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 other side—tending downwards from the scorpion towards the Acari—are the Pedipalpi, the spiders, the book-scorpions, the harvest-men and the water-mites.

The strange nobody-crabs or Pycnogonids occupy a place on the ascending half of the arc below the Eurypterines and Limulus. They are strangely modified and degenerate, but seem to be (as explained in the systematic review) the remnant of an Arachnidan group holding the same relation to the scorpions which the Laemodipoda hold to the Podophthalmate Crustacea.

We have now to offer a classification of the Arachnida and to pass in review the larger groups, with a brief statement of their structural characteristics.

In the bibliography at the close of this article (referred to by leaded arabic numerals in brackets throughout these pages), the titles of works are given which contain detailed information as to the genera and species of each order or sub-order, their geographical distribution and their habits and economy so far as they have been ascertained. The limits of space do not permit of a fuller treatment of those matters here.

Grade A. ANOMOMERISTICA.
 * Sub-Class. TRILOBITAE.
 * Orders. Not satisfactorily determined.

Grade B. NOMOMERISTICA.
 * Sub-Class I. PANTOPODA.
 * Order 1. Nymphonomorpha.
 * Order 2. Ascorhynchomorpha.
 * Order 3. Pycnogonomorpha.
 * Sub-Class II. EU-ARACHNIDA.
 * Grade a., Lankester (vel , Pocock).
 * Order 1. Xiphosura.
 * Order 2. Gigantostraca.
 * Grade b., Lankester (vel , Pocock).
 * Section . Pectinifera.
 * Order 1. Scorpionidea.
 * Sub-order a. Apoxypoda.
 * Sub-order b. Dionychopoda.
 * Section . Epectinata.}
 * Order 2. Pedipalpi.
 * Sub-order a. Uropygi.
 * Tribe 1. Urotricha.
 * Tribe 2. Tartarides.
 * Sub-order b. Amblypygi.
 * Order 3. Araneae.
 * Sub-order a. Mesothelae.
 * Sub-order b. Opisthothelae.
 * Tribe 1. Mygalomorphae.
 * Tribe 2. Arachnomorphae.
 * Order 4. Palpigradi (= Microthelyphonidae).
 * Order 5. Solifugae (= Mycetophorae).
 * Order 6. Pseudoscorpiones (= Chelonethi).
 * Sub-order a. Panctenodactyli.
 * Sub-order b. Hemirtenodactyli.
 * Order 7. Podogona (= Ricinulel).
 * Order 8. Opiliones.
 * Sub-order a. Laniatores.
 * Sub-order b. Palpatores.
 * Sub-order c. Anepignathi.
 * Order 9. Rhynchostomi (= Acari).
 * Sub-order a. Notostigmata.
 * Sub-order b. Cryptostigmata.
 * Sub-order c. Metastigmata.
 * Sub-order d. Prostigmata.
 * Sub-order e. Astigmata.
 * Sub-order f. Vermiformia.
 * Sub-order g. Tetrapoda.

.—Euarthropoda having two prosthomeres (somites which have passed from a post-oral to a prae-oral position), the appendages of the first represented by eyes, of the second by solitary rami which are rarely antenniform, more usually chelate. A tendency is exhibited to the formation of a metasomatic as well as a prosomatic carapace by fusion of the tergal surfaces of the somites. Intermediate somites forming a mesosoma occur, but tend to fuse superficially with the metasomatic carapace or to become co-ordinated with the somites of the metasoma, whether fused or distinct to form one region, the opisthosoma (abdomen of authors). In the most highly developed forms the two anterior divisions (tagmata) of the body, prosoma and mesosoma, each exhibit six pairs of limbs, pediform and plate-like respectively, whilst the metasoma consists of six limbless somites and a post-anal spine. The genital apertures are placed in the first somite following the prosoma, excepting where a praegenital somite, usually suppressed, is retained. Little is known of the form of the appendages in the lowest archaic Arachnida, but the tendency of those of the prosomatic somites has been (as in the Crustacea) to pass from a generalized bi-ramose or multi-ramose form to that of uni-ramose antennae, chelae and walking legs.

The Arachnida are divisible into two grades of structure—according to the fixity or non-fixity of the number of somites building up the body:—

Grade A (of the Arachnida). ANOMOMERISTICA.—Extinct archaic Arachnida, in which (as in the Entomostracous Crustacea) the number of well-developed somites may be more or less than eighteen and may be grouped only as head (prosoma) and trunk or may be further differentiated. A telsonic tergal shield of greater or less size is always present, which may be imperfectly divided into well-marked but immovable tergites indicating incompletely differentiated somites. The single pair of palpiform appendages in front of the mouth has been found in one instance to be antenniform, whilst the numerous post-oral appendages in the same genus were bi-ramose. The position of the genital apertures is not known. Compound lateral eyes present; median eyes wanting. The body and head have the two pleural regions of each somite flattened and expanded on either side of the true gut-holding body-axis. Hence the name of the sub-class signifying tri-lobed, a condition realized also in the Xiphosurous Arachnids. The members of this group, whilst resembling the lower Crustacea (as all lower groups of a branching genealogical tree must do), differ from them essentially in that the head exhibits only one prosthomere (in addition to the eye-bearing prosthomere) with palpiform appendages (as in all Arachnida) instead of two. The Anomomeristic Arachnida form a single sub-class, of which only imperfect fossil remains are known.

'''Sub-class (of the Anomomeristica). TRILOBITAE'''.—The single sub-class Trilobitae constitutes the grade Anomomeristica. It has been variously divided into orders by a number of writers. The greater or less evolution and specialization of the metasomatic carapace appears to be the most important basis for classification—but this has not been made use of in the latest attempts at drawing up a system of the Trilobites. The form of the middle and lateral regions of the prosomatic shield has been used, and an excessive importance attached to the demarcation of certain areas in that structure. Sutures are stated to mark off some of these pieces, but in the proper sense of that term as applied to the skeletal structures of the Vertebrata, no sutures exist in the chitinous cuticle of Arthropoda. That any partial fusion of originally distinct chitinous plates takes place in the cephalic shield of Trilobites, comparable to the partial fusion of bony pieces by suture in Vertebrata, is a suggestion contrary to fact.

The Trilobites are known only as fossils, mostly Silurian and prae-Silurian; a few are found in Carboniferous and Permian strata. As many as two thousand species are known. Genera with small metasomatic carapace, consisting of three to six fused segments distinctly marked though not separated by soft membrane, are Harpes, Paradoxides and Triarthrus (fig. 34). In Calymene, Homalonotus and Phacops (fig. 38) from six to sixteen segments are clearly marked by ridges and grooves in the metasomatic tagma, whilst in Illaenus the shield so formed is large but no somites are marked out on its surface. In this genus ten free somites (mesosoma) occur between the prosomatic and metasomatic carapaces. Asaphus and Megalaspis (fig. 39) are similarly constituted. In Agnostus (fig. 40) the anterior and posterior carapaces constitute almost the entire body, the two carapaces being connected by a mid-region of only two free somites. It has been held that the forms with a small number of somites marked in the posterior carapace and numerous free somites between the anterior and posterior carapace, must be considered as anterior to those in which a great number of posterior somites are traceable in the metasomatic carapace, and that those in which the traces of distinct somites in the posterior or metasomatic carapace are most completely absent must be regarded as derived from those in which somites are well marked in the posterior

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Rh terms as the argument to our propositional function. For example, "if Socrates is a man, Socrates is mortal," is necessary if Socrates is chosen as argument, but not if man or mortal is chosen. Again, "if Socrates is a man, Plato is mortal," will be necessary if either Socrates or man is chosen as argument, but not if Plato or mortal is chosen. However, this difficulty can be overcome by specifying the constituent which is to be regarded as argument, and we thus arrive at the following definition:

"A proposition is necessary with respect to a given constituent if it remains true when that constituent is altered in any way compatible with the proposition remaining significant."

We may now apply this definition to the definition of causality quoted above. It is obvious that the argument must be the time at which the earlier event occurs. Thus an instance of causality will be such as: "If the event e 1 occurs at the time t 1 it will be followed by the event e 2 ." This proposition is intended to be necessary with respect to t 1, i.e. to remain true however t 1 may be varied. Causality, as a universal law, will then be the following: "Given any event e 1 there is an event e 2 such that, whenever e 1 occurs, e 2 occurs later." But before this can be considered precise, we must specify how much later e 2 is to occur. Thus the principle becomes:—

"Given any event e 1, there is an event e 2 and a time-interval τ such that, whenever e 1 occurs, e 2 follows after an interval τ."

I am not concerned as yet to consider whether this law is true or false. For the present, I am merely concerned to discover what the law of causality is supposed to be. I pass, therefore, to the other definitions quoted above.

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184 The second definition need not detain us long, for two reasons. First, because it is psychological: not the "thought or perception" of a process, but the process itself, must be what concerns us in considering causality. Secondly, because it is circular: in speaking of a process as "taking place in consequence of" another process, it introduces the very notion of cause which was to be defined.

