demn it, and to seek to put an end to it--but let us look to our consistency. Many of us are its supporters without at all suspecting the fact. While we do not claim the right to decide in the case of any individual that he does wrong in deserting productive labour and engaging in trade, we cannot resist the conclusion, that the extent to which this tendency has been socially operative has largely contributed to make slavery profitable. Many would, in all ages, escape from the condition of subsistence imposed at the Fall-"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." But the numbers who do evade it increase with the facilities for evasion. In our times these facilities have become altogether unprecedented. There are only two possible sources of cure. A higher morality, making men honest in their transactions and sober in their desires; or tremendous public calamities and revulsions, such as this American war. We and our American brethren have-in disregard of light and opportunityshut out a cure from the former source. On the contrary, we have allowed the disease to go on deepening and extending-have, indeed, fostered it. But Providence has now come in to deal with the evil in a way which, however we may misrepresent it-we cannot evade.

XXI.-PRIVILEGE AND PENALTY.

THAT responsibility is proportioned to social, to political, and to moral power and influence has long been a recognised principle. That responsibility increases with the increase of power over natural or physical forces has been by no means so clearly realised. The fact, however, is undoubted, and if we refuse, or fail practically to recognise it, we must pay the inevitable penalties. The driver of a railway train has the guiding of a power, transcending out of all comparison, that which is handled by the driver of a donkey cart. On the commander of the Great Eastern there rests a very different measure of responsibility, from that which attaches to the commander of a coal barge. The tremendous and appalling consequences that may attach to a slight neglect on the part of those who handle a power like that of steam, is brought home to all minds with terrible force and clearness by such catastrophes as that of the late collision at Winchburgh.* But, when all goes smoothly and safely, the sense of its weight is apt to become very faint, both in those who sustain it, and in those whose safety comes within its scope. We are *On the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, October 13, 1862.

apt to be far too little impressed with the value of the exact and prompt discharge of his appropriate duty, by each one of some hundreds of men. Yet is our safety, our very life dependent, on 30 many judgments, memories, wills, every time we accomplish a day's travel by rail.

And this brings into view another aspect of the case, which it is of the greatest practical importance adequately to realise. Responsibility is not only increased, proportionately to the increase of our power over the forces of Nature, it is also proportionately diffused. In the course of a day's journey by rail, we pass, say, one hundred stations, and, besides the guard and driver, the safety of the train is dependent on three or four persons at each. Through a slight mistake or neglect on the part of any one of these, two trains may be made to dash into each other, the terrible result being the instant sacrifice of many lives, protracted and untold suffering to many more, who escape death, but are mangled and maimed for life. But railway responsibility embraces many more within its scope than officials, charged with the despatch, stoppage, and guidance of trains. Managers and Directors are most intimately responsible for the rules they lay down, for the wages they give, for the hours of daily service they exact, for the competency-physical, mental, and moral—of the persons they employ. Nor can the body of Shareholders be held by any means irresponsible. Responsibility attaches to them, so far as the morale of the Directorate is dependant on their suffrages-whether it is vigilant and liberal, or lax and grinding. A Directorate over-anxious for the increase of dividends, will subject the public to proportionate risks, for either the employés of the Company will be over-wrought, or duty involving great responsibility will be entrusted to incompetent hands.

And this brings into view yet another speciality of the responsibility arising out of command over the forces of Nature. Where men are entrusted with the direction and guidance of their fellow-men, responsibility increases with station and position. The responsibility of a Corporal is small compared with that of the Colonel of a regiment; the General-in-Chief is responsible for the disposal and direction of the whole army; the private soldier is responsible only for himself. The latter fulfils almost all the requirements of his position, if he obeys orders, and holds unflinchingly by the post of duty. When you descend to the rauks in an army, how little depends on the individual-save as his participation of the esprit de corps gives firmness to the phalanx. The demands on the private soldier are demands chiefly on the lower qualities of our nature -those we possess in common with animals of the higher grades-force, firmness, flexibility, under the handling of directive mind.

But when the function of man is, not to apply his own force mainly, but to guide the forces of Nature, all this is changed. Not only is responsibility increased in proportion to the amount of power under guid

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ance; it attaches most directly, and presses with most weight on those lowest in position-those in immediate contact with the power. The soldier in the ranks acts as a unit in a mass. He is supported right and left-" shoulder to shoulder." The railway official is isolated. has to act as an individual. He must have all his wits about him-must be vigilant, prompt, courageous, in and by himself. The individual soldier is carried forward by the momentum of the corps. He can hardly flinch, and when he falls, another takes his place. But when the railway official fails in judgment, in vigilance, in presence of mind, in courage, the service being single-handed, being momentary, must be individual, must be instantaneous, else the opportunity is gone, and failure may entail the most tremendous consequences. In the private soldier it is the lower or physical qualities that are mainly in requisition. The mental and moral are demanded proportionately as you ascend. In the commander they must all combine, and he is fitted for his functions in proportion as they do so in richest measure and nicest balance.

We do not say that all this is exactly reversed in the case of those who are charged with the direction of the forces of Nature. But the higher qualities are certainly not less needed in the (socially) inferior, than they are in the superior position. If there is serious physical, mental, or moral defect, it will be less perilous in the Director than in the guard or pointsman. In a director the defects of the individual may be supplemented, his errors corrected, by the discernment and wisdom of his codirectors, but this corrective influence operates less and less as you descend, till-in many cases-at the critical moment, the responsibility rests on the individual employé, single and alone. In short, in the case of those who handle men, responsibility concentrates more and more in the individual as you ascend. In the case of those who guide and direct natural forces, responsibility concentrates more and more in the individual as you descend.

