Along the Book Shelf

THE I.W.W.—A Study of American Syndicalism. BY PAUL F. BRISSENDEN, Ph. D. Columbia University Studies, 1920, second edition. Pp. 438.

In this scholarly work the author aims to discover the fundamental tenets of the I. W. W. To this end he searches through the proceedings of I. W. W. conventions, and in bulletins, addresses, and letters by members of the I. W. W. Noteworthy statements of principles and developments are analyzed and collated.

The movement, which was organized in Chicago in 1905, represented a reaction against the alleged ineffectiveness of labor unions to achieve real benefits for working men and women. Then came the break with the Western Federation of Miners in 1907, and the schism between the Chicago and Detroit factions in 1908 when the latter became direct actionists as opposed to the Chicago "doctrinaires." The year 1912, with its Lawrence strike and its free-speech crusades, is indicated as representing the high tide of I. W. W. activity.

The author refrains from comment, although at one place he states that if given power "the I. W. W. would be no less relentless Prussians than are the corporations we have with us." Withal the author is dispassionate and scientific, confining himself to the presentation of facts and allowing the reader to draw his own conclusions.

E. S. BOGARDUS.

ESSAYS SPECULATIVE AND POLITICAL, by the RT. HON. ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR, Published by George H. Doran Company, New York. 1921. Pp. x and 241.

Mr. Balfour is an outstanding example of the British statesman at home in fields of both political and literary significance. This recent volume of essays, first delivered as addresses before learned societies, covers a considerable period of his intellectual life. The Henry Sedgwick Memorial Lecture on Decadence which is the first of the series and was delivered in 1908 sets forth the interesting suggestion that science must be expected to provide the remedy for decadence. Whether Mr. Balfour would take the same view of the case since the overweening dependence upon science by the Germans precipitated the world-war would be interesting to learn. There is no doubt of the great part science is to play in human progress. But science puts into the hands of men instruments of great danger if the men themselves are not moralized and socialized to use those instruments for the common good. Civilization can really get on no faster than the moral advance of man and the only decadence possible in civilization is moral decadence which rules all the rest.

Great interest attaches to Balfour's essay in criticism of Bergson's Creative Evolution which appeared in the Hibbert Journal in 1911. He strikes the vital spot in Bergson's armor when he distinguishes between the ordinary idea of freedom which includes purposive choice and that of Bergson which looks upon freedom as an accident. He points out how when the exigency arises this notion of freedom is inconsistently discarded by Bergson for an appeal to determinism. That is to say, the original elan vital becomes the determining source of the homogeneity to be found in the subjective and objective worlds. He shows how Bergson should have kept to the high road of freedom with which he had begun.

He writes: "Creation, freedom, will-these doubtless are great things; but we cannot lastingly admire them unless we know their drift. We cannot, I submit, rest satisfied with what differs so little from the haphazard; joy is no fitting consequence of efforts which are so nearly aimless. If values are to be taken into account, it is surely better to invoke God with a purpose, than super-consciousness with none."

Mr. Balfour has the advantage of clearness and style and those already familiar with the essays will be glad to have them collected into one book.

MANUAL OF MODERN SCOTS, by WILLIAM GRANT, M. A., and JAMES MAIN DIXON, Litt. Hum. D. Pp. xxii and 500, published by Cambridge University Press, London, 1921.

Every one reads or has read his Burns and his Scott, but there is a growing habit of evading the vernacular passages and phrases or of misreading and misunderstanding them. Even in Scotland, the desire to speak the standard form of the tongue makes its youth grow up with but a slim acquaintance with their own fine literature; for Burns and Walter Scott are peerless in the lyric and the novel.

And now there has come from the Cambridge University Press a portly volume by two specialists, Grant and Dixon's Manual of Modern Scots, which is handled in the United States by the Macmillan Company. Mr. William Grant, who handles the phonetics in which he is an acknowledged master, is lecturer on phonetics at Aberdeen Training Center and at Aberdeen University in Scotland; and Dr. James Main Dixon is professor of comparative literature at the University of Southern California.

The book opens up in a definite and scholarly way a new avenue of enjoyment for those who have the misfortune not to have been born within the borders of the Scottish realm.

The first part describes the sounds of Modern Scots with examples of their use written in the alphabet of the International Phonetic Association. This enables the non-Scot to find the correct pronounciation of any Scottish word. The second section contrasts Scots grammar with English usage and is provided with abundant illustration. The third and fourth sections furnish an interesting collection of ballads and songs in parallel columns with phonetic transcriptions. The book is so well done and so much needed in its particular field that it is not at all extravagant to expect it to remain the standard authority for many years to come.

"We consider the appearance of this book," says the Scottish Educational Journal, "a real event in Scots history. The price is certainly high, but it is worth every penny of it." A journal of similar standing in London, Secondary Education, is equally emphatic: "The authors of this comprehensive treatise on the modern Scots language and dialects have done a great service to the students of philology and grammar... We commend it most emphatically to all who wish fully to appreciate the wonderful and robust literuatre of the Scottish people.' The London Notes and Queries, always on the lookout for a good thing, comments on the readableness of the grammatical portion: "To the lover of language it offers a feast. The dictionary reader will browse in its pages with delight: and that fortunate person who savors phrases as rudimentary epigrams will find an abundance of enjoyment, the wit and expressiveness of Scots-an idiom where its peculiar logic is a noticeable quality gain in point by being seen in this system in its grammatical setting."

