220 



KNOWLEDGE, 



[OOTOBEB, 1902. 



writes. On many lines he is the forefather of the modern 

 novel. 



Yet we cannot help perceivin<? that between Nash and 

 JV'foe a wliole century lies blank. Sliall we say (with 

 Jusserand) that there was only an interruption of fecundity, 

 or (with Bruuetiere) that there was a breach of continuity? 

 A physiological analogy or identity may throw light on 

 the matter. Like the Australian River Darling, some of 

 whose branches flow underground for hundreds of miles, 

 and come to the surface at long distances only by means of 

 artesian bores, the spiritual genn-plasm unwinds its chain 

 through silent generations or centuries, embodying itself at 

 rare intervals in some individual or production which is not 

 so much the descendant of some earlier production or 

 individual as, like them, the outcome of a common line of 

 development. 



6. — The philosopher withdraws to his garret, like 

 Spinoza, or banishes himself to a foreign country, like 

 Descartes, there to excogitate his speculations in silence 

 and solitude. Does not his system spring Pallas-like from 

 his brain, ' born without sire or couples of one kind " ? 

 Not so. Both can be fathered on past thinkers, and 

 related to the thought of their time. Asa more modem 

 example of spiritual transmission we will here briefly trace, 

 after Littrc and Paul Janet, the genesis of Comtism. The 

 philosophy of Auguste Comte can be histiirically affiliated 

 on Francis Bacon. What are the intermediate links ? 

 There is a large unbridged gap of a century and a half. 

 Then, in the preface to the great Encyclopedie edited by 

 Diderot, we find Bacon's ideas, his organizing genius, 

 his prophetic spirit ; it is the Be Augmentis done into 

 French, developed and expanded ; and Bacon himself is 

 there acknowledged as the inspirer of the work. But that 

 j)reface was written by d'Alembert. From him descend 

 two lines. His pupil and testamentary executor was 

 Coudorcet, and from him Comte derived his views on the 

 philosojjhy of history and the development of the human 

 mind. The other, more important and more fruitful, 

 conies down through the founder of Saint-Simonianism. 

 Saint-Simon alleged that his early education had been 

 directed by d'Alembert. From d'Alembert he acknow- 

 ledged that he gained the idea of all his scientific works. 

 To him he owed his conception of the unity and organisa- 

 tion of the sciences ; like him, he projected encyclopsedias. 



Now arises the variation. Saint- Simon broke away 

 from the critical and negative philosophy of the eighti'eutii 

 century, and believed that the time had" come to found a 

 constructive and organic philosophy. This philosophy 

 he named the positive philosophy. In various writings 

 he traced its lineaments. All the sciences have begun by 

 being conjectural before being positive ; they have become 

 positive in the order of their increasing complexity ; they 

 have entered into public instruction as they have grown 

 positive; physiology is on the point of becoming a positive 

 science ; ethics will become such a science when it is 

 founded on physiology ; philosophy will become such 

 when it is founded on the general' facts of the special 

 sciences. Here are the germs of all the principal ideas of 

 Comte — especially of the classification of the sciences and 

 the law of the three stages. The latter was more fully 

 developed by Saint-Simon, and Janet has skilfully followed 

 its traces through a number of his works. In" him, too, 

 wll be found the Comtist character of science as con- 

 sisting in verification and prevision, together with 

 other root-ideas of Positivism. Like Saint-Simonianism, 

 Comtism began as a theory of the sciences, advanced to 

 be a so^-ial philosophy, and ended as a religious brother- 

 hood. We may well say : no Comte without Saint- 

 Simon ; as no Saint-Simon without d'Alembert, and no 

 d'Alembert without Bacon. 



THE QUAGGA; A MISSING LINK. 



By R. Lydeeker. 



Whkn the Dutch first colonised that part of Africa of 

 which Cape Town now forms the capital, they found the 

 •country absolutely swarming with a great variety of species 

 of large game and other animals, whose form and apjjear- 

 ance were for the most j^art unfamiliar. As they tliein- 

 selves came from a laud which had long since been stripped 

 of the larger members of its fauna, it is possible that un- 

 familiarity with these prototyjies was one of the causes 

 which led to the indiscriminate and often ina|>propriate 

 bestowal of the names of the large mammals of Europe, 

 or compounds of the same, on the animals of the new 

 country. What, for instance, can be more inappropriate 

 than the transference of the Dutch name for elk (eland) 

 to the largest of the Cape antelopes, unless, indeed (which is 

 scarcely likely), the settlers were aware, that etymologically 

 the word signifies, in its Greek original, " strength." Neither 

 is hartebeest (stagox) much bettei", although wildebeest 

 (wild ox) is by no means an unsuitable designation for the 

 animalsknowntothe Hottentots by the title of gnu. Bastard 

 hartebeest, on the other hand, is a cumbrous and senseless 

 name for the antelope the Bechuanas call tsessabe. And 

 it is much to be regretted that the Boers did not see fit to 

 adopt for South .African animals the native titles they found 

 ready to hand. 



In two instances, and apparently in two instances only, 

 so far as the larger animals are concerned, they did, how- 

 ever, adopt this practice. The first instance is that of the 

 large and handsome spiral-horned antelope now univer- 

 sally known as kudu, a name which is certainly not Dutch, 

 and is believed by Sir Harry Johnston to be of Hottentot 

 origin, since it is unknown to the Kaffirs or other tribes 

 who speak dialects of the Bantu language. The second 

 case is that of the animal foi-ming the subject of this 

 article, which is now universally known as quagga, from a 

 corruption of its Hottentot name quacha, pronounced by 

 the natives as " quaha." Even in this instance, however, 

 the Boers appear at first to have displayed considerable 

 reluctance to adopt the native name, for they originally 

 called the animal wilde esel (wild ass^ in the same way 

 as they christened its cousin, Burchell's zebra, wilde 

 paard, or wild horse. Eventually, however, better counsels 

 prevailed, and Eqiiiis quagga became known to the Cape 

 Dutch by the aforesaid native name, while the wilde paard 

 (whose early title still survives in Paardeberg) was 

 renamed bonte quacha, or striped quagga. When, how- 

 ever, the true quagga became very rare and eventually 

 exterminated, the prefix hotite was dropped from the Dutch 

 designation of Burchell's zebra, which was henceforth 

 known throughout South Africa as the quacha, orquagg-a, 

 pui'e and simple. Hence much confusion, and possibly 

 also a factor in the extermination of the species to which 

 that title of right belonged. For as the name in question 

 continued to be in common use in South Africa at the 

 time the true quagga was on the point of extermination, 

 it is quite probable that this may have been the reason 

 why the attention of naturalists in Europe was not drawn 

 to its impending fate while there was yet time. 



According to the best attainable evidence the quagga 

 appears to have, become extinct, in Cape Colony, at any 

 rate,* about the year 1865, at which date a specimen 



* From the fact that a skin was purchased by the Edinburgh 

 Museum in 1879, Mr. &. Kenshavv {Zoologisf, February, 1901) lias 

 suggested that the species may liave survived in the Ornnge Rivei 

 Colony till about that date. I am informed, hosrever, tint the 

 specimen was believed to be an old one at the date of its purchase 

 from ft dealer. 



