is the radical difference between moral and natural science. A second is the natural perversity of man. A third is the social question. Where there is

such as Bayle or Taine, who have has too little compassion for human taken as the basis of their system the frailty. In its eye the least offences natural perversity of man and the con- become crimes, and there are neither sequent necessity of restraining the indulgences nor good works to make impulses of the animal instinct, have reparation for them. Monstrous as only borrowed the doctrine of original have been the abuses to which these sin. The mystical systems, and those two doctrines have sometimes led, they founded, as that of Kant, on the are still fruitful in social results. The autonomy of the will, have reproduced, merits of one man may be applied in the one, the idea of grace; the other, aid of another's salvation. The barethat of justice. The positive morality footed Carmelite who weeps in his has learnt the solidarity of human in- cloister over the sins of the man of the terests and the virtue of sacrifice from world effaces them at the same time. Catholicism. "So true is it that we The monk who begs his food along the are all impregnated with Christianity. road redeems the adulteress at the In it we live and move and have our price of the humiliation he himself being.' suffers. "In the ideal Catholic society Those who are convinced that a there is a perpetual circulation of democracy cannot dispense with moral- charity. The living pray for the dead, ity, and that men cannot be governed the dead intercede for the living." without the aid of religion, have next There are two or three points upou to consider which among the various which Catholicism, or more generally forms of Christianity most ministers religion, may be expected to give us to moral regeneration. M. Brunetière the results which we have so long and has no doubt as to what his answer so vaiuly expected from science. One should be; he gives his vote for Catholicism. He concedes the high value of Protestantism, its historical position, the examples of virtue that it has given in the past, and is giving every so much agreement between men of day in the present. But Catholicism good will, whether inside or outside has an incontrovertible advantage over the church, it would be a crime to set it in the fact that it is a government, them one against another, or to allow whereas Protestantism is the absence them to remain apart, because they are of a government. The history of Prot- not quite agreed upon questions of estantism is nothing but the history of exegesis or geology. M. Brunetière its divisions. When your object is admits that it may involve some to govern, your best instrument will sacrifice of vanity on the part of the be a government. But besides being men of science to admit that religion a government, Catholicism is also a can do for human society what science doctrine, a tradition. Count Tolstoi's has failed to do. But when social last book shows the full importance progress demands the sacrifice, there of this characteristic. If every one ought to be no hesitation about making is left to interpret Scripture for him-it. When the house is on fire, the self, what may not be the effect of such texts as "He that hateth not his father and his mother cannot be my disciple,' or "It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heaven"? If they have involved the greatest living Russian writer in a hopeless maze of error, what will they do to a poor and ignorant reader? Protestantism, again,

only question for those who live in it is how to extinguish the flames.

We have simply stated in the briefest possible form the main argument of M. Brunetière's article. The first part of it is of equal interest for Englishmen and for Frenchmen, the latter part has a special significance for Frenchmen. But the whole is a remarkable tribute to the force of the reaction in favor of religion, which is visible in a

greater or less degree in every Euro- | dance in the ashes of marine plants, pean country, and most of those coun- reveals itself to analysis only in traces. tries in which the pendulum has swung most violently in the opposite direction. As yet, no doubt, this reaction is only beginning. Like other similar changes, it shows itself among the leaders of thought, while the mass of thinking men and women are still where those leaders were twenty years ago. But it is an indication of the direction which thought is taking, and as such it will be interesting to any among our readers who have not happened to see the original paper.

RESEARCHES made during past years with the aim of determining the nature of the ocean-bottom, and the chemical phenomena that take place there, have abundantly shown that there also, as at the surface of the ground, a continual action takes place. In fact, all known chemical substances are present in solution in sea-water. The rivers, which continually dissolve mineral matter out of the soil, carry it to the sea, so that this enormous mass of water contains all the elementary bodies in chemical combination. In spite of the precision and delicacy of their analyses, chemists

These organisms, then, must have the power to extract and concentrate it from the mass of water in which it exists in such dilute form. Many chemical elements exist in the water in very minute quantities; that at the bottom of the sea, for example, contains carbonate of lime only in the proportion of one to ten thousand. This does not prevent plants and living organisms, such as the Foraminifera, the corals, echinoderms, molluscs, etc., from finding in this small proportion what is necessary to their constitution and to their existence. At the death of these organisms, the mineral matter accumulates and ends by forming great rocky masses. In all parts of the ocean there live, multiply, and die myriads of calcareous organisms that fall continually in showers to the bed of the sea. The calcareous rocks, that on the earth attain often great thickness and cover thousands of square miles, have this. origin.

