PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

THE OPTIMISM of the age is among its pronounced and favorable characteristics. In strong contrast with this spirit may be instanced the dormancy and hopelessness of some of the earlier civilizations of the world. Whether from the blighting effects of defective educational systems, the degradation of men to serfdom through despotic and unnatural rulership, the dwarfing consequences of heathen religions, or whatever other cause, it is the historic fact that the face of the earlier nations did not always turn expectantly toward the future. The times and places where stagnation seemed to have settled upon the race are an ineradicable if unpleasant page of history. But of the modern nations, with their far-reaching projects and their unwearied activities, better things may be asserted. As with the individual so with the races of modern days, life has taken on a new hopefulness and promise. It is possible, also, to discover some of the causes for this optimistic spirit. Men's domination of the forces of nature has, for instance, inspired them with new confidence in their own power and with a firmer belief in their divinely appointed primacy over the physical world. The earlier men had not fully measured strength with the invisible but awe-inspiring and often death-producing agencies of earth and air; the later races have learned to put the check upon these pregnant forces and subsidize them for human benefit. The first men sailed in shallops near to the shore; the later mariners have ventured to push out upon the most stormy sea and grapple with the cyclones of mid ocean. The earlier races built and delved and wrought with mechanisms of crude construction; the later nations have forged such marvelous tools and implements for manual use that often the very ultimate seems to have been reached. In these signal victories over nature the present races have the largest ground for self-confidence. If they are learning their limitations they are also learning in intimation the possibilities for complete supremacy over the material world. A fuller knowledge of the conditions of hygiene is another fact of practical value in influencing human hope. Even eating was at first experimental. The primeval man was forced to learn by gradual, and it may be by sad, experience what articles of food were healthful and what injurious. Dietetics has now become a science. The value of ventilation, of gymnastics, of fit clothing, has been an evolution of the later ages. Medical science has kept pace with other discoveries, so that diseases which were once deemed mortal have been mastered by prompt and potent medicaments. It would surely seem that man's hold upon existence is strengthening, and his triumph over disease increasingly certain and exultant. The improvement in social conditions may be another reason for the optimistic spirit. To the familiar question as to whether the world grows better no candid-thinking student, with sufficient data before him for fair generalization, can return the negative answer. To look around the earth's

circle and to consider only the evils that are national and colossal, such as social oppression, lust, or intemperance, is to view but the darker aspects of the picture. The fraternity of the nations is on the increase, so that a disaster to the individual kingdom in famine, pestilence, or earthquake strikes a responsive chord of sympathy in every hemisphere. The penitentiary has proved a profitable institution for the confinement of the mischievous element of society that would not otherwise bend to the public welfare. The charities of the world are enlarging their organization, force is yielding to the sway of reason, men are making new sacrifices for the common good, morality is on the increase, and, above all, the sun of Christian enlightenment is ever rising toward the meridian. Because such facts as these, and more which this scant enumeration does not set forth, the world may sing its song of hope. Like an uncanny dream of the night is the claim that the race is rushing headlong to disaster. No generation has enjoyed such cumulative grounds of cheer as the present; none should go out so buoyantly into the sunshine of the future.

AN IMPORTANT RESULT of the Chilian difficulty is the prominence given to some of the leading principles of international law. While it is true that the rules justifying the maintenance of separate governmental existence, and covering the interchange of comity between the widely-scattered nations of the globe are taught in our higher educational institutions, yet it is probable that these regulations are too little understood by the average citizen in his necessary attention to matters of livelihood. The abstract lessons of the schools, in other words, are now put before the community in a concrete and important form, by the South American difficulty, and not without the double benefit of an increase in popular information and an encouragement of the sentiment of intelligent patriotism among the people. The inalienable right of every government legitimately to exist and to increase is one of the fundamental principles of international law which is thus practically emphasized. So far as earlier history is concerned, we find neither the satisfactory enunciation of this principle nor its practical illustration. The Jews, it is held, did not maintain the law of obligation to other nations. Greece, with its subdivision into many independent communities, emphasized the prime interests of the Hellenic States. The Romans, in their jus gentium, provided a rule for personal practice rather than a basis for general observance. Among the modern laws of international life is, however, included the sacred right of each government to be. The smallest nation of mankind, hid away in some corner of the continent, and without riches, education, or splendor of architecture, has an equal privilege to exist with the most opulent and powerful empire of men. In such a serious disagreement as that of the United States and Chili the latter, with her three millions of inhabitants, has certain unalterable rights which not even this greater nation of sixtytwo millions should attempt to override. We may venture this statement in no spirit of disregard for the importance of American interests, but as an announcement of an eternal principle of right.

