and ideas, is not yet full; for it may require to be continually rewritten and greatly enlarged.

The world itself has changed and is as continually changing, and if we would we cannot turn it back or even keep it where it is, but being ourselves a part of it we must conform to its present existing facts. The past can do nothing for us, and there is no need of our continually looking back to what we can never recall.

We may rightly hope for the future, though still this may be withheld from It is then the present only which

us.

is ours. This is all with which we now have to do, and let us improve it as it exists with us, physically and spiritually, for we have no other field of labor or enjoyment than that which the present is furnishing unto us.

The business of our present lives is ever the duty of the present hour. Our best preparation for any future

which may be awaiting us, is our right occupation of the present, and strangely as this may sound unto you, I believe I am required to proclaim before you, that we now have nothing to do with a future life, for we can know nothing of it until it becomes present with us, and we can do nothing to advantage with that of which we can know nothing. It will be time enough to improve this when it comes into our possession, and there was sound reason in the suggestion of Jesus, that we must be faithful in what we have if we would become rulers over more. Let us then live while we live, let none of us put off until tomorrow that which should be done by us to day, and let me entreat and conjure us all, and in all things, to live up to the righteousness of our own hearts; for if our hearts condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God.

:

[IN this country, the great questions of political economy belong to the people, and the national prosperity depends largely upon the good sense which the people bring to the solution of these vast problems. There is hardly a subject of greater importance to us all there is none which requires in its treatment more of patience, good temper, and truthful purpose. Most of the political journals lose temper at the outset. The following, though direct and farmerlike in statement, is temperate in spirit. We shall see in what spirit it is received.— ED.]

To the Editor of the Friend.

WE are all suffering from the enormous cost of food, clothing, and nearly every other necessary of life. Let us investigate the cause thereof. By the census of 1860, the aggregate number of persons employed in domestic manufactures was three hundred and eightyfive thousand. Each of these on an average

maintained two and a half other persons, making the whole number supported by manufactures four millions eight hundred and forty-seven thousand and five hundred (4,847.500). The amount of capital employed not given. By the same census, the number of persons engaged in and directly dependent upon agricultural productions as food for man or beast, independent of those employed in some sort of manufacture, or sale, or exchange of the same, was about fifty-five per cent. of the whole population of the United States.

The total cash value of farms, implements, machinery and live stock used thereon was eight billions five millions three hundred and ninety thousand two hundred and nineteen dollars, invested as capital by the farmers in 1860, and probably greatly increased at the present time. The total annual agricultural products, as derived from reports of commis. sioners of agriculture, at present values as

realized by the farmer, amount to about $1,508,000,000. The cost of labor in producing the same, at $300 per year for each of the 4,000,000 of men, and without any allowance for the vast number of women incidentally employed therein, is not less than $1,200,000,000, leaving only $308,000,000, or 3 84-100 per cent. on invested capital, $8,005,390,219. Out of this the farmer must pay for repairs to buildings, fences, machinery, the State and local taxes, in all fully equal to 1 84-100 per cent., leaving him barely two per cent. as a net dividend.

The production of this involves many hazards the grasshopper, the grub-worm, the weevil, blight, or potato rot, or severe drought, may render all human foresight unavailing; and there can be no abatement of prices without ruin to the largest interest of the country, unless in some way we can lessen the cost of production.

Can we not do this?

We now have two expensive systems of taxation-duties on imports and the internal revenue scheme. Legislate for these as we may, injustice will be done to some of the most important interests of the country. Το these systems we are chiefly indebted for the bubble of artificial values. From this cause nearly every kind of business is now suffering.

Let us examine one of these systems, "duties on imports." It has been truly said, "tariff is another name for tax," and "a tax, whether for revenue or protection, can only be a burden upon those who pay it." Now, who pay these taxes? Who bear these burdens? First, and most largely, the agricultural masses, who constitute a majority of the whole, and who get very little benefit directly or indirectly therefrom.

Next, probably about one half the minority who must consume, but who gain nothing directly from the manufacture of the things for which they are taxed; and lastly, those engaged or interested in producing some of the articles upon which the burden is laid. To whom is this tax paid? If it be a revenue tariff, to the Government, and the home manufacturer gets no benefit, with a mode of taxation at best questionable. If the tax be so high as to shut out competition by the foreign manufacturer, the Government gets no money, the people pay the home manufacturer a subsidy, and a tax of some other kind must be levied to meet its wants. This latter form of taxation seems the one at which our present Congress aims.

Failing to obtain the necessary amount by imports, we, as a fancied necessity, have resorted to a system of internal revenue, for which, added to a bonus on home manufactures, and the expensive machinery connected with each, we all pay dearly.

The farmer perhaps suffers more than any other, because as a consumer to nearly the extent of his products he pays a tax on everything he buys, and he cannot add the tax to the price of the things he sells, as most branches of business do. He has no increase of income, for the increased value of his products does not keep pace with the price of labor, machinery, dry goods, groceries-in short, all his raw material. His products, as well as everything else, must pass through the hands of middle-men, whose personal and family expenses are proportionably augmented, and hence, to a whole nation, the cost of production and of living is doubled. This inflation of prices is a bubble which we can easily prick, if we will. Government must have a certain sum of money yearly to meet its obligations-say $140,000,000 for interest on national debt, and $100,000,000 for current expenses; total, $240,000,000.

