the social environment, though it is indisputable that this too is continually changing. The harsh dissonances between individual conviction and the spirit of the age, between individual aspirations and current ideals of life with which we are now familiar, seem to be an element of social experience which can never be wholly eliminated so long as there is any progressive movement at all.

But, again, Mr. Spencer's conception of man's future condition as one of perfect adaptation to external circumstances, and so of perfect happiness, seems to apply only to those large features of the environment, physical and social, which are common to all individuals. Yet these are only a part of the medium in which each of us has to live. Our separate lives have to be accommodated to an infinite variety of social circumstances which we are quite unable to foresee. How can evolution provide for a perfect harmony of sentiments between a man and his family connections, or community of ideas between a man and the people with whom he has to dwell and work? In some respects, no doubt, progress lessens these discords by bringing greater freedom in the choice of surroundings. Yet, on the other hand, it must be remembered that the growth of culture has a distinctly dividing effect. Divergency of ideas and feelings on some of the most vital questions seems rather to increase than to decrease as a community rises in the intellectual scale.

Yet Mr. Spencer may well object to our calling attention to such insignificant defects in his scheme of future felicity. After all, his promise is a large and generous one. It may need, perhaps, to be made still more secure. Further research and further critical reflection will be necessary before the exact value of the prediction will be determined. Already criticism has begun to question some of our author's premises. 10 Yet, allowing for this, we may pretty safely affirm that Mr. Spencer has laid the foundations of a genuinely scientific optimism. He has taught us that the record which science gives is on the whole a favourable one; that viewed as a great whole, and throughout its history past and future, life, and more especially human life, is ever tending towards good." He has dispelled the

10 See especially an article by Mr. H. Sidgwick on 'Mr. Spencer's Ethical System' in Mind, April 1880. Mr. Sidgwick questions whether the principle of the connection of pleasure with life-serving, pain with life-hindering, actions justifies the optimistic conclusion drawn from it. He thinks that all which we can infer from this is that actions preservative of the individual or the race will be generally speaking less painful than those which have an opposite tendency; and that the pains normally endured will not be sufficiently intense to destroy life.' But this objection seems to arise through an ignoring of the other part of Mr. Spencer's doctrine of pleasure and pain, namely, that the former is the necessary accompaniment of the normal activity of any structure, whereas the latter is the result of an abnormal activity. If we grant that healthy action yields pleasure, and that this pleasure points to the preservation of life, then it must follow that, so far as evolution promotes healthy life, it promotes pleasure.

"This is of course only truc in so far as the laws of evolution take effect. The VOL. X.-No. 56. Q Q

dismal nightmare of Darwinism as conceived by those of the more gloomy sort. He has brought us near the point at which, if we cannot join in some of the jubilant praises of nature in which the more enthusiastic of the evolutionists indulge, we may at least allow ourselves the consolatory reflection that nature has not made a big blunder in inventing conscious life. Evolution has reviewed its work of creation, and modestly pronounced it good.

Yet we must not deceive ourselves. The optimism of the evolutionist, even if firmly established, is not a perfect substitute for some of the older forms. It enables us to reach a feeling of content with the world only when we sink all thought of individual existence and identify ourselves with the race or with the organic world as a whole. Nay, strictly speaking, it cannot do this, but only permits us to feel this satisfaction by anticipation, by placing ourselves in imagination at the close of the drama of life on the globe, and reviewing it as a whole. But the very same impulses which make us ask that life should be good as a whole make us demand that each æon of life should be good, and each individual life too. As long as there is any human life which is clearly and unmistakably bad, the mystery of evil is only partially solved. Nor is this way of looking at the matter the outcome of mere egoism. The strongest protests against the irony and cruelty of fate may be wrung from the heart by pangs of sympathy with an unfortunate victim. And even were this not so, it must be conceded that the individual is as much justified in criticising the world as it presents itself to him as the race in criticising it as it presents itself to them.

6

Certain systems of theology have sought to satisfy this craving by representing a benevolent Creator, mindful of every individual existence, and holding a solution of its mysteries behind the veil.' Whether their treatment of the difficulty was consistent and satisfactory, we do not now inquire. The evolutionist, on the contrary, has no answer to the question, Why was I, why was this one so dear to me, born to a life of failure or of suffering?' It is but a poor retort to say with Miss Simcox, 'Is the good of life less good because it is unequally distributed?' Of course not. If it were not felt to be a good there would obviously be no complaint on the part of those who are accidentally shut out from it. The apparently haphazard way in which the happiness and misery of life are strewn over the world is as much a blot on the page of creation as the presence of this misery itself.

