Chapter V: Part 5

The ease with which Taxil succeeded in duping so many prominent representatives of the papal hierarchy naturally disturbed the equanimity of the most intelligent Catholics, especially in Germany, and caused them to sound a note of alarm. How is it possible, they asked themselves, for a large body of educated men, claiming to be the spiritual guides of the people, to become the victims of so plump an imposition? Is it not due to radical defects in the development and discipline of the intellectual faculties? Nearly a century ago Madame de Staël remarked that “since the Reformation the Protestant universities stand unquestionably higher than the Catholic, and the whole literary fame of Germany emanates from these institutions”; and this opinion has been quoted and indorsed by the unimpeachable authority of an eminent Catholic theologian, the late Professor Döllinger.[J] Recently another Catholic, Dr. Hermann Schell, Professor of Apologetics in the University of Würzburg, has called attention to the latest statistics of religious denominations in Germany, showing the inferiority of Catholics, as indicated by their comparative lack of interest in higher education and the smaller percentage of them in the learned professions.[K] In this connection he refers to Taxil’s successful exposure of the intellectual deficiencies, which render the hierophants of Roman Catholicism incapable of resisting the most palpable delusions of superstition. His two “tracts for the times,” as they might fitly be termed, _Der Katholicismus als Princip des Fortschritts_ and _Die neue Zeit und der alte Glaube_, maintain that Catholicism should be progressive, and that the old faith can remain a living force in each new era only by adapting itself to every real advance of mankind in knowledge and thus becoming reanimated by the spirit of the age. Professor Schell expresses his sympathy with the movement in favor of greater freedom of thought and independence of research, known as “Americanism” in the Catholic Church, and regards its extension to the Old World as a vital necessity.[L]

[J] _Cf._ Ignaz von Döllinger. Sein Leben auf Grund seines
schriftlichen Nachlasses dargestellt von J. Friedrich.
München: Beck, 1899, vol. i, p. 77.

[K] In confirmation of this statement we may cite the
statistical tables of Dr. Von Mayr for 1896, giving the
number in every ten thousand of the different denominations
attending the gymnasia or classical schools, the scientific
schools with Latin, and the scientific schools without
Latin:

Protestants 27.7 13.2 12.5
Catholics 21.4 3.8 6.7
Dissidents 17.7 13.2 18.7
Jews 173.7 65.8 92.7

The Catholic students in the gymnasia are mostly candidates
for the priesthood. “Dissidents” are members of free
religious associations. A noteworthy feature is the large
proportion of Jews, and curiously enough this laudable
characteristic is made by anti-Semitic agitators a ground
of crimination and used to prejudice the public mind. Not
long since a demagogue of that ilk in Berlin charged the
Jews with putting forth every effort for the education
of their sons, in order that they might more effectually
compete with Christians; “therefore down with the Jews!”

[L] Since these lines were written Professor Schell has been
disciplined and threatened with excommunication by the
See of Rome. We regret to be obliged to add that he did
not have the courage to maintain his opinions, but made a
public recantation of them. The cause of progress in the
Catholic Church has now found a new and apparently more
fearless advocate in a Bavarian priest, Dr. Müller, of
Munich, whose pamphlet on Reformkatholizismus can hardly
escape the interdict of the papal hierarchy.

It is creditable to the Catholic prelates in the United States that they were not among the foolish birds caught with the lime laid by Leo Taxil. Indeed, the Bishop of Charleston went to Rome for the express purpose of warning Leo XIII against this trickster, but was sharply reprehended and admonished to be silent. A similar rebuke was given to the Apostolic Vicar of Gibraltar for denying the existence there of Tubal-Cain’s subterranean laboratory for manufacturing microbes.

The _Breviarium Romanum_, the daily use of which, as a manual of devotion and edification, is enjoined by the Pope on the clergy, is full of legends which are recorded as historical facts, and quite equal in absurdity to Taxil’s most extravagant and fantastic inventions. The tales there told of the miracles wrought by saints, their communion with angels, and their combats with devils may have easily suggested many incidents narrated in The Devil in the Nineteenth Century and the Memoirs of Diana Vaughan. It is no wonder that minds accustomed to accept the marvels of hagiology as actual events should be readily deceived by a clever caricature of them, especially when appealing to a prejudice so absurd and yet so strong as that entertained by the papacy against Freemasonry. It would seem from many indications that the Romish Church, as an ecclesiastical organization, bears about the same relation to contemporary culture that Roman paganism did to the best thought of the period when Lucian wrote his sprightly dialogues and Lucretius his genial and comprehensive didactic poem _De Rerum Natura_. Is it doomed to the same fate, or has it, as Professor Schell and Dr. Müller assert, a saving, recuperative power?

* * * * *

Of the geological age of the building stones used in the United
States, George P. Merrill observes, in his report to the Maryland
Geological Survey, that few stones are used to any extent that are
of later date than the Triassic, and few, if any, of our marbles
are younger than the Silurian, while nearly all our granites, as
now quarried, belong at least to Palæozoic or Archæan times. Stones
of later age than Triassic are, so far as relates to the eastern
United States, so friable or so poor in color as to have little
value.

