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dt 280 THE LEADER. [No. 365, Saturn - ¦ ...
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^U*~rt+*v~v * . ¦ .. ¦ ¦ . ¦ ¦ ILiTrrUlUrFt '
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w . ¦ :¦ Critics are not the legislators...
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The Literature of the Hustings, with all...
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HAIR, FAT, AND NAILS. The Constitution o...
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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Dt 280 The Leader. [No. 365, Saturn - ¦ ...
dt 280 THE LEADER . [ No . 365 , Saturn - ¦ ^———————————— ^—¦^^ L——^ r ^ l = r = r- * M ^ ¦ ¦ ¦ .. . . ¦ ¦¦ t ' i m a ' . a __ _ . ^^^^^^^^^^™^*^^^*~ IM ^^^— i
^U*~Rt+*V~V * . ¦ .. ¦ ¦ . ¦ ¦ Ilitrrulurft '
Wtitmtnn .
W . ¦ :¦ Critics Are Not The Legislators...
w . ¦ : ¦ Critics are not the legislators , but the judges ana police of literatuse . They do not make la-wa-they interpret and try to enforce them . —EdinburghBeview .
The Literature Of The Hustings, With All...
The Literature of the Hustings , with all its eruptive turbulence oi platitudes , possesses all eyes and ears throughout this classic land of unlicensed printing at the present moment . Until this tyranny of Drawling tongues be overpast the calmer and deeper voices may he content to hold their peace . Neither imagination , nor philosophy , nor science can he leard above the roar of the popular torrent , which is periodically supposed to renovate an exhausted
Constitution . Upon these raging and somewhat muddy waters of contention our easy rulers float securely into the still waters of apathy and indifference again . So elastic is our system of political credit , that a pleasant Minister has only to accej > t \ $ SSs drawn by a constituency of dupes , and though all these bills may he protested as they fall due , he may go on not doing it for years to come , and be the man of the situation to his latest breath . It is well to caution tlie observant foreigner , regarding us , with a curious envy , from the vantage-ground of political annihilation , against inordinate enthusiasm . We read with pride his exclamations at the spectacle of a free nation , deciding its destinies for the next few years ; and , viewed from a distance , no doubt the spectacle is grand . But the observant foreigner will never thoroughly understand the
working of our institutions until he has mastered the fact that a General Election is a general Auction , at which public opinion is exhibited to the best advantage , and knocked down to the highest bidder . They manage tilings better in France ; wlere , as a private letter informs us , M . Havin , the chief editor of the Siecle , recently paid a visit to M . Coixet Meygiuet , whose peculiar function it is to watch over public spirit with a paternal vigilance , and politelyasked the reason of the warning which tlic Siecfe had received . The reply of the imperial functionary -was nobly frank and explicit : " The Government
undertakes to manipulate the . elections , and needs no assistance from the press . " Lord Palmekston should thank M , Collet Meyghet for that word tnampulak . The last -words , by the way , of this private letter—the letter of a man of studious and tranquil life , of perfect moderation in all his views , and a conspirator only in the sense that all virtue , and dignity , and morality conspire against the insolence of triumphant wrong—unconsciously as it were , aiid without emphasis , reveal the situation of our nearest neighbours : " For tlie future , to prevent recognition in . case of letters being intercepted , ce qui va devenir encore plusfrequent , I shall sign , & c . "
Our mea of letters are conspicuously absent from the list of candidates at the forthcoming elections , and we rejoice in their silence amidst the vulgar din . Ma . caulay will do more for England and the world , and for his own fame , by his self-imposed retreat than by the most splendid oratorical exercitations in favour of a party winch he could not elevate , of a policy which lie ought to condemn , of a caste which would treat him as a proselyte , and of a Ministry which his head might have to serve while his heart despised . Cak .-ltle would be as much at home in the Commons as Prometheus . Dickens ; the most eminently popular man in the kingdom , might have represented a , large constituency long ago ; perhaps we should , say he might have made his
