mere series of lawless oscillations, but a process
of development, often checked and retarded, often prematurely hastened,
but passing from stage to stage without suffering itself to be stifled
by factitious aid or crushed by arbitrary repression. What underlies the
history of these events, what distinguishes it from the galvanic
agitations of the torpid Spanish populations in Europe and America, is
the constant presence and activity of ideas, shaping and shaped by
events, hardened or fused by conflict, and preserving through all
vicissitudes and convulsions the incomparable vitality of the nation.
France, more than any other country, is to be studied as a living
spirit, not as an inert mass, and in a study of this kind the
mechanico-philosophical method will not carry us far. It does not appear
to strike Professor Adams as singular that a nation "abandoned for the
last eighty years to the domination of Siva, the fierce god of
destruction," should have all this while been cutting a somewhat
respectable figure in literature, science and the arts, and during most
of that period paid its way in the solid and shining metal considered by
our rulers to have merely a mythical significance. Or rather he seems to
contend that civilization has in fact perished in France, that as "such
a tendency to turbulence is destructive of all healthy national growth,"
the inevitable result has ensued. He admits that there are still some
good scholars in France, but he proves--need we add, by
statistics?--that the illiteracy of the masses is greater than it was
under the _ancien regime_, if not in the reign of Clovis. The
controlling influence of Paris is shown, of course, to have been a prime
source of mischief, and we are asked to "imagine the United States
withdrawing from all interest in political affairs, and saying to New
York City, 'Govern us as you please: we do not care to interfere.'" The
fact, as most people are aware, is not at all as here assumed; but that
aside, is it possible that Professor Adams knows so little of the
difference in the origin and structure of the two nations as not to
perceive that the comparison is ridiculous?

_Books Received_.

Social Life in Greece, from Homer to Menander.
By Rev. J.P. Mahaffy, M.A.
London: MacMillan & Co.

A Free Lance in the Field of Life and Letters.
By William Cleaver Wilkinson.
New York: Albert Mason.

The Bewildered Querists and other Nonsense.
By Francis Bl