Why do we sleep? Some have said, through cerebral congestion; others, through cerebral anæmia. In reality the question remains undecided. M. S. SERGUEYEFF has attempted to resolve it in his scholarly lectures published under the title ofLe Sommeil et le Système nerveux, Physiologie de la Veille et du Sommeil.[86] He considers it under a new and very general point of view.
[86] In two thick octavo volumes. Alcan, publisher.
According to him, wake and sleep would be the two alternating phases of one and the same function, necessarily vegetative, and absolutely indispensable to life. Sleep would respond to an assimilation; wake to a dis-assimilation.
To this vegetative function, nevertheless, it is necessary to assign an aliment, an organ, a mechanism. Now as yet we know of only two material forms of assimilative activity, the one semi-liquid for digestion, the other gaseous for respiration. The aliment of sleep would be, as opposed to this, an ethereal matter, or, if we wish, a dynamic form, susceptible of being accumulated and of being transformed in various ways. At first sight, no doubt, it seems difficult to accept a sthenic aliment, without a ponderable substratum, and it sounds a little strange to seek in the phenomena of wake and sleep "an assimilative group the object of which belongs to the ambient dynamism," in other terms, "a functional activity," which should be influenced by the condition of the alimentary source—that which would give at the same time the explication of the fact, that, in a general way, the two phases of wake and sleep are related to the planetary periodicity of day and night, summer and winter. Let us, however, follow M. Sergueyeff in his interesting researches, where the scientific spirit does not cease, at any rate, to sustain him.
In his theory the cerebro-spinal system is no longer the organ, as it is in the theories of congestion and anæmia; but it is rather the so-called sympathetic elements, the ganglio-epidermic system, of which the imperfectly known functions rightly require to be explained. Struck with the insufficient reasons given of the phenomenon of caloricity resulting from the section of a sympathetic nerve, or from the obstruction of a ganglion, M. Sergueyeff has been led to assume an action of the great sympathetic, different from the vaso-motor action. He does not hesitate, in order to explain the caloricity, to admit into physiology the principle of the mechanical equivalence of heat. He endeavors to prove, by an ingenious argument, that the heat which is produced after the section of the sympathetic nerves, finds its immediate origin in the arrest of a nervous centripetal movement; that this arrested movement owes its existence to dynamic condensations, to which certain organs of the ganglionic system are adapted, being endowed with a condensatory capacity; and finally that in the normal state the movement represents, not an expenditure of energy, but a contribution, that is to say, it is a movement of a trophical character.
The sanguineous condition of the brain remains to be considered; but the difference in this respect between wake and sleep, would be purely distributive instead of being quantitative. Schiff has remarked that white rats deprived of their cerebral lobes and corpora striata sleep and wake; which leads us to think that the phenomena of cerebral irrigation are consequentials, and not essentials, of wake and sleep. In short, these two alternating phases serve in turns as chief moving causes for the vaso-motor excitation which differences, in one or the other period, the sanguineous condition of this or that medullar locality.
We cannot follow the author in the special study he makes, first of the sensitive nerves and the motor nerves, then of the "cerebral activities" in the conditions of wake and sleep. It would be laborious to disengage his psychological doctrine from the long discussions which envelop it, and which, well carried out as they may be, do not always allow it to appear with as much distinctness as could be wished. We will note only the care that he takes to restore thepsychic initiative, contrary to the theories most in favor to-day. He supposes a prefunctional movement of the sensitive nerves, in order to determine the sensorial impression; "attentive volitions" in order to explain attention, voluntary or involuntary. According to him, the physiological phenomenon which necessarily corresponds to sufficient attention, that is to say to the laying hold of an object by consciousness, can only be a volitional nervous movement. He remains convinced that "the cells of the brain must project incessantly in certain of their afferent fibres centrifugal influxes which tend to meet with perceptive images"; and feeble and involuntary as these influxes may be, he ranks them nevertheless in the somewhat mysterious category of so-called attentive volitions. These are not reflexes, but automatic movements. And definitively, every act of attention belongs to the category of volitional movement, be it involuntary or voluntary; or in short, "attentive volition exists prior to its voluntary strengthening."
