Confound the fellow! even though he be bright‐faced and seems good‐

natured. I wish those people who are eternally talking about fighting and

never doing it—except among themselves—would stop talking, or, if they

cannot do anything better, go out, take a good “licking” manfully, and be

done with it. Daring and doing, even if one gets the worst of it, is

better than loud talking and nothing doing. I hate the _vox et præterea

nihil_. We have had too much of it.

“Faith,” says the guard, “it’s the fine, healthy‐looking childer ye’ve

got. Shure, they don’t look like Yankee childer at all, at all.”

“If by Yankee you mean _American_, my friend, that they undoubtedly are,”

replies the gentleman responsible for the little responsibilities who are

too healthy‐looking to be like “Yankee childer”; “but they come from ayont

the Mississippi, which may account in some degree for their hardy

appearance.”

“What town is that on the other side of the water?”

“Passage, sir.”

Passage! Shade of “Father Prout”! How often have we rolled our tongues in

luscious enjoyment around thy roaring lyric in praise of that wonderful

borough!

“The town of Passage

Is large and spacious,

And situated

Upon the Lay;

It’s nate and dacent,

And quite convanient

To come from Cork

On a summer’s day.

Unfortunately, it is not exactly the kind of a day that one would like

“to slip in,

To take a dippin’

Fornint the shippin’

That at anchor ride;

Or in a wherry

Cross o’er the ferry

To Carrigaloe

On the other side;”

for it still rains, and Carrigaloe is upon our side, as a sign‐board and

the voice of the guard informs us: “Carrigaloe!”

We shall not have an opportunity of testing the reliability of the poet’s

promise that

“land or deck on,

You may surely reckon,

Whatever country

You come hither from,

On an invitation

To a jollification

With a parish priest

That’s called ‘Father Tom.’ ”

The guard blows his whistle. We leave Passage and its satellite,

Carrigaloe, behind, and with them the pleasant vision of a cheerful

evening with the hospitable and large‐hearted ecclesiastic of the

inimitable song.

Not in this wide world is there a lovelier piece of landscape than that

between Queenstown and Cork. Here the Lee is bordered by lovely lawns of

the freshest green, sloping gently to the water’s edge. Further on it

flows between verdurous walls of lofty trees. The leaves of their drooping

branches kiss the rippling current as it passes. Yonder the Castle of

Blackrock frowns over its gently‐flowing tide. The grass and the leaves

are green with a vivid greenness that justifies all that the poets have

sung about the Emerald Island. What glory in thy long, green vistas,

beautiful Glanmire!

Our road is bordered on one side by the river; on the other, rich

demesnes, bounded by trees, ivy‐covered walls, and moss‐covered rocks,

from which fall miniature cascades and waves the green and graceful fern.

The landscape needs only one modest charm to make its loveliness complete.

I miss the humble cottage, lowly yet lovely, where honest labor finds its

comfort and repose. There are rich mansions and umbrageous groves and

broad pastures, but no smoke ascends from cheerful hearths of tillers of

the soil. The peasantry, whose cottages might grace these lovely glades,

are building themselves new homes on the broad prairies of the West. The

humble wooden sheds or the rough cabins on the brown and treeless plains,

sacred to the Lares of independence and self‐reliance, are far lovelier in

the eyes of the lover of his kind than thy greenest glades, beautiful

Glanmire!

“A bold peasantry, their country’s pride,

If once destroyed, can never be supplied.”

Here is the beautiful city. It does not do itself justice to‐day. The

rain, which softens and freshens the beauties of the country, blackens and

bedraggles the town. “God made the country, and man made the town.”

But what are those deep, soft tones that reach us through the humid air?

Can it be? Yes, there is no doubt about it. We are listening to

“The bells of Shandon

That sound so grand on

The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee!

“I’ve heard bells tolling

Old Adrian’s mole in,

Their thunders rolling

From the Vatican;

“And cymbals glorious

Swinging uproarious

From the gorgeous turrets

Of Notre Dame;

“But thy sounds are sweeter

Than the dome of Peter

Flings o’er the Tiber,

Pealing solemnly.

“Oh! the Bells of Shandon

Sound far more grand on

The pleasant waters

Of the river Lee!”

Cork, with its fine bridges crossing the branches of the Lee, might, under

bright atmospheric effects, lay claim to its antique designation; but,

amid mud and rain, the most enthusiastic traveller can see no

extraordinary beauty even in Paris itself. Church spires and buildings

darkened by the rain have a gloomy look. Even the church of S. Anne, which

may fairly be said to have “two sides to it”—one being of differently‐

colored stone from the other—has had its peculiar claims to the

traveller’s attention somewhat weakened by the effect of the rain.

We have concluded to wend our way quietly toward Dublin, taking in our

route anything that may be of interest. The Great Southern and Western

Railway runs through one of the most beautiful districts in Ireland. A

long panorama of beautiful and characteristic scenes is unrolled as you

steam along. Green hedges and slopes, furze‐covered fences, century‐old

trees covered with moss and ivy, rippling streams, a ruined abbey or

dismantled tower, bits of soft blue appearing through slate‐colored

clouds—the humid atmosphere toning down all harsh lines, and yet spreading

a sweet though melancholy softness over all—this limited by the gentle

undulations of the ground, whose beautiful curves give life to the

landscape, yet circumscribe its horizon, and you have the peculiar

characteristics of an Irish landscape.

There is an air of solidity about the track and its accessories to an eye

habituated to trans‐Mississippi railroads. Very pretty are those stations

of stone, covered with green ivy, every foot of space in front of them

devoted to the culture of some sweet, simple flowers. The Lady from Idaho,

who has recently been dipping her gentle nose into the cryptogamia, is in

ecstasies over the magnificent ferns we have passed at various points of

our route.

For an excellent railway dinner, let me recommend Limerick station to the

traveller. The best railway breakfast I have ever eaten—and I have eaten

not a few in both hemispheres—I ate at Altoona, on the Pennsylvania

Central. It was twelve years ago, however. The best railway dinner I have

ever eaten I had at Limerick Junction. It would have done credit to many a

pretentious hotel on either continent. It surpassed the _menu_ of private

hotels in London, “patronized by officers of both services and their

families.” It was a better meal than I have had at what is considered one

of the best hotels in Northern Germany, and did not cost half so much. It

was well and comfortably served, _malgré_ the ponderous solemnity of the

British style of hotel attendance, which to me is a terrible bore. Plenty

of time was allowed us to eat and enjoy our meal. Some jovial young

gentlemen at the table politely caused champagne to be offered us, in

compliment to our trans‐Atlantic character. They insisted, as far as

politeness would admit, on regaling us; but we declined indulgence in the

lively beverage. Sparkling wines are not good to travel on. One of the

gentlemen was fascinated by a specimen of infantine America—a member of

our party, and one of its most important members, by the way. The

champagne, probably, had a softening effect on the gentleman. He lamented

his childless condition, and expressed his readiness to give fabulous

amounts for the little Columbian stranger. The father of the latter good‐

humoredly told the gentleman that Young America, white or black, is out of

the market, and has been so for some years.

The bell rings. We resume our seats in the train. We have a carriage to

ourselves. The guard told us, on leaving Cork, that he would try to keep

us alone. This means that he wants a gratuity at the journey’s end; for

your conductor, or “guard,” on European railways is not above taking a

shilling or a sixpence. He shall have it, so far as we are concerned.

The manner of starting a train is good. The bell rings—signal to the

passengers to take their seats. There are two guards, one in front and one

in rear, each supplied with a whistle. They look along the train to see

that the doors of all the compartments are closed. The forward guard,

seeing all right at his end, blows his whistle. The rear guard, to make

assurance doubly sure, glances along the entire train, and, finding

everything in readiness, whistles. The second whistle is the signal to the

engineer, who then sounds the steam‐whistle, and the train starts.

The trains generally exceed ours in rapidity, but are very much behind

them in comfort and elegance. There is no drinking‐water in the English or

Irish carriages. There are no stoves to keep one warm in cold weather or

during the chilly hours of the night. If the weather is cold, tin foot‐

warmers, filled with water which is not always warm, are furnished in the

proportion of one to two first‐class passengers. There is no luxurious

sleeping‐car, where you can sleep comfortably, awake refreshed, find your

boots ready blacked when you get up, and wash yourself at a marble wash‐

stand. No comfortable hotel‐car, into which you can step from the

sleeping‐car in your slippers, and enjoy your beef‐steak and fried

potatoes, or your quail on toast, at the rate of thirty miles an hour.

In consequence of the absence of arrangements for personal comfort on

trains, the British traveller is obliged to weight himself down and half

fill his compartment with rolls of railway rugs, bottles of water, and

plethoric lunch‐baskets, to his own great inconvenience, as well as that

of his fellow‐travellers. The trouble caused by the want of a proper

system of baggage transportation compels the traveller to carry huge

leather portmanteaus about five times as large as an ordinary American

travelling‐satchel. As these are considered “parcels that can be carried

in the hand,” the traveller is allowed to take them into the carriage with

him. By this means he avoids the trouble of watching the “luggage‐van” at

junctions, and the delay of waiting for its unloading at the terminus.

Then come bundles of umbrellas and canes strapped together, and the

leather hat‐box—that inseparable adjunct of British respectability. Behold

the unprotected matron, surrounded by half a dozen family jewels, with any

quantity of wraps and lunch‐baskets, and bottles and umbrellas, and band‐

boxes and multitudinous matters wrapped up in endless newspaper packages!

How she glares at you when you step as carefully as you can among the

formidable piles to three square inches of a seat in the interior corner!

Woe be to him who displaces one of the parcels sacred to family use. I

might be able to stand a Gorgon, but I could not stand that. Please do not

put me in the carriage with the matron! Rather in the van with the

untamable hyena, Mr. Guard, if you please!

Imagine a succession of Broadway omnibuses, with windows and doors at

either end, placed laterally behind an engine, and you have an European

railway train. Half the passengers necessarily sit with their backs to the

engine. The first‐class carriages are upholstered in cloth or plush like

hackney coaches. The benches are divided into two double seats on each

side, giving seats for eight passengers in each compartment. The

compartment is lighted by a small and generally dim and smoky oil‐lamp

placed in the roof.

In the second‐class carriages the seats are not divided. Six persons are

supposed to be accommodated on each bench. On some lines the seats are

very thinly cushioned with leather; generally, they are not cushioned. In

France and Belgium the second‐class carriages are cushioned and backed

with gray cloth, and the difference in comfort between them and the first‐

class carriages is not worth the difference of fare. This is about one‐

third greater for first‐class tickets. Twelve persons, with a

proportionate quantity of wraps, bundles, baskets, bottles, umbrellas, and

portmanteaus, pack a compartment pretty closely. Your European traveller

makes as much preparation for a trip of sixty miles as an American would

for an all‐rail journey from New York to San Francisco. An American

railroad car is quite a cheerful “institution”; whereas travelling seems

to be a more serious business on the other side of the Atlantic. A

compartment—first or second class—is a gloomy place. In first‐class

carriages, the “swells” and snobs are afraid to imperil their dignity by

risking intercourse with somebody who may be “nobody.” The result is

silence and solemnity. In second‐class carriages you often find very

pleasant people—clergymen, professional men, young tourists, artists, and

students—who can talk pleasantly and well, and have no snobbish,

conventional dread of doing so.

