LITERARY NOTICES. 



707 



portance of the history of institutions, their 

 changes to meet new wants, and their inevi- 

 table fall, although, perhaps, by a process of 

 slow decay, upon failure to adapt themselves 

 to new requirements. He says : " There is 

 probably no better test of the political 

 genius of a nation than the power which it 

 possesses of adapting old institutions to new 

 wants." Next he considers the value of a 

 study of the great revolutions, discussing the 

 two theories extant as to their causes- and 

 possible avoidance. "My own view of this 

 question," he says, "is that although there 

 are certain streams of tendency, though there 

 is a certain steady and orderly evolution 

 that it is impossible in the long run to resist, 

 yet individual action and even mere accident 

 have borne a very great part in modifying 

 the direction of history." Having charac- 

 terized history as one of the best schools for 

 that kind of reasoning which is most useful 

 in practical life, teaching men to weigh con- 

 flicting probabilities, to estimate degrees of 

 evidence, to form a sound judgment of the 

 value of authorities, Mr. Lecky concludes 

 by observing that its most precious lessons 

 are moral ones. It expands the range of 

 our vision and teaches us, hi judging the 

 true interests of nations, to look beyond the 

 immediate future. A perusal of this little 

 book will well repay the general reader and 

 be especially valuable to those engaged in 

 the study or teaching of history. 



THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. By NA- 

 THANIEL S. SHALER, Professor of Geology 

 in Harvard University. Boston and New 

 York : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp. 305. 

 Price, $1.25. 



HOWEVER widely apart the theologian and 

 naturalist may be at the present moment, the 

 time is not far distant, according to Prof. 

 Shaler, when they may stand upon common 

 ground. In the next century science may 

 even people the unknown with powers justly 

 inferred from their manifestations. There 

 will be no longer a natural and a supernatural 

 realm, but one universe " through which the 

 spirit of man ranges with ever-increasing 

 freedom." 



We may trace the evolution of scientific 

 inquiry to the germ of curiosity evinced by 

 the lower animals. The early races of men 

 attributed the control of Nature to spirits like 



themselves. These were gradually endowed 

 with greater powers until the idea of a hier- 

 archy of gods was reached, and among the 

 more intellectual nations this culminated in 

 monotheism. Theologic explanations, how- 

 ever, could not satisfy the interrogative im- 

 pulse possessed by the Aryan race, and espe- 

 cially by the Greeks. The want of scientific 

 interest shown by the Romans is ascribed by 

 the author to a different racial inheritance, 

 and the long period of unquestioning quiet 

 is not charged to the soporific influence of 

 Church authority so much as to a religious 

 bent derived from Semitic ancestors. With 

 the revival of learning came the resurrection 

 of inquiry, and to the system of Aristotle the 

 moderns added the method of verification by 

 experiment. 



The naturalist is generally too apt to look 

 upon the course of Nature as invariable, since 

 he knows that any physical state is the re- 

 sultant of previous conditions, and that the 

 quantities of force and matter are unalter- 

 able. There are, however, phenomena which 

 can not be predicted, the outcome of revolu- 

 tionary changes that transcend experience. 

 The crises at which these .occur are termed 

 critical points, and are typified by the point 

 at which an orbit passes from the parabolic 

 to the hyperbolic form. Similar results fol- 

 low alterations in temperature and the mani- 

 festation of latent inheritances. 



In considering the march of the genera- 

 tions it is seen that the psychic progress of 

 man is unparalleled by anything in the evo- 

 lution of species. The generations are also 

 bound together by vast stores of experience 

 and knowledge, which the human race accu- 

 mulates and transmits in various ways to the 

 young, so that great advance is made pos- 

 sible. 



Man owes his moral development to the 

 exercise of altruistic motives sympathy with 

 his kind, with animals, with God and Nature. 

 We can follow these to lowly beginnings, but 

 can not account for their growth by any the- 

 ory of selection. The determinative influ- 

 ences are hidden, " unless we assume a law 

 of moral advance." 



As to the immortality of the soul, " it is 

 easier to suppose that an individual mind can 

 be perpetuated after death in a natural man- 

 ner than to explain the phenomena of inher- 

 itance." The naturalist thus finds that, in 



