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j THE LEADER. [No. 414, February 27, 185...
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Two works have" recently appeared which ...
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The vexed question of international copy...
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M. Anioine Roche has recently published ...
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SHELLEY AND BYRON. Shelley and his Writi...
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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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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J The Leader. [No. 414, February 27, 185...
j THE LEADER . [ No . 414 , February 27 , 1858 .
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Two Works Have" Recently Appeared Which ...
Two works have" recently appeared which tend to show that the revived study of philosophy at Oxford is likely to produce substantial fruit Ike first of these ^ Sir Alexander Grant ' s Essays on the Ethics of Artstotle-is a decided advance on the meagre elucidations hitherto given by Oxford scholars of their favourite text-book . Even at Oxford it has been too much the fashion to study the Nicoraachean Ethics as Greek rather than philosophy , and for fifty years past no progress has been made in the critical interpretation of its difficult passages , or the philosophic discussion of its higher problems . Sir Alexander Grant treats the ethical system of Aristotle in a manner number
worthy of the subject and of the University , his essays , six in , being evidently the result of zealous labour , varied scholarship , and independent thought . The subjects discussed are the genuineness of the Ethics , the position of ethical science in Greece previous to Aristotle , the relation of Aristotle to Pia . to , the special method and ideas of the Ethics , and the relation of Aristotle ' s speculations to modern systems . The most interesting of the essays are the second and last , which connect the work of Aristotle with the entire history of ethical philosophy , showing what moral ideas he inherited from his predecessors , and the position in . which his treatise stands to the peculiar doctrines of modern thinkers . The work is a really useful one to all students of philosophy , but especially to Oxford men , being an excellent introduction , not only to the Nicomachean Ethics , but to the ethical systems of
antiquity as a whole . The second work is the elaborate article , Metaphysics , recently contributed by the Rev . H . L . Mansel to the new edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica-This is a complete , and in many respects original , treatise , discussing in order the various points and problems of mental science under two main divisions—Psychology andOntology—the former being , in Mx . Mansel ' s view , the science of phenomena , the latter of reality . In the psychological part of the essay , the author turns to good account the most recent contributions to the subject , with the whole range of which , both in this country and on the Continent , he is evidently familiar . It is in the ontological part of his work that Mr . Manbasishe
sel ' s originality is most apparent . Starting from consciousness as a , attempts to establish a science of reality in three main directions—those of man , nature , and God—but , in his own view even , is fully successful in one alone , that of man . He maintains that we have a direct and absolute knowledge of ourselves , consciousness being not simply a manifestation of personality , but personality itself . " I exist as a person , " says Mr . Mansel , " only as I am conscious of myself , and I am conscious of myself only as I exist . The consciousness of personality is thus an ontology of the highest sense of the term , and cannot be regarded as the representation of any ulterior reality . " But is there as matter of fact any such direct consciousness of pure being , of abstract personality as Mr . Mansel assumes ? The condition of consciousness is difference , division , while being is necessarily one . We cannot be directly conscious of ourselves apart from all states , but only of ourselves in some particular state . While admiring the acuteness . of Mr . Mansel ' s discussions , we cannot , therefore , congratulate him on the success of his attempt to construct a science of being .
The Vexed Question Of International Copy...
The vexed question of international copyright between this country and the United States seems at length in a fair way to be settled . The only wonder is , that the present piratical system has existed so long , the interests of authors on both sides of the Atlantic being alike concerned in its abolition . But family quarrels are notoriously the most inveterate , the most difficult to arrange , and to this it is probably to be attributed that , while we have had for years past an international copyright with the nations of the Continent , we have up to the present time come to no arrangement with our cousins in America . We hail with sincere pleasure the prospect of a speedy termination to such an injurious and disgraceful state of things held out in the following paragraph from the American Publishers' Circular ; —
The subject of International Copyright ia onco more brought prominently before the public by two independent measures—a bill submitted by Mr . E . Joy Morris to the House , intended to secure a partial compensation to foreign authors , whoso works may be reprinted in this country , and the draft of a treaty which Lord Napier is understood to have laid before General Oass , having the samo object . It is highly probable that some action will be taken on one or both of these propositions . Wo have never been able to see why our laws should protect the rights of a foreign inventor , yet ignore those of a foreign author . Was not Lord Byron as truly the creator of Chllde Harold as James Watt was of the steam engine ? And if to build a otoam engine in this country after the model ot Watt ' s was an infringement ot the rlghts-of « Mld ~ Watt ^ why ~ waaTnot . an . Amorfoanjrw of the rights of Lord Byron ? We cannot gu « aa .
One of the ablest arguments against international copyright asserts that such writers as Bulwer , Dickens , Thackeray , borrow their ideas from the great thinkers and philosophers of their own and former ages , and have no just property therein . This , if good at all , ia good , not against international copyright , but in bar of the claim of cert Ala persons % o share its advantages . No matter how stringent the law , It is clear that a plea of Plagiarism , if made out , would constitute a valid defence . A . thief cannot maintain an action for the recovery of property which ho is known to have stolen , but of which a third party has taken possession . We have no manner of doubt that ' Oliver Twist' or' Little Dorrlt' is at truly and absolutely the production of Churlea Dickens as the Wealth of Nations' was that of Adam Smith ; but , if
the contrary were established , it would make nothing against the propriety and justice of international copyright . Inventions are , to a considerable extent , products of their time . We cannot doubt that steamboats would have been constructed though neither Fitch nor Fulton had never been born , and that the electric telegraph would have flashed intelligence , from country to country though there had never been a Morse , a Bain , nor a House . But could we have had Christabel without Coleridge , Sartor Resartus without Carlyle ? Clearly not ; and herein is the proof that the author ' s right is clearer and stronger than that of the inventor . The latter anticipates ; the former creates .
