6 THE KIDDLE OF THE UNIVEKSE. 



brought an infinite relief to human pain by our chloro- 

 form and morphia, our antiseptics and serous thera- 

 peutics, we owe it all to applied chemistry. But it is 

 so well known how much we have surpassed all earlier 

 centuries through these and other scientific discoveries 

 that we need linger over the question no longer. 



While we look back with a just pride on the 

 immense progress of the nineteenth century in a 

 knowledge of nature and in its practical application, 

 we find, unfortunately, a very different and far from 

 agreeable picture when we turn to another and not 

 less important province of modern life. To our great 

 regret we must endorse the words of Alfred Wallace : 

 " Compared with our astounding progress in physical 

 science and its practical application, our system of 

 government, of administrative justice, and of national 

 education, and our entire social and moral organisa- 

 tion, remain in a state of barbarism." To convince 

 ourselves of the truth of this grave indictment we 

 need only cast an unprejudiced glance at our public 

 life, or look into the mirror that is daily offered to us 

 by the press, the organ of public sentiment. 



We begin our review with justice, the fundamentum 

 regnorum. No one can maintain that its condition 

 to-day is in harmony with our advanced knowledge 

 of man and the world. Not a week passes in which 

 we do not read of judicial decisions over which every 

 thoughtful man shakes his head in despair ; many 

 of the decisions of our higher and lower courts are 

 simply unintelligible. We are not referring in the 

 treatment of this particular " world-problem " to the 

 fact that many modern States, in spite of their 

 paper constitution, are really governed with absolute 

 despotism, and that many who occupy the bench give 



