the weather can be solved? This ques- had been held out that the means of tion, as I have already pointed out, must predicting weather would be the reward, not be hastily answered. It is one of the non-scientific tax-paying community national, nay, of cosmopolitan impor- might not improbably inquire what was tance. If answered in the affirmative, the worth of these discoveries to the nathere is scarcely any expense which tion or to the world at large. Be it unwould be too great for the work sug-derstood that I am not here using the cui gested; but all the more careful must we be not to answer it in the affirmative, if the true answer should be given in the negative.

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bono argument. As a student of science, I utterly repudiate the notion that before scientific researches are undertaken, it must be shown that they will pay. But But it appears to me that so soon as it is one thing to adopt this mean and the considerations dealt with above have. contemptible view of scientific research, been fairly taken into account, there can and quite another to countenance probe no possible doubt or difficulty in re-jects which are based ab initio upon the plying to the question. The matter has ground that they will more than repay in effect, though not in intention, been their cost. Now, I think, if the nation tested experimentally, and the experi- made the inquiry above indicated, and ments, when carried out under the most under the circumstances mentioned, it favourable conditions, have altogether would be very difficult to give a satisfacfailed. To show that this is so, I take tory reply. The tax-payers would say, the position of affairs before Schwabe be- We have supplied so many thousands gan that fine series of observations which of pounds to found national observatories ended in the discovery of the great spot- for the cultivation of the physics of sciperiod of eleven years. Let us suppose ence, and we have paid so many thouthat at that time the question had been sands of pounds yearly to the various mooted whether it might not be possible, students of science who have kindly by a careful study of the sun, to obtain given their services in the management some means of predicting the weather. of these observatories; let us hear what The argument would then have run as are the utilitarian results of all this outfollows: "The sun is the great source lay? We do not want to hear of scienof light and heat; that orb is liable to tific discoveries, but of the promised changes which must in all probability af- means of predicting the weather." The fect the supply of light and heat; those answer would be, We have found that changes may be periodical and so pre- storms in the tropics are rather more nudictable; and as our weather must to merous in some years than others, the some extent depend on the supply of light variations having a period of eleven years; and heat, we may thus find a means of we can assert pretty confidently that auropredicting weather changes." The in- ras follow a similar law of frequency; quiry might then have been undertaken, south-west winds blow more commonly and undoubtedly the great spot-period at Oxford, but less commonly elsewhere, would have been detected, and with this when the sun-spots, following the elevendiscovery would have come that partial year period, are at a maximum; and power of predicting the sun's condition more rain falls with south-westerly winds which we now possess, that is, the than with south-easterly winds at Oxford power of saying that in such and such a and elsewhere, but less at St. Petersburg year, taken as a whole, spots will be nu- and elsewhere, when sun-spots are most merous or the reverse. Moreover, mete- numerous, while the reverse holds when orological observations conducted simul- the spots are rare." I incline to think taneously would have shown that, as the that on being further informed that original argument supposed, the quantity these results related to averages of heat supplied by the sun varies to a only, and gave no means of predicting slight degree with the varying condition the weather for any given day, week, or Corresponding magnetic changes would be detected; and also those partial indications of a connection between phenomena of wind and rain and the sun's condition which have been indicated above. All this would be exceedingly interesting to men of science. But, -supposing all this had been obtained at the nation's expense, and the promise

of the sun.

month, even as respects the unimportant points here indicated, the British taxpayer would infer that he had thrown away his money. I imagine that the army of observers who had gathered these notable results would be disbanded rather unceremoniously, and that for some considerable time science (as connected, at any rate, with promised "utilitarian " re

sults) would stink in the nostrils of the nation.

