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1796, Gloucestershire : un médecin osait défier la mort en inoculant un enfant avec la vaccine. Découvrez comment Edward Jenner, contre vents et marées, a posé les bases de l'immunologie moderne et sauvé des millions de vies.

"Rodin was solitary before fame came to him and afterward he became, perhaps, still more solitary. For fame is ultimately but the summary of all misunderstandings that crystallize about a new name. Rodin's message and its significance are little understood by the many men who gathered about him. It would be a long and weary task to enlighten them; nor is this necessary, for they assembled about the name, not about the work,-a work that has grown far beyond this name's sound and limitations, and that has become nameless as a plain is nameless or a sea that has a name but on the map, in books, and to men, but which is, in reality, but distance, movement and depth"... Auguste Rodin was born in Paris on the 14th of November, 1840, of a family of humble employees. The child at first attended a day-school in the Rue Saint Jacques, then went to a boarding-school at Beauvais, kept by his uncle. At fourteen he returned to Paris and entered the school of art in the Rue de l'École de Médecine. A period of desperate industry at once set in for him...

Author of "How to Make Ideas Clear" or "The Fixation of Belief", Charles Sanders Peirce was known as a great American Scientist and Philosopher, pioneer in the movement of Pragmatism. William James called Peirce the most original thinker of their generation. Peirce placed himself somewhere near the rank of Leibniz. This much is now certain; he is the most original and versatile of America's philosophers and America's greatest logician. "Peirce stands out as one of the great founders of modern scientific logic; and in the realm of general philosophy the development of some of his pregnant ideas has led to the pragmatism and radical empiricism of James, as well as to the mathematical idealism of Royce, and to the anti-nominalism which characterizes the philosophic movement known as Neo-Realism."...

If my object in these pages were to present a complete scheme of counsels and maxims for the guidance of life, I should have to repeat the numerous rules-some of them excellent-which have been drawn up by thinkers of all ages; and, in so doing, I should inevitably entail upon the reader a vast amount of well-worn commonplace. But the fact is that in this work I make still less claim to exhaust my subject than in any other of my writings. An author who makes no claims to completeness must also, in a great measure, abandon any attempt at systematic arrangement. For his double loss in this respect, the reader may console himself by reflecting that a complete and systematic treatment of such a subject as the guidance of life could hardly fail to be a very wearisome business. I have simply put down those of my thoughts which appear to be worth communicating-thoughts which, as far as I know, have not been uttered, or, at any rate, not just in the same form, by anyone else; so that my remarks may be taken as a supplement to what has been already achieved in the immense field... In the following pages, I shall distribute what I have to say under the following heads: (1) general rules; (2) our relation to ourselves; (3) our relation to others; and finally, (4) rules which concern our manner of life and our worldly circumstances. I shall conclude with some remarks on the changes which the various periods of life produce in us.

All our reasonings are of two kinds: 1. Explicative, analytic, or deductive; 2. Amplifiative, synthetic, or (loosely speaking) inductive. In explicative reasoning, certain facts are first laid down in the premises. These facts are, in every case, an inexhaustible multitude, but they may often be summed up in one simple proposition by means of some regularity which runs through them all. Thus, take the proposition that Socrates was a man; this implies (to go no further) that during every fraction of a second of his whole life (or, if you please, during the greater part of them) he was a man. He did not at one instant appear as a tree and at another as a dog; he did not flow into water, or appear in two places at once; you could not put your finger through him as if he were an optical image, etc. Now, the facts being thus laid down, some order among some of them, not particularly made use of for the purpose of stating them, may perhaps be discovered; and this will enable us to throw part or all of them into a new statement, the possibility of which might have escaped attention...

This volume is designed to show the way to the reader, to satisfy and more especially to excite his initial curiosity in Philosophy. It affords an adequate idea of the march of facts and of ideas. The reader is led, somewhat rapidly, from the remote origins to the most recent efforts of the human mind. The aim of philosophy is to seek the explanation of all things: the quest is for the first causes of everything, and also how all things are, and finally why, with what design, with a view to what, things are. That is why, taking "principle" in all the senses of the word, it has been called the science of first principles. Philosophy has always existed. Religions-all religions-are philosophies. They are indeed the most complete. But, apart from religions, men have sought the causes and principles of everything and endeavoured to acquire general ideas. These researches apart from religious dogmas in pagan antiquity are the only ones with which we are here to be concerned.

