fess to be their disciples.

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with Buddha misunderstood his words; and at the Great Council which had to settle the Buddhist canon, Asoka, the Indian Constantine, had to remind the assembled priests that "what had been said by Buddha, that alone was well said;" and that certain works ascribed to Buddha, as for instance, the instruction given to his son Rahula, were apochryphal, if not heretical.

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To those, no doubt, who value the tenets of their religion as the miser values his pearls and precious stones, thinking their value lessened if pearls and stones of the same kind are found in other parts of the world, the Science of Religion will bring many a rude shock; but to the true believer, truth, wherever it appears, is welcome, nor will any doctrine seem the less true or the less precious, because it was seen, not only by Moses or Christ, but likewise by Buddha or Lao-tse. Nor should it be forgotten, that while a comparison of ancient religions will certainly show that some of the most vital articles of faith are the common property of the whole of mankind,—at least of all who seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after Him,—and find Him, the same comparison alone can possibly teach us what is peculiar to Christianity, and what has secured to it that pre-eminent position which now it holds in spite of all obloquy. The gain will be greater than the loss, if loss there be, which I, at least, shall never admit.—Max Muller.

THE FUNCTIONS OF UNBELIEF.

To skepticism we owe that spirit of inquiry which during the last two centuries has gradually encroached on every possible subject; has reformed every department of practical and speculative knowledge, has weakened the authority of the privileged classes, and thus placed liberty on a surer foundation; has restrained the arrogance of the nobles, has chastised the despotism of princes, and has even diminished the prejudices of the clergy.

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No single fact has so extensively affected the different nations as the duration, the amount, and above all the diffusion of their skepticism. In Spain, the church, aided by the Inquisition, has always been strong enough to punish skeptical writers, and prevent, not indeed the existence, but the promulgation of skeptical opinions. But in England and France, which are the countries where skepticism first openly appeared and where it has been most diffused, the results are altogether different, and the love of inquiry being encouraged, there has arisen that constantly progressive knowledge to which these two great nations owe their prosperity.-Buckle.

HUMAN INTEREST IN HISTORY.-ITS MORAL ELEMENTS.

One lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness: that the world is built somehow on moral foundations; that in the long run, it is well with the good; in the long run, it is ill with the wicked. But this is no science; it is no more than the old doctrine taught long ago by the Hebrew prophets. The theories of M. Comte and his disciples advance us, after all, not a step beyond the trodden and familiar ground. If men are not entirely animals, they are at least half animals, and are subject in this aspect of them to the conditions of animals. So far as those parts of man's doings are concerned, which neither have, nor need have anything moral about them, so far the laws of him are calculable. There are laws for his digestiou, and laws of the means by which his digestive organs are supplied with matter. But pass beyond them, and where are we? In a world where it would be as easy to calculate men's actions by laws like those of positive philosophy, as to measure the orbit of Neptune with a footrule, or weigh Sirius in a grocer's scale.

And it is not difficult to see why this should be. The first principle on which the theory of a science of history can be plausibly argued, is that all actions whatsoever arise from selfinterest. It may be enlightened self-interest, it may be unen

lightened; but it is assumed as an axiom, that every man, in whatever he does, is aiming at something which he considers will promote his happiness. His conduct is not determined by his will; it is determined by the object of his desires. Adam Smith, in laying the foundations of political economy, expressly eliminates every other motive. He does not say

that men never act on other motives. He asserts merely that, as far as the arts of production are concerned, and of buying and selling, the action of self-interest may be counted upon as uniform. What Adam Smith says of political economy, Mr. Buckle would extend over the whole circle of human activity.

Now, that which especially distinguishes a high order of man from a low order of man-that which constitutes human goodness, human greatness, human nobleness—is surely not the degree of enlightenment with which men pursue their own advantage; but it is self-forgetfulness; it is self-sacrifice; it is the disregard of personal indulgence, personal advantages remote or present, because some other line of conduct is more right.

