who know they could not get their living if turned naked in the fields, have a tendency to assume. That man, apart from his special intelligence, is one of the weakest of all animals for aggression is no doubt correct, he being almost the only beast of his size who has been left by nature totally unarmed. He has neither claw, nor horn, nor jaw capable of rending, nor hoof nor paw that of itself and untrained can strike a deadly blow, the natural man being, it is believed, with a possible reservation as to one or two tribes of negroes, entirely unaware of the power latent in his own fist, and striking always with the hand unclosed. But for defence, man in his savage state is probably as well provided as any but the most formidable beasts of prey. He certainly could not fight a tiger or a lion or a panther or an elephant, but it is by no means clear that he could not run away, and as he is one of the swiftest of animals, would probably escape. He is, however, possessed of a faculty, given to no other beast which can run as fast, of climbing up a tree. In a state of civilization he almost entirely loses this faculty, but in the savage state it remains almost unimpaired. An Eton boy can climb in a way, as he can go up a ladder, but a savage will go straight up a smooth pole, using his feet as if they were a second pair of hands, and crossing from tree to tree with a facility which to the highly educated naturalist watching him seems at once marvellous and degrading. He could not do it, because he has not only lost the use of his feet, partly from using shoes, partly from reliance on his hands and his intelligence for everything, but he has lost the power of looking downwards unconcernedly from a "giddy" height, a power belonging to all savages, and, as we suspect, from some facts observed among Hindoos, to all men who neither eat meat nor drink alcohol. At all events, Hindoos untrained to the work will walk unconcernedly along walls thirty feet high to inspect workmen, where any white man similarly untrained would turn sick and fall. A wild beast would not have an easy prey of an animal who could run a short distance as fast as an ordinary horse, who could climb like a squirrel, and who could swim as no other land animal can. Nothing not amphibious swims like a

man, not even a Newfoundland dog. Kanakas have been met fifteen miles out of sight of land, and can keep in the water six hours at a time, and there is at least a strong probability that a naked race, living, say, by a great lake, would acquire the facility which the South Sea Islanders under the same circumstances even now display. We suppose we must not urge the idea so strongly pressed by Hawthorne, in that astonishing exhibition of genius and weakness, Transformation, that man in his natural state would attract instead of repelling many animals,-that dogs, for instance, might have been friendly, and not hostile,-for no such instance of alliance is known among the higher mammals, and there is doubt if the marmot and owl of the prairie are as friendly as they seem to be; but still we do not quite see why the mammal Homo should not have survived in the contest for existence as well as the monkey, who flourishes indifferently well in jungles frequented by the tiger, the boar, and the boa constrictor. He must be allowed on any fair theory to have at least a beast's intelligence, and that would teach him to combine for many purposes as monkeys, and wolves, and beavers do, to attend to any signal of danger as a stag does-for though man has no scent, he has an intense capacity of hearing-and even to set sentinels, a "faculty," whatever its origin, which belongs, it is believed, to many animals, and is exercised every day, as all naturalists will testify, by rooks. To deny to man as an animal the faculties of a rook is a gratuitous depreciation of his rank in nature not warranted by any evidence. We do not quite see either how scientific speculators should deny him so absolutely a right to use a weapon. must have had a hand to hold one, and why deny him the instinct to use it?

He

The Duke of Argyll says that no aniimal save man ever employs an instrument to realize any object, but that is not the case. The only animal with a hand, so to speak, the elephant, will break off a branch to switch himself with when annoyed by insects. The idea, again, that in his early struggles man must have been liable to assault by much bigger animals than any now in existence may be true, but if true, is not germane to

the speculation. The imaginative horror of that situation would not strike an animal, and the mastodon is no larger in proportion to man than the elephant in proportion to the little monkeys who, nevertheless, live in the jungle with him very comfortably.

