PART II.

Attention is next asked to an analysis of the incidence of taxation, what is mainly direct, on processes and products, and on the machinery by which one is effected and the other distributed, and at the outset the following propositions in the nature of economic axioms are submitted, which it is believed will serve as stepping stones to the attainment of broad generalizations.

Thus, property is solely produced to supply human wants and desires; and taxes form an important part of the cost of all production, distribution, and consumption, and represent the labor performed in guarding and protecting property at the expense of the State, in all the processes of development and transformation. The State is thus an active and important partner in all production. Without its assistance and protection, production would be impeded or wholly arrested. The soldier or policeman guards, while the citizen performs his labor in safety. As a partner in all the forms of production and business, the State must pay its expenses--i.e., its agents, for their services; and its only means of paying are through its receipts from taxation. Taxes, then, are clearly items of expense in all business, the same as rent, fuel, cost of material, light, labor, waste, insurance, clerical service, advertising, expressage, freight, and the like, and on business principles they find their place on the pages of profit and loss; and, like all other expenses which enter into the cost of production, must finally be sustained by those who gratify their wants or desires by consumption. Production is only a means, and consumption is the end, and the consumer must pay in the end all the expenses of production. Every dealer in domestic or imported merchandise keeps on hand, at all times, upon his shelves, a stock of different and accumulated taxes--customs, internal revenue, State, school, and municipal--with his goods; and when we buy and carry away from any store or shop an article, we buy and carry away with it the accompanying and inherential taxes.

Any primary taxpayer, who does not ultimately consume the thing taxed, and who does not include the tax in the price of the taxed property or its products, must literally throw away his money and must soon become bankrupt and disappear as a competitor; and accordingly the tax advancer will add the tax in his prices if he understands simple addition. How rapidly bankruptcy would befall dealers in imported goods, wares, and merchandise in the United States who did not strictly observe this rule will be realized when one remembers that the average tax imposed by its Government (in 1896) on all dutiable imports is in excess of fifty per cent.

When Dr. Franklin was asked by a committee of the English House of Commons, prior to the American Revolution, if the province of Pennsylvania did not practically relieve farmers and other landowners from taxation, and at the same time impose a heavy tax on merchants, to the injury of British trade, he answered that "if such special tax was imposed, the merchants were experts with their pens, and added the tax to the price of their goods, and thus made the farmers and all landowners pay their part of the tax as consumers."

Taxes uniformly levied on all the subjects of taxation, and which are not so excessive as to become a prohibition on the use of the thing taxed, become, therefore, a part of the cost of all production, distribution, and consumption, and diffuse and equate themselves by natural laws in the same manner and in the same minute degree as all other elements that constitute the expenses of production. We produce to consume and consume to produce, and the cost of consumption, including taxes, enters into the cost of production, and the cost of production, including taxes, enters into the cost of consumption, and thus taxes levied uniformly on things of the same class, by the laws of competition, supply, and demand, and the all-pervading mediums of labor, will be distributed, percussed, and repercussed to a remote degree, until they finally fall upon every person, not in proportion to his consumption of a given article, but in the proportion his consumption bears to the aggregate consumption of the taxed community.

A great capitalist, like Mr. Astor, bears no greater burden of taxation (and can not be made to bear more by any laws that can be properly termed tax laws) than the proportion which his aggregate individual consumption bears to the aggregate individual consumption of all others in his circuit of immediate competition; and as to his other taxes, he is a mere tax collector, or conduit, conducting taxes from his tenants or borrowers to the State or city treasury. A whisky distiller is a tax conduit, or tax collector, and sells more taxes than the original cost of whisky, as finds proof and illustration in the fact that the United States imposes a tax of one dollar and ten cents per gallon on proof whisky which its manufacturer would be very glad to sell free of tax for an average of thirteen cents per gallon. The tax, furthermore, is required to be laid before the whisky can be removed from the distillery or bonded warehouse and allowed to become an article of merchandise. Tobacco in like manner can not go into consumption till the tax is paid. In Great Britain, where all tobacco consumed is imported, for every 3_d._ paid by the consumer, 2.5_d._ represents customs duties or taxes. In Russia it is estimated that the Government annually requires of its peasant producers one third the market value of their entire crop of cereals in payment of their taxes, and fixes the time of collecting the same in the autumn, when the peasant sells sufficient of his grain (mainly for exportation), and with the purchase money meets the demands of the tax collector. Can it be doubted that the sums thus extorted enter into and form an essential part of the cost of the entire crop or product of the land? It is, therefore, immaterial where the process of manufacture takes place; the citizens of a State pay in proportion to the quantity which they consume. The traveler who stops at one of the great city hotels can not avoid reimbursing the owner for the tax he primarily pays on the property; and the owner, in respect to the taxation of his hotel property, is but a great and effective real-estate and diffused tax collector. Again, the farmer charges taxes in the price of his products; the laborer, in his wages; the clergyman, in his salary; the lender, in the interest he receives; the lawyer, in his fees; and the manufacturer, in his goods.

The American Bible Society is always in part loaded with the whisky and tobacco taxes paid by the printers, paper-makers, and book-binders, or by the producers of articles consumed by these mechanics, and reflected and embodied in their wages and the products of their labor according to the degree of absence of competition from fellow-mechanics who abstain from the use of these and other taxed articles.

These conclusions respecting the diffusion of taxes may be said to be universally accepted by economists so far as they relate to the results of production before they reach the hands of the final consumers; but they are not accepted by many, as Mr. Henry George has recently expressed it, in respect to taxes on special profits or advantages on things of which the supply is strictly limited, or of wealth in the hands of final consumers, or in the course of distribution by gift, and finally in respect to taxes on land. But a little examination would seem to show that all of these exceptions are of the kind that are said to prove the rule. _Special profits_ and advantages in this age of quick diffusion of knowledge and intense competition are exceedingly ephemeral, and are mainly confined to results which the State with a view of encouraging removes for a limited time from the natural laws of competition by granting patents, copyrights, and franchises. Of things which are strictly limited in respect to supply, what and where are they? Only a very few can be specified: ivory, Peruvian guano, whalebone, ambergris, and the pelts of the fur seal. Of wealth in the process of transmission, or in the hands of final consumers, it is not _tangible_ wealth unless it is _tangible_ property, which conforms under any correct system of taxation to the principles of taxation; and if any one advocates the taxation of the right to receive property which has already been taxed, he in effect advocates a double exaction of one and the same thing. If it be asked, Will an income tax on a person retired from business be diffused? the answer, beyond question, must be in the affirmative, if the tax is uniform on all persons and on all amounts, and is absolutely collected in minute sums. Would any one pay the same price for a railroad bond which is subject to an income tax as he would for it if it was free from tax? If one's land is taxed, either in the form of rent or income, will not the tenant have the burden primarily thrown upon him? And, finally, will not the consumer of the tenant's goods pay through or by reason of such consumption?

Respecting the incidence of the tax on mortgages, it does not make any difference how mortgages are taxed--no earthly power can make the lender pay it. If the borrower would not agree to pay the tax, the lender would not loan him money, and whenever possible loans would be foreclosed and payment insisted upon if the borrower should refuse to pay the tax.

Let us next subject to analysis the incidence of the so-called taxation of land. Considered _per se_ (or in itself), land, in common with unappropriated air and water, has no value; and it can not in any strict sense be affirmed that we tax land; and when such affirmation is made, its only legitimate and justifiable meaning is that we tax the value of land; which value is due entirely to the amount of personal property (in the sense of embodied labor) expended upon it, and the pressure or demand of such property or labor to use, possess, and occupy it.

Vattel, in his Law of Nations, enunciates as a self-evident and irrefutable proposition that "Nature has not herself established property, and in particular with regard to lands. She only approves this introduction for the advantage of the human race."

One of the most striking examples of evidence in illustration and proof of this proposition is to be found in an incident, which has heretofore escaped attention, which occurred during a debate in the Senate of the United States in 1890 on a bill for revision of duties on imports, in respect to the article borax (borate of soda). Formerly the world's supply of this mineral substance, which enters largely into industrial processes and medicine, was limited, and mainly derived from certain hot springs in Tuscany, Italy; but within a comparatively recent period it has been found that it exists in such abundance in certain of the desert regions of California, Nevada, and Arizona, that it can be gathered with the minimum of labor from the very surface of the ground. Were a single acre of similar desert to be found in any section of a country enjoying the most ordinary privileges in respect to transportation and water supply, it would be a source of wealth to its proprietor. But under existing circumstances, although thousands and thousands of acres of this land can be bought with certain title from its owner--the Federal Government--for two dollars and twenty-five cents an acre, no one wants it at any price; and the prospective demand for it has not yet been sufficient to warrant the Government in instituting even a survey as a preliminary to effecting a sale. In the Senate debate above alluded to it was proposed to increase the duty on imported borax, with the expectation that a consequent increase in its domestic price would afford sufficient profit to induce such construction of roads and such a supply of water and labor on the borax tracts of the deserts as to enable them to become property.[13]

In the oases of the deserts of North Africa and Egypt the value of a tract of land depends very little upon its size or location, but almost exclusively upon the number of the date-bearing palms, the result of labor, growing upon it, and the quality of their fruit. John Bright on one occasion stated that if the land of Ireland were stripped of the improvements made upon it by the labor of the occupier, the face of the country would be "as bare and naked as an American prairie."

An exact parallel to this state of things is afforded in the case of lands of no value reclaimed from the sea and made valuable, as has been often done in England, Holland, and other countries, by embodying labor upon them in the shape of restraining embankments and the transportation and use of filling material. Again, the value of springs or running streams of water is generally limited and of little account. But when, through direct labor, or the results of labor, the water is collected in reservoirs and made the instrumentality of imparting power to machinery, or conducted through conduits to centers of population which otherwise could not obtain it, it becomes extremely valuable, and capable of being sold in large or small quantities. Another similar illustration is to be found in the case of atmospheric air, which in its natural and ordinary state has no marketable value, but when compressed by labor embodied in the form of machinery and made capable of transmitting force, it at once becomes endowed with value and can be sold at a high price.

An opinion entertained and strongly advocated by not a few economic writers and teachers of repute (more especially in Europe, but not in the United States)[14] is, that taxes on land do not diffuse themselves, but fall wholly on the landowner, and that there is no way in which he can throw it off and cause any considerable part of them to be paid by anybody else. The concrete argument in support of this opinion has been thus stated: "When land is taxed, the owner can not, as a general rule, escape the tax, for the reason that, to get rid of the tax, the price of the land or of the rent must be raised the full amount of the tax, and the only way in which this can be done is by reducing the supply or quantity offered in market, or else by increasing the demand. The supply of land can not be reduced, and the demand being created by capital and population, both of which are beyond the control of the landowner, he can do nothing to raise the price of land, and hence can not get rid of the tax. It may be stated, then, as a general rule, that a tax on land, or on any commodity the supply of which is limited absolutely, must be paid by the owner. It is possible to suggest cases in which, through combination of owners and the necessities of consumers, a demand may be created strong enough to raise the price to the full amount of such tax, but it is doubted if such cases ever really occur."[15]

The source of the contention on this important economic and social question, and the difficulty in the way of the attainment of harmonious conclusions, is due to a nonrecognition of the fact that land is taxed under two conditions, and can not be taxed otherwise. Thus, if a person holds land for his exclusive use or enjoyment, and consumes all of its product, a tax on such land, which has been characterized by some economists as its "pure rent," will not diffuse itself, because it is a tax on personal enjoyment or final consumption. The same is the case when a portion of a river or lake or its shore is rented for fishing for the purposes of sport. A like result will also follow, in a greater or less degree, from the inability or unwillingness of tenants, as has been often the case in Ireland, to pay rent sufficient to reimburse the landowner for interest on his investment of capital and cost of repairs. But if one employs land as an instrumentality for acquiring gain through its uses, the taxation of land must include the taxation of its uses--its contents, all that rests upon it, all that is produced, sold, expended, manufactured, or transported on it--and all such taxes will diffuse themselves. On the other hand, if the taxation of land under such circumstances and conditions does not diffuse itself, then the taking is simply a process of confiscation, which if continued will ultimately rob the owner of his property, and is not governed by any principle.

