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phrase which follows individuality . Let a man speak or sing of what he has actually seen and felt , as he saw and felt it , and the right phrase is sure to come ; but , in repeating what others have seen and felt , he repeats their lancftage . This also is the great fault to be found with Miss Parkes . Her Poems are graceful , thoughtful , but not individual . Her reading , not her heart , is here expressed . We turn over the leaves as over' the portfolio of sketches which have filled the elegant leisures of an amateur . Talent there is , and beauty in those sketches ; but we feel they have been leisure works , not works of passionate Art . Read this , and you will better see our meaning : — " Broad level fields , and hedges thick with trees , A calm still evening dropping fitful rain , And hawthorns loaded with their perfum ed snow ; All Nature langorous , and yet alive With humming insects and with hleating sheep ; A sky both grey and tender , —misty clouds Floating therein , streak'd here and there with gold ; And golden flowers topping the tali June grass . Ivy clothes all the ruins , sprouting weeds , Lichen , and moss for richest tapestry ; While for festivity and regal pomp Held in the olden time , is nothing now But tune of children ' s voices , and the calm Quiet evening , misty on the ruins . Far Over the fields are farms and gardens gay ; And strong magnificent oaks , beneath whose boughs Twilight sits brooding ere she walks abroad . A soft moist summer eve , — 'tis Nature grieving For the depart of Spring ; not yet the sun Hath dried her thoughtful tears ; or else it is The death of the Last Fairy , and the flowers Hang down their heavy heads in grief for her . " Or this : — " THE ALPS . THTTSI 8 . " Out from the house I went when early dawn As yet had hardly ting'd the peaks with gold , And cottage-smoke in faint ascending wreaths Stole from the inner depth of valleys old . At length upon a sunny hill I sat , Looking at meadows cattle-strown below , And upwards where into the clear blue sky Shot out the tapering peaks of pathless snow : And many similes within my brain Stirr'd , as if Nature spoke aloud to me , And said , ' Oh child that watcheth ever , learn That which I mean by my solemnity . ,. Even as these high peaks above thee rear , So stand great souls above the ranks of men ; No summer warmth caresses year by year Grand heads encircled by a glorious pain . But if of verdure bare , thou must not doubt Joys of their own to such great souls are given ; Lonely they are ; but though forlorn of men , They stand in the unchanging light of heaven . Oh child ! receive their teaching ; even as here , Below them , fir and flower are glistering bright , Warmer , more beautiful , the dawn descends , Till all the lowest vales are fill'd with light . ' " In the following lyric , wo note two tilings : first , that the rhythm is one so inappropriate in its dancing play to tho meaning of the words , that a poet would instinctively have avoided it ; and , second , that the rh y thm of tho second stanza is false ; which betrays carelessness , or that easiness of conscience no artist would tolerate : — " best . " Deep heart and earnest oyes Seeking for rest , Finding a weight that lies Cold on thy breast , Musing on nearest ties ? Mournfully riven , In thy despair arise , Turn thou to Heaven . " Humanity , gifted With patience and love , Thereby should bo lifted Earth ' s sorrow above ; Should read witli believing The words of tho bond ; While dull hearts are grieving , Nhoiildst thou sen beyond . " Strong will and eager mind Striving to mould Deeds to reirmiu behind . Who" thou art cold ; CIiooho thou the better part Written in story , Live in man ' s grateful heart , And lor < lod * n glory . "
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PHILOSOPHY OF TUN HKNflKS . I Th « VhiloBOphy of tho Sense *; or , Man in ( hmuxionwith a Material World . ] Jy - Th \ ^ iS 4 yl ^ r ^ A by Forty-lour Kn . ruvmg- on Woo ... ^ . ^ ^ ^ What WarbtiHon Aid of tho philosopher of Malnmsbury , " that every ( wunJohi&an ifcilitant must needs try his thunderm * on Hobbe ^ t stoolcap" n £ y be Vopeated of tho unknown author of Tho VesUgos . <
Every smatterer thinks it gives him a superior air to have his fling at the Vestiges , unconscious as he mostly is that the Vestiges , be it true or be it false , can onl y be appreciated by men who , to unusual knowledge of philosophic zoology , add a power of discerning the value of generalizations even when amid erroneous details ; it is easy enough to read that book , easy-to understand it , but to appreciate the force of its facts and reasonings the reader must bring with him something more than is brought by the ready scorners , who talk of development " familiarly , as maidens do of puppy dogs . " Not but what men may , and do , bring the requisite knowledge , and yet reject the reasonings . We are not here arguing the cause of the Vestiges ; we are simply rebuking that extremely foolish
tendency of incompetent persons to speak loftily of a subject they cannot be allowed to have any opinion on . The author of the book before us is the latest offender under our cognizance . He goes out of his way to drag in a chapter which he innocently believes to be a " refutation , " and which only shows that it is an inordinate presumption in him to pass any opinion whatever , beyond the purely personal one of saying that he had read the work , and . was not convinced by it . He does not understand the theory he refutes ; and if he understood it , he has not the requisite knowledge to form an opinion on its truth . It will amuse our philosophic readers if we quote an argument " of much force , " which he has contributed to this subject ; the superficial knowledge of " organization , " and the confusion of terms which blinds him , will need no italicising from us : —
