Sept., 1904.] 



KNOWLEDGE & SCIENTIFIC NF.WS. 



215 



The illusion is less and is yet real. All thnuiL;h tluir 

 history each has pushed out in this direction and in 

 that. Rach has repeatedly tried to encroach on the 

 domain of the others. Sometimes the I'resident has 

 the upper hand ; sometimes Congress is on top ; and 

 the ."supreme Court is continually repressing the ex- 

 pansion of Congress. The Senate and the House ( f 

 Representatives are theoretically equal, hut the Senate 

 has grown at the expense of the House. In the .States 

 and the cities the Executive rises and falls with the 

 character of the (iovernor or the Mayor ; President 

 Cleveland was popularly known as the \'eto Mayor be- 

 cause of his unllinching exercise of his powers. 



Ecclesiastical. 



Perhaps it may he laid liow n as ;m axiom that all 

 Churches and all religions have hived off sects and 

 doctrinal varieties in exact proportion to their vitality. 

 Buddhism has shown the fertility proper to hot coun- 

 tries, though it is not in the hottest countries that it 

 has produced the most. While only eighteen sects 

 were counted in Ceylon and Tibet, Chinese Buddhism 

 has rejoiced in ninety-six. 



Hinduism is equally marked by a propensity to de- 

 velop new forms. Sir Henry Maine describes the Sikh 

 religion as having a tendency to throw off sub-sects, 

 each with no\elties of doctrine and practice ; and he 

 adds that the same process goes on all over India. 



L'nder the monotonous surface of Islam there is 

 incessant variation. According to Haron d'l--st()urnelle.s 

 de Constant, the Algerian sects are innumerable and too 

 fugitive to be seized. They appear, then suddenly dis- 

 appear, and unexpectedly reappear elsew here ; they 

 melt into one another, cross and ramify, change their 

 name and their doctrines. 



Karly Christianity is the classical arena of sects and 

 heresies. Eternal truths, it has been well said, arc 

 those on which man has varied most. " Every year, 

 nay, every moon," wrote an ancient bishop, " we 

 make new creeds to describe invisible mysterii'S." Gib- 

 bon distinguishes eighteen ;\rian sects, but declines to 

 discriminate among the thousand shades of difference 

 between Xcstorius and Eutyches. In i<''43 a Jesuit 

 historian reckoned that there had been ninety heresies 

 in all, but the estimate falls far short of the reality. 



The half-ossified Greek Church furnishes the same 

 evidence of vitality. Those best acquainted with 

 Russia assert that new sects are there continually 

 coming into existence, and that in such numbers as to 

 defy numeration. 



A winding-sheet has long lain over the soul of Spain, 

 but its religious activity was at one time as great as 

 its military and colonial ardour, and a Spanish pro- 

 fessor has written a history of Spanish heresies in four 

 big volumes. 



Catholicism has various types. The sensuous 

 Catholicism of the Italian differs from the sombre 

 Catholicism of the Spaniard or the semi-Protestant 

 Catholicism of the German. Travelling over tler- 

 many, M. Lavisse found different shades of piety in 

 different countries, showing the rich variety of the 

 religious sentiment. There is a great gulf fixed be- 

 tween the Ultra.montane Catholicism of Maynooth and 

 the very modern Catholicism of Baltimore. 



Protestant Christianity is constantly hiving off new 

 sects : some twenty years ago the Times estimated that 

 700 distinct denominations were spread over the surface 

 of England. In the United States the number must be 

 still greater. " From Roger Williams and Ann 

 Hutchinson down to Abner Kneeland and William 



Garrison," writes l-'merson about Boston, " there 

 never was wanting some thorn of innovation arid 

 heresy." 



Military. 



Incessant variation on an Ininuitable base is .ulmitted 

 by French military critics to be a summaiy ol the 

 history of the art of war. Procedures in use to-day 

 are thrown aside to-morrow ; rules valid one year are 

 found to be inapplicable the next ; and the tactics and 

 strategy of one campaign are obsolete in its successor. 

 Weapons arc taken up, and dropped, and takiMi up 

 again. Thus, the lance, which was being disused alter 

 the wars of iS()6 and 1870 had apparently shown its 

 inutility, came again into fashion before iSijo ; about 

 two years ago (so it was staled) all German ca\alry 

 regiments were to be armed with it ; since the Hcur 

 war it has been almost superseded by the rifle. The 

 primitive mode of lighting was by straggling bands ; 

 as nations grew more crowded their armies fought in 

 mass, and soldiers scorned to dodge a bullet or a 

 shell ; since iH7<} troops light in looser formation, as il 

 the individual had come to be of more account, .'\bout 

 1.SS9 charges of cav.alry in mass were again favoured ; 

 since the .South African war individualist lighting has 

 once inort' come into vogue ; but Germ;m military 

 critics predict that in future h"ur()])i'an wars battles will 

 be fought by gigantic masses, .\mong minor varia- 

 tions the .South African war gave new birth to the 

 mounted rilleman and the kli.aki uniform. 



Ceremonial. 



Habits and customs, manners and fashions obey the 

 same unchangeable law of change. Recreations vary 

 with the season and the year, and new ones are con- 

 tinually being devised. Croquet, tennis, rinking, 

 cycling, golf, and ping-pong chase one anotlier off the 

 field. Fashions in dress are still more fugitive. 1 he 

 succession of female fashions is believed to embody 

 the genius of caprice, but it could readily be shown 

 that there is no excess in female attire that has not 

 been matched and outdone by some whim or extrava- 

 gance in male attire. While admitting that women's 

 dress reveals " a great instability in details," Professor 

 George Darwin holds that it " retains a general 

 similarity from age to age." In point of fact, the 

 costume of men and women alike, in every single item, 

 has varied incessantly, in women no more than in men, 

 in men no more than in women. With the vanishing 

 of such a])paritions as Cintj-Mars, Beau Brummell, and 

 Count d'()rsay is not the scope of variation in male 

 clothing sensil)ly lessened? \ot by a hair's breadth. 

 The splendour is gone, but the variety remains. The 

 diagram of a century's coats would show hundreds of 

 variations. A simple calculation would prove that so 

 plain an article of male attire as a pair of trousers is 

 susceptible of thirty or forty different shapes, and the 

 tailor runs the gamut of most of them in a round of 

 years. 



Linguistic. 

 Mechanical inventions are so many variations in the 

 practical sphere, and the records of the Patent Office 

 show that a successful invention is only one among 

 hundreds that have never come to fruition. But the 

 grand human invention is language, and it, too, has 

 grown by the selection of chance varieties among the 

 myriads to which hand and voice are ever giving birth. 

 The alphabet (to single out those arising from the art 

 of writing) has been the theatre of endless variations 

 that have not ceased even since the art of [)rinting laid 

 its leaden bands on the fluid mass. Place all existing 



