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The nerve of those farmers!

Who says farmers are inflexible? In rich countries, they have long justified farm hand-outs by pointing to low world prices for food (never mind that low prices were partly caused by their own subsidised overproduction). Without public cash, they said, farmers would desert the land, leaving meadows to brambly ruin. Now that the world is running short of food, the farm lobby has deftly changed tack. Prices for many crops are at record highs, the new line goes, and rich countries need to protect their farmers in order to ensure that their people get fed.

Thankfully, Jagdish Bhagwati and Jeffrey Sachs stress three suggestions to tackle the long-term consequences of the current food crunch that are not mentioned too often.

1. Meat production consumes grain, so, either through lifestyle changes or by removing subsidies, reduce meat production;

2. Bhagwati talks about GM food, and Sachs about climate-proof food, but science needs another Norman Borlaug to revolutionize agriculture;

3. Again, Bhagwati talks about the IMF offering short-term balance-of-payments help, and Sachs about a new Global Fund for Africa, but this crisis illustrates again how small the world is becoming.

But, reform starts with the first big swing, and that's the EU's (and American) subsidies.

(The following is a proposal for a research paper)

Introduction: I will examine how natural resources affect political instability. Since civil war is the most dramatic expression of instability short of partition or secession, I will define instability as «civil war», using the Correlates of War Project, Intra-State War Data, 1816-1997 (v3.0) database. I intentionally chose such a long historical period, to reduce the the influence of cyclical factors, such as the late 19th-Century nationalism in Central and Eastern Europe or the Cold War. This period also roughly corresponds with the rise of capitalist production on a global scale, which accelerated the extraction and consumption of natural resources. Two other factors recognized in the literature are geography and third parties. Overall, I am concerned about the possibility that civil wars can generate interstate wars.

Literature Review: My interest in the American Civil War (1851-1865) prompted my first acquaintance with the dependent variable and another reason to broaden its historical scope. In The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War, David J. Eicher mentions the role of cotton in the development of the animosity between Union and Confederacy and the role that third-party diplomatic recognition, both by border states and European states, like Great Britain and France, played in Confederate strategy.1

Michael T. Klare's Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict (2001) inspired the choice of the independent variable. Klare's central thesis (p. 213) provides a warning for this examination, because his central thesis, that «resource wars will become, in the years ahead, the most distinctive feature of the global security environment» replaces fact with prognostication. Of a list of reasons for this prediction, Klare includes political instability as a factor in his «new geography of conflict.» Klare boldly declares that a new map colored with the geographical sources of resource deposits, including oil and coal, water, gems, timber, and minerals will replace boundaries in the new cartography. More helpfully, Klare provides an appendix (p. 221), «Territorial Disputes in Areas Containing Oil and/or Natural Gas».

Michael L. Ross, in «How Do Natural Resources Influence Civil War? Evidence from Thirteen Cases» conducts a small-N comparative case study of 13 civil wars that occurred between 1990 and 2000 selected on a «most-likely» basis, to ascertain if natural resources are related to civil wars. Ross applies seven hypotheses, divided into three categories, onset, duration, and intensity, and in the process finds evidence for four further hypotheses. Ross concludes that there is a causal connection between natural resources and civil war, but that he can not rule out reverse causality or a spurious connection. For his sample, Ross also finds that oil, minerals and gems, and illicit drugs are related to civil wars. Furthermore, natural resources have multiple, indeed sometimes even beneficial effects upon civil wars. Ross argues that natural resources play a weightier role in civil wars involving separatist conflicts, but not non-separatist ones. Finally, Ross suggests as a guide for future research testing one hypothesis against the entire civil war dataset, not just a subset.2

