W.R.GHEO 
 
 ■ 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924029632191 
 
Cornell University Library 
 AC8 .G81 1873 
 
 Enii 
 
 imas of life 
 
 / by W.R. Greg. 
 
 ireg. 
 
 If 
 
 ol!n 
 
 3 1924 029 632 191 
 
Enigmas of Life 
 
 By W. R. GREG. 
 
 "The Sonl's dark cottage, battered and decayed, 
 Lets in new light throngh chinks that Time has made." 
 
 Walleb. 
 
 BOSTON": 
 JAMES E. OSGOOD AND COMPANY, 
 
 Latx Tioknor & Fields, and Fizuis, Osgood, & Co. 
 
 1873. 
 
From Advance Sheets. 
 
 University 
 
 Welch, Bigelow, & Co., 
 
 Cambridge. 
 
PEEFAOE. 
 
 r I iHE following pages contain rather suggested thoughts 
 -■- that may fructify in other minds than distinct prop- 
 ositions which it is sought argumentatively to prove. 
 In the later years of life the intellectual vision, if often 
 clearer, usually grows less confident and enterprising. 
 Age is content to think, where Youth would have been 
 anxious to demonstrate and establish ; and problems and 
 enigmas which, at thirty, I fancied I might be able to 
 solve, I find, at sixty, I must be satisfied simply to 
 propound. 
 
 By the severer class of scientific reasoners (if I have 
 any such among my' readers), it will, I am aware, be 
 noted with disapproval that throughout this little book 
 there runs an undercurrent of belief in two great doc- 
 tripes, which yet I do not make the slightest attempt 
 to prove. I have- everywhere, it wlQ be said, assumed 
 the existence of a Creator and of a continued Hfe be- 
 yond the grave, though I give no reason for my faith 
 in either ; though I obviously do not hold those points 
 of the Christian creed on the ordinary Christian grounds ; 
 and though I cannot fail to be conscious that these 
 questions underlie, or inextricably mingle with nearly 
 
IV PEEFACE. 
 
 every one of the subjects I have treated. I have ap- 
 proached, with some pretension to philosophical inves- 
 tigation, a few of the enigmas of human Hfe, yet have 
 deliberately evaded the two deepest and darkest of aU, 
 and precisely the two, moreover, whose determination 
 can most satisfactorily solve the rest. I admit the 
 charge, and my defence is simply this. 
 
 The religious views in which we have been brought 
 up inevitably color to the last our tone of thought on 
 all cognate matters, and largely affect the manner and 
 direction of our approach to them, even when every 
 dogma of our early creed has been, if not abandoned, 
 yet deprived of its dogmatic form as well as of its 
 original logical or authoritative basis. Not only are 
 doctrines often persistently retained, though the old 
 foundations of them have been undermined or surren- 
 dered ; but behefs, that have dwelt long in the mind, 
 leave indelible traces of their residence years after 
 they have been discarded and dislodged. It would be 
 more correct to say that they linger with a sort of 
 loving obstinacy in their old abode, long after they 
 have received formal notice to quit. Their chamber is 
 jiever, to the end of time, quite swept and garnished. 
 The mind is never altogether as if they had not been 
 there. Wlien a "yes" or "no" answer is demanded 
 to a proposition for and against which argument and 
 evidence seem equally balanced, the decision is sure to 
 be different in minds, one of which comes new to the 
 question while the other has held a preconceived opin- 
 ion, even though on grounds which he now recognizes 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 as erroneous or insufficient: It was my lot to inherit 
 from Puritan forefathers the strongest impressions as to 
 the great doctrines of Eeligion at a time when the 
 mind is most plastic and most tenacious of such im- 
 pressions, — 
 
 "Wax to receive, and marble to retain." 
 
 And though I recognize as fully as any man of science 
 the hollowness of most of the foundations on which 
 those impressions were based, and the entire invalidity 
 of the tenure on which I then held them, yet I by no 
 means feel compelled to throw up the possession mere- 
 ly because the old title-deeds were full of flaws. The 
 existence of a wise and beneficent Creator and of a 
 renewed life hereafter are still to me beliefs — especially 
 the first — very nearly reaching the solidity of absolute 
 convictions. The one is almost a Certainty, the other 
 a solemn Hope. And it does not seem to me unphHo- 
 sophic to allow my contemplation of Life or my specu- 
 lations on the problems it presents to run in the 
 grooves worn in the mind by its antecedent history, so 
 long as no dogmatism is allowed, and no disprovabh 
 datum is suffered for a moment to intrude. 
 
 The question — when stated with the perfect unre- 
 serve which alone befits it — lies in small compass. 
 Of actual hnowledge we have simply nothing. Those 
 who believe in a Creative Spirit and Euler of the Uni- 
 verse are forced to admit that they can adduce no 
 proofs or arguments cogent enough to compel convic- 
 tion from sincere minds constituted in another mould. 
 
■VI PEEFACE. 
 
 There are facts, indications, corollaries, which seem to 
 suggest the great inference almost irresistibly to our 
 minds. There are other facts, indications, corollaries, 
 which to other minds seem as irresistibly to negative 
 that inference. Data, admitted by both, appear of very 
 different weight to each. The difiiculties in the way 
 of either conclusion are confessedly stupendous. The 
 difficulty of conpeiving the eternal pre-existence of a 
 Personal Creator I perceive to be immense; the diffi- 
 culty of conceiving the origin and evolution of the ac- 
 tual Universe independently of such Personal Creator I 
 should characterize as inswperahle. The Positivist — 
 the devotee of pure Science — would simply reverse the 
 adjectives. We can neither of us turn the minor into 
 the major difficulty for the other without altering the 
 constitution of his intelligence. He does not say, 
 " There is no God," he merely says, " I see no phenom- 
 ena which irresistibly suggest one ; I see many which 
 negative the suggestion; and I have greater difficulty 
 in conceiving all that the existence of such a Being 
 wonld involve than in the contrary assumption." / do 
 not say, " I know there is a God " ; I only say I ob- 
 serve and infer much ^that forces (hat conviction in 
 upon me J but 1 recognize that these observations and 
 inferences would not entitle me to demand the same 
 conviction from him. In fine, neither doctrine can be 
 proved or disproved; the votaries of neither are en- 
 titled to insist upon imposing their conviction upon 
 others, on the plea of its demonstrabihty. I am en- 
 titled, however, to retain mine as, to me, the believ- 
 
PREFACE. VU 
 
 able one. Lawyers tell us of a title that is unsalable, 
 but indefeasible. Scientific men speak of " Provisional 
 Theories," " good working hjrpotheses," and the like, — 
 the goodness depending upon their value in explaining 
 and elucidating phenomena, not in their capability of 
 being demonstrated. There is some analogy in the 
 case we are considering. 
 
 Again, visible and ascertainable phenomena give no 
 countenance to the theory of a future or spiritual life. 
 It is a matter of intuitive conviction, or of deduction 
 from received or assumed doctrines, not of logical infer- 
 ence from established data.* I cannot demand assent to 
 
 * I have discussed this question fully in the last chapter of " The 
 Creed of Christendom." There is, however, one indication of im- 
 mortality which was not there dwelt upon, but which ought not 
 to be left out of consideration, though, of course, its value will 
 be very differently estimated by different minds. I refer to that 
 spontaneous, irresistible, and perhaps nearly universal feeling we all 
 experience on watching, just after death, the body of some one we 
 have intimately known ; the conviction, I mean (a sense, a con- 
 sciousness, an expression which you have to fight against if you wish 
 to disbelieve or shake it off), that the form lying there is somehow 
 not the Ego you have loved. It does not produce the effect of 
 that person's personality. You miss the Ego, though you have 
 the frame. The visible Presence only makes more vivid the sense 
 of actual Absence. Every feature, every substance, every phenom- 
 enon, is there, — and is unchanged. You have seen the eyes as 
 firmly closed, the Umbs as motionless, the breath almost as im- 
 perceptible, the face as fixed and expressionless, before, in sleep 
 or in trance, without the same peculiar sensation. The impres- 
 sion made is indefinable, and is not the result of any conscious 
 process of thought : — that that body, quite unchanged to the eye, 
 
Vm PEEFACE. 
 
 it, with any justice or on any plea of cogent argument, 
 from a reasoner who is destitute of my intuitive convic- 
 tion, or who deems my deductions erroneous, or demurs 
 to the doctrines from which they flow. But, on the other 
 hand, since I can specify undeniable indications which 
 point in that direction, and difficulties which to aU ap- 
 pearance that hypothesis only can elucidate, and since 
 he can in no way demonstrate its untenability or its 
 contrariety with Icnown truths, I am entitled to hold it 
 as to me, though not to all, the most credible belief. 
 
 These will seem to enthusiastic believers disappoint- 
 ing and timid positions to take up on such momentous 
 questions ; but the most advanced positions are not al- 
 ways the most tenable, and the humblest are often the 
 strongest. The safe position for a candid reasoner, and 
 the only true one, is not that which is most menacing 
 to his antagonist, but one from which the holder can- 
 not be dislodged. 
 
 I have a word or two further to say in reference to 
 each of these main doctrines. 
 
 Those who cHng most lovingly to faith in a future 
 life, and would avoid the shocks which close thought 
 
 IS not, and never was, your Mend, — the Ego you were conversant 
 with ; that his or her individuality was not the garment Tjefore 
 you plus a, galvanic current ; that, in fact, the Ego you knew 
 once and seek still was not that, — is not there. And if not there, 
 iit must be elsewhere or nowhere; and " nowhere " I believe modem 
 science will not suffer us to predicate of either force or substance 
 that once has been. 
 
PREFACE. IX 
 
 always causes to it, will do well to guard against every 
 temptation to define or particularize its nature, mode, or 
 conditions, to realize its details or processes, to form a 
 distinct or plausible theory i regarding it, — especially a 
 local, physical, or biological one. Let it rest in the 
 vague, if you would have jt rest unshaken. For, while 
 it is more than probable that our imagination is utterly 
 incapable of picturing or conceiving, or even conjectur- 
 ing or approaching, the actual truth about the imseen 
 world, it is certain that our reason will find no diffi- 
 culty at aU in demolishing or discrediting every con- 
 crete and systematic conception we might form. The 
 Great Idea — fascinating and maintainable so long as it 
 is suffered to remain nebulous and un-outhned — con- 
 geals and carnalizes, the moment we endeavor to em- 
 body it, into something which is vulnerable at every 
 point, and which we are forced to admit is, on one groimd 
 or another, unsustainable. 
 
 We all recognize instinctively that a sense of iden- 
 tity, a conscious continuity of the Ego, is an essential 
 element of the doctrine. A life beyond the grave, in 
 other worlds and under other conditions of corporeal or 
 spiritual existence, but devoid of this main feature, would 
 not, it is evident, answer the purposes of the doctrine, 
 nor fulfil those yearnings of the heart and soul which 
 many writers hold to be its most convincing indication. 
 Apart from this consciousness of personal identity, a 
 future life would be simply a new creation, — the be- 
 ings who came into existence would be other beings, not 
 ourselves awakened and renewed. The curious, but 
 
PKEFACE. 
 
 not unattractive, Pythagorean theory of transmigration, 
 reaching, as it did, both to the future and the past, 
 failed altogether in this essential. It is probable that 
 the determination to hold fast by this essential — a de- 
 termination often half unconscious and instinctive — 
 fostered, if it did not originate, the astonishing doctrine 
 of the resurrection of the body, which has so strangely 
 and thoughtlessly (like many minor dogmas) found its 
 way into the popular creed. The primitive parents or 
 congealers of that creed, whoever they may have been, 
 — innocent of all science and oddly muddled in their 
 metaphysics, but resolute in their conviction that the 
 same persons who died here should be, in very deed, 
 the same who should rise hereafter, — systematized their 
 anticipations into the notion that the grave should give 
 up its actual inmates for their ordained transformation 
 and their allotted fate. The current notion of the ap- 
 proaching end of the world no doubt helped to blind 
 them to the vulnerability, and indeed the fatal self- 
 contradictions, of the form in which they had embodied 
 their faith. Of course, if they had taken time to think, 
 or if the Fathers of the Church had been more given 
 to thinking in the rigid meaning of the word, they would 
 have discovered that this special form rendered that faith 
 absurd, indefensible, and virtually impossible. They did 
 not know, or they never considered, that the buried body 
 soon dissolves iato its elements, which in the course of 
 generations and centuries pass into other combinations, 
 form part of other living creatures, feed and constitute 
 countless organizations one after another ; so that when 
 
PREFACE. XI 
 
 the graves are summoned " to give up the dead that are 
 in them," and the sea "the dead that are in it," they 
 will be called on to surrender what they no longer possess, 
 and what no supernal power can give back to them. It 
 never occurred to those creed-makers, who thus took 
 upon themselves to carnalize an idea into a fact, that 
 for every atom that once went to make up the body 
 they committed to the earth, there would be scores of 
 claimants before the Great Day of account, and that even 
 Omnipotence could scarcely be expected to make the 
 same component part be in two or ten places at once. 
 The original human frames, therefore, could not be had 
 when, as supposed, they would be wanted. 
 
 Neither, apparently, did it occur to them that these 
 bodily shells and frames would not be wanted. " Flesh 
 and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." The per- 
 ishable carcass could have no part nor lot in the great 
 scene then to be enacted. The perished carcass could not 
 be needed (Mke the bone " Luz " so queerly invented for 
 the purpose by the later Jews) to supply materials for " the 
 spiritual body," and would not be forthcoming if it were. 
 
 Moreover, what could such incongruous elements as 
 nitrogen and phosphates, and sodium and other metallic 
 bases, be doing in immaterial spheres, and before the 
 judgment-seat of God ? It was the souls of men that 
 were to be the actors in that mighty Dxama. And, again, 
 where were those souls during the countless ageS that 
 elapse between their exit from the mortal husk and their 
 appearance at the final summons ? Speculation has been 
 busy with this problem for long generations ; has been al- 
 
xai - PEEFACE. 
 
 ways baffled ; has never had the sense to perceive, or the 
 candor to admit, that the difficulty was entirely one of its 
 own gratuitous creation. Still, in the orthodox creed, or 
 rather in popular parlance (for real belief was " nowhere '' 
 ta the matter), the soul — which nobody Imew how, even 
 in fancy, to dispose of in the mean while — was to be called 
 up from somewhere to reinhabit pro hoc vice the body, 
 which it was impossible that it should find, and of which 
 it could make no further use in a world that, in philosoph- 
 ical conception, is spiritual, and, according to Scripture, is 
 prohibited to flesh and blood ! Endeavor to picture the 
 jumble m. the mind of that early Christian wht) framed 
 the conception (and had influence enough to make after 
 ages repeat it with a submission absolutely servile) of 
 a scene where decayed and dispersed gaseous elements 
 and atoms, collected from ages and places and combina- 
 tions, were put together once more for one momentary 
 function, and thereafter — 
 
 A more thoughtful age will marvel — as the thought- 
 ful of this age marvel now — that the fancy of the 
 primeval savage, who buries his horse and dog, and 
 spear and arrows, in the same grave with the departed 
 chief, that they may be ready for him in the unseen 
 hunting-grounds whither he is gone, should have been 
 so neady reproduced ia the creed of the most cultivated 
 nation in the most civilized age that human progress has 
 yet reached. 
 
 Other illustrations might be given ; one or two may 
 be just indicated here. If, as Professor Grote suggests, 
 
PKEFACE. XUl 
 
 sympatliy with aJl other beings in the next world will 
 be indiscriminate and perfect, and " undisguisedness " 
 therefore ineyitable and absolute, it is dificult to see 
 how separate entity, still more how distinct identity, is 
 to be secured. 
 
 "Surely," as the S;pectator argued, "if sympathy with 
 aU is perfect, one of the most effective links of conti- 
 nuity, the limitation of sympathy, wiU disappear, and the 
 ■ mind understanding all, and sympathizing with all equal- 
 ly, all the affections, as we call them, would cease, and 
 all the relations of humanity be meaningless. The an- 
 cient and beautiful thought which has cheered so many 
 bereaved ones, that separation is only for a time, would 
 be without object ; for though we should meet again, it 
 would be in relations to which the former relations would 
 have no similarity. The love between parent and chUd, 
 for example, so far as it is not the result of circumstances 
 and physical similarity of constitution, — all which cir- 
 cumstances and similarity mufet cease at death, — is the 
 product of superior sympathy, which sympathy would be 
 merged, lost in the -universal sympathy of which Profes- 
 sor Grote has spoken. It may be, of course, that the 
 earthly affections are earthly, and end with earth; but 
 there is no proof of that, and no reason for a suggestion 
 which, besides being a melancholy one, is an additional 
 difficulty in the way of continuity." 
 
 Then, again, if there be a heU. to which any whom we 
 love are doomed, heaven can only be the place of per- 
 fect happiness we picture it, on condition of a narrowing, 
 a worsening, or at all events a change, in our affections 
 
XIV PKEFACE. 
 
 and moral nature, so vast as to be fatal to genuine 
 identity. 
 
 Lastly, it would seem impossible to franie any scheme 
 of a future life, at once ec[uitable and rational, which 
 should include aU human beings and exclude all the 
 rest of the animal creation. Those among us who are 
 most really intimate with dogs, horses, elephants, and 
 other dlite of the fauna of the world, know that there 
 are many animals far more richly endowed with those 
 intellectual and moral qualities which are worth pre- 
 serving and which imply capacity of cultivation, than 
 many men, — higher, richer, and, above all, more unself- 
 ish and devoted, and therefore, we may almost say, more 
 Christian natures. I have seen, in the same day, brutes 
 on the summit and men at the foot of the Great St. 
 Bernard, with regard to whom no one would hesitate 
 to assign to the quadruped the superiority in aH that 
 we desire should live. Yet, on the other hand, where 
 draw the line, since admittedly the highest animals taper 
 downwards, by wholly inappreciable gradations, to the 
 lowest organisms of simply vegetable, life ? 
 
 Does the following suggestion by an anonymous writer 
 offer a way. out of the difficulty ? — "I apprehend, \hat if 
 man's immortality be accepted as proven, a strong pre- 
 sumption may be thence derived in favor of the immor- 
 tality of those creatures who attain that moral stage whereat 
 man becomes an immortal being. Wbat that stage may be 
 we do not presimie to guess, but we cannot suppose the 
 tremendous alternative of extinction or immortality to 
 be decided by arrival at any arbitrary or merely physical 
 
PEEFACE. XV 
 
 turning-point such as may occur at various epochs either 
 before birth or at the moment of birth. We must beheve 
 it to be determined by entrance on some moral or mental 
 stage such as may be represented by the terms Conscious- 
 ness, Self-Consciousness, Intelligence, Power of Love, or 
 the like ; by the development, in short, of the mysterious 
 Somewhat above the p^rely vegetative or animated life 
 for which such Mfe is the scaffolding. If, then (as we are 
 wont to take for granted), a child of some six or eigh- 
 teen months old be certainly an immortal being, it follows 
 that the stage of development which involves immortality 
 must be an early one. And if such be the case, that stage 
 is unquestionably attained by animals often, and by some 
 men never. 
 
 " I beg that it may be remarked that this argument 
 expressly restricts itself to the case of the higher animals, 
 and thus escapes the objection which has always been 
 raised to the hypothesis of the immortality of the hum- 
 bler creatures, namely, that if we proceed a step below 
 the human race we have no right to stop short of the 
 oyster. I merely contend that where any animal mani- 
 festly surpasses an average human infant in those steps 
 of development which can be assumed to involve existence 
 after death, then we are logically and religiously justified 
 in expecting that the Creator of both child and brute will 
 show no favoritism for the smooth white skin over the 
 rough hairy coat." 
 
 Half the difficulties which lie in the way of believing 
 in a Personal God as the Euler as well as Creator of the 
 
XVI PREFACE. 
 
 universe are of our own making. They are wholly gratui- 
 tous, and arise out of the inconsiderate and unwarranted 
 use of a single word, — omnipotent. Thoughtful minds in 
 all ages have experienced the most painful perplexities 
 in the attempt to reconcile certain of the moral and phys- 
 ical phenomena we see around us with the assumption of 
 a Supreme Being at once All-wise, All-good, and Almighty. 
 The mental history of mankind presents few sadder spec- 
 tacles than is afforded by the acrobatic efforts, the convul- 
 sive contortions, the almost incredible feats of subtlety 
 and force, performed by piety and intelligence combined 
 in this self-imposed field of conflict, — this torture-cham- 
 ber of the soul. Thousands have there made shipwreck 
 of their faith, thousands of their truthfulness and candor, 
 thousands upon thousands of their peace of mind. When 
 the actual facts of the moral and the natural world came 
 to be fully recognized and understood, it was felt to be 
 inconceivable how or why Infinite Love should have cre- 
 ated a scene of teeming life, of which the most salient 
 feature' is universal conflict and universal slaughter, — 
 every organic being ceaselessly occupied in trampling 
 down or devouring its neighbor, and dependent for its own 
 existence upon doing this successfully. It was felt to be 
 equally inconiprehensible that Inflnite Goodness and illim- 
 itable Power should have created a world so rife with evil, 
 — into which evil entered so easily, and ruled with so 
 predominant a sway. The origin and meaning of evil, 
 its whence and its why, has always been the crux of the 
 sincerest and profoundest thinkers, — the insoluble prob- 
 lem of humanity. It has scattered those who have tried 
 
PREFACE. XVU 
 
 to master it as widely as the fabled tower of BabeL Some 
 it has driven into atheism, some into Manicheism, some 
 into denials of the most obvious facts of life and nature, 
 some into betrayals of the most fundamental principles 
 of morality, some into elaborate schemes of damnation 
 and redemption, which to unperverted minds seem almost 
 blasphemous in their audacity. 
 
 That problem is insoluble. Nature never truly set us 
 such contradictions to reconcile. The conditions of the 
 real problem have been incorrectly stated. What stata- 
 ble reason, what quotable warrant, have we for assuming 
 that the Creator was, or that the Supreme Being is, " Om- 
 nipotent " ? The word originally implied no accurate logi- 
 cal conception of absolute or unlimited power ; but was 
 used to express a relative rather than a positive idea. It 
 was a natural and a fitting epithet to use towards, or of, a 
 Being whose power, as compared with that of man, was 
 simply immeasurable and vncalciddble, and might therefore 
 in ordinary parlance be called " Infinite." Those who first 
 used it and those who adopted it never thought of defin- 
 ing the word ; and, never straining their imagination to 
 dream of boundaries or limitations, spoke easily of the 
 boundless and illimitable ; while the incurable vulgar dis- 
 position of uncivilized minds, to flatter the object of their 
 worship, came in aid of the expression, tiH by degrees the 
 loose language of an age which defined (jprdcis^) nothing 
 was invested with the rigid formalism of an age which 
 sought to define everything, and the fine, vague descrip- 
 tion of poetic piety became the hard and therefore false 
 dogma of the Scholastic crqed. That omnipotence, in the 
 
XVUl PREFACE. 
 
 precise, absolute, metaphysical meaniag of the word, should 
 ever have been accepted as an indisputable and essential 
 attribute of the Deity, is one of the most curious instances 
 among the many which may be traced of the fatal facility 
 with which, in theological fields, one age blindly, thought- 
 lessly, and uninquiringly adopts the notions of its prede- 
 cessor. 
 
 Yet do divines even now, when they give themselves 
 the trouble to question their own minds on the subject, 
 really and in very truth attribute absolute omnipotence 
 to the Supreme Being ? Do they believe that He can 
 combine inherent contradictions ? That He can cause 
 two and two to make five ? That He can enable a human 
 creature to be in two places at the same instant of time ? 
 If he cannot do these things (and no one wiU assert that 
 He can), then He works and lives under limitations and 
 condiiions ; and we require no further concession than this 
 to deprive the problem of the existence of evil of half its 
 gloom and difficulty, and though not to solve it, at least 
 to indicate that it is not inherently insoluble. We have 
 only to conceive the Creator immeasiurahly, inmlculahly 
 wise, beneficent, and mighty, — good and powerful to a 
 degree which, in reference to human beings, may fairly 
 be called infinite, but stiU " conditioned," — hampered, 
 it may be, by the attributes, qualities, imperfections of 
 the material on which he had to operate ; iDound possibly 
 by laws or properties inherent in the nature of that mate- 
 rial, — and we descend, so to speak, iato a breathable in- 
 tellectual atmosphere at once. We need not attempt to 
 conjecture what those fettering laws or attributes may be ; 
 
PEEFACE. XIX 
 
 we have only to suppose their existence, — a supposition 
 'prima facie surely more provable than its opposite, — and 
 it becomes possible at once to believe in and to worship 
 . God, without doing violence to our moral sense, or deny- 
 ing or distorting the sorrowful facts that surround our 
 daily life. 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 Realizable Ideals 23 
 
 II. 
 Malthus Notwithstanding . , 71 
 
 III. 
 
 NoN-SURVrVAl OF THE FITTEST 109 
 
 IV. 
 
 Limits and Directions of Human Development . .153 
 
 V. 
 
 The Significance of Life 197 
 
 VI. 
 De Peopdndis 229 
 
 VII. 
 Elsewhere 259 
 
 Appendix 303 
 
I. 
 REALIZABLE IDEALS. 
 
EEALIZABLE IDEALS. 
 
 THE contrast between the Ideal and the Actual of 
 Humanity lies as a heavy weight upon all tender 
 and reflective minds. Those who believe this contrast to 
 be designed, incurable, and eternal are driven by their 
 dreary creed to despair, to sensual or semi-sensual ego- 
 tism, to religion, or that form of religion which is very 
 nearly irreligion. If the countless evils of life are 
 irremediable, or capable only of slight and casual miti- 
 gation ; if the swarming multitudes of our race, are 
 destined to remain almost as sinful, as ignorant, as 
 degraded, and as wretched as at present ; if the im- 
 provements that human effort can effect upon their 
 natures and their lot are to be as trifling as most 
 believe in comparison with the residue of misery and 
 wrong that must remain, as well as with the Possible 
 that may be dreamed ; — then, what is left to us but a 
 selfishness more or less disguised and modified accord- 
 ing to our several characters ? The Stoic wiU train 
 himself to bear what he can, and will leave the scene 
 when he can bear no longer. The cultured Epicurean 
 will strive to harden himself against aU warmer, keener, 
 
 2 
 
2G ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 and wider sympathies, and to get what joy and smooth- 
 ness he can out of life without interfering too greatly 
 with the welfare of those around him. The meaner 
 and coarser Egotist will seek pleasure and shun pain, 
 uncontrolled even hy that consideration. The Philoso- 
 pher will speculate, in ever-growing perplexity and dark- 
 ness, on the insoluble problem of existence, and on 
 the attributes and plans of the Deity who could have 
 framed so strange a world, tUl aU faith and love dies 
 out of his baffled intellect ; while the Eehgious man 
 — religious either by instinct or by creed — will go on 
 as of old, will transfer his hopes and projects to an ideal 
 scene elsewhere, where he can paint any picture his fancy 
 pleases on the canvas, and seek in a future existence the 
 realization of those dreams of universal virtue and well- 
 being which it seems forbidden to indulge on earth. 
 
 But this creed has always seemed to me as irrational 
 as it is sad and paralyzing, and at least as impious as it 
 is unphilosophical. It could never have been received 
 as orthodox, or even as probable or natural, if Priests had 
 not seen fit to congeal and stereotype into articles of 
 faith the crude conceptions of some vigorous minds in 
 early times, puzzling over the problem of life with only 
 a few of its clearly ascertained facts and conditions before 
 them. Practically it is a creed which does not go very 
 deep into our innermost convictions now. Virtually we 
 give it the lie or we tacitly ignore it every hour of our 
 lives. Most of us believe a vast amelioration in the con- 
 dition of the world to be attainable, both in moral and 
 material things. Many of us systematically strive for 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 27 
 
 this amelioration. The efforts of Government, of Legisla- 
 tion, of Philanthropy, of Science, are aU in reality directed 
 to this end. We have all some ideal — though it may be 
 poor, near, and partial — towards which we are pressing, 
 and which we hope more or less perfectly to realize. Per- 
 haps the actual difference between the prevalent specula- 
 tive views on this subject is, that some of us are so much 
 more sanguine than others. Some hope only to make life 
 tolerable ; others trust to make it at length as perfect as in 
 its Creator's original scheme they believed it was designed 
 to be or to become. Some believe only that a consider- 
 able number of human evils may be materially mitigated ; 
 others, more buoyant, have convinced themselves that, 
 with time, patience, and intelligent exertion, every evil 
 not inherent in or essential to a finite existence may be 
 eliminated, and the yawning gulf between the Actual and 
 the Ideal at last bridged over. 
 
 This faith is mine. I hold it with a conviction which 
 I feel for scarcely any other conclusion of the reason. It 
 appears to me the only one compatible with true piety, — 
 I mean with a rational conception of the attributes of the 
 Creator ; for I can perceive no beauty and no religion in 
 the notion that God placed us in this world only that we 
 might be forever working for and hankering after another. 
 It appears to me, also, — in spite of the clouds and dark- 
 ness which are round about us, — the only one which 
 reflection and reason will sanction. I am not prepared to 
 give up this life as " a bad job," and to look for reward, 
 compensation, virtue, and happiness solely to another. 1 
 distinctly refuse to believe in inevitable evils. I recognize 
 
28 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 in the rectification of existing wrong and the remedy of 
 prevailing wretchedness " the work which is given us to 
 do." For this we are to toil; and not to toil in vain. 
 After this we are to aspire, and not to have our aspira- 
 tions forever mocked by the impossibility of their final 
 realization, 
 
 " To seek, to find, to strive, and not to yield." 
 
 Disease, destitution, endemic misery, certainly — sin 
 and suffering of nearly every sort, probably and mainly — 
 lie at our door, at the door of the aggregate of our race, at 
 that of our ancestors or at our own ; and I hold that what 
 man has caused man may cure. Accidents and death will 
 still remaiu with the natural but unexaggerated conse- 
 qtiences they entail. But how small a residuum should 
 we have to trace to unavoidable accidents, if we were only 
 as wise and strong as we might ideally become, and how 
 little of this residuum could fitly be called " evil," we can 
 as yet only guess. Whether Death be indeed an " evil " 
 we need not discuss, for Death is the very condition of our 
 existence here ; yet, if it only took its proper position -as 
 one among the many occurrences of life, and only came 
 (as in the ideal state I contemplate it only would come) 
 when it was due, in the fulness of time, we should be 
 amazed to find how rarely it was repined a,t or unwel- 
 comed, either by the recipients or the spectators of the 
 summons. 
 
 The true way to realize to our own minds the curability 
 of all the ills which humanity, individually and collec- 
 tively, groans under, is to take them one by one, or a fgw 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 29 
 
 of them as samples, in a coUoqmal fashion, and ask our- 
 selves if there be any one which must or need have been, 
 which in its inception might not have been avoided, which, 
 in fact, is not distinctly and indisputably traceable to our 
 contravention (through ignorance or wilfulness) of the 
 laws of Nature which lie plain (or discoverable) before 
 us ; the physical laws on which health depends, the moral 
 laws on M'hich happiness depends, and the social and eco- 
 nomic laws on which plenty and comfort depend. A very 
 superficial survey will bring us to the conclusion, which 
 the most profound investigation will only serve to deepen 
 into settled conviction, that the world is so constituted 
 that if we were consistently intelligent and morally right 
 we should be socially and physically happy. We have, 
 unquestionably, a terrible inheritance of ancestral errors 
 to redeem, obstacles to remove, mischiefs to undo; but 
 the recuperative powers of nature are astonishing and 
 nearly inexhaustible, and we only require steadily to go 
 right at once and henceforth, in order erelong to cancel 
 the consequences of having gone wrong for such countless 
 generations. 
 
 The evils of our actual social condition may be classed 
 under three heads : pain and disease, destitution, and vice 
 or crime. We believe that all three may be, if not alto- 
 gether eliminated, j'-et reduced to a minimum that would 
 be easily dealt with and easily borne ; and those will be 
 most inclined to agree with us who reflect, first, how curi- 
 ously the three causes of our sufferings mutually aid and 
 aggravate each other; and secondly, with what strange, 
 ingenious, obstiaate perversity we have long labored — 
 
30 KNIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 individually and collectively, by law and habit, by action 
 and by abstinence — to foster and propagate them all. 
 
 I. Consider for a moment how vast an amount of our 
 personal misery, to say nothing of actual sin and of the 
 wretchedness which our consequent iU-temper brings on 
 others, arises from Dyspepsia. Perhaps this malady is 
 answerable, directly or indirectly, for more unhappiness, 
 and does more to lower the general tone and average of 
 human enjoyment, than any other. We all of us know 
 something of it, many of us know it well ; we can esti- 
 mate in some measure how much the cheerfulness and 
 brightness of our daily life is impaired by its pernicious 
 prevalence, how it saps good spirits, how it sours good 
 temper. Well ! how obvious are its causes ; in most in- 
 stances how possible its cure ? How many of us toil half 
 our life to earn it, begin early in its cultivation, dig for it 
 as for hid treasures ? We generally lay the foundation 
 in childhood, or in our first youth, by reckless and igno- 
 rant self-indulgence, — the fault of parents and teachers, 
 you will say, and what they could have checked in time 
 had they known and valued the laws of physiology. True, 
 but we ourselves are, or have been, or will be, those very 
 parents and teachers. Then, do we not ourselves commit 
 much the same follies as our children ? When we eat, as 
 we habitually do, more than is good for us ; when we eat, 
 as most of us do, what we know wiU disagree with us ; 
 when the pleasures of the palate tempt us to do more 
 than satisfy our hunger or recruit our strength ; when we 
 drink alcohol, not because we need it, but because we like 
 it ; when we take a second glass, not because a second 
 
KEALIZABLE IDEALS. 31 
 
 was required, but because the first was very good j when 
 smoking becomes a regular habit, instead of an occasional 
 indiilgence ; in all these cases we are sowing seeds for an 
 inevitable harvest, we are diligently earning our wages 
 and incurring a recorded obligation. If only aU wages 
 were as well earned, and all debts as certain to be paid ! 
 When we sit lazily in our arm-chair under circumstances 
 which indicate that we ought to be in active exercise ; 
 when we sit in close rooms and in a vitiated atmosphere, 
 instead of breathing the clear air of heaven ; when we go 
 on toiling and thinking long after our sensations warn us 
 that we have expended the income and are drawing on the 
 capital of our cerebral strength ; whenever, in a word, we 
 neglect the plainest physiological laws (which it is diffi- 
 cult not to read whenever our attention is drawn to them), 
 then we are laying the foundation of that functional 
 disorder of the digestive organs which entails so certain 
 and so sad a penalty. I am sceptical about stomachic 
 ailments which a man has done nothing to deserve. I 
 Scarcely believe in any which either he or his progenitors 
 have not worked hard to generate. I believe, moreover, 
 that those are few which, however induced originally, may 
 not be cured or kept in bounds, even after mature age is 
 reached, by sedulous care scientifically directed. We are 
 most of us familiar with the case of Comaro, who, awaken- 
 ing at forty years of age to the consciousness of a shattered 
 constitution, yet contrived, by sagacious observation and 
 incessant vigilance, to recover the tone of an outraged and 
 enfeebled stomach, and lived in laughing comfort to a 
 green old age. 
 
32 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. ' , 
 
 Again : — few maladies are more distressing, nor, we 
 fear, more upon the increase, than diseases of the heart.* 
 Nearly all these, it is now understood, where no heredi- 
 tary predisposition is responsible, may he traced, either to 
 the high pressure and rapid pace of life generally and in 
 almost an professions, or to violeiit and excessive muscular 
 exertion in youth, such as physiological knowledge would, 
 if consulted, at once condemn. "Where such disorders are 
 inherited, the tendency may usually be traced to similar 
 neglect of natural laws by parents or ancestors. The 
 same may be said of the three terrible and allied maladies 
 which so extensively corrupt and undermine the health 
 
 * " The tendency of modem investigation into the influence of 
 civilization on longevity seems to show a twofold series of agencies 
 at work. On the one hand, sanitary improvements and the lessened 
 mortality from epidemics undoubtedly tend to diminish the average 
 death-rates ; but, on the other hand, there is practically much less 
 improvement in total death-rates than might be -expected if these 
 ameliorating causes were not counterbalanced by the increasing 
 fatality of other classes of disease, such as diseases of the brain and 
 heart. It is important to recognize the precise facts. The excess 
 may, probably, to some extent, be regarded as an unavoidable result 
 ■ of the great mental strain and hurried excitement of these times, in 
 which steam and electricity mark time for us, in an overcrowded 
 community, where competition is carried to the highest point, and 
 where the struggle for existence, not to say for intellectual and 
 other distinction, is carried on with sleepless and exhausting energy. 
 But an evil recognized is sometimes half cured ; and the intellectual 
 classes, looking at figures such as those Dr. Quinn has displayed at 
 his interesting Lumleian Lectures, at the College of Physicians, on 
 Diseases of the Walls of the Heart, may well consider the propriety 
 of attending td the hygiene of their lives, as well as of their houses ; 
 
EEALIZABLE IDEALS. 33 
 
 of the English nation, make so many lives miserable, and 
 so many deaths premature; viz., consumption, scrofula, 
 and gout. The predisposition to these is often, usually 
 perhaps, an inheritance from progenitors who have ig- 
 nored or set at naught the most obvious conditions of 
 hygiene, even more recklessly than we do ; but no one who 
 knows how latent tendencies are brought out, and the 
 seeds of disease fostered and matured by bad air, un- 
 wholesome dwellings, and personal excess, will doubt that 
 "this man has sinned" as well as his parents for this 
 thing to have come upon him. The inherited constitu- 
 tion is no doubt a faulty one, but probably the most ex- 
 perienced physicians will estimate most highly how much 
 
 and to remember that, to enjoy and benefit by even pure air, soil, 
 and water, they must avoid disabling heart and brain by the inces- 
 sant labors which too often make useful lives joyless, and embitter 
 the harvesting of the crop which has been too diligently sown. 
 These warning figures tell that, during the last twenty years, the 
 total of deaths of males at all ages from heart disease has increased 
 in number from 5,746 in 1851 to 12,428 in 1870. The percentage 
 of deaths from heart disease for 1,000 of population living was .755 
 between the years 1851 and 1855 ; it has risen to 1.085 from 1866 
 to 1870. This increase, it must be observed too, has taken place 
 wholly in connection- with the working years of active social life. 
 There is no change in the percentage of deaths from this cause in 
 males under 25 years of age. Between 20 and 45 years of age it has 
 risen from .553 to .709, and that almost exclusively in males, for 
 there is almost no increase in the percentage of females dying from 
 heart disease during the 25 years of life from 21 to 45. These 
 figures convey their own lesson, and warn us to take a little more 
 care not to kiU ourselves for the sake of Uving.'' — British Medical 
 Jovffnal. 
 
 2* 
 
34 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 may be done to correct and counteract the fault by care- 
 ful avoidance of aU unsanitary conditions, by fresh air, 
 suitable nourishment, and habitual temperance. Three 
 generations of wholesome hfe might suffice to eliminate 
 t|ie ancestral poison, for the vis medicatrix natures has 
 wonderful efficacy when allowed free play ; and perhaps 
 the time may come when the worst cases shall deem it a 
 plain duty to curse no future generations with the dam- 
 nosa hereditas which has caused such bitter wretchedness 
 to themselves. 
 
 It is only now that we are beginning to realize how vast 
 a proportion both of our illnesses and deaths are due to 
 purely and easily preventable causes, and the knowledge 
 has not yet fairly stirred us into action. It is calculated 
 — and the estimate is probably below the truth — that 
 in this country 100,000 deaths annually can be traced to 
 zymotic diseases and epidemics, generated or propagated 
 distinctly by foul air, defective water, and pernicious food, 
 — ^^to filth, noxious gases, and the like, — all of which 
 originators and agencies might be extinguished or neu- 
 tralized by prompt and energetic obedience to weU- 
 known sanitary laws. It is needless to go into any de- 
 tails on so threadbare a topic. It is certain, and will not 
 be denied, that, for example, to take the metropolis alone, 
 if unwholesome overcrowding were prevented by an ade- 
 quate supply of dwellings for the poor ; and if all those 
 dwellings were well drained and ventilated, and furnished 
 with an ample supply of good water, not only might pes- 
 tilences and epidemics be almost certainly exterminated, 
 but a number of other evils, now acting and reacting on 
 
KEALIZA.BLE IDEALS. 35 
 
 each other, would be eliminated or enormously mitigated. 
 Pirst of aU, the craving for strong drink, so constantly 
 created and stimulated almost into a passion by breathing 
 fetid air, would be removed, and thus the intemperance 
 arising from that cause would be cured, and the destitu- 
 tion, brutality, crime, and sickness thence arising would 
 be subtracted from the sum of human suffering. Next, 
 that further amount of drinking which is incidental to 
 the habit among workingmen of freq[uenting public- 
 houses because their own houses offer them no com- 
 fortable, warm, cheerful room to sit in, would be mini- 
 mized : and few know for how much drunkenness this 
 cause is indirectly and in its origin answerable. Then, 
 again, with the universal establishment of wholesome 
 and decent dwellings for the poor, we should escape, 
 not only the 20,000 or 30,000 premature deaths caused 
 by the want of such, and the sapped health and strength 
 of thousands more, but the destitution, misery, and in- 
 sufficient nourishment of countless families where pre- 
 ventible maladies have swept away the bread-winner, 
 and, in consequence and in addition, at least one half 
 the pauperism which is eating like a gangrene into the 
 moral and material weU-being of the country. For — and 
 this is the encoui-aging feature of this matter — amend- 
 ment and reform in one point brings amendment and 
 progress in all others. You cannot improve dweUings 
 without, pro tanto, lessening intemperance and vice ; you 
 cannot diminish drunkenness without diminishing pau- 
 perism and brutality, disease and death ; you cannot give 
 people comfortable houses, without sobriety, health, edu- 
 
36 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 cation, virtually if not actually increased wages, and 
 raised moral feeling, inevitably and by a thousand in- 
 direct channels, advancing also, and aiding the good 
 work in modes as yet undreamed of. Every valuable 
 influence put in operation is a potent ally of every 
 other. If a man's or a nation's face is once set in the 
 right direction and progress once commenced, unseen 
 influences close in on all sides, half insensibly, to aid 
 the onward march. 
 
 Look for a moment, very briefly, at the perverse course 
 we have hitherto pursued ; . how we have fostered all our 
 social maladies as it were with a sort of co-operative zeal; 
 how we have taken every sore which plagues and cor- 
 rodes our body politic, and not merely " let it alone this 
 year and that year also," but " dug about and dunged it," 
 as if we were determined it should bear ample fruit ; 
 and this not from viciousness, but sometimes from igno- 
 rance, sometimes from good feeling gone astray, some- 
 times from selfishness and careless neglect, usually from 
 sheer stupidity. For generations we have seen that most 
 ominous of all symptoms, that most dangerous if most 
 natural of all tendencies in a productive and advancing 
 country, the concentration of the population into great 
 towns, without — we do not say any attempt to control 
 or counteract it, but — any effort, or any adequate effort, 
 to provide for it, or forestall its consequences. We have 
 scarcely dreamed of the necessity for expanding our 
 social garments as our social body has grown beneath 
 them. The same municipal government — or rather the 
 same municipal makeshifts and neglect — which sufficed 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 37 
 
 for the village or the country town, we have fancied 
 would answer for the vast manufacturing hive. The 
 same drainage system, the same sort of water supply, 
 the same, haphazard mode of multiplying buildings 
 which did for a town of 5,000 inhabitants, have been 
 appKed to the same town grown to 50,000. Look at 
 London, which needed more care, skill, science, admin- 
 istrative wisdom than any other city, and as the seat 
 of wealth, rank, and the central government might have 
 been expected to receive more, and consider its contriv- 
 ances for obtaining gas, water, drainage; look at its rook- 
 eries and its alleys ; its squalid dens ; its mingled luxury 
 and destitution ; its no government ; its provision for fire, 
 and against fire. 
 
 Look at pauperism, how we have fed and fostered it ; 
 how we shrank from and spoiled and neutralized the 
 one really scientific piece of legislation which England 
 can boast of, the New Poor Law as first proposed ; how 
 we have kept up and added to those old mediasvally con- 
 ceived charities which might have been innoxious under 
 altogether different conditions, but which now make men- 
 dicancy almost the most profitable trade a miscellaneous 
 town population can pursue. Consider how, when a 
 thorough knowledge and a close and searching investi- 
 gation into every case of alleged want offer the only 
 possible means of controlling pauperism and unmasking 
 imposture, we, in our miserable vestry spirit of wasteful 
 parsimony, make all such investigations a mockery and 
 an impossibility by assigning hundreds of families to one 
 relieving officer and an imbecile Board. Consider how 
 
38 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 public sympathy has been perpetually enlisted on the 
 wrong side by the mingled stupidity and brutality of 
 Boards of Guardians, unjust alike to the rate-payer and 
 the poor, .-who at the same moment shocked aU decent 
 feeling by the cruelty and stinginess of their treatment 
 of the sick and aged, and outraged all common-sense 
 by the laxity and feebleness of their dealing with the 
 able-bodied incorrigible pauper, the systematic vagrant, 
 and the drunken casual. Lastly, read and think how 
 the sin and folly of the charitable and religious have 
 combined to convert the East End of London into about 
 the most unmanageable heap of squalor, destitution, 
 drunkenness, imposture, and artificial wretchedness on 
 earth : — and then some faint idea may be formed of 
 how this monster evil of our country might be got 
 under by sound treatment, from watching how it has 
 been made, to flourish under all this lavish and perverse 
 manuring. 
 
 Again : we have fostered our criminal population just 
 as we have fostered our pauper population, till this also 
 has become a flourishing established class, to be numbered, 
 not by tens, but by hundreds of thousands. For genera- 
 tions we have labored with^our usual injurious and ever- 
 varying perversity. There is scarcely a single contradic- 
 tory mistake that we have not committed. It was long 
 before scientific inquiry and reflection let in any light 
 upon the subject ; and when light dawned at last, folly and 
 sentimentality refused to follow the guidance of science. 
 For generations our punishments were so savage that ju- 
 ries would not convict. Our constabulary were so scanty 
 
KEALIZABLE IDEALS. 39 
 
 and inefficient that crime had practically scarcely any 
 public foe ; and when, less than fifty years ago, something 
 like an adequate police began to be set on foot, there was 
 an instant clamor that the liberties of the subject were in 
 danger. Due restraint on known and habitual criminals 
 is still impeded in the name of the same much-abused 
 phrase ; and burglars_and felons are allowed to walk abroad 
 after repeated convictions, because the freedom of English- 
 men is too sacred to be touched. The most mawkish sen- 
 timentality is suffered to prevent the infliction of the only 
 punishments which are really dreaded by the hardened 
 and the ruffianly, as well as those which alone could res- 
 cue and restore the incipient criminal. We will not hang 
 the murderer, and have only lately and gingerly begun to 
 flog the garroter and the mutilator ; nor wUl we give ade- 
 quately long terms of imprisonment to the less atrocious 
 and confirmed class of malefactors. We persist, in spite 
 of all warning and of all experience, in turning loose our 
 villains on the world, time after time, as soon as a moder- 
 ate term of detention has finished their education and 
 defined their future course. All who have really studied 
 the question feel satisfied that professional crime, and 
 the class that habitually live by violation of the law, 
 might be wellnigh exterminated by the perpetual seclusion 
 of the incorrigible, and by the infliction of the special 
 penalties which are truly deterrent. Yet still we go on 
 from day to day making the criminals as comfortable 
 as we can, pitying them and petting them when an 
 opportunity occurs, raising an outcry against any pen- 
 alties which are painful, and thinking we have done 
 
40 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 enough, and arguing as if we had done all. we had a 
 right to dOj if we tie the hands of the most practised rob- 
 her and nlffian for a time. All wholesomeness of notion 
 in reference to this subject seemed to have gone out of 
 us, and to be replaced by sentiment at once shallow and 
 morbid. We have been feeling towards the criminal 
 neither as Christians, nor as statesmen, nor as philoso- 
 phers, nor even as men of the world. We neither abhor 
 him, nor cure him, nor disarm him. We do not act either 
 on the reformatory, or the retributive, or the purely defen- 
 sive principle, but on a feeble muddle of all three. So he 
 lives, and thrives, and multiphes, nourished in the bosom 
 of the silly society on which he preys. 
 
 Consider again what might fairly be expected to be the 
 present state of the civilized world if the whole influence 
 of the Church had been persistently and sagaciously di- 
 rected towards the improvement of the moral and material 
 condition of humanity on this earth, instead of towards 
 the promulgation of an astounding scheme for securing it 
 against eternal torments in a future existence ; if, in a word 
 [universal not selfish], well-being here, instead of what 
 is called salvation hereafter, had been the aim and study 
 of the great organization called the Church, and of the 
 hundreds of thousands of teachers, both orthodox and 
 unorthodox, who for ceiituries have ostensibly lived and 
 worked for no other end. It would be rash to say that, 
 on a balance of considerations, the Church and the clergy 
 of all denominations have, in the course of ages, done more 
 harm than good to the Christian world ; but probably it 
 would be rasher stiU to assert the contrary. Certain it is, 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 41 
 
 that in many most material points they have worked 
 counter to the progress of mankind in material and social 
 welfare, and in those departments of moral improvement 
 which spring therefrom. They have inculcated almsgiving 
 on the rich, and (by implication, at least in the matter of 
 early marriages) improvidence on the poor, and have thus 
 been the abettors of incalculable mischief And they have 
 been able to quote texts in defence of both misteachings. 
 To the rich they have said, " Give to him that asketh of 
 thee " ; to the poor, " Take no thought for the morrow, 
 for the morrow shall take thought for the things of it- 
 seE" * In former days they whetted the angry passions 
 of men by consecrating them and enlisting them in the 
 service of the Church, and are answerable for countless 
 cruelties and ciimes, perhaps for the very worst that have 
 disgraced history. Something of this tendency, perhaps, 
 still remains, and neither charity nor education can do 
 the good they might because theology stands in the way.-|- 
 
 * " Another habit of the same category is that of marrying early 
 and in trust. Religion has looked favoraUy on this habit. ' God 
 himself bade men be fruitful and multiply.' Let young people who 
 fall in love noaiTy, or they may do worse. 'God will provide food 
 for the months he sends into the world.' Our Lord, it is urged, ex- 
 horted his disciples to a simple dependence on the heavenly Father 
 who feeds the sparrows, and condemned anxious care about the mor- 
 row. To discourage early marriages on prudential grounds has been 
 stigmatized by religious persons as a hard, godless, immoral policy." 
 — Bev. Llewellyn Davies, " Cont. Rev.," Jan. 1871. 
 
 t This is the result of much thought and practical experience in 
 a singularly careful, intelligent, and pious man. " In charity as in 
 educaticm, the supreme evil is religion, — not true religion, not that 
 
42 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 The entire theory of the Church is antagonistic to any 
 concentrated or consistent scheme for raising the earthly 
 condition of the suffering masses ; and if practice in this 
 respect has been sounder than theory, the manifest incon- 
 sistency of the two has introduced the further evil of a 
 fearful and fundamental insincerity. All this has been 
 so well put by other writers that I shall prefer their words 
 to my own. 
 
 "With regard to the influence of Christianity, it would 
 seem that there is much exaggeration in the views enter- 
 tained upon that subject, and even a misconception of its 
 true stand-point. The recent arguments upon this sub- 
 ject would, in fact, have been scarcely intelligible to the 
 early fathers and apologists, and if they had understood 
 they would have rejected them. Their conception of 
 Christianity was that it was a preparation for a com- 
 ing age, and also for another world, not an instrument 
 for the improvement of the present ; and this still con- 
 tinues to be the prevalent opinion among those who con- 
 sider themselves to be especial Christians, members of 
 the body and heirs of the kingdom of Christ. To be 
 wise, or learned, or rich, or peaceful, or happy, was for 
 the individual believer rather a snare and a peril than an 
 advantage. The kingdom of Christ was not of this world, 
 and its results were not to be looked for here, unless in 
 so far as they were realized by faith. The friendship of 
 
 love which is the fulfilling of the law, but that vile devH-coined 
 counterfeit which the so-called religious world has stamped with its 
 hall-mari, and agrees to receive as legal tender in place of the true 
 metal." — LetUn of Edrnwrd Denison, p. 229. 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 43 
 
 this world was enmity with God. If the Christian, found 
 himseK in harmony with circumstances; if a uniform 
 course of steady and well-directed industry, and an unself- 
 ish regard for the rights and feelings of others, had pro- 
 duced their natural consequences of material well-being 
 and social respect, this proof of conformity to the world 
 would at least raise a presumption that he had, in some 
 degree, deserved the enmity of God ; at the lowest, these 
 temporal blessings might induce him' to rest satisfied with 
 his present lot, might dim the eye of faith, and weaken 
 the aspirations or even change the object of hope. These 
 moral virtues, too, were insignificant ; they might be splen- 
 did sins. Without faith it was impossible to please God, 
 and with faith aU other excellences were at least impli- 
 citly connected ; and considering the utter insignificance, 
 on the Christian scheme, of the present life as compared 
 with the eternity that was to follow, no inconvenience or 
 privation or suffering was worthy to be regarded for a mo- 
 ment, if its existence removed an obstacle to the fuller 
 growth of the inward and spiritual life. 
 
 "To improve the moral or physical aspect of society 
 was, therefore, no part of the Christian scheme. That it 
 should, in fact, have done so was no subject of congratu- 
 lation, but rather to be feared and possibly to be regret- 
 ted ; at any rate, it was an absolutely insignificant result. 
 If one soul was lost in consequence, what would the 
 earthly happiness and virtue of millions weigh if bal- 
 anced against that eternal misery ; and if not, what did 
 it matter at the best ? No more .than a single smile of 
 an infant in its cradle, procured by some momentary pleas- 
 
44 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 ure, as compared with the happiness or misery of its whole 
 future life. There may be a question whether this was 
 the teaching of Jesus, but there can be no question that 
 this is the spirit of orthodox Christianity." * 
 
 Another wiiter observes : — 
 
 " In our perplexity we naturally direct our attention 
 first to the Church, which we have been taught to look up 
 to as our guide and instructor in all our most important 
 concerns. What has been its action on the progress of 
 the world and the happiness of mankind ? Startling as 
 the avowal must appear, we can hardly help arriving at 
 the conclusion that the Church has been rather a hin- 
 drance than a helper in the great business of humanity ; 
 and that she is, in a great deg-ree, responsible for the fact 
 that so small progress has been made. 
 
 " Unhapp'ily, the theory on which the Church proceeds 
 is calculated rather to impede than to promote man's hap- 
 piness and well-being in this world. It assumes that this 
 world is a faUen world, and man's position in it merely a 
 state of preparation for another and better state of exist- 
 ence ; that man's happiness here is a matter comparatively 
 of little moment, and that his main business on earth is 
 to qualify himself for happiness in that future state 
 
 "To employ the faculties that God has given us in 
 endeavoring to discover His laws as displayed in His works, 
 and to do His will by devoting all our energies to improve 
 the condition of mankind and to alleviate the misery so 
 
 * " The Jesus of History," p. 13, by Sir E. D. Hanson, Chief Jus- 
 tice of South Australia. 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 45 
 
 prevalent in the world, and which mainly arises from ig- 
 norance or neglect of those laws ; to endeavor by honest 
 labor to raise ourselves in the scale of society ; this, it is 
 said, although it may be conducive to man's happiness 
 and well-being here, is not the way to prepare for a future 
 life. We are to renounce this world, to lay up no treas- 
 ures here. Eiches are the root of evU ; the elements of 
 progress and civilization are matters of secondary moment. 
 Our task here is to endeavor, by patience, humility, repent- 
 ance, faith in the Eedeemer, and through the efficacy of 
 the Sacraments of the Church, to secure eternal happiness 
 in Heaven. This is the assumption of the Church. If it 
 be correct, the more zealous the clergy are, and the more 
 faithful in the discharge of their duties, the more wiU they 
 endeavor to withdraw attention from what concerns the 
 temporal interests of those committed to their charge, in 
 order to fix it the more steadily on that which alone, if 
 the Church's theory be true, is of real worth, — the secur- 
 ing of their happiness in a future life. 
 
