this wisdom spontaneous or acquired? Surely the latter. It is the result of learning, observation, and thought, and to these will necessarily be joined the love of the true and the beautiful. Shakespeare was not a scholar in the conventional sense, yet, not to speak of his genius, how full are his writings of knowledge acquired by much reading, by wonderful insight into the minds of men and springs of action, and by philosophy, the fruit of thought. His acquired knowledge, independent of his art, is so extensive that ingenious essays have been written to show that he must have been trained to law, to medicine, to divinity; and separate books have been written upon his knowledge of birds, of animals, of flowers, and of folk-lore; and one surprising critic has gone beyond all and declared that Shakespeare was a great statesman, a lord chancellor in fact, who was fined and imprisoned for taking bribes.

And how thoroughly he possessed another of the lofty qualities of the true poet, impersonality. He creates his Portia, the model of virtuous loveliness, and his Cleopatra, the type of sensuousness, but he points out neither the merits of the one nor the vices of the other. He himself is never introduced; he has no didactic teaching, but the foreshadowed result is worked out.

Another quality of the poet is his universality. The men of action, the politicians, take but one view, see but one side of a thing, and they are fearfully in earnest in their beliefs, but the man of philosophic mind weighs both or all sides of a question, and gives to each its due.

The poet, too, must be, in a large sense, a man of science. He must learn, at least, to observe accurately that he may depict truly.

A by no means unimportant part of the poet's work is the "polishing his lives." He must exchange mean, trivial words, and get rid of alliteration. Lowell, in a posthumous essay,

says:

"It may be asked if these minutiæ are consistent with anything like that ecstasy of mind from which the highest poetry is supposed to spring, and which it is its function to reproduce in the mind of the reader, but whoever would write well must learn to write."

Above all, the poet must study the great central figure of this world-man. Descriptive poetry which delineates natural scenery soon becomes wearisome, but one never tires of the exhibition, if by a master-hand, of the workings of the human mind.

All the great masters of the art are agreed in demanding for the poet that he shall receive fit training. That he is to be made a poet as well as to be born one. And does not the history of all poets tell us how they first lisped in numbers. Tennyson never saw fit to republish his volume of early poems entitled “Poems by Two Brothers." The first volume of poems, exclusively his own, was published in 1833, and the revision which his better-educated taste had taught him was well seen in the next volume which appeared in 1842.

Another characteristic of the poet is the honest love for and belief in the reality of his creations. They are living men and women to him, for they embody his wisdom and experience. They are better or worse than the average human being, but only to the extent of emphasizing the type. The poet is too true to his art to make moral monsters of his heroes. They are human, they sin, they repent, but how carefully the motives of their actions are developed.

Shakespeare brought his master creation, Othello, to a tragic death through his vehement passions and childlike credulity, but see how he cares for him at the supreme moment-how touching his defense of him in Othello's last words

Then must you speak

Of one that loved not wisely but too well;

One not easily jealous, but being wrought,
Perplexed in the extreme.

What a surprising fullness of meaning there is in that word

The greatest poets are those who have loved truth and wisdom above all things; who have striven valiantly after all attainable knowledge; have deeply studied the human mind and its passions; have observed nature with close scrutiny; have mastered to the extent of their opportunities the treasures of poetry and prose in their own and other tongues, and have diligently sought to perfect their art in melody and method. When to the divine birthright is added some share, be it greater or less, of these qualities which are attainable only by labor, are we not justified in saying that the poet was born and was made?

JOURNALISM.

G. BOGLIETTI.

Translated and condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in
Rassegna di Scienze Sociali e Politiche, Rome, March.

F journalism as a force which acts powerfully and immedi

Of a good

evil have been said at all times by persons of every rank and of all grades of intellect. No man or public institution has ever had in the same space of time an equal amount of praise or blame.

