Real Virtue Research Articles

John Adams and the Problem of Virtue

Shortly after starting his diary, John Adams reflected on his new role as schoolmaster. He thought that he sat at head of world in miniature: I sometimes, in my sprightly moments, consider my self, in my great Chair at School, as some Dictator at head of a commonwealth... my little school like great World, is made up of Kings, Politicians, Divines, LD., Fops, Buffoons, Fidlers, Sychophants, Fools Coxcombs, and every other Character drawn in History or seen in World. Adams saw himself as judicious spectator. Is it not then highest Pleasure my Friend to preside in this little World, to bestow proper applause upon virtuous and generous Actions, to blame and punish every vicious and contracted Trick, he wrote. He admitted that his comments were odd talk for J. Adams. By way of explanation, he offered a story that revealed attraction of working with undisguised characters of school children: About 4 months since a poor Girl in this neighbourhood walking by meeting H[ouse] upon some Occasion, in evening, met a Gentleman with laced hat and wast coat, and a sword who sollicited her to turn aside with him into horse Stable. Girl relucted a little, upon which he gave her 3 Guineas, and wished he might be damned if he did not have her in 3 months. Into horse Stable they went. 3 Guineas proved 3 farthings-and Girl proves with Child, without a Friend upon Earth that will own her, or knowing father of her 3 farthing Bastard.1 task of judging characters of his pupils was a relatively simple one. real world presented a much more complicated picture, though, even to' most observant of spectators. girl was accosted by a fine Gentleman with laced hat and wast coat, and a sword. Such accouterments were supposed to denote not simply polished manners but an inner refinement.2 Instead, they proved mere stage props, as false as three guineas he promised. early diary entry presented lessons about judging character to which Adams would cling throughout his life. He engaged in a never-ending attempt to see beneath laced hats and waistcoats of society, to strip away false trappings of men in his often vexing search for virtue. Adams recognized elusive nature of his quest. In his reading, he noted a passage from Bolingbroke: True moral virtue is something very real. It is cause of our happiness. Beside it Adams scribbled: This is divine and eternal truth. But alas! how shall we define true moral virtue? And where shall we find it? To discover virtue, he believed that he had to pierce veil of appearances in order to see underlying truth, a Sisyphean effort considering how often appearances misled. He admired Bonaparte's expression The Scenery of Business: The scenery has often if not commonly in all business of human life, at least of public life, more effect than characters of dramatis personae or ingenuity of plot. Nor could one even trust one's self. In an essay printed in Boston Gazette in 1763, Adams claimed that self-deceit was the source of far greatest and worst part of vices and calamities among mankind. In a world where appearances deceived and one's motives were cloudy, he plaintively asked, Who shall judge?3 Adams's worries about virtue mirror scholars' problems today in judging place of virtue in his own thought. Some have seen him as a backward-looking republican, out of touch with emerging democratic polity. Others have cast him as a liberal political thinker who envisioned an emerging nation that did not rely on virtue. essay considers Adams's personal efforts to lead a virtuous life, his larger national vision as coherent parts of same whole, and his struggles with his own unruly passions in forming his larger political vision. In end, Adams's obsessive search served not so much to identify and protect few sources of real virtue as to call into question any possible source of virtue. …

