the other, but beyond a mild protest no action was perceptible. After a sufficient number of fish had been stowed away in the boat by "England" and the natives, the latter proceeded to do full justice to three-quarters of our elaborate lunch. Once more the sails were set and we sped homeward. Wave after wave passed over the dancing boat until finally the shore was reached. Wet, not hungry, trying to look cheerful, but nevertheless with a cartload of fish to speak for us, we arrived at our hotel near noon. Strange as it may appear, it proved to be a rash undertaking, for some time to come, to mention "flying fish" within hearing of three certain sportsmen.

Barbados has become a prominent health resort, more particularly for fever patients from more southerly regions. For many years the island has been free from serious attacks of epidemic or endemic diseases. South of Bridgetown, a suburb, Hastings, is located, where good sea-bathing and comparatively cool air can be enjoyed. The climate is necessarily enervating, and any stimulant of such character is a welcome change. Many of the planters and merchants have traveled extensively, and their experiences in foreign countries have borne fruit in their own colony.

Once more the gauntlet of officious porters and boatmen must be run, as the southward steamer has anchored off shore. Laden with trophies from the island, with coral shells and other equally bulky souvenirs, the traveler finds himself restored to his temporary floating home, and

COURTSHIP AND MARRIAGE AMONG THE CHOCTAWS OF MISSISSIPPI.

THE

BY H. S. HALBERT.

HE two thousand Choctaws still living in their ancestral homes in Mississippi, retain, in all their pristine vigor, many of the usages of their ancestors. Among these are the methods employed in conducting a courtship and the marriage ceremony.

When a young Choctaw, of Kemper or Neshoba county, sees a maiden who pleases his fancy, he watches his opportunity until he finds her alone. He then approaches within a few yards of her and gently casts a pebble towards her, so that it may fall at

her feet. He may have to do this two or three times before he attracts the maiden's attention. If this pebble throwing is agreeable, she soon makes it manifest; if otherwise, a scornful look and a decided "ekwah" indicate that his suit is in vain. Sometimes instead of throwing pebbles the suitor enters the woman's cabin and lays his hat or handkerchief on her bed. This action is interpreted as a desire on his part that she should be the sharer of his couch. If the man's suit is acceptable the woman permits the hat to remain; but if she is unwilling to become his bride, it is removed instantly. The rejected suitor, in either method employed, knows that it is useless to press his suit and beats as graceful a retreat as possible.

When a marriage is agreed upon, the lovers appoint a time and place for the ceremony. On the marriage day the friends and relatives of the prospective couple meet at their respective houses or villages, and thence march towards each other. When they arrive near the marriage ground-generally an intermediate space between the two villages—they halt within about a hundred yards of each other. The brothers of the woman then go across to the opposite party and bring forward the man and seat him on a blanket spread upon the marriage ground. The man's sisters then do likewise by going over and bringing forward the woman and seating her by the side of the man. Sometimes, to furnish a little merriment for the occasion, the woman is expected to break loose and run. Of course she is pursued, captured and brought back. All parties now assemble around the expectant couple. A bag of bread is brought forward by the woman's relatives and deposited near her. In like manner the man's relatives bring forward a bag of meat and deposit it near him. These bags of provisions are lingering symbols of the primitive days when the man was the hunter to provide the household with game, and the woman was to raise corn for the bread and hominy. The man's friends and relatives now begin to throw presents upon the head and shoulders of the woman. These presents are of any kind that the donors choose to give, as articles of clothing, money, trinkets, ribbons, etc. As soon as thrown they are quickly snatched off by the woman's relatives and distributed among themselves. During all this time the couple sit very quietly and demurely, not a word spoken by either. When all the presen have been thrown and distributed, the couple, now man and wife,

arise, the provisions from the bags are spread, and, just as in civilized life, the ceremony is rounded off with a festival. The festival over, the company disperse, and the gallant groom conducts his bride to his home, where they enter upon the toils and responsibilities of the future.

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EDITORS' TABLE.

EDITORS: A. S. PACKARD, JR., AND E. D. COPE.

The utterances of Professor E. DuBois Raymond, at the recent celebration of the birthday of Leibnitz, in Berlin,' should have a clearing effect on the intellectual atmosphere of the evolutionists. Professor Raymond exhibits in a marked degree the invaluable quality of intellectual self-control, one which is sometimes wanting to brilliant thinkers. It is perfectly natural for the pioneer, in penetrating a new and unexplored region, to advance with too great celerity, and without giving himself the requisite time to discover the obstacles that may lie in his course. Sometimes it has happened, that, bringing up at the edge of an unexpected precipice, he has made the most astounding leaps, and has been compelled to lay to and repair damages for sometime thereafter.