Any one who wished to collect all the opinions for and against the press which writers have expressed, would have to compile a large volume, and if he desired to reprint all the things that journalists have said of each other, he could fill a library.

Delisle de Sales defined journalism as a "convenience for speaking without reflection combined with a convenience for doing injury"; and journalists as "people who having neither a political nor a literary existence are devoted to the mania of destruction." Sièyes, on the other hand, declared that "without liberty of the press there could be neither public nor individual liberty." Victor Hugo called the press "the living clarion which sounds the reveille of the people." According to Viennet, "the liberty of the world is the work of the press." Bonald, in turn writes: The press brings governments into contempt without benefiting the people, and embitters the people whom it renders impossible to govern." E. Veuillot says: "Like that girl whom Circe cursed, the liberty of the press has brought forth dogs who devour their mother." Balzac was pleased to declare: "If the newspaper did not exist, it should not be invented." Many other writers laud the press. The press is the tribune enlarged," says Benjamin Constant. "The liberty of the press," writes Chateaubriand, has been nearly the whole business of my life; to that end have I sacrificed all that I could sacrifice: time, work, and repose." Yet in despite of detraction and as if to justify the praise of its apologists, journalism, overcoming all the obstacles in its way, has continued to make gigantic strides on the road to power and influence. Its l'fe, however, as a real political and social force, may be said to date from yesterday.

To give an idea of the rapidity with which journalism has grown a few figures will suffice.

From a report on the condition of the periodical press in France made to the First Consul in 1803, it appears that in the year named there were published in Paris fifteen daily journals, with a total circulation of 25,514. To-day an issue of 25,000 copies for a daily journal is a very common thing. The Petit Journal prints every day a million copies, the Petit Parisien 500,000, Figaro 80,000, the Rappel 70,000.

In 1888 Germany had 5,500 periodical journals of which 800 were dailies. It shows the decentralization of the German press that of these 5,500 but 620 were published in Berlin. It is thought across the Rhine to be next door to a miracle that the weekly Allgemeine Zeitung has a circulation of 300,000. The most widely circulated of the German dailies, the Berliner Tagblatt, does not print more than 70,000 copies.

If the United States did not exist, the English press would

surely be the first in the world; not so much for the number of its journals and the talent of its writers, as for the gigantic dimensions of its papers, abundance of its microscopic characteristics, and its powerful mechanical means. The Times, sold for three pence, contains every day material enough to fill an octavo volume of five hundred pages. The Daily News, founded in 1846, with four pages and voluminous supplements, prints from 300,000 to 350,000 copies daily. The Tory Standard has every day two editions, of which the combined issue is 255,000.

The United States journals, however, far exceed their European brethren. If the English journals are Behemoth, the United States journals are Leviathan. The newspaper in the United States is a monster of paper and ink. There are journals which are much more than an octavo volume— they are folios, a dictionary. Statistics published in 1872 showed that, at that time, the total circulation of the journals in the State of New York alone amounted to 402,770,868 copies a year.

Be it a good or an evil, the desire of the public is constantly diminishing for merely political discussions and for those literary disputes which were the delight of our fathers. Nowadays the public cares much more for things than for ideas. What it wants is facts, information, notices. A journal can no longer hold its own, and assuredly cannot attract the great mass of readers, without catering to this changed taste. To England we owe the invention of the reporter, but the glory of having produced the interviewer belongs to the United States alone. Reporters and interviewers are classed among the journalists; but how many journalists in the world can be classed among "writers" properly so called?

Of course, the expenses of a great daily journal are enormous. The outgo of the London Times is equal to that of some large cities. The expense account of the New York World exceeds that of some small States. In France, the Figaro could not be bought for $14,000,000. Apart from the expenses, consider how many people the journals employ.

If to those who compile a daily newspaper you add the people employed in its administration, those who look after the advertisements, the compositors, the proof-readers, the paper-makers, the ink-manufacturers, the folders, the venders, and numerous others, you reach colossal figures. There are in the world hundreds of thousands, nay millions of persons, who get from a newspaper, more or less, their daily bread.

