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doctrine of predestination is still taught in Protestant catechisms, as is proved by the following passage extracted from the last edition of an official catechism for which I sent to Edinburgh:

“By the decree of God, for the manifestation of His glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.

“These angels and men, thus predestinated and foreordained, are particularly and unchangeably designed; and their number is so certain and definite that it cannot be either increased or diminished.

“Those of mankind that are predestinated unto life, God, before the foundation of the world was laid, according to His eternal and immutable purpose, and the secret counsel and good pleasure of His will, hath chosen in Christ unto everlasting glory, out of His mere free grace and love, without any foresight of faith or good works, or perseverance in either of them, or any other thing in the creature, as conditions, or causes moving him thereunto; and all to the praise of his glorious grace.

“As God hath appointed the elect unto glory, so hath He, by the eternal and most free purpose of His will, foreordained all the means thereunto. Wherefore they who are elected being fallen in Adam, are redeemed by Christ; are effectually called unto faith in Christ by His spirit working in due season; are justified, adopted, sanctified, and kept by His power through faith unto salvation. Neither are any other redeemed by Christ, effectually called, justified, adopted, sanctified, and saved, but the elect only.”

medal must have been distributed pretty widely, for the cabinet of medals at the Bibliothèque Nationale possesses three examples: one in gold, one in silver, and one in copper. This medal, reproduced by Bonnani in his Numism. Pontific. (vol. i. p. 336), represents on one side Gregory XIII., and on the other an angel striking Huguenots with a sword. The exergue is Ugonotorum strages, that is, Massacre of the Huguenots. (The word strages may be translated by carnage or massacre, a sense which it possesses in Cicero and Livy; or again by disaster, ruin, a sense attributed to it in Virgil and Tacitus.)

the historical manuals which M. Aulard has prepared for the use of classes in collaboration with M. Debidour the rôle attributed to the people as an entity is even more marked. We see it intervening continually and spontaneously; here are a few examples:—

The “Day” of June the 20th: “The king dismissed the Girondist members. The people of Paris, indignant, rose spontaneously and invaded the Tuileries.”

The “Day” of August 10th: “The Legislative Assembly dared not overthrow it; it was the people of Paris, aided by the Federals of the Departments, who effected this revolution at the price of its blood.”

The conflict of the Girondists and the Mountain: “This discord in the face of the enemy was dangerous. The people put an end to it on the days of the 31st of May and the 2nd of June, 1793, when it forced the Convention to expel the leaders of the Gironde from its midst and to decree their arrest.”

pretensions do at least seem to be growing untenable to the more advanced republicans.

“The rage with the socialists” writes M. Clemenceau, “is to endow with all the virtues, as though by a superhuman reason, the crowd whose reason cannot be much to boast of.” The famous statesman might say more correctly that reason not only cannot be prominent in the crowd but is practically nonexistent.

having overthrown a dynasty and refused a crown he was buried like a king among kings. Two years later his body was torn from the tomb, and his head, cut off by the executioner, was exposed above the gate of the House of Parliament. A little while ago a statue was raised to him. The old anarchist turned autocrat now figures in the gallery of demigods.

the numerous experiments made to prove this fact one of the most remarkable was performed on the pupils of his class by Professor Glosson and published in the Revue Scientifique for October 28, 1899.

“I prepared a bottle filled with distilled water carefully wrapped in cotton and packed in a box. After several other experiments I stated that I wished to measure the rapidity with which an odour would diffuse itself through the air, and asked those present to raise their hands the moment they perceived the odour. . . . I took out the bottle and poured the water on the cotton, turning my head away during the operation, then took up a stop-watch and awaited the result. . . . I explained that I was absolutely sure that no one present had ever smelt the odour of the chemical composition I had spilt. . . . At the end of fifteen seconds the majority of those in front had held up their hands, and in forty seconds the odour had reached the back of the hall by fairly regular waves. About three— quarters of those present declared that they perceived the odour. A larger number would doubtless have succumbed to suggestion, if at the end of a minute I had not been forced to stop the experiment, some of those in the front rows being unpleasantly affected by the odour, and wishing to leave the hall.”

advice is far from being banal. The psychologists of the day pay very little attention to the world about them, and are even surprised that any one should study it. I have come across an interesting proof of this indifferent frame of mind in a review of one of my books which appeared in the Revue philosophique and was inspired by the editor of the review. The author reproaches me with “exploring the world and the newspapers rather than books.”

