Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 3.djvu/34

24 person possessing certain peculiarities set the fashion, and it has been imitated to this day." And again: "Great models for good or evil sometimes appear among men who follow, them either to improvement or degradation." This is said to be one of the chief agents in "nation-making," but a much better one seems to be the affinity of like for like, which brings and keeps together those of like morals, or religion, or social habits; but both are probably far inferior to the long-continued action of external Nature on the organism, not merely as it acts in the country now inhabited by the particular nation, but by its action during remote ages and throughout all the migrations and intermixtures that our ancestors have ever undergone. We also find many broad statements as to the low state of morality and of intellect in all prehistoric men, which facts hardly warrant, but this is too wide a question to be entered upon here. In the concluding chapter, "The Age of Discussion," there are some excellent remarks on the restlessness and desire for immediate action which civilized men inherit from their savage ancestors, and how much it has hindered true progress; and the following passage, with which we will conclude the notice of Mr. Bagehot's book, might do much good if, by means of any skilful surgical operation, it could be firmly fixed in the minds of our legislators and of the public:

In the second work, of which we have given the title, the veteran botanist, Alphonse de Candolle, sets forth his ideas on many subjects