From all the data I have given there can be drawn this important conclusion: that the journal, as our fathers conceived it, in the first half of our century, as an agent, that is, for propagating certain political, philosophical, or social ideas, has perished or is on the point of perishing. In its place has arisen another thing, the journal transformed into a mighty agent of publicity; in other words, essentially an industry, a work which differs from the manufacture of calicoes or steamboilers, only by having a greater capacity for doing harm.

A Model for Those who Dislike Nude Sculpture.-There are artists who, recognizing and appreciating fully the beauty of the human body, yet sympathize somewhat with the dislike entertained for the nude by some worthy people. To such may be recommended a careful study of an antique marble now in the Museum of the Louvre, which was found in the Acropolis at Athens, in 1846. The figure is that of a veiled female dancer. Ample and fine drapery not only veils the face, but covers the head and the whole body. This veil does not interfere in the least with the movement of the head, which inclines a little to one side with delicate and wholly feminine grace. There is nothing in the attitude which indicates the allurement of a female dancer by profession. Her look is entirely absorbed in watching the action of her left foot, which, protruding a little beyond the dress, serves to mark the step. Under the veil you perceive the right arm

separating its covering a little from the body, in order to give more freedom to the movement of the limbs, while the other arm, resting on the hip, holds together the floating mass of the folds which escape from it in flowing lines. If in the lively attitude to which all the parts of the statue respond in perfect equilibrium, the drapery reveals the youthful form it covers, the whole fault lies in its resistance to the air. It is the air which stretches the stuff over the body, and moulds it nearly as though it were naked, but without subtracting anything from the perfect modesty of the pose and the expression.-Léon Heusey, in the Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique, Paris.

Literature in Italy.-For a considerable length of time a canvass has been made by one of the leading Italian newspapers to ascertain which were the preferred books now read in Humbert's sunny realm. The result is peculiarly suggestive. Dante had fifty-two more votes cast for his name and works than were pledged to the Bible. Following Dante, and in the order here given, were the Holy Scriptures, Shakespeare, the "First Principles," by Spencer, Manzoni's "Promessa Sposi," Darwin's "Origin of Species," Goethe's "Faust," and dear old Homer.—American Bookmaker, New York, April.

SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY.

RECENT SCIENCE.

ANTHROPOLOGY.

The Stature of the Most Ancient Races.-Has the species of man increased or diminished in stature since it first appeared on this planet? Have his bones increased or diminished in solidity and weight? Have the relations in these respect's between the two sexes always been as they are now?

These are some of the very interesting questions approached by Dr. J. Rahon in a recent paper in the Memoirs of the Anthropological Society of Paris, entitled, Recherches sur les Ossements Humains Anciens et Préhistoriques.

His conclusions may be briefly stated. Comparing the earliest quaternary skeletons found in western Europe with those of the present population, the former belonged to what we should call medium-sized people, with an average stature, in the males, of 1.63 metres. The tribes of neolithic times varied scarcely at all from this measurement; but the proto-historic nations, the Gauls, Franks, Burgundians, etc., ran the figures up to a mean of 1.66 for the males; since their epoch it has been steadily, though slowly, descending, at least in France,. until the average of the Parisian men of to-day is 1.62 metres. In all ages, the women have averaged about ten centimetres. less in height than the men. The bones of both were rather heavier and more powerful in ancient times.

Incidentally, Dr. Rahon shows that the height of the men of Cro Magnon has been overestimated; that of the man of Spy underestimated; that the Guanches of Teneriffe averaged but one centimetre above the French of to-day, and osteologically were very similar to the Cro Magnon people; and that from the most remote time the human body has retained the same proportions. Science, New York, April 14.

ARCHEOLOGY.

