Chapter XX: Part 20
After all the question of the _place_ of origin of the primitive Aryans is not so important as that of their race affinities, on which, indeed, the former question ultimately depends, and Dr. Taylor has done well to follow up what he terms the "pregnant suggestion" of Dr. Thurnam, the joint author with Dr. J. Barnard Davis of their great work "Crania Britannica," as to the identification of the primitive Aryans with the "Turanian" race of the British round barrows. That he has conclusively established this point it would be rash to affirm, but he has presented a very strong argument in its favor, which is not weakened by Prof. Huxley's attempt to locate the fair dolichocephali in Latham's Sarmatia, as the primitive Aryan race. It should not be lost sight of, however, that the Ugro-Finnic relationship of the Aryans would restore to them the Asiatic origin of which recent discussion has tended to deprive them, for the Ugrians undoubtedly belong to the Asiatic area. On the other hand, if Dr. Topinard, the distinguished French anthropologist, is correct in his assertion that the Aryan blood has disappeared, the question resolves itself into "a discussion of the ethnical affinities of those numerous races which have acquired Aryan speech." This is not our author's own opinion, although it is perhaps countenanced by Cuno's maxim. We must leave here Dr. Taylor's work which will be universally recognised as one of great merit, whatever view may be taken as to the Aryans and their origin.
Ω.
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. By _William T. Harris_. New
York: D. Appleton & Co., 1890.
The merits of Dr. William T. Harris in the awakening and the fostering of philosophical interests in this country are extraordinary. As the editor of the _Journal of Speculative Philosophy_ he has published translations of the most effective and important chapters of the European, mainly German, philosophers, and also original articles by American thinkers. Among the latter we find contributions from names of highest rank, as well as essays by the editor himself. Dr. Harris was also one of the most brilliant lights of the Concord School of Philosophy; indeed, he may be considered as its centre and representative, for whatever divergence of thought may have appeared in the Concord lectures, the general character of what goes by the name of Concord Philosophy was determined by him. The present work accordingly will command no common attention among those interested in the historical growth of American thought and especially American philosophy, it being a systematic arrangement of extracts made by Marietta Kies from Professor Harris's essays, compiled for the purpose of serving as a class-book at Mt. Holyoke Seminary and College.
However great may be the historical importance of Dr. Harris as the Nestor of American philosophy, we cannot suppress our doubt as to whether his philosophy can be recommended as a study for beginners. Dr. Harris is too original a thinker, and his originality is not in accord with the present time. His cast of mind may be characterised as Hegelian; not that he should be called a follower of Hegel, but his way of thinking follows in many respects the method of abstract ratiocination pursued by that great German philosopher. Still, the results of Dr. Harris are even in closer contact with the religious ideas of Christianity than those of Hegel. We shall delineate here a few characteristic traits of Dr. Harris's speculative thought: "Philosophy attempts to find the necessary _a priori_ elements or factors in experience, and arrange them into a system by deducing them from a first principle." We should prefer according to the method of positivism to derive the so-called _a priori_ or the "formal", and with it the conditions of cognition, not from a first principle but from the facts of experience. Dr. Harris calls Space, Time, Causality "presuppositions of experience": they make experience possible. We consider them as parts of experience as characteristic properties, and our concepts of time, space, and causality have been abstracted from experience. Dr. Harris says: "Space in limiting itself is infinite ... time is infinite, and yet it is the condition necessary to the existence of events and changes.... The principle of causality implies both time and space.... If we examine it, we shall see that it again presupposes a ground deeper than itself. In order that a cause shall send a stream of influence over to an effect, it must first separate that portion of influence from itself. Self-separation is, then, the fundamental presupposition of the action of causality.... Causa sui, spontaneous origination of activity, is the ultimate presupposition underlying all objects and each object of experience.... Causa sui, or self-cause, is properly the principle _par excellence_ of philosophy.... Here is the necessary ground of the idea of God." In the last chapter Dr. Harris discusses "the immortality of man," denoting thereby the immortality of the individual and the continuance of consciousness after death. He expresses his argument in admirable terseness in the following sentence: "How is it possible that in this world of perishable beings there can exist an immortal and ever progressive being? Without the personality of God it would be impossible, because an unconscious first principle would be incapable of producing conscious being, or if they were produced, it would overcome them as incongruous and inharmonious elements in the world. It would finally draw all back into its image and reduce conscious individuality to unconsciousness." This is a different solution of the problem from that presented in the article "The Origin of Mind" in the first number of this magazine.
Κ.
THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Prof. _Patrick Geddes_ and _J. Arthur
Thomson_. New York: Scribner & Welford.
The present work is in some sense a reproduction of the articles "Reproduction," "Sex," and "Variation and Selection," contributed by Professor Geddes to the most recent edition of the "Encyclopædia Britannica." It goes further, however, and not only contains much additional information, but the views of the authors on the factors of organic evolution and on biology in general are more precisely formulated and developed. The central thesis of the work, as stated in the preface, is "in the first place, to present an outline of the main processes for the continuance of organic life with such unity as our present knowledge renders possible; and in the second, to point the way toward the interpretation of these processes in those ultimate biological terms which physiologists are already reaching as regards the functions of individual life,—those of the constructive and destructive changes (anabolism and katabolism) of living matter or protoplasm." The authors seek to prepare the way for the restatement of the theory of organic evolution, that of "definite variation, with progress and survival essentially through the subordination of individual struggle and development of species-maintaining ends."