We are sometimes told that this is but another way of expressing the same thing; that when a man prefers doing what is right, it is only because to do right gives him a higher satisfaction. It appears to me on the contrary to be a difference in the very heart and nature of things. The martyr goes to the stake, the patriot to the scaffold, not with a view to any future reward to themselves, but because it is a glory to fling away their lives to truth and freedom.

And so through all phases of existence, to the smallest details of common life, the beautiful character is the unselfish character. Those whom we most love and admire, are those to whom the thought of self seems never to occur; who do simply and with no ulterior aim-with no thought whether it will be pleasant to themselves or unpleasant-that which is good and right and generous.

Is this still selfishness, only more enlightened? I do not think so. The essence of true nobility is neglect of self. Let

the thought of self pass in, and the beauty of a great action is gone, like the bloom from a soiled flower. Surely it is a paradox to speak of the self-interest of a martyr who dies for a cause, the triumph of which he will never enjoy; and the greatest of that great company in all ages would have done what they did, had their personal prospects closed with the grave. Nay, there have been those so zealous for some glorious principle as to wish themselves blotted out of the book of Heaven if the cause of Heaven could succeed.

And out of this mysterious quality, whatever it be, arise the higher relations of human life, the higher modes of human obligation. Kant, the philosopher, used to say that there were two things which overwhelmed him with awe as he thought of them: One was the star-sown deep of space, without limit and without end; the other was, right and wrong. Right, the sacrifice of self to good; wrong, the sacrifice of good to selfnot graduated objects of desire, to which we are determined by the degrees of our knowledge, but wide asunder as pole and pole, as light and darkness; one the object of infinite love; the other, the object of infinite detestation and scorn. It is in this marvelous power in men to do wrong (it is an old story, but none the less true for that)—it is in this power to do wrong-wrong or right, as it lies somehow with ourselves to choose that the impossibility stands of forming scientific calculations of what men will do before the fact, or scientific explanations of what they have done after the fact.

If men were consistently selfish, you might analyze their motives; if they were consistently noble they would express in their conduct the laws of the highest perfection. But so long as two natures are mixed together, and the strange creature which results from the combination is now under one influence and now under another, so long you will make nothing of him except from the old-fashioned moral—or, if you please, imaginative-point of view.

Even the laws of political economy itself cease to guide us when they touch moral government. So long as labor is a

chattel to be bought and sold, so long, like other commodities, it follows the condition of supply and demand. But if for his misfortune, an employer considers that he stands in human relations towards his workmen; if he believes, rightly or wrongly, that he is responsible for them; that in return for their labor he is bound to see that their children are decently taught, and they and their families decently fed, and clothed, and lodged; that he ought to care for them in sickness and in old age-then political economy will no longer direct him, and the relations between himself and his dependants will have to be arranged on quite other principles.

So long as he considers only his own material profit, so long supply and demand will settle every difficulty, but the introduction of a new factor spoils the equation.

And it is precisely in this debatable ground of low motives and noble emotions; in the struggle, ever-failing yet ever renewed, to carry truth and justice into the administration of human society; in the establishment of States and in the overthrow of tyrannies; in the rise and fall of creeds; in the world of ideas; in the character and deeds of the great actors in the drama of life, where good and evil fight out their everlasting battle, now ranged in opposite camps, now and more often in the heart, both of them, of each living man—that the true human interest of history resides.

The progress of industries, the growth of material and mechanical civilization, are interesting; but they are not the most interesting.

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It is a voice soundof right and wrong.

What then are the lessons of history? ing forever across the centuries, the laws Opinions alter, manners change, creeds rise and fall, but the moral law is written on the tablets of eternity. For every false word or unrighteous deed, for cruelty and oppression, for lust or vanity, the price has to be paid at last; not always by the chief offender, but by some one. Justice and truth alone endure and live, Injustice and falsehood may be long-lived,