The Sun.
London, England, 1863-10-15 00:00:00

and the ridges of "purple amethyst," whence could
be viewed Oehit, Preston Bay, and Berwick Law.
Our "gentle dulness" on this side of the border
" dearly loves a joke," and Scotchmen have ecea-
sionally enjoyed one, even at the expense of Edin-
burgh; for was it not in that metropolis that, re-
ferring to the cry of " Gardez l'eau," once so rife in
her streets—a cry silenced by social science—the
audacious critic affected to doubt, " Edinburgh has
been called the Modern Athens, but we trust that no
one will suppose this to be the strongest point of
similitude." Nothing is more obvious than the point
of view whence these and similar gatherings may
be triumphantly disparaged. They are convened,
it may be said, for purposes of talk. But talk is a
great thing in the life of a nation. Parliament is an
institution of talk. Literature is talk in a particu-
lar form. Constitutionalism itself depends upon
talk. There never was anything great or good done
without being prefaced by a struggle of talk. It may
be granted that, in all associations, a certain amount
of freedom is permitted to gentlemen—and ladies, of
whom the president might ask, " Why waste your
time anti me ? "—but that is unavoidable. And, as
Lord Brougham observed in his inaugural speech
to the congress, if the social reforms for which the
association labours are not all in course of being
carried out we are guilty of an unjustifiable imps.
tience, upon the one hand, in despairing because
humanity does not expand as quickly as vapour,
and of inconsistency, upon the other, in deprecia-
ting those voluntary organisations of thinking and
energetic individuals which prevent mankind from
forgetting its own claims in its artificial form, that
of an aggregated and mutually dependent society.
We are glad that the Social Science Congress at
Edinburgh does not restrict its survey to the topics
suggested by Lord Brougham, eloquent and lumi-
nous though his exposition of them was. An inte-
rest is felt, of course, in this country in the eman-
cipation of the Russian serfs, in the civic liberties of
the Poles, in the half-budded constitutionalism of
Germany, in the relations of Austria and France, in
Austria as she stands in Venice, and in Franco as she
stands at Rome. We are all concerned, moreover,
with the efforts of those who would complete the
work of Wilberforce, and everywhere set free the
slave. But we may take a hint from a medical
orator who spoke on the first day of this month to
the students of one of our London colleges. "I
respect the inferior creation," be said, " but I will
not sacrifice to them and the mercy they claim the
sacred lives of my fellow-creatures." We may have
sympathies for the negro and sympathies for Poland,
bat we have our harvests of social progress to sow,
and cultivate, and reap at home. There is crime to
be checked and the criminal to be reclaimed ; there
is justice to be made more certain without being
more rigorous; there are the poor to be educated
and guaranteed against the extremes of moral,
spiritual, and physical destitution. We have a
large class of friendless, unprotected, and innocent
young women and girls to ba protected ; there is
that monster of night and day, the supreme evil
of our great cities, to be grappled with and con-
quered ; there is its bloody handmaiden, the
child murderess, to be disciplined out of her great,
awful, and dark temptation. These are the grand
sanitary and social questions with which some fear-
less minds, represented at the Edinburgh Congress,
will have yet to cope. We commend them to the
advocates and friends of this beneficent and compre-
hensive movement. No fair-spirited discussion can
leave out of sight the subjects even now brought
before the congress—the system of registering
deaths, the state of domestic servants, the drainage,
lighting, and ventilation of towns, the prosperity or
failure of co-operative societies and savings banks;
but with all their singleness and honesty of put-
pose, the members of the Social Science Congress,
now congregated at Edinburgh, appear to flinch
from their highest duties, and from wrestling with
those mighty, mysterious, and complicated problems
before which even the liberty of the press, in a
social sense, recoils. The debate must be carried on
in the upper regions, or the final vote will be indeci-
sive. This Social Science is a science of more vast
proportions than is imagined by the authors of the
essays it provokes ; recognising all the merit, all
the sincerity, all the talent now in the zenith of
Scotland, we are bound to look beyond them, and
discern immense social paradoxes with which Social
Science to this day has had nothing to do.
POST.—Since the reception given by the Arch-
duke Maximilian to the deputation of the Mexican
" notables," some ten days since, the public mind
has become less anxious in respect to the ultimate
results of French intervention in Mexico. When at
the time commenting on the nature of the reply
given by the Archduke to the address of the depu-
tation, we spoke of it as satisfactory, no one, except
perhaps sanguine speculators on the Stock Ex-
change, supposed that the acceptance of the prof-
fered throne would be absolutely unconditional. In.
fact, there can be no reason to doubt that the terms
of the Archduke's acceptance were settled on long
before the deputation set out for Trieste, and that
they were such as met with the approval of the
Power most interested in seeing its operations in
Mexico brought to a successful issue. When we
call to mind the great difficulties which the Euro-
pean Powers experienced in finding a Prince to fill
the vacant Throne of Greece, we cannot but feel
surprise at the comparative facility with which an
occupant has been found for the Mexican Throne.
