570 



SCWNCE. 



[Vol. VIII., No. 202 



to the facts and arguments which have been 

 brought forward in opposition to it. That among 

 the greater number of tribes which have been 

 found in the lowest stage of savagery, no trace of 

 marriage by capture has been discovered ; that 

 among such tribes female infanticide is by no 

 means a common practice ; and that, on the con- 

 trary, female children are regarded by their par- 

 ents as a source of wealth, through the price 

 which they bring for wives, — these and similar 

 facts seem to prove that the custom, of which 

 the author has pointed out so many widely scat- 

 tered traces, did not originate in any general law 

 of social organization, but was, like polygamy, 

 polyandry, the North American clan-system, the 

 Australian class-system, the Hindoo caste-system, 

 the Roman paternal autocracy, and the many 

 other social arrangements which have been pressed 

 into the argument, merely a casual and local cus- 

 tom, — one of those numberless diversities of 

 tribal organization, which, like the diversities of 

 language, indicate at once the variety of the 

 human faculties and the unity of the species. 

 The conclusion announced by Darwin, that all the 

 races of men are descended from a common an- 

 cestry, and that all inherit the ordinary pairing 

 instinct, — which, however perverted in occa- 

 sional instances, manifests itself distinctly in the 

 vast majority of communities, savage and civil- 

 ized alike, — is one which will doubtless be gener- 

 ally accepted in the end. The theories which 

 oppose this conclusion destroy one another ; and 

 the results of the profoundest science bring us 

 back to the common belief which prevailed before 

 the theorizers began their work. H. Hale. 



STEPHENS'S HISTORY OF THE FRENCH 

 REVOLUTION. 



The literature of the French revolution would 

 in itself compose a library, and Mr. Morse Stephens 

 naturally begins his preface with an excuse for 

 adding another history to a list 'which includes 

 such names as Thiers, Taine, and Carlyle. In a 

 masterly survey of his authorities he shows, that, 

 since Carlyle wrote, our sources of information 

 have been materially increased ; that a number of 

 local records and personal memoirs have come to 

 light ; and he lays particular stress on a collection 

 of pamphlets in the British museum which Carlyle 

 found to be inaccessible. Briefly, Mr. Stephens 

 has spent untiring labor on the subject for years 

 past, ' to the exclusion of every thing else,' and 

 he aims at embodying in this volume the results 

 of specialist researches. He notes in this con- 

 nection the influence of the German school of 



A history of the French revolution. By H. Mohse 

 Stephens. Vol.i. New York, /Sci-«6?ier, 1886. la". 



historians, — an influence, by the way, which is 

 discernible in the increasing study of parochial 

 and diocesan history in England, and in the rise 

 of historical magazines and reviews such as the 

 monthly Revolution Frangaise and Revue de la 

 revolution, which are entirely devoted to the 

 history of the revolution. 



Mr. Stephens introduces his work to the Ameri- 

 can public in a separate preface, in the course of 

 which he remarks that the example of American 

 independence was a more powerful ideal with the 

 earlier revolutionists, the admirers of Lafayette 

 and Franklin, while the later leaders sought in- 

 spiration from the republics of Greece and Rome. 

 The Declaration of the rights of man he some- 

 what unfairly describes as a ' ridiculous fancy of 

 the admirers of the American constitution,' foisted 

 on the assembly by Lafayette. Surely the declara- 

 tion breathes the spirit of Rousseau, and, far- 

 fetched and extravagant as it may seem to us, it 

 was the gospel of the French revolution. 



While the conflict of king and subject was pass- 

 ing into the tyranny of the state, the questions, 

 raised were so varied and suggestive that the epoch 

 forms a kaleidoscope which can always be viewed 

 in a new aspect. Theorists had fuU sway, and 

 many of those great modern movements directed 

 against the constitution of society — movements 

 which have lately received a new impetus — were 

 inaugurated. Now that it is hinted that democ- 

 racy does not imply liberty, and that a new school 

 of ' physiocrats ' is growing up in the stronghold 

 of modern democracy, it will be useful to study 

 the experiments made by land and labor reformers 

 a century back. 



The plan of Mr. Stephens's work is simple and 

 effective. In the present volume he carries the 

 narrative from the assembly of the notables to 

 the dissolution of the constituent assembly, aptly 

 introducing sketches of important departments of 

 the subject, such as the court, the army, and the 

 church. There is no ' Carlylese ' or lurid color in 

 his description ; but if he does not write at high 

 pressure, 'flamefully,' he tells his story in clear 

 and straightforward English. Here and there oc- 

 curs a slovenly phrase, such as, " the influence of 

 the pariement and the affection has been noticed 

 when discussing " — but the style generally is at- 

 tractive by its simplicity and correctness. The 

 fall of the Bastile is told unobtrusively. We no- 

 tice that the celebrated speech, ' Paris has con- 

 quered her king,' is attributed to Lally Tollendal 

 instead of to Bailly, presumably on the authority 

 of the museum pamphlets. Bailly makes no men- 

 tion of it in his ' Memoirs.' 



I\Ir. Stephens is, we think, weakest in his esti- 

 mate of character. Study of Mirabeau's corre- 



