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December 25, 1852.] THE LEADER. " " 1235
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Xlttxalnxt.
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r-rii ics are not tlie legislators, but ...
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In the chronicles of the first half of t...
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A somewhat different class of readers wi...
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In the Dublin Mechanics' Institution, ot...
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SI'ONTANUOnS (JflNKKATTON. noportsmadc t...
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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Transcript
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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.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
December 25, 1852.] The Leader. " " 1235
December 25 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . " " 1235
Xlttxalnxt.
Xlttxalnxt .
R-Rii Ics Are Not Tlie Legislators, But ...
r-rii ics are not tlie legislators , but the . iudejes and police of literature . They do not urA make laws—tEey interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Jlemew .
In The Chronicles Of The First Half Of T...
In the chronicles of the first half of this century , Alexandbe Dumas will hold a conspicuous place , as the most inexhaustible , if not the most admirable of romance-writers . Since Lope de Vega , there has been no such rapid writer . Only the other day , in writing to the Independance Beige , to excuse himself for the delay which had occurred in the execution of a promise he made to write an article on Emile Djsschanbl , there occurs this passage , which is almost sublime in its careless indifference to so trifling-an omission as that of seven volumes . " I told you , Monsieur , that I would give you a good reason for the eight months' delay which has occurred between the writing of the first and second articles on my friend Deschanel ; and here it is : in that eight months I have written something like thirty volumes . You shake your head , and can with difficulty believe me ? Let us reckon them up : — Conscience l'lnnocent - - ' - - 5 volumes . La Comtesse de Charny - - - 11 i , Le Pasteur d'Aasbourn .- _ -. . -. . - 6 « Leone Leona - ~ - ¦ - 2 ,, Memoires - - - - - " . " " Isaac Laquedem - - - - - 1 »> Un Gil Bias en Californie - - - 2 „ Les Drames de la Mer - - - - 2 „ Total - ¦ ¦ ' - ¦ 37 Bon ! You see it turns out that there are thirty-seven volumes instead of thirty : fespbre que je suis beau joueurT Only Dumas could have written those volumes in that time , only Dumas could have , spoken of the feat in that tone of superb carelessness . " I have written something like thirty volumes , and , on reckoning , it turns out that I forgot seven—a bagatelle ! the affair of a couple of idle mornings !" One of the works mentioned in that list , Isaac Laquedem , ought to pique the curiosity of his readers in a remarkable degree , if they are to trust what he says of it , in his letter to the _ Constitutionnel .- " It is the . vork of ray whole life ; c ' est Fceuvre de ma vie ! Two-and-twenrty years ago , believing myself capable of writing it , I sold it to Charpentier . It was then to be in eight volumes . Two years afterwards , I bought it back again , not feeling myself equal to the task . Since that time , amidst all that ... I have written , at the bottom of all that I have written , and I have Syritten 700 volumes and 50 dramas , (!!) this idea has lived within me , and / the . & ght volumes have grown to eighteen . Although still unable tq . execute this work as it ought to be executed , I have , at any rate , in twenty years , studied much , learned much ; all that I have learned of art , of science , of the world , and of men , I shall put into Isaac Laquedem : I repeat , iris the work of my life . " What says the reader to that magnificentAlexandrcsque flourish ? What are we to expect from a work which i * to embrace six different civilizations , beginning with Calvary , and ; ending , with . our own day ? When he promises it in eighteen volumes , we must not express much surprise if it runs to eighteen hundred . Of one thing we are certain , that no number of volumes will daunt the Dumas readers . He is the first raconteur of Europe .
A Somewhat Different Class Of Readers Wi...
A somewhat different class of readers will be glad to hear that John Ruskin has completed the second volume of his Stones of Venice , which reproduces in the ma ^ ic of a rare style , the essential forms of Venetian life . Although the " season" promises to be less active than heretofore , there arc some announcements to gladden anticipation . Mrs . Gaskkm / s Ruth , and Cubbkr Bell ' s new novel , coming out nearly together , will stimulate all kinds of curiosity , and those " comparisons" which art ! critical , not " odious . "
In The Dublin Mechanics' Institution, Ot...
