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This is the first important difference which is inevitably consequent on the adoption of different methods. The idealist is compelled to assert, that necessary truths and contingent truths have a different origin.³⁰² The sensationalist is bound to affirm that they have the same origin.³⁰³ The further these two great schools advance, the more marked does their divergence become. They are at open war in every department of morals, of philosophy, and of art. The idealists say that all men have essentially the same notion of the good, the true, and the beautiful. The sensationalists affirm that there is no such standard, because ideas depend upon sensations, and because the sensations of men depend upon the changes in their bodies, and upon the external events by which their bodies are affected.

Such is a short specimen of the opposite conclusions to which the ablest metaphysicians have been driven, by the simple circumstance that they have pursued opposite methods of investigation. And this is the more important to observe, because, after these two methods have been employed, the resources of metaphysics are evidently exhausted.³⁰⁴ Both parties agree that mental laws can only be discovered by studying individual minds, and that there is nothing in the mind which is not the result either of reflection or of sensation. The only choice, therefore, they have to make, is between subordinating the results of sensation to the laws of reflection, or else subordinating the results of reflection to the laws of sensation. Every system of metaphysics has been constructed according to one of these schemes; and this must always continue to be the case, because, when the two schemes are added together, they include the totality of metaphysical phenomena. Each process is equally plausible;³⁰⁵ the supporters of each are equally confident; and, by the very nature of the dispute, it is impossible that any middle term should be found; nor can there ever be an umpire, because no one can mediate between metaphysical controversies without being a metaphysician, and no one can be a metaphysician without being either a sensationalist or an idealist; in other words, without belonging to one of those very parties whose claims he professes to judge.³⁰⁶

On these grounds, we must, I think, arrive at the conclusion, that as metaphysicians are unavoidably, and by the very nature of their inquiry, broken up into two completely antagonistic schools, the relative truth of which there are no means of ascertaining; as they, moreover, have but few resources, and as they use those resources according to a method by which no other science has ever been developed, – we, looking at these things, ought not to expect that they can supply us with sufficient data for solving those great problems which the history of the human mind presents to our view. And whoever will take the pains fairly to estimate the present condition of mental philosophy, must admit that, notwithstanding the influence it has always exercised over some of the most powerful minds, and through them over society at large, there is, nevertheless, no other study which has been so zealously prosecuted, so long continued, and yet remains so barren of results. In no other department has there been so much movement, and so little progress. Men of eminent abilities, and of the greatest integrity of purpose, have in every civilized country, for many centuries, been engaged in metaphysical inquiries; and yet at the present moment their systems, so far from approximating towards truth, are diverging from each other with a velocity which seems to be accelerated by the progress of knowledge. The incessant rivalry of the hostile schools, the violence with which they have been supported, and the exclusive and unphilosophic confidence with which each has advocated its own method, – all these things have thrown the study of the mind into a confusion only to be compared to that in which the study of religion has been thrown by the controversies of the theologians.³⁰⁷ The consequence is, that if we except a very few of the laws of association, and perhaps I may add the modern theories of vision and of touch,³⁰⁸ there is not to be found in the whole compass of metaphysics a single principle of importance, and at the same time of incontestable truth. Under these circumstances, it is impossible to avoid a suspicion that there is some fundamental error in the manner in which these inquiries have been prosecuted. For my own part, I believe that, by mere observation of our own minds, and even by such rude experiments as we are able to make upon them, it will be impossible to raise psychology to a science; and I entertain very little doubt that metaphysics can only be successfully studied by an investigation of history so comprehensive as to enable us to understand the conditions which govern the movements of the human race.³⁰⁹

CHAPTER IV
MENTAL LAWS ARE EITHER MORAL OR INTELLECTUAL. COMPARISON OF MORAL AND INTELLECTUAL LAWS, AND INQUIRY INTO THE EFFECT PRODUCED BY EACH ON THE PROGRESS OF SOCIETY

In the preceding chapter, it has, I trust, been made apparent, that, whatever may hereafter be the case, we, looking merely at the present state of our knowledge, must pronounce the metaphysical method to be unequal to the task, often imposed upon it, of discovering the laws which regulate the movements of the human mind. We are, therefore, driven to the only remaining method, according to which mental phenomena are to be studied, not simply as they appear in the mind of the individual observer, but as they appear in the actions of mankind at large. The essential opposition between these two plans is very obvious: but it may perhaps be well to bring forward further illustration of the resources possessed by each for the investigation of truth; and for this purpose, I will select a subject which, though still imperfectly understood, supplies a beautiful instance of the regularity with which, under the most conflicting circumstances, the great Laws of Nature are able to hold their course.

The case to which I refer, is that of the proportion kept up in the births of the sexes; a proportion which if it were to be greatly disturbed in any country, even for a single generation, would throw society into the most serious confusion, and would infallibly cause a great increase in the vices of the people.³¹⁰ Now, it has always been suspected that, on an average, the male and female births are tolerably equal; but, until very recently, no one could tell whether or not they are precisely equal, or, if unequal, on which side there is an excess.³¹¹ The births being the physical result of physical antecedents, it was clearly seen that the laws of the births must be in those antecedents; that is to say, that the causes of the proportion of the sexes must reside in the parents themselves.³¹² Under these circumstances, the question arose, if it was not possible to elucidate this difficulty by our knowledge of animal physiology; for it was plausibly said, ‘Since physiology is a study of the laws of the body,³¹³ and since all births are products resulting from the body, it follows that if we know the laws of the body, we shall know the laws of the birth.’ This was the view taken by physiologists of our origin;³¹⁴ and this is precisely the view taken by metaphysicians of our history. Both parties believed that it was possible at once to rise to the cause of the phenomenon, and by studying its laws predict the phenomenon itself. The physiologist said, ‘By studying individual bodies, and thus ascertaining the laws which regulate the union of the parents, I will discover the proportion of the sexes, because the proportion is merely the result to which the union gives rise.’ Just in the same way, the metaphysician says, ‘By studying individual minds, I will ascertain the laws which govern their movements; and in that way I will predict the movements of mankind, which are obviously compounded of the individual movements.’³¹⁵ These are the expectations which have been confidently held out, by physiologists respecting the laws of the sexes, and by metaphysicians respecting the laws of history. Towards the fulfilment, however, of these promises the metaphysicians have done absolutely nothing; nor have the physiologists been more successful, although their views have the support of anatomy, which admits of the employment of direct experiment, a resource unknown to metaphysics. But towards settling the present question, all this availed them nothing; and physiologists are not yet possessed of a single fact which throws any light on this problem: Is the number of male births equal to female births – is it greater, or is it less?

