"On the whole, it will be found that the amount of happiness in a race not highly civilized is far more general, and its sum total far higher, than that of an over-civilized race. The rude and simple Swiss peasantry are thoroughly happy, while in a large city like London, the upper stratum of society is engaged in nervous quest of pleasure which ever eludes them, while the lower is plunged in misery. Besides, what is really meant by the progress of the species? The only tangible superiority of a generation over that which has preceded it, appears to consist in its having within its reach a larger accumulation of scientific or literary materials for thought, or a greater mastery over the forces of inanimate nature; advantages not without their drawbacks, and at any rate of a somewhat superficial kind. Genius is not progressive from age to age; nor yet the practice, however it may be with the science, of moral excellence. And, as this progress of the species is only supposed, after all, to be an improvement of its condition during men's first lifetime, the belief--call it, if you will, but a dream--of a prolonged existence after death _reduces the whole progress to insignificance_. _There is more_, even as regards quantity of sensation, _in the spiritual well-being of one single soul_, with an existence thus continuous, _than in the increased physical or intellectual prosperity_, during one lifetime, _of the entire human race_." (P. 59-60.) Nor does he appear to believe in the Protestant method of converting people, and causing them to "experience religion." We read on page 358 that, while Wesley was preaching at Bristol, "'one, and another, and another,' we are told, 'sank to the earth. They dropped on every side as thunderstruck.' Men and women by 'scores were sometimes strewed on the ground at once, insensible as dead men.' During a Methodist revival in Cornwall, four thousand people, it is computed, fell into convulsions. 'They remained during this condition so abstracted from every earthly thought, that they staid two, and sometimes three days and nights together in the chapels, agitated all the time by spasmodic movements, and taking neither repose nor refreshment. The symptoms followed each other usually as follows: A sense of faintness and oppression, shrieks as if in the agony of death or the pains of labor, convulsions of the muscles of the eyelids--the eyes being fixed and staring--and of the muscles of the neck, trunk, and arms; sobbing respiration, tremors, and general agitation, and all sorts of strange gestures. When exhaustion came on, patients usually fainted, and remained stiff and motionless until their recovery.'" (P. 358.) Finally, in speaking of the "diverse forms of ceremonial expression," he says,