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    LOUIS BLANC ON THE REVOLUTION. Histoire ...

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    PLATO'S REPUBLIC. The Republic of Plato,...

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    BOOKS ON OUIt TABbE. A Lecture upon Cott...

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  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

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    Tne Duty Of Kings. " He That Ruleth Shou...

    Woe is me ! my son , my Rama—oh ! 'tis bitter thus to die When my child , my best beloved , gladdens not my closing eye . Blest are they as Gods in Heaven , who shall see my noble son Entering his halls in triumph when his weary exile ' s done ; Woe is me ! my soul is darken'd , and my senses well-nigh fled , Like the parting feeble gleamings that the dying torches shed . Oh ! my son ! thy father ' s glory ! oh ! that thou wert by my side ! Fare thee well , mine own Kausalya !'—Thus the sorrowing father died I " The primitive pathos and simplicity of this pierce through the translation . It is such passages that lend themselves to translation , though we doubt not there is an accent in the original of exquisite beauty such as no translation can echo . Mr . Griffith has modestly ushered in these " specimens , " keeping himself in the back-ground . We are wholly incompetent to pronounce on the merits of his translation , but can cordially recommend the volume as a readable novelty .

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    Louis Blanc On The Revolution. Histoire ...

    LOUIS BLANC ON THE REVOLUTION . Histoire de la RSvolution Francaise . Par M . Louis Blanc . Tome III . W . Jeffs There are men so fond of Diterature , and so indifferent to Politics , that Macaulay _' s election to Parliament has been a grief to them , because it will retard the composition of his History of England ; and to men of that class it will doubtless be a pleasant thought that Douis Blanc is excluded from the absorbing activities of _Republican politics , and is forced to bestow a large amount of his energy on the composition of his Histoire de la _Revolution _Frangaise—the third volume of which we have still to render account of . On its first appearance we gave it a brief notice , promising to return to it at leisure . The leisure never came ; other books of pressing interest and novelty forced themselves upon us , and Douis Blanc at last slipped out of sig ht . And even now that we endeavour to repair the " neglect our notice must necessarily be very brief . The readers of the first two volumes need not be reminded of the

    extreme care in the sifting of facts , and minute reference in the citation of authorities which accompany the splendid animation of Douis Blanc ' s style ; and this third volume shows even an increased anxiety of painstaking in that respect—as if he felt that it was necessary above all things to vindicate his claim to the title of conscientious historian as well as brilliant writer . That he is impartial no man expects . Absolute impartiality is not to be expected . One may question indeed its desirability ; for it can onl accompany absence of convictions , or that judicial attitude of mind , which destroying all emotion , destroys history as an art . Impartial , Douis Blanc is not ; but he is honest , generous , and frank . You know his bias and " allow for the wind . " His style , in its splendour and its glitter , its energy and its monotony , its epigram , its abuse of apostrophe , and above all its admirable clearness , is too familiar to our readers for us to do more than mention that in this

    volume he has written with more sustained excellence than in any other . The opening chapter graphically , yet briefly , sets forth the whole meaning of the 4 th of August , when France , animating the noblesse by one sublime impulse , abolished Feudalism for ever . This is followed by a description of the reli g ious condition of France at the period , with a striking portrait of Claude Fauchet , the Priest of the Revolution . The portrait most elaborated is that of Marat ; whom it is clear Douis Blanc does not regard with that stupid fanaticism which disgraces some sections of the republican party , though even he is too tender towards the man of whom it has been said , apropos of his deification— " It is well that our convictions should be a religion ; but it is not well when our religion makes idols of monsters as hideous as those blindl y worshipped by savages . " Douis Blanc quotes an exquisite mot by Voltaire , who said to Marat , " Le neant est un grand empire ; regnez-yI The Inane is a vast empire ; proclaim yourself emperor . "

    Besides these chapters abounding in curious details , many of them novel , there is a curious chapter devoted to the party of the Comte de Provence , whohere ap pears under a totally new light . We should like to hear the other side before accepting this chapter . On the whole , we commend Louis Blanc ' s History of tho French Revolution as one indispensable to the student of that epoch .