I most gladly accept this reproach. The manifold facts of the journals and the realities of the world are far more instructive than philosophical lucubrations such as the Revue is stuffed with.

Philosophers are beginning to see the puerility of such reproaches. It was certainly of the forty volumes of this fastidious publication that Mr. William James was thinking when he wrote that all these dissertations simply represented “a string of facts clumsily observed and a few quarrelsome discussions.” Although he is the author of the best known treatise on psychology extant, the eminent thinker realises “the fragility of a science that oozes metaphysical criticism at every joint.” For more than twenty years I have tried to interest psychologists in the study of realities, but the stream of university metaphysics is hardly yet turned aside, although it has lost its former force

an instance of the depth of this hereditary love of the people for its kings, Michelet relates the following fact, which occurred in the reign of Louis XV.: “When it was known in Paris that Louis XV., who had left for the army, was detained ill at Metz, it was night. People got up and ran tumultuously hither and thither without knowing where they were going; the churches were opened in the middle of the night . . . people assembled at every cross-road, jostling and questioning one another without knowing what they were after. In several churches the priest who was reciting the prayer for the king's health was stopped by his tears, and the people replied by sobs and cries. . . . The courier who brought the news of his convalescence was embraced and almost stifled; people kissed his horse, and led him in triumph. . . . Every street resounded with a cry of joy: `The king is healed.' ”

naturally often overruled the Council of State, but by no means always did so. In one instance, reported in the Mémorial de Sainte-Hélene, he was the only one of his own opinion, and accepted that of the majority in the following terms: “Gentlemen, matters are decided here by majority, and being alone, I must give way; but I declare that in my conscience I yield only to form. You have reduced me to silence, but in no way convinced me.”

Another day the Emperor, interrupted three times in the expression of his opinion, addressed himself to the speaker who had just interrupted him: “Sir, I have not yet finished; I beg you to allow me to continue. After all, it seems to me that every one has a perfect right to express his opinion here.”

“The Emperor, contrary to the accepted opinion, was so far from absolute, and so easy with his Council of State, that he often resumed a discussion, or even annulled a decision, because one of the members of the Council had since, in private, given him fresh reasons, or had urged that the Emperor's personal opinion had influenced the majority.”

may judge of the recent evolution of ideas upon this point by the following passage from a speech by M. Jaurés, delivered in the Chamber of Deputies: “The greatness of to-day is built of the efforts of past centuries. France is not contained in a day nor in an epoch, but in the succession of all days, all periods, all her twilights and all her dawns.”

the publication of an article of mine concerning legislative illusions, I received from one of our most eminent politicians, M. Boudenot the senator, a letter from which I extract the following passage: “Twenty years passed in the Chamber and the Senate have shown me how right you are. How many times I have heard my colleagues say: `The Government ought to prevent this, order that,' &c. What would you have? there are fourteen centuries of monarchical atavism in our blood.”

disorder is the same in all the Government departments Interesting examples will be found in a report of M. Dausset to the Municipal Council:—

“The service of the public highways, which ought above all to be noted for its rapid execution, is, on the contrary, the very type of red-tape, bureaucratic, and ink-slinging administration, possessing men and money and wasting both in tasks which are often useless, for lack of order, initiative, and method—in a word, of organisation.

Speaking then of the directors of departments, each of whom works as he pleases, and after his own fashion, he adds:—

“These important persons completely ignore one another; they prepare and execute their plans without knowing anything of what their neighbours are doing; there is no one above them to group and co-ordinate their work.” This is why a road is often torn up, repaired, and then torn up again a few days later, because the departments dealing with the supply of water, gas, electricity, and the sewers are mutually jealous, and never attempt to work together. This anarchy and indiscipline naturally cost enormous sums of money, and a private firm which operated in this manner would soon find itself bankrupt.

• Population of the Great Powers:—
• 1789. 1906.
• Russia ... ... 28,000,000 129,000,000
• Germany ... ... 28,000,000 57,000,000
• Austria ... ... 18,000,000 44,000,000
• England ... ... 12,000,000 40,000,000
• France ... ... 26,000,000 39,000,000

impotence of ministers in their own departments has been well described by one of them, M. Cruppi, in a recent book. The most ardent wishes of the minister being immediately paralysed by his department, he promptly ceases to struggle against it.