individual and therefore the man who wants to make his way in the world forswears alcohol.

At the International Congress on Hygiene and Demography, Mr. E. B. Phelps of New York City read a paper in which he demonstrated the mortality from alcohol in the United States. The paper was a concise summary of the result of an effort made recently by Mr. Phelps with the co-operation of the medical directors of three important American insurance companies, to arrive at an approximation of the adult mortality in the United States in which alcohol appreciably figures as a causative or contributory factor on the basis of the averages of entirely independent percentage estimates made by the three. medical directors in question for each of 106 causes of adult death a tentative approximation of the probable alcoholic. alcoholic adult mortality in the continental United States, was computed. The total thus arrived at for an estimated population of 86,874,990 was 68,897 deaths, in which alcohol might have figured as a factor, or 5.1% of the supposed mortality at all ages, and 7.7% of the supposed adult mortality at age of 20 and upward. As a pre-dis

posing cause to accidental and occupational disease, alcohol is of course evident. In a paper read at the Congress by Dr. William F. Boos, this is made plain. For instance, a German physician is quoted as finding that alcoholic workmen between the ages of 25 and 44 have over three times more accidents resulting in injuries, than all the other workmen put together; and that the days of illness resulting from such injuries are nearly four times more than those incurred by all the workmen. It was also determined that if the accidents caused by the use of alcohol coul! be eliminated seven per cent. of all accidents would be prevented and the saving to German sick benefit societies for the year 1897 alone would have been 4.500,000 marks.

A strictly sober man, all other things being equal, will be more healthy mentally and bodily and therefore more efficient than the man who indulges in alcohol to even a small extent.

Without efficiency, that is putting genius aside, no one can make a mark in the material age. A person cannot be wholly efficient who drinks at all and the moral to be derived is don't drink at all.

were understood, at least our rich men (if the price, like that of radium, should be outrageously high) could afford it, and thus earthly immortality would be attainable, for a few certainly, if not for the masses. Had the cable whisperings reached the ears of the socialists or anarchists there might have been angry protesting meetings in advance, since it is plain

such perfect success as in the control of sole ability to purchase the available sup

are notoriously expensive, and in Germany, at least, their results are well patented and controlled.

Well, the great occasion came and went,

and its president, according to promise, acting as the authoritative and official spokesman for the Science named British, delivered his great address on the origin of life. The world read it, rubbed eyes, looked again, and again read, became more puzzled, then glanced at a romping child, and broke into laughter. It was all a joke! But, then, such a very foolish and puzzling joke! There was not a word of evidence in the pronunciamento that the creation of life had been demonstrated. The old experiments as to spontaneous generation had not been reversed, and life had not really been made out of the non-living. The marvellously intricate and million-year-long product and promise of life, the egg, it was said, had been a little influenced in minor and brief ways by some needle pricking, chemical solution, or electrical stimulation, and we were assured that before very long the whole problem of the material and chemical origin of life would be solved by materialistic Science.

The deriding smile of Professor Shaefer was only for a moment allowed to play upon the theory of God and any part He had been supposed to have in the affair.

The farce has its profound and valuable significances. Science, to be sure, is firstly the unprejudiced faultless observance of facts, and, secondly, the logical and necessary induction of laws from them. The president of the association indiscreetly showed that he had in advance settled the fundamental question in discussion as to the materialistic and spiritual basis or theo

ries of existence, and that, speaking as the president of a scientific meeting, he had, with utter recklessness, called his hurried prejudice Science.

All of which is most unfortunate! "O Liberty! Liberty!" said Madame Roland, "how many crimes are committed in thy name!" But every reactionary will now paraphrase and cry out, "O Science! Science! How many crimes are committed in thy name!" It is a grievous blunder. A real Science may, indeed, at some future time, even to-morroy, solve the mystery of the origin of life. Perhaps the theories of materialism, atheism and determinism may represent the facts of the universe; perhaps the spirit of man may be proved to be of physical origin; but a Science which says that the trained observations of experts at present prove these theories to be true is ridiculously unscientific, and the pretense of such proving casts unjustifiable contempt upon genuine scientific workers and truths. It flings back into doubt and dogmatism many who most need the good of real and helpful scientific discovery. Some years ago a pseudo-scientist said he had actually weighed the soul when it left the body at death, and recently it was telegraphically reported that guinea pigs had Leen reproduced by the injection of a salt solution. From Paris or from anywhere the newspapers continually and seriously. describe marvels as absurd. It looks as if Science may sometime become quite as unscientific as the unchristian unscience of Mrs. Eddy.

STILL remaining in our subconscious. minds the barbaric belief that there is some peculiar virtue in self-inflicted punishment, men actually wallop themselves with their work and thoughts of work. The majority of us do not rise above the humdrum and the mediocre. Few of us win records of more than ordinary accomplishment. And yet we fret and fume and talk and complain about how hard pressed we

are. Unless we have big results to show for it, all this sputter about being overworked is an acknowledgment of our inefficiency. We frankly declare that we have to keep our low-grade physical and mental machine at its highest speed to grind out even an ordinary living, when such a result should be accomplished easily on low gear.