GENUINE STARCH FACTORIES.

BY BYRON D. HALSTED, SC. D.,

RUTGERS COLLEGE.

Much in this world is neither upon first nor last analysis true to name. From the corner grocery we buy a pound of starch in a rectangular package highly decorated with lithograph and lettering, setting forth the excellences of the product, “superior to all others,” and manufactured, with the utmost care, by Messrs. So-and-So. The fact is that the big seven-story establishment did not make a grain of the starch, and the best that can be claimed is a satisfactory method of bringing the product already formed into the present acceptable condition.

But it is not the purpose of this paper to decry the refineries, whether they be of starch, sugar, or this or that of a hundred natural products, but to direct attention to the source of that very common and, it may be safely said, indispensable substance known to the English-speaking people as starch.

It will be no new surprise to state, by way of introduction to the subject, that starch is the ordinary everyday product of ordinary everyday plants. So humble a vegetable as the potato has gained its way into all lands of the more civilized peoples almost solely because it has a habit of storing away, in large underground stems, a vast amount of starch. Let this provident tendency disappear in this plant for a single season, and the crop growers would discard it from their list of remunerative plants, while millions of people would turn with dismay to some other source of a daily supply of starch. What this change in the nature of a single kind of plant would mean to the human race words can not describe. If the famine in Ireland of 1845 and some later years, induced by a rot in the potato, is any index, the misery would be something worse than we should care to even dream of. When there is a shortage of starch in India, a distress follows that is felt through the bonds of sympathy, if in no other way, the whole world round. Let rice fail to mature its grain, which means, in short, not to store its starch in available form for man, and the dependent race is brought to the ghostly condition of starvation and thrown upon the charity of those people whose starch is in their grain elevators, sacks, and barrels almost without number.

Starch, it would seem from this, is the prime food element of the human family, the chief factor in the upbuilding of a race, because a fundamental aliment of our bodies.

If the starch factories do not make, in the true sense, the product of their mills, it may be to the point to consider how this all-important substance comes into existence. The organic chemist tells us that starch is a ternary compound, and this agrees closely with the definition laid down by the dictionaries, only they add that it is odorless, tasteless, and insoluble in water. It is one of the proximate principles of plants, and is stored in the form of granules wonderfully variable in size and shape, but each kind having a type that is adhered to with much regularity. For example, the ordinary potato (_Solanum tuberosum_ L.) produces a starch granule that is characterized by a form resembling the shell of the oyster. Fig. 1 is from a camera drawing of a cell from the center of a potato, with portions of adjoining cells, all of which were packed full of starch, a few grains only being represented.

Starch is acted upon differently by reagents, one of the leading tests for it being a solution of iodine. A drop of a very weak solution will determine the presence of starch in a cuff or shirt front by leaving a blue spot or streak where the iodine has been applied. By means of this reagent the student of plant tissues is readily able to locate starch when present in any slice of tissue he may have made. He would, for example, find much more starch in the tuber of the potato than in any other portion of the plant, and there the grains will be found many times larger than in the stem or the cells of the green leaves. Of the relation of the starch in the leaves to that in the underground stem something may be said later in this paper.

In the corn plant the starch is stored chiefly in the grain, and not in the subterranean portions, as in the potato. The granules of the corn starch are much smaller than those of the potato, as indicated by Fig. 2, which is from a camera drawing of a cell from a grain of corn and made to the same scale as Fig. 1. The granules are oval and not much marked with striæ or lines, but chemically the substance is the same in both cases.

Another leading starch is that of wheat, the form of the grains of which is shown in Fig. 3. While somewhat larger than the corn-starch granules, they are not otherwise widely different.

One could scarcely overlook the starch produced by the rice plant, for it feeds more people than the potato, corn, or wheat. The relative size and form of the rice-starch granules are shown in Fig. 4. It is seen that the grains are not large, and with a strong tendency to break up into small angular pieces.

There are almost as many forms of starch as plants producing it, some of them being very odd in shape. Thus the tapioca starch has a characteristic form, as also the sago; but it is not the purpose here to more than call attention to the form in which the substance under consideration is laid down in plants. The student of food adulterations is an expert in the detection of starches, and, with his microscope and skill, is able to decide how much of one kind of starch and how much of another is offered in the product under examination. It is a matter of congratulation that Nature has set herself so strongly against fraud in food stuffs as to record the origin of each grain of starch in the grain itself.

And that brings us to a consideration of that origin. We must accord to plants the exalted prerogative of being the exclusive and universal starch-formers in the world. Whether we note the growth of the potato tubers or the plumping out of the grains of corn, wheat, or rice, the same fact remains that storehouses are being filled with the same organic compound. There must be many preliminary steps before this process of storing is complete, and for these we need to seek elsewhere in the growing plant.

