rapidly, and presses so intensely, that the present generation-especially of our distinguished men-threatens to become extinct, whilst we have among us many hale survivors of the last.

Yet we are a practical people! yes, too practical by half. So practical that we will not give ourselves the trouble to ascertain the basis on which the sound and safe in practical life must rest. No, no; that would be theoretical;-that would be to go into abstract questions-into ' metaphysics' which we hate. But, what if the cure is no otherwise possible? Likely enough, in a disease so deep-seated, and of such long standing, -no otherwise possible than by probing it to the bottom-tracing it to its sources, and dealing with it there.

This is what we are now attempting to do, and it is from a deep sense of the urgency of the inquiry that we ask intelligent and thoughtful readers to accompany us. Let us-ere we close this paper-gather up our findings thus far, that we may the more clearly see the conclusion to which they shut us up.

A healthy, enduring, all-comprehensive Civilization, can rest only on the due (and relatively proportionate) development and exercise of all the faculties and susceptibilities of man's nature. This implies and requires, that power be applied to making provision for our higher wants, proportionately as it is released from the necessities of our lower. The misery and want that are found among us-the violent strain on the minds and bodies of so many of us are the index of the misapplication of our power; they measure the extent to which we fail in its due normal application.

The evil is not diminishing, either with the increase of our knowledge, or with the increase in the amount of this power itself. On the contrary, it is increasing. Its development has been most rapid of late, when the increase of our knowledge and power has been most rapid. If it is to yield, it must be to other influences than that of our knowledge of physical nature, or of the power with which it arms us. The corrective is not here. The progress of mankind depends on something higher than either the "success with which the laws of phenomena are investigated," or "the extent to which a knowledge of these laws is diffused." This is one great means of advancement, no doubt, but, instead of being the ruling and guiding force, it requires itself to be guided, else it may conduct us downward, and not upward. Under its operation, if unchecked and uncorrected Desire and Craving being stimulated much faster than the means of gratifying them can be produced-we should see mankind engaged only in the hotter and hotter pursuit of " fugitive, false good."

VII. THE MASTER-FORCE IN CIVILIZATION.

"If Lord Stanley thinks that the eclipse of religious conviction would not be detrimental to political and social improvement, I recommend him to look over history, and try whether he can produce a single instance in which any great political or social problem has been successfully solved without the aid of sincere religicus convictions to control the selfish passions of mankind."--Professor Goldwin Smith. Letter in Daily News.

AN equable, all-embracing, and enduring Civilization is developed and realised through the training and culture of Individuals. Society is made up of units. Society is purified, refined, elevated, in proportion as the individual man--in proportion as the largest number of the individuals composing it—are rendered more intelligent, pure, loving, and beneficent. Whatever-in any grade of society-hinders this elevation of the individual, obstructs proportionately the progress of civilization. Whatever promotes true manhood in the individual, promotes true Civilization in Society. Civilization signalises itself—not directly in "the greatest happiness of the greatest number," but in the highest measure of welldoing and well-being. But well-being can never be realised save through well-doing, and all well-doing is individual. Our fellows-and Society in the aggregate-influence us, but the choice and determination lie with ourselves. Society can acquire nothing-beyond a mere surface-gloss, which will inevitably betray its unreality-save through the component individual units which compose it.

This may seem very simple, common-place, almost a mere truism. Yet, if we mistake not, it will be found to settle no less a question, than that as to the primary element and master-force of Civilization. For what is it that purifies, refines, elevates the individual? Is it the mere knowledge of physical or inductive science? Is it taste, or the esthetic susceptibility on which it grounds? Is it general intelligence or culture, which embraces other fields besides those of inductive science and taste --which embraces the life of man and history--the moral sphere, as well as the Physical and Imaginative? These are all instruments of Civilization of elevation and refinement. Each is good in its place--powerful in its place; but they may all fail. The examples are numerous of men of great scientific acquirement, of men of keen æsthetic susceptibility, of men of the widest general intelligence, being gross in their moral habits-leading an impure, dissipated, morally contaminating life-a life such as cannot be led without bringing social degradation on some--perhaps on many of their fellows-a life which, therefore, cannot be led without marring civilization-a life which, while it is led, and in proportion as such lives are led, civilization must remain partial, imperfect; blurred and blotched with contrastive degradation.

Defect in religious and moral principle, and in the self-control which

such principle guarantees, is, of all other defects, the most socially injurious. Other defects, e. g., limited intelligence, or want of taste and refinement, may appear in large numbers of a community, and yet, if they are not general, may little retard its progress, and little affect the general well-being. Such persons, when their conduct is regulated by religious principle, may be useful members of the community, and do much of its common, everyday, indispensible work. Moreover, the influence of religion is largely compensatory. Implying, in itself, the highest form of culture --viz., the culture of the moral feelings and moral activity, it, at once, promotes all other forms of culture, and, in a measure, supplies in their default. But this is true of religious and moral culture only, not of culture of the intellect or of the aesthetic susceptibility. No other form of culture will compensate for defect in moral principle, or neutralise the evil of the loose habits attendant on it. There can be no breach of morality which is not socially injurious, and, because morality is the most fundamental and imperative condition of social well-being. But so far is the well-known aphorism of Burke, that "vice, in losing all its grossness, loses half its evil," from being true, that vice becomes thus only more insidiously, more deeply, pervasively, mischievous. Vice neutralises the influence of the refinement with which it may be associated, and being, in its nature, grovelling, must tend to induce grossness. On the other hand, there need be little anxiety about the diffusion of taste and refinement in a community, if only its moral health can be preserved. Intelligence, scientific acquirement, taste-each is good in its place; but one thing is higher than all. Only one thing can be relied on to secure the progressive and abiding elevation of the individual, in all that constitutes, distinguishes, and differentiates man. That one thing is a practical sense of our responsibility to God throughout the whole of our activity; in other words religion. All else, all mere knowledge, all other forms of culture, take hold only of parts of the mind. There is none of them but leaves loose and uncontrolled some of the moving springs of our activity, and some which may become master forces. But Religion commands the whole, or, at least, it is its aim, scope, and nature, to do so. It must ultimately attain the supremacy over all, else it is a failure and a delusion.

