41 6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



which it may be distinguished during its whole life, the habits which are nat- 

 ural to it, the degree in which these may be changed by the influence of circum- 

 stances ; and, in fine, he endeavors to become acquainted with the whole Natu- 

 ral History of a reputed species, before separating it from another to which it 

 may be closely allied." ' 



The "philosophic naturalist" plainly requires just so much phi- 

 losophy as is implied in keeping his eyes open, and, indeed, so long as 

 species were believed to be separately created, and organic characters 

 could be only correlatively and not genetically explained, there was 

 nothing else for him to do. Natural History before Darwin was like 

 Natural Philosophy before Newton ; its inductions were incomplete, 

 and the deductive procedure which could alone raise its constituent 

 groups into sciences was impossible. It was at this stage in the de- 

 velopment of Natural History that Mr. Bain tooi: up its method, and 

 set about applying it to the " Feelings." Its power in the hands of a 

 keen and dispassionate observer is indisputable, and the two instruc- 

 tive volumes which contain Mr. Bain's systematic exposition are at 

 once a treasure-house of observations of priceless value, and such a 

 compendious generalization of mental facts of all orders into laws as 

 doubtless marks the climax of the method. But it is fundamentally 

 unscientific. If it be true that the higher forms of life and mind have 

 been evolved out of the lower, then the most resolute introspection, 

 and the most cutting analysis, with the help of stray observations of 

 children, and some patient experimenting on animals, will go no ap- 

 preciable distance in discovering mental constituents which may have 

 had their origin in an indefinitely remote past. That this is not only 

 a necessary result of the " natural history method," but that it has in 

 point of fact resulted in Mr. Bain's treatise, it may be well to make 

 clear. To keep the analogy in view, we again quote from Dr. Car- 

 penter. " The naturalist," he says — 



" endeavors to simplify the pursuit of his science, by the adoption of easily- 

 recognized external characters, as the basis of his classification of the multitudi- 

 nous forms which he brings together ; but such can only be safely employed when 

 indicative of peculiarities in internal structure, which are found to be little siib- 

 ject to variation, and which are not liable to be affected by the influence of 

 physical causes." "^ 



Now, such an endeavor to simplify, by the adoption of easily-recog- 

 nized external characters as the basis of his classification, is a feature 

 prominent in the fore-front of Mr. Bain's work. The mode of diffusion 

 of an emotion, the institutions it generates, and its peculiarities as a 

 state of consciousness — all of them the most manifest characters of the 

 emotions — are avowedly adopted as bases of classification.^ That 

 easily-recognized external characters are not always " indicative of 



1 " Comparative Physiology" (fourth edition), p. 632. 

 "^ Op. cit., p. 633. 3 "Emotions and W'lW,'" Jirst edition. 



