170 Contemporary Evolution. 



public opinion, when they consider how many really con- 

 temptible and vile characters have been popularly revered. 



4. The positivist heaven is, moreover, necessarily denied to 

 many of the most virtuous, since it is a necessary con- 

 dition of the virtue of many to live obscure and unknown. 



5. Finally, the difficulty which a conscientious man ex- 

 periences in estimating even his own motives and cha- 

 racter, shows how simply impossible it is for many men 

 accurately and justly to estimate each other's real merits. 

 But one of the drollest notions of what may fitly inspire 

 reverence is put forth by Mr. Spencer himself ; not indeed 

 in his own person, but in that of an imaginary disputant, 

 whose discourse he calls " comparatively consistent." 

 This disputant is made to speak * of the oscillations of 

 molecular motion thus : " The activities of this imponder- 

 able substance, though far simpler, and in that respect far 

 lower, than the activities we call mind, are at the same 

 time far higher than those we call mind in respect of their 

 intensity, their velocity, their subtlety. . . . Thought 

 is quick, light is many millions of times quicker/-' Thus 

 quick and strong jumpings and very complex antics are 

 relatively " high " using that word in the sense we apply 

 it to mind. Exceedingly complex gyrations of atoms are 

 thus higher than " love of God or man." Contemplating 

 in imagination the atomic oscillations which this view of 



* " Psychology," vol. i., p. 622. 



