Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/135

Rh 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."

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:

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.'"

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