Egyptian Remains. I have come across a new fortress or palace of the high priest, Men-Kheper-Ra, the contemporary of the Twenty-first Dynasty. This is close to a village called Rawâfa, about midway between Luxor and Tûd. The building was a large one, and was constructed of kiln-baked bricks stamped with the cartouches of Men-Kheper-Ra, the high priest of Amon, some of which I have at the present moment on board my dahabich. The building lay a little to the north of a Necropolis of the Roman period, which was being excavated by the fellahin when I visited the spot in 1886.

Bricks of the same size and stamped with the same cartouches are found at the old fortresses of El Hibet and Gebelên.

At Masashdah, opposite Dishneh, and to the South of Han, a new burial-place of the time of the Old Empire, has been discovered by the fellahin. Among other objects that have come from it are some very fine scarabs with the name of Pepi I. of the Sixth Dynasty.

I will only add that a hitherto unknown oasis is said to have been discovered at a distance of five days on camels from Siût, and that temples and inscriptions are reported to exist there in a good state of preservation.-A. H. Sayce, in the Academy, London, April 8.

ASTRONOMY.

How New Stars are Produced.—There is a near relationship between the spectrum of nebulæ and the spectrum of new stars. While, however, in the case of comets we have to consider but a single swarm of meteors, in the new stars there are two swarms, which may or may not be of equal density and dimensions. The spectrum of new stars is, therefore, a composite spectrum. There is, in fact, a mixed radiation and a spectrum of absorption similar to that presented by a variable star like Mira in The Whale, when it attains its maximum brightness. When the star Nova Corona was observed for the first time, in 1866, it gave a spectrum of brilliant rays on top of a spectrum of sombre rays. The phenomena of absorption resembled those which characterize such stars as Alpha of Orion, and the rays were specially those of hydrogen. There were, in the blue part of the spectrum, two rays but slightly marked, which have been identified with those found in the spectrum of comets, and which are due to carbon. The spectrum of Nova Cygni, when it was first observed in 1876, consisted of several brilliant rays and furrows. The rays of hydrogen were clearly visible. As the star became less bright, the rays became less numerous and less brilliant. What was most surprising, however, was the brilliancy of a ray in the green of the spectrum, which is generally regarded as the principal ray of the spectrum of nebulæ, in proportion as the other rays are effaced. This is precisely the phenomenon which would have been produced if the star were the result of a collision of swarms of meteors. The brightness of this ray, at the moment when Nova Cygni cooled and disappeared, is an argument in favor of the opinion that nebulæ have a relatively low temperature. The Nova Andromeda of 1885 appeared to have the same spectrum as a nebula; the most brilliant part of it was due to carbon. It appears, then, that carbon is one of the characteristic elements of the spectrum of new stars. Carbon is also one of the characteristic elements of the spectrum of swarms of meteors. These two facts prove conclusively the theory that new stars, whether they have any connection with nebulæ or not, are produced by the collision of swarms of meteors.-7. N. Lockyer, in Journal de Physique, Théorique, et Appliquée, Paris.

Latest Details of Professor Pickering's Eclipse Observations. -The latest information with regard to the observations of the total eclipse in Chili, confirms the hope that when the results of the other observations all along the line are made known, a clear sky having already been reported in Africa, the most important point for comparison with observations in Chili, there will be found facts sufficient to decide between the different hypotheses which have been advanced, or at least to materially narrow the divergence between such as remain tenable.

It seems that Professor Schaeberle and his assistants have secured fifty photographs, taken at their station a little higher up in the mountains; so large a number having been thought desirable for purposes of correction and verification.

A prominence of an estimated height of 80,000 miles is spoken of in this report. The sun-spot which I conjectured to be connected with that prominence is now so far advanced

upon the eastern limb of the sun, no other large spot having appeared upon that border, and there being none upon the opposite limb, that it is manifest that there was no other similar disturbing cause producing that eruption. This spot proves to be only half as large as that which has now passed the centre of the disk and which is large enough to admit our earth, and is surrounded by a penumbra of three times the earth's diameter. If observed prominences can be connected with spots which can be subsequently measured, it may assist in determining what are the relations between the size of a spot and the height of the prominence connected with it.