A good many evolutionists have been floored by a serious interruption to the continuity of their "high priori" road, and not a few of them do not yet know just what has hurt them. That such an evanescent and unsubstantial condition as consciousness should have the gravity necessary to throw a triumphant army of advance into confusion, could hardly be suspected. Does not one of the leaders say that consciousness is to the progress of evolution, what the whistle is to the engine, that makes a good deal of noise but does none of the work? And another says, “If the 'will' of man and the higher animals seems to be free in contrast with the 'fixed' will of the atoms, that is a delusion provoked by the contrast between the extremely complicated voluntary movements of the former and the extremely simple voluntary movements of the latter!" A slight difference of opinion, indeed! One authority tells us that consciousness does nothing, and the other will have it that it does everything, rising even to the autonomic dignity of a "will" for atoms! They agree in believing 1 See translation in Popular Science Monthly for February, 1882.

consciousness to be a form of force; but they differ in that the first authority thinks it is all dissipated, while the other holds it to be a link in a continuous chain of metamorphoses equivalent to every other link. If this be so, and the continuity be unbroken, what iron-clad fingers must these doughty soldiers have, who by merely putting pen to paper open the mouths of so many cannon, inaugurate so many conflagrations, and explode so many magazines. Verily we should have a new anatomy of this five-barreled mitrailleuse, through whose chambers flash such world-moving forces. As to the source of all this power, well says Drysdale, that if the brain of man contains stored such tremendous potency, its escape should, on his leaving this earthly abode, blow the top of his head entirely off.

As usual, truth lies between these extremes; furthermore, a very fundamental truth has been neglected by both sides of the question. Says Raymond, "More temperate heads betrayed the weakness of their dialectics in that they could not grasp the difference between the view which I opposed, that consciousness can be explained upon a mechanical basis, and the view which I did not question, but supported with new arguments, that consciousness is bound to material antecedents." This position has been maintained by various writers, among them Professor Allman, and some of the editors of this journal. But Professor Raymond has not found it to be acceptable to his nearest cotemporaries. He says, "The opposition which has been offered to my assertion of the incomprehensibility of consciousness on a mechanical theory, shows how mistaken is the idea of the later philosophy, that that imcomprehensibility is self-evident. It appears rather, that all philosophizing upon the mind must begin with the statement of this point." In stating this point some years ago, we used the following language:2 "It will doubtless become possible to exhibit a parallel scale of relations between stimuli on the one hand and the degrees of consciousness on the other. Yet for all this it will be impossible to express self-knowledge in terms of force." And again," "An unprejudiced scrutiny of the nature of consciousness, no matter how limited that scrutiny necessarily is, shows that it is qualitatively comparable to nothing else. From this standpoint it is looked upon as a state of matter which is coëternal with it, but not coëxtensive."

A second self-evident proposition is the following: There is no equivalency or correlation, between the force expended in the maintenance of conscious states, with the energy displayed in those acts which result from those conscious states. Parallel re⚫lations between ordinary forces are seen in cases of release, 1 Address delivered before the British Association for the Advancement of Science,. 18-.

Consciousness in Evolution, Penn Monthly, July, 1875.

The Origin of the Will, Penn Monthly, 1877, p. 439.

Thus the force that applies light to the fuse is little comparable to the explosion of the blast. The force required to raise the sluice is small compared with that which runs the mill. Still less is the relation of the force expended in planning a campaign to that required in executing it; or, of that used in directing a body of laborers to that expended by the laborers themselves. This is easily understood, but it is not so generally perceived by some of the correlators, that a process of exactly the same kind takes place in the mechanism of the acts which transpire within the animal organism. The amount of the primitive force may be very minute, for several releases may separate the thought from the ultimate result.

In the cases above mentioned the mind only serves as a release to the muscles which act, before the latter in turn release still mightier forces. But these facts do not permit the supposition that the original conscious state is not an equivalent of forces both antecedent and subsequent. For without the decomposition of arterial blood and the oxygenation of tissue, consciousness could not exist, and the beginning would not begin.

A third self-evident proposition is this: Movements determined by sensations cannot be compared to those which are not so determined. The former move towards the locality of pleasure, and away from the locality of pain. The latter move in the direct ratio of the product of the masses, and in the inverse ratio of the square of the distance. In the former case there is no equivalency between the force of the originating stimulus and the resulting act, and energy is generally gained in the process; in the second case the correlation is exact, and if there be any difference between the energy of the cause and that of the effect, that which has been dissipated by the way can be accounted for by proper search. But the biologist has much to do with a large class of designed movements, or acts, which are not performed in consciousness, and it is these which are likely to produce a confusion in the mind in regard to the relation between the movements of living and non-living masses. Thus a class of writers compare the hunger of the lowest animals to the affinities of chemical substances, etc., a supposition clearly inadmissable on physical grounds alone. The easiest solution of the problem lies in the well known ease with which conscious acts become automatic and unconscious, so soon as the structural lines which give direction to the force have become organized. Consciousness thus appears as the creator of designed movements, and the resulting organism their sustainer.-C.