the obligation to pursue happiness, we find that all or any of the ordinary sanctions are admissible under this scheme." Here we find that Mr. Stephen has seen that Wollaston leaves the way open for Utilitarianism, and the reader who has carefully read our own quotation will have seen that Wollaston does more, and that he does not leave the way open for purely selfish Utilitarianism as a final thing. For the rest, Wollaston exposed himself to misconception in two ways. First, he affected the mathematical method when he had much better have dispensed with it; and, secondly, he made the too common blunder of testing his principles by the whole of the moral code of his country. It seems to us that Mr. Sidgwick's book suffers much from a similar cause. It is absurd to expect to find any ultimate moral formula which will tell you whether there are or are not any circumstances under which, for example, polygamy or polyandry may be right. So Wollaston breaks down over and over again in trying to apply his own formula. He is found assuming, for instance, the virtue of decency -not a hint of the process by which he gets it out of the crucible with his own proper fire and tongs. And so on. But as much as this may be said of every moralist who ever tested a code by any principle whatever. The question is whether Wollaston's "formal ratio" is ridiculous. Now this book, "The Religion of Nature Delineated" (to delineate is to exhibit in outline), was not written for publication, and, though Wollaston was a man of much learning, it is here and there sufficiently lax in expression to leave openings for critics who think the difference between "real" and "true" one upon which anything can be made to turn. But, after all, what did he mean? Mr. Hunt has rightly put his meaning, and we will venture to restate it in our own way. The meaning of Wollaston's use of truth as the last or, at all events, the most convenient "formal ratio" of morals is this:-The order of the universe is discoverable. That order may be stated in a number of propositions, some of them demonstrable. Every act which implicitly contradicts any such true proposition is wrong. Mr. Leslie Stephen thinks it worth while to quarrel with Wollaston's phrase, "interfere with any true proposition," and inquires how a true proposition can be interfered with. This is quibbling. Put a case-Is such an act an act of irreligion, or is it not? Wollaston says in effect this:-Your sentiments or your conventions may suggest varying answers, some in excess of the truth, and some in defect of it. But we shall find our shortest and surest cut to be that of asking whether the act in question stands in opposition to such true propositions as these:-There is a great and good God. Man is dependent upon this great Being, and owes Him worship and service. If the act in question does not certainly contradict (implicitly) such propositions as these, we cannot certainly affirm that it is irreligious. This method of testing the quality of an action may be no better than many others; but it is not bizarre, much less contemptible, as Mr. Stephen makes it. Neither is it true to say that it resolves all moral guilt into telling lies. That would indeed be absurd, for where is the proof to come from that a lie is wrong? The scheme would break down for want of a first postulate. Although Wollaston commits the dialectical blunder of testing his principles by seeing how far he can justify the received code of morals by them, he saves himself in the last resort by laying it down that the "criterion" is what he calls "private." Otherwise his scheme would not work : : "The criterion of right reason and truth, or that which is to be regarded in judging of right and truth, is private: that is, every one must judge for himself. For since all reasoning is founded originally in the knowledge of one's own private ideas, by virtue of which he becomes conscious of some first truths that are undeniable; by which he governs his steps in his pursuits after more truths, &c., the criterion, or that by which he tries his own reasonings, and knows them to be right, must be the internal evidence he has already of certain truths, and the agreeableness of his inferences to them." This did not imply that every man was to do as he liked; but it did undoubtedly work out to this-that the only moral rules of universal and absolute application are those which he admits in "Section VI.-Truths respecting mankind in general, antecedent to all human laws," which are such as these : "IV. Whatever is either reasonable or unreasonable in B with respect to C would be just the same in C with respect to B, if the case was inverted. Because reason respects cases, not persons. "V. In a state of nature all men are equal in respect of dominion. "VI. No man can have a right to begin to interrupt the happiness of another." It is the fashion just now to pronounce this sort of thing "barren "-"What is the good," inquires one able writer, "of saying Thou shalt not kill,-shalt not kill whom?" And so on. But the answer is obvious. Every conceivable moral rule is liable to a similar stultification if it once passes out of the abstract. What we want is abstract principles to which we can refer the details of a code-we may err in making the transition, but we are compelled to make it; and our first principles must of necessity be formulæ in blank, Fielding's indirect criticism of Mandeville requires no comment; but, if opportunity should serve, we hope to produce other and perhaps more entertaining instances in which novelists and poets, especially those of early date, have more or less obliquely discussed contemporary philosophic systems. Meanwhile it is, we fear, not uncharit. able to add that Wollaston-one of the best men that ever lived-would have found defenders, if it had not been that those who have understood him have also