In «What Do We Know about Natural Resources and Civil War? », Michael L. Ross conducts a qualitative review of 14 comparative case studies based on econometric data, namely the correlation of natural resource extraction to GDP. He notes four regularities in those conclusions. Firstly, oil affects the onset of civil war positively. Secondly, «lootable» commodities, like gems and illicit drugs, affect the duration of civil wars, but not the onset. Thirdly, there is no relationship between legal agricultural commodities and civil war. Fourthly, the relationship between natural resources and civil war is unclear. Ross ascribes four reasons for the inconsistencies he finds in his analysis of the 14 studies, including differences in databases, definitions of civil war separatist vs. non-separatist), procedures for determining the end of a civil war, and different procedures for handling missing data.3

James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, in «Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War» conduct a quantitative analysis of 161 states with a population over 500,000 experiencing civil wars between 1945 and 1999. They conclude that the occurrence of civil war was not related to the end of the Cold War. Also, ethnic or ethnicity does not cause civil wars. Finally, political grievances also do not relate to civil wars. The authors related civil wars to insurgent activity, and the propensity of governments to conduct inept or corrupt counter-insurgency operations. insurgencies. «Insurgency is a technology of military conflict characterized by small, lightly armed bands practicing guerrilla warfare from rural base areas.» Positive correlates of civil wars include newness, large populations, and mountainous terrain, but not natural resources.4

David E. Cunningham, in «Veto Players and Civil War Duration», argues that third-parties affect the duration of civil wars. Cunningham redefines civil war duration from units of «year» to «month» generating a dataset of 288 states involved in civil wars without a pause of a maximum of 24 months since 1945. Cunningham also argues that civil wars have three main types of participants: government, rebels, and third-parties, or veto players. Cunningham concludes that civil wars with more veto players last longer and are harder to resolve.5

Nicolas Sambanis, in «What Is Civil War? Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an Operational Definition » tackles the issue of competing definitions of civil war with a qualitative analysis of the COW project and prominent definitions offered by most of the authors above.. Sambanis offers 11 conditions by which an armed conflict can be defined as a civil war, including internationally recognized states with at least 500,000 people and well-defined political statements from both the government and insurgents. Sambanis also recognizes the possibility of third-party participation. Onset occurs in the first year when 500 to 1000 deaths occur, or if 500 deaths occur within a 3-year period. Sambanis defines duration as «sustained violence», with at least 500 deaths in a 3-year period, but not decreasing below 100 deaths for either side. Finally, an end is declared by either a peace treaty lasting six months or an insurgent victory.6

Research design/methods: Following cues from the literature above, and my reading of the American Civil War, I have decided to pursue Ross' hypothesis, that «Resource wealth increases the likelihood of civil war by increasing the probability of foreign intervention to support a rebel movement.»7 I will also extend the scope of the examination to cover the 1816-1997 period covered by the Correlates of War Project, Intra-State War Data, restrict my examination to the question of onset, and adjust for Sampanis' definitional qualifications. One implication of this hypothesis is, to recognize Cunningham's insight, that civil wars have three types of parties. For the dependent variable, I will select a sample of ten civil wars, five from the 18th-century and five from the 20th-Century, with both the highest aggregate deaths and longest duration, but distributed as evenly as possible continent-wise. For the independent variable, I will select the ten natural resources I will examine fit into five categories: carbon-based products, including oil, natural gas, and coal; mined resources, including copper, and gemstones; legal agricultural commodities, namely timber, cotton, and sugar, and illicit drugs, such as opium and coca. Because I am drawing anecdotally upon one case, the American Civil War, a small-N quantitative comparative analysis is possible.

Discussion/Findings: I expect primary agricultural commodities will correlate more positively with civil war in the 19th-Century than in the last century. I also suspect that coal and civil war will be similar for both centuries.

Conclusion: Pro-Secessionist Southern planters banked on King Cotton to attract British and French support, West and Central African conflicts seemingly defied political boundaries, attracting broad regional participation. Finding which natural resources have ensured longer, bitterer civil wars would guide international and national policy-makers how to establish the international organizations Klare advocates to distribute natural resources wisely, if at all.