Even the most careless observer can not but be at home with the fact that the whole port and bearing of ordinary plants is for sun exposure. They rise from the ground as closely placed stems of grass or less neighborly orchard or forest trees, and hang out their leaves to catch the sun. The economy of substance is so well studied that there is a very large exposure at a minimum of expenditure of tissue. In short, the leaves are the organs for association with the sunlight. They reach toward the sun where light is scanty, as in the window, and even turn their faces to the orb of day, shifting the position hour by hour from sunrise to nightfall. The rapidity with which we come to the fundamental fact that leaves are for the sun almost surprises one. The purpose is as easily inferred, but the steps in the process are not so quickly taken. The facts that leaves are _par excellence_ the starch factories and the sunlight the inobtrusive chemist are granted, and it remains only to show something of the steps of proof that science may have discovered.

We need, therefore, to consider starch from the standpoint of its composition, and upon this the chemists are fairly well agreed. It consists of three elements, with their atoms so arranged that the molecule of starch has the composition of six parts of carbon, ten of hydrogen, and five of oxygen, or, to express the formula in terse chemical terms, it stands C₆H₁₀O₅. If we can account for the bringing of these atoms together in the production of a single molecule of starch the laboratory has been explored and the secret is ours, even if we can not put it to practical use in our so-called “starch factories.”

The independent plant, beyond serious question, gets its food from outside itself. There are two sources for these substances--namely, the soil-water bathing the absorbing roots, and the atmosphere, with which the aërial branches and their leaves are constantly surrounded. From the soil come the water and all the salts, ash constituents, and the like that may be dissolved therein, while the gases of the atmosphere bring, among its chief contributions, a constant and, in an always exceedingly diluted form, the carbon dioxide, or, sometimes called, the carbonic-acid gas. This compound, familiar to us as a product of combustion, fermentation, and decay, is composed of carbon and oxygen, and has the symbol CO₂ associated with it by chemists.

In short, for the formation of our starch the water (H₂O) from the soil and the CO₂ of the atmosphere, when brought together, may be made to combine with the formation of starch. A single diagram, while not perhaps an absolute statement of fact, may serve to represent the final result:

{6CO₂
{ = C₆H₁₀O₅ + 12O.
{5H₂O

In other words, the six molecules of carbon dioxide and five of water combine with the formation of one molecule of starch and the liberation of twelve atoms of oxygen.

This driving off of such a large amount of oxygen, entirely against the whole tendency of that element, it is assumed, is at the expenditure of much force. The only one adequate to this work is solar energy, and this is abundantly at hand. That we need not seek further for this power is proved by many and conclusive tests. Vegetable physiologists to-day are able not only to locate the sun as the chemist, that effects the changes necessary for the production of starch, but can show in what cells and portions of those cells the forces effect the synthesis. The chlorophyll granules in the living cell are the microscopic laboratories in which a silent chemist, powerful beyond all measurements, builds out of inorganic materials the food substance of the whole world of animals and plants.

Fig. 5 is an attempt to present the above statements as to photo-synthesis in plants in such a form that it may appeal to the eye of the reader. A bit of maple twig is shown with one leaf in position. Passing up the stem in the young wood is the crude sap from the soil to the leaf. There is a downward flow of elaborated sap in the inner bark also represented. Solar energy is indicated by the wave lines as playing upon the upper side of the leaf, while the direction of the carbon dioxide is shown by the dotted lines entering from both above and below the leaf. Water of transportation is indicated as being given off, and upon a dry, hot day this is considerable, which, as it vaporizes in the tissue, tends to keep the latter cool. Lastly, with the formation of starch there is the escape of oxygen set free from the broken molecule of carbon dioxide or water or both in the formation of the starch.

Fig. 6 is a similar attempt to show the process of starch formation with the use of a portion of the leaf in section as it might appear under the microscope. The under portion of the leaf is seen as having openings in the skin, through which the gases and vapors pass, and the middle portion above shows the porous nature of that part that is most active in synthesis. The small oval bodies in all the cells, except those of the upper and under epidermis, represent the chlorophyll granules, the special seat of the special activities which result in the formation of the carbohydrate, familiar to all as starch. To the right is a leaf vein, through which the crude sap (_c. s._) reaches the synthetic cells, and the elaborated sap (_e. s._) descends to places where it is needed for growth or for storage.

With the above facts in mind, there is no wonder at the activity that may reside in a field of corn during a bright day in August. Starch is being made almost by the ton daily, and, if the conditions favor, the next month will find a rich harvest for the husbandman who has assisted in supplying the conditions for the desired output of the leading carbohydrate.

The genuine starch factories of the world are exceedingly small and equally numerous, and, with the sunlight as the active force, each green cell may contribute to the world’s gain in the food substances that enable all creatures to live and move and enjoy a fairly comfortable existence.

TRADE CORPORATIONS IN CHINA.

BY M. MAURICE COURANT.

The remarkable longevity of a large number of business houses in China is not due solely to the general conditions of society or to those which are peculiar to the commercial class, but their stability and their fame rest upon a special organization, under which they are united in groups. It is customary for all the houses possessing the same specialty to form an association which I shall call a corporation, reserving to myself the privilege of pointing out a few exceptions to the rule. These corporations, which seem to date from at least three centuries back, are difficult subjects to study. Various in type, formed by the individuals interested, without the state having had anything to do with their regulations or even perhaps authorized them, they exist by force of custom and live conformably to their traditions, while some, I have been told, have written regulations and even, perhaps, archives--which they have not thought fit to communicate to the public. What is to be learned of them has, therefore, to be deduced from their visible transactions.

