,illustration3 ,,frances ,,power ,,cobbe4 ,from 8,life of ,frances ,power ,cobbe40 ,by ,herself4 ,,the ,,peak ,,in ,,darien1 ,,with ,,some ,,other ,,inquiries ,,touching ,,concerns ,,of ,,the ,,soul ,,and ,,the ,,body4 ,,an ,,octave ,,of ,,essays ,,by ,,frances ,,power ,,cobbe4 8,das ,leben ist der ,gter hchstes nicht2 ,der ,uebel grsstes aber ist die ,schuld40 ,die ,braut von ,messina4 ,,boston3 ,,geo4 ,h4 ,,ellis1 #ada ,,franklin ,,street4 ,,london3 ,,williams ,,norgate4 #ahhb4 ,,preface4 ,my last little book1 ,lectures on the ,duties of ,women1 was addressed principally to the young of my own sex4 ,the present volume is intended for my contemporaries who are daily brought face to face with some of the darker problems of the time1 or are led by their advancing years to ponder ever more earnestly on the mystery of the great transition4 ,in these various papers1--some new1 some already published in different periodicals1--,i have striven to meet fairly the questions whether the denial of ,god and immortality be indeed 7as ,agnostics and ,comtists are wont to boast7 a 8magnanimous0 creed1 whether life be truly 7as ,leopardi and ,schopenhauer and hundreds of their ,english disciples din daily in our ears7 a burden and a curse1 and whether 7as much recent legislation and newspaper literature would seem to teach7 bodily health be after all the summum bonum for which personal freedom1 courage1 humanity1 and purity ought all to be sacrificed8 ,to these discussions1 ,i have added one on the 8,fitness of ,women for the ,ministry of ,religion10--a subject1 ,i believe1 destined soon to acquire importance1--with two or three less serious papers on other matters touching moral questions2 and1 in conclusion1 ,i have returned to a speculation concerning the immediate entry into the life after death which ,i find has possessed interest for many readers4 ,that 8,peak in ,darien10 which we must all ascend in our turn1--the apex of two worlds1 whence the soul may possibly descry the horizonless ,pacific of eternity1--is the turning-point of human hope4 ,and it appears to me infinitely strange that so little attention has been paid to the cases wherein indications seem to have been given of the perception by the dying of blessed presences revealed to them even as the veil of flesh has dropped away4 ,were ,i permitted to record with names and references half the instances of this occurrence which have been narrated to me1 this short essay might have been swelled to a volume4 ,it is my wish1 however1 that it should serve to suggest observation and provoke the interchange of experiences1 rather than be considered as pretending to decide affirmatively the question wherewith it deals4 ,perhaps it may be as well to forestall any misapprehension by stating plainly that ,i utterly disbelieve1 and even regard with intense dislike1 all so-called 8,spiritualist0 manifestations and attempts to recall the dead2 and that ,i have never found any sufficient testimony for stories of ghosts or apparitions of the departed beheld by men and women still in the midst of life4 ,only at the very moment when we are passing into their arms does it seem to me that the law of our being may permit us to recognize once more the beloved ones who are 8not lost1 but gone before40 ,the lines of ,w4 ,j4 ,fox precisely express my thought on this subject3-- ,call them from the dead6 ,vain the call must be2 ,but the hand of death shall lay1 ,like that of ,christ1 its healing clay ,on eyes which then shall see ,that glorious company4 ,,frances ,,power ,,cobbe4 ,,july1 #ahhb4 ,,contents4 ,,page ,i4 ,,magnanimous ,,atheism1 #aa ,,ii4 ,,hygeiolatry1 #gg ,,iii4 ,,pessimism1 ,,and ,,one ,,of ,,its ,,professors1 #hi ,,iv4 ,,zoophily1 #abe ,v4 ,,sacrificial ,,medicine1 #aea ,,vi4 ,,the ,,fitness ,,of ,,women ,,for ,,the ,,ministry ,,of ,,religion1 #agi ,,vii4 ,,the ,,house ,,on ,,the ,,shore ,,of ,,eternity1 #bce ,,viii4 ,,the ,,peak ,,in ,,darien3 ,,the ,,riddle ,,of ,,death1 #bde ,,magnanimous ,,atheism4 8,be of good cheer1 brother60 said ,john ,bradford to his fellow-martyr while the fagots were kindling3 8we shall have a brave supper in heaven with the ,lord to-night60 8,be of good cheer1 everybody60 cry an army of modern confessors1 seated in library chairs3 8there is no heaven and no ,lord1 and when we die there will be an end of us all1 in saecula saeculorum2 but the generations who come after us will be greatly edified by our beautiful books and our instructive example40 ,perhaps the moral vitality of our age is in no way better exemplified than by the fact that certain doubts1 which seem to strike mortal blows at the head and heart of human virtue1 yet leave it breathing1 and even pulsating with aspirations after some yet loftier excellence than saints and heroes have hitherto attained4 ,to look back to the 8infidels0 with whom ,massillon and ,jeremy ,taylor had to do1 and compare them with the ,agnostics of our time1 is indeed more encouraging than to compare the 8faithful0 of past centuries with those of the present age4 ,while the old ,atheist sheltered his vice behind a rampart of unbelief where no appeals could reach him1 the new ,agnostic honestly maintains that his opinions are the very best foundations of virtue4 ,no one can for a moment say of him that he chooses darkness rather than light because his deeds are evil4 ,if it be 7as we think7 darkness which he has chosen1 there can be no question that his deeds are good1 and that his conceptions of duty are truly elevated and far-reaching1 and enforced by every argument which he has left himself at liberty to use4 ,renouncing faith in ,god and in the life hereafter1--that is to say1 in ,goodness ,infinite and ,goodness ,immortalized1--he retains the most fervent faith in goodness as developed in human life1--that is to say1 in goodness finite in degree and in duration4 ,if we are to accept his own statement of the case1 the ,agnostic has completely turned the front of the theological battle4 ,it is now the pagans who have seized and hold aloft the sacred labarum of duty and self-sacrifice1 and in hoc signo are destined to victory4 ,the claim is one of the gravest which can be put forth between man and man4 ,it was not easy--it was1 alas6 often beyond our strength--to combat our doubts or those of others1 while yet we fought against them as a sailor fights against enemies cutting his anchor cable on a stormy night4 ,we stand amazed and disarmed by the strange intelligence that1 when these doubts have done their work1 and cast us adrift altogether from allegiance to ,god and hope of another life1 then1 when all seems lost1 we shall suddenly discover that we have touched the ,fortunate ,isles of virtue and peace4 ,only the thorough sceptic1 we are assured1 can be the perfect saint4 ,nobody can disinterestedly serve his brother on earth till he is entirely persuaded he has no ,father in heaven4 ,the fruit of the ,tree of ,knowledge 7of course it is always assumed that it is a tree of genuine knowledge on which ,atheism grows7 is to be desired1 not only because it will make us 8wise10 but because it will make us good4 ,who will hesitate any more to pluck and eat8 ,to the consideration of this now common pretension of ,agnosticism to be the true ,,friend ,,of ,,virtue1 in the room of the old delusion of religion1 the following pages will be devoted4 ,for the purposes of our particular argument and to avoid entangling ourselves with too many collateral questions1 ,i shall treat it here as the ,assumption of the ,moral ,superiority of ,atheism over ,theism4 ,is that assumption justifiable8 ,i1 for one1 am entirely ready to admit that1 if there be anything in the faith in ,god and immortality which detracts from the highest conceivable perfection of human virtue1--if1 in short1 ,atheism have a better morality to teach than ,theism1--then the case of ,theism must be abandoned4 ,the religion which is not the holiest conceivable by the man who holds it is condemned ipso facto4 ,for the present1 ,i may assume that no important difference of opinion exists as to the practical rules of morality4 ,it is the proper motives to a virtuous and self-sacrificing life which ,agnostics claim to place on higher ground than that which has been hitherto given to them4 ,they propose to tell us to 8do justice and love mercy0 both in a better and more disinterested way than while we added to those unquestionable duties the mistaken attempt to walk humbly with our ,god4 ,the question lies in a nutshell1--,can they do it8 ,is there anything in the true ,theistic faith detracting from the disinterestedness of virtue1 or calculated to rob it of a single ray of purity and glory8 ,this must be our first contention1 since religion now stands on its defence as a basis of morality4 ,when it is settled1 it may perhaps appear that religion may justly again assume the offensive1 and challenge ,atheism to prove its capacity for serving equally efficiently as a support for the virtue of humanity2 and1 if it appear that to such a challenge no satisfactory reply can be given1 then it will be manifest that1 in their expressions of satisfaction and joy at the anticipated downfall of religion1 ,atheists display disregard of the moral interests of their race4 ,let the lists be cleared in the first place4 ,i shall not be expected to defend all the base and demoralizing things which1 in the misused name of ,christianity1 have been inculcated concerning 8,other-worldliness10--the doing good for the sake of getting to heaven1 and avoiding evil from fear of hell4 ,since the day1 recorded by ,joinville1 when the mysterious old woman carried her waterpot and torch before ,st4 ,louis1 and told him she intended to put out the fires of hell and burn up heaven1 so that men might learn to love ,god for his own sake1 and not from fear or hope1--since that distant time1 there have not been wanting righteous souls who have girned and spurned at the vile lessons current in the ,churches1 and asked with ,kingsley1-- 8,is selfishness1--for time1 a sin1--stretched out into eternity1 ,celestial prudence80 ,beyond a doubt1 one of the heaviest charges against the popular creed is that1 while its ministers have raged against the smallest theological error1 and convulsed the world by their ridiculous disputes concerning mysteries altogether beyond the reach of human comprehension1 they have complacently endured and even fostered moral heresies which withered up the very roots of virtue4 ,the whole tone of ordinary ,romish exhortation1 faire son salut1 is often base beyond expression2 and the teaching of the ,church of ,england in the last century was no better4 ,here are some specimens of it4 ,rutherford says 7,nature and ,obligations of ,virtue1 #agdd71 8,every man's happiness is the ultimate end which reason teaches him to pursue1 and the constant and uniform practice of virtue becomes our duty when revelation has informed us that ,god will make us finally happy in a life after this40 ,paley is no better4 ,he says3#a 8,virtue is the doing good to mankind in obedience to the will of ,god and for the sake of everlasting happiness4 ,according to which definition1 the good of mankind is the subject1 the will of ,god the rule1 and everlasting happiness the motive of virtue40 ,waterland1 the great champion of ,trinitarianism1 went even further4 ,he says that 8being just and grateful without future prospects has as much of moral virtue in it as folly or indiscretion has40 ,these are the kind of doctrines which have been placidly admitted among the recognized teachings of the great ,christian ,churches4 ,nor have some of the philosophers proved a whit more conscious of the simple notion of duty4 ,bentham1 for example1#b plainly lays it down that for a man to give up a larger pleasure of his own for a smaller one of his neighbor's is an act not of virtue1 but of folly4 ,certainly1 if the new ,agnostics had no types of religion or morality save these thoroughly debased ones wherewith to compare their system1 they might well claim to be the evangelists of a purer gospel4 ,better1 assuredly better1 would it be to believe in no ,god than to pay homage to the all-adorable ,author of ,good for the sake of the payment we expect him to give us4 ,better1 assuredly better1 to expect no life beyond the grave than to poison every act of courage1 justice1 or beneficence by the vile notion of being rewarded for it in heaven2 or to refrain from treachery and cruelty and lies1 merely1 like a beaten hound1 from dread of the bloody scourge of hell4 ,but it would be an insult to the well-informed and widely-read advocates of ,agnosticism1 if we were to assume for a moment that they were ignorant that this base alloy of religion has been almost universally repudiated by the higher class of ,english divines of the present day1 of every shade of ,orthodoxy2 while1 outside of the ,churches1 there is not a religious man who does not regard them with unmitigated disgust4 ,the question really is1 not whether religion may be made to corrupt morality with bribes and threats1 but whether it properly does so2 whether a religious man ought1 in accordance with his theology1 to be less disinterested than an ,atheist4 ,to reply to this question1 it seems only necessary to recall what a ,theist believes about ,god and immortality as concerned with his own virtue4 ,a ,theist believes1 then1 that the goodness and justice1 which the ,agnostic recognizes and loves so well in their human manifestations1 have existence beyond humanity1 and are carried to ideal perfection in a ,being who is1 in some sense1 the ,soul and ,ruler of the universe4 ,this belief1 at all events 7whether legitimately held or only a dream71 cannot1 ,i presume1 so far as it goes1 be charged with detracting from the purity of virtue4 ,goodness cannot be esteemed less good1 or justice less just1 because there exists ,one who is supremely good and just4 ,further1 as regards himself1 the ,theist believes that this supremely good and just ,being so constituted his nature and the world around him as that the law of goodness and justice should be known to him as the sacred rule1 whereby he is inwardly bound to determine his actions and sentiments4 ,in other words1 he believes that he has acquired his moral sense of ,god1 and not from any undesigned1 fortuitous order of things which may have impressed it as an hereditary idea on his brain4 ,i am at a loss to guess how this step further can be supposed to be hostile to the disinterestedness of virtue4 ,it is easy to see how the opposite theory of the origin of conscience1 as exhibited in ,mr4 ,darwin's ,descent of ,man1--whereby the authority of the human intuition1 8,thou shalt do no murder10 is traced to the same origin as the bees' intuition of the duty of killing their brothers1 the drones 7namely1 the hereditary transmission of ideas found conducive to the welfare of the tribe71--should dethrone ,conscience from her assumed supremacy1 and place her among the crowd of other hereditary notions1 neither more nor less deserving of honor4 ,and1 on the other hand1 the attribution of our moral ideas1 directly or indirectly1 to the teaching of a ,being immeasurably above us1--a theory which represents conscience as a ray shot downward from a sun1 instead of a marsh-fire illumined under special conditions of social existence1 and liable to blaze up1 die down1 or flit hither and thither as they may determine1--must inevitably elevate and sanctify the laws of morals to our apprehension4 ,in truth1 it is obvious that1 had the first hypothesis 7of the hereditary transmission of useful ideas7 been heard of in the days of our ancestors1 the 8mystic extension0 7as ,mr4 ,mill calls it7 of utility into morality could never have been accomplished1 and repentance and remorse would have been unknown experiences4 ,but all this refers to the practical authority of moral laws4 ,it is with the disinterestedness of the man who obeys them that we are at present concerned2 and this disinterestedness is not1 that ,i perceive1 influenced one way or the other by the theory he may hold of how he comes by his knowledge of them4 ,but now we reach the point where1 it is to be presumed1 the ,atheist finds ground for his claim to superior disinterestedness4 ,the ,theist believes not only that goodness and justice are attributes of ,god1 and that ,god has taught him to be good and just1 but that ,god further holds what the old ,schoolmen called the ,justitia ,rectoria of the universe1--that he so ordains things as that1 sooner or later1 good will surely befall the good1 and evil the evil4 ,so much as this is included in the simplest elements of ,theism4 ,in its fuller development1 ,theism teaches more3 namely1 that ,god takes the interest of a ,father in the moral welfare of his children2 that he has created every human soul 7and doubtless thousands of races of other intelligent beings7 for the express purpose that each should attain1 through the teaching and trials of existence1 to virtue1 and so enter into the supreme bliss of sympathy and communion with himself4 ,theism thus understood teaches that ,god is perpetually training each soul for that sublime end1 inspiring it with light1 answering its prayers for spiritual aid1 punishing it for its errors1 hedging up its way with thorns to prevent its wanderings1 and finally certainly conducting it1 through this life and perhaps many lives to come1 to the holiness and blessedness for which it was made4 ,the position of a ,theist differs therefore essentially from that of an ,atheist as regards the practice of virtue1 inasmuch as the ,atheist thinks he has no superhuman spectator or sympathizer2 that the thoughts and feelings which awaken his conscience and move his heart do not originate in any mind out of his own2 that the woes of his life bear with them no moral meaning of retribution or expiation2 and finally that1 whether he be a hero or a coward1 a saint or a sinner1 it will be all one1 so far as himself is concerned1 when the hour of his death has sounded4 ,his actions may and will have important consequences to other men1 but as regards his own destiny they can have no consequences at all2 for the grave will receive everything that remains of him4 ,the virtues he may have acquired with unutterable struggles will die away into nothingness1 like the sound of a broken harp-string4 ,he will neither rejoin his dead friends nor come into any fresh consciousness of ,god4 ,neither dead friends nor ,god have any existence2 and a little sooner or later1 as he may chance to be a more or less important person1 he will be altogether forgotten1 and no being in the universe will ever more remember that he once was4 ,now1 ,i think it would be idle to deny that it must be far harder to be virtuous under the shadow of this ,atheism than in the sunshine of ,theism4 ,the tax and strain upon the moral nature of a man who holds the views just indicated of the emptiness of the universe of any ,one absolutely good and just1 of the low and haphazard origin of conscience1 and of the utter loneliness and unaided state wherewith man pursues his weary course from the cradle to the inevitable1 eternal grave1 must be simply enormous4 ,all honor1 sincere and hearty honor1 and full recognition of their noble disinterestedness1 be to those ,atheists who1 under such strain1 yet struggle successfully and incessantly to do good and not evil all their days1 and to die bravely and calmly1 letting go their grasp of life and joy and love1 and sinking without a groan under the waters which are to cover them for evermore4 ,there is something in the self-sustained1 ,promethean courage of such a man which commands our admiration2 and we can well imagine him looking round on his suffering fellows pitifully1 as on his orphaned and disinherited brothers and sisters1 with infinite compassion1 deeming them destined like himself to perish with all their aspirations and capacities disappointed and unfulfilled4 ,for such a man to devote himself to the labors of practical benevolence and the relief of the woe which surrounds him1 whence he usually draws his strongest arguments for his desolate creed1 would seem to be the fittest1 if not the only fit pursuit2 and1 when we behold him engaged in it 7as in instances ,i could readily name71 our whole hearts recognize his virtue as absolutely beautiful and disinterested4 ,but because the ,atheist's virtue1 when he is virtuous1 is without alloy1 is there any just reason to hold that it is more pure than that of the ,theist8 ,his task is1 as ,i have readily admitted1 the harder of the two2 so hard indeed is it that there seem the gravest reasons for fearing that1 if a few noble spirits perform it1 the mass of tried and tempted men who can scarcely lift themselves from their selfishness even with the two wings of ,faith and ,hope will lie prone in the very mire of vice when those wings are broken4 ,but1 because the ,atheist's duty is harder to do1 is it consequently better done8 ,is the music which he draws from that one string of philanthropy sweeter than the full chord of all the religious and social affections together8 ,let us revert to the points of difference between the two creeds as above enumerated4 ,is a man necessarily self-interested in doing the will of a ,being whom he loves and hopes by serving to approach and resemble8 ,of course1 if he is looking for payment1--for health1 wealth1 happiness on earth or celestial glory1--for any adventitious reward outside of the fact of becoming better and nearer to ,god1--then1 indeed1 his service is self-interested4 ,he is a mercenary in the army of martyrs4 ,in strict ethics1 his conduct1 however exactly legal1 is not virtuous2 for virtue can only be absolutely without side-looks to contingent profit1 present or future4 ,i presume that1 when ,agnostics boast of the superior disinterestedness of the virtue they inculcate over that of religious men1 they think 7and cannot divest themselves of the early acquired habit of thinking7 of religion as of this kind of labor-and-wages system1--hard duty below1 high glory above1--with perhaps the additional complication of certain scholastic doctrines of imputed righteousness4 ,but it is time this confusion should cease4 ,love of goodness impersonated in ,god is not a less disinterested1 though naturally a more fervent1 sentiment than love of goodness in the abstract4 ,the ,theist1 in his attempt to obey by good deeds the will of the ,being he loves1 acts as simply as the ,atheist1 who loves the good deed1 thinking that no being higher in the scale of existence than himself has any appreciation of the difference between good and evil4 ,the ,theist1 indeed1 adds to his love of goodness per se a love of goodness impersonated in ,god1 who desires good actions to be done1#c and possibly also a hope that1 by doing good now1 he may be given the power to do it again and again for ever2 but it is all the same charmed circle of doing good for goodness' sake1 out of which he never emerges into any such motive as doing good for the sake of honor1 prosperity1 or heavenly bliss in a golden city4 ,the sole thing which the ,theist asks of ,god as the reward of obedience is the power to obey better in future1 the privilege of obeying forever4 ,the payment of his virtue is to be virtuous now and throughout eternity4 ,whether it be in this life or another1 there is no difference2 no new principle comes into play2 no bribe unsought for here is hoped for there4 ,he says to ,god3 8,it is a joy to serve ,thee1 but infinitely greater is the joy to serve ,thee with the assurance that the term of my service will never expire4 ,precious is the privilege of calling ,thee ,father4 ,how glad then am ,i that ,i shall be a child at ,thy feet forever6 ,lord1 ,i seek no heaven hereafter4 ,i covet no abode of bliss1 no outward reward above4 ,to be with ,thee is my heaven and my salvation and the only reward ,i seek4 ,as ,i abide in ,thee now1 may ,i continue to live in ,thee1 ,o ,father2 and to grow in wisdom and love and purity and joy in ,thee1 time without end40#d ,surely1 it is altogether absurd to speak of this religion as involving any1 even the very slightest shade of interestedness or detraction from the highest conceivable type of human virtue4 ,if it deserve such a condemnation1 then must likewise stand condemned the most pure and exalted human love which friend has ever felt for friend1--for this also1 by its very nature1 seeks to serve for love's sake1 to arrive at perfect harmony1 to dwell with the beloved in unbroken and everlasting union4 ,turn we now to the other side of the subject4 ,theism has been1 ,i hope1 vindicated from the charge of interestedness4 ,what shall we say to the general ethical aspect of ,agnosticism1 which assumes to be the nobler system8 ,admitting the blameless conduct and the high aspirations of some of its professors1 what value shall we attach to their claim to be the heralds of a higher morality8 ,if ,i may1 without offence1 condense their lessons in a very obvious parallel1 they amount to this 8symbol03 8,whosoever will be saved1 before all things it is necessary that he cease to believe either in one ,god or in three2 and that he be fully assured that those who have done good and those who have done evil shall alike go into everlasting nothingness40 ,this creed piously accepted1 he will advance to perfection and outrun in two ways any excellence which has been hitherto attained4 #ast4 ,while recognizing that1 so far as he himself is concerned1 death means the annihilation of consciousness1 he will act throughout his life with a deep and conscientious concern for the consequences of his actions to those who come after him or1 as ,mr4 ,frederick ,harrison expresses it1 to his own posthumous activity4 #b;d4 ,by welcoming the conclusions of ,atheism1 and especially the doctrine of the annihilation of consciousness at death1 not as a sorrowful truth1 but as the latest and brightest gospel of good tidings2 and proclaiming1 on all suitable occasions1 that they afford a better stand-point and outlook for humanity than any faith or hope which has been hitherto entertained4 ,the first of these doctrines was set forth1 a few years ago1 in two eloquent and affecting papers1 by ,mr4 ,frederick ,harrison1 in the ,nineteenth ,century4 ,how much sympathy ,i feel with a great deal which is said in these papers1#e how sincerely ,i respect ,mr4 ,harrison's noble conception of the aim of life1 even where ,i most completely misdoubt the validity of the method he proposes for attaining it1 there is scarcely need to say4 ,it is precisely because such ,positivists as he and ,mr4 ,morley and the late ,george ,eliot1 and such ,agnostics as many ,i could name1 assume such really high ground in their teaching1 and appeal 7though1 as ,i think1 in a fallacious way7 to our very noblest sympathies and aspirations1 that ,i feel urged to raise my feeble voice and call in question their guidance4 ,there1 in truth1 stand1 as they point to them1 the snowy summits of purity and goodness4 ,but by what path would they guide us to ascend them8 ,even if their own strong souls may climb those arid crags1 can they be in any possible sense a better way than that by which millions of believers in ,god and immortality have gone up on high8 ,let us take ,mr4 ,harrison's doctrine of the 8,posthumous ,activities0 of the soul1 and endeavor to estimate how far it is calculated to act as an efficient motive of virtue on ordinarily constituted1 well-intentioned men and women4 ,we must bear in mind that it is formally proposed as a substitute for the old belief in the immortality of the individual1--that is 7according to the ,theist creed71 in the immortality of the virtue of the individual4 ,while a ,theist believes that1 having lighted that sacred torch1 he shall be permitted to bear it onward1 burning more purely and brightly forever1 the ,comtist thinks he must lay down his at the side of his grave1 though other men may ignite their own from it1 and so carry on its light from age to age4 ,in the first place1 ,i must remark that1 like the promise on which such stress is laid in ,dr4 ,bridge's ,general ,view of ,positivism1 that attached husbands and wives may be solemnly interred side by side1 there is nothing new in these anticipations4 ,we have always known that we might be buried in the same vault with our next friend1 as we have always known that our actions would continue to bear fruit after our departure4 ,we entertained the first hope 7so far as such a pitiful matter as the future position of our deaf and blind decaying dust deserves to be considered a hope71 and we were aware of the responsibility1--plus the belief that we ourselves should enjoy free converse with the spirit of our friend1 and afford to smile together on our poor mouldering garments laid up side by side in the tomb1--and plus the belief that we might ourselves be cognizant of our posthumous activities4 ,there is nothing in the fact that both the hope and the sense of responsibility must now stand by themselves for what they are worth1 to give them 7so far as ,i can see7 any fresh leverage as motives of conduct4 ,people who did not love each other better while they expected to be at liberty to spend eternity in conscious communion1 as well as to be buried in the same grave1 certainly will not love each other better when their future prospects are limited to the family vault4 ,and people who have not regulated their conduct with a view to their post-mortem influence while they anticipated to be living somewhere to know1 or1 at all events1 to be obliged to think about it1 are very little likely to regulate it the better when they are convinced that1 if they leave the deluge behind them1 they will neither know nor care one iota4 ,as to the good man1 he will1 under the old creed and under the new alike 7and neither more nor less1 so far as ,i can perceive71 entertain a solemn sense of a responsibility to do all the good and refrain from every evil in his power during his threescore years and ten1--not first1 or chiefly1 for the sake of consequences near or remote to himself or other people in this world or another1 but because goodness1 truth1 courage1 justice1 and generosity are good in themselves1 lovable in his eyes and in the eyes of ,god1 and falsehood1 impurity1 cruelty1 and treachery are bad and despicable1 hateful to him and to his ,maker4 ,afterward1 and as a reinforcement of his choice of ,scipio1 he will reflect that every good act entails good consequences in widening circles of loving-kindness1 honor1 and honesty1 and every bad one the reverse2 and he will hope in dying to reflect that the sum of the influence he leaves to work after him will be wholly on the side of truth1 justice1 and love4 ,it is monstrous for ,mr4 ,harrison to say that 8the difference between our 7,positivist7 faith and that of the orthodox is this4 ,we look to the permanence of the activities which give others happiness4 ,they look to the permanence of the consciousness which can enjoy happiness40 ,why should looking to the permanence of consciousness and happiness make a man care less for the activities 8which give others happiness08 ,does ,a care less for ,b's welfare because he would like to be alive to see it1 or even alive at the antipodes at the same time8 ,moralists and divines of all ages have not overlooked the remoter consequences of our actions in rehearsing the motives in favor of virtue4 ,but it is idle to attach to it1 as applied to the bulk of mankind1 more practical force than it possesses4 ,in the first place1 when such an observer of things as ,shakspere could say that 8,the evil which men do lives after them1 ,the good is oft interred with their bones10 it is open to us all to doubt whether some of the very noblest achievements of human virtue have left any other mark than on the virtuous souls themselves1 which 7as we ,theists think7 enjoy even now in a higher existence their blessed inward consequences4 ,the martyrs who perished unseen and unknown in the loathsome dungeons and amid the protracted tortures of the ,inquisition in ,spain1 where the ,reformation they would have established was absolutely extinguished and left no ray of light behind1--could these men cheer themselves under the awful strain of their agonies by a motive of such tenuity as the prospect of their 8posthumous activities08 ,but admitting1 for argument's sake1 that the motive would serve always to support the heroic order of virtues1 would it likewise aid the still more important ones of every-day conduct8 ,his own illustrations ought surely to have made ,mr4 ,harrison pause before he assumed it4 ,he speaks of ,newton as 8no longer destroying his great name by feeble theology or querulous pettiness10 of ,shakspere as 8the boon companion and retired playwright of ,stratford10 of ,dante as the 8querulous refugee from ,florence10 and of ,milton as 8the blind and stern old malignant of ,bunhill ,fields40 ,now these are his chosen exemplars of the enormous 8posthumous activity0 which a man may exert1 and certainly nobody now living can hope that he shall ever exercise one-tenth as much4 ,but their 8pettiness0 and 8querulousness0 and 8boon companionship0 and 8sternness0 in their lifetimes did not hinder1 or even essentially detract from1 their stupendous 8posthumous activity40 ,why1 then1 should lesser people have any scruple in being petty1 querulous1 or stern1 or indulging in pot-companionship1 or any other faults of temper or habit1 on account of their little posthumous activities1 whatever they may hope that these may prove8 ,obviously1 ,mr4 ,harrison has a misgiving as to the force which his argument can be expected to exert on ordinary mortals or for the daily purposes of life4 ,though he says that the truth he teaches 8is not confined to the great10 and adds the beautiful remark that 8in some infinitesimal degree the humblest life that ever turned a sod sends a wave--no1 more than a wave1 a life--through the evergrowing harmony of human society10 yet even while he alleges that a concern for such posthumous activity is 8no doubt now in ,england the great motive of virtue and energy10 and asks1 8,can we conceive a more potent stimulus to daily and hourly striving after a true life80#f he says in the next page that 8it would be an endless inquiry to trace the means whereby this sense of posthumous participation in the life of our fellows can be extended to the mass1 as it certainly affects already the thoughtful and refined40 ,honestly1 he admits that it is 8impossible it should become universal and capable of overcoming selfishness0 8without an education1 a new social opinion without a religion2 ,i mean an organized religion1 not a vague metaphysic40 8,make it10 he cries1 with almost the enthusiasm of a discoverer1 8at once the basis of philosophy1 the standard of right and wrong1 and the centre of a religion10 and then it may perhaps be achieved4 ,but1 in sober truth1 what 8education0 or 8organized religion0 7i4e41 of course1 ,comtism7 can possibly transform this remote anticipation of the results of our actions after we are dead into a practical lever for daily duty for the great bulk of mankind8 ,it is the specialty of all vice to be selfishly indifferent to the injurious consequences of our actions1 even to their immediate and visible consequences1 to those nearest to us4 ,is it not almost ludicrous to think of exhorting the drunkard who sees his wife and children starving round him to-day1 or the ill-conducted girl who is breaking her mother's heart1 or the hard task-master or landlord who is grinding the faces of the poor to fill his pocket1 to refrain from their misdoings on account of the evil which they will cause fifty years hence to people unborn8 ,or let us try to apply the principle to that sound mass of every-day ,english virtue which is1 after all1 the very air we breathe1--the daily dutifulness1 the purity1 the truthfulness1 the loving-kindness of our homes1 the beautiful patience to be witnessed beside a thousand sick-beds4 ,were we to ask the simple-hearted men and meek women who exemplify these virtues whether they ever think of the excellent 8posthumous activities0 which they will exert on their surviving acquaintances1 would they not be utterly bewildered8 ,the clergyman 7or let us have the ,comtist philosopher7 who will go through a workhouse ward1 or round the cottages of a village1 and offer such a suggestion as a topic of encouragement1 would1 ,i think1 effect a very small measure of reformation4 ,nor do ,i think it is necessarily a low type of mind which does not project itself much into the future1 whether in this world or the next2 but which is vividly affected by the idea of a present righteous law claiming immediate obedience1 and a present adorable ,god watching whether that obedience be paid1 but which takes in even the idea of immortality more as adding an infinite dignity to moral things and human souls than as a direct motive to moral action4 ,to such a person1 the promise of 8posthumous activities0 is as remote and inoperative a principle as it is possible to propose2 and he can scarcely help smiling at it1 as he does at the observation of ,pliny1 that the 8happiest of all possible anticipations is the certain expectation of an honorable and undying renown40 ,posthumous activity affords a far nobler motive than posthumous fame2 but they both appeal to sentiments which have little weight with the majority of minds1 and no weight at all with a great number not undeserving of respect4 ,the truth seems to be that the leading ,comtists and ,agnostics of the day not only belong to an exceptional type of human nature1 little touched by grosser impulses and highly sensitive to the most rarefied order of influences1 but are unable to descend from such altitude1 and realize what ordinary flesh-and-blood men and women are made of4 ,as ,mr4 ,darwin unconsciously betrayed that he had never once had occasion to repent an act of unkindness1 when he theorized about repentance as beginning by a spontaneous reversion to sympathy and good-will to the people we have injured 7in bold contradiction to ,tacitus' too true maxim1 8,humani generis proprium est odisse quem laeseris071 so the disciples of ,comte unwittingly allow us to perceive that they really consider an exalted and far-reaching interest in the welfare of our kind as the sort of motive which is already 8now in ,england the great motive of virtue and energy40 ,let me explain myself4 ,i do not think there is any precept too high to be accepted by the mass of mankind3 nay1 ,i think that the higher1 nobler1 more self-sacrificing the lesson1 the warmer response it will draw forth from the heart of humanity4 ,but this is the moral excellence of the precept1 the loftiness of the purity1 the nobleness of the generosity1 the courageousness of the self-devotion1 which are demanded4 ,it is quite another thing to choose to present1 as the proper motive of daily virtue1 an idea requiring a trained intellect to take it in and a vivid imagination to realize it4 ,every argument for virtue1 for sobriety1 veracity1 and so on1 drawn from considerations of future consequences1 labors under this irremediable defect3 that it appeals least to those whom it is most necessary to influence4 ,when we go further1 and place our fulcrum of moral leverage in the period after the death of the man to whom we appeal1 and candidly tell him that he will neither enjoy the sight of any good he may have effected1 nor suffer from the spectacle of the results of his wrong-doing1 we have reached 7as it seems to me7 the ne plus ultra of impracticability4 ,woe to human virtue when its advocates are driven to attach primary importance to such an argument1 and dream it can be made 8the centre of a religion06 ,to sum up this subject4 ,to a man of high calibre and gifts1 the consideration of 8posthumous activities0 may act as a spur to doing great actions1 but scarcely as a motive to regulate his daily life and temper4 ,he will1 perhaps1 under its influence reform the prisons of ,europe1 and at the same time break his wife's heart2 write a great epic poem1 and treat his daughters like slaves2 paint splendid pictures1 and remain a selfish and sordid miser2 fight heroically his country's battles1 and lead a life of persistent adultery2 be at once a disinterested statesman in a corrupt age1 and an habitual drunkard4 ,as to the mass of mankind1 who are endowed neither with any superior gifts to employ1 nor vivid imagination to realize the results of their actions hereafter1 an appeal to them to act virtuously in consideration of their posthumous activities would draw forth some such reply as this3 8,our conduct can1 at most1 leave after our deaths only very small results on a very few people whom we shall never know4 ,we find it hard enough to make sacrifices for those whom we do know and love1 and whose happiness or misery we actually witness4 ,it is asking too much of us that1 for remote1 contingent1 and evanescent benefits to our survivors1 we should undergo any pain or labor1 or renounce any of the pleasures which in our poor short lives 7so soon to end forever in darkness7 may fall within our grasp40 ,thus1 in its capacity of the ,friend of ,virtue1 it seems that ,atheism begins by depriving virtue of some of the strongest1 if not the very strongest1 motives by which it has hitherto been supported1 and offers in their room1 as the best substitute for them and the future 8centre of religion10 a consideration of ,posthumous ,activities1 