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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



there can be much difference in their variety. 

 Mr. Galton's inquiries, as a whole, can be 

 hardly regarded as more than pioneer work, 

 the determinate and accurate results of which 

 have yet to be brought out. The conclu- 

 sions, he remarks, "depend on ideas that 

 must first be well comprehended, and which 

 are now novel to the large majority of read- 

 ers, and unfamiliar to all. But those who 

 care to brace themselves to a sustained effort, 

 need not feel much regret that the road to 

 be traveled over is indirect, and does not 

 admit of being mapped beforehand in a way 

 they can clearly understand. It is full of 

 interest of its own. It familiarizes us with 

 the measurement of variability, and with cu- 

 rious laws of chance that apply to a vast di- 

 versity of social subjects. This part of the 

 inquiry may be said to run along a road on 

 a high level, that affords wide views in un- 

 expected directions, and from which easy 

 descents may be made to totally different 

 goals from those we have now to reach." 



The Critical Period of American Histort. 

 1783-1789. By John Fiske. Boston: 

 Houghton, Mifflin & Co. Pp.368. Price, 



$2. 



On hearing the news of the treaty which 

 ended the Revolutionary War, Thomas Paine 

 stopped the publication of " The Crisis," de- 

 claring, " The times that tried men's souls 

 are over." So far from this being the case, 

 Prof. Fiske says, " The most trying time of 

 all was just beginning. It is not too much 

 to say that the period of five years following 

 the peace of 1*783 was the most critical mo- 

 ment in all the history of the American peo- 

 ple." The American commonwealth was 

 then a tender plant, beset by many and va- 

 ried dangers, and only the most judicious 

 management could have preserved its life 

 until it had taken firm root. Prof. Fiske in 

 his first chapter recounts the negotiations at 

 Paris in 1782 and 1783 in regard to the 

 treaty of peace, giving especial attention to 

 King George's troubles with his successive 

 cabinets, and their bearing on the questions 

 at issue. This is followed by a survey of 

 the changes in forms of government, and in" 

 regard to the succession of property, slavery, 

 and church establishment made by the thir- 

 teen commonwealths in consequence of ob- 

 taining independence of England. The next 



two chapters tell of the obstacles thrown in 

 the path of Congress by the discontent of 

 the unpaid army ; by the unwillingness of the 

 people to pay taxes for the support of the 

 General Government, or to pay their debts to 

 British creditors ; by their jealousy of any 

 semblance to royal power or hereditary privi- 

 lege; by the commercial hostility between 

 the States, and State quarrels over conflict- 

 ing boundary claims ; by the poverty of the 

 country and the confusion of the currency 

 — until finally insurrections in some of the 

 States forced upon a majority of the people 

 the conviction that something must be done, 

 and done quickly. The author then shows 

 how a spirit favorable to strengthening the 

 national Government grew out of various oc- 

 currences. One of these was the settlement 

 of the conflicting claims of the States to lands 

 west of the Alleghanies by the surrender of 

 all these claims to the United States ; an- 

 other was a difficulty with Spain in regard to 

 the navigation of the lower Mississippi. The 

 convention which drew up the new Consti- 

 tution was led up to in a most cautious way. 

 " At first," says Prof. Fiske, " it was to be 

 just a little meeting of two or three States to 

 talk about the Potomac River and some pro- 

 jected canals " ; then commissioners from all 

 the States were invited to be present and dis- 

 cuss some uniform system of legislation on 

 the subjeet of trade ; and, finally, the plan for 

 a convention to devise provisions " to render 

 the Constitution of the Federal Government 

 adequate to the exigencies of the Union" 

 was officially adopted by Congress. 



The story of the work done by the Fed- 

 eral Convention forms the chief chapter of 

 the volume, and is told in a way to show the 

 interactions of the opposing and diverging 

 forces whose resultant was the Constitution 

 of the United States. Then follows an ac- 

 count of the discussion and ratification of 

 the document by the several States, and the 

 election and inauguration of Washington as 

 President, and the critical period of Ameri- 

 can history was safely passed. Prof. Fiske 

 offers his book to the student of American 

 history, not as a complete summary of the 

 events of the period which it covers, nor as 

 a discussion of the political questions in- 

 volved in them, but rather as a grouping of 

 the main facts in such a way as to bring out 

 their causal sequence. 



