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LITERATURE, SCIENOE, ART, &c.
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It was ( scarcely to be expected that a question so rauch mooted already as the . ' authorsliip-. of the " Vestiges , " could be disposed of by a mere jp . se diiiVand we are not surprised therefore , that many doubters have arisen as to the accuracy of the assertion , or that Professor Nichol has plainly denied that Dr . George Combe had anything " to do with the authorship . " I beg yon distinctly to-state from me , " writes the Professor to the Editor of the North British Daily Mail , " that
Mi * . George Combe was not the author of that book" ( that is i the u Vestiges" ) . To this , the Critic replies : " Notwithstanding the very strong and confident assertion on Mr . 2 \ ichors part ,, we adliere to oiir statement . Secrets of this kind have been kept by authors , even from their most intimate friends ; and although avg are not yet authorised to state the precise grounds upon which we attribute the authorship to Dr . George ' Combe , we may go so far as to say that we . have done so on the . ' authorit y of a writer whose name in the world of science is
infei-ior to none . As , however , -JMr . Nichol seems to hint that he is in possession of the secret , perhaps he will have no objection to inform us to whom , in his judgment , ; we oiight to attribute the authorship . " Thus stands the matter for the present , and we hope that ere long both oiir contemporary and the Professor will see fit to be more explicit . Assertion goes very , little , in-such matters , Jiowever respectable maj ' be the authority . One of the most important book : issues of the week has been Messrs . Sotheby and Wilkinson ' s catalogue of the Libri MSS ,, to be offered up for
competition on the 28 th instant and seven following clays , omitting Sunday ; By the word catalogue , it must not be supposed ' that a mere dry list of the lots is all that is given . I lore is a goodly volume qontaining ,. on two hundred anil sixty pages of type , and . thirty-seven sj ) lendid plates , full descriptions and specimen fUc-sinules of the eleven hundred and ninety lots of which tlie sale will consist . The descriptive notes are A-ery minute , of high bibliographical value , and the list of works ited in theni contains the titles of nearly three lrundried and fifty works in English , Latin , Italian , F rench , &c . These , notes are the work of M . Xiibvi himself , also the very erudite preface , or introduction , written in French , with an English translation on the opposite page . . Altogether , this
may be pronounced to be a pearl of catalogues , and in every way ' worthy of the inipoi'tant sale which has called it forth . The mere cost of preparation must be something far excecdingtho price charged , and years hence it will possess a bibliographical value quite apart from its present purpose . Our renders may remember that the eminent collector , who has brought together these litei * nry treasures , is the same M .. Libri whose ease ocoupied so much attention a few years ago . After a searching investigation . into tho charges against him , he was thoroughly ocmiittod of them all , and was oven ' permittori by tltfo French Government to remove Ilia . library . Thin pale is one of tho largest ' and most important which l . as taken plucrc for ninny years , and it will attract virtuosi and collectors from till partrf of the world .
There in fio seorot now that ; the reports respecting 1 lio dissolution of Household Words and tho creation of a now periodical , to bo oonduetod by Mr . dairies Dickens , and supported by tho contributors * of Household Words , aro ( rue , * that Gvery preparation in ¦ being . made for storting the now adventure , and that tho first number will bo tanned on the , 30 th of April . The name selected for tho
now periodical is "AH thQ : Your Round " —rather an eccentric one , it must bo confessed—and the motto chosen is tho lino in Othello , " The Btory of my Life from Year to Year . " Household Words , it is said , will not bo continued . , The past wook has not behold the issue of many good books . Wo have Archbishop " Wlintoley s edition of Pnloy ' s " Moral Philosophy " ( John N . Piu-kor ); " Ellen Raymond , " by Mr * . Vittol ( SinitJh , Elder ond Co , ) * ; and ?' Tlw Bortmiun , " by
North American . a subject with the Judge ; for he delivered the same lecture at the Glasgow Burns' dinner ; when he was called upon to propose " the Church of Scotland . " Finally , Mr . William Longman has been delivering the first of a series of lectures , on English History , to the members of an association at Chorley-wood , in Herts , near his country residence . This lecture has been printed with nixich luxury of paper and illustration , and is an excellent specimen of a plain lecture intended for common sense hearers .
