be so. Crude attempts to reform vices of temper are therefore commonly unavailing. The aim should be to amend those defects of the inner character out of which the faults of manner and method spring. Irritability should be cured by attention to the physical health and avoidance of habits of thought which leave the mind a prey to the caprice of fortune, or render it the creature of circumstances. To most the cultivation of emotional sensibility is a mistake. Unfortunately the conventional developments of taste, especially that of the dramatic instinct-which all highly sensitive natures possess-give impetus to the growth of sentimentality, and, unless the "heart" be as tender as the "feelings" are acute, there is a perpetual peril that the outer temperament will cease to represent the inner consciousness, so that the emotions no longer express the deeper sentiments; and, when this happens, irritability of temper and insincerity of character are quickly established.

True temper, in the best and only worthy sense, implies perfect truthfulness and consistency. If the heart be right, the temper may be improved by acquiring more complete control of the emotional nature; but improvement must begin within and work outwards. If the outside of the cup and the platter be cleansed while the interior is foul,

the pretended improvement will not only be unreal, but it will consist in the assumption of a fictitious calm more mischievous than the wildest vagaries of the uncontrolled mind.

Temper is

a quality of order and self-management which, to be natural, must spring "naturally" from an orderly and well-controlled nature; and, unless it be thus produced, it is not temper at all, but the counterfeit presentment of a quality which is worse than valueless when not wholly real. Strong and deep feeling will generally seek warm expression in telling tones and vigorous deeds. The glamour of judgment which enforced restraint casts over a nature disciplined to self-control is only excellent when passion is ruled by reason rather than curbed by policy or a cold passionless sentiment of self-interest and esteem. The expert novelist endows his consummate scoundrel with perfect temper, while he credits the guileless hero with an impulsive and generous emotional nature which hardly brooks control. In the main, the principle embodied in this method of portraiture is true to nature, albeit the artifice is somewhat hackneyed and apt to be exaggerated in detail.

The Supreme Ideal of Perfect Humanity presents entire sincerity as the first feature of excellence, and a faithful expression of the deeper traits

of the character completes the picture. The moment consistency is marred either by excess of seeming emotion on the one hand, or by artificial restraint on the other, harmony and every claim to respect for integrity are destroyed.

THE

"CREATURES OF CIRCUMSTANCE."

THERE is a humiliating, though apologetic, view of human nature and life, which regards men and women as "the creatures of circumstance." Every philosophy must recognise that both mind and body are influenced in a remarkable degree by their surroundings, and that the conditions of growth determine, or at least largely qualify, their development; but this is far short of saying that man is not only by accident, but by design, simply what the influences at work around him and the forces that operate on his physical and mental organism combine to make him. The hypothesis materialism propounds represents mankind as constituted of lumps of clay cast into the midst of a scene where everything-except the plastic being man-is hard and exercises a moulding power over character, while human nature alone is passive and impressionable.

There is always value in a doctrine or view of life

G

which has survived the test of ages, and there can be no question but that there is truth in the dogma of materialism. Let us see what the measure of that truth really is. We know that as to his physical nature man is in fact and experience largely influenced by the food he eats, the air he breathes, and the conditions which compel the development of certain parts of his organism, while they allow others to lie dormant. The savage, who lives principally on the game he hunts, will be essentially animal in his type, and, while these powers and faculties which are called into action by his pursuits are vigorous, others, not so immediately useful, will be neglected. The like is true of the dweller in cities, who has his food brought to him, and in whose dietary flesh is to some extent replaced by vegetable substances; he can scarcely vie with the savage in quickness of eye or fleetness of foot, but he surpasses him in powers better adapted to the needs of civilised life and a higher mental development. The brain is just as amenable to the laws of development as any other part of the body, and the character is, in large measure, the outcome or moral reflex of the brain.

Again, the whole being of man is influenced by the associations amid which he is placed. The sounds, the sights around him are factors in the