The third definition is by far the most precise; indeed as regards clearness it leaves nothing to be desired. But a great difficulty is caused by the temporal contiguity of cause and effect which the definition asserts. No two instants are contiguous, since the time-series is compact; hence either the cause or the effect or both must, if the definition is correct, endure for a finite time; indeed, by the wording of the definition it is plain that both are assumed to endure for a finite time. But then we are faced with a dilemma: if the cause is a process involving change within itself, we shall require (if causality is universal) causal relations between its earlier and later parts; moreover, it would seem that only the later parts can be relevant to the effect, since the earlier parts are not contiguous to the effect, and therefore (by the definition) cannot influence the effect. Thus we shall be led to diminish the duration of the cause without limit, and however much we may diminish it, there will still remain an earlier part which might be altered without altering the effect, so that the true cause, as defined, will not have been reached, for it will be observed that the definition excludes plurality of causes. If, on the other hand, the cause is purely static, involving no change within itself, then, in the first place, no such cause is to be found in nature, and in the second place, it seems strange—too strange to be accepted, in spite of bare


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Rh 4.

As when one parent spring supplies

Two streams, which from one fountain rise,

Together join'd in vain;

How soon, diverging from their source,

Each, murmuring, seeks another course,

Till mingled in the Main!

5.

Our vital streams of weal or woe,

Though near, alas! distinctly flow,

Nor mingle as before:

Now swift or slow, now black or clear,

Till Death's unfathom'd gulph appear,

And both shall quit the shore.

6.

Our souls, my Friend! which once supplied

One wish, nor breathed a thought beside,

Now flow in different channels:

Disdaining humbler rural sports,

'Tis yours to mix in polish'd courts,

And shine in Fashion's annals;

7.

'Tis mine to waste on love my time,

Or vent my reveries in rhyme,

Without the aid of Reason;


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Rh logical possibility—that the cause, after existing placidly for some time, should suddenly explode into the effect, when it might just as well have done so at any earlier time, or have gone on unchanged without producing its effect. This dilemma, therefore, is fatal to the view that cause and effect can be contiguous in time; if there are causes and effects, they must be separated by a finite time-interval τ, as was assumed in the above interpretation of the first definition.

What is essentially the same statement of the law of causality as the one elicited above from the first of Baldwin's definitions is given by other philosophers. Thus John Stuart Mill says:—

"The Law of Causation, the recognition of which is the main pillar of inductive science, is but the familiar truth, that invariability of succession is found by observation to obtain between every fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it."

And Bergson, who has rightly perceived that the law as stated by philosophers is worthless, nevertheless continues to suppose that it is used in science. Thus he says:—

"Now, it is argued, this law [the law of causality] means that every phenomenon is determined by its conditions, or, in other words, that the same causes produce the same effects."

And again:—

"We perceive physical phenomena, and these phenomena obey laws. This means: (I) That phenomena a, b, c, d, previously perceived, can occur again in the same shape; (2) that a certain phenomenon P, which


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 appeared after the conditions a, b, c, d, and after these conditions only, will not fail to recur as soon as the same conditions are again present."

A great part of Bergson's attack on science rests on the assumption that it employs this principle. In fact, it employs no such principle, but philosophers—even Bergson—are too apt to take their views on science from each other, not from science. As to what the principle is, there is a fair consensus among philosophers of different schools. There are, however, a number of difficulties which at once arise. I omit the question of plurality of causes for the present, since other graver questions have to be considered. Two of these, which are forced on our attention by the above statement of the law, are the following:—

 * (1) What is meant by an "event"?
 * (2) How long may the time-interval be between cause and effect?

(1) An "event," in the statement of the law, is obviously intended to be something that is likely to recur since otherwise the law becomes trivial. It follows that an "event" is not a particular, but some universal of which there may be many instances. It follows also that an "event" must be something short of the whole state of the universe, since it is highly improbable that this will recur. What is meant by an "event" is something like striking a match, or dropping a penny into the slot of an automatic machine. If such an event is to recur, it must not be defined too narrowly: we must not state with what degree of force the match is to be struck, nor what is to be the temperature of the penny. For if such considerations were relevant, our "event" would occur at


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Rh most once, and the law would cease to give information. An "event," then, is a universal defined sufficiently widely to admit of many particular occurrences in time being instances of it.

(2) The next question concerns the time-interval. Philosophers, no doubt, think of cause and effect as contiguous in time, but this, for reasons already given, is impossible. Hence, since there are no infinitesimal time-intervals, there must be some finite lapse of time τ between cause and effect. This, however, at once raises insuperable difficulties. However short we make the interval τ, something may happen during this interval which prevents the expected result. I put my penny in the slot, but before I can draw out my ticket there is an earthquake which upsets the machine and my calculations. In order to be sure of the expected effect, we must know that there is nothing in the environment to interfere with it. But this means that the supposed cause is not, by itself, adequate to insure the effect. And as soon as we include the environment, the probability of repetition is diminished, until at last, when the whole environment is included, the probability of repetition becomes almost nil.

In spite of these difficulties, it must, of course, be admitted that many fairly dependable regularities of sequence occur in daily life. It is these regularities that have suggested the supposed law of causality; where they are found to fail, it is thought that a better formulation could have been found which would have never failed. I am far from denying that there may be such sequences which in fact never do fail. It may be that there will never be an exception to the rule that when a stone of more than a certain mass, moving with more than a certain velocity, comes in contact with a pane of glass of


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202 For Sense and Reason (critics know it)

Have quitted every amorous Poet,

Nor left a thought to seize on.

8.

Poor ! sweet, melodious bard!

Of late esteem'd it monstrous hard

That he, who sang before all;

He who the lore of love expanded,

By dire Reviewers should be branded,

As void of wit and moral.

9.

And yet, while Beauty's praise is thine,

Harmonious favourite of the Nine!

Repine not at thy lot.

Thy soothing lays may still be read,

When Persecution's arm is dead,

And critics are forgot.

10.

Still I must yield those worthies merit

Who chasten, with unsparing spirit,

Bad rhymes, and those who write them:


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188 less than a certain thickness, the glass breaks. I also do not deny that the observation of such regularities, even when they are not without exceptions, is useful in the infancy of a science: the observation that unsupported bodies in air usually fall was a stage on the way to the law of gravitation. What I deny is that science assumes the existence of invariable uniformities of sequence of this kind, or that it aims at discovering them. All such uniformities, as we saw, depend upon a certain vagueness in the definition of the "events." That bodies fall is a vague qualitative statement; science wishes to know how fast they fall. This depends upon the shape of the bodies and the density of the air. It is true that there is more nearly uniformity when they fall in a vacuum; so far as Galileo could observe, the uniformity is then complete. But later it appeared that even there the latitude made a difference, and the altitude. Theoretically, the position of the sun and moon must make a difference. In short, every advance in a science takes us farther away from the crude uniformities which are first observed, into greater differentiation of antecedent and consequent, and into a continually wider circle of antecedents recognised as relevant.

The principle "same cause, same effect," which philosophers imagine to be vital to science, is therefore utterly otiose. As soon as the antecedents have been given sufficiently fully to enable the consequent to be calculated with some exactitude, the antecedents have become so complicated that it is very unlikely they will ever recur. Hence, if this were the principle involved, science would remain utterly sterile.

The importance of these considerations lies partly in the fact that they lead to a more correct account of scientific procedure, partly in the fact that they remove


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Rh the analogy with human volition which makes the conception of cause such a fruitful source of fallacies. The latter point will become clearer by the help of some illustrations. For this purpose I shall consider a few maxims which have played a great part in the history of philosophy.

(1) "Cause and effect must more or less resemble each other." This principle was prominent in the philosophy of occasionalism, and is still by no means extinct. It is still often thought, for example, that mind could not have grown up in a universe which previously contained nothing mental, and one ground for this belief is that matter is too dissimilar from mind to have been able to cause it. Or, more particularly, what are termed the nobler parts of our nature are supposed to be inexplicable, unless the universe always contained something at least equally noble which could cause them. All such views seem to depend upon assuming some unduly simplified law of causality; for, in any legitimate sense of "cause" and "effect," science seems to show that they are usually very widely dissimilar, the "cause" being, in fact, two states of the whole universe, and the "effect" some particular event.

(2) "Cause is analogous to volition, since there must be an intelligible nexus between cause and effect." This maxim is, I think, often unconsciously in the imaginations of philosophers who would reject it when explicitly stated. It is probably operative in the view we have just been considering, that mind could not have resulted from a purely material world. I do not profess to know what is meant by "intelligible"; it seems to mean "familiar to imagination." Nothing is less "intelligible," in any other sense, than the connection between


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190 an act of will and its fulfilment. But obviously the sort of nexus desired between cause and effect is such as could only hold between the "events" which the supposed law of causality contemplates; the laws which replace causality in such a science as physics leave no room for any two events between which a nexus could be sought.

(3) "The cause compels the effect in some sense in which the effect does not compel the cause." This belief seems largely operative in the dislike of determinism; but, as a matter of fact, it is connected with our second maxim, and falls as soon as that is abandoned. We may define "compulsion" as follows: "Any set of circumstances is said to compel A when A desires to do something which the circumstances prevent, or to abstain from something which the circumstances cause." This presupposes that some meaning has been found for the word "cause"—a point to which I shall return later. What I want to make clear at present is that compulsion is a very complex notion, involving thwarted desire. So long as a person does what he wishes to do, there is no compulsion, however much his wishes may be calculable by the help of earlier events. And where desire does not come in, there can be no question of compulsion. Hence it is, in general, misleading to regard the cause as compelling the effect,

A vaguer form of the same maxim substitutes the word "determine" for the word "compel"; we are told that the cause determines the effect in a sense in which the effect does not determine the cause. It is not quite clear what is meant by "determining"; the only precise sense, so far as I know, is that of a function or one-many relation. If we admit plurality of causes, but not of effects, that is, if we suppose that, given the cause, the effect must be such and such, but, given the effect, the


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Rh And though myself may be the next

By critic sarcasm to be vext,

I really will not fight them.