Among the subjects treated of are Sexual characters and the determination of Sex, the analysis of Sex-organs, tissues, and cells—the nature and origin of Sex, and the processes and theory of reproduction. This is a sufficiently broad field, and it embraces various biological questions recently discussed, especially that of sexual selection and the theories of Professor Weismann. The authors claim that their view of the processes concerned with the maintenance of the species leads necessarily to a profound alteration of the conclusions usually held as to its origin. What is meant by this statement appears from the last chapter, in which the reproductive function as a factor in evolution is considered. Here it is stated that the usual perspective which places the theory of natural selection in the foreground, sexual selection being a mere harmonious corollary, has to be reversed. Recent investigations on heredity "forbid that attention should any longer be concentrated on the individual type, or reproduction regarded as a mere repetition process; the living continuity of the species is seen to be of more importance than the individualities of the separate links.... The species is a continuous undying chain of unicellular reproductive units, which indeed build out of and around themselves transient multicellular bodies, but the processes of nutritive differentiation and other individual developments are secondary, not primary" (p. 308).
The study of the reproductive process is thus of supreme importance for the understanding of organic evolution. What then is the authors' theory of reproduction? It may be stated in the terms of their own summary. The essential fact in reproduction is the separation of part of the parent organism to start a fresh life. Hence, it begins with rupture, a katabolic crisis, at which occurs cell-division, this being always associated with the act of reproduction. This is favored by katabolic conditions of the environment. The opposition between nutrition and reproduction is the most obvious antithesis in nature after that of life and death—with the latter of which, indeed, as has been shown by Goette, reproduction is intimately associated—and it may be stated in the terms that "as a continued surplus of anabolism involves growth, so a relative preponderance of katabolism necessitates reproduction" (p. 237).
The organic relation between nutrition and reproduction is thus shown to be one of great importance, but its significance becomes more apparent when it is seen, as pointed out by the authors, that "throughout organic life there is a contrast or rhythm between growth and multiplication, between nutrition and reproduction, corresponding to the fundamental organic seesaw between anabolism and katabolism. This contrast may be read in the distribution of organs, in the periods of life, and in the different grades of reproduction; and the contrasts between continuous growth and discontinuous multiplication, between asexual and sexual reproduction, between parthenogenesis and sexuality, between alternating generations, are all different expressions of the fundamental antithesis" (p. 231). Elsewhere, the essential importance is referred to of "the continual correlation, yet antithesis—the action and reaction—of vegetative and reproductive processes in alternate preponderance," to which the general rhythm of individual and social life runs parallel. And yet this life is essentially a unity, of which the specific characters are but the symptoms, whatever may be "their subsequent measure of importance and utility in adaptation, their modification by environment, their enhancement or diminution by natural selection" (p. 314).
This conclusion as to the unity of the life of the individual and that of the species, is based on the fact that nutrition and reproduction are nearly akin. Hatschek goes so far, indeed, as to affirm that nutrition is reproduction, an apparent paradox which is justified by the statement that "not only do hunger and love become indistinguishable in that equal-sided conjugation which has been curiously called 'isophagy,' but nutrition in turn is nothing more than continual reproduction of the protoplasm." The real unity is found in the fact that anabolism and katabolism, which are the determining factors of growth and reproduction, are the two sides of protoplasmic life. This conclusion has an important bearing on the question of the origin of sex. In his theory of _genoblasts_, or sexual elements, Minot treats male and female as derivatives of primitive hermaphroditism in two opposite directions, the differentiation taking place "by the extrusion or separation of the contradictory elements, the ovum getting rid of male polar globules, the sperm leaving behind a female mother-cell remnant." The authors of the present work accept this view, which however has become extremely improbable since Weismann has called attention to the fact that the same process takes place in the parthenogenetic summer-eggs of Daphnidae—a fact which has been overlooked by our authors. They also adopt Rolph's view that the less nutritive, and therefore smaller, hungrier, and more mobile cells are what we call male; the more nutritive and usually more quiescent cell being the female, as consistent with the conclusion already inferred from other facts that "the female is the outcome and expression of preponderant anabolism, and in contrast the male of predominant katabolism" (p. 132). This conclusion is elsewhere stated as that "the males live at a loss, are more _katabolic_,—disruptive changes tending to preponderate in the sum of changes in their living matter or protoplasm. The females, on the other hand, live at a profit, are more _anabolic_,—constructive processes predominating in their life, whence indeed the capacity of bearing offspring" (p. 26). Here is the same contrast as that seen in the alternating phases of cell-life, of activity and repose, and in the great antithesis between growth and reproduction. The argument is put into diagrammatic form, where the sum-total of the functions are divided into nutritive and reproductive, the former into anabolic and katabolic processes, and the latter into male and female activities. This theory of Rolph, if it contains a grain of truth, needs a thorough revision; and the same may be said about the authors' special theory, which is, that there is a parallelism in the two sets of processes, "the male reproduction is associated with preponderating katabolism, and the female with relative anabolism, according to which view both primary and secondary sexual characters express the fundamental physiological bias characteristic of either sex" (p. 27). This has a special bearing on the question of sexual selection, the true relation of which to natural selection, according to the authors of the present work, must be expressed in their own words. It is embodied in the conclusion that sexual selection is a minor accelerant, natural selection a retarding 'brake,' "on the differentiation of sexual characters, which essentially find a constitutional or organismal origin in the katabolic or anabolic diathesis which preponderates in males and females respectively" (p. 31).
