without which we could not avoid the paradox of admitting that the Deity himself was limited in his power.

It seems to me that, of all other studies, that of the obvious moral law which I have called the principle of Retributive Justice, wherein animals are evidently included as well as men, has the greatest tendency to support the belief in Providence, and to uphold the almost universally cherished expectations of future rewards and punishments: for we see that, however necessary, in the present state of nature, destruction and pain may be as the principles calculated to counteract excessive reproduction, and to moderate injurious pleasure; yet the mischievous exercise of the lower faculties both in men and animals, whereby suffering is brought about, is sure to bring punishment on the head of those who use their faculties in this injurious way; so that though evil must come, wo will be to him who is the cause of it. There is something sacred in that which is useful as a means of good; and thus we see that, while the devouring wolf and the rapacious falcon have always been hunted down, and made to feel a measure of that persecution with which they have followed the lamb and the dove, the swallow tribe, by their utility, have secured to themselves a peaceful habitation under the roofs of human dwellings, even in the suburbs of the most populous cities:

Odimus accipitrem, quia semper vivit in armis,
Et pavidum solitos in pecus ire lupos.

At caret insidiis hominum, quia mitis, hirundo,
Quasque colat turres Chaonis ales habet.

The security which virtue and probity have in like manner conferred on men is also proverbial :

Integer vitae scelerisque purus

Non eget Mauri jaculis neque arcu.

We see, too, that there is a principle in both man and beast that verifies the proverb Qui captet capitur, and which condemns the artificers of evil to get entangled and to perish in their own If, among men,

snares.

Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede poena
duro

So also among inferior animals we find that the mischievous are the most obviously exposed to destruction. And it may be worth our while to consider whether the whole history of the condition and sufferings of the animal kingdom, affording, as it does, a remarkable parallel to the chronicle of human sorrows, may not be made subservient to yet higher purposes, by throwing additional light on the great principle of retribution, which, being obviously incomplete here, seems to point out to a supplementary future state of reward and punishment, which, from the actual preponderance of good in the world, we may conclude will eventually lead to a final restoration happiness.

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The above hypothesis, as the Catholic reader will immediately say, can apply only to the animal kingdom; with respect to which it may be justly inferred that, as the Deity is infinitely good and merciful, he will restore to them, at some period and in some manner, that happiness which their races have been deprived of by the general curse; since, not being responsible beings, they cannot be supposed sinful. With regard, however, to the fate of human beings, we are not warranted by Christianity in offering conjectures which can in any way interfere with the ancient tradition and definite doctrine of the Christian church.

For, if any man, under pretence of private judgment or affectation of philosophy, shall venture to gainsay or shake the public faith of Christendom, he will find that he has made a tremendous chasm in the rock of St. Peter, with no other effect than that of laying open the horrible gulf of universal scepticism before the path of the way worn pilgrim. I have shewn in these pages the poverty of philosophy and the inability of man, by any effort of his individual reason, to understand or establish any truth whatever. Every enquiry comes to a metaphysical non plus; a void is left which our intellectual powers afford us no means of filling: while the mind, still eager in pursuit of that which is evidently out of its reach, learns to place reliance on those doctrines which have been handed down to us from time immemorial as the gift of some special revelation. The evidence of the validity of such doctrine must be sought for in its adaptation to our nature and actual wants and in the manifest truth of certain of its propositions from whence we might fairly infer that of the rest and the genuineness of the source from whence they are derived. Not only all the histories the Bible illustrative of the principle of Retributive Justice in general, but also the particular declarations of Beatitude in the

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Sermon on the Mount, are confirmed by every day's experience. It seems, therefore, to me that it would have been wiser to have strengthened the public faith by arguments of a moral and historical nature, rather than to have held out rewards now, after eighteen centuries of Christianity, for the proofs of Providence and Future Life drawn from the construction of a bed of coral or the anatomy of a grasshopper. Such arguments are unintelligible to the fanatic, insufficient for the philosopher, and superfluous to the theologian. They lead all men away from the simplicity of religion, and involve the enquirer in useless questions too vast for finite capacities; and are, all, merely a revival in a new dress of disquisitions which after have long ago occupied and disgusted the minds of our forefathers; and they only prove that there is nothing new under the sun.