The rays of light, streamers, and filaments will help by their location and other details to test the theories of Professor Schaeberle, Professor Bigelow, and others, who have given much attention to the subject. It does not appear certain whether the apparent violent motion of the cusps was an actual motion in the sun or whether it may not have been caused by a vibration in our own atmosphere, caused by the change in temperature. A motion sufficiently rapid to be observable to the eye would be difficult to detect in the photographs, unless they were taken upon the principle upon which running horses and flying birds are photographed.

The observation of Professor Albrech, of Valparaiso (observing near the Harvard expedition), of the "fringes," needs explanation, especially as it is in accordance with observations in previous eclipses. The moon's shadow advances at the rate of half a mile per second, so that a velocity corresponding to a fast walk" could not be connected with that. How any action in the sun, or even in the moon, can produce an effect upon the earth to be measured in inches is a mystery. Yet here is a phenomenon well attested, which must be explained before we can feel that we fully understand the nature of a solar eclipse. Henry M. Parkhurst, in New York Herald, April 20.

ELECTRICITY.

Electric Transmission of Power in Sweden.-An application has been made to the Swedish Government for a concession to install an electric transmission of power from the Dal River waterfall at Mansbo to the Norberg mining-district, a distance of some ten miles. The power to be transmitted will, to begin with, be about 200 horse-power, and the potential will be about 10,000 volts. The town of Ostersund will also soon have an electric transmission of power from the Strup waterfall of the Indal River, which has not yet been untilized. The distance is about eleven miles, and the tension of the current is also to be 10,000 volts.-Engineering, London.

MINERALOGY.

Great Deposits of Bauxite. Immense deposits of bauxite have been discovered in six contiguous counties on the border line between Alabama and Georgia-the counties of Cherokee, Calhoun, and Cleburne, in Alabama, and of Floyd, Polk, and Bartow, in Georgia. These deposits are already being utilized in the production of aluminum for commercial purposes. Specimen lumps of these ores, recently analyzed at the Smithsonian Institution, show 48 per cent. of pure aluminum in the light tints and 40 per cent. in the brown shades, whereas ordinary clay contains on an average only 33 per cent.-Manufacturer, Philadelphia, April 15.

PALEONTOLOGY.

Fossil Cetaceæ in the Black Sea and Caspian Region.-According to recent researches by M. T. J. van Beneden on the fossil cetaceæ found in the regions of the Black Sea, the Caspian and the sea of Aral, the basin of the Black Sea contains all those forms which to-day characterize ocean fauna (Balænides, Ziphioides, Delphinides, and Sirenides); and taking also into account the region of rivers now flowing into that sea, it is probable that the whole of Central Europe at the end of the Miocene period was traversed by numerous arms of the sea,

the Black Sea reaching to Vienna, Linz, and even to the Lake of Constance. Towards the end of the Pliocene, or beginning of the Quaternary period, owing to considerable depressions, the Straits of the Bosphorus were formed, and the water of the Mediterranean pressed into a basin formerly connected with the Arctic Ocean. Thus the passage of a new fauna was made possible, which gradually, under favorable conditions, displaced the older. The Caspian was separated before the new forms had spread so far, and we find in it fifty-four species of fishes which are neither in the Sea of Aral nor the Black Sea, and only six species which it has in common with those two others.

PATHOLOGY.

