General Phrases Research Articles

Some Reflections on Secondary Education

I propose to offer here a few “flying thoughts” rather than any planned and pegged-down exposition of the whole vast problem of secondary education in the modern world. While it is true, no doubt, that profound changes in our conceptions of its aims and methods will take place, the nature of these changes is still obscure. Mankind, in General Smuts's phrase, may, indeed, be striking its tents again, but the direction of the march is even less clear than it seemed to be fifteen years ago, when we were all quite sure that President Wilson was pointing the way. The obscurity is due not only to the fact of our present economic plight and the distorting effect that our struggles have on our long-range thinking; it is due also to real bewilderment, which may well be intensified rather than relieved by the passing of the “depression.” We are in the trough between an Age of Faith that has gone and the next one that has yet to be. So all our syntheses to-day are apt to be provisional and fleeting; Social Democracy yesterday, the Nazis to-day, and who knows what to-morrow? The parallel with the Greek world into which Plato came, or still better, with the Roman world into which Christianity came, is striking enough. If the parallel is real, if our present condition really resembles one of these, the hope of a Golden Age soon to come may be less well grounded than the probability of a new Dark Age of confusion and disintegration, with a few “monastic” centres of culture preserving the guarantee of a new dawn.

Epic Formulas, Especially In Laʒamon

In Laʒjanion's poem commonly called Brut there is an extraordinary profusion of epic formulas, full of flavor and charm, contributing as much as anything to the marked individuality of the poem. The same or similar phrases are used again and again, as a rule in the same or similar circumstances, or to describe the same person or action. The degree of similarity which makes a phrase a formula is impossible to define, but in the first list in each case given below is meant to be essentially close. A phrase is considered a formula when it occurs three times or more in this poem; two occurrences may be accidental, but three are becoming habitual. Other occurrences could doubtless be found, and also other formulas, but we have meant to exclude mere stock-rimes, and in general phrases so inevitable that they would not have been felt as formulas by Laʒamon or his auditors, however often repeated. Some of our items might be combined, others subdivided, for they often merge with each other; the whole matter is fluid. The most frequent form is generally taken as standard. Hundreds of less frequent or important variants are disregarded. Each formula is nicknamed by a striking word in it.

That Epilepsy cannot be caused by Toxæmic Conditions

From time to time one meets with the opinion, or with expressions and general phrases indicating the unavowed opinion, that “idiopathic” epilepsy results from a toxæmic state,—that is to say, that epilepsy the disease is caused by poisons circulating in the blood; or less positively that epilepsy the paroxysm is determined, the attack precipitated, by the transient presence in the blood of such poisons; and in both cases the unexpressed idea seems to be that these poisons get there, in the manner of other auto-intoxicants, by reason of the inefficient performance of the digestive function in some respect.

The Principles of Psychology

I. TO give readers some idea of the contents of a good book is very often the most useful thing a reviewer can do. Unfortunately that course is not open to us in the present instance. The subject is too vast. We cannot exhibit the grandeur; we can only in a few general phrases express our admiration of the profound, all-embracing philosophy of which the work before us is an instalment. The doctrine of evolution when taken up by Mr. Spencer was little more than a crotchet. He has made it the idea of the age. In its presence other systems of philosophy are hushed, they cease their strife and become its servants, while all the sciences do it homage. The place that the doctrine of evolution has secured in the minds of those who think for the educated public may be indicated by a few names taken just as they occur. Mr. Darwin's works, the novels of George Eliot, Mr. Tylor's “ Primitive Culture,” Dr. Bastian's “ Beginnings of Life,” and Mr. Bagehot's “ Physics and Politics,” have almost nothing in common but the idea of evolution, with which they are all more or less imbued. In a word we have but one other thinker with whom in point of influence on the higher thought of this, and probably of several succeeding generations, Mr. Spencer can be classed:-it does not need saying' that that other is Mr. J, S. Mill. The Principles of Psychology. By Herbert Spencer. Second Edition. (London: Williams and Norgate.)

XXII. Glacial deposits of the Clyde District

The importance of a closer and more systematic study of the more recent deposits is constantly increasing. The living word of nature, as uttered in the present, is the only key by which we can translate intelligibly the word of nature as it was uttered in the past. Hieroglyphics began to yield their mystery upon the discovery of the famous Rosetta stone, whereon the inscription in familiar Greek, side by side with the sacred letters of ancient days, furnished the interpreting key. So is it in the study of nature,—the letters of the known language of the present interpret the past; and the superficial deposits of the Clyde may render more intelligible the strata deposited in primaeval ages. To the venerable President of this Society (James Smith, Esq., of Jordanhill,) is due the honour of establishing the glacial beds as a distinct series with a characteristic fauna; and the credit of the scientific men of Glasgow is, therefore, peculiarly involved in developing this chapter in geology. The term “glacial deposits” may be used for convenience sake to denote the series of clays, sands, and gravels deposited during the epoch, intervening between the commencement and cessation of more rigorous conditions of climate, than are now prevalent in Scotland. The term “Boulder Clay” is very objectionable as a general phrase, since it more correctly applies to one special and distinct term in a series, and considerable confusion has already arisen from the mistake consequent upon a loose phraseology, viz., the predicating for This 250-word extract was created in the absence of an abstract