Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1897-05-19
oThEtLos AND THEIR lagos
types OF Human Nature Found In
Every Sphere.

Shakspeare's leading characters ars
types of the varieties Of human nature.
4 strongly marked individual must be
typical, because individuality consists
in accentuating peculiarities which
mark the type. In OthellO and Iagc
Ie gives US two specimens Of types
which are as old rs human nature-ths
man. Othello is the Open-hearted man
TO whom 1t never occurs that u gentle
nan can tell n lie, and Iago Is the man
who suspects everybody Of sinister iao
tives, and whose word Is SO untrust'
worthy that 1t is hardly safe to believe
the opposite of what he swears to
Specimens Of these types We meet daily
in every walk Of life. the lagos per
maps not quite so malignant as theiI
great prototype, but always plotting
always trying to bring things to pas.
in an underhand, indirect manner; the
Othcllos less poetic in diction and
princely in manner than the Moor OF
Venice. but equally trusting and truth
fCi. Gen. Grant was an Othello a1d
w dAo w lS hfc AhSo. <uaAy
of our modern Othellos 60 into bank.
Ing. The original were he living wouH
be Napoleon Of finance"
The Othellos are the natural prey o,
lagos. In the play Iago merely ruins
the life of his victim. In real life he
gets all his money and his wife's mon.
ey and lets him go. A well-eQuipped
To nthnI.
a month. The more he devours the
warier and more experienced he be-
comes. By any reasonable interpreta'
ton Of the law of evolution, which we
are all bound to believe, the race oi
lagos should have exterminated the
race Of Othellos long before this. But
that Is not the fact. There are just as
many trusting, unsuspicious, homes,
men to-day as there Were 100 years
ago. The lagos are the intellectual
athletes, and In the struggle for exist
ence they are we'll armed for defense
and offense and yet not weighted
down BY any scruples of morality Oh
generosity. They are the most thor.
oughly equipped beasts Of prey in the
world. They rarely prey on one anoth.
er. On the contrary, the Gould sub
variety and the Fiske subvariety usu.
ally hunt In couples. Civilization,
courts, trusts, politics and corporate
capital have greatly widened their field
and improved their opportunities. Why
do they not use up all the OthellOs and
leave us a humanity consisting solely
of sharp, suspicious units7 Why dc
they not root out confidence among
men? As said before, on the principles
of the struggle for existence, and it Ger.
tainiy is struggle, and of the survival
of the fittest. and they are surely the
fittest to survive in a society where
competition is unlimited, they ought t
10 %. But they do not.
There must be something wrons
about this theory os evolution and un-
limited competition as applied to hu.
man society, however well 1t may work
In the case Of "bumble bees and cats
and mice and red clover" Can 1t bo
possible, after all, that there Is a real
positive principle In honesty and trust
in human nature and mutual good fel-
lowship which preserves the men who
possess those qualities healthy and
hearty in a world where modern philos-
ophy tells US that selfiahness and dis.
trust are the only safeguards, when
the weak prey upon the strong and ev.
cry mans hand is against every other
man? 1t looks so sometimes doesn't
it?-HartfOrd Courant