It is a common saying in England that only fools and Americans travel

first‐class. I have heard of a crusty old Irish peer, who, being asked why

he always travels third‐class, replied that he does so because “there is

no fourth class.” I think the venerable lord was rather ostentatious of

his humility. I would not advise any of my American friends to try third‐

class travelling in England or Ireland. A third‐class car is a cold,

dirty, noisome place. It is full of tobacco‐smoke and the smell of strong

drinks of various kinds. It is worse than the forward car on a prairie

railroad, filled with immigrants and “railroad hands.”

Mail trains are generally composed of first and second class carriages

only. Class distinctions meet us everywhere. We find a first and second

class waiting‐room, first and second class restaurant, third‐class

waiting‐room and third‐class restaurant. The waiting‐rooms are separate

for each sex in each class. You are parted from your wife, sister, or

sweetheart. If you have something of importance to communicate to your

fair companion, and should appear near the door of the ladies’ waiting‐

room for that purpose, a pre‐Raphaelite female, armed with a broom, throws

herself into the breach, and fiercely demands your business, while she

reduces you almost to a jelly by a Gorgon glare.

To Be Continued.

Cora.

A flower of the pale, sad South:

Yet pale nor sad is she;

For she blooms on a wonderful tree

That knows not blight or drouth—

A certain miraculous tree

Our Lady has planted down South.

A rose let me call you, dear girl—

A fadeless and thornless rose;

So richly your modesty shows

Its blushes bejewell’d with pearl—

And a dew‐drop of grace every pearl—

That I think of the Mystical Rose.

I have seen, and must needs pass on;

But this I bear with me away:

A fragrance that will not be gone,

But haunts me, and most when I pray.

It comes like the memories of May

From the pure, happy years that are gone.

Then the Lord of the sweet and the fair

(For whom is all beauty alone),

I pray him that floweret so rare

No hand may dare cull but his own;

That no other bosom may wear

This rose of the South than his own.

Charles X. At Holyrood.(93)

By The Comte Achille De Jouffroy

From Paris Ou Le Livre Des Cent‐Et‐Un.

Several friends of the exiled royal family, having been led by devotion to

their cause to visit Scotland, have published detailed accounts of the

residence at Holyrood. These narratives have left but little untold

concerning the august proscribed personages, their situation, their mode

of life, and their habits, the uniformity of which no important

circumstance occurred to modify during the two years of their abode in the

ancient palace of the Stuarts.

The reader, therefore, must not expect to meet in the following sketch

with descriptions which have already been given by others with much

minuteness, and which have been repeated in various works. Here will be

found merely a small number of observations, impartially collected, which

may serve to combat prejudices of a diverse nature that have been called

forth, as well by the assertions of an unjust and bitter hatred, as by the

injudicious efforts of a flattering servility.

Certainly, any enemy of the royal family, unless he were insane or wicked,

had he been admitted into the privacy of Holyrood, must at least have

ceased to regard them with dislike. Their most prejudiced adversary, no

matter to what distinguished rank of society he might belong, could not

have learned to know the domestic virtues displayed by these princes in

adversity without wishing himself to have a father, a son, a wife, a

sister, or children resembling them. On the other hand, those who, through

attachment, duty, or interest (for there are political situations which a

well‐comprehended interest forces some to retain, even after the

occurrence of disasters)—those, I say, who have made themselves the noisy

apologists of this family have carried exaggeration so far as to attribute

to them qualities and talents which would have been more than sufficient

for ruling even in these difficult times; without reflecting that this

blindness of zeal in regard to princes who met with so sudden a downfall

while surrounded by a faithful army, and in the midst of devoted

provinces, must diminish the confidence due to that portion of the

eulogium which is really just. As private individuals, the Bourbons of the

elder branch have never merited the smallest of the outrages which it has

been their fate to endure; as sovereigns, it is well known they have been

great chiefly in their fall, and have shown their courage and resolution

less in their lives than in their deaths.

The writers of whom I speak, carried away by the feelings of their hearts,

have poured them forth in eloquent descriptions. Identifying themselves,

so to speak, with the misfortunes of which they have been witnesses, they

have given us chiefly the recital of their own emotions. I shall not

imitate them; the spectacle of an entire family, precipitated from the

most brilliant of thrones into the miseries of exile, is of itself

sufficiently touching; it has in it enough of sad sublimity to render it

useless to overload the picture with the pretentious ornaments of the

elegiac style. To put together sentimental phrases for the purpose of

describing a misfortune like this is to place one’s self, no matter what

talents one may possess or exhibit, very much beneath the level of the

subject.

I have considered this preamble needful in order to avoid being taxed with

coldness. To speak with a suitable calmness of the Bourbons may perhaps be

permitted to one who for fifteen years has defended their cause, and who

has followed them into banishment; who has never obtained from them either

favors or places, and who also has never betrayed them.

In quitting France, Charles X. had only carried away with him, after so

much splendor, a sum barely sufficient for a modest subsistence during a

few years. The abode at Lullworth was expensive; its vicinity to France

made it accessible to a crowd of travellers, many of whom came only to

solicit from the king, in return for services past, or in view of services

offered, the assistance which the unfortunate monarch was no longer in a

condition to grant without reducing himself to want. In order to escape

from these importunities, and to withdraw himself from the painful

necessity of refusing, he asked and obtained from the British government

the enjoyment of the asylum which he had already for a long time inhabited

during the period of his first exile.

The capital of Scotland, in which is situated the palace of Holyrood, is

in the same latitude as Moscow, but its vicinity to the sea renders its

temperature much more endurable. Edinburgh is, in many respects, the most

agreeable residence which a stranger can select in Great Britain. The

liberal arts are there cultivated with a particular devotion. It is a

large town, picturesque in the extreme, and sumptuously built. The seat of

old Edinburgh is worthy of remark; in seeking for a comparison which may

convey an idea of it, the device of the arms of the kingdom naturally

occurs to furnish me with one. Imagine, at the entrance of a deep and

narrow valley formed by the hills of Salisbury and Calton, an enormous

lion, half couched. His head, which is turned towards the rising sun, and

overlooks the plain, is a peaked rock, three hundred feet in elevation,

and nobly crowned by the old castle. To the right and left, the houses are

suspended from his flanks, like the waves of his mane. The ridge of his

spine is represented by a long street, which, dividing the two opposite

declivities, begins from the esplanade of the castle, and terminates at

the Canongate in front of the portal of Holyrood. The new town occupies

the plateau of Calton hill. Larger than the old town, it is also better

built, and all the streets are laid out in regular squares.

This city, take it altogether, resembles none other with which we are

acquainted. It is an assemblage of monuments of every age and in every

style, built of beautiful stone, many of them very carefully constructed,

and thrown, in the most picturesque manner, upon projections of rugged

rocks, in the hollows of precipices, on the slopes of valleys. Magnificent

bridges, gigantic causeways, unite the different parts of the city. The

ancient and the modern are preserved without alteration of character. Here

rise houses of eleven stories, the highest of which is on a level with the

great street of which we have spoken. There, beside a Greek peristyle, the

luxury of the boudoir is sheltered by embattled towers. At the sight of

this singular town, of this variety of edifices, of these steep mountains,

of the sea, and of the sky, we can more fully comprehend the genius of Sir

Walter Scott. Everything here seems created to clothe with form and

substance the conceptions of romance. Here we can walk, if we like, under

Athenian porticos or in Gothic cloisters, and can pass from the sombre

tints of a feudal habitation to drawing‐rooms freshly decorated in the

modern style of luxury; we can leave the modest sidewalks of the

_bourgeois_ of the XVth century, above which the projecting roofs and

gables are still in good preservation, to enter upon railways, those

marvels of modern invention. At every step our eyes are met by objects

less precious, perhaps, from the value they represent than from the

associations they recall: the crown of gold enriched with jewels, the

sceptre, and the sword of the ancient kings of Scotland, discovered,

fifteen years ago, in a walled‐up room of the old castle; the furniture

used by Mary Stuart; the embroidery which occupied the last happy leisure

hours of this unfortunate queen; the tapestry raised by the assassins of

Rizzio when they entered her apartment; the bed of crimson damask on which

she used to sleep. Here we tread on the ashes of a long line of kings, of

a multitude of celebrated personages; and the last circumstance worthy of

note, in this abode so suggestive of mysterious traditions and royal

misfortunes, is that the wreck of the court of the Tuileries have taken

refuge beneath the ancient hereditary roof of James II.

The palace of Holyrood is nothing but a cold and gloomy cloister, flanked

at the two extremities of its anterior front by towers. The apartments of

Charles X., situated on the first floor, extend over one of the sides of

the cloister, and over the angle opposite the principal entrance. After

crossing a vestibule leading to the chapel, an ante‐chamber, an

unfurnished gallery, a billiard‐room, we enter the dining‐room—a gloomy

apartment with bare walls, containing only an oval table and chairs. From

thence we pass into a drawing‐room twenty‐five feet square, opening upon a

small, uncultivated enclosure called a garden, and furnished in the style

of the drawing‐room of a Parisian _bourgeois_. It was in this apartment

that receptions for strangers were held from eleven to twelve o’clock in

the morning; and in the evening, all the royal family met here after

dinner. The persons belonging to the household and the invited guests were

admitted to these _soirées_, which lasted until about ten o’clock. The Duc

de Bordeaux(94) and mademoiselle played games together; the king had a

whist‐table; the dauphiness and her ladies worked at a round table.

Frequently the conversation became general, and was almost always

interesting. The French and English newspapers were read and commented

upon. Sometimes the king and the dauphin would repair to the billiard‐

room, and play a few games together. In these _soirées_, there was no more

etiquette observed than is usual in the house of a gentleman living on his

estates.

At the left of the drawing‐room, a door led to an intermediate apartment,

forming the private study of the king. Into this opened his bed‐chamber.

With the sleeping‐room of the king communicated that of the Duc de

Bordeaux, situated on the same floor, and looking into the courtyard. The

Baron de Saint Aubin occupied a room at the side; the apartments of

mademoiselle were on the upper floor.

The Duc de Blacas, when he was at Holyrood, had the superintendence of the

household; when he was absent, the details of these functions were

directed by the Baron de Saint Aubin. The suite was composed of about

forty persons, lodged in the town in the vicinity of the palace.

The equipages of the king were limited to one carriage, hired by the

month. When this was not sufficient, another coach was sent for; and three

saddle‐horses sufficed for the rides of the king and his family. Charles

X., having given up the amusement of hunting, and needing exercise to

maintain his health, was in the habit of walking every day three or four

miles around Holyrood. The table was supplied abundantly, but without

luxury; the king usually invited two or three strangers, but the number of

covers seldom exceeded fourteen or fifteen.

Such was the mediocrity to which fate had reduced this family, so lately

surrounded by the greatest possible luxury and splendor. No sign of

regret, no trace of vexation, could be perceived on the countenance of

Charles X. Never did a word of bitterness escape from the lips of these

illustrious sufferers. The dauphiness, whom some have dared to represent

as a vindictive and fanatical woman, was gentleness itself. In vain would

any one have sought, in the expression of her face, so full of goodness

and resignation, for even the appearance of a pride which nevertheless her

elevated rank would have sufficiently justified. As to the dauphin, so far

did he carry his abnegation of all personal resentment that he was more

than once heard to recall with commendation the talents and bravery of

some officers whom he had overwhelmed with his favors, but who,

nevertheless, had been the first to betray him.