The duty of every government to protect its citizens is another rule discoverable in the present Chilian dispute. Not only in the home land has the individual a right to expect that his interests shall be sacredly maintained, but upon the most distant foreign shore he may reasonably ask that the protecting power of his home government shall be thrown around his industries, his liberty, his life. An end would otherwise quickly come to travel for purposes of sight-seeing; the trade of the nations would reach a stand-still; and the broad world would narrow to the dimensions of the ancients. The tragedy in the Chilian waters has, therefore, involved more than the massacre of a few American sailors, important as the sacrifice of human life may be; but a cardinal principle of international law has also been assailed, whose overthrow would jeopardize the stability of every government of modern times.

The wise provisions in international law for the avoidance of warfare are a further feature to which the recent difference with Chili has directed the common attention. Writers such as Grotius have so defined the ethics of warfare as to put the stamp of reproach on unjust strife, and to hold up nations so participating to the execration of men. While some wars are just, furthermore, both by the standards of legal and of moral measurement, the horrors of warfare are so great that cautiousness in entering into the field of sanguinary strife is wisely counseled. The diversion from their ordinary employment of great bodies of men who would otherwise devote themselves to peaceful industries; the wide-spread destruction of material property; and the death of many soldiers, with the widowhood and the orphanage of survivors, are among the causes that have long since made warfare a matter of horror to civilized nations. The resort to arbitration, in addition to ethics and sentiment, is therefore a custom which is altogether beneficent in its spirit. Such a practical application of the principles of the New Testament the spread of the Gospel has made possible. In the contingency of warfare it is Christianity in the guise of some national mediator that broods over men's passions with mollifying word to prompt the disposition to forgiveness of injuries. For lessons like these the Chilian dispute has been a school of practical instruction in international law.

THEOSOPHY is abroad in the earth, with its offer to lead inquirers into the knowledge of the truth. While its appearance is not recent or its vociferous claim to excellence an altogether strange sound upon the ear, yet the late presence of some of its leading exponents in the western world gives a sense of novelty to the pretentious system. But by what standards shall it be judged, its defects pointed out, and its excellences of theory and application differentiated? Or how shall it rank in comparison with the established faiths that are dominating the world? Clearly it must pass the test of rigid criticism before it can win its way to general favor; and plainly the same criteria of judgment by which every system of philosophy since Aristotle and each form of religion since Zoroaster have been judged, are applicable in the instance of the theosophic

cult. Toward its body of doctrine, so far as it has a formulated creed, the searcher turns in inquiry. But in its tenets it is disappointing. Eschewing the important doctrines of Christianity as they are commonly interpreted, such as the fatherhood of God, the sinfulness of man and his need of regeneration, the operation of the Holy Spirit upon the heart, or the deity of Christ, it substitutes an inchoate creed whose indefiniteness is its chief characteristic. Devised in India, the cradle of philosophies and religions, it has taken on the mystical and Oriental character of its natal place. Reason supplants grace in its provisions. No poignant sense of sin is demanded. In nature it is theurgic. Through physical processes the supernatural is discovered and approached. In fine, it would seem to deserve the name of a philosophy rather than a religion, in the absence of shrines, and prayer, and the practices of reverent worship. If this, therefore, be the standard by which it is to be judged, it is not the rising faith. For its chilling negations, its abstractions, its absence of clear definitions, its impracticableness as a working theory for the masses, it merits the disapproval of every investigator.

