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Critics are not t ; txe legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —Edinburgh Review .
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D o you remember Thackeray ' s terrible pictorial satire on Louis XIV . ? It consisted of three figures : Ludovicus Rex in all his pomp , sceptre , and wig ; Ludovicus , in the centre , shorn of his m agnificence , a miserable shivering anatomy , the very incarnation of incompetence ; and Rex , a lofty and imposing presentation of the mere wig , dress , and sceptre . It made one curiously aware of the old dictum about heroism and valet de chambres— such heroism . Kings do not undress well . Familiarity breeds fearful contempt . The fact is , they are not Kings at all , but only dummies for regal insignia .
Charles the Fifth , for example , was a mighty monarch , and fills a great space in History . But to him may be applied what Goethe sarcastically said of aristocratic people in
general" Waren ' s BUcher man wird sie nicht lescn . " " Were they books instead of men , you would ' nt turn over their leaves " ! Charles certainly does not shine in the literary department , as may be seen by the Correspondence which has recently been published . We looked forward with some curiosity to these letters , but they turn out to be dull and tiresome beyond even kingly warrant . To the writer of History they may be of some slight value , but the reader of H istory will rather thank us for warning him off the ground . There is one amusing trifle in it , however , illustrative of the graceful propriety with which foreigners spell English names . Sir Graham and M . Menekton Millns are
rather splendid efforts compared with Le due de No / phocq , by which , anticipating the Fonetic Nuz , the Ambassador Chapuys designates our Duke of Norfolk ! In similarly happy sense of " the eternal fitness of things , " M . Souvestre talks of " spitch , " meaning a speech . We are inclined to accept the axiom , " spelling is a gift , " when we see the painstaking errors of all Frenchmen who venture upon English .
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In the new number of the Westminster Review there is a grave and powerful article on one of the gravest and saddest of all subjects—Prostitution . The public should be grateful to this writer for his manly plain-speaking . Although the subject is intimately connected with our social and domestic condition ; although it is one which lies very near the root of society ; yet , from mistaken
prudery , few men dare to discuss it at all ; and perhaps no man yet in Parliament has the courage to bring forward a plain and comprehensive measure . Here is one of the evils of Grundyism , that , while everybody is perfectly aware of the existence of a monstrous gangrene , no one will dare to call in the physician , " because gangrenes must not be mentioned ! " What owls we are thus to blaspheme the light !
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In France there is some variety to notice . George Sand announces her Memoirs as on the eve of publication ; and Lamartine has sold the copyright of two new novels , which will shortly appear . Emile Souvestre has sent forth a new volume , Un Philosophe sous les Toits j from what we have already seen it promises to be very interesting . M . Babaud Laribiere has written a Histoire de VAssemble " e Nationale Constituante ; it will be more interesting some years hence than it is
now when the events are but of yesterday . We mentioned recently that in France the reactionary writers were boldly endeavouring to rehabilitate the Inquisition . Our readers probably thought that was a figure of speech : it was a sad literality . The great organ of the Catholic party , 1 / Univers , with a courage and consistency one rejoices to see anywhere , answers the attacks of M . Eugene Pelletan upon the Inquisition , by saying that a " doctrine once established ought not to
permit enquiry , " and U Univers defends all the violence , all the cruelty , all the treachery , all the bigotry of the Inquisition , as the proper means of suppressing error . There is logic in this , one cannot deny . As Carlyle is so fond of saying , " This is God ' s world and not the Devil ' s j nor shall the Devil have a footing in it . " If I have got the Truth shall I not keep it triumphant ? As to your troublesome questions respecting my proofs , and how I know that the Truth is mine , I naturally enough refuse to answer them . My doctrine is
established : it has the consecration of Respectability ; it has the force of—the police ; oppose it at your peril ! Jj Univers is in error , however , when it says the Inquisition did not strike at intelligence , that " never did it persecute a man for a crime of pure thought . " L ' Univers forgets , as M . Pelletan remarks , the trial of Galileo , who " one day thought that the earth turned . The Inquisition thought on the contrary that the earth could not turn without showing a written permission to that effect in the Bible . If it pretended without such permission to gravitate through space , it was declared heretical . " But were not all trials
persecutions of opinion ? And of what use is it to respect opinion and persecute the utterance of opinion ? Men little foresee the lengths to which their tendencies will carry them , give them only line enough ; and it is because they do not foresee this that we call up the Inquisition ( or something analogous ) as the necessary terminus of the limitation of free opinion . What think you , for example , of the Stadt Commandant of Vienna , in his insane hatred towards the press of Brunn , prohibiting every journal and every inhabitant of Vienna from
pronouncing even the name of the Britnner Presse 1 What ! they may not even name it ? Even so . Is it not ' dangerous , " subversive of all society , et cetera ? We remember very well some years ago the editor of an Austrian journal assuring us that he was not allowed to print any tale in which the hero ( unless he were a scoundrel ) was a Hungarian ; this alarm at Hungary struck us as amusing enough , but to be alarmed at the mere name of a journal passes all bounds . There is no such prohibition of the Gentleman in Black ! To be sure he is at least
a gentleman , and doesn't disturb our " society ! " Him we may name , for , after all , is he so dangerous ? But the Brunner Presse ! . . . Donner Wetter !
