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is only true in a very limited sense. Although our companions 
seldom tell us to go and hang ourselves, yet, notwithstanding 
this, men are often goaded by their companions to commit 
suicide ; as, for example, a wife by a drunken husband, and 
vice versa . “Nor,” says he, “are they interfered with by any 
external association which might hamper what is termed the 
freedom of the will.” I reply, are not men driven to commit 
suicide under the overwhelming influences of misfortune, de- 
spair, and the breaking-down of their mental constitution ? 
Of all the acts of man, none are so entirely beyond the control 
of his will ; and to quote the uniformity of suicide as shown by 
statistics as a proof that the will is powerless of all influence in 
human affairs, is exactly one of those things of which a 
schoolboy would exclaim, “ That is good ! ” 
One more proof on which Mr. Buckle relies to support his 
theory that the influence of the will in human affairs is a 
vanishing quantity, is the uniformity of moral law as proved 
by the statistics of marriage. I am sorry to tell every lady 
and gentleman present that his individual will never has nor 
ever will exert any real influence in this matter ; but that we 
have been and ever will be determined by a succession of hard 
antecedents and consequents, over which we can exert no con- 
trol. This is certainly a glorious gospel to have proclaimed 
in our ears in these latter days. But what is this all-con- 
straining influence, in the name of which we are invited to 
believe that in this especially delicate matter we have no free 
agency ? I am afraid that you will think that I have mis- 
represented Mr. Buckle, and I will therefore quote his own 
words — “ It is now known that marriages bear a fixed and 
definite relation to the price of corn ; and in England the 
experience of a century has proved that, instead of having 
any connection with personal feelings, marriages are simply 
regulated by the average earnings of the great mass of the 
people ; so that this immense social and religious institution 
is not only swayed but is completely controlled by the price 
of food and the rate of wages.” 
Ladies and gentlemen, the gospel according to statistics 
and the Positive philosophy, if it is rightly interpreted by 
Mr. Buckle, is truly to you a gospel of good news ; but I sus- 
pect, after all, that the evidences on which it rests are not so 
strong as to deprive us of all belief in the four Evangelists. 
You who wish to procure wives or husbands need not for the 
future trouble yourselves about any endowments, mental or 
bodily. The whole matter is regulated for you by causes over 
which you can exert no control. You are absolved from all 
attempts to please. You need not consider suitableness of 
yol. hi. R 
