the human mind by which it has been led to scorn the field of its proper action, and spend itself in regions of futile and impossible inquiry, than Lord Bacon. He said "The real cause and root of all the evils in science is this, that, falsely magnifying and exalting the powers of the mind, we seek not its true helps." And, again, "Man, the servant and interpreter of Nature, can only understand and act in proportion as he observes and contemplates the order of Nature; more he can neither know nor do." Locke also perceived the limitation of the human faculties that there are things beyond it, to which access is forbidden and to those who regarded this as a derogation from man's dignity he replied, "We shall not have much reason to complain of the narrowness of our minds, if we will but employ them about what may be of use to us, for of that they are very capable; and it will be an unpardonable as well as a childish peevishness if we undervalue the advantages of our knowledge and neglect to improve it to the ends for which it was given because there are some things set out of reach of it.”

The doctrine thus explicitly enunciated in a general form centuries ago has been proclaimed by recent thinkers as an inevitable result of the analysis of the human mind. Sir William Hamilton maintains it as a fundamental tenet of his philosophy. He says, "To think is to condition, and conditional limitation is the fundamental law of the possibility of thought. The mind can conceive, and consequently can know only the limited. can not transcend that sphere of limitation within and through which, exclusively, the possibility of thought is realized.

It

We admit that the consequence of this doctrine is, that philosophy, if viewed as more than the science of the conditioned, is impossible."

Dr. Mansel, Dean of St. Paul's, in his "Limits of Religious Thought," says, "The very conception of consciousness, in whatever mode it may be manifested, necessarily implies distinction between one object and another. To be conscious, we must be conscious of something; and that something can only be known as that which it is by being distinguished from that which it is not. But distinction is necessarily limitation; for, if one object is to be distinguished from another, it must possess some form of existence

which the other has not, or it must not possess some form which the other has." When we attempt in thought to transcend the finite, the result arrived at, according to Dr. Mansel, is, not truth or knowledge, but constant confusion and contradiction. "The conception of the absolute and infinite, from whatever side we view it, appears encompassed with contradictions. There is a contradiction in supposing such an object to exist, whether alone or in conjunction with others; and there is a contradiction in supposing it not to exist. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as one, and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as many. There is a contradiction in conceiving it as personal, and there is a contradiction in conceiving it as impersonal. It can not, without contradiction, be represented as active, nor, without equal contradiction, be represented as inactive. It can not be conceived as the sum of all existence, nor yet can it be conceived as a part only of that sum."

Nor is this doctrine to be regarded as a mere speculation of a few erratic thinkers. Sir William Hamilton, whose acquaintance with the history of philosophic opinion has been excelled by no man in modern times, says, "With the exception of a few late absolutist theorizers in Germany, this is, perhaps, the truth of all others most harmoniously reëchoed by every philosopher of every school." And among these he names Protagoras, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Boethius, Averroes, Albertus, Magnus, Gerson, Leo Hebræus, Melancthon, Scaliger, Francis Piccolomini, Giordano Bruno, Campanella, Bacon, Spinoza, Newton, Kant.

It would be sufficient to rest the case here, for Mr. Spencer may be well content with his company; and if it were stated with whom the opprobrium of this obnoxious charge is to be shared, there would be no complaint; but this is by no means the whole case. Even if the doctrine of the relativity of knowledge, as held by Hamilton and Mansel, and taught from their text-books in half the colleges of the country, be an atheistic doctrine, it is not, as thus expounded, the belief of Mr. Spencer. As maintained by him, the principle is rescued from any such possible interpretation. Hamilton and Mansel hold that, beyond the relative, the human mind can find nothing. Their logic brings them to absolute negation. Mr. Spencer insists

that this is a totally erroneous view-the result of incomplete analysis-and that the deepest implication of the law of relativity necessitates a reverse conclusion; or, that The Unknowable is not a negation, but an absolute reality.

We can not give his acute and masterly reasoning on this important point, but will state his conclusion: "Every one of the arguments by which the relativity of our knowledge is demonstrated distinctly postulates the positive existence of something beyond the relative. To say that we can not know the absolute is, by implication, to affirm that there is an absolute. In the very denial of our power to learn what the absolute is, there lies hidden the assumption that it is; and the making of this assumption proves that the absolute has been present to the mind, not as a nothing, but as a something. It is rigorously impossible to conceive that our knowledge is a knowledge of appearances only, without at the same time conceiving of a reality of which they are appearances; for appearance without reality is At the same time that by the laws of thought we are rigorously prevented from forming a conception of absolute existence, we are by the laws of thought equally prevented from ridding ourselves of the consciousness of absolute existence."

unthinkable.