As to the revival of images, it is necessary to admit the intervention of a previous tendency to association. The difficulty remains then to know how we are to be able to keep these images before the consciousness, in order to apply our attention to them, and what secret cause has power to arouse the signals, the nervous movements, which present them to it. The author resolves the difficulty by accepting, for cases of intentional reviviscence,ideo-motorvolitions, to which he attributes a considerable rôle; their intervention distinguishes precisely, says he, the active memory from the passive memory.
In reality, for M. Sergueyeff the consciousness is not, as we have said, a simple result of the image, an epiphenomenon; it is permanent (thus he affirms that we always think, that we always dream); theEgo, theWeis for him an irreducible factor. This way of looking at things has evidently influenced the choice of his terminology, more than it has vitiated his analysis, and its conclusions, moreover, he has not put down to the credit of any system of metaphysics whatever. Far from having exhausted the matter of his book, which is replete with criticisms and facts, I have hardly sketched its outlines, and I should be his false interpreter if I did not recall, in conclusion, the hope strongly expressed by himself, that the great assimilative work of an imponderable aliment reserves for us many other solutions beyond that of the phenomena of wake and sleep. "Though it may be," says he to his hearers, "that in all the recent words I have uttered, the truth shines only by a spark, do not disdain this spark, gentlemen. May one of you receive it within him, for it can, I have the confidence, by a more powerful breath than mine suddenly increase, like a polar aurora, and illuminate unbounded horizons."
* * * * *
We now come to a book of less scope, rudely constructed perhaps, but very instructive. As indicated by the title chosen by him,La Psychologie de l'Idiot et de l'Imbècile,[87] Dr. PAUL SOLLIER has attempted to draw the portrait of the idiot and the imbecilein general; which I sincerely approve of persuaded as I am that we shall find profit in sketching generic types and in tracing the composite photographs of social individuals grouped in various ways, in order to establish on solid basis a "natural history" of societies. The novelists have approached this difficult enterprise at random; it is for the psychologists to direct it with a method more sure and a tact not less delicate.
[87] Alcan, publisher.
Idiocy is not always congenital; the lesions which produce it are extremely varied and do not consist by any means in a simple arrest of development. In short, idiots form a very diversified clinical group; and here was the first difficulty necessary to overcome in order to write their psychology. Profiting by the insufficient definitions that authors have given of idiocy, M. Sollier thinks he is able in his turn to define it as "a chronic cerebral affection with varied lesions, characterised by troubles of the intellectual, sensitive, and motory functions, going possibly as far as their almost complete abolition, and which assumes its special character, particularly in what concerns intellectual troubles, only in the youthful age of the subjects it strikes." Then, discussing the proposed classification, he stops to form three categories, which he connects with the intellectual development, for which attention serves him as the touch-stone. They are: (1) absolute idiocy—complete absence and impossibility of attention; (2) simple idiocy—feebleness and difficulty of attention; (3) imbecility—instability of attention. These differences in the state of attention (we recognise the fruit of the excellent teaching of M. Ribot) separate with sufficient clearness the imbecile from the idiot: the latter remains extra-social, the former becomes anti-social. M. Sollier, for whom the imbecile, let us say in passing, is an exceedingly disagreeable personage, follows out throughout the whole of his book this distinction, which seems to us one of the most curious and the most piquant aspects of it. How many people in the world border on imbecility, without belonging clinically to this type, and maintain the mischievous rôle of destroyers and marplots!
Readers familiar with the study of mental maladies will not be astonished to find among idiots the following signs of degeneracy: dulled senses, obtuse perceptions, a poor condition of sensibility and consequently of mobility, and anomalies or perversions of the instincts, sentiments, etc. But that which makes of them a group apart, is the constitution of the perfect type from infancy, while among the degenerates properly so-called, the perversions, the manias, etc. present, are the episodical concurrences of a morbid evolution which unrolls itself capriciously in the course of a whole life.
M. Sollier has interesting remarks nearly everywhere in his book. We may refer, for example, to what he says concerning pity, courage; of writing; of hereditary organic memory; of ideas, etc. It is curious, certainly, to see idiots suddenly show themselves skilful in playing an instrument which was that of their father and of their grandfather. A passing observation on impressionability, greater for color in girls and for form in boys, deserves to be developed: I regret that the author should have been sparing of details on this point as on some others. M. Sollier appears, we may say, to have aimed not so much at giving new explanations in psychology, as at verifying those which have been proposed by good authors. He is precise, positive; from the medico-legal point of view, he presents practical conclusions, and does not embarrass himself in sentimentalism, from which thePhilosophie pénale[88] of M. TARDE, let it be said parenthetically, is not always sufficiently free.
