"Der Wagen ist gepackt, alles ist bereit mein Herr," said the landlord of the "Steinbock," at nine o'clock the next morning. We drove for about an hour along a flat road by the Rhine, passing the little village of Felsberg, over which hang the rocky sides of the Calanda mountain. A portion of the village has been destroyed by a landslip from this mountain; but new cottages have risen where the old ones fell, and the villagers appear to live in them, without any dread of destruction again. The scenery improved as we approached Reichnau, a beautiful view of the meeting of the Vorder and Hinter-Rhein broke upon us as we emerged from the dark-covered bridge near the castle. It was here that, towards the close of the last century, Louis Philippe-under the name of Chabos-resided for some months in the capacity of a teacher of French and mathematics. The owners of the castle, an old Swiss family of the name of De Planta, have many mementoes of the French King's gratitude for the kindness shown him at Reichnau, sent to them by himself and by different members of his family. Among the most interesting of these are a few lines written by his Queen in the visitor's-book, when she visited the castle in 1850. Her touching entry runs thus: "Marie Amelie, veuve du Professeur Chabos, dont c'est un des plus beaux titres." From Reichnau we drove along the fruitful valley of Domleschg to the Romansch village of Bonaduz, and amused ourselves while our horses were regaled with black bread and water, by watching an animated, but apparently very amicable discussion going on, beneath the walls of its old castle, between the greater part of the male portion of the villagers; their Romansch language was an unknown tongue to us, nor could we clearly understand from our driver what it was that they talked about; but evidently the subject was one of interest, not only to them but to their wives, who stood listening in picturesque groups, with their babies in their arms, and many children around them, by the fountain in the castle yard. Travelling on along the valley we saw many ruined castles crown. ing the eminences on either side, and beyond them majestic, snowclad mountains, till, towards the middle of the day, we reached Thusis, where a two hours' halt was needed for our horses. The whole village was holiday-making, the shops closed, the population in their sombre feast-day attire. "Niemand arbeitet, manu spielt nur heute," said an old dame in a becoming head-dress of black velvet with raised lace, who joined us as we mounted the hill above Thusis, on our way to the castle and grounds of Tagstein, whence a fine view of the country through which we had come, and of the entrance to the Via Mala, was obtained.

At three we started again, and passing the Nolla bridge we soon entered the grand, deep gorge of this magnificent pass. Every

thing combined to make our drive enjoyable, mountain and river, verdure and snow, mingled in harmony, while the glorious sun shone upon all, sinking at last to throw back, as he set, a canopy of crimson and gold over the snow mountains of the Splugen Pass. Just before his light had quite left us we reached the village of Splugen, and found a ready welcome from the landlord and tidy Swiss handmaidens of the Bodenhaus.

Grand and bright was the view next morning from my window; the narrow valley, winding upwards between snow-covered crags of great height and grotesque shape, looking green in the sunshine; but over the tops of the mountains hung fleecy clouds which boded, and soon turned into fog and rain. The ascent, which lasted two hours-and-a-half, was curious from the long covered galleries of solid masonry through which we had to drive. Their slanting roofs are so hidden by the sides of the mountain that they are scarcely seen till entered. Some of them are more than a quarter of a mile long, and are well lighted by openings in their thick outer walls. Many picturesque groups from Italy passed us on our way. Merry youths in scant clothing guided the mules that drew charettes of cotton and of wool. Older, more important drivers, encouraged the poor beasts as they toiled up with the weighty wine casks of Italy; but the most numerous were the Bergamesque shepherds, bringing their lean flocks from the Italian valleys to browse during the summer months on the slopes of the Splügen. They looked rough, almost dangerous men, in their mantles of brown wool and high peaked Calabrian hats, their hair and beards hanging in long dishevelled curls about their faces; but their flocks evidently looked upon them as their friends and followed them willingly, while to us they had an ever-ready nod and smile as we passed them in our slow ascent. Alas for scenery! the fog thickened and the rain fell faster and faster as we neared the summit.

At length we stopped in a large courtyard; a tall, doganiere came to the carriage door, the rain dripping from his casquette over the shoulders of his long blue coat. "E' la dogana, bisogna far la visita della roba ;" and then to comfort me, he added "Non é che una formalità, Signora," and so it proved; for though a box and a bag were lifted from the carriage nothing was opened; and while I was looking in admiration at the bright colours displayed by the contents of the open bales with which the inner court was strewed, I was told all was ready for the start, and we left the dogana in a fog so thick that only at scarce intervals could we see the walls of piled-up snow, some thirty feet high between which our road had been made. As we descended by numberless zig-zags and through many galleries towards Isola, we caught every now and then a glimpse of the pretty village beneath, and vestiges of

