amongst whom it is distributable. That such people, in relation to wages, are, in the eye of science, simply a commodity-labour, whose value depends upon supply and demand. That high wages, i. e. a command of the comforts and luxuries of life, are clearly impossible without a relatively diminished supply of labour, with more intelligence. in its possessor, on the one hand, or an increase of the wage-fund, on the other. Whether the wage-fund can at any given moment be increased is nearly always a question ; but there can be no question whatever that the people, elevated in intelligence, would have it in their own power to control and diminish the supply of labour, to render such diminished supply more valuable, and by thus obtaining higher wages raise their own standard of existence.

Instead of prejudicing the public against acquiring a knowledge of these truths by stigmatising such knowledge as 'the dismal science,' every pulpit in the land would be usefully occupied for years to come in disseminating and impressing them upon the minds of the people at large, and the result of their intelligence being awakened to the fact of the inexorable operation of these natural laws, and to the fact that human welfare is involved in obedience to their dictates, would certainly have the effect of rendering the lives of the majority far less dismal' than they are at present; for it is an equally well known scientific fact, that

It is indeed now an elementary proposition. See Smith's Wealth of Nations; M'Culloch's Principles of Political Economy, part iii. chap. ii.; J. S. Mill's Ditto, book ii. chap ii.; Professor Fawcett's Manual of Political Economy, chap. viii.

2 'In fact there are no means whatever by which the command of the labouring class over necessaries and conveniences can be enlarged, other than by accelerating the increase of capital as compared with population, or by retarding the increase of population as compared with capital; and every scheme for improving the condition of the labourer which is not bottomed on this principle, or which has not an increase of the ratio of capital to population for its object, must be completely nugatory and ineffectual.'-M'Culloch, ubi supra, p. 380.

the highest attributes of life, whether vegetal, animal, or human, regulated by science in accordance with natural law, are health and happiness, and in each individual, its own proper virtue. We all recognise this result in the luxuriant foliage and exuberant bloom of the flower reared and tended by science; in the hilarity and joyousness of the lower animal life reared and tended in like manner. It is sheer superstition that supposes human life destined to be an exception to this beneficent law, a superstition utterly destitute of proof, and every day becoming more exploded by experience, and the accumulating evidence of the unbroken continuity of Nature.1

I will conclude this note with a quotation which, having regard to the source whence it proceeds, deserves attention: A man's children are not merely sent, any more than the pictures upon his walls, or the horses in his stable are sent; and that to bring people into the world when one cannot afford to keep them and oneself decently and not too precariously, or to bring more of them into the world than one can afford to keep thus, is by no means an accomplishment of the Divine Will or a fulfilment of Nature's simplest laws; but is just as wrong, just as contrary to the Will of God as for a man to have horses, or carriages, or pictures, when he cannot afford them, or to have more of them than he can afford; and that in the one case, as in the other, the larger the scale on which the violation of reason's laws is

Assuming it to be 'a true belief that God desires above all things the happiness of his creatures, ... the multiplication of happiness is, according to the utilitarian ethics, the object of virtue.' -Mill's Utilitarianism, pp. 27, 31.

'We shall see that the more we investigate, the more we find that in existing phenomena graduation from the like to the seemingly unlike prevails. . . . how, as science advances, the continuity of natural phenomena becomes more apparent. We are forced

by experience, though often unconsciously, to believe in continuity as to all effects now taking place. satisfied that continuity is a Law of Nature, the true expression of Almighty Power.' -Grove's Discourse on Continuity, pp. 280, 319, 342, 344. (Correlation and Continuity.) Longmans, 1867.

practised, and the longer it is persisted in, the greater must be the confusion and final trouble.'1

NOTE J, p. 42.

Oersted's Discovery of Electro-Magnetism.

Hans Christian Oersted, born at Rudkjoking, in the island of Langeland, 1777, in the year 1820 discovered ElectroMagnetism,' or the law of reciprocity between electrified bodies and the magnet.