[88] First volume of theBibliothèque de Criminologie. Masson, publisher.
A word more with reference to the "great suggestibility" of imbeciles, on which M. Sollier reasonably insists. Since I spoke in this place, three months ago, of the work of M. Bonjean, the awkward intervention of M. Liégeois in the Eyraud-Gabrielle Bompard case has contributed to compromise the Nancy school, much more than to serve it. M. Brouardel is able to object with ingenuity that certain persons, supposed to be victims of hypnotism, unfortunately obey suggestions "which are the most agreeable to them." It is good advice to be cautious. Still it is necessary to take into account (it is what I had omitted to say) the character of the subjects, in order to be able to judge of the possible accomplishment of acts suggested in sleep. For, it is not doubtful that among the abnormal, the imbecile, the mentally feeble, one could not count much on the revolt of a moral personality which is not constituted, on the efficiency of a power of inhibition which is almost null, and that generally criminal suggestion can become formidable when it is attended by bad instincts.
It remains to speak of a work by M. A. RICARDOU,De l'Idéal, Etude philosophique.[89] I avow without any disguise that I have not taken any interest in it. M. Ricardou declares himself a deist, spiritualist; the misfortune is that he follows so much the vague and wavering manner of his school. A fine rhetoric, elevated aspirations; but few facts, not sufficient realities freely seen. What end is served by rebelling against physiological psychology, and by laying claim to the rights of the method of introspection? In truth, no one denies its right; it is suspected only when it affects supremacy, and rejects all control.
[89] Alcan, publisher.
I simply mention, in conclusion, the interesting work, which appeared last year, of M. L. LEVY-BRUHL:L'Allemagne depuis Leibniz, Essai sur le developpement de la conscience nationale en Allemagne.[90] It belongs, in great part, to the history of philosophy, and furnishes to it a valuable contribution.
[90] Hachette, publisher.
Paris, March, 1891. LUCIEN ARRÉAT.
Not being a man of letters, but an alienist, I will give you a psychological rather than a literary description of the condition of literature in Italy. My presentation will undoubtedly have many defects and deficiencies in details, but it will perhaps thereby gain in originality of treatment.
It is one of the characteristics of European writers, and especially of Italians, to isolate themselves completely from scientific research. Beauty for itself, the imitation of the ancients—this is the defect, or the strength, of our poets. ALEARDI, it is true, put some years ago a little botany and geology into his poetry, as did, nearly a century ago, Mascheroni, in his celebrated epistleInvito a Lesbia Sidonia. ZANELLA, a true priest, has sung in a celebrated ode theCoquille Fossile, which portrays in colors truly poetical the last discoveries of paleontology. But this naturalism was only a light varnish, like the golden powder that coquettes sprinkle on their hair, and which falls at the first movement. It is nevertheless true that some poets, not appreciated yet as they deserve, draw their inspiration from nature or from history.
Such is ARTUR GRAF, who in my opinion owes his genius to an intermixture of race, Italian, Greek, and German, and also to a climatic graft, as he comes from Roumania; which shows the favorable influence of the double race-infusion. (See my work on "Genius.") In his poemMedusa, Graf has mingled naturalism and Schopenhauerianism with a poetical spirit which is highly original. He has also writtenIl Diaboloand theLegend of Rome among the Nations of the Middle Ages; a work which has philological and historical merit, especially in connection with the Folk-lore of past centuries. These books are in prose; but their form is wholly poetical.
RAPISARDI is truly the Juvenal, and we may also say the Lucretius, of contemporaneous Italy. He began by giving us the best translation of the great Roman poet, and he has absorbed much of his spirit, and perhaps also of the asperity of his verses, and of his contempt for form. His great original poem is theGiobbe(Catania), in which he has given a bitter satire of modern society and of contemporary literary men; however, he would seem to be sometimes too personal; so much so that many persons have not forgiven him. Lately he has published a collection ofReligious Poems(Catania, 1888), in which, despite its title, there is much less religion than naturalism. It is a hymn, worthy of its master, to the religion of nature and to the beauty of truth, without forgetting the grand social ideas of justice which our poets so often forget.
