Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/872

848 which is exerted so as to modify the environment, and is modified by it. The location of this energy, to produce the change of evolution, is due to an influence called "grade-influence," which is, further, an expression of the intelligence of the animal, adapting its possessor to the environment by an "intelligent selection." Inheritance is a transmission of this form of energy. The part performed by intelligence in evolution is correlated with the fact deduced from the observation of the birds and mammals, that all animals are educated by "the logic of events," that their intelligence, impressed by changed circumstances, can accommodate itself more or less to them, and that there is nothing in this part of their being opposed to the principle of "descent with modification." The genus homo, according to the author's conclusions, "has been developed by the modification of some pre-existent genus. All his traits which are merely functional have, as a consequence, been produced during the process. Those traits which are not functional, but spiritual, are of course amenable to a different class of laws, which belong to the province of religion." The evolution of moral qualities may be related with the reproductive instinct, from which the social affections are developed. The struggle for existence among men ranges all the way from a rivalry of physical force to a rivalry for the possession of human esteem and affection. "The ultimate prosperity of the just, assured and foretold by prophets and poets, is but a forecast of the doctrine of the survival of the fittest. The unjust are sooner or later eliminated by men from their society, either by death, seclusion, or ostracism." But lines of men in whom the sympathetic and generous qualities predominate over the self-preservative, are doomed to extinction. Hence, evolution can produce no higher development of the race than an equivalency of these two classes of forces.

The matter of the volume is arranged in four parts, or series of essays: First, appear the papers on "General Evolution," in which the general principles of the author's theory are aid down or foreshadowed. Following this part come, successively, papers on the "Structural Evidences of Evolution," on "Mechanical Evolution," and on "Metaphysical Evolution." In the concluding paper, the "Origin of the Will" is discussed.

has given a most attractive volume, full of general and of scientific interest. The scientific matters are presented so as to be popular reading, and that which may be classed as of general interest is very far from not being of scientific merit and value. It is impossible to give, in an ordinary book notice, a summary of a work embodying so great a variety of matter; and we can not, perhaps, make a more comprehensive characterization of its contents than to say that it is devoted to the description and illustration of Alaska and all that pertains to it. First we have the history of the discovery of the country, its occupation by the Russians, and its transfer to the United States. This is followed by an account of the features of the Sitkan region, and a description of the aboriginal life of the Sitkans. Accounts are given of "The Alpine Zone of Mount St. Elias," with its superb and lofty peaks seen one hundred and thirty-five miles away, and including Mount Wrangel, the highest mountain in North America; of the warm springs near Sitka, of the forbidding character of the coast of the mountain-region, and the grand but gloomy scenery of Prince William Sound. Succeeding chapters are devoted to "Cook's Inlet and its People," "The Great Island of Kodiak," and "The Great Aleutian Chain," which stretches so far to the west as to make San Francisco a halfway city in crossing our country. Chapters are devoted to "The Quest of the Otter," "The Wonderful Seal Islands," and the management and methods of the seal industry. Other peculiar animals to receive due notice are the Alaska sea-lion, the moose, walrus, and polar bear. Far removed in space and character from the Sitka region and the Aleutian Islands are the Innuits, or people of the Esquimo race, who furnish material for a chapter of distinct interest; and the valley of the great Yukon River, and "The Great Northern Wastes," are the