Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 47.djvu/424

412, and all sorts of knowledge were cultivated under the tuition of the Sophists. Then came Socrates, who largely counteracted the charlatanry into which the Sophistic teaching had degenerated. Our author next discusses the attempt in Plato's Republic to plan a state with a basis in philosophic principles, and that of Aristotle, whose basis was inductive reasoning. Both of these he sets down as failures. He then shows how Greek culture was influenced by contact with the two great religions of the Eastern world, Zoroastrianism and Judaism, and with the statesmanship of Rome. In conclusion the author affirms that the Greeks, through their scheme of culture, "not only lifted the world out of barbarism, but it requires their influence even to this day to prevent it from falling back into the same." What he regards as the error that was fatal to the Greek civilization was placing philosophy on the throne that should have been given to religion. This book is designed as a guide in teaching, but if it were itself put into the hands of students it would give more insight into Greek thought than digging out many pages telling what number of parassangs the army marched day by day or what was done by "wily Odysseus," aided by "ox-eyed Athenæ."

and sociological essays make up these two volumes; Volume II covering the period from 1779 to 1792, and Volume III extending from 1791 to 1803. The most extended of these writings is the Rights of Man, which occupies half of Volume II. The two parts of which it is composed were written in a controversy with Edmund Burke à propos of the French Revolution and embody a full and careful statement of republican principles. The same volume contains Paine's pamphlet published in 1782 under the title, Letter to the Abbé Raynal, on the affairs of North America: in which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America are Corrected and Cleared up. Paine was in England or France for fifteen years of the period covered by these volumes, having gone abroad in 1787 to introduce a form of bridge that he had invented. He was active in establishing the French Republic, though opposed to its extreme measures, hence many of the essays in both volumes relate to French affairs Among the American questions treated are: The United States Bank, paper money, the Newfoundland fisheries, and the purchase of Louisiana. Paine's religious writings, his poems, and some letters and scientific fragments are reserved for the fourth volume.

number of the society's Proceedings is mainly occupied by the Report of the Census of Hallucinations taken by a committee of which Prof. Henry Sidgwick was chairman. Seventeen thousand answers were obtained to the question, "Have you ever, when believing yourself to be completely awake, had a vivid impression of seeing or being touched by a living being or inanimate object, or of hearing a voice; which impression, so far as you could discover, was not due to any external physical cause?" About ten persons in a hundred were found to have had such experiences. Accounts of a large number of these occurrences, for the most part written by the percipients, are included in the report. The differences between hallucinations and other phenomena with which they are liable to be confounded are pointed out by the committee and illustrated by cases. Passing from merely subjective hallucinations, the committee discusses those of a veridical character—i. e., such as "can only be accounted for on the hypothesis that impressions or impulses have reached the percipient's mind otherwise than through the recognized channels of sense." A large number of these, and by far the most impressive class, occur at, or within a few hours of, the death of the person whose figure seems to be seen or voice seems to be heard. Another impressive class of cases is those in which the hallucination is experienced at the same moment by two or more persons. The evidence gathered through the census has been carefully sifted, and after rigid requirements have been satisfied there remain enough facts to satisfy the