These are questions to which all the resources of physiologists, from Aristotle down to our own time, afford no means of reply.³¹⁶ And yet at the present day we, by the employment of what now seems a very natural method, are possessed of a truth which the united abilities of a long series of eminent men failed to discover. By the simple experiment of registering the number of births and their sexes; by extending this registration over several years, in different countries, – we have been able to eliminate all casual disturbances, and ascertain the existence of a law which, expressed in round numbers, is, that for every twenty girls there are born twenty-one boys: and we may confidently say, that although the operations of this law are of course liable to constant aberrations, the law itself is so powerful, that we know of no country in which during a single year the male births have not been greater than the female ones.³¹⁷

The importance and the beautiful regularity of this law make us regret that it still remains an empirical truth, not having yet been connected with the physical phenomena by which its operations are caused.³¹⁸ But this is immaterial to my present purpose, which is only to notice the method by which the discovery has been made. For this method is obviously analogous to that by which I propose to investigate the operations of the human mind; while the old and unsuccessful method is analogous to that employed by the metaphysicians. As long as physiologists attempted to ascertain the laws of the proportion of sexes by individual experiments, they effected absolutely nothing towards the end they hoped to achieve. But when men became dissatisfied with these individual experiments, and instead of them, began to collect observations less minute, but more comprehensive, then it was that the great law of nature, for which during many centuries they had vainly searched, first became unfolded to their view. Precisely in the same way, as long as the human mind is only studied according to the narrow and contracted method of metaphysicians, we have every reason for thinking that the laws which regulate its movements will remain unknown. If, therefore, we wish to effect anything of real moment, it becomes necessary that we should discard those old schemes, the insufficiency of which is demonstrated by experience as well as by reason; and that we should substitute in their place such a comprehensive survey of facts as will enable us to eliminate those disturbances which, owing to the impossibility of experiment, we shall never be able to isolate.

The desire that I feel to make the preliminary views of this Introduction perfectly clear, is my sole apology for having introduced a digression which, though adding nothing to the strength of the argument, may be found useful as illustrating it, and will at all events enable ordinary readers to appreciate the value of the proposed method. It now remains for us to ascertain the manner in which, by the application of this method, the laws of mental progress may be most easily discovered.

If, in the first place, we ask what this progress is, the answer seems very simple: that it is a two-fold progress, Moral and Intellectual; the first having more immediate relation to our duties, the second to our knowledge. This is a classification which has been frequently laid down, and with which most persons are familiar. And so far as history is a narration of results, there can be no doubt that the division is perfectly accurate. There can be no doubt that a people are not really advancing, if, on the one hand, their increasing ability is accompanied by increasing vice, or if, on the other hand, while they are becoming more virtuous, they likewise become more ignorant. This double movement, moral and intellectual, is essential to the very idea of civilization, and includes the entire theory of mental progress. To be willing to perform our duty is the moral part; to know how to perform it is the intellectual part: while the closer these two parts are knit together, the greater the harmony with which they work; and the more accurately the means are adapted to the end, the more completely will the scheme of our life be accomplished, and the more securely shall we lay a foundation for the further advancement of mankind.

A question, therefore, now arises of great moment: namely, which of these two parts or elements of mental progress is the most important. For the progress itself being the result of their united action, it becomes necessary to ascertain which of them works more powerfully, in order that we may subordinate the inferior element to the laws of the superior one. If the advance of civilization, and the general happiness of mankind, depend more on their moral feelings than on their intellectual knowledge, we must of course measure the progress of society by those feelings; while if, on the other hand, it depends principally on their knowledge, we must take as our standard the amount and success of their intellectual activity. As soon as we know the relative energy of these two components, we shall treat them according to the usual plan for investigating truth; that is to say, we shall look at the product of their joint action as obeying the laws of the more powerful agent, whose operations are casually disturbed by the inferior laws of the minor agent.

In entering into this inquiry, we are met by a preliminary difficulty, arising from the loose and careless manner in which ordinary language is employed on subjects that require the greatest nicety and precision. For the expression, Moral and Intellectual Progress, is suggestive of a serious fallacy. In the manner in which it is generally used, it conveys an idea that the moral and intellectual faculties of men are, in the advance of civilization, naturally more acute and more trustworthy than they were formerly. But this, though it may possibly be true, has never been proved. It may be that, owing to some physical causes still unknown, the average capacity of the brain is, if we compare long periods of time, becoming gradually greater; and that therefore the mind, which acts through the brain, is, even independently of education, increasing in aptitude and in the general competence of its views.³¹⁹ Such, however, is still our ignorance of physical laws, and so completely are we in the dark as to the circumstances which regulate the hereditary transmission of character, temperament,³²⁰ and other personal peculiarities, that we must consider this alleged progress as a very doubtful point; and, in the present state of our knowledge, we cannot safely assume that there has been any permanent improvement in the moral or intellectual faculties of man, nor have we any decisive ground for saying that those faculties are likely to be greater in an infant born in the most civilized part of Europe, than in one born in the wildest region of a barbarous country.³²¹

Whatever, therefore, the moral and intellectual progress of men may be, it resolves itself not into a progress of natural capacity,³²² but into a progress, if I may so say, of opportunity; that is, an improvement in the circumstances under which that capacity after birth comes into play. Here, then, lies the gist of the whole matter. The progress is one, not of internal power, but of external advantage. The child born in a civilized land is not likely, as such, to be superior to one born among barbarians; and the difference which ensues between the acts of the two children will be caused, so far as we know, solely by the pressure of external circumstances; by which I mean the surrounding opinions, knowledge, associations; in a word, the entire mental atmosphere in which the two children are respectively nurtured.

On this account it is evident, that if we look at mankind in the aggregate, their moral and intellectual conduct is regulated by the moral and intellectual notions prevalent in their own time. There are, of course, many persons who will rise above those notions, and many others who will sink below them. But such cases are exceptional, and form a very small proportion of the total amount of those who are nowise remarkable either for good or for evil. An immense majority of men must always remain in a middle state, neither very foolish nor very able, neither very virtuous nor very vicious, but slumbering on in a peaceful and decent mediocrity, adopting without much difficulty the current opinions of the day, making no inquiry, exciting no scandal, causing no wonder, just holding themselves on a level with their generation, and noiselessly conforming to the standard of morals and of knowledge common to the age and country in which they live.

