_Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and
Historical._ By JOHN STUART MILL. In Three Volumes. 12mo.
Boston: W. V. Spencer.
At a time of deep national emotion, like the present, it is impossible
that we Americans should not feel some bias of personal affection in
reading the works of those great living Englishmen who have been true to
us in the darkest hour. Were it only for his faithful friendship to
freedom and to us, Mr. Mill has a right to claim an attentive audience
for every word he has ever written; and this collection of his
miscellaneous writings, covering a period of thirty years, has a special
interest as showing the successive steps by which he has risen to this
high attitude of nobleness.
But apart from these special ties, Mr. Mill claims attention as the most
advanced of English minds, and the ablest, all things considered, of
contemporary English writers. His detached works have long since found a
very large American audience,--larger, perhaps, than even their
home-circle of readers; and the sort of biographical interest which
attaches to a collection of shorter essays--giving, as it does, a
glimpse at the training of the writer--will more than compensate for the
want of continuity in these volumes, and for the merely local interest
which belongs to many of the subjects treated. Church-rates and the
English currency have not to us even the interest of heraldry, for that
at least can offer pictures of mermaids, and great ingenuity in Latin
puns; but, on the other hand, every discussion of the British
university-system has a positive value, in the exceedingly crude and
undeveloped condition of American collegiate methods. There is the same
disparity of interest in the different critical essays. Bentham has
hardly exerted an appreciable influence on American thought, and the
transitory authority of Coleridge is now merged in more potent agencies;
yet when the essays bearing those great names were first printed in the
periodical then edited by Mill, they made an era in contemporary English
literature, and therefore indirectly modified our own.
Thus, in one way or another, almost all these essays have a value. The
style is always clear, always strong, sometimes pointed, seldom
brilliant, never graceful; it is the best current sample, indeed, of
that good, manly, rather colorless English which belongs naturally to
Parliamentary Speeches and Quarterly Reviews. Not being an American, the
author may use novel words without the fear of being called provincial;
so that _understandable_, _evidentiary_, _desiderate_, _leisured_, and
_inamoveability_ stalk at large within his pages. As a controversialist,
he is a trifle sharp, but never actually discourteous; and it is
pleasant to see that his chivalry makes him gentlest in dealing with the
humblest, while his lance rings against the formidable shield of a
Cambridge Professor or a Master of Trinity as did that of the disguised
Ivanhoe upon the shield of Bois-Guilbert.
The historical essays in this collection are exceedingly admirable,
especially the defence of Pericles and the Athenians, in the second
paper on Crete's History. In reading the articles upon ethical and
philosophical questions, one finds more drawbacks. The profoundest
truths can hardly be reached, perhaps, by one who, at the end of his
life, as at the beginning, is a sensationalist in metaphysics and a
utilitarian in ethics. It is only when dealing with these themes that he
seems to show any want of thoroughness: unfairness he never shows. In
the closing tract on "Utilitarianism," which the American publishers
have added to the English collection, one feels especially this
drawback. As the theory of universal selfishness falls so soon as one
considers that a man is capable of resigning everything that looks like
happiness, and of plunging into apparent misery, because he thinks it
right,--so the theory of utilitarianism falls, when one considers that a
man is capable of abstaining from an action that would apparently be
useful to all around him, from a secret conviction that it is wrong in
itself. There are many things which are intrinsically wrong, although,
so far as one can see, they would do good to all around. To assassinate
a bad neighbor,--to rob a miser and distribute his goods,--to marry
Rochester, while his insane wife is living, (for Jane Eyre,)--to put to
death an imbecile and uncomfortable grandmother, (for a
Feegeean,)--these are actions which are indefensible, though the balance
of public advantages might seem greatly in their favor. It is probable
that at this moment a great good would be done to this nation and to the
world by the death of Jefferson Davis; yet the bare suggestion of his
assassination, in the case of Colonel Dahlgren, was received with a
universal shudder, and disavowed as an atrocious slander. But Mr. Mill
can meet such ethical problems only by reverting to that general
principle of Kant, which he elsewhere repudiates: "So act that the rule
on which thou actest would admit of being adopted as a law for all
rational beings." Mr. Mill says of such instances, "The action is of a
class which, if practised generally, would be generally injurious, and
this is the ground of the obligation to abstain from it." But under the
rule of utilitarianism, it is the injuriousness itself which should be
the principle of classification, and to prove an action innoxious is at
once to separate it from that class; so that the objection falls. By his
own principles, a murder which would benefit the community is by that
very attribute differenced from ordinary and injurious murders, nor can
any good argument be found against its commission. The possible bad
precedent is at best a possible misapprehension, to be sufficiently
averted by concealment, where concealment is practicable.
In dealing with contemporary and practical questions, Mr. Mill shows
always pre-eminent ability, with less of the Insular traits than any
living Englishman. While there is perhaps no single passage in these
volumes so thoroughly grand as his argument for religions freedom in his
essay on Liberty,--an argument which the most heretical theologians of
either Continent could hardly have put so boldly or so well,--yet
through the whole series of essays there runs the same fine strain. He
repeatedly renews his clear and irresistible appeal for the equal
political rights of the sexes: a point on which there is coming to be
but one opinion among the most advanced minds of Europe and America,--a
unanimity which, after the more immediate problem of Slavery is disposed
of, must erelong bring about some practical application of the
principle, in our republican commonwealths. It is interesting to notice
in this connection, that Mr. Mill has included with his own essays the
celebrated article by his wife, on "The Enfranchisement of Women," and
has prefixed to it one of the noblest eulogies ever devoted to any wife
by any husband.