'Oersted of Copenhagen found that the natural direction of a magnetic needle, such as is used in the mariner's compass, was instantly changed by its being near a voltaic battery in action. Such a needle happened to stand on a table where the wire of a battery lay parallel to it. It had its usual direction of north and south when the battery was not acting, but the moment the current was allowed to pass, the needle was thrown or deflected into a position across the wire, and so remained as long as the current continued. On the current being arrested, however, by unclosing or breaking the voltaic circuit, the needle resumed its natural direction. Pursuing the investigation, Oersted found that the movements of the needle were produced as often and quickly as the acts of closing and unclosing the circuit could be repeated. He further ascertained that, near the wire, the changes took place as certainly and rapidly at any distance

1 Culture and Anarchy, an Essay, &c., by Matthew Arnold. Smith, Elder & Co., 1869. When we consider who Matthew Arnold is his antecedents, training, and academical position-this extract from his writings is very remarkable, and shows, I venture to think, that, like his late highly-gifted father, he has within him the 'mens divinior' that, bursting the cerecloths of 'culture,' and throwing off the superincumbent mass of collegiate lore and theological tradition, seeks relief by flashing forth long pent-up truth, regardless whose prejudices or superstitions may be shocked by it.

from the battery as near to it. These facts announced to some clear understandings the coming prodigy of the electric telegraph.'-Dr. Neil Arnott's Elements of Physics, part ii. "Electro-Magnetism,' p. 627, ed. 1865.

NOTE K, p. 42.

The Characteristics and Results of the Baconian Philosophy.

"The leading points in the Baconian philosophy stand thus:—Its ultimate purpose is the foundation and augmentation of human dominion; the nearest means to that end are supplied by culture, which converts physical force into instruments fitted for man. Now there is no culture without invention, which produces the means of culture; no invention without science, which makes us acquainted with the laws of things; no science without natural philosophy; no natural philosophy without an interpretation of nature that perfects itself according to the standard of experience. From every one of these as so many points of view Bacon may be characterised, for each gives an essential characteristic of his philosophy. He aims at the culture of humanity by a skilful application of natural science; he seeks to attain natural science by a right use of experience. By a correct method he would convert experience into science; by application in the form of invention he would convert science into art; and this he would convert into a practical and general civilisation, designed for the whole race of man. What single name will suffice adequately to denote such a mind? By connecting his points of view in such logical order, Bacon becomes a great thinker. By opening the widest prospects into the realm of science, and into the whole sphere of human civilisation, from these points of view, by indicating goals and setting up problems in every direction, so that his system is nowhere brought to a conclusion and dogmatically hedged round, the great thinker becomes an epoch-making thinker. For it is the peculiarity of epoch-making minds

that they are open to the future. Bacon designed no finished system, but a living work, that should be continued in the progress of time. He sowed the seed for a future crop, which was to ripen slowly, and not to attain its perfection till centuries had elapsed. Bacon was well aware of this; he was satisfied to be the sower, and to begin a work which time alone could complete. The influence of this philosophy extends far beyond the sphere of the learned: it gives a tendency of the mind, which once taken cannot be abandoned. Systems die out, for there is no permanence in forms; but a necessary tendency of the mind founded in human nature is eternal. The nearer a philosophy stands to common life, the nearer its ideas correspond to actual wants, the less systematic it will probably be; but so much the more indestructible will be its weight, so much the more lasting will be its vitality. It is impossible to banish experience from human science, and equally impossible to banish experiment, the comparison of particular cases, the force of negative instances, and the observation of prerogative instances, from the region of experience. It is likewise impossible to deprive human life of the possessions that result from experimentalising experience-namely, natural science and invention; and if all this is impossible, the Baconian philosophy stands secure for all ages.'-Dr. Fischer's Francis Bacon of Verulam, &c., pp. 60, 62, 407, 408.

'Ask a follower of Bacon what the New Philosophy has effected for mankind, and his answer is ready: It has lengthened life; it has mitigated pain; it has extinguished diseases; it has increased the fertility of the soil; it has given new securities to the mariner; it has furnished new arms to the warrior; it has spanned great rivers and estuaries with bridges of form unknown to our fathers; it has guided the thunderbolt innocuously from heaven to earth; it has lighted up the night with the splendour of the day; it has extended the range of the human vision; it has multiplied the power of the human muscles; it has accelerated motion; it has annihilated distance; it has facilitated intercourse, correspondence, all friendly offices, all despatch of business; it