mortality has greatly decreased, and delicate children are kept alive till the time of puberty or thereabouts, then to perish by consumption. This difference in the mortality of delicate children, tells greatly on the average of human life, but comparatively little on human happiness. So does the substitution of slow chronic miserable diseases for short and decisive ones.

The diseases of debility are the prevalent and characteristic ones of the present age. Consumption, dyspepsia, and nervous weakness are universally diffused through our country, but were comparatively little known, more especially the two last, among our ancestors. They were decimated at intervals by terrible acute epidemics, such as small pox, ague, scurvy, &c., which have now become almost extinct, owing to the splendid discoveries of medical science.

We surpass them also greatly, in prolonging the lives of invalids, and in our general medical treatment. In less civilised communities, as among the lower animals, any one who falls into bad health has comparatively little chance of recovery, as he is either neglected or badly treated. But can it be said, that we have really gained by the substitution of these miserable diseases of debility, some of which may indeed permit a man to drag on a life in death, till a great age, but poison all his enjoyment?

It is a common, and I believe a very true remark, that our constitutions are not nearly so strong as those of our forefathers; and while that is the case, let us not boast of the longer average of life. A long life, if sad, is hardly preferable to a short and vigorous one. The longer average of life, like other marks of apparent progress, is a vanity and a delusion and helps to blind us to our actual state of physical degradation.

The mind as well as the body has degenerated in manly vigour under the influence of spiritualism. A morbid effeminacy pervades all our moral atmosphere. There is a want of healthy enjoyment of life, as must always be the case when the natural pleasures of the senses are disparaged, a want of self-reliance, of manly vigour, and courage, in the mental character of all of us. Thousands among us are so much oppressed with shyness and the want of self-confidence, that it looks as if we felt almost ashamed of living at all.

There is a pervading timidity in declaring our real convictions on the most important matters, especially on religion and on sexual love, which are, as far as open and candid discussion is concerned, almost interdicted subjects among us. A sort of doleful spiritual whine meets our ear on every side, as if man, the mightiest and most glorious of all the manifestations of nature, existed only on sufferance, and were too vile to deserve anything but sorrow and humiliation. The fear of the opinions of others is one of the most prevalent of all feelings in our society; a feeling which is more destructive than almost any other, to sincerity and manliness of character. We are afraid of departing one step from the beaten track of conventionalism, for fear of incurring the odium of our neighbours. How unlike is this to the manliness and self-reliance of those, who have dared death and torture rather than disguise their principles !

How different is the morbid state of sorrow. self-abasement, irreso◄

lution, despondency, or despair, which we observe so prominently in our modern poets and writers, from the manly vigour, healthfulness, and enjoyment of life, which is so delightful in the authors of the Elizabethan age. There are certainly many other causes than spiritualism, which have helped to work this change; the great social difficulties, which are only of late years coming to be adequately recognised, are enough to load the hearts of each of us with sorrow, if not despair; but besides these, a great part of the mental morbidity is caused by spiritualism, which blights all healthy enjoyment of life, and weakens the mind with the body.

The spiritual religion which is dominant among us, by its threats of endless punishment, and its constant inculcation of the weak and effeminating qualities of humility and resignation, has broken in a great degree the spirit of man. No man can seriously entertain the belief in endless punishment, without his whole nature being demoralised, and without being cowed into a state of fear as to his own and his neighbour's actions, incompatible with manly dignity and freedom. Humility and resignation are, it is true, often desirable virtues, but neither they nor any other conceivable modes of feeling, can be always termed good, and to inculcate them in a wholesale way is to do infinite mischief. To be constantly urging them upon those who are already broken in spirit from shyness, want of self-reliance, energy, and the power of actively enjoying life, (which are just the prevailing defects in our characters at present), is exactly like the old system of repeated bleeding and purgation, now happily abandoned by medicine, by which the whole energy of the constitution was gradually exhausted. What is wanted in mind as well as in body at present, is not piety nor tenderness, nor humility, nor spiritual fervour; but self-reliance, manly energy, and an active enjoyment of life; in a word, health.