The corporation fixes the minimum price of articles of sale, and has secret agents to watch that no house takes less, thereby setting bounds to competition and preventing the injurious depreciation of goods. Only the public suffers from the existence of the minimum, but it does not seem to perceive it, and the Government never interferes except in respect to the price of grain, for which it fixes a maximum, and in times of great stress sells from its own granaries. The corporation, too, as represented in the banks and loan offices, fixes the rates of interest to be paid or received, and the kinds of securities and moneys that shall be accepted. In short, it adjusts the general regulations of business transactions, and defends the common interests of all those associated in it. If one of them is implicated in a judicial proceeding of general interest the corporation sustains him with its credit and its funds. It further takes in hand injuries to the interests of its associates. In 1883 the tea merchants’ corporation of Hankow suspecting frauds by the agents of certain foreign houses, asked those houses to designate themselves some foreigner to superintend the weighings. Notwithstanding the good reputation of the corporation and the moderation of its requests, the foreign houses refused. All transactions were suspended, and the official in authority declared that he could not compel the merchants to sell contrary to their wish, and the foreign houses were eventually obliged to yield, one at a time.

The corporations likewise watch the transactions of their members, oppose fraud which might harm the good name of the association so far that the silversmiths will not permit one of their number to sell alloyed jewelry, even when the purchaser knows it is such. Some see that the taxes and duties on production are regularly and properly paid. Others, in the interest of the stability of the houses, forbid all fictitious sales and purchases, and most of the stock operations and a large number of commercial transactions which seem very simple to us would not be tolerated by them. The custom of selling short having been introduced upon the silver exchange in Peking a few years ago, a censor reported it as a kind of gambling, and the Government interdicted the operation--a very rare example of official intervention. Under a similar old-fashioned view, the corporation of bankers inquires into the total amount of the notes issued by its members. Every banker and every broker is free to issue notes, and little attention is paid to the precautions required by the law. But the corporation has an infallible means of restricting extravagance in the emission of bills. If a house is going so fast as to be in danger of compromising its credit and perhaps endangering the capital of others associated with it, an order is given, all the notes are thrown before the public, and the imprudent bank has to suspend its payments and retire.

The corporation further maintains its reputation and keeps on good terms with public powers by expenditures on ceremonials and charities. Every year it appropriates a sum for the opening of the kitchens from which rice and millet broths are distributed to the poor of Peking. In case of famine or inundation, the quotas of the corporations do not have to be waited for, while the more prominent commercial men also contribute largely under their own names. They will subscribe for a testimonial to a mandarin who has done good service, will help prepare the road over which an imperial procession is to pass, and will contribute to the pageantry of popular religious ceremonials.

Each corporation has its patron divinity, who is the object of a special cult. With one it is the god of riches; with another Koan Yu, god of war; with others a spirit of more limited competency, like Lou Pan, a famous mechanician of the time of Confucius, now patron of the carpenters. Adored in every shop by all the patrons and clerks, the festivals of the protecting genius are celebrated by the whole corporation at fixed dates. To some divinities a sacrifice of meats and incense is offered in each warehouse, after which all the chiefs and the men employed take part, while the spirit is supposed to be present. To others, more rarely, a more bountiful sacrifice is made in a temple, and the banquet, held in a large hall, is enlivened by dramatic entertainments. The patron is also duly honored in the celebration of the general feasts of the Chinese people.

The corporations have tribunals of arbitration and a common treasury, but the method of operation of those departments is among the things they do not reveal to the public. I have only learned a few general facts on the subject. The corporations intervene, I have been told, in the disputes of the members and to prevent dishonest dealings and attempts to cheat one another, but I have not learned that they have any real judiciary authority. Their treasury is sustained by means of assessments and fines, and loans may be contracted on its account, for the salt merchants of Tientsin are still paying interest on a number of debts contracted by the corporation in the last century.

Great differences might be expected to exist between the corporations in respect to these points and many others. They have been constituted at different epochs, independently of one another, and are similar only in their essential features. The minimum price fixed by the assembly is not equally imperative in all. Thus, the price fixed by the fur merchants at the beginning of the winter does not bind the members. In most branches of commerce all the houses composing the corporation are on a footing of substantial equality, though, of course, the large banks prevail over the small brokers, but there is no unlikeness in the business or the situation. The policy of the tea trade is mainly controlled in Peking by the houses of the families Fang and Oou. They fix the price, determine the equivalence of weight (the standard is a pound of four ounces instead of sixteen), and lead the corporation. In fact, the retail dealers use their capital in the decoration of their shops with gilding and sculpture, at a cost of between sixteen hundred and two thousand dollars, while the goods are lent them by one of the importers, who holds the decoration as security, so that the whole corporation is in the hands of these two families. This is a special condition, and there is nothing else like it, even among other importers of southern products. While most branches of trade are independent of official action, slaughter houses, of which there are only five in Peking, have to be authorized by the Government. A religious motive may be at the bottom of this restriction, the large cattle being reserved for the imperial sacrifices. Moreover, the killing of animals has been interdicted at different times, and even now the slaughter houses are ordered closed, as an act of public penitence, in times of drought.

