bill of the resulting expenses to the prince. But the prince thought
that, as he had renounced his claims to a civil list, and even paid
his subjects a round sum every year, it could be no very heavy burden
for the said subjects to pay their own federal contingent. This the
Lichtensteiners obstinately refuse to do; the prince, on the other
side, tired of so much trouble, has expressed his intention to
abdicate, and to cede his dominions to Austria. But against this
scheme his people protest most energetically--they would rather belong
to Switzerland. Beside, if Austria annexes Lichtenstein, then Prussia
will regard the transaction with an envious eye. The prince will
neither pay nor govern. Such is the present state of things, of which
nobody can predict the end.
------
From The St. James Magazine.
A NOVEL TICKET-OF-LEAVE; OR, MISTAKEN IDENTITY.
"No two things are alike." Such is the dictum of science. "Nature,"
say the wise men, "resembles the charms of Cleopatra, which custom
cannot stale, so infinite is their variety." Even in so humble a thing
as a flock of sheep there is a personal identity, and the shepherd of
Salisbury Plain will vow to you that he can discriminate between the
countenances of each member of his woolly family, and particularize
their features. So with the herdsman and his drove, the trainer and
his stud. But why pursue the theme? Why dwell upon these flocks _qui
passent et ne se resemblent pas?_ Is it to prove that these
resemblances are mere fallacies, and have no real existence; that they
ought to be classed with Sir Thomas Browne's "vulgar errors?" No; but
to lament that whereas each member of a flock of sheep, of a herd of
oxen, or a stud of horses, carries his individuality so markedly, the
privilege is not more extended in the genus _homo_. I solemnly aver
that the number of cases of mistaken identity which have lately come
to my knowledge is not only astounding, but exceedingly embarrassing;
I may add, too, _quorum magna pars fui_; which, being translated,
means, in which I have formed a no inconsiderable portion of the
quorum. It is no pleasant sensation to know that your "counterfeit
presentment" is walking the earth; in fact, it is monstrously
unpleasant. The other day I felt a heavy hand placed rapidly upon my
shoulder, in the most unceremonious and familiar of ways, accompanied
with an equally unceremonious and familiar exclamation: "Why, Perkins,
old boy, _how_ are ye? Haven't seen ye for an age! Glad to see you
again in London! How are all the folks at Nottingham?"
How far this familiar stranger would have gone on in this fluent
strain of amity I know not. It was time to stop his exuberance of
friendship, and acquaint him with the fact that my name was not
Perkins; that I had not come from Nottingham; and, I fear, added, in
the bitterness and irritation of the moment, that I had never been to
Nottingham, and never wished to go there. "Oh, nonsense, Perkins! I'm
not going to be knocked off in that style. How are Mrs. Perkins and
the chicks?" "I tell you again, sir, you are mistaken in your man; my
name {708} is not Perkins." "It may not be Perkins now, but it was
three months ago; and whatever your new name may be, I am not going to
be turned off in this way. Not Perkins! Why, you can't get rid of that
mole on your cheek with your new name; and as to your wig, old fellow,
there never was but that shade of red I ever saw. Come, where shall we
dine?" "I must plainly tell you, sir," I replied to my would-be
friend, "you are carrying your pleasantry too far; and if you do not
leave me at once, I will give you in charge of the police." The
fellow, evidently chagrined, left me to chew the cud of bitter
reflection. "Well, well," were his parting words, "it can't be Perkins
after all; Perkins was a jolly good fellow, and this chap is------" He
had by this time got out of hearing. What an unpleasant rencontre
this! I thought to myself. Then again the subject took another aspect.
What if the real, the true Perkins, should ever be persecuted by _my_
friends as I have been by one of his?
And this leads me on to another incident in the same category, which
occurred still more recently, and might have led to very deplorable
results. In fact, I am not sure that the end is yet. I had business
out of town for a day or two, and returned punctually at the appointed
hour. Whom should I meet on the platform of the terminus but Tom
Cridlins! Now Tom is a great gossip, and an immense favorite with the
ladies. He frequents the theatres and the operas, conversaziones and
balls, and retails all the news and scandal of the day to his fair
friends. Well, I met him accidentally at the terminus; in an instant
he was full of apologies and excuses. "Hope, Sam, done no mischief;
didn't mean it, didn't mean it, 'pon honor; deuced sorry, hope it's
all over." "Why, what's the matter?" "Didn't know you'd gone out of
town, you sly dog. I understand it all. Called at Mrs. Sam's
yesterday; told her--didn't do it intentionally--saw you at the opera
Monday night with Countess Tarascona; magnificent woman; saw at once
made mistake. Why didn't she tell me you'd gone out of town? wouldn't
have breathed a word. 'Pon honor, accidental." "Opera, Tom! I wasn't
at the opera; I have been out of town since Monday morning; you're
mistaken." "Capital joke, that. Why, Sam, think I'm 'flicted with
color-blindness? No, my boy, nothing blinds me but friendship;
wouldn't have said a word had known you didn't want it." Need I say
what a miserable vista was opened up before me? A jealous wife's
jealousy accidentally inflamed in this innocent manner, and even Tom
Cridlins incredulous. These men of the world won't believe in--in
anything.
"Tom," I said, seriously, "this is very unfortunate; but you were
never more mistaken in your life. I have not been at the opera for
weeks." Oh that wicked twinkle of his eye! "Well, my boy, _I_ don't
want to believe you were there; disbelieve anything you like;
only----" "Tom, I can stand this no longer; I must not be played with;
you _must_ admit that I was not at the opera. I can bring the whole
village of Cudgleton to prove an _alibi_." "Glad to hear it, for peace
of home's sake. Mrs. Sam took it very ill, can assure you; sorry,
'ceedingly sorry; but really the countess is a magnificent woman."
"Who the devil cares _now_ about the countess? I affirm that I have
been at Cudgleton from Monday 4 P.M. till this morning 10 A.M. Left by
express, and just arrived." "There's the bell, Sam; must say good-bye;
remember me to your wife; purely accidental; 'ceedingly regret it;
believe every word you say--will back it 'gainst all odds; remember
me to your wife, and tell her _I believe you, my boy_."
"Believe me, my boy!" and that's how Tom Cridlins left
me,--light-hearted and gay-spirited, after having kindled a torch
which Acheron itself could not quench.
{709}
I returned home. Of course Mrs. Sam was _prepared_ to receive me. In
vain I protested; in vain I insisted that Tom Cridlins was laboring
under an illusion; I had brought him to confess as much. "Oh, then,
you have seen him to-day; planning and scheming, I suppose, to get up
a pack of contradictions. I understand; but you are not going to
deceive me. Natural evidence is better than got-up evidence, and I
shall prefer to take Mr. Thomas Cridlins's first statement to his
second. There are some things better fresh, and testimony I take to be
one of those things. Whatever you and Mr. Cridlins may choose to
concoct, for the future I shall believe what I please to believe."
And so on till bedtime. Would that I could say we had had it out even
then! At midnight we were only in the thick of it; and to acquire
renewed vigor for future assaults, Mrs. Sam prudently fell asleep.
But what a time for me! Oh that I could reverse the hand of the clock
eight-and-forty hours, or push it on until this trouble had blown
over! Plague on that man, whoever he is, that looked so like me! Why
was he at the opera? why was he there with a fine woman? Cridlins saw
nothing of the Countess Tarascona--only seen her once--and his foolish
head jumps to the conclusion it must be the countess. Ass that he is!
Why isn't he honestly employed, like other people, instead of idling
about on his five thousand a year, philandering and making mischief?
He can scarcely count the fingers on his hand, yet he can create a
devil of a row between man and wife!
Two o'clock struck. I had fallen into a distempered doze; still it was
somewhat soothing. With the waking reflection came back, not quite so
excited. After all it might have been worse. I remember reading of a
Bishop of Siena who had a sovereign antidote against every attack of
despondency.
"When I am disappointed or vexed, or embarrassed or dissatisfied," he
said, "I look round upon the world and notice how many hundreds and
thousands are worse off than myself, and the result invariably is,
that grumbling and vexation take wings and fly away, and contentment
and cheerfulness return and nestle in my bosom."
What, thought I, as I lay awake,--what if, instead of this conjugal
_contretemps_, I had been wrongly seized for theft and murder, and
unable to prove an _alibi_? Such cases have been. Such cases _have_
been! Why, they have taken place by scores--are taking place, and will
to the end of the chapter. And my imagination vividly portrayed the
mental agonies of the innocent convict. Memory ransacked the dusty
tomes of history to supply fresh food for meditation, fresh fuel to
feed my horror. Does not Pliny cite innumerable instances? Had not the
twin brothers of Ephesus just cause to exclaim, each to his unknown
counterpart, in the anguish and bitterness of his spirit, "Oh, Dromio,
Dromio, wherefore art thou, Dromio?" Does not the "Newgate Calendar"
teem with cases of men's lives perjured by false witnesses, or
sacrificed to a false tissue of circumstances? Did not Richard Coleman
and Clinch and Mackley suffer death for crimes of which they were
subsequently proved to be guiltless, simply because each was mistaken
for the "right man," who was not, and never is, in the "right place."
Was not Hoag tried at New York, in 1804, for bigamy, through a similar
misconception? And did not Redman in 1822, and Robinson in 1824, just
escape the gallows by a hair's-breadth? And were not these instances
enough to scarify any man's imagination, and shiver his every nerve?
My "counterfeit presentment" was evidently wandering about somewhere.
What sort of a character was he? Did ho belong to the dangerous
classes? was he a respectable member of society or an impostor? was he
cunning and clever, and capable of swindling? was he cold-blooded and
resolute, capable {710} of murder? was he passionate and revengeful?
was he anything and everything that could lead a man into a violent
scrape?
No wonder the perspiration ran off my brow as my brain scudded through
the chapter of probabilities and revealed a long gloomy vista of
perils. I bethought me of the police. Should I make known that my
"counterfeit" was abroad "stalking the world around?" Should I seek
the protection of Scotland Yard, and warn them if they heard of a
robbery or a murder, or some other villainy or felony committed by a
man answering to my description, that _I_ was not the culprit? To be
forewarned is to be forearmed; to tell them this might save loss of
time, and spare a world of trouble, inconvenience, and annoyance.
Beside, was it not exactly what my late friend Richter had done? Ah!
by-the-bye, you didn't know Richter--thereby hangs a tale. Richter,
poor fellow, is dead now; but there is a moral attached to his life,
and we, whose eidola are walking the earth, may as well extract it.
Richter was a wealthy _rentier_, living in Vienna; and a thorough
Austrian by birth, education, and nature. Quiet, inoffensive, kindly;
there was nothing striking about him in person or position. He never
meddled with that firebrand--politics; he had never troubled the most
immaculate government of the imperial and royal apostolic Kaiser with
unseasonable and unreasonable comments on its virtues or defects; he
had never violated that most sacred thing, the concordat; had never
offended lord or prince; had hated Hungary, and had always wished
Venice at the bottom instead of on the surface of the sea. He was a
peaceable citizen, obedient to the decrees of his sovereign, and
pursued the even tenor of his life with well-balanced footstep,
inclining to nothing that was likely to lead him or his neighbor into
the dark and dreary desert of trouble and vexation. Nevertheless the
Nemesis of envy marked him for her own; and he was pointed at during
the latter part of his life as one who could set the vast army of
spies and detectives formed and disciplined by that arch-policeman,
Metternich, at absolute defiance.
