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Cato's Letters/Letter 56

SIR, Having proved in my last, I think unanswerably, that Caesar was rightly killed; I will here enquire, whether Brutus and the other tyrannicides did right in killing him? And methinks, if it has been shewn that he ought to have been slain, as an enemy to every Roman citizen, and virtuous man; every Roman citizen, and every virtuous man, had a right to slay him.

But since there are in our world so many little and cramped spirits, who dare not think out of the vulgar path, though ever so crooked and dark, and perhaps first struck out by ignorance or fraud: Narrow minds, which, locked up in received systems, see all things through false mirrors, and as they are represented by strong prejudices, prevailing customs, and very often by corruption and party-interest: I shall, as I have occasion, endeavour to disperse these thick and deceitful mists from before weak eyes; and shall consider the present question, as well as all others that come before me, as they appear in their own nature, independent on the quirks of pedants, and the narrow jurisdiction of inferior tribunals: I shall bring them before the great tribunal of heaven; and assert the cause of liberty and truth, by arguments deduced from common-sense, and the common good of mankind.

It is generally alledged against Brutus, and some of those who joined with him in this great action, that they were highly obliged by Caesar; which is a strange objection. How were they obliged? He gave Brutus a life, which he could not take from him without murder; and did a mighty generous thing in not murdering Brutus for defending his country, animated by his own virtuous spirit, and the known laws of Rome! This is the obligation of a highwayman, who, taking away your money, which is all he wants, kindly leaves you your life. Are you obliged in honour, conscience, or common-sense, to spare the robber, because he was not a murderer? Or are you obliged not to pursue and take him, and to kill him, if he refuse to submit? In truth, Caesar was one of the greatest robbers and murderers that ever lived: Every man slain in that unjust, bloody, and unnatural war, which he wantonly and maliciously made upon his country, was murdered: And the world was the mighty spoil which he gained by universal murder and rapine. He was, in short, a man so consummately wicked, that the strongest words which you can use, and the bitterest instances which you can bring, to paint out him and his actions, will be but faint, compared to him and his actions.

As to the places and favours conferred upon Brutus, by Caesar; they were not Caesar's but Rome's. He was only rapti largitor. Caesar had no right to the publick, nor to dispose of it, or its emoluments. It was all barefaced usurpation. Besides, when favours of this, or any kind, with-hold a man from his duty, they are mischievous baits and corruptions, and ought to bind no man, as they never will a virtuous man: And we see how Brutus, who was the most virtuous man upon earth, understood and disregarded them.

They were only the artful shackles of a tyrant, intended to bind the bold and free mind of Brutus to his interest: But he, who owed no allegiance but to the commonwealth, scorned the deceitful smiles and generosity of its oppressor; who was bribing him to be his slave, with the gifts and offices of his country, to which he himself had no title, but Brutus had every title. This therefore was a piece of impudent civility, which Brutus could not but detest, as it was a shameful and melancholy proof of Caesar's tyranny, and of his own and Rome's vassalage. They were hollow and destructive favours; it was high-treason to be the author of them: And was not death signally due to such high-treason? Brutus therefore made the properest return.

Caesar had usurped the Roman world, and was cantoning it out to his creatures as became a tyrant, and paying his personal creatures with the publick bounty. As the worst tyrants must have some friend; and as the best men do them the most credit, and bring them the most support, if such can be got; Caesar had sense enough to know, that he could never buy Brutus too dear; and so paid him great court. But Brutus saw the tyrant's design, and his own shame; and every civility was a fresh provocation. It was as if a thief breaking into a house to rob a lady of her jewels, spoke thus to her son; "Sir, pray permit me, or assist me, to cut your mother's throat, and seize her treasure, and I will generously reward you with your life, and lend you one or two of her diamonds to sparkle in as long as I think fit."

Could such a villainous civility as this engage the son, especially a virtuous son, to any thing but revenge? And would not the only way that he could take it, be the best way?

Caesar took from Brutus his liberty, and his legal title to his life and his estate, and gave him in lieu of it a precarious one during his own arbitrary will and pleasure: Upon the same terms he gave him some mercenary employments, as hire for that great good man's assistance to support his tyranny. Could the great and free soul of Brutus brook this? Could Brutus be the instrument or confederate of lawless lust? Brutus receive wages for an oppressor! That great, virtuous, and popular Brutus; who, if the commonwealth had subsisted, might, from his reputation, birth, abilities, and his excellent worth, have challenged the most honourable and advantageous offices in it, without owing thanks to Caesar.

So that the injuries done by Caesar to Brutus were great, heinous, and many; and the favours none. All the mercy shewn by Caesar was art and affectation, and pure self-love. He had found in the Roman people so universal a detestation of the bloody measures of Marius, Cinna, and Sulla: He saw the whole empire so reduced and enervated by repeated proscriptions and massacres, that he thought it his interest to establish his new-erected dominion by different measures; and to reconcile, by a false and hypocrital shew of clemency, the minds of men, yet bleeding with their late and former wounds, to his usurpation. That Caesar, the usurping and destructive Caesar, who had slaughtered millions, and wantonly made havock of the human race, had any other sort of mercy, than the mercy of policy and deceit, will not be pretended by any man, that knows his and the Roman story. Brutus therefore being the most reverenced and popular man in Rome, it became the craft of the tyrant to make Brutus his friend; it was adding a sort of sanctity to a wicked cause: Whereas the death of Brutus by Caesar, would have made Caesar odious and dreadful even amongst his own followers.

But it is said, that Brutus submitted to Caesar, and was bound by his own act. Here the allegation is true, but the consequence false. Did not Brutus submit to Caesar, as innocent men are often forced to submit to the galleys, the wheel, and the gibbet? He submitted, as a man robbed and bound submits to a house-breaker, who, with a pistol at his heart, forces from him a discovery of his treasure, and a promise not to prosecute him. Such engagements are not only void in themselves, but aggravate the injury, and become themselves fresh injuries. By the law of nature and reason, as well as by the positive institutions of every country, all promises, bonds, or oaths, extorted by duress, that is, by unlawful imprisonments or menaces, are not obligatory: It is, on the contrary, a crime to fulfil them! because an acquiescence in the impositions of lawless villains, is abetting lawless villains.

Besides, it was not in the power of Brutus to alter his allegiance, which he had already engaged to the commonwealth, which had done nothing to forfeit the same. For how lawful soever it be for subjects to transfer their obedience to a conqueror, in a foreign war, when the former civil power can no longer protect them; or to a new magistrate made by consent, when the old had forfeited or resigned: It is ridiculous to suppose, that they can transfer it to a domestick traitor and robber, who is under the same ties and allegiance with themselves, and, by all acts of violence, treason, and usurpation, extorts a submission from his oppressed masters and fellow-subjects. At least such allegiance can never be pre-engaged, whilst any means in nature are left to rid the world of such a monster.

It is a poor charge against Brutus, that Caesar intended him for his heir and successor. Brutus scorned to succeed a tyrant: And what more glorious for Brutus, than thus to own that the dangerous and bewitching prospect of the greatest power that ever mortal man possessed, could not shake the firm and virtuous heart of Brutus, nor corrupt his integrity? To own that no personal considerations, even the highest upon earth, could reconcile him to a tyrant; and that he preferred the liberty of the world to the empire of the world!

The above charges therefore against Brutus can hardly come from any but those, who, like the profane and slavish Esau, would sell their birthright for a mess of pottage; would sacrifice their duty to their interest; and, unconcerned what becomes of the rest of mankind, would promote tyranny, if they might but shine in its trappings. But an honest mind, a mind great and virtuous, scorns and hates all ambition, but that of doing good to men, and to all men; it despises momentary riches, and ill-gotten power; it enjoys no vicious and hard-hearted pleasures, arising from the miseries of others: But it wishes and endeavours to procure impartial, diffusive, and universal happiness to the whole earth.

This is the character of a great and good mind; and this was the great and sublime soul of the immortal Brutus.

From this mention of the slippery and dangerous favours of tyrants, I would just observe, as I go along, that, to any man who values virtue or liberty, twenty pounds a year in a free country, is preferable to being first minister to the Great Turk; whose ministers, by their station and allegiance, are obliged to be oppressors, and are often rewarded with the bow-string for their most faithful services to their master, and for services perhaps performed by his command.

But to return to Brutus: He had on his side the law of self-preservation, the spirit of the Roman constitution, and of those laws of liberty, which had subsisted near five hundred years, but were now destroyed by the usurper. And during all those long and renowned ages of liberty, the destroying of tyrants was ever accounted glory and heroism. And, as every law of the commonwealth was against Caesar, who was an open enemy to the commonwealth; the commonwealth, and all its laws, were for Brutus, its greatest and best subject. Caesar's laws were none, and worse than none; but the whole life and actions of Brutus were agreeable to the constitution of his country.

Suppose Brutus, having killed Caesar, had succeeded him: He could not have been a greater usurper than Caesar was. And yet would he, in that case, have been less sacred and inviolable than Caesar? I hope the oppressing of mankind is not a less crime than the killing of their oppressor.

