I might coin a word, I should say that science was atheous, and therefore could not be atheistic; that is to say, its investigations and reasonings are by agreement conversant simply with observed facts and conclusions drawn from them, and in this sense it is atheous, or without recognition of God. And because it is so, it does not in any way trench upon theism or theology, and can not be atheistic, or in the condition of denying the being of God. Take the case of physical astronomy. To the mathematician the mechanics of the heavens are in no way different from the mechanics of a clock. It is true that the clock must have had a maker; but the mathematician who investigates any problem connected with its mechanism has nothing to do with him as such. The spring, the wheels, the escapement, and the rest of the works are all in their proper places somehow, and it matters nothing to the mathematician how they came there. As a mathematician the investigator of clockmotion takes no account of the existence of clock-makers; but he does not deny their existence; he has no hostile feeling toward them; he may be on the very best terms with many of them; it may be that, at the request of one of them who has invented some new movement, he has undertaken the investigations. Precisely in the same way the man who investigates the mechanics of the heavens finds a complicated system of motion, a number of bodies mutually attracting each other and moving according to certain assumed laws. working out the results of his assumed laws, the mathematician has no reason to consider how the bodies came to be as they are; that they are as they are is not only enough for him, but it would be utterly beyond his province to inquire how they came so to be. Therefore, so far as his investigations are concerned, there is no God; or, to use the word above suggested, his investigations are atheous. But they are not atheistic."

In

For the further working out of this conception in his article, the Bishop must be held responsible. We only call attention to the position here assumed, as illustrating the progress of a liberal and rational theology.

THE LONDON "TIMES" ON "CEREMONIAL INSTITUTIONS."

THE attitude of the British press for the last twenty years toward the writings of Herbert Spencer is a curious study. It was natural enough that Spencer could not get a publisher who would take the pecuniary chances in an interminable system of philosophy opposed to all other systems, and based upon an unaccepted and repugnant doctrine; and so nothing remained for him but to publish himself. The works, at any rate, were thus put squarely upon their merits. The powerful agency of publishers in influencing the press was dispensed with; and, as Spencer was the last man to lift a finger for the procurement of critical favor, bis publications were left to themselves, editors being neither directly nor indirectly bribed, placated, or flattered. The consequence was that, with but few exceptions, the books were assailed with such reckless misrepresentations that Spencer was compelled to stop sending copies to the press. Nor did he resume the practice until increasing public interest in his labors coerced critics into more decency and fairness.

Some influential journals, however adopted the policy of silence, ignoring Spencer's books altogether. The "Spectator" has adopted this plan. Not a single one of this author's works has ever been reviewed in that journal; and that they were not thought to be worth reviewing could not be alleged, because the chief editor of the "Spectator," Mr. Hutton, went out of his way to attack Spencer's ethical views in an essay read before the Metaphysical So

ciety, and which he subsequently printed in "Macmillan's Magazine."

The London "Times" also, the organ and oracle of British opinion, has illustrated its idea of fair-play by never criticising or noticing any of Spencer's volumes. These volumes were being widely read; they were molding the opinions of thinkers; they were becoming influential in the universities; they were elaborately criticised in the reviews; they were replied to in numerous pamphlets and books; they were translated into all the Continental languages; they were guiding scientific investigation, and familiarizing the cultivated mind of the age with a new order of ideas, but they were never recognized by the London "Times" any more than if they were non-existent. George Henry Lewes said of Spencer that he alone of all British thinkers had organized a philosophy; but the "Times" had no information about it. The meanness of its course is the more palpable, as it never had any principles of its own to maintain, and said what it pleased on any subject; while Spencer was engaged upon a most formidable undertaking, with immense odds against him. But the "Times" has given in at last. Now that the world's verdict has been decisively rendered, it pluckily determines that this author's work must have attention.

And so it breaks the long silence by an elaborate review of " Ceremonial Institutions." There is nothing noteworthy about the article except the significance of its appearance in the " Times's" columns, and the ludicrous perplexity of the writer's position. He writes as if he thought his readers were asking, after twenty years' reticence, Why are you moved to speak now? The book he reviews is part of a series of works which can not be critically understood without reference to the previous volumes. But there is no reference to them-no intimation as to how Spencer was led

to deal with the subject. It is, of course, easy in this way to make such a work appear very deficient, but the critic could do it no justice without convicting the journal in which he wrote of former inexcusable neglect. However, the "Times" has found it desirable to change its tactics, and it will no doubt do better next time.

