570 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The maintenance of the individuality is thus demonstrably a duty. 

 The assertion of personal claims is essential ; both as a means to self- 

 happiness, which is a unit in the general happiness, and as a means to 

 furthering the general happiness altruistically. Resistance to aggres- 

 sion is not simply justifiable but imperative. Non-resistance is at 

 variance with altruism and egoism alike. The extreme Christian 

 theory, which no one acts upon, which no one really believes, but 

 which most tacitly profess and a few avowedly profess, is as logically 

 indefensible as it is impracticable. 



The religion of amity, then, taken by itself, is incomplete it needs 

 supplementing. The doctrines it inculcates and the sentiments it 

 fosters, arising by reactions against opposite doctrines and sentiments, 

 run into extremes the other way. 



Let us now turn to these opposite doctrines and sentiments, incul- 

 cated and fostered by the religion of enmity, and note the excesses to 

 which they run. 



"Worthy of highest admiration is the " Tasmanian devil," which, 

 fighting to the last gasp, snarls with its dying breath. Admirable, 

 too, though less admirable, is our own bull-dog a creature said some- 

 times to retain its hold even when a limb is cut off. To be admired 

 also for their " pluck," perhaps nearly in as great a degree, are some 

 of the carnivora, as the lion and the tiger ; since when driven to bay 

 they fight against great odds. Nor should we forget the game-cock, 

 supplying as it does a word of eulogy to the crowd who witness the 

 hanging of a murderer, and who half condone his crime if he " dies 

 game." Below these animals come mankind ; some of whom, indeed, 

 as the American Indians, bear tortures without groaning. And then, 

 considerably lower, must be placed the civilized man ; who, fighting 

 up to a certain point, and bearing considerable injury, ordinarily 

 yields when further fighting is useless. 



Is the reader startled by this classification ? Why should he be ? 

 It is but a literal application of that standard of worth tacitly assumed 

 by most, and by some deliberately avowed. Obviously it is the 

 standard of worth believed in by M. Gambetta, who, after bloodshed 

 carried to the extent of prostrating France, lately reproached the 

 French Assembly by saying, "You preferred peace to honor; you 

 gave five milliards and two provinces." And there are not a few 

 among ourselves who so thoroughly agree in M. Gambetta's feeling, 

 that this utterance of his has gone far to redeem him in their estima- 

 tion. If the reader needs encouragement to side with such, plenty 

 more may be found for him. The Staffordshire collier, enjoying the 

 fio-htino- of doers when the fio-htino; of men is not to be witnessed, would 

 doubtless take the same view. In the slums of Whitechapel and St. 

 Giles's, among leaders of "the fancy," it is an unhesitating belief that 

 pluck and endurance are the highest of attributes ; and probably most 



