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Title: Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14: The New Era

Author: John Lord

Release date: January 1, 2004 [eBook #10649]
Most recently updated: December 20, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY,
VOLUME 14: THE NEW ERA ***

E-text prepared by Juliet Sutherland, Charlie Kirschner,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team

LORD'S LECTURES

BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.

BY JOHN LORD, LL.D.
AUTHOR OF "THE OLD ROMAN WORLD," "MODERN EUROPE," ETC., ETC.

VOLUME XIV.

THE NEW ERA.
A SUPPLEMENTARY VOLUME, BY RECENT WRITERS,
AS SET FORTH IN THE PREFACE AND TABLE OF CONTENTS.

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE.
In preparing the new edition of Dr. Lord's great work, it has been thought
desirable to do what the venerable author's death in 1894 did not permit him
to accomplish, and add a volume summarizing certain broad aspects of
achievement in the last fifty years. It were manifestly impossible to cover in
any single volume--except in the dry, cyclopaedic style of chronicling
multitudinous facts, so different from the vivid, personal method of Dr.
Lord--all the growths of the wonderful period just closed. The only
practicable way has been to follow our author's principle of portraying
selected historic forces,--to take, as representative or typical of the various
departments, certain great characters whose services have signalized them
as "Beacon Lights" along the path of progress, and to secure adequate
portrayal of these by men known to be competent for interesting exposition
of the several themes.
Thus the volume opens with a paper on "Richard Wagner: Modern
Music," by Henry T. Finck, the musical critic of the New York Evening Post,
and author of various works on music, travel, etc.; and then follow in order
these: "John Ruskin: Modern Art," by G. Mercer Adam, author of "A Précis
of English History," recently editor of the Self-Culture Magazine and of the
Werner Supplements to the Encyclopaedia Britannica; "Herbert Spencer:
The Evolutionary Philosophy," and "Charles Darwin: His Place in Modern
Science," both by Mayo W. Hazeltine, literary editor of the New York Sun,
whose book reviews over the signature "M.W.H." have for years made the
Sun's book-page notable; "John Ericsson: Navies of War and Commerce,"
by Prof. W.F. Durand, of the School of Marine Engineering and the
Mechanic Arts in Cornell University; "Li Hung Chang: The Far East," by
Dr. William A. P. Martin, the distinguished missionary, diplomat, and
author, recently president of the Imperial University, Peking, China; "David
Livingstone: African Exploration," by Cyrus C. Adams, geographical and
historical expert, and a member of the editorial staff of the New York Sun;
"Sir Austen H. Layard: Modern Archaeology," by Rev. William Hayes
Ward, D.D., editor of The Independent, New York, himself eminent in

Oriental exploration and decipherment; "Michael Faraday: Electricity and
Magnetism," by Prof. Edwin J. Houston of Philadelphia, an accepted
authority in electrical engineering; and, "Rudolf Virchow: Modern
Medicine and Surgery," by Dr. Frank P. Foster, physician, author, and editor
of the New York Medical Journal.
The selection of themes must be arbitrary, amid the numberless lines of
development during the "New Era" of the Nineteenth Century, in which
every mental, moral, and physical science and art has grown and diversified
and fructified with a rapidity seen in no other five centuries. It is hoped,
however, that the choice will be justified by the interest of the separate
papers, and that their result will be such a view of the main features as to
leave a distinct impression of the general life and advancement, especially
of the last half of the century.
It is proper to say that the preparation and issuance of Dr. Lord's "Beacon
Lights of History" were under the editorial care of Mr. John E. Howard of
Messrs. Fords, Howard, and Hulbert, the original publishers of the work,
while the proof-sheets also received the critical attention of Mr. Abram W.
Stevens, one of the accomplished readers of the University Press in
Cambridge, Mass. Mr. Howard has also supervised the new edition,
including this final volume, which issues from the same choice
typographical source.
NEW YORK, September, 1902.

CONTENTS.

RICHARD WAGNER.
MODERN Music.
BY HENRY T. FINCK.
Youth-time; early ambitions as a composer.
Weber, his fascinator and first inspirer.
"Der Freischutz" and "Euryanthe" prototypes of his operas.
Their supernatural, mythical, and romantic elements.
What he owed to his predecessors acknowledged in his essay on "The Music of the Future" (1860).
Marriage and early vicissitudes.
"Rienzi," "The Novice of Palermo," and "The Flying Dutchman".
Writes stories and essays for musical publications.
After many disappointments wins success at Dresden.
"Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin".
Compromises himself in Revolution of 1849 and has to seek safety in Switzerland.
Here he conceives and partly writes the "Nibelung Tetralogy".
Discouragements at London and at Paris.
"Siegfried" and "Tristan and Isolde".
Finds a patron in Ludwig II. of Bavaria.
Nibelung Festival at Bayreuth.
"Parsifal" appears; death of Wagner at Vienna (1882).
Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin.
Other eminent composers and pianists.
Liszt as a contributor to current of modern music.
Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Strauss, and Weber.
"The Music of the Future" the music of the present.

JOHN RUSKIN.
MODERN ART.
BY G. MERCER ADAM.

Passionate and luminous exponent of Nature's beauties.
His high if somewhat quixotic ideal of life.
Stimulating writings in ethics, education, and political economy.
Frederic Harrison on Ruskin's stirring thoughts and melodious speech.
Birth and youth-time; Collingwood's "Life" and his own "Praeterita".
Defence of Turner and what it grew into.
Architectural writings, lectures, and early publications.
Interest in Pre-Raphaelitism and its disciples.
Growing fame; with admiring friends and correspondents.
On the public platform; personal appearance of the man.
Economic and socialistic vagaries.
F. Harrison on "Ruskin as Prophet" and teacher.
Inspiring lay sermons and minor writings.
Reformer and would-be regenerator of modern society.
Attitude towards industrial problems of his time.
Founds the communal "Guild of St. George".
Philanthropies, and lecturings in "Working Men's College".
Death and epoch-making influence, in modern art.

HERBERT SPENCER.
THE EVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHY.
BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE.
Constructs a philosophical system in harmony with the theory of evolution.
Birth, parentage, and early career.
Scheme of his system of Synthetic Philosophy.
His "Facts and Comments;" views on party government, patriotism, and style.
His religious attitude that of an agnostic.
The doctrine of the Unknowable and the knowable.
"First Principles;" progress of evolution in life, mind, society, and morality.
The relations of matter, motion, and force.
"Principles of Biology;" the data of; the development hypothesis.
The evolutionary hypothesis versus the special creation hypothesis; arguments.
Causes and interpretation of the evolution phenomena.
Development as displayed in the structures and functions of individual organisms.
"Principles of Psychology;" the evolution of mind and analysis of mental states.
"Principles of Sociology;" the adaptation of human nature to the social state.
Evolution of governments, political and ecclesiastical; industrial organizations.
Qualifications; Nature's plan an advance, and again a retrogression.
Social evolution; equilibriums between constitution and conditions.
Assisted by others in the collection, but not the systemization, of his illustrative material.
"Principles of Ethics;" natural basis for; secularization of morals.
General inductions; his "Social Statics".
Relations of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin to the thought of the Nineteenth Century.

CHARLES DARWIN.
HIS PLACE IN MODERN SCIENCE.
BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE.
The Darwinian hypothesis a rational and widely accepted explanation of the
genesis of organic life on the earth.
Darwin; birth, parentage, and education.
Naturalist on the voyage of the "Beagle".
His work on "Coral Reefs" and the "Geology of South America".
Observations and experiments on the transmutation of species.
Contemporaneous work on the same lines by Alfred R. Wallace.
"The Origin of Species" (1859).
His "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication" (1868).
"The Descent of Man" (1871).
On the "Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals" (1872).
"Fertilization of Orchids" (1862), "The Effects of Cross
and Self-Fertilization" (1876), and "The Formation of
Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms" (1881).
Ill-health, death, and burial.
Personality, tastes, and mental characteristics.
His beliefs and agnostic attitude toward religion.
His prime postulate, that species have been modified during a long course of descent.
Antagonistic views on the immutability of species.
His theory of natural selection: that all animal and plant life has a common
progenitor, difference in their forms arising primarily from beneficial variations.
Enunciates in the "Descent of Man" the great principle of Evolution, and
the common kinship of man and the lower animals.
Biological evidence to sustain this view.
Man's moral qualities, and the social instinct of animals.
Religious beliefs not innate, nor instinctive.
Bearing of this on belief in the immortality of the soul.
As a scientist Darwin concerned only with truth; general acceptance of his theory
of the origin of species.

JOHN ERICSSON.
NAVIES OF WAR AND COMMERCE.
BY PROF. W. F. DUKAND.

Ericsson's life-work little foreseen in his youth and early surroundings.
His impress on the engineering practice of his time.
Dependence, in our modern civilization, on the utilization of the great natural
forces and energies of the world.
Life-periods in Sweden, England, and the United States.
Birth, parentage, and early engineering career.
An officer in the Swedish army, and topographical surveyor for his native government.
Astonishing insight into mechanical and scientific questions.
His work, 1827 to 1839, when he came to the United States.
"A spendthrift in invention;" versatility and daring.
The screw-propeller vs. the paddle-wheel for marine propulsion.
Designs and constructs the steam-frigate "Princeton" and the hot-air ship "Ericsson".
The Civil War and his services in the art of naval construction.
His new model of a floating battery and warship, "The Monitor".
The battle between it and the "Merrimac" a turning-point in naval aspect of the war.
"The Destroyer," built in connection with Mr. Delamater.
Improves the character and reduces friction in the use of heavy ordnance.
Work on the improvement of steam-engines for warships.
Death, and international honors paid at his funeral.
His work in improving the motive-power of ships.
Special contributions to the art of naval war.
Ships of low freeboard equipped with revolving turrets.
Influence of his work lives in the modern battleship.
Other features of work which he did for his age.
Personality and professional traits.
Essentially a designer rather than a constructing engineer.

LI HUNG CHANG.
THE FAR EAST.
BY W.A.P. MARTIN, D.D., LL.D.
Introductory; Earl Li's foreign fame; his rising star.
Intercourse with China by land.
The Great Wall; China first known to the western world through its conquest by the Mongols.
The houses of Han, Tang, and Sang.
The diplomat Su Wu on an embassy to Turkey.
Intercourse by sea.
Expulsion of the Mongols; the magnetic needle.
Art of printing; birth of alchemy.
Manchu conquest; Macao and Canton opened to foreign trade.
The Opium War.
Li Hung Chang appears on the scene.
His contests for academical honors and preferment.
The Taiping rebellion.
Li a soldier; General Ward and "Chinese Gordon".

The Arrow War; the treaties.
Lord Elgin's mistake leads to renewal of the war.
Fall of the Peiho forts and flight of the Court.
The war with France.
Mr. Seward and Anson Burlingame.
War ended through the agency of Sir Robert Hart.
War with Japan.
Perry at Tokio (Yeddo); overturn of the Shogans.
Formosa ceded to Japan.
China follows Japan and throws off trammels of antiquated usage.
War with the world.
The Boxer rising; menace to the Peking legations.
Prince Ching and Viceroy Li arrange terms of peace.
Li's death; patriot, and patron of educational reform.

DAVID LIVINGSTONE.
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT.
BY CYRUS C. ADAMS.
Difficulties of exploration in the "Dark Continent"
Livingstone's belief that "there was good in Africa," and that it was worth reclaiming.
His early journeyings kindled the great African movement.
Youthful career and studies, marriage, etc.
Contact with the natives; wins his way by kindness.
Sublime faith in the future of Africa.
Progress in the heart of the continent since his day.
Interest of his second and third journeyings (1853-56).
Visits to Britain, reception, and personal characteristics.
Later discoveries and journeyings (1858-1864, 1866-1873).
Death at Chitambo (Ilala) Lake Bangweolo, May 1, 1873.
General accuracy of his geographical records; his work, as a whole, stands the test of time.
Downfall of the African slave-trade, the "open sore of the world".
Remarkable achievements of later explorers and surveyors.
The work of Burton, Junker, Speke, and Stanley.
Father Schynse's chart.
Surveys of Commander Whitehouse.
Missionary maps of the Congo Free State and basin.
Other areas besides tropical Africa made known and opened up.
Pygmy tribes and cannibalism in the Congo basin.
Human sacrifices now prohibited and punishable with death.
Railway and steamboat development, and partition of the continent.
South Africa: the gold and diamond mines and natural resources.
Future philanthropic work.

SIR AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD.
MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY.
BY WILLIAM HAYES WARD, D.D., LL/D.
Overthrow of Nineveh and destruction of the Assyrian Empire.
Kingdoms and empires extant and buried before the era of Hebrew and Greek history.
Bonaparte in Egypt, and the impulse he gave to French archaeology.
Champollion and his deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphic inscriptions.
Paul Émile Botta and his discoveries in Assyria.
His excavations of King Sargon's palace at Khorsabad.
Layard begins his excavations and discoveries at Nineveh.
Sir Stratford Canning's (Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe) gift to the British
Museum of the marbles of Halicarnassus.
Layard's published researches, "Nineveh and its Remains," and "Babylon and Nineveh".
His work, "The Monuments of Nineveh" (1849-53).
Obelisk and monoliths of Shalmaneser II., King of Assyria, discovered by Layard at Nimroud.
George Smith and his discovery of the Babylonian account of the Deluge.
Light thrown by these discoveries on the Pharaoh of the Bible, and on Melchizedek,
who reigned in Abraham's day.
Other archaeologists of note, Glaser, De Morgan, De Sarzec, and Botta.
Relics of Buddha, and the Hittite inscriptions.
The Moabite Stone, and work of the English Palestine Exploration Fund at Jerusalem.
Dr. Schliemann's labors among the ruins of Troy.
Researches and discoveries at Crete.
The mounds, pyramids, and temples of the American aborigines.
The cliff-dwellers and the Mayas, Incas, and Toltecs.
The Calendar Stone and statue of the gods of war and death found in Mexico.
What treasure yet remains to be recovered of a past civilization.

MICHAEL FARADAY.
ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM.
BY EDWIN J. HOUSTON, PH.D.
"The Prince of Experimental Philosophers".
Unprecocious as a child; environment of his early years.
His early study of Mrs. Marcet's "Conversations on Chemistry," and the
articles on electricity in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica".
Appointed laboratory assistant at the London Royal Institution.
Inspiration received from his teacher, Sir Humphry Davy.
Investigations in chemistry, electricity, and magnetism.

His discovery (1831) of the means for developing electricity direct from magnetism.
Substitutes magnets for active circuits.
Simplicity of the apparatus used in his successful experiments.
Some of the results obtained by him in his experimental researches.
What is to-day owing to him for his discovery and investigation of all forms of
magneto-electric induction.
His discovery of the relations between light and magnetism.
Action of glass and other solid substances on a beam of polarized light.
His paper on "Magnetization of Light and the Illumination of the Lines of Magnetic Force".
His contribution (1845) on the "Magnetic Condition of All Matter".
Investigation of the phenomena which he calls "the Magne-crystallic force".
Extent of his work in the electro-chemical field.
His invention of the first dynamo.
His alternating-current transformer.
Induction coils and their use in producing the Röntgen rays.
Edison's invention of the fluoroscope.
Faraday's gift to commercial science of the electric motor.
His dynamo-electric machine.
Modern electric transmissions of power.
Tesla's multiphase alternating-current motor.
Faraday's electric generator and motor.
The telephone, aid given by Faraday's discoveries in the invention and use of
the transmitter.
Modern power-generating and transmission plants a magnificent testimonial to
the genius of Faraday.
Death and honors.

RUDOLF VIRCHOW.
MEDICINE AND SURGERY.
BY FRANK P. FOSTER, M.D.
Jenner demonstrates efficacy of vaccination against smallpox.
Debt to the physicists, chemists, and botanists of the new era.
Appendicitis (peritonitis), its present frequency.
Experimental methods of study in physiology.
Hahnemann, founder of homoeopathy, and physical diagnosis of the sick.
The clinical thermometer and other instruments of precision.
Animal parasites the direct cause of many diseases.
Bacteria and the germ theory of disease.
Pasteur, viruses, and aseptic surgery.
Consumption and its germ; the corpuscles and their resistance to bacterial invasion.
Antitoxines as a cure in diphtheria.
Their use in surgery; asepticism and Lord Lister.
Listerism and midwifery.
American aid in the treatment of fractures.

Use of artificial serum in disease treatment.
Koch's tuberculin and its use in consumption.
Chemistry as a handmaid of medicine.
Brown-Séquard and "internal secretions".
Febrile ailment and cold-water applications.
Surgical anaesthetics; Long, Morton, and Simpson.
Ovariotomy operations by McDowell and Bell.
Professional nursing.
Virchow and the literature of medicine, anatomy, and physiology; his death;
his "Archiv," "Cellular-Pathology," etc.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
VOLUME XIV.
Dr. Jenner Vaccinates a Child After the painting by George Gaston Melingue
Richard Wagner After the painting by Franz von Lenbach
John Ruskin After a photograph from life
Herbert Spencer After a photograph from life
Charles Robert Darwin After the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A.
John Ericsson From a contemporaneous engraving
Li Hung Chang After a photograph from life
David Livingstone After a photograph from life
Sir Austen Henry Layard After the painting by H. W. Phillips
Michael Faraday After a photograph from life
Rudolf Virchow After a photograph from life

BEACON LIGHTS OF HISTORY.

RICHARD WAGNER: MODERN MUSIC.

BY HENRY T. FINCK.

If the Dresden schoolboys who attended the Kreuzschule in the years
1823-1827 could have been told that one of them was destined to be the
greatest opera composer of all times, and to influence the musicians of all
countries throughout the second half of the nineteenth century, they would,
no doubt, have been very much surprised. Nor is it likely that they could
have guessed which of them was the chosen one. For Richard Wagner--or
Richard Geyer, as he was then called, after his stepfather--was by no means
a youthful prodigy, like Mozart or Liszt. It is related that Beethoven shed
tears of displeasure over his first music lessons; nevertheless, it was obvious
from the beginning that he had a special gift for music. Richard Wagner, on
the other hand, apparently had none. When he was eight years old his
stepfather, shortly before his death, heard him play on the piano two pieces
from one of Weber's operas, which made him wonder if Richard might
"perhaps" have talent for music. His piano teacher did not believe even in
that "perhaps," but told him bluntly he would "never amount to anything" as
a musician.
For poetry, however, young Richard had a decided inclination in his
school years; and this was significant, inasmuch as it afterwards became his
cardinal maxim that in an opera "the play's the thing," and the music merely
a means of intensifying the emotional expression. Before his time the
music, or rather the singing of florid tunes, had been "the thing," and the
libretto merely a peg to hang these tunes on. In this respect, therefore, the
child was father to the man. At the age of eleven he received a prize for the
best poem on the death of a schoolmate. At thirteen he translated the first
twelve books of Homer's Odyssey. He studied English for the sole purpose
of being able to read Shakspeare. Then he projected a stupendous tragedy,
in the course of which he killed off forty-two persons, many of whom had
to be brought back as ghosts to enable him to finish the play.

This extravagance also characterized his first efforts as a composer, when
he at last turned to music, at the age of sixteen. One of his first tasks, when
he had barely mastered the rudiments of composition, was to write an
overture which he intended to be more complicated than Beethoven's Ninth
Symphony. Heinrich Dorn, who recognized his talent amid all the bombast,
conducted this piece at a concert. At the rehearsal the musicians were
convulsed with laughter, and at the performance the audience was at first
surprised and then disgusted at the persistence of the drum-player, who
made himself heard loudly every fourth bar. Finally there was a general
outburst of hilarity which taught the young man a needed lesson.
Undoubtedly the germs of his musical genius had been in Wagner's brain
in his childhood,--for genius is not a thing that can be acquired. They had
simply lain dormant, and it required a special influence to develop them.
This influence was supplied by Weber and his operas. In 1815, two years
after Wagner's birth, the King of Saxony founded a German opera in
Dresden, where theretofore Italian opera had ruled alone. Weber was chosen
as conductor, and thus it happened that Wagner's earliest and deepest
impressions came from the composer of the "Freischütz." In his
autobiographic sketch Wagner writes: "Nothing gave me so much pleasure
as the 'Freischütz.' I often saw Weber pass by our house when he came from
rehearsals. I always looked upon him with a holy awe." It was lucky for
young Richard that his stepfather, Geyer, besides being a portrait-painter, an
actor, and a playwright, was also one of Weber's tenors at the opera. This
enabled the boy, in spite of the family's poverty, to hear many of the
performances. In fact, Wagner, like Weber, owes a considerable part of his
success as a writer for the stage to the fact that he belonged to a theatrical
family, and thus gradually learned "how the wheels go round." Such
practical experience is worth more than years of academic study.
While Wagner cordially acknowledged the fascination which Weber's
music exerted on him in his boyhood, he was hardly fair to Weber in his
later writings. In these he tries to prove that his own music-dramas are an
outgrowth of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. When Beethoven wrote that
work, Wagner argues, he had come to the conclusion that purely
instrumental music had reached a point beyond which it could not go alone,
wherefore he called in the aid of poetry (sung by soloists and chorus), and

thus intimated that the art-work of the future was the musical drama,--a
combination of poetry and music.
This is a purely fantastic notion on Wagner's part. There is no evidence
that Beethoven had any such purpose; he merely called in the aid of the
human voice to secure variety of sound and expression. Poetry and music
had been combined centuries before Beethoven in the opera and in lyric
song.
No, the roots of Wagner's music-dramas are not to be found in
Beethoven, but in Weber. His "Freischütz" and "Euryanthe" are the
prototypes of Wagner's operas. The "Freischütz" is the first masterwork, as
Wagner's operas are the last, up to date, of the romantic school; and it
embodies admirably two of the principal characteristics of that school: one,
a delight in the demoniac, the supernatural--what the Germans call gruseln;
the other, the use of certain instruments, alone or in combination, for the
sake of securing peculiar emotional effects. In both these respects Wagner
followed in Weber's footsteps. With the exception of "Rienzi" and "Die
Meistersinger," all of his operas, from the "Flying Dutchman" to "Parsifal,"
embody supernatural, mythical, romantic elements; and in the use of novel
tone colors for special emotional effects he opened a new wonder-world of
sound, to which Weber, however, had given him the key.
"Lohengrin," the last one of what are usually called Wagner's "operas," as
distinguished from his "music-dramas" (comprising the last seven of his
works), betrays very strongly the influence of Weber's other masterwork,
"Euryanthe." This opera, indeed, may also be called the direct precursor of
Wagner's music-dramas. It contains eight "leading motives," which recur
thirty times in course of the opera; and the dramatic recitatives are
sometimes quite in the "Wagnerian" manner. But the most remarkable thing
is that Weber uses language which practically sums up Wagner's idea of the
music-drama. "'Euryanthe,'" he says, "is a purely dramatic work, which
depends for its success solely on the co-operation of the united sister-arts,
and is certain to lose its effect if deprived of their assistance."
When Wagner wrote his essay on "The Music of the Future" for the
Parisians (1860) he remembered his obligations to the Dresden idol of his
boyhood by calling attention to "the still very noticeable connection" of his

early work, "Tannhäuser," with "the operas of my predecessors, among
whom I name especially Weber," He might have mentioned others,--Gluck,
for instance, who curbed the vanity of the singers, and taught them that they
were not "the whole show;" Marschner, whose grewsome "Hans Heiling"
Wagner had in mind when he wrote his "Flying Dutchman;" Auber, whose
"Masaniello," with its dumb heroine, taught Wagner the importance and
expressiveness of pantomimic music, of which there are such eloquent
examples in all his operas. During his three and a half years' sojourn in
Paris, just at the opening of his career as an opera composer (1839-1842),
he learned many things regarding operatic scenery, machinery, processions,
and details, which he subsequently turned to good account. Even
Meyerbeer, the ruler of the musical world in Paris at that time, was not
without influence on him, though he had cause to disapprove of him
because of his submission to the demands of the fashionable taste of the
day, which contrasted so strongly with Wagner's own courageous defiance
of everything inconsistent with his ideals of art. The result to-day--
Meyerbeer's fall and Wagner's triumph--shows that courage, like honesty, is,
in the long run, the best policy, and, like virtue, its own reward.
It is important to bear in mind all these lessons that Wagner learned from
his predecessors, as it helps to explain the enormous influence he exerted on
his contemporaries. Wonderful as was the power and originality of his
genius, even he could not have achieved such results had he not had truth
on his side,--truth, as hinted at, in moments of inspiration, by many of his
predecessors.
Wagner was most shamefully misrepresented by his enemies during his
lifetime. A thousand times they wrote unblushingly that he despised and
abused the great masters, whereas in truth no one ever spoke of them more
enthusiastically than he, or was more eager to learn of them, though, to be
sure, he was honest and courageous enough also to call attention to their
shortcomings. In all his autobiographic writings there is not a more
luminous passage than the following, in which he relates his experiences as
conductor at the Riga Opera in 1838, when he was at work on "Rienzi":--
"The peculiar gnawing melancholy which habitually overpowered me
when I conducted one of our ordinary operas was interrupted by an
inexpressible, enthusiastic delight, when, here and there, during the

performance of nobler works, I became conscious of the incomparable
effects that can be produced by musico-dramatic combinations on the
stage,--effects of a depth, sincerity, and direct realistic vivacity, such as no
other art can produce. I felt quite elated and ennobled during the time that I
was rehearsing Méhul's enchanting 'Joseph' with my little opera company."
"Such impressions," he continues, "like flashes of lightning" revealed to
him "unsuspected possibilities." It was by utilizing these "possibilities" and
hints, and at the same time avoiding the errors and blemishes of his
predecessors, that his superlative genius was enabled to create such
unapproachable masterworks as "Siegfried" and "Tristan and Isolde."
The way up to those peaks was, however, slow and toilsome. For years
he groped in darkness, and light came but gradually. It has already been
intimated that his genius was slow in developing. A brief review of his
romantic career will bring out this and other interesting points.
At the time when Richard Wagner was born (May 22, 1813), Leipzig was
in such a state of commotion on account of the war to liberate Germany
from the Napoleonic yoke that the child's baptism was deferred several
months. To his schooldays reference has been made already, and we may
therefore pass on to the time when he tried to make his living as an operatic
conductor. Although he was then only twenty-one years old, he showed
remarkable aptitude for this kind of work from the beginning, and it was
through no fault of his that misfortune overtook every opera company with
which he had anything to do. The bankruptcy, in 1836, of the manager of
the Magdeburg Opera, affected him most disastrously, for it came at the
moment when he had arranged for the first performance of an opera he had
written, entitled, "Das Liebesverbot," or "The Novice of Palermo," and
which therefore was given only once. Many years later an attempt was
made to revive this juvenile work at Munich, but the project was abandoned
because, as the famous Wagnerian tenor, Heinrich Vogl, informed the writer
of this article, "Its arias and other numbers were such ludicrous and
undisguised imitations of Donizetti and other popular composers of that
time that we all burst out laughing, and kept up the merriment throughout
the rehearsal." This is of interest because it shows that Wagner, like that
other great reformer, Gluck, began his career by writing fashionable operas
in the Italian style. A still earlier opera of his, "The Fairies,"--the first one he
completed,--was not produced till 1888, fifty-five years after it had been

written, and five years after Wagner's death. This has been performed a
number of times in Munich, but it is so weak and uninteresting in itself that
it required a splendid stage setting, and the "historic" curiosity of Wagner's
admirers to make it palatable. It is significant that already in these early
works, Wagner wrote his own librettos,--a policy which he pursued to the
end.
Königsberg was the next city where the opera company with which he
was connected, failed. This was the more embarrassing to him, as he had in
the meantime been so unwise as to marry a pretty actress, Minna Planer,
who was destined, for a quarter of a century, to faithfully share his
experiences,--chiefly disappointments. The pittance he got as conductor of
these small German opera companies did not pay his expenses, all the less
as he was fond of luxurious living, and, like most artists, the world over,
foolishly squandered his money when he happened to have any.
At Riga, where Wagner next attempted to establish himself, the opera
company again got into trouble, and his financial straits became such that,
relying on his future ability to meet his obligations, he resolved to leave that
part of the world altogether and seek his fortune in Paris. He knew that the
Prussian Meyerbeer had won fame and fortune there,--why should not he
have the same good luck? He had unbounded confidence in his own ability,
and what increased his hopes of a Parisian success, was that he had already
completed two acts of a grand historic opera, "Rienzi," based on Bulwer's
novel, and written in the sensational and spectacular style of Meyerbeer. He
supposed that all he had to do was to go to Paris, finish this opera, get it
accepted through the influence of his countryman and colleague,
Meyerbeer, and--wake up some morning famous and wealthy. He was not
the first man who built castles in Spain.
To-day a trip from Riga to Paris is a very simple affair. You get into a
train, and in about twenty-four hours are at your goal. In 1839 there were no
such conveniences. Wagner had to go to the Prussian seaport of Pillau, and
there board a sailing vessel which took him to London in three weeks and a
half. His journey, however, was a much more romantic affair than a railway
trip would have been. In the first place, it was a real flight--from his
creditors whom he had to evade. Next he had to dodge the Russian sentries,
whose boxes were placed on the boundary line only a thousand yards apart.

A friend discovered a way of accomplishing this feat, and Wagner presently
found himself on the ship, with his wife and his enormous Newfoundland
dog. In his trunk he had what he hoped would help him to begin a brilliant
career in Paris: one opera completed,--"The Novice of Palermo;" two acts
of another,--"Rienzi;" and in his head he had the plot and some of the
musical themes for a third,--"The Flying Dutchman."
The sea voyage came just in time to give him local color for this weird
nautical opera. Three times the vessel was tossed by violent storms, and
once the captain was obliged to seek safety in a Norwegian harbor. The
sailors told Wagner their version of the "Flying Dutchman" legend, and
altogether these adventures were the very thing he wanted at the time, and
aided him in making his opera realistic, both in its text and its music, which
imitates the howling of the storm winds and "smells of the salt breezes."
So for once our young musician had a streak of luck. But it did not last
long. He found Paris a very large city, and with very little use for him. He
made the most diverse efforts to support himself, nearly always without
success. Once it seemed as if his hopes were to be fulfilled. The Théâtre de
la Renaissance accepted his "Novice of Palermo;" but at the last moment
there was the usual bankruptcy of the management,--the fourth that affected
him! Then he wrote a Parisian Vaudeville, but it had to be given up because
the actors declared it could not be executed. The Grand Opera, on which he
had fixed his eye, was absolutely out of the question. He was brought to
such straits that he offered to sing in the chorus of a small Boulevard
theatre, but was rejected. His wife pawned her jewels; on several occasions
it is said that she even went into the street to beg a few pennies for their
supper. It was doubtless during these years of starvation that Wagner
acquired those gastric troubles which in later years often prevented him
from working more than an hour or two a day.
A few German friends occasionally gave a little pecuniary aid, but the
only regular source of income was musical hackwork for the publisher
Schlesinger, who gladly availed himself of Wagner's skill in having him
make vocal scores of operas, or arrange popular melodies for the piano and
other instruments. Wagner also wrote stories and essays for musical
periodicals, for which he received fair remuneration; but his attempt to
compose romances and become a parlor favorite failed. Nobody wanted his

songs, and he finally offered them to the editor of a periodical in Germany
for two dollars and a half to four dollars apiece. This may seem ludicrously
pathetic; but then had not poor Schubert, a little more than a decade before
this, sold much better songs for twenty cents each!
Meyerbeer no doubt aided Wagner, but considering his very great
influence in Paris, he achieved surprisingly little for him. The score of
"Rienzi" had been completed in 1840, and in the spring of the next year,
Wagner went to Meudon, near Paris, and there composed the music of "The
Flying Dutchman," in seven weeks, but neither of these operas seemed to
have the least chance to appear on the boards of the Grand Opera. The best
their author could do was to sell the libretto of "The Flying Dutchman" for
one hundred dollars, reserving the right to set it to music himself.
The outcome of all these disappointments was that he finally lost hope so
far as Paris was concerned, and sent his "Rienzi" to Dresden and his "Flying
Dutchman" to Berlin. The "Novice of Palermo" he had given up entirely
after the bankruptcy of the Renaissance Théâtre, because, as he wrote, "I
felt that I could no longer respect myself as its composer." Meyerbeer had,
at his request, kindly sent a note to the intendant of the Dresden Opera, in
which he said, among other things, that he had found the selections from
"Rienzi," which Wagner had played for him, "highly imaginative and of
great dramatic effect." Tichatschek, the famous Dresden tenor, examined
the score, and liked the title role; the chorus director, Fischer, also pleaded
for the acceptance of the opera; and so at last Wagner got word in Paris that
it would be produced in Dresden. As Berlin, too, retained the manuscript of
his other opera, there was reason enough for him to end his Parisian sojourn
and return to his native country. He went overland this time, and, to cite his
own words, "For the first time I saw the Rhine; with tears in my eyes I, the
poor artist, swore eternal allegiance to my German fatherland."
It was fortunate in every way that he went to Dresden. His opera required
many alterations and improvements, which he alone could make. He was
permitted to superintend the rehearsals, which was, of course, a great
advantage to the opera. The singers grew more and more enthusiastic over
the music, and when the first public performance was given, on October 20,
1842, the audience also was delighted and remained to the very end,
although the performance lasted six hours. The composer immediately

applied the pruning-knife and reduced the duration to four hours and a half
(from 6 to 10.30,--opera hours were early in those days); but the tenor,
Tichatschek, declared with tears in his eyes, "I shall not permit any cuts in
my part! It is too heavenly."
Those were proud and happy days for Wagner. "I, who had hitherto been
lonely, deserted, homeless," he wrote, "suddenly found myself loved,
admired, by many even regarded with wonderment." "Rienzi" was repeated
a number of times to overcrowded houses, though the prices had been put
up. It was regarded as "a fabulous success," and the management was eager
to follow it up with another. So the score of "The Flying Dutchman" was
demanded of Berlin (where they seemed in no hurry to use it), and at once
put into rehearsal. It was produced in Dresden on January 2, 1843, only
about ten weeks after "Rienzi,"--an almost unprecedented event in the life
of an opera composer. Wagner conducted the second opera himself (also
"Rienzi," after the first few performances), and gave so much satisfaction
that he was shortly afterwards appointed to the position of royal conductor
(which he held about six years).
So far, all seemed well. But disappointments soon began to overshadow
his seeming good luck. The first production of the "Flying Dutchman" can
hardly be called a success. Wagner himself characterized the performance
as being, in its main features, "a complete failure," and the stage setting
"incredibly awkward and wooden" (very different from what it is in
Dresden to-day). Mme. Schroeder-Devrient was an admirable "Senta," and
received enthusiastic applause; but the opera itself puzzled the audience
rather than pleased it.
The music-lovers of Dresden had expected another opera à la Meyerbeer,
like "Rienzi," with its arias and duos, its din and its dances, its pomps and
processions, its scenic and musical splendors. Instead of that, they heard a
work utterly unlike any opera ever before written; an opera without arias,
duets, and dances, without any of the glitter that had theretofore entertained
the public; an opera that simply related a legend in one breath, as it were,--
like a dramatic ballad; an opera that indulged in weird chromatic scales, and
harsh but expressive harmonies, with an unprecedented license. Here was
the real Wagner, but even in this early and comparatively crude and simple
phase, Wagner was too novel and revolutionary to be appreciated by his

contemporaries; hence it is not to be wondered at that the "Flying
Dutchman," after four performances in Dresden, and a few in Cassel and
Berlin, disappeared from the stage for ten years.
Although Wagner was now royal conductor, he did not succeed in
securing a revival of this opera at Dresden. His next work, "Tannhäuser,"
was nevertheless promptly accepted. The score was completed on April 13,
1845, and six, months later (October 19), the first performance was given.
Wagner had thrown himself with all his soul into the composition of this
score. To a friend in Berlin he wrote: "This opera must be good, or else I
never shall be able to do anything worth while." The public at first seemed
to agree with him. Seven performances were given before the end of the
season, and it was resumed the following year; yet Wagner came to the
conclusion that he had written the opera "for a few intimate friends, but not
for the public," to cite his own words. What the public had expected and
desired was shown by its enthusiastic reception of "Rienzi," and its colder
treatment of the "Dutchman." But "Tannhäuser" was like the second opera;
in fact, even "more so." Wagner had outlived the time when he was willing
to make concessions to current taste and fashion; thenceforth he went his
own way, eager, indeed, for approval, but stubbornly refusing to win it by
sacrificing his high art ideals.
Here was true heroism, genuine manliness! Had he been willing to write
more operas like "Rienzi," he might have revelled in wealth (he loved
wealth!) and basked in the sunshine of popularity, like Meyerbeer. But not
one inch of concession did he make for the sake of the much-coveted riches
and popular favor.
Yet was not his next work, "Lohengrin," of a popular character? Popular
to-day, yes; but in the days of his Dresden conductorship he could not even
get it accepted for performance at his own opera-house! It was completed in
August, 1847 (the last act having been written first and the second last), but
although he remained in Dresden two years longer, all his efforts to get it
staged failed, for various reasons. And when, at last, Liszt gave it for the
first time, on August 28, 1850, at Weimar, whence it gradually made its way
to other opera-houses, its reception everywhere showed that it was very far
from being considered a "popular" work. The critics, especially, vied with
one another in abusing this same "Lohengrin," which at present is sung

more frequently than any other opera; and they continued to abuse it until
about twenty years ago. "An abyss of ennui," "void of all melody," "an
insult to the very essence of music," "a caricature of music," "algebraic
harmonies," "no tangible ideas," "not a dozen bars of melody," "an opera
without music," "an incoherent mass of rubbish,"--are a few of the "critical"
opinions passed on this opera, which is now regarded in all countries as a
very wonderland of beautiful melodies and expressive harmonies.
The non-acceptance in Dresden of this glorious opera, concerning which
Wagner wrote, "It is the best thing I have done so far," was only one of
many trials and disappointments which daily harassed him. He was over
head and ears in debt, because, in his confidence in the immediate success
of his operas, he had had them printed at once, at his own expense. The
opera-houses were very slow in accepting them, and this left him in a sad
predicament. There were, moreover, enemies everywhere,--ignorant, old-
fashioned professionals, who objected to his way of interpreting the masters
(though it was afterwards admitted that he was epoch-making as an
interpreter of their deepest thoughts). All this galled him; and, furthermore,
no attention whatever was paid to his pet plans for reforming the Dresden
Opera, and theatrical matters in general.
In the state of mind brought about by this condition of affairs, it needed
but a firebrand to start an explosion. This firebrand was supplied by the
revolutionary uprising of 1849. Now, although Wagner had never really
cared much for politics (to his friend Fischer he once wrote: "I do not
consider true art possible until politics cease to exist"), he was foolish
enough to believe that a general overturning of affairs would benefit art-
matters, too, and facilitate his operatic reforms; so he became, as he himself
admits, "a revolutionist in behalf of the theatre." He actively assisted the
insurgents, and the consequence was that, when the rebellion failed, he had
to leave Dresden and seek safety in flight.
Three of the leaders of the insurrection--Roeckel, Bakunin, and Heubner;
personal friends of Wagner--were captured and imprisoned; he himself was
so lucky as to escape to Weimar, where Franz Liszt took care of him. It so
happened that Liszt, who had given up his career as concert pianist (though
all the world was clamoring to hear him), and was conducting the Weimar
Opera, had been preparing a performance of "Tannhäuser," to which

Wagner would, under normal conditions, have been invited as a matter of
course. He was now there, but as a political fugitive, wherefore it was not
deemed advisable to have him attend the public performance; but he did
secretly witness a rehearsal, and was delighted to find that Liszt's genius
had enabled him to penetrate into the innermost recesses of this music. It
was impossible, however, for him to stay any longer. The Dresden police
had issued a warrant for the arrest of "the royal Kapellmeister Richard
Wagner," who was to be "placed on trial for active participation in the riots
which have taken place here." No time was, therefore, to be lost. Late in the
evening of May 18, Liszt's noble patroness, the Princess Wittgenstein,
received this note from him: "Can you give the bearer sixty thalers? Wagner
is obliged to fly, and I cannot help him at this moment."
Early the next morning Wagner, provided with a false pass, left Weimar
and headed for Switzerland, which was to be his home for the greater part
of the following twelve years of his exile from Germany. Had he been
caught, like his friends, and, like them, imprisoned during these years, it is
not likely that the world would now possess those seven monuments of his
ripest genius, "Rheingold," "Die Walküre," "Siegfried,"
"Götterdämmerung," "Tristan and Isolde," "Die Meistersinger," and
"Parsifal." Even as it was, the world has undoubtedly lost an immortal opera
or two through his unfortunate participation in the rebellion. For during the
first four years of his exile, he did not compose any music. He reasoned that
he had written four good operas and nobody seemed to want them; why,
therefore, should he compose any more?
At the same time, he realized that there were natural reasons why his
operas were not understood. They were written in such a novel style, both
vocal and instrumental, that the singers, players, and conductors found it
difficult to perform them correctly, the consequence being that they did not
specially impress the audiences, which, moreover, were bewildered by
finding themselves listening to works so radically different from what they
had been accustomed to in the opera-houses. In the hope of remedying this
state of affairs Wagner devoted several years to writing essays, in which he
explained his aims and ideals for the benefit both of performers and
listeners. Little attention was, however, paid to these essays, and although
they are valuable aesthetic treatises, most lovers of Wagner would gladly

give them for the operas he might have written in the same time,--operas
uniting the characteristics of "Lohengrin" and "The Valkyrie."
Wagner's letters to Liszt and other friends show that he suffered tortures,
and was often brought to the verge of suicide by the thought that, as a
political refugee, he was unable to go to Germany to superintend the
production of his works. His one consolation was that, as he put it, through
the friendship of Liszt his art had found a home at Weimar at the moment
when he himself became homeless. Weimar became, as it were, a sort of
preliminary Bayreuth, to which pilgrimages were made to hear Wagner's
operas. Liszt not only produced the "Flying Dutchman," "Tannhäuser," and
"Lohengrin," but wrote eloquent essays on them, and in every possible way
advanced the good cause. It has been justly said that by his efforts he
accelerated the vogue of Wagner's operas fully ten years. He also helped
him pecuniarily, and induced others to do the same. Never in the world's
history has one artist done so much for another as Liszt did for Wagner
during all the years of his exile in Switzerland.
Few persons would consider residence in Switzerland (the usual home in
those days of political refugees) a special hardship; nor would Wagner have
considered it in that light except for the solicitude he felt for the children of
his brain. Otherwise he greatly enjoyed life in that glorious country, and the
Alpine ozone nourished and stimulated his brain. Moreover, from the
creative point of view, it was an actual advantage for him to be away from
the opera-houses of the great capitals. In Switzerland, except for a short
time when he was connected with the Zurich opera, he heard no operatic
music except such as his own brain created. Undoubtedly this helps to
account for the astounding originality of the music-dramas he wrote in
Switzerland.
These music-dramas go as far beyond "Lohengrin" in certain directions
as "Lohengrin" goes beyond the operas of Wagner's predecessors. It was a
reckless thing to do, to make another such giant stride before the world had
caught up with his first, and he had to suffer the consequences; but genius
disregards prudence, and looks to the future alone. What he was now
writing was what his enemies tauntingly called "the music of the future,"
because, as they said, nobody liked it at present; but what he himself called
the "art work of the future," in which all the fine arts are inseparably united.

The biggest of his works, the "Nibelung Tetralogy," was conceived and
for the most part written in Switzerland. Before leaving Dresden he had
already written the poem of an opera which he called "Siegfried's Death."
Returning to this in his exile he came to the conclusion, gradually, that the
legend on which it is based, and which he had sketched out in prose at the
beginning, contained the material for two, three, nay, four operas.
Accordingly, he wrote the poems of these: first, "Götterdämmerung," then
"Siegfried," "Die Walküre," and "Rheingold." The music to these four
dramas was, however, composed in the reverse order, in which they were to
be performed.
Wagner indulged in no illusions regarding these music-dramas. He knew
that they were beyond the capacity of even the best royal opera-houses of
that time, and that they could be performed only under exceptional
conditions, such as he finally succeeded, after herculean efforts and many
disappointments, in securing at Bayreuth in 1876. It is of great interest to
note that the germs of a sort of "Bayreuth festival plan" can be found in his
letters as early as 1850,--the year when "Lohengrin" had its first hearing.
Thus a full quarter of a century elapsed between the conception of this
festival plan and its execution. But Wagner had the patience of Job, as well
as his capacity for suffering.
Amid privations of all sorts, he wrote the sublime music of these dramas,
beginning with "Rheingold," on Nov. 1, 1853,--the first time he had put new
operatic melodies on paper since the completion of "Lohengrin," in August,
1847. In his head, to be sure, he had been carrying much of the Nibelung
music for some time, for he habitually created his leading melodies at the
same time as the verse; and the four Nibelung poems were in print in 1853.
On May 28, 1854, the score of "Rheingold" was completed, and four weeks
later he began the sketches of "The Valkyrie," the completed score of which
was in his desk by the end of March, 1856.
In the meantime his poverty had compelled him, much against his
wishes, to accept an offer from the London Philharmonic Society to conduct
their concerts for a season (March to June, 1855). He had reason to bitterly
regret this action. With the limited number of rehearsals at his command it
was impossible for him to make the orchestra follow his intentions and
reveal his greatness as a conductor. He was not allowed to make the

programmes, and the directors, ignorant of the fact that they had engaged
the greatest musical genius of the century, gave no Wagner concert, and put
only a few short selections from his early operas on the programs. Thus his
hopes of creating a desire for the hearing of his complete operas, which had
been one of his motives in going to London, were frustrated. He was,
moreover, constantly abused for doing things differently from Mendelssohn,
and the leading critics referred to his best music as "senseless discord,"
"inflated display of extravagance and noise," and so on. Almost the only
pleasant episode was the sympathy and interest of Queen Victoria, who had
a long talk with him, and informed him that his music had enraptured her.
For all this trouble and loss of time (he found himself unable in London
to do any satisfactory work on the uncompleted "Valkyrie" score), he
received the munificent sum of $1,000,--considerably less than many
Wagner singers to-day get for one evening's work. Shortly before leaving
London he wrote to a friend that he would bring home about 200 francs,-
-$40! For this he had wasted four months of precious time and endured
endless "contrarieties and vulgar animosities," to use his own words.
Equally unsuccessful were his efforts, a few years later, to better himself
financially by a series of concerts in Paris (1860). They resulted in a large
deficit. Nor was he benefited by the performances of his "Tannhäuser,"
which were given at the grand opera in March, 1861, by order of Napoleon,
at the request of the influential Princess Metternich. He had refused to
interpolate a vulgar ballet in the second act for the benefit of the members
of the aristocratic Jockey Club, who dined late and insisted on having a
ballet on entering the opera-house. They took their revenge by creating such
a disturbance every evening that after the third performance Wagner refused
to allow any further repetitions, although the house on the third night had
been completely sold out. He was to receive $50 for each performance. The
result was $150, or less than 50 cents a day, for a year's hard work and no
end of worry in connection with the rehearsals.
How many men are there in the annals of art who would have refused,
after all these disappointments and bitter lessons, to make some
concessions? Wagner was writing a gigantic work, the Nibelung Tetralogy,
which, he was convinced, would never yield a penny's profit during his
lifetime. Sometimes despair seized him. In one of his letters he exclaims:

"Why should I, poor devil, burden and torture myself with such terrible
tasks, if the present generation refuses to let me have even a workshop?"
Yet the only deviation he made from his plan was that when he had reached
the second act of the third of the Nibelung dramas, the poetic "Siegfried," in
June, 1857, he made up his mind to abandon the Tetralogy for the time
being, and compose an opera which might be performed separately and
once more bring him into contact with the stage.
This opera was "Tristan and Isolde;" but instead of being a concession, it
turned out to be the most difficult and Wagnerian of all his works,--an opera
with much emotion but little action, no processions or choruses such as
"Lohengrin" still had, and, of course, no arias or tunes whatever. "Tristan
and Isolde" was completed in 1859, and Wagner would have much
preferred to have its performance in Paris commanded by Napoleon in place
of "Tannhäuser." What the Jockey Club would have done in that case is
inconceivable, for, compared with "Tristan," "Tannhäuser" is almost
Meyerbeerian, if not Donizettian. No singers, moreover, could have been
found in Paris able to interpret this work, with its new vocal style,--"speech-
song," as the Germans call it. Even Germany could do nothing, at first, with
this opera. In Vienna, after fifty-four rehearsals, it was abandoned, in 1863,
as "impossible," and that city did not produce it till after Wagner's death.
Instead of bringing him into immediate contact with the stage, it was not
heard anywhere till seven years after its completion.
There was one more card for him to play. All his operas, so far, had been
tragedies. What if he were to write a comic opera? Would not that be likely
to get him access to the stage again, and help him financially? He had the
plan for a comic opera; indeed, he had sketched it as early as 1845, at the
same time as the plot of "Lohengrin." Sixteen years it lay dormant in his
brain. At last he wrote out the poem in Paris, immediately after the
"Tannhäuser" disaster there. Perhaps it would be more accurate to call "Die
Meistersinger" a humorous opera; for while the story of the mediaeval
knight who wins the goldsmith's daughter has comic features, its chief
characteristic is humor, with that undercurrent of seriousness that belongs to
all masterpieces of humor. To a certain extent, it is a musical and poetic
autobiography, the victorious young Knight Walter, who sings as he pleases,
without regard to pedantic rules, representing Wagner himself and the

"music of the future," while the vain and malicious Beckmesser stands for
the critics, and Hans Sachs for enlightened public opinion.
It was during the time that he wrote the gloriously melodious and
spontaneous music to this poem that the most important event of his life
happened. Work on the score was repeatedly interrupted by the necessity of
making some money. Most of his concerts in German cities, undertaken for
this purpose, did not yield him any profits. In Russia, however, he was very
successful, and as he had the promise of a repetition of his success, he
rented a fine villa at Penzing, near Vienna, and proceeded to enjoy life for a
change. Who can blame him for this? As he said to a friend not long after
this, "I am differently organized from others, have sensitive nerves, must
have beauty, splendor, and light. Is it really such an outrageous thing if I lay
claim to the little bit of luxury which I like,--I, who am preparing
enjoyment for the world and for thousands?"
Unfortunately the second Russian project failed, through no fault of his
own, and as he had borrowed money at usurious rates on his expected
profits, he found himself compelled to fly once more from his creditors.
After spending a short time in Switzerland, he went to Stuttgart, where he
persuaded his friend Weissheimer to go with him into the Suabian Alps,
where he intended to hide for half a year, until he could finish his
"Meistersinger," and with the score raise money for his creditors. The
wagon had already been ordered for the next morning, May 3, 1864, and
Wagner was packing his trunk, when a card was brought up to him with the
inscription: "von Pfistenmeister, Secrétaire aulique de S.M. le roi de
Bavière," and the message that the Baron came by order of the King of
Bavaria, and was very anxious to see him.
King Ludwig II. of Bavaria had declared, while he was still crown prince,
that as soon as he became king he would show the world how highly he
held the genius of Wagner in honor. He kept his word. One of his first acts
was to despatch Baron von Pfistenmeister to search for Wagner, and not to
return without him. He was to tell him that the king was his most ardent
admirer; that he wanted him to come at once to Munich, to live there in
comfort, at the king's expense, to complete his Nibelung operas, and
produce them forthwith. Was it a wonder that when the Baron had left,
Wagner, who was thus suddenly raised from the depth of despair (he had

even meditated suicide) to the height of happiness, fell on Weissheimer's
neck, and wept for joy.
Surely the brain of a Dumas could not have conceived a more romantic
event than this sudden transformation of one who was a fugitive from
debtor's prison into the favorite of a young and enthusiastic king. At last
Wagner had an opportunity to bring forward his music-dramas. "Tristan and
Isolde" was sung at the Munich Opera on June 10, 1865, with an excellent
cast, and Hans von Bülow as conductor. "Die Meistersinger" followed on
June 21,1868. Both these works were received with enthusiasm by the ever-
growing band of Wagner-lovers. His plan of building a special theatre in
Munich for the performance of his Nibelung operas could not be carried
out, however, even with the king's aid; for his great influence with the king
(he was rumored to be even his political and religious adviser, though this
was not true), aroused so much hostile feeling that Wagner finally decided
to have his Nibelung festival at the old secluded town of Bayreuth.
At the suggestion of the eminent pianist, Carl Taussig, Wagner societies
were formed in the cities of Europe and America to raise funds for this
festival and give Wagner a chance to establish a tradition by showing the
world how his operas should be performed. With the aid of these and liberal
contributions by his ever-devoted king, Wagner was able, after many trials,
tribulations, and postponements, to bring out, at last, his great Tetralogy, on
August 13, 14,16, and 17, of the year 1876. It was beyond comparison the
most interesting and important event in the whole history of music. Wagner
had personally visited the opera-houses throughout the land and selected the
best singers. The audience included the Emperors of Germany and Brazil,
King Ludwig, the Grand Dukes of Weimar and Baden, eminent composers
like Liszt, Grieg, Saint-Saëns, and many other notable persons. The
impression made by the great work was the deeper because of the unusual
circumstances: the theatre specially constructed after Wagner's novel plan;
the amphitheatric seats; the concealed orchestra; the stereoscopic clearness
and nearness of the stage scenes, etc.
The necessity of charging very high rates ($225 for the four dramas)
naturally prevented the audiences from being large, and the result was that
Wagner had a deficit of $37,000 on his hands as the reward for his genius
and years of business worries. When, however, his last work, the sublime,

semi-religious "Parsifal," was produced in 1882, there was a balance in his
favor. He was then in his sixty-ninth year, and the exertion of producing this
final masterpiece was too great for him. To recuperate, he went to Venice,
where he died on Feb. 13, 1882. King Ludwig sent a special train to convey
his body to Bayreuth, where it was buried in the garden behind his villa
Wahnfried.
Since Wagner's death the Bayreuth festivals have been kept up with ever-
increasing success, under the guidance of his widow Cosima, the daughter
of Liszt (whom he married in 1870, four years after the death of his first
wife), and their son, Siegfried, who has in recent years also won some
success as an opera composer. The performances at Bayreuth are no longer
what they were during Wagner's lifetime,--models for all the world; but they
are still of unique interest. In truth, headquarters like Bayreuth are no longer
needed, for all the German cities now vie with one another in their efforts to
interpret the Wagner operas according to the composer's intentions; and his
influence on other musicians, which began with the performance of
"Lohengrin" under Liszt, in 1850, is to-day greater than ever,--more
powerful, perhaps, than that ever exerted by any other master.
But while an eminent German critic wrote not long ago that "the music-
drama of Wagner constitutes modern opera," it would be a huge mistake to
make Wagnerism synonymous with modern music in general. Apart from
the opera, there are several other very powerful currents, and while most of
them can be traced to the first half of the nineteenth century, they are none
the less modern. Their principal sources are Beethoven, Schubert, and
Chopin, to whom we must add, in the second half of the century, Liszt.
The symphonies of Haydn and Mozart are like toy-houses compared with
the massive architecture of Beethoven's. He not only elaborated the forms,
but varied the rhythms, broadened the melody, and deepened the expression
of orchestral music. In his works, too, are to be found the germs of
romanticism, which others, notably Mendelssohn and Schumann, developed
so fascinatingly in their best works. Most of Mendelssohn's compositions
have had their day; but Schumann is still a force in modern music and will
long remain so.