11.

Perhaps they would do quite as well

To break the rudely sounding shell

Of such a young beginner:

He who offends at pert nineteen,

Ere thirty may become, I ween,

A very harden'd sinner.

12.

Now, Clare, I must return to you;

And, sure, apologies are due:

Accept, then, my concession.

In truth, dear Clare, in Fancy's flight

I soar along from left to right;

My Muse admires digression.

13.

I think I said 'twould be your fate

To add one star to royal state;—

May regal smiles attend you!


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Rh cause may have been one of many alternatives, then we may say that the cause determines the effect, but not the effect the cause. Plurality of causes, however, results only from conceiving the effect vaguely and narrowly and the cause precisely and widely. Many antecedents may "cause" a man's death, because his death is vague and narrow. But if we adopt the opposite course, taking as the "cause" the drinking of a dose of arsenic, and as the "effect" the whole state of the world five minutes later, we shall have plurality of effects instead of plurality of causes. Thus the supposed lack of symmetry between "cause" and "effect" is illusory.

(4) "A cause cannot operate when it has ceased to exist, because what has ceased to exist is nothing." This is a common maxim, and a still more common unexpressed prejudice. It has, I fancy, a good deal to do with the attractiveness of Bergson's "durée": since the past has effects now, it must still exist in some sense. The mistake in this maxim consists in the supposition that causes "operate" at all. A volition "operates" when what it wills takes place; but nothing can operate except a volition. The belief that causes "operate" results from assimilating them, consciously or unconsciously, to volitions. We have already seen that, if there are causes at all, they must be separated by a finite interval of time from their effects, and thus cause their effects after they have ceased to exist.

It may be objected to the above definition of a volition "operating" that it only operates when it "causes" what it wills, not when it merely happens to be followed by what it wills. This certainly represents the usual view of what is meant by a volition "operating," but as it involves the very view of causation which we are engaged in combating, it is not open to us as a definition. We


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192 may say that a volition "operates" when there is some law in virtue of which a similar volition in rather similar circumstances will usually be followed by what it wills. But this is a vague conception, and introduces ideas which we have not yet considered. What is chiefly important to notice is that the usual notion of "operating" is not open to us if we reject, as I contend that we should, the usual notion of causation.

(5) "A cause cannot operate except where it is." This maxim is very widespread; it was urged against Newton, and has remained a source of prejudice against "action at a distance." In philosophy it has led to a denial of transient action, and thence to monism or Leibnizian monadism. Like the analogous maxim concerning temporal contiguity, it rests upon the assumption that causes "operate," i.e. that they are in some obscure way analogous to volitions. And, as in the case of temporal contiguity, the inferences drawn from this maxim are wholly groundless.

I return now to the question, What law or laws can be found to take the place of the supposed law of causality?

First, without passing beyond such uniformities of sequence as are contemplated by the traditional law, we may admit that, if any such sequence has been observed in a great many cases, and has never been found to fail, there is an inductive probability that it will be found to hold in future cases. If stones have hitherto been found to break windows, it is probable that they will continue to do so. This, of course, assumes the inductive principle, of which the truth may reasonably be questioned; but as this principle is not our present concern, I shall in this discussion treat it as indubitable. [sic]We may then say, in the case of any such frequently observed sequence, that


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Rh the earlier event is the cause and the later event the effect.

Several considerations, however, make such special sequences very different from the traditional relation of cause and effect. In the first place, the sequence, in any hitherto unobserved instance, is no more than probable, whereas the relation of cause and effect was supposed to be necessary. I do not mean by this merely that we are not sure of having discovered a true case of cause and effect; I mean that, even when we have a case of cause and effect in our present sense, all that is meant is that on grounds of observation, it is probable that when one occurs the other will also occur. Thus in our present sense, A may be the cause of B even if there actually are cases where B does not follow A. Striking a match will be the cause of its igniting, in spite of the fact that some matches are damp and fail to ignite.

In the second place, it will not be assumed that every event has some antecedent which is its cause in this sense; we shall only believe in causal sequences where we find them, without any presumption that they always are to be found.

In the third place, any case of sufficiently frequent sequence will be causal in our present sense; for example, we shall not refuse to say that night is the cause of day. Our repugnance to saying this arises from the ease with which we can imagine the sequence to fail, but owing to the fact that cause and effect must be separated by a finite interval of time, any such sequence might fail through the interposition of other circumstances in the interval. Mill, discussing this instance of night and day, says:—

"It is necessary to our using the word cause, that we should believe not only that the antecedent always has


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 been followed by the consequent, but that as long as the present constitution of things endures, it always will be so."

In this sense, we shall have to give up the hope of finding causal laws such as Mill contemplated; any causal sequence which we have observed may at any moment be falsified without a falsification of any laws of the kind that the more advanced sciences aim at establishing.

In the fourth place, such laws of probable sequence, though useful in daily life and in the infancy of a science, tend to be displaced by quite different laws as soon as a science is successful. The law of gravitation will illustrate what occurs in any advanced science. In the motions of mutually gravitating bodies, there is nothing that can be called a cause, and nothing that can be called an effect; there is merely a formula. Certain differential equations can be found, which hold at every instant for every particle of the system, and which, given the configuration and velocities at one instant, or the configurations at two instants, render the configuration at any other earlier or later instant theoretically calculable. That is to say, the configuration at any instant is a function of that instant and the configurations at two given instants. This statement holds throughout physics, and not only in the special case of gravitation. But there is nothing that could be properly called "cause" and nothing that could be properly called "effect" in such a system.

No doubt the reason why the old "law of causality" has so long continued to pervade the books of philosophers is simply that the idea of a function is unfamiliar to most of them, and therefore they seek an unduly simplified statement. There is no question of repetitions of the "same" cause producing the "same" effect; it


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204 And should a noble Monarch reign,

You will not seek his smiles in vain,

If worth can recommend you.

14.

Yet since in danger courts abound,

Where specious rivals glitter round,

From snares may Saints preserve you;

And grant your love or friendship ne'er

From any claim a kindred care,

But those who best deserve you!

15.

Not for a moment may you stray

From Truth's secure, unerring way!

May no delights decoy!

O'er roses may your footsteps move,

Your smiles be ever smiles of love,

Your tears be tears of joy!

16.

Oh! if you wish that happiness

Your coming days and years may bless,

And virtues crown your brow;

Be still as you were wont to be,

Spotless as you've been known to me,—

Be still as you are now.


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Rh is not in any sameness of causes and effects that the constancy of scientific law consists, but in sameness of relations. And even "sameness of relations" is too simple a phrase; "sameness of differential equations" is the only correct phrase. It is impossible to state this accurately in non-mathematical language; the nearest approach would be as follows: "There is a constant relation between the state of the universe at any instant and the rate of change in the rate at which any part of the universe is changing at that instant, and this relation is many-one, i.e. such that the rate of change in the rate of change is determinate when the state of the universe is given." If the "law of causality" is to be something actually discoverable in the practice of science, the above proposition has a better right to the name than any "law of causality" to be found in the books of philosophers.

In regard to the above principle, several observations must be made—

(1) No one can pretend that the above principle is a priori or self-evident or a "necessity of thought." Nor is it, in any sense, a premiss of science: it is an empirical generalisation from a number of laws which are themselves empirical generalisations.

(2) The law makes no difference between past and future: the future "determines" the past in exactly the same sense in which the past "determines" the future. The word "determine," here, has a purely logical significance: a certain number of variables "determine" another variable if that other variable is a function of them.

(3) The law will not be empirically verifiable unless the course of events within some sufficiently small volume


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196 will be approximately the same in any two states of the universe which only differ in regard to what is at a considerable distance from the small volume in question. For example, motions of planets in the solar system must be approximately the same however the fixed stars may be distributed, provided that all the fixed stars are very much farther from the sun than the planets are. If gravitation varied directly as the distance, so that the most remote stars made the most difference to the motions of the planets, the world might be just as regular and just as much subject to mathematical laws as it is at present, but we could never discover the fact.

(4) Although the old "law of causality" is not assumed by science, something which we may call the "uniformity of nature" is assumed, or rather is accepted on inductive grounds. The uniformity of nature does not assert the trivial principle "same cause, same effect," but the principle of the permanence of laws. That is to say, when a law exhibiting, e.g. an acceleration as a function of the configuration has been found to hold throughout the observable past, it is expected that it will continue to hold in the future, or that, if it does not itself hold, there is some other law, agreeing with the supposed law as regards the past, which will hold for the future. The ground of this principle is simply the inductive ground that it has been found to be true in very many instances; hence the principle cannot be considered certain, but only probable to a degree which cannot be accurately estimated.

The uniformity of nature, in the above sense, although it is assumed in the practice of science, must not, in its generality, be regarded as a kind of major premiss, without which all scientific reasoning would be in error. The assumption that all laws of nature are permanent has, of


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Rh course, less probability than the assumption that this or that particular law is permanent; and the assumption that a particular law is permanent for all time has less probability than the assumption that it will be valid up to such and such a date. Science, in any given case, will assume what the case requires, but no more. In constructing the Nautical Almanac for 1915 it will assume that the law of gravitation will remain true up to the end of that year; but it will make no assumption as to 1916 until it comes to the next volume of the almanac. This procedure is, of course, dictated by the fact that the uniformity of nature is not known a priori, but is an empirical generalisation, like "all men are mortal." In all such cases, it is better to argue immediately from the given particular instances to the new instance, than to argue by way of a major premiss; the conclusion is only probable in either case, but acquires a higher probability by the former method than by the latter.

