The heroism of Naseby and Worcester and Minden had from him the heroism of Balaklava and Inkermann, of Lucknow and Delhi. He could appreciate at their worth the campaigns of the Seven Years' War, and yet could hardly understand those waged between the armies of the Potomac and of Northern Virginia. He was fairly inspired by the fury and agony and terror of the struggle at Kunnersdorf, and yet could not appreciate the immensely greater importance of the death-wrestle that reeled round Gettysburg. His eyes were so dazzled by the great dramas of the past that he could not see the even greater drama of the present. It is but the bare truth to say that never have the rewards been greater, never has there been more chance for doing work of great and lasting value, than this last half of the nineteenth century has offered alike to statesman and soldier, to explorer and commonwealthbuilder, to the captain of industry, to the man of letters, and to the man of science. Never has life been more interesting to each to take part in. Never has there been a greater output of good work done both by the few and by the many.

Nevertheless, signs do not fail that we are on the eve of great changes, and that in the next century we shall see the conditions of our lives, national and individual, modified after a sweeping and radical fashion. Many of the forces that make for national greatness and for individual happiness in the nineteenth century will be absent entirely, or will act with greatly diminished strength, in the twentieth.

Many of the forces that now make for evil will by that time have gained greatly in volume and power. It is foolish to look at the future with blind and careless optimism; quite as foolish as to gaze at it only through the dun-colored mists that surround the preachers of pessimism. It is always best to look at facts squarely in the face, without blinking them, and to remember that, as has been well said, in the long run even the most uncomfortable truth is a safer companion than the pleasantest falsehood.

Whether the future holds good or evil for us does not, it is true, alter our duty in the present. We must stand up valiantly in the fight for righteousness and wisdom as we see them, and must let the event turn out as it may. Nevertheless, even though there is little use in pondering over the future, most men of intelligence do ponder over it at times, and if we think of it at all, it is well to think clearly.

Mr. Pearson writes a forecast of what he believes probably will, or at least very possibly may happen in the development of national life and character during the era upon which we are now entering. He is a man who has had exceptional advantages for his work; he has studied deeply and traveled widely; he has been a diligent reader of books and a keen observer of men. To a careful training in one of the oldest of the world's universities he has added long experience as an executive officer in one of the world's youngest commonwealths. He writes with power and charm. His book is interesting in manner, and is still more interesting in matter, for he

has thought deeply and faithfully over subjects o immense importance to the future of all the human race. He possesses a mind of marked originality. Moreover, he always faithfully tries to see facts as they actually are. He is, it seems to me, unduly pessimistic; but he is not pessimistic of set purpose, nor does he adopt pessimism as a cult. He tries hard, and often successfully, to make himself see and to make himself state forces that are working for good. We may or may not differ from him, but it behooves us, if we do, to state our positions guardedly; for we are dealing with a man who has displayed much research in getting at his facts and much honesty in arriving at his rather melancholy conclusions.

The introduction of Mr. Pearson's book is as readable as the chapters that follow, and may best be considered in connection with the first of these chapters, which is entitled "The Unchangeable Limits of the Higher Races." I am almost tempted to call this the most interesting of the six chapters of the book, and yet one can hardly do so when absorbed in reading any one of the other five. Mr. Pearson sees what ought to be evident to every one, but apparently is not, that what he calls the "higher races," that is, the races that for the last twenty-five hundred years (but, it must be remembered, only during the last twenty-five hundred years) have led the world, can prosper only under conditions of soil and climate analogous to those obtaining in their old European homes. Speaking roughly, this means

that they can prosper only in the temperate zones, north and south.

Four hundred years ago the temperate zones were very thinly peopled indeed, while the tropical and sub-tropical regions were already densely populated. The great feature in the world's history for the last four centuries has been the peopling of these vast, scantily inhabited regions by men of the European stocks; notably by men speaking English, but also by men speaking Russian and Spanish. During the same centuries these European peoples have for the first time acquired an enormous ascendency over all other races. Once before, during the days of the Greco-Macedonian and Roman supremacy, European peoples possessed a somewhat similar supremacy; but it was not nearly as great, for at that period America and Australia were unknown, Africa south of the Sahara was absolutely unaffected by either Roman or Greek, and all but an insignificant portion of Asia was not only without the pale of European influence, but held within itself immense powers of menace to Europe, and contained old and peculiar civilizations, still flourishing in their prime. All this has now been changed. Great English-speaking nations have sprung up in America north of the Rio Grande, and are springing up in Australia. The Russians, by a movement which has not yet fired the popular imagination, but which all thinking men recognize as of incalculable importance, are building a vast State in northern Asia, stretching from the Yellow Sea to the Ural Moun

tains. Tropical America is parceled out among States partly of European blood, and mainly European in thought, speech and religion; while tropical Asia and Africa have been divided among European powers, and are held in more or less complete subjection by their military and civil agents. It is no wonder that men who are content to look at things superficially, and who think that the tendencies that have triumphed during the last two centuries are as immutable in their workings as great natural laws, should speak as if it were a mere question of time when the civilized peoples should overrun and occupy the entire world, exactly as they now do Europe and North America.

Mr. Pearson points out with great clearness the groundlessness of this belief. He deserves especial praise for discriminating between the importance of ethnic, and of merely political, conquests. The conquest by one country of another populous country always attracts great attention at the time, and has wide momentary effects; but it is of insignificant importance when compared with the kind of armed settlement which causes new nations of an old stock to spring up in new countries. The campaigns carried on by the lieutenants of Justinian against Goth and Vandal, Bulgarian and Persian, seemed in the eyes of civilized Europe at that time of incalculably greater moment than the squalid warfare being waged in England between the descendants of Low Dutch sea-thieves and the aboriginal British. Yet, in reality, it was of hardly any consequence in his