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HERBERT SPENCER'S THEORY OF POPULATION. ...
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Guizot On Shakspeare. Skahspeare And 7ii...
for it to subjugate ; we behold it incorporating itself by degrees into the unhappy being whom it has subdued we see it living , walking , and breathing , with a man who lives , walks , and breathes , aud thus communicates to it his character , his own individuality . In Angelo , crime is only a vague abstraction , connected en passant with a proper name , with no other motive than the necessity of making that person commit a certain action which shall produce a certain position , from which the poet intends to derive certain effects . Angelo is not presented to us at the outset either as a rascal or as a hypocrite ; on the contrary , he is a man of exaggeratedly severe virtue . But the progress of the poem requires that he should become criminal , and criminal he becomes ; when his crime is committed , he will repent of it as soon as the poet pleases , and will find himself able to resume without effort the natural course of his life , which had been interrupted only for a moment .
" Thus , in Shakspeare ' s comedy , the whole of human life passes before the eyes of the spectator , reduced to a sort of phantasmagoria—a brilliant and uncertain reflection of the realities portrayed in his tragedy . Just when the truth seems on the point of allowing itself to be caught , the image grows pale , and _' vanishes ; its part is played , and it disappears . In the Winter ' s Tale , Leontes is as jealous , sanguinary , and unmerciful as Othello ; but his jealousy , born suddenly from a mere caprice at the moment when it is necessary that the plot should thicken , loses its fury and suspicion as suddenly , as soon as the action has reached the point at which it becomes requisite to change the situation . In Cymbeline—which ,
notwithstanding its title , ought to be numbered among the comedies , as the piece is conceived in entire accordance with the same system—Iachimo ' s conduct is just as knavish and perverse as that of Iago in Othello ; but his character does not explain his conduct , or , to speak more correctly , he has no character ; and , always ready to cast off the rascal ' s cloak , in which the poet has enveloped him , as soon as the plot reaches its term , and the confession of the secret , which he alone can reveal , _liecomes necessary to terminate the misunderstanding between Posthmnus and Imogen , which he alone has caused , he does not even wait to be asked , but by a spontaneous avowal , deserves to be included in that general amnesty which should form the conclusion of every comedy . "
Again : — "It is utterly futile to attempt to base any classification of Shakspeare's works on the distinction between the comic and tragic elements ; they cannot possibly be divided into these two styles , but must be separated into the fantastic and the real , the romance and the world . The first class contains most of his comedies ; the second comprehends all his tragedies , —immense and living stages , upon which all things are represented , as it were , in their solid form , and in the place which they occupied in a stormy and complicated state of civilization . In these dramas , the comic element is introduced whenever its character of reality gives it the right of admission and the advantage of opportune appearance . Falstaff appears in the train of Henry V ., and Doll Tear-Sheet in the train of Falstaff ; the people surround the kings , and the soldiers crowd around their generals ; all conditions of society , all the phases of human destiny appear by turns in juxtaposition , with the nature which properly belongs to them , and in the position which they naturally
occupy . The tragic and comic elements sometimes combine in the same individual , and are developed in succession in the same character . The impetuous pre-occupation of Hotspur is amusing when it prevents him from listening to any other voice than his own , and substitutes his sentiments and words iu the place of the things which his friends are desirous to tell bim , and which lie is equally anxious to learn ; but it becomes serious and fatal when it leads him to adopt , without due examination , a dangerous project which suddenly inspires him with the idea of glory . The perverse obstinacy which renders him so comical in his dealings with the boastful and vainglorious Glendower , will be the tragical cause of his ruin when , in contempt of all reason and advice , and unaided by any succour , he hastens to the battle-field , upon which , ere long , left alone , he looks around and sees nought but death . Thus we find the entire world , the whole of human realities , reproduced by Shakspeare in tragedy , which , in his eyes , was tho universal theatre of life and truth . "
These extracts are sufficient to give the tone of the whole . His sagacity may be inferred from his accurate perception of the want of genuineness of the " Doubtful Plays , " even including " Titus _Andronicus "—plays which Schlegel— " that great critic !"—unhesitatingly pronounced to he genuine . To he sure , bchlegel is naively dull enough " not to understand" what Ben _Jonson meant by " Marlowe ' s mighty line , " a confession which considerably affects confidence in his sagacity .
