394 



NATURE 



{Sept. 6, 1877 



nice point. But he is not content to let the reader 

 rest on one opinion. He courts the views of nine other 

 authorities who, he thinks, may throw some light on the 

 subject. In this way we get opinions on one point of 

 science rendered by men who are writing purely from 

 their own knowledge without being aware that any one 

 else is adding a word on the topic under consideration, 

 viz., whether inferior animals have any special faculty 

 which man has not. The result is very curious. 



Darwin, one of the authorities consulted, doubts the 

 opinion altogether. He knows of no facts making it 

 probable that animals perceive any qualities that are not 

 perceived by us. He does not believe that any animal 

 knows what herbs are poisonous, except through expe- 

 rience during former generations, by which an inherited 

 association or instinct has been acquired against any 

 particular herb. Quatrefages admits the view of the author 

 to a certain extent, and in some cases he believes it to be 

 necessary to admit the intervention of instinct, but he is evi- 

 dently very doubtful on the subject. Richardson doubts the 

 assertion altogether that animals resort to earths or mineral 

 waters as remedies. He also doubts whether animals avoid 

 poisonous vegetables, except in instances where the sub- 

 stances they refuse are distinctly odorous. He adds that 

 the evidence on the subject in favour of the animal over 

 the man is very small when it is carefully analysed ; and 

 certainly in regard to the avoidance of poisons by the 

 inferior animals, the faculty, "as he found by direct 

 observation, is extremely limited." It extends only to 

 the detection of odorous substances. Wallace believes 

 that the statement as made by the author is " unfounded 

 and erroneous." Lubbock doubts whether the word 

 knowledge can be applied to animals, but agrees that 

 their senses are " in some respects more acute ; also, 

 perhaps, very different from ours." 



These are negative or opposing views to those expressed 

 by Dr. Harris himself on the subject of the special 

 faculties of the inferior animals. But he adds the opinions 

 of other authors which go with his own on the point, and 

 in some instances are more determinately expressed. The 

 late Mr. Alfred Smee, Mr. Serjeant Cox, Dr. Carter 

 Blake, and Mr. Wood are on the side of our author. 



We have selected but one example of this incidental 

 inflow of thought from other minds into Mr. Harris's 

 pages. We could have found many more illustrations, 

 some of which are of equal interest, and we have no 

 doubt that in a future day, when all the writers are silent, 

 as, alas ! some already are, these footnotes will be quoted — 

 as extracts from letters of past men are quoted now— as 

 evidences of thought quite unpremeditated, but still as 

 correct reflexes of the minds that gave them forth. 



We turn to the chapter on " The Faculty of Genius," 

 in the third book as a good illustrative type of the 

 chapters generally. Dr. Harris here strives to fix a 

 definition to the word genius. In accordance with his 

 rule, he gives the definitions of many scholars and meta- 

 physicians respecting genius, and thereupon he adds his 

 own definition. " The faculty of genius," he says, " may 

 be defined to be that power of the mind whereby it is 

 able to produce results which cannot be attained by the 

 common and ordinary faculties for receiving knowledge 

 and reasoning upon it." Genius, therefore, produces 

 results which no^exercise.of common or ordinary faculties, 



however energetically they may be employed, could pro- 

 duce — results which are quite beyond the sphere of such 

 ordinary faculties, " and of a nature altogether different 

 from anything produced by them." " Thus," he continues) 

 "while by understanding and reason we receive ideas and 

 compare them, by genius we are enabled to create them 

 anew altogether, through the original combinations which 

 we accomplish. While the former faculties only enable 

 us to import and to select our wares, the latter enables us 

 to make them ourselves." 



From this definition the author proceeds to state that 

 the faculty of genius, like that of understanding and 

 reason, will be found to be constituted of certain inde- 

 pendent capacities. These he classifies under different 

 heads, viz., the capacity for wit ; the capacity for taste ; 

 the capacity of organisation ; and the illustration of the 

 nature of these capacities, under the last of which heads 

 there is appended a most interesting note by De Sainte 

 Croix. Further on he writes under other heads, on the 

 distinctive functions, operations and appliances of each 

 of the different capacities of genius ; the corresponding 

 characters in the action of each of these capacities ; on 

 art as the especial province of the faculty of genius ; on 

 the extent and limit of the operations of genius. 



Here, in summary, is the scope of this essay of our 

 author on genius. From his point of view, that genius 

 is a special faculty belonging to a particular class of men, 

 it is an admirable treatise in itself. It ought to have 

 been supplemented by a special chapter on genius in 

 relation to families and races, without which chapter it 

 may be considered, by some, to be diffuse, uncemented, 

 and unsymmelrical ; an edifice that may easily fall down 

 and is not artistically laid out. For all that it is a com- 

 manding construction, wanting in genius but elaborate in 

 labour. It is, in fact, a striking illustration of one of the 

 author's own definitions. The best part of the essay is that 

 in which the attempt is made to prove that the faculty of 

 genius is especially connected with art. It will occur to 

 all who think on this matter that there is in the idea a 

 subject for careful consideration. If it should be true, 

 the admission of its truth would lead to considerable 

 modification in historical appreciations of work in 

 science. It strikes us at once, as we glance back at the 

 history of science, that the true men of genius in science 

 have all been strongly imbued with artistic feeling and 

 knowledge, and it strikes us also that some men who are 

 known only as artists in literature or painting, or other 

 true art, have made very singular and original contri- 

 butions to science. But the theme is too fruitful of 

 suggestion to be followed out here. We leave it for the 

 study of those who have leisure as well as learning. 



We replace Dr. Harris's volumes on our shelves in a 

 convenient place for handy reference, and we commend 

 others who have to think, write, and speak on the subjects 

 submitted for study to do the same. They will often find 

 the matter most useful as well as interesting, and although 

 at times they may wish that the exposition had been less 

 laboured, they will be grateful to an author who has 

 spared neither time, nor labour, nor expense, to give them 

 " the work of his life." We add, without hesitation, that 

 Dr. Harris's work, though it be little read in this age 

 of luxurious reading, will remain to be read as one of the 

 solid and enduring additions to English learned literature. 



