cline? Even in the animal world there is no applicable rule
accepted by physiologists, which settles what animals are higher or
lower than others; there are controversies about it. Still more then in
the more complex combinations and politics of human beings it is likely
to be hard to find an agreed criterion for saying which nation is
before another, or what age of a nation was marching forward and which
was falling back. Archbishop Manning would have one rule of progress
and decline; Professor Huxley, in most important points, quite an
opposite rule; what one would set down as an advance, the other would
set down as a retreat. Each has a distinct end which he wishes and a
distinct calamity which he fears, but the desire of the one is pretty
near the fear of the other; books would not hold the controversy
between them. Again, in art, who is to settle what is advance and what
decline? Would Mr. Buskin agree with anyone else on this subject, would
he even agree with himself or could any common enquirer venture to say
whether he was right or wrong?

I am afraid that I must, as Sir Wm. Hamilton used to say, 'truncate a
problem which I cannot solve.' I must decline to sit in judgment on
disputed points of art, morals, or religion. But without so doing I
think there is such a thing as 'verifiable progress,' if we may say so;
that is, progress which ninety-nine hundredths or more of mankind will
admit to be such, against which there is no established or organised
opposition creed, and the objectors to which, essentially varying in
opinion themselves, and believing one thing and another the reverse,
may be safely and altogether rejected.

Let us consider in what a village of English colonists is superior to a
tribe of Australian natives who roam about them. Indisputably in one,
and that a main sense, they are superior. They can beat the Australians
in war when they like; they can take from them anything they like, and
kill any of them they choose. As a rule, in all the outlying and
uncontested districts of the world, the aboriginal native lies at the
mercy of the intruding European. 'Nor is this all. Indisputably in the
English village there are more means of happiness, a greater
accumulation of the instruments of enjoyment, than in the Australian
tribe. "The English have all manner of books, utensils, and machines
which the others do not use, value, or understand. And in addition, and
beyond particular inventions, there is a