The loan houses also need an official authorization. They pay a tax on their operations to the local authorities, and are divided into three classes, according to the importance of their business. Those of the first class receive deposits from the authorities of various sums, on which they pay interest, the administration reasoning that by helping them increase their capital and enlarge their business it will be doing a philanthropic work and assisting the people. These loan offices are not at all like our pawnbrokers’ shops, but are a credit institution, to which the middle class as well as the poor Chinaman has constant recourse. Being conducted on equitable terms and serving their convenience in various ways, they render great services to the Chinese people, and have become necessary to their life, and this explains the departure of the Government from its usual policy of non-interference to supervise and favor them. China has, further, large and small capitalists, and numerous credit establishments very much like ours. They may be classified as exchange offices, banks, and banks of discount. The last are at Peking, where they were founded a few decades ago by some men from Chan-Si. Their single industry is trading notes in all China and some of its dependencies. They have no monopoly, for some of the larger banks and more important traders were all doing the same; but they have regulated the business, extended it to more places, and have almost entirely suppressed the transportation of money in bulk.

The banks of exchange perform a variety of functions on a restricted scale, charging two per cent for exchanges, issuing notes without any supervision, and lending money at two per cent a month in normal times. They are not, however, always able to pay their notes at sight, and it is well, therefore, not to keep them too long. In the provinces a bank usually accepts only its own notes. In Peking some well-known signatures are accepted everywhere after examination by an expert, who places his seal on the note he declares good, charges a fee for each verification, and is responsible for his mistakes.

The large banks, by accepting or refusing the notes of any house or by throwing money or _sapiques_ on the market, rule in the corporation and have the whole fate of the market in their hands. The four Hengs, by the amount of their reserve, the solidity of their credit, and the number of their branches or correspondents, have no rivals in north China. All exchange operations are carried on in the money market, which is held every day in the south-eastern part of the city, on the street, near the Tauist Temple, where all the houses in Peking are represented, and every one takes care to be so, lest he be thought in default. When the rate is fixed the news is dispatched by couriers, pigeons, etc., to all whom it concerns. The couriers of the corporation, who communicate with the brokers and bankers, are also the confidential agents of the syndics, are acquainted with the amounts of the emissions of each house, know whether a certain patron is really ill or only feigning, and by their reports decide who shall be boycotted or declared insolvent. All this goes on in full liberty, without surveillance by the state, without any tax on the transactions, and without any other interference than the prohibition of fictitious dealings. The corn market is in the same way the almost exclusive domain of the corn corporation, the state never interfering except in the case of a famine in the region.

Besides the merchants’ corporations, there exist also corporations of artisans. The embroiderers, the makers of _cloisonné_, the tanners, and the carpenters have theirs. The carriers and the boatmen, who, before the opening of the railway, had the monopoly of transportation between Peking and the provinces without forming associations, met at their respective inns and established rules and rates for their business. Informal organizations, varying among the different towns in their degrees of development, exist among the barbers--who at Peking meet every year for a sacrifice and a banquet--the chair-bearers, and the _jinrikisha_ men, and so every city has its corporations and associations which are not like those of the next city.

Some branches of trade have no corporations, and the peasants, when they come to town to sell their produce, trade on their own account, for the best terms they can get, and have to accept, in the market, an organization the origin of which is forgotten. Every year, on the appearance of each sort of crop, the _King ki_ of the market, having agreed with the dealers, fixes the minimum price of the commodity for the season. He also polices the market. The function of _King ki_ is the property of the person who exercises it, who has bought it from his predecessor and will sell it to his successor by private contract, and nobody contests his right. In the market for _azaroles_ the position is hereditary. The monopoly of the corporations is often complicated with a provincial question. The Chinaman regards every man who was born in another district as a foreigner--still more if he is of another province. Those who are of the same local origin, on the other hand, stand by one another. Hence it has come to pass that some trades have been monopolized by the people of some one province. Most of the bankers were originally from Chan-Si; all the great merchants came from Anhoei. The people of Chan-tung have three special occupations in Peking. They have the exclusive privilege of killing pigs and retailing meat. They are the only water carriers, each one having his well on the public highway, his watering place for horses and mules, and his district where he sells water without permitting the people to provide for themselves elsewhere. Such privileges are consecrated by usage and zealously defended by their holders, and respect for them is enforced, when necessary, by the authorities. Associations are formed, also, even among the coolies who work on the docks.

