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vi Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

1.4. Innovative, integrative and adaptive societies . . . . . . . . . . . 48

1.4.1. Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
1.4.2. Arts and cultural heritage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
1.4.3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
1.5. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 2. The Democratization of VR-AR . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Sébastien K UNTZ, Richard K ULPA and Jérôme ROYAN
2.1. New equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.1.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
2.1.2. Positioning and orientation devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
2.1.3. Restitution devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
2.1.4. Technological challenges and perspectives . . . . . . . . . . 100
2.1.5. Conclusions on new equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
2.2. New software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
2.2.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
2.2.2. Developing 3D applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
2.2.3. Managing peripheral devices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
2.2.4. Dedicated VR-AR software solutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
2.2.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
2.3. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter 3. Complexity and Scientific Challenges . . . . . . . . 123

Ferran A RGELAGUET S ANZ, Bruno A RNALDI, Jean-Marie
B URKHARDT, Géry C ASIEZ, Stéphane D ONIKIAN, Florian
G OSSELIN, Xavier G RANIER, Patrick L E C ALLET, Vincent L EPETIT,
Maud M ARCHAL, Guillaume M OREAU, Jérôme P ERRET and Toinon
V IGIER
3.1. Introduction: complexity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
3.1.1. Physical model and detecting collisions . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
3.1.2. Populating 3D environments: single virtual
human to a surging crowd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
3.1.3. The difficulty of making 3D interaction natural . . . . . . . 137
3.1.4. The difficulty of synthesizing haptic feedback . . . . . . . . 141
3.2. The real–virtual relationship in augmented reality . . . . . . . . 150
3.2.1. Acquisition and restitution equipment . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
3.2.2. Pose computation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
3.2.3. Realistic rendering . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
 Contents vii

3.3. Complexity and scientific challenges

of 3D interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
3.3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
3.3.2. Complexity and challenges surrounding
the 3D interaction loop . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
3.3.3. Challenge 1: sensory-motor actions
for interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
3.3.4. Challenge 2: multisensory feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
3.3.5. Challenge 3: users and perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
3.3.6. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
3.4. Visual perception . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
3.4.1. A glossary of terms related to unease, fatigue
and physical discomfort . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
3.4.2. Display factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
3.4.3. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
3.5. Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
3.5.1. Objectives and scope of this section . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
3.5.2. Evaluation: a complex problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
3.5.3. Evaluation using studies with human subjects . . . . . . . . 184
3.5.4. Drawbacks to overcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
3.5.5. Evolutions in measuring performance
and behavior, characterizing participants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
3.5.6. Conclusion and perspectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
3.6. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Chapter 4. Towards VE that are More Closely

Related to the Real World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Géry C ASIEZ, Xavier G RANIER, Martin H ACHET, Vincent L EPETIT,
Guillaume M OREAU and Olivier NANNIPIERI
4.1. “Tough” scientific challenges for AR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
4.1.1. Choosing a display device . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
4.1.2. Spatial localization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
4.2. Topics in AR that are rarely or never
approached . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
4.2.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
4.2.2. Hybridization through a screen or HMD . . . . . . . . . . . 224
4.3. Spatial augmented reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
viii Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

4.3.1. Hybridization of the real world and the

virtual world . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
4.3.2. Current evolutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 228
4.4. Presence in augmented reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
4.4.1. Is presence in reality the model for presence
in virtual environments? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
4.4.2. Mixed reality: an end to the real versus
virtual binary? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
4.4.3. From mixed reality to mixed presence . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
4.4.4. Augmented reality: a total environment . . . . . . . . . . . . 232
4.5. 3D interaction on tactile surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
4.5.1. 3D interaction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
4.5.2. 3D interaction on tactile surfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
4.6. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240

Chapter 5. Scientific and Technical Prospects . . . . . . . . . . 247

Caroline BAILLARD, Philippe G UILLOTEL, Anatole L ÉCUYER, Fabien
L OTTE, Nicolas M OLLET, Jean-Marie N ORMAND and Gaël S EYDOUX
5.1. The promised revolution in the field
of entertainment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
5.1.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247
5.1.2. Defining a new, polymorphic immersive
medium . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
5.1.3. Promised experiences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
5.1.4. Prospects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 255
5.2. Brain-computer interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
5.2.1. Brain-computer interfaces: introduction
and definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
5.2.2. What BCIs cannot do . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
5.2.3. Working principle of BCIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
5.2.4. Current applications of BCIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
5.2.5. The future of BCIs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
5.3. Alternative perceptions in virtual reality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
5.3.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269
5.3.2. Pseudo-sensory feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
5.3.3. Alternative perception of movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275
5.3.4. Altered perception of one’s body . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 278
 Contents ix

5.3.5. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 283

5.4. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284

Chapter 6. The Challenges and Risks of Democratization

of VR-AR . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Philippe F UCHS
6.1. Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
6.2. Health and comfort problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
6.2.1. The different problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 292
6.2.2. Sensorimotor incoherences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 293
6.3. Solutions to avoid discomfort and unease . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
6.3.1. Presentation of the process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
6.3.2. Mitigation of the impact on visuo-vestibular
incoherence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297
6.3.3. Removing visuo-vestibular incoherence by
modifying the functioning of the interaction paradigm . . . . . . . 298
6.3.4. Removing visuo-vestibular incoherence
by modifying interfaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
6.3.5. Levels of difficulty in adapting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 299
6.4. Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300
6.5. Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 301

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 303
Bruno A RNALDI, Pascal G UITTON and Guillaume M OREAU

Postface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Bruno A RNALDI, Pascal G UITTON and Guillaume M OREAU

Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 315

List of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321
 Preface

“Virtual reality”, a strange oxymoron, is back in common use in the media,

like in the early 1990s, a quarter of a century ago! A period that today’s young
innovators are not very familiar with. Yes, at the risk of shocking some people,
we must reveal that this science and the associated techniques are no invention
of the 21st Century but date back well into the previous century!

Today, we are witnessing the renaissance and democratization of virtual

reality, with its share of relevant and effective applications, as well as a host
of technological difficulties that no developer can afford to ignore. Some
enthusiasts wish to create new applications and believe that skills in
innovation are all that is required. However, this approach is doomed to
failure unless it is preceded by a detailed study of the state of the art of virtual
reality techniques and a knowledge of the fundamentals and existing uses.
Many young entrepreneurs have contacted me, thinking they have a novel
virtual reality application when they don’t even have a basic understanding of
this science or its techniques. I have had to tell others, “but this already exists
in the industry, it is already being marked by companies that are over twenty
years old”. The latest innovation, the “low-cost” visioheadset or immersive
headset, may have sparked off a mad buzz in the media, but the field of virtual
reality has existed long before this! 2016 was not 1 V.R. (the first year of our
science, Virtual Reality)! However, the considerable decrease in the price of
visioheadsets has made it possible to open this technology up to large-scale
use. The media and websites dedicated to virtual reality are most often run by
non-specialists and are abound with indiscriminately proposed applications:
some of these have existed for several years now, and others, while useful,
would be inappropriate or even crazy. Virtual reality is not a magic wand. Let
xii Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

us remember that it is not sufficient to use an innovative technology for its

own sake. This innovation must be made functional for the user, using new
technological devices, whether a visioheadset or any other equipment.