Of all the deposits that form in the depths of the ocean the most singular and the most curious are the irregular nodules varying from the size of a small pea to that of an orange, and composed of hydrated oxides of manganese and iron. Although they are very variable in their composition, it is possible, nevertheless, to establish the never determine absolutely the proportions in which their constituent exact proportions in which these ele- elements occur. They contain twentyments are present; they can merely five per cent. of binoxide of mangaindicate their presence as "traces," nese, fifteen of peroxide of iron, thirty especially in the case of the very rare of water, besides divers silicates, and elementary substances. Except for the thirty per cent. of various substances, chlorates and sulphates, which are among which careful analysis has easily obtained by evaporation, spec-shown the existence of thallium, moltrum analysis alone shows us the exist- ybdenum, tellurium, vanadium, nickel, ence of these elements in sea-water.

can

lithium, cobalt, barium, strontium, tin,. copper, and lead. The origin of these associations of diverse and rare substances has not yet found any plausible We find ourselves face.

In many circumstances it has been shown that the sheets of copper on ships become covered with a layer of silver from the water of the sea, depos-explanation. ited there by electro-chemical action; to face with a problem which is still and nevertheless all our minutest meth- very difficult of solution. How have ods of analysis have not yet been able such minute quantities of manganese to detect this metal in the waters of as those that have been shown in the the ocean. Iodin, found in such abun-composition of rocks, and that do not

exceed the twentieth part of those of that the limestones of Portland, Bath, iron, come to form concretions in which and Kelton coutain grains of ooliths; this substance predominates ? The these facts have been confirmed by soundings made by Murray and Bu- Nelson, Sorby, and other scientists. chanan on the west coast of Scotland have shown that these nodules are found especially in the marine slimes where pyrite and other compounds of iron exist. These slimes accumulate slowly after having passed through the bodies of worms or other organisms an infinity of times. At each passage a little manganese and iron is added, and in the course of ages these oxides be-ous agglomerations that make up rocks. coming more and more concentrated, form these bizarre and remarkable nodules.

Recent observations have shown, too, that marine plants living and growing in salt water have a great influence in the separation of carbonate of lime from the waters of the ocean. The eminent German botanist Cohn has shown that the agents really effective in freeing the carbonic acid that keeps in solution the mineral matter, are minute plants, around which are deposited those substances that the water, deprived of carbonic acid, can no longer dissolve. He shows, moreover, that these same plants have had much to do with the formation of the deposits at Carlsbad, and that they can live at very high temperatures. Their existence, in fact, has been discovered in the hot springs of the Yellowstone National Park. The mention of the deposits at Carlsbad calls to mind the closely associated question of the origin of the calcareous stones called "ooliths," whose presence has been shown in the terrestrial crust, both of old and of recent formation. Several years ago M. Henry de la Bêche showed

Wethered has also proved that the limestone of various epochs is composed in great part of organisms consisting of twisted tubes, simple or branched, which have been given the names of girvanella, micheldeania, etc.; these organisms are plants secreting calcareous matter in their cellules; they thus form at their death calcare

But while certain plants participate by
their constant action in the formation
of these rocks, others, on the contrary,
have a diametrically opposed action.
They dissolve and destroy the calcare-
ous elements. By his researches, Dun-
can showed to scientists this curious
fact, that fossil corals are often found
perforated by minute tubes.
He con-
cluded from this that they had vegeta-
ble parasites. Finally, E. Bornet has
recently confirmed the facts stated by
Wethered, by demonstrating how abun-
dant these organisms are, and what
astonishing proofs they give of their
activity. At the same time, he showed
the great variety of genera and species
of these perforating plants, which differ
among themselves in the form and dis-
position of their tubes; furthermore,
he has revealed the life, habits, and
mode of reproduction of these singular
marine plants. To sum up, all the
observations made during recent years
on the deposits that cover the bottom
of the ocean lead to this conclusion:
Wherever substances are found in solu-
tion in sea-water they can be extracted
thence only by the wonderful action of
living organisms.

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