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350 T H E L E A D E R. [Saturday;
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Critics are not the legislators, but the...
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The sarcasm of HoBBEfe, that men would d...
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Now that The Corsican Brothers has becom...
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Tlie battle of the booksellers is extend...
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NEWMAN ON REGAL HOME. Beqal Borne: an In...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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350 T H E L E A D E R. [Saturday;
350 T H E L E A D E R . [ Saturday ;
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Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of l ^ beratTore - They do not make laws-Ahey interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .
The Sarcasm Of Hobbefe, That Men Would D...
The sarcasm of HoBBEfe , that men would dispute the axioms of geometry if their interests were involved ,, will help to explain the obstruction of truth on the part of those who most prominently undertake to teach it . In Science there are many ideas rejected because they do not fall in with the orthodox system of opinions j and this is peculiarly the case with Geology . The granite Book , which no one can doubt to be divinely inspired , is perpetually sliown to contradict the written Book , also said to be inspired ! But the interests involved in orthodoxy will not quietly suffer the intrusion of adverse opinions , and Geology has to fight its battle and gain ground inch by inch .
A little while ago poeans of triumph were shouted in geologic assemblies over the discovery of reptilian footprints in sandstone slabs taken from the Silurian epoch . Here was a blow to the Owens , Mubchisons , Sedgewicks , who hold the doctrine of a progressive development of life upon our globe ; and , above all , what a blow to the " Vestiges ! " It is true , then , that fishes did not exist before reptiles ! The bugbear of Development ( so contrary to Moses !) is crushed for ever j no sensible man must ever allude to it , except in contempt ! Let us hear no more of an epoch when vertebrate animals had not existence ; let us hear no more of the Silurian chronicle of the first davvnings of life upon our globe . Life never dawned— -it was always day !
This was the song of triumph , loud and lusty . Now mark that this triumph—which in some cases went to extravagant and frantic exhibitions —was all founded upon one " conjectural fact ! " No reptile had been discovered—only what " seemed to be" the footprints of a reptile Against the accumulated mass of evidence , all irresistibly pointing one way ¦—against a thousand illustrations , positive and negative—one conjecture is allowed to turn the scale , because orthodoxy passionately wishes its system to be true ! The commonest of common sense should have suggested the propriety of establishing the " fact" beyond a doubt , before employing it to overturn the facts of zoology and geology ; and when the fact itself was proven , it would have been time to see if it really affected the development hypothesis , which we deny . But orthodoxy hates development , and the footprints were accepted as evidence .
"Alas ! for the jubilants—the conjectural fact is now flung aside , even as a conjecture . Professor Owen , who last year pronounced that the footprints were most probably those of a chelonian animal ( turtle ) , not of a land species—a pronouncement which has a prominent place in the last edition of Sir Charles Lyell ' s Manual—read a paper on the 24 th of last month before the Geological Society , in which he reversed his former position , and professed his conviction that the footprints were those of animals possessing more than four feet—some eight or ten—consequently that they indicated invertebrate animals , most probably crustacean ! We extract from the report in the Athenteum : —
" The Professor proceeded to observe , that , from their peculiar arrangements , neither to a quadrupedal creature nor a fish-like animal could these imprints be assigned ; and yet , with respect to the hypothesis that each imprint was made by its independent limb , I confess to imicri difficult y in conceiving how seven or eight pairs of jointed limbs could be aggregated in so short a space of the sides of the animal ; so that I incline to adopt as the most probable hypothesis , that the creatures which have left these tracts and impressions on the most ancient of known sea-shores belonged to an articulate , and probably crustaceous , genus . With rcferenco to the conjectures that might be formed respecting the creatures that have left tliese tracts , the Professor observed , that the imagination is baffled in the attempt to realizo the extent of time passed since the period when these shores of the Silurian
croatures were in being that moved upon the sandy sea , and we know that , with the exception of the most microscopic forms , all the actual species ofliving beings disappear at a period geologically very recent in comparison with the Silurian epoch . The forms of animal' } present modification ^ - more and more strange and divorse from actual exemplars as wo descend into the depths of time past . Of this the Plesiosaur and the Ichthyosaur are instances in the reptilian class , and the Pterichthys , Coccostous , and Copbalaspis in the class of fishes If then the vertebrate type has undergone such inconceivable modifications during the secondary and Devonian periods , what may not have been the modifications of the articulate type during a period probably more remote from the secondary period than this is from the present timer
In the Dublin University Magazine for January , there is ah article containing curious evidence of the hastiness with which geologists have declared for " facts" seeming to tell against the developmental hypothesis , and to that article we particularly refer out readers . Apropos of Magazines , we must content ourselves with a summary indication pf those we have seen this month , for they arc almost old by this time . Eraser is very entertaining—when is it not ? , No one will turn over its pages without reading the , " Naturalist in Jamaica , " and let" no one miss
the paper on " Preserved Meats , " as curious as it is lively ; wo suppose there are persons to be found who will read the » Horse Dramatics" with interest , though what ideas they must have of tl » c % lreek drama if they owe them to auch articles ! " Digby Grand" continues his revelations , and "Hyjmtia" ( with a fine translation from Homer ) is still the failure of a remarkable writer . Ta . it comes out under a now editor , and promises to be liberal in a more than parliamentary sense . The noticeable feature of this Magazine under its new management is to bo maintenance of social
and religious liberty in addition to those of civil and political freedom The " Prison Scene during the Reign of Terror" is remarkable for anonvmously contradicting many well ascertained facts of Thomas Paine ' a life whil " in the Palais du Luxembourg . In the Jbwma / o / Psychological Medicine On hundred and eighty closely printed pages are devoted to a complete report of the celebrated case of Mrs . Gumming , lately filling our newspaper columns ; there is consequently little space set apart for contributions—^ and
that little not well "filled . The " Psychology of Epochs" is one of those ambitious failures which sonorous titles seduce men into who fancy theniselves profound when they are vague . The British Journal continues to improve : there is both vivacity and variety in this number , the only objection to which is its resemblance to other Magazines . Tlie Biographical Magazine gives us memoirs of Hartley Coleridge , Harriet Martineau , Margaret Fuller Armand Marrast , and Pye Smith . The Illustrated Exhibitor is profuse in wood-cuts—a marvel of cheapness .
