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    740 T H E Xi E A B E R. [No. 332, Saturd...

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    ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY. Essays in. Philoso...

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    Subalpike Pictures. The Suhalpine Kingdo...

    hang her head . " Soudan " I am sure she was thinking of the village , with houses like sections of gourds dotting the dusty ground under the hot shadow ^ pafma , with leaves dry and crackling as if exhumed from a mummy-pit—of the dingy crowd of girls that collected when night , amidst which they faded so easily , came on round the margin of the well to inhale the cool air from the damp hollow—of the larae-headed , thin-legged father , who carried her out to the fields and hung her up against a tree whilst he worked—of the mother who tossed her on a sharp knee and thrust food with a spoon like a spade into her broad mouth : of all these things so different from that square room , in that square house , in that square town , no doubt she was thinking ; and let it not be supposed that I despair of human nature , if I say that that white-toothed , cold-skinned being probably understood as much why they should bring her several thousands of miles to teach her that she was in danger of damnation for worshipping a rag fluttering on a bough , as might a night f lower if you should tell it not to close its petals at dawn . At any rate , the mind that wanders to Soudan at one jump from Turin , is hardly ready for Christianity administered like medicine , in doses so many times a day . Soudan ! Soudan ! The very word had a pagan sound about it . I wonder the contemptuous-looking woman did not cross herself . She seemed perfectly at ease about the spiritual prospects of her charge , and drew our attention to her material comforts . Next he visited the apartments in which Rousseau underwent the strange process of Catechumenical ministration : —

    The men ' s department consists of two rooms ; one with two beds , the other with one . Here Kousseau stopped with his doubtful companions . " There is the same crucifix , with the grim wooden Christ , on the wall between the windows . Everything in the room is brown or dirty yellow , and the windows are so dingy that the light is stained in coming through . I could easily imagine how , without taking into account his odious companions , Rousseau , just arrived from the Savoy mountains , should have been impatient to escape from so dreary a place . Protestants are sometimes afraid of Catholicism as of an alluring religion . It does not , certainly , attempt to be so in this caao . Some minds , however , are sufficiently attracted by the voluptuous ecstasies of a creed which sets aside personal responsibility and requires no exertion ; whilst the corporal nature of others is attracted by dry lodging , and good food , and freedom from

    all pecuniary cares . But a picture of Arona has for us even more fascination than the cloisters haunted by reminiscences of Rousseau . The scene is purely Italian : — U > ng before sunrise I was out in the quiet streets of Arona , waiting for the arrival of fee steamer from Sesto Calende . The principal thoroughfare leading from the raiUtray-station has a double row of houses along the lake for some distance , after wl yfch the port runs in , and is faced by a single line of buildings , with rough porticoes , that look like ruins in the dim light of very early dawn . A few people were wandering up and down , or stood yawning here and there . They did not seem to hayte anything to do , but to be abroad from mere restlessness . A small dark cgffe wasSopen under the porticoes ,-and two or three fishermen were there taking some morAing draught . Most of the houses remained perfectly still ; but now and then , " as the thick air was , so to speak , diluted with light , one window opened , and then a second and a third , and heads were thrust out that nodded at one another , —more , I still

    think , from sleepiness than civility . The boats in the little port lay perfectly , and I could not hear a single ripple along their sides . Occasionally , however , one of them was loosened from its ring , and pushed away by a shadowy-looking figure , which , when it got the oars into play , drawled a drowsy song . There was mist above tho water , so that the little jetty was at first scarcely to be seen , and the departing boats almost immediately faded out of sight . By degrees , however , the sky above became more transparent , and seemed to throw down a kind of cold light on all objects . Houses , boats , the pale water , and some fragments of shore beyond , became distinctly visible , though without brilliancy . The steamer arrived , coming slowly into sight Tound a promontory . It was quite drenched with dew or mist . We were off before a single warm tint was on the landscape , though we could make out all such forms as were not shrouded in mist : the steep hills , or rather green precipices , behind and near Arona , with the huge bronze statue of Carlo Boromeo , looking against the sky like a black shadow thrown on a grey wall ; the inlets of the lake flying away in the direction of Lombardy and the Piedmontese fragments of the duchy of Milan ; and the tops of the mountains on all hands becoming more distinct towards the water