Pharmacotherapy for Mood, Anxiety, and Cognitive Disorders

Back to table of contents Previous article Next article Book ReviewFull AccessPharmacotherapy for Mood, Anxiety, and Cognitive DisordersCalvin R. Sumner, M.D.Calvin R. SumnerSearch for more papers by this author, M.D.Published Online:1 Dec 2000https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.51.12.1577AboutSectionsView EPUB ToolsAdd to favoritesDownload CitationsTrack Citations ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InEmail With the proliferation of new drugs and how-to manuals for medication management by self-proclaimed experts, it is refreshing to read a book by leading thinkers in the field that stands back with some humility and surveys the landscape of current pharmacotherapy.Although less than optimal, the efficacy of current pharmacologic interventions for pathological alterations in mood, anxiety, and cognition is remarkable given our limited understanding of the complex pathophysiology of these disorders. Advances in genetics and neurophysiology have ushered in a new era in psychotherapeutics. Compounds are being custom-designed for specific neuropharmacological action, not only for specific descriptive phenomena or syndromes.Halbreich and Montgomery have assembled the efforts of 90 notable contributors into a timely and durable text on the state of the art of pharmacotherapy for the treatment of particular disorders. The contributors also summarize advances and future directions in brain research. Throughout its 35 chapters, the editorial theme unifying this text is the "circularity of the wheel of progress" in pharmacotherapy. Available treatments inevitably lead to greater diagnostic precision, driving investigations into pathophysiology, which in turn expands knowledge, revises conceptualizations, and leads to new treatments.The survey of available medications and contenders for the treatment of mood, anxiety, and cognitive disorders in this book is as comprehensive as the list of contributors. The scope of the review in this book is encyclopedic, with more than one-third of the pages devoted to reference citations. Underlying mechanisms and background for current treatments are described in detail, and the rationale for new strategies and medications is discussed. Scientific inquiry into new theories of pathophysiology is translated into emerging therapeutic strategies for mood and anxiety disorders and normal and pathological cognitive decline in later life.But the real virtue of this book is its ability to dispel any illusion that there is a singular biological explanation for most psychopathology and a simplistic pharmacologic solution. The authors are most successful in communicating a profound respect for the dynamic interplay between multiple complex neurobiological systems that produce phenomena we label as normality or pathology. The more we know, the more we realize how little we understand.While discussing the pharmacotherapeutics of recognized disorders, the authors repeatedly indicate, directly and indirectly, that current syndromic diagnostic categories must eventually evolve toward diagnoses based on neurophysiological pathology as well as behavior. The chapter on signal amplification in psychiatric diagnosis is a particularly cogent articulation of the growing tension between biologic research and diagnostic research in psychiatry. This chapter emphasizes that progress in biological psychiatry is contingent on progress in neurobiology and on research into proper characterization and assessment of abnormal behavior. Diagnostic research has not kept pace with biological research, leaving in question the utility of many aspects of the DSM system as a diagnostic framework for the development of specific pharmacotherapeutic agents.Make no mistake, this book is not light reading. But it is very good reading. It could even be considered essential reading for physicians who want to understand the rationale behind current pharmacotherapy for mood, anxiety, and cognitive disorders and to anticipate the near future in biological psychiatry.Dr. Sumner is associate professor of psychiatry and director of psychiatric residency programs at West Virginia University School of Medicine in Morgantown.edited by Uriel Halbreich, M.D., and Stuart A. Montgomery, M.D.; Washington, D.C., American Psychiatric Press, 2000, 804 pages, $79 FiguresReferencesCited byDetailsCited ByNone Volume 51Issue 12 December 2000Pages 1577-1577 Metrics History Published online 1 December 2000 Published in print 1 December 2000