It was the custom of Herr Richter of an afternoon or morning--as any
one might who had nothing better to do--to stroll up and down the
principal thoroughfares of Vienna, gaze into its splendid shops, and
admire the beauty and the becrinolined silks and satins, muslins and
grenadines, of the stately dames of that ancient and quaint city. One
day--it was in the summer of 1849--Herr Richter was _flâning_ along
the Kätner Strasse, and, impelled neither by curiosity nor
covetousness, but that indefinable something which of directs our
course and shapes our conduct without our consciousness, stopped
before the "Storr and Mortimer" of the Hapsburg capital. Why did he
thrust himself in amongst that band of ragged _gamins_, who, with
gaping mouth and burning eyes, were devouring the splendors of the
plate-glass window, and wistfully wishing that that glittering heap of
rings and chains, brooches and necklaces, cassolettes and lockets,
bracelets and eardrops, emeralds, diamonds, pearls, rubies,
turquoises, etc., were theirs? Why did he mingle with them? He could
not have told you, nor can I. Only he was there, and it was evident
his heart, too, was overflowing, like Mr. Pickwick's, with the milk of
human kindness. "Poor fellows!" such was his train of thought, "you
can never get any of these treasures, though you should toil for a
century;" and then turning away, he muttered aloud, still continuing
his train of thought, "Any of them might be mine in a moment if I
chose." Was he speculating on the iniquitous force of the Austrian
guild laws, or the false system of political economy in vogue in
Austria? was he pondering over the mysteries of _meum et tuum_, or
endeavoring to solve that profound problem, "_La proprieté c'est le
vol?_"
{711}
Possibly yes, possibly no; but just at that moment a strong hand was
laid on his shoulder. "One word with you, if you please," said a low
musical voice, imperative yet polite.
The invitation was irresistible. With the utmost complacency Herr
Richter retired with the gentleman who accosted him underneath one of
those huge gateways, _porte-cochères_, which form the entrance of the
old Vienna houses. The stranger then took a paper from his pocket, and
looking intently, now at its contents, now at the features of Herr
Richter, opened the conversation in a curt and peremptory manner:
"Sir, I am under the painful necessity of requesting you to follow
me."
Herr Richter, incensed, grows restiff.
"Pray, sir, who are you that dare--" and without finishing the
sentence he threw himself into an attitude of defence, if not
defiance.
"Had you not better give less trouble?" coolly asked the stranger. "Am
I to call assistance?"
Rapidly the truth dawned upon the Herr. The stranger, though clad in
the ordinary attire of a _bourgeois_, belonged to that mysterious
body, dreaded by every section of the community, since it received its
orders, so it was universally believed, directly from the cabinet, or
a joint committee of the holy alliance itself. Yes, he must be an
agent of the secret police.
Herr Richter, however, is not hurried off to the star chamber where
political offenders are dealt with, but is conducted to the Scotland
Yard of Vienna--the headquarters of the _gendarmerie_--the central
station for criminal suspects. In Austria it is safer to be classed
with common thieves and felons than to be suspected of meddling with
politics. So the Herr's mind was materially relieved; though
ignominious his fate, on perceiving his destination he scarcely felt
enraged at the indignity offered him.
When they had arrived within the gloomy precincts of the gaol
barracks, things began to explain themselves. There was evident
satisfaction, not to say exultation, on the faces of the officials.
The captor was specially gratified; and waving his warrant, as though
it were an honorable trophy, over the head of his unfortunate prize,
he exclaimed--
"I've captured him at last; I've found him and caught him, this prince
of pickpockets!" and he enacted the passion of triumph so perfectly
that he jeered at and derided in true Teutonic fashion his safe and
sound victim in the most cold-blooded and insolent manner.
"As I was passing down the Kätner Strasse," continued this
self-gratulatory detective, "I saw him looking into a goldsmith's
shop, noting every article in the window, and heard him muttering to
himself, with a most complacent air, 'Any one of them could be mine in
a moment if I chose.'"
A superior officer was then called, and the description in the warrant
being read over, there could be no doubt as to the identity of the
prisoner with the most active and desperate thief in Vienna. The
personal appearance of Herr Richter tallied exactly with the written
portrait in the possession of the Polizer-Haus; type and antitype
could not be more exact.
"Good heavens!" exclaimed the alarmed captive, "I the greatest thief
in Vienna! I am Herr Richter, a gentleman, a man of property, rich
enough to purchase twenty jewellers' shops. I beg you to be careful
how you proceed further."
"Don't excite yourself," retorted the commissioner, "we _shall_ be
careful enough. You won't catch us giving you an opportunity of
escape."
"_Donnerwetter!_" ejaculated the now infuriated _rentier_; "this is
too much of a good thing. Just send round for my banker and he will
tell you who and what I am. I'll sue you, sir--I'll sue you, sir, as
sure as you are born," repeated the Herr, growing more exasperated
every moment.
{712}
The superintendent, like most men of his profession, was well versed
in physiognomy, and could read the features of the human face and
interpret their varied expressions. "This is not feigned anger," he
said to himself.
The banker was sent for, and identified the prisoner as his friend
Herr Richter. As a matter of course the wealthy gentleman escaped the
grasp of the Philistines.
On leaving the beetle-browed gateway of the police barracks the Herr
breathed freely again, rejoicing that matters had turned out no worse
in that empire of suspicion and caprice. He moved along through the
principal thoroughfare of the Austrian capital, pondering over his
recent unpleasant adventure. At length he called a cab to take him to
his club, where he might drown the indignity of the morning in a
bumper of Tokay or Johannisberg, and invite oblivion by devouring a
good dinner. Hardly, however, had he placed his foot on the step than
he was forced deep down into the vehicle by a mysterious personage at
his back, who, whispering to the driver, "To the police station!"
enters the cab also. Speechless and aghast as though a spectre were
the intruder, the unfortunate Herr Richter looked wildly at his
compulsory companion.
"Sir," said the spectre--
"I know all you are going to say," feebly remarked the desperate
Richter, cursing his fate.
"_Of course_ you know," sneered the spectre at his side, who, however,
is no spectre, but a jolly-booking individual in the prime of manhood.
"_Of course_ you know." And with this he dives his hand into his
pocket, and drags forth the fatal warrant.
"All right!" groans out the inevitable captive, with whom despair was
fast degenerating into recklessness. "All right, you need not take the
trouble to read every trait. I have read the account myself. It is
very correct, wonderfully correct, terribly correct."
"For a gentleman of your profession," observed the portly detective,
"you are really very civil. Half a dozen such as you would
marvellously improve the manners of our modern _chevaliers
d'industrie_. I say, old boy," continued the pleasant thief-catcher,
poking the unresisting Herr in the ribs, "you ought to think it over,
and exert yourself to instill a little politeness into your tribe.
It's a large section of the community, you know. If yon get out again,
think over my advice."
The only reply of Herr Richter was a faint, helpless smile.
Arrived at the station, a general shout of laughter greeted the captor
and the captured.
The latter seated himself in a chair, and, composing his thoughts for
a desperate harangue, thus addressed the commissioners present:
"Gentlemen, here I am again, and here I am resolved to remain. As it
is, I should not be safe anywhere else a quarter of an hour until
arrested and taken to the station by _all_ your detectives one after
the other. Calculating from to-day's experience, and forming a
moderate estimate of the rate of locomotion at which I could proceed
under the circumstances, it would take me a fortnight to get home and
bury myself from the now hated gaze of mankind. You will therefore
have the kindness to let me keep you company and make the personal
acquaintance of each member of your force, who will then, I hope, be
able to recognize me when he sees me in the streets."
The commissioner-in-chief regretted that he could not assent to the
Herr's proposition. "Impossible! it would never do, my dear sir," he
informed the astounded Richter, "for a civilian, even a man of your
respectability and appearance, to know all the detectives; the state
itself would be endangered. However," he added very graciously, "I
will give you a certificate, under {713} my hand and seal, that you
are not the man you have been taken for; and this will make, I hope,
as far as lies in my power, the _amende honorable_."
"A ticket-of-leave?"
"_Comme vous voulez_."
Poor Richter surrendered unconditionally, glad, like the Bishop of
Hereford, "that he could so get away." Never from that hour did he
lose sight of that precious "ticket-of-leave," the prison release of
the Austrian Scotland Yard. He always carried it about with him as a
kind of amulet to charm away the too active _agens de police_. In his
last will and testament he inserted a special clause, ordering that
the old leather sheath, containing the official permit, should be
placed in his coffin.
"Who knows how many a fix it may yet help me out of?" was written in
the margin with his own hand.
Why should not I, then, do like Herr Richter? thought your humble
servant, as he still lay awake. If ever the dastardly hand of a peeler
be laid on my shoulder, such shall be my first step. Pshaw! why should
I not take time by the forelock? why should I not go that very morning
to Scotland Yard and acquaint the commissioners that my counterfeit
was at large, and might commit some fearful atrocity, some terrible
crime, and so beg for a ticket of recognition--a ticket-of-leave?
Alas! whilst I was putting on the breastplate and buckling on my armor
against imaginary foes, I had forgotten the real danger that
encompassed me. Whilst I was congratulating myself on the ingenious
dispensation I was to obtain from the police, I forgot that I had not
yet obtained a dispensation from the partner of my joys and sorrows
who was calmly reposing by my side. Calmly reposing, I say, for
nothing seemed to disturb her. There are natures, it appears to me,
whose repose nothing _can_ break, and it is exactly that class of
natures which can most easily and effectually disturb the peace of
others. It is a mighty faculty, and was possessed, _à merveille_, by
Mrs. Sam.
When she woke I meekly broached my idea of police protection, thereby
intending by a side-wind to establish my spotless innocence before
her. Granted the necessity of police protection, the corollary would
be that the story of the opera and the countess was all a myth. Mrs.
Sam let me run the whole tether of suggestion with surprising
complacency. I almost felt I was triumphant.
"Mr. Samuel----, you may be guilty of whatever folly you please; it is
nothing strange to you," she began in her most stately and cutting
manner; "but if you think of bamboozling me and throwing me off the
scent, you have mistaken your woman. The herring to trail across my
path must be stronger flavored than the one you have in hand if you
would turn me from the pursuit. Justice I am resolved to have, and
will sift the matter to the bottom. It is not yet time to get up, and
I wish to finish my sleep. After breakfast, with your kind
_permission_ (oh the agony of that irony!) we will together call on
the countess. She, perhaps, may be able to explain."
I knew the countess had left town; but I did not dare to say so, and
hypocritically assented to Mrs. Sam's proposal. She was furious when
she learnt that the countess was from home. "How long had she been
from home?" "A fortnight," was the testimony of the butler. "Has she
not been in town since?" "No." "Was she not in town on Monday?"
"Certainly not." How freely I breathed as this witness gave his
involuntary and corroborative evidence in my favor. Mrs. Sam turned
round upon me with an incredulous smile. "I condone it this time," she
graciously observed as we descended the steps, which reminded me very
forcibly of the verdict of the Cornish jury--"We find the prisoner
_not_ guilty, only we advise him not to do it again."
------
{714}
MISCELLANY.
_An Intermittent Fountain_--M. l'Abbe Laborde, writing to _Les
Mondes_, describes a simple apparatus for producing an intermittent
fountain. It consists of an inverted flask fitted with a cork, through
which pass two tubes of unequal length. The longer reaches nearly to
the bottom of the flask, and outside has a length of some twenty
inches. The shorter tube merely pierces the cork, and does not extend
to any length inside, and outside it ends immediately in a jet, which
can be curved round. The flask is filled with water, fitted with the
two tubes, and then, with the finger on the shorter tube, is inverted,
plunging the end of the longer tube in a vessel of water. The
instrument may now be fixed in this position, as an intermittent jet
of water begins to flow at once, continuing until the flask is empty.
The column of water in the longer tube will be seen to be alternately
rising and falling, from which phenomena an explanation has been given
of the cause of the intermittent flow.
_On Phosphatic Deposits Recently Discovered in North Wales, by Dr.
Aug. Voelcker._--An extensive mine, containing several phosphatic
minerals, was accidentally discovered early last year by Mr. Hope
Jones, of Hooton, Cheshire, whilst he was searching for other minerals
in the neighborhood of Cwmgynen, about sixteen miles from Oswestry.
Mr. Hope Jones found the phosphatic mine to be continuous for more
than a mile, and to come within twelve feet of the surface. It is not
far from the clay slate and lead bearing district of Llangrynag. The
strata (slaty shale) contain several beds of contemporaneous
felspathic ash and scoriae, and the usual fossils of the Llandillo
series are found, but not in great numbers. The strata are vertical,
and run east to west, or, more correctly speaking, fifteen degrees
north of west (magnetic). A true vein, or fissure containing vein
deposit, partially metallic, divides two phosphatic deposits. One of
them is nearly three yards in thickness, and embodies phosphatic
limestone beds, containing from ten to upwards of thirty-five per
cent, of phosphate of lime. The other, and more valuable deposit, is a
yard and a half thick, and consists of a black, graphitic shale,
largely impregnated with phosphate of lime. This deposit is free from
carbonate of lime, and much richer in phosphate of lime than the
first-mentioned deposit. In specimens taken at a depth of about twelve
feet from the surface, Dr. Voelcker found from 54 to 56 per cent. of
phosphate of lime in this phosphatic shale. At a greater depth the
shale becomes richer in phosphates, and, consequently, more valuable.