choice of constituencies , had not that strong , cairn , practical goodsensewmchpreserves trie equal'balance of his genius enabled him to possess his soul in patience as one of the unacknowledged legislators of humanity . "With his immense force of will , his rare administrative enex-gy , his long habit of exact and . patient investigation of social wrongs , his practical insight and profound sympathy , who can doubt that he would , even among that miscellaneous assemblage of gossips , and jobbci * s , and place-hunters , leave his mark , and make true courage and honesty felt and feared ? Besides , he is known to be a capital speaker , quite capable of addressing the House in the sort of language it likes best—terse , simple , and direct . Still , not forgetting all these rare qualifications , who would not rather he should write immortal boolcs , and enrich the world
with the warmth and light of his genius , than break his heart m trying to roll the stone of political and social justice up the Sisyphoean hill of prcjudico and obstruction . ? Another of our great names in literature has liccn talked of for a seat in Parliament , and who can deny that Tua . ck . ebay would adorn the Opposition bench , and cast a lustre upon the division list ? But would any position in the < House add lustre to the name of the author of Vanity Ihiir ? No , ho ; let the dead bury their dead . There arc names connected with literature , no doubt , in the House , but they are either men who have dallied with literature as an epicurean recreation , or who have justified their capacity for office by the compilation of volumes of unreadable erudition and monumental dulness . It is thus that a Chancellor of the Exchequer ' s literary efforts may themselves
present to us in the shape of a tax upon the butter they enclose ! Nevertheless , there arc moments in tlie history of nations , epochs of renovation and of hope , when all the living forces of a people ' s life seem to be concentred into a focus of light . There arc moments of heroism , of grandeur , of enthusiasm , when Urge hearts and strong brains avc permitted to construct a fahric of now laws out of the thoughts of philosophers and the dreams of poets . It js then that the " unacknowled ged legislators" of apathetic times take their seats naturally and necessarily on the benches from which the jobbers , and patehers , and liuycrs , mid sollors , hiwe been expelled Such moments occur but seldom , but thoy do the work of centuries . Indeed , the long intervals between we , for tho moat part , intervals of reaction ; first , of the reaction that preserve !? will
moeraes , and then of the reaction that obstructs : the latter , however is iTf an unconscious preparation for the next awakening . Such an epoch and suh an assembly of " unacknowledged legislators , " was the First Constituent nf Trance , and such was the Convention . . Forgetting for an instant the terrible reprisals which the men of the Gre \ Revolution , impelled by what Mirabeau called the « tocsin of necessity " exercised against the survivors of the old society , and , later , against each other , let us not forget the immortal principles of legislation , and the gigantic labours which the illustrious men of those Assemblies worked out from the very agonies and throes of the Revolution , with hostile armies at their frontiers , and in the thick of the terrible agitations of the Republic .
We are reminded of those labours by a remarkable article in the last number of the Revue de Paris , on " Public Instruction and the Schools during the Revolution . " It is very-interesting to trace the leading principles of oui own most advanced educational reformers of this year 1857 in the admirable reports of the Convention Committees . "Let us get rid for a moment , " says M . Eugene Maron , " of our spirit of scepticism and irony , and we shall learn to respect the high and noble ambitions of -those men who thought they were regenerating the world . " Certainly , we live in a disabused and disenchanted , age , we see human liberty and intelligence eclipsed , but it is impossible to recaT even the illusions of those devoted men without emotion "Are we the better , " asks M . Maron , " for being delivered from enthusiasm ? " Certainly , with regard to public instruction , at least , the Trend Revolution des ' erves , as M . Maiion says , the gratitude of liistory . If it did not accomplish all it dreamed , it effected more than any succeeding regime has attempted .
