The Influence of King Edward, and Essays on Other Subjects. By VISCOUNT ESHER. London, John Murray, 1915.—261 pp.

Eight review articles and an address before the United Service Institution are included in Viscount Esher's The Influence of King Edward and Other Essays. Several of the articles have lost interest in consequence of developments since they were written, and especially of developments resulting from the war. Permanent interest, however, attaches to the study of the character of King Edward VII, an essay which extends to nearly fifty pages. Its most distinctive feature is the sketch of the education of King Edward and of the environment in which his early life as Prince of Wales was passed. Viscount Esher, who had peculiarly good opportunities of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the late King, concedes that he was never a great reader; but shows that he was-what was quite as serviceable for a king—a great observer. In describing the King's influence as a constitutional sovereign, Viscount Esher recalls the fact that the British constitution withholds power from the sovereign; "but," he adds, " it clothes him with an influence, which in the hand of King Edward was highly potent; and, although exercised in a quite different fashion, was as powerful as that which was exercised throughout her long and glorious reign by Queen Victoria."

King Edward's methods were in direct contrast to those of Queen Victoria. In the Queen's long reign, the whole of the state business, with which she was so largely identified, was carried on by correspondence, and the Queen seldom saw her ministers. King Edward, on the other hand, was always accessible to his ministers; and far more than half the business transacted by the King was done orally in personal interviews. He enjoyed putting questions to his ministers. He liked also to state his own views, not in a formal document, but face to face with those whom the matter concerned; and Viscount Esher is confident that in saving time and minimizing friction this method was superior to that of the previous reign.

The address that Viscount Esher gave before the United Service Institution, March 20, 1912, was on the functions and potentialities of the Committee of Imperial Defence. The interest of this paper has been increased rather than diminished by the war, as it contains a fairly complete history of the committee; and from Viscount Esher's examination of its organization and work, it is possible to form an idea of the state of the preparedness of the British Empire in 1912. At that time, in addition to the consideration of the more obvious naval and military

problems, attention had been given by the committee to such matters as aerial navigation, the strategical aspects of the Forth and Clyde, oversea transportation of troops, the treatment of aliens, press and postal censorship, trading with the enemy, wireless stations throughout the Empire, transport problems in the United Kingdom, and the distribution of food supplies. In this address Viscount Esher expressed his conviction that no British statesman could have federated the British Empire. But even in 1912 the menace of the German fleet was tending to this end-tending towards the federation which must inevitably be one of the earliest results of the war.

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT.

EDWARD PORRITT.

Modern Germany and her Historians. By ANTOINE GUILLAND. London, Jarrold and Sons, 1915.-360 pp.

This is a remarkable book. Although the English translation bears a post-bellum date and gives no indication that this is not a first edition, the book appeared in French in 1900.

As long ago as that, Professor Guilland, apparently a student of that incomparable teacher, Gabriel Monod, had analyzed the work and appraised the influence of the nineteenth-century historians in Germany in a way which subsequent events have all too clearly justified. The book is therefore not one of that growing number of belated discoveries of Germany's intellectual feebleness which the war has pro

It is devoid of the spirit of nationalist partisanship. Indeed, since its main theme is the damage done by such partisanship not only to political ideals but to the scientific aims of history itself, it would have been a singularly patent absurdity if M. Guilland's own book had suffered from the defects which he attacks in his German predecessors. The book is written not as a defence of France and French historians against the German; it is not an apology for anything or anyone. The author takes up his task rather as a liberal in the truest sense of the word, a citizen of the republic of science and of letters, who deplores the fatal and narrow trend of most German historiography in the nineteenth century for its effect upon the Germans themselves, but remains unperturbed by its hostility to the "fickle and degenerate Gaul." In short the author exhibits just those qualities of the judicial temper and catholic outlook which are often missing in the historians with whom he deals.

The book concentrates upon five historians, Niebuhr, Ranke, Mommsen, Sybel and Treitschke; but it covers a wider scope than the chap

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The theme is one now sufficiently

ter titles might seem to indicate. familiar-the rôle of the historians in the formation of the national spirit and political union of Germany. But although the story has been told so frequently—especially with reference to Treitschke— that it is unnecessary now to elaborate or define it in a review, it has never been done so well or so thoroughly as here. In the introduction, Professor Guilland brings out keenly the significance of the battle of Jena as a starting point for the new movement which culminated in 1870, and of the work of Stein in both historiography and statecraft. The influence of Burke stands out here; and antagonism to the principles of the French Revolution furnishes fuel for the ardor with which the Prussian institutions, past as well as present, are upheld. The case of Ranke (who was much influenced by Burke) is of special interest. His two main principles of history-that each society or nation has its individuality, and that within the nation individuals play a great and often determining rôle-lend themselves to an interpretation of Hohenzollern Prussia which carries one far from that calm objectivity which alone saved Ranke himself from the bias of a Treitschke. But, even as it was, he felt that "the true destiny of Prussia is to be and to remain a military monarchy." The historians of antiquity contribute almost as directly as those of modern times to create the new ideals-Niebuhr by his portrayal of the natural growth of Roman institutions, Mommsen by his insistence upon the splendor of a disciplined empire, the capacity of Roman and German and the unspeakable baseness of the Celt!