PRAGA may be described as the Baudelaire of Italy. He too, like the latter, lived and died an alcoholist and paralytic. He was the first to break with the Græco-Latin traditions; and has drawn his inspiration from the caprices of his disease, which has given him a powerful and original stamp. His best works arePenombreandTavolozza. The same lot, induced by the same disease, has befallen ROVANI, who in his historical novels (Giulio Cesareandla Storia di centi anni) has performed good work in history and psychology.
Among writers truly original, MANTEGAZZA excels in prose. His is one of those many-sided, versatile minds that are met with in the Latin races; such as Cardano, Leonardo da Vinci, L. B. Alberti, Voltaire, Taine, Richet. He is by turns pathologist, physiologist, chemist, anthropologist, geographer, traveller, and novelist. His novelDio Ignotois semi-naturalistic. In hisFisiologia del piacerehe has attempted a new kind of personal observations, although it is met with in the novels of Balzac, of Flaubert, and of Gonoret. In hisPhysiology of painhe has again become pathological, serious; this book has, accordingly, not obtained the success that it merited. In theFeste ed Ebbrezzehe describes the pleasures of the people. But Mantegazza, who has the originality of genius, has also its evil and treacherous volubility; and we cannot say what is his patriotic and philosophic faith. He has written pages that seem dictated by a catholic priest, by the side of others worthy of Aretino (Amore degli uomini), and still other pages which could be signed by Victor Hugo.
Less original perhaps, but much more consistent with himself, is M. TREZZA, another versatile writer, a theologist, poet, historian, critic, philosopher, philologist, but who has not changed the facets of his genius, or the conscience of his faith. At one time a priest, he was one of the most ardent preachers; but the study of natural science and of philosophy drew him away from his faith and plunged him in naturalism. He has preserved all the apostolic warmth of the ardent and honest priest of his youth. Thus he has emerged from it a new being immovable in his faith:
"Come torre che non crollaGiammai la cima per soffiar dei venti."[91]
[91]Like a tower that shakes notIn the blasts of the storm.
His works in religious criticismLa Religione e le Religioni, and also in history and philosophy (Lucrezio,Epicuro e l'Epicurismo,La Critica Moderna) have received from it a peculiar impress, in which the enthusiasm of the apostle is mingled with the calm observation of science, and history confounds metaphysics. He is the first and the only one perhaps, who has attempted criticism in Italy while preserving a literary brilliancy which reminds us of Carlyle.
But according to universal opinion, among all these stars, the star of first magnitude is GIOSUE CARDUCCI. He is the true representative of the Italians, a graft of antiquity on the moderns, but in which antiquity predominates. His poems (Le Nuove Poesie,Le Odi barbare,Le Nuove Odi barbare,Le Terze Odi barbare,Le Nuove Rime) have attracted the greatest attention. He has introduced and revived a new metre, many times tried, but never with success, by Trissino, Campanella, Chiabrera, and others; a new metre which reproduces the ancient rhythm of Greek and Roman poetry, especially the elegy and the Alcaic ode. His is a new pagan Renaissance with a certain gloss of modernness but with outbursts sometimes patriotic and even revolutionary which the Renaissance lacked. His prose works also consist of archaic reconstructions of Italian literary history and of vigorous polemics, sometimes too personal, but always with a refinement of critique.
By the side of these productions which are known everywhere, and which can be truly called national, there is a substratum, of considerable extent, of literary works that have a local character. Such is the poetry of dialect which has however a great weight with us; for the best satirical poems and the best comedies are almost always written in dialect (Pascarellain the Roman dialect,Fuciniin the Tuscan dialect,Di Giacomoin Neapolitan,Bersezioin Piedmontese,Rizzottoin Sicilian). It must be remarked also that this local division is still maintained in the rolls of the great army of literature, although this does not prevent such works passing beyond the geographical limits of their territory and becoming known throughout the whole of Italy.
We have a Ligurian-Piedmontese school with DE AMICIS at the head,—De Amicis, who now however often attempts social studies with much intrepidity,—and BARILI, FARINA, BERSEZIO, GIACOSA, and FALDELLA, who possess the common characteristic of a sentimentality almost feminine, altogether opposed to the rugged country of which they constitute the glory.
There is the Tuscan-Bolognese school of which CARDUUI is the chief pontiff and which hovers about the old school. M. PANZACCHI, RICCI, MARRADI, and STECCHETTI belong to it; there was an epoch in the life of the last named in which he launched into a style which seemed naturalistic, but which was at bottom only pornographic; but he immediately compensated for his escapade by a great number of philological memoirs of an erudition truly oppressive, ultra-academical.
