has aided human progress being withdrawn, we should be
reduced to hope that in this case the maxim _cessante causa cessat ipse
effectus_ might through some incalculable accident fail to apply.

It is true that Mr. Spencer tries to erect a safeguard against such moral
disruption, by asserting that for every immoral act, word, or thought, each
man during this life receives minute and exact retribution, and that thus a
regard for individual self-interest will effectually prevent any moral
catastrophe. But by what means will he enforce the acceptance of a dogma
which is not only incapable of proof, but is opposed to the commonly
received opinion of mankind in all ages? Ancient literature, sacred and
profane, teems with protests against the successful evil-doer, and
certainly, as Mr. Hutton observes,[217] "Honesty must have been associated
by our ancestors with many unhappy as well as many happy consequences, and
we know that in ancient Greece dishonesty was openly and actually
associated with happy consequences.... When the concentrated experience of
previous generations was held, _not_ indeed to justify, but to excuse by
utilitarian considerations, craft, dissimulation, sensuality, selfishness."

This dogma is opposed to the moral consciousness of many as to the events
of their own lives; and the Author, for one, believes that it is absolutely
contrary to fact.

History affords multitudes of instances, but an example may be selected
from one of the most critical periods of modern times. Let it be {206}
granted that Lewis the Sixteenth of France and his queen had all the
defects attributed to them by the most hostile of serious historians; let
all the excuses possible be made for his predecessor, Lewis the Fifteenth,
and also for Madame de Pompadour, can it be pretended that there are
grounds for affirming that the vices of the two former so far exceeded
those of the latter, that their respective fates were plainly and evidently
just? that while the two former died in their beds, after a life of the
most extreme luxury, the others merited to stand forth through coming time
as examples of the most appalling and calamitous tragedy?

This theme, however, is too foreign to the immediate matter in hand to be
further pursued, tempting as it is. But a passing protest against a
superstitious and deluding dogma may stand,--a dogma which may, like any
other dogma, be vehemently asserted and maintained, but which is remarkable