be a fight between rivals for the ownership of a flock, the quadrupeds do not care, so long as they are not trained to fight, to fast, or to live on an animal diet. When any one speaks of the morality, pure and simple, inculcated by Sakya Muni and Jesus, it is a fair question to ask whether asceticism is included therein. In other words, is there anything of the nature of absolute goodness in the attempt to make oneself miserable? Or, to vary the question still further--granting, for the sake of argument, that it is intrinsically right in the sight of God to abstain from such of our propensities as induce us to marry, to eat, drink, and sleep heartily, to fight a duel with a rival, to steal, to lie, to covet, and the like,--granting, too, that every such abstinence is entered as "an asset" on the creditor side of the books of Heaven--is it an equally available item to abstain from brotherly love and comfort generally? The logician sees clearly that there is no distinction in kind between controlling one set of animal passions and another, and is forced to allow that if it be a commendable thing to avoid indulging in one carnal appetite, it is still more commendable to endeavour to counteract them all Consequently, by granting the premisses, we find ourselves landed in a difficulty. If universal asceticism were to prevail, it is clear that man would be opposing himself to the manifest designs of the Creator, as shown in the world at large; and we cannot conceive, that direct disobedience to instincts, implanted in us by our Maker, can be anything but an item on the debtor side in the books, which Jewish writers have said that He keeps. Thus we are driven to investigate the very assertions which in the commencement of our inquiry we took for granted, and to ask ourselves, is there really any intrinsic value in morality in the sight of God? Can a most virtuous life command for the individual who has practised it an eternity of bliss? Jesus answers this tolerably distinctly in the words reported in Luke xvii. 10, "When ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which it was our duty to do." But we doubt whether this dictum enunciates sufficiently clearly the abstract value of morality. To ascertain this we must endeavour to read the book of nature on other pages than those which treat of man.