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ANIMAL MAGNETISM . Physico-physiological Researches on the Dynamic * of Magnetism , Electricity , Heat , Light , Christallization , and Chemism , in their relation to Vital Force . By Baron Charles Von Reichenbach . Translated by Dr . Ashbnrner . Balliere , 1850 . To every one this must appear a remarkable book ; to the lovers of marvels it is marvellous ; to the scientific man it is puzzling . Of course we know that many will put it down as nonsense , from a peculiar mode of a priori reasoning ; but we are not so wise as to be able to sneer at Reichenbach . nor so very learned
and acute as to be able to look down on Professor Gregory . Otherwise , we might have saved ourselves the trouble of reading through the work , and , instead of a review , written a long essay on the general absurdity of the human race . This book is intended to show the relation between certain , powers in animals and certain powers in inanimate nature . The idea is not new ; we all believe this generally , and we have felt the want of our knowledge as to the particulars , but never doubted as to the greatness of the field of
enquiry . The enquiry will be a long one ; it is this kind of knowledge which will teach as how we stand in our relations to all things around us . We are affected by the heavens , by the earth , and the air , by the sun , and by the moon ; but how ? We are affected by the electricity of the earth , and the warmth of the earth , and the vital force within us is affected by various substances which we use as food , and produced
by substances decomposed in the system . We are evidently parts of a whole , deriving our life from the great fountain of life , and breathing into ourselves vitality from the great fountains of vitality around us . We are dependent on the sun for life , and we know not how ; we are affected by lightning , and we know not how ; we are affected by the growing genial spring , and we know not how ; we must welcome any attempt to tell us anything about the matter .
Mr . Morison . was right when he objected to the exclusiveness of the professions . We find men entirely abjuring many important truths because they dare not follow what the profession disallows . They will not try experiments because an old lady will decide that she will have no such medical attendants . We know cases where this has conquered men of scientific powers of considerable calibre ; and we
know also that bad as quackery is it is not so bad as the conservatism of antiquarian notions on science . Scientific men have before them a romance , a field of enquiry , to which no knight errant ' s wandering can be compared , as far beyond the regions of romance as the wonders of truth have transcended fiction . This book is puzzling , as we said , to philosophers . We know it has puzzled some of the first brains who dare not pronounce upon the contents ; some are
silent , bolder men deny . We listen with respect to all men who address us respectfully . We are accustomed to read scientific books , and think that this book shows a well-trained scientific mind . Reichenbach has been well known as an accurate experimenter . We think that there is no class of experiments upon which better reliance can be placed , considering the great difficulty attending them . Yet we also think that after having proved certain points to his own satisfaction , he has been sometimes carried away beyond the
region of careful induction , and has , therefore , lost his firm footing ; this may happen with the best scientific training . But we prefer to give his researches , perfectly aware that the first step and , consequently , the last depends on the observation of things most difficult to decide upon , but also remembering that no wonders told us in this book are more wonderful than what we most infallibly know to exist . We have nothing more wonderful than the revelations of an
unseen world , given us by the microscope , nor the wonders of the telescope , nor the wonders of gravitation , chemical attraction , and physical cohesion . We have here another class of wonders connected less with dead matter than with living fibre , where , of course , we know there are marvels enough , and in which the state of science demands an enquiry , because we have often been , told that life is only
galvanism and man merely a battery . The first part now given to us contains the investigations which were before presented to the public in the Annalen der Chemie Beilage 1845 , and in an abridgement edited in England by Professor Gregory , of Edinburgh . The first question which he attempts to answer is , whether the magnet has any influence at all on the touch . Reichenbach says that .
out of twenty-three young ladies , eighteen could perceive the magnet , and also that , out of any fifteen or twenty persons , three or four -will be found to perceive the influence clearly , if the magnet be drawn downwards over their bodies . Vigorous men and strong healthy women do not perceive it in general . The persons most sensitive to the influence of the magnet were men accustomed to a sedentary occupation , as
writing , and girls who spent all their time m sewing . Abundance of subjects were to be found in Vienna , and in large towns where nervous diseases have grown so abundant , whilst these sick , sensitive persons are rare in the country . The patients he used for his experiments were , first of all , Miss Nowotny , " a young woman of twenty-five years of age , who had suffered for eight years from increasing pains in the head , and from these had fallen into cataleptic fite . In her all the exalted intensity of the senses had appeared , so that she could not bear sun or candle light , saw her
chamber as in a twilight , in the darkness of night and clearly distinguished the colours of all the furniture and clothes in it . " It was from the exalted state of this patient ' s senses , that Reichenbach first thought of trying whether a magnet would give out any light , and so come to some conclusion as to the light of the aurora , and he says , " the facts gained that , although invisible to ordinary eyes , coloured , especially white , yellow , and red , lights do issue from magnets , certainly must lead us to surmise that the aurora may be either actually the magnetism , itself issuing from the polar regions , or else a direct effect of it . "
In a note the translator shows that even thought Is something in his own sense of the words ; he wills a bar to be placed before a door and a sensitve mesmerised patient cannot enter ; he wills a bar on the carpet , and she cannot get over it but falls down insensible . On one occasion he left the bar for an hour and a half , keeping her unconscious all the time . This is a little beyond Reichenbach ; but we hope this bar will not be strong enough to keep our readers from going on a little farther .
The action of the magnet on the hand was shown to be in some cases attractive , the patient following the magnet as fur as she could ; but the reciprocal action did not exist at all , there was no inclination for the hand to lift the magnet . This experiment shows an action without a reaction , or it shows what is afterwards more fully explained , an action quite independent of magnetic power . An iron plate was . afterwards found to act quite as strongly as a magnet , as far as giving warmth and coolness , even at forty-nine yards distance .
The next experiments were with crystals , they acted quite as powerfully as the magnet , although we know that they have no magnetic power , showing
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July 6 , 1850 . ] ©!> « VLtatlt V * 351
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Leader (1850-1860), July 6, 1850, page 351, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1845/page/15/
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