higher apes is there found any of the distinctive manifestations of reason, whilst, as we have seen, these are uniformly present amongst the lowest races of mankind. We have thus in human life and human history a new power, manifesting itself by new and distinctive products, of which no traces are found in any form of merely animal life. This power is conscious intelligence, which determines a vital difference in kind in all the activities of the human mind, from the highest to the lowest. It constitutes, indeed, a higher order of intelligence, marked by new powers, operations, and productions. This fact vitiates at the very outset Mr. Darwin's attempted evolution of reason and conscience from merely animal elements. Even the operations of sense, in a being endowed with self-consciousness, are conditioned by the higher attribute; and the statement that, as 'man possesses the same senses as the lower animals, his funda'mental intuitions must be the same,' is an enormous assumption, opposed to the facts of the case, and altogether incapable of proof. Throughout this part of his work, indeed, Mr. Darwin reads his own conscious experience into the life of animals who show no sign of possessing consciousness, just as the savage, going one step further, attributes intelligence and will to inanimate objects. Mr. Darwin's whole argument on the subject is, in fact, only a finer form of savage reasoning. Extremes meet, and the fetichism of modern science, though of course not so crude and obtrusive, is in this particular as real as the fetichism of barbarous races. It is the history and development of this new power, defined by rationality or conscious intelligence, that writers on culture have to trace; and however far they may go back, they must at least have this expanding progressive force to begin with. The primitive state of mankind must be one in which this power is present and operative, or, in other words, reflects itself in results, like in kind, though not equal in degree, to those everywhere present among the known and cultured races of mankind.

Our space is gone, or we should like to notice in some detail the chapters in which Mr. Tylor deals with mythology and the rudiments of religious belief. A word or two must suffice. In tracing the early forms of mythology, Mr. Tylor of course adopts the comparative method, the only one likely to produce fruitful and solid results; but he avoids the error into which some mythologists have fallen, of applying this method in a partial, extreme, and almost ludicrously one-sided manner. He finds the primitive and prolific source of myths not in language, which is the instrument of thought, but in thought itself, in certain natural tendencies and workings of the mind

in the earlier stages of its development. Of these, one of the most powerful is the tendency to attribute our own conscious experience to inanimate objects. The basis upon which early myths are built is not, Mr. Tylor urges with considerable force, mere poetic fancy and transformed metaphor. They rest upon a broad philosophy of nature, early and crude indeed, but thoughtful, consistent, and eminently serious in its scope and meaning. The analogy of nature is another fruitful source of myth; and to assume for conceptions derived from this source no deeper origin than metaphorical phrases, would be to 'ignore one of the great transitions of our intellectual history.'

For myself, I am disposed to think (differing here in some measure from Professor Max Müller's view of the subject), that the mythology of the lower races rests especially on a basis of real and sensible analogy, and that the great expansion of verbal metaphor into myth belongs to more advanced periods of civilisation. In a word, I take material myth to be the primary, the verbal myth to be the secondary formation. But whether this opinion be historically sound or not, the difference in nature between myth founded on fact and myth founded on word is sufficiently manifest. The want of reality in verbal metaphor cannot be effectually hidden by the utmost stretch of imagination.' Further on, in dealing at large with the myths derived from natural objects, Mr. Tylor condemns still more emphatically. the extravagances of solar interpretation which the writings of the meteorological school illustrate.

'No one-sided interpretation can be permitted to absorb into a single theory such endless many-sided correspondences as these. Rash inferences which on the strength of mere resemblance derive episodes of myth from episodes of nature must be regarded with utter mistrust, for the student who has no more stringent criterion than this for his myths of sun and sky and dawn will find them wherever it pleases him to seek them. It may be judged by simple trial what such a method may lead to; no legend, no allegory, no nursery rhyme, is safe from the hermeneutics of a thorough-going mythologic theorist.'

Mr. Tylor treats of the primitive conceptions of spiritual beings, and rudimentary forms of religious belief, under the general head of Animism. This part of the subject is worked out with great care, and with a mass of illustrative detail that fills nearly half the work. The facts, it need scarcely be said, are collected from all quarters with enormous industry, sifted with critical skill, and exhibited in a systematic shape or series of developments. The author evidently regards the evolution of these primitive conceptions as one of the most important parts of his work; but, so far as the general drift and suggested conclusions of the exposition are concerned, it appears to us the least satisfactory of all. Mr. Tylor's general

argument on this head appears to be that, inasmuch as the belief in spiritual existences prevails universally amongst savage and barbarous tribes, such beings do not exist. This is no doubt a very summary turning of the tables on the old position, that the universal and irresistible character of this belief is, to some extent at least, an evidence of its objective validity. But, after all, there seems to be more reason in the old position than in the new. That a given belief, with regard to the existence of objects out of itself, should inevitably arise from the contact of the human mind with the material universe, would seem at first sight to afford at least a presumption of its having some foundation in nature; and this presumption is certainly not rebutted by the fact that the belief is found in a crude or elementary shape even amongst the lowest races. This is exactly what we should expect if the belief is a distinctive product of human reason or conscious intelligence working on the materials of experience. Mr. Tylor, in the first chapter of his work, attempts to meet the argument, that the universality of a belief is a presumption in favour of its having some foundation in the nature of things by saying, that the cause why men do hold an opinion, or practise a custom, is by no means necessarily a reason why they ought to do so.' This is true enough, of course. But, on the other hand, the fact that a particular belief universally prevails, is surely in itself no proof that it is a mere subjective delusion, and as such ought to be rejected. Mr. Tylor goes on to say, in obvious reference to the subsequent discussion as to the belief in spiritual beings :

'As it has more than once happened to myself to find my collections of traditions and beliefs thus made to prove their own objective truth, without proper examination of the grounds on which they were actually received, I take this occasion of remarking that the same line of argument will serve equally well to demonstrate, by the strong and wide consent of nations, that the earth is flat, and nightmare the visit of a demon.'

