THE DECLINE OF FREE INTELLIGENCE.—Pure intelligence I should define as displaying itself in disinterested interest in things; in things, that is to say, of no _personal_ advantage, but only of general, public, or universal importance. Interest (to turn the cat in the pan) is the growing end of the mind, and its direction and strength are marked by a motiveless curiosity to know; it reveals itself, while it is still active, as a love of knowledge for its own sake. Later on it often appears that this motiveless love had a motive; in other words, the knowledge acquired under its impulse is discovered in the end to “come in handy,” and to have been of use. But the process of acquiring this knowledge is for the most part, indeliberate, unaware of any other aim than that of the satisfaction of curiosity; utility is remote from its mind. This is what I have called disinterested interest, and it is this free intelligence of which it appears to me that there is a diminishing amount in our day. Were it not the case, the fortunes of the really free Press would be much brighter than they are. An organ of free opinion would not need to discover a utilitarian attraction for its free opinions, but would be able to command a sale on its own merits. Such, indeed, is the case in several European countries, notably in France, Italy, and Germany. I am told that it is the case also in Bohemia (in which country there is not only no illiterate, but no un-read adult) and in the provinces of Yugo Slavia. In these countries a journal of opinions can live without providing its readers with any commercial or specialist bribe in the way of exclusive utilitarian information; it can live, that is to say, by the sale of its free intelligence. Happy countries—in one sense of the word; happy if also tragical; for their existence is not always, at any rate, a paradise for the rich, a hell for the poor, and a purgatory for the able!