 " It may perhaps be said, that though this is the theory 
 of the. Church, yet, in practice, it does not discourage a 
 reasonable attention to the affairs of this world ; and it is 
 true that there is a great deal of inconsistency between 
 the theory and the practice of the Church. The clergy do 
 not themselves practise, nor do they expect their hearers 
 to practise, all that the theory of the Church requires them 
 to profess. There is a great deal of conventional insincer- 
 ity ; but this very insincerity is one of the serious evUs 
 arising out of the artificial system with which the Church 
 is encumbered. It goes far to explain the discredit into 
 
46 NIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 which the Church has fallen, with the working-classes 
 especially, and the powerlessness of the clergy to make 
 any impression by their teaching." * 
 Once more : — 
 
 " As regards human Hfe in general, it may be said that 
 the industrial theory of it has been treated for the most 
 part as a rival, if not as an enemy, by theological inter- 
 ests. The old traditional teaching of the Church repre- 
 sented it as the business of the Christian to prepare him- 
 self for the life to come. The things of this life were 
 snares which he ought, as far as possible, to shun. The 
 love of money was the root of all evU ; it was extremely 
 difficult for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of heav- 
 en. The man who accumulated wealth was a fool not to 
 remember that at any moment his soul might be required 
 of him. Mediaeval theology, in an uncompromising spirit, 
 asserted the superior credit and reasonableness of a sim- 
 ple ascetic life. It was better that a man should renounce 
 "wealth, marriage, comfort, should withdraw himself from 
 the occupations and interests of secular society, and de- 
 vote himself whoUy to the pursuit of salvation. Protes- 
 tantism recoiled from such a condemnation of the present 
 world, and its trumpet has given an uncertain sound on 
 this question. But its attitude towards iadustrialism and 
 secular civilization has been generally that of toleration 
 and compromise. Its theology has recommended detach- 
 ment from the world in the interest of the soul and its 
 salvation. Life is still pictured as a pilgrimage through a 
 
 * " The Problem of the World and the Church," hy a Septuage- 
 narian, p. 7. 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 47 
 
 trying wilderness to Paradise. But for various reasons 
 of necessity and expediency, Christians may accommodate 
 themselves innocently and judiciously to the exigencies 
 of this world. Making money is a thing of the earth, 
 earthy ; but money is a powerful instrument, and true 
 Christians wUl not forego the opportunities it gives for 
 promoting the cause of religion." * 
 
 It win be admitted at once, that in aU the matters 
 above referred to we shall see our blunders, and sooner or 
 later rectify them, and that a vast improvement in the 
 general aspect of social life will be the result. But it may 
 be objected, — and the objection indisputably expresses 
 the general sentiment, — after all, even when we have 
 come to discern what is wise and right, and to understand 
 thoroughly the unswerving laws which determine political 
 and individual well-being, and estimate adequately the 
 consequences of their neglect or violation, the old, eternal, 
 insuperable difficulty will remain to confront and dis- 
 hearten us. Our passions will be still in the ascendant, 
 speaking in a louder tone than either interest or duty, and 
 diverting both personal and collective action from that 
 course which alone could realize our visions of attainable 
 good. The ineradicable selfishness of man, the ambition 
 of individuals, of nations, of rulers, the sexual passion 
 (perhaps the most disturbing and unruly of all), wiU con- 
 tinue to lay waste your ideal future as they have laid 
 waste the melancholy past. 
 
 It may be so. But there are three sets of considerations 
 
 * Eev. Llewellyn Davies, "Cont. Kev.," Jan., 1871. 
 
48 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 wMch point to a more hopeful issue : the ineVitably vast 
 change which cannot fail to ensue when all the countless 
 influences which hitherto have been working perversely 
 in a wrong direction shall turn their combined forces the 
 other way ; the reciprocally reacting and cumulative oper- 
 ation of each step in the right course ; and the illimitable 
 generations and ages which yet lie before humanity ere 
 the goal be reached. Our present condition no doubt is 
 discouraging enough ; we have been sailing for centuries 
 on a wrong tack ; but we are beginning, though only just 
 beginning, to put about the ship. What may we not 
 rationally hope for, when the condition of the masses 
 shall receive that concentrated and urgent attention which 
 has hitherto been directed, permanently if not exclusively, 
 to furthering the interests of more favored ranks ? What, 
 when charity, which for centuries has been doing mis- 
 chief, shall begin to do good ? What, when the countless 
 pulpits that, so far back as history can reach, have been 
 preaching Catholicism, Anglicanism, Presbyterianism, Cal- 
 vinism, Wegleyanism, shall set to work to preach Chris- 
 tianity at last ? Do we ever even approach to a due es- 
 timate of the degree in which every stronghold of vice or 
 folly overthrown exposes, weakens, and undermines every 
 other; .of the extent to which every improvement, social, 
 moral, or material, makes every other easier ; of the count- 
 less ways in which physical reform reacts on intellectual 
 and ethical progress ? 
 
 What a gradual transformation — transformation almost 
 reaching to transfiguration — w"iU not steal over the aspect 
 of civilized communities when, by a few generations, dur- 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 49 
 
 ing which hygienic science and sense shall have been in 
 the ascendant, the restored health of mankind shall have 
 corrected the morbid exaggeration of our appetites- ; when 
 the more questionable instincts and passions, less and less 
 exercised and stimulated for centuries, shall have faded 
 into comparative quiescence ; when the disordered consti- 
 tutions, whether diseased, criminal, or defective, which 
 now spread and propagate so much moral mischief, shall 
 have been eliminated ; when sounder systems of educa- 
 tion shall have prevented the too early awakening of nat- 
 ural desires ; when more rational because higher and so- 
 berer notions of what is needful and desirable in social life, 
 a lower standard of expenditure, wiser simplicity in living, 
 shall have rendered the legitimate gratification of those 
 desires more easy; when little in comparison' shall be 
 needed for a happy home, and that Mttle shall have become 
 generally attainable by frugality, sobriety, and toU ? * It 
 
 * Reflect for a moment on these two examples, appb" cable to dif- 
 ferent classes. The (secondary) causes and encouragements of intem- 
 perance are bad air and unwholesome diet, sometimes a bad consti- 
 tution, which create a craving for drink ; bad company, which 
 tempts to it ; undue faoUities, which conduce to it ; adulteration 
 of liquors, which exasperates their pernicious influences ; squalid 
 homes, which drive men forth for cheerfulness ; and the want of 
 other comfortable places of resort, which leaves them no refuge but 
 the publican's parlor. What, again, are the consequences of intem- 
 perance ? Poverty, squalid homes, brutality, crime, and the trans- 
 mission of vitiated constitutions. Who can say that all these are 
 not preventible ? Sound administration might prevent the bad air 
 of unventUated dwellings, the undue multiplication and constant 
 accessibility of gin and beer shops, and the poisoning of wholesome 
 drink. Sound charity might establish or promote the establishment 
 
 .3 D 
 
50 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 surely is not too Utopian to fancy that our children, or 
 our grandchildren at least, may see a civU state in which 
 wise and effective legislation, backed by adequate admin- 
 istration, shall have made all violation of law, all habitual 
 crime, obviously, inevitably, and instantly a losing game, 
 and therefore an extinct profession ; when property shall 
 be respected and not coveted, because possessed or attain- 
 able by all ; when the distribution of wealth shall receive 
 both from the Statesman and the Economist that sedulous 
 attention which is now concentrated exclusively on its 
 
 of workmeii's clubs, as rival scenes of cheerfulness and comfort. 
 These, in time, would enormously reduce destitution, and render 
 home more home-Kke ; and brutality, crime, and vitiated constitu- 
 tions would naturally diminish pari passu, tUl the residuum would 
 become so small in amount that it could be easily dealt wjth. For 
 let us never forget that it is the magnitude and extent of our social 
 evils that render them so hopeless and unmanageable. 
 
 Then, again, look at that sad blot upon our civilization which we 
 have got to call the Sodial Evil par excellence. What are its second- 
 ary causes ? The early awakening of desire by our vicious and care- 
 less system of education ; our vast population of idle men, whose 
 passions are never sobered by the sanitary blessing of severe toil, 
 and to hundreds of thousands of whom (soldiers and sailors) celibacy 
 is a necessary condition ; our want of adequate training and diffused 
 information and legislative and administrative facilities, which pre-, 
 vent those. for whom there is no adequate opening to employment 
 and success here from seeking it abroad ; our ■self-indulgence and 
 intemperate habits, which waste the earnings that, well husbanded, 
 might have provided means for an early marriage and a happy home ; 
 the wretched notions of luxury which prevail through so many strata 
 of society, and frighten away men and women alike from a blended 
 life that would entail frugality and self-denial ; the number of wo- 
 men whom our blunders and false notions make redundant, and the 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 51 
 
 acquisition ; and when, though relative poverty may still 
 remain, actual and unmerited destitution shaU everywhere 
 be as completely eliminated as it has been already in one 
 or two fortunate and limited communities. Few probably 
 have at all realized how near the possibility at least of 
 this consummation may be. An intellectual and moral 
 change, — both within moderate and attainable limits, — 
 and the adequate and feasible education^ of all classes, 
 would bring it about in a single generation. If our work- 
 ingmen were as hardy, enduring, and ambitious as the 
 
 yet greater number whom they make destitute and dependent ; and, 
 finally, our utterly unsound moral perceptions on this matter. The 
 working of the social evil is simply and obviously to aggravate all 
 these things. But is it quite hopeless to amend our education ? Is 
 not the probable tendency of events to diminish the number of mere 
 fruges consv/mere nati by a fairer distribution of wealth ; and may we 
 not hope that we are looking, if not actually marching, towards a 
 sounder public opinion that will render idleness and dissipation dis- 
 creditable ? Is it utterly irrational to anticipate the day when the 
 cessation of wars will disband armies, or convert them into a mere 
 police force, to the members of which domestic life will be no im- 
 possibility ? Are we not already here and there beginning to per- 
 ceive that large means are not absolutely essential to a comfortable 
 and even refined manage ? And the moment simplicity and fru- 
 gality of living become fashionable, creditable, or even moderately 
 general, at that moment it will become easy, and comparatively 
 early marriages wiU be feasible without imprudence. When this is 
 achieved, voluntary celibacy will become discreditable, redundant 
 women wiU be absorbed, and those whose poverty places them now 
 at the mercy of the tempter wUl become fewer and fewer as the other 
 social improvements which we anticipate begin to operate, and the 
 premature deaths of the bread-winners disappear before sanifled cit- 
 ies and vanishing intemperance. 
 
52 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 better specimens of the Scotch peasantry, and valued in- 
 struction as much, and if they were as frugal, managing, 
 and saving as the French peasantry, the work would be 
 very near completion. If any doubt this, let them care- 
 fully ponder the lessons taught experimentally in such 
 narratives as the "'Memoirs of William and Eobert Cham- 
 bers," and SomerviUe's "Autobiography of a Working 
 Man," and the facts set forth in " The Proletariat on a 
 False Scent " (" Quarterly Eeview," January, 1872), and 
 they will doubt no longer. 
 
 It may sound romantic, at the end of a decade which 
 has witnessed perhaps the two most fierce and san- 
 guinary wars in the world's history, to hope that this 
 wretched and clumsy mode of settling national quar- 
 rels will erelong be obsolete; but no one can doubt 
 that the commencement of wiser estimates of national 
 interests and needs, the growing devastation and slaugh- 
 ter of modern wars, the increased range and power of 
 implements of destruction which, as they are employ- 
 able by all combatants; will grow too tremendous to he 
 employed hy any, and the increasing horror with which a 
 cultivated age cannot avoid regarding such scenes, are 
 all clear, if feeble and inchoate, indications of a ten- 
 dency towards this blessed < consummation. 
 
 Europe and England of to-day, and America as well,, 
 it is too true, offer many features calculated to try 
 severely our faith that the face of the civilized world 
 is set towards a better day. Nous avons les defauts de 
 nos qualitis. Our growing tenderness to suffering is 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 53 
 
 accompanied with a corresponding gentleness towards 
 wrong* Our morality grows laxer as our hearts grow 
 
 * The following extracts are from one of the most remarkable 
 and suggestive articles I remember to have read, as well as the 
 most beautiful in its turn of thought and power of expression : — 
 
 " There is the profoundest danger of the coUapse of that highest 
 personal life, the glory of which has been shown us, before the con- 
 fusion of the half-lights and haK-shadows of the new era. Com- 
 plexity of every kind is the great condition of the new life, — 
 shades of thought too complex to yield up definite opinions, — 
 - shades of moral obligation too complex to yield up definite axi- 
 oms of duty, — shades of insight too various to yield up definite 
 sentences of approval or condemnation for the actions of others. 
 On all subjects not strictly scientific, on all those mental and moral 
 questions which determine conduct and action, the growing sense 
 of complexity and difficulty is rapidly producing a relaxing effect 
 upon the force of individual character. In some sense men are 
 blinded by excess of light. The simple old moral law, ' Thou shalt 
 not kill,' ' Thou shalt not steal,' ' Thou shalt not commit adultery,' 
 ' Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's goods,' is apt to lose half its 
 meaning before multitudes of distinctions which gradually shade 
 off forbidden acts into the most praiseworthy and delicate senti- 
 ments, and leave you wondering where the spirit of the law ends 
 and the letter begins. 
 
 " There is, at all events, an immense growth of this spirit, not 
 amongst those who have most hardship and suffering, but who 
 have least, — amongst those who have chiefly reaped the advan- 
 tages of the new sciences and arts in easy lite, pleasant tastes, 
 languid hopes, and feeble faiths. The fear is, that if civilization 
 succeeds — and we trust it will succeed — in raising the mass of 
 men to the same level pf comparatively satisfied material and 
 intellectual wants, there will be the same disposition to subside 
 into the limited life of small attainable enjoyments, and to let 
 
54 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 softer. We are nearly as cliaritable to the sinner as to 
 the sufferer. We condemn nothing very bitterly. We 
 punish nothing very severely. We scarcely regard any- 
 thing as wicked which is not cruel. Our social atmos- 
 phere is thick and hazy with insincerities and unreal- 
 ities. We bow down before false gods and we profess 
 ignoble creeds ; and, what is almost worse, we neither 
 heartily worship the one nor 'honestly believe the other. 
 We are not exactly bad, but neither are we strong nor 
 true. The religion we profess has for one of its most 
 significant and salient features the denunciation of 
 wealth as a trust or a pursuit ; — Christianity condemns 
 riches and the love of riches as a snare, a danger, and 
 almost a sin ; and even pagan-nurtured sages and states- 
 men are never weary of pointing out how this disas- 
 trous passion vitiates all our' estimates of life and its 
 enjoyments, and fosters and exasperates all our social 
 sores. Yet in England and America, perhaps the two 
 
 alone the struggles for perfect 'freedom and perfect life in God. 
 If it were true that with the beating back of great physical wants, 
 the deepest hunger of human , nature is to be laid to sleep, and life 
 to be frittered away in small enjoyments, no one could look upon 
 human destiny without a sigh. 
 
 " Perhaps it may be thought almost an answer to this fear to 
 point out that with the growth of the self-indulgent spirit there is 
 very apt to grow also a very strong feeling of the worthlessness of 
 life, — a feeling that nothing enjoyed is worth the cost of obtaining 
 it, that life^itself is a doubtful good, that the spring and elasticity 
 of youth once over, and the sense of duty smothered in a sea of 
 speculative doubt, it is rather from indolence than from love of 
 life, that men prolong the dreary monotony of unsolved problems 
 and ungranted prayers." — Spectator, October 19, 1867. 
 
KEALIZABLE IDEALS. 55 
 
 most sincerely Christian nations in the world, — one 
 the cradle, the other the offspring, of Puritanism, — 
 the pursuit nearest to a universal one, the passion Hk- 
 est to a national one, is mOney-getting ; not the effort 
 after competence or comfort, but the pushing, jostling, 
 trampling struggle for vast possessions or redundant 
 affluence. Yet already we fancy we can see traces, 
 not so much of positive reaction against these things, 
 as of that sounder perception and that sick discontent 
 even in success which precede reaction. Progress, too, 
 is always fitful, and the errors and backslidings we see 
 around us now may be merely the casual ebb of the 
 advancing wave. "Time is on our sidg." We look -to 
 advance by slow accretions. We calculate on eras al- 
 most geological in their duration before the fuU attain- 
 ment of an ideal life on earth. The moral sense will 
 have to be strengthened and purified by long centuries 
 of increasing good before it can do its perfect work. 
 But what are centuries vjj. the Kfetime of a race ? 
 They are less than as many minutes of individual 
 duration. " La Providence a ses aises dans le temps j elle 
 fait un pas, et des si^cles se trouvent ecoules." * God, 
 who spent ages in fitting the earth for the residence 
 qf man, may well spend ages more in fitting rectified 
 man to inhabit a renovated earth. 
 
 There are, however, a few recollections and reflec- 
 tions which justify a fancy that possibly our steps 
 forward may erelong be incomparably more rapid than 
 is here supposed. The possibilities of human progress 
 
 * Guizot, Histoire de la Civilisation. 
 
56 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 — what Humanity might achieve if its known powers 
 were steadily applied in a determinate and already 
 indicated direction — are simply incalnlable. Its actu- 
 alities even — historically recorded or daily witnessed 
 
 — are startling enough. Our eras of advance have 
 been short and fitful ; but they have been wonderful 
 while they lasted, and we can assign no reason why 
 they need have ceased. Look back two-and-twenty 
 centuries. In about two hundred years the Athenians 
 raised themselves from the conditions of a rude ■ and 
 scarcely civilized people to the highest summit which 
 any nation has yet reached, — the culminating point 
 of human intelligence.* Conceive that rate of progress 
 continued instead of stopping short, and applied to all 
 departments of man's capacities and wants instead of 
 to a few only, and what might our Eace not have 
 been now ? 
 
 Again, few phenomena are more remarkable, yet few 
 have been less remarked,^ than the degree in which 
 material civilization — the progress of mankind in all 
 those cohtrivances which oil the wheels and promote 
 the comfort of daily life — has been concentrated into 
 
 * The summit was attained in the days of Pericles, b. c. 450. 
 Grote considers that' the real history of Greece hegan only in b. o. 
 776. The Archonship of Kreon, with whom commences the 
 authentic chronology of Athens, dates B. o. 683 ; but the real pro- 
 gress of Athens is comprised between the time of Solon (594) or 
 that of Pisistratus (560), and that of Pericfes (450), — scarcely 
 more than three generations. The grandfather was born in a rude 
 age ; the grandson or great-grandson iHourished in the acme of 
 civilization. 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 57 
 
 the present century. It is not too much to say that 
 in these respects more has been done, richer and more 
 prolific discoveries have been made, grander achieve- 
 ments have been realized, in the course of the fifty or 
 seventy years of our own lifetime than in all the pre- 
 vious lifetime of the race, since states, nations, and 
 politics, such as history makes us acquainted with, have 
 had their being. In some points, no doubt, the opposite 
 of this is true. In speculative philosophy, in poetry, 
 in the arts of sculpture and painting, in the perfection 
 and niceties of language, we can scarcely be said to 
 have made any advance for upwards of two thousand 
 years. Probably no instrument of thought and expres- 
 sion has been or ever wUl be more perfect than Greek; 
 no poet wiU surpass Homer or Sophocles; no thinker 
 dive deeper than Plato or Pythagoras ; no sculptor pro- 
 duce more glorious marble conceptions than Phidias or 
 Praxiteles. It may well be that David and Confucius 
 and Pericles were clothed as richly and comfortably as 
 George III. or Louis XVIII., and far more becomingly. 
 There is every reason to believe that the dwellings of 
 the rich and great among the Eomans, Greeks, and 
 Babylonians were as luxurious and well appointed as 
 our own, as well as incomparably more gorgeous and 
 enduring. It is certain that the palaces belonging to 
 the nobles and monarchg of the Middle Ages — to say 
 nothing of abbeys, miasters, and temples — were in 
 nearly all respects equal to those erected in the pres- 
 ent day, and in some important points far superior. 
 But in how many other equally significant and valu- 
 
 3* 
 
58 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 able particulars has the progress of the world been not 
 only concentrated into these latter days, but astound- 
 ingly rapid in its march ? 
 
 Consider only the three momentous matters of light, lo- 
 comotion, and communication, and we shall see that this 
 generation contrasts most surprisingly with the aggi'egate 
 of the progress effected in all previous generations put 
 together since the earliest dawn of authentic history. 
 The lamps and torches which illuminated Belshazzar's 
 feast were probably just as brilliant, and framed out of 
 nearly the same materials, as those which shone upon the 
 splendid /e7es of Versailles when Marie Antoinette presided 
 over them, or those of the Tuileries during the Imperial 
 magnificence of the First Napoleon. Pine wood, oilj and 
 perhaps wax lighted the banquet-halls of the wealthiest 
 nobles alike in the eighth century before Christ and in 
 the eighteenth century after Christ. There was little dif- 
 ference, except in finish of workmanship and elegance of 
 design, — little, if any, advance, we mean, in the illumi- 
 nating power, or in the source whence that power was 
 drawn, — between the lamps used in the days of the 
 Pyramids, the days of the Coliseum, and the days of 
 Kensington Palace. Fifty years ago, that is, we burnt 
 the same articles, and got about the same amount of 
 light from them, as we did four thousand years ago. 
 Now, we use gas of which each burner is equal to fifteen 
 or twenty candles ; and when we wish for more can have 
 recourse to the electric light or analogous inventions, 
 which are fifty-fold more brilliant and far-reaching than 
 even the best gas. The streets of cities, which from the 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 59 
 
 days of Pharaoli to those of Voltaire were dim and gloomy, 
 even where not wholly unlighted, now blaze everywhere 
 (except in London) with something of the brilliancy of 
 moonlight. In a word, aU the advance that has been 
 made in these respects has been made since many of 
 us were children. We remeiMer light as it was in the 
 days of Solomon, we see it as Drimimond and Faraday 
 have made it. 
 
 The same thing may be said of locomotion. Nimrod 
 and Noah travelled just in the same way, and just at 
 the same rate, as Thomas Assheton Smith and Mr. Coke 
 of Norfolk. The chariots of tiie Olympic Games went 
 just as fast sis the chariots that conveyed oiir nobles to 
 the Derby, "in our hot youth, when George the Third 
 was King." Wlien Abraham wanted to send a message 
 to Lot he despatched a man on horseback, who galloped 
 twelve miles an hour. When our fathers wanted to 
 send a message to their nephews,,they could do no bet- 
 ter, and go no quicker. When we were young, if we 
 wished to travel from. London to Edinburgh, we thought 
 ourselves lucky if we could average eight miles an hour, 
 — just as Eobert Bruce might have done. Now, in our 
 old age, we feel ourselves aggrieved if we do not aver- 
 age forty miles. Everything that has been done in this 
 line since the world began — everything, perhaps, that 
 the capacities of matter and the conditions of the hu- 
 man frame will ever allow to be done — has been done 
 since we were boys. The same at sea. Probably when 
 the wind was favorable, Ulysses, who was a bold and 
 skilful navigator, sailed as fast as a Dutch merchantman 
 
60 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 of the year 1800, nearly as fast at times as an American 
 yacht or clipper of our fathers' day. Now, we steam 
 twelve and fifteen miles an hour with wonderful regular- 
 ity, whether wind and tide be favorable or not ; nor is it 
 likely that we shall ever be able to go much faster. But 
 the progress in the means of communication is the most 
 remarkable of all. In this respect Mr. Pitt was no better 
 off than Pericles or Agamemnon. If Euth had wished 
 to write to Naomi, or David to send a word of love to 
 Jonathan when he was a hundred miles away, they could 
 not possibly have done it under twelve hours. Nor could 
 we to our own friends fifty years ago. In 1870 the hum- 
 blest citizen of Great Britain can send such a message, 
 not a hundred miles, but a thousand, in twelve minutes. 
 
 Suppose for a moment the advent of another fifty 
 years during which the activity of the human mind 
 should be directed towards Chemistry as applied to Sur- 
 gery and Medicine and hygienic influences in general, 
 and some of the highest authorities in therapeutics tell 
 us that we can scarcely conjecture the results that might 
 be achieved ; — sleep at will, with all the uncalculated 
 gain of time which that implies ; the conquest of all pain 
 not needed as a warning; the prevention of infant and 
 gratuitous mortality ; the extinction of epidemic diseases, 
 as leprosy and the plague have become extinct in Europe. 
 
 But it will be said, all these- are material matters, and 
 the vastest advance may be attained in those without any 
 consequent approach to your ideal State. Scarcely: ma- 
 terial victories and achievements make intellectual and 
 moral ones attainable. But suppose again, — what no 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 61 
 
 reader of History will deem a wild supposition, — sup- 
 pose the advent of a man, filled and fired with " the 
 enthusiasm of Humanity," and imbued with the true 
 conception of progress, — the prophet of a grand yet 
 realizable Ideal Suppose such seed as he could sow 
 falling on a prepared and fertile soil, and in a favorable 
 season. Such prophets have been raised up in the past, 
 and such happy conjunctions of suitable conditions have 
 occuri'ed. Imagine a Statesman or Leader, of fervid elo- 
 quence, convincing logic, with sound conceptions both of 
 ends and means, preaching to an educated people, at a 
 happy epoch, — and why should he not inaugurate a gen- 
 eration of sustained and rightly guided effort which would 
 revolutionize for good, and for all time, our entire social 
 and moral surroundings ? Surely Human Nature is not 
 so changed or sunk that spiritual forces cantot again work 
 greater marvels than mechanical or chemical or economic 
 agencies have done. Thought has not yet grown feebler 
 than electricity and gases in moulding the destinies of 
 man.* 
 
 * The following quotation, in an analogous line of thought, wilU 
 be found suggestive, if not acceptable (" Spectator," August 8, 
 1868) : — 
 
 " We write and chatter, but none of us know what a community 
 in which the majority was sovereign, and each man was as comj>e- 
 tent to form an opinion as an average county member now is, would 
 be like. That is an advance conceivable without revolution, and no 
 change we have yet encountered could so completely transform^ 
 Western society, its conditions, its ways, and it may well be, its ob- 
 jects. A happy life might become the ideal instead of a progressive 
 life, and half the existing social motors cease to act. All the new 
 
62 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 There are, however, three antagonistic agencies to b« 
 considered, the tendency of which appears hostile to al 
 continuous progress or radical and far-reaching amelio- 
 ration; and which, if they be really as persistent and 
 incurable as they seem, must be fatal to the realization 
 of our dreams of the ultimate happiness of mankind, oi 
 
 experiments in living tried in America have had that for ultimate 
 end, and have had as chiefs men above the uncultivated class, men 
 usually who have just emerged from the uncivilized stage. Society 
 as it is, is not the ultimate outcome of human thought, — if it he, 
 the best thing men can do is to give up the struggle to improve 
 others, and go in for self-cultivation alone, as the highest Americana 
 seem disposed to do ; but without dreaming of social revolutions, 
 let us think what universal and tolerably equal education really 
 implies. Well, this, for one thing, that work shall be paid for in 
 proportion to its disagreeableness, — a very prosaic and undeniable 
 proposition, which of itself and by itself would grind aU existing ar- 
 rangements into powder. Imagine the man who carts muck better 
 paid than the man who sells tapes ! a change actually visible in full 
 work in Illinois and Michigan. There is no need to talk about pos- 
 sible republics and impossible equalities, about the effect of household 
 suffrage or the decay of the feudal idea ; education, if we get it, will 
 pf itself be a sufficient solvent ; and getting it, though imjprobahle, 
 is far less impossible than the extinction of feudalism once appeared. 
 " Or suppose a new creed, or new development of the great exist- 
 ing creed, takes a strong hold of the masses of the West. Observers 
 think they see a strong tendency towards secularism, — a creed that, 
 if adopted, would pulverize existing society, which, with all its faults, 
 is not based on the theory of securing the greatest comfort in this 
 ■s^orld ; but let us imagine that history is true, that men will not 
 live without a religious belief, and that the belief wUl probably have 
 some connection with the root faith of the last few centuries, be, in 
 ■fact, a new form of Christianity. How great — let rectors say — 
 
EEALIZABLE IDEALS. 63 
 
 must relegate that realization to a world of wholly al- 
 tered conditions. These agencies are, — first, the alleged 
 perpetual and inevitable struggle for mere existence ; 
 secondly, the multiplication of the race from its least 
 eligible specimens, or, as it has been happUy termed, the 
 non-survival of the fittest j and, thirdly, the increasing 
 
 would be the change produced by a general impression that we 
 ought to live as Christ lived, or as He said we ought to live, to take 
 His teaching as it stands, and not as the learned have for a few cen- 
 turies declared that He meant it to stand ? How would wealth and 
 poverty face each other then ? Or suppose the enthusiasm of hu- 
 manity to get a strong hold upon men. It is odd, but it is true, that 
 the only people who seem nowadays willing to be " faithful unto 
 slaying " — not, be it noticed, merely " unto being slain " — are the 
 enthusiasts, the John Browns, Garibaldis, and Louis Blancs of all 
 sorts upon whom that enthusiasm has descended. How would our 
 social arrangements stand (kat new strain ? Or suppose the change 
 mainly one of dogma, — that, for example. Western mankind in 
 general got into its head the idea, which many English clergymen 
 have got into theirs, that the prize offered by Christianity is eternal 
 life, that the phrases eternal life and eternal death are literally true, 
 that man either rejoins Christ or dies like a flower, — would not that 
 act as a pretty rapid solvent of institutions ? We think we could 
 advance some strong reasons for believing that of aU the heresies 
 current among us, that is, perhaps, the most enticing and most dan- 
 gerous ; but it is but one of a hundred, any one of which may for a 
 moment prevail, and in prevailing make the next half-century 
 a period of change before which the last half-century will seem 
 stable and imeventful. 
 
 " That any change of all those that we have mdicated will occttr is 
 perhaps improbable, but not one of them is impossible, and in each 
 is contained the germ of innpvations to which those of our period of 
 ' concentrated progress ' will seem but small and weak." 
 
64 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 prevalence of democratic views and institutions, — a prev- 
 alence whicli many deem irresistible and fated. The two 
 former I shall consider in separate chapters ; the last, as 
 I propose to deal with it very briefly, I may as well 
 speak of here. 
 
 . The case is simply this. The ultimate realization of 
 our ideal depends upon all the influences which determine 
 the condition and improvement of a community — its po- 
 litibal and social action, its legislation and administration, 
 the education of the people (using that word in its widest 
 sense, to include the education of life as well -as of infancy, 
 the teaching of the pulpit as well as of the school-room), 
 its sanitary laws, its municipal government, its property 
 arrangements — being set and continued in a right direc- 
 tion ; that is, being guided by a sincere purpose towards 
 good, and by competent wisdom to determine how that 
 good may most surely be attained. Now, as civilized and 
 social life grows daily more rapid and more complex, and 
 the problems with which it has to deal therefore at once 
 vaster, more difficult, and more urgent, the largest intel- 
 lects and the widest knowledge are needed to handle them 
 and solve them ; intellects the least liable to be clouded 
 by interest or passion, and the most qualified by training 
 and study to foresee the consequences, and detect the cor- 
 relations and reciprocal operation on different classes, of 
 each law or executive proceeding. The science of govern- 
 ment is the most intricate and perplexing of all, demand- 
 ing mental and moral qualities of a higher order than any 
 other. Self-government; as it is not very correctly termed, 
 is assuredly not the simplest form of rule. Yet at the 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 65 
 
 very time wlien the influences which determine the well- 
 being of the community are growing more numerous and 
 involved, and the problems of social life more complicated 
 and more vast, the spread of democratic ideas and institu- 
 tions is throwing the control, the management, the ulti- 
 mate decision, at least, of all these influences and problems, 
 the final guidance of all administrative and legislative ac- 
 tion, in short, into the hands of the numerical majority, 
 — of those classes, that is, which, however their condition 
 as to property and education and morals may be raised, 
 must always be the least educated portion of the commu- 
 nity, the least endowed with political capacity, the least 
 possessed of either the leisure, the characteristics, or the 
 knowledge requisite for the functions assigned to them or 
 assumed by them. The masses may no longer be very 
 poor, or very ignorant, or in any way ill-disposed -, but 
 under no conditions can they help being more ignorant, 
 more engrossed with the struggle for individual well-being, 
 more unqualified to foresee or consider remote and collat- 
 eral consequences, more unable to deal patiently, largely, 
 consistently, and profoimdly with the questions which 
 occupy the statesman and afifect the life of nations, than 
 those other classes to whom wealth gives leisure to grow 
 wise. The few — intellectually at least, and in all those 
 moral qualifications which directly or indirectly are con- 
 nected with intellect — must always, and as it would seem 
 unavoidably, be fitter to bear rule, abler to govern right- 
 eously and sagaciously, than the many. 
 
 Yet, unquestionably, the tendency of events in our days, 
 and in aU civilized countries, is to take political power 
 
66 - ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 from the few and confer it on the many ; and in the view 
 of Tocqueville and his disciples this tendency is absolutely 
 irresistible. If so, what must be its operation on those 
 who wish to look sanguinely on the prospects of human- 
 ity ? Tor the few cannot easily take- back power from the 
 many on whom they have conferred it ; and history re- 
 cords no encouraging instances of the mass voluntarily 
 surrendering a supremacy they have once enjoyed. Nor 
 does our observation of democratic communities, even the 
 most favored, do much to alter or impair the conclusions 
 at which cb priori we have arrived. The United States, 
 France, and even Switzerland, at present, are not con- 
 soling spectacles. 
 
 I have little to urge against the validity of the above 
 reasoning, or in mitigation of the depressing conclusions 
 to which it logically points. If democratic — or I would 
 rather say, ochlocratic — influences and institutions are to 
 spread and bear sway permanently, then the day of my 
 cherished vision must indeed be distant. But I do not 
 believe the tendency to be so irresistible as is fancied. I 
 am not sure that it may not contain within it the seeds 
 of a counteracting and correcting agency. That -the con- 
 cerns and feelings of the masses are obtaining increased 
 and paramount consideration in our days, is a hopeful 
 sign of the times at which we must all rejoice. If this 
 had been always so, or had been so in time, probably the 
 occasion for handing over political power to the masses 
 might never have arisen ; nor would the phenomenon have 
 been so formidable when it did arise. If the interests of 
 the lower classes are dealt with, even at this eleventh 
 
REALIZABLE IDEALS. 67 
 
 hour, in a generous, candid, sympathetic spirit, according 
 to the dictates of simple justice, and on principles of wise 
 policy and sound economy, I am even inclined to believe 
 that the potentiality of paramount rule in pohtical matters, 
 so rashly conferred upon them, may never be actually re- 
 alized or exercised. There, are two or three very signifi- 
 cant and reassuring circumstances which it is desirable to 
 note. Neither in England, nor in America, nor in France, 
 have ochlocratic institutions (those giving political power 
 to the mere masses, the numerical majority) been oUaiiied 
 by the masses by their own strength or on their own de- 
 mand. In every instance they have been conceded by the 
 folly, the weakness, the short-sightedness, and generally 
 by the sinister and clashing interests of those above them. 
 In America, universal suffrage, conferring electoral rights 
 on Irish and German emigrants before they had acquired 
 any one of the qualifications of good citizens, was the 
 result of unpatriotic and improvident party conflict, for 
 the sake of obtaining a dear-bought victory by the help 
 of " the foreign vote." Bitterly have the Americans paid 
 for their folly, and clearly do they now recognize the 
 error. In precisely the same manner, though in a less 
 extreme and obvious shape, is the household suffrage we 
 have now established here the result of the strife for power 
 between Conservative and Liberal Governments, and per- 
 haps the inost pernicious of its consequences. In France, 
 as is every year becoming more recognized by all students 
 of her history, the ochlocracy which is now driving her to 
 seemingly irretrievable downfall is traceable to the fatal 
 weakness of monarch and ministers alike in February, 
 
68 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 1848, when a Parliamentary demand for a very moderate 
 extension of a very restricted franchise was allowed to 
 become first a street riot and then a mob revolution, 
 though ordinary determination and consistency of pur- 
 pose among the authorities might have prevented it from 
 ever growing beyond the dimensions of a mere poKce 
 aifair, and have crushed it at the outset. 
 
 In England, if the latent electoral power of the masses 
 ever becomes noxiously formidable, — which no doubt is 
 possibl'e enough, so little wise and patriotic are our gen- 
 eral class of politicians, — it will be owing to one of two 
 things, or to a combination of both ; either to a neglect, or 
 supposed hostOity, or disheartening want of sympathy, on 
 the part of the governing classes to the wants and inter- 
 ests of those masses ; or, more probably, to the rival fac- 
 tions in the State seeking to use and organize the votes 
 of the working classes on their own behalf respectively, as 
 against their antagonists. As long as property is safe and 
 its rights respected, the legitimate and inevitable influence 
 it must ever wield, directly and through the accessories 
 which belong to it (of which wealth and superior knowl- 
 edge, refinement and intelligence, are the principal), is so 
 enormous that we cannot doubt its winning an easy vic- 
 tory in any social struggle, and even warding off the near 
 approach of any such struggle, provided only the holders 
 of property hang together and recognize in time the danger 
 of division in their ranks ; and there is surely sagacity 
 and foresight enough to create close union among all pos- 
 sessional classes, at the first serious menace to the security 
 and sacredness of property. This is the first safeguard 
 
EEALIZBALE IDEALS. ^ 69 
 
 we have to trust to. The second is a pleasanter one to 
 think of. It is that the great bulk of the community — 
 engrossed more or less in (jlaily labor, interested and occu- 
 pied mainly in the matters that lie close about them p,nd 
 concern them most urgently, caring usually for political 
 questions only or chiefly inasmuch as these afi'ect, or are 
 supposed to affect, their own condition — wiU be willing 
 enough, partly from indolence and indifference, partly from 
 a vague impression that their superiors understand these 
 matters, and that they themselves do not, to leave them 
 in the hands of the upper classes; provided only these 
 classes are wise and just enough to take care that no mani- 
 fest wrong, no irritating or grinding misery, and no un- 
 sympathetic or insolent neglect, shall ever rouse the mil- 
 lions, who would otherwise lie contented and quiescent, 
 to seize the reins or to upset the coacL " Pour le peuple, ce 
 n'est jamais par envie d'attaquer qu'il se soulfeve, mais par 
 impatience de soufftir." We might, perhaps, hope that, 
 just in proportion as the working classes are comfortable, 
 prosperous, and educated, will they be disinclined to med- 
 dle in governmental affairs (which are always laborious 
 and harassing, and seldom remunerative or satisfactory) ; 
 but this cannot be predicted with any confidence. It is 
 rational, however, to anticipate that the better the masses 
 are goverfied, the less anxious they wiU be to undertake 
 the heavy burden and the hard task of governing them- 
 selves. 
 
n. 
 
 MALTHUS KOTWITHSTAOTDIN'G. 
 
MALTHTJS Ii5'0TWITHSTAJS'DIN"G. 
 
 THE hopes of indefinite progress and attainment 
 expressed in the opening chapters are by no means 
 new. They have reappeared at different epochs. They 
 have been cherished by some men in all ages, and by 
 whole nations and continents fitfully and during short 
 periods. 
 
 Towards the close of the eighteenth century, more 
 than two generations since, a sudden glow of this san- 
 guine faith in man's future spread over the world. A 
 new era seemed to be opening for humanity. Not only 
 the imthinking multitudes, but men of large experience 
 and devoid neither of great reasoning nor of great ob- 
 serving powers, — not only the young and ardent, but 
 the old and contemplative, — dreamed of perfectibility 
 as well as of progress ; of an approaching time in which 
 both the moral and the physical condition of our species 
 should become thoroughly satisfactory, — subject only to 
 the one drawback of mortality, and of mortality reduced 
 to its simplest elements, to the mere fact of death in 
 the ripeness of age and preparation ; of a state of things 
 in which every man having enough of the necessaries, 
 
 4 
 
74 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 comforts, and even luxuries of life should have no 
 motive to envy or despoil his neighbor, and in which, 
 therefore, all bad passions would die out from mere 
 lack of nourishment. In a word, " our young men saw 
 visions and our old men dreamed dreams," and they 
 not only cherished but actually believed in their visions 
 and their dreams. Men lilce Southey and Coleridge and 
 Eobert Owen, as in later times and in another country 
 men like Tourier and St. Simon, had their pictures and 
 their programmes and their panaceas, — and not only 
 men of that stamp, but far soberer and acuter minds. 
 Those who wish to realize -to themselves the sort of 
 enthusiasm which anticipation of a state of diffused 
 comfort and universal plenty and well-being excited in 
 the general ima^nation, and of the boundless delight 
 and sweeping confidence with which it was received, and 
 who have not patience to master the whole social and 
 literary history of Europe from 1783 to 1793, should 
 read Godwin's " PoKtical Justice," and ask their grandfa- 
 thers to describe the glow of generous emotion with which 
 they followed the speculations of that singular book. • 
 
 An answer, however, shortly appeared to Mr. Godwin 
 which shattered all his brilliant pictures of an earthly 
 paradise, and overwhelmed aU such philanthropic dream- - 
 ers witb despondency and gloom, — and this cruel shock 
 was administered by a man of singular benevolence and 
 piety, a clergyman of the Church of England. Malthus 
 demonstrated,* or was held to demonstrate, that such a 
 
 * The first edition of the Essay on the "Principle of Popula- 
 tion" was published in 179S. 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 75 
 
 conditiou of universal comfort and plenty as was shad- 
 owed forth caidd never be reached on earth, — inasmuch 
 as there was a constant and irremediable pressure of 
 population on the means of subsistence ; that it was in 
 the nature, in the essence, of human beings to increase 
 in a more rapid ratio than food; that as long as and 
 whenever population did increase faster than its suste- 
 nance, the great mass of mankind must be in a state 
 of wretchedness ; and that this incurable tendency could 
 only be counteracted by — what were merely other forms 
 of wretchedness — viz., profligacy, excessive and prema- 
 ture mortality, or abstinence from marriage, — or, as he 
 phrased it, by vice, misery, or moral restraint. In other 
 words, he maintained, and seemed to have proved, that 
 mankind could only secure that sufficiency of food for 
 all, which is, the indispensable and main condition of 
 virtue and comfort, on terms which must be held to 
 preclude comfort and imperil virtue, — with the majority, 
 with all ordinary men, in fact, to be fatal to both; 
 that is, by seeing most of their children die almost as 
 soon as they came into the world, or by themselves and 
 their fellows dying rapidly and prematurely from defect 
 of nutriment ; or by wilfully preventing children coming 
 into the world at all ; or by resisting and foregoing, habit- 
 ually and generally, sometimes altogether, always during 
 the most craving period of life, those imperious longings 
 of the senses, and that equally imperious " hunger of the 
 heart," which, combined, constitute the most urgent 
 necessity of our nature, and which the Creator must 
 have made thus urgent for wise and righteous purposes. 
 
76 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 It is obvious on a moment's consideration that the 
 two former of the above three named terms on which 
 alone, according to the Malthusian theory, plenty can 
 be secured for all, may be left out of consideration, and 
 that practically, the sole condition is the last, — namely, 
 the postponement of marriage as a rule during the years 
 when it is usually most desired, and the abstinence 
 from it in many cases altogether ; in a word, resolute, 
 self-enforced, and prolonged celibacy, precisely at that 
 epoch of life, under those circumstances, and among 
 those classes, in which celibacy is most difficult; that 
 is (as the rough common feelings of mankind at large 
 would put it), that life in plenty and comfort can only 
 be obtained by the sacrifice of the chief comfort in life, 
 and of those joys without which even a life of material 
 plenty is a very poor and questionable boon. And, be 
 it observed, this is the form the proposition must inev- 
 itably assume in the minds, not of the vicious, the sen- 
 sual, the weak, or the self-indulgent portion of mankind, 
 but of the nahiral, unsophisticated, right-feeling, sensi- 
 ble — though, if you will, unregenerate and unsanctified 
 — mass of mankind. 
 
 No wonder that a proposition, which seemed to con- 
 demn the human species to such hopeless, universal, 
 eternal, nay, ever-increasing pressure and privation, 
 or to proffer an escape from that lot at a price which 
 few could pay, and few would think worth paying, 
 should have staggered and shocked those to whom it 
 was first propounded. It sounded like the sentence to 
 a doom of utter darkness and despair. It seemed to 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 77 
 
 untrained minds utterly irreconcilable with any -intelli- 
 gent view of the Divine beneficence and wisdom. Yet 
 its author appeared to have framed his conclusion with 
 such caution, and to have clinched it, so to speak, with such 
 close bands of logic and with such a large and indispu- 
 table induction of facts, that recalcitration against it was 
 idle, and refutation of it impossible. He maintained 
 it after full discussion, and, with some modifications, 
 to the end of his career; and nearly all political econo- 
 mists of position and repute have accepted his doctrine 
 as a fundamental and established axiom of the science. ' 
 Malthus never endeavored to blink the full scope and 
 severity of his proposition. In an article on Population, 
 which he contributed to the eighth edition of the " Eney- 
 clopsedia Britannica," and which I believe was the latest 
 of his writings on that subject, he reproduces it in the 
 most uncompromising terms. He lays it down as indis- 
 putable and obvious, that population, if unchecked, neces- 
 sarily increases in a geometrical ratio, and that food, the 
 produce of the soil, can only at the outside and under the 
 most favorable circumstances increase in an arithmetical 
 ratio. That the inhabitants of a given country or area 
 will, as is seen, actually double their numbers in twenty- 
 five years, and might easily double their numbers in a 
 much shorter time ; whereas, even if we concede that in 
 the same twenty-five years the produce of the soil in the 
 same given country or area may be doubled likewise, it is 
 certain that in the next twenty-five years, while the popu- 
 lation would again double itself or quadruple its original 
 numbers, the soil could at the very utmost only again add 
 
ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 an equal increment to that of the preceding period, or treble 
 its original yield.. What is true of a given country, farm, 
 or district, he proceeds to say, must necessarily be true of 
 the whole earth ; and neither emigration, free-trade, nor 
 equal distribution of the land can affect the ultimate re- 
 sult. All that these could effect would be a temporary 
 alleviation of the pressure of population and subsistence, 
 and a certain calculable postponement of the day when 
 the ultimate limit of possible numbers and the extreme 
 point of pressure would be reached. "Taking a single 
 farm only into consideration, no man would have the har- 
 dihood to assert that its produce could be made perma- 
 nently to keep pace with a population increasing at such 
 a rate, as it is observed to do, for twenty or thirty years 
 together, at particular times and in particular countries." 
 This is obvious and undeniable, and may be conceded at' 
 once. But, he goes on to say, " nothing but the confusion 
 and indistinctness arising from the largeness of the sub- 
 ject, and the vague and false notions which prevail re- 
 specting the ef&cacy of emigration, could make persons 
 deny in the case of an extensive territory, or of tJie whole 
 earth, what they could not fail to acknowledge in the case 
 of a single farm, which may be said fairly to represent it." 
 There must always, everywhere, and to the end of time, 
 he maintains, except in the rarest cases and for the brief- 
 est periods, be pressure of population on the means of 
 subsistence. " It is to the laws of nature, therefore, and 
 not to the conduct or institutions of man, that we are to 
 attribute the necessity of a strong and ceaseless check on 
 the natural increase of population." 
 
KALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 7S 
 
 Malthus's doctrine has been accepted as undeniable by 
 nearly every writer of repute on economical subjects, and 
 by none more unreservedly than by the latest, and in some 
 respects the greatest of them aU, J. S. MUl. None of the 
 many authors who have questioned or assailed it, such as 
 Ingram, Alison, Sadler, Doubleday, or Quetelet, have been 
 able to shake in any material degree its hold upon the 
 public mind. Various theories have been put forward in 
 competition, but none has obtained any currency, or per- 
 haps deserved any. It has remained the fixed, axiomatic 
 belief of the educated world, that pressure of numbers on 
 the means of subsistence is and must remain the normal 
 condition of humanity ; that, in consequence, distress or 
 privation, in one shape or another, must be the habitual 
 lot of the great majority of our species, since they can 
 only escape the distress and privation arising from insuf- 
 ficient food by voluntarily embracing the distress and pri- 
 vation involved in long-continued and perhaps perpetual 
 celibacy. Eeasoning the most careful and cogent seemed 
 to have made this clear, and the observation and experi- 
 ence of every day and every land seemed to illustrate and 
 confirm it. 
 
 Some years ago I hoped to be able to show, in opposition 
 to this received doctrine, that, however irrefutable was Mal- 
 thus's logic, his premises were imperfect, and his conclusions 
 in consequence unsound. It is with some sadness I am now 
 compelled to admit that further investigation and deeper 
 thought have shaken this confidence. I now only "venture 
 to suggest as eminently probable what I once fancied I 
 could demonstrate to be certain. I still, however, entertain 
 
80 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 little doubt of the future discovery and establishment of 
 physiological influences or laws, of which Malthus was 
 not cognizant, and the tendency of which is to counteract 
 and control those which he perceived so clearly ; but I 
 recognize that at present these are not ascertained ; and 
 I must therefore confine myself to the task of pointing 
 out a few persuasive indications of the existence of these 
 undiscovered laws, the direction in which they may be 
 looked for, and the vast expanse both of space and time left 
 open wherein they may operate and have their perfect work. 
 1. Some preliminary misgiving, in the first place, must 
 be aroused by noting that the actual fecundity of the hu- 
 man race_has never equalled, and scarcely ever even dis- 
 tantly approached, its possible fecundity ; and that this 
 difference is observable when there is neither vice, misery, 
 nor moral restraint to account for it ; that in the midst 
 of the most ample supply of food, where there need and 
 can be no anxiety as to the future, where parents are 
 healthy, where the climate is good, 7- where, in a word, 
 every circumstance is as favorable as possible to the un- 
 checked multiplication of the species, where everybody 
 marries, and where marriages are as early as is compatible 
 with vigor, — the population does not increase nearly as 
 fast as theoretically it might do. The most rapid known 
 rate of augmentation appears to be that mentioned by 
 Humboldt, in some parts of Mexico, where, judging from 
 the proportion of births and deaths, he calculated tha;t, if 
 there were no interfering circumstances, the population 
 would double itself in nineteen years. This was in a 
 tropical climate, where the marriages were unusually 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 81 
 
 early, and the births as numerous as one in seventeen, or 
 occasionally one in fifteen. In the United States and 
 Lower Canada, which come next, it is calculated that 
 when the large immigration is subtracted, the period of 
 doubling by natural increase is twenty-five years. But 
 both these fall far short of the possible rate of theoretical 
 increase ; since, adopting data wliich are actually reached 
 and, indeed, exceeded in some instances, the population 
 of a country can double itself in less than ten years. 
 
 Again, the ordinary size of families in England and 
 Wales, judging by a comparison of the yearly marriages 
 with the yearly births, is now about 4.15 children, and we 
 may fairly assume that with us no artificial means, of ab- 
 stinence or otherwise, are employed to prevent each mar- 
 riage yielding its natural number of offspring. But as 
 this mode of ascertaining the number of children to a 
 marriage is only strictly correct when applied to a sta- 
 tionary population, we must add something to the above 
 figures; and, there is, I believe, no reason why we may 
 not take Mr. Malthus's calculation, and call the number 
 4.5. We cannot with any accuracy ascertain the number 
 of children born to a marriage in America, as statistics 
 there are so complicated by immigration, migration, exten- 
 sion, and other causes, but I believe no one would place 
 the average higher than six. There is, therefore, no rea- 
 son for believing that the average in the most favorable 
 circumstances exceeds this. But the possible number of 
 children to a marriage — the natural, unchecked number 
 tinder the best conditions is far beyond this — certainly 
 fourfold. The child-bearing ages of women extend over 
 
 4* F 
 
82 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 nearly thirty years, — certainly over twenty-five, or from 
 sixteen to forty, inclusive, on a moderate estimate. Twen- 
 ty-five children to each marriage is therefore no impossi- 
 bility ; in favorable conditions we should say no unlikely 
 occurrence. We all of us know individual cases in ■whir-h 
 it has been realized. In Italy such instances are not very 
 unfrequent, — even in England they are not unexampled. 
 In Lower Canada we find they are by no means uncommon,* 
 — from fourteen to sixteen is a u,sual number. A recent 
 traveller there assured us he had met with one woman 
 who had borne thirty-two children. 
 
 Yet how rarely — even when food is abundant, health 
 unquestionable, habits good, an entire absence, that is, 
 both of the preventive and the positive check — do we 
 see this potential fecundity even approached ! Does not 
 the contrast point to some other, as yet occult, influence, 
 wholly apart from any of those enumerated by Mr. Mal- 
 thus, which operates as a natural and unconscious limi- 
 tation on human reproduction ? 
 
 2. Some doubt as to the completeness of Malthus's 
 premises, and the consequent correctness of his conclu- 
 sions, appears to be suggested by the fact that every man 
 is able by his own labor to produce food f enough, not only 
 
 * "Social Science Transactions," 1862, p. 894, Mr. Hurltert's 
 Paper on Canada. In Belgium, perhaps the most fecund as well as 
 the most densely peopled of old civilized states, the average children 
 to a marriage (according to Quetelet) is 4.75 in the least prolific, and 
 5.21 in the most prolific provinces. 
 
 t In fact the natural rate of increase of man's food ia out of all 
 proportion greater than man's own rate of increase. A couple of 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 83 
 
 to sustain himself and those naturally helpless and de- 
 pendent upon him, but enough also to exchange for the 
 shelter and clothing which are as necessary as food to 
 the human animal ; and he can do all this and yet leave 
 himself ample leisure for other occupations or amuse- 
 ments. "Without indorsing Mr. Godwin's extravagant 
 calculation that half an hour a day devoted by every in- 
 dividual in a community to agricultural labor would suf- 
 fice to raise an adequate amount of nutriment, there can 
 be no question that a very moderate amount of regular 
 industry, whether applied to the production of one article 
 or of many, would secure to man an abundant supply of 
 all the necessaries, and most of the comforts, of life, — at 
 least in all temperate or tropical climates. In the article 
 in the Encyclopaedia already quoted, Malthus declares that 
 as long as good land was attainable, " the rate at which 
 food could be made to increase would far exceed what was 
 necessary to keep pace with the most rapid increase of 
 population which the laws of nature in relation to human 
 kind permit." It was obvious, therefore, since every man 
 can produce much more than he needs, and since, given 
 the land and the labor, food can be made to increase in- 
 comparaTjly faster than population, and would naturally 
 do so, aU that is wanted to put man at his ease is a field, 
 whereon to bestow his industry. It is not that popula- 
 tion has a natural tendency to increase faster than food, 
 or as fast, but simply that the surface of the earth is 
 
 human beings multiply three or four fold in the course of thirty- 
 years. One potato sprout multiplies twenty-fold in a single year ; 
 one grain of wheat even two hundred-fold in favoring circumstances. 
 
84 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 limited, and portions of that surface not always nor easily 
 accessible. 
 
 3. It was pointed out by the late Mr. Senior, as another 
 very suggestive fact, that, taking the world as a whole, and 
 history so far as we are acquainted with it, food always 
 has increased faster than population, in spite of the alleged 
 tendency of population to increase faster than food. Fam- 
 ines, which used to be so frequent in earlier ages and in 
 thickly peopled countries, are now scarcely ever heard of, 
 while, at the same time, the average condition of the mass 
 of the people has on the whole improved, that is, that 
 they have more of the necessaries of life tlian formerly. 
 Probably the only cases in our days of scarcity of food 
 amounting to actual famine are to be found where the 
 staple crop of a whole country has been destroyed by 
 locusts, as sometimes in Asia ; or by drought, as occasion- 
 ally in Hindostan ; or by vegetable disease, as in the potato 
 rot of Ireland. In sparsely peopled Australia, famine has 
 often supervened ; in densely peopled Belgium, never. " I 
 admit (says Mr. Senior) the abstract power of population 
 to increase so as to press upon the means of subsistence. 
 I deny the habitual tendency. I believe the tendency to 
 be just the reverse. "What is the picture presented by the 
 earliest records of those nations ~which are now civilized ? 
 or, which is the same, what is now the state of savage 
 nations ? A state of habitual poverty and occasional 
 
 famine If a single country can be found in which 
 
 there is now less poverty than is universal in a savage ■ 
 state, it must be true that under the circumstances in 
 which that country has been placed, the means of subsist- 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 85 
 
 ence have a tendency to increase faster than the popula- 
 tion. Now, this is the case in every civilized country. 
 Even Ireland, the country most likely to afford an instance 
 of what Mr. Mill supposes to be the natural course of 
 things, poor and populous as she is, suffers less from want, 
 with her eight millions of people,* than when her only 
 inhabitants were a few septs of hunters and fishers. In 
 our early history, famines and pestilences, the consequence 
 of famine, constantly recur. At present, though our 
 numbers are trebled or quadrupled, they are unheard of 
 Whole colonies of the first settlers in America perished 
 from absolute want. Their successors struggled . long 
 against hardship and privation, but every increase of 
 their numbers seems to have been accompanied or pre- 
 ceded by increased means of support. 
 
 " If it be conceded that there exists in the human race 
 a tendency to rise from barbarism to civilization, and that 
 the means of subsistence are proportionally more abundant 
 in a civilized than in a savage state, — and neither of 
 these propositions can be denied, — then it must follow 
 that there is a natural tendency in subsistence to increase 
 in a greater ratio than population." {Two Lectures deliv- 
 ered at Oxford hy 'N. W. Senior. Led. II) 
 
 An interesting correspondence between Mr. Senior and. 
 Mr. Malthus followed the publication of these lectures, 
 and was appended to them, leaving the point of the con- 
 troversy pretty much where it originally stood, viz., that 
 while the theoretic power of population to increase faster 
 than food was undoubted, the practical fact was that this 
 
 * This was written in 1829. 
 