In the character of its exponents theosophy is equally disappointing. He who founds a new system of religion should be so faultless in his speech, so self-forgetful and heroic in his deed, so transparent in his example that the luster of his life shall contribute to the glory of his system. Faulty disciples will follow soon enough in the steps of the founder; the exemplar himself should be perfect. But how low the new cult falls if character be the basis of estimate! It might not be appropriate to review the life of the great high-priestess of theosophy, nor is it necessary to discuss in particular the humanity of its present leaders. The names of Besant and Olcott are not words which men should take reverently upon their lips, as the Jews spoke in awe the name of Jehovah. Measured also by its effects the theosophic system fails at the judgmentseat. If young in being the tree is, nevertheless, old enough to have borne fruit. Christianity in the first day of its evangelistic work changed three thousand hearts and lives. What has theosophy done? Has a better hope entered into human life to solace man's hours of gloom? Has a regenerating agency come into operation compared with which Christianity is a feeble and waning force; and by its application shall the world's passions be subdued, wars cease, fraternity extend, and a golden age of peace and happiness enter over the threshold? It is not too early to look for a few fruits of the theosophic system. But these are not discoverable. No single heart has been regenerated. No shrine has been built for a purer worship than Christianity. No human wretchedness has been alleviated through asylums raised for the blind, hospitals for the sick, orphanages for the fatherless. But instead is found a juggling with pretended supernatural communications, a jesting with the solemnities of life, a cheapness of speech and deeds that brands theosophy as the merest charlatanism. Already the world has measured rightly this latest system and has punctured its inflated pretensions. The religion that has come to stay, to supplant, to succeed, is not the latest gift of India to mankind.

THE ARENA.

PROHIBITION IN KANSAS.

We

KANSAS points the way toward a solution of the saloon question. say this with all confidence. It is not assumed that the prohibitory legislation of the State is perfect, nor that these laws are perfectly enforced; but it is believed that Kansas has indicated a method of dealing with this giant evil which will in due time bring relief from its blighting influence. That method is prohibition—a prohibitory law with penalties more severe than mere fines.

The outlawry of the manufacture and sale of intoxicants is imbedded in the constitution. This is considered a material point; for it gives a helpful steadiness to the policy of the State. The laws under the prohibitory clause of the constitution have grown out of an experience of ten years of determined warfare against the saloon. It imposes fines and imprisonment for violation. These laws are so explicit and direct that a conviction under them is no more difficult than a conviction for theft. That the business of the saloon differs essentially from other lines of business is denied by no one. It is a center of moral corruption. The vast majority of the American people undoubtedly believe that it is an unspeakable evil-an evil without a redeeming feature. So fully are the liquor men themselves convinced of this attitude of the public mind that they never discuss the merits of the central question. They invariably maneuver for position behind some misleading phrase, such as vested rights, personal liberty, interstate trade.

Kansas is not trying to manufacture virtue or intelligence by statutory enactments. The old methods are yet in vogue and needed-the methods of the church and the school. The people of this State have seen more clearly, apparently, than most other communities, that the liquor saloon is the great enemy of public and private virtue. They believe it the center of numberless and unspeakable evil influences. It neutralizes much of the work of school and of church. It debauches politics. It bribes judges and controls courts. It invades legislative halls with corrupting influences. It is rich, without conscience. Willingly or unwillingly the press (with exceptions, noble but, alas! too few) is its champion or is silent in its presence. The success of the saloon means an unhealthy public sentiment, a lowered moral tone, despoiled homes, wretched womanhood, a debased manhood. This is true and known to be true wherever either law or public sentiment gives it standing-room. These truths are recognized every-where. Kansas, therefore, aims its legislation straight at the saloon. It hits the mark. The State is hated with an envenomed hatred that ought to be proof positive that at last the beast has been tracked to its lair.

Kansas, with the rest of the country, has for a year endured a stress of "hard times." There have been complications that have increased the