On this page
- Departments (1)
-
Text (7)
- Untitled
-
xxttnhxt
-
rvit ies are not the legislators, but th...
-
nullum.' tamenexcute nullum, criti c* '*...
-
To add to our slender budget We may ment...
-
Thc coup d'etat has placed many things i...
-
only erroneous but move in a path whereo...
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.
Ar01707
Xxttnhxt
xxttnhxt
Rvit Ies Are Not The Legislators, But Th...
_rvit ies are not the legislators , but the judges ana police of literature . They do not " -make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinbwryh Review
Nullum.' Tamenexcute Nullum, Criti C* '*...
nullum . ' tamenexcute nullum _, criti c * '* If there are no books _TheIRE is excellent advice which we often feel tempted « near the object o f your wishes . Should a grain of discreet hand . Should there himself a master !) brush Et si nullus erit pulvis , shows Ovid We apply this to books , and we say to the critic , '* If thele are no books to review , review them . " Heard melodies are sweet , Biit those unheard are sweeter \ Books published are agreeable , but those unwritten are incomparable ! One day when an admiring versifier presented the witty DejazeT with two poems he had written in her praise * she read one , and _* smiling graciously , replied , " _Jeprefere Vautre—I prefer the other !" This is a roundabout way of communicating the fact that we are sadly at a loss for material just flow . Could we but adopt Ovid ' s advice , our task would be pleasant enough ; but the reader of a newspaper is fastidious on the article of news . We must look abroad : it is idle to look at home pupil in the gallantry , given by to apply Ovid his to in dull Literatute to season _, all her with a is here attentions / ' ha says , " and anticipate dust fall oti her robe , brush it away robe , dust . ( and benone fall upon her it the absent away
just now . In Germany we hear of two poets getting places tinder goverhment—Getbel , at Munich , and Scheerenberg , at _Bertim There is a prospect for the aspiring ! It is true the poets are both mediocrities ; but so much the better prospect for the aspiring ! _AufeRBACti , who is in Switzerland , has just completed another novel . Adolf Stahr , whose book on Goethe we noticed the other day , has—in conformity with an usage which suggests very serious reflections- —asked for a divorce- that he may marry Fanny Lewald , the authoress . Gutzkow is about to start a journal , and has commenced an autobiography , the first part of Which he calls Aus der Knabenzeit .
It must % e confessed that the Germans are but poor hands at memoirs . Indeed , their literature is comparatively scanty in that department . Goethe was , if we remember right , the first author who wrote an autobiography ; and even he properly styled it , Poetry atid Truth from my Life—for it is very far from a biography . Not Only does he reverse the ordinary mistake of autobiographers , and instead of making the most of his materials for personal display , make the least of them , ilndersiating in a remarkable manner the truth as regards his own acquirements and influence , but he seems to be as anxious to keep himself out of sight as other writers are to keep themselves prominent . Thus , with great naivete ' he apologizes in one place for speaking so muoh of himself work , however , Germans have been autobiographical _* and Gutzkow , taking advaritagie bf his popularity , corhiiierices history of his own li Aus der Knabenzeit r and describes Berlin , ] its burgher life during life , a volume of Whieh is to relates his and describes Berlin , his native town , with graphic vivacity , especially in its burgher life during the great struggle against Napoleon * Since his now Karl a veridical five years . year 1811 , e of Whieh is to appear boyhood , beginning with every the
To Add To Our Slender Budget We May Ment...
To add to our slender budget We may mention the Athenaeum Prdncais , a weekly journal modelled on our Alhenectim , with the single exception of its articles being all signed . This wc think an improvement , and a justice both to the reviewers and the reviewed . We haVe read the eight numbers of this journal , and can recommend it as likely to he both useful and agreeable .
Thc Coup D'Etat Has Placed Many Things I...
Thc coup d'etat has placed many things in France in an odious light , but the frightful servility , impiety , aud unblushing corruption of the Church stand out a mass of blackness , which no episcopal whiteness of lawn , no Jesuitical melliflnousness of phrase can ever cause us to forget . Thc Church that blessed the Barricades and sang hosarthahs to 1848 , of course had no compunction iu blessing thc " salvation of society * ' accomplished on thc 12 nd of December . What Frederick the Great said of Providence being always on the side of the best battalions , is disgracefully true of the Church . The power that secures them the loaves and fishes is the power demonstrably divine . Nevertheless , the wny in which thc Church not simply acquiesces in _Loiiih Bonaparte ' s poliey , but transcends thc servility of the Elysee , is something to astonish even those who like _ourselves arc prepared for a great deal of dirty work in that direction . This is what wc read in a contemporary : — " Heflections on the Emperor now constitute the highest crime . The Univers , fhe organ of tho Church , places such attacks beyond the crime of blasphemy . _Speaking , for instance , of Proudhon * _s book , it says : — ' The author is not contented with attacking , according to custom , the clergy , Christianity , ( Hod himself—he goes v < 'ry much farther ( il va lien plus loin)—he _iiiHults the Winpcror and the _I'hiipire . '" What indeed arc Christianity Insult them , if yon like , it is the pheme the Empire is to render _s >» the language of the _Uhturch 0 y and God compared with the Emperor ! i ; privilege of an espHt fort ; bnt to biassociety impossible ! And this , remember , Organ , in which Bishops _ahd Archbishops ,
Thc Coup D'Etat Has Placed Many Things I...
