an Englishman he naturally tries to strengthen his position by the support of the Bible; but he is on slippery ground, and meets with such poor success that he ends by catching at the following ingenious position: Jesus Christ (he says) was born in a stable among oxen and asses; which was meant to indicate symbolically that we ought to regard the beasts as our brothers, and treat them accordingly. All that I have here adduced sufficiently proves that the moral chord, of which we are speaking, is now at length beginning to vibrate also in the West. For the rest, we may observe that compassion for sentient beings is not to carry us to the length of abstaining from flesh, like the Brahmans. This is because, by a natural law, capacity for pain keeps pace with the intelligence; consequently men, by going without animal food, especially in the North, would suffer more than beasts do through a quick death, which is always unforeseen; although the latter ought to be made still easier by means of chloroform. Indeed without meat nourishment mankind would be quite unable to withstand the rigours of the Northern climate. The same reasoning explains, too, why we are right in making animals work for us; it is only when they are subjected to an excessive amount of toil that cruelty begins. (8) It is perhaps not impossible to investigate and explain metaphysically the ultimate cause of that Compassion in which alone all non-egoistic conduct can have its source; but let us for the moment put aside such inquiries, and consider the phaenomenon in question, from the empirical point of view, simply as a natural arrangement. Now if Nature's intention was to soften as much as possible the numberless sufferings of every sort, to which our life is exposed, and which no one altogether escapes; if she wished to provide some counterbalance for the burning Egoism, which fills all beings, and often develops into malice; it will at once strike every one as obvious that she could not have chosen any method more effectual than that of planting in the human heart the wonderful disposition, which inclines one man to share the pain of another, and from which proceeds the voice that bids us, in tones strong and unmistakable, take thought for our neighbour; calling, at one time, "Protect!" at another, "Help!" Assuredly, from the mutual succour thus arising, there was more to be hoped for, towards the attainment of universal well-being, than from a stern Command of duty, couched in general, abstract terms,--the product of certain reasoning processes, and of artificial combinations of conceptions. From such an Imperative, indeed, all the less result could be expected because to the rough human unit general propositions and abstract truths are unintelligible, the concrete only having some meaning for him. And it should be remembered that mankind in its entirety, a very small part alone excepted, has always been rude, and must remain so, since