1888.] on Antagonism. 297 



of this by my own experience 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 im23rovement. The carriage, 

 which saves fatigue, induces listlessness, and tends to prevent healthy 

 exercise. The knife and fork save the labour 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 suffers ; there 

 is not the same exercise of the teeth whereby they are strengthened 

 and uniformly worn, as we see in ancient skulls. It seems not im- 

 probable that their j^remature decay in civilised nations is due to the 

 want of their normal exercise by the substitution of the knife and fork 

 and stew-j^an. According to the evolution theory, our organs have 

 grown into what they are by long use, and the remission of this tends 

 to irregular development, or atroj^hy. Every artificial appliance 

 renders nugatory some j)re-existing mode of action, either voluntary 

 or involuntary ; and as the parts of the whole organism have become 

 correlated, each part being modified by the functions and actions of 

 the others, every part suffers more or less when the mode of action 

 of any one part is changed. So with the social structure, the same 

 correlation of its constituent parts is a necessary consequence of its 

 growth, and the change of one part affects the well-being of other 

 parts. All change, to be healthy, must be extremely slow, the defect 

 struggling with the remedy through countless but infinitesimally 

 minute gradations. 



Lastly, do the forms of government give us any firm ground to 

 rest upon as to there being less undue antagonism in one than in 

 another form ? Whether it is better to run a risk of, say, one chance 

 in a thousand or more of being decapitated unjustly by a despot, or to 

 have what one may eat or drink, or whom one may marry, decided by 

 a majority of parish voters, is a question on which opinions may 

 differ, but there is abundant antagonism in either case. 



Communism, the di'eam of enthusiasts, offers little prospect of ease. 

 It involves an unstable equilibrium, i. e. it consists of a chain of con- 

 nection where a defect in one link can destroy the working of the whole 

 system, and w^hy the executive in that system should be more perfect 

 than in others I never have been able to see. Antagonism, on the 

 other hand, tends to stability. Each man working for his own 

 interests helps to supply the wants of others, thus ministering to 

 public convenience and order, and if one or more fail the general weal 

 is not imperilled. 



You may ask, Why this universal antagonism? My answer is, 

 I don't know; Science deals only with the How? not with the Why? 

 Why does matter gravitate to other matter, with a force inversely as 

 the square of the distance ? Why does oxygen unite with hydrogen ? 

 All I can say is that antagonism is, to my mind, universal, and will, 

 I believe, some day be considered as much a law as the law of gravi- 

 tation. If matter is, as we believe, everywhere, even in the inter- 

 planetary spaces, and if it attracts and moves other matter, which it 



Vol. XII. (No. 82.) x 



