ness toward the great, the grave, the noble, in him, whatever may be the rank assigned him on the scale of intelligence, who is affected to laughter by the sight of its juxtaposition with what is mean, ignoble, insignificant. The sense of wit-the sense of the ludicrous, is a consciousness, not of one element, but of two, and of the upper one not less than of the lower. 893. It is on this ground that we may confidently challenge humanity, with its entire circle of rights, its inherent dignity, and its recoverableness, if it has fallen, in behalf of any race that laughs. 894. If this be granted—and the more we pursue the principle into its source and its consequences, the more convinced shall we be of the validity of the claim -if this be granted as to the joyous side of humanity, a parallel claim will, with still more readiness, be allowed on the contrary side, and we shall be prompt to accord the sympathies, and the rights, and the dignity, and the redeeming qualities of humanity to any that weep. 895. Again, we must take care to distinguish that which is organic from that which is more properly emotional. The shedding of tears with sobs is the characteristic of babyhood or childhood when it is the expression of bodily pain at the moment. The weeping of the adult-woman, and it is still more so with man -is the product of emotions, whether of anger and petulance, or of grief; it may be disappointment, or wounded social affections, or loss of the loved, or loss of love itself. If laughter relate principally to the present hour or passing moment, weeping, when it is not simply organic, is retrospective chiefly. 896. Weeping, if it be of that kind which is properly termed emotional, is of two kinds, for it is prompted either by feelings that are personal and seclusive, or by such as are social and sympathetic. Not as if distinctions of this sort were entirely analytic; yet they are sufficiently accurate to be available for the purposes now in view. Grief or sorrow, the spring of which is mainly or entirely personal, implies that ruminative habit of thought which brings the individual lot the individual fortunes and history, into perspective, so as that it is contemplated from one point of view. The good and the ill of the personal history may give rise to feelings of remorse, or of resentment against those who have inflicted injuries: there may be the recollection of shipwrecked fortunes, of misused opportunities, of misjudgments, and of damage sustained by sheer fortuity. Whoever weeps in any such manner as these is the possessor of the elements of all degrees of moral culture, and he may well vindicate his claim to that treatment which is granted to be the right of the loftiest samples of human nature. 897. Weeping at the impulse of the domestic instincts or of the deeper social affections-the cementing affections gives a still higher sanction to the rights and dues of humanity. If the maternal instincts in brute natures show some approach to the warmth of human affections, they do but exhibit, by contrast, the far greater force and the enduring intensity of the latter. 898. That which among all its elements is the most human in humanity is its affections—the social affections; or, to say all in a word, LOVE. Take a look round in any circle that may be inclusive of twenty persons. Admiration, and a willingness to follow and to be taught, goes over to that one of the company who is the most conspicuous for clearness and force of Reason, or for accumulations of available knowledge. But after this homage has been rendered to a faculty or a power which is bowed to because it can and it will maintain its own prerogatives, we turn— we do it involuntarily to render a homage of far deeper meaning to the one, man or woman, in whom the social affections are pre-eminently developed. Love, when it is set as a jewel upon a healthy Reason, gives a title, which is never called in question, to the deepest reciprocative regard in all minds that come within its circle. The pre-eminence of Intellect is left to vindicate its own position in the regards of others; but the pre-eminence of Love is assented to with so much the more readiness—with an instantaneous promptitude on this very account, that it is not careful to assert itself; that it does not challenge its proper rights, and that it is not much disquieted even though they should be withheld. 899. All-or all but the foulest natures—all render a willing homage to the social affections; and so much the more readily do we all do so when the subject of them has come to be in a helpless social position. The tears that flow, either in the endurance or at the sight of an outrage done to the domestic affections, such tears burn themselves into that page whereupon all doings on earth are recorded which ETERNAL JUSTICE shall hereafter bring to a reckoning. When we say such things as these, we do not trespass further upon the ground of conjecture than this: we assume the fact that human nature is embraced by a Moral System, which is as broad as heaven itself, and which is more steadfast than suns are in their spheres, and which, at some epoch in the history of the human family, shall realize itself, with unfailing exactitude, in the destiny of every inheritor of an after-life. 900. The faculty of speech in the human organization declares the social nature of man, for it has no meaning other than that which it derives from its relation to this sociality. On the very same ground, these two organic expressions-laughter and weeping -of two classes of emotions are sure indications of that same intention which places the individual man in correspondence and communion with his fellows. Laughter and weeping are spontaneous utterances of vivid emotions, which, while they cement the social system, imply more than a bare relationship of mind to mind, for they suppose mutual dependence and obligation; they suppose homogeneous moral elements, and a consequent reciprocity of rights and duties. 901. It is not possible that we should always "laugh with them that laugh;" but whenever we feel that we can not "rejoice with them that do rejoice," undoubtedly there is something wrong, either on their part or on ours. We can not always "weep with them that weep ;" but whenever we fail to sympathize with such, undoubtedly there is something wrong, on their part or on ours. On their part the sorrow may be quite imaginary, or it may have taken its rise in some wrongful assumption. But if the grief in which we do not sympathize be real and right, then this default of sym pathy on our part must arise either from the callous condition of the social affections within us, or from the brutalizing effect of savage usages, in which we have always been accustomed to take a part, and to look upon with apathy. The consequent mischief, when it is of the first-named sort, is limited always; for the individual who has thus been born out of the course of nature, bringing into the world with him the nerve and soul of the hyæna, soon comes to be outlawed by the contempt and dread of those around him. 902. When the default of sympathy with genuine griefs, especially with those griefs that spring from the domestic instincts, arises, as we have said, from the brutalizing effect of barbarous usages in which, from childhood, we have been accustomed to take part, then, and in every such case, the "Social Institution" by which such usages are sanctioned is itself A CRIME, and it will be germinative of crimes, until a community so deeply plague-smitten becomes the nuisance of the world. XXV. SUMMARY. 903. WE have affirmed (821) that the progress and the successes of the two recent sciences-Astronomy and Geology-have served at once to exemplify and to authenticate certain logical methods, and to give us confidence in applying these methods to subjects outlying beyond the range of strict demonstration. We have said (823) that we may avail ourselves of such |