    as we got further from shore . The forms of objects low down were , however , quite confused . Long streaka of mist , like mirage , stretched here and there around , concealing some promontories , creating others , making the feathery trees seem to rise from the lake itself , simulating white plains and eminences of snow . All this was before sunrise . The scene rapidly changed in aspect when the golden light flowed over it . First it touched the tops of the hills on the western bank , making the rocks glow ; then it painted pink the middle slopes where the villages and villas begin ; then it glittered on the long , curved margin , thickly studded with houses , the - windows of which were for a while stained purple ; and at last began to shine on the smooth lake itself , and on the broad sails by which the boats and rafts that covered it were impelled . Meunwhile all the eastern bank remained unilluminated , except where the slanting rays , striking some up-rising object , some mountain , some grove of trees , some turret , broke as it were into many-coloured splinters , that fell irregularly around . I never saw a more beautiful beginning of day . Long before we came in sight of the Boromean Islands every trace of the night mist was gone , and lake , sky , and mountain were painfully brilliant -when we reached the landing-place of Mogadino .

    From Arquata to Genoa is a railway journey of about twenty-five miles . During the whole extent there is scarcely a piece of level and open ground . First , there is a broad gully crossed by an embankment nearly one hundred feet high ; next , a vast tunnel ; then a long narrow valley crossed by a torrent , across which the carriages roll over an arch forty feet in span . Presently , however , mighty bulwarks of mountains stand in the way : — Tunnel succeeds to tunnel , each opening into some wild and picturesque valley , quite surrounded by precipices , down which torrents spin giddily , and are lost amidst dense woods . It is impossible to imagine a more romantic journey -, but one cannot help regretting that such beautiful scenes pass by so rapidly . The rapidity ia relative , however , on tho way to Genoa ; for sometimes you climb as slowly as in a

    diligence ; and it ia only in going back that you . slide along ut a furious rate , as in a sledge down an icc-mountuin . At Buaallu we reach ( ho highest point , more than a thousand feet above the level of tho flea , pass through a tunnel of nearly two miles , and then begin to descend like " hey go mad" —inclination K 6 , 00 , 00—towards Pontedecimo . Travellers by the pass of the Bocchetta , far above , talk of tUo wonderful view obtained therefrom , and insist specially on tho sudden change of temperature and vegetation—on one aide the icy wind of tho north , on tho other a joyous and perfumed breeze—here -winter with Its frosts , there spring with its ilowcra—tho rugged fire and the larch with its sorrowful-looking branches behind ; in front the olive , the orange , and the citron trees—the misty plains of Piedmont back yonder , and tho ultramarine level of the Mediterranean ahead , aeon between the oteop olopea of tho

    valley of the Polcevera . The contrast 13 perhaps more marvellous still to the railway traveller . He leaves the banks of the Po or the Tanaro , stretching out their green surfaces , beneath perhaps a driving shower of autumn rain , dives beneath the mountains and comes out into a southern summer , in which every object is ti pped as it were by a golden or purple tint . If he arrive by night he fancies he is alreadv in a city of palaces , when he is only just entering at reduced speed the suburbs . But he remembers that Petrarch , after exhausting his eloquence to picture the wo nderful city , concludes by sayiDg that it is only surpassed by its environs , where indeed nobles and merchant princes used to retire aud spend in architectural splendour the wealth which conquest or commerce brought them . Thus , even railway travelling is picturesque in Italy . The climax of beauty is reached at Genoa : —

    Wordsworth quotes in a note to his " Excursion , ' a marvellous description by Burnet of a marvellous scene—the Alps checking their career and spreadin g their broad slopes and fields , covered with forests , and moors , and fields , and villages , and cities , down to the margin of the blue sea . We witnessed that spectacle under a cloudless heaven . The steamer left a brilliant wake behind it , as it went through the lazily serene wate ^ jfc—along the edge of which , ahead , at first in a strai ght line , and then in a semicircle , gradually thrusting out # s horns on either side , rises a white line of houses , beneath a regular and lofty range of hills . It at once strikes you that there must be some illusion . No city of that extent can exist . Where is Genoa ? you ask . They point to the centre of the great curve . All the rest is suburb—thirtv miles of houses .

