Five minutes afterwards they were to gether in Moray's den. with her jointure. I may be beggared for a technicality, and hard it seems; but you tell me that the law is clear, so there is nothing for me but resignation. If you My things are packed, and perhaps you will kindly order the dog-cart to take me on to meet the train to-morrow morn-voluntarily handed over your skin to the ing," said Leslie. "I supposed as much," returned his uncle, "and you are right to follow that telegram of yours to your mother immediately. She will need your presence and advice. Fortunately my sister is a woman of sense and spirit; and she keeps that small jointure, I suppose, under any circumstances?" "I do not know how that may be," returned Leslie. "In the first place, the creditors may have a lien even upon a secured income; in the next place, if I know my mother at all, if she thinks sufferers have any moral claim on her, she will never stand upon legal technicalities." "As to her legal rights, I can say nothing. But were she to make any sacrifice such as you suggest, it would be nothing less than Quixotic. That, at least, is my deliberate opinion; and you know, Ralph, whether I am likely to think lightly of conscientious scruples." "Assuredly not; and, no doubt, your opinion would have great weight with my mother. However, till I have an interview with her lawyer, it is premature to discuss the point. I hope sincerely, for her sake, she may have a right to her jointure, and that she can stick to it without any searchings of heart. Otherwise, it will be a black look-out for her, and I don't know who there is to help her." Moray stared at Ralph in astonishment, which he did not seek to conceal. And, of course, Ralph understood him, and answered the look in a rather injured tone. flaying-knives of the liquidators on a technicality, you would fly in the face of your family duties, and sin against all natural affection." Leslie was struck by the argument, but not altogether persuaded. He sat silent, turning the question slowly in his mind, as was his custom. So Moray, in his anxiety to drive the argument home and clench it, tried the effect of an appeal from which he would otherwise have shrunk. "You desire to ease your mind by in. volving yourself in our common misfortune; you don't want to float away on the raft of Roodholm, while Grace and I go down with Glenconan and all our personal property. I understand the feeling, and it does you honor. But it seems to me that if any one has a claim on you it is we, rather than the creditors of this most unlucky bank. You know I do not speak for myself; and my speaking at all commits me personally never to accept a single shilling from you. But I confess I should not be sorry to know that Grace as well as your mother had a friend, on whose purse and sympathy I could see her fall back in case of necessity, without any great sense of humiliation. There is not another man living to whom I would say as much; and remember that, after all, you are our nearest kinsman." "If I could only play the Boaz to my cousin's Ruth," thought Ralph; but he was too generous to give expression to the thought in the circumstances. Though Why, sir, you surely cannot possibly he would not commit himself on the spur suppose that I mean to continue master of the moment, he was willing enough to of my little property? It is strictly en- be convinced by such considerations, and tailed, as you are aware, but the rents are he intimated as much to his uncle, consid. at my own disposal; and if your fortune erably to that gentleman's comfort. The must be engulfed in this miserable wreck, next morning he started for the south, you cannot imagine that I am to save any-charged to make all possible inquiries at thing? Indeed, my dear boy, I do think so; and you are not only justified in holding to your income, but bound to do so. If things are as bad as we fear, you cannot save me; for the value of your life-rent of Roodholm, even could you give a valid title to it, which I doubt, would be a mere drop in the bucket. So much for legality or expediency. As for morality, I say that the surrender would be more Quixotic than the case of your mother parting the fountain-head, and to sift the matter as far as possible to the bottom. "Don't telegraph, whatever you do," said Moray, "unless in case of extreme necessity. Grace must know nothing of this, till we are assured of the extent of the calamity, and disclosure becomes inevitable. But write fully, and above all, frankly; my best hope now of an easy mind is to know the worst, that I may lose as little time as possible in setting about making the best of it." From The Nineteenth Century. "THE METAPHYSICAL SOCIETY." A REMINISCENCE. BY R. H. HUTTON. [IN the autumn of 1868 Mr. Tennyson and the Rev. Charles Pritchard Savilian Professor of Astronomy -were guests together in my house. A good deal of talk arose on speculative subjects, especially theology, and in the course of it the idea was suggested of founding a Theological Society, to discuss such questions after the manner and with the freedom of an ordinary scientific society. I volunteered to endeavor to bring such a body together if Mr. Tennyson and Mr. Pritchard would promise to belong to it, and I then