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Jitite 26, 1852.] TJJl LEAREB. 6tf ¦' ¦'...
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"OUR CORRESPONDENT" IN ITALY. The Person...
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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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The Science Qf Politicsjl Treatise On Th...
If all the observed facts upon which any physical science is founded were lost and for » btten > the observations might he renewed , and from these observations the science might he reconstructed . Bat when the evidence of historical facts is lost , nothing can . replace theih ; and although inferences as to human life and society may he drawn from other facts , still the void created by the loss in question can never be supplied . If the observations by which Kepler calculated the orbit of ] tfars had been destroyed by fire , they might have been replaced by subsequent astronomers ; but if the work of Thucydides Tiad perished , we should have been dep rived for ever of his authentic and instructive narrative . "It is for this reason that the preservation of historical evidence is of primary
importance . When once destroyed , it can never be restored . The chemist can at any moment reproduce the phenomena of matter j he can elicit the electric spark , or decompose water ; but no human power can evoke the long series of events which must ( for example ) have occurred on the banks jof the Euphrates and the Nile , before the dawn of authentic history . Hence , too , it is a mistake to suppose that erudition ' is distinct in its aim from science ; and that the collection of facts relative to a past age of the world is a barren exercise of misdirected diligence , or the mere caprice of a frivolous curiosity . It is the business of erudition to collect , verify > weigh , compare , arrange , expound , and illustrate , the testimonies to ancient
facts connected with man : the learned are the pioneers and ministers of history , and furnish the materials out of which the philosophy of politics and human nature is , in part , constructed . So far is the man of erudition from dealing with facts inferior in importance to physical facts , that the facts with which he deals are unique ; if lost , they can never be replaced , inasmuch as they possess an individuality which can never be imitated . Whereas physical facts always recur , and can often be reproduced at will ; and hence , whatever value may belong to accurate and intelligent observations in any department of physics , they certainly have not that value which consists in their loss being irreparable . "
And here is one on EXPERIMENT IN POLITICS . " The method of scientific experiment , though it can be applied , in certain cases , to man considered physiologically , cannot be applied to political society . We cannot treat the body politic as a corpus vile—and vary its circumstances a | our pleasure , for the sake only of ascertaining abstract truth . We cannot do in politics what the experimenter does in chemistry : we cannot try how the substance is affected by change of teinperature , by burning , by dissolution in liquids , by combination with other chemical agents , and the like . We cannottake a portion of the community in our hand , as the king of Brobdignag took Gulliver , view it in different aspects , and place it in different positions , in order to solve social problems , and satisfy our speculative curiosity . science would
" Nevertheless , it would be an error to suppose that political gain any addition to its stock of positive information by . the adoption of the method of experiment , or that the facts upon which it is founded could be better or more fully ascertained by experimentation , than by the method of simple observation . The physical philosopher is compelled to interrogate nature by experiments , because ^ she is mute . But man , the subject of politics , can speak : he can declare his feelings spontaneously ; or he can answer interrogations . Hence the experiments of physical science ^ are , afLer all , a feeble , and rude contrivance , compared with the methods of investigation in politics . Scientific experiment is an imperfect substitute for that information which a man can give respecting his experience ; respecting his internal feelings and changes of consciousness , and the events which have passed within the range of his senses . The information which experiment can extract from insentient masses of matter , or from gases and fluids , is scanty and miinstructive as compared with the answers of human intelligence . The responses of one oracle are brief and meagre , as compared with the copious and godlike
accents which proceed from the other shrine . " If , on the other hand , every portion of matter was animated ; if , according to the ancient pagan faith , every tree had its dryad , every stream its naiad ; if the lightning the winds , the . element of fire , and all the great powers of nature , were each subject to their appropriate deity ; or if , as in the European mythology of more recent times , gnomes and fairies and elvea presided over external objects , we might obtain from lifeless matter information concerning its attributes and qualities . If we could appeal to the supernatural beings described by Pope , and by evocations and magic formulas compel them to reveal the mysteries of nature , experiment
might be discarded as superfluous : — " Some in the fields of purest ether play And bask and whiten in the blazo of day . Some guide tlio course of wandering orba on high ,. Or roll tho planets through the boundless sky . Some , less refined , beneath tho moon ' s pale light , Pursue the stars that shoot across tho night ; Or suck the mists in grosser air below ; Or dip their pinions in the painted bow ; Or brew iiorco tempests on tho wintry main ; Or o ' er tho globo distil tho kindly rain . With such informants as these upon tho laws of physical phenomena , we should despise tho tardy process of experimental investigation , and , as m human aflairs , should resort to tho testimony of percipient witnesses .
