"Music of the Future." A philosophical magazine for artists and artistic teachers. 25 cents a copy. Edited by Frederic Horace Clark, Steinway Hall, Chicago. "The Imperial Raid in South Africa." By George Hannah. Paper, 28 pp. New York: Geo. Hannah, 52 West 68th St. "Some Questions of Larger Politics." By Edwin Maxey, D.C.L., LL.D. Cloth, 134 pp. Price, $1. New York: The Abbey Press. NOTES AND ANNOUNCEMENTS. HE Hon. Wayne MacVeagh, whose recent address on "The Value of Ethical Ideals in American Politics" occupies a considerable portion of our space this month, is one of the few American statesmen who regard ethics of any kind as a factor in the development of our civilization. He was graduated at Yale in 1853, and holds the degree of LL.D. from Amherst College (1881) and the University of Pennsylvania (1897). He served in the civil war as captain of infantry in 1862 and of cavalry a year later. In 1870-'71 he was United States Minister to Turkey, and in 1872-'74 was a member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania. He was head of the commission sent to Louisiana by President Hayes to settle disputes of contending parties. He served as AttorneyGeneral in the Cabinet of President Garfield, and was chairman of the Civil Service Reform Association of Philadelphia and of the Indian Rights Association. From 1893 to 1897 he was American Ambassador to Italy. Mr. MacVeagh's public career has been strikingly pure--not assailed even by the breath of scandal-and his eloquent advocacy of a higher political standard in this country is both timely and powerful. The three articles in this issue of THE ARENA that we have grouped in a symposium under the general title of "The Trust and the Single Tax" are written by men whose qualifications for the discussion of this topic are beyond dispute. Their arguments seem conclusive; yet the barrier of selfishness that opposes the adoption of the Single Tax, even in modified forms, is so impervious to the larger view of racial progress that their reiteration is essential. This semi-socialistic measure, first elaborated by Henry George, is growing in importance, and the next number of this magazine will present an especially able paper on another side of the subject-"The Ethics of the Land Question." It has been prepared by a prominent New England educator a Master of Arts and a representative thinker-who for special and good reasons withholds his name. The article will profoundly interest and please all who accept the views of Mr. George on the land question and also those interested in ethics as related to social and economic problems. A new ARENA feature, which may be regarded as somewhat of a departure from our usual policy, will also be introduced in our November issue. Out of regard for the literary tastes of that most numerous of all classes of readers, the lovers of fiction, we have decided to publish a short story in each number of the magazine hereafter. The twelve contributions of this character to appear yearly will equal in extent a large volume, costing fully half the subscription price. And our friends may rest assured that the fiction that our pages will contain will be invariably of the choicest quality. The first story, which will appear in our next number, will be entitled "When Ole Marster Passed Away." It is a negro character sketch, from the pen of Will Allen Dromgoole, the talented Southern author, and will prove of fascinating interest to all who read it. Other features of the November issue that may now be announced are: The fifth article in Prof. Frank Parsons's superb series on "Great Movements of the Nineteenth Century;" "Some Ancient New Women," by Ella S. Stewart; "The Futilities of Reformers," by Joseph Dana Miller, and the concluding instalment of Miss Kellor's instructive study of "The Criminal Negro." J. E. M. "We do not take possession of our ideas, but are possessed by them. They master us and force us into the arena, -HEINE. THE ARENA VOL. XXVI. THE NOVEMBER, 1901. THE GOSPEL OF DESTRUCTION. I. ITS EVOLUTIONARY ASPECTS. No. 5. HE doctrine of Nihilism has been called the incomprehensible creed; yet a diagnosis of its causes is more and more evidently becoming a condition of its cure. The epidemic of revolt against social order can no longer be mistaken for a self-limited evil. Its vitality defies droughts and frosts and can be checked only by the discovery of its root. No other delusion has so persistently defied that most potent of all arguments: the logic of experience. There must be unsuspected facts at the bottom of its theories; there must be elements of strength nourished by another soil than our own. The historic exegesis of the strange aberration enables us, indeed, to trace it to an altogether exceptional combination of circumstances. Its doctrines were first clearly enounced during the fifth decade of the nineteenth century, and it has been pointed out that about that time the seed of religious skepticism began to leaven the masses of the working population in several countries of Continental Europe. Opposition to the religious policy of established governments has, however, more than once proved compatible with the political loyalty of the dissenters. For the sake of military triumphs the Jacobins forgave the Concordat of the First Empire. For the sake of the long-desired reëstablishment of national prestige the German Catholics forgave the anti-Papal procedures of Prince Bismarck. Paternalism, like that of the Austrian dynasty in some of its Crownlands, has contrived to weather the shock of military reverses and military despotism. There are, in fact, exceptions to the rule that organized government becomes a curse when it suppresses too large a share of the liberty which it should limit only by regulation. Among the bigoted country-population of Turkey and Spain the burden of despotism is felt only like the weight of defensive armor-a grievous but welcome protection from worse evils. But in other parts of Europe an extraordinary, and perhaps unprecedented, conjuncture of grievances has eliminated the factors of conciliation. The burden of despotism galls like the chain that hampers the movements of the galleyslave, and its weight is felt as an unqualified affliction. In Italy and Russian Poland millions are oppressed and exasperated by taxes in support of an unpopular government, by toils in the service of a detested army, and by tithes in subvention of what to them has become an incredible creed. They feel that return to the freedom of Nature would be an unspeakable gain; they would gladly exchange their lot for that of the savage who obeys no law but that of his instincts and dreads no foes but the hostile powers of Nature. They mourn the total loss of their birthright to happiness; to them the "social contract" has proved a cruelly one-sided arrangement, imposing a maximum of toil for a minimum share of the harvest. Not all of them underrate the horrors of a throne and altar subverting revolution, but they feel certain that, in comparison with their present condition, chaos itself would be a change for the better. They can see no redeeming feature in the form of social order enforced upon them, and would take the risk of effecting relief by its total destruction. Organized government, to them, has become a synonym of organized injustice-a combination of cruelty, selfishness, arrogance, and imposture. |