It is indeed difficult to see how a theory so wholly inapplicable to fact and experience as that of the nondiffusion of taxes on land--which makes property in land an exception to the rule acknowledged to be applicable to all other property--could originate and be strenuously maintained to the extent even of stigmatizing any opposite view "as so very superficial as scarcely to deserve a refutation."[16] No little of confusion and controversy on this subject has arisen from the assumption that land specifically, and the rent of land, constitute two distinct and legitimate subjects for taxation, when the fact is just the contrary. The rent of land is in the nature of an income to its owner; and it is an economic axiom that when a government taxes the income of property it in reality taxes the property itself. In England and on the continent of Europe land is generally taxed on its yearly income or income value, and these taxes are always considered as land taxes. Alexander Hamilton, in discussing the taxation of incomes derived directly from property, used this language: "What, in fact, is property but a fiction, without the beneficial use of it? In many instances, indeed, the income is the property itself." The United States Supreme Court, in its recent decision of the income tax (1895), also practically indorsed this conclusion. To levy taxes on the rent of land and also upon the land itself is, therefore, double taxation on one and the same property, which in common with all other unequal and unjust taxes can not be diffused; and for this reason should be regarded as in the nature of exactions or confiscation, concerning the incidence of which nothing can be safely predicated. In short, this whole discussion, and the unwarranted assumption involved in it and largely accepted, is an illustration of what may be regarded as a maxim, that the greatest errors in political economy have arisen from overlooking the most obvious facts or deductions from experience.

With a purpose of further elucidating this problem, attention is asked first to its consideration from an "abstract," and next from a practical standpoint of view. Let us endeavor to clearly understand the common meaning of the word "_rent_." It is derived from the Latin _reddita_, "things given back or paid," and in plain English is a word for price or hire. It may be the hire of anything. It is the price we pay for the right of exclusive use over something which is not our own. Thus we speak of the rent of land, of buildings and apartments, of a fishery, of boats, of water, of an opera box, of a piano, sewing machines, furniture, vehicles, and the like. In Scotland at the present time farmers hire cows to dairymen, who pay an agreed-upon price by the year or for a term of years for each cow, and reimburse themselves for such payment and make a profit on the transaction by the sale of the products of the animal. This hire is called a rent, and is clearly the same in kind as the rent of land. We do not apply the word "hire" to the employment of men, because we have a separate word--"wages"--for that particular case of hire. Neither do we apply the word "rent" in English to the hire of money, because we have another separate word--"interest"--which has come into special use for the price paid for the loan or hire of money. But in the French language the word _rent_ is habitually and specially used to signify the price of the hire money, and that of "_rentes_" to investments of money paying interest; the French national debt being always spoken of as "_les rentes_"; while the men who live on the lending of money, or capital in any form, are called "_rentiers_."

The question next naturally arises, Why is it necessary to set up any special theory at all about the natural disposition of the price which we pay for the hire of land, any more than about the price we pay for the hire of a house, of furniture, of a boat, of an opera box, or of a cow? The particular kind of use to which we put each of these various things is no doubt very different from the kind of use to which we put each or all the others. But all of these uses resolve themselves into the desire we have to derive some pleasure or some profit by the possession for a time of the right of exclusive use of something which is not our own, and for which we must pay the price, not of purchase, but of hire.

The explanation of this curious economic phenomenon is to be found in the assumption and positive assertion on the part of not a few distinguished economists that the truly scientific and only correct use of the term "rent" is its application to the "income derived from things of all kinds of which the supply is limited, and can not be increased by man's action."[17] As a rule, economists who accept this definition confine its application to the hire of land alone, although it professes to include other things, "of all kinds," to which the same description applies--namely, that they can not be increased in quantity by any human action. There are, however, no such other things specified, and in any literal sense there are no such other things existing, unless water and the atmosphere be intended.

Now, although it is indisputably true that man by his action can not increase the absolute or total quantity of land, any more than of water and air, appertaining to the whole globe on which we live, there is practically no limitation to the degree of value which man's action can impart to land, and which is the only thing for which land is wanted, bought, or sold, and which, as already shown, can be truly made the subject of taxation. The tracts of land on the earth's surface which are of no present marketable value are its deserts, its wildernesses, the sides and summits of its mountains, and its continually frozen zones, where no results of labor are embodied in or reflected upon it; while, on the other hand, its tracts of greatest value are in the large cities and marts of trade and commerce, as in the vicinity of the Bank of England, or in Wall Street, where the results of labor are so concentrated and reflected upon land that it is necessary to cover it with gold in order to acquire by purchase a title to it and a right to its exclusive use. The difference between land at twenty-five dollars an acre and twenty-five dollars a square foot is simply that the latter is or may be in the near future covered or surrounded by capital and business, while the former is remote from these sources of value. One of the greatest possible, perhaps probable, outcomes of the modern progress of chemistry is that through the utilization of microbic organizations the value of land as an instrumentality for the production of food may be increased to an extent that at the present time is hardly possible of conception. Again, in the case of air and water, although their total absolute quantity can not be increased, their available and useful quantity in any place, as before shown, can be by the agency of man, and their use made subject to hire or rent.

Consideration is next asked to the question at issue from what may be termed its practical standpoint. We have first a proposition in the nature of an economic axiom, that the price of everything necessary for production, or the hire of anything--land, money, and the like--without which the product could not arise, is, and must be, without exception, a part of the cost of that product; second, that all levies of the State which are worthy of being designated as taxes constitute an essential element of the cost of all products. The rent of an opera box, given to obtain a mere pleasure, constitutes a part of the fund out of which the musicians are paid, and if they are not so paid they will not play or sing. The rent given for the right to fish on a certain part of a river or its shores is a part of the cost of producing the fish as a marketable commodity. If a house is hired for the purpose of conducting any business in it, the price of that hire does most certainly enter into the cost of that business, whatever it may be, assuming that the use of the house is a necessity for carrying it on. As no man will produce a commodity by which he is sure to lose money, or fail to obtain the ordinary rate of profit, the tax must be added to the price, or the production will cease. If a uniform tax is imposed on all land occupied, it will be paid by the occupier, because occupation (house-building) will cease until the rent rises sufficiently to cover the tax. The landlord assesses upon his tenants the tax he has paid upon his real estate; each tenant assesses his share upon each of his customers; and so perfect is this diffusion of land taxation that every traveler from a distant part of the country who remains for even a single day at a hotel pays, without stopping to think about it, a portion of the taxes on the building, first paid by the owner, then assessed upon the lessees, and next cut up by them minutely in the _per diem_ charge. But of course neither the owner nor lessee really escapes taxation, because a portion of somebody else's tax is thrown back upon them.

Is it possible to believe that in a city like New York, where less than four per cent of its population pay any direct tax on real estate, or in a city like Montreal, where the expenses of the city are mainly derived from taxes on land and the building occupancy of land, the great majority of the inhabitants of those cities are exempt from all land taxation? In China, where, as before shown, the title or ownership of all land vests in the emperor, and the revenue of the Government is almost exclusively derived from taxation of land in the form of rent, does the burden of tax remain upon the owner of the land? If the tax in the form of rent is paid in the products of the land, as undoubtedly it is in part, will not the cost of the percentage of the whole product of the land that is thus taken increase to the renter the cost of the percentage that is left to him; or, if the product is sold for money with which to pay the tax rent, will not its selling price embody the cost of the tax, as it will the cost of every other thing necessary for production? To affirm to the contrary is to say that the price which the Chinese farmer pays for the right of the exclusive use of his land is no part of the crops he may raise upon it.

Consider next the assertion of those who maintain the nondiffusion theory that taxes on land are paid by the owners because the supply of land can neither be increased nor diminished. In answer to it we have the indisputable fact that the owners of land, whenever taxes are increased, attempt to obtain an increased rental for it if the circumstances will permit it. And the very attempt tends to increase the rent. Nothing but adverse circumstances, such as diminishing population or commercial and industrial distress, can prevent a rise in the rental of land on which the taxes are increased; and in the case of dwellings and warehouses the rise is almost always very prompt, because no man will erect new dwellings or warehouses unless their rent compensate fully the increase of taxation. And in any prosperous community, in which population increases in the natural ratio, there must be a constant increase of dwellings and warehouses to prevent a rise of rent, independent of higher wages and higher taxation. In no other occupation is capital surer of obtaining the average net remuneration than in the erection of dwellings and warehouses, and nothing but lack of general prosperity and diminishing population can throw the burden of taxation on real estate or its owners, without the slightest attempt at combination on their part. If the owners of land are not reimbursed for its taxation by its occupants, new houses "would not be erected, the old ones would wear out, and after a time the supply would be so small that the demand would raise rents, and house building begin again, the tax having been transferred to the occupier."

It is pertinent at this point to notice the averment that is frequently made, that cultivators of the soil can not incorporate taxes on the land in the price of their products, because the price of their whole crop is fixed by the price at which any portion of it can be sold in foreign markets. In answer to this we have first the fact that, to give the population of the world an adequate supply of food and other agricultural products, it is not only necessary that all the land at present under cultivation shall continue to be so employed, but further that new lands shall each year be brought under cultivation, or else the land already cultivated shall be made more productive.

The population of the world steadily increases, notwithstanding wars, epidemics, and all the evils which are consequences of man's ignorance and of his improper use of things, his own faculties included. Hence, in case of increased taxation on land, the cultivator of the soil is generally enabled to transfer easily and promptly the burden of the tax to the purchasers of the products he raises, without abandoning the cultivation even of the least productive soil.

Furthermore, the exports of many agricultural products are due not to the cheapness of their cost of production, but to the variations which occur in the productiveness of the crops of other countries. M. Rouher, a French economist, and for a period a minister of commerce, thoroughly investigated this matter, and proved by incontestable data that almost invariably when the yield of breadstuffs in Europe was large in the country drained by the Black and Baltic Seas, it was small in the countries drained by the Atlantic. This variation in the yield of agricultural crops forces the countries where crops are deficient to purchase from those where they are abundant, or who have a surplus on hand from previous abundant harvests. In the United States, when the harvests are abundant, the American farmers, rather than sell below a certain price, keep a portion of their crops on hand until bad crops in Europe produce a foreign demand, which has to be supplied at once. Under such circumstances those who hold the surplus stock of breadstuffs, or any other product, would control the price, and not the foreigners who stand in need of it. The only check, then, to the cupidity of the holders of breadstuffs is the competition between themselves, which invariably suffices to prevent any undue advantage being taken of the necessities of the countries whose harvests are deficient. These bad crops occur frequently enough to consume all the surplus of the countries that produce in excess of their own wants. In fact, this transient, irregular demand is counted upon and provided for by producers just as much so as the regular home demand--hence is one of the elements that regulate production and control prices.

At this point of the discussion it is desirable to obtain a clear and true idea of the meaning or definition of the phrase "diffusion of taxes." As sometimes used in popular and superficial discussions, it is held to imply that every tax imposed by law distributes itself equitably over the whole surface of society. Such implication would, however, be even more fallacious than an assumption that every expenditure made by an individual distributes itself in such a way that it becomes equally an expenditure by every other individual. On the other hand, a fair consideration of the foregoing summary of facts and deductions would seem to compel every mind not previously warped by prejudice to accept and indorse the following as great fundamental principles in taxation: _First_, that in order to burden equitably and uniformly all persons and property, for the purpose of obtaining revenue for public purposes, it is not necessary to tax primarily and uniformly all persons and property within the taxing district. _Second_, equality of taxation consists in a uniform assessment of the same articles or class of property that is subject to taxation. _Third_, taxes under such a system equate and diffuse themselves; and if levied with certainty and uniformity upon tangible property and fixed signs of property, they will, by a diffusion and repercussion, reach and burden all visible property, and also all of the so-called "invisible and intangible" property, with unerring certainty and equality.

All taxation ultimately and necessarily falls on consumption; and the burden of every man, under any equitable system of taxation, and which no effort will enable him to avoid, will be in the exact proportion or ratio which his aggregate consumption maintains to the aggregate consumption of the taxing district, State, or community of which he is a member.

It is not, however, contended that unequal taxation on competitors of the same class, persons, or things diffuses itself whether such inequality be the result of intention or of defective laws, and their more defective administration. And doubtless one prime reason why economists and others interested have not accepted the law of diffusion of taxes as here given is that they see, as the practical workings of the tax systems they live under, or have become practically familiar with, that taxes in many instances do seem to remain on the person who immediately pays them; and fail to see that such result is due--as in the case of the taxation of large classes of the so-called personal property--to the adoption of a system which does not permit of equality in assessment, and therefore can not be followed by anything of equality in diffusion. Such persons may not unfairly be compared to physicists, who, constantly working with imperfect instruments, and constantly obtaining, in consequence, defective results, come at last to regard their errors as in the nature of established truths.[18]

According to these conclusions, the greatest consumers must be the greatest taxpayers. The man also who evades a tax clearly robs his neighbors. The thief also pays taxes indirectly, for he is a consumer, and must pay the advanced price caused by his own roguery for all he consumes, although he does steal the money to pay with. Idlers and even tramps pay taxes, but the amount that they indirectly pay into the fund is much less than they take out of it. People are sometimes referred to or characterized as non-taxpayers, and in political harangues and socialistic essays measures or policies are recommended by which certain persons or classes, by reason of their extreme poverty, shall be entirely exempt from all incidence or burden of taxation. Such a person does not, however, exist in any civilized community. If one could be found he would be a greater curiosity than exists in any museum. To avoid taxation a man must go into an unsettled wilderness where he has no neighbors, for as soon as he has a companion, if that companion be only a dog, which he in part or all supports, taxation begins, and the more companions he has, the greater improvements he makes, and the higher civilization he enjoys, the heavier will be the taxes he must pay.

