Now, considering that all our warlike stores must be obtained from England, it is obvious that if the 'Canadian Army' is to be prepared to take the field at short notice, a very large quantity of reserve stores must be maintained in this country. The mere supply, from year to year, of the actual necessities of the Active Militia, will not suffice. Arms and ammunition must be supplied for the first levy of the Reserve Militia; guns for the armament of our fortifications-existing and required;-with the proper supply of shot, shell, and gunpowder. Not only should there be a much larger quantity of the latter than at present exists, but a large stock of nitre (saltpetre), which does not deteriorate by storage, should be kept in the country, either by Government itself, or by arrangement with the powder companies; so that if a blockade were instituted, we should still be able to manufacture gunpowder.

For the above purposes, therefore, a specific sum should be set apart each year. What more available or suitable fund could be found than the sums annually received from the sale of Ordnance lands. These lands were given to the Dominion by the Imperial Government for military purposes, why not apply the proceeds of their sale in increasing our defensive power. Up to 1878, the revenue derived by Government, since Confederation, from the sale of military stores, rent of military properties, and sale of Ordnance Lands, was $947,905 52. If these sums had been applied towards the permanent defence of the country, and the purchase of reserve stores, instead of being improperly applied towards swelling the consolidated revenue, a Canadian army would be a possibility at the present time, and could take the field with a sufficient supply of all that would be required in order to constitute it an effective force.

Much disappointment has been experienced by the Active Militia at

the meagre results that have hitherto followed the appointment of a MajorGeneral to command the Militia. It was hoped that the presence at Ottawa of an Imperial officer of high rank and extended experience as the military adviser of the Government would have very sensibly ameliorated the condition of the Force. But so far, except in the most minor details, the Government has practically disregarded the advice of its military adviser, and any benefit that might have accrued to the Force from his suggestions has been lost. Now, it is very evident that unless the Government means to profit by the presence of an experienced military officer as its adviser, that his presence is unnecessary, and is only an augmentation of the already disproportionate staff expendi

ture.

Either the recommendations of the Major-General should be carried into effect, or he should be relieved from the undignified position he must occupy when the advice he tenders is disregarded.

This is a strong argument in favour of a fixed annual grant for Militia purposes. The Major-General could be held responsible by the Minister of Militia for the proper allocation of the sum at his disposal, so as to ensure the greatest amount of efficiency. His experience would then be useful, and he would no longer be powerless for good. He would supply the medium which is so necessary between the civil and military branches of the Militia Department; and with an efficient Head-Quarters Staff, representing each arm of the service, could do away with the necessity for retaining the larger portion of the District Staffs. Inspections could be made by officers of the Head-Quarters Staff; and if the force was brigaded under efficient officers, much loss of time and circumlocution would be avoided that is now so vexatious to a commanding officer.

But the main question to be considered is, Does the Government

consider the Active Militia a national necessity, and honestly desire to make it efficient; or is its maintenance looked upon as of minor importance, and useful only in so far as it is approved by the Imperial Government?' In the former case, it should be seriously considered how much (not how little) the country can afford to expend annually for its maintenance-the numbers should be adjusted to suit the appropriation—and the maintenance of an efficient force should be the first consideration. In the second case, it must be plain to every one that the establishment of 43,729 nominal strength (drilling only 19,569 annually) as the 'mock army of Canada,' is only a blind, and that, so long as the show of a force is maintained, it does not matter how low it may be in efficiency. In this latter case, it is an injustice to those officers who have for years past supported the whole burden of maintaining the force

upon their shoulders-to whose zeal and enthusiasm is solely due the existence of a Volunteer Militia-to allow them to continue their labours in a thankless and unappreciated task. Better to place the matter upon a proper footing and organize the Regu lar Militia; where no strain would be thrown upon officers to maintain their corps, and no responsibility would be entailed upon them. Let the maintenance of the Active Militia be a mechanical operation of the law -take away the esprit de corps, and destroy the morale of the present organization; but do not any longer dupe those credulous and enthusiastic officers who have for years hoped against hope, and battled against every obstacle, in the vain trust that another year, or another administration, would improve their position as the 'first line' in the system of our national defence.

ELIEF in the literal truth of the

BE

Mosaic cosmogony, while it remained undisturbed, precluded any scientific or rational inquiry into the origin of things. That curtain being drawn aside by the hands of criticism and geology combined, we have the nebular hypothesis and the Darwinian philosophy. In the same way, dogmatic Christianity, so long as its authority endured, stilled all questionings as to the estate of man and the character of the Power which has fixed our lot and controls our destiny. Dogmatic Christianity gives in its way a complete solution of the mystery of human existence. It not only admits, but proclaims, that the present world and the condition of men in it are evil; but it holds out a heaven beyond, to be won by obedience to the divine command in this place of trial. For the existence of evil it accounts by the fall of man, at the same time providing a supernatural remedy, in the form of a redemption, which, if men will lay hold upon its benefits.assures them of salvation. The ultimate triumph of good over evil it proclaims under the imagery of the Apocalypse. Thus, with regard to the sum of things, it is, for Christendom at least, optimistic, while it is pessimistic with regard to our present state. Its ultimate optimism is fearfully qualified, no doubt, by the doctrine of the broad and the narrow gate; but no one is hopelessly excluded from bliss by any Christian dogma except that which constitutes the most dreadful form of Calvinism.

