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 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS • 415

deputies of the legislature of 1893-8: out of forty-seven deputies a dozen were always ready to scatter their vote. For the last two years dissensions have multiplied. They were due especially to the foreign question and the military question. Thus some of these so-called socialists vilified the government for the lukewarmness of its attitude toward Russia. Others claimed that to attack the army would arouse suspicion as to our patriotism. Finally the Dreyfus affair seemed about to lead to the full develop- ment of these useless disputes. The last campaign was remarkable for the spirit of solidarity and fraternal courtesy which reigned among the organizations formerly at rivalry. In 1898 French socialism made a most important advance: it attained unity. The number of votes for socialistic candidates as determined by the socialists themselves has almost doubled throughout the whole country since 1893, and the representation has been considerably increased. They had before them, too, a govern- ment ready to fight them by any means from calumny to physical violence, driving the electors from the polls. The most shameful electoral frauds were perpetrated in many provinces. Only when the socialistic candidate attained an overwhelming majority was he proclaimed elected. Universal suffrage is profoundly vitiated by the intervention of agents of the administration in the elections. It carries with it a load of interests which form a block in favor of the official candidate. It is especially in the country that its influence is great. The formidable administrative centralization of the country places immense influence in the hands of those in power. A man is easily frightened and menaced in his own security and that of his family. This year the government did its best to suppress socialism. The progress made by the socialists among the stubborn rural population is what is most remarkable about the general elections of 1898. Socialism this year has also overcome the capitalistic forces which were united for the assault.

The situation of the party was a delicate one : byuniting with the radicals it risked losing its identity; by fighting alone it risked losing the elections. These and many other difficulties were heroically overcome. — Gustave Rouane, La Revue socialiste, July, 1898.

Observations on the Problem of the Man of Genius and the Mass in His- tory. — A reaction is taking place from the doctrines of Spencer, Lombroso, etc., toward those of Emerson and Carlyle. The truth is, as I hope to have demonstrated in my book, De Historia y Arte (on history and art), Madrid, 1898, that the case in favor of genius is not so absolute as was once erroneously supposed. The inquiry that ought to be made is not with the hope of systematically affirming or denying the influence of genius ; but of examining the degree of influence of both the masses and the man of genius, and the law which governs the mutual influence and reaction between them. Almost all authors of our day who have treated the problem appar- ently agree in recognizing that there is a double force in history — genius and the mass. When one tries to determine the elements which genius furnishes, and which the crowd furnishes, the difficulty arises. Really thinkers are divided into two distinct schools : the first reduces the function of the mass to that of a simple executor of the orders of a man of genius ; the second holds that genius is begot by the spirit of the times, which, being its original cause, even though genius is not entirely contained within the spirit of the times, supposes a certain intellectual collaboration on the part of the masses, which, though they do not at first receive the teaching of the great man, encourage his advance and are ready to second his efforts — the impulse which comes from its own representative ideal. The question is really a complex one. There is, first, the question, which is strictly the psychology of genius, which seeks to deter- mine what are the essential characteristics of genius itself — a problem attempted by Lom- broso and Nordau. Secondly, there is the study of the genesis of the elements, intel- lectual or otherwise, which constitute genius, embracing such questions as whether they are completely original or a synthesis of past or present thought. Thirdly, there is the question which seeks to determine how genius acts upon the masses. The con- fusion of the second and third questions accounts for most of the differences between writers on the subject. But it is at once clear that, whatever solution is given to the second, the third remains absolutely intact. Furthermore, the imperfect manner of stating the problem, and the lack of precision in the use of essential terms, are another source of confusion. The mass is not the same thing for all authors. Spencer means