He deals with strictly American subjects in the best criticism ever
written upon De Tocqueville, where he shows conclusively the error of
that great writer, in attributing to democracy, as such, many social
phenomena which are equally observable under the English monarchy. These
volumes also include--what the English edition of 1859 of course did not
contain--the later essays on "The Contest in America," "The Slave
Power," and "Non-Intervention." In treating of Slavery and of the War,
the author rarely commits an error; in dealing with other American
questions, he is sometimes misled by defective information, and cites
gravely, with the prelude, "It is admitted," or "It is understood,"
statements which have their sole origin in the haste of travellers or in
the croaking of disappointed egotists. The government of the majority
does not end in tyranny: cultivated Americans are not cowards: the best
heads are not excluded from public life: free schools do not tend to
stifle free thought, but infinitely to multiply it: individuality of
character is not checked, but healthily trained, by political equality.
Six months in this country would do more to disabuse Mr. Mill, in these
matters, than years of mere reading; and it is a positive injury to his
large ideas that he should not take the opportunity of testing them on
the only soil where they are being put in practice. Whenever he shall
come, his welcome is secure. In the mean time, all that we Americans can
do to testify to his deserts is to reprint his writings beautifully, as
these are printed,--and to read them universally, as these will be read.
_Narrative of Privations and Sufferings of United States
Officers and Soldiers while Prisoners of War in the Hands of
the Rebel Authorities._ Being the Report of a Commission of
Inquiry, appointed by the United States Sanitary Commission.
With an Appendix, containing the Testimony. Printed by the U.S.
Sanitary Commission. Philadelphia.
That uniform thoroughness and accuracy which have marked all that has
been done by the Sanitary Commission, not in the field alone, but in the
committee-room and the printing-office, were never better shown than in
this Report. It attempts something which, unless done thoroughly, was
not worth doing; since, on a subject which appeals so strongly to the
feelings, mere generalities and gossip do more harm than good. It is the
work of a special Commission of Inquiry, composed of three physicians,
(Drs. Mott, Delafield, and Wallace,) two lawyers, (Messrs. Wilkins and
Hare,)and one clergyman (Mr. Walden). This commission has performed a
great amount of labor, and has digested its result into a form so
systematic as to be logically irresistible. The facts on which the
statement rests are a large body of evidence, taken under oath, from
prisoners of both armies, and confirmed by the admissions, carefully
collated, of the Rebel press. The conclusion is, that, in the Southern
prisons, "tens of thousands of helpless men have been, and are now
being, disabled and destroyed by a process as certain as poison, and as
cruel as the torture or burning at the stake, because nearly as
agonizing and more prolonged."
The next step is to fix the responsibility for all these horrors. All
theories of apology--as that the sufferings were accidental or
exceptional, or that, badly as our soldiers may have fared, the Rebel
soldiers fared little better--are taken up and conclusively refuted, the
last-named with especial thoroughness. The inevitable inference drawn by
the Commission is, that these inhumanities were "designedly inflicted on
the part of the Rebel Government," and were _not_ "due to causes which
such authorities could not control."
The immediate preparation of this able report is understood to be due to
the Rev. Treadwell Walden, an Episcopal clergyman of Philadelphia, not
unknown to the readers of the "Atlantic." His present work will be the
permanent authority for the facts which it records, and will justify to
future generations the suggestion with which it ends, that these
cruelties are the legitimate working of a form of government which takes
human slavery for its basis. The record of such a government is fitly
written in these pages: it is as appropriate as is, for a king of
Dahomey, his funeral pyramid of skulls.
_Freedom of Mind in Willing_; or, Every Being that Wills a
Creative First Cause. By ROWLAND G. HAZARD. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 455.
The State of Rhode Island is the most metaphysically inclined of all the
sisterhood, not excepting South Carolina. A superficial observer or a
passing traveller might take just the opposite view of her tendencies.
The stranger who should complete a cycle of sumptuous suppers in
Providence, or spend but a day or two in Newport at the height of the
season, might conclude that Matter with its most substantial appliances,
or Fashion with her most fascinating excitements, had combined to
exclude all thoughts of the spiritual from the few square miles over
which this least of the States holds dominion. Should he leave the two
capitals of luxurious wealth and giddy fashion and seek for the haunts
of Philosophy among the quiet nooks which her few valleys and her
splendid sea-coast afford, he might judge that meditation had been
effectually frightened from them all, for nowhere can he escape the whir
of countless spindles and the clash of thousands of looms.
But inferences like these may not be trusted, as history demonstrates.
The most admirable of modern treatises in the subtile science, that
masterpiece of speculation in matter and style, "The Minute Philosopher"
of Bishop Berkeley, was composed in Rhode Island, and the place is still
indicated where the musing metaphysician is said to have written the
greater portion of the work. That Berkeley's genius did not abandon the
region, when he left it, is manifest from the direction taken by the
late Judge Durfee, whose "Pan-Idea," if it cannot be accepted as in all
respects a satisfactory theory of the relations of the spiritual
universe, may be safely taken as an indication of the lofty and daring
Platonism of the ingenious author. The anonymous author of "Language by
a Heteroscian" is another thinker of somewhat similar tastes. If common
report do not greatly err, it is the same thinker who in the volume
before us solicits the attention of the philosophic world to his views
of the Will. It adds greatly to the interest of the volume itself, in
our view, and we trust will do so in the view of our readers, to know
that he is no studious recluse nor professional philosopher, but active,
shrewd, and keen-sighted, both in his mills, when at home in a fitly
named valley, and upon Change, when in Boston or New York.
