ause they are so accustomed; who are incapable of distinguishing
between the subjective necessity imposed by habits and the objective
necessity founded in the nature of things. It is no new philosophy, but
as old as the first dawn of philosophic thought, for it is the form
towards which the materialistic mind naturally gravitates. Given a
population sufficiently educated to philosophize in any fashion, and of
necessity the bent of the majority will be in the direction of some form
of Naturalism. Hence we find that the "Agnosticism" of Professor Huxley
is eminently suited to the capacity and taste of the semi-educated
majorities in our large centres of civilization. Still it must not be
supposed that the majority really philosophizes at all even to this
extent. The pressure of life renders it morally impossible. But they
like to think that they do so. The whole temper of mind, begotten and
matured by the rationalistic school, is self-sufficient: every man his
own prophet, priest, and king; every man his own philosopher. Hence, he
who poses as a teacher of the people will not be tolerated. The theorist
must come forward with an affectation of modesty, as into the presence
of competent critics; he must only expose his wares, win for himself a
hearing, and then humbly wait for the _placet_ of the sovereign people.
But plainly this is merely a conventional homage to a theory that no
serious mind really believes in. We know well enough, that the opinions
and beliefs of the multitude are formed almost entirely by tradition,
imitation, interest, by in fact any influence rather than that of pure
reason. Taught they are, and taught they must be, however they repudiate
it. But the most successful teachers and leaders are those who contrive
to wound their sense of intellectual self-sufficiency least, and to
offer them the strong food of dogmatic assertion sugared over and
sparkling with the show of wit and reason.

Philosophy for the million may be studied profitably in one of its
popular exponents whose works have gained wide currency among the class
referred to. Mr. S. Laing is a very fair type of the average
mind-leader, owing his great success to his singular appreciation of the
kind of treatment needed to secure a favourable hearing. We do not
pretend to review Mr. Laing's writings for their own sake, but simply as
good specimens of a class which is historically rather than
philosophically interesting.

We have before us thre