It should be possible to discern and describe a knowing as one identifies any object, concern, or event. It must have its own marks; it must offer characteristic features-as much so as a thunder-storm, the constitution of a State, or a leopard. In the search for this affair, we are first of all desirous for something which is for itself, contemporaneously with its occurrence, a cognition, not something called knowledge by another and from without-whether this other be logician, psychologist, or epistemologist. The "knowledge" may turn out false, and hence no knowledge; but this is an after-affair; it may prove to be rich in fruitage of wisdom, but if this outcome be only wisdom after the event, it does not concern us. What we want is just something which takes itself as knowledge, rightly or wrongly...

A child has, as far as we know, all the perceptive powers of a man. He questioned him a little as to how he knows what he does; in many cases, he will tell you that he never learned his mother tongue; he always knew it, or he knew it as soon as he came to have sense; it appears, then, that he does not possess the faculty of distinguishing, by simple contemplation, between an intuition and a cognition determined by others. There can be no doubt that before the publication of Berkeley's book on Vision, it had been generally believed that the third dimension of space was immediately intuited, although, at present, nearly all admit that it was known by inference. We had been contemplating the object since this very creation of man, but this discovery was not made until we began to reason about it. Does the reader know of the blind spot on the retina? take a number of this journal, turn over the cover so as to expose the white paper, lay it sideways upon the table before which you must sit, and put two cents upon it, one near the left hand edge, and the other to the right. Put your left hand over your left eye, and with the right eye look steadily at the left hand cent. then, with your right hand, move the right hand scent which is now plainly seen, towards the left hand. When it comes to a place near the middle of the page it will disappear-you cannot see it without turning your eye. Bring it to near to the other cent, or carry it further away, and it will reappear; but at that particular spot it cannot be seen. Thus it appears that there is a blind spot nearly in the middle of the retina; and this is confirmed by anatomy. It follows that the space we immediately see when one eye is closed is not, as we had imagined, a continuous oval, but is a ring, the filling up of which must be the work of the intellect. What more striking example could be desired of the impossibility of distinguishing intellectual results from intuitional data, by mere contemplation? A man can distinguish different textures of cloth by feeling; But not immediately, for he requires to move his fingers over the cloth, which shows that he is obliged to compare the sensations of one instant with those of another...

Science represents the fruition of the cognitive factors in experience. Instead of contenting itself with a mere statement of what commends itself to personal or customary experience, it aims at a statement which will reveal the sources, grounds, and consequences of a belief. The achievement of this aim gives logical character to the statements. Educationally, it has to be noted that logical characteristics of method, since they belong to subject matter which has reached a high degree of intellectual elaboration, are different from the method of the learner-the chronological order of passing from a cruder to a more refined intellectual quality of experience. When this fact is ignored, science is treated as so much bare information, which however is less interesting and more remote than ordinary information, being stated in an unusual and technical vocabulary. The function which science has to perform in the curriculum is that which it has performed for the race: emancipation from local and temporary incidents of experience, and the opening of intellectual vistas unobscured by the accidents of personal habit and predilection. The logical traits of abstraction, generalization, and definite formulation are all associated with this function. In emancipating an idea from the particular context in which it originated and giving it a wider reference the results of the experience of any individual are put at the disposal of all men. Thus ultimately and philosophically science is the organ of general social progress.

"It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in their speculative views"... Self-confidence, without self-reliance, is as useless as a cooking recipe,--without food. Self-confidence sees the possibilities of the individual; self-reliance realizes them. Self-confidence sees the angel in the unhewn block of marble; self-reliance carves it out for himself. The man who is self-reliant says ever: "No one can realize my possibilities for me, but me; no one can make me good or evil but myself." He works out his own salvation,--financially, socially, mentally, physically, and morally. Life is an individual problem that man must solve for himself. Nature accepts no vicarious sacrifice, no vicarious service. Nature never recognizes a proxy vote. She has nothing to do with middle-men,--she deals only with the individual. Nature is constantly seeking to show man that he is his own best friend, or his own worst enemy. Nature gives man the option on which he will be to himself.

This book explores the evolution of ceremonial government, from the primitive societies to the developed civilizations. It explores also the relationship between the concept of godhood and fatherhood in early societies, and how this connection influenced the emergence of the patriarchal nature of many early governments. The author provides a deep understanding of the origins and development of ceremonial government, shedding light on the social and cultural dynamics that have shaped human societies throughout history.

