4 86 
Analyses of Books . 
[August, 
That the author is not an admirer of the morbid, one-sided com- 
mercialism of the present day may be learnt from this passage, 
which we cordially endorse : — 
“ Our economical system aims more at the creation of wealth 
than the making of men. No doubt we might lose much in pro- 
ductive power by a general liability to military service, as is 
customary in Germany, but what we lost in wealth we might 
gain in health and happiness. We turn our men into tailors and 
men-milliners, and keep them to occupations behind the counter 
fit only for women, but it would tend greatly to the development 
of both their physical and mental powers if they were trained to 
handle the sword and rifle. 
“ The attention given in this country is too exclusive, and a 
term of military service might well supplement the ordinary 
education, and give to Anglo-Saxon liberty what it most wants 
— a power of obedience, order, and organisation. . . . All 
moral advance must be based upon impoved physical conditions.” 
In this connection we may refer to the “ Man of the Future,” 
described in a contemporary by Mr. E. Kay Robinson as “ a 
toothless, hairless, slow-limbed animal, incapable of extended 
locomotion and a lover of peace at any price.” Unless all 
.nations were to move in this direction at an equal speed the 
more “ advanced” will infallibly be extirpated. 
Mr. Bray raises a question as to the cessation of progress in 
the civilization of the Far East. We think the answer may be 
found in the character of Chinese education, which for many 
centuries has been exclusively literary and examinational. For 
centuries minds have been gauged not by their power of origina- 
tion, of adding to human knowledge, or of applying such know- 
ledge in possible emergencies, but by their receptivity, their 
power of appropriating, retaining, and answering questions in 
the thoughts and sayings of others. When our Civil Service 
Commissioners, our Department of Science and Art, and our 
examining Universities have been at work for a sufficient time, 
we, too, as a nation shall have become stereotyped. 
There are some five-and-twenty more passages which we 
should have been happy to examine in detail did space allow, 
including such subjects as missing links, hard water, euthanasia, 
vegetarianism, woman’s rights, soul-emanations, protoplasm, 
the “ Caucasian” race, the smell of the insane, and the subjec- 
tivity of matter. That there are in the book certain statements 
not in harmony with the latest results of scientific investigation 
must be admitted. But the omission or the correction of these 
errors would not essentially modify the character of the book. 
The author’s attempt to apply the principle of the Conserva- 
tion of Energy to so-called moral questions has not, in his 
hands, led as yetjto any fruitful results, yet his attempt is worthy 
of careful re-consideration. In such an undertaking, success like 
the olive tree, typical plant of Pallas, will not reach maturity 