Having shown, in the subsequent chapters, the close relation between the work of the modern historians and that of Bismarck, the volume closes with a somewhat prophetic query as to the ultimate value of such ideals. Referring to the evil effects of Bismarck's policy of controlling public opinion at home, and of the political corruption which is sheltered from attack by efficient manipulation, Professor Guilland says:

If we consider that this policy had its warmest defenders in the recent Prussian historians, we are right in saying that they are the authors in the first place of this degeneracy of manners. By so acclaiming strokes of force and cunning, in spite of the moral varnish with which they have covered their theories, they have helped to pervert the public mind. As the philosopher Renouvier said admirably, "they have awakened and stimulated the dangerous taste of the past, ending in the fatal universal evolution, in the supremacy of history over reason, of deeds over rights, of force over justice." Through their historical theories they have been the propagators of the worst political maxims, for the refutation of which

humanity already has shed seas of blood. They must be surprised after that with the results; they have worked for social democracy. In truth, nothing lasting is based upon deceit and lies; sooner or later that work comes back to one.

JAMES T. SHOTWELL.

Americanism: What It Is. By DAVID JAYNE HILL. New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1916.-xv, 280 pp.

The People's Government. By DAVID JAYNE HILL. New York, D. Appleton and Company, 1915.—xv, 287 pp.

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In the preface to Americanism Dr. Hill objects to the attempt to seek progress" through what society as a whole can do for itself," because such an attempt forgets that society is a purely abstract idea, possessing no inherent power either of initiative or of achievement" (page x). He thus warns us at the outset that danger lurks in the use of abstract ideas in political thinking. His Americanism is identified with what he terms individualism. He finds a contemporary reaction against "Americanism," based on the assumption that individualism is egoism. It is not that, he says. "On the contrary, it is the only solid foundation for our duty to respect the other man's rights" (page x).

A few abstracts will indicate Dr. Hill's message. He calls it an error to think that anyone's will is law" and holds that "what constitutional government intended to do" was "to establish the principle that law is not a product of will, but a system of rules for the regulation of will, derived from the authority of reason" (page 103). He says that " a constitution is to a state what conscience is to human character" (page 138) and that the people of the United States, in enacting the Constitution, "standing in the place of the sovereign, and exercising sovereign power. . . freely and formally renounced the power to impose their personal arbitrary will upon the organs of government or upon one another" (page 55). That Dr. Hill, however unconsciously, moves on a higher plane than a dryly legal one is apparent from his recognition that the Constitution is subject to amendment. He feels, however, that it should not be amended lightly or unadvisedly. "The first method of attack" on our system of just laws and principles "is through the hasty alteration of the fundamental law itself" (page 56).

There are overwhelming proofs that we are at present passing through a

crisis in which the great structure of liberty and justice erected by our fathers is being insidiously undermined; not in the interest of the people, of whose rights it is the only guarantee, but in the interest of private powers within the State, which, for purposes of their own, wish to dominate it and employ it as the instrument of their designs [page 82].

Our present peril seems to Dr. Hill the greater because "we freely admit that there are fewer purely personal motives for defending the work of the past than there are for initiating new and ill-considered schemes of public action" (page 93). He does not enter into a detailed refutation of the doctrines which he deems dangerous, as he would if we were engaged in a polemic rather than a purely expository task " (page 107), but those who are guilty of the errors are on various pages referred to as demagogues, sophists and sycophants. The natural enemies" who thus menace "Constitutionalism . . include all those who, in any form whatever, desire to make the State their private servant, and through control of the public powers use it to serve their own personal class interests at the expense of others " (page 82). Thus one might infer that Dr. Hill is opposed to a protective tariff, a pension system, the grant of tax exemptions, patents and exclusive franchises, and to many other acts of legislation by which personal class interests have been served at the expense of others.

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The burden of The People's Government is like that of Americanism. The people's government is seen to be not the people's government. Authority does not primarily pertain in any sense to persons. It is not more an attribute of the people than it is of the prince" (page 8). This point of view is elaborated in a fashion likely to please the philosophical anarchist.

It would seem to be an axiom, that any mere aggregate of similar units cannot contain any qualities which no one of them contains. How, then, can a collection of mere private wills, considered as so many personal expressions of desire, or interest, or determination, possess rightful authority over any individual? If no one of them, regarded singly, possess such authority, all of them together do not possess it [page 116].

With flawless logic, Dr. Hill adds:

Certainly this will not be disputed by anyone who accepts the doctrine that the individual possesses "inalienable rights," whatever that may mean; for if such rights are "inalienable," no collection of persons, no matter how numerous, may justly take them away [pages 116-117].

Dr. Hill's thoughts would not merit such extensive notice but for