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remove a single grain of sand from its place, without thereby, although, perhaps, imperceptibly to you, altering something throughout all the parts of the immeasurable whole. But every moment of this duration is determined by all past moments, and will determine all future moments, and you cannot conceive even the position of a grain of sand other than it is at present, without being compelled to conceive the whole indefinite past to have been other than what it has been, and the whole indefinite future other than it will be." In harmony with such impressions, which, though expressed in philosophic language, contain nothing but what is accessible and familiar to the common thoughts of men, those general conceptions which we all have of social good will prove their excellence in desiring and admiring a religion that would correspond to this law of necessity, and that would have adjustments without end, to suit the successive changes in the progress of the human race. For, in fact, the common thought can never be so imposed upon, as to be persuaded that it is the office of a true religion to make the persons subject to it ridiculous and useless in their generation, to make them antiquarians, rather than men, and to fill them with disgust at the economy and operation of nature. We observed, in the beginning of this inquiry, that all common things are beautiful. We see now, that for the world, within certain limitations, to change is a common thing. Why should not this change, also, be beautiful and in accordance with the rest? Where on earth is the neces sity for supposing, in the interest of any cause, that men should always wear togas, or steel armour, or the costume of a later period, with the trains of thought associated with such things, or reject every change in tastes and modes of living, including sentiments and views of life, merely because unknown or dimly perceptible to past ages? The common thought may have little to do with the past, and pretend to no foresight into the future; at the Lover's Seat it is neither that of the antiquarian nor the prophet; but it will embrace the present, and endeavour, as far as it can, though unconsciously, to accomplish the work that it feels itself called, in co-operation with contemporary living men and women, to fulfil. It invokes, therefore, a religion that would suit the present, as it was found in accordance with the past, and that would prove adjusted in regard to whatever

future ages might require; it will prove its excellence, in desiring and accepting a religion that would be inexhaustible, that would have infinite resources, admirable tendencies of adjustment; to which there would be a thousand ways of arriving and returning, from having in itself a thousand faces, which answer to the most different dispositions, to all wants and circumstances of the world, to all the mobility and conditions of the human heart. What it desires is a religion which would regain on one side what it might lose on another, a religion that could produce indisputable titles to the fame of having produced our actual state of civilization, and which would seem evidently called to follow it throughout the course of all its future vicissitudes. By desiring, invoking, and, when circumstances allow, accepting such a religion, the common thoughts of humanity, in regard to truth of this order, are found, therefore to be the best, and that was the proposition that we had to demonstrate; or, if you want to learn the style of mathematicians, as you have already been presented with so much Latin and Greek, the languages of the learned, you may finish the chapter yourself, by repeating after me Q. E. D.

CHAPTER XXI.

WELL, I never! how can you go on so? one of the parties will naturally enough exclaim now, when invited to resume the subject in another chapter; but her companion, who is perhaps growing as fidgety as herself, will only say, Don't give in, pussy, don't give in. Silence, beautiful voice! Come back, truant, to your seat. Do you want me to think that you exemplify the old lines we used to hear when we were scholarboys?

"Quid levius vento? fulmen. Quid fulmine? fama.

Quid fama? mulier. Quid muliere? nihil."

That's Latin again, and very coarse abuse too, I can tell you; so pray avoid incurring it. Be patient to the last, attentive, and the very model of a listener. Remember that we have to main

VOL. II.

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tain against all assailants-though, by the way, you seem inclined to quarrel with it just now, as if it were growing too hard for you the dignity of this bench, by speaking of things great and grave as well as little and agreeable, and proving that we can in a way of our own open discussions within this bower of Paradise before a child of nature, a thing of light, and airiness, and joy, as intellectual and deep as those propounded in any of their schools.

Having observed the excellence of common thoughts in relation to that branch of truth which constitutes religion in general, and even in its most positive form, it remains to complete the subject by proceeding, as we did in regard to philosophy, to remark briefly some few of the evil consequences of flying from them, and adopting in relation to the same object singular or extraordinary ways of thinking, to which more or less in all ages some few persons, desirous of striking out new paths and obtaining for themselves a distinction and separation from others, have had recourse.

