any time, for any purpose is much to be deprecated,' and this sentence certainly represents the attitude of the Government.

Dr. Meikle has printed, in a valuable Appendix, the Minutes of the first Convention of the Friends of the People in Scotland in Dec. 1792. They are from the report of a spy, who was not likely to soften any dangerous expression, and yet it is impossible to find in them anything to justify the panic which seized the authorities or the shameful treatment of Thomas Muir. From these unhappy memories Dr. Meikle turns to the French projects of invasion and the Scottish Militia Act of 1797, which led to further troubles and to the prosecution of the United Scotsmen for a conspiracy on so small a scale that it might well have been treated as venial.' His chapter on the Church and the French Revolution is interesting and suggestive. We look forward to more work in Scottish History from Dr. Meikle's pen. ROBERT S. RAIT.

GREATER ROME AND GREATER BRITAIN. By Sir C. P. Lucas, K.C.B., K.C.M.G. Pp. viii, 184. 8vo. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1912. 3s. 6d. net.

THERE has been a tendency in these islands, both on the part of public opinion and on that of its intellectual leaders, to treat imperial problems with apathy or studied neglect. One of the most hopeful signs of the times is that a revival of interest in imperial questions is being accompanied by the growth of an influential school of political thinkers inspired by the conscious mission of directing attention to the problems involved in our imperial future. Above all, it realises that the future of the Empire depends on the intelligent interest displayed in imperial problems by the individual citizens of its constituent parts. 'It is, therefore, a very great and real mistake,' says Sir C. P. Lucas, 'to regard the future of the Empire as depending in the main upon Ministers and Government offices. It depends in an increasing degree, as distance diminishes and knowledge grows, upon the individual citizens.' In assisting these individual citizens to think imperially and in directing their attention to the problems at issue his book will prove of inestimable value.

Sir Charles Lucas is in a position to speak with authority on Greater Britain, and his great knowledge is reinforced by clear thinking and its complement, a clear and attractive style. By means of a comparison with the greatest imperial achievement of antiquity he is able to bring into relief the conditions and structure of the British Empire and to direct attention to some of the problems which its citizens must inevitably face. Greater Rome is used as a foil to Greater Britain, and it would be hardly fair to criticise omissions in an account which aims at analysing the New Empire rather than at describing the Old. Perhaps some mention might have been made of the control exercised by the armies of Rome over the occupancy of the imperial throne. It is in part responsible for the association of the word imperialism with militarism in its worst form.

Roughly, the first half of the book consists of a survey of the factors conditioning the growth of the two empires. The British Empire is the result largely of individual initiative; its growth has not been conditioned by a

centralisation of authority or by geographical continuity. The Roman Empire, on the other hand, was the creation of the State in a sense in which the British was not; there is nothing, for instance, in the history of the ancient empire to correspond with the part played by the great chartered companies. Very interesting are the observations made on the effect of environment on the character of the settlers and consequently on that of the empire. The Romans were not adventurous settlers in spacious backwoods; they advanced in compact bodies, carried Rome with them into the provinces, and Romanised the natives of the country occupied. But in the case of the Dominions, British settlers scattered themselves in wide spaces. Their environment, combined with their remoteness from the mother country, profoundly modified their individual and national characters. In the one case native subjects were stamped with Roman characteristics, in the other the racial characteristics of British-born settlers were changed by their new environment.

The advance of science too has changed the conditions which mould imperial policy. In part it has enabled us to do the same kind of work as the Romans, but on a vastly different scale, eg. the Assouan dam or the irrigation works in India. In another department it has set itself a task entirely new in kind, and medical research hopes to reclaim for settlement lands at present uninhabitable by white men. The facility of communication, always a first consideration for imperial states, is yet another sphere in which science is profoundly modifying the conditions, and a very good point is the reminder that the British Empire assumed its present form at a time when the possibilities of communication were less developed. The result has been that the members of the great family, now brought into daily contact with each other, possess independent individualities developed during the period of their remoteness from the Mother Country and each other. Class, colour, and race represent problems with which Rome, except in a very minor degree, was unfamiliar. The very complicated nature of the questions which these cross divisions raise for modern imperialism is clearly explained, and the possible dangers arising from lines of cleavage, which run counter to the other lines of division in the Empire, are illustrated with salutary frankness.

