REVIEWS AND BOOK NOTICES. ` 229 
brings forth more facts for the theory, now established, that man’s 
original condition was one of barbarism— one, in which, the bes- 
tial predominated. This theory, in fact, needs no further demon- 
stration, and may be said to be accepted by the scientific world. 
The essence of the argument of the first two essays is that man 
early secured a modicum of law, as shown in selecting one as a 
leader ; and as that tended to bind together each little community, 
so it became powerful and warred successfully with the neighbor- 
ing men, who were held in no restraint, by the natural selection of 
one of superior parts, who would be a leader, by the admiration 
he caused among his fellows.* 
When this “law” was powerful enough to make men mere fac- 
similes of other men, progress was at an end—the imperfectly 
developed civilization crystallized. ‘‘ Progress,” he says “is only 
possible in those happy cases where the force of legality has gone 
far enough to bind the nation together, but not far enough to kill 
out all the varieties and destroy nature’s perpetual tendency to 
change.” 
This argumentation is carried out more fully in the following 
chapters on ‘‘ Nation making ” and the ‘Age of Discussion ;” an 
as the author never loses sight of the theory of evolution, ‘‘ which, 
if it be not proved conclusively, has great probability and great 
scientific analogy in its favor,” it is interesting and instructive to 
the scientific reader to see these principles, whicł are so gener- 
ally applied to mere genera and species, successfully, we think, 
handled in the elucidation of some puzzling anthropological prob- 
lems.—C. C. A 
Porutar Science Montuty.t—After carefully reading this jour- 
nal, since its first appearance nearly a year ago, we can say that 
it is doing a good work for science in this country by commending 
the labors of scientific men, and raising the minds of the laity into 
. the scientific atmosphere. Scientific thought is something distinct 
from the average thought of our age and people, whether expressed 
* Mr. Bagshot only pepi to oe how the various nations may have arisen, 
and not how the well worked s became so distinctly characteristic as they are. 
This subject he touches upon, we only to refer to it ere seems much probability 
_ however in the suggestion, that — selection, in races, as in sones produced ar 
ifferences as they now exist, but it may be, at an earlier period, when mankind w 
e e. 
t Popular Science Monthly. Conducted by E. L. Youmans. New York; D. 
Kosten &Co. 8yo. Each number 128 pp. With illustrations. 