These details show by how great a variety of forms all the corporations assure the same result--the organization of labor. We see also how they extend beyond commerce. The Chinaman is in fact a social being bound closely to his fellows--of the family, province, trade, or class--by every tie and in every sphere of life. He is never a man living by himself and for himself, and is not accustomed to independence. Hence the authority of the corporation, instead of seeming strange, is a necessity to him. Consequently the corporation has the right, by universal consent, to exact obedience from its members, and to compel those who would stay out to come into it.--_Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue des Deux Mondes._

* * * * *

M. L. Azoulay suggests, in the _Revue Scientifique_, that the
invitation given to Señor Rámon y Cajal, the celebrated Spanish
neurologist, to visit the United States and attend the celebration
of the tenth anniversary of Clark University, furnishes a good
example for France to follow. “It causes grievous chagrin to
me to think,” he says, “that while Germany, England, Austria,
Switzerland, and the United States are regularly accustomed
to invite to their scientific ceremonials, of which there are
more than one every year, students of other countries who have
illustrated any branch of human knowledge, France, formerly so
hospitable, refuses these international appeals.”

* * * * *

At the recent meeting of the British Archæological Association,
at Buxton, Dr. Brushfield described the prehistoric circle of
Arbor Low as, upon evidence which he cited, the earliest neolithic
monument in Britain. There are thirty-two stones in the circle, all
now lying prostrate, but they must originally have been erect. The
dolmen in the center is now level with the ground. The mound and
ditch--the latter being inside, between the mound and the stone
circle--are in a very perfect condition, notwithstanding the lapse
of time. The work has two openings--on the northeast and southwest.

Editor’s Table.

_SCIENCE AND DOGMA._

After many uncomfortable turnings in his narrow theological quarters, the eminent biologist, Professor St. George Mivart, seems to have made up his mind that he may as well, before he dies, know what it is to enjoy the air of liberty. For many years he has been pining for this, and almost inviting the authorities of the Church to give him his passports. The Church was not anxious, however, to quarrel with a man of recognized ability and wide knowledge, and therefore writings which might well have been expected to give serious umbrage were allowed to pass unnoticed. The professor then made a most audacious raid upon the venerable doctrine that there remains for the majority of mankind a place of unutterable and eternal misery. He ventured to speak of The Happiness in Hell, maintaining that, while the inhabitants of that abode would always have a profound and harrowing sense of having missed the supreme happiness of heaven, they would still be able to occupy themselves in a variety of ways which would give them a certain amount of happiness, just as in this world a man may carry a profound sorrow in his heart and yet, under the stimulus of business or society or intellectual study, have his attention happily diverted for many hours every day. At this point the authorities drew the line. It is related of an old Scotch lady that, referring to the Universalists, she said, “Those people say that all men will be saved at last, but _we_ hope for better things.” Whether this was the point of view of the ecclesiastical powers or not, certain it is that they refused to sanction the notion of any happiness, of howsoever humble an order, in the abode of gloom, and gave a peremptory order to the professor to take it all back. Well, he took it back as a matter of submission to those whom he regarded as his lawful spiritual guides, but the submission did not give him rest. If ecclesiastical authority was entitled to respect on one side, science was urging even stronger claims on the other. In August last, as we now learn, the professor wrote to the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation of the Index, explaining how he wished his submission to be understood, and as he and the prefect could not come to an agreement about it, he withdrew the submission altogether. Then he resolved to relieve his mind. It took two articles in two separate magazines to do it--one in the Fortnightly and one in the Nineteenth Century--but then it was done in a manner admitting of no recall. No sooner had these articles appeared than Cardinal Vaughan drew up an iron-clad declaration affirming the falsity of every position the writer had taken, and required him to sign it. Too late! The biologist and evolutionist in Professor Mivart had finally triumphed over the theologian, and he met the cardinal’s demand with a flat refusal. Thereupon his Eminence issued an order excluding the recalcitrant _savant_ from the sacraments of the Church.

Mr. Mivart now knows where he is. He occupies the broad ground of scientific truth. He breathes the free air of intellectual and moral liberty. He still professes loyalty to the Church according to his own conception of it, but he will no longer bow down to an authority that assumes to prescribe his opinions in matters which he is quite capable of judging for himself. He has arrived at the conclusion that even as regards the interpretation of Scripture the Church is just as liable to err as the humble layman. He quotes most persistently the case of Galileo, in which the Church, in the most formal and official manner, declared that Scripture taught what for nearly a century now it has admitted Scripture does not teach. If the highest organs of ecclesiastical authority could make such a blunder in Galileo’s day, what blunders may they not commit in our day? But if the Church can err egregiously in what is its own peculiar province--if anything is--how great is likely to be its inaptitude when it undertakes to deal with scientific questions!

“God has taught us,” says Mr. Mivart, “through history, that it is not to ecclesiastical congregations but to men of science that he has committed the elucidation of scientific questions, whether such questions are or are not treated of by Scripture, the Fathers, the Church’s common teaching, or special congregations or tribunals of ecclesiastics actually summoned for the purpose. This also applies to all science--to Scripture criticism, to biology, and to all questions concerning evolution, the antiquity of man, and the origin of either his body or his soul or of both. For all ecclesiastics who know nothing of natural science it is an act necessarily as futile as impertinent to express any opinion on such subjects.”

