Transcendentalism has been the inspiration of the century. Its influence has been mighty in behalf of political liberty and social progress. But there was no inconsistency in Hegel's opposing the education of women, and denying the possibility of a great republic, or in Carlyle's defending absolute monarchy and chattel slavery, or in Parker's successor in Boston trying to justify the Russian despotism. Transcendentalism is a swivel-gun, which can be fired easily in any direction. Perhaps it can be used most easily against science. The difference in methods, of course, is irreconcilable, as is seen in Emerson; and the brilliant results attained by Herbert Spencer have been sadly disparaged by leading Transcendentalists in the conventions of the Free Religious Association, as well as in sessions of the Concord School of Philosophy. VI. The necessary tendency of Transcendentalism may be seen in the agitation against vivisection, which was begun in 1863 by Miss Cobbe. She was aided by Carlyle, Browning, Ruskin, Lecky, Mar-tineau, and other Transcendentalists, one of whom, Rev. W. H. Channing, had been prominent in America about 1850. Most of the active anti-vivisectionists, however, belong to the sex which has been peculiarly ready to adopt unscientific methods of thought. It is largely due to women with a taste for metaphysics or theology that the agitation still goes on in Great Britain and the United States. Attempts ought certainly to be made to prevent torture of animals by inexperienced students, or by teachers who merely wish to illustrate the working of well-known laws. There ought to be little difficulty in securing the universal adoption of such statutes as were passed by Parliament in 1876. Vivisection was then forbidden, except when carried out for the purpose of important discoveries, by competent investigators duly licensed, and in regular laboratories. It was further required that complete protection against suffering pain be given by anaesthetics, though these last could be dispensed with in exceptional cases covered by a special license. The animal must at all events be killed as soon as the experiment was over. This law actually put a stop to attempts to find some antidote to the poison of the cobra, which slays thousands of Hindoos annually. Professor Ferrier, who was discovering the real functions of various parts of the brain, was prosecuted in 1881 by the Anti-Vivisection Society for operating without a license upon monkeys; but the charge turned out to be false. The real question since 1876 has been as to whether vivisection should be tolerated as an aid to scientific and medical discovery. Darwin's opinion on this point is all the more valuable, because he hated all cruelty to animals. In April, 1881, he wrote to _The Times_ as follows: