ASPHALT PAVEMENTS. 609 



Religious systems must not, however, be judged of by the ordinary 

 laws of reason ; they must be estimated rather by their influence for 

 good or evil on men's lives and on society. 



The imagination may, when unfettered, during a state of trance, 

 work upon what was during consciousness a constant theme of reflec- 

 tion, and elaborate therefrom ideas and theories pregnant with many 

 moral truths, and, though vanity has, no doubt, influenced the actions 

 of most of the so-called religious impostors, it has taken the direction 

 of attempts to benefit their fellow-men, and to satisfy that craving 

 which seems instinctive in the human mind to lean for aid and sym- 

 pathy on something stronger and better than itself, to connect the 

 present life with an eternal state of existence, and to attain a high 

 standard of moral perfection. 



Imperfect though the doctrines of such men as Swedenborg and 

 Mohammed may be, they attempted to satisfy, and to a certain extent 

 have succeeded in satisfying, those yearnings in many human beings, 

 whom they have made, if not better, at least more contented with life 

 than if left to the unbridled guidance of their own passions and impulses. 



A millennium of reason may be in store for the human race, but 

 the day is yet far distant ; and we cannot afford at present to sneer at 

 the credulity of our fellow-men, when in the latter half of the nine- 

 teenth century we hear of a learned bishop consecrating a cave where 

 Bernadotte Soubarons, a girl of fourteen, saw the Virgin Mary, and 

 read of thousands of pilgrims flocking to this sacred grotto in the year 

 1872 to worship with the most earnest convictions. 



Need we wonder that the ignorant Arabs, 1,300 years ago, living, 

 as far as a knowledge of Nature's laws was concerned, in a state of 

 heathen darkness, should have been attracted to the Moslem faith, 

 which, while it held out bright hopes for a future life, consorted well 

 with their inclinations in the present. 



The mere act of believing is, to most men, a source of happiness,, 

 and the happiness appears sometimes to be in the inverse ratio to the 

 credibility of the thing believed in, as Moreau (de Tours) says : " lis 

 croient, mais pour croire, en tout etat de cause, ils faut d'abord qu'ila 

 ne comprennent pas." Abstract from the Journal of 3fental Science. 



-- 



ASPHALT PAVEMENTS. 



WITHIN the past few years several streets in the city of New 

 York have been overlaid with a compound called by its in- 

 ventors " asphalt," but better characterized by the public as " poultice 

 pavement." When first laid down, this material appeared to fulfil all 

 the requirements of a serviceable pavement, being smooth, hard, and 

 apparently durable. Actual experience, however, showed the material 



TOL. II. 39 