coloniesThis is favourite Anthony Trollope ( Chapman and Hall ) . Brother Prince , of the Agapemone , has also put forth some hundred pages of extatic nonsense under the title of his " Journal , " which are published for him ( but certainly not on their own account ) by Messrs Hall and Virtue . Sparse items of gossip may be noticed . " Tom Brown , " that is , Thomas Hughes , * Esq ., has" joined the honorable society of Antiquarians . " Sam Slick" has been lecturing at Isleworth—where he has now taken up his permanent abode—on the
There is not much literary news from Paris . M . d'Argent , the son of the late marquis , has cited M Guizot for what'he calls an imputation on his father ' s memory . In his memoirs , tlie ' -ex-Egeria of the Roi-bourgeois accused d'Argout of servility to Casimir Perier , on the flimsy ground that once when the former was going up tlie Legislative Assembly , Perier called out to him in an imperious tone of voice to " Come Here . ! " Imagine a cctsus ixeJM of that kind offered to the notice of John , Lord Campbell , at Westminster . But then we English are such thick-skirmed dogs .
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SIR WILLIAM HAMILTON'S LECTURES . ( first notice . ) Lectures pn Metaphysics . By Sir William 1 Tamil ton , JSart . Edited by the l ? ev . II . h . Mansel , B . D ., Oxford , aiid JohnViuteli , M . A ., Edinburgh . 2 vols . W . Blackwood and Sons . Every one who has studied under Sir William Hamilton , and has mentioned his name , with laudation in general society , has been accosted with a query like the folioAving : — " IIoav is it that you suidents of mental philosophy and pupils of Hamilton estimate him so highly ? We can
understand the high opinion expressed of Reid ; for he has left his essays as the exponents of his views * Brown ' s lectures enrich tlie mysteries of metaphysics Avith all the graces of poetry . There is a dignity , precision , and beauty in Dugald Stewart thai entices the most exoteric and unread student . We can understand the high estimate formed of these Scottish p hilosophers . But , as fur as avc know , Sir William Hamilton has clpne nothing more than engage , in a somewhat exciting controversy Avith Professor D . c Mwgan about the possibility of reducing all concliisiA-o reasoning to the
syllogistic formula , Avrite a f ' eAV articles in * tho . 2 ? a ? J / ibwgfi Hevieiv on Universities , and one o , y two distinguished philosophers living and deceased , and bring out an edition of Iteirt , with supplementary notes mid dissertations . And yot our best metaphysicians and logicians scoiu to ostlmato his merits as iivr higher than those of nil th'c rest of the Scotch school put together , " Tina question has been put , and it is most pertinent and fair . To such querists our reply has generally been , that Sir William Hamilton ' s merits , like those oil' all p hilosophic teachers , must be measured moro by his influence upon his students' minds tlian by any new truths
taught , or oven by any novel viows of preA'iously taught truths ; and that muntiil philosophy js not a progressive scienco , like those Avhioh deal with any . of , tho conditions or manifestations of material existence—suelj , for oxiunpio , as chemistry , in whoso past history you can allocate to each dlscovprcr his special gains \ and trophies ; as , for example , to Davy his airioo-very of certain motallio basos or to Faraday his adumbration ( now almost a demonstration ) of the identity of heat and electricity . And wo have generally , while defining Hamilton ' s general relation to the Scotch school
by the statement that he had engrafted upon Reid all that was sound and valuable in Kant , acknoAvledged the impossibility of explaining to anyone , who had not hoard the lectures , their merits and excellencies until their publication . Sir William ' s logical course is not yet published . His lectures on metaphysics lie before us . We shall best discharge our duty to our readers by as concise a summary of tlieir chief points as the subject , the space at our command , and our competency for the task , Avill alloAV .