Let us

Shall we ruin some and cripple nearly every important interest for this amount? see what these high prices cost us. If before the war it cost each of the 30,000,000 of our people $80 per year for food and clothing, or $240,000,000, it now costs twice that sum, or an additional amount equal to that which Government requires. This sum can be paid more easily by the farmers and other property holders by a direct tax, if allowed to buy and sell in the markets of the world freed from the drawbacks of tariffs or internal revenue systems. The assessed value of real estate and personal property, according to census of 1860, was in round numbers a little over $12,000,000,000. If on this property we levy a tax of $240,000,000, on a farm assessed at $5000 we must pay $100; and, taking $1000 as the sum paid yearly for expenses of management, repairs, labor, &c., of said farm before the war, it is now double, or $2000 yearly. This extra $1000 for management, &c, caused by artificial values, is the price we now pay in lieu of the $100 which would be paid if raised by direct tax. The price of farm products has advanced about 70 per cent. in the aggregate, but this still leaves a balance of $200 in favor of a direct tax. Thus (increased expenses, $1000): Increased value of products. Direct tax

Balance.

$700

100

$800

200

$1000

This $200 would be a personal gain to the farmer, while the whole nation as consumers would be equally benefited by a return to real values.

EXCELSIOR.

LAS that there are such things in the world as critics! They are a miserable self-constituted set of judges of science, literature, and art, who are ready at a moment's notice to give an opinion on any subject therewith connected, be that subject one on which a Humboldt or a Macaulay have expended their best thought-powers, or the first feeble lines of a would-be village Milton.

The confidence with which our critic-friends express themselves on matters of the deepest moment, and on which they must have had little opportunity for careful study, is verily surprising.

Now I do not propose in these few lines to utter my caveat against all kinds of criticism, or of just criticism that comes from the pen of the writer, like the charge and sentence from the mouth of the judge who patiently has investigated all sides of the question, but to make my protest against criticisms made about, and hasty conclusions come to, on certain points of science. There are no subjects which are more deeply interesting, or which are at present more engaging the attention of the world, than the origin of life and the antiquity of man.

On the latter question, the startling discoveries of the traces of primeval man on the European continent, and the clue given of their habits and modes

oflife, by the study of their implements, etc. found in their cave or lacustrine dwellings, have forced upon us the conclusion that our old fashioned belief, derived from a misreading of the Bible, that man made his appearance on earth only 6,000 years ago, must now be modified, and we must assign to him a far greater antiquity. can doubt the co-existence of man with

Who

the Mammoth (Elephas primogenius) and Cave Bear (Ursus spelaus) when associated with the same deposits with those of the latter are found fragments of ivory on which are carved representations not only of the Mammoth itself but even of the human form. The Bible was not written to teach science; and we have learned that, in the new reading of Genesis, which we would never have discovered had it not been for the revelations of Geology. Divines fought long for the literal reading, and combated for the belief in the six days of creation; but only those so-called divines who read God's written record alone, and pay no heed to that great history His unresting hand has been through all time recording--a history that throws light on the other record, just as one part of Bible-history assists us in understanding another-reject the new and true interpretation of the wonderful and sublime drama of creation written by the great Hebrew lawgiver. Facts

with modification, or the creation of separate species?" But that is not the way to settle this question. The falsity or truth of Darwinism is settled by the majority of thinkers on that subject on the basis of likelihood, and do you suppose that the subject is to be settled according to the answers to the above question?

What would you think of a jury, which, in a case of murder, should attempt to settle as to whether the victim died by the pistol or knife, on the score of likelihood, without having examined the corpse, or having heard the testimony of witnesses?

The question put by Darwin is, as I understand him, whether there are not such scientific facts as will warrant a belief that the diversity which we see among animals has been the result of a slow change wrought upon their organization in a "struggle for existence" where the best fitted organically to subsist under a certain combination of circumstances would thrive, while those thus unfavored would die out, nature acting as a breeder in producing new forms through a "natural selection," just as the bird-fancier and tulipgrower produce new variations by culture, and whether man, the most highly developed of the animal kingdom, is not the fruit of a development, according to this law of nature, by this assumed principle of natural selection from some lower animal, if not the lowest. He asks whether the ties that bind species, as we now see them, are not organic, and whether the animal kingdom is not like a tree where the fruit is organically connected with the leaf and stem and root. How did he come to frame such a hypothesis? He observed that no two individuals or any animals are ever exactly alike

each

had certain individual characteristics. Sometimes in a species certain groups unite in presenting certain modifications which the other members of the species do not possess, and sometimes these modifications are clearly seen to

be dependent upon the peculiar natural conditions under which these members of the species are placed; or they are owing to artificial conditions under which man has placed them, which have favored their development in certain directions and restrained it in others. Thus far all naturalists have agreed to the facts. In domestic animals artificial culture or selection has not only produced slight individual differences, but even as great structural differences as exist between different genera. If Nature, by selection, can produce varietal differences, may she not be capable of producing greater changes, as general or family differences? Now, that is just the question, and it is one that is not so easily answered. How is it to be settled?

We have in the geological record a history of the animals and plants which have lived on the earth since the introduction of life on its surface, and it is to that history that we must turn for the evidence which shall support or disprove this theory. If it be true that animals spring from some lower types, and developed themselves slowly into higher and higher forms, we should expect to find in the record the evidence of this slow and progressive development. Do we find it? There is a certain and remarkable progression visible in the animals of the different periods. The Silurian is the age of shells, the Devonian of fishes, the Mesozoic of reptiles, the Cenozoic of mammals; while the present is the age of man and of mind-rule. So far the lower series corresponds to the rank series; but we find when we look still closer, that the first animals of any branch introduced were not the lowest of orders, but often of comparatively high rank, and possessing features which belonged to another class, united with those of their own. Thus the entomostracans are the lowest order of the crustacea; but the trilobites, (vide cut) while true entomostracans, have