Surely Roger Williams, that boldest of idealists, did not live in vain,
in that he not only set apart the State which he founded as a place of
refuge for all persons given to free and daring speculation, but made it
a kind of Prospero's Isle, that should never cease to be haunted by some
metaphysical spell.
The appearance of such a work from such a source is of itself most
refreshing, as an indication that a life of earnest devotion to material
pursuits is not inconsistent with an ardent appreciation of the
surpassing importance of speculative inquiries. One such example as this
is enough to refute the oft-repeated assertion that in America all
philosophy must of course give way before the absorbing interest in the
pursuit of wealth. A few years since we chanced to send a copy of an
American edition of Plato's "Phaedo" to a German Professor. "_Eine
wirkliche Erscheinung_," was his reply in acknowledgment, "to see an
edition of a work of Plato from America." What would be his amazement at
receiving a copy of a disquisition on the Will written by an American
mill-owner!
It is still more refreshing to find the author so sincere and so earnest
an advocate of the elevating tendency of philosophical studies. There is
a charming simplicity in the words with which his Preface is
concluded:--"Whatever opinion may be formed of the success or failure of
any effort to elucidate this subject, I trust it will be admitted that
the arguments I have presented at least _tend_ to show that the
investigation may open more elevated and more elevating views of our
position and our powers, and may reveal new modes of influencing our own
intellectual and moral character, and thus have a more immediate,
direct, and practical bearing on the progress of our race in virtue and
happiness than any inquiry in physical science." Such testimony, coupled
with the impression made by his argument, is most gratifying, not only
in consideration of the source from which it comes, but also as
contrasted with the course of so much of the speculative philosophy of
the day, towards Materialism in Psychology, Necessarianism in Morals,
Naturalism in Philosophy, and Pantheism in Theology.
The doctrine of the writer, or rather his position with respect to
theories of the Will, is distinctly indicated by the title of his
volume. It is obvious that he must be a decided asserter of Liberty as
opposed to Necessity who dares to throw down the gauntlet in support of
the thesis that "every being who wills is a creative first cause." All
his views of the soul and of its doings are entirely consistent with the
direction which is required by this audacious assertion. That the soul
is an originator in most of its activities is his perpetually asserted
theme. To maintain this he is ready almost to question the reality, as
he more than questions the necessity, of the existence of matter,
verging occasionally, on this point, upon Berkeley's views and style of
thinking. The constructive capacities of the intellect are inferred from
the variety of mathematical creations which it originates, as well as
from the more diverse and interesting structures which the never wearied
and ever aspiring fantasy is always building. Should any one question
the right of these creations to be, or seek to detract from their
importance, our author is ready to defend them to the utmost in contrast
with matter and its claims. Indeed, the author's exposition of his
doctrine of the Will is by itself an inconsiderable source of interest,
when separated from the views of all the functions of the spirit, which
are interwoven with it. In discussing the Will he is necessarily led to
treat of its relations to the other powers and functions of the spirit,
and hence by necessity to give his philosophy of the Soul. This
philosophy, briefly described, is one which regards the soul in its
nature and its acts, in its innermost structure and its outmost
energies, as capable of and destined to action. This in also its dignity
and its glory. The soul or spirit, so far from being the subject of
material forces, or the outgrowth of successive series of material
agencies, or the subtile product or potence of material laws, is herself
the conscious mistress and sovereign of them all, giving to matter and
development and law all their importance, as she condescends to use
these either as the mirror in which her own creations are reflected or
the vehicle by which her acts can be expressed.
How the author maintains and defends this position the limits of this
brief notice will not allow us to specify. The views expressed which
have the closest pertinency to the will are those which lay especial
stress upon the soul as capable of _wants_, and as thus impelled to
action. Emotion and sensibility neither of them qualifies for action.
_Want_ must supervene, to point to the unattained future, to excite to
change; and to this want knowledge also must be added, in order to
direct the activity. Under the stimulus thus furnished, the future must
be created, as it were, by the will of the soul itself, before it is
made real in fact.
We are not quite sure that we understand the author's doctrine of Want,
and its relations to the activities of the will, nor that, so far as we
do understand it, we should accept it. But we agree with him entirely,
that it is precisely by means of and in connection with a correct
analysis of these impelling forces that the real nature and import of
the will can be satisfactorily evolved. Mr. Hazard seems to us to make
too little difference between the power of the soul to act and its power
to will or choose. He conceives the will as the capacity which qualifies
for effort of every kind, as the conative power in general, instead of
emphasizing it as the capacity for a special kind of effort, namely,
that of moral selection.
The second part of the volume is devoted to a criticism of Edwards, the
author on whose "steel cap," as on that of Hobbes of old, every advocate
of liberty is impelled to try the strength and temper of his weapons.
For a critical antagonist, Edwards is admirable, his use of language
being far from precise and consistent, and his definitions and
statements, through his extreme wariness, being vague and vacillating
enough to allow abundant material for comment. Of these advantages Mr.