There is not yet any inventory of a man's faculties, any more than a bible of his opinions. Who shall set a limit to the influence of a human being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry nations with them, and lead the activity of the human race. And if there be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will accompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force to draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense instrumentalities organize around them. Life is a search after power; and this is an element with which the world is so saturated,-there is no chink or crevice in which it is not lodged,-that no honest seeking goes unrewarded. A man should prize events and possessions as the ore in which this fine mineral is found; and he can well afford to let events and possessions, and the breath of the body go, if their value has been added to him in the shape of power. If he have secured the elixir, he can spare the wide gardens from which it was distilled. A cultivated man, wise to know and bold to perform, is the end to which nature works, and the education of the will is the flowering and result of all this geology and astronomy. All successful men have agreed in one thing,-they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was not a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last of things. A belief in causality, or strict connection between every trifle and the principle of being, and, in consequence, belief in compensation, or, that nothing is got for nothing,-characterizes all valuable minds, and must control every effort that is made by an industrious one. The most valiant men are the best believers in the tension of the laws. "All the great captains," said Bonaparte, "have performed vast achievements by conforming with the rules of the art,-by adjusting efforts to obstacles."

A glance at the respective antecedents of individual organisms and social organisms shows why the last admit of no such definite classification as the first. Through a thousand generations a species of plant or animal leads substantially the same kind of life; and its successive members inherit the acquired adaptations. When changed conditions cause divergences of forms once alike, the accumulating differences arising in descendants only superficially disguise the original identity do not prevent the grouping of the several species into a genus; nor do wider divergences that began earlier prevent the grouping of genera into orders and orders into classes. It is otherwise with societies. Hordes of primitive men, dividing and subdividing, do, indeed, show us successions of small social aggregates leading like lives, inheriting such low structures as had resulted, and repeating those structures. But higher social aggregates propagate their respective types in much less decided ways. Though colonies tend to grow like their parents, yet the parent societies are so comparatively plastic, and the influences of new habitats on the derived societies are so great, that divergences of structure are inevitable. In the absence of definite organizations, established during the similar lives of many societies descending one from another, there cannot be the precise distinctions implied by complete classification. Two cardinal kinds of differences there are, however, of which we may avail ourselves for grouping societies in a natural manner. Primarily we may arrange them, according to their degrees of composition, as simple, compound, doubly-compound, trebly-compound; and, secondarily, though in a less specific way, we may divide them into the predominantly predatory and the predominantly industrial those in which the organization for offense and defense is most largely developed and those in which the sustaining organization is most largely developed... Social evolution begins with small, simple aggregates; that it progresses by the clustering of these into larger aggregates; and that, after consolidating, such clusters are united with others like themselves into still larger aggregates. Our classification, then, must begin with societies of the first or simplest order.

This book aims to give a concise analysis of the various factors in human nature which go to form a religion, to exhibit the inevitable transformation of religion with the transformation of knowledge, and more especially to direct attention to the foundation of religion on our apprehension of those permanent elements by reason of which there is a stable order in the world, permanent elements apart from which there could be no changing world. "A religion, on its doctrinal side, can thus be defined as a system of general truths which have the effect of transforming character when they are sincerely held and vividly apprehended. In the long run your character and your conduct of life depend upon your intimate convictions. Life is an internal fact for its own sake, before it is an external fact relating itself to others. The conduct of external life is conditioned by environment, but it receives its final quality, on which its worth depends, from the internal life which is the self-realization of existence. Religion is the art and the theory of the internal life of man, so far as it depends on the man himself and on what is permanent in the nature of things... Religion is what the individual does with his own solitariness. It runs through three stages, if it evolves to its final satisfaction. It is the transition from God the void to God the enemy, and from God the enemy to God the companion."...