Research and development in virtual reality has been undertaken for more
than a quarter of a century by the VR community in France and in other parts
of the world. It would be a great misfortune to be unaware of this work.
However, if you are reading this now, then you have made the right choice!
The fruit of all the research and professional developments in the field over
the past decade is now presented in this volume. And who better than Bruno
Arnaldi, Pascal Guitton and Guillaume Moreau to guide you through this
arduous journey through the past 10 years in R&D in virtual development, as
well as to give a glimpse of what the future may hold?

The three editors of this book are major actors in the field of virtual reality
and augmented reality. All of them have participated in developing research
in France, via the Groupe de Travail GT-RV (GT-VR Work Group) at CNRS
(1994) and then through the Association Française de Réalité Virtuelle (The
French Virtual Reality Association), which they established in 2005 as
co-founders and in which they are very active members: President,
Vice-President or members of the administrative council. This association has
made it possible to efficiently structure the entire community (teachers,
researchers, industrialists and solution providers). In parallel to this, thanks to
their enthusiastic and indispensable support, I was able to organize and edit a
collective work with contributions from more than a hundred authors, over
five volumes: the Virtual Reality Treatise. There were three coordinators in
this project. However, the third edition of this book is now 10 years old, and
we needed a more recent publication to step into the breach.

It is essential to have a strong basic knowledge of virtual reality before

plunging into the field, whether you are a student or an entrepreneur. The
contents of this book, to which 30 authors have contributed, cover all the
current problems and research questions, as well as the commercially
available solutions: the immersion of a user, the user’s interfacing with the
artificial space and the creation of this artificial space. All the technology and
software available today are discussed here. The human factor is also taken
into account, and there is a detailed description of methods of evaluation.
 Preface xiii

There is also a section devoted to the risks associated with the use of
visioheadsets.

A recent community that has come up in France, under the Think Tank
UNI-VR, is bringing together professionals from the world of movies and
audiovisual material. Using new 360° cameras, which enable the creation of
artificial worlds made out of 360 images and not synthetic images, this group
aims to create a new art, with two complementary approaches: one that
produces “360 videos”, where the user remains a spectator, but with a bodily
and proprioceptive immersion in the 360° video; the other designs “VR
videos”, where the user becomes a “spect-actor”, as if they are able to interact
with the story that unfolds the characters and the artificial environment, this
being the authentic field of virtual reality. This artistic goal is close to that of
“interactive digital arts”, even though these two communities do not know
much about each other. Towards the end of the 1980s, French and
international artists in the digital arts appropriated virtual reality to create
interactive artistic creations, (“les pissenlits” (The Dandelions) by
E. Couchot, M. Bret and M-H. Tramus, 1988; “L’autre” (The Other) by
Catherine Ikam, 1991). A journalist from “Les Cahiers du Cinéma” once
interviewed me, stating that “virtual reality is the future of the movies!” A
strange remark, when we know of the antagonism between the movies (where
the spectator is passive) and virtual reality (where the user is active,
interacting with the artificial environment)! Another journalist was carried
away by an innovation without bothering to learn about the fundamentals of
this innovation and its impact on the individual! However, like all specialists,
I did not imagine that 20 years later 360° would also enable the creation of an
artificial world, where a user could be immersed in the heart of a film. By
allowing the user to interact here, we enter into the field of virtual reality or
augmented reality, by blending the real world and the artificial space. Unlike
cinema, here there is no longer “a story to be told” but “a story to be lived”.
With this book, readers have a source of detailed information that will allow
them to successfully develop their own “VR videos”.

However, the digital modeling of an artificial world and its visual

representation through synthetic images will remain the chief avenue for the
development of the uses of virtual reality. For at least 15 years now,
professional applications (e.g. industrial and architectural designs, training
xiv Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

and learning, health) have made use of this. Different communities must
collaborate more closely on theorizing this discipline and its techniques,
which are exhaustively presented in this book by Bruno Arnaldi, Pascal
Guitton and Guillaume Moreau. The merits of this book cannot be overstated
– they must be bought!

Philippe F UCHS
January 2018
 Introduction

It can have escaped no one that 2016 and 2017 often features in the media
as “The Time” for virtual reality and augmented reality. It is no less obvious
that in the field of technology, many and regular breakthroughs are announced,
each more impressive than the last. In the face of this media clamor, it is useful
to step back and take a pragmatic look at some historical facts and information:
– The first of these is the fact (however difficult to accept) that virtual
reality and augmented reality date back several decades and that there is a large
international community working on these subjects. This work is being carried
out both at the scientific level (research teams, discoveries, conferences,
publication) and at the industrial level (companies, products, large-scale
production). It is also useful to remember that many companies, technological
or not, have been successfully using virtual reality and augmented reality
technologies for many years now.
– Many of these technological announcements talk about the design of
“new” virtual reality headsets (e.g. HTC Vive, Oculus Rift) and augmented
reality headsets (e.g. HoloLens). But the fact is that the invention of the first
“visioheadset”1 dates back to almost 50 years, to Ivan Sutherland’s seminal
work [SUT 68].
– Let us also note that these “visioheadsets” only represent a small part
of the equipment used in virtual reality, whether for display (with projection
systems, for example), motion-capture or interaction.

Introduction written by Bruno A RNALDI, Pascal G UITTON and Guillaume M OREAU.

1 This is what we will call these gadgets in this book. The reason for this will be made clear
later.
xvi Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

– The concept and applications of virtual reality are described in the series
Le traité de la réalité virtuelle (The Virtual Reality Treatise), an encyclopedic
volume produced collectively by many French authors (both academics and
voices from the industry), the breadth and scope of which remains unmatched
even today. The different editions of this are:
- the first edition in 2001 (Presses de l’Ecole des Mines), written by
Philippe Fuchs, Guillaume Moreau and Jean-Paul Papin with 530 pages;
- the second edition in 2003 (Presses de l’Ecole des Mines), edited by
Philippe Fuchs and Guillaume Moreau with help from 18 contributors, running
to 930 pages in 2 volumes;
- the third edition in 2005 (Presses de l’Ecole des Mines), edited by
Philippe Fuchs and Guillaume Moreau, with over 100 contributors, running to
2,200 pages in 5 volumes;
- an English version “Virtual Reality: Concepts and Technologies”, in
2011 (CRC Press), edited by Philippe Fuchs, Guillaume Moreau and Pascal
Guitton with 432 pages.

– Finally, we must mention the creation of the “Association Française

de Réalité Virtuelle” (AFRV) or the French Virtual Reality Association,
established in 2005. The association has made it possible to structure
the community better by bringing together teachers and researchers from
universities and research institutions as well as engineers working within
companies. From 2005 onward, the AFRV has been organizing an
annual conference that sees presentations, activities and exchanges among
participants.

As can be seen from this overview, there are already several communities
at the international level as well as a wealth of literature on the subject and
anyone who wishes to establish a scientific and/or technological culture will
benefit from referring to publications such as [FUC 16] (in French) or
[LAV 17, SCH 16], to mention a few.

I.1. The origins of virtual reality

When we talk about historic references relating to virtual reality, we may

commence by discussing Plato’s Allegory of the Cave [PLA 07]. In Book VII
 Introduction xvii

of Plato’s Republic, there is a detailed description of the experiences of several

men chained in a cave, who can only perceive shadows (thrown against the
walls of the cave) of what happens in the outside world. The notion of reality
and perception through what is and what is perceived becomes the subject of
analysis, in particular concerning the passage from one world to another.

