Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 23.djvu/460

444 institution. Some singular developments on this subject have recently been brought to public notice—that is, in matters connected with the subject of divorce.

Among no other civilized people is there such a breaking up of the family. Why should it occur here, among a people so highly educated and moral? Some attribute it to changes in legislation, but the primary causes of the evil existed before, and will continue, in spite of any changes in legislation. Its outward developments may by this means be checked, but the evil is not cured. The primary causes of these anomalous developments have, we believe, a broad and deep foundation in physical organization. We do not see how all the facts connected with this alarming evil can be accounted for in any other way.

There is one consideration connected with this whole subject, of vast importance, which can here only be mentioned—that is, heredity. The changes in organization are directly and most intimately connected with hereditary influences. The effects of such changes through the laws of inheritance are so great and far-reaching that they can not be described or measured. Judging from a physiological stand-point, the introduction of this foreign element into New England, instead of proving a blessing, may result in one of the greatest misfortunes that ever befell any race or people.



N the Editor's Table of the April number of this magazine, there appeared what seemed to me some most excellent remarks on "The Hindrances to the Science of Politics." One of the chief of these the writer declared to be the wide-spread skepticism as to the possibility of such a science. "In no country," he added, "was this skepticism so pronounced as in the United States." Members of Congress and of the State Legislatures would all alike agree that the idea of constituting such a science was wholly chimerical. It was also stated, and pretty conclusively shown, that popular forms of government "favor and foster states of mind that exclude all considerations of a scientific nature," by calling into ascendency in a special degree "the incalculable element of personal caprice. ... In a country where everybody is eligible to office, where the incentives to office-seeking are universal, where politics has become such a natural pastime that the whole scheme of public education is subordinated to it, personal aspirations and the interests of selfish ambition will dominate unrestricted in the management of public affairs." Offices being filled by partisans, whose lives have been largely spent in intrigue and the practice 