Health of body and mind, should be the chief aim of mankind, not pietism or spiritualism, or any other one-sided ideal, which our imperfect religions have set up; all blessings are comprehended in health, for it is not obtainable except by a well-regulated conduct of all our faculties of body and mind alike. Where there is not an active and keen enjoyment of life in all its different parts, where there is not happiness, there cannot be health; and where there is not health there cannot be virtue. It is absolutely impossible for either body or mind to be truly healthy and wellbalanced, when the chief attention is paid to one set of faculties, and the others are comparatively neglected. This great truth has been completely disregarded in our theories of life, and the consequences have been most disastrous to all of us.

However powerfully spiritualism has operated in degrading man, it has far more degraded woman. The physical virtues are scarcely thought to belong to her province at all: strength, vigour, courage, and activity, are not considered feminine virtues, but, if possible, rather detract from woman's peculiar charms in the eye of spiritualism. Hence the physical character of women, is, as a general rule, degraded to the last degree; poor, weak, nervous, delicate beings, who can scarcely walk half-a-mile, whose muscles are unstrung, and whose nerves are full of weakness and ritability.

mpare the ladies in our ball-rooms or the women in our streets, with

the strong healthy country girl, or with the women of Ruben's pictures, and their awful inferiority in physical virtue will be seen. Not only to her own health and happiness is the physical degeneracy of woman destructive, but to our whole race. The strength and bodily power of woman, are just as indispensable to thehealth and strength of mankind, as that of man, for the vigour of the child depends as much on the mother as on the father. It is a folly to desire to see powerful and athletic men, without desiring to see the same virtues in woman; such a division of the virtues is absolutely impossible.

The mind of woman is as much enfeebled as her body, by spiritualism. A vigorous relish for sensual pleasures, an energetic study of the sciences, and especially of the physical ones, is thought unwomanly, and the sex is limited to a narrow range of thought and feeling, which cripples all the mental power.

It is in vain to hope that a mind will be powerful, if certain subjects are forbidden to it; if death and the evil side of nature are hidden, as they are at present from woman. Such interdictions prevent any true power or freedom of thought and feeling; for who cares to study nature, if they are only allowed to advance a short distance, and if all the subjects necessary to give completeness to their views, are shut from them as from children? In the emotions, as well as in intellect, woman is bound in the effeminating bonds of spiritualism. Love, tenderness, and humility, are thought to be the special female virtues; and the qualities of self-reliance, energy, and mental intrepidity, are rather discouraged than otherwise, by those who wish to keep up the unfortunate state of dependence, in which woman exists at present. Hence the character of woman is full of weakness and irresolution, fear of the opinion of others, and hysterical emotions, which are diametrically opposed to health and strength of mind. Woman is, as a general rule, dwarfed in body and mind, by her one-sided and narrow spiritual culture.

Spiritualism has not only prevented us from taking an equal interest in the physical sciences, and attending equally to our physical culture; it has also blighted the progress of moral science. This is shown not only by the narrow and erroneous views of mental health and disease, and their treatment, of which mention has already been made; but also by the existing state of mental and psychological science.

The spiritual moralists have ever maintained, that there is a complete and fundamental difference between the mind of man and those of the inferior animals; so that no true comparison could be instituted between them. But this is an enormous error, and has stood in the way of all philosophical acquaintance with the human mind. The truth is, that there is not, and cannot be, by one single iota, a greater difference between the mind of man and the minds of the lower animals, than there is between his body and theirs. Every conceivable shade of mental difference must be accompanied by an exactly equal difference in the shape and substance of the brain; and the brain of man must differ exactly in the same degree, not one atom more or less, from the inferior brains, as his mind from the inferior minds. Now until the body of man was compared, minutely and perseveringly, with that of the lower animals, down

to the very humblest, it is well recognised that we did not understand it at all, that we had no true and philosophical knowledge of it. Professor Owen refuses to give the name of "Anatomy" at all to the mere dissection of the human body; that, he says, is merely "anthropotomy," while "anatomy" is a term merited only by the whole comparative science.

But exactly on the same principles, we must recognise, that there is at present no true science of "Mind," at all; we have no real "Psychology; we have merely an anthropo-psychology. There has never yet lived a man, who deserved the name of a moralist; there have merely been humanity-moralists.

A true knowledge of man's spiritual and moral nature is to be obtained only in the same way as that of his body, namely, by the comparative examination of the minds of all living beings, and by tracing our faculties upwards from their simplest expression in the humblest animals, to their most complex state in man. Until this be done in mind, as it has been done in the body, there can be no real "mental science," and we must continue, as we are at present, in the dark, as to the meaning and origin of our faculties. The science of Comparative Psychology, though it has yot scarcely an existence, opposed as it has been by our narrow conceptions of the human mind, will ultimately be recognised as equally indespensable with comparative anatomy, in order to attain to a true knowledge of man.

