28 POPULAR SCIEXCE MONTHLY. 



terest of landlords and capitalists. With all our labor-saving ma- 

 chinery and all our command over the forces of I^ature, the strug- 

 gle for existence has become more tierce than ever before, and 

 year by year an ever-increasing proportion of our people sink into 

 paupers' graves. 



When the brightness of future ages shall have dimmed the, 

 glamour of our material progress he says that the judgment of his- 

 tory will surely be that our ethical standard was low and that we 

 were unworthy to possess the great and beneficent powers that sci- 

 ence had placed in our hands, for, instead of devoting the highest 

 powers of our greatest men to remedy these evils, we see the gov- 

 ernments of the most advanced nations arming their people to the 

 teeth and expending most of the wealth and all the resources of 

 their science in preparation for the destruction of life, of property, 

 and of happiness. 



He reminds us that the first International Exhibition, in 1851, 

 fostered the hope that men would soon perceive that peace and 

 commercial intercourse are essential to national well-being. Poets 

 and statesmen joined in hailing the dawn of an era of peaceful in- 

 dustry, and exposition following exposition taught the nations how 

 much they have to learn from each other and how much to give 

 to each other for the benefit and happiness of all. 



Dueling, which had long prevailed, in spite of its absurdity and 

 harmfulness, as a means of settling disputes, was practically abol- 

 ished by the general diffusion of a spirit of intolerance of private 

 war; and as the same public opinion which condemns it should, 

 if consistent, also condemn war between nations, many thought 

 they perceived the dawn of a wiser policy between nations. 



Yet so far are we from progress toward its" abolition that the 

 latter half of the century has witnessed not the decay, but a re- 

 vival of the war spirit, and at its end we find all nations loaded 

 with the burden of increasing armies and navies. 



The armies are continually being equipped with new and more 

 deadly weapons at a cost which strains the resources of even the 

 most wealthy nations and im]:)overishes the mass of the people by 

 increasing burdens of debt and taxation, and all this as a means 

 of settling disputes which have no sufficient cause and no relation 

 whatever to the well-being of the communities Avhich engage in 

 them. 



The evils of war do not cease with the awful loss of life and 

 destruction of property which are their immediate results, since 

 they form the excuse for inordinate increase of armaments — an in- 

 crease which has been intensified by the application to war purposes 

 of those mechanical inventions and scientific discoveries which, 