1. See Eicher (2001), Chapter One, «The War Begins at Sumter» and Chapter Two, «Organizing the Struggle». [↩]
2. Michael L. Ross, «How Do Natural Resources Influence Civil War? Evidence from Thirteen Cases», International Organization, Vol. 58, No. 1, (Winter, 2004), pp. 35-67. [↩]
3. Michael L. Ross, «What Do We Know about Natural Resources and Civil War?» Journal of Peace Research, Vol. 41, No. 3, (May, 2004), pp. 337-356 [↩]
4. James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, «Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War», The American Political Science Review, Vol. 97, No. 1, (Feb., 2003), pp. 75-90 [↩]
5. David E. Cunningham, «Veto Players and Civil War Duration», American Journal of Political Science, Vol. 50, No. 4, (Oct., 2006), pp. 875-892. [↩]
6. Nicholas Sambanis, «What Is Civil War? Conceptual and Empirical Complexities of an Operational Definition», The Journal of Conflict Resolution, Vol. 48, No. 6, (Dec., 2004), pp. 814-858 [↩]
7. Ross, «How Do Natural Resources Influence Civil War? Evidence from Thirteen Cases», p. 57. [↩]

«What is even more cruel is that all the progress in the human species constantly takes it further away from its primitive state. The more we accumulate new knowledge, the more we deprive ourselves of the means of acquiring the most important knowledge of all, and, in a sense, it is thanks to the study of man that we are now in a position where we are beyond the stage where he can know him.» (Gourevitch, 1986, p. 129) In 1754, in the Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality among Men, Jean-Jacques Rousseau offered a version of humanity's natural state still lampooned over two hundred years later. Rousseau was not the first to offer such an account, his own feigned humility and his skepticism about naturalists' limited insights at the time notwithstanding. Humanity's natural condition is all the more a popular literary device for its plasticity. Adam is not the first human to spawn a race, and authors seemingly challenge deities to construct humanity anew in print. In Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (GGS), Jared Diamond offers his own take on humanity's «progress» from its natural state to modernity. I will argue that Diamond's biogeographical arguments refreshingly eschew a monocausal explanation for humanity's history. I will compare GGS, and relevant arguments from a preceding volume, The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal (TC), with both Immanuel Wallerstein's World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction (WSA) and William H. McNeill's Plagues and Peoples (PP). GGS and PP, however, together prove the prescience of Rousseau's conundrum, by offering opposing accounts of humanity's natural state to those of GGS's critics.

In GGS, Jared Diamond asks, «Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?» (GGS, p. 16) Diamond answers succinctly a few pages later: «...because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.» (GGS, p. 25) In another rephrasing, Diamond asserts that «...human history has consisted of unequal conflicts between haves and have-nots; between peoples with farmer power and those without it, or between those who acquired it at different times.» (GGS, p. 93) In TC, Diamond calls the advent of agricultural production on the Eurasian continent around 8000 B.C. A ?mixed blessing» and «a halfway station between our noble traits (art and language) and our mitigated vices (drug abuse, genocide, and environmental destructiveness.» (TC, p. 180) «Farmer power» brought malnutrition, starvation, epidemic diseases, and class divisions, including bureaucrats and soldiers, to humanity. (TC, p. 187) Agriculture also sparked technological innovations, like implements and storage techniques, as well as military advancements, like horse-riding (GGS, p. 112) Agricultural production could deliver more food per acre than hunting-gathering, but not necessarily more food per person, as the result of a positive feedback cycle, or «autocatalytic» process between food production and population density. (GGS, p. 110) Hunting-gathering cultures either adopted agriculture or agricultural cultures conquered or assimilated them (TC, p. 190). Diamond also argues that hunting-gathering and agriculture were alternative strategies that probably existed in mixed forms, because societies sought the most efficient use of resources and animal and human power (GGS, p. 109). So, the answer to Diamond's question begins with agriculture.

