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74 if he might keep three or four of them for a few days, in order to select one. When asked how he could possibly learn so soon, whether a particular monkey would turn out a good actor, he answered that it all depended on their power of attention. If when he was talking and explaining anything to a monkey, its attention was easily distracted, as by a fly on the wall or other trifling object, the case was hopeless. If he tried by punishment to make an inattentive monkey act, it turned sulky. On the other hand, a monkey which carefully attended to him could always be trained.

It is almost superfluous to state that animals have excellent Memories for persons and places. A baboon at the Cape of Good Hope, as I have been informed by Sir Andrew Smith, recognised him with joy after an absence of nine months. I had a dog who was savage and averse to all strangers, and I purposely tried his memory after an absence of five years and two days. I went near the stable where he lived, and shouted to him in my old manner; he shewed no joy, but instantly followed me out walking, and obeyed me, exactly as if I had parted with him only half an hour before. A train of old associations, dormant during five years, had thus been instantaneously awakened in his mind. Even ants, as P. Huber has clearly shewn, recognised their fellow-ants belonging to the same community after a separation of four months. Animals can certainly by some means judge of the intervals of time between recurrent events.

The Imagination is one of the highest prerogatives of man. By this faculty he unites former images and ideas, independently of the will, and thus creates brilliant and novel results. A poet, as Jean Paul Richter remarks, "who must reflect whether he shall make a character say yes or no—to the devil with him; he is only a stupid corpse." Dreaming gives us the best notion of this power; as Jean Paul again says, "The dream is an involuntary art of poetry." The value of the products of our imagination depends of course on the number, accuracy, and clearness of our impressions, on our judgment and taste in selecting or rejecting the involuntary combinations, and to a certain extent on our power of voluntarily combining them. As dogs, cats, horses, and probably all the higher animals, even birds have vivid dreams, and this is shewn by their movements and the sounds uttered, we must admit that they possess some

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Rh power of imagination. There must be something special, which causes dogs to howl in the night, and especially during moonlight, in that remarkable and melancholy manner called baying. All dogs do not do so; and, according to Houzeau, they do not then look at the moon, but at some fixed point near the horizon. Houzeau thinks that their imaginations are disturbed by the vague outlines of the surrounding objects, and conjure up before them fantastic images: if this be so, their feelings may almost be called superstitious.

Of all the faculties of the human mind, it will, I presume, be admitted that Reason stands at the summit. Only a few persons now dispute that animals possess some power of reasoning. Animals may constantly be seen to pause, deliberate, and resolve. It is a significant fact, that the more the habits of any particular animal are studied by a naturalist, the more he attributes to reason and the less to unlearnt instincts. In future chapters we shall see that some animals extremely low in the scale apparently display a certain amount of reason. No doubt it is often difficult to distinguish between the power of reason and that of instinct. For instance. Dr. Hayes, in his work on 'The Open Polar Sea,' repeatedly remarks that his dogs, instead of continuing to draw the sledges in a compact body, diverged and separated when they came to thin ice, so that their weight might be more evenly distributed. This was often the first warning which the travellers received that the ice was becoming thin and dangerous. Now, did the dogs act thus from the experience of each individual, or from the example of the older and wiser dogs, or from an inherited habit, that is from instinct? This instinct, may possibly have arisen since the time, long ago, when dogs were first employed by the natives in drawing their sledges; or the Arctic wolves, the parent-stock of the Esquimaux dog, may have acquired an instinct, impelling them not to attack their prey in a close pack, when on thin ice.

We can only judge by the circumstances under which actions are performed, whether they are due to instinct, or to reason, or to the mere association of ideas: this latter principle, however, is intimately connected with reason. A curious case has been given by Prof. Möbius, of a pike, separated by a plate of glass from an adjoining aquarium stocked with fish, and who often dashed himself with such violence against the glass in trying to

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76 catch the other fishes, that he was sometimes completely stunned. The pike went on thus for three months, but at last learnt caution, and ceased to do so. The plate of glass was then removed, but the pike would not attack these particular fishes, though he would devour others which were afterwards introduced; so strongly was the idea of a violent shock associated in his feeble mind with the attempt on his former neighbours. If a savage, who had never seen a large plate-glass window, were to dash himself even once against it, he would for a long time afterwards associate a shock with a window-frame; but very differently from the pike, he would probably reflect on the nature of the impediment, and be cautious under analogous circumstances. Now with monkeys, as we shall presently see, a painful or merely a disagreeable impression, from an action once performed, is sometimes sufficient to prevent the animal from repeating it. If we attribute this difference between the monkey and the pike solely to the association of ideas being so much stronger and more persistent in the one than the other, though the pike often received much the more severe injury, can we maintain in the case of man that a similar difference implies the possession of a fundamentally different mind?

Houzeau relates that, whilst crossing a wide and arid plain in Texas, his two dogs suffered greatly from thirst, and that between thirty and forty times they rushed down the hollows to search for water. These hollows were not valleys, and there were no trees in them, or any other difference in the vegetation, and as they were absolutely dry there could have been no smell of damp earth. The dogs behaved as if they knew that a dip in the ground offered them the best chance of finding water, and Houzeau has often witnessed the same behaviour in other animals.

I have seen, as I daresay have others, that when a small object is thrown on the ground beyond the reach of one of the elephants in the Zoological Gardens, he blows through his trunk on the ground beyond the object, so that the current reflected on all sides may drive the object within his reach. Again a well-known ethnologist, Mr. Westropp, informs me that he observed in Vienna a bear deliberately making with his paw a current in some water, which was close to the bars of his cage, so as to draw a piece of floating bread within his reach. These actions of the elephant and bear can hardly be attributed to instinct or inherited habit, as they would be of little use to an animal in a state of nature. Now, what is the difference between such

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Rh actions, when performed by an uncultivated man, and by one of the higher animals?

The savage and the dog have often found water at a low level, and the coincidence under such circumstances has become associated in their minds. A cultivated man would perhaps make some general proposition on the subject; but from all that we know of savages it is extremely doubtful whether they would do so, and a dog certainly would not. But a savage, as well as a dog, would search in the same way, though frequently disappointed; and in both it seems to be equally an act of reason, whether or not any general proposition on the subject is consciously placed before the mind. The same would apply to the elephant and the bear making currents in the air or water. The savage would certainly neither know nor care by what law the desired movements were effected; yet his act would be guided by a rude process of reasoning, as surely as would a philosopher in his longest chain of deductions. There would no doubt be this difference between him and one of the higher animals, that he would take notice of much slighter circumstances and conditions, and would observe any connection between them after much less experience, and this would be of paramount importance. I kept a daily record of the actions of one of my infants, and when he was about eleven months old, and before he could speak a single word, I was continually struck with the greater quickness, with which all sorts of objects and sounds were associated together in his mind, compared with that of the most intelligent dogs I ever knew. But the higher animals differ in exactly the same way in this power of association from those low in the scale, such as the pike, as well as in that of drawing inferences and of observation.

The promptings of reason, after very short experience, are well shewn by the following actions of American monkeys, which stand low in their order. Rengger, a most careful observer, states that when he first gave eggs to his monkeys in Paraguay, they smashed them, and thus lost much of their contents; afterwards they gently hit one end against some hard body, and picked off the bits of shell with their fingers. After cutting themselves only once with any sharp tool, they would not touch it again, or would handle it with the greatest caution. Lumps of sugar were often given them wrapped up in paper; and

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78 Rengger sometimes put a live wasp in the paper, so that in hastily unfolding it they got stung; after this had once happened, they always first held the packet to their ears to detect any movement within.

The following cases relate to dogs. Mr. Colquhoun winged two wild-ducks, which fell on the further side of a stream; his retriever tried to bring over both at once, but could not succeed; she then, though never before known to ruffle a feather, deliberately killed one, brought over the other, and returned for the dead bird. Col. Hutchinson relates that two partridges were shot at once, one being killed, the other wounded; the latter ran away, and was caught by the retriever, who on her return came across the dead bird; "she stopped, evidently greatly puzzled, and after one or two trials, finding she could not take it up without permitting the escape of the winged bird, she considered a moment, then deliberately murdered it by giving it a severe crunch, and afterwards brought away both together. This was the only known instance of her ever having wilfully injured any game." Here we have reason though not quite perfect, for the retriever might have brought the wounded bird first and then returned for the dead one, as in the case of the two wild-ducks. I give the above cases, as resting on the evidence of two independent witnesses, and because in both instances the retrievers, after deliberation, broke through a habit which is inherited by them (that of not killing the game retrieved), and because they shew how strong their reasoning faculty must have been to overcome a fixed habit.

