material for experiment, he chose from the Shrewsbury orphan asylum two girls-one a blonde of twelve, whom he named "Sabrina. Sidney," the other a brunette, called "Lucretia." These neophytes he proposed to submit to a course of training of Spartan severity. Unhappily, "Sabrina" proved "invincibly stupid," and was placed with a milliner, "where she did well, and finally married a linen-draper." Day then took a house on Stow Hill and devoted himself to the training of "Lucretia." But as "she screamed when he fired pistols (only loaded with imaginary ball) at her petticoats, and started when he dropped melted sealing-wax on her arms, he judged her to fall below the right standard of stoicism." He finally married a Miss Esther Milnes, and gave further and most convincing proof of his eccentricity by insisting that "her fortune be placed beyond his control, that she might retreat from the experiment if it proved too painful." To Pierce Egan, author of "Life in London," "Boxiana," etc., was paid as sincere a compliment as was ever earned by the pen. It is related that Thurtell the murderer, just before his execution, said wistfully to his warders: "It is perhaps wrong for one in my situation, but I own I should like to read Pierce Egan's account of the great fight yesterday" -meaning the championship" battle" between Spring and Langan. One can imagine the poor wretch in Newgate, the fetters on his limbs, the death-watch round him, the chill London fog stealing in through the corridors, the awakening stir of preparation-sounds to which the knocking at the gate" in "Macbeth" were cheerful-begging for a last hour with his favorite author. Compared to this, Johnson's tribute to Burton is the damnation of faint praise.

"

But it is not as a chronicle of crime and eccentricity that we are to regard the work under review. Primarily, it is the object of theDictionary of National Biography" to set forth in unglossed narrative whatever is known or can be learned of Englishmen who have measurably contributed toward England's greatness whether it be in science, art, literature, or politics. It should be noted that-for the convenience of readers desiring specially minute information- -a full list of references is appended to each "life." Of the value of such a record to Americans one scarcely need speak; and we take it for granted that no reference library in this country, of the least pretension to completeness, will be without it.

Moreover, aside from its mere utility, the work is a veritable mine of entertainment; and owners of private libraries who are judicious enough to add it to their collections will find it quite as well adapted to the hour of recreation as to that of study. To the editor and publishers of the "Dictionary" is due the credit of having produced not only the best biographical dictionary in existence, but the most serviceable and impressive literary work of the present generation. EDWARD GILPIN JOHNSON.

RECENT BOOKS ON EVOLUTION.*

The history of modern thought shows two landmarks far transcending all others in importance. One of these dates back to 1543, through the adoption of the Copernican system of astronomy; the other belongs to our own generation, and springs from the accept

These are

ance of the doctrine of Evolution. the great epochs in the realm of ideas, because they are the points at which men have been forced to revise their theories of the universe; and every alteration in the theory of nature, every fresh hypothesis regarding the origin of the world, must of necessity cause a revision of current systems of theology, metaphysics, and morals. Great was the revolution in human thought three centuries ago when it could no longer be believed that the earth was the central spot of the universe, and it shook the whole fabric of Christian theology to its foundation; but it was not greater than that we have seen, and are seeing, in our own day and generation, following upon our new cosmology. Nor is there any more reason for supposing that our new theory of the relation of things in time Evolution-will ever be supplanted, than there is for supposing a similar displacing of the older theory of the relation of things in space. As science, Evolution has passed beyond the realm of controversy, and every scientific writer, in whatever department, assumes it as granted. As Professor Le Conte has well said, "We might as well talk of gravitationist as of evolutionist."

* AN EPITOME OF THE SYNTHETIC PHILOSOPHY. By F. Howard Collins. With a Preface by Herbert Spencer. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

EVOLUTION: Popular Lectures and Discussions before the Brooklyn Ethical Association. Boston: James H. West. THE CONTINUOUS CREATION. By Myron Adams. Boston: Houghton, Mifflin & Co.

THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT OF EVOLUTION. By James McCosh, D.D., LL.D., Litt. D. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

In the popular mind, however, there is still considerable vagueness in respect to the exact scope and meaning of the new word. What is this all-potent process which presumes to account not only for the world and man, but for all that man has become and has done-customs, habits, beliefs, tools, literature, arts, morals, religion?

The series of books called "The Synthetic Philosophy," in which Herbert Spencer unfolds the general concept of a single and allpervading, natural process, tracing it out through all its modes of action, in sun and star, plant, animal, and humanity, and giving to it the name of Evolution, are too voluminous, too technical, too difficult, for the average reader. Although Spencer's literary style is admirably clear and direct, not every one will be sufficiently in earnest to follow him through the successive chapters of demonstration in order to get at his completed definition :

"Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel transforma

tion."

Still fewer are those who will master the eight volumes in which the law is shown to apply to organic life, to mind and habit, to societies, politics, morals, religion. The word Evolution being in every mouth, the demand of the hour is for something more simple, more available, better suited to the conditions under which most people must do their reading and gain their knowledge.

Mr. Howard Collins's "Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy" might, by its title, be supposed to be a work of such purpose. Mr. Collins has been index-maker of Spencer's works, and for five years has been engaged in the task of bringing into the compass of this single volume the substance of Spencer's eight volumes. But let not our average reader be misled into the assumption that this is the book for him. It is, in fact, very much harder reading than the original authority. Its aim is not simplification but condensation, and the basis of the condensation is a mathematical one, retaining all the original divisions by chapters and paragraphs, but reducing each to one-tenth of its original proportions. The five thousand and more Spencer pages are thus represented by one book of a little over five hundred pages. This compression has been obtained by the sacrifice of all illustration and nearly all elucidation, each proposition being stated in its

most abstract form. The chief value of the work, therefore, is for students who have already studied the subject largely. To such it will prove a convenient reference book for compact statement of conclusions with which they are already familiar; or, perchance, as an assistance to the conception of the general proportions of the parts to the whole, as a system. Also, the specialist in any department of science will find it serviceable as a sort of amplified index of the original, indicating the places where fuller treatment of his topic may be found. The work seems well done for these uses; but let all beginners beware of it. To one unacquainted with the subject, we can imagine nothing more forbidding than its array of highly abstract and unilluminated propositions, and it would inevitably create a distaste for what is in truth a greatly fascinating theme.

A collection of lectures by various persons, with the discussions following their delivery, has been published by the Brooklyn Ethical Association, with the avowed purpose" of popularizing correct views of the Evolution philosophy." The lectures are fifteen in number, and, beside technical treatment of each department of the subject, include introductory biographical sketches of Herbert Spencer and Charles Darwin, and three concluding topics of somewhat wider scope, dealing with the relation of Evolution to different phases of life and thought. The book has the inevitable deficiencies of any such collection. While it

"

66

is evident that the effort has been made to assign each subject to a writer with some equipment for his task, there is, nevertheless, a great inequality in the execution of the work. Some are admirable monographs-as, for example, the two by Mr. Chadwick, Charles Darwin" and Evolution as Related to Religious Thought"; also, M. J. Savage's "The Effects of Evolution on the Coming Civilization." Others are insignificant, as the opening paper on "Herbert Spencer; or painfully feeble and inadequate, as the one on "The Philosophy of Evolution." The same diversity in value occurs in the strictly scientific topics. Specialists of more than local reputation contribute some of these.-Garrett P. Serviss writing of "Solar and Planetary Evolution," Lewis G. Janes of "Evolution of the Earth," E. D. Cope of "The Descent of Man." But as a rule there is less directness and simplicity than there should be. We know the difficulties; but the success of Edward Clodd in his Story of Creation," and

of H. M. Simmons in "The Unending Genesis," proves that "popular" writing is not impossible even on these subjects.

