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Leader (1850-1860), 15th January 1853, Edition Country of 2, Page 16, It is curious to observe the inaccurate ...

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      G 4 The Leader. Tsattmiutf,

      g THE LEADER . tSATtmiutf ,

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      Critics Are Not The Legislators, But The...

      Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws-tley interpret and try to enforce them .-EdtnburffhRevtew .

      It Is Curious To Observe The Inaccurate ...

      It is curious to observe the inaccurate estimates men form of the value of evidence . The unscientific mind is scarcely ever impressed by scientific so much as by personal or historical evidence . The testimony of the respectable Jones to a physical impossibility is of more value in ordinary eyes than the emphatic evidence of a scientific law . We had an amusing illustration of this not long ago . Our observations on Spontaneous Combustion were altogether unconvincing to a gentleman , who declared , "He didn't care what science taught , he , for his part ^ had heard of too many well-authenticated cases to doubt the fact of spontaneous combustion . He remembered reading , a few years ago , a most circumstantial account of one in ( eredat Judceus /)—the Chelmsford Chronicle . " Here a newspaper

      statement of a marvel was thought of more value than the plain teaching of science , because the speaker could not realize the fact , that every law in science is the generalized expression of thousands of reiterated evidences ; and therefore , although the law may subsequently be resolved into some higher law , and may turn out to be not a law , but a large generalization , yet , nevertheless , before it could ever have been accepted as a law , it must have had evidence far surpassing that of the most " respectable" testimony , when that testimony is indirect , as it almost universally is in scientific questions—that is to say , when the testimony is not limited to a fact , but to a fact carrying a theory along with it , —such as are the facts of clairvoyance , for example .

      The incidental defence which Charles Dickens has set up in the last number of Bleak House , for the truth of Spontaneous Combustion , is of too imposing an aspect for us to slight it , as we slighted our circumstantial acquaintance , and the importance of the question forces us to recur to it . He refers to five authorities . But in the first place against the authorities of the laws of combustion , no five , no five hundred writers will avail ; as long as the living body contains three-fourths of water to onefourth solid substance the living body will not flame , it must be dried before that can take place , and when dried it is no longer living . In the second place , the authorities cited would not have weight in courts of science nowa-days , whereas Liebig distinctly says that in modern times no phvsician

      of any repute acquainted with the natural sciences has accepted the theory of spontaneous combustion . Nevertheless , as Mr . Dickens seems to have taken up this subject with his usual vigour , and desire to get at the truth , we will examine the evidence to which he refers , and report thereupon in due course . Meanwhile we may put this much on record , that in no case we have read has there been any evidence whatever that the combustion was spontaneous , and Liebig asserts the same ; the evidence , such as it is , goes to prove that the man or woman was burnt to death , and burnt in some not obvious way ; but there is wo evidence , absolutely none , to prove that this " not obvious way" was spontaneous combustion . The hypothesis is a suggestion to fill up the gap of our ignorance ; such as the " legends " which surround every unusual phenomenon .

      From Spontaneous Combustion To Mrs. Harr...

      From Spontaneous Combustion to Mrs . Harriet Beeciiek Stowe , the transition does not seem natural—nor was it natural—it was forced by the accidents of contiguity . In our memoranda for the week we find an entry derived from American papers , that Mrs . Stowe is coming over to England ; whether her purpose be one of merely visiting the land in which her reputation has grown with the rapidity of the protococcus nivalis , which in a single night will redden extensive tracts of snow ; or whether it be to gather materials for an English Uncle Tom , this present historian not knowing will not say .

      The Philosophy Op Poetry. Poetics: An Ju...

      THE PHILOSOPHY OP POETRY . Poetics : an JUsaay on Toetry . By JR . S . Dallas . Smith , Elder , and Co This is a remarkable work »—the work of a scholar , a critic , a thinker . It contains many novel views and muck excellent matter . The stylo is fresh , independent , sharp , clear , and often felicitous . Amidst the intricacies of his complex subject , Mr . Dallas moves with the calm precision of one who knows the labyrinth ; and if we cannot accept his clue as that of the real coitio

      Ariadne , we at least can say that no more suggestive work has before us . To discuss the various positions of a treatise like this would occupy a series of articles , and , unhappily , there are too many works now crowding our table to permit such a series . Wo will try to give such an account o £ it as will eond the reader to examine it for himself . In the Introduction , Mr . Dallas complains , and justly , of the exclusivenesH of all definitions of poetry . Ho doHiroB one that will include every known species ; and he protests against the

      DISTINCTION BKTWJKKKr OENIU 8 AND TALKNT . " It in maintained , however , by sonic , that between the no-culled pool niul his fcllow-nmn , or , in the phrase of Coleridge , between the man of genius and the inim of talent , there is n difference not morely ofdogree , but even of kind . TIiih opinion in beset with doubt and difficulty , and ifl in fact an unfounded opinion . Jtut Hume who deny it arc placed in tho very awkward portion of gainsaying that of which confessedly they know nothing . Jf you cannot understand tho difference lietwccm touch and right , you in list linvo been born blind : if you do not hcc the UHHcntial diH ' erence between geuiuH « nd talent , it may 1 ) 0 said that you have not been born a gonhiH . Wlwm he , tltoroibre , who lftytj claim to no other foellngH and none otlmr power * Hum those common io his brethren * Aure * tfivw hiu opinion , he

      may be told that in so doing he has begged the whole question , and that his methinketh must go for nothing , as hot professing to be founded on a peculiar exper ience . The shortest way , then , of settling the point is by recalling the fact that men of undoubted genius , eucb . as Johnson , when speaking of Cowley , of Pope , aiid of Reynolds j [ Reynolds himself ; Thomas Gray , when he allows the possibility of a mute inglorious Milton ; and , in our own times , Thomas Carlyle—uphold that genius is but mind of greater strength and larger growth than ordinary , carried hither or thither—to poetry , to philosophy , or to action—with a fair wind , and

      the tide of the age and a thousand chance currents , all more or less unknown and unknowable , but all under the eye and governance of that Almighty Wisdom which from the beginning foresees the end . Mind of such , ah order soon becomes alive to the powers with which it has been gifted ; and fearlessly trusting in the same , shaking off , not indeed * the guidance , but the yoke of authority , and going forward in its own indwelling strength , utters and fulfils itself in works quickened and bedewed with that freshness comnqoiriy called originality . We may therefore conclude , with Wordsworth , that among those qualities which go to form a poet ' is nothing differing in kind from other men , but only in degree / "