Brahms, the musical Browning, is, musically speaking, a son of
Schumann and a grandson of Beethoven. While even Brahms did not escape
the influence of Wagner, nor that of the romanticists Schubert and Chopin,
still, in his essence, he represents reaction against modern romanticism and
an atavistic return to the spirit of Beethoven. He has been, for decades, the
idol of Wagner's enemies; yet, in truth, there was no occasion for opposing
these two men, since they worked in entirely different fields. Brahms wrote
no operas, while Wagner wrote little but operas. The real antagonist of
Brahms is Liszt, who also worked only for the concert hall and who
represents poetic or pictorial music (programme music), while Brahms
stands for absolute music, or music per se, without any poetic affiliations.
While Schubert in his youth also came under the influence of his great
contemporary, Beethoven, he soon emancipated himself completely from
him, even in the symphony, in which, as Schumann pointed out, he opened
up "an entirely new world" of melody, color, and emotion. His orchestration
is more varied, euphonious, and enchanting than Beethoven's, and in this
direction he did for the symphony what Weber did for the opera. By using
the brass instruments pianissimo, for color instead of for loudness, he
opened a path in which later masters, including Wagner, eagerly followed
him. Schubert was also the first composer who revealed the exquisite
beauty and the great emotional power of the freest modulation from key to
key. His poetic impromptus for piano became the model for Mendelssohn's
"Songs without Words," and the multitudinous forms of modern short
pieces, while his melodious, dainty, graceful valses were the forerunners of
the exquisite dance-music which subsequently made Vienna famous, and
which reached its climax in Johann Strauss the younger, universally known
as "the waltz king."
In all these respects, Schubert was epoch-making; and if the beautiful
details he suggested to his successors up to the present day could be taken
out of their works there would be some surprising blanks. Especially also is
this true in the realm of lyric song, for, as everybody knows, he practically
created the art song as we know and love it. The greatest of his immediate
successors, Schumann and Franz, cheerfully admitted that they could never
have written such songs as they gave the world but for Schubert, and the
same confession might be made by the latest of the great songwriters,
Grieg, Richard Strauss, and our American MacDowell. Schubert's best

songs have never been equalled. They belong in the realm of modern music
quite as much as Wagner's music-dramas and Liszt's symphonic poems.
Chopin is another composer who, although he died in 1849 (Schubert
died in 1828), is as modern as the masters just named. He was as boldly
original as Schubert, and as great a magician in the art of arousing deep
emotion by means of novel, unexpected modulations. As an originator of
new harmonic progressions he has had only three equals,--Bach, Schubert,
and Wagner. Harmonies as ultra-modern as those of Wagner's "Parsifal"
may be found in some of the mazurkas of Chopin. He was, as Rubinstein
called him, "the soul of the pianoforte." No one before or after him knew
how to make that instrument speak so eloquently. By ingeniously scattering
the notes of a chord over the keyboard while holding down the pedal, he
practically gave the player three or four hands, and greatly enlarged the
harmonic and coloristic possibilities of the pianoforte. Liszt, Rubinstein,
Paderewski, and others have gone farther still in the same direction, but he
showed the way, and most of his pieces are as delightful and as modern now
as they were on the day when they were written. He wrote a few sonatas,
but the majority of his works are short pieces such as are characteristic of
the modern romantic school.
Before Chopin modernized pianoforte music the world's greatest
composers had been Italians, Germans, and Frenchmen. Chopin's father was
a Frenchman, but his mother was a native of Poland, and he was born in
that country. While his music has the French qualities of elegance and
clearness (which every one admires in the works of Gounod, Bizet,
Massenet, and other Parisian masters), in its essence it is Polish--a fact of
special significance, for from this time on other nations than the three
mentioned--especially the Slavic and Scandinavian--begin to play a
prominent role in music. In this brief sketch only the greatest names can be
considered,--such names as Rubinstein, Tschaikowsky, Dvorák, Grieg.
Rubinstein was not only one of the greatest pianists, but one of the most
spontaneous and fertile melodists of all times. His frequently careless
workmanship and his foolish, savage hostility to the dominant Wagner
movement prevented him from enjoying the fruits of his rare genius. He felt
that, had it not been for the all-absorbing Wagner, he himself might have
been as popular as Mendelssohn. Although a Russian, there is little local

color in his music, for the enchanting exotic melodic intervals in his
"Persian" songs are Oriental in general, rather than Russian in particular.
Similar exotic intervals may be found in the "Aïda" of Verdi, a pure Italian.
Rubinstein, like Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, was a Hebrew. His day will
yet come, for his Dramatic and Ocean symphonies are among the grandest
orchestral works in existence.
His countryman, Tschaikowsky, also was neglected during his lifetime;
but since his death he has become, especially in London, almost as popular
as Wagner; and deservedly so, for he was a genius of the highest type, less
in his songs and pianoforte works than in his symphonies and symphonic
poems, which include some of the most inspired pages in modern music. In
some of his compositions there is a barbaric splendor which proclaims the
Russian and delights those who like exotic novelty in music. Like all the
Russians, Tschaikowsky was strongly influenced by Liszt; indeed, it may be
said that in Russia Liszt was more potent in shaping the course of modern
music than even Wagner.
Another Slavic composer, the Bohemian Dvorák, is of special interest to
Americans not only because he is one of the greatest of modern orchestral
writers (a colorist of rare charm), but because he presided for several years
over Mrs. Thurber's National Conservatory of Music in New York, and
there wrote that truly melodious and deeply emotional work, "From the
New World," which has become almost as popular as Tschaikowsky's
"Pathétique." His Bohemian rhythms have a unique charm.
Among the Scandinavian composers the greatest, by far, is Grieg, one of
the most original melodists and harmonists of all times. His songs, in
particular, are destined to immortality; they are among the very best written
since Schubert. Of his pianoforte and chamber music, too, it can be said that
everything is new, free from commonplace, and ultra-modern. He has
written mostly short pieces, and for that reason has had to wait (like Chopin
in his day) a long time for full recognition of his genius, the critics not
having yet got over the foolish habit of measuring art-works with a
yardstick. Like Chopin, moreover, Grieg has had the ill-fortune of having
his most original and individual traits accredited to his nation and described
as "national peculiarities." His music does contain such peculiarities; but it

is necessary to distinguish between what is Norwegian and what is
Griegian. Grieg's little pieces and songs are big with genius.
The Hungarian Liszt is another immortal master who, beside the fruits of
his individual genius, contributed to the current of modern music some of
those exotic national traits which distinguish it from that of earlier epochs
when it was almost exclusively Italian, French, and German. His fifteen
Hungarian rhapsodies constitute, however, only a small part of the
invaluable legacy he has left the world. He was the most many-sided of all
musicians,--the greatest of all pianists, and one of the best composers of
oratorios, songs, orchestral, and pianoforte works,--everything, in short,
except operas and chamber music. He was also the greatest of teachers and
(with the exception of Wagner) the greatest of conductors; as such, he
carried out both his own and Wagner's new and revolutionary principles of
interpretation, which have gradually made the orchestral conductor a
personage of even greater importance, in concert hall and opera-house, than
the prima donna, travelling, like her, from city to city, to delight lovers of
music.
One might have expected that the prince of pianists, being at the same
time a composer, would do for the pianoforte what Bach had done for
choral and organ music, Beethoven for the symphony, Schubert for the art
song, and Wagner for the opera. But he could not, for Chopin had
anticipated him. In only one direction was it possible to go beyond Chopin,-
-in that of making the piano capable of reproducing orchestral effects. This,
Liszt achieved in his own works and his transcriptions. But, after all, the
grandest pianoforte, while delightful as such, is but a poor substitute for an
orchestra. Hence it was natural that Liszt should give up the pianoforte as
his specialty and devote himself particularly to the orchestra.
In this domain he was destined to achieve reforms similar to those of
Wagner in the opera. The "classical" symphony, like the old-fashioned
opera, consists of detached numbers, or movements, that have no organic
connection with one another. For the detached numbers of the opera Wagner
substituted his "continuous melody;" and he provided an organic connection
of all the parts by means of the "leading motives" or characteristic melodies
and chords which recur whenever the situation calls for them. In the same

spirit Liszt transformed the symphony into the symphonic poem, which is
continuous and has a leading motive uniting all its parts.
There is another aspect to the symphonic poem, in which Liszt deviated
from Wagner. In Wagner's operas there is plenty of descriptive or pictorial
music, but no program music, properly speaking; for even in such things as
the Ride of the Valkyries, or the Magic Fire Scene, the music does not
depend on a programme, but is explained by the scenery. In programme
music, on the other hand, the scene or the poetic idea is simply explained in
the programme, or else merely hinted at in the title of the piece. Crude
attempts in this direction were made centuries ago, but programme music as
an important branch of music is a modern phenomenon. Beethoven
encouraged it by his "Pastoral Symphony," and the French Berlioz did some
very remarkable things in this line in his dramatic symphonies; but it
remained for Liszt to hit the nail on the head in his symphonic poems. The
French Saint-Saëns followed him, rather than his countryman Berlioz; so
did Tschaikowsky, Dvorak, and most modern composers, up to Richard
Strauss, whose symphonic poems are the most widely discussed, praised,
and abused compositions of our time.
To the great names contained in the preceding paragraphs another must
be added,--that of an Italian. By an odd coincidence, Verdi was born in the
same year as Wagner, 1813. But what is far more remarkable is that at the
close of their careers, so different otherwise, these two great composers met
again--in their music, Verdi as a Wagnerian convert. Up to his fifty-eighth
year Verdi had written two dozen operas, all made up of strings of arias in
the old-fashioned way,--superb arias, many of them, especially in "Il
Trovatore" and "Aïda," but still arias. Then he rested from his labors sixteen
years; and when he appeared on the stage again, with his "Otello" and
"Falstaff," he had adopted Wagner's maxims that arias are out of place in a
music-drama; that "the play's the thing," and that the music should follow
the text word for word.
Surely, this was the most remarkable of Wagner's triumphs and
conquests. He who had been denounced for decades as being unable to
write properly for the voice was actually taken up as a model by the greatest
composer of Italy, the land of song. Moreover, all the young composers of
Italy have turned their backs on the traditions of Italian opera. The chief

ambition of Mascagni, Leoncavallo, Puccini, and all the others has been to
be called "the Italian Wagner;" and their operas are much more like
Wagner's than like Rossini's and Donizetti's, being free from arias and the
vocal embroideries that formerly were the essence of Italian opera. The
same is true of the operas written in recent decades in France, Germany, and
other countries. Massenet, Saint-Saëns, Humperdinck, Goldmark, Richard
Strauss, Paderewski, and all the others have followed in Wagner's footsteps.
Such, briefly told, is the story of Richard Wagner and Modern Music.
The "music of the future" has become the music of the present. What the
future will bring no one can tell. Croakers say, as they have always said,
that the race of giants has died out. But who knew, fifty years ago, that
Wagner and Liszt, or even their predecessors, Chopin and Schumann, and
the song specialist, Robert Franz, were giants? We know it now, and future
generations will know whether we have giants among us. Things of beauty
that will be a joy forever have been created by men of genius now living in
Europe; such men as the Norwegian Grieg, the Bohemian Dvorák, the
French Saint-Saëns and Massenet, the Hungarian Goldmark, the German
Humperdinck and Richard Strauss, the Polish Paderewski. England has
more good composers and listeners than it ever had before; and the same is
true of America. We have no school of opera yet, but the best operettas of
Victor Herbert and De Koven deserve mention by the side of those of the
French. Offenbach, Lecocq, and Audran, the Viennese Strauss, Suppé, and
Milloecker, the English Sullivan. The orchestral compositions of our John
K. Paine are masterworks, and the songs and pianoforte pieces of
MacDowell are equal to anything produced in Europe since Chopin and
Franz. We have several other men of great promise, and altogether the
outlook for America, as well as for Europe, is bright.
AUTHORITIES.
The books, pamphlets, and newspaper articles on Wagner would fill a
library. He has been more written about than any writers except Shakspere,
Goethe, and Dante. He was also fond of writing about himself. His
autobiography (extending only to 1865) has not yet been given to the
public; but there are many autobiographic pages in the ten volumes of his
literary works, which have been Englished by Ellis. Of great value are
Wagner's letters to Liszt and to other friends. These were utilized for the

first time in "Wagner and His Works," the most elaborate biography in the
English language, by the author of the foregoing article. Shorter American
and English books on Wagner have been written by Kobbé, Krehbiel,
Henderson, Hueffer, Newman, &c. Of French writers Lavignac, Jullien,
Mendès, Servières, Schuré, may be mentioned. Of great value are
Kufferath's monographs on the Wagner operas and Liszt's analyses. In
Germany the standard work of reference is the third edition of Glasenopp,
in six volumes, four of which are now (1902) in print. Other German
writers are Porges, Wolzogen, Pohl, Nohl, Tappert, Chamberlain, &c. The
best histories of Modern Music in general are Langhaus's larger work and
Riemann's "Geschichte der Musik seit Beethoven." The best general work
for reference is "Great Composers and Their Works," edited by Professor
Paine of Harvard. References to about 10,000 articles on Wagner may be
found in Oesterlein's "Katalog Einer Richard Wagner Bibliothek," 3 vols.

JOHN RUSKIN.

1819-1900.
MODERN ART.
BY G. MERCER ADAM.

What John Ruskin has done in a prosaic, commercial, and Philistine age,
in teaching the world to love and study the Beautiful, in opening to it the
hidden mysteries and delights of art, and in inciting the passion for taking
pleasure in and even possessing embodiments of it, that age owes to the
great prose-poet and enthusiastic author of "Modern Painters." Neither
before nor since his day has literature known such a passionate and
luminous exponent of Nature's beauties, such an inculcator in men's minds
of the art of observing her ways and methods, or one who has given the
world such deep insight into what constitutes the true and the beautiful in
art. For these things, and for opening new worlds of instruction and delight
to his age in the realm of art, heightened by the charm of his marvellous
prose, we can readily pardon Ruskin for his weaknesses and perverseness,--
for his dogmatisms, his fervors, and ecstasies, his exaggerations of praise
and blame, and even for the missionary propagation of his often unsound
economic gospel, valuable though it may be in illustrating and enforcing
morality in its aesthetic aspect. Despite his enemies, and all that the critics
have said contradicting his theories, Ruskin was a surprise and a revelation
to his time. In not a little of all that he said and did, it is true, we cannot
concur; nor can we fail to see the errors he fell into through his want of
reserve and his headlong haste to say and do the things he said and did;
nevertheless, he was a great and inspiring teacher in things that appeal to
our sense of the beautiful, and earnest in his zeal to raise men's intellectual
and moral standard of life. Like most enthusiasts and geniuses, he had, now
and then, his hours of reaction, waywardness, and gloom; but there was
much that was noble and ennobling in the man, as well as rich and

fructifying in his thought. Even in his social and moral exhortations,
tinctured as they are with medievalism, and however much we may here
again disagree with him, he had much that was uplifting and inspiring to say
to his time,--a time that had great need of his apostolic counsellings and his
fervent inculcations of morality, industry, religion, and humanity.
Throughout Mr. Ruskin's works--and they are amazingly manifold--a
strong and intense purpose runs, given to the highest and noblest ends; and
though their author at times wearies his reader by his diffuseness and his
digressions, and to some is almost fanatical in his reverence for art, he is
ever imaginative and eloquent, and has created for us a new, instructive, and
uniquely fresh and thoughtful body of art-literature. The truth of infinite
value he teaches is "realism,"--the doctrine that all truth and beauty are to
be attained by a reverent and faithful study of nature, and not, as a reviewer
expresses it, "by substituting vague forms, bred by imagination on the mists
of feeling, in place of definite, substantial reality. The thorough acceptance
of this doctrine would remould our life; and he who teaches its application,
even to any single department of human activity, and with such power as
Mr. Ruskin's, is a prophet for his generation." In all his various labors and
aims, Mr. Ruskin set before himself a high, if somewhat quixotic, ideal of
life, and with great earnestness did much, not only for the elevation of his
fellow-men, but for the development of sound artistic taste and the
enriching and spiritualizing of life by seeking to surround it at all times with
the true and the beautiful, and with the old-time virtues of purity, manliness,
and courage.
Among the "Beacon Lights" of the age there can be no question that
Ruskin is worthy of an exalted place, since few men of our modern time,
rich as it is in eminent thinkers and writers, has done more than he to
illumine the many subjects with which he has so fascinatingly dealt,--and
that not only in art and its cult of the Beautiful, but in ethics, education, and
political economy. The energies, activities, and impulses he constantly put
forth, as well as the high principles that ever guided him in his earnest
endeavor to improve the intellectual and moral condition of his kind, mark
his era as a great artistic epoch in the onward and upward progress of the
race. By stimulus, suggestion, and inspiration he has powerfully influenced
his time, though manifestly not a little of the seed he abundantly and
hopefully scattered has fallen upon barren ground. Nevertheless, where the

seed has fallen and germinated, the yield has been large: "his spirit has
passed far wider than he ever knew or conceived; and his words, flung to
the winds, have borne fruit a hundredfold in lands that he never thought of
or designed to reach." With what pride and gratitude should not the age
regard him and his memory,--one who has quickened the sensibilities of
men in looking upon nature; opened our dull eyes to its manifold beauties;
made plain to the average intelligence what Art is and stands for; implanted
in our souls worship of the beautiful; shown workingmen how to use their
tools in the highest interests of their craft, and taught maidens what and how
to read as well as how and in what spirit to sew and cook. The world too
often acknowledges its true teachers and prophets only when it begins to
build them some belated tomb. "This, at any rate," gratefully exclaims
Frederic Harrison,[1] "we will not suffer to be done to John Ruskin."
[1] Written by Mr. F.H. on Professor Ruskin's eightieth birthday (February 8, 1899).

"We may all of us recall to-day with love and gratitude the enormous
mass of stirring thoughts and melodious speech about a thousand things,
divine and human, beautiful and good, which for a whole half-century the
author of 'Modern Painters' has given to the world. They cover every phase
of nature, every type of art, of history, society, economics, religion; the past
and the future; all rules of human duty, whether personal or social, domestic
or national.... He spake to us of trees, from the cedar of Lebanon unto the
hyssop on the wall; he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping
things, and of fishes. He has put new beauty for us into the sky and the
clouds and the rainbow, into the seas at rest or in storm, into the mountains
and into the lakes, into the flowers and the grass, into crystals and gems,
into the mightiest ruins of past ages, and into the humblest rose upon a
cottage wall. He has done for the Alps and the cathedrals of Italy and
France, for Venice and Florence, what Byron did for Greece. We look upon
them all now with new and more searching eyes. Whole schools of art,
entire ages of old workmanship, the very soul of the Middle Age, have been
revealed with a new inspiration and transfigured in a more mysterious light.
Poetry, Greek sculpture, mediaeval worship, commercial morality, the
training of the young, the nobility of industry, the purity of the home,--a
thousand things that make up the joy and soundness of human life have
been irradiated by the flashing searchlight of one ardent soul: irradiated, let
us say, as this dazzling ray shot round the horizon, glancing from heaven to

earth, and touching the gloom with fire. We need not, even today, be
tempted from truth, or pretend that the light is permanent or complete. It has
long ceased to flash round the welkin, and its very scintillations have
disturbed our true vision. But we remember still its dazzling power and its
revelation of things that our eyes had not seen.
"What we especially love to dwell on to-day is this: that in all this
unrivalled volume of printed thoughts, in this encyclopaedic range of topic
by this most voluminous and most versatile of modern writers [may we not
say of all English writers?] there is not one line that is base, or coarse, or
frivolous; not a sentence that was framed in envy, malice, wantonness, or
cruelty; not one piece that was written to win money, or popularity, or
promotion; not a line composed for any selfish end or in any trivial mood.
Think what we may of this enormous library of print, we know that every
word of it was put forth of set purpose without any hidden aim, utterly
without fear, and wholly without guile; to make the world a little better, to
guide, inspire, and teach men, come what might, scoff as they would, turn
from him as they chose, though they left him alone, a broken old man
crying in the wilderness, with none to hear or to care. They might think it all
utterly vain; we may think much of it was in vain: but it was always the
very heart's blood of a rare genius and a noble soul."
Before entering, somewhat in detail, into Ruskin's vast and varied labors,
let us briefly outline the scope and character of the work which gave the art
critic and prophet of his time his chief fame. The personal incidents in his
life need not detain us at the outset, as they are not specially eventful, and
may be more fully gathered from the excellent "Life" of Ruskin, by his
friend and some-time secretary, W.G. Collingwood, or from the delightfully
interesting reminiscences by the master himself in his autobiographic
"Praeterita," published near the close of his long, arduous, and fruitful
career. John Ruskin was born in London on the 8th of February, 1819. He
was of Scotch ancestry, his father being a prosperous wine merchant in
London, who acquired considerable wealth in trade, which the son in time
inherited, and nobly used in his many private benevolences and
philanthropic enterprises. The comfortable circumstances in which he was
born, coupled with his father's own love of pictures and books, were helpful
in giving encouragement and direction to the young student's studies and
tastes. His mother, a deeply religious woman, was, moreover, influential in

implanting the serious element in Ruskin's character and life, and in
familiarizing him with the Bible, whose noble English, in King James'
version, manifestly entered early into the youth's ardent, prophetic soul,
and, as a writer, had much to do in forming his magnificent prose style.
Ruskin was in early years--indeed, far on in his manhood--in delicate
health, and consequently he was educated privately till he passed to Christ
Church College, Oxford, where, at the age of twenty, he won the Newdigate
prize for verse, and graduated in 1842. His taste for art was manifested at an
early age, and after passing from the university he studied painting under
J.D. Harding and Copley Fielding; but his masters, as he tells us in
"Praeterita," were Rubens and Rembrandt.
At the outset of his career Ruskin, as is well known, was led to take up a
defence of J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851) and the contemporary school of
English landscape-painting against the foreign trammels, which had
fastened themselves upon modern art, and especially to prove the
superiority of modern landscape-painters over the old masters. This
revolutionary opinion, though at first it was hotly contested, established the
new critic's position as a writer on art, and the defence, or exposition rather,
grew into the famous work called "Modern Painters" (5 vols., 1843-60).
This elaborate work deals with general aesthetic principles, and,
notwithstanding its occasional extravagances, alike of praise and censure,
its charm is irresistible, presenting us with its brilliant and original author's
ideas of beauty, to which he freshly and powerfully awakened the world,
while enshrining throughout the work the most enchanting word-poems on
mountain, leaf, cloud, and sea, which, it is not too much to say, will live
forever in English literature. In the second volume Mr. Ruskin takes up the
Italian painters, and discusses at length the merits of their respective
schools; in the others, as well as in the work as a whole, we have a body of
principles which should govern high art-work, as well as new ideas as to
what should constitute the equipment of the painter, and that not only as
regards the technique of his art, but in the effect to be produced on the
onlooker in viewing the skilled work of one who, above all
accomplishments, should be lovingly and intimately in contact with nature.
From the study of painting Mr. Ruskin passed for a time to that of
architecture. In this department we have from his pen "The Seven Lamps of
Architecture" (1849) and "The Stones of Venice" (1851-53). In these two

complementary works their author sets forth as in an impressive sermon the
new and admonitory lesson that architecture is the exponent of the national
characteristics of a people,--the higher and nobler sort exemplifying the
religious life and moral virtue in a nation, the debased variety, on the other
hand, expressing the ignoble qualities of national vice and shame. The text
of "The Stones" is Venice, and the design of the volumes, in the author's
words, is to show that the Gothic architecture of Venice "had arisen out of,
and indicated, a state of pure domestic faith and national virtue;" while its
renaissance architecture "had arisen out of and indicated a state of
concealed national infidelity and domestic corruption." The earlier work,
"The Seven Lamps,"--the Lamp of Sacrifice, of Truth, Power, Beauty, Life,
Memory, Obedience,--looks upon architecture "as the revealing medium or
lamp through which flame a people's passions,--the embodiment of their
polity, life, history, and religious faith in temple and palace, mart and
home." Akin to these two eloquent works, in which their author
thoughtfully sets forth the civic virtues and moral tone, as well as the
debased characteristics, by which architecture is produced at certain eras in
a people's life, is the earlier volume on "The Poetry of Architecture" (1837),
which discusses the relation between architecture and its setting of
landscape or other environment, illustrated by examples drawn from regions
he had visited,--the English Lakeland, France, Switzerland, Spain, and
northern Italy.
After these works followed lectures on drawing, perspective, decoration,
and manufacture, with later theories (crotchets, some have impiously called
them) on political economy, Pre-Raphaelitism, et cetera, with a flood of
opinions on social, ethical, and art subjects, enriched by rare intellectual
gifts and much religious fervor. Ruskin's whole writings form a body of
literature unique of its kind, pervaded with great charm of literary style, and
inspired by a high moral purpose. Ruskin's excursions into non-aesthetic
fields, and the strange jumble of Christian communism to which, late in life,
he gave vehement expression, it must be honestly admitted, have detracted
much from his early fame. In everything he wrote the Ruskinian spirit
comes strongly out, colored with an amiable egotism and enforced by great
assurance of conviction. The moral purpose he had in view, and the charm
and elevated tone of his writings, lead us to forget the wholly ideal state of

society he sought to introduce, while we are won to the man by the passion
of his noble enthusiasms.
Like Carlyle and Emerson, Ruskin was by his parents intended for the
ministry; but for the ministry he had himself no inclination. The broadening
out early of his mind and the freeing of his thought on doctrinal subjects,
which took him far from the narrow evangelicalism of his youth, made the
ministry of the church repugnant to him, though he was always a deeply
religious man and a force ever making for righteousness. At the same time,
he numbered many divines among his most cherished friends, and he
frequently, and with admitted edification, was to be found in chapel and
church. Meanwhile he continued busily to educate himself for whatever
profession he might choose or drift into, supplemented by such fitful
periods of schooling as his delicate health permitted, as well as by many
jaunts with his parents to the English lakes and other parts of the kingdom,
and by frequent tours on the Continent, especially in Italy and Switzerland.
Before he arrived at his teens, young Ruskin had composed much, both in
prose and verse, and he early manifested an aptitude for drawing, as well as
a decided taste for art, which, it is said, was in some measure incited by the
gift, from a partner of his father, of a copy of the poet Rogers' "Italy," with
engravings by Turner. Nor, early in manhood, did he escape a youth's fond
dream of love, for as a worshipper of beauty, and an enthusiast of the
"Wizard of the North," we find him drawn tenderly to a daughter of
Lockhart, editor of the "Quarterly Review," a grandchild of his famous
countryman, Sir Walter Scott. The affair, however, though encouraged by
his parents, who longed to see their son settled in life, came to nought,
chiefly owing to the young lover's weak physical frame and uncertain
health. Later on, unhappily, he was caught in the toils of another Scottish
lass, for whom, it is related, he had written "The King of the Golden River"
(1841), and whose rare beauty had readily attracted him. With her, in 1848,
he made an ill-assorted marriage, only to find, some years afterwards, his
heart riven and a bitter ingredient dropped into his life's chalice by a fatal
defection on the wife's part, she having become enamoured of the then
rising young painter, Millais, whom Ruskin had trustingly invited to his
house to paint her portrait. The sequel of the affair is a pitiful one, which
Ruskin ever afterward hid deep in his heart, though at the time, finding that
the woman was unable to live at the intellectual and spiritual altitude of her

loyal husband, the latter, with a magnanimity beyond parallel, pardoned
both Millais and the erring one, consented to a divorce, and actually stood
by her at the altar as the faithless one took upon herself new vows unto a
new husband. The estrangement and loss of a wife gave Ruskin afresh to
Art,--his true and fondly cherished bride.
At this period, as we know, English painting was at a low ebb, mediocre
and conventional, though with a show of artificial brilliance. Ruskin, with
his scorn of the artificial and scholastic, threw himself into the work of
overturning the established, complacent school of the time, and with
splendid enthusiasm and an unfailing belief in himself and his ideas he
undertook to reform what had been, and to raise current conceptions of art
to a more exalted and lofty plane. We have seen what he had already
achieved in his first dashing period of literary activity, in the production of
the early volumes of "Modern Painters," and in his "Seven Lamps" and
"Stones of Venice." While he was at work on the concluding volumes of the
first and last of these great books there arose in England the somewhat
fantastic movement in art, launched by the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood,
which included such Ruskinites and other devotees of early Christian and
mediaeval painting as Rossetti, Millais, Morris, Burne-Jones, and Holman
Hunt. Towards this new school of symbolists and affectationists Ruskin was
not at first drawn, since it seemed to him unduly idealistic, if not mystic,
and smacked not a little, as he thought, of popery. Later, however, he saw
good in it, as a breaking away from academic trammels; while he
recognized the earnest enthusiasm of the little band of artists and artist-
poets, as well as their technical dexterity and brilliance. With ready decision
as well as with his accustomed zeal for art, Ruskin ended by defending and
applauding the new innovators, particularly as their chief motive was the
one the master had always strenuously pled for,--adherence to the simplicity
of nature. Their scrupulous attention to detail, characteristic of the Pre-
Raphaelites, later on bore good results, even after the Brotherhood fell
apart, especially in William Morris's application of their art-principles to
household decoration and furnishings. But for the time the movement was
loudly mocked and decried, and perhaps all the more because of Ruskin's
espousal of the fervid band, his letters of defence in the London "Times,"
and his discussion in his booklet on "Pre-Raphaelitism." Heedless of the
outcry, Ruskin pursued his own self-confident course, and by the year 1860

he had completed his "Modern Painters," and, in spite of objurgation and
detraction, had won a great name for himself as a critic and expounder,
while expanding himself over almost the whole world of art.
We have said that Pre-Raphaelitism, as a movement in art, was
contemporaneously jeered at; while to-day, among superficial or
inappreciative students of the period, seriously to mention it or any of its
cultured brotherhood is to provoke a smile. Nevertheless, there was not a
little high merit in the movement, which Ruskin was keen-eyed and friendly
enough to recognize, while much that is worthy afterwards came out of it in
the later work of the more notable of its members as well as in that of their
unenrolled associates and the admirers of the Pre-Raphaelite method. What
the movement owed to Ruskin is now frankly conceded, in the lesson the
brotherhood took to heart from his counsellings,--to divest art of
conventionality, and to work with scrupulous fidelity and sincerity of
purpose. Nor was contemporary art alone the gainer by the movement; it
also had its influence on poetry, though this has been obscured--so far as
any beneficial influence can be traced at all--by the tendency manifested in
some of the more amorous poetic swains of the period, who professed to
derive their inspiration from the Brotherhood, to identify themselves with
what has been styled the "Fleshly School" of verse. Of the latter number,
Swinburne, in his early "Poems and Ballads," was perhaps the greatest
sinner, though atoned for in part by the lyrical art and ardor of his verse, and
much more by the higher qualities and scholarly characteristics of his later
dramatic Work. Nor is Dante Rossetti himself, in some of his poems, free
from the same taint, despite the fact of his interesting individuality as the
chief inspirer and laborer among the Brotherhood. Yet the movement owed
much to both his brush and his pen of other and nobler, because reverential,
work, as those will admit who know "The Blessed Damozel," "Sister
Helen," and his fine collection of sonnets, "The House of Life," as well as
his famous paintings, "The Girlhood of Mary Virgin," and his Annunciation
picture, "Ecce Ancilla Domini." Of the product of other Pre-Raphaelites of
note,--such as Ford Madox Brown, Millais, Morris, Woolner the sculptor,
Coventry Patmore, and Holman Hunt,--much that is commendable as well
as finely imaginative came from their hands, and justified Ruskin in his
gallant advocacy of the movement, its founders, and their work.

By this time, of which we have been writing, Ruskin had reached the
early meridian of his powers, and, as we have hinted, had wrested from the
unwilling many a juster recognition of his amazing industry and genius. To
his fond and indulgent parents this was a great source of pride and
satisfaction, and the practical evidence of it was the throng of visitors to the
family seats of Herne Hill and Denmark Hill, in the then London suburbs,
where Ruskin long had his home, and by the attentions and honor paid to
their son by universities, academies, and public bodies, as well as by many
eminent personages and the intellectual élite of the nation. Among those
with whom the young celebrity was then ultimate and reckoned among his
admiring correspondents were, besides Turner (who died in 1851) and the
chief artists of the time, the Carlyles and the Brownings, Mary Russell
Mitford, Charlotte Bronté, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Monckton Milnes (Lord
Houghton), Charles Eliot Norton, Lady Trevelyan (Macaulay's sister),
Whewell, Maurice, Kingsley, Dr. John Brown (author of "Rab and his
Friends"), Tennyson, and Dean Milman. To these might be added many
notable foreigners whom he either met with in his continental travels or
who were attracted to him by a lively interest in his writings. In his home,
thanks to a wealthy and indulgent father, he was surrounded with every
comfort, short of luxury, if we except under the latter the large sums
expended on the purchase of "Turners" and many famous foreign pictures,
and a vast and increasing collection of favorite books and other treasures
and curios.
Of the author's home-life we get many delightful reminiscences in
"Praeterita," with entertaining talks of his childhood days, his youthful
companions, his toys and animate pets, his early playful adventures in
authorship, and other garrulities with which, late in life when the work, as it
remains, was incompletely put together, he beguiled the weariness and
feebleness of old age. But we are anticipating, for we are writing of Ruskin
when his hand was yet on the plough, and the plough was still in the furrow,
and half a long life's arduous work was yet before him. At this era, no brain
could well have been more active or fuller of philanthropies than his, for we
approach the second period of his life's grand activities,--the era of a new
departure in the interests that occupied him and the herculean tasks he set
himself to do.

Before recording some of the achievements of this time and glancing at
the inciting causes of the transition which marks the era we have now
reached, let us note the demands made upon Mr. Ruskin's thought and labor
by universities and public institutions, whose audiences desired to have him
appear before them in person and address them upon topics in which he and
they were interested. These appearances on the lecture platform were now
numerous, since many throughout the kingdom were eager to see and know
the man whose art criticisms, principles that govern the beautiful, and
stimulating thought on all subjects, had made so deep an impression on the
reflecting minds of the age. His earliest appearance on the rostrum was at
Edinburgh, where he delivered four lectures before the Philosophical
Institution, chiefly on landscape-painters and on Christian art, with a plea
for the use of Gothic in domestic architecture. Subsequent appearances
were at Manchester, where he spoke on the Political Economy of Art and
the relation of art to manufactures; at the South Kensington Museum,
London, which had just been opened; and later at Oxford, where further on
in his career he became Slade Professor of Art in his own University. From
the accounts of these public lectures we get opinions as to the personal
appearance of Ruskin at the period which add to our knowledge of him
from paintings, drawings, and photographs, though not a few of these
accounts vary from those given us in books, chiefly sketched by his lady
friends and correspondents. The more trusty of the contemporary pictures
speak of him as having "light, sand-colored hair; his face more red than
pale; the mouth well cut, with a good deal of decision in its curve, though
somewhat wanting in sustained dignity and strength; an aquiline nose; his
forehead by no means broad or massive, but the brows full and well bound
together; the eye [says the observer from whom we are quoting] we could
not see, in consequence of the shadows that fell upon his [Ruskin's]
countenance from the lights overhead, but we are sure that the poetry and
passion we looked for almost in vain in other features must be concentrated
here." Miss Mitford speaks of him at this time as "eloquent and
distinguished-looking, fair and slender, with a gentle playfulness, and a sort
of pretty waywardness that was quite charming." Another, a visitor at his
London home, characterizes him as "emotional and nervous, with a soft,
genial eye, a mouth thin and severe, and a voice that, though rich and sweet,
yet had a tendency to sink into a plaintive and hopeless tone." Later on in
years we have this verbal portrait from a disciple of the great art-teacher,

occurring in an inaugural address delivered before the Ruskin Society of
Glasgow: "That spare, stooping figure, the rough-hewn, kindly face, with its
mobile, sensitive mouth, and clear deep eyes, so sweet and honest in repose,
so keen and earnest and eloquent in debate!"
When the fifth and last volume of "Modern Painters" was finally off his
hands, Mr. Ruskin not only engaged, as we have seen, in occasional
lecturing, but began (1861) to add a prolific series of brochures--many of
them with quaint but significant titles--to his already stupendous mass of
writing. Their subjects were not alone aesthetics, but now treated of ethical,
social, and political questions, the prophetic declarations and earnest
appeals of a man of wide and varied culture, deep thought, and large
experience. The attempted alliance of political economy with art was a
novel undertaking in that sixth lustrum of the past century, even by a man of
Mr. Ruskin's eminence and fame in the world of letters. But Mr. Ruskin was
a bold and earnest man, as well as a genius; and he had too much to tell his
heedless, laissez-faire age to keep silent on themes, remote as they were
from those he had hitherto taught, and of which he desired to deliver his
soul, whatever ridicule it might provoke and however adverse the criticism
levelled against him. His humanity and moral sense were outraged by the
manner in which the mass of his countrymen lived, and trenchant was his
castigation of this and eager as well as righteous his desire to amend their
condition and elevate and inspire their minds. As an economist, it is true,
there was not a little that was false as well as eccentric in what he preached;
moreover, much of his counsel was directly socialistic in its trend,
repugnant in large degree to his English readers and hearers; but all this was
atoned for by the honesty and philanthropy of his motives, by his
phenomenal fervor and eloquence, and by the literary beauty and charm of
every page he wrote. Nevertheless, as in Carlyle--for in these depreciations
the style of the seer of Chelsea was deeply upon him--the note of calamity
and the wail of despair are too much in evidence in Ruskin's writings at this
period, while, like Carlyle also, he was equally precipitate and impulsive in
his attacks on things as they were. Yet in the economic condition just then
of England, and in the circumstances environing the labor world, there was,
possibly, justification for the rebukes and objurgations of onlookers of the
type of both of these men, and very humanitarian as well as practically
helpful were Ruskin's counsel and aid to labor and to all who sought to raise

and expand their outlook and better their condition in life. Towards politics
Ruskin was never drawn, but had he been more prosaic and less given to
anathematizing, most valuable would have been his aid in legislation at this
era of political and moral reform. But if political science, or science in any
other of its branches or departments, did not come within his purview, great
was the revolution he wrought in the working-man's surroundings, and
immense the illumination he shed upon industry and on the spirit in which
the laborer should think and work.
Referring to Ruskin at this period of his career, and to his influence as a
social and moral exhorter, Frederic Harrison, from whom we have already
quoted, has an admirable passage on "Ruskin as Prophet," [2] which, as it is
presumably too little known, we take pleasure in embodying in these pages.

[2] "Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and other Literary Estimates," by Frederic Harrison; London and New
York: Macmillan & Co. 1900.

"The influence of Ruskin," says Mr. Harrison, "has been part of the great
romantic, historical, catholic, and poetic revival of which Scott, Carlyle,
Coleridge, Freeman, Newman, and Tennyson in our own country have been
leading spirits within the last two generations in England. There is no need
to compare him with any one of these as a source of original intellectual
force. He owns Scott and Carlyle as his masters, and he might vehemently
repudiate certain of the others altogether. His work has been to put this
romantic, historical, and genuine sympathy inspired by Scott, Wordsworth,
and Carlyle into a new understanding of the arts of form. The philosophic
impulse assuredly was not his own. It is a compound of Scott, Carlyle,
Dante, and the Bible. The compound is strange, for it makes him talk
sometimes like a Puritan father, and sometimes like a Cistercian monk. At
times he talks as Flora MacIvor talked to young Waverley; at other times
like Thomas Carlyle inditing a Latter-day Pamphlet. But to transfuse into
this modern generation of Englishmen this romantic, catholic, historical,
and social sympathy as applied to the arts of form, needed gifts that neither
Scott, nor Carlyle, nor Newman, nor Tennyson possessed--the eye, if not the
hand, of a consummate landscape painter, a torrent of ready eloquence on
every imaginable topic, a fierce and desperate courage that feared neither
man nor devil, neither failure nor ridicule, and above all things an exquisite
tenderness that is akin to St. Francis or St. Vincent de Paul....
"Here is a man who, laboring for fifty years, has scattered broadcast a
thousand fine ideas to all who practise the arts, and all who care for art. He
has roused in the cultured world an interest in things of art such as a legion
of painters and ten royal academies could never have done. He has poured
out a torrent of words, some right, some wrong, but such as have raised the
level of art into a new world, which have adorned English literature for
centuries, and have inspired the English race for generations; he has cast his
bread upon the waste and muddy waters with a lavish hand, and has not
waited to find it again, though it has been the seed of abundant harvest to
others."
Again, speaking of what Ruskin sought to accomplish in the regeneration
of modern society, and the reformation of our social ideals, and of that

"heroic piece of Quixotism" he founded, "the Guild of St. George," Mr.
Harrison remarks:--
"The first life of John Ruskin was the life of a consummate teacher of art
and master of style; the second life was the life of priest and evangelist....
Here is the greatest living master [the passage was written while Mr. Ruskin
was yet alive] of the English tongue, one of the most splendid lights of our
noble literature, one to whom a dozen paths of ambition and power lay
open, who had everything that could be offered by genius, fame, wealth,
social popularity, and intense sensitiveness to all lovely things--and this
man, after thirty years of untiring labor, devotes himself to train, teach,
delight, and inspire a band of young men, girls, workmen, children,--all
who choose to come around him. He lavishes the whole of his fortune on
them; he brings to their door his treasures of art, science, literature, and
poetry; he founds and endows museums; he offers these costly and precious
collections to the people; he wears out his life in teaching them the elements
of art, the elements of manufacture, the elements of science; he shows
workmen how to work, girls how to draw, to sing, to play; he gives up to
them his wealth, his genius, his peace, his whole life. He is not content with
writing books in his study, with enjoying art at home or abroad; he must
carry his message into the streets. He gives himself up--not to write
beautiful thoughts: he seeks to build up a beautiful world.... When I see this
author of 'Modern Painters' and the 'Stones of Venice,' the man who has
exhausted almost all that Europe contains of the beautiful, who has thought
and spoken of almost every phase of human life, and has entered so deeply
into the highest mysteries of the greatest poets--when I see him surrounding
himself in his old age with lads and lasses, schoolgirls and workmen,
teaching them the elements of science and art, reading to them poems and
tales, arranging for them games and holidays, ornaments and dresses,
lavishing on these young people his genius and his wealth, his fame and his
future--I confess my memory goes back instinctively to a fresco I saw in
Italy years ago--was it Luini's?--wherein the Master sat in a crowd of
children and forbade them to be removed, saying that 'of such is the
kingdom of heaven.'"
With this generous tribute to and appreciation of Ruskin, despite the
economic vagaries into which the great critic and teacher of his time fell,
we may more confidently approach the busy era of his later and self-

sacrificing labors, and with less apology take space to deal--as compactly
and intelligently as we can--with some of the more notable of the many
books and brochures of the period. Difficult as would be the task,
fortunately there is little need to epitomize these works, as many of them
are better known, and perhaps more attentively read, than his earlier,
bulkier, and more ambitious writings. A few of them lie outside the
economic gospel of their apostolic author, and these we will first and briefly
deal with. A number of them are instructive and inspiring lay sermons on
the mystical union between nature and art, beauty and utility, and their
reflex in the reverential homage for the beautiful and the worthy in the mind
and character of the English-speaking race. The whole form a great body of
fine and thoughtful work, which is as enchaining as its meaning is often
profound. The best-known of these lay sermons is: "The Queen of the Air"
(1869), a splendid blending of his fancy with the Greek nature-myths of
cloud and storm, represented by Athena, goddess of the heavens, of the
earth, and of the heart. The parable drawn is that "the air is given us for our
life, the rain for our thirst and baptism, the fire for our warmth, the sun for
our light, and the earth for our meat and rest." Related to the work is "Ethics
of the Dust" (1865), lectures to little housewives on mineralogy and
crystallography, nature's work in crystallization being the text for a diatribe
against sordid living. "Sesame and Lilies," which belongs also to this period
of the writer's work, consists of three addresses, delivered at Manchester
and at Dublin, designed specially for young girls, and treating in the main
of good and improving literature. The first of them, "Of Kings' Treasuries,"
deals with the treasures hidden in books, the writings of the world's great
men; its sequel, "Of Queens' Gardens," deals with the function and sphere
of woman, and, by way of application, with the how and the what to read;
the third lecture, on "The Mystery of Life and its Arts," is a discursive but
inspiring consideration of what life is and how most successfully to battle
with it in the way of our work and of our appointed duty. All three lectures,
observes a commentator, "tell men and women of the ideals they should set
before them; how to read and to build character under the inspiration of the
nobility of the past, fitting one's self for such great society; how to develop
noble womanhood; how to bear one's self toward the wonder of life, toward
one's work in the world, and toward one's duty to others."

