be formally committing mortal sin. But to our mind, it is precisely on this ground that any other view ought rather to be considered startling and paradoxical; as we pointed out a page or two back. The unrepentant novice in sin (before his conscience became obdurate) was most indubitably committing mortal sin during pretty nearly the whole of his waking life. It would surely be startling and paradoxical indeed, if his acts ceased to be mortally sinful, merely because (through a course of unscrupulous indulgence) he has come to treat his indifference to God's Commandments as a simple matter of course.

This doctrine of " grave inordination" is (as we just now said) entirely applicable to solving the other difficulties we have mentioned; to appreciating the sins of pride and worldliness so widely found among non-Catholic Theists; to appreciating the various sins of fanaticism and self-deception; and, lastly, to appreciating also the moral position of Antitheistic infidels. It would occupy however, considerable space duly to develop and apply the doctrine for this purpose; and we must therefore abandon all attempt at doing so. In regard indeed to the last-named class, a certain theological point needs to be considered: because it may be suggested that since mortal sin derives its characteristic malignity from its being an offence against God-those who deny His Existence cannot possibly commit it. This whole matter however has been amply discussed by theologians, since a certain proposition was condemned concerning "Philosophical Sin." For our own part therefore we will but briefly express our own adhesion to those theologians-of whom Viva may be taken as a representative instance-who hold, that the recognition of acts as being intrinsically wicked, is ipso facto a recognition of them as being offences against the paramount claims of God as rightful Supreme Legislator; and that this recognition suffices for their mortally sinful character.

Otherwise what we have generally to say about these Antitheists is this. We assume the truth of our own doctrine, as exhibited in the preceding pages. But if this doctrine be trueif God have really granted to all men a self-intimate sense of Free Will-if He have really endowed them with an ineffaceable intuition of right and wrong-if He is constantly pleading within them in favour of virtue He has, by so acting, invested them with a truly awful moral responsibility. And it is perfectly absurd to suppose, that a set of rebels can evade that responsibility, by the easy process of shutting their eyes to manifest facts. It will fall within the scope of the article which we propose for next January, to show in detail the monstrous inconsistency which exists between the doctrine which these unhappy men theoretically profess, and that which they practically imply

in their whole habitual unstudied language concerning human

action.

In concluding our lengthy discussion, we must once more say how entirely we submit all that we have suggested to the judgment of theologians. We indulge the hope however, that-even where we may have unwarily fallen into error-we shall nevertheless have done good service, by obtaining for some of the points we have raised more prominent and scientific consideration, than (we think) they have hitherto received.

And there is a further matter concerning Free Will, on which a word must be added. One principal argument of Determinists is, that the Free Will doctrine would on one hand make psychological science impossible; while on the other hand it would derange the whole practical machinery of life, by proclaiming the inability to predict future human actions. Now it might be thought that what we have now been urging on the extent of Free Will, must strengthen the Determinist objection. But facts are not so at all. The chief passages in which we replied to it appeared in April, 1867, pp. 288-290; and in April, 1874, pp. 353-4. And if our readers will kindly refer to those pages, they will see that our answer is as simply applicable in defence of our own present thesis, as in defence of any more limited Libertarian theory which can possibly be devised.

Here at length we bid farewell (for a considerable time at least) to the Free Will controversy. We hope to have a paper ready for next January, on "Agnosticism as such." And we hope to begin it by a few pages-mainly taken from Ollé Laprune's invaluable work on "Moral Certitude"-in which we shall consider what are those principles of investigation, which lead to the establishment of certain knowledge on those all-important religious truths, which are within the sphere of human reason.

W. G. WARD.

ART. III.—THE REORGANIZATION OF OUR ARMY.

N°

O one gifted with the ordinary amount of observation, and who has watched for a series of years the course of public events in England, can come to any other conclusion than that in the matter of administrative reforms we are the most injudicious of civilized nations. No amount of abuses, and no quantity of exposures respecting abuses, seem to have any influence on the public mind for a long series of years. Things are allowed to go their own way, no matter how much evil they

entail. We seem to trust a good deal to chance, and the rest to Providence, in affairs which require only a little energy and a small amount of reform to set right. No matter what may be the amount of evil which a want of reform may cause, we are content to "let things slide," as the Americans say: and to congratulate ourselves on the supposed fact that "they will last our time." And so, until some flagrant case occurs in which national honour, or a large sum of money, or human life is forfeited to our apathy, we let matters take their own course and shift for themselves. At last a crisis arrives. For some reason or other we recognize distinctly that we have been persistently following a road which must lead us on the wrong direction. Then comes the reaction. We rush into impossible reforms with as much persistency as we before continued on the wrong track. Every charlatan who has a theory of his own to propound is listened to; and the greater the change from what has been to what is to be, the more firmly are we impressed with the idea that at last the right and true way of arriving at the desired end has been found.