Then it is argued that the extreme length of the period of childhood in man must have greatly enfeebled him in the struggle, and no doubt the length of that period is one of the most curious of many distinctions between man and all other mammals. He is not the longestlived of them, but he takes much the longest time to grow. But in practice, we imagine, conceiving as far as one can the position of the human being without intellect, the effect of that sort of weakness would only be this,-that the female's whole work in a natural state would be the care of her young, a necessity not imposed on any other animal, and accompanied apparently by this peculiarity, that in man almost alone-not quite alone is the female decidedly the inferior of the male in strength and courage. We suppose our friends of the Women's-Rights movement will allow that, even though they may think the inequality curable; but at all events, that is found to be the fact in all extremely savage races, with the possible, and only possible, exception of a single negro clan. It would almost seem, therefore, as if this kind of weakness had been met by a provision which counteracted it at the cost of a certain diminution of the defensive power, the female being comparatively useless in combat, a diminution, however, true of at least one other species which has lived-the stag. The similar weakness at the other extremity of life is not peculiar to man, and would make but little difference in the struggle, being equivalent, in fact, at the worst to a universal deduction from natural longevity. The human race would die at fifty instead of seventy, and would even then be among the longest-lived of the mammalia. The want of clothes or of fitting food, which seems to the civilized writer so dreadful, is apparently no reason for extinction. An immensely large section of humanity, probably a clear half, does not wear clothes in any way conducive either to health or protection. The waist-cloth of the Indian

peasant is assumed from motives of decency, not of hygiene; the naked castes, faquirs, muhunts, &c., do not suffer in health; and the negro, who wears nothing, is supposed by many observers to be exceptionally long-lived. Two races at least, the Tasmanians and the Fuegians, face severe cold without clothes, and it must not be forgotten that in tropical climates cold seems to strike as severely as in the temperate zone. The fall in the thermometer is comparatively as great and the suffering as acute. The question of food is more puzzling, but is not quite insuperable. Half the difficulty would disappear if man had no disgusts, which as an animal he would not have. If we suppose him remaining in the mild climates as long as he could, he would have fish, and the flesh of small animals and birds, and berries and fruit and some leaves, and may be credited with instinct equal to that of the dormouse, which lays in a stock against bad weather. That he could multiply enormously under such conditions is of course not possible; but then it is not a thick population, but a population which science desires to prove. It would not, it must be remembered, on this hypothesis, be diminished by disease any more than any animal population; it might not be seriously menaced by attack, for there are whole regions, like Australia, without wild animals, which, as we may see by the example of Palestine,-do not multiply merely because of the absence of men; and it would not be thinned off much by war. War is said to be a natural state, but if we are to suppose man merely a gregarious animal, we must assign him the instincts of his kind, among which war in any true sense of that word cannot be counted. A horse will fight a horse, but he does not attack him persistently because he is a horse; and the only animal believed to make war on human principles, that is, in combination and for territory, the dog of Constantinople and Alexandria, leaves off the moment his adversary quits the special dominion he has invaded.

We rather doubt if man's weakness as animal is a sound argument against development, and we do not see that it is needed. It is far easier and more satisfactory to fight the battle upon higher ground, and call for evidence to explain

upon any materialist theory the unique position of man as the only being with accumulative intelligence. Where and when, if he ever was animal, did he part company with his kind? as it is acknowledged by all observers that he has parted company; and why is there no trace of any other animal who has made a similar advance, if not in degree, then

at least in kind? The true argument against the development theory is not the impossibility of the development of a hand, but the total want of evidence for the development of a mind-the admitted existence of a chasm between the lowest savage and the highest brute which even the imagination is unable to

cross.

LIKE the mariner's compass and gunpowder, bells seem to have been known in the East before they penetrated to Europe. The robe of the Jewish highpriest had a trimming of small bells. Under the name of tintinnabula, they had long been used by Greeks and Romans as ornaments round horses' necks, and for a variety of decorative purposes. The ancient writers mention the custom of sending a hand-bell round the walls of a fortified place, to see if all the guards were awake. We first hear of church bells in France in 550 A.D. The army of Clothaire II., king of France, was frightened from the siege of Sens by ringing the bells of St. Stephen's Church. Bells were rung at the Syrian Bosra in 633, when the Saracens were attacking the Christians in front of the city we hear of their being used at Jerusalem about the same time. But the best way of tracing their use is by looking into ecclesiastical historians. Paulinus, Bishop of Nola in Campania, about 400 A.D., introduced them into the Latin Church, whence the larger bells were called campana, and the smaller ones nola. A bell is called klocke in the northern etymology, though from what strikes time we have, curiously enough, transferred it to that which points to time. There are numerous allusions in early Christian writers to the summoning of people to church by the strokes of wooden hammers. Pacomius, the father of the Egyptian monks, prescribed the sound of a trumpet in its place. The use of bells was not known in the Greek Church till the year 865, when Ursus Patriciacus, Duke of Venice, made a present of some to Michael the Greek emperor, who built a tower

to the church of Sancta Sophia in which to hang them.