    Tourists who have made the usual excursions in Italy , who have explored the vicinity of the ancient cities , who have idled at Florence and Rome , and thoroughly " done" Nap les , may strike off from Genoa by Mr . St . John ' s route , and taking a passing glance at the Piedmont capital , discover many sources of interest on the way to Aix-les-Bains and Chambery ; or , reversing this plan , may start , as he did , from the Guier , and visit the Savoyard before they visit the Italian territories .

    740 T H E Xi E A B E R. [No. 332, Saturd...

    740 T H E Xi E A B E R . [ No . 332 , Saturday ,

    Essays In Philosophy. Essays In. Philoso...

    ESSAYS IN PHILOSOPHY . Essays in . Philosophy . By Alexander Campbell Fraser , M . A ., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics , New College , Edinburgh . Hamilton and Adams . The race of Scottish Metaphysicians is not extinct with Sir William . Hamilton . Of late years , and partly in consequence of the powerful stimulus communicated to Scottish thought by the speculative originality of tbat illustrious man , a considerable number of younger Scotchmen have appeared in the lists , to maintain , by new efforts of their own , the traditional reputa tion of thoii * country in the high « iftUcr « r > £ 3 Motttj > l »^ itit < a . W « / vr *» ' *« .. «!> mistaken if the author of the present volume of Essays is not to be recognized as a conspicuous man in the very first rank of these Scottish thinkers of a new generation . That he is so recognized north of the Tweed may be inferred from the fact , announced in the preface to these Essays , that he is a candidate for Sir William Hamilton ' s vacant chair in the University of

    Edinburgh . A judgment on his claims in this respect must be pronounced by those north of the Tweed on whom it devolves officially to take care that the man who is placed in that seat—the topniost eminence in Britain , so far as Metaphysics is concerned—shall be worthy of it ; but , for ourselves , at this distance , g lancing over these Essays , it is easy to discern that here is a man who already does honour to the Scottish Philosophic school . The Essays are six in number . The fust is on " The Life and Philosophy of Leibnitz ; " the second , under the title " Hamilton and Reid : Theory of Perception , " is a review of Sir Walter Hamilton ' s edition of Reid ; the third is entitled " Scottish Metaphysics : Theory of Causation ; " the fourth is entitled " The Insoluble Problem : a Disquisition on our Ignorance of the Infinite 5 " the fifth is on " The Metaphysics of Augustinianism ; " and the

    sixth is a review of " Ferrier ' s Theory of Knowing and Being . " As may be inferred from the titles , a considerable portion of the matter of Essays is historical ; and here the author displays a wide and exact knowledge of the history and bibliography of his favourite sciences . Another considerable portion of the matter consists of expositions of the views of recent or contemporary thinkers , more especially Sir William Hamilton . Here the author shows a singular fairness , a spirit of absolute philosophic candour , as well as a capacity of seizing , so to speak , the very central knots of the speculations and systems ho is dealing with . We know not , for example , where a more comprehensive and thorough summary could be found of Sir William H « - milton ' s additions to , or modifications of , previous philosophy , than is contained in the second , third , and fourth of Mr . Eraser ' s Essays . But the of

    author does not stop here . He is not a mere historian and expounder the views of others ; he is a keen and deep critic of the opinions of the very men he most reveres ; and through the Essays , as a whole , there runs a vein of speculation in the author ' s own account , intended to obviate the defects which his criticism of contemporary thinkers has pointed out . Certain ideas which tho author evidently cherishes as fundamental in . Philosophy , and yet not sufficiently worked into tho current speculation of the time , are repented by him , in new connexions , throughout tho several Essays ; and it is by gathering these ideus together that the reader will perceive Mr . Fraser d speciality as compared with his predecessor *) , and will bo able to appreciate tho amount and direction of tho new influence he ia likely to exercise . Let us refer , in particular , to tho criticism of Sir William Hamilton's " 'Iheory of Causation" in the third Essay , as a specimen of the author ' s aeutenc-sB an < l

    independence as a roasoner . Throughout the Essays Mr . Fraser writes ns a man , accounting it tho truest duty of a Scottish teacher of metap hysics to continue the philosophic movement of which Sir William was the last reprc-. scntativo ; but in the criticism referred to , and in not a few other parts 01 tho Essays , the relation of Mr . Fraser to Sir William is that of one thinker grappling strongly in the interests of truth with an older thinker whom we loves and admires .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 2, 1856, page 20, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_02081856/page/20/