It is true, Mr. Spencer holds, that the Infinite Power of which all things are the manifestations, as it transcends the knowable, can never be known; but are not Scripture and theology full of the same. doctrine? The phrases, "Can man, by searching, find out God ?" "A God understood would be no God at all;" "To think that God is, as we think Him to be, is blasphemy," are attestations of the common belief that we can not know the Infinite Cause. For ages it has been customary to apply to the Supreme Being the terms, Incomprehensible, Mysterious, Inscrutable, Unsearchable, until these terms have come to be actually employed as substantive titles of the Divine Being. What does this imply but that the Divine Nature can not be known? Moreover, this view has prevailed increasingly in the ratio of man's increasing intelligence. In his lowest state, the god he worships may be a visible object; as he grows more intelligent, the conception of divinity becomes more abstract and spiritualized, until at last

it passes all understanding. If, therefore, Mr. Spencer, rising to grander conceptions of the knowable universe than perhaps any other man has ever attained, is overwhelmed with the impossibility of forming any conception of its Infinite Cause, and chooses to mark his own sense of limitation and humility by designating the Supreme Power as The Unknowable, who shall assume to construe such a course as a denial of the Divine Being?

It is a profound mistake to suppose that Mr. Spencer's philosophy is a system of negation or denial; on the contrary, it is eminently a constructive and synthetic system. He is no iconoclast bent upon the demolition of men's cherished and sacred convictions; he cordially recognizes the soul of truth in these convictions, and builds upon it. So far from seeking to strike away the Supreme Object of religious faith, or to cast discredit upon the religious principle, he affirms the validity of both in the most unqualified and impressive manner. So far from regarding the religious feeling in man as baseless, transient, or unreal, he holds it to be an essential and indestructible element of human nature.

Mr. Spencer is as catholic in his sympathies as he is wide and clear in his perceptions, and, while his system takes no account of the dogmas of sects, at the very outset it affirms religion for humanity. And here again the world is probably destined to a complete reversal of one of its ancient and cherished beliefs. Hitherto religion has been held to consist in adherence to the ever-changing creeds by which faiths and sects have been separated, while but little value has been assigned to that which is common and essential to all; but with increasing enlightenment dogmatic differences will slowly disappear, and that which was at first unrecognized will at length become supreme. This tendency is already strongly marked among the better-instructed classes of society, and Mr. Spencer but gives it a final and permanent expression. It is the eminent claim of his system that it opens the way to a resolution and adjustment of the old and rankling antagonisms of belief. Searching for the deeper concords of truth, and habitually regarding man in all the elements of his unfolding, more than any other system that has ever appeared it is the philosophy of harmony and reconciliation.

E. L. YOUMANS.

"DIED, in Southampton Row, Bloomsbury, Mrs. Gregg, a single lady, between fifty and sixty years of age, remarkable for her benevolence to cats, no fewer than eighty being entertained under her hospitable roof at the same time Her

maids being frequently tired of their attendance on such a numerous household, she was reduced at last to take a black woman to attend upon and feed them." She left this sable attendant an annuity, conditional on the due care and sustenance of the cats.

So said Sylvanus Urban, eighty years ago. And there have been other cases nearly similar: such as that of a gentleman at Hackney, who earned for himself the soubriquet of Cat Norris, on account of the numerous cats which he cherished. Grimalkin once now and then attracts a spurt of popular attention; and it is perhaps right that it should be so, for he appears to have had a good many hard rubs to bear. If Cattle Shows, Horse Shows, Pigeon Shows, Poultry Shows, Bird Shows, and Dog Shows-even Baby Shows and Barmaid Shows-why not Cat Shows? If people persist in doubting whether there has ever been such a being as a tortoiseshell tom cat, why should not others try to answer the question in the affirmative? If Persian cats are shorter in the back and longer in the legs than others, why should we not know it? Did a cat ever live twenty-six months without drink? and has a cat ever been known to exceed thirty years of age? and was there not a remarkable police-court case lately, touching the personal identity of a white Persian cat? If we like such subjects, have we not a right

to discuss them ?

The tortoiseshell problem is one of the toughest relating to cats. Every one admits that the combination of red and yellow in the male animal, if observable at all, is very rare; and the rarity gives rise to a high commercial value-just as in the case of old pictures, old china, and uniques of various kinds. Some breeders have found that, cross how they might, they can never produce this phenomenon; if tom then a few black or white hairs mixed with the yellow and red; if no black or white, then tom's sister, perhaps, but not tom.