The second half of the book examines the structure of the two empires, and rightly emphasises the unique character of the British Empire. The Roman Empire was a unit with a centralised authority; the British Empire is not merely two, but many empires in one. The first fundamental division comes, of course, between the Dominions and the Dependencies, but the Dependencies are themselves a group of nations differing in individuality, in national character, and in their private interests. Again Rome stood alone, she possessed an imperial monopoly. Mole ruit sua; the causes of her decay were internal. The British Empire has no military frontier, but many rivals. Finally, the two great exponents of a constructive policy adopted very different methods. The Roman's maxim was a corollary to his centralisation of authority, divide et impera. The British constructive policy, on the other hand, has shown a tendency to build up a series of large independent units.

For the future Sir Charles Lucas is hopeful. He realises that a policy inspired by a sound conservatism is the only road to success. Panaceas produce little but harm; there can be no solution of all imperial difficulties by cut and dried schemes of statecraft. The fate of the Empire depends ultimately on the commonsense, patriotism, and intelligence of its citizens.

In the long run, by the intelligence of our public opinion our Empire stands or falls, and in placing the fruits of his special knowledge and profound reflection in the hands of the private citizen Sir Charles Lucas has earned the gratitude of all imperialists. No summary can adequately convey the educational value of a book whose every page stimulates the reader to profitable trains of thought.

There is, however, one deficiency in his presentment of imperial problems. On the questions arising out of the relations between the Mother Country and the Dominions the book is wholly admirable, but the Dependencies are less faithfully dealt with. There is no mention, for instance, of the possibility that political changes in the Oriental world outside the Empire may produce some effect, prejudicial or otherwise, on the relations between ourselves and the inhabitants of our Oriental Dependencies. In India Sir Charles Lucas anticipates no radical change of our policy of government. While most imperialists would agree that any advance must be cautious and conservative, at the same time changes are actually taking place with great rapidity, and few deny that the ultimate goal is towards the creation of self-governing nationalities. Here, in fact, we have attacked a bigger task than the Romans ever attempted, and that with an alien race. The Romans created an administrative machine at a sacrifice recognised by few except idealists like Cicero. Even in the rule of an alien conquest we can make the proud boast that while creating the benefits of efficient government our policy has not been one of exercising a purely selfish control over an administrative machine. But big stakes involve big risks. The aspirations of races as yet immature in ability for self-government have combined with the too hasty idealism of generous inexperience in certain quarters at home to aggravate our difficulties. Here, too, an educated public opinion is the only safeguard. Unfortunately, however, while the ignorance of public opinion increases the difficulties abroad, the ingenuity of the Oriental agitator and the gullible ignorance of his dupes render the information of public opinion a matter fraught with dangerous possibilities.

W. R. HALLIDAY.

LA MAGIE ET LA SORCELLERIE EN FRANCE. Par Th. de Cauzons. Vol. I. Origine de la Sorcellerie. Ce qu'on racontait des sorcières. Opinions diverses à leur sujet. Pp. xv, 426. 5 francs. Vol. II. Poursuite et châtiment de la Magie jusqu'à la Reforme Protestante. Le Procès des Templiers. Mission et procès de Jeanne d'Arc. Pp. xxii, 521. 5 francs. Vol. III. La Sorcellerie de la Reforme à la Révolution. Les couvents possédés. La Franc-Maçonnerie. Le Magnétisme animal. Pp. viii, 550. 5 francs. Vol. IV. La Magie Contemporaine. Les Transformations du Magnétisme Psychoses et Névrose. Les Esprits des Vivants.

Les Esprits des Morts. Le Diable de nos jours. Le Merveilleux populaire. Pp. viii, 724. 7 francs. Paris: Libraire Dorbon-Ainé. [1911].

OCCULT study derives material aid from this effort of a French scholar, whose volumes claim to be a full survey of the story of and the belief in Magic and Sorcery, with all their ramifications of witchcraft and demonology-from their semi-religious origins in the East down to the latest phases of European semi-scientific theory, pathological explanation, and widespread survival of credulity. A truly great survey in many ways it is, although the contrast which it necessarily challenges with the works of earlier scholars may leave room for a critical opinion on the relative standards of research, and the absolute balance of advantage between the older and · newer methods. The former method lay in an agnostic or materialist handling; the latter is the more receptive, less scornfully incredulous, scrutiny of an enquirer, who seeks in modern psychology, as exhibited in many forms of mental alienation, as well as in the constant attitude of ignorant popular wonder, the clues to phenomena which have left so vast a labyrinth of perplexing memories running unbroken through the entire known history of mankind. The enquiry was worthy of a profound historical spirit, the better fitted for the task by previous study of medical science directed to phenomena of insanity and its borderland.