I will conclude by quoting a remark by the illustrious Humboldt. "The muleteers in S. America say, 'I will not give you the mule whose step is easiest, but la mas racional,—the one that reasons best;'" and as he adds, "this popular expression, dictated by long experience, combats the system of animated machines, better perhaps than all the arguments of speculative philosophy." Nevertheless some writers even yet deny that the higher animals possess a trace of reason; and they endeavor to explain away, by what appears to be mere verbiage, all such facts as those above given.

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Rh It has, I think, now been shewn that man and the higher animals, especially the primates, have some few instincts in common. All have the same senses, intuitions, and sensations,—similar passions, affections, and emotions, even the more complex ones, such as jealousy, suspicion, emulation, gratitude, and magnanimity; they practise deceit and are revengeful; they are sometimes susceptible to ridicule, and even have a sense of humour; they feel wonder and curiosity; they possess the same faculties of imitation, attention, deliberation, choice, memory, imagination, the association of ideas, and reason, though in very different degrees. The individuals of the same species graduate in intellect from absolute imbecility to high excellence. They are also liable to insanity, though far less often than in the case of man. Nevertheless, many authors have insisted that man is divided by an insuperable barrier from all the lower animals in his mental faculties. I formerly made a collection of above a score of such aphorisms, but they are almost worthless, as their wide difference and number prove the difficulty, if not the impossibility, of the attempt. It has been asserted that man alone is capable of progressive improvement; that he alone makes use of tools or fire, domesticates other animals, or possesses property; that no animal has the power of abstraction, or of forming general concepts, is self-conscious and comprehends itself; that no animal employs language; that man alone has a sense of beauty, is liable to caprice, has the feeling of gratitude, mystery, &c.; believes in God, or is endowed with a conscience. I will hazard a few remarks on the more important and interesting of these points.

Archbishop Sumner formerly maintained that man alone is capable of progressive improvement. That he is capable of incomparably greater and more rapid improvement than is any other animal, admits of no dispute; and this is mainly due to his power of speaking and handing down his acquired knowledge. With animals, looking first to the individual, every one who has had any experience in setting traps, knows that

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80 young animals can he caught much more easily than old ones; and they can be much more easily approached by an enemy. Even with respect to old animals, it is impossible to catch many in the same place and in the same kind of trap, or to destroy them by the same kind of poison; yet it is improbable that all should have partaken of the poison, and impossible that all should have been caught in a trap. They must learn caution by seeing their brethren caught or poisoned. In North America, where the fur-bearing animals have long been pursued, they exhibit, according to the unanimous testimony of all observers, an almost incredible amount of sagacity, caution and cunning; but trapping has been there so long carried on, that inheritance may possibly have come into play. I have received several accounts that when telegraphs are first set up in any district, many birds kill themselves by flying against the wires, but that in the course of a very few years they learn to avoid this danger, by seeing, as it would appear, their comrades killed.

If we look to successive generations, or to the race, there is no doubt that birds and other animals gradually both acquire and lose caution in relation to man or other enemies; and this caution is certainly in chief part an inherited habit or instinct, but in part the result of individual experience. A good observer, Leroy, states, that in districts where foxes are much hunted, the young, on first leaving their burrows, are incontestably much more wary than the old ones in districts where they are not much disturbed.

Our domestic dogs are descended from wolves and jackals, and though they may not have gained in cunning, and may have lost in wariness and suspicion, yet they have progressed in certain moral qualities, such as in affection, trust-worthiness, temper, and probably in general intelligence. The common rat has conquered and beaten several other species throughout Europe, in parts of North America, New Zealand, and recently in Formosa, as well as on the mainland of China. Mr. Swinhoe, who describes these two latter cases, attributes the victory of the common rat over the large Mus coninga to its superior cunning; and this latter quality may probably be attributed to the habitual

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Rh exercise of all its faculties in avoiding extirpation by man, as well as to nearly all the less cunning or weak-minded rats having been continuously destroyed by him. It is, however, possible that the success of the common rat may be due to its having possessed greater cunning than its fellow-species, before it became associated with man. To maintain, independently of any direct evidence, that no animal during the course of ages has progressed in intellect or other mental faculties, is to beg the question of the evolution of species. We have seen that, according to Lartet, existing mammals belonging to several orders have larger brains than their ancient tertiary prototypes.

It has often been said that no animal uses any tool; but the chimpanzee in a state of nature cracks a native fruit, somewhat like a walnut, with a stone. Rengger easily taught an American monkey thus to break open hard palm-nuts; and afterwards of its own accord, it used stones to open other kinds of nuts, as well as boxes. It thus also removed the soft rind of fruit that had a disagreeable flavour. Another monkey was taught to open the lid of a large box with a stick, and afterwards it used the stick as a lever to move heavy bodies; and I have myself seen a young orang put a stick into a crevice, slip his hand to the other end, and use it in the proper manner as a lever. The tamed elephants in India are well known to break off branches of trees and use them to drive away the flies; and this same act has been observed in an elephant in a state of nature. I have seen a young orang, when she thought she was going to be whipped, cover and protect herself with a blanket or straw. In these several cases stones and sticks were employed as implements; but they are likewise used as weapons. Brehm states, on the authority of the well-known traveller Schimper, that in Abyssinia when the baboons belonging to one species (C. gelada) descend in troops from the mountains to plunder the fields, they sometimes encounter troops of another species (C. hamadryas), and then a fight ensues. The Geladas roll down great stones, which the Hamadryas try to avoid, and then both species, making a great uproar, rush furiously against each other. Brehm, when accompanying the Duke of Coburg-Gotha, aided in an attack with fire-arms on a troop of baboons in the pass of Mensa in Abyssinia. The baboons in return rolled so many stones down the mountain, some as large as a man's head, that the attackers had to beat a hasty retreat; and the pass was

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82 actually closed for a time against the caravan. It deserves notice that these baboons thus acted in concert. Mr. Wallace on three occasions saw female orangs, accompanied by their young, "breaking off branches and the great spiny fruit of the Durian tree, with every appearance of rage; causing such a shower of missiles as effectually kept us from approaching too near the tree." As I have repeatedly seen, a chimpanzee will throw any object at hand at a person who offends him; and the before mentioned baboon at the Cape of Good Hope prepared mud for the purpose.

In the Zoological Gardens, a monkey, which had weak teeth, used to break open nuts with a stone; and I was assured by the keepers that after using the stone, he hid it in the straw, and would not let any other monkey touch it. Here, then, we have the idea of property; but this idea is common to every dog with a bone, and to most or all birds with their nests.

The Duke of Argyll remarks, that the fashioning of an implement for a special purpose is absolutely peculiar to man; and he considers that this forms an immeasurable gulf between him and the brutes. This is no doubt a very important distinction; but there appears to me much truth in Sir J. Lubbock's suggestion, that when primeval man first used flint-stones for any purpose, he would have accidentally splintered them, and would then have used the sharp fragments. From this step it would be a small one to break the flints on purpose, and not a very wide step to fashion them rudely. This latter advance, however, may have taken long ages, if we may judge by the immense interval of time which elapsed before the men of the neolithic period took to grinding and polishing their stone tools. In breaking the flints, as Sir J. Lubbock likewise remarks, sparks would have been emitted, and in grinding them heat would have been evolved: thus the two usual methods of "obtaining fire may have originated." The nature of fire would have been known in the many volcanic regions where lava occasionally flows through forests. The anthropomorphous apes, guided probably by instinct, build for themselves temporary platforms; but as many instincts are largely controlled by reason, the simpler ones, such as this of building a platform, might readily pass into a voluntary and conscious act. The orang is known to cover itself at night with the leaves of the Pandanus; and Brehm states that one of his baboons used to protect itself from the heat of the sun by throwing a straw-mat

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Rh over its head. In these several habits, we probably see the first steps towards some of the simpler arts, such as rude architecture and dress, as they arose amongst the early progenitors of man.