Before concluding this notice, it may be pointed out what are the particular conditions on which the determination of sex depends, in regard to any given organism. The various suggestions proposed as to the influence of parents, according to age or otherwise, the time of fertilisation, Starkweather's law that sex is determined by the superior parent, and that the superior parent produces the opposite sex, and Düsing's theory as to the regulation of the proportions of the sexes, are referred to by the authors and either rejected or considered as insufficient. The conclusion they arrive at after considering the influence of nutrition, temperature, and other conditions, is, that adverse circumstances affecting the parents, especially of nutrition, but also age and the like, tend to the production of males, the reverse conditions favoring females; a highly nourished ovum and fertilisation when the ovum is fresh and vigorous, tend to the development of a female rather than of a male. Further, the longer the period of sexual indifference continues, the more important become the outside factors, and here again "favorable conditions of nutrition, temperature, and the like, tend toward the production of females; the reverse increase the probability of male preponderance." This agrees with the conclusion independently arrived at that the male germs are "of smaller size, more active habit, higher temperature, shorter life, and the females the larger, more passive, vegetative, and conservative forms" (pp. 50, 51). Thus the authors' proposition that the male is the outcome of predominant katabolism, and the female of equally emphatic anabolism, might seem to be justified, and it is confirmed by the curious phenomenon of alternation of generations, and by various facts connected with growth and reproduction. However, it does not definitively exclude the theory (see Dr. Heinrich Janke's work. Stuttgart, 1889) that the male is the outcome of katabolism of the male element coincident with _anabolism_ of the female element, and the female of the opposite state.
In considering the psychological and ethical aspects of sex from the physiological standpoint the authors remark truly that in order to obliterate the distinctions between male and female, it would be necessary to have evolution over again on a new basis. Although so different, however, the two sexes are complementary and mutually dependent, "not merely because they are males and females, but also in functions not directly associated with those of sex." Males, as the more katabolic organisms, are more active and variable than the anabolic females, who are more passive and stable. The former have larger brains and more intelligence, but the latter have more of the altruistic sentiment and greater constancy in affection and sympathy. "Man thinks more, woman feels more. He discovers more, but remembers less; she is more receptive, and less forgetful." All this is true within certain limits, but whether or not it may be explained by other theories remains an open question.
Ω.
ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE. By _C. Lloyd Morgan_, F. G. S. London:
Edward Arnold.
The chief aim which the author of this important work had originally in view was the consideration of Animal Intelligence. But the subject of Intelligence being so closely associated with that of Life, and the questions of Heredity and Natural Selection with those of Habit and Instinct, he has devoted the first part of the work to Organic Evolution, as introductory to Mental Evolution. This was rendered necessary, however, by the direct bearing of Professor Weismann's recent contributions to biological science on questions of Instinct. It would be impossible to treat of the mental constitution of the lower animals without reference to that of man, and in his preface Professor Morgan forestals certain results arrived at by a comparison of them. He states that in man alone, and in no dumb animal, is the rational faculty, as defined by him, developed; and he adds, "it is contended that among human folk that process of natural selection, which is so potent in the lower reaches of organic life, sinks into comparative insignificance. Man is a creature of ideas and ideals. For him the moral factor becomes one of the very highest importance. He conceives an ideal self which he strives to realise; he conceives an ideal humanity towards which he would raise his fellow-man. He becomes a conscious participator in the evolution of man, in the progress of humanity."
So great a variety of topics are dealt with by the present work that we shall be able to do little more than refer critically to the author's special views, particularly those which concern the mental characters of the lower animals. There are, however, various points in the earlier part of the work well deserving of consideration. Such is the suggestion that, instead of likening an organism as a whole to a steam-engine, it would be better to liken each cell, with its fluid explosive material, to a gas-engine, and the mixed air and gas to whose explosion its motion is due. The importance of _segregation_ as a factor in the formation of improved varieties is insisted on, but Professor Morgan doubts whether differential fertility, on which Mr. Romanes lays great stress[93], would, without the co-operation of other segregation-factors, give rise to separate varieties capable of maintaining themselves as distinct species (p. 105).
[93] _The Monist_, No. 1. p. 5.
Dealing with the knotty question whether, if the egg produces the hen, the hen produces the egg, the author criticises Professor Weismann's idea of the continuity of germ-plasm, which he regards as "an unknowable, invisible, hypothetical entity, "that may be made to account for anything and everything, and prefers the hypothesis of cellular continuity (138 et seq.). The cells which become ova or sperms never become differentiated into anything else, and "hereditary similarity is due to the fact that parents and offspring are derived eventually from the same germinal cells" (p. 175). Finally, Professor Morgan criticises Mr. Wallace's views on the subject of sexual selection, which he is inclined to think is a factor with natural selection in the guidance of evolution (p. 200 et seq.).