consulted other friends, beginning with Dean Stahley, Dean Alford, Archbishop Manning, the Rev. James Martineau, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, Dr. Ward of the Dublin Review, Mr. R. H. Hutton of the Spectator, and one or two more, finding them all willing to join. I next went to "the opposition," and, explaining our plan, found Professor Huxley, Professor Tyndall, Mr. Froude, Mr. Walter Bagehot, Sir John Lubbock, and others equally ready to co-operate. The originally intended name of Theological Society was dropped in favor of "Metaphysical Society," under which full discussion of the largest range of topics from all points of view could be better insured, and on the 21st of April, 1869, we held our first meeting at Willis's Rooms. But I remember Mr. Froude - who was among our first members-saying, that, if we hung together for twelve months, it would be one of the most remarkable facts in history. we "hung together" for nearly twelve years, meeting once a month, usually at an hotel, where, after dining together, a paper was read by some member, and afterwards discussed. Mr. Tennyson's remark at an early meeting seemed always borne in mind-that "modern science ought, at any rate, to have taught us one thing how to separate light from heat." Prof. Tyndall. Mr. Frederic Harrison. Prof. Clifford. The Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol. The Dean of St. Paul's. Mr. Froude. Mr. Grant Duff. Sir Alexander Grant. Mr. Walter Bagehot. Mr. Shadworth Hodson. Prof. St. George Mivart. Hon. Roden Noel. Amongst our chairmen -appointed annually, but sometimes serving for two years suc cessively- were Sir John Lubbock, Cardinal Manning, Professor Huxley, Mr. Gladstone, Dr. Ward, Dr. Martineau, Lord Selborne, and Lord Arthur Russell. The character of the subjects brought forward may be gathered from the titles of some of the papers, and as the discussions were absolutely confidential and unreported, they were almost always of much animation and interest. They suggested to myself (as Hon. Sec. to the society) the idea of the "Modern Symposium" which several times appeared in this review. The following were amongst the papers read before the society: The Theory of Causation. At the meeting of the Metaphysical Society which was held on the 10th of December, 1872, Dr. Ward was to read a paper on the question, "Can experience prove the uniformity of nature? "Middlemarch" had been completed and pubSuper-lished a few days previously. On the day following the meeting the Convocation of Oxford was to vote upon the question raised by Mr. Burgon and Dean Goulburn, whether the Dean of Westminster (then Dr. Stanley) should be excluded for his heresies from the list of select preachers at Oxford or not. The "claimant" was still starring it in the provinces in the interval between his first trial and his second. Thus the dinner itself was lively, though several of the more distinguished members did not enter till the hour for reading the paper had arrived. One might have heard Professor Huxley flashing out a sceptical defence of the use of the Bible in Board Schools at one end of the table, Mr. Fitzjames Stephen's deep bass re The Nature of Things in Themselves. tion. The Arguments for a Future Life. of View. Double Truth. THE following attempt to give an impression of a typical meeting of the once rather famous Metaphysical Society, of which I was throughout a member, must not be regarded as in any sense contain: ing a historical report of an individual debate. No such reports were, so far as I know, ever taken. But to a rather diligent member of the society there were plenty of opportunities of learning the general views of the more eminent members on such a subject as was discussed at the meeting here selected for treatment; and though it is likely enough that none of them, except of course Dr. Ward, whose paper was really read (though he may have made no final reply), spoke on this particular occasion, as I have imputed to them; and though several of those to whom I have attributed remarks may not have been present at this particular discussion at all, yet I do not think I shall be found to have misrepresented any of their views.* If I have, the responsibility and fault are mine. Whenever those views were actually given in the words here used, though occurring in the reading of other papers, I have always placed them in inverted marks on the claimant's adroit use of his committal for perjury, at another, and an eager discussion of the various merits of Lydgate and Rosamond at a third. "Ideal Ward," as he used to be called, from the for which he had lost his degree nearly work on the "Ideal of a Christian Church," thirty years earlier at Oxford, was chuckling with a little malicious satisfaction over the floundering of the orthodox clergy, in their attempts to express safely their dislike of Dean Stanley's latitudinarianism, without bringing the Establishment about their ears. He thought we might as well expect the uniformity of nature to be disproved by the efforts of spiritualists to turn a table, as the flood of latitudinarian thought to be arrested by Mr. Burgon's and Dean Goulburn's attempt to exclude the Dean of Westminster from the list of select preachers at Oxford. Father Dalgairns, one of Dr. Newman's immediate followers, who left the English Church and entered the Oratory of St. Philip Neri with him, a man of singular sweetness and openness of character, with something of a French type of playfulness in his expression, discoursed to me eloquently on the noble ethical character of George Eliot's novels, and the penetrating disbelief in all but human excellence by which they are pervaded. Implicitly he intended to convey to me, I thought, that nowhere but in the Roman commas. Whenever no inverted commas are used the words and thoughts are mine, though I believe them to represent faithfully the views of the speakers to whom they are attributed.