On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (5)
-
Max 1% I8S*} _ TBLIE LEADER, 447
-
ITffwnftTPtf ^IWrtUIUlw
-
1 ? Critics are not the legislators, but...
-
^ F^ , Wb have to record this week the d...
-
One of tho strangest of vexed questions ...
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.
-
-
Transcript
-
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Max 1% I8s*} _ Tblie Leader, 447
Max 1 % I 8 S *} _ TBLIE LEADER , 447
Itffwnfttptf ^Iwrtuiulw
Wkttim .
1 ? Critics Are Not The Legislators, But...
1 ? Critics are not the legislators , but the judges ana police of literature . Tkey & o ^ ° t % ake laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review . .
^ F^ , Wb Have To Record This Week The D...
^ F ^ , Wb have to record this week the death of a man who , in the purely intellectual order of greatness , has hardly left his exact parallel in Britain , or even in Europe—Sir William Hamilton , Bart ., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in the University of Edinburgh . Born in Glasgow about the year 1790 , and educated first in Scotland , and afterwards at Oxford , Sir Wiixiam , who derived his baronetcy , with little or nothing in the shape of
hereditary property attached to it , from ancestors of some distinction in Scottish history during the Covenanting times , adopted the Scottish Bar as his profession . He was called to the Bar in 1813 . Already at that time he had an extraordinary reputation among those who knew him , as a man of erudition and of speculative research . Younger men then living in Edinburgh as students , used to look up with veneration , as they passed his house at night , to the lighted window of the room where they knew him to be busy with his books . His readings were of a kind at which ordinary men stand aghast—Aristotle and Plato ; the Schoolmen of the middle ages ; all German , all Italian , all Frencb , all English , all Scottish philosophers . He was preparing himself to be a new name and a new influence in purely
speculative philosophy—a man who , resuming in himself all that his predecessors in the series of Scottish metaphysicians had done , and bringing to the work of philosophy a culture , an acquaintance with universal literature , such as none of them had possessed , and perhaps also greater energy of nature , should again , in a utilitarian age , reinstate the old problems which Abistotle and Plato and the Schoolmen meditated , and call on the intellect of modern Britain to refresh itself by entertaining them , even if their solution was impossible . At length he obtained a position suitable to his genius and tastes . After holding for some time the chair of Universal History in the University of Edinburgh , he was appointed , in 1836 , to the chair of Logic and Metaphysics in the same University . For twenty years , in this position ,
he was an intellectual power , influencing sixty or eighty youths annuallyteaching them a Logic , compared with which that of Wblatjelt is child ' s play , and a Metaphysics as hard and profound as that of Kant and his Germans , and yet clear-grained , genuine , and British . The admiration he excited among the students competent to follow him was unbounded , and none left his class without bearing his intellectual mark . It was always regretted by his admirers that his own insatiable passion for reading prevented him from putting forth works which would have conveyed to the world at large an adequate impression of Lis powers as a thinker . Even now what he has left behind him is but a fragment of what he might have done . About the year 1829 he hegan to contribute to the Edinburgh Review ; and the papers on speculative topics which he
contributed to that periodical were , for some time , his sole literary manifestation s of any importance . Scattered as they were , and fragmentary as they were , their influence on contemporary and subsequent thought was great ; they were reprinted in France , as recognitions of a new Philosophy ; aud in Oxford they helped to determine rising minds to new and more profound forms of logical and metaphysical studies . Some years ago , Sir Wiixiam put forth an edition of Reid ' s Avorks , with notes and dissertations , in which he expounded , by way of supplement to Reid , some of the cardinal notions of his own more advanced mental science . The book is one of the most amorphous ever issued from the British press : it is very thick , it is printed in double columns in small type , and , what is worse , it is not finished , but ends abruptly in tho middle of a sentence . And yet it is a book among ten thousand . In 1852 the articles in the Edinburgh Review were republishcd
collectively , under the title of Discussions on Philosophy and Literaturea book as remarkable , and better known . Be fore the publication of the Discussions , and , if wo remember aright , beforo that of Reid , Sir Wiixiam was seized with paralysis , which affected one side of his body and to some extent also his speech . It was a sad sight to see such a man—a man , too , of fine physical appearance—moving about , thus crippled . His intellect , however , was unaffected by the shock ; and he continued to the last , with some assistance , to conduct his class regularly every winter . Latterly he was engaged on an edition of the works of Dugald Stuwabt , which , we believe , ho has left complete . He had an affection for this kind of work , which ,
seeing that it interfered with original labours , must be regarded as unfortunate . One is glad to know , however , that ho has loft his Lectures on Logic and Metaphysics fairly written out . When these are published , they will perhaps bo the most perfect revelation of the man , in both his aspectsthat of his colossal memory and acquaintance with tho whole history of Opinion , and t h at of his native vigour and subtlety of speculative thought . It vrm tho union of vast erudition with vast intellectual strength in puro speculation that made Sir William almost unique among his British contemporaries ; and it is solemnizing to think thut in one brief day such a brain may cease its thinking * , and wuch a memory , with all that lay gathered up in it , may be extinguished from tho earth .
One Of Tho Strangest Of Vexed Questions ...
