no faith in ‘the light of reason’ and he hated as heartily as any papal dogmatist the ‘new learning’ of Erasmus and Hutten....  We are even forced to realise that the law of habit continues to do its perfect work in a strangely resentful or apathetic manner even when there is no moral issue at stake....  Up to the year 1816, the best device for the application of electricity to telegraphy had involved a separate wire for each letter of the alphabet, but in that year Francis Ronalds constructed a successful line making use of a single wire.  Realising the importance of his invention, he attempted to get the British government to take it up, but was informed that ’telegraphs of any kind are now wholly unnecessary, and no other than the one in use will be adopted.’”

The reader will doubtless be able to add from his own experience and observation examples which will support Professor Thomas’s admirable account of the power of custom.  Among many barbarous tribes certain foods, like eggs, are taboo; no one knows why they should not be eaten; but tradition says their use produces bad results, and one who presumes to taste them is put to death.  To-day, we believe ourselves rather highly civilised; but the least observation of society must compel us to acknowledge that taboo is still a vital power in a multitude of matters.

There is a still more forcible opposition to a recasting of the status of women by those men who have beheld no complete regeneration of society through the extension of the franchise in four of our States.  Curiously oblivious of the fact that partial regeneration through the instrumentality of women is something attained, they take this as a working argument for the uselessness of extending the suffrage.  They point to other evils that have followed and tell you that if this is the result of the emancipation of women, they will have none of it.  For example, there can be no doubt that one may see from time to time the pseudo-intellectual woman.  She affects an interest in literature, attends lectures on Browning and Emerson, shows an academic interest in slum work, and presents, on the whole, a selfishness or an egotism which repels.  There never has been a revolution in society, however beneficial eventually, which did not bring at least some evil in its train.  I cannot do better in this connection than to quote Lord Macaulay’s splendid words (from the essay on Milton):  “If it were possible that a people, brought up under an intolerant and arbitrary system, could subvert that system without acts of cruelty and folly, half the objections to despotic power would be removed.  We should, in that case, be compelled to acknowledge that it at least produces no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral character of a people.  We deplore the outrages which accompany revolutions.  But the more violent the outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary.  The violence of these outrages will always be proportioned