whose force is of necessity both partial as to the virtues it inculcates1 and extremely limited as to the persons over whom it can exercise any influence4 ,and that force1 such as it is1 appears to be in no way specially connected with the ,atheistic view of human destiny1 but belongs to every moral system in the world4 99 99 99 99 99 ,finally1 as if to complete the nullity of the motive of ,posthumous ,activities1 there comes a reflection which must take erelong a prominent place in disquisitions of this kind4 ,comtists talk of the 8immortality10 the 8eternity10 of a dead man's influence4 ,but1 if each individual human soul is destined to be extinguished at death1 then there is nothing wherewith man is concerned which is immortal or eternal4 ,our race is destined irretrievably to perish as a race1 if it perish piecemeal with every soul which drops into the grave4 ,miss ,martineau's wild talk about 8the special destination of my race0 being 8infinitely nobler than the highest proposed under a scheme of divine moral government0#g 7an assertion in itself simply absurd1 since the believers in a scheme of divine government hold that whatever is noblest is by the hypothesis assuredly our destination71 is rendered doubly preposterous when we bear in mind what science teaches regarding the inevitable lapse of this planet within a limited epoch into a condition of uninhabitability4 ,the following observations are made on this subject in a little jeu d'esprit which ,i may be pardoned for quoting4 ,it assumes to be an extract from a newspaper of the next century1 and the men of that period are supposed to look back upon the doctrine of 8,posthumous ,activities0 with very little respect3-- ,it is needless to repeat that the delusive exhortations of some amiable but short--sighted philosophers of the last century to 8labor for the good of ,humanity in future generations0 7a motive which they supposed would prove a substitute for the old historic religions7 have been once and for all answered by the grand discovery of astronomers that our planet cannot long remain the habitation of man 7even if it escape any sidereal explosion71 since the solar heat is undergoing such rapid exhaustion4 ,when the day comes1 as come it must1 when the fruits of the earth perish one by one1 when the dead and silent woods petrify1 and all the races of animals become extinct1 when the icy seas flow no longer1 and the pallid sun shines dimly over the frozen world1 locked1 like the moon1 in eternal frost and lifelessness1--what in that day1 predicted so surely by science1 will avail all the works and hopes and martyrdoms of man8 ,all the stores of knowledge which we shall have accumulated will be forever lost4 ,our discoveries1 whereby we have become the lords of creation and wielded the great forces of ,nature1 will be useless and forgotten4 ,the virtues which have been perfected1 the genius which has glorified1 the love which has blessed the human race1 will all perish along with it4 ,our libraries of books1 our galleries of pictures1 our fleets1 our railroads1 our vast and busy cities1 will be desolate and useless forevermore4 ,no intelligent eye will ever behold them1 and no eye in the universe will know or remember that there ever existed such a being as man4 ,this is what ,,science teaches us unerringly to expect1 and in view of it who shall talk to us of 8laboring for the sake of ,humanity08 ,the enthusiasm which could work disinterestedly for a ,progress destined inevitably to end in an eternal ,glacial ,period must be recognized as a dream1 wherein no man in a scientific age can long indulge4#h ,the second counsel of perfection of the ,agnostic teachers is1 as above said1 8to welcome the conclusions of ,atheism1 and especially the doctrine of annihilation of consciousness at death1 not merely as truth1 but as the latest gospel of good tidings40 ,this lesson1 though repeated more or less by nearly all ,agnostic and ,comtist writers1 has been perhaps most prominently brought to the front in the ,life of ,harriet ,martineau4 ,i shall take her observations and example as the text for the remarks ,i wish to offer upon it1 as ,i have done the papers of ,mr4 ,frederick ,harrison for those just made on the doctrine of ,posthumous ,activities4 ,these are some of her utterances which touch on the matter3-- ,i soon found myself quite outside of my old world of thought and speculation1 under a new heaven and a new earth1 disembarrassed of a load of selfish cares and troubles4444 ,hence it followed that the conceptions of a ,god with any human attributes whatever1 of a principle or practice of design1 of an administration of the affairs of the world by the principles of human morals1 must be mere visions1 necessary and useful in their day1 but not philosophically or permanently true4444 ,the reality that philosophy founded upon science is the one thing needful1 the source and the vital principle of all morality and all peace to individuals and good-will among men1 had become the crown of my experience and the joy of my life4444 ,my comrade 7,mr4 ,atkinson7 and ,i were both pioneers of truth4 ,we both care for our kind1 and we could not see them suffering as we had suffered without imparting to them our consolation and our joy4 ,having found1 as my friend said1 a spring in the desert1 should we see the multitude wandering in desolation1 and not show them our refreshment8444 ,then 7in younger days7 ,i believed in a ,protector1 who ordered my work and would sustain me under it2 and1 however ,i may now despise that sort of support1 ,i had it then1 and have none of that sort now4 ,i have all that ,i want1 444 and ,i would not exchange my present views1 imperfect and doubtful as they are1--,i had better say ,i would not exchange my freedom from old superstition1--if ,i were to be burned at the stake next month1 for all the peace and quiet of ,orthodoxy4 ,nor would ,i for my exemption give up the blessing of the power of appeal to thoughtful minds4444 ,when ,i experienced the still new joy of feeling myself to be a portion of the universe1 resting on the security of its everlasting laws1 certain that its ,cause was wholly out of the sphere of human attributes1 and that the special destiny of my race is infinitely nobler than the highest proposed under a scheme of 8divine moral government10 how could it matter to me that the adherents of a decaying mythology were still clinging to their ,man-,god8444 ,under this close experience 7of illness71 ,i find death in prospect the simplest thing in the world1--a thing not to be feared or regretted or to get excited about in any way4 ,i attribute this very much to the nature of my views of death4444 ,now1 the release is an inexpressible comfort4 ,i see that the dying naturally and regularly1 unless disturbed1 desire and sink into death as into sleep4444 ,i feel no solicitude about a parting which will bring no pain4444 ,under the eternal laws of the universe ,i came into being1 and under them ,i have lived a life so full that its fulness is equivalent to length3 thus there is much in my life that ,i am glad to have enjoyed1 and much that generates a mood of contentment at its close4 ,besides that1 ,i never dream of wishing that anything were otherwise than as it is2 and ,i am frankly satisfied to have done with life4 ,i have had a noble share of it1 and ,i desire no more4 ,i neither wish to live longer here nor to find life again elsewhere4 ,it seems to me simply absurd to expect it4#i ,it is no part of the purpose of this article to discuss the truth of the doctrine that there is no ,god1 and that death terminates human consciousness4 ,nor yet do ,i question whether a high sense of loyalty to what is understood to be truth may not make it appear to any one holding such doctrines that he is under the obligation to publish them frankly to the world4 ,many a man who is an ,atheist as regards ,god holds 7what many believers in ,him lack7 a noble faith in ,truth as ,truth1 a firm conviction that nothing can be better than ,truth1 and that1 as ,carlyle said1 8,to nothing but error can any truth be dangerous40 ,it is not1 then1 the holding of such views as those above quoted1 nor yet their frank publication and defence1 wherewith we are now concerned2 but with the tone of exultation with which they are announced1 the disregard and contempt which are manifested for the dearest hopes1 the purest aspirations1 of the great mass of mankind4 ,magnanimity has two phases4 ,we may be magnanimous on our own account1--brave1 calm1 and self-reliant in the face of things which appall feebler souls4 ,of this sort of personal magnanimity1 this remarkable woman has given a very fine example4 ,here are the words she wrote twenty years after the foregoing pages1 in her last letter to her friend3 ,i cannot think of any future as at all probable except the annihilation from which some people recoil with so much horror4444 ,for my part1 ,i have no objection to such an extinction4 ,i well remember the passion wherewith ,w4 ,e4 ,forster said to me1 8,i had rather be damned than annihilated40444 ,i have no wish for any further experience1 nor have ,i any fear of it4#aj444 ,these words have in them a calmness1 simplicity1 and courage which demand our honor1 written as they were by an aged woman 7as she herself describes them a few lines further7 8under the clear knowledge of death being so near at hand40 ,the old vulgar theory1 so frequently harped upon in the last generation1 that the right place to judge a man's religious views is his death-bed1 and that1 while orthodox believers alone can die bravely1 sceptics must needs expire in anguish and alarm1 with 8a certain fearful looking-for of judgment10 has been thoroughly exploded by the now numberless instances of perfect courage exhibited by dying men and women who had long before abandoned the hopes of a happy futurity which revealed or natural religion has to offer4 ,harriet ,martineau's serene self-resignation into eternal nothingness ought1 if any further evidence were wanting1 to suffice to set the matter finally at rest2 and it may be cited very properly by disbelievers in immortality1 as exhibiting what they deem to be the fitting and dignified tone of a philosophical mind drawing near to the horizon beneath which it will presently disappear forever4 ,no one can help respecting courage1 under whatever form or circumstances it is manifested2 and1 if a man think that he is on the verge of annihilation1 it is truly dignified and praiseworthy to approach it with unflinching eye and unblenched cheek4 ,this is so far as the individual is concerned4 ,but is there not another and larger side of the question1 which the very noblest man ought to feel as awful and heart-rending1--nay1 must feel to be so1 in proportion to his nobleness and his power to extend his view beyond his own petty personality8 ,true magnanimity1 it seems to me1 must look far outside of a man's own lot1 of his past share of life's feast1 and his readiness now to rise from it satisfied1 and must take a wide survey of the lives 7so far as they can be known or guessed7 of all other men1--of the poverty-stricken1 the savage1 the ignorant1 the diseased1 the enslaved1 the sin-degraded1--and attain the conclusion that for these also1 as well as for himself1 life on earth has been sufficient good1 and none other need be asked or desired before he can complacently speak of the joy of abandoning faith in ,god and immortality4 8,i have had a noble share of life1 and ,i desire no more10 is an expression of personal sentiment which may or may not be right and fitting on the assumed hypothesis4 ,but to join to such expression of individual contentment no word of regret for the closing in of all hope to the suffering millions of our race who have not had 8noble0 shares of life1 and who do1 with yearning hunger1 desire more than has ever fallen to their lot1--this is1 as it seems to me1 the reverse of magnanimity4 ,this is littleness and selfishness almost as bad as that of the bigots whom these ,atheists abhor1 who rejoice to expect heaven for themselves1 while leaving thousands of their brethren to perdition4 ,it might be pardonable in one brought up to believe in hell1 and who hurriedly leaped to the doctrine of annihilation from that intolerable yoke1 and cried1 8,let us all perish together rather than that hideous doom overtake a single creature60 ,such a choice would be generous and worthy4 ,but when a woman who probably never1 at any period of her life1 believed in the eternal perdition of a soul1 proclaims herself enraptured at the joy of finding out that there is neither a ,god to protect the weak1 nor1 finally1 any holiness or happiness beyond the grave1--then1 ,i repeat1 this is not magnanimity1 but gigantic selfishness4 ,let us think a little what it would signify to mankind to give up ,god and heaven1--that is1 the belief in ,god and heaven2 for--,god be praised6--it rests with no philosophic school to put out the sun or prevent the morning from breaking1 but only to blind our eyes to them4 ,dr4 ,james ,martineau once made in a sermon the startling remark that1 8if it could be known that ,god was dead1 the news would cause but little excitement in the streets of ,berlin or ,paris40 ,the observation was doubtless true2 for1 of direct thought of ,god1 the streets of great cities are probably the emptiest of any places wherein mortals may be found4 ,but there is an enormous share of human ideas and feelings not directly or consciously turned toward ,god1 yet nevertheless colored by the belief that such a ,being exists4 ,perhaps it would be more proper to say that in ,christendom every idea and every feeling have imperceptibly been built up on the theory that there is a ,god4 ,we see everything with ,him for a background4 ,inanimate nature and the lower animals1 human history and society1 poetry1 literature1 science1 and art1--every one of them has its religious aspect1 which can only be excluded by a mental tour de force4 ,take inanimate nature1 for example1--the region where it seems easiest to sever the links of habitual thought1 and which the doctrine of ,evolution 7according to some of its teachers7 has already withdrawn from the domain of a ,creative ,power4 ,we all love this nature2 and our hearts are moved to their depths by sympathy with it when we gaze round of a summer morning upon the woods and hills and waters1 or1 later in the year1 upon the 8happy autumn fields0 of ripened corn1 or1 on a winter's night1 up into the solemn host of stars4 ,but is it merely the glittering 8patines of bright gold10 or fields of yellow wheat1 or the block of wood and rock which form the forest or the mountain1 which awaken in us such mysterious emotion8 ,are we not dimly worshipping the soul of nature through earth and sky1--the spirit wherewith our spirits are in ineffable harmony1 and of which all the loveliness we behold is but the shadow8 ,let some ,agnostic disenchanter come to us at such an hour and tell us that1 though it takes a man of genius to depict worthily on canvas a corner of this wide field of loveliness1 yet that the whole great original had no ,painter1 no ,designer2 that the mountains had no ,architect1 the well-balanced stars no supreme ,geometer1 but that it all came about as we behold it through the action of forces1 unguided by any mind1 undirected by any ,will1--and what revulsion shall we not experience8 ,shall we not feel like a man enamoured of a beautiful woman whom he has believed to be good and wise and tender1 but1 when he comes at last to look close into her face1 he finds her to be a soulless idiot1 from whose stony and meaningless gaze he turns shuddering away8 ,science1 again1 is but a mere heap of facts1 not a golden chain of truths1 if we refuse to link it to the throne of ,god4#aa ,in every department of human thought1 in short1 something--and that something the most beautiful in it--must be lost1 some sacred spell must be broken1 if we are to think of it as divested from the deeper sense which religion has 7all unconsciously to ourselves7 given to it1--the thread of purpose running through2 the understood promise of justice2 the sympathy of an unseen1 all-beholding ,spectator4 ,in the same way1 all human relationships will be stripped of the majestic mantle under which they have been sheltered4 ,the idea of the common ,fatherhood of ,god1 which ,paganism in its best days had begun to teach1 and which ,christ's lessons have made the familiar thought of every ,european child1 has put a meaning into the phrase of human brotherhood1 which it is much to be doubted if the warmest 8,enthusiasts of ,humanity0 would1 without such preliminary training1 have been able to give to it4 ,the idea 7poorly as it has been hitherto recognized7 that the most degraded of mankind1 those from whom we naturally turn in disgust1 have yet the same ,creator and the same ,judge as ourselves1 has1 beyond question1 an indirect influence of no small force over all our sentiments concerning them4 ,the same reflection has even at last begun to exercise a perceptible influence over our conduct to the brutes4 ,christians and ,theists of every shade may be found impressed with the sense that religion demands the humane treatment of all sentient creatures2 and this1 whether they take the view of ,cardinal ,manning1 that1 8if ,i owe no moral duties to the lower animals1 ,i owe all the moral duties that are conceivable to the ,creator of those animals1--humanity1 mercy1 and care for them10 or take the simple ,theist stand-point1 that1 as we love ,him1 so we naturally look with sympathy and tenderness on everything ,he has made4 ,of course1 this motive of humanity to brutes disappears with the belief in ,god2 and1 accordingly1 we find1 with quite logical fitness1 that1 while the opposition to brute torture is maintained by men of every varied shade of religion1 the majority of the chief vivisectors of ,europe are professed ,materialists4 ,vivisection is the logical outcome of ,atheism as regards the brutes2 and ,m4 ,paul ,bert and ,carl ,vogt are only the most candid examples of men who have carried it out4 ,but it is in the region of the personal virtues--purity1 truth1 temperance1 contentment--that the loss of the belief in ,god will be most disastrous4 ,i am far from maintaining that1 putting religion wholly out of sight1 there are not motives of a purely ethical kind left which ought to make men practise the highest inward virtue4 ,but ,i think it needs only a slight knowledge of human nature to perceive that the shutting up of the window of the soul1 through which an awful and most holy ,spectator has hitherto been believed to gaze into all its secrets1 must leave a great deal in darkness which has been till now illumined with a sin-exposing light4 ,it takes much for a man to say1 like the author of ,in ,memoriam1-- 8,the dead shall look me through and through40 ,the idea of any eye perceiving all that is going on in the recesses of the mind1--the double motives1 the unfaithfulnesses1 the vanities1 the memories of old shameful errors1--this is hard enough4 ,but the belief that such introspection is always taking place1 and by the ,holiest of all beings1 is undoubtedly a sort of purification such as no mere solitary process of self-examination can resemble4 ,even a warm human friendship in youth brings with it always a burst of self-knowledge4 ,we see ourselves quite freshly in our friend's view of us4 ,but a thousand times greater inevitably is the self-revelation which comes with the realized presence of ,god in the soul1 the flood of sunshine which discloses all the motes which fill the atmosphere of our thoughts4 ,now1 though it is only spiritually-minded men who know this experience in its full intensity1 yet every man who believes in ,god has gleams of it at intervals through life which are never afterward quite forgotten4 ,but1 more 7and this is a point which concerns the whole ,theistic moral argument most importantly71 the supreme experience of spiritual men is filtered down through all grades of minds by books and intercourse4 ,the lofty standard of purity which has been revealed to them is partially exhibited by their words and example1 and forms a kind of high-water mark for lesser souls4 ,it is an immense gain1 even to very poor sinners1 that there should be a few rich saints2 and every man who has attained a lofty conception of holiness helps to make all the world around him conscious of its unholiness4 ,he is a mirror in a dark place3 the ray of light which has fallen on him dispels somewhat of the gloom around4 ,thus1 if the belief in ,god be lost to humanity1 we shall lose not only the direct1 the incalculable effects on individual souls of the belief in a divine ,searcher of ,hearts1 but also the indirect and universal uplifting influence on society of the presence of men who have experienced such effects1 and formed their moral standard accordingly4 ,is it too much to augur that the result will be a depreciation of the common ideal standard1 and a consequently still further depression of the practical level of personal virtue8 ,what is left1 when religion is gone1 to give to the personal virtues of purity 7of thought as well as of act71 of truth1 temperance1 and contentment1 the high status they ought to hold8 ,these virtues1 in the history of the moral development of mankind1 are always the last to be recognized4 ,in the earlier ages of morality1 nobody asks for more than negative merits1--not to murder or rob or deal treacherously4 ,then comes the great step1 when the rabbinical precept1 8,thou shalt not do to another what thou wouldest not he should do to thee10 is exchanged for the positive ,christian law1 ,do to another what thou wouldest he should do to thee4 ,but only very slowly1 above and beyond all social duties1 the principle1 8,be perfect1 as thy ,father in heaven is perfect10 has dawned on mankind as the aim of life2 and how little it is yet the practical rule of conduct there is no need to tell4 ,let us but let slip our faith in the perfect ,father in heaven1 and will it not sink again by degrees into oblivion8 ,we shall hear a great deal1 doubtless 7for a time1 at all events71 of the duty of 8laboring for the cause of humanity10 and be encouraged by promises of 8posthumous activity40 ,but where are the motives for personal and secret virtue to come from1--that inward virtue without which even warm social benevolence soon becomes tainted8 ,it must1 it would seem1 fall more and more into the background4 ,there is1 theoretically1 no more reason for placing it forward3 there is no more any 8end of creation0 in contemplation1 to which the virtue of each soul1 to be wrought out by its own struggles1 must contribute its quotum4 ,the intrinsic moral character of each soul will no longer be deemed the concern of any being except the man himself1 but only what each is able to achieve in the way of contributing to the welfare of other people4 ,while the lesson of the higher ethics has been1 8,it is more important to be good than to do good10 that of the new ethics must inevitably be1 8,it is very important what you do3 it is of the smallest possible consequence what you are except in so far as your neighbors may know it and be affected thereby40 ,in another way1 also1 ,i think morality would be affected enormously1 though still indirectly1 by the downfall of religion4 ,many of my readers will recall a very able article on ,atheism in the ,national ,review for ,january1 #ahef1 by ,mr4 ,r4 ,h4 ,hutton1 in which it was maintained that 8,atheism has no language by which it can express the infinite nature of moral distinctions4444 ,it is not1 as has been falsely said1 that right and wrong take their distinction from measures of duration1 but that faith in infinite personal life1 and in communion with or separate from infinite good1 is the only articulate utterance which our conscience can find for its sense of the absolutely boundless significance it sees in every moral choice40 ,take away this expression of the infinite nature of moral distinctions1 and the sense of it will very rapidly dwindle away4 ,and1 after all1 can it be said in the same sense1 under an ,atheistic as under a ,theistic creed1 that moral distinctions are 8infinitely0 significant8 ,is there any 8infinite0 left for us to talk about1 when we have abolished ,god and immortality8 ,some few thousands of years ago1 on the ,atheistic hypothesis1 when man was just emerging from apehood1 there was no ,being anywhere who distinguished right from wrong2#ab and some few thousand years to come1 when the final glacial period sets in1 there will be nobody left to know anything about it4 ,there is no ,being now in whom righteousness is impersonated1 nor any world to come wherein the injustices of this will be rectified4 ,from the eternal and immutable law of the universe1 the 1 which ,sophocles held it to be1 the moral law has sunk to a mere 8,rule of ,thumb10 whereby certain ephemeral creatures on our small planet find it most beneficial1 on the whole1 to regulate their behavior4 ,is it in the nature of things to pay to such a rule the sort of obedience and reverence we have paid to the divine law8 ,and if1 with the very highest sanctions which can be conceived1 that law has but too often failed to secure our obedience against the temptations of selfishness and passion1 does anybody expect that1 when it is divested of all those sanctions1 it will prevail even so far as it has done hitherto8 ,these are some of the indirect ways in which mankind must lose beauty and truth and goodness1 as it loses faith in ,god and immortality4 ,but the direct losses inevitably to follow are1 if possible1 graver still4 ,the course of the moral life1 after it has been commenced in earnest1 probably passes through the same two great phases in almost every man who lives long enough4 ,at first1 duty is a hard effort and all effort4 ,a strong hand seems to be laid on the man1 urging him up a toilsome road4 ,every evil tendency of his nature has to be separately fought with and trampled down1 every act of self-sacrifice for others to be performed with exertion of his will4 ,the man labors heroically under his stern sense of duty1 taking consolation in it as duty1 but still looking rather to fulfil his obligation than desirous that the end of each task should be accomplished4 ,if he die at this stage1 it is in some sense a release4 ,he has discharged his duty as a soldier1 and is glad to lay down his arms4 ,if he be a religious man1 he hopes to hear it said to him1 8,well done1 good and faithful servant6 enter thou into the joy of thy ,lord40 ,but if a man live many years1 striving in earnest1 however failingly1 to do his duty1 there comes by degrees a change in his condition4 ,old temptations lie down2 and1 if no new ones arise to give him trouble1 the friction of the inner life diminishes so sensibly that he is apt to be alarmed lest he be growing indifferent4 ,as to his positive duties1 those which he has been fulfilling merely because he felt it laid upon him to undertake them1 by degrees they acquire interest for him for their own sake4 ,he is intensely anxious for the success of his labors1 and no longer measures his efforts by what may be considered his moral obligations4 ,he wants such and such aged or suffering persons to be relieved1 such sinners to be reclaimed1 such children trained to virtue1 such truths published1 such wrongs redressed1 such useful laws or reforms or discoveries introduced4 ,there is no need now for him to spur himself by reflections that it is his duty to work for these ends3 the difficulty with him now lies to moderate his work with a view to the preservation of health and strength4 ,it would be cruelty to tell him his task has been honorably fulfilled1 though the object of it has failed4 ,he would cry1 8,let me be accounted a faithless servant1 but let the work be accomplished by another1 and ,i shall be content40 ,if he die now1 he takes very little comfort from thinking he has discharged his duty4 ,the work is not finished1 and will miss his hand4 ,he says1 as ,theodore ,parker said to me on his death-bed3 8,i am not afraid to die1 but ,i wish ,i might carry on my work4 ,i have only half used the powers ,god gave me40 ,now1 in all this history of the moral life1 it appears that no ostensible difference need exist between the sentiments of an ,atheist and a ,theist1 provided we can carry the ,atheist safely to the second stage of progress4 ,once there1 it is evident that no change in his opinions about ,god or loss of hope of heaven will practically affect his conduct4 ,the habits of self-control whereby he has ruled his passions will not be lost1 the interest he has taken in unselfish objects will not dwindle4 ,he will go on to the end1 laboring for the good of his kind1 and regret his own death mainly because it will stop those labors4 ,but how are ordinary men1 of no specially elevated moral fibre1 to be carried up to that turning-point where ,law is superseded by love8 ,i am far from thinking that men may not and do not often begin their self-reformation when they are 7so far as their own consciousness goes7 quite alienated from ,god or disbelieving his existence4 ,i know1 on the contrary1 that it is no uncommon experience that this should be so4 ,but1 in the ordinary history of the soul1 the resolute effort to obey conscience after a very little time brings with it a sense1 first dim1 then shining more to the perfect day1 that there is 7as ,mr4 ,matthew ,arnold says7 8a ,power not ourselves which makes for righteousness02 or1 in plainer revelation1 that ,god watches and helps the soul which strives to do right4 ,henceforth1 the mechanical moral effort is aided by the electric force of religion1 burning away the dross of sin in the fire of a divine ,presence1 and making self-sacrifice sweet as an offering of love4 ,but if this normal process1 whereby morality leads up to religion and becomes thereby aided through all future effort1 is to be rigidly prohibited by reason1 if we are to starve out the religious sentiment as a passion not to be indulged by a rational being1 then1 ,i ask1 how many are the men and women who1 after their first good resolutions1 will persist in the course of arduous moral effort long enough to reach that stage when duty becomes comparatively easy8 ,where are the aids to come from to keep them from self-indulgence8 ,we have seen that the moral law itself is to be represented to them as merely an hereditary set of the brain2 that they are not to dream there is any ,holy ,eye looking at them1 any strong ,hand ready to aid their feeble steps1 any ,infinite ,love drawing them to itself1 any ,life beyond the grave where the imperfect virtue of earth shall grow and blossom in eternal beauty4 ,all these ideas are to be resolutely dismissed4 ,the habit of prayer 7irreparable1 immeasurable loss7 is to be discarded4 ,nothing is to be left save only the one motive of the ,enthusiasm of ,humanity1 which is to replace ,god and conscience and heaven4 ,let me speak out concerning this much-boasted modern sentiment4 ,i have heard a good man1 one of the best men ,i know1 preaching on this subject1 and saying3 8,do you ask why should you love your neighbor8 ,because you cannot help it60 ,now1 as ,i listened to that genuine philanthropist's utterance1 my heart smote me1 and ,i said to myself3 8,but ,i could help it1 and only too easily6 ,it comes to him spontaneously1 ,i have no doubt1 to love his neighbors2 but ,i have been trying to do it for many years1 and have very imperfectly succeeded4 ,instead of beginning with love1 and going on to duty toward them as the result of love1 ,i have had to begin with duty1 and1 only with many a self-reproach for hardness of spirit1 learned at last to feel love--for some of them60 ,i do not think my experience is exceptional4 ,i think the people who can and do love spontaneously that terribly large section of our race who are commonplace1 narrow-minded1 and small of heart1 are the exceptions1 and that1 if we are to have no benevolence except from born philanthropists like the good man ,i have named1 we shall see very little in future of the ,enthusiasm of ,humanity4 ,no6 ,it takes1 for most of us1 all the help to loving our brother which comes from believing that we have a common ,father and a common home1--all the help which comes to the heart in answer to the prayer that ,god would melt its stoniness1 and make it blossom into tenderness and sympathy1--to enable us to attain the love which is not the spring of social duty1 but its climax1--the 8fulfilling of the law40 ,i honestly think that the process of making ,atheists1 trained as such1 into philanthropists1 will be but rarely achieved4 ,and ,i venture to propound the question to those who point to admirable living examples of ,atheistic or ,comtist philanthropy1--,how many of these have passed through the earlier stage of morality as believers in ,god1 and with all the aid which prayer and faith and hope could give them8 ,that they remain actively benevolent1 having advanced so far1 is 7as ,i have shown above7 readily to be anticipated4 ,but will their children stand where they stand now8 ,we are yet obeying the great impetus of religion1 and running along the rails laid down by our forefathers4 ,shall we continue in the same course when that impetus has stopped1 and we have left the rails altogether8 ,i fear me not4 ,in brief1 ,i think the outlook of ,atheism1 as a moral educator1 as black as need be4 ,viewed with the utmost candor1 and admitting all the excellence of many of its disciples1 ,i think ,atheism must deduct from morality the priceless training to reverence afforded by religion2 the illuminating consciousness of an unseen ,searcher of hearts2 the invigorating confidence in an ,almighty ,helper2 the vivifying influence of divine love2 and1 finally1 the immeasurable1 inestimable benefits derivable from that practice of prayer which is ,god's own education of the soul4 ,but1 whatever may be its results as a system of moral training1 ,atheism1 in its ultimate aspect1 must be1 to every religious man and woman who is driven to adopt it in later life1 the setting of the sun which has warmed and brightened existence4 ,we may live in the twilight2 but that which gave to prosperity its joy1 to grief its comfort1 to duty its delight1 to love its sweetness1 to solitude its charm1 to all life its meaning and purpose1 and to death its perfect consolation and support1 is lost forever4 ,there are no words to tell what that loss must be1--worst of all to those who are least conscious of it1 and who have therefore lost with their faith in ,god those spiritual faculties in the exercise of which man has his higher being1 and of which the pains are better worth than all the pleasures of earth4 ,atheism involves a far worse loss to humanity than the exclusion of the belief in a ,life after ,death2 but we can form no fair estimate of the deduction which our complacent ,agnostics are prepared to make from the sum of human virtue and happiness1 if we do not thoroughly realize what it is they are talking of when they tell us so cheerfully to abandon the hope of ,immortality1 as well as the belief in ,god1 and that they are quite satisfied to do both4 ,as far as each individual is personally concerned1 such ,hope is of course a very variable sentiment4 ,there are those who say 7as ,miss ,martineau mentions ,mr4 ,w4 ,e4 ,forster saying to her71 8,i would rather be damned than annihilated40 ,and there are others who say1 as she does herself1 8,i have had a very noble share of life1 and ,i do not ask any more40 ,with the latter feeling per se1 no one has a right to quarrel4 ,to many1 no doubt1 especially persons of feeble bodily health or overstrained conscientiousness1 the notion of final repose is more grateful than that of an immortality of activity4 ,they feel in our day1 as it would seem almost everybody did in more trying times1 that it was the 8rest which remaineth for the people of ,god10 beyond the storms of the world1--the 8everlasting beds of rest0 on which the weary may lie1--rather than our more modern notion of a ,heaven of ,progress1 to which they aspire4 ,there are ,buddhists of the ,west as of the ,east1 to whom1 by some natural or acquired habit of mind1 existence itself seems a burden2 and they extend the taedium vitae which they feel here by anticipation to any future state to which they could be transferred4 ,with such persons as these1 as ,i have just said1 we have no claim to contend1 even though we may think1 with ,tennyson1 that1 if they knew themselves better1 they would recognize that1 even in uttermost lassitude1 8',tis life of which our veins are scant2 ,o ,life1 not ,death1 for which we pant2 ,more life1 and fuller1 that we want40 ,the dreams of men as to what they desire beyond the grave are infinitely varied1 from ,nirvana to ,valhalla2 and nothing is to be said1 so far as he himself is concerned1 respecting a man who wishes it to be written on his tombstone that he 8,from ,nature's temperate feast rose satisfied1 ,thanked ,heaven that he had lived and that he died10 except this1--that his choice of eternal sleep betrays the fact that there is no one in this world or the next whom he loves well enough to wish to be awakened to meet him again4 ,of course1 a man may have abundance of kindly and dutiful sentiments for his relatives and friends1 and yet 7thinking they will do well enough without him7 be satisfied to quit them for ever4 ,but ,i cannot believe that any one who has ever lost the object of the higher and more absorbing human affection1 or who leaves behind him in dying one united to him by such transcendent love1 can fail passionately to desire immortality4 ,he may resign himself through philosophy or religion 7if his religion take the strange and rare form of belief in ,god and disbelief in a life to come7 to see his beloved one no more4 ,but not to desire to meet1 at any cost of unwelcome ages of life1 the being we profess to love supremely1 seems to be a contradiction in terms4 ,were there to loom before us worlds to climb1 and centuries of labor1 we would surely thankfully go through them all to reach the hour when we shall say1 8,soul of my soul1 ,i shall meet thee again6 ,and with ,god be the rest40 ,but because a loveless man may1 without blame1 be content to let death drop a final curtain on his consciousness1 it is quite another matter for him to be equally placidly resigned to the extinction of the hopes of others1 who have had no such feast of life as he1 or who yearn for the renewal of affection hereafter4 ,as ,i have elsewhere attempted to show1 in a little parable1 such resignation on behalf of other people is very much like that of ,dives1#ac who1 having fared sumptuously1 should be contented to let ,lazarus starve4 ,nor is it only the comfort of expecting to see our beloved ones again which we shall lose with the hope of a future life4 ,i am persuaded that a great deal of the higher part of love itself will fade out of human existence altogether1 if that hope be generally abandoned4 ,every one knows how friendship and marriage are hallowed by the thought of their perpetuity even in this world1 and how a union is debased if it be1 consciously to those who make it1 temporary and transitory4 ,hitherto1 we have loved one another as immortal beings1 as creatures whose affections belonged to the exalted order of eternal things4 ,when that ennobling and sanctifying element evaporates1 when ,love1 like everything else1 is reduced to a question of days and months and years1 will it not undergo somewhat of the degradation which now belongs to the brief contracts of passion8 ,even those who might still be able to feel all the holiness of love would1 when they learned it was destined to end in the agony of eternal separation1 check themselves from indulging a sentiment leading up inevitably to such a termination1 just as a man would turn from a path ending in a precipice4 ,thus1 ,i believe1 the affections must irretrievably suffer from the loss of the hope of immortality4 ,so must1 in a measure1 the intellect and the imagination1 driven from the wider expanse back on that poor fleshly life which is to be the end-all of man1 and which must be destined to assume an importance it has never possessed since our race emerged from its brute and barbarian origin4 ,nor would our moral life fail to suffer also very grievously1 though in another way from that which has been alleged4 ,i think we can scarcely now estimate the minifying consequences of closing all outlook beyond this world1 and shutting up morality within the narrow sphere of mortal life4 ,as ,i have said in my ,hopes of the ,human ,race1 it is not possible we should continue to attach to virtue and vice the same profound significance1 when we believe their scope to reach no further than our brief span1 and justice to be a dream of our puny race never to be realized throughout the eternal ages4 ,in theory1 right and wrong must come to be regarded as of comparatively trivial importance2 and1 practically1 the virtue destined shortly to be extinguished forever must seem to the tempted soul scarcely deserving of an effort4 ,life1 after we have passed its meridian1 must become in our eyes more and more like an autumn garden1 wherein it would be vain to plant seeds of good which can never bloom before the frosts of death1 and useless to eradicate weeds which must be killed erelong without our labor4 ,needless to add that of that dismal spot