EDITOR'S TABLE. 



275 



Lard cash ; but many a man, who has 

 a soul above that particular form of 

 transaction, sees no harm in taking an 

 office as the equivalent of his franchise. 

 Another wants his particular line of 

 industry protected, and subordinates 

 everything to that, without so much as 

 a qualm or a misgiving. If his vote 

 was not given to him that he might use 

 it for the advancement of his business 

 interests, he does not understand any- 

 thing about the matter. Others give 

 their votes as a matter of private fa- 

 vor; others, again, under the influence 

 of private spite. Most have no better 

 reason to allege than that their party 

 has set up this or that candidate, and 

 that they mean to support the party 

 nomination. The candidate may be a 

 man they would not trust with their 

 private cash, or put at the head of any 

 financial institution in which they had 

 a stake, but at the bidding of party they 

 will vote him into any public position, 

 district. State, or Federal. The party 

 caucus gives a consecration more po- 

 tent than any holy oil, wiping out scars, 

 tattoo-marks, and every species of blem- 

 ish, and making the nominee "good 

 enough " to represent the nation in the 

 very highest seat of power. A vote so 

 used is not treated as a public trust ; it 

 becomes merely the means of gratifying 

 the selfish spirit of faction. 



The principle we contend for is this : 

 that the measure we mete to the rulers 

 of the past, and to all sole depositaries 

 of power, we should mete to ourselves. 

 We have the power now in our own 

 hands ; the question is. What have we 

 done with it — what are we doing with 

 it ? We know unfortunately that thou- 

 sands and hundreds of thousands of 

 voters vvould utterly spurn the idea of 

 any responsibility attaching to their 

 use of the sufi'rage. In this matter we 

 can not be saved by any "remnant." 

 If the majority go wrong here, the 

 whole nation will go wrong; and its 

 public policy may be determined to 

 most lamentable issues. If it be asked 



what all this has to do with the scien- 

 tific interests which this magazine is 

 understood to advocate, we would an- 

 swer, in the first place, that the func- 

 tion of science, in that broad sense in 

 which we understand it, is to give a 

 wise direction to the whole of human 

 life ; and, secondly, that the interests 

 of science are intimately involved in 

 the general condition of public opinion 

 and public morality. Both of these con- 

 sidei'ations we shall continue to eluci- 

 date and enforce; meantime, we would 

 press upon each individual citizen the 

 consideration, which there is no evad- 

 ing, that the exercise of all political 

 power and influence is a sacred trust, 

 and that it is no less shameful a thing 

 for the citizen of a free republic to give 

 his vote under the influence of private 

 motives apart from the sense of public 

 duty, than it was for any of the despots 

 of old to have made their larger pow- 

 ers mainly subservient to their own 

 gratification. 



A JEWISH EXPLANATION' OF JEWISH 



SUCCESS. 



One of the best contributions to the 

 discussion of the Jewish question, that 

 we have seen, is the article of Mr. 

 Lucien Wolf, himself a Jew, in a recent 

 number of the "Fortnightly Eeview." 

 Mr. Wolf takes the ground that the 

 chief reason why the Jews have been 

 hated and persecuted is that they have 

 possessed a form of religion and a sys- 

 tem of morals and of self-government 

 which have given them an advantage 

 over all other races in the battle of life. 

 Taking up an expression of Mr. Gold- 

 win Smith's, he admits that Judaism is 

 a system of "legalism"; but he goes 

 on to say that "legahsm" is what is 

 wanted for this world — method, adap- 

 tation of means to ends, of effort to 

 conditions, careful preservation of all 

 that tends to superiority, and equally 

 careful removal of all that makes for 

 inferiority, whether physical, mental, 



