The Press.
London, England, 1858-12-11 00:00:00

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1218 THE PRESS, DECEMBER 11, 1858.

to the understanding" by which the discovery of
a "form" through that method may be promoted.
He went no further, however, than to exhibit
the first of the nine, which is the list of " Prero-
gatives of Instances" with which the treatise
breaks off. In several of his chapters we seem
to see that Dr. Whewell has had in view to fill
up to a certain extent the outline which Bacon
left behind him. Thus, Bacon proposed a section
on " Varying the investigation according to the
nature of the subject" ; Dr. Whewell has a chap-
ter on " Special methods of induction applicable
to quantity; " possibly Bacon's " Prerogative
Natures with respect to Induction" might be
what Dr. Whewell means by the appropriate
ideas on which each inductive process must be
based ; and the " Preparations for Investiga-
tion" of the earlier might correspond to the
" Facts as the materials of Science" of the later
philosopher. The " application to practice " of
the one, and the " application of inductive
truths" of the other, would no doubt coincide;
and the Inductive Tables of Astronomy and
Optics—one of Dr. Whewell's principal and most
ingenious achievements displaying in their
downward course the order of discovery, and in
their upward its verification, would probably
answer both to Bacon's " Ascending and descend-
ing scale of axioms," and to his " Rectification of
Induction." Thus six out of Bacon's nine pro-
cesses—so far as we can conjecture what they
would have been—are more or less adequately
represented by his modern disciple.
How far Dr. Whewell has really completed
the task which Bacon left behind him, is another
question. Of the three writers who have applied
themselves to a similar object—the two others
being Sir John Herschel and Mr. J. S. Mill—
Dr. I%Thewell is by far the most minute and cir-
cumstantial in his analysis, and most complete in
his enumeration of all the processes which con-
tribute to the establishment of an inductive
truth. But although every aspect of these pro-
cesses is copiously stated and illustrated in clear
language, and sometimes with remarkable feli-
city of expression, we still desiderate a more
methodical unity of structure than the work
actually presents. If we were to say that,
although elaborate, it was confused and clumsy
in arrangement, we should use terms expressing
a stronger dislike than we really feel ; but, after
all, that is the kind of impression which the book
really makes. There are certain kinds of books
on the same or on cognate subjects in which the
plan at once recommends itself, and in which the
parts seem naturally to grow out of each other.
Arnott's " Elements of Physics " and Sir John
Herschel's " Introduction to the Study of
Natural Philosophy" are examples of what we
mean. There are other books in which the
reader is carried on, and lifted, as it were, step
by step along with the writer, so that a body of
results is gradually built up by means of the
solution of successive difficulties, a method of
which Mr. Mill's " Logic " is, for the most part.
a conspicuous instance. But Dr. Whewell's
work, with a great parade of books, chapters, and
sections—whether owing to a want of judgment
in selecting the names for his leading divisions,
or too great an anxiety to say everything, some-
where or other, that can possibly be said—is not
unlikely, we think, to perplex a reader who
strives to gain a simple and general view of the
subject. We speak especially of Books 11. and
111., which contain the pith of the present
volume. We have never been quite able to see
why the former should be headed " Of Know-
ledge," and the latter, "Of Methods em.byed in
the Formation of Science "—as if the knowledge
which is reached by induction were something
different from science. Instead, too, of proceed-
ing in what would seem the most natural course,
from the most vaguely observed facts up to the
most general and abstruse laws, and showing what
processes were necessary at each stage to clear
the ideas involved, Dr. Whewell begins by con-
sidering " conceptions," and makes the " explica-
tion" of these, and the " collegation of facts," the
two principal " processes by which science is
constructed." It is not till we come to the suc-
ceeding chapter that we find instructions given
for dealing with the facts by decomposing and
measuring them. We also think that the chap-
ter on the " Logic of Induction" will seem very
inadequate to any one acquainted with the very
able logical treatises that have lately appeared,
and that no sufficient attempt has been made to