Response to Kates, "The Voice that Keeps Reading

Kates raises question reading: Strategies Deconstruction forces us to pose (again) question understanding or indeed reading work, or works-the labor-of deconstruction (Kates, Voice, 319). This means that we will have to do with the possibility reading this work, and possibility reading in this work [namely deconstruction]. As it turns out, it is latter possibility that seems to have priority, and this is thought to be source an intrinsic weakness Strategies-namely weakness its reading Speech and Phenomena. Of Evans' contribution to this topic is not wholly (ibid., 319). Here I am curious about of course. Why is of such a matter course that it is stated before anything substantive-critical or otherwise-has been said about Strategies? Is point that no contribution can be wholly controlled? This would seem to be a properly (if there is such a proper) deconstructive strategy to show, in attempt to give a controlled reading Speech and Phenomena, that reading is never wholly controlled, that Strategies actually shares lack control it wants to criticize in Speech and Phenomena with that work. This would be an important point, and it aims at what I take to be heart Strategies. Aside: Hans-Dieter Gondek, writing in Philosophische Rundschau, says that I for most part restrict myself to ad-hoc-refutations (Gondek, 176). This is a description I would by and large accept. As I note, Strategies is not book I set out to write, but precisely series flaws I claim to have found seemed to me to force me to concentrate on them, or at least to pass through them on way to more substantive issues (more on this later). Thus ad hoc character book. I think that this means that a large part task critic Strategies has to be to show that individual refutations aimed at Speech and Phenomena fail, are not controlled. I think that one real virtues Kates' review is that it takes on this task, focusing on a series individual claims made in Strategies. If this is point of course, then it, equally of course, presupposes cogency (even within inevitable lack being wholly controlled) Derrida's deconstructive labors. But this would not be a vicious presupposition, since reading demonstrating lack control in Strategies would itself be a support that presupposition. There is another dimension of course. Who is addressee? Who could read of in what should be proper manner, namely as a matter course? Who else but convinced Derridean? Who else would assume from outset that any book that sets out to criticize Derrida in terms the basic protocols philosophy (Kates, Voice, 318-this claim fails to do justice to Strategies, as I will suggest below) can be confidently assumed to be out control before discussion even begins? Anyone else will fail to take of in stride, preferring to wait and see. Which is what I will have to do here. But it turns out that there is more to claim. The problem seems to be that while Evans talks a lot about reading, in a book so engaged in question Derrida's reading, Evans never asks what in general reading is, what its protocols or ethics in fact are, or how reading is understood by Derrida himself. Instead, Evans assumes that we and he, reader and Derrida, all know what reading is that it is simply what Evans designates again and again under heading `critical reading' (e.g., xv, xvi-a standard reading apparently so self-evident as to bear no explicit defense or even definition. (Ibid., 319) This is source a lack control that exceeds lack a deconstructionist would expect in any text (including a deconstructionist text). It also raises a series questions. …

"So You Do Theory, Do You?"

We have all seen it done, even if have not actually done it ourselves. I mean, of course, we who work higher education. And I am referring to advertising for ajob about which have not yet come to a departmental consensus. There are many ways of handling that deep dilemma, but surely most interesting is to prepare a sort of wish-list, to advertise your search for someone who is fact three people, or more, someone who can do any (and all) of things that anyone (and everyone) department wishes to see done. That way, you get a better sense of what's out there, and probably get some free assistance narrowing down your own search along way. One way to learn what it is that you really want is, after all, to see it embodied someone else, to see that person doing it. I noticed such an advertisement recently from a department of Religion with which I am well familiar. I telephoned a friend of mine to express my perplexity about advertisement, asking him what it meant, and what world they were really looking for. Basically, he told me, we're looking for someone who does Theory. Someone who does Theory, I mused, as though Theory (with a capital T, clearly) were something one did, rather than something one thought about, as though one needed a specialist to understand what counts as Theory these days (the capitals and quotes intended to make this precise point, I suspect). The more I thought about it, more perplexing my own thoughts became. In Andrew Bowie's latest book1-he has published extensively areas of post-Kantian Continental philosophy,2 focusing his attention especially on rich legacy of German Romantic thought, from Kant, through Jabobi and Fichte, to Schelling3-we find rich resources for mapping contemporary theoretical terrain, as well as a rich guidebook through some of that complex territory. One of real virtues of this book, and they are many, is that Bowie patiently walks us through rougher terrain, and simultaneously re-draws some of important trails and boundaries that have governed earlier exploration. is precisely because border between what is revealed by art and what is revealed by needs to be constantly renegotiated (p. 298), Bowie tells us, that he has taken up task of this most recent book. It comes as no real surprise that find ourselves wanting someone these days-whether a professional colleague, or an especially clear-thinking and clear-writing philosopher-to help explain some of nuances of contemporary Theory to us. Bowie's book performs that important service, and a great deal more. The book is an intellectual feast, spanning, as it does, nearly two hundred years of post-Kantian thinking about nature of truth a world that has grown uneasily aware of its own subjective and theoretical limitations. If Kantian critical managed to depict human consciousness painting itself into a corner, then two hundred years of speculation after Kant have been dominated by varying attempts to deal with that dilemma, to find a way out of room without tearing out a wall, or worse. Bowie calls this the crisis of reason (p. 28), and it is, like most significant crises, one with a long and complex history. As Qoheleth framed matter his curiously biblical version of Hellenistic speculative philosophy, God has put eternity [ha-olam] into human minds, yet has done so a way which ensures that have no access to it (Ecclesiastes 3:11). We do not, Preacher insists, because are dust [ha-adam], not divine, not privileged with access to divine beginning or divine end of things [me-rosh vad-soph]. We are trapped, as it were, trapped in middle. This can be read as one essential, if not essential, Romantic and hermeneutic insight, according to Bowie. In Schlegel's words, philosophy always begins middle, like an epic poem (p. …

