342 THE GOSPEL, AND THE SOCIAL CREED OF SCIENCE. 



physical sphere has already prepared us for, but resigna- 

 tion only with respect to that portion of our mental, 

 moral, and physical pangs and maladies for which we 

 are assured there is no alleviation. For we are not 

 called upon to lie down quiescently under ills which we 

 can really, in however small degree, reduce by our 

 wisdom and resolute endeavours. The virtue of resig- 

 nation must not be confounded with apathetic indiffer- 

 ence or with Mussulman fatalism, or even with the 

 quietism the denial of the will to live of the pessimist ; 

 these are only vicious frames of mind resembling it; 

 resignation is the high virtue which is only asked from 

 us with respect to those numerous unalterable ills which, 

 like death, must be accepted, though to cultivate it, and 

 attain to it, in these cases where it is really demanded 

 from us, is the summit of human virtue, showing piety, 

 patience, and fortitude in one. 



6. In spite, however, of all mitigation of our pro- 

 bation from science, or philosophy, or medicine, does not 

 the feverish and increasing intensity of the competitive 

 struggle for life, resulting from our crowded and ever- 

 increasing population, tend to swell the list of sufferers 

 from mental and nervous maladies, owing to the greater 

 demand made on the energies of the brain, the modern 

 weapon of combat, at least with the educated classes, in 

 the battle for existence ? Do not brain and nerves give 

 way or fail more frequently than in former times, when 

 men seemed compact of firmer fibres with stronger nerves ? 

 To some extent probably, though the extent may be 

 easily exaggerated; since such cases are now, through 

 statistics, brought more prominently before our notice 

 than formerly, and since our trebled population, since 

 the beginning of the century, would necessarily show a 

 trebled number of such cases even if there were no 



