LITERARY NOTICES. 



127 



disease, being chiefly responsible for all 

 our most fatal epidemics. During the 

 last London epidemic, in 1866, when 

 the mortality rose to 904 in a single 

 week, Dr. Farr found that the outbreak 

 was confined mainly to the area sup- 

 plied with water by the East London 

 "Water Company. Tbis was drawn from 

 the river Lea, which on investigation 

 proved to be polluted. Tbe supply was 

 stopped, and the deaths decreased from 

 week to week until the disease disap- 

 peared from the district. Other Lon- 

 don districts that had suffered terribly 

 in preceding epidemics escaped almost 

 entirely in this one, due likewise to the 

 improved drainage and water-supply 

 that had been provided by the authori- 

 ties during the interval. 



Cases of similar import, coming to 

 light during the present epidemic in 

 Europe, are numerous, and equally 

 striking. 



These facts point unmistakably to 

 the means required for limiting the 

 spread of the disease. The strict isola- 

 tion of the sick, the immediate destruc- 

 tion of all discharges and of any articles 

 tainted by them, careful watchfulness 

 concerning the purity of the water-sup- 

 ply of the city or district, and the use 

 of boiled water where possible taint is 

 suspected, with equal vigilance regard- 

 ing the quality and purity of the food 

 —in a word, the nearest practicable 

 approach to absolute cleanliness of the 

 person, of what he eats, drinks, and 

 wears, and of the home and its sur- 

 roundings — is the surest guarantee of 

 safety from attack and a certain protec- 

 tion against the occurrence of epidemics. 



To secure these important conditions 

 in the households of the masses in our 

 large cities something more is needed 

 than the mere force of sanitary authori- 

 ty. The people themselves should be 

 made to realize that their individual co- 

 operation is indispensable. This may 

 reasonably be expected when they come 

 to understand the causes which give 

 rise to epidemics, and the protective 



measures that are within their reach. 

 The result will be hastened by adapting 

 our public-school education a little more 

 closely to the needs of modern life, and 

 teaching a generation of boys and girls 

 the simple principles of household hy- 

 giene. Dwellers in cities will then de- 

 mand sanitary provisions that have now 

 to be forced upon them, and the days of 

 scares and mobs in the face of threatened 

 epidemics will be over. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



The Principles of Ethics. By Herbert 

 Spencer. Vol. I. New York: D. Ap- 

 pleton & Co. Pp. 572. Price, $2. 



One of the two volumes which form the 

 crowning portion of Mr. Spencer's Synthetic 

 Philosophy is now completed. It contains 

 The Data of Ethics, previously published 

 alone, also The Inductions of Ethics, and 

 The Ethics of Individual Life. In the new 

 parts of the volume Mr. Spencer first sets 

 forth, with his usual wealth of illustration, 

 the astonishingly various and contradictory 

 conceptions of right and wrong which exist 

 among different peoples. Here the unpar- 

 donable sin is disrespect of deified ancestors, 

 there it is neglecting to kill a sufficient num- 

 ber of enemies ; elsewhere it is smoking ! 

 The number of cases in which a man is 

 thought by his fellows to be in duty bound 

 to injure others leads Mr. Spencer to distin- 

 guish the ethics of enmity from the ethics of 

 amity. In the stage of society in which in- 

 tertribal and international wars are frequent 

 the former actually predominates over the 

 latter, and it is only since industrialism has 

 largely repressed militancy that the ethics of 

 amity has gained the ascendant. Under the 

 three heads Aggression (by which he denotes 

 the infliction of bodily harm), Robbery, and 

 Revenge, Mr. Spencer specifies acts that have 

 been required by the ethics of enmity. Thus, 

 " far from being regarded as a crime, child- 

 murder has been, throughout the world in 

 early times and in various parts of the world 

 still is, regarded as not even an offense : occa- 

 sionally, indeed, as a duty." Then there are 

 the killing of adults at funerals, especially at 

 the obsequies of chiefs, the sacrifices of human 

 I victims to gods, and " the religious homicides 



