EVOLUTION OF CIVILIZATION AND THE ARTS. 349 



through to reach the higher levels of civilization. All the forms 

 of evolution can be found there, from those representative of the 

 stone age to those of the age of steam and electricity. 



In this essay I have endeavored to set forth the principles : that 

 the various elements, the aggregation of which constitutes a civil- 

 ization — especially institutions, creeds, and arts — are the expres- 

 sion of certain modes of thinking and feeling special to each race, 

 and inevitably suffer transformation in passing from one race to 

 another ; that they rarely undergo a parallel development among 

 different races. With some, institutions — with others, literature, 

 industry, or art — prevail. One or several of these elements may 

 remain at an inferior level in the midst of a brilliant civilization, 

 or it may stand high in a low civilization. Of all the factors hav- 

 ing an influence on the adoption and evolution of the fundamental 

 elements of a civilization, the most important is race. It holds a 

 position much above that of the influence of political institutions, 

 conquest, or religious belief, which is powerful everywhere else. 

 When a people of a much higher race is in contact with a people 

 of a much lower race — as the whites with the negroes — the latter 

 can not immediately acquire anything useful from it. Two su- 

 perior races confronting one another exert no action upon each 

 other when, in consequence of differences in mental structure, 

 they have incompatible civilizations. This condition exists when 

 a highly civilized people finds itself in contact with a people hav- 

 ing a very ancient and very different civilization, as when modern 

 Europeans are brought into contact with the Hindus or the 

 Chinese. When civilizations possessing compatible elements, like 

 those of the Mussulmans and the Hindus, meet, they first overlay 

 one another and then fuse as to their compatible elements. The 

 civilizing action which some peoples can exercise upon others has 

 been more profound the further we go back in history, because 

 the elements of civilization were less complicated in ancient times 

 than now. This power of action has been reduced from age 

 to age. — Translated for The Popular Science Monthly from the 

 Revue Scientifique. 



M. Perrotin, a French astronomer, records several observations of luminous 

 protuberances escaping from the disk of Mars, near tbe fiftieth degree of southern 

 latitude, resembling what would result from the escape of a flow of matter from 

 the planet. The author held the publication of his discovery in reserve for some 

 time, apprehending that there might be some mistake about the matter, but, con- 

 vinced at last of the reality of the appearance, communicated the fact to the 

 French Academy of Sciences on the 5th of September. No adequate explanation 

 has been offered for the phenomenon, but the discoverer suggests that it may be 

 connected with the luminous points that may be distinguished on the disk of the 

 planet. 



