Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/865

Rh majority of consumers from being heavily taxed by a protective tariff for the benefit of a small minority of manufacturers and artisans." So-called political rights may be used for the maintenance of liberties; but "they may fail to be so used, and may even be used for the maintenance of tyrannies."

In his discussion of the Nature of the State we see an illustration of the vast superiority of Mr. Spencer's method over that employed by writers of a simply historical or literary school. Sir Frederick Pollock, in his Introduction to the Science of Politics, says that, to arrive at a true idea of the nature and functions of the state, he can give no better advice than "Back to Aristotle!" Mr. Spencer, on the other hand, shows clearly why Aristotle, advanced thinker as he was for the age in which he lived, can not serve us here, the state, in its essential constitution, being no longer what it was in his day. Very instructive indeed is the contrast which our author draws between the state in a period of perpetual warfare and the state in an era of peaceful industry. In the former case it is obliged to tyrannize over its own citizens; in the latter, it has nothing to do but to see that they do not unduly interfere with one another. Justice in all matters, civil as well as criminal, ought, in the present day, the author holds, to be a right of the individual citizen, to be enforced without cost on application to the proper tribunal. In answer to the objection that, if justice in civil cases could be had without cost, there would be a perfect blockade in the courts, Mr. Spencer declares that, if justice were thus obtainable, the number of offenses would be enormously reduced, which doubtless is true. There are some very interesting chapters in the book on The Limits of State-Duties, which we can not too strongly recommend to the attention of our readers. Mr. Spencer effectually disposes of the notion, so common in our days, that majorities can do no wrong, and that men can not be slaves under a republic. There is a strong temptation to reproduce some of his vigorous and manly utterances on this topic, but we must refrain. It is a great satisfaction to find that Mr. Spencer is again at work, and that there is a prospect that his vast philosophical undertaking will be advanced yet further toward completion, or may even be fully accomplished before he lays down the pen. The volume before us shows a mind as vigorous and as fertile as ever, and the same high, unflinching purpose to effect a great and enduring work of intellectual emancipation and moral regeneration for mankind.

the most noteworthy of the summer schools of 1891 was the School of Applied Ethics at Plymouth, Mass. Its formation was due to some of the most successful teachers in America, who had become convinced that, were right conduct cultivated as a science, it would be better practiced as an art; that with due adaptation it should form a part of all education—with, indeed, the aim that schools in every department should be pervaded and vitalized by an ethical atmosphere. From this school's foundation we feel sure will date a new impulse freighted with good to individual character and national life. Since conduct has been so much under the sway of religion, it was fitting that the great faiths of the world should receive extended study. With all the resources of modern scholarship Prof. Toy, of Harvard, set forth the rise and progress of religious ideas, the transformation from faith in many gods to belief in one, the slow crystallization of oral traditions into scriptural canons, the emergence of ethical codes from associations of mythology and ritual. Of his masterly lectures the best lesson lay in their calm scientific spirit. While crediting religions with having given authority to