482 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. YI., No. 147 



taken a length of time of which we have no means 

 of getting an idea. But after this animal was 

 developed, the origins of the various great types 

 were not serial, but simultaneous. This animal 

 began to be modified in various du^ections to fit its 

 surroundings, and the result was a rapid diver- 

 gence of groups. SHght variations in these simple 

 types would cause the descendants of the various 

 lines to separate still further. We can therefore 

 imagine the Silurian times to be somewhat close 

 to the origin of life, and yet not be surprised at 

 the existence of all the greater divisions of the 

 animal kingdom, and many of the smaller ones. 

 We can also understand why it is that the develop- 

 ment of most groups since that time has resulted 

 chiefly in the increase of the abundance and 

 diversity of small branches. For the Gastrea, hav- 

 ing diverged into several great branches, has itself 

 disappeared as such, and can of course produce 

 no new sub-kingdoms. Development must now 

 take place within the branches, and must confine 

 itself to smaller and smaller particulars as evolu- 

 tion progresses. Modern embryology, therefore, 

 showing as it does the early divergence of the 

 great types, offers to us an explanation both for 

 the highly diversified fauna of the Silurian age, 

 and for the comparatively less importance of the 

 development that has taken place since that time, 

 even though post-Silurian times be recognized as 

 very much longer than pre-Silurian times. And 

 we are finally led to believe that the veitebrates 

 also were much more abundantly represented in 

 this fauna than the scanty remains hitherto dis- 

 covered would indicate. H. W. Conn. 



Wesleyan university, Middletown, Conn. 



POLITICAL SCIENCE IN FRANCE. 



As M. Donnat well remarks, politics in France 

 have been largely based on sentiment and abstract 

 reasoning rather than on the lessons derived from 

 observation. Frenchmen are confessedly adepts 

 in constitution-building, but so little acquainted 

 are they with the practical history of political 

 methods that they have not yet arrived at the 

 stage of regarding poHtics as an art, much less as 

 a science. It is well, therefore, to notice these two 

 works ^ as written in the spirit of comparative poli- 

 tics. M. Donnat maintains that there is a science 

 of politics whose principles are as unvarying and 

 determinate as the laws of the natural and physi- 

 cal sciences. A political solution may be com- 

 pared to the product of the two gases ia fixed 

 volumes to form the molecule of water ; nor is 



1 La politique experimentale. Par Leon Donnat. Paris, 

 Reinwald, 1885. 



Lettres sur la politique coloniale. By Yves Guyot. Paris, 

 Reinwald, 1885. 



there any higher power to introduce uncertainty 

 in the operations of political forces. This is no 

 new thought ; and if the English reader wishes to 

 understand the significance of such political in- 

 quiry, free, however, from the particular irreli- 

 gious character of M. Donnat's thinking, he is 

 already in possession of the suggestive work by 

 Sheldon Amos on ' The science of politics.' While 

 the latter has the advantage in philosophic treat- 

 ment of the subject, the former is more imperative 

 in his claims for the purely scientific nature of 

 pontics. He is constantly suggesting parallel 

 illustrations from the other sciences, and derives 

 much comfort from a contemplation of the 

 methods employed by Claude Bernard in his devel- 

 opment of the science of medicine. M. Donnat's 

 spirit of inquiry, nevertheless, is adinkable, and 

 one sure to be fruitful in its results. He is ani- 

 mated by the spirit v/hich prompted De Tocque- 

 ville, Comte, and Le Ploy. Like the first, he has 

 travelled much abroad ; and his knowledge of 

 English and American political life extends even 

 to the details of such legislation as our homestead 

 laws. In early life he hoped to find in Comte a 

 guide, but this master soon turned aside, and be- 

 came a divinity. In Le Ploy, also, he well-nigh 

 found a kindred sphit ; but, instead of persisting 

 in those remarkable studies of the civic and in- 

 dustrial institutions of European society, this pro- 

 found thinker also was drawn into immature syn- 

 thesis, in declaring that religion was indispensable 

 for private and public life. With M. Donnat it is 

 ever observation and experimentation in politics. 

 The former, on account of the complexity of polit- 

 ical phenomena and political Daltonism on the 

 part of the observer, is insufficient. It must be 

 supplemented with experiment. The great suc- 

 cess of the Swiss, English, and Americans has 

 been due to their adoption of this principle. Their 

 legislation is not only of local appHcation, but 

 hmited in time ; and the different legislative as- 

 semblies of England's colonies are compared to so 

 many pohtical laboratories. In France, however, 

 legislation is indiscriminating. The colonies have 

 no local voice. An enactment of the Palais- 

 Bourbon is as far-reaching in its provisions as the 

 limits of the most distant colonial possessions. 

 Nor is legislation of that tentative character which 

 should be the spirit of aU genuine scientific in- 

 quiry. The author, therefore, earnestly pleads 

 that France cut loose from its hard and fast 

 methods, and make trial of local and temporary 

 legislation. 



M. Guyot is even savage in his criticisms. The 

 arraignment of French colonial policy is exhaus- 

 tive in its details. The budgets and commercial 

 statistics of colony after colony are taken up and 