Now, it requires but a superficial acquaintance with history to be aware that this standard is constantly changing, and that it is never precisely the same even in the most similar countries, or in two successive generations in the same country. The opinions which are popular in any nation vary in many respects almost from year to year; and what in one period is attacked as a paradox or a heresy, is in another period welcomed as a sober truth; which, however, in its turn is replaced by some subsequent novelty. This extreme mutability in the ordinary standard of human actions shows that the conditions on which the standard depends must themselves be very mutable; and those conditions, whatever they may be, are evidently the originators of the moral and intellectual conduct of the great average of mankind.

Here, then, we have a basis on which we can safely proceed. We know that the main cause of human actions is extremely variable; we have only, therefore, to apply this test to any set of circumstances which are supposed to be the cause, and if we find that such circumstances are not very variable, we must infer that they are not the cause we are attempting to discover.

Applying this test to moral motives, or to the dictates of what is called moral instinct, we shall at once see how extremely small is the influence those motives have exercised over the progress of civilization. For there is, unquestionably, nothing to be found in the world which has undergone so little change as those great dogmas of which moral systems are composed. To do good to others; to sacrifice for their benefit your own wishes; to love your neighbour as yourself; to forgive your enemies; to restrain your passions; to honour your parents; to respect those who are set over you: these, and a few others, are the sole essentials of morals; but they have been known for thousands of years, and not one jot or tittle has been added to them by all the sermons, homilies, and text-books which moralists and theologians have been able to produce.³²³

But, if we contrast this stationary aspect of moral truths with the progressive aspect of intellectual truths, the difference is indeed startling.³²⁴ All the great moral systems which have exercised much influence have been fundamentally the same; all the great intellectual systems have been fundamentally different. In reference to our moral conduct, there is not a single principle now known to the most cultivated Europeans, which was not likewise known to the ancients. In reference to the conduct of our intellect, the moderns have not only made the most important additions to every department of knowledge that the ancients ever attempted to study, but besides this, they have upset and revolutionized the old methods of inquiry; they have consolidated into one great scheme all those resources of induction which Aristotle alone dimly perceived; and they have created sciences, the faintest idea of which never entered the mind of the boldest thinker antiquity produced.

These are, to every educated man, recognized and notorious facts; and the inference to be drawn from them is immediately obvious. Since civilization is the product of moral and intellectual agencies, and since that product is constantly changing, it evidently cannot be regulated by the stationary agent; because, when surrounding circumstances are unchanged, a stationary agent can only produce a stationary effect. The only other agent is the intellectual one; and that this is the real mover may be proved in two distinct ways: first, because being, as we have already seen, either moral or intellectual, and being, as we have also seen, not moral, it must be intellectual; and, secondly, because the intellectual principle has an activity and a capacity for adaptation, which, as I undertake to show, is quite sufficient to account for the extraordinary progress that, during several centuries, Europe has continued to make.

Such are the main arguments by which my view is supported; but there are also other and collateral circumstances which are well worthy of consideration. The first is, that the intellectual principle is not only far more progressive than the moral principle, but is also far more permanent in its results. The acquisitions made by the intellect are, in every civilized country, carefully preserved, registered in certain well-understood formulas, and protected by the use of technical and scientific language; they are easily handed down from one generation to another, and thus assuming an accessible, or, as it were, a tangible form, they often influence the most distant posterity, they become the heirlooms of mankind, the immortal bequest of the genius to which they owe their birth. But the good deeds effected by our moral faculties are less capable of transmission; they are of a more private and retiring character; while, as the motives to which they owe their origin are generally the result of self-discipline and of self-sacrifice, they have to be worked out by every man for himself; and thus, begun by each anew, they derive little benefit from the maxims of preceding experience, nor can they well be stored up for the use of future moralists. The consequence is, that although moral excellence is more amiable, and to most persons more attractive, than intellectual excellence, still, it must be confessed that, looking at ulterior results, it is far less active, less permanent, and, as I shall presently prove, less productive of real good. Indeed, if we examine the effects of the most active philanthropy, and of the largest and most disinterested kindness, we shall find that those effects are, comparatively speaking, short-lived; that there is only a small number of individuals they come in contact with and benefit; that they rarely survive the generation which witnessed their commencement; and that, when they take the more durable form of founding great public charities, such institutions invariably fall, first into abuse, then into decay, and after a time are either destroyed, or perverted from their original intention, mocking the effort by which it is vainly attempted to perpetuate the memory even of the purest and most energetic benevolence.

These conclusions are no doubt very unpalatable; and what makes them peculiarly offensive is, that it is impossible to refute them. For the deeper we penetrate into this question, the more clearly shall we see the superiority of intellectual acquisitions over moral feeling.³²⁵ There is no instance on record of an ignorant man who, having good intentions, and supreme power to enforce them, has not done far more evil than good. And whenever the intentions have been very eager, and the power very extensive, the evil has been enormous. But if you can diminish the sincerity of that man, if you can mix some alloy with his motives, you will likewise diminish the evil which he works. If he is selfish as well as ignorant, it will often happen that you may play off his vice against his ignorance, and by exciting his fears restrain his mischief. If, however, he has no fear, if he is entirely unselfish, if his sole object is the good of others, if he pursues that object with enthusiasm, upon a large scale, and with disinterested zeal, then it is that you have no check upon him, you have no means of preventing the calamities which, in an ignorant age, an ignorant man will be sure to inflict. How entirely this is verified by experience, we may see in studying the history of religious persecution. To punish even a single man for his religious tenets, is assuredly a crime of the deepest dye; but to punish a large body of men, to persecute an entire sect, to attempt to extirpate opinions, which, growing out of the state of society in which they arise, are themselves a manifestation of the marvellous and luxuriant fertility of the human mind, – to do this is not only one of the most pernicious, but one of the most foolish acts that can possibly be conceived. Nevertheless, it is an undoubted fact that an overwhelming majority of religious persecutors have been men of the purest intentions, of the most admirable and unsullied morals. It is impossible that this should be otherwise. For they are not bad-intentioned men, who seek to enforce opinions which they believe to be good. Still less are they bad men, who are so regardless of temporal considerations as to employ all the resources of their power, not for their own benefit, but for the purpose of propagating a religion which they think necessary to the future happiness of mankind. Such men as these are not bad, they are only ignorant; ignorant of the nature of truth, ignorant of the consequences of their own acts. But, in a moral point of view, their motives are unimpeachable. Indeed, it is the very ardour of their sincerity which warms them into persecution. It is the holy zeal by which they are fired that quickens their fanaticism into a deadly activity. If you can impress any man with an absorbing conviction of the supreme importance of some moral or religious doctrine; if you can make him believe that those who reject that doctrine are doomed to eternal perdition; if you then give that man power, and by means of his ignorance blind him to the ulterior consequences of his own act, – he will infallibly persecute those who deny his doctrine; and the extent of his persecution will be regulated by the extent of his sincerity. Diminish the sincerity, and you will diminish the persecution: in other words, by weakening the virtue you may check the evil. This is a truth of which history furnishes such innumerable examples, that to deny it would be not only to reject the plainest and most conclusive arguments, but to refuse the concurrent testimony of every age. I will merely select two cases, which, from the entire difference in their circumstances, are very apposite as illustrations: the first being from the history of Paganism, the other from the history of Christianity; and both proving the inability of moral feelings to control religious persecution.

