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mwiency in writing , but their significance has perished , because this was not . recorded , and . al-o . because the .. « . » . us i . ) M . ic i < * v « ptrcepti '> l- has passed »» - »>• ¦ ~ " The * - act . are incnres . able , an-i w ; are led from tt . tm t «» com-lmic that the documents of Gen , popularl y f «* f . le . » as » dewri ( . iion of the origin of ¦ world thVbPBinr . i ., B o' .. unnni-y , and the first const . , on and progress of bocieij ,- * re somewhat of a similar . , t . nracter , and that they describe the moral sentiments and religious conditions of men through their corresponding images in nature . " Indeed , he plainly asserts that : —
«¦ Mankind Would long ago have acknowledged their mvthic character , but for the powerful influence of a traditional opinion to the contrary . But this can have but little real weight , when it is remembered that such traditions were originated by ecclesiastical authority , at a ti-np when the true signification of those writings had long be- n verlookeri . " Mr . Rendell , then , discards any thing like a literal interpretation of Genesis , and sees in it a mythical and spiritually-symbolical language , which it is for our philosophy to interpret . He believes it to be the Word of God , but he believes God spoke in symbols . ... .
_ _ „ ,, „ To Giordano Bruno , Sedgwick , Buckland , Rendell , a , d all whom it may concern , we beg to submit these reflections : Either the Bible is the Word of God , or it is the Word of Man . If it is the latter , other words of men condemn it . If it is the former , we must accept its literal teachings , and agree with Dr . Pusey , that it is an act of impiety to bend any word of Scripture from its plain obvious meaning . No flinching , no compromise ; the Letter , the whole Letter , and nothing but the Letter ! It is God ' s writing , let no man presume to correct it ! Choose then , O ye earnest minds of our age ,
between the teachings of Science and those of Scripture : say which shall it be , Moses or Galileo , Moses or Newton , Moses or Dalton , Moses or Lyell , Moses or Blumenbach ? Because , shift the ground and " compromise " as you may , to that the world must come at last . Logic leads there , and nowhere else . Logic says to that ingenious reconciliation , theory : It is surely a much easier thing to believe that God wrote no such book , than to believe that in undertaking so momentous a work ( if the happiness , the salvation
of the whole human race may be considered momentous !) he should not have written the plain truth once and for ever . Simply for this reason : while they were about it , the Jews could just as easily have bowed down to truth as to error ; and , inasmuch as God must have foreseen how many thousands would for so many years have believed in these errors because they had his sanction , and how many would reject the whole book because they rejected these errors—because , being found unworthy of credit in several important particulars ,
they naturally saw no reason for crediting it in others—inasmuch as all this must have been foreseen , it is unworthy of an exalted conception of the Deity to believe in it . Were a philosopher to distort the truth for the sake of finding a ready acceptance to other doctrines , we should brand him as a timeserving and ignoble philosopher . Shall we think more unworthily of God than of Man ? Shall we suppose that God could not so have stated the truth that men should believe in it , when upon their belief so much depended ?
The path of compromise leads direct to the father of lies ! Accept the Bible as the Inspired Writing , and accept it without the impiety of " interpretation »» —believe its plain and obvious language—or , accept it as one of the great Records of Humanity . Believe what Moses tells you of the heavens and the earth and the waters under the earth , or believe what Science tells you— -but make no vain effort to believe that both are true . This is what we say to those who doubt ; meanwhile we may give Mr . Rendell very high praiwe for the extremely ingenious , manner in which he has interpreted what be believes to bo the symbols of Scripture .
