He adds, “It is a shameful and unblessed thing to take the scum of people, and wicked condemned men, to be the people with whom you plant” (_i. e._ colonise). And it is only now that our politicians are beginning to discover and act upon this great moral truth and obvious fitness of things!—like Bacon, adopting practically, and from mere motives of expediency, a principle they would theoretically abjure! [Illustration] 95. Because in real life we cannot, or do not, reconcile the high theory with the low practice, we use our wit to render the theory ridiculous, and our reason to reconcile us to the practice. We ought to do just the reverse. [Illustration] Many would say, if they spoke the truth, that it had cost them a life-long effort to unlearn what they had been taught. For as the eye becomes blinded by fashion to positive deformity, so through social conventionalism the conscience becomes blinded to positive immorality. It is fatal in any mind to make the moral standard for men high and the moral standard for women low, or _vice versâ_. This has appeared to me the very commonest of all mistakes in men and women who have lived much in the world, but _fatal_ nevertheless, and in three ways; first, as distorting the moral ideal, so far as it exists in the conscience; secondly, as perplexing the bounds, practically, of right and wrong; thirdly, as being at variance with the spirit and principles of Christianity. Admit these premises, and it follows inevitably that such a mistake is _fatal_ in the last degree, as disturbing the consistency and the elevation of the character, morally, practically, religiously. Akin to this mistake, or identical with it, is the belief that there are essential masculine and feminine virtues and vices. It is not, in fact, the quality itself, but the modification of the quality, which is masculine or feminine: and on the manner or degree in which these are balanced and combined in the individual, depends the perfection of that individual character—its approximation to that of Christ. I firmly believe that as the influences of religion are extended, and as civilisation advances, those qualities which are now admired as essentially _feminine_ will be considered as essentially _human_, such as gentleness, purity, the more unselfish and spiritual sense of duty, and the dominance of the affections over the passions. This is, perhaps, what Buffon, speaking as a naturalist, meant, when he said that with the progress of humanity, “_Les races se féminisent_;” at least I understand the phrase in this sense.