In the deeper specimens the proportions of phosphate of lime amounted
to 64-1/2 per cent. This phosphatic mine is readily accessible, and
naturally drainable to a depth of about 500 miles, and contains many
hundred thousand, if not millions, of tons of valuable phosphatic
minerals. The discovery of this extensive mine in England appears to
be of great importance to the English agriculturist, who at the
present time consumes annually many tons of phosphatic minerals in the
shape of superphosphate and similar artificial manures.
_Belgian Records_.--The Royal Historical Commission of Belgium, which
for some years past has been doing good service by publishing records
and indexes of the documents relating to the domestic history of
Belgium, held its usual quarterly meeting a few weeks back. M.
Galeshoot presented a copy of the "_Livre des Foudataires_" of John
III., Duke of Brabant, copies of which were ordered to be distributed
to the scientific and other bodies entitled to receive the
publications of the commission. At the same time, M. Piot, chief
keeper of the archives, submitted a proposal to publish the chartulary
of the abbey of St. Trond, which was founded in the year 660. The
documents of which the chartulary is composed are of high interest,
and commence in the eighth century. They {715} throw much light on the
civil and religious history, manners and customs, and institutions of
the middle ages.
_Sun-Spot Period_.--Professor Wolf, of Zurich, has undertaken the
laborious work of determining the number of Sun spots at the
dyouifferent periods when the planets, more especially Jupiter, are in
perihelion and aphelion. In the year 1859 he expressed his opinion
that Jupiter determines the leading character of the sun-spot curve,
that Saturn causes small alterations in the height and length of the
undulations, and that the earth and Venus determine the indentations
of the curve. More recently. Mr. Carrington and Mr. De la Rue have
returned to the same subject, and the latter, in conjunction with Mr.
Stewart, has found that when "the sun or a part of the solar surface
approaches a planet, the spots disappear, or the brightness
increases." It is the intention of Professor Wolf to calculate for
every five days a mean relative number of sun-spots during the period
1811-1865. He gives the results of a portion of his labors in showing
the connection of the sun-spot period of 11.11 years with the
revolution of Jupiter between the years 1805 and 1816. The numbers
given are certainly very remarkable, for whilst only 21 spots were
visible soon after the perihelion of Jupiter in 1809, 64 were seen in
1815 at the time of the aphelion. The progression of the numbers is
otherwise very remarkable.
_Plastic Wood_.--Among new inventions we hear of plastic wood, or
rather of a method by which wood can be rendered plastic, and so
applied to various novel purposes. The method consists in forcing
dilute hydrochloric acid, under pressure, into the cells of the wood,
and continuing it a sufficient time, according to the quality of the
wood operated on. When completely saturated with the acid, the wood is
washed in water, and subjected to pressure, which presses the fibres
close together without breaking them, and reduces it to about a tenth
of its original bulk, and the size and form thus impressed on it
remain unaltered. Thus, if pressed in dies, the details retain all the
sharpness ever afterwards, unless the wood should get soaked with
water. Wood treated in this way is particularly well suited for
carvings, as it cuts under the tool almost as easily as cheese; and it
may be made ornamental, for various dyes can be forced in to color it
at the same time with the acid. But it can also be made hard as flint
and incombustible, by forcing in a preparation of water-glass or
soluble flint. From all this, it seems likely that wood may be
employed in new ways for ornamental and useful purposes.
------
NEW PUBLICATIONS.
THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny. By
O. A. Brownson, LL.D. 8vo., pp. 435. New York: P. O'Shea. 1866.
This book, which was merely announced in our January number, is the
fruit of Dr. Brownson's mature age, ripe experience, great learning,
and extraordinary intellectual and literary culture and discipline. It
would seem that his life-long labors as a philosophical and critical
writer had been simply a course of preparation for this crowning
achievement, and that nothing less severe could have trained his mind
to grasp and handle the great principles involved with such masterly
power, ease, perspicuity, and completeness.
The questions discussed are: Government; the Origin of Government;
Constitution of Government; the United States; Constitution of the
United States; Secession; Reconstruction; Political Tendencies;
Destiny--Political and Religious. The argument throughout is sustained
and connected in such a perfect manner, and the connection between the
divisions of the subject so thoroughly welded, that it is impossible
to make extracts at all within the compass of this notice which would
give a correct idea of the work. It must be read and studied to
appreciate its beauty, scope, and cogency.
Government and the origin of government are analyzed and placed on
their historical and metaphysical basis. {716} The constitution of the
United States is explained in a manner never before attempted or
approached. The relations of the United States to the states in the
Union, and their relations to her as a unit, are for the first time
made clear and intelligible, and secession, while dealt with
charitably as respects individuals and the erroneous premises honestly
entertained by multitudes both South and North, is logically proved to
be the highest of political crimes--"_state suicide_.'" The
constitutional and Christian method of restoration is pointed out, and
the glorious destiny of the country painted on the sky of the future
with artistic beauty and prophetic grandeur.
The style is remarkable for its strength, density, clearness, and
purity. It supports and carries forward the immense weight and volume
of thought, argument, and historical and philosophical illustration
without apparent effort, and transmits the author's meaning directly
to the intellect, like a ray of light passing through a Brazilian
pebble to the retina. If Dr. Brownson had done nothing else, his
philological labors would entitle him to the lasting admiration of
every lover of pure English.
We do not expect the work to be popular in the common sense of the
term, or that it will escape the vituperation of narrow-minded men and
those who have used all their feeble power in vain to pull down the
structure of constitutional unity. But we do believe that it will be
read and appreciated by a very large class of right-minded, thinking
men South and North, and exert an immense influence in the direction
of complete reconciliation and reconstruction by demonstrating the
absolutely illogical character of secession, while it does justice to
the honesty, manhood, courage, military skill, and fortitude displayed
by the Southern people. It is the logical defeat of the rebellion. It
places Dr. Brownson in the first rank as a Catholic statesman, doctor
of laws, and fervent, consistent, patriot. He is the citizen who never
despaired of the republic. Every man who wishes to understand the
history and politics of the country must study this book, and if we
are to realize the destiny distinctly indicated by the finger of
Providence, the principles which it has established must become the
ruling principles of the statesmen of the country. The glove is fairly
thrown to the champions of the various specious and popular forms of
error, falsehood, and fanaticism, both civil and religious, and they
will be compelled to take it up and defend themselves successfully or
be condemned by default in the final verdict of mankind. The
typography, binding, and general execution are equal to the best
London books.
JOURNAL OF EUGENIE DE GUÉRIN.
Edited by G. S. Trebutien. 12mo., pp. 460. Alexander Strahan, London
and New York.
This very remarkable and most attractive book has already received a
lengthened notice in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, and we have only to add that
never was there penned a book so full of the highest and most refined
sentiment, touching pathos, combined with so much deep philosophic and
poetic thought. What a pure and innocent soul is here revealed! Not to
the world. She did not write for it, but for her own soul, and the
soul of her idolized Maurice. He has found renown through these
tear-bedewed pages of a devoted sister. We read it, yet can hardly
believe it to be, as it is, a real journal.
Her descriptions are full of the intensest interest and charming
naïveté. Here is one on a first communion:
"29th. What a sweet, simple, pious, and touching ceremony! I have only
time to say this, and to declare that of all the festivals the one I
delight in most is a first communion in a country district: God
bestowing himself simply on children! Miou, the little Françouil de
Gaillard, and Augustine were exquisite, both in innocence and beauty.
How pretty they looked under their little white veils, when they
returned weeping from the holy table! Divine tears! Children united to
God; who can tell what was passing that moment in their souls? M. le
Curé was admirable in his unction and gentleness; it was the Saviour
saying to children, 'Come unto me.' Oh! how lovingly he addressed
them, and then how he charged them to have a care of that white robe,
that innocence with which they were clothed! Poor children, {717} what
risks before them! I kept saying to myself, 'Which of yon will tarnish
it first?' They are not going to Paris, indeed; but earth is
everywhere soiled, everywhere evil is found, seduces, and leads away."
That closing sentence was not thoughtlessly penned. It was for the eye
of that brother whom Paris had seduced and led away into error, but
who never read that gentle admonition. Maurice de Guérin died soon
after, reconciled to the Church, in his last agony embracing the
crucifix; but Eugénie continues her journal to Maurice in heaven. Here
is a passage which will, if we mistake not, induce our readers to
procure and read the whole of this delightful volume. They will find
it, as we have found it, like a rare and beautiful picture, which,
with a strange selfishness, we desire to be universally admired, yet
wish it were all our own:
"This woman, this nurse who watched thee, and held thee in illness for
a year on her lap, has given me a greater shock than a winding sheet
would have done. Heart-rending apparition of the past--cradle and
tomb! I could spend the night with thee here in this paper, but the
soul needs prayer; the soul will do thee more good than the heart.
Each time that my pen rests here, a sword pierces my heart. I do not
know whether I shall continue to write or not. Of what use is this
Journal? For whom? Alas! and yet I love it as one loves a funereal
urn, a reliquary in which is kept a dead heart, all embalmed with
sanctity and love. Such seems this paper, where I still preserve thee,
my so beloved one: where I keep up a speaking memory of thee, where I
shall meet with thee again in my old age--if I live to be old. Oh!
yes, the days will come when I shall have no life but in the past;
that past shared with thee; spent beside thee, young, intelligent,
lovable, raising and refining whatever approached thee; such as I
recall thee, such as thou wert on leaving us. At present I do not know
what my life is, if, indeed, I do live. Everything is changed within
and without. Oh! my God, how heart-rending these letters are! They
contain so many tears for my tears! This intimate friend of thine
touches me as would a sight of thyself. My dear Maurice, all thou hast
loved are dear to me--seem a portion of thee."
THE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER, January, 1866.
This is the first number of the new, or New York, series of this
publication, which is to be issued every two months. It explains the
reason and object of the change which has been made in the editorship
and place of publication. The Convention of Unitarians held in this
city a few months ago initiated a new and important movement in that
denomination. The radical and destructive element was put down, and
that party which is in favor of taking a positive Christian position
achieved a victory. The _Examiner_ has been made their organ, and is
to be used in promoting the end they have in view. The convention
solemnly and publicly recognized our Lord Jesus Christ, under that
title which is indicative of his character as Supreme Head of the
human race, in spite of the violent opposition of a few, which was
vented in a very unseemly and vulgar manner, shocking to the Christian
sentiment of the community. The declaration of belief is significant
of the _animuis_ of the movement, and shows it to be a return to the
principle of positive and constructive Christianity. The impress of
this idea is visible in the new phase of the _Examiner_, and has given
it at once a position far above that which it formerly occupied. In
its scholarly and literary tone it is superior to the old series; but
the superiority is more marked and evident in the exhibition of a more
fixed and earnest purpose to aim at a definite result, and to make
more positive affirmation of religious and philosophical ideas. The
writers recognize the wide-spread scepticism in intelligent minds as a
lamentable fact, and have turned their face away from the road of
scepticism and disintegration as one that conducts only to
intellectual, moral, and social death. They do not profess to have
surveyed the road which leads away from this "valley of the shadow of
death;" but they seem to be convinced that there is one, and to be
resolved to look for it and to try to guide others in a search for it.