Ar01903
Herbert Spencer's Theory Of Population. ...
HERBERT SPENCER'S THEORY OF POPULATION . A Theory tf Population deduced from the General , Law if Animal Fertility . By Herbert Spencer . John Chapman . This is a reprint of an article in the April number of the Westminster Meview , and its very great importance warranted tho republication . It has two distinct though necessarily connected claims on our attention : 1 st , as the enunciation of a physiological law of general fertility ; 2 nd , as a solution of the great population problem . That Malthus is repugnant to our moral feelings , and that such repugnance should warn us of some Haw in his argument , has over and over again been insisted ou in these columns ; and it is with peculiar satisfaction we welcome every attempt to justify by rigorous science this verdict of tho feelings on a point so vital . . Let us , however , frankly at tho outset declare , that although the general law enunciated by Mr . Herbert Spencer has not simply our assent , but that adherence which must conn ; from having by our own researches by an
independent path arrived at the same result , nevertheless its application to the great population question is by no means so clear and _convincing to our minds as to his , and we await his fuller development of tho views hero brielly indicated . There is one important consideration ho ban still to meet—viz ., that the domestication ot animals has tho indisputable result of increasing their fertility . The wild dog has but one litter a-year ; tho domesticated dog baa two . The hare has but two or throe breeds a-year , und only three or four at a birth ; the domestic , rabbit breeds nearly every month , and with from live to nine at a time . The wild pig has hut one _fqrrow a-year of from eight to ten at a time ; tho domestic pig has two farrows and often as many as fifteen at a time . Domesticated man in also far more prolific than tbe savage ; and in proportion as civilization reduces the whole human race to its rules , we may expect to see a greater fertility , unless it can bo shown that causes now in operation will counteract the tendency to increase . Tho question , however , ia too lurgo to bo argued
Herbert Spencer's Theory Of Population. ...
here , and our present purpose is with the physiological law enunciated in the early part of this essay and forming the basis of the theory . It is necessary to begin with the admirable definition of Life which rules the whole of his speculation -. — " Life may be defined as—the co-ordination of actions . The growth of a crystal , which is the highest inorganic process we are acquainted with , involves but one action—that of accretion . The growth of a cell , which is the lowest organic process , involves two actions—accretion and _disintegration—^ repair and
waste—assimilation and oxidation . Wholly deprive a cell of oxygen , and it becomes inertceases to manifest vital phenomena ; or , as we say , dies . Give it no matter to assimilate , and it wastes away and disappears , from continued oxidation Evidently , then , it is in the balance of these two actions that the life consists . It is not in the assimilation alone ; for the crystal assimilates ; neither is it in the oxidation alone ; for oxidation is common to inorganic matter : but it is in tbe joint maintenance of these—the co-ordination of them . So long as the two go on together , life continues : suspend either of them , and the result is—death .
" The attribute which thus distinguishes the lowest , organic from the highest inorganic bodies , similarly distinguishes the higher organisms from the lower ones . It is in the greater complexity of the co-ordination—that is , in the greater number and variety of the co-ordinated actions—that every advance in the scale of being essentially consists . And whether we regard the numerous vital processes carried on in a creature of complex structure as so many additional processes , or whether , more philosophically , we regard them as subdivisions of the two fundamental ones . —oxidation and accretion—the co-ordination of them is still the life . Thus turning to what is physiologically classified as the vegetative system , we see that
stomach , lungs , heart , fiver , skin , and the rest , must work in concert . If one of them does too much or too little—that is , if the co-ordination be imperfect—the life is disturbed ; and if one of them ceases to act—that is , if the co-ordination be destroyed—the life is destroyed . So likewise is it with the animal system , which indirectly assists in co-ordinating the actions of the viscera by supplying food and oxygen . Its component parts , the limbs , senses , and instruments of attack or defence must perform their several offices in proper sequence ; and further , must conjointly minister to the periodic demands of the viscera , that these may in turn supply blood .