The opposition of the rulers of the Church to the true theory of the solar system in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is paralleled, according to Mr. Mivart, by their opposition to the doctrine of evolution to-day. He refers to the fact that two Catholic professors who had ventured to give a partial support to the doctrine in question--one of them Father Zahm, who contributed an article, as many of our readers will remember, to this magazine a couple of years ago--had both been compelled to retract and disavow what they had published on the subject. Professor Mivart draws a distinction, however, between the rulers of the Church and the Church. The latter he idealizes--and we by no means dispute his right to do so--as a vast organization the office of which is to keep alive man’s sense of spiritual things, and to bear eternal testimony in favor of those truths of the heart which do not admit, like intellectual truths, of logical demonstration. Though cut off by authority from participation in the rites of the Church, he feels himself still one in sympathy with all who in the Church are aspiring to a higher life. We look upon his case as a very instructive one, affording as it does clear evidence of the absolute incompatibility between any authoritative system of dogma and the free pursuit of truth. It has taken Professor Mivart a long time to arrive at his present standpoint, but it is well that he has got there at last. His example, we believe, will encourage not a few to assert in like manner their right to think freely and to utter what they think.

_A MORE EXCELLENT WAY._

When our article of last month, entitled A Commission in Difficulties, was written we had not seen the paper by Mr. Theodore Dreiser, in Harper’s Magazine for February, describing the important educational work which the Western railways are doing with a view to promoting the prosperity of the agricultural regions through which they pass. In our article we observed that “the more interference there is between parties who, in the last resort, are dependent upon one another’s good will, the less likely they are to recognize their substantial identity of interest.” What Mr. Dreiser clearly shows is how great the community of interest is between the railroads on the one side and the farming community on the other, and how fully that community of interest is recognized by the railways at least. The freight agent of a given line is charged with the duty of developing to the utmost--in the interest, primarily, of his road, it may readily be granted--the agricultural resources of the country through which it runs. He has his assistants, who look after different branches of the work, such as crop-raising, cattle-grazing, dairying, poultry-raising, etc. “Through this department,” the writer says, “the railroads are doing a remarkably broad educational work, not only of inspecting the land, but of educating the farmers and merchants, and helping them to become wiser and more successful. They give lectures on soil nutrition and vegetable growing, explain conditions and trade shipments, teach poultry-raising and cattle-feeding, organize creameries for the manufacture of cheese and butter, and explain new business methods to merchants who are slow and ignorant in the matter of conducting their affairs.” An agent of the railway will visit every town along the line a certain number of times every year to see what he can do to quicken trade. Finally, in the great centers there are special agents who “look after incoming shipments, and work for the interests of the merchants and farmers by finding a market for their products.” Examples are given showing how the railways are able to impart, and do impart, information of the highest value to the farmers, such as puts them in the way of getting greatly improved returns from their land.

Of course, the railways want business, but it is eminently satisfactory when one party who wants business uses his best efforts on behalf of another in order that by making him prosperous he himself may prosper. When things get into this shape they are all right, as the phrase is. The accepted definition of a perfect action is one which benefits all who are parties to it. Things are on a much better foundation when people are mutually benefiting one another, each primarily in his own interest, than when it is all philanthropy on one side and passive acceptance of benefits on the other. Philanthropy is an uncertain thing, and its effects are uncertain. Its quality will take, in general, a good deal of training; but business, on an honest and reciprocally helpful basis, is good all through.

It is a happy circumstance that there are natural laws and forces at work which tend to produce a healthful social equilibrium. The true statesman is he who is on the watch to discern these forces and these laws, resolved that if he can not aid their operation he shall at least throw no obstacle in the way of their activity. The amount of harm that is done by coming between people who would be certain to arrange their business relations satisfactorily, if they were only left to do it without interference, can hardly be estimated. Man is fundamentally a social animal, and he wants, if he can possibly get it, the good opinion of his fellows. This is a principle which legislation too much overlooks, but it is one on which, as we believe, the future progress of society depends, and which, in spite of the blunders of legislators, will more and more assert itself as the years go on.

Fragments of Science.