Every one admitted to Holyrood could not but recognize and admire the

presence of those virtues which form the charm of domestic life. They

doubtless do not suffice for those upon whom Heaven has imposed the

terrible task of governing men. The most marked trait in the character of

Charles X. is indecision; in that of the dauphin, a pretension to

acuteness, which has more than once discouraged his friends, without

inspiring confidence in his enemies. As for the dauphiness, the intensity

of her misfortunes in this world has led her to fix her hopes upon a

better one. Pious, although tolerant, she herself feels that her counsels

would be of little avail in this age of incredulity. In what she desires

for France, she never can separate religion from legitimacy. When, at

Holyrood, she heard of the pillage of the archbishopric, these words fell

from her lips: “Alas! the French have cast off religion, and at length I

begin to comprehend why it is they hate us.”

The Duchesse de Berri was a being apart in the royal family. Young,

animated, full of regrets, of desires, and of hopes, she could not pardon

those who had prevented her from presenting herself before the Parisians

on the 30th of July, 1830, in order to claim from them the crown for her

son. Confident in her adventurous courage and in her ability to create for

herself another future, her irritation for the past and the projects she

still contemplated, little agreed either with the calm resignation of the

dauphiness or with the habitual prudence of the king. She could only

endure for a few weeks the monotony of the residence at Holyrood. Besides,

the rigor of the climate appeared to affect her health, and she repaired

to the mineral waters of Bath. Here various speculators came to surround

her, in a manner to take possession of her as of a pledge for their future

fortunes, and induced her to borrow considerable sums of money on the

property still remaining to her, in order to defray the expenses of the

projected expedition. The duchess was brought to London, where the final

arrangements for this loan were to be made. She was concealed in a small

house, and not a single Frenchman, excepting those composing the circle by

whom she was surrounded, knew what had become of her until the day of the

embarkation.

The announcement of the departure of the duchess was received at Holyrood

with a species of consternation. The expedition she was about to undertake

was regarded as an act of extreme imprudence. To throw herself into

France, in order to create an insurrection, without arms, without money,

without the prospect of assistance from any European power; to give

herself up to the chances of inconsiderate promises made by a few men

without influence and without resources; to calculate chiefly upon the

defection of an army, recomposed in part, and still agitated by the

preceding defection into which the sudden departure of the king had

precipitated it—this was, in the eyes of the exiles of Holyrood, to

attempt an enterprise of which the success would scarcely have justified

the temerity, and of which the success itself was considered impossible.

Other reasons for fear, which we may now be permitted to recall, disturbed

the heart of the old monarch. He distrusted the impetuosity of the

duchess, her fiery temperament, her ardent and independent character,

which, even should it not lead her to disregard conventionalities, might

authorize those possessing her confidence and affection to overstep their

limits in her affairs. He foresaw more than one disaster; he dreaded all

sorts of misfortunes. The unfortunate princess was destined to experience

them all. The Duc de Blacas was commissioned to follow her, and to oppose,

as far as it might be in his power, the dangerous influence of her

advisers; but the resolution of the duchess was too much in unison with

her tastes and character. Soon the position of M. de Blacas towards her

became no longer tenable, and he returned without having accomplished

anything, to the great displeasure of the king.

Charles X. never approved of the projects for civil war. When these were

proposed to him, he did not manifest that aversion which has been

attributed to him by his flatterers; he simply replied that, in the times

in which we live, civil war is a thing difficult to undertake and

impossible to sustain. He had been a king; he was acquainted with the

secrets of the government; he knew that all the forces of the kingdom

being at the present day centralized, the provinces cannot withdraw

themselves from the power of the telegraph and of the budget; and that

nothing but a signal disaffection on the part of the army would be likely

to produce a second 20th of March. The riots which took place in the

capital at first excited his attention; but after the days of the 5th and

6th of June, he appeared to have ceased to fear, or rather to hope, for

their success.

As for foreign war, Charles X. never could endure the idea of it. Never

did it enter his thoughts to implore the armed intervention of other

sovereigns. He believed that a third invasion of France, were it to take

place, would lead to incalculable disasters; to the partition of the

territory. Perhaps, also, he felt that he could not claim the assistance

of his allies, in virtue of the treaties of 1815; since, during his reign,

the government had always been inclined to throw off the yoke of those

treaties. The late ministry, in its endeavors to restore France to her

natural limits, had excited distrust in the cabinets of London, the Hague,

Berlin, Vienna, and Turin. It was not, therefore, probable that these

powers would assist in restoring a government which had placed itself in a

hostile position to them all, without demanding, in return, ruinous

sacrifices and humiliating guarantees.

It is needful to look at things from this point of view, in order to

appreciate the policy which was followed at Holyrood. With foreign

governments few or no relations were maintained; with the interior,

various correspondences, the authors of which differed in plans, in

principles, and in views. All were received, all were replied to, in

accordance with their various ideas and modes of thinking. The object was

to offend no one, to discourage no opinion, in the uncertainty as to which

opinion would be the most useful.

Many excellent royalists, with the most praiseworthy disinterestedness,

wrote to place at the disposal of the king their hearts, their fortunes,

and their lives. If any means were sought for to utilize these generous

offers, it was frequently discovered that these worthy people possessed

neither money nor influence, and that many of them were advanced in years.

Others sent plans of conspiracies which included three‐fourths of France,

but with lists of names for the most part unknown. They undertook, they

said, to cause Henry V. to be proclaimed all over the kingdom, provided

Charles X. would send them in advance sufficient sums of money.

Some personages, who still figure on the theatre of politics, took

measures to remit, with great precaution, their offers of service. It is

worthy of remark that such notes arrived each time there was any rumor of

revolt or any prospect of war in foreign countries. These offers were not

expressed in as precise terms as the preceding ones; they were always

accompanied by conditions, of which the principal ones were that the

direction of the movement in question should be confided to no one

excepting the authors; that a provision should be made of entire approval

of the measures upon which they might decide; and, above all, that the

portfolios of the ministry of the restoration should be ensured to them.

They alone, they asserted, understood the needs of France and the way to

rule her. In a few missives of another kind, some old servants set forth

the faults which, in their opinion, the king had committed during his

reign, and ended by offering him advice in case he should regain the

throne. Some of these, irritated by what they considered the oblivion of

their former services, permitted themselves to utter bitter reproaches,

without pity for misfortunes the sight of which should have been

sufficient to disarm even a just resentment. These letters were received

with perfect indifference. There were, however, demands which, by dint of

their audacity, obtained greater success.

A person wrote from Paris to one of the servants of the king: “I am about

to publish a work which will contain the account of various acts of the

government of Charles X. You know that the offices I held afforded me

opportunities of knowing many things; the revolution of July has deprived

me of my situation and my pension; the public loves scandal; the

publishers will pay a high price for it; and I will furnish it to them

unless I receive thirty thousand francs, which I cannot do without.”

If these are not the precise terms of the letter, at least I am sure that

I have not altered the sense. The author of this letter had been employed

under the Restoration; he had received many favors from both the last two

monarchs; a compromise was made with him. I do not know what was the sum

sent, but I do know that the person employed to mediate in this affair was

successful; the threatened work was never published. Among the offers of

services which reached Holyrood, some deserve particular mention for their

singularity.

A hero of July, famous during the fatal days, and furious at not having

been able to obtain some office, proposed to rally all the republicans

among his friends to the cause of Henry V., and concluded his epistle by

announcing that he would repair in person to the sea‐coast, and with his

own hands place the plank of debarkation beneath the feet of the

legitimate heir to the crown.

A personage who has for a long time figured under the Empire had

despatched to England a very active agent, who offered, at the same time,

his services to the princes of Holyrood, to the Duchesse de Berri, and to

the heirs of Napoleon; meanwhile, the personage in question was

negotiating at Paris with the republicans. The result of this quadruple

piece of diplomacy was that he obtained employment from the government of

Louis Philippe.

Already, during the period of their former exile, had the august occupants

of Holyrood had but too many opportunities to estimate the real value of

the offers, the schemes, the demands, the pretext for which was furnished

by a projected restoration, of a crowd of ambitious and intriguing men.

Wearied, as it were, by the variety of sentiments expressed towards them,

the obliging interest they manifested was merely the effect of an

exquisite politeness. Unhappily, in this indifference they lost sight of

real devotion to their cause; they did not appear to have made any very

great progress in the art of estimating men—an art the ignorance of which

had been the cause of their second downfall.

And, besides, in order to receive these propositions with profit, to give

them a useful direction, it would, first of all, have been necessary that

the most important political point—that of legitimacy—should be settled

and proclaimed.

Those who have asserted that there existed on this subject a perfect

unanimity of opinion among the royal family and among their advisers as to

the right to the crown in the present situation of affairs, either have

not known all the truth, or else have concealed a portion of it, in

conformity with their own political views. During his residence at

Holyrood, Charles X. addressed to the principal courts of Europe a

confirmation of his abdication at Rambouillet; but, besides that this

confirmation, being declared _free_, indicates that the abdication was

always considered as forced, and therefore null, Charles X., in this

second instrument, expressly reserves to himself the regency of the

kingdom.

The dauphin, on the other hand, positively refused to give a similar

declaration. “I sign nothing,” said he; “not that I desire to dispute with

my nephew a crown of which I am far from envying him the possession, but,

on the contrary, in order to preserve it for him, in case the follies

which are being committed in his name should render my reappearance

necessary.”

Lastly, in regard to the Duchesse de Berri, no law, no historical

precedent, could have been found to authorize her to consider herself

regent of the kingdom during the minority of her son. Had not the

abdication of Charles X. been conditional, and, besides, where could there

have been found a states‐general legally convoked to recognize madame in

this capacity?

The uncertainty on this point became a source of discussion for the

various members of the suite. The servants of the king, those of the

dauphin, and those of the Duc de Bordeaux held many grave arguments over

their respective pretensions to the title of the royal household; but we

must add that these all ended in discussion. The royal family, who lived

together in a sincere and patriarchal union, appeared to take but little

interest in these various opinions; whether it were that these unfortunate

princes believed it impossible for them at this time to recover the crown,

or whether they regarded the possession of it as something little

desirable, they frequently conversed upon this subject as if it had been a

question of historic right foreign to themselves. One opinion, one

feeling, however, united them all, and this was that all rights to the

crown must one day centre upon the head of Henry V., and that it was

necessary to educate him in such a manner as to prepare him worthily to

sustain this high destiny in case Providence should call him to it.

Here we must speak of the education which is being given to the young

prince under the direction of the Baron de Damas. Much good, and also some

evil, has been said of him. In the first place, however, it appears to me

that too great importance has been attached to his functions. In order

that the character of the governor should have any decisive influence over

that of his pupil, it would be necessary for the two to live in

comparative isolation. Perhaps, surrounded by all the pomp of the

Tuileries, the fetters of etiquette might have tended to produce such

isolation; but in the greater freedom consequent upon exile, interruptions

of all kinds prevent this species of influence. At all hours of the day

the Duc de Bordeaux is receiving new and varied impressions. He receives

them from his teachers, from his professors, from his servants, from the

strangers who approach him, from the paternal solicitude of his

grandfather, from the gentle piety of his aunt, from the companionship of

his young and charming sister; he receives them from his studies, from his

exercises, from his travels, from his recollections—in short, from his

misfortunes; for he is of an age and of an intelligence to understand and

to feel them. We must take into account the combined influence of all

these diverse impressions, in order to draw probable deductions as to the

profit he is one day to receive from his present education.

