that force which would otherwise be employed in the formation of cells for the transmission of life.

The antagonism of the two poles of consciousness is indeed sufficiently apparent to all, and finds expression in such sayings as that of the Wise Man: "The corruptible body presseth down the soul, and the earthly tabernacle weigheth down the mind that museth upon many things;"1 and that of St Paul: "With the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin." When the animal nature is made the object of attention, and when to it the intelligence and affections are rendered subservient, the mind acts solely as an animal instinct, and the sensations of pleasure derived from the acquisition of knowledge, from the exercise of reason, the perception of the beautiful, etc., disappear. On the other hand, when the intellect is highly wrought, the sense of pleasure and pain derived from things beyond the animal horizon is intensified, and the physical nature languishes.

Man is conscious of an apparent strain on the link of cohesion, as though the vital force strove to concentrate itself on the spiritual pole, and resolve the motion of life into a revolution about it, by rupturing the tie which binds it to the animal pole.

The surface of the right hemisphere of the human brain in square inches

332.5

The perception of pleasure or pain is a resolution of force. This is evident in the life of the animal. Where there is no pleasurable or painful sensation there is no arrest and disintegration of force. A clown placed before a painting by Raphael is insensible to its beauty. The waves of light pass through his brain as through a sheet of clear glass. But a connoisseur before it is sensible of delight, because the pulsations of light are stopped and resolved in his mind, which like a convex mirror focuses and refracts the force, and like a lens resolves it. The formation of an idea, as has already been said, is an assimilation and alteration of force, and a stream of ideas passing through the brain leaves evidence of its material action in the excretion of alkaline phosphates by the kidneys. The resolution of muscle, on the contrary, produces lithates.

There seems to be-but this is merely suggested, not insisted upon-a spiritual force as well as a material force, and a process of spiritual generation going on in the ideal world, not unlike that with which we are familiar in the physical world.

Three hundred years ago, let us say, a man of genius writes a book. His ideas are thrown out like so many spores, and they lie imbedded in printer's ink till I read his book. They at once take root and develop in my brain, and I, in conversation or in writing, transmit them to others. We find the same ideas, the same speculations, the same plays of fancy, reproduced generation after generation, with modifications peculiar to the time, as though they were living descendants of original ideas which were brought into being before the dawn of history. But this is mere conjecture, and must be laid aside for what is provable.

The alteration of force in the physical world is great, and

in the modifications force undergoes it assumes a variety of expressions, as light, heat, electricity. In like manner, force modified by the brain appears as volition, cognition, and feeling.

In animal life, pleasure and pain indicate the resolution of force, and we can measure the force evolved by the force absorbed. In spiritual life, pleasure and pain indicate likewise the resolution of force. We know that force has been absorbed and evolved by the process of thought.

The object of life, the object for which pleasure and pain operate, is the development of the animal and the propagation of its kind.

The object of the spiritual consciousness is the development of the spiritual life. Growth is due to excess of assimilating power over liberating power. Through life the spiritual life can grow and develop. To every plant and animal there is a term of development beyond which it does not extend. What is the term of the spiritual life?

The fact of man being awake to pleasures unconnected with his material well-being assures him that in him is a dynamic force urging him to some point. But what is that point?

To these questions two answers have been given. One is, that the presence of these instincts and volitions tend to the perfection of the species.

The other is, that they indicate an individual perfection in another stage of existence.

The first of these answers has satisfied the Chinese mind, which considers political and social organization as the object upon which every faculty not expended on animal and individual development is to be directed.

The second has been the answer of all those peoples who have found expression for their belief in religion.

According to Auguste Comte, the founder of Positivism, the human race, conceived as a continuous whole, is a concrete existence. This great collective Being is in a condition of progress towards perfection. All generations of men are indissolubly united into a single image, combining all the power over the mind of the idea of posterity, with our best feelings toward the present which surrounds us, and aspirations after a perfected future. The present lives and rejoices on the wisdom acquired, and the knowledge accumulated by the past; and as the present is wiser and more knowing than the past, so will the future be wisest and most knowing. The good of the human race is the ultimate standard of right and wrong, and moral discipline consists in cultivating the utmost possible repugnance towards all conduct injurious to the general well-being. The dominant religion of the Chinese is of the same nature. The Chinese mind was sluggishly rolling towards Deism, when Confucius suddenly diverted it into Positivism. He taught that man was a member of a mighty organism, the perfection of which was the co-ordination of every part, and of this organism the emperor was the apex. "If you desire to establish your institutions on the securest basis,” said Confucius, "educate the young, diffuse intelligence in every direction; but insist chiefly on the study of that science which surpasses every other, the science of political economy, which enables you to turn all other kinds of knowledge to a practical account."

It is very doubtful whether this solution of the question is the correct one. It is open to the following objections: Intellectual development necessarily leads to a deterioration of the physique of the species; high civilization introduces a multitude of disorders unknown to savage life; and

such deterioration must end in the extinction of the race. In a simple and barbarous state of society, the weak and deformed die as children. Civilization tends to accumulate and propagate disease and malformation; for science, and the attention which in a cultivated race can be bestowed on the infirm, keep the diseased and deformed alive, and suffer them to breed and spread their disorder and malformation through generations of children. In savage life the process of natural selection tends to raise the type of man, the inferior types dying out; but civilized life prevents the operation of this natural law, and therefore tends to the deterioration of the race.

The lowest organisms are those with the greatest powers of reproduction. The yeast fungus in a few hours propagates itself through a large mass of wort. The microscopic Protococcus nivalis in a night reddens many square miles of snow.

The Protozoa have powers of reproduction almost beyond belief. Whole districts are suddenly blighted by the aphis, which multiplies at a prodigious rate by internal gemmation. Among Mammalia, beginning with small rodents, which quickly reach maturity, and which produce large litters, as we advance step by step to the higher animals, in proportion as intelligence lightens does reproductive power diminish. Among human beings the same law is observable. The poor, who exert muscle rather than decompose brain matter, have large families. Among the highly educated, who expend their force in the corrosion of nerve, small families are found. Every year that intellectual activity advances, reproductive activity falls back. The reason is, that sperm cells are composed of the same constituents as neurine, and that the vital force, if liberated by decomposition of brain matter, is diverted from the development of sperm cells for the transfer of life.