Whence comes the infinity of delights for eye, ear, and understanding? Whence that abundance that even furnishes our luxury? Think of all the trees in their rich variety, the many wholesome herbs, and such diversity of foods apportioned among the seasons that even the sluggard might find sustenance from the casual bounty of earth. Whence come living creatures of every kind, some bred on solid dry land, some in water, others speeding through the air, to the end that every part of nature may yield us some tribute? Those rivers, too, that, with their pretty bends, environ the plains, or afford a passage for merchandise as they flow down their broad, navigable channel? What of the springs of medicinal waters? What of the bubbling forth of hot wells upon the very seashore?
And what of thee, O mighty Larian Lake?
And thee, Benacus, whom wild waves shake?
"Nature," remarks my critic, "gives all this." Do you not realise that in saying this you simply change the name of God? For what else is "nature" but God and Divine Reason pervading the whole universe and all its parts?
It is a question whether one who has done all in his power to return a benefit has returned it. Our opponent urges that the fact that he tried everything proves that he did not in fact succeed in returning it; and, therefore, evidently that he could not have done a thing for which he found no opportunity. But if a physician has done all in his power to effect a cure, he has performed his duty.
So your friend did all in his power to repay you a good turn, only your good fortune stood in his way. He could not give money to the wealthy, nurse one in good health, or run to your aid when all was prosperous. On the other hand, if he had forgotten a benefit received, if he had not even tried to be grateful, you would say he had not shown gratitude; but as it was, he laboured day and night, to the neglect of other claims, to let no chance of proving his thankfulness escape him.
HERBERT SPENCER
Herbert Spencer was born at Derby, in England, in 1820. He was taught by his father who was a teacher, and by his uncle, a clergyman. At the age of seventeen he became a civil engineer, but about eight years later abandoned the profession because he believed it to be overcrowded. In 1848 he was engaged on the "Economist," and five years later he began to write for the quarterly reviews. Spencer's little book on Education dates from 1861, and has probably been more widely read than all his other works put together, having been translated into almost all civilised, and several primitive languages. It is generally recognised as having effected the greatest educational reform of the nineteenth century. It was certainly the most powerful of single agents in effecting the liberation of girlhood from its unnatural trammels. It placed the whole theory of education upon a sound biological basis in the nature of the child and the natural course of its evolution as a living creature. Spencer struck a fatal blow at the morbid asceticism by proxy which adults used to practice upon their children, and so great has been the influence of his work for the amelioration of childhood that he is certainly to be counted with the philanthropic on this ground. The first chapter has no equal in literature in its splendidly sober praise of natural knowledge. The wide knowledge which Spencer's writings display of physical science, and his constant endeavor to illustrate and support his system by connecting its position with scientific facts and laws have given his philosophy great currency among men of science—more so, indeed, than among philosophical experts. Spencer died December 8, 1903.