There is the Abruzzian school, of which D'ANNUNZIO is the head. Its characteristics are variegated tropical coloring, and a certain studied ornamentation sometimes burdened with similes and metaphors, and an exaggerated objectivity; it lays hold of the outside of things, but does not reach to and grasp the soul of the inner life of nature.
The Neapolitan school is made up of compilers and ingenious critics, who will make you an elegant embroidery with gossamer threads on the point of a needle. The most celebrated names of this school are SETTEMBRINI, DESANCTIS, BONGHI, and VITTORIO IMBRIANI.
The Sicilian is the rudest, but it is the most powerful and most original. We could name the great historians CEMARI, LA LUMIA, LAFARINA; and PITTRE, who created Italian Folklore, and who has maintained it with a special journal. Sicily has also given us two great novelists, VERGA and CAPUANA, who are improved Zolas. TheMalavogliaandDon Gesualdoof M. Verga give us the home life of the Sicilian people. In theGiacintaof Capuana we have the life of the citizens and of the Italian nobility photographed.
Women always preserve the local type; but with special features. Hardly any write in verse; they compose novels and light productions rather than romances, sketches rather than true portraits. They choose the young girl and the unfortunate married woman; very often they write autobiographies, or the biography of their friends or their husbands. The land-question has nevertheless been dealt with very well by the Marchioness COLOMBI, (pseudonym of Madame Torelli Viollet) and the woman's question has been treated of with great vigor and statistically by KULISCHIOFF; I have not spoken of ANNIE VIVANTI, another proof of the advantages of crossing, for she is Anglo-American and Anglo-Italian, and a Jewess to boot; she writes in verses which have nothing of the classical element in them—an extraordinary thing in Italy. Her works possess originality, which goes as far as the most extreme naturalism. (Lirica di Annie Vivanti, 1890.)
In fine, modern Italy has not many literary masterpieces to show. And this is due to a number of causes. In romances and comedies, dash and spirit demand a certain stock of observations that can be found only in great cities (capitals), and in Italy, Rome and Milan are only beginning to be such.
Originality, multiplicity, and energy of types are very scarce in Italy, for everywhere the conventional lie dominates; it is much more difficult to choose models here than it is in certain other countries, for example in Russia; for genius alone can draw inspiration from inferior and ordinary material.
The classical system of education has prevented us from going to the source of social anomalies, mattoids, madmen, etc.
Besides, classicism, which has dominated us for so many centuries, and which has inspired us with its marvellous beauties, has, like the old, (and it is very old,) lost all its vital force. People have made believe to warm themselves by it; but they have not succeeded; they remain cold; and they admire its adepts only in deference to the conventional lie. Yet the entire education of our youth consists of that. It is the same as in religion. People have made Madonnas and Jesuses of it to such an extent that now there is no longer any means of contriving anything new. Naturalism without being the natural foundation of the people is nevertheless sufficiently advanced not to allow of serious inspiration in religion.
Many authors who have sought new paths have been led out of their way by journalism and politics, which always end in exhausting people, even geniuses. SCARFOGLIO, BONGHI, TORELLI, DEZERBI, and FERRI are among the number.
The difficulty of securing a place in the literary world also very quickly exhausts many. Thus many men, especially of Southern Italy, produce a very good work; but they have become fathers too late in life, and have only a single son; such are BERSEZIO, with hisTravet, BOITO with hisBallate, VALCARENGHI with hisConfessioni d'Andrea.
Political liberty, if it has given an impulse to social and political studies, has prejudiced great literary production, perhaps because under the incitement of foreign domination and of rebellion, the heart draws from a grand source of inspiration, and the pen finds powerful excitation, more powerful perhaps, than liberty gives it.
Art finds more numerous elements of success in minds highly excited. It is the property of great revolutions to elevate the souls of all contemporaries, to impart to them a peculiar disposition unknown before, and which is not slow to disappear. The most humble, the most obscure, those even who have not taken any part in the events and who have hardly studied them, express, a long time afterwards even, sentiments much superior to those which their ordinary condition allows. It is sufficient to have lived during some passionate epoch to issue from it better, purer, and stronger. The new ideas, the generous impulses which then carry away nations, penetrate into all classes and ennoble a whole generation. We had in our revolutionary epoch, Manzoni, Massimo d'Azeglio, Guerazzi, Giusti, Porta, Miceli, Brofferio, Berchet, Mameli, Boerio, Laquacci, Aleardi, Grassi, Prati. Who have we now to compare with them?