Taxes _legitimately_ levied, then, are a part of the cost of all production, and there can be no more tendency for taxes to remain upon the persons who immediately pay them than there is for rents, the cost of insurance, water supply, and fuel to follow the same law. The person who wishes to use or destroy the utility of property by consumption to gratify his desires, or satisfy his wants, can not obtain it from the owners or producers with their consent, except by gift, without giving pay or services for it; and the average price of all property is coincident with the cost of production, including the taxes advanced upon it, which are a part of its cost in the hands of the seller. Again, no person who produces any form of property or utility, for the purpose of sale or rent, sustains any burden of legitimate taxation, although he may be a tax advancer; for, as a tax advancer, he is the agent of the State, and a tax collector from the consumer. But he who produces or buys, and does not sell or rent, but consumes, is the taxpayer, and sustains a tax in his aggregate consumption, where all taxation must ultimately rest. In short, no person bears the burden of taxation, under an equitable, legitimate system, except upon the property which he applies to his own exclusive use in ultimate consumption. The great consumer is the only great taxpayer.

Finally, a great economic law pointed out by Adam Smith, which has an important and almost conclusive bearing upon this vexed problem of the diffusion of taxes, should not be overlooked--namely, his statement in The Wealth of Nations that "_no tax can ever reduce for any considerable time the rate of profit in any particular trade, which must always keep its level with other trades in the neighborhood_." In other words, taxes and profits, by the operation of the laws of human nature, constantly tend to equate themselves. Man is always prompted to engage in the most profitable occupation and to make the most profitable investment. And since the emancipation from feudalism with its sumptuary laws, legal regulations of the price of labor and merchandise, and other arbitrary governmental invasions of private rights, individual judgment and self-interest have been recognized as the best tests or arbiters of the profitableness of a given investment or occupation. The average profits, therefore, of one form of investment, or of one occupation (as originally shown by Adam Smith), must for any long period equal the average profits of other investments and occupations, whether taxed or untaxed, skill, risk, and agreeableness of occupation being taken into consideration.[19] Natural laws will, accordingly, always produce an equilibrium of burden between taxed and untaxed things and persons. There is a level of profit and a level of taxation by natural laws, as there is a level of the ocean by natural laws. In fact, all proportional contributions to the State from direct competitors are diffused upon persons and things in the taxing jurisdiction by a uniformity as manifest as is the pressure upon water, which is known to be equal in every direction.

A word here in reference to the popular idea that the exemption of any form of property is to grant a favor to those who possess such property. This idea has, however, no warrant for its acceptance. Thus, an exemption is freedom from a burden or service to which others are liable; but in case of the exclusion of an entire class of property from primary taxation, no person is liable, and therefore there is no exemption. An exclusion of all milk from taxation, while whisky is taxed, is not an exemption, for the two are not competing articles, or articles of the same class. It is true that highly excessive taxation of a given article may cause another and similar article, in some instances, to become a substitute or competing article; and hence the necessity of care and moderation in establishing the rate of taxation. We do not consider that putting a given article into the free list, under the tariff, is an exemption to any particular individual; but if we make the rate higher on one taxpayer or on one importer of the same article than on another taxpayer or importer, we grant an exemption. We use the word "exemption," therefore, imperfectly, when we speak of "the exemption of an entire class of property," as, for example, upon all personal property; for if the removal of the burden operates uniformly on all interested, or owning such property, then there can be no primary exemption.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] "Senator Paddock: I should like to ask the Senator from Nevada if, in the region of country where borax is found, by reason of finding it the land in the particular State or Territory is appreciated in value on account of its existence.

"Senator Stewart: Not at all.

"Senator Paddock: The value then given to it is all in labor."--_Congressional Record, July, 1890._

[14] "In America, where there has been but little serious study of taxation, the few writers of prominence are, remarkable to relate, almost all abject followers of Thiers," the French economist and statesman, who claimed to have invented the term "diffusion" of taxes.

[15] "Our conclusion is, that under actual conditions in America to-day the landowner may virtually be declared to pay in the last instance the taxes that are imposed on his land, and that at all events it is absolutely erroneous to assume any general shifting to the consumer. In so far as our land tax is a part of a general property tax, it can not possibly be shifted; in so far as it is more or less an exclusive tax, it is even then apt to remain where it is first put--on the landowner."--_Seligman: Incidence of Taxation, p. 99._

[16] Seligman. Shifting and Incidence of Taxation.

[17] Professor Marshall.

[18] In a like experience the Duke of Argyll, in his work The Unseen Foundations of Society, finds an explanation of the so-called theory of Ricardo, that the rent which a farmer of agricultural land pays as the price of its hire--that is to say, the price which he pays for the exclusive use of it--is no part of the cost of the crops he may raise upon it; a conclusion that can not be possibly true, unless it be also true that rent is paid for something that is not an indispensable condition of agricultural production. "Thus rights are in their very nature impalpable and invisible. They are not material things, but relations between many material things and the human mind and will. The right of exclusive use over land is a thing invisible and immaterial, as other rights are, and, although it is, and has been since the world began, the basis of all agricultural industry, it is a basis impalpable and invisible, whereas the material visible implements and tools, whose work depends upon it, are all visible and palpable enough, and all of which would never be were we to see them without the invisible rights upon which they depend. All of the former, in their place and order, are instruments of production; all of them catch the eye, and may easily engross the attention. On the other hand, if we are induced to forget those other elements, which are equally essential instruments of production, merely because they are out of sight, then our deception may be complete, and fallacies which become glaring when memory and attention are awakened may find in our half-vacant minds an easy and even a cordial reception."

Adam Smith may be fairly considered as having fully committed himself beyond all controversy in his great work, The Wealth of Nations, to the principle that taxes, with a degree of infallibility, diffuse themselves when they are levied uniformly on the same article; and he even goes so far as to admit that a tax upon labor, if it could be uniformly levied and collected, would be diffused, and that the laborer would be the mere conduit through which the tax would pass to the public treasury. Thus he says, "While the demand for labor and the price of provisions, therefore, remain the same, a direct tax upon wages can have no other effect than to raise them somewhat higher than the tax."

The German economist Bluntschli, who has carefully studied this question of the final incidence of all just and equitable taxes, is in substantial agreement with the above conclusions, but prefers to use a different term for characterizing such finality than consumption, and expresses himself as follows: "In the end taxes fall on _enjoyments_. Hence the amount of each man's enjoyments and not his income is the justest measure of taxation." (Bluntschli, vol. x, p. 146.)

M. Thiers, the French statesman and economist, was also a believer and earnest advocate of the theory of the diffusion of taxes, and lays down his principles in the following words: "Taxes are shifted indefinitely, and tend to become a part of the price of commodities, to such an extent that every one bears his share, not in proportion to what he pays the state, but in proportion to what he consumes." And in his book Rights to Property he thus illustrates the method in which taxation diffuses itself: "In the same manner as our senses, deceived by appearances, tell us that it is the sun which moves and not the earth, so a particular tax appears to fall upon one class, and another tax upon another class, when in reality it is not so. The tax really best suited to the poorest member of society is that which is best suited to the general fortune of the state; a fortune which is much more for the possession and enjoyment of the poor man than it is for the rich; a fact of which we are never sufficiently convinced. But of the manner, nevertheless, in which taxes are divided among the different classes of the state, the most certain thing we can say is: That they are divided in proportion to what each man consumes, and for a reason not generally recognized or understood, namely, that taxes are reflected, as it were, to infinity, and from reflection to reflection become eventually an integral part of the prices of things. Hence the greatest purchasers and consumers are everywhere the greatest taxpayers. This is what I call '_diffusion of taxation_,' to borrow a term from physical science, which applies the expression 'diffusion of light' to those numberless reflections, in consequence of which the light which has penetrated the slightest aperture spreads itself around in every direction, and in such a manner as to reach all the objects which it renders visible. So a tax which at first sight appears to be paid directly, in reality is only advanced by the individual who is first called upon to pay it."

[19] As applied to the wages of labor, the truth of this principle is equally incontestable. "The sewing girl performing her toilsome work by the needle at one dollar a day, the street sweeper working the mud with his broom at a dollar and a half, the skilled laborer at two and three dollars, the professor at five, the editor at five or ten, the artist and the songstress at ten or five hundred dollars a day are all members of the working classes, though working at different rates. And it is only the difference in their effectiveness that causes the difference in their earnings. Bring them all to the same point of efficiency, and their earnings also will be the same."--_W. Jungst, Cincinnati._

John Locke, in his treatise On the Standard of Value, treats of taxation, and shows conclusively that if all lands were nominally free from taxation, the owners of lands would proportionally pay more taxes than now, because the same amount of money must continue to be collected in some form, and the average profits of lands would only be equal to the average profits of other investments; and further, that the expense and annoyance (another form of expense) would be increased if the tax were exclusively levied in the first instance upon personal property; and hence the landowner would be burdened with his proportion of the unnecessary expense and annoyance. He also shows that you may change the form of a uniform tax, but that you can not change the burden; and that the change will increase the burden, if the new system is more expensive and annoying than the old. Locke wrote nearly a century before Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations, and it would seem probable that Smith acquired his ideas relative to the average profits of investments from Locke.

THE GREAT BOMBARDMENT.

BY CHARLES F. HOLDER.

A thin stratum of air, an invisible armor of great tenuity, lies between man and the menace of possible annihilation.

The regions of space beyond our planet are filled with flying fragments. Some meet the earth in its onward rush; others, having attained inconceivable velocity, overtake and crash into the whirling sphere with loud detonation and ominous glare, finding destruction in its molecular armor, or perhaps ricocheting from it again into the unknown. Some come singly, vagrant fragments from the infinity of space; others fall in showers like golden rain; all constituting a bombardment appalling in its magnitude. It has been estimated that every twenty-four hours the earth or its atmosphere is struck by _four hundred million_ missiles of iron or stone, ranging from an ounce up to tons in weight. Every month there rushes upon the flying globe at least twelve billion iron and stone fragments, which, with lurid accompaniment, crash into the circumambient atmosphere. Owing to the resistance offered by the air, few of these solid shots strike the earth. They move out of space with a possible velocity of thirty or forty miles per second, and, like moths, plunge into the revolving globe, lured to their destruction by its fatal attraction. The moment they enter our atmosphere they ignite; the air is piled up and compressed ahead of them with inconceivable force, the resultant friction producing an immediate rise in temperature, and the shooting star, the meteor of popular parlance, is the result.

A simple experiment, made by Joule and Thomson, well illustrates the possibility of this rise in temperature by atmospheric friction. If a wire is whirled through the air at a rate of one hundred and seventy-five feet per second, a rise of one degree, centigrade, will be noticed. If the revolutions are increased to three hundred and seventy-two feet per second, the elevation will be 5.3° C. If the temperature increases as the square of the velocity, a rate of speed of twenty miles per second would develop a temperature not far from 360,000° C., which is probably far less than that at the surface of the ordinary meteor as it is seen blazing through our atmosphere. If the meteor is small it is often consumed by the intense heat generated; but larger fragments, owing to their velocity and the fact that they are poor conductors of heat and burn slowly, reach the surface and bury themselves in the sea or earth. But few escape the inevitable consequences of the contact, and of the untold millions which have struck the earth within the memory of man but five hundred and thirty have been seen to fall. The phenomena associated with the plunging meteor is most interesting. A blaze of light, as the terrific heat ignites the iron, announces its entrance into our atmosphere. It may be red, yellow, white, green, or blue, all these hues having been observed. Then follows the explosion, caused by the contact with the air piled up ahead, and in certain instances a loud detonation or a series of noises is heard, which may be repeated indefinitely until the meteoric mass is completely destroyed, and drops, a shower of disintegrated particles, which fall rattling to the ground.

The blaze of light does not continue to the earth, nor does the meteor, should it survive, strike the ground with the velocity with which it entered the atmosphere, as the latter often arrests its motion so completely that it drops upon the earth by its own weight, well illustrated by the meteorites of the Hesslefall, which dropped upon ice but a few inches thick, rebounding as they fell. Thus the atmosphere protects the inhabitants of the globe from a terrific bombardment by destroying many of the largest meteorites, reducing the size of others before they reach the surface and arresting the velocity so that few bury themselves deeply in the soil.

