familiar. Some attribute their own evil ways and thoughts to the whole world. Others more happily dwell on the good and the beautiful, and associating qualities of life with inanimate things, find

"... tongues in the trees, books in the running brooks; Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."

XVII.

H. M. TO H. G. A.

Thank you for the reply you have sent to some of my questions. I do not see how you can help making your letters so long, if I ask so many questions as in my last. Will you now please to dispose Others are rising in my mind,

of more of them?

while I wait for your solution of these: but I will keep them back till I have heard from you again.

XVIII.

H. G. A. To H. M.

It appears to me that men for the most part have no clear notion of the nature of science, or of the

laws of action and thought; but nature in general, and the nature of man in particular, seems to them to be a species of conjuring. But the true physiologist studies the laws of matter, and the whole process of development, disentangling himself from all spiritual and metaphysical dogma, and will take into consideration all the circumstances which influence the man

from childhood to the grave. He will observe the conditions of the parents before the child is born, or even conceived; and back through many generations, noting those conditions and tendencies which more particularly descend, and are impressed on the constitution, even to the third and fourth generation. He will observe the condition of the mother during the period of gestation, and the influences by which she has been surrounded; and after the child is born, he will watch the treatment of the infant, and the gradual development of its instincts and powers, and the acquiring of names to things, which Hobbes considers to be the basis of the understanding. He will note how the child is trained to good or to evil how its passions are stimulated and directed; and will observe how it is excited to anger and vengeance, often at a very early period, and even against inanimate objects; and whether it be pampered and trained to vanity and pride, concealment, terror, superstition, selfishness, and falsehood; what it acquires by the force of example, and what is owing o its peculiar constitution; how evil circumstances will subdue a good tendency, and how a good natural disposition will triumph over evil influences. He

will not lose sight of his object when the child has become a young man at college, where we might expect to find the best education the knowledge of the age can afford. But here he will lament to observe inducements to idleness and dissipation, and vanity exhibited in an imitation of the lowest vices of society, which the youth is induced to think a fine thing, and to be a kind of wild manliness of his nature. Seldom do we find* the youth animated to solemn aspiration, and made earnest and hopeful in the pursuit of real knowledge. More frequently our future legislator will be found strutting abroad, with an immense Joinville tie, driving a stage coach, horse racing and betting, or perhaps doing what is far worse; acknowledging no higher object in life than pleasure and ambition-pleasure in low pursuits, and ambition towards wealth and position. His studies are not of much account. The ability to make a few quotations from the classics, and a småttering of mathematics, are the chief results of a college education. The sciences and modern languages are neglected, and he learns but little of general literature and history. Above all, he remains ignorant of himself of physiology and the laws of Man's nature, which, of all knowledge, is most conducive to a moral and useful life. He will imbibe a confused notion of unintelligible dogmas,—which are called religion, it is true, and which are vainly supposed to be allsufficient to guide him through life, and to attain for him a place in a heaven after he is dead. He is * Appendix T.

taught that the first man was created perfect by a being who is all-powerful and all goodness; that this man nevertheless erred, and brought death into the world; and that, though he made not himself, he was punished for being what he was: and that all others inherit condemnation on this man's account; that satisfaction is required by the designer and creator of this abortion for his own doing, and what he had predestined from the beginning: that he makes himself a son-who is himself-and is nailed upon a cross to be his own satisfaction* for what he has done; and that, in believing this, men shall be saved, and forgiven the sin which is in their nature, and inherited from another. At the same time, man cannot believe unless he be made to believe. He is taught to respect the morality of vengeance, and of partiality; that man can do no good of himself, and yet has free will; and that the soul or life can be separated as an entity, and be independent of the living thing. He is taught that few are chosen to heaven, but the greater number to

*

"It was a strange fancy to think to gratify the divine bounty with our afflictions, like the Lacedæmonians, who regaled their Diana with the tormenting of young boys, whom they caused to be whipped for her sake, very often to death. It was a savage humour to imagine to gratify the architect by the subversion of his building, and to think to take away the punishment due to the guilty, by punishing the innocent. And that poor Iphigenia, at the port of Aulis, should by her death and immolation acquit towards God the whole army of the Greeks from all crimes they had committed."-Montaigne.

damnation; and this is to be considered a most consoling doctrine. And while men may be born to hellfire, they are instructed to love God with all their hearts, and to forgive one another to the seventy times seven. Stimulated to selfishness by the idea of reward and punishment, they are required to be unselfish, and urged to set their hearts on high things. They are taught to believe that they could not have existed as a consequence of nature, and as nature; but that they were created by a being resembling themselves, who is at the same time incomprehensible; that all nature is a fabric made out of nothing; but that this wondrous Being-the first cause—is himself without a cause or beginning. They are to consider it necessary that man should have a maker, but that the demand of causality is to rest there. When each was a child, he was told that he came in the doctor's pocket, and that he must ask no more questions. He is now told that he was brought out of nothing by the great physician, and that it is wicked to inquire further. A lesser difficulty is thus solved only by a greater difficulty of the same nature; or rather, it is thus that a difficulty which does not exist is invented and solved.

This restless and craving absurdity of human wisdom may truly be called vain philosophy. Men are taught logic; but it would seem to be the most useless invention, seeing that they afterwards believe in the most illogical conclusions. They are taught, in fact, to believe in what is intellectually most absurd and monstrous, and morally vicious and most bar