Turin, March, 1891. CESARE LOMBROSO.
THE ORIGIN OF THE ARYANS. An Account of the Prehistoric Ethnology andCivilisation of Europe. ByIsaac Taylor, M. A., L. L. D. NewYork: Scribner & Welford.
The author of this extremely interesting work states in the preface that it does not aim at setting forth new views or speculations. His opinions on its main thesis, that is, as to the place of origin of the primitive Aryans, are those of Spiegel and Schrader, except where he prefers the conclusions of Cuno. These writers, with the majority of the latest investigators of the subject, accept the view originated[92] by the English philologist Dr. R. G. Latham in 1851, that the original home of the primitive Aryans was on the great plain of Central Europe. Cuno insisted also on what Dr. Taylor affirms is now an axiom in ethnology, that race is not coextensive with language. This is a most important principle, as it completely changes the aspects of the problem by making it more complex. It introduces, in fact, a fresh element; as it requires the Aryan to be identified before his primitive habitat can be sought for.
[92] Dr. Daniel G. Brinton in hisRaces and Peoplespoints out that the view referred to in the text was first stated by the Belgian naturalist M. D'Halloy; but it has always been accredited to Dr. Latham by German writers and, as mentioned by Dr. Taylor, was regarded by them as an English "fad."
The difficulties attending this identification are clearly pointed out in the present work. During the neolithic period, Europe was inhabited by four distinct races, all of which are represented among the present Aryan-speaking peoples of the continent. If the primitive Aryans are to be identified with one of those races it must have imposed its speech on the other three. Moreover, of those four races, two are decidedly dolichocephalic, or long-headed, the other two being as decidedly brachycephalic, or broad-headed. The latter are now represented by the Slavo-Celtic, and the Ligurian, or Swiss and Savoyard, peoples; while the present representatives of one primitive long-headed race are the Swedes, the North Germans and the Friesians, and of the other, the Corsicans, the Spanish Basques, and some of the Welsh and Irish. There are grounds for believing, however, that the two dolichocephalic races were derived from a single root, and that the two brachycephalic races will ultimately be identified as one. There would thus be left only two primitive stocks, one long-headed and the other short-headed, and Dr. Taylor concludes, not only that the primitive Aryans belonged to the latter, but that they were racially connected with the Finno-Ugric tribes of Eastern Europe and Central Asia. He shows that the culture of the Slavo-Celtic race, as exhibited in the round barrows of Britain and the pile-dwellings of Central Europe, comes nearest to that of the primitive Aryans, as disclosed by linguistic palæontology. Further, that anthropologically this belongs to the same type as that of the tall, fair, broad-headed Finno-Ugrian tribes; agreeably to which, the grammatical resemblances between the Aryan languages and those of the Ural-Altaic stock point to a primitive unity of speech.
There would seem to be no doubt that the greater part of Europe was originally occupied by peoples of the long-headed type, and Dr. Taylor conjectures "that at the close of the reindeer age a Finnic people appeared in Western Europe, whose speech remaining stationary, is represented by the agglutinative Basque, and that much later, at the beginning of the pastoral age, when the ox had been tamed, a taller and more powerful Finno-Ugrian people developed in Central Europe the inflective Aryan speech." This theory requires that the non-Aryan long-headed race should have acquired in some way the Aryan speech, and it is not surprising that the North Germans reject the "Turanian" theory accepted by the French and espoused by our author, and maintain that the physical type of the primitive Aryans was that of their own tall, fair, dolichocephalous race. On this view, the ancestors of the brachycephalic Lithuanians, whose language best represents among those of Europe the primitive Aryan speech, must have been Aryanised by the ancestors of the Teutons, whose language approaches nearest to the Lithuanian. Dr. Taylor points out, however, that this would leave unexplained "how the speech of the brachycephalic Celts and Umbrians, to say nothing of the Greeks, the Armenians, and the Indo-Iranians, was obtained from that of the dolichocephalic Teutons; how a people which in neolithic times was few in numbers, and in a low state of culture, succeeded in Aryanising so many tribes more numerous and more civilised."