A few centuries later, in 1420, the Italian engineer Giovani Fontana wrote
a book, Bellicorum instrumentorum liber [FON 20], in which he describes a
magic lantern capable of projecting images onto the walls of a room (see Figure
I.1(a)). He proposed that this could be used to project the images of fantastic
creatures. This mechanism brings to mind the large immersion system (CAVE)
developed a few centuries later by Carolina Cruz-Neira et al. [CRU 92] at the
University of Illinois.

Figure I.1. a) Diagram of Giovani Fontana’s magic lantern,

b) using the magic lantern. For a color version of this
figure, see www.iste.co.uk/arnaldi/virtual.zip

In books that recount the history of VR, we often come across the
(legitimate) controversy around the first appearance of the term “virtual
reality”. Some authors attribute it to Jaron Lanier, during a press conference
in 1985, while others attribute it to Antonin Artaud, in his 1983 essay, Le
xviii Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

théâtre et son double (published in English as “The Theatre and its Double”)
[ART 09].

Artaud was unarguably the inventor of this term, which he used in his
collection of essays on Theatre and, more specifically, in the chapter titled Le
théâtre alchimique (“The Alchemical Theatre”). It must be noted that in this
volume, Artaud talks at length about reality and virtuality (these words being
frequently used in the text). The precise citation where the term “virtual
reality” appears is on page 75 of the 1985 edition, collection Folio/essais de
Gallimard:

“All true alchemists know that the alchemical symbol is a mirage as

the theater is a mirage. And this perpetual allusion to the materials
and the principle of the theater found in almost all alchemical books
should be understood as the expression of an identity (of which
alchemists are extremely aware) existing between the world in
which the characters, objects, images and in a general way all that
constitutes the virtual reality of the theater develop and the purely
fictitious and illusory world in which the symbols of alchemy are
evolved”.

Furthermore, a few pages earlier, he speaks about Plato’s Allegory of the

Cave.

However, it is clear that Jaron Lanier was the first person to use this term
in the sense that it is used in this book, when he used the English term virtual
reality. It is also useful to remember that there is a subtle difference between
the English term virtual and the French word virtuel (see Chapter 1, Volume 1
of the Virtual Reality Treatise, edition 3). In English, the word means “acting
as” or “almost a particular thing or quality”. However, in French, the word
indicates “potential”, what is “possible” and what “does not come to pass”.
Linguistically speaking, the more appropriate French term would have been
“réalité vicariante” – a reality that substitutes or replaces another.

Science-fiction writers, especially those writing in the “speculative fiction”

genre (a genre which, as its name indicates, consists of imagining what our
world could be like in the future) have also written books that integrate and/or
 Introduction xix

imagine the VR-AR technologies we will discuss in this volume. The list of
such books is quite long, and the four books presented here have been chosen
simply for the impact they had. In chronological order, these are:
– Vernor Vinge, in his 1981 novella True Names, introduced a cyberspace
(without explicitly naming it thus), where a group of computer pirates use
virtual reality immersion technology to fight against the government. He is also
the creator of the concept of “singularity”: that point in time when machines
will be more intelligent than human beings;
– William Gibson, in his 1984 novel Neuromancer, described a world of
networks where virtual reality consoles allow a user to live out experiences in
virtual worlds. Gibson “invented” the term cyberspace, which he described
as “a consensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate
operators”. This concept of cyperspace spans different worlds: the digital
world, the cybernetic world and the space in which we evolve;
– Neal Stephenson, in his 1992 novel Snow Crash, introduced the concept
of the metaverse (a virtual, thus fictional, world in which a community,
represented by avatars, is evolving); a universe like the one in the online virtual
world Second Life;
– Ernest Cline, in his 2011 novel Ready Player One, offerred us a world
where humanity lives in an enormous virtual social network to escape the
slums in real life. This network also contains the key to riches, leading to a
new kind of quest for the holy grail.

Literature is not the only field in which early references to virtual reality set
up links between the real and the virtual. For example, we must mention the
pioneering work of Morton Leonard Heilig in the world of cinema. Following
a project he had worked on since the 1950s, he patented the Sensorama system
in 1962. This system allowed users to virtually navigate an urban setting on
a motorbike, in an immersive experience based on stereoscopic visualization,
the sounds of the motorbike and by reproducing the vibration of the engine and
the sensation of wind against rider’s face.

Cinema has made use of the emergence of new technologies quite

naturally. In 1992, Brett Leonard directed The Lawnmower Man, starring
Pierce Brosnan as a man who is the subject of scientific experiments based on
virtual reality (see Figure I.2). Unsurprisingly, the story revolves around some
of the undesirable effects. An interesting point about this film is that during
shooting, actors used real equipment from the VPL Research company, set up
xx Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

by Jaron Lanier (who had already filed for bankruptcy by this time). Of
course, no one can forget the 1999 film The Matrix, the first film in the Matrix
trilogy, directed by Les Wachowski, starring Keanu Reeves and Laurence
Fishburne. The plot is centered on frequent journeys between the real and the
virtual worlds, the hero’s duty being to liberate humans from the rule of the
machines by taking control of the matrix. The technology in this film is much
more evolved as there is total immersion, and it is so credible that the user has
a few clues to tell whether he is in the real or the virtual world. Another cult
film, oriented more towards human–machine interaction (HMI) than VR
itself, was Steven Spielberg’s 2002 film Minority Report, starring Tom Cruise
(see Figure I.3). This film describes an innovative technology that allows a
person to interact naturally with data (which would serve as inspiration for
many future research projects in real labs). These three films are certainly not
the only ones that talk about VR – a great many others could be named here;
however, these three are iconic in this field.

Figure I.2. A still from the movie The Lawnmower Man

 Introduction xxi

Figure I.3. A still from the movie Minority Report

After having discussed the mention of VR-AR in different fields of art, it

is also interesting to analyze how this technology is used in these contexts.
Cinema will become an intensive user of VR through the use of 360° cinema,
for instance (and on the condition that the spectator finally becomes the
spect-actor). In the artistic world, we have to work on the codes and rules for
cinematographic writing that these new operational modes will bring about.
In particular, in traditional cinema, the narration is constructed on the
principle that the director, through their frames, will almost “lead the
spectator by hand” to the point from which they want the spectator to view a
particular scenic element. In a context where the spectator can freely create
their own point of view, artistic construction does not remain the same. If we
add to this the fact that the user has the ability to interact with their
environment and therefore modify elements in the scene, the narrative
complexity deepens and begins to approach the narrative mechanisms used in
video games. Combining real and digital images (mixed reality) is another
path for development and study, which will emerge soon.

The world of comic books/graphic novels is also influenced either through

the development of immersion projects (e.g. Magnétique, by Studio Oniride in
2016; http://www.oniride.com/magnetique/) or through using VR in the world
of a comic series as is the case with S.E.N.S, a project co-produced by Arte
xxii Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

France and Red Corner studio in 2016, inspired by the work of Marc-Antoine
Mathieu (see Figure I.4). Indeed, as the universe in VR experiences is not
necessarily a reproduction of a real world, it could also be the fruit of pure
fantasy and a comic book world lends itself readily to such experimentation.

Figure I.4. Projet S.E.N.S

I.2. Introduction to the basic concepts

This section aims to briefly describe the fields of VR and AR. We will
review the principal concepts for each and provide some definitions2 in order
to clearly define the scope of this book. Readers who seek more information
on this are invited to consult the Virtual Reality Treatise [FUC 05].

