record of the results of 

 the Arctic Expedition, is the most important geo- 

 graphical event of this year. It will effect two 

 great objects. It will show the practical value of 

 the arctic work that has been done, and it will 

 at the same time establish the fact that future 

 exploration within the arctic circle is desirable. 

 Those who have advocated a renewal of arctic 

 exploration by the Government of this country 

 during the last twelve years have always had in 

 view the attainment of scientific results, and that 

 alone. In former days the discovery of a com- 

 mercial route was the main object of arctic voy- 

 ages of discovery, but this notion has long since 

 been adandoned. Another object has been to 

 reach the north-pole, which is in itself a childish 

 and useless quest, and quite unworthy of seri- 

 ous consideration, although it was unfortunately 

 foisted into the Admiralty instructions. They 

 might as well have inserted orders to go to the 

 moon. But to add to the sum of human knowl- 

 edge, to learn respecting unknown regions all 

 that we already know of Greenland or the Parry 



1 Narrative of a Voyage to the Polar Sea during 

 1875-'76, iD Her Majesty's Ships Alert and Discovery. 

 By Captain Sir G. Nares, R. r N., K. C. B., F. E. S., 

 Commander of the Expedition. With Notes on the 

 Natural History, edited by H. W. Feilden, F. E. G. S., 

 Naturalist of the Expedition. Two Volumes. (Samp- 

 son Low, 1878.) 



Islands, is a great and important object well 

 worthy of attainment, and of all the dangers, 

 hardships, and expense, which must be entailed in 

 securing it. It was to obtain this object that the 

 late Admiral Sherard Osborn worked so perse- 

 veringly and successfully, and for which the late 

 Arctic Expedition was dispatched. The great 

 aim of those who advocated further polar explora- 

 tion, and whose representations led to the expe- 

 dition being sent out, was to secure the discovery 

 and exhaustive exploration of the largest area of 

 unknown region that could be reached by the ex- 

 plorers with the means at their disposal. 



The first point to decide was the route by 

 which this object could best be secured ; and the 

 only sure guide for arriving at a light conclusion 

 was the accumulated experience of three centu- 

 ries of previous arctic exploration. The first 

 great lesson taught by those three centuries of 

 experience is, that no extensive and useful ex- 

 ploring work can be done by merely entering the 

 drifting pack-ice in a ship, and that effective prog- 

 ress can only be made by following a coast-line. 

 The second arctic canon is that, to secure useful 

 scientific results, observations must extend at 

 least over a complete year, and that consequently 

 one winter must be faced in a position beyond 

 any point hitherto reached. The third canon is, 

 that mere navigation in a ship cannot secure the 

 results derived from arctic exploration, and that 