    Plato's Republic. The Republic Of Plato,...

    PLATO'S REPUBLIC . The Republic of Plato , Translated into English , with an Introduction , Analysis , and Notes . By John Llowelyn _Daviea and David James _Vaughan . Cambriilgo : Macmillan . Of all Plato ' s works , the Republic is the one most read ; and deservedly , for , although in tragic interest and solemn gravity of thought , the Phcedo surpasses it , as the Symposium does in the dramatic presentation of character , and the Ph & drus in poetic beauty , yet , taken as a compendious exposition of the main doctrines to be found in Plato , tho Republic is the most t yp ical of the dialogues . A good translation is , therefore , a work to ho welcomed , and such a work is that beforo us . To those who talk

    "familiarl y of Plato as maidens do of puppy-dogs , " and who , never having tried the Greek , are ignorant of its difficulty , this translation may seem no moro than one among the many translations which , from time to timo , profess to initiate the unlearned into the secrets of ancient litorature ; but we venture to say that no ono competent to oiler an opinion on this subject , will refuse to Messrs . _Davies and Vaughan the hi ghest praise for the fidelity and elegance with which they have translated this dialogue . It is moro exact than literal translations , for it represents tho meaning of tho original in corresponding phrases . Tho absurd notion , now current , that _literalnesa gives exactness , and that all the expletives and gesticulations ( so to speak ) of tho original are to be reproduced , may bo easily ridiculed by a similar translation from French . Quest-ce que e ' est i should thus bo rendered , What is that which it is ?

    Tho translation before us has ono considerable merit , it is very read-° \ _^ I " another : there aro no ostentatious notes , lavishing cheap erudition upon an incurious roador , and _withholding all tho whilo any real miorumtion ! It has a third : an Introduction , written by Mr . Vaughan ,

    Plato's Republic. The Republic Of Plato,...

    excellent in itself , and admirably preparing the reader for the work it introduces . A passage will confirm what we have said : — " The principle , then , which pervades the Republic , amounts to this , that whatever we find in society , —every element of social life—has its exact counterpart on a smaller scale in the mind of the individual . If Plato had only intended to assert in this shape the proposition , that man is a social being , and that to study him isolated from his fellow-men can only lead to a false view of his nature , every one at the present day would acquiesce in such a statement . Plato would , no doubt , have assented to such a proposition himself _^ if it had bee n put befor e him ; hut the principle in question cannot be regarded as identical with this , or deducible from it . Again , if he had meant to say , that in all inquiries into the nature of man and society , we must treat the parts as the resolved units of the whole , instead of

    treating the whole as the aggregate of the component parts ; or that , as we cannot form a conception of man prior to society , we must study him as the social unit , which presupposes the study of society;—if this were the exact expression of Plato ' s meaning , many writers at the present day would probably agree with him . But to suppose this would be to transfer the subtleties of modern thought to the less complex notions of a ruder age . Plato ' s conception was much simpler than this . He fancied that society must present exactly the same features and qualities as the individual , only exaggerated and heightened . It would be scarcely-too much to say that he looked at man through the state , just as the physiologist examines some diminutive animalcule under the microscope . And hence , whatever he discovered in the state , he expected to find repeated , on a smaller scale , in the minds of its several members .

    " At the present day we hear and read much of a science which has been variously called Sociology , Political Science , Philosophy of History , Physique Sociale . What may be the future attitude of this infant science , —to what degree of certainty and of precision it may hereafter attain , —and how far , when fully worked out , it may give rise to a corresponding art , which may serve as the statesman ' s guide , —it would be presumptuous at present to predict . The first task of this , as of every other infant science , has been to fix and define the primary notions which must underlie every part of the whole . What the conceptions of life , of function , and of orgau are to biology , that the conceptions of humanity , of progress , and of civilization , are to sociology . And so much as this at least seems to have been certainly ascertained , and become the perpetual property of science , —that there is upon the whole , though with many drawbacks and many vicissitudes , a progress of

