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ing. At the present time he is engaged in editing his diary, and he is also writing a Manifesto on Liberty of Conscience." He spoke with indulgent kindness of those who persecuted him, but his wife, with indignation, read their French visitor a letter from the local pope, or priest, imploring her to insure Tolstoy's conversion before death supervened! In the neighborhood of whatever place they happen to be staying all the popes preach against Tolstoy and his works, and the Archbishop of Simferopol, in the course of a sermon delivered in his cathedral, declared him to be anti-Christ!

THE INFLUENCE OF DANTE ON ART.

great admiration of the philosophical authors of ONE of the most interesting of the articles in

the nineteenth century, notably of Rousseau. Of comparatively modern French writers he prefers. Balzac; and though full of enthusiasm concerning Maupassant, deplores his choice of subjects, considering that the feminine element influences far too much the modern French novelists. He spoke with respect and liking of the thoughtful and sincere work of Edouard Rod, and also of that of the brothers Margueritte. Tolstoy's favorite novelist is Charles Dickens. With him he feels in complete sympathy, for Dickens always took the side of the poor, the humble, and the unfortunate. He reserved all his anger and contempt for Kipling, to whom he even denied talent; but then it must be remembered that Tolstoy has an intense horror of warfare, and this although—or, perhaps, because—he himself took part as a combatant in the Crimean War.

RELIGIOUS VIEWS.

During the course of this interesting interview Tolstoy spoke at great length of religion. He is horrified to think that in France the school children are in future to be taught nothing concerning God. He is an ardent Christian, or rather an ardent Gospeller; the four Gospels alone, he says, should suffice for the conduct of life. Countess Tolstoy listens to her husband's religious views in silence; she has remained, in spite of her fine letter apropos of the excommunication of Tolstoy, sincerely Greek Orthodox, and she refused to copy, when acting as her husband's secretary, a passage in "Resurrection,' dealing with the Mass, of which she disapproved.

PETTY PERSECUTIONS.

Concerning Tolstoy's future plans, he informed Madame Bentzon that he intended to write a sequel to Resurrection," but that before he did so he had much to write, -Enough to take up my time for the next forty years," he said, smil

the September number of the Art Journal is a discussion of the influence which Dante exercised on the art of his century. Mr. Addison McLeod writes:

"To all who know anything of Tuscan art, the names of Cimabue, Giotto, Orcagna, are household words. Yet the ideas connected with them are apt to be merely scattered and vague, or else the over-emphasized perceptions of some strong mind which has made one of them its especial study. Let it be allowed us to particularize in a general way.

His

"Cimabue was a painter of purely religious pieces, with no attempt at naturalism, but a very definite seeking after beauty. Giotto was both much wider in scope and intensely realistic in aim striving by all his powers-imperfect though they were-to paint life as it is. symbolism, when it comes, is plain and direct, usually expressed in single figures. Next after him comes Simone Memmi. He has made no advance as a craftsman, and has only become more introspective and thoughtful. Then comes the period with which we propose to deal.

THE WORK OF ORCAGNA.

There is a spirit very clearly visible to the visitor in Florence, and though he may connect it with no very definite time, he does with one name, viz., that of Orcagna. It is a spirit, suggestive but unmistakable; betrayed rather by change of mood than change of subject, though it has to a large extent introduced, instead of the painting of life actual, the symbolical treatment of all that connects it with things beyond. Even subjects of a more ordinary kind, however, are given a mystic turn. We notice strange beasts about the fringes of the picture, stray uncouth demons intruding here and there, giving us the feeling that there are gentlemen of their kind in abundance lurking outside. What is the cause

of this new and hardly wholesome atmosphere? Where are we to realize it? Whence are we to trace it? As an artistic influence, how admirable is it?

WHERE ART HAS FAILED.

These are the questions investigated in the article. Mr. McLeod says in conclusion : Lastly, why is it that art may never be by intention ugly? Ought she not to try and influence moral ideas, and must she not use all means needful for this?

"I think all her acts must be ordered with reference to one great end, which is to inflame our spirits by the presentment of what is noble or beautiful. To lead us on by pointing to the heights above, not to the gulfs behind; to encourage us with the waving banner of hope, not flog us with our iniquities; by showing us the best, to inspire us to become the best. It is at once her limitation and her glory. We do not seek out physical ugliness in life; we tolerate it if need be, but we do not seek to perpetuate it, to people the isle with Calibans.

"Dante himself was not a happy man, and I sometimes wonder whether the world is happier for all he has written. But this is not the point. Perhaps the world ought not to be happier for him; but it ought to be happier for its pictures; and it is because of this that men like the Orcagnas have failed.