The writer observed a remarkable meteor in 1894. It entered our atmosphere, apparently, over the Mojave Desert, in California, and exploded over the San Gabriel Valley, though without any appreciable sound, and after the first flash disappeared, leaving in the air a large balloon-shaped object of yellow light which lasted some moments, presenting a remarkable spectacle. In this instance the meteor had probably exploded or been consumed, leaving only the light to tell the story, the atmospheric armor of the earth having successfully warded off the blow.

Viewing the facts as they exist, the earth, a seeming fugitive mass flying through space, vainly endeavoring to break the bonds which bind it to the sun, hunted, bombarded with strange missiles hurled from unseen hands or forces from the infinity of space, it is little wonder that the ancients and some savage races of later times invested the phenomena with strange meanings. It requires but little imagination to see in the flying earth a living monster followed by shadowy furies which hurl themselves upon it, now vainly attempting to reach the air-protected body or again striking it with terrific force, lodging deep in its sides amid loud reverberation and dazzling blaze of light.

Meteorites have been known from the very earliest times, and have often been regarded as miraculous creatures to be worshiped and handed down from family to family. The famous meteorite which fell in Phrygia, centuries ago, was worshiped as Cybele, "the mother of the gods," and about the year 204 B.C. was carried to Rome with much display and ceremony, when people of all classes fell down before it, deeming it a messenger from the gods. Diana of Ephesus and the famous Cyprian Venus were, in all probability, meteoric stones which were seen to fall, and were worshiped for the same reason as above. Livy describes a shower of meteorites which fell about the Alban Mount 652 B.C. The senate was demoralized, and certain prophets announced it a warning from heaven, so impressing the lawmakers that they declared a nine-days' festival with which to propitiate the gods. The visitor to Mecca will find enshrined in a place of honor a meteorite which can be traced back beyond 600 A.D., and which is worshiped by pilgrims. The Tartars pointed out a meteorite to Pallas, in 1772, which had fallen at Krasnojarsk, and which they considered a holy messenger from heaven. A large body of meteoric iron found in Wichita County, Texas, was regarded by the Indians as a fetich. They told strangers that it came from the sky as a messenger from the Great Spirit. This meteorite was stationed at a point where two Indian trails met, and was observed and worshiped as a shrine.

The Chinese have records of meteors which fell 644 B.C. The oldest authentic fall in which the stone is preserved is that of Ensisheim, Elsass, Germany, in 1492. The stone, which weighed two hundred and sixty pounds, fell with a loud roar, much to the dismay of the peasantry, penetrating the ground to a depth of five feet. It was secured by King Maximilian, who, after presenting the Duke Sigismund with a section, hung the remainder in the parish church as a holy relic, where, it is said, it may still be seen.

Meteorites vary in size from minute objects not larger than a pea to masses of iron of enormous size. The Chupaderos meteorite, which fell in Chihuahua, Mexico, weighs twenty-five tons. Another, which fell in Kansas, broke into myriads of pieces, the sections found weighing thirteen hundred pounds. A meteorite in the Vienna Museum, which fell in Hungary, weighs six hundred and forty-seven pounds, while the Cranbourne meteorite in the British Museum weighs four tons. The Red River meteorite in the Yale Museum weighs sixteen hundred and thirty pounds. The largest meteorite known was discovered within the Arctic Circle by Lieutenant Peary. The Eskimos had known of it for generations as a source of supply for iron. It was found by Lieutenant Peary in May, 1894, but, owing to its enormous weight, could not be removed until the summer of 1897, when, after much labor, it was excavated and hoisted into the hold of the steam whaling bark Hope and carried to New York, where it has found a resting place in the cabinet of the American Museum of Natural History. It is believed to weigh one hundred tons.

Up to 1772 the stories of bodies falling from space were not entertained seriously by scientific men. So eminent a scientist as Lavoisier, after thoroughly investigating a case, decided that it was merely a stone which had been struck by lightning. Falls finally occurred which demonstrated beyond dispute that the missiles came from space, and science recognized the fact that the earth was literally being bombarded, and that human safety was due to the atmospheric armor, scarcely one hundred miles thick, that enveloped the earth. Instances of the destruction of human life from this cause are very rare. Some years ago a meteorite crushed into the home of an Italian peasant, killing the occupant; and cattle have been known to be destroyed by them; but such instances are exceptional. In 1660 a meteorite fell at Milan, on the authority of the Italian physicist Paolo Maria Tezzayo, killing a Franciscan monk. Humboldt is authority for the statement that a monk was struck dead by a meteorite at Crema, September 4, 1511; and in 1674, on the same authority, a meteorite struck a ship at sea and killed two Swedish sailors.

In December, 1795, at Wold Cottage, in Yorkshire, England, a stone weighing fifty pounds dashed through the air with a loud roar, alarming people in the vicinity, and burying itself in the ground not thirty feet from a laborer. This mass, though undoubtedly traveling, when it struck our atmosphere, at a rate of at least thirty miles a second, was checked so completely that it sank but twelve inches into the soft chalk. Great as is the heat generated during the passage of a meteorite through the air, it does not always permeate the entire body. This was well illustrated in the case of the meteorite which fell at Dhurmsala, Kangra, Punjaub, India, in 1860, fragments of which can be seen in the Field Museum in Chicago. Of it Dr. Oliver C. Farington says: "The fragments were so cold as to benumb the fingers of those who collected them. This is perhaps the only instance known in which the cold of space has become perceptible to human senses."

Some of the individual falls during recent years have attracted widespread attention. One of the most remarkable is known as the Great Kansas Meteor. It was evidently of large size, flashing into sight eighty or ninety miles from the earth, on the 20th of June, 1876, over the State of Kansas. To the first observers it appeared to come from the vicinity of the moon, and resembled a small moon or a gigantic fire ball, blazing brightly, and creating terror and amazement among thousands of spectators who witnessed its flight. It passed to the east, disappearing near the horizon in a blaze of light. The entire passage occupied nearly fifty seconds, being visible to the inhabitants of Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.

This visitor created the greatest alarm and apprehension along its path, the blaze of light being accompanied by repeated explosions and detonations which sounded like the rumble and roar of cannonading. To some it appeared like the rattling of heavy teams over a rough, rocky road; others believed subterranean explosions accompanied the fall. Horses ran away, stock hurried bellowing to cover, and men, women, and children crouched in fear or fled before the fiery visitor whose roar was distinctly heard several minutes after it had disappeared. As the meteor crossed the Mississippi River the noise of the explosions increased in severity, and were distinctly heard sixty or seventy miles from its path, or a distance of one hundred and forty miles apart. The great ball of flame remained intact as it crossed five or six States, but as it passed over central Illinois loud detonations were heard and the light spread out like an exploding rocket with flashing points. This was the death and destruction of the monster, and from here it dashed on, a stream or shower of countless meteors instead of a solid body, forming over Indiana and Ohio a cluster over forty miles long and five in breadth, showing that while the meteor had broken up it was still moving with great velocity. How far it traveled is not known, as it was not seen to strike. Observers in Pennsylvania saw it rushing in the direction of New York, and people in that State, where the day was cloudy, heard strange rumblings and detonations. Houses rattled, and the inhabitants along the line the meteor was supposed to have passed accredited the phenomena to an earthquake. Somewhere, perhaps in the forest region of the Adirondacks, or in the Atlantic, lies the wreck of this meteor. But one fragment was found. A farmer in Indiana, while watching its passage heard the thud of a falling object, and going to the spot the following morning found a small meteorite weighing two thirds of a pound.

This marvelous body was first observed in all probability in the northwestern corner of the Indian Territory, possibly sixty or seventy miles above the earth, and from here it dashed along with repeated explosions, almost parallel to the earth's surface, disappearing over New York.

Another remarkable meteor fell into the Atlantic Ocean far out at sea, July 20, 1860. It resembled the one mentioned above in that it was accompanied by a marvelous pyrotechnic display. It first appeared in the vicinity of Michigan, blazing out with a fiery glow that filled the heavens with light. Cocks crowed, oxen lowed, and people rushed from their homes along its course over the States of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. When last seen, over the Atlantic, it had separated into three parts, which followed each other as separate fire bodies, without the noise which was the accompanying feature of the Kansas meteor.

Doubtless the majority of meteors plunge into the ocean, and in modern times several large meteoric bodies have narrowly escaped passing vessels. On December 1, 1896, the officers of the ship Walkomming, bound from New York to Bremen, noticed a large and brilliant meteor flashing down upon them. Its direction was from southeast to northwest, and it plunged into the sea ahead of the vessel with a loud roar and hissing sound; a few minutes later an immense tidal wave, presumably caused by the fall, struck the ship, doing no little damage. Even more remarkable was the escape of the British ship Cawdor, which was given up by the underwriters, but which reached San Francisco November 20, 1897. During a heavy storm, August 20th, a large meteor flashed from the sky and passed between the main and mizzen masts, crashing into the sea with a blinding flash and deafening detonation. For a moment it was thought the ship was on fire, and the air was filled with sulphurous fumes.

In 1888 a meteor dashed into the atmosphere of the earth and made a brilliant display over southern California. It appeared between twelve and one o'clock in the morning, and shot across the heavens, a fiery red mass--not like the ordinary meteor, but writhing and twisting in a manner peculiarly its own, resembling a huge serpent. When it had passed nearly across the sky it apparently stopped and doubled in the form of a horseshoe, according to the informant of the writer, as large as a half-mile race track. The horseshoe remained visible several minutes, gradually disappearing. The brilliancy of this meteor can be imagined when it is known that the entire San Gabriel Valley was illumined as though an electric light of great power had suddenly been flashed upon it.

Some time in past ages a meteorite weighing at least ten tons shot into our atmosphere and struck the earth near the famous Cañon Diablo in Arizona, the mysterious gulch crossed by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé Railroad. The discovery was made several years ago by a sheep herder, named Armijo. Finding a piece of iron with a peculiar lustrous surface which he believed to be silver, he carried it to one of the towns, where it finally fell into the hands of a geologist, who pronounced it a meteorite. The discovery was followed up, and on the crest and in the vicinity of a singular cone about four thousand feet in diameter pieces of a meteorite were found on the surface, which gave a combined weight of ten tons, in all probability but a fraction of the real monster. The iron masses were widely scattered over the slope and the adjacent _mesa_, and it was assumed that a gigantic meteorite or star had fallen and produced the cone, another striking the earth and forming what is now known as the Cañon Diablo. A large piece of meteoric iron was found twenty miles from the cone; another eight miles east of it; two thousand pieces weighing not over a few pounds or ounces were taken from the slopes; two exceeding a thousand pounds were found within a half mile, while forty or fifty weighing about one hundred pounds were discovered within a radius of half a mile. Here not only a meteor, but a large-sized meteoric shower, had succeeded in penetrating the armor of the earth, leaving many evidences of the extraordinary occurrence which may have been witnessed by the early man of what is now known as Arizona. From the peculiar and interesting evidence a geologist deduced the hypothesis that the crater known as Coon Butte could have been produced by a meteor with a diameter of fifteen hundred feet, and a careful examination with a view of discovering it was made with nicely adjusted magnetic instruments; but in no instance did they indicate the presence of a vast body of metal buried in the earth, and it was assumed that the striking of the crater by the colossal meteorite was a chance blow.

The meteorites or foreign bodies which bombard the earth may be included in three classes--meteoric irons or aërosiderites, meteoric iron stones or aërosiderolites, and meteoric stones, aërolites--all containing elements, about twenty-five in number, which have been found upon the earth. The most conspicuous and important are silicon, iron, nickel, magnesium, sulphur, carbon, and phosphorus, while the others are aluminum, antimony, arsenic, calcium, chlorine, chromium, cobalt, copper, hydrogen, lithium, manganese, oxygen, potassium, sodium, tin, and titanium. Hydrogen and the diamond have also been observed. A number of interesting chemical compounds are found in meteorites not known on the earth, and a study of their character shows that the conditions under which the meteors were formed were entirely different from those which saw the beginning of things terrestrial. In brief, where meteors were born there was an absence of air and water. On the other hand, there was at some stage in the history of meteorites an abundance of hydrogen. The meteoric irons are made up principally of iron with an alloy of nickel, and show a rich crystalline structure, the various angles producing a variety of forms known as _Widmanstatten_ figures which a few years ago formed the basis of a singular sensation. The figures were supposed to be fossil shells and various animals of a diminutive size which once populated the wrecked world of which the meteor was assumed to be a part. These meteoric animals from space were named and classified by several observers, who were finally forced to acknowledge that their creations were the fanciful markings of crystallization.

Another class of meteorites (meteoric iron stones) may be described as spongy masses of nickeliferous iron in whose pores are found grains of chryosite and other silicates. A type of these bodies is the meteor of Pallas, which was discovered by him in 1772. The third class of meteoric stones are those in which the stony or silicous predominates. As a rule they contain scattered metallic grains, but certain ones, as the aërolite which fell at Gara, France, in 1806, contain metallic constituents.

