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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Great Britain, but for the benefit of 

 rapacious politicians and traders and 

 manufacturers in Spain. In the co- 

 lonial administration the former 

 sought easy employment and speedy 

 fortune. In the colonial commercial 

 regulations the latter found an arti- 

 ficial support for trade and manu- 

 factures that could not have survived 

 without them. By discriminations, 

 Spanish millers, for instance, were 

 able to import wheat, turn it into 

 flour, and sell it to the colonists at a 

 price scandalously in excess of that 

 charged for the American product. 

 Sometimes the trouble to grind the 

 wheat was not taken. After it had 

 been imported into Spain it was 

 shipped to the colonies, and upon 

 them was thrown the expense of 

 needless transportation and the prof- 

 its of superfluous middlemen. 



With the complete extinction of 

 the colonial empire of Spain will 

 come to an end these opportunities 

 for the pillage of industrious peoples. 

 The parasites, commercial and bu- 

 reaucratic, that have depended upon 

 them for a livelihood will be obliged 

 to turn their attention to more le- 

 gitimate employment. There will 

 be brought to an end also the im- 

 mense sacrifice of life and treasure 

 required to suppress the ever-recur- 

 ring insurrections. Both will be left 

 in Spain to develop her resources 

 and to add to her wealth and pros- 

 perity ; but, best of all, will cease the 

 encouragement to the militant and 

 bureaucratic spirit that the posses- 

 sion of the colonies fostered. The 

 sentiments as well as the employ- 

 ments appropriate to peace will re- 

 ceive an impulse that ought to en- 

 able Spain to fill an honorable if not 

 a glorious place in the future history 

 of Europe. But this bright outlook 

 is based upon the assumption that 

 she will not join in the mad compe- 

 tition of her neighbors in armaments 

 and thus fall a prey with them to the 



economic and moral ravages of " an 

 armed peace." 



BREAM AND REALITY. 



An ingenious article by M. Ca- 

 mille Melinand, which appeared a 

 few months ago in the Revue des 

 Deux Mondes under the title of Le 

 Reve et la Realite (Dream and Real- 

 ity), is reproduced, in its more im- 

 portant points, in translation, in the 

 present number of the Monthly, and 

 will repay perusal for the novel views 

 it presents. The object of the writer 

 is to show that there is not so much 

 difference as is commonly supposed 

 between the waking and sleeping 

 states, that our dreams are not so 

 illusory nor our waking experiences 

 so absolutely real as we are in the 

 habit of assuming, and that, as we 

 wake from dreams, so we may ex- 

 pect to wake from what we call life 

 into a condition of existence that will 

 give us a new standpoint, and reduce 

 all the experiences which we now 

 take so seriously and tragically to 

 the level of a dream. The only 

 substantial differences he recognizes 

 between our waking state and the 

 dream state are (1) that in our wak- 

 ing moments we know that there 

 is another condition which we call 

 dreaming, while in our dreams we 

 do not recognize a separate waking 

 state; and (2) that, while we wake 

 from our dreams, we do not wake 

 from what we call reality. 



M. Melinand writes in a candid 

 spirit, and yet we think his article is 

 calculated to encourage a somewhat 

 unhealthy type of mysticism. We 

 do not see how it is possible to take 

 too serious a view of the life we live 

 in the present. Whether we view it 

 tragically or not must depend in 

 large measure upon our individual 

 experiences ; and happy are they into 

 whose lives tragedy does not enter. 

 The very fact that M. Melinand 

 would dissuade us from taking life 



