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^2 THE LEADER. Saturday,. .., —¦¦ ¦-- ' ...
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qt>*i. x jLtTUTlIttH^L _________
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Critics are not the legislators, but the...
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Ik the year 1770 a wild and magnificent ...
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Can one imagine the feelings of a man wh...
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Besides the malice natural to man, and t...
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BADEN POWELL'S INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY. ; E...
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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Transcript
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
^2 The Leader. Saturday,. .., —¦¦ ¦-- ' ...
^ 2 THE LEADER . Saturday , . .., —¦¦ ¦ -- ' ' ' " _————^—— ^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^ ^^ ^ m ^ w ^——^—^___ —
Qt≫*I. X Jlttutlitth^L _________
Kitnatnn .
Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...
Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not i ^ el a ^^ they mterpret and try to enforca-them . — Edinburgh Review .
Ik The Year 1770 A Wild And Magnificent ...
Ik the year 1770 a wild and magnificent youth arrived in Strasburg to complete his education , and , amid various studies of alchemy , law , medicine , and lovemaking , to penetrate into the mystery of the art which erected the Strasburg Cathedral . This youth bore the name of Wolfgang Gojsthe ; and his enthusiasm for Gothic Art , which expressed itself in a little tractate , 2 > . M . Erwini a Steinbach , a tractate shortly afterwards published by H *™ t >*^ in his book Von Deutscker Art und Kunst , is among the earliest indications of that potent revival of the love of Gothic Art , which not only gave interest to the Romantic School , but which has in one shape or other run through Europe modifying European criticism and European thought .
What the Germans have done to establish and propagate this enthusiasm for the Gothic is known , one would think , to all persons of culture , by hearsay if not by direct knowledge- That the revival commenced in Germany , and was mainly established in Germany , is one of the truisms we should scarcely venture to repeat did not the astonishing and amusing presumption of the French force the repetition . The French are not content that Paris shall be called ( by them ) the centre of civilisation , the brain of the " universe" ( a Frenchman seldom limits himself within narrower bounds than Vunivers ); they are not content to call themselves the first in every
department , but with perfect sincerity believe that nothing is ever done , worth doing , until they have done it . Even in so trifling a matter as the introduction of hippopotami to the gaze of Europe , they claim precedence in the face of the most glaring evidence . After we had our hippopotamus drawing thousands of curious gazers to the Zoological Gardens—after Potty had been drawn , modelled , written about , and had every possible publicityafter his portrait had appeared in the French Illustration—two years of notoriety are insufficient to prevent the French from boasting , and when at last they had secured a rival for their zoological gardens , declaring that la France could now for the first time present to astonished Europe , & e ., & c .
No wonder then that Gothic Art was first revived by Frenchmen . In M . Michejlet ' s last work , La Renaissance , we read , with a smile , that to Victor Hugo and himself this revival is due . He tells us that the architects flocked to them with amazing fanaticism pour nos doctrines . He mentions Goethe , indeed , in passing , but only thus : " J ' essayai de donner la loi vivante de cette vegetation ; Goethe l ' avait dite crislallisation" Except this passing allusion the reader has no hint given that any one but Chateaubbiand , Victor Hdgo , and Michei , et , had the slig htest claim in the matter . Michei « et has now given up his fanaticism in favour of the Gothic . He
is ' as severe now as he was enthusiastic then . He sees that , he has been playing into the hands of the priests . He sees that compared with Greek Art the Gothic is in every way inferior . He is eloquent against its system of perpetual supports from without , its eternal scaffolding for eternal repairs . Take away those , scaffoldings ; let the domes support themselves : they cannot ! " Elle exige qu ' on entretienne autour d ' elle un peuple de medecins ; je n ' appelle pas autrement les villages de macons que je vois etablis au pied de ces Edifices , vivant , engraissant la-dessus , eux et leurs nombreux enfans . " In this style he fulminates against his ancient enthusiasm ; as unjust in attack , as he was extravagant in applause .
The whole book indeed fatigues with its rhapsodies and caprices . A finer subject than the Renaissance could hardly solicit the historian's attention . But instead of history , Michelet gives us a rhapsody . What is to be expected from a man who answers the question "Why did the epoch , named Middle Ages , live three centuries after its death ? " in this style : — 44 Son terrorisme , sa police , ses buchers n ' auraient pas suffi . L'esprit humain eut tout brise . L'Ecole le sauva , la creation d ' un grand peuple de raisonneurs contre la Raiaon . Le nSant Jut ftcond , cr 6 a" When ambitious trash of that kind can be deliberately offered aa History , or as anything else that is serious , there is great hope for the dull dogs ; there being no Dryasdust dulness which has not its value as a relief from such writing .
Can One Imagine The Feelings Of A Man Wh...