It realized tlie absolute separation of civil and religious education without -which there can be no freedom of conscience . It proclaimed the principle of liberty of instruction , the equally important principles of gratuitous and of obligatory instruction , not only in the primary schools , but in the central arid special schools , even in tie Polytechnic and Normal Schools . The writer of this article , alluding to the saying of Leibnitz , "Maitre de Venseignement , mailre dtc genre hiimaln" very justly remarks that the philosopher ' s apophthegm , even if applied to the whole course of education , is only partially true : — If It were -wholly true , the world would still be in subjection to theocratic teachers . Yet history shows us schism and heresy growing out of the schools of the Church , a generation of philosophers Out of the Jesuit colleges and a revolutionary people out of ecclesiastical universities . And he profoundlv adds : — The truth is , that beside the teaching of childhood and of youth , there is another kind of instruction , which is given to manhood and to old age as well as to the child , and of which the great writers , the men of science , the philosophers , the artists , not to speak of the events and lessons of history , are the sovereign dispensers . This is that superior and final instruction which Schiller called the education of the human race . No doubt a vicious education may impede , but it cannot definitively arrest , the march of intelligence . Thank God ! man is not to that degree the master of his fellow-man . ,
Hair, Fat, And Nails. The Constitution O...
HAIR , FAT , AND NAILS . The Constitution of ilm Animal Creation , as expressed in Structural Appendages . By G . Calvert Holland , M . D . Churcliill . Dk . Hollaud has -written a very interesting -work , which the general public , no less than the scientific public , will read with pleasure and profit . We wish we could also say that Dr . Holland has succeeded in the main purpose of his work , namely , the physiological explanation of the origin and use of sucli ' appendages' as hair , fat , nails , horns , & c . ; but -while applauding the stylo and temper of this treatise we cannot give the smallest assent to the principles it lays down . " Aristotle , " says Bacon , in the Sifha Sj / lvarum , " giveth the cause , vainly , why the feathers of birds are of move lively colours than the hairs of beasts ; for no beast hath any fine azure , or carnation , or green hair . He saith it is because hirds are more in the beams of the sun than beasts ; but that is
manifestly untrue ; for cattle are more in the sun than birds that live commonly in the woods , or in some covert . Tho true cause is , that the escrementitious moisture of living creatures , which maketli as well the feathers in birds as the hair in beasts , passeth in birds through a finer and more delicate strainer than it doth in beasts : for feathers pass through quills , and hair through skin . " Both Aristotle and Uacon give explanations sufficiently absurd to console Dr . Holland in his failure . Instead of agreeing with comparative anatomists that hair , nails , & c , arc remnants of the exoskcleton —an idea Dr . Holland seems never for a moment to hnve entertained- —he propounds the no-vel hypothesis that they are the residue of nervous activity in such places as admit of no other outlet for the waste matter .
The operations of the mind can scarcely bh viewed as creating any residue or useless matter , either la degree or kind analagous to what is consequent , on the excrciso of the abdominal viscera . Tho cerebral actions , instrumental to thoug ht ami feeling , will deprive the blood and nervous substance of certain elements . They must occasion tho escape of something , otherwise the brain would not he enfeebled by severe or uninterrupted exertion . Aa already stated , every vital action implies waste , and , in refercnco to tho cerebrum , this is evidently great . The immense mass of Jicrvous tissue appropriated to tho mental faculties , and tho large amount of blood tra nsmitted to it , nTO conditions -which may justly bo considered as a measure of the demands mnde upon the brain . _ , . It was in tho cotirse of the physiological investigations alluded to , cstnl > lit ? l" »> 6 tllC dintinction between tho two classes of organs , in respect of tho nature of their operations , and the changes they effect in tlie constitution of the blood , that tho i mportant use of the hair in the animal economy suggested itself .
Agam : — . Tho office of tho brain is not to create a palpable fluid , with tho exception of tliat , insignificant in quantity , w hich perhapw nlways exists in its ventrielos . Thin secretion does not constitute tho function of tho organ , nor in it in amount connnonsuntfo with tho extensive operations carried on , if tho production of it were alonn tP b c taken
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 21, 1857, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_21031857/page/16/
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