In all science we have to distinguish two sorts of laws: first, those that are empirically verifiable but probably only approximate; secondly, those that are not verifiable, but may be exact. The law of gravitation, for example, in its applications to the solar system, is only empirically verifiable when it is assumed that matter outside the solar system may be ignored for such purposes; we believe this to be only approximately true, but we cannot empirically verify the law of universal gravitation which we believe to be exact. This point is very important in connection with what we may call "relatively isolated systems." These may be defined as follows:—

A system relatively isolated during a given period is one which, within some assignable margin of error, will behave in the same way throughout that period, however the rest of the universe may be constituted.


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198 A system may be called "practically isolated" during a given period if, although there might be states of the rest of the universe which would produce more than the assigned margin of error, there is reason to believe that such states do not in fact occur.

Strictly speaking, we ought to specify the respect in which the system is relatively isolated. For example, the earth is relatively isolated as regards falling bodies, but not as regards tides; it is practically isolated as regards economic phenomena, although, if Jevons' sun-spot theory of commercial crises had been true, it would not have been even practically isolated in this respect.

It will be observed that we cannot prove in advance that a system is isolated. This will be inferred from the observed fact that approximate uniformities can be stated for this system alone. If the complete laws for the whole universe were known, the isolation of a system could be deduced from them; assuming, for example, the law of universal gravitation, the practical isolation of the solar system in this respect can be deduced by the help of the fact that there is very little matter in its neighbourhood. But it should be observed that isolated systems are only important as providing a possibility of discovering scientific laws; they have no theoretical importance in the finished structure of a science.

The case where one event A is said to "cause" another event B, which philosophers take as fundamental, is really only the most simplified instance of a practically isolated system. It may happen that, as a result of general scientific laws, whenever A occurs throughout a certain period, it is followed by B; in that case, A and B form a system which is practically isolated throughout that period. It is, however, to be regarded as a piece of good fortune if this occurs; it will always be due to special


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Rh circumstances, and would not have been true if the rest of the universe had been different though subject to the same laws.

The essential function which causality has been supposed to perform is the possibility of inferring the future from the past, or, more generally, events at any time from events at certain assigned times. Any system in which such inference is possible may be called a "deterministic" system. We may define a deterministic system as follows:—

A system is said to be "deterministic" when, given certain data, $$e_1, e_2, ..., e_n$$, at times $$t_1, t_2, ..., t_n$$ respectively, concerning this system, if $$\Epsilon_t$$ is the state of the system at any time $$t$$, there is a functional relation of the form

$$\Epsilon_t=f(e_1, t_1, e_2, t_2, ..., e_n, t_n, t).$$(A)

The system will be "deterministic throughout a given period" if $$t$$, in the above formula, may be any time within that period, though outside that period the formula may be no longer true. If the universe, as a whole, is such a system, determinism is true of the universe; if not, not. A system which is part of a deterministic system I shall call "determined"; one which is not part of any such system I shall call "capricious."

The events $$e_1, e_2, ..., e_n$$ I shall call "determinants" of the system. It is to be observed that a system which has one set of determinants will in general have many. In the case of the motions of the planets, for example, the configurations of the solar system at any two given times will be determinants.

We may take another illustration from the hypothesis of psycho-physical parallelism. Let us assume, for the purposes of this illustration, that to a given state of brain


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200 a given state of mind always corresponds, and vice versa, i.e. that there is a one-one relation between them, so that each is a function of the other. We may also assume, what is practically certain, that to a given state of a certain brain a given state of the whole material universe corresponds, since it is highly improbable that a given brain is ever twice in exactly the same state. Hence there will be a one-one relation between the state of a given person's mind and the state of the whole material universe. It follows that, if n states of the material universe are determinants of the material universe, then n states of a given man's mind are determinants of the whole material and mental universe—assuming, that is to say, that psycho-physical parallelism is true.

The above illustration is important in connection with a certain confusion which seems to have beset those who have philosophised on the relation of mind and matter.&nbsp [sic]It is often thought that, if the state of the mind is determinate when the state of the brain is given, and if the material world forms a deterministic system, then mind is "subject" to matter in some sense in which matter is not "subject" to mind. But if the state of the brain is also determinate when the state of the mind is given, it must be exactly as true to regard matter as subject to mind as it would be to regard mind as subject to matter. We could, theoretically, work out the history of mind without ever mentioning matter, and then, at the end, deduce that matter must meanwhile have gone through the corresponding history. It is true that if the relation of brain to mind were many-one, not one-one, there would be a one-sided dependence of mind on brain, while conversely, if the relation were one-many, as Bergson supposes, there would be a one-sided dependence of brain on mind. But the dependence involved is, in any case, only


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Rh logical; it does not mean that we shall be compelled to do things we desire not to do, which is what people instinctively imagine it to mean.

As another illustration we may take the case of mechanism and teleology. A system may be defined as "mechanical" when it has a set of determinants that are purely material, such as the positions of certain pieces of matter at certain times. It is an open question whether the world of mind and matter, as we know it, is a mechanical system or not; let us suppose, for the sake of argument, that it is a mechanical system. This supposition—so I contend—throws no light whatever on the question whether the universe is or is not a "teleological" system. It is difficult to define accurately what is meant by a "teleological" system, but the argument is not much affected by the particular definition we adopt. Broadly, a teleological system is one in which purposes are realised, i.e. in which certain desires—those that are deeper or nobler or more fundamental or more universal or what not—are followed by their realisation. Now the fact—if it be a fact—that the universe is mechanical has no bearing whatever on the question whether it is teleological in the above sense. There might be a mechanical system in which all wishes were realised, and there might be one in which all wishes were thwarted. The question whether, or how far, our actual world is teleological, cannot, therefore, be settled by proving that it is mechanical, and the desire that it should be teleological is no ground for wishing it to be not mechanical.

There is, in all these questions, a very great difficulty in avoiding confusion between what we can infer and what is in fact determined. Let us consider, for a moment, the various senses in which the future may be "determined." There is one sense—and a very important


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Rh 17.

And though some trifling share of praise,

To cheer my last declining days,

To me were doubly dear;

Whilst blessing your beloved name,

I'd waive at once a Poet's fame,

To prove a Prophet here. 1807.

I WOULD I WERE A CARELESS CHILD.

1.

I were a careless child,

Still dwelling in my Highland cave,

Or roaming through the dusky wild,

Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;

The cumbrous pomp of Saxon pride,

Accords not with the freeborn soul,

Which loves the mountain's craggy side,

And seeks the rocks where billows roll.


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202 one—in which it is determined quite independently of scientific laws, namely, the sense that it will be what it will be. We all regard the past as determined simply by the fact that it has happened; but for the accident that memory works backward and not forward, we should regard the future as equally determined by the fact that it will happen. "But," we are told, "you cannot alter the past, while you can to some extent alter the future." This view seems to me to rest upon just those errors in regard to causation which it has been my object to remove. You cannot make the past other than it was true, but this is a mere application of the law of contradiction. If you already know what the past was, obviously it is useless to wish it different. But also you cannot make the future other than it will be; this again is an application of the law of contradiction. And if you happen to know the future—e.g. in the case of a forthcoming eclipse—it is just as useless to wish it different as to wish the past different. "But," it will be rejoined, "our wishes can cause the future, sometimes, to be different from what it would be if they did not exist, and they can have no such effect upon the past." This, again, is a mere tautology. An effect being defined as something subsequent to its cause, obviously we can have no effect upon the past. But that does not mean that the past would not have been different if our present wishes had been different. Obviously, our present wishes are conditioned by the past, and therefore could not have been different unless the past had been different; therefore, if our present wishes were different, the past would be different. Of course, the past cannot be different from what it was, but no more can our present wishes be different from what they are; this again is merely the law of contradiction. The facts seem to be merely (1) that wishing generally


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Rh depends upon ignorance, and is therefore commoner in regard to the future than in regard to the past; (2) that where a wish concerns the future, it and its realisation very often form a "practically independent system," i.e. many wishes regarding the future are realised. But there seems no doubt that the main difference in our feelings arises from the accidental fact that the past but not the future can be known by memory.

Although the sense of "determined" in which the future is determined by the mere fact that it will be what it will be is sufficient (at least so it seems to me) to refute some opponents of determinism, notably M. Bergson and the pragmatists, yet it is not what most people have in mind when they speak of the future as determined. What they have in mind is a formula by means of which the future can be exhibited, and at least theoretically calculated, as a function of the past. But at this point we meet with a great difficulty, which besets what has been said above about deterministic systems, as well as what is said by others.

If formulæ of any degree of complexity, however great, are admitted, it would seem that any system, whose state at a given moment is a function of certain measurable quantities, must be a deterministic system. Let us consider, in illustration, a single material particle, whose co-ordinates at time t are x t, y t , z t. Then, however, the particle moves, there must be, theoretically, functions f 1, f 2 , f 3 , such that

x t = f 1 (t) y t = f 2 (t) z t = f 3 (t)

It follows that, theoretically, the whole state of the material universe at time t must be capable of being exhibited as a function of t. Hence our universe will be deterministic in the sense defined above. But if this be


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204 true, no information is conveyed about the universe in stating that it is deterministic. It is true that the formulæ involved may be of strictly infinite complexity, and therefore not practically capable of being written down or apprehended. But except from the point of view of our knowledge, this might seem to be a detail: in itself, if the above considerations are sound, the material universe must be deterministic, must be subject to laws.

