LITERARY NOTICES. 



413 



other part3 remain to be written for the 

 completion of the second volume of " The 

 Principles of Sociology," viz., " Professional 

 Institutions " and " Industrial Institutions " ; 

 but there is reason to expect that these will 

 be completed with less delay than has oc- 

 curred with Part VI. We find a notice of 

 the present volume in the "Pall Mall Ga- 

 zette," which is so excellent that we make 

 an extract from it : 



"Ecclesiastical Institutions "begins with a short 

 restatement and re-enforcement of the ghost-theory 

 of the orii^n of religion already laid down in the 

 first volume of the Sociology. It is interesting to 

 note how much new confirmatory evidence has 

 been rapidly accumulated during the Intervening 

 period; and Mr. Spencer therefore wisely chooses 

 most of the fresh instances by which he strength- 

 ens his case from works published since the ap- 

 pearance of his earlier volume. In one of these in 

 particular, the Rev. Dutf Macdonald's " Africana," 

 conclusions almost identical with Mr. Spencer's 

 own have actually been arrived at by a Scotch mis- 

 sionary in the heart of Africa, in apparent total ig- 

 norance and independence, and without a passing 

 glimpse of their ulterior implications. From the 

 origin of the relit,ious idea itself, here assigned to 

 the belief in a soul, and consequent ancestor-wor- 

 ship, Mr. Spencer gradually passes on to the evolu- 

 tion of ecclesiastical or hierarchical systems. Be- 

 ginning with the medicine-man, as the propitiator 

 or averter of hostile ghosts, and the priest properly 

 so called, as the propitiator and attendant of friendly 

 ghosts — the family gods or manes — he proceeds to 

 trace the gradual development of the organization 

 which results with increasing culture from the last 

 of those two classes of functionary. Descendants, 

 he shows, are the first priests ; and more especially 

 male descendants, at least wherever the position of 

 women has become one of marked inferiority. But 

 the eldest male descendant in particular — in short, 

 the head of the family — tends to concentrate upon 

 himself the highest duty of the priesthood. More- 

 over, as the chief gods in early communities are de- 

 ceased rulers, the king, as their living representa- 

 tive, exercises the functions of priest also. In pro- 

 cess of time, the king frequently finds the priestly 

 offices clash with other duties, and then he dele- 

 gates them to others: they are performed by pro.'ty. 

 Hence in most instances the origin of a distinct 

 non-royal priesthood. The rise of such priesthoods 

 is well shown in the case of the Flamens, instituted 

 at Kome to replace the king during his temporary 

 absence. As the ghost gradually develops into the 

 god, polytheistic priesthoods of the advanced type 

 are evolved side by side with the evolving religion. 

 Sometimes the Pantheon has its relative ranks as- 

 signed by conquest and incorporation ; the gods of 

 the vanquished tribes take their place amicably in 

 the same system with the gods of the victors, but 

 naturally enough on a lower level. Eventually the 

 slow elevation of one grent god to a position of 

 marked superiority in the Pantheon may give rise to 

 a gravitation toward monotheism. Thus, to the phil- 

 osophic Greeks of the age of Socrates, Zeus had al- 



most arrived at that point of supremacy over other 

 gods which lifts the " father of gods and men " into 

 the true monotheistic position, the other deities at 

 the same time sinking to the subordinate grades in 

 a sort of angeUc hierarchy. Mr. Spencer next goes 

 on to notice the value of the ecclesiastical system 

 as a social bond, especially in early times, the mili- 

 tary and civil functions of i>riests, and the question 

 of the relations between Church and State. A very 

 Spencerian chapter on Nonconformity is replete 

 with its authors ingrained independence and indi- 

 viduality of character ; for Mr. Spencer is nothing 

 if not individualist in fiber. The book ends with an 

 ecclesiastical and then a religious retrospect and 

 prospect where timid waverers may find much to 

 console and to reassure them. Mr. Spencer does 

 not see in the threatened changes of form any final 

 menace even to religious worship in its proper es- 

 sence, lie anticipates that there will always re- 

 main a necessity for qualifying the too pro.*aic and 

 material form of daily life by religious observances; 

 that a sphere will still exist for those who are able 

 to impress their hearers with a due sense of the 

 mystery which enshrouds the universe ; and that 

 musical expression to the sentiment accompanying 

 this sense will not only survive but will undergo 

 further development. Finally he concludes with 

 the reiteration of the idea already so fully insisted 

 upon in the "First Principles" : "One truth must 

 ever grow clearer — the truth that there is an 

 inscrutable existence everywhere manifested, to 

 which [man] can neither find n<'r conceive either 

 beginning or end. Amid the mysteries which 

 become the more mysterious the more they are 

 thought about, there will remain the one absolute 

 certainty, that he is ever in presence of an Infinite 

 and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed.' 



INTEENATIONAL SCIENTIFIC SEPwIES, 

 NO. LI. 



Physical Expression : Its Modes and Prin- 

 ciples. By Francis Warner, M. D., 

 Lond., F. R. C. P. New York : D. Ap- 

 pleton & Co. Pp. 372, Price, $1.75. 



This is an old subject much discussed 

 by artists, anatomists, alienists, and physi- 

 ognomists, from Leonardo da Vinci onward. 

 It has a copious literature, and, in the long 

 list of works given by Dr. Warner in his 

 bibliography, those of Sir CTiarles Bell, on 

 the " Anatomy and Physiology of Expres- 

 sion," and of Charles Darwin, on the " Ex- 

 pression of Emotion in Man and the Lower 

 Animals," are prominent. But so interest- 

 ing a subject as that of the physiological 

 signs of inward states could not fail to at- 

 tract multitudes of observers who have con- 

 tributed to it in many aspects. Fancy and 

 speculation, however, have outstripped sci- 

 ence with its explanations of the double 

 mechanism involved. There has been great 

 recent advance in our knowledge of the 



