business to decide whether this or that is "serious," and that as
long as we carry out his orders we may lay aside all worry about the
matter.

So in the case of fire insurance, what we are really buying with our
annual premium is freedom from haunting questions as to the loss that
would ensue if our house or shop or office were burnt down or damaged.
Whenever the thought comes, it may, as far as the money loss is
concerned, be dismissed.

We see then that instead of keeping the suggestion of such misfortunes
before us, as some people might allege, the act of insurance
substitutes for vague and recurrent fears a formal and periodical
recognition of possibilities, a recognition, too, that contains within
itself a precaution against some of the results of the misfortune
should it ever occur. What we buy, at the cost of a fixed number of
pounds or shillings of money and a few minutes of time once a year, is
the right to put the dangers out of our consciousness altogether and
yet leave no residuum of repressed fear to split up our personality or
give us indigestion.

If we choose, for some reason or other, to let our imagination dwell
on the objective side of the possibility we have insured against, we
shall find a pleasure in thinking of what can be done by many people
working together. If we need help to meet some misfortune, it is ours
as a right, not doled out to us through others' pity. And every year
that we have made no claim we have the delight of knowing that we are
helping those who need.

The art of working together is yet in its infancy. But if even the
present standard of method devised for money insurance were to be
adopted in the deeper matters which we so often allow to trouble us,
what an advance in mental development we should have made and what new
possibilities of safe action would be opened up!

E.M. COBHAM.

* * * * *

Every youth should learn to do something finely and thoroughly with
his hands.--_Ruskin._

THE SCIENTIFIC BASIS OF VEGETALISM.

This article has been translated from the French of Prof. H. Labbe,
the head of the _laboratoire a la Faculte de Medecine_, in Paris. It
reflects a rather characteristic aloofness to any considerations other
than scientific or economic. But it will well repay careful
study.--[EDS.]

I

Vegetarianism has been the object of many attacks, and has also been
warmly defended. Most of its adepts have sought to gi