It is her duty, according to the law of .evolution, to help the divine to restrain the brutal, the future to develop from the past. Many a time has she fulfilled and she still fulfils this mission half unconsciously, by the simple representation of beauty, or by the expression of the noblest sentiments, and by bearing witness to the highest beliefs; but now it is better that she should become conscious of her office, as illumined by the torch of science.

Be we few or many, we combatants for the power and glory of the spirit, full of faith in science and in every form of human progress, have no intention of allowing the great idea of evolution to be abandoned almost contemptuously to a materialist philosophy, which, without having the smallest right over it, uses it as a weapon against our very ideal itself.

We do not mean that the artistic representation of the moral conceptions best corresponding to the Christian idea should be respected only as a praiseworthy fidelity to the past. Art, according to our theory, by promoting all moral ascent, makes her own the boldest conjectures of modern science, and keeps faith with the future. The law of evolution governs the world by means of two forces, the conservative force and the progressive force. Both are equally worthy of admiration. But if, as has been said before, the first animal which began to stand upright and to walk with its lower extremities only, was a radical, then the art which tends to correct every viciously oblique inclination of the human mind, setting it high and straight on the road which leads away from animalism, is a radical art. That is to say, it is an instrument, though a humble one, of that progressive force whose highest instrument is the divine living Word, which, full still of hidden germs, goes on working in the world, openly and secretly, recognized and unrecognized, as the Christian moral law.

I do not mean by this to recommend to art the exclusive representation of ideal types. She may do well also to practise the autopsy of the human animal. "Il est dangereux," says Pascal, "de trop faire voir à l'homme combien il est égal aux bêtes sans lui montrer sa

grandeur. Il est dangereux de lui faire trop voir sa grandeur sans sa bassesse. Il est encore plus dangereux de lui laisser ignorer l'un et l'autre ; mais il est très avantageux de lui montrer l'un et l'autre."

Any subject may furnish art with the opportunity for this double work. No human art can be true which cannot find in the same person elements of the higher and elements of the lower life, at least some germ of the former, at least some trace of the latter.

But the artist is not fulfilling his mission unless he makes it felt that he is conscious of it, that he is striving against the ancient brute, against the tendency of the lower human element to hinder the development of the higher element. There is no need to subordinate art to morality, as so many have done in such a way that morality superposed on art has seemed like a dead thing crushing a living one; what is needed is to blend them in such perfect unity that it is impossible to distinguish the moral from the artistic intention.

This activity of the inferior human element, which in the individual takes the form of a thousand different motions, and often drapes itself with goodness in the conscience of the very person within whom it is at work, is just as much present in the organic disorder from which society is now suffering, and here it is even more hypocritical. It would be easy to show that this organic social disorder is produced by the working of those lower forms of covetousness belonging partly to the past, because consecrated by law, consolidated by habit into institutions, grown unconscious, automatic; partly to the present because alive, active and making themselves felt in, the high and low places of society. It is they that have set themselves above the consciousness of that supreme moral law, which corresponds in the moral order to the law of attraction in the physical order; which in the moral order commands human souls, and in the physical order commands atoms, to attract each other reciprocally and to gravitate together toward a centre.

And therefore that noble art which grows passionate over social miseries.

should beware, as far as possible, of even indirectly arousing these instincts. It must fight against them all, armed with an ideal of justice adapted to transform the world by means of love, and by means of the equal distribution, not of enjoyments, but of duties, and of duties, too, which do not correspond to the armed rights of codicils and force -let our legislators mark this-but which do correspond to the law of moral attraction, to the rights of Love, to the rights of God.

