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Darker Shadows : 
[May, 
III. DARKER SHADOWS: A SOCIOLOGICAL 
STUDY.* 
By E. S. 
[We cannot allow the following article to appear without a 
prefatory tribute to our departed friend and contributor, Dr. 
G. M. Beard. Differing from him — and agreeing to differ — 
on points neither few nor trifling, we always found in his 
writings subjects for grave, and we trust not unprofitable, 
reflection. He was one of that rare class of thinkers who 
discuss matters to which the world is glad to close its eyes, 
and who dare to utter their thoughts. Few men would, 
like to him, have ventured to tell the American people that 
Guiteau was not a criminal to be punished, but an irre- 
sponsible lunatic to be placed in safe keeping. Fewer still 
would have presumed to say that America, and to some 
extent the whole civilised world, in seeking to make every 
man, woman, and child an expert in politics, is sapping the 
very vitality of the human race. George Beard was a man 
whom we could ill afford to lose, and whose early death we 
bitterly regret. — The Editor.] 
S ARKER shadows ? Two months ago it was my lot 
to point out an ethnological phenomenon boding evil 
for the great English-speaking community across 
the Atlantic. It is now my yet more unpleasant task to 
discuss a calamity which has already begun, and which 
affedts America, Britain, and all civilised portions of the 
earth, almost exactly in proportion to their civilisation. 
There are few educated persons who have not read, in 
part at least, the memorable speech delivered by Mr. Herbert 
Spencer at the close of his visit to the United States. Few, 
however, are aware how closely this startling oration ap- 
proached in its leading views the teachings of the late Dr. 
G. M. Beard. The last work of the distinguished neurolo- 
gist whom we have so lately lost pointed out these approaches 
as a singular coincidence. It contains, in parallel columns, 
passages taken from Mr. Spencer’s speech and extracts from 
* Herbert Spencer on American Nervousness : a Scientific Coincidence. 
By G. M. Beard, A.M., M.D. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 
