ANTAGONISM. 621 



vance for their wares ; and the silly portion of the public, no small 

 body, take them at their word. Though you may not fully agree 

 in this my anathema of the advertising system, and though there 

 may be some small modicum of good in it, I think you will agree 

 that it affords a notable illustration of antagonism. If I were a 

 younger man, I think I should go to Kamchatka to avoid the 

 penny post ; possibly I should not be satisfied when I got there. 

 Civilization begins by supplying wants, and ends by creating 

 them ; and each supply for the newly created want begets other 

 wants, and so on, " toties quoties." 



As far as we can judge by its present progress, mankind seems 

 tending to an automatic state. The requirements of each day are 

 becoming so numerous as to occupy the greater portion of that 

 day ; and when telegrams, telephones, electro-motion, and numer- 

 ous other innovations which will probably follow these, reach 

 their full development, no time will be left for thought, repose,'^ 

 or any spontaneous individual action. In this mechanical state 

 of existence, in times of peace, extremes of joy and sorrow, of good 

 and evil, will become more rare, and the necessary uniformity of 

 life will reduce passion and feeling to a continuous petty friction. 

 The converse of the existence contemplated by the Stoics will be 

 attained, and, instead of a life of calm contemplation, our success- 

 ors will have a life of objectless activity. The end will be swal- 

 lowed up in the means. It will be all pursuit and no attainment. 

 Is there a, juste milieu, a point at which the superfluous commoda 

 vitce- will cease ? None probably would agree at where that point 

 should be fixed, and the future alone can show whether the hu- 

 man race will emancipate itself from being, like Frankenstein, 

 the slave of the monster it has created. In the cases I have given 

 as illustrations — and many more might be adduced — the evil re- 

 sulting from apparently beneficial changes is not a mere accident : 

 it is as necessary a consequence as reaction is a consequence of ac- 

 tion. In the struggle for existence or supremacy, inevitable in all 

 social growths, the invention, enactment, etc., intended to remedy 

 an assumed evil, will be taken advantage of by those for whom it 

 is not intended ; the real grievance will be exaggerated by those 

 having an interest in trading on it, and the remedy itself will 

 have collateral results not contemplated by those who introduce 

 the change. I could give many instances of this by my own ex- 

 perience as an advocate and judge, but this would lead me away 

 from my subject. Evils, indeed, result from the very change of 

 habit induced by the alleged improvement. The carriage which 

 saves fatigue induces listlessness, and tends to prevent healthy 

 exercise. The knife and fork save the labor of mastication, but 

 by their use there is not the same stimulus to the salivary glands, 

 not the full healthy amount of secretion, whereby digestion suf- 