No better illustration of the foregoing could be found than in all that regards the reorganization of the army. For nearly half a century-from the end of the great war with France in 1815, until 1871-72-no army reform, or change of any sort or kind with regard to the services, was even so much as thought of by our military authorities. Abuses in the service existed, as they will, and must, exist in all human institutions, and were by no means few in number. From time to time these were pointed out by men of experience in the army, and changes of a decided, although not a sweeping, character were advocated. It was urged again and again by writers in various magazines and newspapers, that a body of officers who not only obtained their first commissions, but also subsequent promotion, without any kind of examination -not even a medical one-as to their fitness for the service, was an anomaly, which made ours the laughing-stock of other armies. It was argued that to appoint a man to a regiment of cavalry because he could pay £840 for his cornetcy, or to a corps of infantry because he or his friends could command the sum of £450, was a practice by no means in keeping with the spirit of the age. It did not need much argument to prove that the rule by which, when an officer became senior of his rank, and a vacancy taking place in the rank above him, he could not be promoted unless he was prepared to pay down a considerable sum of money for his step, the next officer below him passed over his head, was not exactly a regulation which did our army much credit. These, and many other abuses which had in the course of time become law, were denounced as requiring immediate alteration; but all to no purpose whatever. The rule of the War Office and Horse Guards

seemed to be that "whatever is, is right;" and all sorts of reforms were denounced as inadmissible. At last the change came. It was only in 1849 that certain very mild examinations were made indispensable, both for those who were appointed to the army, and such as obtained promotion in the service. Nearly ten years later after the Crimean War-these examinations were made harder than before; but still there was nothing to complain of in the ordeal which officers had to go through. After a time an alteration came, and, to use a vulgar expression, it came with a rush. The Franco-German War of 1870-71 surprised others besides the great nation that lost so much of its former prestige in that memorable struggle-if, indeed, that can be called a struggle, in which victory from the very first is with one army, and during which every week, nay, every day, adds to the laurels those troops had already gained. The Germans carried everything before them from the day they set foot in France; and the rest of Europe bore testimony to the truth of the saying, that "nothing succeeds like success. In England, army reform and army reorganization became simply a national mania. We tried our best to make our troops as like as possible to those of Germany. With one simple exception, every change we attempted was a mistake, every reform a most decided blunder. The abolition of the purchase system was certainly a step in the right direction; the only wonder being that so great a national disgrace had been allowed to remain part and parcel of our military code until the nineteenth century was upwards of seventy years old. Already, although barely a decade has passed since what may be called "the Banker's Book qualification," for appointments to, and for promotions when in, the service has been abolished, we look back with wonder that such a rule could ever have existed, and with still greater amazement that earnest men could ever have been found who were strongly opposed to its being done away with. But here our praise of army reform during the last ten years must cease. With the single exception of the abolition of purchase, all that has been effected in the way of change has simply and gravely deteriorated the service in every possible way. And not only this. If we are to judge of the future by the past, the time is not very far distant when we shall have no army at all; or, at any rate, when the greatly diminished number and quality of our troops will reduce us to the level of a third-class European kingdom and power.

On the 11th of May last, the Aldershot division of the army paraded before Her Majesty. The nominal strength of this division-the strength on paper is 10,500 of all ranks. There were present on this occasion two troops of Horse Artillery; two regiments of Heavy Dragoons, and one of

Hussars; five batteries of Foot Artillery; one mounted and one dismounted company of Engineers, and ten battalions of Infantry. If all the different corps there had been of the strength which they are supposed, and are said to be, there would not have been less than between 10,000 to 12,000 men on parade. But for reasous of which we shall make due mention presently, the whole division mustered but 5,712 of all ranks, or not so many men as a single German or French brigade would have done, and about 3,000 fewer than the ten infantry regiments present would have had on parade a few years ago, before the short service system came into vogue. To call some, nay, with two exceptions, any of the infantry corps that paraded before the Queen on the above-named occasion by the name of regiments, would be simple irony. Thus, of a nominal strength of some 1,500 men and horses, the three cavalry regiments only mustered 869 sabres; whilst of between 7,000 and 8,000 men that ought to have been present with the ten infantry battalions, there were less than 4,000, all told. Of all these ten corps there were only two-viz., the 2nd battalion of the 18th Royal Irish, and the 93rd Highlanders, which mustered in anything like respectable numbers, the former having 673, the latter 536 men under arms. On the other hand, the 32nd Light Infantry, which has on its rolls 673 men, could only muster 283 on parade; the famous 42nd Highlanders only 290 out of 610; and the 1st battalion of the 2nd Queen's not more than 287 out of 640. And yet this was a parade before Her Majesty, at which every available soldier would be present.

The question naturally arises, where were the other men who ought to have been under arms on this occasion? The answer requires some little knowledge of what is behind the scenes of regimental life in these days. The fact is, that under our present military system we do not, and cannot, get recruits to fill up the cadres of our regiments, and are obliged to make shift as occasion demands. When a battalion is ordered on foreign service it is almost certain to be under the strength required for a corps in the field. It is therefore made up by volunteers from other regiments, and in nineteen cases out of twenty, it embarks for India, the Cape, or wherever it may be going, with at least half of its men who do not know their officers, who do not know each other, and whose officers do not know them. Surely it is not a harsh thing to say that most, if not all, the several small defeats we have met with of late years in different parts of the world may be justly attributed to this cause?

Another reason for the paucity of soldiers in our ranks is, that by far the greater number of the recruits we get are too young

* Standard, May 12, 1881.