England, from the first introduction of bells, has been much addicted to the use of them, insomuch that it was termed "the ringing isle." Bede is the first English writer to mention bells. It is supposed that they were used here some time before the issue of Wulfred's canons, in 816 A.D., though not, it may be, in all churches. The archbishop writes of them: "At the sounding of the signal in every church throughout our parishes," though signal may signify no more than a board or iron plate pierced with holes to be knocked by a hammer, a mode of summoning people to church still in use amongst the Greek congregations. In 960, however, the ringing of bells in parish churches is mentioned by ecclesiastical writers as a matter of course. Ringing changes on the bells, as it is technically called, is almost peculiar to the English. The invention of this art is ascribed to one Anable, who died at a great age in 1755. Chimes are very different, and to some ears sound more musical, though the muffled peal which is rung at most cathedrals when a dignitary of the church dies, and which is produced by wrapping one side of each clapper in a thick pad, so as to form an echo to the clear stroke of the other half, forms, in our estimation, the most magnificent effect which can be produced by bells. Chimes, like carillons, are an invention of the Netherlands. The word means a set of bells or tunes rung by mechanical means; whereas carillons are rung by keys struck by the hand. Those of Ghent and Amsterdam are most noteworthy, but they are commonly found.

and every one must remember the use to which he puts the bells of Strasbourg in his Golden Legend.

There were regular societies of ringers in London in early times, called "Youths," irrespective of their age, Imuch as postillions in a similar manner are always postboys. The famous Society of College Youths was founded there in 1637. Stow tells how a bell was added to the peal of five in the church of St. Michael's in 1430, to facilitate chiming. Nell Gwynne left money for a weekly entertainment to the ringers of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, 1687, and many others have followed her example. The rules of some of these fraternities are highly amusing; and even now the stranger who rambles into the belfry of an old church in an English rural parish, will not uncommonly find amongst the printed rules hanging on the wall a fine of sixpence for beer imposed on the man who should wear spurs while he rings.

The largest ancient bell in England is Tom of Oxford, so familiarly known to university-men for the one hundred and one strokes it rings each evening during term. It weighs seven and a half tons. Exeter and Lincoln cathedrals possess large bells, but they are some two tons lighter than the Oxford one. The great bell at Westminster (Stephen) was cast in 1858, and weighs more than eight tons. It has, however, like its predeces sor, Big Ben, been unfortunately cracked. It is worth while comparing these pigmies with the largest known bell in the world, that of Moscow, one hundred and ninety-three tons. The earliest cast bell of which we have accurate information is in the Campanile at Pisa; it bears the date of 1262.

Leaving statistics, let us revert to change-ringing. Its quaint terminology is not the least of its curiosities. Fancy ringing a peal of Grandsire Triples, which, let the uninitiated know, consists

of five thousand and forty changes! To what a solemn dignity, however, does this ascend when it is rung (as has been done) with muffled bells! Then, again, what mysteries lie in the appellations Bobs, Bobs Major, or, still better, Bobs Royal! All these are surpassed by the superlative Bob Maximus rung with twelve bells; while Cinques, it seems, can be rung with eleven accompanied with a tenor. All these feats are recorded with fitting dignity in the annals of campanology. The first perfect peal of Grandsire Triples was rung at St. Margaret's, Westminster, on Sunday, July 7, 1751. When bells can accomplish such achievements, and with the solemn awe attached to the Sanctus bell of the middle ages, it seems very ignoble to condemn one to ring on Shrove Tuesday, for the base culinary end of being a pancake bell (as is still done in some parts of England), or as a bread-and-cheese bell, which is done nightly during term at Jesus College, Oxford. There is an historical celebrity, however, connected with the curfew bell, where it is still rung (as at Ottery St. Mary, and a few other places), which is not unsuited to the sedate gravity we usually attach to the conception of a belfry.

