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mysteries that surround us , and live in the whole , the good and the lovely , without punctual matins and evensong ? But I am far from saying that a method of divine life is not necessary to some men , is not , perhaps , best for all . We may still find sacred utterances in the old Hebrew prophets and psalms , and the history of Jesus is in its inner significance full of inspiration and comfort to the souls of men . In the modern poets , too , are snatches of a celestial music . A Wordsworth , a Tennyson , a Shelley ,
a Milton , and a Goethe , can elicit and strengthen -what is holiest , deepest , highest in our nature . The universe looks larger and lovelier out of the Cosmos of Humboldt , and Emerson , Carlyle , Richter , and George Sand are not destitute of the vision and the faculty divine . As to prayer in the sense of petition for supernatural aid to do what God has already given us power to do , it is cowardly ; and supplication , as of some " greedy Oliver asking for more , " is contemptible .
I will conclude this letter with a few remarks on the ethics of sin . All laws rest ultimately on some great fact , patent to observation , in nature or in man . Conscience , or the instinctive feeling of right and wrong , of truth and falsehood , of beauty and deformity , would never have been called in question had not the term been used without due circumscription and with superstitious accretions . Conscience is the instantaneous feeling of approbation or disapprobation with which we contemplate the opposing primitive phenomena of the external world ( as beauty and deformity ) , the decisions of the reason , and chiefly , the sentiments of man as the motives of moral action . No man of ordinary perceptions can
behold a beautiful object without a sense of joy and affection ; no man can tell a lie without feeling its meanness and its unreasonableness ; no man can injure another without feeling sorrow or regret . Our heart responds to a generous thought , and a noble and self-sacrificing action commands our most sacred applause . I do not see how any sophistry can explain away this ultimate fact of the existence of an approving and disapproving sense in our nature , both moial and aesthetic , though I fully accord with the Rationalists in their expressed opinion of the looseness of phraseology employed , and the untenableness of the positions assumed by many advocates of the moral sense .
To return . Sin consists in disobedience to the implied command of the conscience ; and the feeling of self-abasement with regret or even remorse for having wronged or injured another ~ r are , within variable limits , legitimate consequences of a violation of law . Repentance , or the complete change of purpose and principle , accompanied with the act or the desire of restitution , with the patient endurance of the consequences of sin and the most entire guilelcssness , as in the sight of God and man , is the only atonement that can bo made or that ought to be demanded . Satisfaction , in the theological sense of
the term , is a barbarous and pernicious mistake ; and the substitution of an innocent for a guilty person is not only a crime but a blunder . Sorrow and remorse are admirable only when they lead to wisdom and virtue . When they render a man abject and useless they usurp a dominion which they should be compelled to abdicate . The morbid anatomy of sin , which is the hateful characteristic of modern pietism , cannot be too strongly condemned or too fiercely resisted . Let us repent like cheerful and wholesome children of Almighty God—not like whining and diseased sons of a cowardly devil , M . C .
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THE RULING IDEA OF SOCIETY . Letter IV . London , August 5 , 1850 . g Rj—Having indicated in the preceding letters the causes of the evils to which society has hitherto been subjected—all arising or permitted to arise on account of inexperience and consequent ignorance , which have been the parents of the false ruling idea , and which are the necessary antecedents to the attainment of knowledge , —I have now shortly to state the process by which the knowledge which has now been acquired is to be applied to produce the goodness and happiness which hitherto , for want of it , have been unattainable .
As soon as this knowledge shall be sufficiently disseminated—and it is now daily extending with continually increasing powers of progression—the mental and physical means and capabilities of society will begin to bo applied to the construction of social arrangements in accordance with it ; not by any useless and necessarily unsuccessful attempts to mix together the old and the new principles and practices , but by forming separate new arrangements upon new sites , which , while maintaining friendly relations with the old system , will be , as far as practicable at first , complete within themselves , and will be formed and conducted in accordance with the principles of the new system .
