540 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



some higli political axiom : when we think of all this, who is it 

 that can not see that bej'ond the ferment of the passions the most 

 fatal enemies of man have been certain weaknesses and imper- 

 fections of his intelligence otherwise so highly developed?" A 

 roAsnn d'etre therefore highly moral, and above all useful. 



Tlie volume is divided into two parts. Tiie first deals with 

 the ])hysio-psychology of the symbol, the second with its psycho- 

 sociological application. It is preceded by an introduction which 

 treats of the laws of least resistance and of mental inertia, con- 

 cerning which Ferrero holds views that are supported by Spen- 

 cer, Letourneau, Garlanda, and other sociologists. It is beyond 

 doubt a fact that man feels a natural repulsion for mental labor, 

 and if there is one thing on earth that he dislikes it is work, 

 even that of the muscles. In our author's words : " The Hebrew 

 legend of Genesis causes God to give to man labor as a punish- 

 ment for sin ; a precious and ingenuous human document re- 

 garding the sentiments of primitive humanity toward activity. 

 The love of savages for rest is for that matter so well known that 

 it would be almost useless to dwell upon it at any length. It is 

 sufficiently proved by the fact that almost universally the most 

 fatiguing labors are reserved for women that is to say, laid on 

 the sex that were the first slaves, and which can not rebel owing 

 to its weakness. In all savage communities the only male labor 

 has been war and the chase ; because war and the chase are as- 

 sociated with the pleasures of success that is, those which arise 

 from a consciousness of personal power, and the pleasures of 

 vanity, through the esteem which surrounds, in primitive tribes, 

 the strongest warrior or hunter." 



Comparative etymology teaches that in HebrcAv, in Latin, in 

 Italian, and in French the word labor signifies pain or punish- 

 ment. Man, by nature, avoids not only physical exertion but 

 also mental, in that form which is known as attention. One con- 

 stantly sees, " how practice precedes theory, and action is adapted 

 to surrounding circumstances without the intervention of abstract 

 thought." 



How man acts under the influence of the law of the least 

 effort Ferrero explains by the following example: "Another 

 jn-oof that man seeks to obtain results by the least possible effort 

 is furnished to us by the growth of sociological evolution. Spen- 

 cer has justly criticised with severity those scientific systems 

 which see in every human institution, in the exact form in which 

 we find it, the ultimate result of an efi'ort on the part of mankind 

 directed toward its creation. Man does not think as much as 

 that; and no peoples have ever created their own institutions 

 according to a finished plan, previously traced. Every social 

 organism is the result, not of a complex idea, created by the 