In the Dublin Mechanics' Institution , otic of the largest in the United Kingdom , there wjis last week u theological " demonstration" against Byron , SnKi . bKY . Voi / rAittB , F « ancim Newman , Akkxanurk Dumas , the Vestiges , the Westminster Review , the Leader , and other " uaines of terror . " We are prevented this week from treating the subject as it must be treated , but on the receipt of certain documents , we sluill exhibit the moralitv of our accusers .
Si'ontanuons (Jflnkkatton. Noportsmadc T...
SI'ONTANUOnS ( JflNKKATTON . noportsmadc to the 7 > ir < u- /<» -sof the London ( Watfortl ) Hprivg-watn- < <»> 'P « M ™ RetndUof Microscopical Kramination . s of the ( h-gimh M < ttf * r » awl botidContmtn ofWatet * uf > pUed ; fYom the 'Phainos and other sources . Hy Kdwm JjankoMler , M . w ., and ' Poiov Jtcdforn , M . IX . It is w « ll known to renders that reviewers often nelocfi a book as tDo mere potf whereon to hang their own garments—tho text for their own disconr «** - ~ the " toast" which in " an exmise" for drinking railter copious draughts of the Pierian , or ofchor springs . We rarely avail ourselves ol this privilo ^ o , but we venturo to do ho with respect to tin ; Report ot Dr-H . LanlcoHtor ami Redfefrn , for the sako of recording in brit ^ l the results of our rofioaroheH into thai- mysterious and loug-dobafced subject , Spontaneous ( ieneration . A paHHngo in Dr . UnkeHler ' n Keport , relative to tlio proHoncoof entozoa in tho body , will iurnwh . us with a text : — " 11 i « r' p ^«\ vo qucHtion for consideration , fVom whence llieBO creatures ar « introduced into the body . It in nhnout certain that they nvo not generated de novo in
the human body , and consequently that their eggs or some form of their existence are introduced from without . From what is already known of the history ol tfiese creatures in the lower animals , it is probable they are introduced into the system with the water which is drunk . Thns it is known that the stickleback gallows the eggs of a species of Entozoa called Bothriocephalus , but whilst inside the fisn these eggs never develops into a perfect Entozoon ; but if the fish is eaten by a bird , the creature becomes perfectly developed . The Gordius or hair-worm deposit * its eggs in water , but the eggs are not developed in this position ; they are first swallowed by insects , and in this position the egg is hatched , produces the Gordms , which becomes impregnated , and escapes from the insect into waters where it deposits its eggs . The eggs of a species of tape-worm , when swallowed by the rat or mouse , will not produce perfect tape-worms in the inside of these creatures but if they are eaten by the cat or dog , then the perfect tape-worm is produced . Many other " instances might be quoted-to show that it is not improbable that some of the forms of animal life which abound in waters containing organic matter , are transitionary states of those permanent forms of animals which infest the body , and
sometimes even destroy human life . " The question to be determined is not , How did these creatures get into the body ? but that far more important question , Does every organic beinff necessarily spring from some antecedent organic being , or may it not , tinder certain conditions , be immediately formed from inorganic elements ? Harvey ' s celebrated dictum of Omne vivum ex ovo ( every living being comes from ah egg ) has in these later days been found untenable , even by those who oppose the notion' of spontaneous generation ; the various forms of generation by budding and by fission have taker * from that dictum its universality , and Comte proposes in its place , Omne vivum ex vivo ( every living being comes from a living being ) 'as unquest ionably a more' accurate formula . To those who believe spontnnPrtiia Oration possible , even that formula is riot ilmversal ; but we
are bound to add that the great forces of Authority are emphatically against the hypothesis of spontaneous generation ; and Dr . Carpenter seems to consider the hypothesis unworthy of discussion . Not so we . . The ancients nact very confused notions on this subject , lney believed , that the corruption of meat produced worms and insects . It was not ; until Bedi , two centuries ago , instituted precise experiments to disprove this notion , that it fell into disgrace . He showed that flies deposited their crrgs in putrefying meat , and that these eggs were hatched there . ± rom that day- to our own , there have been various experiments and various hypotheses on this subject , the old idea of spontaneity always re-appearing , formidable 1 Burmcister { HandbucJi