The origins of Christianity form the most heroic episode in the history of humanity. Man never drew from his heart more devotion, more love of the ideal, than in the one hundred and fifty years which elapsed from the sweet Galilean vision, under Tiberius, to the death of Marcus Aurelius. The religious consciousness was never more eminently creative, and never laid down with more authority the law of the future. This extraordinary movement, to which no other can be compared, came forth from the bosom of Judaism. But it is doubtful if Judaism alone would have conquered the world. It was necessary that a young and bold school, coming out of its midst, should take the audacious part of renouncing the largest portion of the Mosaic ritual. It was necessary, above all, that the new movement should be transported into the midst of the Greeks and Latins, while awaiting the Barbarians, and become like yeast in the bosom of those European races by which humanity accomplishes its destinies. What a beautiful subject he will discourse upon who shall one day explain to you the part which Greece took in that great common work! You have commissioned me to show to you the part of Rome. The action of Rome is the first in date. It was scarcely until the beginning of the third century that the Greek genius, with Clement of Alexandria and Origen, really seized upon Christianity. I hope to show you, that, since the second century, Rome has exercised a decisive influence upon the Church of Jesus.

The current conception of Progress is somewhat shifting and indefinite. Sometimes it comprehends little more than simple growth-as of a nation in the number of its members and the extent of territory over which it has spread. Sometimes it has reference to quantity of material products-as when the advance of agriculture and manufactures is the topic. Sometimes the superior quality of these products is contemplated: and sometimes the new or improved appliances by which they are produced. When, again, we speak of moral or intellectual progress, we refer to the state of the individual or people exhibiting it; while, when the progress of Knowledge, of Science, of Art, is commented upon, we have in view certain abstract results of human thought and action... This Book deals with the Law and Cause of the Progress.

The training of children-physical, moral, and intellectual-is dreadfully defective. And in great measure it is so because parents are devoid of that knowledge by which this training can alone be rightly guided. What is to be expected when one of the most intricate of problems is undertaken by those who have given scarcely a thought to the principles on which its solution depends?... If there requires further evidence of the rude, undeveloped character of our education, we have it in the fact that the comparative worths of different kinds of knowledge have been as yet scarcely even discussed-much less discussed in a methodic way with definite results. Not only is it that no standard of relative values has yet been agreed upon; but the existence of any such standard has not been conceived in a clear manner. And not only is it that the existence of such a standard has not been clearly conceived; but the need for it seems to have been scarcely even felt. Men read books on this topic, and attend lectures on that; decide that their children shall be instructed in these branches of knowledge, and shall not be instructed in those; and all under the guidance of mere custom, or liking, or prejudice; without ever considering the enormous importance of determining in some rational way what things are really most worth learning. It is true that in all circles we hear occasional remarks on the importance of this or the other order of information... There cannot fail to be a relationship between the successive systems of education, and the successive social states with which they have co-existed. Having a common origin in the national mind, the institutions of each epoch, whatever be their special functions, must have a family likeness. When men received their creed and its interpretations from an infallible authority deigning no explanations, it was natural that the teaching of children should be purely dogmatic. While "believe and ask no questions" was the maxim of the Church, it was fitly the maxim of the school. Conversely, now that Protestantism has gained for adults a right of private judgment and established the practice of appealing to reason, there is harmony in the change that has made juvenile instruction a process of exposition addressed to the understanding.

The observations of men in all ages have established the fact that in general "like produces like," and that, in spite of many exceptions, children are in their main characteristics like their parents. And yet offspring are never exactly like their parents, and this has led to the saying that "like does not produce like but only somewhat like." What is meant is that there are general resemblances but particular differences between parents and offspring... Heredity was, as Balzac said, "a maze in which science loses itself." Much still remains to be discovered about inheritance, but the principles of Mendel have served as an Ariadne thread to guide science through this maze of apparent contradictions and exceptions in which it was formerly lost.

The question of Beauty takes us out of surfaces, to thinking of the foundations of things. Goethe said, "The beautiful is a manifestation of secret laws of Nature, which, but for this appearance, had been forever concealed from us."... Every man values every acquisition he makes in the science of beauty, above his possessions. The most useful man in the most useful world, so long as only commodity was served, would remain unsatisfied. But, as fast as he sees beauty, life acquires a very high value... Granting that the aim of every aesthetics is to determine the Nature of Beauty, and to explain our feelings about it, we may say that the empirical treatments propose to do this either by describing the aesthetic object and extracting the essential elements of Beauty, or by describing the aesthetic experience and extracting the essential elements of aesthetic feeling, thereby indicating the elements of Beauty as those which effect this feeling... This book treats of the natural and personal beauty.

