LITERARY NOTICES. 



505 



a " bias," let us see what others say about 

 it. The British Quarterly Review observes : 

 " No words are needed to indicate the im- 

 mense labor here bestowed, or the great 

 sociological benefit which such a mass of 

 tabulated matter, done under such compe- 

 tent direction, will confer. The work will 

 constitute an epoch in the science of com- 

 parative sociology." 



The able London correspondent of the 

 Iribune says of the work : " The arrange- 

 ment of the whole is so clear that the least 

 scientific student in search of a fact will 

 have no difficulty in putting his finger on 

 what he wants. . . . The work is a gigantic 

 one ; its value, when complete, will be im- 

 measurable ; and its actual influence on the 

 study of sociology, and help to that study, 

 greater perhaps than any book yet pub- 

 lished. It is a cyclopaedia of Social Sci- 

 ence, but a cyclopaedia edited by the great- 

 est of sociologists." 



Mr. E. B. Tylor, author of " Primitive 

 Culture," and one of the highest English 

 authorities upon the study of the early de- 

 velopment of soeiety, writes, in Nature of 

 October 30th : " So much information en- 

 cumbered with so little rubbish, has never 

 before been brought to bear on the devel- 

 opment of English institutions. There is 

 hardly a living student but will gain some- 

 thing by looking through the compilation 

 which relates to his own special subject, 

 whether this be law or morals, education or 

 theology, the division of labor, or the rise 

 of modern scientific ideas." 



We can give no better general account 

 of Spencer's work than to quote more fully 

 from this review of it by Mr. Tylor : 



" This first section is a methodical sum- 

 mary of the development of England, intel- 

 lectual and moral, from the beginning of its 

 history in Caesar's time, to about a. d. 1850. 

 At the first glance, it suggests a question 

 which may disconcert not a few of the lect- 

 urers and tutors engaged in training stu- 

 dents in history at our universities. This 

 question is, whether the ethnological record 

 of national life ought any longer to be treated 

 as subordinate to the political record of the 

 succession of rulers and the struggles for 

 supremacy of ruling families, or whether the 

 condition of society at its successive periods 

 is for the future to be considered as the 



main subject, only marked out chronologi- 

 cally by reigns, battles, and treaties. This 

 question has, it is true, been already raised. 

 It is, in fact, the issue between historical 

 chronicle and the philosophy of history as 

 rival subjects of study. But Mr. Spencer's 

 work brings it more clearly and practically 

 into view than any previous one, as will be 

 seen from the following outline of his 

 scheme. It consists of two parts. 



41 The first part is a series of tables, ar- 

 ranged in thirty to thirty-five columns, each 

 with a heading of some department of so- 

 cial life or history, which again are com- 

 bined into groups. Thus the group of col- 

 umns relating to the structure of society 

 takes in political, ecclesiastical, and cere- 

 monial departments, under which again we 

 find separately given the laws of marriage 

 and inheritance, the regulation of tribes and 

 castes, the military and ecclesiastical organ- 

 ization, and the ceremonies and customs of 

 daily life. Next, the group of columns de- 

 voted to the functions of society, regulative 

 and operative, contains particulars of the 

 morals, religion, and knowledge of each 

 age, the state of language, and the details 

 of industry, commerce, habitations, food, 

 clothing, and artistic products. Three spe- 

 cial columns at the beginning, middle, and 

 end of this long colonnade, contain the skel- 

 eton of ordinary history : namely, the prin- 

 cipal dates, names of rulers, and political 

 events. Thus, by glancing across any one 

 of the huge double pages, we see the whole 

 condition of England at any selected period. 

 Thus, in the century after the Norman Con- 

 quest, the influence of the invaders is ob- 

 served in the growth of architecture, paint- 

 ing, music, poetry, the introduction of new 

 food and more luxurious living, the importa- 

 tion of canonical law and of mathematics 

 from the East, and so on through all the man- 

 ifold elements which made up the life of no- 

 ble and villain in our land. If the page be 

 turned to the sixteenth century, the picture 

 of English life is not less distinct. The scho- 

 lastic philosophy is dying out, men's minds 

 are newly set to work by the classical re- 

 vival, by voyages into new regions, the 

 growth of mercantile adventure and politi- 

 cal speculation ; chivalry ceases, archery de- 

 clines; judicial torture is introduced, the 

 'Italian' crime of poisoning becomes fre- 



