innate melancholy, Servians are good-tempered and courteous. Every peasant bows politely when passing anyone on the road. He will say to a young married woman: 'God help thee, my pretty sister-in-law,' as though he were a brother of her husband; an unmarried girl is greeted as sister,' and an elderly or old woman as 'aunt.' Without the least appearance of servility, the Servians will always try to please a guest, and they have the happy instinct of saying agreeable things at the right moment. They are self-possessed and simple in their manners, and are neither shy nor awkward. Considering themselves as good as their neighbours, they cringe to nobody; address their king always as thou,' while formerly the women used to kiss Queen Nathalie on both cheeks whenever she attended a village 'Slava.' At the same time, they respect themselves too much to affect the blunt and discourteous behaviour of Radical politicians in the Belgrade cafés.

20

Servia, full of fertile plains and valleys, rich in valuable minerals, is a very beautiful country. Great spurs of the Carpathians, covered on the lower parts by forests, are to be seen, as well as the hills where the vines grow, but the cultivation of the olive is precluded by the severe winter frosts. The river scenery of Danube, Save, Drina, and other streams is lovely in some parts and wild in others, and on these rivers are still seen the old-world Servian mills, built on boats anchored in the midst or at the side of the current, each having a huge wheel, near which is the miller's cottage. Most of the bridges are of primitive make, consisting of a few carelessly-bound logs; but at Belgrade the railway bridge piers are of splendid marble, which is relatively cheap, there being numerous quarries in Servia, not only of marble, but of fine stone and slate. Belgrade, derived from 'Beograd,' the white city, is a handsome, modern town of white or gaily-coloured houses, exquisitely

20 Many of the mines were worked by the Romans. The peasants of the Kraina district have always collected gold washed down from the mountains after heavy rains. Copper, lead, an immense amount of excellent coal, and a variety of other minerals abound, but have been a much neglected source of wealth. Now concessions are being made, and the Government also works mines, chiefly those of lead, for military magazines.

situated on a hill near the junction of Save and Danube. An old mosque, a few fountains, and a dilapidated arch known as the Gate of Stamboul' are the sole remains of vanished Ottoman domination. In the atrociously-paved side-streets, rivalling those of Madrid, numbers of small frogs hop about, and it is not known how they ever came there, nor how they contrive to live among the cobbles of Belgrade. Acacias and lime-trees grow in every direction in the gay, bright-looking city, with its boulevards and parks, including the public gardens at the top of the hill where the Turks used to impale obnoxious Servians. From the terrace, with the old citadel in the background, is seen far away to the left a dark, conical mountain, while the green waters of the Save, issuing from forests lying to the south-west, comes to join the slow-moving, yellow stream of the stately Danube. The charm of the landscape,' writes Mr. Vivian, 'lies in the infinite variety of colouring: the mauve mists, the copper beeches, the silvery sheen-a kaleidoscope which seems shaken at every season, and almost at every hour.'

Such is Servia: a monarchic yet intensely democratic state, peopled by a Slavonic race, respecting whose origin there are many conflicting opinions, albeit one learned man is inclined to class the Slavs as a branch of the great Celtic division in Europe on account of its similarity of ideas and customs. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the Servians are decidedly one of our dominant races, who, perhaps, may be destined to occupy again a prominent position in the world's history. Unfortunately, the nation has been sorely discredited by the revolting and dastardly crime of a band of turbulent and treacherous ruffians, who, outraging the feelings of every right-minded person, have inflicted a stigma of indelible shame upon the modern annals of their native land.

PAUL DILLON.

A

THE ORIGIN AND DIGNITY OF MAN

S the physical growth of the individual is attained by the nutritive, so the species is multiplied by the generative process. The phenomenon of reproduction becomes therefore the complement and perfection of the phenomenon of nutrition. The generative function, moreover, affords in its various modes a particular instance of that general law of progress which prevails throughout the whole series of living beings, and consists in a gradual division of labour and a corresponding specialization of function. Such specialization is totally absent in the process by which some of the protozoa reproduce their kind. Thus the amoeba, having come to the full measure of its growth, multiplies itself by the simple division of its unicellular organism. Slightly higher in the scale of life the function of reproduction becomes localized. There appears on the parent form, as in the case of the saccharomyces, a bud which develops to its term, to separate finally into independent offspring. The co-existence of two sexes in one and the same being, marks a more advanced stage of the specialization we are considering; while in the union of two distinct individuals co-operating for the propagation of their species, this specialization reaches its most perfect expression.

