As far as the American representatives on the first commission are concerned, it is no harm to say that the pecuniary residual was unfortunately affected by the wrong sign, and this was doubtless the case as well with Dr. Jordan and his colleagues.
As to the truth of the statement regarding the "scientific expert," no evidence need be offered here, for it is furnished by every court in the land, and not a day passes that does not witness a struggle between "experts" who have nearly always started from the same premises, but whose conclusions are diametrically opposed to each other. What I do want to say is that this is quite consistent with the perfect honesty and good intent of the experts themselves. It is the result of the limitations to which the operations of the human intellect are still subjected, and it is a fact always to be reckoned with in matters of this kind. There should be no skepticism as to the honesty and frankness of Sir George Baden-Powell and Dr. George M. Dawson in assuming an attitude so opposed to that of the American commissioners in 1892.
Mr. Clark regards my article of 1897 as a "prediction of failure for the new commission," an assumption quite unjustified and unsustained by the article itself, in which the fullest recognition is shown of the great value of the work of Dr. Jordan and his colleagues. Indeed, the article was purposely prepared and published before the meeting of the second commission, that it might not seem to be in any way a criticism upon its work. Now that both commissions have made public their findings, the whole matter is easily accessible, but Mr. Clark is hardly just to the first commissioners on either side, by the slight reference he makes to their separate reports to their respective governments. A more careful study of both might have led to some modification of his views, even concerning the partition of authorship which he has ventured to make. It is no mean compliment, however, to find him admitting, in regard to the report of the American commissioners, that "not a single statement of fact in it has proved fallacious, and the more exhaustive investigations of 1896 and 1897 corroborate its conclusions in every particular." And this admission lies adjacent to his assertion that "the investigations conducted by the two commissions [of 1891] were, from a scientific point of view, of the nature of a farce." The fact is, Mr. Clark seems to have strangely misunderstood the character of the investigations which were contemplated and desired. The natural history of the fur seal was not the question submitted to the joint commission, except in so far as it specially affected seal life in Bering Sea and the measures necessary for its proper protection and preservation.
"Facts, causes, and remedies" were the subjects to be considered. There is an old saying that the flavor of the pudding may often be revealed by chewing the string, and no long and exhaustive investigation was necessary to enable the American commissioners to arrive at what Mr. Clark admits to be the "facts, causes, and remedies" for the Bering Sea problem. Not many weeks were occupied in the field, it is true, for the commission was delayed in its appointment and notification, and the season was nearly over when it reached the islands. But, as Mr. Clark justly remarks, one member of the commission, Dr. Merriam, was already exceptionally well informed concerning the habits of the fur seal, and some things may be so in evidence that even a physicist can see them.
It is true that the joint report of the commission of 1891-'92 was meager, and the explanation lies close at hand in the unwillingness of the American commissioners to swerve from what they were convinced was absolutely true. Mr. Clark will look in vain for the "handwriting of diplomacy mingled with that of science," for the appearance of which in the report of the commission of 1897 he offers apologies, except, indeed, it be the diplomacy of going straight at the facts without concealment or evasion, on which Americans have sometimes prided themselves.
The joint report was limited to that, and only that, on which the commissioners were actually agreed, and the American commissioners have explained in their separate report that had they been willing to concede certain points the joint report would have been greatly augmented in volume. Mr. Clark has reviewed the conclusions of the commission of 1897, which he justly considers a most important and valuable document. It has not escaped his attention that in a number of the paragraphs of this report the American commissioners have committed themselves to the approval of several doubtful statements, such as that "the pelagic industry is conducted in an orderly manner, and in a spirit of acquiescence in the limitations imposed by law"; that a certain number of females may be killed without involving the actual diminution of the herd; the "tendency toward equilibrium theory"; that the herd is still far from a stage that threatens extermination, and others. These statements he excuses as "balm for the wounded feelings of the pelagic sealer"; "a concession to diplomacy"; "a diplomatic concession to take the sting out of the real admission"; "another concession to diplomacy," etc. I do not wish to be understood as questioning the necessity or wisdom of inserting these paragraphs in the joint report, but is it not a little strange that with them in, and apologizing for them as he does, Mr. Clark should have selected this as a model of what the report of a scientific commission ought to be and sufficient of itself to forever fix the value of the scientific expert in the settlement of government disputes? As I have already intimated, no one appreciates more highly than I the great work done by Dr. Jordan and his associates in the study of the natural history of the seal. May not the work of the two commissions, as bearing on the problem of the fur-seal industry, be summed up about as follows?—The report of the American members of the first commission related facts, declared causes, and proposed remedies. The American case at the Paris arbitration rested on these. As almost universally happens, arbitration resulted in compromise, unsatisfactory to both parties, and, as has since turned out, decidedly unfavorable to one. The commission of 1897 has made a joint report of considerable length and much importance, in which the "facts, causes, and remedies" of the report of 1892 are in a sense confirmed, but with a number of concessions that do not strengthen the American contention regarding pelagic sealing, the justice of which seems to be admitted by Mr. Clark. But the practical question is, What has been the effect of either or both of these commissions upon the fur-seal industry? It would be unkind to press this question upon one who characterizes the work of the first commission as above quoted, and who speaks of the second as having, after being in joint session one week, "concluded its labors, reaching a full and satisfactory agreement." If he really wishes to know what progress is being made under such an agreeable state of affairs, let him inquire of the International Joint Commission, which is endeavoring to arrange all outstanding differences between this country and Canada.
CAUSES AND PREVENTION OF INSANITY.
By SMITH BAKER, M. D.
It is being found out that cases of insanity may of themselves fall naturally into two classes: the first comprising those who get well, and the second those who do not. To the first class belong the deliriums of fevers and other like diseases, and also certain acute manias and melancholias and the so-called generalized insanities. In the second class are included the insanities which last indefinitely, or, if seemingly cured, which, in the proportion of from twelve to fourteen per cent, come back again one or more times, and finally do not recover. Says Regis: "Out of all forms of mental alienation or insanity only the generalized types—i. e., mania and melancholia—are curable. The systematized insanities are essentially chronic and recover only exceptionally" (Practical Manual of Mental Medicine, page 54). The latter are known by such specific names as paranoia, chronic mania, chronic melancholia, insanity of doubt, circular insanity, hereditary insanity, and the like. What makes such a division of insanities into these two classes significant is not only that those of the first class get well and the others do not, but that, generally speaking, these latter are so founded in the constitution of the individual that they can not recover, let everything as yet possible be done for them as it may. Probably there are exceptions to this; but, if so, they are not very often met with. All these cases seem to be doomed from the very first either to follow a slowly downward grade to the very end, or else to manifest a series of alternate better and worse stages, which, while giving rise to bright hopes of ultimate recovery, nevertheless just as surely tend more or less rapidly downward, in pretty strict accordance with the rule. In passing, it may be noted that not only the tragedy of such alternations of emphatic despair and delusive hope constitutes not the least of the wretchedness involved in the history of these cases, but that it is by no means the easiest thing about them to manage; for, in the earlier stages, it is almost impossible to make associates or relatives understand the full meaning of the disease, or to take a correct view of its probable outcome. Even much later on they cling to the possibility of recovery, which is as delusive as it is painful, for the disease goes on, nevertheless, with varying stride and manifestation, until it finally becomes evident that hope is almost absolutely without any real foundation.