This, however, is plainly not what was intended. The difference between this view and the view intended may be seen as follows. Given some formula which fits the facts hitherto—say the law of gravitation—there will be an infinite number of other formulæ, not empirically distinguishable from it in the past, but diverging from it more and more in the future. Hence, even assuming that there are persistent laws, we shall have no reason for assuming that the law of the inverse square will hold in future; it may be some other hitherto indistinguishable law that will hold. We cannot say that every law which has held hitherto must hold in the future, because past facts which obey one law will also obey others, hitherto indistinguishable but diverging in future. Hence there must, at every moment, be laws hitherto unbroken which are now broken for the first time. What science does, in fact, is to select the simplest formula that will fit the facts. But this, quite obviously, is merely a methodological precept, not a law of Nature. If the simplest formula ceases, after a time, to be applicable, the simplest formula that remains applicable is selected, and science has no sense that an axiom has been falsified. We are thus left with the brute fact that, in many departments of science, quite simple laws have hitherto been found to hold. This fact cannot be regarded as having any a priori ground, nor can it be used to support inductively the opinion that


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Rh the same laws will continue; for at every moment laws hitherto true are being falsified, though in the advanced sciences these laws are less simple than those that have remained true. Moreover it would be fallacious to argue inductively from the state of the advanced sciences to the future state of the others, for it may well be that the advanced sciences are advanced simply because, hitherto, their subject-matter has obeyed simple and easily ascertainable laws, while the subject-matter of other sciences has not done so.

The difficulty we have been considering seems to be met partly, if not wholly, by the principle that the time must not enter explicitly into our formulæ. All mechanical laws exhibit acceleration as a function of configuration, not of configuration and time jointly; and this principle of the irrelevance of the time may be extended to all scientific laws. In fact we might interpret the "uniformity of nature" as meaning just this, that no scientific law involves the time as an argument, unless, of course, it is given in an integrated form, in which case lapse of time, though not absolute time, may appear in our formulas. Whether this consideration suffices to overcome our difficulty completely, I do not know; but in any case it does much to diminish it.

It will serve to illustrate what has been said if we apply it to the question of free will.

(1) Determinism in regard to the will is the doctrine that our volitions belong to some deterministic system, i.e. are "determined" in the sense defined above. Whether this doctrine is true or false, is a mere question of fact; no a priori considerations (if our previous discussions have been correct) can exist on either side. On the one hand, there is no a priori category of causality, but merely certain observed uniformities. [sic]As a matter


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206 2.

Fortune! take back these cultur'd lands,

Take back this name of splendid sound!

I hate the touch of servile hands,

I hate the slaves that cringe around:

Place me among the rocks I love,

Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar;

I ask but this—again to rove

Through scenes my youth hath known before.

3.

Few are my years, and yet I feel

The World was ne'er design'd for me:

Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal

The hour when man must cease to be?

Once I beheld a splendid dream,

A visionary scene of bliss;

Truth!—wherefore did thy hated beam

Awake me to a world like this?

4.

I lov'd—but those I lov'd are gone;

Had friends—my early friends are fled:

How cheerless feels the heart alone,

When all its former hopes are dead!

Though gay companions, o'er the bowl

Dispel awhile the sense of ill;

Though Pleasure stirs the maddening soul,

The heart—the heart—is lonely still.


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206 of fact, there are observed uniformities in regard to volitions; thus there is some empirical evidence that volitions are determined. But it would be very rash to maintain that the evidence is overwhelming, and it is quite possible that some volitions, as well as some other things, are not determined, except in the sense in which we found that everything must be determined.

(2) But, on the other hand, the subjective sense of freedom, sometimes alleged against determinism, has no bearing on the question whatever. The view that it has a bearing rests upon the belief that causes compel their effects, or that nature enforces obedience to its laws as governments do. These are mere anthropomorphic superstitions, due to assimilation of causes with volitions and of natural laws with human edicts. We feel that our will is not compelled, but that only means that it is not other than we choose it to be. It is one of the demerits of the traditional theory of causality that it has created an artificial opposition between determinism and the freedom of which we are introspectively conscious.

(3) Besides the general question whether volitions are determined, there is the further question whether they are mechanically determined, i.e. whether they are part of what was above defined as a mechanical system. This is the question whether they form part of a system with purely material determinants, i.e. whether there are laws which, given certain material data, make all volitions functions of those data. Here again, there is empirical evidence up to a point, but it is not conclusive in regard to all volitions. It is important to observe, however that even if volitions are part of a mechanical system, this by no means implies any supremacy of matter over mind. It may well be that the same system which is


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Rh susceptible of material determinants is also susceptible of mental determinants; thus a mechanical system may be determined by sets of volitions, as well as by sets of material facts. It would seem, therefore, that the reasons which make people dislike the view that volitions are mechanically determined are fallacious.

(4) The notion of necessity, which is often associated with determinism, is a confused notion not legitimately deducible from determinism. Three meanings are commonly confounded when necessity is spoken of:—

(α) An action is necessary when it will be performed however much the agent may wish to do otherwise. Determinism does not imply that actions are necessary in this sense.

(β) A propositional function is necessary when all its values are true. This sense is not relevant to our present discussion.

(γ) A proposition is necessary with respect to a given constituent when it is the value, with that constituent as argument, of a necessary propositional function, in other words, when it remains true however that constituent may be varied. In this sense, in a deterministic system, the connection of a volition with its determinants is necessary, if the time at which the determinants occur be taken as the constituent to be varied, the time-interval between the determinants and the volition being kept constant. But this sense of necessity is purely logical, and has no emotional importance.

We may now sum up our discussion of causality. We found first that the law of causality, as usually stated by philosophers, is false, and is not employed in science. We then considered the nature of scientific laws, and found, instead of stating that one event A is always followed


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1537.] are made to be observed, and that foreign Courts can confer no sacred privilege on the subjects of other countries, as towards their own Governments. He reached Camrbray in the beginning of April, but he found in the Netherlands a scarcely more cordial reception than in France. He remained in that town under honourable but uneasy restraint till the end of May, when he was obliged to inform the Pope The value of Pole's accusations against Henry depends so much upon his character that I must be pardoned for scrutinizing his conduct rather closely. In his letter to Cromwell, dated the 2nd of May, he insists that his actions had been cruelly misunderstood. Besides making the usual protestations of love and devotion to the King with which all his letters to the English Court are filled, he declares, in the most solemn way, that, so far from desiring to encourage the insurgents, he had prevented the Pope from taking the opportunity of putting out the censures which might have caused more troubles. 'That he had sent at that time his servant purposely to offer his service to procure by all means the King's honour, wealth, and greatness, animating, besides, those that were chief of his nearest kin to be constant in the King's service.'— Memorials, vol. ii. p. 321.I shall lay by the side of these words a passage from his letter to the Pope written from Cambray on the 18th of the same month.Both the French and Flemish Courts, he says, are urging him to return to Italy:—'Eo magis quod causa ipsa quæ sola me retinere posset, et quæ huc sola traxit, ne spem quidem ullam ostendere videtur vel mininio periculo dignam, cur in his locis diutius maneam, populi tumultu qui causam ipsam fovebat ita sedato ut multi supplicio sint affecti, duces autem omnes in regis potestatem venerint.'He goes on to say that the people had been in rebellion in defence of their religion. They had men of noble birth for their leaders; and nothing, it was thought, would more inspirit the whole party than to hear that one of their own nation was coming with authority to assist their cause; nothing which would strike deeper terror into their adversaries, or compel them to more equitable conditions.For the present the tumult was composed, but only by fair words, and promises which had not been observed. A fresh opportunity would soon again offer. Men's minds were always rather exasperated than that the Regent was in so


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208 by another event B, they stated functional relations between certain events at certain times, which we called determinants, and other events at earlier or later times or at the same time. We were unable to find any a priori category involved: the existence of scientific laws appeared as a purely empirical fact, not necessarily universal, except in a trivial and scientifically useless form. We found that a system with one set of determinants may very likely have other sets of a quite different kind, that, for example, a mechanically determined system may also be teleologically or volitionally determined. Finally we considered the problem of free will: here we found that the reasons for supposing volitions to be determined are strong but not conclusive, and we decided that even if volitions are mechanically determined, that is no reason for denying freedom in the sense revealed by introspection, or for supposing that mechanical events are not determined by volitions. The problem of free will versus determinism is therefore, if we were right, mainly illusory, but in part not yet capable of being decisively solved.


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Rh 5.

How dull! to hear the voice of those

Whom Rank or Chance, whom Wealth or Power,

Have made, though neither friends nor foes,

Associates of the festive hour.

Give me again a faithful few,

In years and feelings still the same,

And I will fly the midnight crew,

Where boist'rous Joy is but a name.

6.

And Woman, lovely Woman! thou,

My hope, my comforter, my all!

How cold must be my bosom now,

When e'en thy smiles begin to pall!

Without a sigh would I resign,

This busy scene of splendid Woe,

To make that calm contentment mine,

Which Virtue knows, or seems to know.

7.