In its strict acceptation, generation implies not only the reproduction of a living substance, it also implies the specific similarity to the parent organism of the substance thus produced. This fact of similarity it will be seen, strikes at the very root of the philosophy of 'selection,' and in the interest of this philosophy, Darwin and Weissmann have devised their ingenious theories. A consideration, however, of the hypotheses of the external or internal struggle for existence lies beyond our purpose. We may content ourselves with observing that they are inadequate and unsatisfactory; the fact of a specific identity of parent and offspring being inexplicable only on the ground of an immanent principle of finality by

virtue of which all living substances tend naturally to realize and preserve a definite type.

As a physiological function the generative office has with men, no less than with the lower animals, a material and carnal character. From revelation, however, we are made aware of a process that transcends all physical agency, is purely spiritual, yet verifies the highest notion of generation. Accepting on faith the existence of the relations of Paternity and Filiation in the Godhead, referred to by St. John, when he tells us that as the Father hath life in Himself, so He hath given to the Son also to have life in Himself,' we reach the idea of a one Divine Person originating eternally from another and possessing the same identical nature as the Divine Person from whom He originated.1 The words, 'paternity' and 'sonship,' therefore, when referred to God, are used to express, not figures of speech, but infinite actualities, and St John Damascus could justly say: 'Let it be known that the names, "paternity," "filiation," "filiation," "procession," are not transferred by us to the Blessed Deity, but, on the contrary, are thence communicated to us, wherefore the Apostle declares,2 "I bow my knees to the Father . . . of whom all paternity in heaven and earth is named." "

If physiologically the same elements are common as they are essential to the function by which man and the higher

1 This transcendent problem which faith reveals, has historically called forth the beautiful psychological theory of St. Augustine and the equally beautiful speculations of the Greek Fathers in quest of rational analogies. The Greek Fathers, as De Regnon says, inclined to a dynamic view of the divine nature as an infinitely fecund self-communicating principle of good, while St. Augustine took rather a static view and built up his theory on the fact, that in thinking Himself, God gave an infinite and adequate expression to his self-knowledge in a concept, an image, or a term of thought which truly proceeded out of Himself and relatively reproduced the divine nature. Whether, therefore, we express God's thought Himself with St. John as 'Logos,' with St. Paul as 'image,' or with the schoolmen as 'term,' this expression will verify the notion of origin from another and of similarity in nature of the one originated to the one originating, which, as we have said, are the essential marks of all generation. But the idea of divine generation must be disassociated from the accidental features of our mental operations. The self-subsistence of the divinity which excludes all potentiality and passivity, demands absolute identity between God understanding and God understood, between the principle and the term of thought in the divine intellectual life, The Son, therefore, is declared to be consubstantial with the Father.' 2 Eph. iii. 15.

3 Joan. Damasc, Fid. Orthod., 1. i., c. 8.

animals propagate their kind, there is in human generation, according to Christian doctrine, an agency that exalts it far above the process to which the permanence of the mere animal species is owing. This distinguishing agency is naught else than the action of the transcendent Creator, by virtue of which, within the mother's womb, the embryo is endowed with its informing and vivifying soul. So intimate and necessary is the work of the Creator in this phenomenon, so thorough His co-operation with the creature, yet withal so clearly defined is the part performed by each, that the being thus begotten is truly said to be stamped not only with the features of his human parents, but with the image and likeness of the Divine.

The action of the Supreme Being, which we would describe, is aptly illustrated in the creation of the first man, as told in the narrative of Genesis: 'And God created man to His own image, to the image of God he created him.'4 The two-fold process which obtained in the creation of the protoparent, finds place in the procreation of his offspring. For, as the body of Adam, moulded of pre-existing material, received through a distinct act of Omnipotence, the breath of life, which was its animating soul, so in generation, the physical being of the child formed from the body of its progenitors, is directly supplied with a rational, life-giving principle, only through an immediate operation of the Divinity.

The relation of the Divine to the human element in procreation is such, that it is readily seen to be something quite different from that assistance which theologians designate technically as 'concursus divinus,' and which, they tell us, is necessary to every doing of created beings, as secondary causes acting under and by the virtue received from the Primal Cause of the whole finite order. A relationship of a higher kind between the Divine and human is implied in the function we are considering. For here the Creator and creature so co-operate that the former may be said to be the co-labourer of the latter. Not that they represent two diverse agencies working along separate and parallel lines, but two distinct

4 Gen. i. 27.