Mr. Brooks Adams apologizes for the inadequacy of his introduction to his brother's philosophical remains on the ground that the publishers hurried him, saying that if he did not get the book out within the year it would have lost its interest. Of course the readers who take up The Education of Henry Adams because it is the sensation of the hour will soon drop away, perhaps have already done so; but interest in the Adamses, so long quiescent, so piquantly reawakened at the end of the fourth eminent generation, is likely to hold more serious readers for some time to come. Henry Adams has thrown out challenges which the reviewer cannot lightly answer nor easily ignore. What shall be done with that profoundly pessimistic theory of the "degradation of energy'—a degradation alleged to be discoverable in the universe, in democracy, and even in that incorruptible stronghold of pure virtue, the Adams family? Every one who has sat blithely down to read The Education, much more to review it, must have discovered that it is only the last or the latest chapter of a "continued story."