86 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 power was scarcely ever exercised ; Mr. Malthus, however, 
 holding to his former doctrine that the reasons of its non- 
 exercise were to be found solely in the severe and general 
 operation of the preventive check. 
 
 4. Another class of facts which I shall do no more than 
 allude to, because, though often examined casually, they 
 have, as far as I know, never been thoroughly sifted or 
 brought into a focus, points even more distinctly to the 
 existence of some cause operating, under certain circum- 
 stances, to limit human fertility even beyond what is 
 consistent with the multiplication or. preservation of the 
 race, or class, or type. I refer to cases in which a family^ 
 or set of famihes, or a whole variety, dies out where no 
 deficiency or difficulty of subsistence can be alleged as 
 the explanation, and where, therefore, some other cause, 
 almost certainly physiological, must be presupposed. 
 Such is the case of baronets, whose titles are perpetually 
 lapsing from the failure of male heirs, -r- assuredly not 
 from abstinence from marriage, nor from lack of food. 
 Such, again, is the frequent extinction of peerage families, 
 of whom plentiful sustenance may at least be predicated.* 
 I am aware of Mr. Galton's ingenious explanation, based 
 upon the fact of peers so often marrying heiresses, who of 
 course ex id termini come from comparatively unfertile 
 
 * A similar, but still more decided, process of gradual extinction 
 of ricli and privileged families appears to have been one of the most 
 constant phenomena in the civilized states of the Ancient World, — 
 in Italy and Greece at least. For remarkable-examples and ample 
 proof, see Bureau de la MaUe, Economie politique des Boma/ins, I. p. 
 417 et seq. 
 
MALTpUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 87 
 
 families; but the explanation itself is a collateral con- 
 firmation of the fact I am pointing out, — for whence 
 arise these many unfertile but rich families ? If the 
 wealthy, who have every facility for prolonging life, and 
 no motive to abstain from marriage, are so often barren 
 and liable to see their families die out or dwindle down 
 to one heiress, does not the circumstance point to the 
 operation of some influence other than Malthus's " pres- 
 sure on subsistence," almost antagonistic to it, and espe- 
 cially potent in the most civilized and comfortable forms of 
 life ? I know that other less occult causes of the phenoni- 
 ena in question have been suggested ; but they are not 
 such as can be discussed here, nor I believe could they do 
 anything beyond slightly mitigating the force of my con- 
 clusion. If from classes we turn to races and nations, his- 
 tory affords examples enough of once populous countries 
 now inhabited by comparatively scanty numbers where 
 unwholesomeness and lack of food (or food-producing soil) 
 will do little to account for the decline.* And if, instead 
 
 * See Duieau de la Malle, liv. ii. ch. 13. Also Gibbon, I. ch. 2. 
 Merivaie's " Roman Empire," IV. 433, VII. 602, 604, 608. The pro- 
 cess of depopulation in many provinces of the Roman dominions, since 
 the time of the Antonines, has been excessive, and unaccountable on 
 any of Malthus's hypotheses. We may instance especially the north 
 coast of Africa, so populous in the palmy days of Rome, and Asia 
 Minor and Syria, — to say nothing of Turkish countries farther east 
 still. According to Merivale, Asia Minor and Syria once supported 
 27,000,000 of people. According to M'CuUoch they do not now con- 
 taia more than one fourth of those numbers. Yet we do not find that 
 they have become either unhealthy or unfertile. Several analogous 
 indications scattered through history point to the depression of spirits 
 
88 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 of the annals of the past, we read the living history that 
 is before our eyes, we find everywhere savage races dying 
 out with the greatest rapidity, — and dying, out as much 
 from paucity of births (diminished fecundity, that is) as 
 from increase of deaths, — even where lack of food, or 
 means of procuring it, can scarcely 1)0 put forward as the 
 reason or an adequate one (as in the instance of the Maories 
 and the Polynesians) ; and where, after full allowance has 
 been made for wars, diseases, and vices, some unexplained 
 residuum is left, which points to a hidden influence, phys- 
 iological no doubt, but belonging to the nervous and not 
 to the nutritive system. Again, nowhere in the United 
 States, one would suppose, can pressure of population on 
 means of subsistence be alleged as the true acting cause 
 of non-increase of numbers or failing fecundity ; yet it is 
 asserted confidently (and there seems every reason to be- 
 lieve with accuracy) that the native-born citizens of some 
 of the New England States cannot — at all events do not 
 — keep up their numbers.* 
 
 When astronomers found the calculable influence of 
 
 or of nervous energy, which seems to accompany the decline of 
 Nations and the decay of Races, as exercising a singularly sterilizing 
 influence on mankind. 
 
 The same wholesale dying out of old families is observable, I 
 believe, in other countries at the present time. M. de Tocqueville 
 told me of one district in France where two hundred families had 
 become extinct, as far as the direct line was concerned, in abouf a 
 century, from a variety of causes. 
 
 * See especially different monographs by Dr. Storer, addressed, in 
 the first instance, to members of his own profession, and, I believe, 
 confirmed by several of them. 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDIXG. 89 
 
 the law of gravitation on the motions of the planets 
 disturbed and -pro tanto counteracted by some unex- 
 plained or undiscovered agency, they at once confidently 
 inferred the existence of an unknown body at an un- 
 guessed distance but in a specified direction. They 
 believed in Neptune long before they found him. Why 
 should not we do in physiology what they did in 
 physics ? * 
 
 5. Lastly. The repellent character of Malthus's con- 
 clusion has been usually regarded as in itself a ground 
 for suspecting its truth. Nor do I think this ground, 
 though confessedly open to question, is peremptorily to 
 be put aside as unphilosophical. It is unphUosophical 
 to reject indisputable and proved conclusions because 
 we do not like them, because they disturb our serenity, 
 shatter our hopes, or run counter to our prejudices. It 
 is not unphilosophical to doubt the accuracy or com- 
 pleteness of any course of reasoning which has brought 
 us to results at variance with other results which appear 
 at least equally certain, and which have been reached by 
 similar processes of thought. Nay, more, it would be 
 unwise not to doubt in such cases, not to suspend our 
 judgment, not to reconsider our inferences and our data. 
 There are certain truths which the general sense of man- 
 kind has adopted and clings to as undeniable, partly 
 from instinctive conviction, partly from overpowering 
 proof, partly from religious teaching, — such as the wis- 
 
 • Consult Doubleday's " Trae Law of Population," pp. 36, et 
 seq., also cb. x., xi. And more especially Darwin's " Animals and 
 Plants xmder Domestication," II. 148 - 171. 
 
90 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 dom, power, and ultimate, essential, universal goodness 
 of God. It is right and wise to doubt provisionally — 
 not of course to deny — any doctrine which contradicts 
 or seems to contradict these truths, and which has been 
 arrived at by steps of logic. And it is so for this simple 
 reason, — that, though we may feel confident of the just- 
 ness of our inferences, if scientifically drawn by cautious 
 and well-trained intellects, and sanctioned after due ex- 
 amination by other qualified minds, yet we can scarcely 
 ever feel similar confidence as to the perfect accuracy 
 and completeness of our premises. Unless we can be cer- 
 tain that we know everything bearing upon the subject, 
 that we are in possession of every datum necessary for 
 framing our conclusions, — a certainty which is very 
 seldom attainable, — it may well be that there is some- 
 thing we do not know, some facts which have escaped 
 our observation or research, which, if taken into account, 
 would have materially modified or altogether overthrown 
 our conclusions. Logic fails far oftener from defective 
 data than from careless processes. Not only therefore is 
 dovht justified by sound philosophy, where improbable 
 doctrines are sought to be thrust upon us by even the 
 most close and cogent steps of ratiocination, but the doc- 
 trines may be of such a character, may be so irreconcil- 
 able with beliefs that have become axiomatic, may so 
 revolt our most carefully wrought-out convictions, that 
 we should be warranted — not indeed in rejecting them 
 if positively proved, but — in declaring that there must 
 be some deficiency in the premises, some omitted or un- 
 discovered data, which the future progress of knowledge 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 91 
 
 would bring to light, and which, when introduced into 
 the question, would wholly change its present aspect. 
 ISTow Malthus's theory of population was precisely one 
 of those doctrines, and therefore justly led numbers who 
 could find no flaw in Jiis reasoning, to feel satisfied that 
 there must be some error or hiatus in the bases on which 
 it was grounded ; and who, in consequence, while unable 
 to refute his conclusions, were equally unable to adopt 
 them. 
 
 Malthus himself felt this so strongly, that he took 
 much pains to argue that his theoiy was in no way 
 irreconcilable with the goodness of God, but on the 
 contrary harmonized with what we know of His general 
 dealings with mankind. While admitting that it was 
 incompatible with the happiness, if not the virtue, of 
 the great mass of mankind, that it called upon them to 
 do violence to their strongest instincts and to some of 
 their best and most natural sentiments, and opened a 
 terrible vista of probable wretchedness for the future of 
 the race, he argued that this world was designed to be a 
 state of probation, not of enjoyment, — that man was 
 called upon to keep all his appetites in check, and was 
 warned and punished by the laws of nature if he did 
 not, — and that only by the exercise of such check could 
 he ever advance in civilization or in moral dignity. 
 The allegations may be quite irrefragable, the plea has no 
 doubt a certain force, but it is impossible not to see and 
 feel that it does not reaUy meet the objection it was 
 intended to neutralize. For, in the first place, though 
 Providence may have designed this world to be a state of 
 
92 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 probation, he assuredly did not design it to be a state of 
 misery ; and a state of misery, or at least of distress, to 
 the majority it must be, as Malthus repeatedly concedes, 
 if his view of the laws of nature be correct and com- 
 plete. In the next place,- though man is bound, both 
 as a condition of progress and under paiii of suffering, 
 to control his propensities and to moderate his appetites 
 and desires, he is not bound to deny them. If he is idle 
 and prefers inordinate rest to reasonable work, nature 
 says that he shall starve or live miserably; but nature 
 never says that he shall not sleep or rest at all, or not 
 during the best years of his life, or the dark hours of 
 night. If he eats or drinks immoderately, nature pun- 
 ishes him with dyspepsia and disease ; but nature never 
 forbids him to eat when he is hungiy, and to drink when 
 he is thirsty, provided he does both with discretion. 
 Indeed she punishes him eq^ually if he abstains as if he 
 exceeds, if he eats too little, or not at all, as if he eats 
 too much. In the same way, if he indulges to excess 
 in the pleasures connected with reproduction, nature pun- 
 ishes him with premature exhaustion, with appropriate 
 maladies, with moral enervation and corruption ; but she 
 does not punish the rational and legitimate enjoyments 
 of love. On the contrary, she does punish enforced and 
 total abstinence, occasionally in the one sex, often, if not 
 habitually, in the other, by nervous disturbance and suf- 
 fering, and by functional disjorder. 
 
 Now, if Malthus's doctrine be correct, the great major- 
 ity of men and women, if they are to escape a condition 
 of perpetual misery and want, must not only keep within 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 93 
 
 moderate bounds the strongest propensity of their nature, 
 but must suppress and deny it altogether, — always for 
 long and craving years, often, and in the case of numbers, 
 for the whole of life. Observe, too, that the desire in 
 question is the especial one of all our animal wants 
 which is redeemed from animalism by being blended 
 with our strongest and least selfish affections, which is 
 ennobled by its associations in a way in which the appe- 
 tites of eating and drinking and sleeping can never be 
 ennobled, — in a degree to which the pleasures of .the 
 eye and ear can be ennobled only by assiduous and lofty 
 culture. Yet this longing — which lies at the root of 
 life, which enters largely into the elements of chivalry, 
 which nature has inextricably intertwisted with the holy 
 joys of maternity — is singled out as the one, and the 
 only one, which must be smothered, if we would live in 
 plenty or in peace. Do the laws of nature say this ? If 
 so, they speak in a language which is wholly exceptional, 
 and which here, and here only, has to be interpreted in a 
 " non-natural " sense. Is there any other instance in 
 which Nature says in the most distinct and imperious 
 language, " Thou shalt do this " ? — and also in language 
 equally imperious, if not equally distinct, " If thou dost, 
 thou shalt be punished as in other cases those only are 
 punished who transgress my laws " ? I know of no anal- 
 ogous instance.* 
 
 * Two antagonistic considerations should be noticed here. It has 
 been suggested that the paramount and despotic strength which the 
 instinct in question has now assumed is not natural, but excessive ; 
 the excess being due to ages of unrestrained indulgence* added to 
 
94 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 The various considerations suggested above appear to 
 point irresistibly to the conclusion — though to justify it, 
 or Bven fully to develop it, would require a separate trea- 
 tise, and not a mere incidental chapter like the present 
 — that Malthus's logic, though so keen and cogent, was 
 at fault, because based on -imperfect and insufficient 
 premises ; that in addition to the positive and pre- 
 ventive checks to over-population notified by him, there 
 exist physiological checks which escaped his search, and 
 which will prove adequate for the work they have to do ; 
 that if we were wise and virtuous, the positive check 
 would entirely disappear (with fiie exception of death, in 
 the fulness of time), and the prudential check be only 
 called. upon to operate to that degree which is needed to 
 elevate and purify and regulate the animal instinct, and 
 which is quite reconcilable with and conducive to' vir- 
 
 other bad influences in tie present. Probably tMs is so ; to a large 
 extent I have no doubt it is, and this is one reason vhy I venture 
 to entertain better hopes for the future. But it must be admitted 
 without doubt, I fancy, that at all events the instinct in man is 
 perennial, not periodic ;. and that on Malthus's theory the utmost 
 anticipatable moderation in its exercise would virtually be just as 
 certain to result in over-population and discomforting pressure on 
 subsistence, as its present pampered and abnormal development. 
 
 Mr. Darwin's views and researches, again, remind us that the 
 luiiversal law of all vegetable and animal life is the struggle for 
 subsistence, and that the conclusion we deprecate and deem im- 
 probable is merely the natural inference that man is no exception 
 to the permanent and general rule. Certainly this is undeniable ; 
 but surely the marvellous primacy of man, cerebrally, and therefore 
 mentally, renders it at least reasonable to seek to vindicate for him 
 an exceptional destiny, notwithstanding a common origin. 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 
 
 tue, happiness, and health ; — in fine, that Providence 
 ■will be viadicated from our premature misgivings when 
 we discover that there exist natural laws, wliose operation 
 is to modify and diminish human fecundity in proportion 
 as 'mankind advances in real civilization, in moral and 
 intellectual development ; and that these laws will (un- 
 less we thwart them) have ample time and space wherein 
 to produce their effect, long before that idtimate crisis 
 shall arrive which the Malthusian theory taught us so to 
 dread. I briefly touch upon this point first. 
 
 If any one island of Umited extent and already mod- 
 erately peopled, Great Britain, for example, were to be 
 effectually isolated from the rest of the world, either by 
 natural causes or by human laws, it is obvious that, m 
 a comparatively short time — the reproductive faculty 
 remaining " excessive," as it is now, and as it probably 
 would continue to be — population would press upon the 
 means of subsistence, and either increased mortality, or 
 increased privation and distress from the necessity of an 
 augmented severity in the preventive check, must be the 
 result. But no country is thus completely isolated, and 
 no near approach to such isolation can arise, except from 
 human folly, indolence, or ignorance. Such isolation and 
 absolute impossibility of expansion as would render Hhe 
 Malthusian theory self-evident and indisputably true, 
 would be traceable, not, as he alleges, to the laws of 
 nature, but to man's interference with those laws. 
 
 Again, since a man can produce from the soil a great 
 deal more than is needed for his own subsistence, and 
 since, in consequence, food wUl and may increase faster 
 
96 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 than population, — granted only an unlimited supply of 
 available land, — it is obvious that there can be no 
 necessary pressure on the means of subsistence, until all 
 the available surface of the globe is taken up and fully- 
 cultivated. Any pressure that .occurs before that extreme 
 point is reached, it is clear, can only be caused by imped- 
 iments to expansion ; and all these impediments are to 
 civilized man artificial, not natural, — of human, not of 
 Providential origin. It is obvious that a single family 
 or a single tribe, surrounded by an unlimited territory of 
 uninhabited and productive soil, might go on multiplying 
 indefinitely and without restraint, on the sole condition 
 of spreading as they multiplied ; and that, so long as they 
 fulfilled this condition, they would never have an idea 
 of what pressure of population on subsistence meant, 
 till they had reached the bounds and exhausted the 
 resources of the habitable earth. 
 
 Now what are the practicable impediments to this grad- 
 ual extension of man over the earth, analyzed and traced 
 back to their source ? Why do men not thus spread as 
 they multiply ? Why have they not always done so ? 
 That they have a natural tendency to do so we know. 
 It is the dictate of nature and of common-sense to take 
 in a fresh field from the outlying waste, or to extend 
 their forays over a larger hunting-ground, as children 
 grow up and marry, and as more mouths have to be fed. 
 It has been the practice of mankind to act thus in all 
 times and in some form, so far as history can reach back. 
 There are two ways in which men may spread : they may 
 either actually disperse and settle on other lands, or they 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 97 
 
 may remain at home and exchange the products of their 
 industry for the products of those other lands. The one 
 is emigration, the other is manufacture and commerce. 
 The process by which the earth has been peopled has 
 been usually a mixture of the two, and for the purpose 
 of our argument it is immaterial which is followed, or in 
 what manner the two are blended. People who multiply 
 and live in plenty bring new land into cultivation, and 
 virtually spread themselves, whether they cultivate that 
 new land with their own hands, or through the iastru- 
 mentaHty of others^ whom they employ and pay. 
 
 The impediments to the spread of man over the globe 
 are either natural or artificial, physical or moral. The 
 physical ones, properly regarded, will be seen to be, and 
 to have usually been, nearly inoperative. They are cli- 
 mate, sea, and distance. As far as distance is concerned, 
 this is practically an impediment chiefly in the case of 
 too dense populations situated in the interior of Conti- 
 nents and Countries, and hemmed in and kept at a dis- 
 tance from available spare land by surrounding numbers. 
 Locomotion, no doubt, is difficult and costly to the poor ; 
 but in eiviHzed states neither the difficulty nor the cost 
 are insuperable. In the beginning, of course, a commu- 
 nity spreads from the outside and gradually, and as it 
 spreads, and as civilization increases with numbers and 
 dispersion, roads are made, and means of communication 
 are opened up in all directions. Even mountains and 
 rivers are mere difficulties to be overcome, not obstacles 
 to prevent. Sea, as we know, operated to check expan- 
 sion only in the earliest times, in a very slight degree, 
 5 o 
 
98 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 and ill rare and isolated spots, such as some of the re- 
 moter Polynesian islands. To civilized man it is a pre- 
 pared highway, a channel of communication, not a barrier 
 to migration. Climate, where, as in all natural cases, the 
 expansion of the community is gxadual, merely directs 
 the course of population, and does not check it. Man 
 accommodates himself to climate and provides against its 
 rigors as long as it yields him a fair recompense for his 
 labor. When it ceases to do this, if he lives according 
 to nature, he turns elsewhere, and virtually the limits of 
 the habitable world, or at least of available land, have 
 been reached in that direction. 
 
 The real impediments to expansion — the reasons why 
 man has not spread freely as he multiplied — have all 
 been of a different order, and have proceeded from him- 
 self alone. The first has been his indolence. He was too 
 lazy or unenterprising to go far afield for his food ; he 
 preferred to remain on the land where he was born ; he 
 chose to be satisfied with scanty food at home rather than 
 seek plenty a few miles away ; he was willing even in 
 barbarous times to fight with his brethren for subsistence, 
 or to abstain from marriage, or to let his chilSren die 
 from insufficient nutriment, often indeed to kill them, 
 rather than rouse himself to the exertion of seeking 
 abundance in a new home. This indisposition to spread 
 operates everywhere and always in some measure and 
 in some form. "With some it is ignorance of what new 
 fields offer them, and how easily they can be reached, — 
 as with the Dorsetshire peasants. With others it is mere 
 " concentrativeness," — a tendency to the maladie du 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 99 
 
 pays, — as with the French and some Celtic nations. 
 But in all cases, so long as the land is there, and the 
 means of reaching it exists, the impediment is human ; 
 and man has no right to speak of " pressure of popula- 
 tion on subsistence," and to reproach Providence in his 
 heart. 
 
 The second impediment is meeting with hostile nations 
 who compress each other and forbid mutual expansion. 
 They may not be to blame ; for as long as boundless, 
 unoccupied lands exist, each tribe may be entitled to say 
 to every other, " Go and expand elsewhere, and leave us 
 alone." But this impediment, like the other, is to be 
 surmounted by sense and energy, and comes not from 
 God, but from man. 
 
 A third set of obstacles is often interposed by human 
 laws. Eestrictions on migration and restrictions on com- 
 mercial interchange are such obstacles. The old law of 
 settlement which forbade the Buckinghamshire laborer, 
 starving on seven shillings a week, to migrate to Lan- 
 cashire where he might earn twelve shillings, or which 
 discouraged his doing so, and the old corn laws, and other 
 analogous fiscal enactments, which debarred Englishmen 
 from the free use of the rich lands of the Mississippi, 
 are specimens in point. No one can call obstacles of this 
 sort natural. 
 
 It remains plain, therefore, that even granting the 
 premises of Malthus to be complete, and his reasoning 
 irrefragable, there can be no necessary insufficiency of 
 food, or pressure of population on subsistence, or indispen- 
 sable demand for the preventive check, tiU the whole earth 
 
100 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 is peopled up to the limits of its productive powers, or till 
 all available land is brought into cultivation ; and that 
 any pressure of population on subsistence, and consequent 
 misery which may arise previous to that distant time, is 
 traceable solely to human agency or human short-comings. 
 Since, if men were wise and well-trained enough to know 
 their interests, and to follow them ; to see their duty, and 
 to do it ; if they knew what boundless fertile lands lie 
 around them, and within reach; if they were energetic 
 enough to make the necessary efforts to reach them, and 
 to assist their less capable brethren to do so, and to do 
 this in time ; if all laws directly or indirectly interfering 
 with free expansion and free intercourse were repealed, 
 and their lingering consequences neutralized; if, in a 
 word, there were only among us thorough freedom, thor- 
 ough sense, and a reasonable amount of goodness, man- 
 kind might multiply unchecked, if only they would dis- 
 perse unchecked.* And that pressure of population on 
 the means of subsistence, with aU the misery it involves, 
 which Malthus held to be not only ultimately, but perpet- 
 ually meyitd^Ae, is — at least in its severer form — mainly 
 gratuitous and nearly always premature, and under wise 
 regulations ought never to be encountered till that future 
 day, of whose distance from our era the following concise 
 
 • J. S. Mill dwells urgently on the necessity of workmen limit- 
 ing their numbers, if they wish their wages to increase and their 
 condition to improve. I wish to show that the object will be as 
 effectually gained by dispersion as by limitation. It is not multipli- 
 cation, but multiplication ori a restricted, field, on a given area, that 
 lowers wages and brings privation. 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 101 
 
 summary of a number of carefully collected facts wiU 
 give some idea. 
 
 Not to interrupt the argument, I give the details of 
 these data and calculations in the appendix. They de- 
 monstrate that even the most densely populated countries 
 in Europe are probably not peopled up to the fuU num- 
 bers they might comfortably maintain; that many of 
 them fall vastly short of the maximum actually reached 
 by others not more favored by nature; and that as a 
 whole there is every reason to believe that the European 
 continent could support three or four times its piresent 
 numbers. They show that a similar conclusion may be 
 adopted with almost equal certainty in reference to a 
 great part of Asia, and perhaps the whole of Africa ; that 
 probably in Africa, and certainly in the two Americas, 
 there are vast tracts of fertile la/ad, with fair, if not 
 splendid climates, which are scarcely inhabited at all, and 
 others which contain a mere sprinkling of human beings ; 
 and that in Australasia the case- is even stronger. In 
 fine, while Belgiimi and Lombardy, which are the best 
 peopled districts in Europe, contain about 400 souls to 
 the square mile, Paraguay contains only 4, Brazil only 3, 
 and the Argentine Eepublic only 1. From the aggregate 
 of these facts we are warranted in concluding that an 
 indefinite number of generations and long periods of 
 time must elapse before the world can be fuUy peopled ; 
 that before that consummation shall be reached we have 
 cycles of years to traverse, ample to afford space for all 
 the influences which civilization may develop to operate 
 to their uttermost extent. 
 
102 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 But this is not all. Not only are few countries in the 
 ■world adequately peopled, but none even of the most 
 peopled countries are adequately cultivated. England 
 has the best tilled soil in the world, though by no means 
 the best climate ; yet in England the average produce of 
 the soil is not half — perhaps not a third — what it might 
 be, and what in many districts it actually is. But the 
 average yield of France, usually regarded as a very pro- 
 ductive country, is only haK that of England ; nay, the 
 average yield of the splendid gxain-growing provinces in 
 America, which ought greatly to exceed that of England, 
 falls short of it by one half Without bringing a single 
 additional acre under the plough, the production of the 
 world, by decent cultivation, might be easily trebled or 
 quadrupled. In addition to this hopeful prospect, we see 
 ample ground for expanding still further our conception 
 of the amount of human life that might be maintained 
 in comfort on the' earth's surface, in the wasted or neg- 
 lected riches of the sea, in the utilization of lands now 
 devoted to the production of needless or noxious super- 
 fluities, in the more skilful extraction from the materials 
 of our food of the real, nutriment they contain, and in 
 the transfer of much land from pasture to cereals, and in 
 other economies too numerous to mention. 
 
 The above considerations prove that the world is in no 
 danger of being over-peopled just at present, whatever 
 local congestion may exist ; that centuries must elapse be- 
 fore population really presses, or, at least, need to press 
 severely on the means of subsistence ; and that civiliza- 
 tion will have time enough to do its work, to perfect its 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 103 
 
 resources, and to bring all lands and all mankind under 
 its modifying influences. Now, my conviction is, that 
 there are certain influences, more or less occult, attendant 
 on civilization, and which may be made to attend it yet 
 more surely, imiversally, and promptly than hitherto, — 
 which operate insensibly to check fecundity and reduce 
 the rate of increase, so that possibly the danger ultimately 
 to be apprehended may be the very reverse of that which 
 Malthus dreaded ; that, in fact, when we have reached that 
 point of universal plenty and universal cultivation to 
 which himian progress ought to bring us, the race will 
 multiply too slowly rather than too fast. One such influ- 
 ence may be specified with considerable confidence, — 
 namely, the tendency of cekebral development to 
 
 LESSEN FECUNDITY.* 
 
 * It was at one time fancied that a second physiological law might 
 be made good, as operating in the same direction. Mr. Doubleday 
 and others, arguing from the facts that scanty nutriment often stim- 
 ulated reproduction, as rich soils and abundant food in many cases 
 checked it, drew the conclusion that merely ample and sufficient 
 nourishment (such as the progress t)f civilization might be expected 
 to bring to all men) would progressively lower the average fecundity 
 of the race. But I believe further investigation has not favored this 
 theory, at least certainly not in the broad extent and positive form 
 in which it was first stated by Mr. Doubleday. But loose as are both 
 his arguments and statements, I think it is scarcely possible not to 
 recognize some residuum of suggestive truth, at least in several of 
 them ; and Mr. Spencer's antagonistic theory appears to be laid down 
 in too unmitigated a form. My own strong opinion is, that other 
 physiological causes of anti-fecund tendency are yet to be discovered ; 
 and that races, nations, and families would not so often die out, were 
 it not so. It is impossible to' read the Eighteenth Chapter of Mr. 
 
104 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 To dwell on the various evidences which might be ad- 
 duced to establish the existence of this tendency :would 
 obviously be out of place in a work designed for general 
 perusal, and the subject could only be adequately discussed 
 in a physiological treatise. I shall, therefore, not attempt 
 any proof or elucidation here. Meantime it is a great 
 satisfaction to me to find, since these pages were written 
 (now some years ago), that one of our most eminent and 
 profound thinkers, Mr. Herbert Spencer, has arrived at 
 almost an identical conclusion, though starting from a 
 different stand -point, pursuing a far more systematic and 
 strictly scientific train of reasoning, and working on a vast 
 induction of facts drawn from all forms of organic life. 
 He not only concludes, as I do, that fecundity diminishes 
 with that intellectual and moral development of the race 
 
 Darwin's great work on Domestication without reoognizuig how far 
 we yet are from having got to the bottom of this q^ueation, and with- 
 out receiving a strong conviction of the existence of a variety of 
 hidden causes affecting the fertility of animals, especially when in 
 what we may term, for them, a state of civilization. The modus 
 operandi of some of these influences may be conjectured ; others 
 appear at present quite inexplicable ; but all confirming Mr. Dar- 
 win's conclusion as " to the remarkable and specific power which 
 changed conditions of life possess of acting repressively on the re- 
 productive system." Th^ non-breeding of tamed Indian elephants 
 — though living in their native country and climate, well treated, 
 allowed considerable freedom, amply supplied with food, and in per- 
 fect health — seems to me a singularly suggestive phenomenon. It 
 looks almost analogous to the cases of tribes and races, which have 
 died or are dying out in the midst of plenty, under the mysterious 
 influence of some mental condition like depression of spirits, despond- 
 ency, restraint, the gene of a settled life, &c., &o. It appears to be 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. 105 
 
 which constitutes, causes, and results from what we call 
 civilization, but he appears irrefragably to demonstrate 
 (what I could do little more than surmise) that such di- 
 minished fecundity and reduction in the rate of increase 
 rmist physiologically ensue from mental action and ad- 
 vance.* The chief difference between our views seems to 
 be that he conceives this corrective process must arise 
 specifically if not directly from the stimulus given to the 
 brain and nervous system by the perpetual struggle for 
 subsistence; while I should be inclined to hope that a 
 sound career of progi-ess, once inaugurated, would continue, 
 and bring with it that cerebral development which is the 
 corrective of undue fertility, even though free expansion 
 into wider areas should have made the pressure of that 
 struggle almost unfelt.-f- 
 
 in those animals which, for nervous development and intelligence, 
 most resemble man, and which share the siibtle and complex influences 
 of that artificial life which we call civilization, that we find the most 
 curious and anomalous modifications of fecundity. May it not be 
 abnormal cerebral culture in the tamed elephant which so strangely 
 interferes with the procreative tendency or power ? as in the case of 
 barren marriages which are observably so frequent among persons 
 of preponderatingly ceplialic temperaments. 
 
 * " Principles of Biology," II. chap. 13, which is a masterpiece of 
 rigid reasoning, and fine but carefully controlled imagination. 
 
 t The continuous pressure which he anticipates, however, he does 
 not regard as a necessary cause of suffering : " The higher nervous 
 development and greater expenditure in nervous action, here de- 
 scribed as indirectly brought about by increase of numbers, and as 
 thereafter becoming a check upon the increase of numbers, must not 
 be taken to imply an intenser strain, — a mentally laborious life. 
 The greater emotional and intellectual power and activity above 
 5* 
 
106 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Mr. Spencer's ultimate conclusion is as follows : — 
 
 " It is manifest that in the end pressure of population and its 
 accompanying evUs will disappear ; and wiU leave a state of things 
 requiring from each individual no more than a normal and pleasurable 
 activity. Cessation in the decrease of fertility implies cessation in 
 the development of the nervous system ; and this implies a nervous 
 system that has become equal to all that is demanded of it, — has 
 not to do more than is natural to it. But that exercise of faculties 
 which does not exceed what is natural constitutes gratification. In 
 the end, therefore, the obtainment of subsistence and the discharge 
 of all the parental and social duties wiU require just that kind and 
 amount of action needful to health and happiness. 
 
 " The necessary antagonism of Individuation and Genesis then, not 
 only fulfils with precision the a priori law of maintenance of race, 
 from the Monad up to Man, but insures the final attainment of the 
 highest form of this maintenance, — the form in which the amount 
 of life shall be the greatest possible, and the births and deaths the 
 
 contemplated must be understood as becoming, by small increments, 
 organic, spontaneous, and pleasurable. As, even when relieved from 
 the pressure of necessity, large-brained Europeans voluntarily enter 
 on enterprises and activities which the savage could not keep up even 
 to satisfy urgent wants ; so their still larger brained descendants will, 
 in a still higher degree, find their gratifications in careers entailing 
 still greater mental expenditures. This enhanced demand for ma- 
 terials to establish and carry on the psychical 'functions will be a 
 constitutional demand. We must conceive the type gradually so 
 modified, that the more developed nervous system irresistibly draws 
 oflf, for its normal and enforced activities, a larger proportion of the 
 common stock of nutriment, and while thus increasing the intensity, 
 completeness, and length of the individual life, necessarily diminish- 
 ing the reserve applicable to the setting up of new lives, — no longer 
 required to be so numerous." — Principles of Biology, Vol. II. p. 
 520. 
 
MALTHUS NOTWITHSTANDING. lo7 
 
 fewest possible. The excess of fertility has rendered the process of civ- 
 ilization inevitable; and the process of civilization m/ust inevitably 
 diminish fertility, and at last destroy its excess. From the begiiming, 
 pressure of population has been the proximate cause of progress. It 
 produced the original diffusion of the race. It compelled men to 
 abandon predatory habits and take to agriculture. It led to the 
 clearing of the earth's surface. It forced men into the social state ; 
 made social organization inevitable ; and has developed the social 
 sentiments. It has stimulated to progressive improvements in pro- 
 du^otion, and to increased skill and intelUgenoe. It is daily thrust- 
 ing us into closer contact and more mutually dependent relationships. 
 And after having caused, as it ultimately must, the due peopling of 
 the globe, and the raising of all its habitable parts into the highest 
 state of culture ; after having brought all processes for the satisfac- 
 tion of human wants to perfection ; after having, at the same time, 
 developed the intellect into complete competency for its work, and 
 the feelings into complete fitness for social Hfe, — the pressure of 
 population, as it gradually finishes its work, must gradually bring 
 itself to an end." * 
 
 In fine, that pressure of population on tlie means of 
 subsistence, "which was originally fancied to doom the 
 human race to perpetual struggle, discomfort, and misery, 
 and to frown away aU dreams for its steady progress and 
 ultimate perfectibility, is the very instrumentality through 
 which that final issue is wrought out ; and through which, 
 if man were only reasonably intelligent, it might be 
 wrought out with no more suffering or g^ne in the process 
 than is requisite to supply the needful stimulus to the 
 natural inertia of the undeveloped brain. The necessity for 
 exertion is all that Malthus's law indispensably implies and 
 involves, — and this exertion is of itself or soon becomes 
 
 * " Principles of Biology," Part vi., § 376. 
 
108 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 . , 1 
 
 a pleasure. The righteousness, wisdom, and beneficence 
 of the arrangement are thus vindicated the moment we 
 catch a glimpse of " its perfect work." 
 
 Another formidable obstacle to the realization of our 
 ideal has now to be considered, — the tendency in civilized 
 societies to multiply the race from its inferior specimens. 
 
III. 
 
 CIYILIZATIOIS' .AlirTAGO]S"ISTIC 
 
 TO 
 
 THE LAW or "NATUEAL SELECTION." 
 
l^OIir-SUEYIYAL OF THE FITTEST. 
 
 EVEEY one now is familiar with the Darwinian 
 theory of the origin of species, at least in its main 
 principles and outlines ; and nearly all men qualified to 
 form an opinion^are convinced of its substantial truth. 
 That theory explains how races of animals yary as ages 
 roll on, so as to adapt themselves to the changing external 
 conditions which those ages bring about. At every given 
 moment, in every given spot on the earth's surface, a 
 " struggle for existence " is going on among all the forms 
 of organic life, animal and vegetable, then and there alive ; 
 a struggle in which, as there is not room for all, the weaker 
 and less adapted succumb, while the stronger and better 
 adapted survive and multiply. As surrounding circum- 
 stances, climatic or geological, vary and are modified, 
 corresponding variations (such as are always incidentally 
 appearing among the offspring of all creatures) in the inhab- 
 itants of each district crop up, increase, spread, and become 
 permanent. The creatures that are most in harmony with 
 surrounding circumstances have a manifest daily and hour- 
 ly advantage over those which are less in harmony : live 
 when they die ; flourish when they fade ; endure through 
 
112 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 what kills others ; can find food, catch prey, escape en- 
 emies, when their feebler, slower, blinder brethren are 
 starved and slain.* Thus the most perfect specimens of 
 
 * " The grand feature in the multiplication of organic life is that 
 of close general resemblance, combined with more or less individual 
 variation. The child resembles its parents or ancestors more or less 
 closely in all its peculiarities, deformities, or beauties ; it resembles 
 them in general more than it does any other individuals ; yet chil- 
 dren of the same parents are not all alike, and it often happens that 
 they differ very considerably from their parents and from each other. 
 This is equally true of man, of all animals, and of all plants. More- 
 over, it is found that individuals do not differ from their parents in 
 certain particulars only, while in all others they are exact duplicates 
 of them. They differ from them and from each other in every par- 
 ticular : in form, ip size, in color, in the structure of internal as welL 
 as of external organs ; in those subtle peculiarities which produce 
 differences of constitution, as well as in those still more subtle ones 
 which lead to modifications of mind and character. In other words, 
 in every possible way, in every organ, and in every function, indi- 
 viduals of the same stock vary. 
 
 " Now, health, strength, and long life are the results of a harmony 
 between the individual and the universe that surroimds it. Let us 
 suppose that at any given moment this harmony is perfect. A certain 
 animal is exactly fitted to secure its prey, to escape from its enemies, 
 to resist the inclemencies of the seasons, and to rear a numerous 
 and healthy offspring. But a change now takes place. A series of 
 cold winters, for instance, come on, making food scarce, and bringing 
 an immigration of some other animals to compete with the fonner 
 inhabitants of the district. The new immigrant is swift of foot, and 
 surpasses its rivals in the pursuit of game ; the winter nights are 
 colder, and require a thicker fur as a protection, and more nourish- 
 ing food to keep up the heat of the system. Our supposed perfect 
 animal is no longer in harmony with its universe ; it is in danger of 
 dying of cold or of starvation. But the animal varies in its off- 
 
NON-SUKVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 113 
 
 each race and tribe, the strongest, the swiftest, the health- 
 iest, the most sagacious, the most courageous, — those full- 
 spring. Some of these are swifter than others, — they still manage 
 to catch food enough ; some are hardier and more thickly furred, — 
 they manage in the cold nights to keep warm enough ; the slow, the 
 weak, and the thinly clad soon die off. Again, and again, in each 
 succeeding generation, the same thing takes place. By this natural 
 process, which is so inevitable that it cannot be conceived not to act, 
 those best adapted to live, live ; those least adapted, die. It is some- 
 times said that we have no direct evidence of the action of this 
 selecting power in nature. But it seems to me we have better evi- 
 dence than even direct observation would be, because it is more 
 universal, viz., the evidence of necessity. It must be so ; for, as all 
 wild animals increase in a geometrical ratio, while their actual num- 
 bers remain on the average stationary, it follows that as many die 
 annually as are bom. If, therefore, we deny natural selection, it can 
 only be by asserting that in such a case as I have supposed the 
 strong, the healthy, the swift, the well-clad, the well-oiganized an- 
 imals in every respect, have no advantage over, — do not on the aver- 
 age live longer than the weak, the unhealthy, the slow, the ill-clad, 
 and the imperfectly organized individuals ; and this no sane man has 
 yet been found hardy enough to assert. But this is not all ; for the 
 offspring on the average resemble their parents, and the selected 
 portion of each succeeding generation wUl therefore be stronger, 
 swifter, and more thickly furred than the last ; and if this process 
 goes on for thousands of generations, our animal will have again be- 
 come thoroughly in harmony with the new conditions in which he is 
 placed. But he will now be a different creature. He will be not 
 only swifter and stronger, and more furry ; he will also probably 
 have changed in color, in form, perhaps have acquired a longer tail, 
 or differently shaped ears ; for it is an ascertained fact, that when 
 one part of an animal is modified, some other parts almost always 
 change as it were in sympathy with it."-^ Wallace " On Natural 
 Selection," oh. ix. 
 
114 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 est of vitality, — live longest, feed best, overcome" their 
 competitors in the choice of mates ; and, in virtue of these 
 advantages, become — as it is desirable they should be — 
 the progenitors of the future race. The poorer specimens, 
 the sick, the foolish, the faulty, the weak, are slain or drop 
 out of existence ; are distanced in the chase, are beaten 
 in the fight, can find no females to match with them ; and 
 the species is propagated and continued mainly, increas- 
 ingly, if not exclusively, from its finest and most selected 
 individuals, — in a word, its elite. Thus is established 
 what Mr. Herbert Spencer calls the law of " the Survival 
 of the Fittest." 
 
 This explains not only those extraordinary changes in 
 the form and habits of the same animals which, when 
 aided and aggravated by man's requirements and careful 
 management, strike us so forcibly in domesticated races, 
 but also those purely natural though far slower modifica- 
 tions which geological researches have brought to our 
 knowledge. Mr. Wallace, in the admirable paper just 
 quoted, — which is a perfect model of succinct statement 
 and lucid reasoning, — has pointed out how this principle 
 of natural selection has been modified, and in a manner 
 veiled and disguised, though by no means either neutral- 
 ized or Suspended, in the case of man ; so that neither 
 history nor geology enable us to trace any changes in his 
 external structure analogous to those which we find in 
 such abundance and to such a remarkable extent in the 
 case of the lower animals. He adapts himself, just as they 
 do, to the altered conditions of external nature, but he does 
 it by mental, not by bodily, modifications. As with them, so 
 
NON-SUEVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 115 
 
 with him, the best adapted to surrounding circumstances, 
 the most in harmony with the imperious necessities of hfe, 
 surmount, survive, and multiply ; but in his case the adap- 
 tion is made and the harmony secured by intellectual and 
 moral efforts and qualities, which leave no stamp on the 
 corporeal frame. As with them, inferior varieties and in- 
 dividuals succumb and die out in the eternal and universal 
 " struggle for existence " ; only, in the case of man, the 
 inferiority which determines their fate is not so much in- 
 feriority of muscle, of stomach, or of skin, as of brain. 
 
 " In man, as we now behold him, this ig different. He is .social 
 and sympathetic. In the rudest tribes the sick are assisted at least 
 with food ; less robust health and vigor than the average does not 
 entail death. Neither does the want of perfect limbs or other 
 oi^ans produce the same effect as among the lower animals. 
 Some division of labor takes place ; the swiftest hunt, the less 
 active fish or gather fruits ; food is to some extent exchanged or 
 divided. The action of natural selection is therefore checked : the 
 weaker, the dwarfish, those of less active limbs or less piercing 
 eyesight, do not suffer the extreme penalty which falls on animals 
 so defective. 
 
 "In proportion as these physical characteristics become of less 
 importance, mental and moral qualities wUl have increasing influ- 
 ence on the well-being of the race. Capacity for acting in concert, 
 for protection and for the acquisition of food and shelter ; sympathy, 
 which leads all in turn to assist each other ; the sense of right, 
 which checks depredations upon our fellows ; the decrease of the 
 combative and destructive propensities ; self-restraint in present 
 appetites ; and that intelligent foresight which prepares for the 
 future, — are all qualities that from their earliest appearance must 
 have been for the benefit of each community, and would, therefore, 
 have become the subjects of ' natural selection.' For it is evident 
 that such qualities would be for the well-being of man ; would 
 
116 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 guard tim. against external enemiea, against internal dissensions, 
 and against the effects of inclement seasons and impending famine, 
 more surely tlian could any merely physical modification. Tribes 
 in which such mental and moral qualities were predominant 
 would therefore have an advantage in the struggle for existence 
 over other tribes in which they were less developed, would live and 
 maintain their numbers, while the others would decrease and finally 
 succumb. 
 
 " Again, when any slow changes of physical geography or of cli- 
 mate make it necessary for an animal to alter its food, its clothing, 
 or its weapons, it can onlj' do so by a corresponding change in its 
 own bodily structure and internal organization. If a larger or more 
 powerful beast is to be captured and devoured, as when a carnivo- 
 rous animal which has hitherto preyed on sheep is obliged from their 
 decreasing numbers to attack buffaloes, it is only the strongest who 
 can hold, — those with most powerful claws, and formidable canine 
 teeth that can struggle with and overcome such an animal. Natural 
 selection immediately comes into play, and by its action these 
 organs gradually become adapted to their new requirements. But 
 man, under similar circumstances, does not require longer nails or 
 teeth, greater bodily strength or swiftness. He makes sharper 
 spears, or a better bow, or he constructs a cunning pitfall, or 
 combines in a hunting party to circumvent his new prey. The 
 capacities which enable him to do this are what he requires to be 
 strengthened, and these will, therefore, be gradually modified by 
 'natural selection,' while the form and structure of his body will 
 remain unchanged. So when a glacial epoch comes on, some ani- 
 mals must acquire warmer fur, or a covering of fat, or else die of cold. 
 Those best clothed by nature are, therefore, preserved by natural 
 selection. Man, under the same circumstances, will make himself 
 warmer clothing and build better houses ; and the necessity of 
 doing this will react upon his mental organization and social condi- 
 tion, will advance them while his natural body remains naked as 
 before. 
 
 " When the accustomed food of some animal becomes scarce or 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 117 
 
 totally fails, it can only exist by becoming adapted to a new kind of 
 food, a food perhaps less nourishing and less digestible. ' Natural 
 selection' will now act upon the stomach and intestines, and all 
 their individual variations will be taken advantage of to modify the 
 race into harmony with its new food. In many cases, however, it is 
 probable that this cannot be done. The internal organs may not 
 vary tpiick enough, and then the animal will decrease in numbefS 
 and finally become extinct. But man guards himself from such 
 accidents by. superintending and guiding the operations of nature. 
 He plants the seed of his most agreeable food, and thus procures a 
 supply independent of the accidents of varying seasons or natural 
 extinction. He domesticates animals which serve him either to 
 capture food or for food itself, and thus changes of any great extent 
 in his teeth or digestive organs are rendered unnecessary. Man, 
 too, has everywhere the use of fire, and by its means can render 
 palatable a variety of animal and vegetable substances, which he 
 could hardly otherwise make tise of, and thus obtains for himself a 
 supply of food far more varied and abundant than that which any 
 animal can command. 
 
 '■ Thus man, by the mere capacity of clothing himself, and making 
 weapons and tools, has taken away from Nature that power of 
 changing the external form and structure which she exercises over 
 all other animals. As the competing races by which they were 
 surrounded, the climate, the vegetation, or the animals which serve 
 them for food, are slowly changing, they must undei^o a corre- 
 sponding change in their structure, habits, and constitution, to keep 
 them in harmony with the new conditions, — to enable them to 
 live and maintain their numbers. But man does this by means of 
 his intellect alone ; which enables him with an unchanged body 
 still to keep in harmony with the changing universe. 
 
 " From the time, therefore, when the social and sympathetic feel- 
 ings came into active operation, and the intellectual and moral 
 faculties became fairly developed, man would cease to be influenced 
 by 'natural selection' in his physical form and structure; as an 
 animal he would remain' almost stationary ; the changes of the 
 
118 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 surrounding universe would cease to have upon him that powerful 
 modifying effect which they exercise over other parts of the organic 
 world. But from the moment that his body became stationary, 
 his mind would become subject to those very influences from which 
 his body had escaped ; every slight variation in his mental and 
 moral nature which should enable him better to guard against 
 adverse circumstances, and combine for mutual comfort and pro- 
 tection, would be preserved and accumulated ; the better and higher 
 specimens of our race would therefore increase and spread, the 
 lower and more brutal would give way and successively die out, 
 and that rapid advancement of mental organization would occur, 
 which has raised the very lowest races of man so far above the 
 brutes (althoiigh differing so little from some of them in physical 
 structure), and, in conjunction with scarcely perceptible modifica- 
 tions of form, has developed the wonderful intellect of the Germanic 
 races." 
 
 But this is by no means the whole of the case. As we 
 follow out the reflections suggested by this argument, an 
 entirely new series of consequences and operations opens 
 before us. We perceive that the working of the law of 
 " natural selection," and of " the preservation of favored 
 races and individuals in the struggle for existence," has 
 become in the course of man's progress not only thus 
 modified, as Mr. Wallace points out, and directed to one 
 part of his organization (the brain) alone, but positively 
 suspended, and in many instances almost reversed. It 
 even dawns upon us that our existing civilization, which 
 is the result of the operation of this law in past ages, 
 may be actually retarded and endangered by its tendency 
 to neutralize that law in one or two most material and 
 significant particulars. The great, wise, righteous, and 
 beneficent principle which in all other animals, and in 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 119 
 
 man himself, up to a certain stage of his progress, tends 
 to the improvement and perfection of the race, would 
 appear to be forcibly interfered with and nearly set aside ; 
 nay, to be set aside pretty much in direct proportion to 
 the complication, completeness, and culmination of our 
 civilization. I do not assert that if our civilization were 
 purely and philosophically ideal — perfect in character 
 as well as splendid and lofty in degree — this result 
 would foUow, or would continue ; but it certainly does 
 follow now, and it delays and positively menaces the 
 attainment of that ideal condition. My thesis is this : 
 that the indisputable effect of the state of social progress 
 and culture we have reached, of our high civilization in 
 its present stage and actual form, is to counteract and 
 suspend the operation of that righteous and salutary law 
 of " natural selection " in virtue of which the best speci- 
 mens of the race — the strongest, the finest, the worthiest 
 — are those which survive, multiply, become paramount, 
 and take precedence ; succeed and triumph in the strug- 
 gle for existence, become the especial progenitors of future 
 generations, continue the species, and propagate an ever 
 improving and perfecting type of humanity. 
 
 The principle of the " Survival of the Fittest " does not 
 appear to fail in the case of races of men. Here the abler, 
 the stronger, the more advanced, the finer, in short, are still 
 the favored ones; succeed in the competition; exterminate, 
 govern, supersede, fight, eat, or work the inferior tribes out 
 of existence. The process is quite as certain, and nearly 
 as rapid, whether we are just or unjust ; whether we use 
 carefulness or cruelty. Everywhere the savage tribes of 
 
120 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 mankind die out at the contact of the civilized ones. 
 Sometimes they are extinguished by conquest and the 
 sword ; sometimes hy the excessive toil which avaricious 
 victors impose upon the feeble vanquished ; often by the 
 diseases wliich the more artificial man brings with him and 
 which ilourish with fearful vigor in a virgin soil ; occa- 
 sionally they fade away before the superior vitality and 
 prolific energy of the invading race in lands where there 
 is not room for both : they are crushed, in fact, by the se-. 
 verity of competition ; in some cases they sink under the 
 new and unsuitable habits which civilization tries to 
 introduce among them ; not unfrequently, it would seem, 
 from some mysterious blight which the mere presence of 
 a superior form of humanity casts over them. But, in 
 every part of the world, and in every instance, the result 
 has been the same ; the process of extinction is either 
 completed or actively at work. The Indians of the Antil- 
 les, the Eed man of North America, the South Sea Island- 
 ers, the Aiistralians, even the New-Zealanders (the finest 
 and most pliable and teachable of savages), are all alike 
 dying out with strange rapidity, — in consequence of the 
 harshness, or in spite of the forbearance and protection, 
 of the stronger and more capable European. The negro 
 alone survives, — and seems likely to survive. He Only 
 has been able to hold his own after a fashion, and to live 
 and flourish side by side with masterful and mightier 
 races, though in a questionable relation and with question- 
 able results. But the exception is a confirmation of the 
 general law. The negro is not only strong, docile, and 
 prolific, but in some respects he is better adapted to sur- 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 121 
 
 rounding conditions than his European neighbor, conquer- 
 or, or master ; in certain climates lie, and not the white 
 man, is " the favored race " ; and for many generations, 
 perhaps for ages, in the burning regions about the equator, 
 a black skin may take precedence of a large brain, and be 
 a more indispensable condition of existence ; or possibly 
 the brain may grow larger without the skin growing any 
 whiter. The principle of " natural selection," therefore, — 
 of the superior and fitter races of mankind trampling out 
 and replacing the poorer races, in virtue of their superior 
 fitness, — would seem to hold good universally. 
 
 So probably it does also, and always has done, in the 
 case of nations; "and the apparent exceptions to the rule 
 may be due only to our erroneous estimate of the true ele- 
 ments of superiority. In the dawn of history the more 
 cultivated and energetic races conquered the weaker and 
 less advanced, reduced them to slavery, or taught them 
 civilization. It is true that in the case of the Greeks and 
 Romans the coarser organization and less developed brain 
 of the latter overpowered and overshadowed probably the 
 finest physical and intellectual nature that has yet ap- 
 peared upon the earth ; but the Greeks, when they thus 
 succumbed, had fallen away from the perfection of their 
 palmier days ; they had grown enervated and corrupt ; and 
 the tougher fibre, the robuster will, and the unequalled 
 political genius of their Eoman conquerors constituted an 
 undeniable superiority. They triumphed by the law of 
 the strongest, — though their strength might not lie pre- 
 cisely in the noblest portion of man's nature. Intellectu- 
 ally the inferiors of the Greeks whom they subdued, they 
 
122 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 were morally and volitionally more vigorous. The same 
 may be said of those rude Northern warriors who, at a 
 later period, flowed over and mastered the degenerate 
 Roman world. They had no culture, but they had vast 
 capacities ; and they brought with them a renovating ir- 
 ruption of that hard energy and redundant vitality which 
 luxury and success had nearly extinguished among those 
 they conq^uered. They were then " the most favored race," 
 the fittest for the exigencies of the hour, the best adapted 
 to the conditions of the life around them ; they prevailed, 
 therefore, by reason of a very indisputable, though not the 
 most refined sort of, superiority. With the nations of 
 modern history, the same rule has governed the main cur- 
 rent of the world, though perhaps with more instances of 
 at least apparent exception. Each nation that has domi- 
 nated in turn, or occupied the first post in the world's 
 annals, has done so by right of some one quality, achieve- 
 ment, or possession, — then especially needed, — which 
 made it for the time the stronger, if not intrinsically the 
 nobler, among many rivals. Intellect, and intellect applied 
 alike to art, to commerce, and to science, at one period 
 made the Italians the most prominent people in Europe; 
 There was an undeniable grandeur in the Spanish nation 
 in its culminating years towards the close of the fifteenth 
 century which gave it a right to rule, and at once explained 
 and justified both its discoveries and its conquests. No' one 
 can say that France did not fairly win her vast influence 
 and her epochs of predominance by her wonderful military 
 spirit and the peculiarity of her singularly clear, keen, 
 restless, but not rich intelligence. England owes her 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 123 
 
 world-wide dominion and (what is far more significant 
 and a greater subject for felicitation) the wide diffusion of 
 her race over the globe, to a daring and persistent energy 
 with which no other variety of mankind is so largely dow- 
 ered. Even the Ottoman and Arabian races had special 
 qualities or elements of superiority which warranted their 
 temporary sway. And if in modern conflicts naight has 
 sometimes triumphed over right, and the finer and kinder 
 people fallen before the assaults of the stronger and harsh- 
 er, and the events of history run counter to all our truer 
 and juster sympathies, it is probably because in the coun- 
 sels of the Most High, energy is seen to be more needed 
 than culture to carry on the advancement of humanity, 
 and a commanding will, at least in this stage of our pro- 
 gress,, to be a more essential endowment than an amiable 
 temper or a good heart. At all events it is those who in 
 some sense are the strongest and the fittest who most 
 prevail, multiply, and spread, and become in the largest 
 measure the progenitors of future nations. 
 
 But when we come to the case of individuals in a 
 people, or classes in a community, — the phase of the 
 question which has far the most practical and immediate 
 interest for ourselves, — the principle would appear to 
 fail, and the law is no longer supreme. Civilization, 
 with its social, moral, and material complications, has 
 introduced a disturbing and conflicting element. It is 
 not now, as Mr. Wallace depicts, that intellectual has 
 been substituted for physical superiority, but that arti- 
 ficial and conventional have taken the place of natural 
 advantages as the ruKng and deciding force. It is no 
 
124 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 longer the strongest, the healthiest, the most perfectly 
 organized ; it is not men of the finest physique, the 
 largest brain, the most developed intelligence, the best 
 morale, that are " favored " and successful " in the struggle 
 for existence," that survive, that rise to the surface, that 
 " natural selection '' makes the parents of future genera- 
 tions, the continuators of a picked and perfected race. 
 It is stiU " the most favored," no doubt, in some sense, 
 who bear away the palm, but the indispensable favor is 
 too often that of fortune, not of nature. The various 
 influences of our social system combine to traverse the 
 righteous and salutary law which God ordained for the 
 preservation of a worthy and improving humanity ; and 
 the " varieties " of man that endure and multiply their 
 likenesses, and moiild the features of the coming times, 
 are not the soundest constitutions that can be found 
 among us, nor the most subtle and resourceful minds, 
 nor the most amiable or self-denying tempers, nor the 
 most sagacious judgments, nor even the most imperious 
 and persistent wills, but often the precise reverse, — often 
 those emasculated by luxury and those damaged by want, 
 those rendered reckless by squalid poverty, and those 
 whose physical and mental energies have been sapped, 
 and whose characters have been grievously impaired, by 
 long indulgence and forestalled desires. 
 