At all events, if the Baron de Damas does not possess very enlarged ideas,

his character is firm and upright. For many things he deserves

commendation: he endeavors to prevent all flatterers from approaching his

pupil; from those by whom he is surrounded he exacts nothing but sincerity

and cheerfulness. And then, he is careful to admit to the presence of the

young prince, in unrestrained confidence, all strangers, and especially

all Frenchmen, who desire access to him, unless their request should be

prompted merely by the wish to gratify an impertinent curiosity.

The office of M. de Damas has been envied, and even sought after, by some

of those persons who style themselves the courtiers of misfortune, but who

are perhaps merely the courtiers of greatness expected, or at least hoped

for. But it may reasonably be doubted whether this governor could be

replaced in a manner advantageous to the young prince. Among the

notabilities of the present epoch who might be designated for this

important position, is there one who combines the necessary

qualifications? Would we seek among the number of those who, by their

interested counsels or by their calculated disaffection, contributed to

the overthrow of the throne of Charles X., for men to teach his grandson

the art of restoring and of preserving the throne? Can we confide in these

system‐mongers at a period like this, when all systems have made

shipwreck? No; all that can be done is to make of the young prince a man

of learning without pedantry, of sincerity without indiscretion, of

courage without temerity. In the present age, in which everything

indicates the necessity of a power strong enough to restrain the elements

of anarchy introduced by sophists into society, in which the overthrow of

ancient institutions leaves to power only the force it can obtain from

armies, what is chiefly to be desired in the king of a nation like ours is

military qualities combined with liberality, enlightenment, religion,

prudence, and justice. Now, none of these conditions are wanting in the

education which is now being given to the Duc de Bordeaux—neither proper

methods on the part of the preceptors, nor the disposition to receive on

the part of the pupil.

M. Barande, one of the most learned men of our time, instructs the young

prince, with admirable precision, in the facts of history, combined with

chronology and geography. The Abbé de Meligny explains to him with

simplicity the doctrines of religion. M. d’Hardivilliers inspires him with

a taste for, and a knowledge of, the fine arts. The first elements of the

science of war form the subjects of his games and of his recreations.

Young Henri rides on horseback, practises fencing, shoots with the pistol,

speaks and writes several languages. His memory is unusually excellent;

his discernment is beyond his age. The regular distribution of his time

gives him habits of order and of diligence. His health, watched over by

Dr. Bougon, is robust; his frame, fortified by exercise, is strong and

agile. In a word, he is an intelligent, sprightly, vivacious child, and

yet, withal, a reasonable one. There is no mother who would not be proud

of him; no father whose every wish would not be gratified by the

possession of such a son. Having thus sketched his portrait, I do not

intend to imitate the enthusiasm of those who have gathered up and

published his most unimportant remarks, and have even, in their

exaggerated admiration, attributed to him, possibly, speeches of their

own.

At the sight of this royal child, proclaimed, at the hour of his birth,

future monarch of a great empire, and now entering upon his adolescence in

exile, this reflection naturally presents itself: How if he had never been

born?

Had he not been born, probably France would not have been disturbed. The

partisans of the younger branch, certain of one day attaining to power,

would have had patience; the republicans of July would not have been able

to enter by the breach opened by the Orléanists and the disaffected

royalists. His grandfather and his uncle might have died upon the throne.

Had he not been born, and had the double abdication still become

indispensable, Louis Philippe would to‐day be more firmly seated on his

throne than any monarch in Europe; for in him would be found resolved the

great problem of the union of fact and of right, of legitimacy and of

force.

Had he not bean born, ... but he has been born, he is growing to manhood,

and in him are being developed all the characteristic signs of the

rejuvenescence of his race. In this age of tribulations and of wonders,

who may venture to sound the abyss of the future?

This was what was said at Holyrood, and it was added: “Did not M. Odillon

Barrot, when, in the drawing‐room at Rambouillet, he executed the task

assigned to him of announcing to Charles X. the hard decree of exile,

pronounce the memorable words: ‘Sire, watch well over this royal child;

one day he will be of importance to the destinies of France?’ ”

New Publications.

THE LIFE OF S. JOHN OF THE CROSS. By David Lewis. New York: The

Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

Mr. Lewis has certainly deserved well of the inhabitants of Mount Carmel.

His translation of that incomparable gem, S. Teresa’s _Autobiography_; his

truly splendid work, the translation of the writings of S. John of the

Cross, and now his _Life_ of the latter saint, make up a series of works

for which English Catholic literature is deeply indebted to him. The

devoted and enthusiastic interest which S. Teresa, the Queen of Carmel,

has inspired in modern times is something wonderful, though it cannot seem

strange or surprising to any one who is acquainted with her history and

capable of appreciating her character. Happily for the world, S. Teresa

has found among her devotees several both able and willing to make her

life and works known with an intelligent and painstaking zeal for which we

cannot be too grateful. F. Bouix and Canon Dalton are conspicuous among

these devout admirers of the modern glory of Carmel who have labored so

faithfully and with so much pious and scholarly learning and taste to

diffuse the light and fragrance of her sanctity and doctrine. Mr. Lewis

devotes himself more especially to S. John of the Cross; but it was really

only a part of the great work of S. Teresa which S. John executed, both by

his labors and his writings. He was her spiritual son, the chief

instrument of carrying out the reform with which she was inspired among

the friars of the order of Carmel; and in his works he was, so to speak,

S. Teresa’s theologian and expositor. Every one who has been interested in

S. Teresa’s life must have wished for a good life of S. John of the Cross;

and whoever has tasted of the delicious fountain of divine doctrine in his

works must have desired it still more. Such a life Mr. Lewis has

undertaken to give us, compiling it from the older Spanish biographies.

Mr. Lewis’s biography of the saint is short and succinct, but very

precise, accurate, and complete in its narrative of facts and events.

So far, it is what was wanted; and to one who has learned to know the

interior life of S. John in his writings it is sufficient. It is not,

however, in itself, by any means such a complete and adequate portraiture

of S. Teresa’s counterpart and companion as we possess of herself, thanks

to the happy thought of her confessor, who obliged her to write her own

life, and to the devoted and affectionate biographers who have supplied so

fully all that she herself omitted. The number of those who will read this

_Life_ with pleasure and profit must necessarily be a comparatively small

one. And we forewarn all its readers, even devout Catholics accustomed to

reading the lives of saints, that it requires a robust faith to avoid

being scandalized or frightened by this one. S. John was most cruelly

persecuted and maltreated by his own brethren and superiors of the

Mitigated Rule, and even by one unworthy prior of the Reform. Moreover,

the austerity of his life and the additional sufferings which God sent

upon him may easily frighten and dismay most of us, soft and effeminate

Christians as we are, when they are looked at as presented in a dry

historical narrative, and apart from the inward consolations, the

supernatural graces, the high contemplation, which made trials and crosses

sweet to this great and heroic soul. We cannot, therefore, expect this

book to be a favorite with the common run of even pious readers. But those

who are capable of enjoying and profiting by it will be greatly rejoiced

that it has been written and published.

WHAT IS DARWINISM? By Charles Hodge, Princeton, N. J. New York:

Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

There is a great deal of modest wisdom in this small volume from the pen

of one of the most learned and accomplished of the Princeton gentlemen.

Dr. Hodge chiefly aims at showing what the real _virus_ of Darwinism

consists in, and finds it to be the denial of final causes, or virtual

atheism. There is also a very good summary of arguments against the theory

of evolution, and there are careful, well‐studied criticisms upon various

writers of distinction upon themes connected with the author’s topic. We

are glad to see that Dr. Hodge affirms the infallibility of reason—that

is, its possession of first principles which are unerring, and its

capacity of attaining to the knowledge of truth or true science. We do not

approve, however, of his definition of scientific evidence as that which

is attained through the senses, or his distinction between science and

theology. It is most important to maintain the rights of philosophy and

theology as the highest and most certain of sciences, having supremacy

over all others. We suppose that Dr. Hodge admits this in regard to the

things themselves, but we consider it important to retain even the terms

by which the things are properly designated, and to resist at all points

the impertinent as well as futile attempts of modern scientists to

dethrone the queen of the sciences. The style and tone adopted by Dr.

Hodge in this volume are remarkably quiet and moderate, and we trust that

this characteristic of his manner of arguing with persons who are disposed

to lend an ear to the sophistry of modern infidels will give it a readier

access to their minds. There is, however, an excess of amiability in the

praise which is awarded to Mathilde Blind’s “excellent translation” of

Strauss.

We recommend this book without hesitation as one which, so far as it goes,

is satisfactory and likely to prove very useful.

MADAME AGNES. By Charles Dubois. Translated from the French by M.

P. T. THE FARM OF MUICERON. By Marie Rheil. Translated from the

French by Mrs. A. B. S. New York: The Catholic Publication

Society. 1874.

This brace of French novels, under one cover, comes very opportunely at

this time, when careful teachers are on the lookout for premiums which

will be at once attractive and safe to put into the hands of their young

charges, and summer tourists are in search of literary provender to stow

away in their portmanteaus and saddle‐bags. Those who have watched the

progress of the stories through these pages are aware that the French

literature which comes out under Catholic auspices is very different from

that which reaches the public through the secular press.

We are inclined to look on _The Farm of Muiceron_ as somewhat unique among

recent works of fiction. The writer, as well as most of her characters,

speaks the language of the French peasantry; and, if a more learned

interlocutor is introduced, the author frankly tells us “not to expect her

to explain the meaning of the big words he uses.” Should the reader thence

conclude that the plot is weak, and its evolution more so—in fact, that he

has taken up a goody‐goody book—he will speedily get rid of that absurd

idea before he proceeds very far; and he will also be convinced that the

translation of such a work requires peculiar qualifications. A knowledge

of classical French will not alone suffice. An intimate acquaintance with

provincial modes of thought and expression, and of such English

equivalents for the idioms as will best preserve their racy flavor, are

essential. This advantage we are satisfied the present version has, as the

translator unites to a thorough knowledge of her own tongue a practical

familiarity with the dialect intended to be represented. Every linguist

knows the wonderful capabilities of the French language in its delicate

shades and modulations of expression; and if the translation fails to

reproduce them, the fault must be laid at the door of our unyielding

vernacular.

We do not intend to anticipate the pleasure of the reader by any attempt

to analyze the contents of either story. Some of the scenes of the second

are laid in the midst of the stormy days of July, 1848, and hence many of

its descriptions read like a page of contemporary history, and its

pictures of rustic life are full of simplicity and pathos.

_Madame Agnes_ will suit readers of a more serious cast, or the same

readers in a different mood; and the two combined may serve as light and

shade to each other. The solidity and gravity of the one sets off the

vivacity and _naïveté_ of the other. _Madame Agnes_ is decidedly a story

of real life in its lifelikeness to everyday experience, and its lessons

may, perhaps, the sooner find their way to the reader’s heart and

conscience for that reason.