Hazard knows how to avail himself, and shows not a little acuteness in
exposing the untenable positions and the inconsequent reasoning of the
New-England dialectician. The most ingenious of the chapters upon
Edwards is that in which he refutes the conclusions drawn from the
foreknowledge of God. His position is the following:--If we concede that
the foreknowledge of God were inconsistent with liberty, and involved
the necessity of human volitions, we may suppose the Supreme Being to
forego the exercise of foreknowledge in respect to such events. But it
would not therefore follow that God would be thereby taken by surprise
by any such volitions, or would be incompetent to regulate His own
actions or to control the issues of them in governing the universe. This
he seeks to show, very ingeniously, by asserting that the Supreme Being
must be competent to foresee not the actual volition that will be made,
but every variety that is possible; and as a consummate chess-player
provides by comprehensive forecast against every possible move which his
antagonist can make, and has ready a counter-move, so may we, on the
supposition suggested, conceive the Supreme Being as fully competent,
without the foreknowledge of the actual, by means of His foreknowledge
of the possible, to control and govern the course of the future. This
solution is certainly ingenious, and doubtless original with the author.
It has in all probability occurred to other minds; but, inasmuch as the
advocate for freedom does not usually allow that he is shut up to the
alternative of either denying the divine purpose or abandoning human
freedom, the suggestion of the author has not often, if ever, been
seriously urged before. But we have no space for critical comments.
The style of the author is good. With some diffuseness, he is usually
clear and animated. The circumstances that he has approached the subject
in his own way, independently of the method of books and the technics of
the schools, has lent great freshness to his thoughts and illustrations.
The occasional observations which he throws in are always ingenious and
sometimes profound. He shows himself at every turn to be an acute
observer, a comprehensive thinker, and deeply imbued with the meditative
spirit. The defects incidental to his peculiar training are more than
compensated by the freshness of his manner and the directness of his
language. More interesting still is the imaginative tendency which gives
to many of his passages the charm of poetic feeling, and elevates them
to the truly Platonic rhythm. There are single sentences, and now and
then entire paragraphs, which are gems in their way, that sparkle none
the less for the plain setting of common sense and unpretending diction
by which they are relieved.
We ought to add that the attitude of the author in respect to moral and
religious truth is truly, but not obtrusively, reverent. Though he
asserts for man the dignity that pertains to a creator, yet he never
forgets the limits under which and the materials out of which his
creations are wrought. His Theism is outspoken and sincere.
Whatever judgment may be passed upon this volume in the schools of
philosophy or theology, all truth-loving men will agree that it brings
honor to the literature and thought of the country. No man can read a
few of the many passages of refined thought and sagacious observation
with which the volume abounds, without acknowledging the presence of
philosophic genius. No one can read the passages with which each
principal division of the work concludes, without admiring the fine
strains which indicate the presence of genius inspired by poetic feeling
and elevated by adoring reverence. We are sure that the fit, though
scanty, audience from whom the author craves a kindly judgment will
cheerfully render to him far more than this, even their unfeigned
admiration.
_Military Bridges:_ With Suggestions of New Expedients and
Constructions for crossing Streams and Chasms; including, also,
Designs for Trestle and Truss Bridges for Military Railroads.
Adapted especially to the Wants of the Service in the United
States. By HERMANN HAUPT, late Chief of Bureau in Charge of the
Construction and Operation of United States Military Railways,
etc. New York: D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 310.
There is in the War Department at Washington a series of splendid
photographs, illustrative of scenes along the line of march of our
armies in Virginia, and depicting minutely the great pioneer labor of
transporting troops and ammunition, giving evidence of the greatest
engineering genius, and the illimitable resource that has been evoked by
this dreadful War of Rebellion.
The book before us is the result of these operations reduced to form.
The author's name has for the last twenty-five years been associated
with most of the great works of internal improvement in this country,
and is familiar to every Massachusetts man as connected with the great
railroad-enterprise of the State,--the Hoosac Tunnel.
The professional reputation of the author of "The General Theory of
Bridge-Construction" would of itself be a sufficient guaranty that a new
work from the same source would be entitled to consideration. General
Haupt does not often appear before the public as an author: his works
are few, but of rare merit. The first which appeared, "The General
Theory of Bridge-Construction," was the fruit of many years of
experiment, observation, and calculation, and at once established his
reputation in Europe and America, as unequalled in the specialty of
Bridges. This work was not only the first, but up to the present time is
the only publication in which the action of the parts in a complicated
system is explained, and the direction and intensity of each and every
strain brought within the reach of mathematical formulas, and rendered
accurately determinable. Before the appearance of this book it is
probable that not another engineer in the world could be found able to
calculate the strain upon every sort of bridge-truss, but only on
certain simple forms and combinations. Now, such calculations can be
made by any student in any institution where civil engineering is taught
thoroughly, and where "Haupt on Bridges" is used as a text-book.
Professor Gillespie, writing from Europe, remarked that the greatest
engineer of the age, Robert Stephenson, and his distinguished
associates, had spoken of this book in terms of the highest
commendation.
After the publication of the controversial papers between Messrs.
Stephenson and Fairbairn in regard to the Britannia Bridge, it became
apparent that neither of these gentlemen, with all their calculations
and expenditures in experiments, had determined the proper distribution
of the strains, and the size and strength required for the side-plates
of tubular bridges, but only for those at the top and bottom. General
Haupt solved the problem mathematically, and sent a communication on the
subject to the American Association for the Advancement of Science,
which has been extensively copied into the scientific journals of
Europe, and has added largely to the reputation of its author. In the
Victoria Bridge at Montreal, the distribution of material in the
vertical plates conforms to the proportions given by General Haupt.
