126 



NA'IUKE 



[MaRL:. -^, igil 



are analotjous to the latter, and this explains the appro- 

 priateness of the music to the words in o|>era, but they 

 really belong to a world of their own and possess a mean- 

 ing of their own. This is why the music of an opera, even 

 when entirely appropriate to the words, may transcend 

 them in such a way that elements of crossness in the story 

 entirely lose their real " work-a-day significance in the 

 total presentation. The '* Salome " of Strauss is a striking 

 illustration of this. 



.As regards the psychology of acting, the important 

 statistical investigation carried out by Mr. William .Archer, 

 the dramatic critic, more than twenty years ago, is the 

 onlv work of definite scientific value hitherto produced. 

 Mr'. Archer's chief purpose was to test the paradoxical 

 view of Diderot, accepted by Coquelin, but rejected by Sir 

 Henry Irving, that stage emotion should not be real, and 

 that the really first-class actor should bo a mail of little 

 or no "sensibility." The results showed that in alnu>st 

 all C.I-' ' "' '''-jr-class acting in England, not only did the 

 prim of real emotion — real tears, blushing, 



palloi . I ur, but the artists experienced genuine 



'•motion, and often found real emotion from their private 

 lives help them on the stage by mingling with and intensi- 

 fying their feigned emotion. A state of dual conscious- 

 ness while acting was found to be common, but not 

 imiversal. 



Mr. .Archer adds many further comments of considerable 

 psychological value, and predicts that the subject will be 

 taken up some day by trained psychologists and subjected 

 to an exhaustive discussion. 



As an illustration of many of the points raised by Mr. 

 Archer, a letter very kindly written by Miss Ethel Irving 

 as a reply to a query as to her state of mind when playing 

 intense emotional parts, was quoted and discussed, and a 

 general theory of stage-emotion was sketched out and 

 illustrated by a brief description of Miss Irving's recent 

 omotional acting, especially in Henry Bataille's play, 

 " Dame Nature." 



CKJ.KK I t\/)\ .l.V/) THEIR PEOPLE.^ 



■'T^lll-^ I >;.iljlisliiU( lU by the University of Oxford, from 

 resources supplied by New College, of a new chair 

 tor the exploration of ancient history obviously requires, 

 in view of the facilities which already exist for the study 

 of the subject, the justification which is supplied in the 

 inaugural address delivered by Dr. J. L. Myres, the first 

 occupant of the Wykeham professorship. 



Dr. Myres justly remarks that, up to the present, the 

 historical course has been too largely devoted to the 

 centuries adjoining the fifth ; that it has too jealously 

 confined its researches to the ascertained results of earlier 

 inquiries ; that it has discouraged novel methods of investi- 

 gation ; that, in short, its work has become stereotyped 

 and unenterprising. In pointing out a more excellent pro- 

 gramme of research, he directs special attention to what 

 may be termed the economic geography and biology of the 

 peoples of the Eastern .<^igean. Much has already been 

 ■done on these lines of research, as in the cartography of 

 •Curtius and Kaupert, the examination of battlefields by 

 experts in the art of war, M. Berard's application of sea- 

 lore to Homeric geography, the study of the influence of 

 malaria on the decay of nations, and, lastly, Mr. Hunt- 

 ingdon's investigations of historic meteorology. But much 

 still remains to be done towards exploring the effects of 

 environmental control on the course of history. 



The modern Greek race, it is admitted, is largely inter- 

 mixed with Albanian, Vlach, and Levantine elements. 

 13ut this fusion of peoples has been continuous from 

 primitive times, so that the history of the Mediterranean 

 area is. as a whole, a history of its invasions, the earliest 

 sea-borne settlers being of ' the "Mediterranean" rein- 

 forced by " .Alpine " and " Armenoid " types. But amidst 

 these racial movements, the mountains, the sea, the 

 climate, the flora, have been there from the beginning, 

 and the ethnological situation now depends not so much 

 upon race as upon the prepotent influence of the environ- 

 ment. " No type of non-Mediterranean invader has ever 



\ " (^'refV T.,in'^s and the OreeV Peopl-." An InauR-iral Lecture delivered 

 Vfore th» University of Oxford, Vovember i>. iqio, ''V Prof. J. L. Myres, 

 Fp. 32. (Oxford : Clarendon Press, igio.) Price li. 6ti. net. 