Yet not all land, and not all continents, were equally bountiful to agricultural societies. Not only were not all indigenous plant and animal species domesticable, but not all domesticated species were not equally able to transcend land and water barriers before the advent of sailing technology. Diamond outlines how it is that so few wild plant and animal species are domesticable.1 More importantly, Diamond ascribes the rapid spread of domesticated plant and animal species through Eurasia to the continent's east-west axis. This geographical orientation ensures similar climate and seasonal patterns for plants to flourish without genetic modification, and for animals to adapt without different climates and parasites (GGS, p. 183-5). Diamond's biogeographical arguments are the second step in an answer to his question.

Diamond's treatment of language in TC and GGS is a bit tricky. In TC, Diamond argues why human spoken language is not remarkable as compared with animal proto-languages2 , but in GGS, Diamond discusses the advantages post-agricultural humans obtained from written language. Diamond considers spoken language as part of the «Great Leap Forward» predating the advent of agriculture and as another supposedly human capability with animal precedents (TC, p. 138). But, in GGS, written language joins «...weapons, microbes, and centralized political organization as a modern agent of conquest.» (GGS, p. 216) Written language, as opposed to the spoken language of hunting-gathering societies, «...served the needs of ...political institutions (such as record-keeping and royal propaganda) and the users were full-time bureaucrats nourished by stored food surpluses grown by food-producing peasants.» (GGS, p. 236) Finally, the same axial barriers stunting the spread of domesticated plants and animals also retarded the flow of written language (GGS, p. 238). So. language itself is not a very unique animal ability, but an alphabet is what a powerful human society needs.

The remaining two elements of Eurasian dominance are technology and political centralization, both of which are post-agricultural breaks with hunting-gathering society. Diamond argues technology arises cumulatively, and also for uses realized after its invention (GGS, p. 245). Diamond stresses four conditions for a new technology's adoption: relative economic advantage over existing technology; social value; compatibility with vested interests; and, timeliness-the «a-ha» factor (GGS, p. 247).

The link between agricultural production and political centralization and war is even clearer. «Intensified food production and societal complexity stimulate each other, by autocatalysis. That is, population growth leads to societal complexity...while societal complexity in turn leads to intensified food production and thereby in population growth.» (GGS, p. 285) But, complexity is not inevitable. Diamond gives four reasons why large societies of more than hundreds of thousands of people evolve into centralized organizations: conflict between unrelated strangers; the impossibility of communal decision-making; a redistributive economy; and, population density (GGS, p. 286). Diamond argues that societal complexity leads to two alternative ways that adjacent societies deal with one another: either through merger to avoid conquest, or conquest (GGS, p. 289).

Before I address criticisms of Diamond's biogeographical argument, I think it s useful to compare it with William H. McNeill's ecological arguments.3 Firstly, both Diamond and McNeill are contributing to the debate over evolution, not the social sciences per se, from their respective scientific disciplines. McNeill isolates a single ecological phenomenon, parasitic disease, and uses it to explain human evolution; Diamond's biogeographical argument in GGS is not that far from this assertion:

'But man is basically different from other animals.' So one is often warned when the possible relevance of animal findings to understanding man is suggested. In fact, however, every animal species is basically different from other animal species. Faced with this diversity, biogeography has developed a common framework for understanding such unlike distributions as those of giraffes, rose-breasted grosbeaks, cockroaches and oak trees, by seeking relations among key variables or processes. These variables or processes are ones that are relevant to understanding any species. Like other species, man reproduces, dies, disperses, exploits environments of varying stability and productivity, adapts phenotypically and genetically, is subject to intraspecific competition, and (still like other species) differs from other species in particular characteristics of each of these processes. These are the processes that provide the ingredients for biogeographic analysis. In this spirit let us proceed as biogeographers and inquire in what particular ways man is unique as a colonist.»4

McNeill locates micro-parasites earlier in the evolutionary record, as part of the animal legacy humans inherited, instead of as a result of agriculture production, as Diamond argues. McNeill also labels Diamond's «colonization» as macro-parasitism. McNeill's signature proposition is equilibrium, «At every level of organization-molecular, cellular, organismic, and social-one confronts equilibrium patterns.5 On the other hand, Diamond's account of genocide, including the Tasmanian case, starts with his attempt to locate a proto-genocidal propensity in chimpanzees, and lesser mammals, like lions.6 So, even given their differing disciplinary perspectives, Diamond and McNeill have more in common with each other, than Diamond has with his critics.