it may soon be said1-- 8,between the time of the wind and the snow1 ,all loathsome things began to grow02 and1 when the winter comes at last1 none will regret the white shroud it throws over corruption and decay4 ,but it is when we come to think of humanity as a whole that the prospect of final extinction appears so unutterably deplorable1 so lame and impotent a conclusion for all the struggles1 the martyrdoms1 and the prayers of a hundred generations who have gone to the grave in hope and faith1 and perished there4 ,we ,english men and women have been wont to think proudly of the vast geographical extension of our country's dominion1 the grandeur of the ,empire on which the sun never sets2 and the remark has often been made that there is not a petty corporation or board in the kingdom whose proceedings are not1 in a degree1 dignified by the sense of ,england's greatness4 ,the politicians who have expressed a readiness to give up our ,colonies have been taunted1 and justly1 with lack of the nobler patriotism which regards not only financial and administrative details1 but the larger interests and glory of what we have delighted to call our ,imperial ,race4 ,but what would be the loss to the prestige of ,england of the severance of ,australia and ,canada and ,india1 compared to the loss to mankind of that glorious empery of ,immortality in which it has prided itself since the beginning of history8 ,everything we have achieved and thought--our literature1 art1 laws1 kingdoms1 churches--has all been wrought and built up in this faith1 which has given value to the soul of the humblest child1 and added grandeur to the most splendid deeds of the hero and the martyr4 ,with that hope disappears not only the consolation of all bereaved hearts1 but the very crown upon the head of humanity4 99 99 99 99 99 ,it is no argument for the truth of any opinion that the disclosure of its falsehood may have disastrous consequences4 ,nothing that has been advanced in this paper proves1 or has been offered as proof1 that there is a ,god or a life to come4 ,the foundations for those beliefs belong to a different order of considerations4 ,but ,i think thus much may be presumed to have resulted from our inquiry2 namely1 that their value to the virtue and the happiness of mankind is so incalculably vast that the work of demolishing them ought to be carried on1 by men professing to love their kind1 in a very different spirit from that which is generally exhibited by ,agnostics4 ,even if their position be true1 and if they be morally bound to make known to the world that such is the case1 and to put an end to the baseless dream which has deluded our race for so many thousand years1--even granting this1 ,i think it remains clear that their task is one to be undertaken only under the sternest sense of duty1 and with immeasurable mournfulness and regret4 ,i think that1 instead of rejoicing over the discovery of 8a spring in the desert10 it behooves them to weep tears1 bitter as ever fell from human eyes1 over the grave wherein they bury the ,divine ,love and the ,immortal ,hope of our miserable race4 ,,footnotes3 #a ,moral ,philosophy1 ,b4 ,i41 chap4 vii4 #b ,deontology1 p4 #aia4 #c ,miss ,martineau says3 8,i saw with the pain of disgust how much lower a thing it is to lead even the loftiest life from a regard to the will or mind of any other being than from a natural working out of our own powers0 7,autobiography1 ,vol4 ,,ii474 ,i must humbly confess ,i have not come yet to see anything of the kind4 ,provided that the ,being to whose will we have regard is ,supreme ,goodness itself1 it seems to me infinitely higher to strive to assimilate our will to ,his than to 8work out our own powers40 #d ,alone to the ,alone1 p4 #aaj1 third edition4 #e ,e4g41 the following passage1 which deserves to be reprinted a hundred times1 ,nineteenth ,century1 ,july1 #ahgg1 p4 #hcb3 8,we entirely agree with the theologians that our age is beset with a grievous danger of materialism4 ,there is a school of teachers abroad1 and they have found an echo here1 who dream that victorious vivisection will ultimately win them anatomical solutions of man's moral and spiritual mysteries4 ,such unholy nightmares1 it is true1 are not likely to beguile many minds in a country like this1 where social and moral problems are still in their natural ascendant4 ,but there is a subtler kind of materialism1 of which the dangers are real4 ,it does not1 indeed1 put forth the bestial sophism that the apex of philosophy is to be won by improved microscopes and new batteries4 ,but then it has nothing to say about the spiritual life of men4 ,it fills the air with pans to science1 but it always means physical1 not moral science4 ,it shirks the question of questions1--,to what human end is this knowledge8 ,how shall man thereby order his life as a whole8 ,where is he to find the object of the yearnings of his spirit80 ,i am not concerned to defend the orthodox ideal of heaven against ,mr4 ,harrison's strictures2 but ,i cannot help entering a protest against his sneer at the 8eternity of the tabor0 as 8so gross1 so sensual a creed40 ,it seems to me it errs by an excessive and unreal spirituality4 ,it was1 certainly1 not a 8gross0 or 8sensual0 order of mind which deemed the act of adoration to be one wherein man could spend an eternity of ecstasy4 #f ,pages #hch1 #hci4 #g ,autobiography1 ,vol4 ,,ii41 p4 #cef4 #h ,age of ,science1 p4 #di4 #i ,autobiography1 pp4 #ccc1 #dch4 #aj ,harriet ,martineau's last letter to ,mr4 ,atkinson1 ,ambleside1 ,may #ai1 #ahgf1 ,autobiography1 ,vol4 ,,iii41 p4 #dec4 #aa ,i have heard of two very great living philosophers who thought they had pretty nearly got rid of ,final ,causes1 but who1 in talking together1 found it hard to avoid assuming their existence4 ,one of them1 in fact1 in detailing his own observations and discoveries concerning animals and plants1 used so often terms implying that there was a purpose visible in natural arrangements that his friend stopped him1 and said1 8,mr4 ----1 you are getting strangely teleological60 #ab ,or at least our right from wrong2 for1 on ,mr4 ,darwin's showing1 there may1 it seems1 be a different right and wrong for creatures differently constituted in other worlds1 whose interests1 being different1 will cause different 8sets0 of their brains toward the lines of action useful to their tribes accordingly4 #ac ,the following letter appeared in the ,spectator3-- ,,sir1--,indulging in the pernicious habit of reading in bed1 ,i last night perused with profound interest ,mr4 ,greg's letter in your current number1 your own remarks thereupon1 and also ,mr4 ,greg's generous defence of his old friend1 ,harriet ,martineau1 in the ,nineteenth ,century4 ,as my eyes closed on the last paragraph of this article1 ,i seemed to behold a vision1 which ,i shall take leave to describe to you4 ,dives had just eaten a particularly plentiful dinner1 and was standing at the door of a pretty cottage in ,ambleside4 ,lazarus1 looking up at him1 said pitifully1 8,i perish with hunger40 ,thereupon1 ,dives observed1 with great serenity3 8,lazarus1 ,i have had an excellent dinner4 ,there is not a crumb left4 ,but ,i am quite content1 and you ought to be the same40 ,poor ,lazarus1 however1 instead of seeming satisfied1 wailed yet more sadly3 8,but ,i hunger1 ,dives6 ,i hunger for the bread of life6 ,i hunger for human love1 of which ,i had only begun to taste1 when it was snatched away4 ,i hunger for justice1 of which such scant measure has been dealt me1 and to millions like me4 ,i hunger for truth1 ,i hunger for beauty1 ,i hunger for righteousness1 ,i hunger for a love holy1 divine1 and perfect1 which alone can satisfy my soul4 ,i hunger1 ,dives6 ,i hunger1 and you tell me there is not a crumb left of the rich feast of existence1 and bid me be content4 ,it is a cruel mockery40 ,then ,dives answered yet more placidly3 8,i never dream of wishing anything were otherwise than it is4 ,i am frankly satisfied to have done with life4 ,i have had a noble share of it1 and ,i desire no more4 ,i utterly disbelieve in a future life40 ,at that moment1 my respected friend ,mr4 ,greg passed by1 and heard what ,dives was saying2 on which1 to my great surprise1 he made the following observation3 8,this is1 unquestionably1 the harder--may it not also be the higher8--form of pious resignation1 the last achievement of the ripened mind40 ,as for ,lazarus1 on catching ,mr4 ,greg's remark1 he turned himself painfully on the ground1 and groaned3 8,i never heard before of anybody being #8piously resigned' to the woes and wants of other people4 ,la ,rochefoucauld was right1 ,i suppose1 to say1 #8,nous avons tous assez de force pour supporter les maux d'autrui'2 but1 for my part1 ,i should not precisely call ,dives' satisfaction in his #8noble share' of the feast1 while ,i am doomed to perish starving1 by quite so fine a name as #8pious resignation4' ,pray1 ,mr4 ,greg1 with your large humanity1 take my case into consideration1 before you credit ,dives with anything better than stupendous egotism40 ,startled by the vehemence of poor ,lazarus1 ,i awoke4 ,i am1 ,sir1 etc4 ,,hygeiolatry4 ,the advance of physical science and the simultaneous retreat of religious faith threaten1 among their numerous consequences1 to introduce a new principle into morals4 ,we may call it ,doctor's ,doctrine1--not because it is by any means the exclusive property of the medical profession1 or that all doctors can be supposed to hold it1 but because it is more rife among them and tells more directly on their work than in the case of other men4 ,it is indeed excusable for a physician to attribute to bodily health1 wherewith this new principle is concerned1 more importance than a poet1 a preacher1 or a soldier1 is likely to concede to it2 and to this natural tendency is added1 pretty frequently perhaps1 a tolerably defined materialism1 which not merely connects but identifies genius1 happiness1 and virtue with physical soundness1 and stupidity1 misery1 and crime with diseased organization4 ,with such views1 and deprived of that vista of an eternal future which alone gives to human things their true perspective1 it is not wonderful that many should come to regard bodily health as the summum bonum1 and thence to deduce the principle to which ,i desire to call attention as an innovation in ethics4 ,reduced as nearly as possible to a formula1 that principle is as follows3 ,that any practice which1 in the opinion of experts1 conduces to bodily health or tends to the cure of disease1 becomes1 ipso facto1 morally lawful and right4 ,i do not mean to imply that this principle has yet been clearly stated by any of its adherents1 or that they are even generally conscious that they have adopted it4 ,possibly1 many who have practically embodied it in their conduct for years may repudiate it on seeing it defined in words4 ,nevertheless1 it may be traced as the substructure of innumerable arguments on all manner of subjects of public and private interest1--arguments which1 if the principle were knocked from under them1 would instantly be seen to fall baseless to the ground4 ,it is1 in short1 the implied major term of a thousand syllogisms which we hear in every debate and read in every magazine and newspaper4 ,now1 to measure the extent of the change which the adoption of this ,doctor's ,doctrine must introduce into ethics1 it is only necessary to cast a glance backward at the older view of the relation of duty to health which has hitherto prevailed in the world1 and been taught pretty equally by moralists of every school1 with the exception of ascetics on one side1 and pure hedonists on the other4 ,that older lesson--which we may for convenience call ,divine's ,doctrine1 since it is the general teaching of every ,protestant theologian and moralist1 may be summed up in the canon-- ,bodily health may not be lawfully sacrificed to our desire of pleasure or fear of pain4 ,it may and ought to be sacrificed to the health of our souls1 to the service of our fellowmen1 or to fidelity to ,god4 ,in other words1 it has been taught that the man who injures his health by debauchery is guilty of a serious moral offence1 and he who commits suicide is guilty of a crime2 but that1 on the other hand1 the man who sacrifices his health in the performance of his duty as physician1 clergyman1 or soldier1 or in endeavoring to save a fellow-creature from flood or fire1 or who gives up life itself rather than forswear himself or renounce his religious faith1 or commit a base or unclean action1 is not only exonerated from any guilt1 but is1 in the highest degree1 virtuous4 ,on these lines1 ,christian civilization may be said to have been built up4 ,the natural selfishness of human nature has been counteracted by the sense of duty2 and if1 now and then1 needless and exaggerated self-sacrifices without adequate reason have been made1 and there was room for brave ,charles ,kingsley to preach the claims of the natural laws of life1 a thousand times more often has the sense of duty enabled men and women to perform alike the painful daily tasks whereby our homes are made beautiful and sacred1 and the occasional acts of heroism wherewith human existence on earth is crowned and glorified4 ,it needs no words to prove to any one who reflects that two-thirds of what we have been wont to reverence as homely virtue and all the martyrdoms of history consist precisely in the voluntary sacrifice of health1 or of health and life together4 ,to withhold from such sacrifices the meed of moral admiration would be to reverse the judgment of all the ages1--to prefer ,sardanapalus and ,heliogabalus to ,curtius and ,regulus1 and to treat as a deluded fanatic the apostle who converted the ,gentile world1 but spent his years in perils by sea and land amid prisons and scourgings4 ,from the crucifixion of ,christ to the silent self-immolation of the poor consumptive girl who works half-blinded through the winter's night to support her aged mother1 the holiest and the sweetest things this earth has witnessed have been the actions of those who counted not their lives dear to them1 so long as they could obey the law of truth1 of righteousness1 and of love4 ,but how is this recognition of the duty and glory of the sacrifice of health and life at the call of every higher law to be reconciled with the 8,doctor's ,doctrine0 that the interests of health are so supreme that they themselves constitute the highest law1 and render any practice conducive to them ipso facto lawful8 ,either we must admit1 according to the ,divine's ,doctrine1 that moral interests transcend bodily interests1 or we must hold1 according to ,doctor's ,doctrine1 that bodily interests transcend moral interests4 ,there is no third alternative4 ,one principle or the other must prevail1 and sooner or later leaven society with its ennobling or else its debasing influence4 ,there are signs apparent that the ,doctor's ,doctrine is already bearing its proper fruit1 and that1 soothed by a becalmed conscience1 absolved by the authority of the priesthood of ,science1 men and women are beginning to be systematically selfish and self-indulgent where their health is concerned1 or where there may appear a chance of curing their maladies in modes not hitherto witnessed4 ,i can only indicate a few of the ways in which this deliberate self-preservation is exhibited4 ,notably1 it seems that the old courage of ,englishmen is dwindling away4 ,almost every month1 cases come to light wherein men1 even soldiers1 fail to stand by their comrades in danger2 or wherein a crowd of fifty people witness a child drowning in a shallow pond without an effort to save it2 or men who witness a cruel murder rush from the spot1 leaving the yet breathing victim dying unaided on the ground4 ,there is even1 among young men1 a cynical avowal of prudent concern for their own lives and limbs which constantly strikes the old1 who remember the joyous youthful fearlessness of their fathers1 as something altogether new and far indeed from pleasant to contemplate4 ,nor are our personal acts of selfishness and cowardice on a small scale the only logical consequences of the new principle which are already visible4 ,cruelty of the most heinous and systematic kind is another result4 ,the unanimous resolution passed by the great ,medical ,congress in the year of grace #ahha has proclaimed that vivisection leads to discoveries conducive to the cure of disease1 and therefore should be sanctioned and left unrestricted by law4 ,that is to say1 that all the fiendish imaginations of men like ,mantegazza and ,schiff1 and ,goltz and ,bernard1 and ,paul ,bert1 should be freely permitted in ,england for the sake of a chance of useful hints for therapeutic science4 ,thus1 the whole medical profession in ,england stands committed to the demand that the vice of cruelty in young men and old should be deliberately unchained1 expressly for the sake of anticipated benefits to bodily health4 ,so far indeed has ,doctor's ,doctrine made its way that1 whenever any ,bill concerning sanitary measures or public hygiene is before ,parliament1 there is exhibited by the speakers in the ,house1 and by the journalists who discuss the matter1 a readiness to trample on personal rights to an extent which would excite indignation1 were any religious or commercial interest in question4 ,men may spread the most deadly moral diseases1 and teach doctrines which make virtue a mockery and life a hopeless desolation1 and scarcely an effort is made to stop them4 ,but let them threaten to spread bodily disease1 and 7unless they be medical men1 and thus authorized transmitters of infection7 the most stringent measures are adopted2 and besides a ,compulsory ,vaccination ,act and the ever-infamous ,contagious ,diseases ,acts1 even while these sheets are passing through the press1 no less than three ,bills are before ,parliament to make compulsory the notification of infectious disease and segregation of infected persons4 ,i am not now discussing the merits of these ,acts and ,bills3 ,i am only observing that the spirit wherewith they are carried forward is quite an innovation in ,english legislation4 ,health of body has been accorded the importance which the--real or supposed--interests of the soul alone commanded two centuries ago2 and the tyranny of the priesthood of ,hygeia threatens to be as high-handed as ever was that of the ,churches of ,rome or of ,geneva4 ,lastly there is1 outside of legislation1 and hidden from the knowledge of the majority of the laity1 one remaining application of the new principle of morals which more than all exhibits its evil1 its disastrous tendency4 ,for obvious reasons1 ,i cannot write plainly of this moral poisoning1 which ,i believe to be going on to a frightful extent1 both in this country and abroad4 ,i can only quote some observations made on it by an experienced minister of religion1 published in the ,modern ,review for ,april1 #ahhj3-- ,any one who will make a few casual inquiries will be amazed to discover the frequency with which medical men of high repute--men who are admitted to the friendship of good and unsuspecting women--offer counsel to young men1 and even to boys1 which strikes at the root of all morality1 and indeed can proceed from nothing else than scepticism concerning the very possibility of morality itself4 ,we speak what we know not of one1 but of many1 and what no medical man will deny1 though many a medical man will revolt from the action of his fellow-practitioners as vehemently as we ourselves4 ,what we ask of these purer spirits in the healing fraternity is that they will speak out on this and other matters of professional practice1 and condemn their less honorable colleagues with no faltering tongue4 ,the ,bishop of ,bedford taking the chair at the meeting1 ,may #c of the present year 7#ahhb71 of the ,social ,purity ,alliance1 alluded to this heavy charge against the medical profession in the following terms3 8,i know what doctors say1 and ,i here publicly protest against the terrible thing that is often said by doctors to young men1--that sin is good for their health4 ,i say ,god forgive those who have said it40 ,but it will be replied3 8,all these evils have existed for ages4 ,there have always been found selfish1 cruel1 cowardly1 and profligate men1 ready to transgress when their inclinations goaded them1 willing to rank their own health1 life1 and enjoyment far before the law of ,god or the interest of their fellows4 ,what signifies1 then1 a new formula of selfishness80 ,it signifies1 ,i venture to say1 a great deal4 ,hitherto1 men did evil2 but they 7or their neighbors for them7 had at least the grace to recognize that it was evil4 ,the selfish man was charged with selfishness4 ,the cruel man did not assume the airs of a benefactor of mankind4 ,the coward was kicked as a poltroon1 not rewarded with sympathetic smiles for his candor4 ,the man who sought the dens of vice did not go thither with his conscience pacified by his physician's orders in his pocket4 ,to teach men that 8a practice conducive to health is ipso facto morally right0 is then1 at one and the same moment1 to damp every aspiration after the nobler kinds of virtue1 and to supply a justification for every meaner kind of vice4 ,neither selfishness1 nor cowardice1 nor cruelty1 nor unchastity1 can be justifiable by the plea that they may conduce to the bodily health of one man or of a thousand men2 and he who will save his life by such means will assuredly lose all that makes 8life worth living10 all for which life was given4 ,,pessimism1 ,,and ,,one ,,of ,,its ,,professors4 ,the ,rise and ,progress of ,buddhism in ,europe may possibly form the subject of a long chapter in the hands of a ,mosheim of the twentieth century4 ,hitherto1 among all ,western nations1 not less than among the ,jews1 there has been a tolerable unanimous consensus that life1 on the whole1 is good1 and that it is a pleasant thing for the eyes to behold the sun4 ,happiness1 like health1 has been assumed to be the normal condition of sentient beings2 and misery1 like disease1 to be exceptional and abnormal4 ,the dead have been pitied1 inasmuch as they had passed away from so pleasant a world2 more especially so by those classic peoples who believed that the departed dwelt in an insubstantial realm of shadows4 ,no energetic ,northern race1 however1 contented itself with a twilight ,hades1 but built up in imagination a ,valhalla of feast and war for the worshipper of ,odin2 and1 for the disciple of the ,druid1 a glorious ascension from the darkness of 8,abred0 to the light and felicity of 8,gwynfyd40 ,christianity1 in its perverted forms1 ,catholic ascetic and ,calvinist1 took away1 indeed1 much of the joyfulness of the old heathen world1 and made divines speak of our earthly abode as a 8city of wrath0 or 8vale of tears40 ,but they were all the more urgent that men should fight the good fight1 of which the crown should be 8life everlasting0 in the ,new ,jerusalem2 and1 for the majority of their flocks1 even if this sinful planet remained1 it would appear at all times1 a sufficiently desirable habitation to make departure from it unwelcome4 ,brought up in these common views1 probably not one of us modern ,europeans has perused1 for the first time1 a philosophical statement of the pessimist principles which underlie the vast religions of the farther ,east1 without a shock of astonishment4 ,individually1 we may have found our particular share of existence painful rather than pleasurable4 ,disease1 poverty1 disappointment1 bereavement1 may have embittered our years4 ,but that any order of men1 outside of lunatic asylums1 should lay down as a postulate1 whereon to build religion and morality1 that ,life is per se an evil1 and that1 8whatever we have been1 'tis something better not to be10 and proceed benevolently to point out how we may1 by much diligence1 shake off not only this mortal coil1 but the entire burden of being1 and arrive at the consummation of nonentity1--this is an idea revolutionizing the order of our conceptions1 and as nearly incredible as any assertion dealing with the vagaries of the human mind may be4 ,even yet1 perhaps1 some doubts may legitimately linger as to whether the ,buddhist creed1 elsewhere than in ,nepaul 7where it certainly does not teach annihilation71 really intends by 8,nirvana0 to set forth the emptiness1 rather than the plenitude1 of being4 ,but that both ,brahmin and ,buddhist teachers have systematically dealt with life as an evil rather than as a good1 there is1 ,i apprehend1 no question among competent inquirers4 ,here1 then1 are two absolutely contrasted1 fundamental conceptions of the totality of human existence1--the ,western1 that life is a blessing2 the ,eastern1 that it is a curse4 ,the ,european cries1-- 8',tis life1 not death1 for which we pant1-- ,more life1 and fuller1 that we want40 ,he 8shudders at destruction10 and better endures to face even the tremendous threat of an eternal hell than to relax the tenacity of his belief in an immortal consciousness4 ,the ,indian1 on the contrary1 devoutly hopes that a life 7or several lives7 of self-abnegation1 may bring him to the bourne whence the traveller leaps into the gulf of nothingness4 ,marvellous to add1 as climax1 there seems more likelihood that a certain number of highly educated ,germans1 ,frenchmen1 and ,englishmen1 may learn to sigh for ,nirvana than that our missionaries will induce an equal number of intelligent ,singalese1 ,chinese1 or natives of ,siam1 to exchange their dreary anticipations for the hope of heaven4 ,not to exaggerate the importance of the 8,school0 7if such it can be accounted7 of ,european ,buddhists1 we may1 ,i think1 properly afford to its existence the attention due to a remarkable 8fault0 in the strata of recent thought1 and still more fitly ponder on the significant tokens1 scattered through current literature1 of pessimist tendencies quite other than the ,western world has hitherto exhibited4 ,our modern owls may be heard responding to each other in their turrets of the ,nineteenth ,century and the ,fortnightly ,review1--sometimes solemnly and seriously1 as when ,mr4 ,morley wrote of 8that droning1 piteous chronicle of wrong and cruelty and despair which everlastingly saddens the compassionating ear like the moaning of a midnight sea02 sometimes with odious pretension and self-conceit when smaller men and foolish women hoot and croak4 ,in the brightest intellectual circles1 many of us have learned to listen with well-bred calmness to assertions from smiling gentlemen and beautifully dressed ladies touching the general wrongness of all things1 and the particular wretchedness of human nature1 which1 did we believe them1 would cause us to rush from the dinner-table and hang ourselves on the nearest lamp-post4 ,in ,germany1 matters have proceeded further2 and ,schopenhauer has been for some time as much the fashionable ,philosopher1 as ,wagner is the ,musician1 of the age4 ,of course there are various degrees and kinds of ,pessimism everywhere to be noted4 ,there is the ,philanthropic ,pessimist who thinks his fellow-creatures are merely wretched2 and the ,misanthropic ,pessimist1 who thinks them both wretched and despicable4 ,there is the ,theistic ,pessimist1 who still believes in ,god1 but considers ,him either to be a 8baffled ,ormusd10 or else to look down from such heights on human affairs as to regard them no more than we do the politics and catastrophes of an ant-hill4 ,and1 finally1 there is the ,atheistic ,pessimist1 who has abandoned the notion of an ,intelligence at the helm of the ,universe1 and believes only in a blind ,force1 irresponsible for all the misery and crime of which ,he--or rather ,it--is the cause4 ,for all these varied kinds of ,pessimism there seem to be two quite distinct sources1--a good and noble1 and a bad and base one4 ,each of these sources leads to results having an outward apparent similarity1 and accordingly creates an illusory resemblance between the feelings and expressions of persons whose characters and actions are wide as the poles asunder4 ,let me endeavor to discriminate them4 ,it is1 at the first glance1 not a little remarkable that the development of ,pessimism to which ,i have referred should have taken place in an age of almost unparalleled public prosperity4 ,probably the sufferings caused by disease1 by want1 and by injustice1 are now at their minimum in the settled countries of ,europe4 ,and yet it is in our time that men are now beginning formally to pronounce the evil of the world to exceed the good1 and to treat what their fathers deemed the 8beneficent order of ,providence10 as too harsh and unjust a system to be attributed to a benevolent ,deity1 or indeed to any intelligent ,being at all4 ,it was not in the days of old oppression and tyranny1 of the great famines or the 8,black ,death10 that there was any such revolt4 ,when earth was much more like hell than it is at present1 few men entertained any doubt that there was a ,god in heaven4 ,now that its worst wrongs are in course of alleviation or remedy1 and that there opens before our eyes a vista of almost illimitable progress for our race in happiness and virtue1 the whole stupendous scheme is not unfrequently pronounced to be nothing better than a huge blunder4 ,the anomaly is certainly striking1 and it may be carried further by noting who are those persons who find the world so bad a place4 ,as it is a prosperous age which has developed ,pessimism1 so it is almost always prosperous people who are ,pessimists4 ,it is the rarest thing possible to hear any expression of such ideas from the lips of the suffering or the dying1 or even from those who see their beloved ones suffer and die4 ,a hundred visits to sordid lodgings or miserable hovels1 to workhouses1 jails1 hospitals1 asylums for the blind or the incurably diseased1 will scarcely afford us the chance of catching a phrase indicating that the inmate of the dreary abode thinks the world awry1 and ,providence to blame for it4 ,we must pass to pleasanter scenes1--to the haunts of the well-paid lecture-frequenting artisan1--or the houses of the most cultivated and wealthy of the middle and upper classes1 palaces which calamity has never visited1 and where luxurious food1 clothing1 furniture1 books1 flowers1 pictures1 music1 are accepted as matters of course2 and there we may1 not improbably1 be told that 8none but bigots who voluntarily close their eyes to the terrible realities of life can dream of calling the world a happy place1 or speak of its design as beneficent40 ,sometimes there occurs in the experience of a single day a contrast1 almost ludicrous1 between the patience and gratitude manifested by some poor suffering creature--perhaps dying of cancer on a pauper's pallet--and the expression of revolt and despair used by a cultivated gentleman who is possessed of nearly every source of human enjoyment4 ,all this is not so unmeaning and perverse as it at first appears4 ,there is a reason why our generation--the happiest and1 we will hope1 perhaps1 on the whole1 the best the world has yet seen--should scan the dread problem of ,evil with other eyes than its predecessors2 and there are reasons1 far from ignoble1 why happy men and women should find it harder to justify the ways of ,god to the miserable than those miserable ones themselves to do so on their own account4 ,in the first place1 our generation shrinks from the sight of physical anguish in a way obviously unknown to our progenitors1 who could ride gayly on their daily errands under gallows-trees loaded each with its sickening weight1 or city gates decorated by decapitated heads2 and who could feast and sleep in the chambers of feudal castles while under their floors miserable prisoners were pining in dungeons1 or perhaps expiring amid the unutterable horrors of the oubliette4 ,they could stand by as unmoved spectators1 or throw fresh fagots on the piles where heretics and witches were burning1 and shout applause when half-hanged traitors were cut down from the rope to be drawn and quartered4 ,oppressions and injustices done by the strong against the weak were matters of every-day experience in every town1 almost in every parish and household4 ,if such things seem to us calculated to provoke vehement indignation and rebellion against every ,power above or below which sanctioned or permitted them1 it must be asked who was there in those days likely to feel any similar indignation8 ,the laws were not more cruel than the men who made them1 nor the legislators than the mass of the nation4 ,this being the case1 how should those who thought it right and just that their fellows should endure such tortures find anything mysterious in the severest decrees of ,providence8 ,the order of nature--harsh to the eyes of a ,john ,stuart ,mill or a ,shelley--must have been mild enough to those of the habitus of autos-da-f1 or even let us say to the nobles of ,france under that ancien rgime of which ,m4 ,taine has given us the picture4 ,another difference between our age and all preceding ones1 which specially touches this matter1 is that in former times men thought so little of the lower animals that their lot scarcely entered as an item into calculation in the purview of the world4 ,it was always the enigmas presented by human inequalities1 sufferings1 and wrongs1 which disturbed the doubter of old4 ,his questions were1 8,why do the wicked flourish like a green bay-tree8 ,why do the righteous perish1 and none regardeth it8 ,why do the good and useful die in the flower of their years1 and the evil live long in the land8 ,why1 in short1 is not that great justice of heaven 7in which man everywhere intuitively believes1 though his intuition has assuredly never been evolved by experience71 why is this not manifested in all the concerns of human beings80 ,the ,book of ,job posed the solemn question of this earlier doubt2 and the ,book of ,revelation1 by opening up to the gaze of men a heaven where the poor and the persecuted will be forever blessed and triumphant1 afforded it a reply which1 if far from complete1 has yet practically sufficed to stay the faith of ,christendom4 ,by the fresh stress which ,christianity laid on the doctrine of ,immortality1 and the different relative importance which it assigned to the earthly and to the heavenly life1 it fulfilled1 in a profounder sense1 the boast of the ,english statesman4 ,it 8called up a ,new ,world to redress the balance of the ,old40 ,the orthodox ,catholic doctrine1 that sin and suffering are necessarily permitted by the ,creator to allow scope for moral freedom1 may be made in a loose and general way to cover the larger difficulties presented by the condition of all moral beings1 for whose woes1 if in any case unmerited1 compensation is provided hereafter4 ,so long1 then1 as the destiny of our own human race alone occupied any appreciable place in philosophy 7and this was down to the earlier part of this century7 there was not much room for ,pessimism to find root among ,western races4 ,as to the brutes1 few thought of their sufferings at all2 and those who did so dismissed them with the doctrine that they shared the consequences of the ,fall1 which caused 8the whole creation0 to groan and 8travail together in pain40 8,these emmets1 how little they are in our eyes6 ,we tread them to dust1 and a troop of them dies1 ,without our regard or concern10 as ,dr4 ,watts cheerfully observed of the poor little insects1 even when he was calling us to remark their wondrous forethought and industry4 ,and larger animals more nearly akin to us were little more 8regarded0 than the ants1 till the widening circles of our sympathies at last began to embrace the higher races of the brute creation2 and their sufferings then1 as a necessary consequence1 immediately took a prominent place among the difficulties of theology4 ,geology first gave a shock to the received explanation of their destiny by proving that animals died painful deaths ons before 8man's first disobedience0 could have taken place1 or man himself had existence on this planet2 and since those1 now distant1 days of ,dean ,buckland's controversies1 the questions so opened out have pressed continually more upon the thought of humane and religious men4 ,the faith for which such men yearn in our day is to be assured-- 8,that not a moth with vain desire ,is shrivelled in a fruitless fire1 ,or but subserves another's gain40 ,not one of their grandsires1 probably1 ever entertained any similar idea1 but rather indulged a sublime contempt of the 8poor ,indian0 whose 8untutored mind0 permitted him to hope that his dog might share his paradise4 ,these causes1 then1 ,i think1--namely1 the growth of a finer sense of pity for human woes1 and the inclusion of the lower animals in the scope of our sympathies1--suffice to explain in great measure the reasons why some of the best of men in our generation feel the evil and misery of the world1 and display a leaning toward ,pessimism unexampled in harder times4 ,nearly all religious men1 looking back upon life1 seem disposed to be thankful on their own account1 and to acknowledge that goodness and mercy have followed them all the days of their lives4 ,they have not been 8dealt with according to their sins10 but have many a time been set free from nets of their own weaving1 and helped out of the mire and clay of vice and passion4 ,viewed from within1 such appears to be the common testimony concerning every good man's career4 ,it is the inexplicable mysteries in the destinies of their neighbors1 as viewed from outside1 and 7as ,i have just said7 the sufferings of the harmless brutes1 which causes such men now to doubt ,god and think the world evil4 ,satan tempted the old ,chaldan by heaping afflictions on his own person4 ,he tries the modern ,job more cunningly1--by giving him1 ,asmodeus-fashion1 a wide bird's-eye view of the woes and wrongs of other people4 99 99 99 99 99 ,to descend from the general proclivities of our age to those of individuals toward ,pessimism1 the same paradox may be observed4 ,as it is by no means altogether a bad sign of the times that there is a keener consciousness afloat of the extent to which pain and wrong prevail in the world1 so neither is it by any means an indication of a bad disposition when a man takes a dark view of human nature and of life4 ,timon may be a noble fellow1 or very much the reverse4 ,we must study him in both characters4 ,the noble ,timon has started with an unusual share of generosity and sympathy1 and has become embittered because he has found other men less good and true than himself4 ,there is a certain average sincerity1 average unselfishness1 average generosity and gratitude common among men4 ,he who has a little above the average of such fine qualities meets on all sides disappointment4 ,he finds people who display selfishness1 where1 as a matter of course1 he would have sacrificed his own convenience or interest to theirs2 people who are mean where he would have been liberal1 and suspicious where he was as open as the day2 and1 finally1 people who return his kindness with an ingratitude inexplicable to his generous mind1 rich in its own benevolence4 ,what1 then1 can happen to our ,timon but to begin to mistrust those whom he finds so unlike himself1 to shut himself from them 7and so1 perhaps1 provoke their mistrust in turn71 and very commonly to bestow much of his disappointed affections on animals1 on whose fidelity he finds he can more surely depend1 and whose wrongs at the hands of cruel men still further deepen his disgust of his own kind8 ,all this time1 another man1 whose generosity and sincerity were1 at starting1 a little below rather than above the average1 has been passing through life pleasantly astonished to find that his neighbors will show him more kindness than 7he is conscious7 he would in their places display1 and rather more than less honest than he has reckoned to find them4 ,thus1 by a curious contradiction1 the nobler-natured man is much more liable than the baser to develop into the misanthrope2 and it is the lofty kind of scorn and bitterness properly belonging to him which every ,pessimist assumes1 whether he truly feel it or not4 ,it is always sous entendu1 in all tirades against human nature1 that the speaker is quite incapable of the weakness1 folly1 and wickedness he condemns2 and that1 if he refers to the 8dark side of ,providence10 he would have managed the universe on better principles4 ,but it is extremely questionable whether we ought to give unlimited credit to the genuineness of the indignation of those gentlemen who denounce the evils of the world1 but never stir a finger to remove them2 and whose personal enjoyment of the good things of life--fine houses1 clothes1 dinners1 pictures1 bric--brac1 pleasant conversation1 and favorable reviews of their books--has1 manifestly1 never been clouded by their sombre sense of the dreadful destiny of mankind at large1 nor their appetite for applause been impaired by their profound conviction of the folly and contemptibility of the people by whom it is offered4 ,a ,timon1 not at all of the nobler sort1 seems to have been that great light of recent ,german philosophy1 ,arthur ,schopenhauer4 ,as ,schopenhauer died childless1 it will1 ,i hope1 hurt the feelings of no one if we dissect his character candidly as that of the most prominent ,pessimist of the age4 ,it will be instructive1 ,i think1 to learn the 8notes0 of such a character1--to study1 in short1 of what kind of stuff 7so to speak7 a ,pessimist is occasionally made4 ,in justice1 we must carry in mind that ,schopenhauer accomplished a good deal in the philosophic way1 besides preaching ,pessimism4 ,he worked out a metaphysical system of considerable depth and ingenuity1--one of the merits of which1 at all events1 may be accounted that it is readily applicable to quite other views than those of its author1 respecting the nature and destiny of mankind4 ,with this formidable system1 elaborated in his great work1 ,die ,welt als ,wille und ,vorstellung1 we have1 however 7happily for me1 and probably for my reader71 for our present purpose1 no concern whatever1 but only with his actions and character1 such as ,miss ,zimmern1 condensing the original ,german memoirs1 sketched in a life-like and transparently truthful manner in her ,life of ,schopenhauer4 ,the first 8note0 of ,schopenhauer's character1 ,i should say1 was his ,,heartlessness4 ,he seems scarcely to have loved anybody--in any sense of the word worth considering--from his cradle to his grave4 ,he made1 indeed1 after his father's death1 much parade of respect for his memory2 but his filial piety1 such as it was1 stopped short at this point4 ,he disliked his sprightly1 good-natured mother1 and treated her with singular insolence4 ,as to friendship1 he avowed his opinion that 8men of much intellectual worth1 more especially if they have genius1 can have but few friends02 and he verified his own dictum as a first-rate genius by having1 so far as we may judge1 no real friends at all1 though in later life1 when he became celebrated1 he had numerous flatterers and disciples4 ,love was even less in ,schopenhauer's way than friendship1 unless we are to call by the title the passion in its coarsest form4 ,his opinion was that 8the poetry of love is mainly illusion1 a glittering drapery meant to mantle the solemnity of the thing as it really is0 7p4 #bbb72 and his actions were quite in accordance with this crass materialism4 ,he led1 his biographer states1 8no saintly ascetic life1 nor did he pretend to this eminence4444 ,he despised women4444 ,he was only different from ordinary men in that he spoke of what others suppressed2 and his over-zealous disciples1 who saw the god-like in all his acts1 even dragged these to the light of day40 ,his 8careless dallying with beauty0 7a euphemism1 ,i presume1 for a loose life7 but once brought him to wish for a permanent union4 ,the only woman whom he is recorded to have desired to marry was an actress1 who1 at the time he was 8enraptured with her10 was 7fit position for the wife of a great moral philosopher67 the recognized mistress of ,duke ,carl ,august4 ,it has sometimes happened that men who have been lacking in those family and friendly affections which are the most beautiful things in human life have yet almost atoned for their deficiency by their fervent 8,enthusiasm of ,humanity40 ,it is needless to say that ,schopenhauer's character displayed an impartial negation of both orders of feeling4 ,he neither loved men nor women in particular1 nor man in general4 ,he carefully defined himself to be not a misanthrope1 only a despiser of men 7p4 #hc74 ,the higher a man stood mentally1 he thought1 the lower must his fellow-men appear4 ,that it was the divine part of the greatest to serve the least was the very last suggestion which would have occurred to his mind4 8,i read10 he observed1 8in the face of the ,apollo ,belvidere1 the just and deep displeasure felt by the god of the ,muses for the wretched obstinacy of the ,philistines02 and1 doubtless1 ,arthur ,schopenhauer figuratively drew himself up1 and felt as like the ,apollo ,belvidere as the corporeal circumstances of a ,german philosopher might permit4 ,he was 8penetrated with the conviction that he had been placed in a world peopled with beings morally and intellectually contemptible1 from whom he must keep apart40 ,in his note-book 7of rather a different cast from that of ,marcus ,aurelius71 he wrote this piece of self-counsel3 8,study to acquire an accurate and connected view of the utter despicability of mankind in general1 then of your contemporaries1 and of ,german scholars in particular40 ,the second 8note0 in ,schopenhauer's character was his exceeding ,,cowardice4 ,the modern ,socrates would have deserted ,athens at the plague1 and run away at ,potida4 ,with what poltroonery he would have behaved1 when required to drink the hemlock1 it is impossible to imagine4 ,when his country was in the throes of war and political crises1 ,schopenhauer always carefully moved out of the way4 ,when there was any kind of infectious disease prevalent1 he fled to another city1 so that half his journeys were mere panic flights4 ,he left ,berlin for fear of the cholera1 ,naples from alarm of the small-pox1 and ,verona because he took it into his head that his snuff was poisoned4 ,he slept with loaded pistols close to his hand1 and seized them at the slightest noise4 ,when the postman brought him a letter1 he started4 ,he used a cup of his own to avoid the contagion which might lurk in a glass at a public table4 ,he labelled his valuables with deceptive names1 and wrote his business memoranda in ,greek4 ,as we have seen1 he was not bellicose4 ,only once in his life is it recorded that he struck a blow1 and that was at a woman4 ,finding an acquaintance of his landlady presumptuous enough to hold a coffee-party in his anteroom1 ,schopenhauer knocked her down with such violence that her right arm was permanently disabled4 ,any other man1 who had committed an act of similar brutality in a moment of passion1 would probably have hastened to offer some compensation to his victim2 but our philosopher1 on the contrary1 hotly contested the poor woman's suit for legal redress1 and quitted the town in disgust when he found himself compelled to maintain her for life1--a period which 7the non-sympathetic reader will rejoice to learn7 was extremely prolonged4 ,the writer of an exceedingly able and thoughtful review of ,schopenhauer's philosophy in the ,contemporary ,review1 some years ago1 observed that his unamiable traits are best excused by his own candid avowal that he liked his own mental physiognomy well enough1 but his moral not at all4 ,the unalterableness of the natural character was one of his favorite dogmas4 ,certainly1 the self-training by which many a naturally nervous temperament has disciplined itself into courage1 a selfish one into generosity1 and a morose or peevish temper into gentleness1 was as far as possible from ,schopenhauer's plan of life2 and it opens to us a rather alarming idea of the society of the future1 if his followers generally should resolve to adopt his facile principle1 and assume that their 8natural characters10 whatever they may chance to be1--selfish1 false1 dissolute1 or cruel1--are 8unalterable40 ,such liberty1 however1 is probably reserved for those who may claim to be 8men of genius0 like their master1 since he absolved himself from the ordinary duties incumbent on meaner mortals by the help of a theory which we may call the ,philosopher's ,anti-nomianism4 8,he weighed his duties toward the world10 we are told1 8in the balance with the weight and intensity of his natural gifts1 and he came to the conclusion that a man gifted with genius1 by merely being and working1 sacrifices himself for all mankind3 therefore1 he is free from the obligation of sacrificing himself in particular individually4 ,on this account1 he may ignore claims which others are bound to fulfil40#ad ,but the third 8note0 was1 ,i venture to think1 the true key of ,schopenhauer's character4 ,it was ,,arrogance4 ,the philosophers whom the world has hitherto honored have been generally noted for the opposite quality4 ,as saints learn humility by gazing up at infinite holiness above them1 so sages acquire modesty by looking out on the boundless ocean of truth1 beside which their greatest discoveries appear but as the pebbles which the child gathers by the shore4 ,but the philosophers who are so good as to enlighten us in these days scarcely belong to the antiquated type of either a ,socrates or a ,newton4 ,the pride and conceit of ,arthur ,schopenhauer1 at all events1 commenced in boyhood1 and seems to have grown like a snowball till he died of old age4 ,his mother 7described as a woman of 8modest1 pleasing manners0 and amiable character1 who received habitually in her house such men as ,goethe1 the ,schlegels1 ,grimm1 and ,wieland7 depicts him thus1 when a lad yet engaged in collegiate studies3 8,your ill-humor1 your complaints of things inevitable1 your sullen looks1 the extraordinary opinions you utter like oracles which none may presume to contradict1--all this depresses me4 ,your eternal quibbles1 your laments over the stupid world and human misery1 give me bad nights and unpleasant dreams40#ae ,this little preliminary glance at the youth of twenty enables us to judge what value should be attached to the plea urged on his behalf1 that his arrogance and bitterness were but the natural results of the neglect with which his great book was received by an unappreciative public and a jealous coterie of offended philosophers1 the 8necessary armor of scorn and self-defence0 which enabled him to hold his ground4 ,the boy at college1 it seems1 long before he had written a work to instruct the world1 or had experienced anything but kindness and prosperity1 the healthy1 rich1 gifted1 and independent young lad1 was already habitually 8lamenting over the stupid world and human misery10 and uttering1 with 8sullen looks10 8oracles which none may presume to contradict40 ,as he grew older1 ,schopenhauer learned to express his good opinion of himself and his works with serenest equanimity4 ,no more naf expressions of self-complacency have perhaps ever been penned than this gentleman's eulogiums on his own productions2 as1 for example1 when he writes to the publisher of his work that its 8worth and importance are so great that ,i do not venture to express it even toward you1 because you could not believe me10 and proceeds to quote a review 8which speaks of me with the highest praise1 and says that ,i am plainly the greatest philosopher of the age1 which is really saying much less than the good man thinks40 8,sir10 he said to an unoffending stranger who watched him across a table d'hte 7where he habitually acted the part of local 8lion071 8sir1 you are astonished at my appetite4 ,true1 ,i eat three times as much as you1 but1 then1 ,i have three times as much mind60 7p4 #aei47 ,the reader who thinks that this speech could never have been spoken except in jest and to produce a good-humored laugh has not yet studied ,schopenhauer's saturnine temperament1 to which a joke at his own expense must have been quite inconceivable4 ,to others1 perhaps1 such barbarous intellectual insolence may seem a pardonable reaction from the tone of self-depreciation 7often exceedingly insincere7 which modern manners have enforced4 ,but the old classic pride was a very different thing from ,schopenhauer's aggressive arrogance1 wherewith he managed to blend gross and egregious vanity in quite a novel combination4 ,on a les dfauts de ses qualits1 but not usually together two apparently contradictory defects4 ,in our simplicity1 we should have anticipated that the man who considered himself the greatest philosopher of his age1 and talked about the 8loneliness of the heights0 of intellectual grandeur1 would have disdained to trouble himself about such miserable things as common newspaper reviews4 ,we should have been1 however1 much mistaken in such a guess4 8,schopenhauer 7we are told7 began to read ,german newspapers1 now that they wrote about him4 ,he caused the veriest trifle that contained his name to be sent to him4 ,he looked through all philosophical works for a mention of himself4 ,his intense contempt for women wavered1 when he saw they could feel interest in his works40 ,what would ,aristotle's 8,magnanimous ,man0 have said to this kind of littleness8 8,honor1 from any other person0 7than the good71 8or on the score of trifles1 he will utterly despise1 and likewise he will despise dishonor40#af ,let it be remembered1 too1 that this was in ,schopenhauer's old age4 ,for a young author to be nervously excited about the reception of his works is nothing blameworthy or ridiculous4 ,he is looking for the confirmation of the yet uncertain whispers of his own consciousness of ability1 or to the extinction of his hopes4 ,but this exculpation cannot apply to a man advanced in life and of established literary reputation1 whose opinion of his own exalted gifts had been fully expanded while he was yet a lad at college4 ,is it too much to say that in this inordinate opinion of his own powers and merits lies the secret of this man's ,pessimism1 of his contempt of other men1 of his discontent with life1 of his revolt against ,providence8 ,it is not wonderful that a man who looks on his fellows like ,apollo ,belvidere1 slaying them with the arrows of his scorn1 should find them wretched and unlovable2 for no man1 however humble1 is ever truly seen by him who looks down on him1 and thus lacks all the insight of love and sympathy1 and all the charity of one who forgives as he hopes to be forgiven4 ,it is not wonderful that a man who estimates himself as supremely wise1 and condones his own faults on the score of the unalterableness of natural character1 should survey the world and find it a godless desert4 ,probably no human heart ever yet bloomed out into gratitude even under the brightest sunshine of prosperity1 which had not once been ploughed up by self-reproach and softened by tears of repentance4 ,in truth1 any kind of religious sense is well-nigh incompatible with such pride as we are discussing4 ,the doors whereby other men enter the ,temple1--the tender guidance of human affection1 the awful strife of the higher self against passion and sin1 the sacred moral ambition after yet unattained purity and goodness1--all these are closed to him4 ,schopenhauer's religious history is a confirmation of the truth that it is not the marble-palace mind of the philosopher which ,god will visit so often as the humble heart which lies sheltered from the storms of passion1 and all trailed over by the sweet blossoms of human affections4 ,it is actually ludicrous to compare this man's intensely selfish1 vain1 cowardly character with the magnificent compliments which he paid to virtue in the abstract1 and to the ideal he draws of the perfect man1 or 8ascetic10 in whom the very sense of individuality1 not to speak of self-regard1 is annihilated3 8,he will no longer regard himself as a real existence1 comprised within the rigid line of personality1 and thus insulated and differentiated from the rest of the universe4 ,he will regard his separate being as a mere transitory phenomenon1 a temporary objectivation of the sole real existence2 and this recognition of his true position must necessarily destroy selfishness4444 ,when a man ceases to draw an egotistic distinction between himself and others1 and takes as much part in their sorrows as in his own1 it naturally follows that such a one1 recognizing his own self in all beings1 must regard the endless griefs of all beings as his own1 and thus appropriate to himself the sorrows of the whole world40#ag ,the modern 8,man of ,sorrows0 7if we may venture on so irreverent a comparison for the sake of the contrast7 had1 for his own use1 an easy method of 8appropriating0 the griefs of his kind4 8,we gather10 says his keen-sighted critic of the ,contemporary ,review1 8from the accounts of his disciples1 that he had arranged for himself an existence more than tolerable2 for1 while free from positive annoyance1 he found a perfectly consistent and legitimate source of pleasure in the disinterested contemplation of the idea of the world's sorrows40#ah ,a more easy form of martyrdom it is hard to imagine4 ,is it not somewhat surprising that a man like this1 who1 to do him justice1 made no pretence of practising what he taught1 but said openly1 with cynical effrontery1 8,i preach sanctity1 but ,i am no saint10#ai should have exercised any influence over his generation8 ,we read1 however1 that 8his little band of disciples grew1 and their fanaticism reached a ludicrous point4 ,one entreated him to found a trust for the purpose of keeping watch that no syllable of his works should ever be altered2 another had his portrait painted and placed in a room like a chapel10#bj etc4 ,this particular hero-worship is1 to my thinking1 so portentous that ,i have been tempted thus to study it at some length4 ,for thousands of years1 the human race has gone on adding one noble type to another in its ,pantheon1--the old heathen patriotism and heroism of a ,theseus1 a ,codrus1 a ,curtius1 a ,regulus1 the modest wisdom of a ,socrates1 and the stoic grandeur of a ,marcus ,aurelius4 ,christianity added yet saintlier virtues to the ideal1--the charity1 the purity1 the religious fervor1 and martyr devotion of a whole army of saints4 ,yet all these 8stars of our mortal night0 can1 it seems1 be obscured and forgotten2 and men who might have known and honored and followed them1 like the ,magi of old1 prefer to dance after such a flaring link-light as ,schopenhauer lifted over his own head6 ,observing this1 and how his desolate doctrine is gaining ground1 and recognizing not a few of his personal characteristics 7more especially his arrogance7 among other thinkers nearer home1 we are tempted to turn back fondly and regretfully to the humblest old-fashioned goodness4 ,many of us had confidently trusted that1 when knowledge increased1 wisdom and love would grow along with it2 that1 without losing the sacred lessons of the past1 mankind would obtain still deeper insight into moral truth1 and that phases of character would appear more beautiful1 more joyous1 more perfectly rounded in all the gifts and graces of humanity than the world yet has seen1--the long-severed virtues of the hero and the saint combined at last4 ,alas6 if ,schopenhauers are to increase and multiply among us1 these hopes have been visionary1 indeed6 ,as his character emerges from his biography1 and stands clearly revealed to sight1 memories of many a man and woman of small account in the world rise up and range themselves in our thoughts for comparison opposite to this great philosopher4 ,we remember those who1 instead of flying from the terrors of pestilence or war1 have freely gone to meet them at the call of benevolence or patriotism4 ,we remember those who1 instead of finding their fellow-men 8despicable10 have been lifelong loving friends1 faithful and tender husbands1 devoted parents and children1 ardent philanthropists1 sacrificing wealth and health and every enjoyment that they might relieve and bless the most miserable of mankind1--the criminal1 the diseased1 the vicious1 and abandoned4 ,we remember those who1 instead of resting self-satisfied with the 8unalterableness0 of their own moral defects1 have striven day and night1 like the ,pilgrim fighting on his knees against ,apollyon1 to purify their hearts of every stain1 and1 instead of arraigning ,providence because their merits were insufficiently rewarded1 have blessed ,god most of all for their afflictions4 ,we remember all these1 and also we remember the glory of peace and patience on their pain-worn faces2 and from the depths of our souls comes the verdict that the dullest 8,philistine0 of them all was1 in the scale of true nobleness1 worth a thousand pessimist philosophers4 ,schopenhauer was1 in truth1 the best illustration which could be found of the fallacy of the modern intellect-worship1 the idolatry of mere mental force1 which is scarcely less stupid and ignoble than the idolatry of the physical force of winds or waters4 ,as baseness is more contemptible in a king1 and miserliness in a millionnaire1 so are all moral faults and littlenesses only more despicable when set on the pedestal of genius4 ,there are minds--and ,schopenhauer's was one of them--whose brilliancy is that of a light-house4 ,its best use is to disclose the cold and troubled sea1 and the dreary rocks whereon the unwary might make shipwreck4 99 99 99 99 99 ,the question1 8,how far is ,pessimism true1 and how far does the actual state of the world justify us in pronouncing life to be an evil80 is far too vast and too solemn to be treated in this brief paper4 ,one remark only must be made in abatement of the wide-sweeping denunciations of the present order of things in which ,pessimists habitually indulge4 ,if we take count of their arguments1 we shall find that at least one-third are built on the assumption 7which nothing in genuine philosophy warrants7 that the 8hypothesis of a ,god0 involves the attribution to him not only of supreme but of absolute power1 and generally of a power which includes self-contradictions4 ,we should sweep away no inconsiderable number of difficulties1 if we could get fairly out of reach of this ever-recurring fallacy1 and hear no more that ,god ought to make every creature absolutely happy1 and also absolutely virtuous2 and illume the martyr's glory1 while invariably extinguishing the martyr's pile4 ,and1 again1 another third of the arguments of ,pessimists rests on the yet more egregious and fundamental mistake that suffering is always to be accounted an evil1 and may be lawfully weighed by them as such in holding the scales of the world4 ,the truth that it is 8good to have been afflicted10 that out of pain and grief and disappointment arise the purest virtues1 the tenderest sympathies1 the loftiest courage1 the divinest faith1--this thrice-blessed truth1 the very alphabet of spiritual experience1 is1 as a rule1 quite overlooked by great philosophers of the order of ,schopenhauer4 ,when all corrections and deductions are made1 a residue of profound1 awful1 inexplicable misery--misery of sinful man and misery of sinless brutes--remains1 alas6 to form1 doubtless1 in time to come1 as in the ages which are past1 the dread 8,riddle of the painful ,earth40 ,we must expect it to press upon us ever more and more in proportion as our sense of justice and love rises higher1 and our sympathies with unmerited suffering grow more acute4 ,whether the shadow which that mystery casts on religion will hereafter be in any degree relieved by fresh lights obtained through sounder theories of ,nature1 it were idle to guess4 ,one thing seems clear enough2 namely1 that the spirit wherewith some modern ,pessimists approach the tremendous problem is one which can never lead to its solution1 and which in itself is calculated to form no inconsiderable addition to the gloom of human existence4 ,the world1 to all who enter it1 is very much what their anticipations make of it1--full of matter for joy and gratitude1 or for repining and discontent4 ,it appears beautiful or dreary1 according as they regard it through the cloudless1 childlike eyes of cheerful trust or through the dim and distorting spectacles of doubt and despair4 ,no generation so miserable has yet seen the light as one which should be trained to expect neither justice nor love from ,god1 and to 8cultivate a connected view of the general despicability of mankind40 ,after all1 as ,schopenhauer himself confessed 7though he cared so little to practise the lesson71 character--or1 as ,mr4 ,matthew ,arnold would say1 conduct--is the great matter to which all theories are subordinate4 8,moral goodness belongs to an order of things which is above this life1 and is incommensurable with any other perfection40 ,there is a certain value in the old test whereby a tree is known by its fruits4 ,to such of us as have kept any foundations of faith still standing1 the presumption is surely enormous that the intellectual system which naturally produces courage1 trustfulness1 and loving-kindness1 must be nearer to the ,eternal ,verities than the blighting theory which brings forth such thorns and thistles as deformed the character of the great ,pessimist ,philosopher of the nineteenth century4 ,,footnotes3 #ad ,life1 p4 #hj4 #ae ,life1 p4 #cb4 #af ,ethics1 ,book ,,iv41 chap4 iii4 #ag ,life1 p4 #bjh4 #ah ,contemporary ,review1 ,february1 #ahgc4 #ai ,life1 p4 #ajh4 #bj ,life1 p4 #bdj4 ,,zoophily4 ,it is a comforting reflection in a world still 8full of violence and cruel habitations0 that the behavior of men to domestic animals must have been1 on the whole1 more kind than the reverse4 ,had it been otherwise1 the 8set0 of the brute's brains1 according to modern theory1 would have been that of shyness and dread of us1 such as is actually exhibited by the rabbit which we chase in the field and the rat we pursue in the cupboard4 ,in countries where cats are exceptionally ill-treated 7e4g41 the south of ,france71 poor puss is almost as timid as a hare2 while the devotion and trustfulness of the dog toward man in every land peopled by an ,aryan race seem to prove that1 with all our faults1 he has not found us such bad masters after all4 ,dogs love us1 and could only love us1 because we have bestowed on them some crumbs of love and good-will1 though their generous little hearts have repaid the debt a thousand-fold4 ,the 8,shepherd's ,chief ,mourner0 and 8,grey ,friar's ,bobby0 had probably received in their time only a few pats from the horny hands of their masters1 and a gruff word of approval when the sheep had been particularly cleverly folded4 ,but they recognized that the superior being condescended to care for them1 and their adoring fidelity was the ready response4#ba ,two different motives of course have influenced men to such kindness to domestic animals1 one being obvious self-interest1 and the necessity1 if they needed the creature's services1 to keep it in some degree of health and comfort2 and the other being the special affection of individual men for favorite animals4 ,of the frequent manifestation of this latter sentiment in all ages1 literature and art bear repeated testimony4 ,we find it in the parable of ,nathan2 in the pictured tame lion running beside the chariot of ,rameses2 in the story of ,argus in the ,odyssey2 in the episode in the ,mahabharata1 where the hero refuses to ascend to heaven in the car of ,indra without his dog2 in the exquisite passage in the ,zend-,avesta1 where the lord of good speaks to ,zoroaster1 8,for ,i have made the dog1 ,i who am ,ahura ,mazda02 in the history of ,alexander's hero1 ,bucephalus2 in ,pliny's charming tales of the boy and the pet dolphin1 and of the poor slave thrown down the ,gemonian stairs1 beside whose corpse his dog watched and wailed till even the stern hearts of the ,roman populace were melted to pity4 ,but neither the every-day self-interested care of animals by their masters1 nor the occasional genuine affection of special men to favorite animals1--which have together produced the actual tameness most of the domesticated tribes now exhibit1--seems to have led men to the acknowledgment of moral obligation on their part toward the brutes4 ,as a lady will finger lovingly a bunch of flowers1 and the next moment drop it carelessly on the roadside or pluck the blossoms to pieces in sheer thoughtlessness1 so the great majority of mankind have always treated animals4 8,we tread them to death1 and a troop of them dies ,without our regard or concern10 cheerfully remarked ,dr4 ,watts concerning ants2 but he might have said the same of our 8unconcern0 in the case of the cruel destruction of thousands of harmless birds and beasts and the starvation of their young1 and of the all but universal recklessness of men in dealing with creatures not representing value in money4 ,it is not1 however1 to be reckoned as surprising that our forefathers did not dream of such a thing as duty to animals4 ,they learned very slowly that they owed duties to men of other races than their own4 ,only on the generation which recognized thoroughly for the first time 7thanks in great measure to ,wilberforce and ,clarkson7 that the negro was 8a man and a brother0 did it dawn that1 beyond the negro1 there were other still humbler claimants for benevolence and justice4 ,within a few years passed both the emancipation of the ,west ,indian slaves and that first act for prevention of cruelty to animals of which ,lord ,erskine so truly prophesied that it would prove1 8not only an honor to the ,parliament of ,england1 but an era in the civilization of the world40 ,but the noble law of ,england--which thus forestalled the moralists and set an example which every civilized nation1 with one solitary exception1 has followed--remains even to this day1 after sixty years1 still in advance of the systematic teachers of human duty4 ,even while every year sermons specially inculcating humanity to animals are preached all over the kingdom1 nobody 7so far as the present writer is aware7 has attempted formally to include ,duty to the ,lower ,animals in any complete system of ethics as an organic part of the ,whole ,duty of ,man4#bb ,without pretending for a moment to fill up this gap in ethics1 ,i would fain offer to those who are interested in the subject a suggestion which may possibly serve as a scaffolding till the solid edifice be built by stronger hands4 ,we must perchance yet wait to determine what are the right actions of man to brute2 but ,i do not think we need lose much time in deciding what must be the right sentiment1 the general feeling wherewith it is fit we should regard the lower animals4 ,if we can but clearly define that sentiment1 it will indicate roughly the actions which will be consonant therewith4 ,in the first place1 it seems to me that a sense of serious responsibility toward the brutes ought to replace our 8lady-and-the-nosegay0 condition of insouciance4 ,the 8ages before morality0 are at an end at last1 even in this remote province of human freedom4 ,of all the grotesque ideas which have imposed on us in the solemn phraseology of divines and moralists1 none is more absurd than the doctrine that our moral obligations stop short where the object of them does not happen to know them1 and assures us that1 because the brutes cannot call us to account for our transgressions1 nothing that we can do will constitute a transgression4 ,to absolve us from paying for a pair of boots because our bootmaker's ledger had unluckily been burned would be altogether a parallel lesson in morality4 ,it is plain enough1 indeed1 that the creature who is 7as we assume7 without a conscience or moral arbitrament must always be exonerated from guilt1 no matter what it may do of hurt or evil2 and the judicial proceedings against1 and executions of1 oxen and pigs in the ,middle ,ages for manslaughter were unspeakably absurd4 ,but not less absurd1 on the other side1 is it to exonerate men1 who have consciences and free will1 when they are guilty of cruelty to brutes1 on the plea not that they1 but the brutes are immoral and irresponsible4#bc ,a moral being is not moral on one side of him only1 but moral all round1 and toward all who are above1 beside1 and beneath him3 just as a gentleman is a gentleman not only to the king1 but to the peasant2 and as a truthful man speaks truth to friend and stranger4 ,just in the same way1 the 8merciful man is merciful to his beast10 as he is merciful to the beggar at his gate4 ,i may add that every noble quality is specially tested by its exhibition in those humbler directions wherein there is nothing to be gained by showing it and nothing to be lost by contrary behavior4 ,there is a passage from ,jeremy ,bentham1 quoted in ,mrs4 ,jamieson's ,commonplace ,book and elsewhere1 which will recur to many readers at this point3 8,the day may come10 he says1 8when the rest of the animal creation may acquire those rights which never could have been withheld from them but by the hand of tyranny4 ,it may come one day to be recognized that the number of legs1 the villosity of the skin1 or the termination of the os sacrum1 are reasons insufficient for abandoning a sensitive being to the caprice of a tormentor4444 ,the question is not1 ,can they reason8 or ,can they speak8 but1 ,can they suffer80 ,long before ,bentham1 a greater mind1 travelling along a nobler road of philosophy1 laid down the canon which resolves the whole question4 ,bishop ,butler affirmed that it was on the simple fact of a creature being ,,sentient--i4e41 capable of pain and pleasure--that rests our responsibility to save it pain and give it pleasure4 ,there is no evading this obligation1 then1 as regards the lower animals1 by the plea that they are not moral beings4 ,it is our morality1 not theirs1 which is in question4 ,there are special considerations which in different cases may modify our obligation1 but it is on such special reasons1 not on the universal non-moral nature of the brutes 7as the old divines taught71 that our exoneration must be founded2 and the onus lies on us to show cause for each of them4 ,the distinction between our duties to animals and our duties to our human fellow-creatures lies here4 ,as regards them both1 we are indeed forbidden to inflict avoidable pain1 because both alike are sentient4 ,but1 as regards the brutes1 our duties stop there3 whereas1 as regards men1 they being moral as well as sentient beings1 our primary obligations toward them must concern their higher natures1 and include the preservation of the lives which those higher natures invest with a sanctity exclusively their own4 ,thus1 we reach the important conclusion that the infliction of avoidable pain is the supreme offence as regards the lower animals1 but not the supreme offence as regards man4 ,sir ,henry ,taylor's noble lines go to the very root of the question3-- 8,pain1 terror1 mortal agonies1 which scare ,thy heart in man1 to brutes thou wilt not spare4 ,are theirs less sad and real8 ,pain in man ,bears the high mission of the flail and fan2 ,in brutes1 'tis purely piteous40 ,pain is the one supreme evil of the existence of the lower animals1 an evil which 7so far as we can see7 has no countervailing good4 ,as to death1 a painless one--so far from being the supreme evil to them--is often the truest mercy4 ,thus1 instead of the favorite phrase of certain physiologists1 that 8they would put hecatombs of brutes to torture to save the smallest pain of a man10 true ethics bids us regard man's moral welfare only as of supreme importance1 and anything which can injure it 7such1 for example1 as the practice1 or sanction of the practice1 of cruelty7 as the worst of evils1 even if along with it should come a mitigation of bodily pain4 ,on this subject1 the present ,bishop of ,winchester has put the case in a nutshell4 8,it is true10 he said1 8that man is superior to the beast1 but the part of man which we recognize as such is his moral and spiritual nature4 ,so far as his body and its pains are concerned1 there is no particular reason for considering them more than the body and bodily pains of a brute40 ,of course1 the ground is cut from under us in this whole line of argument by those ingenious thinkers who have recently disinterred 7with such ill-omened timeliness for the vivisection debate7 ,descartes' supposed doctrine1 that the appearance of pain and pleasure in the brutes is a mere delusion1 and that they are only automata1--8a superior kind of marionettes1 which eat without pleasure1 cry without pain1 desire nothing1 know nothing1 and only simulate intelligence as a bee simulates a mathematician40 ,if this conclusion1 on which modern science is to be congratulated1 be accepted1 it follows1 of course1 that we should give no more consideration to the fatigue of a noble hunter than to the creaking wood of a rocking-horse2 and that the emotions a child bestows on its doll will be more serious than those we bestow on a dog who dies of grief on his master's grave4 ,should it appear to us1 however1 on the contrary 7as it certainly does to me71 that there is quite as good evidence that dogs and elephants reason as that certain physiologists reason1 and a great deal better evidence that they--the animals--feel1 we may perhaps dismiss the ,cartesianism of the nineteenth century1 and proceed without further delay to endeavor to define more particularly the fitting sentiment of man to sentient brutes4 ,we have seen we ought to start with a distinct sense of some degree of moral responsibility as regards them4 ,what shape should that sense assume8 ,we have been in the habit of indulging ourselves in all manner of antipathies to special animals1 some of them having1 perhaps1 their source and raison d'tre in the days of our remote but not illustrious ancestors1 8,when wild in woods the noble savage ran02 or those of a still earlier date1 who were1 as ,mr4 ,darwin says1 8arboreal in their habits10 ere yet we had deserved the reproach of having 8made ourselves tailless and hairless and multiplied folds to our brain40 ,other prejudices1 again1 are mere personal whims1 three-fourths of them being pure affectation4 ,a man will decline to sit in a room with an inoffensive cat1 and a lady screams at the sight of a mouse1 which is infinitely more distressed at the rencontre than she4 ,i have known an individual1 otherwise distinguished for audacity1 8make tracks0 across several fields to avoid a placidly ruminating cow4 ,in our present stage of civilization1 these silly prejudices are barbarisms and anachronisms1 if not vulgarisms1 and should be treated like exhibitions of ignorance or childishness4 ,for our remote progenitors before mentioned1 tusky and hirsute1 struggling for existence with the cave bear and the mammoth in the howling wilderness of a yet uncultured world1 there was no doubt justification for regarding the terrible beasts around them with the hatred which comes of fear4 ,but the animal creation1 at least throughout ,europe1 has been subdued for ages2 and all its tribes are merely dwellers by sufferance in a vanquished province4 ,their position as regards us appeals to every spark of generosity alight in our bosoms1 and ought to make us ashamed of our whims and antipathies toward beings so humble4 ,shall man arrogate the title of 8lord of creation10 and not show himself1 at the least1 bon prince to his poor subjects8 ,it is not too much to ask that1 even toward wild animals1 our feelings should be those of royal clemency and indulgence1--of pleasure in the beauty and grace of such of them as are beautiful2 of admiration for their numberless wondrous instincts2 of sympathy with their delight in the joys of the forest and the fields of air4 ,few1 ,i suppose1 of men with any impressionability can watch a lark ascending into the sky of a summer's morning without some dim echo of the feelings which inspired ,shelley's ,ode4 ,this is1 however1 only a specially vivid instance of a sympathy which might be almost universal1 and which1 so far as we learn to feel it1 touches all nature for us with a magic wand4 ,if we are compelled to fight with them1 if they are our natural enemies and can never be anything else1 then let us wage war upon them in loyal sort1 as we contended against the ,russians at ,balaklava2 and1 if we catch any prisoners1 deal with them chivalrously or at least mercifully4 ,this1 indeed 7to do justice to sportsmen1 much as ,i dislike their pursuit71 ,i have always observed to be the spirit of the old-fashioned country gentleman1 before the gross slaughtering of battues and despicable pigeon-matches were heard of in the land4 ,as to domestic animals1 their demands on us1 did we read them aright1 are not so much those of petitioners for mercy as of rightful claimants of justice4 ,we have caused their existence1 and are responsible that they should be on the whole happy and not miserable4 ,we take their services to carry our burdens1 to enhance our pleasures1 to guard our homes and our flocks4 ,in the case of many of them1 we accept the fondest fidelity and an affection such as human beings scarcely give once in a lifetime4 ,they watch for us1 work for us1 bear often weary imprisonment and slavery in our service1 and not seldom mourn for us with breaking hearts when we die4 ,if we conceive of an arbiter sitting by and watching alike our behavior and the poor brutes' toil and love1 can we suppose he would treat it as merely a piece of generosity on our part1 which we were free to leave unfulfilled without blame1 that we should behave considerately to such an humble friend1 supply him with food1 water1 and shelter1 forbear to overwork him1 and end his harmless life at last with the least possible pain8 ,would he not demand it of us as the simplest matter of justice8#bd ,for those who accept the ,darwinian theory1 and believe that the relationship between man and the brutes is not only one of similarity1 but of actual kinship in blood1 it would have seemed only natural that this new view should have brought forth a burst of fresh sympathy and tenderness4 ,if our physical frames1 with all their quivering nerves and susceptibilities to a thousand pains1 be1 indeed1 only the four-footed creature's body a little modified by development2 if our minds only overlap and transcend theirs1 but are grown out of those humbler brains2 if all our moral qualities1 our love and faith and sense of justice1 be only their affection and fidelity and dim sense of wrong extended into wider realms1--then we bear in ourselves the irresistible testimony to their claims on our sympathy4 ,and if1 like so many of the disciples of the same new philosophy1 we are unhappy enough to believe that both man and brute when laid in the grave awake no more1 then1 above all1 it would seem that this common lot of a few pleasures and many pains1 