More than half of the book, which contains more than 500 pages, is taken up with these preliminary disquisitions, the remainder being concerned with the nature and development of the mental activities. The first branch of this inquiry is that of the senses of animals. We cannot follow the author in his very interesting remarks on this subject, beyond referring to his suggestion that the lower animals may have senses not known to man. After mentioning the muciparous canals met with in fishes, he says, "apart from the possibility of unknown receptive organs as completely hidden from anatomical and microscopic scrutiny as the end-organs of our temperature-sense, there are in the lower animals organs which may be fitted to receive modes of influence to which we human folk are not attuned" (p. 298). For example, insects may be sensitive to tones of heat; while on the other hand, their color phenomena may vary greatly from ours consequent on structural differences in the sense-organs. In dealing with mental processes in man the author states as a well-known fact that "a person whose leg has been amputated experiences at times tickling and uneasiness in the absent member" (p. 307). This is not, however, an accurate description of the phenomenon. There can be no feeling in a lost limb. The idea that the sensations are "referred outward to the normal source of origin of impressions," has arisen from the remark sometimes made by persons thus affected that they feel as though they still had toes. This is true to some extent, but as a fact the sensation is as though the toes were bent and tightly bound at the end of the _stump_, and not at the end of the missing limb.
It is advisable before proceeding further to see what view Professor Morgan entertains as to the mental process in animals. This is apparent from the statement that, although there is no difference in kind between the mind of man and the mind of a dog, yet that "we have, in the introduction of the analytic faculty, so definite and marked a new departure, that we should emphasise it by saying that the faculty of perception, in its various specific grades, differs generically from the faculty of conception." The author adds, "believing, as I do, that conception is beyond the power of my favorite and clever dog, I am forced to believe that his mind differs generically from my own" (p. 350). Elsewhere he says, "if I deny them self-consciousness and reason, I grant to the higher animals perceptions of marvellous acuteness and intelligent inferences of wonderful accuracy and precision—intelligent inferences in some cases, no doubt, more perfect even than those of man, who is often distracted by many thoughts" (p. 377). If we would understand these conclusions aright we must know the sense in which Professor Morgan uses the terms employed, and to do this we must refer to the explanation he gives of mental processes in man. He tells us that in the first place we obtain knowledge of the existence of the objects around us through perception, which is attended with a process of construction. An object is in fact a _construct_, at the bidding of certain sensations, which suggest to the mind the associated qualities. In what sense such an object is regarded as real we shall see later on. As to the constructs, their formation is followed by examination, "by which they are rendered more definite, particular and special, and supplemented by intelligent inferences." Out of this intelligent examination arises a new mental process, the _analysis of constructs_. Attention is paid to certain qualities of objects to the exclusion of others, a process termed by the author _isolation_, the products being _isolates_. This process is constantly going on, and all the qualities, relationships, and feelings thus isolated have applied to them arbitrary symbols. They are in fact _named_, and "hence arises all our science, all our higher thought." At this stage we enter the field of conception, as the isolates are _concepts_, whereas throughout the process of the formation of constructs and their definition we have to do with perception and percepts. Here Professor Morgan agrees with Noiré in holding that "the image, in so far as it is an image, whether simple or composite, is a percept," while so far as there enter into the idea of objects elements which have been isolated by analysis, the words for those objects stand for concepts. There is another important feature of the mental processes in man. The primary aim of the reception of the influences of the external world, or environment, is "to enable the organism to answer to them in activity." Moreover, out of perceptions through association there arise certain expectations, and "the activities of organisms are moulded in accordance with these expectations." Phenomena are perceived as linked or woven, and expectations are the outcome of that perception, the mental process by which we pass from one link to another being called _inference_. Again, we have perceptual inference, or inference from direct experience, and conceptual inference, or "inference based on experience, but reached through the exercise of the reasoning faculties" (p. 328 et seq.).
