of laissez faire, but argues also in favor of specific legislative interference (pp. 272, 297, 337). He further states that human effort should pre-eminently follow legislative channels.

With this looseness of argument falls in naturally a corresponding looseness in the definition of government. Instead of regarding government in the usual way as an instrument of defined powers and duties, he assumes that it is the instrument of all positive social effort. Government is the maker of all artificial environment (p. 40). Government is social control consciously set up (p. 267). Progress is due to governmental action as shown by ancient history (pp. 208-9).

As remarked, the book proceeds on the method of contrasts. It is consequently open to all the objections which may be raised against that method. Conscious effort is defended or justified by showing that it is a characteristic of human evolution as opposed to organic evolution. But does conscious effort need justification, defence, or proof? The attempt is to prove that the members of the City Club should act, and the proof is that human societies advance by action and effort, whereas organisms advance by selfish and destructive evolution. But wherefore this "whereas ?" Does it help the proof of human effort? This method of reasoning may be set down as antiquated. The method of contrasts too often falls into this rut of negative inference. The author's object would evidently have been much better attained by the adoption of the modern method of continuity. Had he only shown that effort is inherent in all progress and that the phenomenon of human consciousness appears through infinitesimal differentiation out of and away from the lowest organisms, his argument would have been more sound and conclusive. Effort would then be proved to be necessary to progress because it is universal in progress. This surely is a stronger argument than the attempt to prove its necessity by its limitation to the human stage of evolution. It may be noted that a fundamental phase of thought which has misled Mr. Kelly into the confusing method of contrasts is a predilection for a rather pronounced type of the doctrine of free-will. Not finding free-will in the less advanced forms of life, he assumes that it must exist in the more advanced, and hence falls into the method of contrasts, at divers points in his book making long lists of contrasted relations with reference to human and organic evolution (cf. p. 295).

While this book carries an air and animus of practical controversy, it follows in many respects the method of scientific exposition. A fundamental definition is given at the beginning which contains the terms most apt to further the arguments that follow. Evidently it is upon the interpretation of the term “natural” that these arguments are to depend. After a very interesting disquisition on the use of this term

in literature, our author comes to the conclusion that it best serves his purpose to exclude from the term whatever pertains to human effort. This use of the term is harmonious with the author's views as to free-will and as to the logic of contrasts, already noticed. If, on the other hand, he had chosen to proceed by what seems to be the preferable method of continuity, he would have allowed no exception to the logical extent of the term. It is possible that the author's use of the term comes closer to its popular use; but it must be remembered that the author's method of reasoning comes closer to the popular method. That alone is natural, according to Mr. Kelly, which characterizes those forms inferior to man. We shall see whither this definition leads.

Although Mr. Kelly declares his intention to stick to "facts" alone, he dwells constantly on the injustice of nature (pp. 288, 309); justice is defined as the effort to protect the individual from natural laws (p. 301); justice is the struggle of morality against sin, sin, of course, being characteristic of natural laws, and morality of nonnatural human evolution (p. 323); we should study nature and then decline to follow her (p. 215) (although our author does, in places, admit that man must study natural laws in order to find which are inevitable and which can be successfully overcome) (pp. 305, 329, 332, 349); in fact, human evolution bears a remarkable resemblance to natural evolution (p. 170); when genius is not appreciated, it is the fault of nature (pp. 217–218); industry is natural and hence hostile to progress (p. 221); the evolution of the horse from its primitive ancestor resembles that of the locomotive from the wheelbarrow merely in so far as organic analogy is concerned (p. 241); the philosophy of effort begins to apply where organisms cease (p. 244); organisms are always opposed by wisdom (pp. 270–97).

Our author's method naturally leads to the conclusion that there is a natural and a non-natural environment. Just as human effort is non-natural, so is the "artificial" environment created by human effort also non-natural. The result of this handling of the subject must be that soon after we have passed the point in the scale of evolution (wherever it may be) where our author concludes to signalize the entrance of effort into the arena of progress, the environment becomes rapidly non-natural. The thinking and acting subject is himself, of course, non-natural, and the whole world that interests us is, therefore, non-natural. The higher we progress the further we separate ourselves from nature.

Mr. Kelly concludes that justice consists in the attempt to create the best artificial or non-natural environment (pp. 359-60). Such an environment is to be recognized from its conducing to man's happi

ness (p. 333); and, again, happiness is to be induced by creating an environment favorable to morality (p. 335). But, after all, are these ideals so easily created? Is morality a cause of ideas without being an effect of circumstances? It seems as though Mr. Kelly should openly declare himself an intuitionalist. Man and his environment are both of them arbitrary, non-natural, and, in fact, supernatural. The moral motive being the cause of everything, no cause is left for it. Lacking efficient cause, it also lacks final cause. There is no incentive to being moral if nothing is to be gained by morality outside of morality itself. A morality that is caused by nothing, that leads to nothing, and that is related to nothing not caused by itself, is a very uninteresting conception.