About the year 1853, General Haupt, then Chief Engineer of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, reviewed the work of Charles Ellett on the Ohio
and Mississippi Rivers, with other plans of improvement that had been
suggested, and, in a pamphlet of about a hundred pages, proposed a
novel, bold, and simple method for the improvement of these rivers,
costing scarcely a tenth as much as the estimated expense of some of the
other methods, and promising greater durability and efficacy. The
Pittsburg Board of Trade recently appointed a scientific commission to
investigate the whole subject; and their report, which is thorough and
exhaustive, gives unanimously the preference to the plan of General
Haupt, as the only practicable mode of improving the Ohio River, so as
to insure a permanent depth of water of not less than six feet. In
passing, we would remark that one of the greatest difficulties the War
Department has had to contend with has been the lack of suitable
navigation on the Ohio River, and it is to be regretted that Government
did not at once seize upon the plans of General Haupt and carry them
into execution.
In the spring of 1862, General Haupt was solicited to take charge of the
reconstruction of the railroad from Acquia Creek to Fredericksburg.
Without material other than that furnished by forests two miles distant,
and without skilled mechanics, but simply by the aid of common soldiers
who had no previous instruction, he erected, in nine days, a structure
eighty feet high and four hundred feet long, which for more than a year
carried the immense railroad-trains supplying the Army of the Potomac.
It was visited and critically examined by officers in the foreign
service, as a remarkable specimen of bold and successful military
engineering.
Major-General McDowell, in his defence before the Court of Inquiry, made
the following statement in regard to the Potomac-Creek Bridge, on the
line of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad.
"The large railroad-bridge over the Rappahannock, some six
hundred feet long by sixty-five feet high, and the larger part
of the one over Potomac Creek, some four hundred feet long by
eighty feet high, were built from the trees cut down by the
troops in the vicinity, and this without those troops losing
their discipline or their instruction as soldiers. The work
they did excited, to a high degree, the wonder and admiration
of several distinguished foreign officers, who had never
imagined such constructions possible by such means, and in such
a way, in the time in which they were done.
"The Potomac-Run Bridge is a most remarkable structure. When it
is considered, that, in the campaigns of Napoleon,
trestle-bridges of more than one story, even of moderate
height, were regarded as impracticable, and that, too, for
common military roads, it is not difficult to understand why
distinguished Europeans should express surprise at so bold a
specimen of American military engineering. It is a structure
which ignores all the rules and precedents of military science
as laid down in books. It is constructed chiefly of round
sticks cut from the woods, and not even divested of bark; the
legs of the trestles are braced with round poles. It is in four
stories, three of trestles and one of crib-work. The total
height from the deepest part of the stream to the rail is
nearly eighty feet. It carries daily from ten to twenty heavy
railway-trains in both directions, and has withstood several
severe freshets and storms without injury.
"This bridge was built in May, 1862, in nine working-days,
during which time the greater part of the material was cut and
hauled. It contains more than two million feet of lumber. The
original structure, which it replaced, required as many months
as this did days. It was constructed by the common soldiers of
the Army of the Rappahannock, (command of Major-General
McDowell,) under the supervision of his aide-de-camp, Colonel,
now Brigadier-General, Hermann Haupt, Chief of Railroad
Construction and Transportation."
A fine lithographic drawing of this bridge, taken from a photograph,
forms the frontispiece to the volume before us.
Previous to the Battle of Chancellorsville, General Haupt received
instructions to prepare for a rapid advance of the Army of the Potomac
towards Richmond. He provided a sufficient amount of material to rebuild
all the bridges between Fredericksburg and Richmond, and adopted the
bold and novel expedient of portable railroad-bridge trusses. These
trusses were built in advance, in spans of sixty feet; they were to be
carried whole on cars to the end of the track, then dragged like logs,
with the aid of timber-wheels and oxen, to the sites of the bridges,
where they were to be raised bodily on wooden piers, and the rails laid
over them. The reverse at Chancellorsville prevented this plan from
being carried into effect; but four of these spans were used to replace
the trestle-bridge across the Acquia Creek, where they were tested in
actual use, and answered perfectly.
When informed of the contemplated advance on Richmond, General Haupt
concluded to replace the trestle-bridge across Potomac Creek by the
military truss-bridge, which was of a more permanent character. The
trestle-bridge had performed good service for more than a year, but, as
it obstructed the water-way of the stream too much, and as the
preservation of the communications would become of even greater
importance after the advance than it had previously been, it was thought
best to take it down. General Hooker, having heard of this
determination, sent for General Haupt in much alarm, and inquired if the
report as to the proposed rebuilding of the bridge was true, and
protested against having it disturbed, saying that he needed all the
supplies that could be run forward, and could not allow a suspension of
transportation even for a day. General Haupt replied, that he was
willing to be held responsible for results, but must be permitted to
control his own means; he did not ask for a suspension of
transportation; he would take down the high bridge and build a permanent
bridge on the piers, and would not detain a single train even for an
hour. General Hooker and staff declared that they did not believe such a
feat possible; yet it was actually accomplished without any detention to
the trains whatever, and in a period of time so brief as to be almost
incredible. _In less than two days_ the trusses of the three spans were
placed in position.
If there is any one faculty which General Haupt appears to possess in a
preeminent degree, it is _resource_. He never finds an engineering
problem so difficult that some satisfactory mode of solution does not
present itself to his mind. He seems to comprehend intuitively the
difficulties of a position, and the means of surmounting them. He never
waits; if he cannot readily obtain the material he desires, he takes
that at hand. His new work on "Military Bridges" exhibits this
power of resource in a remarkable degree; it is full of expedients,
novel, practical, and useful, among which may be mentioned
expedients for crossing streams in front of the enemy by means of
blanket-boats,--ingenious substitutes for pontoon-bridges, floats, and
floating-bridges,--plans for the _complete_ destruction of railroad
bridges and track, and for reconstructing track,--modes of defence for
lines of road, etc.: for the book, be it observed, is not limited in its
contents to the single subject indicated by its title.