I. The Roman emperors, as is well known, subjected the early Christians to persecutions, which, though they have been exaggerated, were frequent and very grievous. But what to some persons must appear extremely strange, is, that among the active authors of these cruelties, we find the names of the best men who ever sat on the throne; while the worst and most infamous princes were precisely those who spared the Christians, and took no heed of their increase. The two most thoroughly depraved of all the emperors were certainly Commodus and Elagabalus; neither of whom persecuted the new religion, or indeed adopted any measures against it. They were too reckless of the future, too selfish, too absorbed in their own infamous pleasures, to mind whether truth or error prevailed; and being thus indifferent to the welfare of their subjects, they cared nothing about the progress of a creed, which they, as Pagan emperors, were bound to regard as a fatal and impious delusion. They, therefore, allowed Christianity to run its course, unchecked by those penal laws which more honest, but more mistaken, rulers would assuredly have enacted.³²⁶ We find, accordingly, that the great enemy of Christianity was Marcus Aurelius: a man of kindly temper, and of fearless, unflinching honesty, but whose reign was characterized by a persecution from which he would have refrained had he been less in earnest about the religion of his fathers.³²⁷ And to complete the argument, it may be added, that the last and one of the most strenuous of the opponents of Christianity, who occupied the throne of the Cæsars, was Julian: a prince of eminent probity, whose opinions are often attacked, but against whose moral conduct even calumny itself has hardly breathed a suspicion.³²⁸

II. The second illustration is supplied by Spain; a country of which it must be confessed, that in no other have religious feelings exercised such sway over the affairs of men. No other European nation has produced so many ardent and disinterested missionaries, zealous self-denying martyrs, who have cheerfully sacrificed their lives in order to propagate truths which they thought necessary to be known. Nowhere else have the spiritual classes been so long in the ascendant; nowhere else are the people so devout, the churches so crowded, the clergy so numerous. But the sincerity and the honesty of purpose by which the Spanish people, taken as a whole, have always been marked, have not only been unable to prevent religious persecution, but have proved the means of encouraging it. If the nation had been more lukewarm, it would have been more tolerant. As it was, the preservation of the faith became the first consideration; and everything being sacrificed to this one object, it naturally happened that zeal begat cruelty, and the soil was prepared in which the Inquisition took root and flourished. The supporters of that barbarous institution were not hypocrites, but enthusiasts. Hypocrites are for the most part too supple to be cruel. For cruelty is a stern and unbending passion; while hypocrisy is a fawning and flexible art, which accommodates itself to human feelings, and flatters the weakness of men in order that it may gain its own ends. In Spain, the earnestness of the nation, being concentrated on a single topic, carried everything before it; and hatred of heresy becoming a habit, persecution of heresy was thought a duty. The conscientious energy with which that duty was fulfilled is seen in the history of the Spanish Church. Indeed, that the inquisitors were remarkable for an undeviating and incorruptible integrity, may be proved in a variety of ways, and from different and independent sources of evidence. This is a question to which I shall hereafter return; but there are two testimonies which I cannot omit, because, from the circumstances attending them, they are peculiarly unimpeachable. Llorente, the great historian of the Inquisition, and its bitter enemy, had access to its private papers; and yet, with the fullest means of information, he does not even insinuate a charge against the moral character of the inquisitors; but while execrating the cruelty of their conduct, he cannot deny the purity of their intentions.³²⁹ Thirty years earlier, Townsend, a clergyman of the Church of England, published his valuable work on Spain;³³⁰ and though, as a Protestant and an Englishman, he had every reason to be prejudiced against the infamous system which he describes, he also can bring no charge against those who upheld it; but having occasion to mention its establishment at Barcelona, one of its most important branches, he makes the remarkable admission, that all its members are men of worth, and that most of them are of distinguished humanity.³³¹

302.Reid (Essays on the Powers of the Mind, vol. i. p. 281) says, that necessary truths ‘cannot be the conclusions of the senses; for our senses testify only what is, and not what must necessarily be.’ See also vol. ii. pp. 53, 204, 239, 240, 281. The same distinction is peremptorily asserted in Whewell's Philosophy of the Inductive Sciences, 8vo, 1847, vol. i. pp. 60–73, 140; and see Dugald Stewart's Philosophical Essays, pp. 123, 124. Sir W. Hamilton (Additions to Reid's Works, p. 754) says, that non-contingent truths ‘have their converse absolutely incogitable.’ But this learned writer does not mention how we are to know when anything is ‘absolutely incogitable.’ That we cannot cogitate an idea, is certainly no proof of its being incogitable; for it may be cogitated at some later period, when knowledge is more advanced.

303.This is asserted by all the followers of Locke; and one of the latest productions of that school declares, that ‘to say that necessary truths cannot be acquired by experience, is to deny the most clear evidence of our senses and reason.’ Jobert's New System of Philosophy, vol. i. p. 58.

304.To avoid misapprehension, I may repeat, that, here and elsewhere, I mean by metaphysics, that vast body of literature which is constructed on the supposition that the laws of the human mind can be generalized solely from the facts of individual consciousness. For this scheme, the word ‘metaphysics’ is rather inconvenient, but it will cause no confusion if this definition of it is kept in view by the reader.

