EDITOR'S TABLE. 



2/1 



the clamors of excited multitudes; 

 who shall most effectively represent 

 and uphold the permanent and uni- 

 versal interests of humanity against 

 the narrower views of national self- 

 love or the gratification of ephem- 

 eral passions. If the question is 

 asked, Who shall these he ? we an- 

 swer that we know none fitter to 

 render this service to society and 

 the world than the true followers of 

 science everywhere. We hope and 

 trust they will recognize their mis- 

 sion and all its vast possibilities. 



A VICTIM OF MILITARISM. 



If the Dreyfus incident, coupled 

 with the Zola trial, has made plain 

 the fact that France is a military 

 despotism pure and simple, it has not 

 been without value. Because it has 

 a constitution, a president, a legis- 

 lature elected by universal suffrage, 

 and other simulations of republican 

 institutions, most people, particular- 

 ly in the United States, have thought 

 it a republic worthy of their sym- 

 pathy. How often have they con- 

 gratulated it upon its resistance to 

 the allurements of the one - man 

 power and its check to the advent of 

 some military hero like MacMahon 

 or Boulanger to the seat of an abso- 

 lute executive ! The spectacle has 

 led some of them, especially gifted 

 with the power of prophecy, to de- 

 clare that free institutions have be- 

 come so firmly established in France 

 that the restoration of the monarchy 

 can never occxir. 



But persons able to look beyond 

 the form of government, and to de- 

 tect the substance that it really rep- 

 resents, know full well that free in- 

 stitutions, properly speaking, have 

 not existed in France for several 

 hundred years. While the Revolu- 

 tion made sad havoc with some of 

 the most characteristic features of 

 the old regime., it did not vouchsafe 



the French people the personal free- 

 dom, the essence of free institutions, 

 with which their ill-informed friends 

 in this country have credited them. 

 During the long peace that preceded 

 that appalling event, a great change, 

 as may be seen in De Tocqueville's 

 masterly study of that period, had 

 come over the pitiless despotism that 

 culminated under the reign of Louis 

 XIV. To be sure, the laws were 

 just as fei'ocious as ever, but they 

 were not enforced with the old-time 

 vigor. The governing classes were 

 not so cruelly indifferent to the 

 classes governed. Indeed, it seemed 

 as if France might as easily and as 

 directly as England had done after 

 the Revolution of 1688 pass under a 

 constitutional regime and its people 

 become as free and prosperous as 

 those of its neighbor across the 

 channel. 



But this piece of good fortune 

 was not destined to come to that 

 most unhappy country. The an- 

 archy of the Revolution not only 

 destroyed the work of the beneficent 

 influences that promised a complete 

 social and political regeneration, but 

 riveted upon the French people a 

 despotism even more intolerable in 

 some respects than that from which 

 they had escaped. Called upon to 

 I'estoi'e order and thus prevent the 

 threatened dissolution of society. 

 Napoleon made use of all those agen- 

 cies so natural and congenial to des- 

 pots. Instead of trying to establish 

 those institutions that would enable 

 his countrymen to govern them- 

 selves, he established those institu- 

 tions only that would enable him to 

 govern them. He felt that they had 

 no more capacity for self govern- 

 ment than children. He knew that 

 if he could tickle their fancy with 

 the thought that they were again 

 the dominant power in Europe they 

 would not care whether they were 

 governed from Paris, as under the 



