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    lean out and against the rapids ,, as if the forest were enamoured of the waters j and which overhang and dip , suffering their youngest and softest leaves to thrill in the trembling frenzy of the touch of Niagara . It is in the vivid contrast of the repose of lofty * rees and the whirl of a living river—and in the contrast , more singular and subtle , of twinkling , shimmering leaves , and the same magnificent madness . It is in the profuse and ^ ia and around the Cataract , and in the thousand evanescent fancies which wreathe its image in the mind as thesparklingvapour floats , a rainbow , around the reality . It is in the ilowers that growr quietly along the edges of the precipices , to the slightest of which , one drop of the clouds of spray that curl from the seething abyss is the sufficient elixir of a long and lovely life .

    . « Yet- —for we must look the Alpine comparison which is suggested to every one who knows ^ Switzerland fairly in the face—the Alps are more terrible than Niagara . The movement and roar of the Cataract , and the facility of approach to the very p lunge , relieve the crushing sense of awftdness which the silent , inaccessible , deadly solitudes of the high Alps inspire .- . The roar of an avalanche heard in thosesolemn Heights , because beginning often ana endingbeyond the point that human feet may ever treadl , is a sound of dread and awe like that of the mysterious movement of another world , heard through the silence of our own . .

    " Besides , where trees grow , Jhere human sympathy lingers . Doubtless it is the supreme beauty of the edges of Niagara which often causes travellers to fancy that they are disappointed , as if in Semiramis they should see more of the woman than of the qtrtsen . But , climbing the Alps , you leave trees below . They shrink and retire ; they lose their bloom and beauty ; they decline from tenderness into toug hness ; from delicate , shifting hues , into sombre evergreen—darker and more solemn , until they are almost black , until they are dwarfed and scant and wretched , and are finally seen no more . With , the trees > you leave the sights and sounds and sentiment of life * The Alpine peaks are the ragged edges of creation , half blent

    with chaos . Upon them , inaccessible for ever , in the midst of the endless murmur of the world , antemundane silence lies stranded , like the course of an antediluvian on a solitary rock-ppint in the sea . Painfully climbing toward those heights you may feel , with the fascination of wonder and awe , that you look , as the Chinese say , behind the beginning . ''

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    BOOKS ON OUR TABLE . A Manual of Metallurgy , or Practical Treatise on the Chemistry of the Metals . By John Arthur Phillips . Illustrated by Engravings . J . J . Griffin and Co . Peofessob Philmps ' s treatise on the methods of extracting the metals from their ores—originally published in the JEncychpcedia Metropolitana—la , here republished in Messrs . Griffin ' s valuable cabinet edition of that encyclopaedia . It is a technical book , addressed only to those who need practical instruction , of which its pages are full ; but the curious reader will also find " useful information" on several' points connected with chemistry and chemical manufactures . The diagrams are numerous and excellent . An index is added . IAfe and Times of Francesco Sforza , Duke of Milan ; with a " Preliminary Sketch of the Mist ^ ry of Italy . J ^ y WMB ^ VoUariVtqvhtxt , ' Esq . 2 vols . Blackwood .

    The principal materials used in piling up this monument of twaddling pedantry have been derived from no more recondite sources than a couple of volumes of the Serum Italicomm Scrvptores , a mine already tolerably well wrought by some previous writers not quite unknown to fame , and notably by one Sismondi . The History of the Italian Republics , bythat author , gives , in a lucid and pleasant form , fully as much information about the founder of the ducal family of Sforza as is smothered up in the slovenly , yet pompous verbiage of Mr . Urquhart ' s volumes . Having neither any new facts to relate , nor the art of presenting old facts in a novel or agreeable light , why did Mr . Urquhart write at all P—or , having written , why did he print P JEx pede JSerculem , Judge , reader , what may be the vocation for writing history , by nature and art imposed upon a gentleman , who begins a work of no humble pretensions with such a sentence as this : —

    ' " The narration of the life of any eminent public man , the investigation of the circumstances which contributed to his rise , and the exhibiting the individual qualities Avbich enabled him to turn them to account , is generally supposed to afford a tolerably good exposition of the age in which he lived , and of the people among whom bis lot was caat . '» Vasari ' s Lives of Eminent Painters , Sculptors , and Architects . Translated by Mr . Jonathan Forster . Vol 5 . ( Bohn ' s Standard Library . ) H . G . Bohn . This fifth volume completes the work . Of Vasari it is needless to speak ; of his translator we have already spoken with praise ; and of this volume wo need simply say , that the notes selected from German and Italian commentators are truly illustrative and useful . A copious index to the five volumes is added . Mr . Bohn never omits that indispensable accompaniment ; and we can assuro him all students are grateful to him for his care in that matter . We are not tired of repeating , that an index makes all the difference between the usefulness and uselepsncss of

    many works . ' Ovid ' s Works , literally translated into English Proao , with copious Notes , by H . T Kiley , B , A . Vol . 3 . { Bohn ' s Classical Library . ) H . G . Bohn , Ovid is now complete in a prose version . This volume contains the llerotdes , the Amores , the Ars Amatoria , the De Medicamine Facei , and the othor minor "works . Of this version we have already spoken ; but the present volume offers a peculiarity . It is tolerably well known that classic writers did not put trousers on tho legs of their pianofortes , but indulged rather copiously in " after-dinner of these im

    talk . " It is also known that , with a view to tho morality youth , - proper passages are expunged from school-editions , and collected all into one cloaca of an appendix , where tho scavenger curiosity of youth may rovol at ploa-B ure . Something of this compromise wo find in Mr . ^ tiley ' s version . "It lms been thought advisable , " he says , "to leave tho more objectionable passages in tho ori ginal Latin . Tho reader , if ho is classical , will bo able to translate them for himself ; if ho is not , he may rest assured that ho sustains no , loss . " Docs not this procedure bring out into unnecessary distinctness the very passages it ia desired to conceal P