The morbid ideas of spiritualism are well seen in the little reverence that is paid to the bodily appetites. It is by no means thought a great merit to have a good appetite for food: nay, many people, especially effeminate ladies, are rather ashamed of it, and abstemiousness is often practiced as an evidence of refinement and spirituality. A keen relish for the pleasures of eating, is thought coarse and unbecoming, especially in women; the attention, it is thought, should rather be directed to intellectual enjoyments, and the mind, as little as possible, occupied with the pleasures of the senses. But these are most dangerous and destructive errors. The truth is, that a good appetite is one of the greatest virtues either man or woman can possess, and is one of the things of which, far from being ashamed, they have most reason to be proud. It is one of the best of all signs and tests of health, and of a well-spent physical life.

No one who has not a keen appetite is deserving of the name of a good man or woman; and the individual who allows his appetite to languish or to be habitually feeble, is equally reprehensible with him, who permits his feelings of love or truth to become blunted.

The vigoar of our bodily appetites is the test and the invaluable safeguard of our virtue, if we attend to it; by the keenness of our appetites we shall know whether our physical life is a true and healthy one; but if we neglect them, disease and destruction are certain sooner or later to make hs repent it. A good appetite for food is just as great a virtue, and just as much to be adm red wherever it is seen, as an ardent love and just appreciation of truth and beauty. The same principle applies to all the other physical appetites. By these tests, it can be seen how exceedingly unhealthy, or in other words, sinful, are the lives of the great majority of

those of us who live in towns, and work constantly at sedentary occupations. Our appetite languishes, and is rarely strong; and this should be taken as the unerring sign that the powers of life and virtue are growing feebler, and those of death and evil gaining the ascendancy.

When the appetite is habitually feeble, consumption, or the other diseases of debility, will to an absolute certainty, be induced, either in the individua'ls self or in his posterity, if the same want of physical virtue continue in them.

The great physical problem is to endeavour to secure to all human beings, the essentials of life in abundance; and in the purest form. Air, water, food, healthy exercise for all the organs &c., to procure for every human being the power of enjoying these in their greatest purity should be our steadfast and religious aim-an aim as lofty and as difficult as any ever proposed by man, and to be zealously aspired after, not only by the physician and the sanitary reformer, but by every man and woman among us, as comprehending the most important essentials of virtue. If we cannot habitually breathe pure air, eat abundantly of wholesome food, and obtain healthy and sufficient exercise for our various organs and faculties, let us not deceive ourselves; it is absolutely impossible that we can live virtuous lives. Pure air and wholesome food are just as indispensable necessaries of virtue, happiness, or true religion, as any conceivable moral qualities. This has never yet been sufficiently attended to; for mankind have not become generally aware of the exactly equal duty they owe to their body and mind.

All our tastes and modes of judgment are more or less perverted and effeminated by spiritualism. As an instance of this, the prevailing opinions with regard to beauty may be taken. To have delicately cut features, a prettily turned figure, neat little feet and hands, and a sweet and amiable expression, are considered the chief beauties in a woman. But health and strength are in general scarcely at all considered. Now the truth is, that without these fundamental qualities, there cannot be real beauty. Health is the very first essential of beauty; and permanent health, continuing for many generations, cannot possibly exist without great physical strength, for the active exercise and natural life which ensure the one, ensure the other also. Elegance in shape and form arc something, and are sufficient in a lifeless object to constitute beauty, but in a living being health is a far more fundamentally important quality. Strength, power, and activity, are also among the most essential of all parts of beauty, in woman as well as in man. Without strength, which is to be obtained only by the active and regular exercise of the body in out-of-door pursuits, health cannot long continue, and will soon decay, if not in one generation, then in the next; and without health the beauty even of form and expression will soon disappear.

We hear little tiny delicate girls, who have perhaps a prettily chigelled face, and an interesting pallor of complexion, called beautiful; but the truly instructed eye can see in them but mournful proofs of the physical degeneracy of our age. Height of stature, and weight of body, not produced by fat, but by healthy and powerful muscular developement, are in woman as well as man, a great part of true beauty.