Our Brutus could not have greater ties of affection to the tyrant Caesar, who usurped Rome, and destroyed its liberties, than the elder Brutus had to his own sons, whom he put to death, for a plot to restore the tyrant Tarquin, a thousand times more innocent than Caesar: And as to the sudden manner of putting him to death, Mutius Scaevola is immortalized for a bold attempt, to kill by surprize the Tuscan king Porsenna, who was a foreign enemy, making unjust war upon Rome, to restore Tarquin: And the like immortality is bestowed upon Judith, for killing Holofernes deceitfully, when it could be done no other way. Now both these men were publick enemies; but neither of them a publick traitor: Caesar was both; and dolus an virtus quis in hoste requirat? Was ever Aratus mentioned with reproach, or does Dr. Prideaux mention him with reproach, for surprizing and expelling Nicocles, tyrant of Sicyon; or has he not gained deathless fame by that worthy action? And how comes the little tyrant Nicocles to be less sacred than the greater tyrant Caesar, who did millions of mischiefs more than Nicocles?

Let us now see what Dr. Prideaux says of Caesar. After having told us, that he was excited by ambition and malice; that he justly had for the reward thereof that destruction by which he fell; the Doctor adds these words:

"He is said to have slain eleven hundred and ninety-two thousand men; which proves him to have been a terrible scourge in the hand of God, for the punishment of the wickedness of that age. And, consequently, he is to be reputed the greatest pest and plague that mankind had therein: But notwithstanding this, his actions have with many acquired great glory to his name: Whereas true glory is due only to those who benefit, not to those who destroy, mankind."

All this is honestly and justly said; but I cannot reconcile it to what he has said before, about the death of that destroyer. Sure, upon his own principles, never was true glory more due to any mortal man, than to Brutus! His life and studies were laid out in doing good to mankind; whereas Caesar was indeed the greatest pest and plague that mankind had. For, besides all the wickedness that he did with his own wicked hands and counsels, he frustrated all the purposes, virtue, and bravery, of the old Romans, in establishing liberty, and in conquering, polishing, and setting free great part of the barbarous world. All the battles that they fought, were fought for him; all the blood that they spilt, was spilt for him. Caesar took all, and overturned all. Besides, all the numberless and heavy mischiefs that the Roman world suffered from succeeding tyrants, were, in a great measure, owing to Caesar, who established a government by tyrants. He was in this sense the author of all the barbarity, rapine, and butcheries, brought upon the empire, by the Goths, Huns, Vandals, and other barbarians, who easily mastered an empire, weakened, and already almost destroyed, by the folly, madness, cruelty, and prodigality, of the imperial tyrants, his successors.

The Doctor takes notice, that Cassus Parmensis, being the only remaining tyrannicide, was put to death by the command of Augustus. And he observes upon it, that murder seldom escapes the vindictive hand of God, and especially the murder of princes. All this may be true; and yet, what is all this to Julius Caesar? If Caesar was a prince, any robber or murderer that has force and villainy enough, may be a prince; and blood, and wounds, and treason, constitute a prince. Every soldier in Caesar's army had as good a right to the government of Rome, as Caesar had. Was his style like that of a prince, or the father of his country, when he told his soldiers, according to Petronius, and agreeably to what he did afterwards;

————Ite furentes, Ite mei comites, & causam dicite ferro. Judice fortuna cadat alea: Sumite bellum; Inter tot fortes armatus nescio vinc.

Was not this setting up open violence and the sword for a title? If Rob Roy had conquered Scotland, with his barbarous Highland host; would he have been a prince, Prince of Scotland? Was Cromwell a prince? And would Massianello and Jack Straw, had they succeeded, have been princes?

As to Caesar's parts, they added vastly to his crimes, and were, as he applied them, only a great capacity to do great mischief. Curse on his virtues, they have undone his country! Besides, there were doubtless many men in Rome who had equal parts, and infinitely more merit. Brutus particularly had. The Devil has much greater abilities than Caesar had, and is also a prince, a very great prince; the executioner of God's vengeance too, the greatest executioner: And yet are we not expressly commanded to resist him? The plague is often the instrument of God's judgment; are we therefore not to resist the plague, by proper diet and antidotes? The bite of an adder may be the judgment of God; is it therefore a sin to tread upon the adder's head, and kill him? Or are antidotes against all other plagues lawful; but none lawful against the worst, the most lasting and destructive of all plagues, the plague of tyranny? Or is an adder less sacred than a tyrant? And why? I hope God made adders as well as Caesar. A storm may be a judgment; must we not therefore discharge a great gun against it, in order to disperse it? Or pray how comes one sort of the instruments of God's judgment to be more sacred than another? I am sure, God detests tyrants; and if they be God's ministers, so are plagues and serpents, and so is Satan himself.

Brutus was one of the properest persons to kill Caesar; as he was of all the men in Rome the most reverenced and popular. His wisdom, and virtue, and publick spirit, were known and adored: The consent of the Senate, and of all good men, was with him; none but the prostitute creatures of power, and those that ambitiously sought it, with their deceived and hireling followers, condemned him; nor durst even they at first. But Brutus, out of his too great goodness and generosity, spared Anthony, who ought to have accompanied Caesar. But while the wild Anthony remained, the root of the evil was not quite plucked up. He began a new war upon his country. The Senate, however, declared for the tyrannicides; declared Mark Anthony a publick enemy for making war upon Decimus Brutus, who was one of them; and sent both the consuls with an army against Anthony, in defence of Brutus: And had it not been for the treacherous and ungrateful young Caesar, the commonwealth would have been, in all likelihood, thoroughly established. But this young traitor, like his uncle Julius, turned the arms of the commonwealth upon the commonwealth, and joined with its enemy Mark Anthony to oppress it.

The terrible proceedings and bloody proscriptions that followed this agreement are well known. Nor is it at all strange, that not one of the tyrannicides survived the civil war, or died a natural death. They were almost all soldiers and commanders, and were either mostly slain in battle, or by the command of the conquerors: Their enemies got the better, and they had no where to fly to. The world was possessed by the usurpers. If Brutus and Cassius killed themselves, rather than fall into their enemies' hands, and adorn the triumphs of successful traitors; several of the chiefs of the other party did also kill themselves during the war; particularly Dolabella, and many of the principals of his party at Antioch, when Cassius besieged them there. Was this also a judgment?

Brutus and Cassius killed themselves! What then? Was it not done like Romans, like virtuous old Romans, thus to prefer death to slavery? It was a Roman spirit; and those who possessed it, did as much disdain to be tyrants, as to submit to tyranny; a spirit that scorned an ignominious life, held only at the mercy of an usurper, or by flattering his villainy, and abetting his usurpations; and a spirit, which those that want it can never admire. Great souls are not comprehended by small! It is undoubtedly true, that by the precepts of Christianity we are not at liberty to dispose of our own lives; but are to wait for the call of heaven to alleviate or end our calamities: But the Romans had no other laws to act by, but the natural dictates of uncorrupted reason. I call upon the great pretenders to philosophy and refined morals, to assign one fair reason, why a Roman, why Brutus and Cassius, should prefer a miserable life to an honourable death; should bear vassalage, chains, and tortures of body or mind, when all those evils were to be avoided by doing only that, which, by the course of nature, every man must soon do. It is better not to be, than to be unhappy; and the severest judgment on the wicked is, that they shall live for ever, and can never end their miseries: Much less can it be any service to society, to keep alive by art or force a melancholy, miserable, and useless member, grown perhaps burdensome too by age and infirmities.

In this light we must view the actions of the old Romans, guided only by nature, and unrestrained from suicide by any principles of their religion. We find, on the contrary, in history, many examples of the great and magnanimous heroes of antiquity, choosing voluntary death, often in the midst of health, with the greatest calmness of mind; sometimes from satiety of life and glory, either when they could gain no more, or apprehending that the future caprices of unconstant fortune might sully the past; and oftener still, to avoid submitting to disgrace and servitude.

A voluntary death from such motives as these, was, among the ancients, one of the paths to immortality; and, under certain circumstances, none but mean and abject minds declined it. Roman ladies often chose it. Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, chose a long premeditated death, rather than be led captive to Rome. And when Perseus sent to P. Aemilius, beseeching him with all earnestness, that so great a prince, late lord of Macedon, and good part of Greece, might not be led, like a slave, in chains at his chariot wheel, to grace his triumph; he received this short answer, that "it was in his own power to prevent it": Thus signifying to him, that he deserved the disgrace, if he would live to bear it.

Even under the dispensations of a new religion, which God Almighty condescended personally to teach mankind; human nature has prevailed so far over revealed truths, that in multitudes of instances a voluntary death is approved, at least not condemned, by almost the greatest part of the world. Men in extreme pain and agonies do often refuse physick, and the means of preserving their lives, days, weeks, and months longer. Men in lingering and desperate distempers go, uncalled, to mount a breach in a siege, or into the midst of the battle, to meet certain death. Great commanders have done the same, when the day went against them, rather than survive being beaten. Commanders of ships have blown up themselves and their ships, rather than be the prey of the conqueror. Towns besieged, when they could defend themselves no longer, have first burnt their town, then precipitated themselves desperately amongst their enemies, to procure an honourable death and revenge. Even common malefactors often choose to die, rather than discover their accomplices; and always get credit by doing so. And the stories of the Decii, of Celanus, of the great Cato, and even of Otho, and many other of the great examples of antiquity, made immortal by this act of ancient heroism, are still read with admiration.