An Ottoman Statesman in War and Peace: Ahmed Resmi Efendi, 1700-1783

This study of the life and milieu of a statesman, utilizing a wide array of hitherto unused chronicle and documentary material, offers new insights into many aspects of Ottoman eighteenth-century society. Subjects touched upon include career development and patronage in the central bureaucracy, increasing knowledge and interest in European diplomacy, and the impact of war on traditional attitudes. Of particular interest is the section on the 1768-74 Russo-Turkish War, a traumatic awakening for the Ottomans, who yielded significant territory, but were also faced with the necessity of reconstructing a polity and ideology which no longer produced results on the battlefield. Ahmed Resmi was the first of a new generation of statesmen who saw real virtue in the rationalization of war and the need for peace within prescribed borders.

Herman Melville's Planned Work on Remorse

Thomas Powell, an English-born journalist, claimed in April 1856 that Melville once announced to him a plan for a work "intended to illustrate the principle of remorse, and to demonstrate that there is, very often, less real virtue in moral respectability than in accidental crime." Powell was a thief and a forger who took refuge in Manhattan in 1849 after being banished from the London literary establishment, where he had been an intimate of Dickens and Browning. A crative liar, Powell could have fabricated his claim about the planned work on remorse. Yet he had ample opportunity to hear Melville discourse about a projected work that had not been printed by 1856. Upon his arrival in New York, Powell had attached himself to Melville's friend Evert A. Duyckinck, then quickly made Melville's acquaintance. In June 1849 he was a guest in Melville's house, perhaps the day Melville gave him a copy of the newly published Mardi. The theme was congenial to Melville, who had used "Remorse" as the title of a chapter in Mardi. Melville's later works, moreover, including what we know of the lost The Isle of the Cross, bear close affinities with the planned work as Powell described it. Unless further evidence corroborates Powell's claim, we cannot know for certain that Melville ever discussed writing a work on remorse. Still, considering the highly Melvillean nature of the theme as Powell recalled it, the words of this English scoundrel will ring true to many lovers of Melville.

Dürrenmatt: Reinterpretation in Retrospect (review)