been indebted to him,—and to have referred to him would have been to disclose obligations which they preferred to conceal. TH THE COURSE OF EVENTS. HE lesson of human impotence and human blindness is not a new one. Nor is it new, though it is both amusing and saddening, that we all of us go on generation after generation, revolution after revolution, surprise after surprise, re-enacting the mistake of the fly on the chariot wheel. The illusion comes with our activity-nay, we cannot do our duty without falling into it. A young child is sure that its little strength moves a carriage, when some grown person, willing to please it, places its little fingers in ostensible relation to the movement. And politicians, journalists, authors of books, and others, are almost as easily deluded. It was but yesterday that Bismarck's gloomy pageant of fire and iron* moved on, from stage to stage, before our eyes, so swiftly and so fiercely that we were made to feel our helplessness afresh. Even in that series of events there was, however, a break which might have taught the same lesson by the path of a sudden interruption of the order-for one of the sorties from Paris was very near to success. More recently we have had to stand still in anguish, or in surprise, as the stormclouds have clashed and broken over the heads of our fellow-creatures much further off. The cruelties that have been wrought in the East have been of the quality and degree that make us pinch ourselves hard, in order to be sure that we are awake. Can these things be, and no help? So it appears, and we are yet far from the end of the bloody story. It is a strange thing that journalists and others will persist in writing blood and iron. "By iron and fire" was Bismarck's phrase, and it has a meaning: by sword and exploding gunpowder. But blood and iron means nothing, and Bismarck did not say it. A cynical person might find a text to his liking in the surprises which times of war bring with them. The sagacity of the sagacious can and does foresee many things even in war; but there is always a big margin for variation. The French Revolution was predicted, and on perfectly rational grounds; but nobody could have foreseen Madame Roland, or the death of Mirabeau, or the advent of le petit caporal. Any journalist writing in the days of Queen Elizabeth might safely have prophesied that England would never become the appanage of Spain, but nobody could have foreseen the storm which did so much to disperse the ships of the Armada. In the same way we may observe that though any one might have foreseen the fall of Rome, no human being could have foretold the advent and growth of the Ottoman power in Europe. Upon quasi-optimistic principles no one can explain its continuance. It has spoiled some of the finest countries in the world, and— apart from any Englishman's feelings about India-it is now a dead block in the way of what everybody will admit to be progress—not the mere march of machinery and luxury, but all good things. Besides this, the Ottoman power is associated with a religion which makes anything like a true peace between itself and Christendom impossible. Yet there it stands, a very huge phenomenon, and it will not move out of the way even to oblige those who maintain that the drying up of the great river Euphrates ought to have taken place long ago. Besides this, the course of the war between Russia and that power has not up to this moment been what was looked for. The Russians have been wild and presumptuous; the Turks have held their own. True, the best-informed opinion here is that they must give way, it looks like a settled thing; but what may happen first, or what may happen collaterally, or what may come out of the caldron at last, no human being can tell. The tables of reviewers are half-covered with big books about Russia and Turkey and Egypt; and it is probable that those who take the narrowest and least speculative views manage to pick up the greatest amount of truth and will prove to be the best prophets; for it is after all a stolid sort of world that we live in. But the strongest impression left upon the mind of a candid student of all this well-informed writing is, that so far as the war is concerned, it is not very instructive. If we turn from the war for the moment, we cannot help feeling a little uneasy at the railway strikes in America. They are suppressed, but political economists are not pleased, and are saying under their breath, What next? A very remarkable thing has happened on that side of the world within the last decade or two, and one which, so far as we know, nobody had ever thought of. We used to think of China pretty much as a thing enclosed. We sometimes wondered what its hundreds of millions of people could be intended for in the world, but we scarcely expected that they would overflow. Meanwhile, the "heathen Chinee" has quietly slipped round the corner, crossed the water, and-deranged the labour market. It is impossible that this should be the end of it; and, though the question is not imminent, there are not many things of the same order which one would rather be able to foresee than the part which this yellow-faced intruder is to play within the next hundred years both in America and in Australia. If there is anything which takes high precedence of that, it is the question of the progress the Roman Catholic Church is making and likely to make, both in Europe and America; its relation to the great democratic movement; and the question whether its progress is more favoured or hindered by the great "positive," or scientific movement— which seems as if it were rapidly approaching what we may call a terminal station, though not, of course, its end. W AN EPICUREAN THEIST. HO that knows anything of literature and politics in London, does not know something of the "blood-and-culture school, the "gentleman-andscholar" Conservative