I shall, for a conclusion of this long paper, give my readers the sentiments of the excellent Mr. Cowley, concerning Brutus and Caesar, in his ode entitled Brutus.

Can we stand by and see Our mother robb'd, and bound, and ravish'd be, Yet not to her assistance stir, Pleas'd with the strength and beauty of the ravisher? Or shall we fear to kill him, if before The cancell'd name of friend he bore? Ingrateful Brutus do they call? Ingrateful Caesar, who could Rome enthral! An act more barbarous and unnatural (In th' exact balance of true virtue try'd) Than his successor Nero's parricide! * * * What mercy could the tyrant's life deserve From him who kill'd himself rather than serve? * * * What joy can human things to us afford, When we see perish thus by odd events, By ill men and wretched accidents, The best cause, and best man that ever drew a sword? When we see The false Octavius and wild Anthony, God-like Brutus! conquer thee?

G I am, &c.

title: Cato's Letters/Letter 56


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Rh of shots at one time. The waggons are then advanced, and the débris is cleared away; the two pairs of rails at the sides, shown in the cross section, are for waggonets, whose contents are afterwards transferred to large waggons. The "affût" is then again advanced. These operations are now repeated with unvarying regularity twice every day.

The temperature at the working face of the advanced gallery is seldom higher than from 75° to 76°, and the atmosphere is as pure as can be desired, when the machines are at work. This, it must be remembered, is notwithstanding the presence of more than thirty men, and almost as many lamps, in a space about nine feet wide, eight high, and fifty long. The comparative lowness of the temperature is of course due to the expansion of the compressed air.

At the distance of a hundred and sixty paces, the sound of the machines could not be distinguished, and the atmosphere again gradually deteriorated as we approached the region which may, not improperly, be termed infernal. Once more we passed through the foul vapours and by the army of miners. Laborious as the work of these men undoubtedly is, it is lighter and far less dangerous than that of our coal-cutters. The heat, although it seems considerable to one coming from a lower temperature, is not excessive, and this may be inferred from seeing how few men

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324 man upon earth, who doeth good and sinneth not. Remember unto him [her] the righteousness which he [she] wrought, and let his [her] reward be with him [her], and his [her] recompense before him [her]. O shelter his [her] soul in the shadow of thy wings. Make known to him [her] the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore. Vouchsafe unto him [her] of the abounding happiness that is treasured up for the righteous, as it is written, Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee, which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the children of men!

O Lord, who healest the broken-hearted and bindest up their wounds, grant thy consolation unto the mourners: put into their hearts the fear and love of thee, that they may serve thee with a perfect heart, and let their latter end be peace. Amen.

Like one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you, and in Jerusalem shall ye be comforted. Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended. He will destroy death for ever; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth: for the Lord hath spoken it.


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323 In addition to the above, other appropriate Psalms, such as Psalms xv., p. 300; xc., p. 22; xci., p. 23; ciii., p. 314; and xxxix., or such passages as Proverbs xxxi. 10-31, p. 123, should be read in the House of Mourning.

 * For the Chief Musician, for Jeduthun. A Psalm of David.

I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me. I was dumb, and kept silence, I held my peace, and had no comfort: and my sorrow was stirred. My heart was hot within me; while I was musing the fire kindled: then spake I with my tongue: Lord, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; let me know how fleeting I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as hand-breadths; and my lifetime is as nothing before thee: surely every man, though he stand firm, is but a breath.(Selah.) Surely as a mere semblance every man walketh to and fro: surely they are disquieted for vanity: he heapeth up riches and knoweth not who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions; make me not the reproach of the foolish. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it. Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes dost chasten man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to waste away like a moth: surely every man is a breath. (Selah.) Hear my prayer, O Lord, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears; for I am a stranger with thee, a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me, that I may again be glad, before I go hence, and be no more.

O Lord and King, who art full of compassion, in whose hand is the soul of every living thing and the breath of all flesh, who killest and makest alive, who bringest down to the grave and bringest up again, receive, we beseech thee, in thy great lovingkindness the soul of who hath been gathered unto his [her] people. Have mercy upon him [her]; pardon all his [her] transgressions, for there is not a righteous


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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Owen, Robert

OWEN, ROBERT (1771-1858), English social reformer, was born at Newtown, Montgomeryshire, in North Wales, on the 14th of May 1771. His father had a small business in Newtown as saddler and ironmonger, and there young Owen received all his school education, which terminated at the age of nine. After serving in a draper's shop for some years he settled in Manchester. His success was very rapid. When only nineteen years of age he became manager of a cotton mill in which five hundred people were employed, and by his administrative intelligence and energy soon made it one of the best establishments of the kind in Great Britain. In this factory Owen used the first bags of American sea-island cotton ever imported into the country; it was the first sea-island cotton from the Southern States. Owen also made remarkable improvement in the quality of the cotton spun; and indeed there is no reason to doubt that at this early age he was the first cotton-spinner in England, a position entirely due to his own capacity and knowledge of the trade. In 1794 or 1795 he became manager and one of the partners of the Chorlton Twist Company at Manchester. During a visit to Glasgow he had fallen in love with the daughter of the proprietor of the New Lanark mills, David Dale. Owen induced his partners to purchase New Lanark; and after his marriage with Miss Dale he settled there, as manager and part owner of the mills (1800). Encouraged by his great success in the management of cotton factories in Manchester, he had already formed the intention of conducting New Lanark on higher principles than the current commercial ones.

The factory of New Lanark had been started in 1784 by Dale and Arkwright, the water-power afforded by the falls of the Clyde being the great attraction. Connected with the mills were about two thousand people, five hundred of whom were children, brought, most of them, at the age of five or six from the poor-houses and charities of Edinburgh and Glasgow. The children especially had been well treated by Dale, but the general condition of the people was very unsatisfactory. Many of them were the lowest of the population, the respectable country people refusing to submit to the long hours and demoralizing drudgery of the factories; theft, drunkenness, and other vices were common; education and sanitation were alike neglected; most families

lived only in one room. It was this population, thus committed to his care, which Owen now set himself to elevate and ameliorate. He greatly improved their houses, and by the unsparing and benevolent exertion of his personal influence trained them to habits of order, cleanliness and thrift. He opened a store, where the people could buy goods of the soundest quality at little more than cost price; and the sale of drink was placed under the strictest supervision. His greatest success, however, was in the education of the young, to which he devoted special attention. He was the founder of infant schools in Great Britain; and, though he was anticipated by reformers on the continent of Europe, he seems to have been led to institute them by his own views of what education ought to be, and without hint from abroad. In all these plans Owen obtained the most gratifying success. Though at first regarded with suspicion as a stranger, he soon won the confidence of his people. The mills continued to be a great commercial success, but it is needless to say that some of Owen's schemes involved considerable expense, which was displeasing to his partners. Tired at last of the restrictions imposed on him by men who wished to conduct the business on the ordinary principles, Owen formed a new firm, who, content with 5% of return for their capital, were ready to give freer scope to his philanthropy (1813). In this firm Jeremy Bentham and the well-known Quaker, William Allen, were partners. In the same year Owen first appeared as an author of essays, in which he expounded the principles on which his system of educational philanthropy was based. From an early age he had lost all belief in the prevailing forms of religion, and had thought out a creed for himself, which he considered an entirely new and original discovery. The chief points in this philosophy were that man's character is made not by him but for him; that it has been formed by circumstances over which he had no control; that he is not a proper subject either of praise or blame,—these principles leading up to the practical conclusion that the great secret in the right formation of man's character is to place him under the proper influences—physical, moral and social—from his earliest years. These principles—of the irresponsibility of man and of the effect of early influences—are the keynote of Owen's whole system of education and social amelioration. As we have said, they are embodied in his first work, A New View of Society, or Essays on the Principle of the Formation of the Human Character, the first of these essays (there are four in all) being published in 1813. It is needless to say that Owen's new views theoretically belong to a very old system of philosophy, and that his originality is to be found only in his benevolent application of them. For the next few years Owen's work at New Lanark continued to have a national and even a European significance. His schemes for the education of his workpeople attained to something like completion on the opening of the institution at New Lanark in 1816. He was a zealous supporter of the factory legislation resulting in the act of 1819, which, however, greatly disappointed him. He had interviews and communications with the leading members of government, including the premier, Lord Liverpool, and with many of the rulers and leading statesmen of Europe. New Lanark itself became a much-frequented place of pilgrimage for social reformers, statesmen, and royal personages, including Nicholas, afterwards emperor of Russia. According to the unanimous testimony of all who visited it, the results achieved by Owen were singularly good. The manners of the children, brought up under his system, were beautifully graceful, genial and unconstrained; health, plenty, and contentment prevailed; drunkenness was almost unknown, and illegitimacy was extremely rare. The most perfect good feeling subsisted between Owen and his workpeople, and all the operations of the mill proceeded with the utmost smoothness and regularity; and the business was a great commercial success.

Hitherto Owen's work had been that of a philanthropist, whose great distinction was the originality and unwearying unselfishness of his methods. His first departure in socialism took place in 1817, and was embodied in a report communicated to the committee of the House of Commons on the poor law.