" We find , then , that the co-ordination of actions is a definition of Lite , which includes alike its highest and its lowest manifestations ; and not only so , but expresses likewise the degree of Life , seeing that the Life is high in proportion as the co-ordination is great . Proceeding upwards , from the simplest organic cell in which there are but two interdependent actions , on through the group in which many such cells are acting in concert , on through the higher group in which some of these cells assume mainly the respiratory and others the assimilative functionproceeding still to organisms in which these two functions are subdivided into many others , and in which some cells begin to act together as contractile fibres ; next to organisms in which the visceral division of labour is carried yet further ,
and in which many contractile fibres act together as muscles—ascending again to creatures that combine the movements of several limbs and many bones and muscles in one action ; and further , to creatures in which complex impressions aTe followed by the complex acts we term instinctive—and arriving finally at man , in whom not only are the separate acts complex , but who achieves his ends by combining together an immense number and variety of acts often extending througb years—we see that tbe progress is uniformly towards greater co-ordination of actions . Moreover , this co-ordination of actions unconsciously constitutes the essence of our common notion of life ; for we shall find , on inquiry , that when we infer tbe death of an animal , which does not move on being touched , we infer it because we miss the usual co-ordination of a sensation and a motion : and we shall also
find , that the test by which we habitually rank creatures high or low in the scale of vitality is the degree of co-ordination their actions exhibit . " The nervous system as the great centre of co-ordinating power is that to which lie directs his main attention ; and according to its greater or less development must , he thinks , the fertility be less or greater : — " If organic life he the co-ordination of action . ' ? , then an organism may be primarily divided into parts whose actions are co-ordinated , and parts which co-ordinate them—organs which arc made to work in concert , and the apparatus which makes them so work—or , in other words , tho assimilative , vascular , excretory , and muscular systems on the one hand , and the nervous system on the other . The justness of this classification will become further apparent , when it is remembered that by the nervous system alone is the individuality established . By it all parts
are made one in purpose , instead of separate ; by it the organism i . s rendered a conscious whole—is enabled to recognise its own extent and limits ; and by it are all injuries notified , repairs directed , and tbe general conservation secured . The more the nervous system is developed , the more reciprocally subservient do the components of the body become—tbe less can they bear separating . Aud that which thus individuates many parts into one whole , must be considered as more broadly distinguished from the parts individuated , than any of these parts from each other . Further evidence in support of this position may be drawn from the fact , that as we ascend in the scale of animal life , that is , as the co-ordination of actions becomes greater , we find the co-ordinating or nervous system becoming more and more definitel y separated than the rest ; and in the vertebrate or highest type of structure we find the division above insisted on distinctly marked . "
Without touching upon tho various points by which he endeavours to prove the law ho would enunciate , we may sum up in this formula , " Reproduction being antagonistic to self-maintenance , the matter which would otherwise go towards tho formation of the individual being used for the reproduction of the race ; and Hell-maintenance being essentially dependent on co-ordinating power , the law ia that : The fertility of an animal is inversel y in the ratio of the formation of nervous tissue . For a number of reasons too lengthy to bo hero stated , wo prefer tho formula wo _ourselvcti arrived at , viz . .-Heproduction . is inversely in the ratio of the formation of tissue .
We say tissue generally in preference to the special nervous tissue , because in the first place tho law will not otherwise include vegetable reproduction , which a law must include ; and moreover hy thus generalizing wo get rid of many facts which seem to contradict tho law when it is made speciall y applicable to nervous tissue . h _" or example , tho overfeeding of _onimala makes _thein sterile _; yet it _doeu not increase their
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), July 17, 1852, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_17071852/page/19/
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