The question arises as to how far this "Aryanising" process extended. Was it limited to language or did it include certain physical characters as well? As a fact the superficial characters of the tall dolichocephalic type which, according to Nilsson and Von Düben, has prevailed in Sweden continuously from the earliest times to the present day, make an approach to the florid complexion, light eyes, and reddish hair of the tall brachycephalic race. The former have lighter hair, a whiter skin, and eyes of blue instead of gray, but these are just the differences that might be expected, as the result of the admixture of the Slavo-Celtic stock with that to which the famous Neanderthal skull belongs, and which is now known as the Canstadt type. At the same time it is possible that the difference in color as well as in stature which distinguishes the tall from the short races belonging to both the long-headed and the broad-headed stocks may be the result of external influences, such as climate, food, and clothing, and the general conditions of life in a mountainous or northern region. This would apply at all events to the Teutonic or Scandinavian type, and also to the Celto-Slavic which represents the primitive Aryan type, or rather their Ugro-Finnic predecessors, if it is true, as Dr. Schrader concludes, that the undivided Aryans had only two seasons, winter and spring, or at most three. This fact does not necessarily imply that they lived in a northern region; for the same climatic conditions could be met with in a mountainous district. Dr. Schrader thinks, however, that the precise region can be approximately indicated by reference to the beech tree. We are told that this tree does not now grow east of a line drawn from Königsberg to the Crimea, and its northern limit must formerly have been still more restricted. Hence the cradle of the Latin, Hellenic, and Teutonic races, which have the same name for this tree, must have been to the west of the ancient beech-line. But since the Slavo-Lithuanian name is a Teutonic loan-word, we must place the cradle of the Lithuanians and the Slaves to the east of this line. But since there are philological reasons for believing in the unbroken geographical continuity of the European Aryans previous to the linguistic separation, they must be placed in northern Europe astride of the beech line; the Slavo-Lithuanian in European Russia; and the Celts, Latins, Hellenes, and Teutons farther to the West. It may be doubted, however, whether this necessarily indicates northern Europe as the primitive Aryan home. Dr. Latham in his "Native Races of the Russian Empire" insisted on Podolia being the region where Sanskrit and Zend developed themselves, the Slavo-Lithuanic region lying to the north and west of it. Curiously enough the beech-line passes directly through Podolia, which might therefore claim to be the classic Aryan abode. Too much stress should not be laid, however, on such an incident as the occurrence of a particular name for a tree. It is quite possible that the beech may not have been known to the brachycephalic Aryans until after they came in contact with the dolichocephalic Teutons. This would seem, indeed, to be required if the Ugro-Finnic origin of the Aryans is well founded. At the same time it should be pointed out that while, according to Keith Johnston's "Physical Atlas," the region of deciduous trees extends as far east as the Aral Sea, Latham refers the beech to the Caucasus as its special habitat; and the mountain slopes of the Caucasus are shown by Peschel to be the best fitted geographically for the original home of the Indo-European race.
After all the question of theplaceof 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.
INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF PHILOSOPHY. ByWilliam T. Harris. NewYork: 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 theJournal of Speculative Philosophyhe 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 necessarya priorielements 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-calleda priorior 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 principlepar excellenceof 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.
THE EVOLUTION OF SEX. By Prof.Patrick GeddesandJ. ArthurThomson. 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 ofgenoblasts, 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 morekatabolic,—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 moreanabolic,—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 withanabolismof 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.
ANIMAL LIFE AND INTELLIGENCE. ByC. 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 ofsegregationas 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 thestump, 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 aconstruct, 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, theanalysis of constructs. Attention is paid to certain qualities of objects to the exclusion of others, a process termed by the authorisolation, the products beingisolates. This process is constantly going on, and all the qualities, relationships, and feelings thus isolated have applied to them arbitrary symbols. They are in factnamed, and "hence arises all our science, all our higher thought." At this stage we enter the field of conception, as the isolates areconcepts, 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 calledinference. 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 formconstructsanalogous to, if not closely resembling ours, the resemblance cannot be in any sense close, "seeing to how large an extent our constructs are literally ourhandiwork." 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 apredominant, "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 ofanalysis of constructswhich 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.
PHYSIOGNOMY AND EXPRESSION. ByPaolo 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 theforceand thepersistencyof 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, orvice 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"!