Some persons have suspected, and even asserted that nitrate of silver is occasionally used to sophisticate the color of tom's coat. There was once a tortoiseshell cat named Dick; but the animal lost both name and fame on becoming the mother of a litter of kittens. The Times newspaper has not been without its allusions to this subject. In one issue there was an announcement: "A handsome Tortoiseshell Tom Cat to be disposed of on reasonable terms." In another: "To be sold, a real Tortoiseshell Tom Cat, fifteen months old, and eight pounds weight;" and diligent readers of the paper could doubtless find other examples. About sixty years ago there was one of these rarities sold by auction in London, and fetched such an enormous price as to become quite a public topic. Mr. Bannister, the comedian, made fun about it in an entertainment called the " Budget," while song-books and broadsheets reveled in the song of "The Tortoiseshell Tom Cat," or (in another form) "Tommy Tortoiseshell." The song puts the Cat into a Catalogue issued by Mr. Cats-eye of Cateaton Street; and brings in the syllable cat in plentiful abundance. Men, as well as women, it seems, helped to run up the biddings to more than two hundred guin

tails; but are there any cats wholly without such appendages? There are, unquestionably, cats in the Isle of Man thus bereft; and hence the saying, that "Manx cats are tailless;" but whether a cat once lost her tail by accident, and thus established a new breed, or whether (as has been rumored) crafty and cruel rogues sometimes curtail poor puss, in order to obtain a high price for a so-called Manx cat, are matters open for discussion.

According to Pennant, King Howel laid down a good stiff value for cats in Wales nine hundred years ago: "The price of a kitling before it could see was to be a penny; till it caught a mouse twopence;" provided the little one passed a good examination by certain tests. "If any one stole or killed the cat that guarded the prince's granary, he was to forfeit a milch ewe, its fleece, and lamb; or as much wheat as when poured on the cat, suspended by its tail, (the head touching the floor,) would form a heap high enough to cover the tip of the tail."

Pussy has unquestionably been a favorite with many persons. Witness Mrs. Gregg and Cat Norris; and witness Richard Robert Jones, an eccentric who died in 1826, and who kept copies of all the pictures and all the verses he could meet with about cats. One of Gray's lighter minor poems, his "Ode on the Death of a Favorite Cat," gives a pleasant picture of a well-fed and well-treated puss:

"Her conscious tail her joy declared;
The fair round face, the snowy beard,
The velvet of her paws,

Her coat that with the tortoise vies,
Her ears of jet and emerald eyes,

She saw-and purr'd applause." She was looking at her own reflected image in a stream; she saw two fish swim by, and dipped down her paw to catch them; but overtoppled, fell into the water, and was drowned.

On the other hand, some persons have a great antipathy to cats. Such is said to have been the case with Napoleon. A story is told that, after his brilliant victory at Wagram, and while temporarily sojourn ing at the humbled Emperor of Austria's palace at Schönbrunn, he one night called out hastily in his bedroom for assistance. An equerry or aide-de-camp entered, and found his potent master half-undressed, agitated, perspiring, and dealing intended blows at something or other. In truth, a

cat had secreted herself behind some tapestry hangings in the room, and Napoleon was making desperate lunges at her through the hangings, almost as much in terror as puss herself.

But the modes of making use of a cat as a symbol, metaphor, representative, or type, are much more varied than the actual show either of fondness or aversion; although, it must be confessed, puss is seldom complimented on these occasions. As to the signs of taverns, such as the "Salutation and Cat," " Cat and Bagpipes," and "Cat and Fiddle," much conjecture has been hazarded concerning their origin, but without any very definite result. Some of the learned say that "Cat and Fiddle" comes from "Catan Fidéle "-faithful Catherine; but this leaves unexplained our old familiar,

"Hey diddle diddle,

The cat and the fiddle," etc.

Not less difficult is it to trace the origin of certain old saws and sayings-such as this, that if you butter a cat's feet she will become domesticated in your house; or this, that if a cat sneezes or coughs, every person in the house will soon catch cold. Then, what is the meaning of "Cat's Cradle," that wonderful see-saw of thread or string in which children delight, and which they often call "Scratch Cradle ?" Some think that it ought to be "Cratch Cradle," cratch being still a name for the hay-rack over the manger in a stable; and that it was associated, in medieval times, with some rude semblance to the Holy Manger; if so cats have evidently nothing to do with the matter. The old saying that "Cats suck the breath of infants, and so kill them," is sometimes attended with discomfort to puss, who is hurried away from the soft surroundings of baby, lest she should verify the proverb. Why is a particular game called Cat? No one knows. It has something of cricket, something of trap-ball, but is neither; what we know is, that the little bit of wood called the Cat is troublesome to passers-by. The term Gibcat, once applied to tom, is supposed to have come from Sibert, familiar for Gilbert; but this does not help us much, for it leaves unexplained why a tom cat should be called Gilbert. Then there is the simile, or standard of comparison, known as the Kilkenny cats, implying mutual destruction, the story being that two cats be