Of all writers of speculative philosophy, both ancient and modern, there is probably no one who has attained so eminent a position as Plato. In his early youth Plato applied himself to poetry and painting, both of which pursuits he relinquished to become the disciple and follower of Socrates. He was the devoted friend and pupil of Socrates, and during the imprisonment of his master he attended him constantly, and committed to writing his last discourses on the immortality of the soul... The writings of Plato are numerous, and most of them are in the form of dialogues... Three of his works, viz.: "The Apologia," "The Crito" and "The Phædo," have reference to the trial, imprisonment and death of Socrates. "The Apologia" represents Socrates on trial for his life, undertaking his own defence, though unaccustomed to the language of the courts, the occasion being, as he says, the first time he has ever been before a court of justice, though seventy years of age.

Stories of men who lived or worked in caves abound in history, mythology, and folk-lore tales. The youthful imagination is charmed with accounts of robbers' caves, from that of the forty thieves down to those described in Gil Blas and those which are associated with the robber period of the history of the Mississippi Valley. Mythology furnishes caves of giants, those to which heroes have resorted, and the homes of supernatural beings or of gnomes like the Niebelungen and the "little people." Such stories are suggested by the obvious fact that a cave may afford a safe and convenient place of refuge when no better is at hand; and their imaginative features are the outcome of the rarity or remoteness of experiences of cave-life within historic times-distance lending enchantment to the view... This book explores the stories of the human troglodytes and the cave dwellings of men.

The name of Dante Alighieri has been universally allowed a place in the very highest rank of literature. It was in his transport of enthusiastic love for Beatrice, that Dante conceived the idea of the Divina Commedia, his great poem, of which Beatrice was destined to be the heroine. Thus to the inspiration of a young, lovely, and noble-minded woman, we owe one of the grandest efforts of human genius. Beatrice was described as a beautiful and virtuous woman. Her history may be considered as an affection of Dante - in that lies its sole interest. She was 24 years old when she died, and yet she still lives in Dante's immortal poem, of which her memory was the inspiration.

The early part of this century saw the establishment of most of the fundamental principles of the science of physics, especially as applied to astronomy. A few decades later saw the science of chemistry emerge from the empirical and enter the philosophical stage. It has been reserved for the second half of the century to witness the discovery of the facts and principles of the history of life on the earth. The public mind is gradually awakening to the fact that the grandest truths of creation are being placed within their reach by the researches of contemporary science, and that the knowledge of the manner of the origin of the human race is no longer withheld from us. The study of the fossil remains of animals has revealed an immense number of forms of life which in former ages have peopled the world. The study of geology has shown that the history of our planet is marked by successive deposits in water, which have become beds of rocks. The relation of these beds to each other gives us the relations of the animals and plants whose fossil remains they contain. Thus we have obtained a consecutive history of life from its early appearance to the present day. Before the doctrine of evolution was understood, the successive populations that filled the successive periods were supposed to have been the products of special creations. Now it is believed, with the best of reason, that all forms of life have been produced by changes of structure which arose in the course of descent, the one species coming from the other; and that interruptions in the series of species from older to later periods are simply due to the absence of the means of preserving their remains at certain times during the course of the history of the world. These interruptions indicate periods of dry land, since fossils are not preserved unless they are excluded from the air by a covering of water or of mud.

One of the greatest results of the doctrine of organic evolution has been the determination of man's place in nature. For many centuries it has been known that in bodily structures man is an animal-that he is born, nourished and developed, that he matures, reproduces and dies just as does the humblest animal or plant... One of the greatest and most far-reaching themes which has ever occupied the minds of men is the problem of development... The fact of development is everywhere apparent; its principal steps or stages are known for thousands of animals and plants; even the precise manner of development and its factors or causes are being successfully explored. Let us review some of the principal events in the development of animals, and particularly of man, and then consider some of the chief factors and processes of development.

The place of the will in its influence upon health and vitality has long been recognized, not only by psychologists and those who pay special attention to problems of mental healing, but also, as a rule, by physicians and even by the general public. It is, for instance, a well-established practice, when two older folk, near relatives, are ill at the same time, or even when two younger persons are injured together and one of them dies, or perhaps has a serious turn for the worse, carefully to keep all knowledge of it from the other one. The reason is a very definite conviction that in the revulsion of feeling caused by learning of the fatality, or as a result of the solicitude consequent upon hearing that there has been a turn for the worse, the other patient's chances for recovery would probably be seriously impaired. The will to get better, even to live on, is weakened, with grave consequences. This is no mere popular impression due to an exaggeration of sympathetic feeling for the patient. It has been noted over and over again, so often that it evidently represents some rule of life, that whenever by inadvertence the serious condition or death of the other was made known, there was an immediate unfavorable development in the case which sometimes ended fatally, though all had been going well up to that time. This was due not merely to the shock, but largely to the "giving up", as it is called, which left the surviving patient without that stimulus from the will to get well which means so much... It must be a surprise to most people, after the demonstration of the power of the will, that so many fail to make use of it...