Can one imagine the feelings of a man who , having made a great discovery , and for six years enjoying European renown , not to mention more solid advantages , in consequence of his discovery , suddenly hears that a rival has arisen , not , as in ordinary cases , to rob him of his glory by transferring it to another , —not to prove that centuries ago the discovery had been made by one whom the centuries have forgotten , whom the centuries did not understand , —not to prove the discovery a plagiarism , but to prove it a mistake ? Human nature has not yot acquired a doso of philosophy sufficient to
withstand such a shock as that . Let us hope , for his sake and for the sake of science , that Claude Bbiinabd is not doomed to such a trial . The reader probably knows that the greatest discovery * bf the last few years in Physiology \ b that made by M . Bkhnaiu > respecting the office of the Liver ns a sugar-maker . He proved that the animal organism has the power of making sugar over and above tho quantity contained in the food ; and lie" proved that the organ in which this transformation into sugar took place wns the liiver . But lately tho Acaddmie des Sciences has boon thrown into commotion
by the startling arguments of M . Figcieb , who maintains that M . Bernard ' s evidence is fallacious , because , although it is true that no sugar can be traced in the vessel which carries the b ^ ood to liver , as it can in the vessels which carry the blood from the liver , yet , he says , this arises from the fact that the sugar is masked by the presence of a particular substance albuminose , which is removed in the passage through the liver . Considerable discussion has taken place , and up to this point we confess that
M Bebnard seems to have the advantage . But a Commisssion of Inquiry has been appointed , and we shall inform our readers of the decision . Should it be against M . Bernard , we shall not only regret it for his sake ; we shall regret it because science will then have fresh researches to make to find out the organ in which the sugar is made , and because the upsetting of M . Bernard ' s theory will throw doubt on many other theories which one hoped were settled . A regret natural enough , but of course trivial in comparison with the satisfaction which will afterwards arise at thinking we have freed ourselves from an error .
Besides The Malice Natural To Man, And T...
Besides the malice natural to man , and the delight in foreboding evil , there seems to be a peculiar facility in anticipating catastrophes indulged in by those who have no malicious motive whatever . We constantly hear that such or such a manager is utterly ruined and " can ' t keep his theatre open this season ; " that such or such a periodical is " going to stop , I am told ;" that such or such a paper is to be " given up . " And on inquiry we find , first , that our informant has no knowledge whatever of the thing he speaks of ;
and secondly , that the undertaking of which he speaks so despondmgly is in a perfectly flourishing , successful condition . We were led into this remark by hearing that the Westminster Review had " changed hands again , " which , considering that the Westminster Review has under the present management risen to an importance it never had since John Mill resigned the editorship , and has , moreover , become a profitable speculation , which it never was before , seemed to us rather a foolish rumour ; and on inquiry we find the rumour to have no better foundation than the malice , or love of catastrophes ,
before alluded to . This anticipation of catastrophes , this making a present reality of what is as yet in the limbo of futurity , is , though despicable in prose , often used in poetry with fine effect . Thus Keats , in his Isabella , describes the brothers as They rode to Florence with the murdered man , that is to say , the man whom they are about to murder , and whom the prescient imagination of the poet looks on as already murdered . In precisely the same spirit Euripides , in his Hecuba , makes the Shade of Polydorus say
that his mother comes from the tent of Agamemnon , ' ¦ ' ¦ dreading ray apparition : " ( pavrao-fMi Beifiatvovcr' epov ; that is , she would look on it with dread , therefore he withdraws . In the Ajax of Sophocles there is another turn given to this mode of emphasising . Menelaus speaks of Ajax as his murderer . Upon which Teucer , very properly astonished , exclaims : — KTfivavra ; dfti / ov y' enras , et « cat £ » 7 J davcov . Thy murderer ? O marvel ! then the dead man lives ! And Menelaus then explains that a God saved him , but for Ajax he is still as one dead— "for him I have utterly vanished . "
Linking one recollection on to another , we recal the famous sentence which " convulsed the house , " and brought down the roar of laughter and hisses which condemned the tragedy produced by Mackeady with so much pomp of expectation—a tragedy memorable to play-goers on account of this very sentence . Macbeady , in what was intended for the thrilling situation of the piece , exclaimed : " There stands my murderer ! " The audience shouted , and the author did not bend from his private box , as he might have done , in imitation of Voltaire , who , when the parterre hissed hia play , exclaimed : Barbares ! e ' est du Sophocle !
Baden Powell's Inductive Philosophy. ; E...
BADEN POWELL'S INDUCTIVE PHILOSOPHY . ; Essays on the Spirit of the Inductive Philosophy , the Unity of Worlds , and the Philosophy of Creation . By the Rev . Baden Powell , Savilian Professor of ( geometry at the Univereity of Oxford . Longman . This is a work to which every philosophic thinker , and every friend to the progress of science , should give a welcome . It has already been found " heterodox" by the sensitive prescience of orthodoxy ; nor will the position of the author , as clergyman and Oxford Professor , prevent the cry of heterodoxy being raised in many quarters ; for so completely have theologica ideas mingled with and directed the speculations of scientific p hilo . sopliy , lne () 10
so dominant has the theological direction been in inquiries where ° ^ has properly no place whatever , that any and every attempt , fro'n *> IIC ° downwards , to isolate science from theology , has produced a wild flll . ' y from theologians . The attempt made by the Rev . Baden Powell is stricuy Baconian , lie desires , in the first place , to isolate science from theology , both directly and indirectly , and to have science pursued solely on inductive principles , based upon exact knowledge ; and ho desires , in tho aecon place , to show the uniformity of creation and the laws of creation , eons - quently the unity of tho sciences . Ho banishes those " barren vlI ' n ' final causes , on the same grounds as Bacon did so . Ho refutes the u < trine of intuitions , and " necessary truths antecedent to experience , relegates mysticism to the domain of mysticism , giving it no cltlz . \' , I . 1 : empuutnu
philosophy . Ho separates theology from philosophy , ana ... cards the popular method of solving scientific problems by tho , " ? ' Comto " with a bishop in tow , " or Bacon , obliged every now and tlie " make an obeisance to the Church ho wne undormining , will sonwwuu
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 19, 1855, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_19051855/page/16/
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