One of tho strangest of vexed questions is tho question " Have Anhnnln Souls P" To the majority of modern Christians , thinking and unthinking , it seems eminently absurd , if not eminently ' daiigerou . s , to maintain thai ;
animals have souls ; although to ancient Christians , as well as to ancient philosophers , the absurdity would have been ia the denial , Jjuma , from which the name is derived ,, meaning the breath of life , and * fa > xo meaning as we have shown in these columns , life and soul , indifferently—for in truth the two were not separated until modern metaphysics , probably among the Schoolmen , came to divorce them , and make them essentially independent . An able writer in Putnam ' Monthly for April takes up the question . He first adduces scriptural evidence of «* one and the same covenant binding us and animals to our Maker , " and justly remarks on the deplorable habit of using the word animal as a term of contempt . All contempt is perilous ,
but contempt of God ' s creatures in their free activity is essentially irreligious . Of plants , and even of stones , we speak with veneration and admiration , but the " brutes that perish" we permit ourselves to vilify . Curiously enough , the nearer these brutes approach our own proud selves , the deeper is the loathing expressed for " our poor relations , " Lutxbei- wittily called monkeys ; and many a worthy gentleman would drop your personal acquaintance if you suggested to him that the dog which loves and obeys him has a soul not essentially different from his own . The writer in Putnam argues , and justly , for the inner life even of Plants ; which will be paradoxical only to the immature psychologist . His case is better made out with animals , however , because we are more acquainted with the functions
of animals . Read this : — Animals discern their food , as the first condition of their existence . The tree , also , it is true , uses all that nature has placed within its reach for self-preservation , as if it were created solely for its own purposes ; but it does so mechanically , constantly , and without choice . The animal , on the contrary , knows its food from afar , seizes it with all the eagerness of instinct , and disposes of it in the most useful manner . In order to distinguish food , it must have been placed by the Creator in a pre-established harmony with its food ; it must have apertures to seize it , and a space within to hold it . These , however , are not given to all ; for some , that dwell in the water , are mere know notThe infu
ribbons or threads , balls or cylinders . How they absorb , we . - soria , however , have each a stomach and often several ; they even begin to fight for their food . Others are endowed with cilia—tiny hairs , that whirl in restless motion around the mouth , and fill it with invisible victims . How different from the grim medusa , that sends out eighty thousand arms , a whole army , eager with insatiable hunger . The shark swallows men , horses , and oiled powder-casks ; the whale entire hosts of sea animals . Other cunning creatures are more fastidious than the most experienced gourmet . The silk-worm eats only mulberry leaves , and a suspicion of dampness deprives him of his appetite . sandburrows and indul in tricities like
There is a large wasp that lives in - ges eccen few other beings : the only animal , save ^ he horse , that sleeps standing , and so it dies . You see its lean , lank body , stand prim and prudish near its former dwelling—you touch it and it falls into dust . It proudly refuses to lie down , like other poor insects , and decently to fold up its limbs . But its pride is still greater in its choice of food . It catches spiders , butterflies , and caterpillars ; but , instead of killing them at once , it only bites them in the neck , paralyzes them , and drags them into its little hole . " Who taught it to deprive large insects of wings and legs , and to leave the smaller unharmed ? It rejects all alms and gifts . You may choose its choicest morsel and place it before the hungry wasp , it will not touch it ; if you put it , during the owner ' s absence , into his house , he indignantly ejects it on his return . Ao-ain : —
The cunning ants keep cows in their stables . Almost every anthill , belonging to one variety , has a beetle in it , who lives , rears a family , and dies among them a welcome and honoured companion . When the ants meet him they stroke and caress him with their antenna : ; in return he offers them a sweet liquid that oozes out under his wings , and of which the little topers are passionately fond . So great is their attach - ment to the odd confectioner , that they seize him , in times of danger , and carry him off to a place of safety ; the conquerors of an invaded nation spare the sweet beetle , and , what is perhaps more surprising , his maggot , and his chrysalis , though themselves utterly useless , are as safe among their wise hosts as if they also possessed the luscious honey . Other ants , again , keep countless aphides , that sit on the tender green leaves of juicy plants , as on green meadows , and suck away so lustily that their delicate little bodies swell like the udders of cows on rich spring pasture . At that season , the auts have to feed their young with more delicate food than their own j they stroke and caress their tiny milch cows , gather the nutricious liquid that pours forth under their sagacious treatment , and carry it , drop by drop , to their nurseries .
All this , we know , is called Instinct , and much of it is probably not more psychial , in the usual sense , than the union of an acid with a base . But the human soul is also mainly composed of Instincts , although these are less obvious owing to the complexity of higher psychial operations . It is evident that the simpler organisms will manifest simpler instincts and activities than the more complex organisms ; the philosopher ' s business is to identify tho ' unity of composition' in the psyehiul as in the anatomical world , and to show that animals only difFer inter se , by difleronccs of degree . Besides the simplest of all instincts , that of discerning food , there arc others also very simple , and consequently universal—the discernment of a proper domicile , or habitat , for example . The essayist has enumerated some curious facts on this point . He allows his imagination to run away with him occasionally in speaking of tho instinct of self-preservation ; and
when he says that tho " cunning beetle feigns death because crows do not touch dead beetles , " ho is talking the loose talk of Natural Theology , not science . In tho same way , when discussing whether ull animals feel tho sensations of hunger and thirst , ho outruns observation and ullows imagination to interpret . " Grasshoppers arc tho first creatures that arc known to satisfy thirst by drinking . " How ia this known ? " They are passionately fond of sipping the dew of the morning . " That they sip the dew ia a fact of observation ; but no observation , no gleam of evidence revcala that thoy do so with u passionate fondnesn . " Generally animals which live on liquid food do not drink ; whilst birds which eat dry seeds aro ever thirsty . . " Honco it has been often asked , why drinking and singing ahould ever bo found ho closely bound to each other V" A question for hilarious gentlemen who over a ' social glass' are prono to indulge in bursts of lyrism , und who alternately " pass tho ro » v" and toll de roll !
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), May 10, 1856, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_10051856/page/15/
-