Of all human sciences the most useful and most imperfect appears to me to be that of mankind: and I will venture to say, the single inscription on the Temple of Delphi contained a precept more difficult and more important than is to be found in all the huge volumes that moralists have ever written. I consider the subject of the following discourse as one of the most interesting questions philosophy can propose, and unhappily for us, one of the most thorny that philosophers can have to solve. For how shall we know the source of inequality between men, if we do not begin by knowing mankind?... I conceive two species of inequality among men; one which I call natural, or physical inequality, because it is established by nature, and consists in the difference of age, health, bodily strength, and the qualities of the mind, or of the soul; the other which may be termed moral, or political inequality, because it depends on a kind of convention, and is established, or at least authorized, by the common consent of mankind. This species of inequality consists in the different privileges, which some men enjoy, to the prejudice of others, such as that of being richer, more honoured, more powerful, and even that of exacting obedience from them...

Paleography is the branch of science which deals with ancient writing... The origin of writing, that is of the art of transmitting information by means of symbols representing speech, is, like the origin of every other invention, obscure and uncertain. It is not the proud Aryan, nor his elder brother the Semite, who can claim the honour of the invention. It belongs neither to Japhet nor to Shem (convenient eponyms) but to the despised Ham, with whom they are unwilling to acknowledge kinship. Four thousand years before Christ, the people of the Nile Valley formed a rich and powerful monarchy, with an old civilisation, and possessed the arts of painting, sculpture, architecture, and writing. Their writing was chiefly upon stone monuments, and recorded the deeds of their Kings or the greatness of their Gods...

Six cents ans avant le Christ, dans le Népal, au sud de l'Himalaya, s'élevait la ville de Kapilavastou... Dans cette ville régnait un roi juste. Il s'appelait Çouddhôdana et appartenait à la race des Gautamides, ou fils du soleil. Il épousa une femme de sa propre race, du nom de Maya. Elle avait des cheveux d'or, une âme tendre ; et la volupté timide nageait dans son sourire. On dit, en Inde, que les mariages d'amour sont faits par les Gandharvas, les musiciens célestes. Ces invisibles jouèrent des mélodies éthérées et ravissantes aux noces de Çouddhôdana et de Maya. Cependant, les années s'écoulaient et les époux n'avaient pas d'enfant. Une nuit, dormant près de son seigneur, Maya fit un songe étrange. Elle crut voir une étoile du ciel, splendide, à six rayons, couleur de perle rose, venir du fond de l'espace comme un météore. À mesure qu'elle se rapprochait, Maya aperçut à son centre, comme la marque d'un sceau, un éléphant blanc à six défenses. L'étoile fondit sur elle et entra dans son flanc par le côté droit . Lorsqu'elle s'éveilla, un bonheur inconnu des mères inonda son être ; et, sur la moitié de l'hémisphère terrestre, une lumière charmante précéda le matin. Les fortes collines reçurent un choc ; les vagues, doucement bercées, s'endormirent ; la joie de la reine pénétra jusqu'aux couches livides et noires de l'espace où flottent les âmes maudites. Ainsi, le soleil darde des frissons d'or dans la sombre épaisseur des forêts. Un tendre soupir s'éleva des profondeurs et courut sur la surface de la terre. Et l'on entendit une voix dire dans un murmure : « Écoutez ! espérez ! le Bouddha est venu ! »

Of all the beautiful women of history, none has left us such convincing proofs of her charms as Cleopatra, for the tide of Rome's destiny, and, therefore, that of the world, turned aside because of her beauty. This book deals with the history and character of Cleopatra. "Cleopatra was by birth an Egyptian; by ancestry and descent she was a Greek. Thus, while Alexandria and the Delta of the Nile formed the scene of the most important events and incidents of her history, it was the blood of Macedon which flowed in her veins. Her character and action are marked by the genius, the courage, the originality, and the impulsiveness pertaining to the stock from which she sprung. The events of her history, on the other hand, and the peculiar character of her adventures, her sufferings, and her sins, were determined by the circumstances with which she was surrounded, and the influences which were brought to bear upon her in the soft and voluptuous clime where the scenes of her early life were laid."...