Fain would I fly the haunts of men —

I seek to shun, not hate mankind;


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22 great awe and fear of 'that adversary,' the King of England, that she no more dared to receive him than Francis; that he lived in daily fear of being taken prisoner and sent to London, and the utmost favour on which she could venture was to send him under an escort to Liège. To Liège, therefore, he was obliged to retire, and there for the present the Bishop's hospitality allowed him to remain. If his journey had been attended with no other consequences but his own mortification it would scarcely have required to be noticed. Unhappily it was followed by, and probably it occasioned, the destruction of more than one brave man for whom we could have desired a better fate. While at Liège, and even from his entry into France, it is evident, from his letters to the Pope, that he maintained an active correspondence with England. Whether intercepted despatches found their way into the hands of Cromwell, or whether his presence in the neighbourhood invited suspicion, and suspicion led to discovery, is uncertain; we find only that simultaneously with Pole's arrival at Cambray, Robert Aske, Lord Darcy, and Sir Robert Constable were arrested and taken to the Tower. On mid-Lent Sunday


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1537.] Aske had sent out his letter to 'the captains' of various districts, and meetings had been held in consequence. I am unable to ascertain either the objects or the results of these meetings; but 'to summon the King's lieges' for any object after the restoration of quiet was an act of the highest imprudence. In Easter week there was an obscure insurrection in Cleveland. Sir John and Lady Bulmer (or Margaret Cheyne, as she is termed in her indictment) had been invited to London. Lady Bulmer was proved to have said that she would as soon be torn in pieces as go to London unless the Duke of Norfolk's and Sir Ralph Ellerkar's heads were off, and then she might go where she would at the head of the commons. Her chaplain confessed to a plot between the lady, her husband, and other persons, to seize and carry off Norfolk to Wilton Castle; but in the evidence which I have discovered there is nothing to implicate either Aske or his two friends in this project.

That after the part which the latter had played they should have been jealously watched, that actions of doubtful bearing should be construed to their disfavour, was no more than they had a right to expect. Narrow interpretations of conduct, if severe, are inevitable with men who in perilous times thrust themselves into revolutionary prominence. To estimate their treatment fairly, we must ascertain, if possible, from the fragments of surviving informations against them, whether they


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208 My breast requires the sullen glen,

Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.

Oh! that to me the wings were given,

Which bear the turtle to her nest!

Then would I cleave the vault of Heaven,

To flee away, and be at rest.

LINES WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE CHURCHYARD OF HARROW

of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,

Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;

Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod,

With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod;


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24 really showed symptoms of fresh treasonable intent, or whether they were the victims of the irritation created by Pole's mission, and were less punished for their guilt than because they were dangerous and powerful. The Government insisted that they had clear proof of treason; yet the word 'treason' as certainly bore a more general meaning in Cromwell's estimate, than in the estimate of those who continued to regard the first pilgrimage as good service to the State. To the Government it was a crime to be expiated by active resistance of all similar attempts, by absolute renunciation of its articles; and if in contrast to the great body of the northern gentlemen, a few possessed of wide influence continued to maintain that they had done well, if they continued to encourage the people to expect that their petitions would be granted, if they discouraged a renewal of the commotions, avowedly because it would injure the cause; it is certain that by a Government surrounded by conspiracy, and emerging with difficulty out of an arduous position, yet determined to persevere in the policy which had created the danger, such men


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Rh With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore,

Like me, the happy scenes they knew before:

Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,

Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,

Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay,

And frequent mus'd the twilight hours away;

Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline,

But, ah! without the thoughts which then were mine:

How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,

Invite the bosom to recall the past,

And seem to whisper, as they gently swell,

"Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!"

When Fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast,

And calm its cares and passions into rest,

Oft have I thought, 'twould soothe my dying hour,—

If aught may soothe, when Life resigns her power,—

To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell,

Would hide my bosom where it lov'd to dwell;

With this fond dream, methinks 'twere sweet to die—

And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie;

Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose,

Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose;

For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade,

Press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd;

Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I lov'd,

Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps mov'd;


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210 Blest by the tongues that charm'd my youthful ear,

Mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here;

Deplor'd by those in early days allied,

And unremember'd by the world beside. September 2, 1807.

FRAGMENT.

WRITTEN SHORTLY AFTER THE MARRIAGE OF MISS CHAWORTH.

1.

of Annesley, Bleak and Barren,

Where my thoughtless Childhood stray'd,

How the northern Tempests, warring,

Howl above thy tufted Shade!


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260 TO MY SON

1.

Those flaxen locks, those eyes of blue

Bright as thy mother's in their hue;

Those rosy lips, whose dimples play

And smile to steal the heart away,

Recall a scene of former joy,

And touch thy father's heart, my Boy!

2.

And thou canst lisp a father's name—

Ah, William, were thine own the same,—

No self-reproach—but, let me cease—

My care for thee shall purchase peace;

Thy mother's shade shall smile in joy,

And pardon all the past, my Boy!

3.

Her lowly grave the turf has prest,

And thou hast known a stranger's breast;

Derision sneers upon thy birth,

And yields thee scarce a name on earth;

Yet shall not these one hope destroy,—

A Father's heart is thine, my Boy!


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1537.] would be regarded with grave suspicion, even if compromised by no further overt acts of disloyalty.

But it can scarcely be said that they were wholly uncompromised. Through the months of February and March a series of evidence shows Aske, Darcy, Sir Robert Constable, a gentleman named Levening, and several others, holding aloof as an isolated group, in close and continued intercourse, yet after Bigod's capture taking no part in the pacification of the country. They had repeatedly, in public and private, assured the people that the Doncaster articles must be conceded. They were in possession of information respecting the risings in Westmoreland and Cleveland, and yet gave no information to the Government. In an intercepted letter to Lord Darcy, Aske spoke of himself as having accomplished a great enterprise—'as having played his part, and all England should perceive it.' It was proved that Darcy, when commanded in January to furnish Pomfret with stores, had repeated his former neglect—that he and Aske were still in secret possession of cannon belonging to the Government, which they had appropriated in the rebellion, and had not restored—that Aske had interfered with the authorities at Hull to prevent the punishment of traitors taken in arms —that Constable, in a letter to Bigod, told him that he had chosen a wrong time of the year, that he ought to have waited


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Rh 4.

Why, let the world unfeeling frown,

Must I fond Nature's claims disown?

Ah, no—though moralists reprove,

I hail thee, dearest child of Love,

Fair cherub, pledge of youth and joy—

A Father guards thy birth, my Boy!

5.

Oh, 'twill be sweet in thee to trace,

Ere Age has wrinkled o'er my face,

Ere half my glass of life is run,

At once a brother and a son;

And all my wane of years employ

In justice done to thee, my Boy!

6.

Although so young thy heedless sire,

Youth will not damp parental fire;

And, wert thou still less dear to me,

While Helen's form revives in thee,

The breast, which beat to former joy,

Will ne'er desert its pledge, my Boy!

1807. [First published in Moore's Life and Letters, etc., 1830, i. 104.]


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26 till the spring —that Lord Darcy had been heard to say that it was better to rule than be ruled—'and that where before they had had but two sovereign crowns they would now have four.'

The lightest of these charges were symptoms of an animus which the Crown prosecutors would regard as treasonable. The secretion of the artillery and Aske's conduct at Hull would ensure a condemnation where the judges were so anxious to condemn.


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1537.] The materials for the prosecution were complete. It remained to proceed with the trials. But I must first mention the fate of the prisoners from Lincolnshire, who had been already disposed of. In their case there was not the complication of a pardon. They had been given up hot-handed by their confederates, as the principal instigators of the rebellion. More than a hundred seem to have been sent originally to the Tower. Upwards of half of these were liberated after a short imprisonment. On the 6th of March Sir William Parr, with a special commission, sat at Lincoln, to try the Abbot of Kirkstead, with thirty of the remainder. The Lincoln jury regarded the prisoners favourably; Thomas Moigne, one of the latter, spoke in his defence for three hours so skilfully, according to Sir William Parr's report, that 'but for the diligence of the King's Serjeant,' he and all the rest would have been acquitted. Ultimately the Crown secured their verdict: the Abbot, Moigne, and another were hanged on the following day at Lincoln, and four others a day or two later at Louth and Horncastle. The commission petitioned for the pardon of the rest. After a delay of a few weeks the King consented, and they were dismissed.

Twelve more, the Abbot of Barlings, one of his monks, and others who had been concerned in the murder of the chancellor, were then brought to the bar in


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266 AND WILT THOU WEEP WHEN I AM LOW?

1.

wilt thou weep when I am low?

Sweet lady! speak those words again:

Yet if they grieve thee, say not so—

I would not give that bosom pain.

2.

My heart is sad, my hopes are gone,

My blood runs coldly through my breast;

And when I perish, thou alone

Wilt sigh above my place of rest.

3.

And yet, methinks, a gleam of peace

Doth through my cloud of anguish shine:

And for a while my sorrows cease,

To know thy heart hath felt for mine.

4.

Oh lady! blessèd be that tear—

It falls for one who cannot weep;


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28 the Guildhall. They had no claim to mercy; and they found none. They were hung on gibbets, at various towns, in their own county, as signs and warnings. Lord Hussey was tried by the peers. He was guilty obviously of having fled from a post which he was bound to defend. He had obstructed good subjects, who would have done their duty, had he allowed them; and he had held communication with the rebels. His indictment charges him with acts of more direct complicity, the evidence of which I have not discovered. But wherever a comparison has been possible, I have found the articles of accusation in so strict accordance with the depositions of witnesses, that the absent link may be presumed to have existed. The construction may be violent; the fact is always true. He, too, was found guilty, and executed.