M. de Cauzons' elaborate treatise offers a comprehensive and systematic historical review of the whole of the vast theme. The first volume skims lightly over the origins and antiquity of magic, and sets to its real task in a description of the medieval beliefs in sorcery, the powers of demons and sorcerers, the witch-Sabbath, and the attitude of the Church towards the belief in the various phenomena, including the modes by which the powers of evil could be defeated. The fluctuation of ecclesiastical opinion is illustrated by the early Christian view that the pagan gods were demons, by the later phase under which the trend of authority was towards condemning credulity in sorcery, by the growth of the faith in it during the eleventh and the thirteenth centuries, and by the sustained outburst of persecution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, to which there have succeeded two centuries of humanitarian and rationalistic revulsion and reaction. The Devil of the middle ages was the sum of the powers noxious to man. Rome to-day holds that the Devil can intervene, but that it is grave sin to invoke him, and that most of the alleged forms of his manifestation are either fables or pathogenic illusions.

The second volume attempts to follow magic through its strange course among the Romans, the Jews, and the Gauls, and thereafter throughout France from about the year 1000 down to 1431, when Joan of Arc, as a misbelieving idolater, an invoker of devils, an apostate, schismatic, and heretic, was burnt and her ashes cast into the Seine. The large body of instances from Roman history and the numerous chapters of Roman law against sorcerers as public enemies are enough to demonstrate that the Empire was the transmitting medium of oriental magic and imagination. Features of this book are the painful revival of faith in the devil and his iniquities in the age of the pious King Louis, leading up to the terrible

process of the Templars, whose alleged 'Baphometic' baptism was a type destined to be dominating in later centuries of the sordid and cruel story of witch prosecution. Even thus early the horrible kiss of homage appears in the series of malpractices laid to the charge of the maligned Order. Baptism and homage are, like the distorted confession and mass to the Devil, essentially parodies of the orthodox Christian observances. They are simple perversions, the supplanting of God by the Devil: it is equally the essence of the theory in the latest witch prosecutions. Regarding the Maid, M. de Cauzons' attitude is that of one who tells the story; his task as historian, he elusively declares, does not require him to decide between theories of inspiration of her voices,' as to whether she was a spiritualist medium, and whether the voices were objective or subjective.

Volume III. describes the process against the Dominicans of Berne in 1507, and generally the great prosecutions of witches in the sixteenth century, especially those before trois juges terribles: (1) Nicolas Remy, 1576-1591, a high authority on Demonolatry and author of a classic work on that theme; (2) Henri Boquet, contemporary of Remy, and, like him, author of a Discours exécrable des sorciers; and (3) De Lancre, like the other two, not only judge but author. The work of De Lancre, l'Inconstance des demons, is drawn upon for a great collection of the evidence disclosed by prosecutions in the region round Bayonne and Bordeaux. That Protestantism favoured the beliefs which culminated in persecution of wizards and witches is well known, in spite of some noted examples of scepticism in that age. M. de Cauzons has found the chief sceptic, Montaigne, among the Catholics, though others, such as Jean Bodin and Martin Del Rio, are still associated with essential credulity. Among the Protestants, Luther was, of course, notorious for his adherence to the old tenets on demonology, while Melancthon, Jean de Munster, Witekind, and Calvin equally failed to see the higher light and to recognise 'demonopathy' in its true character. What is called the 'grand siècle' unfortunately achieved a sad eminence as the age of witchcraft persecutions. The age of philosophy, which followed, bringing humanity and reason into line, slowly extinguished the fires. In this epoch the clerical antagonism to Freemasonry was a phasea little difficult to appreciate to-day-of the persistent attribution of its mysteries to satanic auspices. The eighteenth century welcomed ideas of magnetism and somnambulism, the precursors of modern spiritualism, as offering some countenance of scientific system to explanations of phenomena previously regarded as due to diabolic possession.

Volume IV. rounds off the prolonged survey with an examination of contemporary magic, tracing the transformations of opinion from magnetism to neurotic telepathy as the causes of phenomena, and finally summing up the modern standpoint in the doctrine that the friends of the Devil have lost a little ground in our day in consequence of the study of nervous and mental maladies. But how grimly the old positions are still held is evinced in every circle of civilization by thousandfold survivals of the marvellous in the folk-creed and in the vagaries of faith-healing and its analogues.

Standpoint and temperament necessarily affect the judgment to be passed on M. de Cauzons' tendencies of thought. He did not start, as one would