The general misery and stagnation of trade consequent on the termination of the great war was engrossing the attention of the country. After clearly tracing the special causes connected with the war which had led to such a deplorable state of things, Owen pointed out that the permanent cause of distress was to be found in the competition of human labour with machinery, and that the only effective remedy was the united action of men, and the subordination of machinery. His proposals for the treatment of pauperism were based on these principles. He recommended that communities of about twelve hundred persons each should be settled on quantities of land from 1000 to 1500 acres, all living in one large building in the form of a square, with public kitchen and mess-rooms. Each family should have its own private apartments, and the entire care of the children till the age of three, after which they should be brought up by the community, their parents having access to them at meals and all other proper times. These communities might be established by individuals, by parishes, by counties, or by the state; in every case there should be effective supervision by duly qualified persons. Work, and the enjoyment of its results, should be in common. The size of his community was no doubt partly suggested by his village of New Lanark; and he soon proceeded to advocate such a scheme as the best form for the reorganization of society in general. In its fully developed form and it cannot be said to have changed much during Owen's lifetime it was as follows. He considered an association of from 500 to 3000 as the fit number for a good working community. While mainly agricultural, it should possess all the best machinery, should offer every variety of employment, and should, as far as possible, be self-contained. “As these townships,” as he also called them, “should increase in number, unions of them federatively united shall be formed in circles of tens, hundreds and thousands,” till they should embrace the whole world in a common interest.

His plans for the cure of pauperism were received with great favour. The Times and the Morning Post and many of the leading men of the country countenanced them; one of his most steadfast friends was the duke of Kent, father of Queen Victoria. He had indeed gained the ear of the country, and had the prospect before him of a great career as a social reformer, when he went out of his way at a large meeting in London to declare his hostility to all the received forms of religion. After this defiance to the religious sentiment of the country, Owen's theories were in the popular mind associated with infidelity, and were henceforward suspected and discredited. Owen's own confidence, however, remained unshaken; and he was anxious that his scheme for establishing a community should be tested. At last, in 1825, such an experiment was attempted under the direction of his disciple, Abram Combe, at Orbiston near Glasgow; and in the next year Owen himself commenced another at New Harmony (q.v.), Indiana, U.S.A. After a trial of about two years both failed completely. Neither of them was a pauper experiment; but it must be said that the members were of the most motley description, many worthy people of the highest aims being mixed with vagrants, adventurers, and crotchety, wrong-headed enthusiasts. After a long period of friction with William Allen and some of his other partners, Owen resigned all connexion with New Lanark in 1828. On his return from America he made London the centre of his activity. Most of his means having been sunk in the New Harmony experiment, he was no longer a flourishing capitalist, but the head of a vigorous propaganda, in which socialism and secularism were combined. One of the most interesting features of the movement at this period was the establishment in 1832 of an equitable labour exchange system, in which exchange was effected by means of labour notes, the usual means of exchange and the usual middlemen being alike superseded. The word “socialism” first became current in the discussions of the Association of all Classes of all Nations, formed by Owen in 1835. During these years also his secularistic teaching gained such influence among the working classes as to give occasion for the statement in the Westminster Review (1839) that his principles were the actual creed of a great portion of them. His views on marriage, which were certainly lax, gave

just ground for offence. At this period some more communistic experiments were made, of which the most important were that at Ralahine, in the county of Clare, Ireland, and that at Tytherly in Hampshire. It is admitted that the former (1831) was a remarkable success for three and a half years, till the proprietor, having ruined himself by gambling, was obliged to sell out. Tytherly, begun in 1839, was an absolute failure. By 1846 the only permanent result of Owen's agitation, so zealously carried on by public meetings, pamphlets, periodicals, and occasional treatises, was the co-operative movement, and for the time even that seemed to have utterly collapsed. In his later years Owen became a firm believer in spiritualism. He died at his native town on the 17th of November 1858.

Owen left four sons, Robert Dale, William, David Dale and Richard, all of whom became citizens of the United States. , the eldest (1801-1877), was for long an able exponent in his adopted country of his father's doctrines. In 1836-39 and 1851-52 he was a member of the Indiana House of Representatives and in 1844-47 was a Representative in Congress, where he drafted the bill for the founding of the Smithsonian Institution. He was elected a member of the Indiana Constitutional Convention in 1850, and was instrumental in securing to widows and married women control of their property, and the adoption of a common free school system. He later succeeded in passing a state law giving greater freedom in divorce. From 1853 to 1858 he was United States minister at Naples. He was a strong believer in spiritualism and was the author of two well-known books on the subject: Footfalls on the Boundary of Another World (1859) and The Debateable Land Between this World and the Next (1872). Owen's third son, (1807-1860), was in 1839 appointed United States geologist, and made extensive surveys of the north-west, which were published by order of Congress. The youngest son, (1810-1890), was a professor of natural science in Nashville University.

Of R. Owen's numerous works in exposition of his system, the most important are the New View of Society; the Report communicated to the Committee on the Poor Law; the Book of the New Moral World; and Revolution in the Mind and Practice of the Human Race. See Life of Robert Owen written by himself (London, 1857), and Threading my Way, Twenty-seven Years of Autobiography, by Robert Dale Owen (London, 1874). There are also Lives of Owen by A. J. Booth (London, 1869), W. L. Sargant (London, 1860), Lloyd Jones (London, 1889), F. A. Packard (Philadelphia, 1866) and F. Podmore (London, 1906). See also H. Simon, Robert Owen: sein Leben und seine Bedeutung für die Gegenwart (Jena, 1905); E. Dolléans, Robert Owen (Paris, 1905); G. J. Holyoake, History of Co-operation in England (London, 1906); and the article .


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VANINI, LUCILIO, or, as he styled himself in his works, (1585-1619), Italian free-thinker, was born at Taurisano, near Naples, in 1585. He studied philosophy and theology at Rome, and after his return to Naples applied himself to the physical studies which had come into vogue with the Renaissance. Like Giordano Bruno, though morally and intellectually inferior to him, he was among those who led the attack on the old scholasticism and helped to lay the foundation of modern philosophy. Vanini resembles Bruno, not only in his wandering life and in his tragic death, but also in his anti-Christian bias. From Naples he went to Padua, where he came under the influence of the Alexandrist Pomponazzi (q.v.), whom he styles his divine master. At Padua he studied law, and was ordained priest. Subsequently he led a roving life in France, Switzerland and the Low Countries, supporting himself by giving lessons and disseminating anti religious views. He was obliged to flee from Lyons to England in 1614, but was imprisoned in London for some reason for forty nine days. Returning to Italy he made an attempt to teach in Genoa, but was driven once more to France, where he made a valiant effort to clear himself of suspicion by publishing a book against atheists, Amphitheatrum Aeternae Providentiae Divino-Magirum (1615). Though the definitions of God are somewhat pantheistic, the book is sufficiently orthodox, but the arguments are largely ironical, and cannot be taken as expounding his real views. Vanini expressly tells us so in his second (and only other published) work, De Admirandis Naturae Reginae Deaeque Mortalium Arcanis (Paris, 1616), which, originally certified by two doctors of the Sorbonne, was afterwards re-examined and condemned to the flames. Vanini then left Paris, where he had been staying as chaplain to the maréchal de Bassompierre, and began to teach in Toulouse. In November 1618 he was arrested, and after a prolonged trial was condemned, as an atheist, to have his tongue cut out, and to be strangled at the stake, his body to be afterwards burned to ashes. The sentence was executed on the 6th of February 1619.

(*)

VANLOO, CHARLES ANDREW (1705-1765), subject painter, a younger brother of John Baptist Vanloo (q.v.), was born at Nice on the 15th of February 1705. He received some induction from his brother, and like him studied in Rome under Luti. Leaving Italy in 1723, he worked in Paris, where he gained the first prize for historical painting. After again visiting Italy in 1727, he was employed by the king of Sardinia, for whom he painted a- series of subjects illustrative of Tasso. In 1734 he settled in Paris, and in 1735 became a member of the French Academy; and he was decorated with the order of St Michael and appointed principal painter to the king. By his simplicity of style and correctness of design, the result of his study of the great Italian masters, he did much to purify the modern French school; but the contemporary praise that was lavished upon his productions now appears undue and excessive. His "Marriage of the Virgin" is preserved in the Louvre. He died at Paris on the 15th of July 1765.

VANLOO, JOHN BAPTIST (1684-1745), French subject and portrait painter, was born at Aix in Provence on the 14th of January 1684. He was instructed in art by his father. Having at an early age executed several pictures for the decoration of the church and public buildings at Aix, he was employed on similar work at Toulon, which he was obliged to leave during the siege of 1707. He was patronized by the prince of Carignan, who sent him to Rome, where he studied under Benedetto Luti. Here he was much employed on church pictures, and in particular executed a greatly praised "Scourging of Christ" for St Maria in Monticelli. At Turin he painted the duke of Savoy and several members of his court. Then, removing to Paris, where he was elected a member of the French Academy, he executed various altar-pieces and restored the works of Primaticcio at Fontainebleau. In 1737 he went to England, where he attracted attention by his portrait of Colley Cibber and of Owen McSwiny, the theatrical manager; the latter, like many other of Vanloo's works, was engraved in mezzotint by the younger Faber. He also painted Sir Robert Walpole, whose portrait by Vanloo in his robes as chancellor of the exchequer is in the National Portrait Gallery (London), and the prince and princess of Wales. He did not, however, practise long in England, for. his health failing he retired to Paris in 1742, and afterwards to Aix, where he died on the 19th of December 1745. His likenesses were striking and faithful, but seldom flattering, and his heads are forcible in colouring. The draperies and accessories in his pictures were usually painted by Van Achen, Eccardt and Root.