305.What a celebrated historian of philosophy says of Platonism, is equally true of all the great metaphysical systems: ‘Dass sie ein zusammenhängendes harmonisches Ganzes ausmachen (i. e. the leading propositions of it) fällt in die Augen.’ Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. ii. p. 527. And yet he confesses (vol. iii. p. 52) of it and the opposite system: ‘und wenn man auf die Beweise siehet, so ist der Empirismus des Aristoteles nicht besser begründet als der Rationalismus des Plato.’ Kant admits that there can be only one true system, but is confident that he has discovered what all his predecessors have missed. Die Metaphysik der Sitten, in Kant's Werke, vol. v. p. 5, where he raises the question, ‘ob es wohl mehr, als eine Philosophie geben könne.’ In the Kritik, and in the Prolegomena zujeder künftigen Metaphysik, he says that metaphysics have made no progress, and that the study can hardly be said to exist. Werke, vol. ii. pp. 49, 50, vol. iii. pp. 166, 246.

306.We find a curious instance of this, in the attempt made by M. Cousin to found an eclectic school; for this very able and learned man has been quite unable to avoid the one-sided view which is to every metaphysician an essential preliminary; and he adopts that fundamental distinction between necessary ideas and contingent ideas, by which the idealist is separated from the sensationalist: ‘la grande division des idées aujourd'hui établie est la division des idées contingentes et des idées nécessaires.’ Cousin, Hist. de la Philosophie, II. série, vol. i. p. 82: see also vol. ii. p. 92, and the same work, I. série, vol. i. pp. 249, 267, 268, 311, vol. iii. pp. 51–54. M. Cousin constantly contradicts Locke, and then says he has refuted that profound and vigorous thinker; while he does not even state the arguments of James Mill, who, as a metaphysician, is the greatest of our modern sensationalists, and whose views, whether right or wrong, certainly deserve notice from an eclectic historian of philosophy.
Another eclectic, Sir W. Hamilton, announces (Discussions on Philosophy, p. 597) ‘an undeveloped philosophy, which, I am confident, is founded upon truth. To this confidence I have come, not merely through the convictions of my own consciousness, but by finding in this system a centre and conciliation for the most opposite of philosophical opinions.’ But, at p. 589, he summarily disposes of one of the most important of these philosophical opinions as ‘the superficial edifice of Locke.’

307.Berkeley, in a moment of candour, inadvertently confesses what is very damaging to the reputation of his own pursuits: ‘Upon the whole, I am inclined to think that the far greater part, if not all, of those difficulties which have hitherto amused philosophers, and blocked up the way to knowledge, are entirely owing to ourselves. That we have first raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see.’ Principles of Human Knowledge, in Berkeley's Works, vol. i. p. 74. Every metaphysician and theologian should get this sentence by heart: ‘That we have first raised a dust, and then complain we cannot see.’

308.Some of the laws of association, as stated by Hume and Hartley, are capable of historical verification, which would change the metaphysical hypothesis into a scientific theory. Berkeley's theory of vision, and Brown's theory of touch, have, in the same way, been verified physiologically; so that we now know what otherwise we could only have suspected.

309.In regard to one of the difficulties stated in this chapter as impeding metaphysicians, it is only just to quote the remarks of Kant: ‘Wie aber das Ich, der ich denke, von dem Ich, das sich selbst anschaut, unterschieden (indem ich mir noch andere Anschauungsart wenigstens als möglich vorstellen kann), und doch mit diesem letzteren als dasselbe Subject einerlei sei, wie ich also sagen könne: Ich als Intelligenz und denkend Subject, erkenne mich selbst als gedachtes Object, so fern ich mir noch über das in der Anschauung gegeben bin, nur, gleich anderen Phänomenen, nicht wie ich vor dem Verstande bin, sondern wie ich mir erscheine, hat nicht mehr auch nicht weniger Schwierigkeit bei sich, als wie ich mir selbst überhaupt ein Object und zwar der Anschauung und innerer Wahrnehmungen sein könne.’ Kritik der reinen Vernunft, in Kant's Werke, vol. ii. p. 144. I am very willing to let the question rest on this: for to me it appears that both cases are not only equally difficult, but, in the present state of our knowledge, are equally impossible.

310.Thus we find that the Crusades, by diminishing the proportion of men to women in Europe, increased licentiousness. See a curious passage in Sprengel, Histoire de la Médecine, vol. ii. p. 376. In Yucatan, there is generally a considerable excess of women, and the result is prejudicial to morals. Stephens's Central America, vol. iii. pp. 380, 429. On the other hand, respecting the state of society produced by an excess of males, see Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 259; Journal of Geographical Society, vol. xv. p. 45, vol. xvi. p. 307; Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, p. 579.

311.On this question a variety of conflicting statements may be seen in the old writers. Goodman, early in the seventeenth century, supposed that more females were born than males. Southey's Commonplace Book, third series, p. 696. Turgot (Œuvres, vol. ii. p. 247) rightly says, ‘il naît un peu plus d'hommes que de femmes;’ but the evidence was too incomplete to make this more than a lucky guess; and I find that even Herder, writing in 1785, takes for granted that the proportion was about equal: ‘ein ziemliches Gleichmass in den Geburten beider Geschlechter’ (Ideen zur Geschichte, vol. ii. p. 149), and was sometimes in favour of girls, ’ja, die Nachrichten mehrerer Reisenden machen es wahrscheinlich, dass in manchen dieser Gegenden wirklich mehr Töchter als Söhne geboren werden.’

312.A question, indeed, has been raised as to the influence exercised by the state of the mind during the period of orgasm. But whatever this influence may be, it can only affect the subsequent birth through and by physical antecedents, which in every case must be regarded as the proximate cause. If, therefore, the influence were proved to exist, we should still have to search for physical laws: though such laws would of course be considered merely as secondary ones, resolvable into some higher generalization.

313.Some writers treat physiology as a study of the laws of life. But this, looking at the subject as it now stands, is far too bold a step, and several branches of knowledge will have to be raised from their present empirical state, before the phenomena of life can be scientifically investigated. The more rational mode seems to be, to consider physiology and anatomy as correlative; the first forming the dynamical, and the second forming the statical part of the study of organic structure.

