386 METAPHYSICAL EVOLUTION. 



exercise, with a less yigorous construction of tissue. Fineness and 

 tenacity, on the other hand, can not be regarded as being so much 

 produced by use as by very primitive conditions of tissue. Ee- 

 straint under ]3ressure might produce fineness. Long-continued 

 freedom from sudden changes, under pressure, might account for 

 the origin of tenacious tissue. As to quantity, deficiency or diver- 

 sion of nutritive energy or material must produce smallness, and 

 the reverse condition, largeness. 



These qualities impress themselves on the external as well as 

 the internal organization, and can be more or less successfully dis- 

 cerned by the observer. I reserve the question of physiognomy to 

 a later article, and here consider only the evolutionary bearings of 

 character itself. As in physiognomy, we may arrange the facul- 

 ties and their qualities under the two heads of ancestral and embry- 

 onic, or that of the species and that of the individual. The order 

 of succession is the same in both kinds of development. 



SPECIES. INDIVIDUAL. 



Indifference. . Indifference. 



Einotions. Emotions. 



Intellect. Intellect. 



a. Imagination. a. Imagination. 



b. Reason. b. Beaso7i. 



It is not practicable to go farther than this into the order of 

 evolution of characteristics. There is probably little uniformity 

 of sequence other than that I have already pointed out under the 

 head of the emotions. 



As a complex outcome of the emotional and rational faculties 

 must be now mentioned the moral sense, or the sense of justice. 

 It consists of two elements, the emotion henevolence, and the ra- 

 tional power of discrimination or judgment. The former fur- 

 nishes the desire to do what is right to a fellow-being. Without 

 the aid of reason, it is benevolence, not justice, and may often fail 

 of its object. The rational element has acquired from experience 

 a generalization, the law of right. It perceives what is most con- 

 ducive to the best interest of the object of benevolence in his rela- 

 tion to others or to society, or whether he be a proper object of 

 benevolence at all. By itself, this quality is absolutely useless to 

 mankind. When it guides the action of human symj^athy, it dis- 

 plays itself as the most noble of human attributes. Many animals 

 display sympathy and benevolence, but justice has not yet been 

 observed in anv of them. Hence it has been said that it can not 