=Religious Suicides.=--Suicides from religious fanaticism, which are still prescribed by some sects, are compared, as having a common origin, with propitiatory or expiatory human sacrifices, by Herr Lasch, in an article of which we find a review in the _Rivista Italiana di Sociologica_. Voluntary sacrifices, which abound in the history of ancient peoples, had nearly always in view the removal of perils or the cessation of public calamities by appeasing the anger of the divinity through the offering of a human victim. Thus Macaria, the daughter of Hercules, at Athens during the Peloponnesian war, and Codrus and the Athenian youth Cratinus voluntarily offered their lives to aid their country by the sacrifice. The consul Decius gave himself up to assure victory to his legions, and Adrian’s favorite Antinous to save his imperial protector. Spontaneous offerings of human victims to appease offended divinities are mentioned in the traditions of the ancient Germans, and it was usually their chief or king who suffered for the good of the people. Offerings of this sort are far from infrequent among barbarous and half-civilized peoples. Among some tribes in China a man is sacrificed every year for the public welfare. Such voluntary renunciations of life to acquire merit with the divinity, to gain favors, to atone for sins, and fulfill vows are very common in India, particularly where Brahmanism is most influential. Special methods were pointed out in the Hindu laws for performing such sacrifices as would be sinful for a Brahman, but not for a Sutra, who, before abandoning life, should make gifts to the Brahmans. A favorite method was to drown one’s self in the Ganges, and particular spots in the river were designated for this act. The sacred books mention five methods of performing sacrifice to assure a better fortune in the next life: Starving to death, being burned alive, burial in snow, being eaten by a crocodile, and cutting the throat or being drowned at a particular spot in the Ganges. In fulfillment of vows, sons would sacrifice themselves for their mothers by jumping from a rock. To keep up the courage of the victim, the Sivaitic rituals promised many beatitudes to him who courageously met death for his sins, and threatened eternal punishment to one who performed the sacrifice in a base manner. And when the suicide had been decided upon they allowed no retreat or repentance, but forced its consummation. A special apparatus for suicide formerly existed in some of the villages in central India, consisting of a guillotine which the victim himself set in action. Casting one’s self under the wheels of the car of Juggernaut was another method of religious suicide. Some philosophical schools prescribed subjection of the body to various pains for the purification of the soul; and the books of Manu, which also impose the destruction of human sensibility, have contributed much to preserve this idea in India and spread abroad, especially in the Malay Archipelago, the usage of voluntary sacrifice to the divinity. The aborigines of the Canary Islands have employed voluntary sacrifices on the coming of an epidemic, and the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians observed them in honor of the divinity.

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=“Manuring with Brains.”=--“New Soil Science” is the name Mr. D. Young gives, in the Nineteenth Century, to the results of the studies of soil bacteriology prosecuted by Mr. John Hunter and Professor McAlpine on Lord Roseberry’s estate of Dalmeny, and “manuring with brains” to the application of them. Attention has been called to the value of the bacteria in the soil as nitrifying and fertilizing elements by the experiments of Sir John Bennet Lawes and Sir Joseph Henry Gilbert at Rothamsted, and more forcibly by experiments coming after them but suggested by them. It had also been found that caustic lime used upon the soil is liable to destroy the nitrifying and other advantageous organisms, while carbonate of lime is surely useful, and a due proportion of lime compounds is essential to the best discharge of their functions. The discovery that the bacteria of the root nodules of leguminous plants possess the power of absorbing the free nitrogen of the atmosphere and rendering it available for the use of the plant was made by Messrs. Hunter and McAlpine, according to Mr. Young, and was taught by them to their students several years before Hellriegel, to whom it is usually ascribed, fell upon it. They found that several well-defined sets of bacteria were concerned in the work of nitrification, and isolated and cultivated the nitrous germ, but could accomplish nothing with the nitric germ till they used old mortar or some lime dressing with it. They also found that lime compounds in the surface soil served a further important use by preventing the soluble silicates from being taken up by the roots of the plant, the lime taking up those salts and forming insoluble silicates which were retained in the soil and did not diffuse into the plant. So a non-silicated stem, or a cellulose stem, was formed, which would bend before the wind without breaking, while the non-silicated straw was much superior in value to the silicated straw. Messrs. Hunter and McAlpine denied that silica in the plant gave strength and solidity to the stem, and pointed out that it rather, like glass, made the straw brittle. They found out, further, that large quantities of carbonic acid were produced in the soil through the operation of the ferments, and found an outlet through the subsoil drains. They made other discoveries which threatened to render it necessary to revise the whole fabric of agricultural science, and were called to account by the institutions in which they were teachers for their heresies. They maintained their position till the opportunity came to them to make tests of their theories on Lord Rosebery’s Dalmeny farm. Among the results of the Dalmeny experiments are proof of the value of a dressing of ground lime in proportions not large enough to kill the bacteria, emphasis of the value of potash for every crop, and the discovery of a remedial treatment for the finger-and-toe pest in turnips. “When these experiments were commenced, ground lime for agricultural purposes had never been heard of, whereas now there are at least six lime works where extensive grinding plants are kept hard at work to supply the ever-increasing demand for that substance. Since the principles for the new soil science have been put in successful practice at Dalmeny the scientific authorities, who at first had branded these principles as absurd heresies, have changed their tune,” and now the chemical adviser of the Highland Society has declared that he accepts the new doctrines.

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=Plague Antitoxin.=--In justifying his belief in the efficacy of the inoculation treatment against the plague, Lord Curzon, the Viceroy of India, said, in a recent address at Poonah: “If I find, as I do find, out of one hundred plague seizures among uninoculated persons, the average number who die is somewhere about seventy to eighty per cent, while, in a corresponding number of seizures among inoculated persons, the proportions are entirely reversed and seventy to eighty per cent, if not more, are saved--and these calculations have been furnished from more than one responsible quarter--I say figures of that kind can not fail to carry conviction; and I altogether fail to see how, in the face of them, it is possible for any one to argue that inoculation is not a wise and necessary precaution.” He had been personally visiting the plague hospitals and camps about the city, and had already supported his advocacy of this treatment by having himself and his party inoculated at Simla with the plague antitoxin.

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