the fine old road which was destroyed by an inundation in 1834. At Pianazzo we emerged altogether from the cold, dense atmosphere through which we had been passing. The change was really marvellous; we seemed to leap from winter into forward spring in a moment; forests of chesnuts, in their bright early green, clothed the mountain slopes, shrubs and creepers covered the masses of rock that lay along the valley of the Lira; the grand Madésimo waterfall fell sparkling and foaming from a height of 700 feet, and the air was sweet with the wildflowers that peeped from every stone and crevice on our way. At Campo Dolciuo our horses wanted an hour's rest; and as the rain had now begun to fall again, and the hotel by which we stopped looked far from tempting, I remained in the carriage, amusing myself with sketching and talking to the bright-eyed ragged children, who came begging, of course, to the door. From Campo Dolcino the road passes on, still zigzagging, and covered at frequent intervals by galleries above the Lira valley, to San Giacomo, where among the chesnut groves rises the graceful white campanile of the Church of Madonna di Galli. vaggio.

The vineyards of Chiavenna, some creeping up the mountain sides, others trained over the pergole that bordered the road, now mixed with the other rich vegetation of this Italian side of the Splügen; and ere long we drove into the stony old Roman town and established ourselves at the Hotel Couradi, opposite to the ruins of a large castle surrounded by a series of hanging gardens festooned with vines, and called "Il Paradiso."

THE ETHICAL INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE.

IT has been said that in matters of government and trade, the sermon on the mount has been displaced by political economy; that science, in fact, has advanced beyond the domain of matter into that of conduct. Doubtless this advance is looked upon by many persons with disfavour, or, indeed, with dismay. No one, however, need fear that a new scientific system of ethics will suddenly and violently displace all others. It is impossible for any new social force to come into operation without undergoing some modification at the hands of the forces already existing. Each new force will undoubtedly exert a certain degree of influence, but it will do so by being absorbed into the great body of social forces, and in that way modifying the general resultant. At the same time the collision between the new and the old will be more or less violent, according as the angle of incidence is greater or less. And we think that no greater benefit can be done to society than by pointing out the directions in which the new force may be expected to act beneficially, and those in which it may be expected to act prejudicially, so that, instead of being unduly lauded or vilified, its influence may be aided where beneficial, and checked where harmful.

Natural science is, by reason of the limitations of its field and method, confessedly materialistic. Its field is confined to the phenomena of matter, and its method is that of generalisation from observation of those phenomena. Without phenomena there can be no science; and when generalisations of the observations have attained their highest point, the task of science is ended. Theories à priori are inadmissable; speculation is excluded, save when it condescends to be based upon material phenomena. The same limitation will of course accompany science into the region of conduct. The fundamental phenomenon of man, considered ethically, is gregariousness; and scientific ethics becomes accordingly an investigation into the laws of that gregariousness. Between the gregariousness of man and the gregariousness of the lower animals is seen this difference, that while in the lower creation each individual of a community lives solely for his own ends, in the human community, the individual lives not merely for his personal ends, but for those also of the entire body. Very often the ends of the community clash with those of the individual, and in such case the community compels the individual to subordinate his particular interests to those of the whole body. In fact, the idiosyncrasy of

the individual is perpetually controlled and limited by the com. munity; and it is this feature of individual limitation which is the characteristic of a society, as distinguished from a mere agglomeration of units.

But closer investigation shows that this limiting power is itself limited. It is only exercised in cases which touch society as a whole; and as to many of these the judgment of society is at variance with itself, and its influence accordingly paralysed. Besides these, there are numerous actions which directly affect the individual alone. On these latter the influence of society is slight.* There is therefore a broad space in which individual idiosyncrasy has free play, and the result is a great variety of form or "character" among the members of a society. These forms may clearly change from generation to generation, and since the character of a society is dependent upon those of its members, if the members change the society will change too.

Borrowing an illustration from physiology, science describes the individual as a factor in an organism which controls the general direction of his activity, but within certain limits allows him a freedom of action which may be either beneficial or detrimental to the organism. Here the scientific investigation of the phenomena ends. Questions of the abstract rightness or wrongness of actions, or of the relation of actions to the future life, are unanswerable for want of data. Science beholds only the phenomena of existing society; and the individual as a factor of it. The duty of the individual is, therefore, scientifically, the preservation of the social organism. Actions assisting thereto must be preferred to all others. In fact, the keynote of scientific ethics is the subordination of the individual to the society in which he lives.

Quite opposite (and yet not opposed) is the current view. This, under the influence of religion, has long manifested a tendency to elevate the individual as the sole consideration of ethical science. For Christianity, being able to do what science cannot do:-viz., include the future life in its view of the kosmos, looks at the present life as a preparation, and, as it were, an antechamber to the life to come. But actions can then only be viewed from the standpoint of the individual. The existence in any future life, of a society as such, with its units unchanged, is almost inconceivable, because it takes no count of the influence of those actions which we classed above as strictly individual. The social organism, instead of being regarded as that to which the individual is subor

I mean the limiting power of society, as distinguished from what we call public opinion. "Sowing wild oats," for instance, being a particularly individual act, is judged very differently to theft or murder, which are particularly social acts.