It is difficult to say, in regard to men who allow themselves so much
latitude in belief, and so great a liberty of independent theorizing,
what are the fixed doctrines in which they agree as the fundamental
basis of {718} an anti-sceptical philosophy, and what are merely
tentative hypotheses thrown out for discussion. It appears to us,
however, that there are several sound principles of Christian
philosophy and doctrine dominating in the articles of the number
before us, and which we may suppose will hereafter give a certain
unity of character and tendency to the work. One of these is the
affirmation of the pure theistic doctrine, in contradiction to
pantheism, in connection with a manifest tendency to repudiate the
sensist philosophy of Hamilton, Mansel, and that class of writers, and
to look for a better one. Another is a recognition that there is
something in the idea of the supernatural which is real, and above the
sphere of mere natural science. A third is a principle of reverence
for the Scriptures, and the religious traditions of the human race,
connected with a disposition to reject the scepticism of the
pseudo-critical school of Germany. A fourth is an assertion of the
obligatory force of the Divine Law, and the necessity of cultivating a
personal relation to God as the principle of solid virtue and
morality. There is also a sort of instinctive apprehension that a more
thorough investigation of the difficulties which science appears to
throw in the way of revealed religion will eventually produce a more
triumphant vindication of the latter than it has ever had. The topics
to be discussed in the Review are the most real and living questions
of the age in philosophy and theology. They will be discussed by men
of no mean pretensions to learning and intellectual ability, and of
superior literary cultivation. We are glad that they have undertaken
the work, and we hope for good results from it. We have no fear that
they will weaken the religious belief of those who have a positive,
dogmatic faith in regard to any essential doctrine of Christianity.
The public which will be reached by their writings and sermons, are
already familiar with all the questions and difficulties they will
discuss. They are full of doubt, and drifting into infidelity. All the
influence which these gentlemen will gain over them will tend to check
this downward progress, and initiate a salutary retrogression toward
Christian truth.
Moreover, all discussions of this kind will stimulate the work of
investigating and exhibiting the doctrine of the Catholic Church in
its relation toward rationalism. The controversy with orthodox
Protestantism is finished, and Protestant orthodoxy has gone where
Ilium formerly went. The real controversy of the day relates to the
very foundation of revelation itself.
SPARE HOURS: A Monthly Miscellany for the Young. Boston: P. Donahoe.
January, 1866.
We have received the first number of a new magazine with the above
title. It is published by Mr. Donahoe, Boston, is well printed on fine
paper, and illustrated with much taste. The matter, of which there are
64 pages, is both original and selected, and displays discrimination
and tact on the part of the editor. It would be well to give credit to
the source from which the selected matter is taken. This magazine
fills a want long felt by the Catholic community in this country.
Since the discontinuance of the "Youth's Catholic Magazine" we have
had no periodical that gave us any reading for our children. We
cordially welcome the advent of "Spare Hours" amongst as, and trust
its subscription list may show that Catholics _do_ appreciate good
reading.
NICHOLAS OF THE FLUE, the Saviour of the Swiss Republic. A dramatic
poem in five acts. By John Christian Schaad. 12mo., pp. 144.
Washington, D.C.: McGill & Witherow. 1866.
This book purposes to give, in a dramatic form, an account of the rise
of a dangerous civil dissension which took place among the brave and
religious Swiss during the invasion of their country by Charles the
Bold, and the happy reunion of sentiment by the wise interposition and
holy prayers of a hermit. How religion, or the counsels of its
ministers, can ever supplant the arbitrament of the sword or the
stratagems of the politician in the successful adjustment of national
difficulties, will not, we think, be so readily comprehended in our
present society, and chiefly so because with us there is no unity of
religion, and consequently a multiplicity of counsels, the prolific
seed itself of discord. But that it is {719} possible, as it is
enviable, may be seen by any one who will peruse this poem. Peace
which nations enjoy is a blessing of God. "Unless the Lord keep the
city, he watcheth in vain who keepeth it." It is not to be wondered at
then that a people thoroughly imbued with the spirit of faith should
look to God for help in the day of trial, when the demon of discord
sows the seeds of strife and disunion amongst them. The thought which
evidently moved the writer to compose this work is the same which has
often crossed our own mind during the late deplorable civil war: that
if our beloved country had been one in religion, it never would have
fallen a prey to such a fearful and almost fatal division, or at least
would have rejoiced in a more speedy reconciliation.
MERRY CHRISTMAS. A cantata for Christmas eve. Affectionately inscribed
to the children of the parish of St. Paul the Apostle, New York city.
P. O'Shea.
This little brochure contains directions, with appropriate recitatives
and hymns, for a religious celebration of Christmas by children, who
describe, in a sort of infantine opera, the scenes of our Lord's
nativity as related in the gospel. It contains, among other hymns,
some of the most beautiful Christmas carols in the English language;
and when sung by the voices of merry-hearted children must have a most
edifying and pleasing effect. We are sure it will be welcomed in all
our schools, and at the fireside of many a Christian family. It was
performed with great success before an immense and delighted audience
last Christmas night in the church of the Paulists, to the children of
whose parish it is dedicated.
THE MONTHLY. Edited at the University of St. Mary of the Lake,
Chicago, III. Published by J. P. Byrne, Chicago.
The December number of "The Monthly" did not reach us until the first
of January. This is rather late, and we presume is a mistake, as it
has been heretofore promptly on hand. The number before us completes
the second volume, and is quite interesting. It contains nine
articles, the first being on "Fenianism and Secret Societies." There
are two stories, one just commenced and one concluded. The former,
"The Huron Chief," is a tale of the Catholic missions in the
northwest, and the latter, "From June to October," is by an author not
unknown to the literary world. The articles in this magazine are
original, and are well written. We find in its literary notices the
following hit at a class which we are sorry to say is but too
numerous:
"The mission of a Catholic editor is something different from that of
the mendicant who stands at a church gate with a
'Help-the-poor-blind-man' label upon his breast. And yet there are
those--not a few--who look upon a pitiful subscription of three or
four dollars a year to a paper or a magazine in the light of an alms,
and actually imagine that they are performing one of the seven
corporal works of mercy if they can be induced to subscribe, while, in
justice, they are not paying a thousandth part of the interest on
their lawful debts. Not long ago we happened to meet with a Catholic
gentleman from New York, and among the different topics of
conversation the subject of literature was brought in. This gave us
the occasion to ask his opinion about 'The Monthly,' to which he
replied that he was unaware of its publication, because he had never
seen it noticed by a certain romantic sheet of the Quixotic stamp in
that city. He is the type of a class for whose conduct there is not
the shadow of an excuse. From this we might draw a general conclusion,
and apply the same course of reasoning to the case of every Catholic
publication in the country, for it is not rare to find Catholic
families without a Catholic paper or magazine on their tables. Under
these circumstances, then, it is not surprising that not a few of them
should be strangers to the existence of the works which they _ought_
to possess, while they may be conversant with a class of literature
whose spirit is productive either of no good at all or positively
injurious, and hence without either intellectual or moral benefit."
We wish "The Monthly" a happy and prosperous year.
HANS BRINKER, ETC. By M. E. Dodge. 12mo., pp. 347. New York: James
O'Kane. 1866.
We could cordially recommend this well-written story were it not for
one passage relating to _autos da fe_ and the Inquisition. Those who
have charge of Catholic youth are bound to {720} be extremely careful
what books they place in their hands, and this becomes often a cause
of perplexity, as there are so few which are entirely unexceptionable.
Those who write with the express purpose of inculcating the
distinctive principles of Protestantism are not amenable to our
criticism. But those who do not write with this intention, and who
merely seek to afford entertainment to the youthful mind with a
modicum of instructive information, may perhaps consider it worth
while to respect the religion of a large and increasing class of the
reading public. We are not very exacting. We desire only that books
written for the instruction and amusement of the young public at large
should contain a sound and wholesome morality and nothing offensive to
Catholics. We could not desire a better specimen of this class of
books than the work of our gifted authoress, which we have read with
pleasure, with the exception of the single passage alluded to; and
this might have been left out without any injury to the purpose of the
story. Those who are disposed to profit by our hints will find us
always ready to assist the circulation of their books by our
recommendation, if their literary merit renders them worthy of it.
A GENERAL HISTORY OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, from the commencement of the
Christian Era until the present time.
By M. l'Abbe J. E. Darras. First American from the last French
Edition. With Introduction and Notes by Archbishop Spalding. Vol. II.
8vo., pp. 627. New York: P. O'Shea.
The second volume of the history of the Catholic Church has just
appeared, and it is in every respect in keeping with the first volume;
is well printed on good paper, and makes a handsome book.
The Very Rev. Dr. Newman is preparing for the press a reply to Dr.
Pusey's "Eirenicon," lately published in London. We shall give it to
the readers of THE CATHOLIC WORLD at the earliest date.
The Messrs. Sadlier announce the publication of a new edition of
Father Young's "Catholic Hymns and Canticles," together with a
complete sodality manual. It will contain 107 hymns, arranged for all
the different seasons and festivals of the Church, as well as the
processions, ceremonies, etc.
Messrs. Murphy & Co., of Baltimore have in press a new and enlarged
edition of "Archbishop Spalding's Miscellanea." This learned work will
be carefully revised by the distinguished author, who will add nearly
100 pages of interesting matter, embracing among many other things his
"Essay on Common Schools throughout the World"--his "Analysis of the
Controversy into which he was forced by Professor Morse, in relation
to an alleged saying of Lafayette"--his "Lecture on the Origin and
History of Libraries," and his "Essay on Demonology and the
Reformation." This new edition will thus embrace essays, reviews, and
lectures on more than forty subjects, most of them historical, and all
of more than ordinary interest.
BOOKS RECEIVED.
From KELLY & PIET, Baltimore: "The Spae Wife, or Queen's Secret, a
story of the Times of Queen Elizabeth," by Paul Peppergrass, Esq.
12mo., pp 742. "The Little Companion of the Sisters of Mercy." 32mo.,
pp 102.
From D. & J. SADLIER & CO., New York: Parts 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 of "The
Complete Works of the Brothers Banim."
From P. O'SHEA, New York: "Life of St. Antony of Padua, of the Order
of Friars Minor," by Father Servas Dirks, Friar Minor, etc. 12mo., pp
341. "The Life and Miracles of St. Philomena, Virgin and Martyr, whose
sacred body was lately discovered in the Catacombs of Rome, and from
thence transferred to Mugnano, Naples." 12mo., pp 135.
Statuta Dioecesana ab Illustrissimo et Reverendissimo P. D. Joanne
Baptists Purcell, Archiepiscopo Cincinnatensi, in variis Synodis, quae
hue usque in Ecclesia sua Cathedrali vel in Sacello Seminarii,
celebratae sunt, lata et promulgata. Una cum Decretis Conciliorum
Provincialium et plenarii Baltimorenslum, quibus interfuerunt omnes
statuum Foederatorum Episcopi et Decretis Conciliorum Trium
Cincinnatensium. Nunc primum in unum collecta et publici juris facta.
Cincinnati: Published for the Most Rev. Archbishop of Cincinnati by
John P. Walsh.
------
THE CATHOLIC WORLD.
VOL. II., NO. 12--MARCH, 1866.
------
{721}
Translated from Le Correspondant
POSITIVISM.
A. COMTE, LITTRÉ, H. TAINE.
An exposition of the various philosophical systems constructed in our
times against Christianity, either as means of combatting it or as
substitutes for it, and showing in the false assumption with which
they all start the reason of their failure, would be an interesting
and instructive work. It would be a new _history of variations_, and
of the impotence of the human mind when it assumes to be sufficient
for itself, and the natural complement to the first, were there a
Bossuet to write it. Now it is a chapter of this history not yet
written, but which one day will be, that I propose to prepare in
rendering an account here of the positivist philosophy, of which M.
Auguste Comte was the inventor, and M. Littré is the learned and
fervent defender. To enable my readers to understand, as well as may
be, this pretended philosophy, I will first state through what
accidents and revolutions it has passed, then set forth its chief
formulas, and finally conclude by passing on them such critical
judgment as an impartial examination shall suggest.
The founder and chief of the positivist philosophy, Auguste Comte,
died at Paris in 1858, in the 59th year of his age. He was born in
1798 at Montpellier, of Christian parents; but, placed early in the
lyceum of that city, he soon lost there, under the influence of the
reigning spirit of the school, the faith of his childhood. From the
lyceum he went to the École Polytechnique, in which the worship of the
Convention and revolutionary ideas was at that period held in high
honor. We recall these circumstances, because the childhood and youth
of a man serve to explain his mature age.