Applying these principles to the mental processes in animals, the author affirms that, granting the theory of evolution, "the early stages of the process of construction—discrimination, localisation, and outward projection—are the same in kind throughout the whole range of animal life, wherever we are justified in surmising that psychical processes occur, and the power of registration and revival in memory has been established" (p. 338). But, though the higher mammalia form _constructs_ analogous to, if not closely resembling ours, the resemblance cannot be in any sense close, "seeing to how large an extent our constructs are literally our _handiwork_." To the question whether the higher animals have "the power of analysing their constructs and forming isolates, or abstract ideas of qualities apart from the constructs of which these qualities are elements," Professor Morgan answers negatively. He supposes, for example, that a dog may have a vague representation in memory of things good to eat, "in which the element of eatability is predominant and comparatively distinct, while the rest is vague and indistinct"; and to mark the difference he calls the prominent quality a _predominant_, "as opposed to the isolate when the quality is floated off from the object." Hence he agrees with Locke that abstraction, in the sense of isolation, is not possessed by the lower animals, and he thinks that the line should be drawn there between brute intelligence and human intelligence and reason (p. 349). As soon as predominant qualities are named they become isolates, and thus "body and mind became separable in thought; the self was differentiated from the not-self; the mind was turned inwards upon itself through the isolation of its varying phases; and the consciousness of the brute became the self-consciousness of man." The agent in this upward progress is language, and hence, granting the possibility of a transitional stage where word-signs stood for predominants, and not yet for isolates, the author accepts Prof. Max Müller's view that language and thought are practically inseparable (p. 371). If any serious objection can be made to this reasoning, it must be we think to the opinion that language made, not merely conceptual thought, but analysis and isolation possible. This is preceded, as we have seen by "intelligent examination," and we are expressly told that out of this arises the mental process of _analysis of constructs_ which animals do not possess. To this faculty then must be traced the ultimate distinction between them and man. It may be doubted, moreover, whether animals have any idea of even a predominant quality apart from some object. The formation of "constructs," that is the recognition of objects, as the result of external stimuli, is instinctive, except so far as it depends upon association through experience in past generations. If animals can even vaguely represent a single quality apart from an object, it is the first step in analysis, and there is no reason why they should not go on to abstraction or isolation, and thence to reason. That animals do not possess reason, in the sense of conceptual inference, is we think unquestionable, and Professor Morgan does well in restricting them to intelligence, by which he intends the process by which perceptual inferences are reached (p. 330).
We have not space to refer to the views expressed in the chapter on "Appetence and Emotion," beyond stating that the author, while admitting that in animals are to be found the perceptual germs of even the higher emotional states, concludes that "ethics, like conceptual thought and æsthetics, are beyond the reach of the brute. Morality is essentially a matter of ideals, and these belong to the conceptual sphere" (p. 414). In the chapter on "Habit and Interest," after speaking of Mr. Romanes's treatment of instinct as most admirable and masterly, he compares Mr. Romanes's views as to the origin of secondary instincts with those of Professor Weismann as to the non-inheritance of acquired characters, coming to the conclusion that lapsed intelligence is not a necessary factor in the formation of instincts, and that there is a probability of some inheritance of experience (p. 436 et seq.). We must refer our readers to the work itself for the author's explanation of the "monistic" theory, according to which the two sets of phenomena, the physical and the mental, are identical, differing only in being viewed from without or felt from within (p. 417). This view is developed in the chapter on Mental Evolution, where we read, "according to the monistic hypothesis, kinesis and metakinesis are co-ordinate. The physiologist may explain all the activities of men and animals in terms of kinesis. The psychologist may explain all the thoughts and emotions of man in thoughts of metakinesis. They are studying the different phenomenal aspects of the same noumenal sequences" (p. 472). For Professor Morgan the idea of the object is the object, but he is not a pure idealist. Phenomena are something more than states of consciousness. There is a noumenal reality which underlies the reality of the phenomena, and the enduring ego, of which certain states of consciousness are occasional manifestations, is the metakinetic equivalent of the organic kinesis. Here he sees the solution of the problem which baffles alike materialists and idealists (p. 475).
We must now take leave of this work which, notwithstanding its occasional abstruse and technical character, is not "beyond the ready comprehension of the general reader of average intelligence." It deserves to be widely read, not only for its subject-matter, but for its clearness of explanation and wide grasp of thought. The value of the book is much added to by its diagrams and illustrations, and by an excellent index and table of contents.
Ω.
PHYSIOGNOMY AND EXPRESSION. By _Paolo Mantegazza_. New York: Scribner &
Welford, 1890.
This work of the versatile Italian Anthropologist is probably one of those which best represent his many-sided mind, and which will be the most extensively read. Although strictly scientific, both in its end and method, it is popular in style and contains matter which must recommend it to the ordinary as well as the scientific reader. As the author informs us, he has taken up the study of expression at the point where Darwin left it. But he has made a further step. He has set himself the task "of separating, once for all, positive observations from the number of bad guesses, ingenious conjectures," which have hitherto encumbered the path of the study of the human countenance and human expression. His book is a "page of psychology," and he has endeavored to supply the psychologist, and also the artist, with new facts, as well as old facts interpreted by new theories, and to bring into view "some of the laws to which human expression is subject."