A better book than either of the foregoing, indeed one of the best yet issued for the purpose we are considering,—namely, for presenting in simple and attractive form the leading features of Evolution,-is the work of Myron Adams on “The Continuous Creation." His aim is to make "an application of the Evolutionary Philosophy to the Christian Religion," thus taking hold of the subject at the point of its greatest interest for most people. He does not undertake to prove the doctrine of Evolution, to examine in detail the specific grounds of its adoption by the scientific world, assuming as sufficient authority the testimony of actual investigators that it works as far as it is followed. For definition, he goes to Professor Le Conte, and wisely, since it is hard to conceive a better:-Evolution is (1) continuous progressive change, (2) according to certain laws, (3) by means of resident forces. Three opening chapters are devoted to the scientific application of this definition; but Mr. Adams well knows that it is not on this ground that the battle for Evolution is to be fought. So long as the scientific aspects are alone in question, the scientists may have their way without objections; but thoughtful persons see that the matter cannot stop there: granted so much, a great modification of religious philosophy must follow, a profound revolution in all the supreme subjects of human interest must impend. In Mr. Adams's own words,

"There is a feeling that Evolution is dangerous. The exaggeration of that feeling is that evolutionary philososophy comes as a whirlwind to destroy religion; on the contrary, it comes to restore and revive it."

To prove and enforce this statement, in the various lines of religious thought, is the work of the remaining chapters, bearing such titles as, The Bible a Record of Religion's Gradual Growth," "The Problem of Evil," "The Consummation of Evolution is Immortality," "Resident Forces and the Divine Personality," "Prayer," "Miracles and Scientific Thought," "Faith and Intuition." These subjects are all admirably worked out, and though the book is less scholarly than Le Conte's "Evolution as Related to Religious Thought," and less brilliant than Powell's "Our Heredity from God," it is, on the whole, probably the most successful attempt yet made to enlighten the uninformed concerning the scope and bearings of the Evolution philosophy.

President McCosh's "Religious Aspect of Evolution" is a small book of 120 pages, announcing itself as an "enlarged and improved edition." But it needs a far more fundamental enlargement to bring it up to present requirements of thought. It belongs to that by-gone period of the discussion when it was considered the duty of the hour to reconcile Genesis and geology, to torture impossible meanings out of Moses' use of the word " day," to set definite boundaries to religion "natural" and religion "revealed." President McCosh has not come sufficiently abreast with his subject to see that all religion, however derived, is a manifestation of the life of God in the life of man. Revelation is not merely a fleeting gleam of divine inspiration, at a remote period, upon a small portion of the race, but it is the unveiling of the mind of man to see the sunrise of God's glory in the world. It is the record, not so much of God's revealing himself to man, as of man's development into a consciousness of God. And Revelation, in this sense, is almost synonymous with Evolution.

ANNA B. McMAHAN.

THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY.*

Since the publication, nearly thirty years ago, of Sir Henry Maine's " Ancient Law," a battle of books and magazine articles has raged fiercely round the "patriarchal theory" of society as therein set forth. Rashly accepted by many students of philology and jurisprudence as a general working hypothesis, this theory was strenuously attacked by anthropologists as too limited in its inductions, both in time and place, and as an hypothesis which ignored the larger circle of facts. Conspicuous among its assailants was the ingenious and imaginative McLennan, whose destructive criticism, in his "Patriarchal Theory," while expressing some of the irritability of a dying man, yet shows a vigor and a trenchancy due to a scientific method of attack. Herbert Spencer had already, in his calmer and more careful manner, shown the too narrow basis of the theory as a working hypothesis of society in what is now his chapter on "The Family" in his “Principles of Sociology." It is probably safe to say

*THE PRIMITIVE FAMILY IN ITS ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT. By C. N. Starcke, Ph.D. of the University of Copenhagen. International Scientific Series," Vol. LXV. New York: D. Appleton & Co.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF MARRIAGE AND KINSHIP. By C. Staniland Wake. London: George Redway.

that no prominent thinker in the sphere of Sociology now maintains Maine's theory in its leading characteristics of exclusive Agnation and Patria Potestas.

