evidence of the fact. But, on the other hand, if a lowly-organized animal does learn by its own individual experience, we are in possession of the best available evidence of conscious memory leading to intentional adaptation."
Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics. By Frederic Pollock, M. A., LL. D. Macmillan & Co. Pp. 377. Price, $3.
Although but little oneness of form will be expected in a work like this, composed of occasional pieces which have appeared in divers journals and reviews, yet so much unity of purpose and thought are to be found in it as to give a considerable measure of coherence. The essays fall into two divisions, in the first of which legal topics predominate, in the second ethical. In the first, it has been the author's aim to consider legal ideas and institutions as affected by or as affecting the wider interests of history, politics, and practical legislation. In the second division he has endeavored to bring to a better-defined issue certain points of ethical discussion, by the help of distinctions founded on familiar legal conceptions, and by specifically applying those conceptions and distinctions to admitted facts. In both subjects he has preferred to use the historical method—taking the term in a pretty wide sense. Yet, in respect to the method followed, whether critical or analytical, the author takes no narrow view, and it will help to the understanding of the character of his book if we quote his prefatory remarks upon this subject:
There may be an apparent inconsistency in the points of view taken in some of the legal essays. I have started sometimes from the pure analysis of the modern English school of jurisprudence, sometimes from history, sometimes from practical expediency. My own opinion is that all these methods are legitimate, and that, if their results fail to agree, it is the fault, not of the instrument, but of the worker; No doubt there exists a tendency to conflict between the historical and the analytical manner of considering legal phenomena. The historical student is tempted to regard analytical jurisprudence as shallow sciolism, while the analytical jurist is apt to charge the historical and comparative method with laxity of thought and antiquarian pedantry. Both methods are, in truth, useful and necessary, and either of them alone is imperfect; the modern developments of legal theory have shown them in their power and in their shortcomings.
The history of law was by no means neglected before the rise of modern critical jurisprudence; but its results were of little value so long as they could not be read in the light of general ideas and principles. Blackstone gives the history of English law from the thirteenth century onward, with sufficient fullness for all ordinary purposes, and, as a rule, with great accuracy; the historical merit of his "Commentaries" has been too much overlooked in the discussion of his faulty arrangement and inadequate theories. Montesquieu not only collects a great quantity of materials for legal history, but has a notion of historical method and comparative research far in advance of other writers of his time. Yet all this work remained unfruitful for the best part of a century. It had to be fertilized by the ideas of the analytical school. Bentham, on the other hand, had no room in his mind for history. He would have liked to make a clean sweep of all the laws and customs of Europe, and start afresh with a code warranted to secure the greatest happiness. Even language had for him no continuity to be respected. He seriously drafted specimens of legislation in a style invented by himself as the most appropriate for the purpose, and defying all the usages of common syntax. A system proceeding from this habit of mind could not easily adapt itself to the facts of different ages and societies. Its general propositions were, in truth, like those of political economy, drawn from the conditions of a particular society at a particular time, or, rather, those conditions as they would be in the absence of disturbing elements. These conditions have still their peculiar value for scientific jurisprudence, insomuch as they are those which more and more tend to be realized in the progress of modern civilized communities. But this value can not be rightly perceived, and set on its true footing, until the extreme claims of abstract analysis have broken down in the presence of unforeseen and refractory elements of fact.
Among the papers in this interesting volume we have been most impressed with those on the "Laws of Nature and Laws of Man," "The Theory of Persecution," "The Casuistry of Common Sense," and a "Review of Spencer's 'Data of Ethics.'"
A History of the People of the United States, from the Revolution to the Civil War. By John Bach McMaster. In five volumes. Vol. I. New York: D. Appleton & Co. Pp. 622. Price, $2.50.
In two provinces of thought, not formerly regarded as scientific, a powerful influence has, nevertheless, been exerted by the physical science of the present century—we refer to philology and to history. It is not the students of these subjects that have initiated the changes they have respectively undergone: the influence exerted