The design of the author, as stated in the Introduction, appears to have
been to give to the army a practically useful book. He has not failed to
draw from other sources where suitable material was furnished, an
indebtedness which he has gracefully acknowledged; but a great part of
the book contains new and original plans and expedients, the fruits of
the experience and observation of the author while in charge of the
construction and transportation for the armies of the Rappahannock, of
Virginia, and of the Potomac, under Generals McDowell, Pope, McClellan,
Burnside, Hooker, and Meade. It is a book no officer can afford to be
without; and to the general reader who wishes to be thoroughly versed in
the operations of the war, it will commend itself as replete with
information on this subject.
_Meditations on the Essence of Christianity, and on the
Religious Questions of the Day._ By M. GUIZOT. Translated from
the French under the Superintendence of the Author. London:
JOHN MURRAY.
Whoever is familiar with religious controversies, past and present, has
not failed to notice of late an improvement in their tone, for which we
cannot be too deeply thankful. This does not arise solely from the
neglect which now prevails of the ancient and highly recommended plan of
imprisoning, torturing, and roasting such obstinate heretics as are too
obtuse or too sharp-sighted to yield to milder methods of treatment.
Such incidents in history as the exposure of Christians to hungry beasts
in the Colosseum, a Smithfield burnt-offering of persistent saints, or a
Spanish auto-da-fe, with attending civic, ecclesiastical, and sometimes
even royal functionaries, and wide-encircling half-rejoicing and
half-compassionate multitudes, were not without their charms and
compensations for victims blessed with a fervid fancy or a deathless
purpose. These cruel scenes associated such with the illustrious dead
who have held life cheaper than truth, and gave them an opportunity of
saying to countless multitudes such as no pulpit-orator could attract
and sway,--"See how Christians die!" The liability to such trials turned
away the fickle from the assembly of the faithful and attracted the
magnanimous. When grim Puritans, in our early history, broke the
stubborn necks of peace-preaching Quakers, the latter often thought it a
special favor from Providence that they were permitted to bear so
striking a testimony against religious fanaticism. They felt, like John
Brown in his Virginian prison, that the best service they could render
to the cause they had loved so well was to love it even unto death.
Indeed, martyrs in mounting the scaffold have ever felt the sentiment,--
"Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim unknown
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own."
Such heroic treatment always relieves any cause from contemptuous
neglect, the one thing which is always harder to bear than the fires of
martyrdom. Every reader of Bunyan knows that he complains far less of
his twelve years' imprisonment than he exults over the success of his
prison born, world-ranging Pilgrim. He would doubtless have preferred
lying in that "den," Bedford jail, other twelve years to being unable to
say,--
"My Pilgrim's book has travelled sea and land,
Yet could I never come to understand
That it was slighted or turned out of door
By any kingdom, were they rich or poor."
The dreariest period in religious discussion commonly occurs when men
have just ceased to inflict legal penalties upon the heterodox, but have
not yet learned those amenities which lend so sweet and gentle a dignity
to debate. In looking over the dusty pamphlets which entomb so many
clerical controversies of our Colonial times, it has often seemed as
though we had lighted on some bar-room wrangle, translated out of its
original billingsgate into scholarly classical quotations and wofully
wrested tests of Holy Writ. This illusion seems all the more probable
when we remember that the potations which inspired the loose jester and
the ministerial pamphleteer of that period but too often flowed from the
same generous tap. This phase of theological dispute is best typified in
that eminent English divine who wrote,--"I say, without the least heat
whatever, that Mr. Wesley lies." The manner in which such reverend
disputants sought to force their conclusions on the reluctant has not
infrequently reminded us of sturdy old Grimshawe, the predecessor of
Bronte at Haworth, of whom Mrs. Gaskell reports, that, finding so many
of his parishioners inclined to loiter away their Sundays at the
ale-house as greatly to thin the attendance upon his ministry, he was
wont to rush in upon them armed with a heavy whip, and scourge them with
many a painful stroke to church, where, doubtless, he scourged them
again with still more painful sermons.
But, bad as were the controversial habits of the clergy, those of their
skeptical opponents were still worse. That was surely a strange state of
things where such freethinking as the "Age of Reason" could win a wide
circulation and considerable credit. But it was not merely the vulgar
among freethinkers who then substituted sophistry and declamation for
honesty and sense. The philosophers of the Institute caught the manners
of the rabble. What a revolting scene does M. Martin sketch in his
"Essay on the Life and Works of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre"! "The
Institute had proposed this as a prize-question:--'What institutions are
best adapted to establish the morals of a nation?' Bernardin was to
offer the report. The competitors had treated the theme in the spirit of
their judges. Terrified at the perversity of their opinions, the author
of "Studies of Nature" wished to oppose to them more wholesome and
consoling ideas, and he closed his report with one of those morsels of
inspiration into which his soul poured the gentle light of the Gospel.