Knights of the spirit though we be, we do not for that reason despise or hate the body. It is natural to poetry as well as to love to idealize the human body, to anticipate almost instinctively its future evolution, in a vague, fantastic, prophetic way. The small, delicate hand of a woman is to the mind of the poet or the lover all form, color, life, feeling, intelligence, passion, womanliness; for them it is a short but exquisite poem, a silent world of the soul, and, being a lasting flower, it be comes almost like a symbol of eternal youth. They shrink from the thought that this sweet spiritual hand should be descended, even after the lapse of myriads of centuries, from members which were not human; but they would equally shrink from the consideration of the inner part of that hand, as it would present itself to a professor of anatomy. These two forms of repugnance spring from the same root; the idea of an inferior life which is purely animal, of an organism entirely similar in its interior play to that of the beasts.

It is a fact which becomes much more offensive when considering the body as a whole. There is very little to be gained by denying it in the past, seeing that it must be admitted in the present. Well it seems to me that the more vivid, the more powerful the sense of this fact is, the more impetuous will be the reaction which it causes, the stronger the impulse it gives to the loving fancy, which longs to see in the body only the external beauty, the flower of life, the intense expression of the soul; those very qualities, in fact, which are suitable to the ideal human body, to the human body of the promised future evolution. It must also be

said that we necessarily have a different ideal of corporeal beauty from the. ancient ideal. Every one whose mind is modern must feel the coldness, the insufficiency of the purely classical type of feminine beauty, as the inspiration of love and art; but we can also find the reasons for this. Greek beauty expresses a serene and radiant, though not vain, content with its own existence; it represents to me the sublime joy of a human nature which has emerged from the darkness of an inferior life, happy at last, in the light, to be able to rest in contemplation. Its characteristics are satisfaction and repose. On the other hand, the characteristics of our ideal of beauty, penetrated as it is in every line of the person with refined sentiment and intelligence, are aspiration, and the expression of desires never satisfied because they ask of Love and Life infinity and eternity. It represents to me human nature, risen higher still, renewed in spirit, illumined by an ideal which it hardly comprehends, but which it feels, longing and panting to realize it more fully.

An art which thus draws inspiration from the hypothesis of evolution both in the moral and physical order of things is clearly religious in character. The conception of human evolution thus applied harmonizes with the purest religious and moral feeling.

This is why I believe with my whole soul that the great hypothesis is true.

A materialist whom I love, not, certainly, on account of his doctrines, but rather for the deep, bitter, Leopardian sadness which they spread in his heart, thinks that as so many of the mineral elements of our earth are to be found existent in other stars, very probably the matter which here gave origin to the first living cellule may be found to exist in them too. Therefore, the law of evolution being universal, if on our earth the first cellule was capable of producing, little by little, beings with the sense and capacity for poetry, it is very probable that another cellule may at the same time have produced the same result in some other star of heaven.

witnesses have not arisen, or are arising, to confess the unity of the order by which the infinite Cause of all things is continually drawing life to ascend toward Himself, conforming it ever more closely to His own image, that He may attract to Himself a love which shall grow ever more intelligent more similar to His own.

Many voices on earth are already arising to bear this testimony. A though they be accused, strange as it seems, of wounding religious feeling and human dignity, I take pride in joining my voice to theirs; and if with regard to dogma I have appealed in the name of masters, now with regard to the divinest sentiments of the soul I appeal in the name of the Ideal. Contemporary Review.

MAHOMET found polygamy a flourishing institution among the peoples whom he sought to convert to his new religion, but the traditions of Hebrew, Assyrian, Egyptian, and Persian civilization were almost lost, and whatever privileges women had possessed in remoter ages obliterated. But by organizing the harem into a system with well-defined laws, as well as a ceremonious etiquette, the Prophet lifted womanhood, if not to the high level which Christianity assigned to her, still to one immeasurably loftier than she had yet occupied among the nations, for whose benefit he labored, and perhaps the greatest benefit which he conferred upon woman was the very strict laws he framed to render her absolute mistress of her fortune. These laws remain in vigor to this day. A Muhammedan cannot divorce his wife until he has restored to her every piastre of the money she brought him on her marriage, and he cannot, without her formal consent, touch her private means that is to say, not only her dower, but whatever she may have received through legacies from her par

* " Body and Will," p. 135. NEW SERIES.-VOL. LXII., No. 3.

ents after marriage. Owing, however, to her very dependent position in the household, great abuses frequently arise, and she is swindled out of her property by her husband more often than not, through her own ignorance of the nature of the laws intended to protect her. On the other hand, it is perfectly true that a great many Turkish ladies frequently assert their rights in a manner which is possibly more convincing than agreeable to their husbands.