The aërolites present an attractive appearance when made into sections, showing crystals and splinterlike fragments, and under the glass seem to be made up of many minute spheres ranging from those the size of a cherry down to others invisible to the naked eye. The minerals prominent in their composition are chrysolite, bronzite, augite, enstatite, feldspar, chronite, etc., showing a marked similarity to the eruptive rocks so well known on the earth. The collections of famous meteorites in the various museums of the world have constantly been examined and studied with a view to determine their origin, the question being a fascinating one to layman and scientist. Astronomers in the past have variously answered the question. The flying fragments were believed by some to be the wreckage of other worlds. Planets had perhaps collided and been rent asunder in former ages, and space filled with the flying fragments. Others thought that meteors were molten matter thrown from the earth or moon. All these theories have been relinquished in view of evidence of a more or less convincing character pointing to the conclusion that the bombardment of the earth is one of the results of the disintegration of comets. In other words, cometary matter flying not always blindly through space, but in the orbit of the comet of which it originally formed a part, constituting the missiles.

It is known that the meteors were formed in a region where air and water were absent. It is equally evident that life was not a factor in the past history of the bodies, though it must be acknowledged that the hydrocarbons resembling terrestrial bitumens which are found in some meteorites suggest the possibility of vegetable life. These comets, the mysterious bodies which seem to be roving through space, misconceived planets, as it were, forced into the world half made up, offer the best known solution, as they are literally worlds without air or water, enveloped in a strange and ever-changing substitute for atmosphere; ghostly worlds, which seem to be drawn to the sun, then thrown out into space again to repeat the act until the mighty change from close contact with the fiery mass to the intense cold of distant realms wrecks them, scatters their fragments through the infinity of space where they form gigantic rings or clusters of meteoric matter, raining down upon the sun and planets and all heavenly bodies which meet them, adding fuel to the former, material substance to the latter, and in the case of the moon pitilessly bombarding her crust--illustrating the effect of the bombardment of the earth were it deprived of its atmospheric armor.

The evidence which enabled astronomers to definitely associate comets with meteoric showers and falling stars leads one into a world of romance. Schiaparelli, the distinguished Italian astronomer, made the discovery that meteors had a cometic origin. He had been calculating the orbit and motion of the meteorites which produce the August showers, when it occurred to him that they corresponded with those of a certain comet. By following up this clew it was discovered that the orbit of Tempel's comet corresponded with that of the meteors of the November star shower. The most remarkable evidence was that produced by Biela's comet, discovered in 1826. It had a revolution about the sun of six years and eight months. It was seen in 1772, 1805, 1832, 1845, and 1852. The vast mass, which appeared to be rushing around the sun with remarkable velocity, became separated in 1846, dividing into two parts, one hundred and fifty thousand or two hundred thousand miles from each other. In six years the separation had increased to about one and a half million miles. What mighty cataclysm in infinite space caused this rupture the mind of man can not conceive, but something occurred which rent the aërial giant asunder, and so far as known completed its wreck, as from that time Biela's comet has not been seen. In 1872 the comet was looked for, and astronomers predicted that if it did not appear a shower of stars or meteors would be visible--the remains of the lost traveler through space--and that they would diverge from a point in Andromeda.

This remarkable prediction was verified in every particular. When the moment for the appearance of the comet arrived, November 27, 1872, there burst upon the heavens, not Biela's comet, but a marvelous shower of shooting stars, which dashed down from the constellation of Andromeda as predicted. In 1885 this was duplicated, and the atmosphere was apparently filled with shooting stars. Biela's comet had met disaster in infinite space, and the earth was being bombarded with the wreckage.

It is difficult to comprehend the vastness of these clusters of meteors which constitute the wreck of comets and the source of the principal bombardments. Thus the August stream, which gives us the brilliant displays of summer nights, is supposed to be ten million miles in thickness, as the earth dashing through at a rate of two million miles a day is several days in passing it. We cross the November stream of meteors in a few hours, suggesting a width of forty thousand or fifty thousand miles. This stream of metallic bodies is hundreds of millions of miles in length, and contains myriads of projectiles which may yet be hurled upon the earth or some of the planets of the solar system.

But one piece of Biela's comet, so far as known, was found--a fragment weighing eight pounds falling at Mazapil, Mexico, where it remains one of the most inspiring and interesting of inanimate objects. For years the vast metallic mass, of which this piece formed a part, rushed through space, covering millions of miles; now near the burning surface of the sun, now in regions of space where its heat was scarcely perceptible. For over a century this monster was observed by the inhabitants of the earth, and finally a portion fell and human beings handled and examined it.

The fiery messengers which dash down singly upon the earth, the showers of meteoric stones which flash through our atmosphere with ephemeral gleams, are, then, the remains of gigantic comets which have been seen rushing with apparent erratic course through space, and which by unknown causes have been destroyed and now as meteoric clusters, one of which is estimated to be one billion miles in length and one hundred thousand miles in thickness, and to contain one hundred thousand million meteors, are swinging through space, with many erratic and wandering forms, pouring upon the earth and all the planets of the solar system a mighty and continuous bombardment.

FOOTNOTE:

[20] The meteors shown in the two ideal pictures are, of course, entirely disproportionate in size to the earth and stars. If seen by an observer above the earth, we might imagine an envelope of light around the globe from the continuous ignition of the 150,000,000,000 or more meteors which it is estimated strike the earth every year; in which case, the striking meteors would be represented in the illustrations as a thin light line surrounding the atmospheric envelope of the earth.

THE SPIRIT OF CONQUEST.

BY J. NOVICOW.

The spirit of conquest produces a gigantic aggregation of calamities and sufferings. A large number of persons still regard conquests with a favoring eye. Now, what does a conquest signify? It is the arming of a band of soldiers and going and taking possession of a territory. Although such expeditions may appear useful, lucrative, legitimate, and even glorious, little regard is paid, in conducting them, to the good of societies; for, in spite of all euphemisms, such military enterprises are robbery, and nothing else, all the time.

Generous spirits who talk about suppressing war do great injury to mankind. Setting themselves in pursuit of a chimera, they abandon the road that leads to concrete and positive results. Realists treat the partisans of perpetual peace as Utopian dreamers, and refuse to follow them. The noblest and most generous efforts are thus wholly lost. The direction of public opinion is left to empirics and retrogrades, to narrow-minded people, who are satisfied with living from day to day and have not the courage to look the social problems of the time in the face. War will never be abolished any more than murder. The propaganda should not be directed on that side. The spirit of conquest is the thing to combat. And this colossal error must be fought not in the name of a vague and intangible fraternity, but by appealing to the egoistic interest of every one. There will always be wars, because man will never be absolutely sound-minded. At times passion and folly will prevail over reason. But the idea that conquest is the quickest means of increasing prosperity will not be everlasting, because it is utterly false.

Man acts conformably to what seems to be his interest. The idea he has of this depends on his judgment, which varies every day, as do also his desires. There is only one efficacious method of effecting social changes: it is, to modify the desires of men, to bring them to seek new objects, different from the old ones.

A great many Germans are saying now, "We would give up the last drop of our blood rather than surrender Alsace-Lorraine." Why do they say that? Because the possession of the provinces annexed in 1871 procures them some sort of real or imaginary satisfaction. But if, on the other hand, this annexation caused them extreme sufferings, the Germans would say, "We would give up the last drop of our blood to get rid of Alsace-Lorraine." Now, if the Germans (or any other people) could comprehend how largely the spirit of conquest diminishes the sum of their enjoyment, they would certainly express themselves in language of the latter sort. The apostles of perpetual peace have therefore taken the wrong road. Their efforts should bear upon the single object of showing that the appropriation of a neighbor's territories in no way increases the welfare of men. The pessimists answer us that it will take many years for the uselessness of conquests to be accepted. Well, then, man shall have to continue many years in suffering; that is all there is of it.

When will the day come that we shall find out that it is no longer advantageous to seize a neighbor's territory? We do not know. The only thing we can affirm with absolute certainty is, that when it arrives our prosperity will be increased five or ten fold.[21]

This ctesohedonic error (lust for possession) has produced consequences of which we proceed to speak. Just as individuals fancy that they will be better off with larger possessions, so peoples imagine that their prosperity and happiness will be in direct proportion to the territorial extent of their country. Hence one of the silliest aberrations of the human mind--the fatuous idolatry of square miles. A great many Germans still figure it out that they will have a larger sum of happiness if their country contains 208,670 square miles instead of 203,070.[22] Few errors are more evident. There are thousands of examples to prove that the welfare of citizens is in no way a function of the extent of the state. If it were so, Russia would be the richest country in Europe, while everybody knows it is exactly the contrary. Taxation in that country is pushed to limits that might almost be called absurd, and for that reason the extent of the nation is one of the greatest obstacles to its prosperity.

As an example to illustrate the absurdity of the idolatry of square miles, take California, which now has 158,360 square miles,[23] and 1,200,000 inhabitants. If in another century the population should rise to forty millions, it might be expedient for the good government of these men to divide the State into several. If the conservatives of that period should declare that they would give the last drop of their blood to preserve the unity of their Commonwealth, they would be afflicted with the square-mile craze, and as foolish as the Europeans. Territorial divisions are made for men, not men for territorial divisions. The object enlightened patriots should pursue is not that a certain geographical extent should be included under one name or many, but that the divisions should conform to the aspirations and desires of the citizens. They should impose as little restraint as possible upon the economical and intellectual progress of societies.

The inhabitants of the province of Rio Grande recently wanted to secede from Brazil. The Government at Rio Janeiro, afflicted like other governments by the square-mile craze, would not consent to it, and hostilities broke out. Suppose the Rio Grandians had been victorious in this war; what would have been the result? There would have been eleven states in South America instead of ten. No modern political theorist would see the presage of an extraordinary calamity in such an event as that. The new state would have been recognized by the other powers, and things would have gone on as before. But if the central Government, respecting the wishes of the Rio Grandians, had consented to the secession, the empirical politicians of our time would have affirmed that the world had been unbalanced. Yet the situation would have been exactly the same in point of territorial divisions--eleven independent states instead of ten. We have then to think that, in the eyes of modern politicians, the avoidance of a war, the fact of sparing hundreds of millions of money and thousands of human lives, diminishes wealth, while the waste of capital and massacres should increase it! It would be hard to be less logical or more absurd.

The great North American federation is composed of forty-four States, of from 1,250 square miles (the size of Rhode Island) to 265,780 square miles (the size of Texas). If one hundred States should be established to-morrow of about 30,000 square miles each, there would not necessarily follow either an increase or a diminution of the welfare of the population. The Americans can make equally rapid progress whether divided into forty republics or one hundred, and as slow under one division as under the other. Wealth is not a function of political divisions. So Europe is now divided into twenty-four independent states, having from 8 to 2,100,000 square miles of territory. If it were divided to-morrow into one hundred independent states of 35,000 square miles each, it would as easily be poorer as richer. All would depend upon the interior organization of each of these states, and on the relations which they might establish with one another.

Very few persons understand this truth. When we see the most civilized nations of Europe imagining that their welfare depends on 5,000 or 6,000 square miles more or less, we stand really stupefied before the persistence of the ancient routines. The simple disarmament of three military corps would procure ten times as many benefits for the German people as the possession of Alsace-Lorraine. In short, as long as the false association between the territorial extent of a state and its wealth persists its progress in real wealth will be very slow.

To return to the spirit of conquest. A great many things, as we have shown in another place, are not appropriable. Foreign territories are not so for entire nations. A military chief with his staff may be better off through the conquest of a country, but a nation never.

When William of Normandy seized England he committed an act that was not according to his interest as properly understood. He destroyed by war a considerable quantity of wealth, and he and his barons in turn suffered by the general diminution of welfare. These sufferings were, however, infinitesimal and very hard to appreciate. True views of the nature of wealth were, moreover, not accessible to the brains of men of the eleventh century. Certainly, when William and his army had possessed themselves of England they experienced an increase of wealth that was very evident to them. The king had more revenue; every Norman soldier got land or a reward in money, and he became richer after Hastings than he had ever been before.

But what did the Roman _people_, for example, gain by the conquest of the basin of the Mediterranean? Four or five hundred grand personages divided the provincial lands alienated by the state among themselves, but what benefit did the masses derive from the bloody campaigns of the republic? The distribution of the _annone_, 280 grammes of bread each a day, given to 200,000 persons out of the 1,500,000 inhabitants of the Eternal City! Surely the Romans would have gained a great deal more by working themselves than by pillaging other nations!