But the successful critic is not always equally successful in constructive work. Mr. McLennan, even before he had tumbled in partial ruin the foundations of Sir Henry Maine's theory, proceeded, in his "Primitive Marriage," to erect his own hypothesis, which has become as famous as its predecessor. Every student of sociology is now familiar with his evolutionary scheme of marriage and kinship: general promiscuity and attending destruction of female infants; thence scarcity of women, producing polyandry of the Nair type, unrecognizable paternity, female kinship, and polyandry of the Thibetan type; marriage by capture, producing exogamy and, ultimately, male kinship; finally, heterogeneous local tribes, with endogamous clans, survival of original capture in symbols of voluntary marriage, and the advance to monogamy. This view has been accepted, with some difference in detail, by Lubbock, and its starting-point in promiscuity has been arrived at independently by Bachofen, Morgan, and Lubbock. All these theorists of what may be called the "general promiscuity" group seem to start out with a preconceived theory, instead of with careful inductions from facts, and they ignore not only the data of economic and legal studies, but even those of biology. The McLennan theory, however, as the one most plausibly maintained, has been as vigorously, and we think as successfully, attacked as the Maine theory. Herbert SpenHerbert Spencer, in the chapter already alluded to, took exception both to its starting-point, its logic of procedure, and its ultimate conclusions. He clearly pointed out the narrow range of polyandry; suggested probable causes other than promiscuity for the prevalence of female kinship, as well as economic reasons for a wide prevalence of monogamy as a primary social phenomenon; emphasized the improbability of early races depleting the stock of available wives, with one hand by destroying female infants, and with the other seeking to make the deficiency good by capture from equally depleted stocks of neighboring tribes; and, finally, showed several other causes working alongside of capture to produce the symbolism of more recent marriage.

What Mr. Spencer did in outline so admirably fourteen years ago has been attempted in a more enlarged treatment in the two works

But

Dr. Starcke advances and well maintains the following opinions: (1) Marriage was not preceded by promiscuity, but social life begins in the partially agnatistic family. (2) Hence agnation is not developed from female kinship, but has an earlier development. (3) Female kinship is not, in any large measure, due to uncertain paternity, but to mothers' groups in polygynous families. (4) The influence of locality has had much to do in assigning the child to the father or to the mother. Agricultural communities value workers, pastoral communities value cattle in the former the father will bring in a husband for his daughter, in the latter he will sell her out for a price in cattle; the former will thus establish a female line of descent, through its daughters with alien husbands, while the latter will maintain the male line. (5) Polyandry has been of limited range, and originated in the patriarchal joint family of male descent. (6) The Levirate marriage of the Hebrews had no relation to polyandry, but grew out of the desire to have heirs to offer the funeral sacrifice. (7) But last and most original of all his theses the relation of sex is by no means the central point and raison d'être of primitive marriage, since “it is not adapted to support the burden of social order." The contract idea is at the bottom of marriage, carrying with it the idea of legality, which, as it at first excluded the thought of a wife chosen from within the family circle, for whom no contract could be made, so, extending its prohibition to the clan of one

kindred, drove on to outside marriage, or exogamy.

On the last of the seven points made it will be well to linger, as this is, in Dr. Starcke's judgment, his distinct contribution to the discussion of early marriage. He says:

"We shall meet with no stronger distinction between animal and human existence than the use of fire. By its use the way was opened to man to obtain better nourishment; it then became possible to become a flesheating animal. The necessary preparation of food

which resulted from this fact caused a division of labor between the sexes, which was unknown in the animal world. The man then became the regular provider of food, not, as in the case of animals, only occasionally, and it was the woman's part to prepare the prey. In this way she became indispensable to the man, not on account of an impulse which is suddenly aroused and as quickly disappears, but on account of a necessity which endures as long as life itself, namely, the need of food.