Abstraction, General Conceptions, Self-consciousness, Mental Individuality.—It would be very difficult for any one with even much more knowledge than I possess, to determine how far animals exhibit any traces of these high mental powers. This difficulty arises from the impossibility of judging what passes through the mind of an animal; and again, the fact that writers differ to a great extent in the meaning which they attribute to the above terms, causes a further difficulty. If one may judge from various articles which have been published lately, the greatest stress seems to be laid on the supposed entire absence in animals of the power of abstraction, or of forming general concepts. But when a dog sees another dog at a distance, it is often clear that he perceives that it is a dog in the abstract; for when he gets nearer his whole manner suddenly changes, if the other dog be a friend. A recent writer remarks, that in all such cases it is a pure assumption to assert that the mental act is not essentially of the same nature in the animal as in man. If either refers what he perceives with his senses to a mental concept, then so do both. When I say to my terrier, in an eager voice (and I have made the trial many times), "Hi, hi, where is it?" she at once takes it as a sign that something is to be hunted, and generally first looks quickly all around, and then rushes into the nearest thicket, to scent for any game, but finding nothing, she looks up into any neighbouring tree for a squirrel. Now do not these actions clearly shew that she had in her mind a general idea or concept that some animal is to be discovered and hunted?

It may be freely admitted that no animal is self-conscious, if by this term it is implied, that he reflects on such points, as whence he comes or whither he will go, or what is life and death, and so forth. But how can we feel sure that an old dog with an excellent memory and some power of imagination, as shewn by his dreams, never reflects on his past pleasures or pains in the chase? And this would be a form of self-consciousness. On the other hand, as Büchner has remarked, how little can the hard-worked wife of a degraded Australian savage, who uses very few abstract words, and cannot count above four, exert her self-consciousness, or reflect on the nature of her own existence. It is generally admitted, that the higher animals possess memory,

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84 attention, association, and even some imagination and reason. If these powers, which differ much in different animals, are capable of improvement, there seems no great improbability in more complex faculties, such as the higher forms of abstraction, and self-consciousness, &c., having been evolved through the development and combination of the simpler ones. It has been urged against the views here maintained that it is impossible to say at what point in the ascending scale animals become capable of abstraction, &c.; but who can say at what age this occurs in our young children? We see at least that such powers are developed in children by imperceptible degrees.

That animals retain their mental individuality is unquestionable. When my voice awakened a train of old associations in the mind of the before-mentioned dog, he must have retained his mental individuality, although every atom of his brain had probably undergone change more than once during the interval of five years. This dog might have brought forward the argument lately advanced to crush all evolutionists, and said, "I abide amid all mental moods and all material changes… The teaching that atoms leave their impressions as legacies to other atoms falling into the places they have vacated is contradictory of the utterance of consciousness, and is therefore false; but it is the teaching necessitated by evolutionism, consequently the hypothesis is a false one."

Language.—This faculty has justly been considered as one of the chief distinctions between man and the lower animals. But man, as a highly competent judge, Archbishop Whately remarks, "is not the only animal that can make use of language to express what is passing in his mind, and can understand, more or less, what is so expressed by another." In Paraguay the Cebus azaræ when excited utters at least six distinct sounds, which excite in other monkeys similar emotions. The movements of the features and gestures of monkeys are understood by us, and they partly understand ours, as Rengger and others declare. It is a more remarkable fact that the dog, since being domesticated, has learnt to bark in at least four or five distinct tones. Although barking is a new art, no doubt the wild parent-species of the dog expressed their feelings by cries of various kinds. With the domesticated dog we have the bark of eagerness, as in the chase; that of anger, as well as growling; the yelp or howl of despair, as when shut up; the baying at night; the bark of joy, as

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Rh when starting on a walk with his master; and the very distinct one of demand or supplication, as when wishing for a door or window to be opened. According to Houzeau, who paid particular attention to the subject, the domestic fowl utters at least a dozen significant sounds.

The habitual use of articulate language is, however, peculiar to man; but he uses, in common with the lower animals, inarticulate cries to express his meaning, aided by gestures and the movements of the muscles of the face. This especially holds good with the more simple and vivid feelings, which are but little connected with our higher intelligence. Our cries of pain, fear, surprise, anger, together with their appropriate actions, and the murmur of a mother to her beloved child, are more expressive than any words. That which distinguishes man from the lower animals is not the understanding of articulate sounds, for, as every one knows, dogs understand many words and sentences. In this respect they are at the same stage of development as infants, between the ages of ten and twelve months, who understand many words and short sentences, but cannot yet utter a single word. It is not the mere articulation which is our distinguishing character, for parrots and other birds possess this power. Nor is it the mere capacity of connecting definite sounds with definite ideas; for it is certain that some parrots, which have been taught to speak, connect unerringly words with things, and persons with events. The lower animals differ from man solely in his almost infinitely larger power of associating together the most diversified

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86 sounds and ideas; and this obviously depends on the high development of his mental powers.

As Horne Took, one of the founders of the noble science of philology, observes, language is an art, like brewing or baking; but writing would have been a better simile. It certainly is not a true instinct, for every language has to be learnt. It differs, however, widely from all ordinary arts, for man has an instinctive tendency to speak, as we see in the babble of our young children; whilst no child has an instinctive tendency to brew, bake, or write. Moreover, no philologist now supposes that any language has been deliberately invented; it has been slowly and unconsciously developed by many steps. The sounds uttered by birds offer in several respects the nearest analogy to language, for all the members of the same species utter the same instinctive cries expressive of their emotions; and all the kinds which sing, exert their power instinctively; but the actual song, and even the call notes, are learnt from their parents or foster-parents. These sounds, as Daines Barrington has proved, "are no more innate than language is in man." The first attempts to sing "may be compared to the imperfect endeavour in a child to babble." The young males continue practising, or as the bird-catchers say, "recording," for ten or eleven months. Their first essays show hardly a rudiment of the future song; but as they grow older we can perceive what they are aiming at; and at last they are said "to sing their song round." Nestlings which have learnt the song of a distinct species, as with the canary-birds educated in the Tyrol, teach and transmit their new song to their offspring. The slight natural differences of song in the same species inhabiting different districts may be appositely compared, as Barrington remarks, "to provincial dialects;" and the songs of allied, though distinct species may be compared with the languages of distinct races of man. I have given the foregoing details to shew that an instinctive tendency to acquire an art is not peculiar to man.

With respect to the origin of articulate language, after having read on the one side the highly interesting works of Mr.

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Rh Wedgwood, the Rev. F. Farrar, and Prof. Schleicher, and the celebrated lectures of Prof. Max Müller on the other side, I cannot doubt that language owes its origin to the imitation and modification of various natural sounds, the voices of other animals, and man's own instinctive cries, aided by signs and gestures. When we treat of sexual selection we shall see that primeval man, or rather some early progenitor of man, probably first used his voice in producing true musical cadences, that is in singing, as do some of the gibbon-apes at the present day; and we may conclude from a widely-spread analogy, that this power would have been especially exerted during the courtship of the sexes,—would have expressed various emotions, such as love, jealousy, triumph,—and would have served as a challenge to rivals. It is, therefore, probable that the imitation of musical cries by articulate sounds may have given rise to words expressive of various complex emotions. The strong tendency in our nearest allies, the monkeys, in microcephalous idiots, and in the barbarous races of mankind, to imitate whatever they hear deserves notice, as bearing on the subject of imitation. Since monkeys certainly understand much that is said to them by man, and when wild, utter signal-cries of danger to their fellows; and since fowls give distinct warnings for danger on the ground, or in the sky from hawks (both, as well as a third cry, intelligible to dogs), may not some unusually wise ape-like animal have imitated the growl of a beast of prey, and thus told his fellow-monkeys the nature of the expected danger? This would have been a first step in the formation of a language.