THE NEW MANUAL OF THE SACRED HEART. Compiled and Translated from

Approved Sources. Baltimore: Kelly & Piet. 1874.

Confraternities of the Sacred Heart will welcome this additional manual.

It contains every kind of devotion that lovers of the Sacred Heart can

wish for. We hope it will have a wide sale.

SINS AND ITS CONSEQUENCES. By Henry Edward, Archbishop of

Westminster.

WHO IS JESUS CHRIST? Five Lectures. By the Right Rev. Bishop

Hedley.

THE POPE AND THE EMPEROR. Nine Lectures. By the Very Rev. J. N.

Sweeney, O.S.B., D.D. London: Burns & Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold

by The Catholic Publication Society.)

Archbishop Manning’s sermons are plain, practical discourses in his usual

clear and masterly style. Bishop Hedley’s lectures give an exposition of

the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation and the principal heresies which

have sought to corrupt and subvert it, with an explanation of redemption

and the Real Presence. They are both theological and eloquent. Dr. Sweeney

sketches graphically the contests between the head of the church and the

imperial power from Jesus Christ to Pius IX. Each of the three volumes is

of small size, but full of instruction.

THE FRENCH PRISONER IN RUSSIA. Translated from the French by P.

S., a Graduate of S. Joseph’s Academy, Emmittsburg. New York: The

Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

It has been said that a French novel is either very bad or very good, and

we are glad to be able to place the one before us in the latter category.

It is the story of a French family, the head of which, an officer in

Napoleon’s grand army, with his son, is taken prisoner during the Russian

campaign, and sent to Siberia. No tidings having been heard from them

after the disastrous retreat from Moscow, they are supposed to be dead,

and the mother and only daughter, a most amiable and gentle girl, are

thrown upon the world in poverty and sickness. When years have elapsed,

and the ladies have succeeded in winning an humble competence, news

arrives that the lost ones are alive; so the mother and daughter set out

on a long and dangerous journey to effect their release. How they fared in

their noble mission, and what dangers they encountered on the way, will be

best learned from the book itself. The original tale is written in

excellent French style, which is ever simple and fluent, and the

translation appears to have been carefully made with proper regard to the

idiom of our vernacular.

S. JOSEPH’S ASCETICAL LIBRARY. Edited by Fathers of the Society of

Jesus. No. IX.: MEDITATIONS FOR EVERY DAY IN THE YEAR AND THE

PRINCIPAL FESTIVALS. By the Ven. F. Lancicius, S.J. London: Burns

& Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication

Society.)

The fact that Jesuits edit this library is its best guarantee and

recommendation in respect to the sound and solid character of the works

which will be included in its series. The well‐known good taste and

literary culture of the English fathers of the society is a warrant for

the care and skill with which the editorial work is performed. The present

volume is most carefully and tastefully published, and its contents are of

the best quality. The work itself is an old and standard one by one of the

best writers of the society. The volumes of this library cannot be too

strongly recommended to all devout Catholics.

THE HISTORY OF GREECE. By Professor Dr. Ernst Curtius. Translated

from the German by Adolphus Wm. Ward, M.A. Vol. IV. New York:

Scribner, Armstrong & Co. 1874.

We have already given an extended notice of the previous volumes of this

work, and we now simply repeat the judgment previously expressed. It is

the most complete, and, in many respects, it is the best history of Greece

yet placed within the reach of the English reader.

GLORY AND SORROW; and SELIM, PASHA OF SALONICA. Translated from

the French by P. S. New York: The Catholic Publication Society.

1874.

Here are more stories for premiums. While the didactic purpose is not lost

sight of, the narratives are sufficiently enlivened to hold the reader’s

attention throughout. In the first tale the young student is warned

against the consequences of an excessive ambition for wealth and power;

and contentment with his position in life is inculcated as a necessary

condition of happiness. _Selim_ is a tale of the wars between the

Christians and Turks in the East.

CATHERINE HAMILTON. A Tale for Little Girls. By M. F. S. New York:

The Catholic Publication Society. 1874.

We have no doubt this will prove a very attractive book to the little

folks, and would be glad to see it widely circulated among them.

MAY PAPERS. By Edward Ignatius Purbrick, S.J. London: Burns &

Oates. 1874. (New York: Sold by The Catholic Publication Society.)

This pretty book, just received in this country, was prepared originally

for the use of the boys at Stonyhurst College. It is the first attempt, we

believe, in English to adapt the instructions for the month particularly

to young people, and we therefore think it worthy of special mention.

A Criticism.

LAFAYETTE, IND., April 21, 1874.

The article “On the Wing,” in THE CATHOLIC WORLD for May, is one of

unusual merit; but in the haste of composition, the writer, at page 216,

makes a mistake in stating that S. Peter’s Church at Rome was “built from

the designs of Bernini, and completed by Michael Angelo.” Bernini had

nothing to do with the edifice proper. He only built the baldacchino over

the high altar and the colonnade in the public square adjoining the

church. Michael Angelo completed the piers of the dome, and made a wooden

framework on which to construct a dome; but the dome was constructed by

Giacomo della Porta from designs of his own. The edifice proper was

finished by Carlo Maderno, and on the plan of a Latin cross, the

suggestion of Bramante, overruling Michael Angelo’s suggestion of the form

of a Greek cross.

It is very seldom that THE CATHOLIC WORLD is at fault, even in

ecclesiology; but I think here is a plain case.

Having made S. Peter’s something of a study both in Rome and at home, I

feel myself at liberty to make you these comments. Yours very truly,

J. A. WILSTACH.

The poem “For ever,” originally sent to this magazine, and published in

our May number, was also published in _Lippincott’s_ of the same month,

the author concluding, from its non‐appearance in THE CATHOLIC WORLD, that

it had been declined.

THE CATHOLIC WORLD. VOL. XIX., NO. 112.—JULY, 1874.

A Discussion With An Infidel.

Dr. Louis Büchner’s work, _Kraft und Stoff_, first appeared in Germany in

the year 1855, and met with such a favorable reception by a numerous class

of ignorant or wicked progressionists(95) that from that year up to the

end of 1870 it passed through ten German editions, without counting the

several translations into other languages. The present writer had lately

the fortune, or the misfortune, to be presented with an English copy of

this abominable work,(96) and was informed that the knights of the square

and the trowel had taken a special interest in its propagation. It could

not be otherwise; for the work itself is a masonic work. No one who knows

the true character of freemasonry, and has read the book, can have the

least doubt of its masonic origin. Only a mason of the blackest dye could

have displayed such a cool effrontery, artful dishonesty, and diabolic

malice as the author of _Force and Matter_ did in almost every page of his

little volume. Dr. Büchner is one of those dangerous men who have a great

talent for perverting truth. He knows how to dazzle the simple with

brilliant quotations, how to perplex the acute with unanswerable riddles,

how to entangle the cautious in a web of plausible objections. He knows

how to supplant reason by rhetoric; and the more embarrassing his case,

the greater is his assurance and the higher his pretension. It is in the

name of science that he pretends to speak. Such is the fashion just now.

Secret societies began their open war against the church and against God

in the name of _philosophy_; when beaten on this ground, they appealed to

_liberality_, then to _progress_, then to _civilization_, and now to

_science_. All these words, on their lips, were lies. Freemasons and their

cognate societies have never been fond of real “philosophy,” and never had

truly “liberal” views. The world never made any “progress” in the right

direction when it followed them; their pretended “civilization” never

meant anything else than the tyrannical subjugation of the church by

“civil” powers. And now their “science,” so far as it is theirs, is only a

travesty and prostitution of truth. The world owes nothing to them except

the increase of crime, the loss of public honesty, and the threatened

triumph of villany.

With Dr. Büchner, as with many others of the same ilk, science is a mere

pretext. His real object is to attack God’s existence, a future life,

human liberty, and all those truths which underlie sound philosophy,

morality, and religious belief. A work so well calculated to do harm, and

which has already infected with its poison a numerous class of readers,

needs refutation, and we will engage in the unpleasant task. We hope we

shall be able to show that Dr. Büchner’s _Force and Matter_, all its

pretensions notwithstanding, is, in a philosophical point of view, a

complete failure. One ounce of truth and a cartload of lies is just what

the doctor dispenses to his benighted admirers throughout the pages of his

baneful production.

To make things clearer, and to give Dr. Büchner the best opportunity of

speaking for himself, we have thought of putting the whole discussion in

the form of a dialogue between the doctor and ourselves. We know that a

lengthy conversation with such a sworn enemy of truth may prove disgusting

in a high degree, as he will utter nothing but sophisms or blasphemies.

But the sophist must be unmasked and the blasphemer confounded. We hope

our readers will excuse us for paying such attention to an infidel writer;

we would have ignored him altogether, if his work were not as dangerous as

it is unworthy of a doctor.

I. Flippancy And Scholasticism.

_Reader._ Indeed, doctor, I fear that your _Force and Matter_ will make

you a bad reputation. Our most esteemed philosophers say that you are a

sophist, and that a man of your attainments cannot be a sophist but by

deliberate choice. They evidently imply that you are a knave and an

impostor. As for myself, I confess that I do not see the cogency of your

reasonings; but, before declaring you a knave and an impostor, I should

like to hear from your own mouth what you may have to say in your behalf.

_Büchner._ I am not surprised, sir, at anything said against me. When I

published my work, “I knew that my attempt was bold, and that I should

have to sustain a fierce struggle with the prejudices of the age” (p.

viii.) But “things cannot be represented different from what they _are_;

and nothing appears to me more perverse than the efforts of respectable

naturalists to introduce _orthodoxy_ in the natural sciences” (p. xvii.)

You say that our most esteemed philosophers call me a sophist. You mean

the schoolmen, of course; in fact, the scholastic philosophy, still riding

upon its high though terribly emaciated horse, conceives that it has long

ago done with our theories, and has consigned them, ticketed

_materialism_, _sensualism_, _determinism_, etc., to the scientific

lumber‐room, or, as the phrase goes, has assigned them their _historical

value_. But this philosophy, my dear sir, sinks daily in the estimation of

the public, and loses its ground (p. xviii.)

_Reader._ I would remark, with your permission, that the public is not

nowadays a very acute judge of these matters. For what does the public

know of scholastic philosophy?

_Büchner._ By the public I mean the scientific world, sir.

_Reader._ The scientific world, dear doctor, knows very little of

scholastic philosophy. I am sure you will not deny the fact. Can you tell

me where, when, for how many years, under what professors, and in what

books, your scientific men had an opportunity of studying scholastic

philosophy? They have, no doubt, heard something of it—just enough to

realize the fact that there was a science in the world of which they were

profoundly ignorant. But this gives them no right to pass a judgment. I

venture to say that neither you nor Moleschott, Feuerbach, Darwin, Tuttle,

Huxley, or any of your school, have ever studied, or consulted, or perhaps

even so much as touched with your hands, a single volume of scholastic

philosophy.

_Büchner._ This may be; but it is quite enough for us to know that “the

singular attempts of the old school to construe nature out of thought

instead of from observation have failed, and brought the adherents of that

school into such discredit that the name of natural philosopher has become

a byword and a nickname” (p. xix.)