Amongst other customs of tolling the bells which are worthy of mention may be named that which exists at Hatherleigh, Devon, of ringing morning and evening a number of strokes corresponding to the day of the month; or of ringing a passing bell just before midnight on New Year's eve, and immediately changing it for a merry peal when twelve has struck, which we have heard in Lincolnshire; or of ringing a joyful peal after a funeral, a custom which also obtains at Hatherleigh. The passing bell has at present completely lost its true signification. In pre-Reformation times, it was ordered to be rung while the soul was passing away from the body, in order that the faithful might pray for its repose, not, as now, after death has happened.

Multitudinous are the superstitions attaching to church bells. All know the Cornish poet's beautiful verses on the drowned bells of Bottreaux, which are still supposed to ring in storms. The bell at St. Fillan's Chapel was used in

the ceremonies anciently employed by the Scotch to restore the insane to sanity. The great bell of Saragossa is said to ring spontaneously before the death of a sovereign. Bede mentions the fact of a nun in a convent hearing a bell ring before a friend's death. Curiously enough, the writer was lately told by an old woman in Lincolnshire, who was expecting the death of a neighbor, that she heard the church bell strike solemnly three times at twelve o'clock on the night before her friend expired. In the Romish Church, there was a prevalent belief that bells drove away storms and tempests, as well as demons. Thus, a quaint old writer speaks: "It is said the evil spirytes that ben in the region of th' ayre doubte moche when they hear the belles ringen: and this is the cause why the belles ringen whan it thondreth, and whan grete tempeste and rages of wether happen, to the ende that the feindes and wycked spirytes should ben abashed, and flee and cease of the movynge of tempeste.' From this feeling, bells were anciently baptized, and regular forms for the cere mony are given in Romish manuals. Even sponsors were sometimes named for them; holy water, oil, salt, cream, and tapers being used, just as at the bap tism of a child. This was certainly not a primitive practice, nor is it stoutly defended by the Romish hierarchy at present. Bingham can trace it to no more remote antiquity than the reign of Charlemagne. The first distinct mention of it occurs in the time of John XIII., 968 A.D., who, on consecrating the great bell of the Lateran Church, gave it the name of John, from whence the custom seems to have been authorized in the church. It is worth while translating an account of the ceremonial from Sleidan. "First of all," he says, "the bells must be so hung that the bishop may be able to walk round them. When he has chanted a few psalms in a low voice, he mingles water and salt, and consecrates them, diligently sprinkling the bell with the mixture both inside and out. Then he wipes it clean, and with holy oil describes on it the figure of the cross, praying the while that when the bell is swung up and sounded, faith and charity may abound amongst men; all the snares of the devil-hail, lightnings, winds, storms -may be rendered vain, and all unsea

sonable weather be softened. After he has wiped off that cross of oil from the rim, he forms seven other crosses on it, but only one of them within. The bell is censed, more psalms are to be sung, and prayers put up for its welfare. After this, feasts and banqueting are celebrated just as at a wedding."

Tales of those who have fancied that they heard voices of encouragement in the notes of bells are common enough. Whittington, and Panurge in Rabelais, to whom the bells seemed to say so appositely, "Marry, marry, marry," will occur as instances to every reader. It, was owing to the advice of the matin bell, King James I. of Scotland informs us, that he wrote his poem, the Kings Quhair. As he lay wakeful one morning,

Ay methought the bell

Said to me, Tell on, man, quhat thee befell. Still more pathetic than these stories is what the Laureate says the shipwrecked solitary heard in his far-off tropic isle:

Once, likewise, in the ringing of his ears, Though faintly, merrily-far and far awayHe heard the pealing of his parish bells. In many English parishes, bells have been sold by parsimonious churchwardens, in order to defray the expenses of repairing the fabric, just as lead from the roofs has often been applied to the same purpose. To make up for these gaps in the belfry, stories of bells having been stolen from neighboring churches are frequent in country parishes. Thus, at Fulbourne, when the steeple of the church fell in, the poorer inhabitants watched the bells for some nights. When their suspicion somewhat lulled, the churchwardens silently carried them off in a wagon and sold them.

Towers for bells were sometimes detached from the main body of the church in England, as on the continent, thus forming campaniles. An example may still be seen at Chichester. It seems likely, from the massive character of Norman towers, that heavy bells were hung in them; and, indeed, till the Reformation, when the art of change-ringing was introduced, the excellence of a bell was to be heavy and sonorous, as it was only chimed, and very rarely rung up. Five or seven was supposed to be the fit