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r Nov. 3, I860] The Saturday Analyst and...
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DESTINY OF THE NAPOLEON DYNASTY.* NOW we...
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* " T/ie flan ot JJatt'i v" A JUomanoe o...
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PROGRESS AND ILLUMINATION. 11 * B OOKS s...
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^&tlTh' iAV'C^^'' ViU, .A» « ™»i"" <>• "...
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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.
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What Wekng¥ About ' The Unknown.* , ¦ :¦...
arbitrary divisions made to assist our memory—a sort of - Feinagle-Beniowskian system of phrenotypics . The written propositions themselves , and our conceptions thence arising * may be so , unquestionably ; but if there really arc pigs out of the human , mind ( the cynics and satirists tell us there are pig-minds disguised in the " human form divine , " and Carlyle talks of what he calls our " pig-life ) , " and porcupines also , together with donkeys , flat-fish , and sea-gulls ; if we say , these really have an . actual external existence , why it is pretty evident that that existence is independent of our conceptions and written classin > cations , and that they might just as well continue to exist , perhaps with considerably more comfort to them selves j if man fell asleep for the" next hundred years , or even fell into the oblivion of that " dreamless sleep" which the last quoted poet speaks of . We do not deny the Darwinian theory in its most extreme form , that the tendency of animal organisms towards self-betterment , the tendency to adapt . themselves to surrounding circumstances , and these to themselves , in the best way they can , to promote their own good , may , in the course of countless ages , and acting tinder suitable influences and conditions , have gradually developed and differentiated things so dissimilar in their present state of modification as pig ; s and flat-fish , sea-gulls , donkeys , and porcupines . On the contrary , we believe that the indefinite modifiability of animals , considered with regard to their genetic progress , is the very first thing that we must learn and get a clear and correct idea of , to qualify us for the profitable study of natural history ; and this is the secret why such vague and crude doctrines on the subject have been hitherto advanced . All we say is , that if these are distinct sorts of animals , _ and really exist at the time of this present writing-, they might continue to be so , and to have a real external existence , if every intelligence that now takes cognizance of them—pig-boys , donkey-boys , fishermen ., and all were to become extinct . What , indeed , does " conceive " mean ? As applied to the mind , it means to understand , to comprehend , to believe , to imagine , to form an idea of ; it means one , or some , or all of these ; and it means nothing- else . Now our inability to do any , or either , Or all of these things , is no proof of impossibility . Are we entitled to say that because we cannot understand , comprehend , believ * , imagine , and form an idea of a thing , that the thing- is therefore necessarily impossible ? The question answers itself , and renders all such illustrations as the native of the torrid zone denying the existence of ice , the opponents of the heliocentric theory denyina : the possibility of antipodes , & c ., quite unnecessary . Of course if there is an external world , we cannot conceive , at least when our internal conceptions are in conformity with external realities , what is objectively impossible , such , for example , as the identity of something-and nothing-, or any other positive contradiction . But it is one thing to say we cannot conceive what is physically impossible ; and another thing- to say that a thin" - is physically impossible because we cannot conceive it . The conceivableness or inconceivableness of a things is often spoken of as if it wore an objective property of the thing itself , instead of the ability or inability of the mind to conceive it ; that is , to understand , comprehend , believe , imagine , form an idea of it . That a pig and flat-fish should be one and the same thing , is inconceivable , simply because they are different external entities . They would continue to be different things if mind ceased to exist . But inconceivableness is not an objective property of theirs , either joint or several ; either collectively or individually considered . Iheir being one and tho same thing is inconceivable to our mind ; that is , we cannot understand , comprehend , believe , imagine , or form an idea of it ; in one word , wo cunnot conceive it . Clour ideas on this subject are essentiul in prosecuting scientific investigations . But wo must bring-this paper to a close . Mr . Spencor ' s work is one of great interest and importance . The part before us being so comparatively small a portion of the whole , it would not have been fair to give in an article of the length to which its importance entitles it , an account of tho views enounced ; as that would have been to exhaust its contents , and leave nothing for tho render . We have therefore made its announcement the occasion of the above remarks on subjects which are suggested by its perutuil .
R Nov. 3, I860] The Saturday Analyst And...
r Nov . 3 , I 860 ] The Saturday Analyst and Leader . 911
Destiny Of The Napoleon Dynasty.* Now We...
