e solemn verbiage of so much second-rate talking expresses it to-day,
we may quote some words of David Hume, Huxley's "prince of agnostics,"
from the _Essay on Polygamy and Divorce_. The least emotional of
philosophers--a hard-headed Scotsman--he makes short work of the
sentimentality which is invoked now-a-days against the natural law of
marriage:--

"We need not be afraid of drawing the marriage knot . . . the closest
possible. The unity between the persons, where it is solid and
sincere, will rather gain by it; and where it is wavering and uncertain
that is the best method for fixing it. How many frivolous quarrels and
disgusts are there, which people of common prudence endeavour to
forget, when they lie under the necessity of passing their lives
together; but which would soon be inflamed into the most deadly hatred,
were they pursued to the utmost under the prospect of an easy
separation! We must consider that nothing is more dangerous than to
unite two persons so closely in all their interests and concerns, as
man and wife, without rendering the union entire and total. The least
possibility of a separate interest must be the source of endless
quarrels and suspicions. The wife, not secure of her establishment,
will still be driving some separate end or project; and the husband's
selfishness, being accompanied by no power, may be still more
dangerous." Thus our conception of marriage as a nature sacrament, a
permanent contract in Nature's original intention, is abundantly
confirmed by the sceptical philosopher of the eighteenth century.
Whatever man may make of the contract, there stands the fact that that
Nature meant it to be enduring which whispered into the lover's heart
that "love should be for evermore".

It is a far cry from the abstractions of philosophy to the realisms of
French fiction, but we could not better conclude this portion of our
subject than by citing one single sentence from Balzac, in the judgment
of many the first romancer of this century, and one of the greatest
masters of the social sciences. "Nothing," he declares, "more
conclusively proves the necessity of indissoluble marriage than the
instability of passion."

But here our difficulties begin. Though it may be abundantly clear
that Nature's ideal is Hume's and Balzac's, is it not a fact that this
"high has proved too high, this heroic for earth too hard"? Is it not
true that there are murmurs and mutterings of revolt both amon