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is in man, not needing to be learned and striven after, is what I call natural; that in man which is attained to by learning and achieved by hard striving is what I call factitious. This is the distinction between those two. By the nature of man the eyes are capable of seeing and the ears are capable of hearing, but the power of seeing is inseparable from the eyes and the power of hearing is inseparable from the ears. It is plain that the faculties of seeing and hearing do not need to be learned. Mencius says, says, "The nature of man is good, but all lose and ruin their nature, and therefore it becomes bad;" but I say that this representation is erroneous. Man being born with his nature, when he thereafter departs from its simple constituent elements he must lose it. From this consideration we may see clearly that man's nature is evil. What might be called the nature's being good would be if there were no departing from its simplicity to beautify it, no departing from its elementary dispositions to sharpen it. Suppose that those simple elements no more needed beautifying, and the mind's thoughts no more needed to be turned to good, than the power of vision, which is inseparable from the eyes, and the power of hearing, which is inseparable from the ears, need to be learned, then we might say that the nature is good, just as we say that the eyes see and the ears hear. It is the nature of man, when hungry, to desire to be filled; when cold, to desire to be warmed; when tired, to desire rest: these are the feelings and nature of man. But now a man is hungry, and in the presence elder he does not dare to eat before him: he is yielding to that elder. He is tired with

of an

labor, and he does not dare to ask for rest: he is working for some one. A son's yielding to his father and a younger brother to his elder, a, son's laboring for his father and a younger brother for his elder,—these two instances of conduct are contrary to the nature and against the feelings, but they are according to the course laid down for a filial son and the refined distinctions of propriety and righteousness. It appears that if there were an accordance with the feelings and the nature there would be no self-denial and yielding to others. Self-denial and yielding to others are contrary to the feelings and the nature. In this way we come to see how clear it is that the nature of man is evil; the good which it shows is factitious.

An inquirer will ask, "If man's nature be evil, whence do propriety and righteousness arise?" I reply, All propriety and righteousness are the artificial production of the sages, and are not to be considered as growing out of the nature of man. It is just as when a potter makes a vessel from the clay: the vessel is the product of the workman's art, and is not to be considered as growing out of his nature. Or it is as when another workman cuts and hews a vessel out of wood: it is the product of his art, and is not to be considered as growing out of his nature. The sages pondered long in thought and gave themselves to practice, and so they succeeded in producing propriety and righteousness and setting up laws and regulations. Thus it is that propriety and righteousness, laws and regulations, are the artificial product of the sages, and are not to be considered as growing properly from the nature of man.

Translation of JAMES LEGGE,

N Corbet's picture, of which we give an engraving, is presented a new illustration of death-bed repentance always so difficult to trust and to establish. But yesterday and the vulpine instinct was his only religion, and a tender lamb the acceptable sacrifice to the cunning of his genius. Who could get the better of old Reynard? In all periods and in all languages, from Esop to La Fontaine, his name was the synonym for astuteness and wily achievement; and even when, once, he lost his tail, he persuaded his fellow-quadrupeds that to wear a caudal appendage was vulgar. Perhaps the reader will recur to the true and typical stories of Uncle Remus, and wonder that in these latter days "Brer Rabbit has changed places with " Brer" Fox in the domain of cunning and tricks him to his heart's content. This is but a stratagem of wit, of the nature of a burlesque, and in accordance with the law of reprisals. There

rest, with Horace's "murrain on the hindmost," do not observe how his airy gallop has declined into a dragging trot as he labors across the brook on the fallen tree; but he hears in increasing volume of sound, nearer and nearer, the blare of the horns and the yelping of the hounds who are "running him to earth." He feels his rapidly-failing strength; he even sees the carrion-crow hovering over him and anticipating the banquet of his flesh. Do his sins crowd upon his memory, as the artist would wish us to believe? Does he declare to himself that if a miracle should compass his salvation he would never eat a lamb or rob a henroost as long as he should live-that he would found a monastery for foxes and repent in sackcloth and ashes?

The moral at least remains for men, and has been cleverly rendered in a distich :

"When the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be; When the Devil got well, the devil a monk was he."

THE CAPTIVE.

hare exchange characters with the incarnation of animal cunning.

In the picture poor Reynard may well be pitied by his worst enemy. The sheep, who see him coming, take no note, indeed, of his lolling tongue, his shrunken flanks, his drooping tail. The guardian mother and her lamb, who have been left in rear by the

very, still thou art a bitter draught, and, though thousands in all ages have been made. to drink of thee, thou art no less bitter on that account. It is thou, Liberty-thrice sweet and gracious goddess, whom all in public or in private worship-whose taste is grateful, and ever will be so till Nature herself shall change. No tint of words can