On the appointed day, in the assembled Institute, Bernardin read his
report. The analysis of the memoirs was heard at first with calmness;
but, at the first words of the exposition of the principles of a
theistical philosopher, a furious outcry arose from every part of the
hall. Some mocked him, asking where he had seen God, and what form He
bore. Others styled him weak, credulous, superstitious; they threatened
to expel him from the assembly of which he had proved himself unworthy;
they even pushed madness so far as to challenge him to single combat, in
order to prove, sword in hand, that there is no God. Cabanis, celebrated
by Carlyle for his dogma, 'Thought is secreted, like bile, somewhere in
the region of the small intestines,' cried out, 'I swear that there is
no God, and I demand that His name shall never be spoken in this place.'
The reporter left the members in grave dispute, not whether there is a
God, but whether the mention of His name should be permitted."
We have fallen upon better days. The high debate which is now engaging
the attention of Christendom is conducted, for the most part, on both
sides, with distinguished courtesy. Not that the question at issue is,
or is felt to be, any less vital than former ones. The aim of modern
free-inquiry is to remove religious life from the dogmatic basis, upon
which, in Christian lands, it has hitherto stood. Denying the existence,
and sometimes the possibility, of a supernatural revelation, now
admitting, now doubting, and now rejecting the personal immortality of
the soul, our freethinkers profess a high regard for the religious
culture of the race. They would found a new scientific faith, and make
spiritual life an outgrowth of the soul's devout sensibilities. The soul
is to draw its nutriment from Nature, science, and all inspired books;
so that, if preaching is as fashionable in the new dispensation as under
the old, the future saints will be in as bad a plight as, according to
eminent theological authority, were those of a late celebrated divine:--
"His hearers can't tell you on Sunday beforehand,
If in that day's discourse they'll be Bibled or Koraned."
But is such a religion possible? M. Guizot thinks not, and comes forward
in full philosophical dignity to repel recent assaults upon supernatural
religion. The chief gravity of these attacks has doubtless consisted in
exegetical and historic criticism. M. Guizot deems these matters of
minor consequence, and believes that the most important thing is to
settle certain fundamental metaphysical questions, and correct prevalent
erroneous ideas respecting the purpose of revelation. His book consists
of eight Meditations: Upon Natural Problems,--Christian Dogmas,--The
Supernatural,--The Limits of Science,--Revelation,--Inspiration of the
Scriptures,--God according to the Bible,--Jesus according to the Gospel.
These themes are presented so skilfully as to attract the interest of
the careless, while challenging the fixed attention of the trained
thinker. The reader will find himself lured on, by the freshness of the
author's method of handling, into the very heart of these profound and
difficult questions. He will be charmed to find them treated with calm
penetration and outspoken frankness. No late writer has displayed a
better comprehension of all phases of and parties to the controversy.
There is a singular absence of controversial tone, a marvellous lucidity
of statement, and a visible honesty of intention, as refreshing as they
are rare,--while a spirit of warm and tender devotion steals in through
the argumentation, like the odor of unseen flowers through a giant and
tangled wood. Yet there is no want of fidelity to personal convictions,
no effort by cunning shifts to bring about an apparent reconciliation of
opponents which the writer knows will not endure. With a firm hand he
touches the errors of contending schools of interpreters, and demands
their abandonment. To Rationalist and Hyper-Inspirationist in their
strife he says, like another Moses, "Why smitest thou thy fellow?"
Those who have watched carefully the tendencies of these parties for
many years must sometimes have grown despondent. The progressive school
has claimed with unscientific haste the adoption, as a fundamental
principle of Biblical interpretation, of the negation of the
supernatural. Their argument is simply, that human experience disproves
the supernatural. Man, a recent comer upon the globe, who has never kept
a very accurate record of his experience, who comes forth from mystery
for a few days of troubled life, and then vanishes in darkness,--he in
his short stay upon earth has watched the play of its laws, which were
before him and will remain after him, and has learned without any
revelation that God never has changed, never will, never can change or
suspend them! Who shall assure us that our experience of these laws does
not differ from that of Peter and John, the Apostles? How much better to
say of them with Hume, Whatever the fact, we cannot believe it, or to
query with Montaigne, _Que sais-je_? Far better might we say that human
experience can never overthrow faith in the supernatural, for none can
ever say what has been the experience of the countless dead over whom
oblivion broods. Shall a few _savans_ say, Our experience outweighs the
experience of the Hebrews _plus_ one hundred generations of dead
Gentiles _plus_ one universal instinct of humanity? _Credat M. Littre,
non [Greek: hoi polloi], M. Guizot, vel Agassiz._ But the laws of Nature
are uncha----Ah! that is the very point in dispute. Why can they not
alter? Because they are invari----Tut! Well, then, b-e-c-a-u-s-e----When
you find a good argument, put it into that blank. Till then, adieu.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Those who claim a plenary verbal inspiration as essential to a real
revelation are, according to M. Guizot, equally remote from a truly
scientific spirit. Errors in rhetoric and grammar, passages where the
writers speak of astronomical and geological matters in consonance with
the prevailing, but, in many cases, mistaken theories of their times,
being pointed out in the Bible, these cry out, "There can be no real
errors in an inspired book,"--and we are at once amazed and disgusted to
hear men deny the reality of things which they can but perceive, quite
as sturdily as the Port-Royalists refused to allow the presence of
sundry propositions in their books, which, notwithstanding the Pope's
infallible assertion, they had no recollection of thinking or writing,
which they supposed they had always hated and disavowed, and which they
could by no ingenuity of search discover. Sir Thomas Browne might enjoy,
could he revisit the world, the privilege of seeing many who are reduced
to defend their faith with Tertullian's desperate resolution,--"It is
certain, because it is impossible." If ever we escape from such
ineptitude, it will come about by the diffusion of a more philosophic
temper, and the use of a logic that shall refuse to exclude the facts of
human nature from fair treatment, that shall embrace and account for all
the questions involved, and that shall decline to receive as truth
errors of finite science because found in an inspired book. We welcome
this volume as an example of the right spirit and tendency in these
grave discussions, and shall look eagerly for the promised three
succeeding ones.