LITERARY NOTICES.

ENGLAND: HER PEOPLE, POLITY, AND PurSUITS. By T. H. S. ESCOTT. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1880. Pp. 593. Price, $4.

In these pages Mr. Escott has endeavored to make a survey of modern England, presenting all the salient features of English social, political, literary, and industrial life in such a way as to give a correct picture. Of course, so large a subject can only be given in outline in this compass, but by a judicious use of materials a very large mass of information has been introduced and the subjects treated in approximately their relative proportions. The life and characteristics of the English village; the position and duties of the great landhold. ers; rural administration and municipal government; the law-courts, the legislature, the crown, as well as the official system, all receive more or less attention. Hotel and traveling facilities and popular amusements receive such notice as their importance warrants. Considerable space is given to the condition and prospects of the working-classes, the relations they hold to the other classes of English society and to the state, and the conditions and some

of the causes of poverty among them, and the means employed to alleviate it. Educational systems and measures, the structure of society, the relations of society to politics, commercial and financial features, are treated more or less fully, while a large place is given to the intellectual life, religious, scientific and literary. One of the most noticeable chapters in the book is that devoted to British philosophic thought. It is contributed by Mr. W. L. Courtney, of Oxford, and is an able and appreciative review of the subject. He recognizes fully

ests of hundreds of merchants have been ruthlessly sacrificed to serve those of two or three men!

To his essay proper, Captain Codman adds a review of the plans for reviving our carrying-trade put forth by Senator Blaine and Secretary Sherman. The pith of the Captain's argument comes out in the following paragraph in the review of Senator Blaine: "He tells us how Germany has prospered. She has increased her tonnage from 166,000 to 950,000 tons in twenty years, while ours has decreased in that time until it has nearly gone out of sight. Her increase has chiefly been in iron screwsteamships. Where did Germany get those steamships with which she has taken away from us our carrying-trade? She bought them. Why did she buy them? Because she could buy them cheaper than she could build them. Why did she not wait, as we are doing, until they could be built cheaper than they could be bought? Because, in the mean time, England, cr some other nation who could buy them, would have the carrying - trade. Who has prevented us from imitating Germany; in fact, from maintaining our carrying-trade, which she has taken from us? Who, but Mr. Blaine and his school of protectionists, who have reversed the fable of the dog in the manger; for the horse has forced the dog to eat his hay?”

Though Captain Codman strongly urges the adoption by Congress of the twenty-first section of Mr. Wood's late tariff bill, he insists that very much more than this is necessary to place our carrying-trade in a healthy position. We not only need the freedom to buy ships where we can get them best and cheapest, but we also need maritime laws that will place us on an equality with our most favored rivals.

In his essay on "Labor-making Machinery," Mr. Powers combats the frequently advanced notion that machinery displaces the workman and renders employment scarce. He insists, on the contrary, that it has been in all cases a great benefit to the laborer, and has multiplied his opportunities of labor, and made his employment steadier. The results of his study of the question he sums up as follows: 1. Machinery has reduced the cost of food, or at

least prevented its rising with the increase of population, and has also reduced the cost of clothing and other manufactured goods, conferring two benefits upon the laboring classes. 2. The introduction of machinery has increased the demand for labor. The result has been the increase of the number of persons employed in excess of the increase of population, and an increase in the rates of wages beyond the increase in the cost of living. 3. Machinery has effected a marked reduction in the length of the working-day, and has reduced the amount of muscular exertion requisite in many branches of industry. 4. In so far as machinery has conferred less benefit on American laborers than might have been anticipated, it is attributable chiefly to the fact that European laborers have poured into this country in a flood, especially since 1845, since which time the greatest advances in the introduction of machinery have been made.