As the voice was used more and more, the vocal organs would have been strengthened and perfected through the principle of the inherited effects of use; and this would have reacted on the power of speech. But the relation between the continued use of language and the development of the brain, has no doubt been far more important. The mental powers in some early progenitor of man must have been more highly developed than in

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88 any existing ape, before even the most imperfect form of speech could have come into use; but we may confidently believe that the continued use and advancement of this power would have reacted on the mind itself, by enabling and encouraging it to carry on long trains of thought. A complex train of thought can no more be carried on without the aid of words, whether spoken or silent, than a long calculation without the use of figures or algebra. It appears, also, that even an ordinary train of thought almost requires, or is greatly facilitated by some form of language, for the dumb, deaf, and blind girl, Laura Bridgman, was observed to use her fingers whilst dreaming. Nevertheless, a long succession of vivid and connected ideas may pass through the mind without the aid of any form of language, as we may infer from the movements of dogs during their dreams. We have, also, seen that animals are able to reason to a certain extent, manifestly without the aid of language. The intimate connection between the brain, as it is now developed in us, and the faculty of speech, is well shewn by those curious cases of brain-disease in which speech is specially affected, as when the power to remember substantives is lost, whilst other words can be correctly used, or where substantives of a certain class, or all except the initial letters of substantives and proper names are forgotten. There is no more improbability in the continued use of the mental and vocal organs leading to inherited changes in their structure and functions, than in the case of hand-writing, which depends partly on the form of the hand and partly on the disposition of the mind; and handwriting is certainly inherited.

Several writers, more especially Prof. Max Müller, have lately insisted that the use of language implies the power of forming general concepts; and that as no animals are supposed to possess this power, an impassable barrier is formed between them and man. With respect to animals, I have already

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Rh endeavoured to show that they have this power, at least in a rude and incipient degree. As far as concerns infants of from ten to eleven months old, and deaf-mutes, it seems to me incredible, that they should be able to connect certain sounds with certain general ideas as quickly as they do, unless such ideas were already formed in their minds. The same remark may be extended to the more intelligent animals; as Mr. Leslie Stephen observes, "A dog frames a general concept of cats or sheep, and knows the corresponding words as well as a philosopher. And the capacity to understand is as good a proof of vocal intelligence, though in an inferior degree, as the capacity to speak."

Why the organs now used for speech should have been originally perfected for this purpose, rather than any other organs, it is not difficult to see. Ants have considerable powers of intercommunication by means of their antennæ, as shewn by Huber, who devotes a whole chapter to their language. We might have used our fingers as efficient instruments, for a person with practice can report to a deaf man every word of a speech rapidly delivered at a public meeting; but the loss of our hands, whilst thus employed, would have been a serious inconvenience. As all the higher mammals possess vocal organs, constructed on the same general plan as ours, and used as a means of communication, it was obviously probable that these same organs would be still further developed if the power of communication had to be improved; and this has been effected by the aid of adjoining and well adapted parts, namely the tongue and lips. The fact of the higher apes not using their vocal organs for speech, no doubt depends on their intelligence not having been sufficiently advanced. The possession by them of

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90 organs, which with long-continued practice might have been used for speech, although not thus used, is paralleled by the case of many birds which possess organs fitted for singing, though they never sing. Thus, the nightingale and crow have vocal organs similarly constructed, these being used by the former for diversified song, and by the latter only for croaking. If it be asked why apes have not had their intellects developed to the same degree as that of man, general causes only can be assigned in answer, and it is unreasonable to expect anything more definite, considering our ignorance with respect to the successive stages of development through which each creature has passed.

The formation of different languages and of distinct species, and the proofs that both have been developed through a gradual process, are curiously parallel. But we can trace the formation of many words further back than that of species, for we can perceive how they actually arose from the imitation of various sounds. We find in distinct languages striking homologies due to community of descent, and analogies due to a similar process of formation. The manner in which certain letters or sounds change when others change is very like correlated growth. We have in both cases the reduplication of parts, the effects of long-continued use, and so forth. The frequent presence of rudiments, both in languages and in species, is still more remarkable. The letter m in the word am, means I; so that in the expression I am, a superfluous and useless rudiment has been retained. In the spelling also of words, letters often remain as the rudiments of ancient forms of pronunciation. Languages, like organic beings, can be classed in groups under groups; and they can be classed either naturally according to descent, or artificially by other characters. Dominant languages and dialects spread widely, and lead to the gradual extinction of other tongues. A language, like a species, when once extinct, never, as Sir C. Lyell remarks, reappears. The same language never has two birth-places. Distinct languages may be crossed or blended together. We see variability in every tongue, and new

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Rh words are continually cropping up; but as there is a limit to the powers of the memory, single words, like whole languages, gradually become extinct. As Max Müller has well remarked:—"A struggle for life is constantly going on amongst the words and grammatical forms in each language. The better, the shorter, the easier forms are constantly gaining the upper hand, and they owe their success to their own inherent virtue." To these more important causes of the survival of certain words, mere novelty and fashion may be added; for there is in the mind of man a strong love for slight changes in all things. The survival or preservation of certain favoured words in the struggle for existence is natural selection.

The perfectly regular and wonderfully complex construction of the languages of many barbarous nations has often been advanced as a proof, either of the divine origin of these languages, or of the high art and former civilisation of their founders. Thus F. von Schlegel writes: "In those languages which appear to be at the lowest grade of intellectual culture, we frequently observe a very high and elaborate degree of art in their grammatical structure. This is especially the case with the Basque and the Lapponian, and many of the American languages." But it is assuredly an error to speak of any language as an art, in the sense of its having been elaborately and methodically formed. Philologists now admit that conjugations, declensions, &c., originally existed as distinct words, since joined together; and as such words express the most obvious relations between objects and persons, it is not surprising that they should have been used by the men of most races during the earliest ages. With respect to perfection, the following illustration will best shew how easily we may err: a Crinoid sometimes consists of no less than 150,000 pieces of shell, all arranged with perfect symmetry in radiating lines; but a naturalist does not consider an animal of this kind as more perfect than a bilateral one with comparatively few parts, and with none of these parts alike, excepting on the opposite sides of the body. He justly considers the differentiation and specialisation of organs as the test of perfection. So with languages; the most symmetrical and complex ought not to be ranked above irregular, abbreviated, and bastardised languages, which have

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108 borrowed expressive words and useful forms of construction from various conquering, conquered, or immigrant races.

From these few and imperfect remarks I conclude that the extremely complex and regular construction of many barbarous languages, is no proof that they owe their origin to a special act of creation. Nor, as we have seen, does the faculty of articulate speech in itself offer any insuperable objection to the belief that man has been developed from some lower form.

Sense of Beauty.—This sense has been declared to be peculiar to man. I refer here only to the pleasure given by certain colours, forms, and sounds, and which may fairly be called a sense of the beautiful; with cultivated men such sensations are, however, intimately associated with complex ideas and trains of thought. When we behold a male bird elaborately displaying his graceful plumes or splendid colours before the female, whilst other birds, not thus decorated, make no such display, it is impossible to doubt that she admires the beauty of her male partner. As women everywhere deck themselves with these plumes, the beauty of such ornaments cannot be disputed. As we shall see later, the nests of humming-birds, and the playing passages of bower-birds are tastefully ornamented with gaily-coloured objects; and this shews that they must receive some kind of pleasure from the sight of such things. With the great majority of animals, however, the taste for the beautiful is confined, as far as we can judge, to the attractions of the opposite sex. The sweet strains poured forth by many male birds during the season of love, are certainly admired by the females, of which fact evidence will hereafter be given. If female birds had been incapable of appreciating the beautiful colours, the ornaments, and voices of their male partners, all the labour and anxiety exhibited by the latter in displaying their charms before the females would have been thrown away; and this it is impossible to admit. Why certain bright colours should excite pleasure cannot, I presume, be explained, any more than why certain flavours and scents are agreeable; but habit has something to do with the result, for that which is at first unpleasant to our senses, ultimately becomes pleasant, and habits are inherited. With respect to sounds, Helmholtz has explained to a certain extent on physiological principles, why harmonies and certain cadences are agreeable. But besides this, sounds frequently recurring at irregular intervals are

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Rh highly disagreeable, as every one will admit who has listened at night to the irregular flapping of a rope on board ship. The same principle seems to come into play with vision, as the eye prefers symmetry or figures with some regular recurrence. Patterns of this kind are employed by even the lowest savages as ornaments; and they have been developed through sexual selection for the adornment of some male animals. Whether we can or not give any reason for the pleasure thus derived from vision and hearing, yet man and many of the lower animals are alike pleased by the same colours, graceful shading and forms, and the same sounds.

The taste for the beautiful, at least as far as female beauty is concerned, is not of a special nature in the human mind; for it differs widely in the different races of man, and is not quite the same even in the different nations of the same race. Judging from the hideous ornaments, and the equally hideous music admired by most savages, it might be urged that their æsthetic faculty was not so highly developed as in certain animals, for instance, as in birds. Obviously no animal would be capable of admiring such scenes as the heavens at night, a beautiful landscape, or refined music; but such high tastes are acquired through culture, and depend on complex associations; they are not enjoyed by barbarians or by uneducated persons.