Reviewed by: Dürrenmatt: Reinterpretation in Retrospect Keith Bullivant Kenneth S. Whitton . Dürrenmatt: Reinterpretation in Retrospect. New York: Berg, 1990. 255 pp. $39.95. Kenneth Whitton's survey of the oeuvre of Friedrich Dürrenmatt is intended, he assures the reader, to complement his earlier The Theatre of Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1980), which appeared in the same imprint. This is not, in fact, the case, as even the examination of Achterloo (1983), a play that could not be considered in the previous study, is short and essentially merely informative. To some extent this necessity of foreswearing detailed analysis of major works is forced upon Whitton by the sheer scope of the book, which really does seek to introduce the reader to the entire body of Dürrenmatt's work—the narrative works, including the "philosophical thrillers," the radio plays, the drama and the considerable body of essays. These analyses are complemented by an admirable chronology of the major events in Dürrenmatt's life and a workmanlike bibliography. As such, this volume constitutes a modestly informative introductory volume to Dürrenmatt that will be useful in some undergraduate courses. What it does not do is argue the case for Dürrenmatt being—especially today—regarded as "a Protean figure in the world of European literature and culture." Whitton's obvious adulation of the writer is no compensation for the lack of real analysis in the volume. This deficit emerges importantly at another point in the book: Whitton maintains that [End Page 317] The Visit "sums up Dürrenmatt's work and Weltanschauung," but he neither argues this through, nor does he take issue with the charge laid in recent years, and in particular in reviews of his posthumously published Turmbau. Stoffe IV-IX (1991), that Dürrenmatt's work consists essentially of at times rather tired variations on the central theme of that play. As far as the U.S. market is concerned, the potential usefulness of the volume is severely reduced by the fact that all quotations are, unfortunately, given only in German and that the bibliography excludes all mention of the numerous translations of Dürrenmatt's work. This is but one of the many ways in which this volume disappoints in comparison with its predecessor in this otherwise promising series from Berg Publishers, the excellent introduction by J. H. Reid to the work of Heinrich Böll, which does open up a reading of Boll to the non-German reader and is, for all its real virtues as an informative survey, a real scholarly analysis of Boll's work. It is a pity that Whitton did not learn from that model. Keith Bullivant University of Florida, Gainesville Copyright © 1991 Purdue Research Foundation

Transformations of the Word: Spenser, Herbert, Vaughan

BOOK REVIEWS55 John N. Wall, Transformations of the Word: Spenser, Herbert, Vaughan. Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 1988. xv + 428 pp. $40. by Daniel W. Doerksen John Wall sets out in this book to demonstrate an interesting, promising thesis. Assuming that Spenser, Herbert, and Vaughan need to be understood in terms of their religious faith, he maintains that most previous critics have been wrong in overemphasizing theological formulations, and in neglecting distinctive features of the English church. He views that church as Protestant, but its reformation as primarily liturgical (p. 3), focused in "the Book of Common Prayer, the Bible in English, and preaching as represented by the Book of Homilies" (p. 5). Also, Wall takes a dynamic view: the English church he describes was "concerned with developing a corporate life of worship as its place of assurance and furthering a societal transformation through the pursuit of active charity rather than private devotion as its overriding goal" (p. 5). Wall sees a didactic rhetoric of persuasion acting alike in homilies and in the poems of Spenser, Herbert, and Vaughan. (His fashionable citations of Ricoeur and Kristeva, and his attention to "texts" and "speech acts" will doubtless please some readers.) This longish book has some definite virtues. Wall shows true originality and commendable imagination in tracing a plausible pattern from Cranmer and Sidney through the poets named in his title, with an epilogue featuring Traherne and Dryden. According to Wall, Cranmer's ideal "Christian commonwealth " seemed achievable in Spenser's time, but less so in Herbert's (pp. 173-75); for Vaughan, the previously accepted regular means of attaining it through "Anglican" worship were unavailable. Wall regards the Restoration Church of England as more of an inward failure than a triumph. Also an Episcopalian priest, this author has a view of Christianitythat readerscould find appealing: dynamic but not shapeless, for example in the clear distinctions he makes from the classical outlook (pp. 71, 140, 143-44). His approach to Christian marriage in the Spenser chapter seems firm and realistic. Non-partisan readers will appreciate Wall's frank 56BOOK REVIEWS admission that the English church failed to reach its goals, and his concession that the "Puritan emphasis on sermons" proved "finally the more enduring and effective means of social mobilization" (p. 175). In spite of real virtues, Transformations of the Word is dogged by some equally real problems, some of them rather persistent. One is that his approach is too often "exclusivist" — a tendency he himself decries in Dryden (p. 374). Thrice he speaks of the "God of Anglicans" (pp. 61 , 313, 345), seeming to imply they have one of their own. Christ, he says, makes certain promises "at least to Anglicans" (p. 125), and, for Vaughan, "would be absent" ifthe "Anglican moment" were to become "fully past" (pp. 301-02). Elsewhere he seems to claim as distinctively Anglican teachings or emphases that are simply Christian. Thus he cites Prayer Book passages and a Donne sermon (p. 39) for an emphasis on practical living which any Christian could find in the Sermon on the Mount or Romans 12:1-2. Another problem is that Wall rides his thesis too hard. At times phrases like "seen in a Prayer Book context" appear tacked on rather than substantiated. It is truly of interest to learn that Herbert quotes the opening line of Cranmer's translation of the Gloria in excelsis at the end of "The Church," but Wall goes too far when he claims this proves Herbert is reminding his readers "that activity with his text is and must be enclosed in the actual eucharistie activity of the Anglican church" (pp. 1 98-99, emphasis added). Preoccupation with his thesis causes Wall to ignore the regular meaning of Herbert's phrase "bear the bell" (p. 249), which the OED relates to "bellwether." Similarly, he overlooks the obvious scriptural parallels (Ps. 19:10andEzek. 3:1-3) in "let my heart/ Suck ev'ry letter, and a hony gain" ("The H. Scriptures I"), apparently because he is so concerned to emphasize the Eucharist (pp. 249-50). A related problem is a tendency to make a plausible assertion but to accompany it with a sweeping...

