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There is excellent advice given by Ovid to his pupil in gallantry , which we often feel tempted to apply to Literature in the dull season . « Sit near the object of your attentions , " he says , " and anticipate all her wishes . Should a grain of dust fall on her robe , brush it away with a discreet hand . Should there be none fall upon her robe , ( and it is here Ovid shows himself a master !) brush away the absent dust . Et si nullus erit pulvis , tamen excute nullum . " " We apply this to books , and we say to the critic , " If there are no books to review , review them . " Heard melodies are sweet , But those unheard are sweeter !
Books published are agreeable , but those unwritten are incomparable ! One day when an admiring versifier presented the witty Dejazet with two poems he had written in her praise , she read one , and , smiling graciously , replied , " Je pr 6 fere Vautre—I prefer the other !" This is a roundabout way of communicating the fact that we are sadly at a loss for material just now ^^ Could we but adopt Ovid ' s advice , our task would be pleasant enojjgttj but the reader of a newspaper is fastidious on the article of nejs * s ^"' We must look abroad ; it is idle to look at home just now .
In Germany we hear of two poets getting places under government—Getbel , at Munich , and Scheerenberg , at Berlin . There is a prospect for the aspiring ! It is true the poets are both mediocrities ; but so much the better prospect for the aspiring ! Auerbach , who is in Switzerland , has just completed another novel . "Adolf Stahr , whose book on Goethe we noticed the other day , has—in conformity with an usage which suggests very serious reflections—asked for a divorce , that he may marry Fanny Lewald , the authoress . Gutzkow is about to start a journal , and has commenced an autobiography , the first part of which he calls Aus der Knabenzeit .
It must be confessed that the Germans are but poor hands at memoirs . Indeed , their literature is comparatively scanty in- that department . Goethe was , if we remember right , the first author who wrote an autobiography ; and even he properly styled it , Poetry and truth from my Life—for it is very far from a biography . Not only does he reverse the ordinary mistake of autobiographers , and instead of making the most of his materials for personal display , make the least of them , understating in a remarkable manner the truth as regards his own acquirements and
influence , but he seems to be as anxious to keep himself out of sight as other writers are to keep themselves prominent . Thus , with great naivete * he apologizes in one place for speaking so much of himself ! Since his work , however , Germans have been autobiographical , and now Karl Gutzkow , taking advantage of his popularity , commences a veridical history of his own life , a volume of which is to appear every five years . Aus der Knabenzeit relates his boyhood , beginning with the year 1811 , and describes Berlin , his native town , with graphic vivacity , especially in its burgher life during the great struggle against Napoleon .
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To add to our slender budget we may mention the Athenteum Franpais , a weekly journal modelled on our Athendtum , with the single exception of its articles being all signed . This we think an improvement , and a justice both to the reviewers and the reviewed . We have rend the eight numbers of this journal , and can recommend it as likely to be both useful and agreeable .
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The coup d'&at has placed many things in . France in an odious light , but the frightful servility , impiety , ami unblushing corruption of the Church stand out a mass of blackness , which no episcopal whiteness of lawn , no Jesuitical mellifluousncss of phrase can ever cause us to forget . The Church that blessed the Barricades and sang hosannahs to 1848 , of course had no compunction in blessing the " salvation of society" accomplished on the 2 nd of December . What Frederick the Great said of l ' rovidence being always on the side of the best battalions , is disgracefully true of the Church . The power that secures them the loaves and fishes is the power demonstrably divine . Nevertheless , the way in which the Church not simply acquiesces in Louis Bonaparte ' s policy , but transcends the servility of the Elyse ' e , is something to astonish even those who like ourselves are prepared for a great deal of dirty work in that direction . This is what we read in a contemporary : —
" UollcctioiiH on the Kmperor now constitute- tho highest crime . Tho Univers , tho organ Of tho Church , places nueh attacks lwyoml the crime of blasphemy . H oiking , for instance , of Proudhon ' s book , it says : — ' Tho nuthor is not contented with attacking , according to custom , tho clergy , Christianity , God himsolf—ho goes vt'ry much farther ( il va Men pitta loin)—he insults the Emperor and tho JUmpiro . '" What indeed are Christianity and God compared with the Emperor ! Insult them , if you like , it is the privilege of an esprit fort ,- but to blaspheme the Empire is to render society impossible ! And thia , remember , i « the language of th « Church organ , in whieh Bishops and Archbi « hoi >» ,
Cardinals , and all the " right thinking" express themselves or see their opinions expressed ; a journal which if it swerve from the strictest etiquette of doctrine is ' * called to order" by the authorities . And men call this Religion .