Many of the faculties, which have been of inestimable service to man for his progressive advancement, such as the powers of the imagination, wonder, curiosity, an undefined sense of beauty, a tendency to imitation, and the love of excitement or novelty, could hardly fail to lead to capricious changes of customs and fashions. I have alluded to this point, because a recent writer has oddly fixed on Caprice "as one of the most remarkable and typical differences between savages and brutes." But not only can we partially understand how it is that man is from various conflicting influences rendered capricious, but that the lower animals are, as we shall hereafter see, likewise capricious in their affections, aversions, and sense of beauty. There is also reason to suspect that they love novelty, for its own sake.

Belief in God—Religion.—There is no evidence that man was aboriginally endowed with the ennobling belief in the existence of an Omnipotent God. On the contrary there is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed, and still exist, who have no idea of one or more gods, and who have no

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94 words in their languages to express such an idea. The question is of course wholly distinct from that higher one, whether there exists a Creator and Ruler of the universe; and this has been answered in the affirmative by some of the highest intellects that have ever existed.

If, however, we include under the term "religion" the belief in unseen or spiritual agencies the case is wholly different; for this belief seems to be universal with the less civilised races. Nor is it difficult to comprehend how it arose. As soon as the important faculties of the imagination, wonder, and curiosity, together with some power of reasoning, had become partially developed, man would naturally crave to understand what was passing around him, and would have vaguely speculated on his own existence. As Mr. M'Lennan has remarked, "Some explanation of the phenomena of life, a man must feign for himself; and to judge from the universality of it, the simplest hypothesis, and the first to occur to men, seems to have been that natural phenomena are ascribable to the presence in animals, plants, and things, and in the forces of nature, of such spirits prompting to action as men are conscious they themselves possess." It is also probable, as Mr. Tylor has shewn, that dreams may have first given rise to the notion of spirits; for savages do not readily distinguish between subjective and objective impressions. When a savage dreams, the figures which appear before him are believed to have come from a distance, and to stand over him; or "the soul of the dreamer goes out on its travels, and comes home with a remembrance of what it has seen." But until

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Rh the faculties of imagination, curiosity, reason, &c., had been fairly well developed in the mind of man, his dreams would not have led him to believe in spirits, any more than in the case of a dog.

The tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects and agencies are animated by spiritual or living essences, is perhaps illustrated by a little fact which I once noticed: my dog, a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the lawn during a hot and still day; but at a little distance a slight breeze occasionally moved an open parasol, which would have been wholly disregarded by the dog, had any one stood near it. As it was, every time that the parasol slightly moved, the dog growled fiercely and barked. He must, I think, have reasoned to himself in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and that no stranger had a right to be on his territory.

The belief in spiritual agencies would easily pass into the belief in the existence of one or more gods. For savages would naturally attribute to spirits the same passions, the same love of vengeance or simplest form of justice, and the same affections which they themselves feel. The Fuegians appear to be in this respect in an intermediate condition, for when the surgeon on board the "Beagle" shot some young ducklings as specimens, York Minster declared in the most solemn manner, "Oh, Mr. Bynoe, much rain, much snow, blow much;" and this was evidently a retributive punishment for wasting human food. So again he related how, when his brother killed a "wild man," storms long raged, much rain and snow fell. Yet we could never discover that the Fuegians believed in what we should call a God, or practised any religious rites; and Jemmy Button, with justifiable pride, stoutly maintained that there was no devil in his land. This latter assertion is the more remarkable, as with savages the belief in bad spirits is far more common than that in good ones.

The feeling of religious devotion is a highly complex one, consisting of love, complete submission to an exalted and mysterious superior, a strong sense of dependence, fear, reverence, gratitude, hope for the future, and perhaps other elements. No being could experience so complex an emotion

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96 until advanced in his intellectual and moral faculties to at least a moderately high level. Nevertheless, we see some distant approach to this state of mind in the deep love of a dog for his master, associated with complete submission, some fear, and perhaps other feelings. The behaviour of a dog when returning to his master after an absence, and, as I may add, of a monkey to his beloved keeper, is widely different from that towards their fellows. In the latter case the transports of joy appear to be somewhat less, and the sense of equality is shewn in every action. Professor Braubach goes so far as to maintain that a dog looks on his master as on a god.

The same high mental faculties which first led man to believe in unseen spiritual agencies, then in fetishism, polytheism, and ultimately in monotheism, would infallibly lead him, as long as his reasoning powers remained poorly developed, to various strange superstitions and customs. Many of these are terrible to think of—such as the sacrifice of human beings to a blood-loving god; the trial of innocent persons by the ordeal of poison or fire; witchcraft, &c.—yet it is well occasionally to reflect on these superstitions, for they shew us what an infinite debt of gratitude we owe to the improvement of our reason, to science, and to our accumulated knowledge. As Sir J. Lubbock has well observed, "it is not too much to say that the horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, and embitters every pleasure." These miserable and indirect consequences of our highest faculties may be compared with the incidental and occasional mistakes of the instincts of the lower animals.

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User talk:Lithis

— billinghurst  sDrewth  12:06, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

An alternative for Page:AIM-379.djvu/4
Gday, I faced a similar issue, with the result that I created Template:Authority reference to get a more systematic approach, and I have implemented in Template:IrishBio ref. You should be able to create a similar template if you have lots of those references, or just use 'Authority reference. — billinghurst  sDrewth  03:49, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Lithis


text:
User talk:203.20.238.2

Welcome

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title: User talk:203.20.238.2


text:
Translation talk:A Farewell to Love

one source for original text
Les poésies du duc Charles d'Orléans, Charles (d'Orléans), Aimé Louis Champollion-Figeac, publisher J. Belin-Leprieur et C. de Batines, 1842

title: Translation talk:A Farewell to Love


text: Talk:Currency Act

title: Talk:Currency Act


text: Talk:Paper Currency in America Act 1772

title: Talk:Paper Currency in America Act 1772


text:
The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Robinson, Theresa Albertine Louise von Jakob

ROBINSON, Theresa Albertine Louise von Jakob, German-American author: b. Halle, Prussia, 26 Jan. 1797; d. Hamburg, 13 April 1870. She was the second wife of Edward Robinson (q.v.), and was known in Germany as an author under the name of “Talvj” (formed from her initials). While residing at Kharkoff she began to study Slavonian, and wrote her first poems. In 1824 she published a few tales in a volume bearing the title ‘Psyche.’ She also published, in 1825-26, translations of a number of Serbian popular songs entitled ‘Volkslieder des Serben.’ In America she began the study of aboriginal languages and translated into German Pickering's work on the Indian tongues. In 1834 she wrote a ‘Historical Review of the Slavic Languages’ for the ‘Biblical Repository,’ republished in enlarged form in 1850. During her husband's visit to Palestine she resided in Germany, where she published, in 1840, ‘Charakteristik der Volkslieder germanischer Nationen mit einer Uebersicht der Lieder aussereuropäischer Völkerschaften.’ ‘Die Colonisation von Neu-England’ was published at Leipzig in 1847; a defective translation by W. Hazlitt, Jr., appeared in London in 1851. She also wrote numerous tales, and contributed to magazines, both German and English. ‘Heloise,’ ‘Life's Discipline’ and ‘The Exiles’ were German tales translated into English by her daughter (1850-53). ‘Fifteen Years: A Picture of the Last Century’ appeared in 1870, and ‘Gesammelte Novellen’ in 1874.


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Johnson, Andrew

JOHNSON, Author:Andrew Johnson (1808-75). The seventeenth President of the United States of America. He was born at Raleigh, N. C., December 29, 1808. His father lived only four years after Andrew's birth, and left no funds for the education of the boy, who, at the age of ten, was bound out to a tailor. Lack of education was a great grievance to Andrew, and he resolved to learn to read by himself. For this purpose he passed all the time between labor and sleep in study. Just before his term of service was out he went to work on his own account as a journeyman tailor at Laurens Court-house, S. C. In 1826 he removed to Greenville in East Tennessee, where he worked at his trade for about a year, and married Eliza McCardle, who taught him writing and ordinary arithmetic.