with regard to Rome in which England found herself in the time of Elizabeth But this is very far indeed from being and James I. And Germany and Switall. Nay, we may almost say that this zerland are in this dilemma now simply is nothing. Astronomers know the great because they did not act as the English and spot period; they have even ascertained the Dutch did two centuries ago. There the existence of longer and shorter peri- are questions the solution of which may ods less marked in character; and they be postponed, but the day arrives when have ascertained the laws according to they must be solved, and the longer the which other solar features besides the solution is delayed the more difficult it spots vary in their nature. It is certain becomes. Among these unavoidable that whatever remains to be discovered questions none requires to be met with must be of a vastly less marked charac- more courage than that of the relations ter. If then the discovery of the most between the Roman Church and those striking law of solar change has led to States in which the majority is Protestno results having the slightest value in ant. Nor is the question to be disposed connection with the problem of weather- of by any general abstract principle, such prediction, if periodic solar changes of a as the principle of absolute religious libless marked character have been detected erty. Germany and Switzerland are not which have no recognizable bearing on in the position of wholly Catholic naweather changes, what can be hoped tions, like Italy, France, and Belgium, from the recognition of solar changes nor in that of entirely Protestant counstill more recondite in their nature? It tries, such as the United States or Sweis incredible that the complex phenome- den. They are, in fact, in very much the na involved in meteorological relations same condition that Holland and Eng regarded as a whole, those phenomena land were in at the beginning of the sev which are but just discernibly affected by the great sun-spot period, should respond to changes altogether insignificant even when compared with the development and decay of a single small sun-spot. It appears to me, therefore, that it is the duty of the true lover of science to indicate the futility of the promises which have been mistakenly held out; for it cannot be to the credit of science, or ultimately to its advantage, if government assistance be obtained on false pretences for any branch of scientific research.

From The Pall Mall Gazette. THE STATE AND THE CATHOLIC CHURCH.

As

enteenth century. Before granting ab-
solute liberty they must put the author-
ity of the State above all contest.
they neglected to do so, or were unable
to do so, two hundred years since, they
must venture on it now; for they have
to deal with an enemy as daring as he is
powerful.

The Catholic Church, indeed, is one of those organisms for which our abstract and absolute formulas are completely inadequate, both in theory and practice. Its long duration, its powerful organization, its numerous officers, its wealth, its universality, would make of it a most dangerous enemy under all conditions. And there happen to be two circumstances which necessarily bring this organi zation into conflict, sooner or later, with the national and secular interests of evONE of the most striking features of ery State. These two circumstances are our times is the general and unquestion- the supreme sovereignty of the Pope · ing belief that the essentials of political that is to say, of a foreigner residing in a life are altered because its forms have foreign country- and the celibacy of the undergone so complete a change during priests. The one makes every Catholic the last fifty years. Not more than half priest the subject of a higher power than a century has elapsed since England the laws of his country; the second frees abandoned her attitude of oppugnance him of every consideration of worldly inand exclusion toward the Roman Church, terest, enlisting him in the service of an and yet the present generation is quite at abstract ideal, an ideal which is the nea loss to understand a political situation gation of the State. The contest may very analogous to our own in past times slumber for awhile, as it has done in Ger-a situation which is now engrossing many since the Thirty Years' War, out the attention of every continental poli- of sheer exhaustion, or as it does just tician. Germany and Switzerland seem now in England, because the Roman to be almost exactly in the same position Church is as yet too weak to exhibit its

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framed at Berlin for the struggle against Rome, the sole aim of which is to bring the Catholic clergy again under the control of common law from which they had silently crept away, declaring themselves suddenly and noisily emancipated from its rule, and to counterbalance the injurious influence of celibate and school discipline. The common law in Germany