I.2.1. Virtual reality

We will first and foremost remind ourselves that the objective of VR is to

allow the user to virtually execute a task while believing that they are executing
it in the real world. To generate this sensation, the technology must “deceive
the brain” by providing it with information identical to the information the
brain would perceive in the real environment.

Let us take an example that we will use for the rest of this section: you have
always dreamed of flying a private aircraft without ever having acted on this

2 Several different definitions can be found in other books; those that we have chosen here are
brief and correspond to a general consensus.
 Introduction xxiii

desire. Well then, a VR system could help you to (virtually) realize this dream,
by simulating the experience of flying the plane. To start with, it is essential
that you are given synthetic images that reproduce the view from a cockpit, the
runway first and then an aerial view of the territory you will fly over. In order to
give you the impression of “being in the plane”, these images must be large and
of good quality, so that the perception of your real environment is pushed to
the background or even completely replaced by that of the virtual environment
(VE). This phenomenon of modifying perception, called immersion, is the first
fundamental principle of VR. VR headsets, which will be called visioheadsets
in this book, offer a good immersion experience as the only visual information
perceived is delivered through this device.

If the system also generates the sound of the aircraft engine, your
immersion will be greater as your brain will perceive this information rather
than the real sounds in your environment, which then reinforces the
impression of being in an aircraft. In a manner similar to that of the
visioheadset, an audio headset is used, as it can insulate against ambient
noise.

A real pilot acts in the real environment by using a joystick and dials to
steer the plane. It is absolutely indispensable that these actions be reproduced
in the VR experience if we wish to simulate reality. Thus, the system must
provide several buttons to control the behavior of the aircraft and a joystick
to steer it. This interaction mechanism between the user and the system is the
second fundamental principle of VR. It also serves to differentiate VR from
applications that offer good immersion but no real interaction. For example,
movie theaters can offer visual and auditory sensations of very high quality,
but the spectator is offered absolutely no interaction with the story unfolding
on the screen. The same observation can be made for “VR-videos”, which have
recently become quite popular, but the only interaction offered is a change in
point of view (360°). While this family of applications cannot be challenged,
they do not qualify as VR experiences as the user is only a spectator and not
an actor in the experience.

Let us return to our earlier example: in order to reproduce reality as

closely as possible, we must be able to steer the aircraft using a
force-feedback joystick, which will generate forces in order to simulate the
resistance experienced when using a real joystick, which can be due to air
resistance, for example. This haptic information significantly reinforces the
Another random document with
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efficient must always, under any conceivable system of government,
be taken by the executive. It was certainly taken by the executive in
England thirty years ago; and that much in opposition to the will of
Parliament. The prominence of our President in administrative
reform furnishes no sufficient ground for attributing a singularity of
executive influence to the government of this country.
In estimating the actual powers of the President it is no doubt
best to begin, as almost all writers in England and America now
habitually begin, with a comparison between the executives of the
two kindred countries. Whilst Mr. Bagehot has done more than any
other thinker to clear up the facts of English constitutional practice,
he has also, there is reason to believe, done something toward
obscuring those facts. Everybody, for instance, has accepted as
wholly true his description of the ministry of the Crown as merely an
executive committee of the House of Commons; and yet that
description is only partially true. An English cabinet represents, not
the Commons only, but also the Crown. Indeed, it is itself ‘the
Crown.’ All executive prerogatives are prerogatives which it is within
the discretion of the cabinet itself to make free use of. The fact that it
is generally the disposition of ministers to defer to the opinion of
Parliament in the use of the prerogative, does not make that use the
less a privilege strictly beyond the sphere of direct parliamentary
control, to be exercised independently of its sanction, even secretly
on occasion, when ministers see their way clear to serving the state
thereby. “The ministry of the day,” says a perspicacious expounder of
E
the English system, “appears in Parliament, on the one hand, as
personating the Crown in the legitimate exercise of its recognized
prerogatives; and on the other hand, as the mere agent of
Parliament itself, in the discharge of the executive and administrative
functions of government cast upon them by law.” Within the province
of the prerogative “lie the stirring topics of foreign negotiations, the
management of the army and navy, public finance, and, in some
important respects, colonial administration.” Very recent English
history furnishes abundant and striking evidence of the vitality of the
prerogative in these fields in the hands of the gentlemen who
“personate the Crown” in Parliament. “No subject has been more
eagerly discussed of late,” declares Mr. Amos (page 187), “than that
of the province of Parliament in respect of the making of treaties and
the declaration of war. No prerogative of the Crown is more
undisputed than that of taking the initiative in all negotiations with
foreign governments, conducting them throughout, and finally
completing them by the signature and ratification of a treaty.... It is a
bare fact that during the progress of the British diplomatic
movements which terminated in the Treaty of Berlin of 1878, or more
properly in the Afghan war of that year,”—including the secret treaty
by which Turkey ceded Cyprus to England, and England assumed
the protectorate of Asia Minor,—“Parliament never had an
opportunity of expressing its mind on any one of the important and
complicated engagements to which the country was being
committed, or upon the policy of the war upon the northwest frontier
of India. The subjects were, indeed, over and over again discussed
in Parliament, but always subsequent to irreparable action having
been taken by the government” (page 188). Had Mr. Amos lived to
take his narrative of constitutional affairs beyond 1880, he would
have had equally significant instances of ministerial initiative to
adduce in the cases of Egypt and Burmah.

E
Mr. Sheldon Amos: Fifty Years of the English
Constitution, page 338.

The unfortunate campaign in the Soudan was the direct outcome

of the purchase of the Suez Canal shares by the British government
in 1875. The result of that purchase was that “England became
pledged in a wholly new and peculiar way to the support of the
existing Turkish and Egyptian dominion in Egypt; that large English
political interests were rendered subservient to the decisions of local
tribunals in a foreign country; and that English diplomatic and
political action in Egypt, and indeed in Europe, was trammelled, or at
least indirectly influenced, by a narrow commercial interest which
could not but weigh, however slightly, upon the apparent purity and
simplicity of the motives of the English government.” And yet the
binding engagements which involved all this were entered into
“despite the absence of all assistance from, or consent of,
F
Parliament.” Such exercises of the prerogatives of the Crown
receive additional weight from “the almost recognized right of
evolving an army of almost any size from the Indian seed-plot, of
using reserve forces without communication to Parliament in
advance, and of obtaining large votes of credit for prospective
military operations of an indefinite character, the nature of which
Parliament is allowed only dimly to surmise” (page 392). The latest
evidence of the “almost recognized” character of such rights was the
war preparations made by England against Russia in 1885. If to such
powers of committing the country irrevocably to far-reaching foreign
policies, of inviting or precipitating war, and of using Indian troops
without embarrassment from the trammels of the Mutiny Act, there
be added the great discretionary functions involved in the
administration of colonial affairs, some measure may be obtained of
the power wielded by ministers, not as the mere agents of
Parliament, but as personating the Crown. Such is in England the
independence of action possible to the executive.

F
Amos, page 384.