Other lectures and brochures of or about this period are "Hortus Inclusus"
(The Enclosed Garden), being "Messages from the Wood to the Garden sent
in happy days to two sister ladies," residing at Coniston, and collected in
1887; "Arrows of the Chace," letters on various subjects to newspapers,
gathered and edited in 1880; "The Two Paths," lectures on art and its
application to Decoration and Manufacture (1859); "Ariadne Florentina"
(1873), a monograph on Italian wood and metal engraving; "Aratra
Pentelici" (1872), on the elements and principles of sculpture; and "The
Eagle's Nest" (1872), on the relation of natural science to art. Still pursuing
his delightful methods of interpreting nature and teaching the world
instructive lessons, even from the common things of mother earth, we have
a series of three eloquent discourses, entitled (1) "Proserpina," studies of
Alpine and other wayside flowers, dwelling on the mystery of growth in
plants and the tender beauty of their form; (2) "Deucalion," a sort of
glorified geological text-book, treating of stones and their life-history, and
showing the wearing effect upon them of waves and the action of water; and
(3) "Love's Meinie" (1873), a rapture about birds and their feathered
plumage, delivered at Eton and at Oxford. This trilogy, dealing with botany,
geology, and ornithology, was presented to his audiences with illustrative
drawings, representing the flora met with in his travels or found in the
neighborhood of his new home in the Lancashire lakes, with sketches of
regions, including the characteristics of the soil, in which he had been
reared, and talks of the note and habit of all birds that were wont to warble
over him their morning song. "The Pleasures of England," the "Harbours of
England," and the "Art of England" further treat of his loved native land,
the first of these being talks on the pleasures of learning, of faith, and of
deed, illustrated by examples drawn from early English history, and the last
treating of representative modern English artists, chiefly of the Pre-
Raphaelite school. "The Laws of Fésole" (1878) deals with the principles of
Florentine draughtsmanship; "St. Mark's Rest," with the art and architecture
of Venice; and "Val d'Arno," with early Tuscan art, interspersed with the
author's accustomed ethical reflections. "Mornings in Florence," intended
for the use of visitors to the art galleries of the beautiful city on the Arno,
deals in the true artist-spirit with its famous examples of Christian art,
giving prominence here also to the ethical side of the city's history. "In
Montibus Sanctis," and "Coeli Enarrant," the one comprising studies of
mountain form, and the other of cloud form and their visible causes, though

separately published, are only reprints of the author's larger and nobler
embodiment of his views on art, in "Modern Painters." "The King of the
Golden River," of which we have previously spoken, is a fairy tale of much
beauty, which he wrote for the "Fair Maid of Perth" whom he married, and
who separated herself from him on the plea of "incompatibility." Playful as
is the style of the story, it is not without a moral, on what constitutes true
wealth and happiness. "The Crown of Wild Olive" (1866) consists of
lectures on work, traffic, and war; the latter lecture, delivered at the Royal
Artillery Institution at Woolwich, was also separately published under the
title of "The Future of England." The two former, being addressed to
working-men, laborers, and traders, discuss economic problems, and set
forth tentatively their author's antagonized political ethics, with which, in
drawing this essay to a close, we now venture to deal.
After the magnificent work done by Ruskin in art up to his fortieth year,
that he should turn, for practically the remainder of his life, to the
seemingly vain and profitless task of a social reformer and regenerator of
modern society, has to most men been a riddle too elusive and enigmatic to
solve. And yet, in his earlier career, had he not himself prepared us for just
such a departure as he took in the sixties, for in art was he not equally
revolutionary and iconoclastic, as well as personally self-willed, passionate,
and impulsive? Moreover, had not Mother Nature endowed him with the
gifts of a seer and made him chivalrous as well as intensely sympathetic,
while his early training inclined him to be serious, and even ascetic? Nor
were the rebuffs he met with throughout his career calculated at this stage to
make him court the applause of his fellow-men or be mindful of the world's
censure or approval. Nor can one well quarrel with what he had now to say
on many a subject, visionary and enthusiast as he always was, and given
over to mediaeval views and preachments, and to abounding moral and
ethical exhortation. Like Carlyle's, his voice was that of one crying in the
wilderness, and yet in the industrial and social condition of Britain at the era
there was need of just such appeals for regeneration and reform as Ruskin
strenuously uttered, accompanied by indignant rebukes of grossness,
vulgarity, and meanness, as manifested in masses of the people. If in his
strivings after amelioration he was too denunciatory as well as too radical,
we must remember the temper and manner of the man, and recognize how
difficult it was in him, or in any iconoclast who scorned modern science as

Ruskin scorned it, to reconcile the age of steam and industrial machinery,
which he spurned and would have none of, with the views he held of
Christianity, morals, and faith. His views on political economy, which he
treated neither as an art nor a science, might be perverse and wrong-headed,
and his method of adapting prophetic and apostolic principles to the
practice of every-day life utterly impracticable; but the virtues he
counselled the nation to manifest, and the graces he enjoined of
truthfulness, justice, temperance, bravery, and obedience, were qualities
needed to be cultivated in his time, with a fuller recognition of and firmer
trust in God and His right of sway in the world He had created.
What Ruskin's economic views were, and what his relations to the
industrial and social problems of his time, most readers of our author know,
are mainly to be found in "Fors Clavigera," a series of letters to working-
men, covering the years 1871-84, and in his early essays on political
economy, "Unto this Last" (1860), and "Munera Pulveris" (1863). "Unto
this Last" appeared in its original form in the pages of the "Cornhill
Magazine," then edited by Thackeray, and our author speaks confidently of
it as embodying his maturest and worthiest thoughts on social science. The
work, which will be found the key to Ruskin's economic gospel, embraces
four essays, treating successively of the responsibilities and duties of those
called to fill all offices of national trust and service; of the true sources of a
nation's riches; of the right distribution of such riches; and of what is meant
by the economic terms,--value, wealth, price, and produce. Under these
several heads, Ruskin expresses his conviction that co-operation and
government are in all things the law of life, while the deadly things are
competition and anarchy. Whatever errors the book[3] contains--and the
author's unconscious arrogance and dogmatism made him blind to them--his
views were set forth with his accustomed vigor and eloquence, and in the
honest belief that he was more than fundamentally right. It was for such
helpful work as this, and what he accomplished in the kindred volume,
"Munera Pulveris," which first appeared in "Fraser's Magazine," that Ruskin
for the time dropped his revelations in art to let a new world of thought into
the "dismal science" of political economy, confound its old-time instructors,
and gird at the evils of the age,--the greed, selfishness, and petty bargaining
spirit of industrial and commercial life. Nor in conducting such a crusade as
this was Ruskin abandoning his old and less controverted gospel of art. He

was but carrying into new and barren fields the high ideals he had hitherto
counselled his age to emulate and heed, and in his sympathy with labor
seeking to bring into its world the comeliness of beauty and the cheer of
prosperity, comfort, and happiness. In "Time and Tide" (1867), and more at
length in "Fors Clavigera," Ruskin reiterates his message to labor, to get rid
of ever-environing misery by realizing what are the true sources of
happiness,--pleasure in sincere and honest work, inspired by intelligence,
culture, religion, and right living. What he desires for the working-man he
desires also for his family, and consequently he urges parents to train their
sons and daughters to see and love the beautiful, to cultivate their higher
instincts, and call forth and feed their souls. In all this there is much helpful,
tonic thought, which the church or the nation, roused to zeal and earnest
activity, might fittingly teach, and so advance the material weal of the
people, extend the area of public enlightenment and morality, and herald the
dawn of a new and higher civilization.
[3] Alluding to the quaint title under which these "Cornhill" essays afterwards appeared,--a title that
hints at the gist of the work,--Mr. Ruskin's biographer tells us that the motto was taken from Christ's
parable of the husbandman and the laborers: "Friend, I do thee no wrong. Didst thou not agree with
me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way. I will give UNTO THIS LAST even as unto
thee."--Matt. xx. 14.

Other aspects of Mr. Ruskin's economic gospel are, unfortunately, not so
sane and beneficent. His altruism knows no bounds, as his philanthropy and
zeal have but few restraints. After the fashion of his mentor, Carlyle, he is
carried away by his humanitarianism and his unreserved acceptance of the
doctrine of the equality and brotherhood of man. Hence come his economic
heresies in regard to rent and interest, and capital and usury, his
denunciations of the division of labor, his Tolstoian impoverishment of
himself for the benefit of his fellow-man, and his dictum that the wealth of
the nation should be its own, and not accrue to the individual. Hence, also,
the wholly ideal state of society he attempted to realize in his communal
Guild of St. George, with its rigid government and restraints upon the
personal liberty of its members. Ideally beautiful, admittedly, was the plan
and scheme of the little state, with its disciplinings, exactions, and devout
selective creed. But the age is a practical, unimaginative one, and whatever
compacts men make, even for their highest welfare, there are, it is to be
feared, few so loyal, tractable, and docile as to place themselves for long
under such tutoring and one-patterned, fashioning forms of co-operative

living. Into whatever millennial state Ruskin sought to usher his little band
of English followers and disciples, one must speak appreciatively of his
motives in projecting the scheme, and of the money and labor he personally
lavished upon the Utopian project. Reverently also must one speak of the
catholic creed to which its members were asked to subscribe: namely, to
trust in God, recognize the nobleness of human nature, labor faithfully with
one's might, be loyal to one's common country, its laws, and its monarch's
or ruler's orders, so far as they are consistent with the higher law of God;
while exacting obedience, and a pledge that one will not deceive, either for
gain or other motive; will not rob; will not hurt any living creature nor
destroy any beautiful thing; and will honor one's own body by proper care
for it, for the joy and peace of life. All this is very exemplary and beautiful,
and not over-hard to live up to, though the working-men of Sheffield in
time wearied of the organization, and the Guild and its noble ideals is now,
we believe, but a memory, if we except the art museum and library of the
Order taken over and still maintained by the town.
More practical, may we not say, than this imitation of the Florentine arti
of the Middle Ages was the Working Men's College, founded in London in
the fifties by that other earnest Christian Socialist, F.D. Maurice, in which
Ruskin lectured gratuitously, took charge of the drawing classes, and hied
off to the country with its members to sketch from nature and otherwise
instruct and entertain them. Yet good in many respects came of the Guild of
St. George, in the impulse it gave to the revival of the then dormant
industries, such as the hand-spinning of linen, hand-weaving of carpets and
woollen fabrics, lace-making, wood-carving, and metal-working, besides
the stimulus it gave, with the infusion of higher ideals of workmanship, to
the decorative arts, and the improvement in the sightliness of factories, and
in the homes and surroundings of labor. Here Ruskin's philanthropy and
reform zeal showed themselves most worthily in the financial aid he gave in
the pulling down, in crowded districts of the British metropolis, of poor
tenements, and the building up in their place of clean, attractive, and
wholesome habitations. In such benevolences and well-doings, and in this
life of renunciation and self-sacrifice, Ruskin spent himself, and made
serious inroads into his bodily health and strength, as well as scattered the
fortune--about a million dollars--left him by his now deceased father. But
this was the manner and character of Ruskin, and this the mode of

expressing his love for his fellow-man, which in myriad ways showed itself
throughout a long and strenuous career of devotion to high ideals, and of
practical, tender help in all good works. In all his philanthropies he was true
to his own preachings and counsellings, spending and being spent in the
spirit of his Divine Master, his whole soul aglow with reverence and
adoration and tender with a profound moral emotion. Besides his rare
endowments as a lover of the beautiful, he had that other precious gift, of
golden speech, which threw a mantle of loveliness over every book he
wrote and perpetual lustre over the domain of letters.
Ruskin's declining years, while hallowed by suffering, were cheered by
many tender attentions and unexpected kindnesses, and by the recognition,
by many notable public bodies and eminent contemporaries, of his long life
of great service and devotion to his kind. In our modern age, from which, in
his loved Coniston home, he passed from life Jan. 20, 1900, no one more
reverently than he has looked deeper into the mystery of life, thought more
concernedly of its problems, shed more passionately and eloquently about
him love for the beautiful, or practically and helpfully done more--layman
only though he was--for religion and humanity. At his death the nation paid
honor to his memory by offering his remains a resting-place in the great
fane of England's illustrious dead, Westminster Abbey; but Ruskin had
himself otherwise ordered the disposal of his body. "Bury me," he said, "at
Coniston." And there, on the fifth day after his falling softly asleep, amid a
concourse of loving friends, the earthly tenement of the great art critic and
lover of righteousness was laid to rest, his grave strewn with myriad
wreaths, garlands, and crosses of beautiful, bright flowers.
Here, after his long, strenuous, militant career, do we leave this inspiring
teacher and "consecrated priest of the Ideal," his gentle soul finding rest and
peace after the myriad troubles and tumults of life. Still now is the once
active, fertile, stimulating mind of the man who so effectively roused his
generation from its complacent smugness and indifference in its
appreciation of the beautiful, and with ardent boldness challenged
established beliefs in art and defied the conventionality and authority of his
time. His has been a powerful force in innumerable departments of human
thought, and epoch-making the influence he has exerted in giving to the
world new ideals of the beautiful and in shaping modern opinion and taste
in art. How great is the work he has done, and what a library of stimulating,

inspiring books he has left us, comparatively few realize, as they little
realize what the age owes to him for his noble activities in well-doing and
his many and impressive lessons and influence. In a commonplace,
commercial time, how stimulating as well as ardent have been his appeals
for sensitiveness of perception in regard to art, and of the tone and spirit in
which it ought to be viewed and valued! And with what tender, reverent
feeling has he not opened our hearts to compassion and to consideration for
the welfare of our fellow-man, and how potent have been his counsellings
pointing to the true and abiding sources of pleasure in life! Long must his
formative opinions and influence extend, and in the minds of all who think
and reflect abiding must be the charm as well as the power of his
imaginative, glowing thought. That he met with opposition and hostility in
his day was but the price to be paid for the disturbing, correcting,
disciplining, yet inspiring part he played in the work he so impulsively set
himself to do. One smiles now at the epithets of scorn and contumely once
hurled at him, at the man who, little understood as he has been, has done so
much to uplift and purify the thought of his time and do battle with the
forces opposed to reform and arrayed against those of light and truth. And
how great were the weapons with which he was armed, and how varied as
well as marvellous the talents he brought into play in the onslaught upon
shallowness, convention, and ignorance! Truly, he has done much for his
time, and great has been the gain Modern Art has won from his inspiring
lessons and thought. The coming of such a man, and at the time that was
his, one cannot help reflecting, was one of the providences of an overruling
Power, and adequately to estimate his influence and work, and the tone and
temper in which he wrought, we have but to consider what the age would
have been, in countless departments of thought and activity, had the century
now passed possessed no John Ruskin.
AUTHORITIES.
Collingwood, W. G. Life of Ruskin.
Harrison, Frederic. Tennyson, Ruskin, Mill, and other Estimates.
Mather, Marshall. John Ruskin, his Life and Teaching.
Bayne, Peter. Lessons from my Masters--Carlyle, Tennyson, and Ruskin.

Japp, Alex. H. Carlyle, Tennyson, and Ruskin.
Spielmann, M.H. John Ruskin.
Waldstein, Charles. Work of John Ruskin.
Ward, May Alden. Prophets of the Nineteenth Century: Carlyle, Ruskin,
and Tolstoi.
Bates, Herbert. Annotated edition, with Introduction, of Ruskin's
"Sesame and Lilies" and "The King of the Golden River."
Ruskin's "Praeterita": An Autobiography.

HERBERT SPENCER.

1820-
THE EVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHY.
BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE.

Herbert Spencer occupies a unique place in the history of human thought,
because he has been the first to attempt the construction of a philosophical
system in harmony with the theory of Evolution and with the results of
modern science. To his contemporaries he is known almost exclusively as
the author of the colossal work which he has chosen to call the "Synthetic
Philosophy." Concerning his personality very little information has been
published, and it is doubtful whether he will deem it worth while to leave
behind him the materials for a detailed biography. About his private life we
know even less than we know about that of Kant. The very few facts
obtainable may be summed up in a score of sentences.

I.
Herbert Spencer was born on April 27, 1820, at Derby, in England, and
was an only surviving child. His father was a schoolmaster in the town
named, and secretary of a philosophical society. From him the son seems to
have imbibed the love of natural science and the faculty of observation
conspicuous in his work. The father was particularly interested in
entomology, and Spencer himself used to collect, describe, and draw insects
when a boy. At the age of thirteen he was sent to study with an uncle, Rev.
Thomas Spencer, a liberal clergyman and a scholar, with whom he remained
three years, carrying on the study of natural history, which he had begun in
childhood. He now devoted himself to mathematics, evincing a singular
capacity for working out original problems. At this time, too, he became
familiar with physical and chemical investigations, and already exhibited a
strong tendency to experimental inquiry and original research. His aversion
to linguistic studies put a university career out of the question. At the age of
seventeen he entered the office of Sir Charles Fox and began work as a civil
engineer, but about eight years afterward he gave up this profession, and
devoted the whole of his time to scientific experiments and studies, and to
contributions on philosophical questions to various periodicals. As early as
1842, in a series of letters to the Nonconformist newspaper on "The Proper
Sphere of Government," he propounded a belief in human progress based
on the modifiability of human nature through adaptation to its social
surroundings, and he asserted the tendency of these social arrangements to
assume of themselves a condition of stable equilibrium. From 1848 to 1853
he was sub-editor of the Economist newspaper, and in his first important
work, "Social Statics," published in 1850, he developed the ethical and
sociological ideas which had been set forth in his published letters. The
truth that all organic development is a change from a state of homogeneity
to a state of heterogeneity is regarded by Spencer as the organizing
principle of his subsequent beliefs. It was gradually expounded and applied
by him in a series of articles contributed to the "North British," the "British
Quarterly," the "Westminster," and other reviews. In these essays, and
especially in the volume of "Principles of Psychology," published in 1855,

the doctrine of Evolution began to take definite form, and to be applied to
various departments of inquiry. It was not until four years later--a fact to be
carefully borne in mind by those who would estimate correctly the relation
of Spencer to Darwin--that the publication of the latter's "Origin of Species"
afforded a wide basis of scientific truth for what had hitherto been matter of
speculation, and demonstrated the important part played by natural selection
in the development of organisms. As early as March, 1860, Spencer issued a
prospectus, in which he set forth the general aim and scope of a series of
works which were to be issued in periodical parts, and would, collectively,
constitute a system of philosophy. In 1862 appeared the "First Principles,"
and in 1867 the "Principles of Biology." In 1872 the "Principles of
Psychology" was published; the first part of the "Principles of Ethics" in
1879; and his "Principles of Sociology" in three volumes, begun in 1876,
was completed in 1896. In the preface to the third volume of the last-named
work the author explains that the fourth volume originally contemplated,
which was to deal with the linguistic, intellectual, moral, and aesthetic
phenomena, would have to remain unwritten by reason of the author's age
and infirmities. The astounding extent of Herbert Spencer's labors becomes,
indeed, the more marvellous when one considers that impaired health has
for many years incapacitated him for persistent application. Owing partly to
his ill health, and partly to the absorbing nature of his occupation, his life
has been a retired one, and in the ordinary sense of the term, uneventful. He
has never married, and, although the high opinion of his writings formed by
contemporaries has led to many academic honors being pressed upon him at
home and abroad, these have all been declined. It only remains to mention
that in 1882 he visited the United States, where the importance of his
speculations had been early recognized, and that his home is now in
Brighton, England.

II.
In Mr. Spencer's latest book, "Facts and Comments," a little light is
thrown on the author's habits, opinions, and predilections. Referring to the
athleticism to which so much attention is paid just now in English and
American universities, he points out how erroneous it is to identify
muscular strength with constitutional strength. Not only is there error in
assuming that increase of muscular power and increase of general vigor
necessarily go together, but there is error in assuming that the reverse
connection cannot hold. As a matter of fact, the abnormal powers acquired
by gymnasts may be at the cost of constitutional deterioration. In a paper on
"Party Government" the author maintains that what we boast of as political
freedom consists in the ability to choose a despot, or a group of oligarchs,
and, after long misbehavior has produced dissatisfaction, to choose another
despot or group of oligarchs: having meanwhile been made subject to laws,
some of which are repugnant. Abolish the existing conventional usages,
with respect to party fealty,--let each member of parliament feel that he may
express by his vote his adverse belief respecting a government measure,
without endangering the government's stability,--and the whole vicious
system of party government would disappear. In a paper on "Patriotism,"
Mr. Spencer says that to him the cry "Our country, right or wrong," seems
detestable. The love of country, he adds, is not fostered in him by
remembering that when, after England's Prime Minister had declared that
Englishmen were bound in honor to the Khedive to reconquer the Soudan,
they, after the reconquest, forthwith began to administer it in the name of
the Queen and the Khedive, thereby practically annexing it; and when, after
promising through the mouths of two colonial Ministers not to interfere in
the internal affairs of the Transvaal, the British Government proceeded to
insist on certain electoral arrangements, and made resistance the excuse for
a desolating war. As to the transparent pretence that the Boers commenced
the war, Mr. Spencer reminds us that in the far West of the United States,
where every man carries his life in his hands and the usages of fighting are
well understood, it is held that he is the real aggressor who first moves his
hand toward his weapon. The application to the South African contest is

obvious. In an essay on "Style," Mr. Spencer tells us that his own diction
has been, from the beginning, unpremeditated. It has never occurred to him
to take any author as a model. Neither has he at any time examined the
writing of this or that author with a view of observing its peculiarities. The
thought of style, considered as an end in itself, has rarely, if ever, been
present with him, his sole purpose being to express ideas as clearly as
possible, and, when the occasion called for it, with as much force as might
be. He has observed, however, he says, that some difference has been made
in his style by the practice of dictation. Up to 1860 his books and review
articles were written with his own hand. Since then they have all been
dictated. He thinks that there is foundation for the prevailing belief that
dictation is apt to cause diffuseness. The remark was once made to him, it
seems, by two good judges--George Henry Lewes and George Eliot--that
the style of "Social Statics" is better than the style of his later volumes; Mr.
Spencer would ascribe the contrast to the deteriorating effect of dictation. A
recent experience has strengthened him in this conclusion. When lately
revising "First Principles," which originally was dictated, the cutting out of
superfluous words, clauses, sentences, and sometimes paragraphs, had the
effect of abridging the work by about one-tenth. Touching the style of other
writers, Mr. Spencer points out the defects in some passages quoted from
Matthew Arnold and Froude. He says that he is repelled by the ponderous,
involved structure of Milton's prose, and he dissents from the applause of
Ruskin's style on the ground that it is too self-conscious, and implies too
much thought of effect. On the other hand, he has always been attracted by
the finished naturalness of Thackeray.
A word should here be said about the misconception of Mr. Spencer's
position with reference to the fundamental postulate of religions,--a
misconception which used to be more current than it is now. He cannot
fairly be described as a materialist. He is no more a materialist than he is a
theist. He is, in the strictest sense of the word, an agnostic. He was the most
conspicuous example of the thing before Huxley invented the word. The
misconception was shared by no less a man than the late Benjamin Jowett,
the well-known master of Balliol College, Oxford, who, in one of his
published "Letters," says: "I sometimes think that we platonists and idealists
are not half so industrious as those repulsive people who only 'believe what
they can hold in their hand,' Bain, H. Spencer, etc., who are the very

Tuppers of philosophy." It is hard to see how the law of evolution and other
generalizations of an abstract kind with which Mr. Spencer's name is
associated can be held in anybody's hands. Letting that pass, however, Mr.
Spencer has himself suggested that, since the system of synthetic
philosophy begins with a division entitled the "Unknowable," having for its
purpose to show that all material phenomena are manifestations of a Power
which transcends our knowledge,--that "force as we know it can be
regarded only as a Conditioned effect of the Unconditioned Cause"--there
has been thereby afforded sufficiently decided proof of belief in something
which cannot be held in the hands. It is, indeed, absurd to apply the epithet
"materialist" to a man who has written in "The Principles of Psychology":
"Hence, though of the two it seems easier to translate so-called matter into
so-called spirit than to translate so-called spirit into so-called matter (which
latter is, indeed, wholly impossible), yet no translation can carry us beyond
our symbols."

III.
Any exposition of the "Synthetic Philosophy" must, of course, begin with
the volume entitled "First Principles." In the first part of this preliminary
work the author carries a step further the doctrine of the Unknowable put
into shape by Hamilton and Mansel. He points out the various directions in
which science leads to the same conclusion, and shows that in their united
belief in an Absolute that transcends not only human knowledge but human
conception lies the only possible reconciliation of science and religion. In
the second part of the same book Mr. Spencer undertakes to formulate the
laws of the Knowable. That is to say, he essays to state the ultimate
principles discernible throughout all manifestations of the Absolute,--those
highest generalizations now being disclosed by science, such, for example,
as "the Conservation of Force," which are severally true, not of one class of
phenomena, but of all classes of phenomena, and which are thus the keys to
all classes of phenomena.
The conclusions reached in "First Principles" may be thus summed up:
over and over again in the five hundred pages devoted to their formulation,
it is shown in various ways that the deepest truths we can reach are simply
statements of the widest uniformities in our experiences of the relations of
Matter, Motion, and Force; and that Matter, Motion, and Force are but
symbols of the Unknown reality. A Power of which the nature remains
forever inconceivable, and to which no limits in Time and Space can be
imagined, works in us certain effects. These effects have certain likenesses
of kind, the most general of which we class together under the names of
Matter, Motion, and Force; and between these effects there are likenesses of
connection, the most constant of which we class as laws of the highest
certainty. Analysis reduces these several kinds of effects to one kind of
effect; and these several kinds of uniformity to one kind of uniformity. The
highest achievement of Science is the interpretation of all orders of
phenomena as differently conditioned manifestations of this one kind of
effect, under differently conditioned modes of this one kind of uniformity.
When science has done this, however, it has done nothing more than
systematize our experiences, and has in no degree extended the limits of our

experiences. We can say no more than before whether the uniformities are
as absolutely necessary as they have become to our thought relatively
necessary. The utmost possibility for us is an interpretation of the process of
things, as it presents itself to our limited consciousness; but how this
process is related to the actual process we are unable to conceive, much less
to know.
Similarly we are admonished to remember that, while the connection
between the phenomenal order and the ontological order is forever
inscrutable, so is the connection between the conditioned forms of being
and the unconditioned form of being forever inscrutable. The interpretation
of all phenomena in terms of Matter, Motion, and Force is nothing more
than the reduction of our complex symbols of thought to the simplest
symbols; and when the equation has been brought to its lowest terms, the
symbols remain symbols still. Hence the reasonings contained in "First
Principles" afford no support to either of the antagonist hypotheses
respecting the ultimate nature of things. Their implications are no more
materialistic than they are spiritualistic, and no more spiritualistic than they
are materialistic. The establishment of correlation and equivalence between
the forces of the outer and the inner worlds serves to assimilate either to the
other, according as we set out with one or the other. He who rightly
interprets the doctrine propounded in "First Principles" will see that neither
the forces of the outer, nor the forces of the inner, world can be taken as
ultimate. He will see that, though the relation of subject and object renders
necessary to us the antithetical conceptions of Spirit and Matter, the one is
no less than the other to be regarded as but a sign of the Unknown Reality
which underlies both.
In logical order the formulation of "First Principles" should have been
followed by the application of them to Inorganic Nature. This great division
of Mr. Spencer's subject is passed over, however; partly because, even
without it, the scheme is too extensive to be carried out in the lifetime of
one man; and partly because the interpretation of Organic Nature, after the
proposed method, is of more immediate importance. Before noting how Mr.
Spencer applies his fundamental principles to the interpretation of the
phenomena of life, it may be well to put before the reader's eye the "formula
of evolution" in the author's own language: "Evolution is an integration of
matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter

passes from an indefinite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent
heterogeneity; and during which the retained motion undergoes a parallel
transformation." This law of evolution is equally applicable to all orders of
phenomena,--"astronomic, geologic, biologic, psychologic, sociologic,
etc.,"--since these are all component parts of one cosmos, though disguised
from one another by conventional groupings. It is obvious that, so long as
evolution is merely established by induction, it belongs, not to philosophy,
but to science. To belong to philosophy it must be deduced from the
persistence of force. Mr. Spencer holds that this can be done. For any finite
aggregate, being unequally exposed to surrounding forces, will become
more diverse in structure, every differentiated part will become the parent
of further differences; at the same time, dissimilar units in the aggregate
tend to separate, and those which are similar, to cluster together
("segregation"); and this subdivision and dissipation of forces, so long as
there are any forces unbalanced by opposite forces, must end at last in rest;
the penultimate stage of this process "in which the extremest multiformity
and most complex moving equilibrium are established," being the highest
conceivable state. The various derivative laws of phenomenal changes are
thus deducible from the persistence of force. It remains to apply them to
inorganic, organic, and superorganic existences. The detailed treatment of
inorganic evolution is omitted, as we have said, from Spencer's plan, and he
proceeds to interpret "the phenomena of life, mind, and society in terms of
Matter, Motion, and Force."

IV.
The first volume of the "Principles of Biology" consists of three parts, the
first of which sets forth the data of biology, including those general truths of
physics and chemistry with which rational biology must start. The second
part is allotted to the inductions of biology, or, in other words, to a
statement of the leading generalizations which naturalists, physiologists,
and comparative anatomists have established. The third and final part of the
first volume of the "Principles of Biology" deals with the speculation
commonly known as "the development hypothesis," and considers its a
priori and a posteriori evidences.
The inductive evidences for the evolutionary hypothesis, as contra-
distinguished from the special-creation hypothesis, are dealt with in four
chapters. The "Arguments from Classification" are these: Organisms fall
into groups within groups; and this is the arrangement which we see results
from evolution where it is known to take place. Of these groups within
groups, the great or primary ones are the most unlike, the sub-groups are
less unlike, the sub-sub-group still less unlike, and so on; and this, too, is a
characteristic of groups demonstrably produced by evolution. Moreover,
indefiniteness of equivalence among the groups is common to those which
we know have been evolved, and to those supposed in the volume before us
to have been evolved. There is the further significant fact that divergent
groups are allied through their lowest rather than their highest members. Of
the "Arguments from Embryology," the first is that, when developing
embryos are traced from their common starting-point, and their
divergencies and re-divergencies are symbolized by a genealogical tree,
there is manifest a general parallelism between the arrangement of its
primary, secondary, and tertiary branches, and the arrangement of the
divisions and subdivisions of Mr. Spencer's classifications. Nor do the
minor deviations from this general parallelism, which look like difficulties,
fail on closer observation to furnish additional evidence; since those traits
of a common ancestry which embryology reveals are, if modifications have
resulted from changed conditions, liable to be disguised in different ways
and degrees, in different lines of descendants. Mr. Spencer next considers

the "Arguments from Morphology." Apart from those kinships among
organisms disclosed by their developmental changes, the kinships which
their adult forms show are profoundly significant. The unities of type found
under such different externals are inexplicable, except as results of
community of descent, with non-community of modification. Again, each
organism analyzed apart shows, in the likenesses obscured by unlikenesses
of its component parts, a peculiarity which can be ascribed only to the
formation of a more heterogeneous organism out of a more homogeneous
one. And, once more, the existence of rudimentary organs, homologous
with organs that are developed in allied animals or plants, while it admits of
no other rational interpretation, is satisfactorily interpreted by the
hypothesis of evolution. Last of the inductive evidences are the "Arguments
from Distribution." While the facts of distribution in space are
unaccountable as results of designed adaptation of organisms to their
habitats, they are accountable as results of the competition of species, and
the spread of the more fit into the habitats of the less fit, followed by the
changes which new conditions induce. Though the facts of distribution in
time are so fragmentary that no positive conclusion can be drawn, yet all of
them are reconcilable with the hypothesis of evolution, and some of them
yield strong support,--especially the near relationship existing between the
living and extinct types in each great geographical area. Thus of these four
categories of evidence, each furnishes several arguments which point to the
same conclusion. This coincidence would give to the induction a very high
degree of probability, even were it not enforced by deduction. As a matter
of fact, the conclusion deductively reached is in harmony with the inductive
conclusion. Mr. Spencer has deductively shown that, by its lineage and its
kindred, the evolution-hypothesis is as closely allied with the proved truths
of modern science as is the antagonist hypothesis, that of special creation,
with the proved errors of ancient ignorance. He has shown that, instead of
being a mere pseud-idea, it admits of elaboration into a definite conception,
so showing its legitimacy as an hypothesis. Instead of positing a purely
fictitious process, the process which it alleges proves to be one actually
going on around us. To which may be added that the evolution-hypothesis
presents no radical incongruities from a moral point of view. On the other
hand, the special-creation hypothesis is shown to be not even a thinkable
hypothesis, and, while thus intellectually illusive, to have moral
implications irreconcilable with the professed beliefs of those who hold it.

Passing from the evidence that Evolution has taken place to the question-
-How has it taken place?--Mr. Spencer finds in known agencies and known
processes adequate causes of its phenomena. In astronomic, geologic, and
meteorologic changes, ever in progress, ever combining in new and more
involved ways, we have a set of inorganic factors to which all organisms are
exposed; and in the varying and complicated actions of organisms on one
another we have a set of organic factors that alter with increasing rapidity.
Thus, speaking generally, all members of the Earth's flora and fauna
experience perpetual rearrangements of external forces. Each organic
aggregate, whether considered individually or as a continuously existing
species, is modified afresh by each fresh distribution of external forces. To
its pre-existing differentiations new differentiations are added; and thus that
lapse to a more heterogeneous state, which would have a fixed limit were
the circumstances fixed, has its limits perpetually removed by the perpetual
change of the circumstances. These modifications upon modifications,
which result in evolution, structurally considered, are the accompaniments
of those functional alterations continually required to re-equilibrate inner
with outer actions. That moving equilibrium of inner actions corresponding
with outer actions, which constitutes the life of an organism, must either be
overthrown by a change in the outer actions or must undergo perturbations
that cannot end until there is a readjusted balance of functions and
correlative adaptation of structures. But where the external changes are
either such as are fatal when experienced by the individuals, or such as act
on the individuals in ways that do not affect the equilibrium of their
functions, then the readjustment results through the effects produced on the
species as a whole: there is indirect equilibration. By the preservation in
successive generations of those whose moving equilibria are less at variance
with the requirements, there is produced a changed equilibrium completely
in harmony with the requirements.
Even were this the whole of the evidence assignable for the belief that
organisms have been gradually evolved, Mr. Spencer holds that the belief
would have a warrant higher than is possessed by many beliefs which are
regarded as established. As a matter of fact, however, the evidence is far
from exhausted. At the outset of the first volume of "Principles of Biology,"
it was remarked by the author that the phenomena presented by the organic
world as a whole cannot be properly dealt with apart from the phenomena

presented by each organism in the course of its growth, development, and
decay. The interpretation of either class of phenomena implies interpretation
of the other, since the two are in reality parts of one process. Hence the
validity of any hypothesis respecting the one class of phenomena may be
tested by its congruity with phenomena of the other class. In the second
volume of "The Principles of Biology," Mr. Spencer passes to the more
special phenomena of development, as displayed in the structures and
functions of individual organisms. If the hypothesis that plants and animals
have been progressively evolved be true, it must furnish us with keys to
these special phenomena. Mr. Spencer finds that the hypothesis does this,
and by doing it gives numberless additional vouchers for its truth. It is
impossible for us here to review, even in outline, the extensive field
traversed in the second volume of "Principles of Biology." We would not
omit, however, to direct attention to the interesting conclusion reached by
Mr. Spencer toward the close of the volume with regard to the future of the
human race considered from the viewpoint of the possible pressure of
population upon subsistence. He points out that in man all the equilibrations
between constitution and conditions, between the structure of society and
the nature of its members, between fertility and mortality, advance
simultaneously towards a common climax. In approaching an equilibrium
between his nature and the ever-varying circumstances of his inorganic
environment, and in approaching an equilibrium between his nature and all
the requirements of the social state, man is at the same time approaching
that lowest limit of fertility at which the equilibrium of population is
maintained by the addition of as many infants as there are subtractions by
death.

V.
Next in logical order and in order of publication come the two volumes
collectively entitled "The Principles of Psychology." In these volumes an
attempt is made to trace objectively the evolution of mind from reflex
action through instinct to reason, memory, feeling, and will, from the
interaction of the nervous system with its environment. Subjectively, mental
states are analyzed, and it is contended that all of them--including those
primary scientific ideas, the perceptions of matter, motion, space, and time,
assumed in the "First Principles"--can be analyzed into a primitive element
of consciousness, something which can be defined only as analogous to a
nervous shock. These perceptions have now become innate in the
individual. They may be called--as Kant called space and time--forms of
intuition; but they have been acquired empirically by the race, through the
persistence of the corresponding phenomena in the environment, and from
the accumulated experiences of each individual being transmitted in the
form of modified structure to his descendants. This principle of heredity is
one of the laws by which individuals are connected with one another into an
organic whole; and we thus pass to what Spencer calls super-organic
evolution, implying the co-ordinated actions of many individuals, and
giving rise to the science of sociology.
It is this science which Mr. Spencer undertakes to expound in the three
volumes entitled the "Principles of Sociology." The first of these volumes
presents a statement of the several sets of factors entering into social
phenomena. These factors are, first, human ideas and feelings considered in
their necessary order of evolution; secondly, surrounding natural conditions;
and, thirdly, those ever-complicating conditions to which society itself gives
origin. Under the caption "The Inductions of Sociology," are set forth the
general facts, structural and functional, gathered from a survey of societies
and their changes; in other words, the empirical generalizations that are
arrived at by comparing different societies, or successive stages of the same
societies. The author then examines the evolution of governments, general
and local, as this is determined by natural causes; their several types and
metamorphosis; their increasing complexity and specialization, and the

progressive limitation of their functions. From political the author turns to
ecclesiastical organization. He traces the differentiation of religious
government from secular; its successive complications and the
multiplication of sects; the growth and continued modification of religious
ideas, as caused by advancing knowledge and changing moral character;
and the gradual reconciliation of these ideas with the truths of abstract
science. A good deal of space is devoted to what the author calls ceremonial
organization, by which he means that third kind of government which,
having a common root with the others, and slowly becoming separate from
and supplementary to them, serves to regulate the minor actions of life.
Finally, Mr. Spencer discusses industrial organization; that is to say, the
development of productive and distributive agencies, considered in its
necessary causes, comprehending not only the progressive division of labor
and the increasing complexity of each industrial agency, but also the
successive forms of industrial government as passing through like phases
with political government.
Many pages would be requisite adequately to describe the result of the
inquiries prosecuted by Mr. Spencer during some twenty years, and
embodied in the three volumes entitled "Principles of Sociology." The
ultimate conclusions reached, however, may be summed up in a few
paragraphs. It is the author's final conviction that, if the process of
evolution, which, unceasing throughout past time, has brought life to its
present height, continues throughout the future, as we cannot but anticipate,
then, amid all the rhythmical changes in each society, amid all the lives and
deaths of nations, amid all the supplantings of race by race, there will go on
that adaptation of human nature to the social state which began when
savages first gathered together into hordes for mutual defence,--an
adaptation finally complete. Mr. Spencer foresees that many will think this
a wild imagination. Though everywhere around them are creatures with
structures and instincts which have been gradually so moulded as to
subserve their own welfares and the welfares of their species, yet the
immense majority ignore the implication that human beings, too, have been
undergoing in the past, and will undergo in the future, progressive
adjustments to the lives imposed on them by circumstances. There are a
few, nevertheless, who think it rational to conclude that what has happened
with all lower forms must happen with the highest forms,--a few who infer

that among types of men those most fitted for making a well-working
society will hereafter, as heretofore, from time to time, emerge and spread
at the expense of types less fitted, until a fully fitted type has arisen.
It is, at the same time, conceded that the view thus suggested cannot be
accepted without qualification. If we carry our thoughts as far forward as
palaeolithic implements carry them back, we are introduced, not to an
absolute optimism, but to a relative optimism. The cosmic process brings
about retrogression, as well as progression, where the conditions favor it.
Only amid an infinity of modifications, adjusted to an infinity of changes of
circumstances, do there now and then occur some which constitute an
advance: other changes, meanwhile, caused in other organisms, usually not
constituting forward steps in organization, and often constituting steps
backward. Evolution does not imply a latent tendency to improve
everywhere in operation. There is no uniform ascent from lower to higher,
but only an occasional production of a form, which, in virtue of greater
fitness for more complex conditions, becomes capable of a longer life of a
more varied kind. And, while such higher type begins to dominate over
lower types, and to spread at their expense, the lower types survive in
habitats or modes of life that are not usurped, or are thrust into inferior
habitats or modes of life in which they retrogress.
Mr. Spencer's examination of "The Principles of Sociology" has led him
to the belief that what holds with organic types must hold also with types of
society. Social evolution throughout the future, like social evolution
throughout the past, must, while producing, step after step, higher societies,
leave outstanding many lower. Varieties of men adapted here to inclement
regions, there to regions that are barren, and elsewhere to regions unfitted,
by ruggedness of surface or insalubrity, for supporting large populations,
will, in all probability, continue to form small communities of simple
structures. Moreover, during future competitions among the higher races,
there will probably be left, in the less desirable regions, minor nations
formed of men inferior to the highest; at the same time that the highest
overspread all the great areas which are desirable in climate and fertility.
But while the entire assemblage of societies thus fulfils the law of evolution
by increase of heterogeneity,--while within each of them contrasts of
structure, caused by differences of environments and entailed occupations,
cause unlikenesses implying further heterogeneity, we may infer that the

primary process of evolution--integration--which, up to the present time,
has been displayed in the formation of larger and larger nations, will
eventually reach a still higher stage, and bring yet greater benefits. As when
small tribes were welded into great tribes, the head chief stopped inter-tribal
warfare; as, when small feudal governments became subject to a king,
feudal wars were prevented by him,--so, in time to come, a federation of the
highest nations, exercising supreme authority (already foreshadowed by
occasional agreements among "the Powers"), may, by forbidding wars
between any of its constituent nations, put an end to the re-barbarization
which is continually undoing civilization.
When, eventually, this peace-maintaining federation has been formed,
Mr. Spencer looks for effectual progress towards that equilibrium between
constitution and conditions,--between inner faculties and outer
requirements,--implied by the final stage of human evolution. Adaptation to
the social state, now perpetually hindered by anti-social conflict, may then
go on unhindered; and all the great societies, in other respects differing,
may become similar in those cardinal traits which result from complete self-
ownership of the unit, and from exercise over him of nothing more than
passive influence by the aggregate. On the one hand, by continual
repression of aggressive instincts and by continual exercise of feelings
which prompt ministration to public welfare, and, on the other hand, by the
lapse of restraints gradually becoming less necessary, there will be
produced, in Mr. Spencer's forecast, a kind of man so constituted that, while
fulfilling his own desires, he will fulfil also the social needs. Already, small
groups of men, shielded by circumstances from external antagonisms, have
been moulded into forms of moral nature so superior to our own that the
account of their goodness almost savors of romance; and it is reasonable to
infer that what has even now happened on a small scale may, under kindred
conditions, ultimately happen on a large scale. Prolonged studies, showing
among other things the need for certain qualifications above indicated, but
also revealing facts like that just named, have not caused our author to
recede from the belief expressed nearly fifty years ago that "the ultimate
man will be one whose private requirements coincide with public ones. He
will be that manner of man who, in spontaneously fulfilling his own nature,
incidentally performs the functions of a social unit; and yet is only enabled
so to fulfil his own nature by all others doing the like."

Before taking leave of the "Principles of Sociology," we should caution
the reader against a misconception that might seem, at first sight, to find
some warrant in the following remark of a sympathetic reviewer: "Like
Aristotle, he [Mr. Spencer] has had to delegate large portions of his work to
be done for him by others." As our author has himself pointed out in "Facts
and Comments," the reviewer's reference will be rightly interpreted by those
who know that the work delegated by Aristotle to others was simply the
collection of materials for his Natural History, not the classification of those
materials, much less the drawing of inductions from them. As not one
reader in ten knows this, however, wrong impressions are likely to be made
by the reviewer's remark. Mr. Spencer's name being especially associated
with the "Synthetic Philosophy," the sentence quoted will suggest to many
the thought that large portions of that work were written by deputy. This, of
course, the reviewer did not mean to say. The work to which he referred is
entitled "Descriptive Sociology, or groups of sociological facts, classified
and arranged by Herbert Spencer, compiled and abstracted by David
Duncan, Richard Scheppig and James Collier," eight parts of which have
thus far appeared. Knowing that he should be unable to read all the works
of travel and history containing the facts he should need when dealing with
the science of society, Mr. Spencer engaged these gentlemen--first one, then
two, then three--to read up for him and arrange the extracts they made in a
manner prescribed. With much material he had himself accumulated in the
course of many years, our author incorporated a much larger amount of
material derived from the compilations just mentioned when writing the
"Principles of Sociology."

VI.
It is the two volumes entitled the "Principles of Ethics" to which we shall
lastly invite attention. The six parts of which this work is composed were
published in an irregular manner. Part I., presenting the data of ethics, was
issued in 1879; Part IV., a treatise on "Justice," in 1891; Parts II. and III.,
which set forth respectively the inductions of ethics and the ethics of
individual life, and which, along with Part I., form the first volume, were
issued in 1892; Parts V. and VI., which treat respectively of negative
beneficence and positive beneficence, were issued in 1893, and, along with
Part IV., constitute the second volume. With regard to the "Principles of
Ethics," considered as a whole, it should be noted that the author was
prompted to prepare the work, notwithstanding the ill health by which he
was incessantly interrupted, by the conviction that the establishment of
rules of conduct on a scientific basis is a pressing need. Now that moral
injunctions are losing the authority given by their supposed sacred origin,
the secularization of morals is becoming imperative. Those who reject the
current creed appear to assume that the controlling agency conferred by it
may safely be thrown aside. On the other hand, those who defend the
current creed allege that, in the absence of the guidance it yields, no
guidance can exist, divine commandments being, in their opinion, the only
possible guides. Dissenting from both of these beliefs, Mr. Spencer has had
for his primary purpose in the two volumes under review to show that, apart
from any supposed supernatural basis, the principles of ethics have a natural
basis. In these two volumes this natural basis is set forth, and its corollaries
are elaborated. If the conclusions to which the general law of evolution
introduces us are not in all cases as definite as might be wished, yet our
author submits that they are more definite than those to which we are
introduced by the current creed. Complete definiteness is not, of course, to
be expected. Right regulation of the actions of so complex a being as man,
living under conditions so complex as those presented by a society,
evidently forms a subject-matter unlikely to admit of specific statements
throughout its entire range.

The principal inductions drawn from the data collected in the first of
these volumes may be set forth in a few sentences. Multitudinous proofs are
brought forward of the fact that the ethical sentiment prevailing in different
societies, and in the same society under different conditions, are sometimes
diametrically opposed. In Europe and in the United States to have
committed a murder disgraces for all time a man's memory, and disgraces
for generations all who are related to him. By the Pathans, however, a
contrary sentiment is displayed. One who had killed a Mellah (priest) and
failed to find refuge from the avengers, said at length: "I can but be a
martyr; I will go and kill a Sahib." He was hanged after shooting a sergeant,
perfectly satisfied "at having expiated his offence." The prevailing ethical
sentiment in England is such that a man who should allow himself to be
taken possession of and made an unresisting slave would be regarded with
scorn; but the people of Drekete, a slave-district of Fiji, "said it was their
duty to become food and sacrifices for the chiefs," and that "they were
honored by being considered adequate to such a noble task." Less extreme,
though akin in nature, is the contrast between the feelings which the history
of Englishmen has recorded within a few centuries. In Elizabeth's time, Sir
John Hawkins initiated the slave-trade, and, in commemoration of the
achievement, was allowed to put in his coat-of-arms: "a demi-moor proper,
bound with a cord,"--the honorableness of his action being thus assumed by
himself, and recognized by Queen and public. At the present day, on the
other hand, the making slaves of men, called by Wesley "the sum of all
villanies," is regarded in England with detestation; and for many years the
British government maintained a fleet to suppress the slave-trade. Again,
peoples who have emerged from the primitive family-and-clan organization,
hold that one who is guilty of a crime must himself bear the punishment,
and it is thought extreme injustice that the punishment should fall upon any
one else. The remote ancestors of the English people thought and felt
differently, as do still the Australians, whose "first great principle with
regard to punishment is that all the relatives of a culprit, in the event of his
not being found, are implicated in his guilt: the brothers of the criminal
conceive themselves to be quite as guilty as he is." Then, too, among
civilized peoples the individualities of women are so far recognized that the
life and liberty of a wife are not supposed to be bound up with those of her
husband; and she now, having obtained a right to exclusive possession of
property, contends for complete independence, domestic and political. It is,

or was, otherwise in Fiji. The wives of the Fijian chiefs consider it a sacred
duty to suffer strangulation on the deaths of their husbands. A woman who
had been rescued by an Englishman "escaped during the night, and,
swimming across the river, and presenting herself to her own people,
insisted upon the completion of the sacrifice which she had in a moment of
weakness reluctantly consented to forego." Another foreign observer tells of
a Fijian woman who loaded her rescuer "with abuse, and ever afterwards
manifested the most deadly hatred towards him." In England and on the
Continent the religious prohibition of theft and the legal punishment of it
are joined with a strong social reprobation, so that the offence of a thief is
never condoned. In Beloochistan, on the other hand, quite contrary ideas
and feelings are current. There "a favorite couplet is to the effect that the
Biloch who steals and murders, secures Heaven to seven generations of
ancestors." In England and the United States reprobation of untruthfulness
is strongly expressed, alike by the gentleman and the laborer. In many parts
of the world it is not so. In Blantyre, for example, according to MacDonald,
"to be called a liar is rather a compliment." Once more: English sentiment is
such that the mere suspicion of incontinence on the part of a woman is
enough to blight her life; but there are peoples whose sentiments entail no
such effect, and, in some cases, a reverse effect is produced: "Unchastity is,
with the Wetyaks, a virtue." It seems, then, that in respect of all the leading
divisions of human conduct, different races of men, and the same races at
different stages, entertain opposite beliefs, and display opposite feelings.
In Mr. Spencer's opinion, the evidence here brought to a focus ought to
dissipate once for all the belief in a moral sense, as commonly entertained.
A long experience of mankind, however, prevents him from indulging in
such an expectation. Among men at large, lifelong convictions are not to be
destroyed either by conclusive arguments or multitudinous facts. Only to
those who are not by creed or cherished theory committed to the hypothesis
of a supernaturally created human species will the evidence above summed
up prove that the human mind has no originally implanted conscience. Mr.
Spencer himself at one time espoused the doctrine of the intuitive moralists,
but it has gradually become clear to him that the qualifications required
practically obliterate the doctrine as enunciated by them. It has become
clear to him, in other words, that if among civilized folk the current belief is
that a man who robs and does not repent will be eternally damned, while an

accepted proverb among the Bilochs is, that "God will not favor a man who
does not steal and rob," it is impossible to hold that men have in common
an innate perception of right and wrong.
At the same time, while the inductions drawn by Mr. Spencer from the
data of ethics show that the moral-sense doctrine in its original form is not
true, they also show that it adumbrates a truth, and a much higher truth. For
the facts cited, chapter after chapter, unite in proving that the sentiments
and ideas current in each society become adjusted to the kinds of activity
predominating in it. A life of constant external enmity generates a code in
which aggression, conquest, revenge, are inculcated, while peaceful
occupations are reprobated. Conversely, a life of settled internal amity
generates a code inculcating the virtues conducing to harmonious co-
operation,--justice, honesty, veracity, regard for others' claims. The
implication is that, if the life of internal amity continues unbroken from
generation to generation, there must result not only the appropriate code,
but the appropriate emotional nature,--a moral sense adapted to the moral
requirements. Men so conditioned will acquire to the degree needful for
complete guidance that innate conscience which the intuitive moralists
erroneously supposed to be possessed by mankind at large. There needs but
a continuance of absolute peace externally and a rigorous insistence on non-
aggression internally, to insure the moulding of men into a form naturally
characterized by all the virtues. This general induction is re-enforced by
especial induction. Now as displaying this high trait of nature, now as
displaying that, Mr. Spencer has instanced various uncivilized peoples who,
inferior to us in other respects, are morally superior to us. He has also
pointed out that such peoples are, one and all, free from inter-tribal
antagonisms. The peoples showing this connection between external and
internal peacefulness on the one hand, and superior morality on the other,
are of various races. In the Indian Hills are found some who are by origin
Mongolian, Kelarian, Dravidian; in the forests of Malacca, Burma, and in
secluded parts of China exist such tribes of yet other bloods; in the East
Indian archipelago are some belonging to the Papuan stock; in Japan there
are the amiable Ainos, who have no traditions of internecine strife; and in
North Mexico exists yet another such people unrelated to the rest, the
Pueblos. Our author holds that no more conclusive proof could be wished
than that supplied by these isolated groups of men, who, widely remote in

locality and differing in race, are alike in the two respects that
circumstances have long exempted them from war, and that they are now
organically good. May we not reasonably infer, asks Mr. Spencer, in
conclusion, that the state reached by these small, uncultured tribes may be
reached by the great cultured nations, when the life of internal amity shall
be unqualified by the life of external enmity?
We bring to an end our review of the "Synthetic Philosophy" by pointing
out that the ethical doctrine constituting the culmination of the system
which is set forth in the "Principles of Ethics" is fundamentally a corrected
and elaborated version of the doctrine propounded in "Social Statics" issued
as long ago as 1850. The correspondence between the two works is shown
not only by the coincidence of their constructive divisions, but also by the
agreement of their cardinal ideas. As in the one, so in the other, Man, in
common with lower creatures, is held to be capable of indefinite change by
adaptation to conditions. In both he is regarded as undergoing
transformation from a nature appropriate to his aboriginal wild life, to a
nature appropriate to a settled civilized life; and in both this transformation
is described as a moulding into a form fitted for harmonious co-operation.
In both works, too, this moulding is said to be effected by the repression of
certain primitive traits no longer needed, and the development of needful
traits. As in the first work, so in this last, the great factor in the progressive
modification is shown to be sympathy. It was contended in "Social Statics,"
as it is contended in the "Principles of Ethics," that harmonious social co-
operation implies that limitation of individual freedom which results from
sympathetic regard for the freedoms of others; and that the law of equal
freedom is the law in conformity to which equitable individual conduct and
equitable social arrangements co-exist. Mr. Spencer's theory in 1850 was, as
his theory still is, that the mental products of Sympathy which constitute
what is called "the moral sense," arise as fast as men are disciplined into
social life; and that along with them arise intellectual perceptions of right
human relations, which become clearer as the form of social life becomes
better. Further, in the earlier work it was inferred, as it is inferred in the
latest, that there is being effected a conciliation of individual natures with
social requirements; so that there will eventually be achieved the greatest
individuation, along with the greatest mutual dependence,--an equilibrium
of such kind that each, in fulfilling the wants of his own life, will aid in

fulfilling the wants of all other lives. We observe, finally, that, in the first
work, there were drawn essentially the same corollaries respecting the
rights of individuals and their relations to the State that are drawn in the
"Principles of Ethics."
A word may be said in conclusion about the difference between the
relation of Mr. Spencer on the one hand and Darwin on the other to the
thought of the Nineteenth Century. The fact is not to be lost sight of that the
principles of the Evolutionary, or, as Mr. Spencer prefers to term it, the
Synthetic, philosophy were formulated before the publication of the "Origin
of Species." What the ultimately general acceptance of the theory
propounded in Darwin's work did for Mr. Spencer was precisely this: it
greatly strengthened the biological evidence for the evolutionary
hypothesis. That hypothesis was upheld, however, by evidence drawn not
merely from biology, but from many other sources. Moreover, while the
Darwinian theory of natural selection, supplemented as it was by the
adoption of the Lamarkian factors,--the effect of use and disuse and the
assumed transmissibility of acquired character,--merely attempted to
explain the mode in which the changes in organic life have taken place upon
the earth, the evolutionary hypothesis put forth by Mr. Spencer professed to
be applicable to the whole sphere of the knowable. It is further to be borne
in mind that Mr. Spencer has devoted a large part of his life to tracing in
detail the applications of his fundamental principles to social, political,
religious, and ethical phenomena. Darwin, on the other hand, strictly
confined himself to the biological field, and left to disciples the task of
indicating the bearing of the Darwinian theory upon sociology, theology,
and morals.