VANNES, a town of western France, capital of the department of Morbihan, 84 m. N.W. of Nantes on the railway to Brest. Pop. (1906), town, 16,728; commune, 23,561. It is situated 10 m. from the open sea, at the confluence of two streams forming the Vannes river, which debouches into the land-locked Gulf of Morbihan about a mile below the town. The narrow, steep and crooked streets of the old town, which lie on a hill facing the south, are surrounded by fortifications of the 14th, 15th and 17th centuries, pierced by four gates and flanked by nine towers and five bastions, connected by battlements. In the Constable's Tower Olivier de Clisson was confined in 1387. The modern suburbs, with the port, the public buildings, barracks, convents, squares and promenades, notably the Garenne and the park of the Prefecture, surround the old town. The archaeological museum, the contents of which are mainly the fruit of excavations at Carnac and elsewhere in the vicinity, includes one of the richest collections of prehistoric remains in Europe. There are also a museum of natural history and a library. The cathedral of St Peter overlooks the old town; burnt by the Normans in the 10th century, it was rebuilt in the 13th, 15th and 18th centuries. It has remains of a cloister and contains the relics and tomb of the Spanish Dominican preacher St Vincent Ferrier, who died at Vannes in 1419. The curious round Chapelle du Pardon to the left of the nave was built in 1537 in the Italian style. Some interesting old houses, including that of the presidents of the parlement of Brittany, the rich private collections of M. de Limur, and the church of St Paterne (18th century) are also worthy of mention. There is a monument to Le Sage, born near Vannes. Vannes is the seat of a prefect, a bishop and a court of assizes, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce and a branch of the Bank of France. A communal college is among the educational institutions. Among the industries are building, tanning and cotton-weaving. The port of Vannes, to the south of the town, is formed by the Vannes river and is accessible only to small vessels. Vessels of 800 tons can make the harbour of Conleau about 25 m. from the town.

Vannes (Dariorigum), the capital of the Veneti (whence Gwened, the Breton name of the town), was at the head of the Armorican league against Julius Caesar, who in 56 overcame their fleet and opened up their country by six roads. St Paternus, the first bishop, was consecrated in 465. In the 5th century Vannes was ruled for a time by independent counts,

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Rh About four thousand men are now employed on the tunnel, and they complete ten to eleven feet every day. The average daily progress of the last five years is ten feet one inch. Each yard of progress costs at the present time about £200, or just double the average of railway tunneling in England. There are many yards, however, which have cost infinitely more than £200 per yard. The work is now so far advanced that the engineers can estimate with some probability what the total expenditure will amount to. They place it at £3,000,000 (£224 per yard), which sum includes


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Rh currents. The very passage of the trains will do a good deal. Besides this, there is already a large amount of ventilating power established at the two ends, and it can be kept in action at a small expense. I saw at the Fourneaux (Modane) mouth, on my last visit, the pumping-engines that had been set up about two years before. There were four cylinders, each 16 feet 4 inches in diameter, with a stroke of 6 feet 6 inches. Only two were at work, yet—at a distance of two miles from the mouth—they produced a very sensible current flowing into the tunnel, which was indicated by the miners' lamps that we carried. There is no reason to be afraid that the eminent engineer, who has hitherto shown himself equal to all the difficulties which have arisen, will be beaten by the ventilation.

M. Conte, at the conclusion of his pamphlet, pays a high tribute of praise to M. Sommeiller, and properly speaks of him as " the soul of the enterprise." " We may quote him as a model of courage and devotion If one may believe the companions of his youth, he followed the idea, which he now realises, at the time he was studying at the university of Turin. This idea he has never abandoned." Englishmen ought to be amongst the first to recognise his boldness and perseverance, although they have played no part in the execution of the tunnel. It is the grandest conception of its kind, and when it is completed, it will be not only—in a double sense—one of the highways of Europe, but it will most likely become the high road to India.

It is humiliating to compare the working of our coal-mines with the operations carried on in the great tunnel of the Alps. In the former we see the old, barbarous, wasteful methods still employed, with disregard of human life, and for the future. In the latter, mechanical power, skilfully applied, economises labour, and gives safety and comfort to those who are at work. The exhaustion of


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Rh and night is, in some cases, explained as due to the original theft of daylight by a culture hero, who, finding himself closely pursued, casts out the daylight bit by bit. Again, the markings in the bark of the birch trees are explained on the ground that once a culture hero in anger gashed the tree with his knife. Yet, if we take native myths as they come, such explanations much more often apply to peculiarities of the heavens and the markings upon birds and animals than to other classes of phenomena. Another peculiarity is that the initial creation of the world is a single incident, generally disposed of in a single simple narrative, whereas we find many complex independent tales, each accounting for more or less trivial animal markings. Waterman has discussed this diffuse explanatory character of American tales under the designation, explanatory element. The important problem is as to whether these tales were originally composed as theoretical explanations of natural phenomena in each case, or whether the explanatory applications were mere afterthoughts. Waterman's investigation, in particular, seems to make it clear that in the New World such explanations are quite secondary and could not have been in the mind of the first composer. This conclusion is reached by a comparative study of the myths for many tribes and is, of course, inferential.

The place of the heavenly bodies in aboriginal myth has been investigated by Ehrenreich, who defended a theory which states that most of the plots in all tales were but variations of a single theme in which the sun and moon were the leading characters. He took as one of his main factors the submitting of a hero to various kinds of tests. This topic also has been made the subject of exhaustive inquiry under the title of The Test Theme. Here, again, the result is negative, and Ehrenreich's theory has been retired to the historical cabinet.

While such problems are of great interest, their solutions are contingent upon facts of distribution. The data so far accumulated enable us to compare the mythologies of the several tribes occupying large areas. When we do so, we find

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Rh a narrow groove 3 ft. 9 in. deep along the bottom of the coal, which is afterwards broken down in the usual way. Three times more coal can be got by four men with it in a day than they can get without it. The waste of coal in the operation of holing is reduced by two-thirds. That is to say, if this machine could be used in all the pits in the kingdom, there would be an actual saving of 8,000,000 to 9,000,000 tons of coal per annum! There are other (hydraulic) coal-cutting machines at work in collieries in the north of England, which are equally economical, and which will, like Mr. Firth's machine, work narrow seams at a profit which it would not pay to work by hand; but they do not possess the important ventilating power, which is one of its chief recommendations. The expansion of the air not only lowers the temperature, but it drives all the gas away from the working-face. That this is done is sufficiently proved by the fact that there has not been a single explosion at West Ardsley since the machine has been in use, although there were many minor ones before it was introduced.

Who can say the condition of our coal-mines is satisfactory when such results are attainable? Yet who can touch the evil? The man who shall succeed in improving their ventilation will be a greater benefactor to his country than Sir Humphrey Davy, and will well deserve public reward; although, perhaps, he will be more likely to incur unmerited odium.


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Rh certain tales in common. For example, take the story of the Dancing Birds:—

A trickster induces a number of birds to dance around him, keeping their eyes closed. The penalty for opening the eyes is that they will become red. As the birds dance, the trickster wrings their necks, one by one. One of the dancers grows suspicious, opens his eyes, and gives the alarm. The rest escape.

We find this tale among most Algonkin and Siouan tribes and a few of their neighbors. Approximating this distribution is the "Woman who Went to the Sky", the "Crane Bridge", "Snaring the Sun", and the "Deserted Children". Thus, we have what seems to be a mythological area over which a number of distinct tales have traveled.

For another type tale, we may take the "Rolling Rock", which is found among the Shoshoni tribes of the western highlands, and among some of their immediate neighbors. Quite similarly distributed are the "Burning Cannibal", "Eye Juggler", "Ladder of Arrows", "Skin Shifter", and "Blind Dupe". These have one further peculiarity in that they show a tendency to occur on the North Pacific Coast and in eastern Siberia. Thus we have, in contrast to the preceding, a western mythological area.

Boas defines another area, comprising the Nahua, some of the Pueblo tribes, the Caddoan tribes of the Mississippi Valley, and perhaps a few others, in which we find myths recounting successive migrations.

Common to the first two areas and extending far over the Old World, is the "Magic Flight", "Vaginal Teeth", and the "Unfaithful Wife". The former tale extends into South America, making it one of the most widely recurring themes.

One striking trait of Mexico, northwestern South America, eastern Brazil, and southeastern United States, is that we find many Old World themes of which the race between the turtle and rabbit is a good example. Boas has formulated evidence to show that these tales can be traced to early Spanish and Portuguese sources. The latter, and the institution of negro slavery, he considers responsible for the many African themes encountered.