to be followed by annihilation1 would move any heart to compassion4 ,in the great1 silent1 hollow universe in which these souls believe themselves to stand1 how base does it seem to turn on the weaker1 unoffending beings around them1 and spoil their little gleam of life and joy under the sun6 ,nothing is more startling to me than the fact that some of the leading apostles of this philosophy1 and even its respected author himself1 should in one and the same breath tell us that an ape1 for example1 is actually our own flesh and blood1 and that it is right and proper to treat apes after the fashion of ,professors ,munk and ,goltz and ,ferrier4 ,these gentlemen1 as regards the poor quadrumana1 are rather 8more than kin10 and rather 8less than kind40 ,for those who1 whether they believe in evolution or not1 still hold faith in the existence of a divine ,lord of man and brute1 the reasons for sympathy are1 in another way1 still stronger4 ,that the ,christian religion did not1 from the first1 like the ,zoroastrian1 ,buddhist1 and ,brahminist1 impress its followers with the duty of mercy to the brutes2 that it was left to a few tender-hearted saints1 like ,st4 ,francis1 to connect the creatures in any way with the worship of the ,creator1 and to the later development of ,protestantism to formulate any doctrine on the subject of duty toward them1--is a paradox which would need much space to explain4 ,modern religion1 at all events1 by whatever name it is called1 seems tending more and more to throw an additional tender sacredness over our relations to the 8unoffending creatures which he10 their ,maker1 8loves10 and to make us recognize a latent truth in the curiously hackneyed lines of ,coleridge concerning him who 8prayeth best0 and also loveth best 8both man and bird and beast40 ,where that great and far-reaching softener of hearts1 the sense of our own failures and offences1 is vividly present1 the position we hold to creatures who have never done wrong is always found inexpressibly touching4 ,to be kind to them and rejoice in their happiness seems just one of the few ways in which we can act a god-like part in our little sphere1 and display the mercy for which we hope in our turn4 ,whichever way we take it1 ,i conceive we reach the same conclusion4 ,the only befitting feeling for human beings to entertain toward brutes is1 as the very word suggests1 the feeling of humanity3 or1 as we may interpret it1 the sentiment of sympathy1 so far as we can cultivate fellow-feeling2 of pity1 so far as we know them to suffer2 of mercy1 so far as we can spare their sufferings2 of kindness and benevolence1 so far as it is in our power to make them happy4 ,there is nothing fanatical about this humanity4 ,it does not call on us to renounce any of the useful or needful avocations of life as regards animals1 but rather would it make the man imbued with it perform them all the better4#be ,we assuredly need not1 because we become humane1 sacrifice the higher life for the lower1 as in the wondrous ,buddhist parable so beautifully rendered in the ,light of ,asia1 where 8,lord ,buddha10 in one of his million lives1 gives himself1 out of pity1 to be devoured by a famishing tiger who cannot feed her cubs1 and 8,the great cat's burning breath ,mixed with the last sigh of such fearless love40 ,we need not even copy the sweet lady in the 8,sensitive ,plant0 who made the bees and moths and ephemerid her attendants3-- 8,but all killing insects and gnawing worms1 ,and things of obscene and unlovely forms1 ,she bore in a basket of ,indian woof ,into the rough woods far aloof1-- 8,in a basket of grasses and wild flowers full1 ,the freshest her gentle hands could pull ,for the poor banished insects1 whose intent1 ,although they did ill1 was innocent40 ,this is poetry not meant for practice1 and yet even these hyperboles carry a breath as of ,eden along with them4 ,of ,eden did ,i say8 ,nay1 rather of the later ,paradise for which the soul of the greatest of the prophets yearned1 where 8they shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain40 ,i will not attempt here to define how the sentiment of humanity to the brutes1 thoroughly ingrained into a man's heart1 would make him decide the question of field sports4 ,my own impression is that it would lead him to abandon first1 and with utter disgust1 such wretched amusements as pigeon-matches and battues of half-tame pheasants2 and1 later1 those sports in which1 as in fox-hunting and coursing and duck-shooting1 the sympathy of the sportsman with his hounds and horse1 or his greyhound or retriever1 is uppermost in his mind1 to the exclusion of the wild and scarcely seen object of his pursuit4 ,in nine kinds of such sports1 ,i believe1 out of ten1 it is rather a case of ill-divided sympathy for animals than of lack of it which inspires the sportsman2 and not many would find enjoyment where neither horse nor dog had part1--like poor ,robertson1 of ,brighton1 sitting for hours in a tub in a marsh to shoot wild duck1 and counting the period so spent as 8hours of delight60 ,but there is one practice respecting which the influence of such a sentiment of humanity as we have supposed must have an unmistakable result4 ,it must put an absolute stop to vivisection4 ,to accustom ourselves and our children to regard animals with sympathy2 to beware of giving them pain1 and rejoice when it is possible for us to give them pleasure2 to study their marvellous instincts1 and trace the dawnings of reason in their sagacious acts2 to accept their services and their affection1 and give them in return such pledges of protection as our kind words and caresses1--to do this1 and then calmly consent to hand them over to be dissected alive1 this is too monstrous to be borne4 ,de deux choses l'une4 ,either we must cherish animals--and then we must abolish vivisection--or we must sanction vivisection2 and then1 for very shame's sake1 and lest we poison the springs of pity and sympathy in our breasts and the breasts of our children1 we must renounce the ghastly farce of petting or protecting animals1 and pretending to recognize their noble and lovable qualities4 ,if love and courage and fidelity1 lodged in the heart of a dog1 have no claim on us to prevent us from dissecting that heart even while yet it beats with affection2 if the human-like intelligence working in a monkey's brain do not forbid 7but rather invite7 us to mutilate that brain1 morsel by morsel1 till the last glimmering of mind and playfulness die out in dulness and death1--if this be so1 then1 in ,heaven's name1 let us at least have done with our cant of 8humanity10 and abolish our ,acts of ,parliament1 and dissolve our ,bands of ,mercy1 and our three hundred ,societies for the ,prevention of ,cruelty throughout the world4 ,the idea of vivisection 7to use the phrase of its two thousand advocates who memorialized ,sir ,richard ,cross7 rests on the conception of an animal 7a dog1 for example7 as 8a carnivorous creature1 valuable for purposes of research10--a mechanism1 in short1 of nerves and muscles1 bones and arteries1 which1 as they added1 it would be a pity to 8withdraw from investigation40 ,the crass materialism which thus regards such a creature as a dog 7and would1 doubtless1 if its followers spoke out1 be found similarly to regard a man7 is at the opposite pole of thought and feeling from the recognition of the animal in its higher nature as an object of our tenderness and sympathy4 ,we cannot hold both views at once4 ,if we take the higher one1 the lower must become abhorrent in our eyes4 ,there is1 there ought to be1 no question in the matter of a little more or a little less of torture1 or of dispute whether ansthetics1 when they can be employed1 usually effect complete and final or only partial and temporary insensibility2 or of whether such processes as putting an animal into a stove over a fire till it expires in ten or twenty minutes ought to be called 8baking it alive10 or described by some less distressing and homely phraseology4 ,it is the simple idea of dealing with a living1 conscious1 sensitive1 and intelligent creature as if it were dead and senseless matter against which the whole spirit of true humanity revolts4 ,it is the notion of such absolute despotism as shall justify not merely taking life1 but converting the entire existence of the animal into a misfortune1 which we denounce as a brutal misconception of the relations between the higher and the lower creatures1 and an utter anachronism in the present stage of human moral feeling4 ,a hundred years ago1 had physiologists frankly avowed that they recognized no claims on the part of the brutes which should stop them from torturing them1 they would have been only on the level of their contemporaries4 ,but to-day they are behind the age2 ay1 sixty years behind the legislature and the poor ,irish gentleman who 8ruled the houseless wilds of ,connemara10 and had the glory of giving his name to ,martin's ,act4 ,how their claim for a 8free vivisecting table0 may be looked back upon a century to come1 we may perhaps foretell with no great chance of error4 ,in his last book1 published ten years ago1 ,sir ,arthur ,helps wrote these memorable words3 8,it appears to me that the advancement of the world is to be measured by the increase of humanity and the decrease of cruelty4444 ,i am convinced that1 if an historian were to sum the gains and losses of the world at the close of each recorded century1 there might be much which was retrograde in other aspects of human life and conduct1 but nothing could show a backward course in humanity0 7pp4 #aie1 #aif74 ,as ,i have said ere now1 the battle of mercy1 like that of freedom 8,once begun1 ,though often lost1 is always won40 ,even should all the scientific men in ,europe unite in a resolution that 8vivisection is necessary10 just as all the ,dominicans would have united three hundred years ago to resolve that autos-da-f were 8necessary10 or as all the lawyers and magistrates that the peine forte et dure was 8necessary10 or as the statesmen of ,america did thirty years ago that negro slavery was 8necessary10 yet the 8necessity0 will disappear in the case of the scientific torture of animals as in all the rest4 ,the days of vivisection are numbered4 ,,footnotes3 #ba ,a touching story of such sheep-gathering was recently told me on good authority4 ,a shepherd lost his large flock on the ,scotch mountains in a fog4 ,after fruitless search1 he returned to his cottage1 bidding his collie find the sheep1 if she could4 ,the collie1 who was near giving birth to her young1 understood his orders1 and disappeared in the mist1 not returning for many hours4 ,at last1 she came home in miserable plight1 driving before her the last stray sheep1 and carrying in her mouth a puppy of her own6 ,she had of necessity left the rest of her litter to perish on the hills and in the intervals of their birth the poor beast had performed her task and driven home the sheep4 ,her last puppy only she had contrived to save4 #bb ,the best effort to supply the missing chapter of ethics is the charming and eloquent volume1 ,rights of an ,animal1 by ,e4 ,b4 ,nicholson4 ,i thankfully recognize the candor wherewith the author has tackled the difficult problems of the case1 and the value of his demonstration that the law of ,england assumes the fundamental principle that cruelty to an animal is an offence per se1 and that it is not necessary to show that it injures any human owner or spectator4 ,in this respect1 as in all others1 our ,act 7#aa and #ab ,vict4 c4 #ci7 immeasurably transcends the ,french ,loi ,grammont1 which condemns only cruelty exhibited in public places and painful to the spectators4 ,mr4 ,nicholson justifies vivisection only so far as it can be rendered absolutely painless by ansthetics4 ,to such of us as have seen through that delusion1 cadit quaestio4 #bc ,as a recent example of this doctrine1 see an article in the ,fortnightly ,review for ,feb4 #a1 #ahhb4 8,is it not10 the author says1 8the very basis of ethical doctrine767 that the moral rights of any being depend on its ethical nature80 #bd ,i have endeavored elsewhere to work out this hypothesis of an umpire between man and brute1 as a method of helping us to a solution of the problem of what are and what are not lawful actions on our parts toward animals4 ,the reader who may be interested in the inquiry may obtain my pamphlet1 ,the ,right of ,tormenting1 price #b;d41 at the office of the ,society for the ,protection of ,animals from ,vivisection1 #a ,victoria ,street1 ,westminster4 #be ,in fact1 many men who pursue such trades1 notably butchers1 are genuinely humane1 and do their best to get through their work in the most merciful way4 ,several of them have recently expressed warm satisfaction on obtaining ,baxter's mask1 whereby oxen may be instantaneously killed without the chance of a misdirected blow4 ,the mask is to be obtained from ,mr4 ,baxter1 ,ealing ,dean1 ,w4 ,,sacrificial ,,medicine4 ,the world has done wrong to laugh at the old lady who reproved her sailor grandson for 8telling her such a scandalous fib as that he had seen a fish fly in the air10 but restored her confidence to the hopeful youth when he proceeded to narrate how he had picked up a wheel of ,pharaoh's chariot on the ,red ,sea shore4 ,practically1 we all jump easily at beliefs toward the level of which we have already climbed by previous knowledge 7or previous prejudice1 as it may chance71 and refuse1 donkey-wise1 to budge an inch toward those which happen to be on a plane above our preconceived notions of what either is or ought to be4 ,it is this propensity1 of course1 which makes the most baseless calumny mischievous by paving the way for the next slander against its object4 ,and it is it1 also1 which grants interminable leases of life to false systems of physics and religion by securing a welcome for every fiction and fallacy which at any time may seem to favor them1 and closing the door in the face of truths which militate against and might explode them4 ,a curious study of the 8,grammar of ,assent10 as used by the majority of mankind in the matter which comes nearest to their own business and bosoms1 might1 ,i think1 be made by unearthing the preconceived notions and preparatory ideas which must needs exist as regards the healing art1 and which can have enabled doctors confidently to prescribe1 and patients meekly to accept1 the horrid and shocking remedies in use from the earliest period1--remedies of which it is a mild criticism to say that they were worse than the diseases they professed to cure4 ,had the minds of men concerned with medical inquiries been really free from antecedent convictions1--blank sheets of paper whereon ,nature could have written down her facts1 which experience might have read and collated1--it is clear enough that good diet1 exercise1 and cleanliness1 and the occasional use of simple preparations of herbs1 would early have constituted the primitive and sound rules of medical science1 to be supplemented1 as time went on1 by discoveries of the therapeutic value of more rare vegetable substances and of a few minerals4 ,never could practical observation1 by any possibility1 have suggested that it would be beneficial to a sick man to make him swallow potable gold or powdered skulls1 or a bolus of decomposed old toads and earth-worms4 ,the un-8scientific use of the imagination0 can alone have dictated these and scores of no less absurd and obnoxious prescriptions1 prompted by some a priori theory of what ought1 antecedently to experience1 to be suitable for the cure of disease1 and 8in accordance with the eternal fitness of things40 ,what1 then1 were the notions in obedience to which these marvellous remedies were ordained8 ,if we exclude from present consideration all the really useful therapeutic agents1 discovered doubtless by genuine experience and recorded by the ancient physicians1 ,galen and ,hippocrates1 ,dioscorides and ,avicenna1 and all the rest1 and also set aside those which1 though not really useful1 might have been readily mistaken for being so by imperfect early observation1 we find the immense residue of absurd and monstrous recipes to fall into two categories2 namely1 the remedies which were exceedingly costly and the remedies which were either very painful or very disgusting4 ,in other words1 a large part of the medical science of all past ages proves that the doctors and their patients valued remedies in proportion to the price to be paid for them1 either in money or in suffering4 ,in short1 they adopted freely the ,doctrine of ,sacrifice as applied to medicine4 ,considering that ,nature nearly always proceeds on precisely the opposite track1--that she does not ask us 8to do some great thing10 but1 like the true prophet1 only bids us 8wash and be clean02 makes the cheapest and commonest things the most wholesome1 and affords us normally1 by our instinctive desire or loathing1 the surest test of the fitness or unfitness of food for our use1--there is something exceedingly curious in the all but universal assumption of mankind that it was only necessary to find something particularly rare and expensive1 or else something extraordinarily revolting1 to obtain a panacea for all the woes of mortality4 ,it was ridiculous 7in the estimation of our forefathers7 to suppose that a great noble or king should dissolve pearls in his drink or swallow liquid gold1 and yet1 forsooth1 be no better after all than a poor wretch who could afford himself only a little milk or water4 ,still more incredible was it that a man should submit to some agonizing scarification or actual cautery1 or should compel himself to bolt some inexpressibly disgusting mess which his doctor had taken a year to concoct and distil through a score of furnaces and retorts1 and yet1 when all was over1 receive no more benefit than if he had endured no hardship1 or had only drunk some cowslip julep or herb tea4 ,such tame and impotent conclusions could not be received for a moment4 ,if patients would only pay enough or suffer enough1 they must be cured4 ,this1 it really seems1 was the underlying conviction of men of old1 on which half the therapeutics of past times were unconsciously based4 ,let us cull a few illustrations of the ingenious development of those principles by the invention of nostrums distinguished by one or other of the grand characteristics1 roughly definable as costliness or nastiness4 ,perhaps1 ere the close of our brief review1 we may find we have less reason than we fancy at starting to congratulate ourselves on the disappearance of this phase of human folly1 or to rest assured that inductive science alone now rules in the sick-room1 and that neither doctors nor patients retain any faith in sacrificial medicine4 ,the use of costly things as remedies for disease constitutes a kind of haute mdecine necessarily of limited application4 ,with the exception of the great search for the ,aurum ,potabile in the ,middle ,ages1 there are much fewer traces of it than of the other form of sacrifice1 in which the patient payait de sa personne4 ,everybody could be scarified or made to swallow worms and filth2 but there were not many patients who could afford to pay for emeralds to tie on their stomachs in cases of dysentery1 as recommended by ,avenzor1 nor for 8eight grains of that noble lunar medicine1 the wine of silver10 nor for 8dissolved pearls10 either of which 7,matthioli assures us7 is 8sovereign against melancholy40 ,dioscorides might in vain recommend powdered sapphires for starting eyes1 or ,st4 ,jerome vaunt their virtues for many other troubles1 to the majority of sufferers in their own or any other age4 ,coral was more within popular reach2 and probably a considerable number of believing souls have followed ,galen's prescription and tried its use for spitting of blood1 and ,pliny's recommendation of it for the stone4 ,avicenna found that a cordial made of it is 8singularly productive of joy02 and ,matthioli says it has 8truly occult virtues against epilepsy10 whether 8hung about the neck or drunk in powders40#bf ,emeralds or rubies1 and even silk 7then a rarer substance in ,europe than now71 afford1 according to ,dioscorides1 relief in a variety of ailments2 but of course nothing could be so generally1 and indeed universally1 useful as gold4 ,he who could discover how to make men actually drink the most costly of metals would teach them nothing less than the secret of immortality4 ,the ,aurum ,potabile1 or noble 8,solar ,oyl10 especially when mixed with the 8,lunar ,oyl0 of silver1 and 8,mercurial ,oyl10 forms1 as ,bolnest assures us1 8a great ,arcanum1 fit to be used in most diseases1 especially in chronick40 ,by itself alone1 indeed1 the drinkable gold was understood to be an elixir of life1--a conclusion not a little remarkable1 when we consider that the only real value of the metal is its convenience as a circulating medium and for the fabrication of ornaments1 and that the artificial importance thus attached to it must have so affected men's minds as to cause them to idealize it as a sort of divine antidote to disease and death4 ,in an earlier and truer-hearted age1 ,paradise was believed to be a garden1 and it was the ,fruit of a ,tree of ,life which would make men live forever4 ,but when1 as ,gibbon satirically observes1 in the dissolution of the ,roman world1 men coveted only a place in the ,celestial ,city of gold and pearl1 the secret of immortality was sought 7not inappropriately7 at the bottom of a ,rosicrucian crucible4 ,there was1 it must be confessed1 a profound vulgarity in this whole system of costly medicine1 which it would be flattering to ourselves to think we had in our day quite overpassed and discarded4 ,but in truth1 though we are not wont to dissolve pearls or powder emeralds or drink solar or even lunar 8,oyl10 it may be fairly asked whether we do not contrive to melt down a handful of sovereigns in every attack of illness to very little better purpose than if we had simply given them to an old alchemist to put in his furnace and make for us an elixir of life8 ,what are these long rows of items in our druggist's bill for draughts1 embrocations1 liniments1 blisters1 gargles1 and what not1 represented1 when the housemaid clears our room for convalescence1 by a whole regiment of quarter-emptied phials and pill-boxes on our table8 ,what are those considerable drafts recorded in our check-book1 not only for the attendance of our customary medical adviser 7which might be reasonable71 but for the visits of the eminent consulting physician1 brought down1 perchance1 fifty or five hundred miles to look at us for five minutes while we lay speechless in our fever8 ,did anybody ever use one-half1 or even one-third1 of the expensive medicines ordered in every illness from the pharmacy day after day8 ,or did anybody find a medical man1 in view of a patient's straitened circumstances1 telling his anxious friends that the remains of the last bottle of his physic would answer as well as a new one1 or that they might readily change it1 by adding a few drops of some fresh ingredient1 instead of ordering another six ounces from the chemist1 to be set aside in its turn1 half used1 to-morrow8 ,or 7what is still more to the purpose7 did anybody ever hear of a case wherein the physician summoned for consultation 7possibly at enormous cost7 has given his honest opinion that the regular medical attendant of the patient has mistaken his case1 and that the treatment ought to be altogether reversed8 ,the same idea has been at the bottom of our proceedings and those of our ancestors which we ridicule2 namely1 that if we do but spend money enough1 a cure must follow4 ,but1 as ,i remarked before1 the notion that costliness of itself is a test of medicinal virtue has been1 necessarily1 far less prolific of results than the kindred idea that by the pain and disgust entailed on a patient might be estimated the value of the remedy applied to his disease4 ,as to disgust1 it would really appear as if some ancient prophets of the healing art1 some ,phbus ,epicurios or sculapius1 must have laid down as a principle for the selection of health-restoring compounds and concoctions1 8,by their nauseousness ye shall know them40 ,else were the recipes for all the hideous1 abominable witch-broths1 wherewith the older books of medicine are replete1 quite unaccountable on any theory of human sanity4 ,many of them 7which weak-souled patients have swallowed by the ounce and the pound7 were of a kind which it is quite impossible to quote2 nor can we wonder that1 as ,plato tells us1 the ,athenian physicians were wont to engage the great rhetorician ,gorgias to accompany them and persuade their patients to take their prescriptions4 ,let the following1 however1 be taken as moderate examples3-- 8,take what ,animal soever thy fancy best liketh1 and thou thinkest most fit to prepare4 ,kill it and take it 7but separate nothing of its impurities1 as feathers1 hoofs1 hairs1 or other heterogeneous substance71 bruise all in a large and strong mortar to a fit consistency1 put it then into a vessel for putrefaction1 and put upon it of the blood of animals of the same kind so much as may well moisten it1 or1 which is better1 cover it all over4 ,shut close the vessel and set it to putrifie1 in fimo equino1 for forty dayes that it may ferment40 7,the result is to be distilled1 calcined1 rectified1 and distilled over again and again1 8seven times to separate its phlegme10 till finally7 8thou hast a pleasant 661 safe1 and noble ,animal ,arcanum to fortifie the animal life1 and restore health and vigor to its languishing spirit1 till ,god doth call for its final dissolution and separation40--,aurora ,chymica1 p4 #f4 ,this was bad enough1 but a great advance 7in the line of sacrifice7 was made when to the mere odiousness1 we may say beastliness1 of the dose per se could be added the horror of eating what had once formed part of a human body1--in short1 of cannibalism4 ,the ordonnances which follow really seem to have a connection with ancient idol-rites of human sacrifice1 and possibly 7had we means of tracing them7 might be fathered on the earliest worshippers of ,hesus or of ,odin4 ,the seasons of the year 7spring and autumn7 wherein the victim must die 7very carefully defined in these prescriptions7 seem to give color to this view4 ,down to the conquest of ,mexico by the ,spaniards1 ,helps tells us1 the ,aztecs used yearly to slay a young man in spring that the nobles might eat his heart as a sort of sacrament4 ,anyway1 it is rather startling to find that just two hundred years ago in ,london the physician in ordinary to the ,king recommended cannibalism to ,englishmen without the smallest apology or hesitation4 ,a ,mummiall ,quintessence4 ,take of the flesh of a sound young man1 dying a natural death about the middle of ,august1 three or four pounds4 ,let the flesh be taken from his thighs or other fleshy parts4 ,put it into a fit glass and pour upon it spirit of wine4 ,let it stand so three or four days4 ,take out the flesh and put it upon a glass plate1 and imbibe it with spirits of salts4 ,let it stand uncovered1 but in the shade1 where no dust or other filth may fall upon it4 ,be sure you often turn it1 and1 being well dried1 you may put it up in a fit jar and keep it for use4--,aurora ,chymica1 chap4 iii4 ,a still more efficacious remedy1 8producing wonderful effects both in preserving and restoring health10 may be obtained by distilling1 filtering1 calcining1 and coagulating this 8,mummiall0 till it have a 8saccharine taste10 when the 8matter may be left of the thickness or consistency of honey1 which must be kept in glass vessels closely shut40 7,ibid41 p4 #h47 ,if the 8sound young man0 should have been killed in the spring instead of in 8the middle of ,august10 the learned ,dr4 ,bolnest is not without a remedy4 ,his flesh is1 indeed1 no longer useful for a 8,mummiall10 but his blood may be made into a 8very high balsam1 exceeding much the powers and virtue of natural balsam2 a potent preservative in time of pestilence1 leprosie1 palsie1 and gout of all sorts40 8,take of such blood a large quantity4 ,gather in glass vessels4 ,let it settle some time till it hath thrown out all its waterish humor1 which separate by wary inclination4 ,take now of this concrete blood five or six pounds1 which put to ten or twelve pints of spirits of wine4 ,shake them well together1 and let it digest six or eight days in warm ashes40 ,distil4 ,add the fixed salt drawn out of the caput mortuum of the blood by 8calcination10 8solution10 8filtration10 8coagulation10 often repeated2 8and what shall remain behind is the ,arcanum of ,blood0 7p4 #aj74 ,when obtained in the manner above described1 this invaluable remedy is 8to be taken in broth or treacle-water with a fasting0 7and let us devoutly hope an unusually vigorous7 8stomach40 ,only one caution is necessary4 ,the 8sound young man's0 blood must have been shed 8when ,mercury was above the horizon and in conjunction with the sun in ,gemini or ,virgo40 ,after the broth of man's blood1 a 8,balsamick ,remedy for ,arthritick ,pains10 composed of the bones of a man 8which hath not been buried fully a year10 beat up into a powder1 calcined1 and applied on lint1 appears a comparatively mild and pleasant receipt4 ,so1 likewise1 is the 8,quintessence of ,toads10 to be composed in the month of ,june or ,july of a 8great quantity of overgrown toads10 reduced1 calcined1 and distilled as usual1 and then 8dissolved in spirit of oranges or treacle-water ready for use10 either externally1 when it cures 8cancers and pestilential venom10 or internally1 against 8all sorts of poison40 ,the above prescriptions are taken1 be it said1 not from the manual of one of those vulgar quacks to whom we are too apt to credit every absurdity of ancient medicine1 but from a serious treatise by ,edward ,bolnest1 physician in ordinary to the ,king 7#afgb71 dedicated to ,george ,duke of ,buckingham1 and described on the title-page as 8,shewing a ,rational 6 ,way of preparing ,animals1 ,vegetables1 and ,minerals for a ,physical ,use1 by which they are made most efficacious1 safe1 and pleasant ,medicines for the ,preservation and ,restoration of the ,life of ,man40 ,how honest was the worthy author in his belief in his 8,mummiall ,quintessence10 and all the rest1 may be judged from his frank avowal 8to the ,reader0 that the medicines prescribed he might 8in some measure in time of need trust to10 because1 adds ,dr4 ,bolnest candidly1 8,i never yet from the best of medicines always found those certain effects ,i could have desired40 ,these were1 however1 refined preparations compared to the prescriptions in use in still earlier generations4 ,in the great folio of ,m4 ,pietro ,andrea ,matthioli 7,venice1 #afba71 adorned with hundreds of really admirable woodcuts of medicinal herbs and flowers1 there are directions for rubbing wounds with cow-dung1 swallowing beeswax1 silk1 sweat1 and saliva1 and drinking hare's blood and dog's dung dissolved in milk as a cure for dysentery4 ,nervous people are to dine on cooked vipers4 ,persons with the toothache are to apply to their teeth a serpent's skin steeped in vinegar1 or to powder the callosities on a horse's legs1 and stuff their ears therewith4 ,a black eye may be treated with a poultice of human milk1 incense1 and the blood of a tortoise4 ,for the not very serious affection of hiccough a beverage is recommended1 of which the chief ingredient is the flesh of a mummy2 thus affording us further evidence that cannibalism survived in medicine1 and was approved by the faculty in ,italy as well as ,england1 down to a very recent period4 ,besides these 8strange meats10 ,matthioli regularly classifies in a table a multitude of what he is pleased to call 8simple medicines10 among which are to be found the bodies1 or parts of bodies1 of wolves1 scorpions1 centipedes1 ostriches1 beavers1 and dogs1 the cast-off skins of serpents1 the horns of unicorns 7when attainable671 the hoofs of asses and goats1 beeswax1 silk1 asphalt1 and several filthy substances which cannot here be named4 ,albertus ,magnus 7vide the curious little black-letter volume1 ,le ,grat ,albert1 in the ,british ,museum7 orders nervous patients to eat eagles' brains1 whereby they may acquire the courage of the king of birds2 while the brains of the owl1 the goat1 the camel1 etc41 convey the peculiar qualities of each of those animals4 ,pliny's great work1 it is needless to say1 is a repertory of marvellous counsels and observations4 ,earth taken out of a human skull acts as a depilatory1 and benefit is derived from chewing plants which have happened to grow in the same unpleasant receptacle4 ,on the principle1 we presume1 of 8,i am not the rose1 but ,i have dwelt near the rose10 herbs growing on a manure heap are found especially efficacious as remedies for quinsy4 ,the hair of man1 taken from a cross1 is good for quartan fevers1 and human ear-wax is the only proper application to a wound occasioned by a human bite4 ,the uses of saliva are numberless1 and fill a whole chapter of the ,natural ,history4 8,fasting spittle10 in particular1 applied to the eyes1 is an infallible cure for ophthalmia1--a remedy which ,persius treats with blameworthy scepticism as an old-womanly practice4 ,in cases where bread has stuck in the throat1 a piece of the same loaf should be inserted in the ears4 ,the use of the fluid which exudes from the pores of the skin is so valuable that 7,pliny assures us7 the owners of the ,grecian gymnasia made a thriving trade by selling the scrapings of the bodies of athletes1 which1 8compounded with oil1 is of an emollient1 calorific1 and expletive nature40 ,if any lady desire to cultivate an interesting and pallid appearance1 she ought to imitate ,drusus1 who drank goats' blood to make it appear that his enemy ,cassius had poisoned him4 ,for melancholy 7an affection which seems to have given great concern to the old doctors71 ,dioscorides recommends black hellebore held in the mouth1--certainly a recipe on homopathic principles1 since a mouthful of hellebore would scarcely naturally serve1 like the ,psalmist's wine and oil1 either to make glad the heart of man or to give him a cheerful countenance4 ,a better remedy for the same melancholy is 8broth of old cock10 our ,scotch friend cockaleekie4 ,for some unexplained reason1 two only among the ills to which flesh is heir1 and they among the most serious1--frenzy and inflammation of the stomach1--seem to have escaped from the dread rgime of ,sacrificial ,medicine1 and indeed are treated with surprising lenity4 ,dioscorides thinks that frenzy can be cured by asparagus and white wine1 and considers that the patient suffering from gastritis should have a plaster of roses applied to the seat of his disease6 ,besides the 8exhibition0 of nauseous and revolting draughts1 boluses1 and pills1 the system of ,sacrificial ,medicine has at all times commanded many other ingenious resources for the creation of unnecessary pain1 trouble1 and annoyance to sick persons and their friends4 ,if1 for example1 a stiff-necked patient were unmanageable in the matter of some particularly disagreeable dose1 he might still be induced to go on vexing nature by some out-of-the-way diet1 and potions repeated at stated intervals1 till faith or life succumbed in the struggle4 ,one old physician1 tius1 in this way prescribed for the gout a separate dietary for every month of a whole year4 ,another1 the great ,alexander of ,tralles1 ordained three hundred and sixty-five potions1 so arranged as to furnish out a course for two years2 whereupon ,dr4 ,friend1 the learned author of the ,history of ,physick1 remarks that 8his receipts were as good as any of those which our new pretenders to physick make use of10 but adds the discouraging dictum1 8,after all1 gout is a distemper with which it were best not to tamper40 ,then there were fearful tortures in the way of excoriations1 of which ,st4 ,john ,long's famous remedy was a notable example1--blisters1 cauteries1 and setons1 too unpleasant to dwell upon4 ,scarification was a comparatively merciful form of these inflictions4 ,it was practised1 according to ,prosper ,albinus 7,hist4 ,phys41 p4 #ag71 in the following agreeable manner3 8,first1 make a strait tight ligature on the leg2 then rub the leg below it1 put it into warm water1 and beat till it swells1 and so scarify06 ,something worse than this was practised down to the present generation in the case of wounds4 ,it is in the writer's recollection that an unhappy groom who had lost a piece of flesh out of the calf of his leg sought assistance after his accident from a motherly old cook1 the medical adviser in ordinary of the whole household4 ,the good woman evidently held the doctrine of ,sacrificial ,medicine deep in her soul1 as well as a due estimate of the utility1 under all circumstances1 of the art of cookery4 ,encouraging the poor young man with suitable reflections on the purifying use of salt and fire1 she accordingly rubbed a handful from her salt-box into the wound1 and then held the miserable limb steadily to the kitchen fire6 ,a bath of blood has been frequently employed to resuscitate exhausted patients4 ,when ,csar ,borgia barely survived swallowing his share of the bottles of poisoned wine which his respectable father1 ,pope ,alexander ,,vi41 had intended for the ,cardinal1 but took by mistake for himself and his son1 it is said that an ox was brought into ,csar's apartments and disembowelled1 to enable him to get into it and receive such vitality as the warm1 bleeding carcass might impart4 ,we are here at the point where ,sacrificial ,medicine assumes the vicarious form1 and the poor brutes are made to suffer instead of the human patients for the benefit of the latter4 ,in an account of the birth of the ,duc de ,bourgogne1 grandson of ,louis ,,xiv41 in the ,curiosits ,historiques 7p4 #dh71 amid the description of the raptures of the splendid court assembled on the occasion1 there is a casual mention of an incident affording a wonderful contrast to all this royal joy and magnificence4 ,the attendant chief accoucheur1 the celebrated ,dr4 ,clement1 to prevent suffering on the part of the mother 7the ,dauphine71 applied to her person the skin of a sheep1 newly flayed4 ,to obtain this quite fresh1 a butcher was engaged to skin the animal alive in the adjoining room2 and1 being anxious to offer the skin as quickly as possible to the doctor1 he carried it into the chamber of the ,dauphine1 leaving the door open4 ,the sheep1 in its agony1 followed him1 and ran in1 bleeding and skinless1 among the shrieking crowd of courtiers and grandees4 ,in modern times1 worse things than these are done to animals1 professedly for the benefit of mankind2 but they are now performed quietly in physiological laboratories1 not paraded in public1 else it is to be believed that even the most selfish among us would cry1 8,hold6 we desire no cure of disease1 no scientific knowledge1 at any such horrible price40 ,yet1 again1 there was a class of ,sacrificial ,remedies whose merit consisted in requiring the patient to travel a long way1 or to apply to some hardly accessible personage1 to obtain relief4 ,there were ,holy ,wells having no medicinal properties whatever1 which cured all the multitudes of people who made long and painful pilgrimages to reach them4 ,more remarkable still were the benefits derived in cases of scrofula from being touched by a king1--a privilege1 it may be safely guessed1 not accorded without some delay and solicitation1 and possibly not without fees to royal attendants1 scarcely disinterested witnesses of the miracles which followed4 ,the history of this particular delusion would alone form a very curious chapter1 since ,archbishop ,bradwardine1 in #acdh1 appealed to the whole world in proof of the wonder1 till ,samuel ,johnson's scarred and mighty head was subjected to the royal touch4 ,when we recall the fact that only in the eighteenth century did a special religious service for the ceremony cease to form a part of the ,liturgy of the ,church of ,england1 we do not seem to ourselves to have yet advanced a great way beyond this harmless superstition4 ,indeed1 it is only in the present generation that the scientific name of the malady has generally superseded its familiar title of the 8,king's ,evil10 or by ellipsis 8the ,evil10 by which it is even now known in remote parts of the country4 ,where it was impossible to obtain help from a king1 there yet remained the possibility of being touched by somebody else1 who might possess some rare and peculiar privilege and fitness for healing disease4 ,the odd malady1 popularly called 8shingles10 for example1 somehow suggested to the sufferers the desirability of having recourse to some special agency of relief2 and this was found in persons who had either themselves eaten the flesh of an eagle1 or whose fathers or ancestors had done so4 ,within the last thirty years1 a gentleman's servant in ,wales has been known to perform a journey of forty miles across the mountains to be touched by a man whose grandfather had eaten an eagle4 ,finally1 there is a large heterogeneous class of prescriptions1 obviously owing their origin to the principle of ,sacrificial ,medicine1 of which the simple rule has been to prevent the miserable patient from adopting any mode of relief for his sufferings which ,nature might point out1 and adding to them fresh pain by any ingenious device which may occur to his physician4 ,of this kind was the treatment of fever in vogue till quite