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KOUKIKK ON TIIK l'AHHIONK . The Pontons of the Human Soul . I 5 y Cluu I .-h Kourier . Triina-Inti-il from the Kmncli »»> ' " ><; li" » eren . lJ <> hii Heynell Mor . U . Wiili Oritioul Annotations , a HiotfiupUy of 1 ' ouncr , mill n General Iiitr . iiiir , l . on , by Iliitfii Doherty . JvoIh . liOixloii : Huillivru . ( Second Notice . ) TilR work which Mr . Morel I ban translated is a collection of some of the writings of Fourier that have been posthumously published in the French Fourierist periodical La Phalange . Vox the grouping of these papers together , as well as for the title , " The PasnionH of the Human Soul , given to them collectively , we believe Mr . Morell himself is resnonisible ; nor are we quite sure that
in translating them first he has adopted the best mode of introducing Fourier to the English public . The work before us , for example , is not seltcontained ; many of its ideas and phrases being continued out of the previous writings of Fourier , so as hardly to be intelligible in their present state of isolation . Possibly a translation of Founer s writings in their chroriological order would have been , on the whole , the most suitable . But Mr . Morell ' s task was one of no ordinary difficulty , and
he deserves hearty thanks for having undertaken it at all . If he las presented us first with that portion of Fourier ' s writings which contains the fullest exposition of what may be called his system or Psychology , it has doubtless been for reasons that have weighed sufficiently with himself ; and we do not know but that the translation of these may prepare the English mind better for the reception of Fourier ' more celebrated treatise on " Domestic and Agricultural Association , " which , we are glad to learn , Mr . Morell is now engaged in putting into
English . The cardinal notion of Fourier ' s Psychology is the existence in men of twelve distinguishable passions or tendencies to activity . These he arranges as follows : Group I . Five Sensitive Passions , or Passions of the Senses , viz : Touch , Taste , Smell , Hearing , and Sight . Group II . Four Affective Passions , or Passions of the Affections , viz .: Love , Friendship , the Family-feeling , and Ambition . Group III . Three Distributive Passions , or Passions of the Higher Intellect , viz ., Cabalism , or the Cabalist Passion , i . e ., the Passion for Intrigue , Dissension , subdivision into sects ; Papillonism , or the Papillonist Passion ( Papillon , a Butterfly ) , i . e ., the Passion for Variety , Alternation , Change of
Occupations ; and Compositism , or the Composite Passion , i . e ., the Passion for Combination , Harmony , Unity . That ideal sum-total of human activities which we call Duty , or Perfection , consists , according to Fourier , in the harmonious and symmetrical gratification of all these Passions . All are , in their own nature , equally legitimate . This , the legitimacy of all the Passions , is a great point with Fourier .
" How great would be the inconsistency of God , if He wished to degrade five out of the twelve passions ; and why should He have given us five vicious springB in the five sensitive passions ? If you listen to the moralists they will not fail to vilify the seven animic passions , ambition , love , &c , into the bargain ; so that if we may believe them , there remains only one good passion , Philosophism , which would drive a man to spend a million of money ( if he has got it ) in order to buy 400 , 000 himself to ridicule
volumes of philosophy , and expose , by ruining himself to acquire a wisdom the authors of which do not understand their own meaning . Iu answer to their galleries of volumes , I am about to prove that all the passions are good , such as God hath created them , and that the five sensitive passions are useful as well as the seven animic ; but they are good conditionally , and in the case of associative development ; they are vicious , all twelve of them , in the case of incoherent development . "
At present there is hardly an individual in whose character there is exhibited a full and harmonious play of all the passions . Some men are slaves to one passion , or , according to the language of Fourier , have one dominant j others are swayed pretty equally by two passions , or have two dominants ; others , again , arc more complex natures , and are governed by three , four , five , six , or even seven dominants . Classifying mankind on this principle , Fourier calls those men who are swayed by one dominant , of whatever kind , Monoyyne . s ; those who are swayed by two dominants , which
must be either both afleetive passions , or the one an afleetive passion , the other a distributive , he calls Diyyws ; those who have three dominants , two distributives and one afleetive , be calls Trigynes ; those who have four dominants , two at least being distributive , he calls Tetragynes ; those who have five dominants , one dintributive and four aflectives , he cjiIIh Pmtagynes ; those who have five dominants , whereof three are distributives and two afiectiven , he calls / lexagi / nes ; those who have six dominants , four aflectives and two distributives , he calls lleptagynes ; and thoxe who are dominated by all the Mivon aflectivcH and distributives , he calls Oinnhjynes . ( How , in the above list , he is able to specify the ; number of passions out of each group that can £ o together , he does not inform uh : thin is probably one of hLs dogmatisms . ) Of the foregoing varieties of character , the three last , to wit , the Hexiitfynes , the Hcptagynes , and the Omnigynes , are the most rare and tranneeiidant . Out of 8 IO individuals , taken at random , 570 will be Monotfynes , TK > will be Digynos , 24 will be TrigyncH , 8 will be Tetragynea , and 2 will bo PentagyneH ; while tho rnrrinininff 104 will belong to certain