Cardinals , and all the " right thinking" express themselves or see their Opinions _expressed j a journal which if it swerve frdm the strictest etiquette of doctrine is " called to order" by the authorities , And men call this Religion .
Only Erroneous But Move In A Path Whereo...
only erroneous but move in a path whereon truth can never be found ; nevertheless we know that this false attitude and this false method are not peculiar to him , but are common to the great mass of speculators on moral and social questions . That false Method is the Metaphysical Method , and his book affords us an excellent illustration of the essentially sterile nature of that Method ; In proportion as Metaphysicians endeavour to bring their speculations within the range of Science they manifest their radical error . Mr . Doubleday here undertakes to prove—first , that onr moral and social life ia regulated by Laws and not by caprice or chance ; second , that there is a close analogy between those Daws and the Daws which regulate the material world ; tliirdly , that he lias discovered the one fundamental Daw ; which is to the Moral world what Gravitation is to the Material world .
"DOt . BLEDAY , ON SOCIAL SCIENCE On Mundane Moral Government , demonstrating its Analogy with the system of Material Government . ! By Thomas t ) oubieday . Blackwood and Sons . Mr . Doubleday has here undertaken a task of immense difficulty , not only without the requisite preparation , but absolutely without any adequate conception of its difficulty , and his book is in consequence a failure . We should not hare occupied our scanty space with nny consideration of a work in which we see little intrinsic value , did not there lie in the very failure a lesson worth drawing out . Of Mr . Doubleday we must speak with respect . His ingenious and suggestive work on "Population "—and the tone of the present work , are sufficient to make ns anxious to separate as far as possible the writer from the work . We think the attitude of his mind is altogether a false one as regards the true issue of moral speculation ; we think his opinions are not
Said we not that his task was one of immense difficulty ! His conception of the difficulty was extremely vague ; for he placed it in this distinction between the investigations of material and moral questions : — " The phenomena of the laws which regulate material existence are in some measure palpable to view ; bat the machinery of moral regulation must of necessity be hidden from sight . " It is not easy to decide on the meaning of that passage . If it means that we know anything more o f the " machinery" of the material than of the moral world , it is a _profound mistake . In either case we only perceive phenomena which we classify into general forms under the name of Daws . If it be meant that material phenomena are more easily observed
than moral phenomena , that also is a mistake ; the only difference is this : Moral phenomena , owing to their greater complexity , axe less easily assigned to their antecedents , a . hd therefore less easily reducible to Scientific Daw . But vital phenomena , are , by reason of their greater complexity , in the same position with respect to chemical phenomena _^ and again chemical phenomena are from the same reason less than physical phenomena . The sentence on whieh we comment occurs in the preface , and gave us little hope for the demonstration the book was to offer . The reader will smile wnen we bring forward the Daw which Mr . Doubleday naively imagines he has discovered ; and yet , in truth , the discovery is as valid as most other metaphysical discoveries . The fundamental Daw governing our Moral Dife , as Gravitation governs the Material Universe , is ,
according to Mr . Doubleday , _JExcitemenTT _^ Nothing more , nothing less . All tho manifold phenomena are resolvable into that one law \ A book is written to prove it . At first tiio rea , der will be tempted to throw aside thia as an elaborate truism , meaning simply that " Men aro moved by motives ; " but we invito him to dwell for a moment on this said Daw , that he may appreciate the Metaphysical Method which led to tho discovery . To reduce all moral phenomena to Excitement could never enter a scientific mind as tin ;
expression of a Daw , simply because it is no law at all . There is a law of Gravitation , but Gravitation is not a law , though Mr . Doubleday ( p . 212 ) seriously asserts it to be one . Tell an ignorant person , that the planets move by thc same law as that which makes the apple fall and the balloon rise , and tell him furthci * that the law in question is Motion ( for Gravitation is nothing more when divested of its law—viz ., attraction acting directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance ) will lie be any the wiser P In like manner to tell him that all moral phenomena aro but phenomena of Excitement , its not to put _hUn in possession of law but of a word . Mr . Doubleday thus defines his meaning : —
" It has always seemed undeniable to the author of tho foregone pages , that there is not in human beings any inherent independent power of activity . The human mind only nets after having been acted upon . Bodily actions arc the result of mental determinations or mental feelings , though some of them , by constant use , become almost nicchanicul ; but to all mental determinations there is wanting that which metaphysicians name ' motive' This is the exciting cause of tho mental determination to act or forbear to act , as it may happen . Without tho excitement of motive , the mind cannot act , simply because there is no ground for any particular direction of its activity in preference to nny otber | M ) ssible direction . Until tho motive excites it to act , therefore , the mind is passive ,- there is no caufie nor reason for its moving in any direction . Nothing is presented to it to excite it to come to n decision . It is , therefore , in the absence of all motive , inactive . The
power ol active decision is there waiting to be called forth . Until excited , it in , however , iih limping power , incapable of awaking through any inherent independent activity of its own . " _Suppl y the words " motion" and " mutter" in the place of " motives " and " mind , " and you will nee how accurately the passage represents the old physical , speculations of metaphysicians . How many scientific discoveries have been made by means of " _motion _P" Whereas by moons of the law of attraction we are incessantly adding to discoveries . When M r . Doubleday _liu'iugkoa Us with tho Law _^/ 'Excitement in lieu of Excitement
-
-
Citation
-
Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 28, 1852, page 17, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28081852/page/17/
-