April 12, 1894] 



NATURE 



551 



posed to the principle, since it gives to a class the power 

 to live permanently at the expense of the workers. In 

 like manner, those whose parents can give their children 

 a better education, and supply them with the means of a 

 good start in life, have greater opportunities than have 

 the children of the poor. Equality of opportunity de- 

 mands, therefore, in the first place the same means of 

 education for all, and, afterwards, a sufficient endowment 

 to give every young person an equally good start in life. 

 It will thus be seen that the principle of "equality of op- 

 portunity in the rivalry of life " goes very far indeed, and 

 it will be judged by many to involve as drastic, and as 

 much to be dreaded, a change as socialism itself. It 

 differs from socialism, however, inasmuch as it will leave 

 rivalry and competition, not only unchecked but even in- 

 creased inintensity,and in ordertoavoid thecorresponding 

 increase of some of the evils which result from our com- 

 paratively limited competition, society will probably, /t^r/ 

 passu with this development, so organise itself that every 

 community will form a congeries of co-operative societies 

 by which all will benefit, thus bringing about a form of 

 voluntary municipal socialism. 



This great principle of " equality of opportunities,'' to 

 which Mr. Kidd's inquiry has led him, has been already 

 fully set forth and advocated by a school of Belgian 

 economists, and is worked out in detail by Agathon de 

 Potter in his ** Economie Sociale," published at Brussels 

 in 1874. A similar principle- obtains in the scheme of 

 Dr. Hertzka, as explained in his interesting work, 

 " Freeland," and now in course of experimental realisa- 

 tion. 



Many other points of interest are discussed by Mr. 

 Kidd, and will well repay careful study. Among these is 

 his examination of the general belief as to the great 

 intellectual inferiority of most savages, on which question 

 he arrives at conclusions opposed to the views of most 

 anthropologists. The chapter headed " Human Evolu- 

 tion is not primarily Intellectual" is full of original and 

 interesting views, though mingled with details that are 

 of doubtful accuracy. Sufficient, however, has been said 

 to show that we have here the work of a very able thinker 

 who deals with the fundamental problems of civilisation 

 and progress in a far more hopeful manner than does 

 another recent author, also of great ability — Mr. Pearson. 

 The two following extracts from the concluding paragraph 

 of Mr. Kidd's volume will serve to exhibit the general 

 result of his inquiry :— 



" The movement which is uplifting the people — neces- 

 sarily to a large extent at the expense of those above 

 them — is but the final result of a long process of organic 

 development. All anticipations and forebodings as to 

 the future of the incoming democracy, founded upon 

 comparisons with the past, are unreliable or worthless. 

 For the world has never before witnessed a democracy 

 of the kind that is now slowly assuming supreme power 

 among the Western peoples." . . . 



" There are many who speak of the new ruler of 

 nations as if he were the same idle Demos whose ears 

 the dishonest courtiers have tickled from time imme- 

 morial. It is not so. Even those who attempt to lead 

 him do not rightly apprehend the nature of his strength. 

 They do not perceive that his arrival is the crowning 

 result of an ethical movement in which qualities and 

 attributes which we have all been taught to regard as the 



NO. 1276, VOL. 49] 



very highest of which human nature is capable, find the 

 highest expression they have ever reached in the history 

 of the race." 



Every true reformer, every earnest student of society, 

 every believer in human progress, will cordially welcome 

 such conclusions, founded as they are upon a careful study 

 of history, enlightened by a thorough appreciation of the 

 theory of evolution and the principle of natiiral selection. 



Alfred R. Wallace. 



ESSAYS IN HISTORICAL CHEMISTRY. 

 Essays in Historical Chemistry. By T. E. Thorpe, 

 Ph.D., B.Sc, Sc.D., F.R.S. Pp. vii. ; 381. (Mac- 

 millan and.Co.,' 1894.) 



A REVIEWER is not bound to read the whole of the 

 book which he reviews. I opened this book with 

 the half-formed intention of practising the art of judicious 

 skipping ; but I have been obliged to read it all. I fancy 

 that most people who take up the book, if they have some 

 little acquaintance with chemistry will not care to put it 

 down till they have read it through ; and that those who 

 dip into it, knowing no chemistry, will determine to be- 

 come more familiar with this, the most fascinating and 

 the most human of the sciences. 



" This book consists mainly of lectures and addresses 

 given at various times, and to audiences of very different 

 type, during the last eighteen or twenty years. . . . The 

 book has no pretensions to be considered a history of 

 chemistry, even of the time over which its narratives 

 extend." 



These sentences, from the preface, sufficiently define 

 the aim and scope of Prof. Thorpe's essays. Accounts 

 are given of the lives and labours of Boyle, Priestley, 

 Scheele, Cavendish, Lavoisier, Faraday, Graham, 

 Wohler, Dumas, and Mendeleeff; there is also an essay 

 on " Priestley, Cavendish, Lavoisier, and La Revolution 

 Chimique" ; and another on "The Rise and Develop- 

 ment of Synthetical Chemistry." The form of the book — 

 a collection of essays written at different times — serves 

 admirably to keep before the reader the manifoldness 

 and the diversity of chemistry ; for chemistry is a branch 

 of natural science whose immediate object and scope 

 change much from time to time. The characters and 

 careers of the men whose lives are sketched in these 

 essays were nearly as different as are the aspects of the 

 science to which they were all devoted. But as the one 

 aim of chemistry is to bring the mind into actual contact 

 with certain classes of natural occurrences, so the one aim 

 of Boyle, and Priestley, and Faraday, and Lavoisier, and 

 the other students of nature about whom Dr. Thorpe has 

 written, was, as far as in them lay, to " know the soul of 

 nature, and see things as they are." There is Priestley, 

 the brilliant discoverer, the teacher of Latin, Greek, 

 Hebrew, French and Italian, the lecturer on logic, elocu- 

 tion, the theory of languages, oratory and criticism, 

 history and general policy, civil law, and anatomy ; and 

 there is Cavendish, the recluse, the measurer of natural 

 quantities, the man who arranged his dinner-parties by a 



, ,. legs of mutton , 1 • ..• 1 



formula, dinner = -^^ [x being proportional 



to the number of guests), the man who, when he felt 