A glance at the table of contents shows that the author has fully carried out the promise thus made. The first chapter of the work after giving an historical sketch of the science of Physiognomy and of Human Expression—which in its infancy was "seasoned with the magic which is one of the original sins of the human family"—and tracing it from Dalla Porta to Darwin, through Niquetius, Ghiradelli, and Lavater, proceeds to treat of the human countenance in general, and of each of its features in particular. The possible judgments on the human face are reduced in number to five: the physiological, the ethnological, the æsthetic, the moral, and the intellectual. Of these verdicts, the ethnological and æsthetic are based almost exclusively on anatomical characters, while the physiological, moral, and intellectual verdicts depend chiefly on expression. The coloration of the human skin is an important ethnological feature, and M. Mantegazza thinks that it may be reduced to three tints, white, black, and "dried bean" (_fave seche_), which last he explains by saying that it results from the superposition of two colors, "most frequently from a sort of black or very dark brown dust deposited on a ground of dried bean" (p. 31). Among other interesting ethnological generalisations, is the remark that the Aryans, Semites, and many negroes have large eyes, while Mongols and many Malays have small eyes. In determining the color of the eyes, hair, and skin, the author found the table of tints prepared by M. Broca for the Anthropological Society of Paris insufficient, as the colors there used are opaque, while transmitted as well as reflected rays are combined to give the natural coloration. In the iris of the Lapps fourteen different and graduated shades are distinguishable, from dark chestnut brown to green. M. Mantegazza confirms the observation that a certain hue of the eyes is nearly always associated with a particular hair-color, and he states that this union is one of the most unvarying ethnical characters by which to judge of the purity of race. The nose is nearly as important as the eye as an ethnical and æsthetic feature. The author reproduces M. Topinard's curious table of its morphological characteristics observing that it omits only one, which nevertheless is somewhat important, that is, the angle made by the root of the nose with the forehead. In relation to the mouth we have the suggestive remark, "the eye is the centre of the expression of thought; the mouth is the expressive centre of feeling and of sensuality." As to the color of the hair, M. Mantegazza has brought together many important facts. Among the higher races, the hair may be of almost any of the ordinary tints. The Jews do not differ from the Europeans in this respect, as they exhibit fair hair as well as dark hair, and light and dark eyes. Although in Germany the Jewish population generally is much darker than the rest of the people, many of them have blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion. For some reason not yet ascertained, there is a tendency in Europe and especially in England for the blonde type to disappear. We would suggest that it is a case of reversion to the type of the primitive inhabitants. M. Mantegazza remarks that the beard does not correspond to any intellectual type, as it is strongly developed as well among the Australian aborigines as among the Aryans and Semites. Nevertheless, the beard is worthy of further study as an ethnological feature. It may be noted that the Australian aborigines have been connected with the primitive inhabitants of Western Europe by other characters.
In treating of the expression of the emotions, we are told that physical expression has two different functions—to replace a complete language, and "to defend the nerve-centres and other parts of the body against dangers of different kinds." Much more might have been said on the first subject, as gesture language has within the last few years become an important ethnological study, and, indeed, a supplementary chapter has been written for the English edition of this work on the physiognomy of gesture. There is great truth in the remarks, that "every religion and many philosophical schools have been founded by word and by expression more than by books"; and that "the more feeling a nation has, the more rich and eloquent are its methods of physical expression." M. Mantegazza does full justice to the great wealth of details and the discoveries on which the Darwinian laws of expression are based, while supplementing them with original observations and results. It is in the classification of expressions we have probably the most important feature of the present work. Full synoptical tables are given of the expressions of Sense, Passion, and Intellect, and of the various expressions of Pleasure and Pain, Love and Hatred. These are illustrated by ingenious remarks, as an example of which we may quote the somewhat cynical statement that "many ladies laugh little lest they should have precocious wrinkles, while others laugh too much and on every pretext that they may show their beautiful teeth." The author well says that in love and pleasure, hatred and pain, "we have two binary compounds, two such energetic psycho-expressive combinations that the formidable and the destructive voltaic pile of our analytic methods is needed to separate the elements." He has some curious remarks on the fact that laughter and smiling are very frequent phenomena in the expression of hatred, for which we refer our readers to the work itself.
To pleasure and pain, love and hatred, M. Mantegazza adds pride and humiliation, as "the fundamental psychical movements of human nature, as ancient as man, and common to all the inhabitants of the globe." Thus, he is of opinion that aristocracy is one of the most natural features of humanity, and that democrats "make history recede instead of advancing when they deny the most elementary laws of heredity and of human nature." We must pass over the expressions of personal feelings, and those of thought, to reach the chapter on racial and professional expression. Here races are classified, according to their expression, into ferocious, gentle, apathetic, grotesque or simian, stupid, and intelligent, but the classification, like all others from single characters, is imperfect. Probably as good a classification could be made on the basis of modes of salutation, beginning with nose-kissing, or the still more primitive smelling. Raden-Saleh, an artist of Java preferred nose-_breathing_, as by it we put our soul into contact with that of the beloved one! It is undoubtedly true, as M. Mantegazza remarks, that the expression of different peoples is replete with their most prominent psychical characters. The beautiful impassioned expression of the Italians is yet defiant and not always frank, owing to their having been so long subjected to tyrants. Speaking generally, the European peoples have an expansive or a concentric expression, of which "the first is found in the Italians, the French, the Slaves, the Russian: the second in the Germans, the Scandinavians, the Spanish." The author adds that there is also "a beautiful expression full of grace, that of the people of Græco-Latin origin; and another hard, quite angular, without roundness, that of the Germans, the English, and the Scandinavians."
