they have suggested a triple view of knowledge, chaque branche de nos connaissances, to which Mr. Harrison assents, and in which he says that Comte is entirely at one with me. Out of this triple view I venture to suggest that Comte's law, as stated in the Philosophie Positive, is an abnormal and exaggerated growth. In this, of course, neither Comte nor Mr. Harrison is with me; but I throw out the suggestion for what it may be worth.

Mr. Harrison concludes his paper by giving his own version of the law of the Three States.

The law is this:—that in the infancy of thought, the mind attributes changes in phenomena to a will of some kind, which it supposes to be acting, but of which it has no real proof; secondly, that the mind gradually passes to attribute the changes to some abstract principle, which it formulates without true verification; finally, that the mind comes to take an exact view of the true facts of the case.

The law, so stated and liberally understood, I am content to accept as a true description of the manner in which, historically, the physical sciences have been built up; so that here Mr. Frederic Harrison and I may shake hands. But I deny that this is the law as stated by Comte; there is nothing here about the mutual exclusion of the three states, which is of the very essence of the matter. If there be mutual exclusion, then when a man, or when human thought, comes to take an exact view of the true facts of the case,' it must put aside the notion of a will of some kind which it supposes to be acting.' We have seen that, as a matter of fact, Newton did not put aside this notion, nor have many other scientific philosophers. But the notion of a will must be put aside if Comte's law is true. Modify it according to Mr. Harrison's version, and I at least shall not quarrel with it.

H. CARLISLE.

SOUTH AFRICA AS IT IS.

FROM A COLONIST'S POINT OF VIEW.

FAR off in the Southern Ocean, half-way on the road to Australia and to India, lies a land of sunshine and of shadow. Nowhere does the sun shine more brightly upon mountain and on plain, and nowhere has history been darkened by sadder or more untoward episodes. Visitors to that land meet their first welcome to it from the stern brows of Table Mountain, and the rugged outlines of that frowning sentinel aptly typify the conditions alike of nature and of life in the vast territories behind. Except on its eastern seaboardwhere the sylvan beauty of the coast-line, river-seamed and bush-clad, charms the voyager's eye-South Africa is a land of wild and majestic aspects. Its mountains are cold, sharp-cut, and crag-bound; its plains are vast and verdureless, save for the stunted scrub of the karroo. Its streams are few and turbulent, unless dried up by the too frequent touch of drought. Its vegetation in most parts is scant, peculiar yet attractive. Nor is its climate less remarkable or more commonplace. An atmosphere of exquisite purity, skies of intense blueness, spells of perfect calm, seasons of divine exhilaration, alternate with blasts of scorching wind, with thunderstorms of unsurpassed severity, with occasional tempests of hail, snow, and rain, with periods of pitiless and destructive drought. There are times-and they are perhaps the rule-when mere existence is, climatically considered, a delight in South Africa, but there are also times when oppressive heat or brooding storm prostrate man's energies and depress his mind.

The history of South Africa; has been in keeping with its physical conditions. No other southern colony of Great Britain can show a more chequered record. Again and again has war-the bitter and brutal warfare of savage against settler-laid waste its border territories. Again and again has panic paralysed industry, rebellion. broken out into devastating flames, and bloodshed left its stains upon memory and life. The onset of the thunderstorm has not been more sudden or appalling than the outburst of savage strife in many instances. Nor has the brooding calm which sometimes prevails for seasons and for years been more oppressive than the periods of dull depression and social stagnation which alternate with cycles of commercial progress and productive activity.

The history of colonisation in South Africa has differed in many respects from the history of colonisation in other portions of the Empire. Thither the stream of European outgoers has flowed but feebly and fitfully. In 1820, 5,000 British settlers were planted at the cost of the Empire in the eastern district of Albany. Nearly forty years elapsed before any further migration of European settlers to South Africa took place upon an extended scale. Between 1849 and 1852, over 4,000 British immigrants were received under private auspices by Natal. A few years later and a body of German legionaries were located in Kaffraria. From time to time since then the Governments of both colonies have initiated systems of free or assisted immigration that have been the means of introducing into the Cape and Natal several thousands of European settlers. But there has been in neither case no such continuous and steady inflow of population as has filled up and fertilised with vigorous reproductive life the colonies of North America and Australasia. Burdened and beset by a vast congeries of native tribes, borne down by the dead weight of a multitudinous and menacing barbarism, South Africa has but in a minor degree been vivified by the stimulating influences of European immigration.

Ten years have passed since a supreme effort was made by the dominant power in South Africa to place on what it deemed to be a better and firmer basis the affairs of its possessions there. To that end one of the Empire's ablest representatives and most faithful servants was sent, charged with special powers to carry out a certain policy, a policy which had for two years been nurtured in the breasts of imperial statesmen. When Sir Bartle Frere-a name than which none is held in higher reverence throughout South Africa-left England on his ever-memorable mission, in the month of March, 1877, the territories confided to his care had been, with one small exception, at peace for many years. That solitary exception-I refer to the rebellion of Langalibalele-had been indirectly the cause of the new imperial policy and the new imperial representative's mission; but this fact does not concern us now. The fact I seek to emphasise is that Sir Bartle Frere's advent in South Africa marked the close of one cycle and the beginning of another. A cycle of peace and of comparative political quiescence was followed by a cycle of war, disturbance, and profound depression. When England's great proconsul set out upon his mission, he expected to be the harbinger of concord and union amongst the diverse races of South Africa. That elements of possible danger and difficulty existed he, like others, perceived; but his hope concurred with his aspiration, that a wise and firm and far-reaching policy would avail to allay and overcome them. He no more than men upon the spot fully realised the true character and extent of the heritage upon which he was about to enter. It was my privilege to travel as a fellow-passenger with Sir Bartle Frere in the ship that bore him to his destination ten years ago, and I had

abundant opportunities of knowing how little he anticipated that the task before him would involve the possibilities which came to pass.