This translation, though "executed under the superintendence of the
author," evidently does no justice to the original. We have not seen the
book in French, but we venture to say that M. Guizot never wrote French
which could answer to this version, awkward, careless, and sometimes
obscure. A certain picture of dull and ancient aspect, which had long
passed for an original from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, and, despite
the raptures of sentimental people who sought to tickle their own vanity
by pretending to perceive in it the marks of its high origin, had
commonly awakened only a sigh of regret over the transitoriness of
pictorial glory, fell at length into the hands of a skilful artist. By
careful examination, this worthy person became satisfied that the
painting was indeed all that had been claimed, but that its primal
splendors had been obscured by the defacing brush of some incompetent
restorer. With loving care he removed the dimming colors, and to an
admiring world was revealed anew the Christ of the Supper. Will not
some American publisher perform a like kindly function for Guizot?
_History of the Anti-Slavery Measures of the Thirty-Seventh and
Thirty-Eighth United States Congress_, 1861-64. By HENRY
WILSON. Boston: Walker, Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. 384.
Senator Wilson is admirably qualified to record the anti-slavery
legislation in which he has borne so prominent and honorable a part. Few
but those engaged in debates can thoroughly understand their salient
points, and fix upon the precise sentences in which the position,
arguments, and animating spirit of opposite parties are stated and
condensed. The present volume is a labor-saving machine of great power
to all who desire or need a clear view of the course of Congressional
legislation on measures of emancipation, but who prefer to rest in
ignorance rather than wade through the debates as reported in the
"Congressional Globe," striving to catch, amid the waste of words, the
leading ideas or passions on which questions turn.
The first thing which strikes the reader in Mr. Wilson's well-executed
epitome is the gradual character of this anti-slavery legislation, and
the general subordination of philanthropic to military considerations in
its conduct. The questions were not taken up in the order of their
abstract importance, but as they pressed on the practical judgment for
settlement in exigencies of the Government. When Slavery became an
obstruction to the progress of the national arms, opposition to it was
the dictate of prudence as well as of conscience, and its defenders at
once placed themselves in the position of being more interested in the
preservation of slavery than in the preservation of the nation. The
Republicans, charged heretofore with sacrificing the expedient to the
right, could now retort that their opponents were sacrificing the
expedient to the wrong.
Senator Wilson's volume gives the history of twenty-three anti-slavery
measures, in the order of their inception and discussion. Among these
are the emancipation of slaves used for insurrectionary purposes,--the
forbidding of persons in the army to return fugitive slaves,--the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,--the President's
proposition to aid States in the abolition of slavery,--the prohibition
of slavery in the Territories,--the confiscation and emancipation bill
of Senator Clark,--the appointment of diplomatic representatives to
Hayti and Liberia,--the bill for the suppression of the African
slave-trade,--the enrolment and pay of colored soldiers,--the
anti-slavery Amendment to the Constitution,--the bill to aid the States
to emancipate their slaves,--and the reconstruction of Rebel States. The
account of the introduction of these and other measures, and the debates
on them, are given by Mr. Wilson with brevity, fairness, and skill. A
great deal of the animation of the discussion, and of the clash and
conflict of individual opinions and passions, is preserved in the
epitome, so that the book has the interest which clings to all accounts
of verbal battles on whose issue great principles are staked. As the
words as well as the arguments of the debates are given, and as the
sentences chosen are those in which the characters of the speakers find
expression, the effect is often dramatic. It cannot fail to be observed,
in reading these reports, that there is a prevailing vulgarity of tone
in the declarations of the champions of Slavery. They boldly avow the
lowest and most selfish views in the coarsest languages and scout and
deride all elevation of feeling and thought in matters affecting the
rights of the poor and oppressed. Their opinions outrage civility as
well as Christianity; and while they make a boast of being gentlemen,
they hardly rise above the prejudices of boors. Principles which have
become truisms, and which it is a disgrace for an educated man not to
admit, they boldly denounce as pestilent paradoxes; and in reading Mr.
Wilson's book an occasional shock of shame must be felt by the most
imperturbable politician, at the spectacle of the legislature of "a
model republic" experiencing a fierce resistance in the attempt to
establish indisputable truths.
Most of the questions here vehemently discussed should, it might be
supposed, be settled without discussion by the plain average sense and
conscience of any body of men deserving to live in the nineteenth
century; but so completely have the defenders of Slavery substituted
will and passion for reason and morality, and so long have they been
accustomed to have their insolent absurdities rule the politics of the
nation, that the passage of the bills whose varying fortunes Mr. Wilson
records must be considered the greatest triumph of liberty and justice
which our legislative annals afford. And in that triumph the historian
of the Anti-Slavery Measures may justly claim to have had a
distinguished part. Honest, able, industrious, intelligent,
indefatigable, zealous for his cause, yet flexible to events, gifted at
once with practical sagacity and strong convictions, and with his whole
heart and mind absorbed in the business of politics and legislation, he
has proved himself an excellent workman in that difficult task by which
facts are made to take the impress of ideas, and the principles of
equity are embodied in the laws of the land.