 The two great instruments and achievements of civili- 
 zation are respect for life and respect for property. In 
 proportion as both are secure, as life is prolonged and as 
 wealth is accumulated, and as the poor and weak are 
 cared for, so nations rise, or consider that they have 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 125 
 
 risen. Among wild animals the sick and maimed are 
 slain ; among savages they succumb and die or are sup- 
 pressed ; among us they are cared for, kept alive, enabled 
 to marry and multiply. In uncivilized tribes, the inef- 
 fective and incapable, the weak in body or in mind, are 
 unable to provide themselves food; they fall behind in 
 the chase or in the march; they fall out, therefore, in the 
 race of Hfe. With us, sustenance and shelter are pro- 
 vided for them, and they survive. We pride ourselves — 
 and justly — on the increased length of life which has 
 been effected by our science and our humanity. But we 
 forget that this higher average of life may be compatible 
 with, and may in a measure result from, a lower average 
 of health. We have kept alive those who, in a more 
 natural and less advanced state, would have died, — and 
 who, looking at the physical perfection of the race alone, 
 had better have been left to die. Among savages, the 
 vigorous and sound alone survive ; among us, the diseased 
 and enfeebled survive as well ; but is either the physique 
 or the intelligence of cultivated man the gainer by the 
 change ? In a wild state, by the law of natural selec- 
 tion, only or chiefly, the sounder and stronger specimens 
 were allowed to continue their species ; with us, thou- 
 sands with tainted constitutions, frames weakened by 
 malady or waste, brains bearing subtle and hereditary 
 mischief in their recesses, are suffered to transmit their 
 terrible inheritance of evil to other generations, and to 
 spread it through a whole community. 
 
 Security of property, security for its transmission as 
 well as for its enjoyment, is one of our chief boasts. 
 
126 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. . 
 
 Thousands upon thousands who never could themselves 
 have acquired property by industry, or conquered it hy 
 courage, or kept it by strength or ingenuity, and who are 
 utterly incompetent to use it well, are yet enabled by 
 law to inherit and retain it. They are born to wealth, 
 they revel in wealth, though destitute of all the qualities 
 by which wealth is won, or its possession made a blessing 
 to the community. In a natural state of society they 
 would have been pushed out of existence, stripped of 
 their inherited and ill-used possessions, jostled aside in 
 the struggle and the race, and left by the wayside to die. 
 In civilized communities they are protected, fostered, 
 flattered, married, and empowered to hand down their 
 vapid incapacities to numerous offspring, whom perhaps 
 they can leave wealthy too. In old and highly advanced 
 nations, the classes who wield power and affluence and 
 social supremacy as a consequence of the security of 
 property, do not as a rule consist — nay, may consist in a 
 very small measure — of individuals who have won, or 
 could have won, those influences for themselves, — of 
 natural " kings of men " ; the 4lit& lots in life do not fall 
 to the dliU of the race or the community.* Those pos- 
 sessions and that position, which in more simply organ- 
 ized tribes would be an indication and a proof either of 
 
 * Mr. Darwin points out here as a per contra, the validity of 
 ■which is great and indisputable, the good effect of this transmission 
 of property in securing the existence of a leisured class adapted for 
 literature, government, and thought. " The presence of a body of 
 well-instructed men, who have not to labor for their daily bread, 
 is important to a degree that can hardly be overestimated ; as all 
 
NON-SUKVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 127 
 
 strength, of intelligence, or of some happy adaptation to 
 surrounding exigencies, now in our complicated world 
 indicate nothing — at least in five cases out of six — but 
 merit or energy or luck in some ancestor, perhaps incon- 
 ceivably remote, who has bequeathed his rank and prop- 
 erty to his successors, but without the qualities which 
 won them and warranted them. Yet this property and 
 rank still enable their possibly unworthy and incapable 
 inheritors to take precedence over others in many of the 
 walks of life, to carry off the most desirable brides from 
 less favored though far nobler rivals, and (what is our 
 present point) to make those brides the mothers of a 
 degenerating, instead of an ever-improving race. 
 
 But even this by no means presents the whole strength 
 of the case. Not only does civilization, as it exists among 
 us, enable rank and wealth, however diseased, enfeebled, 
 or unintelligent, to become the contiauators of the species 
 in preference to larger brains, stronger frames,, and sounder 
 constitutions ; but that very rank and wealth, thus inher- 
 ited without effort and in absolute security, often tend to 
 produce enervated and unintelligent offspring. To be 
 bom in the purple isjiot the right introduction to healthy 
 energy ; to be surrounded from the cradle with all temp- 
 tations and facilities to self-indulgence, is not the best 
 safeguard against those indulgences which weaken the 
 
 high intellectual work is carried on by them, and on such work 
 material progress of all kinds mainly depends, — not to mention 
 other and higher advantages." — -Descent of Man, I. p. 169. 
 
 But do the majority of this rich and leisured class occupy them- 
 selves with "high intellectual work " ? 
 
128 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 intellect and exhaust the frame. No doubt noblesse oblige, 
 and riches can buy the highest education, — always ex- 
 cepting that education by surrounding circumstances 
 which is really the only one that tells very effectually 
 on the youthful plant. No doubt, too, there are splendid 
 and numerous exceptions, — instances in which rank is 
 used to mould its heir to its duties, and in which wealth 
 is used to purchase and achieve aU that makes life noble 
 and beneficent. But we have only to look around us, 
 and a little below the surface, and then ask ourselves 
 whether, as a rule, the owners of rank and wealth — still 
 more the owners of wealth without rank — are those 
 from whose paternity we should have most right to antici- 
 pate a healthy, a noble, an energetic, or a truly intellectual 
 offspring, — a race fitted to control and guide themselves 
 as well as others, to subdue the earth as well as to replen- 
 ish it, to govern, to civilize, to illustrate, to carry forward 
 the future destinies of man ? 
 
 And if it is not from the highest and most opulent 
 that we can expect this desiderated posterity, assuredly 
 it is not from the lowest and most indigent. The 
 physique and the morale of both the extreme classes are 
 imperfect and impaired. The physique of the rich is 
 injured by indulgence and excess; that of the poor by 
 privation and want. The morale of the former has never 
 been duly called forth by the necessity for exertion and self- 
 denial ; that of the latter has never been adequately cul- 
 tivated by training and instruction. The intellects of 
 each have been exposed to opposite disadvantages. The 
 organizations of neither class are the best in the commu- 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 129 
 
 nity; the constitutions of neither are the soundest or 
 most untainted. ■ Yet these two classes are precisely 
 those which are, or are likely to be, preponderatingly, the 
 fathers of the coining generation. Both marry as early as 
 they please and have as many chUdren as they please, — 
 the rich because it is in their power, the poor because 
 they have no motive for abstinence ; and scanty fobd and 
 hard circumstances do not oppose but rather encourage 
 procreation. Malthus's " prudential check " rarely oper- 
 ates upon the lowest classes ; the poorer they are, usually, 
 the faster do they multiply ; certainly the more reckless 
 they are in reference to multiplication. It is the middle 
 classes, those who form the energetic, reliable, improving 
 element of the population, those who wish to rise and do 
 not choose to sink, those in a word who constitute the 
 true strength and wealth and dignity of nations, — it is 
 these who abstain from marriage or postpone it.* Thus 
 the imprudent, the desperate, — those whose standard is 
 low, those who have no hope, no ambition, no self-denial, 
 — on the one side, and the pampered favorites of fortune 
 on the other, take precedence in the race of fatherhood, 
 to the disadvantage or the exclusion of the prudent, the 
 resolute, the striving, and the self-restrained. The very 
 
 * Galton's " Hereditary Genius," p. 352. " Certain influences 
 
 retard the average age of marriage wHle others hasten it The 
 
 wisest policy is that which results in retarding the average age of 
 marriage among the weak, and hastening it among the vigorous 
 classes ; whereas, most unhappily for us, the influence of numerous 
 social influences has been strongly and banefully exerted, in our 
 community at least, in precisely the opposite direction." 
 
 6* 1 
 
130 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 men whom a philosophic statesman or a guide of some 
 superior nature would select as most qualified and deserv- 
 ing to continue the race, are precisely those who do so ill 
 the scantiest measure.* Those who have no need for 
 exertion, and those who have no opportunities for culture, 
 those whose fi'ames are damaged by indulgence, and those 
 whos^frames are weakened by privation, breed ad IMtwm ; 
 wliile those whose minds and bodies have been hardened, 
 strengthened, and purified by temperance and toil, are 
 elbowed quietly aside in the unequal press. Surely the 
 
 * Those who may be disposed to make light of the injurious 
 operation, on the well-being of a community or the improvement of 
 the race, of this positive or comparative abstention from the func- 
 tions of paternity on the part of the true Mte of a people, would do 
 well to study Mr. Galton's picture of the effect of two analogous 
 facts on the progress of Europe during the Middle Ages. In his 
 rich and suggestive book on " Hereditary Genius " (pp. 357 - 359) 
 he points how efifectually, though unintentionally, "the Church 
 brutalized and demoralized the breed of our forefathers," by, in the 
 jkst place, condemning to celibacy all those gentler, kindlier, more 
 cultured and thoughtful natures who sought refuge in the cloister 
 in those troubled times, — leaving only the ruder and coarser organ- 
 izations to marry and multiply ; and, in the second place, by burn- 
 ing all the more powerful, free, and daring thinkers of those days, 
 and thus as far as possible crushing out the class. " Having iirst 
 captured all the gentler natures and condemned them to celibacy, 
 she made another sweep of her huge nets — this time fishing in 
 troubled waters — to catch those who were the most fearless, truth- 
 loving, and ititelligent in their modes of thought, and, therefore the 
 vnost suitable pa/rents of a h'gh civilization, and put a strong check, 
 if not a direct stop to their progeny. Those she reserved, as it were, 
 to breed the generations of the future, were the rough and ferocious, 
 or the servile, the indifferent, and the stupid." 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 131 
 
 " selection " is no longer " natural." The careless, squalid, 
 unaspiring Irishman, fed on potatoes, living in a pigsty, 
 doting on a superstition, multiplies like rabbits or ephem- 
 era: the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, ambitious 
 Scot, stem in his morality, spiritual in his faith, saga- 
 cious and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best 
 years in struggle and in celibacy, marries late, and leaves 
 few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a 
 thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts, — and in a dozen 
 generations, five sixths of the population would be Celts, 
 but five sixths of the property, the power, and the intel- 
 lect would belong to the one sixth of Saxons that re- 
 mained. In the eternal " struggle for existence," it would 
 be the inferior and less favored race that had prevailed, — 
 and prevailed by virtue, not of its qualities, but of its 
 faults, by reason, not of its stronger vitality, but of its 
 weaker reticence and its narrower brain. 
 
 Of course it will be urged that the principle of natural 
 selection fails thus utterly because our civilization is im- 
 perfect and misdirected ; because om' laws are insufficient ; 
 because our social arrangements are unwise ; because our 
 moral sense is languid or unenlightened. No doubt, if our 
 legislators and rulers were quite sagacious and quite stern, 
 and our people in all ranks quite wise and good, the benefi- 
 cent tendencies of nature would continue to operate un- 
 counteracted. No constitutions would be impaired by 
 insufficient nutriment and none by unhealthy excess. No 
 classes would be so undeveloped either in mind or muscle 
 as to be unfitted for procreating sound and vigorous off- 
 
132 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 spring. The sick, the tainted, and the maimed would be 
 too sensible and too unselfish to dream of marrying and 
 handing down to their children the curse of diseased or 
 feeble frames ; or if they did not thus control themselves, 
 the state would exercise a salutary but unrelenting paternal 
 despotism, and supply the deficiency by vigilant and timely 
 proliibition. A republic is conceivable in which paupers 
 should be forbidden to propagate ; in which aU candidates 
 for the proud and solemn privilege of continuing an un- 
 tainted and perfecting race should be sutgected to a pass 
 or a competitive examination, and those only be suffered to 
 transmit their names and families to future generations 
 who had a pure, vigorous, and well-devploped constitution 
 to transmit ; so that paternity should be the right and 
 function exclusively of the elite of the nation, and human- 
 ity be thus enabled to march on securely and without 
 drawback to its ultimate possibilities of progress. Every 
 damaged or inferior temperament might be eliminated, and 
 every special and superior one be selected and enthroned, 
 till the human race, both in its manhood and its womanhood, 
 became one glorious fellowship of saints, sages, and ath- 
 letes; till we were all Blondins, all Shakespeares, Pericleses, 
 Socrateses, Columbuses, and F^n^lons. pBut no nation — in 
 modern times at least — has ever yet approached or aimed 
 at this ideal; no such wisdom or virtue has ever been 
 found except in isolated individual instances ; no govern- 
 ment and no statesman has ever yet dared thus to supple- 
 ment the inadequacy of personal patriotism by laws so 
 sapiently despotic. The faces of the leading peoples of the 
 existing world are not even set in this direction, — at pres- 
 
NON-SUKVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 133 
 
 ent notably the reverse. The more marked tendencies of 
 the age are three ; and all three run counter to the opera- 
 tion of the ■wholesome law of " natural selection." "We are 
 learning to insist more and more on the freedom of the 
 individual will, the right of every one to judge and act 
 for himself. We are growing daily more foolishly and 
 . criminally lenient to every natural propensity, less and 
 less inclined, to resent, or control, or punish its indulgence. 
 We absolutely refuse to let the poor, the incapable, the 
 lazy, or the diseased die ; we enable or allow them, if we 
 do not actually encourage them, to propagate their inca- 
 pacity, poverty, and constitutional disorders. And, lastly, 
 democracy is every year advancing in power, and claiming 
 the siipreme right to govern and to guide ; and democracy 
 means the management and control of social arrangements 
 by the least educated classes, — by those least trained to 
 foresee or measure consequences, — least acquainted with 
 the fearfully rigid laws of hereditary transmission, — least 
 habituated to repress desires, or to forego immediate enjoy- 
 ment for future and remote good. 
 
 Obviously, no artificial prohibitions or restraints, no 
 laws imposed from above and from without, can restore 
 the principle of " natural selection " to its due supremacy 
 among the human race. No people in our days would en- 
 dure the necessary interference and control ; and perhaps 
 a result so acquired might not be worth the cost of acqui- 
 sition. We can only trust to the slow influences of enlight- 
 enment and moral susceptibility, percolating downwards 
 and in time permeating all ranks. We can only watch 
 and be careful that any other influences we do set in 
 
134 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 motion shall be such as, where they work at all, may work 
 in the right direction. At present the prospect is not 
 reassuring. We are progressing fast in many points, no 
 doubt, but the progress is not wholly nor always of the 
 right sort, nor without a large ip&r contra. Legislation and 
 philanthropy are improving the condition of the masses, 
 but they are more and more losing the guidance and goV' 
 ernance of the masses. Wealth accumulates above, and 
 wages rise below ; but the cost of living augments-with 
 both operations, till those classes — the stamina of the 
 nation — which are neither too rich nor too poor to fear 
 a fall, find marriage a hazardous adventure, and dread the 
 burden of large families. Medical science is mitigatipg 
 suffering, and achieving some success in its warfare against 
 disease ; but at the same time it enables the diseased to 
 Kve. It controls and sometimes half cures the maladies 
 that spring from profligacy , and excess, but in so doing 
 it encourages both, by stepping in between the cause and 
 its consequence, and saving them from their natural and 
 deterring penalties. It reduces the aggregate mortality by 
 sanitary improvements and precautions ; but those whom 
 it saves from dying prematurely it preserves to propagate 
 dismal and imperfect lives. In our complicated modern 
 communities a race is being run between moral and mental 
 enlightenment and the deterioration of the physical and 
 moral constitution through the defeasance of the law of 
 natural selection ; and on the issues of that race the des- 
 tinies of humanity depend. 
 
 Mr. Francis Galton (who had followed the same line of 
 
NON-SUEVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 135 
 
 thought as myself, though both, till after the publication 
 of our respective speculations, were unacquainted with the 
 other's writings) estimates, almost more gravely than I 
 have done, the mischief and the menace of this tendency 
 of civilized nations to multiply from their lower speci- 
 mens. He condemns " the Peerage as a disastrous insti- 
 tution, owing to its destructive effects on our valuable 
 races. The most highly gifted men are ennobled ; their 
 elder sons are tempted [for the sake of means to keep up 
 their titles] to marry heiresses [who are habitually sterile] ; 
 and their younger sons do not marry at all, not having 
 fortune enough to support both a family and an aristocratic 
 position. So the side-shoots of the genealogical tree are 
 hacked off, the leading shoot is blighted, and the breed is 
 lost forever." .... Further on he says : " It is a maxim 
 of Malthus that the period of marriage ought to be de- 
 layed in order that the earth may not be overcrowded by a 
 population for whom there is no place at all at the great 
 table of Nature. If this doctrine influenced aU classes 
 alike, I should have nothing to say about it here, one way 
 or the other, as it would hardly affect the discussions in 
 this book ; but when it is put forward as a rule of conduct 
 for the prudent part of mankind to follow, whilst the im- 
 prudent are necessarily left free to disregard it, I have no 
 hesitation in saying that it is a most pernicious rule of 
 conduct in its bearing on the race. Its efiects would be 
 to cause the race of the prudent to fall, after a few cen- 
 turies, into an almost incredible numerical inferiority to 
 that of the imprudent, and therefore to bring utter ruin 
 upon the breed of any country where the doctrine pre- 
 
136 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 vailed. I protest against the oiler races being encouraged 
 to withdraw in this way from the struggle for existence. 
 It may seem monstrous that the weak should be crowded 
 out by the strong, but it is still more monstrous that the 
 races best fitted to play their part on the stage of life 
 should be crowded out by the incompetent, the ailing, and 
 the feeble.'' 
 
 Mr. Galton gives us a sort of formula by which we may 
 form some faint conception of the magnitude of the evil 
 thus wrought — or likely to be wrought — by the opera- 
 tion of this doctrine. He points out that — of two classes 
 in a community starting with equal numbers, but one class 
 marrying habitually at twenty-two years of age, and the 
 other at thirty-three years — the first class will, in less 
 than a century, be twice as numerous, and in two centuries 
 six times as numerous, as the second. We have only to 
 follow out this thought, and picture to ourselves, if imagi- 
 nation is equal to the task, the contrast between two com- 
 munities at the end of either period, one a nation where 
 the early marrying class had been the educated, the tem- 
 perate, the energetic, and the self-restrained ; and the other 
 a nation where this class had consisted of the reckless, the 
 indolent, the vicious, and the diseased. The latter would 
 probably have degenerated nearly to the race, of Papuans^, 
 the former might have surpassed even the Athenians in 
 their palmiest days.* 
 
 * Mr. Galton (p. 361) has a passage ■which suggests a wide and 
 fertile field of investigation, — namely, how far the decay of old 
 civilizations (one of the perplexing phenomena of history) may be 
 traceable to the circumstance we have been considering. " In an old 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 137 
 
 Mr. Darwin,* who has done me the honor to quote 
 a monograph which I wrote four or iive years ago on 
 this subject, equally regards the operation in question as 
 a most serious one ; and though he mentions a number 
 of compensating influences, he evidently does not con- 
 sider them as at all adequate or effectual " With sav- 
 
 civilization the agencies are more complex. Among the active, am- 
 bitious classes none but the inheritors of fortune are likely to marry 
 young. Those whose future fortune is not insured can scarcely suc- 
 ceed well and rise high in society, if they hamper themselves with a 
 
 wife and children in their early manhood Thence result the 
 
 evils I have already described, in speaking of the marriages of eldest 
 sons with heiresses, and of the suppression of the marriages of the 
 younger sons. Again, there is a constant tendency of the best men 
 in a country to settle in the great cities, where marriages are less pro- 
 Hfic, and children less likely to live. Owing to these several causes, 
 there is a steady check in an old civilization on the fertility of the abler 
 classes : the impromdent and unambitious are those who chiefly keep up 
 the breed. So the race gradwdly degenerates, becoming with each succes- 
 sive generation less fitted for a high civUiMtion, although it retains the 
 external appearances of one : until the ti/me comes when the wlioh 
 political and social fabric caves in, and a greater or less relapse to- 
 wards barbarism takes place." I have long been convinced that the 
 startling contrast between the France of to-day and the France of one 
 or two centuries ago, is in a vast measure due to the dying (or killing) 
 out of the old Frankish and Norman elements, and the growing pre- 
 dominance of the Celtic one. Probably the equally startling differ- 
 ence between the America of Washington and the America of An- 
 drew Johnson may be greatly traced to the immigration of old days 
 consisting of Cavaliers and Pilgrim Fathers, and the recent immigra- 
 tion being made up of Irish cottiers and German boors, and loose or 
 criminal fugitives from everywhere. 
 * "Descent of Man," I. p. 168. 
 
138 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 ages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; 
 and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous 
 state of health. We civilized men, on the other hand, do 
 our utmost to check the process of elimination ; we build 
 asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick ; we 
 institute poor-laws ; and our medical men exert their 
 greatest skill to save the life of every one to the last 
 moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination 
 has preserved thousands, who, from a weak constitution, 
 would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus 
 the weak members of civilized societies propagate their 
 kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of 
 domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly 
 injurious to the race. It is surprising how soon a want 
 of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degener- 
 ation of a domestic race: but, excepting in the ease of 
 man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow 
 his worst animals to breed." 
 
 It cannot be denied then that the tendency, in commu- 
 nities of advanced and complicated civilization, to multiply 
 from their lower rather than their higher specimens, con- 
 stitutes one of the most formidable dangers with which 
 that civilization is threatened ; and, if not counterworked 
 in time, must bring about eventually the physical, and 
 along with that the moral and intellectual deterioration of 
 the race. But in civilization itself — in the spreading in- 
 telligence, in the matured wisdom, in the ripened self- 
 control, in the social virtues, which civilization nurtures 
 and in which it ought to culminate — may be found, ought 
 to be found, and, we hope, will be found, the counteractiag 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 139 
 
 influences required. A few of these may be briefly inti- 
 mated. The longer lives, the sounder health, the smaller 
 mortality in infancy, among the better classes (using the 
 word " better " to include all the elements of true superior- 
 ity), will do something to antagonize the greater fertility 
 of the inferior. As political wisdom improves, forced upon 
 us by increasing social perils, by severe experience, and by 
 exhaustive error, I consider that pauperism — and with it 
 the propagation of paupers — wiU be nearly extinguished 
 by the control and organization of charity, and the ulti- 
 mate abolition of compulsory poor-rates. Even now we 
 are beginning, at least, to look in that direction ; and, as I 
 pointed out in the first chapter, pauperism is the result of 
 our fostering, if not actually our own creation. I notice 
 that there are countries in which it exists in a very miti- 
 gated form, even if at all I do not think it over-sanguine 
 to anticipate the time when wealth, imder wider views 
 of economic science, may be far more equitably and be- 
 neficently distributed than now. We may conceive even, 
 and should aspire after, such a rational and sober simpli- 
 city of living, that marriage would become prudent and easy 
 to thousands bf the middle and upper classes, to whom it 
 now seems an absolute impossibility. The higher orders 
 of society would become less extravagantly provident as 
 the lower orders learned to be reasonably so. It does not 
 seem to me quite unreasonable to hope that the means, or 
 at least the prospect, of being able to maintain children 
 shall be regarded practically as an essential prerequisite to 
 producing them, — probably imder the control of an en- 
 lightened social opinion, — possibly, as is not unknown in 
 
140 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 certain continental States.* under legal pressure. I can- 
 not see why, — ■when the worldng classes are educated in 
 some proportion to those now above them, and possess 
 property of their own, — whether in acres, or consols, or 
 shares, as they assuredly may do, and soon wiU,f — they 
 should not become so provident and so well conditioned, 
 that they will be no unfit fathers for coming generations. 
 For we must never forget that it is not poverty, but squa- 
 lor, — not a hard life, but insufficient nutriment, — not 
 strenuous bodily exertion, but excessive and exhausting toil, 
 — that disqualify men from transmitting a sound physical 
 and mental constitution to their offspring. A sanified city 
 population and a well-fed agricultural population may be 
 not only a wholesome but a necessary felement to share the 
 functions of paternity^^with the more elaborately prudent 
 and cerebrally over-developed classes higher in the social 
 scale. Lastly, I look forward to a not very distant day, 
 when, as the moral tone of society advances, and men rise 
 to some larger and more vivid perceptions of their mutual 
 obligations, the propagation of vitiated constitutions, as 
 well as of positive disease, will be universally condemned 
 as culpable, and possibly prohibited as criminal. Some 
 classes and communities have already, from time to time, 
 reached this slight rising-ground in social virtue, in refer- 
 ence to the three fearful maladies of insanity, leprosy, and 
 cretinism. Surely a further progress in knowledge and 
 
 * Laing's " Notes of a Traveller." " Travels in Sweden and Nor- 
 way.'' 
 
 t See "Quarterly Review," January, 1872, "Proletariat on a 
 False Scent." 
 
NON-SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 141 
 
 reflection, and a somewhat wider range of sympathy, may 
 extend the list to scrofula, syphilis, and consumption. I 
 can discern no reason — beyond our own halting wisdom 
 and deficient sense of right, the strange ignorance of some 
 classes, and the stranger senselessness of others, our utterly 
 wonderful and persistent errors in political and social phi- 
 losophy in nearly every line — why a very few generations 
 should not have nearly eliminated from the community 
 those who ought not to breed at aU, and have taught pru- 
 dence to those who ought to breed only in moderate and 
 just proportions. 
 
 In comparing the conclusions arrived at in this chapter 
 with those of the preceding one, a certain prima facie 
 inconsistency is observable, which must not be evaded or 
 ignored. If that gradual decrease in fecundity which, in 
 the ripeness of time, will render the population of the 
 earth naturally and without effort stationary, is to result, 
 as we anticipate, mainly from the increased culture and 
 development of brain which civilization brings about, it 
 seems obvious to infer that such decrease will take place 
 earliest and most decidedly in the classes and races most 
 marked by cerebral superiority, that is, by mental power 
 and moral pre-eminence. If the cultivation of the higher 
 elements of humanity has, as we allege, the distinctive 
 tendency, in the long run, and on a general survey, to 
 retard the rate of increase of the species, then this retard- 
 ing operation should be strong and manifest in proportion 
 to the spread of that cultivation, and in those quarters 
 where its progress and predominance are most undeniable. 
 
142 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 If SO, the tendency of man in the more civilized stages 
 of society to multiply rather from his lower than his 
 higher forms, which in this chapter we have been deplor- 
 ing and would seek to check, would appear to be not only 
 one of the greatest dangers and drawbacks of civilization, 
 but precisely its most inevitable issue; and the very 
 advance of improvement and cerebral culture, to which 
 we look ultimately for the solution of the problem and 
 the perfection of the race, would seem to negative that 
 prospect, by withdrawing, pro tanto and pari passu, from 
 the privileges of paternity the best qualified portion of 
 the community, and virtually throwing the function of 
 continuing the race mainly upon the classes leas^ capable 
 of transmitting healthy organizations and fine intellects 
 to their offspring. If the superior sections and speci- 
 mens of humanity are to lose relatively their procreative 
 power in virtue of and in proportion to that superiority, 
 how is culture or progress to be propagated so as to benefit 
 the species as a whole, and how are those gradually 
 amended organizations from which we hope so much to 
 be secured ? If, indeed, it were ignorance, stupidity, and 
 destitution, instead of mental and moral development, 
 that were the sterilizing influences, then the improvement 
 of the race would go on swimmingly, and in an ever- 
 accelerating ratio. But since the conditions are exactly 
 reversed, how should not an exactly opposite direction be 
 pursued ? How should the race not deteriorate, when 
 those who morally and hygienically are fittest to perpet- 
 uate it are (relatively), by a law of physiology, those least 
 likely to do so ? Does it not appear as if Nature herself 
 
NON-SUKVITAL OF THE FITTEST. 143 
 
 were pursuing a pernicious course, precisely analogous to 
 that which Mr. Galton attributes to the Church in the 
 Middle Ages, and as if the very influence which we 
 pointed out in the last chapter as rendering the perfecta- 
 tion of the race feasible, must have a distinctively antag- 
 onistic operation ? 
 
 The reply to the foregoing objection is simply this : 
 in the preceding chapter we were considering specifically 
 the influence of natural laws, more or less occult, but all 
 aelf-operating and involuntary, which reduced fecundity 
 as cerebral development advanced and spread. In the 
 present chapter we have been dealing exclusively with 
 voluntary human influences, with the operation of social 
 tendencies and regulations in causing an abnormal and 
 riot natural withdrawal (relatively) from the function of 
 perpetuating the race, on the part of the classes fittest for 
 that duty. The former influence will work out its benefi- 
 cent issues gradually and in the fulness of time ; the 
 latter is operating artificially and mischievously under 
 our eyes. True culture, as it spreads, — the influence of 
 a really enlightened civilization, in our age and country, — 
 ought to have a double operation ; in the creation, on one 
 side, of a class of healthy and educated and laborious, 
 but no longer stinted poor, whose redundant fertility will 
 be controlled at once by greater providence and more 
 developed brains, and, on the other side, in the growth of 
 wiser and more right-minded superior classes, estimating 
 more truly the vital essentials of a happy and worthy 
 existence, less fearing a social fall, and less ambitious of a 
 social rise, less straitened and less deterred from marriage 
 
144 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 than at present, and therefore both positively and rela- 
 tively more prolific. The problem of progress may thus 
 be successfully wrought out, in perfect conformity with 
 the physiological laws we had assumed, by the mitigated 
 fecundity of tbe multitude in proportion to their culture 
 and social elevation, and the simultaneously augmented 
 fecundity of the ranks above them, as they learn the true 
 philosophy of life. 
 
 I think it may serve the elucidation of a subject, the im- 
 portance of which can scarcely be exaggerated, if I subjoin 
 here a criticism by one of our subtlest and finest thinkers, 
 which appeared in " The Spectator " when my argument 
 was first propounded, as well as my rejoinder : — 
 
 " . . . . No doubt the laws of property do secure to a vast num- 
 ber the means of living and of giving life to others who would not 
 seem well qualified for ' the struggle of existence,' and who might 
 have succumbed if they had had to win the means of living for them- 
 selves by shouldering their own way in life. Still, not only does 
 this tell as strongly for the energetic who inherit as for the dilettanti 
 who inherit, not only does it leave it quite as certain as ever that those 
 who have no moral capacity to rise will scarcely fail to fall, will be 
 quick to lose their inheritance to those who would have had power 
 to gain it, — not only is this so, but in fact this transmission of a 
 great bulk of property to persons not well fitted to make or save it, 
 is a necessary condition of detecting and developing capacities, of 
 the iirst value to our race, which would be utterly drowned and lost 
 in the mere conflict for material sustenance. No test could be coarser 
 or more ineffectual of the sort of intellectual and moral energy 
 which gives value to life, than the test of ability to win money with- 
 out the help of accumulated capital. Such a test would put out 
 of court at one blow, as unfit for 'the struggle of existence,' three 
 
NON-SUEVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 145 
 
 fourths of the religious teachers, the thinkers, the discoverers, the 
 poets, the artists, the philanthropists, the reformers. If we are to 
 assume that all who inherit are drones, unless they show the power 
 to win what they inherit, we should have to assume that there is no 
 true sort of energy at all, except it admits of diversion into a chan- 
 nel wherein pounds, shillings, and pence could be rapidly accumu- 
 lated. And it is obvious enough that such a test would be quite false. 
 " Still, what we have said as yet is but preliminary to the true 
 answer to the essayist we refer to. The real answer to him is this, 
 — that directly you reach man in the ascending stages of animal 
 life, you reach a point where the competitive principle of ' natural 
 selection ' is more or less superseded by a higher principle, of which 
 the key-note is not, ' Let the strong trample out the weak,' but, ' Let 
 the strong sjicrifice themselves for the weak.' This is really the law 
 of supernatural selection, as distinguished from the law which gov- 
 erns the selection of races in the lower animal world. It is from 
 reverence for this law that men value so highly the healing art which 
 helps us to restore the weak instead of to trample them out, — the 
 arts of political organization which teach us to feed and clothe those 
 who are, without their own fault, hungry and naked, instead of to 
 leave them to destruction, — the charity which bestows a new lan- 
 guage on the dumb, teaches the blind to see with their fingers, bright- 
 ens the hopeless fate even of the idiotic and the insane, nay, reforms 
 even criminals if it be possible, instead of exterminating them. The 
 history of all Christian and many other churches is at bottom little 
 but the history of the growth of human reverence for that law of 
 supernatural selection which supersedes the law ruling in the merely 
 animal world. If we are to complain that the Darwinian theorem 
 does not apply to man, we are complaining that we are in the truest 
 sense men at all. The law of self-sacrifice, the law of the Cross, the 
 law the religious root of which lies in the teaching that One, ' being 
 in the form of God,' made himself of no reputation, and took upon 
 himself the form of a servant, to raise creatures infinitely below 
 Himself up to His own level, to give them of His life, and breathe 
 into them His spirit, is in its very essence and conception a reversal 
 7 J 
 
14.6 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 of the law of ' natural selection,' at least so far as man dreams of 
 making himself in purpose and in spirit the executioner of that law. 
 Christ tells us not to help to extinguish poor and maimed and blighted 
 forms of life, lest they spoil the hreed, but to have faith that every 
 act of wise self-sacrifice, that is, every transfer of blessings from the 
 strong, happy, or wealthy, who can spare them, to the weak, miser- 
 able, or poor who might otherwise dwindle and perish, is a vindica- 
 tion of that higher law of supernatural selection, by virtue of which 
 the ' weak things of the world confound the mighty, and the things 
 which are not bring to naught the things which are.' 
 
 " But then how far is this reversal of the Darwinian law of ' con- 
 flict -for existence,' in the life of man, a true abrogation of the 
 'Providential' principle, as our essayist calls it, which secures a. 
 gradual amelioration of the organisms of the animal world 1 Can 
 we properly say that the principle of competition, so far as it 
 secures the recognition of every new faculty, and the appropriate 
 reward of strength and industry and ingenuity and invention is 
 not wanted, and not in the highest degree beneficent, in the human 
 world as well as the world below it ? If not, where are we to draw 
 the line ? Where does the Darwinian principle end, and the Chris- 
 tian begin ? Where does it cease to be mischievous, to give aid to 
 lower forms of life which we should be glad in the abstract to see 
 disappear 1 Where does it become beneficent to lend artificial 
 succor to those who may transmit the seeds of misery and even 
 crime to distajit generations 1 Of course these are questions by no 
 means easy to answer. Each one must try and answer them for 
 himself. But it is easy to perceive that) judging even by the cold- 
 est light of reason, the race would lose infinitely more of greatness, 
 of energy, of variety of activity, of mental and moral stimulus of 
 every kind, by the extinction of the principle of self-sacrifice, by 
 the rigid application of the animal law of natural selection to human 
 aifairs and purposes, than it could possibly gain in purity, of breed. 
 In fact, there would be no room at all left for the highest disposi- 
 tions which we hope to see transmitted to our children, if the 
 'catch-who-can' principle of natural selection is to govern the 
 
NON-SUEVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 147 
 
 conscience and infonn the motives of men. In endeavoring to 
 pimfy the breed, we should at once extinguish every character of 
 the highest calihre, and make the breed no longer worth a future 
 destiny at all. In pushing on the competitive principle, pure and 
 simple, beyond its legitimate point, and making it supreme over 
 the life of a being capable of self-sacrifice, we should only degrade 
 man to the level next beneath him, and cut off at a blow the last 
 upward step of his progress. Indeed, whatever risk there is of 
 artificially preserving and perpetuating low types of humanity by 
 our charitable institutions and the higher principles of our civiliza- 
 tion, there is infinitely more risk of failing' to preserve and perpet- 
 uate that very highest of all types of life which cares more to draw 
 up those beneath it than even to climb itself, — or rather which 
 climbs itself by virtue, chiefly, of the endeavor to draw \ip those 
 beneath it. Grant, if you will, that the true physician may some- 
 -times save from extinction a life which propagates the seeds of 
 crime and sufl'ering. Grant, if you will, that .the giver who saves 
 the wretched from destruction may sometimes have lent a helping 
 hand to physical and moral mediocrities whose posterity will start 
 from a very low level of natural advantage. Still you cannot arrest 
 the hand of either, without arresting an infinitely grander stimulus 
 to all the higher human energies, — intellectual no less than moral, 
 — than can for a moment be compared with the loss which may 
 result from the perpetuation of some low types of organization. 
 The higher virtues, or rather the characteristic impulses and dispo- 
 sitions in which they are rooted, are amongst the most transmissible 
 of hereditary moral qualities. The children of the purely selfish 
 start from a selfish basis of character. The children of the self- 
 denying start from a freer and nobler capacity for impulse. En- 
 throne the principle of natural selection, and even if you succeed 
 in diminishing the number of transmitted mischiefs, you diminish 
 infinitely more the number of transmitted goods. The plan of God 
 seems to be to ennoble the higher part of His universe at least, not 
 so much by eliminating imperfection, as by multiplying graces and 
 virtues. He balances the new evils peculiar to human life by infi- 
 
148 -ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 nitely greater weights in the scale of the good which is also peculiar 
 to human life. ' Natural selection ' has its place and its function, 
 doubtless, even amongst us. But over it, and high above it, is 
 growing up a principle of supernatural selection, by our free par- 
 ticipation in which we can alone become brethren of Christ and 
 children of God." 
 
 My rejoinder was as follows : — 
 
 Some of the criticisms in the first part of- your paper I 
 accept and acquiesce in. My argument, I know, was 
 stated broadly, and, perhaps, too extremely, in somewhat 
 harsh outline, and, as it were, without atmosphere. But I 
 believe this is the best plan, in the first instance, at least ; ' 
 it arrests attention and makes the meaning clear, and 
 enables readers to judge whether the main essence of the 
 thesis is correct or • not. Modifications and limitations 
 come afterwards, and from other quarters ; and some of 
 these you have helped to supply. But I do not think — 
 and I infer that you scarcely think yourself — that you 
 have materially invalidated my chief position, which is, 
 that civilization and humanity — our tenderness to life 
 and our respect for property — have, amid their many 
 beneficent and elevating influences, the mischievous oper- 
 ation of preserving, placing in situations of advantage, 
 and enabling to perpetuate themselves classes, individ- 
 uals, and types of organization at once imperfect, degraded, 
 feeble, and diseased, in their moral and intellectual as 
 well as physical characteristics. 
 
 Wow, this I hold to be a grave evil ; you, on the con- 
 trary, with your inveterate disposition to look at every 
 subject through the misty medium of morals, maintain it 
 
NON-STJBVIVAIi OF THE FITTEST. 149 
 
 to be a great good. You argue that the exercise and dis- 
 cipline ■which these damaged and diseased organizations 
 afford to healthier and higher ones, in relieving their suf- 
 ferings, bearing with their infirmities, improving their 
 condition, — " strength sacrificing itself to weakness," in 
 short, — on the whole and in the end cultivate and create 
 a nobler average type of humanity than would have ex- 
 isted were these faulty and bad specimens trampled out 
 or suffered to die out, as they would do in a state of 
 nature. Well, it is an arguable position, no doubt, and 
 has an air of disinterestedness and religious elevation 
 which wiU throw fascination round it for many minds, 
 and carry conviction to some. But let us state it broadly 
 and without the halo which your language throws round 
 it, and follow it out into a few of its applications. Strip 
 it naked, and see how it looks then. To judge of the 
 symmetry or non-symmetry of a form or figure, you must 
 relieve i^ of aU disguising drapery or tinted clouds which 
 may conceal any defects and suggest any beauties. To 
 estimate the correctness of a logical position, you must 
 see if it will bear being announced in a positive, if not 
 extreme shape, and in perfectly plain and unattractive, if 
 not cynically harsh terms. Men fight best, at least they 
 ascertain most speedily and certainly which is strongest, 
 when they fight in the closest conflict, and neither give 
 nor take quarter. 
 
 I fully admit that what we want for the human race is 
 not simply nor chiefly the strongest and healthiest physi- 
 cal type, but the highest and noblest physical, intel- 
 lectual, and moral type combined, that can by all material 
 
150 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 and psychological influences be produced. I fully recog- 
 nize, also, that the existence of misery to be relieved, of 
 sufferings to be sympathized with, of weakness to be 
 borne with, of poverty to be assisted, of diseases to be 
 treated, of degradation to be raised, is a most efficient, 
 nay, perhaps an absolutely necessary instrument for the 
 education and development of the best portions of our 
 nature, and for bringing man up to the highest perfection 
 that he is capable of attaining. But then I hold that it 
 is by cwring disease, by eradicating wretchedness, by pre- 
 clyding poverty, by inventing suffering, that the needed 
 moral discipline is to be sought and gained ; not by per- 
 petuating these evils, or permitting them to propagate 
 themselves. I would seek the perfectation of the race 
 by the extermination, so far as possible, of these things. 
 You, or at least your argument, would maintain these 
 things, or welcome their maintenance, for the education 
 of the race. I would establish hospitals to extinguish 
 maladies; you would establish them to instruct physi- 
 cians, to train nurses, to exercise the charity of sub- 
 scribers. I would discourage and eradicate (not " stamp 
 out ") the hopeless pauper, the congenitally morbid, the 
 incurably idiotic or defective, — all ' degraded types, in 
 short ; you would treat them tenderly, as " dispensations " 
 sent for our good, as whetstones for our virtue to sharpen 
 itself upon, and allow them to multiply other " dispensa- 
 tions" like themselves. As the ascetic fakir rejoices 
 when he can devise a new torment to exercise the spirit 
 and mortify the flesh, so your self-sacrificing theory would 
 hail with joy the advent and multiplication of a one- 
 
NON-SUEVIVAL OF THE FITTEST. 151 
 
 armed or one-eyed family in the human race, in order 
 that the more perfect human heings with two arms and 
 two eyes might attain moral eminence by "sacrificing 
 themselves" for their deficient or mutilated brethren. 
 Are not these legitimate, even if extreme, inferences from 
 your position ? 
 
 ' I grant without reserve what you urge, Ariz., that moral 
 qualities are at least as transmissible by inheritance as 
 physical ones, and, therefore, that we shall best further 
 the aggregate and ultimate perfection of the race by cul- 
 tivating those moral qualities through generous effort and 
 seK-denial There will always be enough . suffering and 
 evil in the world for this purpose without permitting 
 inferior and diseased organizations to propagate, and to 
 propagate -par pr^fSrerice. But what I pointed out as so 
 mischievous and mistaken in the tendency of our actual 
 civilization is, that those classes and individuals whose 
 moral excellences have been most cultivated by exertion 
 and self-control, on whom the loftier influences that you 
 so value have wrought their perfect work, and who, there- 
 fore, are precisely the men and women whom both you and 
 I would wish to see the progenitors of the future race, are 
 precisely those who are not so, or not so in preponderating 
 or even proportionate measure, and (what is more to the 
 purpose) are precisely those whom your doctrine of self- 
 sacrifice withholds from ieing so. They .stand aside, and 
 abstain from marriage, or marry late, effacing themselves, 
 "sacrificing" themselves, denjdng themselves, in order 
 (practically, if not designedly) that the luxurious rich 
 and the reckless poor, the degraded organizations that have 
 
152 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 no notion of self-sacrifice or seE-control, may breed other 
 degraded organizations like themselves. Or, in conclu- 
 sion, and once again to state the argument so nakedly 
 and broadly that it cannot be misconceived, — when the 
 existence and propagation of those degraded types, whose 
 perpetuation I deprecate and you defend, has created a 
 race of generous and noble natures, philanthropic ascetids, 
 and gentle scsurs de charit4, disciplined to the last per- 
 fection of Christian devotion to others, it is not they who 
 transmit their tried virtues to future generations, and so 
 gradually build up a Humanity such as God designed; 
 they remain barren saints and barren vestals ; and, in the 
 vast disciplining and ennobling hospital that you would 
 make of earth, it is the patients, not the physicians or 
 the nurses, — the degraded, not. the purified, — the whet- 
 stones, not the razors, — that are to propagate their species 
 and their maladies. The virtues and the virtuous are to 
 be. sacrificed or postponed to the evils which God sent to 
 practise and to train them. 
 
IV. 
 
 LIMITS AKD DIEECTION 
 
 01' 
 
 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 
 
HTJMAI5' DEVELOPMEIJ^T. 
 
 THE great Enigma of Human Destiny, which has 
 saddened so many bright hearts and baffled so 
 many noble understandings, is apparently not intended 
 to be wholly or satisfactorily solved on earth. Man has 
 worked at it in aU ages, in every land, and under every 
 condition, — and constantly in vain. The existence of 
 the Individual and of the Eace, their laws, signifi- 
 cance, origin, and goal, constitute the problem which 
 has alternately attracted and beaten back every order of 
 intellect and every variety of character. From the earli- 
 est times of which we have any record we find that men 
 had begun to question of these things ; the most ancient 
 literature we possess contains speculations upon them as 
 ingenious, as profound, and as unsatisfactory as any that 
 can be found in the ablest philosophical productions of 
 to-day ; for alas ! on these topics the veriest child can 
 propound inquiries which the wisest sage cannot answer ; 
 the simplest mind perceives the darkness which the 
 acutest and most powerful cannot pierce or dissipate ; 
 and the young and buoyant spirit which comes fresh to 
 the endeavor finds itself at once hemmed in by the bar- 
 
156 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 riers and limitations which the intellect that has worked 
 longest in this field is unable to remove or overstep. 
 Carlyle and Goethe, Bacon and Eousseau, attained no 
 nearer to the golden secret than Job or Solomon, Anax- 
 agoras or Plato. Generation after generation still sends 
 forth new speculators, ardent, sanguine, and undiscour- 
 aged by the failure of their predecessors, to toil at the 
 same Sisyphaean task, to be met by the same impassable 
 bounds, to catch the same vanishing and. partial glimpses, 
 to be conscious of the same incompetency, to confess to 
 the same utter and disheartening defeat. One after an- 
 other they retire from their voyage of discovery weary 
 and baffled ; some in the exasperation of mortified ambi- 
 tion, some having learned the rich lesson of humility ; 
 a few in faith and hope, many in bewilderment and 
 despair ; but • none in knowledge, — scarcely any (and 
 those only the weakest) even in the delusion of fancied 
 attainment. 
 
 Why does Genius ever wear a crown of thorns, self- 
 woven, and inherent in the very conditions of its being ? 
 Why does a cloud of lofty sadness ever brood over the 
 profoundest minds ?* Why does a bitterness, as of 
 
 * " Because the few ■with signal virtue crowned, 
 
 The heights and pinnacles of Human mind, 
 Sadder and wearier than the rest are found, — 
 
 Wish not thy soul less wise or less refined. 
 True, that the dear delights that every day 
 
 Cheer and distract the pilgrim are not theirs ; 
 True, that, though free from Passion's lawless sway, 
 
 A loftier being brings severer cares ; 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 157 
 
 Gethsemane, mingle with or pervade the productions of 
 even the serenest Intelligences, if all human emotion be 
 not dead within them ? Why have Statesmen, Philoso- 
 phers, Warriors, and Poets, — men of action and men of 
 thought", — men who have sought to influence and men 
 who have sought to comprehend Humanity, in its wild 
 fever and its strange anomalies, — why have so many of 
 them, in the intervals of repose and at the close of life, 
 been conscious of an indescribable melancholy and a 
 sombre shadow,-which yet had in it nothing selfish and 
 nothing morbid ? Why, but because these are the minds 
 which have seen farther, and penetrated deeper, and com- 
 prehended more, and deceived themselves less, than oth- 
 ers ; because, precisely in proportion as their experience 
 was profound, as their insight was piercing, as their in- 
 vestigations were sincere, as their contemplations were 
 patient and continuous, did they recognize the mighty 
 vastness of the problem, its awful significance, and the 
 inadequacy of the human faculties to deal with it; 
 because just in proportion as they had higher percep- 
 tions of what might he or might have been, the contrast 
 of what is and of what appeared as if it inevitably must 
 be, became more irreconcilable and more appalling; be- 
 Yet have they special pleasures, — even mirth, — 
 
 By those undreamed of who have only trod 
 
 Life's valley smooth ; and if the rolling earth 
 
 To their nice ear have many a painful tone, 
 
 They know man does not live by joy alone, 
 
 But by the presence of the power of God." 
 
 Lord Houshton. 
 
158 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 cause they felt painfully conscious that they could not see 
 their way, and could arrive only at conclusions, hoth in 
 speculation and in actual Hfe, from which it was impossi- 
 ble to escape, yet in which it was impossible to rest. 
 Grand capacities, which seemed adequate to the mightiest 
 achievements; inwoven weaknesses wHch dishonored 
 those capacities and rendered those achievements hope- 
 less g,nd unattainable; germs and specimens of virtues 
 approaching the divine, and promising a glorious future, 
 yet dashed with imperfections and impurities wliich seem 
 to hint of a low origin and a. stiU lower destiny ; vast 
 steps forward to a lofty goal, — recreant backslidings 
 towards the bottomless abyss ; ages of progress and en- 
 ligMenment-i followed by ages of darkness and retro- 
 gression ; unmistakable indications of a mighty purpose 
 and an ulterior career, — undeniable facts which make 
 those indications seem a silly mockery ; much to excite 
 the fondest hopes, much to warrant the uttermost de- 
 spair ; beautiful affections, noble aspiraiions, pure tastes, 
 fine intellects, measureless delights, all the elements of 
 paradise, — 
 
 " But the trail of the Serpent still over them all." 
 
 And as, from their watch-tower of contemplation, the 
 wise and good have brooded over these baffling contra- 
 dictions, what marvel that one by one they should have 
 dropped off into the grave, sorrowing, and wondering if 
 peradventure behind the great black Veil of Death they 
 might find the key to the mysteries which saddened their 
 noble spirits upon earth. 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 159 
 
 Still we go on ruminating over the stupendous enigma 
 from age to age, and occasionally obtaining or seeming to 
 obtain new facts and truths bearing upon it, which, how- 
 ever, are for the most part contributions rather to a clearer 
 statement of its conditions than to an elucidation of its 
 difficulties. The true solution is perhaps no nearer to us 
 than before, but false ones are disproved and discarded ; 
 positive Science, which is always advancing, lends its aid 
 not so much to disperse the darkness as to eixpose the 
 ignes fatui which we mistook for light; and we are 
 brought into a more hopeful state of progress and sent 
 farther on our way, in proportion as wider knowledge 
 and exacter observation unroofs one after another of the 
 errors in which we had sought a shelter and fancied we 
 could find repose. Perhaps, after all, our discomfitures 
 hitherto are attributable less to the inadequacy of our 
 speculative faculties than to the poverty of our positive 
 knowledge ; the problem may appear insoluble simply 
 because we have not yet accumulated the materials ne- 
 cessary for approaching it; and the higher branches of 
 Physiology may yet point the path to the Great Secret. 
 
 Man is a composite Being, and possesses a complex 
 organization. We must use ordinary language, even 
 though inaccurate and unphilosophic, so long as it con- 
 veys to others the same meaning as to ourselves : to affect 
 a precision, which in reality exists neither in thought nor 
 in the instrument of thought, would be at once to deceive 
 and to hamper ourselves. We must accept the common 
 parlance of educated men as a rough approximation to 
 
160 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 the truth, and at least as the nearest approximation we 
 can, on the whole, make to our conception of the trutL 
 We say then, — as we are most of ns in the habit of 
 thinking, — that Man is made up of three elements, — 
 body, mind, and spirit : the Body, which is the material 
 organ of our inner being, the seat of the senses through 
 which we communicate with the outer world, the means 
 by which we move and act ; the Mind, which reasons, 
 understands, judges, and wills, of which the body is the 
 imperfect servant, often the ruthless tyrant, always the 
 sympathizing companion, possibly, as some think, the 
 medium by which alone it operates; and the Soul or 
 Spirit, that element and ingredient of our nature which 
 we believe, or fancy, to be something distinct from the 
 understanding, which is the seat of our moral nature, our 
 emotions and affections, which is the embodiment of 
 our consciousness, which we feel to be more peculiarly 
 ourselves, which we think to be undying, in virtue of 
 which we live in the future and aspire to the Eternal, 
 by which we come into relation with the unseen and 
 spiritual world. It is possible, as materialists say, that 
 this division may be mere delusion, that we ought to speak 
 rather of the Nervous and Muscular systems ; that Mind, 
 Thought, may be merely a state or operation of the physi- 
 cal brain; and that the Soul has no existence whatever, 
 but that what we call such is only a finer function or 
 development of the reason. But, be this as it may, we 
 are compelled to accept this threefold division and employ 
 expressions which assume it to be a reality, because only 
 thus can we state, or bring our language into harmoni/vnth, , 
 
DIKECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 161 
 
 the known facts of our Nature, without having recourse 
 to periphrases, qualifications, technical terms, logical and 
 metaphysical definitions which — while perhaps they 
 insured no higher degree of correctness, but merely sub-, 
 stituted one inaccuracy for another — would effectually 
 confuse and mystify our meaning. 
 
 Man, then, we say, has received from the hands of his 
 Maker a composite nature, fitted for the part he is to play 
 and the work he has to do. In the consentaneous culti- 
 vation, in the equal and harmonious development of all 
 the elements of this nature, must lie its earthly perfection 
 and his earthly destiny. By " harmonious development " 
 we mean the fullest elaboration and perfectation of each 
 element which is compatible with the fullest culture, the 
 completest exercise, the healthiest and most vigorous con- 
 dition of every other; that justly balanced progress towards 
 the extreme of capability, in which no part profits or is 
 fostered to the injury of the rest. 
 
 Experience, however, soon teaches us that no one of the 
 three elements of our composite Being can reach this fullest 
 development except at the expense of the others ; that Sach is 
 capable of an abnormal scope and strength by impoverish- 
 ing the other components and impairing the harmony of 
 the whole, — hut only thus. The highest flight, the furthest 
 range of each portion of our Nature is purchasable only, 
 at the cost of full and fair justice to the rest. The per- 
 fection of humanity is one thing: the perfection of the 
 Spiritual, Intellectual, or Animal Man, severally, is a dif- 
 ferent thing ; and they Avould seem mutually to exclude 
 each other. 
 
162 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 There can be no doubt that a healthy condition of the 
 body greatly contributes to the healthy action of the mind, 
 to a clear perception and a sane judgment. It may be 
 questioned tudeed whether a man with a disordered liver 
 or a dyspeptic habit can. see things in a precisely true 
 light, or take a just view and an unexaggerated estimate 
 of their proportions. At any rate, it is certain that any 
 weakness or derangement in the corporeal functions has 
 a tendency to introduce corresponding disorder into 
 the mental operations, — a tendency which only the 
 utmost vigilance , of observation and the utmost energy 
 of will can counteract. A sound constitution is the 
 best handmaid to a sound intellect, and only a frame 
 naturally, strong can carry men uninjured through the 
 fatigues of severe and vinremitting mental labor. The 
 brain becomes injured by over-pressure, and the other 
 organs and functions suffer secondarily or by sympathy. 
 So far, then, we fully recognize that a perfectly sound and 
 nonnal state of the mental element demands and belongs 
 to a sound and normal state of the corporeal element 
 of ouf nature, and idee versa. So true is this, that there 
 are some cases in which torpor of the mind produces 
 maladies of the body ; and maladies of the body for which 
 mental activity and moral stimulus are the promptest and 
 most appropriate remedies. Ennui or apathy is as real a 
 source of illness as malaria or alcohol. And we have all 
 of us heard of instances in which a sudden shock to the 
 feelings or a startling idea, conveyed to the mind has re- 
 stored action to paralytic limbs, life to the lauguishiug, 
 and transient strength to atrophy itself. 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 163 
 
 But, on the other hand, though the physical frame must 
 be kept in a sound and well-disciplined condition in order 
 to be a faithful servant and an adequate and effective organ 
 of the Mind, it is equally true that the highest develop- 
 ment of the .bodily, and the liighest development of the 
 mental, powers must be sought for by a very different 
 course of training, and cannot (except in abnormal and 
 exceptional cases) be attained in the same individual or 
 under the same circumstances. The perfection of the hu- 
 man ANIMAL and the perfection of the human being are 
 probably quite incompatible. Where do we find the most 
 astonishing strength, the most wonderful feats of activity, 
 the hardiest nerves, the keenest and most unerring senses, 
 in a word, the culminating point of the corporeal faculties 
 and functions ? In the brutal gladiators of Greece or 
 Eome, in the mindless Matadors of Spain, in the filthy 
 savages of North America, in the empty acrobats and 
 circus-riders of our theatres, in the nearly idiotic prize- 
 fighters of our pugilistic rings. In the low, narrow fore- 
 head, the small braiu, the scowling brow, the animal ex- 
 pression of the ancient Gladiator and Athlete, contrasted 
 with his quick eye, his spare form, his well-developed mus- 
 cles, as pliant as whalebone and as hard as steel, his firm, 
 well-knit, elastic frame, may be seen a further illustration, 
 — an illustration which wiU be at once confirmed when we 
 converse with the dull and unintelligent of the pugilists 
 or posture-masters of our country, or take the trouble to 
 observe among the circle of our own acquaintances what 
 sort of intellects take most kindly to bodily exercises and 
 are most eminent for feats of agility and strength. 
 
