do, from our ignorance of their natures and capacities. We have been studying angels, not animals. In fact, In pride, in reasoning pride our error lies; In our self-complacency we have carried our noses so high that we have overrun the scent, and must try back. We are gods here on earth; let us not therefore from ignorance fail in our duties to the creatures below us. At present even the languages they speak are to us unknown tongues. We are God's creatures; they are ours to sympathise with, to rule, and to make happy. In all that lives we shall find something to admire, something to learn, and often something to love. Dr. Draper, the American physiologist, says: "Nearly all philosophers who have cultivated, in recent times, that branch of knowledge (Metaphysics) have viewed with apprehension the rapid advances of Physiology, from seeing that it would attempt the final solution of problems which have exercised the ingenuity of the last twenty centuries. In this they are not mistaken. Certainly it is desirable that some new method should be introduced, which may give point and precision to whatever metaphysical truths. exist, and enable us to distinguish, separate and dismiss what are only vain and empty speculations." Only that knowledge which admits of demonstration will endure and advance. Psychology therefore must be brought within the domain of law, if that also, like the other sciences, is to make any progress. This progress, however, must be slow, as the deepest feelings of our nature, and even common sense, have been enlisted and set in array against its discoveries. If it took a century and a half to reconcile mankind to the Copernican Astronomy, it must be long before it will recognise and accept an ethics founded on the Reign of Law, instead of the present one based on chance, called Freewill. We must be prepared for, and tolerant of, some little diversity of opinion on this subject for some time to come, since even the great Lord Bacon said on this question of the earth's motion, "It is the absurdity of these opinions that has driven men to the diurnal motion of the earth; which I am convinced is most false" (De Augmentis Scientiarum, B. 111); and Alexander von Humboldt in his early youth -and the majority of the world are still very young—wrote a learned essay to refute the notion that the pyramids of Egypt were the productions of nature. Still we may hope that ultimately the "new method" will establish the order of the moral world on a basis as fixed and universal as that of the physical. Why we have no mental and moral science at present is because most people think that they have in their religion a sufficient standard of both, and that all the wants of human nature are included in the Bible; but this idea has long been exploded in Physics, and it must be in Ethics before we can make the same progress in Ethics as we have in Physics. Men agree in Science because it admits of demonstration, but we have no recognised Science of Human Nature. We have no first principles on spiritual subjects: consequently on great moral questions that arise we find our most talented and leading men about equally divided on opposite sides. Talent without principles is rather in the way than not, and interferes with the instincts that would otherwise guide us aright, and And we have a Babel of discord and a confusion of tongues. Anthropologists occupy themselves with questions relating to facts "so far off and so long since" that they scarcely admit of demonstration and verification. Perhaps they do not know that the exact age of the world has been determined. This was accomplished, according to Venerable Bede, at a council held at Jerusalem, about the year 200 A.D. After a learned discussion, reported verbatim, it was finally decided that the world's birthday was Sunday, April 8, at the vernal equinox, and at the fall of the moon (Opera, tom 2, pp. 346, 347. Ed. Basil, 1563.) Here, at least, Anthropologists have one valuable and important fact to start from, and this question having been so satisfactorily settled, they may perhaps feel disposed to take the next step onward; so that, in course of time, arriving at the idea that sensibility is connected with the nervous system, and that the brain is the centre of this system, they may begin to feel some little interest in its varied functions and Gall's discoveries. There are many at the present time who have been obliged to disregard "the tales they have heard from their mothers," and to abandon prevailing opinions, anxiously enquiring what is to take their place, and they are as desirous as the world has ever been to know Whence we came, Why we are here, and Whither we are going. The Spectator, a paper of some authority in such matters, in a notice of Mr. Maurice's work on the Conscience, September 26th, 1868, remarked that a large section of the ablest of our young men hold and avow more or less openly, according to their courage and honesty, that the attempt to solve such problems as the moral philosopher deals with "can lead to no results save that of entangling the inquirer in vague speculations, inca pable alike of refutation or verification ;" and Lord Macaulay also asserted that "the best writer on Morals does not deserve half the gratitude from mankind which is due to a good shoemaker." Nevertheless the present work is another brief and humble attempt, by making use of the light of modern discovery and by putting together and systematising what have hitherto been detached and isolated truths, to answer this question of our Whence, Why, and Whither. I have endeavoured honestly to think out modern facts and discoveries to what appear to be their legitimate conclusions, although it may perhaps take the labours of another generation of workers to test and verify the deductions that have been here made. This task has been done without dread of the consequences, in the firm conviction that we have nothing to fear from truth, and that whatever intuitional aid we may receive from Conscience, we must still learn what is true in order to do what is right." The Author has been accused by former critics of being too fond of "inverted commas," that is, of quotation. This accusation is quite true. Having no personal ends to serve, and knowing the value of authority with the general publicfor much that is here if given merely as his would probably obtain little acceptance he has always been glad to support his position by names deservedly better known to the world than his own, and to build up his edifice with bricks that have the "trade mark" of science upon them. It has also been said that he offers " authority" for "proof;" this also is partially true. In a single volume it is impossible in many cases to do more than point to where proof may be found, and those who are really in search of truth, and wish to study the subject, may refer. Should such a truth-seeker meet with apparent contradictions, let him reflect how very imperfect a medium language is to express new ideas, and that we are frequently obliged to use old terms in a new sense, which often begets an apparent contradiction. Men ordinarily believe, like Shakespeare's Shepherd, "that the property of rain is to wet, and fire to burn, and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun;" they believe also quite as firmly that grass is green, and that there are forms and bodies to which this colour belongs: they never for a moment suppose that they are conscious only of their own perceptions, and that that consciousness is all they know, or can by possibility know; and yet as long as they continue under this illusion and delusion, and fail to recognise that the greenness is in themselves, and not in the grass, the same apparent contradiction must appear in language as there is in that which speech is supposed to represent. It has also been said that the doctrines here propounded tend to lower our ideal. This also may be partially true, but our real good will be found in the proper restraint of our unbounded ideal longings within proportions commensurate with the real facts of life. Much of our duty may be better done by the light of a farthing candle than by that of the stars. No doubt much else may be justly said, much unjustly; but To the long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise, Because their natures are little, -Tennyson, The author has nothing to reply. The Spectrum Analysis is affording proof to many pro |