It is within the lens of a disciplinary conflict, I understand both the tone and substance of Diamond's critics. On one hand, James M. Blaut argues that Diamond uses environmental determinism to resuscitate Eurocentrism.7 «If there is no appeal to underlying religious or racial causes, can it be argued convincingly that Europe, long ago, somehow acquired cultural qualities that led it to develop faster and farther than every other society? It is conventional to argue this way, but we notice that historians cannot agree among them-selves as to whether the causes of Europe's (supposed) precocity are mental, social, economic, technological, or something else-within culture. Therefore, Eurocentric history needs environmental determinism as much today as ever it did before, and so the doctrine remains influential and popular.» But then, Hal Elliot Wert, reviewing Victor Davis Hanson, criticizes Diamond for not recognizing culture. «These advantages were immediate and entirely cultural, and they were not the product of the genes, germs, or geography of a distant pat. So much for Jared Diamond, Guns, Germs, and Steel, and other geographic determinists, the weakness of whose reductive mantra, location, location, location, is exposed.»8 Inter-disciplinary studies have a steep mountain to climb.

Finally, Diamond's biogeographical approach compares favorably with Wallerstein's world-systems approach. Both authors operate from an organic totality, whether it is evolution, or capitalism. However, Wallerstein argues that world-systems analysis operates within the limits of «history of the modern world-system» and its «structures of knowledge».9 The capitalist world-system begins with the 16th Century, much later than most of the episodes both Diamond and McNeill discuss. Yet, again there is the disciplinary issue, which Wallerstein also brings to the fore, when he discusses the role of the university in the capitalist world-system. It is doubtful a perspective facing forward to examine the origin and end of humanity's current phase can embrace evolution seeking to characterize humanity as just another animal.

Professionalism tramples humility, by which Rousseau could confound his own critics, like Voltaire. Jared Diamond is a biogeographer, working within the debate unfolding around evolution. The social sciences of which Wallerstein gives an historical account, in a sense have to deal with the debate Rousseau himself helped start; is it possible to know man in nature, now that man is a social being with a history? Between humanity as animal and humanity as social being within history, there is a disciplinary gap. Scholars should choose which future to advocate, by examining humanity's past: either the post-modern man, or the genocidal animal.

1. Jared Diamond, GGS: see Chapters 8 and 9. [↩]
2. Jared Diamond, TC: see Chapter 8. [↩]
3. William H. McNeill, PP, see Introduction. [↩]
4. Jared M. Diamond, «Colonization Cycles in Man and Beast», World Archaeology, Vol. 8, No. 3, Human Biogeography, (Feb., 1977), p. 249. [↩]
5. McNeill, p. 7. [↩]
6. Diamond, TC: see Chapter 16. [↩]
7. James M. Blaut, «Environmentalism and Eurocentrism», Geographical Review, Vol. 89, No. 3, (Jul., 1999), pp. 391. [↩]
8. Hal Elliott Wert, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power, by Victor Davis Hanson, The Journal of Military History, Vol. 67, No. 2, (Apr., 2003), pp. 545-546. [↩]
9. Immanuel Wallerstein, WSA, p. 1. [↩]

It's another reason to drink black tea rather than coffee.