"It is because of this that modern art has failed, too. In aspiring to teach, she has forgotten how to praise. Her eye has fallen from the star of beauty that used to lead her, and her feet are floundering in muddy wavs."

MR.

WHAT IS ELECTRICITY?

R. CARL SNYDER gives an interesting account of the discussions concerning the nature of electricity in the October Harper's. It is one of the marvels of modern science that it is so impossible to decide definitely what is the nature of the force which is utilized so generally in modern life and industry. Benjamin Franklin thought electricity was a fluid. He assumed that all bodies were normally electrified at all times. If the quantity of electricity was increased, the body would be positively electrified; if decreased, negatively electrified. Electricity seemed to flow from a higher to a lower level, like water. The electric circuit was merely the passage of a quantity of electricity from a posi tive or negative to a more neutral stage.

Franklin's ideas of the fluid nature of electricity were not contradicted by the important discoveries of his immediate successors, Volta,

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Davy, and Galvani. But with Faraday's discoveries of the relation of electricity to magnetism, Franklin's notions become rather crude. Then it was found that light and electricity traveled at the same speed, 184,000 miles a second, and Clerk-Maxwell, the Scotch physicist, came to the conclusion that electricity and light were at bottom identical, light, short ether waves; electricity, long ones. Sir Isaac Newton had decided that light might best be considered as an incessant hail of bodies so minute as to escape all means of direct investigation. Recently Prof. J. J. Thomson, of Cambridge, England, has taken up again this corpuscular theory of electricity and light, and there is an active discussion among the scientists of the real nature and phenomena of electricity.

THE CORPUSCULAR THEORY.

"Prof. J. J. Thomson has found a way to measure the speed of these particules, their weight, or mass, as well,-in a word, to demonstrate that they are real. They seem to be wonderful as well, for they are the smallest things known to man, and it may be that out of them the universe is made. Taking a leaf from Newton's notebook, Professor Thomson calls them corpuscles. It is rather bewildering to be told that these corpuscles may turn out to be electricity, matter, light, the aurora borealis, magnetism, chemical affinity, and various other trifles, all at once.

"These corpuscles have introduced an utterly new conception into the domain of electricity,— that the latter is atomic in character, or, according to the new ideas, atomic in structure. In order to get at some sort of a working model of the processes which go on in his laboratory, the chemist was obliged to resort to the notion of ultimate units of matter, atoms,-literally, that which cannot be cut. Choosing the lightest of the atoms, that of hydrogen, as a basis, the chemist weighs and measures his atoms of gold or sulphur or iron as if they were so much sugar or salt in his scale pans."

Professor Crookes, studying the peculiar actions which go on in the Crookes tube, the source of the Roentgen rays, was led to believe that the beautiful, velvety, greenish glow inside the vacuum tube which comes when an electrical discharge passes is due to the incandescence of tiny fragments of matter.

THE ELECTRICAL UNIT, OR ELECTRON. Professor Thomson found a way to count the number of corpuscles within a Crookes tube, and, knowing the total amount of electricity they bore, it was merely a problem of very long divi.

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"The chemist's atom, in the new view, becomes but an aggregation of electrified corpuscles. The mass of the latter is but a thousandth part of that of the lightest of atoms-that of hydrogen; but a hundred thousandth part of that of an atom of silver or gold. Clusters of these corpuscles, varying in number and arrangement, but absolutely identical among themselves, build up the different kinds of matter-the eighty or ninety 'elements' known to the chemist. The corpuscles, in a word, constitute primal matter; they are the stuff of which all existing things, a starfish or a planet, a music-box or a mummy, are made.

"On the other hand, the electrician is invited to see in the passage of a 10,000-kilowatt current but a drift of corpuscles."

Electricity, then, is supposed by these scientists to be a hail of these minute corpuscles, each forming an electron. Lord Kelvin computes the diamater of an atom at one twenty-five-millionth of an inch; a corpuscle is certainly not more than one one-thousandth so large as this, and probably is much less.

IF

IS MARS INHABITED?

F we accept the dictum of some scientists, that life cannot be assumed to be anywhere possible under conditions that would render it impossible upon the earth, the problem of the exist ence of human life on the planet Mars is greatly simplified. This is the basis of Prof. D. G. Parker's reasoning in an article contributed to the current number of Popular Astronomy. He asks, Could we live on any one of the other planets in our solar system without an environment of such conditions as would prove fatal ?” As regards the planet Mercury and the sun, the admittedly high temperature seems to leave no other conclusion possible than that the burdens of human life would be simply unbearable. On the subject of Martian life, however, the evidence is not so convincing. Professor Parker disregards the presumed possibilities" on which is based so much of the current reasoning on the problem, and confines himself to the actual dis

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"It is upon these admitted facts that we take the negative side. Passing over the fascinating philosophy of Flammarion, Proctor, and others, the discovery of Schiaparelli's canals were at first hailed as convincing proof of human workmanship, but this argument was dashed to pieces by micrometrical measurements which showed these lines to be from 20 to 70 miles wide, and in some cases more than 2,000 in length.

