beyond anything of the kind that was previously suggested. No one who has not examined its applications to history and to life, and studied M. Comte's own masterly exposition of it, can have any conception of its grandeur. Still it is only a theory, and must bow to fact. I find myself compelled to reject it, because it does not explain, but flatly contradicts, the greatest fact in the history of man, that is to say, Christianity. M. Comte's theory can give no better explanation of Christianity, than that it is one of those theological convictions which are useful in the infancy of nations, but which give way before the advance of positive science. It appears to me that, great as is the portion of truth which M. Comte has systematized by his theory, that portion which he has overlooked is still greater. One practical inference which he draws from it, with the most rigorous logic, may serve as a test of its value.

Theological convictions being only preparatory, become at a certain stage obstructive, and therefore their removal is an indispensable step to social improvement. Hence Francewhere, with one or two splendid exceptions, like Guizot or Montalembert, men of intellect will only sanction Christianity as an instrument of police-is at a higher point of social progression, and more fit for improved institutions, than England, where Christianity survives, and still commands the obedience of superior minds. This logically-proved superiority of France to England would be quite sufficient to convince me that the theory which yielded such a result must be erroneous, even if I did not see where the error lay; but the error evidently does lie in its disregard of the fact, that the convictions most essential to the existence of society, namely, those which cause men to submit to moral restraints, are not produced by purely intellectual influences, and that a readiness to receive new intellectual impressions may be accompanied by that progressive relaxation of all moral ties which is identical, not with social improvement, but with social decay. Some further remarks upon M. Comte, and upon his very just and comprehensive con

ception of the services rendered by the Roman Catholic Church to society during the middle ages, will occur better in a subsequent place, and in the mean time I proceed to add a word or two upon the theory of Hegel.

Theory of Hegel.

The theory of Hegel is only known to me through the account given of it by Archdeacon Hare', but his capacity and fidelity as an interpreter, philosophical as well as linguistic, are such as greatly diminish my regret at my ignorance of the original. It is, in effect, that the various powers in human nature suggest a certain harmonious development and subordination, in which perfection would consist; that this perfection has not been and is not attained by the individual, but that it must be conceived of as being in a course of progressive attainment by the whole human race. Every faculty will at some time or other have its full development, and the collective mass of mankind continually, but indefinitely, approximates to the state in which the moral faculties will be supreme. This theory may fairly vie with M. Comte's in the majestic sweep which it makes over the phenomena of human life. But it is not more free from error. Archdeacon Hare signalizes the fact that the theory does not take account of the one effective instrument of moral elevation, namely, Christianity. Indeed, the German admirers of Hegel would probably not think it a slanderous misrepresentation of his idea to embody it thus. It is God gradually coming into life in the universal consciousness of the human race.

This theory, like M. Comte's, discloses its weakness when brought into comparison with facts exhibiting the moral condition of races and nations. It would be hard to trace the working of Hegel's principle during two or three thousand

1 "Guesses at Truth," Second Series.

years of stationary life in China and India, or in the nomadic tribes whom Mr. Layard and Mr. Walpole picture to-day as their ancestors existed in the days of Abraham.

The result of this survey is, that, apart from Christianity, no scientific ground has yet been established for a belief in the moral progressiveness of the human race.

CHAPTER II.

NATIONAL DECAY.

"A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles

O'er the far times, when many a subject land

Look'd to the winged lion's marble piles,

Where Venice sat in state, throned on her hundred isles !

"She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,

Rising with her tiara of proud towers

At airy distance, with majestic motion,

A ruler of the waters and their powers:

And such she was ;-her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East

Pour'd in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deem'd their dignity increased.

"In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,

And silent rows the songless gondolier;

Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,

And music meets not always now the ear."-BYRON.

Moral Progress and Decay in Individuals.

If the belief that the human race is moving onwards in a state of uniform moral progression, be in any degree difficult to reconcile with the facts of history, the same thing cannot be said of the belief that particular nations run through successive stages somewhat like those which we mark in the individual as youth, maturity, and decay. This latter opinion was expressed by Bacon in these pregnant words. "In the youth of a State arms do flourish :-in the middle age of a State

learning, and then both of them together for a time; in the declining age of a State, mechanical arts and merchandize."

Looking to the changes which take place in individual character, it is to be feared that moral decay is more common than moral improvement. The courageous truth, the overflowing affection, the prompt self-sacrifice which so often make youth beautiful, are not so apt to be manifested in advanced years. On the contrary, the glorious promise of the dawn is often overcast before the sun is yet midway in its course. The warm impulse gives way to the cold calculation, and the heart, which at the outset of life was a fountain of noble feeling, becomes closed and withered up, and "dry as summer dust," before it returns to the source from which it came. One of the aspects of this truth appears in the well-known lines of Wordsworth :

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy;

Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon the growing boy.

But he beholds the light, and whence it flows:
He sees it in his joy.

The Youth who daily farther from the East
Must travel, still is Nature's Priest,
And by the vision splendid

Is on his way attended;

At length the Man perceives it die away
And fade into the light of common day."

This gradual loss of the heavenly light does not indicate moral progress. But if particular men may become hard and selfish, and sink into every kind of moral degradation as they advance in life, such a thing cannot be impossible for societies of men, that is to say, for nations. Accordingly this fact of national decay is not only possible, but one of the most familiar to be met with in history.

Greece and Rome.

The career and fate of Greece are known to every reader. The unrivalled intellectual power and deep sensibility to