As compared with this, the power of the President is

insignificant. Of course, as everybody says, he is more powerful than
the sovereign of Great Britain. If relative personal power were the
principle of etiquette, Mr. Cleveland would certainly not have to lift
his hat to the Queen, because the Queen is not the English
executive. The prerogatives of the Crown are still much greater than
the prerogatives of the presidency; they are exercised, however, not
by the wearer of the crown, but by the ministry of the Crown.
As Sir Henry Maine rightly says, the framers of our Constitution,
consciously or unconsciously, made the President’s office like the
King’s office under the English constitution of their time,—the
constitution, namely, of George III., who chose his advisers with or
without the assent of Parliament. They took care, however, to pare
down the model where it seemed out of measure with the exercise of
the people’s liberty. They allowed the President to choose his
ministers freely, as George then seemed to have established his
right to do; but they made the confirmation of the Senate a
necessary condition to his appointments. They vested in him the
right of negotiating treaties with foreign governments; but he was not
to sign and ratify treaties until he had obtained the sanction of the
Senate. That oversight of executive action which Parliament had not
yet had the spirit or the inclination to exert, and which it had forfeited
its independence by not exerting, was forever secured to our federal
upper chamber by the fundamental law. The conditions of mutual
confidence and co-operation between executive and legislature now
existing in England had not then been developed, and consequently
could not be reproduced in this country. The posture and disposition
of mutual wariness which were found existing there were made
constitutional here by express written provision. In short, the
transitional relations of the Crown and Parliament of that day were
crystallized in our Constitution, such guarantees of executive good
faith and legislative participation in the weightier determinations of
government as were lacking in the model being sedulously added in
the copy.
The really subordinate position of the presidency is hidden from
view partly by that dignity which is imparted to the office by its
conspicuous place at the front of a great government, and its
security and definiteness of tenure; partly by the independence
apparently secured to it by its erection into an entirely distinct and
separate ‘branch’ of the government; and partly by those
circumstances of our history which have thrust our Presidents
forward, during one or two notable periods, as real originators of
policy and leaders in affairs. The President has never been powerful,
however, except at such times as he has had Congress at his back.
While the new government was a-making—and principally because it
was a-making—Washington and his secretaries were looked to by
Congress for guidance; and during the presidencies of several of
Washington’s immediate successors the continued prominence of
questions of foreign policy and of financial management kept the
officers of the government in a position of semi-leadership. Jackson
was masterful with or without right. He entered upon his presidency
as he entered upon his campaign in Florida, without asking too
curiously for constitutional warrant for what he was to undertake. In
the settlement of the southern question Congress went for a time on
all-fours with the President. He was powerful because Congress was
acquiescent.
But such cases prove rather the usefulness than the strength of
the presidency. Congress has, at several very grave crises in
national affairs, been seasonably supplied with an energetic leader
or agent in the person of the President. At other times, when
Congress was in earnest in pushing views not shared by the
President, our executives have either been overwhelmed, as
Johnson was, or have had to decline upon much humbler services.
Their negotiations with foreign governments are as likely to be
disapproved as approved; their budgets are cut down like a younger
son’s portion; their appointments are censured and their
administrations criticised without chance for a counter-hearing. They
create nothing. Their veto is neither revisory nor corrective. It is
merely obstructive. It is, as I have said, a simple blunt negation,
oftentimes necessarily spoken without discrimination against a good
bill because of a single bad clause in it. In such a contest between
origination and negation origination must always win, or government
must stand still.
In England the veto of the Crown has not passed out of use, as
is commonly said. It has simply changed its form. It does not exist as
an imperative, obstructive ‘No,’ uttered by the sovereign. It has
passed over into the privilege of the ministers to throw their party
weight, reinforced by their power to dissolve Parliament, against
measures of which they disapprove. It is a much-tempered
instrument, but for that reason all the more flexible and useful. The
old, blunt, antagonistic veto is no longer needed. It is needed here,
however, to preserve the presidency from the insignificance of
merely administrative functions. Since executive and legislature
cannot come into relations of mutual confidence and co-operation,
the former must be put in a position to maintain a creditable
competition for consideration and dignity.
A clear-headed, methodical, unimaginative President like Mr.
Cleveland unaffectedly recognizes the fact that all creating,
originating power rests with Congress, and that he can do no more
than direct the details of such projects as he finds commended by its
legislation. The suggestions of his message he acknowledges to be
merely suggestions, which must depend upon public opinion for their
weight. If Congress does not regard them, it must reckon with the
people, not with him. It is his duty to tell Congress what he thinks
concerning the pending questions of the day; it is not his duty to
assume any responsibility for the effect produced on Congressmen.
The English have transformed their Crown into a Ministry, and in
doing so have recognized both the supremacy of Parliament and the
rôle of leadership in legislation properly belonging to a responsible
executive. The result has been that they have kept a strong
executive without abating either the power or the independence of
the representative chamber in respect of its legislative function. We,
on the contrary, have left our executive separate, as the Constitution
made it; chiefly, it is to be suspected, because the explicit and
confident gifts of function contained in that positive instrument have
blinded us by their very positiveness to the real subordination of the
executive resulting from such a separation. We have supposed that
our President was great because his powers were specific, and that
our Congress was not supreme because it could not lay its hands
directly upon his office and turn him out. In fact, neither the dignity
and power of the executive nor the importance of Congress is served
by the arrangement. Being held off from authoritative suggestion in
legislation, the President becomes, under ordinary circumstances,
merely a ministerial officer; whilst Congress, on its part, deprived of
such leadership, becomes a legislative mass meeting instead of a
responsible co-operating member of a well-organized government.
Being under the spell of the Constitution, we have been unable to
see the facts which written documents can neither establish nor
change.
 Singularly enough, there is sharp opposition to the introduction
into Congress of any such leadership on the part of the executive as
the Ministers of the Crown enjoy in Parliament, on the ground of the
increase of power which would accrue as a result to the legislature. It
is said that such a change would, by centring party and personal
responsibility in Congress, give too great a prominence to legislation;
would make Congress the object of too excited an interest on the
part of the people. Legislation in Parliament, instead of being
piecemeal, tessellated work, such as is made up in Congress of the
various fragments contributed by the standing committees, is, under
each ministry, a continuous, consistent, coherent whole; and, instead
of bearing the sanction of both national parties, is the peculiar policy
of only one of them. It is thought that, if such coherence of plan,
definiteness and continuity of aim, and sanction of party were to be
given the work of Congress, the resulting concentration of popular
interest and opinion would carry Congress over all the barriers of the
Constitution to an undisputed throne of illimitable power. In short, the
potential supremacy of Congress is thought to be kept within
bounds, not by the constitutional power of the executive and the
judiciary, its co-ordinate branches, but by the intrinsic dulness and
confusion of its own proceedings. It cannot make itself interesting
enough to be great.
But this is a two-edged argument, which one must needs handle
with great caution. It is evidently calculated to destroy every
argument constructed on the assumption that it is written laws which
are effective to the salvation of our constitutional arrangements; for it
is itself constructed on the opposite assumption, that it is the state of
popular interest in the nation which balances the forces of the
government. It would, too, serve with equal efficacy against any
scheme whatever for reforming the present methods of legislation in
Congress, with which almost everybody is dissatisfied. Any reform
which should tend to give to national legislation that uniform, open,
intelligent, and responsible character which it now lacks, would also
create that popular interest in the proceedings of Congress which, it
is said, would unhinge the Constitution. Democracy is so delicate a
form of government that it must break down if given too great facility
or efficacy of operation. No one body of men must be suffered to
utter the voice of the people, lest that voice become, through it,
directly supreme.
The fact of the overtopping power of Congress, however,
remains. The houses create all governmental policy, with that wide
latitude of ‘political discretion’ in the choice of means which the
Supreme Court unstintingly accords them. Congress has often come
into conflict with the Supreme Court by attempting to extend the
province of the federal government as against the States; but it has
seldom, I believe, been brought effectually to book for any alleged
exercise of powers as against its directly competing branch, the
executive. Having by constitutional grant the last word as to foreign
relations, the control of the finances, and even the oversight of
executive appointments, Congress exercises what powers of
direction and management it pleases, as fulfilling, not as straining,
the Constitution. Government lives in the origination, not in the
defeat, of measures of government. The President obstructs by
means of his ‘No;’ the houses govern by means of their ‘Yes.’ He has
killed some policies that are dead; they have given birth to all
policies that are alive.
But the measures born in Congress have no common lineage.
They have not even a traceable kinship. They are fathered by a
score or two of unrelated standing committees: and Congress stands
godfather to them all, without discrimination. Congress, in effect,
parcels out its great powers amongst groups of its members, and so
confuses its plans and obscures all responsibility. It is a leading
complaint of Sir Henry Maine’s against the system in England, which
is just under his nose, that it confers the preliminary shaping and the
initiation of all legislation upon the cabinet, a body which deliberates
and resolves in strict secrecy,—and so reminds him, remotely
enough, of the Spartan Ephors and the Venetian Council of Ten. He
commends, by contrast, that constitution (our own, which he sees at
a great distance) which reserves to the legislature itself the
origination and drafting of its measures. It is hard for us, who have
this commended constitution under our noses, to perceive wherein
we have the advantage. British legislation is for the most part
originated and shaped by a single committee, acting in secret,
whose proposals, when produced, are eagerly debated and freely
judged by the sovereign legislative body. Our legislation is framed
and initiated by a great many committees, deliberating in secret,
whose proposals are seldom debated and only perfunctorily judged
by the sovereign legislative body. It is impossible to mistake the
position and privileges of the Brutish cabinet, so great and
conspicuous and much discussed are they. They simplify the whole
British system for men’s comprehension by merely standing at the
centre of it. But our own system is simple only in appearance. It is
easy to see that our legislature and executive are separate, and that