-R. H. H. Church could you find any real break-rather an expression which I might alwater against an incredulity which could most describe as a blending of grateful survive even the aspirations of so noble a humility with involuntary satiety, -gennature as hers. And as I listened to this uine humility, genuine thankfulness for eloquent exposition with one ear, the the authority on which they anchored sound of Professor Tyndall's eloquent themselves, but something also of a feelIrish voice, descanting on the proposal ing of the redundance of that authority, for a "prayer-gauge," which had lately and of the redundance of those provisions been made in the Contemporary Review, for their spiritual life of which almost all by testing the efficacy of prayer on a se- our other members seemed to feel that lected hospital ward, captivated the other. they had but a bare and scanty pasturage. Everything alike spoke of the extraordi nary fermentation of opinion in the society around us. Moral and intellectual "yeast" was as hard at work multiplying its fungoid forms in the men who met at that table, as even in the period of the Renaissance itself. Оп Dr. Ward, who was to read the paper of the evening, struck me as one of our most unique members. His mind was, to his own apprehension at least, all strong lights and dark shadows. Either he was absolutely, indefensibly, "superabundantly certain, or he knew no more "than a baby," to use his favorite simile, about the subjects I conversed with him upon. On the criticism of the New Testament, for instance, he always maintained that he knew no more than a baby, though really he knew a good deal about it. the questions arising out of papal bulls he would often say that he was as abso lutely and superabundantly certain as he was of his own existence. Then he was a very decided humorist. He looked like a country squire, and in the Isle of Wight was, I believe, generally called "Squeer Ward," but if you talked to him about horses or land, he would look at you as if you were talking in an unknown language, and would describe, in most extravagant and humorous terms, his many rides in search of health, and the profound fear with which, whenever the animal showed the least sign of spirit, he would cry out, "Take me off! take me off!" He was one of the very best and most active members of our society, as long as his health lasted most friendly to everybody, though full of amazement at the depth to which scepticism had undermined the creed of many amongst us. A more candid man I never knew. He never ignored a difficulty, and never attempted to ex press an indistinct idea. His metaphys. ics were as sharp cut as crystals. never seemed to see the half-lights of a question at all. There was no penumbra in his mind; or, at least, what he could not grasp clearly, he treated as if he could not apprehend at all. I was very much struck then, and frequently afterwards, by the marked difference between the expression of the Roman Catholic members of our society and all the others. No men could be more different amongst themselves than Dr. Ward and Father Dalgairns and Archbishop Manning, all of them converts to the Roman Church. But, nevertheless, all had upon them that curious stamp of definite spiritual authority, which I have never noticed on any faces but those of Roman Catholics, and of Roman Catholics who have passed through a pretty long period of subjection to the authority they acknowledge. In the Metaphysical Society itself there was every type of spiritual and moral expression. The wistful and sanguine, I had almost said hectic idealism, of James Hinton struck me much more than anything he contrived to convey by his remarks. The noble and steadfast, but somewhat melancholy faith, which seemed to be sculptured on Dr. Martineau's massive brow, shaded off into wistfulness in the glance of his eyes. Professor Huxley, who always had a definite standard for every question which he regarded as discussable at all, yet made you feel that his slender definite creed in no respect represented the cravings of his large nature. Professor Tyndall's eloquent addresses frequently culminated with some pathetic indication of the mystery which to him surrounded the moral life. Mr. Fitzjames Stephen's gigantic force, expended generally in some work of iconoclasm, always gave me the im When dinner was over and the cloth pression that he was revenging himself removed, a waiter entered with sheets of on what he could not believe, for the dis- foolscap and pens for each of the memappointment he had felt in not