upon the recipients. It is an accepted truth that state aid to people in their homes tends to create a pauper class. It is claimed, however, that private alms-giving will not have this effect, as it cannot be relied upon. But the pauper class make little distinction between aid bestowed by the government or a charitable institution. The result is to foster a spirit of dependence in the recipients, and to cause others to sink to the same condition. Institutions for old people, invalids, and children, at all events, we are told, are indispensable. But the moral effects even of these are undesirable. The care of such people has always had a salutary influence upon those whose duty it is to provide for them, and has been one of the strongest incentives to industry. Such benefits should not be denied to the poorer classes. Nor do such institutions necessarily promote the welfare of the inmates themselves. Children are removed from the beneficial influences of home life. They feel no responsibility to provide for their daily wants, and when turned out into the world they are so ill adapted to it that many of them make shipwreck of life. Upon the rich dispensers of the alms, the result of the practice is no less desirable. It soothes their conscience, leads to their glorification, and keeps them from considering the justice of their relations to the poor. What, then, is the remedy for this state of things? To be just before being generous. If men are to live, they must have access to the earth which is the source of life. This does not mean a new allotment of the soil, but the collection of the rental values of land, irrespective of improvements, as the fund from which the expenses of the city, state, and nation shall be met. Thus alone can the cause of the evil be removed. While under existing circumstances it may still be necessary to help the poor, we should at the same time teach them the cause of their poverty, and thus educate them to demand a reform of the present abuses.
D. D. Hugh.
METAPHYSICAL AND EPISTEMOLOGICAL.
The idea of necessity is based upon the conception of sameness, and the existence of sameness is a fact of experience, upon the presence of which depends the existence of the mind itself. Necessity is not fate. I. The Basis of Necessity. Etymologically, the necessary is the inevitable. The idea of necessity is closely allied to the idea of sameness. The logical principle of identity ought to be named the principle of sameness. The statement A=A does not mean that this particular A