314.‘Voulez-vous savoir de quoi dépend le sexe des enfants? Fernel vous répond, sur la foi des anciens, qu'il dépend des qualités de la semence du père et de la mère.’ Renouard, Histoire de la Médecine, Paris, 1846, vol. ii. p. 106; see also, at p. 185, the opinion of Hippocrates, adopted by Galen; and similar views in Lepelletier, Physiologie Médicale, vol. iv. p. 332, and Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. i. pp. 252, 10, vol. ii. p. 115, vol. iv. p. 62. For further information as to the opinions which have been held respecting the origin of sexes, see Beausobre, Histoire de Manichée, vol. ii. p. 417; Asiatic Researches, vol. iii. pp. 358, 361; Vishnu Purana, p. 349; Works of Sir William Jones, vol. iii. p. 126; Ritter's History of Ancient Philosophy, vol. iii. p. 191; Denham and Clapperton's Africa, pp. 323, 324; Maintenon, Lettres Inédites, vol. ii. p. 62; and the view of Hohl (Burdach's Physiologie, vol. ii. p. 472), ‘que les femmes chez lesquelles prédomine le système artériel procréent des garçons, au lieu que celles dont le système veineux a la prédominance mettent au monde des filles.’ According to Anaxagoras the question was extremely simple: καὶ ἄρρενα μὲν ἀπὸ τῶν δεξιῶ,θήλεα δὲ ἀπὸ τῶν ἀριστερῶν. Diog. Laert. ii. 9, vol. i. p. 85.

315.‘Le metaphysicien se voit comme la source de l'évidence et le confident de la nature: Moi seul, dit-il, je puis généraliser les idées, et découvrir le germe des événements qui se développent journellement dans le monde physique et moral; et c'est par moi seul que l'homme peut être éclairé.’ Helvetius, de l'Esprit, vol. i. p. 86. Compare Herder, Ideen zur Geschichte der Menschheit, vol. ii. p. 105. Thus, too, M. Cousin (Hist. de la Philosophie, II. série, vol. i. p. 131) says, ‘Le fait de la conscience transporté de l'individu dans l'espèce et dans l'histoire, est la clef de tous les développements de l'humanité.’

316.Considering the very long period during which physiology has been studied, it is remarkable how little the physiologists have contributed towards the great and final object of all science, namely, the power of predicting events. To me it appears that the two principal causes of this are, the backwardness of chemistry, and the still extremely imperfect state of the microscope, which even now is so inaccurate an instrument, that when a high power is employed, little confidence can be placed in it; and the examination, for instance, of the spermatozoa has led to the most contradictory results. In regard to chemistry, MM. Robin and Verdeil, in their recent great work, have ably proved what manifold relations there are between it and the further progress of our knowledge of the animal frame; though I venture to think that these eminent writers have shown occasionally an undue disposition to limit the application of chemical laws to physiological phenomena. See Robin et Verdeil, Chimie Anatomique et Physiologique, Paris, 1853, vol. i. pp. 20, 34, 167, 337, 338, 437, 661, vol. ii. pp. 136, 137, 508, vol. iii. pp. 135, 144, 183, 281, 283, 351, 547. The increasing tendency of chemistry to bring under its control what are often supposed to be purely organic phenomena, is noticed cautiously in Turner's Chemistry, vol. ii. p. 1308, London, 1847; and boldly in Liebig's Letters on Chemistry, 1851, pp. 250, 251. The connexion between chemistry and physiology is touched on rather too hastily in Bouilland, Philosophie Médicale, pp. 160, 257; Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Médicales, vol. iii. p. 166; Brodie's Lectures on Pathology, p. 48; Henle, Traité d'Anatomie, vol. i. pp. 25, 26; Feuchtersleben's Medical Psychology, p. 88; but better in Holland's Medical Notes, 1839, p. 270, a thoughtful and suggestive work. On the necessity of chemistry for increasing our knowledge of embryology, compare Wagner's Physiology, pp. 131, 132 note, with Burdach, Traité de Physiologie, vol. iv. pp. 59, 168.

317.It used to be supposed that some of the eastern countries formed an exception to this; but more precise observations have contradicted the loose statements of the earlier travellers, and in no part of the world, so far as our knowledge extends, are more girls born than boys; while in every part of the world for which we have statistical returns, there is a slight excess on the side of male births. Compare Marsden's History of Sumatra, p. 234; Raffles' History of Java, vol. i. pp. 81, 82; Sykes on the Statistics of the Deccan, in Reports of British Association, vol. vi. pp. 246, 261, 262; Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 63; Humboldt, Nouv. Espagne, vol. i. p. 139; McWilliam, Medical History of Expedition to the Niger, p. 113; Elliotson's Human Physiology, p. 795; Thomson's Hist. of Royal Society, p. 531; Sadler's Law of Population, vol. i. pp. 507, 511, vol. ii. pp. 324, 335; Paris and Fonblanque's Medical Jurisprudence, vol. i. p. 259; Journal of Statist. Soc. vol. iii. pp. 263, 264, vol. xvii. pp. 46, 123; Journal of Geographical Soc. vol. xx. p. 17; Fourth Report of British Association, pp. 687, 689, Report for 1842, pp. 144, 145; Transac. of Sections for 1840, p. 174, for 1847, p. 96, for 1849, p. 87; Dufau, Traité de Statistique, pp. 24, 209, 210; Burdach, Traité de Physiologie, vol. ii. pp. 56, 57, 273, 274, 281, vol. v. p. 373; Hawkins's Medical Statistics, pp. 221, 222.

318.In Müller's Physiology, vol. ii. p. 1657, a work of great authority, it is said, that ‘the causes which determine the sex of the embryo are unknown, although it appears that the relative age of the parents has some influence over the sex of the offspring.’ That the relative age of the parents does affect the sex of their children, may, from the immense amount of evidence now collected, be considered almost certain; but M. Müller, instead of referring to physiological writers, ought to have mentioned that the statisticians, and not the physiologists, were the first to make this discovery. On this curious question, see Carpenter's Human Physiology, p. 746; Sadler's Law of Population, vol. ii. pp. 333, 336, 342; Journal of Statistical Society, vol. iii. pp. 263, 264. In regard to animals below man, we find from numerous experiments, that among sheep and horses the age of the parents ‘has a very great general influence upon the sex’ of the offspring. Elliotson's Physiology, pp. 708, 709; and see Cuvier, Progrès des Sciences Naturelles, vol. ii. p. 406. As to the relation between the origin of sex and the laws of arrested development, compare Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Hist. des Anomalies de l'Organisation, vol. ii. pp. 33, 34, 73, vol. iii. p. 278, with Lindley's Botany, vol. ii. p. 81. In Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol. i. p. 302, there is a singular case recorded by Lamotte, which would seem to connect this question with pathological phenomena, though it is uncertain whether the epilepsy was an effect or a cognate symptom.