NO. 2160, VOL. 86] 



learnt so uuickly how to live under Mediterranean concli- 

 tions as to escape extinction in the process"; 

 " external environment modifies breed in Man by otfcriup; 

 the alternatives of extinction or conformity." 



This environment falls into at least three types. First, 

 the prevalence of scrub-lands results in the smallness and 

 discontinuity of the .Mediterranean populations ; tljere is 

 little produce from this area, and so " the Greek wi>iM 

 is in general a jamless world "; there is little sport ex ■ ;>• 

 in the mountain region; the cow and the horse are '* 0.1- ~ 

 animals, fed almost by hand." In the forest region t!i' 

 conditions are more propitious, the olive, grape, oran,^ •. 

 and lemon providing considerable sources of revenue, w:. i 

 the goat furnishes the milk supply, and the pig i> 

 important as it was in the household of L'lysses. On tii- 

 other hand, the ubiquitous, restless goatherd is a consiiuu 

 source of political confusion, while the almost exclusiv' 

 employment of women and children in the collection <>f 

 forest produce tends towards the growth of the matri- 

 archate. 



Secondly come the grasslands, and the relation of the 

 pastoral races to /Egean culture, leading on to the third 

 type, that of the agriculturist, of which the Icndin:; 

 characteristic is the crowding into the season betwe'-n 

 March and July of processes which in more northern lamK 

 extend to October, thus leaving one of the busiest seasons 

 of the English year to idle hands " devoted to the devil's 

 work of seasonal war." 



The programme of the new chair thus promises an 

 attempt towards the solution of the ethnical problems of 

 the .Egean on new and scientific lines ; and though th*- 

 address of Prof. Myres is not free from certain charac- 

 teristic foibles of the Oxford school, anthropologists will 

 readily admit that no more competent and imaginativ>- 

 scholar could have been selected to hold the Wykeham 

 professorship. 



A DESTRUCTIVE DISEASE OF POTATOES. 

 A VERA' interesting and valuable report on " Wart 

 ■^ Disease of Potatoes " has been issued by the Harpi r 

 Adams .Agricultural College. As in the case of previous 

 reports on the same subject, the cost of publication, ani 

 also expenses connected with garden trials, have be. r 

 borne by Mr. Beville Stanier, M.P. 



The present report brings together a number of 

 which, taken together, show the magnitude of the d 

 now threatening potato-growing in Great Britain, 

 comparatively new and most destructive fungous di>...i- 

 known as " Wart Disease " was first reported in Shrop- 

 shire in 1901 in the Woore district; by 190S it ha' 

 assumed alarming proportions in this and other counti- ■ 

 — facts which are here emphasised by some admirab! 

 maps. The extent to which the disease has now spre.i 

 in Great Britain is shown by one of these maps, in whii ' 

 a continuous belt of affected counties stretches down th 

 west side of Great Britain from Perth to Glamorgan — ^n • 

 fewer than thirty counties being affected. In the majorii; 

 of these counties the disease is confined, as yet, to garden- 

 and allotments (the soil of w-hich in some cases has b--- 

 come so contaminated that it is impossible to grow pota- 

 toes profitably), but the authors of the report ven." rightly 

 lay stress on the fact that the risk of the disease spreading: 

 from these centres of infection to the fields of farmers i- 

 very great. A perusal of this report, indeed, must con- 

 vince the reader that this disease — which the Vice-presi- 

 dent of the Irish Department of .Agriculture referred to 

 last year in the House of Commons as " that terribl 

 disease known as ' Black Scab ' " — must now actually V 

 spreading to farm-lahds in many counties in England and 

 Scotland, as has already happened in Lancashire and 

 Cheshire. 



An instance is given of a consignment of seed potato*^^ 

 (obtained from a county where the disease is ven>' preva- 

 lent) which, distributed for use as " seed." gave rise to a 

 number of outbreaks extending over a five-mile radius. 

 The disease is spread also by animals : cases are her- 

 recorded where trespassing pigs and poultry have carrif ' 

 the fungus to clean ground and caused outbreak*; of th- 

 disease. The use of manure from animals (especially pigs' 

 fed on raw " warty " potatoes is a common means of 



