After all, we may trust that this outpouring of soul after mechanical goodness, is neither more nor less than a fresh rehearsal of the popular fallacy or fable of a learned and intelligent, but somewhat over-hasty, death-watch. The difference between the two myths is not great, and both owe their existence to the prolific fancy of Professor Huxley. About three years ago the teleological beetle speculated in a manner which would have grieved the soul of Aldrich or Whately respecting the purpose of a kitchen clock. The death-watch concluded, like a death-watch, and not like a logician, that the clock's final end was to tick. Man, as Bacon tells us, is the servant and interpreter of nature. Does any one feel sure that a death-watch is the servant and interpreter of kitchen timepieces? Yet his inconsequent thinking served as an implement of Fate to "quail, crush, conclude, and quell" Teleology in general, and the Design argument for Natural Theism in particular. _Now_, a human Huxley clock always going morally right _because it must_, is equally conclusive against all freedom and all Conscience. Equally conclusive, we know, because equally true to Nature and to Fact. As conclusive as arguments against received biological tenets drawn from those great natural curiosities the Gorgon, the dragon of St. George, and the fire-breathing Chimæra, who united in her own fair person a lion, a dragon, and a goat. This latter well-known phenomenon may seem nearly as striking as any right-minded clock imaginable, and not much more incongruous. Many readers may be reminded of Amurath's Ring. But few probably will know, and fewer still recollect, Miss Edgeworth's clever comment upon it in "Rosamond." The book is unfortunately scarce, not having been reprinted along with "Early Lessons," therefore we add the extract ("Rosamond," vol. i., p. 148):-- "Do you remember, brother," said Laura, "your wish when you were reading that story in the 'Adventurer,' last week?" "Not I. What wish?" said Godfrey. "What story?" "Don't you remember," said Laura, "when you were reading the story of Amurath and his ring, which always pressed his finger when he was going to do anything wrong?" "Yes; I wished to have such a ring," said Godfrey. "Well, a friend is as good as such a ring," said Rosamond; "for a friend is, as somebody observed, a _second conscience_; I may call Laura my _second conscience_." "Mighty fine! but I don't like secondary conscience; a first conscience is, in my opinion, a better thing," said Godfrey. "You may have that too," said Rosamond. "Too! but I'd rather have it alone," said Godfrey. "There is something so cowardly in not daring to stand alone." The lesson seems to be that second-hand goodness falls short of true goodness, and that the impulse to moral action must arise from within--so unmanly is every endeavour at shaking off, either by cowardice or by unreflectiveness, the human burden and birthright of Responsibility.