808 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



with his bare gums, but only after necessity had reduced him to a 

 frugal regimen. A saccharine diet in the form of sweet ripe fruit has 

 certainly nothing to do with the decay of the teeth, and it is a sug- 

 gestive fact that toothache is almost exclusively an affliction of the 

 northern nations. 



Warts and Corns. The predisposing cause of warts is unknown, 

 and the popular remedies are rarely permanent. I have known 

 warts to reappear after they had been thoroughly removed by the 

 use of corrosive acids. The popular belief that they " spread " if 

 the operation involves bleeding seems not to be wholly unfounded, 

 and large warts can be more effectually cured by means of a tight 

 ligature that gradually deadens the tissue. Warts on the upper side 

 of the fingers can generally be atrophied by exerting a long-continued 

 strain upon the adjoining muscles, as in holding up a heavy weight, 

 or seizing the rings of a grapple-swing and dangling by one hand as 

 long as the fingers can support the strain. A callous skin is thus formed 

 under the wart, and before long the excrescence disappears. Corns are 

 entirely owing to the pressure of tight shoes, and can be cured by the 

 use of more commodious foot-wear. To suppress the symptom, while 

 the cause remains, is of little avail, and, before a chiropodist could 

 keep his promise to " remove corns with the root," he would have to 

 eradicate the folly of heeding the mandates of fashion rather than the 

 appeals of Nature. 



-- 



THE MOKALITY OF HAPPINESS. 



By THOMAS FOSTEK. 

 EVOLUTION OF CONDUCT. (CONTINUED.) 



THERE is only one way of escape from the conclusion reached in 

 our last that conduct is good or bad according as its total ef- 

 fects are pleasurable or painful in which statement be it understood 

 the word total means total, and is not limited in its application to the 

 person whose conduct is spoken of. If it is supposed that men were 

 created to suffer, that a power which they were bound to obey had 

 planned such suffering, so that any attempt either to take pleasure or 

 to avoid pain was an offense, then of course the conclusion indicated 

 is an erroneous one. 



No system of religion has ever definitely taught so hideous a doc- 

 trine. Even where sorrow and suffering are recognized as the lot of 

 man, and even where self-inflicted anguish and misery are enjoined 

 as suitable ways of pleasing Deity, it is never said that such sufferings 

 are the ultimate desire of the Supreme Power. These tribulations 

 are all intended for our good : we are to torture ourselves here and 