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1537.] With Lord Hussey the Lincolnshire list was closed. Out of fifty or sixty thousand persons who had been in armed rebellion, the Government was satisfied with the punishment of twenty. The mercy was perhaps in part dictated by prudence.

The turn of the northern men came next. There were three sections of them—Sir Francis Bigod, George Luraley, and those who had risen in January in the East Riding; Sir Thomas Percy, the Abbot of Fountains, the Abbot of Jervaulx, Sir John and Lady Bulmer, Sir Ralph Bulmer, and Sir Stephen Hamarton, who had been concerned in the separate commotions since suppressed by the Duke of Norfolk; and, finally, Aske, Constable, and Lord Darcy, with their adherents. In this instance the proceedings were less simple than in the former, and in some respects unusual. The inferior offenders were first tried at York. The indictments were sent in to the grand jury; and in the important case of Levening, the special confederate of Aske and Darcy, whose guilt was identical with theirs, no bill was found. The King, in high displeasure, required Norfolk to take some severe notice of this obstruction of justice. Norfolk remonstrated; and was requested, in sharper language, to send up a list of the jurors, and


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30 unravel, if possible, the cause of the acquittal. The names were forwarded. The panel was composed of fifty gentlemen, relatives, most of them, of one or other of the accused persons, and many among whom had formed part of the insurgent council at Pomfret. Levening's escape was explained; and yet it could not be remedied. The Crown was forced to continue its prosecutions, apparently with the same difficulty, and under the same uncertainty of the issue. When the trials of the higher offenders were opened in London, true bills had first to be found against them in their own counties; and the foremen of the two grand juries (for the fifty were divided into two bodies of twenty-five each) were Sir James Strangways and Sir Christopher Danby, noted, both of them, on the list which was forwarded to the Crown, as relatives of Lord Darcy, Sir Francis Bigod, and Sir John Bulmer.

On the 9th of May, however, either through intimidation or the force of evidence, the sixteen prisoners who were in the Tower, Lord Darcy, Robert Aske, Sir Robert Constable, and thirteen more were delivered over for their trials. In the six preceding weeks they had been cross-examined again and


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Rh Such precious drops are doubly dear

To those whose eyes no tear may steep.

5.

Sweet lady! once my heart was warm

With every feeling soft as thine;

But Beauty's self hath ceased to charm

A wretch created to repine.

6.

Yet wilt thou weep when I am low?

Sweet lady! speak those words again:

Yet if they grieve thee, say not so—

I would not give that bosom pain. [It was in one of Byron's fits of melancholy that the following verses were addressed to him by his friend John Cam Hobhouse:—

EPISTLE TO A YOUNG NOBLEMAN IN LOVE.

Hail! generous youth, whom glory's sacred flame

Inspires, and animates to deeds of fame;

Who feel the noble wish before you die

To raise the finger of each passer-by:

Hail! may a future age admiring view

A Falkland or a Clarendon in you.

But as your blood with dangerous passion boils,

Beware! and fly from Venus' silken toils:

Ah! let the head protect the weaker heart,

And Wisdom's Ægis turn on Beauty's dart.

But if 'tis fix'd that every lord must pair,

And you and Newstead must not want an heir,

Lose not your pains, and scour the country round,

To find a treasure that can ne'er be found!

No! take the first the town or court affords,

Trick'd out to stock a market for the lords;

By chance perhaps your luckier choice may fall

On one, though wicked, not the worst of all:

One though perhaps as any Maxwell free,

Yet scarce a copy, Claribel, of thee;

Not very ugly, and not very old,

A little pert indeed, but not a scold;

One that, in short, may help to lead a life

Not farther much from comfort than from strife;

And when she dies, and disappoints your fears,

Shall leave some joys for your declining years.

But, as your early youth some time allows,

Nor custom yet demands you for a spouse,

Some hours of freedom may remain as yet,

For one who laughs alike at love and debt:

Then, why in haste? put off the evil day,

And snatch at youthful comforts while you may

Pause! nor so soon the various bliss forego

That single souls, and such alone, can know:

Ah! why too early careless life resign,

Your morning slumber, and your evening wine;

Your loved companion, and his easy talk;

Your Muse, invoked in every peaceful walk?

What! can no more your scenes paternal please,

Scenes sacred long to wise, unmated ease?

The prospect lengthen'd o'er the distant down,

Lakes, meadows, rising woods, and all your own?

What! shall your Newstead, shall your cloister'd bowers,

The high o'erhanging arch and trembling towers!

Shall these, profaned with folly or with strife,

An ever fond, or ever angry wife!

Shall these no more confess a manly sway,

But changeful woman's changing whims obey?

Who may, perhaps, as varying humour calls,

Contract your cloisters and o'erthrow your walls;

Let Repton loose o'er all the ancient ground,

Change round to square, and square convert to round;

Root up the elms' and yews' too solemn gloom,

And fill with shrubberies gay and green their room;

Roll down the terrace to a gay parterre,

Where gravel'd walks and flowers alternate glare;

And quite transform, in every point complete,

Your Gothic abbey to a country seat.

Forget the fair one, and your fate delay;

If not avert, at least defer the day,

When you beneath the female yoke shall bend,

And lose your wit, your temper, and your friend. Trin. Coll. Camb., 1808.]

* [In his mother's copy of Hobhouse's volume, Byron has written with a pencil, "I have lost them all, and shall accordingly. 1811. B."] Aug. 12, 1808. [First published, 1809.]


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Page:Weird Tales volume 36 number 02.djvu/37

 stared, the patch on the divan spread—grew till it almost covered the cushions.

He gibbered, pointing a shaking finger at it. "That's where they laid her, after—"

She turned on him savagely. "If you don't stop that, I'll brain you! There's a natural explanation for this. Ugh!" She broke off, revulsed, as she felt the cold spat of the green stuff on her hand.

"The room is full of it," he shrieked. "It's from the lake! From the Spirits of the Lake she prayed to punish me! I knew they would if I came back here!"

"They have nothing against me—I had nothing to do with—!" She was interrupted by his scream of terror. Her eyes followed his, and stark panic fell upon her.

On the sodden divan lay a dripping figure with wisps of weed and moss hanging from its matted hair.

An instant later they were racing madly down the wet, crumbling path to the beach and a canoe. From the sky above them, from trees, bushes, even rocks it seemed, sprang the clammy, fetid slime, hurling itself into their faces, raising their gorge with its noxious odor, chilling their hearts with each wet impact.

Suddenly, the man stopped short. The woman ran on, screamed back at him to follow.

"No!" he sobbed. "Not out on that lake. Can't you see that's what it wants—to get us on the water!"

Apparently she did not hear him for she continued to call on him to follow. She reached the canoe, clambered in, and beckoned to him wildly. All at once her voice soared frantically higher. She pointed.

"Look behind you!"

He pivoted, saw the grisly specter of the drowned Bernice, its dripping arms outstretched. He floundered down the path, fell into the canoe, and grasped the paddle Hilda pressed into his hands. With the strength of despair he propelled the frail shell into the lake. After a dozen strokes, he turned to glimpse the misty figure, standing at the marge; still with arms outstretched.

A moment later the paddle broke.

He sat staring at the pieces. Then "Worms" he mumbled. "It was eaten through by worms—worms from the lake."

"We're drifting—drifting toward the rocks!" The woman strove to waken him, to stir him to action. "DO something. We'll be killed!"

He shook his head. The canoe wasn't drifting—some force, powerful, utterly irresistible, was drawing them along!

The woman screeched, "The rocks!—we're going to strike!"

He nodded slowly. A terrible quiet descended upon him; the quiet of the long condemned. Slowly he said, as though repeating a lesson from memory, "The Indians call these rocks the Spirit's Talons—the road to death leads over rocks like those—only the Good can keep their footing—the Bad fall off into an abyss of eternal torment."

"They won't harm ME!" Hilda shouted. "I'm going to swim—swim to safety."

He raised a deterring hand, "It's no use to try. The Spirits of the Lake will punish—as she said they would."

She shook him off, plunged into the foaming water. He quietly watched her useless struggles as the canoe bore ever faster toward the rocks.

Nahma, the old Indian woman, found their bodies days later where the lake had cast them out. The green slime which had long since disappeared from the surface of the waters, its season past, sheathed Hilda and Roger Benton in its viscous embrace. She looked for a time out of her expressionless dark face at the grisly sight, then waddled heavily away.

On the other side of the island that night, she and Two Horses each flung a handful of late garden flowers on the quiet bosom of the lake.


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268 REMIND ME NOT, REMIND ME NOT.

1.

me not, remind me not,

Of those beloved, those vanish'd hours,

When all my soul was given to thee;

Hours that may never be forgot,

Till Time unnerves our vital powers,

And thou and I shall cease to be.


text: Weird Tales/Volume 36/Issue 2/The Spirits of the Lake


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Rh 2.

Can I forget—canst thou forget,

When playing with thy golden hair,

How quick thy fluttering heart did move? Some hours of freedom may remain as yet,

For one who laughs alike at love and debt:

Then, why in haste? put off the evil day,

And snatch at youthful comforts while you may

Pause! nor so soon the various bliss forego

That single souls, and such alone, can know:

Ah! why too early careless life resign,

Your morning slumber, and your evening wine;

Your loved companion, and his easy talk;

Your Muse, invoked in every peaceful walk?

What! can no more your scenes paternal please,

Scenes sacred long to wise, unmated ease?

The prospect lengthen'd o'er the distant down,

Lakes, meadows, rising woods, and all your own?