" Although the development theory , founded upon the assumption of a gradually ascending scale of complexity in the structure of animals of like formation , has been ably answered by direct appeal to geology , yet it occurs to us there is an indirect line of argument of much force , namely , not one having reference to mere structural complexity , but to mental as well as corporeal function . Thus the instincts of many animals comparatively low in the scale of organization are exceedingly curious , and seem to surpass those of more perfect animals . Again , whatever place may be assigned to insects in respect to the complexity of their organization , many of the instincts possessed by them excel those of the mammal , and even transcend human reason , and these apparently have no reference to their bodily organization , they are purely mental functions and of a high order . There are also some peculiar corporeal functions possessed by creatures very low in the scale , which surpass those of higher animals . Without taking time to seek for the best examples , there occurs
to us that power of paralyzing its prey which the slender tentacula of some of the hydra ? possess , and these animals are at the very foot of the scale of life . Then the corroding influence exerted by the Pholas and other molluscs of the class Lithofagidse , by which they form cavities in even the hardest stone or in wood , and which cavities increase with the growth of the animal ' s shell . Then there is the power of the electrical eel : the power of poisoning possessed by the serpent tribe , and by various insects , may also be mentioned as somewhat similar . Why should these peculiar and valuable endowments be all lost in that higher progeny , which the development school suppose to have emanated from these animals ? For the development theory to be consistent , valuable functions in constant exercise should never be lost ; they should , according to the theory , be perpetuated in the succeeding races of higher animals . Why are such as we have mentioned confined to the humble polyp and mollusc , or to the eel , the wasp , and the spider ?"
Although . Mr . Wyld lias here , and m other parts of his work , pronounced decided opinions on subjects with which he is very imperfectly acquainted , we have much pleasure in commending the work as an useful and suggestive compilation . He has a clearness of exposition very effective in treatises of this kind . He compiles , it is true , from very accessible sources , and does not acknowledge them with the distinctness one might demand ; but he puts in no claim for learning nor originality , and says" What we offer is merely the result of some little pleasant reading , and of some more pleasant reflection ; and we have endeavoured , so far as in our power , to give it in a form calculated to interest and amuse . " What ho has aimed at ho has accomplished ; more especially in the physical portions . In tho metaphysical lie is less at home , as may 1 ) 0 gathered from the fact , that lie attempts a demonstration of this proposition" The properties of matter are immaterial !"
As a description of tho general laws of light : ind sound , and of the established facts in the physiology of sight and hearing , it may be recommended : the exposition is clear and popular—the interest in the subject universal . Who , for example , has not puzzled himself with the fact , so puzzling to philosophers , that we have two eyes , and only one image of the same thing ordinarily seen by the two eyes ? Let us hear Mr . Wyld on this question : — " Physiological causes have also been assigned ; and , first , anatomical examination has revealed certainly a curious fact , that the optic nerves from each eye
' ] approach or decussate , and interchange some of their fibrils before entering the brain ; it lias therefore been suggested , that ut this point of union the two inipres-• ions become , as it were , fused into one . A hypothesis such as thin evidently savours much more of the a ] N ) thecary ' s shop thun of logic ; for even if we concede that tho two physical impressions may 1 m ; confounded or mixed up at this commissure of the optic nerves , yet , as these nerve ?) are found again to separate before entering the brain , the impressions transmitted backward from the commissure ought and must be again separated , ami the dinieulty thus remains untouched . Another and sufficient objection to this hypothesis is presented in the fact , that careful examination has proved that the decimation of the optic nerves is only partial , that only a few of the nervous fibres aro interchanged , and , consequently , that if such a thing a * affusion of impressions takes place , it can only be of a partial nature .
1 ' ' | "The explanation now most generally received of tho difficulty is on *; founded on physiological grounds of u different kind , the nature of which we shall explain . It is held , or supposed , that there are certain points on the retina of eiu ; h eye , which are to bo considered as jthysio / oyically identical , and that when any of these identical or corresponding j > oiiits are simultaneously excited by tho same object , tho impression transmitted to the brain produces a hciino of sintfle vision of that object ; . These identical points are not points of Mm two retina ' , which correspond anatomically , but points which correspond , as it were , tfeogrnphienlly , or iu latitude and longitude . To explain our meaning : —An inia tf inai y lino entering tho centro of tho cornea , or prominent part of the eye , and panning direct , through the centre of the crystalline lens back to the retina , is called tho axis of the eye , or the optic axis ; tho point whore tliiw iuuitfiiiury lino nicolw tho retina may bo considered mid
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January 8 , 1853 . ] ( THE LEADER . 43
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 8, 1853, page 43, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1968/page/19/
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