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SCIENCE. 



[Vol. X. No. 243 



scientific aspect of these problems. He writes well, says some 

 things very forcibly, but repeats himself ad tiauseam, crowds his 

 pages with commonplaces, and warps his exposition by an irrele- 

 vant and forced introduction of religious considerations. With 

 this survey of the strength and the weakness of the work, a glimpse 

 at its contents will be in order. 



In the introductory chapters, on the nature and the function of 

 thought, the only point of note is, that, while the author fully recog- 

 nizes the significance of mind in animals for the understanding of 

 mind in man, he erects a barrier between them which the evolu- 

 tionary point of view demanded by the topic finds inconsistent. 

 This distinction between a lower and a higher field of thought, — 

 the two sharply defined, — while of advantage in accenting the pe- 

 culiarity of human evolution, is yet a decided hinderance to the tak- 

 ing of that general point of view which imbues mental evolution 

 with a larger interest. Hereupon follow a chapter on language, 

 and one on temper, containing much sound advice, but nothing 

 noteworthy. The next four chapters aim to justify the titlepage, 

 and deal respectively with babyhood, infancy, childhood, and youth. 

 The characteristics of each of these periods are pleasingly sketched ; 

 but the sketch is incomplete, and dwells in a disproportionate man- 

 ner upon the moral-religious side of the question. He believes in 

 the careful training of children from their first days ; denounces the 

 practice of giving children to the care of ignorant nurses when they 

 are supposed not to be affected by their surroundings, but are 

 really forming habits of character for ill or good. A very apt say- 

 ing is the author's remark that much that is learned in childhood is 

 not taught, and much that is taught is not learned. And the reason 

 for this he rightly finds in the fact that the child, in his own ac- 

 quisitions, discovers (by repeated trial and failure, it is true) the 

 natural mode of learning, with interest, timeliness, utility, and at- 

 tractiveness to help him ; while the teacher too often accentuates 

 the artificiality of his task. 



The latter half of the volume is devoted to chapters on the 

 habit of thought, on the control of the thinking faculty, on 

 memory, on judgment, on inherited capabilities, and on the 

 early training of the mind, and, to a much too large extent, is a 

 repetition of the first half of the book. In the chapter on in- 

 herited capabilities the writer exhibits a tendency which he has 

 in common with other thinkers of the day. The writers in ques- 

 tion are unwilling to dispense with the rich suggestiveness of the 

 evolutionary point of view, and the light shed upon mental phe- 

 nomena by the consideration of their physical substrata, but are 

 equally unwilling to give up the general theories — partly religious 

 and partly not — inculcated in their early training, but really in- 

 compatible with a consistent evolutionary treatment. The result is 

 at times a curious mixture. The arbitrary curtailing of the evolu- 

 tionary principle at one point, and an omission to carry to its full 

 consequence the general principle with which it is at variance, give 

 the appearance of a harmony which a deeper consideration shows 

 to be due, not to the fact that the two lines do not run in opposite 

 directions, but that they have been carefully kept from meeting. 

 Mr. Wall is afraid, that, if we admit that our moral and other quali- 

 ties are to some extent hereditary, this will loosen the bonds of re- 

 sponsibility, and do other moral havoc (a fear, by the way, not at 

 all justified by the history of morality, which clearly shows that 

 new duties follow in the wake of new knowledge), and so refuses 

 to accept the doctrine. In this attempted refutal he draws heavily 

 on preconception instead of on logic and fact. He boldly an- 

 nounces that the child before birth has no life at all, a statement 

 which no biologist will accept ; speaks of ' phrenology ' as though 

 it were adhered to by scientific men ; raises the will into a meta- 

 physical entity, and makes it dominate the reason (as though the 

 former were not a brain quality in the same sense as that in which 

 he acknowledges the latter to be) ; and refers what we usually call 

 inheritance to early educational influence and the different use of 

 faculties originally alike. In short, the chapter lamentably illus- 

 trates the hopelessness of serving two masters. 



