A Century of Science and Other Essays by John Fiske
COPYRIGHT, 1899
CONTENTS
Dedication
Chapter 1. A Century of Science
Chapter 2. The Doctrine of Evolution: Its Scope and Purport
Chapter 3. Edward Livingston Youmans
Chapter 4. The Part Played by Infancy in the Evolution of Man
Chapter 5. The Origins of Liberal Thought in America
Chapter 6. Sir Harry Vane
Chapter 7. The Arbitration Treaty
Chapter 8. Francis Parkman
Chapter 9. Edward Augustus Freeman
Chapter 10. Cambridge as Village and City
Chapter 11. A Harvest of Irish Folk-Lore
Chapter 12. Guessing at Half and Multiplying by Two
Chapter 13. Forty Years of Bacon-Shakespeare Folly
Chapter 14. Some Cranks and Their Crotchets
Dedication
DEDICATORY EPISTLE TO THOMAS SERGEANT PERRY,
PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN THE KEIO GIJUKU, AT TOKYO.
DEAR TOM,--It has long been my wish to make you the patron saint or tutelar divinity of some book of mine, and it has lately occurred to me that it ought to be a book of the desultory and chatty sort that would remind you, in your present exile at the world’s eastern rim, of the many quiet evenings of old, when, over a tankard of mellow October and pipe of fragrant Virginia, while Yule logs crackled blithely and the music of pattering sleet was upon the window-pane, we used to roam in fancy through the universe and give free utterance to such thoughts, sedate or frivolous, as seemed to us good. I dare say the present volume may serve as an epitome of many such old-time sessions of sweet discourse, which I trust we shall by and by repeat and renew.
But there is one link of association which in my mind especially connects you with the present occasion. My theory of the causes and effects of the prolongation of human infancy, with reference to the evolution of man, was first published in the “North American Review” for October, 1873, when you were the editor of that periodical. The article, which was entitled “The Progress from Brute to Man,” was made up of two chapters of my “Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy” (part ii. chaps, xxi., xxii.), which was published a year later, in October, 1874. The value of the theory therein set forth was at once recognized by many leading naturalists. In the address of Vice-President Edward Morse, before the American Association, at its meeting at Buffalo in 1876, my theory receives extended notice as one of the most important contributions yet made to the Doctrine of Evolution; and it is declared that I have given “for the first time a rational explanation of the origin and persistence of family relations, and thence communal [_i. e._, clan] relations, and, finally, of society.”[1]
Uncontrollable circumstances have prevented my giving to the further elaboration of this infancy theory the time and attention which it deserves and demands; but in my little book, “The Destiny of Man,” published in 1884, I gave a popular exposition of it which has made it widely known in all English-speaking countries and on the continent of Europe, as well as among your worthy Japanese neighbours, Tom, who have done me the honour to translate some of my books into their vernacular. The theory has become still further popularized through having furnished the starting-point for some of the most characteristic speculations of the late Henry Drummond. In these and other ways my infancy theory has so far entered into the current thoughts of the present age that people have (naturally enough) begun to forget with whom it ...continuned...