My object in this paper, however, is not to indulge in a political review of Sir Bartle Frere's administration, but rather to point out the changes that have occurred in South Africa since he assumed office there. Almost coincident with his arrival in Capetown was the annexation of the Transvaal by Sir Theophilus Shepstone. Four years' later, almost to the day, that act was undone. At that time, therefore, only one colonial state or territory actually remained outside the area of British rule. Kaffirland was more or less under the domination of the Cape Government. Natal was undergoing the five years' experience of constitutional restriction imposed upon it during Sir Garnet Wolseley's administration. The diamond fields were subject to Crown rule pure and simple. Zululand was suffering under the severest phase of Cetewayo's despotism. The Cape Colony and the Orange Free State alone enjoyed the privileges of self-rule. Politically speaking, South Africa at that time was without form and void. Racial feeling was dormant. The pride of nationality had yet to be developed. The idea of South Africa as a whole existed in but a few minds. Each colony and state was beset by apprehension of its native difficulties. The Cape felt trouble brewing on its frontiers. Basutoland was a constant source of anxiety. Griqualand West had its native embarrassments. The Free State was not free from a thorn in the flesh. In the Transvaal the native menace had largely contributed to bring about annexation. Though free from internal troubles or perils, Natal was harassed by the state of affairs in Zululand, and kept in a chronic condition of disquietude by rumours and statements from that quarter.

The commercial and financial conditions of South Africa ten years ago are best indicated by a few figures. The country was about entering upon that period of inflation, caused primarily by the high price of wool in the home markets, which culminated in 1882. In 1876 the imports of the Cape Colony were valued at 5,556,0771., and the exports at 5,012,3031.; in Natal the imports were 1,022,890., and the exports 657,308. In the Cape Colony the revenue was 1,323,2071.; in Natal it was 265,551l. In the Cape the Loan Debt amounted to five millions; in Natal the debt at that time was about a million. Railways were represented in the Cape Colony by about 125 miles, and in Natal by say 25 miles, of opened line. The mineral wealth of South Africa was represented by the produce of the diamond fields, of which no record was then kept; and of the copper mines of Namaqualand, yielding about 20,000 tons of ore. The gold fields at that time were little talked about, and contributed but a nominal addition to the exports of the country. Ostrich farming, on the other hand, was fast approaching its zenith, and vied with wool growing and diamond mining as a lucrative and leading industry.

In few countries has the course of change been so rapid as it has

been in South Africa during the last ten years." In California and in Australia the revolution wrought by gold discoveries transformed the social conditions of each country within a briefer span, but in South Africa the process has affected the political relations and territorial arrangements of the several communities. The past decade has been a period of almost incessant activity and agitation. At least ten separate military movements or expeditions-each forming in itself a little war'-have enlivened the records of that period. It would be a bootless task to estimate the cost of these operations, either in blood or treasure, nor would the sum total of the bill be in either case a pleasant fact to contemplate. This much may be said, however, that the expenditure of these millions of pounds and these many thousands of lives may be regarded as the purchase pricealas! all too costly-of that better, more stable, and less menacing order of things which it is my object to bring into view now.

For I dare to believe, and I confidently submit, that South Africa is now incomparably nearer the goal which Sir Bartle Frere set before himself at the outset of his mission than it was when he landed on its shores in April, 1877. If in moving onward to that goal it has been our lot as colonists to do so amidst an experience of strife and bloodshed unexampled in modern colonial history, we at any rate have such solace as may spring from the thought that the tale of suffering and sacrifice has not been in vain.

Let us look at each colony or state as it now stands, first as regards its constitutional circumstances, and next as regards its political relations.

The Cape Colony can proudly point to the tenacity with which it has, in spite of strain and tension, maintained in unimpaired integrity its privileges as a self-governed colony. Not being myself a Cape Colonist, I am free to bear unaffected and unrestrained testimony upon this point. I do so with no less sincerity than unreserve. In no colony has responsible government been put to severer tests than in the Cape, but in no colony has the common-sense, the patriotism, and the sturdy independence of the community proved more adequate to either occasion or emergency. Nor, let me add, can any colony show a record marked by a more prudent or salutary conservatism. A quarter of a century has passed since a representative legislature was granted to the colony. Throughout that period the local Parliament has only on one occasion been prematurely dissolved. For fourteen years the colony has governed itself by its own representatives, yet only four ministries have held office during that period. Am I wrong in assuming that such a record of stable, self-controlled action is unique in the history of British colonisation? I may possibly be answered by the sneer that the fact is due rather to the phlegmatic passivity of a bucolic community than to any special development of conservative tendency on the part of the electors and their repre