NEW PUBLICATIONS 



THE INFLUENCE OF MONARCHS by Frederick Adams Woods, M. D. The Macmillan 

 Company, 422 pp. S2.00. 



This is an attempt to gauge the influence of the hereditary quahties of a man 

 upon the history of his time; the man selected is the reigning sovereign. 



The method of the study is to render a judgment, as objective and free from 

 bias as possible, concerning the position of the reigning monarch in one of the 

 three classes, plus, intermediate and minus. In the plus class one places the 

 monarchs of exceptional talents for leadership, in the minus class are placed 

 monarchs of feeble intellect and feeble moral control, in the intermediate class 

 are placed those of intermediate qualities. In the same way, the change in the 

 political condition and general prosperity of a country may be classified as plus, 

 if very progressive, intermediate, if stationary, and minus if retrogressive. An 

 agreement in the sign of the personality of the monarch and the prosperity of the 

 country counts one for the hypothesis of influence of the monarch; a disagree- 

 ment in sign counts against the hypothesis. The correlation in signs can be 

 calculated and affords a measure of the influence of the monarch. 



This method is aj^phcd in successive reigns in the medieval history of France, 

 Spain, Portugal and the other leading nations of Europe. For example, the 

 reign of the brave, wise, virtuous Gustavus Vasa led to the independence of Sweden 

 and a vast development of her resources. In the following reign of the unwise, 

 suspicious, headstrong Eric XIV treasure was wasted, national distress entailed 

 and rebellion incited. Here the weak ruler permitted to decay what his strong 

 predecessor has built up. 



Altogether Dr. Woods finds 105 instances of a superior ruler associated with 

 advancing conditions of his country as against only 11 cases where there is a 

 decline. There are 87 eases where a national decline was associated with a weak 

 ruler and 30 cases where there was progress with such a ruler but, in such cases, 

 there was frequently a strong power behind the thrcjnc. If measures no cor- 

 relation and 1 perfect correlation, then the actual correlation found is measured 

 by .6 or three fifths of a unit. 



It still remains to consider the significance of this correlation. Did the con- 

 ditions of national develoj^ment determine the eminence of the king or vice versa^ 

 Evidence for the conclusion that the qualities of the king determine the fate of 

 his country is found in three facts. First, the transition from + to — states 

 of prosperity in the country is usually abrupt, closely following the accession 

 of the king. Second, interregnums are almost always periods of national decline 

 unless some strong member of the royal family is in control. Third, if conditions 

 determined the rank of the monarch there should be less evidence of an inheritance 

 of the intellectual qualities of a monarch than of some other characters not capable 

 of being influenced by conditions, such as eye color; but llie inheritance of in- 

 tellectual qualities is not less than that of others. 



The main conclusion that Dr. Woods draws from this study is "that the royal 

 breed, considered as a unit, is sujxTior to any other one family, be it that of nolile 

 or commoner." Proof that the sui)erior quality of royalty is due to innate qualities 

 is found in the facts that younger brothers are just as eminent in intellect as arc 

 those who succeeded to the crown; that many scions of royal houses have been 

 exceedingly precocious; that, on the whole, their genius has been for war and 

 government (for which the blood was selected in the first instance); and that 1 in 

 40 pf royalty show intellectual i^reeminence of a grade not found in I in 4,()0(),()00 

 outside of royalty. Royalty in Eurojje between the eleventh and eighteenth 

 centuries is a demonstration of the overwhelming imjjortance to a countrN- of 

 its "best blood." 



C. B. D.VVENPORT. 



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