_Reader._ No, doctor. This is not true. The name of natural philosopher is

still much respected and revered; and I trust nothing will ever succeed in

making it despicable, except, perhaps, the shameless usurpation of it made

by your friends, the free‐thinkers, whose philosophy is nothing but a mean

conspiracy against truth. It is their fault, indeed, if the name of

natural philosopher is sneered at when connected with their own persons.

Why should they put on a garb which fits them not? If you call Moleschott

or Darwin natural philosophers, every one certainly will smile; but call

Ampère or Faraday by this name, and you will see every one take down his

hat in sign of respect and approbation. Then, you should not imagine that

because a few discoveries have been lately made by our men of science (I

say _a few_, because most of them are only new applications of old

theories, while many others are mere hypotheses), you should not imagine

that we have acquired the right to despise the discoveries and the wisdom

of all past ages. It was our forefathers who created modern science. Where

would you be without a Kepler, a Galileo, a Newton, and scores of others,

who laid down the ruling principles of all the branches of science? If

they knew less than we do about empirical manipulations, they knew a great

deal more about the conditions of legitimate speculation. To construe

nature “out of thought instead of from observation” has never been their

method; if I wished to retaliate, I could easily prove that it is yours.

_Büchner_ (_defiantly_). Try, sir.

_Reader._ Well, since you challenge me, I shall ask you whether it is from

observation, and not out of thought, that you have construed your

“uncreated” matter. I know, and you also know, that it is only “out of

thought.” But we shall have time to do justice to this and other topics.

The point I now insist on is, that what you say of the scholastic method

of “construing nature” is a rank calumny. Understand me, doctor. Natural

science has two objects in view: the first is to ascertain the truth about

natural facts; the second is to discover the nature of the principles and

causes to which such facts must be traced. As the first of these two

objects is attained by observation and experiments, so is the second by

thought—that is, by reasonings based on the positive results of

observation and experiment. Now, you must admit that the duty of the

metaphysician is not to make observations or experiments. This belongs to

the physicist. The metaphysician accepts the facts as ascertained by the

physicist; and it is from such facts, not from thoughts, that he starts

his speculation on the nature of things. Of course, if the physicist be

wrong in his statement of facts, the metaphysician will be led astray and

build a theory without foundation; yet the fault will not be his. And if

the physicist be ignorant of some important law of nature, the

metaphysician will be compelled to supply for the law with a guess at a

probable hypothesis. This is in the nature of things. With a mutton‐chop

you cannot make roast beef, can you?

_Büchner._ No, indeed.

_Reader._ I mean that our forefathers had not at their disposal such an

abundance of means for investigating the secrets of nature as we now

possess. Certainly, the most important of such secrets, before the time of

Copernicus, were inaccessible to the metaphysicians. I allow, then, that

the theory of the scholastics remained incomplete, and was most imperfect

so long as universal attraction was unknown and chemistry undeveloped. But

this proves nothing. The imperfection of the old physics gives you no

right to affirm that the schoolmen construed nature out of thought.

Speculation always implies thought; but to start one’s speculations from

the data of observation, as it was customary with the scholastic

philosophers, is not to reject observation.

_Büchner._ I demur to this statement, sir. It is well known that the old

school was all grounded on the _à priori_ method.

_Reader._ Certainly not, my dear doctor. One cannot reason without

abstract principles; but when such principles are the result of

experimental knowledge, it would be folly to pretend that they constitute

an _à priori_ method of construing nature out of thought instead of from

observation. Do you demur to this also?

_Büchner._ What I assert, sir, is that “the times of the scholastic

bombast, of philosophical charlatanism, or, as Cotta says, of intellectual

jugglery, are passing away” (p. xix.)

_Reader._ You are not serious, doctor. First of all, you know nothing

about scholastic bombast. Were you to read one page of any of our great

scholastic doctors, you would be amazed at the simplicity of their style,

and at the utter recklessness of your allegation. In the second place, the

times of bombast and charlatanism are not passing away. Read Huxley. Can

you find anything more bombastic than his _Lay Sermons_? Read Darwin. Is

he not a philosophical charlatan? Read your own _Kraft und Stoff_....

_Büchner._ Brilliancy is not charlatanism, sir. It is a fact that while

the pretended high speculations of the old school are hopelessly

unintelligible, our discoveries, “by directing investigation to facts,

have compelled thought to leave the misty and sterile regions of

speculative dreams, and to descend to real life” (p. xxii.) Can you

condemn us for this? “It lies in the nature of philosophy that it should

be common property. Expositions which are not intelligible to an educated

man are scarcely worth the ink they are printed with. The philosophical

mist which envelops the writings of scholars appears intended more to

conceal than to exhibit their thoughts” (p. xix.)

_Reader._ It is all a mistake, doctor. If you reflect for a moment on your

oracular sentences, you will see that they are mere nonsense. You say that

it lies in the nature of philosophy that it should be common property. I

wonder if this can be true. I fancy that philosophy, like any other

science or discipline which is acquired by study, is the property of those

alone who have studied it; and I hope that no man of sense will contest

such an evident truth. You say that philosophical expositions should be

intelligible to every _educated_ man; but this is true only on the

assumption that the education of which you speak includes a thorough

training in philosophy; which, unfortunately, is not the case with a great

number of so‐called educated men. You say that whatever is clearly

conceived can be clearly expressed; but you forget that what is clearly

expressed for the scholar may still be obscure to the uninitiated. Is it

possible that a doctor like you, and a president of a medical association,

should overlook the fact that every science has a number of technical

terms and scientific phrases which must be learned in special books and by

special study before its speculations can be comprehended? It is therefore

supremely ridiculous to talk of “the mist that envelops the writings of

scholars.” Everything is misty to the uninstructed. Let him study, and the

mist will disappear; for it is not the doctrine that wants clearness, but

it is the eye of the ignorant that is blurred.

And now, what shall I say of that pompous phrase of yours, that modern

discoveries “have compelled thought to leave the misty and sterile regions

of speculative dreams, and to descend to real life”? I hope you will allow

me to call it “modern bombast” and “philosophical charlatanism”; for I

cannot call it by any other name. If you mean by such words to denounce

Kant, Hegel, Schelling, and other German dreamers of the same school, I

have nothing to say in their defence; but if you intend thereby to

stigmatize the Catholic schools, to which you Germans, no less than the

rest of the civilized world, owe your intellectual education, I cannot

help saying, dear doctor, that your hostile insinuations are dictated by

malice and hatred of truth. Why do you defame what you know not? How can

you call a _sterile_ region that speculative philosophy which formed all

our great men? or _dreams_ those evident conclusions against which reason

cannot rebel without slaying itself? Is not this very strange in a doctor?

You were confident that “intellectual jugglery,” to use Cotta’s

expression, would be stronger than historical truth; but we are quite

prepared to meet you on this ground as on others; for we Catholic thinkers

are not afraid of bombastic words. We do not even think that your

“jugglery” is at all “intellectual.” For is it intellectual to make

sweeping assertions when you can give no proofs? Or is it intellectual to

sneer at your opponents, instead of replying to their arguments? I

presume, dear doctor, that your freemasons alone would see anything

intellectual in such a proceeding.

_Büchner._ You imagine, sir, that I must be a freemason. I shall not

answer that, as it has nothing to do with my book. Yet I wish to inform

you that freemasonry everywhere favors the progress of “modern science”;

and therefore I would not object to being called a freemason, whether I am

one or not. But as to making assertions of which I give no proofs, I defy

you, sir, to substantiate the charge; and as to my not replying to my

opponents, I am sure you will modify your judgment when you examine the

prefaces to the various editions of my work.

_Reader._ I accept the challenge. It will not be more difficult to give

you full satisfaction on these two points than it has been to rebut your

flippant denunciations of the scholastic philosophy.

II. Tergiversation And Jugglery.

_Reader._ You say, then, that in the prefaces to the various editions of

your work you have replied to your opponents.

_Büchner._ Certainly I do.

_Reader._ I have read all your prefaces. In the very first you make this

declaration: “We will not be in want of opponents; but we shall only

notice those who speak from experience and combat us with facts” (p. xx.)

This amounts to saying: “When we shall be attacked with any sort of arms,

arrows, pistols, knives, swords, guns, and sticks, we shall not defend

ourselves except against sticks.” Against sticks, of course, you may

defend yourself by the use of other sticks; but, if you are attacked with

artillery, will your sticks be to you a sufficient protection? You knew

very well, when publishing your book, that you were to be attacked with

_reasons_. To declare that you would notice only those adversaries who

would attack you with _facts_ was to declare that you were not ready to

meet your real opponents.

_Büchner._ Against fact there is no reasoning.

_Reader._ This is not the question. It is true that against fact there is

no reasoning; but when we argue against your false conclusions, we do not

attack your facts, but your sophisms only, most erudite doctor.

Then you add that “speculative philosophers may fight among themselves

from their own point of view, but should not delude themselves into the

belief that they alone are in possession of philosophical truth” (p. xx.)

These words reveal your tactics, which are: “Let them fight among

themselves, and not against me; but if one of their number attacks me, and

I cannot hold my ground, let him know that, if he is right, I also am

right; for he is not alone in possession of philosophical truth.” This is,

doctor, the silly plan of defence you have adopted and carried out against

the attacks of Catholic philosophers. How can you, then, pretend that you

have answered your opponents? I mean your real opponents.

When the _Frankfurter Katholische Kirchenblatt_ took you to task for your

impious and absurd publication, what did you answer? Here are your words:

“We shall pass over the fierce denunciations of the _Frankfürter

Katholische Kirchenblatt_, conducted by the parish priest, Beda Weber. The

melancholy notoriety which that individual has acquired, as one of the

most eccentric of the ultramontane party, permits us simply to dismiss

him. We shall only tell the reader that the _Frankfürter Kirchenblatt_

carries its hatred against the modern direction of science so far as to

recommend the application of the criminal law against its representatives.

The public may thus learn what these gentlemen are capable of, should they

ever become possessed of power. The same bloody hatred with which science

was once persecuted by religious fanaticism would revive anew, and with it

the Inquisition, and _auto‐da‐fés_, and all the horrors, with which a

refined zealotism has tortured humanity would be resorted to, to satisfy

the wishes of these theological cut‐throats. We must turn from these

enemies, quite unworthy of a serious refutation, to another opponent” (p.

xxiii.) Here, then, you confess that you have cowardly turned your back to

the enemy.

_Büchner._ Cowardly?

