mercenaries, who in silver letters labelled himself-"Duke Werner, Lord of the great Company; the enemy of mercy, of pity, and of God."

But why go abroad for illustrations of human variability? have we not plenty at home? In those early days when it was thought "quite sufficient for noblemen to winde their horn, and carry their hawke fair, and leave study and learning to the children of mean people"-in those days when men secured themselves inside thick walls and behind deep moats, and when women wore daggers, character was not just what we now find it. Whilst all nominally held the creed professed by ourselves, the Borderer was most zealous at his prayers when going on a foray; saints' names were battle cries; bishops led on their retainers to fight; and the highest piety was in the slaying of Saracens. Must not our natures have changed somewhat, when we translate this same religion into peace, into philanthropic effort of all kinds, into missionary enterprise, into advocacy of temperance, into inquiries about "labour and the poor"? Does the agitation for the abolition of death punishment indicate no revolution in men's feelings since the days when Cromwell's body was exhumed, and his head stuck on Temple Bar-the days when criminals were drawn and quartered as well as hung-the days when there were murmurs "because Stafford was suffered to die without seeing his bowels burned before his face" - the days when creaking gibbets were scattered over the country the days when church-doors were covered with the skins of men who had committed sacrilege ? And when we read that Sir John Hawkins, in honour of his having been the first to commence the slave-trade, received the addition to his coat of arms of a demi-moor proper bound with a cord," does it not seem that the national character has improved between his times and ours, when, out of sympathy for the negroes, 300,000 persons pledged themselves to abstain from all West-India produce?

But really it is absurd to argue the matter. The very assertors of this fixedness of human nature tacitly disown their belief in it. They constantly stultify themselves by remarks on differences of national character, on peculiarities in their friends' dispositions, and on their own special tastes and feelings. Admissions thus accidentally made quite invalidate their dogma. Nay, not even these are needed. No comparison between the habits of separate races-between man as he is and as he was -between the tempers and talents of individuals are necessary for this. To the man of any insight, the mere fact that he himself changes with circumstances, from day to day, and from year to year, in sentiments, capacities, and desires, is sufficient to show that humanity is indefinitely variable.

§ 3.

And if humanity is indefinitely variable, it cannot be used as a gauge for testing moral truth. When we see that institutions impracticable in one age have flourished in a subsequent one; and that what were once salutary laws and customs have become repugnant; we may shrewdly suspect that the like changes will take place in future. That incongruity with the state of men and things which at present gives to certain proposed principles an appearance of impracticability, may, in a coming age, no longer exist; and those principles that now seem so well adapted to our social condition, may then no longer harmonise with it. Unless, therefore, we assume that human nature, although hitherto variable, will henceforth remain fixed-a somewhat unwarrantable assumption-we must not allow the disagreement between any system of ethics and the present state of mankind, to be taken as evidence against that system.

Nay more: not only ought we to regard such disagreement, when it appears, without prejudice; but we ought to expect it; and to consider it, if anything, rather an indication of truth than of error. It is preposterous to look for consistency between absolute moral truth, and the defective characters and usages of our existing state! As already said, Morality professes to be a code of rules proper for "the guidance of humanity

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in its highest conceivable perfection." A universal obedience to its precepts implies an ideal society. How then can it be expected to harmonise with the ideas, and actions, and institutions of man as he now is? When we say that mankind are sinful, weak, frail, we simply mean that they do not habitually fulfil the appointed law. Imperfection is merely another word for disobedience. So that congruity between a true theory of duty, and an untrue state of humanity, is an impossibility, a contradiction in the nature of things. Whoever, by way of recommending his scheme of ethics, sets forth its immediate and entire practicability, thereby inevitably proves its falsehood. Right principles of action become practicable, only as man becomes perfect; or rather, to put the expressions in proper sequence-man becomes perfect, just in so far as he is able to obey them.

A total disagreement may therefore be looked for between the doctrines promulgated in the following pages, and the institutions amidst which we live. And the reader will be prepared to view such disagreement not only as consistent with their truth, but as adding to its probability.

LEMMA II.

And yet, unable as the imperfect man may be to fulfil the perfect law, there is no other law for him. One right course only is open; and he must either follow that or take the consequences. The conditions of existence will not bend before his perversity; nor relax in consideration of his weakness. Neither, when they are broken, may any exception from penalties be hoped for. Obey or suffer" are the ever-repeated alternatives. Disobedience is sure to be convicted. And there are no reprieves.

It is indeed the favourite maxim of a certain popular philosophy, that "there is no rule without an exception,"-a maxim about as respectable as the proverbs along with which it commonly passes current. Applied to conventional usages -to the tenets of state policy-to social regulations to the precepts of pocket prudence-to the laws of grammar, of art, of etiquette-or to those common aphorisms which roughly classify the experiences of every-day life, it may be true enough; but if affirmed of the essential principles of things, of society, of man, it is utterly false.

Nature's rules, on the contrary, have no exceptions. The apparent ones are only apparent; not real. They are indications either that we have not found the true law, or that we have got an imperfect expression of it. Thus, if terrestrial gravitation be defined as "a tendency possessed by all free bodies to descend towards the centre of the earth," you may triumphantly add-"all free bodies except the balloon." But your balloon is no exception. Its ascent is just as much a result of gravitation as the falling of a stone. You have merely proved that the definition does not adequately express the law. Again, to the assertion that exercise increases strength-you may answer, that although generally true, it is not true of invalids, to whom exercise is often detrimental; and that it is only true of the healthy within certain limits. Just so. But such qualifications would have been needless, if the law had been completely stated. Had it been said that so long as the power of assimilation is sufficient to make good the waste consequent upon exercise, exercise increases strength-no limitations could have been discovered. The so-called exceptions are in ourselves, not in nature. They show either that the law eludes our perception, or baffles our power of expression.

Rightly understood, the progress from deepest ignorance to highest enlightenment, is a progress from entire unconsciousness of law, to the conviction that law is universal and inevitable. Accumulating knowledge and continual induction are ever restricting the old ideas of special causation within narrower limits. Each new discovery in science - every anomaly solved-strengthens men in the belief that phenomena

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result from general uniform forces. And at length, by dint of constantly-repeated evidence, they begin to perceive that there are no suspensions of these forces even for the avoidance of the most terrific catastrophes. They see that although fleets be sent to the bottom by the resulting storm, yet must atmospheric equilibrium be restored. They see that the earth does not cease its attraction, even to save a village from the impending avalanche. They see that, regardless of the consequent destruction of a church, or blowing up of a vessel, the electric fluid will still follow "the line of least resistance." They see that chemical affinity must act, notwithstanding it ends in the burning of a city to ashes in the submergence of half a country by volcanic disturbance-or in the loss of a hundred thousand lives by an epidemic. Every increment of knowledge goes to show that constancy is an essential attribute of the Divine rule: an unvaryingness which renders the eclipse of a hundred years hence predicable to a moment! And for the end of these unbending ordinances of nature-we find it to be the universal good. To render the world habitable; that is the great object. The minor evils due to this persistency of action are as nothing compared with the infinite benefits secured. Whether those evils might or might not have been avoided, we need not now consider. It is enough for us to know that constancy is the law, and we have no alternative but to assume that law to be the best possible one.

§ 2.

As with the physical, so with the ethical. A belief, as yet fitful and partial, is beginning to spread amongst men, that here also there is an indissoluble bond between cause and consequence, an inexorable destiny, a "law which altereth not." Confounded by the multiplied and ever-new aspects of human affairs, it is not perhaps surprising that men should fail duly to recognise the systematic character of the Divine rule. Yet in the moral as in the material world, accumulated evidence is