All sorts of conjectures have been hazarded by philosophers to account for the manner of future vitality. Some have broached an opinion that the soul passes through the bodies of numerous animals, and subsequently undergoes punishments commensurate to crimes previously committed in another state of existence. If this be true, the man who has ill used the horse or beaten the negro may in turn become the subject of the same injury which he has inflicted; and thus oppression and suffering, changing hands in the course of a penitential metempsychosis, an efficient purgatory may be established in the course of nature. Others have added to this notion the belief that heaven is in the central suns of the different systems, and that mortality is only a condition of a preparatory planetary life; and that the spirits, liberated successively from the various bodies which they inhabit in each of the planets respectively, will rush into the central sun, by a law as inevitable as that whereby the bodies would gravitate thither, if the centrifugal force which holds them in their orbits were to be suddenly withdrawn Others have supposed that, at our dissolution, we shall be placed out of the whole of the present visible universe, and become capable of sensations so much more vivid and real, that this life will appear in the retrospect like a dull and visionary dream.

All these are supernumerary articles of faith; the one thing necessary to impress on young minds is the belief of future retribution. As one of the natural arguments for life hereafter is drawn from the circumstance that all mankind are more or less engaged in seeking for it; considering that Nature

seems to do nothing in vain, nor raises any expectations that are wholly incapable of realization: so we may also argue that the future state will be one of rewards and punishment; since we can recognise even in this life a distinct law of retributive justice, from which some individuals escape here by dying amidst forbidden pleasures before the day of retribution. For Nature, never in contradiction with herself, can make no law liable to be evaded; and, as the mechanical law of gravitation, observable on the earth, is also to be recognised in all the heavenly bodies an universal principle of matter so we may expect, reasoning from analogy, that the moral law of justice must also for ever pervade the universe and be a general principle of mind.

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Unfortunately, we know nothing of the mode of posthumous resuscitation, nor in what manner our personnal identity will be preserved hereafter. But when we consider that all things are possible with Omnipotence, and that to this attribute that of Omnibeneficence is always said to be conjoined in the Creator of the universe, it is a fair inference from these premises that care and pain, so constantly mixed up here with every pleasure, are only preparatory steps to a better state of things, and may be necessary to future happiness, for reasons unknown to us in this our imperfect state of knowledge. If it should be objected to the doctine of a state of probation, that the very short period allotted to us in this life is insufficient for a preparatory school, from the disproportion between either virtues exercised or crimes committed in this world, and an eternal recompense or punishment in the next; it may be replied that, if this life were to last for a million years, no proportion between it and eternity would yet be established. For the argument which we have already considered with reference to space is equally applicable to time: the finite and the infinite being in both cases incommensurate with each other. Threescore years and ten may therefore serve as well, for enabling the mind to acquire the conditions of its perpetuity of character, as three thousand would. The phenomena of life hereafter may have no relation to periods, or to limitation of extent; and whether beings in other states of existence will at any period arrive at a ne plus ultra of fruition, or will go on for ever progressing through an infinite variety of perpetually augmented pleasurable sensations, we should, in either case, be wrong in denying to any living animal, however small or imperfect, a

participation in so great a blessing; considering the ample means that God in his infinite goodness and power must possess of reanimating the whole of the creation, and of making every one of his creatures attain eventually to a maximum of enjoyment of unlimited duration, in the boundless regions of

space.

All that we can do in practice, however, is to wait patiently for the great teacher, death; and, mindful of its inevitable and certain visit, to live prepared for its arrival, and for what may follow it, by habitual resignation to all the changing events of life, regulated by the maxim of Horace :

Rebus angustis animosus atque
Fortis appare; sapienter idem
Contrahes, vento nimium secundo,
Turgida vela.

$2. Of the Education of Children in general and of early Education in particular considered with reference to their own Happiness as well as to the Condition of Animals.

One of the surest means of bettering the condition of animals will be to improve the character of man, by giving to children a humane rational education, and, above all, setting before them examples of kindness. Hitherto nothing has been so much neglected as this duty, and the evil effects of this neglect have been generally visible in the character of the people. At present it is better understood; but a great deal remains to be done, and, as the education of children will not be thoroughly reformed till their instructors are first set to rights, I should propose to your Society to procure the delivery of lectures on the subject at the various Mechanics Institutes in England.

Very few people are duly impressed with the high importance of early impressions. Most physiologists now acknowledge that cerebral organization is the first condition of character; but very few know how much early education can modify its mode of action. Up to a certain period of life, the child, accustomed to learn whatever the preceptor teaches, is disposed, by a concomitant association of ideas, to believe every thing which the historian relates. And this disposition seems to be a wise provision of Nature for storing the infant mind with the useful knowledge which experienced age may have already attained to, at a time when external objects and arguments make a