Religious controversy is only known at the Lover's Seat, as the Germans would say, objectively, from its having left some traces of its operation in places at a distance, or at home perhaps in the family; for in modern times it insinuates itself, more or less, every where. You are dull, I see, at the mere naming it. I feel dull myself for the same reason. If glanced at for a moment, the advice of Lepidus is what issues from this peaceful bower,

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Touch you the sourest points with sweetest terms,
Nor curstness grow to the matter."

What the Roman orator once said, addressing pontiffs, might recall the style of language which is oftenest heard here, "I have not been conversant with these recondite books. I am not curious in investigating matters of this kind. The things which as one of the people, or, as you would say, as one of the school children, I have learned, which are heard delivered in public, those I have known." Nevertheless, when these common things are contradicted, mistakes afford even here valuable suggestions as to the importance of common thoughts within this sphere of teaching, of which the general importance has

been already recognized. We must now study brevity more than ever; but still, however hurried, we must repeat the protest which we entered on commencing the last chapter, and declare that we do not seek, in what is about to follow, to smuggle in any thing artfully by the side of our lawful and professed object, or to wander upon any ground of hostile operations beyond the limits which we are bound by our commission to explore. If any thing should pass in, seeming to involve other matters besides what we profess to deal in, we can't help it. We do not conceal where we come from; we have our flag, like every one else; but, as we said before, what may seem to savour of the place and of the colours is here only an accident, a coincidence for which we are not personally responsible. On to the last we must go, fearless and impartial, to show the danger and evil of forsaking what is common.

But perhaps we shall be stopped here at the threshold by some learned Theban proposing what he thinks a very solid objection founded on good sense. He will ask us, Was it not by starting and diffusing uncommon thoughts that truth itself, in the form of Christianity, began? Well, we may compliment him on the fund of equity which seems to dictate the question; but equity must have facts to proceed on, and the same equity, with only a common knowledge of facts, will enable us to effect a passage in spite of the proposed obstacle: for, as a matter of school-history, who knows not that the first Christian teachers made their appeal to the common thoughts of men to test the justice of their doctrines and the divinity of their mission? Was it not either to ancient known traditions—and to authorized familiar records, as in the case of the Jews, or to the testimony of their own poets-to the conscience, to the good sense, and to the common sentiments of mankind, cleared from strained, artificial, unnatural, and often modern practices, growing out of learned and portentous paradoxes, as in the case of the Gentiles, that the fishermen of Galilee, following their divine Master, universally appealed? Undoubtedly it was. We are not, therefore, using any argument that can be turned against a sacred cause when we maintain that, in regard to truth of this order, all uncommon thoughts must be suspected.

Well, proceed on, mate, to the thing or proposition, as I think you call it, that is to be developed and proved in the pre

sent chapter, though I cannot as yet for the life of me see what you are driving at. That does not surprise me, little philosopher, for we sometimes think common what is in reality very extraordinary, since habit reconciles us to many things that we should otherwise wonder at; and this leads me to remark another thing that we ought to add by way of preamble, for we should observe that persons may profess and even entertain extraordinary thoughts, if one may so say, in a common way, so as to neutralize the effects of these thoughts and even change almost their nature. They may be holding them because people around them are always uttering them; and it is common to humanity to acquiesce in very resolute affirmations or negations: they may be holding them because they never examined them; and it is common to humanity to receive from others many things without examination: they may be holding them because they fear to be singular in their own locality by contradicting what others there say; and it is common to humanity to shun singularity and feel ashamed of it. They may thus be holding them and all the while be governed by common thoughts, and unconsciously reaping the benefit of what with their lips or by the mere fact of their position they seem to be protesting against. But all this does not affect the conclusions we are about to draw respecting the evil of extraordinary thoughts in themselves, when consciously accepted as such and pushed to their natural and logical consequences. Let us, then, proceed to consider them in this character.

In the first place, then, it does appear in general as if it were only men ambitious in taking extraordinary views and loving the singularity attached to a reputation of great intellectual or spiritual eminence, who desire to form those divisions in religion which cause so much bitterness in the world, and to withdraw persons from communion with the majority, their neighbours. Without having any double or secret motive, tell any one of the common unsophisticated people who come to such a place as this what I observed to you yesterday-that there was a time, for instance, in England when all were of one religion, and they will reply in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred just as you did, saying that it must have been better then; for they will be of your opinion that it is ridiculous to see us now all going of a Sunday to places of worship each differing from the other.

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