longing to that locality fought so long and so fiercely that nothing was left but a bit of one tail. A Kilkenny man, within the last few years, has expressed an opinion that the saying had an origin which had nothing to do with cats. Many generations there were two distinct municiago, pal or corporate bodies in that city, called respectively Kilkenny and Irishtown; the boundaries of their jurisdictions had never been marked out or clearly defined; they were at litigation on the subject for nearly three hundred years, until both were nearly ruined by law expenses.

Nobody knows why a particular kind of whistle is named a cat-call. Addison, in his humorous and sarcastic essay on this subject, in the Spectator, contrives to glide from cat-calls to cats. "A fellow of the Royal Society, who is my good friend, and a great proficient in the mathematical part of music, concludes, from the simplicity of its make, and the uniformity of its sound, that the cat-call is older than any of the inventions of Jubal. He observes, very well, that musical instruments took their first rise from the notes of birds and other melodious animals. "And what," says he, "more natural than for the first ages of mankind to imitate the voice of a cat, that lived under the same roof with them? He added, that the cat has contributed more to harmony than any other animal; as we are not only beholden to her for this wind instrument, but for our string music in general."

Art-connoisseurs are acquainted with a picture by Breughel called the "Cats' Concert," in which about a dozen cats are assembled before an open music-book; the music, as is denoted by a small sketch, is a song about mice and cats; most of the cats are singing, with humorously varied expressions of countenance; one is blowing a horn or trumpet, one wears spectacles, and two or three are beating time with a front paw. Something approaching to this was actually attempted at one time at Paris; a Cat Concert, or "Concert Miaulant," was got up, in which several cats were placed in a row, with a monkey as conductor; when he beat time they mewed, the drollery depending chiefly on the different tones and qualities of the cats' voices. Whether it is the voice, or the manner, there is something that has tempted the more spiteful class of satirists to liken women to cats. For instance, Hud

66

desford, who, in the early part of the present century, wrote a Monody on the Death of Dick, an Academical Cat," launches out into this diatribe against various kinds of women:

"Calumnious cats, who circulate faux pas,
And reputations maul with murd'rous claws;
Shrill cats, whom fierce domestic brawls delight;
Cross cats, who nothing want but teeth to bite;
Starch cats, of puritanic aspect sad;
And learned cats, who talk their husbands mad;

Confounded cats, who cough, and crow, and cry;
And maudlin cats, who drink eternally;
Fastidious cats, who pine for costly cates;
And jealous cats, who catechise their mates;
Cat-prudes, who, when they're asked the question,

squall,

And ne'er give answer categorical;
Uncleanly cats, who never pare their nails;
Cat grandames, vexed with asthmas and catarrhs ;
Cat gossips, full of Canterbury tales ;
And superstitious cats, who curse their stars!"

A more pleasant bit of fun, with which Thomas Hood enriched his "Comic Annual," is a letter supposed to be written by one Thomas Frost to the Secretary of the Horticultural Society, revealing a most unexpected value of dead cats in gardening. "I partickly wish the Satiety to be called to consider the Case what follows, as I think might be maid Transaxtionable in the nex Reports. My Wyf had a Tomb Cat that dyd. Being a torture Shell, and a Grate faverit, we had him berried in the Guardian, and for the sake of inrichment of the Mould I had the Carks deposited under the roots of a Gozberry Bush. The Frute being up to then of the Smooth Kind. But the next Seson's Frute after the Cat was berried, the Gozberries was all hairy-and more Remarkable the Catpilers of the same Bush was All of the same hairy discription."

The instinct of the cat has not escaped the attention of naturalists. Every one agrees that the dog is far more intelligent, faithful, unselfish-attached to his master by something more than mere cupboard love. Still there are occasional instances of puss coming forward as a thinking being, laying plans, and adapting means to ends. As to cats suckling the young of other species of animals, this may possibly arise from some kind of maternal yearning, not simply such as we might call kindness of motive. At Guilford, some years ago, a boy brought indoors a couple of blind young rabbits; the father, rather brutally, gave them to a cat, under the supposition that she would summarily treat them as rats;