This search after happiness is self-love. Self-love is the mainspring of all action. It makes the cat catch mice. and the man pay taxes. A man can no more avoid loving himself than he can avoid feeling. Sympathy is very often, though not always, a subtle phase of self-love. We sympathise with others in their joys and pains, not unfrequently because, by a species of delusion wrought by the imagination, we are enabled to feel their joys as if they were our own joys, and their woes as if they were our own woes. Consequently, want of sympathy is evidence of want of imagination.

Virtue is the judicious selection of that course of action. most conducive to intense and permanent happiness, and the adoption of a line of conduct which is destructive to happiness is vice. As a compound being, man can derive happiness from two sources, the animal senses and the mental faculties. If he rejects the nobler spheres of pleasure for those that are baser, he is vicious; if he abandons sensual gratification for intellectual pursuits, he is virtuous, because the sum-total of intellectual happiness is greater than the sum-total of sensual happiness.

Virtue is selfishness acting with judgment: vice is selfishness acting ignorantly and blindly. A man gets drunk either because he does not know that intemperance is ruinous to his constitution, or because he has so little. acquaintance with the laws of mental perspective as to suppose that a small present gratification is preferable to a great remote happiness, just as a child supposes the apple in its hand to be larger than the apple-tree at a distance.

Irreligion is very often due to defective imagination. Those who can, by an intellectual process, place themselves beside God, and view themselves relatively to Him, are religious; but those who have not sufficient imagination to

so conceive themselves, know of no responsibilities to God. Thus, irreverence, profanity, and indifference are so many exhibitions of mental imperfection. If we see our relations to man with great clearness, our self-love will make us considerate of others, for mutual forbearance and love is necessary to our happiness. If we are ignorant of the principles of solidarity, our egoism will be imperfect.

The state of our conscience at any given moment is the measure of our knowledge.

If every man were gifted with such faculties that he was able to view himself in all his relations at a glance, he would never transgress a law of physics, social economy, or religion, and there would be no such thing as immorality; pain would never be felt, because man would know perfectly how to avoid it. But as man is not so constituted, an appeal is necessary to his conscience, that is, his fears and hopes, in order to prevent the utter disorganization of society and the disappearance of morality.

Nature wields her sword of flame, pointing every way; the experimental philosopher, and the sanitary commissioner, are her priests. In the social world, the state enforces those laws which are found to be conducive to the order and prosperity of the commonwealth.

Before natural philosophy and political economy were understood, religion undertook to rule man's actions in his physical and in his political capacities, but now science has brought sanitary regulation under its jurisdiction. When the state was regarded as divinely constituted, religion made it matter of conscience to obey, whereas now it is only matter of expedience.

But science and sociology cannot touch man in his relation to himself; all that they can do is to assure him that the happiness to be found in the crucible is higher in degree

than that to be found in the pint-pot. Here religion steps in and undertakes to encourage him with hopes, if he will expend his vital energy in the development of his higher powers, and deter him by threats appreciable by a coarse, animal nature, from resisting his spiritual instincts, and burying them in fleshly indulgence.

But, also, if there be a God, then man bears relations to Him, and his duties to God are of a private nature, and therefore not of interest to the state, and in no way coming under the jurisdiction of science. And what are the duties man owes to God can only be ascertained by a revelation, for they cannot be discovered experimentally.

Consequently, there are four spheres; the sphere of physics, that of politics, that of psychology, and that of theology.

In the early ethic codes all four were fused into one, and as a religious act man abstained from pork, obeyed the king, cultivated his mental and spiritual powers, and worshipped God. Now, religion is seen to embrace only the two latter provinces, and to rule man in his duty to himself and his duty to God.

CHAPTER XII

THE ORIGIN OF MONOTHEISM

The mode by which conclusions are reached not generally considered— Concrete terminology inadequate to express abstract ideas—Tendency of all religious systems to gravitate into Theism or Pantheism-First vague ideas of God-Polytheism, its logical difficulties-Escape in the direction of Monotheism-Absolute unity-Relative unity-The recognition of natural law- The idea of the unity of this law-The idea of transcendental knowledge-The idea of the unity of the Creator-The idea of the infinity of space, and of time-The idea of substance; which is spiritual or corporeal—The idea of the unity of corporeal substance the basis of Pantheism; that of the unity of spiritual substance the basis of Theism—Materialism-Theism and Pantheism not necessarily anta

gonistic.

MEN

EN arrive at conclusions, very generally, without in the least knowing by what train of thought they have been led. The examination of the starting-point, and the connotation of the stages through which thought moves to the result, are commonly neglected.

In investigating the origin of monotheism, it will be necessary to follow the chain of thought which has conducted intelligent races to theism, though the several links have been as little observed as are the distance-posts past which the traveller is whirled to his destination, and which, even if seen, leave no sensible impression on his memory.

Two facts arrest our attention at the outset the prevalence of monotheism, and the tendency of civilization. towards it. Monotheism is at present the creed of a large section of the human race. The Christian, the Jew, and the Mohammedan hold the unity of the Great Cause, with varying distinctness, according to their powers of abstraction.

Language will ever be cumbered with a concrete terminology, and will present a certain uncouthness in the expression of absolute ideas; and we must guard against being led astray by the figures of speech which we employ to express ideas which language is incompetent to express with precision. Thought girds up its loins, and outruns language. The mind struggles to find expression for ideas which transcend terminology, and is obliged to lay hold of such words and phrases as are at its disposal, and use them as best it can; like the captive, who, longing for freedom, plaits the straw of his mattress into a rope, by means of which to escape from his dungeon. Science is hampered with a like inadequacy of language to express its meaning. To the child, the idea conveyed by the word "heaven" is one of place. He points to it; it is above his head; it is sprinkled with stars. When he is taught about the solar system, he calls that heaven. When he becomes a philosopher, he conceives heaven to be unlimited space. Child and philosopher alike use the term heaven, which signifies that which is "lifted or heaved up," and is as crude and material an expression as could well have been adopted. When a monotheist speaks of God "sitting on His seat," "hiding His face," his idea is not necessarily anthropomorphic, but he uses metaphorical expressions without fear of being misunderstood by other monotheists, which