CHAPTER IX.

ON THE CULTIVATION OF HUMAN NATURE.

FOR this service to be efficient, it is obvious that men must be adequately trained for it. From time immemorial, education for some object or other has been practised by mankind. The young savage is taught to hunt, fish and shoot with persevering assiduity. Every kind of war implies discipline and drill, however rude. Political life, wherever it exists, inevitably leads to an education fitting men for the treatment of public affairs. Besides these partial ends, religion, in all societies above the lowest, is charged with the general and paramount end of training men in the worship and service of the invisible but all-powerful Being or Beings, who are supposed to dispose of human happiness in this world and the next. This has ever rightly been regarded as the most important of all training, because it concerns every one, and incomparably more momentous interests are involved

in its efficient carrying out. The cultivation of human nature, in some degree or direction, is as old as humanity.

But the partiality and imperfection of this cultivation are equally old. The daily acquisition of food occupies the whole life of the savage, almost as completely as it does the lives of the birds and animals which he snares and kills. With the growth of knowledge and wealth, wider objects engage man's attention, and exact a corresponding culture to secure their attainment. But these ends, though wider than those of savage life, are still very narrow, consisting in success, in petty warfare with neighbouring states, or in party struggles within the primitive city. Even the worship of the gods is stiffly exclusive and partial, and confined to local or tribal divinities, who are "jealous" in the extreme of any rivals in popular reverence.

This imperfection of culture has continued to modern times, though, with every stride in civilization, it has been lessened, and replaced by something better and larger. Yet, it is still obviously local, partial, and imperfect. Nowhere yet does the aim exist to produce the best human being possible; to train all the faculties of the body, the mind, and the heart, with the sole object of making the most of them. Men are still trained for special

trades and professions, for special countries, and, above all, for special religions. And, in the present low development of the human mind and civilization, it cannot be otherwise, or at least, much otherwise. But there can be no doubt that one of the most assured and practical means of improving society, is to improve the individual men and women who compose it. This is strongly but vaguely expressed in the cry for education; though one is often tempted to think that none needs education more than the popular clamourer for it. Still, a great advance has been made in the mere recognition that the cultivation of individuals, however imperfect, is a matter of primary importance to the general welfare. Deeper views on the subject will come in time.

For the purpose of this essay, we need not regard the subject from this wide and public point of view. We may limit ourselves to the consideration-ample enough of the change in the theory of human cultivation, likely to follow the substitution of the service of man for the service of God; and we will do so under the three heads-(1) the body, (2) the mind, and (3) the heart of man.

1. On the first we need not dwell long. Medical science has nearly solved the problem of health. The amount of exercise and nourishment, the kinds and

qualities of foods and drinks, the limits of work and relaxation, the salubrity of sites and dwellings and clothing, these and similar topics connected with the health of the body physical, are so fairly well understood that any one with a moderately strong constitution, amenable to good advice, may keep in satisfactory health. Many of the worst diseases have been almost disarmed, though a few, like cancer, are said to be on the increase; and there is a great set-off in the fact that the very success of medical skill and science has produced serious harm by saving numbers of weak and bad constitutions, which would formerly have perished, but which now survive to propagate an unhealthy stock; an evil which will be probably diminished or removed by stricter views of marriage and the procreation of children. The paramount importance of health for the adequate discharge of public and private duties, can escape no one. It is probable that in a reformed public opinion of the future, a breakdown in health, when obviously caused by excess or imprudence, or culpable ignorance, will be regarded as a species of bankruptcy, and severely judged. A servant of humanity has no right to be unable to perform his duties to her.

2. Neither need we dwell long on the cultivation of the mind, interesting as is the subject, and

much as there would be to say about it in another connection. The utility of knowledge is now obvious to everybody, and nearly all departments are fairly well-cultivated, some of them with splendid results. Science now is quite able to take care of itself, and we have no reason to fear that it will not be equal to the task. The great danger is specialism, which cultivates one small segment of the vast circle of knowledge, and remains contentedly ignorant of the rest. Specialism cannot be spared, if only for the reason that he who is not a specialist in some one thing, is likely to be a sciolist in all things. But, next to the sciolist, the pure specialist is, perhaps, the least efficient servant of man.

3. I now come to the third, and incomparably the most important, of all the forms of human cultivation,—the cultivation of the heart and feelings.

I have already, in a previous chapter, attempted to show that, as a support of morality, Christian doctrine and practice were inherently defective; inasmuch as that the true end of Christianity was not morality in this world, but salvation in the My object must now be to show that a cultivation of human nature on positive and human principles will have a different result; first, because of the different end, secondly, because of the different

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