and always meeting with objections . < 7 cr Entomoloqic ) admits the spontaneity of the acarus in ringworm . Burdacli , in his Physiology , claims the infusoria as belonging ; tcv spontaneous generation . Duges and Lamarck think that electricity can endow certain molecular aggregations with life , and Messrs . Grosse aiid Weekes seem to have proved it ; and O . F . Miiller plainly says that infusoria are formed from inorganic molecules , " exmoUcuhs bruits et quoad sensum nostrum inorqanici . * " ) " but by far the greatest authorities on this side are Treviranus ' { Biologie ) and Mulder , the first ot organic chemists , whose section on this subject in his PhysiologiscJum Chemie is , to our
minds , decisive . c -, With regard to the experiments p-oandwm , they seem , on caretul consideration , , to want that decisiveness which would coerce conviction ; all the experiments to prove spontaneous generation have admitted tno agency of air , in which the seeds or spores may have been present , ( even , in Mr Weekes's experiment we cannot be certain that his " precautions were efficient , ) and alj the experiments to disprove it labour under the disadvantage of either eliminating the indispensable condition of air , or ot so altering it '( asm Schultzo ' s celebrated experiment ) as to give force to the objection raised in the Vestiges—viz ., that we cannot be sure we have not ; set aside some other simple condition requisite for non ex ovo generation . To pass the oxygen through sulphuric acid , and then insist that it is the same as if it came direct from the atmosphere , with the exception ot its bcin « - freed from animal admixture , is a kind of oxponment no opponent of spontaneous generation would admit , if brought forward to support
the hypothesis . . ., . , ¦ ,, , We ' sum up the result of long research in saying that hitherto-no conclusive oxnerimenthas been devised either for or against ; the obscurity of the subject , and thft facility with which men take their suppositions lor explanations , always ready with a " May it not be , & c , " render tlio experiments of little avail . - , - Many of tlio facts being disputed and others doubtful , no positive decision can bo come to . . Both explanations are hypotheses , and it becomes a question therefore , as to which of the two is the more acceptable . . Rehgioua prejudices will for a long while determine men in -favour of oogencsis , beu auso that hypothesis having been long established , has orthodoxy * u its favour , although orthodoxy would be puzzled to cite a oonclusivo text . Let us mention some striking facts .
It lias been observed that when a spring of salt-water risos at some distance from the sea , we soon notice in its neighbourhood tlie growth ot those vegetables only found on the coast or on soils impregnated with salt . In 184 : 5 , a , curious phenomenon was observed in almost all the sugar manufactories of JbYanco ; the sugar presented a strange reddish appearance . On microscopic investigation ^ M . l » ayen discovered it to bo a growth olcr-ijptogamiv . vcqtdaUon in the sugar . In 1851 , M . liayvet ,. tho Hugar refiner , diticovored ' n , Himilar alteration , only i ( - i «* ti not th « roddislL Jmo formerly presenied . Tho mieroscopo revealed it to be a growth ol crvntofamid pl . antw ol" a different kind from that ot 1 H 4 . J . eoiiclumvobecause
Wo bring these for ward m now facts . They arc not , l , Uo ready answer is , " 7 )/< r // it not , bc , i \ mk the spores were floating about , and only became developed on finding » suitable nidus P * Of course ifc may be , if generation is necessarily from spores and ova ; but tlio necessity is here msumed to amount for the facfc ~ -it w not tpvontn tho / art . We will now add wluit ; Trevirajuw has brought to the enlightenment of this obscure subject in the abstract given by Midler-. — " 1 . IniuHions , with tlio witno water , of riiffcrent organic BubHtunccs , —for instmice , cress-8 (? ed « and Tye , —Rive rise to clifferont nnimnlculctf .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 25, 1852, page 15, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_25121852/page/15/
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