Few more melancholy books have been written than Mr. Brooks Adams’s _Law of Civilization and Decay_. It is a marvel of compressed statement. In a volume of less than four hundred pages Mr. Adams singles out some of the vital factors in the growth and evolution of civilized life during the last two thousand years; and so brilliant is his discussion of these factors as to give, though but a glimpse, yet one of the most vivid glimpses ever given, of some of the most important features in the world-life of Christendom. Of some of the features only; for a fundamentally defective point in Mr. Adams’s brilliant book is his failure to present certain phases of the life of the nations,--phases which are just as important as those which he discusses with such vigorous ability. Furthermore, he disregards not a few facts which would throw light on others, the weight of which he fully recognizes. Both these shortcomings are very natural in a writer who possesses an entirely original point of view, who is the first man to see clearly certain things that to his predecessors have been nebulous, and who writes with a fervent intensity of conviction, even in his bitterest cynicism, such as we are apt to associate rather with the prophet and reformer than with a historian to whom prophet and reformer alike appeal no more than do their antitypes. It is a rare thing for a historian to make a distinct contribution to the philosophy of history; and this Mr. Adams has done. Naturally enough, he, like other men who break new ground, tends here and there to draw a devious furrow.