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DOUBLEDAY ON SOCIAL SCIENCE . On Mundane " Moral Government , demonstrating its Ana logy ivith the system . ofMateria I Government . By Thomas Doubleday . Blackwood and Sons . Mb . DotTBiiEDAY has here undertaken a task of immense difficulty , not only without the requisite preparation , but absolutely without any adequate conception of its difficulty , and his book is in consequence a failure . We should not have occupied our scanty space with any consideration of a work in which we see little intrinsic value , did not there lie in the very failure a lesson worth drawing out . Of Mr . Doubleday we must speak with respect . His ingenious and suggestive work on " Population "—and the tone of the present work , are sufficient to make us anxious to separate as far as possible the writer from
the work . We think the attitude of his mind is altogether a false one as regards the true issue of moral speculation ; we think his opinions are not only erroneous but move in a path , whereon truth can never be found ; nevertheless we know that thia false attitude and this false method are not peculiar to him , but are common to the great mass of speculators on moral and social questions . That false Method is the Metaphysical Method , and his book affords ub an excellent illustration of the essentially sterile nature of that Method . In proportion as Metaphysicians endeavour to bring their speculations
within the range of Science they manifest their radical error . Mr . Doubleday here undertakes to prove—first , that our moral and social life is regulated by Laws and not by caprice or chance ; second , that there is a close analogy between those Laws and the Laws which , regulate the material world ; thirdly , that he has discovered the one fundamental Law , which is to the Moral world what Gravitation is to the Material world . Said we not that his task was one of immense difficulty ! His conception of the difficulty was extremely vague ; for lie placed it in this distinction between the investigations of material and moral questions : —
" The phenomena of the laws which regulate material existence are in some measure palpable to view ; but the mnchinery of moral regulation must of necessity be hidden from sight . " It is not easy to decide on the meaning of that passage . If it means that we know anything more of the " machinery" of" the material than of the moral world , it is a profound mistake . In either case we only perceive phenomena which we classify into general forms under the name of Laws . If it be meant that material phenomena are more easily observed than moral phenomena , that also is a mistake ; the only difference is this : Moral phenomena , owing to their greater complexity , are less easily assigned to their antecedents , and therefore less easily reducible to Scientific Law . But vital phenomena , are , by reason of their greater complexity , in the same position with , respect to cliemical phenomena , and
again chemical phenomena arc from the same reason less than physical p henomena . The sentence on which we comment occurs in the preface , and gave us little hope for the demonstration the book was to offer . The reader will smile when we bring forward the Law which Mr . Doubleday naively imagines he has discovered ; and yet , in truth , the discovery is as valid as most other metaphysical discoveries . The fundamental Law governing our Moral Life , as Gravitation governs the Material Universe , is , according to Mr . Doubleday , Excitement . Nothing more , nothing less . All the manifold phenomena are resolvable into that one law . A book is written to prove it . At first the reader will be tempted to throw aside tin ' s as an elaborate truism , meaniner simply that " Men are moved by motives ; " but we invite
him to dwell for a moment on thia said Law , that he may appreciate tho Metaphysical Method which led to the discovery . To reduce all moral phenomena to Excitement could never enter a scientific mind as tho expression of a Law , simply because- it is no law at all . There is a law of Gravitation , but Gravitation is not a law , though Mr . Doubleday ( p . 212 ) seriously asserts it to bo one . Tell an ignorant person that the planets move by the same law as that which makes tho apple fall and tho balloon rise , and tell him further that the law in question is Motion ( for Gravitation is nothing more when divested of its law—viz ., attraction acting directly as the mass and inversely as the square of the distance ) will he bo any tho wiser ? In like manner to tell him that all moral phenomena are but phenomena of Excitement , is not to put him in possession of laio but of a tvorU . Mr . Doubleday thus defines his meaning : —
" It has always seemed undeniable to tho author of tho foregone pages , that there is not in human beingH any inherent independent power of activity . Tho human mind onl y actH after having been acted upon . Bodily actions are tho result of mental determinations or mental feelings , though bouio of them , by coiiHtnnt use , become almost mechanical ; but to all mental determinations there is wanting that , whieh metaphysicians numu motive . ' Thin is the exciting eauso of tho inentnl determination to act or forbear to act , as it may happen . Without the excitement of motive , the mind cannot act , Kim ply because there in no ground for any particular direction of its activity in preference to any other possible direction . Until tho motive excites it to act , therefore , tho mind ia passive ; then ) is no cause nor reason for its moving in any direction . Nothing in presented to it to excite it to come to a decision . It is , therefore , in tho absence of all motive , inactive . Tho
power ol active decision ia there waiting to Ik ; called forth . Until excited , it in , however , a sleeping power , incapable of awaking through any inherent independent activity of its own . "
Suppl y tho words " motion" and " mutter" in tho place of " motives " and " mind , " and you will see Jiovv accurately Ibe passage represents the old physical speculations of metaphysicians . How many scientific discoveries liavo been made by means of " motion P" Whereas by meuns of tho law of attraction wo are incessantly adding to discoveries . Whon Mr . Doubleday furnishcB ub with tho Law « f Excitement in lieu of Excitement
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nriiica are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not Critics wbu laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . —JBdMbwrgh Review .
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Autius * 28 , 1852 . ] THE LEADE R .
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 28, 1852, page 829, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1949/page/17/
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