Cholera. From the accounts that have been received from Russia, Austria, and France there cannot, we fear, be any doubt as to cholera having reappeared, in obedience to those influences of the seasons which tend to call forth, revitalize, and develop it into activity. Cholera, all the world over, comports itself in much the same way, and its epidemic manifestations occur in obedience to some natural laws which cannot fail to be recognized eventually. A recrudescence of the disease-in the shape of localized outbreaks and sporadic cases at different places-during this season is the frequent precursor of its epidemic prevalence later on. From Russia we learn that it has broken out in the St. Petersburg district and in the Western provinces. It is said to be raging in Russian Podolia, whence, according to reports from Vienna, it has been introduced into two villages in Galicia-at Zalucze and Kudrynce on the Russian frontier-by individuals who have lately been in Podolia. Both villages have been isolated to prevent the inhabitants from carrying it elsewhere. A later telegram from Vienna states that cholera has been imported from Russia into another Austrian frontier village, and caused five cases and two deaths. Fears are very naturally entertained that the epidemic in the interior of Russia will manifest itself with renewed intensity when the warm weather sets in. At Lorient, on the French coast, between Brest and Nantes, it has caused nearly seventy deaths in the course of the last fortnight, and the epidemic is still extending. The type of the disease in France is stated to have been milder than in Russia and Germany, but it is estimated that there have been about two hundred cases of cholera in Lorient during the last two weeks.— Lancet, London, April 3.

PHYSIOLOGY.

A New Use for Photography.-Thirty years ago, my friend Chaveau and I made known to the Academy of Sciences some experiments intended to establish the mechanism of the heart and the succession of movements in that organ. Our researches were made by an indirect method, which consisted of recording by special apparatus the variations in the pressure of blood in the auricles, the ventricles, and the aorta, as well as the changes in the force with which the ventricles at any moment pressed against the wall of the breast which covers them. These experiments, of which some were controlled by others, showed the effects of the movements of the heart, but did not make known either the displacement or the changes in form in the auricles and ventricles which in turn are filled and emptied. So that, in order to obtain a complete knowledge of the physiology of the heart, it was necessary to observe that organ exposed on some large animal in order to see the displacement and changes of form in its cavities, and it was also necessary to hold the heart in your hands to appreciate the periodical changes in its consistency. These last are no longer necessary. By means of what is called chronophotography, that is, photographs taken at very short intervals, I have been able to obtain during one cardiac revolution a series of successive images, by which you can follow the phases of movement and the changes of aspect in the different parts of the heart. Still further, chronophotography enables you to follow with your eyes the mechanism of the pulsation of the heart. In this we have a precious complement of the graphic method. Photography furnishes documents of another order and enables us to know the changes of aspect which the eye would not have time to follow.-M. Marey, of the Institute, in Bulletin de la Société Française de Photographie, Paris.

Even the great minds of classic antiquity, Aristotle and others, held that frogs and eels were generated in wet mud, and gadflies in decaying flesh; and in comparatively modern times, when the fallacy of these theories had been demonstrated, it was still held that spontaneous generation might occur in organic infusions. The first to attack the great problem of thè transition from the inorganic to the organic scientifically was Schwann. Twenty years later, Nägeli published his micellar theory, and many years later (1884) he expanded it in his Mechanical-Physiological Theory of Heredity." Nägeli was not only a believer in spontaneous generation, but in evolution also; but he differed essentially from Darwin and Haeckel in respect that he did not believe in the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence as the law of organic evolution, but, on the contrary, held that the diversity of existing life-types to-day is due to development along lines predetermined by inherent law of the organism, and in no way by the modifying influence of environing conditions, which may produce a measurable lateral variation without prejudice to the predetermined type.

Nägeli's system was received by the scientific world with profound respect, but it is now pronounced fallacious, not only in matters of detail but fundamentally. His prime assailant was J. Wiesner. This distinguished physiologist pointed out that in the first place the theory of spontaneous generation is a mere hypothesis, unsupported by experience, and that every effort to generate life in devitalized media, had proved a failure. All experience upholds Virchow's saying: Omnis cellula e cellula. Moreover, through the admirable and painstaking researches of numerous investigators, it has been further determined, not only that every cell springs from a cell, but every nucleus from an antecedent nucleus, every starch grain from an antecedent starch grain, and so on, every living individuality of the cell springing only from its like, by "division."

