ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 101 



scourges that perform this office, the true cosmical nature of which is 

 masked by our familiarity with the phenomena. The amount of 

 suffering that would be saved if, instead of this method, that of 

 diminished fertility or the destruction of unborn germs of life were 

 adopted, is incalculable. 



To these cases were added the following wholly disconnected but 

 none the less apposite facts : 



13. That the worst of all living enemies of mankind are too 

 minute to be discovered by the highest-powered microscopes — the 

 germs of disease. 



14. That in temperate latitudes, where the bulk of the world's 

 population occurs, northerly winds predominate in winter and 

 southerly in summer, thus exaggerating the extremes of heat and 

 cold. 



15. That in mountainous regions the rainfall is chiefly on the 

 tops of the mountains where it is not needed, leaving the otherwise 

 fertile valleys and plains arid and parched. 



16. That the most useful as well as the most beautiful objects in 

 nature are usually the most rare. 



17. That, whereas pleasures are usually moderate and brief, pains 

 are often intense and protracted. 



Under the last of the three general classes of anti-optimistic 

 facts specified above, viz., the anti-sociocentric, or anti-progressive 

 group, it was shown : 



1. That social progress is rhythmical, and that its alternate flows 

 and ebbs occasion incalculable waste, from the circumstance that 

 only a part of what is gained by the flood-tide is retained after the 

 ebb-tide is over. 



2. That the study of phenomena has always had to be commenced 

 from the top, and that the superficial view must be taken before 

 the fundamental view can be gained ; so that the work of intellec- 

 tual progress has consisted in the removal, not merely of ignorance, 

 but of error. 



3. That moral and social science, the most practically important 