Adoptinc ; Kant ' s division of the mental powers into those of knoAyledge , feeling , and desire , Hamilton confines . himself almost entirely to tlie first , touching little on the emotions and less on thedesires ., Tlie phenomenology of the cognitive faculties and their nomology ; that is , to . say , tlie description of tlieir aspects and manifestations , and the inquiry into the laws which regulate these , principally occupy , him . There is little of . ontology , ' or metaphvsics proper , that is , the . science of the
results and . inferences to be deduced from the psychology and iioniology of mind—the questions of the being of a God , immortality of tlie . soul , &c . These lectures , then , do not travel over , 1 lie whole field embrace under the term metaphysics . ' They are lectures on the phenomena ami'lavs of the intellectual powers , as ¦ distinguished irom emotions , and desires . ; ethics and logic , of course , are necessarily excluded , as" far as the cognatenes : ? of tlie themes can prevent the partial treatment of these closelv-related subjecti ? . ' ¦¦ " ..
v lectures demonstrate tho . suV . ji'i-t . ivo and tlie ¦ objective , utility .-of tlie study of philosophy , . that Ls o " say , the value of philosophy as ilie be- ^ t moans of mental training , as . thy oenfro ^ uf Jill ... studies ; . and the instnimeiit of ' all studio .- * . ' The latter-contains a magnificent demoiistraliou of tlu- existence of the Deitv as a belief m-evssitilted by the freedoni of our will * as revealed to its by conseiousness . A tliird iectuve , rich and interesting in its history of the deiim ' tions of philosophy and of successive estimates of its proper objects , describes iM nature , limits its comprehension , and defines it , us distinguished from empirical , or historical knowledge , as the knowledge of . things in and by ( heir causesthe . knowledge cur res sit , as distinguished from the khoAvledge rent esso .
. The causes -of ! philosophy— . ih : U is , tlu > mental necessities Avhich compel men to philosophise , ; that is , to discover the causes of phenoim-iuu—are" the necessity , native to us , to look upon wry phenomenon . as an efl'oct ; hence ,, to be dissatisfied till its causes are discovered ; and the desire to ( . any nil our knowledge iilto unity , or . to seek for general truths and laws . This love of unity is not only an effective means of discovery : it is a boundless source of error . It produces hnsty gonemJi-mtions and preniature theories . Here , <<» o , liS to bo classified , as a ' source of delusion , the influence of preconceived opinion . f ( ' > onder is an auxiliary cause of philosophy . The words of Socrates— "To attain to a knowledge o
ourselves wo nuist banisli prejudice , passion , sloth "—m * c taken as the text for a lecluro on the dispositions with " which philosophy ought u > w studied . " Doubt is the first stop towards philosophy ' hi , . 1 doubt as a transitory . state , not a « a lvsting l » 'ice . As Aristotle hns it , philosophy is not thy art ol doubting , but ; ( he art of doubting well . % > ' I'Ore isagroatdillbrcucd , " says Malhibranehc , " lictAvocu doubting and doubting . We- doubt through passion and brutality 5 through blindnew nmi malice , and family through tiuioy , and h-oni n »« nlnohvm
very wish to doubt ; but ayo doubt , , prijdonco and through distrust ; from wisdom nnci through ponctrtition of mind . " There is only one method of philosop M—tlinl composed of aniilysisandsynthoHiri—tho « K « o «» m ] w ' sition of etlbcts into their constituent cuuhos , only that avo , may reconstruct , tho complex «»«•«{« Avhich avo have ai > nlyaud into thoir caust'H . 4 m , procodent analysia must not oonhiln ih ^ o cleiMenw ^ ihat the Oonsotmont synthesis may not ¦ ll } ' 111 " ; fiilse results . Induction , gouorully tormod n analytic , is really n synthetic process . luauf \ io »
Literature, Scienoe, Art, &C.
LITERATURE , SCIENOE , ART , &c .
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«« THE LEADEE [ fro- 468 , March 12 , 1859 .
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LITERARY CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK .
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Leader (1850-1860), March 12, 1859, page 330, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2285/page/10/
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