444 CLASSIFICATION OF IDEAS. 



remain unsolved. Give me the elementary atoms, 

 the philosopher will exclaim ; give me the primeval 

 gas and the 'law of gravitation, and I will show you 

 how man was evolved, body and soul, just as easily 

 as I can explain the egg being hatched into a chick. 

 But, then, where did the egg come from ? Who made 

 the atoms and endowed them with the impulse of 

 attraction ? Why was it so ordered that reason 

 should be born of refrigeration, and that a piece of 

 white-hot star should cool into a habitable world, and 

 then be sunned into an intellectual salon, as the earth 

 will some day be ? All that we are doing, and all 

 that we can do, is to investigate secondary laws ; but 

 from these investigations will proceed discoveries by 

 which human nature will be elevated, purified, and 

 finally transformed. 



The ideas and sentiments, the faculties and the 

 emotions, should be divided into two classes ; those 

 which we have in common with the lower animals, 

 aud which therefore we have derived from them ; and 

 those which have been acquired in the human state. 

 Filial, parental, and conjugal affection, fellow-feeling 

 and devotion to the welfare of the community, are 

 virtues which exist in every gregarious association. 

 These qualities, therefore, were possessed by the pro- 

 genitors of man before the development of language, 

 before the separation of the foot and the hand. Re- 

 production was once a part of growth : animals, there- 

 fore, desire to perpetuate their species from a natural 

 and innate tendency inherited from their hermaphro- 

 dite and animalcule days. But owing to the separa- 

 tion of the sexes, this instinct cannot be appeased 

 except by means of co-operation. In order that off- 

 spring may be produced, two animals must enter into 