exhibit in its formal aspect the cogency of the
evidence by which we believe the truth of propo-
sitions in physical science.
We have always been obscurely conscious of
some drawback in the "Philosophy of the In-
ductive sciences," which prevented it from pro-
ducing the effect which both the author's high
reputation and the mass of valuable matter
which it undoubtedly contains would seem to
demand. A reperusal of it in its altered shape
has served to strengthen this impression. In the
columns of a newspaper it is hardly possible to
convey such a view, except in a somewhat de-
sultory manner; but we are confident that any
one who will compare Sir J. Herschel, Mr. Mill,
and our author, will come to a nearly similar
conclusion respecting the comparative merit of
the latter, in the points to which we have
alluded. Dr. Whewell's work has, in many of
its features, by this time taken up a position be-
yond the reach of our criticism ; but, in so far as
it assumes to have completed what Bacon left
undone, we believe that it falls short of the mark
at which it aims. Hardly anything but a fresh
recast of the two principal chapters would entitle
it to the name of a renovated Novum Organon.

Having thus testified to the value of Mr.
Simcox's labours, we may perhaps be permitted
to suggest an improvement to be adopted in
future editions. It is simply the insertion of a
frontispiece in either volume. In the first, we
should behold the " fils d'Ulysse," diving from a
beetling crag like a sea-gull into the deep, while
his travelling tutor stands exulting aloft, with
hoary hair streaming, meteor-like, on the troubled
air; and in the second, the pious youth would be
seen beside the smoking altar, gazing aghast at
the upsoaring figure of the goddess. We have
omitted to mention that the right of translation
is not reserved.

2. Were the course of true love impeded by
as many obstacles in real life as in the imaginings
of poets and tale-writers, the demand for wedding-
rings would suffer a notable decline. The
" Maiden Sisters" is an excellent example of the
ingenuity that may be displayed in devising all
sorts of unnecessary discomfort for two loving
hearts. Colonel Oliphant, a clever man of the
world, becomes desperately enamoured of a
blue-eyed damsel of the eau sacrie order, and his
attachment is softly reciprocated. Apparently
there is no earthly reason why those two persons
should not be joined together in holy matrimony
in less than two hundred pages. But, somehow,
the Colonel is always interrupted in the middle
of the momentous question, and then a series of
unaccountable misunderstandings intervenes, and
both swain and sweetheart are made supremely
wretched and ridiculous. By the way, a perusal
of the " Maiden Sisters" might tend to correct
Mr. Bright's very crude notions as to the habits
and manners of the aristocracy. Nothing can be
more charmingly middle-class than the addiction
to tea and bread-and-butter, at all hours, on the
part of Lord Johnny and his amiable and accom-
plished sisters. For anything that appears to
the contrary it might be the family of a retired
cheesemonger to which we are introduced at
Houghton-hall. Although lachrymose effusions
are too much the order of the day throughout
the volume, there are occasional glimpses of
humour in the delineation of Phil Kerr, a care-
less, hairbrained boy fresh from the Cape. Ile
becomes somewhat of a nuisance towards the
latter part of the story, but the conception of his
character is the redeeming point amidst an over-
powering mass of twaddle and commonplace
pathos. His mother, Norah, however, is also
passable, but the other dramatis persona are
wholly uninteresting, and the "drama" itself is
far too artificial to please either critics or general
readers.

1. The Adventures of Telemachus. Translated
into English Verse by E. W. Simeox. In
Two Vols. London : Longmans.
2. Maiden Sisters. A Tale. By the Author of
" Dorothy." London : J. W. Parker and
Son.
3. The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table : Every
Man his Own Boswell. By 0. W. Holmes.
London : Hamilton, Adams, and Co.

