478 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It is obvious that under such circumstances it must be diflBcult 

 or impossible to induce the masses of the people to intelligently 

 interest themselves in the subject of taxation, and that in coun- 

 tries like the United States, where under free and universal suf- 

 frage the same people elect the legislators who shall determine 

 the policy of their Government, laws will be enacted for the col- 

 lection of revenue for the support of the state that will be neither 

 productive or effective, and do not promote, but rather impair 

 the industrial and commercial interests of the country. 



The question, then, next suggests itself, How can a different 

 state of things be brought about ? How can the people in gen- 

 eral be induced, in the sense of persuasion and not of compulsion, 

 to interest themselves in this subject ? The idea of the writer is 

 that such a change can best be effected by showing that the sub- 

 ject is not necessarily dry and uninteresting ; that it really con- 

 stitutes more than almost any other element the essence of his- 

 tory ; and that the record of the results that have followed the 

 attempts to establish almost every form of taxation that human 

 ingenuity can devise, has even in a very high degree the attrac- 

 tion of romance. Its study from such a point of view constitutes 

 a better basis for casting a horoscope of the future of nations and 

 governments than aught else within the ken of the historical stu- 

 dent. 



In the foregoing chapters the writer has attempted to carry 

 out this idea. That it has been in at least a degree successful is 

 demonstrated by the great number of commendatory letters that 

 have come to him from different countries — even China — and 

 from people of most varied interests, situations, and occupations. 



In the chapters that are to follow, where a search for the 

 underlying principles of taxation is to be prosecuted, a resort to 

 more or less abstract reasoning is a necessity. But even here 

 the presentation of abstract principles, to which assent will be 

 asked or expected, will be avoided as far as possible, with the ex- 

 pectation that the reader will, from a consideration of the facts 

 and deductions presented, be able himself to frame and determine 

 the principles that should govern a correct system of taxation by 

 a process of self-evident induction. 



I 



An interesting illustration of the interdependence of organisms, and of 

 the existence of close relations where no relations are suspected, is pointed 

 out by Miss Ormerod. Water-cress farmers are greatly annoyed and often 

 have to suffer considerable destruction of their crops by the depredations 

 of the larvte of caddis flies. These larvae are dehcious morsels for trout, 

 and where trout abound they are scarce and the cresses flourish. But if 

 heron abound, they destroy the trout, the caddis flies are not eaten up, and 

 the cresses are. 



