The Press. — London, England, 1854-08-26 00:00:00

810 Bell, and other writers, the beneficent design of Providence as shown in the physical con stitution of man. The description, of the heart, regarded as a machine, is very striking ; but an example less known may be selected from what the author terms the by-purposes ac complished by certain physical parts while fulfilling their primary design : All know that the air we have once breathed is less fit for breathing than it was before, and that if we breathe the same air often it becomes poisonous, through the mixture of the carbonic acid and other exhalations from the lungs. We must breathe out the air, therefore, as so much refuse ; and ample provision is made that we may do so ; and it might seem design enough fulfilled when we are thus freed from our own poison. liut is it nit an admirable secondary design, an admirable frugality, a true wisdom by the-way, that, with this same air we speak ; thatthis, which we must cast out lest it destroy us, should be used for one of the noblest powers of man ? Surely, one might have sosed, for so great a purpose as the communion of human thoughts, and for all that speech and vocal melody can achieve, there would be contrived some matchless in strument, some rare material. But no : the instruments of human speech are scarcely more complex organs than those which dumb creatures have to breathe and feed with and the material for human speech carries out the refuse of the blood ; the very dross of the body is used for the outage of the mind. Many passages of this kind, while illus trating important principles of physiology, add at the same time to our conceptions of natural theology ; and we may express here the great pleasure we have experienced at observing that the eminent men who have taken part in this course have practically shown how nearly are allied—or rather how inseparably are con nected—the highest scientific knowledge with the most reverential feeling. We must not conclude our notice of this discourse without remarking that the modesty of the author goes hand-in-hand with his knowledge and wisdom. He indicates one source of error to be avoided in all physiologi cal studies : In other, and especially in the physical, sciences I think it is only the master or the advanced student who is im pressed with their uncertainty. In them, speaking gene rally, that which is taught admits of clear proof; and im perfection is not spoken of, except, as it were, at the distant boundaries of a vast body of truth. But, in physiology, the teacher would need everywhere to mark the imperfections of his knowledge ; iu the very rudiments, he must speak of things as only, in various degrees, probable. 2. Dr. Hodgson's lecture on economic science is, from its nature, less capable of practical and amusing illustration. It commences with a profound remark by Professor Forbes—" that " it is the nature of the human mind to desire " and seek a law "—and the opening sentences are devoted to an eloquent commentary on this axiom : Not to the ignorant or careless eye, however, does law anywhere reveal itself. 'The discovery of its traces is the student's rich and ever fresh reward. To men in general, the outward sense reports only a number of detached phenomena ; their relations become gradually apparent to him only whose mental vision is acute enough, and whose gaze is steady enough, to behold them. Science, therefore, consists not in the accumulation of hete rogeneous facts,—any more than the random uppiling of stones is architecture,—but iu the detection of the prin ciples which co-relate facts even the most dissimilar and anomalous, and of the order which binds the parts into a whole. Science is, in brief, the pursuit of law ; and the history of science is the record of the steps by which man in this pursuit rises through classifications, of which the last is ever more comprehensive than its predecessors, from the complexity of countless individuals to the simplicity of the group, and from the diversity of the many, at least towards the oneness of the universal. Dr. Hodgson then proceeds to infer, from the facts of society, and from the wonderful results of civilisation continually before us, that there must be a law regulating the move . - ments of society, and that economic science rests on as sure a foundation of fact as any other science. When, however, we looked for an exposition of some of the leading principles of this science, we were disappointed to find that Dr. Hodgson failed really to grapple with his subject. " The laws or conditions," he says, " which determine human well-being " are really as fixed and absolute as are the " laws of planetary motion." Thus far our curiosity was highly raised, and we looked for at least some outline of that law which it is to be supposed that the lecturer had so clearly fixed in his mind. But, after a sketch of industrial progress considered as a fact in the world's history, he remarks : It is not possible here or now to extract from even this most hasty skei eh the merely theoretic principles which it involves. This is the business of a long course of lectures, and it is not, besides, my purpose to expound economic THE PRESS. science itself, any further than may be indispensable to show its importance as a branch of general instruction. Let us rather look at some of the groat practical lessons that may be deduced from it for the guidance of individual conduct. We think that Dr. Hodgson has not here treated his audience and his hearers fairly. In these lectures we look for some indication of those leading principles on which the sciences they relate to depend ; and, after Dr. Hodgson had so elaborately commented on the beauty and importance of the laws of economic science, we do not think that he should have contented himself with a sketch of facts and results. Towards the close of his discourse, in drawing so copiously for his illustrations from writers of the style of Mr. Dickens and Mr. Carlyle, the lecturer took too low a measure of the mind of his public. We are satisfied that there can be no greater mistake than for a professor engaged in the illustration of scientific truth to attempt to degrade his style to the level of a railway bookstall. By relying on the intrinsic worth of his subject, and on the power of thought and knowledge to render it attractive, we are satisfied he is likely to succeed better, even as a popular• lecturer, than by endeavouring to render it merely amusing, or to accommodate it to mean • capacities. There is some merit in the author's sketch of the rise and progress of industry and wealth; but his lecture is not one of the most successful of the series. History of the Reiyns of Louis XVIII. and Charles X. By Eyre Evans Crowe. Lon don : Bentley. THOUGH we have no recollection of Mr. Crowe's former history of France, we are happy now to afford him frank recognition as a historic writer of great intelligence, industry, and talent. His style is clear, his language well suited to his matter, and, from the copious ness of his facts and their consecutive arrange• ment, his narrative has a smooth and rapid flow which sustains attention even amid the complicated details of French politics. Most persons will think it a fault that the history is exclusively confined to political events : some notice of the social progress made by the French people during the two reigns would have been generally acceptable, and would have made the narrative more complete. As it is, the work has rather more of the charac ter of a memoir than of a history, and particu larly in the later chapters, where Mr. Crowe describes, from personal observation, the incidents of the July revolution. His long residence in France gives authority to his conclusion3,and disposes us to place confidence in his general accuracy. It is one of the main objects of the work to traee the causes which have, after many ex periinents, and some of them partially suc cessful, prevented the French people from establishing constitutional government on a solid and durable basis. The inquiry is a curious. one, and those disposed to enter on it will find weighty matter for meditation in Mr. Crowe's pages. He supposes that a despotic can succeed to a free government with more advantages than the contrary action can take place, as the absolute ruler by the free discussion which has prevailed is made acquainted with the wants and wishes of the people, while a prince who founds a constitutional system on the ruins of a despotism has no light thrown on the history of the past by which he may shape his government. Hence it is concluded that Napoleon began his rule with better know ledge of the social institutions required than it was possible for Louis XVIII. to attain. The King began his reign under the greatest difficulties, and it says much for his good sense and amiable disposition that he was enabled to conclude it without any violent convulsion. Twenty five years of proscription and exile had greatly diminished the royalist influence ; the military dynasty of Napoleon had taken firm root in the land ; Louis came in the train of the victors who had overthrown the French chivalry on one of the bloodiest plains it had ever known. He had to receive terms of peace sufficiently humiliating to France, though more seasonable than she could consistently have expected from the SATURDAY, hands of the allies, and the kingdom was bur dened with heavy payments for the expenses of the war. The King was, however, fortunate in his first Minister, the Duo de Richelista, who, from his influence with Alexander, ob tained some mitigation of the terms at first insisted on by the allies, but it was not with out great pain that the Due so far overcame his feelings as a Frenchman as to affix his signature to the protocol : " All is finished," wrote the duke to his sister, Madame de Montcalm. " I signed this fatal treaty more dead than alive. I swore not to do so, and announced my determina tion to the King. The unhappy prince conjured me„ bursting into tears, not to abandon him. 1 could not hesitate. lam sure no one could have obtained more or as much. France, expiring under the weight of calamities, demanded a prompt delivereuce." A yet more difficult task was to establish a. system of government which would secure to France all the advantages of rational freedom. while affording securities for the safety of the throne. On the whole, this problem was satin• factorily solved ; the King was earnest in his desire to rule as a constitutional monarch ; he knew how to distinguish between factions and parties, and managed to prevent any collision between his Government and the Chambers ; but he foreboded, from the violent character of his brother, that he would not be equally fortunate. In answering a remon strance from the Count d'Artois against his system of government, he said : I cannot without a shudder look forward to the instant when 1 shall close my eyes. You will find yourself then between two parties, one of which deems itself oppressed by me, whilst the other fears to be oppressed by you. Will you embrace one of the two? Do not deceive yourself. Civil war, and all its evils, will be the inevitable consequence. Will you seek to conciliate both? 1 tell you with grief, but truth, that, like Henry IV., you will be ac cused of ingratitude on one side, and duplicity on the other. If to succeed is difficult for me, who follow the middle line, how much more difficult will it be for you, who have pro trounced for one side of the question ! Ido not ask you to approve of the invariable resolution that 1 bare taken. Time and reflection will bring you to it; and the last momenta of my life, now surrounded by such sombre prospects, may yet expand into happy days. When the King was dying he renewed his warning to his brother still more emphati- tally : I have tacked between parties, like Henry IV. Unlike him, I die in my bed, and in the Tuileries. Do us 1 have done, and you will reach the same end of pence. I pardon whatever annoyance you may have caused me, for the hopes I entertain of your conduct as king. But, added the dying monarch, pointing to the Luc de Bordeaux, who was brought in, let Charles the Tenth take care of the crown for that boy. The prescience of the King did not fail him. He all along, and to the last, foresaw, as Charles 11. of England did, that his brother and successor would dis inherit the dynasty and prostrate the throne. On the ldth of September, 1824, Louis XVIII. ceased at once to live and to reign. The result showed the King's sagacity. When Charles Y. declared that he would never charge his Ministers to please the Chambers, he at once overthrew the system which his predecessor had laboured to estab lish, and denied the first principle of constitu tional government which requires the execu tive to be in agreement with the legislative power. The obstacles which constitutional govern ment had to encounter in France are clearly indicated in different passages of Mr. Crowe's book. Oue of the most formidable was found in the intolerance of the factions which divided France : That the French people should so often, so long, and so tranquilly resign themselves to the assumption of des potic power by their rulers, yet display such impatience under a reign permitting a certain degree of freedom, has been and remains a source of irremovable and unabated aston i s h m ent. History explains it, unfortunately, by the fact that a regimen of freedom is always made use of by some extreme and frantic party to enforce vengeance, attempt reaction, and conduct the Government alter wild and visionary views, instead of accepting and providing for the wants and wishes of the present. Freedom in France always becomes the rule of faction ; whereas absolute power there has been assumed by dictators, and especially by Bonapartist dictators, for the avowed purpose of setting aside, or crushing under foot, extreme factions, allowing the enemies and victims of the lately-dominaut party to repose in security, and giving to the masses of the indus trious the power of pursuing their avocations, undisturbed by the threats and the follies of political maniacs. Those powers and statesmen who restored Louis XVIII . to his throne in 1814 and in 1815 did not sufficiently take into account that constitutional govenimr nt is the rule of party, and that a sovereign who may not always escape such influence, even when possessed of absolute power, can scarcely hope to abstract himself from it as a consti tutional king. But representative government was con emplated in the final results which it had produced in \