1. MR. EDWIN W. Simcox is a benefactor to
mankind. He has solved the important problem
of ascertaining the number of English verses
equivalent to a metrical translation of " Les
Aventures de Telernaque, Fils d'Ulysse." Had he
been less ambitiously disposed, he might have
calculated the time in which a snail could crawl
round the greatest circumference of the ter-
restrial globe, and this mental exercise he might
have diversified by allowing that strictly do-
mestic creature so many hours a day for sleep,
for recreation, and for refection. With not
less ingenuity he might have estimated how
many shillings, sixpenny pieces, and fourpenny
" bits" could be poured into the inverted dome
of St. Paul's. Or, with equally commendable in-
dustry, he might have counted the grains of
sand required to make one mile of the rope which
Michael Scot's indefatigable fiend failed to
achieve. Had any one of these interesting
question' arrested the attention of Mr. Simcox,
the world might for ever have remained ignorant
of the fact that the twenty-four books devoted
by the pious Archbishop of' Cambrai to the wan-
derings of Telemachus and the wise precepts of
Mentor may be rendered into 19,798 lines of
English verse. Two extracts will suffice to illus-
trate the style in which this great task has been
accomplished. It is thus that Calypso is repre-
sented as bewailing the departure of Ulysses, and
esteeming herself miserable for being im-
mortal :

3. It is evidently easier for every man to be
his own Boswell than to be his own Johnson.
Or it may be that Mr. Wendell Holmes merely
Intends to show what manner of man the great
lexicographer would have been had he lived at a
boarding-house in America instead of associatins,
with the intellectual world of London. If such
be the case, we congratulate the Doctor on his
escape from being the greatest bore as well as
the greatest bear of his time, or indeed of any
time. These desultory lucubrations on things in
general and nothing in particular have already
appeared in the Atlantic Monthly Magazine, and
are now reproduced for the benefit of the British
public, who will feel but little gratitude for the
favour. And yet they are not without merit,
though disfigured by conceit, affectation, and
intolerable egotism. They are supposed to be
the opinions expressed by the American Johnson
at a breakfast-table at a boarding-house, seem-
ingly frequented by very vulgar people. Occa-
sionally the tedium of the sage reflections in prose
is attempted to be relieved by humorous and
sentimental pieces in verse, but on the whole
with very partial success. Still, as we have
already intimated, here and there one may
alight
on a passage not unpleasant to read, or unprofit-
able to remember. The following anecdote, for
instance, is both amusing and suggestive :

Calypso, wandering on the breezy coast
Of her green island, mourned Ulysses lost.
Such was her woe she longed in vain to die—

In •ain hexaile,l her immnrUilite.—

Nnrnore her tuneful voice's gladdening sound

Delightful rang her caverned grotto round ;
No more her duteous nymphs to serve her press,
No more they dare their sorrowing queen address.
Lonely she paced the green turf's flowery bound,
With which eternal spring had gernm'd her island round.
These haunts delicious, tar from calming grief,
Revived anew the memory of her chief,
Her loved, her lost Ulysses—whose dear hand

She oft had duped while moving o'er that strand.
Then motionless she stood, and weeping sore,
Bedewed with briny tears the thirsty shore ;
Her eyes still ben ling on the horizon's verge,
Where the sky's concave met the distant surge:

..
T tixt point still watching where her hero's sail
Had, from her longing eyesight, seemed to fail.

Sometimes, but rarely, one mcy be caught making the
same speech twice over, and yet be held blameless. Thus,
a certain lecturer, after performing in an inland city, where
dwells a Litteratrice of note, was invited to meet her and
3there over the social tea-cap. She pleasantly referred to
his many wanderings in his new occupation. " Yes; he
replied, " T am like the Hums, the bird that never liFthts.:
being always in the cars, as he is always on the wing.
Years elapsed. The lecturer visited the same place
once more for the same purpose. Another social cap
after the lecture, and a second meeting with the distin-
guished lady. " You are constantly going from place to
place," she said. " Yes," he answered, I am like the
klams,"—and finished the sentence as before. What

Passing lightly over 19,770 lines, we arrive at
our second quotation, with which the poem fitly
closes :
The goddess ceased, and, rising in the air,

IVrapt in a cloud with gold and azure fair,
So disappeared. The Prince, astonished all,
With hands upraiaed to Heaven, to earth did fall :
Then his companions swift awakened he,

And, voyaging the intervening sea,
To Ithaca he came, and, joyful, knew
His father dwelling with Eumcetts true.