      Mr . Dallas here falls into a very common , if not universal , error —that of supposing differences of kind are not always differences of degree * The phrase " difference of kind" marks a magnitude in the difference which separates it from , that minor difference named " of degree . " The obverse is equally true , and thus , although the difference between an ape and a chimpanzee may only be one of degree , yet specific functions follow thereupon , as they do in tke differences between ice , water , and steam ; so that when Mr . Dallas contrasts a man of genius with a man of talent , he contrasts men in whom the magnitude of difference amounts to " difference of kind . " He is inaccurate , therefore , in the absoluteness of the following statement : —

      " Poetry may be packed between the covers of a book , but we know that it had its being and home within the poet ' s bosom before he thus embodied it in words and gave it an outward dwelling-place on paper . He felt it , and then he spoke out in words of fire " . Now , although we may be unable to give such or any utterance to our feelings , we may be sure from reason beforehand , and are doubly sure from trial afterward , that the poet , as such , has no more , and no other , and not always even stronger feelings than ourselves ; and that therefore what marks out the poet , commonly so called , is not simply loftier feelings or brighter visions , but power to give these forth , and to make others see what he has seen , and feel what

      he has felt . We may not have to boast of the accomplishment of verse ; our muse may be Tacita , the silent one , beloved of Numa ; but those feelings of the poet which precede expression are shared with us and with all men . This truth may be gathered partly from the very use of words . We speak of the romance of childhood , of a romantic adventure , of the poetry of life in general : thus also Keats , making mention of what is in plain English the rapture of a kiss , says that the lips poesied with each other . As heat is found in all bodies , poetry dwells with quickening power in every man ' s soul ; but only here and there , not always , however , where it may be hottest , it breaks out into visible fire . "

      An illustration will probably convince him . There are men to whom music is rapture , and there are men to whom it is indistinguishable noise ; there are musicians , and those who cannotperceive a tune . These differences in the auditory power are surely differences of kind P We say the one has a faculty which the other has not ; both hear , but the hearing of one is so much more susceptible that a new faculty rises out of the intensity . What is said of music may be said of all the arts . It is not simply that the poet is gifted with a speech we have not ; his deeper susceptibilities endow him with corresponding power of expression . There aro innumerable differences of degree in the susceptibility , from the dullest prosaism to the most impassioned poetry ; and when these differences assume a certain magnitude , we mark them by certain names , of which genius is the highest .

      We are touching here upon one of the fundamental points of the book ; the error , if error it be , lies at the basis of Mr . Dallas s speculations , and nearly all our differences from him would be found to arise directly or indirectly out of his not distinctly recognising the " difference of kind " ( or magnitude of degree ) which makes Art specifically Art . One excellent distinction , however , ho has seen , and everywhere insisted on , that namoly between the objective and subjective aspects of tho thing named Poetry . The subjective aspect—the poetic feeling—tho susceptibility to certain emotions Which originates Art and which responds to it from the public—he names Poetry . Tho objective aspect—or the Art itself—he names Poesy or Song . In answer to the question , What is Poetry P he first considers what is Poesy P and looking to ita " being ' s end and aim , " ho declares it to bo Pleasure . This leads to a " being s end and aim , ho declares it to bo Pleasure . This leads to a

      psychological discussion , occupying Book I ., on tho nature of Pleasure . Ho defines it as the harmonious and unconscious activity of the soul . Within that , three laws aro enfolded , the law of Activity , the law of Harmony , and the law of Unconsciousness . Tho philosophic reader will find matter in these chapters—but wo must hurry on . Book the Second contains * an examination of the Nature of Poetry . This is tantamount to asking , How is it that Poetry . produces Pleasure P How does Art stimulate that " harmonious and unconscious activity of the soul" in a manner specifically different from other objects P To answer thus , Mr . Dallas rigorously draws upon the nature of pleasure itself ; and as correlative with its three laws of Activity , Harmony , and Unconsciousness , ho sets forth tlio throe laws of Imagination , Harmony and Unconsciousness , which create poetry . Pleasure being the concord produced in the mind while in activity , ' poetic pleasure i » tho concord produced while the activity is charged more or lens with imagination . The concord will be intensified , because of tho power of imagination .

      " Having thus considered in due order the three I . iwh of poetry , lot un look to tho renult . In the First Hook wan examined tho imturo of Pleasure : in tho prenenfc Hook him l > een e * rtininod tho nature of I \> otio Pleasure . Poetic plcauuro lias been nliown to differ from other plcwiiro by luring imaginative , ro that Poetry may Hhortly be defined to be Imaginative Pleasure ; and if fi . r tho hitter of thoao two words we mibHtitufc a definition , Poetry will then more fully be deflhed . The imaginative , harmonious , and unconscious acf . im / . // of tho jiouf . " Book the Third deflcondu to tlio objective aspect of poetry—viz ., poetry

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 15, 1853, page 16, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_15011853/page/16/