May 1, 188S.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



1G5 



and never did an undertaking more nobly redeem the 

 promise of its preface than this first volume of the new edition, 

 which, for the convenience of the many, is also iinder issue 

 in monthly parts. Even to the few who can afl'ord to buy 

 the bulky " Encyclopa?dia Britannica ' this moderate sized 

 and cheap companion is as indispensable as the " finder " 

 to a big telescope. Not relying solely on authorities 

 whose names might justify our taking their contributions on 

 trust, we have gone over the majority of the articles with 

 considerable care, and the result warrants the highest [jraise 

 that we can give. Mr. Grant Allen's article on Anthro- 

 pology is a masterly and lucid survey of the science ; the 

 cognate articles on Animism, Animal- and Ancestor- 

 Worship are models of brevity and clearness, while includ- 

 ing material for the reader to form bis own judgment on 

 Herbert Spencer's and o[)posing theories : the article Ballad, 

 by the same skilful hand, has had the advantage of revision 

 by Andrew Lang and others. Professor Tail's article on 

 the Atom supplies, inter alia, an untechnical account of the 

 periodic law of the elements ; the article on Matthew Arnold 

 — now, -we must sorrowfidh' add, gone to his rest — 

 seizes in a few words the characteristics of his work both in 

 prose and verse ; while among the contributions from the 

 United States, the insertion of which happily protects 

 the work from Transatlantic thieves, we must single 

 out as especially complete and interesting Dr. Greene's 

 article on the American Indians. Per contra, under 

 Animal, the writer, in speaking of the presence 

 of chlorophyll in certain infusorians and other inver- 

 tebrates, overlooks Sach's explanation that it is not a 

 proper constituent of their bodies, but due to the 

 presence of vegetable cells which they assimilate; under 

 archa;ology. Dr. Anderson has not sufficiently insisted 

 on the totally unlike conditions and characters of the 

 Palaeolithic and succeeding ages ; the discovery of a deep 

 .sea A,scidian {Octanemus Btjthii's) by the C/ialknger ex- 

 pedition might have been noted in the article under that 

 heading, and the article on the Aryans will soon need con- 

 siderable revision. To descend to trifling errors, " Robert 

 Maitland " should be " Thomas Maitland " in the article on 

 Anonymous. We should add that the maps, which are 

 both political and physiail, and also the woodcuts, are very 

 superior to those given in the old editions, and that the 

 typography is perfect. 



Marahuna : a Romance. By H. B. Marriott Watson. 

 (Longmans.) — We think this story marks the approaching 

 exhaustion of the modern romantic school, to which Hugh 

 Conway's and Eider Haggard's tales gave chief impetus. It 

 was an inevitable reaction from the colourless, anah'tical, 

 white-of-egg flavoured studies of Howell and James, 

 making any change of diet welcome to the confirmed 

 novel-reader. Not that this book lacks an original side, 

 but that the combinations are limited and the surprises 

 discounted. The talk on shipboard is too " high-falutin'," 

 and Marahuna herself inspires languid interest, the only 

 quality in her n hich gives force to the character is akin to that 

 which Grant Allen presents so powerfully in " For Maimie's 

 Sake." The scenes of the story alternate between the 

 Antarctic circle and Hampshire ; the origin and flite of 

 Mai-ahuna our readers mu t learn from the book itself. 



Civilisation and Progress. By John" Beattie Crozier. 

 New edition. (London: Longmans it Co. 188S.) — No 

 one can rise from the perusal of the work whose title heads 

 this notice without the conviction that its author has es- 

 tablished a claim to stand high among the most profound 

 and original thinkers of the day. He has set himself an 

 ambitious task, and he has very narrowly indeed escaped 

 entire success. In his search for a consistent theory of 

 civilisation and progress, Mr. Crozier successively discards 



the histoiical, the metaphysical, and the psychological 

 methods, and founds his own new organon on " the laws of 

 the human mind in its entirety as a concrete unity " — an 

 e'astic definition which crops up, as a deus ex machind, 

 throughout the work. That such laws are immutable is 

 taken for granted. Portions of the work before us must 

 irresistibly attract the reader. We may instance chapter 

 vii. of Part. I. and the whole of Part IV. among them. But 

 the man who sets himself to frame a new method for the 

 investigation of the factore and causes operative in the 

 advancement of the human race should above all things be 

 impartial, and this our author assuredly is not. His 

 unreasoning admiration of democracy in the abstract to a 

 large extent blinds him entirely to its operation in the con- 

 crete. Certainly his picture of America is evolved from 

 the depths of his own moral consciousness. Everyone 

 personally familiar with the United St;ites knows that 

 jiolitics there are practically abandoned to the scum and 

 dregs of the population, and that an American gentleman 

 (and there is an upper class even in Mr. Crozier's model 

 Piepublic) repudiates with scorn and loathing the slightest 

 sympathy or fellowship with the caucus -mongei-s, log-roller.^, 

 and wire-pullers who dominate all political matters what- 

 soever there. A great many hard things have been written 

 and said about the Corporation of the City of London, but 

 Mr. Bottomley Firth himself would scarcely dare to in- 

 sinuate the pos-ibility that the Lord Mnyor and Aldermen 

 could ever be guilty of the infamous corruption and pecula- 

 tion of which the municipal authorities of New York were 

 convicted at a compai'atively recent date. As for current 

 French Republicanism, no further reference is needed to it 

 here. When evolution shall have develo])ed a superior type 

 of the human race, Mr. Crozier's supposititious Re- 

 public may become an accomplished fact : at present 

 " the laws of the human mind," as known to us in their out- 

 ward manifestations, present an insuperable bar to the 

 realisation of his Ltopian dream. The constitution of a 

 country may confer political equality upon every one of its 

 citizens: but to suppose that they can or ever will become 

 socially equal is as reasonable as to imagine that their 

 height or the colour of their eyes can be regulated by a 

 statute. Jla'gre the small display of fanaticism which has 

 elicited these remarks, the author of " Civilisation and Pro- 

 gress " has produced a work of very high merit, and one 

 which will repay perusal and reperusal. 



The English in the West Indies ; or, the Bow of Ulysses. 

 By J. A. Froude. (Longmans.) — In the present work Mr. 

 Froude gives us the result of his acquaintance with a very 

 different batch of colonies from those which formed the 

 subject of his brilliant sketches in " Oce;ina." If it lacks 

 the freshness and vigour of that book, drawn as these 

 quilities were from the material dealt with, it has a more 

 romantic flavour, mixed with bitterness at the neglect 

 which has allowed whilom bright jewels in the possession 

 of the Crown to become dull and tarnished, or, as the 

 author in repeated metaphor says, the bow of Ulysses to 

 remain unstrung. In his own matchless prose Mr. Froude 

 tells how tha Caribbean Sea, from Trinidad to Jamaica, was 

 the cradle of our naval empire, the scene of exploits to 

 furnish the most stirring cantos if ever England's victories 

 on the seas are done into an epic poem. All the romance 

 of adventure and conquest in the New World defiles before 

 us ; every hero, from Columbus to Drake and Rodney, is 

 there, " the captains of the ships and all the ships in order." 

 But the main subject of the book is the West Indies of 

 to-day, with the problems of England's position towards 

 the decreasing white and the increasing black populations, 

 which our party leaders, miscalled statesmen, ignoring 

 inherent difi'erences in the capacity and power of self- 



