unmitigated evil. Doubtless the proposal will be realized at an early date, even if not this year. But without the detailed proposals, by which the new grant is intended to be administered, it is impossible to say how the new order of things will act on our educational system. If only the fees in the lower standards (or classes) are freed, as is partially the case now in Scotland, the educationalists will be dissatisfied, for it will act as a discouragement to clever children to pass through the higher standards, which are only voluntary, if in these classes fees have to be paid. Again, if no popular control over the many practically private schools is granted with the new increased grants of public money, the Liberals will accept Free Education only to amend it as soon as they come into power. If popular control is made a rule instead of an exception in the elementary schools, it will irritate the country squires and clergy, who are the fastest supporters of the Conservative party, which is now in power. But in any case, there has arrived a time when the elementary educational system, which has worked for twenty years with some blots but considerable success, is acknowledged to require modification.

66

Another event, on which much has been said, has been the appointment of a Royal Commission to inquire into the relations of Capital and Labor. Notice has been called in these "Notes" before to the increasing strength of Labor Movements" in Great Britain. Parliament's attention has been constantly called to the matter, and the subject has become a frequent theme of eloquence upon political platforms. The government was obliged to do something, and has probably done the best possible thing in instituting a thorough inquiry of this nature. Labor representatives are not agreed amongst themselves as to whether legislative enactments, compulsory or permissive, for limiting the hours of labor, are needed, or whether trades unions and labor federations are really able by voluntary combination and united action to secure shorter hours and better wages. Cynics point to the fact that this recently appointed Labor Commission cannot report till after the next general election, and so seems an attempt to keep labor questions from the political battlefield for another few years. It is a commonplace, that Royal Commissions are appointed to hear evidence and frame reports, but not to expect their reports to be made the basis of practical action; and it is now remembered that six years ago the Conservative party appointed a Royal Commission on Education, which three years later reported against Free Education yet very shortly after, the Conservative party promised to free the elementary schools, and is now just about to redeem its promise. It is far from impossible that there may be another such experience in connection with the Labor question.

:

The salient feature about the present condition of the Labor problem is that the unskilled laborers are being organized; the movement began with the dock laborers: it is spreading now to other occupations, and notably to the agricultural leaders. The labor organizers declare that in another four or five years the whole of the unskilled laborers of Britain will be as well united and organized as the skilled laborers now are. This is their aim, and if their object is attained, especially among the agricultural laborers, who form the great reservoir of our labor market, on which capital relies to flood the field, when from one cause or another more cheap labor is wanted, the outlook will be materially changed;

labor will be stronger to make its demands heard, even if no labor legislation has meanwhile been passed.

Another matter, at once political as well as social in its bearings, is coming to the front, namely, the administration of the poor law, and the provision made for the aged and incapable members of the laboring classes. Apart from the constitution of the Poor Law Boards, which are aristocratic and exclusive in composition, being subject to property qualifications and elected by multiple property votes, our poor law makes no distinction between the dissolute or disreputable and the deserving poor. Consequently, a very poor man feels it not to be to his advantage to save money or provide for old age, for in no case can he lay by much for himself, and he may well find in his old age that some other laborer, who has no means, can get relief from the poor-rates, while he, who has saved a pittance, after a thrifty life is no better off than he who has saved nothing. Then some poor-law guardians refuse almost all outdoor relief, that is, relief in money and food, and give only indoor relief, that is, accommodation in the hated workhouse: others refuse hardly any applicant for out-door relief, on the ground that this is humane, and such a course is popular with many, though it undoubtedly tends to reduce the rate of wages to have, as is often the case in country districts, men who are sick, aged, or crippled working for less than two dollars (eight shillings) a week, while they eke out their earnings with out-door relief. Pensions for the aged, and national insurance against sickness, old-age, and death, are now in the air: politicians, statisticians, and publicists are bringing these schemes to public notice, and, one may hope, into a practical form, such as mature public opinion can approve and adopt.