THE third of these pamphlets is a reprint of a letter by Mr. Tylor to the London "Economist," in which he points out a curious and unsuspected effect of the American tariff. He maintains that, besides the result which a high protective tariff has in increasing the prices of those things protected, it has also the effect of lowering the prices of those things that do not come within its scope. By comparison of the prices of wheat, cotton, and oil through a number of years, he shows that, in consequence of our tariff, Englishmen have been able to procure these indispensable articles from us for considerably less than they could have done in a condition of free exchange. "Wheat," he says, "which had averaged fifty-two shillings per quarter for eighteen years in the several markets of Great Britain, in consequence of the American supply has only averaged forty-eight shillings from 1874 to 1879, and yet these have been years of European scarcity. . . . Merchants were surprised, for no one reckoned upon the effect of the American import duties (when limiting import from Europe) in depressing the price of their exports. They had calculated, in the usual way, that, with an increased food-demand of eighty per cent. from Europe, there should certainly be a great advance in price, instead of

which a fall of ten per cent. from the previous average price occurred after 1874." Of cotton, he says: "In 1860 and 1861 the average consumption of cotton in Great Britain was 1,040 million pounds, against 1,229 million pounds in 1878. The price is slightly lower now than it was even in 1860-'61. When we consider the enormous competition for cotton, and the British plant provided for working up nearly 200 million pounds per annum, nothing but the want of the American market for finished goods can have kept the price of cotton down to such a very low figure as that prevailing, almost lower than it ever touched before. . . . One consequence" of this is that "the American cotton-grower has latterly got the minimum instead of the maximum price for his article." Mr. Tylor finds that this fall in price also applies to petroleum, and he humorously observes that the British Government "ought to make a strong remonstrance on this subject. We are at the same time indebted to the United States for their cheap grain, cotton, and petroleum, sold at the cost of production to us, in consequence of this unjust tariff." The view of the subject advanced by Mr. Tylor is well worth the attention of our legislators and economists, and, if borne out by fuller inquiry, will constitute another of those facts which increasing experience is adding to our knowledge, showing the folly of tariff restrictions.

For

REPORT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. the Quarter ending June 30, 1879. With a Special Report on the Subject of Water Supply.

THE feature of this report that gives it an interest to the general public of New York is the very full and elaborate statement of the condition of the water-supply of the city. The Commissioner, Mr. Campbell, points out in it that the present means of furnishing water are and have been for some years inadequate, and that there is danger, in case of any unusual demand, or a continued drought such as occurred in 1877, of the city suffering from an insufficient supply. The present supply is obtained, as is well known, from the Croton River, through the aqueduct of that name. This VOL. XVII.-9

was constructed to deliver sixty million gallons daily, but for the past eight or nine years it has been called upon to do a much larger service. The present demand for water is between ninety and one hundred million gallons per day, with an increasing demand of two millions per day for each year. The present system is able to supply this demand only by working much closer to the limit than is advisable. When the new reservoir at the middle branch of the Croton and the dams and flumes to draw upon all the available lakes and ponds in the Croton basin are completed, there will be a storage capacity of nine billion gallons, which will be sufficient to fill the present aqueduct to the extent of its capacity; and, to increase the supply, other conduits, either from the Croton basin or elsewhere, will have to be constructed. With a view of determining what sources of supply were available, surveys have been made of the watershed of the Bronx and Byram Rivers, and of that of the Housatonic River, the results of which are given in the present report. The surveys of the Bronx and Byram Rivers district show that tapping the Bronx a few miles above White Plains, the area drained, including the Rye ponds, is 13:33 square miles, and that the like area for the Byram is 8.66 square miles, giving a total of twenty-two square miles. The waters of the Byram can be diverted into the Bronx by means of a tunnel about twenty-six hundred feet in length, and some open cutting. By constructing proper reservoirs and dams, Mr. G. W. Birdsall, the engineer reporting on the proposed work, estimated that thirty-five hundred million gallons can be stored, and that an average daily supply of twenty million gallons can be obtained from this source. The estimated cost of the work is something over twenty-six hundred thousand dollars. This source of supply will only suffice for a few years, after which a further supply will become necessary. With a view of determining its value as a source for such further supply, the survey of the Housatonic district was made. The work was in charge of Mr. Horace Loomis, who has submitted an excellent report upon the results of his investigations. He found that the waters of this river could be brought to the head of