In Greece, a people partly dissatisfied with their
form of government, overturned the existing dy-
nasty, and with a unanimity of whose gennineness
there could be no doubt, invited in succession several
princes to accept their empty Throne, Whatever
may be the doubts, if any, which harass the mind of
King George, none can arise respecting the loyalty
of the people whom he N about to govern. Of the
adherents of the previous Sovereign who are still
to be found in Greene there are none who would
seriously gOll template a counter-revolution in favour
of the exiled Otho. But in Mexico affairs stand on
a very different footing. The unanimity of the po-
pulation in substituting an Empire for a Republic
is a fact which is still to be proved. When con-
versing with the members of the deputation, the
Archduke Maximilian directed especial attention to
the fact that at least threeefourths of the population
had not as yet bad an opportunity of confietninte
with their votes the decision of the Provisional
vernment which invited him to accept the h;gh office
of Emperor of Mexico. It has of late years become
the fashion to =duet the election of Kings and
Emperors after the same manner which determines
the choice of an American President ; and, if Mexico
is to substitute an gmpire for a Republic, it is by
universal suffrage alone that the change is to be
effected. The people are to speak for themselves,
and, whim they have spoken, their decision is to be
received as if it were a decree of Providence, What-
ever objections some
the propoee might be inclined to offer to
4 mode of ,procedure, such objections
possess hut little weight so long as the parties im-
mediately interested profess themselves content. In
the foundation of the new Empire, the approval of
the majority of the Mexican people is declared to be
a condition precedent, and the Archduke, under
such circumstances, is compelled to postpone his un-
qualified acceptance of the throne until that condi-
tion is fulAlled, The plebrseite which will pronounce
hint the elected Sovereign of the Mexican people is
not, however, the only condition on which the Aus•
trian Prince has based his acceptance of the proffered
Crown. In that ambiguous language which seems to
be peculiar both to Sovereigns and Ministers of State
on occasions when of all others the multitude are
desirous that they should speak intelligibly and
without reserve, the Archduke Maximilian referred
to the guarantees which he would require to secure,
at least for a term, the independence of the infant
monarchy. It is indeed much to be regretted that
he did not more explicitly define what it was he re-
quired before consenting to link his fortunes with
that of the Mexican empire, because, had he dose so,
much needless misapprehension would have been
obviated. One of the many suppositions to which
the use of the word "guarantees" gave rise was
that he entertained expectations of receiving an en-
gagement front Great Britain to protect the new
Government from foreign and domestic aggression,
Accepting such a construction, it is needless to say
that the imposition of such a condition would be
tantamount to refusing the Crown, England with-
drew from the intervention in Mexico as soon as she

saw the peculiar character with which France de-
sired to invest it, and now that matters have been
bronght to an apparently successful termination, it
would be utterly foreign to her invariable policy to
experimentalise in the creation of a novel form of
government ia a country in which she feels no ex-
traordinary personal interest. England doubtless
has, like other nations, a mission, but the field of her
labours lies for the most part At home. It would be
absurd to suppose that the Archduke Maximilian is
not perfectly aware of all this ; and therefore, as
there is no reason for believing that hp intended
wilfully to mislead the Mexican 4epAtation by ap-
pearing to comply with their wishes, whilst .lareality definitively-refusing the Throne offered for
his acceptance, it must be presumed that a Britisohr
protectorate did not occur to his thoughts
referred to guarantaeteasr.i,
it
fisthe4retfeon:
French Government and 02 drench ii to Which the
the newll eI 1G
he
o -
bnie'ail. thing at least
prepared to r, i;7, poi9r t 0 -see, People will be
not easy to form an
opinion,
t
that the French Emperor has
risk of seems certain, namely,
expenses incidental to the not incurred the heavy
encountered the Mexican expedition, and
an ignominious failure,
merely to withdraw at
sanguine hopes have the moment when his most
been realised, He has not
defeated the army of ; oare, taken possession of the
capital of itie,iio ''d
seen a Provisional Govern-
ment established ready
to carry his wishes into effect
only at the last moment to withdraw his army and
allow the partizans of the subverted Government
°ace more to re-estabi h ig, that state og
;,ropyan,— I