_Reader._ Yes. If you do not like the word, I will say _prudently_. In

fact, the reason you allege—that such an enemy was unworthy of serious

refutation—is a miserable pretext. Whoever is not blind can see that your

furious declamation against Beda Weber was an impudent attempt at

crushing, if possible, by insults, the man whom you could not defeat with

reasons. It is mean and disgusting. What can your readers say when you

dare not even let them know Beda Weber’s objections, on the plea that the

reverend priest “has acquired a melancholy notoriety as one of the most

eccentric of the ultramontane party”? If such is the verdict of the

masonic lodges, we cannot but congratulate Beda Weber for the compliment

paid to him. His very “hatred against the modern (_masonic and infidel_)

direction of science” shows that he is a man of sound and clear judgment;

and his opinion that “the criminal law” should be applied against the

atheists and the corruptors of youth recommends him to us as a man of

order and a true friend of civil society; for nothing is more necessary

for the preservation of order and the peace of society than the

enforcement of law. When such men make denunciations, they should not be

“simply dismissed,” dear doctor. Religious fanaticism, refined zealotism,

tortures of humanity, persecution of science, and the rest, even if they

were not thread‐bare lies, would not authorize you to “simply dismiss” a

learned opponent as unworthy of serious refutation. I will say nothing

about that malicious insinuation concerning “what these gentlemen are

capable of, should they ever become possessed of power.” Were they capable

of any monstrosity, this would not help your defence of _Force and

Matter_. But those gentlemen have been possessed of power for ages, and

the nations redeemed from barbarism, and enriched with monuments of art,

and with scientific, literary, and charitable institutions, show “what

they were capable of.” Of course freemasonry is capable of something else;

a glance at the present deplorable condition of Germany suffices to show

what _you_ are capable of when you are possessed of power. But, I repeat,

were we as wicked, in your opinion, as you are in fact, this would be no

reason for not answering our arguments. Your book is an attack against

religion. The professors of religion are therefore your natural opponents.

It is to _them_, therefore, that you owe your explanations. And yet this

is what you publicly profess yourself unable to do.

_Büchner._ I never made such a profession.

_Reader._ You made it very openly. “With regard to parsons and

ecclesiastics,” you say, “who never cease to enlighten and to assail us

with their eloquence, we beg to repeat that we cannot discuss with them”

(p. lxiv.) Of course you endeavor to cover your retreat, as usual, by

pretending that “these good people have, from the beginning of the world,

had the privilege of using their zeal and ignorance in crying down

everything that does not suit their business” (_ibid._); but this vile

language only betrays your inability to cope with them. You are so

generous as “not to disturb them in their vocation,” because “no rational

man doubts the total incapacity of these gentlemen to enter upon such

questions” (p. lxv.)

_Büchner._ Why should I answer them? They are mere theologians; and I

maintain that “there is no theological or ecclesiastical natural science,

and there will be none so long as the telescope does not reach the regions

where angels dwell” (p. lxv.)

_Reader._ This is a very poor excuse, dear doctor. Theologians are not

debarred from dealing with natural sciences. To mention no others,

Copernicus was a canon; Secchi is a Jesuit; Moigno is a priest. Moreover,

the subject of the question is not natural science, but your sophistry;

and you cannot deny that ecclesiastical studies make men competent to

judge of logical blunders. But, leaving all this aside, did you not try to

refute the _Allgemeine Zeitung_, though you pretend that “in struggling

with such pen‐heroes, it seems to you that you are acting like Don

Quixote” (p. xxviii.)? Did you not fight, also, against Mr. Karl Gutzkow,

although he, “as is well known, has never impeded the daring flight of his

genius by the ballast of science” (p. xxix.)? And, to omit others, did you

not do your best to answer the _Allgemeine Kirchen Zeitung_, although it

meets you, as you say, “with theological eccentricity and rodomontades”

(p. xxxvii.)? It would appear, then, that you are not afraid of accepting

battle when you have any hope of overcoming your adversary. And therefore,

when you shrink from answering your Catholic opponents, it is evident that

you do so only because with them you have no hope of success.

_Büchner._ You are quite mistaken, sir.

_Reader._ No, indeed. I am certain that you cannot hold your ground

against a Catholic opponent, and I am ready to show you immediately that

such is really the case. I have already told you that your _Force and

Matter_ is a book full of sweeping assertions, of which no proof is given.

You challenged me to substantiate the charge, and I have accepted the

challenge. I say, then, that your very first proposition, on which all the

other arguments employed in your work are ultimately based, is one of

those assertions of which no proof is or can be given. Do you accept the

battle on this ground?

_Büchner._ I do.

_Reader._ Please, then, what do you consider to be the fundamental

proposition of your work?

_Büchner._ It is this: “No matter without force, and no force without

matter” (p. 2).

_Reader._ Is this proposition altogether universal, so as to admit of no

possible exception?

_Büchner._ Yes, sir, absolutely universal, without any possible exception.

_Reader._ Then please tell me on what grounds such an absolute

universality can be established.

_Büchner._ On many grounds. First, as Dubois‐Reymond profoundly remarks,

“fundamentally considered, there are neither forces nor matter. Both are

merely abstractions, assumed from different points of view, of things as

they are. They supplement and presuppose each other. _Separately they do

not exist._ Matter is not like a carriage, to which the forces, like

horses, can be put or again removed from. A particle of iron is, and

remains, the same, whether it crosses the horizon in the meteoric stone,

rushes along in the wheel of the steam‐engine, or circulates in the blood

through the temples of the poet. These qualities are eternal, inalienable,

and untransferable” (pp. 1, 2).

_Reader._ I would remark that the qualities of matter are not eternal. Of

course, as long as matter continues to exist, its essential constitution

must remain intact; but to say that the qualities of matter are eternal is

to assume not only that matter will last for ever, but also that it has

existed from all eternity. Science has no right to make this assumption,

since it has no means of ascertaining its truth; for evidently eternity

does not come under observation and experiment. But leaving aside this

question, which we may examine later, I say that your quotation from M.

Dubois does not account for the universality of your proposition.

_Büchner._ Hear Moleschott: “A force not united to matter, but floating

freely above it, is an idle conception” (p. 1).

_Reader._ This is a mere assertion.

_Büchner._ Hear Cotta: “Nothing in the world justifies us in assuming the

existence _per se_ of forces independent of the bodies from which they

proceed and upon which they act” (p. 2).

_Reader._ This is no proof. It is quite clear that those forces _which

proceed from the bodies_ cannot be independent of the bodies. But your

proposition is that no force _whatever_ can exist without matter; and

therefore you should prove that _all_ forces, without exception, are

dependent on matter.

_Büchner._ First of all, we must admit that there is no matter without

force. “Imagine matter without force, and the minute particles of which a

body consists without that system of mutual attraction and repulsion which

holds them together, and gives form and shape to the body; imagine the

molecular forces of cohesion and affinity removed; what then would be the

consequence? The matter must instantly break up into a shapeless nothing.

We know in the physical world of no instance of any particle of matter

which is not endowed with forces by means of which it plays its appointed

part in some form or another, sometimes in connection with similar or with

dissimilar particles. Nor are we in imagination capable of forming a

conception of matter without force. In whatever way we may think of an

original substance, there must always exist in it a system of mutual

repulsion and attraction between its minutest parts, without which they

would dissolve and tracelessly disappear in universal space. A thing

without properties is a non‐entity, neither rationally cogitable nor

empirically existing in nature” (pp. 2, 3).

_Reader._ Very good so far. But this is no recent discovery; it is an old

truth constantly taught, and much more exactly expressed, by those

schoolmen whom you imagine to have been “the persecutors of science.” Thus

far, then, you have only rehearsed the old doctrine. But now you have to

show that, as there is no matter without force, so also there is no force

without matter.

_Büchner._ Yes. “Force without matter is equally an idle notion. It being

a law admitting of no exception that force can only be manifested in

matter, it follows that force can as little possess a separate existence

as matter without force” (p. 3).

_Reader._ Take care, doctor! You are now assuming what should be proved.

You assume a law, _admitting of no exception_, that force can only be

manifested in matter.

_Büchner._ The law is known. “Imagine an electricity, a magnetism, without

the iron or such bodies as exhibit these phenomena, and without the

particles of matter, the mutual relation of which is just the cause of

these phenomena; nothing would then remain but a confused idea, an empty

abstraction, to which we have given a name in order to form a better

conception. If the material particles capable of an electric condition had

never existed, there would have been no electricity, and we should never

have been able by mere attraction to acquire the least knowledge or

conception of electricity. Indeed, we may say electricity would never have

existed without these particles. All the so‐called imponderables, such as

light, heat, electricity, magnetism, etc., are neither more nor less than

changes in the aggregate state of matter—changes which, almost like

contagion, are transmitted from body to body. Heat is a separation, cold

an approximation, of the material atoms. Light and sound are vibrating,

undulating bodies. Electrical and magnetic phenomena, says Czolbe, arise,

as experience shows, like light and heat from the reciprocal relation of

molecules and atoms” (pp. 3, 4).

_Reader._ Have you done?

_Büchner._ Yes, sir.

_Reader._ Is this all your proof?

_Büchner._ Yes, sir.

_Reader._ Then allow me to state that you have not shown what you

promised. You have proved, indeed, that the forces of matter exist nowhere

but in matter; but as every one admits this, there was no need of your

proof. Your duty was to prove the universal proposition, _no force without

matter_; and therefore you had to show that there are no other forces than

the forces of matter.

_Büchner._ This is evident; as “force can as little exist without a

substance as seeing without a visual apparatus, or thinking without an

organ of thought” (p. 4).

_Reader._ I am afraid, doctor, that you do not speak to the point. The

question is not whether a force can or cannot exist without a substance;

it is, whether there is no other substance than matter. Before denying the

existence of force without matter, you must conclusively show that all

substance is matter.

_Büchner._ “Nothing but the changes we perceive in matter by means of our

senses could ever give us any notion as to the existence of powers which

we qualify by the name of _forces._ Any knowledge of them by other means

is impossible” (p. 4).

_Reader._ I should be glad to know how you can infer from such a remark

that all substance is matter. What you perceive in material objects

proves, indeed, the existence of matter and of the forces of matter; but

how does it prove the non‐existence of other substances and of other

forces? You, surely, imagine that our senses are our only source of

knowledge, and that the supersensible, as unknowable, must be consigned to

the region of dreams.

_Büchner._ Certainly. “We maintain that human thought and human knowledge

are incapable of discovering or knowing anything supersensual. This is the

necessary general result of modern investigation” (p. xli.)

_Reader._ A curious result indeed! By which of your senses do you perceive

abstractions, such as _philosophy_, _morality_, _affirmation_, _veracity_?

I put you the alternative: either show that you touch, hear, smell, taste,

or see, with your material eyes, any of such abstract notions, or confess,

according to the general result of your ridiculous modern investigations,

that you can have none of such notions, and are essentially incapable of

reasoning.

_Büchner._ You try to draw me out of the real question, sir.

_Reader._ By no means. It is your denial of our capability of knowing

anything supersensual that draws us out of the question.

_Büchner._ My object was to show that there is no matter without force,

and no force without matter. This proposition can be established without

any special reference to our mental operations.

_Reader._ You may try; on condition, however, that our knowledge of the

supersensible be not called in question.

_Büchner._ The science of force is _physics_. “This science makes us

acquainted with eight different forces: gravitation, mechanical force,

heat, light, electricity, magnetism, affinity, cohesion, which,

inseparably united to matter, form and give shape to the world” (p. 18).

Any force which cannot be reduced to a combination of these forces is

therefore to be looked upon as chimerical. Nothing is more evident.

_Reader._ Evident? I think, doctor, if I were you, I would be ashamed of

uttering such a rank sophism. You beg the question altogether. What right

have you to assume that there are no real forces in the universe but those

mentioned in our physical treatises? To assume this is to assume that

there is nothing in the world but matter—the very thing which you should

demonstrate. And therefore you are as far as ever from having shown your

universal proposition, _no force without matter_. Indeed, you will never

show it. Truth is stronger than you.

