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NOTES AND ABSTRACTS.

Authority - Its Origin, Establishment and Limits.-I. The existence of Authority. Authority and anarchy represent the positive and negative poles of human association. Between these two extremes has oscillated the human race from its beginning. The transition from the wandering tribes without leadership to the civilized condition of more advanced peoples is the work of authority. Among these authorities I include not merely gods, leaders in war, chiefs, the oldest men of the group, the sachem, priest, and sorcerer, but especially the founders of religion (Confucius, Laotse, Zarathustra, Buddha, Moses) and lawgivers (Draco, Solon, Lycurgus), givers together with laws and institutions. Human civilization without these authorities is unthinkable. Without the control of the unbridled instincts and impulses of the individual there can be no order in society.

In the more primitive societies the rulers are tyrants, and control is through fear on the part of the subjects toward the ruler. With the development of a higher civilization follow more refined forms of authority. The second stage may be characterized as that of belief. In order that the subject may continue to be ruled by fear, the conditions must be such as to allow personal oversight by the ruler. Fear is a ruling motive only under the influence of the visible authority. With extension of the group comes the impossibility of direct oversight on the part of the ruler and fear gives place to a belief in the omnipresence of the unseen authority. Consequently, with the progress of civilization, the gods become more and more unseen beings, the kings more unapproachable, and institutions and laws more abstract. This middle stage of authority based upon belief characterized the patriarchal condition of church and state up to the time of the French Revolution. Authority resting upon belief was shaken by the revolution, and the third stage or modern period may be characterized by an authority based upon insight.

2. Origin of authority. The tendency to the constructing of authority may be traced back to the animal kingdom. Wherever in the struggle for existence there is need of a common activity, there arises the function of leadership. This tendency is found among the more primitive human societies, though in some cases it resolves itself into mere authority of the oldest men.

The races which remain in primitive anarchism do not have the capacity for taking on civilization. In the struggle for existence they are overcome by others which are under the dominion of authority, for discipline is the soul of struggle and authority is the soul of discipline. Races do not remain in the stage of anarchy because they lack intelligence, but rather they have not attained a higher intelligence because they have remained anarchical. Reason does not create the state, but, on the contrary, the state creates reason. Isolated or roaming peoples nowhere reach a high degree of civilization. It was in the cities, or rather city states, that a higher intellectual civilization was first produced. The close intermingling of men stimulates especially the mental qualities. It is in this way that the proposition is to be understood that the state forms reason. Without the building of the state, without authorities, without a firm structure of superiority and subordination, we should not have passed beyond the stage of mere primitive life.

The principle of authority is permanent, but the motives upon which it is based change. The oriental ruler possesses absolute authority; he is feared because the subject believes in his power. In the Middle Ages there is blind belief in gods and men. In the modern civilizations of western Europe and America authority in religion and state is based upon reason, intelligence, and insight.

3. The establishment of authority. - There is no civilization historically known to us that does not have hierarchical divisions, superiority and subordination, organization by means of authority. The first ground of authority, therefore, lies in its natural

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growth. Without reflection, and motivated only by the instincts of self-preservation and of preservation of the species, authorities have been established. But while Nature commands a subjection to the principle of authority, she does not proclaim claim kind of authority to be established. The latter function belongs to history, which teaches that the nature of the authority shall conform to the stage of the civilization. The steps in the development of authority are as follows: for the savage and barbarous peoples it is a natural necessity; for religious natures and sincere believers it is a necessity of feeling; for the utilitarian it is the necessity of purpose; finally, for the idealistic philosopher it is a necessity of reason.

It is to authorities, political, religious, scientific, and artistic, that we owe our order and progress. The highest formula in the promotion of progress is found in the proposition: No civilization without authority.

4. Limits of authority. The exaggeration of authority leads to as great evils as the absence of it. The former suppresses individuality, the latter means dissolution and disorganization. Egypt furnishes an illustration of the stifling effects of despotic authority in ancient history, Byzantium in the Middle Ages, Spain in the modern period. Absolute authority everywhere has led to intellectual death, the destruction of all individual initiative, and to the stagnation of civilization.