recently1 when the patient was carefully shut up in a close room1 with well-curtained bed and warm bedclothes1 and was prohibited from relieving his thirst with any cold drink4 ,truly1 if ,marcellus ,sidetes1 who is said to have written forty-two books in 8heroic0 verse 8concerning distempers10 had given us a picture of all the misery which must have been occasioned in the world by the really insolent disregard of ,nature and common sense shown in these matters1--how many thousands of lives have been thrown away1 and through what maddening misery the survivors must have struggled back to life1--those poems1 instead of being forgotten by the world1 might have done us precious service by reminding us that there is some counterweight to be placed in the scale wherein we are wont to measure our debts of gratitude to medical science4 ,another appalling device was that of the renowned ,english physician1 ,john of ,gaddesden1 who introduced the practice of treating the small-pox by wrapping up the patient in scarlet1 hanging his room in scarlet1 and in fact compelling him to rest his feverish eyes only on that flaring hue4 ,john tried this notable device1 according to his own showing1 on one of the sons of ,king ,edward ,i4 7it does not appear to which he refers71 and complacently adds to his report1 8et est bona cura40 ,in those days1 however1 doors and windows were not made air-tight1 and up the capacious chimneys a considerable portion of fresh air must always have rushed4 ,it was reserved for a later generation to perfect the ingenious system for aggravating and intensifying fever by pasting down the modern window1 closing the registers1 and 7as a climax7 engaging nurses to lie beside the sufferer to keep up the heat6 ,the writer heard some years ago from the lips of a ,member of ,parliament1 now deceased1 the recital of his own treatment as a boy1 in or near ,london1 under a severe attack of small-pox4 ,his life being specially valuable as that of an only son1 his affectionate parents1 by the advice of a distinguished physician1 obtained the services of two fat women1 who were established permanently in bed on each side of the child during the whole course of the disease6 ,what stipend was offered to tempt these poor obese females to perform this awful service has escaped from the record4 ,reading over all these marvellous prescriptions1 it is a refreshing exercise to picture the fashionable 8leech10 the ,gull or ,jenner of the period1 physician in ordinary to the ,king or ,queen1 suave and solemn1 filled to the brim with all the conscious dignity of ,science1 standing beside the sick-bed of some mighty prince or peer1 and giving to the awe-stricken attendants his high commands to hang the room with scarlet cloth1 or to bring to the patient one of the horrid messes prepared with such infinite pains under his direction1 in his own laboratory4 ,we can almost hear him condescendingly explaining to the chief persons present what occult relationship exists between the small-pox and the scarlet cloth1 or how the ,arcanum of ,toads comes to be specially valuable1 having been composed of the fattest old toads1 selected precisely at the right season1--videlicet midsummer4 ,of course1 in each successive generation there was nothing for the unlearned laity to do but to bow submissively to the dicta of the exponent of ,science as it existed at the time4 ,people may always laugh at what is past and gone2 but to suspect that living men may be mistaken1 or that new systems of medicine1 philosophy1 or theology1 may be destined1 like the old1 to 8have their day and cease to be10 is audacity to which no one should advance4 ,we dare not1 therefore1 suggest that1 to our grandsons1 half our modern nostrums 7of which the fashion comes in freshly one season and usually falls into disrepute a few years after7 may possibly appear scarcely a degree less ridiculous than the ,arcanum of ,toads or the ,mummiall ,quintessence4 ,it was not much worse1 after all1 to make a patient drink a dead man's blood than to rob him of his own1 in the ,sangrado style to which 7in the memory of us all7 the world owes the loss of ,cavour4 ,it would have been a mercy to a poor ,florentine lady1 lately deceased1 had her physician counselled her merely to eat earth-worms pickled in vinegar1 or green lizards boiled alive in oil1 as recommended by ,dr4 ,salmon1 instead of bleeding her from the arm nineteen times in the fortnight following her confinement and 7as may be readily understood7 preceding her untimely death4 ,sacrificial ,medicine1 however1 in its simpler and more easily recognizable forms1 is undoubtedly on the wane1 though a good deal of its spirit may still be traced in our behavior to the sick4 ,to homopathy 7as to many another kind of heresy71 we probably owe somewhat of the mitigation of orthodoxy2 and children1 noticing the busts of ,hahnemann in the shop windows1 may be properly taught to bless that great deliverer who banished from the nursery those huge and hateful mugs of misery1--black founts of so many infantine tears1--mugs of sobs and sighs and gasps and struggles unutterable1 from one of which ,madame ,roland drew the first inspiration of that martyr spirit which led her onward to the guillotine1 when she suffered herself to be whipped six times running1 sooner than swallow the abominable contents4 ,,footnotes3 #bf ,as the modern mind may be a little puzzled as to the mode in which some of these substances can be introduced into our internal economy1 the following extract from the ,family ,dictionary of ,dr4 ,salmon 7#afif7 may throw light on the subject3 8,,coral1 to prepare1--,take such a quantity as ye think convenient4 ,make it into a fine powder by grinding it upon a ,porphyry or an ,iron ,mortar4 ,drop on it by degrees a little rosewater1 and form it into balls for use4 ,after this manner1 ,crabs'-,eyes1 ,pearls1 ,oister shells1 and ,precious stones are prepared to make up ,cordials compounded of them and other suitable materials for the strengthening of the heart in fevers1 or such like violent diseases1 and to restore the ,decays of nature40 ,ebony is swallowed by rasping it in shavings and making a decoction4 ,,the ,,fitness ,,of ,,women ,,for ,,the ,,ministry ,,of ,,religion4 ,among the anomalies of our social state may be counted the fact that1 while it is generally admitted that women are more religious than men1 it is to men that in our age and country the ,ministry of ,religion is 7with infinitesimal exceptions7 exclusively committed4 ,while nine persons out of ten are conscious that their earliest sentiments of piety have been derived from a mother1 and that a sister or a wife has alone enabled the troubled faith of their latter years to survive the shocks of worldliness and doubt1 there is yet not one recognized channel by which these waters of life1 stored in the fountain of women's hearts1 can flow beyond the narrowest borders2 while1 on the contrary1 it is not too much to surmise that to a very large number of clergymen1 well-meaning1 learned1 and conscientious1 the sense of dryness of soul in all that concerns the more spiritual part of their office is a perpetual self-reproach4 ,habitans in ,sicco writes every autumn in the newspapers to complain he can obtain no refreshment from his weekly sermon at any church in his neighborhood1 while around him all the time are private wells and underground rivers of the purest element of feeling for which he thirsts4 ,it is a case of 8,water1 water1 everywhere1 ,but not a drop to drink40 ,what we want first and above all things in our ministers of religion is that they should be intensely religious2 and knowing this1 and that all other gifts and acquirements are comparatively of small avail for the purpose1 we deliberately exclude from the sacred office that moiety of the community among whom this special and most precious grace is1 at all events1 least rare4#bg ,the reasons for this exclusion are1 however1 amply sufficient to account1 historically1 for the anomaly4 ,they are of two kinds1 which ,i shall take leave to characterize as the ,bad and the ,good4 ,there is a very deep-rooted prejudice1 inherited from the ascetics of early ,christianity1 whereby the idea of womanhood is connected with very base associations4 ,it is impossible to ignore this fact in any review of the religious position of the sex2 and it is therefore better to say bluntly that1 from this point of view1 a woman is looked upon rather as an emissary from the pit than a 8daughter of the ,lord ,almighty10 rather a temptation to earthly passion than a helpmate to heavenly purity4 ,springing up when the old classical world had sunk into a corruption and foulness which we can now probably little realize in imagination1 the frenzy of asceticism which was nourished among the deserts of the ,thebaid and attained its full growth in the monasteries of ,greece and ,italy1--the origin of all the legends of which the 8,temptation of ,st4 ,anthony0 is the type1#bh--;has left almost ineffaceable traces throughout the nations of ,europe2 of course much more sharply marked in the ,latin and ,greek ,churches1 which have canonized these poor fanatics1 and still set apotheosized virginity on one of the thrones of heaven1 than among ,protestant communities1 wherein marriage has been always placed on a moral level with celibacy1 and ,martin ,luther has been thoroughly absolved for his conjugal affection for the singularly plain old lady whose portrait by ,lucas ,cranach we beheld some years ago in the ,exhibition of ,old ,masters in ,burlington ,house4#bi ,nevertheless1 even among ,protestant ,christians1 a certain impression has remained1 the reverse of the faith of their old ,teuton forefathers1 that women were nearer to the mind of the ,divinity than men4 ,the highest religious status a woman could attain in ,milton's opinion was a sort of deputy piety1-- 8,he for ,god only1 she for ,god in him02 a type which1 considering the kind of representatives of the ,deity which some of ,adam's descendants have proved to their wives1 is scarcely to be ranked as elevated4 ,the paramount influence of ,st4 ,paul's mind in generating 7as ,rowland ,williams expresses it7 the religious atmosphere which ,protestants breathe1 and the great celibate ,apostle's semi-ascetic feelings about women1 have seemingly counteracted the hereditary predisposition of ,saxondom to reverence them4 ,his treatment of ,marriage 7reproduced in the exordium of the ,solemnization of ,holy ,matrimony in the ,english ,book of ,common ,prayer1 and apparently intended to show how unholy are the sentiments assumed to form the usual basis of that alliance7 has certainly tended to preserve the prestige of ,scriptural dignity and authority for sentiments on such subjects derived from ,southern races and coarser times1 and which might else have died out ere now in ,teutonized ,europe4 ,that1 considering the hysterical behavior of his male converts1 when 8every one hath a psalm1 hath a doctrine1 hath a tongue1 hath a revelation1 hath an interpretation10#cj prudence justified ,st4 ,paul in prohibiting female locutions in public worship may be fully conceded4 ,but the unhappy petrifaction of his current directions1 whereby 7like so many other ,biblical utterances7 they have become laws for all time and every divergency of circumstance1 has been attended with lamentable consequences4 ,no ,jewish law-giver ever bade the ,miriams and ,deborahs1 the ,esthers and ,judiths1 of his race1 8keep silence10 and hide their diminished heads from regard1 to 8the angels10 or to anybody else in or out of temple or camp2 and the consequence has been 7as a very remarkable paper by a ,jewish lady has pointed out7#ca that female patriots1 judges1 and prophetesses have played a noble and conspicuous part through the whole history of ,judaism4 ,but 7not to speak profanely7 ,st4 ,paul has been supposed to act like ,louis ,,xiv41 when he forbade that any more healing wonders should be done at the tomb of the ,abb ,paris3-- 8,de par le ,roi--,dfense a ,dieu1 ,de faire miracle en ce lieu40 ,if it were to please ,providence to inspire a woman with any of the gifts of the prophetic or ministerial offices1 if ever the promise should be fulfilled to the letter that 8your sons and your daughters shall prophesy10 and that the impulse to speak holy words were to seize her in the most natural and appropriate place1 to wit1 in church1 ,st4 ,paul is quoted as authority to check any such irregular and unsuitable proceeding3 8,i suffer not a woman to speak in church40 ,the result has been that1 except among the ,quakers 7who have coolly set the prohibition aside1 and seemingly profited not a little by so doing71 ,christian rivals to the heroines of ,judaism are not producible4 ,during these last eighteen centuries1 among all the millions of women in whose hearts the precepts of ,christ have been sown and borne rich fruit1 there may well have been a few whose eloquence and fervor of piety would have influenced the heart of men as much as a ,st4 ,bernard or a ,peter the ,hermit1 and whose words1 like those of a ,tauler1 a ,fnelon1 or an ,kempis1 would have remained a spiritual treasure for all time4 ,but if such have lived and felt and thought1 and longed perhaps to speak to their fellow-men out of the abundance of their hearts1 their mouths have been effectually stopped4 ,order has reigned in the ,churches so far as they were concerned1 and whatever light they might perchance have borne into the dark places of the earth1 instead of being set on a candlestick1 has been carefully covered up under a bushel4 ,such are1 ,i venture to think1 the bad reasons for the exclusion of women from the ministry4 ,good ones1 however1 are certainly forthcoming1 if perchance1 when weighed in the scale against the arguments in favor of such an innovation1 they prove less heavy4 ,they are drawn from circumstances1 some of which pertain to the order of nature1 and can never be altered2 while others might be1 or are already in process of change4 ,the functions of a minister of religion1 as understood in modern times 7apart from priestly claims to administer sacraments by special divine commission1 with which we need not concern ourselves here71 are1 roughly speaking1 twofold3 #ast1 public prayer and preaching2 and1 #b;d1 pastoral ministrations in the homes of the members of the congregation4 ,regarding the first1 women labor under several disadvantages1 sometimes amounting to disabilities4 ,though women's voices1 when good1 reach farther than those of men1 a considerable number are deficient in the physical vocal power indispensable to make themselves heard in an assembly numbering above one or two hundred persons4 ,nothing would be more pitiable and ridiculous than for one of these ladies1 whatever might be her mental gifts1 to mount a pulpit and1 with feeble voice rising only to crack in an occasional screech1 to attempt to pour forth exhortations which three-fourths of her audience could not hear1 and under which the remainder would writhe in an auditorial purgatory4 ,secondly1 there can be no question that the average female intellect is below the average male intellect1 and consequently that there are fewer women than men up to the mark of intellectual competence1 below which preaching1 however well intended1 and even inspired by genuine and true feeling1 is apt rather to 8give occasion to the enemy to blaspheme0 than to tend to edifying4 ,if the foolish things of the world often confound the wise1 the foolish people in it provoke and distract them2 and1 even to their humblest hearers1 many such well-meaning silly ones would be little else than the blind leading the blind into a ditch4 ,lamentable as it would be to hear a shrill feminine squeak delivering from the desk the majestic periods of ,job and ,isaiah1 it would be doubly deplorable to listen to a thin and only too distinctly audible soprano enouncing alternately from the pulpit platitudes1 ineptitudes1 and blunders1 such as memory recalls only too keenly to many of us as among the severest trials of the domestic circle4 ,a special peril in this matter also lies in the ill-omened circumstance that the greater the folly of the woman1 so much greater1 alas6 is generally to be found her propensity to preach in private1 and therefore1 it may presumably be dreaded1 her proclivity to extend to a larger sphere the benefit of her exhortations4 ,it has been the observation of the present writer1 through a long experience1 that masculine and feminine folly usually differ in this essential particular4 ,a man fool dimly perceives he is a fool1 and holds his tongue accordingly2 or 7if the vanity of his sex prevent him from arriving consciously at any such conviction or conclusion7 he deems that as prudence is the better part of valor1 so is silence the proper garb of wisdom1 and that the less he wastes on an ungrateful world the precious jewels of his ideas1 the more credit shall he have for those supposed to remain in the casket of his mind4 ,a man who talks much is nine times out of ten a clever and brilliant person1 and may possibly be the most profound of thinkers1 who brings out of the inexhaustible treasury of his imagination things new and old4 ,a woman fool1 on the contrary1 usually does not find out1 till she is old and ugly and the habit of silly chatter is irretrievably settled1 that she is a fool at all3 probably for the simple reason that the more folly she talks1 the more delighted her male admirers generally show themselves with her discourse4 ,even if she does not happen to think herself particularly clever or well-informed1 she has been taught to believe that ability in a woman is rather a defect to be concealed than a gift to be exhibited1 and that1 as the sagacious ,chinese proverb has it1 8,the glory of a man is knowledge1 but the glory of a woman is to renounce knowledge40 ,accordingly1 without the slightest reticence or dread of exposure1 she tumbles out of her untidy brain notions as trivial and mesquin as the contents of her own disorderly work-basket1--here a button and there a spangle1 a thimble1 a bit of crochet1 a string of beads1 a tangled skein of silk1 and a little ribbon marked with inches wherewith to measure the universe4 ,the result of this difference in the display of folly is naturally to lend color to a somewhat exaggerated estimate of that surplusage of feebleness and frivolity in the feminine scale1 of the existence of which1 alas6 there can be no doubt1 but which is perhaps less than is supposed out of proportion with the correlative dulness and stupidity in the masculine balance4 ,as the immortal ,mrs4 ,poyser sums up the matter1 8,women are fools4 ,god ,almighty made them so to match the men40 ,thus1 then1 two arguments at least against admitting women to the ministry rest on natural and inevitable grounds3 some women are physically1 some other women mentally1 incapable of adequately fulfilling its duties4 ,and to these adverse reasons others are added by the actual though not inevitable conditions of society4 ,women1 up to the present time1 have been almost indefinitely less well educated than men1 and only their superior quickness and tact prevented this inequality from telling disastrously in common life2 while nothing could hinder it from doing so1 were they to undertake the office of public teachers4 ,by hook or crook1 with little teaching 7and that teaching generally fourth or fifth rate of its kind71 women have managed pretty generally to scrape together and store up in their memories in a happy-go-lucky way a certain quantity of knowledge1 useful and ornamental enough to pass muster4 ,women's culture1 when women are cultivated1 sometimes 7perhaps we may say often7 possesses rather more breadth than that of men1 and includes a good many topics rarely included in the masculine curriculum4 ,it is therefore well suited to furnish pleasure to the possessor and entertainment to her acquaintance and readers2 but the accuracy and definiteness of knowledge which men obtain1 thanks to their much abused classical and mathematical training1 are what every ordinarily educated woman with a grain of sense sighed for1 till the day when the great movement for the ,higher ,education of ,women reared a more fortunate generation4 ,now1 it is clearly highly desirable1 if not absolutely indispensable1 that a person who may be called upon to treat publicly and didactically1 if not controversially--and let us hope and pray that women will not generally take to controversy6--almost every subject in the range of the higher interests of man1 who at least ought not to regard any such interest as foreign ground1 should possess not merely wide1 but accurate information1 and be as far as possible above the liability to commit any gross blunders4 ,this is of course viewing the subject apart from any special theological training such as the older ,churches have deemed almost the first qualification for the ministerial office4 ,even the poor ,capuccini preaching friars1 whose astounding ignorance of profane history and science affords inexhaustible tales of merriment in ,italy1 who talk of 8the great ,st4 ,augustine of ,hippo1 who crowned ,king ,alfred1 who signed ,magna ,charta10 and are wont to indulge in such figures of rhetoric as imaginary sniffs round the pulpit at the smell of the roasting flesh of ,st4 ,lawrence on his gridiron1--even these poor old fellows have received adequate instruction in the doctrines1 the legends1 and the moral and penitential systems of their ,church4 ,proverbially ignorant as are the ,greek ,popes and the ,nestorian1 ,coptic1 and ,maronite priests1 they1 too1 are perfectly well 8up0 in all those recondite dogmas which are supposed to be their peculiar concern1 and can tell with unerring certainty whether the ,second ,divine ,person had two natures or two wills1 or only one of each1 or whether the ,third positively proceeded from the ,first only1 according to ,greek orthodoxy1 or from the ,first and ,second1 according to that of ,rome and ,canterbury4 ,nearer home1 of course1 theological education is a wider and more serious matter4 ,if young priests at ,maynooth are taught the astronomical system which makes the sun go round the earth1 and the moral system of ,peter ,dens1 which is nearly as completely the reverse of truth1 they still receive an enormous amount of something which goes by the name of instruction1 and in the matters of scholastic theology and casuistry are probably qualified to beat a great many eminent ,d4,d4's of ,oxford and ,cambridge4 ,here in ,england1 and in ,scotland also1 every ,church1 ,established and ,dissenting1 has its college or colleges for training its clergy1 either apart from or together with students intended for lay professions2 and1 without the degree or certificate afforded by such institution1 the entry into the ministry is barred4 ,christendom1 in short1 has1 like ,judaism1 its 8,schools of the ,prophets02 and nobody is invited to prophesy1 even if he be pious and gifted as ,john ,bunyan1 who has not passed through them and learned his lesson4 ,the necessity for this theological training1 so far as it concerns the insurance of orthodox doctrine from the acolyte when he becomes a preacher1 of course falls to the ground when we contemplate an order of things quite outside the orthodox churches1 and such as it is not to be anticipated they will sanction for many a day4 ,our female preacher is by the hypothesis1 for the present at all events1 either quite irregularly connected with the orthodox sects1 a ,minister ,unattached or ,amateur ,pastor 7and some such there are at this moment doing a vast deal of good work1 e4g41 ,miss ,catherine ,marsh and the sister of ,mr4 ,spurgeon72 or if ever officially recognized1 and a professional minister1 then as belonging to some heterodox communion1 such as the ,salvation ,army2 or those in ,america1 which profit by the services of the ,rev4 ,phbe ,hanaford1 the ,rev4 ,antoinette ,brown1 and the late ,rev4 ,celia ,burleigh2 and the ,unitarian congregation at ,melbourne1 which honored itself by choosing for their pastor ,martha ,turner1 a lady whose great abilities and noble spiritual feeling seem to me to hold out the very example we seek of what a woman in the pulpit may and ought to be4#cb ,no necessity exists compelling a female preacher who enlists under the banner of religious freedom to undergo the particular mental drill which qualifies the ,romanist or ,anglo-,catholic clergyman for the performance of all the peculiar intellectual labors and combats necessary to his office1 and included in the duty of honestly believing exactly all which his ,church believes1 and being equipped to do battle with anybody who believes anything less or anything more4 ,but is there on this account less reason that the candidate for another kind of ministry should undertake less severe studies and go through a less complete mental training than the embryo priest1 ,latin or ,anglican8 ,the reverse has been most wisely maintained by the ,unitarian body in this country1 whose scheme of theological culture 7if the present writer may presume to estimate it7 is wider and deeper than that which is demanded to qualify the possessor for the ,see of ,canterbury4 ,the teacher of religion who is to be something more than the expounder of a ready-prepared catechism1--who is to lead his flock not merely into one particular paddock1 and to water them exclusively at one particular pond1 but into every field of sweet and wholesome herbage1 and beside every stream of living waters1--whose duty it will be to pluck up the cruel brambles1 and clear away the piles of stones of doubts and difficulties which grow and are flung by careless hands along the path of faith and life1--such a teacher ought to be furnished with every aid which learning can offer4 ,above all1 ,i should hold that a woman who should venture to assume this high and arduous task specially needs such equipment1 since1 for a long time to come1 she must expect to be more than others the mark of question and criticism2 and the very eagerness of her own mind may 7unless weighted by solid erudition7 carry her more quickly and more remotely astray4 ,every one must have noticed how there are some persons full of originality and mother-wit1 who continually fancy they are making fresh observations and theories1 while their next neighbor1 who has never had an idea properly his own1 can tell them off on his fingers what ancient sage first made their observation1 and when and by whom in the ,middle ,ages their theory was broached1 and how it was refuted and abandoned by all thinking people several centuries ago4 ,the merely original man makes himself ridiculous for want of learning1 and is1 in fact1 always beginning de novo at the bottom of the ladder of human thought4 ,the mere scholar is nothing better than a ,conversations-,lexicon1 and never exercises any influence except that of a useful drag on the ideas of his friends when they are going down-hill4 ,the true teacher must indispensably combine both the gift of originality and the acquirement of such stores of knowledge as shall enable him to trace doctrines and hypotheses to their sources1--to know what has been said for and against them by the greater thinkers of the world who have dealt with them1--and1 in a word1 to know exactly how far he is or is not a heretic1 and not be 7as is the commonest of cases7 a heinous heretic while he believes himself strictly orthodox1 and strictly orthodox and even commonplace when he enunciates what he fondly conceives to be a bold and startling heresy4 ,all this applies 7for reasons too obvious to need animadversion7 pre-eminently to teachers of the more impulsive sex4 ,accordingly1 we must admit that the argument against female ministers of religion1 founded on the lower educational status of women at present1 is1 so far as it goes1 perfectly valid4 ,lastly1 there is an argument which ,i imagine would half-consciously influence many serious-minded people against the admission of women to such an office4 ,women are 7thanks to all sorts of causes1 historical1 political1 personal1 with which we need not concern ourselves7 actually much deconsidered by men4 ,would not their deconsideration be reflected on ,religion itself1 were they to become its authorized ministers8 ,with enormous labor1 the ,broad ,church school has been trying to efface the stamp of effeminacy from their order1 to cultivate 8muscular ,christianity10 and make laymen of the order of the author of ,sword and ,gown remember that a priest is not necessarily an old woman4 ,if many women1 old or young1 enter the ministry1 will not this effort to redeem the character of the order be entirely thrown away1 and the impression become quite ineffaceable that ,manliness and ,godliness are two orbs always seen in opposition1 and never in conjunction8 ,i confess ,i should feel such a fear as this to form a very cogent argument1 were it altogether well founded4 ,let us now1 before attempting to discuss the possible advantages to be set against all these objections to the religious ministry of women1 briefly run back over the heads we have passed1 and see if there be not some answer to each objection1 or at least some hope that its force might with time and care be neutralized4 ,first1 there was noticed the ascetic feeling1 inherited from the old monks1 of the essential unholiness of women1 and their consequent unworthiness to meddle with sacred things4 ,this idea has probably occurred for the first time to many an ,english lady when she has penetrated by chance into some hallowed precinct1 some tempting and shadowy cloister1 of a monastery in ,italy or ,syria1 and has been driven out tumultuously by a whole flock of cowled and sandalled brethren1 cackling like so many geese at the intrusion of a cat into a hen-house4 ,perhaps1 as at ,vallombrosa among the ,apennines1 or ,st4 ,saba in the desert1 she has seen the gentlemen of her party courteously received and comfortably lodged within the noble walls of the convent1 while she has been left to such nocturnal repose as might be found in a flea-haunted pavilion outside1 or in her tent pitched in a valley of centipedes4 ,she has been accustomed to think of women generally as of the types common in decent ,english society1 a little strait-laced1 or perhaps a little 8gushing10 as the case may be2 and she has very honestly taken it for granted that1 if there be any serious harm in the world1 it is the opposite sex who are principally to blame4 ,suddenly1 it is revealed to her that1 by a large number of her fellow-creatures1 she herself and all her female belongings1--her eminently respectable governesses1 the ,misses ,prunes and ,prism2 her dear old grandmother1 ,mrs4 ,goody-,good2 and her majestic aunt1 ,lady ,bountiful1--all are looked upon as little better than so many ,succubi of ,satan1 sent to lure the souls of those ridiculous old monks to destruction4 ,the shock has not rarely produced a peal of ungovernable laughter such as those hoary cloisters had never echoed ere profane ,saxon ,balmorals trod their pavement2 but1 when la pazza ,signorina ,inglese has retired to her hotel or her tent1 she finds that a new and very unpleasant light has been thrown on matters whereon she had never reflected before4 ,modern ,english ,ritualism and ,monasticism are doing their best1 in more ways than need now be specified1 to introduce into ,english life these ,oriental and gross ideas about women1 that pseudo-purity which is most impure4 ,in so far as they prevail1 they will do us an injury quite incalculable4 ,needless to say that1 to people trained in such a school1 a female minister of religion would be a monstrous thing4 ,almost as well might the creature trill out the melodies of ,la ,traviata or ,la ,grande ,duchesse1 or perform her part in a ballet in the costume of a sylph6 ,the view of womanhood taken by these ultra-sanctified persons and by the most cynical and profligate old rous is practically the same4 ,surely1 it is to be hoped that all this worse than folly will be swept away in the blast of public impatience and indignation which sooner or later must burst1 like a breath of wholesome autumn storm1 through the incense-laden atmosphere of ,ritualism1 and consign to the four winds all its trumpery of millinery1 chandlery1 and upholstery1 and the thoroughly base and materialistic ideas which have come in along with them6 ,secondly1 among the bad reasons for the exclusion of women from the pulpit1 we have referred to ,st4 ,paul's dictum1 8,i suffer not a woman to speak in church40 ,whatever high degree of human wisdom we must all attribute to the greatest of the apostles1 or even divine authority1 as the orthodox hypothesis of inspiration would give to his words1 there is absolutely no ground at all for the assumption that1 because he forbade women to affront public opprobrium by preaching when women lived habitually shut up1 each in her gynaeceum1 he would1 likewise have forbidden them to offer religious exhortations in a sacred place1 when public sentiment has become reconciled to their appearance in the streets1 on the stage1 in the lecture-room1 and even on the platform4 ,the coolness1 indeed1 wherewith the most orthodox persons always do practically take for granted that ,scriptural precepts1 however rigid in form and seemingly intended by their authors for perpetual observance1 are to be set aside without scruple1 as applying to a bygone state of things1 when they do not chime in with their own inclinations and prejudices1 is only to be paralleled by the tenacity wherewith they maintain their authority under every vicissitude1 when they happen to coincide with them4 ,let any one who quotes ,st4 ,paul's incidental remark about women speaking in church be called on to avow how far he has taken to heart the solemn decree issued in the ,encyclical ,letter of the one great ,council of the assembled apostles1 in the awfully mysterious words1 8,it seemed good unto the ,holy ,ghost and to us0 7as if these were two separate opinions7 8to lay upon you 7the ,gentile world7 no greater burden than these necessary things1--to abstain from meats offered to idols1 444 and from things strangled1 and from blood40 ,lives there a modern ,christian whose conscience would in the smallest degree be troubled by taking the rice and ghee from a ,hindu temple1 eating a rabbit strangled in a snare1 or partaking of a black-pudding or a ,bologna sausage8 ,passing now to the more reasonable reasons against admitting women to the ministry1--the natural and incurable disabilities1 physical and mental1 under which not a few of them labor1--the answer comes at once to hand4 ,those among them who are unfitted for the office must not undertake it1 any more than dumb or stuttering or imbecile men4 ,there is no more difficulty in exclusion in one case than in the other1 though there may be a few more persons necessarily excluded4 ,as to education1 the case is much more serious4 ,certainly1 unless women can receive the same solid and extensive training as male theological students 7rather more strict and rigid than less so71 to make up for what may have been wanting of exactness in their girlish school-room education1 the appearance in our pulpits of a number of female heads lightly stored with learning or logic would be to the last degree ill-omened4 ,but is there the smallest necessity why this should be8 ,if the desire of a woman to devote herself to religious work were of any depth or worth consideration1 she would not only be willing1 but crave1 to pass through the severest studies1 to fit herself to the utmost of her abilities for so high and sacred a task2 and it is no longer an hypothesis1 but a demonstrated fact1 that if women choose to study and have the fair opportunity of doing so1 there are not a few of them capable at all events of attaining to those levels whereon men of the learned professions habitually take their stand4 ,if a few fickle or weak-minded women were to enter as students such an institution1 let us say1 as ,manchester ,new ,college1 they would be very speedily 8choked off10 and no more harm would be done than by the scores of youths 8plucked0 at ,oxford and ,cambridge1 and led to change their programme of life4 ,those women1 on the contrary1 who should pass successfully through such an intellectual and moral sieve1 might thenceforth be very safely trusted4 ,again3 the fear that ,religion itself might come to be deconsidered1 as a result of the deconsideration of the sex of its ministers1 must prove groundless1 if1 instead of bringing a fresh element of weakness into preaching and prayer1 it should prove that 7as ,i shall hope presently to show7 women are likely to pour a new stream of life into what has so often become dry and unprofitable4 ,after all1 the inner heart of humanity honors in its very core spiritual graces1 over the physical1 the intellectual1 and even the moral4 ,not the conquerors1 not the philosophers1 not even those who have displayed most virtue apart from religion1 have been adored and deified among men1 but the prophets and saints who have ascended the mountain-peaks of ,prayer and thrown open the windows of ,heaven4 ,now1 as we look back over the ,christian centuries during which the spiritual1 ,god-loving1 anti-carnal impulse sent forth from ,juda has passed on1 transmitted in waves of emotion from age to age and land to land1 does it not seem probable that among those who have received it most fully1 and might have helped its transmission most effectually1 there have been thousands of women8 ,in effect1 history notoriously shows that1 in the apostolic time and at the period of the conversion of ,europe1 at least half the work achieved was due to the ardor wherewith noble ladies not a few took up the task of introducing and disseminating ,christian ideas through courts and camps4 ,but1 when the age for this kind of female patronage was over1 the powers of women to aid the cause which so many of them have had next to their innermost hearts have been narrowed within the walls of the home or even of the cloister4 ,i do not doubt that this home influence of women has indeed been incalculably great and beneficent4 ,it is hard to conceive what would be the sort of religion remaining in an island colonized by men only1 and with a population recruited only by boys too young to remember a mother's care4 ,the chances might lie between a society of ,trappists1 or a herd such as the gold-diggers of a 8,roaring ,camp0 in a ,californian gulch4 ,but1 because the religious influence of women in their homes has been inestimably beneficial1 is it1 ,i ask1 any reason for resting satisfied that they should exercise no such influence outside their doors8 ,surely there might have been prevision of just such a state of things as has existed now for more than a thousand years in ,christendom1 in the warning of the great ,founder of ,christianity that a light 7when we are so happy as to possess a light7 should be set on a candlestick and not under a bushel4 ,if ever the time comes when the spiritual home influence of women is allowed to radiate into the outer circle of public life1 there is every reason to believe that the inestimable element of spirituality will make itself felt1 touching the hearts of men with new softness1 awakening their consciences with the power of mother-like gentleness1 and inspiring quite a new reverence1 alike for women and for religion4 8,ah60 it will be said1 8this is all very well1 if women should1 by some happy chance1 succeed well as preachers and ministers4 ,if1 on the contrary1 they fail1 and make a miserable fiasco of their attempt1 what ridicule will they not draw on the most sacred things6 ,is it wise1 is it allowable1 to incur such a risk80 ,feeling a good deal of sympathy with such an alarm as this1 having a terror 7possibly exaggerated7 of some day undergoing the frightful experience of listening1 in a place of worship from which ,i could not decently escape1 to the ignorant1 shallow1 dogmatic folly which it has been my occasional penance to hear from women elsewhere1 and which has1 undoubtedly1 a character of its own still more ignorant1 more shallow1 and more dogmatic than any folly commonly to be heard from men1 ,i here humbly confess that for many years such a possibility has with me almost outweighed the actual probability that women would in general fulfil the duties of the ministry exceptionally well4 ,but longer reflection has tended much to remove my fears1 while it has strengthened my hopes4 ,in the first place1 ,i look with extreme confidence to such a sifting process as a good theological college course would inevitably effect1 to exclude from concurrence all the frivolous1 the half-hearted1 the weak-minded1--all those women1 in short1 who should not prove capable of strong and steady mental labor1 and willing to undergo it for several consecutive years4 ,from such as should pass triumphantly through an ordeal of this kind1 nothing very outrageous in the way of folly or contemptible in the way of feminine 8twaddle0 would need to be apprehended4 ,and1 again1 there is a second and very satisfactory ground for reassurance4 ,female ministers will certainly not 7at all events for a very long time to come7 be appointed to lecture us by any despotic authority4 ,they cannot1 indeed1 be ministers at all1 unless some of us distinctly desire them to minister for our particular benefit4 ,by a happy decree of fate1 it takes at least two or three persons at any time to form a