164 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Again : take a man whose whole life, whose every day 
 is spent in severe physical labor, — the woodcutter for 
 example, — every muscle of whose brawny frame is trained 
 and hardened to the ne plus ultra of capacity, whose every 
 organ is performing its allotted function to perfection, 
 whose every nerve and fibre is glowing with health, to 
 whom pain, weakness, and malady are altogether strangera 
 Call upon that man for even moderate mental effort, and 
 you find that a child might overmatch him. I wiU sup- 
 pose him a man of education, — there are many such in 
 the colonies and the backwoods, — but set him down to a 
 problem or a book, and he is certain to fall asleep ; task 
 his mind in conversation, and he cannot follow you, or 
 if he does for a while, he feels as wearied as if he had 
 walked fifty miles or felled trees for twelve hours ; test 
 his intellectual faculties in any way you please, and you 
 will find them quite sound perhaps, but incapacitated 
 because unexercised. His development has gone in a 
 different direction. 
 
 Or let the practised student or the trained literary 
 man examine himself as to the times and conditions in 
 which he finds himself capable of the liighest flight or the 
 most severe and sustained toiL Is it when the animal part 
 of him is in the healthiest and most natural condition, — 
 when the body is nourished with ample and succulent food, 
 — when the limbs are wearied with salutaiy exercise, — 
 when he has passed hours inhaling the fresh mountain 
 breezes and bringing his muscles into fit development by 
 the oar, the foil, or a gallop with the Melton fox-hounds ? 
 On the contrary, at such times, although conscious that he 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 165 
 
 is then in the most natural and soundest condition on the 
 whole, he feels less capable than usual of concentrated 
 thought, less disposed for patient aiid prolonged research, 
 more ready to enjoy, less ready to contemplate or to soar. 
 Nourishing food clouds his mind ; ample exercise brings 
 inevitable somnolence ; the Soul is, as it were, clogged by 
 the rude health of body; the animal nature begins to en- 
 croach upon the spiritual, or, to speak more correctly, to 
 insist upon its dues. 
 
 The conclusion to which all these observations point is 
 simply that which the physiologist would arrive at a 
 priori. The brain, he is well aware, is the organ by 
 means of which the intellect does its work, — the organ 
 of Thought, just as the lungs are the organ of respiration, 
 the heart that of circulation, and the • nerves and muscles 
 those of action and volition. It is a law of physiology 
 that every bodily organ strengthens and enlarges in pro- 
 portion as it is exercised, and shrinks and becomes en- 
 feebled if it be comparatively unattended to and unem- 
 ployed. It is in the power of the individual to throw, as 
 it were, the whole vigor of the constitution into any one 
 part, and by giving to this part exclusive or excessive 
 attention, to develop it at the expense and to the neglect 
 of the others. Thus the brain of the thinker, and the 
 lungs of the glass-blower, attain a partial and abnormal 
 development by engrossing the exercise and nourishment 
 which ought to have been more equally distributed to all 
 the functions ; the right arm of the fencer and the left 
 arm of the ridfer become peculiarly strong ; and while the 
 legs of the pedestrian acquire an exaggerated size and 
 
166 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 vigor in which the upper extremities do not share, those 
 of the Indian of the Pampas, on the other hand, who is 
 always on horseback, are feeble, emaciated, and compara- 
 tively useless instruments. He is insigniiicant and impo- 
 tent on foot. A special training and management is 
 required according to the result you wish to produce : for 
 the pugilist you develop the muscles of the arm, for the 
 runner those of the legs and loins ; the organization you 
 cultivate in the racer is quite different and incompatible . 
 with that needed in the cart-horse ; and in like manner 
 the discipline by which is sought the completest and 
 most thorough elaboration of the physical or that of the 
 intellectual Man is entirely divergent. The /idlest de- 
 velopment of either cannot be united with the harmoni- 
 ous and equal development of both. To produce the 
 highest mental result we cultivate the body only in as 
 far as is necessary to keep it in that degree of health 
 suited to the favorable and unimpeded operation of the 
 brain, caring nothing for its condition of strength or 
 agility. To produce the highest corporeal result, we at- 
 tend to the mind only enough to keep it in that state 
 of gentle stimulus and moderate activity which expe- 
 rience has found conducive to the development of the 
 physical capacities. Like skilful generals, we con- 
 centrate our whole force upon that central division 
 of our army with which we intend to operate, taking 
 care merely that in doing so we do not impoverish the 
 other wings to an extent which' would disable them 
 from rendering the efficient support which is indispen- 
 sable. 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 167 
 
 What is true of the Body is true of the Mind likewise. 
 Its highest condition is an abnormal condition. Its 
 loftiest and grandest developments are attainable only at 
 the expense of the corporeal frame and of the natural 
 affections. Its greatest achievements are dearly paid for. 
 Its most towering pinnacle is also the most perilous 
 position it can reach. The mightiest and most glorious 
 human Intellect is ipso facto imperfect as a man, — more 
 imperfect than many of his feUow-heings. The ordinary- 
 mental operations and exertions, those in which the 
 intellect is merely exercised, not strained, may he carried 
 on, not only without injury, but even with benefit to the 
 body. But severe and prolonged mental labor, that de- 
 votion of the whole faculties to the pursuit before them, 
 that concentration of the powers on one object or on one 
 point, without which anything great or eminent can 
 rarely be attained, this, we know, teUs terribly upon phys- 
 ical health and strength. Every year, to the disgrace of 
 our Educators and our Doctors, shows us young men who 
 break down in the struggle for University honors, or sink 
 into permanent valetudinarianism as soon as the unnat- 
 ural strain is withdrawn. Every physician can point to 
 students whose splendid cerebral development has been 
 paid for by emaciated limbs, enfeebled digestion, and 
 disordered lungs. Every biography of the intellectual 
 Great records the dangers they have . encountered, often 
 those to which they have succumbed, in overstepping the 
 ordinary bounds of human capacity ; and, while beckon- 
 ing onward to the glories of their almost preternatural 
 achievements, registers, by way of warning, the fearful 
 
168 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 penalty of disease, sizffering, and bodily infirmity which 
 Nature exacts as the price for this partial and inharmo- 
 nious grandeur. It cannot be otherwise. The brain can- 
 not take more than its share without injury to other 
 organs. It cannot do more than its share without depriv- 
 ing other organs of that exercise and nourishment which 
 are essential to their health and vigor. The imaginative 
 efforts and the fre,c[uent and prolonged state of cerebral 
 excitation requisite for the production of the finest poetry 
 involve inevitable reaction, lassitude, and weakness. 
 The profound reflection, the laborious and resolute ab- 
 straction, by which alone the penetralia of the inner 
 world can be explored and the hardest problems of phi- 
 losophy are to be solved, sap the vital energy to a degree 
 that only experience can convince us of, impair the sleep, 
 weaken the digestion, and exhaust the frame. Perhaps 
 severer than all is the continuity of application needed 
 for great achievements either in literature or science. Sir 
 Isaac Newton M'as wont to say that he owed his success 
 and whatever apparent superiority over other men he 
 might have shown, to his faculty of thinking continu- 
 ously on the same subject for twenty or thirty hours 
 toigether. But this continuous exercise of one organ is 
 precisely the most fatiguing and weakening of all things. 
 We may keep in bodily exercise for twelve hours without 
 injury or lassitude, provided we vary frequently enough 
 the muscles which are brought into play. But who can 
 walk, or fence, or hammer, or blow glass for twelve hours 
 without injury or peril? Again, many can use their 
 brains for twelve hours, and use them- energetically too. 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 169 
 
 without being the worse for it, if the subjects of their 
 attention are changed from time to time. But this dissi- 
 pation of the mind over many topics is precisely the 
 habit which is antagonistic to all those gi-eat achieve- 
 ments of which concentration and continuity of thought 
 are the indispensable conditions. 
 
 Once more. Sleep, sufficient in quantity and sound in 
 quality, is essential to the health, strength, and normal 
 perfection of man. Yet not only is severe mental appli- 
 cation unfavorable to sleep and apt to deprive it of that 
 character of complete unconsciousness necessary for thor- 
 ough refreshment and repose, but life is short, the work of 
 the intellectual aspirant is multifarious and vast, and the 
 residue of time left after the due demands of the body for 
 sleep have been satisfied, is seldom sufficient for aU that 
 has to be learned and done. Hence we find that nearly 
 all the loftiest and grandest minds — those, we mean, who 
 have pushed forward their intellectual nature to its cul- 
 minating point — have cut short their hours of slumber, 
 have defrauded the body of its needful rest, and have im- 
 paired its strength and effectiveness accordingly. Severe 
 study, too,' injures the sight ; sedentary habits are incom- 
 patible with muscular activity, a strong stomach, or serene 
 nerves ; yet, without severe study and sedentary habits, it 
 is difficult to see how, in our time at least, the summits of 
 intellect are to be scaled or the arcana of the Universe 
 laid bare. 
 
 It appears, then, that the ultimate development of which ' 
 the intellect is capable, and its highest possible attain- 
 ments, can only be reached by an exclusive cultivation and 
 
 8 
 
170 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 attention whicK entails upon its physical companion im- 
 poverishment, weakness, and disease. But this is not all. 
 It seems even that bodily pain and disease are not only 
 compatible with, but may indirectly contribute to, the lofti- 
 est efforts of the intellect. They sometimes positively 
 enhance its powers. The effect of some disorders and 
 of certain sorts of pain, upon the nerves tends to produce 
 a cerebral excitation; and the stimulus thus communi- 
 cated to the material organ of thought renders it for the 
 time capable of unusual effort.* Men under the stirring 
 influence of severe pain are capable of a degree of imagi- 
 native and ratiocinative brOliancy which astonishes them' 
 selves and all who have known them only in ordinary 
 moods of comfort. Extinct faculties come back to them. 
 Torpid faculties become vigorous and sparkling. For- 
 gotten knowledge is recovered. Marvellous gleams of 
 insight are vouchsafed to them. The wonderful elo- 
 quence of Eobert Hall was doubtless greatly owing to the 
 stimidating influence of a terrible spinal malady. Dr. 
 Conolly mentions a gentleman whose mental faculties 
 never reached their fuU power except under the irritation 
 of a blister. Abnormal and unsound conditions of the 
 bodily organs sometimes give us glimpses of mental 
 powers and possibilities far exceeding anything of which 
 ordinary health is capable. The phenomena of some ner- 
 
 * Those who wish to follow up this train of thought may And 
 miich suggestive matter in Ahercromhie's " Intellectual Powers," third 
 edition, pp. 140, 141, 142, 285, 291, 297, 310, 363, 274. 
 
 Dr. "Wigan, " Duality of Mind," pp. 78, 265, 361, 378, 283, 284. 
 
 Dr. ConoUy, " Indications of Insanity," pp. 214, 221. 
 
DIEECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 171 
 
 vous disorders are positive revelations, and most' startling 
 ones, of what the human intellect, disengaged from matter 
 or under favoring material conditions, might achieve and 
 learn. The partial powers alleged to appear in catalepsy- 
 are most singular. Insanity, which is clearly a disorder 
 of the brain, is not without its strange analogous sugges- 
 tions. The approach of death — that is to say, the culmi- 
 nation of disease — has occasionally given wonderful 
 depth, clearness, and insight to the mental powers. In 
 fact, when we become acquainted with all the remarkable 
 cases of these and cognate phenomena on record, it seems 
 scarcely exaggeration to say that the supreme point of vigor, 
 brilliancy, and penetration of the human facidties can 
 only be reached under unsoimd conditions of the body. 
 
 There can, we apprehend, be no doubt that in proportion 
 as a man is deficient in the natural affections, in proportion 
 as those sympathies which bind him to individual fellow- 
 beings are either originally cold and languid, or have be- 
 come so by the accidents of life, or have been wilfully 
 bounded or suppressed, — in that proportion does he re- 
 cede from the ideal of a perfect human being. We all in- 
 stinctively feel that a man of pure intellect, however grand 
 and powerful that intellect may be, — a man in whom the 
 rational too completely predominates over the emotional, 
 — is incomplete and unsatisfactory. He is inharmoniously 
 developed. We shrink from these incarnations of Mind as 
 something portentous and unnatural, and leave them alone 
 in their desolate and solitary grandeur. Yet it can scarcely 
 
172 
 
 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 he questioned, not only that the most intense cultivation 
 of the understanding has a tendency to starve and chill 
 the gentler and tenderer affections, but that this suppres- 
 sion of them is necessary to permit the attainment of the 
 very loftiest summits of thought. The conquest of the 
 remoter and profounder realms of Eeason demands, not 
 only the concentrated devotion of the whole intellect, but 
 a calmness and serenity of Soul which is unattainable by 
 those who still breathe the atmosphere of the domestic 
 hearth, and are liable to be swayed and perturbed by the 
 emotions inseparable from the love of the earthly, the 
 perishable, and the imperfect. Ancient Philosophers, 
 Poets, Mystics, Artists, religious Enthi;siasts, have all felt 
 the same need, all acknowledged the same inevitable price, 
 all preached the same cold doctrine, with more or less of 
 insight and consistency. The absence of disturbing emo- 
 tions, the undivided direction and engrossment of the in- 
 tellect, is the one indispensable condition.* " Not in vain 
 
 * " ' And once more,' I cried, ' ye stars, ye waters, 
 On my heart your mighty charm renew ; 
 Still, still, let me, as 1 gaze upon you, 
 Feel my Soul becoming vast like you.' 
 
 " From the intense, clear, star-sown vault of Heaven, 
 Over the lit Sea's unquiet way. 
 Through the rustling night air came the answer, — 
 ' Wouklst thou be as these are 1 — live as they. 
 
 " ' Unaffrighted by the silence round them, 
 Undistracted by the sights they see, 
 These demand not that the things without them 
 Yield them love, amusement, sympathy. 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 173 
 
 did the old Eosicrucians — those spiritual aspirants who 
 aimed at au earthly immortality and superhuman powers, 
 and fancied that some had won them — teach that the ex- 
 tinction of all earthly passions, fear, love, hate, pity, ambi- 
 tion, must precede the attainment of the ' Arch Secret,' 
 and the initiation into the sublime existence which they 
 sought. Not without reason did they feign that all their 
 occult knowledge and their wondrous faculties were un- 
 availing for the aid or protection of those to whom they 
 were bound by the sweet ties of human affection or earthly 
 interest, inasmuch as the least shade of natural sympathy 
 at once struck these abnormal powers with impotence and 
 blindness. Those powers are granted, they taught, to him . 
 only who could become a passionless, impressionless, serene 
 Intelligence." 
 
 The truth is, PEACE is necessary to all the higher intel- 
 lectual operations. Great fmis may be done while the Soul 
 is tempest-tossed : great heights achieved — no ! — Poets 
 may strike out splendid passages, sparkling with passion- 
 ate beauty and a sort of gorgeous and turbid inspiration, 
 and Orators may astonish us with brilliant flights of power 
 
 " ' But with joy the Stars perform their shining, 
 And the Sea its long moon-silvered roll, — 
 For akym they live, nor pine with noting 
 All the fever of some differing soul. 
 
 " ' Bounded by themselves, and unobservant 
 
 In what state God's other works may be, 
 
 In their own task all their powers pouring, 
 
 These attain the mighty life you see.' " 
 
 M. Abbold. 
 
174 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 and pathos, redolent of the excitement which gave them 
 birth ; and all this may be done while the heart is torn by 
 internal conflict or by wild emotion, or yearning with un- 
 answered love, or sick and faint with passionate desire ; 
 nay, it may be done while the conscience is heavy with 
 the load of recent sin, or distracted in a danger wherein it 
 sees no light and is conscious of no strength ; it may be 
 done while the spirit is burdened with a hopeless or melted 
 with a tender grief, and while the mind is clouded and 
 bewildered by strife and pain, and the- mistiness of the 
 moral vision. But Thought, insight, sound, clear vision 
 of the Truth, wisdom at once piercing and comprehensive, 
 the noblest and divinest achievements of the Eeason, de- 
 mand serenity of Soul as their imperative condition. Pas- 
 sion clouds the mental Eye ; emotion disturbs the organ 
 of discovery : as the astronomer can only rely upon his 
 nicest and loftiest observations when the air is still and 
 the telescope is isolated from all the tremulous movements 
 of terrestrial surroundings, so the Thinker can only see 
 justly and penetrate far, when all that could agitate his 
 Spirit is buried deep, or put quite away, or laid eternally 
 to rest. The conscience must slumber either in conscious 
 innocence or in recognized forgiveness ; the aspirations and 
 desires must be calm, simple, and chastised ; the keener 
 sympathies must be still ; the heart must repose upon a 
 loVe at once serene, satisfied, and certain, — 
 
 " Such, love as Spirits feel i 
 In worlds whose course is equable and pure ; 
 
 No fears to beat away, no strife to heal, 
 The past unsighed for, and the future sure." 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 175 
 
 Or the needed Peace must be sought in a sadder and a 
 surer mode. There is the peace of surrendered, as well 
 as of fulfilled hopes, — the peace, not of satisfied, but of 
 extinguished longings, — the peace, not of the happy- 
 love and the secure fireside, but of unmurmuring and 
 accepted loneliness, — the peace, not of' the heart which 
 Kves in joyful serenity afar from trouble and from strife, 
 but of the heart whose conflicts are over and whose hopes 
 are buried, — the peace 4)f the passionless as weU as the 
 peace of the happy, — not the peace which brooded over 
 Eden, but that which crowned Gethsemane. Perhaps this 
 peace — if there be no sourness or morbid melancholy 
 mingled with it — is even more favorable than its brighter 
 prototype to depth of mental vision and power of intel- 
 lectual effort ; because — though with less of elastic 
 energy — its source lies deeper, its nature is more 
 thorough, it is less liable to disturbance from without. 
 With it 
 
 " The future eannot contradict the past, 
 Mortality's last exercise and proof 
 Is undergone.'' 
 
 The solitude of Soul, which is its worst sting, is also its 
 surest seal The deepest discernment and the highest 
 wisdom ever proceed either from the throne of the 
 crowned, or the grave of the buried. Love. 
 
 If there is something sad in the idea that the brightest 
 torch of the mind should be kindled at the funeral pile 
 of earthly happiness ; that in the slaughter or suicide of 
 the affections should be found the entrance to the inner 
 
176 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 courts of wisdom ; that men should be compelled " to 
 learn in suffering what they teach in song": yet it is 
 much- that griefs arising from crushed or wounded human 
 tenderness should he able to find a refuge and a substi- 
 tute in the loftier and serener realm of thought, — though 
 to taste this balm effectually, a man must not only be able 
 to trample out his tenderness, but must feel it right to do 
 so, — perhaps must have this task made naturally easy to 
 him* 
 
 But to men of gentler and more genial natures — men 
 in whose nature Love is as indestructible as Thought, who 
 cannot slay their affections, and would not if they could 
 
 — the great drag and penalty upon intellectual progress 
 is the sense that it is and must be made at the hazard and 
 to the mortification of- the warmer sympathies, — often to 
 the loss of 
 
 "The thousand still, sweet joys of such 
 As hand in hand face earthly life." 
 
 * " Wilhelm von Humboldt seemed to have acquired this peace 
 by closing his mind to all disturbing calls or feelings from without, . 
 
 — to have kept his spirit as iOt were in an iron, safe." — Thoughts 
 of a Statesman. " Goethe, probably the most powerful and com- 
 prehensive genius among the modems, appears to have been by 
 temperament cold and itnsympathizing, — not absolutely heartless, 
 but only feeling superficially, — and to have cultivated this coldness 
 as an invaluable mental aid." — Conversations with Eckermm. 
 " It is a great foUy to hope that other men will harmonize with us : 
 I have never hoped this. I have always regarded each man as an 
 independent individual, whom I endeavored to study and to under- 
 stand, with all his peculiarities ; but firom whom I desired no further 
 sympathy." 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 177 
 
 The most painful portion of the martyrdom which awaits 
 the emancipation and the growth of mind is, that it so 
 often compels us to leave those we have loved and lived 
 with behind ; those who once marched side by side with 
 us, with parallel steps and ec[ual vigor, grow languid, fall 
 behind, tread in our footsteps only feebly, timidly, and at 
 a distance, and at length stand still and gaze after us with 
 giief, exasperation, or despair ; those who used to be our 
 sought and cherished comrades in our moments of deep- 
 est feeling and of highest elevation are now reserved for 
 the hours when we unbend ourselves and sink down to the 
 simplicities and genialities of fond human affections ; and 
 the friend of the inner becomes but the companion of the 
 outer life. All this is exquisitely sad; and thousands 
 among the searchers after truth " sicken at the unshared 
 light " they reach at last. 
 
 It would seem, then, that those fond and expansive 
 affections which are so essential to the perfect ideal of 
 humanity, and without which we feel it to be defective, 
 are hostile to the grandest development of the intellectual 
 faculties ; and on the other 'hand that the supremacy of 
 these faculties does not favor those softer sentiments and 
 sympathies which are among the better portions of our 
 nature. A confirmatory indication may be found in the 
 comparative and often singular inadequacy of the mental 
 powers of the men of whom warm-heartedness is the 
 predominant characteristic. Why are Philanthropists 
 generally so weak, or at all events so wanting in com- 
 manding talents, and even in common-sense ? Why are 
 
 8* L 
 
178 .ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 their schemes so constantly futile, abortive, and even mis- 
 chievous ? Why is their career so strewed with failures, 
 wrecks, and ruins, — beyond the example of men of 
 harder hearts and less generous emotions ? There are, no 
 doubt, a few brilliant exceptions; and cases might be 
 pointed out in which real, permanent, and signal good has 
 resulted from the exertions of these worthy men ; but the 
 good has generally flowed, not from the adoption of their 
 plans, but from their zeal having compelled the attention 
 of colder and abler men to the work to be accomplished. 
 Their views are so often injudicious, and their schemes so 
 noxious, that a great portion of existing evils may be 
 traced, either in their origin or their present aggravated 
 form, to benevolent interferences for their removal ; and 
 it may be said, with little exaggeration, that in this world 
 a large part of the business of the wise is to counteract 
 the efforts of the good. 
 
 Much of this apparent anomaly we believe to be sim- 
 ply explicable by the fact that in these cases one part of 
 their nature has been inordinately developed at the ex- 
 pense of the others, as it must be in all inordinate 
 developments. But besides this, there is another cause. 
 The extent and severity of human miseries are so enor- 
 mous, and the depth to which the roots of them have 
 struck is so measureless, that few men of keen or ready 
 sympathies can study or contemplate them with a calm 
 mind, without either falling into despair, or losing that 
 power of patient investigation and passionless reflection, 
 from which alone any sound projects for their cure can 
 spring. Human tenderness is a sad disturber of human 
 
DIEECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 179 
 
 intelligence.* In truth those only can safely and service- 
 ably encounter social evUs who can both watch and in 
 some measure imitate God's mode of dealing with them. 
 Patience ; slow and flank approaches ; a dealiug with 
 roots, not branches, — with the seat, not the symptom 
 of the epidemic horror ; the preparing, rather than the 
 ordaining, of a change or cure : these characterize the 
 treatment of the world's wounds and maladies by Him 
 who is " patient because Eternal,'-' — together with a 
 majestic indifference to, or rather a sublime endurance of 
 sorrow, suffering, and sin, during the* intervening time, 
 however long, tiU the seed has borne fruit, and the cause 
 has worked onward to its issue. Few, we believe, will 
 
 * " Her heart is sick with thinking 
 
 Of the misery of her kind ; 
 Her mind is almost sinking, 
 
 That once so buoyant mind. 
 She cries, ' These things confound me, 
 
 They settle on my brain, 
 The very air arovmd me 
 
 Is universal pain. 
 The earth is damp with weeping, 
 
 Rarely the sun shines clear 
 On any but those sleeping 
 
 Upon the quiet bier. 
 I envy not hard hearts, but yet 
 I would I could soToetimes forget ; 
 I would, though but for moments, look 
 With comfort into Nature's book, 
 Nor read that everlasting frown 
 Whose terror bows me wholly down.' " 
 
 B. M. MiLNES. 
 
180 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 ever effect real, radical, permanent social amelioration, 
 who endeavor to cure evils by direct enactment ; whose 
 feelings are too keen and sensitive to wait the time of the 
 Most High, and to contemplate with unflinching faith and 
 patience the sufferings continued through or by reason of 
 the remedial process, sometimes even aggravated by it.* 
 Hence the coldest tempers are generally, in matters of 
 philanthropy, the soundest thinkers and the safest guides 
 and administrators. A tender-hearted statesman is almost 
 more to be dreaded than a despot or an adventiirer. To 
 be worthy and efficient coadjutors of God, on the great 
 arena of the world, we must be able to borrow some of 
 the sublime, impassive calm with which, age after age, 
 He has looked down upon the slow progress and the hn- 
 gering miseries of his children. 
 
 Again. The loftiest culture of the intellect is not 
 favorable either to undoubting conviction of any truth 
 or to unhesitating devotion to any cause. It has been 
 truly said of the most profound and comprehensive order 
 of minds : lis font penssr : il ne font pas croire. — " The 
 greater the knowledge the greater the doubt," said Goethe. 
 And the faithfuUest thinkers have felt more painfully 
 than others that, the deeper they go, often the less easy it 
 is to reach soundings ; in a word, the more thorough their 
 study of the grandest subjects of human interest, the 
 
 * " Such are the men whose best hope for the world 
 Is ever that the world is near its end ; 
 Impatient of the stars that keep their course, 
 And make no pathway for the coming Judge." 
 
 Spanish Gypsy. 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 181 
 
 farther do they get, not to, but from, certainty : the more 
 fully they can see all sides and enter into all considera- 
 tions, the less able do they feel to pronounce dogmatically 
 or to act decidedly. " The tree of knowledge is not that 
 of life": profound thought, if thoroughly honest and 
 courageous, is deplorably apt to sap the foundation and 
 impair the strength of our moral as well as of our intel- 
 lectual convictions.* It weakens the power of seK- 
 sacrifice inevitably, by weakening that positive, undoubt- 
 ing confidence in the correctness of our conclusions and 
 the soundness of our cause from which all the great mar- 
 vels of self-sacrifice have sprung. The age of Martyrdom 
 , is not the age of Thought.-f- The men who can die for a 
 faith are not the same who can investigate it closely, or 
 judge it fairly. The discovery of truth belongs to an 
 age of inquiry : the promulgation and triumph of a creed 
 
 * It is -worthy of remark that Opiiun, which with some men is 
 a wonderful clarifier and intensifier of the intellectual powers, is 
 singularly weakening to the moral nature, appears to cloud the 
 conscience and benumb the will. 
 
 t " Look at the history of any great movement for good in the 
 world, and ask who took the first critical step in advance. "Whom 
 it was that the wavering and undecided crowd chose to rally round 
 as their leader and their champion. And will not the answer 
 always be, as it was in the Apostqlic age, — not the man of wide 
 and comprehensive thought, nor of deep and fervent love, but the 
 characters of simple, unhesitating zeal, which act instead of reflect- 
 ing, which venture instead of calculating, which cannot or will not 
 see the difficulties with which the first struggle of an untried 
 reformation are of necessity accompanied." — Stanley, On the 
 ApostoUc Age. 
 
182 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 belongs to an age of unasking and unreasoning belief. 
 We laugh at the scholastic nonsense of Irenseus, and are 
 disgusted at the unseemly violence of Tertullian: but 
 these men were ready to die for their opinions, and ive are 
 not. The fact is, it is only minds which see but a little 
 way that see clearly and fancy they see all ; it is only 
 those who see but one side that can feel confident there 
 is no other ; it is those only whom study has never taught 
 how wide is the question which seems to them so narrow 
 — how questionable the facts which seem to them so cer- 
 tain, how feeble the arguments which seem to them so 
 impregnable — that can be positive in their beliefs ; it is 
 those only whom iaquiry has never compelled to abandon 
 any of their past opinions who can feel sure enough to 
 encounter martyrdom for present ones. Philosophers can 
 neither bum nor be burned for a creed : for after all may 
 they not be mistaken now as they have often been be- 
 fore ? It may well be doubted whether some degree of 
 fanaticism, that is, wrong appreciation of the essential 
 value of things, is not necessary to prompt the higher 
 efforts of self-sacrifice ; * whether any calm-judging, far- 
 seeing, profoundly sagacious man would think any opinion 
 certain enough or any cause valuable or spotless enough to 
 be worth dying for, except, indeed, the right of free action 
 and free thought. If all men had been deep thinkers, — 
 had seen everything correctly, valued everything at its 
 precise worth, measured the relative importance of each 
 object, estimated accurately the degree of certainty attain- 
 able regarding each opinion or each faith, — could we ever 
 
 * Isaac Taylor, " Natural History of Enthusiasm." 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 183 
 
 have had those martyrs who have conquered for us our 
 present freedom ? and who won it, so to speak, incidentally 
 and by a sort of fluke ; for they died, not for the right of 
 every man to whatever he thought true, but for their right 
 to hold and to proclaim their own special form of error. 
 Where is the Believer who does not now admit that many 
 of these men went to the scaffold for an error, were mar- 
 tyrs by mistake ? Where is the Philosopher who does not 
 suspect that all may have thus nobly blundered ? 
 
 In speaking of the Intellectual faculties it is probable 
 that I have anticipated much that might as fittingly have 
 been treated under the head of Spiritual faculties; for 
 the line of demarcation which ■ separates the two is often 
 faint, obscure, and not easily definable. And here I must 
 repeat the remark made at the opening of this chapter, as 
 to the inevitable looseness and inaccuracy of our lan- 
 guage when treading this debatable ground. Whether 
 'the spiritual faculties be in any true and specific sense 
 distinguishable from the intellectual ; or whether, as is 
 probably the case, the real distinction does not lie between 
 the imaginative and the ratiocinative powers of mind, I 
 will not discuss. In using the phrase " Spiritual faculties," 
 we mean those powers or portions of our mind by. which 
 we contemplate the unseen, the immaterial, the Divine, 
 which take cognizance of that wide range of sentiments 
 and subjects coming under the vague denomination of 
 " religious," — those faculties, in a word, by virtue of 
 which we commune or endeavor to commune with our 
 
184 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 God, and believe in or are conscious of a Soul Now, these 
 faculties are not the most vigorous, piercing, or exalted in 
 the strongest frames or the most powerful intellects, — 
 hut rather the reverse ; and their highest devolopment is 
 reached generally in the less sound and well-balanced 
 cerebral organizations, and under conditions both of body 
 and mind which either are morbid or inevitably tend to 
 become so. Of course we meet with many healthy and 
 strong men who are pious, and many able men who are 
 unfeignedly devout, and many eminently religious men 
 whose ^sanity and vigor both of mind and body are above 
 the ordinary standard : we even iind exceptional cases , 
 where the eminently spiritual are eminently intellectual 
 also ; but as a general rule the observation of mankind 
 will, we think, sanction the above broad position. 
 
 The imaginative faculties are those by which we take 
 cognizance of and aspire to things supernal, future, and 
 unseen, — " things spiritual " in a word. " Spiritual things 
 (says St. Paul) are spiritually discerned." But the logical 
 or reasoning faculties are those by which we obtain posi- 
 tive and certain knowledge, and correct the errors and 
 check the vagaries of the imagination. The two are not 
 exactly antagonistic but reciprocally vigilant. We soar 
 by the one ; we make firm the ground beneath our feet by 
 the other. By the one we conceive, form hypotheses, catch 
 glimpses ; by the other we judge, compare, and sift. The 
 one is the sail ; the other is the rudder and the ballast IC 
 is natural that the culmination of the two should be mu- 
 tually excluding and incompatible ; and that which is the 
 most exercised wiU infallibly become the strongest. More- 
 
DIKECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 185 
 
 over, the spiritual or religious imagination is concerned 
 with matters of which the simple reason can judge only 
 partially and douhtingly, as having defective premises and 
 a limited jurisdiction ; the provinces of the two faculties 
 are in .a great measure distinct. The Soul has, or assumes 
 to have, its own senses and perceptions ; it sees, feels, is 
 conscious of things which the pure intellect can neither 
 discern nor pass judgment upon, — which lie out of its 
 range. It sometimes conveys to us information which the 
 reason can pronounce false, because inconsistent with 
 known truths ; but, for the most part, when the Spirit 
 says, " I know, I see," all that the Intellect can say is, " It 
 may be so : I cannot tell." 
 
 We have seen that it is the law of our being that the 
 exclusive or paramount exercise of any one part of our 
 composite nature should be followed by correspondingly 
 disproportionate development and predominance of that 
 part. Hence we need feel no surprise at observing that 
 many of the most magnificent and comprehensive intellects 
 the world has known, even when gifted with fine imagi- 
 nations, have not been peculiarly or obviously "• spiritually- 
 minded," — rather the contrary. The very aCuteness and 
 vigor of their reason taught them to distrust what may be 
 called the Senses of the Soul, and to avoid cultivating 
 what they believed a misleading and a dangeroifs faculty. 
 The converse of this proposition is equally true. Few of 
 those in whom the religious element has been dispropor- 
 tionally developed have been men of the soundest or most 
 powerful minds. Often they have been gifted with bril- 
 liant eloquence and poetic genius of an elevated order : 
 
186 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 often have they, in virtue of these gifts, and aided by that 
 earnestness of purpose and tenacity of aim which strong 
 religious convictions bestow in surpassing measure, been 
 able to sway the minds of men and to guide the destinies 
 of the world far more powerfully than philosophers or 
 sages ; but they have exercised this influence in virtue of 
 their moral and not their intellectual qualities. Wisdom 
 has a poor chance against the zeal of an unhesitating con- 
 viction. The weakest of the wise men who smiled or 
 mourned over the crusading folly of the Middle Ages had 
 probably a larger and sounder intellect than Pel^er the 
 Hermit and all his fanatical compeers ; yet the latter were 
 omnipotent and the former were unheard or trampled 
 under foot. 
 
 But further : the paramount cultivation of the spiritual 
 powers, the concentration of the mind on religious con- 
 templation, while we can well believe it may and must 
 strengthen that faculty of insight (if indeed the existence 
 of such faculty be not altogether a delusion) from which 
 all our glimpses of the unseen world, all our loftier and 
 deeper spiritual conceptions, are derived, is, as is too sadly 
 known, one of the most frequent and certain causes of 
 insanity.* Not only is it not favorable to health and 
 
 * Many of us are famiUar •with Sir James Mackintosh's beautiful 
 letter to his intimate friend, Eobert Hall, perhaps the finest spiritual 
 intellect of our generation, on his recovery from an attack of in- 
 sanity : — 
 
 " It is certain the child maybe too manly, not only for his present 
 enjoyments, but for his future prospects. Perhaps, my friend, you 
 have fallen into this error of superior natures. From this error has, 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 187 
 
 strength of intellect, but it often upsets the intellect alto- 
 gether. The topics of reflection are so awful and so grand, 
 the tension of mind required to grasp them is so great, the 
 glimpses gained or fancied are so dazzling, the whole 
 atmosphere of thought is so ethereal, that more than ordi- 
 nary strength of nerve and brain must be needed to ward 
 off the natural results. "Where the ineffable mysteries of 
 the Divine Presence and the Unseen World are truly real- 
 ized, — where we try to " live as seeing Him who is in- 
 visible," — how can that calmness, which is essential to 
 ■wisdom, that sense of proportion on which sanity depends, 
 be maintained ? Our most daring spiritual flights, our 
 furthest spiritual glimpses, then, are attained only at an 
 awful risk, and by brains on the verge and in immediate 
 peril of unsoundness. It may even be that it is a certain 
 incipient disorder of mind or tendency to such disorder 
 which predisposes men to these dangerously exciting 
 topics. 
 
 We shall be reminded, probably, that there was One 
 who once walked upon the earth in whom the spiritual 
 
 I think, arisen that calamity with which it has pleased Providence 
 to visit yon, which I regard in you as little more than the indignant 
 struggles of a pure mind with the low realities around it, — the fer- 
 vent aspirations after regions more congenial to it, — and a momen- 
 tary blindness produced hy the fixed contemplation of objects too 
 bright for human vision. I may say in this case, in a far grander 
 sense than that in which the words were originally spoken by our 
 great Poet : — 
 
 ' And yet the light that led astray 
 Was light from heaven.' " 
 
 Memoir of Sir James Mackintosh, I. 253. 
 
188 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 and intellectual elements of character were not only In 
 perfect harmony, but reached the fullest development of 
 both. To those, however, who believe that Jesus was 
 more than Man ; to those, even, who believe that though 
 not strictly Divine, he was, for a special purpose, endowed 
 with an exceptional organization, we may reply that, on 
 their supposition, his case confirms rather than impugns 
 our general position. If, for the attainment of this two- 
 fold perfectness, supernatural endowment were required, 
 it follows that ordinary humanity must rest content with ' 
 a more humble or one-sided development. Those, on the 
 other hand, who imagine Jesus, though splendidly and 
 rarely gifted, to have been perfect only within the attain- 
 able limits of humanity, — i. e. not to have been Divine, 
 but only the possible ideal of the human, — will not feel 
 offended by the suggestion, that an unprepossessed observer 
 would assign to Christ not a philosophical but a purely 
 spiritual pre-eminence; that we should not look upon 
 him as the greatest Thinker, even on religious topics, that 
 Humanity has given forth, but as. the one who most tnily 
 conceived the Spirit of God, and realized that conformity 
 with His will which we are told should be the aim of our 
 being here, and which we believe will be the loftiest at- 
 tainment of our life hereafter. If we are right as to the 
 intrinsic distinction and usual discrepancy between intel- 
 lectual and spiritual supremacy, we see at once the mistake, 
 and how deep it lies, of those, on the one hand, who con- 
 ceive that, because Christ is our perfect pattern and our 
 spiritual ideal, he must necessarily be also the depositary 
 of all truth and the teacher of perfect wisdom, and of those 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 189 
 
 on the other, who finding him intellectually limited and 
 in error, conclude thence that he could not be the Divine 
 Example which they yet feel instinctively that he was * 
 
 Further : We find that the spiritual faculties are con- 
 stantly most predominant and liable to the most extreme 
 development in those whose physical organization is the 
 least sound and strong, and under those constitutional 
 conditions which are unquestionably abnormal and disor- 
 dered, or bordering on such and tending to become such. 
 They are more remarkable in women than in men ; and 
 in those men whose nervous system is preternaturally ex- 
 citable, disproportionably dominant. The close connection 
 between hysteria and what we may term " religiosity " has 
 long been known : so peculiar is the predisposition of^hys- 
 terical patients to see spiritual visions, to fall into religious 
 
 * " Christ, as the incarnate Logos, was the consummation of moral 
 excellence, so far as that is compatible with the unaltera,ble conditions 
 of humanity. Learning and science and artistic skill are not em- 
 braced in the attributes of the Logos. In these respects Christ was 
 a man of his own age and nation, — believing and speaking on all 
 speculative topics, on every subject that stood outside the conscience 
 and its eternal relations with God, like the multitude among whom 
 he dwelt. Through this inevitable limitation of his intellectual be- 
 ing, he acted with more power and eflFect on the spiritual condition 
 of his contemporaries ; and from the marked contrast between the 
 grandeur and purity of his religion, and the simplicity of his worldly 
 wisdom, he has acquired a more than earthly influence over the mind 
 of ensuing generations. The unrivalled pre-eminence of his spiritual 
 example we cannot now deprive of its claim to a higher reverence, 
 by imputing it to extraordinary philosophic culture or the perceptions 
 of an intellect raised far above the standard of his time." — Rev. J. J. 
 Tayler's Sermons, p. 75. 
 
190 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 trances, to have or to be convinced they have communica- 
 tions with the unseen world, that some physicians regard 
 these things as only phases and symptoms of that many- 
 faced and many-voiced nervous malady. The trances to 
 which St. Paul was subject, and in which he is believed, 
 and believed himself, to be favored with spiritual manifes- 
 tations, appear to have been precisely similar to modern 
 instances of religious trance. Works on Medical Psychol- 
 ogy abound in illustrative cases, in which the exaltation 
 and preternatural vividness of some cerebral faculties al- 
 most resemble the development of a new sense, and have 
 by some been regarded as such.* Prolonged sleeplessness 
 — pervigilium; as physicians term it — is well known to 
 be a fertile producer of this exaltation of the natural pow- 
 ers of vision or imagination. The old Sages, who pretend- 
 ed to develop superhuman capacities in human nature, 
 insisted on long abstinence from sleep, as an indispensable 
 condition of initiation. The ascetic religionists who dwell 
 so strongly on the necessity, of fasting for the productioj 
 and cultivation of religious sentiments and emotions well 
 know what -they are about. Prolonged abstinence from 
 food, or a very inadequate amount of it, has a specific 
 effect in stimulating, enhancing, purifying, and intenerating 
 the devotional part of our nature ; in goading the brain 
 to an unnatural state of susceptibility, as physicians would 
 say ; in emancipating the spirit from the gross shackles 
 of the flesh, as Divines would prefer to express the same 
 
 * See Wigan, Abercrombie, ConoUy ; also Bertrand, Variet^s de 
 I'Extase. Also various pamphlets, wliich may be called the litera- 
 ture of " the unknown tongues." 
 
DIEECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 191 
 
 fact ; in producing that state of mind which it is usual to 
 call specifically spiritual. The same condition of pre- 
 ternatural vividness and lucidity of mental vision frequent- 
 ly occurs in the crisis of dangerous fevers, and on the 
 approach of dissolution. Schiller and Blanco White, a 
 few hours before they breathed their last, felt that " many 
 things were growing clear to them." Yet all these states 
 are unqtiestionabli/ morbid, or on the point of becoming so. 
 At what price to the soundness of the understanding 
 and the health of the natural affections this special and 
 abnormal development of the spiritual faculties is pur- 
 chased, let the history of creeds, the biographies of saintly 
 men, and the life and writings of the religious world of 
 our own day, bear sad and humiliating testimony. "What 
 inconceivably monstrous and self-contradictory tenets have 
 been accepted at the command of spiritual visions ! "What 
 delusive information have not the excited " senses of the 
 Soul " imposed on the bewildered reason ! "What irrational 
 conceptions have not the keenest understandings often 
 been compelled to entertain ! How many deplorable ex- 
 amples have we had of men of the finest intellect compel- 
 ling that intellect to " eat dirt," when the religious element 
 in their composite nature had fairly got the upper hand 
 and established itself in the supremacy of an irresponsible 
 Autocrat ! How fearfully omnipotent is excessive relig- 
 iosity of temperament in blinding the understanding to 
 the simplest conclusions, in screening -from detection the 
 most untenable delusions, in masking the most flagrant in- 
 consistencies, in preventing us from recognizing the plain- 
 est truths or the most obvious errors, though both were 
 
192 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 written in sunbeams, — may be learnt from almost every 
 article of our popular theology. To such an extent has 
 this gone that the antagonism of Faith and Eeason has 
 been erected into an axiom, and the subordination of the 
 Understanding to the Imagination — of the Intellectual 
 to the Spiritual faculties — has been preached by the pious 
 as the first of duties. 
 
 The sad havoc which the excessive development of the 
 religious temperament makes in the natural affections, 
 where the intellect has not been proportionally cultivated, 
 or has not been enthroned in its due supremacy, is a more 
 lamentable phenomenon still. Truly it haS^ "separated 
 chief friends," perverted healthy sympathies, "turned 
 wholesome hearts into gall," dried up and trampled out 
 all the sweet humanities of life. Under its influence 
 wives have become cold to their husbands, and mothers 
 cruel to their children ; the purest earthly love has been 
 withered by the unnatural competition of the self-called 
 divine ; crime it has gilded with the hues of virtue, and 
 the most ferocious barbarism it has fancied was both 
 clemency and duty. It has led those under its despotic 
 sway to look upon all the gentler emotions, the tenderer 
 affections, the more vivid sympathies, with which God 
 has hallowed and beautified our earthly life, as snares, 
 weaknesses, and sins, — and the trampling of them out as 
 the most acceptable service that could be rendered to a 
 jealous and engrossing Deity. It has poisoned the very 
 source of all that is lovely and endearing in our com- 
 posite being. It is to no purpose to say that these effects 
 are produced only in weak and disordered minds : they 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 193 
 
 are produced in minds disordered and weakened by the 
 very process of spiritual aspiration; they are produced, 
 even in great minds, whenever the religious element 
 acquires complete predominance over the intellectual. 
 Of course, if the natural affections assert their rights, and 
 the intellect maintains its due supremacy, the effects we 
 have spoken of do not ensue ; but neither, then, does the 
 spiritual faculty reach its culminating point. 
 
 If the position we have endeavored to establish in the 
 foregoing pages be sound ; if, of the three components of 
 which man's complicated nature consists, no one can 
 reacli the highest culture and development of which any 
 one is susceptible, except by unfairness, injury, or peril to 
 the others ; and if those faculties especially which we de- 
 nominate " spiritual," and have been taught to regard as 
 our noblest, can only attain supremacy under bodily 
 conditions which imply or threaten disease, — then it 
 would seem to follow : — 
 
 That the ideal of humanity on earth — the perfection 
 which we are intended to attain here — is to be sought, 
 not in the surpassing development of our highest faculties, 
 but in tlie harmonioiis and equal development of all. In 
 proportion as a man's physical organization is neglected, 
 maltreated, or impoverished in the exclusive or pre- 
 dominant culture of his understanding or his imagina- 
 tion, — or in proportion as the religious and devotional 
 element within him is stimulated and cultivated at the 
 expense of the Intellect, — in that proportion does he de- 
 
 9 M 
 
194 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 part from his proper standard and thwart and traverse 
 his allotted destiny. 
 
 That the existence of faculties capable — as we know 
 by actual proof — of a degree of elevation and perfection 
 which is only attainable on earth in abnormal and dis- 
 ordered conditions points towards a future state and a 
 different organization; to conditions, in a word, under 
 which the perfection, possible and therefore designed, of 
 those faculties can be achieved. They can scarcely, we 
 may assume, be meant to remain forever in an imper- 
 fectly developed state ; yet that state is the one clearly 
 assigned to them on earth. "With a more finished and 
 ethereal frame, the Intellect will be able to strive and 
 soar without crushing the body, or starving the affections, 
 or discouraging the Soul; and the Soul may reach 
 heights unattainable below, and ga^e undazzled on splen- 
 dors that here only blind and bewilder its unprepared 
 and unfitted vision. 
 
 That the design of the Creator, and therefore the duty 
 of man, upon earth, is not the highest development of the 
 Individual, but the perfection of the Bace. The former, 
 as we have seen, must inevitably be reserved for other 
 conditions or another state : the latter is attainable in 
 this. Nature has placed, if not impassable barriers in 
 our upward path, at least warning beacons against the 
 attempt to overleap them. She has not only cautioned 
 us against the extreme cultivation of the intellectual and 
 spiritual man, but has condemned that cultivation by 
 assigning disease as its inevitable consequence and 
 condition. In forbidding us to surpass the limits of the 
 
DIRECTION OF HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. 195 
 
 thoroxigUy but haemoniously developed specimens of 
 Huinauity, she has assigned to us the welcome and 
 feasible task of bringing up the whole human Race to 
 tliose limits: not to make strong and healthy frames 
 into Herculeses and Athletes, not to make wise men into 
 Platos, Bacons, or Goethes, not to make saintly men into 
 Wesleys, Xaviers, and St. Bernards, but to make all men 
 vigorous and sane, wise, good, and holy, in the measure of 
 their just and well-balanced capacity ; not to urge the 
 exceptional few to still more exceptional attainments, 
 but to bring the many to the level of the few. Two 
 glorious futures lie before us : the progress of the Eace 
 here, the progress of the Man hereafter. History indi- 
 cates that the individual man needs to be transplanted 
 in order to excel the Past. He appears to have reached 
 his perfection centuries ago. Men lived then whom we 
 have never yet been able to surpass, rarely even to equal 
 Our knowledge has of course gone on increasing, for that 
 is a material capable of indefinite accumulation. But for 
 power, for the highest reach and range of mental and 
 spiritual capacity in every line, the lapse of two or three 
 thousand years has shown no sign of increase or improve- 
 ment. What Sculptor has surpassed Phidias ? What 
 Poet has transcended ^schylus, Homer, or the author of 
 the Book of Job ? What devout Aspirant has soared 
 higher than David or Isaiah? What Statesman have 
 modem times produced mightier or grander than Peri- 
 cles ? What Patriot Martyr truer or nobler than Soc- 
 rates ? Wherein, save in mere acquirements, was Bacon 
 superior to Plato ? or Newton to Thales or Pythagoras ? 
 
196 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Very early in our history individual men beat their wings 
 against the allotted boundaries of their earthly domin- 
 ions ; early in History God gave to the Human Eace the 
 types and patterns to imitate and approach, but never to 
 transcend. Here, then, surely we see clearly intimated 
 to us our appointed work ; viz., to raise the masses to 
 the true standard of harmonious human virtue . and 
 capacity, not to strive ourselves to overleap that stand- 
 ard ; not to put our own souls or brains into a hot-bed, 
 but to put all our fellow-men into a fertile and a whole- 
 some soil. If this be so, both our practical course and 
 our speculative difficulties are greatly cleared. The timid 
 fugitives from the duties and temptations of the world, 
 the selfish coddlers and nursers of their own souls, the sed- 
 ulous cultivators either of a cold intellect or of a fervent 
 Spiritualism, have alike mistaken their mission, and 
 turned their back upon their goal. The Philanthropists, 
 in the measure of their wisdom and their purity of zeal, 
 are the real fellow-workmen of the Most High. This 
 principle may give us the clew to many dispensations 
 which at first seem dark and grievous, to the grand scale 
 and the distracting slowness of Nature's operations ; to 
 her merciless inconsideration for the individual where 
 the interests of the Eace are in question.* Noble souls 
 are sacrificed to ignoble masses'; the good champion often 
 falls, the wrong competitor often wins : but the Great 
 Car of Humanity moves forward by those very steps 
 which revolt our sympathies and crush our hopes, aud 
 which, if we could, we would have ordered otherwise. 
 
 * " So careful of the type she seems, 
 
 So careless of the single life." — In Memoriam. 
 
THE SIGS-IFIOAIfrOE OF LIFE. 
 
THE SIGmFIOAFCE OF LIFE. 
 
 SOME men seem to be sent into the world for pur- 
 poses of action only. Their faculties are all strung 
 up to toil and enterprise ; their spirit and their frame are 
 alike redolent of energy. They pause and slumber like 
 other men, but it is only to recruit from actual fatigue ; 
 they occasionally want quiet, but only as a refreshment 
 to prepare them for renewed exiertion, not as a normal 
 condition to be wished for or enjoyed for itself They 
 need rest, not repose. They investigate and reflect, but 
 only to estimate the best means of attaining their ends, 
 or to measure the value of their undertaking against its 
 cost: they think, they never meditate. Their mission, 
 their enjoyment, the object and condition of their exist- 
 ence is WOEK : they could not exist here without it ; they 
 cannot conceive another life as desirable without it. 
 Their amount of vitality is beyond that of ordinary men ; 
 they are never to be seen doing nothing; when doing 
 nothing else they are always sleeping. Happy Souls ! 
 Happy men, at least ! 
 
 There are others who skim over the surface of life, 
 reflecting just as little as these and not reposing much 
 
200 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 ofteiier; -whose sensibilities are quick, whose tempera- 
 ments are cheerful, whose frames are naturally active but 
 not laborious; on whom nature and the external world 
 play as on a stringed instrument, sometimes drawing out 
 sweet sounds, sometimes discordant ones ; but whom the 
 inner world seldom troubles with any intimation of its 
 existence ; men whom the interests of the day suffice to 
 occupy ; the depths of whose souls are never irradiated by - 
 gleams or stirred by breezes " from a remoter life."- They 
 toq are to be envied. The bees and the butterflies are 
 alike happy.* 
 
 There are other spirits whom God has cast in a differ- 
 ent mould, or framed of less harmonious substance ; men 
 gifted with that contemplative faculty which is a blessing 
 or a curse according as it is linked with a cheerful or a 
 melancholy temperament; according as it is content to 
 busy itseK only with derivative and secondary matters, 
 or dives down to the hidden foundation of things ; accord- 
 ing as it assumes and accepts much, or is driven by its 
 own necessity to question everything ; according as it can 
 wander happily and curiously among the flowers and fruit 
 of the Tree of Life, or as it is dangerously impelled to 
 dig about its roots and analyze the soil in which it grows. 
 To such men existence is one long note of interrogation, 
 
 * "Happy the many to whom Life displays 
 Only the flaunting of its Tulip-flower ; ^ 
 Whose minds have never bent to scrutinize 
 Into the maddening riddle of the Root, — 
 Shell within shell, dream folded over dream.'' 
 
 B. M. MiLKES. 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. . 201 
 
 and the universe a storehouse of problems all clamorous 
 for solution. The old fable of the Sphinx is true for 
 them: life is the riddle they have to read, and death, 
 sadness, or the waste of- years, is the penalty if they fail 
 to interpret it aright. A few, perhaps, may find the key 
 and reach "the peace that passeth understanding." A 
 larger number fancy they have found it, and are serene in 
 their fortunate delusion. Others retire from the effort, 
 conscious that they have been baffled in the search, but, 
 partly in weariness, partly in trust, partly in content, 
 acquiescing in their failure. Others, again, and these too 
 often the nobler and tbe grander souls, reach the verge of 
 their pilgrimage stiQ battling with the dark enigma, and 
 dying less of age or malady than of the profound de- 
 pression that must be the lot of all who have wasted life 
 in fniitless efforts to discover how it should be spent and 
 how regarded; and which even a sincere belief in the 
 flood of life which lies behind the great black curtain of 
 Death, cannot quite avail to dissipate.* 
 
 But, whatever may be the form or issue of the search, 
 no man gifted with the sad endowment of a contemplative 
 
 * '' And though we wear out life, alas ! 
 Distracted as a, homeless wind, 
 In beating where we may- not pass. 
 In seeking what we shall not find ; 
 
 " Yet shall we one day gain, life past, 
 
 Clear vision o'er our Being's whole, ^- 
 
 Shall see ourselves, and learn at last 
 
 Our true affinities of Soul ! " 
 
 M. Arnold. 
 
 9* 
 
202 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 and questioning turn of mind, can reach mature life ■with: 
 out earnest meditation on the great problem of himself 
 and of the world, the inner and the outer universe ; with- 
 out seeking whence he came and whither he is bound, ■ — 
 
 " The Hills wtere his life rose 
 And the Sea to which it goes." 
 
 He yearns to know the meaning of existence, its aim and 
 purport ; in what light he is to look upon it, in what way 
 he is to use it. The necessities of his nature forbid him 
 to lead a provisional life, either mentally or morally ; he 
 wants to sail, he cannot be content to drift; he must 
 know his haven and steer his course. Sentient and con- 
 scious existence to him is a problem to be solved, not a 
 summer day to be enjoyed ; at least he must ascertain 
 whether it is this last, before he can tranquilly accept 
 even its joys. He is, and must ever be 
 
 " A Being holding large discourse, — 
 Looting before and after." 
 
