the past abound. It may be within the range of possibility for a great and powerful nation to make war for the real interests of humanity, and to extend, without the hope or expectation of reward, its active support to a weak and defenseless people in a life-and-death struggle with tyranny. But it has never yet been done, and the events of the last two years sufficiently prove that the United States is no exception to the rule.

The main trouble with the Anglo-Saxon in both branches of the family is that he constantly professes to act on higher principles than those that govern the policy of other nations. He is too fond of praying upon the housetops and in the public streets. Hence, when, in the pursuit of common ends or ambitions, he resorts to the usual methods of attainment, he is apt to be met with the not unreasonable charge of hypocrisy. This characteristic has distinguished the foreign policy of England to an almost nauseating degree, and is undoubtedly the secret of her unpopularity among the European powers. However benevolent may be the alleged objects of her design, that benevolence always coincides with the direction of England's real or fancied interests. As to our own government, we are compelled to admit the justice of similar conclusions if we accept the testimony of facts. Magnificent in its optimism as was the conception of a nation engaged in war for the relief of oppressed humanity, the chivalry of the situation is materially impaired by the indecorous and ill-concealed haste of the protector to avail himself of its commercial and political benefits. We went into the war with Spain professedly to free Cuba. We emerge with new and valuable possessions in two hemispheres; and the incorporation of Cuba itself with our system is a foregone conclusion of no distant date. So that virtually all the war accomplished, so far as any change in the actual relationship of Spain's former colonies is concerned, was to effect a transfer of sovereignty from Spain to us. Neither Cuba, Puerto Rico, nor the Philippines has achieved independence. They have simply exchanged masters-that is all: lenient masters in all probability, but masters nevertheless. Manifestly, in the light of previous history,

nothing else could reasonably have been expected. For fifty years the United States has been endeavoring to annex Cuba, advocating legal or forcible measures according to the expediency of the moment and only awaiting a favorable opportunity to act. Europe understands this perfectly, and is herself sufficiently accustomed to that sort of procedure to experience no surprise at the embarkation of the United States in predatory warfare.

The preeminent significance of the Spanish-American war lies in the fact that it has uncovered the essential humbug of the Declaration of Independence and demonstrated to the rest of the world the pretense and insincerity of our devotion to the doctrines therein set forth. Any attempt to explain our present policy, its causes or its results, as due to the "force of circumstances" and in Providential accord with the march of events, must fail to palliate the obvious aggression of the proceedings and can only react to the further discredit of the United States. Logically, then, there should follow the cessation of vain and inconsistent prating over the "consent of the governed," the "inalienable rights of man," and other claptrap phrases of the demagogue that we are accustomed to declaim on patriotic occasions and incorporate in political platforms for the purpose of catching votes.

It is fortunate for the immortality of Mr. Jefferson that his fame rests upon a more substantial basis than the authorship of the Declaration of Independence. It is not true in law; it is not true in history; it is not true in the possibilities of the human race. All men are not created free, but subject to restraint, human and natural. All men are not created equal, but conditioned by differences of various sorts placed upon them by Nature through the agencies of environment and heredity and by the distinctions of society. Governments do not "derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Governments have no just powers, in the accurate and philosophic meaning of the term. They have necessary powers, since the constant presence of recognized authority is essential to the integrity of the social structure; but these

powers are asserted and in no sense delegated by the units of society. Nor is there, outside the sovereign power, any such thing as an "inalienable right," but all rights inhere in the State, whence they proceed and by whom they may be withheld or withdrawn at will. In discarding the Declaration of Independence, then, we shall lose nothing of political or moral value. We shall merely drop a few glittering phrases of French sophistry and exploded sham borrowed from the agitators and pamphleteers of the Revolutionary period, and which never have and never can become a serious part of any system of political truth.

We are engaged in building an Empire; that is to say, a great Nation, which is to incorporate other peoples and extend its laws and government to remote corners of the earth. This will necessitate the employment of methods distinctly hostile to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. The extinguishment of petty States means the abrogation of the doctrine of self-government, but it should occasion no regret. It is not the course of Empire in conflict with the God-ordained principles of justice; it is presumptuous fallacy disputing the right of way with progress and necessity. The subjugation of small, independent States and their assimilation by the great Powers will remove the most fruitful cause of international jealousy and discontent; and it is the only proposition that offers any assurance of the ultimate fulfilment of the world's dream of universal peace.

Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa.

LEON C. PRINCE.

PROFESSOR FISKE AND THE NEW THOUGHT.

HE charge of the religious world against science has al

THE

ways been that it tears down the old religious faiths and gives nothing to take their place; and to a degree the charge has, in the past at least, been well founded. The attitude of science has been indifference, agnosticism, and even aggressive materialism. Its avowal has been that science deals with facts having a material basis; that religion is an affair of the emotions and so they have nothing in common. Then, unfortunately, religion had bound itself to a cosmogony, a chronology, and a theory of causes that science has gradually undermined and proved erroneous or altogether false; and literary criticism only a branch of science-has shown religion. pledged to many contradictions and errors of fact and history. Science, finding religion associated so closely with much that was absolute error, discredited it altogether; and religion found itself constantly and often unsuccessfully upon the defensive. Then science, in turn, became aggressive and arrogant, claiming for itself the whole field of biology and psychology, declaring mind to be only a product of organism. It allowed itself to be represented by such men as Büchner and Haeckel, who declared off-hand that evolution forbids us to believe in a future life, and Moleschott, the author of the favorite epigram of the materialists, "No thought without phosphorus." Not that these men actually represented the best thought upon this subject in the scientific world, but they were outspoken and aggressive; and they gave an atheistic and materialistic coloring to the inductions of science that made the charge of destructive activity brought against science seem all the more valid.

But, notwithstanding all this hue and cry, the religious sentiment in man was not destroyed, nor even one whit diminished; and it arose in rebellion and indignation at the unproved ex cathedra statements of these self-constituted oracles of science.

But who at that time-in the sixties and early seventies

had the scientific knowledge and the necessary courage, combined with a reverent spirit, to face these statements and show their falsity? On the religious side no champion appeared; but in 1874, at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Belfast, John Tyndall, the incoming president of the Association, stood up in that august assembly of savants and pronounced these memorable words: "Abandoning all disguise, the confession that I feel bound to make before you is, that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of experimental evidence and discover in matter, which we, in our ignorance, and notwithstanding our professed reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life." In other words, Tyndall found the intelligent Force and Cause of evolution in matter itself. It was in all the matter in the universe, organic and inorganic; and, while Tyndall did not then so affirm, it was divine-it was the immanent Deity in Nature making all Nature divine, and man divine.

A howl of dissent went up from the world, both of Christianity and science. "He has gone out of the realm of science," said the scientific world. "He has found God," sarcastically growled the agnostic and materialist. "But it is not our God!" cried orthodox Christianity. So they stoned Tyndall, each in the name of his own particular shibboleth.

But the word had been spoken. Religious men with real scientific knowledge and reverent scientists joined hands; the first step toward a reconciliation between science and religion was taken, and God manifest in Nature was the first article in the unwritten compact. The old man-like God-outside his universe, working in man-like ways-is falling into desuetude, and the immanent God is hailed with joy by all to whom he manifests himself in the infinite grandeur, beauty, and uses of Nature. And so the foundation of a natural, in place of a supernatural, religion is laid; evolution has been accepted as a primal fact in every modern system of thought; God in Nature and the universality of law have been accepted by the best minds both in science and religion.