AUTHORITIES.
The Complete Works of Herbert Spencer (The Synthetic Philosophy).
Also, "Facts and Comments," by Herbert Spencer (Appleton's).
John Fiske's "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy."
F.H. Collins's "Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy."

A.D. White's "Herbert Spencer: The Completion of the Synthetic
Philosophy."

CHARLES ROBERT DARWIN.

1809-1882;
HIS PLACE IN MODERN SCIENCE.
BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE.

There is no doubt that, by the judgment of a large majority of scientists,
the place of pre-eminence in the history of science during the nineteenth
century should be assigned to Charles Robert Darwin. The theory associated
with his name deserves to be called epoch-making. The Darwinian
hypothesis, indeed, should not be confounded with the cosmic theory of
Evolution which was formulated earlier and independently by Herbert
Spencer, and supported by many arguments drawn from sources outside the
field of natural history. The specific merit of the Darwinian hypothesis is
that it furnishes a rational and almost universally accepted explanation of
the mode in which changes have taken place in the development of organic
life upon the earth. With the possible cosmical applications of his theory
Darwin did not concern himself, though the bearing of his hypothesis upon
wider problems was at once discerned, and has been set forth by Spencer
and others. Before stating, however, the conclusions at which Darwin
arrived in his "Origin of Species," the "Descent of Man," and other writings,
and before indicating the extent to which these conclusions have been
adopted, we should say a word about his interesting, amiable, and
exemplary personality. Concerning his private life, there is no lack of
information. He himself wrote an autobiographical sketch which has been
amplified by his son Francis Darwin, and supplemented with numerous
extracts from his correspondence.

I.
Charles Robert Darwin was born at Shrewsbury, Feb. 12, 1809. His
mother was a daughter of Josiah Wedgwood, the well-known Staffordshire
potter, and his father, Dr. Robert Waring Darwin, was a son of Erasmus
Darwin, celebrated in the eighteenth century as a physician, a naturalist, and
a poet. It is a curious fact that in some of his speculations Erasmus Darwin
anticipated the views touching the evolution of organic life subsequently
announced by Lamarck, and ultimately incorporated by Charles Darwin in
the theory that bears his name. The only taste kindred to natural history
which Dr. Darwin possessed in common with his father and his son was a
love of plants. The garden of his house in Shrewsbury, where Charles
Darwin spent his boyhood, was filled with ornamental trees and shrubs, as
well as fruit-trees.
When Charles Darwin was about eight years old, he was sent to a day-
school, and it seems that even at this time his taste for natural history, and
especially for collecting shells and minerals, was well developed. In the
summer of 1818 he entered Dr. Butler's great school in Shrewsbury, well
known to the amateur makers of Latin verse by the volume entitled
"Sabrinae Corolla." He expressed the opinion in later life that nothing could
have been worse for the development of his mind than this school, as it was
strictly classical, nothing else being taught except a little ancient biography
and history. During his whole life he was singularly incapable of mastering
any language. With respect to science, he continued collecting minerals
with much zeal, and after reading White's "Selborne" he took much pleasure
in watching the habits of birds. Towards the close of his school life he
became deeply interested in chemistry, and was allowed to assist his elder
brother in some laboratory experiments. In October, 1825, he proceeded to
Edinburgh University, where he stayed for two years. He found the lectures
intolerably dull, with the exception of those on chemistry. Curiously
enough, while walking one day with a fellow-undergraduate, the latter burst
forth in high admiration of Lamarck and his views on evolution. So far as
Darwin could afterwards judge, no impression was made upon his own
mind. He had previously read his grandfather's "Zoönomia," in which

similar views had been propounded, but no discernible effect had been
produced upon him. Nevertheless, it is probable enough that the hearing
rather early in life such views maintained and praised may have favored his
upholding them under a different form in the "Origin of Species."
While at Edinburgh, Darwin was a member of the Plinian Society, and
read a couple of papers on some observations in natural history. After two
sessions had been spent at Edinburgh, Darwin's father perceived that the
young man did not like the thought of being a physician, and proposed that
he should become a clergyman. In pursuance of this proposal, he went to
the University of Cambridge in 1828, and three years later took a B.A.
degree. In his autobiography the opinion is expressed that at Cambridge his
time was wasted. It was there, however, that he became intimately
acquainted with Professor Henslow, a man of remarkable acquirements in
botany, entomology, chemistry, mineralogy, and geology. During his last
year at Cambridge Darwin read with care and interest Humboldt's "Personal
Narrative," and Sir John Herschel's "Introduction to the Study of Natural
Philosophy." These books influenced him profoundly, arousing in him a
burning desire to make even the most humble contribution to the structure
of natural science. At Henslow's suggestion he began the study of biology,
and in 1831 accompanied Professor Sedgwick in the latter's investigations
amongst the older rocks in North Wales.
It was Professor Henslow who secured for young Darwin the
appointment of naturalist to the voyage of the "Beagle." This voyage lasted
from Dec. 27, 1831, to Oct. 2, 1836. The incidents of this voyage will be
found set forth in Darwin's "Public Journeys." The observations made by
him in geology, natural history, and botany gave him a place of considerable
distinction among scientific men. In 1844 he published a series of
observations on the volcanic islands visited during the voyage of the
"Beagle," and two years later "Geological Observations on South America."
These two books, together with a volume entitled "Coral Reefs," required
four and a half years' steady work. In October, 1846, he began the studies
embodied in "Cirripedia" (barnacles). The outcome of these studies was
published in two thick volumes. The time came when Darwin doubted
whether the work was worth the consumption of the time employed, but
probably it proved of use to him when he had to discuss in the "Origin of
Species" the principles of a natural classification. From September, 1854,

and during the four ensuing years, Darwin devoted himself to observing and
experimenting in relation to the transmutation of species, and in arranging a
huge pile of notes upon the subject. As early as October, 1838, it had
occurred to him as probable, or at least possible, that amid the struggle for
existence which everywhere goes on in the animal world, favorable
variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavorable ones to be
destroyed. The result would be the formation of new species.
It was not until June, 1842, however, that Darwin allowed himself the
satisfaction of writing a very brief abstract of his theory in thirty-five pages.
This was enlarged two years later into one of 230 pages. Early in 1856, Sir
Charles Lyell, the well-known geologist, advised him to write out his views
upon the subject fully, and Darwin began to do so on a scale three or four
times as extensive as that which was afterwards followed in his "Origin of
Species." He got through about half the work on this scale. His plans were
overthrown, owing to the curious circumstance that, in the summer of 1858,
Mr. Alfred E. Wallace, who was then in the Malay archipelago, sent him an
essay "On the Tendency of Varieties to depart indefinitely from the Original
Type." It turned out upon perusal that this essay contained exactly the same
theory as that which Darwin was engaged in elaborating. Mr. Wallace
expressed the wish that, if Darwin thought well of the essay, he should send
it to Lyell. It was Sir Charles Lyell and Sir Joseph Hooker who insisted that
Darwin should allow an abstract from his manuscript, together with a letter
to Prof. Asa Gray, dated Sept. 5, 1857, to be published at the same time with
Wallace's essay. Darwin was unwilling to take this course, being then
unacquainted with Mr. Wallace's generous disposition. As a matter of fact,
the joint productions excited very little attention, and the only published
notice of them asserted that what was new in them was false, and that what
was true was old. From the indifference evinced to the papers which first
propounded the theory of natural selection, Darwin drew the inference that
it is necessary for any new view to be explained at considerable length in
order to obtain the public ear.
In September, 1858, Darwin, at the earnest advice of Lyell and Hooker,
set to work to prepare a volume on the transmutation of species. The book
cost him more than thirteen months' hard labor. It was published in
November, 1859, under the title of "Origin of Species." This, which Darwin
justly regarded as the chief work of his life, was from the first highly

successful. The first edition was sold on the day of publication, and the
book was presently translated into almost every European tongue. Darwin
himself attributed the success of the "Origin" in large part to his having
previously written two condensed sketches, and to his having finally made
an abstract of a much larger manuscript, which itself was an abstract. By
this winnowing process he had been enabled to select the more striking
facts and conclusions. As to the current assertion that the "Origin"
succeeded because the subject was in the air, or because men's minds were
prepared for it, Darwin was disposed to doubt whether this was strictly true.
In previous years he had occasionally sounded not a few naturalists, and
had never come across a single one who seemed to doubt about the
permanence of species. Probably men's minds were prepared in this sense,
that innumerable well-verified facts were stored away in the memories of
naturalists, ready to take their proper places as soon as any theory which
would account for them should be strongly supported. Darwin himself
thought that he gained much by a delay in publishing, from about 1839,
when the "Darwinian" theory was clearly conceived, to 1859; and that he
lost nothing, because he cared very little whether men attributed most
originality to him or to Wallace.
Darwin's "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication" was
begun in 1860, but was not published till 1868. The book was a big one, and
cost him four years and two months' hard labor. It gives in the first volume
all his personal observations, and an immense number of facts, collected
from various sources, about domestic productions, animal and vegetable. In
the second volume the causes and laws of variation, inheritance, etc., are
discussed. Towards the end of the work is propounded the hypothesis of
Pangenesis, which has been generally rejected, and which the author
himself looked upon as unverified, although by it a remarkable number of
isolated facts could be connected together and rendered intelligible.
The "Descent of Man" was published in February, 1871. Touching this
work, Darwin has told us that, as soon as he had become (in 1837 or 1838)
convinced that species were mutable productions, he could not avoid the
belief that man must come under the same law. Accordingly, he collected
notes on the subject for his own satisfaction, and not for a long time with
any intention of publishing. In the "Origin of Species," the derivation of any
particular species is never discussed; but in order that no honorable man

should accuse him of concealing his views, Darwin had thought it best to
add that by that work, "light would be thrown on the origin of man and his
history." It would have impeded the acceptance of the theory of natural
selection if Darwin had paraded, without giving any evidence, his
conviction with respect to man's origin. When he found, however, that many
naturalists accepted his doctrine of the evolution of species, it seemed to
him advisable to work up such notes as he possessed, and to publish a
special treatise on the origin of man. He was the more glad to do so, as it
gave him an opportunity of discussing at length sexual selection, a subject
which had always interested him.
Darwin's book on the "Expression of Emotion in Men and Animals" was
published in the autumn of 1872. This had been intended to form a chapter
on the subject in the "Descent of Man," but as soon as Darwin began to put
his notes together he saw that it would require a separate treatise. In July,
1875, appeared the book on "Insectivorous Plants." The fact that a plant
should secrete, when properly excited, a fluid containing an acid and
ferment closely analogous to the digestive fluid of an animal, was certainly
a remarkable discovery. In the autumn of 1876 appeared "The Effects of
Cross and Self Fertilization," a work in which are described the endless and
wonderful contrivances for the transportation of pollen from one plant to
another of the same species. About the same time was brought out an
enlarged edition of the "Fertilization of Orchids," originally published in
1862. Among the minor works issued during the later years of Darwin's life
may be mentioned particularly the little book on "The Formation of
Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms." This was the outgrowth of
a short paper read before the Geological Society more than fourteen years
before.
In order to appreciate the enormous amount of research accomplished by
Charles Darwin, it is needful to keep in mind the conditions of ill-health
under which almost continually he worked. For nearly forty years he never
knew one day of the health of ordinary men. His life was one long struggle
against the weariness and drain of sickness. During his last ten years there
were signs of amendment in several particulars, but a loss of physical vigor
was apparent. Writing to a friend in 1881, he complained that he no longer
had the heart or strength to begin any prolonged investigations. In February
and March, 1882, he frequently experienced attacks of pain in the region of

the heart, attended with irregularity of the pulse. On April 18 he fainted, and
was brought back to consciousness with great difficulty. He seemed to
recognize the approach of death, and said, "I am not the least afraid to die."
On the afternoon of Wednesday, April 19, he passed away. On April 26 he
was interred in Westminster Abbey. The funeral was attended by
representatives of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Russia, and by
delegates of the universities and learned societies of which he had been a
member. Among the pall-bearers were Sir John Lubbock, Sir Joseph
Hooker, Professor Huxley, Mr. A.R. Wallace, Mr. James Russell Lowell, the
Duke of Argyll, and the Duke of Devonshire. The grave is appropriately
placed in the north aisle of the nave, only a few feet from the last resting-
place of Sir Isaac Newton.

II.
An outline of Darwin's personality would not be complete without a
glance at some of his mental characteristics, and at his attitude toward
religion. Of his intellectual powers, he himself speaks with extraordinary
modesty in his autobiography. He points out that he always experienced
much difficulty in expressing himself clearly and concisely, but he opines
that this very difficulty may have had the compensating advantage of
forcing him to think long and intently about every sentence, and thus
enabling him to detect errors in reasoning and in his own observations, or in
those of others. He disclaimed the possession of any great quickness of
apprehension or wit, such as distinguished Huxley. He protested, also, that
his power to follow a long and purely abstract train of thought was very
limited, for which reason he felt certain that he never could have succeeded
with metaphysics or mathematics. His memory, too, he described as
extensive, but hazy. So poor in one sense was it that he never could
remember for more than a few days a single date or a line of poetry. On the
other hand, he did not accept as well founded the charge made by some of
his critics that, while he was a good observer, he had no power of reasoning.
This, he thought, could not be true, because the "Origin of Species" is one
long argument from the beginning to the end, and has convinced many able
men. No one, he submits, could have written it without possessing some
power of reasoning. He was willing to assert that "I have a fair share of
invention, and of common sense or judgment, such as every fairly
successful lawyer or doctor must have, but not, I believe, in any higher
degree." He adds humbly that perhaps he was "superior to the common run
of men in noticing things which easily escape attention, and in observing
them carefully."
Writing in the last year of his life, he expressed the opinion that in two or
three respects his mind had changed during the preceding twenty or thirty
years. Up to the age of thirty or beyond it poetry of many kinds gave him
great pleasure. Formerly, too, pictures had given him considerable, and
music very great, delight. In 1881, however, he said: "Now for many years I
cannot endure to read a line of poetry; I have tried lately to read

Shakspeare, and found it so intolerably dull that it nauseated me. I have also
almost lost my taste for pictures or music. Music generally sets me thinking
too energetically of what I have been at work on, instead of giving me
pleasure. I retain some taste for fine scenery, but it does not cause me the
exquisite delight which it formerly did." Darwin was convinced that the loss
of these tastes was not only a loss of happiness, but might possibly be
injurious to the intellect, and more probably to the moral character, by
enfeebling the emotional side of one's nature. So far as he could judge, his
mind had become in his later years a kind of machine for grinding general
laws out of large collections of facts, and that atrophy had taken place in
that part of the brain on which the higher aesthetic tastes depend. Curiously
enough, however, he retained his relish for novels, and for books on history,
biography, and travels.
It is well known that Darwin was extremely reticent with regard to his
religious views. He believed that a man's religion was essentially a private
matter. Repeated attempts were made to draw him out upon the subject, and
some of these were partially successful. Writing to a Dutch student in 1873,
he said: "I may say that the impossibility of conceiving that this grand and
wondrous universe, with our conscious selves, arose through chance seems
to me the chief argument for the existence of God; but whether this is an
argument of real value I have never been able to decide. I am aware that if
we admit a First Cause, the mind still craves to know whence it came and
how it arose. Nor can I overlook the difficulty from the immense amount of
suffering through the world. I am also induced to defer to a certain extent to
the judgment of the many able men who have fully believed in God; but
here again I see how poor an argument this is. The safest conclusion seems
to me that the whole subject is beyond the scope of man's intellect; but man
can do his duty." To questions put by a German student in 1879, he replied:
"Science has nothing to do with Christ, except in so far as the habit of
scientific research makes a man cautious in admitting evidence. For myself
I do not believe that there ever has been any revelation. As for a future life,
every man must judge for himself between conflicting vague probabilities."
In the same year he told another correspondent: "In my most extreme
fluctuations I have never been an atheist in the sense of denying the
existence of a God. I think that generally (and more and more as I grow
older), but not always, that an Agnostic would be the more correct

description of my state of mind." His latest view is indicated in a letter
dated July 3, 1881. Here he expressed the "inward conviction that the
universe is not the result of chance." He adds, however: "But, then, with me
the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind,
which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any
value, or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust the convictions in a
monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?" The Duke of
Argyll has recorded the few words on the subject spoken by Darwin in the
last year of his life. The Duke said that it was impossible to look at the
wonderful contrivances for certain purposes in nature, and fail to recognize
that they were the effect and the expression of mind. Darwin looked at the
Duke very hard, and said, "Well, that often comes over me with
overwhelming force; but at other times"--here he shook his head vaguely--
"it seems to go away."

III.
We pass to a consideration of Darwin's masterworks, the "Origin of
Species," the "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication," and
the "Descent of Man." Before indicating the conclusions reached in the first
of these works, we should point out to what extent Darwin had been
preceded by dissenters from the belief once almost universally entertained
by biologists that species were independently created, and, once created,
were immutable. Lamarck was the first naturalist whose divergent views
upon the subject excited much attention. In writings published at various
dates from 1801 to 1815, he upheld the doctrine that all species, including
man, are descended from other species. He pronounced it probable that all
changes in the organic, as well as in the inorganic world, were the result of
law, and not of miraculous interposition. He seems to have been led to his
opinion that the change of species had been gradual by the difficulty
experienced in distinguishing species from varieties by the almost perfect
gradation of forms in certain groups, and by the analogy of domestic
productions. With respect to the means of modification, he attributed
something to the direct action of the physical conditions of life, something
to the crossing of already existing forms, and much to use and disuse, or, in
other words, to the effect of habit. Finally, he held that characters acquired
by an existing individual might be transmitted to its offspring.
In 1813 Dr. W.C. Wells read before the Royal Society "An Account of a
White Female, Part of whose Skin resembles that of a Negro." In this paper
the author distinctly recognized the principle of natural selection, but
applied it only to the races of man, and in man only to certain characters.
After remarking that negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity from certain
tropical diseases, he observed, first, that all animals tend to vary in some
degree, and, secondly, that agriculturalists improve their domesticated
animals by selection. He added that what is done in the latter case by art
seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature in the
formation of varieties of mankind fitted for the countries which they
inhabit. Again in 1831 Mr. Patrick Matthew published a work on "Naval
Timber and Arboriculture," in which he put forth precisely the same view

concerning the origin of species as that propounded by Mr. Wallace and by
Darwin. Unfortunately for himself, the view was cursorily suggested in
scattered passages of an appendix to a work on a different subject, so that it
remained unnoticed until Mr. Matthew himself drew attention to it in 1860,
after the publication of the "Origin of Species." We observe finally that Mr.
Herbert Spencer, in an essay published in 1852, and republished six years
later, contrasted the theories of the creation and the development of organic
beings. He argued from the analogy of domestic productions, from the
changes which the embryos of many species undergo, from the difficulty of
distinguishing species and varieties, and from the principle of general
gradation, that species have been modified; and he attributed the
modification to the change of circumstances.
The two volumes comprising the "Origin of Species" constitute, as the
author said, one long argument. It is, of course, impossible in the space at
our command to recapitulate in detail even the leading facts and inferences
which are brought forward to prove that species have been modified during
a long course of descent. We must confine ourselves to a succinct statement
of the author's general conclusions. What he undertakes to prove is that the
modification of species during a long course of descent has been effected
chiefly through the natural selection of numerous successive slight
favorable variations, aided in an important manner by the inherited effects
of the use and disuse of parts; and in an unimportant manner,--that is, in
relation to adaptive structures, whether past or present, by the direct action
of external conditions, and by variations which seem to us, in our
ignorance, to arise spontaneously. It should be observed that Darwin does
not attribute the modification exclusively to natural selection. What he
asserts is: "I am convinced that natural selection has been the main, but not
the exclusive, means of modification." He submits that a false theory would
hardly explain in so satisfactory a manner as does the theory of natural
selection the several large classes of facts marshalled in the two volumes
now under review. If it be objected that this is an unsafe method of arguing,
Darwin rejoins that it is a method usual in judging of the common events of
life, and has often been used by the greatest natural philosophers. The
undulatory theory of light, for instance, has thus been arrived at; and the
belief in the revolution of the earth on its own axis was, until lately,
supported by scarcely any direct evidence. It is no valid objection to the

Darwinian theory of the origin of species that science as yet throws no light
on the far higher problem of the essence or origin of life. Neither has any
one explained what is the essence of the attraction of gravity, though
nobody now objects to following out the results consequent on this
unknown element of attraction.
Why, it may be asked, did nearly all the most eminent naturalists and
geologists until recently decline to believe in the mutability of species?
Darwin replies that the belief that species were immutable productions was
almost unavoidable as long as the history of the world was thought to be of
short duration. Even now that we have acquired some idea of the lapse of
time, men are too apt to assume without proof that the geological record is
so perfect that it would have afforded plain evidence of the mutation of
species if they had really undergone mutation. The chief cause, however, of
the once-prevalent unwillingness to admit that one species has given birth
to other and distinct species is the fact that men are slow to admit great
changes of which they do not see the steps. The difficulty is the same which
was experienced by many geologists when Lyell first insisted that long lines
of inland cliffs had been formed and great valleys excavated, not by
catastrophes, but by the slow-moving agencies which we see still at work.
The human mind cannot grasp the full meaning of the term of even a
million years; cannot add up and perceive the full effects of many slight
variations accumulated during an almost infinite number of generations.
When the first edition of the "Origin of Species" was published in 1859,
Darwin wrote that he by no means expected to convince experienced
naturalists whose minds were stocked with a multitude of facts, all regarded
during a long course of years from a point of view directly opposite to his.
He looked forward with confidence, however, to the future, to young and
rising naturalists, who would be able to view both sides of the question with
impartiality. He predicted that, when the conclusions reached by him and by
Mr. Wallace concerning the origin of species should be generally accepted,
there would be a considerable revolution in natural history. Naturalists, for
instance, would be forced to acknowledge that the only distinction between
species and well-marked varieties is that the latter are known or believed to
be connected at the present day by intermediate gradations, whereas species
were formerly, though they are not now, thus connected. It might thus come
to pass that forms generally acknowledged in 1859 to be merely varieties,

would thereafter be thought worthy of specific names; in which case
scientific and common language would come into accordance. In short,
Darwin looked forward to the time when species would have to be treated
in the same manner as genera are treated by those naturalists who admit that
genera are merely artificial combinations made for convenience.
Darwin also foresaw that when his theory of the origin of species should
be adopted, other and more general departments of natural history would
rise greatly in interest. The terms used by naturalists--such terms as affinity,
relationship, community of type, paternity, morphology, adaptive
characters, rudimentary and abortive organs, etc.--would cease to be
metaphorical, and would have a plain signification. "When," he wrote, "we
no longer look at an organic being as a savage looks at a ship, as something
wholly beyond his comprehension; when we regard every production of
nature as one which has had a long history; when we contemplate every
complex structure and instinct as the summing up of many contrivances,
each useful to the possessor, in the same way as any great mechanical
invention is the summing up of the labor, the experience, the reason, and
even the blunders of numerous workmen; when we thus view each organic
being, how far more interesting--I speak from experience--does the study of
natural history become." Once more: "When we can feel assured that all the
individuals of the same species, and all the closely allied species of most
genera, have within a not very remote period descended from one parent,
and have migrated from some one birthplace; and when we better know the
many means of migration, then, by the light which geology now throws,
and will continue to throw, on former changes of climate and of the level of
the land, we shall surely be enabled to trace in an admirable manner the
former migrations of the inhabitants of the whole world."
When Darwin published the "Origin of Species," he was aware that
theologians and philosophers seemed to be fully satisfied with the view that
each species had been independently created, and was immutable. To his
own mind, however, it accorded better with what was known of the laws
impressed on matter by the Creator that the production and extinction of the
past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary
causes like those determining the birth and death of the individual. "When I
view," he said, "all beings not as special creations, but as the lineal
descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first bed of the

Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."
And again: "As all the living forms of life are the lineal descendants of
those which lived long before the Cambrian epoch, we may feel certain that
the ordinary succession by generation has never once been broken, and that
no cataclysm has desolated the whole world. Hence we may look with some
confidence to a secure future of great length. And as natural selection works
slowly by and for the good of each being, all corporeal and mental
endowments will tend to progress towards perfection."
For his own part, Darwin could see no good reason why the views
propounded in the two volumes comprising the "Origin of Species" should
shock the religious feelings of any one. Touching the likelihood of such a
result, he reassured himself by recalling the fact that the greatest discovery
ever made by man--namely, the law of the attraction of gravitation--was
attacked by Leibnitz "as subversive of natural, and inferentially, of revealed,
religion." Darwin was confident that, if any such impressions were made by
his theory, they would prove but transient, and that ultimately men would
come to see that it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that
He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and
needful forms as to believe that it required the fresh act of creation to
supply the voids caused by the action of His laws.

IV.
It was, as we have said, in 1868 that Darwin published the two volumes
collectively entitled "Variation of Animals and Plants under
Domestication." It is the second and largely corrected edition brought out in
1875 which we have under our eye. It is the outcome of the views
maintained by the author in this work and elsewhere that not only the
various domestic races but the most distinct genera and orders within the
same great class--for instance, mammals, birds, reptiles, and fishes--are all
the descendants of one common progenitor, and the whole vast amount of
difference between these forms has primarily arisen from simple variability.
Darwin recognized that he who for the first time should consider the subject
under this point of view would be struck dumb with amazement. He
submits, however, that the amazement ought to be lessened when we reflect
that beings almost infinite in number during an almost infinite lapse of time
have often had their whole organization rendered in some degree plastic,
and that each slight modification of structure which was in any way
beneficial under excessively complex conditions of life has been preserved,
whilst each which was in any way injurious has been rigorously destroyed.
The long-continued accumulation of beneficial variations will infallibly
have led to structures as diversified, as beautifully adapted for various
purposes, and as excellently co-ordinated as we see in the animals and
plants around us. Hence Darwin regards selection as the paramount power,
whether applied by man to the formation of domestic beings or by nature to
the production of species. Employing a favorite metaphor, he said: "If an
architect were to rear a noble and commodious edifice without the use of
cut stone, by selecting from the fragments at the base of a precipice wedge-
form stones for his arches, elongated stones for his lintels, and flat stones
for his roof, we should admire his skill and regard him as the paramount
power. Now, the fragments of stone, though indispensable to the architect,
bear to the edifice built by him the same relation which the fluctuating
variations of organic beings bear to the varied and admirable structures
ultimately acquired by their modified descendants."

Some critics of the Darwinian theory of the origin of species have
declared that natural selection explains nothing, unless the precise cause of
each slight individual difference be made clear. Darwin rejoins that if it
were explained to a savage utterly ignorant of the art of building how the
edifice had been raised, stone upon stone, and why wedge-formed
fragments were used for the arches, flat stones for the roof, etc.; and if the
use of each part and of the whole building were pointed out,--it would be
unreasonable if he declared that nothing had been made clear to him,
because the precise cause of the shape of each fragment could not be told.
This, in Darwin's opinion, is a nearly parallel case, with the objection that
selection explains nothing because we know not the cause of each
individual difference in the structure of each being. The shape of the
fragments of stone at the base of the hypothetical precipice may be called
accidental, but the term is not strictly applicable; for the shape of each
depends on a long sequence of events, all obeying natural laws; on the
nature of the rock, on the lines of deposition or cleavage, on the form of the
mountain, which depends on its upheaval and subsequent denudation, and,
lastly, on the storm or earthquake which throws down the fragments.
In regard to the use, however, to which the fragments may be put, their
shape may be strictly said to be accidental. Here Darwin acknowledged that
we are brought face to face with a great difficulty in alluding to which he
felt that he was travelling beyond his proper province. "An omniscient
Creator must have foreseen every consequence which results from the laws
imposed by Him. But can it be reasonably maintained that the Creator
intentionally ordered, if we use the words in any ordinary sense, that certain
fragments of rock should assume certain shapes, so that the builder might
erect his edifice? If the various laws which have determined the shape of
each fragment were not predetermined for the builder's sake, can it be
maintained with any greater probability that He specially ordained for the
sake of the breeder each of the innumerable variations in our domestic
animals and plants,--many of these variations being of no service to man,
and not beneficial, far more often injurious, to the creatures themselves?
Did He ordain that the crop and tail-feathers of the pigeon should vary in
order that the fancier might make his grotesque pouter and fan-tail breeds?
Did He cause the frame and mental qualities of the dog to vary in order that

a breed might be formed of indomitable ferocity with jaws fitted to pin
down the bull for man's brutal sport?"
It is obvious, however, that if we give up the principle in one case,--if we
do not admit that the variations of the primeval dog were intentionally
guided in order that the greyhound, for instance, that perfect image of
symmetry and vigor, might be formed,--no shadow of reason can be
assigned for the belief that variations similar in nature and the result of the
same general laws which have been the groundwork through natural
selection of the formation of the most perfectly adapted animals in the
world, man included, were intentionally and specially guided. Darwin,
therefore, was unable to follow the distinguished botanist, Prof. Asa Gray,
in his belief that "variation has been led along certain beneficial lines," like
a stream "along definite and useful lines of irrigation." Darwin's conclusion
was that, if we assume that each particular variation was from the beginning
of all time preordained, then that plasticity of organization which leads to
many injurious deviations of structure, as well as the redundant power of
reproduction which inevitably leads to a struggle for existence, and, as a
consequence, to a natural selection or survival of the fittest, must appear to
us superfluous laws of nature.

V.
Next to the "Origin of Species," the volume which sets forth Darwin's
theory of the "Descent of Man" naturally excited the most widespread
attention. This book, which took the author three years to write, was
published in 1871, a second and carefully revised edition appearing three
years later. The data brought together occupy more than six hundred pages.
The conclusions reached may be summed up in a few paragraphs. The
principal induction from the evidence is that man is descended from some
less highly organized form. It was Darwin's conviction that the grounds
upon which this conclusion rests will never be shaken, for the close
similarity between man and the lower animals in embryonic development,
as well as in innumerable points of structure and constitution, both of high
and of the most trifling importance,--the rudiments which he retains and the
abnormal reversions to which he is occasionally liable,--are facts which
cannot be disputed. Viewed in the light of our knowledge of the whole
organic world, their meaning is unmistakable. The great principle of
evolution stands out clear and firm when these groups of facts are
considered in connection with others, such as the mutual affinities of the
members of the same group, their geographical distribution in past and
present times, and their geological succession. It is pronounced incredible
that all these facts should speak falsely. He who is not content to look like a
savage at the phenomena of nature as disconnected cannot any longer
believe that man is the product of a separate act of creation. He will be
forced to admit that the close resemblance of the embryo of man to that, for
instance, of a dog,--the construction of his skull, limbs, and whole frame on
the same plan with that of other mammals, independently of the uses to
which the parts may be put; the occasional reappearance of various
structures, for instance, of several muscles which man does not normally
possess, but which are common to the Quadrumana, and a crowd of
analogous facts,--all point in the plainest manner to the conclusion that man
is the co-descendant with other mammals of a common progenitor.
Darwin recognized that the high standard of our intellectual powers and
moral disposition constitutes the greatest difficulty which presents itself

after we have been driven by the mass of biological evidence to accept his
conclusion as to the origin of man. Touching this point, he observes: "Every
one who admits the principle of evolution must see that the mental powers
of the higher animals, which are the same in kind with those of man, though
so different in degree, are capable of advancement. Thus the interval
between the mental powers of one of the higher apes and of a fish, or
between those of an ant and scale-insect, is immense; yet their development
does not offer any special difficulty, for with our domesticated animals the
mental faculties are certainly variable, and the variations are inherited. No
one doubts that their mental faculties are of the utmost importance to
animals in a state of nature. Therefore the conditions are favorable for their
development through natural selection. The same conclusion may be
extended to man; the intellect must have been all-important to him, even at
a very remote period, as enabling him to invent and use language, to make
weapons, tools, traps, etc., whereby, with the aid of his social habits, he
long ago became the most dominant of all living creatures."
It is further pointed out that a great stride in the development of man's
intellect must have followed as soon as the half-art and half-instinct of
language came into use; for the continued use of language must have
reacted on the brain, and produced an inherited effect, and this again will
have reacted on the improvement of language. The largeness of the brain in
man relatively to his body, compared with the size of that organ in the lower
animals, is attributable in chief part to the early use of some simple form of
language, that engine which affixes signs to all sorts of objects and
qualities, and excites trains of thought which would never arise from the
mere impression of the senses, or, if they did arise, could not be followed
out. The higher intellectual powers of man, such as those of ratiocination,
abstraction, self-consciousness, etc., probably follow from the continued
improvement and exercise of the other mental faculties.
How man's moral qualities came to be developed is an interesting
problem which is considered by Darwin at some length. He holds that their
foundation lies in the social instincts under which term are included family
ties. These instincts are highly complex, and, in the case of the lower
animals, give special tendencies toward certain definite actions. But the
more important elements are love and the distinct emotion of sympathy.
Animals endowed with the social instincts take pleasure in one another's

company, warn one another of danger, defend and aid one another in many
ways. These instincts do not extend to all the individuals of the species, but
only to those of the same community. As, however, they are highly
beneficial to the species, they have in all probability been acquired through
natural selection. In Darwin's judgment the moral nature of man has reached
its present standard partly through the advancement of his reasoning
powers, and consequently, of a just public opinion, but especially from his
sympathies having been rendered more tender and widely diffused through
the effects of habit, example, instruction, and reflection. It is pronounced
not improbable that, after long practice, virtuous tendencies may be
inherited.
Let us look a little more closely at the matter, for the difficulty of
explaining morality forms one of the greatest obstacles to the acceptance of
the Darwinian account of the descent of man. What do we mean by a moral
being? Manifestly, a moral being is one who is capable of reflecting on his
past actions and their motives, and of approving of some while he
disapproves of others. Man is the one being who certainly deserves this
designation, though attempts have recently been made to show that a
rudimentary morality may be traced in some of the lower animals. In the
fourth chapter of the book before us, Darwin undertakes to demonstrate that
the moral sense follows,--first, from the enduring and ever-present nature of
the social instincts; secondly, from man's appreciation of the approbation
and disapprobation of his fellows; and, thirdly, from the high activity of his
mental faculties, with past impressions extremely vivid; in these latter
respects he differs from the lower animals. Owing to this condition of mind,
man cannot avoid looking both backwards and forwards, and comparing
past impressions. Hence, after some temporary desire or passion has
mastered his social instincts, he reflects and compares the now weakened
impression of such past impulses with the ever-present social instincts; and
he then feels that sense of dissatisfaction which all unsatisfied instincts
leave behind them, and resolves to act differently for the future. This
dissatisfaction Darwin would identify with conscience. Any instinct
permanently stronger or more enduring than another gives rise to a feeling
which we express by saying that it ought to be obeyed. Darwin suggests that
a pointer dog, if able to reflect on his past conduct, would say to himself I

ought (as indeed we say of him) to have pointed at that hare, and not have
yielded to the passing temptation of hunting it.
The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest, but
the most decisive, of all the distinctions between man and the lower
animals. Darwin brings forward in the book before us a quantity of reasons
for holding it to be impossible that this belief is innate or instinctive in man.
In some races of men, for instance, we encounter a total want of the idea of
God. On the other hand, a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to
be universal, and apparently follows from a considerable advance in man's
reason, and from a still greater advance in the faculties of imagination,
curiosity, and wonder. "I am aware," says Darwin, "that the assumed
instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for
His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled
to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits only a little
more powerful than man; for the belief in them is far more general than in a
beneficent deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not
seem to arise in the mind of man until he has been elevated by long-
continued culture."
How does the belief in the advancement of man from some low
organized form bear on the belief in the immortality of the soul? Sir John
Lubbock has proved that the barbarous races of man possess no clear belief
of the kind; but, as Darwin continually reminds us, arguments derived from
the primeval beliefs of savages are of little or no avail on either side of a
question. Attention is directed by Darwin to the more relevant fact that few
persons feel any anxiety from the impossibility of determining at what
precise period in the development of the individual, from the first trace of a
minute germinal vesicle, man becomes an immortal being. He submits that
there should be no greater cause for anxiety because the period cannot
possibly be determined in the gradually ascending organic scale.
Darwin was well aware that the conclusions arrived at in the work before
us--namely, that man is descended from some lowly organized form--would
be highly distasteful to many. The very persons, however, who regard the
conclusions with distaste admit without hesitation that they are descended
from barbarians. Darwin recalls the astonishment which he himself felt on
first seeing a party of Fuegians on a wild and broken shore, when the

reflection rushed upon his mind that such men had been his ancestors.
These men were absolutely naked and bedaubed with paint, their long hair
was tangled, their mouths frothed with excitement, and their expression was
wild, startled, and distrustful. They possessed hardly any arts, and, like wild
animals, lived on what they could catch; they had no government, and were
merciless to every one not of their own small tribe. Remembering the
impression made on him by the Fuegians, Darwin suggests that he who has
seen a savage in his native land will not feel much shame if forced to
acknowledge that the blood of some more humble creature flows in his
veins. "For my own part," he says, "I would as soon be descended from that
heroic little monkey who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life
of his keeper,--or from that old baboon, who, descending from the
mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of
astonished dogs,--as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies,
offers up bloody sacrifices, practises infanticide without remorse, treats his
wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest
superstitions." Darwin holds, in fine, that man may be excused for feeling
some pride at having risen, though not through his own exertions, to the
very summit of the organic scale; it is further submitted that the fact of his
having thus risen, instead of having been aboriginally placed there, may
give him hope for a still higher destiny in the distant future.
As a scientist, however, Darwin is not concerned with hopes or fears, but
simply with the truth, as man's reason enables him to discern it. We must
recognize, he thinks, as the truth, established by an overwhelming array of
inductive evidence, that man, with all his noble qualities, with sympathy
which he feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not
only to other men, but to the humblest living creature, with his godlike
intellect, which has penetrated into the movements and constitution of the
solar system--with all these exalted powers--man still bears in his bodily
frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.

VI.
We have said that Darwin's theory of the origin of species, together with
its corollary, the descent of man, has met with almost universal acceptance
by scientists. We have to use the qualifying adverb, because some of
Darwin's contemporaries, including Virchow and Owen, not to mention St.
George Mivart and the Duke of Argyll, have withheld their adhesion. Since
his death, moreover, his disciples have tended to split into two schools. On
the one hand, Weismann has rejected the Lamarckian factors,--the effect of
use and disuse upon organs, and the transmissibility of acquired characters.
The importance of these factors has been emphatically re-asserted, on the
other hand, by Lankester and others. Whether biologists, however, range
themselves in the Neo-Darwinian or in the Neo-Lamarckian camp, the
value of the principle of natural selection is acknowledged by all, and
nobody now asserts the independent creation and permanence of species.

AUTHORITIES.
The Complete Works of Darwin, published by D. Appleton and
Company.
The Works of Alfred Russel Wallace.
Francis Darwin's "Life of Charles Darwin."
Huxley's Writings, passim.
Haeckel's "Natural History of Creation."
Weismann's "Studies in the Theory of Descent" and subsequent papers.
Romanes's "Scientific Evidences of Organic Evolution."
Lankester's "Degeneration."
Fiske's "Darwinism and Other Essays."

For adverse criticism of Darwin, read Mivart's "Genesis of Species," and
the Duke of Argyll's "Unity of Nature."

JOHN ERICSSON.

1803-1889.
NAVIES OF WAR AND COMMERCE.
BY W.F. DURAND, PH.D.

The exact combination of inspiration, heredity, and environment which
serves to produce genius will perhaps ever be a problem beyond the skill of
human intelligence. When the rare elements do combine, however, the
result is always worthy of most careful study, both because great
achievements furnish a healthy stimulus to emulation, and because some
glimpse may be gained of Nature's working in the formation of her rarest
products.
Few lives better illustrate these remarks than that of John Ericsson. Born
of middle-class parentage and with no apparent source of heredity from
which to draw the stores of genius which he displayed throughout his life,
and with surroundings in boyhood but little calculated to awaken and
inspire the life-work which later made him famous, from this beginning and
with these early surroundings John Ericsson became unquestionably the
greatest of the engineers of the age in which he lived and of the century
which witnessed such mighty advances along all engineering lines. The
imprint left by Ericsson's life on the engineering practice of his age was
deep and lasting, and if one may dare look into the future, the day is far
removed when engineers will have passed beyond their dependence on his
life and labors.
It is perhaps not amiss that, before looking more closely at the
achievements of Ericsson's life and activity, note should be taken of the
large dependence of our present civilization and mode of life on the
engineer and his work.

In different ages of the world's history each has received its name,
appropriate or fanciful as the case may have been. For the modern age no
name is perhaps more adequately descriptive than the "Age of Energy," the
age in which our entire fabric of civilization rests upon the utilization of the
energies of nature for the needs of humanity, and to an extent little
appreciated by those who have not considered the matter from this point of
view. If we consider the various elements which enter into our modern
civilization,--the items which enter into the daily life of the average man or
woman; the items which we have come to consider as necessities and those
which we may consider as luxuries; the items which go to make up our
needs as expressed in terms of shelter, food, intercommunication between
man and his fellow, and pleasure,--the most casual consideration of such
will serve to show distributed throughout almost the entire fabric of our
civilization dependence at some point on the power of the steam-engine, the
water-wheel, or windmill, the subtle electric current, or the heat-energy of
coal, petroleum oil, or natural gas. The harnessing and efficient utilization
of these great natural energies is the direct function of the engineer, or more
especially of the dynamic engineer, and in this noble guild of workers,
Ericsson carved for himself an enduring place and left behind a record
which should serve as an inspiration to all who are following the same
pathway in later years.
No one feature perhaps better differentiates our modern civilization from
that of earlier times, four hundred years ago, or even one hundred, than that
of intercommunication between man and his fellow. Compare the
opportunities for such intercommunication in the present with those in the
time of Queen Elizabeth, Sir Isaac Newton, George Washington, or
Napoleon I. We now have our steamships, steam and electric railroads,
cable, telegraph, and telephone. A few years ago not a single one was
known. The modern age is one which demands the utmost in the possibility
of communication between man and his kind, and in this respect the wide
world is now smaller than the confines of an English county a century ago.
In this field, as we shall see, Ericsson did some of his greatest work, and
left perhaps his most permanent record for the future.
Ericsson's life falls most naturally into three periods chronologically or
geographically, and likewise into three periods professionally, though the

latter mode of subdivision has by no means the same boundaries as the
former. The first mode of subdivision gives us the life in Sweden, the life in
England, and the life in the United States. The second mode gives us the life
of struggle and obscurity, the life of struggle, achievement, and recognition,
and the calmer and easier life of declining years with recognition, reward,
and the assurance of a life's work well done.
John Ericsson was born in the province of Vermland, Sweden, in 1803.
His father was Olof Ericsson, a mine owner and inspector who was well
educated after the standard of his times, having graduated at the college in
Karlstad, the principal town of the province. His mother was Britta Sophia
Yngstrom, a woman of Flemish-Scotch descent, and to whom Ericsson
seems to have owed many of his stronger characteristics. Three children
were born: Caroline in 1800, Nils in 1802, and John in 1803. Of John's
earliest boyhood we have but slight record, but there seems to have been a
clear foreshadowing of his future genius. He was considered the wonder of
the neighborhood, and busied himself day after day with the machinery of
the mines, drawing the form on paper with his rude tools or making models
with bits of wood and cord, and endeavoring thus to trace the mystery of its
operation.
In 1811 the Ericsson family fell upon evil times. Due to a war with
Russia, business became disturbed and in the end Olof Ericsson became
financially ruined. This brought the little family face to face with the
realities of life, and we soon after find the father occupying a position as
inspector on the Göta Canal, a project which was just then occupying
serious attention after having been neglected for nearly one hundred years,
and nearly three hundred years after it was first proposed in 1526. Through
this connection, in 1815, John and Nils Ericsson were appointed as cadets in
a corps of Mechanical Engineers to be employed in carrying out the
Government's plans with reference to the canal. During the winter of 1816-
17 and at the age of thirteen, John Ericsson received regular instruction
from some of his officers in Algebra, Chemistry, Field Drawing, and
Geometry, and the English language. Ericsson's education previous to this
seems to have consisted chiefly in lessons at home or from tutors, after the
manner of the time. He had thus received instruction in the ordinary
branches and in drawing and some chemistry. His training in drawing seems
to have been unusually thorough and comprehensive, and with a natural

genius for such work, his later remarkable skill at the drawing board is
doubtless in no small measure due to the excellent instruction which he
received in his early years. His progress in his duties as a young engineer
was rapid, and he was soon given employment in connection with the canal-
work, involving much responsibility and calling for experience and skill.
At length on reaching the age of seventeen he became stirred with
military ambition, and, dissatisfied with his present prospects, he left his
position with its opportunities for the future, and entered the Swedish army
as ensign of a regiment of Field Chasseurs. This regiment was famous for
its rifle practice, and Ericsson was soon one of its most expert marksmen.
The routine of army life was, however, far from being sufficient to satisfy
the uneasy genius of John Ericsson, and we soon find him engaged in
topographical surveying for the Government, and so rapid and industrious
in his work that as the surveyors were paid in accordance with the amount
accomplished, he was carried on the pay rolls as two men, and paid as such,
in order that the amount which he received might not seem too excessive
for one individual. Even this was not sufficient to exhaust his energy, and
about this time he conceived the idea of publishing a book of plates
descriptive of the machinery commonly employed in the mining operations
of his day. To this end he collected a large number of sketches which he had
prepared in his earlier years, and made arrangements to take up the work of
preparation for publication. The drawings selected were to be engraved for
the book, and, nothing daunted by the undertaking, Ericsson proposed to do
this work himself. After some discouragement the engraving was
undertaken, and eighteen copper plates of the sixty-five selected, averaging
in size fifteen by twenty inches, were completed within a year. In various
ways the project met with delays, and it soon became apparent that the rapid
advance in the applications of machinery to mining would render the work
out of date, and it was at length abandoned.
At about this time Ericsson seems to have taken up seriously his work on
his so-called "flame-engine," certain experiments made by his father having
suggested to him the hope that a source of power might in this way be
developed which would be more economical than the steam-engine. At this
point we see entering into Ericsson's life an idea which never left him,
which controlled much of his work in mid-life, and which attracted no small
part of his attention throughout his closing years. This idea was the

discovery of some form of heat-engine which should be more economical
than the steam-engine, especially as it was in his day. The flame-engine idea
grew rapidly, and soon absorbed his chief attention. Military life now lost
its attraction, and in 1826 obtaining leave of absence he left his native land
and turned his face toward London, doubtless with the hope strong within
him that a substitute for the steam-engine had been found, and that his
future lay secure and easy before him.
The characteristic features of Ericsson's life up to this time, when he had
reached his twenty-third year, are energy, industry, independence, all in
most pronounced degree, and combined with a most astonishing insight into
mechanical and scientific questions. It was not a period of achievement, but
one of formation and of development in those qualities which were soon to
make him famous in both worlds. Of his work during this period of life
little or nothing outside the idea embodied in the flame-engine can be said
to belong to the permanent record of his life's achievement. This appeared
in the "Caloric" engine, and still later in the well-known Ericsson "Air"
engine of the present day.
This era was one of development and promise, and richly were the
promises fulfilled in the achievements of his later years. A careful study of
his life to this point is sufficient to show that, with health and time, such a
nature would certainly leave a mark wide and deep on the world in which it
was placed. His characteristics were such that achievement was the very
essence of life, and, with the promise and potency as revealed in this first
twenty-three years of his life, we may be well prepared for the brilliant
record of the remaining sixty-three.
With Ericsson's arrival in London began the second important period of
his life. His first efforts were directed toward the introduction of the flame-
engine, but he soon found unexpected difficulties in the use of coal as fuel
instead of wood, and it became clear that in order to live he must turn his
attention to other matters for a time. Then followed a series of remarkable
pieces of work in which Ericsson's genius showed itself, either in original
invention or in the adaptation and improvement of the existing facts and
material of engineering practice. While thus occupied, his leave from his
regiment expired, and he seems to have overlooked taking proper steps to
have it renewed. He was thus placed technically in the attitude of a deserter.