What! shall your Newstead, shall your cloister'd bowers,

The high o'erhanging arch and trembling towers!

Shall these, profaned with folly or with strife,

An ever fond, or ever angry wife!

Shall these no more confess a manly sway,

But changeful woman's changing whims obey?

Who may, perhaps, as varying humour calls,

Contract your cloisters and o'erthrow your walls;

Let Repton loose o'er all the ancient ground,

Change round to square, and square convert to round;

Root up the elms' and yews' too solemn gloom,

And fill with shrubberies gay and green their room;

Roll down the terrace to a gay parterre,

Where gravel'd walks and flowers alternate glare;

And quite transform, in every point complete,

Your Gothic abbey to a country seat.

Forget the fair one, and your fate delay;

If not avert, at least defer the day,

When you beneath the female yoke shall bend,

And lose your wit, your temper, and your friend.* Trin. Coll. Camb., 1808.]

* [In his mother's copy of Hobhouse's volume, Byron has written with a pencil, "I have lost them all, and shall accordingly. 1811. B."]


text: Author:Alonzo Deen Cole

title: Author:Alonzo Deen Cole


text: Index:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu

title: Index:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu


text: Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/1

title: Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/1


text: The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 1/And wilt Thou weep when I am low?


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Do you remember how the Sunday School Superintendent used to get up along toward the end of the session, just when you were getting hungry, and ask, "What ought to be the fixed purpose of our souls?" And you wished that he wasn't so almighty particular about everybody's soul, including yours, when his own was rather a shriveled-up affair. Besides you were not interested in souls just at that moment. You were getting hungrier every minute. And what business was it of his anyway?

Everybody else stood up and answered, so you did too, without in the least knowing or caring what it was all about.

"What ought to be the fixed purpose of our souls? Huh? Oh, yes—'To be a worker together with God toward so great a good,'" etc. You mumbled along trying to keep up with the rest of the school, but never quite succeeding.

After that, they let you go home—a thoroughly prophylactic Christian, if there ever was one.

That disposes of your youth and brings us down to the present moment and more especially to the business of the present moment, which is to find out what really ought to be the fixed purpose of our souls as literati—or rather your soul.

You are buying every month because you have always liked  stories. Yet you are a trifle uneasy, a bit critical. You think you would enjoy it a little more, if you could correct the editor's mistakes. In short, you think you should have his job; and he should be—well, you'd hate to tell him just what you think he should be doing for a living.

"If I were the editor," you begin.

"Is that so?" we want to know.

And right there we go to the mat together with the result that is formed. It is created for just such people as you because we have a sneaking respect for your likes and dislikes in the way of fiction and want to know how you like and  and what you know about the magazine business anyway.

So there you are.

Now what ought to be the fixed purpose of your soul? And the answer is—To Be a Worker Together With the Editor.

is merely the vehicle designed to make possible such ideal relations between editor and readers. Whether or not it flourishes depends largely upon the fixed purpose of your soul.

For full particulars see the full page advertisement.

title: Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/2


text: 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Connecticut


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276 LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL.

1.

not—nor deem my spirit fled:

In me behold the only skull,

From which, unlike a living head,

Whatever flows is never dull.

2.

I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee:

I died: let earth my bones resign;

Fill up—thou canst not injure me;

The worm hath fouler lips than thine.

3.

Better to hold the sparkling grape,

Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;

And circle in the goblet's shape

The drink of Gods, than reptile's food.


text: An Act respecting Inquiries concerning Public Matters


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Rh 4.

Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,

In aid of others' let me shine;

And when, alas! our brains are gone,

What nobler substitute than wine?

5.

Quaif while thou canst: another race,

When thou and thine, like me, are sped,

May rescue thee from earth's embrace,

And rhyme and revel with the dead.

6.

Why not? since through life's little day

Our heads such sad effects produce;

Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay,

This chance is theirs, to be of use.

Newstead Abbey, 1808. [First published in the seventh edition of Childe Harold.]

WELL! THOU ART HAPPY.

1.

! thou art happy, and I feel

That I should thus be happy too;


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280 INSCRIPTION ON THE MONUMENT OF A NEWFOUNDLAND DOG.

some proud son of man returns to earth,

Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,

The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe

And storied urns record who rest below:

When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,

Not what he was, but what he should have been:


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Rh But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,

The first to welcome, foremost to defend,

Whose honest heart is still his master's own,

Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,

Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth—

Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:

While Man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,

And claims himself a sole exclusive Heaven.

Oh Man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,

Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,

Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,

Degraded mass of animated dust!

Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,

Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!

By nature vile, ennobled but by name,

Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.

Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,

Pass on—it honours none you wish to mourn:

To mark a Friend's remains these stones arise;

I never knew but one,—and here he lies.

Newstead Abbey, October 30, 1808. [First published, 1809.]


text: The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 1/When I Roved a Young Highlander


text: The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero)/Poetry/Volume 1/To the Earl of Clare


text: An Act respecting the Department of Justice


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BY STANLEY SHAW

ISS Anita Maloney was tripping down Fifth Avenue on her way to Belford's Big Department Store, where she would spend the day behind the jewelry counter selling "Guaranteed $90 Diamond Rings, this day only $49.98."

Anita was a sight for tired eyes, refreshment for frazzled nerves and relief for saw-edged dispositions. They certainly do not come prettier than Anita anywhere on the Avenue, and that is saying considerable for the young lady. One look at Anita should have been enough to start any sensible young man to studying the house-furnishing goods windows. Her hair was the color of rich burnt umber and abundant, her complexion cream and rose, and her lips presented that crimson cupid's bow effect, alike the pride of artists and the despair of femininity in the flesh.

There may not have been any tremendous excess of gray matter behind Miss Anita Maloney's transcendent pulchritude, yet it is on record that amazing undertakings are often attempted on limited assets, and beauty minus may not, after all, be such poor capital for a penniless young lady just turned nineteen, especially if she have as a silent partner one of the richest men in the country.

Leaving Miss Anita Maloney, we must step across to West 86th Street, the home of Mr. John Thomas Derrington, said to be worth some fifty million dollars. Permit that satisfying sum to sink into your soul, but don't jump at conclusions: John Thomas has a wife fully capable of keeping him out of the clutches of designing beauties; furthermore, the passion of John Thomas's life is old masters, not young misses.

Vast wealth is popularly supposed to breed inefficient digestive apparatuses, insomnia and sour dispositions. In furtherance of a more equitable distribution of this world's needful, it is to be hoped that such is sometimes the case; truth compels the statement, however, that, in spite of his money, J. T. owned the digestion of an ostrich, a chronic propensity for sleeping like a husky infant and a perpetually sunny disposition. Quite a jolly, chaffing old millionaire was John Thomas, very fond of his jokes. Yet he was not thoroughly happy; the worm of discontent did sometimes gnaw at his vitals.

The cause of John Thomas's repining was that he did not possess the famous Skagpole Venus, and, though he did own a goodly share of

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2 all the other old masters a millionaire might desire, they all became as dead sea fruit when his mind dwelt on the unattainable one.

David Belford, proprietor of Belford's Big Department Store, owned the Skagpole Venus, so called because it once hung in the ancestral halls of the sixth Lord Skagpole, now deceased, before being sold to Belford, in order that the seventh Lord Skagpole might raise the necessary wherewithal to marry Letty Allerby of the Gaiety Theatre.

The Skagpole Venus, though still a beauty, was certainly beginning to show her age, if cracked varnish may be taken as evidence, yet these little matters dimmed not the soul within to her present owner, David Belford, in whose vast gallery she occupied the place of honor, despite frequent bids for her favor by John Thomas Derrington, who, up to the present hour, had offered as high as $50,000 for the square of canvas whereon she reclined.

To return to Miss Anita Maloney, who, by this time, had arrived at Belford's Big Department Store, deposited her outer wraps in the basement locker, and stood behind a crystal jewelry counter, clothed in trim black, with snowy collar and cuffs, prepared to dispense those guaranteed $90 diamond rings, this day only at $49.98. Though the month was July and the temperature hovered about the nineties, Miss Anita, appearing as cool, comfortable and perfect as the proverbial cucumber, was arranging a stray lock of her perfect coiffure, when her fellow salesgirl, Miss Levy, spoke in a guarded undertone:

"Get onto your job, Maloney, here comes that old snuffer to look at them emeralds again."

A "snuffer," in behind-the-counter parlance, is a shopper who goes purseempty about from store to store, merely for the pure joy of looking—or perhaps in the interest of some rival concern—with no thought whatever of actual investment.

True, the gentleman coming had been in twice before to inspect an emerald necklace priced at $987.49, yet he was no snuffer, being none other than John Thomas Derrington, he of the fifty millions.

Next to priceless old masters, John Thomas loved perfect gems, and he had it in mind to present his only daughter, Alice, on her early arriving birthday, with an emerald necklace; but, being a very thrifty old gentleman—as you may gather from the fact of those fifty millions—he never invested until he had carefully weighed all matters pro and con.

Miss Anita Maloney assumed her very sweetest "charge customer" smile, while John Thomas coughed a sort of polite but perfunctory "Hem!" fumbled for his pince-nez, found the black ribbon, adjusted the lenses and spoke:

"I hesitate to trouble you again, young lady, but, if you do not mind, I should like to glance just once more at an emerald necklace you have, priced, I believe, at $887.49."

From pure force of habit, John Thomas subtracted a hundred dollars from what he well enough remembered to be the real price of the necklace. Miss Anita Maloney, rather taking to the thin, Punch-like face

title: Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/6