it a glorious thing, however slender my capacities, that I have the gift of a human soul? Not only is it that the grandeurs and harmonies of nature are disposed for the delight and exaltation of all, not only that "The sun is fix'd, And the infinite magnificence of Heaven from which sublime truth a metaphysical as well as a poetical argument for essential human brotherhood might perhaps be drawn: the very fact that the human eye has been opened, as no other being's on earth has been, to see the face of the one God, seems a sufficient proof that there remains for man, from every power on earth, an ultimate appeal. The destinies of men are bounded, not by time, but by eternity; the human soul is a denizen, not alone of earth, but of the universe: "God's image, sister of the seraphim," if indeed the seraphim can claim a glory equal to that of the soul of man, will always assert a claim to the citizenship of Heaven, and a power of appeal to the judgment of God. The right by which any earthly power can judge and punish man must be delegated. By turning thus for a moment upon man the light of eternity, we find pertaining to him an essential equality; we think, too, we here discover the source of that inextinguishable and resistless passion for freedom which has ever distinguished him in time. Neither is it merely a theological dogma that the human race is in a state of imperfection, and of effort toward some higher condition. It is a historical fact. Call it what you will, account for it as you may, the human race, in its history in time, has been marked by one grand characteristic, unique in this world. That characteristic is a visible effort toward some development—a progress, or aim at progress. Our species has not the aspect of one who has finished his journey, but of one still proceeding in it; not of one who has cultivated his field, and can sit down to enjoy it, but of one who still sees it untilled and encumbered with rocks; humanity has always shown a brow darkened with care and dissatisfaction, an eye fixed on the distance, a staff in the hand. We need not ask whither it is bound; but, beyond question, it has ever been going; never could it lay itself down to sleep; never could it build itself an eternal city; ever its most heroic aspect has been displayed when it aroused itself, and set out anew on its march. But the deepest thinkers have recognised that, along with this characteristic of progress, the human species is distinguished by that also of a remarkable and preeminent unity. You cannot individualise man so far as to separate him from his species; in the wolf-child of India, in the maniac of solitary confinement, you see what man is when separated from man. In the unity of the species, or its irresistible tendency toward unity, originated society. Society arrogated to itself a power which no individual man can claim, the power to touch the human life; this power, we believe, was conferred on it by God, and the form in which he revealed to man that it belonged to him was, the necessity, stern and painful indeed, by which he was driven to exercise it. The perfect development of human unity, the attainment of all that man can do or become in a civil capacity, is the aim of civilization. The machinery of human civilization is vast and various; one of its principal parts is-law. Where, then, precisely are we to look for the origin of law? Surely to the relation between the two entities-the individual, and the society. And if we can find any reason why the society should originate law, we shall probably have discovered that of which we are in quest. We have not far to look; we find it by a glance at individual passion. At what time law commenced we inquire not-whether its origin was in any respect supernatural or not, is of no moment at present; but certainly it was when human passions were seen tearing the weak and defenseless, when individual greed, individual lust, individual hate, and, most cruel and perilous of all, individual revenge, ranged like beasts of the forest amid a flock, that Law unbared her "beautiful bold brow," and bade them all cower beneath the eye of reason. Human law arose from no human passion, but from the necessity discerned by men, if they were to abide longer in this world, to have some voice above human passion, with power to control it. That mighty instinct in the human heart which has ever spurned control by an individual brother, required absolutely to be commanded by a power not individual, which could dare to compel submission. In the very idea of law we find the restraint of the individual: the very object of law is the counteraction of passion; if any two ideas are precisely antithetic, they are these two, law and passion. Let us, leaving the others, look for a moment at this particular passion of revenge. We put these questions regarding it,— When was it ever felt, save for personal wrongs, to such an extent that it could supply the place of an independent, disinterested voice? When was it felt for sin, either against God or man, with half the intensity with which it has burned for the most insignificant personal injury? When was its power ever permitted to remain comparatively unchecked without producing effects of excess which were the mockery of justice? Revenge was in the eye of Cain when he struck down Abel; revenge was the Themis of the deadly feud demanding the unintermittent stream of blood from generation to generation for the accident or the mistake; but when revenge ever spoke, save perhaps in the convulsions and spasms of national life, with the voice of reason, we know not. Of all the passions upon which Law cast her quelling eye, blind, selfish, murderous revenge was perhaps the most turbulent and unreasonable. We are led to this conclusion:-That man, feeling in his bosom a freedom which, like the very breath of the Almighty, seemed part of his essential existence, yet saw himself so encumbered by manifold imperfections, so preyed upon by individual passions, that, in his progress onward, he was compelled, unconsciously or by a voice from heaven, to originate the thing society, and to establish a power which, personating the community, should visit with punishment crimes committed against it: this last power was law. We have said that it had its root in expediency; but the sense in which this holds good is important. It was expedient with reference to eternity: as mankind navigated the stream of time, a fatal mutiny broke out, and the expedient of law became necessary to make existence possible; in a perfect state of humanity it were impossible; it will vanish when society vanishes, in the restored state of man. But it may, nevertheless, appeal to eternal laws; nay, it may be specially said to rise over the clamor of individual and temporal interests, and endeavor to catch the eternal accents of justice; its commission is temporal, its code may be eternal. Law is the antithesis of individualism. But, if we did seek its analogue in the individual mind, we should not look for it in revenge: we should find it in the serene pause of reason, when all noises from without are excluded, and the raving passions are stilled within, and the soul asks counsel of pure truth and perfect justice. Does not the universal opinion of mankind, in its unconscious expression, during all ages, support us in our view of law? If not, whence is it that Justice has ever been figured as of calm, passionless countenance; no cloud of revenge, no gleam of pity on her brow, and holding in her hand the wellpoised balance? Law does not regard man as such; it regards them as retarding forces which hinder men in their march through time, and, as such, visits them with punishment. Hatred, love, revenge, pity, every emotion which has reference to the living, sentient being, is foreign to that iron brow; there must be no quivering in the hand which holds that even balance. The foregoing proof was necessary to enable us to exhibit the soundness of philanthropy, as brought forward into more prominent operation among the agencies of human civilization, than it had hitherto been, by John Howard. Look again at that calm image of Justice, lifting her serene brow into the still azure. We think that, with strict philosophic truth, a poetic eye, regarding that figure in time, may have seen that it has ever been accompanied by two other figures. On the one hand was Revenge, with instruments of torture, and an eye where blended the fury of hell and the hunger of the grave. She has ever called for more victims and more pain. That she has not cried in vain, let the groans that have come from earth's racks and wheels, earth's crosses and furnaces, bear sad witness. On the other hand was Love, pleading ever against Revenge, and endeavoring to draw an |