_Büchner._ Then tell me, sir, on what ground do you base your belief in

the existence of supersensual forces?

_Reader._ Excuse me, doctor. We were not discussing the question, “What

are my grounds for believing their existence?” Our question was, “What are

your own grounds for proclaiming their non‐existence?” When a man makes an

assertion contrary to the common belief, it is his duty to give good

reasons in its support. If he cannot, let him give up his assertion, and

go back to the common belief. Common beliefs, on the contrary, are in no

need of special demonstration so long as they are not attacked with

plausible reasons. That there are supersensual forces is a common belief.

As you have failed to adduce any serious proof to the contrary, this

common belief remains unshaken. You ask on what grounds I base my belief.

I might answer that I base it on the ground of universal consent, and I

might show that this universal consent must have a universal foundation,

which cannot be invalidated. But I will tell you a special reason for

admitting supersensual forces. It is that there are facts which cannot be

accounted for by the forces of matter.

_Büchner._ What fact? Do you mean the exploded fact of creation?

_Reader._ I will soon come to the fact of creation, if you wish, and

compel you to swallow back your nasty epithet. But the fact I alluded to

was that the phenomena of consciousness and of volition are unaccountable,

if there is nothing besides material forces. This you cannot deny; for you

say you “cannot but acknowledge that in the relation of brain and soul,

phenomena occur which cannot be explained from the simple physical

relation of force and matter” (p. lxiv.) As long, therefore, as you admit

nothing but matter and material force, there are facts which, by your own

confession, cannot be explained. Thus, you see, not only have you failed

to substantiate your fundamental assertion, _no force without matter_, but

you are constrained, on your own showing, to admit forces that transcend

matter.

III. Creation.

_Reader._ You say, doctor, that creation is an _exploded_ fact. May I ask

why?

_Büchner._ “Those who talk of a creative power, which is said to have

produced the world out of itself, or out of nothing, are ignorant of the

first and most simple principle, founded upon experience and the

contemplation of nature. How could a power have existed not manifested in

material substance, but governing it arbitrarily according to individual

views? Neither could separately‐existing forces be transferred to chaotic

matter, and produce the world in this manner; for we have seen that a

separate existence of either is an impossibility” (p. 5).

_Reader._ I beg to remind you that we have _not_ seen the impossibility of

force without matter. All your efforts to show it have been vain. It is

childish, therefore, on your part, to pretend that those who talk of a

creative power “are ignorant of a first principle founded upon experience

and the contemplation of nature.” The contemplation of nature is, on the

contrary, the ladder by which rational creatures ascend to the knowledge

of the Creator. You ask: How could a power have existed not manifested in

material substance? I answer by another question: How could the world have

existed, if no such power exists? This is the real question at issue. And

pray, doctor, do not speak of separately‐existing forces transferred to

chaotic matter. This is not the way we account for the production of the

world. We do not admit of chaotic matter before creation. And again, do

not suppose that we can ever dream of a Creator producing the world out of

himself. We are not pantheists; and we know that the world has been

produced out of nothing. This is the true notion of creation according to

both theology and philosophy.

_Büchner._ Very well. But “the world could not have originated out of

nothing. A nothing is not merely a logical, but also an empirical non‐

entity. The world, or matter with its properties, which we term forces,

must have existed from eternity, and must last for ever—in one word, the

world cannot have been created” (p. 5).

_Reader._ These are bold assertions indeed. How can you make them good?

_Büchner._ “The notion ‘eternal’ is certainly one which, with our limited

faculties, is difficult of conception. The facts, nevertheless, leave no

doubt as to the eternity of the world” (p. 5).

_Reader._ What facts, if you please?

_Büchner._ Here is one fact: “That the world is not governed, as is

frequently expressed, but that the changes and motions of matter obey a

necessity inherent in it, which admits of no exception, cannot be denied

by any person who is but superficially acquainted with the natural

sciences” (p. 5). Now, if the world is not governed by a superior power,

we cannot make it dependent for its origin on any superior power. This

leaves no doubt as to the eternity of the world.

_Reader._ I wonder, doctor, if you have ever learned or understood the

first principles of philosophy. Young students may teach you that, from

the necessity to which matter is subjected of obeying certain laws of

motion, it is absurd to infer the necessity of its existence. What is

subject to obedience is not independent, and what has a necessity of

obeying is essentially dependent. Moreover, do you not see that what is

subject to change cannot be necessary, and cannot be eternal? You appeal

to natural sciences. This is ridiculous. There is no need of modern

sciences to know that the phenomena of the material world follow an

invariable law. This was known in all past ages; yet no man in his senses

has thought of concluding that therefore matter was a necessary being.

Pagan philosophers, who had lost the primitive traditions of mankind,

admitted uncreated matter without further examining the question; but none

of them pretended to prove the eternity or necessity of matter from its

subjection to definite laws of motion. The absurdity of such a deduction

is manifest. Suppose a geometrician were to argue thus: What follows an

invariable and necessary law exists from eternity; but every triangle

follows this invariable and necessary law: that the sum of its angles

equals two right angles; and therefore every triangle exists from

eternity. What would you reply?

_Büchner._ I would reply that the laws of geometry are mere abstractions.

_Reader._ And so are all physical laws also. When a thing exists, it

cannot but be what it is according to its essence. If it is a figure of

geometry, it exists according to geometric laws, and has its geometric

properties; and if it is a material substance, it cannot but have the

properties of matter, and so long as it exists it cannot but retain the

same properties. This is evident. But from the fact that a thing existing

is necessarily subject to the laws of its nature you cannot conclude that

it necessarily exists, unless, indeed, you are not even superficially

acquainted with the laws of reasoning. Hence it is clear that your

argument has no weight.

_Büchner._ “But that a power—taken for the once in its abstract

sense—could only exist so long as it is active is no less clear. In

assuming, therefore, a creative absolute power, a primeval soul, an

unknown x—it matters not what name we give it—as the cause of the world,

we must, in applying to it the notion of time, say that it could not have

existed either _before_ or _after_ the creation. It could not have existed

_before_, as the notion of power is not reconcilable with the idea of

nothing or inactivity. It could not have been a creative power without

creating something. We must, therefore, suppose that this power has for a

time been inert in the presence of chaotic and motionless matter—a

conception we have already shown to be absurd. It could not have existed

_after_ the creation, as rest and inactivity are again incompatible with

the notion of force. The motion of matter obeys only those laws which are

inherently active; and their manifestations are nothing but the product of

the various and manifold accidental or necessary combinations of material

movements. At no time and nowhere, even in the most distant space reached

by our telescope, could a single fact be established, forming an exception

to this law, which would render the assumption of a force external, and

independent of matter, necessary. But a force which is not manifested does

not exist, and cannot be taken into account in our reasoning” (p. 6). What

do you answer, sir?

_Reader._ I answer that this pretended argument cannot entrap any one but

an ignorant man, or one who desires to be cheated or to cheat himself. And

first I observe that you begin by surmising that the Creator would be “an

abstract power”; now, the surmise is an absurdity. Secondly, you suppose

that we “assume” a creative absolute power—which is not the case; for we

do not assume its existence, but we prove it. Thirdly, you call the

Creator “a primeval soul, an unknown _x_”; and both expressions are very

wrong indeed. Fourthly, you say that we must apply to the Creator “the

notion of time”—which is sheer folly; as every one knows that time has no

existence but in the successive changes of created things. Even you

yourself say that “the mere application of a limited notion of time to the

creative power involves a contradiction” (p. 7). And therefore, when you

affirm that the creative power “could not have existed either _before_ or

_after_ creation,” you commit a great blunder by assuming that before

creation there should have been time. But leaving aside all this, and

supposing that the phrase “before the creation” may be understood in a

legitimate sense as expressing the priority of eternity and not of time, I

will come directly to your argument.

You say that a creative power could not exist before creation, “as the

notion of power is not reconcilable with the idea of nothing or

inactivity.” This reason proves nothing, except, perhaps, your ignorance

of logic. Try to reduce your argument to the syllogistic form, and you

will see what it amounts to.

_Büchner._ The syllogism will run thus: A power can exist only as long as

it is active. But the creative power before the creation was not active.

Therefore the creative power could not exist before the creation. I hope

this proves something else than my ignorance of logic.

_Reader._ And yet your logic is sadly at fault. Do you not see the

equivocation lurking in the middle term? What do you mean by _active_?

Does this word stand for _acting_, or for _able to act_? If it stands for

_acting_, then your major proposition is false; for a power exists as long

as it is able to act, although it is not actually acting. This is clear;

for have you not a power of talking as long as you are able to talk,

although you may actually be silent? If, on the contrary, the word

_active_ stands for _able to act_, then it is your minor proposition that

will be evidently false; for the creative power, before the creation, was

able to create the world, although we conceive it as not yet creating

anything. Hence your nice syllogism is a mere sophism, and your conclusion

a blunder.

Your other assertion, “It could not have been a creative power without

creating something,” is likewise sophistical. For the epithet “creative”

in your argumentation means “able to create”; and consequently it does not

entail actual creation, but only its possibility. Thus the blunder is

repeated.

But you proceed: “We must, therefore, suppose that this power has for a

time been inert in the presence of chaotic or motionless matter.” In these

few words I find three mistakes: First, you again introduce time where

there can be nothing but eternity; secondly, you assume that a power not

exercised is inert—which is false, because inertness means destitution of

self‐acting power; thirdly, you put chaotic and motionless matter in the

presence of the creative power before this power has been exercised—which

is to assume that chaotic matter was not created, but only received

movement. You understand, doctor, that in arguing, as you do, from the

point of view of your adversaries, you cannot take such liberties. If you

wish to refute creation, you must take it as it is understood and defended

by its supporters; or else you will only refute your own hallucinations.

But I will not insist on these latter remarks. I made them only that you

may better realize how deficient and miserable is your method of

reasoning.

_Büchner_ (_bitterly_). Thank you for the compliment.

_Reader._ However, I have more to say; and I hope, doctor, that you will

not lose your temper, if I proceed onward in the same strain. In the

second part of your argument you say that the creative power “could not

have existed _after_ the creation, as rest and inactivity are again

incompatible with the notion of force.” This is evidently a mere

reiteration of the sophism just refuted. If the reason you allege had any

weight, it would follow that, when you have ceased curing a patient, your

medical power would vanish, and, when you have ceased talking, your

talkative power would be extinct; in fact, rest and inactivity, according

to you, are incompatible with the notion of power. I say “power,” although

you here make use of the word “force,” which is calculated to mislead your

readers. The word “force” is frequently used to express a quantity of

movement; and, of course, rest and movement exclude one another; hence to

designate the creative power by the name of “force” may be a dishonest

trick, though a very clumsy one, to inveigle readers into the belief that

rest and creative power are incompatible. Here, however, I must point out

another great blunder, which a man of your talent should have been able to

avoid. There is a truth, doctor, of which you seem to be quite ignorant,

though certainly you must have heard of it more than once. It is that the

creative power, after the production of creatures, does _not_ remain

inactive. Creatures need positive conservation, and would fall into

nothingness were they not continually kept in existence by the same power

by which they have been first brought into being. Hence the creative power

is always at work. What is, then, your supposition of its inactivity but a

new proof of your ignorance?