When only twenty years old, Johnson organized a party of workingmen in opposition to the planters. The workingmen chose him alderman in that year, and reëlected him in the two succeeding years. In 1830 Johnson was elected mayor, serving for three years. To qualify himself for public undertakings, he joined a debating society, most of whose members were students of Greenville College. In 1834 Johnson took an active part in advocating the proposed Constitution for the State; in 1835 he nominated himself for the Assembly, declaring himself a Democrat. He was successful in the ensuing election, but in 1837 failed of reëlection because of his opposition to a financial measure, which, as was later proved, he rightly judged to be bad. In 1839 he was again chosen a member of the Legislature. In 1840 he was on the Democratic electoral ticket, and made many speeches for Van Buren. The next year he was elected to the State Senate, and in 1842 he was chosen a member of Congress, to which he secured four consecutive reëlections. While in the House he supported the annexation of Texas, the Mexican War, the refunding of General Jackson's fine for imprisoning a judge at New Orleans in 1815, the tariff of 1846, and the compromise of 1850. He favored the acceptance of the 49th degree of latitude to settle the Oregon boundary dispute, and was one of the foremost of the advocates of a homestead law. He was also a firm supporter of the President's veto power, and on all occasions was in favor of the greatest economy in public expenditure. He left Congress in March, 1853, and in the same year was chosen Governor of his State, and two years afterwards was reëlected after a very turbulent canvass.

In 1857 he was elected to the United States Senate, where he opposed the increase of the army and the legislation for the Pacific Railroad. He spoke little on slavery, his main interest being centred on the preservation of the Union. In the campaign of 1860, after being himself mentioned for the nomination, he supported Breckenridge until he found that secession was contemplated, when he repudiated him. When he went home in 1861, after opposing secession in the Senate, he was in great danger of his life. He worked hard for the Union cause, and at one time the secessionists turned his family out of their home. Early in March, 1862, Johnson was made military Governor of Tennessee. For a long time he labored earnestly to bring his State back into the Union. Near the beginning of March, 1864, under Johnson's special orders, Tennessee elected officers, both State and local. Three months afterwards he was nominated for Vice-President on the ticket with Lincoln. Six weeks after the inauguration Lincoln was shot, and Johnson became President. On taking the executive chair he made a brief speech, which was understood to mean that he would deal with the utmost severity with the leading secessionists. Instead of following this policy, his course, after he came under the influence of Secretary Seward, was the very opposite. He hastened to bring Virginia back to the Union, and near the close of June he brushed aside all regulations with regard to trade with the seceding States. He proclaimed general amnesty to all (except a few special classes) who would swear to be loyal to the Union. Under his proclamation provincial governments were set up in a number of the States but a few weeks

before in rebellion, and he prepared the way for them to send members to Congress. These acts put him in opposition to the majority of the Republicans in Congress. Congress appointed a committee on reconstruction and on the admission of Southern members to the House, and adopted the Civil Rights Act, adding an act to increase the power and efficiency of the Freedmen's Bureau. These last two bills were vetoed by President Johnson, but they were readopted and passed. This action was severely denounced by the President, who characterized the course of Congress as another rebellion. Disaffection began to work in the Cabinet, and three members resigned in consequence of differences with the President.

When Congress declared that the Fourteenth Amendment, giving the negroes citizenship, should be ratified by every seceding State as a preliminary to readmission to the Union, the President vetoed the resolution. During the next session acts were passed requiring the right of voting to be granted without regard to color in Territories applying for admission as States. These, too, were vetoed; but in all cases the bills were repassed and became laws. In March, 1867, in spite of the veto, an act was passed dividing the Southern States, save Tennessee, into military districts, and trouble immediately arose over the appointments of the generals to command and their functions, Johnson's Cabinet, with the exception of Secretary Stanton, supporting him in his obstruction of the legislation of the radicals in Congress. In August Stanton was displaced as Secretary of War, and General Grant was given the position. Stanton protested that his removal was in violation of the Tenure-of-Office Law, and at the meeting of Congress in September the Senate refused to ratify the suspension, whereupon Grant resigned and Stanton resumed his post. Five months afterwards Johnson again removed Stanton, and put Gen. Lorenzo Thomas in his place. The Senate immediately resolved that “the President has no power to remove the Secretary of War and designate any other person to perform the duties of that office.” The day after the adoption of the resolutions of the Senate, the House of Representatives determined upon the President's impeachment. The articles of impeachment recited many offenses, the principal of which were the removal of the Secretary of War; the public expression of disregard of and contempt for the legislative branch of the Government; the declaration that the one in session was not a constitutional Congress; and particularly his obstruction to the execution of Congressional acts. The main point of the defense was that Johnson's course in the work of reconstruction was merely the continuation of a plan resolved upon by President Lincoln and the members of his Cabinet. In the Senate, sitting as the court of impeachment, the test vote was: guilty, 35; not guilty, 19. The requisite two-thirds vote not having been obtained, Johnson was acquitted — a result which is now considered just and fortunate by temperate historians. As soon as the trial was over Stanton voluntarily gave up his office, and was succeeded by General Schofield.

At the Democratic National Convention in New York, July 4, 1868, Mr. Johnson's name was among the list of candidates for President. On the first ballot he had 65 votes, standing second

on the list, George H. Pendleton having 105; but Johnson's vote diminished rapidly until, on the nineteenth ballot, his name did not appear. On Christmas Day, 1868, he proclaimed complete pardon to all who had been directly or indirectly concerned in secession. This was his last important official act. He was succeeded, March 4, 1869, by General Grant, and at once repaired to his home in Greenville. He was not satisfied with retirement, and sought unsuccessfully to be sent to the Senate, and also failed as an independent candidate for Congress. At last, in January, 1875, he was chosen United States Senator, and was in his seat during the short extra session in March. But his triumph was not for long, for he died on July 31, 1875. He was buried at Greenville, and the memory of his stormy career faded from the public mind. Johnson showed great ability, courage, and political acumen, and his loyalty was never doubted. His messages, which represent his views, whether or not he was their author in the fullest sense, are documents of great power, and will serve some future biographer to make a strenuous defense of a man who, with grave faults, was perhaps oftener in the right than were his partisan opponents. Consult Moore, Speeches of Andrew Johnson, with a Biographical Introduction (Boston, 1865); The Trial of Andrew Johnson (3 vols., Washington, 1868); Dunning, Essays on the Civil War and Reconstruction (1898), and Dewitt, The Impeachment and Trial of Andrew Johnson (New York, 1903).


text:
User talk:Demonkoryu

Please do not remove licence templates, they are there to provide information about the hosting of the work, and in this case, it will probably be deleted as we do not have sufficient permissions/rights to host it. — billinghurst  sDrewth  12:53, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Demonkoryu


text:
The New International Encyclopædia/Robinson, Edward

ROBINSON, (1794-1863). An American biblical scholar, born at Southington, Conn. He graduated at Hamilton College, Clinton, N. Y., in 1816. Later he studied at Andover, Mass., and at Halle and Berlin. On his return to the United States he was made professor extraordinary of sacred literature at Andover; but in 1833 his health broke down and he moved to Boston, where he remained until 1837, when he was appointed professor of biblical literature in Union Theological Seminary. This office he continued to hold until his death. He twice traveled in Palestine, in 1838 and again in 1852, with the famous missionary the Reverend Eli Smith. The result of their first visit was published in a work entitled Biblical Researches in Palestine and Adjacent Countries (3 vols., Boston and London, 1841; German ed., Halle, 1841). The work was republished in 1856 with some additions after the second visit. He edited and translated Buttmann's Greek Grammar (1823; 3d ed. 1851); Gesenius' Hebrew Lexicon (1836; 5th ed. 1854); Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament (1836; 2d ed. 1847); Greek Harmony of the Gospels (1845; 2d ed. 1851); English Harmony of the Gospels (1846). He founded the Biblical Repository in 1831 and edited it for four years. In 1843 he established the Bibliotheca Sacra. Consult Hitchcock, The Life, Writings, and Character of Edward Robinson (New York, 1863).