 What then is Human Life, its significance, its aim. its 
 mission, its goal ? ^ 
 
 To the opening mind — at least when so placed as to 
 be exempt from the sordid cares and necessities of a mere 
 material existence — it seems like a delicious feast : the 
 most magnificent banquet ever spread by a kind Creator 
 for a favored creature, the amplest conceivable provision 
 for a Being of the most capacious and various desires. 
 The surface of the earth is strewed with flowers : the 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 203 
 
 path of years is paved and planted with enjoyments. 
 Every sort of beauty has been lavished on our allotted 
 home, beauties to enrapture every sense, beauties to satisfy 
 every taste. Forms the noblest and the loveliest, colors 
 the most gorgeous and the most delicate, odors the sweet- 
 est and the subtlest, harmonies the most soothing and the 
 most stirring; the sunny glories of the day, the pale, 
 Elysian grace of moonlight, the lake, the mountain, the 
 primeval .forest, and the boundless ocean ; " silent pinna- 
 cles of aged snow" in one hemisphere, the marvels of 
 tropical luxuriance in another ; the serenity of sunsets ; 
 the sublimity of storms ; everytJimg is bestowed in bound- 
 less profusion on the scene of our existence : we can con- 
 ceive or desire nothing more exquisite or perfect than 
 what is round us every hour. And our perceptions are 
 so framed as to be consciously alive to alL The pro- 
 vision made for our sensuous enjoyment is in overflowing 
 abundance : so is that for the other elements of our com- 
 plex nature. Who that has revelled in the opening 
 ecstasies of a young imagination or the rich marvels of 
 the world of Thought does not confess that the Intelli- 
 gence has been dowered at least with as profuse a benefi- 
 cence as the Senses ! Who that has truly tasted and 
 fatliomed human love in its dawning and its crowning 
 joys has not thanked God for a felicity which indeed 
 " passeth understanding " ! If we had set our fancy to 
 picture a Creator occupied solely in devising delight for 
 children whom he loved, we could not conceive one single 
 element of bliss which is not here. We might retrench 
 casualties; we might superadd duration and extension; 
 
204 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 we might make that which is partial, occasional, and 
 transient, universal and enduring ; but we need not, and 
 we could not, introduce one new ingredient of joy. 
 
 So varied and so lavish is the provision made for the 
 happiness of man upon this earth, that we feel, intuitively 
 and irresistibly, that Earth was designed to be a scene of 
 enjoyment to him ; that it was created and arranged 
 expressly for this end ; nor can either sophistry or sad 
 experience, in any sound and really sincere mijid, impair 
 this conviction. We feel at once that there is something 
 crumbling in the premises and rotten in the logic that 
 can ever attempt to persuade us of the contrary. It is 
 true that we see around us much suffering ; that the mass 
 of men are happy only partially, fitfully, imperfec'ly; 
 that no man is as happy as the provision made for him 
 indicates that he ought to be. But this neither does 
 shake our conviction, nor should it. For the more we 
 study Nature, the more do we attain the certainty that 
 nearly all this positive suffering and scanty joy is trace- 
 able to our neglect or transgression of her laws, not to 
 the inadequate provision made for human happiness, but 
 to our unskilful use of that provision ; that the misery 
 now prevalent is not a consequence of Nature's original 
 or ultimate design, but a contravention or postponemeat 
 of that design. 
 
 This is TRUTH, but not the whole truth, nor the only 
 truth. Life Avas spread as a banquet for pure, noble, un- 
 perverted natures, and may be such to them, ought to be 
 such to them, is often such now, will be such always and 
 to all in future and better ages. But, as at-the Egyptian 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 205 
 
 f 
 
 festivals, so at the great festival of existence, a veiled 
 spectre ever sits to remind us that all is not said, that 
 the word of the enigma is not yet deciphered. Even when 
 centuries of progress shall have realized the Earth's ideal, 
 Life can never be solely or completely a Drama of holy 
 and serene delights, so long as Death stands forever by to 
 close it with a Tragedy. 
 
 And this will always be so. Prudence and temperance 
 may lengthen life ; Science may reduce casualties and 
 mitigate disease ; fewer may be cut off in infancj'" ; more 
 may reach the possible limit of earthly duration ; a larger 
 and larger number in each successive age may be allowed 
 to play out the whole piece : but when all is done, life, 
 longer or shorter, comes to the same end; if those we love 
 do not go from us early, if the things we are concerned in 
 interest us to the last, still the day comes — and is always 
 irt^ prospect — when we are called upon to leave all that 
 has gladdened the eye, enchanted the ear, stirred the in- 
 tellect, soothed and satisfied the heart, — to abandon the 
 only scene we have ever gazed at, to close the only book 
 we have ever read in, to exchange the known for the un- 
 known, — to go out, — to cease, or appear to cease, to be. 
 Death is even more than this, though we are accustomed 
 to disguise it to ourselves with gentle words and beautiful 
 fancies and glorious anticipations. We may speak of it 
 as an exchange of one sort of an existence for another, — 
 of a disappointing reality for a perfected ideal ; as"" walk- 
 ing into a great darkness " ; as " long disquiet merged in 
 rest " ; as entering upon untrodden and inviting worlds ; 
 as launching forth upon waters of which the darkest feat- 
 
206 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 ure is that we cannot ' see, but must be content to believe 
 iu, the farther shore. 
 
 " Or we can sit 
 In serious calm beneath deciduous trees, 
 And count the leaves, scarce heavier than the air. 
 Which leave the branch and tremble to the ground ; 
 Or, out at midnight in a gliding boat, 
 Enjoy the waning moon, and moralize, 
 And say that Death is but a Mediator 
 Between the lower and the loftier life." 
 
 But these are all figures of speech. They may express a 
 truth : we strongly believe they do. But they do not ex- 
 press the simple fact of Death as it strikes our unsophisti- 
 cated sense; as our natures regard it before religion or 
 philosophy has imposed, or endeavored to impose, silence 
 on the instincts of the heart. To these native instincts 
 Death is the great " sleep which rounds our little life," 
 it is a wrench from all that has made up our being for 
 long years of thought, sense, and feeling ; it is a loss of 
 the only existence we can truly realize; not journeying 
 into a new country, but obviously, ostensibly, so far as all 
 appearances go, an end of the joiirney we have travelled 
 for so long. We need not deceive ourselves. Death, even 
 to the most fervent believers in the Great Hope, can never 
 be other than a Mystery : to others it must remain God's 
 saddest, deepest, most disturbing mystery. 
 
 It must be so to all. The gayest and most joyous spirit 
 that ever sported from the cradle to the grave has this 
 tragic element as inextricably interwoven with its life as 
 any of us. The refined, the loving, the tender, and the 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 207 
 
 noble, — whose existence has been one beautiful and har- 
 monious poem, — the music of whose nature has never 
 jarred, — who have extracted from their career on earth 
 every pure delight, every permitted ecstasy of the senses 
 and the soul which the Creator fitted it to render, — find 
 the same inexorable Darkness awaiting them at the end 
 of their pilgrimage, if not breaking it off abruptly in its 
 brightest and most perfect hour. The mightiest Intelli- 
 gences, who have put life to heroic uses, who have waged 
 noble warfare and toiled for noble ends, who have " rowed 
 hard against the stream," who have enrolled themselves 
 in the glorious army of God's warriors and workmen, — 
 these, too, know that they may every hour expect the fall- 
 ing of the curtain ; and that, fall when it may, it is sure 
 to find them with their work unfinished and their goal 
 unreached. Those who most enjoy life, and those who 
 best employ it, must close it amid the same impenetrable 
 shadows. 
 
 And this solemn fact is not merely a distant certainty, 
 to which we may shut our eyes till the time comes : it is 
 everywhere before us ; it forces itself on our attention, . 
 forbids us to forget it. It does jiot merely await us at the 
 close of our journey ; it crosses us at every step, its alarum 
 startles us every hour ; it insists on being a constant guest, 
 at our homes, or in our thoughts. We must reckon with 
 it ; we cannot put it by ; it gives us no peace till we turn 
 manfully to face it, to wrestle with it, to understand it, to 
 settle with ourselves how we intend to regard it during 
 life and to meet it when it comes. It continues the most 
 waylaying thought of the thoughtful man, till he silences 
 
20§ ENIGMAS OF LIFE, 
 
 its importunity by listening to all it has to say, and reason- 
 ing it back into the tomb, 
 
 " Or place it in some chamber of the soul, 
 Where it may lie unseen as sound, yet /eft,-;— 
 Matins life hushed and awful." 
 
 Again, Life is a scene of much suffering and sorrow. It 
 is true, as I have argued, that a vast amount, probably far 
 the greatest amount, of this is gratuitous and avoidable. 
 Much of it arises from ignorance of the laws of nature, 
 which the growing wisdom of centuries will dissipate. 
 Much of it arises from a violation of physiological and 
 moral obligations, whitih, in the course of ages, the human 
 race will learn almost universally to obey. Much of it 
 arises from social errors which we have already begun to 
 recognize as errors ; much from a discrepancy between our 
 theory and our practice which we are even now awakening 
 to the necessity of removing. A vast proportion of the 
 evils which we see around us we know to be curable, 
 and we think we see the mode and the epoch of their 
 cure. The more sanguine among us are already dream* 
 ing of the day when the actual of Humanity shall ap- 
 proach within sight of its ideal, and when the original pro- 
 gramme of the Creator shall at all events be approximately 
 realized. 
 
 But when all this has been done,^ to say nothing of 
 the long ages of the Meanwhile, — when the perfection 
 of a nature inherently imperfect shall have been reached, 
 — there will still remain a large residuum of grief and 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 209 
 
 pain incapable of avoidance or elimination, and which 
 ■we must therefore accept as one of the permanent elements 
 of the problem presented to us for solution. Life, as 
 constituted by God, not as spoiled by man, is not only a 
 scene of designed enjoyment, terminated by a strange, 
 mysterious, and almost contradictory crisis : it is a scene 
 also of inalienable suffering, — a scene whose habitual 
 harmonies are jarred upon by discordant sounds, whose 
 bright skies must at times be overcast by clouds of por- 
 tentous darkness, whose hymns of praise and pseans of 
 rejoicing will often be exchanged for the sharp cry of 
 pain and the wail of inextinguishable grief. Perfect our 
 nature and our social systems as we may, there will still 
 be casualties to stretch us on a bed of anguish to which 
 no skill can bring effective or permanent relief ; there will 
 still be chambers of long and wearing sickness where 
 the assiduities of the tenderest friends cannot hinder the 
 sufferer from longing for the visit of the last, mightiest, 
 kindest friend of all. There wiU still be bereavements 
 of the affections, not always created by the grave ; sever- 
 ances of Soul, for which there is neither balm nor lethe ; 
 vacant places by the hearthstone which no form again 
 may fill : and as long as generation succeeds generation 
 and families are linked together; as long as the young 
 are coming on the stage while the old are leaving it ; as 
 long as Nature commands us to cling so passionately to 
 what we yet must lose so certainly and may lose so sud- 
 denly and so soon ; as long as Love continues the most 
 imperious passion, and Death the surest fact, of our min- 
 gled and marvellous humanity, so long wiU the sweetest 
 
210 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 and truest music upon earth be always in the minor 
 key.* 
 
 And in "the long meanwhile"' — during which the 
 goal of human attainment is scarcely perceptibly ap- 
 proached — the world does seem such a stumbling botch 
 and muddle ; Man himself is such a " piebald miscel- 
 lany " with his 
 
 " Bursts of great teart, and slips in sensual mire " ; 
 
 the discrepancy is so vast between our highest actual and 
 our most moderate ideal ; the follies of men are so utterly 
 astounding, to one who has seen them close ; their weak- 
 nesses so profoundly despicable ; their vices so unspeak- 
 ably revolting ; their virtues, even, so casual, halting, and 
 hollow^ ; Life is such " a comedy to those that think, such 
 a tragedy to those that feel " ; its pages are so sadly, 
 incomprehensibly grotesque ! Generation after generation 
 of the young rush sanguinely into the arena, confident 
 that they can solve the puzzle, confident that they can 
 win the victory. Generation after generation of the old 
 step down into the gTave baffled and bewildered, vexed at 
 the dreary retrospect, mortified at the memory of long 
 years eagerly wasted in following " light that led astray," 
 mourning over brOliant banners torn and soiled, over 
 heights still unsealed, over fields and trenches filled with 
 
 * " We look before and after. 
 And pine for what is not, 
 E'en our sincerest laughter 
 With some pain is fraught ; 
 Our sweetest songs are those which tell of saddest thought." 
 
 Shellet. 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 211 
 
 the martyrs of Humanity. The drama can be only half 
 discerned, or half played out ; or it may be that we have 
 not yet got the clew to the meaning of the Most High. 
 
 Yet, perhaps, if we consider patiently enough, some 
 conclusions may be reached, some light may be seen to 
 move over the dark and restless waters, imperfect and 
 fragmentary indeed, yet not altogether inadequate, — not 
 enough for a philosophic scheme, nor yet for a dogmatic 
 creed, but enough for a trusting faith, enough to guide 
 and quiet us in life, enough to enable us to bear to die. 
 
 That life was given us to be enjoyed, few men in their 
 sober senses, not distracted by unendurable anguish or 
 rendered morbid by a perverse theology, have ever 
 seriously dreamed of doubting. The analogy of the 
 lower animals confirms the common consciousness. Hu- 
 man infancy holds the same language. The brutes that 
 perish, but never speculate, and the young whose native 
 instincts are not yet marred by thought, alike listen to 
 nature and alike are joyous. The earth is sown with 
 pleasures, as the Heavens are studded with stars, — 
 wherever the conditions of existence are unsophisticated. 
 Scarcely a scene that is not redolent of beauty ; scarcely 
 a flower that does not breathe sweetness. Not one of 
 our senses that, in its healthy state, is not an avenue to 
 enjoyment. Not one of our faculties that it is not a 
 delight to exercise. Provision is made for the happiness 
 of every disposition and of every taste, — the active, the 
 contemplative, the sensuous, the ethereal. Provision is 
 
212 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 made fort he happiness of every age, — for dancing infancy, 
 for glowing youth, for toiling manhood, for reposing age. 
 So clear does this seem to our apprehension, that we do 
 not hesitate to pronounce that a man who has not been 
 happy in life has missed one of the aims of his existence ; 
 he has failed of fulfilling the Creator's purpose ; his career 
 has been a carriire manquee. Exceptional cases there may 
 be, as there are anomalous organizations : these are among 
 the " insoluble problems " of philosophy. But if a man 
 with the material of enjoyment around him and virtuously 
 within Bis reach walks God's earth wilfully and obsti- 
 nately with a gloomy spirit and an ascetic temper, closing 
 his eye to beauty, shutting up his heart to joy, paying 
 his orisons in groans, and making misery his worship, we 
 feel assured that he is contravening his Maker's design 
 in endowing him with life ; he is perverting His gifts ; he 
 is just as truly running counter to God's will by being 
 intentionally wretched as by intentionally doing wrong. 
 
 Of course, as we all know, there are circumstances that 
 peremptorily forbid happiness, circumstances when it can 
 only be purchased by such a dereliction of duty as robs it 
 of all its innocence and nearly all its zest, circumstances 
 under which we are called " to endure hardness, as good 
 soldiers of Jesus Christ." These cases, wherein happiness 
 would be sinful, are just as much, tut no more, the ordain- 
 ments of Providence as those more common ones wherein 
 happiness is natural and right. What we mean to assert 
 as a truth which writes itself in sunbeams on the Soul, is, 
 that God has given us the joys of earth to be relished, no^ 
 to be neglected, or depreciated, or forbidden ; to be grate^ 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 213 
 
 fully accepted as bounties, not to be avoided as snares 
 and perils ; that He has scattered them in our path, to 
 gladden and to smooth, not to tantalize or tempt ; that 
 He has graciously called us to the rich banquet of life, not 
 that we may shrink from this wholesome viand lest 
 poison may lurk beneath its surface, nor look coldly and 
 repellently on that delicious fruit as if its beauty were 
 deceptive and imreal, nor refuse that splendid flower, 
 because its colors must fade, and because thorns may be 
 mingled with its leaves, nor comport ourselves either as 
 if we were superior to the weakness of enjoyment, or as 
 if we waited for a nobler feast ; but that we should par- 
 take of all that He has given with the relish of an 
 unspoiled nature, the moderation of a wise spirit, and 
 the emotion of a thankful heart. 
 
 Divines, in that surplice of conventional phraseology 
 which they wear once a week, tell us that Christianity 
 teaches us to look upon the joys of earth as hollow, worth- 
 less, transitory, " not to be compared to the glory that 
 shall be revealed," snares to the weak soul/stumbling- 
 blocks to the feeble knees, thingg^ to be scorned by those 
 who have in prospect the splendors of a higher world. 
 "We have not so learned Christ." That the joys of 
 earthly life are poor and worthless is an idle lie. That 
 these joys are pale, partial, and passing, when compared 
 with the ineffable beatitudes of that world " which the 
 glory of God doth enlighten," in a degree which language 
 cannot measure, we need no words to tell us. But what 
 of that ? The liliss of Heaven is yonder, is future, is 
 unseen ; the bliss of earth is here, is present, is felt. God 
 
214 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 has given us the one, now : he has not given us the other 
 yet. He is not so poor in felicities or so niggard in his 
 bounty that he has not wherewithal to furnish forth two 
 worlds. He does not give us our choice of the two : he 
 gives us, conditionally, both. If Nature is indeed His 
 book, and if we are competent to decipher even the sim- 
 plest words of His handwriting, He has meant us to be 
 happy here and hereafter, perfectly happy hereafter, par- 
 tially happy here. And virtue, not misery, is the appointeld 
 road to heaven. We are to earn the joys of a higher 
 existence, not by scorning, but by using, all the gifts of 
 God in this. 
 
 It is high time that on this subject we should in some 
 way establish a conformity between our professions and 
 our practice ; that we should no longer say one thing and 
 do another ; that integrity and self-government should not 
 both be broken down, as they now are, by the established 
 conventionalism of raising a standard that cannot be fol- 
 lowed, and piirsuing, under protest, a conduct too natural 
 to be rationally abandoned, but on which a formal con- 
 demnation is periodically uttered, and for which an act 
 of Indemnity as it were has to be periodically passed. 
 The mischief done to the ingenuous mind in its aspira- 
 tions after truth and virtue by this flagrant discrepancy 
 between what is affirmed to be right and what it feels to 
 be inevitable, passes calculation. The moment we clearly 
 recognize that the morality which we hear preached is a 
 code to be listened to, not practised, that moment the 
 premier pas qui coiXte has been taken, and the broad way. 
 that leadeth to destruction has been thrown open before 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 215 
 
 US. It is absolutely essential, then, that our preaching 
 should be brought into harmony with, not our habitual 
 practice, not the low-pitched level of a virtue which or- 
 dinary men iind easy, but the fair possibilities of human 
 goodness and the wholesome instincts of a nature fresh 
 from the hand of the Creator. It cannot be right to 
 preach anything which is not true ; it cannot be right to 
 exhort to anything which is not natural, which is not 
 possible, and which would not be desirable if it were. 
 It is not right therefore to represent this earth as a vale 
 of tears, this life as a weary pilgrimage, the profuse and 
 marvellous beauties that surround us as the concealing 
 flowers scattered over pitfalls, the innocent joys of exist- 
 ence as trials sent to test our virtue in rejecting them, 
 the pure and fond affections of the heart as snares against 
 which we should be on our guard, or as weaknesses to 
 which the Christian ought to rise superior. It is not 
 right to exhort us to " Love not the world, neither the 
 things of the world," in the bald and naked parlance of 
 ordinary preachers. It cannot be right to preach, " Take 
 no thought for the morrow, what ye shall eat or what ye 
 shall drink, or wherewithal shall ye be clothed," for a man 
 who should practise this would be held guilty of some- 
 thing worse than folly. It is time that those who assume 
 the position of beacon lights and guides should take 
 serious counsel with themselves, and ascertain what they 
 really think, and say nothing but what they actually 
 mean. 
 
 Now, of three things we are all in our hearts convinced. 
 We know that many of the best men have been also the 
 
216 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 happiest. We have all known some men, and possibly 
 more women, on whom the sunshine of God's smile most 
 obviously rested, — 
 
 " Glad hearts, -without reproach or Wot, 
 Who do Thy ■will and know it not, " — 
 
 whose hearts were filled with every human affection, fond, 
 clinging, passionate, tendeir; whose healthy and happy 
 organization tasted with intensest relish every innocent 
 pleasure of a beckoning world ; whose fresh pure spirits 
 were a perpetual fountain of delight ; on whose soul all 
 sweet breezes of life and nature played as on a well-timed 
 harp, and brought forth sounds of richest melody which 
 of themselves were a hymn of praise; who loved God 
 the more for loving the world which He had made so 
 much ; on whom it was impossible not to believe that 
 His eye rested with far other satisfaction and approval 
 than on the sour ascetic or the rigid Pharisee. 
 
 Again: the desire of earthly happiness is implanted 
 deep in every human heart. It is instinctive, universal, 
 ineradicable. It is not the highest spring of human effort, 
 but it is the most widely felt and the most intensely active, 
 and will remain such till, in the course of upward pro- 
 gress and purification, the love of duty takes its place. It 
 preserves him from apathy ; it prohibits despair ; it stimu- 
 lates to ceaseless exertion. It is impossible to believe that 
 God would have endowed us with this eager yearning after 
 what He never designed us to attain ; that we should have 
 been thus ordered to strive for an object which yet it is 
 sinful to seek thus earnestly or to relish thus intensely. 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 217 
 
 The object for which we are gifted with such an inextin- 
 guishable longing cannot be all dust and ashes, nor can it 
 be meant that it should turn to such between our lips. 
 God is not the author of a lie. If earthly happiness be 
 not designed to be sought, attained, and enjoyed by men, 
 then the teaching of Nature is deceptive and we turn over 
 the leaves of her book in vain. 
 
 And, thirdly, no one doubts or affects to doubt that we 
 are commanded both by instinct and the moral sense to 
 seek and promote the happiness of others. To relieve suf- 
 fering, to soothe distress, to confer pleasure, to dry the 
 tears of the afBicted, to spread comfort and joy around us, 
 is, we are taught, the noblest function in which man can 
 spend his brightest years and his freshest strength. Are 
 not those whose lives and powers are devoted to the task 
 of spreading happiness around them felt to be, in an 
 especial manner, " feUow-laborers with God," carrying 
 out His purposes, doing His work ? Are not those who 
 " go about doing good " recognized at once as the peculiar 
 disciples of His exactest image upon earth ? Do we 
 not measure the degree in which men have deserved the 
 gratitude of their species by the degree in which they 
 have contributed to assuage trouble and diffuse peace ? 
 And what a hoUow and miserable mockery is it then to 
 say that this life was not meant for enjoyment, when 
 to multiply the sum of human enjoyment is felt and 
 proclaimed to be the most virtuous, sacred, obligatory, 
 godlike work in which Life can be spent ! 
 
 Nor is there anything in the example of Christ, con- 
 sidered with its context, which in the least militates 
 
 10 
 
218 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 against this view. Observe, we know only one year or 
 three years of Christ's life. Of the thirty years that pre- 
 ceded his public appearance we know absolutely nothing. 
 Of the brief period of his public career, we know only a 
 few fragmentary facts, selected as illustrating one phase 
 of his character. We have no reason whatever for sup- 
 posing that he did not enjoy life during youth and early 
 manhood. We have no reason whatever for assuming 
 that, before the stern solemnity of his mission threw all 
 softer and gentler emotions into the shade and gradually 
 engrossed his whole Being, he had not relished, with all 
 the intensity of a healthy nature and a sensitive organiza- 
 tion, every innocent pleasure and every holy and serene 
 delight. We have indications, that, even when his soul 
 was absorbed in the terrible grandeur and the toilsome 
 difficulties of the " work which had been given him to do," 
 he was still keenly alive to the exquisite beauties of that 
 world he was to quit so soon, and to the enjoyment oLthat 
 domestic peace to which he could dedicate only moments, 
 so brief and rare. But even were it not so ; even if we 
 had reason to suppose that Jesus of Nazareth, consecrated 
 from his youth to a task that demanded the most unKmit- 
 ed self-sacrifice and the intensest concentration of every 
 faculty and feeling, had no sensibility to spare for the 
 beauty or the bliss of earth ; that 
 
 " He looked on all the joys of Time 
 With imdesiring eyes," — 
 
 the fact would have no practical antagonism to our position. 
 From time to time God raises up individuals, cast, in a 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 219 
 
 special mould, and set apart for a special destiny, vowed to 
 a special work; men whose entire power, thought, sensibil- 
 ities, seem to lie in the channel of their appointed calling, 
 whose mission is their Joy,* the fiery energy of whose pur- 
 pose burns up every other longing, the magnitude of whose 
 glorious aim dwarfs and smothers every other object. Of 
 such Christ was the first and noblest : but such are no 
 gauges or examples for • ordinary men, in ordinary times, 
 with ordinary powers; save in this, that moments and 
 circumstances come to most of us some time in our lives, 
 which, if we are truly noble, we shall seize with gladness, 
 when we, like they, are called upon to forego the lower for 
 the higher ofi&ce ; to remember that though life was given 
 us for enjoyment, it was given us for something nobler- 
 also ; and that the very happiness of which it was designed 
 to be the instrument and the stage can only be conclusive- 
 ly promoted by the willing immolation, when needed, of 
 _ itself" God, through the voice of Nature, calls the mass 
 of men to be happy : He calls a few among them to the 
 grander task of being severely but serenely sad. 
 
 * " Yet there are some to whom a strength is given, 
 A Will, a self-constraining Energy, 
 A Faith that feeds upon no earthly hope, 
 Which never thinks of Victory, combating 
 Because it ought to combat, .... 
 And, conscious that to find in Martyrdom 
 The stamp and signet of most perfect Life 
 Is all the science that Mankind can reach, 
 Rejoicing fights and still rejoicing falls." 
 
 The Combat of Life, by R. M. Milnes. 
 
220 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 The case, however, as thus far stated, is but fragmentary. 
 The happiness of the Human Eace is one of the designs 
 of God, but our own individual happiness must not be 
 made our first or our direct aim. To the mass of men, as 
 a rule, enjoyment will come if we fulfil the laws of our 
 Being ; but it was not for this alone, nor for this first, that 
 Life was given. If we set it before us as our chief object ; 
 if we pursue it with conscious and relentless purpose ; 
 still more if we seek it by any short cuts or private path- 
 ways of our own, or hj any road save that by which Prov- 
 idence has prescribed without engaging that it shall lead 
 to any special or certain goal on earth, we may, or we may 
 not, be happy ; but assuredly we shall have failed in carry- 
 ing out a further design of the Creator, — at least as in- 
 disputable as the first, namely. The Moral Progress and 
 Perfection of the Individual and the Race. Let us not 
 "speak unto ourselves smooth things and prophesy de- 
 ceits." The Cup of Life which God offers to our lips is 
 not always sweet : it is an unworthy weakness to endeavor 
 to persuade ourselves of such a falsehood ; but, sweet or 
 bitter, it is ours to drink it without murmur or demur. It 
 is not true that those who obey the laws of God, and listen 
 to his voice, and follow where he calls, are always thereby 
 taking the surest and directest way to an enjoyed exist- 
 ence : sometimes His finger points in a precisely opposite 
 direction. Often — usually indeed — " he gives happiness 
 in, gives it as what Aristotle calls an hnyvoixevov t€\o? ; 
 but he gives it with a mysterious and uncontrollable 
 Sovereignty ; it is no part of the terms on which He ad- 
 mits us to His service, still less is it the end which we 
 
,THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 221 
 
 may propose to ourselves on entering His service.* Happi- 
 ness he gives to whom He will, or leaves to the Angel of 
 Nature to distribute among those who fulfil the laws on 
 ■which it depends. But to serve God and love him is 
 higher and better than happiness, though it be with 
 wounded feet, and bleeding brow, and hearts loaded with 
 sorrow." 
 
 We have already dwelt enough on our conviction that 
 the progress of humanity, the improvement of the world, 
 the mitigation of its anomalies, the extinction of its woes, 
 the eradication of its vices, — in a word, the realization of 
 the ideal of life, is the great design of God and the great 
 work of man. But though the perfectation of the Race is 
 the great, it is clear that it is not the sole, purpose or sig- 
 nificance of life. The perfectation of the Individual is in- 
 dicated by marks just as obvious. We are sent here and 
 endowed thus, not only to do our utmost for the improve- 
 ment and progress of the world, but to do our utmost also 
 for the development, utilization, purification, and strength- 
 ening of our own individual natures. The riddle of life 
 cannot be even approximately read without this assump- 
 tion. For obedience to the laws of God written on the 
 face of Nature, the cultivation of those virtues and affec- 
 tions whose sacredness is written on our hearts, and on 
 which the beauty and the joy of life depend, lead to such 
 progressive excellence. Moreover the advance and eleva- 
 
 * " Ask we no more, — content with these, 
 Let present comfort, pleasure, ease, 
 As Heaven shall with them, come and go, — 
 The Secret this of Best below." — I^ble. 
 
222 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 tion of Humanity is most surely promoted by whatever 
 wholesomely, harmoniously, and permanently develops the 
 individual man. It is by the enlightened and disinterested 
 service of his feUow-being that he most surely strengthens 
 and idealizes his own nature. He cannot carry forward 
 one of the purposes of Providence without ipso facto con- 
 tributing to the other. And finally, there is one dark page 
 in the philosophy of life which no other creed can irradi- 
 ate. We mean the fact, so perplexing yet so constant, of 
 men whose youth and maturity are spent in struggle and 
 in failure, and who attain wisdom and virtue only at the 
 close of their career ; who begin to see clearly only when 
 clear vision has grown useless ; who become thoroughly 
 qualified for the work of life and the service of humanity 
 just as life is ebbing away and the arena of earthly ac- 
 tivity Js closed to them. Man sometimes seems ordained 
 to spend his allotted span in sharpening his tools and 
 learning how to use them, and to be called out of the 
 workshop the moment his industrial education is complete. 
 If one set of facts points irresistibly to the conclusion 
 that he was sent on earth to do God's work in mending, 
 beautifying, and guiding it, the other more than insinuates 
 the inference that the world is a school where he is to 
 learn his crafty but not the only scene on which he is to 
 practise it, a whetstone on which he is to shape and sharpen 
 his faculties, a sort of corpus vile on which he, is to ex- 
 periment, not for its sake only, but for his own. We 
 accept both conclusions : and probably the inconsistency 
 between them is more apparent than real. If the first 
 design had been the only one or the mo,st pressing, the 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 223 
 
 mode in which it is carried out would indeed be perplex- 
 ingly slow and indirect. Its being interwoven with the 
 second may suggest a clew out of the labyrinth. God 
 meant man to perfect the world in and by perfecting his 
 own nature : for the latter task Man has, perhaps, but 
 this brief fragnient of Time ; for the former, God has the 
 whole long lifetime of the Human Eace. 
 
 Life then is meant for enjoyment and for toil ; but it is 
 meant also that the enjoyment should never be unmingled 
 or supreme, and that the toil should never be wholly re- 
 munerative or successful This is, then, designed to be 
 an imsatisfying world. No handwriting on the wall was 
 ever more startlingly distinct than this. The conclusions 
 of Ecclesiastes are echoed by every man to whom experi- 
 ence has given the faculty and the materials of thought. 
 The intensest joy we have ever felt has been usually so 
 alloyed. The most unalloyed joy we have ever felt has 
 been so passing. 
 
 " Medio de fonte leporum 
 Surgit amari aliquid c[uod ipsis in floribus angat." 
 
 We can fancy, too, so much purer and brighter than we 
 have known. Nay, we have caught glimpses of so much 
 that we could neither grasp nor retain. The actual has 
 been very beautiful ; but it is insufficient in the view of 
 a possible far lovelier still. 
 
 " Science for man unlocks her varied store 
 And gives enough to wake the wish for more. 
 Enough of good to kindle strong desire ; 
 Enough of ill to damp the rising fire ; 
 
224 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Enough of joy and sorrow, fear and hope, 
 
 To fan desire and give the passions scope ; 
 
 Enough of disappointment, sorrow, pain, 
 
 To seal the Wise Man's sentence, ' All is vain,' 
 
 And quench the wish to live those years again ! " 
 
 Then the labors of the ablest and most successful are so 
 disappointing and unfruitful. Of a thousand seeds sown, 
 and watered with blood and tears, only one ripens to the 
 full ear. A thousand soldiers die in the trenches for one 
 who mounts the breach. Half our efforts are in a wrong 
 direction, and the other haK are too clumsy or feeble to 
 attain their aim. No ! if at the close of life we can say 
 we have enjoyed much happiness and done some good, 
 we shall have cause for deep gratitude and humble hope ; 
 but a sense of complacency, of satisfaction, as of a part 
 fulfilled and a work accomplished, can belong to no man 
 "who looks back over his course with a single eye, and in 
 the light of an approaching change. The finer the spirit, 
 the profounder the insight, the more unconquerable is 
 this feeling of disappointment ; an irresistible intimation 
 that this world was not given us to be rested in, to be 
 acquiesced in as the only one, or the brightest one ; a 
 conviction and a suggestion sent to weaken oiir passion- 
 ate attachment to a scene which else it might have been 
 too hard to quit. 
 
 I. 
 
 Finally, we must conclude that the problem of Man's 
 
 Wherefore, Whence, and Whither was meant to be insol- 
 uble. When we reflect upon the number of consummate 
 intellects, gifted with every variety of mental endowment 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 225 
 
 and rich in every moral excellence which gives clearness 
 to the vision and depth to the spiritual intuition, who, age 
 after age, have exhausted thought in fruitless efforts to 
 discern the word of the great Enigma, it seems idle to 
 fancy that we can be more fortunate than they. Centu- 
 ries have added scarcely one new fact to the materials on 
 which reason has to work, nor perfected a single one of 
 the faculties by which that work is to be done. We 
 possess scarcely a single item of knowledge of Divine or 
 of Human Nature which was not as familiar to Plato 
 and to Job as to ourselves : assuredly we have no pro- 
 founder poetic insight than the one, no finer philosophic 
 instrument than the other. "What baffled them may well 
 baffle us also. 
 
 Of the dark riddles and incomprehensive anomalies 
 and strange perplexities of which life is full, some very 
 few we can unravel ; of others we can discern just enough 
 to guess at the solution. The deepest and the saddest 
 must ever remain to try our faith and to grieve our 
 hearts. We see enough to make us believe that there is 
 a solution, and that that solution is such as will accord 
 with the serene perfections of the Godhead. We have 
 light enough to walk by, to tread the few steps that lie 
 immediately before us. We need not then murmur or 
 despair or doubt because we cannot see our way through 
 the thick forest and to the end of the long journey. Sol- 
 diers must often be content to fight their appointed battle 
 without insisting on understanding the whole plan of the 
 campaign. 
 
 That the good are often wretched, and the worthless 
 
 10* o 
 
226 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 prosperous and happy ; that sunshine and sorrow follow 
 no rule of effort or desert ; that the beautiful and noble 
 are cut off in youth, and the stained and mean drag their 
 ignominy through a long career : these things we can con- 
 ceive may be rectified hereafter and elsewhere. That 
 those whose life is devoted to laboring in God's vineyard 
 and carrying out His holy purposes are perpetually called 
 away in the midst of their M'idest usefulness and on the 
 eve of some signal and fruitful victory ; while others 
 whose whole aim seems to be to violate his commands 
 and counterwork his benevolent designs live out their 
 threescore years and ten in mischief and in power, is 
 a puzzle to which even our philosophy can sometimes 
 suggest the key; since history has shown us that the 
 progress of Humanity is now and then best served by 
 the triumph of the bad man and the discomfiture of the 
 good cause. The infinite slowness with which man 
 advances to his final goal ; the feebleness and vacillation 
 with which he works out his allotted destiny; his fre- 
 quent apparent retrogressions into barbarism and iniq- 
 uity ; the ebbs and flows of the tide of civilization : to 
 all these we may be reconciled by the supposition that 
 perhaps the imperfect conditions of our Being render this 
 progress' at once the surest and the fastest possible. But 
 there are stranger and gloomier perplexities than these. 
 There are chastisements that do not chasten; there are 
 trials that do not purify, and sorrows that do not elevate ; 
 there are pains and privations that harden the tender 
 heart without softening the stubborn will ; there is " light 
 that leads astray " ; there are virtues that dig their own 
 
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 227 
 
 grave. There are pure searchers after truth whose martyr 
 spirit has never reached the martyr's crown, whose strug- 
 gle for the light which God has commanded them to seek 
 has only led them into " a land of darkness, as darkness 
 itself, and where the light is as darkness." There are souls 
 to be reckoned by the million, low, grovelling, undeveloped, 
 desperately bad, and which could scarcely, save hy miracle, 
 have been other than they are. What becomes of them ? 
 Why are they here ? What do they mean ? It is hard 
 to find no answer to such questions. It would be yet 
 worse to simulate content with official answers at once 
 inadequate and consciously untrue. 
 
VI. 
 
 DE PROFUNDIS 
 
" Obstinate questionings 
 Of sense and outward things ; 
 Fallings from us, vanishings : 
 Blank misgivings of a creature 
 Moving about in worlds not realized." 
 
 Wordsworth, Intimations of Im/mortality. 
 
DE PEOFUl^DIS. 
 
 IT is not by shirking diificulties that we can remove 
 them or escape them ; nor by evading the perplexing 
 problems of life or speculation that we can hope to solve 
 them ; nor by saying, " Hush, hush ! " to every over-subtle 
 questioner that the question can be answered or the asker 
 silenced. Men cannot go on forever living upon half- 
 exploded shams ; keeping obsolete laws with admittedly 
 false preambles on their Statute-book ; professing creeds 
 only half credited and quite incredible; standing and 
 sleeping on suspected or on recognized volcanoes ; erect- 
 ing both their dwellings and their temples on ice which 
 the first dreaded rays of sunlight they know must melt 
 away. We cannot always keep clouds and darkness 
 round about us ; and it is a miserable condition alike 
 for men and nations to feel dependent upon being able 
 permanently to enforce blindness and maintain silence; 
 to li^'*e as it were intellectually on sufferance ; to shiver 
 under an uneasy semi-consciousness that all their delicate 
 fabrics of Thought and Peace lie at the mercy of . the first 
 pertinacious questioner or rude logician. Yet how ralre is 
 the robust faith or the simple courage which boldly inter- 
 
232 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 rogates the darkness, believing that thus only can the 
 light be reached ! The question may not lead us to the 
 truth ; but at least it saves us from sheltering ourselves 
 behind known or suspected error. 
 
 How few of us sincerely and confidently believe our 
 own creeds either in philosophy or religion ! How sel- 
 dom do we dare either to think them out, or act them 
 out ! Take one example, which opens a wide field of 
 perplexing speculation. 
 
 The received doctrine is that God puts a soul into 
 every human being at his birth, that is, that whenever 
 man makes a body, God makes a soul, or sends a pre- 
 existing soul, to inhabit it ; or that, in some mysterious 
 fashion, with the commencement of earthly life com- 
 mences also the life of an immortal nature. On the 
 assumption, then, of man's free agency (an essential post- 
 ulate of all intelligible reasoning on moral questions), 
 it would seem to lie in man's decision how many souls 
 shall be created or incarnated, and when, and pretty 
 much to what earthly conditions and infiuences. On his 
 determination, or passion, or it may on his indidgence of 
 a momentary appetite, depends the question whether an 
 immortal spirit shall be called into existence, and shall 
 encounter,^ — having no voice in the matter, — not only 
 the risks and sufferings of this short human life, but the 
 incalculable and fearful chances of an unending life to 
 come. Can this really be so ? Are we prepared to adopt 
 this corollary, or rather this plain statement of our belief ? 
 Yet how can we avoid it ? If man has a soul, when else 
 can it come to him except at birth ? If man's act origi- 
 
DE PEOFUNDIS. 233 
 
 nate the soul as well as the body, if the soul be an attri- 
 bute or necessary accompaniment of the body, then this 
 is either materialism, or it makes man the creator of an 
 immortal spirit. He has an unlimited, or at least an 
 indefinite, credit on the Treasury of Spiritual Being. 
 
 There is yet another perplexity that meets us here. 
 The moment of birth is a singularly critical and danger- 
 ous one. Perhaps ovi Me is never in such jeopardy as 
 at its outset. Whether separate existence shall begin, 
 whether the infant shall breathe and live, or sink back 
 into the limbo of inchoate organizations, often depends 
 upon the skill of the midwife, upon a movement, or a 
 stimulus administered in time. Do the awful issues of 
 eternal life really hang upon a thread like this ? 
 
 It will be replied that, as an indisputable fact, we 
 know it does depend pretty much upon man's will or 
 caprice, or the competence of an accoucheur, whether a 
 human being shall be born to the conditions and casual- 
 ties of this earthly life ; and the difficulties surrounding 
 the other problem are only the difficulties surrounding 
 this one, enormously magnified and extended. Well, 
 then, suppose the assumption of man's power to call 
 iromortal beings into existence acquiesced in, — no means 
 of escape from it being apparent, save the purely material 
 hypothesis. We proceed. 
 
 The Calvinist believes that only a small fraction of the 
 human race can be saved, and that the vast residue will 
 be doomed to endless and unspeakable torments; that 
 " strait is the gate and narrow the way that leadeth unto 
 life, and few there be that find it " ; that the elect are 
 
234 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 scanty and the reprobate are legion ; that, of any given 
 number who come into the world, the overwhelming 
 majority will be damned. There is no mistake about it. 
 He does not mince matters. He knows, he believes, he 
 says every day, it is the salient article of his creed, that 
 ninety-nine out of every hundred are predestined to eter- 
 nal suffering ; that, if he has ten children, it is probable 
 that all, it is certain that nearly all, will burn in hell for 
 everlasting ages ; that, in fact, except in cases incalcula- 
 bly rare, his married life is spent in furnishing souls for 
 Satan, poor babies for endless misery and damnation, 
 helpless victims for the wrath of God. If he believed 
 all this, would he ever dare to become a father? If, 
 believing all this, he yet does so dare, where shall we 
 find words strong enough to denounce his hardened and 
 horrible barbarity ? Marriage in itself, the mere condi- 
 tion which renders such consequences possible, must be a 
 sin which no other iniquity can equal. For it cannot be 
 that he believes all his own children wiU be saved. He 
 cannot lay this flattering unction to his conscience. His- 
 creed does not permit him to do so. He knows that the 
 Divine wrath is so consuming, and the Divine mercy 
 so scant, and the rescued so incalculably few, that the 
 chances are almost infinite against any child he has. 
 He cannot imagine, as in worldly matters he might, as in 
 spiritual matters other Christians can, that he may by 
 prayer and training secure the salvation of his children. 
 No ! his creed tells him that all this is settled before- 
 hand, and cannot be affected by any act or negligence of 
 his. Now, if any earthly father knew that probably all 
 
DE PKOFUNDIS. 235 
 
 his children — that assuredly nine out of ten — would he 
 seized by ruthless conscription and sent to drag out their 
 whole lives in the severest anguish, who, with a spark of 
 affection or humanity or decent sense of justice, would 
 ever dream of marriage or paternity ? Yet the Calvinist 
 knows that they are destined irrevocably to a fate im- 
 measurably more horrible and lasting, yet he multiplies 
 without mercy or remorse. Does he believe his creed ? 
 
 Again. Most Christians now adopt a happier and less 
 dishonoring creed. They are beginning more and more 
 to trust in a good God. They profess to believe that 
 Salvation is for all, and within reach of all, though they 
 differ as to the terms of its attainment. They hold that 
 sedulous prayer, and due care in bringing up their chil- 
 dren in the true faith and in sound practices, will, as a 
 rule, secure their eternal existence in indescribable enjoy- 
 ments. Many, an increasing number, stretch their char- 
 ity wider still, and indulge in a more universal hope. 
 They believe — and it seems to uninjured lay intellects 
 a necessary corollary from God's^ goodness that they 
 should believe — that all wiU be ultimately saved, though 
 possibly through much suffering and after various stages 
 of probation ; that of all human creatures who once enter 
 upon earthly life, endless and ineffable felicity will be 
 the certain and final lot : — 
 
 " That not one Life shall be destroyed 
 Or cast as rubbish to the void, 
 When God hath made the pile complete.'' 
 
 It follows that on them is conferred the blessed privi- 
 
236 ENIGMAS OF LIFE.. 
 
 lege of ca,Iling into being nearly as many deferred angels 
 as they please, of creating reversionary heirs of glory 
 and of bliss as surely and as largely as an earthly mon- 
 
 ' arch can create Peers. This beiag their creed (and, 
 granting the original premises we see nothing to gainsay 
 in the inferential superstructure), their logical course of 
 action would seem to be clearly pointed out. They must 
 multiply as fast as they can; not an hour must be 
 
 ' wasted, nor an opportunity lost, nor a possible agent im- 
 employed. Celibacy becomes almost a sin, at the least, 
 a neglect of duty, a foregoing of privilege, a selfish 
 omission of the means of conferring such ultimate happi- 
 ness as we can scarcely dream of here. There can be no 
 need for us to pause to consider whether we can support 
 the children we bring into the world, transmit to them 
 healthy organizations, maintain them in comfort or in 
 life, place them in decent or in morally advantageous 
 positions : ^ all these are matters of very secondary mo- 
 ment ; for what is any amount or severity of transient 
 suffering in a probationary state in comparison with that 
 marvellous and endui;ing felicity which, once in life, is 
 their secure inheritance at last? It may be that the 
 earlier the death the sooner the desired haven can be 
 reached. All that parental care and education can effect 
 is to make their period of suffering- and training termi- 
 nate with this earth. A footing once gained thereon, the 
 rest is a mere question of time, and of the greater or less 
 degree of comfort in which the intervening time is passed 
 before the future angel enters on his inheritance. The 
 greatest benefactor of his species must, therefore, be the 
 
DE PEOFUNDIS. 2/57 
 
 man who is parent of most children, and multiplication 
 be the worthiest function of Humanity. 
 
 Yet who can admit such conclusions ? and who can 
 regard as sound the premises from which they flow ? 
 
 It would seem clear that, in the eyes or according to 
 the doctrine of the orthodox, those who believe that sal- 
 vation is to be obtained certainly, and only, through the 
 name of Christ, procreation must be a sin, or at least a 
 calamity and a cruelty among the heathen, — innocent or 
 virtuous only among the nations of Christendom ; a be- 
 nevolence in England, a barbarity in China or Thibet. 
 
 The pious Theist, who conceives that immortal life is 
 conferred at birth, but that immortal happiness is to be 
 purchased by virtue and desert alone, shoulc^ regard pater- 
 nity as permissible only where virtue is possible, and as 
 rightemis only where virtue is probable. Yet clearly this 
 is not nature's view of the matter, since those classes who 
 are placed in circumstances least favorable to improve- 
 ment and spiritual development usually have the procre- 
 ative habit and faculty the strongest. 
 
 On any theory it is not to be denied that the difEi- 
 culties in the way of those who believe in a future life 
 and a spiritual being are extreme. With our limited 
 capacities and scanty knowledge it could scarcely have 
 been otherwise. Perhaps the following train of thought 
 may do something towards suggesting a solution. If. 
 
238 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 birth be in reality the creation of an undying soul with 
 the alternative of future happiness or misery presented to 
 it, according to its use of this life, and all that man (by 
 Divine permission or connivance) does is to call into 
 existence a candidate for a glorious or a dreadful future, 
 then it is equitably essential that the possibility of the 
 former should be truly within its choice ; that it should 
 be placed in circumstances and endowed with sufficient 
 strength and freedom of voKtion to render its decision 
 really optional; that is, that the better fate should be 
 distinctly attainable by its powers and with its inherited 
 or congenital propensities and dispositions. Can we say 
 that this free choice is bona fide secured to all, or to 
 most ? Yet clearly, if there are human creatures to 
 whom this real option is virtually denied by surrounding 
 conditions, or vicious or defective education, or faulty 
 organization, or innate perverse and ungovernable pro- 
 pensities, or withheld opportunities, then, either they 
 have no soul, or that soul is not immortal, or other lives 
 of fairer probation will be granted them, -or God is in- 
 deed the Being he is represented to be in the blasphemies 
 of so many Christian sects. There seems no way out of 
 this inference. 
 
 Probably, however, what God bestows at birth is a 
 germ, not a finished Entity, — not an immortal soul, but 
 a nature capable of being worked up into a soul worthy 
 of immortality, an organization rich in the strangest and 
 grandest potentialities ; not a possession, but an opportu- 
 nity ; not an inheritance, but the chance of winning one. 
 Perhaps it may be only such natures as develop ade- 
 
DE PEOFUNDIS. 239 
 
 quately and in the right direction in this life, that will be 
 heirs of Heaven, and that aU others may, as it were, never 
 pass beyond the embryonic or earthly stage of existence. 
 The question of their development must depend upon 
 their inherited organizations combined with the aggregate 
 of influences which surround them. Those who believe 
 in the Darwinian theory of evolution, and measure the 
 distance which man has travelled, according to that grand 
 hypothesis, from the Monad to the Saint and the Philoso- 
 pher, need have no difficulty in conceiving the scarcely 
 vaster progress which our suggestion postulates. Yet it 
 cannot be disguised that, even on this supposition, we 
 come upon a tremendous moral perplexity, only less 
 startling than those we have already commented upon. 
 For what awful issues then depend upon the parents, 
 often ignorant, often destitute, often brutal, usually quite 
 insensible or only half awakened to their gigantic respon- 
 sibilities ! It lies with them to say — or rather it is 
 determined by casualties and external circumstances, by 
 organization healthy or morbid, by location, by opportu- 
 nities, by a thousand influences of which they themselves 
 are scarcely more than the victims and the shuttlecocks 
 — whether the children they bring into the world shall 
 be mere mortal creatures or immortal angels. Is this 
 conjecture more credible than those we have discarded ? 
 Indeed, is any conception attractive, or reposing, or truly 
 credible in this " land of darkness, as darkness itself, and 
 where the Light is as darkness " ? 
 
 " Behold, we know not anything." 
 
240 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Another set of speculations, nearly as perplexing, must 
 often have been presented to thoughtful minds. Few 
 travellers trained to appreciate beauty and magnificence 
 in all their manifestations can have surveyed the gorgeous 
 temples in which the early Indians and Egyptians en- 
 shrined their grotesque idols and their strange concep- 
 tions of Deity, without the half-involuntary exclamation, 
 " Thank God for a false religion ! or at least for the mar- 
 yellous productions it has inspired." The same sentiment 
 rises still more irresistibly in the minds of cultivated 
 Christians, when standing in the plains of Baalbec or 
 Palmyra, by the waste shores of Paestum, or at the foot 
 of the unrivalled Parthenon, and thinking what sort of 
 gods were they whose worship suggested those exquisite 
 monuments to the finest races of the Ancient World, and 
 carried taste almost to inspiration: "Thank God for a 
 false religion ! " A similar impression forces just the 
 same utterance from the zealous Protestant, if he be a 
 man of culture as well as zeal, as he comes forth from the 
 Duomo of Florence or Milan, from St. Mark's at Venice 
 or St. Peter's at Eome, and marvels at the glorious struct- 
 ures which intense devotion to what he deems little less 
 than anti-Christian faith could rear in the dark days of 
 Catholic supremacy. "Thank God," he exclaims, "for 
 a false religion ! " And then as he turns homeward, and 
 stands lost in admiration near the front of Salisbury, or 
 Westminster, or Lincoln, or any other of our own cathe- 
 drals, he hears his phrase echoed at his side by. the Meth- 
 odist or Eanter, issuing from a bare, unlovely, whitewashed 
 Bethel in a neighboring alley, wdio, half shocked at the • 
 
DE PKOFUNDIS. 241 
 
 •unholy thought, can yet scarcely deny that even the 
 surpassing purity of his own creed does but imperfectly 
 atone for the comparatively wretched house of God in 
 which it has to be repeated. The contrast between the 
 temples inspired by the false faith and the true is painful 
 even to him. 
 
 But false religions have inspired grander monuments 
 than temples and cathedrals, and demand our gratitude for 
 achievements of a nobler character. They have been the 
 parents of courage, obedience, endurance, and self-sacrifice. 
 In proportion to the measure of their truth, according to 
 the tenets of their creeds and the fancied attributes of 
 their Deities, they "have guided for good or evil the morals 
 of mankind ; but they have given to their votaries power 
 to do and to bear, with little direct reference to the char- 
 acteristics of the faith itself. Often the gods worshipped 
 have been hideous, monstrous, impossible, immoral ; often 
 the doctrines held have been revolting and maleficent; 
 often the purest faiths have been disfigured by the most in- 
 congruous corruptions : but good or bad, true or false, they 
 have nearly all had one feature in common, — the faculty 
 they inspired of dethroning the present and suppressing 
 self The direction of their influence has been determined 
 by their essence ; the amount of that influence, their motive 
 power over humanity, has been in proportion to the abso- 
 luteness of the credence they commanded. They have 
 inspired the sublimest virtues and the most frightful 
 crimes ; but men have died and slain with about equal 
 confidence for all alike ; all alike have had their martyrs 
 and their heroes ; life, ease, pleasure, earthly possessions 
 11 r 
 
242 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 have been readily sacrificed by the devotees of every 
 faith, at the dictate of its authorities and in the certainty 
 of its rewards. In thanking God for false religions, 
 therefore, as for true ones, we are grateful for that which 
 is common to them aU, — the power they possess of in- 
 spiring human fortitude and human effort. 
 
 Eecognizing, then, that many false religions have exer- 
 cised in some respects an elevating influence on mankind, 
 and that others, in which truth and error are mingled in 
 various proportions, still largely operate for good, we per- 
 ceive, too, that in all cases they have this strengthening 
 and ennobling grace, mainly if not entirely, hecaiise they 
 are firmly held, because no doubt mingles with the faith 
 of the worshipper, or impairs the blind simplicity of his 
 devotion. If he had any misgivings he could not " greatly 
 dare or nobly die." It is only his certainty that sends 
 him to the battle-field, or sustains him at the stake, or 
 enables him to bear up through the long and weary mar- 
 tyrdom of life. The veiy salt of his religion to him lies 
 in his absolute conviction of its truth. If he were not 
 positively certain of its divine origin and sanctions, it 
 would lose its magic hold upon his actions and emotions. 
 Now, it is precisely this certainty (to which all religions 
 pretend and which is essential to the influence of them 
 all) which, nevertheless, thoughtful and sincere minds 
 know to be the one element of falsehood, the one untrue 
 dogma, common to them aU. They may differ on eveiy- 
 thing else ; the Gods they proclaim may be as discrepant 
 as light and darkness, the articles of their creed may be 
 very approximately true or very manifestly false, their 
 
DE PEOFUNDIS.. 243 
 
 codes of morals may be severally beneficent or noxious, the 
 spirit breathing through them may be the loveliest or the 
 harshest ; but they all agree in affirming that their faith 
 came to them by more or less direct revelation from on 
 High, admits of no question, and contains no flaw. In 
 this they all lie (all except one, at least, every one admits) ; 
 the votaries of each believe that all others lie except 
 their own ; philosophers insist that there is and can be 
 no exception. We Europeans know that the Orientals 
 err in maintaining that Buddha or Vishnu was incarnated 
 in this form or in that, and taught the true faith to man. 
 We Christians know that Jupiter and Minerva never 
 appeared in human shape to give consistence and sanc- 
 tion to the Pagan creeds. We Jews are certain that the 
 law given to Moses on Mount Sinai was never abrogated 
 by a later and sublimer prophet. We Protestants know 
 that the Holy Spirit never dictated to the successors of 
 St. Peter the strange dogmas of salvation which those 
 successors are now issuing in its name to votaries who 
 are bound to accept them as absolute and certain truth. 
 We Unitarians and other Dissidents entirely repudiate 
 many of the doctrines which the English Church submis- 
 sively receives from councils and congresses at which the 
 Spirit of the Most High was asserted to preside ; and 
 what the orthodox regard as certain we reject as utterly 
 unsound. And finally, we Philosophers and men of sci- 
 ence know, with a conviction at least as positive as that 
 of any of these Believers, that they are all wrong, that no 
 such dicta have ever been delivered, and that no such 
 knowledge about the Unknowable can be ever reached. 
 
