Juke 16, 1882.] 



• KNOWLEDGE • 



with the doctrine, Soyz de voire siecle, for the character- 

 istics of an age may be chiefly cliaracteristics of disease, 

 and conformity with them may, therefore, be not virtue, but 

 the reverse. The type defined by the healthy condition of 

 the body social, not that defined by its actual condition, is 

 that with which conformity is desirable. 



It will be seen that this doctrine limits conduct in two 

 directions. As the good soldier neither lags behind nor 

 goes unduly in advance of the main body (not even if he 

 be the captain), so the man who best fulfils his duties to 

 the social body of which he forms part, must neither fall 

 short of the standard necessary for the healthy condition 

 ■of the social organism, nor go unduly in advance. Take, 

 for instance, such a quality as loyalty, in its ordinary but 

 rather degraded sense. In former days it was essential to 

 the social well-being that personal loyalty should amount 

 to something like devotion. And that quality, being 

 essential to the very existence of a community, under- 

 went development until, and even long after, this state 

 of things ceased. It remains, then, a characteristic of 

 many of the best men of a time when personal loyalty no 

 longer has the specific value which it had in former times. 

 Men who analyse the sentiment find, perhaps, in de\'otion to 

 the King of Brentford, nothing specially virtuous ; or, tracing 

 his descent from those who first founded his family, they find 

 small reason, perhaps, for regarding with respect the ground 

 •of the family's claim to loyal devotion. Men whose views 

 of this particular duty have thus progressed, may be 

 ■divided between two duties : — one, that of teaching those 

 around them the avoidance of certain actions which appear 

 to themselves derogatory to the dignity of manhood ; the 

 other, that of avoiding such offences as must arise from 

 their not conforming to the type defined by the healthy 

 ■condition of the social organism. They may do more harm 

 by inculcating what they hold to be truth, and still more 

 by doing what they consider theoretically just, than by 

 conforming outwardly to the conditions of society as it exists 

 around them. An officer, again, who ridicules that devo- 

 tion to the colours which has led many a brave soldier to die 

 rather than let the enemy take them, may in principle be 

 very right, for a brave soldier is worth more than a blood- 

 stained, shot riddled rag ; and ho who, in trying to save 

 ■one, loses the other to his country or army, has not in that 

 served his country well; but if that devotion, unreasonable 

 though it is in principle, is absolutely essential to the 

 «fl5ciency of an army composed of not altogether well- 

 reasoning elements, then the man who has ridiculed it, 

 however reasonably, has done his country or its army an 

 ill-service. 



Tliese cases are, of course, in themselves trivial — the 

 reader will hardly need to be told that much more important 

 matters are illustrated by them. If a citizen may be loyal 

 to the community without any trace of loyalty to person or 

 fomily ; if a man may be a good and faithful soldier without 

 the feeling (or having niastc^red as a weakness the feeling) 

 •of devotion to a standard or an ensign, so may there be 

 many who are faithful to what they hold to bo their duties 

 without any of those feelings commonly spoken of as 

 religious — though erroneously, for the word " religion " 

 applies equally in reality to any influence or principle 

 restraining men's actions. Men who have learned that 

 certain fears, hopes, and emotions are no more necessary to 

 virtuous conduct than devotion to a .standard is necessary 

 to soldiers already devoted to a cauBO, must remember 

 that this is not at present true of the social organism to 

 which they belong. It is not only not their duty, but 

 the reverse of their duty, to ridicule feelings or beliefs 

 essential to the well-being of the body social as it at 

 present exists. The code we set up must be such as 



is good for the community, not that which is suffi- 

 cient for ourselves. As our author well remarks, 

 " we must admit that the ends which men pursue vary 

 indefinitely, and that some men, possibly the mass of men, 

 are fitted for those positions in the social organism which 

 do not demand any great activity of the higher faculties, or 

 make any strain upon a man's devotion to the race or to 

 truth. . . . When we speak of the morality of the 

 lower type, we mu.st mean that the habit of oV)edience to 

 the moral law may be impressed upon it, although the 

 moral instincts which make such obedience the spontaneous 

 fruit of his character may be very imperfectly developed ; 

 and therefore, as a general rule, thst to some extent 

 other instincts, such as the fear of punishment [the hope 

 of reward], the contempt [or the praise] of his fellows, have 

 to be called into play, so as to make, as it were, a substitute 

 for genuine morality." 



The wise moralist, on Mr. Stephen's theory, "assigns no 

 new motives ; he accepts human nature as it is, and he 

 tries to show how it may maintain and improve the advan- 

 tages already acquired. His influence is little enough, but, 

 such as it is, it depends upon the fact that a certain 

 harmony has already come into existence, and that men 

 are therefore so constituted that they desire a more 

 thorough solution of existing discords. A soimd moral 

 system is desirable in order to give greater definiteness 

 to aims and methods ; and it is doubtless important to 

 obtain one in a period of rapid decay of old systems. But 

 it is happy for the world that moral progress has not to 

 wait till an unimpeachable system of ethics has been 

 elaborated." 



ENGLISH SEASIDE HEALTH-RESORTS. 



Bv Alfred Haviland. 



CLASSIFICATION (Continued from page 18). 



TuE Mean Temperature of the Air in Relation to 

 Latitude is England and Wales. 



"f^^HEN the sun's rays fall perpendicularly on the 

 \ * earth's surface, as between the troi)ics, the greatest 

 amount of heat is received from them ; on the other hand, 

 the mon> obliquely they do so, as between the tropics and 

 the poles, the more is the amount of heat diminished. A 

 ray from the sun falling p-rpendicularly on an object 

 covers the least surface, and imparts the most heat ; whilst 

 a ray falling obliciuely covers a larger surface, and gives 

 less heat in proportion to its obliciuity. Moreover, a sun- 

 ray that falls perpendicularly on the earth piu'aes through 

 a lesser thickness of atmosphere, is shorter, in fact, than 

 one which falls obliquely, and therefore loses less lieat in 

 passing through the atmosphere. 



In using a magnifying glass for lighting a match wo 

 make use of this knowledge, and incline the glass at such 

 an angle as to receive the sun's ray-s as it were, per- 

 pendicularly to its surface, and then focus them. Agoiji, 

 if a ray of sunlight be admitted through a liole in a shutter, 

 and a piece of white cardboard be held at such an angle as 

 to receive it perjiendicularly, it will be fouml that the space 

 occupied by the light ."spot will have as small an area as j)0S- 

 sible according to the distance ; wliereos when the paper is 

 luld so as to receive this sun ray obliquely, the area 

 covered by the light is increased in proportion to the ob- 

 liquity with whidi the ray falls on the surface. Tlie dia- 

 grams showing the apjmrent i>ath of the sun during April 

 and May, published in Vol. 1. of Knowlkdck, pp. 469, OS?, 

 are not only interesting and instructive, but will help the 

 student to understand how in our latitudes the oV)liquity of 



