EDITOR'S TABLE. 



411 



factory manner. After many wander- 

 ings and many perilous lingerings on the 

 very verge of despair, he bethought him- 

 self of the thousands and millions of 

 human beings who go about their daily 

 tasks and take up their daily burdens 

 without repining or misgiving, who find 

 a natural sweetness in life, and never 

 think of worrying themselves over ques- 

 tions of ontology or metaphysics. These, 

 he said to himself, must possess the true 

 secret of life, and the best thing I can 

 do is to learn it of them. 



Tolstoi was here getting upon solid 

 ground. His previous life had been 

 governed without any reference to car- 

 dinal principles of duty or to the essen- 

 tial relations of human beings to one 

 another. One of the aphorisms of the 

 founder of the Positive Philosophy is 

 that between individual man and the 

 universe humanity is needed as media- 

 tor. Suppress humanity, that is to say, 

 suppress all true thoughts in regard to 

 humanity, suppress the sense of inclu- 

 sion in and identification with the great 

 human whole, and individual man is 

 indeed a poor, defenseless thing, or, as 

 Matthew Arnold has expressed it 



" A naked, eternally restless mind." 

 No words could describe better than 

 these the true condition of the great 

 Russian's mind when the scales had 

 fallen from his eyes, and he realized in 

 what a vain show he had been walking. 

 Peace came to him through his suddenly 

 awakening to a sense of the vastness of 

 the life of humanity, and his sudden re- 

 solve to take refuge in it, and, as far as 

 possible, to make its thoughts and feel- 

 ing his own. The lesson in all this is 

 obvious, and it is in direct line with our 

 remarks in a previous number under the 

 head of "The Domain of Science." There 

 is a science of life. There is a way of 

 regarding our relations to the world at 

 large which is true; and, unfortunately, 

 there are many ways of regarding them 

 which are false. There are thoughts, 

 tempers, dispositions, habits, that make 

 for soundness both of mind and body, 



and there are others in great variety 

 that make for unsoundness. There are 

 certain normal conditions of existence 

 determined by the whole course of 

 human evolution ; and these can not be 

 too widely departed from, under the 

 guidance of purely individual feelings, 

 without serious danger. The work of 

 placing life on a sound basis may be 

 begun at any time, though early is in- 

 deed much better than late. It is all a 

 question of seeing things in their right 

 relations and acting accordingly all a 

 question of extending the domain of sci- 

 ence from biology and physiology to soci- 

 ology and individual conduct. Rightly 

 read, Tolstoi's " Confession," though it 

 mentions science but disparagingly, 

 should be a great help in this direction. 

 It certainly contains a grave warning 

 against the tyranny of the passions and 

 the utter hollowness of much that passes 

 for literature and philosophy. 



THE LAND QUESTION. 



It is almost needless to direct atten- 

 tion to the letters on the land question 

 published in this issue, as the names 

 of certain of the writers would alone 

 create interest in the discussion. Mr. 

 Spencer, unfortunately, has been for 

 some time in a state of health that 

 almost wholly incapacitates him for the 

 labor of the pen ; and, though he has 

 given us two very interesting letters, 

 most readers will feel that he has hardly 

 done full justice to his own position. He 

 has confined himself to the criticisms 

 of Prof. Huxley, and passed unnoticed 

 those of Mr. Greenwood and Sir Louis 

 Mallet. Had he possessed his old-time 

 fire and energy, he would probably have 

 dealt with all his critics in a manner 

 that would have left little to be desired ; 

 we may be sure at least that he would 

 have considered fully and fairly all their 

 objections to his views, and would have 

 given any necessary explanations in that 

 spirit of candor which has always dis- 

 tinguished him. 