244 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 It is, therefore, juSt this special claim to certainty (to 
 absolute, authoritative truth) which is the inspiring and life- 
 giving power of all religions, which is also the one false ele- 
 ment common to them all. Here then is the startling con- 
 clusion alluded to at the outset. It seems to follow that 
 error is necessary to float and vivify truth, that religions 
 hold and exercise their mighty and elevating sway over 
 human imagination and volition by virtue of the one 
 fundamental assumption or assertion common to them all, 
 and which in all alike is false.* 
 
 The matter lies in very small compass, and a few words 
 will do as well as many to state it. True religions — that 
 is, religions destitute of this one indispensable false dogma 
 — would not suffice either to guide, support, inspire, or 
 
 * It wotdd lead us too far from our immediate subject to discus3 
 how much the errors mingled with the belief of the ordinary Chris- 
 tian world aided the spread of Christianity at the outset, and serve 
 to give currency and acceptance to it now. Many of these, which 
 we may term amcilia/ry errors, would of course he denied to be en'ors 
 by the orthodox ; but there is one which has long been recognized 
 and proved to be such, as to which there can be no dispute. Prob- 
 ably, of all the secondary causes which contributed to the rapid ad- 
 vance of Christianity in the early times, and gave it its wonderful 
 power over the conduct of believers, none was so effective as the 
 doctrine which it preached — and which appears to have been univer- 
 sally accepted both by Apostles and Disciples — of the approaching 
 end of the world. No other conviction could have so transformed 
 (as we know that it did transform) the whole nature and views of 
 those who held it. Yet none could be more erroneous. [See " Creed 
 
DE PEOFUNDIS. 245 
 
 restrain men, as men now are, nor to fascinate their imagi- 
 nations, nor to command their unhesitating allegiance 
 and submission. Their imperfect culture, and their low 
 stage of intelligence need and demand absolute certainty 
 and positive dogma. Doctrines which resulted from a 
 mere balance of probabilities, which were, and avowed 
 themselves to be, simply the conclusions of mature and 
 enlightened reason, would have no adequate hold on their 
 belief. Laws of conduct laid down as imperative, merely 
 as being conformable to the sound instincts of sound 
 natures, and as plainly conducive or indispensable to the 
 good of mankind and of themselves in the long run, would 
 have no adequate hold on their obedience. The uncul- 
 tured mass of mankind — especially in crises of passion 
 — will neither be moved nor curbed by being told, or even 
 convinced, " If you act thus or thus you will contravene 
 the purposes of your Creator, and injure your fellow- 
 
 of Cihristendom," pp. 181 and 270.] Macaulay has a striking passage 
 in one of his earliest writings, depicting the marvellous aid which the 
 anthropomorphism, early imported into Christian conceptions, ren- 
 dered to the progress of the new faith. (" Essays," I. p. 22.) " God, 
 the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, attracted few 
 worshippers. A Philosopher might admire so noble a conception, 
 but the crowd turned away in disgust from words which presented 
 no image to their minds. It was before the Deity embodied in a 
 human form, walking among men, partaking of their infirmities, 
 leaning on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering in 
 the manger, bleeding on the cross, — that the prejudices of the 
 Syns^ogue, and the doubts of the Academy, and the pride of the 
 Portico, and the fasces of the Lictor, and the swords of thirty legions 
 were humbled in the dust." 
 
246 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 creatures and yourself." They need (what, indeed, in 
 ultimate analysis is merely the same assertion in a coarser 
 and more concrete form) the announcement, " God spake 
 these words and said," and, "Heaven or hell will he 
 your portion according as you observe them or disobey 
 them." They can realize and bow down before a revela- 
 tion which was issued from a cloud or behind a veil, amid 
 thunder and darkness, and uttered in their own vernacular 
 by a human or anthropomorphic voice, — all which acces- 
 saries should in truth be felt as so many reasons for dis- 
 trusting it ; but a revelation whispered by the still small 
 voice of the Most High to the purified consciences and 
 the exercised reason of the selected sages of the race, 
 seems to them announced on mere human authority, and 
 is set at naught at pleasure. The sages, therefore, to whom 
 such religious and legislative wisdom has been vouchsafed 
 — unless their love of truth transcended their love of 
 power and their desire to serve mankind — have habitu- 
 ally clothed the revelations made to them with the needed 
 orthodox conventional accompaniments ; have falsified 
 their creed in order to float it ; have alloyed their pure 
 metal with earthly admixture to make it workable ; and 
 have borrowed for the sacred vision of the Prophet the 
 fallacious but indispensable imprimatur of the Priest. 
 Even among communities far removed from that ruder 
 stage when material manifestations of the divinity are in 
 favor, something of the same want is felt, and is supplied 
 in something of the same fashion. The sluggishness and 
 love of pleasure of even comparatively cultivated men 
 need exaggeration respectively to stimulate or to control 
 
DE PBOFUNDIS. 247 
 
 them. A faith, which was avowedly but the outcome of 
 what the highest human intelligences could discover or 
 divine, would never be clung to with credence absolute 
 enough to take men to the stake in its behalf ; scarcely 
 even to the battle-field, if the battle had not an attraction 
 of its own. A cause, however good and noble, valued only 
 as sober thinkers would value it, — regarded as probMy 
 and on the whole beneficent, as philosophers would express 
 their tepid allegiance, — would not inspire sufficient en- 
 thusiasm to make men either toil through a laborious life 
 or brave a painful death. How few are the aims which it 
 is not necessary to oi)erestimate, if we are to work for them 
 devotedly or to suffer for them gladly ! How few are not 
 indebted for their commanding fascinations to the merci- 
 ful disguises, or the beautifying draperies, or the glorifying 
 halos, or the magnifying mists which our fancy or our 
 ignorance throws round them ! 
 
 A corollary would seem to flow from the above reflec- 
 tions which sounds questionable, but the fallacy lurking 
 in which — if it be fallacious — is not easy to perceive. 
 The time, we hope, will come (and to hasten its arrival 
 should be the aim of all the wise and good) when man- 
 kind win have advanced so far beyond their present 
 moral and intellectual stage, that true religion wiU be as 
 receivable and as influential as false religion is now ; 
 when error and exaggeration and misstatements as to its 
 origin and sanctions wiU no longer be essential to its 
 dominion over the minds of men. But since, in the 
 mean time, religions require for their efficacy the element 
 of untruth of which we have spoken, in exact proportion 
 
248 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 to the ignorance, torpor, and want of enlightenment 
 which prevail in the world, how far may it not he per- 
 missihle, perhaps our duty, tacitly to accept, to acquiesce 
 in, or possibly even to preach this fundamental but indis- 
 pensable misrepresentation ? Was the old system of 
 esoteric creeds worthy of the unmeasured condemnation 
 heaped upon it in more ardent days ? May it not some- 
 times be incumbent upon those whose function it is to 
 direct the religious conceptions of a nation to teach doc- 
 trines or histories they do not believe, or at least to 
 assume and to uphold that lying legend which serves as 
 the basis of so much invaluable truth, — of truth, more- 
 over, that would not hold its ground among the mass of 
 men, if the unsoundness of its basis were laid bare ? 
 The question is not one of speculative casuistry. It repre- 
 sents a sad and mast real perplexity to thousands of 
 conscientious minds. Probably the one safe practical 
 conclusion in the matter will be this : to leave the falla- 
 cious foundation, even though a pervading error, alone, 
 
 — so long as no noxious superstructure is built upon it, 
 
 — so long as the falsehood is not thrust upon us as the 
 gem and essence of the creed, — so long as it is not 
 called up to warrant dishonoring views of God, doctrines 
 adverse to human happiness and progress, mental fetters 
 and darkness, or priestly insolence or cruelty. It is not 
 that we would give even a momentary countenance to 
 that purely political conception of religion which regards 
 the Ten Commandments as a sort of "cheap defence" 
 of property and life, God Almighty as an ubiquitous and 
 unpaid Policeman, and HeU as a self-supporting jail, a 
 
DE PEOFUNDIS. 249 
 
 penal settlement at the Antipodes ; but that in the best 
 creeds as held and promulgated by their wisest votaries, 
 the truth they contain is .so noble and beneiicent, and the 
 error so nearly confined to the original false assumption at 
 the root, that the balance of good influence is incalculable. 
 
 " Thou that after toil and storm 
 
 Mayest seem to have reached a purer air, 
 Whose faith has centre everywhere, 
 Nor cares to fix itself to form, 
 
 " Leave thou thy sister, when she prays, 
 Her early Heaven, her happy views ; 
 Nor thou with shadowed hints confuse 
 A life that leads melodious days. 
 
 " Her faith through form is pure as thine, 
 Her hands are quicker unto good : 
 O, sacred be the flesh and blood 
 To which she linlca a truth divine ! " 
 
 Tennyson, In Menumam. 
 
 One more " cry out of the depths," in reference to the 
 oldest and perhaps darkest perplexity of all, — Prayer. 
 
 The instinct of prayer, of appeal for help in difficulty 
 and rescue in peril, is an inevitable consequence and cor- 
 relative of belief in God, in a Being who can hear and 
 answer, who has made us and who cares for the creatures 
 He has made. It flows from the consciousness of our 
 inferiority and His superiority, of our helplessness and 
 His power. It is an original and nearly irresistible in- 
 stinct, precisely similar to that which makes the child 
 u* 
 
250 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 run to the mother, and the feeble cling to and entreat the 
 strong. We can scarcely imagine its extinction. We 
 cannot picture to ourselves what our nature would be if 
 it were extinguished. Yet reason and reflection, science 
 and logic, set their face steadily against it, strive to prove 
 the instinct unphilosophical, and are forever at work 
 paring the doctrine of the efficacy of prayer away. We 
 cannot gainsay them, yet we are unable, cordially and 
 conclusively, to accept their conclusions or to act upon 
 them. Here, as so often in our deeper investigations, 
 we are taught the hard lesson of intellectual humility, 
 by finding corollaries which we cannot admit flowing 
 clearly and strictly from premises which we cannot deny. 
 The absurdity of Prayer to God, with any belief in its 
 efficacy, comes out most strongly in the practice — which 
 dates from the rudest ages and has survived unbroken to 
 our own — of two armies, on the eve of battle, each 
 appealing to the same God of Hosts to crown their arms 
 with victory. There was sense, or at least consistency, in 
 this in the days when the gods were national deities, rival 
 celestial powers, each of which had his special protdgds 
 and votaries. No words can do adequate jiistice to the 
 incoherence of the practice now. Two vast crowds of 
 men, trusting in the same Saviour and worshipping the 
 same God, professing a religion which most solemnly 
 denounces the bad passions raging in their bosoms and 
 the special crime they are about to consummate, draw 
 their swords, load their muskets, range their cannon, and 
 while awaiting the signal to commence their mutual 
 slaughter, kneel down, in all faith and earnestness, to 
 
DE PKOFUNDIS. 251 
 
 implore the Lord who has condemned slaughter to ren- 
 der their special slaughter efficacious. Both sets of com- 
 batants seek to enlist the Lord on their side, believing, or 
 rather unconsciously assuming, that He is altogether such 
 a one as themselves; believing their cause to be just, 
 they trust that He will favor it ; fancying also, obviously, 
 that, even though it be just. He may not favor it unless 
 specially entreated to do so; assuming, too (unconsciously 
 again), that He is mutable, impressible, persuadable, and 
 can be worked upon by our prayers to do that which He 
 would not have done without them ; that is, either to 
 take a different view of the case from that which He 
 would otherwise have taken, or give victory to a cause 
 which, though righteous. He would not otherwise have 
 made to win ; to change sides in short. 
 
 But the prayer of Armies to the Lord of Hosts is often 
 far more than this, where it is fervent, and really expects 
 to be efficacious or to weigh one iota of a grain in the 
 scale of His eternal purposes. It is a bona fide petition, 
 almost sublime in its unthinking nawete, that He wiU 
 interpose to prevent the genius of the opposing generals, 
 the sagacity and topographical knowledge and professional^ 
 care and foresight of the opposing staff, and the organ- 
 izing skill of the enemy's minister of war, and the dry- . 
 ness of the enemy's powder, and the excellence of the 
 enemy's artillery, and the superiority of the enemy's 
 numbers, from producing their natural, allotted, and 
 legitimate results; and, further, that He wiU interfere 
 to prevent the stupidity, cowardice, sluggishness of the 
 suppliants, and the ineptitude and knavery of their 
 
252 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 chiefs, from reaping the fruits which a righteous decree 
 has from all time assigned to turpitude and incapacity. 
 Viewed in this light, the prayer becomes something like 
 an insult. Viewed in any light, it is simply a request 
 that the All-wise and All-mighty Euler of the Universe 
 will work, not a miracle, hut a series of miracles, will 
 suspend the whole sequence of cause and effect on which 
 the world depends and on which the actions of men are 
 calculated, to meet a casual crisis in the affairs of one 
 small section of His undeserving creatures. Even in 
 those cases where all human sympathies go with the 
 suppliants, where feeble but indisputable right is on 
 the point of being crushed by overwhelming might, the 
 prayer is still for a miraculous suspension of that per- 
 vading law in virtue of which Might, which observes the 
 conditions of success, reigns paramount on earth over 
 Eight, which neglects or fails to fulfil them. In specify- 
 ing these military prayers, we have taken the most start- 
 ling case, and the one which admits of being most broadly 
 stated ; but a thousand others are virtually as illogical, 
 though not quite so revolting to human reason. 
 
 Yet, in the common affairs, of life, prayer — that is, a 
 request for the aid of those wiser or more powerful than 
 ourselves, and confident reliance on that aid — is our daily 
 practice, and one of the means on the operation of which 
 we most confidently count, and which we distinctly rec- 
 ognize to be perfectly logical and sane. Why, then, is it 
 permitted by philosophy to pray to man, and not to pray 
 to God ? Why is it rational io entreat a tyrant to spare 
 
DE PROFUNDIS. 253 
 
 his victim, yet irrational to pray that God will incline 
 that tyrant's heart to spare him ? Why is it philosophical, 
 when I am drowning, to beseech a fellow-student on the 
 shore to fling a rope and save me, yet unphilosophical to 
 pray to the Deity, equally present and immeasurably 
 abler, to grant me such assistance ? Why, when I am 
 sick unto death, may I send for a skilful physician to 
 cure me secundum artem, yet may not expect Providence 
 to heal me by a (far easier and simpler) word ? Clearly 
 and solely, it would seem, because men are persuadable, 
 and God is not ; because, in the case where human aid is 
 implored, the appeal is a vera causa ; it can make the ty- 
 rant, the friend, or the physician do what otherwise he 
 would not have done. - Take the last instance as the sim- 
 plest one. Thus, — I am ill of a malady which, according 
 to the unchecked operation of those natural and eternal 
 laws which men have studied, and on which they base all 
 their calculations, must prove fatal. I pray that the cup 
 may pass from me, taking no other step, and God heals 
 me. , In this case, not only has a miracle been worked, 
 but an entire derangement of the regular current course 
 of events has been brought about (for one event cannot be 
 changed without operating on all others) ; not only has 
 all past analogy, by which men guide their actions, been 
 set at naught and the laws of natural sequence suspended 
 for my behoof, but as my recovery, when I ought to have 
 died, wiU affect and modify the lot of every one connected 
 with me in the remotest degree, the hearing of my prayer 
 has introduced an entirely new and endless range of con- 
 sequent events, has negatived the Past and disturbed the 
 
254 ENIGMAS OF- LIFE. 
 
 Future. But once again, — I am ill of a fatal malady, 
 curable only by one rare drug. I purchase it from a 
 druggist, and I live. I pray a friend learned in the deeper 
 secrets of chemistiry to confide to me the hidden elixir ; 
 he does so, and I am saved. In all this there is no trans- 
 gression or suspension of natural law, hut simple conform- 
 ity to it. It is in the course of nature that medicines 
 heal ; it is in the course of nature that friends listen and 
 assist. The law of nature is, that if the medicine is not 
 administered, I die ; that if it is administered, I live ; that 
 a friend, if a persuadable being, listens to my entreaties. 
 In this case the prayer is a causa causaiis ; it has so acted 
 on Uie diTiggist or the friend as to make him do what oth- 
 erwise he would not have done ; he was so made as to be 
 so acted upon ; an antecedent which I applied has been 
 followed by its appointed and natural sequence. This 
 reasoning would seem sound. It is certainly in conform- 
 ity with the instinctive and habitual convictions on which 
 we act, anci must act, in our daily life. 
 
 If this reasoning is sound, it would seem to follow that 
 the Catholic Church, in sanctioning the invocation of saints, 
 has hit upon the one form of prayer which is logical and 
 philosophic. Assuming the possibility of communication 
 between the living and the spirits who have passed away 
 from earth, and assuming further that those spirits, now 
 endowed with the knowledge and the power belonging to 
 a higher life, still retain something of the affections and 
 preferences of their former state, and favor and protect 
 their votaries, then there is nothing irrational in calling 
 
DE PEOFUNDIS. 255 
 
 upon them to aid and bless us. They, though translated 
 to supernal spheres, and gifted with larger faculties, are 
 stUl supposed to be imperfect creatures, and not yet par- 
 takers of the Divine Nature. They may, therefore, with- 
 out irrationality, be supposed amenable to human entreat- 
 ies and capable of being moved to exert their super-earthly 
 powers for the beneiit of those who adore and trust them. 
 Praying to them is, in fact, just like praying to fellow- 
 beings of a superior order, only stiU more gloriously en- 
 dowed than any earthly friends, and still more advantage- 
 ously placed for answering the claims of the suppliants. 
 
 But again : Is the above reasoning quite without sus- 
 picion of a flaw ? If, as philosophers have maintained, 
 we all and always live under the dominion of settled law ; 
 if the present in all points flows regularly and inexorably 
 from the past ; if all occurrences are linked together in 
 one unfailing chain of cause and efiect, and all are fore- 
 seen by Him whose foresight is unerring ; if, indeed, they 
 are mere portions of an order of events of which the mo- 
 tive power has been set in action from the beginning; 
 then is not aid rendered to us by our human friends in 
 conseqiience of our entreaties, as an effect of that cause, as 
 much a disturbance of the ordained Law of Sequence as 
 if God himself had directly aided us in compliance with our 
 prayers to Him ? In working out the prearranged order 
 of the Universe, men surely are His agents just as much 
 as winds and waves ; to pray to Him to still the latter 
 lest they overwhelm us, is admitted to be unphOosophical, 
 as implying the expectation that a miracle, an interference 
 
256 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 with the laws of nature, should he worked on our behalf ; 
 to pray to Him to turn the hearts of cruel men lest they 
 should slay us, is admitted to he equally, though less ob- 
 viously, unphilosophic for the same reason. Yet would 
 either result be more a disturbance of established sequences 
 than our being spared or saved by human interposition, 
 if that interposition be, really and truly, caused by our 
 prayers, and would not have taken place withotit them ? 
 Is it not the inescapable conclusion from all this ratioci- 
 nation, that we are on these subjects dealing with ques- 
 tions which either our imperfect logical instruments are 
 inadequate to handle, or in which our premises are incom- 
 plete or uncertain ; and in reference to which, therefore, 
 all our reasoning processes land us in contradictions or 
 inadmissibilities ? In fine, we are surrounded with mys- 
 teries, our own origin and existence being the most obvi- 
 ous of them all ; mysteries we cannot clear up or escape 
 from ; mysteries as to which, however, we have one plain 
 duty, namely, since we cannot solve them, firmly to resist 
 the temptation (which is the besetting sin of the undisci- 
 plined religious mind) of acquiescing in the pretended 
 solutions offered to us in such abundance by those to 
 whom a state of douht is a state of torture ; who rebel- 
 liously clamor for that- certainty which, in moral ques- 
 tions. Providence has vouchsafed only to negations ; and 
 who find it easier to worship a created Idol than an 
 unknown God. 
 
 Probably to every experienced as to every disciplined 
 mind, the one effective silencer and discourager of prayer 
 
DE PKOFUNDIS. 257 
 
 is the conviction, which we all accept but can rarely real- 
 ize, that we constantly pour forth our most fervent sup- 
 plications for what not only we ought not to obtain, and 
 for what it would not conduce to our well-being to obtain, 
 but for what in a year or a month, perhaps, we may be 
 most thankful we did not obtain, or most wretched if we 
 did. To grant our prayers would, we weU know, be often 
 the greatest uhkindness God could do us. We know so 
 little what would make us happy, or what would do us 
 good. If we saw a little truer, a little deeper, or a lit- 
 tle further, we should pray to be delivered from the fate 
 we are now passionately praying to attain, as from the 
 worst of earthly evils. To pray for this or that blessing 
 with the proviso, " if it be good for us," is superfluous, for 
 our creed is that God will always give His children what 
 He sees to be good for them. To pray without this proviso 
 may be, and often is, suicidally entreating for a curse. 
 What blind work, then, prayer is ! unless confined to the 
 simple, monotonous cry, " Thy wiU be done ! " And then 
 as a Prayer how needless is that, though as a sentiment 
 of trust and resignation, how needful ! * In fine, perhaps 
 
 * '' Still raise for good the supplicating voice, 
 
 Bnt leave to Heaven the measure and the choice ; 
 Safe in His hands whose eye discerns afax 
 The secret ambush of a specious prayer. 
 Implore His aid ; in His decisions rest ; 
 Secure whate'er He gives, He gives the best. 
 But when a sense of sacred Presence fires, 
 And strong devotion to the skies aspires. 
 Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, 
 Obedient passions, and a will resigned ; 
 
 Q 
 
258 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 the only prayer that the wise can offer, confident that it 
 would be weU for us it should he heard, must be reduced 
 to this : " Guide us aright, and deliver us from evil " ! 
 Whatsoever is more than this cometh of a faulty judg- 
 ment and a fainting will. 
 
 For Love, whicli scarce collective Man can fill, 
 For patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill. 
 For faith, that panting for a purer seat. 
 Counts Death kind Nature's signal for retreat, — 
 These gifts for all the laws of heaven ordain, 
 These gifts He grants who grants the power to gain j 
 With these celestial wisdom calms the mind. 
 And makes the happiness she cannot find." 
 
 Johnson's Vanity of Human Wislies. Paraphrased 
 from the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. ' 
 
vn. 
 
 ELSEWHERE 
 
ELSEWHEEE. 
 
 THE belief in a future world, in a prolonged or 
 renewed existence after death, is sincerely held by 
 ninety-nine men out of every hundred among us, even in 
 the educated classes, however unable they may be to give 
 a reason for the faith that is in them, or even to say how 
 they came by it. They may not realize this future, but 
 they do not doubt it, and they would be surprised and 
 shocked to hear it questioned. Yet ninety-nine out of 
 every hundred habitually act and feel as if they had for- 
 gotten the doctrine, or had never entertained it. Why is 
 this ? "Why is it that the other world exercises so slight 
 an influence, and lets in so faint a light, on this ? Why 
 do the promises and rngnaces of the life to come operate 
 so partially and languidly on the feelings and the actions 
 of the life that is? How is it that the attractions of 
 Heaven compete at such a fearful disadvantage with those 
 of Earth ? How is it that hopes and fears which come 
 to us magnified through the dread telescope of Eternity 
 are so feebly felt, in comparison with the trivial and 
 transient interests of this "narrow sand and shoal of 
 Time " ? We are 
 
262 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 " Beings holding large discourse, 
 Looking before and after" ; 
 
 the histories we read, the scenes we tread, the skies which 
 nightly remind us of the illimitable wonders of Creation, 
 all proclaim in language too clear to be misread, too elo- 
 quent to be unheard, the infinite littleness and shortness 
 of what is visible and earthly, and the infinite grandeur 
 and superiority of what is enduring and divine ; the earth 
 is strewed with the ruins of things on which man had 
 accumulated whatever could insure stability and perma- 
 nence ; its surface is written all over with lessons of the 
 transitoriness of all human interests and human works. 
 Of the richest and mightiest cities of the ancient world 
 the only surviving indications are the Temples and the 
 Tombs : their dwellings, their palaces, their theatres, have 
 disappeared, — all the magnificent structures of their genius 
 and their pride, save those erected to the memory of the 
 Dead, or the worship of the Undying ! " Passing away " 
 is written on everything this world contains ; yet we sit 
 amidst its consentaneous and emphatic teachings, unable 
 to lay to heart its single fiioral, engrossed with the shal- 
 low interests of a few brief moments in a passing life, 
 with the immortal Stars above us, and the Sepulchres 
 of Nations at our feet ! We are aU conscious of this 
 startling disproportion between the relative magnitude of 
 the two sets of objects and our relative absorption in 
 them : how intent we are upon the one, how neglectful 
 of the other ! Divines reproach our insensibility as a sin ; 
 and we ourselves acknowledge it with an alternate sigh 
 of regret, and stare of half-incredulous wonder. Where, 
 
ELSEWHEKE. 263 
 
 then, are "we to look for the explanation of this strange 
 irrationality ? Why are the joys of the world to come so 
 feeble to attract, and its terrors so impotent to restrain ? 
 
 Can it be attributable to unbelief? With some, no 
 doubt, this is the principal operative cause. They have 
 no real firm faith in futurity ; they admit it, but it dwells 
 upon their mind in too nebulous a shape ever to attain to 
 the dignity, or to bear the fruits, of a conviction. What 
 they see and know, therefore, appeals to them with a 
 cogency which can never appertain to what they merely 
 conjecture. On what principles of sense or wisdom 
 should they forego a pleasure that is immediate and cer- 
 tain for a joy, even far greater, that is future, distant, and 
 dim, if not problematical ? Between a certainty and a 
 contingency the conflict is enormously unequal But it 
 is not of these men that we are speaking. There are 
 thousands who fancy their belief in Heaven and its coun- 
 terpart is positive, dogmatic, and established ; over whose 
 conviction no shade of doubt has ever passed ; to whom 
 (theoretically at least) the day of Judgment is as real as 
 the grave, and the immortality of the Soul as certain as 
 the death of the body; whose hopes are never dimmed by 
 the clouds which haunt our hours of weakness and reac- 
 tion ; whom no subtle questionings, no dark misgivings 
 waylay and assail, to shatter and paralyze their energies ; 
 and yet upon whose actual sentiments, estimates, state 
 of mind, and course of action, the beckoning effulgence 
 from Heaven or the beacon-fire of Hell have scarce more 
 influence than had upon the ancient world the chill and 
 pallid moonlight of Elysium or the shadowy tortures of 
 
264 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 the poetic Tartarus. It is not that they are not steadfast 
 believers in these solemn futurities: if you question 
 them, they would class them among the most absolute 
 certainties they know. It is not that for a moment their 
 reason places the pleasures or the pains of earth in com- 
 parison with the incalculable retributions of another 
 world", or that their nature is too uncultured to appre- 
 ciate the immeasurable overbalance of an infinite rever- 
 sion over a finite actuality. Some other explanation 
 must be sought for. 
 
 Can it be found in Man's weak imagination, in the 
 feebleness of his faculty of realization ? Is it that he 
 cannot fully picture to himself, or bring home to his 
 bosom, things so distant and unseen? Is it that, fully 
 admitting them, he cannot feel them ? that, though con- 
 victions of the understanding, they have not become 
 realities to the heart? No doubt, in a multitude of 
 instances this is the true solution of the enigma. The 
 conceptions of most of us are duU ; the power of -pre- 
 senting the future to our minds (in the accurate and 
 analyzed sense of the expression), of making it present 
 to us, of " seeing Him who is invisible," is a faculty 
 whose strength depends greatly on training, which is 
 vouchsafed to different individuals in very different 
 measure, and to most of us in very scanty measure. It 
 is a faculty, even, which, in its complete development, is, 
 as previously pointed out, a most perilous endowment, 
 and probably scarcely compatible with sanity. Eventu- 
 alities, too, however certain, of which both the time and 
 the locality are unknown, and of which the natxire is not 
 
ELSEWHERE. 265 
 
 easily conceivaMe, can seldom take a hold proportioned to 
 tlieir magnitude upon minds blunted by living in a world 
 of sense and daily dealing with objective realities alone. 
 
 With the vast majority of nominal believers, no doubt, 
 the future is ineffective by reason of its distance, the 
 present overpowering by reason of its nearness. Their 
 will is too feeble, their powers of self-control too little 
 raised above the savage state, to postpone a present in- 
 dulgence to a future good, to dread a distant agony more 
 than an immediate pang, to forego an actual trifle for a 
 grand reversion. These are the men who sink into luxury 
 and sloth from sheer inability to look forward till the 
 morrow and provide against need, who do evil " because 
 sentence against it is not executed speedily." But there 
 are millions to whom this explanation will not apply; 
 who spend their life in sowing the seed for a remote 
 harvest ; who practise daily self-denial for the purchase of 
 some contingent and eventual good ; whose whole career 
 is a laborious provision for an earthly morrow quite as 
 distant and far more uncertain than the heavenly one. 
 They sacrifice themselves for a posthumous fame which 
 will not be theirs ; they lay by comforts for an old age 
 which in all likelihood they wiU never reach; they accu- 
 mulate, by the surrender of all the enjoyments and amen- 
 ities of life, a splendid endowment for the family they 
 hope to found : yet their sons may all die out before 
 them. Here it is, not that they cannot sacrifice the 
 actual and visible to the remote and the unseen, but 
 that the locality and the. elements of their future are 
 alike misjudged. 
 
 12 
 
266 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 None of these solutions of the problem quite explain 
 to us how it is that men who are capable of a strenuous 
 and self-denying postponement of the present to the 
 future, and who are solemn and earnest believers in the 
 Great Hope and the tremendous Fear, yet, practically 
 and habitually, look upon tieaven with so little aspira- 
 tion and upon HeU with so little dread. We must seek 
 for some other influence which is at work to counteract 
 the natural operation of these mighty conceptions. This 
 influence we believe will be found in the character of the 
 usual representations of the happiness and torments of 
 our future retributive existence. The joys of the world 
 to come have been habitually so pictured by divines that 
 the great majority cannot relish them, and its pains so 
 that they cannot believe them. 
 
 In describing these last, it must be admitted that 
 divines have seldom diverged much from the letter of 
 Scripture. The Scriptural delineations of future torments 
 have four characteristics, all singular enough : they are all 
 physical ; they are eternal ; they are penal, not purgato- 
 rial or reformatory; and they are indiscriminate on all 
 subjected to them. Now, every one of these points is 
 found to be practically almost impossible of credence. 
 
 I. It is worthy of notice that throughout the Epistles 
 there is no description of any place or world of punish- 
 ment, and few references to the existence of such. Paul 
 indeed speaks of the " day of wrath " ; " the wrath to 
 come " ; " indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, 
 upon every soul of man that doeth evil " ; and both Paul 
 and the writer of the second epistle of Peter mention 
 
ELSEWHERE. 267 
 
 incidentally the "everlasting destruction," the "perish- 
 ing " of sinners ; but this is the sum total of their con- 
 tributions to the subject, which seems scarcely ever to 
 have been present to their minds. In the Gospels, how- 
 ever, the place of punishment is mentioned in several 
 places, generally as from Christ himself; and it is always 
 described in the same or nearly the same language, as 
 " hell fire " ; " flame " ; " the place where the worm dieth 
 not, and the fire is not quenched " ; "a furnace of fire," — 
 imagery suggested apparently by the neighborhood of the 
 VaUey of Gehenna. In the Eevelations the same concep- 
 tion is (as might be anticipated from the character of the 
 book) still more materialized : there it is " the lake that 
 bumeth with fire and brimstone " ; the " lake of fire " ; 
 the "bottomless pit," etc. In short, wherever HeU. is 
 spoken of at all specifically in the Bible, its tortures are 
 described as purely corporeal ; and Christian writers and 
 preachers in general have faithfully adhered to the repre- 
 sentations of their text.* 
 
 * I am assured that these material conceptions of the place of 
 punishment are not now retained or d-v^elt iipon by any one. Yet I 
 have now lying hefore me a hook entitled " A Sight of Hell," pro- 
 fessing to come from the Rev. Father Fumisa, C.SS.E., and printed 
 "permissn superiormn," and recommended to he used along with 
 the Catechism in Sunday schools as part of a course of religious 
 instruction.- It is one of a series of " books for children and young 
 persons." 
 
 " Little child, if you go to hell there will be a devil at your side 
 to strike you. He will go on striking you every rainute for ever and 
 ever without stopping. The first stroke will make your body as 
 bad as the body of Job, covered from head to foot with sores and 
 
268 ^ ENiaMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Now, it is naturally impossible for men of intelligence 
 and cultivation who are conscious how far the mental 
 surpasses the bodily capacity for suffering — or for Chris- 
 tians who have been taught how large a proportion of 
 their worst offences proceed, not from the weakness of the 
 flesh, but from the wild, bad passions of the Spirit — to 
 acquiesce in this physical delineation of future retribu- 
 tion. Instead of the " majestic pains " adapted to man's 
 complex nature, and capable of such impressive delinea- 
 tion, the torments assigned by ordinary Christianity to 
 the future life are peculiarly and exclusively those appro- 
 priate to this ; they are all bodily ; yet the body is laid 
 down at death. They are all corporeal ; yet we are told 
 
 ulcers. The second stroke will make your body twice as bad as the 
 body of Job. The third stroke will make your body three times 
 as bad as the body of Job. The fourth stroke will make your body 
 four times as bad as the body of Job. How, then, will your body 
 be after the devil has been striking it every moment for a hundred 
 millions of years without stopping ? " 
 
 Next comes " A Dress of Fire " : — 
 
 " Job xxxviii. — Are not thy garments hot ? Come into this 
 room. You see it is very small. But see in the midst of it there is 
 a girl, perhaps about eighteen years old. What a terrible dress she 
 has on, — her dress is made of fire ! On her head she wears a bon- 
 net of fire. It is pressed down all over her head ; it burns her head ; 
 it burns into the skin ; it scorches the bone of the skull and makes 
 it smoke. The red-hot, fiery heat goes into the brain and melts it. 
 Ezek. xxii. — I will bum you in the fire of my wrath ; you shall be 
 melted in the midst thereof as silver is melted in the fire. You do 
 not, perhaps, like a headache. Think what a headache that gill 
 must have. But see more. She is wrapped up in flames, for her 
 frock is on fire. If she were on earth she would be burned to a cin- ' 
 
ELSEWHERE. 269 
 
 that our coming existence is a spiritual one. They are 
 prepared for and addressed to our senseless clay, which is 
 mouldering in the tomb, dissolving into its original ele- 
 ments, and perpetually passing into new combinations. 
 The necessary counterpart and correlative of the scriptural 
 doctrine of a material Hell, without which it has no 
 meaning or coherence, is the doctrine of the Eesurrection 
 of the body, which Bush, in his " Anastasis," has shown 
 to be neither tenable nor scriptural. It is impossible for 
 those who believe, as we are taught to do, in the immate- 
 riality of the Soul, in the'spiritual and incorporeal nature 
 of our future existence, to accept the doctrine of future 
 torments applicable solely to om' fleshly forms, and in- 
 
 der in a moment. But she is in hell, where fire bums everything, 
 but bums nothing away. There she stands burning and scorched ; 
 there she wUl stand forever burning and scorched. She counts 
 with her fingers the moments as they pass away slowly, for each 
 moment seems to her like a hundred years. As she counts the 
 moments she remembers that she will have to count them for ever 
 and ever." 
 
 The children are then favored with the sight of a boiling boy : — 
 " But, listen ! there is a sound just like that of a kettle boiling. Is 
 it really a kettle which is boiling ? No. 'Then what is it ? Hear 
 what it is. The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. 
 The brain is boUing and bubbling in his head. The marrow is 
 boiling in his bones." 
 
 They also have a peep at a baby in a red-hot oven : " Hear how 
 it screams to come out ! See how it turns and twists itself about 
 in the Are ! It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It 
 stamps its little feet on the floor of the oven. You can see on the 
 face of this little child what you see on the faces of aU in hell, — 
 despair, desperate and horrible." 
 
270 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 flicted by physical elements which can have no power 
 over disembodied spirits. If the place of retribution be 
 in truth a burning lake, and the agents of suffering be 
 the worm and flame, then " flesh and blood " must be the 
 inheritors "of Hell, if not of the Kingdom of Heaven ; 
 and our earthly frames must be re-collected, re-formed and 
 re-animated at the last day for the special purpose of the 
 penal fire. It may be urged that we do not know what 
 God may do ; that we have no right to assume that oixr 
 next existence will be either an incorporeal one, or one 
 of such " spiritual corporeity " as wiU be impassible to 
 flame ; that God may either re-create our flesh, or endow 
 fire and brimstone with power over our disembodied 
 essence : possibly ; what I affirm is simply this, that 
 those who described Hell as it is described in the Eev- 
 elations and in the language of Divines, did so with 
 reference to our mortal frames ; and that the manifest 
 and felt incongruity between the cr&i/ia -irvevfjiaTtKov 
 and tortures adapted to the aa/jLa ■>^vxi-k6v, — between 
 an immaterial world, an existence of the Soul, a spiritual 
 essence, and a lake of brimstone, a devouring flame, and 
 a gnawing worm, — -disarms the latter of all their reality 
 and all their terrors. It may be that in using these ex- 
 pressions, as in so many other instances, the Scriptural 
 Writers spoke metaphorically, and employed such lan- 
 guage as would best awaken the dismay of auditors 
 whose merely anirnal nature could realize animal suffer- 
 ing only, and who were incapable of soaring to the con- 
 ception of an incorporeal existence. But why then do 
 divines persist in repeating metaphors so singularly inap- 
 
ELSEWHEUE. 371 
 
 propriate, and in using the same eai'thly images when 
 addressing auditors whom at the same time they teach to 
 regard futurity as an miearthly state ? 
 
 II. The alleged eternity of future punishments has con- 
 tributed in an incalculable degree to prevent the practical 
 belief and realization of those punishments. The common 
 feelings of humanity and the common sentiments of justice, 
 which lie deep at the heart of our nature, have; in this 
 instance, proved too strong for the reiterated assertions of 
 orthodoxy, and have steadily refused to accept so terrible 
 a tenet. Yet stil^, with a euriosa infelicitas which is al- 
 most stupidity, the Church* still preaches the endless 
 duration of future torments almost as confidently as the 
 existence of those torments. The inevitable consequence 
 is that the general and instinctive rejection of the one 
 tenet entails scepticism with regard to the other with 
 which it is thus persistently bound up. No subtlety of 
 logic, no weight of authority, will induce rightly consti-' 
 tuted minds, which allow themselves to reason at all, to 
 admit that the sins or failings of Time can merit the 
 retribution of Eternity, — that finite natures can, by any 
 guilt of which they are capable, draw upon themselves 
 torments infinite either in essence or duration. Divines 
 tell us — and we all accept the saying — that no virtue 
 on the part of frail and feeble creatures like ourselves can 
 
 * Scarcely, perhaps, The Church ; but still the self-styled ortho- 
 dox, the 6i n-oXXot of the clergy. High authorities among them, 
 however, are beginning to proclaim the doctrine to be as unscriptnral 
 as it is revolting. See, inter alia, a Paper by " AngUcaims," in the 
 " Contemporary Eeview " for May, 1872. 
 
272 ENIGMAS or LIFE. 
 
 merit an eternal Heaven ; but when they demand our 
 assent to the opposite and contradictory assertion that the 
 shortcomings and baclcslidings of the same creatures can 
 and do merit an everlasting Hell, we are revolted by the 
 inconsistency, and shrink back from the corollary involved 
 in the latter proposition. 
 
 III. Another point particularly difficult of belief and 
 realization in the popular doctrine of the sufferings of a 
 future world, is, that they are represented as penal, not 
 purgatorial, — retributive, not reformatory. It is not easy 
 to conceive any object to be answered, any part in the 
 great plan of Providence to be fulfilled, by the infliction of 
 torments, whether temporary or perpetual, which are neither 
 to serve for the purification of those who endure them, nor 
 needed for the warning of those who behold them, since 
 the inhabitants of earth do not see them, and the trans- 
 lated denizens of Heaven do not require them. They are 
 simply aimless and retrospective. It is true that, in the 
 conception of the philosopher, they are inevitable; that 
 future suffering is the natural offspring and necessary 
 consequence of present sin : but this is not the view of 
 the doctrine we are considering, nor is the character of the 
 sufferings it depicts such as would logically flow out of 
 the sins for which they are supposed to be a chastisement. 
 The Catholic Church, with its usual profound knowledge 
 of human nature, and ready system jDf providing for every 
 want and guarding against every objection, has invented 
 purgatory ,•" and by this means has undoubtedly succeeded 
 in making the belief in and realization of a Hell possible, 
 to say the, least. "We may well admit, as Catholics are 
 
ELSEWHERE. 273 
 
 called upon to do, that inflictions more severe, pangs more 
 searching and more lasting, may be needed and provided 
 in a future world for those whose malignant passions 
 or obstinate carnality the milder chastisements of earth 
 failed to purge away, or who, by the unaccountable arrange- 
 ments of Providence, escaped tribulation almost or alto- 
 gether here. But to believe, as Protestants are required 
 to do, that all these fiercer torments will be inflicted when 
 no conceivable purpose is to be answered by their infliction, 
 when the sufiering, so far as human imagination can fathom 
 the case, is simply gratuitous, is assuredly a far harder 
 strain upon our faith, — a strain, too, which is hardest on 
 those whose feelings are the most humane, and whose 
 notions of the Deity are worthiest ; on those; that is, who 
 have most fully imbibed Christ's sentiments and views.. 
 
 IV. As if bent upon surrounding their doctrine of future 
 punishments with everything that could make it thorny 
 and repellent, Protestant Divines usually assume these 
 punishments to be indiscriminate upon aU who are con- 
 demned to them. Even the text distinguishing between 
 the many stripes to be awarded to him who sinned know- 
 ingly and wilfully, and the few stripes to be inflicted on 
 him who sinned ignorantly, and therefore did not really 
 sin at all, is rarely referred to. Following literally and 
 unintelHgently the metaphor of the sheep and the goats, — 
 the right hand and the left hand of the coming Judge, — 
 Heaven and Hell, in their current language, are two states, 
 with no margin for mediocrity, no debatable or border 
 land between them for those who deserve neither, or whose 
 merits are so nearly alike that it is scarcely possible to say 
 
 12* B 
 
274 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 whicli deserve which ; but, on the contrary, with a great 
 gulf, a broad, bold line of demarcation, separating, 
 through all future ages and by boundless distances, those 
 whose measure of sin or virtue while on earth was scarce- 
 ly distinguishable by the finest and most delicate moral 
 electrometer.* On one side is endless happiness — the 
 sight of God, 
 
 " That perfect presence of His face 
 Whicli we, for want of words, call Heaven" — 
 
 for those whom one frailty more, one added weakness, one 
 hair's-breadth further transgression, would have justly 
 condemned tq dwell forever " with the Devil and his 
 Angels," an outcast from Hope, chained to his iniquity 
 forever, alone with the irreparable ! On the other side is 
 Hell, the scene of torture, of weeping, and gnashing of 
 teeth ; of the ceaseless ilame and the undying worm ; 
 where he " that is filthy must be filthy still " ; torment, 
 not for a period, but forever, for him for whom one effort 
 more, one ounce of guilt the less, might have turned the 
 trembling balance, and opened the gates of an eternal 
 paradise ! Human feeling and human reason cannot be- 
 lieve this, though they may admit it with lip assent ; and 
 the Catholic Church, accordingly, here as elsewhere, steps 
 in to present them with the via media which is needed. 
 Purgatory, ranging from a single day to a century of ages, 
 offers that border land of discriminating retribution for 
 
 * Nay, far worse ; often those who differed here only in their 
 theological opinions, — their reception or rejection of some unintel- 
 ligible dogma. 
 
ELSEWHERE. 275 
 
 which justice and humanity cry out. For the best of us 
 have some frailty, some dark stain, which requires to be 
 purged away before we can be iit for admission into a 
 world of perfect purity and love ; and the worst of us are 
 conscious of loads of impurity and guilt which, compared 
 with the faults of those sisters or brethren of our race who 
 are " a little lower than the angels," are as a thousand 
 years to a single day. 
 
 Yet though Theologians have virtually all but de- 
 stroyed popular faith in the conventional place of pun- 
 ishment by the language in which they have habitually 
 described it, and the incredibilities with which they have 
 mixed it up, surely, surely it is not impossible to imagine 
 a future world of retribution in such form and coloring 
 as shall be easy and natural to realize, as shall be, not 
 only possible to believe, but impossible to disbelieve ; a 
 world of which we shall feel that, if it exist at all, it must 
 be such as we delineate. If the soul is destined for an 
 existence after death, then (unless a miracle is worked to 
 prevent it) that existence must be one of retribution to 
 the sinful, and of purgatorial suffering to the frail and 
 feeble, soul. The nature of the retribution will be deter- 
 mined by the nature of the sin ; and the character of the 
 purifying fires will be indicated by the character of the 
 frailty which has to be purged away. 
 
 When the portals of this world have been passed, when 
 time and sense have been left behind, and this " body of 
 death "has dropped away from the. liberated soul, every- 
 thing which clouded the perceptions, which dulled the 
 
276 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 vision, which drugged the conscience, while on earth, will 
 be cleared off like a morning mist. We shall see all things 
 as they really are, — ourselves and our sins among the 
 number. No other punishment, whether retributive or 
 purgatorial, will be needed. Naked truth, unfilmed eyes, 
 will do all that the most righteous vengeance could de- 
 sire. Every now and then we have a glimpse of such 
 perceptions while on earth. Times come to all of us 
 when the passions, by some casual influence or some 
 sobering shock, have been wholly lulled to rest, when all 
 disordered emotions have drunk repose 
 
 " From the cool cisterns of the midnight air," 
 
 and when, for a few brief and ineffectual instants, the. 
 temptations which have led us astray, the pleasures for 
 which we have bartered away the future, the desires to 
 which we have sacrificed our peace, appear to us in all 
 their wretched folly and misejrable meanness. From our 
 feelings then we may form a faint imagination of what 
 our feelings will be hereafter, when this occasional and 
 iniperfect glimpse shall have become a perpetual flood of 
 light, irradiating all the darkest places of our earthly 
 pathway, piercing through all veils, scattering all delu- 
 sions, burning up all sophistries ; when the sensual man, 
 all desires and appetites now utterly eodinct, shall sta,nd 
 amazed and horror-struck at the low promptings tp which 
 he once yielded himself up in such ignominious slavery, 
 and shall shrink in loathing and shame from the reflected 
 image of his own animal brutality ; when the hard, grasp- 
 ing, sordid man, come now into a world where wealth can 
 
ELSEWHERE. 277 
 
 purchase nothing, where gold has no splendor and luxury 
 no meaning, shall be almost unable to comprehend how- 
 he could ever have so valued such unreal goods ; when 
 the malignant, the passionate, the cruel man, everything 
 which called forth his vices now swept away with the former 
 existence, shall appear to himself as he appeared to other/ 
 upon earth, shall hate himself as others hated him on 
 earth. "We shall see, judge, feel about all things there 
 perfectly and constantly, as we saw, judged, and felt 
 about them partially in our rare better and saner mo- 
 ments here. "We shall think that we must have been 
 mad, if we did not too well know that we had been wil- 
 ful Every urgent appetite, every boiling passion, every 
 wild ambition, which obscured and confused our reason 
 here below will have been burnt away in the valley of 
 the shadow of death ; every subtle sophistry with which 
 we blinded or. excused ourselves on earth- will have 
 vanished before the clear glance of a disembodied 
 spirit ; nothing will intervene between us and the truth. 
 Stripped of all the disguising drapery Of honeyed words 
 and false refractions, we shall see ourselves as we are; 
 we shall judge ourselves as God has always judged us. 
 Our lost or misused opportunities ; our forfeited birth- 
 right; our glorious possibility, ineffable in its gloiy; 
 our awful actuality, ineffable in its awfulness ; the 
 nature yhich God gave us, — the nature we have made 
 ourselves ; the destiny for wliich He designed us, — the 
 destiny to which we have doomed ourselves : all these 
 things win grow and fasten on our thoughts, till the con- 
 templation must terminate in madness, were not madness 
 
278 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 a mercy belonging to the world of flesh alone. In the 
 mere superior mental capacities, therefore, consequent 
 upon spiritual life, we cannot fail to find all that is 
 needed, or can be pictured, to make that life a penal and 
 a "purgatorial one. 
 
 But there will be more than this. We shall find, in 
 the same suffering and remorseful world, those jvhose 
 emancipation we would now purchase at any cost, had 
 we anything wherewith to buy it ; those whose nurture 
 we neglected, those whose temper we soured, those whose 
 passions we aroused, those whose reason we perverted, 
 those whose conscience we confused and stupefied, — 
 those, in a word, for whose ruin we are answerable. We 
 shall have to bear their despairing misery, their upbraiding 
 looks ; worse than all, we shall jjiave to bear, here again, 
 owr own present perception of our Past. 
 
 But there is yet another retributive pang in wait for the 
 sinful soul, which belongs to the very nature of that future 
 world, namely, the severance from all those we love who 
 on earth have trod the narrower and better path. The 
 affections do not belong to the virtuous alone ; they cHng 
 to the sinner through all the storms and labyrinths of sin ; 
 they are the last fragments of what is good in him that he 
 silences or lays aside or tramples out ; they belong, not to 
 the flesh, but to the spirit ; and a spiritual existence, even 
 if a suffering one, will but give them fresh energy and 
 tenacity, by terminating all that has been antagonistic to 
 them here below. Who shall describe the yearning love 
 of a disencumbered soul ? Who can adequately conceive 
 the passionate tenderness with which it will cling round 
 
ELSEWHERE. 279 
 
 the objects of its affection in a world where every other 
 sentiment or thought is one of pain ? Yet what can be 
 more certain, because M'hat more in the essential nature of 
 things, than that the great revelation of the Last Day (or 
 that which must attend and be involved in the mere en- 
 trance into the Spiritual State) will effect a severance of 
 souls, — an instantaneous gulf of demarcation between the 
 pure and the impure, the just and the unjust, the merciful 
 and the cruel, — immeasurably more deep, essential, and 
 impassable than any which time or distance or rank or 
 antipathy could effect on earth. Here we never- see into 
 each other's souls : * characters the most opposite and in- 
 compatible dwell together upon earth, and may love each 
 other much, unsuspicious of the utter want of fundamental 
 harmony between them. The aspiring and the worldly 
 may have so much in common and may both instinctively 
 conceal so much, that their inherent and elemental differ- 
 ences may go undiscovered to the grave. The soul that 
 will be saved and the soul that will be lost may cling - 
 round each other here with wild affection, all unconscious 
 of the infinite divergence of their future destiny. The 
 mother will love her son with aU the devotion of her na- 
 
 * " We live together years and years, 
 
 And leave unsounded stiU 
 Each other's springs of hopes and feais, 
 
 Each other's depths of will. 
 We live together day hy day, 
 
 And some chance look or tone 
 
 Lights up with instantaneous ray 
 
 An inner world unknown." 
 
 R. M. MiLNES. 
 
280 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 ture, iu spite or in ignorance of his un worthiness ; that 
 son may reciprocate his mother's love, and in this only be 
 not unworthy: the blindness which is Idndly given us 
 hides so much,* and affection covers such a multitude of 
 sins. The pure and holy wife and the frail and sinful 
 husband can live together harmoniously and can love 
 fondly here below, because the vast moral gulf between 
 them is mercifully veiled from either eye. But when the 
 gi'eat curtain of ignorance and deception shall be with- 
 drawn, "when the secrets of all hearts shall be made 
 known," when the piercing light of the Spiritual World 
 shall at once and forever disperse those clouds which Tiave 
 hidden what we really are from those who have loved us 
 and almost from ourselves, when the trusting confidence 
 of friendship shall discover what a serpent has been nour- 
 ished in its bosom, when the yearning mother shall per- 
 ceive on what a guilty A^etch aU her boundless and 
 priceless tenderness has been lavished, when the wife 
 shall at length see the husband whom she cherished 
 
 * " Or what if Heaven for once its searching light 
 Lent to some partial eye, disclosing all 
 The rude, bad thoughts that in our bosom's night 
 Wander at large, nor heed Love's gentle thrall t 
 
 " Who would not shun the dreary, uncouth place, 
 As if, fond leaning where her infant slept, 
 A mother's arm a serpent should embrace : — 
 So might we friendless Uve, and die unwppt. 
 
 " Then keep the softening veil in mercy drawn, 
 
 Thou who canst love us though Thou read us true." 
 
 Kbble's Ohristiwn, Year. 
 
ELSEWHEKE. 281 
 
 through long years of self-denying and believing love re- 
 vealed in his true colors, a wholly alien creature, — what a 
 sudden, convulsive, inevitable, because natural, separation 
 between the clean and the unclean will then take place ! 
 The gulf which has always existed is recognized and felt at 
 last ; corruption can no longer consort with incorruption ; 
 the lion cannot lie down^with the lamb, nor the leopard 
 with the kid. One flash of light has done it aU. The 
 merciful delusions which held friends together upon earth 
 are dispersed, and the laws of. the mind must take their 
 course and divide the evil from the good. But though the 
 link is severed, the affection is not thereby destroyed. The 
 friend, the husband, the lover, the son, thus cut adrift by 
 a just and natural though bitter retribution, love still ; nay, 
 they love all the more fervently, all the more yearningly, 
 in that they now discern with unclouded vision all that 
 bright beauty, aU that rich nature of the objects of their 
 tenderness, of which their dim eyesight could on earth 
 perceive only a part. Then wiU begin a eetkibution in- 
 deed, the appropriate anguish, the desolate abandonment 
 of which, who can paint, and who will be able to bear ! 
 To see those we love, as we never loved tiU then, turn from 
 our grasp and our glance of clasping and supplicating 
 fondness with that unconquerable loathing which virtue 
 must feel towards guilt and with which purity must shrink 
 from stain ; to see those eyes, never turned on us before 
 save in gentleness and trust, now giving us one last glance 
 of divine sadness and ineffable farewell : to watch those 
 forms, whose companionship cheered and illuminated all 
 the dark places of our earthly pilgrimage, and once and 
 
282 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 again had almost redeemed us from the bondage and the 
 mire of sin, receding, vanishing, melting in the bright dis- 
 tance, to join a circle where they will need. us not, to tread 
 a path to which ours bears no parallel and can make no 
 approach ; and then to turn inward and downward, and 
 realize our lot, and feel our desolation, and reflect that we 
 have earned it: what has Poetry or Theology pictured 
 that can compete with a Gehenna such as this! 
 
 Divines have been nearly as unforttmate and as far 
 from reality in their delineations of the joys of Heaven 
 as of the pains of Hell. The conception formed by one 
 mind, and that one a peculiar, narrow, and abnormal 
 mind, of a state of bliss has been stereotyped, and called 
 Heaven. The picture which excited and engrossed the 
 fancy of the author of the Book of Revelations has been 
 thrust upon all other men, however diversely constituted, 
 as " the Heaven of the Bible," the Paradise of God, the 
 place which Christ " was gone to prepare for us." It was 
 to be a scene of gorgeous splendor and of ceaseless wor- 
 ship. Those who did not relish or earnestly desire such 
 a life, those whose imaginations were not kindled into 
 transport at the picture, or who ventured to form a differ- 
 ent conception of supernal bliss from that which, floated 
 before the visions of the elect, were held to show a carnal 
 and unregenerate nature which could have neither part 
 nor lot in so sublLme a world. It is true that more 
 human divines spoke of reunion with the loved, as well 
 as of admission to the throne of the Most High, of the 
 
ELSEWHEKE. 283 
 
 companionship of kindred and friends, as well as of " the 
 presence of the power of God," and of perpetuaL praise 
 and prayer. But this was regarded as a concession ; it 
 was scarcely rigid orthodoxy ; it was undeniably not the 
 most prominent feature of " the glory to be revealed " ; 
 it lay in the background of all the splendid and sublime 
 imagery of St. John. Those poor human souls who felt 
 almost justified by the language of their Master in loving 
 their brother whom they had seen more than God whom 
 they had not seen, and who felt that, whether justified or 
 not, they did so and could not help doing so, were scowled 
 away from the Gate of the Eternal City. Worship was 
 to be the sole need, occupation, joy, of the beatific state. 
 What wonder that the humble, the unimaginative, the 
 tender, the HUMAN, felt no yearnings towards the cold, 
 strange, pallid unreality ! 
 
 It is not to be denied that the favorite delineations of 
 Heaven are almost wholly suggested, or colored by the 
 Book of Eevelations, in which the descriptions, magnifi- 
 cently splendid and sometimes sublime, are yet, if we 
 except seven verses of the twenty-first chapter, almost 
 wholly material. And not only so, but the material 
 elements are by no means the noblest that might have 
 been chosen. The New Jerusalem is painted as some- 
 thing between a gorgeous palace, and a dazzling conventi- 
 cle. The picture is of a city, — of thrones of sapphire, 
 and crowns of gold ; of rainbows of emerald ; of walls 
 and pavements of jasper and topaz and amethyst and chal- 
 cedony ; of streets of glass and gates of pearl : brilliant 
 ingredients, no doubt, to an Oriental imagination, but 
 
284 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 " Poor fragments all of this low earth, 
 ■ Such as in dreams could hardly soothe 
 A soul that once had tasted of immortal truth." 
 
