the coöperative retail societies with whom they do business. In such societies the profits are usually divided between shareholders, workers, and customers. All Coöperative Workshops aim at having the best conditions of labor. The statistics of coöperative production are as under: Number... Capital employed.. WHOLESALE 2 £2,655,899. £179,727*. Value of productions.. £6,467,557. *After paying interest on capital employed. PRODUCTIVE 131 cultivation by Small Holders under Cooperative conditions, an impetus will be given to this form of Coöperation and that in the next few years many Societies will be formed for this purpose. If this hope be realized then there is no doubt that the advantages of Coöperative action can be reaped by the agricultural laborer as well as by his brother worker in the textile industries. Whilst nothing very practical has been £168,675 done for the benefit of the agricultural laborers the farmers of Great Britain have to some extent become alive to the advantages of Coöperative methods and systems. There are Societies in England, Scotland and Ireland to promote the organization of agricultural Coöperative Societies amongst the farmers for the sale of their produce, and for purchasing farming implements and necessaries. No complete statistics however are available in regard to the number of these Societies or their position. In addition to carrying on these forms of coöperative production, we have the productive departments of the retail societies. There are no definite statistics available in regard to these, but as far as can be gathered by careful inquiry, it is estimated that the retail societies produce in their workshops goods to the value of about £5,000,000 This, with the Wholesale Societies and Productive Societies, gives a total of over $14,000,000 as the annual output of Coöperative factories and workshops in Great Britain. Coöperative farming, as a means of using Coöperative Capital for Coöperative production, ought to come next in order of procedure, as the aim of Coöperation is not only to provide industrial and textile workers with better conditions of employment, but also to give similar assistance to the workers in that most important of all employments-agriculture. Unfortunately, however, the hopes Houses built and owned by the of coöperators have not been realized in this respect, and such progress as has been made by the Coöperative movement in connection with farming and agriculture has not done much to improve the condition of the agricultural laborer. It is hoped, however, that as the outcome of the act to facilitate the acquisition of Small Holdings, which was passed during the last session of Parliament, by which it is now possible for a Coöperative Society, or a Coöperative Society of Small Holders specially formed for the purpose, to enlist the help of a County Council so as to obtain from the owners land for The next step in importance is that of Coöperative Housing and here some steady progress has been made. According to the statistics sent in to the Coöperative Union in 1907 by 413 Societies out of a total of 1,448, it is shown that these 413 Societies had assisted in the providing of houses for their members, to the following extent: STATISTICS RELATING TO 413 SOCIETYS. Societies.. No. VALUE. 8,530... £1,839,069 5,577... £1,232,073 Houses built and sold to members Total Value.... £9,603,438 We have thus a total of £9,603,438 as used by only 413 Societies in carrying out this important item in the Coöperative program, but this does not cover the entire field of operations because so many Societies fail to send in statistics. In some cases the Societies build to hold and own the houses which they let on rent to members at reasonable rentals. In other cases the Society is always willing to sell to members any of the houses which it has erected:"whilst in this Society was until very recently the other Societies building operations are only undertaken to the order and requirements of the members, and the Society builds only to sell and not to hold. It will be seen also that a large amount of money has been used by Societies in making advances of money to members to enable them to build their own houses to their own liking and design; the money so advanced being paid back by installments, with interest at 4 per cent. or 5 per cent. Another phase of Coöperative Housing is the formation of Societies specially for the purpose of providing housing for members, such houses to remain the property of the Society and let to tenants at usual rents; any profit derived therefrom to be used for the benefit of the community, or allowed to the tenants by way of reduction in the rents. Each tenant is required to take up shares in these societies to the amount equal to the value of his house. The Society thus retains control over the houses and makes regulations for their upkeep, and also for the general well-being of the Society's estate. When a member desires for some cause or other to remove from the neighborhood he has not to sell his house and thus probably lose money by a forced sale: he can still hold his shares in the Society or sell them to the incoming tenant when opportuinty offers. Under this system tenants on the estate of the Coöperative Society can enjoy communal advantages which would be impossible under conditions of individual ownership. The first Society of this kind was formed in 1888 or 1889 on a plan propounded by Mr. Benjamin Jones, and submitted by him to the Coöperative Union, by whose officials rules were prepared to meet the case and a Society named the "Tenant Coöperators, Ltd." was then registered. This Society is still in existence, and has done good work during the 18 or 19 years since it became established. Owing, however, to want of effective propaganda only one of its kind in existence. A few years ago owing to the development of the Garden City idea it was brought home to coöperators that something might possibly be done, by Coöperative action, to promote the formation of Housing Societies, to be constituted of tenants organized in a community in which the best ideas of the Garden City movement could be embodied. This