319.That the natural powers of the human brain are improving because they are capable of transmission, is a favourite doctrine with the followers of Gall, and is adopted by M. A. Comte (Philosophie Positive, vol. iv. pp. 384, 385); who, whoever, admits that it has never been sufficiently verified: ‘sans que toutefois l'expérience ait encore suffisamment prononcé.’ Dr. Prichard, whose habits of thought were very different, seems, nevertheless, inclined to lean in this direction; for his comparison of skulls led him to the conclusion, that the present inhabitants of Britain, ‘either as the result of many ages of greater intellectual cultivation, or from some other cause, have, as I am persuaded, much more capacious braincases than their forefathers.’ Prichard's Physical History of Mankind, vol. i. p. 305. Even if this were certain, it would not prove that the contents of the crania were altered, though it might create a presumption; and the general question must, I think, remain unsettled until the researches begun by Blumenbach, and recently continued by Morton, are carried out upon a scale far more comprehensive than has hitherto been attempted. Compare Burdach, Traité de Physiologie, vol. ii. p. 253; where, however, the question is not stated with sufficient caution.

320.None of the laws of hereditary descent connected with the formation of character, have yet been generalized; nor is our knowledge much more advanced respecting the theory of temperaments, which still remains the principal obstacle in the way of the phrenologists. The difficulties attending the study of temperaments, and the obscurity in which this important subject is shrouded, may be estimated by whoever will compare what has been said upon it by the following writers: Müller's Physiology, vol. ii. pp. 1406–1410; Elliotson's Human Physiology, pp. 1059–1062; Blainville, Physiologie Générale et Comparée, vol. i. pp. 168, 264, 265, vol. ii. pp. 43, 130, 214, 328, 329, vol. iii. pp. 54, 74, 118, 148, 149, 284, 285; Williams's Principles of Medicine, pp. 16, 17, 112, 113; Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Anomalies de l'Organisation, vol. i. pp. 186, 190; Broussais, Examen des Doctrines Médicales, vol. i. pp. 204, 205, vol. iii. p. 276; Renouard, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. i. p. 326; Sprengel, Hist. de la Médecine, vol. i. p. 380, vol. ii. p. 408, vol. iii. p. 21, vol. v. p. 325, vol. vi. p. 492; Esquirol, Maladies Mentales, vol. i. pp. 39, 226, 429, 594, vol. ii. p. 29; Lepelletier, Physiol. Médicale, vol. i. pp. 139, 281, vol. iii. pp. 372–429, vol. iv. pp. 93, 123, 133, 143, 148, 177; Henle, Anatomie Générale, vol. i. p. 474, vol. ii. pp. 288, 289, 316; Bichat, Anatomie Générale, vol. i. p. 207, vol. ii. p. 444, vol. iii. pp. 310, 507, vol. iv. pp. 281, 399, 400, 504; Bichat sur la Vie, pp. 80, 81, 234, 235; Phillips on Scrofula, p. 9; Feuchtersleben's Medical Psychology, pp. 143–145; Œuvres de Fontenelle, Paris, 1766, vol. v. p. 110; Cullen's Works, Edinb. 1827, vol. i. pp. 214–221; Cabanis, Rapports du Physique et du Moral, pp. 76–83, 229–261, 520–533; Noble on the Brain, pp. 370–376; Combe's North America, vol. i. pp. 126–128. Latterly, attention has been paid to the chemistry of the blood as it varies in the various temperaments; and this seems a more satisfactory method than the old plan of merely describing the obvious symptoms of the temperament. Clark on Animal Physiology, in Fourth Report of the British Association, p. 126; Simon's Animal Chemistry, vol. i. p. 236; Wagner's Physiology, p. 262.

321.We often hear of hereditary talents, hereditary vices, and hereditary virtues; but whoever will critically examine the evidence will find that we have no proof of their existence. The way in which they are commonly proved is in the highest degree illogical; the usual course being for writers to collect instances of some mental peculiarity found in a parent and in his child, and then to infer that the peculiarity was bequeathed. By this mode of reasoning we might demonstrate any proposition; since in all large fields of inquiry there are a sufficient number of empirical coincidences to make a plausible case in favour of whatever view a man chooses to advocate. But this is not the way in which truth is discovered; and we ought to inquire not only how many instances there are of hereditary talents, &c. but how many instances there are of such qualities not being hereditary. Until something of this sort is attempted, we can know nothing about the matter inductively: while, until physiology and chemistry are much more advanced, we can know nothing about it deductively.
These considerations ought to prevent us from receiving statements (Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence, pp. 644, 678, and many other books) which positively affirm the existence of hereditary madness and hereditary suicide; and the same remark applies to hereditary disease (on which see some admirable observations in Phillips on Scrofula, pp. 101–120, London, 1846); and with still greater force does it apply to hereditary vices and hereditary virtues; inasmuch as ethical phenomena have not been registered as carefully as physiological ones, and therefore our conclusions respecting them are even more precarious.

322.To what has been already stated, I will add the opinions of two of the most profound among modern thinkers. ‘Men, I think, have been much the same for natural endowments in all times.’ Conduct of the Understanding, in Locke's Works, vol. ii. p. 361. ‘Les dispositions primitives agissent également chez les peuples barbares et chez les peuples policés; ils sont vraisemblablement les mêmes dans tous les lieux et dans tous les tems… Plus il y aura d'hommes, et plus vous aurez de grands hommes ou d'hommes propres à devenir grands.’ Progrès de l'Esprit Humain, in Œuvres de Turgot, vol. ii. p. 264. The remarks of Dr. Brown (Lectures on the Mind, p. 57), if I rightly understand his rhetorical language, apply not to natural capacity, but to that which is acquired: see the end of his ninth Lecture.