Guatemala occupies a beautiful position in the middle of a broad plain, surrounded on all sides by mountains and volcanoes. Hill after hill rises to the north until the view is shut in by the distant Sierra Madre range. To the south-east is a volcanic group crowned by the peaks of Pacaya, and above the nearer hills to the south rise the giant cone of Agua and the triple craters of Fuego. The streets of the city are laid out at right angles, and they gain an appearance of breadth from the lowness of the houses. Two-storied houses are as scarce as earthquakes are frequent, and the long low lines of buildings are broken only by the stumpy bell-towers and squat cupolas of the churches... The Indians are for the most part carriers of vegetables and other produce from the neighbouring villages, or merchants from a distance, who bring all their merchandise on their backs packed in light wooden crates called "cacastes." The Indian women from the nearer hamlets also come burdened with large bundles of clean linen which has been washed for the townsfolk, or support baskets on their heads full of cakes and "pan dulce" for sale in the market-place, and many carry an additional burden slung in a shawl over the back, from which peeps out the quaint little face of an Indian baby. To judge from the expression of their faces one would say that the Indians are a dull and solemn race; but this impression vanishes when one hears their lively chatter as they trot along under their burdens, for none but the most heavily laden condescend to the slowness of a walk.

This book deals with the history of Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language. "Cervantes, the Shakespeare of Spain, led a life of the most romantic and adventurous kind. In fact, no novelist has ever invented a story as fascinating and varied as the bare facts of his most extraordinary career. He was a soldier, a dramatist, a patriot, a slave; and after producing, perhaps, the greatest novel ever written, a work which is the glory of Spanish literature and a delight to the civilized world, he died poor and neglected."

L'Arabie fut le premier foyer de l'immense empire fondé par les successeurs de Mahomet. C'est une vaste péninsule couverte en partie de déserts et baignée par trois mers : la mer Rouge à l'occident, la mer d'Oman et le golfe Persique à l'orient, la mer des Indes au midi. Par ses extrémités occidentale et orientale, cette péninsule touche à l'Afrique et à l'Asie... La conquête des pays riverains de la Méditerranée était naturellement beaucoup plus désirable que celle des régions plus arides et moins riches de l'intérieur. Aussi se produisit-il un phénomène historique fort curieux, celui du refoulement latéral des populations chrétiennes de la côte vers l'intérieur. Tandis que les Arabes, très pressés, continuaient leur course vers l'Occident, les résidants nazaréens s'écartaient prudemment dans la direction du désert. Ainsi de l'Égypte, le christianisme avait remonté vers la haute Nubie et y avait conquis un territoire plus vaste qu'en la basse vallée du Nil. Vers l'an mil, Khartum était devenue la métropole de la religion du Christ dans le bassin supérieur du Nil, et l'on dit que ses églises étaient riches en or et autres objets précieux. Le dernier roi chrétien de la Nubie vivait au quinzième siècle, mais, deux cents ans après, on comptait encore des centaines de communautés chrétiennes ; il en exista même jusqu'à nos jours : c'est en 1886 qu'un évêque de Khartum, effrayé par les progrès du mahdi, licencia son église et que les derniers religieux se réfugièrent dans la basse Égypte. De même, l'influence romaine, appartenant aux éléments les plus civilisés du littoral mauritanien, aurait été repoussée vers le sud lors des invasions arabes, et par suite de cette impulsion se serait encore fait sentir en plein Sahara au commencement du dixième siècle, puisque la ville de Siddrata fondée à cette époque par des fugitifs berbères ne présente dans son architecture et dans les ornements de ses édifices rien qui rappelle l'art oriental. Les restes de sculptures berbères que l'on trouve dans les fouilles de cette ville du désert, voisine de la Ouargia actuelle, ressemblent d'une manière remarquable aux fragments chrétiens plus vieux de quatre ou cinq siècles recueillis dans les monuments du littoral, de Tunis à Oran, ainsi qu'aux constructions de la même époque appartenant au nord de la Méditerranée. C'est au onzième siècle, lors d'une deuxième invasion arabe, que l'Afrique, finalement détachée de l'Occident chrétien, aurait complètement cessé de vivre sur le vieux fond de la civilisation romaine.