Not that we are unable to enter occasionally into those moods of thought which bring home to us a becoming sense of the solemnity and importance of life. Were this so, then were we, indeed, in a lamentable condition. It is not, however, in this that the change consists.

The great heart of humanity remains the same; but the intellectual type of the age is changed. And in this, it seems to us, is comprised the whole of that change which an increasing spirit of culture promises. The limited ideas of theology are fast giving way before the more comprehensive views of philosophy; but in the change, the idea of virtue is not destroyed nor impaired. On the contrary, the very ideas of beauty which culture generates are, in themselves, the best evidences that the the culturist's whole aim and purpose consists in emphasizing purity of character, as the one great end of all our hopes and efforts. For, it must be observed, in this connection, that although the present age is characterized by a greater freshness of feeling than the past, and although it indicates very strongly a return to the Grecian spirit, which sought for beauty everywhere, we are, also, very powerfully influenced by those conditions of rigid morality which Christianity has demonstrated to be beyond a doubt the safeguard of nations and individuals. In one sense, the aim of culture is necessarily to dissipate many absurdities which now exist under the guise of theological dogmas; but in another, and still more important sense, its object is to elevate our views of God and Man, to enlarge the horizon of our intellectual life, and thus to lift us gradually into a higher condition of consciousness and nobler existence. In the transition, what matters it if some of our pet theories and long-cherished dogmas are proved untenable. In the midst of this ever-changing

panorama, there must always remain one supreme and fundamental fact, viz.: Error is mortal, and cannot live forever; truth is immortal, and cannot die.

At times we may be called upon to shed tears as we consign our long-cherished ideas to the grave; but, in all such instances, it is but an earnest of a better immortality.

"I look, aside the mist has rolled,

The waster seems the builder too;
Upspringing from the ruined old,
I see the new!

"Twas but the ruin of the bad,

The wasting of the wrong and ill;
Whate'er of good the old time had.
Is living still."

And thus the world moves on; each age fulfilling its special work, and all combining toward a common end.

To a great extent it seems unavoidable that a very large portion of our time should be spent in unlearning the errors of the past. This is true of nations and ages, no less than of individuals and their brief period of existence. Yet, true as it is, it is also evident, on a careful examination, that there is a beautiful law of continuity controlling and pervading the general progress of the human race. Discouraging as the conditions may seem to some of us, it will always be found, in the long run, that all fluctuations of thought, all gradations of intellect, all revolutions in the world of mind, are but so many confirmations of the sublime and important truth expressed by Pascal: "Humanity is but a man who lives perpetually, and learns continually."

THE SUPREMACY OF LAW: ITS PHYSICAL AND PSYCHICAL CONDITIONS.

ACCEPTING it as an established fact that, in many respects, civilization bears a striking resemblance to barbarism, there is at least one important particular in which they are as far asunder as the poles, viz., the ideas associated with Nature and her methods of operation. In other words, the marked contrast between the crude ideas of the savage, believing all things subject to the capricious whims of the most capricious deities; and the truly grand and comprehensive estimate of civilized man, believing all things to be governed by law. For instance, during the earlier ages of the world, when day and night seemed capricious phenomena; or, when, as in the Australian legend, "the moon was a native cat who fell in love with some one else's wife, and was driven away to wander ever since"-there could be little wonder that those who beheld the phenomena should regard them as consequences resulting not from any regular process, but simply as the effect of contrary and opposing powers. yet the human mind had risen no higher than the sentiment of wonder; and, as a consequence, it was but natural that the soul, seeking for its own prototype, should invest the

As

world of nature with those peculiarly mixed forms of imagination which we find everywhere existing; and which, entering in an especial sense into the constituent elements of civilization, determine all our estimates of man and nature.

Thus the main points of difference between an educated and uneducated people. Thus also the difference in different degress of civilization; all hinging on their approximation to the supremacy and universality of Law.

And this brings us to the realization of a principle which, because it embodies the whole realm of naturedetermining its existence, and preserving its integrity—is also proclaimed by the more advanced minds, not merely as a truth dimly seen or vaguely surmised, but as the foundation of all sound philosophy; the sine qua non of all consistent reasoning, both with respect to the world of matter, and the world of mind; the measure, in fact, of our civilization, and the formative principle which, more than any other, so distinctly characterizes the thought of the present age. Born, as we now are, among these ideas, and experiencing, as we do, their influence from our earliest years, it is somewhat difficult for us to realize their true value and importance. But still the fact remains. The fables of our ancestors, and the glorious imagery invested all natural objects, have all some extent they still linger in the nursery; but this is all that remains. By an effort of our imagination we may succeed in transplanting ourselves to those earlier and more rudimentary conditions which induced an uneducated people, living in the solitude of some dismal forest, to believe that the rustling of wind among the trees was but the echo of

with which they faded away. To fairy lore of the

voices in a distant country; or that the fresh and beautiful flowers of the morning had risen on the footsteps of an early god. In point of fact, however, they are for us but as the dreams of the past; dreams, it may be, which we sometimes like to dwell upon, but which, so far as their actual value is concerned, are strongly suggestive of Shakspeare's estimate:

"Dreams are the children of an idle brain,

Begot of nothing but vain fantasy;

Which is as thin of substance as the air,

And more inconstant than the wind."

As the matter now stands, and as the result of those circumstances under which we are placed, we have passed from the rudimentary condition of wonder to the more advanced condition of intelligence.

Proportionately as science has established the idea of unity, and the supremacy of law in the realm of physical nature, just so surely has it acted in another direction, and produced a corresponding change in all our estimates of physical life, and the laws which determine man's progress as a rational and sentient being.

As the Duke of Argyll has said: "The reign of Law is this, then, the reign under which we live? Yes, in a sense, it is. There is no denying it. The whole world around us, and the whole world within us, are ruled by law. Our very spirits are subject to it—those spirits which yet seem so spiritual, so subtle, so free. How often in the darkness do they feel the restraining walls-bounds within which they move-conditions out of which they cannot think! The perception of this is growing in the consciousness of men, It grows with