LITERARY NOTICES. 



699 



wide intervala that their connections are 

 apt to be forgotten. He will, therefore, in 

 future, issue separately the successive di- 

 visions of these Tolumes as they are com- 

 pleted. The first division of Volume II. is 

 on "The Development of Ceremonial In- 

 stitutions," now published, and the next 

 division will be on " The Development of 

 Political Institutions," and upon this he is 

 now engaged. It will be followed by the 

 divisions on " The Development of Ecclesi- 

 astical and Industrial Institutions." 



If we define government as the control 

 of conduct in relation to others, then it is of 

 two kinds — that by the coercion of the civil 

 power, and that by the mandates of social 

 custom and ceremonial observance. The 

 regulation of conduct is divided between 

 civil law and the unwritten codes of cus- 

 tom ; and of these two authorities the lat- 

 ter has by far the largest share in regu- 

 lating men's lives. In the genesis of social 

 relations, ceremonial government arises ear- 

 lier than political government, is more 

 general, and far more potent in its social 

 restraints and requirements. While yet 

 primitive society is in a wholly unorganized 

 condition, with no coercive rule, perhaps, but 

 the will of the chief, the savage nature be- 

 comes spontaneously amenable to impera- 

 tive observances in daily intercourse. And, 

 in the highest state of civilization, social life 

 is dominated by the same despotic agency. 

 To understand the present constitution of 

 society, therefore, and the forces by which 

 it is regulated, it becomes necessary to treat 

 the origin and growth of social observance 

 as a part of sociological science, and this is 

 the object of the volume on "Ceremonial 

 Institutions." 



Mr. Spencer's conclusions throughout 

 rest upon a wide survey of the facts con- 

 cerning primitive customs and manners, 

 gathered from all sources, and are illus- 

 trated with a wealth of examples that gives 

 great force and impressiveness to his con- 

 clusions. This very full and complete il- 

 lustration of the subject has been objected 

 to by some, on the ground that such a pro- 

 fusion of facts and examples is unneces- 

 sary to his exposition, and becomes weari- 

 some to the reader ; and the same criticism 

 has been passed upon other parts of his 

 philosophical works. To this he replies, in 



his preface, that, while not unconscious of 

 the defect, it is still unavoidable, as scien- 

 tific proof rather than artistic merit is the 

 end he is aiming at. He says : " If socio- 

 logical generalizations are to pass out of 

 the stage of opinion into the stage of es- 

 tablished truth, it can only be through ex- 

 tensive accumulations of instances ; the in- 

 ductions must be wide if the conclusions 

 are to be accepted as valid. Especially 

 while there continues the belief that social 

 phenomena are not the subject-matter of a 

 science, it is requisite that the correlations 

 among them should be shown to hold in 

 multitudinous cases. Evidence furnished 

 by various races in various parts of the 

 world must be given, before there can be 

 rebutted the allegation that the inferences 

 drawn are not true, or are but partially 

 true. Indeed, of social phenomena more 

 than all other phenomena, it must, because 

 of their complexity, hold that only by com- 

 parisons of many examples can fundamental 

 relations be distinguished from superficial 

 relations." 



Some of the chapters of the volume on 

 " Ceremonial Institutions " have appeared in 

 the pages of this Monthly, but several new 

 and important topics are treated in the vol- 

 ume, which make it the completest as well 

 as the most original discussion of the sub- 

 ject that has yet appeared. It is, besides? 

 an extremely interesting book to read, as it 

 gives much curious information regarding 

 the origin and meaning of social usages 

 that concern everybody, while at the same 

 time there is no erudite or abstract philoso- 

 phy in it to task the reader's effort. 



The Theory of Political Economt. By 

 W. Stanley Jevons, LL. D., M. A., F. R. S. 

 London : Macmillan & Co. Second edi- 

 tion. Pp. 314. Price, $3.50. 



The above work presents, in the most 

 complete form yet given it. Professor Jev- 

 ons's mathematical theory of economics, first 

 published by him in a volume nine years 

 ago, though worked out and presented in its 

 main features as far back as 1862, The 

 idea that economics is essentially a mathe- 

 matical science appears not to be new, but, 

 during the ascendancy of other views, it has 

 for the most part been neglected, and the 

 work accomplished remained in obscurity. 