To leave the reader with a brief verdict of the book, let it be said 

 that it will be suggestive to those interested in this line of thought, 

 but cannot be recommended to those desirous of learning in a 

 short time the modern view of this problem ; but with this verdict 

 one must remember the inherent difficulty of the problem, and the 



fact that the author pleads temporary blindness as an excuse for 

 the literary shortcomings of the work. 



Public Debts. An Essay in the Science of Finance. By Henry 

 C. Adams, Ph.D. New York, Appleton. 8°. 



Political economy in the United States appears to have fol- 

 lowed the order of development which Auguste Comte maintained 

 was the law of evolution for all science. We have first the ' theo- 

 logical' stage of science. Certain a priori ideas regarding the 

 nature of Deity serve as premises from which conclusions are 

 drawn regarding the phenomena of the industrial world. Carey 

 gives an example of this when he argues from the goodness of God 

 that the Malthusian theory cannot be true. Perry's ' Text-Book 

 of Political Economy ' is, however, the best illustration in current 

 economic literature of what is meant by the theological stage of 

 science. 



The second stage in the evolution of science was called by 

 Comte the ' metaphysical.' A priori ideas still furnish premises 

 for conclusions, but they are not theological : rather are they hypo- 

 theses concerning the mind of man and the material universe, 

 which have been derived from processes of reflection. Facts are 

 made to square with theories ; and in case they cannot be made to 

 do this, why — "so much the worse for the facts." The English 

 orthodox political economy was well described by Comte's meta- 

 physical stage of science ; and with the theological political econ- 

 omy this held sway — almost undisputed sway — in the United 

 States until some fifteen years ago. Its most distinguished repre- 

 sentatives declared that it was not eager for facts, because it was 

 in possession of general principles which explained the facts. 



The third stage of knowledge Comte called the ' positive.' This 

 deals with phenomena, grouping and arranging these. Comte's de- 

 scription of the progress of science is, I believe,, now allowed to be 

 faulty in its details, even by his most ardent admirers; but, on the 

 other hand, those who are not his followers can scarcely deny the 

 correctness with which he laid down certain main lines along 

 which human knowledge has advanced, from the time when 

 Socrates urged his disciples to give up empty speculations about the 

 heavenly bodies for an observation of human phenomena, up to 

 the present. The remarkable development of economic and social 

 science in the United States, now attracting attention in Europe 

 as well as in our own country, is due to a change of method and of 

 purpose, both admirably illustrated in the present work on public 

 debts. Professor Adams examines the facts of our economic his- 

 tory, and from them he draws conclusions respecting a sound 

 financial policy for our Federal government, our States, and our 

 municipalities. The older method would have been to search our 

 history for facts to bolster up certain theories assumed before the 

 book was begun. A change in purpose is as important as one in 

 method. The change in purpose to which I allude is this : the 

 tendency of modern economists is to renounce the position of mere 

 advocates, — almost universally assumed by the older economists, 

 — and to search for truth, like other scientific men, regardless of 

 consequences. The old idea of the duty of an economist was that 

 he must combat heresy, whereas heresy is something unknown to 

 science. Clark's ' Philosophy of Wealth ' and James's ' Relation 

 of the Modern Municipality to the Gas-Supply,' both of which have 

 been reviewed in Science, may be cited as other illustrations of the 

 most recent tendencies in American economics. 



The scope of this admirable work can be most readily gathered 

 from the titles of the parts and chapters into which it is divided. Part 

 I. treats of public borrowing as a financial policy ; Part II., of na- 

 tional deficit financiering; Part III., of local deficit financiering. 

 The opening chapter of Part I. first brings before the reader most 

 vividly the facts in regard to the growth of public debts ; and it is 

 certain that few will read these pages without gaining a new idea 

 of the tremendous significance of this factor in modern industrial 

 life. Professor Adams opens his book with these words : " The 

 civiUzed governments of the present day are resting under a burden 

 of indebtedness computed at $27,000,000,000. This sum, which 

 does not include local obligations of any sort, constitutes a mort- 

 gage of §722 upon each square mile of territoiy overwhich the bur- 

 dened governments extend their jurisdiction, and shows z.per capita 

 indebtedness of $23 upon their subjects. The total amount of na- 