But now the team of scientists led by Professor Les Baillie from Welsh School of Pharmacy at Cardiff University and Doctor Theresa Gallagher, Biodefense Institute, part of the Medical Biotechnology Centre of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute in Baltimore, has found that the widely-available English Breakfast tea has the potential to inhibit the activity of anthrax, as long as it is black tea.

Anthrax - a potentially fatal human disease - is caused by the bacterium Bacillus anthracis. A very serious and rapidly progressing form of the disease occurs when bacterial spores are inhaled making anthrax a potent threat when used as a biological warfare agent.

Published in the March issue of the Society for Applied Microbiology's journal Microbiologist, Professor Baillie said: «Our research sought to determine if English Breakfast tea was more effective than a commercially available American medium roast coffee at killing anthrax. We found that special components in tea such as polyphenols have the ability to inhibit the activity of anthrax quite considerably.»

The study provides further evidence of the wide range of beneficial physiological and pharmalogical effects of this common household item.

The research also shows that the addition of whole milk to a standard cup of tea completely inhibited its antibacterial activity against anthrax.

Add to this what Graeme Wood terms black tea's "subtler" defense against terror, why not toddle today?

Although these moving images derived from a terrestrial-based radar installation are exciting, why is NASA sending an orbiter to map the South Pole again?

Scott Hensley, a scientist at JPL who took part in the latest radar-mapping effort, notes that the orbiter's laser-like radar, or lidar, will be able to match Goldstone's 20-meter resolution at the south pole after some eight months of orbiting the moon. But the orbiter can't bring that level of detail to as wide a swath of the south pole as can the radar. But where the radar can distinguish changes in elevation of roughly five meters, the LRO will be able to detect changes in terrain height of around one meter.

But for other parts of the moon, the LRO will only match the one-kilometer resolution of past missions. The Goldstone radar still has the best chance of spotting those yacht-sized objects anywhere on the moon scientists can aim it, making it for now the lunar cartographer to beat.

Alright, I can see why the difference between one and five meters of elevation is important to a descending craft with humans aboard. But, can't NASA just make a better radar at Goldstone? Is NASA just inflating simple tasks into romantic ventures, to save its budget?

I watched the PBS documentary, Evolution: Darwin's Dangerous Idea (criticisms of the program noted), and I was dismayed by how little of the events Charles Darwin recorded in his Voyage of the Beagle (Volume One in this multi-volume set) appeared in the program.

Darwin's own notes are a far better introduction to the man and his work than any exposition of his arguments could ever be. I come to this appreciation of Darwin not so much for scientific research, but for political and social ones (For an appreciation of Darwin by a scientist, Greg Laden is also reviewing this same volume.). And, I don't mean the politics of evolution, as in Florida, but in how evolution philosophically affects political theory. What struck me most about Voyage is how lucidly and intimately Darwin writes, and how curious he was. Voyage is uplifting and child-like, as any traveler can appreciate, but it is also challenging.

What I wasn't prepared for in Voyage is Darwin's commentary on current events and observations about the people he encountered. Whether it was the Gauchos, or the Maoris, Darwin's interest is infectious. Writing of Chilean miners:

These men, excepting from accidents, are healthy, and appear cheerful. Their bodies are not very muscular. They rarely eat meat once a week, and never oftener, and then only the hard dry charqui. Although with a knowledge that the labour was voluntary, it was nevertheless quite revolting to see the state in which they reached the mouth of the mine; their bodies bent forward, leaning with their arms on the steps, their legs bowed, their muscles quivering, the perspiration streaming from their faces over their breasts, their nostrils distended, the corners of their mouth forcibly drawn back, and the expulsion of their breath most laborious. Each time they draw their breath, they utter an articulate cry of "ay-ay," which ends in a sound rising from deep in the chest, but shrill like the note of a fife. After staggering to the pile of ore, they emptied the "carpacho;" in two or three seconds recovering their breath, they wiped the sweat from their brows, and apparently quite fresh descended the mine again at a quick pace. This appears to me a wonderful instance of the amount of labour which habit, for it can be nothing else, will enable a man to endure.

