the original experience on which they rest. If we do this we shall find that our primary notion of matter is simply of something which offers resistance to muscular energy. Now, a force energising in an otherwise forceless vacuum would meet with no resistance, and under such conditions no conception of matter could arise. The moment resistance appears the case is altered; but what does resistance imply? That which opposes force must be itself force. And therefore we can only conclude that matter is but the name which we give to a state, or a series of states, of our consciousness produced by the collision of opposing forces. Here let me interpose that of the nature of force in itself we are absolutely ignorant. We can only regard its effects subjectively as manifestations of the unknowable; and matter, as we know it, may be compared to a spark struck out in the darkness from the collision of two invisible flints.

Hence we perceive that the popular dualism of matter and force is apparent only, and the real substance of our universe is variously manifested force. And this conclusion bears directly on the difficulty before us. Whether we regard mind as having a miraculous origin or as arising in the orderly course of evolution, we must in either case regard it as a form of force. It may be set apart as a special form, and distinct from all other forms known to us, but force in some form or another it must be. So long as we looked upon matter as something in its nature and essence irreconcilably opposed to mind, it seemed an impossibility to conceive of the soul as material. But when once we perceive that no such fundamental antithesis between mind and matter really exists-each of them being alike manifestations of one force then there ceases to be any insuperable difficulty in supposing that the mindstuff of which the soul is fashioned is a force-manifestation akin in character to those manifestations which we describe as material, though it differ from the matter of our senses in tenuity and mobility of substance, and complexity of structure.

It may be said that, even if this theory be adopted, we are no better off than before. We have only substituted force for spirit, one unknowable for another. But we have really done more than this, for we have reduced two unknowables to one. Dualism presents us with two separate inconceivable entities, mind and matter. Monism offers us unity, either by merging mind in matter or matter in mind, or, as I have here attempted, by referring both to a single unknowable principle, of which each is, as known to us, a manifestation.

There seems, then, as I have suggested, to be some truth in each of the three theories of the soul to which I have alluded above. The soul, as such, does truly arise for the first time in man. But its elements have pre-existed, originally as simple mindstuff, and at a later stage as lower mind-structures; and finally, so long as we bear

in mind the material character of mindstuff, we may in this sense correctly speak of the soul as a product of universal spirit.

So far I have endeavoured to present this account of the soul with as little reference as possible to religious doctrines. But I must here point out that the evolution of soul, like all evolution, may well proceed under the guidance of the Deity, though, of course, not the Deity of ecclesiastical dogma. Evolutionism, indeed, does not require such a belief, but, so far from banishing, it directly suggests it. Evolutionism expressly declares its inability to define the Infinite, or to describe the Unknowable; but, though we cannot know, and therefore cannot properly predicate, anything of the Divine Power in Itself, we can pronounce upon Its manifestations in relation to ourselves, and, so far as we are able to interpret these manifestations, they reveal to us a system of inviolate order.

To ascribe, therefore, to the Deity the commission of a miracle seems from this religious standpoint positively impious, and thus the evolutionist is constrained by the double claims of religion and science to reject any theory of the soul which involves a miracle at every birth.

But if we are compelled to regard the soul as conforming like the rest of the universe to natural law, are we not entitled to presume, in the absence of specific evidence to the contrary, that its origin and growth must be referred to that great natural order of evolution which, so far as we can discern, is universal in its range? 21

To many excellent people the idea of a universe left by the Deity to work out its own development without the aid of miracles will still seem intolerable, because, from education and surroundings, they cannot help regarding every form of energy which is not miraculous as somehow unworthy of Divine Power. We are bound to deal respectfully with this, as with all honest belief. But we need not hesitate to declare that the conception of a universe harmoniously evolving, under Divine control, by fixed laws, is incomparably higher than that of a universe whose life and development can only advance with any semblance of harmony by perpetual miraculous interventions.22

We have to a great extent got rid of the anthropocentric theory of creation, which, in variously pronounced forms, regarded the

21 I understand Dr. Temple (Religion and Science, p. 225, &c.) to consider that the freedom of the will is evidence against the complete uniformity of Nature. But he seems to ignore the fact that at least half of the current philosophies stoutly deny that the will is free.

22 Since this passage was written I have been glad to find that Dr. Temple supports the same view. He says (Religion and Science, p. 115), 'It seems in itself something more majestic, more befitting to Him to whom a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years, thus to impress His Will once for all on His creation, and provide for all its countless variety by this one original impress, than by special acts of creation to be perpetually modifying what he had previously made.

universe, or at any rate this world, as created exclusively for man's benefit; but some relics of this narrow belief still support the reluctance to concede the derivative character of man's soul.