ambiguous or mixed denominations , for which he provides titles . For one Hexagyne , however , one must search 2434 individuals ; for one Heptagyne , 9740 individuals ; while an Omnigyne will be found only once in a crowd of 29 , 222 . This extraordinary classification Fourietf illustrates by examples . Here is his picture of ofle Monogyne in whom he took particular interest ; tha sketch is quite Rabelaisian : — "It was a tippler , a monogyne with the dominant of taste , the tonic of drinking . I saw him in a public diligence or stage coach ; he waft not a sottish drunkard , but a man gifted with a marvellous instinct for referring ail the circumstances of lire to Wine . Similar to those mystical personages who see everything in God , this fellow saw everything in wine ; instead of reckoning time by hours and half-hours , he reckoned it by the number rvf hnttles drunk . Supposing you asked him , Will it
take long to reach such a place ? ' ' Well ! about the time of drinking four bottles / Whfen the horses stopped fbr a moment , I Said to him , 'Do we stop long here ? About long enough to toss off a bottle standing . Now I knew that in his arithmetic a bottle drunk while standing was equal to five minutes , and a bottle drunk while seated was ten minutes . One of the two coaches on the road , which had bad horses , passed us going down a hill , but he called out to it in a bantering tone , ' Bah , bah , we shall drink before you ! ' ( that is to say , we shall arrivfe before you , for why do you arrive at all if not to drink ?•) One of the passengers made us wait at the station where he had got down ; the passengers complained , and asked , ' What is he after ? he delays us . ' The monogyne replied ,
' Perhaps he has not yet drunk his gill ( for why do people delay you except it be to drink ) . * * Some one ventured to complain of the weather , which was cold and foggy ; our friend took him up severely , and explained that the weather was exceedingly good , because it kept back the vines that would have been exposed tD frost by two precocious a vegetation . 1 listened to him during the momenta he conversed familiarly with one of his companions , and nothing was heard but dozens of wine , casks being tapped , beginning to drink the wine , &c . In short , wine was to this man a focus , or a common centre , to which he referred all nature . His illustration of the other six varieties of character is also worth quoting : —
" Louis X . IY . was a digyne governed by ambition and by love . The digynes are for the most part interesting characters , but those with the pivot of ambition and of parentism are very odious in civilization . Those of ambition and cabalist are the most false and dangerous of all beings ; those of friendship and of papillon , or of love and of papillon , are the most seductive characters . " The twenty-four trigynes , or characters of the third power , are commonly cold people , or people of concentrated ardour ; they pivot on two of the three distributives , to which is joined one of the affectives . When endowed with the composite , the cabalist and ambition , they become , according to circumstances , either frightful wretches , like Robespierre , who Was a trigyne of this title , or men of great political character , as Lycurgus , a trigyne of the same title . This genus furnishes very graceful characters under the pivot of composite , papillon and friendship , and likewise very repulsive ones .
" The eight tetragynes are very noble characters when they have for their pivot a majority of affectuous passions . Henry IV . was a magnificent tetragyne pivoting on friendship , love , ambition , and composite ; Voltaire was one of a different title . A tetragyne is very dangerous when he is on the pivot of cabalist and papillon , with two affectuous passions different Irom friendship . Such a character will be early capable of all crimes . Nero was of this title ; he treated crimes grandly after the manner of the tetragynes .
" The pentagynes , or kings of the passions , are the lowest step of the transcendent characters . Nature only gives one couple out of 405 . It is rare that these brilliant characters are mischievous . This can only take place when their pivot is composed of the cabalist joined to the four aff < ctuous passions , as descending tonics , but they are sublime when their distributive is the composite or the pnpillon . J . . T . Rousseau was a pentagyne of gentle tonics . Charles Fox appears to have been of this title ; I cannot certify this . * * * *
" The hexugynes , second of the transcendent degrees , an ; ordinarily indomitable characters , that become terrible iit civilization when they are on thrones . As they have for their dominants the three distributives with two ailectuouB passions , the latter have at all events the smallest share of influence . The great Frederick and Buonaparte are two hexagynes . These characters are almost unsociable iu the inferior conditions , where the want of development sours them , ami gives them a taint of misanthropy ; but on thrones they cannot fail to nignulize themselves . Now , na the characters are distribited at hazard , it is infinitely rare for a king to find himself endowed with one of these transcendent notes ; tin y fall commonly to the lot of poor individuals unable to develops them . Nature only create * a couple of them in 2 iM individuals ; they govern three or four phalange
or coimnuiiiticH . " The heptigynes , or character of the seventh power , who pivot , upon four uffecluous and two distributive puKnioitH , nre the iiiOHlneduetive of the whole octave ; one would think them to be of a more than human «>» turc Julius CniBJir and AlcibiadeH were two heptagyheH . i hey are houIh of a rnarvelloun flexibility , and have an mllnitjaptitude for all sorts of Htudien and of functions . Nature only produce a couple of them in « 7 ' 28 individuals ; "" J govern twelve communities . , . " The onmigyneH ate the moat rare and the most »«• ' '"' notes , though U'hh deductive than tins heptagynes ; tn « j have too inuny functions to fulfil to be abl « to lay « rc from preference on the beautiful uhadeH of oharacit
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180 & !> * % t&iitt + " - ¦—
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 22, 1851, page 180, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1871/page/16/
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