life is displayed the truth which the physico-chemical processes imply, but cannot embody. The soul, or principle of life, is not something separate from the body, to be put into it, but the truth of the body, and its separation is death.

In animal life, however, the end, though indicated, is not fully attained; form and materials are still separable, though their separation is resisted by the whole force of the organization. So that here the only, the persistence of the materials and the corresponding abstractness or merely ideal existence of the form, has some ground in fact. The reason is, that in animal life the idea exists only implicitly, as a series of particulars which turn out to be connected with each other, but are not of themselves or consciously one. The animal is a whole in so far that his various actions and functions are circumscribed by the invisible outline of the kind, the constitution. This is really the motive in all he does; but it is not felt as what it is, but only as accidental impulse,—the appetite of this ox for a particular bunch of grass, &c. The motives are in truth universal, and the individual in following his impulses accomplishes universal ends, but they do not appear to him as such. This discrepancy between the truth and the fact of his being the animal can never overcome, because it never presents itself to him; the genus does not become individual, or the individual universal, but they only meet in certain particulars. The individual is therefore still unessential, the medium through which certain generic ends are attained, but not end in himself. We treat the animal according to his kind, the ox according to the nature of oxen, and the dog according to the dog nature, and not as if each had rights of his own. The animal does after his kind, not after his convictions; the kind must answer for him; and it is to this, and not to him, that we are answerable for our treatment of him.

Why do we scruple to treat human beings after the same fashion, to use them and use them up for our own good purposes? That we have the right to do so, provided we intend only the general good, is indeed the opinion of many persons. According to this view, mankind has rights only in the mass, and not as individuals; all rights of individuals are included in the right to be well governed, judiciously used for the gen

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eral advantage. And indeed, if the individual is only the accidental shape in which the common attributes of humanity appear, rights can belong to him only in those particulars in which he is not individual, but identified with the mass. The "rights of man" will mean the rights of no man, but of an abstraction; and particular rights will in all cases rest on their own merits, that is, on the amount of force they bring to their sup port, and not on any general or intrinsic validity as right. In other words, right will be only a collective name for the prevailing arrangements of society.

The only ground upon which the individual can have any rights of his own, any rights as against society, is, that he is himself Man, and not merely an item which, taken with others, helps to constitute Man. It must be assumed that his governing motives are not merely in truth universal, that is, beneficent or directed by good purpose in the long run or by the act of coming together with others, but such of themselves and in their inception. He must see the general good as his good. Else it is inevitable that the mere wishes of the majority must in all cases constitute right. For numbers are always entitled to count against numbers and fragmentary rights, rights that are wrong in one direction against such as are wrong in another. But if there are any perfect and indefeasible rights, any rights intrinsically and under all circumstances entitled to respect, this is as much as to say that in the subject of them the separation of individual and universal, specimen and kind, no longer governs.

In Man as a spiritual being, that is, as self-governed, the two sides, the abstract law and the unessential individuality, come together as one truth in the individual who is a law unto himself. To him humanity is not an abstraction; everything else rather is an abstraction, and has value only as instrumental to that. He sees the general purpose as his purpose, to which, therefore, nothing of his has to be sacrificed, but which on the contrary upholds and affirms his individuality. There is nothing inconceivable here, for it only requires that the truth shall be seen as it is, and that the individual shall recognize in particulars what he readily admits in general. Nothing is changed in the substance of the relation, but only in our perception.

The purposes of God in the world are sure to be accomplished, whether by free obedience or by the unfailing gravitation of selfishness; the only difference is, that in the one case we are free agents and in the other tools. We are not enslaved by yielding to necessity, to the law of the universe, but by yielding to the notion that this necessity contravenes freedom, by failure to recognize it as our own. Liberty to do as we please, to follow our impulses because we feel them, this is the liberty which a stone has to fall when nothing prevents. True freedom is to see our real relations to the universe, and thereby to be emancipated from the delusion of a private and separate good.