These facts are not only charged with various momentous lessons, they make on us certain imperative demands They demand a higher education and a deeper moral sense-in the working man—the employé as much as in the managing director, if not more. Mechanical invention is thus a direct stimulant to education-a great instrument for the elevation of the people. An instrument doubly operative, relieving (or which ought to relieve) them from much drudgery, on the one hand, requiring and calling forth higher and more various powers, a better training, a deeper and more practical moral sense, on the other.

Our progress in command over the forces of Nature, demands of all a deeper, more immediate, more practical sense of responsibility. This is the demand of Nature, we should rather say, the clear voice of God, and disregard or failure in compliance, entails the most tremendous penalties.

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If we become more greedy, selfish, grasping, where Nature is so bountiful, we are counter-working the very system of the world. If our hearts get narrower as her treasures expand-if, in proportion as her riches are made diffusive, each one only seeks the more to monopolise the largest share of them, we shall not only miss the blessing, wherewith so beneficent a constitution is fraught, there will be-and that in mercy too -a rigorous exaction of the penalty.

Our railway employés, and working steam-boat engineers are drawn, and will be drawn from the lower social grades. We shall not have many Wyndhams, with a fancy for being engine-drivers; and, probably, the safety of the travelling public would not be much advanced though we had. But the case being so, we may see by how stern a Nemesis we are held to our duty. If we do injustice to the people-positive or negative; if we deny them the means, or the opportunity, for proper education and training, we cannot enjoy the same immunity as in the old days of the handloom and bridle roads. Every step in advance in material civilization, brings men into new and more responsible relations with each other. Neither the knowledge nor the virtue of the past will suffice for our requirements. We must be better than our fathers-else the tremendous powers we now wield shall be, not only neutralised for good, but converted into instruments of destruction. In our engines of war they are being so, literally and directly, to an extent that is appalling. But that is by no means the worst transmutation they will undergo. No, nor even that which every now and again shocks and appals us in some dreadful railway catastrophe. The most disastrous results of all, lie in less observed spheres. When the forces we wield, are converted into instruments of selfishness, ambition, lust,—counter-working, as we then do, the beneficent designs of Providence, and the very constitution of Nature and society, the evils entailed must be great and wide-spread in proportion to the capacity of the instruments to confer and diffuse good. These evils may not lie on the surface, or appear in distinct connection with their causes to the eyes of common observers. But they will gradually be developed-will, to a certainty, reveal themselves and make themselves felt-in extending pauperism, in the isolation and antagonism of social classes, in the degradation and demoralisation of large sections of the people, in infidelity to trust, in recklessness, in secret, premeditated, deadly crime. "None of us liveth to himself," the social laws proclaim that we dare not. If we neglect or disregard the interests of others it is -as society advances-at an ever-augmenting peril. When we study to do good to others as we have opportunity, Nature is benign. When we live for ourselves and strive to monopolise the common good, Nature becomes stern, compulsive, retributive; and the golden fruit, we so eagerly clutched, is turned to apples of Sodon in our lap.

XXII.-HUMAN EDUCATION.

ONE of the distinctive characteristics of this age is Zeal for Educationfor the education of the whole people-for an education more thorough, appropriate, practical, for all. Nor is this zeal misplaced. There cannot be a doubt but that inadequate or bad education is at the root of all personal and relative ill-doing. Our zeal for education is not misplaced, yet, to a great extent, it is a zeal not according to knowledge. Our notions of Education are too limited as to its scope, period, means, and instruments. We cannot be too anxious about educating all, but if we mistake the true nature of education, or ignore some of its essential constituents, our efforts will, in a great measure, issue in disappointment. It is the object of education not only to replenish the mind with knowledge, but to fit faculty for work; above all to evoke the power, and form the habit of self-direction and self-government. These are all wants of our nature, rising in urgency and importance,―wants which must be met, else there can be no true manhood. But when we reflect how limited a portion of these is met by our common school education, even after its best type, we shall not be surprised at its comparative failure. Knowledge is but one instrument of culture. Instruction is dependent for the main part of its practical value on its being combined with training. And this training is practically inefficient unless it confer on the higher motive powers of our nature, thorough mastery over the lower. But this implies that education should make the mind of its subject normally amenable to all the influences that, from whatever quarter, bear upon it; whilst, at the same time, giving us the full use of all our powers, each in its own sphere, and in due subordination to one another. So regarded, our whole life is an educative discipline; and whatever affects us, or in any way bears on us, an educative agent. We are, in these days, in much greater danger of over-rating than of under-rating the practical value of knowledge. But we have fallen into a worse mistake; we have lost sight of, or come altogether to ignore, the influence of our Ignorance as an instrument of education. So much so, that the bare indication of such an idea will evoke a stare of astonishment. Yet, is it not the fact, that our ignorance, or, in other words, the limitation of our knowledge, is one of the most powerful instruments of moral training and discipline?

There are few questions that might be more profitably entertained by this generation than that of the relation of the UNKNOWN to human progress and wellbeing. The sphere of the Known is ever extending, yet the