PROLEGOMENA 



37 



they are consistent, must rank medicine among the 

 black arts and count the physician a mischievous 

 preserver of the unfit ; on whose matrimonial un 

 dertakings the principles of the stud have the chief 

 influence ; whose whole lives, therefore, are an 

 education in the noble art of suppressing natural 

 affection and sympathy, are not likely to have any 

 large stock of these commodities left. But, with 

 out them, there is no conscience, nor any restraint 

 on the conduct of men, except the calculation of 

 self-interest, the balancing of certain present grati 

 fications against doubtful future pains ; and ex 

 perience tells us how much that is worth. Every 

 day, we see firm believers in the hell of the theo 

 logians commit acts by which, as they believe when 

 cool, they risk eternal punishment; while they 

 hold back from those which are opposed to the 

 sympathies of their associates. 



XIII 



That progressive modification of civilization 

 which passes by the name of the " evolution of 

 society," is, in fact, a process of an essentially 

 different character, both from that which brings 

 about the evolution of species, in the state of 

 nature, and from that which gives rise to the evo 

 lution of varieties, in the state of art. 



There can be no doubt that vast changes have 

 taken place in English civilization since the reign 