    humanity , governed by laws , whose outlines can at present be only dimly discerned . But though society progresses , the capabilities and intellectual powers of the individual are invariable . The great men of ancient times were not inferior in ability to the greatest of the moderns . It is their position in the world ' s history that has made the latter seem , superior to the former . Leibnitz and Kant were not more profound thinkers than Plato and Aristotle . If Newton had lived in the second century before the Christian era , he would probably have been only an Hipparchus ; and if Hipparchus had followed Kepler , he might have discovered the law of gravitation . The progress of humanity and the development of science do not give new intellectual powers to the individual ; but they both afford him a firmer standing-ground , and teach him to use better the powers already at his disposal .

    " Thus we see that Plato ' s conception of the relation of man to society , and thc view presented by modern science , are diametrically opposed to one another . With Plato , society is merely a repetition of the individual on a larger scale : in the view of modem science , the individual is , rather , the creature of society . With Plato , society is an aggregate of individuals : -in the view of modern science , it is an independent organism , having a life and movement of its own . The very idea of laws of nature , —in the sense which modern science has taught us to attach to the words , —much more the idea of a progressive movement of society and of laws determining that movement , was altogether unknown to ancient philosophy . Such a conception was , indeed , impossible in Plato ' s time . The history of more than two thousand years was necessary to its formation . " There is one passage which , from so philosophic a writer , we read with surprise , and with some misgiving as to its real meaning . _Sj _^ eaking of Plato ' s doctrino of Ideas , he says : —

    " Plato believed in the existence of real objects corresponding to such terms as virtue , beauty , man , animal , bed . These real objects he called Ideal , * essential forms , ' or ' archetypes . ' Perhaps we may represent the process by which ho arrived at this theory , thus . Finding that we try all beautiful objects , virtuous actions , & c , by a kind of ideal standard , he attributed an objective reality to this standard . Having done this , and failing to see the distinction between abstract terms that aro founded on a moral sentiment , and those that are founded on a perception ( e . g ., between ' virtue' and ' ' whiteness' ) he was led to attribute an objective reality to all abstract terms . Lastly , confounding general with abstract names , ho was compelled to assign an objective reality to all general terms also ; e . g ., animal , lied . "

    The supposed confusion of general with abstract terms wo do not understand Platonically , and as to the distinction , he failed to see between abstract terms derived from moral sentiment and from perception , wc mimt avow an equal blindness . There arc actions having tho quality we name virtuous , and there aro substances having the quality we name whiteness , and these qualities wo can abstract from tho one as from the other , both by the same mental process ; and , if Plato believed Virtue as a type , existed apart from virtuous actions , he was justified in believing Whiteness as a t ypo existed apart from white things ' . Can Mr . Vaughan mean that Virtue is not a quality inherent in actions , as Whiteness is iu chalk , —but is a subjective qualification , and thereby distinguishable from Whiteness ? It will not avail the argument , 'fhe mental process of _abstruction is the same whether we found it on a moral sentiment or on a perception

    Books On Ouit Tabbe. A Lecture Upon Cott...

    BOOKS ON OUIt TABbE . A Lecture upon Cotton as an Element of Industry . ] ly Tlionum _Hivzlcy , _^ _. _ho ,. _bondman , _Itt-owri , nml Co . The Home and Grave tf Byron : a Complete Gititle Book to Afcwstead Abbey and Neighbourhood . liOii _^ iiiini , llrown , nntl Co . Poems . Ii y Tho lion , . luliun Fuiw * . William 1 _'iokcrinij . IlluUrutioni if Instinct , deduced JVom the Habits tf British Animals . Uy Jonathuii Couch , K . L . H John Van _Vooi-Ht . _Ertittue ; or , How the Church wus made . A . _CooUhIiiiw . Suggestions on the Law of limiacy and Lunatic Asylums . Uy J . _Lcim-Ii , M . I ) . John Churchill On tho Archetype and Homologies _tfthe Vertebrate Skeleton . Uy Uicliurd Owon . John Van _Voorut

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 28, 1852, page 19, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_28081852/page/19/