From the positive side the solution of the problem of the limits of authority has been found by the Germanic peoples in the reconciliation of the principle of authority with the principle of freedom in the securing of authority in connection with the highest possible degree of freedom. The peculiar characteristic of the Germans is represented in this impulse for freedom, in the struggle for individuality. They formed families, clans, tribes, but no state. It was through contact with Rome that there arose the idea of the state among the Germans. At first the universalism of Rome in both political and religious realms conquered the individualism of the Germans. Then began the struggle between individualism and universalism, promoted by the Reformation, the conflict between church and state, the discoveries of science, the advance in philosophy, art, and invention, resulting in the principle of the equilibrium between authority and freedom. - LUDWIG STEIN, "Autorität: ihr Ursprung, ihre Begründung und ihre Grenzen," in Jahrbuch für Gesetzgebung, Verwaltung und Volkswirtschaft im Deutschen Reich, Heft 3.

Ε. Μ.

The Power of the Social Mind in War. - If one takes into considerati on the wars of recent times, such as the success of Germany, the brilliant victory of the United States in 1898, or the military progress of Japan; or if one attempts to penetrate into the spirit of the nations as portrayed in their different histories, he will find that the ruling force in these struggles has not been military fatalism or individual genius, but rather the esprit de la nation a force as invisible as it is irresistible.

Wars have two different effects upon nations. In the one case, after the war the victorious nation sinks into a quiet condition again, while in the other it is aroused to a desire to continue the conflict. After the defeat of the Greeks in 1898 the Turks entered upon a peaceful and profound repose, whereas after the war of 1866 the Germans retained an ardent desire for war, searching for an occasion for its continuance elsewhere. The reason for this is that in the former type the excitation to war is from without, only a portion of the people being aroused, and that in a mechanical way; whereas in the second type inspiration for the war comes from the very heart of the nation, emotionally the whole nation is aroused, and a spontaneous reaction of the whole body of the people is the result. In the first category belong all the wars of the allies of Napoleon, in the second the barbarous invasions of all times.

Every event, public or private, is attributed by some moralists entirely to the will of the individual, by other writers entirely to fate. On the one hand we see a small number of very successful men who attribute their success entirely to personal characteristics; on the other hand we have the views of the great leaders of all times: Alexander, Hannibal, and Cæsar believed in chance; Gustavus Adolphus and Cromwell, in a divine power; Napoleon, in his star; all the faithful, in the power of God; and finally the oriental fatalists, in the predestined lot of man.

To say the will alone suffices in attaining an end is to exaggerate its influence. No effect has a single cause, but rather there is always present a complexity of causes. There is a chain of circumstances, a collective will, a social mind, an environment that

favors the individual or restrains and thwarts his plans. The action resulting from the will of the individual and his environment we may call reasonable fatalism. This is difficult to comprehend or explain, because the second term "the social mind" and its phenomena are at present little understood, and especially difficult to measure. This makes the evaluation of this influence upon the individual a difficult matter.

Historians often attribute the success or decay of nations to certain persons. Especially in case of wars do they attribute victory or defeat to the commander-inchief, and upon the fortunate one is bestowed the name of genius. Upon what is this assertion founded ?

In literature, art, and science we may say that the genius creates his work exclusively by means of his own ability; but are the troops of the commander-in-chief so docile or so much under control as the words of the author, the figures of the mathematician, or the reactions in the laboratory of the chemist? The phenomena of wars are so varied and complex that it is impossible for any human intelligence to control them. After the beginning of the battle the commander loses in large part the control of the conditions. He cannot follow the course of the movements, and in the tumult and smoke of battle even his orders are lost. Genius in war does not have the same significance as in literature or science. There is lacking the characteristic of absolute individuality both in conception and execution of the work. The execu

tion is subordinated to the size of the armies and to a thousand circumstances, all of which may be summarized in the expression the collective spirit of the two armies.

There is then a greater force than that of man, whether general or emperor, and easier to study in the evolution of nations than an unknown fatalism. It is their mind, their spirit, with all the phenomena which it represents: intelligence, feeling, and will.

We do not desire to exclude the diverse external influences which act on the characteristics of this mind, such as the economic, religious, etc., but we are striving to establish the essence of this spirit which can determine the results independently of these conditions.

In the life of a nation, as in that of an individual, there is an evolution, a transformation, in which it gains a quality or a new property, or loses a characteristic of its personality. So, too, we see in certain epochs a nation seized with an irresistible desire to fight and giving itself up to a bloody internal revolution or to an aggressive external warfare. It is with this irresistible impulse that it is necessary to connect the expansion of the Macedonians under Alexander, the victories of the Romans under Scipio, the success of the French under Napoleon, etc. When this impulse leaves the people, this collective warlike spirit, then leadership, however strong, ceases to be successful in its efforts. Consequently the nation, being collective, in the evolution of its warlike feeling has an ascending course, an apogee, and a descending course; and the leader who does not follow this evolution of the collectivity will soon be punished. He will lose his influence and be crushed despite all his genius or his personal capacity. The most recent, as well as the most ancient, wars show that the social mind has exercised the primary influence; all other circumstances, including personal leadership, have been secondary.-Dr. CAMPEANO, “La force de l'âme collective dans les guerres," in Revue internationale de sociologie, October, 1902.