" Tho different advantngos which aro afforded to the observer by tho voluntary communications of intelligence , and by experiments upon unintelligent matter , may ho illustrated by a comparison of human and veterinary modicino . Button recommends the moro careful cultivation of votorinury modicino , as tending to throw light upon human incdioino , by tho facilities for scientific study which it presents ; among which ho enumerates tho unrestricted power of making experiments , and trying new remedies , Now tho veterinary art has beon cultivated with inuch assiduity and skill flinco tho tiino of Buffori , and yet it has thrown little or no light upon human puthology and therapeutics . It has boon found that tho explanations which tho hmniin patient affords to tho physician , respecting his state and
sensations , aro fur moro instruetivo than the experiments which tho veterinary practitioner may make upon a dumb , irrational animal . In tho troatmont of infants , the physician is subject to a similar disadvantage , without tho corrowponding advantage of a fUcility of making experiments on his patient . " Whorovor thero is intelligence thero id aonsibility ; and wherever there ib sonmbility , experiment , as such , inoro philosophical manipulation for tho sako of determining truth , is inapplicable . Each method excludes tho other ; but tho information derived from an intelligent subjoct is moro instructive than that attainable by the method of experiment , acting upon insentient matter . "A physical r > hilosoph « r making res « arche » into the properties of matter ,
compared-with a political philosopher inquiring into the nature of governments and laws , and the tendencies of human institutions , is like a travelled in a foreign country who can speak the language of the natives , compared with a \ traveller who is unable to hold converse with them . " We commend the following to the meditation of all so-called
pBacticai . men . " One of the leading sects among the classical physicians— -the Empirici- — rejected all abstract reasoning upon medicine , even to the study of physiology , and relied exclusively upon the experiments made , by former physicians in the treatment of diseases . Those modes of treatment which had been successful were good , and those which had failed were bad . They recognised no other standard of medical practice , and no other source of medical science . The Empirici , therefore , founded their doctrine excliisively upon the experimenta fructifera of their predecessors , converting them into experimented lucifera , and making them serve as guides . All medical practice must be founded , in part , upon reasoning of this nature ; and the error of the method employed by the Empirici consisted , not in
watching and recording the effects of certain plans of treatment , but in confining themselves to the results of these observations , and in excluding from their system the assistance to be derived from anatomy and " physiology , and even pathology . In this respect , they correspond exactly with those political reasoners who assume the distinctive appellation of ' practical men '—that is to say , they argue from the observations and experiments belonging to a particular department ( which method , so far as it goes , is sound and right ); but they exclude altogether from their view those general theorems of political philosophy which are founded on a wider
induction , and represent facts lying out of the sphere of their experience . The materials of the practical man are generally sound and valuable , but they must be properly employed , in order to make a good structure . In general , it requires a man whose mind has taken a wider range than the limited subject in question , to turn these materials to good account . It is only by combining them with results derived from a more extensive view , that they can be safely applied in practice ; whereas the practical man , confident in his own precise but limited knowledge , applies his opinions without the due corrections and allowances , and is blind to considerations which lie but of the circle of his personal experience . "
There are very many points which , we should combat , did we enter into detailed examination of this work ; but as the usefulness of the work is not materially affected by them , we pass them by . As Martial says" Sunt bona , sunt qusedam lnediocria , sunt mala plura QuSe legis ; aliter non fit , Avite , liber !"
