The Windham County reformer. (Battleboro, Vt.) 1876-1897, 1891-11-13
THOUGHT OF THE TIME.

sadness that turks behind French balls. Plus
sian parades, and italian festivals. Europe,
when once you pry beneath Its surface and
find what Its people are thinking and feel
ing, seems cankered and honeycombed with
pesslmism. You need go but a little way
beyond the table d'hote and the guide book to
feel the chill of dependency. Without tax.
Inc into account this new mood, 1t Is vain
to try to understand the latest In art. muslc
fiction, poetry, thought, politics. The one
word ''despair' Is the key that opens up the
meaning of Ibsen's dramas, and Tolstoi's
ethics, OF Zoa's novels, and Carmen Sylva's
poems, of Bourgeois rOmances, and Baude-
laire's Fleurs du Nal. 1t Is the spiritual
bond that connects Wagner's operas with
Turgenlef's novels, Ameps journal with
fiction, "decadence" In poetry. realism IL art,
tragedy In music. scepticism In religion, cynl-
cism In politics, and pessimism In philosophy,
all spring from the same root. They are the
means by which the age records Its feelings
Of establishment.
to-day Is keen political disapr ointment.
Forty years ago everybody hailed the policy
of free trade, pea, e, and international ex hibi-
lions as ushering In the era
when the war drum throbs no longer, and the
battle-hags are furled
| In the Parliament of mankind, the Federation
of the World"
As If in mockery Of these hopes came that
terrific relapse of civilization between 1855
and 1870. Then came pause, and hope
might have revived had not the war epoch
left behind 1t a strange and appalling condi-
ton.
No one 80 unfortunate as to live between
the Bosphorus and the English Channel can
view without dread the course Continental
Europe has taken since 1870 The armies
have increased until France and Germany
alone have over six millions of soldiers. The
Great Powers have now three armed men for
every two Of ten years ago. Our arma.
ments," says Premier Crispi, "are running
Europe for the benefit of America"
1t is pathetic to see on the continent, how
men fear to face the future. Public speakers
dwell upon the gories Of former times. The
churches seek to revive the spirit of the Mid
die Ages. In schools there is immense inter.
est In history. archaeology, and the classics.
The age yearns to lose Itself IN the past, and
delights in genre pictures of the naive olden
time, or of lite In remote valleys untouched
to proLe the next decade, to ask, "Where
shall we be In ten years,-in fifty years%
With loss of faith In moral progress men
have lost faith In Political progress. The
ideals CT AS are passe. Liberty. equality.
and fraternity are exploded bubbles The
government and champion of divine right, {
rules the hour. To the fighting type of soci. {
ETY. the politics of industrial democracy seem ,
absurd. You cannot set up the hustings 10
an armed camp of twenty.eight millions.
Kings and mobiles, rank and privilege, police.
spies, and censOrs-all those hoary abuses ,
hat reused the men of '4S.-are deemed nee.
,ssary to strong military state. They are $
lallowed by the new phrase of political fatal I
SIN Historical continuity" d
The thirst for culture has produced great,
hungry, intellectual proletarat. The forces !,
RI VII ell /
ometmes as If the Middle Ages will swallow Y
verything won by modern struggles. >,
Science, too, has had its share in disturbing
1en's minds. Science, during the last twenty s.
ears, has been most successful In studying o
be past. 1t has traced The origin of institu. :,
has lifted the veil of mystery. 1t says, u
See, can show you bow Cur feelings arose. =
will lay bare the root of modesty, of fliaI Fl
Lefty. sexual love. patriotism, loyalty. justice,
onor, aesthetic delight, conscience, religion, 81
ar of God. l will explain the origin Of In. al
itutions like the household, the church, the sc
ate. will show the rise of prayer, wOr- %
lip. sacrifice, marriage. customs. ceremonies,
'cia forms, and laws. Nothing is found or
ysteriOus, nothing unique, nothing divine. al
here is no need OF looking for stream of q,
ndency, an influx from another source, the =.
'ul from spiritual world encysted In GUS hi
ms and feelings. developed upon 1t by ma. fir
re, is myth. Man Is a formation" a..
But science. not content with tracing insti. &c
tions, has been Analysing personality. We nc nc
e now that there can never again be such 80, 60
Orgie of the Ego as that led by FIchte and ~
egel. The doctrines of transmission and e 81.
heritance have attacked the independence IN
the individual. Science finds no ego, self s i'
will that can maintain itself against the :,
st. Heredity rules our lives like that su. as
eme primeval necessity that stood above W W
, Olympian gods. sit Is the last of the on y
es," says Wilde, sand the most terrible. M.
Is the only one of the gods whose real name eol
} know" 1t Is the 'divinty that shapes y; nio ~
ends" and hurts down the deities of free. !. !.
m and choice. Science dissolves the per. una una
lallty into temperaments and susceptible i .'a
3. predispositions, and transmitted taints, y, "
visms, and reversons. 1t finds the soul II, ~ !,
spiritual unit. but treacherous COM =" :
ind of strange contradictions and warripg 70 =
dences, with traces of spent passion and ma
,tiges of onojent Sins with oohoeS ~ for. VIII
ten deeds and survivals of vanished hab- pu
We are ''possessed" not by demons but nlh
the dead. These are in Ibsen's drama the on VI,
j ghosts which throng our lives and haunt t seI
: footsteps, remorseless as the furies. ioi
'he final blow to the old notion of the ego py
given by the doctrine of multiple individu. 9r
y. Science tells of the conscious and the ue /.
of the higher nerve centres az
the lower, of the double cerebrum and .u n0
hayward ganglia. 1t hints at the many an'
celesS De1D8S tnaJ i've out IN our DOQv II
ir joy and pain, and scarce give sign, . eu;
ellers In the sub.centres, with whom, 1t
y be, often lies the Initiative when the w
scious centre thinks itself free. This lis, III
doubt, hierarchy or commonwealth of lac'
chical units that at death dissolves and els.
ks below the threshold of consciousness. mo
he last great motive to despair is supplied un!
1nd0. German philosophy. Under the ~. .no'
nm. there has crown nm ~ late /. hIack at p
sjm,sm rooted IL Uirdfo thomoht .nd whs
ed to that strange exotic cult of Eastern re,l
gions that has enabled Neo- Buddhism to =.
selyte even In Christian Europe. Its sue. DG
has been brilliant. In twenty years WIS
PHILOSOPHY of the Unconscious" t1e :.
reached Its tenth German edition, entered sa VI
The great languages of Europe, and called M ,.
h vast literature of its own. Thorough. Ine
n touch with modern culture and gifted Ina ia,
a striking style, Hartmann Is to-day, CHI
baps, the best read philosopher on the ply ply
A. Ross, in the November I Ine
ma. om I'
HE DEATH OF POLYGAMY:- There are seer
baby hundred and fifty thousand Nor not,
Is In this territory; but OF that number the
~ are only nOminaly so. Amid the con. refo
Ions between them and the Genties, bilit
" have sided with the church In which mea
their parents, relatives, and friends. men
lout embracing Its faith. 1t Is Idle now dia,
think of DISTINGUISHING the Latter-day [Co
It's. They are an Industrious. temperate
pie, as a rule; and my observation has led