These arrangements will constitute new " Rural Towns , " which will bo the very antipodes of the natural growths of the old and now superannuated system . They will be the abodes of truth and consistency , and of justice , mutual kindness , and unity .
They will be constructed to give as nearly as possible equal domestic and social advantages to all , and laid out with studious attention to convenience , beaxity , and every intelligent consideration . Each town will be adapted for the accommodation of a population of such extent as can be the most beneficially associated under one combination , which number , ' according to Mr . Owen , is from 200 to 500 families ; and will possess sufficient land around it to enable its occupants to produce the bulk of their own food , and a surplus of agricultural production , for sale or exchange , to defray or assist to defray external expenses ; and will have various arrangements , according to locality , &c , for other useful occupations , that the people may at all times be provided with useful productive employments ; and especial care will be taken to make every occupation as agreeable as possible , to introduce all attainable scientific and mechanical appliances to increase the efficiency of the various employments and arrangements and to supersede the necessity for unpleasant or excessive toil . The various occupations will be allotted and regulated with due regard to the wishes and capabilities of each individual , and with an especial desire to act towards all with perfect justice and unexclusive kindness . By peopling these new towns at first with families of the working classes , who are already upon an equality as to general condition , the chief difficulty of commencing a system of rationality and justice , and , consequently , of equal general advantages for all , according to age , will be surmounted ; and , by placing the management of the establishments for a time under the superintendence of competent directors , the people will be gradually prepared for a state of independence and self-government , when , by the proceeds of their industry , they shall have repaid the capital expended in forming their establishments . Each family and all adult individuals , besides having a private home or separate apartments , into which no others will enter without invitation or permission , will have many advantages in common with others . They will have the benefit of cooperative or club arrangements for the preparation and service of their meals ' , superseding the necessity for the single family kitchen and refreshment-room , with all their inconveniences , annoyances , and waste ;—of infant and other schools , superseding the private nursery , &c , and all the disadvantages of home education , but without unpleasantly or injuriously restricting the intercourse of parents and children ;—of places of public meeting , libraries , reading-rooms , &c , to which all may resort to spend their leisure usefully and agreeably when the privacy of home becomes for a time undesirable ; in short , all that intelligence can desire and devise will be combined in these new towns for the use and enjoyment of all their occupants , and all their proceedings will be conducted , by the well-regulated and justly-apportioned mutual services of the people , according to age , capacity , and taste , with system and with pleasure to all parties , and with far greater economy than the unjustly distributed and unsatisfactory occupations and amusements of existing society . These new towns will form a most desirable occupancy for the land , and investment for capital during the period of transition ; and by commencing with the poorest classes and progressively increasing the number of the new establishments , and improving their arrangements for those who are now less unfavourably situated , as the desire for the change shall extend , the transition may be effected -with order and regularity , with benefit to all , and without interfering with the interests and positions of any , until they shall willingly adopt the new and far better interests and positions which will thus be prepared for the whole of society . I have now sketched in a rapid and necessarily very incomplete manner , the effects of the old ruling idea of society , and the changes which will naturally supervene from the discovery of the falsehood and evil consequences of that idea , and from the consequent adoption of the oppositcfundamentalprinciplcof demonstrated truth . Error and its consequences can only be perpetuated so long as the error is undetected . It is futile , therefore , for any parties to endeavour to oppose the changes which have been rendered inevitable by the indubitable revelation that the principle upon which society has hitherto been conducted is a falsehood which has never been supported by one single fact . If those who have now influence in society can be enabled and induced to be wise while they retain their power , they will discover that it will be overwhelmingly for their advantage that they should assist and direct the necessary changes , so that the transition may be made to be beneficial to all in every stage of its progress , and not to exasperate the oppressed and injured many , and oppose their own real interests , by endeavouring to maintain by physical force a system of which the falsehood , irrationality , fraud , and gross injustice can no longer bo concealed , and the termination of which , by peaceful wcll-ordcrod measures of transition , will bo , to every individual of the human race , the greatest good thutcan be attained . Henry Travis .
