the “_if_” against the ascription to me of any opinion, one way or the other: being perfectly conscious that much is to be said for and against. The optimist will unhesitatingly affirm that veneration and gratitude are due; while by the pessimist it will be contended that they are not due. One who dwells exclusively on what Emerson calls “the saccharine” principle in things, as illustrated for example in the adaptation of living beings to their conditions—the becoming callous to pains that have to be borne, and the acquirement of liking for labors that are necessary—may think there are good reasons for veneration and gratitude. Contrariwise, these sentiments may be thought inappropriate by one who contemplates the fact that there are some thirty species of parasites which prey upon man, possessing elaborate appliances for maintaining their hold on or within his body, and having enormous degrees of fertility proportionate to the small individual chances their germs have of getting into him and torturing him. Either view may be supported by masses of evidence; and knowing this I studiously avoided complicating the issue by taking either side. As anyone may see who refers back, my sole purpose was that of showing the absurdity of thinking that “veneration and gratitude” are due to the product and not to the producer. Yet, Mr. Harrison having changed my proposition “_if_ they are due, etc.” into the proposition “they are due, etc.,” laughs over the contradictions in my views which he deduces, and to which he time after time recurs, commenting on my “astonishing perversity.” In this division of Mr. Harrison’s article occur five other cases in which, after his manner, propositions are made to appear untenable or ludicrous; though anyone who refers to them as expressed by me will find them neither the one nor the other. But to show all this would take much trouble to small purpose. Indeed, I must here close the discussion, so far as my own desistence enables me. It is a wearisome and profitless business, this of continually going back on the record, now to show that the ideas ascribed to me are not the ideas I expressed, and now to show that the statements my opponent defends are not the statements he originally made. A controversy always opens side issues. Each new issue becomes the parent of further ones. The original questions become obscured in a swarm of collateral questions; and energies, in my case ill-spared, are wasted to little purpose. * * * * * Before closing, however, let me again point out that nothing has been said which calls for change of the views expressed in my first article.