That these are irrigated strips of land made green and productive by liberated waters of melting polar ice caps seems equally untenable. It is true that the changing colors give this theory a look of plausibility. But when we consider what such a theory really involves, one may well hesitate before accepting it.

"Who can seriously contemplate transformations the magnitude of which have no parallel upon this globe. How can we accept the proposition of winters so severe as to form ice caps 70 degrees of arc, followed by summers so tropical as to melt them all away, flooding vast regions far beyond the central zone. Not that the severity of the winter can be doubted, but that it should be followed by a season of so high temperature, while receiving only 43 per cent. of the sun rays which we enjoy, seems wholly improbable.

"The claims of those who picture such water supplies under so high temperature are irreconcilable with other known facts. It is admitted that the planet is without any large bodies of water such as our oceans and seas; that the atmosphere is very light,-less than half the density of ours, even at the highest mountain peaks. This cannot be doubted, as, unlike other planets, Mars is seen to the very surface of the ball. If there were water vapors they would condense into clouds, and these would obscure the observation.

"To create such polar snows and ice caps as are claimed presupposes an atmosphere freighted with aqueous vapors, and it would seem that such clouds could not fail to be detected.

That such plentiful supplies of watery vapors do not exist is further proven by the fact that there is substantially nothing to originate them. It takes the evaporations of large bodies of water to distribute the needed moisture for sustaining plant and animal life. This is proven from our own experience.

"Three-fifths of our globe is deeply covered with water evaporations from this are daily carried into the atmosphere in immense quantities and taken by the winds for distribution over

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1. The moisture, if any, is insufficient. is admitted that there are no large bodies of water to be vaporized, and the telescope practically demonstrates that there are no clouds suggestive of either snow or rain precipitations.

"2. Without abundance of moisture there would be insufficient vegetation to sustain life.

"3. It is too cold. With a temperature presumably two and one-half times lower than our own, no life known to us could survive; nor does it help the matter to assume, as some have, that there is a blanketing process of heat storage, when facts demonstrate that there is no such blanket.

"4. Accepting the LaPlace theory of relative age, if man has ever dwelt upon that distant world, the period of his allotment has doubtless long since passed.

5. But the most convincing proof lies in the fact of its greatly rarified atmosphere: being generally admitted to be 100 per cent. lighter than ours, even at the highest mountain peaks. Man lives substantially on nitrogen and oxygen, and here we find his supplies practically

cut off.

"Professor Lowell, though an affirmative advocate, after reviewing conditions of the atmosphere, is impelled to admit that Beings physically constituted like ourselves would be liable to meet with severe discomforts.'

"Is not this a fatal admission? How can life be long perpetuated under conditions of unbrokenly severe discomforts?' To suppose that life exists at all under such dissimilar conditions is to speculate upon some sort of organism having no analogy to our own, and about which we know nothing.

While it may hardly be consistent with the dignity of scientific investigation to rest a conclusion upon the opinion of others, it is nevertheless interesting to know that some of these reasons have had weight with many of the best minds of the present age. Want of space will forbid quotations, but we invite attention to recent utterances of Professors Newcomb, Young, Holman, and others."

SOME

WHY DISTASTEFUL FOOD IS UNWHOLESOME. OME remarkable experiments to show the comparative digestibility of different foods. have recently been conducted by Professor Pawlow upon dogs. These experiments are described by Dr. Romme in La Revue for August:

The gullet of the animal was cut in sections and fixed to the neck, so that when it ate, the food merely fell to the ground, and the stomach was divided into two parts, one where no food was allowed to penetrate, the other into which was put the food necessary to keep the dog alive. The results of the experiments proved that the mere offering to the dog of food which he liked caused an abundant secretion of gastric juice, although, of course, nothing had entered the stomach. If he were given a dainty,—not merely food which he liked,-the flow of gastric juice was much more abundant,—that is, food taken without appetite will fall into a stomach without any gastric juices ready for it. The work of digestion was formerly supposed to go on all right if only The you could get the food to the stomach. Pawlow experiments show that it is either not digested at all or very badly digested.

Again, the brain transmits its orders to the stomach by means of two pneumogastric nerves. Professor Pawlow cut these nerves on a specially "prepared" dog. Then he gave the dog some raw meat, which again, of course, did not reach the stomach; but no drop of gastric juice was secreted. No method of mechanical excitement produced any juice. And if, unknown to the dog, without arousing in him the idea of food, bread or cooked white of egg were introduced into the stomach, they remained hours without causing the least secretion of gastric juice. But after administering extract of meat or milk first, the secretion was provoked.

