race From The Spectator. HENRY G. WREFORD. MR. HENRY G. WREFORD, for fifty offspring the whole permanent instinct | human community in which the system of architecture and social polity of her of caste might become so stereotyped the power of heredity cannot be as to eliminate the initial difference denied, because the facts do not admit between man and man in each class, of any other explanation, except on the and produce uniform types of workers, hypothesis of the existence of some soldiers, and the like. But in such a additional sense which, owing to the case, what is instinct but a degradation limitation of our own, we could by of intelligence, producing perhaps a no possible means comprehend. The higher level of work but a lower type growth of instinct, if the theory of its of mind. development given above is correct, should be a process of abnormal length, and it would almost follow that the antiquity of species could be estimated from the degree of perfection in which instinct is exhibited. The difference of structure and diversity of needs in years the Times correspondent in different animals, in some so simple southern Italy, deserves something and in others so complex, need not more than a passing word of comment. weaken this conclusion, if we only He was one of the few genuine heroes compare those in which the order of of the pen, the men who reflect lustre daily life is somewhat similar. The on the most ephemeral and least honlife-history of the hive-bee would seem ored of all serious professions. There to demand a far longer period for its have been and are among special correcomplex instinct to become stereotyped spondents plenty of brave men, who than the life-history of the solitary spe- have behaved like volunteers in a forcies; and man, with his few forms of lorn hope, and have faced death in the instinctive action and reliance on indi- performance of duty with a daring unvidual intelligence, would be assigned inspired by the hope of honors or by a place among the latest developments that feeling of fidelity to a flag which, of nature. Our knowledge of the facts with so many otherwise commonplace of instinct is as yet too ill-assorted for natures, has operated like a religion; the construction of more than a work- but Mr. Wreford had a courage which ing hypothesis as to its origin; and was in some respects beyond them all. until the question of the inheritance of He had contracted, early in his service acquired characteristics is more com- with the Times, a deep pity for the pletely answered than it is at present, people of Naples, who repaid him at the whole structure hangs on a doubt-first with incessant insult, and a deep ful link. But there is one point on which the theory of instinct which M. Houssay reproduces is eminently satisfactory, though he does not claim it as au argument for its value. It accounts for the uniformity and subordination of individuals in the life of the social animals and social insects, which is almost inexplicable on any other hypothesis. That thousands of beings so intelligent as the bee can live together and exercise an intelligence which is used solely for the good of the community, and never for the personal advantage or aggrandizement of an individual, transcends reason, as we understand it. Yet it is just possible to conceive a horror of the foul Bourbon court, that "negation of God erected into a system,' as Mr. Gladstone described it, which at that time tyrannized over their destinies. Most Englishmen, Mr. Gladstone perhaps excepted, have forgotten it; but there has never existed elsewhere in Europe anything like this government, which defended itself with Swiss mercenaries, used as instruments the wretched lazzaroni of the capital, and ruled the respectable classes like a pasha in Algiers or Tunis, punishing the slightest opposition by imprisonment, often lifelong, in dungeons which were, without aid from rhetoric, describable as mere wells. Unless an ambassador, no man's life or liberty | Wreford been a Neapolitan, he would was safe if he were denounced by one have died in torture. The king, howof a myriad spies; and for years even ever, who was by far the best-informed the pleasure-lovers of Europe avoided man in his dominions, understood perthe delicious kingdom like a lazar- fectly well that the kingdom of the house. Mr. Wreford set himself to Two Sicilies alone among European bring European opinion to bear on this kingdoms lay at the mercy of the Britden of horrors, and for seventeen years ish fleet; that two men-of-war would he persevered unflinchingly in his cut him off from Sicily, and one call work. He was recognized after a little Naples into insurrection; that he was while as one of the most "dangerous" coldly disliked by the very powers of opponents, as a man who was turn- which protected him; and that, if ing all Europe against the king's gov- Switzerland recalled her children, he ernment; and the devotees of that would be left face to face with subjects horrible court swore to have their re- who might adulate but could not devenge. He was shadowed perpetually fend him. He wanted no duel to the by spies; men suspected of sending death with either the Times or the information to him were treated like British Parliament, and as he was a criminals ; he was menaced with ruin dreaded master, Mr. Wreford just esby expulsion; and the populace were caped. During the whole of this period, excited against him till it was unsafe half an ordinary generation, Mr. Wrefor him to enter Naples. Darker ford, though by no means a man of the threats, too, were levelled against him soldier type, but rather a retiring and by the zealots of the court party. He sensitive civilian, with a habit of dehimself showed the writer one proof pression - he had been, we rather positive that men who could not have think, at one time a Nonconformist been punished had proposed his assas-minister-held unswervingly on his sination; that two plans at least for way, never concealing any truth he kidnapping him had been matured; knew, and striking sometimes fearful and that on one occasion a plot for blows at a system which latterly he drowning him had been within an ace of success. During one gloomy six months he held his life, as he believed, only from hour to hour, and owed it, as he thought, mainly to the protection of the British minister, and one or two persons in a foreign embassy. In reality he owed it, as after hearing his narrative the writer could not but recognize, to King Ferdinand, who was not the vulgar tyrant Englishmen believed, but a cool, shrewd cynic, who despised his subjects and most of his own agents, who was full of courage a quality in him which Mr. Gladstone once recognized publicly after his death and who was so completely king of the old Bourbon type, that he would not stoop to crime against a poor devil of a foreign correspondent who owed him no allegiance. Had Mr. came to hate almost beyond reason. His courage may have been of the passive type, but he faced death, or worse, unfalteringly through years of feeble health, for the sake of men who gave him nothing back, not even their applause. He behaved, in fact, for years as one of the bravest of mankind, and when at last the evil despotism fell in a night as if struck down by the God it had despised, the ease of its fall was in great part due to the horror of it which he had patiently spread through Europe, and which had at last reacted on the monarchy itself. He was a plain man, though a cultivated one, simple in thought and in the expression of his thought, with perhaps a faint vanity in his own skill in gathering information; but he did a knight's service for Italy and for the world. I. ATOMS AND SUNBEAMS. By Robert Ball, Fortnightly Review, . Wylde, Rees, . III. A FORTNIGHT IN FINLAND. 