coterie which flourished five-and-twenty years ago, or thereabouts? They affected heraldry and good descent, "the right tap, you know;" they talked much of Horace, and Cicero, and Aristophanes, and the fifth tumbler; they plotted to fetch feudalism back again (and thereby hang some droll stories); they called each other "dear old boy," and would not go home till morning; they swore by Church and King, and snorted at bagmen and plutocrats. Bright was their bugbear, and epigram and toddy the gods of their fools' paradise. It was a Serbonian bog of unreality, and many a brave soldier of the pen, who might have been one of Heine's Knights of the Holy Ghost, sank in its mud or caught upon its shores an ague which weakened him for life. Of this latter class the late Mortimer Collins was one, though we do not know how close were his personal relations with that hopeless and yet unheroic coterie. There are many kinds of Toryism. There is the simple-hearted reverential Tory, like Mr. Henley or Mr. Walpole, or John Keble. That is the best type, and it never did any harm yet; it is a genuine, indispensable, natural force in politics and society. Then there is your proud, masterful Tory, who is fond of "keeping fellows in their places you know," and also of keeping fine pedestals of honour for himself and a few more. This sort of Tory may be simply a proud, vain man; who is uneasy unless a ring is kept clear for distinguished persons in general. There is, however, a Tory who, with something of the last type in him, has also brains and culture, and yet no self-justifying theory of politics or society, or morals, or religion. This kind of man is sure to be found on the side of the dukes, and the squires, and the clergy (as clergy, not necessarily as saints or as teachers); of luxury, of conventional morals, and of conventional religion. The late Mr. Mortimer Collins was of this type; but he was too versatile a man not to be sometimes at war with himself, and it must have cost him a pang to call Mr. Arch "a fool with a circumbendibus" (i.e., a rogue). And, strange to say, there was in him a true root of mysticism. He was, in his own remarkable way, a sincere Theist. If he had been a delicate child, brought up in strictly religious circles, there is no telling what he might have come to; but, as it was, his great physical strength and capacity for physical enjoyment were for ever assuming colours of religiosity. Upon the subject of the future life he had evidently an intense feeling-it may surely be added some true vision (his theory about it was another matter). He sometimes digressed into a half-willing argument from design; but the curious part of the case was the suddenness, the evident sincerity, and the essentially mystical air with which he would pass from lobster salad or St. Peray in a tumbler to a description of a fine sunset as "the instant autograph of God." So far as we know, the case is unique. Conventional morality of the "most straitest" type; Bohemian latitude; harsh and sometimes brutal Toryism; Church and King; distinctly avowed Epicureanism; and a mystical faith in God and immortality at the top. This very puzzling writer was steadily improving up to the time of his death and by the majority of critics (we except men like Dr. Littledale) and the majority of readers he was underrated. His accomplishments (though he used to obtrude his classics), and his general force of brain, were greater than they were taken to be; and some of his best verses-notably a few in Mr. Carington"ran Landor very close; once or twice, indeed, outrunning him. Some of his critics have compared him, at a distance, to Herrick; he has himself, bashfulness not being his strong point, named his verses and Suckling's in the same breath; but he resembled neither of these poets. Indeed he had a wider mental range than either of them, though he was a far inferior artist. And unfortunately for his chances of being remembered, he had not the gift of writing single lines or single couplets which weighted or feathered thought or sentiment in such wise that it went straight as an arrow to the common heart. There is nothing in all his writings (so far as we know them) which is like Lovelace's He wanted concentration. He wanted simplicity of feeling. His work was full of "false gallop." It is no new suggestion that he would have taken a higher place but for enemies who were jealous of him. Unless we are mistaken, Mr. Collins hinted this more than once in his own writings. But it was a sad blunder. Collins had an enemy: too true-his name was Collins; and a very bad enemy he was. If we denounce him now in rather bitter terms, it is because he stood between us and the better Collins, till the shocking news of his sudden death broke down all barriers, and for a time left nothing but regret. The following verses we select from a poem which is only too short :— "Death is the ocean of immortal rest; And what is sleep? A bath our Angel brings Dip in it, and freshen the despondent breast, And taste the salt breath of the great wide sea, Where shines 'mid laughing waves a far-off isle for me. "Why fear? The light wind whitens all the brine, Must force the shallop o'er the hyaline; But welcome utter calm or bitter blast- "O the precipitous cliffs, the amber sand, The drowsy valleys musical with brooks, "Will it be thus when the strange sleep of death "I shall behold it! I shall see the utter Freshening the woodland ways with brighter green, All throats of music, and all eyes of light, And driving o'er the verge the intolerable night. “O virgin world! O marvellous far days! No more with dreams of grief doth love grow bitter, Nor trouble dim the lustre wont to glitter In happy eyes. Decay alone decays; A moment-death's dull sleep is o'er, and we It will be admitted by the most grudging critic that there was fine stuff in the man |