Through the intervention of a friend, however, he was soon afterward
restored, and promoted to the rank of Captain in the Swedish Army. This
commission he immediately resigned, and thus his record became
technically cleared of all reproach.
To give a mere list of the work with which Ericsson was occupied during
the years from 1827 to 1839, when he removed to the United States, would
be no small task, and reference to the more important only can be here
made. Compressed air for transmitting power, forced draft for boilers by
means of centrifugal blowers, steam boilers of new and improved types, the
surface condenser for marine engines, the location of the engines of a ship
for war purposes below the water line, the steam fire-engine, the design and
construction of the "Novelty" (a locomotive for the Rainhill contest in 1829,
when Stephenson's "Rocket" was awarded the prize, though Ericsson,
heavily handicapped in time and by lack of a track on which to adjust and
perfect the "Novelty," achieved a result apparently in many ways superior to
Stephenson's with the "Rocket"), various designs for rotary engines, an
apparatus for making salt from brine, further experimental work with
various forms of heat, or so-called "caloric" engines, and the final
development, in 1833, of a type from which great results were for a time
expected, superheated steam and engines for its use, a deep-sea-sounding
apparatus embodying the same principle as that later developed by Lord
Kelvin in the well-known apparatus of the present day, a machine for
cutting files automatically, various types of steam-engines, and finally his
work in connection with the introduction of the screw-propeller as a means
of propulsion for steam vessels. These are some of the important lines of
work on which Ericsson was engaged during the twelve years of his life in
London. In connection with some he was undoubtedly a pioneer, and
deserves credit as an original inventor; in connection with others, his work
was that of improvement or adaptation; but in all his influence was
profound, and the legacy which we have received from this period of
engineering progress is due in no small degree to Ericsson, and to his work
in London during these years. At a later point we shall refer in some further
detail to these questions, but desire for the moment, rather, to gain a broad
and comprehensive view of his life as a whole.
Ericsson has been by some called a spendthrift in invention, and the term
is not without some justice in its application. His genius was uneasy, and his

mind was oppressed by the wealth of his ideas. It was this very wealth
which led him from one idea to another, without always taking sufficient
time in which to develop and perfect his plans. Rich in invention, he cared
but little for exploitation, and when the truth of his predictions was
demonstrated, or the ground of his expectation justified, he was eager for
new achievements and new combinations of the materials of engineering
progress. In this spirit of struggle and unrest, he passed the years in London,
rapidly becoming known for his versatility in invention, and for his daring
and originality in the details of his engineering work. From 1833 to 1839, or
during the second half of this term of residence in London, he became in
increasing measure absorbed in his work connected with the screw-
propeller as a means of marine propulsion.
Ericsson's name in the popular mind has been most commonly associated
with the "Monitor" and her fight with the "Merrimac" in the Civil War, and
next, probably, with the screw-propeller as a means of marine propulsion. It
will, therefore, be proper at the present point to refer in some further detail
to the circumstances connected with his relation to the introduction of the
screw-propeller.
Regarding this question an entire volume might be written without doing
more than justice to the subject, but only a brief statement of the chief facts
can be here attempted.
As early as the Seventeenth Century the possibility of developing a
propulsive thrust by the use of a submerged helicoidal, or screw, propeller,
had been vaguely recognized, and during the following, or Eighteenth
Century, the same idea had been brought forward. It had been viewed in this
connection, however, merely as a curiosity, and led to no immediate results.
Later, in 1804, Francis B. Stevens, of New Jersey, in an experimental boat
on the Hudson, operated twin screws, and demonstrated their applicability
to the requirements of marine practice. These propellers, in fact, had a form
far more nearly approaching the modern screw-propeller than did those
which came somewhat later, and which marked the real entry of the screw-
propeller into actual and practical service.
Again, in 1812, Ressel, a student in the University of Vienna, began to
study the screw-propeller, and his first drawing dates from this time. In

1826 he carried on experiments in a barge driven by hand, and in 1827 an
Austrian patent was granted him. Two years later he applied his screw to a
boat with an engine of six horse-power, and a speed of six miles per hour
was said to have been attained. Then came a bursting steam-pipe, and the
police put a stop to the experiments, which seem to have had no further
results.
Likewise in 1823 Captain Delisle, of the French Engineers, presented a
memorial to his Government in which he urged the use of the submerged
propeller for the propulsion of steam vessels. No especial attention was
given to the suggestion, however, and it was apparently forgotten until later,
when the propeller had become a demonstrated success. Then this memorial
was remembered, and its author brought forward to receive his share of
credit in connection with the adaptation of the propeller to marine
propulsion.
These various attempts to introduce the screw-propeller seem curiously
enough to have had no lasting result. They were not followed up, and in the
mean time had to some extent passed out of memory, or, if remembered, the
absence of result can hardly have acted as an incentive to fresh effort. At the
same time it must be admitted that the screw-propeller as a possibility for
marine propulsion was known in a vague way to the engineering practice of
the day, and it is at this time of course quite impossible to say how much
may have been known by Ericsson, Smith, or others concerned in later
developments, or to what extent they may have been dependent for
suggestion on what had preceded them. The question of who invented the
screw-propeller in the absolute sense is entirely futile and without answer.
No one could ever have reasonably advanced any such unique claim. At the
best it is simply a question of the relative influence in the introduction,
improvement, and practical application of what was the common property
of the engineering practice of the day.
In 1833, or at the period now under consideration, however, the paddle-
wheel was the recognized instrument of marine propulsion. Since the
beginning of the century it had been growing in use with the gradual growth
in the application of steam, and at this time it held the field alone. Some
years earlier it appears that some of the objections to the paddle-wheel had
become plainly apparent to Ericsson, although, occupied with other matters

as he was, there was no immediate result. He apparently recognized that the
slow revolutions possible with the paddle-wheel did not favor the
improvement of the steam-engine along the lines which have since been
followed, and he saw clearly that for warship purposes the engines
employed, exposed above the water-line to destruction from the shell of an
enemy, were entirely out of the question. Finally in 1833 and 1834 we find
him employed by a carrying company in London to conduct numerous trials
with submerged propellers in the London and Birmingham canal. In an
affidavit made in March, 1845, he states that in 1833 his attention was
particularly called to the subject of oblique propulsion, and that under his
direction propellers of various patterns and embodying these principles
were fitted on a canal-boat named the "Francis," and later in 1834 to
another called the "Annatorius." Shortly after this, or in 1835, his ideas took
more definite form, and he refers to his work in a letter to his friend John
Bourne in the following terms:--
"1835. Designed a rotary propeller to be actuated by steam-power
consisting of a series of segments of a screw attached to a thin broad hoop
supported by arms so twisted as also to form part of a screw. The propeller
subsequently applied to the steamship 'Princeton' was identical with my said
design of 1835. Even the mode adopted to determine, by geometrical
construction, the twist of the blades and arms of the 'Princeton's' and other
propellers was identical with my design of the year last mentioned."
At about this same time, or in 1835, the attention of Mr. F.P. Smith seems
to have been drawn to the subject of the screw-propeller, and we find him
taking out a patent for his form, consisting of an elongated helix or spiral of
several turns, under date of May 31, 1836. Ericsson's patent followed some
six weeks later, or on July 13, 1836. While it thus appears that Ericsson had
been studying the problem since 1833 or earlier, according to his own
statements, there is no evidence that Smith's attention was drawn to the
matter earlier than 1835. Delay on Ericsson's part in the matter of patent
gives the earlier date to Smith. The mere date of a patent, however, is of
small moment for our present purposes. It must be admitted that the modern
form of screw-propeller is quite unlike either of these original forms,
although they all involve of course the same fundamental principles.
Ericsson's propeller may properly be called an engineering success, built on
sound principles, but improved and largely modified by the results of later

experience and research. Smith's propeller, while capable of propelling a
boat, was the design of an amateur rather than of an engineer, and in
comparison with Ericsson's seemed to show a somewhat less accurate
appreciation of the underlying principles upon which the propeller operates.
In the present case, as we have noted above, the question is not so much
one of invention as of influence in introduction, adaptation, and
improvement. The screw-propeller was already known, but had not been
introduced into and made a part of actual engineering practice. Services in
this direction are all that can be claimed for any of those concerned with the
question during the third decade of the Nineteenth Century. From this point
of view we must give to Ericsson large credit. He had the courage of his
convictions, and did not allow his work in this direction to lapse for lack of
effort on his part to secure its introduction into the practice of the day.
Thus, in 1837, the "Francis B. Ogden" was built for the special purpose
of testing the power of the screw-propeller, and was operated on the
Thames for the benefit of the British Admiralty and many others. Shortly
after this, and largely through the influence of Capt. Robert F. Stockton of
the American Navy and Francis B. Ogden, the American Consul at
Liverpool, Ericsson began to consider a visit to the United States for the
purpose of building, under Stockton's auspices, a vessel for the United
States Navy. While these negotiations were under way, in 1838, he built for
Captain Stockton a screw-steamer named the "Robert F. Stockton," the
trials of which attracted much attention from the public at large and from
engineers of the time. At about the same period Ericsson's propeller was
fitted to a canal-boat called the "Novelty," plying between Manchester and
London. This was presumably the first instance of a screw-propeller
employed on a vessel actually used for commercial purposes.
Finally, in pursuance of Ericsson's plans with Captain Stockton, he left
England Nov. 1, 1839, and started for New York in the steamer "Great
Western," where he arrived November 23, after a long and stormy passage.
We now reach the final scene of Ericsson's life and professional
activities. His visit was at first intended only as temporary, and he seems to
have anticipated an early return after carrying out his plans with reference
to a ship for the United States Navy. To quote from a letter to his friend, Mr.

John O. Sargent, he says: "I visited this country at Mr. Ogden's most earnest
solicitations to introduce my propeller on the canals and inland waters of
the United States. I had at the same time strong reasons for supposing that
Stockton would be able to start the 'big frigate' for which I had prepared
such laborious plans in England." The event was otherwise determined,
however, and during the remaining fifty years of his life he lived and
wrought in the New World, and as a citizen of his adopted country.
If the record of his twelve years of work in London was long, that for the
remaining and maturer years of his life may well be imagined as vastly
greater. During the earlier part of this period, or until the Civil War, when
all his energies were concentrated upon his work in connection with the
"Monitor" type of warship, we find the same wealth of invention and
human energy, but for the most part directed along lines related to marine
and naval construction. It was a period of training for the fuller fruitage of
his genius during the Civil War.
Shortly after his arrival, or in 1840, a prize was offered by the Mechanics'
Institute of New York for the best plan of a steam fire-engine. With his
previous experience in London, Ericsson easily carried off the palm and
was awarded the prize. He further occupied himself with the introduction of
propellers on boats engaged in the inland navigation of the United States,
with the design and construction of the United States steam frigate
"Princeton," with the development of the compound principle in the steam-
engine, then in 1851 with his hot-air ship "Ericsson," or ship propelled by
hot-air or caloric engines, as they were then termed, and later with caloric
engines in smaller sizes for stationary purposes, of which several thousand
were sold during the next succeeding years.
In the work of introducing his propellers good progress was made,
especially in boats built for use on the Great Lakes, so that by 1844, when
the U.S.S. "Princeton" went into commission, there were in use some
twenty-five vessels with the screw-propeller as a means of propulsion.
The project of building a vessel for the American Navy, the purpose
which had most strongly attracted Ericsson to the United States, suffered
long delay in connection with the arrangements between Captain Stockton
and the naval authorities at Washington. At length, in 1841, Captain

Stockton was authorized to proceed with the construction of a screw steam
frigate of about one thousand tons. This was the U.S.S. "Princeton," which
marks an epoch as the first screw vessel-of-war. She was followed by the
French "Pomone" in 1843, and the English "Amphion" in 1844, for the
equipment of which Ericsson's agent in England, Count Von Rosen,
received commissions from the French and English governments
respectively.
The "Princeton" was completed in due time and was equipped with two
12-inch wrought-iron guns, one brought by Ericsson from England and one
designed and built under the direction of Captain Stockton. At the trials of
the ship in 1844 the latter gun exploded, killing the Secretaries of State and
of the Navy, besides other prominent visitors on board, and wounding
several others. This terrible disaster threw an entirely undeserved stigma
upon the ship herself and upon Ericsson's work, and it was not until many
years after that his name was entirely free from some kind of reproach in
connection with the "Princeton" and the deplorable results of the accident
on board.
These are some of the principal lines of work with which Ericsson
occupied himself during the twenty-two years between 1839 and 1861. At
the latter date came the supreme opportunity of his life, and his services in
the art of naval construction during the remainder of the Civil War, which
was then in progress, are a part of the history of that great struggle. Here, as
with the propeller, volumes might be written in the attempt to give a full
account of the inception, growth, and final vindication of Ericsson's ideas
regarding naval offence and defence, as expressed by the means available in
the engineering practice of the day. The leading points only can be
summarized.
The question of armored ships was in the air. The advantages of armor
had been already demonstrated on the French ship "Gloire" and others in
connection with the naval part of the Crimean War, and there was a feeling
that ironclads of some kind were a necessity of the situation. These facts
were perhaps more clearly realized at the South than at the North; and early
in 1861 we find Mr. Stephen R. Mallory, the Confederate Secretary of the
Navy, taking active steps to raise the "Merrimac," which had been sunken at
the Norfolk Navy Yard, and convert her into an armor-clad. Information

regarding this project naturally became known to the Federal authorities,
and occasioned President Lincoln and the entire Cabinet the most serious
anxiety. At length on August 3, 1861, the appointment of a Board was
authorized, the duty of which it should be to examine into the question
fully, obtain plans, and recommend the construction of such armor-clads as
they should judge best suited to the demands of the situation.
Shortly after this, Ericsson forwarded to President Lincoln a
communication in which he offered to construct a vessel "for the
destruction of the Rebel fleet at Norfolk and for scouring the Southern
rivers and inlets of all craft protected by Rebel batteries." For one reason or
another this communication does not seem to have produced any immediate
result. Later, however, when the Board made its report dated September 16,
they registered the opinion that the present demand called for "vessels
invulnerable to shot, of light draft of water, before going into a more perfect
system of large iron-clad seagoing vessels of war." In pursuance of this idea
they recommended the construction of three vessels,--Ericsson's floating
battery, a broadside vessel later known as the "Ironsides," and the "Galena."
Mr. C.S. Bushnell, who was instrumental in bringing Ericsson's plans
actually before the Board, later associated with himself and Ericsson in the
project two gentlemen of means, and large manufacturers of iron plate, Mr.
John A. Griswold and Mr. John F. Winslow, who advanced most of the
money needed, Mr. Bushnell supplying the remainder. The keel was laid
Oct. 25, 1861, and the "Monitor," as she was named by Ericsson, was
launched Jan. 30, 1862, and was turned over to the Government Feb. 19,
1862. This brief record of construction leaves untold all history of the
ceaseless struggle against time and of the superb organization and
distribution of the work which made possible the completion of such a piece
of work in the period of one hundred working days.
One important fact which goes far to explain this astonishing speed in
design and construction is found in the fact that Ericsson was not dealing
with an entirely new and freshly developed proposition. He has stated that
the thought of a floating battery, which should be small in size, but
impregnable to the heaviest guns known and yet heavily armed herself, had
long occupied his thoughts in connection with the problem of the defence of
Sweden. Ericsson never forgot his native land, and gave to her political
troubles and to the question of her defence against her more powerful

neighbors much serious thought. As a result of this study, he had produced
as early as 1854 a design embodying all the essential features of the
"Monitor," and this design, shown by a model, was in that year sent to
Napoleon III., who was then at war with Russia. This was in the hope that
he might in this way contribute to the overthrow of the latter, the hereditary
enemy of his native land.
The design, however, was not adopted, and after it was returned was laid
aside to collect the dust of his office, until the experiences of the Civil War
brought it again to the light. The plan in all its main features had therefore
long been matured, and it only remained to proceed rapidly with the details
and with the realization of the idea in the most suitable materials to be
obtained.
The result of the battle between the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac" in
Hampton Roads is a part of history. The relentless devastation which the
latter had begun on the old wooden ships of the American Navy at Hampton
Roads was stayed, and the wild fears at the North concerning the
destruction which she might cause to the shipping and to the seaboard cities
was calmed. The "Merrimac" met her master, and retired from the conflict
crippled and shorn of power for further evil. A short time later she sank
beneath the waters of the Chesapeake, and is now remembered only as the
antagonist of the "Monitor."
If the result of this battle between the "Monitor" and the "Merrimac"
marked a turning-point in the naval aspect of the Civil War, it wrought a no
less marked change in the standing and fortunes of her designer. Some of
his engineering efforts had not met with the success for which he or his
friends had hoped. The engines of the air-ship, while a success as a piece of
mechanism, were so enormous and heavy that she had to be considered as a
commercial failure, and the venture was not repeated; the deplorable
accident on the "Princeton" was by some held to be in part chargeable to
Ericsson, though a later and full knowledge of the circumstances shows that
such was in no wise the case. Again, Ericsson, as an experimenter and
pioneer, was by some considered as a dreamer, and before the "Monitor"
was completed there was no lack of croakers who prophesied failure or who
openly ridiculed the idea. This condition was of course natural. In many
ways Ericsson was ahead of his age; and, again, it must not be supposed

that he avoided mistakes or that all of his work fully realized the
expectations which were based upon it. Furthermore, Ericsson's spirit was
proud, and he was little disposed to accept criticism from those whom he
felt to be unqualified to pass adequate judgment on his work, while he was
especially impatient under the system by which government work was
done. He was therefore but little disposed to pleasantly submit to the
exasperating delays and interferences with his work which arose from the
methods of doing public business, and it is no more than the simple truth to
say that during the preceding years the relations between Ericsson and the
officials of the Navy Department had often become seriously strained, and
they were seldom in cordial accord regarding the various questions which
arose in connection with his public work.
With the demonstration made by the "Monitor," however, the attitude of
the public changed in a moment, and Ericsson was hailed on every hand as
a public benefactor. He received the thanks of Congress on March 28, 1862,
and of the Legislature of the State of New York a little later. Besides these,
he was the recipient of numbers of memorials and mementoes, and of such
praise in every form as might well have disturbed the equilibrium of a mind
less well balanced. In all this change of public opinion, the one thing which
must have given him the deepest satisfaction was the change in the attitude
of the naval authorities at Washington. He was now considered as one
whose ideas had demonstrated their right to serious and respectful attention,
and a large fleet of vessels of the monitor type was ordered, similar to but
larger than the prototype, and containing such minor changes as experience
had suggested. Yet even this was not accomplished without objection. The
officers of the navy were accustomed to the old type of wooden ship, and
were slow to realize that naval war was, after all, an engineering problem,
and that the ideas of the engineer must now be substituted for those which
had been sanctified by long ages of past experience. Still, the demonstration
was too convincing to admit of serious question, and Ericsson and his
associates in business were busily occupied during the remainder of the war
in the design and construction of a numerous fleet of vessels of the monitor
type.
Ericsson's work during this period was enormous. One design followed
another in quick succession, while work of supervision and inspection and
cares of a business nature all combined to make a burden which would have

broken down a nature less determined and self-centred, and a body less
inured to physical endurance and sustained nervous tension.
This prodigious load was not so much but that he found time to devote to
the needs of other nations, and in 1862 he offered to construct for the
Chilian government a monitor similar to those under construction for the
United States, while later a similar offer was made to the Peruvian
Government. With the close of the Civil War Ericsson found still further
time to devote to the introduction of this type of vessel into foreign navies,
and a considerable part of his time seems to have been occupied with
projects of this character, and more particularly with the question of the
naval defence of his native land. As regards the introduction of warships of
the monitor type, the results were not so pronounced as might have been
expected, and while the influence of the idea is seen in the practice of every
maritime nation in regard to the construction of its warships, still, for the
most part, the leading nations preferred to make application of the idea in
their own way rather than order such vessels direct from their original
designer. Yet in not a few cases the original type was faithfully copied,
though it is not always clear to what extent Ericsson himself may have had
direct contact with their designs. In 1866 the Swedes were able to test the
first of a small fleet of monitors built after Ericsson's plans. This was called
the "John Ericsson," and was armed with two 15-inch guns presented to
Sweden by Ericsson himself. Later, in 1868, he designed for Spain and
superintended the construction of thirty small gunboats for use in Cuban
waters.
For nearly ten years now Ericsson had devoted most of his energies to the
art of war. It was a time of change and unrest. Heavy guns and armor had
brought about a complete break with the past. The torpedo, which had made
its appearance in crude form during the Civil War, was attracting more and
more attention, and questions of naval offence and defence and of the best
governmental policy were attracting the serious attention of all whose duty
led them into relation with such matters. Into this problem in its broadest
aspects Ericsson threw himself in the early 'seventies with all the ardor of
his younger days.
It is proper to explain here that there was one feature of the earlier plans
which were submitted to Napoleon III. in 1854, which he did not embody in

the "Monitor," and which, indeed, was omitted from all published plans and
descriptions of the system given out in former years. This was a system of
submarine or subaqueous attack, which, he states in a letter to John Bourne,
had attracted his attention since 1826. The time now seemed ripe for the
presentation and development of this idea, and he accordingly developed
his designs for a torpedo, and for a method of firing it under water from a
gun carried in the bow of a boat, and suitably opening to allow the
discharge of the torpedo projectile. This was Ericsson's so-called
"Destroyer" system, and was embodied finally in a boat called the
"Destroyer," which he built in company with his friend, Mr. C.H.
Delamater, and with which he carried on numerous experiments. In the end,
however, the system did not commend itself to the naval authorities, and the
"Destroyer" was left on her designer's hands, an instance of difference of
opinion between Ericsson and those charged with the duty of naval
administration, and with no supreme test of war to provide opportunity for
the determination as to which were the more correct in their judgment. With
the "Destroyer," and his work in connection with her, closes the record of
Ericsson's connection with the advance in naval construction.
During these later years of his life it must not be supposed that he was
less busily occupied than in earlier life. His was a nature which knew no
rest, and to the last day of his life he was literally in the harness. Only brief
mention however can be made of some of the more important lines of work
which interested the closing years of Ericsson's life.
In connection with his naval designs, he devoted much study to the
improvement of heavy ordnance, both as to the gun and its mounting. In
particular, his mounting of the guns in the "Monitor" was quite original, and
the friction arrangement for absorbing the recoil was a great improvement
over methods then in use, and served as a model for many copies and
adaptations of the same principles in later years by other designers. In 1863
he also designed and built for the acceptance of the Government a forged
13-inch wrought-iron gun. While his design was an advance on those of the
day, the demands on the makers of iron forgings were more than could be
successfully met, and the gun developed some slight cracks in the test,
which prevented further developments on this line. Ericsson always
maintained that the tests to which this gun was submitted were unfairly
severe, and he showed how the defects could be remedied by a steel lining.

But the Naval Bureau of Ordnance insisted that this should be done at his
own expense, and as he had already lost some $20,000 on the gun, he was
unwilling to proceed farther, and the matter was allowed to lapse.
Throughout his entire career the improvement of the steam-engine
occupied a large share of Ericsson's attention, and in particular was this the
case in connection with his naval designs. From the "Princeton," in 1841, to
the "Destroyer," in 1878, there succeeded one long series of types and forms
of steam-engine, each in his opinion the best adapted to the circumstances
of the case. Naturally, opinions differ, and he was brought into competition
with other able engineers, and his designs were often called into question or
subjected to criticism. In 1863, in competition with Chief Engineer
Isherwood of the navy, engines were designed for twin ships, the
"Madawaska," afterward known as the "Tennessee," and the "Wampanoag,"
afterward called the "Florida." This was a battle royal of types and modes of
application of the power of the steam-engine to the propulsion of ships. The
result was a victory for Isherwood, although the "Madawaska," which was
first subjected to trial, made a speed higher than any warship at that time
afloat. This was exceeded by the "Wampanoag" a short time later; but
neither engine was of an enduring type, and after a time the machinery of
the "Madawaska" was removed, and she was repowered with a later type of
machinery, and long did service as the "Tennessee" in the list of wooden
frigates of the navy. The "Florida" was too expensive to maintain in
commission, and the special circumstances which had called her into
existence having passed by, she was laid up at New London, and never
again saw active service.
Keenly as Ericsson was interested in the steam-engine, it must be
admitted that he always showed a more profound interest in some form of
engine which should be able to displace it with a superior efficiency; and
hence his long series of efforts relating to the flame-engine, the caloric
engine, the gas-engine, and finally the solar engine,--with either steam or
heated air as the medium for carrying the heat. During the last years of his
life some of his most patient and careful study was given to the perfection
of a solar engine, or engine for utilizing directly the heat of the sun instead
of that of coal or other carbon compounds. Besides this direct line of study
and experimentation, he gave during these years much thought to various
scientific problems connected with solar energy, the tides, gravitation, the

nature of heat, etc., etc. A plan for deriving power direct from the tides,
improvements in high-speed engines for electric-lighting purposes, further
improvements in his hot-air engine in small sizes for commercial purposes,-
-these are some of the further lines of work which occupied the attention of
his closing years.
But the most cunningly devised of all mechanisms, the heart and brain,
must sooner or later tire and cease from their labors. The motive energy
becomes exhausted, and the mechanism must cease its work. So it was with
John Ericsson. In the first hour of the morning of March 8, 1889, Ericsson
died. This was within one day of the twenty-seventh anniversary of the
battle at Hampton Roads, the event with which the name of Ericsson will
always be associated, and which has given to it a significance that will
never be forgotten. His remains were first interred in New York, and then, in
1890, in accordance with the request of the Swedish Government, they were
returned with impressive services to his native land, where they now rest. In
his death he received his highest honors, for his remains were conveyed
across the Atlantic by the U.S.S. "Baltimore," one of the new ships of the
navy specially detailed for that service, and on both sides, in the United
States and in Sweden, the event was marked with every honor and
ceremony which could indicate the significance of his life and services for
his adopted land and for the world at large.
The two pieces of work which perhaps will be most permanently linked
with the name of Ericsson are the screw-propeller as a means of marine
propulsion, and the "Monitor" as a type of warship. In addition to these,
however, his life-work was rich in results which bore direct relation to
many other improvements in the broad field of marine engineering and
naval architecture. Of these a few of the more important may be mentioned,
such as the surface condenser, distiller, and evaporator, forced draft for
combustion, placing machinery of warships below the water-line, and their
protection by coal, ventilation by fan-blowers, together with a vast variety
of items involved in the conception and design of the "Monitor" as a whole,
and in his other naval designs.
In order to appreciate the influence of Ericsson's life and work on the
field of marine construction, a brief glance may profitably be taken at this

branch of engineering work as it was before Ericsson's time, and as it is
now.
The material employed for shipbuilding was almost entirely wood. This
was displaced in the 'sixties and 'seventies by iron, which in turn was
displaced by steel, so that at the present time, except for special reason, no
material other than steel is thought of for this purpose. With the gradual
displacement of wood by iron in the mercantile marine, Ericsson's relation
was only indirect. Some of the earlier mercantile vessels in which he was
interested were of wood and some of iron. In the field of warship
construction, however, his influence through the "Monitor" was more direct,
especially as to the value of metal armor as a protection against great gun-
fire. Still, it is no more than justice to say that with the change from wood to
iron which took place during the active part of his life, Ericsson had only an
indirect relation, and the change would doubtless have come about at the
same time, and in much the same general way as it did, independent of any
influence which his work may have had upon the question. Turning to the
means of propulsion, we find sails as the main, or almost only, reliance
during the early years of the century. The steam-engine operating paddle-
wheels had come to be recognized as a possibility, and under certain
conditions as a commercial success. The screw-propeller as a means of
propulsion was known only as a freak idea, and was without status or
recognition as a commercial or practical means for propelling ships. So far
as the screw-propeller was thought of as a means of propulsion, it lay under
a suspicion of loss of efficiency due to the oblique nature of its action, and
this was supposed to be such as to render it necessarily and essentially less
efficient than the paddle-wheel.
Ericsson lived to see the use of sails almost entirely discarded for war
purposes, and for mercantile purposes relegated to ships for special service
and of continually decreasing importance. He lived to see the steam-engine
take its place as the only means for supplying the power required to propel
warships, and attain a position of almost equal relative importance in the
mercantile marine. He lived to see the paddle-wheel grow in importance
and estimation as a means of propulsion only in turn to be supplanted by the
screw-propeller, which gradually increased in engineering favor from the
days of its obscure infancy until it became the only means employed for the
propulsion of ships navigating the high seas, while it had become a most

serious rival to the paddle-wheel even for the purposes of interior and
shallow-water navigation,--long a field considered as peculiarly suited to
the paddle-wheel and to the engines adapted to its operation.
Regarding the change from wind to steam for the motive-power of ships,
Ericsson did his full share among the engineers of his day, but it would be
unfair to many others to claim for him any exclusive or preponderating
influence in this movement, and in such matters it is difficult to clearly
define the services of any one man. The lines of progress, however, have
been in accord with his studies, and his work has certainly had a most direct
and powerful influence upon the movement. The most important points of
contact between Ericsson's work and these advances were in connection
with his introduction of the surface condenser, the use of artificial draft,
devices for heating feed water, his studies in superheated steam and its use,
and his work in connection with the development of the compound
principle in steam-engines, his relation to the introduction of the screw-
propeller, and to the use of twin screws at a later time. He also devised and
adapted many new types of engines for marine purposes, having respect to
the geometrical character of the connections by means of which a
reciprocating motion of the piston may be transformed into a rotary motion
of the shaft. In particular, he was the first to introduce and show the
advantages of engines directly connected to the propeller-shaft, instead of
through the more indirect and clumsy modes which others had previously
thought necessary.
Aside from his relation to the screw-propeller, perhaps no item of his
work in connection with the steam-engine is of more importance than the
surface condenser, with its variant forms in the distiller and evaporator. If
Ericsson had done nothing else, his claims to recognition and remembrance
as an engineer and benefactor might have been well founded on his work in
this connection. As it is, the fact that he was so largely instrumental in their
perfection and adaptation to marine uses is wellnigh forgotten in the
brighter light of his other achievements.
Regarding Ericsson's relation to the successful introduction of the screw-
propeller, little need be added to what has already been said. Whatever may
be urged regarding dates and patents or earlier years in which the screw-
propeller was used, it is a fact that in 1833-35 it was not recognized as an

accepted mode of propulsion. While known as a possibility, it had no
standing in the engineering practice of the day. A few years later it was
recognized as an accepted mode of propulsion and had gained a permanent
and definite place in the practice of the day,--a place which has continued to
grow in importance until its earlier rival, the paddle-wheel, is almost on the
brink of relegation to museums of antiquities, except possibly for rare and
special shallow-water uses. A careful and dispassionate study of the facts,
so far as they can be known at the present time, seems to indicate clearly
that of those who were concerned in successfully adapting the screw-
propeller to the needs of marine propulsion and in laying the foundation for
these changed conditions, especially in the United States, none was so
prominent as Ericsson, or so fairly deserving of the chief credit; and with
this judgment the mature thought of the present day seems to agree with
little dissent.
Turning to a consideration from a similar point of view of Ericsson's
services in connection with warship design and construction, note may be
first taken of the condition of the art of naval warfare in the years 1840-50,
or when Ericsson first began his labors in this field.
The material used was wood, the means of propulsion sails, with some
thought of steam-engines and paddle-wheels; the means of offence were
cast-iron guns large in number but small in size, the largest being 9 or 11
inches in diameter and throwing a shell of some 75 or 130 pounds weight,
while the means of defence consisted solely in the "wooden walls," and
modern ideas regarding armor had not even appeared above the horizon.
Ericsson's contributions to the art of naval warfare are embodied in the
"Princeton," the "Monitor" and its class, and the "Destroyer." In the
"Princeton" the material used was wood, and in the "Monitor" and
"Destroyer" iron, following simply the developments of the age. In the three
the means of propulsion was by screw-propeller. In the "Princeton" the
means of offence were two 12-inch wrought-iron guns, as already noted. In
the "Monitor" and its type the means of offence were two 11-inch smooth-
bore cast-iron guns, followed later by larger guns of 13 and 15 inches of
similar type. In the double-turreted monitors four such guns were of course
installed. In the "Destroyer" the means of offence was a single gun for
discharging a torpedo under water at the bow. On the "Princeton" the means

of defence consisted still in wooden walls, while in the "Monitor" and its
class the change was profound and complete. The essential idea of the
"Monitor" was low freeboard and thus small exposed surface to the ship
herself, combined with the mounting of guns in circular revolving turrets,
thus giving an all-around fire and on the whole making possible an adequate
protection of the exposed parts of the ship and providing for the
combination in maximum proportions of armored protection and heavy
guns for offence. On the "Destroyer" the means of defence consisted simply
in a light deflecting deck armor forward, the vessel being intended to fight
bows on and depending on her means of offence rather than defence, which
were made quite secondary in character.
The "Monitor," however, was Ericsson's great contribution to the art of
naval war, and with it his name will always be associated. It broke with the
past in every way. It reduced the number of guns from many to few, two or
at most four; it reduced the freeboard from the lofty topsides of the old ship-
of-the-line to an insignificant two or three feet, and thus made of the target a
circular fort and a low-lying strip of armor. It placed the guns in this
circular fort and covered it with armor thick enough to insure safety against
any guns then afloat, and thus, as perfectly as the engineering means of the
day would permit, insured the combination of offensive and defensive
features in maximum degree. It cleared away at one stroke masts, sails, and
all the lofty top-hamper which since time immemorial had seemed as much
an essential feature of the fighting ship as the guns themselves. It
transformed the design of the fighting ship from the older ideals expressed
in the American frigate "Constitution," or the English "Victory," to the
simplest terms of offence, defence, and steam motive-power. It made of the
man-of-war a machine rather than a ship, an engine of destruction to be
operated by engineers rather than by officers of the ancient and traditional
type. There is small wonder that in all quarters the idea of ships of this type
was not received with enthusiasm. The break with the past was too definite
and complete. The monitor type represented simply the solution of the
problem of naval warfare worked out by a man untrammelled by the
traditions of the past and determined only on reducing such a ship to the
simplest terms of offence and defence as expressed by the engineering
materials and possibilities of the day. Judged from this standpoint, the
vessel seems beyond criticism. She filled perfectly the ideal set before

himself by her designer, and represents as a complete and harmonious
whole what must still be recognized as the most perfect solution of the
problem in terms of the possibilities of those days.
It is proper here that due reference should be made to the claims in behalf
of Mr. Theodore R. Timby as an inventor of the turret and of the monitor
idea as expressed thereby. These claims and the main facts in the case have
long been known, and there should certainly be no attempt to take from any
one his due share in the developments which gave to our nation a "Monitor"
in her hour of need. It is well known that Mr. Timby between 1840 and
1850 conceived the idea of a revolving fort of iron mounted with numerous
guns and intended to take the place of the masonry or earth-structures in
common use for such purposes. He seems also to have conceived of a
similar structure for use on a ship of low freeboard, and a model showing
such a design was constructed. In 1843 he filed a caveat for the invention of
the revolving turret. Here the matter apparently rested until 1862, and after
the battle between the "Monitor" and "Merrimac," when he took out a
patent which was dated July 8, 1862, covering "a revolving tower for
defensive and offensive warfare, whether on land or water." Ericsson's
associates in the business of building monitors for the Government acquired
these patents of Timby, presumably as shrewd business men, in order to
quiet any claim on his part, and to have the plan available for land forts,
should the opportunity arise to push the business in this direction. There is
no question but that Ericsson was antedated by Timby in the suggestion of a
revolving turret, at least in so far as public notice is concerned. Ericsson
frankly admitted this, and stated that he made no claim to absolute
originality in this respect. He further stated what is undoubtedly true, that
the main idea in the turret, that of a circular revolving fort, antedates the
Nineteenth Century as a whole, and its origin is lost in the uncertainties of
early tradition. It is simply one of those early ideas which naturally must
have been known in essence since time immemorial, and as such it was the
common property of the engineering practice of the century. It belongs
neither to Timby nor to Ericsson, and no claims regarding priority in this
respect are worthy of serious consideration. The question is not who first
conceived the idea of a revolving fort, but who designed and built the
"Monitor" as she was, and as she met the "Merrimac" on the 9th of March,
1862. The answer to the latter is too well known a part of the history of the

times to admit of question or to call for further notice. Ericsson's claim for
recognition in this respect rests not on any priority of idea regarding the use
of a circular fort, but rather upon the actual "Monitor" as she was built and
as she crushed at one blow the sea-power of the South, and representing as
it did a completely and carefully designed whole, dating back to the earlier
dealings with Napoleon III. in 1854. This is an age which judges men by
what they do, and judged by this standard Ericsson's claims in connection
with the monitor type of warship are never likely to be seriously questioned.
Taking Ericsson's life and work, what portion remains as a permanent
acquisition or as a part of the practice of the present age? This is a question
which merits at least a moment's notice.
We should not make the mistake of thinking that permanency is
necessarily a test of merit, or that the value of his services to the world
should be judged by such parts of his work as are plainly apparent in the
practice of the present day. A piece of work must be judged by the
circumstances which brought it forth, and by the completeness and
perfection of its adaptation to the needs and possibilities of its age.
We have then the steam fire-engine; compressed air which he early
employed in England, and which has become an instrument of enormous
importance in connection with the industrial progress of the age, although
this is in no especial degree due to his efforts; the surface condenser,
distiller, and evaporator are a permanently and absolutely essential part of
modern marine practice; the screw-propeller has almost sole possession of
the field of marine propulsion; modern marine engines and boilers in naval
practice are always placed below the water-line and are protected by
deflective deck armor and frequently by coal as well; the turret has become
a permanent and accepted part of the practice of the age, while the monitor
type in its essential feature seems to be evanescent.
The modern battleship is a vastly more complex structure, and represents
more complex ideas and combinations than did Ericsson's "Monitor." It
contains a battery of guns of the heaviest type known to naval ordnance. At
present such guns are usually of 12-inch bore and throw a shell of about 800
pounds weight, with an initial velocity of nearly 3,000 feet per second. Then
there is a supporting battery of guns, 6, 7, or 8 inches in diameter of bore,

and finally a secondary battery of smaller quick-firing guns, throwing shells
of from 1 pound to 20 or 30 pounds weight, and added to these there may
be a torpedo outfit as well. The exigencies of fighting ships at sea and in all
weathers seems to have pronounced against the monitor type with its low
freeboard as unsuitable for use on the open sea, while the enormous
advances in modern guns and armor have made a totally different problem
of the distribution of means offensive and defensive. Again, the monitor
type was never intended for long cruising, or indeed for other service than
the defence of coasts and harbors. The policy of building a vessel thus
adapted only to an inner line of defence, and not adapted to an outer line of
defence and offence as well, has been further called in question, and the
judgment of the present day has decided against such policy. It is true that
in the so-called "new navy," begun in 1883, one monitor, the "Monterey,"
has been built, while four others of older type have been somewhat
modernized, and there are three monitors building at the present time. It
may be doubted, however, if they will be followed by others, at least so
long as the conditions of naval warfare and the spirit of public policy
remain as they now are.
The monitor type was a perfect solution of the problem of its day, and
nobly it answered the calls made on it. The problem has now changed, the
conditions affecting its solution have also changed, and it is no discredit to
the original type that it now seems to have had its day, and that it must give
way to other forms more perfectly expressing the spirit of the present age,
and the means available for the solution of present-day problems in the art
of naval war.
In many ways, however, the influence of Ericsson's work still lives in the
modern battleship, and while in our modern designs we have gotten far
away from the essential features of the monitor type, yet it is not too much
to say that the germ of the modern battleship is in many ways found in the
"Monitor," especially as expressed in terms of concentration of heavy gun-
fire and localized protection of gun positions; and in more ways than may
be suspected, the influence of Ericsson and of his work had its part in the
developments which have led to the splendid designs of the present day.
Returning again to our note of the dependence of the present age on
Ericsson, mention may be made of the blower for forcing the combustion in

steam-boilers as a well-established feature of standard marine practice, and
one absolutely essential to the development of the highest attainable speeds,
such as are required in warships, and especially in those of the torpedo and
modern "Destroyer" types. Likewise the use of the fan for ventilation, as
used by him in his early practice, has become a necessity of modern
conditions both on naval and passenger ships, for the health and comfort of
both passengers and crew. His long series of experiments and his years of
labor on air and other forms of "caloric" engine are only represented by the
"Ericsson air-engine" now on the market, and having its fair share of service
in locations where simplicity of operation and scarcity of water may
naturally suggest its use.
Of his labors in connection with a solar engine, and with other questions
which occupied much of the time of his closing years, we have but little
direct result. Others are at work on the idea of the solar engine, and it may
be that a practicable solution of the problem will be found.
Ericsson's lasting imprint on engineering practice, curious as it may
seem, was made in his earlier and middle life, rather than in his later years,
and we have even more in the way of permanent acquisition from his earlier
than from his middle years. This results from the fact that in middle life he
was largely engaged on warship designs, admirably adapted to the needs of
the time and to the possibilities of the age, but no longer suited to either,
while in later life he no longer found it necessary to work at problems
which would produce a direct financial return, and therefore interested
himself in a variety of questions somewhat farther removed from the walks
of every-day engineering practice than those with which he was occupied in
earlier life.
In personality Ericsson possessed the most pronounced and self-centred
characteristics. Professionally he felt that to him had been granted a larger
measure of insight than to others into the mysteries of nature as expressed
in the laws of mechanics, and he was therefore little disposed to listen to the
advice or criticism of those about him. This was undoubtedly one of
Ericsson's most pronounced professional faults. He did not realize that with
all his insight into the laws of mechanics and all his capacity for applying
these laws to the solution of the problems under consideration, he might
well make some use of the work of his fellow-laborers in the same field. So

little disposed was he to thus use the work of others that a given device or
idea which had been in previous use was often rejected and search made for
another, different and original, even though it might involve only some
relatively trivial part of the work. He was simply unwilling to follow in the
lead of others. He must lead or have none of it, and thus the fact that a
device or expedient was in common use would furnish an argument against
rather than for its adoption. His natural mode of work was utterly to
disregard precedent and to seek for fundamental solutions of his problems,
having only in view the conditions to be fulfilled, the laws of mechanics,
and the engineering materials of construction. This habit of independence
and of seclusion within the narrow circle of his own work so grew upon him
in later years that mechanical science made many advances of which he
took little or no note, and of which he refused to avail himself, even though
he might have done so greatly to his own advantage.
In his later years, in a letter to his friend Captain Adlersparre, he says:
"Do not laugh at me now, Captain, when I say that nobody can mislead me.
Do not condemn me if I at the same time confess that I am directed by
nobody's judgment but my own, and that I never consult anybody and take
nobody's advice." In all matters connected with his work his will was
imperious, and he would brook no interference or criticism. His temper was
high, his organization sensitive, and many times throughout his life,
relations with his best friends became strained by his instability of temper
or impatience with what he might construe as a criticism regarding his
work. With this instability of temper, however, was combined a deep-seated
tenderness and kindness of heart, and he was as quick to forget the cause of
offence as he was to manifest displeasure upon occasion.
Notwithstanding the asperities of Ericsson's character in regard to his
professional work, and his entire lack of effort to make friends among the
learned of his day, recognition and unsought honors came in upon him. He
was elected to honorary membership in the societies of note in the United
States and Sweden, and in addition to the thanks of Congress and of the
Legislature of the State of New York, he received a resolution of thanks
from the Swedish Riksdag, or Parliament, in 1865. In 1862 he was granted
the rarely bestowed Rumford medal, and received at other times during his
life medals, honors, and decorations such as have perhaps fallen to no other
who has wrought in the same field of human effort. While recognition of

this character pleased him greatly when it came spontaneously and
willingly, he placed but little value on that which he thought grudgingly or
tardily tendered, and in one or two instances refused membership in
societies which he thought granted in that manner.
A large measure of this independence of character is necessary to the
performance of the work which Ericsson did. Had he been ever ready to
listen to the views of others, and to modify his ideas in accordance with
them, his greatest achievements would never have been accomplished. In
Ericsson, however, this characteristic was carried to an undue extreme, and
he might unquestionably have accomplished more had he been able to co-
operate with others and to accept and use freely the best work of
contemporaries in his own field.
Ericsson was essentially a designing rather than a constructing engineer.
His genius lay in new adaptations of the principles of mechanics or in new
combinations of the elements of engineering practice in such way as to
further the purposes in view. His mode of expression was the drawing-
board. While he wrote vigorously and well, and while he was a frequent
contributor in later years to scientific literature, especially on the subject of
solar physics, yet his best and natural mode of expression was the graphical
representation of his designs on the drawing-board. Forms and
combinations took shape in his brain and were transferred to the drawing
with marvellous speed and skill. Those who have been associated with him
bear testimony that the amount of his work was simply astounding, and that
only by a combination of the most remarkable celerity and industry could
they have been accomplished.
These drawings were furthermore so minute in detail and so accurate in
dimension that as a rule he did not find it necessary to give further attention
to the matter after it had left his hands. Of the many parts of a complicated
mechanism, one could be sent for construction to one shop and another
elsewhere, all ultimately coming together and making a harmonious and
perfectly fitting whole. In no other way could such astonishing speed in the
detailed construction of the "Monitor" and other vessels of her type possibly
have been made; and the fact that such speed in construction was obtained,
and largely in this manner, is by no means the least impressive of the many
evidences of Ericsson's genius as a designer.

The designs once completed on the drawing-board, however, Ericsson's
interest in the work ceased in great measure, and as a rule he paid but little
attention to constructive details, and took but slight interest in the
completed whole. Thus he is said to have visited his "Destroyer" but once
after she was built, and then simply in search of his assistant. He also
declined an invitation from the Assistant Secretary of the Navy to visit
Hampton Roads and inspect the "Monitor" immediately after her fight with
the "Merrimac." He seemed to have no curiosity to inspect his work after it
had left his hands, or to receive a report as to the practical working of his
designs. This shows a peculiar lack of appreciation of the value of intimate
contact with constructive and operative engineering work. No one could
hope to avoid errors, or to realize by drawing-board alone the best possible
solution of engineering problems. Ericsson wilfully handicapped himself in
this manner, and might unquestionably have more effectively improved and
perfected his ideas had he been disposed to combine with his designs at the
drawing-board practical contact with his work as constructed.
His work was all done in his office at his house. For the last twenty-five
years of his life he lived at 36 Beach Street, New York, where he wrought
every day in the year, and often until far into the night. His office contained,
beside his drawing-table and other furniture, a long table, on which at times,
when overcome by fatigue, he would stretch himself and take a short nap,
using a dictionary or low wooden box for a pillow.
His relations with his native land were always close, and, as already
hinted, he gave much of his best effort to the study of means for her
defence. Toward his friends and relatives he was the embodiment of
watchful care and generosity. His private benefactions were for his means
large, and were given with a whole-hearted generosity which must have
added much to the love and esteem in which the recipients regarded him.
His public benefactions were also notable, and during the later years of his
life he gave away regularly no inconsiderable share of his income. Though
gifted with reasonable prudence, he had no conception of the "business
sense," and no capacity as a money-getter. After acquiring by his inventions
and enterprise a modest competence, he devoted himself almost entirely to
work less directly related to a financial return, and lived comfortably upon
the principal which his earlier efforts had provided.

Ericsson had absolute faith in himself and in his mission to render
available the energies of nature for the uses of humanity and civilization.
His character was framed about the central idea of fidelity to this mission.
He was dogmatic and optimistic as regards his own work; he had a
contemptuous indifference to the work of others, and a disregard of the help
which he might derive from a closer study of such work. He trained
himself, body, mind, and affections, solely with reference to his mission,
and allowed no interference with it. He was the embodiment of physical and
mental vigor, prodigious industry, continuity of purpose, indomitable
courage, capacity for great concentration of mind, and oblivion to all
distracting surroundings. With such characteristics, combined with the rare
endowment of mental capacity and insight regarding the principles of
engineering science, small wonder is it that his life was one so rich in
results. It could not have been otherwise, and the results simply came as a
consequence of the combination of the characteristics of the man and the
surroundings in which he was placed.
The question as to how much more or how much better he might have
done had he possessed more faith in the work of others and a willingness to
be guided in some measure by their experience is of course idle. Ericsson
was a combination of certain capacities and characteristics; a combination
of other capacities and characteristics would not have been Ericsson, and
any discussion of such a supposition is therefore aside from the purpose of
this sketch.
John Ericsson lived in a period of rapid engineering development and
change. Old ideals were passing away, and the heritage which the
Nineteenth Century was able to pass on to the Twentieth was in preparation.
In this preparation Ericsson bore a large and most important part. So long as
ships traverse the seas, Ericsson's name will be remembered for his work in
connection with the introduction of the screw-propeller. So long as the
memory of naval warfare endures, Ericsson's name will be remembered for
the part which he bore in the transition from wood to iron, from unarmored
ships to turrets and armor, from scattered to concentrated energy of gun-
fire, and for his general share in the developments which have led to the
ideal of a battleship prevailing at the opening of the Twentieth century. For
these and for many other achievements he will be remembered, and his life
and works should serve as a constant stimulus to those upon whom the

engineering work of the present age has fallen, to see that with equal
fidelity they live up to the possibilities of their endowments and
opportunities, and serve with like fervency and zeal the needs of the age in
which they are placed.

AUTHORITIES.
Contributions to the Centennial Exhibition: Ericsson, John.
The Life of John Ericsson: Church, W.C.
History of the Steam Engine: Thurston, R.H.
Steam Navy of the United States: Bennett, Frank M.
Who invented the Screw Propeller?: Nicol, James.
The Naval and Mail Steamers of the United States: Stuart, Charles B.
A Chronological History of the Origin and Development of Steam
Navigation: Preble, Rear Admiral G.H.
A Treatise on the Screw Propeller, Screw Vessels, and Screw Engine as
adapted for Purposes of Peace and War: Bourne, John.

LI HUNG CHANG.

1823-1901.
THE FAR EAST.
BY W.A.P. MARTIN, D.D., LL.D

INTRODUCTORY.

Five years ago Earl Li was at the head of the "Tsungli Yamen," or
Foreign Office in Peking. The present writer, having known him long and
intimately, called one morning to request a letter of recommendation to aid
in raising money for an International Institute projected by the Rev. Dr.
Reid. "He's got one letter; why does he want another?" asked Li, in a tone
of mingled surprise and irritation. "True," said I, "but that is from the
Tsungli Yamen. Nobody in America knows anything about the Yamen.
What he wants is a personal letter from you; because the only Chinese name
besides Confucius that is known outside of China is Li Hung Chang."
"Ill give it! Ill give it!" he exclaimed, smiling from ear to ear at the
thought of his world-wide reputation.
This was taking him on his weak side; but it was fact, not flattery.
Over forty years ago Li's rising star first came to view in connection with
operations against the rebels in the vicinity of Shanghai, and from that day
to this, every war, domestic or foreign, has served to raise it higher and
make it shine the brighter. It reached its zenith in 1901, when after settling
terms of peace with several foreign powers he passed off the stage at the
ripe age of fourscore. What better type to set forth his age and nation than
the man who, through a long career of unexampled activity, won for himself
a triple crown of literary, military, and civil honors? In physique he was a

noble specimen of his race, over six feet in height, and in his earlier years
uncommonly handsome. The first half of his existence was passed in
comparative obscurity at Hofei in Anhui, a region remote from contact with
foreign nations.
It was there his character was formed, on native models; there he carried
off the higher prizes of the literary arena; and there he became fitted for the
rôle of China's typical statesman.
His career in outline may be stated in a few words. His native province
being overrun by rebels, he passed from the school-room to the camp, and
got his earliest lessons in the military art under the leadership of the
eminent viceroy Tseng Ko Fan. The neighboring province of Kiangsu
falling into the hands of rebel hordes a few years later, he won renown by
recapturing its principal cities, by the aid of such men as the American Ward
and the English Gordon. His success as a general made him governor of
Kiangsu, and his success as governor raised him to the rank of viceroy,
holding for many years a post at one or other of the foci of foreign trade
north or south.
Beyond the borders of China he was twice sent on special embassies, and
once he made the tour of the globe; but his most brilliant achievement was
in twice making peace on honorable terms, when his country was lying
prostrate before a victorious enemy.
It remains to expand this incomparable catalogue; but to make intelligible
that remarkable series of events in which he bore such a conspicuous part,
we must first invite our readers to accompany us in a historical retrospect in
which we shall point out the opening and growth of foreign intercourse.

I.
INTERCOURSE WITH CHINA BY LAND.
Of the nature of that intercourse in its earlier period, there exists a
monument that speaks volumes. That is no other than the Great Wall;
which, hugest of the works of man, stretches along the northern frontier of
China proper for one thousand five hundred miles from the sea to the desert
of Gobi. Erected 255 B.C. it shows that even at that early date the enemies
most dreaded by the Chinese were on the north. Yet how signally it failed to
effect its purpose! For since that epoch the provinces of Northern China
have passed no fewer than seven centuries under Tartar sway. Two Tartar
dynasties have succeeded in subjugating the whole empire, and they have
transmitted beyond the seas a reputation which quite eclipses the fame of
China's ancient sovereigns.
In fact, that which first made China known to the western world was its
conquest by the Mongols in the thirteenth century. Barbarous nomads, with
longing eyes forever directed to the sunny plains of the south, they also
conquered India, bringing under their sceptre the two richest regions of the
globe. Of Genghis and Kubla, it may be asserted that they realized a more
extended dominion than Alexander, Caesar, or Napoleon ever dreamed of.
But
"Extended empire, like expanded gold,
Exchanges solid strength for feeble splendor."