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Works

 * Pansy
 * Agatha's unknown way
 * As in a mirror
 * Aunt Hannah and Martha and John
 * Bernie's White Chicken
 * Browning Boys
 * Browns at Mt. Hermon
 * Dorris Farrand's vocation
 * Ester Ried: asleep and awake
 * Ester Ried
 * Ester Ried's awakening
 * From different standpoints
 * Getting ahead
 * Hour with Miss Streator
 * Interrupted night
 * Julia Ried
 * King's daughter
 * Lesson in story. Pansy's lesson book for boys and girls
 * Links in Rebecca's life
 * Little by little
 * Little people in picture and story
 * Lost on the trail
 * Mag and Margaret
 * Making Fate
 * Man of the house
 * Miss Priscilla Hunter, and My daughter Susan
 * Missent
 * Modern prophets and other sketches
 * New graft on the family tree
 * Pansy's home story book
 * Pauline
 * Pictures and stories of Jesus
 * Prince of peace
 * Randolphs
 * Ruth Erskine's son
 * Sidney Martin's Christmas
 * Six little girls
 * Sunset gate
 * Teacher's helper
 * Three people
 * Three times three; a story for young people
 * Tip Lewis and his lamp
 * Tony Keating's surprises
 * Two boys
 * Yesterday framed in to-day; a story of the Christ, and how to-day received him

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Rh the way in which the waste power of nature has been applied for the reduction of the difficulties of the undertaking. There is not a single steam-engine on the works: everything is done with compressed air, or by hydraulic power. Just one half of the tunnel was driven at the end of October 1866, after more than nine years of labour. The third quarter was finished by the end of 1868, Unless extraordinary obstacles are encountered, the two ends will probably meet in February 1871;


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Rh There is also the suggestion of a tendency for each of the great economic areas we have defined (p. 8) to have a distinct group of myths. For example, in the bison area we have the well-known myths of "Blood-clot Boy", "Stone-Boy", and the "Twins".

The peculiarity of the distribution we have just sketched is that we here have a number of tale groups which are distributed independently of each other. If we had found each tale distributed independently of the others, it would have been clear that the directions and extent of diffusion were mere matters of accident; but, when we find tales in groups which are independent, the case is far from clear. So far, the tales of a group show no signs of logical or functional relations, from which we assume that there are historical reasons for this grouping, but as to their identity we are yet ignorant. It should be noted, however, that these areas are as yet but vaguely defined and that Waterman's list of correspondences leaves very marked gaps for the successive myths. More extended data in the future may greatly modify these results.

When we shift our point of view to the place of these tales in aboriginal life, the most acceptable interpretation is that they are literature; in other words, artistic compositions valued and preserved for the sake of their æsthetic qualities. We have noted that these tales fail to qualify as native theories of origin or as explanatory and test themes, but as literature, some myths rise to the level of sacred narratives and are so regarded by all of the tribe. No very serious attempts have been made to subject large groups of tales to literary analysis, but it is suggested that what is diffused from one tribe to another is a compact definite incident, as the "Magic Flight", the "Eye-Juggler", etc., the whole of which must be taken if at all. One may, therefore, infer that the causes for the grouping of incidents we have noted arise from the probability that the same historical factors favoring the diffusion of one tale also operated simultaneously with the other. The only antecedent condition, therefore, would be that the group be formed before it was diffused. From such a point of view the phenomenon is intelligible.

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198 That the Inca and the Nahua, at least, had made important advances in literary form is suggested by a few surviving fragments, as noted under Fine Arts (p. 141). The celebrated Inca drama, "Apu Ollantay", has strong claim to being pre-Columbian and certain poetical fragments have come down to us from the Maya and Nahua. That these should have been of a high order is to be expected for, as noted under Fine Arts, we find even among the tribes of the bison area, song rituals of dramatic and poetical merit. In some cases, conspicuously in some Pueblo and North Pacific Coast ceremonies, well-composed rituals are enacted, staging sacred mythical tales in which the characters are impersonated by the use of masks and other accessories. The purely literary side of these rituals and songs has never been seriously studied.

MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS

Some of the older writers have noted the wide distribution of a kind of white-man god, and sought to demonstrate its origin in the phenomena of the sun. This interpretation has not survived criticism, but it serves to call attention to an interesting mythical character. As we have noted, in the god systems of the Inca, Chibcha, Maya, and Nahua, there appears a distinctly human god who lives among men and establishes the present order, but after a time departs. The names under which he is known are, respectively: Viracocha, Bochica, Kukulcan, and Quetzalcoatl. In each case, he is regarded as clothed in white cloth or paint, as having arrived from the East, and as having a beard. When Europeans appeared upon the scene, the local term for this god was applied to them, and entered into the future terminology. We thus have the associated characters of whiteness, bearded, human-like, dawn-like, culture leader, and reformer continuously distributed from Chile to the Rio Grande. But this complex extends even farther afield. In the bison area the Cheyenne Vihuk, the Arapaho Nili-an-can, and the Blackfoot Napiwa possess all of these except the beard, yet each in turn forms the term applied to individuals of our race. In South America the Tsuma of Venezuela seems to have been identical with the

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1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Saint-Simon, Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de

SAINT-SIMON, CLAUDE HENRI DE ROUVROY, (1760-1825), the founder of French socialism, was born in Paris on the 17th of October 1760. He belonged to a younger branch of the family of the duc de Saint-Simon (above). His education was directed by D'Alembert. At the age of nineteen he assisted the American colonies in their revolt against Britain. From his youth Saint-Simon felt the promptings of an eager ambition. His valet had orders to awake him every morning with the words, “Remember, monsieur le comte, that you have great things to do.” Among his early schemes was one to unite the Atlantic and the Pacific by a canal, and another to construct a canal from Madrid to the sea. Although he was imprisoned in the Luxembourg during the Terror, he took no part of any importance in the Revolution, but profited by it to amass a little fortune by land speculation—not on any selfish account, however, as he said, but to facilitate his future projects.

Accordingly, when he was nearly forty years of age he went through a varied course of study and experiment, in order to enlarge and clarify his view of things. One of these experiments was an unhappy marriage—undertaken merely that he might have a salon—which, after a year's duration, was dissolved by mutual consent. The result of his experiments was that he found himself completely impoverished, and lived in penury for the remainder of his life. The first of his numerous writings, Lettres d'un habitant de Genève, appeared in 1802; but his early writings were mostly scientific and political. In 1817 he began in a treatise entitled L'Industrie to propound his socialistic views, which he further developed in L'Organisateur (1819), a periodical on which Augustin Thierry and Auguste Comte collaborated. The first number caused a sensation, but it brought few converts. In 1821 appeared Du système industriel, and in 1823-1824 Catéchisme des industriels. The last and most important expression of his views is the Nouveau Christianisme (1825), which he left unfinished. For many years before his death in 1825 (at Paris on the 19th of May), Saint-Simon had been reduced to the greatest straits. He was obliged to accept a laborious post, working nine hours a day for 40 a year, to live on the generosity of a former valet, and finally to solicit a small pension from his family. In 1823 he attempted suicide in despair. It was not till very late in his career that he attached to himself a few ardent disciples.

As a thinker Saint-Simon was entirely deficient in system, clearness and consecutive strength. But his great influence on modern thought is undeniable, both as the historic founder of French socialism and as suggesting much of what was afterwards elaborated into Comtism. Apart from the details of his socialistic teaching, which are vague and unsystematic, we find that the ideas of Saint-Simon as to the reconstruction of society are very simple. His opinions were conditioned by the French Revolution and by the feudal and military system still prevalent in France. In opposition to the destructive liberalism of the Revolution he insisted on the necessity of a new and positive reorganization of society. So far was he from advocating fresh social revolt that he appealed to Louis XVIII. to inaugurate the new order of things. In opposition, however, to the feudal and military system, the former aspect of which had been strengthened by the restoration, he advocated an arrangement by which the industrial chiefs should control society. In place of the medieval church the spiritual direction of society should fall to the men of science. What Saint-Simon desired, therefore, was an industrialist state directed by modern science in which universal association should suppress war. In short, the men who are fitted to organize society for productive labour are entitled to bear rule in it. The social aim is to produce things useful to life. The contrast between labour and capital so much emphasized by later socialism is not present to Saint-Simon, but it is assumed that the industrial chiefs, to whom the control of production is to be committed, shall rule in the interest of society. Later on the cause of the poor receives greater attention, till in his greatest work, The New Christianity, it takes the form of a religion. It was this development of his teaching that occasioned his final quarrel with Comte. Previous to the publication of the Nouveau Christianisme, Saint-Simon had not concerned himself with theology. Here he starts from a belief in God, and his object in the treatise is to reduce Christianity to its simple and essential elements. He does this by clearing it of the dogmas and other excrescences and defects which have gathered round the Catholic and Protestant forms of it. He propounds as the comprehensive formula of the new Christianity this precept—“The whole of society ought to strive towards the amelioration of the moral and physical existence of the poorest class; society ought to organize itself in the way best adapted for attaining this end.” This principle became the watchword of the entire school of Saint-Simon.

