SCIENTIFIC LITERATURE. 



275 



and that, instead of attempting to equalize 

 things, we should rather strive in an opposite 

 direction — is a thoroughly rational one ; but 

 the many facts derivable from psychology, 

 from history, and kindred sciences, and the 

 application of these to a system of society 

 and education, the two sciences on which 

 this question of equality chiefly bears, have 

 been but indifferently handled by Mr. Harris. 

 In fact, to be just, the author announces in 

 his preface that the volume is not intended 

 as a philosophical or scientific exposition, but 

 is rather " a series of observations and re- 

 flections which from various points of view 

 exhibit the variety and the unity of men." 

 Notwithstanding these faults there is much 

 good thought in the volume and many well- 

 taken points. The question is one of great 

 importance, bearing as it does directly on 

 the socialistic theories of society, and, as Mr. 

 Harris says, that charmed word " equality " 

 seems to have blinded our people to the ab- 

 surdity of the doctrine of which it is the 

 watchword. The first few chapters of the 

 volume are devoted to showing the essential 

 inequality of the natural arrangement of 

 things and the impotency of human efforts 

 to bring about an artificial equality. For 

 instance, equality of opportunity in educa- 

 tion is shown to be a chimera, not only be- 

 cause of the great variation in individual 

 ability, so that with equal opportunities any 

 two students will graduate with widely differ- 

 ing content of knowledge, but also because 

 what is the most stimulating and appropri- 

 ate education for one student may have an 

 entirely opposite effect on the next. In- 

 equality or, as the author prefers, variety is 

 next shown to be an essential to progress, 

 and, in fact, one of the results of the latter, 

 and successful social life to depend on the 

 rule of the superior portion of the com- 

 munity, which is again inequality. The 

 chapters ramble on under such titles as 

 Two Kinds of Discontent, Admiration and 

 Inspiration, The Progression of Ideals, until 

 the volume is finally closed by one on Chris- 

 tianity and Inequality. The great importance 

 of a clear understanding of this question, 

 especially in the United States, where we 

 seem to be tending steadily toward socialism, 

 and the slight attention which the inequality 

 side has received during recent years, give Dr. 

 Harris's book a value which perhaps its in- 



trinsic merits do not justify. The reader 

 will gather some new thoughts from its 

 perusal, and may be stimulated to a further 

 study of the question. 



Mr. Edmund Gosse's principal aim in 

 composing his Short History of Modern Eng- 

 lish Literature * was to show the movement 

 of the subject. He desired above all else to 

 give the reader, whether familiar with the 

 books mentioned or not, " a feeling of the 

 evolution of English literature in the pri- 

 mary sense of the term, the disentanglement 

 of the skein, the slow and regular unwinding, 

 down succeeding generations, of the threads 

 of literary expression." Considering the na- 

 ture of the subject and the multitude of 

 temptations to stop on the way to expatiate 

 and moralize, his success in giving the idea 

 of a sense of flow is remarkable. A feeling 

 of movement is what the reader experiences 

 in reading the rapid sketches. There are 

 periods, indeed — the Age of Chaucer, the 

 Close of the Middle Ages, the Age of Eliza- 

 beth, the Decline, and so on, down to the Age 

 of Tennyson — just as there are stations on 

 the railroad journey, but between the stops 

 the train goes on with power and unslacking 

 speed. Beginning with the Romances of 

 Chivalry, authors and books are called up in 

 succession, with hardly more than a page to 

 each, delineated or characterized in only a 

 few lines or in an epigram, as it were, yet 

 with such vigor and skill as to leave upon 

 the mind the impression of a picture from 

 life. The leaders of scientific thought of the 

 present age, as of past ages, are included in 

 the sketches : Mill, " skeptical and dry, pre- 

 cise and plain," whose works "inspire re- 

 spect but do not attract new generations of 

 readers " ; Darwin, " one of the great artifi- 

 cers of human thought," destined to per- 

 form one of the most stirring and inspiring 

 acts ever carried out by a single intelli- 

 gence " ; Spencer, in whose Principles of Psy- 

 chology, as his friends point out, " the theory 

 of Darwin was foreseen," who has made a 

 deeper impression on foreign thought and is 

 more widely known throughout Europe than 

 any other Englishman of the present age, 

 and whose themes " have exercised a stimu- 



* A Short History of Modern English Litera- 

 ture. By Edmund Gosse. New York : D. Ap- 

 I)leton and Company. Pp. 416. Price, $1.50. 