And the London Times, the "Thunderer," in a long review closes with the same tribute to the services contributed to literature by Mr. Grant and Professor Dixon in the production of this manual.

In days which mark a growing popularity of the Scottish this book is really indispensable to those who would read the dialect publicly as well as to those who would understand it either in written or spoken form.

RUDOLF EUCKEN, his Life, Work and Travels by himself, translated by JOSEPH MCCABE. Pp. 216. Published by Charles Scribner's Sons,

New York, 1922.

This story of the life work and aims of Rudolf Eucken is sure to be met in America with widespread interest in spite of the misunderstandings that have sprung from the war. The story of his early childhood and of his love for and companionship with his mother is touching and serves to throw much light upon his own character of gentleness which is most obvious to those who have had the privilege of close personal acquaintance.

Eucken's comments upon the intellectual leaders of his day are especially illuminating and appreciative. Personalists will be eager to learn his reaction to Lotze, the great teacher of Bowne:

"With Lotze, who was undoubtedly the most important thinker of those decades, I never had much to do. His lectures were distinguished for their learning, clearness and acuteness; but they were too technical for most of the audience, and to me they offered little that was of use in regard to the problems which occupied me. The first philosophical lecture I heard was in his class-room, and it dealt with the philosophy of religion. The various strains of reasoning in it were ably developed, but I found no broad lines of the whole. It seemed to me sometimes that he trusted too much to subtlety. We could not answer his arguments, but they did not entirely convince us. Psychology was his chief auxiliary, and it served well as an introduction to

the problems. I have often been unjust to this eminent thinker
in my own mind, yet I certainly did not get from him what I
mainly wanted: a firm conception of life. His philosophy seemed
to me too much a matter of learning. It had too little bearing
and influence on the totality of life."

Eucken seems particularly conscious of the apathy with which his work was received in Germany itself and mentions it several times. To an onlooker it would seem only natural in a people so completely given over to the ideals of materialism. Germany's great failure lay perhaps in her choice of leaders. It would have been far better had she received, for intellectual leadership, Eucken instead of Ernst Haeckel.

That Eucken was himself painfully conscious of this growing materialism is evidenced by what he has to say of the German Government in connection with the war:

"It was characteristic of the bureaucratic method that has spread over Germany like a thick net. This bureaucracy has no sense of proportion or discrimination. It thinks in rigid standards, and it is incapable of entering into another mental attitude or appreciating any right of individuality. We are experiencing a brilliant result of its work!

"I myself, in spite of my appreciation and admiration of the great political and diplomatic achievements of Bismarck, did not find an unadulterated pleasure in the situation. I had hoped that the progress in external things would be accompanied by an inner advance, and that life would find expression in individual action. Moreover, the new policy seemed to me to underestimate the ideal factors of human society.

"Their enterprise would, however, not have had such success with the masses, had not German life generally been devoid of any firm and elevating purpose. The average mental content was a mixture of intellectualism and naturalism, without any spiritual depth."

We are disappointed at what he says regarding the right of Germany to make the war, but it would probably be too soon to expect any other expression from one whose patriotism so imbues him with the German point of view.

We turn rather with pleasure to his expressions of personal faith which are exalted and which accord with what we have previously known of him. They form his distinctive message to our time and the passing years will not obscure them:

"I had held the belief that a higher power cared for men in general and me in particular, and that I might trust it. This faith I have never for a moment abandoned, though I have made an independent criticism of the ecclesiastical creed that I inherited."

"It was, and is, quite clear to me that nothing but the attainment of a spiritual content of life will save mankind from an inner collapse."

The situation and the task of the present age is thus set forth:

"Our most urgent problem is, therefore, how to bring about a moral and spiritual strengthening, if not a revolution. We need a radical renewal of the spiritual life;

"Modern humanity or at least a large part of it—would abandon all inner connections and rely entirely upon its own strength. It believes that it is capable of meeting any tasks by a closer concentration of its elements; that in its ceaseless striving it could raise up a tower as high as heaven. This attitude, with its severance of all inner connections, must end in destroying the conditions of real greatness.

"A heavy task thus confronts us. There will be no issue from our present confusion until we succeed in bringing together once more the two great problems of our time. We have to combine the problem of spirit and the problem of man and help them to a fruitful cooperation. The problem of spirit must come first, but man has his rights; and our fate will be decided according as we do or do not find the means of this adjustment. For that we need, not only original and even great men, but illuminating and elevating spiritual forces; and both need the assistance of the superior vital power which conditions and shapes our life and work.

"Until the war occurred I looked forward to a quiet close of my activity. All know how the life, not only of Germany, but of the whole world, has meantime changed. There has been a terrible revolution, and it has brought all man's problems to an acute stage. From a sense of possession we have passed to a laborious and feverish search. At every step new duties spring upon us. We thought that we had received a rich heritage of culture, and now our whole tradition is shattered, and the very foundations of our life are disturbed. We hoped for an inner concentration of humanity, as civilization and religion demanded, and the whole race is split into sharp antagonisms. We looked forward to an advance of the race, particularly a moral advance, and we have now to admit that untruth and injustice dominate our generation, and that there is little room for real goodness."

To many, the breaking of his silence toward the many American and English readers who had learned to love and appreciate him will be a source of real joy. We trust the appearance of the book at this time may contribute something of reappraisal and better understanding, making possible a reuniting of all forces which believe that society at large cannot be saved without a mighty return to those spiritual realities which alone make humanity great.