Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 28.djvu/866

846 harmless assertion is made to stand for relativity as an extreme and destructive theory."

The character of the volume is thus intimated by the author: "While the discussions now offered touch very closely the points at issue between the empirical and the intuitive tendencies in philosophy, they arc not conducted with any express conformity to either mode of inquiry. There is, in the consideration of these fundamental questions, a distinct recognition of the fact that the phenomena of mind can not find a rational substratum of thought within themselves as phenomena merely, and also a recognition of the fact that it is these very phenomena, and these only, that call for explanation. The effort has been, therefore, to bring appropriate ideas to the interpretation of mental facts, as broadly and fully contained in human experience."

has achieved a just distinction as an accurate observer in various fields of natural history, whose precision and facility in relation commend the published results of his labors alike to the scientific constituency and to the general reading public. The former class have shown their esteem for him by choosing him to preside at the next meeting of the American Association. We has been for many years Director of the Peabody Academy of Sciences, at Salem, Massachusetts. He visited Japan in 1877 to study the marine fauna of the coast, and, removing there in 1878 with his family, remained nearly two years as Professor of Zoölogy in the Imperial University of Tokio. During this residence he varied his labors with studying the traces of primitive man on the islands and making notes of ethnological and general interest. He afterward made a third visit to the country for the sole purpose of qualifying himself for the preparation of this and other works upon it. Many books have been written about Japan; but few of them have been the result of such patient, careful observation as this. For it the author made several explorations from Yezo to Satsuma, bringing himself into personal communication with the people of all classes, making thorough examinations of their houses, and keeping a daily illustrated journal of all that he saw and all that happened to him. The illustrations in this volume are fac simile reproductions of the pen-and-ink drawings he then made. Of the usefulness of such work as he has done here, he expresses a view with which all students of anthropology and of history will concur, when he says he feels that it "has not been altogether in vain, as it may result in preserving many details of the Japanese house—some of them trivial, perhaps—which in a few decades of years may be difficult if not impossible to obtain. . . . Nothing can be of greater importance than the study of those nations and peoples who are passing through profound changes and readjustments as a result of their compulsory contact with the vigorous, selfish, and mercantile nations of the West." The same principle is applicable to all peoples not yet spoiled, and can not be applied too quickly. "If investigators and students would bear in mind the precept of Miyada"—who held it to be a solemn duty to learn any art or accomplishment that might be going out of the world, and then describe it so fully that it might be preserved to posterity—"and seize upon those features in social life—forms of etiquette, games, ceremonies, and other manners and customs—which are the first to change in any contact with alien races, a very important work would be accomplished for the future sociologist." There is much of a practical bearing to be learned from Japanese architecture and decoration; we have in fact acknowledged it by so readily adopting their styles, or awkwardly trying to imitate them. We may criticise the things we do not like in Japan, or any other country not our own, but we should bear in mind that there may be things among ourselves equally objectionable and liable to criticism. But, "in the study of another people one should if possible look through colorless glasses; though, if one is to err in this respect, it were better that his spectacles should be rose colored than grimed with the smoke of prejudice. The student of ethnology as a matter of policy, if he can put himself in no