So strong is the impulse sometimes of erring passion and ungoverned licentiousness, that, did the law allow of dissolving matrimonial bonds, that would be done, and there could be no going back to that restricted domain of old love and duty, even were it desired. But as the case stands, though criminal license be indulged into the temporary violation of the matrimonial bond, yet, as that bond cannot be dissolved, it not only continues to be maintained in outward appearance, avoiding public scandal, and the consequences of notorious ill example, but it is oftentimes returned to, and maintained with honesty and comparative inward peace, though the unsullied consciousness of purity be gone. They who consider these things will not agree that even to the licentious, the difficulty of divorce, as by law established, is a mere "nullity," or "ludicrously impotent," as the Gray's Inn gentleman says it is.

As to the third class, or conscientious but illmatched persons, it may certainly be questioned that the indissolubility of the matrimonial bond is "absurd tyranny," or that it may be fairly described as "denying redress." If a man be really conscientious, it is morally impossible that he should consider it tyranny to be obliged to keep the vow into which he has voluntarily entered. If he be disappointed, he may feel that he is unfortunate, but there is no tyranny in the case. Who complains of tyranny

when he suffers from ill health, or finds the residence disagreeable which he had deliberately chosen for the sake of enjoyment? But he wants "redress." This word is generally used to express amends or relief from wrong; but there is no wrong to complain of, unless the man complains of himself. Let it be that he wants relief-does he deserve to have it, in the form of dissolution of his matrimonial bond? That may well be doubted. What says the Church, that reviled adviser, who is yet so admirable in her wisdom? Marriage, says the Church, is not by any to be enterprised nor taken in hand unadvisedly, lightly, or wantonly, but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in the fear of God. Now, if this rule be followed, the indissolubility of the union follows in the train of consecutive reasonableness. The good of caution and discretion in contracting marriage is obvious, and it is certain that, even with the conscientious, nothing more tends to the exercise of this caution and discretion than the knowledge that the matrimonial union cannot be broken. Were there any facility for breaking it, how much more frequently would it not be undertaken "lightly or wantonly."

The really conscientious man, even if unfortunate in his married estate, will rest satisfied that the law to which he submits is not a tyranny, but a self-invited obligation; and that his just remedy lies in endeavouring to make the best

of his condition, and not in seeking to break through the restraint to which he has with righteous purpose bound himself.

So much for the three positions of our divorcepatronising philosopher. My apology for saying what I have ventured to say upon the subject is, that it so intimately concerns the utile and the pulchrum in the conduct of life and the practice of society.

REASONING AND RATIONALITY.

WHEN one was at school, and learned logic, it was taught that the "essential difference" distinguishing man from other creatures was rationality, and man was defined a "rational animal." But surely it were more nearly to hit the truth if we defined him " a reasoning animal," for all men (not being in a state of idiocy or delirium) do reason in some sort, more or less; but comparatively few are rational. Rationality is one thing, and, if it were a general quality of mankind, then all who had equal knowledge would possess the same judgment of all things; but the ways and degrees of reasoning are infinitely various, some taking one set of circumstances into account, and some another, and seldom any two persons allowing exactly the same weight to all the circumstances which they weigh and balance in their process of

reasoning. But still they all, rightly or wrongly, in some fashion or another, obtain their notions, and govern their actions by the reasoning process.

We

If man were indeed uniformly a rational animal, it might be supposed, without excessive folly or extravagance, that society should be so arranged as to act in different parts with the discipline and regularity of soldiers, to the attainment of an admitted end, namely, the general benefit of the whole. In short, if the thing to be acted upon, or made use of in a new construction of society, were uniform, a uniform system might possibly be set in action. calculate upon a great machine acting steadily, because we know that certain pieces of wood and iron, shaped in a certain way, and set in motion in a particular direction, will inevitably go on producing the same results, while the substance, the form, and the motion continue unaltered. But man is a reasoning animal, and reasoning is not uniform, and thus it is not in the nature of man that he should be moulded into the part of a regularly acting aggregate, to be called "a society."

As to those things which are left to men to determine for themselves, independently of positive instruction from a source above themselves, there must ever be a positive difference, if not opposition of opinion, amounting to different or opposite views of good and evil. "One man's

meat is another man's poison," says the proverb; and truly it does happen (and wisely no doubt it is so ordered) that in the working of society that which gives pleasure to one, gives disgust to another, and vice versa. Nor is there any

good sense or sound deduction of experience in attributing this to a want of similarity in training. This may have some effect; but the original constitution of each creature is in so far different, that no similarity of training will make any creatures, human or not, exactly alike. There may be instances now and then, such as the Siamese twins (if they can be called separate individuals), which form exceptions to the rule of uniform diversity; but this general rule has perhaps as few exceptions as any other that can be mentioned.

Mr. Hobbes, when treating of good and evil (which he does as if man had no instructor save himself), says, that "every man, for his own part, calleth that which pleaseth, and is delightful to himself, good, and that evil which displeaseth him insomuch that, while every man differeth from other in constitution, they differ also from one another concerning the common distinction of good and evil. Nor is there any such thing as absolute goodness, considered without relation; for even the goodness which we apprehend in the Almighty is his goodness to us. And as we call good and evil the things that please and displease, so call we goodness