Their tenure of China was of short duration,--less than a century. In India,
however, their successors, the great Moguls, continued to maintain a
semblance of sovereignty even down to our own times, when they were
wiped from the blackboard for having taken part in the Sepoy mutiny.
Liberal beyond precedent, Kubla Khan encouraged the establishment of a
Christian bishopric, in which John de Monte Corvino was the first
representative of the Holy See. He also welcomed those adventurous
Italians, the Polos, and sought to make use of them to open communication
with Europe. Yet we cannot forbear to express a doubt, whether, aside from

the Christian religion, Europe in that age had much in the way of
civilization to impart to China.
Three of the native dynasties, which preceded the Mongol conquest,
made themselves famous by advancing the interests of civilization. The
house of Han (B.C. 202-A.D. 221) restored the sacred books, which the
builder of the Great Wall had destroyed in order to obliterate all traces of
feudalism and make the people submit to a centralized government. Even
down to the present day, the Chinese are proud to describe themselves as
"sons of Han." The house of Tang, A.D. 618-908, is noted above all for the
literary style of its prose-writers and the genius of its poets. In South China
the people are fond of calling themselves "sons of Tang." The house of
Sung, A.D. 970-1127, shows a galaxy of philosophers and scholars, whose
expositions and speculations are accepted as the standard of orthodoxy.
More acute reasoners it would be difficult to find in any country; and in the
line of erudition they have never been surpassed.
It is reported that in 643 the Emperor Theodosius sent an envoy to China
with presents of rubies and emeralds. Nestorian missionaries also presented
themselves at court. The Emperor received them with respect, heard them
recite the articles of their creed, and ordered a temple to be erected for them
at his capital. This was in the palmy period of the Tangs, when the frontiers
of the Empire had been pushed to the borders of the Caspian Sea.
If China in part or in whole was sometimes conquered by Tartars, it is
only fair to state that the greatest of the native sovereigns more than once
reduced the extramural Tartars to subjection. Between the two races there
existed an almost unceasing conflict, which had the effect of civilizing the
one and of preventing the other from lapsing into lethargy.
About B.C. 100, Su Wu, one of China's famous diplomatists, was sent on
an embassy to the Grand Khan of Tartary. An ode, which he addressed to
his wife on the eve of his perilous expedition, speaks alike for the domestic
affections of the Chinese and for their ancient literary culture.
"Twin trees whose boughs together twine,
Two birds that guard one nest,
We'll soon be far asunder torn
As sunrise from the west.
"Hearts knit in childhood's innocence,

Long bound in Hymen's ties,
One goes to distant battlefields,
One sits at home and sighs.
"Like carrier dove, though seas divide,
I'll seek my lonely mate;
But if afar I find a grave,
You'll mourn my hapless fate.
"To us the future's all unknown;
In memory seek relief.
Come, touch the chords you know so well,
And let them soothe our grief."

II.
INTERCOURSE BY SEA.
In 1388 the Mongols were expelled. The Christian bishopric was swept
away, and left no trace; but a book of the younger Polo, describing the
wealth of China, gave rise to marvellous results. Together with the magnetic
needle, which originated in China, it led to centuries of effort to open a way
by sea to that far-off fairyland. It was from Marco Polo that Columbus
derived his inspiration to seek a short road to the far East by steering to the
West,--finding a new world athwart his pathway. It was the same needle, if
not the same book, that impelled Vasco da Gama to push his way across the
Indian Ocean, after the Cape of Good Hope had been doubled by
Bartholomew Diaz. A century later the same book led Henry Hudson to
search for some inlet or strait that might open a way to China, when, instead
of it, he discovered the port of New York.
The mariner's compass, which wrought this revolution on the map of the
world, is only one of many discoveries made by the ancient Chinese, which,
unfruitful in their native land, have, after a change of climate, transformed
the face of the globe.
The polarity of the loadstone was observed in China over a thousand
years before the Christian era. One of their emperors, it is said, provided
certain foreign ambassadors with "south-pointing chariots," so that they
might not go astray on their way home. To this day the magnetic needle in
China continues to be called by a name which means that it points to the
south. It heads a long list of contraries in the notions of the Chinese as
compared with our own, such, for example, as beginning to read at the back
of a book; placing the seat of honor on the left hand; keeping to the left in
passing on the street, with many others, so numerous as to suggest that the
same law that placed their feet opposite to ours must have turned their
heads the other way. To the Chinese the "south-pointing needle" continued
to be a mere plaything to be seen every day in the sedan chair of a

mandarin, or in wheeled vehicles. If employed on the water, it was only
used in coasting voyages.
So with gunpowder, of which the Arabs were transmitters, not inventors.
In other lands it revolutionized the art of war, clothing their people with
irresistible might, while in its native home it remained undeveloped and
served chiefly for fireworks. Have we not seen, even in this our day, the
rank and file of the Chinese army equipped with bows and arrows? The few
who were provided with firearms, for want of gunlocks, had to set them off
by a slow-match of burning tow; and cannon, meant to guard the mouth of
the Peiho, were trained on the channel and fixed on immovable frames.
The art of printing was known in China five centuries before it made its
way to Europe. The Confucian classics having been engraved on stone to
secure them from being again burned up, as they had been by the builder of
the great wall, the rubbings taken from those stones were printing. It
required nothing but the substitution of wood for stone and of relievo for
intaglio to give that art the form it now has. The smallest scrap of printed
paper in the lining of a tea chest, or wrapped about a roll of silk, would
suffice to suggest the whole art to a mind like that of Gutenberg. In China it
never emerged from the state of wood engraving. The "Peking Gazette," the
oldest newspaper in the world, is printed on divisible types, but they are of
wood, not metal, more than one attempt to introduce metallic types having
proved unsuccessful, for the want of that happy alloy known as type-metal.
It is from us that they have learned the art of casting type, especially that
splendid achievement, the making of stereotype plates, and, later,
electrotype plates, by the aid of electricity and acid solutions. Chemistry,
from which this beautiful art takes its rise, carries us back to China, for it
was there that alchemy had its birth, as I have elsewhere shown.[4]
[4] "The Lore of Cathay." New York: Fleming R. Revell Co., p. 41.

Man's first desire is long life; his second, to be rich. The Taoist
philosophy commenced with the former before the Christian era, but it was
not long in finding its way to the latter. A powerful impulse was thus given
to research in the three departments of science,--chemistry, botany, and
geography. As in the case of gunpowder, the Arabs transmitted these
discoveries to the West, and along with them the Chinese doctrine as to the

twofold objects of alchemic studies,--the elixir of life and the philosopher's
stone.
From this double root sprang the chemistry of the West, which in no
mean sense has fulfilled its promise by prolonging life and enriching
mankind. In all these the West has performed the part of a nursing mother,
but she has brought the nursling back full grown, and prepared to repay its
obligation to its true parent by effective service.
Portuguese merchants made their way to Canton early in the sixteenth
century, but it was not till the latter part of the century that Catholic
missionaries entered on their grand crusade. In 1601 the Jesuit pioneer
Matteo Ricci and his associates, impelled by religion and armed with
science, presented themselves at the court of Peking. The Chinese had been
able to reckon the length of the year with remarkable accuracy two
thousand years before the time of Christ, but their science had made no
headway. The missionaries found their calendar in a state of confusion,
vanquished the native astronomers in fair competition, and were formally
installed as keepers of the Imperial Observatory; and these missionaries
supervised the casting of the bronze instruments which have since been
taken to Berlin.
This honor they retained even after the fall of the native dynasty that
patronized them. When the Manchus effected their conquest in 1644, not
only were the Jesuit missionaries left in charge of the observatory, but the
heir apparent was placed under their instruction. Coming to the throne in
1662, under the now illustrious title of Kanghi, the young prince showed
himself a generous patron as he had previously been a respectful pupil. He
was apparently not averse to the idea of his people's adopting Christianity
as their national religion, and allowed the missionaries a free hand to plant
churches throughout the vast interior. Rarely if ever has so fine an
opportunity offered for making an easy conquest of a pagan empire. It was
lost through the jealousy of contending societies, and especially through the
blunder of an infallible Pope. The Dominicans denounced the Jesuits for
tolerating the practice of pagan rites, such as the worship of ancestors, and
for employing for God the name of a pagan deity. The name which they
then objected to was Shang-ti, Supreme Ruler, a venerable designation for

the Supreme Power found in the earliest of the Chinese canonical books,
and at this day accepted by a large proportion of Protestant missionaries.
The question as to its fitness was referred to the Emperor, who decided in
favor of the Jesuits. It was then brought before the Papal See, condemned as
idolatrous, and Tien Chu, the Lord of Heaven, adopted in its stead. That
Shang-ti, however pure in origin, had come to be applied to a whole class of
deities was perfectly true, but the name proposed in its stead was not free
from a taint of idolatry,--Tien Chu, Lord of Heaven, being one of eight
divinities, and worshipped along with Ti Chu, Lord of Earth, Hai Chu, Lord
of the Sea, etc.
The manner in which his opinions had been set aside by the Pope had no
doubt a repelling influence on the mind of the Emperor, so that if he had
ever felt inclined to embrace Christianity, he drew back in his later years.
Not only so, but he left behind him a series of Maxims in which he censures
the foreign creed and warns his people against it. These Maxims were
ordered to be read in public by mandarins, and they continue to be recited
and expounded as a sort of religious ritual. Is it surprising that this lost
opportunity was followed by a century and a half of open persecution? That
most of the churches survived, not only attests the zeal with which the Faith
had been propagated, it throws a pleasing light on the force of the Chinese
character. At the dawn of our new epoch, there were still some half a
million converts,--with here and there a foreign Father hiding in their midst.
In bringing about this change of policy there was indeed another
influence at work. Had not the Emperor of China heard some rumors of
what was going on in the dominion of his cousin, the Great Mogul--how the
French were dispossessing the Portuguese; and how the English later on
succeeded in expelling the French? How could they doubt that a large
community of native Christians would act as an auxiliary to any foreign
invader? A suspicion of this kind had in fact sprung up under the preceding
dynasty. In consequence of it not a single seaport except Macao was opened
to foreign trade; and when foreigners went to Canton, they were lodged in a
suburb and not allowed to penetrate within the walls of the provincial
capital. Such misgivings as to the designs of foreigners we find strikingly
expressed in a book of that period called "Strange Stories of an Idle
Student."

One story is as follows: When Red-Haired Barbarians first appeared on
our coast they were not allowed to come ashore. They begged, however, to
be permitted to spread a carpet on which to dry their goods, and this being
granted, they took the carpet by its corners and stretched it so that it covered
several acres. On this, they debarked in great force and, drawing their
swords, took possession of the surrounding country.

III.
THE OPIUM WAR.
The first great event that woke China from her dream of solitary grandeur
was the war with England, which broke out in 1839 and was closed three
years later by the Treaty of Nanking. It was not, however, all that was
needed to effect that object. It made the giant rub her eyes and give a
reluctant assent to terms imposed by superior force. But many a rude lesson
was still required before she came to perceive her true position, as on the
lower side of an inclined plane. To bring her to this discovery four more
foreign wars were to follow before the end of the century, culminating in a
siege in Peking and massacres throughout the northern provinces which
may be looked on as the fifth act in a long and bloody tragedy.
In the last three wars Li Hung Chang was a prominent actor. In the first
two he took no part. Yet was it the shock which they gave to the empire that
drove him from a life of literary seclusion to do battle in a more public
arena.
The Opium War of 1839 is not improperly so designated, but nothing is
more erroneous than to infer that it was waged by England for the purpose
of forcing the product of her Indian poppy fields on the markets of China.
Opium was the occasion, not the cause. The cause, if we are to put it in a
single word, was the overbearing arrogance of an Oriental despotism, which
refused to recognize any equal in the family of nations.
In the Straits settlements and in the seaports of India, Chinese merchants
had been brought under sway of the bewitching narcotic. It found its way to
their southern seaports, and without being recognized as an article of
commerce, the trade expanded with startling rapidity. The Emperor, Tao
Kwang, one of the most humane of rulers, resolved to take measures for the
suppression of the vice. He had come to the throne in 1820; and there is a
story that he was moved to action by the untimely fate of his eldest son,
who had fallen a victim to the seductive poison.

Commissioner Lin, whom he selected to carry out his prohibitory policy,
was a fit instrument for such a master, equally virtuous in his aims and
equally tyrannical in his mode of proceeding. Arriving at Canton, his first
object was to get possession of the forbidden drug, which was stored on
ships outside the harbor. This he thought to accomplish by surrounding the
whole foreign community by soldiers and threatening them with death if the
opium was not promptly surrendered. While its owners or their agents
hesitated, Captain Elliot, the British Superintendent of Trade, came up from
Macao, and demanded to share the duress of his nationals. He then called
on them to deliver up the drug to him to be used in the service of the Queen
for the ransom of the lives of her subjects, assuring them that they would be
reimbursed from the public treasury. No fewer than twenty-one thousand
chests, valued at nine million dollars, were brought in from the opium ships
and formally handed over to Commissioner Lin. The foreign community
was set free, and the drug destroyed by being mixed with quicklime.
War was made to punish this outrage on the rights of the foreign
community, and to exact indemnity for the seizure of their property. Canton
was not captured, but held to ransom, and the haughty Viceroy sent into
exile. Other cities were taken and held; and, in 1842, a treaty of peace was
signed at Nanking by which five ports were opened to foreign trade. The
embargo on opium was not withdrawn; but the defeat of the Chinese
resulted in a virtual immunity from seizure together with a growth of the
traffic, such as to justify the ill-odored name which that war still bears in
history.
Treaties with other powers followed in quick succession. On demand of
the French Minister, the Emperor recalled his prohibitory decrees against
Christianity and issued an Edict of Toleration. If the opening of the ports
gave a stimulus to trade, the decree of toleration opened a door for
missionary enterprise. As yet, however, neither merchant nor missionary
was allowed to penetrate into the interior; while the capital and the whole of
the northern seacoast remained inaccessible. This was obviously a state of
things that could not be permanent; yet fifteen years were to pass before
another war came to settle the terms of intercourse on a broader basis.
When the war broke out, Li Hung Chang was seventeen years of age,
living at Hofei in Anhui. As there were then no newspapers in China it may

be doubted whether he heard of it until a British squadron sailed up to
Nanking and extorted a treaty at the cannon's mouth. Li was rudely startled
by the appearance of a new force, to which there was no allusion in any of
his ancient books. Along with the sailing-ships there were two or three
small steamers. It struck the Chinese with astonishment to see them make
head against wind and tide. Shin Chuan, "ships of the gods," is the name
they gave those mysterious vessels. Little could Li foresee the part he was
destined to take in creating a steam navy for China.
Descended from a long line of scholars, he was supposed to be born to
the pursuit of letters. He did, in fact, devote himself to study with
unflagging zeal, because he had as yet no temptation to turn aside. Was
there not, moreover, an open door before his face inviting him to win for
himself the honors of a mandarinate? In his native town he placed his foot
on the first step of the ladder by gaining the degree of A.B., or, in Chinese,
"Budding Genius." At the provincial capital he next carried off the laurel of
the second degree, which is worth more than our A.M., not merely because
it is not conferred in course, but because it falls to the lot of only one in a
hundred among some thousands of competitors. These provincial
tournaments occur but once in three years; and the successful candidates
proceed to Peking to compete for the third degree, or D.C.L.,--Tsin-shi, or,
"Fit for Office." Here the chances amount to three per cent.
Li's fortunes were again propitious, and in company with two or three
hundred new-made doctors, he was summoned to the palace to contend in
presence of the emperor for the honor of a seat in the Imperial Academy,--
the Hanlin, or "Forest of Pencils." Here also he met with success, but he
was not among the first three whose names are marked by the vermilion pen
of majesty, each of whom sheds lustre on his native province. The highest
of the three is called Chuang Yuen, "Head of the List" or "Prince of
Letters." In the 'fifties it fell to a native of Ningpo, where I then lived. His
good luck was announced to his wife by the magistrate in person, who
conducted her to the six gates, at each of which she scattered a handful of
rice, as an omen of good fortune. In the 'sixties, when I had removed to
Peking, this honor was for the first time conferred on a Manchu, a son of
the General Saishanga. His daughter was deemed a fit consort for the heir to
the throne, wearing for a short time the tiara of empress, and committing
suicide on the death of her lord.

In the two previous contests, handwriting goes for nothing, but in this it
is not without weight, as the avowed object is to select scribes for the
service of the throne. On those occasions extent of erudition and originality
of thought are the qualities most esteemed; but this time the order of merit
is decided by superficial elegance of style, and by facility in the
composition of verse.
However defective the standard of learning, this long course of
competition, extending over ten or fifteen years, has the effect of bringing
before the throne a body of men each of whom is the survivor of a hundred
contests. No country can boast a better system for the selection of talent,
and the government guards it with jealous care. I have known more than
one examiner put to death for tampering with this ballot-box of the Empire.
For ages it has provided the state with able officers; nor is its least merit that
of converting a dangerous demagogue into a quiet student.
While waiting for an appointment, Li heard with dismay that Nanking
had been taken by a body of rebels, and that his native province was in
danger of being overrun by them. A new career opened before him,--one
that led more directly to the highest offices within the gift of the sovereign.
Asking a commission in the army, he was assigned to a position on the staff
of Tsengkofan, father of the Marquis Tseng, who was afterwards Minister to
England.
This rebellion, among the strangest of strange things, now claims our
attention.

IV.
THE TAIPING REBELLION.
In April, 1853, the news reached us that Nanking had fallen into the
hands of a body of rebels who, by a curious irony, called themselves
Taipings, "Soldiers of Peace."
They were Chinese, not Manchus, and their leaders were all from the
extreme south. Starting near Canton, they had proclaimed as their object the
expulsion of the Tartars. Overrunning Kwangsi and Hunan, they had got
possession of Hankow and the two adjacent cities,--a centre of wealth
which may be compared to the three cities that form our Greater New York.
Everywhere they put to flight the government forces; but they did not
choose to stop anywhere short of the ancient capital of the Mings. Seizing
some thousands of junks, they filled them with the plunder of that rich mart,
and sweeping down the river, carried by assault every city on its banks until
they reached Nanking. Its resistance was quickly overcome; and putting to
death the entire garrison of twenty-five thousand Manchus, they announced
their intention to make it the capital of their empire, as Hung Wu had done
when he drove out the Mongols and restored freedom to the Chinese race.
In a few months they despatched an expedition to expel the Manchus
from Peking. But that proved a more difficult task than they expected.
Before the detachment had arrived at Tientsin, it was met on the Grand
Canal by a strong force under Sengkolinsin, the Mongol prince. Obliged to
winter on the way, it was divided and cut off in detail; this defeat making it
evident to all the world that the Manchu domination might still hope for a
considerable lease of life. The blood and rapine which everywhere marked
their pathway alienated the sympathy of foreigners from the Soldiers of
Peace. Nor did the new power at Nanking manifest the least anxiety to
obtain foreign aid, feeling assured of ultimate triumph. Yet, indifferent as
they were to the co-operation of foreigners, the Taipings proclaimed
themselves Christians, and appeared to aim their blows no less at lifeless
idols than at living enemies. Shangti, the Supreme Ruler, the God of the

ancient sages, was the object of their worship. They found his name in the
Christian Bibles, and they published the Bible as the source of their new
faith. Their faith amounted to a frenzy, giving them courage in battle, but
not imparting the self-control essential to Christian morality. Filling their
coffers with spoil, they stocked their harems with the wives and daughters
of their enemies. If their lives had been more decent, they might have had a
better chance to secure the favor of those powerful nations which had now
become the arbiters of destiny in China.
The leader of the movement was a Cantonese by the name of Hung Siu
Chuen. A copy of the Bible having fallen into his hands, he applied to a
Baptist missionary for instruction. How much he learned may be inferred
from the fact that he gave his followers a new form of baptism, requiring
them to wash the bosom as a sign for cleansing the heart. He had ecstatic
visions, and preached a crusade against idolatry and the Manchus. The ease
with which the Manchus had been beaten by the British in 1842 had
revealed their weakness, and the new faith supplied the rebels with a fresh
source of power. They mixed the teachings of the Gospel with new
revelations as freely as Mohammed did in propagating the religion of the
Koran. The chief called himself the younger brother of Jesus Christ. His
prime minister assumed the title of the Holy Ghost; and his counsels were
given out as decrees from Heaven. All this had an air of blasphemy that
shocked the sensibilities of foreigners, and compelled them to stand aloof or
to support the Manchus.
The native authorities were permitted to engage foreign ships and seamen
to operate against the rebels, who sustained a siege in Nanking almost as
long as the siege of Troy. From Shanghai, Suchau, and other cities the
Taipings were driven out by the aid of foreigners, chiefly led by Ward and
Gordon, the former an American, the latter a Briton. General Ward was
never under the command of Li Hung Chang; but to him more than to any
other foreigner belongs the honor of turning the tide of the Taiping
Rebellion. A soldier of fortune, he offered to throw his sword into the
government scale if it were paid for with many times its weight in gold.
Gathering a nondescript force of various nationalities, he recaptured the city
of Sungkiang, and followed this up by such a series of successes that his
little troop came to be known as the "Ever-victorious Army." Falling before
the walls of Tseki, he was interred with pomp at the scene of his first

victory, where a temple was erected to his memory, and he is now reckoned
among the "Joss" of the Chinese Empire. His force was taken into Li's pay.
General Gordon (the same who fell at Khartoum) acted under the
direction of Li Hung Chang; and his chief exploit was the recovery of
Suchau. Unable to resist his artillery, the rebel chiefs offered to capitulate.
They were assured by him that their lives would be spared. To this Li Hung
Chang consented, and the stronghold was at once surrendered. Regardless
of his plighted faith, Li caused the five leaders to be beheaded, an act of
treachery which filled Gordon with such fury that he went from camp to
camp, looking for Li, determined to put a bullet in his head. Li, however,
avoided a meeting until Gordon's wrath had time to subside, and that
treacherous act laid the foundation of his future fortunes. He was made
governor of the province, and for forty years he rose in power and
influence.
Not only was this terrible rebellion which laid waste the fairest provinces
a sequel to the first war with England, it was prolonged and aggravated by a
second war which broke out in 1857. In 1863, the last stronghold of the
rebels was recaptured, and the rebellion finally suppressed, after twelve
years of dismal carnage. In bringing about this result, no names are more
conspicuous than those of Li Hung Chang and General Gordon, whose
sobriquet of "Chinese Gordon" ever afterwards characterized him. Li's good
fortune served him well in this war. Having won the favor of the Court, he
was in command of the forces of eastern Kiangsu, and all the brilliant
successes of Ward and Gordon were credited to him. He was not only made
governor of the province, but also created an Earl in perpetuity.

V.
THE "ARROW" WAR; THE TREATIES.
Never did a smaller spark ignite a greater conflagration. In 1856 a native
junk named the "Arrow," sailing under a British flag, was seized for piracy,
her flag hauled down and her crew thrown into prison at Canton. On
demand of Sir John Bowring, Governor of Hong Kong, they were handed
over to Consul Parkes (later Sir Harry); but he refused to receive them
because they were not accompanied by a suitable apology. The haughty
Viceroy Yeh put them all to death, provoking reprisals on the part of the
British, resulting in the occupation of Canton and the capture of Peking
after three campaigns to the north.
In this war England had France for ally; as the two powers had been
associated in that hugest of blunders, the Crimean War. Nor was the alliance
a less blunder on this occasion. Napoleon's excuse for participation was the
murder of a missionary in Kwangsi; but his real motive was a desire to
checkmate Great Britain, and prevent the conquest of new territory. In the
Opium War she had stopped at Nanking, leaving the pride of China
unhumbled, and the state of relations so unstable that another war was
required to place them on a better footing. England, with unselfish
generosity, invited the co-operation of Russia and the United States. Either
power might have found as good a pretext for hostile action as that of
France; but they chose to maintain an attitude of neutrality, offering only
such moral support as might enable them to gather up the apples after the
others had shaken the tree. In 1857 Canton was taken and held by the allies.
The next spring the envoys of the four powers, each with a considerable
naval force, proceeded to the mouth of the Peiho, the gateway to a capital as
secluded and exclusive as that of the Grand Lama. The forts made a show of
resistance, but they were put to silence in less than half an hour; and
negotiations which had been opened by the neutrals were resumed at
Tientsin.

Dr. S. Wells Williams was Chinese secretary to the United States
minister, Mr. William B. Reed; and I acted as interpreter for the spoken
language. An article in favor of Christian missions occasioned some delay;
and Mr. Reed, who was vain and shallow, said to us, "Now, gentlemen,
hurry up with your missionary article for I intend to sign my treaty on the
18th of June [Waterloo day] with or without that clause." Fancy a mind that
could think of a treaty obtained by British guns as entitling him to be
associated with Wellington! Yet Mr. Reed had the effrontery to say that he
"expected us to make the missionary societies duly sensible of their
obligations" to him. That twenty-ninth article was the gem of the treaty; and
it had the honor of being copied into that of Lord Elgin, which was signed
eight days later.
High-minded, philanthropic, and upright, Lord Elgin made a mistake
which led to a renewal of the war. He refused to place Tientsin on the list of
open ports, because, as he said, "Foreign powers would make use of it to
overawe the Chinese capital,"--just as if overawing was not a matter of
prime necessity. He hastened away to India to aid in suppressing the Sepoy
mutiny, eventually becoming viceroy after another campaign in China. His
brother, Sir F. Bruce, succeeded him as minister in China; and twelve
months later (July, 1859) the ministers of the four powers were again at the
mouth of the Peiho on their way to Peking for the exchange of ratified
copies of the several treaties. The United States minister was John E. Ward,
a noble-hearted son of Georgia, and the chief of our little squadron was the
gallant old Commodore Tatnall.
We were not a little surprised to see the demolished forts completely
rebuilt, and frowning defiance. We were told by officers who came down to
the shore that no vessel would be allowed to pass; but that the way to
Peking was open to us via Peitang, a small port to the north.
To this Mr. Ward made no objection, but the British, who had so recently
held the keys of the capital, were indignant to be met by such a rebuff. They
steamed ahead between the forts, leaving the Chinese to take the
consequences. All at once the long line of batteries opened fire. One or two
gunboats were sunk; two or three were stranded. A storming party was
repulsed, and Admiral Hope, who was dangerously wounded, begged our
American commodore to give him a lift by towing up a flotilla of barges

filled with a reserve force. "Blood is thicker than water," exclaimed Tatnall,
in tones that have echoed round the globe, and Ward making no objection,
he threw neutrality to the winds, and proceeded to tow up the barges. Our
little steamer was commanded by Lieutenant Barker, now Admiral Barker
of the New York Navy Yard.
Even this failed to retrieve the day, the tide having fallen too low for a
successful landing. For the British admiral nothing remained but to
withdraw his shattered forces, and prepare for another campaign. For the
United States minister a dazzling prospect now presented itself,--that of
intervening to prevent the renewal of war. From Peitang we proceeded by
land two days. Then we continued our voyage for five days by boat on the
Upper Peiho.
At Peking, calling on the genial old Kweiliang, who had signed the treaty
in 1858, Mr. Ward was astonished at his change of tone. "You wish to see
the Emperor. That goes as a matter of course; but his Majesty knows you
helped the British, and he requires that you go on your knees before the
throne in token of repentance." "Tell him," said Mr. Ward to me, "that I go
on my knees only to God and woman." "Is not the Emperor the same as
God?" replied the old courtier, taking no notice of a tribute to woman that
was unintelligible to an Oriental mind. "You need not really touch the
ground with your knees," he continued; "but merely make a show of
kneeling. There will be eunuchs at hand to lift you up, saying 'Don't kneel!
Don't kneel!'" The eunuchs, as Mr. Ward well knew, would be more likely
to push us to our knees than to lift us up; and he wisely decided to decline
the honor of an audience on such terms.
Displeased by his obstinacy, the Emperor ordered him to quit the capital
without delay, and exchange ratifications at the sea-coast. A report was long
current in Peking that foreigners have no joints in their knees; hence their
reluctance to kneel. Thus vanished for Mr. Ward the alluring prospect of
winning for himself and his country the beatitude of the peacemaker.
The summer of 1860 saw the Peiho forts taken, and an allied force of
thirty thousand men advancing on Peking. The court fled to Tartary, and the
summer palace was laid in ashes to punish the violation of a flag of truce,
the bearers of which were bound hand and foot, and left to perish within its

walls. For three days the smoke of its burning, carried by a northwest wind,
hung like a pall over the devoted city, whose inhabitants were so terrified
that they opened the gates half an hour before the time set for
bombardment. No soldiers were admitted, but the demands of the Allies
were all acceded to, and supplementary treaties signed within the walls by
Lord Elgin and Baron Gros. Peking was opened to foreign residence. The
French succeeded in opening the whole country to the labors of
missionaries. Legations were established at the capital, and a new era of
peace and prosperity dawned on the distracted empire.

VI.
THE WAR WITH FRANCE.
If the opening of Peking required a prolonged struggle, it was followed
by a quarter-century of pacific intercourse. China had at her helm a number
of wise statesmen,--such as Prince Kung and Wensiang. The Inspectorate of
Customs begun under Mr. Lay took shape under the skilful management of
Sir Robert Hart, and from that day to this it has proved to be a fruitful
nursery of reforms, political and social.
Not only were students sent abroad for education at the instance and
under the leadership of Yung Wing, but a school for interpreters was opened
in the capital, which, through the influence of Sir Robert Hart, was
expanded into the well-known Imperial College. On his nomination the
present writer was called to the head of it, and Wensiang proposed to
convert it into a great national university by making it obligatory on the
members of the Hanlin Academy, the Emperor's "Forest of Pencils," to
come there for a course of instruction in science and international law.
Against this daring innovation, Wojin, a Manchu tutor of the Emperor,
protested, declaring that it would be humiliating to China to have her
choicest scholars sit at the feet of foreign professors. The scheme fell
through, but before many years the Emperor himself had taken up the study
of the English language, and two of our students were selected to be his
instructors. One of them is at this present time (1902) Chinese minister at
the Court of St. James. Several of our students have had diplomatic
missions, and one, after serving as minister abroad, is now a leading
member of the Board of Foreign Affairs in Peking. A press opened in
connection with the college printed numerous text-books on international
law, political economy, physics, and mathematics, translated by the
president, professors, and students.
America was fortunate in the choice of the first minister whom she sent
to reside at Peking. This was Anson Burlingame, who, after doing much to
encourage the Chinese in the direction of progress, was by them made the

head of the first embassy which they sent to foreign nations. His success in
other countries was largely due to the sympathy with which he had been
received in the United States by Secretary Seward, and to the advice and
recommendations with which he was provided by that great statesman. So
deep an interest did Mr. Seward take in China that he went in person to
study its condition before the close of his career. In his visit to Peking he
was accompanied by his nephew, George F. Seward, who was United States
Consul at Shanghai. The latter has since that date worthily represented our
country as minister at Peking; but it may be doubted whether in that high
position he ever performed an international service equal in importance to
one performed during his consulship, for which he has recently received the
cross of the Legion of Honor. In laying out their new concession at
Shanghai, the French had excited the hostility of the people by digging up
and levelling down many of those graves that occupied so much space
outside of the city walls, and where the Chinese who worshipped their
ancestors were to be seen every day burning paper and heaping up the earth.
A furious mob fell on the French police, chased them from the field, and
menaced the French settlement with knife and firebrand. The consuls were
appealed to for aid, but no one responded except Mr. Seward, who headed a
strong force from one of our men-of-war, dispersed the mob, and secured
the safety of the foreign settlement. But for his timely intervention who
knows that the French consulate would not have been reduced to ashes? If
the consulate had been burned down, a war would have been inevitable,
with a chain of consequences that baffles the imagination.
In 1871 a horrid atrocity was perpetrated by Chinese at Tientsin which
certainly would have led to war with France if Napoleon III. had not at that
very time been engaged in mortal combat with Germany. The populace
were made to believe that the sisters at the French hospital had been seen
extracting the eyeballs from their patients to use in the manufacture of
magical drugs. They were set upon by a maddened multitude, a score or
more of them slaughtered, and the buildings where they had cared for the
sick and suffering turned to a heap of ruins. Count Rocheschouart, instead
of reserving the case to be settled at a later day, thought best to accept from
the Chinese government an apology, with an ample sum in the way of
pecuniary compensation. That grewsome superstition has led to bloodshed
in more than one part of China.

In the summer of 1885 I was called one day from the Western Hills to the
Tsungli-Yamen, or Foreign Office, on business of great urgency. On
arriving, I was informed that the Chinese gunboats in the river Min had
been sunk by the French the day before; that they had also destroyed the
Arsenal at the mouth of the river. "This," said the Secretary, "means war,
and we desire to know how non-combatants belonging to the enemy and
resident in our country are to be treated according to the rules of
International Law." While I was copying out the principles and precedents
bearing on the subject, the same Secretary begged me to hasten my report,
"because," said he, "the Grand Council is waiting for it to embody in an
Imperial Decree." True enough, the next day a decree from the throne
announced the outbreak of war; but it added that non-combatants belonging
to the enemy would not be molested. Two of our professors were
Frenchmen, and they were both permitted to continue in charge of their
classes without molestation.
Hostilities were brought to a happy conclusion by the agency of Sir
Robert Hart. One of his customs cruisers employed in the light-house
service having been seized by the French, Mr. Campbell was sent to Paris to
see the French President and petition for its release. Learning that President
Grévy would welcome the restoration of peace, and ascertaining what
conditions would be acceptable, Sir Robert laid them before the Chinese
government, putting an end to a conflict which, if suffered to go on, might
have ruined the interests of more than one country. In this war and in those
peace negotiations the conduct of the Chinese was worthy of a civilized
nation. Yet the result of their experience was to make them more ready to
appeal to arms in cases of difficulty.
Li's connection with this war was very real, though not conspicuous.
Changpeilun, director of the arsenal at Foochow, was his son-in-law. Not
only was Li disposed to aid him in taking revenge, he was himself building
a great arsenal in the north; and it was, no doubt, owing to efficient succor
from this quarter that Formosa was able to hold out against the forces of the
French.

VII.
WAR WITH JAPAN.
Both in its inception and in its tragic ending the notable conflict with
Japan connects itself with the name of Li Hung Chang. The Island Empire
on the East had long been known to the Chinese, though until our times no
regular intercourse subsisted between the two countries. It is recorded that a
fleet freighted with youth and maidens was despatched thither by the
builder of the Great Wall to seek in those islands of the blest for the herb of
immortality; but none of them returned. It was to be a colony, and the
flowery robe by which its object is veiled is not sufficient to hide the real
aim of that ambitious potentate. Yet, through that expedition and subsequent
emigrations, a pacific conquest was effected which does honor to both
nations, planting in those islands the learning of China, and blending with
their native traditions the essential teachings of her ancient sages.
For centuries prior to our age of treaties, non-intercourse had been
enforced on both sides,--the Japanese confining their Chinese neighbors, as
they did the Dutch, to a little islet in the port of Nagasaki; and China seeing
nothing of Japan except an occasional descent of Japanese pirates on her
exposed sea-coast.
To America belongs the honor of opening that opulent archipelago to the
commerce of the world. Our shipwrecked sailors having been harshly
treated by those islanders, a squadron was sent under Commodore Perry to
Yeddo (now Tokio) in 1855, to punish them if necessary and to provide
against future outrages. With rare moderation he merely handed in a
statement of his terms and sailed away to Loochoo to give them time for
reflection. Returning six months later, instead of the glove of combat he
was received with the hand of friendship, and a treaty was signed which
provided for the opening of three ports and the residence of an American
chargé d'affaires. In the autumn of 1859 it was my privilege to visit Yeddo
in company with Mr. Ward and Commodore Tatnall. We were entertained
by Townsend Harris and shown the sights of the city of the Shoguns when it

was still clothed in its mediaeval costume. The long swaddling-garb of the
natives had a semi-savage aspect, and the abject servility with which their
todzies (interpreters) prostrated themselves before their officers excited a
feeling of contempt.
Like the mayors of the palace in mediaeval France, the Shoguns or
generals had relegated the Mikado to a single city of the interior; while for
six hundred years they had usurped the power of the Empire, practically
presenting the spectacle of two Emperors, one "spiritual" (or nominal), one
"temporal" (or real). Little did we imagine that within five years the
Shoguns would be swept away, and the Mikado restored to more than his
ancient power. The conflagration was kindled by a spark from our engines.
The feudal nobles, of whom there were four hundred and fifty, each a prince
within his own narrow limits, were indignant that the Shogun had opened
his ports to those aggressive foreigners of the West. Raising a cry of "Kill
the foreigners!" they overturned the Shoguns and restored the Mikado.
Their fury, however, subsided when they found that the foreigner was too
strong to be expelled. A few more years saw them patriotically surrendering
their feudal powers in order to make the central government strong enough
to face the world. About the same time our Western costume was adopted,
and along with it the parliamentary system of Great Britain and the school
system of America. Some foreigners were shallow enough to laugh at them
when they saw those little soldiers in Western uniform; and the Chinese
despised them more than ever for abandoning the dress of their forefathers.
To protect themselves at once against China and Russia, the Japanese felt
that the independence of Corea was to them indispensable. The King had
been a feudal subject to China since the days of King Solomon; and when at
the instance of Japan he assumed the title of Emperor, the Chinese resolved
to punish him for such insolence. This was in 1894. The Japanese took up
arms in his defence; and though they had some hard fighting, they soon
made it evident that nothing but a treaty of peace could keep them out of
Peking.
Li Hung Chang, who had long been Viceroy at Tientsin and who had
built a northern arsenal and remodelled the Chinese army, had to confess
himself beaten. For him it was a bitter pill to be sent as a suppliant to the
Court of the Mikado. That China was beaten was not his fault. Yet he was

held responsible by his own government and departed on that humiliating
mission as if with a rope about his neck. Fortunately for him, during his
mission in Japan an assassin lodged a bullet in his head, and the desire of
Japan to undo the effect of that shameful act made negotiation an easy task,
converting his defeat into a sort of triumph. Happily, too, he enjoyed the
counsel and assistance of J.W. Foster, formerly United States Secretary of
State. Formosa, one of the brightest jewels in the Chinese crown, had to be
handed over to Japan, and lower Manchuria would have gone with it, had
not Russia, supported by Austria and Germany, compelled the Japanese to
withdraw their claims.
The next turn of the kaleidoscope shows us China seeking to follow the
example of Japan in throwing off the trammels of antiquated usage. In
1898, when the tide of reform was in full swing, the Marquis Ito of Japan
paid a visit to Peking, and as president of the University, I had the honor of
being asked to meet him along with Li Hung Chang at a dinner given by
Huyufen, mayor of the city, and the grand secretary, Sunkianai. It was a
lesson intended for them when he told us how, on his returning from
England in the old feudal days, his prince asked him if anything needed to
be reformed in Japan. "Everything," he replied. The lesson was lost on the
three Chinese statesmen, progressive though they were, for China was then
on the eve of a violent reaction which threatened ruin instead of progress.

VIII.
WAR WITH THE WORLD.
The last summer of the century saw the forts at the mouth of the Peiho
captured for the third time since the beginning of 1858. It was the opening
scene in the last act of a long drama, and more imposing than any that had
gone before, not in the number of assailants nor in the obstinacy of
resistance, but in the fact that instead of one or two nations as hitherto, all
the powers of the modern world were now combined to batter down the
barriers of Chinese conservatism. Getting possession of Tientsin, not
without hard fighting, they advanced on Peking under eight national flags,
against the "eight banners" of the Manchu tribes.
What was the mainspring of this tragic movement? What unforeseen
occurrence had effected a union of powers whose usual attitude is mutual
jealousy or secret hostility? In a word, it was humanity. Spurning petty
questions of policy, they combined their forces to extinguish a conflagration
kindled by pride and superstition, which menaced the lives of all foreigners
in North China.
In 1898, when the Emperor had entered on a career of progress, the
Empress Dowager was appealed to by a number of her old servants to save
the Empire from a young Phaeton, who was driving so fast as to be in
danger of setting the world on fire. Coming out of her luxurious retreat, ten
miles from the city, where she had never ceased to keep an eye on the
course of affairs, she again took possession of the throne and compelled her
adopted son to ask her to "teach him how to govern." This was the coup
d'état. In her earlier years she had not been opposed to progress, but now
that she had returned to power at the instance of a conservative party, she
entered upon a course of reaction which made a collision with foreign
powers all but inevitable. She had been justly provoked by their repeated
aggressions. Germany had seized a port in Shantung in consequence of the
murder of two missionaries. Russia at once clapped her bear's paw on Port
Arthur. Great Britain set the lion's foot on Weihaiwei; and France demanded

Kwang Chan Bay, all "to maintain the balance of power." Exasperated
beyond endurance, the Empress gave notice that any further demands of the
sort would be met by force of arms.
The governor of Shantung appointed by her was a Manchu by the name
of Yuhien, who more than any other man is to be held responsible for the
outbreak of hostilities. He it was who called the Boxers from their hiding-
places and supplied them with arms, convinced apparently of the reality of
their claim to be invulnerable. For a hundred years they had existed as a
secret society under a ban of prohibition. Now, however, they had made
amends by killing German missionaries, and he hoped by their aid to expel
the Germans from Shantung. On complaint of the German Minister he was
recalled; but, decorated by the hands of the Empress Dowager, he was
transferred to Shansi, where later on he slaughtered all the missionaries in
that province.
In Shantung he was succeeded by Yuen Shikai, a statesmanlike official,
who soon compelled the Boxers to seek another arena for their operations.
Instead of creeping back to their original hiding-place they crossed the
boundary and directed their march toward Peking,--on the way not merely
laying waste the villages of native Christians, but tearing up the railway and
killing foreigners indiscriminately. They had made a convert of Prince
Tuan, father of the heir apparent. He it was who encouraged their advance,
believing that he might make use of them to help his son to the throne.
Their numbers were swelled by multitudes who fancied that they would
suffer irreparable personal loss through the introduction of railways and
modern labor-saving machinery; and China can charge the losses of the last
war to those misguided crowds.
Fortunately several companies of marines, amounting to four hundred
and fifty men, arrived in Peking the day before the destruction of the track.
The legations were threatened, churches were burnt down, native Christians
put to death, and fires set to numerous shops simply because they contained
foreign goods. Then it was that the foreign admirals captured the forts, in
order to bring relief to our foreign community. That step the Chinese
Foreign Office pronounced an act of war, and ordered the legations and all
other foreigners to quit the capital. The ministers remonstrated, knowing
that on the way we could not escape being butchered by Boxers. On the

20th of June, the German Minister was killed on his way to the Foreign
Office. The legations and other foreigners at once took refuge in the British
legation, previously agreed on as the best place to make a defence.
Professor James was killed while crossing a bridge near the legation. That
night we were fired on from all sides, and for eight weeks we were exposed
to a daily fusillade from an enemy that counted more on reducing us by
starvation than on carrying our defences by storm.
About midnight on August 13, we heard firing at the gates of the city, and
knew that our deliverers were near. The next day, scaling the walls or
battering down the gates, they forced their way into the city and effected
our rescue. The day following, the Roman Catholic Cathedral was relieved,-
-the defence of which forms the brightest page in the history of the siege,
and in the afternoon we held a solemn service of thanksgiving. The palaces
were found vacant, the Empress Dowager having fled with her entire court.
She was the same Empress who had fled from the British and French forty
years before.
She was not pursued, because Prince Ching came forward to meet the
foreign ministers, and he and Li Hung Chang were appointed to arrange
terms of peace. Li was Viceroy at Canton. Had he been in his old
viceroyalty at Tientsin, this Boxer war could not have occurred. That its
fury was limited to the northern belt of provinces was owing to the wisdom
of Chang[5] and Liu, the great satraps of Central China who engaged to
keep their provinces in order, if not attacked by foreigners.
[5] Chang is regarded as the ablest of China's viceroys. He published, prior to the coup d'état, a
notable book, in which he argues that China's only hope is in the adoption of the sciences and arts of
the West.

I called on the old statesman in the summer of 1901, after the last of the
treaties was signed. He seemed to feel that his work was finished, but he
still had energy enough to write a preface for my translation of Hall's
"International Law," and before the end of another month his long life of
restless activity had come to a close at the age of seventy-nine. By
posthumous decree, he was made a Marquis.
In the autumn the court returned to Peking, the way having been opened
by Li's negotiations. Thanks to the lessons of adversity, the Dowager has

been led to favor the cause of progress. Not only has she re-enacted the
educational reforms proposed by the Emperor, but she has gone a step
farther, and ordered that instead of mere literary finish, a knowledge of arts
and sciences shall be required in examinations for the Civil Service.
The following words I wrote in an obituary notice, a few days after Li's
death:--
"For over twenty years Earl Li has been a conspicuous patron of
educational reform. The University and other schools at Tientsin were
founded by him; and he had a large share in founding the Imperial
University in Peking. During the last twenty years I have had the honor of
being on intimate terms with him. Five years ago he wrote a preface for a
book of mine on Christian Psychology,--showing a freedom from prejudice
very rare among Chinese officials.
"Another preface which he wrote for me is noteworthy from the fact that
it is one of the last papers that came from his prolific pencil. Having
finished a translation of 'Hall's International Law' (begun before the siege), I
showed it to Li Hung Chang not two weeks ago. The old man took a deep
interest in it, and returned it with a preface in which he says 'I am now near
eighty; Dr. Martin is over seventy. We are old and soon to pass away; but
we both hope that coming generations will be guided by the principles of
this book.'
"With all his faults--those of his time and country--Li Hung Chang was a
true patriot. For him it was a fitting task to place the keystone in the arch
that commemorates China's peace with the world."

DAVID LIVINGSTONE.

1813-1873.
AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT.
BY CYRUS C. ADAMS.

Africa is the most ancient and the most recent conquest of the human
race. As far as the light of history can be projected into the past, we see
Egypt among the first and foremost on the threshold of civilization. The
continent discovered last and opened last to the enterprises of the world is
still Africa. Why is it that we see there both the dawn of civilization and the
tardiest development of human progress?
The reasons are not far to seek. The physical conformation of no other
continent is so unfavorable for exploration and development. Africa's
straight coastlines, affording little shelter to the primitive ships of early
mariners, repelled the enterprising Phoenicians and other seafarers in their
eager search for new lands worth colonizing. Nor was it easy for explorers
to penetrate into the interior. In its surface Africa has been compared to an
inverted saucer,--the high plateaus occupying most of the interior
descending to the sea by short, abrupt, and steep slopes, so that the wide
and peaceful rivers of the plateaus are lashed into foam as they approach the
ocean by many series of rapids and cataracts.
In all the other continents rivers have been the lines of least resistance to
the advance of man. Civilization has developed first along the great rivers.
The valleys were first settled, and up these valleys man carried his
industries and commerce far inland. Thus the Euphrates and Tigris of
Mesopotamia, the Ganges and Indus of India, and the Hoang and Yangtse of
China, were the creators of history; but this is true in Africa only of the
Nile. All the other rivers have been impediments instead of helpful factors
in the formidable task of exploration and development.

The trying climate, also, gave Africa odious repute and delayed for
centuries the study and utilization of the continent. When the British
expedition under Captain Tuckey attempted to ascend the Congo, in 1816,
to see if it were really the lower part of the Niger River, as had been
conjectured, nearly all of its members perished miserably among the rapids
less than two hundred miles from the sea. Such tragedies as this paralyzed
enterprise in Africa until white men learned that the climate was not so
deadly, after all, if they adhered to the manner of life, the hygienic rules,
that should be observed in that tropical expanse.
In all the other continents, also, explorers have had the advantage of
domestic animals to carry their food and camp equipment; but in large parts
of tropical Africa the horse, ox, and mule cannot live. The bite of the little
tsetse fly kills them. Its sting is hardly so annoying as that of the mosquito,
but near the base of its proboscis is a little bag containing the fatal poison.
Camels have been loaded near Zanzibar for the journey to Tanganyika, but
they did not live to reach the great lake. The "ship of the desert" can never
be utilized in the humid regions of tropical Africa.
The elephant is found from sea to sea, but he has not proved to be so
amenable to domestication as his Asian brother. He may yet be reduced to
useful servitude. The efforts in this direction in the German and French
colonies are somewhat encouraging, though in 1901 only six elephants had
thus far been broken to work and were daily used as beasts of burden.
Explorers of tropical Africa have always been compelled to rely upon
human porterage, the most expensive and unsatisfactory form of
transportation, with the result that nearly all the great lines of exploration
have been extended through the continent at enormous cost.
So most other parts of the world were occupied, colonized, civilized,
before Africa was explored. A continent one-fourth larger than our own was
for centuries neglected and despised. "Nothing good can come out of
Africa" became proverbial. Seventy years ago Africa, away from the coasts
and the Nile, was almost a blank upon our maps, save for fanciful details
that are ludicrously grotesque in the light of our present knowledge (1902).
Then dawned the era of David Livingstone. Sixty-two years ago this
humble Scotchman went to South Africa as a missionary. It was not long

before he became imbued with the idea that missionary service could not be
projected on broad, economic, and effective lines till the field was known.
The explorer, he said, must precede the teacher and the merchant. We can
work best for Christianity and civilization after we learn what the people are
and know the nature of their environment. This was the thought that took
him into the unknown; that inspired him with unflagging courage and zeal
throughout twenty years of weary plodding in the African wilderness among
hundreds of tribes who never before had seen a white man. And all the
years he was studying the country and winning the love of its people, his
faith in Africa, in its abounding resources worth the world's seeking, in the
capacity of its people for development, steadily grew till it became the all-
pervading impulse of his life. Livingstone's faith converted the world to the
belief that, after all, there was good in Africa.
"I shall never forget," said Stanley, one day in New York, "the time when
I stood with Livingstone on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, and he raised his
trembling hand above his head, leaned towards me as he looked me in the
eye, and said in a voice broken with emotion: 'The day is coming when the
whole world will know that Africa is worth reclaiming, and that its people
may be brought out of barbarism. The world needs Africa; and teachers,
merchants, railroads, and every influence of civilization will be spread
through this continent to fit it for the place in human interests that belongs
to it.' I thought then that Livingstone was an enthusiast and a visionary; but
long ago I learned to believe that every word he said was true."
Europe and America were thrilled by the simple narrative of those
twenty-two thousand miles of wanderings that brought into the light of day
millions of human beings who had been as much unknown to us as though
they inhabited Mars. Livingstone did not live to know it, but it was he who
kindled the great African Movement,--an outburst of zeal for geographic
discovery and economic development such as was never seen before.
Thirteen years ago (1889) a Frenchman named De Bissy completed the
largest map yet made of Africa. In the preparation of this great work, which
occupied much of his time for eight years, he used as his sources of
information nearly eighteen hundred route and other maps, nearly all of
which were the result of the work of explorers in the preceding quarter of a
century. All that we know of the geography of over three-fourths of Africa

is the work of the past half-century since Livingstone made his first journey
in 1849; and we know far more of inner Africa to-day than was known of
inner North America three hundred years after Columbus discovered the
western world. A little over a century ago, our great-grandfathers were
reading in their school geographies that North America had no conspicuous
mountains except the Alleghanies; and these mountains and the Andes of
South America were believed to be one and the same chain, interrupted by
the Gulf of Mexico. Many men not yet bent with years can remember when
the interior of Africa was a white space on the maps; but it is not possible
to-day to make such a geographical blunder as we have mentioned, about
any part of Africa.
It is because of the work he did in those twenty years, sowing all the
while the seeds from which sprang the great African Movement, that "the
gentle master of African exploration" is acclaimed to-day as one of the
world's great men, and that his body rests in Westminster Abbey among the
illustrious dead of Britain.
The son of a worthy weaver in Blantyre, Scotland, Livingstone's early
life was that of a poor boy, working in a spinning-mill, quiet, sober,
affectionate, and faithful in every relation of life. Moved at last by the thirst
for knowledge that has distinguished many a humble Scotch boy, he entered
the University at Glasgow, studying during the winter months and spending
the summers at his trade in the factory, fitting himself all the while for the
conquests he little dreamed he was to achieve over difficulties almost
insurmountable. A classmate spoke of him as a pale, thin, retiring young
man, but frank and most kind-hearted, ready for any good and useful work,
even for chopping the University fuel and grinding wheat for the bread. In
1838, when he was twenty-five years old, he went to London to be
examined as a candidate for the African missionary service. Two years later
he was sent to South Africa, where for eight or nine years he labored among
the natives earnestly and unostentatiously north of the place now famous as
the site of the Kimberley diamond mines. It was here that he became
intimately acquainted with the celebrated missionary, Robert Moffatt,
whose daughter he married. His devoted wife accompanied him in some of
his later travels, but long before he finished his work her body was laid to
rest under the shade of a tree that for years was pointed out to all visitors to
the Lower Zambesi.