It does not appear that M. Comte, on leaving the Polytechnic School,
received, as is ordinarily the case, any appointment in the public
service, civil or military--wherefore we know not. Whatever may have
been the reason, as he was without fortune he supported himself for
several years by giving lessons in mathematics. {722} After a while,
however, he was appointed repeater and examiner in the Polytechnic
School, which position he held till the revolution of 1848. His
profession as well as his aptitudes devoted him to the study of the
exact sciences; but he cherished a far higher ambition, and already
aspired to be the reformer and prophet of the human race. That this
thought, was early germinating in his mind, is proved by a pamphlet
which he published in 1822, when only twenty-four years of age,
entitled "_Système de Politique Positiviste_" (System of Positivist
Politics). He subsequently greatly modified and enlarged it, and his
pretensions above all greatly expanded as he advanced; but the first
idea of his system, not difficult, however, to discover, it must be
acknowledged was deposited in that publication.
About this time he became connected with Henri Claude de Saint-Simon,
and being much younger than the founder of Saint-Simonism, he
naturally yielded to his influence, and became very near being
absorbed in the god of the Rue de Taitbout. But Auguste Comte could
not consent to that; he would be master not disciple, and therefore,
after having written some articles in the Saint-Simonian journal, _Le
Producteur_, he abandoned the sect, separated from Saint-Simon, and
lamented bitterly the precious time which that _depraved juggler_, as
he called him, had made him lose. After this rupture he was restored
to himself and freed from all restraint; he could devote himself to
the finishing stroke of the great work he meditated. [Footnote 108]
The solemn moment approached. Hitherto he had only staked out his
ground and sown the seeds, but the synthesis, the real _cerebral_
unity, to use his language, was wanting. Without further delay he set
himself resolutely at work, and a meditation continued for four score
hours brought him to the conception, to the preamble as it were, of
the systemization of the whole positive philosophy. [Footnote 109]
But, alas! the long meditation brought with the system an access of
madness. It was slight at first, he assures us, a simple passing
enfeeblement of the cerebral organs, resulting from excessive labor;
but the physicians took hold of it, and then the evil grew so much
worse that it became necessary to shut him up in a madhouse--him who
had just discovered the law of the universe! M. Littré complains that
one of his collaborators in the _Journal des Débats_ threw up this
fact against the doctrine of his master, and he cites instances of
very superior men who have had similar accidents befal them. This
cannot be denied. No one can say that he is secure from such cruel
attacks; but we may be permitted to remark that there is here an
intimate correlation between the doctrine and the mental malady, since
both are produced at the same time and by the same intellectual
effort.
[Footnote 108: M. de Chalambert forgets to add that the cause of
this rapture was precisely the attempt of Saint-Simon, after having
failed to kill himself, to found a new religion, which he called
_Nouveau Christianisme_, and of which the positive religion
professed afterwards by M. Comte is only a manifest
plagiarism.--TRANSLATOR]
[Footnote 109: A useless labor, for he might have learned it from
that _depraved juggler_, Saint-Simon, who had reached it as early as
1804. Auguste Comte never made any advance on his master, but to the
last remained rather behind him. With all his pretensions to
originality, he was never anything more than the disciple of
Saint-Simon.--TRANSLATOR.]
Two or three years passed thus, after which M. Comte, having recovered
his health, resumed his labors, and in 1829 published the first volume
of his "_Cours de Philosophie Positive_," in which for the first time
he gives the principal data of his new theory. Five other volumes, of
eight or nine hundred pages each, followed at long intervals, and it
was only in 1842 that the work could be completed; not that ideas were
wanting, but money to pay the printers, as the author himself tells
us. During that time he opened a course of lectures, in which, under
pretext of teaching astronomy, he essayed to indoctrinate the public
in his principles. Thanks to these several methods of propagating his
views, he at length succeeded in gaining a {723} few disciples, not
numerous, indeed, but enough to encourage the hope of obtaining more.
Among those who from that time adhered to the positivist doctrine we
must cite M. Etex, an artist, M. Vieillard, a politician who, then
unknown, afterward obtained some note, and, in fine, M. Littré, a
philologist, a litterateur, and a member of the Academy of
Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres. This last especially was an important
recruit, an unhoped-far good fortune for the new school. M. Comte
(they who have tried to read him know it but too well!) was
essentially deficient in the art of explaining and expressing his
ideas. M. Littré knows precisely how to write, if not with brilliancy,
at least with method and clearness. Moreover, he had under his
influence an important public organ, _The National_, and used it to
the profit of the new philosophy. In 1844, M. Littré published in that
journal, of which he was an editor, a series of articles in which he
extolled the positivist philosophy, declared himself its disciple, and
carried his complaisance toward the master so far as to give him the
brevet of a man of genius. However, unknown to him perhaps, a great
transformation was about to be effected; the _affective_ element of
the new doctrine, hitherto neglected, was about to make its way to the
light and play its part.
Toward that epoch, M. Comte encountered a woman, still young, Madame
Clotilde de Vaux, who lived separate from her husband. The misfortunes
of this unhappy wife, misunderstood and deserted, touched him deeply;
he received her into his house, and forthwith she became his Beatrix,
or, rather, his Egeria, for it was from her that he received the
revelation of the new dogmas which he hastened to promulgate to the
world. All at once, under the inspired influence of Madame Clotilde de
Vaux, the positivist philosophy is changed into a religion, in which
the _affective_ element decidedly predominates. With dogma and morals,
worship and the priesthood are promptly organized. The sovereign
pontificate belonged as a matter of right to M. Comte, and he would no
doubt have willingly shared it with his _holy_ companion, but she,
alas! had already been removed by a premature death, and he must be
resigned to proclaim himself alone, high priest or sovereign pontiff.
This metamorphosis was so much the bolder as hitherto one of the
principal theses of the positivist philosophy had been precisely that
the time for religion was gone, and gone for ever. It might well
startle the adepts; but it failed to frighten M. Littré, the most
important among them, for we find him using still _The National_ and
preaching in its columns, with all the zeal of the neophyte, the
dogmas of the new religion--the religion of humanity. This was, it is
true, in 1851, when each day saw born and die some new sect, and M.
Littré and _The National_ no doubt judged that, socialism for
socialism, M. Comte's socialism was worth as much as any other, and in
fact was more convenient. We are inclined, nevertheless, to believe
that M. Littré was really smitten and vanquished (for what is there in
the way of new religions of which a free thinker is not capable?), and
we are confirmed in our belief because, not content to aid the
establishment of the new worship with his pen, he actually contributed
to it from his purse. The republic of 1848 was not a good mother for
M. Comte, although he hailed it with enthusiastic acclamations and
pronounced it immortal; it despoiled him at once of his means of
subsistence. M. Comte was little relished by the _savans_, and
relished them still less, especially those of the Academy of Sciences,
who had obstinately refused to open their doors to him. M. Arago, to
whom M. Comte attributed his disgrace, judging, doubtless, that there
must be some incompatibility between the dignity of high priest and
the functions of a repeater and examiner in the Polytechnic {724}
School, deprived him of these two employments, from which he drew his
support. M. Littré then came generously to the aid of his spiritual
father, and headed an annual subscription by which the adepts must
provide for the wants of their pontiff.
While these things were in progress there came the _coup d'état_ of
the 2d of December. M. Comte bore this trial with a scandalous
resignation. The faithful, M. Littré among others, refused
henceforward all active concurrence. But, on another side he found in
M. Vieillard, become a senator of the new empire, a useful protector,
and, thanks to him, he could soon resume his preachments. It was, in
fact, all he desired, for he was singularly free from all political
ambition.
From this moment M. Comte's religious zeal only augmented, and his pen
became more active and prolific than ever. From 1851 to 1854 he
published four huge volumes under the title of "_Système de Politique
Positiviste_;" then a "_Catéchisme Positiviste_," a "_Calendrier
Positiviste_," and announced new works for the following years, when
death took him by surprise and cut short his labors. It cannot be said
that his efforts were crowned with success, and that the numbers of
his disciples was increasing; on the contrary, solitude was gathering
closer and closer around him; but his faith was not shaken, and he
remained to the last full of confidence in the future. If
_occidentality_ gave little, he hoped much from _orientality_, and, in
1852, he wrote to the Emperor Nicholas of Russia, and to the Sultan of
Turkey, to induce them to undertake to propagate positivism in their
respective dominions, by representing to them that it was the only
means of salvation that remained to them.
Such is the succinct history of the positivist philosophy and
religion. The religion, indeed, ended with its founder, for he
declared a short time before his death that he had found no true
believer worthy to succeed him in the pontificate; but the philosophy
left disciples who, though they may not accept it in all its parts,
yet continue to be inspired by its principles. Not long since they had
an organ in the _Revue Philosophique_, in which they showed themselves
much divided, and gravely discussed the question whether it must be a
philosophy or a religion with which they should gratify the human
race. They seem, however, after the advice of M. Littré, to have
finally agreed that it is necessary first of all to reproduce the
eighteenth century; that is to say, to renew, in the name of the
emancipated flesh, the war against the Church and the religion of the
spirit. Events have seemed to favor them, and instead of regretting
the suspension of public liberty, by the establishment of the new
empire, they even greet it as an advantage, since they remind us that
it was under a similar _régime_ that the encyclopaedic work of which
they claim to be the legal heirs was born, grew, and prospered. In
short, M. Littré published, a short while ago, a new _brochure_ under
the title of "_Partóles de Philosophie Positive_," in which he
sustains all the principles of his master, and vindicates for himself
the honor of having been his most faithful disciple.
We have joined the names of M. H. Taine with the names of Messrs.
Comte and Littré, although he has never openly avowed himself an
adherent of their school. But, beside the identity of his principles
with those of positivism, the lightness of his philosophical luggage
does not permit us to devote to him a separate study. We know of him
on this subject only by the book entitled "_Les Philosophes Français
du dix-neuvième siècle_" (French Philosophers of the Nineteenth
Century), a superficial work, but agreeable, in which he judges with
wit, sometimes with justice, the chief representatives of the eclectic
philosophy, and to which he has added a concluding chapter that gives
us an exposition of his method. It is to this {725} method which we
shall, farther on, devote a few words. [Footnote 110]
[Footnote 110: M. de Taine has, since this article was written,
published a work on English writers and literature, which has in
certain quarters been well spoken of, and which really has some
merit, though of a lighter sort.--TRANSLATOR. ]
II.
It will readily be perceived that we cannot even attempt to set forth
within our limits the positivist religion and philosophy in all their
details and developments, and that we must confine ourselves to their
chief points or leading principles. We shall take our analysis from
the works of M. Comte himself, and from the series of letters which M.
Littré formerly inserted in _The National_, and which he has since
republished in a volume entitled _Révolution, Positivism,
Conservatism_, Paris, 1851. M. Littré has reproduced the ideas of the
master with a fidelity and disinterestedness rare in a disciple, and
he has over the master the advantage of style and method.
Positivism assumes as its starting point that modern society is
suffering from a deeply rooted evil, that it is like a man in a fever
who tosses and turns in his bed, seeking a position in which he may
rest at ease, and finding none. Do what it will it can find no stable
position. In vain has it effected immense progress, for this very
progress turns to its disadvantage. Beside, what does progress avail
if society cannot enjoy it in order and peace? But whence comes this
evil, this trouble, this feverish and sterile agitation? Evidently it
comes from intellectual and moral anarchy. Nobody any longer believes
in anything; there is no longer any law, any principle, that unites
all minds in a common symbol; every one draws from himself; divided
egotisms are in mutual conflict, and seek each other's destruction. If
such is the nature of the malady, the remedy is obvious. It must be in
obtaining a doctrine which accepted by all becomes the doctrine of
all, a bond of union for them, and the principle of peace.
But where is this doctrine to be found? Is it a religious doctrine--
Catholicity, for instance? The Catholic doctrine, indeed, gave
formerly the result desired, and realized in the world an incomparable
unity; but it has had its day; science has demonstrated the
impossibility of its dogmas, and it, in fact, finds now only here and
there a real believer--the great majority have ceased to believe it.
Will Protestantism supply the doctrine needed? No; for Protestantism
is only a degenerate and illogical Catholicism. Will Islamism give it?
Islamism has certainly its grand sides, but its morality is too
defective, and its dogma is hardly less repulsive than the Christian.
It is, then, manifest that all existing religions are impotent for the
future to rally and unite in a common bond the minds of men. But as
religion cannot do it, perhaps philosophy, metaphysics, can?