M. Mantegazza gives a very skilful analysis of the "moderators and disturbers of expression," referring to his earlier work the "Physiology of Pain" for further details. In the next chapter he treats of the criteria for the determination of the strength of an emotion with reference to the accompanying expression. In addition to the _force_ and the _persistency_ of the contraction of the expressing muscles, there is a diffusion of expression in gradually increasing circles from the face downwards to the legs, and lastly, alternate contractions and relaxations of the muscles according to the intensity of the central movement which accompanies the emotion. The expression of pleasure is always centrifugal, that of pain being centripetal, tending to bring the arms and lower limbs towards the median line of the body. In dealing with the criteria for judging the moral work of a physiognomy, we are told that the two most certain signs of a good face, are the permanent expression of benevolence, and the absolute absence of all hypocrisy. Let us add the remark, accredited to Charles Dickens, that it is advisable to see how a person looks when silent and apparently unobserved. There are two sources of error in forming that judgment, one arising from the fact that beautiful things give pleasure, the chances of error increasing when a man has to judge a woman, or _vice versa_; the other is due to a false induction, from the observed association in one individual of a particular physical feature with a special moral character. The anatomical characters of the intelligent face and of the stupid face are given in a tabulated form, but M. Mantegazza states that the most important characters are those drawn from the expression, the two great centres of which are the eye and the mouth. Probably the non-observation of the expression accounts for the mistake made by Goethe, who, when dining at the house of an Englishman, was struck with the intellectual appearance of one of the guests and thought he must be a man of genius. Goethe anticipated pleasure in hearing him speak, but great was his horror, when apple dumplings were placed on the table, to hear the guest shout out "them's the jockies for me"!
In an appendix the author treats of the eyes, hair, and beard among the Italian races, which gives numerous statistics collected by the Italian Anthropological Society. It appears that the men of Tuscany as well as of Piedmont are noted for scantiness of beard. Probably this fact is due to the existence of a special race element, rather than a difference of climate as would seem to be suggested. The presence of red hair in all parts of Italy, although only in small quantities, is also difficult of explanation. Strange to say it is the most common in regions which are poorest in fair hair. From this we must suppose it to have some relation to dark hair, an opinion which agrees with the observation that in England dark hair in young children is sometimes interspersed with red hairs, which either change or disappear with age. The hair is known to darken considerably after puberty is reached, and possibly red hair may be due to the persistence, through special conditions of which we are not aware, of an infantile character.
We must not leave M. Mantegazza's excellent and entertaining work without referring to the plates given in the Appendix, among which are morphological, æsthetic, and intellectual trees of the human race, and figures of ethnic types illustrative of remarks made in the text. It also has a good index.
Ω.
IN DARKEST ENGLAND AND THE WAY OUT. By _Gen. Booth_, of the Salvation
Army. New York: Funk & Wagnalls.
In this book,—which is considered by many to be the most profound, serious, and comprehensive study of the social problem that has yet appeared, as much so because it seems to strike at the root of the grievance as because it offers a practical remedy,—the author proposes to so ameliorate the conditions of the abandoned classes in England as not only to make the members of them self-supporting and respectable, but after a twenty years' trial of his scheme to so change the industrial condition of the kingdom that there will not be found an able-bodied man or woman in all England unable to find work or food. What politico-economical reformers have had most to contend with is the poverty or lack of opportunity for labor which seems to be inherent in the present social structure,—a condition where, to express it clearly, there seems to be not enough work for all the people. Hence the standing army of tramps to the number of 30,000 in America and more than 20,000 in the city of London alone. The submerged class that the author of this book seeks to elevate or save from sin and utter uselessness has been variously estimated. Mr. Chamberlain says that there is in England a population equal to that of the metropolis—between four and five millions—who are in a state of abject destitution and misery. Mr. Griffin estimates the number to be 1,800,000, while the author of "In Darkest England" thinks 3,000,000 to be a moderate statement. Many causes may be ascribed to this deplorable state of humanity, such as natural incapacity for work, predisposition to idleness, enforced beggary, crime, misfortune, poverty, drunkenness, and waste,—all of which operate to drag these unfortunate ones to the lowest level of life. He thinks that the inability of a large proportion of the people to obtain work drives them either into despair, sin, crime, and suicide, or to merely exist, carrying with them, year by year, the bitter ashes of a life from which the furnace of misfortune has burned away all joy and hope and strength. They are a helpless and pathetic class,—men and women who "are being sucked down into the quicksands of modern life." And when it is known that England is rich enough to drink rum in quantities which appal the chancellor of the exchequer and yet not rich enough to provide any other shelter for her homeless ones and outcasts than the midnight sky, modern civilisation with all its boasted Christianity and humanitarianism presents indeed a deplorable aspect, appearing to be but a mockery and a farce.
The method which this book seeks to popularise and use as the means of elevating to usefulness the outcasts, the indigent, and unemployed classes of England and of the civilised world, is none other than the scheme originally applied in Bavaria by Count Rumford—an American better known as Benjamin Thompson, a graduate of Harvard, who, having entered the Bavarian service at the close of the war for independence, became the governor of Munich. The scheme is threefold. It is proposed to organise the submerged classes, with their consent of course, into a gigantic co-operative society, subdivided into (1) The City Colony, (2) The Farm Colony, (3) The Over-Sea Colony. "The scheme in its entirety," we are informed, "may aptly be compared to a great machine foundationed in the lowest slums and purlieus of our great towns and cities, drawing up into its embrace the depraved and destitute of all classes; receiving thieves, harlots, paupers, drunkards, prodigals, all alike, on the simple conditions of their being willing to work and conform to discipline. Drawing up these poor outcasts, reforming them, and creating in them habits of industry, honesty, and truth; teaching them methods by which alike the bread that perishes and that which endures to everlasting life can be won; forwarding them from the city to the country and there continuing the process of regeneration and then pouring them forth on the virgin soils that await their coming in other lands." The scheme is so comprehensive that it includes slum crusades, wagon hospitals, a brigade of Christian apostles near prison-gates to meet and help discharged prisoners, rescue homes for unfallen girls when on the danger line between sin and starvation, bureaus of intelligence, refuges for street children, industrial schools, asylums for moral lunatics, a matrimonial bureau, and banks for the poor. The project is not to be summarily rejected as utopian. It is a gigantic effort to utilise the human refuse that sieves itself through all the means available for enlightenment to the very bottom of the social structure. Into this vast machine the whole mass of soiled humanity would be taken and by the refining process which is clearly elaborated in the book we could touch this material with a new spirit and thus reclaim the men, women, and children to self-support, honor, honesty, and usefulness. For the success of the project "General" Booth has asked for one million pounds.