A similar and hardly less vehement opposition was offered to the idea that our physical characteristics came to us through the anthropoid apes. But now that we are ceasing to resent our physical ancestry, can we logically refuse to acknowledge that our mental powers are also a heritage from the past? Science has widened the domain of consciousness, and neither man nor the higher animals can claim it any longer as their exclusive gift. The old barriers of thought which shut off the animal from the vegetal kingdom are rapidly being broken down. If we go back to the beginnings of life we find the same protoplasm in the simplest animal and vegetal organisms; and even in their higher forms striking similarities still appear. Taylor 23 reproduces a plate showing the resemblance in growth and development between a plant, a zoophyte, and a colony of aphids. Amoeboid movements are found in plant-tissues; and the locomotive powers of moss antherozoa show a still closer approach to animal. functions.

Seeing, then, that life in all its diverse forms can thus be traced back to a single source, it is surely not unreasonable to suppose that the mind which accompanies it has had a similar history, and that the pedigree of the soul itself may reach back to a simple mindstuff unit.

But, be this as it may, scientific authority supports the belief that mind, in some form, always accompanies life, and has accompanied it from the first. Romanes tells us that the discrimination between stimuli, which is the germ of mind, is found in a rudimentary form even in protoplasmic and unicellular organisms.24 Darwin declares that the sensitive radicle of a plant acts like the brain of an animal; 25 and in insectivorous plants, like the sundew, we find something closely resembling a selective consciousness.

As knowledge widens, thought widens also; and the cosmogonies. which may have suited the knowledge and ideas of the past barely suffice for the present, and assuredly will not suffice for the future. Science and philosophy may not have reduced phenomena to a visible unity, but they have at least gone far to reveal their solidarity. Development must be the law of the whole universe; we can no longer regard it as the exclusive privilege of any part. Still less can we believe that the history of the universe is the history of a struggle between the goodness of a Divine mind and an evil and antagonistic matter. Philo, the Alexandrine, taught that God, even in the act of creation, abstained from contact with His work, for it was not meet that the Wise and Blessed One should touch chaotic and defiled 23 Sagacity and Morality of Plants. 24 Mental Evolution in Animals, p. 62.

25 Movements of Plants, p. 573.

matter.' Dr. Temple, in the widening spirit of to-day, declares that we cannot tell, we never can tell, and the Bible never professes to tell, what powers or gifts are wrapped up in matter itself, or in that living matter of which we are made.' 26

Early religion took delight in exalting the Creator at the creature's expense; the religion of science prefers to regard all nature as sanctified by the Deity made manifest therein. With this happier recognition that the whole universe works together, as it were, for its own salvation, and that no single atom is common or unclean, it is time that we should free matter from its old burden of reproach. To degrade matter is not really to glorify God, for the baseness imposed upon it seems to cast a shadow even upon Divine grandeur itself. Surely it is at once truer and more reverent to regard matter, not as inherently evil, but as a manifestation of good, believing, in the words of Carlyle, that 'This fair universe, were it in the meanest province thereof, is in very deed the star-domed city of God; that through every star, through every grass blade, and most through every living soul, the glory of a present God still beams.' 27

NORMAN PEARSON.

26 Religion and Science, p. 187.

27 Sartor Resartus, Book III. ch. viii.

THE HINDU WIDOW.

THERE is hardly a class of living beings whose wretched condition. appeals more strongly to the humane feelings of charitably disposed persons, and in whose woeful state there is more scope for the display of philanthropic efforts, than the widows among the Hindus in India. Very few people in Europe have even the remotest idea of the miseries and horrors which Hindu women undergo after the death of their husbands. The Hindus themselves do not fully know the sufferings of their widowed sisters and daughters, much less do they care to alleviate the hardships of their bereaved country-women, or to improve the general status of the female population of India. It is a hopeful sign of the times that many benevolent Englishmen in England and in India and the few enlightened Hindus are now devoting their attention to the improvement of the condition of women in the latter country. Schools have been opened to teach young girls the rudiments of knowledge, zenana teachers have been appointed to give lessons in the common branches of learning to women at their own homes, and medical ladies have been taken from England to treat ailing Hindu women, who would not be treated by medical men. All this, and much more, has been done to make the life of an Indian woman more comfortable and happy than before, but up to this time the miseries and hardships of Hindu widows have been almost overlooked. The cries of the hapless creatures who are doomed to lifelong widowhood hardly find an echo beyond the four walls of the Indian zenana.

It is certain that the prohibition of the marriage of Hindu widows has from a very ancient time been prevalent in India. The great Hindu lawgiver Manu, who flourished about five centuries B.C., enjoins the following duty on widows: Let her emaciate her body by living voluntarily on pure flowers, roots, and fruits, but let her not, when her lord is deceased, even pronounce the name of another man. Let her continue till death forgiving all injuries, performing harsh duties, avoiding every sensual pleasure, and cheerfully practising the incomparable rules of virtue which have been followed by such women as were devoted to only one husband. A virtuous wife ascends to heaven, if, after the decease of her lord, she devotes herself to pious austerity; but a widow who slights her deceased