HOW MENTAL DISTRACTION MAY CAUSE DYSPEPSIA.

Clearly, says Dr. Romme, in the poorer classes a man lives far more from his muscles than from his brain,-i.e., the desire for food. It is not a bad thing to be mildly greedy. The reason for dyspepsia being so common among men of letters and the like is that their brain is so much occupied with their work that they sit down to table and eat without thinking of the food taken. The pneumogastric nerves are not called into action, and the gastric juice is badly secreted. Now it is easy to understand why it is bad to be absorbed in a book or newspaper at meals.

As for consumptives with no appetite, and mad folk who often refuse food, the gastric juice may be set in motion in their case by taking milk or broth an hour or so before a meal.

NATURAL IMMUNITY. SIN INCE the bacteria came into public notice, they have shown us that many old theories were fallacies. New problems have presented themselves, and most unexpected discoveries are constantly being made, until bacteriology has developed into a science that involves vital questions relating to both pure science and economic matters. In the last number of the Centralblatt für Backteriologie, Dr. E. S. Loudon discusses current theories concerning the means by which any creature resists the action of injurious elements upon it, and describes experiments in confirmation of the theories.

The cells composing an organism are con sidered as living, microscopic laboratories, in which the material basis of immunity is produced. According to one theory, the phagocytes, or wandering cells, are the active agents of defense; according to another, immunity depends upon the properties of certain humors produced in the blood. Probably the individual conflict against foreign elements is carried on largely within the limits of the cell, although it cannot be denied that it also goes on outside, in the vicinity of the cells and in the intercellular substance as well.

REMOVAL AND DESTRUCTION OF HARMFUL ELEMENTS.

The

The fluid which maintains the immunity of any animal may be resolved into three components, different in character and use, but each supplementing the action of the others. first (desmon) opens the attack, so to speak, upon the elements to be destroyed. It affects cell elements foreign to the organism, which have penetrated in any way from the outside, and it is the

selves, but there is no method for isolating a single kind of leucocytes; and, if there were, it would hardly be possible to induce the formation in an animal of a specific solvent for a definite kind of leucocyte; but if an animal is inoculated with an exudate in which one kind of leucocute predominates, a serum will be produced in response to the stimulus which will destroy all kinds of leucocytes.

Among the cell poisons there is one which is formed in animals if a piece of ciliated epithelium from an animal of a different species is introduced under the skin. The serum of such an animal acquires the power of stopping the movement of the cilia in corresponding cells.

If an emulsion made from the suprarenal body of the guinea pig is injected under the skin of a duck it calls forth a change in the nature of the serum of the duck; the emulsion apparently acts as a poison, and in defense the blood produces something that counteracts its effects. If the serum from such a duck is then injected into a normal guinea pig, it will kill it in a few hours.

It is maintained that man, and every animal as well, has a specific serum (antihaemolysin) in his blood which, to a certain extent, will resist the action of any poison tending to dissolve its red corpuscles. It is not supposed that the presence of the antihaemolysin lends any greater powers of resistance to the red corpuscles, but that it reacts upon the dissolving poison (haemolysin) and weakens it. Normal serum can destroy the dissolving power of many bacterial poisons.

ANIMAL LIFE AND CONDUCT.

agent concerned with the removal of cell material AS Schiller said, "Hunger and love lead the

which has belonged to the organism but has become useless. It cannot destroy useless cell material, but accomplishes the first step in its removal by uniting with it and converting it into a substance which can be acted upon destructively by another component of the fluid (alexin), which in itself is indifferent to cell material except when it previously has been made vulnerable. Besides these, there is a third component (agglutin), which coöperates with the other two. The degree of immunity of any animal depends upon the quantitative and qualitative relations of these components. By some it is held that the action of the first component is to stimulate the leucocytes to destroy the harmful elements, and another view of its mode of action is through the affinity. existing between it and the alexin contained in the leucocyte.

It has been shown by the chemical reactions to staining fluids that leucocytes vary among them.

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world; now hunger and love are simply other names for the fundamental systems of what the moralist calls egotism and altruism, and the most recent discoveries of science have thrown new light on the nature and reciprocal function of these two great motive forces. The question is one of capital importance, not only in biology, but also in sociology and ethics. Both in Germany and in England there is a " Struggle for Life" school, composed of more or less faithful disciples of Darwin, and on the other side various French philosophers who have never given up protesting against the theory which reduces the whole of life to a selfish struggle.

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