194 "THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



hut little else than barbarism. The object of the law, in punishment, 

 benefits no one, and makes the patient more incurable — destroying all 

 possibility of recovery and return to health again. Inebriety in any 

 form may be no excuse for crime in a legal sense, but it is still less an 

 excuse for punishment, which destroys the victim, or makes him more 

 helpless and hopeless. A vast army of inebriates, hovering along these 

 border-lands of disease and crime, who are unknown and unrecognized, 

 except " as vicious and desperately wicked," are a perpetual menace to 

 all progress and civilization, unless they can be reached and checked 

 by rational, effective methods. A revolution of sentiment and practice 

 is demanded, in which the inebriate and the conditions which devel- 

 oped his malady shall be understood ; then the means for prevention, 

 restoration, and recovery can be applied along the line of nature's 

 laws. 



■♦»» 



THE PEOBLEM OF UNIYEESAL SUFFKAGE. 



By ALFEED FOUILLEE. 



THERE are three principal theories of suffrage. It may be re- 

 garded, first, as the final shape assumed by the struggle for exist- 

 ence among mankind. Since it is necessary, sooner or later, to come 

 to a treaty of peace, let us make it before the battle, instead of after- 

 ward ; let us put ballots in the place of gun-shots. We can thus gain 

 an economy of men and strength, and a reserve of living power. Uni- 

 versal suffrage may be defined, from this point of view, as a device of 

 modern society to make a canvass of its forces, and learn what propor- 

 tion of them is arrayed on the one side or on the other. 



The second theory is based on considerations of utility and common 

 welfare. Modern nations, in their advancing freedom, are happy only 

 as they do definitively what they wish, as they recognize in their pres- 

 ent condition the result of their present will, while they reserve the 

 power of modifying their situation on changing their wish. Though 

 the opinion of all may not be the best possible, it is at least the most 

 fit to satisfy everybody, and experience will teach wherein it may need 

 amending. But what if it is too late to amend ? Some experiments 

 may lead to the loss of a province, or to the ruin of the nation. Mr. 

 Spencer, indeed, tells us that as the vote of each individual is the ex- 

 pression of the wants that he feels, so the votes of the nation are the 

 product of a generally felt want. But we reply that individuals can 

 not feel or account for general wants, especially when they concern 

 international affairs. Even in the internal affairs of a nation, a gen- 

 eral want is not the simple sum of particular wants. There are supe- 

 rior interests, not intellectual, aesthetic, and moral only, but economical 

 and political ones also, of which individuals as a mass can havd neither 