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The New International Encyclopædia/Robinson, Therese Albertine Luise

ROBINSON, (pen-name, composed from the initials of her maiden name) (1797-1870). A cosmopolitan authoress, daughter of Prof. Ludwig H. von Jakob. She was born at Halle, Germany, lived for a time with her father in Russia; married (1828) Prof. Edward Robinson (q.v.). the American biblical scholar; accompanied him to the United States, where she studied the languages of the aborigines. Mrs. Robinson wrote extensively both in English and in German. Among her publications are German translations (under the signature Ernest Berthold) of Scott's Black Dwarf and Old Mortality (1822); Psyche, a volume of tales (1824); a German translation of Servian folk-songs (1825-26); Charakteristik der Volkslieder germanischer Nationen, (1840); Die Unechtheit der Lieder Ossians (1840); Die Colonisation von Neu-England (1847); tales in German — Heloise, Life's Discipline, and The Exiles, translated into English by her daughter (1850-53); a volume of reviews, entitled Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic Nations (1850); Fifteen Years, a Picture of the Last Century (1870). Her Gesammelte Novellen appeared in two volumes in 1874.


text: Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Robinson, Edward


text: A Book of Dartmoor/Index

title: A Book of Dartmoor/Index


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Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/51

Rh Another fusion of qualities most noticeable in the art of Nijinsky, and most rare, is that fusion of utter freedom of movement with unfailing sense for decorative effect. Freedom of movement can be attained, no doubt, by practice. And a good "producer" may contrive that the main attitudes of a dance shall be correct in themselves and sufficiently beautiful. But with Nijinsky, pose, attitude, seems to be an instinct rather than a lesson learnt, and even in the wildest orgy of motion his feeling for outline never fails. At any given moment his silhouette, could one descry it, would be found, I believe, to form a lovely pattern. And not by any means is this a question of mere training, as may be proved by comparing Nijinsky's style with that of the other most competent dancers in the same company.

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Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/52

Rh It must be, I think, this sense of outline which also endows Nijinsky's art with that exquisite neatness which some have actually interpreted as its limitation. Dancing, such people say, is of the essence of freedom. To restrain is to sterilise and to reduce the living body of man to nothing better than a mechanism of springs and steel. Well, there is this amount of truth in such a criticism: that Nijinsky's method does not actually seem so nicely adapted to express certain moods of natural abandonment as, say, Mordkin expressed in that famous Bacchanale he danced with Anna Pavlova. Still, no artist is at his best in every mood, and to expect him to be so is to deny to him the gift of personality. As a matter of fact, a feeling for outline like Nijinsky's allows a far wider range of effect than that possible to a looser method; implies,

title: Page:The Art of Nijinsky.djvu/52


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Page:Poems, Volume 2, Coates, 1916.djvu/37

HOUGH hence I go—though with the fading day

I seem to fade away,

Like to a primrose which beguiling Spring,

Too early fanning with perfumèd wing,

Tempts, only to betray:

Though soon I sleep,—yet sorrow not, nor fear

That you shall lose me, dear!

For not one cherished memory—

One single yearning of your heart for me,

Shall fail to bring me near!

How strange could death divide who, living, share

All happiness and care!

Still as you gaze, bereft of your desire,

On the dull embers of your lonely fire,

You shall behold me there,

And though through hiemal glooms you sometimes learn

To doubt, nor hope discern,—


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22 Yet when the timid firstling buds awake,

And birds come back and sing, your heart to break,—

Always, I shall return!


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Rh which cannot be measured or referred to any standard of purely technical excellence. The word Genius, I believe, is rather out of fashion just now; but it has been used once or twice already in the course of this little book, and now it must be used again, if only because there is really no other word which at all expresses that peculiar element in Nijinsky's art which has here, somehow or other, to be explored.

Now, one of the principal marks of genius is the combination in one and the same person of talents, common enough in themselves, but rarely found together. Nijinsky's art is full of such combinations. One of them, for example, is that union of strength with lightness which is, perhaps, the most obvious feature of his style. Apart from the muscular development of hip and thigh, Nijinsky gives one the

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text: Poems (Coates 1916)/Volume II/Leave-Taking


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Rh impression of being very slight in build. His body is slim as a boy's. His arms are delicate. His wrists and ankles almost dainty. While watching him dance it may not seem strange that a being so agile should be able to lift and hold, a hair's-breadth from the ground, another being like unto himself but frailer even than he—one of those Sylphides, perhaps, that sway like river-reeds in the breeze or hover like thistledown. Yet, thinking it over, you have to realise that after all it was a grown woman he held there, and that only the apparent ease with which he held her cheated you into the belief that she was light as air. Try for yourself a similar feat, and you will know how much of physical strength is needed to perform it even clumsily. And Nijinsky is nothing if not graceful. And graceful strength is strength twice over.

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Rh too, the possession of a far surer and subtler intellectual faculty. "The great and golden rule of art …," said Blake, "is this: that the more distinct, sharp, and wiry the bounding line, the more perfect the work of art. The want of this determinate and bounding form evidences the idea of want in the artist's mind."

Certainly there is no such void in the mind of Nijinsky. His mental vigour is as keen as his physical; and, richly endowed as he is with every perfection of technique, he is still the unerring master of his material, never its slave. This brings us to the last item in our little catalogue of combined qualities—an item which can be easily expressed by saying that Nijinsky is not only a great dancer, but also a great actor. An opinion, this, which differs radically from that of

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text:
Leave-Taking

 * Leave-Taking, a poem by Richard Aldington (Will the world still live for you)
 * Leave-taking, a poem by Florence Earle Coates (Though hence I go—though with the fading day)

title: Leave-Taking


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Rh so high an authority as Miss, whose gaily intuitive essay on the Russian Ballet was so strangely cool in its appreciation of the dramatic side of Nijinsky's art. In the next chapter, however, I shall be giving some brief notes on the chief ballets in which Nijinsky takes part, which, if nothing else, cannot fail to emphasize the variety and the vividness of mood and atmosphere evoked. Several of the rôles are of a conventional and even abstract type, but even these Nijinsky has individualised to an extraordinary degree. And how else, one may well ask, can this be done, except by the force of a powerful histrionic imagination—or, at any rate, of something so nearly akin to that faculty as to be scarcely distinguishable from it?

Nijinsky's art, after all, is primarily imaginative. Dancing with him is an expression of mood, not of mere grace or 30

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 Rh rhythm. Even in the purely graceful ballets like Les Sylphides or Le Pavilion d'Armide, he shows us a mind at work creating gracefulness rather than a mere body being graceful. It is difficult enough to analyse, but one feels that all this splendid and apparently inspired resourcefulness must be bound up, somehow, with Nijinsky's own personal attitude towards life itself. A man, of course, may be an excellent dancer, and at the same time only very moderate in his interest in or understanding of life as a whole. Such a negative attitude, however, will show itself at once in the quality of art resulting. That quality may be coldly beautiful, or hotly sensuous, or merely pretty. But its intellectual appeal will be nil. Nijinsky's dancing, on the contrary, is a thing as much of head and soul as of

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text:
Leave-Taking (Coates)

 * Coates, Florence Earle (1909), "Leave-taking" in Harper's Monthly Magazine (August 1909).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1909), "Leave-taking" in Lyrics of Life (1909).
 * Coates, Florence Earle (1916), "Leave-taking" in Poems II.

title: Leave-Taking (Coates)


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Rh heart and body, and claims the rapt attention of all our faculties for its understanding.

To meet Nijinsky in private life is to gain a perfect confirmation of any belief you may hold as to the presence in such a great artist of intellectual power. At a first introduction you might experience, perhaps, a shade of disappointment. A far cry, it seems, from the glamour of a great theatre to the sudden seclusion of a London drawing-room. And this quiet little gentleman in immaculate English clothes, can it—can it really be Nijinsky? He is not tall enough, surely—and his hair looks so sleek and dark and normal. Not till later on, when you have had time to notice the fine and subtle modelling of the cheek, the narrow flickering eyes, the clean but rounded lips, will you begin to realise that this must be he. And after a 32

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 Rh while, when the first hesitation of his manner gives way to vivacity, when the whole face brightens with the thought that is a little difficult to express in a foreign tongue, then at last you come to know that all is indeed well. For here is a man who is intensely, sincerely, nervously alive. He has a brain—there is no doubt of it. And you feel you would like to know what he thinks about everything.

