The Sun.
London, England, 1834-08-14 00:00:00

THE SUN, LONDON, THURSDAY, AUGUST 14, 1844

eating Brahmin, with their Juggernauts and their Sut-
tees, to be a mild and amiable people, the life of a
woman being of no account whatever compared to the
well-being of a cow.
The proper country of the Boschmen is the Grand
Karroo, the wildest and most barren spot of all Africa,
a choice which plainly shows them to have been a per-
secuted tribe, whose best safety was in the desert.
These poor people lead a life of unmitigated hardship,
and their numbers, in consequence, are rapidly de-
clining ; but a single fact will go beyond all descrip-
tion in teaching us to appreciate their wretchedness.
" Campbell, the missionary, informs us in his Travels in
South Africa, that having met with a Boschman, he was de-
sirous of inquiring into the state of his ideas, and he accord-
ingly asked him what he thought was the worst thing a man
could do? To this question, which would prove a puzzling
one to the greater riumber of civilized beings, the Boschman
was not able to make any satisfactory reply, and his interro-
gator found it necessary to change his ground, and demanded
of him what was the best thing a man could do ? His answer
to this question was extremely affecting," observes Mr. Camp-
bell. " All my life,' said he, 4 I have seen only evil, and
never any good, therefore I cannot tell what is best.' "
Vol. I. p. 273.

Of the Caffres, Mr. Howison speaks in terms that
would be outrageous exaggeration, if applied to any
other people on the face of the earth ; it may perhaps
be true in regard to these savages. But, be it said,
Mr. Howison, though a talented man himself, has a
marvellous respect for ignorance in others, and gives
us plainly to understand, if not in so many words, at
least by inference, that the less a man knows the more
virtuous he will be; like Saint Andrew and Saint Per-
ceval, he holds fasting to be no mean portion of reli-

gion ; and speaking of our ancestors—the dear old
twaddlers !—he declares, " their prejudices and super-
stitions had a happier effect on society than the present
system of general instruction." It is, therefore, pos-
sible that his friends, the Caffres, may only be the
most barbarous of all the Africans.

Passing the chapters devoted to India, as contain-
ng no very novel views of a trite subject, we come at

once to the Arctic regions. Strange ideas cross the
fancy when in this scene of ice and desolation we find
the fossil remains of elephants, and tropical plants
imbedded in the coll formations of the country. How
have these products of warmer climates found their

way into these regions ? It is not within the limits of
probability that the vegetable and animal creations
have so essentially changed their nature as to be
adapted to a Polar climate ; and, if they have under-
gone such a change, why do we not meet with them
now in the living, as well as the fossil state ? Still
less likely is it, as some dreamers have imagined, that
the entire crust of the globe was dissolved and decom-
posed by sea-water at the time of the deluge, and soon
after was precipitated into its former state of solidity
with the admixture of shells, plants, and animal
exuvix. Rejecting these fables, we are compelled to
believe with our author, that the earth has undergone
changes which must be referred to astronomical causes,
since we know of no physical agent to have produced
so tremendous a revolution. Is it not possible that
our earth may have " three kinds of motions—one an-
nual round the sun, another diurnal upon its axis, and
a third of an exceedingly slow kind—viz., a revolution
at right angles to the ecliptic, the result of which must
evidently be to bring every part of the surface of the
earth successively under the equator, and to cause
each different country to pass through and experience
every variety of climate, hot or cold, that we are at
present acquainted with ? Our globe may, in the lapse
of countless ages, have completed this kind of revolution
several times ; but it is to be inferred from the animal
and vegetable remains found in the Arctic lands that it
has completed it once at least."

Not the least of the wonders in this icy world is

the fact, that the Esquitnaux, however inferior to
Europeans in the art of civilized life, yet far excel
some of those races, who are placed in the finest and
most favoured regions of the globe. On the Anda-
man Islands, in the Gulf of
.Bengal, are a people
that scarcely differ from the brute creation ; in the
fertile interior of Brazil we find the Puri Indians,
their prototypes in every thing except that they do
not devour their own species ; and in the forests of
Ceylon and the jungles of Mysore are communities
totally. unacquainted with the rudest arts or the sim-
plest forms of social life. And yet we must still be
doomed to hear the cuckoo song of the South being
the native 11nd of genius, while the North, both soil
and people, is destinecfsby nature to sterility.