Jitite 26, 1852.] Tjjl Leareb. 6tf ¦' ¦'...
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"Our Correspondent" In Italy. The Person...
" OUR CORRESPONDENT" IN ITALY . The Personal Adventures of " Our own Correspondent" in Italy . By Michael Burko Honan . In two vols . Chapman and Hall . Hebe are two gay rattling volumes of personal adventure , animal spirits , and coxcombry , snowing , saith the title-page truly enough , " how an active campaigner can find good quarters when other men he in the fields ; good dinners when other men are half-starved ; and good wine , though the king ' s staff be reduced to half-rations . " Our light-hearted friend Vivian lacent in his coxcombry
himself is not a greater coxcomb , nor more comp . He rattles away with Irish spirits and Irish veracity . You never believe him yet you never weary of his talk . Very properly leaving in the columns of the Times all that Be wrote as " Own" for the Times , he chats ^ confidentially and convivially with the reader upon all his personal experiences . The fastidious exigencies of grammar do not always arrest him any more than " dull accuracy . " He will not spoil a good story by too prosaic a regard for fact . His obj ect is to amuse , and he amuses . We cannot do better than to give a taste of his quality in two different styles . Hero is one relating
HOW HE OTJTWITXED THE MINISTERS . " It will be remembered by those who then took an interest in Portuguese affairs , that during the political fever caused by the rivalry of the conservative and liberal parties , the Chambers had not been called together for , I believe , three years , and that , in 1848 , the greatest curiosity was excited in Lisbon and London , to ascertain in what manner the speech from the throne would speak of the home policy of tho government , and of its relations with the British cabinet , by whose agency tho Queen had been saved from the claims of the Oporto Junta , and by the presence of whose fleet in tho Tagus , I have reason to know , the authority of Donna Maria was still sustained .
" The Chamber was to open on a given Monday , and , on that day , the royal speech was to be first heard ; but as tho mail steainer , which left Lisbon for Southampton only at intervals of ton days , started on the Saturday , it was evident that eight days in tho transmission of tho document would be lost , and the ' Times , ' and tho other London morning journals be placed on an equality in point of datc ^ or perhaps bo anticipated by the evening papers , in which case , I would wring my hands in despair , and Printing House Square would , qn that occasion onlybo hung in black . .
, ,,,,, „ ,,, " But how , in tho name of common sense , was tho speech to bo had forty-eight hours boforo it was to bo spolcon , or how could it bo called «• a speech" boforo it actually had boon delivered , as wo all know that ovon on tho very morning of tho opening of a sossion , it is necessary sometimes to revise and retouch tho discourso ? I know , moreover , that it was useless for mo to address any member of tho government , for what minister of state would compromise himself by such an indiscretion , or how could ho appear boforo tho Qucon and his colleagues , when tho return stoamor arrived , and tho ' Times / containing the evidence of hia folly , bo
in every handP " These wcro tho difficulties that bosot mo ; lot us see how thoy woro ovorcomo , for I did send homo , by tho Saturday steamer , tho speech from tho throne , and tho ' Times' published , " on Wednesday , tho manifesto of Donna Maria , which sho delivered on the previous Monday—a rapidity of receiving intelligence only to bo accomplished by despatching a balloon with a fair wind , an caglo trained to do carrior-pigeon ' u duty , or tho submarino telegraph , when Lisbon and London are brought into contact by Homo ilvo hundred miles of' sympathetic wires . It being uboIohs , oh I have shown , to apply to any member of the cabinet , or to persons known from their high station to bo in relation with it , I spont a weary night in thinking how tho com waa to bo accomplished without compromising any public authority , or even drawing suspicion in any particular direction . At last I
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 26, 1852, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_26061852/page/17/
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