The Term Structure of Interest Rates and the Demand for Money: British Results from a Portfolio Model

Monetary economists have long taken the view that more than one interest rate might reasonably be expected to influence the demand for money, but problems of multicollinearity on the empirical side and a general failure to produce a priori results from the standard paradigms on the theoretical side have delayed the implementation of this notion. Recently, though, breakthroughs have occured in both areas such that theoretical results now give some guidance as to how the term structure-demand for money problem might be approached and, further, some recent empirical results on the U.S. data, at present somewhat loosely related to the theory, suggest strongly that a multi-interest rate framework is appropriate for the demand for money problem. The general theoretical paradigms available are M. Friedman's inventory-theoretic [6], J. I. Bernstein and D. Fisher's mean-variance [2] and J. Stiglitz's dynamic consumption [11], although Stiglitz does not address the demand for money problem explicitly. The more general dynamic consumption model, in any event would certainly fail to generate any predictions for interest rates of a sufficiently useful sort, but both the inventory-theoretic and the mean-variance model can; indeed, the former has been subjected to a successful empirical test on U.S. data by H. R. Heller and M. S. Khan [7]. The empirical implementation of the mean variance model is the purpose of this paper. In this paper, after specifying the portfolio model in a term structure-demand for money context and demonstrating its implications for empirical work, we conduct a number of tests on the British data. As we will see, the mean-variance model also generates the sign expectations that M. Friedman derived for the inventory-theoretic model, a fact which suggests that one must construct the theory with rather more attention to detail in order to claim any firm empirical support for one or the other of these paradigms. In this connection, the real virtue of the portfolio model is that a three security problem can be solved-with money, a short term bond, and a long term bond in it-and the solution is

Hume's Noble Lie: An Account of His Artificial Virtues

Hume scholars have been anxious to point out that when Hume calls Justice, chastity and so on artificial virtues, he is in no way denying that they are real virtues. I shall argue that they are mistaken, and that anyone who wants to understand Hume's account of Justice and his category of artificial virtues must take seriously his choice of the word ‘artifice,’ recognizing that it means not only ‘Skill in designing and employing expedients,’ but also ‘address, cunning, trickery.'My suggestion will seem strange given Hume's own repeated plea that we not take the term ‘artifice’ too seriously. Yet while it is generally good policy to take people - at least philosophers - at their word, this is a Justified exception, Justified not only by Hume's known proclivities to irony and subtlety, but also by the implications of hearkening to his plea. To see the implications of not taking the terms ‘artificial’ and ‘artifice’ seriously, one can read either Duncan Forbes’ or Barry Stroud's criticisms of Hume's account of Justice.