has been done with marked success and under the auspices of the Coöperative Tenants, Housing Council several such Societies have been formed and are now actively at work, while many others are in process of organization. What is the Coöperative Movement doing for Education? In 1906 the sum of £83,592 was granted by the various Societies for educational purposes. In connection with most societies there is a special committee, appointed by the members, to administrate the educational grant, and the duty of this Committee is to arrange the educational program each year. Some Societies have large and valuable libraries, especially in Rochdale, Bolton, and Oldham, where the Coöperative libraries attract more readers than the Municipal libraries. Lectures of high class and on a variety of subjects are arranged for the winter season. Classes in science, art and literature are conducted by competent teachers. Evening Continuation Schools for the young people who have left the day school, are carried on by some Societies. Concerts and entertainments, for the recreation and instruction of the members generally are also much in vogue. In the summer season, excursions to places of interest under the guidance of competent leaders are arranged; also rambles for botanical and geological research provide training for those whose minds tend in that direction. The children are not neglected for now most Societies set aside one day each year for a Children's Day when festivities are provided to suit their capacities. Then as regards more serious fare in the instruction of Coöperators, there are Classes established under the auspices of the Coöperative Union for the training of managers and officials of Coöperative Societies also for instructing the members and young people in the history and principles of Coöperation, Industrial History, Political and Social Economics, etc., etc.; also special Classes in "Bookkeeping" and "Auditing." These centers of instruction are established in various parts of the country and are well attended. In addition to the sums which are annually granted for charitable purposes by most Societies, the Coöperative movement has established six Convalescent Homes, for the benefit of the poorer members who need the help of such institutions to regain their health. These Homes are maintained by the annual contributions of the Societies, and will accommodate about 600 patients at one time. They are greatly appreciated by Coöperative members, and are generally utilized to the full extent of their capacity. The above is a brief summary of the work which is being carried on in Great Britain under the name of Coöperation. The principles and methods of the movement have stood the test of more than 60 years' experience and have proved their ability to realize that social and industrial evolution which the originators of the Coöperators' program had in their mind. What has been achieved in Great Britain in face of the most bitter and determined opposition from those classes and interests which had reason to dread the advance of Coöperative ideas and systems can be done and, to a great extent, is being done in other countries. J. C. GRAY. Manchester, Eng. SCIENCE AND THE SUPERNATURAL. BY AUGUST F. FEHLANDT. UR THEME lands us Urenched with blood." We stand desultory fire of musketry, but formal on soil and prejudices there are yet, with some upon a battle-ground that has witnessed the most sanguinary contests in the history of human thought. Over this broad field the opposing forces have ranged, with here and again a decisive victory, fraught with consequences for all time. On the one side it has been a war of liberation, the spirit of free inquiry rising up against the tyranny of tradition, the inertia of the ages. On the other side it has been a holy war, the strong arm of ecclesiastical power, as the custodian of the oracles of God, seeking to crush, with a zeal not always holy, the menacing presumptions of heresy. But happily, in its main contentions, the contest is practically over. Passions hostilities have ceased. The task now concerns itself chiefly with the specific conditions of peace, and, for theology, with the larger work of reconstruction, following upon defeat. The smoke has lifted sufficiently, and the field cleared to view, that we may pause briefly to point out again the main positions of each side, the several crucial points of attack, the chain of breastworks stormed and never retaken, and those defenses that have proved impregnable. This will help us to a clearer comprehension of the relative spheres of science and of religion, and enable us to trace with defter hand the border line between nature and the supernatural. As is the case in most great conflicts, so in this the causes extend far back. They seem bound up with certain native characteristics of the human mind as they appear in the different stages of race development. For instance, a trait peculiar to the earlier life of the race, as in the earlier years of the individual, is that the sanction for faith and conduct comes not through reason and the moral sense immediately, but by the word of visible authority. No race reaches maturity before first passing its tutelage under patriarch, priest, and king, whose word is law. And this sway of authority extends not merely to the outward, ordered life of a people, but includes the scope of its thinking as well. Men believe what others have thought out and set before them, the validity of which they are as likely to question as they are the authority of kingship itself. Passing from generation to generation, these teachings and beliefs become traditions, which gather in volume with the cycle of the centuries, and become authoritative in proportion to their age. It was such a mass of tradition that the ages of Jewish history brought down with them, increasing with succeeding generations, until it had become a burden grievous to bear. Thus the Pharisees asked: "Why walk not thy disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat bread with unwashen hands?" In replying, Jesus well said that to such extent had they carried the worship of tradition that they