the legislature matures its own measures by means of committees of
its own members. But it may readily escape superficial observation
that our legislature, instead of being served, is ruled by its
committees; that those committees prepare their measures in
private; that their number renders their privacy a secure secrecy, by
making them too many to be watched, and individually too
insignificant to be worth watching; that their division of prerogatives
results in a loss, through diffusion, of all actual responsibility; and
that their co-ordination leads to such a competition among them for
the attention of their respective houses that legislation is rushed,
when it is not paralyzed.
It is thus that, whilst all real power is in the hands of Congress,
that power is often thrown out of gear and its exercise brought
almost to a standstill. The competition of the committees is the clog.
Their reports stand in the way of each other, and so the complaint is
warranted that Congress can get nothing done. Interests which press
for attention in the nation are reported upon by the appropriate
committee, perhaps, but the report gets pushed to the wall. Or they
are not reported upon. They are brought to the notice of Congress,
but they go to a committee which is unfavorable. The progress of
legislation depends both upon the fortunes of competing reports and
upon the opinions held by particular committees.
The same system of committee government prevails in our state
legislatures, and has led to some notable results, which have
recently been pointed out in a pamphlet entitled American
Constitutions, contributed to the Johns Hopkins series of Studies in
History and Political Science by Mr. Horace Davis. In the state
legislatures, as in Congress, the origination and control of legislation
by standing committees has led to haphazard, incoherent,
irresponsible law-making, and to a universal difficulty about getting
anything done. The result has been that state legislatures have been
falling into disrepute in all quarters. They are despised and
mistrusted, and many States have revised their constitutions in order
to curtail legislative powers and limit the number and length of
legislative sessions. There is in some States an apparent inclination
to allow legislators barely time enough to provide moneys for the
maintenance of the governments. In some instances necessary
powers have been transferred from the legislatures to the courts; in
others to the governors. The intent of all such changes is manifest. It
is thought safer to entrust power to a law court, performing definite
functions under clear laws and in accordance with strict judicial
standards, or to a single conspicuous magistrate, who can be
watched and cannot escape responsibility for his official acts, than to
entrust it to a numerous body which burrows toward its ends in
committee-rooms, getting its light through lobbies; and which has a
thousand devices for juggling away responsibility, as well as scores
of antagonisms wherewith to paralyze itself.
Like fear and distrust have often been felt and expressed of late
years concerning Congress, for like reasons. But so far no attempt
has been made to restrict either the powers or the time of Congress.
Amendments to the Constitution are difficult almost to the point of
impossibility, and the few definite schemes nowadays put forward for
a revision of the Constitution involve extensions rather than
limitations of the powers of Congress. The fact is that, though often
quite as exasperating to sober public opinion as any state
legislature, Congress is neither so much distrusted nor so deserving
of distrust. Its high place and vast sphere in the government of the
nation cause its members to be more carefully chosen, and its
proceedings to be more closely watched, and frequently controlled
by criticism. The whole country has its eyes on Congress, and
Congress is aware of the fact. It has both the will and the incentive to
be judicious and patriotic. Newspaper editors have constantly to be
saying to their readers, ‘Look what our state legislators are doing;’
they seldom have to urge, ‘Look what Congress is doing.’ It cannot,
indeed, be watched easily, or to much advantage. It requires a
distinct effort to watch it. It has no dramatic contests of party leaders
to attract notice. Its methods are so much after the fashion of the
game of hide-and-seek that the eye of the ordinary man is quite
baffled in trying to understand or follow them, if he try only at leisure
moments. But, at the same time, the interests handled by Congress
are so vast that at least the newspapers and the business men, if no
others, must watch its legislation as best they may. However hard it
may be to observe, it is too influential in great affairs to make it safe
for the country to give over trying to observe it.
But though Congress may always be watched, and so in a
measure controlled, despite its clandestine and confusing methods,
those methods must tend to increase the distrust with which
Congress is widely regarded; and distrust cannot but enervate,
belittle, and corrupt this will-centre of the Constitution. The question
is not merely, How shall the methods of Congress be clarified and its
ways made purposeful and responsible? There is this greater
question at stake: How shall the essential arrangements of the
Constitution be preserved? Congress is the purposing, designing,
aggressive power of the national government. Disturbing and
demoralizing influences in the organism, if there be any, come out
from its restless energies. Damaging encroachments upon ground
forbidden to the federal government generally originate in measures
of its planning. So long as it continues to be governed by unrelated
standing committees, and to take its resolves in accordance with no
clear plan, no single, definite purpose, so long as what it does
continues to be neither evident nor interesting, so long must all its
exertions of power be invidious; so long must its competition with the
executive or the judiciary seem merely jealous and always
underhand: so long must it remain virtually impossible to control it
through public opinion. As well ask the stranger in the gallery of the
New York Stock Exchange to judge of the proceedings on the floor.
As well ask a man who has not time to read all the newspapers in
the Union to judge of passing sentiment in all parts of the country.
Congress in its composition is the country in miniature. It realizes
Hobbes’s definition of liberty as political power divided into small
fragments. The standing committees typify the individuals of the
nation. Congress is better fitted for counsel than the voters simply
because its members are less than four hundred instead of more
than ten millions.
It has been impossible to carry out the programme of the
Constitution; and, without careful reform, the national legislature will
even more dangerously approach the perilous model of a mass
meeting. There are several ways in which Congress can be so
integrated as to impart to its proceedings system and party
responsibility. That may be done by entrusting the preparation and
initiation of legislation to a single committee in each house,
composed of the leading men of the majority in that house. Such a
change would not necessarily affect the present precedents as to the
relations between the executive and the legislature. They might still
stand stiffly apart. Congress would be integrated and invigorated,
however, though the whole system of the government would not be.
To integrate that, some common meeting-ground of public
consultation must be provided for the executive and the houses.
That can be accomplished only by the admission to Congress, in
whatever capacity,—whether simply to answer proper questions and
to engage in debate, or with the full privileges of membership,—of
official representatives of the executive who understand the
administration and are interested and able to defend it. Let the
tenure of ministers have what disconnection from legislative
responsibility may seem necessary to the preservation of the
equality of House and Senate, and the separation of administration
from legislation; light would at least be thrown upon administration; it
would be given the same advantages of public suggestion and
unhampered self-defence that Congress, its competitor, has; and
Congress would be constrained to apply system and party
responsibility to its proceedings.
The establishment in the United States of what is known as
‘ministerial responsibility’ would unquestionably involve some
important changes in our constitutional system. I am strongly of the
opinion that such changes would not be too great a price to pay for
the advantages secured us by such a government. Ministerial
responsibility supplies the only conditions which have yet proved
efficacious, in the political experience of the world, for vesting
recognized leadership in men chosen for their abilities by a natural
selection of debate in a sovereign assembly of whose contests the
whole country is witness. Such survival of the ablest in debate
seems the only process available for selecting leaders under a
popular government. The mere fact that such a contest proceeds
with such a result is the strongest possible incentive to men of first-
rate powers to enter legislative service; and popular governments,
more than any other governments, need leaders so placed that, by
direct contact with both the legislative and the executive departments
of the government, they shall see the problems of government at first
hand; and so trained that they shall at the same time be, not mere
administrators, but also men of tact and eloquence, fitted to
persuade masses of men and to draw about themselves a loyal
following.
If we borrowed ministerial responsibility from England, we
should, too, unquestionably enjoy an infinite advantage over the
English in the use of it. We should sacrifice by its adoption none of
that great benefit and security which our federal system derives from
a clear enumeration of powers and an inflexible difficulty of
amendment. If anything would be definite under cabinet government,
responsibility would be definite; and, unless I am totally mistaken in
my estimate of the legal conscience of the people of this country,—
which seems to me to be the heart of our whole system,—definite
responsibility will establish rather than shake those arrangements of
our Constitution which are really our own, and to which our national
pride properly attaches, namely, the distinct division of powers
between the state and federal governments, the slow and solemn
formalities of constitutional change, and the interpretative functions
of the federal courts. If we are really attached to these principles, the
concentration of responsibility in government will doubly insure their
preservation. If we are not, they are in danger of destruction in any
case.
But we cannot have ministerial responsibility in its fulness under
the Constitution as it stands. The most that we can have is distinct
legislative responsibility, with or without any connection of co-
operation or of mutual confidence between the executive and
Congress. To have so much would be an immense gain. Changes
made to this end would leave the federal system still an unwieldy
mechanism of counteracting forces, still without unity or flexibility; but
we should at least have made the very great advance of fastening
upon Congress an even more positive form of accountability than
now rests upon the President and the courts. Questions of vast
importance and infinite delicacy have constantly to be dealt with by
Congress; and there is an evident tendency to widen the range of
those questions. The grave social and economic problems now
thrusting themselves forward, as the result of the tremendous growth
and concentration of our population, and the consequent sharp
competition for the means of livelihood, indicate that our system is
already aging, and that any clumsiness, looseness, or irresponsibility
in governmental action must prove a source of grave and increasing
peril. There are already commercial heats and political distempers in
our body politic which warn of an early necessity for carefully
prescribed physic. Under such circumstances, some measure of
legislative reform is clearly indispensable. We cannot afford to put up
any longer with such legislation as we may happen upon. We must
look and plan ahead. We must have legislation which has been
definitely forecast in party programmes and explicitly sanctioned by
the public voice. Instead of the present arrangements for
compromise, piecemeal legislation, we must have coherent plans
from recognized party leaders, and means for holding those leaders
to a faithful execution of their plans in clear-cut Acts of Congress.
 LIST OF VOLUMES OF ESSAYS ON LITERATURE,
ART, MUSIC, ETC., PUBLISHED BY CHARLES SCRIBNER’S
SONS, 743–745 BROADWAY, NEW YORK.

