Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14 | Page 2

early vicissitudes.
"Rienzi," "The Novice of Palermo," and "The Flying Dutchman".
Writes stories and essays for musical publications.
After many disappointments wins success at Dresden.
"Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin".
Compromises himself in Revolution of 1849 and has to seek safety in
Switzerland.
Here he conceives and partly writes the "Nibelung Tetralogy".

Discouragements at London and at Paris.
"Siegfried" and "Tristan and Isolde".
Finds a patron in Ludwig II. of Bavaria.
Nibelung Festival at Bayreuth.
"Parsifal" appears; death of Wagner at Vienna (1882).
Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin.
Other eminent composers and pianists.
Liszt as a contributor to current of modern music.
Berlioz, Saint-Saëns, Tchaikovsky, Dvorák, Strauss, and Weber.
"The Music of the Future" the music of the present.

JOHN RUSKIN.
MODERN ART.
BY G. MERCER ADAM.
Passionate and luminous exponent of Nature's beauties.
His high if somewhat quixotic ideal of life.
Stimulating writings in ethics, education, and political economy.
Frederic Harrison on Ruskin's stirring thoughts and melodious speech.
Birth and youth-time; Collingwood's "Life" and his own "Praeterita".
Defence of Turner and what it grew into.

Architectural writings, lectures, and early publications.
Interest in Pre-Raphaelitism and its disciples.
Growing fame; with admiring friends and correspondents.
On the public platform; personal appearance of the man.
Economic and socialistic vagaries.
F. Harrison on "Ruskin as Prophet" and teacher.
Inspiring lay sermons and minor writings.
Reformer and would-be regenerator of modern society.
Attitude towards industrial problems of his time.
Founds the communal "Guild of St. George".
Philanthropies, and lecturings in "Working Men's College".
Death and epoch-making influence, in modern art.

HERBERT SPENCER.
THE EVOLUTIONARY PHILOSOPHY.
BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE.
Constructs a philosophical system in harmony with the theory of
evolution.
Birth, parentage, and early career.
Scheme of his system of Synthetic Philosophy.
His "Facts and Comments;" views on party government, patriotism, and

style.
His religious attitude that of an agnostic.
The doctrine of the Unknowable and the knowable.
"First Principles;" progress of evolution in life, mind, society, and
morality.
The relations of matter, motion, and force.
"Principles of Biology;" the data of; the development hypothesis.
The evolutionary hypothesis versus the special creation hypothesis;
arguments.
Causes and interpretation of the evolution phenomena.
Development as displayed in the structures and functions of individual
organisms.
"Principles of Psychology;" the evolution of mind and analysis of
mental states.
"Principles of Sociology;" the adaptation of human nature to the social
state.
Evolution of governments, political and ecclesiastical; industrial
organizations.
Qualifications; Nature's plan an advance, and again a retrogression.
Social evolution; equilibriums between constitution and conditions.
Assisted by others in the collection, but not the systemization, of his
illustrative material.
"Principles of Ethics;" natural basis for; secularization of morals.

General inductions; his "Social Statics".
Relations of Mr. Spencer and Mr. Darwin to the thought of the
Nineteenth Century.

CHARLES DARWIN.
HIS PLACE IN MODERN SCIENCE.
BY MAYO W. HAZELTINE.
The Darwinian hypothesis a rational and widely accepted explanation
of the genesis of organic life on the earth.
Darwin; birth, parentage, and education.
Naturalist on the voyage of the "Beagle".
His work on "Coral Reefs" and the "Geology of South America".
Observations and experiments on the transmutation of species.
Contemporaneous work on the same lines by Alfred R. Wallace.
"The Origin of Species" (1859).
His "Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication" (1868).
"The Descent of Man" (1871).
On the "Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals" (1872).
"Fertilization of Orchids" (1862), "The Effects of Cross and
Self-Fertilization" (1876), and "The Formation of Vegetable Mould
through the Action of Worms" (1881).
Ill-health, death, and burial.

Personality, tastes, and mental characteristics.
His beliefs and agnostic attitude toward religion.
His prime postulate, that species have been modified during a long
course of descent.
Antagonistic views on the immutability of species.
His theory of natural selection: that all animal and plant life has a
common progenitor, difference in their forms arising primarily from
beneficial variations.
Enunciates in the "Descent of Man" the great principle of Evolution,
and the common kinship of man and the lower animals.
Biological evidence to sustain this view.
Man's moral qualities, and the social instinct of animals.
Religious beliefs not innate, nor instinctive.
Bearing of this on belief in the immortality of the soul.
As a scientist Darwin concerned only with truth; general acceptance of
his theory of the origin of species.

JOHN ERICSSON.
NAVIES OF WAR AND COMMERCE.
BY PROF. W. F. DUKAND.
Ericsson's life-work little foreseen in his youth and early surroundings.
His impress on the engineering practice of his time.
Dependence, in our modern civilization, on the utilization of the great

natural forces and energies of the world.
Life-periods in Sweden, England, and the United States.
Birth, parentage, and early engineering career.
An officer in the Swedish army, and topographical surveyor for his
native government.
Astonishing insight into mechanical and scientific questions.
His work, 1827 to 1839, when he came to