VIII 

 THE LAW OF CIVILIZATION AND DECAY* 



FEW more melancholy books have been written 

 than Mr. Brooks Adams's "Law of Civilization 

 and Decay." It is a marvel of compressed statement. 

 In a volume of less than four hundred pages Mr. 

 Adams singles out some of the vital factors in the 

 growth and evolution of civilized life during the 

 last two thousand years; and so brilliant is his dis- 

 cussion of these factors as to give, though but a 

 glimpse, yet one of the most vivid glimpses ever 

 given, of some of the most important features in 

 the world-life of Christendom. Of some of the 

 features only; for a fundamentally defective point 

 in Mr. Adams's brilliant book is his failure to 

 present certain phases of the life of the nations, 

 phases which are just as important as those which 

 he discusses with such vigorous ability. Further- 

 more, he disregards not a few facts which would 

 throw light on others, the weight of which he fully 

 recognizes. Both these shortcomings are very nat- 

 ural in a writer who possesses an entirely original 

 point of view, who is the first man to see clearly 

 certain things that to his predecessors have been 

 nebulous, and who writes with a fervent intensity of 



* The Forum, January, 1897. 



(347) 



