a
foot; and the extent of my real possessions, theological and material,
to an article. Patriotic egoism attaches me to the one; personal egoism
satisfies me in the other; and the calm selfishness with which Nature
has blessed all her unphilosophical creatures, blinds me to the
attractions--as to the faults--of things with which I have no concern,
and saves me at once from the folly of contempt, and the discomfort of
envy. I might have written, as accurately, "The discomfort of contempt";
for indeed the forms of petulant rivalry and self-assertion which Mr.
Spencer assumes to be developments of egoism, are merely its diseases;
(taking the word "disease" in its most literal meaning). A man of sense
is more an egoist in modesty than a blockhead is in boasting; and it is
neither pride nor self-respect, but only ignorance and ill-breeding,
that either disguise the facts of life, or violate its courtesies.

134. It will not, I trust, be thought violation of courtesy to a writer
of Mr. Spencer's extending influence, if I urge on his attention the
danger under which metaphysicians are always placed of supposing that
the investigation of the processes of thought will enable them to
distinguish its forms. 'As well might the chemist, who had exhaustively
examined the conditions of vitreous fusion, imagine himself therefore
qualified to number or class the vases bent by the breath of Venice. Mr.
Spencer has determined, I believe, to the satisfaction of his readers,
in what manner thoughts and feelings are constructed; it is time for him
now to observe the results of the construction, whether native to his
own mind, or discoverable in other intellectual territories. Patriotism
is, however, perhaps the last emotion he can now conveniently study in
England, for the temper which crowns the joy of life with the sweetness
and decorum of death can scarcely be manifested clearly in a country
which is fast rendering herself one whose peace is pollution, and whose
battle, crime; within whose confines it is loathsome to live, and in
whose cause it is disgraceful to die.

135. The chief causes of her degradation were defended, with delicate
apology, in the second paper to which I have above referred; the
modification by Mr. W. R. Greg of a letter which he had addressed, on
the subject of luxurious expenditure and its economical results, to the
_Pall Mall Gazette_; and which Mr. Greg states to have given rise in
that journal to a controversy