The only plausibility which this statement possesses as an argument lies in the illustrations, and they are altogether irrelevant. That such examples should be offered as parallel cases to the belief in the existence of spiritual beings, illustrates afresh the psychological confusion often found in Mr. Tylor's reasoning on philosophical questions. In this case, the confusion is that between a general law and the primitive or childish attempts at its application-between a rational principle and the crude uncultured examples of its early working. Given the belief in the existence of spiritual powers as

the universal characteristic of human reason, such a belief would be sure to manifest itself in grotesque and monstrous forms in the early operations of the savage mind. It would naturally result in the attribution of souls or spiritual life to stocks and stones, tools and weapons, as well as to more striking objects and forces in the material world. But these attributions, even when most extreme and absurd, do not discredit, much less disprove, the essential rationality and objective worth of the belief, any more than the attribution of particular effects to absurd causes destroys the existence of causation in nature. The two cases are indeed strictly parallel; and Mr. Tylor's general argument, transferred to the region of science, would be that, because particular effects have been referred by the rude and ignorant to false and preposterous causes, therefore no such thing as real power or effective causation exists in nature. Both beliefs are, in fact, the natural reflex of the conscious intelligence which is the distinctive attribute of man. but see the reflection of his own intelligence, and, in the changes of nature, the reflection of the power he is conscious of within; and there is not a fact or suggestion in Mr. Tylor's discussion of the subject that goes to disprove the essential reasonableness and objective validity of these irresistible beliefs. Both beliefs are at first manifested in very crude forms, but, as it is the office of science to purify the working of the one, so it is of philosophy and religion to guide, control, and elevate the activity of the other. But the wide general question cannot be discussed here. We have adverted to it merely to illustrate what seems to us the chief defect of Mr. Tylor's work-the want of exact psychological knowledge, a defective acquaintance with mental facts, with what has been scientifically established in relation to the nature and operations of the mind. This is further illustrated in the confusion running through the discussion on moral freedom, in the opening chapter, and in the references to the theory of ideas in the body of the work. The result is, that most of Mr. Tylor's important lines of reasoning are traversed by other facts and arguments that largely modify, and in some cases reverse, the conclusions at which he has arrived. Apart from this central defect, his volumes are entitled to very high praise, and may justly rank as the most valuable contribution yet made in this country to the early history of civilisation; and, however much we may at times differ from some of the author's conclusions, it is impossible not to admire the noble spirit-the fairness, candour, and love of scientific truth-that animates the exposition throughout.

In the order of nature, he cannot

ART. V.-1. A New History of Painting in Italy, from the Second to the Sixteenth Century. With Illustrations. By J. A. CROWE and G. B. CAVALCASELLE, Authors of The Early Flemish Painters.' 8vo. Two vols. London: 1864.

2. A Continuation of the Same. Vol. III.

Vol. III. London: 1866. 3. A History of Painting in North Italy, from the Fourteenth to the Sixteenth Century. With Illustrations. By J. A. CROWE and G. B. CAVALCASELLE. In two vols. London: 1871.

6

THE

HE work which heads this article has now swollen to the dimensions of five large volumes, containing some three thousand pages. A notice of the two first volumes appeared in this Review in 1865. The materials, since gradually added -the third volume in 1866, the two volumes on North Italian Painting' in 1871-impress us, however, so strongly with a sense of their value, that we feel justified in partly retracing our steps. As contributions to a special department of history this work is strictly new in the sense of owing less to previous writers than any yet undertaken; and thorough to a degree only to be appreciated by very thorough perusal. Vasari's Lives have long ceased to be a text-book; bit by bit his mistakes and omissions have been detected. Yet it is fair to remember that his merits, for his day, were relatively as great as those of the work before us; his research, however inferior, more novel, and his style unique in a lightness and ease the farthest removed from the pedantry of the time. In this, as well as in more important respects, it would be difficult to find a greater contrast than between the work first published in 1551, and these volumes, commenced more than three centuries later; our contemporaries failing in all wherein the old Florentine excelled, and vice versâ; the true gain in the exchange being all on the side of Messrs. Crowe and Cavalcaselle. We have lost much that is entertaining-the flow and the sparkle, equally as the gossip, the exaggeration, and the mistatement; but we have gained in their stead accuracy, fulness, and learning, of a rarely sterling kind. Still, it is hard to see why authentic history should not be given in a more readable form,-why the contrast should be strained to its utmost limits. As the absurd and farfetched style of this otherwise admirable work is the first thing that will be sure to strike the reader, it is only fair to acknowledge and regret it at once.