Metaphysics is only the abstract form of religion, resting on the same
basis and sustained by it, and does nothing but substitute abstract
beings that have no reality for the supernatural beings imagined by
religion, and which science equally rejects. Metaphysics has, as
religion, been indeed useful, has aided science to show the inanity of
religions dogmas; but, if useful in the work of destruction, it is
impotent in that of rebuilding, and can henceforth serve only to
perpetuate intellectual anarchy--that is to say, only aggravate the
evil instead of curing it. If, then, the remedy can be found neither
in religion nor in metaphysics, where can it be found?
It is to be found in a doctrine which substitutes for the supernatural
beings of religion, and the abstract entities of metaphysics, the real
beings which science demonstrates, and the existence of which nobody
disputes or can dispute. But how find or how construct such a
doctrine? The experience of what has been done in the exact sciences
gives distinctly enough the answer. There was a time when mathematics,
astronomy, physics, did not exist, and when men explained all the
phenomena {726} of nature by chimerical hypotheses. Now, how has man
come forth from that ignorance? By observing instead of imagining, as
he had hitherto done; and in observing phenomena he discovered their
laws, and thus, with time and effort, he succeeded in creating the
sciences which are called mathematics, astronomy, physics, chemistry.
Can we doubt, after this, that by applying the same method or
following the same process in regard to the science of individual man,
or _biology_, and the science of society, or _sociology_, we shall
obtain the same result? And let it not be said that these sciences are
of another order; the distinction attempted to be established between
them and the exact sciences is puerile and unfounded, as science
exists only on condition of being exact, and if not exact it is not
science. Biology and sociology have, it is true, not yet the character
of exact sciences; but why have they not? Simply because they are as
yet in their infancy, as was chemistry two centuries ago; because, on
the one hand, they have been badly studied, and, on the other, because
they are more complex and less easily mastered. The difficulties, it
is admitted, are therefore great; but it is necessary to conquer them,
since the salvation of the world can be secured on no other condition.
The terms of the problem are now distinctly stated, together with the
method of its solution. The malady from which society suffers is
intellectual anarchy, and intellectual anarchy will cease only when we
have made of the sciences of biology and sociology (it is known what
these sciences mean) sciences as exact as are mathematics, astronomy,
etc.; and to do this it is only necessary to use the same method in
constructing them that is used in constructing the so-called exact
sciences.
However, the whole is not yet said. Observation is, indeed, the true
method, but observation of what? Of moral phenomena, the operations of
the soul? But what is the soul? Who has seen it? Certain
metaphysicians have, indeed, pretended to derive all science from the
phenomena of the soul; but this is a gross error; psychology is an
impossible science. In psychology the subject, or rather the organ
which observes, is precisely that which is observed--the eye striving
to see itself. To what, then, is observation to be applied? To the
body, to the cerebral organs, and, primarily, to the external world;
to the inorganic world at first, afterward to the organic world, to
minerals, plants, animals. The study of animals is especially
serviceable, since man, at most, has over the animal only the
advantage of some superior intellectual faculties, and even that
advantage appears doubtful, observes M. Comte, if we compare the acts
of the mammiferae, the most elevated, with those of savages, the least
developed.
After zoology, the most useful science is phrenology, the science
which best teaches us what man really is. Dr. Gall under this relation
has rendered an immense service, and created the true science of man.
He erred, it is true, by too minute detail, and in wishing to
determine at once the organs of theft, luxury, etc., which gave fair
scope to criticism; [Footnote 111] but it would be difficult to
resist the accumulated proofs on which he had established his system.
In short, science is now in the position to give a classification of
eighteen interior functions of the brain, or a systematic _tableau_ of
the soul. Thus it is neither from metaphysics nor from religion, but
from zoology, and, above all, from phrenology, that we must seek the
knowledge of the laws which govern intelligence.
[Footnote 111: Nothing is new under the sun, says Solomon. Any one
curious on the subject of phrenology may read, as M. Cousin has well
remarked, in Plato's _Timoeus_, all that Gall and Spurzheim, and
their followers, have really established in their pretended
science.--TRANSLATOR.]
However, _method_ alone does not suffice. There is needed also a
_criterion_, and here M. Comte confesses that the difficulty is great.
To observe with profit, to be able, by observation, to abstract from
the {727} phenomena their laws, we most have an anterior law, a
type-law, to serve as the term of comparison, in like manner as a
standard is necessary to determine the value of a coin. Now, what
furnishes this type? Observation? But this is only to recommence the
difficulty. The embarrassment can be relieved only by reasoning from
analogy, and a historical theory. Positivism, after all, then, resorts
to reasoning and theorizing! The sciences which are firmly seated on
positive realities began in hypotheses, and it has been by the aid of
hypotheses, ascertained afterward to be false, that observation has
succeeded in discovering the real laws of these sciences! It must be
the same with biology and sociology. Humanity began by religion, and
religion has passed through three phases, fetichism, polytheism, and
monotheism. Religion, truly, is only a fiction, but a useful fiction,
and even necessary to the development of humanity. Fetichism, in
offering plants to the adoration of man, taught him to cultivate them;
polytheism, in creating supernatural beings, gave birth to poetry and
the fine arts; monotheism, in elevating minds, has fitted them for the
culture of science. After religion came metaphysics, which, by
transforming the dogmas into abstractions, destroyed them; and, by
destroying them, opened the way for positivism. Now, what has taken
place for humanity in general must be reproduced for each man in
particular; each one of us must pass through the religious state and
the metaphysical state before we can arrive at the positivist state.
Thus, then, in like manner as it has been by means of false hypotheses
that the real laws of the science have been discovered, so by means of
hypotheses equally false, religion and metaphysics, will be discovered
the true laws of biology.
We confess that we do not very clearly perceive what relation there is
between this theory and the problem to be solved. The problem is how
to find a criterion by the aid of which the true may be distinguished
from the false; but this criterion escapes us still, and we have for
it only a second method superposed on the first, or history coming to
the aid of physiology. True, we are not told what bond connects the
two methods, or how we are to combine them, and from their combination
obtain the type-law; but we must not be too difficult, and we forewarn
our readers that they must not look for any real connection, any
logical nexus, between the various propositions which we are about to
place before them. Beyond the gross materialism which follows
necessarily from the positivist premises, all is arbitrary and
capricious; the master says it, and he must be believed on his word,
without being asked for reasons, good or bad. Our readers will judge
for themselves if this be not so, and that they may not accuse us of
exaggerating anything, we shall give generally textual citations.
After having presented the formula of its method, or rather of its two
methods, the positivist school proceeds to the application and
exposition of the consequences which are derived from it or them.
In the very outset they assert that there are no absolute truths, that
all truth is relative; the true, the good, the fair, are such only by
a provisional title; what was virtue yesterday may be crime to-day,
and what is crime to-day may be virtue to-morrow. Thus speaks M.
Littré:
"The positivist philosophy is experimental; . . . . it is composed of
relative not absolute notions. . . . When man, in the beginning of his
scientific career, launched into unrestricted researches after the
absolute, he had only this way open to him; now another way has been
opened, that of experience and induction. This way cannot conduct the
inquirer to absolute notions, and when we demand them of reason we
demand of her more than she has. The mind of man is neither absolute
nor infinite, and to try to obtain from it absolute {728} solutions is
to go out of the _immutable_ conditions of human nature." [Footnote
112]--_Littré, Conservatism, Revolution, and Positivism_, pp. 5, 38.
[Footnote 112: M. de Chalambert might here reply, granting man has
no infinite or absolute _notions_, which no finite mind can have, it
by no means follows that he has no notions or conceptions of that
which is infinite and absolute, or intuitions of necessary, eternal,
and immutable truth, as are the first principles of all science,
religion, and morals.--TRANSLATOR. ]
If there are no absolute truths, then there is no God:
"This conclusion," says M. Littré "rests on the decisive results of
all scientific exploration during the long course of the ages, namely,
that nothing of what is called first cause is accessible to the human
mind, and the origin of the world can be explained neither by many
gods nor by one god alone, neither by nature, chance, nor atoms. This
result, erected into a principle, gradually takes possession of modern
intelligence, and bears in its womb the social organization of the
future of the race. . . . If, for a childish and individual
satisfaction, the idea of some theological being, one or manifold, is
retained, it is necessary to reduce the conception forthwith to a
nullity, and to purely nominal and supererogatory functions; for the
result of scientific investigation is, that there is in the course of
things no trace of miracle or government from above, and nothing but
an unbroken chain of laws modifiable, within certain limits, by the
action from age to age of mankind. As Laplace says, such a being is
henceforth a useless hypothesis."--_lb. pp_. 279, 298.
The soul has no existence distinct from that of the body, and
therefore dies with it:
"This belief (concerning the survivance of the soul), which might be
true, is not found to be so; science (always science!) has not been
able to establish a single fact whatever of a life after death; and
so, like a pond no longer alimented by inflowing streams, the opinion
of an individual perpetuity gradually evaporates."--_lb., pp._128.
There is room for liberty only because the biological phenomena are
very complex:
"No science," says M. Littré (_ib_., p. 114), "if the phenomenon has
no law, and no power (liberty) if not complex enough to offer us
struggles duly proportioned to the complication."
It follows from this that the effect of the progress of science must
be to diminish human liberty, since in proportion as it elucidates
questions it diminishes their complexity.
However, human intelligence must have an ideal:
"The ideal is its dream and its worship. Now what will be its ideal?
Humanity itself. Humanity has a real existence; it is the great Being,
really a great collective body, having a regular growth of its own,
and provided, like every individual body, with temporary organs, which
lose their activity, wither, and disappear in default of employment
and nutrition" (_ib_., p. 118). "Formerly, and conformably to the
medium in which they moved, theology and metaphysics, its slave, gave
their demonstration of the divine existence. In like manner science
to-day gives the demonstration of the existence of humanity. It is no
longer possible to mistake the growth of this ideal--the solidarity of
its most remote past with its most distant future, and this powerful
life of which each man has been, is, and will be an organ" (_ib_., p.
283). "Humanity is a real ideal, which it is necessary to know
(education), to love (religion), to embellish (the fine arts), to
enrich (industry), and which therefore holds our whole existence,
individual, domestic, and social, under its supreme direction" (_ib_.,
p. 286).
To love and serve humanity is the whole positivist moral law. M.
Littré says, pp. 291, 292: "This morality is much superior to the
morality of the past, which was founded on selfishness. The
'salvation' of the theologians is as much a selfish calculation as the
'enlightened self-interest' {729} of the materialists. The
materialists say, 'Do good: it is for thy interest in this life;' the
theologians say, 'Do good: it is for thy interest in another life.'
Never was there a more perfect system of selfishness organized in the
world; and if powerful instincts, and, it is but justice to add,
sacerdotal wisdom, had not in part counterbalanced the disastrous
effects of such an habitual direction, individual asceticism and
aspiration to salvation would have dissolved all social bonds."
It is, we see, no longer God whom we are to love and serve, but
humanity, and as humanity has few or no rewards to bestow, the worship
we render her must needs be disinterested. Selfishness falls in
proportion as the hope of reward vanishes. [But suppose one does not
love and serve humanity, will he suffer punishment or lose anything in
consequence? If so, what becomes of the positivist doctrine of the
disinterestedness of the worship of humanity?--TR.]
Such are the solutions offered by the positivist philosophy on the
principal points of biology, or the science of the individual; we
proceed now to sociology, or the science of society.
Positivism, being at once a philosophy and a religion, must admit and
does admit two distinct societies--a temporal society and a spiritual
society. We begin with the first.
The aim of the temporal society M. Littré, _ib_., p. 119, explains in
the following manner: "The historic tradition itself, without anything
forced, arbitrary, fortuitous, or transitory, conducts us to the reign
of industry. Before industry the whole past successively falls and
disappears. For the modern man industrial activity is the only
temporal occupation, the only practical activity. . . . If the
accession of the industrial regimen is inevitable, it is also
inevitable that the chiefs of our industry should be our temporal
chiefs. We have no need of patricians or of gentlemen to lead us to
war and conquest; we have no need of kings or kaisers to concentrate
in their own hands the power of the sword. Their functions, formerly
preeminent, are now without employment (!). But we have need of
directors who can conduct the peaceful labors of industry with
firmness and intelligence, labors which certainly want neither
complication nor difficulty nor grandeur. It is to this end that all
temporal power must aspire."
If so, if industry is the supreme and last end of humanity, evidently
nothing is to be changed in the present condition of property, and
that the wealth of the rich should be augmented rather than
diminished. The constitution of the family must also be maintained.
