in his "Passages in the Life of a Radical," and many other writers are loud in their denunciations of the middle class, which accepted the aid of the workers until the Reform Bill was passed, and then turned round and became the most bitter opponents of their late allies, in their attempt to gain a further extension of the franchise. If we read Bamford's story of "The Massacre of Peterloo," and compare it with the struggle for the right of public speech in Hyde Park in 1886, or "Bloody Sunday" in Trafalgar Square in 1887, we see that the Latin idea, that "the rabble," the "swinish multitude,' "the many-headed beast," must be suppressed at all hazards, is still the dominant idea among the law makers of England.

RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO REPEAL THE LAWS

I do not think that the right of the people of any country to repeal or even to abolish every law on their statute-book, if they are so inclined, can be questioned. This question has been disposed of for ever in all Anglo-Saxon communities by the precedent furnished by the execution of Charles I. According to the Latin law, which is still the basis of the law of England, Charles Stuart reigned by hereditary right as well as by divine right. According to this law, the King was above all law and could do no wrong. He owed no allegiance to his subjects. It was they who owed allegiance to him. His execution was therefore obviously an illegal act, but because it was carried out with a show of legality, and has since been endorsed by a majority of the people, it has established a precedent for all times. To the Latin, the execution of the King was a murder, and the King was a martyr. To the Anglo-Saxon, it was a just and proper vindication of the right of the people to choose their own King, or to provide that form of government which might

be suitable to them. The Restoration did not restore the right of the King, and therefore, while Charles II., "came back to his own," according to his own and the Latin idea, the English showed what they thought of his claim by deposing his brother. It is absurd, therefore, to urge any argument against the right of the people to alter or repeal any and every law on the statute-book if they so choose. It is worthy of note in this connection that hundreds of kings and rulers have been slaughtered by conspirators and others without any precedent having been established, but that the mere form of trial, supported as it was by the voice of the people, served to constitute the death of Charles I. and the expulsion of James II. precedents, and if the King himself can be legally killed or cast out, there can be no question as to the right of the people to deal with the nobles or other lesser kings, or their laws, in any way they please.

ANARCHISTS AND SOCIALISTS

The total repeal of all existing laws does not necessarily mean mean anarchy. The anarchists are divided into two classes: the violent anarchist, who is a man with a large proportion of Latin blood in his veins, and hence excitable and disposed to violence; and the Teutonic anarchist, who seeks to abolish law by legal means. But the AngloSaxon is the most highly gregarious of all animals ; he builds the biggest cities in the world, and lives in huge clubs, hotels, tenement houses and flats. It must, I think, be apparent therefore that some sort of rules, by-laws, regulations, acts, ordinances or laws of some kind are necessary, if only to regulate traffic in the streets and to enforce the necessary sanitation. If, however, the anarchist says that what he desires is to abolish the Latin law and substitute laws in accordance with the Anglo-Saxon spirit, that is

another matter, and he is no anarchist. It is worthy of note that the violent anarchist, nihilist, socialist or other reformer by force is usually found in Latin or semi-Latin countries, while the constitutional anarchist, that is the man who would abolish all laws by legal means, is like the mild socialist, an Anglo-Saxon or a Teuton. The anarchist of this class seems to be a mere dreamer of dreams. Like the secularist he rushes to extremes, and in this shows that the Latin spirit is still strong within him. The secularist sees that many gigantic evils exist. He realises that the current religions appear to be powerless to abate them, and he impulsively concludes that all religion is evil. The anarchist traces all evil to the law, and the teetotaler to drink, as the Church fathers did to sexual intercourse. But experience proves that an evil caused by extreme indulgence cannot be cured by extreme abstinence or vice versa. In fact what appears to be required is some method of eliminating extremes and of finding the happy mean. The socialists appear to have taken up the progressive movement where their immediate predecessors the Chartists left off, but they are divided into sects more or less antagonistic, and their principles have not yet been clearly defined. Hitherto the more pronounced socialists have thought it advisable to establish so-called socialistic settlements in the bush, or away from the majority, and in many cases these settlements have broken up when the leader died or disappeared. I think it must be apparent that this is not the way to “regenerate society." The movement which will provide the Anglo-Saxon with that social system which will satisfy him must start in the big cities, as all other great racial developments have done.

CHAPTER XII

CONTRASTS OF LATIN AND TEUTONIC
CHARACTER

INFLUENCE OF SCIENCE ON CIVILISATION

IN the previous chapters I have very briefly referred to the Reformation, the Civil War, the Restoration, and the rise of the old Radicals, the Chartists, Socialists, and other parties which mark epochs in the evolution of the Anglo-Saxon spirit, as worthy of special study from the racial standpoint; although, of course, the intermediate periods, when the political atmosphere was clear and the people were too much absorbed either in war or in commerce to agitate, are not less worthy of the attention of the historian of the future. The evolution of the race spirit has, I think, been fairly continuous, although certain stages are marked by greater apparent energy than others. But in the comparatively peaceful times which alternate with the great movements the new ideas were spreading, and public opinion kept pace with them. And any advance in public opinion has been more or less due to a previous expansion of our scientific knowledge. It seems to be almost impossible to overestimate the influence of scientific discovery on public opinion. Every invention, mechanical, philosophical or physical, has exerted a more or less powerful influence on the Anglo-Saxon mind. I remember hearing my father say on more than one occasion, that there had been a greater

change in public opinion, in religious and secular thought, during his life, than in the previous centuries since the Reformation, and he attributed this change to the introduction of steam as a motive power. He died in 1856, and the change in popular opinion since then has probably been greater than in the first half of the nineteenth century. George Borrow in Romany Rye," in speaking of the opening of the first railways in England, says that "it took Peel as long to travel from Rome to London as it had Trajan, but all this is altered now." We also know that some eighty years ago the English housewife lighted her fire by means of flint and steel, as the ancient Greek or Roman housewife did. The influence of such gigantic discoveries as steam, or electricity may be more easily traced perhaps than that of the invention of the lucifer match, the sewing machine, or the bicycle; but that these discoveries have had an influence on the mind of the Anglo-Saxon as well as the discoveries of Galileo, Newton, Locke, Laplace, Lyell, Darwin, Mill and our other great physical and philosophical discoverers, cannot be doubted. It is to the tracing out of the effects of these and other developments of our science on the Anglo-Saxon mind, that the historian of the future must devote himself if he desires to discover the motives which underlie the noiseless revolutions which have been going on in every church, in every home or workshop, alike in times of peace as in times of strife or turmoil. Probably it will be proved that these last are largely due to the change in popular opinion during times of rest. They mark epochs in the education and development of the race, and the revolutions are due to the attempts of those who have constituted themselves the governing party to prevent the expansion of the science of the race, because they dread that the education of the people will be the herald of their dismissal from the offices they have usurped.