Things are exactly the same now. In 1871 twenty-eight persons received from the Emperor William donations forming a total of $3,000,000. But what benefit did the German _people_ derive from the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine? None. Dividing the 3,600,000 acres of that province among the 6,400,000 families that were living in Germany at the time of the Treaty of Frankfort would make two and a half acres each. This is not opulence. Of the 5,000,000,000 of francs extorted from France as damage for the expenses of the war there remained 3,896,250,000 francs, which, divided among 6,400,000 families, represent a gain of 609 francs, or about $121.80 per family--hardly enough to live scantily upon for four months; and this was the most lucrative war of which history makes mention! Consider, further, at what amount of sacrifice these $121.80 have been gained. In 1870 the military expenses of the North German Confederation and the four southern states amounted to 349,000,000 francs a year. They now exceed 795,000,000, and in another year (from 1894) will exceed 870,000,000. Here, then, is an increase of 521,000,000 francs, or a charge of 60 francs per family. As 609 francs, even at five per cent, will only return 30 francs, we have here a clear loss of 30 francs (or $6) a family per year. It thus appears that the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine would have been a bad speculation, even if the French indemnity had been distributed in equal parts among all the German families. But, in fact, it has not been so; so that the 60 francs of supplementary expenditure are paid without any compensation.

It might be said that the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine was not dictated solely by sordid economical considerations. Other interests, purer and more elevated, stir the hearts of modern nations. But we ask, Is it grand, noble, and generous to hold unwilling populations under the yoke? On the contrary, it is most base, vile, and degrading. It is difficult to comprehend how brutal conquest can still arouse enthusiasm. Ancient survivals and routines must for a time have suppressed all our reflective faculties.

Suppose, again, 3,000,000 German soldiers should penetrate into Russia and should gain a complete victory: how would they apportion the territory? The parts here would indeed be larger--Russia contains 5,471,500,000 acres. But a third of this territory, at least, is desert; subtracting this, there remain about 3,600,000,000 acres, which, divided among the German families, would give about 5-1/2 acres to each. It may be asked, How will the conquerors take possession of these lands? If each family delegated only one of its members, that would suppose an exodus of 6,400,000 men, going to scatter themselves from the Vistula to the Amoor. What a disturbance so great an emigration would make in the economical condition of Germany! Moreover, would every German colonist be willing to leave his home, his family, his business, and all his cherished associations, to install himself on the banks of the Volga, in Siberia, the Caucasus, or Central Asia? He would acquire 5-1/2 acres, more or less, it is true, but is it certain that that would bring him more than it would take from him? On the other hand, if the Germans should have their shares administered by agents chosen from among the natives, what complications, what annoyances would arise! The Germans might perhaps get rid of these difficulties by selling their lands. But what price could they command, with 3,600,000,000 acres all put into the market at once? Who would buy it? It is only necessary to look at the facts at close range (besides a mass of difficulties we have not spoken of) to comprehend that the direct appropriation of the territory of one great modern nation by individuals of another does not enter into the domain of realizable things.

The appropriation of the landed properties is therefore chimerical. The confiscation of personal goods to the profit of the conquerors also offers insurmountable difficulties. There remain the public riches. Few countries could pay indemnities of 5,000,000,000 francs. But even that colossal sum becomes absurdly insufficient when it is equally divided among millions of takers.

All this is most plainly evident, and yet the spirit of conquest and the fatuous idolatry of square miles are more active than ever in the old world of Europe.

Let us see now what this mad aberration costs. We will begin with the direct losses.

A whole continent of our globe, twice as large as the European continent, having 8,000,000 square miles and 80,000,000 inhabitants--North America--is divided into three political dominions: Canada, the United States, and Mexico. As none of these countries covets the territory of the other, there are on this vast continent only 114,453 soldiers and marines, one military man for 700 inhabitants, while in Europe there is one for 108. The American proportion would give 514,286 men for all the European armies. As there are no savage elements in Europe to be restrained by arms, half of the North American contingent ought to be enough to maintain internal order there. Europe needs only 300,000 soldiers at most; all the others are supported in deference to the idolatry for square miles. This additional military force exceeds 3,300,000 men, and costs 4,508,000,000 francs ($901,600,000) a year. And this is the direct loss entailed by the spirit of conquest; and yet it is trifling as compared with the indirect losses.

First, there are 3,300,000 men under the flags. If they were not soldiers, and were following lucrative occupations and earning only 1,000 francs ($200) a head, they might produce $760,000,000. The $900,000,000 absorbed now by military expenditures would bring five per cent if invested in agricultural and industrial enterprises. This would make another $45,000,000. The twenty-eight days of the reserves are worth at least $40,000,000. Here, then, is an absolutely palpable sum of $845,000,000. But what a number of colossal losses escape all valuation! Capital produces capital. If $1,800,000,000 were saved every year from military expenses and poured into industrial enterprises, they would produce benefits beyond our power to estimate.

To obtain a correct appreciation of the evils derived from the spirit of conquest, we must take a glance at the past. We need not go back of the middle ages, from which we shall only take a few examples. The destruction of wealth wrought by war has been nowhere so frightful as in Spain. In 1073 the Castilians tried to capture Toledo from the Moors. With the military engines of the time it was impossible to accomplish the purpose by a direct attack on a place so admirably fortified by Nature and man; so the King of Castile, Alfonso VI, ravaged the country for three successive years, destroyed the crops, harassed the people and the cattle, and, in short, made a desert around the old capital of the Visigoths.

From 1110 till 1815--seven hundred and five years--there were two hundred and seventy-two years of war between France and England. Now the two nations have lived in peace for eighty years, and it has not prevented them from prospering. What better proof could we have that all the previous wars were useless?

We need not speak of the massacres of the Thirty Years' War, by which a third of the population of Germany perished, or of the frightful hecatombs of Napoleon I, for these facts are in everybody's memory. We shall confine our attention to the losses caused by the spirit of conquest, at least since the Thirty Years' War. Here, again, we shall proceed by analogies. From 1700 to 1815 England expended 175,000,000 francs ($35,000,000) a year for war. Suppose that the expenditures of the other great powers--Germany (including Prussia), Austria, Spain, France, and Russia--were similar. This would make, without counting the smaller states, 1,050,000,000 francs ($210,000,000) for all Europe. Still, as war was not so costly to Russia or Prussia as to England, we will reduce this figure one fourth. We shall then have, between 1700 and 1815, an annual expenditure of 787,500,000 francs ($157,500,000).[24] Let us estimate the cost of the wars of the seventeenth century at a slightly lower sum, putting it at only 500,000,000 francs (or $100,000,000) a year for all Europe. That would make 41,000,000,000 francs ($8,200,000,000), or for the entire period from 1618 to 1815, 131,562,500,000 francs ($26,312,500,000).

We have more certain data for the nineteenth century. The Crimean, Italian, Schleswig-Holstein, and American Wars, and the war of 1866, cost 46,830,000,000 francs ($9,366,000,000).[25] The war of France cost 15,000,000,000 francs ($3,000,000,000) at the lowest; that of 1877 at least 4,000,000,000 francs ($800,000,000). Add for the war of Greek independence, the French and Austrian expeditions to Spain and Naples, the Polish war of 1830, the Turco-Russian war of 1828-'29, and the wars of 1848, 3,000,000,000 francs ($600,000,000) more--a very moderate estimate; we reach a total sum of 68,830,000,000 francs ($13,766,000,000). None of the extra-European conflicts are comprised in this figure; neither the war between Russia and Persia in 1827, that of Mehemet Ali against the Turks, the struggle against the mountaineers of the Caucasus and against the Arabs in Algeria, or the English campaign in Afghanistan--concerning all of which we have no figures.

Counting only the figures we have been able to obtain, we have for the period from 1618 till our own days 200,392,000,000 francs ($50,078,500,000) as the bare direct losses by war, which have had to be defrayed by the budgets of the different European states. How shall we calculate the indirect losses? Between 1618 and 1648 Germany lost 6,000,000 inhabitants. The destruction of property was prodigious, the ravages were frightful. How can we represent them in money? It is absolutely impossible. There are, too, some expenses arising from the spirit of conquest that almost wholly escape observation. We shall give only two examples of them.

The ctesohedonic fallacy (lust for possession) raged in the middle ages between the nearest neighbors. No city could offer any security unless it was surrounded by strong walls. Since these required great expenditures, they could not be rebuilt every few days. For this reason space was greatly economized in the cities, and their streets were very narrow. At a later period, when security had become established, the walls were demolished. In our own time the needs of hygiene and luxury have urged the opening of broad ways in the ancient European cities. It has been necessary to buy houses and demolish them in order to create the grand modern avenues. There would have been no walls in the middle ages except for the spirit of conquest, and the broad streets would have been established then, as has been done in the new cities of Russia and America. To pierce these new avenues, Paris, for example, has had to contract debts, the annual interest on which amounts to at least 50,000,000 or 60,000,000 francs ($10,000,000 to $12,000,000). This expense should be charged to the account of the spirit of conquest. But nobody has ever thought of attributing these 50,000,000 or 60,000,000 of the city budget to military waste. And how many other cities are in the same situation? Another example: during six centuries France and England were trying to take provinces from one another. Hence a permanent hostility existed between the two nations. Later on the circumstances changed, but by virtue of the routine inherent in the human mind the old resentments remained, though the motive for them had gone. To thwart the progress of France was considered a patriotic duty by such English ministers as Lord Palmerston. In 1855 M. de Lesseps formed a company to construct the Suez Canal. As M. de Lesseps was a Frenchman, Lord Palmerston and the British Cabinet thought themselves obligated to oppose his project, and their opposition cost about 200,000,000 francs ($40,000,000). The canal might have been constructed then for that sum, but in consequence of the machinations of the English it cost 400,000,000 francs ($80,000,000). Who has ever thought of charging that loss to the account of the spirit of conquest? Nevertheless, that is where it belongs.[26]

The indirect losses of war defy valuation. But the matter may be looked at from another point of view: that of the profits which they prevent being made. The American war against secession cost the treasury of both combatants $7,000,000,000. Now, if, without speaking of the destruction of property,[27] we only consider the benefits nonrealized, the most moderate estimates make them $12,000,000,000 for the year 1890,[28] and the figure goes on every year increasing in geometrical progression.

Further, the debts must be considered. The largest proportion of them are consequences of the idolatry for square miles. This entails an annual expenditure of $644,800,000 which we should not have to bear were it not for the ctesohedonic fallacy.[29]

Yet another factor has so far not been mentioned: men. The wars of the last three centuries have cost, at the lowest figure, 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 victims. Some authors raise this very moderate estimate to 20,000,000 per century. Without speaking of the frightful sufferings of these unfortunates, they represent an enormous capital.[30] Let us add, further, that these men, if they had not been killed, might have had children that now have no existence. Without the wars of Napoleon I and Napoleon III Europe would have had 45,000,000 more inhabitants than it has, and they might have been producing $2,700,000 a year.[31]

We hope the reader will admit, after these considerations, that the indirect losses of war certainly exceed the direct ones. Still, adhering to our method of underrating rather than exaggerating, we will regard them as equal. We may therefore affirm that the spirit of conquest has cost, since 1618, in the group of European nations alone, the trifle of $80,156,800,000. Suppose we should go farther back--into antiquity even? Imagination refuses to set down the gigantic sums.

This is not all; the cost of civil wars has to be counted, for the conquest of power within the state is attended by massacres which are often not inferior to those of foreign ones. The chiefs of the Roman legions contending for the empire carried on as bloody and costly campaigns against their rivals as against the Parthians or the Germans. The war between Paris and Versailles in 1871 occasioned considerable expenditures, not to speak of the indirect losses, which were immense. We are, unfortunately, absolutely without data concerning the cost of civil wars, and shall have to satisfy ourselves with what we have been able to obtain concerning foreign wars. $80,156,800,000 used up in two centuries! We need not go outside of this for a solution of the social question. Without this unrestricted waste the earth would now have ten times more wheat, sugar, linen, cotton, meat, wool, etc.; there would be ten times as many houses on the globe, and they would be more spacious, better warmed, and better ventilated; a network of roads, with frequent mails, would cover Europe, Asia, Africa, and America. In short, if conquest had been considered an evil, even during only two centuries, our wealth would have been infinitely superior to what we now possess. But if the ctesohedonic fallacy had been seen through by the civilized societies of the Roman period, the face of the earth would have been very different from what it is. Our planet would have been completely appropriated to the satisfaction of our wants. Waste lands would have been tilled and swamps dried; everywhere that a drop of water could be made to serve for irrigation it would have been applied to that use. Magnificent cities, inhabited by active and industrious populations, would have arisen in numerous places where now are found only briers and stones. In short, we should have been able to see men now, in the year of grace 1894, as we expect to see them in three or four thousand years.