So far, then, science has not succeeded in solving all the mystery of existence. And it is a curious question whether the temperate optimism with which she seems capable of supplying us will permanently satisfy the human mind. Will men discipline themselves in question-so interesting in relation to man-what the conditions of advance are, and how far they are realised, is not yet adequately dealt with by Mr. Spencer.

the moderate content which the doctrine of evolution allows, or will they still hanker after a more satisfying solution of the problems of the universe? In other words, will they accept this earthly life as something worth possessing in itself, or will they still crave for a future life as the only possible justification of the present? No one can yet say. All that can be affirmed is that for some good time at least the evil of life will not cease to press on the human spirit. The growth of intelligence among the unfortunate, the poor, the downtrodden, will lead to many an eloquent denunciation yet. And, on the other hand, the growth of sympathy among the more cultivated few will dispose them to commiserate more heartily those whose fate is a hard and hopeless one. It may be safely said that we have not yet heard the judgment of humanity on its earthly lot. The opinion of a handful of writers, which is all that we have as yet, is, after all, not conclusive. It is not only too scanty, it is the utterance of those who may be presumed to belong to the successful half of the race.

It is self-evident that men will not praise the world till they find it praiseworthy. If, as Mr. Spencer tells us, a time is to come in which all men are to know what a happy life means, then, no doubt, optimism will be the universal creed. Meanwhile, it is a little unreasonable, perhaps, to ask the unlucky minority to join in the hallelujahs of the lucky majority, just because they happen to be the majority.

JAMES SULLY.

FAIR TRADE.

I AM not surprised that so many able and thoughtful men approach unwillingly the reconsideration of our commercial policy. For that policy, when it was adopted thirty-five years ago, gave us a substantial freedom of exchange which we long continued to enjoy, and which I have never ceased to account a priceless benefit. And, whilst that freedom was gained by one bold stroke of legislation, the dramatic issue of a controversy which had stirred the nation to its utmost depths--it is being gradually lost by the silent operation of influences not arising out of any act of this country, not visible to the general public, yet none the less pressing upon us with resistless force.

Freedom to exchange our manufactures for food is to a nation in our circumstances a matter of vital necessity. Our own Corn Laws deprived us of it in the period before 1846; their repeal opened the door, and we enjoyed practical freedom of exchange, until America and other nations gradually closed it again, just as completely as before, by heavy duties on our manufactures. If it was imperative to seek, and meritorious to find, in 1846, the freedom to exchange our calicoes, woollens, and hardware for food, it must be equally so now; and as the most effective means of doing it under the circumstances of 1846 were then the best, so the most effective means of doing it under the very different circumstances of 1881 are now the best. The one essential point is that it must be done. It is therefore not because I depreciate, but because I admire, the wisdom and courage which, a generation ago, saw the evil and grappled with it, and set our industries free, that I desire to see the same spirit rise again, to conquer the old foe which meets us to-day under a new face.

There were objectors in 1846: men who in former days had done great service to their country, and who sincerely believed that if the measures of their youth would not meet the new difficulties of their age, the case was hopeless and we bad better yield to fate. And such there are now. And as at that time it was not the energy or the eloquence of its advocates, splendid as they were, which at last brought about the change of policy, but the sufferings of the people, and their cry, which could not be hushed; so now I fear the matter will not be resolutely taken in hand until the people, pressed beyond endurance in many quarters, cry out that fiscal systems are for them-to enable

them to labour and to live in England-and not they for fiscal systems -to be starved and expatriated to justify them.

Mr. Bright tells us that it is not foreign tariffs, but unfavourable seasons and want of sunshine which depress our trade. It is both combined, however; and nothing can be gained by shutting our eyes against half the truth.

The disaster is serious enough when, through unfavourable weather, we lose 30,000,000l. worth of our own agricultural produce; but one-sided free trade doubles it. For had our consumers purchased this produce, as in a good season, from our own farmers, the money would have come round again through the home trade, giving employment to all our industries. Had it, in an adverse season, been purchased from our own colonists, the same result would have followed, as an immensely increased export of our manufactures would have paid the bill.

But buying it from America, who shuts out our manufactures by prohibitive duties, we have to pay her this extra amount by the transfer of securities; whilst our machinery and labour, losing the employment usually given by the home farmers, and failing to gain any from the American farmers to replace it, stand idle to that

extent.

Thus a second loss of 30,000,000l. worth of trade is superadded to the first loss of 30,000,000l. worth of produce.

However optimists may strive by special pleading to minimise them, I do not think it needful to enter into an elaborate exposition of the difficulties which exist: I need only appeal to the large classes who are painfully conscious of them. Our manufacturers are more and more excluded from the markets of the civilised world, not by fair competition, but by oppressive tariffs. At home they are met by the unrestricted competition of every article which can be made more cheaply in any country by dint of longer hours of work, lower wages, and a meaner style of living on the part of the workers. They enjoy the one advantage of cheap food, it is true; but that is purchased, as they are finding to their cost, by the ruin of those dependent upon agriculture, and the consequent paralysis of the home trade in the rural districts.

Under these circumstances, it has been proposed to establish an import duty of 10 per cent. on all foreign manufactures, not for protection, but to regain our power of bargaining with other nations, whose manufactures we buy, to admit ours as freely and fairly as we wish to admit theirs. And, to leave our hands free to do this, it is urged that we ought not to make or renew any commercial treaties but such as either establish free trade in manufactures on both sides, or are terminable at a year's notice.

As a matter of necessity, all raw materials of our manufacturing industries must be admitted duty free from every quarter.