April I, 1875] 



NATURE 



423 



study of phenomena for the very sufficient reason that 

 they can never get at anything else. In justice to the 

 author, however, it must be said that he several times 

 gives pretty distinct e\'idence that he has never quite 

 grasped the question at issue between our modern realists 

 and idealists. Compare the following sentences with the 

 one just criticised : — " Light, heat, electricity, force, as 

 studied by physicists, are noii-phciio))tcnal powers, and the 

 object of science is to ascertain their laws and relations." 

 " Realism, as found in Herbert Spencer, (?«(/ ^.r supported 

 by recent in-:.'estii;ations of science, demands a belief in 

 real objective non-phenomenal forces." Mr. Jardine does 

 not tell us. and we cannot conceive, what recent scientific 

 investigations he could have been thinking of; but that he 

 should suppose that Mr. Spencer's doctrine of the unknow- 

 able could be supported by any recent discoveries, or by 

 anything ever to be discovered, shows conclusively that 

 he has still to learn what that doctrine really is. 



We agree with Mr. Jardine in rejecting the idealism of 

 Mr. Mill ; and we must say that some of Mr. Jardine's 

 criticisms are very happy. Here is an example. Mr. 

 Mill says that the possibilities of sensation that make up 

 a given group " are conceived as standing to the actual 

 sensations in the relation of a cause to its effects." On 

 this Mr. Jardine remarks : " We have, for example, the 

 sensation of a particular figured colour, which is asso- 

 ciated with the name orange. Connected with this sensa- 

 tion there are a number of possible sensations of smell, 

 taste, touch, sound, &c. The possibility of those sensa- 

 tions is the cause of tht colour. What does this mean ? 

 Is the possibility of a smell the cause of a colour ? Is the 

 possibility of a taste the cause of a colour? Oris the 

 possibility of all the other sensations of the group taken 

 together the cause of colour ? " No doubt some of Mr. 

 Mill's disciples may object that Mr. Jardine has misunder- 

 stood Mr. Mill ; they will, however, find it hard to give 

 any definite meaning to the words of their master without 

 either making him a realist or letting in some such criti- 

 cism as the above. 



But though we cannot always agree with Mr. Mill, we 

 can never think of him without feelings of profound ad- 

 miration and respect. We have therefore no sympathy 

 with Mr. Jardine when he tells us how easy it is " to show 

 the absurdity " of Mr. Mill's attempt to explain our notion 

 of extension. A more modest self-appreciation in the 

 presence of Mr. Mill would have been becoming ; the 

 more so as Mr. Jardine has none of that cleverness of ex- 

 pression which may at times do something to cover the 

 audacity of the critic. Mr. Mill will not fall before the 

 word " absurdity ", ; and Mr. G. H. Lewes will not be 

 seriously damaged by being loosely classed with " a set 

 of visionary speculators called phrenologists," who, acting 

 upon a " hasty and crude hypothesis," have made a very 

 great blunder. 



There only remains to say that Mr. Jardine seems to be 

 himself unacquainted with the psychology' of our own 

 day. He may sneer at Mr. Lewes for giving " promi- 

 nence to the study of physiology as a means of becoming 

 acquainted with mental laws," but if he would entitle him- 

 self even to a hearing, he must, as a first condition, make 

 himself master of the knowledge that has been laboriously 

 acquired by the school of investigators to which Mr. 

 I^wes belongs. Douglas A. Sp.^lding 



WHITE'S "SELBORNE" 

 Whites Natural Histtry of Selborne. Edited by J. E. 

 Harting, F.L.S. Illustrated by Bewick. (London : 

 Bickers and Co., 1875.) 



ALTHOUGH we have no evidence that, within the 

 last century, there has been any considerable 

 change in the average standard of human mental power 

 amongst civilised nations, the surroundings of every-day 

 life have so greatly altered, both in their quality and in the 

 rapidity of their occurrence, that the standard of ordinary 

 existence has undergone a corresponding modification. 

 The introduction of steam locomotion, the electric tele- 

 graph, and the penny post have developed such a condi- 

 tion of unrest in humanity at large that the unalloyed 

 repose of a continuous rural life is rarely sought for, and 

 as infrequently obtainable. We can hardly conceive it 

 possible that anyone, such as a life-fellow of a college, 

 as was Gilbert White, of Oriel, Oxford, should at the pre- 

 sent day settle down in any out-of-the-way part of the 

 country, satisfied with nothing more than an opportunity 

 of observing and recording the surrounding phenomena 

 of nature. More would be expected of him, and he would 

 be continually led to feel that he was but one of the 

 instances of the vegetating influence of an antiquated 

 system, whose advantages were being daily disproved by 

 his individual existence. 



The same influences have affected the mental world. 

 Facts have a less intrinsic value than they used to have 

 in the time of Gilbert White, the Addison of natural 

 phenomena. More must now be extracted from them in 

 their mutual relations. They must be manipulated into 

 the web of some inclusive hypothesis, or otherwise they 

 may as well die an unrecorded death, because their inde- 

 pendence only helps to block the already but too narrow 

 path which leads towards omniscience. In this period of 

 revulsion against encyclopedic knowledge, a remark by 

 the author of the work before us, when writing of the otter, 

 indicates a tenour of thought which is antiquated, to say 

 the least. " Not supposing ,that we had any of those 

 beasts in our shallow brooks, I was much pleased to see a 

 male otter brought to me, weighing twenty-one pounds, 

 that had been shot on the bank of our stream below the 

 Priory, where the rivulet divides the parish of Selborne 

 from Harteley Wood." No inference is drawn, no com- 

 ment made ; whence the source of pleasure 'i 



We cannot well conceive a more efficient editor, at the 

 present time, than Mr. Harting. That author's consider- 

 able experience and his great love for the study of the 

 ornithic fauna of the British Isles has already made his 

 name well known in connection with the birds which 

 reside amongst us, and thos(5 which visit our shores. He 

 also tells us in his preface, as may be equally well inferred 

 from his annotations throughout the work, that he is well 

 acquainted with the neighbourhood of Selborne, which 

 enables him to correct a few of Gilbert White's inaccu- 

 racies, and bring to the foreground those slight changes 

 in the fauna and flora of the district which have occurred 

 smce the book was originally written. Amongst the latter, 

 special attention is directed to the reintroduction into 

 Wolmer Forest, by Sir Charles Taylor, of black game, 

 " which I (Gilbert White) have heard old people say 

 abounded much before shooting flying became so com- 