had rendered vain the word of God itself. But a change was at hand. The Man of Nazareth received his authority from a new source; nay, he turned to the original first source, God himself. His directions were given him, not by following the weary paths of rabbinical decisions, but by immediate revelation from the Father. He saw with open vision, and spake as he saw. His sanction rested upon the voice from above. The Jews, looking for something impressive, asked for a sign; but he gave them none. He pointed out that the blind saw, that the lame walked, that lepers were cleansed, and that the poor had good news brought to them; these he presented as his credentials. He gave the Jews, further, a criterion of truth that was new to the world, one which it had been well if the world had never again forgotten. This was to be the test: "If any man willeth to do his (God's) will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak it from myself.” The early followers of Christ did not wholly fail to catch these meanings of his teaching; for beginning with the great apostle to the gentiles, that incomparable expounder of the gospel in its various phases and larger bearings, there was a freedom of interpretation, a liberality in dealing with the authority of tradition, a joyous consciousness of the simplicity and immediateness of the knowledge and salvation in Jesus Christ, that was admirably in keeping with the mind of the Master. Christ broke down the wall of separation between Jew and gentile, so it was taught; and in his death the inner veil itself was rent, giving the believer immediate access to the throne of grace. Before this throne he is exhorted to come boldly. He is exhorted to stand fast in the liberty wherein Christ made him free, and not to be again entangled with the yoke of bondage. But liberty is a blessing which only those that are strong can stand. With the passing of a few centuries the Church had again lapsed into bondage. A body of men had developed, the Church Fathers, whose word became authoritative. Ostensibly it was the Bible that formed the standard of faith, in reality, it was only the interpretation as given it by the Church that men believed. The veil that was taken away in Christ was again put over men's faces. These interpretations, zealously prosecuted, and containing various mystical and allegorical elements, added to by the decrees of Church councils, at length formed a mass of tradition and law that as effectually fettered the Christian as ever the Mishnah bound down the neck of the Jew. When it was now asked, What is the criterion of truth, and what shall I believe? the answer was ready: Quod semper, ubique, et ab omnibus creditum est, what has always, everywhere and by all been believed. Every avenue of progress had now been closed to the human mind. Aside, therefore, from political disintegrations and the breaking up of empires, the centuries into which the Church now passed, under such a spell, could not but prove to be the Dark Ages of Christendom. But the mind will not suffer itself to be always bound. After a thousand years there was to be a new day. When Constantinople fell, her scholars came into the Western Empire, bringing with them the treasures of the ancient classic literature, which had long since been forgotten here. A new impetus was given to letters and to the study of ancient languages. The horizon of the mind was enlarging. The invention of printing by movable type facilitated the multiplication of books. The invention of gunpowder revolutionized warfare. The use of the mariner's compass opened an era of adventure upon the sea, leading to the discovery of new continents. On every side the spirit of inquiry was stimulated. The Church herself was rent by this new liberty of the spirit, a chasm which all the learning and all the constraints of Christian love, up to this present hour, have not been able to close. But the really important fact of all, during this stir of the morning hour, the tingling tales of discovery, the eager inquiry, the excitement of anticipation, modern science was born. It is by virtue of this event that the period is rightly named the Renaissance or Renascence, the new birth; for the intellectual life of the race was now born again. The human mind now struck out in new paths. Beliefs now found a new sanction, other than the tradition of the Fathers, or the decrees of Church Councils. Men were working out a new formula which was to interpret to them the meaning of nature, and already they had begun to re-chart the maps of knowledge. The Church, as the lawful spouse of true learning, naturally did not take kindly to this young Ishmael, and he was cast out. When Roger Bacon, one of the forerunners of modern science, explained, in the middle of the thirteenth century, the character of the rainbow on natural grounds, he was promptly silenced; the Bible, in Genesis, plainly taught the origin of the rainbow, that it was set in the heavens for a sign that there should not be another deluge. For St. Augustine had laid down his famous rule, "that nothing is to be believed except upon the authority of the Scriptures, since greater is that authority than all the powers of the human mind"; and St. Augustine's thought dominated the Western Church for over a thousand years. But the old pathway to knowledge was beset with increasing difficulties. The very times conspired to dispute tradition's right of way. The shape of the earth, for instance, had long been a subject of dispute. Weighty Biblical proofs had been marshaled against the theory of its sphericity, and of its being inhabited on the other side. A Portuguese navigator settled the matter, when in 1519 he started to sail around the earth; and settled the dispute as to whether people lived on the other side, for Magellan's survivors testified that they had looked upon them with their own eyes. The Schoolmen might refuse to believe, and the Church might pronounce anathemas, but the matter was open to future verification. The race was coming again to the open vision, especially as touching, this time, the things of nature. Men began to interrogate nature, not through the |