winism, when the storm of controversy has died down, will be found to have left unshaken the pillars of man's faith in his higher spiritual destiny.
But there are many estimable persons who refuse to be soothed by these subtle considerations. Their alarmed imaginations require visible tangible barriers of defense—something like Professor Max Müller's Rubicon of language "which no brute will dare to cross." And it is for these that Professor Calderwood's book is chiefly designed. He finds that the continuity of evolution is interrupted at three points: (1) at the creation of organic life, (2) at the appearance of mind, (3) at the advent of "rational life." At each of these points he erects a barrier and assumes a direct intervention of the living source of all existence. In defense of the first barrier, he offers no argument beyond the generally acknowledged fact that spontaneous generation cannot now be experimentally verified. In separating by a sharp line of demarcation "rational life" from animal life, he follows Mr. Wallace, whose arguments he amplifies into an elaborate rhetorical exposition of the many distinctive qualities that differentiate the developed nineteenth century man from the animals. The one novel feature of his teaching is the affirmation (p. 340) that "the inferior type of mind recognized as belonging to the higher animals cannot be accounted for by evolution from sensory apparatus any more than rational power can be thus explained." Sensibility is coëxistent with life. But no one, Professor Calderwood argues, would make mind coëxistent with life, for that would be to assign mind to the oyster, and pass as by a dissolving view into the Hegelian monism. The difference between sense-discrimination and mind, or intelligence proper, is that the latter not only distinguishes sensations, but recognizes their significance, interprets them as signs of something else. The power of the higher animals to do this,—the ability of a dog, for example, to understand our signs,—cannot be accounted for by the structure of the brain. To explain it we must assume a higher form of intelligence independent of the organism, and yet radically distinct from the active power of inventing signs for his own rational or moral ends, which is the peculiar prerogative of man. It would seem that the poor Indian's untutored mind was not so far astray, after all, in thinking that,
"Admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company."
It is hardly worth while to attempt to clear up the psychological misconceptions involved in this ratiocination. The rigid distinction between mere sense-discrimination in the oyster and the interpretation of sensation in the higher animals is of course untenable, for the simple reason that there is no case of sense-discrimination unaccompanied by a corresponding interpretation. Even the amœba interprets soft as organic and digestible, and hard as inorganic and indigestible, and shapes its action accordingly. And from the amoeba to the dog the correspondence between immediate sensation and consequent action based on "interpretation" develops too gradually to admit of the drawing of any absolute dividing line. We may say, if we please, that the reaction in the amoeba is purely physiological or mechanical, while in the dog it is accompanied by consciousness. But the only basis for such an assertion would be the fact that the dog has a brain and the amoeba has none. And Professor Calderwood's contention is that the higher faculties of the dog are in no way expressed in his physical structure. In fact, the attempt to "draw the line" anywhere except between man and the animals is not a serious issue in contemporary speculation, and the loose reasoning of this book will not make it one.
The Story of Joan of Arc.[1]
"There is nothing in history more strange and yet more true than the story that has been told so often, but which never palls in its interest, that of the life of the maiden through whose instrumentality France regained her place among the nations."
Thus does the latest historian of Joan of Arc introduce his story of her life. And he adds:
"Sainte Beuve has written that, in his opinion, the way to honor the history of Joan of Arc is to tell the truth about her as simply as possible. This has been my object in the following pages."
It is no reproach to Lord Ronald that he has told the story of the heroine whom his mother loved ("my mother," he says, "had what the French call a culte" for Joan of Arc) rather as the affectionate admirer than the cold-blooded critic. There are times, indeed, when the judicial spirit looks ungraceful, especially in a young man. The book is written in a style of graphic simplicity, with as little affectation in
- ↑ Joan of Arc. By Lord Ronald Gower, F. S. A. London: John Nimmo. Imported by Charles Scribner's Sons, New York.