Another advantage which Mahomet secured to the women of his time was their protection from outrage. He appealed to the leading trait of the Oriental character-excessive jealousy-and by placing the women of a household under the absolute control of its master rendered it a theological, as well as a legal, offence for a near relative, let alone a stranger, to address, or even look at them.

Notwithstanding his professed affection for his cousin, the rich widow Kadija, whom he subsequently married, and whose wealth so greatly assisted him in carrying out his prodigious projects, Mahomet invariably speaks of women with arrogance and contempt.

"Woman," says the Koran, is a field"-a sort of property which her husband may use or abuse as best he thinks fit. The happiness of a woman in Paradise is beneath the plant of her husband's feet," and to this day the bride enters the nuptial bed at the foot, by lifting the richly embroidered counterpane with much ceremony.

"The good wife," the Koran moreover asserts," has a chance of eternal happiness only if it be her husband's will" but the other less loved women of his harem have no fixed destination hereafter, although, to be sure, it is not stated that they are to be everlastingly damned. The moral of all this is that a Muhammedan woman's sole aim in life is to win, at any cost, favor of her husband. On that depends, not only her comfort in this world, but her happiness in the world to come. The fortunate fair who has given pleasure to her lord will have the privilege of appearing before him in Paradise" like the moon in her first quarter." She will preserve all her beauty, and youth, until the consummation of time. Her husband will never look older nor younger than thirty-one years.

Having lifted one sex so immeasurably above the other, the Prophet next set to work to frame a code intended to keep women in their places. On one of the little slips of parchment, with which the Archangel Gabriel was wont to supply the great lawgiver, will be found this line, If your wives do not obey you, beat them." Now it is a curious fact that in legislating for the treatment of slaves, the Prophet gives the exact number of strokes it is lawful for the master to administer; but the wife's punishment is left entirely to the discretion of her husband. It is true that Mahomet proclaimed monogamy to be superior to polygamy, but he soon modified this by declaring that, "If one wife does not suffice, it is lawful to take four;" on this curious condition, however, that the four women must be treated with impartiality, each having her apartments, her servants, her carriages, and even her jewels separate, but as nearly alike as possible. To this day, the old-fashioned Turks, when they make a present to their wives on certain feasts of the

year, give them precisely the same pattern of silk for a gown, or set of jewels, or whatever other object they think fit to offer them. This regulation also accounts for the amazing rapacity of the Turks when they rise to power; they have such enormous establishments to keep up. A Constantinopolitan gentleman, with whom I am acquainted, who had ascended the social ladder, through the caprice of a former Grand Vizier, from being a boy in a travelling circus to the grade of an official of high rank, gave me, one day, in an outburst of confidence, the following singular piece of information: "It is very difficult for a Turkish official, once he gets into a position, however ample may be his salary, to make two ends meet; the women of his household, elated by fortune, become so extravagant. Fortunately, I have only one wife, and she is a very well-educated woman and knows how to economize; nevertheless she has fifteen slaves and attendants to wait upon her and my widowed sister, whom, according to our laws, as she is past the age of re-marriage, and a very poor woman, I am obliged to support. I have, therefore, eighteen women to lodge and feed, besides a number of male servants, my household numbering not less than thirty-two persons. This is nothing, however, to that of my neighbor, the Minister of, who has four wives, inhabiting separate suites of apartments, who have between ten and twenty attendants to wait upon each of them. His harem is composed of nearly eighty women, and there are besides about twenty male servants in the house."

