principles, goes on living and enjoying life. Hence these tears, and these savage diatribes against an imaginary dogmatic optimism on the part of his opponents. To him they perhaps seem optimists, as not sharing his pessimism; to their own apprehension they are simply children of their age, listening to its teachings with earnest attention and trying to utter the message they receive.
What, after all, would Mr. Mallock have us do? He says that there is no evidence of any meaning or of any general progressive movement in human history—none that "would be accepted either in physical or philosophical science." Yet he wants us to believe on some a priori ground, which he is prepared to present, that life has a meaning and does exhibit progress. If we will only accept the light that he offers, we shall see that "life is full of august meanings"; but that light, he plainly tells us, is not the light, of science. In the same way he offers to invest with infinite significance and value any little services we may render to humanity—services which, considered simply as offered by man to man, would not be worth taking into any kind of account. The method in this case is to bring our offering to Christ, who "judges it by the effort and the intention." The altar of humanity, then, is not a sanctifying altar; and men must be assured of a high rating for their sacrifices before they will be content to make them. "The love of humanity without faith to enlighten it, and nothing to justify it beyond what science can show, is as absurd as the love of Titania for Bottom." The reply to this is that long before what Mr. Mallock speaks of as "faith" was known in the world the nobler spirits among men had a love for humanity, and were further ennobled, not made ridiculous, by their love. From the commencement of history, indeed, down to the present day, there has been but one way of being noble, and that has been by caring for one's fellow-men. That way some have found out in an eminent degree, and multitudes in a lesser degree, without any aid from theological fancies. In the present day, when the laws of social development and the true relations of individual life are so much better understood than formerly, there ought to be, and there is, much more to nourish in individuals a rational regard for the general welfare. The love of Titania, whether for Bottom or for Oberon, supplies no apt illustration here, since the case is not one calling for romantic love, but simply for loyal devotion to a recognized source of good—to that higher life of society without which the individual life would wither and starve.
Mr. Mallock's terms are too hard. Much as we might wish to read those "august meanings," much as we might wish to feel that our gifts to humanity received instant recognition and sympathetic appraisement, if it is a question of reinstating the Tar-