The marriage bond is, therefore, declared indissoluble; the positivist
law is in this respect even more severe than the Christian law, for,
not contented with prohibiting divorce, it even forbids second
nuptials. In the purely political order the republican form must
obtain.
"I have thought ever since February, 1848," said M. Littré, in 1850,
p. 205, "that the establishment of the republic is definitive in
France, having for it the guarantee of manners which have ceased to be
monarchical, and after this wholly theoretical point of view, I have
constantly lived, and engage to live, in security."
This confidence, wholly positivist, has been but poorly justified by
events; yet there are compensations, and, in reality, the imperial
_régime_, which has succeeded to the republic, differs not so much as
might be supposed from that which the positivists themselves wished to
establish. The principal conditions demanded by the positivist
republic are: 1. Free discussion; 2. The preponderance of the central
power; 3. The rigid restriction of the parliamentary or _local_ power
to the vote of the budget; 4. In fine, the investment of the growing
power in the hands of proletaries or working-men.
M. Comte and M. Littré both agree on all these points; they both have
an {730} equal horror of parliamentary government, under which, says
M. Littré, power passes into the hands of lawyers, pettifoggers, and
sophists. Both desire three directors; but M. Comte judges it most
suitable to choose three bankers, because society is industrial, and
bankers, who are the lessors of the funds of industry, are in a better
position than others to know its wants. M. Littré (he was writing in
_The National_ in 1850) preferred three eminent proletaries. "What is
the proletary," exclaims he, "operative or peasant, who, if he has
equal intelligence, that he should not be as capable as M. Thiers or
M. Guizot of directing political affairs?" He concedes, however, that
as a counterpoise to the central proletarian power, the _Chamber of
Deputies_ should be composed of rich men, who are the best fitted by
habit to vote the budget.
Master and disciple both agree, that Paris should elect the executive
government; and that the rest of the French people should have the
right to obey. Fear you that from such a system despotism must result?
M. Littré reassures you, with his strange apothegm, "what is despotism
in our days but government in the hands of the retrograde parties?"
That is, despotism is simply power in the hands of those whose ideas
are different from ours? Could he tell his secret with a more
refreshing simplicity? He has another word which might excite some
uneasiness. "The philosophical genius of the Convention was not
inferior to its political genius, and, indeed, they were each the
necessary condition of the other. _Positivism is their direct heir_.
The whole positivist political theory, therefore, like all
revolutionary theories, ends at last in this: Below, as the very
condition of its existence, the sovereignty of the plebs; above, as
the crown of the edifice, the dictator.
But we pass to the spiritual society. We have seen under the influence
of what sentiments the positive philosophy was suddenly transformed
into a religion. Madame Clotilde de Vaux had the initiative, and
inspired, in 1845, the religious thought of M. Comte. From that moment
it was no longer the intellect but the heart, no longer intelligence
but love, that predominated in the positivist school. The disciples
were transformed with the master. "I recognize and profess as the
positivist philosophy requires," says M. Littré, p. 298, "that this
_affective_ side of human nature should always preponderate over the
intellectual side." As soon as it was decided that religion should
take the place of philosophy, M. Comte proclaimed a great Being and
then a high priest. The great Being, who was none other than humanity
itself, was defined to be "the collection of all beings, past,
present, and to come, that freely concur in the completion of
universal order," or more briefly, but not more clearly, "the
continuous whole of convergent beings." [Footnote 113]
[Footnote 113: Aug. Comte, "_Cours de Politique Positive_," t. 1, p. 30.]
The high priest (_le grand prétre_) was, as we have said, M. Comte
himself. After this came dogma and worship. The dogma had already its
principal features in philosophy, and there was little to be added;
but for worship, _le culte_, all was to be created. The fertile
imagination of M. Comte promptly provided for it. He engaged at first
in compiling and publishing a positivist catechism, by the side of
which M. Littré gravely tells us "the Catholic catechism is only an
embryo." He afterward constructed a calendar; he commences the new era
with the year 1793, and names it _Cycle of the Great Crisis_. The year
is divided into thirteen months of four weeks each; the months take
the names of thirteen men of superior genius; instead of saying
January, February, we must say Moses, Aristotle, etc. The days have
also the names of celebrated men, but men of an inferior order.
Several circular letters from the high priest to the faithful were
dated the 4th of Moses, {731} 6th of the Great Crisis, or 6
Archimedes, Great Crisis 64.
There was, or rather was to have been, a college of assessor
priests--the number of whom was fixed at twenty thousand for Europe,
one-fourth of whom were allotted to France; positivist savans and
poets were to compose the college faculty.
Time and money failed for the construction of a temple for the new
worship, and the apartment occupied by M. Comte, Rue des Fosses,
Monsieur-le-Prince, held temporarily its place. The faithful
congregated there on appointed days, and every positivist believer was
required to say three prayers daily. It was, doubtless, in consequence
of one of these pious exercises that M. Littré exclaimed:
"I have too clearly perceived the efficacy of this regenerative
socialism in myself and in the little group of disciples, and the calm
content with which it fills the soul, not to desire to take part in
it. . . . In these times, when all things seem giving way, how
salutary and sweet to feel ourselves in communion with the immense
existence which protects us, with that humanity which is the spirit of
our globe, and the providence of successive generations!"--_M. Littré,
ib._, p. 294.
The number of festival days was considerable; there were fourscore and
one a year. The festival of the great Being, those of the sun, the
dead, the police, the press, etc. Nine sacraments were instituted:
1. _The Presentation_, The parents present the new-born child to the
priest, who accepts it, or, in some rare cases, rejects it. We are not
told what becomes of the new-born child that is rejected.
2. _Initiation_. At fourteen the boy is delivered to the priesthood,
who take charge of his instruction.
3. _Admission_. At twenty-one the adult is admitted to the service of
humanity.
4. _Destination_. Seven years after the young man is admitted to the
special office which he is judged capable of filling.
5. _Marriage_. Marriage is not permitted after thirty-five in men and
twenty-eight in women. Three months continence before the definitive
celebration, eternal widowhood, save in some rare cases, of which the
high priest alone is the judge, are enjoined.
6. _Maturity_. At forty-two the man is admitted to the full maturity
of the service of humanity.
7. _Retirement_. This takes place at sixty-three.
8. _Transformation_. Perfection is prepared by repentance.
9. _Incorporation_. Burial in a garden in the midst of flowers.
Once entered into this way, M. Comte cannot stop, and he even arrives
at the Utopia of a virgin mother, at first hazarded only as a bold
hypothesis, but afterward proclaimed as the synthetic _résumé_ of the
whole positivist religion, in which are combined all its aspects. He
was preparing a special treatise on this grand discovery when death
interrupted him. A word on this conception of a virgin mother. Through
the indefinite progress of positivism, the wife may one day come to
conceive without ceasing to be a virgin, and so universal continence
become the supreme law of the positivist religion, without in other
respects abolishing the social bonds of marriage.
But at least humanity, after so many efforts, once elevated to this
glorious state, will henceforth remain in it? M. Comte thinks not; he
inclines, on the contrary, to the belief that in spite of the
positivist virtue, humanity will end by decreasing and entirely
disappearing.
But we have detained our readers long enough with these sad
lucubrations of a sickly brain. We could not well pass them over in
silence, for they belong to the intellectual history of our times, and
it seems to us some useful lessons may be extracted from them.
We have promised to make known {732} the philosophical theory of M. H.
Taine, but as the matter is small, the exposition may be short. His
theory may be reduced to the three following points:
1. The philosopher in the study of science must be disinterested, and
draw his conclusions after having made his observations, without
disturbing himself as to their consequences. The philosopher, in a
word, must set the man aside, forget that he is a son, a father, a
husband, a citizen, and regard science alone, nothing but science,
with the facts observation furnishes.
2. Observation is the only method, and observation must be confined
exclusively to physical phenomena, which alone are real. Metaphysical
beings, notions of the soul, of first cause, are pure illusions;
consequently nothing survives the body, and there is no God, at least
no God that can be inferred from any observable phenomena.
3. The highest synthesis to which observation can conduce is that
there is a vast assemblage of laws and phenomena which we call nature.
All this resembles positivism too closely to be separated from it. If
we have distinguished it, we have done so that M. H. Taine should not
accuse us of making him, in spite of himself, the disciple of a master
whom, perhaps, he does not wish to own.
III.
Before proceeding to examine this strange and incoherent system either
in its general principles or in its particular application, we must
reduce to their first value the two propositions which we set forth as
its preamble, or rather as its pretext: 1. That modern society is in
want of a doctrine that unites all intelligences in a common symbol,
and enables them to live in peace and harmony; and, 2. That this
doctrine cannot be in the future the Catholic doctrine, though that
doctrine for a long time in the past filled its office, for its dogmas
are now known to be irreconcilable with the discoveries of science.
One of the most common practices of the sophistical spirit is not so
much to deny facts as to distort them, exaggerate their reach, or
confuse those which are distinct. This is what our positivists do in
these propositions. That there is at present much intellectual
anarchy, that many souls, having lost their faith, or suffered it to
be greatly weakened, refuse to recognize any law except the law which
they make for themselves, and that thence results a mental
perturbation from which society suffers not a little, is a fact too
evident and too lamentable to be questioned. It is only simple
justice, however, to acknowledge that M. Comte has the merit of
pointing it out much earlier than the most of his friends [and
Saint-Simon much earlier than even M. Comte.--TR.] Although strongly
imbued with the revolutionary spirit he comprehended [had learned from
Saint-Simon?--TR.] as early as 1822 that that spirit, powerful indeed
to destroy, is radically incapable of establishing anything, and he
never spared the illusion of those who believed that the principles of
the Constituent Assembly of 1789, engrafted on religious unbelief,
could serve as the basis of the social edifice.
But if the evil denounced is only too real, it is not necessary to
represent it as greater than it is, or to conclude, because faith in
many souls has grown feeble, that it has entirely perished, and is no
longer to be found among men. We know how difficult and how delicate
it is to establish the balance-sheet of religious society. Appearances
are deceptive, and to reach the real facts we must explore, to the
bottom, the consciences of men, which only God can do. However, there
are certain exterior circumstances which may enable us even on this
point to approximate the real facts in the case. It is undeniable that
there are in all the degrees of society men who really believe and
faithfully practise religion; others who believe but practise not;
{733} and still others who make an open profession of not believing.
The first division have representatives in every social class, among
the poor as well as among the rich, in the sciences, in literature, in
art, in industry, in politics. Their faith in general is equally firm
and enlightened, for it has been thoroughly tried, and has withstood
every attack, both from within and from without.
The second class are more numerous, at least in the great centres of
population, and form in those centres the bulk of society. They
believe, but their faith is weak, or perhaps it were more proper to
say that they have not faith, but only vague and indecisive beliefs,
whose level rises or falls according to events. They recoil alike from
avowed apostasy and from distinct, precise, and frank affirmation of
the truth. As they have abandoned the practice of their religion, it
may be supposed that they have lost all belief, but that is far from
being the case, for often the slightest breath from without suffices
to rekindle what seems to be extinct, but is really only asleep. It is
rare, above all, that at the last moment, when the passions have been
appeased, when they stand face to face with reality and see it as it
is, their last and solemn word is not a word of faith.
The third class, those who make an open profession of unbelief, are
relatively few; but they make up for their lack of numbers by their
activity and the powerful means at their disposal. They fill high
positions in the state, control the greater part of the organs of
publicity, and gain the multitudes to their side all the more easily
because they excel in the art of caressing popular prejudices and
pandering to popular passions. Beside, their hatred of truth is
greater than their attachment to any doctrine whatever, and they can,
therefore, hold themselves free to attack the faith without being
bound to defend anything of their own against it, or to maintain any
self-consistency in their attacks. What moves and governs them is not
the desire to ascertain or defend the truth, but to appear to have
independence and hardihood of mind, and to pose themselves as
despisers of the past and precursors of the future.