Ε. Μ.

Gas Leakage in American Cities. —There are very few American communities in which the facts of gas leakage in distribution, if known and comprehended, would not create a popular panic. Having studied this problem in every part of the United States and Canada, I am prepared to say that leakage ranges from 10 to 30 per cent. of output.

I will give the facts of one American city. The loss in distribution was about II per cent.; in round figures, three thousand millions of cubic feet. At 60 cents per thousand, this is $1,800,000 per annum, which the consumer must pay. This gas is known as water gas. It carries, on the average, 30.79 parts carbon monoxide, 30.14 parts hydrogen, 19.10 parts marsh gas, 10.69 parts olefiants; the remainder being nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and oxygen. This is a very formidable compound to go at large in a city. Most of the leakage is under measurably or absolutely impervious pavements. It cannot work its way up through the soil and escape, but most of it in one way or another gets into houses.

A large gas leakage is inconsistent with good pavements. If repairs are neglected, leakage quickly attains intolerable proportions. If necessary repairs are attended to, the streets are quickly scarred with patches. In the case of asphalt, the destruction due to gas leakage is rapid and complete. The binder of the asphalt asp is attacked by the olefiants and decomposed. The solution for this anxious municipal problem would appear to be in pipe galleries.

The fire hazard of gas leakage is incapable of exaggeration. It is enormously increased by the fact that gas which has passed even for a short distance through soil is thereby rendered nearly or quite odorless. A very large proportion of the unexplained fires in cities is due to gas. The inspectors of the Bureau of Buildings of New York lately began to look for gas in the air of theaters, music halls, and other places of public assembly, and rarely fail to find it in proportions ranging from 0.2 or 0.3 per cent. to 5 per cent. This is in summer, with all the ventilation possible.

The hygienic aspects are scarcely less serious. In the city under consideration the leakage carries between 35 and 40 per cent. of carbon monoxide, which is probably the most insidious blood poison known. Experiments upon animals warrant the belief that air containing anything more than 0.4 per cent. is capable of causing death in man, though anything over 0.2 per cent. would in many cases prove fatal. It has no smell or irritating properties. Oxygen absorbed by the lungs is normally taken up by the red matter of the blood, hemoglobin. Hemoglobin has affinity for oxygen, but it has enormously greater affinity for carbon monoxide-about 400 times greater. Hence, when the hemoglobin is saturated with carbon monoxide, oxygen can no longer be carried from the lungs to the tissues, and death ensues.

J. J. Concannon, M.D., of New York, who has very carefully studied gas poisoning, says: Few seem aware that carbon monoxide exerts its deleterious effect, be the quantity present ever so small. The principal cause of the anemia and lowered vitality which sooner or later appears in all city workers is the illuminating gas with which the city atmosphere is heavily charged through leakage. When inhaled in large quantity, carbon monoxide causes a profound anæmia, often fatal. When the air contains but a small percentage, a less pronounced anæmia gradually but surely appears. Doubtless this will be recognized eventually as the cause of the readiness with which the city dweller contracts grippe, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and many other diseases. Chemical and microscopic examinations usually show the effect of prolonged city life upon the red blood cells.

Most of the evils attributed to "sewer gas" are due to carbon monoxide, which is not a product of organic decomposition in sewers, and which is there only because gas which leaks from mains into the soil tends to accumulate in just such pockets as the sewers offer. During April and May some very interesting experiments were conducted by the Committee on Hygiene of the New York County Medical Association. These pointed very clearly to the agency of unsuspected gas in causing types of persistent general malaise. When gas was found the patients were promptly removed to a different environment, with immediate recovery, only to relapse when temporarily returned. In each instance the access of gas was from the sewer, through the house drain, and its escape was from defects in the plumbing.