congregation4 ,there must be the hearers of the discourse as well as the speaker2 and1 as even the sternest sticklers for the rights of women are not likely to proceed so far as to demand compulsory attendance at female preachments1 there will always remain open a door of hope and refuge whereby the oppressed may go free4 ,the same argument applies in this case as to the everlastingly reproduced fallacy about the franchise2 namely1 that1 if their political disabilities be removed1 women will invade the benches of ,st4 ,stephen's4 ,as nobody can ever be elected an ,m4,p41 unless he or she find a majority of some constituency to choose him or her as the best candidate1 so neither can anybody become a minister in one of the free churches1 unless he or she find a congregation ready to 8sit under0 him or her1 as a tolerable preacher4 ,in either case1 the woman who could so singularly impress the majority of electors#cc or of parishioners with the conviction of her supreme fitness as to induce them to choose her for the political or religious office would be1 undoubtedly1 so very remarkable a person that it would be ten thousand pities the world should be deprived of her services4 ,let us now turn to the other side of the shield4 ,having discussed the validity of the arguments against the admission of women to the ministry1 let us see what is to be said directly in favor of such an innovation4 ,in the first place1 it is obvious that women have certain special aptitudes and qualifications 7as well as the above-named inaptitudes7 for such an office4 ,we have been hitherto speaking as if the work of a minister lay almost exclusively in the pulpit and reading-desk2 but we must remember that a very large and very important part of it lies also in the homes of the members of the congregation1 in the hour of their sorrows and difficulties1 their sicknesses1 doubts1 repentances1 death4 ,can any one doubt that the tender and ready sympathies of women1 and their superior tact and discernment of character1 their natural tendency to soothe and exhort rather than to upbraid or threaten1 are qualities more valuable for such service than any which men1 however pious1 well-meaning1 and learned in casuistry1 usually bring to such tasks8 ,as a matter of fact1 women do1 instinctively1 perform the office of ministering angels on these occasions all over the land1 without waiting for any license or consecration2 while many of the best of the clergy either suffer all their days from unconquerable shyness and the sense of their own want of tact1 or run speedily into the ruts of professional consolations and exhortations in formal phraseology1 meaning little or nothing to speaker or hearer4 ,of all the irritating--,i might say maddening--things in human life1 there is nothing worse than to be addressed in the hour of mortal agony and despair1 when our hearts1 riven to the core1 could scarcely bear an angel's touch1 by a smug1 self-satisfied personage1 who inflicts on us his cut-and-dried consolations and exhortations to perfect quiescence and cheerful resignation2 all the time revealing1 by every word and gesture1 how utterly incapable he is of comprehending even the shadow of our grief4 ,it would be difficult to estimate how many people 7especially the intelligent men of the humbler classes1 who are the principal victims of these tormentors71--men who would have suffered themselves to be led with childlike submission by any wise and loving hand1 even through the wicket-gate of prayer and repentance1 to the heavenly way1--have been1 on the contrary1 goaded by tactless parsons into hardness and rebellion4 ,it is real1 genuine1 spontaneous sympathy which alone can authorize any one to approach the sacred borders of a great sorrow4 ,can any one doubt that women would1 as a general rule1 feel this more tenderly1 more genuinely than men8 ,the fear would be that the strain on the heart of a good woman1 minister of a large congregation1 would be so great as very sensibly to tell upon health and life4 ,further1 outside the region of sentiment1 and even in the intellectual way1 so far as it concerns social influence1 a woman has special facilities4 ,if she have extensive knowledge 7and ,i am presuming she will have acquired a good deal before entering the ministry71 it will generally be more ready to hand than that of a man4 ,her humor1 if she possesses a grain of that precious quality1 will have the great advantage1 in all wordy skirmishing1 of being playful1 quick as lightning1 and always at command1--not like the ponderous satire which takes an hour to get out of its sheath1 or the peculiarly masculine type of wit which the owner-- 8,beareth not about1 ,as if afraid to use it out1 ,except on holidays or so1 ,as men their best apparel do40 ,her logic--if by happy circumstance she has really trained her mind to work logically--will not lose the famous feminine faculty for springing to the top of the stairs while the man is steadily walking up the steps1 because she has acquired the power of recognizing whether she be on the right landing or the wrong4 ,regarding the rhetorical faculties of women1 ,i may first remark that1 by a well-known law of acoustics1 a female voice will1 if equally strong1 reach further and be audible more clearly at a distance than that of a man2 and1 for some kinds of eloquence1 at all events1 its softer and purer tones will probably find their way most easily to the heart4 ,what her actual powers of oratory may be is one of the problems of the future2 but the experience of feminine public speaking during the last few years seems to point to a curious but not inexplicable fact1--namely1 that1 given the same ideas1 a woman will generally express them more easily than a man1 at least than an ,englishman4 ,this gift of facile and appropriate expression is obviously one dependent on a special faculty of the brain 7the loss of which constitutes aphasia71 and is very variously distributed among races1 and also1 ,i think1 between the sexes4 ,oratory1 which is dependent upon it for its machinery1 as a pianist on his fingering1 is proverbially rare among men of our nation1 though1 when it does exist1 it seems to reach sometimes to the climax of power and grandeur4 ,englishwomen1 on the contrary 7so far as we yet may guess71 possess more often the ready-wordedness1 the fluency and verve of speech1 of the ,celt or the ,italian4 ,either the feminine nervous temperament is favorable to this faculty1 or 7as ,i would rather imagine to be the case7 the root of the difference lies in the region of sentiment1 and women speak more fluently because they are more apt to be carried away by interest in their subject or sympathy with their audience4 ,the dread of making himself ridiculous by stammering1 by talking injudiciously1 or making a mistake of any kind1 is so deeply ingrained in the mind of the ordinary ,english gentleman that1 if one--not a barrister or clergyman1 and consequently not inured to the sound of his own voice--be called on suddenly to return thanks at a wedding-breakfast1 he will1 nine times out of ten1 stutter and hum-and-haw1 and1 after putting every one on thorns1 will end by making some extraordinarily malapropos joke1 like the celebrated one of ,lord ,feenix in ,dombey and ,son4 ,or1 if he be aware overnight that he will be called on to address his own tenants on the morrow1 his slumbers will be considerably less sound than if he had been warned he must go out and fight a duel at sixteen paces4 ,as to an ,englishman taking kindly to public speaking when advanced in life1 so miraculous an event1 ,i believe1 is scarcely on record4 ,nearly the contrary of all this holds true as regards women4 ,those among them who are willing to speak in public seem to be carried away the moment they begin by feelings which leave little room for self-reflection1 whatever pangs of shyness and diffidence they may have endured beforehand4#cd ,but is it not very superfluous to expatiate on the special gifts of speech assigned by nature to womankind1 since in all ages their proneness to over-exert them has been the theme of jest and satire1 and at no very remote date hostelries were adorned by the sign of the 8,good ,woman10 meaning a woman with no tongue2 penal laws were in force against the creature 7now happily classified among the ,extinct ,mammalia71 the ,common ,scold2 and even tombstones were enlivened by a sort of dig at the sleeper beneath1 as in the case of the celebrated ,arabella ,young1 whose death is specified as the date when she 8began to hold her tongue08 ,perhaps it is not unjust to entertain the suspicion that masculine wit may sometimes have proved rather tardy in parrying the thrusts of that 8little member10 which we all know is sharpened in so terrible a furnace1 and that the ponderous sarcasms recorded against its misuse may be likened to the boulder-stones thrown by ,polyphemus after the retreating and exultant ,greeks4 ,joke or no joke1 it is quite certain that women are even exceptionally endowed with several1 if not all1 of the qualities necessary to oratory4 ,the originality and depth of their ideas and the culture they have received may in many cases be open questions2 but there can be no doubt at all that1 when they have got the ideas1 they will find out remarkably well how to express them4 ,it is time now to pass to the graver part of our subject1--the value which may attach to women's thoughts about ,religion2 for1 if that value be trifling1 it will be all the more unfortunate1 should they possess any facilities for imposing them upon us by wordy fluency1--that 8fatal fluency0 which the best men in ,america have deplored as among the gifts of their countrymen4 ,thoughts of the class which are properly expressed in pulpits are1 of course1 of various kinds4 ,there are thoughts which are purely reflections and speculations of the intellect on critical and philosophical problems1 and which an able lawyer1 an acute critic1 or a profound metaphysician can make as well1 or better1 than a prophet or a saint2 nay1 in which a ,mephistopheles might excel a ,tauler4 ,it is no doubt sometimes necessary 7though surely by no means so frequently as some preachers seem to take for granted7 to offer thoughts of this class to a congregation1 and1 in short1 to read out in church an article which minus the text might have appeared in a ,review4 ,if it be a very lofty and religious mind from which such thoughts emanate1 they will of course possess an elevating power proportioned to the momentum of such a mind brought to bear on ordinary intellects4 ,to be lifted by sermons of this class into the serene and purified atmosphere of noble speculation will of itself effect a quasi-religious result1 independently of any conviction of theological truths which may or may not be brought away4 ,the hearers who have followed for half an hour the upward flight of one of these eagle souls will return to the petty concerns1 interests1 pleasures1 anxieties of common life1 calmed and ennobled1 and able to see all things in more just proportions4 ,on the other hand1 if the preacher be merely a clever critic or metaphysician1 who deals with sacred themes as a counsel with the case in his brief1 the result of his sermons1 however brilliant and interesting they may be found by an intellectual audience1 and triumphantly satisfactory to those who find their cherished opinions clinched by his arguments1 will be the reverse of religious4 ,the listeners will go away1 not awed and calmed1 but eager for controversy and confirmed in self-confidence1 having lost any benefit which they might have derived from the previous acts of worship4 ,they have been made to rise from their knees to sit down instantly in the seat of the critical1 always very closely contiguous to that of the scornful4 ,of this intellectual and theoretical class of sermons it is not to be anticipated that women will preach many4 ,i should rather say that one of the good things which may be hoped from the introduction of women into the ministry may prove to be the falling out of fashion of a class of discourses which can only be beneficial or desirable in the case of exceptional mental greatness1 combined with a piety warm and powerful enough to hallow every region of thought into which it may pass4 ,again1 there is an order of thought more practical than this1 and surely more suitable to form the sequel of a service of prayer2 namely1 ideas concerning duty in all its forms1 religious1 social1 and personal4 ,it is amazing1 considering the place which ,christianity in every phase assigns to obedience to the will of ,god1 how exceedingly small a space lessons and discussions concerning what is that ,divine ,will1 as regards every-day conduct1 ever take in ,christian instruction4 ,we are eternally exhorted to repent2 but what are the sins and failures which ought to be included in our penitence1 few preachers take the pains to inform us4 ,we are exhorted to 8renounce the devil and all his works02 but what those 8works0 may be1 as distinguished from works of righteousness in the shop1 the camp1 the bar1 the exchange1 the interior of our homes1 we are left to find out for ourselves4 ,sermons treating carefully and thoughtfully any subject of the kind are among the most rare of clerical addresses4 ,bishop ,south confesses1 indeed1 that two-thirds of ,christianity are a ,christian temper4 ,but how many times have any of us heard rebuked from the pulpit that odious sullenness which makes the unhappy inmates of the same home with the sulky person live in a perpetual ,november1 or yet the despotic violence and anger which threaten them like a perpetual thunder-storm brewing in the distance8 ,what master of a household is told1 by the only man who dare tell him1 that his tyranny1 his harshness1 perhaps his cruelty1 exercised hourly on wife or child or any luckless dependant1 make up a sum total of misery to them and of offence on his part1 worse than the results of many a sudden crime1 and certainly involving no less guilt8 ,what wife and mother is told that her selfishness1 her bickerings1 her discontent1 her spitefulnesses1 are sins for which no prate of high religious feeling or incessant fussing about church-going can possibly atone8 ,and1 again1 as regards other offences1--let us say1 lying and dishonesty1--when have we heard wise and just definitions of them from our pastors1 or fitting exhortations to nobler standards of veracity and probity than are common in the world8 ,in the upper classes of society1 a certain slipshod rule of thumb on these subjects is pretty generally received4 ,but where did we learn it8 ,certainly not when we occupied our seats in church1 but rather at the dinner-table1 in the playground at school1 at the club1 or in the drawing-room4 ,among the lower ranks1 where this traditional code1 of honor rather than of morality1 does not hold equal sway1 the ignorance which prevails concerning the very rudimentary principles of truth and probity is often no less startling than deplorable4 ,the neglect of the clergy of all denominations to draw clear definitions on these matters of hourly concern1 so that their flocks may at least know what is right1 supposing they are so fortunate as to be able to inspire them with a resolution to do it when known1 is of a piece with the indifference of all the churches to moral heresies of the most soul-debasing kind1 while they punish to the utmost of their powers the faintest divergence from theological orthodoxy4 ,i cannot but think that1 if women now enter the pulpit1 a great many more sermons will be preached dealing with these points of practical ethics4 ,the concrete and the personal will probably always possess keener interest for the majority of women than the abstract1 the vague and the universal2 and there is1 moreover1 if ,i mistake not1 a very distinct superiority in the womanly propensity to translate ideas into action1 over the man-of-the-world habit of admitting high and rigid principles in theory1 while practising quite other rules in commerce1 politics1 and social affairs4 ,a very eminent thinker and scholar1 a leader of thought at ,oxford1 once remarked to me with characteristic simplicity1 8,i do not know how to account for the fact1 but ,i notice that1 when a good woman is convinced that something is true or right1 she tries immediately in some way to square her beliefs and conduct accordingly2 whereas when ,i have1 perhaps by infinite labor1 succeeded in convincing a man of the same thing1 he goes on just as he did before1 without altering his behavior a jot1 and as if nothing had happened60 ,now1 ,i think this practical tendency of the feminine nature 7though it will perhaps be less marked hereafter when women submit more generally to the friction of contact with many minds7 will inevitably show itself in a preference for the inculcation of definite duties rather than for the vague declamations about repentance and regeneration which so often leave their hearers perfectly undisturbed and on the high way 7as they think7 to heaven1 leading lives of odious selfishness1 and combining profit and piety after the fashion of the celebrated grocer1 8,sand the sugar1 ,john--and then come in to prayers40 ,it has been often remarked that the most profound difference between modern and classical civilization lies in the contrast between the value attached by each to private morals4 ,the virtue of the individual was of old treated as altogether subordinate in importance to the interests of the ,state4 ,in our time1 we have almost come to recognize that states and churches--nay1 society itself--exist for the sake of building up individual souls to their perfection2 and there is every reason to expect that this sense of the supreme importance of morals over every other human concern will rather increase than dwindle through all time to come4 ,now1 it would certainly appear that this ,hebraism1 as ,mr4 ,arnold calls it1 is rather characteristic of the higher sort of women4 ,the moment a woman rises above the passion for personal admiration and the struggle for petty social ambition or sordid matrimonial scheming1 to which so large a number of unhappy ones are trained and consigned from girlhood1 on the principle of 8keeping women in their proper sphere10--the moment1 ,i say1 that a woman has been lifted by education or her natural force of character above all this frivolity and baseness1 we almost invariably find in her a degree of earnestness about ethical and ethico-religious questions which is far more rarely traceable among men4 ,it is true that her exclusion from a great many fields of masculine interest naturally centres her thoughts more on such subjects1 and that1 when those exclusions are more or less removed1 we must expect to see more frequently women absorbed in the same worldly interests as men1 and perhaps some who now think night and day of a ball will be equally eager about a bill in ,parliament4 ,still1 ,i believe that1 independently of circumstances1 women have a special tendency 7as ,renan avers of the ,celtic race7 to 8long after the infinite10 and to yearn to bring an element of sacredness and nobleness into the transactions of daily life such as their moral aspect alone affords4 ,i believe that nine women out of ten 7of the better sort1 of whom ,i have spoken7 would1 if they had the choice1 oftener speak of duty and religion than of any other themes4#ce ,if this be so1 it would follow that1 as time goes on1 instead of women falling behind in the progress of humanity1 that progress will constantly tend to bring women more to the front as students and expounders of morality4 ,there is another aspect of this matter also1 which fairly deserves consideration4 ,many good ,christians have remarked that1 while they would fain take ,jesus ,christ as their 8,great ,exemplar10 they find nothing in his life indicating what his example would have been in the very closest and most important of human relations of husband or father4 ,surely there is no less reason for women to be conscious of a lacune in their moral instructions1 when they are received exclusively either from mothers and governesses who may be utterly unfit for such an office1 and who often merely pass on traditional moral heresies1 or else from masculine pastors whose whole moral parallax is necessarily different from that of a woman1 and who practically know next to nothing of the trials1 temptations1 and duties of her lot4 ,we have had of recent years in many of our churches1 and notably in ,st4 ,paul's ,cathedral1 courses of sermons addressed by various clergymen to men alone1 from which women have been rigidly excluded4 ,would it be too much to hope that some time or other1 in some humble chapel 7since no one would dream of devoting the national religious edifices to the exclusive use of women for a single hour71 women may enjoy the privilege of being especially addressed by pastors of their own sex1 who may talk to them at once with cultured minds and experienced hearts8 ,and1 lastly1 besides the ,intellectual and the ,moral classes of thoughts to be offered from the pulpit1 there is a third1--of which1 alas6 we know far too little1--the ,spiritual4 ,the store of this latter class of thoughts is probably extremely small even in minds of richest experience4 ,they seem rather to distil slowly in precious drops from the wounds in the tree of life than to be capable of manufacture by the help of culture and reflection4 ,they are the thoughts which concern the baseness1 the loathsomeness1 the misery of sin 7felt and considered as ,sin1 not as ,error or ,vice71 the glory and beauty and joy of ,holiness1 felt as ,holiness1 not as ,prudence or ,virtue4 ,they teach the laws of our spiritual existence2 the hygienics of the soul2 the 8,way toward the ,blessed ,life40 ,in some sense1 sermons which contain thoughts like these may be called ,moral ,discourses2 for they touch the very springs of our moral nature1 and send us forth heart-smitten for the past1 heart-strengthened with resolutions for the future4 ,they are the most powerful moral levers which human agency ever applies to our souls4 ,but they are the reverse of didactic1 ethical disquisitions1 or expositions of the detailed code of virtue4 ,they lie in another region of feeling and appeal to another class of our faculties than the ratiocinative4 ,we do not sit and judge them1 but they come from above and judge us4 ,when they strike us most forcibly1 we never feel the temptation 7as we are so often inclined to do at the best bits in the critical or the moral discourse7 to express our approbation by the familiar tokens of public applause4 ,on the contrary1 it is our own breasts we are fain to beat2 while1 if our lips move1 it is to murmur the prayer of the publican4 ,will women preach sermons of this order and filled with thoughts like these8 ,it is impossible to foretell with certainty2 yet here1 if anywhere1 may we expect to find the special gifts of women brought out at last from their hidden treasuries4 ,it has been said of almost every great spiritual teacher that there has been something feminine in his nature1 something more of tenderness and purity1 more of insight into and sympathy with others1 than belongs to lesser men4 ,in ,jesus ,christ1 the ideal characters of both sexes seem almost equally blended4 ,of course there are other qualities besides the characteristically feminine ones needed to form the highest kind of religious teacher2 but the sterner qualities are no more invariably deficient in women than are the softer ones always lacking in men1 and it seems the reverse of improbable that women may arise uniting both in hitherto almost unexampled degree4 ,let us remember that1 after all1 the one great ,force of the spiritual world--its correlated ,gravitation1 ,light1 ,electricity1 ,magnetism1 and ,vital ,force1 all in one--is pure ,divine ,,love4 ,this alone1 radiating from the ,sun of ,love in the heavens1 moves and vivifies the soul2 and to it alone it responds as the flower to the orb of day--we know not how4 ,the human spirit which receives from on high the largest influx of this divine light and warmth thereby becomes a focus of reflected power and fervor for all those who can be brought into spiritual contact with it4 ,it is the 8love of ,god shed abroad0 in the heart1--the love of that goodness which ,god is1 and for which man is made1 whose germs even now the illumined eye of love discerns deep-latent in every human soul1--in a word1 the love of ,god and love of man1 in whose might all spiritual miracles are done1 all leprous souls cleansed1 all demon passions cast out1 all blind eyes opened1 all maimed and crippled faculties made whole4 ,if we could but find the most profoundly-loving1 the most unselfishly1 nobly1 purely loving of men or women now living upon earth1 and set him or her in the midst of us to be our teacher1 our friend1 our guide into the ways of peace and blessedness1 we should have gained a help better than all the philosophers and theologians1 the monks and the hermits1 could ever give4 ,i will not take on myself to affirm that such most loving heart beats in a woman's breast4 ,it may well be that there are men as tender in feeling as any mother whose spirit ever yearned over her infant's cradle4 ,but there is at least an equal chance of a woman's supremacy1 and almost a certainty that1 on a secondary level of loving-kindness and unselfishness1 we should find many more women than men4 ,it is quite impossible1 ,i think1 that this difference should not make itself felt1 and a new impulse be made to flow through all the channels of spiritual life whenever the influence of women may be brought to bear directly and largely on the religious feelings of the community4 ,lastly1 and chiefly4 ,it is a truism to say that the character of our religion depends on our idea of ,god2 but who has taken note of this familiar fact sufficiently to recognize that all the traditional part of that solemn idea has come to us uniformly in a way deplorably one-sided1 and that side the least lovable8 ,i do not overestimate the importance of any idea of ,god which comes to us through our fellow-men4 ,it seems to me that1 from the first dawn of the religious life1 the child has a dim sense 7apart from his teacher's lessons7 of some beneficent and righteous ,power around and within him2 and that when the ,sun rises on any soul in the awful hour which saints have likened to a new birth1 there is obtained1 even through all the mists of earth1 a direct vision of the ineffable glory1 which evermore causes the words of other mortals1 and even the man's own attempt to render in language his sense of that great ,love and ,holiness1 to seem unreal and worse than inadequate4 ,when that stage is reached1 it is probably of little consequence what a man's pastor may tell him about ,god's character4 ,all he says is only like a book which describes a person we ourselves have known or a place we have visited4 ,nobody can make the man believe 7at least so long as his own living faith and open vision endure7 that the ,being whom he meets in the hour of prayer is less than ,all-good1 unutterably ,holy1 even though the dogmas he accepts practically attribute to him a totally different character4 ,the only injury he can suffer is a negative one3 he is denied the help and sympathy which he needs1 and which it is the proper office of his minister to supply to him4 ,but at an earlier stage1 when all religious experience is yet vague and dim1 when faith must of necessity be provisional and taken on trust at second hand1--at that period there can be no question of the misfortune of receiving cold1 hard1 narrow notions about ,god1 instilled by teachers who themselves have little love or no direct spiritual knowledge1 and have chiefly borrowed their ideas from the confessedly imperfect rendering1 age after age1 of other men's experience4 ,how is a young soul ever to turn to ,god1 when ,god is represented to it as ,one from whom it would far more naturally turn away8 ,and let it be remembered that the attributes of ,god which call out the spontaneous love and adoration of the heart are precisely those whose meaning is most completely lost and evaporated in the dry formularies of the intellect1 and can never be truly conveyed except by one whose own heart responds to them through all its depths4 ,power1 ,wisdom1 ,justice1 are divine characteristics1 of which the meaning may be indicated by any teacher with a clear head and command of language4 ,but ,i disbelieve that any one who is not himself full of love and tenderness has ever1 since the world began1 yet transmitted to another soul the truth that ,god is ,love4 ,there is little to wonder at1 after all1 in the mournful fact that the religion which as it rose from the heart of ,christ was supremely the religion of ,divine ,love became1 as the centuries went by1 colder and harder and more cruel1 till the irony was complete1 and the doctrine of the ,mount of ,galilee was illustrated by the fires of the ,spanish ,inquisition4 ,who1 we may ask1 were the teachers of ,christianity during the intervening ages8 ,who were they through whose lips and writings the lessons gathered from the lilies and the sparrows1 and the story of the ,prodigal1 were transmitted to each new-born generation8 ,they were men1 exclusively men2 nay1 men who1 in taking their office1 renounced those ties of natural affection through which the ,author of ,nature has caused the human heart to grow tender1 and to be taught the practice of unselfishness4 ,to fit themselves to convey to the hearts of their brethren the gospel of the ,fatherhood of ,god1 they began by renouncing the experience of human fatherhood for themselves4 ,the ,apostolic ,succession1 of which the great ,churches still boast1 was for fifteen centuries a school for the transmission of ideas about a ,divine ,parent down a long chain of childless celibates4 ,we ,protestants have corrected this mistake1 and the men who tell to us the story of the ,prodigal are at least able to speak out of the abundance of their hearts when they say that1 8like as a father pitieth his children1 so the ,lord hath mercy on them that fear ,him40 ,but is there not one step even further to be taken8 ,is not the compassion of 8a mother for the son of her womb0 a still profounder image of the ,divine ,love than the father's pity8 ,ought it not also to be brought home to our comprehensions 7if in any measure human words may so bring it7 through the lips of mothers and motherly-hearted women8 ,the loss out of our religion of all those ideas which may be classed as the doctrine of the motherhood of ,god has been attended with evils innumerable4 ,the ,church of ,rome1 in obedience to a vehement popular instinct1 has sought to make up for the defect by ,mariolatry4 ,the orthodox ,protestant ,churches1 by sternly adhering to their masculine ,trinity1 have indeed preserved the awe and moral reverence which the ,divine ,kingship and ,fatherhood demand1 and which the paganism of virgin worship has obliterated4 ,but how much have they not lost by excluding those sentiments which can only be given to ,one in whom we recognize not only justice1 holiness1 and beneficence1 but also tenderness1 sympathy1 love8 ,the truth is we are so constituted that great benefits received1--if we think of them as bestowed merely because it is right and good to give them1 and not from love for ourselves1--so far from awakening in us spontaneous emotions of gratitude1 have rather an opposite tendency1 and seem to lay on us an obligation to be grateful1 which is a sort of burden1 and from which all minds save the most generous have a proclivity to escape4 ,to hundreds of us1 large donations from just and well-meaning but unaffectionate fathers have failed to waken the smallest throb of genuine gratefulness2 while some mere trifle given by a loving mother--a flower from a well-remembered rose-tree1 a scrap of her needlework--has filled our eyes with tears4 ,in excluding1 then1 in a great degree from view that which ,i may presume to call the maternal side of religion1 the ,churches1 so far as they have done it1 have dropped the golden chain whereby human hearts may be drawn1 and have kept in their hands the iron one which can only control the reason and the conscience4 ,is it possible to estimate the amount of loss to religion which this signifies1 or how many thousands of souls might have been won by love to a life of piety and holiness who have refused to obey the bit and bridle of sterner motives1 and have wandered off and been lost in the wilderness of practical atheism8 ,if there be1 then1 as ,i humbly believe and trust1 in the nature of our great ,parent above1 certain characters of tenderness and sympathy with ,his creatures which are more perfectly shadowed1 more vividly reflected1 in the love of human mothers for their children than by aught else on earth2 if there be1 in short1 a real meaning in the old lesson that ,god created woman as well as man in ,his own image1--the image being only complete in the complete humanity1--then ,i think it follows that there is urgent need that woman's idea of ,god should have its due place in all our teaching of religion4 ,i think that there must be truths in this direction which only a woman's heart will conceive and only a woman's lips can teach1--truths1 perchance1 which have come to her when baby-fingers have clung round her neck in the dark while infant trust overcame infant terror1 and she has asked herself was there anything in heaven or earth which could make her cast down to destruction1 or even let slip from her clasp of care and guardianship1 the helpless little child thus lying in her arms1--a living parable of all our race in the everlasting arms of ,god4 ,,footnotes3 #bg ,it will be seen that ,i differ toto caelo on this point from ,mr4 ,mahaffy in his interesting recent essay on the ,decay of ,preaching4 ,he seems to me only to recognize the moral and intellectual forces which move men1 and these compared with the spiritual are only what mechanical ones are to the electric4 #bh ,ingoldsby's rendering of this world-famous story1 the favorite theme of so many eminent painters1 is probably no very exaggerated reading of the general impression of the monastic mind respecting the fair sex3-- 8,there are many devils which walk this world1 ,devils great and devils small1 ,devils short and devils tall2 ,bold devils which go with their tails unfurled1 ,sly devils which carry them quite upcurled2 99 99 99 99 99 ,but a laughing woman with two bright eyes ,is the worsest devil of all60 #bi ,i know not on what authority the familiar jovial couplet has been attributed to the great ,reformer3-- 8,wer liebt nicht ,wein1 ,weib1 und ,gesang ,der bleibt ein ,narr sein ,leben lang40 ,the ascetic spirit had very far departed1 at all events1 from the author who composed it4 #cj ,i4 ,cor4 xiv41 #bf4 ,if this graphic description had applied to a female assembly1 should we have ever been allowed to forget the circumstance8 #ca 8,the ,hebrew ,woman10 by ,constance de ,rothschild 7,mrs4 ,cyril ,flower74 #cb ,a sermon by this lady on 8,the ,sacrament of ,life10 preached and printed at ,melbourne1 would amply justify1 ,i think1 to every reader the above remark4 #cc ,in the case of the ,m4,p41 this would need to be a majority of men1 seeing that the whole female contingent of qualified voters will only 7if admitted7 add about a fifth or sixth to the register4 #cd ,this at least is the impression left on me by the female speakers 7some twenty perhaps7 whom ,i have chanced to hear4 ,i never knew one of them 8hum0 or 8haw10 or stammer1 or break down1 even when 7as in one very remarkable case7 the gentle and learned speaker had never addressed an audience till the occasion1 when she had already passed middle life4 ,among the most remarkable phenomena of the present day1 ,i reckon the preaching of ,mrs4 ,booth1 the wife of the ,general of the ,salvation ,army4 ,the combination of fervent zeal with practical good sense in her extempore discourses must be admired even by those who differ most widely from her views4 #ce ,a curious illustration of this is to be found in a passage in the first series of ,mrs4 ,kemble's charming autobiography published three years ago4 ,she describes the late ,lady ,byron as often expressing envy of her 7,mrs4 ,kemble's7 public readings1 and her longing to have similar crowds in sympathy with her own impressions4 8,i made her laugh10 says ,mrs4 ,kemble1 8by telling her that more than once1 when looking from my reading-desk over the sea of faces uplifted toward me1 a sudden feeling had seized me that ,i must say something from myself to all those human beings whose attention ,i felt at that moment entirely at my command1 and between whom and myself a sense of sympathy thrilled powerfully and strangely through my heart as ,i looked steadfastly at them before opening my lips2 but that on wondering afterwards what ,i might1 could1 would1 or should have said to them from myself1 ,i never could think of anything but two words--#8,be good6'0 7,page #cag47 ,,the ,,house ,,on ,,the ,,shore ,,of ,,eternity4 ,,an ,,allegory4 ,two simple-minded men1 who had dwelt all their lives in a country far inland1 at last undertook a long journey together4 ,this happened many ages ago1 when there were no such things as printed books or village schools1 and when the people in isolated districts saw no travellers1 and knew nothing of the great world beyond the hills which closed their horizon4 ,wolfgang and ,athelstane1 so our pilgrims were called1 walked on over downs and heaths1 and through the vast forests of oak which then overspread the land1 till at last1 after a night's toilsome march1 they came1 in the early dawn1 to a spot which seemed to them the strangest they had ever visited4 ,walls of rock shut out any distant view2 but immediately before them on a gentle declivity there stood a structure1 much larger than the humble cottages which ,wolfgang and ,athelstane had inhabited1 and of a singularly different form4 ,instead of a pointed roof of thatch or tiles1 there was1 on the top1 a flat floor of boards2 while beneath1 where there should have been a solid square foundation1 there was a long thin wedge1 almost like a roof which had been reversed and turned downward4 ,also1 through the floor rose up two long1 slender1 tree-like erections1 with all the branches carefully smoothed away4 ,crossbars were slung on these poles1 and ropes connected them together2 while a great roll of coarse woven stuff1 like sackcloth1 lay folded up beside them4 ,at one end1 and outside of the wooden structure1 hung a huge beam1 standing1 as it seemed1 in some unaccountable relation to the rest of the fabric1 and connected with it by machinery passing into the interior4 ,all these singular things were slowly and carefully noted by our two humble travellers1 as they walked round the wooden building in the morning twilight4 ,no one was near who could afford them an explanation of the use or purpose of what they saw2 and their doubts and wonder grew every moment4 8,what can it mean80 said ,wolfgang4 8,what did the builder--whoever he can have been--intend by such a mansion as this80 8,it is clear enough10 answered ,athelstane1 thoughtfully1 8that it is the work of some very ingenious hands4 ,how soundly and skilfully it is all fitted together60 8,true10 replied his comrade2 8and yet ought we to say it is well made before we can tell for what purpose it is constructed8 ,to me it seems that our own old huts of wattled willow and turf were1 after all1 of a better shape for a house to stand on the ground40 8,do you think this is a house1 only a house80 said ,athelstane1 suddenly looking up4 8,well1 if it be not a house1 what else can it be80 said ,wolfgang4 8,let us try to look inside of it1 and examine it more closely40 ,the two men soon contrived to enter the edifice which so puzzled them2 and presently ,wolfgang exclaimed triumphantly3-- 8,see6 there can be no question more on the matter4 ,this is only a house4 ,here are seats and tables for men to sit at1 and beds for them to sleep in2 and here is a fire-place and a great iron pot to cook food4 ,now1 you can have no hesitation4 ,it is just a wooden house1 and rather stupidly planned40 8,i have no doubt10 said ,athelstane1 8that it is intended for a habitation2 but is it not inexplicable that a builder who can work so cleverly should construct it so unsuitably for a common house8 ,why is it not made to stand squarely and steadily on the ground8 ,what is the sense of these long soaring poles standing up through the middle1 with the coils of ropes and bales of sacking8 ,and this8 ,this is the most mysterious thing of all10 said ,athelstane1 placing his hand on a wheel1 which instantly stirred the great beam at the back4 8,they are strange certainly10 replied ,wolfgang1--8very strange and useless things1 ,i should say1 about a house which would be much more comfortable and answer its purpose better without them4 ,i cannot agree with you that the builder was really a clever man1 or knew what he was about1 else he would never have erected those poles or made that senseless1 upside-down roof1 instead of a foundation2 or1 above all1 have constructed that totally unmeaning apparatus behind the whole structure40 8,i differ from you10 said ,athelstane1 after some moments more of reflection4 8,i think it is we who are not clever or ingenious1 and who cannot find out what the carpenter who made this building intends to do with