Some diverting customs are related of the Lap-
landers, and more particularly a mode of settling dis-
putes, which has considerable advantages over the
European way of coming to the same conclusion by
the help of sword or pistol. But we pass them over
in the pursuit of matter yet more attractive. Our au-
thor asks,

Will Europe ever be subjected to a second irruption of
barbarians from the North ? and will her Governments and
her social institutions be again, at some future period, thrown
into disorder by the ravages of wandering hordes of people ?
Assuredly it would be a bsurd in her to anticipate any thing of
the kind from the quarter from whence her former
spoliators are said to. have proceeded. The mountains
of Norway, the forests of Lapland, the steppes of Siberia,
and the wastes of Tart ary, would, combined together, be un-
able to supply- a body of men formidable enough to devastate,
or even much disturb, amy one of the more civilized states of
Europe, though a Tinzurlane, or a Ghengis Khan, or a Nadir
Shah, were to organize and conduct the expedition.
" No ; the barbarian; whom civilized Europe has to dread,
and who will one day r avage her, and overturn her social in-
stitutions, and reprodurce over her whole extent what histo-
rians have called the " dark ages,' exist at home, and consti-
tute a large part of her enlightened population, and are reared
and fostered by her a s such, though it is evident that she is
unconsciously training. t hem up to become her destroyer.
" In the Scandhia.viaa mythology we are informed that the
gods, pleased with tile beauty and apparent harmlessness of
the young wolf Fen..is. nursed and educated him amongst
themselves, but that , after some time, he grew so fierce and
dangerous, that they fourd it necessary, for their own safety,
to bind him with ch: tints, which have up to the present time
restrained the exercise .0f his rage, but which he will at length
break, and, rushing fe•rth with uncontrollable fury, destroy
both gods and men.
"In this allegory wt have a correct representation of the
progress and result of 1 he diffusion of knowledge amongst the
lower orders of society in civilized countries. General edu-
cation i§ the Fenris wit ich we are now bringing up, charmed
with its external aspect , and unobservant of its real and natu-
ral character, thou gh the monster has already begun to be
formidable to his p rot( ctors, and though the hour is quickly
approaching when he will break loose, and turn upon them-
selves, and make th era his first victims.
" When the mass. of the lower orders of society in Great Bri-
tain shall have beco sufficiently enlightened and instructed
to analyze their omit condition, and to contrast it with that of
their superiors—wb en they shall perceive that the national
wealth is daily narrow .nn the sphere of its distribution, and
will at length become almost exclusively concentrated in the
hands of aristocratic, mercantile, and clerical monopolists—.
when they shall discos,. er that these bodies have no community
of interest with themse Ives, and that they wish to be regarded
as privileged, authoritative, and distinct branches of human
society, then will they bring into practical use the knowledge
that is now being diffased amongst them, and convert it into an
engine of revolution and destruction ; and, assisted by it, break
into pieces our co: nplicated social machine, and throw into
irremediable disordr itsili-assorted materials. A catastrophe of
this kind can be Payed or prevented only by the placing of
impediments in the way of the farther diffusion of knowledge
amongst the lower trasses ; since, situated as they are, and
probably ever must be, they can enjoy contentment, and live
innocently, and feel re. :;onciled to a state of subordination only
so long as they are allowed to remain ignorant and unin.
structed." Vol. 11. y . 231.
The leg!.;nd of the wolf, Fenris, is a pretty fable
enough ; but witat .has it to do with the march of in-
tellect, that per petual night-mare of the author's ima-
gination ? We doubt`, too, which most to admire, his
candour or his: :simplicity, when he allows that the
national wealth,. .is daily being absorbed into a few
hands, that the ;aristocrats of all kinds have no inte-
rests in convnorr R 'ith the many, and y,:t deplores the
spread of cclueatig n, because it is likely to break up
thisriands, t
alle soonerother. ;. monopolies. If this be the wolf,
Fenris,
grandbur
bursts
mhiassschoafininsatnlkieinbd:ttaenrrl
that is, better cor

worse for the few, who, to use his own words, " wish
to be regarded as privileged, authoritative, and distinct
branches of human society." Mr. Howison is quite
right in one point—the people are beginning to under-
' stand their own condition ; but he is quite wrong when
he fancies the threatened catastrophe is .to be delayed
by' any impediments he may oppose to the further
spread of knowledge. Has he ever seen a child en-
deavouring to check the gush of water from a water-
pipe, and receiving the broken stream in: his face for
his pains ? Such would be the inevitable result to
any one who should tamper with his impediments.
The mighty fiat has gone forth ; the march cf the
people has begun ; and the few must either join their
ranks or be trampled under foot, for the path is too
narrow to allow evasion, and their force too gigantic
for opposition.

It would be useless to analyse the remainder of
these volumes. Enough has been said to show the
nature of them, and to tempt to the perusal of a work,
which, if it brings forward no new facts nor elicits
any new truths from those already established, is yet
both pleasing and instructive.