see David Baron's "The Ancient Scripture and the Modern Jew." L. H. C.

THE NAUTILUS AGAIN

Again Mr. Burroughs puts his "foot into it." He says in your issue of 8th instant that "the Physalia, or Portuguese man-o'war, has a kind of safl in its air-sack that helps it sail to windward." It does nothing of the kind; it cannot "sail to windward," and it never did; it drifts to leeward; if it did sail to windward, then it would defeat the argument of Mr. Burroughs instead of help ing it.

Mr. Burroughs cannot draw the line between instinct and reason; he cannot even draw it between vegetable and animal life; therefore in attempting to do what so many clever, profound minds have failed, since the time of Aristotle, to do, he is not wise.

Lakewood, Ohio.

HENRY W. ELLIOTT.

[We are sure Mr. Burroughs will forgive us if we add to this correspondent's criticism the humorous comment of a correspondent

of the New York Sun:

The physalia has three masts, all square-rigged, and in windward work easily lies within three points of the wind. Going large he runs under bare poles. In the Bay of Barataria I have often seen a squadron

of these Portuguese men-o'-war with stunsails set, beating to windward to get the weather gauge on a Spanish omelet, then furling everything and running down the wind to their less active victim. The nautilus has sails too, only it is barkentine-rigged, and in running sometimes sets a lower foretopsail.

THE PHILOSOPHY OF OMAR
KHAYYAM

In your comment in The Outlook of January 18 on "The Philosophy of Common Sense" you took issue with Frederic Harrison and Leslie Stephen in their assuming an analogy between the mental, religious, and moral and the material; you contend that the religious and moral are not subject to the same laws as the physical. You state that the exact amount of heat required to make water boil can be told by the thermometer, but that the exact amount of passion of an individual to arouse a mob to action cannot be determined. It can be stated in this connection that not only from general observation can a physician measure his influence upon his patients as to emotional and moral changes, but instruments of approximate precision are now being used which can demonstrate muscular and nervous and also mental and moral changes and tendencies in the individual. A Lloyd Garrison in time of national crisis, a Finney when intelligent religious ardor was much needed, a Phillips Brooks in a Church put

ting too great stress upon ritualistic worship, a General Booth when social degradation seems to be sweeping weak mankind out to sea-these have all exerted and still are exerting an influence which can be measured, and the results just as accurately estimated as can the eroding action of time and the elements upon the gorge of the Niagara. Fewer data are possessed and less careful investigations and computations are being made along religious and moral lines, but the history of religious and moral development goes to prove the absolute causal relation to present results and subsequent conditions. In consequence, from this knowledge statistics are being classified in a scientific manner, deductions being drawn and conclusions applied in such a way that, as a result, religion, not as an abstract something but a scientific reality, and morality as a demonstrable truth, are becoming of much greater value to society. effects of conditions which have been pre Laws are simply a statement of the resulting of God to his creatures in things religious viously complied with. Surely the relations and moral are just as real and definite as those material things subject to physical laws. The promise of a scientific interpretation of all of God's laws is the one great hope for the development of all that is good and true in man and the removal of, or from, that which is evil or common. S. P. C.

[This is a scientific statement of the philosophy which Omar Khayyám has poetically stated thus:

"The Ball no question makes of Ayes or Noes,
But Right or Left as strikes the Player goes;

And He that toss'd you down into the Field,
He knows about it all-He knows-He knows!"

It is the philosophy of fatalism. And the answer to it is Samuel Johnson's answer: "We know we're free; and that's the end on't."-THE EDITORS.]

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

In a brief notice in your magazine this week upon a recent volume of Martin Luther's Catechetical Writings, edited by Professor Lenker, you remark that "the editor does not mention that Luther follows the Roman Catholic enumeration of the Commandments (omitting the second as merely an explanation of the first, and dividing the tenth into two)." It is very doubtful, indeed, whether, as a matter of fact, the Lutherans are not right in this matter. Every competent student of the Books of Moses, at the very least, must be thoroughly aware of the fact that the original partition of the Two Tables, doubtless, was into Five Commandments

and Five Commandments, not into four and six, as in the English Prayer Book; neither yet into three and seven Commandments, as with the Roman Catholics. That, indeed, must be esteemed as beyond all question. If, then, the Commandments actually are to be divided-as in the English Prayer Book-into your Duty towards God and your Duty towards your Neighbor, it follows that Honor thy Father and thy Mother, which is the Fifth Commandment, must be adopted, along with your Duty towards God, into the first Table-which seems an unnatural arrangement. Otherwise, then, by the omission of the Second Commandment, the point of division lies between our own Sixth, Thou shalt not kill, and our Seventh, against adultery. That seems more satisfactory. The first Table will then safeguard completely the whole personal life, or the "soul" of men, and protect it by the general admonition, Thou shalt not kill; the second, the more immediate needs or accessories to that life-wife, property, personal reputation, home, and, to crown all, household.

Webbwood, Ontario, Canada.

M. O. SMITH.

[The partition of the Commandments as at present was not "original," for their present form is the product of a far later period than that of the Exodus. Scholars now distinguish in the book of Exodus three different decalogues-the early Judean, the Ephraimite, and the late Prophetic-as the original material which, "expanded and supplemented by later explanatory and hortatory notes," was developed into the Decalogue as it now stands. See Kent's "The Student's Old Testament," Vol. I, pp. 183-187.—THE EDITORS.]

FISH, DUCKS, VEGETABLES, AND

BABIES

You discuss "The Fish and the Fisherman." We say fisherman instead of fisher, presumably to exclude women from that form of butchery. This reminds me of how I became a vegetarian "limited." I could not and cannot see any principle in it, since everything we eat has life, and it is impossible to separate mineral, vegetable, and animal life: they even transmute into one another. When the corn takes up silex, I eat the corn, and it becomes a living part of my

bones, which on my death returns to the soil to have its life renewed.

But the destruction of vegetables is bloodless, and they can't scream; therefore it is less repugnant than the needless "shedding of blood."

I went to Long Island duck-hunting some ten years ago, and we certainly massacred the ducks-sent them home in barrels. I, however, put a couple in my satchel as evidence of my prowess. I showed them to my baby daughter, and she looked at them with sorrowful eyes. "Papa," she said,

"what for did you make that little duck all dead? If I had a little duck I wouldn't make him all dead-let me kiss him."

I had to explain that I did it because I wanted to eat him.

On reflection I saw that this was not true. I did like to eat them, but I killed them for the lust of slaughter. Then I thought that if I were found with the corpse of a baby in my satchel it would be a poor excuse to say that I wanted to eat it.

Accordingly, like the girl who went to a revival meeting and found that her earrings were dragging her down to hell—so she gave them to her younger sister!-I gave my gun to my little cousin.

I have had the best of fishing and hunting and killed lots of things, from salmon and quail down to angleworms and sparrows, but I have never needlessly hurt anything since that gentle reproof.

New York City.

BOLTON HALL.

THE FAMILY AT THE OPERA Have you succeeded in getting William De Morgan, the lovable father-in-literature of Joe Vance and Alice-for-Short, to join your staff? If not, who else could have written the delightful account of the Family at the opera which is ascribed to the Spectator in this week's Outlook? I am just finishing the last chapters of " Alice-for-Short "—that is to say, I am hearing them finished, because they are being read aloud to me. Some critics, I believe, object that the story is too long. It is too short for me, and I am happy to think that when we have no more books from De Morgan, we may turn for comfort to the Spectator.

A CONTINUOUS Reader oF THE OUTLOOK.