The past can not be changed. We have laid bare the unhappy consequences of our ancient errors simply in order to show how we can assure our welfare in the future. As long as the spirit of conquest rages among men, misery will be the lot of our species. Our savage and barbarous ancestors did not know what we know. Attila, Tamerlane, and even Matabele, a chief of our own times, might be excused for fancying that conquest increases the wealth of the conquerors; but a Moltke and a Prince Bismarck can not. The masses are still too deeply imbued with military vainglory. Happily, they are beginning to open their eyes.--_Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the book Les Gaspillages des Sociétés Modernes_ (The Wastes of Modern Societies), Paris, 1894.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] The pessimists are further mistaken. The idea that conquest is disastrous, even to the conqueror, is much more widespread in modern societies than is generally thought. But social reflexes urge the masses to obey their chief blindly. It requires only a Gothic spirit--like Bismarck, for example--to set a whole army in motion, and make it do things which every officer and every soldier would condemn as a personal act.

[22] The difference is the extent of Alsace-Lorraine.

[23] About the extent of the British Isles, Belgium, Holland, and Switzerland combined.

[24] See Seeley's Expansion of England, p. 21. This figure is very moderate. Between 1802 and 1813 France alone spent 498,000,000 francs ($99,600,000) a year. See Laroque, La Guerre et les Armées permanentes, Paris, 1870, p. 203.

[25] See P. Leroy-Beaulieu, Recherches économiques sur les Guerres contemporaines, Paris, p. 181.

[26] We may refer here to another loss which has never been thought of till now. It was long fancied that wealth could be acquired more rapidly by war than by work; consequently, conquest seeming to be the most rapid and therefore most efficacious way, was honored, and labor, appearing to be a slower process, was despised. In our days a large number of descendants of the knights of the middle ages retain the ideas of their ancestors and look upon labor as degrading. Hence thousands of aristocrats do nothing, but remain social good-for-nothings, retarding the increase of wealth by their inactivity.

[27] Sherman, in his march from Atlanta to Savannah alone, destroyed more than $400,000,000. The cotton famine occasioned by this war cost Great Britain a loss of $480,000,000. Who has ever thought of charging this against militarism?

[28] See E. Reclus, Nouvelle geographie universelle (French edition), vol. xvi, p. 810.

[29] A justification of this figure may be found in my Luttes entre les sociétés humaines, p. 220.

[30] A half million negroes are massacred every year in Africa in the tribal wars, which also are caused by the ctesohedonic fallacy. Suppose each one of them might have earned $20 a year. Capitalized at four per cent, this sum would have amounted to $400,000,000.

[31] See my Luttes, p. 228. Let us say, in passing, that we owe our existing savagery partly to the ctesohedonic fallacy. When we think that the most rapid way of enriching ourselves is by seizing our neighbor's territories, the fewer defenders that territory has, the better. So all pretended political geniuses glorify themselves on having killed the largest number of their fellow-men. Cæsar boasted of having killed a million and a half of Gauls. At the moment of writing these lines a terrible accident has occurred at Santander. Hundreds of persons were killed by the explosion of a boat loaded with dynamite. Great pity was expressed for the victims. Collections for their benefit were taken in France. Suppose France and Spain were now at war. If somebody had blown up some thousand Spaniards in a fortress, we should have sung _Te Deums_. Oh, man's logic!

* * * * *

Until within a few years the field for the study of glaciers and their action has been the Alps; but now, as Prof. H.L. Fairchild said in his address as chairman of the Geological Section of the American Association, the North American continent is recognized as a field of the greatest activity, both in the past and at the present time; and, moreover, it presents types of glaciers not known in Europe. It must therefore become the Mecca of foreign students of glaciers.

A SHORT HISTORY OF SCIENTIFIC INSTRUCTION.[32]

BY J. NORMAN LOCKYER, K.C.B., F.R.S.

II.

I must come back from this excursion to call your attention to the year 1845, in which one of the germs of our college first saw the light.

What was the condition of England in 1845? Her universities had degenerated into _hauts lycées_. With regard to the university teaching, I may state that even as late as the late fifties a senior wrangler--I had the story from himself--came to London from Cambridge expressly to walk about the streets to study crystals, prisms, and the like in the optician's windows. Of laboratories in the universities there were none; of science teaching in the schools there was none; there was no organization for training science teachers.

If an artisan wished to improve his knowledge he had only the moribund Mechanics' Institutes to fall back upon.

The nation which then was renowned for its utilization of waste material products allowed its mental products to remain undeveloped.

There was no minister of instruction, no councilors with a knowledge of the national scientific needs, no organized secondary or primary instruction. We lacked then everything that Germany had equipped herself with in the matter of scientific industries.

Did this matter? Was it more than a mere abstract question of a want of perfection?

It mattered very much! From all quarters came the cry that the national industries were being undermined in consequence of the more complete application of scientific methods to those of other countries.

The chemical industries were the first to feel this, and because England was then the seat of most of the large chemical works.[33]

Very few chemists were employed in these chemical works. There were in cases some so-called chemists at about bricklayer's wages--not much of an inducement to study chemistry; even if there had been practical laboratories, where it could have been properly learned. Hence, when efficient men were wanted they were got from abroad--i.e., from Germany, or the richer English had to go abroad themselves.

At this time we had, fortunately for us, in England, in very high place, a German fully educated by all that could be learned at one of the best-equipped modern German universities, where he studied both science and the fine arts. I refer to the Prince Consort. From that year to his death he was the fountain of our English educational renaissance, drawing to himself men like Playfair, Clark, and De la Beche; knowing what we lacked, he threw himself into the breach. This college is one of the many things the nation owes to him. His service to his adopted country, and the value of the institutions he helped to inaugurate, are by no means even yet fully recognized, because those from whom national recognition full and ample should have come, were, and to a great extent still are, the products of the old system of middle-age scholasticism which his clear vision recognized was incapable by itself of coping with the conditions of modern civilized communities.

It was in the year 1845 that the influence of the Prince Consort began to be felt. Those who know most of the conditions of science and art then and now, know best how beneficial that influence was in both directions; my present purpose, however, has only reference to science.

The College of Chemistry was founded in 1845, first as a private institution; the School of Mines was established by the Government in 1851.

In the next year, in the speech from the throne at the opening of Parliament, her Majesty spoke as follows: "The advancement of the fine arts and of practical science will be readily recognized by you as worthy the attention of a great and enlightened nation. I have directed that a comprehensive scheme shall be laid before you having in view the promotion of these objects, toward which I invite your aid and co-operation."

Strange words these from the lips of an English sovereign!

The Government of this country was made at last to recognize the great factors of a peaceful nation's prosperity, and to reverse a policy which has been as disastrous to us as if they had insisted upon our naval needs being supplied by local effort as they were in Queen Elizabeth's time.

England has practically lost a century; one need not be a prophet to foresee that in another century's time our education and our scientific establishments will be as strongly organized by the British Government as the navy itself.

As a part of the comprehensive scheme referred to by her Majesty, the Department of Science and Art was organized in 1853, and in the amalgamation of the College of Chemistry and the School of Mines we have the germ of our present institution.

But this was not the only science school founded by the Government. The Royal School of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering was established by the department at the request of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty, "with a view of providing especially for the education of shipbuilding officers for her Majesty's service, and promoting the general study of the science of shipbuilding and naval engineering." It was not limited to persons in the Queen's service, and it was opened on November 1, 1864. The present Royal College of Science was built for it and the College of Chemistry. In 1873 the school was transferred to the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, and this accident enabled the teaching from Jermyn Street to be transferred and proper practical instruction to be given at South Kensington. The Lords of the Admiralty expressed their entire satisfaction with the manner in which the instruction had been carried on at South Kensington; and well they might, for in a memorandum submitted to the Lord President in 1887, the president and council of the Institute of Naval Architects state: "When the department dealt with the highest class of education in naval architecture by assisting in founding and by carrying on the School of Naval Architecture at South Kensington, the success which attended their efforts was phenomenal, the great majority of the rising men in the profession having been educated at that institution."

Here I again point out, both with regard to the School of Mines, the School of Naval Architecture, and the later Normal School, that it was stern need that was in question, as in Egypt in old times.

Of the early history of the college I need say nothing after the addresses of my colleagues, Professors Judd and Roberts-Austen, but I am anxious to refer to some parts of its present organization and their effect on our national educational growth in some directions.

It was after 1870 that our institution gradually began to take its place as a normal school--that is, that the teaching of teachers formed an important part of its organization, because in that year the newly established departments, having found that the great national want then was teachers of science, began to take steps to secure them. Examinations had been inaugurated in 1859, but they were for outsiders, conferring certificates and a money reward on the most competent teachers tested in this way. These examinations were really controlled by our school, for Tyndall, Hofmann, Ramsay, Huxley, and Warington Smyth, the first professors, were also the first examiners.

Very interesting is it to look back at that first year's work, the first cast of the new educational net. After what I have said about the condition of chemistry and the establishment of the College of Chemistry in 1845, you will not be surprised to hear that Dr. Hofmann was the most favored--he had forty-four students.

Professor Huxley found one student to tackle his questions, and he failed.

Professors Ramsay and Warington Smyth had three each, but the two threes only made five; for both lists were headed by the name of

Judd, John W., Wesleyan Training College, Westminster.

Our present dean was caught in the first haul.

These examinations were continued till 1866, and upward of six hundred teachers obtained certificates, some of them in several subjects.

Having secured the teachers, the next thing the department did was to utilize them. This was done in 1859 by the establishment of the science classes throughout the country, which are, I think, the only part of our educational system which even the Germans envy us. The teaching might go on in schools, attics or cellars, there was neither age limit nor distinction of sex or creed.

Let me insist upon the fact that from the outset practical work was encouraged by payments for apparatus, and that latterly the examinations themselves, in some of the subjects, have been practical.

* * * * *

The number of students under instruction in science classes under examined in the first year in which local examinations were held was 442; the number in 1897 was 202,496. The number of candidates examined in the first year in which local examinations were held was 650, who worked 1,000 papers; in 1897 the number was 106,185, who worked 159,724 papers, chemistry alone sending in 28,891 papers, mathematics 24,764, and physiography 16,879.

The total number of individual students under instruction in science classes under the department from 1859 to 1897 inclusive has been, approximately, 2,000,000. Of these about 900,000 came forward for examination, the total number of papers worked by them being 3,195,170.

Now why have I brought these statistics before you?

Because from 1861 onward the chief rewards of the successful students have been scholarships and exhibitions held in this college; a system adopted in the hope that in this way the numbers of perfectly trained science teachers might be increased, so that the science classes throughout the country might go on from strength to strength.

The royal exhibitions date from 1863, the national scholars from 1884. The free studentships were added later.

The strict connection between the science classes throughout the country and our college will be gathered from the following statement, which refers to the present time:

Twenty-one royal exhibitions--seven open each year--four to the Royal College of Science, London, and three to the Royal College of Science, Dublin.

Sixty-six national scholarships--twenty-two open each year--tenable, at the option of the holder, at either the Royal College of Science, London, or the Royal College of Science, Dublin.

Eighteen free studentships--six open each year--to the Royal College of Science, London.

A royal exhibition entitles the holder to free admission to lectures and laboratories, and to instruction during the course for the associateship--about three years--in the Royal College of Science, London, or the Royal College of Science, Dublin, with maintenance and traveling allowances.

A national scholarship entitles the holder to free admission to lectures and laboratories and to instruction during the course of the associateship--about three years--at either the Royal College of Science, London, or the Royal College of Science, Dublin, at the option of the holder, with maintenance and traveling allowances.

A free studentship entitles the holder to free admission to the lectures and laboratories and to instruction during the course for the associateship--about three years--in the Royal College of Science, London, but not to any maintenance or traveling allowance.

Besides the above students who have been successful in the examinations of the science classes, a limited number (usually about sixty) of teachers, and of students in science classes who intend to become science teachers, are admitted free for a term or session to the courses of instruction. They may be called upon to pass an entrance examination. Of these, there are two categories--those who come to learn and those who remain to teach; some of the latter may be associates.

Besides all these, those holding Whitworth scholarships--the award of which is decided by the science examinations--can, and some do, spend the year covered by the exhibition at the college.

In this way, then, is the _École Normale_ side of our institution built up.

The number of Government students in the college in 1872 was 25; in 1886 it was 113; and in 1897 it was 186.

The total number of students who passed through the college from 1882-'83 to 1896-'97, inclusive, was 4,145. Of these, 1,966 were Government students. The number who obtained the associateship of the Royal School of Mines from 1851 to 1881 was 198, of whom 39 were Government students, and of the Royal College of Science and Royal School of Mines from 1882 to 1897 the number was 525, of whom 323 were Government students. Of this total of 362 Government students 94 were science teachers in training.