During his lifetime the views of Saint-Simon had very little influence; and he left only a few devoted disciples, who continued to advocate the doctrines of their master, whom they revered as a prophet. Of these the most important were

Olinde Rodrigues, the favoured disciple of Saint-Simon, and Barthélemy Prosper Enfantin (q.v.), who together had received Saint-Simon's last instructions. Their first step was to establish a journal, Le Producteur, but it was discontinued in 1826. The sect, however, had begun to grow, and before the end of 1828, had meetings not only in Paris but in many provincial towns. An important departure was made in 1828 by Amand Bazard, who gave a “complete exposition of the Saint-Simonian faith” in a long course of lectures at Paris, which were well attended. His Exposition de la doctrine de St Simon (2 vols., 1828-1830), which is by far the best account of it, won more adherents. The second volume was chiefly by Enfantin, who along with Bazard stood at the head of the society, but who was superior in metaphysical power, and was prone to push his deductions to extremities. The revolution of July (1830) brought a new freedom to the socialist reformers. A proclamation was issued demanding the community of goods, the abolition of the right of inheritance, and the enfranchisement of women. Early next year the school obtained possession of the Globe through Pierre Leroux (q.v.), who had joined the school, which now numbered some of the ablest and most promising young men of France, many of the pupils of the École Polytechnique having caught its enthusiasm. The members formed themselves into an association arranged in three grades, and constituting a society or family, which lived out of a common purse in the Rue Monsigny. Before long, however, dissensions began to arise in the sect. Bazard, a man of logical and more solid temperament, could no longer work in harmony with Enfantin, who desired to establish an arrogant and fantastic sacerdotalism with lax notions as to marriage and the relation of the sexes. After a time Bazard seceded and many of the strongest supporters of the school followed his example. A series of extravagant entertainments given by the society during the winter of 1832 reduced its financial resources and greatly discredited it in character. They finally removed to Ménilmontant, to a property of Enfantin, where they lived in a communistic society, distinguished by a peculiar dress. Shortly after the chiefs were tried and condemned for proceedings prejudicial to the social order; and the sect was entirely broken up (1832). Many of its members became famous as engineers, economists, and men of business.

In the school of Saint-Simon we find a great advance on the vague and confused views of the master. In the philosophy of history they recognize epochs of two kinds, the critical or negative and the organic or constructive. The former, in which philosophy is the dominating force, is characterized by war, egotism and anarchy; the latter, which is controlled by religion, is marked by the spirit of obedience, devotion, association. The two spirits of antagonism and association are the two great social principles, and on the degree of prevalence of the two depends the character of an epoch. The spirit of association, however, tends more and more to prevail over its opponent, extending from the family to the city, from the city to the nation, and from the nation to the federation. This principle of association is to be the keynote of the social development of the future. Under the present system the industrial chief exploits the proletariat, the members of which, though nominally free, must accept his terms under pain of starvation. The only remedy for this is the abolition of the law of inheritance, and the union of all the instruments of labour in a social fund, which shall be exploited by association. Society thus becomes sole proprietor, intrusting to social groups and social functionaries the management of the various properties. The right of succession is transferred from the family to the state. The school of Saint-Simon insists strongly on the claims of merit; they advocate a social hierarchy in which each man shall be placed according to his capacity and rewarded according to his works. This is, indeed, a most special and pronounced feature of the Saint-Simon socialism, whose theory of government is a kind of spiritual or scientific autocracy, degenerating into the fantastic sacerdotalism of Enfantin. With regard to the family and the relation of the sexes the school of Saint-Simon advocated the complete emancipation of woman and her entire equality with man. The “social individual” is man and woman, who are associated in the exercise of the triple function of religion, the state and the family. In its official declarations the school maintained the sanctity of the Christian law of marriage. Connected with these doctrines was their famous theory of the “rehabilitation of the flesh,” deduced from the philosophic theory of the school, which was a species of Pantheism, though they repudiated the name. On this theory they rejected the dualism so much emphasized by Catholic Christianity in its penances and mortifications, and held that the body should be restored to its

due place of honour. It is a vague principle, of which the ethical character depends on the interpretation; and it was variously interpreted in the school of Saint-Simon. It was certainly immoral as held by Enfantin, by whom it was developed into a kind of sensual mysticism, a system of free love with a religious sanction.

An excellent edition of the works of Saint-Simon and Enfantin was published by the survivors of the sect (47 vols., Paris, 1865-1878). See, in addition to the works cited above, L. Reybaud, Études sur les réformateurs contemporains (7th edition, Paris, 1864); Paul Janet, Saint-Simon et le Saint-Simonisme (Paris, 1878); A. J. Booth, Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism (London, 1871); Georges Weill, Un Précurseur du socialisme, Saint-Simon et son œuvre (Paris, 1894), and a history of the École Saint-Simonienne, by the same author (1896); G. Dumas, Psychologie de deux messies positivistes St Simon et Comte (1905); E. Levasseur's Études sociales sous la Restauration, contains a good section on Saint-Simon.

 * (T. K.; J. T. S.*)


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Rh twined strands with thin strips of colored materials to produce the designs. In the inland salmon area, coil baskets are decorated by imbrication, which is also an ingenious overlay, and for that reason was most likely derived from twine overlay. The basketry of the Tlingit gives a different type of decoration, chiefly in the use of bands of overlay, but these are a secondary part of the art of the North Pacific area to which we shall return later.

Another important art center is to be found among the Pueblo peoples of the Southwest where we see an exuberant development of pottery designs and blanket decorations. Archæological collections show that, if anything, there has been a deterioration in pottery decoration during the historic period but, on the other hand, there seems to have been a marked development in blanket designs. We are clear that Navajo textiles have passed through a development of this kind, for the old specimens are almost entirely striped. While Navajo weaving is supposed to be of recent origin, it is obvious that the designs were not copied from European techniques, but from aboriginal American models. Further, we have some textile remains from cliff ruins in which striped decorations are the rule and the same tendency is shown in Hopi and Zuñi weaving. A few exceptional specimens have come to notice that bear designs of another character, particularly those from the Gila River; but these are toward the south and may therefore be intrusive.

However, our most important problem in this area is to be found in pottery decoration. If we consider modern Pueblo pottery only, we find that its designs are largely geometric in appearance, although a strong realistic tendency is also plainly evident. Even many of the highly conventionalized geometric forms prove to be symbols of mountains, clouds, thunder, rain, etc., while among them appear unmistakable drawings of plants and animals. Yet, taking modern pottery as a whole, the geometrical character of the designs seems to predominate. In the discussions of southwestern chronology, we shall see that the more widely diffused and, older type of pottery is decidedly geometric in character. Thus, two of

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Rh the favorite design concepts are the simple checker textile pattern and the step or "terrace." Again, if we look almost anywhere in the Pueblo area we shall find these patterns occurring. They have so sure a place in textile art and lend themselves so much less readily to freehand work that a non-pottery origin is suggested. Quite recently a localized tendency toward realistic pottery painting has come to notice in southwestern New Mexico, but even here we also meet with the familiar geometric designs.

Adjoining the southwest and east of the great basketry area is the bison area, which is weak in basketry and cloth, but still has a highly developed embroidery of beads and quills in which the designs are geometric and manifest many of the characteristics of textile designs. In fact, the way in which beads and quills are handled in this area requires that designs be built up by accretions of small rectangular surface contours, which is just what we have in weaving. If our general principle of technique limitations holds, we should expect to find geometric forms prevailing. This is exactly what we do find (Fig. 39).

Even among the basket-making Apache of the Southwest, we find objects of skin decorated with designs upon covered surfaces of beads. This is clearly an intrusion from the bison area because it is only now and then that we find identity between the designs on Apache baskets and objects of skin, each having a style of its own. On the other hand, these beaded designs are quite like those found far out into the buffalo country. These buffalo hunters did not decorate pottery, in fact, some did not even make it, but they did paint rawhide objects and, strange to say, even this freehand work was in geometric designs not at all unlike those in beads and quills. While the reason for this is not entirely clear, we note that all the beadwork is by women, who also paint the geometric designs, whereas the men who paint upon robes, tents, etc., use realistic figures. This suggests that the difference may be merely a matter of social convention.

An important problem is the origin of Plains art as a whole. Though we have shown that bead technique imposes textile

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84 limits upon the decorations, the fact that the Plains area is in direct contact with basketry-making peoples and the weavers of the Southwest reveals the possibility of diffusion. While this, like most other problems, is one for the future, there are several good reasons for believing that the art of the bison, or Plains area, is in the main an independent development. In the first place, its center is in the very heart of the area, while it is weakest on the margins. In its great western Shoshoni fringe we find a condition not unlike that of the Apache in that beadwork and basketry exist side by side but with different design systems.

There is, however, a more direct approach to the problem by the analytic comparison of designs. Kroeber has carefully analyzed the designs of California baskets and Plains beadwork in search of the prevalent design units. When these are found, they prove to be, in the main, very simple geometric forms and though many can be very closely matched for the two areas, their very simplicity, taken with the principle of textile limitation, lessens the probability of their common origin. On the other hand, if we take more complex design wholes we find very little correspondence between the two areas, for each has a number of highly unique designs not found in any other part of the world. Hence, even this method tends to assert independence of origin.

