28 SOCIOLOGY. 



of the proper course ; but the further pre-requisite — a due impulse to 

 pursue that course. And on calling to mind our daily failures to fulfil 

 often-repeated resolutions, we shall perceive that lack of the needful 

 desire, rather than lack of the needful insight, is the chief cause of faulty 

 action. A further endowment of those feelings which civilisation is 

 developing in us — sentimentsrespondingto the requirements of the social 

 state — emotive faculties that find their gratifications in the duties 

 devolving on us — must be acquired before the crimes, excesses, diseases, 

 improvidences, dishonesties, and cruelties, that now so greatly diminish 

 the duration of life, can cease." * 



A gifted poet of our day, who is essentially the Poet of Evolution 

 —the author of the "Light of Asia" — has caught the spii-it of the 

 naaster, and has given in that remarkable and beautiful work a picture 

 of evolution in lines that cannot fail to be appreciated by all who 

 recognise its operations : — 



Marking — behind all modes, above all spheres, 



Beyond the burning impulse of each orb — 



That fixed decree at silent work which wills 



Evolve the dark to light, the dead to life, 



To fulness void, to form the yot unformed, 



Good unto better, better unto best, 



By wordless edict ; having none to bid. 



None to forbid ; for this is past all gods 



Immutable, unspeakable, supreme, 



A Bower which builds, unbuilds, and builds again, 



lluling all things accordant to the rule 



Of virtue, which is beauty, truth, and use. 



Bo that all things do well which serve the Bower, 



And ill which hinder; nay, the worm does well 



Obedient to its kind ; the hawk does well 



Which carries bleeding quarries to its young; 



The dew-drop and the star shine sisterly, 



Globing together in the common work ; 



And man who lives to die, dies to live well 



So if he guide his ways by blamelessuess 



And earnest will to hinder not but nelp 



All things both great and small which suffer lifo.l 



Note. — By the kind permission of Mr. Herbert Spencer, the Sociological 

 Section is allowed to use on its Broceedings the Device at the head of this 

 Address, which has been impressed at the side of the binding of the volumes 

 of the Synthetic Bhilosophy since their first issue. The Device apiJears to indi- 

 cate the evolution of life. Beneath are the crystals of the volcanic rocks which 

 underlie all creation. Superimposed is the alluvial soil and rscent mould. 

 Springing from the latter are two forms of vegetable life— a Cryptogam (uon 

 flowering) and a Bhenogam (flowering) plant respectively. The last is a 

 Dicotyledon, the highest form of vegetable life. This appears in bud, leaf, 

 flower, and fruit. Creeping up and feeding upon the flowering plant is a larval 

 form of invertebrate life (caterpillar) ; susiJeuded from the central portion is 

 the pupa (chrysalis), and resting upon and crowning the flower is the imago 

 (perfect insect .— W. B. H. 



* "Brinciples of Biology," vol. ii., p. 497. 



•1- The " Light of Asia." By Edwin Arnold, C.S.I. 9th ed., 1882, pp. 1G9, 170. 