The dogmatic system received a fatal blow when it was revealed that disorder, suffering, and death, instead of being brought into existence by the fall of man, had filled the globe for countless ages

before his appearance, and that numberless races of beings, incapable of sin, had been consumed by a ravin to which no moral law or object could be assigned. A recent Christian philosopher, M. Secretan, has met the objection by giving the fall a retrospective effect, so as to involve all races from the beginning in the penalty of Adam's sin; but this is one of those desperate attempts to make the old bottles hold the new wine which are merely adding to the confusion.

By ascetic Christianity, especially in its darker forms of self-torturing monasticism, the pessimistic view of our present state has been carried to fearful extremes. Perhaps no anchorite has gone so far as the most renowned apologist of Roman Catholicism in modern times, Joseph de Maistre, who, in a passage of the Soirées de St. Petersbourg, 'outrunning anything in the archives of heathen superstition, proclaims that the Power under whose dominion we are here requires to be constantly propitiated by vast libations of human blood, shed in war or by the axe of the executioner,— a doctrine which it is needless to say would have appeared to St Paul one of devils. On the other hand, Protestantism and the theism which emanated from it and remained partly blended with it have given birth to an optimism not entirely consistent with Christian dogma, the optimism of Leibnitz, of Paley's Evidences, of the Bridgewater Treatises, according to which this world, instead of being a prison house and a purgatory, is a beautiful manifestation of the wisdom and goodness of the Deity providing for the happiness of all

creatures.

Now, however, the veil of Christian dogma, like that of the Mosaic cosmog

ony, is completely rent, and reason,perhaps for the first time, gazes freely on the mystery of existence. The established optimism is confronted by pessimism, which, by the mouths of Schopenhauer, Hartman, and their school, proclaims that the world, the estate of man, and the powers from which they emanate are evil; and this belief is evidently spreading along certain lines of individual temperament and of national condition.

Besides optimism, which affirms the definite ascendancy of good, and pessimism, which affirms the definite ascendancy of evil, a third hypothesis is possible, that of a perpetual balance and everlasting conflict of the two principles as separate and independent powers. This opinion has been associated with the name of Manes, a daring heretic of the third century, though it is very doubtful whether he really held it. Manicheism shows no tendency to revive. Any dualistic hypothesis is repelled by the manifest unity of all-pervading laws, which indicates that the empire of the universe is undivided; while if we look into ourselves, we see that though good and evil both are there, and alternately prevail according to the vicissitudes of our moral history, the being in which they commingle is essentially one.

No one will compare with philosophic pessimism, such as is now propounded, inere wails, however passionate, and whether in prose or poetry,over the unhappiness of man's lot. A cry of individual anguish or despondency denotes no settled view of the universe. Often, in the poets especially, these lamenta. tions are merely sentimental, and form a sort of intellectual luxury, adding zest to enjoyment by their pungency. Sophocles, in whose choruses some of the most thrilling of them are found, was evidently, from his general serenity, in temperament at least, an optimist, and he distinctly indicates his belief in the supreme dominion of a power of good. Some of the utterances of the book of Job taken by themselves would sound pessimistic enough; but the end of the story is happy, and the crowning moral is optimistic. We find, however, in this book an insight into the sad side of humanity and a sympathy with a sufferer's questionings as to the benevolence and justice of the dispensation which show that the writer, if a Jew at all, was no

ordinary Jew. The philosophy of the ordinary Jew was the tribal optimism of a land flowing with milk and honey for the chosen race, combined with pessimisin for Egyptians, Canaanites, and other races which were not chosen.

In the weeping and laughing philosophers of Greece, Heraclitus and Democritus, we seem to come to a philosophic pessimism which, according to the temperament of the philosopher, pronounces the estate of man all misery or all folly. But even supposing the popular traditions about Heraclitus and Democritus to be true, it will not do to take Greek philosophy too seriously. The philosophy of Socrates and Plato was serious; it was an earnest attempt to meet a great outburst of profligacy, especially in the political sphere, by restoring the authority of the moral rule and settling it on an immutable foundation. But in the speculations of the Greeks generally on the mysteries of human existence, lively curiosity and intellectual ambition probably played a great part. It is difficult to suppose, for example, that Cynicism was more than a humour and a fashion. These great and terrible problems are not likely to be considered in earnest till they force themselves practically on the minds of men. They did force themselves practically on the minds of men, and of men of very deep and serious character, amidst the convulsions which attended the death of the Roman republic, and afterwards when life was made at once miserable and uncertain by the gloomy and suspicious tyranny of the empire. Lucretius, it is true, derived from Epicurus the philosophy to the service of which he nobly dedicates his high poetic gifts, and which he does his best to commend as the one haven of peace and rest for storm-tossed and perplexed humanity. But the practical earnestness, the force, the penetrating tone, of the poem on The Nature of Things, came not from the quiet garden of Epicurus; they came from the scene of civil war, massacre, fierce and restless intrigue, into which the Roman world had been turned by the parties of Marius and Sulla. What view the great Roman Stoics-great they may be truly called-took of the world and of the lot of men it would be difficult exactly to say. Certainly it was not one which led to annihilation of will and a renunciation of action, like