New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1855-06-05
NEW PUBLICATIONS.

sly fsar soerrrr By GrOner FrIsHUeH Pp. $40, limo
Richmond, Va la5a
There is one fact in the intellectual history Of
the United States worthy Of more notice than
has vet been bestowed upon it-a fact which can
not be without decisive weight in the ultimate
settlement Of many great pending questions.
However our slsve-holding brethren may have
domineered politically over the North in every
thing else speculative or practical, 10 religion,
literature. science arts, and industry, they have
ALWAYS been our very humble pupils and imits-
tors. always certain, however reluctant, to
follow us at last-though often 30 far behind us
not unfreQuently to take up our ideas as new as
well as trae, just as We are beginning to lay
them aside as erroneous, or atleast as insufficient
The Anti-Slavery agitation has produced an
effect at the North upon philosophical specula-
ton far more decisive than upon politics. The
Inquiries which it has set on foot as to the true
basis. the extent and the limitations Of authorl-
ty have interfered to q very serious extent with
old established opinions in morals and theology,
and have led to many new and to some rather
startling suggestions. Discussions as to the
theory Of society have been very active among
us for quite a number of years. The South
too, il would seem, is at length beginning to
feel the magnetic influence of these dis
csssionr, disturbing the torpid stagnation
Of even planter brains, and beginning to breed
therein some very curious maggots. The work
named at the head Of this article is pretty
fair specimen of the sort of creature produced
by current of Anti-slayery galyaasm brought
TO operate for sufficient length Of time upon
the Theoretically sealed head of Virginia slave
holder Mr.. Crosses famous experiment so
much insisted upon in the Festiges Of Grafton,
produced, we believe, only new species
if it was new species-of the old and we'll
known genus bug. The product obtained on
the present occasion may prove perhaps ABOUT
equally eigniied in the scale OF intehectuai
creation and equally useful. Yet, as IN Mr.
Crosses case, the phenomenon is well entitled
TO the most serious consideration. In Mr..
Crosses case the great thing was to give origin
10 animal life, no matter of how humble char-
acter, by chemical means In the case OF the
Shareholders, the great thing is to get them to
think at all. Give us no matter how humble
and disgusting an insect to begin with, pro-
duced BY merely chemical action, and there are
hopes of producing in time no less an animal
than man himself. And that productive ac-
tivity of Southern intellect which be-
gins with such productions as Mr.. fltz-
hughs Sociology may yet end in giving birth
to some philosophic speculation honorable to
its author and edifying to the world at large.
The feeble and tottering steps Of the child be-
ginning to learn to walk must be duly encour-
aged and admired, though in these first efforts it
runs the risk of breaking its own head, and so
far as its feebleness enables it, of breaking other
things too. Yet beginning with these staggering
and abortive attempts at locomoton, though it
never may accomplish the object of its infant
ambition by actually jumping over the moon, it
may yet presently acquire the useful and indeed
necessary accomplishments of being able to
stand, to walk, and torun So, it is really delight
full to find our Southern brethren are begin
ming to perceive that for human locomotion
in its full sense the use of the understanding is
necessary as well as that of the legs, and we
cordially welcome the first faint public indi-
cation Of c0ncatenaton of ideas to be found
in Mr.. Fitzhughs book as an earnest of better
things to come.
Inconsistency, self contradiction, failure to
perceive the bearing of two or more propositions
on each other, is chief Characteristic of all in
FAINT attempts at speculation-and this is striking
" eyinced in the case Of Mr.. Fitzhugh. Thus
he claims for himself the honor of having been
the first to write the Justifeatios and Phtoso-
phu of Slarery," he puts forward the collec-
ton of rambling newspaper articles which
make up his book, as philosophical trea-
ti.e. and the doctrines which he advocates
as a discover ~ novelty . -ti'Nfr ',ica. pana-
cea, while at the very same time he scouts all
philosophy and holds up philosophers as a set Of
ridiculous visionaries! There is not" says
Mr.. Fitzhugh, ga true moral philosophy and
he uses the word moral in opposition to physical
-" and from the nature Of things there never can
be" Up. IL. philosophers are the most abstract
ed, secluded and least observant of men. Their
premises are always false, because they see few
facts, and hence their conclusions must be false
And without doubt this description applies per-
fectly well to Mr.. Fitzhugh, and the school of
philosophical defenders of Slavery of which he
claims to be the founder, busted as it is in
basing preposterous conclusions upon imaginary
premises.
Nevertheless it must be confessed that in the
proposition from which Fitzhugh sets out, and
which has gives birth to bis book there is
certain just logical perception of conse-
quences. The persevering bombardment kept
up by the Abolitionists for the last twenty years