-

ultimate pretensions; but as soon as some energetic man gets the upper hand at Rome, and finds his ecclesiastical army ready for war, the conflict must inevitably break out again. The struggle once begun, the well-convinced or welldisciplined soldier of an abstract ideal, his feelings unhampered by wife and child, will not pay the slightest regard to any considerations except such as are imwhether wisely or unwisely it is posed upon him by the only authority he not for us to decide exacts from every acknowledges in the last resort. The citizen who proposes to enter any profesquestion therefore is not SO much sional career, be it that of a physician, a whether the State has a right to set aside lawyer, a clergyman, a tutor, or a civil the rules of jus gentium in its war with official, a course of from two to four the Roman Church, as whether it is years of university study. To this rule expedient and useful to put them aside. the Catholic clergy cheerfully submitted The English and Dutch Governments in those balmy days when religious strife had an undoubted right to deny all polit- slumbered in Germany - that is to say ical and civil functions to the members from 1638 to 1830 or thereabout. But of a Church which confessedly plotted, when the Roman Church began to lift here for the delivering over of the coun- her head and take the offensive against try to Spanish oppression, there for the all opponents - viz., about 1835-the overthrow of the reigning dynasty. But universities where future priests had did they act wisely in exerting the right? mixed with future clergymen, doctors, The examples of Austria, Bavaria, and lawyers, and professors, and saw a good Belgium-where the contrary policy pre-deal of real life, began to be abandoned. vailed, with the result that those countries Everywhere seminaries were founded were entirely won by the priests in less where the future apostle was sequesthan fifty years seem to give a signifi-tered, from the age of ten or twelve up cant answer to that question; and the to twenty or twenty-one, when he defisuccess of England and Holland in main-nitely took orders, from all contact with taining their integrity and their inde- the world. This system, which had long pendence must necessarily persuade the before killed the Faculties of Catholic Germans and Swiss to follow a similar theology nay, Catholic theology itself policy, when Poles and Alsatians on the in France and Italy, worked admirably one side, and the Sonderbund cantons in Germany and soon showed its resultson the other, are supported by the Ro- sooner, indeed, and more strikingly than man Church in attempts to impair the in- was agreeable to the bishops; who in tegrity of the German and Swiss States. 1870, when they were still struggling for However, times are changed-not in their independence against Rome, found substance assuredly, but certainly in themselves abandoned by the low clergy form and habit; so that a thorough and educated in the seminaries, as well as by consistent measure of expulsion and ex- the Governments, and finally obliged to clusion cannot be applied to the enemy. surrender. The good old German Pfarrer The means of intercourse are too mani- of the Hermesian school, such as the Facfold and too free to make any such ulties formed him, who heartily blessed measure possible, if it were desirable. a mixed marriage, even when the children The expulsion of Monsignor Mermillod were not to be brought up in the Cathoand the Bernese curates from Switzer-lic Church, has become a myth in Gerland, of the Jesuits "and similar orders many. The pulpits are filled there now(as the very elastic text of the German adays with fanatic young priests, who law has it) from the Empire, are acts dictate their will to the too supple and which not only jar on our modern conven- submissive bishops. tional ideas of toleration, but they will Events will show whether Germany is prove totally ineffectual, and worse in time to return to her traditional systhey will give the glory of martyrdom to tem of national education with regard to the happy victims, while to the Swiss the priests. It is, perhaps, more feasible Governments, and to the passionate there than it would be in a country statesman who governs Germany, they where the Faculties of Catholic theolwill bring the odium of persecution. ogy are legally suppressed, as in CamIt is not so, however, with other laws 'bridge and Oxford, or virtually dead, as

in Paris and Toulouse, in Bologna and land against Rome and the Jesuits, as Padua. In Germany, indeed, the inter-well as between the different conditions ruption has been one of thirty years only, and the Faculties are as yet complete in their teaching personnel. It is an experiment to be made; and we think, on the whole, and under the special conditions of Germany, which differ so widely from ours, it is a promising experiment. It has, indeed, three great advantages in its favour it is in accordance with the spirit and traditions of the country; it is in harmony with the laws of the country; and it has successfully worked there for more than two hundred years. At any rate, English observers ought to distinguish between the two sets of laws recently framed in Germany and Switzer

of Continental States both among themselves and as compared with England. One thing is certain, hostilities have commenced, and there is no ground of compromise. Neither the hot temper and iron will of Prince Bismarck, nor the intoxication of Rome nor the logical absolutism of the Company of Jesus are likely to yield. Already most of the seminaries are closed in Germany, and most of the clergy have solemnly declared that they will not submit to the new laws. It may be as well that the spectators of the duel should have a clear idea of its provocations.

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