HENRY ADAMS.
Historical Essays. (12mo, $2.00.)
Contents: Primitive Rights of Women—Captaine John Smith—
Harvard College, 1786–1787—Napoleon I. at St. Domingo—The
Bank of England Restriction—The Declaration of Paris, 1861—The
Legal Tender Act—The New York Gold Conspiracy—The Session,
1869–1870.
“Mr. Adams is thorough in research, exact in statement, judicial in tone,
broad of view, picturesque and impressive in description, nervous and
expressive in style. His characterizations are terse, pointed, clear.”—New York
Tribune.

SIR EDWIN ARNOLD.

Japonica. Illustrated by Robert Blum. (Large 8vo, $3.00.)
“Artistic and handsome. In theme, style, illustrations and manufacture, it will
appeal to every refined taste, presenting a most thoughtful and graceful study
of the fascinating people among whom the author spent a year.”—Cincinnati
Enquirer.

AUGUSTINE BIRRELL.
Obiter Dicta, First Series. (16mo, $1.00.)
Contents: Carlyle—On the Alleged Obscurity of Mr. Browning’s
Poetry—Truth Hunting—Actors—A Rogue’s Memoirs—The Via
Media—Falstaff.
“Some admirably written essays, amusing and brilliant. The book is the
book of a highly cultivated man, with a real gift of expression, a good deal of
humor, a happy fancy.”—Spectator.
Obiter Dicta, Second Series. (16mo, $1.00.)
 Contents: Milton—Pope—Johnson—Burke—The Muse of
History—Lamb—Emerson—The Office of Literature—Worn Out
Types—Cambridge and the Poets—Book-buying.
“Neat, apposite, clever, full of quaint allusions, happy thoughts, and apt,
unfamiliar quotations.”—Boston Advertiser.
Res Judicatæ: Papers and Essays. (16mo, $1.00.)
“Whether Mr. Birrell writes of Richardson or Barrow, Gibbon or Newman, he
shows himself equally intelligent and appreciative. His wit and audacity are
backed by sterling sense and fine taste.”—Chicago Tribune.

Prof. H. H. BOYESEN.
Essays on German Literature. (12mo, $1.50.)
“Prof. Boyesen is cultivated without being pedantic, and serious without
being dull. The literature he analyzes and expounds is the literature that has
international value.”—Boston Beacon.

W. C. BROWNELL.
French Traits. (12mo, $1.50.)
Contents: The Social Instinct—Morality—Intelligence—Sense
and Sentiment—Manners—Women—The Art Instinct—The
Provincial Spirit—Democracy—New York after Paris.
“These chapters form a volume of criticism which is sympathetic, intelligent,
acute, and contains a great amount of wholesome suggestion.”—Boston
Advertiser.
French Art. (12mo, $1.25.)
“Brought to the judgment in this cool and scientific spirit, the whole course
of French painting and sculpture, as shown by the masters pre-eminent in each
era, is reviewed by a critic as certain of his criticisms as he is capable in
forming them.”—Springfield Republican.

