Gutenberg Literary Edition #10870

_This essay is reprinted, with revisions and enlargement additions, from “The Sulphitic Theory” published in “The Smart Set” for April, 1906, by consent of the editors._

The terms “Bromide” and “Sulphite” as applied to psychological rather than chemical analysis have already become, among the _illuminati_, so widely adopted that these denominations now stand in considerable danger of being weakened in significance through a too careless use. The adjective “bromidic” is at present adopted as a general vehicle, a common carrier for the thoughtless damnation of the Philistine. The time has come to formulate, authoritatively, the precise scope of intellect which such distinctions suggest and to define the shorthand of conversation which their use has made practicable. The rapid spread of the theory, traveling from Sulphite to Sulphite, like the spark of a pyrotechnic set-piece, till the thinking world has been over-violently illuminated, has obscured its genesis and diverted attention from the simplicity and force of its fundamental principles.[1] In this, its progress has been like that of slang, which, gaining in popularity, must inevitably decrease in aptness and definiteness.

[Footnote 1: It was in April that I first heard of the Theory from the Chatelaine. The following August, in Venice, a lady said to me: “Aren’t these old palaces a great deal more sulphitic in their decay than they were originally, during the Renaissance?”]

In attempting to solve the problem which for so long was the despair of philosophers I have made modest use of the word “theory.” But to the Sulphite, this simple, convincing, comprehensive explanation is more; it is an opinion, even a belief, if not a _credo_. It is the _crux_ by which society is tested. But as I shall proceed scientifically, my conclusion will, I trust, effect rational proof of what was an _a priori_ hypothesis.