Or, aborigines in Australia:

The number of aborigines is rapidly decreasing. In my whole ride, with the exception of some boys brought up by Englishmen, I saw only one other party. This decrease, no doubt, must be partly owing to the introduction of spirits, to European diseases (even the milder ones of which, such as the measles, prove very destructive, and to the gradual extinction of the wild animals. It is said that numbers of their children invariably perish in very early infancy from the effects of their wandering life; and as the difficulty of procuring food increases, so must their wandering habits increase; and hence the population, without any apparent deaths from famine, is repressed in a manner extremely sudden compared to what happens in civilized countries, where the father, though in adding to his labour he may injure himself, does not destroy his offspring.

Besides the several evident causes of destruction, there appears to be some more mysterious agency generally at work. Wherever the European has trod, death seems to pursue the aboriginal. We may look to the wide extent of the Americas, Polynesia, the Cape of Good Hope, and Australia, and we find the same result. Nor is it the white man alone that thus acts the destroyer; the Polynesian of Malay extraction has in parts of the East Indian archipelago, thus driven before him the dark-coloured native. The varieties of man seem to act on each other in the same way as different species of animals -- the stronger always extirpating the weaker. It was melancholy at New Zealand to hear the fine energetic natives saying that they knew the land was doomed to pass from their children. Every one has heard of the inexplicable reduction of the population in the beautiful and healthy island of Tahiti since the date of Captain Cook's voyages: although in that case we might have expected that it would have been increased; for infanticide, which formerly prevailed to so extraordinary a degree, has ceased; profligacy has greatly diminished, and the murderous wars become less frequent.

And, also, other Australians:

With respect to the state of the convicts, I had still fewer opportunities of judging than on other points. The first question is, whether their condition is at all one of punishment: no one will maintain that it is a very severe one. This, however, I suppose, is of little consequence as long as it continues to be an object of dread to criminals at home. The corporeal wants of the convicts are tolerably well supplied: their prospect of future liberty and comfort is not distant, and, after good conduct, certain. A "ticket of leave," which, as long as a man keeps clear of suspicion as well as of crime, makes him free within a certain district, is given upon good conduct, after years proportional to the length of the sentence; yet with all this, and overlooking the previous imprisonment and wretched passage out, I believe the years of assignment are passed away with discontent and unhappiness. As an intelligent man remarked to me, the convicts know no pleasure beyond sensuality, and in this they are not gratified. The enormous bribe which Government possesses in offering free pardons, together with the deep horror of the secluded penal settlements, destroys confidence between the convicts, and so prevents crime. As to a sense of shame, such a feeling does not appear to be known, and of this I witnessed some very singular proofs. Though it is a curious fact, I was universally told that the character of the convict population is one of arrant cowardice: not unfrequently some become desperate, and quite indifferent as to life, yet a plan requiring cool or continued courage is seldom put into execution. The worst feature in the whole case is, that although there exists what may be called a legal reform, and comparatively little is committed which the law can touch, yet that any moral reform should take place appears to be quite out of the question. I was assured by well-informed people, that a man who should try to improve, could not while living with other assigned servants; -- his life would be one of intolerable misery and persecution. Nor must the contamination of the convict-ships and prisons, both here and in England, be forgotten. On the whole, as a place of punishment, the object is scarcely gained; as a real system of reform it has failed, as perhaps would every other plan; but as a means of making men outwardly honest, -- of converting vagabonds, most useless in one hemisphere, into active citizens of another, and thus giving birth to a new and splendid country -- a grand centre of civilization -- it has succeeded to a degree perhaps unparalleled in history.

I have to admit I was often uninterested in Darwin's observation of plants and animals, but these marginal opinions color the whole journal, and will color how I judge the rest of Darwin's arguments.

Generally, before one judges Darwinism, one must confront the man. In The Voyage of the Beagle, here is a very compelling, likable man.