In 1849, began the series of explorations that continued till his death.
"The end of geographical discovery is the beginning of missionary
enterprise," he wrote. Burning with zeal to reveal Africa to the world,
Livingstone never forgot the main aim of his life,--to open ways for the
planting of mission stations among all the scores of tribes he visited. "I
hope God will in mercy permit me to establish the Gospel somewhere in
this region," he wrote from the land of the Barotse, on the Upper Zambesi.
Does he now look down from his eternal home upon that very land whose
churches and schools are the fruition of the labors of French Protestants;
whose king, in London to attend the coronation of Edward VII., said he
wanted more teachers and more men to train his people to build houses and
work iron? He prayed that he might live to see "the double influence of the
spirit of commerce and Christianity employed to stay the bitter fountain of
African misery." The glowing zeal of the Christian philanthropist and the
untiring ardor of the born explorer were perfectly blended in the spirit of the
great pioneer of modern African discovery.
Livingstone's routes through Africa would extend about seven times
between New York City and San Francisco; and in his almost endless
marches over plain, through jungle, across mountains and wide rivers, the
natives met him almost without exception in a generous and hospitable
spirit. Love was the secret of his success. He won his way by kindness.
Give the barbarous African time to see that you wish him well, that you
would do him good in ways he knows are helpful, and his affection is
evoked.
It was said that the British could never establish their rule over the great
Wabemba tribe, southwest of Tanganyika, without a military campaign. In
1894, two humble Catholic fathers entered Lobemba, walked straight to the
chief town, and were told that if they did not leave the country in one day
they would be killed. As the stern message was delivered, they saw an old
woman on the ground in great pain from a severe wound. The news soon
spread that these unwelcome strangers had washed and dressed the wound,
and made the old woman comfortable. "These people love men," was the
word that passed from lip to lip, as the sick and suffering came out from the
town to be treated, while thousands of natives looked on. At nightfall the
white men were told they might remain another day; they ministered for
eleven days to those who needed help, and were then invited to remain the

rest of their lives. The mission stations of the White Fathers are to-day
scattered all over Lobemba; the country is open in every corner to the
whites, and in 1899 British rule was established. The victory was won, not
with guns, but by gentle, helpful kindness.
Livingstone never believed that the sympathies of our common humanity
are extinct even in the bosom of a savage. Enfolded in the panoply of
Christian kindness, he passed unscathed among the most warlike tribes. No
memory of wrong or pain rankled in the heart of any man, woman, or child
he ever met. He is known to-day as "the good old man" wherever his path
led him in those twenty years.
When explorers began to study the healthful highlands of the Akikuyu
tribe in East Africa a few years ago, the natives rushed to arms. "Keep away
from us," they said. "One of your white men came through the land, stealing
food from our gardens, and killing all who said he ought to pay us for our
vegetables. We want nothing to do with thieves and murderers like you."
But no vengeance fell on the head of any white traveller who ever
followed in the footsteps of Livingstone. Those explorers have achieved
most who adhered to his example of unfailing kindness, mercy, and justice.
The brutal German, whose crimes made the Akikuyu hostile to all whites,
marked his path with blood from the Indian Ocean to Victoria Nyanza.
Serpa Pinto, renowned for the scientific value of his work, aroused
condemnation and disgust because he fought his way through many tribes,
among whom Livingstone and Arnot had wandered almost alone and in
perfect safety. Fortunately, there have not been many explorers militant. The
brilliant discoveries of Grenfell, Delcommune, Lemaire, and others, who
are in the first rank of African pioneers, were made without harming a
native.
Let us glance at a few of Livingstone's discoveries and form our own
conclusions as to whether his sublime faith in the future of Africa has thus
far been justified by events. In the depths of the wilderness he discovered
the large lake, Mweru, through which the Upper Congo flows. Though
white influences have reached that remote region only within the past two
or three years, a little steamboat now plies those waters. A photograph of
Mpweto, one of the white settlements on the lake, shows the commodious

quarters of the Europeans, two long lines of cabins in which the native
workmen live, and well-tilled gardens extending for a half-mile along the
shore. Livingstone brought to light the coal fields of the Zambesi, the only
coal yet known in tropical Africa. While these lines are being written, the
British of Rhodesia are preparing to open mines along these deposits. He
told the world of the Victoria Falls of the Zambesi, the largest known, a
mile wide and twice as high as Niagara. The installation of an electrical
plant at this great source of power is now in progress, and it is hoped within
three years to transmit electrically all the power required to work the large
copper mines in the north, the coal fields in the east, and to move trains on
the Cape to Cairo Railroad for a distance of three hundred miles. The recent
improvements in long-distance transmission of power encourages the belief
that the Victoria Falls may some day possess large industrial utility for a
wide region around them. Coffee plantations on the hills overlooking the
long expanse of Nyassa, the splendid freshwater sea which Livingstone
revealed in its setting of mountains, are selling their superior product in
London at a high price. The town of Blantyre, among the Nyassa highlands
which Livingstone first described, has a newspaper, telegraphic and cable
communication with all the world, and industrial schools in which the
manual arts are taught to hundreds of natives. Here is the large brick church,
now famous, built by native craftsmen, who before Livingstone's time had
never seen a white man, and lived in a state of barbarism; an edifice that
would adorn the suburbs of any American city, and of which the explorer,
Joseph Thomson, said: "It is the most wonderful sight I have seen in
Africa." The natives made the brick, burned the lime, sawed and hewed the
timbers, and erected the building to the driving of the last nail. They had the
capacity, and it was evoked by the genius of one of the most remarkable
men in Africa, Missionary Scott of Blantyre. Steamboats are afloat on five
of the six important seas of the great lake region of Central Africa; on two
of the three which Livingstone discovered. Only a beginning has been
made, for the field stretches from ocean to ocean; but the man who, in
1873--the year of Livingstone's death,--should have predicted one-half of
the achievement of the present generation would have been laughed at as a
crack-brained visionary.
Even the surface of Africa is changing, and the truth of Livingstone is not
always the truth of to-day. In his first journey, in which he braved the perils

of the South African thirst lands, he reached the broad and placid expanse of
Lake Ngami, covering an area of three hundred square miles. In the gradual
desiccation of that region, the lake has now entirely disappeared. Its place is
wholly occupied by a partly marshy plain covered with reeds, and no
vestige of water surface is to be seen. He found the little Lake Dilolo so
exactly balanced on a flat plain between two great river systems that one
stream from the lake flowed north to the Congo and another south to the
Zambesi; but for years past there has been no connection between the lake
and the Congo. He sought in vain, like many explorers after him, for the
outlet to Lake Tanganyika. The mystery was not solved till, more than
twenty years after, Burton discovered the lake; the solution came when the
explorer Thomson and Missionary Hore found the waters of Tanganyika
pouring in a perfect torrent down the valley of the Lukuga to the Congo.
The explanation of the strange phenomenon is that for a series of years the
evaporation exceeds the water receipts, the level of the lake steadily falls,
and the valley of the Lukuga becomes choked with grass; then a period
follows when the water receipts exceed the evaporation, and the waters rise,
burst through the barriers of vegetation in the Lukuga, and are carried to the
Congo once more.
It was his second and third journeys that established Livingstone's fame
as a great explorer. In those journeys (1853-56) his routes were from the
Upper Zambesi to Loanda in Portuguese West Africa, and then from Loanda
to the mouth of the Zambesi, nearly twelve thousand miles of travel. The
third journey was the first crossing of the continent; and while traversing
the wide savannas of the uplands and revealing the Zambesi, the fourth
largest river of Africa, from source to delta, he was able to verify one of the
most brilliant generalizations ever made by a geologist. Sir Roderick
Murchison, President of the Royal Geographical Society, in 1852, deducing
his conclusions from the very fragmentary and imperfect knowledge of
Africa then extant, evolved his striking hypothesis as to the physical
conformation of the continent, which has been briefly mentioned above and
is the accepted fact of to-day. Livingstone was able to prove the accuracy of
this hypothesis, and he dedicated his "Missionary Travels" to its
distinguished author.
The Makalolo chief, Sekeletu, on the Zambesi River, supplied
Livingstone with men, ivory, and trading commissions, that helped the

humble and unknown white man, lacking all financial resources except his
slender salary, to make the two great journeys which kindled the world's
interest and led to the wonderful achievements of our generation. In this
noteworthy incident we see the human agencies through which Africa will
attain the full stature allotted to her. The Caucasian and the Negro each has
his onerous part in the work of bringing the civilized world and Africa into
touch and accord.
When Livingstone went home, after his third journey, his fellow-
countrymen crowded to see and hear the explorer, who had added more
facts to geographical knowledge than any other man of his time. They saw a
person of middle age, plainly and rather carelessly dressed, whose deep-
furrowed and well-tanned face indicated a man of quick and keen
discernment, strong impulses, inflexible resolution, and habitual self-
command. They heard a speaker whose command of his mother tongue was
imperfect, and who apologized for his broken, hesitating speech by saying
that he had not spoken the English language for nearly sixteen years. In no
public place did he ever allude to his personal sufferings, though fever had
brought him to death's door and the years had been crowded with the most
harrowing cares. The work he had done and would carry on to the end, the
new Africa he alone could describe, the faith that had grown and
strengthened in every week of his long pilgrimage that the world needed
Africa, its resources and peoples, were the burden of every utterance. The
great London meeting where he first appeared took practical measures to
support him in the work he had begun unaided; and one of the resolutions
adopted, declaring that "the important discoveries of Dr. Livingstone will
tend hereafter greatly to advance the interest of civilization, commerce, and
freedom among the numerous tribes and nations of that vast continent," was
prophetic of all the best fruits of the colossal work that has been done to the
present time.
During his two years at home, Livingstone wrote his "Missionary
Travels." He returned to England once more (1864-65), when he published
"A Narrative of an Expedition to the Zambesi," and in 1866 went back to
Africa to resume the explorations which ended only with his death.
Between 1849 and 1873 he was four years in Europe and twenty years in
the field, eating native food, sleeping in straw huts (in one of which he
died), lost to view for many years at a time because he had no means of

communication with the coasts. It was this fact that led to Stanley's
successful search for Livingstone in 1871. Perhaps no other explorer ever
gave so many years to continuous field-work. In this respect he far
surpassed the record of any other of the African pioneers.
The discoveries in his last journeys, covering the periods from 1858 to
1864, and from 1866 to 1873, were as brilliant and fruitful as his earlier
work, but not so astonishing, because his first years were given to revealing
the broader aspects of Africa and its tribes, while his later labors were
devoted to more detailed research in a smaller field. This region, about as
large as Mexico and Central America, extends north and south, from
Tanganyika to the Zambesi, and covers the wide region of the Congo
sources between Nyassa and Lake Bangweolo. The greatest results were the
discovery of Lake Nyassa and the Shire River, now the water route into
East Central Africa; Lakes Bangweolo and Mwero; and the mapping of the
eastern part of the sources of the Upper Congo, which Livingstone believed
to the day of his death were the ultimate fountains of the Nile. Livingstone's
"Last Journeys" was published from the manuscript which his faithful
servants brought to the seacoast with the mortal remains of their gentle
master.
Not far from the south coast of Bangweolo stands a wooden construction
to which is affixed a bronze tablet bearing the simple inscription,
"Livingstone died here. Ilala, May 1, 1873." It has taken the place of the
tree under which he died, and where his heart, which had been so true to
Africa, was buried. As the tree was nearly dead, the section bearing the rude
inscription cut by one of his servants was carefully removed and is now in
London.
Livingstone's geographical delineations were remarkably accurate,
considering the inadequate surveying instruments with which he worked.
Dr. Ravenstein, one of the greatest authorities on African cartography, has
said: "I should be loath to reject Livingstone's work simply because the
ground which he was the first to explore has since his death been gone over
by another explorer." It would be marvellous, however, if in the course of
twenty years of exploration he had not made some blunders. His map of
Lake Bangweolo, for example, was very inaccurate. The Lokinga
Mountains, which he mapped to the south of the lake, have not been found

by later explorers. These imperfections resulted from the fact that his map
of Bangweolo and its neighborhood was largely based upon native
information. He knew that his map was inadequate, and as soon as he was
able to travel he returned to Bangweolo to complete his survey. He was
making straight for the true outlet of the lake, and was within thirty-five
miles of it when one morning his servants found him in his lowly straw hut,
dead on his knees. If Livingstone had lived a few weeks longer and been
able to travel, he and not Giraud would have given us the true map of
Bangweolo.
As a whole, Livingstone's work in geography, anthropology, and natural
history, stands the test of time. No river in Africa has yet been laid down
with greater accuracy than the Zambesi as delineated by this explorer.
The success of Livingstone was both brilliant and unsullied. The apostle
and the pioneer of Africa, he went on his way without fear, without egotism,
without desire of reward. He proved that the white man may travel safely
through many years in Africa. He observed richness of soil and abundance
of natural products, the guarantees of commerce. He foretold the truth that
the African tribes would be brought into the community of nations. The
logical result of the work he began and carried so far was the downfall of
the African slave-trade, which he denounced as "the open sore of the
world." What eulogy is too great for such a work and such a man?
In 1898, twenty-one journeys had been made by explorers from sea to
sea. Livingstone completed the first journey, from Loanda to the mouth of
the Zambesi, in one year, seven months, and twenty-two days. Nineteen
years elapsed before Central Africa was crossed again, when Cameron gave
two years and nearly eight months to the journey. It took Stanley two years
and eight months to cross Africa, when he solved the great mystery, the
course of the Congo; and when he went to the relief of Emin Pasha, in
1887, he was almost exactly the same time on the road. When Trivier
crossed from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean, in 1888-89, in nine days less
than a year, the event was held as a remarkably rapid performance. A little
later the journey was made by several travellers in from twelve to fifteen
months. In 1898, the Englishman, Mr. Lloyd, crossed from Lake Victoria to
the mouth of the Congo in three months, about thirteen hundred miles of the
journey being by Congo steamboat and railroad. In 1902, the journey from

the Indian Ocean to Lake Victoria is made by rail in two and one-half days,-
-a journey that occupied Speke for nine, and Stanley for eight months. With
the present facilities, the continent may be crossed by way of the lake
region and the Congo in about three months. The era of long and weary
foot-marches has nearly ended; now succeeds travel by steam.
No influence has been so potent in improving the art of the explorer, or in
raising the standard of the work required of him, as the enormous interest
that for thirty years past has centred in African exploration. The larger part
of the best achievements of the explorers of the present generation in
scientific investigation, and in an approach to scientific map-making, are
found in tropical Africa. Many of the hundreds of the route surveys are not
unworthy to be compared with those of Pogge and Wissmann, when they
laid down on their map every cultural and topographic feature for two miles
on both sides of their route, from Angola to the Upper Congo. The extreme
care with which some of the best explorers have performed their tasks is
illustrated by the remarkable achievement of the late Dr. Junker along the
Mobangi River. After years of service, his scientific equipment had become
practically worthless. He started on his four-hundred-mile journey down the
river through the jungle, with absolutely no instrument except a compass to
aid him in determining his positions. Endeavoring, by the most scrupulous
care, to make up as far as possible for his lack of scientific outfit, he
trudged through the grass, compass in hand, counting every step. Every
fifteen minutes he jotted in his notebook the distance and the mean direction
travelled. At night he used these accumulated data to lay down on his route
map the journey of the day. For many weeks he kept up this trying routine
till he reached his furthest west, and again till he had returned to his
starting-point, whose latitude and longitude he had previously determined.
When he returned to Europe, Dr. Hassenstein and he made a map from the
data Junker had collected, and fixed the position of his furthest west. This
position was found later by the astronomical observations of Lieutenant Le
Marinel to be less than two miles out of the way.
One of the latest to win a large prize in African discovery is Dr. A.
Donaldson Smith, a young physician of Philadelphia, in the northeastern
region known as Somaliland and Gallaland. His method may be mentioned
here as an illustration of the kind of work that geographers now require.
Before he began his explorations, he took a thorough course in the use of

surveying instruments and the methods of accurately laying down his
positions and making a route map. Many a cartographer, burning with
desire to draw a good map of a newly explored region, has been driven to
despair by the inadequacy of the route surveys in his hands. Not a few of
these surveys have been unworthy of reproduction in the books of the
explorers who made them, and the best that could be done was to generalize
their information on maps of comparatively small scale. But Donaldson
Smith's route-maps appear in his book on the comparatively large scale of
1:1,000,000 (about sixteen statute miles to the inch), and they are worthy of
that treatment, for his surveys and observations for geographical positions
were recorded in such a way that their value might be easily ascertained by
any one familiar with such computations. His route-maps have been found
to be admirable map-making material; thus, he has not only traversed a new
region of great extent, but has given in his map ample materials which may
be employed by any atlas-maker in the production of good maps of all the
territory that came under his observation. When Sir Clements Markham
presented to Dr. Smith the Patrons' Medal of the Royal Geographical
Society, he said: "You have not, like an ordinary explorer, made a common
route survey, but you have made a scientific survey, a triangulation
frequently checked by astronomical observations with theodolite and
chronometer."
Most African explorers have been painstaking, conscientious workers,
eager in their quest for the truth, desirous to report nothing but the truth, and
treating the lowly and ignorant they have met as men, with sensibilities like
their own, capable of gratitude for a kindness and keenly sensitive to an
outrage. The world has recognized and applauded such heroes of
discovery,--the men who faced hardship and peril, enduring and sacrificing
much that knowledge might grow; who had to conquer not only unkind
Nature, but to overcome the ignorant violence of man. And not a few of the
leaders in this work have carried it out with a degree of tactfulness,
humanity, gentleness, and kindliness of spirit amounting to genius. Some of
them spent months in disguise, collecting facts of the highest scientific
value among fanatical Mohammedans who would have killed them if they
had known their secret. Such men were Burton in Harrar, Dr. Lenz in
Timbuctoo, and De Foucauld and Harris in Morocco, who, in stained skins
and borrowed costumes, personated merchants and devotees and doctors

and Jews; and most of whom have enriched the literature of discovery with
valuable books. Men also such as Dr. Junker, who, rich as he was, left his
home to spend eight years alone among the savages of the Welle Makua
basin in Central Africa, living on their food and in their huts that he might
minutely study the people in their country; or Grenfell, who has travelled
far more widely in the Congo basin than Stanley or any of his followers
except Delcommune, and revealed to the world more river systems and
unknown peoples than they, and who, in his long career as an explorer,
never fired a shot upon a native, though his life was often threatened. These
men, and others like them, have exemplified the manysidedness of human
resources against a great variety of peril and obstacle, as no other explorers
in any other part of the world have had an opportunity to do in equal
measure. Their work, with its environment of almost overwhelming
difficulty, should be known to our youth as most forceful illustrations of
what good men may dare and do in good causes and in a worthy manner.
There have been some exceptions to this rule. A few men have been less
anxious to perform useful service than to figure in the newspapers and pose
before their public. One day a man stood on the north shore of Victoria
Nyanza, and looking south he saw land. When he returned to London he
published a sensational book, in which he said it was ridiculous for Speke to
assert that he had discovered a lake as large as Scotland, one of the greatest
lakes in the world. "Why," said the writer, "I have stood on the north shore
of the Victoria Nyanza and looked south and seen the southern shore. Lake
Victoria is only an insignificant sheet of water, after all the talk of its being
second only to Lake Superior."
What he really saw was the chain of the Sesse Islands extending far out
into the lake. His book was scarcely off the press when the letters
describing Stanley's boat journeys around the shores of Victoria Nyanza
began to be published in London and New York; and the foolish fellow was
compelled to recall all the copies of his book that had not passed beyond his
reach, and eliminate the statements that made him so ridiculous.
Fortunately, there are not many explorers of this stripe.
All who watched the progress of African discovery were constantly
reminded that geographical progress is usually made only by slow and
painful steps. They saw an explorer emerge from the unknown with his

notebooks and route maps replete with most interesting facts for the student
and the cartographer. Then another explorer would enter the same region,
discover facts that had escaped the notice of the pioneer, correct blunders
his predecessor had made and perpetrate blunders of his own; so explorer
followed explorer, each adding something to geographical knowledge, each
correcting earlier misconceptions, till the total product, well sifted by
critical geographers, gave the world a fair idea of the region explored; but
not the best attainable idea, for scientific knowledge of a region comes only
with its detailed exploration by trained observers, equipped with the best
appliances for use in their special fields of research. This is the advanced
stage of geographical study, which is now being reached in many parts of
Africa. It was Livingstone's task, in 1859, to inform us that there was a
great Lake Nyassa. It was Rhoades's task, in 1897-1901, to make a careful
and accurate survey of its coast-lines, and to sound its depths, so that we
now have an excellent idea of the conformation of the lake bottom.
Between Livingstone and Rhoades came many explorers, each adding
important facts to our knowledge of this great sheet of water nearly twice as
large as New Jersey.
As each explorer came from the wilds, our maps were corrected to
conform with the new information he supplied; and if we should examine
the maps of Africa in school geographies, atlases, and wall maps, from the
time of Livingstone to the present day, we should see that, as relates to
nearly every part of Africa, they have been in a continual state of transition.
For years our only map of Victoria Nyanza was that which Speke made
on his second journey to the lake, in 1860-62; but Speke saw the great lake
only at one point on its south shore, and along its northwest and north
central coasts. His map, being based very largely upon native information,
was in many respects most incomplete and erroneous.
Then came Stanley's survey of the lake, made in a boat journey around its
coasts, and for years his map supplanted that of Speke. But he was not able
to follow the shore-line in all its intricate details. His mapping was a great
advance upon that of Speke, but it was necessarily rough and imperfect. He
missed entirely the deep indentation of Baumann Gulf and the southwestern
prolongation of the lake, surveyed by Father Schynse, in 1891. Stanley's
map, modified by the partial surveys of various explorers, is still our

mapping of the lake; but if the reader will watch the maps for the next year
or so, he will doubtless observe important changes in the contours of
Victoria Nyanza; for all the maps, from Speke to those of 1902, will be
placed on the shelf to serve only as the historical record of the good, honest
work which a number of explorers have done. Commander Whitehouse has
recently spent thirteen months surveying with infinite pains these coasts and
islands. "I seem to see," writes Stanley of this important service, "the sailor,
with his small crew and his little steel boat, wandering from point to point,
crossing and recrossing, going from some island to some headland, taking
his bearings from that headland back again to the island, and to some point
far away."
Commander Whitehouse has made a new delineation of the entire 2,200
miles of coasts, and the results of his survey will be used in making all the
maps of the lake. His map in turn will undoubtedly be replaced some day by
detailed topographic surveys of the best quality, such as the British already
contemplate making of that entire region.
A wall map recently in use in one of the public schools of New York City
was a curious example of ignorant compilation. It exhibited the Victoria
Nyanza of Speke, the Bangweolo of Livingstone, and the Upper Congo of
Stanley, all obsolete for practical purposes years before this map was
printed. Most of our home map-makers were very slow in availing
themselves of the rich materials constantly supplied for the maps by the
army of explorers in Africa. But the most alert cartographers, particularly
between 1880 and 1895, could not keep their maps abreast of the news of
discovery as it came to Europe. More men and energy and money were
utilized in those fifteen years of African discovery than in the first century
and a half of American exploration. The route or mother-maps, some
covering a wide extent of country, others devoted to a small area, or a short
line of travel, were going to Europe for the improvement of atlas sheets by
nearly every steamer. Father Schynse's chart of the southwest extension of
Victoria Nyanza had hardly been utilized in European map-houses before it
was replaced by Dr. Baumann's more accurate survey. Mr. Wauters of
Belgium withdrew his large map of the Congo Basin from the printer four
times, in order to include fresh information before it was finally issued to
the public.

This process is still going on, though more slowly. The mapping we see
of Lake Tanganyika, one of the longest lakes in the world, has been in use
for seventeen years since missionary Hore made his boat journey of one
thousand miles around its coasts, but the new map of the Moore expedition
now being introduced gives the main axis of the lake a more northeast and
southwest direction. The Hore map has met the fate that usually overtakes
the early surveys of every region. It rendered good service as long as it was
the best map; but the Moore expedition had first-rate appliances for
computing longitudes, and as Captain Hore lacked these, it is not strange
that his map has been found to be defective.
The world has been treated to many geographical surprises in the course
of this incessant transformation of the map of the continent. Many of us
may remember in our school geographies, the particular blackness and
prominence of the Kong Mountains, extending for two hundred miles
parallel with the Gulf of Guinea. They were accepted on the authority of
Mungo Park, Caillié, and Bowditch, all reputable explorers who had not
seen the mountains, but believed from native information that they existed.
The French explorer, Binger, in 1887 sought in vain for them. Later
explorers have been unable to find them. They are, in fact, a myth, and will
be remembered chiefly as a conspicuous instance of geographic delusion. It
had long been supposed that the navigation of the Niger River, the third
largest river in Africa, was permanently impaired by the Bussa Rapids,
about one hundred miles in length, where Mungo Park was wrecked and
drowned. But Major Toutée, a few years ago, when assailed by hostile
natives, made a safe journey with his boats through the rapids; and Captain
Lenfant, in 1901, carried 500,000 pounds of supplies up the river and
through the rapids to the French stations between Bussa and Timbuktu. He
had a small, flat-bottomed steamboat and a number of little boats propelled
by fifty black paddlers. He says that by the land route he would have
required 12,000 porters, and they would have been one hundred and thirty
days on the road.
It was believed that a land portage would always be necessary between
the sea and the Zambesi, above the delta, till 1889, when Mr. Rankin
discovered the Chinde branch of the delta, so broad and so deep that ocean
vessels may ascend it and exchange freight with the river craft.

It has been found that more water pours into the ocean through the
Congo's mouth, which is six miles wide, than from all the other rivers in
Africa together. It is second among the world's rivers, and the dark detritus
it carries to the Atlantic has been distinctly traced on the ocean bed for six
hundred miles from the land. Some geographers still believed thirty years
ago that all the waters of its upper basin might be tributary to the Nile. Map-
makers have been kept very busy recording discoveries on the Congo.
About one hundred explorers, some of them missionaries and many
employees of the Congo Free State, have mapped the whole basin along its
water-courses, and discovered the ultimate source of its main stream. Our
ideas of the hydrography of this great basin have been revolutionized since
Stanley, second only to Livingstone among the great African explorers, in
1877 revealed the course of the main river.
On his map, for example, he showed the southern tributaries as probably
flowing nearly due north; but all except one of these rivers rise in the east
and flow far to the west. When Wissmann was sent to the Upper Kassai to
follow it to the Congo, he was greatly surprised to find himself floating
westward week after week. When he reached the Congo a steamboat was
waiting for him at Equatorville, two hundred miles further up the river,
where he was expected to emerge. Schweinfurth believed the Welle Makua
flowed north to Lake Chad on the edge of the Sahara; seventeen years later,
after six or seven explorers had tried to solve the problem, the river was
found to be the upper part of the Mobangi tributary of the Congo, larger
than any rivers of Europe, excepting the Volga and Danube. While Stanley
was for five years planting his stations on the Congo, he knew nothing of
this great tributary, 1,500 miles long, whose mouth was hidden by a cluster
of islands which his steamers repeatedly passed. Missionary Grenfell, on his
little steamer, was ascending the Congo one day, when accidentally he got
into the mouth of the Mobangi and went on for one hundred miles before he
discovered that he had left the main river. Few explorers have unwittingly
stumbled upon so rich a geographical prize.
While exploratory enterprises have been centred largely in tropical
Africa, no part of the continent has been neglected. We now know that large
areas of the Sahara are underlaid by waters which need only be brought to
the surface to cover the desert around them with verdure; that most of the
rain falling on the south slopes of the Atlas Mountains sinks into the earth to

impermeable strata of rock, along which it makes its way far out into the
desert; that where the surface is depressed so that these waters come near to
it, there are wells for the refreshment of the camel caravans, and oases,
blooming islands of green, in the sterile wastes; and that artesian wells
bring inexhaustible supplies of water within reach, so that millions of date
palms have been planted along the northern edge of the desert in southern
Algiers and Tunis, making these regions the largest sources of the world's
supply of dates.
It has also been discovered why there are very large areas of dry or desert
lands in Africa. The Sahara and the southwest of Africa are deserts because
the prevailing winds, the carriers of moisture, blow towards the sea instead
of away from it, and consequently are always dry. The winds from the
Indian Ocean crossing the highlands of Abyssinia are wrung nearly dry
while passing the mountains, and so Somaliland and the lowlands to the
south of Abyssinia are parched.
It has been found that the most of South Africa stands so high above the
sea that the influences of a temperate climate are projected far towards the
Equator; so that many white men, women, and children are living and
thriving on farms in Mashonaland, seven degrees of latitude nearer the
equator than the south end of Florida. This fact will profoundly influence
the development of South Africa. It is to be the home of millions of the
white race, the seat of a highly civilized empire, whose business relations
with the rest of the world will be to the advantage of every trading nation.
The presence of these millions of toilers will vitally affect the work of
developing tropical Africa which is now absorbing such enormous treasure
and energy; for South Africa is to be brought by railroads to the very doors
of the tropical zone.
It is hoped that such facts as these, even though very briefly stated, may
convey broadly a correct impression of the magnitude of African
exploration, since its revival about the time that Livingstone died. It is
impossible in brief space to signalize the good work that many of the most
conspicuous pioneers have done. The world rendered tardy tribute to the
notable achievements of some of them. When Rebmann discovered
Kilimanjaro, not far from the equator, and told of the snows that crown the
loftiest of African summits, it was decided by British geographers that

Rebmann's snow was probably an imaginary aspect. The snow was there,
and plenty of it, but Rebmann died before justice was done to his faithful
labors. When Paul du Chaillu described the Obongo dwarfs of West Africa,
his narrative was discredited; but four or five groups of dwarfs, probably
numbering many thousands, are now known to be scattered from the lower
border of Abyssinia to the Kalahara desert in the far south. The ancients had
heard of the dwarfs, but the geographers of the eighteenth century expunged
from the maps of Africa about all that the geographers of Greece and Rome,
as well as those of later times, placed on them; and the nineteenth century
was slow in crediting the early investigators even with statements that were
wholly or approximately accurate.
A curious history is connected with the discovery of the northeastern
group of pygmies, a little south of Abyssinia. No white man had ever seen
them, but about fifteen years ago Dr. Henry Schlichter, of the British
Museum, collected all the information which natives had given to
missionaries, traders, and explorers of the existence of these little people
some hundreds of miles from the sea. Sifting all this evidence, he concluded
that these dwarfs really existed, and that they lived in a region which he
marked on the map north of Lake Stefanie. Donaldson Smith had not heard
of Schlichter's paper, and knew nothing of these dwarfs, but he found them
in 1895 in the region which Schlichter had indicated as their probable
habitat.
The broadest generalization with regard to the African tribes is that which
separates most of the peoples south of the Sahara Desert into two great
groups,--the Negro tribes, whose habitat may be roughly indicated as
extending between the Atlantic and Gallaland in East Africa, with the
Sahara as their northern, and the latitude of the Cameroons as their
southern, boundaries; and the Bantu tribes, occupying nearly all of Africa
south of the Negroes. The distinction between these two great groups is not
based upon special differences as to physical structure, mental
characteristics, habits, or development, but depends solely upon
philological considerations, the languages of the Negroes and the Bantus
forming two distinct groups. Most of the slaves who were brought to our
country were Negroes, while most of those transported to Latin America
were from the Bantu tribes.

One fact that stood out above all others in the study of the African
natives, was the remarkable prevalence of cannibalism in the Congo basin.
In all his wanderings, Livingstone met only one cannibal tribe,--the
Manyema living between Tanganyika and the Upper Congo; but though
they are not found near the sources of the river, nor near its mouth, they
occupy about one-half of the Congo basin. They are regarded with fear and
abhorrence by all tribes not addicted to the practice. They number several
millions. Instead of being the most debased of human creatures, many of
them, in physical strength and courage, in their iron work, carving,
weaving, and other arts, are among the most advanced of African tribes. The
larger part of the natives in the service of the Congo Free State are from the
cannibal tribes. The laws now impose severe penalties for acts of
cannibalism, and the evil is decreasing as the influence of the state is
extended over wider areas. A few isolated tribes along the Gulf of Guinea
are also cannibals.
There is no doubt that the helpful influences of the Caucasian in every
part of Africa so far outweigh his harmful influences that the latter are but a
drop in the bucket in comparison. It is most unfortunate that a certain
admixture of blundering, severity, brutality, and wickedness seems
inseparable from the development of all the newer parts of the world. The
demoralizing drink traffic, the scandalous injustice and cruelty of some of
the agents of civilized governments, are not to be belittled or condoned. But
there is also a very bright side to the story of the white occupancy of Africa.
The family of a deceased chief in Central Africa recently preserved his
body unburied for fourteen months, in the hope that they might prevail upon
the British Government to permit the sacrifice of women and slaves on his
grave, that he might have companions of his own household in the other
world. He was buried at last, without shedding a drop of blood. Human
sacrifices are now punishable with death throughout a large part of
barbarous Africa, and the terrible evil is being abated as fast as the influence
of the European governments is extended over new regions. The practice of
the arts of fetichism, a kind of chicanery, most injurious in its effects upon
the superstitious natives, is now punishable throughout the Congo Free
State and British Rhodesia. Arab slave-dealers no longer raid the Congo
plains and forests for slaves, killing seven persons for every one they lead
into captivity. Slave-raiding has been utterly wiped out in all parts of Africa,

except in portions of the Sudan and other districts over which white rule has
not yet been asserted. The Arabs of the Congo, who went there from East
Africa solely that they might grow rich in the slave trade, are now settled
quietly on their rice and banana plantations. The sale of strong drink has
been restricted by international agreement to the coast regions, where the
traffic has long existed, and its evils are somewhat mitigated there by the
regulations now enforced. Fifty thousand Congo natives who would not
carry a pound of freight for Stanley in 1880, are now in the service of the
white enterprises, many of them working, not for barter goods, but for coin.
Many of the missionary fields are thriving, and wonderful results have been
achieved in some of them. In Uganda, where Stanley in 1875 saw King
Mtesa impaling his victims, there are now ninety thousand natives
professing Christianity, three hundred and twenty churches, and many
thousands of children in the schools. Fifty thousand of the people can read.
Between 1880 and 1882 Stanley carried three little steamboats around 235
miles of rapids to the Upper Congo. Eighty steamers are now afloat there,
plying on nearly 8,000 miles of rivers, and connected with the sea by a
railroad that has paid dividends from the day it was opened. At the end of
1890 there were only 5,813 miles of railroad in Africa. About 15,000 miles
are now in operation, and the end of this decade is certain to see 25,000
miles of railroads. Trains are running from Cairo to Khartum, the seat of the
Mahdist tyranny, in the centre of a vast region which, until recently, had
been closed for many years to all the world.
These wonderful results are the fruits of the partition of Africa among the
European states. With the exception of some waste regions in the Libyan
desert, which no one has claimed, Morocco, Abyssinia, and Liberia, every
square mile of African territory has been divided among European powers,
either as colonies or as spheres of influence. The scramble of twenty years
for African lands is at an end, there now being no valuable areas that are not
covered by the existing agreements. It is no mere love of humanity that has
impelled the European countries to divide these regions among themselves.
We can scarcely realize the intensity of the struggle for existence in many of
the overcrowded parts of Europe. Their factories are enormously
productive, but their people will suffer for food unless they can export
manufactures. The crying need for new markets, for new sources of raw
material, drove these states into Africa. And we should be glad, for Africa's

sake, that they have gone there, even though the desire to make money is
one of the most powerful incentives.
It is under the protective aegis of these governments that explorers are
settling down in smaller areas to see what may be found between the
explored water-courses, to study the continent in detail, to give to our
knowledge of Africa the scientific quality now required. The greatest
geographical work there in recent years is the extension of a line of stations
across tropical Africa by Commander Lemaire, each position
astronomically fixed by the most careful methods, constituting a base-line
east and west through Africa to which the scientific mapping of a very large
area will be referred.
The day of the minuter study of the whole continent has now dawned,
and we are witnessing a most notable work. All the colonial powers, and the
Germans most conspicuously, are studying the economic questions relating
to their African possessions. The suitability of climates for colonists, the
essential rules of hygiene, the development of agriculture, labor supplies,
transportation and commercial facilities, and many other problems are
receiving the most careful attention. Experiment stations are maintained in
the colonies and colonial schools at home, to fit young men for service in
the field. The Germans have already proved that cotton and tobacco are
certain to become profitable export crops.
The mine-owners of the Witwatersrand, on which Johannesburg stands,
have begun a movement which they hope will result in the immigration of
100,000 white laborers to the mining field. We may look for remarkable
development in South Africa, whose promise is larger than that of any other
part of the continent. Whatever may be said of some of the methods by
which the British have enlarged their empire, their rule has blessed the
barbarous peoples whose countries they have absorbed. The task of
improving the few millions of blacks in South Africa, and of developing the
large and in some respects wonderful resources of that region, will be
greatly assisted by the incoming of hundreds of thousands of Europeans,
bringing with them the arts and other blessings of civilization. The future of
none of the newer parts of the world is brighter with the hope of great
development than the region between the Zambesi and the Cape of Good
Hope.

In order to observe intelligently the progress of South Africa in coming
years, the limitations as well as the advantages of the country must be kept
in view. More than half of it, including the entire western half, is deficient
in rainfall and can never be the home of a dense white population. Some
mining will develop on those broad, dry plains and sandy wastes; some
agriculture where irrigation is possible; and great wool-growing wherever
thrive the nutritious grasses on which 13,000,000 sheep, scattered over the
Karroo of Cape Colony, and 4,000,000 in the little Orange Free State, were
grazing before the recent war. Wool-growing will always be the greatest
grazing industry, though cattle and horses are raised in large numbers, and
the fine, soft hair of the Angora goat is second only to wool in export
importance.
A narrow strip of fine farm lands across the south end of Africa, another
along the southern border of the former Boer republics, and a large area
among the highlands of Mashonaland, far towards the equator, produce
nearly all the crops of the temperate zones. It is not yet certain, however,
that South Africa will ever raise enough wheat for a great white population.
On the northern slopes of the hills, east and northeast of Cape Town, are
thousands of acres of grapes. Cape Colony is becoming one of the
important wine countries; and in February and March, large quantities of
grapes, peaches, nectarines, and plums are placed in cool rooms on
steamships and sent fresh to British markets almost before English fruit
trees are in bloom.
East of the grape region is an area peculiarly adapted for the cultivation
of tobacco; and east of the tobacco district, north of the coastal belt of
wheat in a region of sandy scrub, the bush country, are the ostrich farms, in
the hands mainly of men of considerable capital, who supply nearly all the
feathers derived from the domesticated ostrich. The plumes are sometimes
worth as much as $200 a pound, the ordinary feathers bringing from $5 to
$7 a pound. Natal is unique in two of its agricultural industries, being the
only colony that is producing tea and important quantities of cane sugar.
But gold, widely scattered over the country on the interior plateau,
exceeds in value all the other exports together. The world never saw such a
development of gold mining in a small area as has occurred on the
Witwatersrand, where Johannesburg stands. The Witwatersrand (White

River Slope) is a slight elevation, the water parting between rivers, about
one and a half miles wide and 125 miles long. On twenty-five miles of the
rand, at and near Johannesburg, more gold was produced in the year before
the Boer war than was yielded by any other country in the world, The other
rich mining regions of the Transvaal and other parts of South Africa have
been completely dwarfed by the wonderful product of the rand. The surveys
in Matabeleland and Mashonaland show gold-bearing areas 5,000 square
miles in extent, which as yet have practically no development. The mining
companies on the rand and elsewhere are now preparing for far larger
operations than ever before.
The Kimberley diamond mines, turning out more than $20,000,000 worth
of rough stones a year, supply nearly all the diamonds of commerce. Two
other diamond centres in the Orange River Colony have scarcely been
touched, and diamonds are found on the Limpopo River and in other
regions where no mining has been undertaken. The minerals of South
Africa, including iron and coal, bid fair to be for many years the largest
sources of wealth; and in wool, hides, mohair, fresh fruits, and some other
products, South Africa may rival other parts of the world.
There are no good natural harbors except Delagoa Bay in Portuguese
East Africa, but by great expenditure the harbors of Cape Town, Port
Elizabeth, East London, and Durban have been adapted for great commerce.
Many persons mistakenly regard Cape Town as the chief commercial centre
of South Africa. It is so only in respect of the export of gold and diamonds.
As it is not centrally situated for business with the interior, more of the
things that South Africa sells to and buys from the rest of the world,
excepting gold and diamonds, pass through Port Elizabeth than through any
other port. Here is centred the largest wholesale trade.
What South Africa needs is more railroads and more white labor.
Manufacturing industries on an important scale are yet to come, for as yet
the white population is too sparse to develop anything but the natural
products of the country.
The broad summing up of the future work in Africa is that the native will
be taught to help himself. The destiny of the continent depends largely upon
his development, for great parts of Africa may never be adapted to become

the home of many white men. The most powerful motives, philanthropic
and selfish, incite and will sustain the work of helping these millions to rise
to a higher plane of humanity. This work, now well begun, is the great task
which in the present century will call for all the knowledge, patience,
humanity, and justice that may be brought to bear upon the problem of
reclaiming Africa.

AUTHORITIES.
Livingstone's "Missionary Travels," "A Narrative of an Expedition to the
Zambesi," and "Last Journeys;" Blaikie's "Livingstone's Personal Life;"
Stanley's "How I found Livingstone."
Stanley's "Through the Dark Continent," "The Congo and the Founding
of its Free State," "In Darkest Africa;" Schweinfurth's "The Heart of
Africa;" Burton's "The Lake Regions of Central Africa;" Speke's "Journal of
the Discovery of the Source of the Nile;" Thomson's "To the Central
African Lakes and Back;" Barth's "Travels and Discoveries in Central
Africa;" Theal's "Compendium of South African History;" Greswell's
"Geography of Africa South of the Zambesi"; Noble's "The Redemption of
Africa" (A History of African Missions).
No comprehensive compendium of the history of African exploration has
yet been written. Our knowledge of the geography, peoples and resources of
Africa is treated with considerable detail in a number of works such as
Reclus's "Africa" (in "The Earth and Its Inhabitants") and Sievers's "Afrika"
(German). A very large part of the exploratory enterprises in Africa have not
been described in books, but only in the reports of the explorers, printed
with their original maps in the publications of many geographical and
missionary societies.

SIR AUSTEN HENRY LAYARD.

1817-1894.
MODERN ARCHAEOLOGY.
BY WILLIAM HAYES WARD, D.D., LL.D.

It was twenty-three long centuries ago that a Greek soldier of fortune,
who had the honor to be also a disciple of Socrates, was leading ten
thousand mercenaries back to their native land after their famous failure to
set the Younger Cyrus on the throne of Persia. Clearchus and the other
generals had been treacherously murdered. Dispirited, almost hopeless, on
their way to the longed-for Black Sea, in anticipation of the perilous and
tedious journey, past wild mountains and wilder Kurds, they toiled up the
valley of the Tigris River. Of one incident of their journey their historian
and leader makes no record. They reached the spot where now stands the
city of Mosul. On the bank of the river their eyes fell on a bare and lofty
hill. They did not know, they never suspected,--Xenophon wrote no word of
it,--that under that hill lay buried the ruins of one of the mightiest
conquering cities that had ever ruled the world. From the palaces of that
hill, Ninus and Semiramis and Sardanapalus had led their conquering
armies, all now covered with silence.
Two centuries earlier, in 606 B.C., there had occurred one of the most
tremendous catastrophes recorded in all the grim annals of war. After a
thousand years of primacy in the East, but twenty years after the death of
Sardanapalus (the Greek name of Asshurbanapal), who had carried his
armies to Egypt and had made his capital the centre of the world's culture
and magnificence, as it was of its cruel and hated power, Nineveh was
captured, buried, and utterly desolated by a horde of savage Scythians from
the mountains of the north and east, such people as we now call the Kurds.
Its palaces had no lofty Greek columns to stand for memorials, as at