 The writer's conception of what befitted the Temple of 
 the Lord and the dwelling of the redeemed embraced 
 rather the rare curiosities than the common loveliness of 
 nature : palaces and jewels and precious stones,.- — not 
 gentle streams and shady groves and woodland glades and 
 sunny valleys and eternal mountains and the far-off mur- 
 mur of a peaceful ocean. His Heaven was a scene of mag- 
 nificent ornamentation rather than of solemn beauty ; of 
 glory, not of love and bliss. It might kindle his fancy : it 
 chills ours. Even our material paradise would be differ- 
 ently pictured. There may be all these things in Heaven ; 
 but there will be what will throw all these accessaries into 
 the shade. " There may be crowns of material splendor ; 
 there may be trees of unfading loveliness ; there may be 
 pavements of emerald ; and canopies of the brightest 
 radiance ; and gardens of deep and tranquil security ; 
 and palaces of proud and stately decoration ; and a city 
 of lofty pinnacles, through which there unceasingly flows 
 a river of gladness, and where jubilee is ever rung by a 
 .concord of seraphic voices. But these are only the ac- 
 cessaries of Heaven. They form not the materials of its 
 substantial loveliness. Of this, the man who toils in 
 humble drudgery, an utter stranger to the delights of 
 sensible pleasure, or the fascinations of sensible glory, 
 has already got a foretaste' in his heart. It consists not 
 in the enjoyment of created good, nor in the survey of 
 created magnificence. It is drawn in a direct stream 
 
ELSEWHERE. 285 
 
 through the channels of love and contemplation from the 
 fulness of the Creator. It emanates from the counte- 
 nance of God, manifesting the spiritual glories of his holy 
 and perfect character on those whose characters are kin- 
 dred to his own. And if on earth there is no tendency 
 towards such a character, no process of restoration to the 
 lost image of the Godhead, no delight in prayer, no relish 
 for the sweets of intercourse with the Father now unseen 
 bul; then to be revealed, — -then, let our imaginations- 
 kindle as they may at the beatitudes of our fictitious 
 Heaven, the true Heaven is what we shall never reach, 
 because it is a Heaven we are not fitted to enjoy." * 
 
 The most repellent, mistake of Divines in their delinea- 
 tions of Heaven has perhaps been the uniformity they 
 have attributed to its beatitudes. Men in this life ex- 
 hibit infinite varieties of character, craving, and capacity ; 
 and aU this within the limits of virtuous desire and of 
 righteous effort. We see individiials here, differing from 
 each other in almost every taste and sentiment, in the 
 characters they specially admire, in the objects they most 
 strenuously aim at, — of whom, nevertheless, we cannot 
 pironounce that one is a more faithful servant of duty, or 
 likely to be more acceptable to God than another. There 
 are good men of every phase and peculiarity of goodness ; 
 there are ardent and unwearied "fellow-laborers with 
 God " in every corner of the vineyard, — in all the 
 countless departments of His infinitely varied husbandry. 
 Thrare are those whom God sanctifies for the patient en- 
 
 * Dr. Chalmers. 
 
286 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 durance of His heaviest will. There are those whdm he 
 energizes for rough duties of conflict or of toil, — of 
 daring strife or plodding drudgery. There are those 
 " who serve, yet only stand and wait." There are those 
 whom he softens and purifies that they niay radiate love 
 and serenity around them. There are those, finally, whom 
 He has set apart to glorify and serve him by the discov- 
 ery of truth and the diffusion of knowledge. The variety 
 which we observe among the candidates for Heaven here 
 below belongs, then, to human nature, not to fallen na- 
 ture ; it inheres, not in our imperfections, but in our 
 inccmpleteness ; it exists in us, not because we are earthly 
 and sinful, but because we are men and not angels, — 
 because, in a word, we are that peculiar modification of 
 sentient and intelligent existences which it has pleased 
 the Creator to make us, and no other. 
 
 If this were not so ; if God had made us all in one 
 mould, so that we differed from one another only as we 
 were more or less frail and guilty ; if there were some 
 one ideal standard, divergence from which by special 
 development in one direction or another were in itself a 
 lapse from good; if unmurmuring submission, if stern 
 resistance to evil, if daring and aggressive energy, if 
 overflowing and all-embracing love, must each abnegate 
 its peculiarity and put on its opposite, before it could do 
 God's work or obtain his smile; if the stern soldier of 
 duty must become the melting child of tenderness and 
 pity ; if, in fine, God meant mankind to be a regiment in 
 uniform, not a hierarchy of Servants, each with his special 
 mission and his special capacity to perform it, and senti- 
 
ELSEWHERE-. 287 
 
 ments and characteristics in conformity therewith ; — then 
 there might be some ground for the idea that Death will 
 be a process of mental and moral assimilation, and that, 
 as they enter the immortal state, God will pass a flatteii- 
 ing-iron over all who " shall be found worthy to attain 
 to the resurrection of the Just," and smooth out every 
 salient individuality whether of capacity or aspiration. 
 But who that contemplates the varied forms of human 
 excellence, all sanctioned by Divine approval, can find 
 either probability or comfort in so strange a doctrine ? 
 " In my Father's House are many mansions." 
 
 If, then, we are to preserve our essential identity in 
 that other world, — and on what other supposition can 
 we even conceive or desire a future existence ? — indi- 
 viduals must be marked by divergencies analogous to 
 those which have prevailed on earth. With a purged 
 vision and a spiritualized being, those exclusive and dis- 
 proportionate estimates which so aggravate and perpetu- 
 ate discrepancies of aim and character below, Will of 
 course be corrected; but that the active and energetic 
 spirit should at once become contemplative, that the 
 earnest inquirer after truth should at once merge into 
 the worshipper, or that she whose soul was love should 
 suddenly become the Seraph searching after knowledge, 
 — these are metamorphoses which have no analogy with 
 what we know of the Divine action, and which we can 
 see no reason whatever to anticipate. The nature which 
 God bestowed has an individual stamp and character 
 which belongs to it, and cannot be separated from it. Its 
 errors may be corrected, its exuberances pared away, its 
 
288 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 deficiencies supplied, and its . scope enlarged, but it will 
 remain a distinctive and integral existence, through 
 Eternity, as in Time. 
 
 If this be so, then the spiritual world cannot be the 
 state of uniform and monotonous existence which ortho- 
 doxy paints it. What divines have done for themselves, 
 let each of us do for ourselves. They have drawn Heaven 
 as they fancy they ought to desire it ; let us picture it 
 such as we imagine it may be, as far as faint human 
 words can go. In doing this we shall be putting aside in 
 favor of our own dim taper no superior light or knowl- 
 edge which has been bequeathed to us; for with the 
 exception of the Apocalypse (which we may put aside 
 with as little scruple as Luther did), one of the most 
 noticeable peculiarities of the Scripture references to 
 heaven is their vagueness and reserve: they tie up and 
 chill our aspirations by no definite chart or picture of that 
 future world ; the canvas only is given us ; we may paint 
 upon it nearly what we please. 
 
 For, be it remembered, what is promised to us, or what 
 we are permitted to anticipate, is a state of existence 
 which wUl be Heaven to us ; not one which, though it may 
 be a beatific vision to our differently constituted neigh- 
 bors, would seem a dreary desert to ourselves. For 
 example, to me God hag promised, not the heaven of the 
 ascetic temper, or the dogmatic theologian, or of the 
 subtle mystic, or of the stern martyr ready alike to inflict 
 and bear, but a heaven of purified and. permanent affec- 
 tions; of a book of knowledge . with eternal leaves, and 
 unbounded capacities to read it ; of those we love ever 
 
ELSEWHEEE. 289 
 
 round us, never misconceiving us, or being harassed by 
 us ; of glorious work to do, and adequate faculties to do 
 it ; a world of solved problems, as well as of realized 
 ideals. The many mansions in my Father's ifibuse are 
 many, not in number only, but in variety. Our allotted 
 mansion will have been prepared for us; not for some 
 one else with whom we have little in common but the 
 origiaal elements of our nature, whose trials, powers, 
 arena, duties, have all been different. 
 
 And, first, it will be a world of Peace and Rest, for 
 the weary and heavy-laden wlU. be there. None but 
 those — and how many there are God only knows — who 
 through Hfe have been bowed to the earth by a weight of 
 care and toil and ceaseless pressure which often seemed 
 too heavy to be borne, have an idea of the perfect paradise 
 which is comprised in that one word, — " eest." " He 
 giveth His beloved sleep!' * To feel the burden roll from 
 their shoulders, as it did from that of Christian, as they 
 pass the threshold of the Shining Gate, to know that the 
 race is ended, that the haven is reached, that the strained 
 nerves may be at length relaxed, that the unsleeping 
 vigilance which so tasked their - strength is needed no 
 more, and that a repose that can never be broken may be 
 
 * " Of all the thoughts of God that aie 
 Borne inward unto Souls afar. 
 
 Along the Psalmist's music deep, 
 Now tell me if that any is, 
 For gift or grace surpassing this : — 
 'He giveth His Beloved sleep.'" 
 
 Miss Barbext. 
 13 e 
 
290 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Suffered to steal over the worn and wearied frame ! " I 
 ~ thank thee, God ! that the hard struggle of Hving is 
 over." This is the first instinctive conception of heaven 
 to those 
 
 " Whom Time lias wearied in its race of Hours," 
 as they sink to sleep when the sharp malady of life is 
 over, grateful for the quiet of the grave and the hope of a 
 serener world. 
 
 And another class of the weary wiU he there, resting 
 at last in the heautiful and tranquQ world they thirsted 
 for so long, where the spirit shaU be always willing and 
 the flesh never weak, — those, I mean, worn out less by 
 the fatigues of the world than by the strife of a turbid 
 temperament ; to whom urgent appetites, boiling passions, 
 and a critical position have made life an hourly conflict 
 with the world, the flesh, and the devU ; who, though they 
 have endured to tlie end, have been torn to pieces by the 
 internecine struggle, and have over and over been on the 
 point of resigning the contest in despair. We are most 
 of us like this ; and a Heaven which shall put an end to 
 " the fatal war which our desires have too long waged with 
 our destiny " may stiU be our inheritance and home. We 
 may have sinned frightfully and long ; we may have been 
 feeble, faithless, half-hearted, and cowardly ; relapse may 
 have succeeded relapse, tOl mercy would have been wearied 
 out if mercy were a human thing ; but the essential point 
 stm is, that the Great Day, whenever it come, shall find us 
 not turned back, but, however distant, halting, covered with 
 the mire of innumerable falls, " with our face set as though 
 we would go to Jerusalem." K so, we shall have " saved 
 
ELSEWHERE. 291 
 
 ova souls alive " ; our flickering lamp may need the ten- 
 derest care to keep it still alight and to feed it with the oU 
 which may ultimately nourish it into a steady and endur- 
 ing flame; our pale souls may, in shrinking and humilia- 
 tion, have to take the lowest place among the remotest 
 ranks of the countless hosts which circle the Eternal 
 Throne ; ages of effort may lie before us ; appalling ar- 
 rears of work which ought to have been done on earth 
 may stretch in endless vistas before us ; those at whose 
 side we would fain have walked through the sweet path- 
 ways of the Spiritual Kingdom may be forever beyond 
 our reach (for, alas ! there is no overtaking possible in that 
 just world) ; but, at least, we shall have carried with us 
 the germ of an Immortal Being over the threshold of that 
 scene where nothing that enters can ever die. 
 
 And the young will be there, with their yet untamed 
 and unblunted energies, not wearied and disheartened, as 
 lifelong laborers are here, with roUing the stone of Sisyphus 
 up an interminable hill. And the aged will be there, with 
 their contemplative and passionless serenity. And for 
 both will be provided an appropriate work and an appro- 
 priate enjoyment. For that world can scarcely be pictured 
 as an idle one. The Great Spirit wiU have behests to be 
 carried out, to be the ministers of which will be the rich 
 reward and the eternal occupation of activity and strength. 
 If may be that all these behests might be far more easily, 
 far more simply, carried out without the intervention of 
 translated human effort ; it may be that there, as here, a 
 wUl, a word, would suffice for the instantapeous result : 
 " He spake and it was done ; He commanded and it stood 
 
292 ENIGMAS OP LIFE. 
 
 fast." But here, we know, He works through human 
 agency : why should we not imagine that there the anal- 
 ogy of His dealings will be preserved, and that men, he- 
 come angels, will be His agents in Heaven. For the Just 
 not yet made Perfect,* there wiU be missions of mercy, to 
 rescue the despairing ; missions of aid, to strengthen those 
 who strive ; missions of consolation, to comfort those who 
 weep ; missions of instruction, to guide the bHnd ; missions 
 of conflict, to combat and conquer evU. There will be 
 worlds to be guided and redeemed, worlds, it may be, to 
 be created, worlds to be " brought out of darkness into His 
 marvellous Hght." And the loving soul wOl be sent to 
 bind up the broken-hearted ; and the serene soul to breathe 
 peace to the cumbered, the harassed, and the way-worn ; 
 and the fiery soul to do loyal battle with the powers of 
 evil. The Hero wiU have a field of holy conquest assigned 
 him, in which he need fear no defeat, and will have to 
 weep over no tarnished or dear-bought victory. The 
 Prophet, who on earth spoke so often to deaf ears, with 
 imperfect knowledge, and an uncertain mind, will be sent 
 forth upon a wider mission, with ampler credentials and 
 sublimer powers. No healthy energy need fear to lie un- 
 used, no virtuous activity will waste away in idleness, no 
 sword of true temper vsdll rust within its sheath.-f- 
 
 * " And doTiTstless unto thee is given 
 A life that bears immortal fruit 
 In such great offices as suit 
 The full-grown energies of Heaven." 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 t " Peace is God's direct assurance 
 To the souls that win release 
 
ELSEWHEKE. 293 
 
 And the wise and searching of this world will be there ; 
 those who, with pain and toil, with untiring zeal yet with 
 small result, used the faculties which God had given them 
 to decipher and comprehend the wonders laid before them ; 
 whom piety and science had combiaed to consecrate, — the 
 Priests of Nature, the Martyrs of knowledge. The things 
 which here they saw only " through a glass darkly," they 
 will there discern in the full lEumination of the light of 
 God. The whole curtaia will be drawn up, of which here 
 they could only for a moment raise a corner, and the field 
 of vision, so bounded here, will be without limi t, or horizon 
 there. Earth has shown them but the title-page of a Book 
 which it will be given them to read in Heaven. Their 
 utmost efforts here have shown them but the smallest por- 
 
 From this world of hard endurance, — 
 Peace, he tells us, only Peace. 
 
 " To this life's inquiring traveller, 
 Peace of knowledge of all good ; 
 To the anxious truth-unraveUer, 
 Peace of wisdom understood. 
 
 " To the lover, full fruition 
 Of an unexhausted joy ; 
 To the warrior, crowned ambition 
 With no envy's base aUoy. 
 
 " To the ruler, sense of action, 
 
 Working out his great intent ; — 
 To the Prophet, satisfaction 
 In the mission he was sent." 
 
 Pflstoii Lewves, by Lord Houohion. 
 
294 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 tion of the wonderful facts of this little planet. Then 
 will be before them, inviting their research and feeding it 
 with fresh results through immortal ages, not only our 
 Earth, but the System to which it belongs; next that 
 firmament composed of countless myriads of stars with 
 their attendant worlds, of which that system forms one of 
 the smallest units ; then all those remoter galaxies, the 
 bare existence of which is aU that we can discover here, 
 which lie embosomed in absymal space far beyond the far- 
 thest limits of our Milky Way. There will be the secrets 
 of Time as well as those of Space for us to learn ; the foot- 
 steps of the Eternal in all worlds during those immeas- 
 urable epochas and ages of the Past, which Geology and 
 Astronomy dimly agree to indicate; the existences, the 
 evolutions, the tragedies, and the redemptions which now 
 we can barely and dimly conjecture, but which then wiU 
 form the feast and pasture of our daily life. There will 
 be forms of Being to investigate, far up through grada- 
 tions and cycles which distance all human fancy, — their 
 nature, history, feelings, motives, and destiny. 
 
 " Here must I stop, 
 Or is there aught heyond ? What hand unseen. 
 Impels me onward through the glowing orbs 
 Of habitable nature, far remote, 
 To the dread confines of eternal Night ; 
 To solitudes of vast, unpeopled space, 
 The deserts of creation, wide and wild, 
 Where embryo systems and unkindled suns 
 Sleep in the womb of chaos ? — Fancy droops, 
 And Thought, astonished, stops her bold career." 
 
 Mbs. Babbauid. 
 
ELSEWHERE. 295 
 
 And thousands of pious and perplexed inquirers will be 
 there, who, during long years of faith and meditation, 
 sought, and sought in vain, the solution of the dark enig- 
 mas of existence ; whose prayer was for Light {ev Be^dei 
 Kal oXeaerov) ; whose spirits, aspiring forever to pierce 
 those sad and solemn mysteries which cast such midnight 
 gloom over aU thoughtful souls and drive the less trustful 
 to despair, forever fell back baffled and disheartened, but 
 unshaken in fidelity and love. They have prayed and 
 hoped for Heaven, not as a scene of happiness or recom- 
 pense, but as a world of Explanation, where their ques- 
 tions would be answered and their difficulties solved. On 
 earth the grievous and incomprehensible dispensations of 
 Providence beset them before and behind, and laid a heavy 
 hand upon them, but could not drive Hhem from their 
 anchor of hope sure and steadfast. Will not their confi- 
 dence be justified to them in their " Father's House " ? * 
 
 For years, generations, centuries, they saw glorious 
 efiForts baffled, pure, high hopes discomfited and crushed, 
 good seed, sown with care and watered with the blood of 
 martyrs, choked or carried ofp, and never fructifying; 
 they saw fraud and rapine, brutality and barbarism, ram- 
 pant and omnipotent, and justice, truth, and innocence 
 trampled in the dust ;. the good cause ruined and the bad 
 triumphant; the servants of God everywhere defeated 
 
 * " They trusted God was Love indeed, 
 And love Creation's final law, — 
 Though Nature, red in tooth and claw 
 With ravine, shiieted against the creed." 
 
 In Memoriam. 
 
296 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 and his purposes apparently thwarted and OTerruled; 
 they saw myriads of His creatures doomed through life 
 to darkness, to suffering, to hopeless ignorance and inev- 
 itable vice; and they stood aghast, shuddering, and 
 perplexed at the seeming contravention of the Divine 
 decrees. These mysteries made their wretchedness here. 
 Wm not the solution of them make their happiness 
 hereafter ? And as, with eyes purged from the mists of 
 mortality, and powers strengthened by the elixir of spir- 
 itual life, they approach those problems which were too 
 intricate and too profound for earthly intellects to grapple 
 with, wiU they not marvel how simple is the key that 
 opens and elucidates them all ? 
 
 The loving and the tender will be there. It would 
 seem even as if Heaven was in some especial manner 
 their rightful inherit^ipce : Love is so infinite, and its 
 earthly horizon so bounded, its earthly development so 
 imperfect, its earthly catastrophes so sad; its undying 
 tenacity, its profound tenderness, and its boundless yearn: 
 ings seem so incongruous, as constrasted with its frail 
 objects, and its poor performances, and its momentary 
 life. There are those, and the denizens of our anticipated 
 world may consist of them in overwhelming proportion, 
 of whose nature affection has been the main-spring, the 
 strength, the sunbeam, the beauty ; whose heart has been 
 their chiefest treasure ; to whom fame, ambition, power, 
 success, have been at best only the casual and outside 
 objects of existence; who, in a word, lived on love. 
 Generation after generation, age after age, through the 
 
ELSEWHERE. 297 
 
 countless cycles of the Past, human creatures" have linked 
 themselves together, never dreaming that their connection 
 was limited by time, or that their ties would be severed 
 by the Great Destroyer, and have consigned the husk and 
 framework of their cherished companions to the dust, 
 never doubting that these comrades watched over them 
 from the spiritual world, and wete waiting to receive 
 them when the years were ripe. Millions in all times 
 have walked courageously into the Great Darkness, satis- 
 fied that they were going to rejoin the company of those 
 whose places had been long " left void in their earthly 
 homes " ; and, after long yearnings, to satisfy again " the 
 mighty hunger of the heart" in the fulness of eternal 
 joy. Whatever human affections have been pure, fervent, 
 self-sacrificing, devoted, and enduring, look forward to 
 Heaven for their renewal, their resting-place, and their 
 full fruition. If this expectation be delusive, what 
 instinct of the heart can henceforth be trusted ? 
 
 And the aspiring and spiritual will be at home at last, 
 — those whose thoughts have been all prayer ; to whom 
 the blessings promised to the meek, the mourners, and 
 the merciful are as nothing compared to that pronounced 
 upon the "pure in heart" ; to whose thoiight aU. other 
 beauties of the heavenly city are swallowed up in this : 
 •' that there is no need of the Sun, neither of the 'Moon, 
 to shine in it, for the glory of God doth lighten it, and 
 the Lamb is the light thereof" They shall see God. 
 What this may mean ; what may ie the nature of that 
 vision by which finite and created Beings can be enabled 
 to behold the Infinite and Eternal Spirit of the Universe ; 
 
 13* 
 
298 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 in what manner, or through the bestowal of what new 
 powers, His awful Presence will he made manifest to the 
 souls of the Just made perfect, we cannot even attempt 
 to realize. It may be that the very purity which they 
 have striven after here and attained there, will endow 
 them with a clearness of sight denied to the less un- 
 stained of the redeemed, in virtue of which they can 
 penetrate to the inner circle which surrounds the Throne, 
 and reach the immediate Presence of the Most High. 
 
 Whether, in the lapse of ages and in the course oi 
 progressive Being, the more dormant portions of each 
 man's nature will be called out, and his desires, and 
 therefore the elements of his Heaven, change; whether 
 the loving wiU learn to thirst for knowledge, and the 
 fiery and energetic to value peace, and the active and 
 earnest to grow weary of struggle and achievement and 
 to long for tenderness and repose, and the rested to begin 
 a new He of aspiration, and those who had long lain 
 satisfied with the humbler constituents' of the beatific 
 state, to yearn after the conditions of a loftier Being, we 
 cannot teU. Probably. It may be, too, that the ten- 
 dency of every thought and feeling wiU be to gravitate 
 towards the great Centre, to nierge in one mighty and all- 
 absorbing emotion. The thirst for knowledge may find 
 its ultimate expression in the contemplation of the Divine 
 Nature, — in which, indeed, all may be contained. It may 
 be that all longings wiU be finally resolved into striving 
 after a closer union with God, and all human affections 
 
ELSEWHEKE. 299 
 
 merged in the desire to be a partaker in His nature. It 
 may be that, in future stages of oui progress, we shall 
 become more and more severed from the Human and 
 joined to the Divine ; that, starting on the threshold of 
 the Eternal world with the one beloved Being who has 
 been the partner of our thoughts and feelings on this 
 earth, we may find, as we go forward to the Goal, and 
 soar upwards to the Throne, and dive deeper and deeper 
 into the mysteries and immensities of Creation, that 
 affection will gradually merge in Thought, and the crav- 
 ings and yearnings of the Heart be calmed and super- 
 seded by the sublimer interests of the perfected Intelli- 
 gence ; that the hands which have so long been joined in 
 love may slowly unclasp to be stretched forth towards 
 the approaching glory; that the glance of tenderness 
 which we cast on the companion at our side may become 
 faint, languid, and hurried, before the earnest gaze with 
 which we watch " the light that shall be revealed." We 
 might even picture to ourselves that epoch in our progress 
 through successively loftier and more purified existences, 
 when those who on earth strengthened each other in 
 every temptation, sustained each other under every trial, 
 mingled smiles at every joy and tears at every sorrow ; 
 and who, in succeeding varieties of Being, hand in hand, 
 heart with heart, thought for thought, penetrated together 
 each new secret, gained each added height, glowed with 
 each new rapture, drank in each successive revelation, 
 shall have reached that point where all separate individu- 
 ality and all lower affections will be merged in one 
 absorbing Presence ; when the awful nearness of the Per- 
 
300 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 feet Love will -dissolve all other ties and swallow up all 
 other feelings ; and when the finished and completed Soul, , 
 before melting away into that Sea of Light which will be 
 its element forever, shall turn to take a last fond look of 
 the now gloriiied but thereby lost companion of so much 
 anguish and so many joys ! * But we cannot yet con- 
 template the prospect without pain ; therefore it will not 
 be yet ; not till we can contemplate it with joy ; for 
 Heaven is a scene of bliss and recompense, not of -sorrow 
 and bereavement. Why therefore picture it at all ? 
 
 AH these speculations may of course be utterly futile 
 and irrelevant, and the discrepancy may be so vast and so 
 essential between the material and the spiritual world that 
 no pictures sketched by human pencil and filled in with 
 earthly coloring will bear the faintest resemblance to the 
 sublime and inconceivable reality. Perhaps no soul still 
 shrouded in the flesh can worthily or even approximately 
 dream of " the glory which shall be revealed " : the mere 
 step from death into the higher life wiU so change, con- 
 vulse, and re-create aU the elements of our Being, that 
 what now seems to us supremely to be desired — the fe- 
 licity of which the prospect has guided, strengthened, and 
 consoled us here, the joys for which' we haye cheerfully 
 
 * " He seeks at least 
 " Upon the last and sharpest height, 
 Before the spirits fade away, 
 Some landiag-place to clasp, and say 
 ' Farewell ! we lose ourselves in Light.' " 
 
ELSEWHERE. 301 
 
 bartered all the beautiful possessions and the rich promises 
 of Earth — may then appear to our " unsealed vision" poor, 
 pale, worthless, and inadequate, and that the ineffable 
 reality may not only transcend, but utterly traverse all our 
 aspirations. But if so, it is obvious that the mere fact of 
 our seeing it aright would cancel its influence upon us. 
 The action of a future world as a control on our deeds and 
 a stimulus to our desires depends upon its being such, 
 upon our believing it such at least, as we can conceive of 
 and aspire to. If it is to operate upon us it must be pic- 
 turable by us. Only through our ideas of it can it influ- 
 ence our lives. 
 
 Why then quarrel with oux conceptions because, neces- 
 sarily imperfect, and probably much more, — as all finite 
 ideas of the Infinite, aU material description of the Spirit- 
 ual, must be ? Why seek after a fidelity of delineation 
 or an etherealization of conception of which the conse- 
 quences must be so fatal and benumbing ? Heaven wiU 
 be, if not what we desire now, at least what we shall 
 desire then. If it be not contracted to our human dreams, 
 those dreams wiU be expanded to its vast reality. If it be 
 not fitted for us, we shall be prepa;red for it. In the true 
 sense, if not in our sense, it will be a scene of serene 
 felicity, the end of toil, the end of strife, the end of grief, 
 the end of doubt, — a Temple, a Haven, and a Home ! 
 
APPENDIX 
 
APPEI^TDIX. 
 
 IT is not only probable, but, I apprehend, quite certain, 
 that no country is really peopled up to its fuH possible 
 limit of plentiful subsistence. But there are two or three 
 cotmtries in Europe which may be considered to approach this 
 limit J and these, therefore, we will adopt as our standard of 
 comparison, — the more readily as they dififer materially in their 
 physical conditions. One of them, Belgium, has a climate by 
 no means enviable, and a soil originally and in many parts the 
 reverse of fertUe. Another, Lombardy, has a soil naturally 
 rich, a warm and genial sky, and great facilities of irrigation. 
 Some of the cantons of Switzerland maintain, probably, as large 
 a population, and certainly as prosperous and well-fed a one, 
 as can anywhere be found, — Zurich, AppenzeU, Argovie, 
 Thurgovie, for example. Of these we wiU select Zurich.* 
 Of course the comparison we are instituting cannot be a very 
 exact or rigidly conclusive one, inasmuch as countries vary 
 indefinitely in their natural advantages and their capacity for 
 supporting inhabitants. Still there are not many in Europe 
 much better off in this respect than Lombardy, nor much less 
 
 * Some of the cantons, and some which we believe are more purely 
 agricultural than Zurich, have even a denser population ; thus Basle has 
 420, Argovie 398, and Thurgovie 368 to the square mile. 
 
 T 
 
306 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 favored than Belgium ; while Zurich presents an instance of 
 the condition which may be reached by a people who unite 
 good sense and" good government to fair natural advantages. 
 
 I'nhahUants to a Squwre Mile (English). 
 
 Belgium. . 
 
 . 440 
 
 Ireland . 
 
 . 180 
 
 Lombardy 
 
 370 
 
 German Confederation . 
 
 180 
 
 Zurich 
 
 . 365 
 
 Austria . 
 
 . 164 
 
 England and Wales 
 
 350 
 
 Switzerland . 
 
 157 
 
 Holland . 
 
 . 300 
 
 Spain 
 
 . 90 
 
 United Kingdom . 
 
 225 
 
 Turkey in Europe . 
 
 76 
 
 Italy .... 
 
 . 225 
 
 Eussia in Europe 
 
 . 30 
 
 France . . . - 
 
 180 
 
 Sweden. 
 
 22 
 
 It would appear clear from this comparison that of aU. the 
 states of Europe, only Great Britain, Belgium, Holland, Switz- 
 erland, and perhaps Italy, can be regarded as amply populated. 
 There are three of the largest which assuredly are very far 
 from being so, viz., Spain, Eussia, and Turkey. Fraijce, with 
 a son and climate in the aggregate superior to those of Eng- 
 land, supports only half the numbers, though she supports 
 them no doubt more exclusively from the produce of her own 
 soU. A great part of the north of European Eussia is, we 
 know, unfitted for the production of human food, though 
 yielding largely the materials for human warmth, clothing, and 
 shelter. But no one who is aware how wretched is the state 
 of agriculture even in the provinces most favored by nature, 
 and over *hat a vast part of the empire these provinces extend, 
 and how sparse is the population which now inhabits them, 
 can doubt that the country as a whole could support with ease 
 250,000,000 instead of 60,000,000 as at present. The case of 
 Turkey is almost as strong. The productiveness of many of 
 its provinces is weU known ; yet, with the same area as France, 
 
APPENDIX. 307 
 
 she counts only 16,000,000 of people, instead of 36,000,000, 
 and with four times the area of England, and a far finer cli- 
 mate, she only maintains a population smaller by one eighth. 
 Spain is just as backward, and more blamable, for her soil 
 and cHmate are, or might be made, productive in the extreme. 
 Her extent is nearly as great as that of France (183,000 square 
 mUes to 207,000), yet her population per square mile is only 
 one half that of Prance and one fourth that of England. 
 What increased numbers she might support may be guessed 
 from the fact that some of her provinces do even now show 
 nearly 250 to the square mUe. She might easily support, 
 70,000,000, instead of her present 16,000,000, and stiU not 
 exceed the proportions of Belgium, a far less favored land. 
 Hungary, too, ought to be specially noted. It contains now 
 about 11,000,000, or not more than 135 to the square mile. 
 Considering the extraordinary fertiUty of her soil, she might 
 iinquestionably find room for 30,000,000, if human ignorance 
 and foUy interposed no artificial obstacles. On the whole, it is 
 a moderate calculation that the 270,000,000, of which the pop- 
 ulation of Europe now consists, might become 500,000,000, 
 without any crowding or necessary inconvenience. 
 
 A much larger number is pointed at by another mode of 
 calculation. It is estitnated (for authorities, see Alison on 
 Population, II. 480) that an acre of wheat can supply three 
 persons with food, and an acre of potatoes ten persons. But 
 people must be clothed, housed, and warmed as well as fed ; 
 and for these purposes wood must be planted and domestic 
 animals must be kept. "We may therefore allot (say) one acre 
 and a half to each individual for all his needs, — assuredly a 
 liberal estimate, for in the Canton of Zurich, an acre and a 
 quarter is even now found sufficient. Now, Europe contains 
 2,421,000,000 of acres ; and if we throw aside — being guided 
 
308 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 by the average of Ireland (one of the worst lands in this 
 respect) — one third as unavailable by reason of its being water, 
 or rock, or high mountain, or unmanageable bog, it would 
 stUl maintain, at the above proportion, 1,070,000,000, or four 
 times its present population. If we allow two acres per head, 
 it would support above 800,000,000. 
 
 I have no idea of examining the actual and possible density 
 of population in Asia and Africa in any detail. Our knowl- 
 edge of those quarters of the world is too imperfect, and their 
 statistics far too loose to render any such investigation in the 
 least degree satisfactory. A reference to a few specific facts is 
 aU that is necessary. Thus, the population of the Asiatic 
 provinces of Turkey shows only 24 to the square mUe, yet 
 Syria and Asia Miiaor and parts of Mesopotamia are among the 
 most favored countries in the world, and used, in former days, 
 to sustain far greater numbers than at present. To the travel- 
 ler of to-day, they present the appearance in many parts almost 
 of a desert land. There can be no doubt that, under a good 
 government, and with a sensible and energetic race, they might 
 contain ten times their actual numbers, and still not approach 
 the density of Belgium or Lombardy. Their 16,000,000 may 
 easily become 160,000,000. Probably nearly the same may 
 be said of Persia. 
 
 The African dependencies of the Ottoman Porte are said to 
 contain only about four inhabitants to the square mile. But 
 much of their territory is desert. If, however, we look to 
 South Africa, we find an almost unlimited territory thinly 
 inhabited, yet capable of rich cultivation, and swarming with 
 animal life in its lower phases. The entire of Africa is esti- 
 mated, according to the latest authorities, to have an area 
 of 12,000,000 English square miles, and a population of 
 120,000,000, or about 10 persons to the square mile. But 
 
APPENDIX. 309 
 
 SBritish Africa, of which we know most, has an area of ahout 
 120,000 square miles, and a population of 350,000, or not 
 three to the square mile. It is obvious that here we have 
 space for nearly indefinite expansion. A five or ten fold in- 
 crease (that is, about 1,000,000,000 for the whole continent) 
 would be no extravagant estimate of ultimate possibilities, 
 especially since recent discoveries have proved that even Equa- 
 torial Africa can sustain large and populous nations in what to 
 them is plenty. 
 
 But it is in America and Australia that we shall find the 
 widest field for the dispersion and multiplication of mankind. 
 America, it may be said, is only just beginning to be peopled. 
 Except in a few localities it is only sprinkled with human 
 beings. To say nothing of the older regions of the Hudson's 
 Bay Territory, there is a vast district, lying between Canada 
 and Vancouver's Island, with scarcely any inhabitants, though 
 capable of containing many millions.* A great portion of this 
 district is represented as singularly fertile, far more so than 
 the corresponding longitudes belonging to the United States. 
 Yet the Eed Eiver is the only settlement yet inhabited by 
 Europeans, and these are few in number. The day wiU come, 
 there can be little doubt, when it will be the centre of a 
 nation of 50,000,000. The population of the Canadas was in 
 1861 only 2,500,000, or less than eight to the square mile. 
 It might easily become 75,000,000, or 240 to the square mile. 
 As we proceed to the United States, we find that the oldest 
 provinces, though far the poorest by nature, are the most densely 
 peopled. The six New England States averaged, in 1860, 49 
 inhabitants to the square mile, Massachusetts reaching as high 
 as 130. The six Middle States, including Maryland and Ohio, 
 averaged 70; Ohio and New York, the one with its vast 
 
 * Article in " Edinburgh Review," British America, April, 1864. 
 
310 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 tracts of rich, soil, and the other with its commerce, industry, 
 an(} great cities into the bargain, only showing densities of 
 about 62 and 80 respectively. We say nothing of the slave 
 States, which only averaged 18 to the square mile, nor of the 
 desolate territory near the Eocky Mountains. But if the 
 seven Northwestern States and Texas were peopled even to the 
 extent that New England and New York have abeady reached, 
 — say 60 to the square mile, — they would contain a popula- 
 tion of 30,000,000 ; 200,000,000 is a moderate estimate for 
 the future members of the Great EepubUc. 
 , Mexico is a splendid country, of vast capabilities, both of 
 soil and climate. Its present population is estimated at 
 8,000,000, or about eight to the square mile. In Humboldt's 
 day, a far larger area contained only 5,800,000 souls. The 
 country, there can be no doubt, would be scantily peopled 
 at 160 to the square mile, or twenty-fold its present number of . 
 inhabitants. Of Central America we know little, except that 
 its population was once far greater than at present. Parts 
 only of its surface are unhealthy, and even these, probably, not 
 necessarily or incurably so. The best geographers estimate its 
 actual inhabitants at about 2,000,000, or 13 to the square 
 mile. It certainly might maintain five or ten fold that num- 
 ber. As for South America, it is impossible to state, with any 
 approach to accuracy, either what numbers it does or might 
 contain. Enormous areas of its surface, cannot be said to be 
 inhabited at aU, though very copiously endowed by nature. 
 Thus, — 
 
 Chili has to the square mile about . . .6 
 Brazil " " nearly . . 3 
 
 Peru " " "... 2 
 
 Paraguay " " "... 4 
 
 The Argentine Eepublic " . . .1 
 
 Uruguay and Patagonia not . . 1 
 
APPENDIX. 311 
 
 There is certainly araple room yet for 200,000,000 or 
 300,000,000 on the continent of South America, and as cer- 
 tainly for another 100,000,000 — probably twice or thrice that 
 number (for each successive exploration discovers fresh wealth 
 of fertile land) — in the great colonies of Australasia.* 
 
 itfo one who even looks over these statistics can avoid the 
 conclusion that the earth is not yet one quarter — perhaps not 
 one tenth — peopled. Ifo one who reads books of travels in 
 much detail can avoid having this conclusion deepened Luto a 
 vivid impression and conviction. The entire population of 
 the globe is calculated by the best geographers to be about 
 1,100,000,000, and probably this is rather an extreme estimate. 
 Of this, Europe furnishes nearly 300,000,000, and Asia up- 
 wards of 600,000,000, leaving only two for the vast continents 
 of North and South America, Africa, and Australia. We 
 cannot form even an approximate conjecture of the length of 
 time which has been needed for the proUfic powers of man, 
 acting under the disadvantageous circumstances of comparative 
 ignorance and social barbarism, to people the world up to its 
 present numbers. It may have been 20,000 years ; it may 
 have been 200,000 ; it may have been incomparably more. 
 No one, we fancy, whose opinion is worth considering on a 
 
 * The average density of the two Americas is about 6 to the square 
 mile. " The Gazetteer of the World " states that of Africa at 7, of 
 Asia 32, and of Europe at 82. These, however, are only rough esti- 
 mates. 
 
 New Zealand contains as neariy as may he the same acreage as the 
 British Isles, but New Zealand has only a population of 100,000, Britain 
 a population of 30,000,000, or 300 times as great, yet New Zealand is 
 probably superior to our islands both in soil and climate. Australasia 
 has a larger area than Europe, — upwards of 3,000,000 square miles. 
 There is nothing, so far as we know at present, to forbid the expectation 
 that it may one day maintain an equal population. 
 
312 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 scientific question, would place it below the smallest figure I 
 have named. No doubt the increase of the human race may 
 be expected to proceed at an accelerated pace in future, unless 
 there should be some retarding influence, among yet unrecog- 
 nized physiological laws, such as we have hinted at. Agri- 
 culture has made vast improvements ; famines are not to be 
 dreaded as formerly ; few now in any country die of want, 
 and fewer will die JFrom this cause every year, as the world 
 grows older ; communication between distant lands — between 
 those whose population is redundant and those whose land is 
 cheap and plentiful — becomes easier day by day, and man- 
 kind may now disperse as fast as they multiply ; wars, too, 
 and pestilence may, it is to be hoped, grow rarer and less deso- 
 lating ; and assuredly the average duration of individual life 
 is on the increase. StiU it is plain that, before the earth can 
 be peopled up to its fair limit of density, — the limit, that is, 
 compatible with an ample supply of the necessaries and com- 
 forts of life, — a sufficient number of generations or ages must 
 elapse to permit all the influences developed by civilization to 
 expand and operate. • Time is all we want, and time, in ade- 
 quate measure, we may surely count upon. 
 
 Not only is the earth not yet a quarter peopled, but even 
 the inhabited portion is scarcely yet a quarter cultivated. In 
 many countries the soil is barely scratched. Even in England 
 it is not made to yield on an average to more than one half of 
 its capacity. Perhaps only in Belgium, Switzerland, and Lom- 
 bardy do the actual and the potential produce of the soil in- 
 any measure correspond. We can pretend to no accurate esti- 
 mate of the number of bushels of wheat, or tons of hay or 
 of root crops which an acre of ordinary land under good farm- 
 ing might be made to yield, nor to any statement, provab^i 
 by authentic statistics, of what such land does yield, as. • 
 
APPENDIX. 313 
 
 present handled. All we can do is to collect a certain number 
 of reliable facts from the best authorities bearing on such 
 comparison. The conclusion will be as convincing as if we 
 were able to draw it out in formally calculated tables. 
 
 The average yield of wheat in England is considered to be 
 about 3^ quarters, or 26 bushels per acre. The author of " Lois 
 Wheedon Husbandry,'' on not special land, and with no 
 manure beyond the straw, obtained for 19 years an average of 
 34 bushels. A farmer in Hertfordshire, also not peculiarly 
 fevored, averages 30 from aU his land, and has often reached 
 47, and even 57 bushels per acre. Mr. Lawes, another farmer 
 in the same county, has averaged 35 and 36 for 12 years, and, 
 in 1863 and 1864, he reached as high as from 40 to 55, 
 according to the manure he used (" Times," October 19, 1864). 
 Even 60 bushels to the acre has been achieved in good years. 
 
 Of oats in England, the ordinary yield is 40 bushels to the 
 acre. But 60 are often reached, and 80 by no means unfre- 
 quently. 
 
 In Ireland the average of wheat is about 24 bushels to the 
 statute acre, and of oats about 40. The variation between the 
 produce of different counties in the same year is enormous, 
 ranging from 7^ cwts. to 12 cwts. of wheat, and from 11 to 19 
 cwts. of oats ; and in the same counties, in different years, from 
 8 to 14 cwts. 
 
 Of mangel wuizel, some farmers grow 30 tons, and some 60 
 or 64 ^to the acre. Of swedes, some 16, and others 40 tons. 
 
 It is clear, then, that the average actual produce of cereals 
 and root crops in England falls short, probably by one half, 
 of what it might be, even with our present lights and practice, 
 and of what actually is obtained by individuals in many 
 instances. Belgium and Lombardy surpass our best farming, 
 14 
 
314 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 witli perhaps very few exceptions. It is stated (" Gazetteer 
 of the "World ") that the wheat yield of Belgium is 32 bushels 
 for 2 of seed, or sixteen-fold ; whereas that of Great Britaia 
 is only eight to ten fold.* But France, we find, falls as far 
 short of England's average in its agricultural productiveness, as 
 England's average falls short of England's hest. France has as 
 good a soil and a far better climate than we have, and, to set 
 against deficient science and inadequate manure, has the ad- 
 vantage of la petite culture ia a very high degree. Yet, on the 
 unquestionable authority of M. Leonce de Lavergne, its yield 
 in every article is only haK of ours. The following are a few 
 of his statements : + — 
 
 The yield of oats in England is 5 quarters to the acre, and 
 sometimes as high as 10 ; in France it is only 2^ quarters. 
 The yield of wheat ia England is 3 J quarters to the acre, "br 
 25 hectolitres to the hectaxe ; that of France averages only 12 
 hectolitres to the hectare. In the case of animal production 
 the disproportion is even greater. England is estimated to 
 maintain two sheep per hectare ; France only two thirds of one 
 sheep. Each cow in England is estimated to yield 1,000 litres 
 of milk ; in France only 500. The average yield in meats of 
 cattle slaiu La France for food is 100 kUogs. ;'in England 250. 
 "With 8,000,000 head of cattle and 30,000,000 of hectares to 
 feed them, on, British agriculture produces 500,000,000 of 
 Mlogs. of meat. France, with 10,000,000 head and 53,000,000 
 of hectares, only 400,000,000 of kilogs." M. Leonce de 
 Lavergne sums up by a calculation, showing the entire gross 
 produce of soil (animals and vegetables) ia the two countries, 
 
 * McCuUoch (Geog. Diet.) states the produce of the "Waes County, 
 the most fertile and highly cultivated part of Flanders, to be 2()J bushels 
 of wheat and 41 of oats to the acre. 
 
 + Economie Euxale de I'Angleterre, c. ii., iii., iv. 
 
APPENDIX. 315 
 
 the result of wMch is that England yields 200 francs' worth 
 per hectare, and France only 100 fiancs. 
 
 We are accnstonied to consider the ■western proTinces of 
 Canada and the United States as offering ahout the most fertile 
 and unlimited wheat-fields in the world. Nearly boundless in 
 extent they certainly are, and, for the- most, of extraordinary 
 natural fertility. But this only enhances our surprise at find- 
 ing how very moderate the present yield, even of their hest 
 lands, actually is, and our conception of the vast difierence 
 between what they do and what they might produce. The 
 best lands in Canada, and Michigan, and Illinois, for example, 
 are far superior, both in soil and climate, to the good lands of 
 England ; yet neither their average nor their maximum produce 
 in wheat approaches ours. Our average, be it remembered, is 
 • about 26 bushels to the acre, and our Tnaximum may be put at 
 60. In the State of New York the average is 14, and the 
 maximum about 20. In Michigan the average is 11, and the 
 maximum 18. In New Brunswick the usual yield is 18, in 
 Canada West 13, in Ohio 15. Yet in most of these districts 
 the soil is represented to be of almost inexhaustible richness, 
 — virgin soil in fact. The above figures are collected from 
 Johnstone's " Notes on North America," a first-rate authority 
 on these subjects. There can be little doubt that English 
 farming on Michigan or Ohio land would give a result far 
 exceeding anything yet obtained in either country ; and why 
 should this combination not be ? Is it not certain that some 
 day or other it wiU be ? In order to give some conception of 
 the vast space yet to be travelled over before even the culti- 
 vated portions of the temperate regions yield the amount of 
 human sustenance that they are capable of yielding, we will 
 place some of the above facts in a tabular form, caUing atten- 
 tion merely to the circumstance that the soil and climate (those 
 
316 
 
 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 of Great Britain) ■which stand at the head of the list are, of 
 all those mentioned, about the least favored by nature. 
 
 Produce of Wheat per Statute Acre in Bushels. 
 
 Michigan 
 
 average 
 
 . 11 
 
 Canada West 
 
 u 
 
 13 
 
 Prance 
 
 u 
 
 . 13 
 
 New York 
 
 IC 
 
 14 
 
 Ohio 
 
 (C 
 
 . 15 
 
 New Brunswick 
 
 C( 
 
 18 
 
 American 
 
 maximum • 
 
 . 19 
 
 Belgian 
 
 ii 
 
 20 
 
 Engheh 
 
 average 
 
 . 26 
 
 (( 
 
 maximum . 
 
 60* 
 
 Possible American " 
 
 . 80 
 
 It is clear from the above comparison that we are not over- 
 stating the case, when we say that the actual produce of some 
 of the most extensive and fertile wheat-fields in the world is 
 not above one third of the potential produce, even on the loose 
 agricultural system which at present prevails almost universally. 
 And the same proportion probably holds good of nearly all 
 other crops. But a few facts, fully ascertained and placed 
 beyond doubt, "wiU. suifice to satisfy us that an increase far 
 beyond what has been just mentioned is within our reach. 
 
 Ecommny of seed is one mode in which the available yield of 
 cereals may be greatly increased. The ordinary consumption 
 of seed wheat in the broadcast sowing commonly practised is 
 2 J bushels, or 10 pecks, to the acre, and this, as we have seen, 
 yields an average crop of about 26 bushels, or tenfold. In 
 drilling, or " dibbHng," 1 bushel, or 4 pecks, is held to suf&ee, 
 and to yield heavier crops, — often 30 bushels, or thirty-fold. 
 
 * This is the maximum yet reported in regular farming. Mr. Hallett, 
 however, by hia process of wide sowing and selection, had reached a rate 
 of 108 bushels per acre {" Journ. Agrie. Soc," XXII. p. 377). 
 
APPENDIX. 317 
 
 In one case 4 pecks of seed yielded 40 bushels, or forty-fold. 
 One experiment tried in the State of New York, where only 
 2 pecks of seed were \ised, showed a yield at the rate of 80 
 bushels to the acre, or one hundred and sixty fold. (" Year 
 Book of Agricultural Facts," 1860, pp. 110, 129, 131.) But 
 all these cases fade into insignificance before those recorded by 
 Mr. HaUett, as the result of a long series of careful experi- 
 ments. The extent to which economy of seed is possible may 
 be guessed from the statement made in reference to the " tiller- 
 ing," or horizontal spreading out of the seeds of wheat, " that 
 the stems produced from a single grain having perfect freedom 
 of growth will, in the spring, while lying .flat on the sur&ce, 
 extend over a circle three feet in diameter, producing at harvest 
 50 or 60 ears." Now, an ear contains sometimes 50 grains or 
 more. The above increase, therefore, is 2,500 at least. Of 
 the extent to which economy of seed has been practically car- 
 ried experimentally, we can produce no more signal or instruc- 
 tive instance than the following : Two adjacent fields, similar 
 in aU respects, were selected, and sown with the same seed 
 wheat. In the one case 6 pecks per acre were sown, and 
 yielded 54 bushels, or 934,000 ears ; in the other case, 4J 
 pints per acre were used, planting them in single grains a foot 
 apart, and the yield was 1,002,000 ears, or a larger quantity 
 than was produced at the other side of the hedge /rom more 
 than twenty-one times the seed employed. . (" Journal of Agricult- 
 ural Society," XXII. p. 372, et seq.) But, allowing this to be 
 an extreme case, it is clear that 2 pecks, if not 1, will suffice 
 where 10 are now habitually used; and the saving thus effect- 
 ible would be equivalent to a virtual increase of the wheat 
 crop from 8 to 10 per cent.* 
 
 * Mr. Hallett found that a field planted with 6 pecks per acre yielded 
 only 54 bushels, and one of inferior soil, planted with one peck, yielded 
 
318 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Selection of seed is another point to be noticed. Of the 
 gain attainable by this precaution, the celebrated "pedigree 
 wheat" exhibited in 1861 may be cited as probably the best 
 example. In the article just referred to, published in the 
 "Journal of the Agricultural Society," Mr. HaUett gives a 
 detailed account of his experiments, and their remarkably 
 successful result. By simply selecting a couple of ears of 
 moderate size, and excellent quahty originally, and then, in 
 successive years, sowing only, and carefully, the best and largest 
 grains from the produce thus inaugurated, he had in five years 
 doubled the length of the ear, increased the number of ears 
 springing from one grain ftom 10 to 52, and the number of 
 grains in the ear from 47 to 123. I wiU not go into any fur- 
 ther detail, which, for my purpose, is quite unnecessary ; but 
 two points brought out by Mr. HaUett are important as show- 
 ing the possible powers of reproduction in the wheat plant 
 when properly treated : " I have now (he says) a field of seven 
 acres planted with the produce of a single grain planted two 
 years ago, — one acre of it with the produce of a single ear 
 planted one year ago." Again : the ordinary yield in fair 
 farming, that is, where two bushels of wheat are used for seed, 
 he states, is considered to be about one ear, or 100 grains, for 
 every two grains sown, or about 50 fold. His best grain 
 produced the first year 688 fold; after two years' repeated 
 selection, 1,190 fold; and after four years, 2,145 fold. 
 
 The use of appropriate manures is another mode by which 
 the produce of the soil may be increased to an amount as yet 
 incalculable. Though careful husbandry, such as is practised in 
 Belgium and Lombardy, and in some parts of Prance, where 
 
 57 bushels, showing that the extra quantity of seed used was worse than 
 thrown away. He estimates the average waste of wheat thus caused in 
 England at a million of quarters annually (Vol. XZII. p. 380). 
 
APPENDIX. 319 
 
 la petite culture prevails, is by no means in its infancy, yet 
 scientific husbandry is. By scientific husbandry, I mean the 
 adaptation of the crop to the soU, and the use of appropriate 
 manures which will return to the earth what the present crop 
 needs, or what previous crops have exhausted. Attention to, 
 and comprehension of, the latter point, date from Professor 
 Liebig's works, that is, from our own time, and indeed are not 
 yet diEEused. Thousands of facts bearing on the subject might 
 be accumulated, but they are not needed. We wiU cull a few, 
 mainly from liebig's " Modem Agriculture." Where an unmar 
 nured plot yielded 15 pounds of grain, and a similar plot, 
 supplied with iaappropriate manure, gave 16 pounds, the plot 
 treated with the fitting nutriment gave 36 pounds (p. 57). 
 Mr. Lawes records an experiment where the proportionate 
 result was as follows (p. 77) : — 
 
 Yield without manure . . . 1,000 pounds. 
 With one sort of manure . . 1,690 " 
 With the right manure . . . 2,000 " 
 
 Liebig considers (p. 267) that by the use and improvement 
 of phosphate of lime, " the amount of provender for cattle has 
 been increased as much as if the area of every field for green 
 crops had been doubled." What the introduction of guano 
 has done for agriculture, — especially for the turnip * and the 
 sugar-cane, — we have all a general idea. A couple of hundred 
 weight per acre, according to Lawes and Caird, will, even for 
 wheat, give an increase of eight bushels of grain, or 30 per 
 cent, besides 25 per cent in straw ; and one ton of guano is 
 equal in value to 33 tons of ordinary ferm-yard manure (" Nes- 
 bit's History of Guano," pp. 21, 25). 
 
 * In one ease the nnmanured field yielded 17 tons, and that treated 
 with guano 31 tons (" Joum. Agrie. Soc," XXII. p. 86). 
 
320 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 Again : anotlier indication of the vast increase of food 
 obtainable from land already settled and cultivated may be 
 found in a comparison of the number of cattle and sheep Trhich 
 may be kept on a given acreage, by merely grazing, and by 
 arable cultivation and stall feeding, either exclusively or in 
 combination with grazing. Thus, a cow requires from three to 
 four acres of pasture land ; whereas one acre of well-managed 
 land under tillage would suf&ce ; some say even less. (Consult 
 Morton's " Cyclopaedia of Agriculture.") If this be correct, 
 the production of animal food might be doubled in Great 
 Britain, and trebled nearly everywhere else, by a simple change 
 of system, and the appHcation bf more labor to the soU, with- 
 out the addition of a single acre. M. Leonce de Lavergne 
 states that, on an average, England keeps two sheep on a hectare, 
 and France only two thirds of a sheep. In the case of cattle 
 the comparison is stUl more unfevorable to France, both as 
 regards the size and number of animals. The milk yielded 
 by each cow is double in England, and "with 8,000,000 
 head on 30,000,000 hectares, England produces 500,000,000 
 of kilos, of meat, w:hile France, with 10,000,000 head-^on 
 53,000,000 hectares, only produces 400,000,000' kilos." Thus 
 France has not only a vast distance to travel before she reaches 
 England, but England has at least as far to travel before she 
 reaches an easily attainable ideal. Other countries, d, fortiori, 
 are stOl further behind the possible. 
 
 There is yet another mode in which the amount of human 
 life sustainable on a given area, and therefore throughout the 
 chief portion of the habitable globe, may. be almost indefinitely 
 increased, viz., by a substitution pro tanto of vegetable for 
 animal food. Practically, of course, we should never wish to 
 encounter the risk of again feeding a whole people -mainly on 
 potatoes, though Irishmen have thriven on that diet, and 
 
APPENDIX. 321 
 
 thougli an acre in potatoes will sustain three times the amount 
 of human life of an acre in wheat. But a given acreage of 
 ■wheat will feed at least ten times as many men as the same 
 acreage employed in growing mutton. It is usually calculated 
 that the consumption of wheat by an adult is ajaout one quar- 
 ter per annum, and we know that good land produces four 
 quarters. But let us assume that a man confined to bread 
 would need two quarters a year y still one acre would support 
 two men. But a man confined to meat would require 3 pounds 
 a day, and it is considered a liberal calculation if an acre spent 
 in grazing sheep and cattle will yield in beef or mutton more 
 than 50 pounds on an average, — the best farmer in Norfolk 
 having averaged 90 pounds, but a great majority of farms in 
 Great Britain only reaching 20 pounds. On these data, it 
 would require 22 acres of pasture land to sustain one adult 
 if fed only meat. It is obvious, that here, again, is the indi- 
 cation of a vast possible increase in the population sustainable 
 on a given area. 
 
 But there is much more yet, all tending in the same direc- 
 tion, and confirming our former inferences, if it were needful, 
 or if we had time to go into it. There is an enormous area 
 employed in the production of mere superfluities, such as 
 tobacco, and in dispensable luxuries like tea and wine. There 
 are the boundless riches of the sea, as yet not half explored, 
 or utilized, or economized. We aU know how salmon has been 
 rendered scarce, and how easily it might again be made plentiful, 
 as shown by Alexander Eussel, in his entertaining book. K 
 sea-fisheries were protected by a law making it illegal to 
 destroy fish while breeding, giving them, that is, a couple 
 of months' immunity, it is calculated that this article of 
 food might be at once increased tenfold in quantity, and 
 probably reduced twenty-fold in price. For every female 
 14* " 
 
322 ENIGMAS OF LIFE. 
 
 mackerel or herring destroyed in full roe, about 500,000 ova 
 perish. 
 
 rinaUy, there is every reason to helieve that cooking, — 
 scientiflc cooking, that is, by which we mean the intelligent 
 treatment of food so as to extract from it the utmost amiount 
 of healthful nutriment — is in its infancy, or, rather, has scarcely 
 entered iuto hfe. Probably it is not too much to say that at 
 present, owing to our ignorance, carelessness, and clumsiness 
 on this head, — added to the extravagance and excess of some, 
 — one half the food consumed is wasted ; and that twice the 
 numbers now living on the globe — certainly in many of the 
 most civilized countries of it — might be maintaiaed on the 
 existing produce of the sotL 
 
 THE END. 
 
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