being able bers, of which very little use was made. to retain the beliefs of his youth. But The ascetic Archbishop of Westminster, in the countenances of our Roman Cath- every nerve in his face expressive of some olic members there was no wistfulness, | vivid feeling, entered, and was quickly He followed by Dr. Martineau. Then came | physicists, as a fruitful working hypothe Mr. Hinton, glancing round the room sis, the assumption of which had led to a with a modest, half-humorous furtiveness, vast number of discoveries, which could as he seated himself amongst us. Then not have been effected without it. If they Dr. Ward began his paper. He asked could not assume that under heat the how mere experience could prove a uni- vapor of water would expand one day as versal truth without examining in detail it had expanded the previous day, no loevery plausibly asserted exception to that comotive would be of any use; if they truth, and disproving the reality of the could not assume that under certain given exception. He asked whether those who conditions the majority of seeds put into believe most fervently in the uniformity the ground would spring up and reproduce of nature ever show the slightest anxiety similar seed, no fields would be sown and to examine asserted exceptions. He im- no harvest would be reaped. In innuagined, he said, that what impresses phys- merable cases where the same anteceicists is the fruitfulness of inductive dents had apparently not been followed science, with the reasonable inference by the same consequents, thinking men that inductive science could not be the had taken for granted that they must have fruitful field of discovery it is, unless it been mistaken in supposing the antecerested on a legitimate basis, which basis dents to be the same, and had found that could be no other than a principle of uni- they were right, and that the difference in formity. Dr. Ward answered that the the antecedents had really been followed belief in genuine exceptions to the law of by the difference in the consequents. He, uniform phenomenal antecedents and con- for his part, should not object at all to sequents, does not in the least degree examine into any presumptive case of invalidate this assumption of the general miracle sufficiently strong to prove that uniformity of nature, if these exceptions in a substantial number of cases Englishare announced, as in the case of miracles men had been enabled to thrust their they always must be, as demonstrating hands into the fire without injury, by the interposition of some spiritual power adopting so simple a safeguard as calling which is not phenomenal, between the on St. Thomas of Canterbury. But the antecedent and its natural consequent, truth was, that asserted miracles were too which interposition it is that alone inter- sparse and rare, and too uniformly accomrupts the order of phenomenal antece-panied by indications of either gross dence and consequence. 66 Suppose," he credulity or bad faith, to furnish an inves said, "that every Englishman, by invok- tigator jealous of his time, and not able to ing St. Thomas of Canterbury, could put waste his strength on futile inquiries, with his hand into the fire without injury. a sufficient basis for investigation. Men Why, the very fact that in order to avoid of science were too busy in their fruitful injury he must invoke the saint's name, vocation to hunt up the true explanation would ever keep fresh and firm in his of cases of attested miracle, complicated mind the conviction that fire does natu- as they generally were with all sorts of rally burn. He would therefore as un- violent prepossessions and confusing emoquestioningly in all his physical researches tions. He, for his part, did not pretend assume this to be the natural property of that the physical uniformity of nature fire, as though God had never wrought a could be absolutely proved. He was conmiracle at all. In fact, from the very cir- tent to know that his "working hypothecumstances of the case, it is always one sis" had been proved to be invaluable by of the most indubitable laws of nature the test of innumerable discoveries, which which a miracle overrides, and those who could never have been made had not that wish most to magnify the miracle, are led working hypothesis been assumed. Inby that very fact to dwell with special deed, what evidence has any man even urgency on the otherwise universal prev- for the existence of his own home and alence of the law." There was a short family, better than that of a fruitful hypause when Dr. Ward had concluded his pothesis, which has time after time repaper, which was soon ended by Pro- sulted in the expected verification? No fessor Huxley, who broke off short in a man can be absolutely certain that the very graphic sketch he had been making home he left an hour ago is standing on his sheet of foolscap as he listened. where it did, or that the family he left in it are still in life; still, if he acts on the hypothesis that they are there, he will, in innumerable cases, be rewarded for making that assumption, by finding his expec Dr. Ward, said Professor Huxley, had told us with perfect truth that the uniformity of nature was only held by even the most thoroughgoing of clear-minded |