It would seem simpler and it would involve less circuitous reasoning, were we to make the assumption of continuous progress from a materialistic to a psychic state. At each stage of progress the past experiences would have tended to modify the environment and to form a part thereof. The future would be open to new adjustments stimulated by force (coming from the sun, if you please, and registered upon the sentient brain). Thus at every stage there would be a relatively psycllic future, i. e., open to modification by man, and there would be a relatively materialistic past. From the point of view of the individual, these stages might well be regarded according to Professor Simon N. Patten1as a series of partially fixed environments, each "wider " and better adapted to psychic life than its predecessor. This suggestion is offered in all humility and with some recognition of the difficulties of the problem involved and also of the obligations of the critic.

However, the method suggested offers no consolation to the members of the City Club. Whether they interpret laissez faire rightly or wrongly, progress does take place by effort. Mr. Kelly's book is thoroughly readable, and will be welcomed by those who desire to brush up biological analogies in connection with political and economic studies.

University of Nebraska.

W. G. LANGWORTHY TAYLOR.

Studies in the Politics of Aristotle and the Republic of Plato. By ISAAC ALTHAUS Loos, Professor of Political Science. Bulletin of the University of Iowa: Studies in Sociology, Economics, Politics and History, Vol. I. Pp. 296. Price, $1.00. The University Press, 1899.

In this volume Professor Loos has embodied a sort of abridgment 1" Theory of Social Forces."

of the two works named in the title, with special reference to the more purely political and sociological doctrines contained in them. The bulk of the work is a combined summary and paraphrase of the Greek philosophers' texts, on the lines of Jowett's familiar work, from which much of the matter is taken. The purpose of Professor Loos in putting forth such a volume is, in his own words, to do “for the social and political philosophy of Aristotle and Plato what has long since been repeatedly done for their psychology and metaphysics, namely, to expound their leading conceptions on social subjects in systematic form, and by the aid of a modern terminology to bring them within the comprehension of readers unskilled in Greek dialectic or characteristic modes of Greek thought."

That this excellent purpose is wholly achieved, I am inclined to think is a little doubtful. The author shows that he is a thorough and sympathetic student of Aristotle and Plato, as well as an adept in contemporary political and social science. But the form in which he has cast his studies does not seem well adapted to clarify the thought of the Greek philosophers or to make it more intelligible than it has been made by the translations of Jowett and Welldon which are so freely drawn upon. The general effect of the work is rather disjointed, and in many places the reader is kept in a state of constant tension to determine whether the thought before him is that of Aristotle or Plato or of Professor Loos. It would probably be no rash conjecture to surmise that Professor Loos has printed some lecture notes, without an opportunity to give them the radical overhauling that is necessary in order to compensate for the absence of oral commentary.

In dealing with Aristotle, the author ventures to ascribe to the Greek philosopher a "theory of administration," which is found embodied in a number of scattered parts of "The Politics." That Professor Loos does a useful thing in grouping these various passages under a single suggestive head is unquestionable, but that Aristotle formed a conception of "administration" in any sense resembling that of the technical term of modern science, cannot, of course, be held for a moment. Indeed, it is very uncertain what the precise scientific connotation of the term is to-day; certainly the sense m which Professor Loos uses it is quite distinct from that employed by Professor Goodnow in his recent work on "Politics and Administration." In one respect, however, the grouping of Aristotelian ideas adopted by Professor Loos is admirable, though it interferes sadly with venerable custom. The famous "Theory of Revolutions," which has always stood complete and alone in every analysis of "The Politics," is made a mere incident of the "theory of administration,"

appearing under the caption: "Causes of Failure in Administration." This innovation, shocking as it is to the sensibilities of those who know their Aristotle on the old lines, is nevertheless quite justifiable. For what Professor Loos says is strictly true: "These causes of revolution as sketched by Aristotle are .. chiefly, though not exclusively administrative."

It is unfortunate that the proof reading should have contributed much to obscure the thought of both the Greeks and the American. One can easily see that the suspiciously modern "Horner," whom Aristotle is made to quote (p. 122), is merely the printer's version of "Homer;" but it is not so easy to understand what is meant by this sentence on the same page: "That man is a political animal that is a social animal in a fuller sense than any tree or gregarious animal is evident from another line of reasoning . . . ;" and "seditious and political resolutions" (p. 115) is a dangerously plausible substitute for "seditions and political revolutions." There are very many similar errors in the book.

Columbia University.

WM. A. DUNNING.

Colonial Civil Service. By A. LAWRENCE LOWELL. With an Account of the East India College at Haileybury, 1806–1857. By H. MORSE STEPHENS. Pp. 346. Price, $1.50. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1900.

Professor Lowell has given us a most interesting and timely discussion of the methods of choosing and training colonial officials in England, Holland and France. We Americans are not inclined, as a rule, to seek political instruction from other countries, but the colonial question, or rather the colonial questions, are so new to us and the experience of other countries along these lines so interesting, that Professor Lowell's work may be read with profit by all those who are anxious to see an efficient administration established in our new territories. In his introduction the author dwells at considerable length upon the necessity for a special and distinct colonial service, separate from the home organization. The qualifications necessary for a civil service in tropical or Asiatic colonies are, he declares, quite different from those required for the home service. In the colonies special training is required; familiarity with the language, the customs and habits of thought of the people and the peculiar economic and social conditions of the country are necessary. Oriental and Western civilizations are so different that years must pass before an official becomes thoroughly efficient; and no man of parts will undertake those years of preparation if he is liable to be thrown back on the