Three serious objections may be made to the scheme. The first is the placing into the hands of one man or one organisation the power of disposing, and the custody, of five millions of dollars—an objection which Professor Huxley makes with good reason. The second is, the theological environment which is a seeming part and parcel of the whole machine. And the third is, the superficial and unradical character of the remedy. Concerning the first objection it may be simply said, that history proves that the experiment which the "General" is about to make is a dangerous one. Professor Huxley maintains with more than usual gravity, that the unquestionable obedience which every soldier in the Salvation Army is expected, and by verbal contract is duly bound, to maintain for all orders from headquarters, gives the most suspicious aspect to the probable tyrannical development of his army in the future, as was illustrated for example in the Franciscan order founded in the thirteenth century by St. Francis. After his death, although the order was pledged by him to mendicancy and absolute separation from all worldly entanglements, it became "one of the most powerful, wealthy, and worldly corporations in all Christendom, with their fingers in every sink of political and social corruption." What guarantee is there that the Salvation Army may not become likewise involved and exercise an imperialism and fanaticism not to be exceeded even by the Jesuits or Mormons? "It is" writes Professor Huxley in the _London Times_, "a greater evil to have the intellect of a nation put down by organised fanaticism, to see its political and industrial affairs at the mercy of a despot whose chief thought is to make that fanaticism prevail, to watch the degradation of men who should feel themselves individually responsible for their own and their country's fate, to mere brute instruments ready to the hand of a master for any use to which he may put them."
Another objection and one equally as fatal is the religious aspect which is given to the movement. As such it bears a relation to the problem of civilisation which is all important. To insist that every wicked man or woman in order to be righteous and happy must, ought, or will, believe in historical Christianity, is absurd enough, and to project or infuse into the whole character of a social reform movement a theological idea as a necessary element in its efficacy is certainly ridiculous, but to make the work of the elevation of the degenerate masses of mankind a mere accessory to a belief in an irrational and already obsolete religious doctrine or contingent upon it,—at least to emphasize it as a means to the adoption of the unfortunates into one organisation where all believe alike, or where by virtue of the gratitude they bear to those who have materially helped them, they conform or try to conform to their mode of thinking,—is indeed one of the sad mistakes upon which the "General's" social project is built. For in the submerged class, there are doubtless many who are not Christians in belief, who indeed, however fortunate they may become, yet could not subscribe to the creed of the Evangelical Church or honestly engage in a work organised in the interest of so-called historical Christianity. It is not necessary in order to make man good to make him a Christian, or a Jew, or a Buddhist, in belief. The point to emphasise is goodness of character and not merely an intellectual profession of faith. Once get a man to be good, or to hate sin and love righteousness, and he will, if he never makes a Christian profession, be as useful a man as society might wish. Righteousness will take any man or woman safely and happily through the world. The truth is just as the poet stated it:
"A man may cry 'Church! Church!' at every word,
And have no more grace than other people;
The daw's not reckoned a religious bird
Because he keeps a-cawing in the steeple."
It is not, therefore, necessary, to the success of "General" Booth's scheme that it should be hitched to some popular, although unscientific and unreasonable religious conception of life; or that he should consider a reform in the life of any man a miracle, and therefore attribute all such to the direct interposition of God. The scheme, if a success at all, will depend, as the organisation of the Salvation Army has depended, upon the enthusiasm and enterprise of the "General" and his constituency. And all reliance upon God without any intelligent human effort in behalf of the outcasts of society would only gorge a greater multitude of humanity into the bogs and sinks of iniquity. As well might we expect a locomotive to move by tacking scripture all over it, as to expect any great social reform movement to be a success by associating it or making it depend upon some sort of religious creed. Still whatever may be said against religious interference with social problems, the work of "General" Booth puts to shame the church whose trifling doctrinal and polemical controversies have so blinded its judgment as to neglect its duties toward the submerged classes and leave them to so enormously increase that in order to save the world from almost hopeless ruin a new organisation such as the Salvation Army had to come forth. The church has a far more important duty to perform than that of merely existing, and it will never emblason the record which its founder gave it by his self-sacrificing life and his noble death upon the cross until it takes its wealth of brain, heart, and money, and becomes indeed the modern Saviour of the world.
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The Monist, Vol. 1, 1890-1891Chapter XX: Part 20
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