And it stands to reason that it should be so; that what is broadest, embracing the whole activity, what is deepest, going down to the ultimate springs of action, should mould, regulate, and control the whole; should be the master-force in determining what Man Social is to become. What else can subordinate every passion and pursuit, inimical to the well-being of our fellows? Utility ?-If John Stuart Mill's last paper (on Justice) has any practical issue, it is, to make it almost superfluously clear, not only that there can (as things are) be no security that justice shall be done, but that it is hopeless to determine what is just in almost any relation. And it would be so, were there no sense of right and wrong in us, independent of what we discern to be profitable or pleasant.

On the habit of self-control, based on moral principle, all reliable social advancement, all stable Civilization, depends; Self-government in the individual, is the only thing that can guarantee political freedom. To have a free constitution, you require first to have free men. But the primary constituent of freedom is awanting where men are the slaves of lust or passion. The well-being of Society requires that such men be put under restraint. A preponderance of such makes a community fit material for the despot; and, existing in more limited proportion, they yet in like proportion, mar Civilization-obstruct its progress, and preclude its universality.

And, indeed, in what does Civilization begin? What differentiates the civilized community, from the savage horde? Is it not a practical preference of future good to immediate gratification, foregoing a present gratification which is certain, for a future good, which is more or less contingent? Civilized men act for future results, in respect to which they often experience disappointment. Yet they continue to act for such, notwithstanding, else Civilization could not be sustained. Ceasing to do so, Society would soon relapse into the savage state. Civilization has therefore a species of faith as the very basis on which it rests. In that state, man acts for the unrealised, and as yet, unseen. In the absence of religious motives he will do so. But in that case he has regard only to his own apparent interest. Of this we have impressive illustration in modern competition. Perfectly free trade to be healthy and compatible with the good of all, demands a high moral state in the communities where it obtains. When you dispense with legal checks, in the absence of the appropriate moral ones, the weak must suffer. Will the highest secular knowledge, or the highest skill in applied physical science, prevent this? So far from it, they only furnish to the astute and clever selfist, subtler, and more various means and instruments for accomplishing his designs. We see this signalised, not only in scientific murderers, like Palmer, but in every one who uses chemical knowledge for the adulteration of food, or the telegraph for supplanting his rival trader.

It remains to be seen how freedom will operate where religious motive is not paramount. And, already, indeed, it does not remain altogether" unillustrated. The now Confederated States of North America give us a prominent exemplification. They have revolted from the Federal Government, in order that they may keep 4,000,000 of their fellow creatures in slavery that they may rivet and seal their perpetual degradation. The blessings of such civilization are for the White alone, and it can be main-tained only by entailing the curse of bondage on the Black. If reminded that these men are not irreligious-that they are Christians, we need only reply, that they themselves give the most emphatic testimony to what the religion of Christ induces and requires in our relations with each other. They feel that as Christian professors they can justify slavery only by denying the claim of the black man to be a brother.

It is consistent that they should. As Christianity proclaims the brotherhood of all men, it demands a brotherly treatment of all. It alone supplies the motives that will ensure this. If left perfectly free to act we will treat no man as a brother whom we do not regard as a brother. Hence, under the surface Civilization of these days, there runs-in defect of the deeper Christian motives,-a strong under-current of selfishness, thinly veiled by politeness and professed regard. How many bland swindlers and polished cheats have we, and only all the more successful in proportion to their accomplishments and intelligence! Civilization, in the absence of religious principles, would soon become a whited sepulchre, hiding "dead men's bones and all uncleanness."

VIII. THE RELATIVE POSITION AND INFLUENCE OF
INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL TRUTHS.

SIMPLY premising that under moral we include religious truths, we now proceed to examine Mr Buckle's position, that "the influence of intellectual truths increases, and the influence of moral truths, relatively to these, diminishes, with the progress of civilization." We have seen that what advances the individual in the scale of being, or what promotes the due culture, exercise, and development of all the powers and susceptibilities of his nature, proportionately, promotes civilization. How is it then, in this relation, with the individual? Does the influence of moral truths, or of moral considerations, diminish with his advancement? or is not the fact precisely the opposite way? In the living, conscious, active being man, we have exemplified the subordination of laws-the higher ruling the lower. The organic laws, or those of vitality, subordinate and hold in check purely chemical laws, the motive forces and powers of the organism are directed by the intellect, and the entirety of our active being, intellectual as well as bodily, acknowledges the supremacy of conscience, or the moral sense. The more truthful, fair, upright-in a word, conscientious-a man is in all his doings and dealings, the more do we reckon him a true man. Other things-bodily vigour, expertness of hand, knowledge, taste, &c. -constitute, each its quota, to the completeness and integrity of his nature; but this is supreme. This caps and crowns the whole. This gives unity to the being and decision to the whole activity. It is here we find a motive force, which is not only unfailing, but capable of indefinite inThe progress of the individual may be due much to the discovery of intellectual truths, but more to the power of the moral impulses, and this for two reasons. 1st, The primary spring of our activity is found in the emotive, not in the intellectual part of our nature. We can conceive

crease.