We may, therefore, conclude that Mahomet's law, which provides so impartially for the four ladies, has become impracticable under altered circumstances, and the better-educated Turks are speedily arriving at the conclusion that it is wiser to have a single wife than four who literally devour you.

Although the Koran limits the number of the true believer's wives to four, the example of the Prophet himself, who had fifteen, has led to what I might call a legalized abuse. All the slave women servants in the house are at the disposal of the master, and if they bear

him children these are as legitimate as those of his lawful wives, and the mother, if there is no vacancy by the death of one or the other of the wives, is raised to the rank of odalisque, or legitimate mistress.

Turkish women, although their position in the next world is so very unsatisfactory and undefined, are nevertheless fairly pious. They are to be seen in most of the mosques, notably that of Ahmed, with the six minarets, on Fridays, and in the Ramazan they go in crowds to evening service in the beautiful Shah Zadé, or Mosque of the Princes. In well-regulated households prayers are said five times a day by all the women, but in contradistinction to the men, they never pray aloud. I am assured they have their favorite imams and dervishes, just as Catholic ladies have their pet confessors and friars. While on the subject of the religion of Turkish women, I may add that a Turk can marry a Christian or a Jew ish girl, and that she is not obliged to change her faith, but her children must be brought up Muhammedans. Several Turkish pashas are married to French, Hungarian, and even English women, but I am assured that these marriages are rarely happy. The lady is obliged to conform to the usages of the harem, and these soon become very irksome to one who has been accustomed to freedom. Moreover, the Giaour ladies are not well received by their Moslem relations and friends of their own sex, and altogether mixed marriages in Turkey are usually a failure and end in divorce.

Divorce in Turkey is obtained with a facility which would surprise even our Transatlantic cousins. As easily as Abraham cast forth Hagar the bondwoman and her child, so also can the Turk open the door of his harem and send out into the world the woman who no longer pleases him. He has but to give her back her dower and personal effects. In the upper classes, however, certain legal formalities are gone through, and, indeed, as the lady is usually protected by her parents, divorce is, comparatively speaking,

rare.

I know instances, however, in Constantinople of ladies in the highest offi

cial circles who are not yet very far advanced in years, who have been divorced twice, thrice, and even ten times. Among the lower orders divorce may well be described as a farce. Many girls who are not yet twenty years of age, have been divorced and re-married a dozen times. The surprises of divorce are among the most amusing features of Turkish social life. A very great personage, second only to the Sultan in rank, unless, indeed, it be the Sheik Ul Islam, married some few years ago, when his position was very inferior to what it is at present, a highly-educated lady, of good connection and fortune, but, according to his Excellency's version of the story, of ungovernable temper. Within the year they were divorced and re-married. The lady soon found her new husband disagreeable, and was once more divorced. It must be remembered that if a Turk can divorce his wife, she can only divorce him at his pleasure, by making herself as unpleasant to him as possible. In former times he tied her up in a sack and had her dropped into the Bosphorus-to-day he divorces her. To return to the lady in question. The next time she was heard of by her friends was as a teacher in the Muhammedan High School for girls, at Scutari. A few years back she was selected as governess for the children of the Khediva, and is now her Highness's private secretary, in which quality she accom. panied her imperial mistress to Constantinople last year, and actually found herself seated at a state banquet at Yildiz Kiosk next to the third wife of her first husband, who quietly asked her who she was. Tableau! The ease with which a divorce can be obtained in Turkey leads to many abuses, and creates a state of affairs not unlike our prostitution.

Most of the beggar women in Constantinople-and they are innumerable -are divorced women whose frequent exchange of husband has brought them to the level of the most unfortunate of

their Christian sisters. They have got to be too old to find even a fellow-beggar to mate with, and usually end their days in abject misery and blindness in some deserted cemetery. Fuad Pacha said many years ago that the emanci