On this system of division, Wiesner bases his theory not only of the evolution of the organism from the egg, of its growth and development, but also of its phylogenic character. In the course of his researches Wiesner was guided to the discovery of the smallest elementary organ of the organism, the 'plasom," and further to the conclusion that the individual cell, the nucleus, the protoplasm, the cromatophore, and cellwall, severally consist not of an aggregate of inert molecules, but of vital organized structures. The plasom, too, is not to be regarded as only a crystalline aggregate, but as an an elementary organ, chemically and mechanically active. The plasom, like every more complex organ, absorbs nutrition and is capable of division. The growth and division of the plasom is the fundamental condition of growth and division of the several cells, and also of the whole organism. When an animal grows from the egg, or a plant from the seed, the plasoms increase and group themselves continually; by which process a portion of them lose their divisibility, as for example in horns and bone, in timber and in bark, etc. Another portion retains its power of division under all circumstances and constitutes in its entirety the seed-plasma. On this latter depends the regenerative power of the individual, and every cell or cell-complex which contains a sufficiency of seed-plasma

is capable, under favorable conditions, of reproducing the whole organism, either sexually or otherwise.

The inheritance of individual characteristics is due simply to the fact that the new individual originates in divisions of the plasoms of the seed-plasma, and it follows, of course, that the new plasoms have the same organization as those from which they sprang. This organization is not, however, rigid, immutable; it possesses, on the contrary, a certain capacity of adaptation to external conditions of environment. On the modifiability of the plasoms in the course of phylogenic evolution depends the possibility of the origination of new races and species by adaptation and survival of the fittest. In addition to the capacity for assimilation, growth, and propagation, we must also ascribe to the plasom sensation and thought, that the whole capacities of the perfect organism may exist in nuce in its smallest part.

Thus apprehended, Wiesner's plasoms are something immeasurably greater than Nägeli's Micellæ or crystalline molecular aggregates, or, as Wiesner puts it, the difference is that between an organism and unorganized matter.

According to Wiesner, the idea of a plasom being evolved spontaneously from inorganic matter, is simply unthinkable; for, he says, the most complicated grouping of molecules and their movements, or in other words, the most complicated mechanism could never produce any combination that lives and feels.

Confronted with this logical conclusion, we have no other course with regard to the problem of the origin of life than to give it up, and to regard the plasom as equally as old as the atoms of inorganic matter.

NOTE.-According to our experience, living matter is incapable of existing under all conditions. There is, for example, a maximum and minimum limit of temperature beyond which, on either side, the capacity of existence ceases. This fact alone is a sufficient reply to the theory that the plasoms are as old as the atoms of inorganic matter. The problem of the origin of life is no nearer its solution than before.-Editor Die Natur.

RELIGIOUS.

RUSSIA, ROME, AND THE OLD CATHOLICS. "O. K." (OLGA NOVIKOFF).

Condensed for THE LITERary Digest from a Paper in
New Review, London, April.

S Credo quia impossibile seems to be the favourite watchword of many Englishmen when Russia is concerned, so Baron Münchausen, who seems to have come to life again with additional deformities under the alias“ E. B. Lanin," naturally selected my country as the field of his sickening romances. The clever French saying, “A beau conter qui vient de loin,' ought to be put in place of his initials. However, I am not writing of Münchausen, but of a much more distinguished writer, who possesses the somewhat rare capacity of occasionally speaking the truth. I refer to Monsignor Vanutelli, a Roman ecclesiastic of some eminence, who recently traveled from Odessa to St. Petersburg to persuade the Russian nation to submit to the yoke of the Bishop of Rome. It was a "wildgoose chase," no doubt; but it was not much more mad than the visit which my ingenuous friend, Mr. Stead, paid to the Vatican to convert the Pope to the Salvation Army. Vanutelli did not convert Russia, but his observations led him to pen the following significant sentences:

"Nowhere is the title of 'Holy' so true an expression of the realty as in speaking of Russia. In that country Christianity is not simply tolerated or permitted; but it is official and dominant, and bound up in the very heart of the people. In Russia, Orthodoxy (Pravoslavie) forms as it were the very essence of their being, their highest ideal in the past as in the future, and their greatest glory in the present.

