NATURE 



393 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 1877 



NATURE AND CONSTITUTION OF MAN 

 A Philosophical Treatise on the Nature and Constitution 

 of Man. By George Hairis, LL.D., F.S.A. (London: 

 George Bell and Sons, 1877.) 



DR. HARRIS has long been known as one of those 

 social scholars who combine with much modern 

 learning a great deal of the learning of the ancients. He 

 is essentially an antiquary in science, and he has obviously 

 collected and brought under ready command a fine array 

 of authorities of various schools of thought and of many 

 centuries. In the two handsome volumes which now lie 

 before us, Dr. Harris has collected a rich store of the 

 historical work of which he is so fond, bearing on the 

 history of man in relation to his life and his physical and 

 mental constitution. The author tells us in the preface 

 that the object of his work is " to afford a comprehensive 

 and complete survey of the nature of man as regards his 

 intelligent being ; to exhibit the direct and immediate 

 connexion of each department in his constitution, with its 

 corresponding relation ; and to demonstrate the uniform 

 mechanism of the whole as one entire and consistent 

 system." 



In the first of these volumes we meet with a preliminary 

 dissertation containing " certain collateral considerations 

 and conclusions concerning the nature of man ; " and 

 touching on such details as "the origination and produc- 

 tion of animated bodies," " the constitution of animated 

 bodies," "man in relation to both substance and spirit,'' 

 " essence of spiritual being and the nature of the soul," 

 " operations of spiritual beings," and similar topics. A 

 good way further on in this volume we reach the first 

 " book," which treats on " the medial nature and consti- 

 tution of man," and which, under the five heads of " sen- 

 sation, emotion, appetite, passion, and affection," brings 

 the volume to its close. 



In the second volume we have first put before us, in 

 " book the second " the subject of " the moral nature and 

 constitution of man." This is discussed under three 

 heads — " moral disposition and character," " the moral 

 desires," " the conscience." Finally, in the same volume we 

 have the third and last book treating on "the mental nature 

 and constitution of man," and embracing under the different 

 subdivisions " the intellectual faculties," " the faculty of 

 understanding," " the faculty of reason," " the faculty of 

 genius," " the memory," " the concurrent operation and 

 reciprocal influence of the various medial, moral, and 

 mental endowments and powers of the soul," and " mental 

 discipline and cultivation." 



We have given the outline of these volumes in the 

 order in which they are set forth, because it affords 

 the best account of the matter of the volumes. None 

 but a steady reader will take the trouble to go through 

 so many pages of two closely reasoning volumes on sub- 

 jects abstruse and confessedly difficult, and we who have 

 steadily gone through them may therefore venture to 

 pilot others on the way. 



As we lay down the volumes we find the difficulties of 

 . reviewing them very considerable. If we were dealing 

 with the works of a less earnest man than George Harris 

 Vol. XVI, — No. 41U 



we should have no difficulty in finding some faults in 

 every page. If we did not understand, or did not think 

 that we do understand what he means by all the toil he 

 has expended on these two books, we might say that the 

 toil was all labour lost, and that to the making of books 

 there is no end. In a word there is scope in the volumes 

 for the critic of all minds all intelligences and all senti- 

 ments. The scholar might question the history, the 

 experimentalist the science, the ////t>-(i/t'«r the style, the 

 metaphysician the metaphysic ; and all, within common 

 rules of criticism, might be severe and at the same time 

 fair. 



The truth as it seems to us is that Dr. Harris in the 

 whole of his work has not really endeavoured to set forth 

 any new and original idea of his own absolutely, while yet 

 he has, at the same time, proceeded on an idea which is 

 not destitute of originality. He has striven like a true 

 antiquarian to locus in his own mind the learning of 

 others old and new and best on the subjects upon which 

 he is treating, and then he has tried to plant on his pages 

 his own view as a compound of the complete study. The 

 conception is erudite and laborious to a singular and 

 almost painful labour. It is a work in character with the 

 mental form of a man who has been engaged all his life 

 in judicial pursuits (as by the way is the case with Dr. 

 Harris), and while, therefore, it is free of all fancy, it gives 

 no such indication of individual analysis as shall separate 

 his idea of what he has read from his idea of any one 

 person whom he has read. He tells us, in fact, that 

 "during the progress of the work many hundreds of 

 minds have been dissected by the author," but he does 

 not tell us the further truth, because he is obviously un- 

 conscious of the fact, that he has tried to make one 

 dissection out of the whole. 



We have said that in the mode of constructing the 

 chapters of these volumes there is an originality in deal- 

 ing with the accumulated learning of previous authors. 

 Another feature which is quite novel in literature is also 

 introduced by the author. He has laid other living 

 authors under contribution, and whether they agree with 

 him or differ from him he has published their views as 

 he received them, totidem verbis. In these cases he has 

 submitted his text, in proof, to the writers whose views he 

 solicited, and having obtained their opinions he has 

 tacked them on to the te.xt in notes. In this manner we 

 have presented to us the views of a number of authorities 

 on many of the most curious and important points in the 

 natural histories of men and animals. Let us give one 

 illustration. 



In the chapter on the faculty of understanding in the 

 second volume Dr. Harris discusses or rather considers 

 the question whether inferior animals surpass the human 

 animal in any particular faculty. He reasons that they 

 do and adduces in proof of his opinion " the almost 

 intuitive knowledge which certain animals seem to pos- 

 sess of the virtues of particular herbs, as also of other 

 substances, earths and mineral waters, to which they 

 resort, successfully, in cases of sickness or bodily injury. 

 Their discernment in this respect," he adds, " is probably 

 owing to the great acuteness and perfection of their 

 sensorial organs, which also enable them to detect and 

 avoid poisons." 



So much for the opinion of the author himself on this 