And yet, with one of those contortions

and somersaults of which the average human mind is always capable, we regard this high-tension living-this straining and sputter and broil—as something not to be ashamed of, but actually to brag about and be proud of. Every sane man has come to recognize that a vacation is a good investment that a period of rest will pay big dividends not only in the pleasure of living, but in work accomplished-that the only legitimate excuse for not resting must be one's financial inability to do so. And yet the average business or professional man will tell you with some show of pride that he has not had a vacation for five years; that he takes ten minutes for his luncheon, and that he frequently spends his evenings stewing and sweating in his office.

On first blush we are disposed to blame this deplorable condition-this universal overwork to the high cost of living, to the tariff, to the trusts, to the invasion of the business world by women, and to Chinese cheap labor. And then, in a mood of rather caustic optimism, we wonder if the psalmist was right when he said, in his haste, "All men are liars."

It isn't our work that strains us, pushes us, shoves us and prevents our rest. It is usually our sputter and bother about our work; our morbid delusion that we are frightfully busy. We are so busy thinking about how busy we are that we have no time for saner diversions, and often very little time for actual work. With some neurotic persons, this sense of excessive

There is fertile field for the neurologist who dotes on vague terms and voluminous classifications to be found in what, for call "work madness.” want of a better term, we are disposed to

We like to feel that in this mad careering we are operating the treadmill which keeps the universe whirling around, and yet, after our final flutter and sputter, after the day of pallbearers, cotton gloves and tuberoses, this will still be a busy and productive little world whirling merrily on as usual.

The day will come when the admission that one has gone vacationless for years will be regarded as prima facie evidence of failure to make good or of weed-choked mentality. The day will come when man will cease to brag about how he must struggle to attain the commonplace; when he will endeavor to give the impression that he can fill an average man's place in life without breaking out his cylinder head in the effort. That day will come when intelligence is universal and a sense of humor pandemic.

The mental and physical growth of the individual member of a family is always in proportion to the moderate size of that family. This is a law of biology, as Herbert Spencer long ago demonstrated. The lowest mammals have the greatest number of offsprings at a birth, and the greatest degenerates have the most frequently re

peated births. It is physically impossible for a mother to preserve her mental and physical health and indulge in frequent child-bearing. Decrease of the family is an expression of advance, rather than of degeneracy. The codfish, with its million. young, is the ideal of the modern decriers of civilization, according to whom the world has continuously been degenerating.

There is, as Macaulay remarks, a psychologic law by which society, constantly moving forward with eager speed, is as constantly looking backward with tender regret.

These two propensitics spring from impatience with the existing conditions. The people are under a deception similar to that which misleads the traveler in the Arabian

Desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of refreshing waters.

The pilgrims hasten forward, and find nothing but sand where an hour before

they had seen a lake. They turn their eyes, and see a lake where an hour before they were toiling through sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degree of opulence and civilization.

The ascription of degeneracy to civilization, in place of unhygienic conditions preserved from primitive times, is a lazy means of dodging responsibility, too frequent even now, despite the triumphs of sanitation.

Chicago now has one-quarter the death and disease rate it had in the halcyon days of the pioneers, albeit the proportion of children under five years of age is enormously greater than it was then. This is probably true of all other large cities. To children under five years of age, unhygienic conditions of rural localities and of primitive times are peculiarly destructive.

THE English law of primogeniture has been so many centuries in existence, and, in the main, has proved so satisfactory, that its entire or partial agreement with the law of nature must be accepted as a fact. The preference of males over females was the rule even among the ancient Jews and Greeks, though not among the Romans. First sons must have been credited naturally with some kind of preeminence, therefore, to have caused the law of primogeniture to be so universally adopted and so long established.

In a recent publication, Professor Axenfeld notes a remarkable circumstance that awakens serious reflections upon primogeniture and the question of heredity. He observes that all men of genius are firstborn sons; that the second and third child may acquire eminence; but that the fourth, fifth or sixth child is rarely, if ever, a great light. After the sixth child, he says, men of talent may again appear in the family. To support his assertions, he presents a re

markable list of names, including Luther, Schopenhauer, Francesco d'Assisi, Catherine de Medici, Guizot, Dante, Rafael, Leonardo da Vinci, Perugino, Luigi Gonzago, St. Benedict, Charlemagne, Alexander the Great, Confucius, Heine, Goethe, La Bruyere, Ariosto, Campanella, Mahomet, D'Alembert, Shelley, Christina of Sweden, Goldoni, Cantu, Buckle, Buffon, Talleyrand, Milton, Byron, Leopardi, Molière, Carlyle and Rossini. Among the second sons he finds Beethoven, Michaelangelo, Rousseau, Cuvier, Pascal and Garibaldi. If mere coincidence underlies this remarkable list, it is at least suggestive and leads one to inquire into the apparent supremacy of the first child. Moreover, it awakens doubt in our mind as to the justness of Lombroso's teachings that genius is allied to degeneracy. Either our definition of genius is at fault, and the abovenamed are not geniuses, or the first-born are dangerously close to borderland of degeneracy. The reason why such a pre