It may be objected, perhaps, that no such individual exists, and that, whatever the rule ought to be, the rule that actually governs human conduct is self-interest; and in one sense no doubt this is true enough. But here again the idealist is entitled to appeal to facts as against these a priori deductions,namely, to the fact of society. Society is a fact, and it is utterly inexplicable on the theory of universal selfishness, on the theory which treats the obvious fact of human selfishness as if it were truth and reality. No more chimerical scheme could be devised than to construct society, as it exists in civilized countries, out of the jostlings and balancings of a crowd of mere egotisms. Men are selfish; but it does not follow that self-interest, or the look solely to immediate gratification, really gov erns their conduct, although they perhaps mean that it shall and think it does. Society in its feeblest beginnings rests on the feeling, however dim and instinctive, as, for instance, in the sexual and parental impulses, that another's good is our good, and that we are interested to protect and further it. As civilization advances, the truth which these impulses indicate assumes more and more the shape of truth, of conviction, and conscious motive. The foundation of the state, Aristotle says, is not neighborhood or mutual advantage and protection, but the common sentiments of good and evil, justice and injustice. It may be that the truth is nowhere fully manifested, that the spirit of humanity is nowhere fully incarnate in any individual; but this is no obstacle to the conception of it. Philosophy is not concerned with our private mishaps and personal short-comings;

it is sufficient for its purpose to have perceived that they are private and personal, and do not affect the truth. And in this conception of a self- a humanity no longer self-seeking, because now self-finding-Philosophy attains its end, and sees in Spirit the final object of its search. Spirit is the self-proved reality, the self-existent truth, in which all deductions or short-comings are seen to be only means to the accomplishment of its purpose.

Being, Essence, Spirit, this trinity in unity recurs everywhere in Hegel; and the same triplicity, the same rhythm of immediate fact, ulterior reality, and concrete truth, governs the evolution of every part of the system.

It will be readily seen that what has been attempted here is not a systematic exposition or criticism of Hegel's philosophy, but only, by whatever expedient that occurred, to convey some indication of its general drift and method. A great deal of labor is needed, both in the way of interpretation and probably of development, before it can be made generally available. The labor would be well bestowed, for all philosophy at present must take this road, and the first question to be put to any new attempt is, whether it has got as far as this or not so far.

J. E. CABOT.

ART. V.-1. A History of the English Poor-Law, in Connection with the Legislation and other Circumstances affecting the Condition of the People. By SIR GEORGE NICHOLLS, K. C. B. In Two Volumes. London. 1854.

2. Report of the Committee of the General Court of Massachusetts on the Pauper Laws. By JOSIAH QUINCY. Boston. 1821. pp. 36.

3. Report of the Commissioners on the Subject of the Pauper System of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (House Doc. No. 6, 1833.) By W. B. CALHOUN, HENRY SHAW, J. CALDWELL, and JOSEPH TUCKERMAN. pp. 97.

4. Massachusetts State Charities. Report of the Special Joint Committee appointed to investigate the whole System of the

Public Charitable Institutions of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, during the Recess of the Legislature in 1858. By JOHN MORRISSEY, WILLIAM FABENS, CHARLES HALE, DEXTER F. PARKER, and GEORGE M. BROOKS. (Senate Doc. No. 2, 1859.) pp. 153.

5. Reports of the Board of State Charities of Massachusetts for the Years 1864–1867.

6. Address of his Excellency, John A. Andrew, to the Two Branches of the Legislature of Massachusetts, January 6, 1865. (Senate Doc. No. 1, 1865.)

7. Address of his Excellency, Alexander H. Bullock, to the Two Branches of the Legislature of Massachusetts, January 3, 1868. (Senate Doc. No. 1, 1868.)

8. A Manual for the Use of the Overseers of the Poor of the City of Boston. Prepared by a Committee of the Board. Boston. 1866.

WHEN Daniel Defoe in 1704 startled the good people of London by his pamphlet, " Giving Alms no Charity," in which he maintained that the "craving poor" ought not to receive alms, and the able-bodied poor ought not to be set at work by the public, he set the fashion of much that has been since written on the same topic. Many humane and many heartless writers have denounced the practice of giving public relief to the poor; yet the relief has been given, and is now going on, upon a scale never before known in the annals of the world. And it is probable that nowhere else in the world is so much done to alleviate and improve the condition of the poor at the public expense, in proportion to their relative numbers, as in New England. Scarcely anywhere is poverty less pernicious than here, yet scarcely anywhere is so much money expended and so much pains taken by public officers to ward off the mischief which poverty inflicts on the individual and on the community. It will not be amiss, then, to examine briefly the laws and usages affecting pauperism in New England.

It is now less than three centuries since the law of England definitely made provision for the support of the poor at the public charge. By an act of Parliament in 1572, the office of Overseer of the Poor was established, and by the