November. 1903.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



241 



Founded by RICHARD A. PROCTOR. 



Vol. XXVI.] LONDON : N0VE2[nEE, 1903. [No. 217. 



CONTENTS. 



— ^ — 



The Struggle for Existence in Sociology. — III. Ey J. 



COLLTEK... 



Familiar British Wild Flowers and their Allies. VI. — 



Orchids. By R. Lloyd Pbaeger, b .\. (^Illustrated) ... 

 Considerations on the Flanet Mars. By E. M. 



Antoni.\di, f.e.a.s. {Illu-itrated.) (Plate) 

 The Canals of Mars. By E. Walter MArxDEB, f.e.a.s 



(Illustrated) 



Modern Cosmogonies. V. — The Fission of Rotating 



Globes. By Agnes M. Clekke 



Notes 



British Ornithological Notes. Conducted by Haeet F. 



WiTHEEBY, F.Z.8., M.B.O.U 



Letters : 



Radium and the Sun's Heat. By P. J. Damania, Note 



by E. Waltbb Maunder 



The Leonid Meteors and the Moon. By John E 



Henry ■ 



Curious Sunset Phenomena. By Paul A. Cobbold... 

 The Purple Floweks of the Wild Carrot. '&-^ E A. 



Burchabdt. Note by R. Lloyd Praecieb ... 

 Man's Place in the Universe. By W. Woods Smyth. 



Note by E. Walter Maunder 



Stellae Satellites. By Edwin Holmes 



Notices of Books 



Books Received 

 Baby Bats. By R. Lydeekee. (Illustrated) 

 Microscopy. Conducted by M. I. Cross. (Illustrated) ... 

 Notes on Comets and Meteors. By W. F. Dennino, 



The Face of the Sky for November. By W. Shackleton, 



r.E.A.s 



Chess Column. By C. D. LooocE, b.a 



PAGE 



241 



243 



246 



249 



251 

 254 



258 

 25S 

 260 



262 

 263 



THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE IN 

 SOCIOLOGY. 



By J. Collier. 

 III. 



The Political Struggle. 

 The political struggle is a continuation of tlie ethnical 

 struggle in a new sphere and un<k'r now forms. It is 

 that struggle transferred from without to within the State, 

 and extended to all departments of ])ul)lic life. The 

 invaders are no longer foreigners; they are citizens of the 

 new country, and tiiey gradually blend themselves with 

 almost all its ranks. The invasion no longer takes place 

 on the frontiers ; its waves mount to the halls of the 

 legislature. How through the courts of justice, and Hood 

 the chambers of iulniinistrution. The nature of the 

 struggle is unchanged — warfare is a mere incident of it, 

 as it is of the ethnical struggle, and plays no smaller and 

 no larger a part in it ; the method is the same — slow 

 dis]ilacenient and siipefse.ssiou, not destruction or ex- 

 termination ; and the result is the same — the infusion of a 

 new element into the institutions of a people, as into it's 



ethnical composition. Even the instruments are not 

 essentially altered ; laws, judicial decisions, and adminis- 

 trative regulations continue, as they began, the work of 

 fusion, and are only applied to new cases. 



Thus the history of ancient G-reece was the after- 

 reflection of the struargle between the immigrant Hellenes 

 and the indigenous Pelasgians, Carians, or what not. The 

 long conflict between the patricians and the plehs of 

 ancient Rome was a continuation of the strife between the 

 immigrant Romans and the indigenous Latins; and i(s 

 various incidents, such as the election of tribunes and of a 

 plebeian consul, and the enactment of agrarian laws, were 

 at bottom of the same character as the acts of aggression 

 and resistance that constituted the invasion and the 

 defence. Augustin Thierry's view, that the racial struggle 

 between the iSaxons and the Normans is the key to the 

 subsequent political history of England, has not been 

 accepted by historians in its entirety ; yet if we will define 

 " race " historically instead of ethnically, and consider the 

 "Saxon race" as consisting of a mass of Teutons and 

 Northmen (thus so far resembling the "Norman race"), 

 on a compound basis of pire-Aryans and Celts (such as 

 Ethnology shows to have existed in England), and all 

 because of historical association and antagonism to the 

 invaders, animated by similar disj^ositions, we shall find 

 his view to be sociologically sound. It may then be used 

 to explain our political history. The Tories were, and the 

 Conservatives are, sometimes of Celtic or Turanian origin, 

 but they have assumed, where they did not naturally have, 

 the sentiments of a governing aristocratic race. The 

 Whigs were, many of them, hereditary aristocrats, and the 

 Radical and Socialist leaders have often been cultured 

 patricians. None the less, both associate themselves with 

 the characteristic feelings of their parties, and reflect their 

 pristine antagonisms. The history of France has likewise 

 been written by its greatest historians as that of a conflict 

 between the various races that have successively occupied 

 the soil. From the fifth century to the thirteenth it 

 consisted in the gradual taking possession by the Germanic 

 invaders of all the institutions of public and social life; 

 from the thirteenth to the eighteenth, in the sk)w recovery 

 by the indigenes of their lost ground; while the revolution 

 was the uprising of the Celtic and jjossibly the Turanian 

 masses. 



The Dynastic Struggle. 



The succession of dynasties resembles the immigration 

 of new species. Like tliem, they slowly take possession of 

 their new area. It will be more instructive to describe a 

 single such case in some detail than to make vague general 

 references that would leave no definite impression. The 

 Carolingian dynasty sprang up by the side of the Mero- 

 vingian, insensibly gathered strength, and at last sup- 

 planted it. A strong power was needed to keep in order 

 the noisy and tumultuous crowd of nobles who surrounded 

 the Frankish kings. They themselves elected a Mayor of 

 the Palace, or Lord Chamberlain, as they had once elected 

 their sovereigns. The mayor had at first no other office 

 than to compose their disputes, and thus relieve the king 

 of an irksome duty. As they naturally appointed one of 

 themselves, and probably their strongest m:ui. he soon 

 became tlieir head. Possessing so much authority, lie 

 naturally became chief minister of tlie sovereign. He 

 soon made his position impregnable. In t!13, after a 

 struggle between the nobles and the dynasty, one mayor 

 stipulated that he shoidd never be deposed, and extracted 

 from the king an oath to that effect. The office was next 

 maile hereditary in a particular family, that of Pepiu, 

 which had acquired wealth and consideration. King 

 Dagobert died, leaving an infant sou. The mayor became 