"I cannot understand how it is that so many persons who visit Russia, write about it afterwards without alluding to the main

characteristic of the people. Without an appreciation of their religious aspect any description of Russia must be only incomplete. The Christian idea is predominant everywhere, and nowhere does Christ reign to such an extent as in Russia.”

But this distinguished Roman observer endeavors to assuage his grief that this most Christian nation in Europe could not be annexed to the Holy See, by reflecting that the schism of the Russians was due solely to political considerations, and never was formally sanctioned by the people or the Church. Of course not. You cannot sanction, formally or otherwise, what does not exist. There is no schism in Russia. The schism is elsewhere. But as Mons. Vanutelli comes from that ' elsewhere," he cannot admit the orthodoxy of our Church. To give some kind of substance to his fantastic delusion, the distinguished prelate prints what he professes to be a report of his conversation with Mr. Pobédonostzeff, but which is one of the biggest canards I ever met with, even in this country, and which indicates that nothing is too absurd for Western credulity. Thus the Procurator of the Holy Synod (often described, by way of oratorical embellishment, as the great Inquisitor of the Greek Church) is made to say:

"There is no doubt that the Russian Church would unite herself to the See of Rome, without the smallest difficulty, if such union were desired by the Government."

Such grotesque assertions do not deserve long refutations. Neither Mr. Pobédonostzeff, nor any Greek Orthodox, could ever by any possibility express such monstrous views as those quoted-not even for the sake of sarcastic response or bitter irony. Greek Orthodoxy is the soul of our Government and the great link between the Government and the people. Devotion to our faith is immeasurably superior to any worldly consideration. Russia is more of a Church than a State, more of a religion than a nationality. Our religion is our nationality. We are first Greek Orthodox, then Slavs or Russians. Our tenacity is proverbial, and there are millions of us who know how to die, without phrases or self-advertisements, rather then to betray our Orthodox faith.

Besides, as there can be no head of the Christian Church but Jesus Christ, the Bishop of Rome is obviously schismatic and heretic. If there were some of us who doubted this before the dogma of infallibility, no one can doubt it to-day. The promulgation of that decree of the Vatican Council made manifest the schismatical and heretical condition of the Roman Church. Nor can any Russian Orthodox even discuss the possibility of any union with Rome until Rome has returned to the primitive Orthodox Catholic faith, from which she has degenerated to her present deplorable condition. It is the fashion in some quarters to speak of Russia as despotic, merely because our form of Government is autocratic. In the wider field of the Church, Russia stands as the defender of liberty against the arbitrary pretensions of the Roman Curia.

Englishmen who love liberty may well rejoice that there exists in Eastern Europe a nation, which Mons. Vanutelli describes as the greatest, strongest, and most solid power in the world; where the largest portion of the people are profoundly attached to the Government which represents to them their nationality in all its strength and glory; whose people have not been touched by the revolutionary principles which are wrecking by degrees all the kingdoms of Europe. Even Vanutelli can see that Russia has a great mission before her; first, the destruction of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, and with it Mohammedanism; secondly, the crushing of the revolutionary spirit which is invading all other European countries; and thirdly, the arresting of the extension of Jewish influence, which is making ever-increasing progress elsewhere. Our autocratic Czar, wielding, with the effective decisiveness of a single will, the combined forces of a hundred millions of Orthodox believers, is the protector of religious liberty against the enslaving influences of the autocratic Pope.

As the recent Conference of Lucerne has reminded Europe,