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    % " ?**?» and Mucellaniea . By H . James . J W Parker and Son n ? £ * TV' > & J ^ r - * £ w : SSS . SS E •* M - / wo JUoofci qfJEVanoii Ilacon . B ' rjhunman and Hull S cM ^ fr * $ * " ** " * ' > TommB # wSSSyfid ™< xSSS bT Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton , Dart . Oh ^ -m « gM % * 4 '?^ %% r l- Xk B . B-U III f * V «« JWoro . By Mrs . Bower . Two VoIb . "" »<> a ™ y

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    COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY . By Gr . H . Lewes . Part X . —On the Influence and Methods of Physics , The very destination of Positive Philosophy being that of influencing the whole intellectual system of man , who moves through life by its aid , I must not omit to give Comte ' s summary indication of the part played by Physics in that action . In the first place its influence is necessarily less profound than that of the two terminal sciences , Astronomy and Biology . These two sciences standing at opposite extremes , directly determine our ideas respecting

    the two universal and correlative subjects of all our conceptions— -the world and man ; and hence , from their very nature , they must spontaneously influence human thought in a more decided way than , can be done by the intermediate sciences , Physics and Chemistry , however indispensable the intervention o ' f the two latter may he . The influence of Physics and Chemistry , however , on the general development and the definite emancipation of human intelligence is nevertheless decided . To speak only , of Physics , it is evident that the fundamental character of absolute opposition between the positive philosophy and theology or metaphysics made itself very

    strongly felt , although it is in reality less complete than in the case of Astronomy , by reason of its inferiority in scientific perfection . For this comparative inferiority , of which vulgar thinkers are little sensible , we doubtless have a full equivalent , so far as the present question is concerned , in the much greater variety of the phenomena embraced by physics . In fact , the intellectual history of the few last centuries makes it manifest , that physics has been the principal scene of the-general and decisive struggle of the positive spirit against the metaphysical ; in astronomy , the discussion has been less marked , and there positivism has triumphed almost spontaneously , except on the subject of the earth ' s movement .

    There is another important fact to be noticed h . ere . It is m Physics that natural phenomena first begin to be really modifiable by human intervention . Thispowerof modification , was impossible in astronomy ; but we shall see it manifesting itself more and more in all the others of the encyclopedical series . If the extreme simplicity of astronomical phenomena had not necessarily permitted our carrying scientific prevision in their case to the greatest degree of exactness , it would have followed from our impossibility of interfering in any way in their accomplishment , that their radical enfranchisement from all theological and metaphysical supremacy would have been a Very difficult process . But this perfect prevision

    effectually served this end in a different way from the small virtual action of man upon all the other phenomena of nature . As respects the latter , on the contrary , this action , however limited it may be , obtains by way of compensation , a high philosophical importance , on account of our inability to bring the rational provision of them beyond a slight degree of perfection . The fundamental character of all theological philosophy , as I have already remarked , is the conceiving of phenomena as subjected to supernatural volition , and , consequently , as eminently and irregularly variable . Now , the public cannot enter into any profound speculative discussion respecting the superiority of the different philosophical points of view j and those theoloof these two

    gical conceptions can only be subverted finally by means general processes , whose popular success is infallible in the long run : the exact and rational prevision of phenomena j and the possibility of modifying them , so as to promote our own ends and advantages . The former immediately dispels all idea of any directing volition ; and the latter leads to the same result under another point of view , by making us look upon this power as subordinated to our own . The first process is the more philosophical , and can best carry popular conviction with it , when it is completely applicable , which however has scarcely been the case hitherto , except with celestial phenomena ; but the second , when its reality is very evident , meets no less neoessorily with universal assent .

    Illustrations will occur in abundance to any well stored memory . I will mention , as an obvious and striking example , the destruction of the theological theory of thunder by Franklin ' s disepvery . If man could thus take the lightning in his hand , and direct its course as he pleased , it could noft long be believed to be the flashing wrath of a deity . Passing from this topic to that of the Method of Physics , considered in its hierarchical position , Comte bids us remember that the speculative perfection of a science is to be principally measured by these two distinct but co-relative properties—co-ordination and power of prevision ; the latter being the most decisive criterion , as it is tho principal object of every science whatever .

    Now , in tho first place , whatever may ho the future progress of Physics , it must evidently continue , under both points of view , very inferior to Astronomy , from the variety and complexity of its phenomena . In plafie of that perfect mathematical harmony and unity which we have admired in * the science of the heavenly bodies , physics presents us with numerous * branches almost completely isolated from each other , and having frequently no other connexion than a feeble and equivocal one between their principal phenomena . And then , instead of tho rational and precise prevision of

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    . Jtikp > p 52 . 1 . , v , , ; ,,. , . . . ' - ; T HE L E A t > E R . ' ' ¦ . : 543 ¦ ¦ ' ' ' ' " " - ——!—' —— ^?^^^—^— ^___^^ „ ,, I '''•" ' i ' II ' ' " ' ' — ^ MM— ¦ I ¦ — II ^^——— M '

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    We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourage itself . — Goethe .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), June 5, 1852, page 543, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1938/page/19/