hibition as an illustration of this same character in the
thought and the tendencies of our immediate time may seem like forcing the
point. It is true, it may be said, that there has been within the past few
years a rapid spread of prohibition in almost every part of the country;
but the thing itself is sixty years old, has had its periods of advance
and recession, and is now, in the fullness of time, reaping the fruits of
two generations of agitation, investigation, and education. But to say
this is to overlook the distinctive feature of the present situation
regarding prohibition in the United States. A Constitutional amendment
providing for the complete prohibition of the sale of liquor throughout
the Union is pending in Congress. A year ago--probably six months
ago--there was hardly a human being in the United States, other than those
in the councils of the Anti-saloon League, who had so much as thought of
national prohibition as a question of present-day practical politics.
Suddenly it is announced that there is a distinct possibility of a
prohibition amendment being passed by Congress in the near future; and one
of the foremost representatives of the Anti-saloon League states, and with
good show of reason, that if the amendment be passed by Congress, its
ratification by the Legislatures of three fourths of the States can be
only a matter of time. What the probabilities actually are, I do not
undertake to say; neither am I concerned at this moment with the merits of
the issue itself. What I _am_ concerned with is the simple fact that in
this situation, brought upon the country with dramatic suddenness, nobody
seems to have been in the least startled, or so much as disturbed in his
equanimity. There will of course be a great struggle over the question,
sooner or later. But neither in Congress nor in the press has there as yet
been any sign of such an assertion of the claims of personal liberty as,
at any time previous to the past ten years, would have been sure to be
made in such a situation. This collective silence, on an issue affecting
so intimately the lives, the habits, the traditions of millions of people,
is, in my judgment, by far the most impressive proof of the degree in
which the public mind has grown accustomed to the inroads of regulation
upon the domain of individuality.

* * * * *

A number of years ago, when the mathematical concept of space of more than
three dimension