DESTINY OF THE NAPOLEON DYNASTY . * NOW we are not going to eviscerate Mr . Chamerovzow ' s novel . To be hung up in tho literary shambles , drawn and quartered in this way , is treatment we should not like ourselves . It takes off tho edge of tho reader ' s appetite , and it is not a very pleasant process to an author to be picked bit by bib with a bodkin , as the ghoul in tho " Arabian Nights , " in its daily disguise of an Oriental fine lady of fiimikin manners , picked her meal after a nocturnal and nameless banquot among tho tombs , instead of being devoured off at once with a keen and healthy relish . Nor are wo going to practice any of the other arts of critical butchery . Here is a novel in which a very prominent personage on the world ' s stage plays a very prominent part . Napoleon III ., by the grace of God and the will of the people , Emperor of the Frenoh , despite the attempts against him , has lived to the latter end of this " latter day" year of grace , 1860 , to give a title to pne , of Mr . Nowby ' s novels . It is with tho " destiny" of this " Man of Destiny" that we shall chiefly concern ourselves in the present notice , llo is , after all , simply one of tho poor players in the dranui of the world , fretting his little hour upon the scene , thon to disappear , and bo hoard , nnd soon , and
thought of no more . And we are obliged to Mr . Chamerovzow for the occasion he has afforded us of discussing the " destiny " .. his hero . Mr . Chainerovzow is a ready Avriter , and he is conversant : with French manners , and French literature , and the French language . The construction of a work of this kind is not a thing he has now attempted for the first time , and he is no novice in his art . He understands how a web of fiction should be wove round a nucleus of fact , and he has selected a subject "which unites the conditions of being at once a subject of great intrinsic interest and importance , and one with which he might well be supposed peculiarly qualified to deal successfully . But to come to the question . What is the " destiny" of this imperial enigma , who is represented by Punch ; now as the Sphinx , frowning ruin , desolation , and war over the world ; now as a detective , eavesdropping at Warsaw , emblematical of keeping the peace of Europe ; now , as a toyman with a squeaking poodle in his hand affronting the presence of the British Lion ? What is destiny , in general , and what is his destiny or rather the destiny of his dynasty in particular ? In the vulgar sense destiny of course is bosh . But there is a certain line of action to which a man is determined by his individual proclivities ; in plain English , his desires and convictions , served by his intellectual capacity , and controlled or prompted by the circumstances in which he is placed . In the case of Buggins , much given to beer and tobacco , and wife-beating , we do not dignify his career with the title of destiny ; but in the case of Mr . Punch ' s eminent scoundrels , such as Alexander the Great or Tamerlane , or Attila , or any other " scourge of God , we do . It must be carefully remembered , however , that " destiny " in this sense often , makes its instruments bring about things they not only never intended , but never dreamt of , and are in some eases the very last things in the world they would desire to accomplish . A great conqueror ' s object may be the purely selfish one of personal aggrandisement , as his motive may be no higher than mere personal ambition . But the results of his actions may be something that never entered into his plans . He may be the invomntaiy or unwitting destroyer of an abomination that would have taken ages to rot into nothingness if left to itself ; and this brings us to the destiny of the Napoleon dynasty in particular . That destiny has been , and is , to annihilate "dynasty" in general , and prepare the way for a republic . Just look at the effect of what the individual Louis Napoleon is doing . He is utterly extinguishing all the old traditions of legitimacy ; he is shattering all the old party , ties , and party watchwords , and party combinations ; he is scattering to the winds all the old dynastic associa ^ tions ; and simultaneously with this he is making that form of government which is not self-government putrescent in the nostrils of the world . Look at the " dynasty" Napoleon destined tobethe destroyer of all " dynasty . " What has it done ? What did the uncle of the nephew do ? He broke the backbone of feudalism , Compare the stability of the despotic dynasties of Europe prior to the Bonaparte victories , when they mustered a million of men to whelm liberty under fire and blood in Republican France ; with their rickety and bankrupt condition now , tottering on a crazy framework of bayonets , threatening momently to give way and impale them as they fall . " Destiny" has made a useful tool , wherewith to work , of Louis Napoleon and his house , and when sho has finished her labour she will throw the tool aside , used up and worn out . Does any one suppose that a particular dynasty , founded on a negation of all dynasty , is made to last ? He who does is not wise in his generation . We think Louis Napoleon as a great living protest against divine right and legitimacy in all its forms and disguises , an eminently useful agent , and in that character we heartily hope he may be strengthened , that he may overcome all his enemios . What he has done in the butchery line we do not mean to extenuate , when wo say that it is just what every " dynasty " would do in like circumstances ; what every dynasty has done that has been brave enough and able , -when its power was struck at , or its safety attacked . There is a serious charge against this man of destiny on another ground . There were those who suffered utter ruin and hopeless , life-long exile through their enthusiastic devotion to the first Napoleon ' s cause , and whose descendants , as a reward , were left to starve and perish in strange lands , and that by this very man of destiny , who himself has known what exile moans , and may perhaps taste it again , and who , if he docs not know this fact , is chargeable with gross and culpable ignorance . For his first act on becoming what he is , should have been to seek out those who were the victims of an enthusiastic zeal for tho Napoleon oauso .
* " T/Ie Flan Ot Jjatt'i V" A Juomanoe O...
* " T / ie flan ot JJatt'i v" A JUomanoe of Modern Malory , By L . A . Olmmorovssow . Author of "Chronicles of tho Bantllo . " London i Wowby .
Progress And Illumination. 11 * B Ooks S...
PROGRESS AND ILLUMINATION . * B OOKS such uh those stated in tho foot-noto uro puuuh ' nr to England . They may bo quoted « a its pride . To these and such uk those it is owing that Mechanics' Institutes and itHg-ged Schools have come at last to command tho attention of poors and premiers . Tho social revolution has worked from | jduw _ upw « rdM , and thus securing a wider basis , will culininntu in « i loftjur npo * . Some of tho efforts of this kind hnvo Hturtod from u low imcl narrow lovol , indeed ; and , liko tho Early Closing- movement , to which pno of tho works rogirtorod in our iiutp relates , hitvo boon more indivi-
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 3, 1860, page 7, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_03111860/page/7/
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