The

A man connects himself with a woman in order that she might keep house for him, and to this may be added a second motive, that of obtaining children. His ownership of the children does not depend upon the fact that they were begotten by him, but upon the fact that he owns and supports their mother. interest felt in children must have exerted its influence on the form of marriage, since it furnishes a motive for polygamy which is not included in the need of a housekeeper. A man will be actuated by this motive in proportion to the number of available women, and to his power of purchasing and providing for them. It follows from the nature of things

that polyg

amy can never have been the normal condition of a tribe, since it would have involved the existence of twice as many women as men. Polygamy must necessarily have been restricted to the noblest, richest, and bravest members of the tribe... The common household, in which each had a given work to do, and the common interest of obtaining and rearing children, were the foundations upon which marriage was originally built. And from the sympathy which inevitably springs from the interests which they have in common, that love is developed which effects a perfect and stable marriage.',

Dr. Starcke's work barely precedes, in date, that of Mr. Wake, and does not deprive it of originality in its judgments, which were arrived at independently. Consequently, the general agreement of argument in the two books is most striking. All the positions which Dr. Starcke has taken against the McLennan theories are also forcibly taken by Mr. Wake, who fortifies his ground by abundant citations of examples as well as by most cogent reasoning. To go through his positions would be but to repeat what has already been said in reference to the earlier book; it will be sufficient to say that the one thesis peculiar to Dr. Starcke is the economic rather than emotional basis of marriage; Mr. Wake also has his own special contribution, which must be noted, at least in citation, as a distinct and valuable contribu

tion to the discussion of kinship. He says:

"It is necessary to point out the distinction between relationship and kinship, a distinction which is usually lost sight of. The former of these terms is wider than the latter, as two persons may be related to each other, and yet not be of the same kin. Systems of kinship are based on the existence of a special relationship of persons to each other, as distinguished from the general relationship subsisting between such persons and other individuals. While a man may be related generally through his father to one class of individuals, and through his mother to another class, he may be of kin only to one class or the other. This special relationship or kinship is accompanied by certain disabiliities, particularly in connection with marriage, which it would not be possible in small communities to extend to all persons related to each other through both parents. Kinship, as distinguished from mere relationship, must be restricted, therefore, to one line of descent. It is evident that a child may be treated as specially related to either parent, and be reckoned of his or her kin to the exclusion of the kin of the other parent. There must be some reason for the preference in any particular case other than that based on paternity or maternity, seeing that uncultured peoples, as a rule, fully recognize the relationship of a child to both parents. As a fact, the kinship of the child depends on the conditions of the marital arrangement between its parents. Among the social restraints on promiscuity, one of the most powerful is that which arises from the rights of a woman's father or kindred. These rights extend not only to her conduct before marriage but also to the marriage itself and its consequences. Thus the woman's father or her kin, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, claim her children as belonging to them, whether she remains with them after her marriage, or goes to reside among her husband's kin. Whether descent shall be traced in the female or in the male line, depends on whether or not the woman's kin have given up their natural right to the children of the marriage. . If the husband

does not give anything in return for his wife she continues a member of her own family group, and her children belong to their mother's kin. If, however, the husband pays a bride-price, she may have to give up her own family for that of her husband, and her offspring will belong to the latter."

It may be safely claimed that these two writers have done much toward a more scientific view of primitive marriage and kinship. By careful and patient collocation of facts over a wide area of social life, by as careful a study of the unsophisticated man under the influence of the instincts of self-preservation, sex, and order, they have laid a secure foundation for the cautious reasoning of which they both are masters. Starting from the decisions of so distinguished a biologist as Darwin, who will not concede promiscuity even among the quadrumana, we begin human life in the monogamous family, witness the phenomena of polyandry and polygamy thrown off and left by the wayside, the one continuing the primary male descent, the other developing female kinship,