What is the remedy? If a remedy is not found, the time is not far distant when the gas industry will have to be suppressed as a public nuisance, dangerous to life and detrimental to health. Concealment of the truth is not a step in the direction of a solution of the problem. Let us know what we are dealing with, at least. To this end I advise an effort to secure the enactment of laws requiring gas companies to make their statistics public. Where leakage is found to be excessive, or where for any reason it entails or threatens danger to life or property, it should be the duty of the state board of health to investigate the causes and to take such steps to abate the nuisance as its powers may permit or the public interest demand. (The writer submits the form of a bill designed to meet the evil.) - JAMES C. BALES, M.E., PH.D., “Gas Leakage in American Cities," in Municipal Journal and Engineer, September, 1902.

R. M.

The Gambling Impulse. The present study is an attempt to investigate the origin and nature of the instincts and motives involved in chance plays and gambling. The Egyptians, Chinese, Japanese, Hindus, Persians, Jews, Greeks, and Romans, with their dice on their lots testify of the indigenous and ubiquitous character of gambling. The French, Germans, and English are scarcely less given to the practice of gambling than the older peoples first mentioned. The prevailing forms are the dice of the old time and the more recently popularized lottery. The attraction of the chance seems to have continued throughout the history of man, and the desperate stakes placed testify to the spell this charm has over man. The American Indians will not only lose all their possessions, but also will stake their wives and children, and even their own liberty. The Senecas had a popular belief that a certain gambling game would be enjoyed by them in the future life of the Great Spirit. The Malays of Sumatra, the Javanese, the Sulus are all addicted to desperate playing of chance games. The passion is nowhere else so strong as among savage and barbarous races. But both the universality and the desperate enchantment of the passion are remarkable.

The universality and the gradations of this disposition toward chance, risk, are seen in the various forms of hazard, from the commonplace remark, "I will risk not taking my umbrella," to the fearful staking of one's very life. An analysis of the replies obtained from sending out a topical questionnaire throws some light upon the psychology of uncertainty. A curve representing the the disposition toward chance seems isposition to follow closely in direction and height a curve showing changes in the faith or in the fear one has in one's own personal safety. This gambling curve varies in direction and intensity, just as would be expected, according to the age, physical condition, previous experience, and sex. It fluctuates much for the ages from ten to seventeen years in both sexes, as uncertain as is this period of adolescence. Later the prevailing tendency is stronger toward chance among men than among women. The gambling impulse seems to be a sort of balance between faith in self and distrust of self.

The psychological theories of the gambling impulse are few in number and inadequate in treatment. Avarice and love of wealth are not, as many have suggested, large elements in the case. A desire for a stimulus to call forth the natural activity of the mind; indolence, vacuity being an unnatural state of mind; a desire to forget self and be rid of the commonplace - these seem to be the real causes or explanation of the impulse. Professor Thomas has summed it up in his article on "The Gambling Instinct" thus: "Gambling is a means of keeping up the conflict interest and of securing all the pleasure-pain sensations of conflict activity with little effort and no drudgery; and, incidentally or habitually, it may be a means of securing money." The race has been evolved in an environment of uncertainty, and such an environment has become indispensable to alertness of the faculties. Reflex action, muscular co-ordination, memory, imagination, and judgment times are thereby quickened. Does not the condition of uncertainty hold the mind in a tonic and unrelaxed condition? The addition of the stake brings in a whole train of added states centering about the feeling of power. Hope and fear, joy and sorrow, emulation, aggression, instinct of domination, love of humiliating one's opponent, pugnacity, jealousy, envy are some of the affective states exercised.

A study of luck reveals that it is regarded as more than mere chance. It is significant that the implements of gambling of the primitive man are the same as those used for divination; the same methods are used now for gambling, now for divination. This use-connection suggests one characteristic of luck, that it is a sort of connection with the god, the will, the ruler of affairs. Luck names the attitude, favoring or frowning, of some hovering spirit, some "guardian angel," some "evil genius." Were luck a pure accidental content, it would scarcely have persisted in the life of the peoples, and been found in so many expressions of "lucky days," "unlucky numbers," the "lucky box," the "fortune wheel," etc. But another glance at the historical interpretation of luck, and there is revealed a sort of paradox; it tells of the passion for certainty. Instead of indicating a love of the uncertain, it testifies of the longing of the mind for the certain, the sure. From this viewpoint it is easily seen as akin to the principle of all religions, and the scientific thirst for knowledge, the elimination of the element of the uncertainty. This last observation finds confirmation in the corresponding intensity of the gambling impulse and the religious sentiment in many races, and from a correspondence between this chance impulse and the scientific spirit in many peoples.

This study makes some contribution to ethics. "Conduct is the result of latent biological forces; much conduct being the forced expression of highly anabolic,

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