it4 ,i do not believe that singular form beneath 7so little fit for a building only intended for a house71 nor those poles and ropes and vast sheets of woven stuff1 nor yet that mysterious great beam1 were all added to a mere house for nothing1--for no purpose whatever4 ,i think1 ,wolfgang10 and ,athelstane laid his hand on his friend's arm earnestly1--8,i think what we are looking at is something more than a house4 ,i think it is not intended to stand always where we see it40 8,you are dreaming1 ,athelstane10 said ,wolfgang1 with a short laugh4 8,where on earth should a house go1 if it is not to stand always where it is built8 ,who would want to move such a structure as this80 8,i do not know10 said ,athelstane1 humbly4 8,i do not profess to understand the mystery of it3 only ,i see that the master carpenter who built it must have been a very great carpenter indeed2 and ,i cannot believe that he has made all these things in vain1 or for no important purpose4 ,if he wanted only a house1 why did he not simply build a house standing flat on the ground1 and with no shafts piercing the air1 and no vast guiding beam at the back8 ,trust me1 friend ,wolfgang1 this is something more than the common abode of which alone you seem able to think40 ,while the two simple-minded men yet talked together1 the sun had risen1 and there was a sound of many waters and of rising waves2 and through an opening in the rocks1 which the travellers had not perceived in the twilight1 the great ocean became revealed to their eyes4 ,higher and higher rose the tide1 till it almost reached where the strange wooden building still lay motionless2 and the travellers retreated a little up the shore1 and stood1 awe-struck and breathless1 watching what might happen4 ,then down from the cliff above ran a band of mariners1 and leaped on board the vessel1 and hauled in the anchor2 and presently the waves lifted up the ship1 and she floated bravely on the waters4 ,very soon1 the mariners set the sails1 which had lain idly on the deck1 the pilot placed his hand on the rudder and guided the noble barque1 and she was borne by the winds of heaven far off beyond the uttermost ken of the two poor travellers upon the shore4 ,then1 after a time1 ,wolfgang turned to his companion1 and said3 8,athelstane1 you spoke truth4 ,yon ,house-of-the-,sea was made1 as you foresaw1 for other use than to stand upon the ground4 ,it was planned for a different element1--the free world of waters4 ,and now we see what was the purport of so many things which before seemed to us useless1--the keel1 the masts1 the sails1 the marvellous and mysterious rudder4 ,how wonderful it is6 ,how wise and far-seeing the great carpenter who made the ship60 ,as ,wolfgang spoke1 ,athelstane lifted his head1 which had drooped in heavy thought1 and he saw the wide ocean leaping in the morning light stretched out before him1 and the new-risen sun smote his face with glory4 ,and ,athelstane laid his hand on ,wolfgang's arm1 and spoke as his friend had never heard him speak before1 for it was as a man in whose soul a great new thought had sprung to life3 8,aye1 ,wolfgang1 aye10 he said2 8but if that marvellous work of human hands was not made only for earth1 do you think we were made for nothing better than the life which now we lead1--to eat and drink1 and marry1 and toil1 and sleep1 and die1 and be forgotten8 ,are not we too1 ,o ,wolfgang1 made for other things than these8 ,are we not fitted for some other element than that in which now we have our being1 some other existence than that which yet we lead8 ,if we were intended only to live our few years of animal life on earth and then perish1 why were we given minds to plough the seas of thought1 and aspirations to point to heaven1 and love to swell beneath the breath of affection1 and conscience to guide us on our way as the pilot lays on it his mighty hand8 ,o ,wolfgang6 we could perceive that the ship was intended to float on the great ocean which we had never beheld4 ,can we not see that we and all our race are made to live in a world yet unseen1 wider1 freer1 grander a thousand times than earth1--a world which we shall enter whensoever the tide of death shall lift us up and bear us away80 ,,the ,,peak ,,in ,,darien3 ,,the ,,riddle ,,of ,,death4 ,it is somewhat singular that the natural longing to penetrate the great secret of mortality should not have suggested to some of the inquirers into so-called 8,spiritual0 manifestations that1 before attempting to obtain communication with the dead through such poor methods as raps and alphabets1 they might more properly1 and with better hope of gaining a glimpse through the 8gates ajar10 watch closely the dying1 and study the psychological phenomena which accompany the act of dissolution4 ,thus1 it might be possible to ascertain1 by comparison of numerous instances1 whether among these phenomena are any which seem to indicate that the mind1 soul1 or self of the expiring person1 is not undergoing a process of extinction1 but exhibiting such tokens as might be anticipated1 were it entering upon a new phase of existence and coming into possession of fresh faculties4 ,it is at least conceivable that some such indications might be observed1 were we to look for them with care and caution1 under the rare conditions wherein they could at any time be afforded2 and1 if this should prove to be the fact1 it is needless to dilate on the intense interest of even such semblance of confirmation of our hopes4 ,i must earnestly protest1 however1 at starting1 that1 in my opinion1 to regard anything which could be so noticed as being more than such a confirmation1 or1 as if it could constitute an argument for belief in a future life1 would be foolish in the extreme1 seeing the great obscurity and the evanescent nature of all such phenomena4 ,our faith in immortality must be built on altogether different ground1 if it is to be of any value as a part of our religion or of our philosophy4 ,but1 assuming that we are1 individually1 already convinced that the quasi-universal creed of the human race is not erroneous1 and that 8the soul of a man never dies10#cf we may not unreasonably turn to the solemn scene of dissolution1 and ask whether there does not sometimes occur1 under one or two perhaps of its hundred forms1 some incidents which point in the direction of the great fact which we believe to be actually in process of realization8 ,according to our common conviction1 there is a moment of time when the man whom we have known in his garb of flesh casts it aside1 actually1 so to speak1 before our eyes1 and 8this mortal puts on immortality40 ,as in ,blanco ,white's beautiful sonnet1 he is1 like ,adam1 watching his first sunset1 and trembling to lose sight of the world1 and the question to be solved is whether darkness has enshrouded him1 or whether 8,hesperus with the hosts of heaven came1 ,and1 lo6 ,creation widened in his view02 and he may have asked himself1-- 8,who would have thought such darkness lay concealed ,within thy beams1 ,o ,sun8 or deemed1 ,while flower and leaf and insect stood revealed1 ,that to such countless orbs thou mad'st us blind80 and life1 like light1 had been only a deception and a veil4 ,we have walked in company with our brother1 perchance for years1 through the 8wilderness of this world10 over its arid plains of toil and through its sweet valleys of love and pleasure2 and then we have begun to climb the awful ,andes which have always loomed before us at our journey's end1--their summits against the sky1--and beyond them the undiscovered land4 ,onward1 a little before us1 as chance may decide1 our companion perhaps mounts the last acclivity2 and we see him slowly approach the mountain's crown1 while our lagging steps yet linger on the slopes below4 ,sometimes1 ere he reach the hill-top1 he is enveloped in cloud1 and then we see him no more2 but again1 sometimes1 he remains in the full sunlight1 and though distant from us1 and beyond the reach of our voice1 it is yet possible for us to watch his attitude and motions4 ,now1 we see him nearing the summit4 ,a few steps more1 and there must break on his vision whatever there may be of the unknown world beyond1--a howling wilderness or a great ,pacific of joy4 ,does he seem1 as that view bursts on him1 whatsoever it may be1--does he seem to be inspired with hope or cast down with despair8 ,do his arms drop in consternation1 or does he lift them aloft with one glad gesture of rapture1 ere he descend the farther slope1 and is lost to our sight forever8 ,it appears to me that we may1 though with much diffidence1 answer this question as regards some of our comrades in life's journey1 who have gone before us1 and of whom the last glimpse has been one full of strange1 mysterious1 but most joyful promise4 ,let us inquire into the matter calmly1 making due allowance both for natural exaggeration of mourning friends1 who recall the most affecting scenes1 and also for the probable presence of cerebral disturbance and hallucination at the moment of physical dissolution4 ,of course1 it is quite possible that the natural law of death may be that the departed always sink into a state of unconsciousness1 and rather dip beneath a ,lethe than leap a ,rubicon4 ,it is likewise possible that the faculties of a disembodied soul1 whatever that may be1 may need time and use1 like those of an infant1 before they can be practically employed4 ,but there is also at least a possibility that consciousness is not always lost1 but is continuous through the passage from one life to another1 and that it expands rather than closes at the moment when the bonds of the flesh are broken1 and the man enters into possession of his higher powers and vaster faculties1 symbolled by the beautiful old emblem of ,psyche's emancipated butterfly quitting the shell of the chrysalis4#cg ,in this latter case there is a certain prima facie presumption that close observation ought to permit us occasionally to obtain some brief glimpse1 some glance1 though but of lightning swiftness and evanescence1 revealing partially this transcendent change4 ,in a majority of deaths1 the accompanying physical conditions hide from the spectators whatever psychological phenomena may be taking place4 ,the sun of our poor human life mostly sets behind an impenetrable cloud4 ,of all forms of death1 the commonest appears to be the awful 8agony0 with its unconscious groans and stertorous breath4 ,the dying person seems to sink lower and lower1 as if beneath the waters of an unfathomable sea2 a word1 a motion1 a glance1 rising up at longer and longer intervals1 till the last slow and distant sighs terminate the woful strife1 and the victory of ,death is complete4 ,when this is the mode of dissolution1 it is of course hopeless to look for any indication of the fate of the soul at its exodus2 and the same holds good as regards death in extreme old age1 or after exhausting disease1 when the sufferer very literally 8falls asleep40 ,again1 there are deaths which are accompanied by great pain or delirium1 or which are caused by sudden accidents1 altogether hiding from our observation the mental condition of the patient4 ,only in a small residue of cases1 the bodily conditions are such as to cause neither interference with nor yet concealment of the process of calm and peaceful dissolution in the full light of mental sanity2 and it is to these only we can look with any hope of fruitful observation4 ,i ask whether in such cases instances have ever been known of occurrences having any significance taken in connection with the solemn event wherewith they are associated4 ,does our forerunner on the hill-top show by his looks and actions1 since he is too far off to speak to us1 that he beholds from his 8,peak in ,darien0 an ,ocean yet hidden from our view8 ,i should hesitate altogether to affirm positively that such is the case2 but1 after many inquiries on the subject1 ,i am still more disinclined to assert the contrary4 ,the truth seems to be that1 in almost every family or circle1 a question will elicit recollections of death-bed scenes1 wherein1 with singular recurrence1 appears one very significant incident1--namely1 that the dying person1 precisely at the moment of death1 and when the power of speech was lost1 or nearly lost1 seemed to see something2 or rather1 to speak more exactly1 to become conscious of something present 7for actual sight is out of question7 of a very striking kind1 which remained invisible to and unperceived by the assistants4 ,again and again1 this incident is repeated4 ,it is described almost in the same words by persons who have never heard of similar occurrences1 and who suppose their own experience to be unique1 and have raised no theory upon it1 but merely consider it to be 8strange10 8curious10 8affecting10 and nothing more4 ,it is invariably explained that the dying person is lying quietly1 when suddenly1 in the very act of expiring1 he looks up1--sometimes starts up in bed1--and gazes on 7what appears to be7 vacancy with an expression of astonishment1 sometimes developing instantly into joy1 and sometimes cut short in the first emotion of solemn wonder and awe4 ,if the dying man were to see some utterly unexpected but instantly recognized vision1 causing him a great surprise or rapturous joy1 his face could not better reveal the fact4 ,the very instant this phenomenon occurs1 death is actually taking place1 and the eyes glaze even while they gaze at the unknown sight4 ,if a breath or two still heave the chest1 it is obvious that the soul has already departed4 ,a few narrations of such observations1 chosen from a great number which have been communicated to the writer1 will serve to show more exactly the point which it is desired should be established by a larger concurrence of testimony4 ,the following are given in the words of a friend on whose accuracy every reliance may be placed3-- 8,i have heard numberless instances of dying persons showing unmistakably by their gestures1 and sometimes by their words1 that they saw in the moment of dissolution what could not be seen by those around them4 ,on three occasions1 facts of this nature came distinctly within my own knowledge2 and ,i will therefore limit myself to a detail of that which ,i can give on my own authority1 although the circumstances were not so striking as many others known to me1 which ,i believe to be equally true4 8,i was watching one night beside a poor man dying of consumption4 ,his case was hopeless1 but there was no appearance of the end being very near4 ,he was in full possession of his senses1 able to talk with a strong voice1 and not in the least drowsy4 ,he had slept through the day1 and was so wakeful that ,i had been conversing with him on ordinary subjects to while away the long hours4 ,suddenly1 while we were thus talking quietly together1 he became silent1 and fixed his eyes on one particular spot in the room1 which was entirely vacant1 even of furniture4 ,at the same time1 a look of the greatest delight changed the whole expression of his face1 and1 after a moment of what seemed to be intense scrutiny of some object invisible to me1 he said to me in a joyous tone1 #8,there is ,jim4' ,jim was a little son whom he had lost the year before1 and whom ,i had known well2 but the dying man had a son still living1 named ,john1 for whom we had sent1 and ,i concluded it was of ,john he was speaking1 and that he thought he heard him arriving4 ,so ,i answered1-- 8#8,no4 ,john has not been able to come4' 8,the man turned to me impatiently1 and said3 #8,i do not mean ,john1 ,i know he is not here3 it is ,jim1 my little lame ,jim4 ,surely1 you remember him8' 8#8,yes1' ,i said1 #8,i remember dear little ,jim who died last year quite well4' 8#8,don't you see him1 then8 ,there he is1' said the man1 pointing to the vacant space on which his eyes were fixed2 and1 when ,i did not answer1 he repeated almost fretfully1 #8,don't you see him standing there8' 8,i answered that ,i could not see him1 though ,i felt perfectly convinced that something was visible to the sick man1 which ,i could not perceive4 ,when ,i gave him this answer1 he seemed quite amazed1 and turned round to look at me with a glance almost of indignation4 ,as his eyes met mine1 ,i saw that a film seemed to pass over them1 the light of intelligence died away1 he gave a gentle sigh and expired4 ,he did not live five minutes from the time he first said1 #8,there is ,jim1' although there had been no sign of approaching death previous to that moment4 8,the second case was that of a boy about fourteen years of age1 dying also of decline4 ,he was a refined1 highly educated child1 who throughout his long illness had looked forward with much hope and longing to the unknown life to which he believed he was hastening4 ,on a bright summer morning1 it became evident that he had reached his last hour4 ,he lost the power of speech1 chiefly from weakness2 but he was perfectly sensible1 and made his wishes known to us by his intelligent looks4 ,he was sitting propped up in bed1 and had been looking rather sadly at the bright sunshine playing on the trees outside his open window for some time4 ,he had turned away from this scene1 however1 and was facing the end of the room1 where there was nothing whatever but a closed door1 when all in a moment the whole expression of his face changed to one of the most wondering rapture1 which made his half-closed eyes open to their utmost extent1 while his lips parted with a smile of perfect ecstasy4 ,it was impossible to doubt that some glorious sight was visible to him2 and1 from the movement of his eyes1 it was plain that it was not one1 but many objects on which he gazed1 for his look passed slowly from end to end of what seemed to be the vacant wall before him1 going back and forward with ever-increasing delight manifested in his whole aspect4 ,his mother then asked him1 if what he saw was some wonderful sight beyond the confines of this world1 to give her a token that it was so by pressing her hand4 ,he at once took her hand1 and pressed it meaningly1 giving thereby an intelligent affirmative to her question1 though unable to speak4 ,as he did so1 a change passed over his face1 his eyes closed1 and in a few minutes he was gone4 8,the third case1 which was that of my own brother1 was very similar to this last4 ,he was an elderly man1 dying of a painful disease1 but one which never for a moment obscured his faculties4 ,although it was known to be incurable1 he had been told that he might live some months1 when somewhat suddenly the summons came on a dark ,january morning4 ,it had been seen in the course of the night that he was sinking2 but for some time he had been perfectly silent and motionless1 apparently in a state of stupor1 his eyes closed and his breathing scarcely perceptible4 ,as the tardy dawn of the winter morning revealed the rigid features of the countenance from which life and intelligence seemed to have quite departed1 those who watched him felt uncertain whether he still lived2 but suddenly1 while they bent over him to ascertain the truth1 he opened his eyes wide1 and gazed eagerly upward with such an unmistakable expression of wonder and joy that a thrill of awe passed through all who witnessed it4 ,his whole face grew bright with a strange gladness1 while the eloquent eyes seemed literally to shine1 as if reflecting some light on which they gazed4 ,he remained in this attitude of delighted surprise for some minutes1 then in a moment the eyelids fell1 the head drooped forward1 and with one long breath the spirit departed40 99 99 99 99 99 ,a different kind of case from those above narrated by my friend was that of a young girl known to me1 who had passed through the miserable experiences of a sinful life at ,aldershot1 and then had tried to drown herself in the river ,avon1 near ,clifton4 ,she was in some way saved from suicide1 and placed for a time in a penitentiary2 but her health was found to be hopelessly ruined1 and she was sent to die in the quaint old workhouse of ,st4 ,peter's at ,bristol4 ,for many months1 she lay in the infirmary1 literally perishing piecemeal of disease1 but exhibiting patience and sweetness of disposition quite wonderful to witness4 ,she was only eighteen1 poor young creature1 when all her little round of error and pain had been run2 and her innocent1 pretty face might have been that of a child4 ,she never used any sort of cant 7so common among women who have been in ,refuges71 but had apparently somehow got hold of a very living and real religion1 which gave her comfort and courage1 and inspired her with the beautiful spirit with which she bore her frightful sufferings4 ,on the wall opposite her bed1 ,i had hung by chance a print of the 8,lost ,sheep02 and ,mary ,s41 looking at it one day1 said to me1 8,that is just what ,i was and what happened to me2 but ,i am being brought safe home now40 ,for a long time before her death1 her weakness was such that she was quite incapable of lifting herself up in bed1 or of supporting herself when lifted2 and she1 of course1 continued to lie with her head on the pillow1 while life gradually and painfully ebbed away1 and she seemingly became nearly unconscious4 ,in this state she had been left one ,saturday night by the nurse in attendance4 ,early at dawn next morning1--an ,easter morning1 as it chanced1--the poor old women who occupied the other beds in the ward were startled from their sleep by seeing ,mary ,s4 suddenly spring up to a sitting posture in her bed1 with her arms outstretched and her face raised1 as if in a perfect rapture of joy and welcome4 ,the next instant1 the body of the poor girl fell back a corpse4 ,her death had taken place in that moment of mysterious ecstasy4 ,a totally different case again was told me by the daughter of a man of high intellectual distinction1 well known in the world of letters4 ,when dying peacefully1 as became the close of a profoundly religious life1 he was observed by his daughter suddenly to look up as if at some spectacle invisible to those around1 with an expression of solemn surprise and awe1 very characteristic1 it is said1 of his habitual frame of mind4 ,at that instant1 and before the look had time to falter or change1 the shadow of death passed over his face1 and the end had come4 ,in yet another case1 ,i am told that at the last moment so bright a light seemed suddenly to shine from the face of a dying man that the clergyman and another friend who were attending him actually turned simultaneously to the window to seek for the cause4 ,another incident of a very striking character was described as having occurred in a family united very closely by affection4 ,a dying lady1 exhibiting the aspect of joyful surprise to which we have so often referred1 spoke of seeing1 one after another1 three of her brothers who had long been dead1 and then1 apparently1 recognized last of all a fourth brother1 who was believed by the bystanders to be still living in ,india4 ,the coupling of his name with that of his dead brothers excited such awe and horror in the mind of one of the persons present that she rushed from the room4 ,in due course of time1 letters were received announcing the death of the brother in ,india1 which had occurred some time before his dying sister seemed to recognize him4 ,again1 in another case1 a gentleman who had lost his only son some years previously1 and who had never recovered from the afflicting event1 exclaimed suddenly when dying1 with the air of a man making a most rapturous discovery1 8,i see him6 ,i see him60 ,not to multiply such anecdotes too far1--anecdotes which certainly possess a uniformity pointing to some similar cause1 whether that cause be physiological or psychical1--,i will now conclude with one authenticated by a near relative of the persons concerned4 ,a late colonial bishop was commonly called by his sisters 8,charlie10 and his eldest sister bore the pet name of 8,liz40 ,they had both been dead for some years1 when their younger sister1 ,mrs4 ,w41 also died1 but before her death appeared to behold them both4 ,while lying still and apparently unconscious1 she suddenly opened her eyes and looked earnestly across the room1 as if she saw some one entering4 ,presently1 as if overjoyed1 she exclaimed1 8,o ,charlie60 and then1 after a moment's pause1 with a new start of delight1 as if he had been joined by some one else1 she went on1 8,and ,liz60 and then added1 8,how beautiful you are60 ,after seeming to gaze at the two beloved forms for a few minutes1 she fell back on her pillow and died4 ,an instance--in many respects especially noteworthy--of a similar impression of the presence of the dead conveyed through another sense besides sight is recorded in ,caroline ,fox's charming ,journals1 ,vol4 ,,ii41 p4 #bdg4 ,she notes under date ,september #e1 #ahef1 as follows3-- 8,m4 ,a4 ,schimmelpenninck is gone4 ,she said just before her death1 #8,oh1 ,i hear such beautiful voices1 and the children's are the loudest4'0 ,can any old ,italian picture of the ascending ,madonna1 with the cloud of cherub heads forming a glory of welcome around her as she enters the higher world1 be more significant than this actual fact--so simply told--of a saintly woman in dying hearing 8beautiful voices1 and the children's the loudest08 ,of course1 like all the rest1 it may have been only a physiological phenomenon1 a purely subjective impression2 but it is at least remarkable that a second sense should thus be under the same glamour1 and that again we have to confront1 in the case of hearing as of sight1 the anomaly of the 7real or supposed7 presence of the beautiful and the delightful1 instead of the terrible and the frightful1 while ,nature is in the pangs of dissolution4 ,does the brain1 then1 unlike every known instrument1 give forth its sweetest music as its chords are breaking8 ,instances like those recorded in this paper might1 ,i believe1 be almost indefinitely multiplied1 were attention directed to them1 and the experience of survivors more generally communicated and recorded4 ,reviewing them1 the question seems to press upon us1 ,why should we not thus catch a glimpse of the spiritual world through that half-open portal wherein our dying brother is passing8 ,if the soul of man exist at all after the extinction of the life of the body1 what is more probable than that it should begin at the very instant when the veil of the flesh is dropping off to exercise those spiritual powers of perception which we must suppose it to possess 7else were its whole after-life a blank71 and to become conscious of other things than those of which our dim senses can take cognizance8 ,if it be not destined to an eternity of solitude 7an absurd hypothesis71 its future companions may well be recognized at once1 even as it goes forth to meet them4 ,it seems indeed almost a thing to be expected that some of them should be ready waiting to welcome it on the threshold4 ,is there not1 then1 a little margin for hope1 if not for any confident belief1 that our fondest anticipations will be verified2 nay1 that the actual experience of many has already verified them8 ,may it not be that1 when that hour comes for each of us which we have been wont to dread as one of parting and sorrow1-- 8,the last long farewell on the shore ,of this rude world10 ere we 8put off into the unknown dark01--we may find that we only leave for a little time the friends of earth to go straight to the embrace of those who have long been waiting for us to make perfect for them the nobler life beyond the grave8 ,may it not be that our very first dawning sense of that enfranchised existence will be the rapture of reunion with the beloved ones whom we have mourned as lost1 but who have been standing near1 waiting longingly for our recognition1 as a mother may watch beside the bed of a fever-stricken child1 till reason reillumines its eyes1 and with outstretched arms it cries 8,mother40 ,there are doubtless some to whom it would be very dreadful to think of thus meeting on the threshold of eternity the wronged1 the deceived1 the forsaken4 ,but for most of us1 ,god be thanked1 no dream of celestial glory has half the ecstasy of the thought that in dying we may meet--and meet at once1 before we have had a moment to feel the awful loneliness of death--the parent1 wife1 husband1 child1 friend of our life1 soul of our soul1 whom we consigned long ago with breaking hearts to the grave4 ,their 8beautiful0 forms 7as that dying lady beheld her brother and sister7 entering our chamber1 standing beside our bed of death1 and come to rejoin us for ever1--what words can describe the happiness of such a vision8 ,it may be awaiting us all4 ,there is even1 perhaps1 a certain probability that it is actually the natural destiny of the human soul1 and that the affections which alone of earthly things can survive dissolution will1 like magnets1 draw the beloved and loving spirits of the dead around the dying4 ,i can see no reason why we should not indulge so ineffably blessed a hope4 ,but1 even if it be a dream1 the faith remains1 built on no such evanescent and shadowy foundation1 that there is ,one ,friend1--and ,he the best1--in whose arms we shall surely fall asleep1 and to whose love we may trust for the reunion1 sooner or later1 of the severed links of sacred human affection4 ,,footnotes3 #cf ,there is an argument which1 ,i believe1 now influences more or less consciously the minds of many intelligent persons against the belief in the immortal life4 ,it amounts to this3 ,granted that there is a ,god1 and that he is absolutely benevolently disposed toward mankind1 it does not follow 7as commonly assumed7 that ,he will bestow immortality on man1 because it is quite possible that there may be an inherent absurdity and contradiction in the idea of an immortal finite creature1--it may1 in short1 be no more within the scope of divine power to create an immortal man than to make a triangle with the properties of a circle4 ,if we could be first assured that the thing were possible1 then arguments derived from the justice and goodness of the ,deity might be valuable1 as affording us ground for believing that ,he will do that possible thing4 ,but1 while it remains an open question whether we are not talking actual nonsense when we speak of an ever-living created being1 such reflections on the moral attributes of ,god are beside the mark4 ,no justice or goodness can be involved in doing that which1 in the nature of things1 is impossible4 ,now1 of course1 there is a little confusion here between a future life--a mere post-mortem addition of so many years or centuries to this mortal existence--and an immortal life1 which1 it is assumed1 will continue either in a series of births and deaths or in one unbroken life forever and ever4 ,in the former idea1 no one can find any self-contradiction4 ,it is only the latter notion of immortality1 strictly so described1 which is suspected of involving a contradiction4 ,practically1 however1 the two ideas must stand or fall together2 for almost every argument for the survival of the soul after death bears with double force against its extinction at any subsequent epoch of its existence4 ,taking then the future life of a man as1 to all intents and purposes1 the immortal life1 we are bound to confront the difficulty1--8,what right have we to assume that immortality and creaturehood are compatible the one with the other80 ,a priori argument on such a matter is altogether futile4 ,we know and can reason literally nothing about it4 ,for anything we could urge antecedent to the observation of a man's actual state1 it was1 apparently1 just as probable that he could not be made immortal as that he could be made so by any conceivable power in the universe4 ,but we are not quite in the position of lacking all such a posteriori assistance to our judgment4 ,we can see how ,god has actually constituted the human race1 and the problem is consequently modified to this3 8,are there any signs or tokens that man is meant for something more than a mere mundane existence80 ,it is obvious that1 if immortality were an attribute which in the nature of things he could never share1 nothing in his mental or moral constitution would have been made with any reference to such an unattainable destiny4 ,if1 on the other hand1 there be in his nature evidences of a purpose extending beyond the scope of this life1 and stretching out into the limitless perspective of eternity1 then we are authorized to draw the inference that the ,author of his being planned for him a future existence1 and1 of course1 knew that he might enjoy that divine heritage4 ,here1 then1 the argument lies in manageable shape before us4 ,it is true we only see a small portion of humanity1 as it has yet been drawn out2 but just as mathematicians can determine1 from any three given points1 the nature of the curve to which they belong1 so we have enough indications to guide us to a conclusion respecting the character of our race4 ,in every department of our nature1 save our perishable bodies1 we find something which seems to point beyond our threescore years and ten1--something inconsistent with the hypothesis that those years complete our intended existence4 ,our busy intellects1 persistently wrestling with the mysteries of eternity2 our human affections craving for undying love2 our sense of justice1 born of no past experience of a reign of ,astrea1 but resolutely prophesying1 in spite of experience1 a perfect judgment hereafter2 the measureless meaning which moral distinctions carry to our consciences2 the unutterable longing of our spirits for union 7not wholly unattained even here7 with the living ,god1 the ,father of spirits1--all these things seem to show that we are built1 so to speak1 on a larger scale than that of our earthly life4 ,the foundations are too deep and wide1 the corner-stones are by far too massive1 if nothing but the ,tabernacle of a day be the design of the ,architect4 ,in brief1 then1 we may admit freely that1 for aught we know1 8,god could not give to a triangle the properties of a circle10 and yet1 nevertheless1 hold our faith undisturbed1 since we find that the line which ,his hand has actually drawn is a ,,curve already1--a few degrees of the circumference of a stupendous circle4 #cg ,there is an insect1 the ,lunar ,sphinx ,moth1 which exhibits1 in its first stage1 not only the usual prevision for its security while in the helpless chrysalis state1 but a singular foresight of its own requirements when it shall have become a winged moth4 ,having made1 by eating its way upward through the pith of a willow1 an appropriate hiding-place1 it finds itself with its head in a position in which1 were it to become a moth1 it could never push itself down1 and escape at the aperture below4 ,the little creature accordingly1 before it goes to sleep1 laboriously turns round1 and places its head near the entrance1 where1 as a moth1 it will make its happy exit into the fields of air4 ,there seems something curiously akin in the unaccountable foresight of this insect1 of a state of existence it has never experienced1 and the vague and dim sentiment of immortality1 common to mankind since the days of the cave-dwellers of the ,stone ,age4 8,a ,,veritable ,,hand-,,book ,,of ,,noble ,,living40 ,,the ,,duties ,,of ,,women4 ,a ,,course ,,of ,,lectures ,by ,,frances ,,power ,,cobbe4 ,,critical ,,notices4 ,an eminent ,american clergyman1 writing from ,london1 says3-- 8,it is the profoundest1 wisest1 purest1 noblest book1 in principle1 aim1 and tone1 yet written upon the ,true ,position of ,woman in ,society4 ,it should be circulated far and wide among all classes of our countrywomen4 ,it should be made a class-book in our schools4 ,it should become the #8,hand-,book' and ,vade ,mecum of young ,american girls40 8,as ,i turn the pages of this book1 ,i am struck with its candor1 sympathy1 and insight1 and wish that it might be read and pondered by both conservative and radical women4 ,the former might learn the relation of freedom to duty1 and the latter may well consider the perils which surround each onward step4444 ,miss ,cobbe might have called her book #8,old ,duties in ,new ,lights4' ,it must help many women to lead sincere1 self-reliant lives1 and to determine at critical moments what their action shall be40--,mrs4 ,elizabeth ,k4 ,churchill1 in the ,providence ,journal4 8,the best of all books on #8,women's ,duties4' ,now that ,george ,eliot is gone1 there is probably no woman in ,england so well equipped for general literary work as ,miss ,cobbe40--,col4 ,t4 ,wentworth ,higginson1 in ,woman's ,journal4 8,i desire to commend it to the careful perusal of women in our own country1 as a book full of timely counsel and suggestion1 and to all1 as a valuable contribution to the literature of ethics40--,julia ,ward ,howe1 in ,christian ,register4 8,just now1 the first #8,duty of ,women' is to read this whole book with studious self-application2 for it is rich in saving common sense1 warm with the love of man1 and consecrated by the love of ,god40--,miss ,harriet ,ware ,hall1 in ,unitarian ,review4 8,what is best in the whole book is that she founds her teaching for women so strongly in the deepest and simplest moral principles that her thoughts come with a force and breadth which win for them at once a respectable hearing40--,london ,spectator4 8,one of the notable books of the season4444 ,no true woman can read these lectures without being stirred by them to completer life40--,morning ,star4 8,in ,miss ,cobbe's latest book1 #8,the ,duties of ,women1' there is much to be commended for its common sense and its helpfulness4 ,miss ,cobbe goes down to the principles underlying the topics of which she speaks2 and the strength with which she utters her thoughts is the strength of conviction and of earnest purpose40--,sunday ,school ,times4 8,this is the very volume needed for parents to intrust to their daughters when leaving home for school1 and for earnest friends to offer young brides1 as a wedding gift40 ,fourth ,edition4 ,cloth4 #abmo4 #a4jj4 ,new ,cheap ,edition4 ,paper4 #be cents4 ,for sale by booksellers1 and mailed1 postpaid1 on receipt of the price1 by ,geo4 ,h4 ,ellis1 ,publisher1 ,boston4 ,a ,,year ,,of ,,miracle4 ,a ,poem in ,four ,sermons4 ,,by ,,william ,c4 ,,gannett4 ,,contents4 #a4 ,treasures of the ,snow4 #b4 ,resurrection4 #c4 ,flowers4 #d4 ,the ,harvest ,secret4 ,square #ahmo1 limp cloth1 red edges1 ,price #ej cents4 ,extra cloth1 heavy paper1 full gilt1 ,price #a4jj4 8,the thoughtful reader will find ,a ,,year ,,of ,,miracle a source of genuine and permanent delight40--,boston ,transcript4 8,a delightful companion for an hour of meditation40--,zion's ,herald4 8,the sermons are wonderfully beautiful4 ,they are veritable poems1 and poems of a high order40--,woman's ,journal4 8,the theme is hackneyed3 the thing is not1 neither is ,mr4 ,gannett's performance4 ,such discourses would grace the best pulpit anywhere40--,boston ,advertiser4 8,the several subjects chosen are as hackneyed as the theme of a school-girl's composition2 but the treatment is singularly rich1 fresh1 and sparkling4 ,mr4 ,gannett combines in happy measure qualities rarely found together1--a wide range of reading and observation1 with brooding thought and solitary fancy1 the naturalist's keen sight and the poet's deeper insight4 ,his study of the outer world is close and careful1 his use of scientific detail and illustration apt and striking1 with nothing of parade and pedantry4 ,in almost every page1 we feel the finer touch of genius1 and a deep but unobtrusive spirit of worship40--,literary ,world4 8,we doubt if more exact and beautiful writing can be found than in these four sermons4 ,they are not sermons1 judged by ordinary homiletic methods2 but1 by their effect in awakening the devotional spirit1 they are eminently so4 ,they are full of science1 and yet full of religion1 so far as faith in and reverence for the ,supreme enter into religion4 ,this is a little book1 but a full book40--,christian ,advocate4 8,if the author of ,the ,imitation had the genius of medival piety1 ,mr4 ,gannett has the genius of the religion of this nineteenth century4 ,here is reverence1 here is poetry2 but here is nature and science1 and reason1 too1 all taken up in the solvent of a living faith4 ,the four seasons of the year1 in these four discourses1 suggest four festivals of love and trust1 symbolize four natural sacraments of religion4 ,scarcely anywhere will be found thinking and believing more suggestive and helpful in these questioning times than under the second theme1 #8,resurrection4'0--,st4 ,louis ,spectator4 8,mr4 ,gannett has written some of the most undying religious hymns and lyrical poems in the language1 and puts a wonderful amount of soul into whatever he writes in this little volume4 ,the titles give an inkling of what the little book contains4 ,it is one of the most delightful expositions of the glory and divinity of the outer world that has ever been written4 ,it is in the vein of ,wordsworth and ,emerson and ,lowell and ,herbert2 and whoever enjoys ,god's great world outside of man's heart will be glad to have it near him in his joyous and devout moments40--,standard of the ,cross4 ,for sale by ,booksellers everywhere1 and sent by mail postpaid on receipt of price by ,,geo4 ,h4 ,,ellis1 ,publisher1 #ada ,franklin ,street1 ,boston1 ,mass4 ,transcriber's ,notes ,page #ia3 8consummation of nonenity0 changed to 8consummation of nonentity0 ,page #abg3 ,in the footnote1 8performed her tasl0 changed to 8performed her task0