Now That The Corsican Brothers Has Becom...
Now that The Corsican Brothers has become a topic of conversation , it may interest our readers to know the origin of it . The story is founded on the mysterious sympathy of two brothers , who , even when separated by hundreds of miles , are simultaneously affected by great occurrences ; if one is ill , the other is ill ; if one is stabbed , the other feels a pang . This Corsican superstition was singularly illustrated in the persons of Louis Blanc and his brother . Louis Bl ^ nc ( who , it will be remembered , is Corsican , ) was one night stabbed as he entered his lodgings in Paris , "At precisely the same hour , " so runs the narrative we had from Louis Blanc himself , " my brother , then in Rhodez , felt a sudden pang , which alarmed him on my ' account ; he insisted on setting off at once for Paris , and was with difficulty persuaded to send a letter instead . The letter came , and
the answer told him his fears had been too well grounded . " This story was naturally enough the talk of all Paris , and Dumas , like a " whipper-up of unconsidered trifles , " turned it into a novel , and thence into a drame .
Tlie Battle Of The Booksellers Is Extend...
Tlie battle of the booksellers is extending . The article -in the Westminster Review , on " The Commerce of Literature" ( written , we believe , by Mr . Chapman ) , opened the campaign , and gave encouragement to the rebels who clamour for free-trade . As we hinted last week , our sympathies are with them . Their" arguments seem to us imanswerable . The Times , top , is helping them , and the Atheneeum is about to pronounce in their favour . The protectionist chiefs , weakened some time since by the desertion of Mr . Bentley , and this week ljiy that of Mr . John W . Parker , appeal to authors for aid , and rety v we have heardj upon a conference to be held next Wednesday , between themselves and Lord Granville , Lord Campbell , Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton , Mr . Grote , and Dr . Milraan . They have also resuscitated Dr . Johnson for the occasion , and use his defence of the
bookselling system in 1776 , as a shield against the attacks of to-day . Being unable to adduce reasons for maintaining the high prices of books , they rely on authority to support them . From all this we infer that the literary protectionists are playing the losing game . Indeed we shall marvel if such men as Lord Granville , Lord Campbell , and Mr . Grote should abet their side ; but even if they do , they will only prolong a struggle which ultimately can have but an issue fatal to those who stand or fall by a policy which restricts production . The whole question , as between authors , publishers , and booksellers , cannot be too searchingly ventilated .
Newman On Regal Home. Beqal Borne: An In...
NEWMAN ON REGAL HOME . Beqal Borne : an Introduction to Roman History . By Francis W . Newman , Professor of Latin in the London University . Taylor , Walton , and Maberly . Theke are two classes of students to whom this little volume will be especially acceptable : to those who have bewildered themselves over the vexatious pages of Niebuhr , without being able to gain any clear conception of the vast critical results attained by that great scholar but inartistic expositor ; and to those who never having ventured into the labyrinth ot conjectural criticism , sagacious insight , and immense erudition of the lirsc volume of Boman History , do yet wish to commence their study of the subiect Avith some definite ideas on the results of modern investigation .
As a corrective of Niebuhr , or as an introduction to Niebuhr , J . rolossoi Nowman ' s volume deserves a wide popularity , which the clearness or its exposition , the solidity of its tissue , and the amallness of its bulk , will , . m all probability , secure for it . In ono hundred and seventy pages ww whole subject is set forth . Those , and they are many , who , into Callimachus , dislike big books , " will rejoice in the skill which hero knows how to elucidate recondite inquiries without parade of learning , witlio erratic disquisition , and without otiose superfluities ; so that they may n only expend less time in mastering the story of early Ilomo , but gam far clearer conception of it in that shorter time . .. . , . Professor Newman , without concealing his differences from JMeDum views , such as his own investigation and the labours of . modern cruhave led him to entertain , does in general follow Niobuhv , . }\ cltt Yrrl - . ™ sv »« Awnmnlihr fit on fliiif r > f Tin . vinir '« mniV wif . ll Jl . frftsll mind tO Old U
cussions . Wo clo not always imd ourselves agreeing with him , du always find him thinking " freshly , " and to the purpose . Ho dividesi n little book into threo parts : the first treating o { Alban Borno , the boc « of Sabino Home , and the third of Etrueco-Latin Home . ' 1 ho colum f ^ J . a newspaper are not suited to the discussion of rainuto points , ana i ^ strong recommendation of the work to all whom it may concern ^ ™ j select for that mysterious individual known to reviowors as Wie y ^ reader , " a passage or two which will intoroet him . Is not this passage symbolical of many croeds P— Afc " The Latins , liko ottior Italian nations , wore profound believers in ™ f ™*'\ t a much later timo the movements of their urmios , raid thoir acceptance or « b
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 10, 1852, page 18, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10041852/page/18/
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