With regard to the Whitworth scholarships, which, like the exhibitions, depend upon success at the yearly examinations throughout the country, I may state that six have held their scholarships at the college for at least a part of the scholarship period, and three others were already associates.

So much for the prizemen we have with us. I next come to the teachers in training who come to us. The number of teachers in training who have passed through the college from 1872 to 1897, inclusive, is about six hundred; on an average they attended about two years each. The number in the session 1872-'73, when they were first admitted, was sixteen, the number in 1885-'86 was fifty, and in 1896-'97 sixty. These have not as a rule taught science classes previously, but before admission they give an undertaking that they intend to teach. In the earlier years some did not carry out this undertaking, doubtless because of the small demand for teachers of science at that time. But we have changed all that. With but very few exceptions, all the teachers so trained now at once begin teaching, and not necessarily in classes under the department. It is worthy of note, too, that many royal exhibitioners and national scholars, although under no obligation to do so, also take up science teaching. It is probable that of all the Government students now who pass out of the college each year not less than three fourths become teachers. The total number of teachers of science engaged in classes under the department alone at the present time is about six thousand.

I have not yet exhausted what our college does for the national efforts in aiding the teaching of science.

When you, gentlemen, leave us about the end of June for your well-earned holidays, a new task falls upon your professors in the shape of summer courses to teachers of science classes brought up by the department from all parts of the four kingdoms to profit by the wealth of apparatus in the college and museum, and the practical work which it alone renders possible.

The number of science teachers who have thus attended the summer courses reaches 6,200, but as many of these have attended more than one course, the number of separate persons is not so large.

RESEARCH.--From time to time balances arise in the scholarship fund owing to some of the national scholarships or royal exhibitions being vacated before the full time for which they are tenable has expired. Scholarships are formed from these balances and awarded among those students who, having completed the full course of training for the associateship, desire to study for another year at the college. _It is understood that the fourth year is to be employed in research in the subject of the associateship._

The gaining of one of the Remanet scholarships, not more than two on the average annually, referred to, furnishes really the only means by which deserving students are enabled to pursue research in the college; as, although a professor has the power to nominate a student to a free place in his laboratory, very few of the most deserving students are able to avail themselves of the privilege owing to want of means.

The department only very rarely sends students up as teachers in training for research work, but only those who intend making teaching their profession are eligible for these studentships.

I trust that at some future day, when we get our new buildings--it is impossible to do more than we do till we get them--more facilities for research may be provided, and even an extension of time allowed for it if necessary. I see no reason why some of the 1851 exhibition scholarships should not be awarded to students of this college, but to be eligible they must have published a research. Research should naturally form part of the work of the teachers in training who are not brought up here merely to effect an economy in the teaching staff.

Such, then, in brief, are some of our normal-school attributes. I think any one who knows the facts must acknowledge that the organization has justified itself not only by what it has done, but also by the outside activities it has set in motion. It is true that with regard to the system of examining school candidates by means of papers sent down from London, the department was anticipated by the College of Preceptors in 1853, and by Oxford and Cambridge in 1858; but the action of 1861, when science classes open to everybody, was copied by Oxford and Cambridge in 1869. The department's teachers got to work in 1860, but the so-called "University Extension Movement" dates only from 1873, and only quite recently have summer courses been started at Oxford and Cambridge.

The chemical and physical laboratories, small though they were in the department's schools, were in operation long before any practical work in these subjects was done either at Oxford or Cambridge. When the college laboratories began, about 1853, they existed practically alone. From one point of view we should rejoice that they are now third rate. I think it would be wrong of me not to call your attention to the tenacity, the foresight, the skill, the unswerving patience, exhibited by those upon whom has fallen the duty of sailing the good ship "Scientific Instruction," launched, as I have stated, out upon a sea which was certain, from the history I have brought before you, to be full of opposing currents.

I have had a statement prepared showing what the most distinguished of our old students and of those who have succeeded in the department's examinations are now doing. The statement shows that those who have been responsible for our share in the progress of scientific instruction have no cause to be ashamed.

CONCLUSION.--I have referred previously to the questions of secondary education and of a true London University, soon, let us hope, to be realized.

Our college will be the first institution to gain from a proper system of secondary education, for the reason that scientific studies gain enormously by the results of literary culture, without which we can neither learn so thoroughly nor teach so effectively as one could wish.

To keep a proper mind-balance, engaged as we are here continuously in scientific thought, literature is essential, as essential as bodily exercise, and if I may be permitted to give you a little advice, I should say organize your athletics as students of the college, and organize your literature as individuals. I do not think you will gain so much by studying scientific books when away from here as you will by reading English and foreign classics, including a large number of works of imagination; and study French and German also in your holidays by taking short trips abroad.

With regard to the university. If it be properly organized, in the light of the latest German experience, with complete science and technical faculties of the highest order, it should certainly insist upon annexing the School of Mines portion of our institution; the past history of the school is so creditable that the new university for its own sake should insist upon such a course. It would be absurd, in the case of a nation which depends so much on mining and metallurgy, if these subjects were not taught in the chief national university, as the University of London must become.

But the London University, like the Paris University, if the little history of science teaching I have given you is of any value, must leave our normal college alone, at all events till we have more than trebled our present supply of science teachers.

But while it would be madness to abolish such an institution as our normal school, and undesirable if not impossible to graft it on the new university, our school, like its elder sister in Paris, should be enabled to gain by each increase in the teaching power of the university. The students on the scientific side of the Paris school, in spite of the fact that their studies and researches are looked after by fourteen professors entitled Maîtres de Conférences, attend certain of the courses at the Sorbonne and the Collége de France, and this is one of the reasons why many of the men and researches which have enriched French science hail from the _École Normale_.

One word more. As I have pointed out, the French _École Normale_ was the result of a revolution; I may now add that France since Sedan has been doing, and in a tremendous fashion, what, as I have told you, Prussia did after Jena. Let us not wait for disastrous defeats, either on the field of battle or of industry, to develop to the utmost our scientific establishments and so take our proper and complete place among the nations.--_Nature._

FOOTNOTES:

[32] An address delivered at the Royal College of Science on October 6, 1898.

[33] Perkin. Nature, vol. xxxii, p. 334.

THE SERIES METHOD: A COMPARISON.

BY CHARLOTTE TAYLOR.

Broadly speaking, there are two methods which are used for the teaching of a language: that of the mother and that of the grammarian. The child learns its own or _mother_ tongue from the mother; it learns a foreign tongue from a teacher, whose highest ambition is to be a grammarian. Does the child learn better from the mother or from the grammarian? Without doubt, from the mother, according to the mother method. If this is so, must we use the example of the mother or of the grammarian when we are to begin the teaching of a foreign language? Is there any reason why a foreign tongue should be otherwise taught than the mother tongue? Is it not at least worth the trouble to try the method of the mother, when it is every day demonstrated that pupils who have had five, six, seven years of teaching are unable, on leaving school, so much as to understand when the language they have been studying is used in conversation?

Let us attempt to obtain light on the differences between these two principal methods that exist for teaching a language. What is the mother's method? How does she teach the child to speak? First let us notice that the mother follows the child: she allows him first to show interest in something and then helps him to express _himself_. Here we must pause to notice that what most interests the child is not a thing, an object for itself, but the capacity of the thing to do something, the possibilities of the thing for the performance of an action. A young child takes a thing in its hand and waves it, or strikes it against something, or passes it from one hand to the other; when it is older, it asks invariably, "What for?" The mother names the thing to the child, and also the action that may be therewith performed. The child begins to play. Here a specialty of the mother method comes into view. The mother tells the child that she is _pleased_ or _displeased_ with him, that it makes her _happy_ or _unhappy_ when the child does this or that, that she _thinks_ he is a good or a naughty boy, etc.--all of which remarks express her feelings, her thoughts, in contradistinction to the actions which have occasioned these feelings and thoughts; the realm of the mind as opposed to the world of activity. Let us here notice that the speech of every people contains these two classifications of words, the objective and the subjective; and indeed it must be so, since we perform actions and we judge of our actions. By this method the child learns in about a year from the time it begins to speak to express itself about what it does and what it thinks.

Now what is the method of the grammarian? The child learns first the names of things that do not appeal to his consciousness, for they do not start from his point of view, but from that of the maker of a book. He learns lists of words--that is, he learns to know the _symbol_, and not the _thing_; he translates. He learns about Cæsar's wars and the book of his father's uncle in what is called an exercise. For both of these subjects he feels no interest, which is to be expected, as they are abstract. He sees no action. Of the great part of language, which may be called the speech of feeling, he also learns only in the abstract. He reads that Cæsar was glad or that his father's uncle was angry, but the happiness and the anger are outside of his consciousness; they have been presented to him by symbols, that is, printed words. By this method the child learns in about four years to read fairly well; as a rule, speaking the language is entirely out of the question. The pupils can not talk of their actions and their feelings, because these are represented to them by symbols, for such are printed words; they have not grasped them as actualities. If on going into a foreign country they are able to understand what is being said, the teacher may consider himself lucky. He has done his utmost with the method he has chosen to employ. He has attained something. It remains true that the mother accomplishes more in a shorter time than the grammarian.

But is it perhaps possible to put the two methods together, and thus to create a method which shall contain the good of both? We must not continue always to act as the mother does, to teach after her method, or our pupils will continue to talk like a child of two years, and be furthermore unable to write at all. How shall we manage to melt the two into one compact, inseparable whole?

Let us imagine a class is to take its first lesson in the foreign tongue. First, what shall be the matter of the lesson; then, how shall it be presented? We shall be careful to choose a subject that can be interesting to the pupil, hence a subject containing activity. It is not necessary that it should be anything astonishing or unusual. Let us consider with the pupils how one opens the classroom door. Let us ask the pupil in his mother tongue how he does it, carefully drawing his attention to the number of actions necessary to the accomplishment of our aim, such as walking, standing still, extending the arm, grasping the knob, etc., together with the resulting actions on the part of the door, opening, swinging, etc. We will then draw his attention to the words of activity, the verbs, and tell him he is going to learn those words in the new language--say German. We will now take the first verb necessary to the accomplishment of our aim, that of walking. We will say, _while we walk_, such sentences as "This is gehe," "See how I gehe," "My feet move when I gehe," etc. We do the same with each verb, always with its accompanying action. We will take the first four verbs of our subject, repeat them the first time with many explanatory phrases, the second time with fewer, the third and last time we shall simply repeat the verbs "gehe," "stehe still," "strecke aus," "fasse an," always with the actions. By this time the pupils will know these, they having heard each one at least seven times. We can now allow them to recite, we still giving the clew by the production of the appropriate action. Having taught these first four verbs, we are now ready for the full sentence "I walk toward the door," "I stand still by the door," "I reach out my arm," "I take hold of the knob." We can teach the subject "ich" without difficulty, as it remains the same in all the sentences. Let us take the nouns and teach in this manner: "Ich gehe"--pointing--"Thür," then a repetition of "Thür" contained in sentences describing it, with at least three repetitions of the word. Then come the words showing direction and relation. If you say "Ich gehe"--pointing--"Thür," the pupil will know that there is a word lacking, and he will be unsatisfied till he knows it. We now have a sentence, "Ich gehe nach der Thür." We will teach the other sentences in the same way; we will repeat each sentence at least three times in its entirety, and we will allow the pupils to recite. Here it is of interest to show the pupil that the sentence has sprung from the verb, that the verb is the germ of the sentence. Whether we do this with the words "verb," "sentence," "germ," must depend on the capacity of the class. It is not a question of words, but of ideas. Let us present our subject as a living thing. To supply the pupil with an old-fashioned grammar exercise is like inviting him to make a dinner off papier-maché joints and steaks.

All this time we have been considering the part of language which deals with the _outside_ world. It is now time to consider how we shall present the part of language which deals with the inner life. We must make the pupil capable of expressing his states of mind, his thoughts, because these thoughts are interesting to him. There is, broadly speaking, only one situation in class about which his mind is working: his own success or failure to recite. Hence, before each recitation we shall speak a sentence of encouragement or command, such as "Please begin," "I think you are going to do well." After each recitation we shall speak a sentence of praise or blame, such as "Very good," "It might have been better." These, as they can not be expressed by actions, may be translated when necessary into equivalent phrases in the mother tongue. We shall illustrate each phrase by stories, riddles, quotations, whatever you like. The pupil will be interested, and hence will remember. It is not necessary to the acquisition of knowledge that the pupil should be thoroughly bored while trying to learn. After a sufficient number of repetitions of a phrase by the teacher, it will be handed over to the pupils, who will then address to each other phrases of encouragement, command, praise, blame, etc. We have now enabled the pupil to express an action and his thought; the outside and the inside world are his; he needs only to advance as he began. Each lesson proceeds in this wise:

EXAMPLE.