Price Changes and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Earnings in the Light of American Data

* This research was supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation for study of the Dynamics of the Labor Market, and is part of the research efforts of the Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin. 1. Tsunehiko Watanabe. Price Changes and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Earnings in Japan, 1955-1962, this Journal, LXXX (Feb. 1966). 2. In many fields of scientific research there is a well-developed tradition of replicating experiments. The discipline of describing data and methods in the original papers with sufficient care and accuracy to allow such replications is healthy in itself. If the original results are sustained by an independent check, a good deal more confidence can be placed in the results. Economic research could certainly benefit from such discipline and such double checking! We know that the estimates of regression coefficients even for data from a single country may be quite different when estimated from data over two different time spans. That is to say the estimates are to some extent dependent upon the particular economic fluctuations observed. Although the economic conditions in Japan will not necessarily be the same as in the United States over any given time span, there are linkages through international trade and capital movements that tend to some degree to produce an international synchronization of economic fluctuations. Thus there is some basis for feeling that by maintaining the same time span for the estimates in both countries one source of incompatibility between the estimates will be minimized. While applying the same two equation models to a national economy hardly qualifies as a controlled experiment, the authors would argue that there is some real virtue in making a serious attempt exactly to replicate the original work. If any changes had been made in time span, types of data or the model itself, the question would have been introduced as to whether the United States is really different from Japan in the phenomenon studied, or whether observed differences were instead traceable to the changes that had been made in the experiment.

Federalism, Pluralism, and Public Policy

It is not chauvinism or instinctive egocentrism that leads Americans to believe they have evolved a beneficent form of economic organization. For despite all its shortcomings, and, alas, they are all too many, our volitional economy has demonstrated a capacity to stimulate human effort, increase investment, improve productivity, and gradually erode diat greatest evil of all commonwealths, perceived since Plato's days: the coexistence of great wealth and abject poverty. It is therefore entirely appropriate this year, when we are commemorating two great experiments in democratic public policy, that we should examine once again the origins of our polity, for I am convinced that it was the conscious and unashamed acceptance of a system of politico-economic pluralism that made possible the vigor and the catholicity of our developing institutions. The play of these pluralistic forces again and again has saved us from hardened dogma, so that the real virtue of our history—political, economic, and intellectual—has been our flexibility, our capacity to adapt ideas and instrumentalities to tasks of high social urgency. In the process we have created an economy so complex that it almost defies description, but one so tolerant ideologically that it can be called essentially private by those who find happiness in that ascription although there can be no burking the very obvious fact that it is today inherently socialistic. For whereas one can demonstrate statistically that two thirds of all capital formation is private, by an equally plausible demonstration it can be shown that, adding corporate and personal income taxes only, more than two thirds of the revenues of American enterprise are socialized. This mixed economy is, therefore, the great, ever-improving American invention, based on the quintessential content of our variant of democracy whose trinitarian elements have been well defined as shared respect, shared power, and shared knowledge.

The Vervain and Yellow Fever

ALLOW me to say a few words on the report of the English Vice-Consul at Ciudad, Bolivar, concerning the efficacy of the Vervain plant as a remedy for yellow fever and black vomit (NATURE, March 21, p. 412). The plant in question is Stachytarpha jamaicensis, Vahl, a very common and rather troublesome weed, called in Spanish America “Verbena,” in the British West Indies “Vervain,” and in the Brazils “Gervaô.” Its medicinal properties have been greatly exaggerated, though it is certainly somewhat aromatic and astringent; but in yellow fever and black vomit its efficacy is next to nothing. For a good description of the plant and some notes on its supposed and real virtues, I refer to Auguste de St. Hilaire, “Plantes usuelles du Brésil,” plate 39 (Paris, 1824). Another tolerably good figure is given by Sloane, “The Natural History of Jamaica,” plate 107, 1, who mentions several diseases against which it was used in his times (and probably still), stating finally, that “it is good against charms.”