THOMAS CARLYLE.
Lectures on the History of Literature. (Now printed for the
first time. 12mo, $1.00.)
 Summary of Contents: Literature in General—Language,
Tradition—The Greeks—The Heroic Ages—Homer—Æschylus to
Socrates—The Romans—Middle Ages—Christianity—The Crusades
—Dante—The Spaniards—Chivalry—Cervantes—The Germans—
Luther—The Origin, Work and Destiny of the English—Shakespeare
—Milton—Swift—Hume—Wertherism—The French Revolution—
Goethe and his Works.
“Every intelligent American reader will instantly wish to read this book
through, and many will say that it is the clearest and wisest and most genuine
book that Carlyle ever produced. We could have no work from his hand which
embodies more clearly and emphatically his literary opinions than his rapid and
graphic survey of the great writers and great literary epochs of the world.”—
Boston Herald.

ALICE MORSE EARLE.

The Sabbath in Puritan New England. (12mo, $1.25.)
“She writes with a keen sense of humor, and out of the full stores of
adequate knowledge and plentiful explorations among old pamphlets, letters,
sermons, and that treasury, not yet run dry in New England, family traditions.
The book is as sympathetic as it is bright and humorous.”—The Independent.
China Collecting in America. (with 75 illustrations. Sq. 8vo,
$3.00.)
“Her book is full of entertainment, not only for the china hunter and
collector, but for all who are interested in early times and manufactures, in the
old houses and country people, in the history of America, and the habits and
customs of the past.”—New York Observer.
Customs and Fashions in Old New England. (12mo, $1.25.)
Mrs. Earle describes the daily life and habits, the festivals, larder,
taverns, modes of travel, peculiarities of courtship, marriages,
funerals, the utensils and furniture of the Puritan farm and home,
with the same wit, sympathetic feeling, and copious information so
marked in her former works.

HENRY T. FINCK.
Chopin, and Other Musical Essays. (12mo, $1.50.)
 “Written from abundant knowledge: enlivened by anecdote and touches of
enthusiasm, suggestive, stimulating.”—Boston Post.

JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE.

The Spanish Story of the Armada, and Other Essays.
(12mo, $1.50.)
Contents: The Spanish Story of the Armada—Antonio Perez:
An Unsolved Historical Riddle—Saint Teresa—The Templars—The
Norway Fjords—Norway Once More.
Short Studies on Great Subjects. (Half leather, 12mo, 4
vols., each $1.50.)
CONTENTS:
Vol. I. The Science of History—Times of Erasmus and Luther—The Influence
of the Reformation on the Scottish Character—The Philosophy of Catholicism—A
Plea for the Free Discussion of Theological Difficulties—Criticism and the Gospel
History—The Book of Job—Spinoza—The Dissolution of Monasteries—England’s
Forgotten Worthies—Homer—The Lives of the Saints—Representative Man—
Reynard the Fox—The Cat’s Pilgrimage—Fables—Parable of the Bread-fruit Tree
—Compensation.
Vol. II. Calvinism—A Bishop of the Twelfth Century—Father Newman on “The
Grammar of Assent”—Conditions and Prospects of Protestantism—England and
Her Colonies—A Fortnight in Kerry—Reciprocal Duties in State and Subject—The
Merchant and His Wife—On Progress—The Colonies Once More—Education—
England’s War—The Eastern Question—Scientific Method Applied to History.
Vol. III. Annals of an English Abbey—Revival of Romanism—Sea Studies—
Society in Italy in the Last Days of the Roman Republic—Lucian—Divus Caesar—
On the Uses of a Landed Gentry—Party Politics—Leaves from a South African
Journal.
Vol. IV. The Oxford Counter—Reformation—Life and Times of Thomas Becket
—Origen and Celsus—A Cagliostro of the Second Century—Cheneys and the
House of Russell—A Siding at a Railway Station.
“All the papers here collected are marked by the qualities which have made
Mr. Froude the most popular of living English historians—by skill in
argumentative and rhetorical exposition, by felicities of diction, by contagious
earnestness, and by the rare power of fusing the results of research in the
imagination so as to produce a picture of the past at once exact and vivid.”—
N. Y. Sun.
WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE.
Gleanings of Past Years, 1843–1879. (7 vols., 16mo, each
$1.00.)
Contents: Vol. I., The Throne and the Prince Consort. The
Cabinet and Constitution—Vol. II., Personal and Literary—Vol. III.,
Historical and Speculative—Vol. IV., Foreign—Vol. V. and VI.,
Ecclesiastical—Vol. VII., Miscellaneous.
“Not only do these essays cover a long period of time, they also exhibit a
very wide range of intellectual effort. Perhaps their most striking feature is the
breadth of genuine intellectual sympathy, of which they afford such abundant
evidence.”—Nation.

ROBERT GRANT.
The Reflections of a Married Man. (12mo, cloth, $1.00;
paper, 50 cents.)
“Nothing is more entertaining than to have one’s familiar experiences take
objective form; and few experiences are more familiar than those which Mr.
Grant here chronicles for us. Altogether Mr. Grant has given us a capital little
book, which should easily strike up literary comradeship with ‘The Reveries of a
Bachelor.’”—Boston Transcript.
Opinions of a Philosopher. (Illustrated by Reinhart and
Smedley. 12mo, cloth, $1.00.)
A sequel to the author’s “Reflections,” relating the experiences
through middle life of Fred and Josephine, with equal charm and
humor.

E. J. HARDY.
The Business of Life: A Book for Everyone.—How To Be
Happy Though Married: Being a Handbook to Marriage—The Five
Talents of Woman: A Book for Girls and Women—Manners
Makyth Man—The Sunny Days of Youth: A Book for Boys and
Young Men. (12mo, each $1.25.)
“The author has a large store of apposite quotations and anecdotes from
which he draws with a lavish hand, and he has the art of brightening his pages
 with a constant play of humor that makes what he says uniformly
entertaining.”—Boston Advertiser.

W. E. HENLEY.
Views and Reviews. Essays in Appreciation: Literature. (12mo,
$1.00.)
Contents: Dickens—Thackeray—Disraëli—Dumas—Meredith
—Byron—Hugo—Heine—Arnold—Rabelais—Shakespeare—Sidney
—Walton—Banville—Berlioz—Longfellow—Balzac—Hood—Lever—
Congreve—Tolstoï—Fielding, etc., etc.
“Interesting, original, keen and felicitous. His criticism will be found
suggestive, cultivated, independent.”—N. Y. Tribune.

J. G. HOLLAND.
Titcomb’s Letters to Young People, Single and Married—
Gold-Foil, Hammered from Popular Proverbs—Lessons in
Life: A Series of Familiar Essays—Concerning the Jones Family
—Plain Talks on Familiar Subjects—Every-Day Topics, First
Series, Second Series. (Small 12mo, each, $1.25.)
“Dr. Holland will always find a congenial audience in the homes of culture
and refinement. He does not affect the play of the darker and fiercer passions,
but delights in the sweet images that cluster around the domestic hearth. He
cherishes a strong fellow-feeling with the pure and tranquil life in the modest
social circles of the American people, and has thus won his way to the
companionship of many friendly hearts.”—N. Y. Tribune.

WILLIAM RALPH INGE.

Society in Rome under the Cæsars. (12mo, $1.25.)
“Every page is brimful of interest. The picture of life in Rome under the
Cæsars are graphic and thoroughly intelligible.”—Chicago Herald.

ANDREW LANG.
Essays in Little. (Portrait, 12mo, $1.00.)