In this way alone can be explained what is so astonishing, and yet so well known to all who have learnt life's lessons, — the fixed unchangeableness of human character. There are certain ethical writers, whose aim is the moral improvement of men, and who talk of progress made in the path of virtue; but their assurances are always met and victoriously confuted by the irrefragable facts of experience, which prove that virtue is nature's work and cannot be inculcated. The character is an original datum, immutable, and incapable of any amelioration through correction by the intellect.

Now, were this not so; and further: if (as the above-mentioned dull-headed preachers maintain) an improvement of the character, and hence “a constant advance towards the good” were possible by means of moral