M. Anioine Roche Has Recently Published ...
M . Anioine Roche has recently published the first volume of a Histoire des Principcmx Ecrivains Frangais , which though specially addressed to young ladies , as an educational work , will be read by cultivated readers with pleasure and profit . Ifc is the cream of literary history , exhibiting the progress and perfection of French literature in the most eminent writers . After a very brief but lucid , sketch of the origin and formation of the language during the six . teenth and seventeenth centuries , M . Roche passes all the great writers in review , from Mabot to Boileatt , giving some illustrative extracts from each , and expressing in clear , elegant diction the opinions which , in Prance , may be said to have passed into laws . We have on more than one occasion noticed it as a remarkable peculiarity in revolutionary and free-spoken France , that no
subject is so sacred there as an established reputation . A Frenchman will doubt of everything that can be expressed in a proposition , except the preeminence of France , and the qualities attributed to a French classic : to find a Frenchman who has any misgivings about Trance as the brain of the world , ' is as impossible as to find one who thinks of Cobneille , Lafontaine , or Bossuet with any independence of judgment . What has once been said and accepted respecting a classic , remains a tradition which no levity ventures to disturb . M . Roche is , in this respect , like all his distinguished countrymen , and his criticisms are interesting as expressing the general sentiment of Frenchmen , and therein , perhaps , even more useful to the audience he addresses than if they had been original . His volume is very pleasant reading , and will be very acceptable to a large class .
Shelley And Byron. Shelley And His Writi...
SHELLEY AND BYRON . Shelley and his Writings . By . Charles S . Middleton . 2 vols . ( Newby . )—It has been said that a certain downward foad is paved with good intentions ; and Mr . Middleton seems in these two volumes to have unwittingly laid a flagstone on his path to that literary Gehenna which boasts so large a population of unfortunate authors . Five years ago , he conceived the idea of devoting his leisure to writing a Life of Shelley ; and the result is a work to which , indeed , we can give the praise that fairly belongs to a well-meant design , and to industry , but which is open to certain grave
V _ _ _ _ — va . iv >* ^ . ^ _ T — . l . ll- «_ Properly to write the Life of a genius so exalted and so subtle as Shelley ' s , requires a profound critical insight and a knowledge of human nature not necessarily implied in any amount of mere admiration and reverence ; and these qualities Mr . Middleton does not possess . The task , moreover , demands , in a biographer who writes so close to the poet ' s own time , when friends and near relations are still living , an exquisite delicacy of mind which shrinks , with instinctive perception of the limits of publicity and privacy , from touching on matters -which are necessarily painful to those concerned , however honourable they may be to all parties , and which cannot be ulaced in their true light without a further violation of that fine
sense of reserve which Mr . Middleton seems almost to have forgotten , In saying thus much , we do not mean to accuse him of a bad intention towards any one . He seems to be a person of amiable feelings , deeply sympathizing with Shelley , anxious to place him in the true light of his genius and his noble heart , and to show the meanness , apite , and vulgarity of his enemies . But , for want of that rare perception to which we have referred , he has violated sanctities which , injustice to him , we will hope he did not perceive as such j has published letters which his own judgment should have told him ought never to have been exposed to the vulgar curiositvand misapprehension of the crowd , to whom , indeed , they can be of no legitimate interest whatever ; and has publicly related circumstances which he has no right to drag from out the circle of private confidence , even supposing them to be correct , which in many cases they are not . . It must be admitted that Mr . Middleton does not stand alono in this bad habit . If there be any palliation in community of error , the present biographer of Shelley may claim it . The lives of great men , written while stateinenwi
those yet remain who are capable of bem £ pained by injudicious frequently show the same evidence of disregard of delicacy . Mr . Cottle , in his Life of Coleridge , published letters addressed to himself by his menu , in one of his sore extremities , soliciting the loan of a few kitchen utensils . He did not appear to understand that a saored silence should he thrown around such facts ; that their publication must have been painful to relations ; and that the knowledge of them puts the prosperous and insolent ot mankind in a position of apparent triumph over genius and misfortune . courao , we do not intend to say that any such sordid details as these can do related of Shelley ' s friends , or of Shelley himself , who , though at one time straitened in his means , was never reduced to such extremities as poor Colerid / re : nevertheless , Mr . Middleton is justly chargeable with not outficiently respecting the privacy of those with whom Shelley was connected byifiFiendihirT ^ irdWelStfen principle which he may have thought warranted by previous examples , ow which is opposed to that tenderness for the feelings of othera which is tno finest uharncteristic of the true eentlomnn . He would be sorry , al « Oi »
could know that ho has placed in the light of mere reooivers of benefits fcnose who have bestowed in an equal degree , nn < l that ho has thus- —not wiln » gvj we are assured , but by virtue of a mistaken system—given purely 8 ect J $ " i : portraitures , loading to misapprehension on the part of the render ; W » b respect to some persons , indeed , he appears to have most imperfect information , and has consequently gone astruy .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 27, 1858, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_27021858/page/16/
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