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270 any great man in the past wrote, what influences controlled and directed him, was mere presumptuous extravagance. We are also told that literature is made up of beauty, and is only to be enjoyed; students of its principles are carefully warned off from its treasures. Yet one might as well tell a botanist that flowers are only to be enjoyed, or a mineralogist that gems exist but for the purpose of evoking admiration; the sciences of these imaginary men would survive such impossible advice, and the existence of these sciences, it may be well to notice, has not yet tended to diminish the interest or delight in the objects with which they are concerned.

If, then, the reasonableness of some form of the scientific study of literature may be acknowledged, this book, which contains a serious application of the results of sociological investigation to various early literatures, is well worthy of attention. The conditions of early society have been ascertained by long and careful investigation; the comparative study of its beginnings has been facilitated by observing phenomena still existent among rude races, and in this volume Mr. Posnett applies to letters the upshot of these studies. Naturally, it is to the literature of Greece that he turns with especial interest, for, besides its importance to all later civilizations, it bears distinctly the marks of autochthonous growth. Inasmuch as society developed from the communal form of the clan into the fuller expression of individuality, it becomes important to examine the growth of literature by the light of these discoveries, as this author has done, and the result is most gratifying. It is obvious that any one who approaches Greek territory with such intentions is sure to stir up a hornets' nest. Anything that tends to show that the sacred spirit of Hellas has grown up under conditions that may be explained by studying other races is held to lay profane fingers on a carefully guarded art. Mr. Andrew Lang has tasted some of the wrath of zealous scholars who have not fancied his proof that the stone age of Greece was like the stone age of every other race; and it is hard to conceive the miserable fate that awaits Mr. Posnett for daring to compare the early Doric choral dances to the buffalo-dance of the North American Indians. Yet he has done this; and, moreover, he has shown how the customary belief of clans in inherited guilt and in vicarious sacrifice survived in the plays of Æschylus and Sophocles, only to disappear in those of Euripides with the growth of individuality. His proof of the limitations of the Greek ideas through these bonds is most valuable. Here at last we have something like solid ground to take the place of a priori hypothesis. To enforce his points he has brought together abundant testimony from the early Hebrew, Sanskrit, Persian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and other literatures, which is the only way in which this vast subject can be properly studied. The study of Greek literature alone has led to extravagant notions of the miraculous force of genius; by examining all the testimony, though the task is an arduous one, sounder ideas will prevail. Space is lacking for even a statement of all that is contained in this excellent book, but it may be said that every student of literature will find his reward in mastering its pages. No one will agree with everything that Mr. Posnett says, but whoever learns to apply to the foundation of literature the light obtained from the study of contemporary society may be sure that he is on the right path. That is the whole secret: to study literature as but a part of man's development, not as a separate, divinely inspired entity a mysterious thing created by incomprehensible genius.

character of this book is further described by its sub-title, "Sketches of Sport on the Northern Cattle-Plains"; and this makes it appropriate to begin the story with a description of those plains and their—for the time at least—great industry. They lie in the basin of the Little Missouri River, and "stretch from the rich wheat farms of Central Dakota to the Rocky Mountains, and southward to the Black Hills and the Big Horn Chain, thus including all of Montana, Northern Wyoming, and extreme Western Dakota." The region is a nearly treeless one, of light rainfall, cut up by streams of the most capricious character, diversified with deserts of alkali and