To the north and east of the Plains area we have another art area in which neither ceramics nor true textiles play an important part. This region comprises the greater part of the caribou area and the northern half of the eastern maize area, a region in which, although the decorations are again by beads and quills, there is yet a distinct type of design. Here we have exactly the opposite of the preceding, for instead of textile-like designs we find curved figures and more or less realistic, plant-like forms. The cause for this very extraordinary contrast is an important problem.

When we try to locate the geographic center of this art, it proves somewhat elusive, but closer inspection reveals two sub-centers, one in eastern Canada, the other near Lake Superior. The eastern sub-type has been brought to notice

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 curious and, despite his temporary collapse, he's no coward."

"I agree with that," chimed in Susan, As for my pursuers of the previous night, the judge went on, they had been roaming the snow-covered streets in twos and threes, heavily armed for the most part and still determined to punish me for killing their neighbor. The council was too frightened or too perplexed to deal with the situation, and the constable was still in bed, with his brother assuming authority, when Judge Pursuivant made his inquiries. The judge went to see the wounded man, who very pluckily determined to rise and take up his duties again.

"I'll arrest the man who plugged me," O'Bryant had promised grimly, "and that kid brother of mine can quit playing policeman."

The judge applauded these sentiments, and brought him hot food and whisky, which further braced his spirits. In the evening came the invasion by the younger O'Bryant of the Devil's Croft, and his resultant death at the claws and teeth of what prowled there.

"His throat was so torn open and filled with blood that he could not speak," the judge concluded, "but he pointed back into the timber, and then tried to trace something in the snow with his finger. It looked like a wolf's head, with pointed nose and ears. He died before he finished."

"You saw him come out?" I asked.

"No. I'd gone back to town, but later I saw the body, and the sketch in the snow."

He finished his dinner and pushed back his chair. "Now," he said heartily, "it's up to us."

"Up to us to do what?" I inquired.

"To meet that monster face to face," he replied. "There are three of us and, so far as I can ascertain, but one of the enemy." Both Susan and I started to speak, but he held up his hand, smiling. "I know without being reminded that the odds are still against us, because the one enemy is fierce and blood-drinking, and can change shape and character. Maybe it can project itself to a distance—which makes it all the harder, both for us to face it and for us to get help."

"I know what you mean by that last," I nodded gloomily. "If there were ten thousand friendly constables in the neighborhood, instead of a single hostile one, they wouldn't believe us."

"Right," agreed Judge Pursuivant "We're like the group of perplexed mortals in Dracula, who had only their own wits and weapons against a monster no more forbidding than ours."

hard to show clearly how his constant offering of parallels and rationalizations comforted us. Only the unknown and unknowable can terrify completely. We three were even cheerful over a bottle of wine that William fetched and poured out in three glasses. Judge Pursuivant gave us a toast—"May wolves go hungry!"—and Susan and I drank it gladly.

"Don't forget what's on our side," said the judge, putting down his glass. "I mean the stedfast and courageous heart, of which I preached to Wills last night, and which we can summon from within us any time and anywhere. The werewolf, dauntlessly faced, loses its dread; and I think we are the ones to face it. Now we're ready for action."

I said that I would welcome any kind of action whatsoever, and Susan touched my arm as if in endorsement of the remark. Judge Pursuivant's spectacles glittered in approval.

"You two will go into the Devil's Croft," he announced. "I'm going back to town once more."


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 "Into the Devil's Croft!" we almost shouted, both in the same shocked breath.

"Of course. Didn't we just get through with the agreement all around that the lycanthrope can and must be met face to face? Offense is the best defense, as perhaps one hundred thousand athletic trainers have reiterated."

"I've already faced the creature once," I reminded him. "As for appearing dauntless, I doubt my own powers of deceit."

"You shall have a weapon," he said. "A fire gives light, and we know that such things must have darkness—such as it finds in the midst of that swampy wood. So fill your pockets with matches, both of you."

"How about a gun?" I asked, but he shook his head.

"We don't want the werewolf killed. That would leave the whole business in mystery', and yourself probably charged with another murder. He'd return to his human shape, you know, the moment he was hurt even slightly."

Susan spoke, very calmly: "I'm ready to go into the Croft, Judge Pursuivant."

He clapped his hands loudly, as if applauding in a theater. "Bravo, my dear, bravo! I see Mr. Wills sets his jaw. That means he's ready to go with you. Very well, let us be off."

He called to William, who at his orders brought three lanterns—sturdy old-fashioned affairs, protected by strong wire nettings—and filled them with oil. We each took one and set out. It had turned clear and frosty once more, and the moon shone too brightly for my comfort, at least. However, as we approached the grove, we saw no sentinels; they could hardly be blamed for deserting, after the fate of the younger O'Bryant.

We gained the shadow of the outer cedars unchallenged. Here Judge Pursuivant called a halt, produced a match from his overcoat pocket and lighted our lanterns all around. I remember that we struck a fresh light for Susan's lantern; we agreed that, silly as the three-on-a-match superstition might be, this was no time or place to tempt Providence.

"Come on," said Judge Pursuivant then, and led the way into the darkest part of the immense thicket.

12. "We Are Here at His Mercy."

WE followed Judge Pursuivant, Susan and I, without much of a thought beyond an understandable dislike for being left alone on the brink of the timber. It was a slight struggle to get through the close-set cedar hedge, especially for Susan, but beyond it we soon caught up with the judge. He strode heavily and confidently among the trees, his lantern held high to shed light upon broad, polished leaves and thick, wet stems. The moist warmth of the grove's interior made itself felt again, and the judge explained again and at greater length the hot springs that made possible this surprizing condition. All the while he kept going. He seemed to know his way in that forbidden fastness—indeed, he must have explored it many times to go straight to his destination.

That destination was a clearing, in some degree like the one where I had met and fought with my hairy pursuer on the night before. This place had, however, a great tree in its center, with branches that shot out in all directions to hide away the sky completely. By straining the ears one could catch a faint murmur of water—my scalding stream, no doubt. Around us were the thick-set trunks of the forest, filled in between with brush and vines, and underfoot grew velvety moss.

"This will be our headquarters position," said the judge. "Wills, help me


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 CHAPTER VI

ARCHITECTURE

only regions in which building rises to the level of architecture are those occupied by the higher cultures of Mexico and Peru. Roughly considered, there are indications of three centers of development: Maya, Nahua and Inca, though in last analysis we may find but two, the Maya and Inca, using those terms in their broadest sense. The chief characteristics common to both are rectangular groundplans, massive masonry walls, often of rubble, and the absence of the arch. The last is probably the most important factor, for the clumsy method of a stepped ceiling, closed by a slab of stone, not only doomed the builders to narrow rooms, but required very thick, firm walls for their support. The published plans of the most typical ruins show long, narrow rooms or tiers of rooms, the widest so far reported being 14 feet. That these ancient builders were aware that at best this method of vaulting gave but weak support, is shown by the tendency to support upper stories upon a solid masonry core around which the lower rooms were grouped. This may also be one cause for the relative infrequency of storied structures and the almost universal practice of securing height and elevation by building upon artificial or natural mounds (Fig. 52). The necessity for narrow rooms no doubt led to the enclosed rectangular court plan, which prevailed both in the North and the South (Fig. 51). Curved or circular walls are very rare and when found are isolated and not a part of a rectangular building. Consequently, we have a plain rectangular contour as a universal character.

Windows are very rare, especially in the North, and the doors are usually rectangular with straight lintels. Colonnades formed with rectangular stone supports are common, and in a few cases we meet with the cylindrical pillar, but it

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Rh did not develop far enough to constitute an architectural feature. Some remarkable feats of masonry are found, and the skill of these ancients in handling cement and transporting huge masses of stone excites our admiration.

Fig. 50. A Cross-Section of the Temple of the Cross, Palenque, Chiapas. Holmes, 1895−1897. I

In the essential characteristics we have noted, there is little to distinguish between the buildings of Peru and Yucatan, though, as we shall see presently, they did have important differences. The present state of our knowledge suggests that all the ruins of southern Mexico and of the adjoining Central American states are historically related; but the type seems to disappear toward the Isthmus and reappears in Ecuador.

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102 The disconnection of these two centers in the face of their common structural characteristics presents an interesting problem as to how much of this is due to borrowing. If we

take a little broader view, we shall find certain more widely distributed building concepts. First, the pyramidal mound for burial seems to extend from northern Mexico to the Isthmus and then to recur in Colombia, passing through Ecuador and down into the coast of Old Peru. At least in one part of the

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Rh Inca domain we find buildings upon them. In fact, their general absence in Old Peru is accounted for by the rocky nature of the country, which affords sites of natural elevation to which buildings were frequently adjusted by terraces. It may be of interest to note that the pyramid mound both for burial and building sites extends up into the Mississippi

Fig. 52. Elevations and Ground-plans of the Ruin Known as Santa Rosa Xlabpak, Yucatan. Spinden, 1913. I

Valley as far as the famous Cahokia of Illinois, and that this distribution is continuous with the general mound area of the upper valley. In other words, the occurrence of mounds of this type has a generally continuous distribution from the Great Lakes of the North to the coast of Old Peru of the South. Throughout, they are most numerous in level districts.

The northern limits of building attributed to the Nahua are on the Gulf Coast about the 24° of latitude, or in striking distance of the Rio Grande. Though all the later northern buildings are far less preserved than those of the older Maya,

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