Palmyra or Persepolis; and when the outer casings of brick and alabaster
were cracked away, and the ashes of the upper stories and the clay of the
inner constructions, soaked by the rains, covered the ruins of temple and
palace, nothing was left to mark the site but the grass-covered hill. No
wonder that the learned scholar of Socrates saw nothing, knew nothing of
the city, most glorious and most detested of all the cities of the earth. But in
its day the overthrow of Nineveh and the destruction of the Assyrian Empire
had been the most terrible event in the world's history. How the Hebrew
prophets gloated over it! "Where now is the den of the lions, and the
feeding-place of the young lions, where the lion and the lioness walked, the
lion's whelp, and none made them afraid? Wo to the bloody city; it is all full
of lies and rapine; the prey departeth not. The noise of the whip, and the
noise of the rattling of wheels, and prancing horses, and bounding chariots,
the horsemen mounting, and the flashing sword, and the glittering spear,
and a multitude of slain, and a great heap of corpses, and there is no end of
the bodies. There is no assuaging of the hurt; thy wound is grievous; all that
hear the report of thee clap their hands over thee: for upon whom hath not
thy wickedness passed continually?" And another prophet had uttered the
curse: "The pelican and the porcupine shall lodge in the capitals thereof;
their voice shall sound in the windows; desolation shall be in the thresholds;
for he hath laid bare the cedar-work. This is the joyous city that dwelt
carelessly, that said in her heart, 'I am, and there is none besides me!' How
is she become a desolation, a place for beasts to lie down in! Every one that
passeth by her shall hiss, and wag his hand."
Thus fell Nineveh, amid the universal rejoicing of the nations, and thus,
seventy years later, fell Babylon also, which, in the short interval,
Nebuchadnezzar had made more magnificent than even Nineveh had been,
beautified for its capture by Cyrus. But before Babylon was the capital of
Chaldea, or Nineveh the capital of Assyria, the city of Calah had been the
seat of its kings, and a mighty mound--they call it Nimroud now--"as high
as St. Paul's steeple," old travellers loved to say--marks the place on the east
bank of the Tigris, twenty miles south of Nineveh; and, before Calah,
Assyria had an earlier capital forty miles still nearer the Babylonian border,
at Asshur, now Kalah-Shergat, on the west of the Tigris; and each capital
had its palaces and records, and all are now equally buried in clay and utter
oblivion. And before the Babylon of Nebuchadnezzar, and long centuries

before Nineveh or Calah or Asshur, there had been mighty kingdoms in
Babylonia, of which the world had quite forgot the names, only vague
rumors remaining in song or legend of Nimrod and Chedorlaomer and Ur of
the Chaldees,--only what was preserved in the dimmest records of the
Hebrew Scriptures. Empires were lost, buried in chiliads of forgetfulness;
would they ever be recovered?
And how much else was lost, what kingdoms, what empires buried
before Hebrew or Greek history began to take notice of the world outside
and put them in books, no one knew, no one knows even yet, although so
much has been found. The fame of Egypt was never quite forgotten, nor all
its history, for Egypt was the world's granary, and closely accessible to the
ships of Corinth and Rome; and Egypt never lost her civilization in all her
long succession of enslavement. But what memory had been kept of the
Ionia and Greece of the days before Homer? What of the early civilization
of Cyprus and Crete? Only the name of Minos, a judge in Hell. What of
Persia and Elam? Were they uninhabited before the times of Xerxes and
Cyrus? And who were these kings, Cyrus and Xerxes, whose names burst
upon us with dim light out of a black antiquity? Even they were but
shadows on a screen, just seen and disappearing. What kings and kingdoms
came before them and passed away? Has history no record? Not a word.
Only black vacuity has been left behind them. And there was that other
empire of the East, that of the Hittites, which we now know ruled Asia
Minor and Syria and contested the rule of the world with Assyria and Egypt
centuries before Agamemnon and Achilles, but so utterly buried and
forgotten that not a line of its history was left, not even enough to let the
sharpest scholar ask a question or suspect that it ever built capitals and
fought victories and produced a civilization the harvest of which we still
enjoy. Nothing was left of them but their names in a Hebrew list of tribes,--
"Amorites and Jebusites and Hivites and Hittites."
Yet all these lost tribes, nay, lost nations, had left their records behind
them, only they were buried under ground and out of sight. What a travesty
it is on history and civilization, what an impeachment of the glory of these
later Christian centuries, that the lands which these old empires crowded
with a busy population should now be among the most desolate and
inaccessible on the face of the earth! There we see the curse of the Moslem
religion, and still more of the Turkish government. Wherever the Turk has

carried the sword and the Koran, there is blight and death. Only as soldiers
and scholars of Europe have forced their way into these seats of ancient
empires has it been possible to ask and learn what is buried beneath their
gray desolation.
The man who did more than any other to awaken the interest of the world
in the search for forgotten empires was Sir Henry Layard, the excavator of
Nineveh. But before his day another man had startled the world with what
we may call the discovery of Egypt. That man was Napoleon Bonaparte, the
man whose sword was a ploughshare turning up the fallow fields of Europe,
and sowing strange crops of tyranny and liberty, and whose ambition it was
to set up a new throne in the land of the Pharaohs and Ptolemies. The
mighty ruins of Karnak and the imperishable pyramids filled him with
amazement, and he set the scholars of France at work to publish in massive
folios the wonders of that most ancient land. Then was found the Rosetta
Stone, with its inscription in two languages,--Greek, which any scholar
could read, and the Egyptian hieroglyphics, which no living man could
read. But here was the key. The words Ptolemy and Cleopatra were in the
Greek text, and it was not hard to find what were the combinations of
characters that stood for these words in the Egyptian. The letters p, t, and l
were in both names. The hieroglyphic signs found in both names must be
these three letters. That beginning gave all the other signs in both words,
and the rest of the alphabet soon followed. Justly great is the fame of the
Frenchman Champollion, who has the honor of having first deciphered and
read this lost language, and opened to us the secret treasures of its history
and religion.
But with the exploration of Egypt the scholarship of the world was
satisfied for fifty years. No one seemed to think to ask what might be hid
under the soil of nearer Palestine and Syria and Asia Minor; much less did
they seek to uncover the buried capitals of Assyria and Babylonia.
Scholarship was devoted to books, to old manuscripts in convent libraries,
to recovering what the wise men of Greece and Rome had written, and
trying to wrest new facts out of their blundering old compilations of ancient
history. It did not occur to them that a hundred kings and ten thousand
merchants and priests might have left the stories of their conquests or
contracts or liturgies, unrotted in the wet soil, imperishably preserved to be
the record of commerce and empires as old and as great as those of Egypt,

but far deeper covered with oblivion. But there they were, kept safe for
twenty, thirty, fifty centuries, until the man should come whose mission it
was to find them.
More than one such man came in the middle of the last century, but one
man is pre-eminent, and typical of all the rest, Sir Austen Henry Layard.
Before him one Frenchman, M. Paul Emile Botta, had made a fine dash on
a palace city a dozen miles north of Nineveh, and had opened wonders such
as the world had never seen before. But the man whose energy was fullest
of impulse, whose enthusiasm compelled British Ambassadors and
Ministers and Parliaments to do his bidding, who aroused the world to the
importance of the exploration and disinterment of the monuments of
Babylonia and Assyria, was the Englishman Layard.
He had a youthful passion for adventure, and slender means to gratify it. I
wish you could see him as he is pictured in the volume which gives the
story of his early adventures, before he had settled on his lifework of
exploration. There he stands clad in his Bakhtiyari costume, the dress of a
mountain tribe in Persia which asserted its independence of Teheran. It is a
well-knit frame, fit to endure hardships. He stands holding the tall
matchlock, the curved scimetar by his side, and the long pistol and the
dagger in his belt. Above the yellow shoes and parti-woven stockings a red
silk robe falls to his ankles, and over that a green silk garment reaches to his
knees, and yet over that a shorter and richly embroidered coat, with open
sleeves, is held close about the body by a wide silken sash woven in the
brightest of red and gold, and holding the weapons attached to his waist. On
his head is a low flat cap, visorless in front, but with a broad bow in place
of a feather, all striped with the richest embroidery, and with a wide tassel
of the same material falling far down his back. But the face, with its short
beard dyed dark with henna, and its blue eyes, is not that of a warrior, but of
a serious scholar or diplomatist. And he needed all the force of courage and
all the arts of diplomacy for the work he had to do.
Layard's early training was in the line of preparation for his life's work.
Much of his boyhood was spent in Italy, where he acquired a taste for the
fine arts, and as much knowledge of them as a child could obtain who was
constantly in the society of artists and connoisseurs. At about the age of
sixteen he was sent to England to study the law, for which he was destined

by his parents. After six years in the office of a solicitor, and in the
chambers of an eminent conveyancer,--for that is the way that lawyers were
educated then,--he determined to leave England and seek a career
elsewhere. He had a relative in Ceylon, who gave him hopes of securing a
position there, and for Ceylon he started. A friend of his, ten years older,
was bound for the same destination, both fond of adventure, and they
agreed to go together, and to go as far as they could by land instead of
taking the long sea journey around the Cape of Good Hope. Across Europe
they passed to Constantinople, through Austria, Dalmatia, Montenegro,
Albania, and Bulgaria; thence across Asia Minor to Syria and Palestine;
thence to Aleppo and down the Tigris to Baghdad. It was an extraordinary
and adventurous journey, often dangerous; but greater danger was to follow.
Layard had learned some Turkish, and now he spent the long weeks in
Baghdad in the study of Persian; his companion was quite familiar with
Arabic. Before they left England they had received good advice from Sir
John MacNeill, the British representative at the court of the Shah: "You
must either travel as important personages, with a retinue of servants and an
adequate escort, or alone, as poor men, with nothing to excite the cupidity
of the people amongst whom you will have to mix. If you cannot afford to
adopt the first course, you must take the latter." The latter they were forced
to take.
Many a young man has the gift to acquire languages--almost any Oriental
can talk three or four--and the ability to rough it and live on the fare of the
people, though barbarous; and many a man has the spirit of adventure; but
this young man had one peculiar and unusual qualification that directed him
to his future career. As a child, he had read the "Arabian Nights" with
intense delight, with their stories centred about Baghdad. Then every book
of Eastern adventure, every bit of travel in Syria, Arabia, or Persia that he
could find he had eagerly devoured. It was his day and night's longing that
he might visit strange lands of history and make explorations and
discoveries. So wherever he was, he visited every ruin and tried to copy
every inscription. If his companion would not turn aside to visit some
region of renown and danger, he would go alone and join him later. As they
came down the river Tigris in their boat, they passed the immense mound of
Nimroud, and so impressed was Layard by it that he then, scarce twenty-
three years old, resolved that some day he would search and learn what was

hidden under it; but little did he imagine what wonderful monuments he
was to find there only a few years later.
Without a servant, as poor men, in a caravan of fanatical and hostile
Persian pilgrims returning from the shrines, just travellers trying to go by
land through Persia and Afghanistan to India and Ceylon, they left
Baghdad. It was a time of unusual danger, for the British Minister had been
recalled from the Persian Court, and war with England was threatened.
They were taken for spies, and sent to the presence of the Shah, and
forbidden to follow the route they had chosen and which had been marked
out for them by the Council of the Royal Geographical Society, to report on
rivers and mountains and ruins not yet explored. They were insulted and
robbed, and their lives were often in danger; but at last they received from
the Shah their firmans. Now they separated. His companion felt that he
must go by the quickest route to his destination; but Layard had no definite
date before him, and he was anxious to perform the commissions of the
Geographical Society, and so he plunged alone into fresh dangers.
But there is no space to tell the rest of the story of his adventures among
the Bakhtiyari, of his copying of inscriptions, of his return to Baghdad and
his decision to give up the plans of life in Ceylon, and of his return from
Baghdad again to Shuster and Persepolis and other ancient cities of Persia,
and his exploration of the Karun River and his geographical paper on the
subject, his opening of British trade, and his return to Constantinople. At
Mosul he found that M. Botta was planning to explore the mounds across
the Tigris that covered ancient Nineveh, and he warmly encouraged his
plans. At Constantinople he visited Sir Stratford Canning and delivered to
him despatches that had been confided to his care, in view of a threatened
war between Persia and Turkey. Here he was kept in the service of the
British Embassy, and intrusted with important and delicate negotiations and
investigations which were so highly appreciated by Sir Stratford that he
kept him as his attaché.
Meanwhile M. Botta had begun his excavations of a palace of King
Sargon at Khorsabad and was sending his reports and drawings to Paris.
They were all sent by way of Constantinople, and, by M. Botta's generosity,
were all seen by Mr. Layard. So deeply was he interested in them, and so
intense was his desire to carry on excavations himself, that he secured his

release from the Embassy, and also a grant of three hundred dollars from Sir
Stratford's own purse, which, with what he could spare from his own
money, would, he hoped, suffice to begin the work, when, if anything of
value appeared, it was trusted that funds would be secured from English
friends of Oriental learning. Thus, six years after leaving England, Mr.
Layard, well equipped in knowledge of the people and in diplomatic
experience, was ready to launch on his great career, which brought him
fame and earned him the post in later years of British Ambassador at the
Porte, which Sir Stratford had held, and--what is far greater--gave to the
world the larger part of its knowledge of the lost empires of Assyria and
Babylonia.
With these few hundred dollars, and contributing every penny of his own
income, in October of 1845, he left Constantinople without companion or
servant, went by steamer to Samsoun, and then as fast as post-horses could
climb or gallop over mountains and plains, he reached Mosul in twelve
days.
Here at last he was fitted for his task, supplied for the accomplishment of
his passion. The Arabs say: "I had a horse, but no desert; I had a desert, but
no horse; now I have a desert and a horse, and shall I not ride?" His
boyhood, with the artists of Italy, and learning the languages of the
continent, had fitted him for his task; then his study of all the books of
Eastern travel, then half a year wandering with a trained companion through
Asia Minor and Syria, scarcely leaving untrod one spot hallowed by
tradition, or unvisited one ruin consecrated by history, with no protection
but his arms, living with the people and learning their prejudices and
customs. Then an irresistible desire had brought him to the regions beyond
the Euphrates, and the mystery of Assyria, Babylonia, and Chaldea had
fascinated him, so that he had visited the land of Nimrod, seen the site of
their old buried capitals, had been the guest in the tents of Shammar and
Aneyzah Arabs, and even passed on to see the famous forty columns of
Chilminar, old Persian Persepolis, and to penetrate the mountain fastnesses
where the Bakhtiyari maintained a perilous freedom. Never was man better
trained by enthusiasm and experience for his task, and the late discoveries
of M. Botta had inflamed his desire to surpass what his French friend had
done.

His plan was not to begin excavations at Nineveh, opposite Mosul, but
twenty miles south, at the great mound of Nimroud, which bore the name of
the mighty hunter Nimrod. Xenophon and his Ten Thousand had seen and
wondered at its pyramid. There he would be free from the army of
mischievous spectators that would swarm from Mosul, had he selected the
site of Nineveh, and from the constant interference of the Turkish governor.
The Pasha at Mosul was a cruel scoundrel, who was robbing and killing the
people as his whim or greed prompted, and had reduced the tribes of the
neighborhood to a state of terror. Accordingly, Mr. Layard, who was armed
with protecting letters from the British Ambassador and the Porte, thought it
wise to conceal his purpose, let it be reported that he was going on a
hunting expedition; and with a few tools and a supply of guns and spears,
on the 8th of November, 1845, accompanied only by his cawass, the soldier
attendant detailed for the protection of travellers, a servant, and one laborer,
he floated down the Tigris, and in four hours reached the bourne of his long
hopes. He had the mound, he had the money, and now he would dig.
The Arabs have strange stories of this ruin. The palace, they say, was
built by Athur, the vizier of Nimrod. There Abraham brake in pieces the
idols worshipped by the unbelievers. Nimrod was angry and waged war on
the holy patriarch. Abraham prayed to God: "Deliver me, O God, from this
man who worships stones, and boasts himself to be lord of all kings;" and
God said to him, "How shall I punish him?" and the prophet answered, "To
thee armies are as nothing, and the strength and power of men likewise.
Before the smallest of thy creatures will they perish." And God was pleased
at the faith of his servant, and he sent a gnat that vexed Nimrod day and
night, so that he built himself a room of glass in that palace that he might
dwell therein and shut out the insect. But the gnat entered also, and passed
by his ear into his brain, upon which it fed, and increased day by day, so
that the servants of Nimrod beat his head continually with a mallet that he
might have some ease from his pain; but he died after suffering these
torments four hundred years. And after him the mound was named
Nimroud.
It was dark when Layard and his little company reached the place. They
found near by a few huts occupied by poor Arabs, who had been harried by
the Turkish Pasha. There they slept, or tried to sleep. But the explorer could
not sleep. Hear him:--

"Hopes, long cherished, were now to be realized, or were to end in
disappointment. Visions of palaces under ground, of gigantic monsters, of
sculptured figures, and endless inscriptions, floated before me. After
forming plan after plan for removing the earth and extricating these
treasures, I fancied myself wandering in a maze of chambers from which I
could find no outlet. Then, again, all was reburied, and I was standing on
the grass-covered mound. Exhausted, I was at length sinking into sleep,
when, hearing the voice of Awad, I rose from my carpet and joined him
outside the tent. The day already dawned. The lofty cone and broad mound
of Nimroud broke like a distant mountain on the morning sky."
Awad, his host, was a little chief among the Arabs, and was engaged to
take charge of the diggers. The first morning he had six Arabs at work, and
found alabaster slabs with cuneiform inscriptions. He was now sure he
would succeed.
It is not necessary to give the diary of his work. To be sure, the villanous
Pasha forbade him to continue, and recalled him to Mosul, but a new
governor was sent from Constantinople, under whom he had no difficulty. A
great palace had been found, and chamber after chamber was excavated, the
walls covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions. Then came strange, gigantic
lions with human heads, that had been placed by the old Assyrian king to
guard the entrances to his court. What was the amazement of the Arabs and
Turks cannot be told. First, the head was uncovered. It stood out from the
earth, placid and vast. Hear Layard tell the story. He had been away to visit
a neighboring chief:--
"I was returning to the mound, when I saw two Arabs urging their mares
to the top of their speed. 'Hasten, O Bey,' exclaimed one of them, 'hasten to
the diggers, for they have found Nimrod himself. By Allah! it is wonderful,
but it is true! We have seen him with our eyes! There is no God but God!'
And both joining in this pious exclamation, they galloped back to the tent."
Layard hastened to the trench, and there saw what he knew to be the head
of a gigantic lion or bull, such as Botta had uncovered at Khorsabad. It was
in admirable preservation. The expression was calm, yet majestic, and the
outline of the features showed a freedom and knowledge of art that was
scarcely to be looked for at so early a period. Says the explorer:--

"I was not surprised that the Arabs had been amazed and terrified at this
apparition. It required no stretch of imagination to conjure up the most
strange fancies. This gigantic head, blanched with age, thus rising from the
bowels of the earth, might well have belonged to one of those fearful beings
which are pictured in the traditions of the country as appearing to mortals,
slowly ascending from the regions below. 'This is not the work of men's
hands,' exclaimed Sheikh Abdurrahman, who had galloped to the mound on
the first news, 'but of those infidel giants of whom the Prophet, peace be
with him! has said that they were higher than the tallest date-tree; this is one
of the idols which Noah, peace be with him! cursed before the flood!' In this
opinion all the bystanders concurred."
The Arabs have a ready explanation for every fresh discovery. When
some years later Mr. Layard's assistant and successor in the work of
excavation, Mr. Rassam, uncovered, at Abu-habba, a remarkable bas-relief
with the figure of the seated Sun-god and three approaching worshippers,
the Arab diggers rushed to him, declaring that they had found Noah and his
three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japhet, and demanded a sheep to make a feast.
The report of the wonderful discovery of a royal palace, evidently older
than those of Nineveh, with magnificent decorations in alabaster and
cuneiform inscriptions, reached beyond Mosul to Constantinople. Sir
Stratford Canning was delighted with the result of his expedition. He had a
passion for discovery as well as diplomacy, and it is to him that the British
Museum is indebted for the priceless marbles of Halicarnassus. He now
obtained for Mr. Layard a firman, permitting him to make what excavations
he wished. Then the news reached London, and the British Museum made a
grant to support the work. All difficulties were now removed. Conditions
were even more favorable for him than they are now. There was then no
Imperial Museum in Constantinople to which all objects found must be
taken, but those that dug had the right to carry off their prizes to London or
Paris.
To tell the story of the further excavations is unnecessary. It is all given in
Layard's two splendid volumes, "Nineveh and its Remains," and "Babylon
and Nineveh;" and the bas-reliefs, statues, bronzes, ivories, and inscriptions
are magnificently reproduced in great folio volumes. From Nimroud he
went back to Mosul, and there opened the two mounds opposite of

Kuyunjik and Neby-Yunus, the site of old Nineveh. There more palaces and
friezes were found of other kings. Then he went back to London, closing his
successful campaign, more profitable if not more glorious than those of war,
and published the story of his work. Its effect was marvellous. No such
popular book of travels had ever appeared; for it was a story of adventure,
and also of strange discovery. Mr. Layard had not suspected that he had the
literary gift, but he had it in rare measure. He had gained an inner view of
the heart of tribes, Moslem and Christian and semi-pagan, by his sympathy
with them and his knowledge of their tongues. He had lived in their tents
and huts. He had saved them from persecution by Turkish governors. Their
gratitude to him was beyond words, and he told their story with affection
and enthusiasm. Then his discoveries were in the lands made historic not
only by the campaigns of Xenophon and Alexander, but made almost sacred
by the Bible history. These were the lands whence came the armies that
fought with Israel. These were the kings whose wars are told in the Jewish
records; and the annals of these kings were found in their palaces, and they
gave full accounts of wars of which the Bible had given the outline. Piety
and learning joined to give extraordinary interest to these discoveries and to
this report of them. Mr. Layard found himself famous, and the monuments
he was bringing to the British Museum were, and still are, the most
extraordinary and fascinating in all its corridors.
Of course, a new grant was made in behalf of the British Museum, and of
course he went back to continue and extend his researches. Now he wished
to go further south, beyond Nimroud to Kalah Shergat, the yet earlier
capital of Assyria; and yet further to Babylon, that he might see and test the
multitude of mounds of ancient Chaldea, the real land of Nimrod, the seat
of Eden, and the Tower of Babel, far more ancient than any one of the three
capitals of Assyria. While he did scarce more than to visit and report on the
Babylonian mounds, his diggings in Nineveh itself were of vast importance,
for there he found the library of Asshurbanabal, on clay tablets, which has
given us our chief knowledge of the literature and learning of the ancient
East. In 1852 he returned to England to publish his "Monuments of
Nineveh," and left the further exploration to his able lieutenant, Mr.
Rassam, and to a noble succession of explorers who should follow, and to a
no less noble line of scholars who should interpret the inscriptions and
recover the history of the nations; so that we now know more exactly the

history of Babylonian and Assyrian kings, and from more authentic records,
and more completely the social condition and business life of the countries,
than we do the history of Greece, or the life of the Greeks even of the time
of Pericles, and that, too, for a period of three thousand years.
To illustrate this fact, let us take the black obelisk of Shalmaneser II.,
found by Layard at Nimroud. It is a column of basalt seven feet high and
about two feet wide at the base, from which it narrows slightly, until near
the top it is reduced by three steps. On the four sides is engraved in five
rows of bas-reliefs, twenty in all, the pictured history of the royal conquests,
the submission of kings, and the presentation of tribute. Above and below,
and between, in two hundred and ten lines, was cut an inscription which
explained the figures, and gave a full historical and, of course,
contemporary and official account of the glorious events of the royal reign.
Not a line was defaced; at the British Museum it can be seen to-day as
perfect as when engraved twenty-seven centuries ago. Other monuments of
Shalmaneser have been found. One is a great monolith with a portrait of the
king in all his fine array, and with one hundred and fifty-six lines of text.
Another is a series of splendid bronze plates that covered great wooden
gates, on which, in repoussé work, were pictures of the royal victories, and
inscriptions explaining them. The Bible tells us of the rivalries and
jealousies of Ahab and Jehu, kings of Israel, and Benhadad and Hazael,
kings of Damascus. How surprising it is to find here not only the story of
the successive campaigns of Shalmaneser against these same kings, the
number of their chariots and soldiers, but to see pictured before us the
tribute sent by Jehu. We learn that Shalmaneser reigned from 859 to 825
B.C., and we have the record of all his successive campaigns, the first
twenty-six of which he led in person. There is not another country of which,
before the invention of printing, we have so minute a history; and all had
been lost, except the mention of a name or two, whether historical or
legendary we hardly knew, until Layard and his fellow-explorers opened the
mounds of Assyria.
But enough for Layard. He is only one, though the principal one, of all
the explorers of the buried records of the empires of the Tigris and
Euphrates. And Babylonia and Assyria are not the only countries that
history required us to explore. Greece and its neighboring states and islands
have not even yet been fairly investigated. Much of Asia Minor is still a

virgin field. Syria and Palestine have hardly been scratched with the spade.
More has been done in Egypt, but more yet is to be done. And when we go
into the further east of Persia and Old Elam, not to speak of the yet farther
east of Central Asia, now just beginning to yield strange treasures to daring
travellers, and ancient India and China,--how ancient we know not at all,--
there is field for centuries of further research. For we must go back past
empires and kingdoms and tribal conditions to the very beginning of the
human race on the earth, even if so it be, to the first Pithecanthropus which
men of science tell us was the link which connected Homo sapiens with the
race of primitive simians. And all this, it may well be, is preserved in
undecaying records just a few feet under the ground, if one only knew
where to dig for it; nay, we now know where to dig for the most and best of
it, and we only await the Stratford Cannings, who will give the money, and
the Austen Layards, who have the enthusiasm for the work.
After Layard and Rassam, after Rawlinson and Botta, George Smith took
flying trips to the site of Nineveh twice that he might gather the remaining
fragments of the great library of Asshurbanabal, and he died in the field far
from home. It was he that found among Layard's tablets the Babylonian
account of the Deluge, so much like that in the Bible. He was the first of a
second generation who, following Rawlinson and Oppert, decipherers as
well as explorers, were able to read as they found. I can only mention the
names of the Englishmen Taylor and Loftus; of the Frenchmen, Place and
De Sarzec; and, later, the Americans, Peters, Hilprecht, and Haynes, who
have so faithfully explored the extremely archaic mound of Niffer, which I
had the honor to recommend for excavation after I had visited the mounds
of Southern Babylonia in the winter of 1884-85. And now the Germans,
with scientific as well as commercial and political purpose, with their
railroad to pass down the valley through Baghdad to the Persian Gulf,
which gives them predominant influence, have sent expeditions well
equipped with scholars and engineers to the choicest sites in Babylonia, to
Warka, the ancient Erech, and to Babylon itself; and with Teuton
thoroughness they are excavating the most famous of ancient ruins and
gathering fresh treasures of archaeological research. Nor have they left the
land of the Hittites unexplored, for Germany claims the first rights,
politically, in all Anatolia, the right of succession and possession when the

Turk is expelled, and German archaeological science is bound to be first on
that field.
And now what have we found as the fruit of all this labor of exploration?
Is it worth the labor and the expense?
Let us look first--it can be only a glance--at Egypt, for Egypt was the
land first and most persistently explored. The French Government for scores
of years has been at work there. Germans and Italians have explored the
ruins; two English societies have for years kept expeditions in the field; and
just now a Californian university sends an American Egyptologist to
uncover the tombs and read the hieroglyphs of the kings. Not only are the
figured monuments of Egypt published in princely folios, but its records
have been translated and its lost history recovered to the world's knowledge.
Instead of the bare "Pharaoh" of the Bible, a common designation for all the
kings, and in place of a bare list of names and dynasties copied from
Manetho, and so altered and corrupted in the copying as to be neither Greek
nor Egyptian, we have, on scarab, or gravestone, or pyramid, or rock-
sepulchre wall, in his own spelling, the name of almost every king from the
latest time of the Ptolemies back to the first king of the first dynasty, five
thousand--or was it six thousand?--years before Christ. And not their names
only, but the very pictures of their wars. We see how they went up the Nile
and fought the blacks of Abyssinia, and brought back the spoils of Punt We
see them sending their squadrons into Syrian Asia, and waging a dubious
battle with the Hittites before the walls of Hamath, where Rameses in his
lion-guarded chariot performs prodigies of valor, and from which he returns
not only to paint on sacred walls the picture of his victory, but also to
inscribe a copy of the treaty of peace with the Hittite king, the earliest treaty
in the preserved annals of diplomacy. Well wrought that Rameses the Great
for eternal fame in the sixty years of his reign, fifteen centuries before the
birth of our Lord. But what fame had been his, had not explorers and
excavators and scholars dug and found and copied and translated what the
sands had covered for centuries? And to-day the curious traveller stops in
sight of the pyramids on the banks of the Nile, and enters the Bulaq
Museum, and there he sees set up before him the very mummy of Rameses
himself and of a dozen other royal personages, rifled from their tombs and
displayed for your amazement and mine. There is the very Pharaoh--you
can see his features, you can touch his coffin--who chased the Children of

Israel out of Egypt. There are the household implements, the furniture of
their homes, the jewelry their queens wore,--queens who were also sisters
of the kings, as Sarah was the sister of Abraham.
Or would you know of some great revolution in Egypt? These
decipherers of the inscriptions will tell you how the Shepherd Kings
overthrew the native dynasty, coming with their armies from Asia long
before Rameses, and changed religion and customs; under whom Jacob and
his sons found hospitable welcome, until their hated race was expelled by a
stronger native dynasty that knew not Joseph. Or they will tell you of the
royal reformer Khuenaten, son of a famous Eastern mother, a queen from
the banks of the Euphrates. Taught by her, perhaps, a purer religion, he
attempted to replace the worship of Egypt's bestial gods by the worship of
the one only great God, whose symbol was the sun. But the priestly clan
was too strong for him, and the succeeding Pharaohs destroyed his records
and chiselled out his name where it had been cut in stone that no memory of
his sacrilege might be preserved. A royal Moses there could not be. The
worshipper of one God, whether king or son of Pharaoh's daughter, could
bring no reformation to Egypt.
Or would you learn how Egypt ruled its subject territory? You can read
the correspondence of a dozen local Egyptian governors in Palestine and
Syria in the century before Moses led the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt.
There is the letter of the King of Jerusalem, where Melchizedek reigned in
the times of Abraham; and they tell of rebellions against the fading power
of Egypt, and of the fear of the advancing Hittites. The earliest kings, those
that built the pyramids, appear before us real in their personality, emerging
out of misty legend or myth, and, earlier still, even the prehistoric races that
antedated the very beginning of civilization. Whence came that first
dynasty? Who invented writing? Were they autochthons? Hardly. These are
questions left for further explorers to answer. Probably those first
messengers of civilization came from the East, perhaps from Arabia,
perhaps from Babylonia, or perhaps the first Babylonians and Egyptians
formed a common stock somewhere near the mouth of the Euphrates.
Perhaps the Bible is right in saying that the first seat of civilized man was in
Eden, and that the Euphrates was the chief river of Paradise. Or was it from
Arabia, the immemorial home of the Semitic tribes, that land of sand and
mountain and fertile valley, land of changeless culture and tradition, so near

the centres of civilization, and yet still the most inaccessible, the least
known portion of the inhabited earth,--was it from Arabia that the wiser,
stronger multitude came that first overran the valleys of both the Nile and
the Euphrates, bringing to Egypt and Chaldea arts and letters? We do not
know. Some future explorer must teach us. But the German Glaser has
within these few years brought back from hazardous journeys a multitude of
inscriptions that tell of kingdoms that fringed its southern coast and
extended we know not how far into the interior in those early days when
one of the queens of Sheba brought presents to Solomon, and when, earlier
still, we are told there were dukes of Edom before there was any king in
Israel. They say that a railroad is to be built to Mecca; Arabia is not to be
always a closed land, neighbor as it is to Egypt. We shall know one of these
days whether, as scholars suspect, out of Arabia and across the Straits of
Bab-el-Mandeb, where, at the southern end of the Red Sea, Africa almost
touches Asia, there came that mighty flood of more forceful men, bred in
the deserts and hills, who, passing down the Nile, first brought history to
Egypt; and whether it was this same Semitic people, as scholars suspect
again, that spread resistlessly eastward to the Euphrates valley, and did an
equal service in conquering and assimilating the black aborigines of these
swamps and lagoons. The spade will tell us.
Or was it still further east, in the highlands of Persia, that men first
learned how to write and record history? We cannot go back so far in the
history of Babylonia--Professor Hilprecht dares to carry us seven thousand
years before Christ--that we do not find its kings fighting against Elam. And
only in the last decade of the Nineteenth century the Frenchman De Morgan
has made marvellous discoveries in the Elamite lands. What a noble passion
those Frenchmen have for discovery! For Egypt did not Napoleon provide
the most elephantine books of monuments and records that printing-presses
have yet issued? And from that time to this have not Frenchmen held the
primacy in excavations until, even while England holds and rules Egypt,
she leaves, by special convention, the care of its monuments and their
exploration to French savants? And before Layard removed a basketful of
the earth that covered the palace of Shalmaneser at Nimroud, had not the
Frenchman Botta disclosed the friezes and sphinxes of Sargon at
Khorsabad; and in these late years is it not the Frenchman De Sarzec who
has brought from Telloh to the Louvre the statues of Chaldean kings that

lived almost five thousand years ago? And so to France was given the right,
for the honor and enrichment of the Louvre, to explore Persia; and De
Morgan went to Susa, to Shushan, the palace of Xerxes and Darius, of
Ahasuerus and Esther, in search of what was far earlier than they, for
another Frenchman and his wife, M. and Mme. Dieulafoy, had already
excavated the noble palace of these Persian kings. Far below the palace of
Xerxes he has found vastly earlier remains. There is the column set up, if
we can believe the Assyriologists who trust the chronology of Nabonidus,
the last king of Babylon,--and it is not incredible,--three thousand eight
hundred years before Christ, by Naram-Sin, a Babylonian king, to
commemorate one of his raids into the land of what were perhaps his
stronger enemies. It is a noble composition, with archaic writing, and a
stately figure of the king climbing the mountains and slaying his enemies; it
shows an art that might well have developed into the best that Greece has
produced. But De Morgan has only begun to scratch the surface of the
mounds of Elam, and a multitude of scholars believe that out of Elam came
the first civilization of Chaldea. We shall find out yet; for the record is in
the earth, and only waits the man who will dig it out, and then the man who
will read it.
We are tempted to go further east and recall that in India, the land where
Alexander made his most distant conquests, a multitude of English scholars
have been searching the ruins of old temples for the earliest memorials of
the worship of Buddha. Just now they have found his birthplace and
precious relics. But that takes us too far afield, and would tempt us to
further excursions in Burmah and China. We must come back to Western
Asia and the shores of Europe.
As has been indicated, the greatest puzzle of ancient history is that of the
Hittite empire, which seems to have ruled all Asia Minor at some uncertain
time, and to have extended over Syria and Palestine. No sooner had the
greatest Egyptian kings, Thothmes and Rameses, ventured their armies into
Asia, perhaps in vengeance on the incursions of Ionian pirates, perhaps in
requital of the tyrannies of the hated Shepherd Kings, than they learned of
the Hittites on the shores of the Euphrates. Then, a century or two later, a
mass of official correspondence sent by the Kings of Palestine and Syria,
dug up in Egypt, reports that the Hittites had appeared as invaders from the
north and beseeches military aid. But the power of Egypt had waned, and

the Hittites were supreme until the Assyrians began and carried on for five
centuries the uncertain war which ended in the utter overthrow of the
Hittites and all their allies in a great battle at Carchemish. That great mound
of Carchemish needs to be thoroughly explored. Already an English
expedition has very carelessly just opened the hill and exposed, but not
fairly published, some few as fine friezes as are to be found in the Assyrian
capitals, with unread Hittite inscriptions, and a fine statue of the Hittite
Venus; but much remains to reward the student of Oriental history and art.
At Senjirli a German expedition under Von Luschan has done more and
better work, handsomely published, but this was a smaller Syrian town, and
less was to be expected; and yet here, and near by, were found what was not
expected, steles (upright slabs or pillars) with the portraits of kings in high
relief, covered over with long inscriptions in Aramaic, the oldest and
longest as yet discovered anywhere in that language. It was a magnificent
result of very moderate labor,--Hittite friezes, Assyrian and Aramean
inscriptions all in one little mound. But for the most part we know the art
and writing of the Hittites from what we have found above ground, in their
towns and fortresses in the hills, for little digging has been done. At Pterium
was a principal sacred capital, and there, on a natural corridor of rock, they
carved a procession of gods and kings and soldiers that excites the wonder
of scholars. As I write, the announcement comes that Professor Sayce has at
last discovered the secret of the Hittite hieroglyphs, and we may hope that
very soon it will be possible to read them. But there is vastly more of their
records yet to be disinterred.
And there remain the two lands most sacred and beloved in poetry and
history,--the land of Israel and the land of Homer. It is amazing that so little
search has been made to find out what is hidden under the soil of Palestine.
Scholars in plenty have walked over the top of it, and have told all that is on
the surface, but almost nothing has been done underground, no such
excavations as in Egypt or Assyria. I do not forget that the English Palestine
Exploration Fund has followed out, with trenches and tunnels, the walls of
Jerusalem, nor that one or two old mounds have been partly explored. But
what is this to the great work that needs to be done? There has been found
on the surface the Moabite Stone, at the old capital of Dibon, a wonderful
record of early kings mentioned in the Bible. And there is the short account
in the rock-cut conduit of Siloam, of the success of the workmen in the time

of Hezekiah, who, beginning at the two ends, did the fine engineering feat
of having their tunnels meet correctly in the solid rock. But when Jerusalem
is fully explored, and the northern capitals of Bethel and Tirzah and
Samaria, and a hundred other mounds that mark the site of Jewish, Israelite,
Philistine, and Amorite cities, we may expect marvellous discoveries that
will illumine our Holy Scriptures.
And one region yet remains to be considered, the scattered coasts and
islands that owned the Greek speech, and that created the Greek
civilization. It is not the Greece of the Parthenon and Pericles that we wish
to discover, for that we fairly know; but the arts and the history of those
earlier Greeks and Trojans that Homer tells of, the age of Agamemnon and
Ulysses, of Helen and Hector and Priam, and of the yet earlier tribes that
sailed the Aegean, and settled the Mediterranean islands, and sent their
ships to the Egyptian coasts, and sought golden fleeces on the Euxine Sea.
All about the coast of Asia Minor they lived, while that Hittite power was
ruling the interior; and, intermixed with Phoenician trading-posts, they held
the great islands of Crete and Cyprus and the shores of Sicily and Italy.
What shall we call them? Were they Dorians, or Heraclidae, Achaeans or
Pelasgi? Were they of the same race as the mysterious Etruscans, or shall
we name them simply Mycenaeans, as we call the art Mycenaean that ruled
the islands and coasts down to the Homeric age, and we know not how
many centuries earlier, but certainly as far back as the conquering period of
the Eighteenth Egyptian Dynasty of Thothmes? Their soldiers and
merchants and their fine vases are pictured on the walls of Egypt, and their
pottery has long been studied; but we knew little of them until Dr.
Schliemann, the Greek merchant who achieved wealth in the United States,
bravely opened the great ruins of Troy, in the full patriotism of his
assurance that Homer's story of the Trojan war was history as well as
poetry. As he found one burnt and buried city under another,--for many
times was Troy destroyed,--and extended his investigations to Tiryns and
other ancient cities, one volume of splendid research followed another, until
the trader had compelled the unwilling scholar to confess that he must dig
for both history and art. To be sure, his interpretations were quite too literal
at first, but the whole world of classical scholarship has learned from him
the new method of research. Splendid have been the results. If we are not
sure which stratum represents the city of Priam, we do learn how the people

lived, and how fine was their work in silver and gold, and how slight their
knowledge of letters. Dr. Schliemann has now a multitude of imitators.
France and Germany and England and the United States each maintain a
school of archaeology in Athens, and each conducts careful explorations.
Our American School lost to the French, for lack of money at the right time,
the chance to explore Delphi, but it has carried on careful explorations at
Corinth and other places. How wonderful was the discovery, not long ago,
of a shipload of bronze and marble statues wrecked while being transported
as spoil of war from Corinth to Rome!
But the most surprising discoveries in the realm of old Greek history and
art are those that have been made in these last two or three years in Crete.
Crete was a famous centre of ancient Greek legend. Jupiter was born and
reared on Mount Ida. From another mountain summit in Crete the gods
watched the battle on the plains of Troy. There ruled Minos, who first gave
laws to men, and who at his death was sent by the gods to judge the shades
as they entered the lower world. There was the famous Labyrinth, and there
the Minotaur devoured his annual tale of maidens until he was slain by
Theseus. Was there such a real palace of Minos as the Greek poets sung?
The magnificent palace of the Cretan kings at Cnossus has been found, by
Mr. Evans, with its friezes, its spiral ornaments, its flounce-petticoated
women, its treasuries, and its tablets written in a script so old that it cannot
yet be read, but which will be read as surely as scholarship leaves none of
its riddles unsolved. The childhood of Greece, its mighty infancy, out of
which it grew to be the creator and the example of all the world's culture, is
even now being exposed to our view, safely kept to be recovered by the
scholars of our generation.
Of interest rather to the student of the curiosities of history are the
mounds and pyramids and temples built by the aborigines of America; for
these tribes have had absolutely no part in creating our dominant
civilization or developing its art. China and Japan are, at this late day,
giving something to the world's store of beauty and utility; but the mound-
builders and cliff-dwellers, the Mayas and Toltecs and Incas, have given
absolutely nothing which the world cared to accept. But this does not argue
that it is not worth while to learn what we can of the rude civilization of the
races whom we have displaced. Their arrowheads and hatchets are in every
little museum. Their mounds, sometimes shaped like serpents or tortoises or

lizards, are scattered over all the central States, and many of them have
been carefully explored with scanty results. The cliff-dwellers have left
somewhat richer remains, more baskets and parched corn, yet nothing of
artistic value. We have to go to Mexico and Yucatan and further south to
Peru, to find the majestic capitals of the Mayas and Incas, who had really
reached a fair degree of such civilization as stone and copper, without iron,
and the beginnings of picture symbols, without letters, could provide.
Humboldt and Stephens, and Lord Kingsborough, and Squier, and Tchudi,
and Charnay have made explorations and found vast and wonderful cities,
some of them deserted and overgrown before Cortez and Pizarro took
possession of the lands for Spain and enslaved the people. Where the city of
Mexico now stands was a famous capital, from whose ruins were taken the
great Calendar stone and the double statue of the god of war and the god of
death. In Palenque and Uxmal, capitals of Yucatan, were immense palaces
and temples, with the weird ornamentation of Mayan imagination; and
equal wonders exist in the high uplands where the Incas ruled Peru. Even
their barbaric art and their unrecorded history must be recovered, to satisfy
the curiosity of the more fortunate races whose boasted Christianity visited
on them nothing better than cruel slaughter. At least we can give them
museums and publish magnificent pictures of their ruins.
So we may bless the ashes and sand that seemed to destroy and bury the
monuments of the mighty empires of the ancient world, but which have
kindly covered and preserved them, just as we put our treasures away in
some safety-vault while absent on a long journey. The fire burned the upper
wooden walls of the city, and it fell in ruins, but under those ruins, covered
by that ashes, were preserved for two thousand, three thousand, five
thousand years uninjured, the choicest sculpture and the most precious
records of ancient nations,--retained beyond the reach of vandal hands, until
scholarship had grown wise enough to ask questions of forgotten history,
and had sent Layard and Schliemann and De Sarzec and Evans and a
hundred other men to dig with their competitive spades. But in all the long
list of enthusiasts not one deserves a higher honor or has reaped a richer
harvest than Sir Henry Layard.

AUTHORITIES.
Layard: "Early Adventures;" "Nineveh and its Remains;" "Nineveh and
Babylon;" "Monuments of Nineveh." Botta: "Monument de Ninive."
Loftus: "Chaldea and Susiana." Y. Place: "Ninive et Assyrie." Hilprecht:
"Babylonian Expedition of the University of Pennsylvania;" "Recent
Research in Bible Lands." Perrot and Chipiez: "History of Art in Antiquity."
J.P. Peters: "Nippur." R.W. Rogers: "History of Babylonia and Assyria." F.
Lenormant: "Students' Manual of the Ancient History of the East;" "The
Beginnings of History." Maspero: "Dawn of Civilization;" "Struggle of the
Nations;" "Passing of the Empires;" "Egyptian Archaeology;" "Life in
Ancient Egypt and Assyria." C.J. Ball: "Light from the East." Egypt
Exploration Fund's Publications. F.J. Bliss: "Exploration in Jerusalem;" "A
Mound of Many Cities." Schliemann: "Troy and its Remains;" "Ilios;"
"Mycenae;" "Tiryns;" "Troja." A.J. Evans: "Cnossus;" "Cretan Pictographs."
Tsountas and Manatt: "The Mycenaean Age."

MICHAEL FARADAY.

1791-1867.
ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM.
BY EDWIN J. HOUSTON, PH.D.
"No man is born into the world whose work
Is not born with him. There is always work,
And tools to work withal, for those who will."
LOWELL

A man was born into the world, on the 22d of September, 1791, whose
work was born with him, and who did this work so well that he became one
of its greatest benefactors. Indeed, much of the marvellous advance made in
the electric arts and sciences, during the last half-century, can be directly
traced to this work.
It was in Newington Butts, in London, England, that the man-child first
opened his eyes on the wonders of the physical world around him. To those
eyes, in after years, were given a far deeper insight into the mysteries of
nature than often falls to the lot of man. This man-child was Michael
Faraday, who has been justly styled, by those best capable of judging him,
"The Prince of Experimental Philosophers."
The precocity so common in the childhood of men of genius was
apparently absent in the case of young Faraday. The growing boy played
marbles, and worried through a scant education in reading, writing, and
arithmetic, unnoticed, and most probably, for the greater part, severely left
alone, as commonly falls to the lot of nearly all boys, whether ordinary or
extraordinary. At the early age of thirteen, he was taken from school and
placed on trial as errand-boy in the book-shop of George Ribeau, in
London. After a year at this work, he was taken as an apprentice to the
bookbinding trade, by the same employer, who, on account of his faithful
services, remitted the customary premium. At this work he spent some eight
years of his life.

But far be it from us even to hint at the absence of genius in the young
child. Genius is not an acquired gift. It is born in the individual. Apart from
the marvellous achievements of the man, a mere glance at the magnificent
head, with its high intellectual forehead, the firm lips, the intelligent
inquiring eyes, and the bright face, as seen in existing pictures, assures us
that they portray an unusual individuality, incompatible with even a
suspicion of belonging to an ordinary man. Doubtless the growing child did
give early promise of his future greatness. Doubtless he was a formidable
member of that terrible class of inquiring youngsters who demand the why
and the wherefore of all around them, and refuse to accept the
unsatisfactory belief of their fathers that things "are because they are." In its
self-complacency, the busy world is too apt to fail to notice unusual abilities
in children,--abilities that perhaps too often remain undeveloped from lack
of opportunities. But whether young Faraday did or did not, at an early age,
display any unusual promise of his life-work, all his biographers appear to
agree that he could not be regarded as a precocious child.
Faraday disclaimed the idea that his childhood was distinguished by any
precocity. "Do not suppose that I was a very deep thinker, or was marked as
a precocious person," says Faraday, when alluding to his early life. "I was a
very lively, imaginative person, and could believe in the 'Arabian Nights' as
easily as the 'Encyclopaedia,' but facts were important to me, and saved me.
I could trust a fact and always cross-examined an assertion. So when I
questioned Mrs. Marcet's book [he is alluding to her 'Conversations on
Chemistry'], by such little experiments as I could find means to perform,
and found it true to the facts as I could understand them, I felt that I had got
hold of an anchor in chemical knowledge, and clung fast to it."
But while there may be a question as to the existence of precocity in the
young lad, there does not appear to be any reason for believing that his
unusual abilities were the result of direct heredity. His father, an ordinary
journeyman blacksmith, never exhibited any special intellectual ability,
though possibly poverty and poor health may have been responsible for this
failure. His mother, too, it appears, was of but ordinary mentality.
The environment of those early years--that is, from 1804 to 1813, while
in the book-binding business--was far from calculated to develop any
marked abilities inherent in our young philosopher. What would seem less

calculated to inspire a wish to obtain a deeper insight into the mysteries of
the physical world than the trade of book-binding, especially in the case of a
boy whose scholastic education ceased at fourteen years and was limited to
the mere rudiments of learning? But, fortunately for the world, the inquiring
spirit of the lad led him to examine the inside of the books he bound, and
thus, by familiarizing himself with their contents, he received the
inspiration that good writing is always ready to bestow on those who
properly read it. Two books, he afterwards informs us, proved of especial
benefit; namely, "Marcet's Conversations on Chemistry," already referred
to, and the "Encyclopaedia Britannica." To the former he attributes his
grounding in chemistry, and to the latter his first ideas in electricity, in both
of which studies he excelled in after years. As we have seen, even at this
early age he followed the true plan for the physical investigator, cross-
questioned all statements, only admitting those to the dignity of facts whose
truth he had established by careful experimentation.
But our future experimental philosopher has not as yet fairly started on
the beginnings of his life-work. The possibilities of the book-binding trade
were too limited to permit much real progress. A circumstance occurred in
the spring of 1812 that shaped his entire after-life. This was the opportunity
then afforded him to attend four of the last lectures delivered at the Royal
Institution, by the great Sir Humphry Davy. Faraday took copious notes of
these lectures, carefully wrote them out, and bound them in a small quarto
volume. It was this volume, which he afterwards sent to Davy, that resulted
in his receiving, on March 1, 1813, the appointment of laboratory assistant
in the Royal Institution. His pay for this work was twenty-five shillings a
week, with a lodging on the top floor of the Institute, a very fair
compensation for the times.
Very congenial were the duties of the young assistant. They were to keep
clean the beloved apparatus of the lecturers, and to assist them in their
demonstrations. The new world thus opened was full of bright promise. He
keenly felt the deficiencies of his early education, and did his best to extend
his learning, so that he might be able to make the most of his opportunities.
But what he perhaps appreciated the most was the inspiration he received
from the great teacher Davy, who was then Professor of Chemistry and
Director of the Laboratory of the Royal Institution; for Faraday assisted at
Davy's lectures, and in an humble way even aided his investigations,

sharing the dangers arising from the explosion of the unstable substance,
chloride of nitrogen, that Davy was then investigating. Faraday has
repeatedly acknowledged the debt owed to the inspiration of this teacher.
Davy also, in later life generously recognized, in his former assistant, a
philosopher greater than himself. As the renowned astronomer, Tycho
Brahe, discovered in one of his pupils, John Kepler, an astronomer greater
than the master, and as Bergman, the Swedish chemist, in a similar manner,
discovered the greater chemist Scheele, so when Davy, in after years, was
asked what he regarded as his greatest discovery, he briefly replied,
"Michael Faraday."
The task of the scientific historian, who endeavors honestly to record the
progress of research, and to trace the influence of the work of some
individual on the times in which he lived, is by no means an easy one; for,
in scientific work one discovery frequently passes so insensibly into another
that it is often difficult to know just where one stops and the other begins,
and much difficulty constantly arises as to whom the credit should be given,
when, as is too often the case, these discoveries are made by different
individuals. It is only when some great discovery stands alone, like a giant
mountain peak against the clear sky, that it is comparatively easy to
determine the extent and character of its influence on other discoveries, and
justly to give the credit to whom the credit is due. Such discoveries form
ready points of reference in the intellectual horizon, and mark distinct eras
in the world's progress. This is true of all work in the domain of physical
science, but it is especially true in that of electricity and magnetism, in
which Faraday was preeminent. The scope of each of these sciences is so
extended, the number of workers so great, and the applications to the
practical arts so nearly innumerable, that it is often by no means an easy
task correctly to trace their proper growth and development.
Faraday's investigations covered vast fields in the domain of chemistry,
electricity, and magnetism. It is to the last two only that reference will here
be made. Faraday's life-work in electricity and magnetism began practically
in 1831, when he made his immortal discovery of the direct production of
electricity from magnetism. His best work in electricity and magnetism was
accomplished between 1831 and 1856, extending, therefore, over a period
of some twenty-five years, although it is not denied that good work was
done since 1856. Consequently, it was at so comparatively recent a date that

most of Faraday's work was done that some of the world's distinguished
electricians yet live who began their studies during the latter years of
Faraday's life. The difficulties of tracing, at least to some extent, the
influence that Faraday's masterly investigations have had on the present
condition of the electrical arts and sciences will, therefore, be considerably
lessened.
The extent of Faraday's researches and discoveries in magnetism and
electricity was so great that it will be impossible, in the necessarily limited
space of a brief biographical sketch, to notice any but the more prominent.
Nor will any attempt be made, except where the nature of the research or
discovery appears to render it advisable, to follow any strict chronological
order; for, our inquiry here is not so much directed to a mere matter of
history as to the influence which the investigation or discovery exerted on
the life and civilization of the age in which we live.
There is a single discovery of Faraday that stands out sharply amidst all
his other discoveries, great as they were, and is so important in its far-
reaching results that it alone would have stamped him as a philosophical
investigator of the highest merits, had he never done anything else. This
was his discovery of the means for developing electricity directly from
magnetism. It was made on the 29th of August, 1831, and should be
regarded as inspired by the great discovery made by Oersted in 1820, of the
relations existing between the voltaic pile and electro-magnetism. It was in
the same year that Ampere had conducted that memorable investigation as
to the mutual attractions and repulsions between circuits through which
electric currents are flowing, which resulted in a theory of electro-
magnetism, and finally led to the production of the electro-magnet itself.
Ampere had shown that a coil of wire, or helix, through which an electric
current is passing, acted practically as a magnet, and Arago had magnetized
an iron bar by placing it within such a helix.
In common with the other scientific men of his time, Faraday believed
that since the flow of an electric current invariably produced magnetism, so
magnetism should, in its turn, be capable of producing electricity. Many
investigators before Faraday's time had endeavored to solve this problem,
but it was reserved to Faraday alone to be successful. Since success in this
investigation resulted from some experiments he made while endeavoring

to obtain inductive action on a quiescent circuit from a neighboring circuit
through which an electric current was flowing, we will first briefly examine
this experiment. All his experiments in this direction were at first
unsuccessful. He passed an electric current through a circuit, which was
located close to another circuit containing a galvanometer,--a device for
showing the presence of an electric current and measuring its strength,--but
failed to obtain any result. He looked for such results only when the current
had been fully established in the active circuit. Undismayed by failure, he
reasoned that probably effects were present, but that they were too small to
be observed owing to the feeble inducing current employed. He therefore
increased the strength of the current in the active wire; but still with no
results.
Again and again he interrogates nature, but unsuccessfully. At last he
notices that there is a slight movement of the galvanometer needle at the
moment of making and breaking the circuit. Carefully repeating his
experiments in the light of this observation, he discovers the important fact
that it is only at the moment a current is increasing or decreasing in
strength--at the moment of making or breaking a circuit--that the active
circuit is capable of producing a current in a neighboring inactive circuit by
induction. This was an important discovery, and in the light of his after-
knowledge was correctly regarded as a solution of the production of
electricity from magnetism.
Observing that the galvanometer needle momentarily swings in one
direction on making the circuit, and in the opposite direction on breaking it,
he establishes the fact that the current induced on making flows in the
opposite direction to the inducing current, and that induced on breaking
flows in the same direction as the inducing current.
Having thus established the fact of current induction, he makes the step
of substituting magnets for active circuits; a simple step in the light of our
present knowledge, but a giant stride at that time. Remembering that current
induction, or, as he called it, voltaic current induction, takes place only
while some effect produced by the current is either increasing or decreasing,
he moves coils of insulated wire towards or from magnet poles, or magnet
poles towards or from coils of wire, and shows that electric currents are
generated in the coils while either the coils or the magnets are in motion,

but cease to be produced as soon as the motion ceases. Moreover, these
magnetically induced currents differ in no respects from other currents,--for
example, those produced by the voltaic pile,--since, like the latter, they
produce sparks, magnetize bars of steel, or deflect the needle of a
galvanometer. In this manner Faraday solved the great problem. He had
produced electricity directly from magnetism!
With, perhaps, the single exception of the discovery by Oersted, in 1820,
of the invariable relation existing between an electric current and
magnetism, this discovery of Faraday may be justly regarded as the greatest
in this domain of physical science. These two master minds in scientific
research wonderfully complemented each other. Oersted showed that an
electric current is invariably attended by magnetic effects; Faraday showed
that magnetic changes are invariably attended by electric currents. Before
these discoveries, electricity and magnetism were necessarily regarded as
separate branches of physical science, and were studied apart as separate
phenomena. Now, however, they must be regarded as co-existing
phenomena. The ignorance of the scientific world had unwittingly divorced
what nature had joined together.
In view of the great importance of Faraday's discovery, we shall be
justified in inquiring, though somewhat briefly, into some of the apparatus
employed in this historic research. Note its extreme simplicity. In one of his
first successful experiments he wraps a coil of insulated wire around the
soft iron bar that forms the armature or keeper of a permanent magnet of the
horse-shoe type, and connects the ends of this coil to a galvanometer. He
discovers that whenever the armature is placed against the magnet poles,
and is therefore being rendered magnetic by contact therewith, the
deflection of the needle of the galvanometer shows that the coiled wire on
the armature is traversed by a current of electricity; that whenever the
armature is removed from the magnet poles, and is therefore losing its
magnetism, the needle of the galvanometer is again deflected, but now in
the opposite direction, showing that an electric current is again flowing
through the coiled wire on the armature, but reversed in direction. He
notices, too, that these effects take place only while changes are going on in
the strength of the magnetism in the armature, or when magnetic flux is
passing through the coils; for, the galvanometer needle comes to rest, and