of women, which will make a closer and more complete union between men and women possible than exists at present. The association of man and woman being capable thus of becoming in a manner a sort of intellectual association and fellowship, it will result in a fertility of a new species: love will no longer act upon the intelligence solely as the most powerful of stimulants, it will contribute positive elements hitherto unknown. It is impossible to predict the sort of work that the combined labour of man and woman will produce when they possess a preparation for it that will be practically upon both sides equal. Some hint of what one means may be gathered from examples actually under one’s eyes. In the present century men and women of talent are tending to come into closer relations with each other; and I might cite the names of Michelet and Mme. Michelet, of John Stuart Mill and his wife, of Lewes and George Eliot, and other names besides. But not to give an undue prominence to great names like these, which are after all exceptions in the human race, it is not too much to assert that from the very top of the social ladder to the bottom the family tends increasingly to become a unity, a more and more perfect organism in which man will one day find scope for all of his powers and capabilities. The importance of the family increases, as that of the city and of the despotic tutelage of the state decreases. This importance, which is almost non-existent in purely military societies (of which Lacedæmon may serve as the accomplished exemplar), becomes greater and greater in free and industrial societies such as those of the future, and thus there opens a new field for human activity and sensibility. The love of men and women for each other and of both for their children, heightened by the growing sentiment of equality, is destined in the author’s judgment to create a new and non-mystical sort of religion, the worship of the family. If a cult for the gods of the hearth was one of the earliest religions, perhaps it will also be actually the last: the family hearth possesses in and of itself an element of sacredness, of religion, since it binds together as about a common centre beings so diverse in origin and sex. And thus the modern family, founded on the law of equality, seems by its very spirit, and by the sentiments which it excites, to be in growing opposition to religious mysticism. The true type of the priest, whatever Protestantism may say, is the solitary man, the missionary here below, devoted body and soul to God; whereas the type of the practical philosopher and the modern sage is a loving, thinking, labouring man, devoted to those who are dear to him. [Sidenote: And love of country.]