In the development of the life of the Free Churches during recent years, the popularizing and adaptation of the forms of public service have been prominent. The "service of song " is now as well understood as the " prayer meeting," and the office of praise is now felt to be as necessary as that of prayer. One well-known minister has at regular intervals services which are chiefly composed of singing, while he attempts to make the hymns more living by speaking shortly about the writers, the history, the literary or spiritual beauty of the hymns chosen. No work done by the Church of England is more catholic (in the truest sense) than the giving of oratorios and other music of a high class in the great cathedrals and churches. In St. Paul's Cathedral, in the city of London. Mendelssohn's oratorio of St. Paul is regularly given on St. Paul's Day, when more than ten thousand persons gather in the vast building to join in a most impressive service. Bach's Passion Music (St. Matthew) is performed similarly on the Tuesday before Easter. At Westminster Abbey, Bach's Christmas oratorio is performed every Christmas. Other great churches in London have similar services, at which good music is performed in fitting devotional manner. To some,

of course, these services are mere performances: but are not the most eloquent sermons to many listeners often nothing more than rhetorical display?

"Happy Sunday afternoons" are another popular and homely development: a few musical solos or anthems, a hymn or two, and a short prayer, with a twenty minutes' address or lecture on some subject of the day, constitute a "brief, bright, and brotherly" hour of edification. Such services have special attractions for workingmen in many places.

The "Sunday Morning Adult School" is another agency which is now being most vigorously worked: at nine o'clock on Sunday mornings a class of men meets for two hours or so, and spends half the time in purely educational work, reading, writing, or the like: and then an hour is spent in discussing a Bible passage or in some other way, in which the whole class joins together. The social value of these classes, which are largely managed by the men themselves, is found to be very great. On the whole, these developments of the service and the class serve to show in how many ways the fact of Christians gathering together can be blessed.

Independents in England are now exercised about several matters. There is first and foremost the International Council, which is to meet in London in July, and which is most eagerly awaited. Then the funds at the disposal of the Church Aid Society, which distributes yearly grants to a large number of small country churches, have become so exhausted that the grants have been greatly reduced in many directions: this means a hard struggle for many a country congregation. A third matter of interest is the election of a Secretary to the Congregational Union of England and Wales in the place of the late Dr. Hannay: the choice has been postponed in order to satisfy a few who wished that no election should be made till the status and duties of the office had been thoroughly reconsidered. It appears likely, however, that the new secretary will enter on the same duties and stand entirely on the same footing as his prede

cessor.

HAMPSTEAD, LONDON.

Joseph King.

BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES.

PHYSICAL REALISM. Being an analytical philosophy from the physical objects of science to the physical data of sense. By THOMAS CASE, M. A. London: Longmans, Green & Co. 1888.

Professor Case's fundamental doctrine consists in the proposition that in sense-perception what we immediately perceive is not the external object, but our sensory nerves "sensibly affected." This doctrine he names Physical Realism, to distinguish it from Intuitive Realism, which holds that we immediately perceive and hold converse with the external object. When, for instance, we touch any solid object, as an orange, Intuitive Realism holds that through the sense of touch we immediately perceive it and know of its existence; whereas Professor Case's doctrine maintains that what we immediately perceive is the nerves of touch "sensibly affected," and the presence of the orange is only an inference from this perception. Intuitive Realism used to support its view by appealing to the testimony of consciousness, and with apparent reason for we are not conscious of drawing such an inference as Professor Case's doctrine asserts, but believe that we immediately feel and perceive the external object itself.

If we take our example from vision instead of from touch, Intuitive Realism inclines at first glance to say that we perceive the orange as

directly by sight as by touch; and if, as before, we consult the consciousness of the ordinary man, this is surely its testimony. The ordinary man believes that, as he walks along the street, he immediately perceives and knows the houses, the pavement, the horses and carriages, the men and women. But a little reflection suffices to convince the Intuitive Realist that this is not possible, and that the only thing we can immediately see is the light-ray as it impinges upon the retina. Intuitive Realism therefore seeks to parallelize the phenomena of vision with those of touch, and holds that, just as in touch we perceive objects in contact with the skin, so in vision we perceive the light-rays that impinge upon the retina. Intuitive Realism would like to claim the testimony of consciousness in favor of this view, but it cannot do so and remain true to the facts. For consciousness does not testify that in vision we perceive the light-rays that strike the retina, our unsophisticated consciousness knowing nothing of either light-rays or retina; nor does it tell us, more vaguely, that what we see is the light that reaches the eye, for this conclusion, like the other, is the product of reflection; but what consciousness testifies is this, that we immediately behold and know objects at a distance from the eye.

In short, a theory which aims to base all conclusions upon the testimony of consciousness leads to propositions which are scientifically absurd; and Professor Case clearly sees that the proposition that we directly know objects at a distance from the eye is scientifically absurd. For the phrase, "the testimony of consciousness," covers two distinct and dissimilar classes of phenomena: (1) actual psychical facts, which to every psychological theory must be sacred and inviolable; and (2) inferences from these facts in regard to their causes and implications, inferences which may or may not be scientifically correct, but which are nevertheless inferences, not immediate knowledge, though they are often taken for the latter because they have the form of very confident beliefs. The belief that we immediately see external objects and beings belongs to this class; it is an unconscious inference, made for the purpose of explaining the actual psychical facts of vision, but not to be confounded with those facts. And it is a belief which a scientific theory of vision must reject. If we could immediately see objects at a distance from the eye, it would be impossible to understand the rôle of the light-rays that pass from luminous objects to the eye, or the use of the physical apparatus of vision.

Just the same considerations apply to the case of touch: we must distinguish between the sensations of touch and the belief that by them we immediately know an external object. Doubtless we do know an external object, but we do not know it immediately; all we know immediately is our sensations, and the existence of an external object is an inference from these.

Professor Case's theory deserves credit for ruling out of court, in at least one case, the Intuitive Realist's " appeal to consciousness," which was often only an appeal to unscientific prejudice. All reverence is due to psychical facts, but none to naive beliefs that have not stood the test of scientific criticism.

So much for Professor Case's view of what are not the objects of senseperception. But what are its objects? According to Professor Case, the sensory nerves "sensibly affected."

The phrase "sensibly affected" is, to say the least, an ambiguous and

unfortunate one. It may imply that the sensation in question is a property of the nerves; or it may mean that the nerves are affected in the peculiar manner which is the physiological accompaniment to a sensation; or that the nerves, or rather the nerve-terminations, are colored, warm, etc. The first meaning, that the sensation is a property of the nerves, that it is in the nerves, that the nerves have the sensation, commits the absurdity of predicating a psychical quality of a material thing. The second meaning, that the nerves are affected in the peculiar manner in virtue of which a sensation arises, in a manner the details of which it would rest with the science of nervous physiology to determine, — this meaning cannot be intended by the phrase "sensibly affected," as Professor Case uses it, partly because he does not seem to mean to assert that in sense-perception we make the immediate acquaintance of the processes that go on in the nerves, partly because he speaks in so many words of the nerve-ends as colored and warm. It is therefore in the third sense that he uses the phrase, and he means, for example, that when we see the color red, what we really see is the retinal terminations of the optic nerve so colored; and when we have sensations of warmth in our finger-tips, what we really feel is the nerve-ends warmed. If Professor Case carries out the analogy in the case of all the senses, he must also hold that when I hear a sound, my nerve-ends are sonorous ; when I smell of a rose, my nerve-ends are fragrant; and when I taste sugar, my nerve-ends are sweet.

But perhaps Professor Case would draw a distinction between primary and secondary qualities, and hold that only in the case of the former, that is, in the case of sight and touch, do we make the acquaintance of our nerve-terminations. His doctrine would then be that, when I feel a hard object, what I immediately perceive is my compressed tactile nerve-ends; and that, when I behold a colored object, what I really see is the colored image on the retina.

Now, this theory is just as irreconcilable with the facts of physiology as the theory that we immediately see objects at a distance is with the facts of physics. The fact that the image on the retina is upside down, and that there are two such images, one on each retina, proves that these images cannot be the immediate object of the mind in visual perception. This appears still more plainly from a series of experimental facts of the utmost importance to the theory of sense-perception, with which Professor Case does not seem to be familiar.

(1.) If a sensory nerve-trunk be severed at any point between periphery and brain, say the nerve-trunk of the arm at the elbow, all sensation in the forearm and hand is immediately abolished. Yet the nerve-terminations in the hand are uninjured, and so is every other part of the nerve except the point of section at the elbow. Stimulation of the peripheral cut-end, or of any part of the nerve between elbow and hand, no longer gives rise to sensation; stimulation of the central cut-end causes sensations of pain, which are localized in the hand. This shows that sense-organ and sensory nerve are powerless of themselves to cause sensation, except as they remain in unbroken structural connection with the brain.

(2.) Observations of persons who have lost limbs show that stimulation of the nerve-stumps remaining gives rise to sensations which may be distinctly localized in the lost limb; for instance, a man who has lost an arm can feel pain in the fingers. On Professor Case's theory we should