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 Rh ballet which, though nominally inspired by history or legend, is largely independent of both, and prone at any moment to drift from the central theme, and to spend itself on interminable embroideries devoid of action. The Swans of the Swan lake were enchanted birds who danced, in the form of white maidens, by moonlight at the water's edge. A young prince of the realm is hunting by the lake, and half in jest, half in earnest, pursues and takes captive the queen of the Swan-maidens, He woos her, but she escapes and flies off to the lake again, leaving him to go home again disconsolate. There presently, in the palace of his fathers, it is the day of the young prince's betrothal. Great celebrations are being held. A splendid company is assembled, and they perform pompous and brilliant dances. The prince

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text:
Executive Order 13564

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to continue to strengthen the Nation's economy and ensure the competitiveness of the United States and to create jobs, opportunity, and prosperity for the American people by ensuring the availability of non partisan advice to the President from participants in and experts on the economy, it is hereby ordered as follows:

, January 31, 2011. [FR Doc. 2011–2577 Filed 2–2–11; 11:15 am] Billing Code 3195–W1–P

title: Executive Order 13564


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 Rh dances too, more brilliantly than them all. But still he is sick at heart, distracted by the thought of the Swan-queen. For a beauteous stranger has been introduced, and seeing her he experiences a second time that fond and desperate longing he had felt by the side of the Swan lake. At length he brings himself to dance with the strange lady. New life courses through his veins. He is spurred on to greater and greater feats, to more and more impossible figures. He leaps high in the air, and the company stands amazed. This is not dancing, they whisper, but black magic. Magic indeed. . . . For suddenly, in a thunderous spell of darkness, the strange lady, the Swan-queen, disappears; and the last tableau shows us the shore of the lake again, and the young prince, hot in pursuit, but by an inch too late. . . . For there is nothing now but

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 Rh a flock of white swans, vanishing over the water. Nijinsky, of course, impersonates the prince—the slim and debonair young prince of the fairy tale. In the first scene of eager reconnaissance, and in the final tragic tableau by the water-side, we have his genius for pantomime splendidly exhibited. While, in the middle scene—the dance and courtly festival—he demonstrates the full resources of his virtuosity, performing the rarest and most difficult figures with the ease that can belong to no one but the born technician. In some other ballets Nijinsky's style becomes so free and unconventional that one is tempted to forget the years of study out of which it has evolved. But his supremacy in this ballet of Le Lac des Cygnes is perfect proof, if such be needed, that Nijinsky has undergone and mastered every phase

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text:
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 in other respects—owing to its habit of laying its eggs on otherwise inaccessible ledges of the rock.

When three or four razorbills are swimming together, it is common for one of them to dive first, and for the rest to follow in quick succession, sometimes so quick that the order in which they go down, and the succession itself, can only just be followed. They must keep together under the water as well as above it, since they will often emerge so, after some time, and at a considerable distance.

The guillemot dives more or less like the razorbill, but I have not been successful in tracing him under the water.

There remains the puffin. "I have been able to follow the puffin downwards in its dive, and at once noticed that the legs, instead of being used, were trailed behind, as in flight, so that the bird's motion was a genuine flight through water, unassisted by the webbed feet. With the razorbill, I was not able to make this out so clearly, for the legs are black, and the eye cannot detect them under the water, as it can the bright vermilion ones of the puffin (one wonders, by the way, if the latter play any part under water such as the white tail of the rabbit is supposed to do on land), though I could see that just in diving they were brought together and raised, so as to extend backwards in the same way. Penguins also trail the legs like this in diving, only giving an occasional paddle with them, whilst the wings are in constant motion."

It would seem, therefore, that those diving birds which swim with their wings under the water only use their feet in a minor degree, and that they go down with a quick, sudden duck, or bob, and in the

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text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Leo (popes)/Leo XII


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 Rh of training in the most orthodox and traditional modes of his art.

To-day Le Lac des Cygnes survives alone in the Diaghilew repertoire to indicate what Russian ballet was like in the days of the great Petipa. For the choreography and the general arrangement of the dances are in the tradition of that master, and the music is Tschaikovsky's—quite "the latest thing," no doubt, at the time when the ballet was first produced. To some of us now it may all seem a trifle old-fashioned; but those who are interested to see the art of dancing in its pure and classic form, could wish for no more typical display. Le Lac des Cygnes triumphantly succeeds in being what it sets out to be, and it would be a thousand pities if later and more exotic flavours were to dull our palate for such wholesome and, withal, such magnificent fare.

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text: Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/452


text: Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 21.djvu/451


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Rh LE PAVILLON D'ARMIDE

One of the earlier productions of M. Fokine, Armide, forms an important link with such traditional ballets as Le Lac des Cygnes and the other productions of Petipa.

As originally produced it included a prologue and an epilogue, with so much genuine plot in them as to supply the action of the ballet with an interesting raison d'être. There was the old story of the tired traveller and the insinuating stranger, and the grateful offer of a lodging for the night. And then, after the dream, which was the ballet, the scene of awakening and sinister disillusion. As recently performed, however, this pantomime setting has been clipped away, with the result that certain episodes in the ballet have lost something of their point. 39

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 Rh But the natural quality of the thing is untouched, and Armide still remains perhaps the most complete, as it is certainly the most luxuriant, example of conventional ballet-dancing which the Russians have shown us.

There are marvellous moments all through. One of them comes when Nijinsky makes his first and curiously modest entry into that wonderful scene of pink and green and blue, that scene which reminds one, in its luscious colouring, of all the beautiful good things to eat in the world. Truly, the effect would be sugary if it were not so cool, strident if not so infinitely modulated; and if there be some who have actually found it so, I can only answer that they have not seen it through my eyes. As to Nijinsky himself, there can hardly be two opinions. His presentment of Armide's

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text:
Kahn v. Sullivan

Robert D. Goldberg, Esquire, Biggs and Battaglia, of Wilmington, Delaware, Sidney Silverman, Esquire (argued), Silverman, Harnes & Obstefeld, of New York, New York, and Susan Henrichson, Esquire (argued), Deputy Attorney General for the State of California, for objectors-appellants, Alan R. Kahn and California Public Employees' Retirement System respectively.

Thomas G. Hughes, Esquire, Schlusser, Reiver, Hughes & Sisk, of Wilmington, Delaware for objector-appellant, Barnett Stepak.

William Prickett, Esquire (argued), Prickett, Jones, Elliott, Kristol & Schnee, of Wilmington, Delaware, for plaintiffs-appellees, Joseph Sullivan and Alan Brody.

Grover C. Brown, Esquire (argued), and Norris P. Wright, Esquire, Morris, James, Hitchens & Williams, of Wilmington, Delaware, for defendants-appellees, Senator Gore, Mr. Kluge, Mr. Krim, Mr. Nizer, Mr. Nolley, Dr. Piper, Mr. Syriani and Ms. Tomich.

Bruce M. Stargatt, Esquire, Edward B. Maxwell, 2nd, Esquire, Young, Conaway, Stargatt & Taylor, of Wilmington, Delaware, Bruce W. Kauffman, Esquire, Stephen J. Mathes, Esquire, and Camille J. Wolfe, Esquire, Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish & Kauffman, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for individual defendants-appellees, Dr. Irani, Mr. Moss, Mr. Davis, Mr. Groman, Mr. Hammer, Mr. Hentschel, Mr. Hirl, Mr. Stern, and Michael Hammer, Special Administrator of the Estate of Dr. Armand Hammer.

Charles Crompton, Esquire, Donald J. Wolfe, Jr., Esquire, Potter, Anderson & Corroon, of Wilmington, Delaware, for defendant-appellee, Occidental Petroleum Corporation.

Rodman Ward, Jr., Esquire, and Marc B. Tucker, Esquire, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, of Wilmington, Delaware, for intervenor-appellee, The Armand Hammer Museum of Art and Cultural Center, Inc.

Christie, Chief Justice, Horsey and Holland, Justices.

title: Kahn v. Sullivan


text:
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THE BALLETS familiar slave is one of a dozen masterpieces. Not only does he find and use the opportunity of displaying some of the most intricate and characteristic steps of the Russian method, but he also endows the whole spectacle with just that appropriate tensity of feeling which alone can raise fine dancing to the plane of fine art. For Nijinsky, the vivid, radiant boy, is also the hierophant of mysteries, and in the glamour of his presence Armide comes to seem not merely a matchless display of lovely form in lovely motion, but also a type of the supreme functioning of a state of being most strange and utterly alien from our own.

The court of Armide, one believes, is part of a definite and settled polity, with its own laws, its own customs, and its own business from day to day. It is more objective in feeling than the scene

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