515 Blackwood's Magazine, 524 VII. A POACHING STORY. By A Son of the For EIGHT DOLLARS remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made. payable to the order of LITTELL & CO. Single copies of the LIVING AGE, 18 cents. LONDON SNOW. WHEN men were all asleep the snow came flying, So in our world of doubt, and death, and change, The vision of eternity is sweet, In large white flakes falling on the city The vision of eternity is strange! brown, Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying, Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town; Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing; Lazily and incessantly floating down and down; Silently sifting and veiling road, roof, and railing; Hiding difference, making unevenness even, Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing. All night it fell, and when full inches seven It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness, Its clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven; And all awoke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare : The eye marvelled-marvelled at the daz zling whiteness; no more; Content to leave, if you would have it so, Your presence and continue, as before, His singing to the air- —nor ask to know The fate of one poor word, till death's sweet shore The ear hearkened to the stillness of the The truth or falseness of the song shall No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot solemn air; falling, And the busy morning cries came thin and spare. ROBERT BRIDGES. THE VISION. SOMETIMES When I sit musing all alone The vision of a world unlike our own. O stable Zion, perfect, endless, one, By trial, soared unto the heights and viewed The azure light that fell from Paradise. Why hauntest thou a soul that hath no For, lo! Italia, risen from the Hell wings? I look on thee as men on mirage-springs, Knowing the desert bears but sand and stone. Yet, as a passing mirror in the street Of heathen gods and temples, dead and bare, Awoke and mounted to the ardent air; By Roman virtue purged and taught to dwell Aloof from earth, she read with chastened Flashes a glimpse of gardens out of range heat; Academy. ATOMS AND SUNBEAMS. From The Fortnightly Review. the combustion of that great sphere of fuel could generate. We know, howIn recent years an important change ever, that the sun has been radiating has taken place in the manner in heat, not alone for thousands of years, which many physical problems are ap- but for millions of years. The existproached. The philosopher who now ence of fossil plants and animals would seeks an explanation of great nat- alone suffice to demonstrate this fact. ural phenomena not unfrequently finds We have thus to account for the exmuch assistance from certain remark-tremely remarkable circumstance that able discoveries as to the ultimate con- our great luminary has radiated forth stitution of matter. Many an obscure already a thousand times as much heat question in physics has been rendered as could be generated by the combusclear when some of the properties of tion of a sphere of coal as big as the molecules have been brought to light. sun is at present, and yet, notwithNo doubt our knowledge of the natural standing this expenditure in the past, history of the molecule is still vastly physics declares that for millions of wanting in detail. It must, however, years to come the sun may continue to be admitted that we have traced an dispense light and heat to its attendant outline of that wonderful chapter in worlds with the same abundant prodinature which is specially serviceable in gality. To have shown how the apparthe question which I now propose to eut paradox could be removed is one of discuss. the most notable achievements of the great German philosopher. The problem before us may be stated in the following terms. We have to illustrate how the sun is enabled to maintain its tremendous expenditure of light and heat without giving any signs of approaching exhaustion. It will be found that the atomic theory of the constitution of matter exhibits the mechanism of the process by which that capacity of the great luminary for supplying the radiation so vital to the welfare of mankind is sustained from age to age. What Helmholtz did was to refer to the obvious fact that the expenditure of heat by radiation must necessarily lead to shrinkage of the solar volume. This shrinkage has the effect of abstracting from a store of potential energy in the sun and transforming what it takes into the active form of heat. The transformation advances pari passu with the radiation, so that the loss of heat arising from the radiation is restored by the newly produced heat Let me here anticipate an objection derived from the latent reservoir. which may not improbably be raised. Such is an outline of the now famous Those who have paid attention to this doctrine universally accepted among subject are aware that the remarkable physicists. It fulfils the conditions of doctrine first propounded by Helmholtz the problem, and when tested by arithremoved all real doubt from the mat-metical calculation it is not found wantter. It is to this eminent philosopher ing. we owe an explanation of what at first But the genuine student of nature seemed to be a paradox. He explained loves to get to the heart of a great how, notwithstanding that the sun ra- problem like this; he loves to be able diates its heat so profusely, no indica- to follow it, not through mere formulæ tions of the inevitable decline of heat or abstract principles, but so as to be can be as yet discovered. If the sun able to visualize its truth and feel its had been made of solid coal from centre certainty. He will, therefore, often to surface, and if that coal had been desire something in addition to the burned for the purpose of sustaining the radiation, it can be demonstrated that a few thousand years of solar expenditure at the present rate would suffice to exhaust all the heat which bare presentation of the theory as above stated. It may be no doubt sufficient for the mathematician to know that the total potential energy in the sun, due to the dispersed nature of its |