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The week has a brisk variety , quite noticeableat the close of a not very lively season . ( Gossi p * indeed , we have none to entertain you with , but the Books on our Table arrest the eye . There Is Dr . Latham ' s handsome volume on the Varieties of Man , a work of solid learning and patient enquiry , demanding serious study ; side by side with it lies the North British Review , which we mention again for the purpose of directing attention to a masterly and thoughtful essay on Wordsworthy written in a style of criticism very unusual now-a-days , and , if more favourable to the poet
than our own notice in the present number , it nevertheless implies a general agreement with pur estimate . An interesting paper on Versification apropos to Tennyson is also to be found in this Review , the opinions of which , however , will not always receive the assent of critics musically sensitive . The Papers on National Education , read at the " Lancashire School Association , " are of great importance , as opening up one of the grand subjects of National Reform . We shall consider these
more fully in a future number ; and we shall do the same with the two volumes standing beside them , bearing the title Germania , its . Courts , Camps , and People , by the Baroness Blaze de Bury—if on inspection they turn out worthy of notice . And who , pray , is the Baroness Blaze de Bury ? Why , sir , she is somewhat of a myth , making her avatars in literature with all the caprice and variety of Vishnou or Brougham ; her maiden name of Rose Stewart has not , that we
can discover , been stained with printer ' s ink , but we trace her as Arthur Dudley in the Revue des Deux Mondes writing" upon Bulwer and Dickens , we next find her as Maurice Flassan in Les Francais Points par eux-mem . es . Rumour further whispereth that she had a finger in Albert Jjunel , one of the eccentricities of an eccentric lawlord , which was hurriedly suppressed , one knows not why ; in the Edinburgh Review she wrote a paper on
Moliere , andfor Charles Knight ' s Weekly Volume a pleasant little book about Racine , on the title-page of which she is styled Madame Blaize Bury : since that time you observe she has blossomed into a Baroness de Bury ! Let us add that she is the wife of Hknri Blaze , known as an agreeable critic and the translator of Faust , that she is ' said to be a great favourite with the author of Albert Lunel , and that she has the two novels Mildred Vernon
and Leonie Vermont placed to her account : how many other shapes she may have assumed we know not ; are not these enough ? "Whether , after all , a flesh-and-blood Madame de Bury exists , is more than we can decide . Une supposition J what if , after all , she should turn out to be Lord Brougham himself ? The restless energy of that Scottish Phenomenon renders everything possible . He does not agree with Pliny ' s witty friend , that it is better to be idle than to do nothing—satius est otiosum esse quam nihil anere .
Lastly , we will mention Alton Locke ; Tailor and Poet : an Autobiography , a work likely to create a sensation as wide and as profound as Mary Barton , It is a Chartist novel in the autobiographical form , and passionately ripping up many vital questions now agitating the masses . We have read but a portion of it , and must speak at length in a future number ; but , from what we have already seen , we may form a tolerable guess as to its unusual excellence . The solemn voice of sorrowing experience sounds here in eloquence to startle and appal . The cry of oppressed millions—the cry for bread ,, for education , for light , for air , for justice rings through these pages with a piercing energy that must be felt . It is a voice from the deeps .
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France is so occupied with Larochejacqueltn ' h daring pamphlet , Trots Questions , a hearty Vendean outburst , that we suppose it can pay but little attention to the Nouvelles Confidences which
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Critics are not the 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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RAPHAEL'S APOLLO AMI ) MARSYAS . We have much pleasure in informing our Subscriber that the Leader of Saturday , August 31 ** , will contain a finely-executed engraving of this exquisite picture , re * cently discovered by Mr . Morris Moore , whose kind pe r mission enables us to publish it . The engraving will be very nearly the size of the original , and a full account of the picture and its discovery will be given , ,
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Aug . 17 , 1850 . 1 ® fte ^ ttltftt * * & *
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 17, 1850, page 495, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1850/page/15/
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