323.That the system of morals propounded in the New Testament contained no maxim which had not been previously enunciated, and that some of the most beautiful passages in the Apostolic writings are quotations from pagan authors, is well known to every scholar; and so far from supplying, as some suppose, an objection against Christianity, it is a strong recommendation of it, as indicating the intimate relation between the doctrines of Christ and the moral sympathies of mankind in different ages. But to assert that Christianity communicated to man moral truths previously unknown, argues, on the part of the assertor, either gross ignorance or else wilful fraud. For evidence of the knowledge of moral truths possessed by barbarous nations, independently of Christianity, and for the most part previous to its promulgation, compare Mackay's Religious Development, vol. ii. pp. 376–380; Mure's Hist. of Greek Literature, vol. ii. p. 398, vol. iii. p. 380; Prescott's History of Mexico, vol. i. p. 31; Elphinstone's History of India, p. 47; Works of Sir W. Jones, vol. i. pp. 87, 168, vol. iii. pp. 105, 114; Mill's History of India, vol. i. p. 419; Bohlen, das alte Indien, vol. i. pp. 364–366; Beausobre, Histoire de Manichée, vol. i. pp. 318, 319; Coleman's Mythology of the Hindus, p. 193; Transac. of Soc. of Bombay, vol. iii. p. 198; Transac. of Asiatic Society, vol. i. p. 5, vol. iii. pp. 283, 284; Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. p. 271, vol. vii. p. 40, vol. xvi. pp. 130, 277, vol. xx. pp. 460, 461; The Dabistan, vol. i. pp. 328, 338; Catlin's North-American Indians, vol. ii. p. 243; Syme's Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 389; Davis's Chinese, vol. i. p. 196, vol. ii. pp. 136, 233; Journal Asiatique, I. série, vol. iv. p. 77, Paris, 1824.

324.Sir James Mackintosh was so struck by the stationary character of moral principles, that he denies the possibility of their advance, and boldly affirms that no further discoveries can be made in morals: ‘Morality admits no discoveries… More than three thousand years have elapsed since the composition of the Pentateuch; and let any man, if he is able, tell me in what important respect the rule of life has varied since that distant period. Let the Institutes of Menu be explored with the same view; we shall arrive at the same conclusion. Let the books of false religion be opened; it will be found that their moral system is, in all its grand features, the same… The fact is evident that no improvements have been made in practical morality… The facts which lead to the formation of moral rules are as accessible, and must be as obvious, to the simplest barbarian as to the most enlightened philosopher… The case of the physical and speculative sciences is directly opposite. There the facts are remote and scarcely accessible… From the countless variety of the facts with which they are conversant, it is impossible to prescribe any bounds to their future improvement. It is otherwise with morals. They have hitherto been stationary; and, in my opinion, they are likely for ever to continue so.’ Life of Mackintosh, edited by his Son, London, 1835, vol. i. pp. 119–122. Condorcet (Vie de Turgot, p. 180) says, ‘La morale de toutes les nations a été la même;’ and Kant (Logik, in Kant's Werke, vol. i. p. 356), ‘In der Moral-philosophie sind wir nicht weiter gekommen, als die Alten.’

325.One part of the argument is well stated by Cuvier, who says, ‘Le bien que l'on fait aux hommes, quelque grand qu'il soit, est toujours passager; les vérités qu'on leur laisse sont éternelles.’ Cuvier, Eloges Historiques, vol. ii. p. 304.

326.‘The first year of Commodus must be the epocha of the toleration. From all these authorities, it appears beyond exception, that Commodus put a stop to the persecution in the first year of his reign… Not one writer, either heathen or Christian, makes Commodus a persecutor.’ Letters concerning the Thundering Legion, in Moyle's Works, vol. ii. p. 266, London, 1726. ‘Heliogabalus also, though in other respects the most infamous of all princes, and perhaps the most odious of all mortals, showed no marks of bitterness or aversion to the disciples of Jesus.’ Mosheim's Eccl. History, vol. i. p. 66: see also Milman's Hist. of Christianity, London, 1840, vol. ii. p. 225.

327.Dr. Milman (History of Christianity, 1840, vol. ii. p. 159) says, ‘A blameless disciple in the severest school of philosophic morality, the austerity of Marcus rivalled that of the Christians in its contempt of the follies and diversions of life; yet his native kindliness of disposition was not hardened or embittered by the severity or the pride of his philosophy. With Aurelius, nevertheless, Christianity found not only a fair and high-minded competitor for the command of the human mind; not only a rival in the exaltation of the soul of man to higher views and more dignified motives; but a violent and intolerant persecutor.’ M. Guizot compares him with Louis IX. of France; and certainly there was in both an evident connexion between sincerity and persecution: ‘Marc Auréle et saint Louis sont peut-être les deux seuls princes qui, en toute occasion, aient fait de leurs croyances morales la première règle de leur conduite: Marc Auréle, stoicien; saint Louis, chrétien.’ Guizot, Civilisation en France, vol. iv. p. 142. Even Duplessis Mornay (Mém. vol. iv. p. 374) calls him ‘le meilleur des empereurs payens;’ and Ritter (Hist. of Philos. vol. iv. p. 222), ‘the virtuous and noble emperor.’

328.Neander (History of the Church, vol. i. p. 122) observes, that the best emperors opposed Christianity, and that the worst ones were indifferent to its encroachments. The same remark, in regard to Marcus and Commodus, is made by Gibbon (Decline and Fall, chap. xvi. p. 220, Lond. 1836). Another writer, of a very different character, ascribes this peculiarity to the wiles of the devil: ‘In the primitive times, it is observed that the best emperors were some of them stirred up by Satan to be the bitterest persecutors of the Church.’ Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 85.

329.By which, indeed, he is sorely puzzled. ‘On reconnaîtra mon impartialité dans quelques circonstances où je fais remarquer chez les inquisiteurs des dispositions généreuses; ce qui me porte à croire que les atroces sentences rendues par le Saint-Office, sont plutôt une conséquence de ses lois organiques, qu'un effet du caractère particulier de ses membres.’ Llorente, Histoire Critique de l'Inquisition d'Espagne, vol. i. p. xxiii.: compare vol. ii. pp. 267, 268, vol. iv. p. 153.

330.Highly spoken of by the late Blanco White, a most competent judge. See Doblado's Letters from Spain, p. 5.

331.‘It is, however, universally acknowledged, for the credit of the corps at Barcelona, that all its members are men of worth, and most of them distinguished for humanity.’ Townsend's Journey through Spain, in 1786 and 1787, vol. i. p. 122, Lond. 1792.