But to appreciate the real situation of things, it is not enough to
regard the present. We must also consider the past. No society makes
itself such as it is, and every society holds infinitely more from the
generation that went before than from the existing generation. Now, as
the society of the past was manifestly a Christian society, it cannot
be that the present should not remain Christian in the greater part of
its elements; and in fact, notwithstanding the formidable efforts that
have been made to unchristianize modern society, and its numerous
deviations, it is still the Christian spirit that inspires the laws,
manners, and institutions, and so pervades the general intelligence
that even those who would attack the Christian dogmas are constrained,
in order to render their attacks more effective, to appeal to the very
principles which Christianity has brought to light and made
predominant.
Moreover, religious faith, far from decreasing, is actually
progressing, and, if it has not yet recovered all the ground it had
lost, its gains since the commencement of the present century have
been far greater than its losses.
It is not difficult to detect the vice of the first proposition. It
consists in assuming that Christian faith is dead, while it has only
been lessened; that it has lost all authority over the intelligent,
while, in fact, it continues to exercise, directly or indirectly, such
an empire over them that its principles are universally regarded as
the foundation and support of the social edifice itself.
But not contented with assuming that Christianity is dead, the
positivists go further, and pretend that it cannot be restored to
life, because its dogmas are found to be incompatible with the
discoveries of science. This is not {734} a fact distorted, not a fact
invented, and for which no proof is offered or attempted to be
offered. We have in vain sought in the writings of Messrs. Comte and
Littré even the semblance of a reason of any sort in support of the
allegation. The positivists announce it, affirm it, but make no effort
even to prove it, or at most only stammer out by the way the name of
Galileo, as if it had not been a thousand times answered, at first,
that the sacred writers must have spoken the language of their times,
which after all is still the language of our times; afterward that
Copernicus dedicated, in 1545, to Pope Paul III., his great work, in
which he sets forth and defends the new or heliocentric system of the
universe; that nearly a century elapsed before any censure of it
intervened; that Galileo, although technically condemned, was neither
loaded with chains nor cast into a dungeon; in fine--and it is the
important point--that the holy office which condemned him, though
possessing great and legitimate authority, is not the Church, and has
no claim to infallibility. [Footnote 114]
[Footnote 114: This was written before the Encyclical of the Holy
Father, dated December 8, 1864, otherwise the noble author might
have modified his expression so as not even to seem to incur its
censure. Without raising any question as to the infallibility of the
pontifical congregations when they render a dogmatic Judgment
approved by the Holy Father, it is evident that the judgment
rendered in the case of Galileo was not a dogmatic judgment in the
understanding of even Rome herself, for she has since rescinded it,
and has permitted the theory to be taught in her schools as science.
The judgment was disciplinary, not dogmatic, and assuming,
therefore, that Galileo held the scientific truth, it offers no
evidence of the incompatibility of Catholic _dogma_ with science,
any more than the condemnation of an unwarrantable insurrection in a
monarchical country in favor of democracy would prove that the
Church is hostile to liberty.--TRANSLATOR. ]
Unable to produce any facts to support their thesis, the positivists
resort to historical induction. They argue that the sciences have been
in a state of continuous progress for three centuries; but during the
same three centuries they say faith has been in a state of continual
decline; there is, therefore, an intimate correlation between the two
facts, so intimate that we may assert the former as generating the
latter. But to a legitimate induction, all the facts on which it
depends should be carefully observed and reported, which in this case
is not done.
It is not true that faith has declined in a fatal and continuous
manner; nor is it true that the sciences have made their greatest
progress in those epochs in which faith has most declined. Ask
history. In the beginning of the sixteenth century occurred Luther's
revolt; It produced in the Christian world a universal shock. During
several years heresy made every day new progress, and a part of Europe
was detached from the centre of unity; but very soon the movement was
arrested, and before the end of that same century a reaction against
it had begun, followed by a religious revival or re-birth which
produced one of the grandest epochs in the history of mankind. In the
eighteenth century a new attack, more formidable than the first, is
made on faith; it triumphs, and seems to be on the point of destroying
all truth. Yet from the beginning of the next century a second
religious restoration is effected, of which it may be as yet too early
to determine the full bearing on the future, but which has already had
too serious results to allow its great importance to be questioned.
Thus out of four centuries there are two, the sixteenth and the
eighteenth, in which faith has declined, and two, the seventeenth and
the nineteenth, in which faith has revived and increased. There is not
then a fatal and continuous march of faith in a certain direction.
There are two contrary currents that meet and combat each other,
without its being lawful as yet from the point of view of science to
say which will ultimately triumph.
But at least they are the centuries of doubt and unbelief in which
science has made her greatest progress? Not at all. Precisely the
contrary is the fact. The sixteenth century did hardly anything for
science, but the seventeenth century, the age of the {735} Catholic
revival, was the age of the Galileos, the Pascals, the Des Cartes, the
Newtons, the Leibnitzes--the age in which not only philosophy,
letters, the arts, were carried to their highest degree of splendor,
but the great principles of modern science were discovered and
established--principles from which have resulted all subsequent
discoveries, which, it is well to remark, have been only an affair of
application and patience, not of invention and genius.
But the positivists insist again that, granting there is no absolute
incompatibility between science and faith, since the masters of
science have been decided believers, and are so still; granting also
that there is no direct relation between the progress of science and
the decline of faith, since the periods in which science has grown are
not coincident with those in which faith has diminished--still the
general result of three centuries of activity is that science has
gained and faith has lost, and it is difficult, therefore, to suppose
that these two facts are wholly foreign one to the other.
We reply that if this were proposed as a mere hypothesis, it might
pass, and there would be no inconvenience in admitting that the
progress of science may have indirectly, and so by way of reaction,
had some influence in weakening religious beliefs. In all progress, in
every increase of power, there is danger. Man is naturally weak, and
as soon as he feels himself in possession of a new force he suffers
himself to be dazzled by it, attributes to himself all its merits, and
soon comes to believe that he can suffice for himself, and dispense
with all aid from above. Consider what takes place in our days.
Certainly, it is impossible to conceive in what respect steam,
chloroform, electricity, or photography conflicts with any Christian
dogma. Religion, instead of standing aghast at these discoveries in
the application of science, applauds them, and sees in them new and
more efficient means of doing her own work, of ameliorating the
condition of a large number, of propagating the Gospel, and drawing
closer the bonds of unity throughout the world. Yet such is not the
impression which they produce on all minds. Certain persons, at sight
of so many marvels, are so carried away with enthusiasm as to conclude
that man is on the eve of becoming God. The impression will, no doubt,
soon wear away, but till it does, the intoxication continues, and
hearts are inflated. In this way science may come to the aid of
unbelief; not by itself, nor by the results it gives; but by the
presumptuous confidence with which it too often fills the mind. As it
is not and cannot be the principal and efficient cause of the success
of unbelief, we must seek that cause elsewhere, in the unloosing of
the passions, always impatient of the restraints of faith. History in
fact teaches us that the great revolts of the intellect are
contemporary with those of the will and the senses; that it was in the
scandals of the revival of ancient learning in the fifteenth century
that Protestantism was conceived; that more lately it was the _les
petits soupers_ of the Regency and under the impure inspirations of
the Pompadours and the Du Barrys that was spun and woven the
conspiracy against the God of Calvary. Modern unbelief may boast of
the independence it has acquired, but assuredly not, if it has any
self-respect, of its shameful cradle.
So we see that the very propositions which serve as a pretext to the
positivist system are belied by the historical facts in the case. Far
from being ready to perish, religion is every day making new progress,
and none of its dogmas have as yet been contradicted or weakened by
any of the real discoveries of science.
The positivist system itself, it will be recollected, is based on the
assumption that no doctrine can henceforth obtain the assent of the
intelligent, save on condition of being positive, {736} that is, as
rigidly demonstrable as are the physical sciences. Such a theory
hardly needs refuting, so contrary is it to common sense and the
universal beliefs of the race. But as it has been set forth at length
in a series of huge volumes, maintained and lauded in an important
political journal, counts still many adepts, has been recalled not
long since to the public attention by a work written by one of their
number who has the honor of being a member of the Institute [and as it
is gaining no little ground, under its philosophical aspect, in Great
Britain and the United States--TR.], it is not permissible to neglect
it, and we feel it necessary, if not to combat it directly, at least
to point out the levity and inconsistency of its originators and
adherents, who claim to be reformers of the human race, and with
imperturbable gravity pretend that for six thousand years mankind has
been the dupe of the grossest error, and that before their advent
there were only illusion and falsehood in the world.
The assumption from which the system proceeds is that the real, the
positive, is restricted to the world of the senses, or the material
universe, and that what transcends the material order is for us at
least unreal--a thesis directly opposed to that of Des Cartes, who
taught that thought is the phenomenon the most real, the most positive
of all. Now which is right, the author of the "Discourse on Method" or
M. Comte? No great effort is needed to prove that it is Des Cartes,
and that the existence of spiritual phenomena is not only more certain
than that of physical phenomena, but more positive and more easily
proved, because the knowledge of spiritual phenomena is direct and
immediate, while that of sensible phenomena is only indirect and
mediate. All knowledge, rational or sensible, is a spiritual
phenomenon. Matter may be the occasion or medium of it, but can never
produce it, for it is always spirit or mind that knows even in
sensation or sentiment. We may be deceived as to the meaning of the
phenomenon, but never as to its existence. [Footnote 115]
[Footnote 115: As a subjective fact, there can be no doubt of its
existence: but this, with all respect to M. de Chalambert, is
nothing to the purpose. All phenomena are subjective, and
therefore mental, if you will, spiritual; but is there an
objective spiritual reality revealed by these spiritual phenomena?
This is the question, and I need not say it is a question not
answerable on the Cartesian principle or method. Few persons
outside of France regard Des Cartes as worth citing as an
authority in philosophy, for, beginning with thought as a
psychological phenomenon, he never did and never could attain
scientifically to any objective existence, either spiritual or
material. The error of Des Cartes was in seeking to settle the
question of method before settling that of principles; the
principles determine the method, not the method the principles, as
M. Cousin, misled by his veneration for Des Cartes, pretends: and
the principles are necessarily _à priori_, prior to experience--as
without them experience is not possible--given, intuitive, and
therefore objective. The real existence of the spiritual or
supersensible order, superior to and distinct from the material,
is certain from the demonstrable fact that the sensible has its
root only in the supersensible, and the material in the spiritual,
both as to the order of knowledge and as to the order of being.
The author maintains the truth against the positivists, but his
reasoning is not conclusive, because he is misled by the Cartesian
method, which is the method of the positivists themselves.
Malebranche followed in one direction the Cartesian method, and
lost the material world; the Abbé Condillac followed it in another
direction, and lost the spiritual world; the positivists follow it
in both, and lose all reality, and, with Sir William Hamilton,
make truth purely relative; that is, subjective, and as pure
subjectivity is impossible, thus positivism is positive nihilism.
The author proceeds to refute, on the Cartesian method, the denial
by the positivists of the existence of spirit, of the absolute, of
God, and the immortality of the soul; but as I do not regard his
reasoning, though in defence of the truth, conclusive, I omit it,
and pass to his exhibition of the inconsistencies and absurdities
of positivism, in which he is admirable and perfectly
successful.--TRANSLATOR. ]
Nevertheless, after having denied all the truths or principles which
are the basis of all moral and intellectual life, the positivists
pretend to pass from negation to affirmation, and undertake in their
turn to dogmatize. But to affirm any doctrine whatever it needs a
method, and we have shown that on the purely negative method which
they commence with, they can never legitimately affirm anything. What
then can they do? They invent another method, which they call
induction, because they pretend that it is from the observation of the
facts of history that they induce or draw their doctrine; but the
process they adopt has none of the characters of a real induction.
{737} To induction three things are necessary; the principle of
causality, general notions, and particular facts. [Footnote 116]
[Footnote 116: I transfer the word _notion_, although no notion is
or can be general, because French writers frequently use it when
they really mean not _notion_, but the object or thing noted. I do
not approve of this use either in French or English. We may have
notions of the general, but not general notions; a notion, if you
will, as has been previously said, of the absolute (though absolute
is itself a bad term for necessary, eternal, immutable, and infinite
being), but not absolute notions. The _notion_ is subjective, the
_noted_ is objective. To all legitimate induction there is necessary
causality, the general--the universal, as say the schoolmen--and the
particular, and unless the mind has _à priori_ knowledge or
intuition of them, no induction is possible. This is what the author
evidently means, and it is undoubtedly true.--TRANSLATOR.]