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Of consecrated heroes of the south ' s Bright rosary ? The pitcher at the fount , The gift of gods , being broken , —why , one loathes To let the ground-leaves of the place confer A natural bowl . And thus , she chose to seem No nation , but the poet ' s pensioner , With alms from every land of song and dream ; While her own pipers sweetly piped of her , Until their proper breaths , in that extreme Of sighing , split the reed on which they played Of which , no more : but never say ' no more ' To Italy ! Her memories undismayed , Say rather evermore '—her graves implore Her future to be strong and not afraid—Her very statues send their looks before ! "
The least sensitive of critics must , we think , appreciate the power of expression manifest in that passage . She does not , however , follow in the dilettante error of keeping her admiration fixed upon the past , and the illustrious dead who should stimulate to rivalry , not overshadow and oppress by their greatness : — The dead upon their awful vantage ground—The sun not in their faces— shall abstract No more our strength . Respect for them ! but respect also for the living forces which in their turn will take rank among the dead : —
'Tis true that when the dust of death has choked A great man ' s voice , the common words he said Turn oracles . But we are not to grow supine , and live like modern nobles on the achievements of our forefathers : — ' * The emphasis of death makes manifest The eloquence of action in our flesh ; And men who , living , were but dimly guessed , " When once free from their life ' s entangled mesh , Show their full length in graves , or even indeed Exaggerate their stature , in the . flat , To noble admirations which exceed Nobly , nor sin in such excess . For that
Is wise and righteous . "We , who are the seed Of buried creatures , if we turned and spate Upon our antecedents , we were vile . Bring violets rather ! If these had not walked Their furlong , could we hope to walk our mile ? Therefore bring violets ! Yet if we , self-baulked , Stand still a-strewing violets all the while , These had as well not moved , ourselves not talked Of these . So rise up with a cheerful smile , And , having strewn the violets , reap the corn , And , having reaped and garnered , bring the plough And draw new furrows 'neath the healthy morn , And plant the great Hereafter in this Now . "
Noble writing , some of this ; but the whole of the first part is inferior , we think , to the second , written three years afterwards , in / 851 , when all the hopes of Italy had been frustrated , when it seemed as if Italy did— Only sing of beauty As little children take up a high strain , With unintentioned voices , and break off , To sleep upon their mothers' knees again .
What a charming image ! how tender in its scorn I Something less delicate but not less forcible , is in this passage of sarcasm painting the braggadocio spirit : — " How grown men raged at Austria's wickedness , And smoked , —while fifty striplings in a row Marched straight to Piedmont for the wrong ' s redress ! Who says wo failed in duty , we who wore Black velvet like Italian democrats , Who slushed our sleeves like patriots , nor forswore The true republic in the form of hats ' ( We chased the archbishop from the duomo door—We chalked the walls with bloody cuvoats Against all tyrants . If we did not fight ICxactly , we fired muskets up the void To show that victory was ours of r ' ujht . Wo met , discussed in every place , » elf-buoyed Kxcept , perhaps , i' the chambers , day and night : We proved that nil the poor tihould be employed , And yet the rich not worked for ni ]} r wi 8 ti , — Payers certified , yet payers abrogated , Full work secured , yet liabilities To over-work excluded , — not one bated Of all our holidays , that still , at twice Or thrice a-week , are moderately rated . We proved that Austria was dislodged , or would Or should be , and that Tuscany in arms Should , would , dislodge her , in hiyh hardihood ! And yet , to leavo our piazzas , shops , and farms , For the bare sake of lighting , was not good . We proved that also— Did we carry charms Against being killed ourselves , thut wo should rush On killing others ? What , desert herewith Our wiveH and mothers !—was that duty ? Tush !' At which wo shook the sword within the sheath , lAko heroes—only louder I nnd the flush Jlan up our cheek to meet the victor ' s wreath . Nuy , what we proved , wo shouted—how we shouted ,
( Besides their clippings at our golden fleece ) . I , too , have loved peace , and from bole to bole Of immemorial , undeciduous trees , Would write , as lovers use , upon a scroll The holy name of Peace , and set it high Where none should pluck it down . On trees , I say , — Not upon gibbets !—With the greenery Of dewy branches and the flowery May , Sweet mediation ' twixt the earth and sky , Providing , for the shepherd's holiday ! Not upon gibbets !—though the vulture leaves Some quiet to the bones he first picked bare . Not upon dungeons ! though the wretch who grieves And groans within , stirs not the outer air As much as little field-mice stir the sheaves .
( Especially the little boys did ) planting That tree of liberty whose fruit is doubted Because the roots are not of nature ' s granting A tree of good and evil !—none , without it , Grow gods !—alas , and , with it , men were wanting . " Is not that glorious writing , the indignation tempered by wit turning the rude iron into bright steel ? And in another strain how fine is this outburst upon that penny trade sophism—spawned by the Manchester School upon a real though misguided philanthropy—the Peace Agitation : — " A cry is up in England , which doth ring The hollow world through , that for ends of trade And virtue , and God's better worshipping , We henceforth should exalt the name of Peace , And leave those rusty wars that eat the
soul—Not upon chain-bolts ! though the slave ' s despair Has dulled his helpless , miserable brain , And left him blank beneath the freeman ' s whip , To sing and laugh out idiocies of pain . Nor yet on starving homes ! where many a lip Has sobbed itself asleep through curses vain ! I love no peace which is not fellowship , And which includes not mercy . I would have , Rather , the raking of the guns across The world , and shrieks against Heaven ' s architrave . Rather , the struggle in the slippery fosse , Of dying men and horses , and the wave Blood-bubbling . . . . Enough said !—By Christ ' s own cross ,
And by the faint heart of my womanhood , Such things are better than a Peace which sits Beside the hearth in self-commended mood , And takes no thought how wind and rain by fits Are howling out of doors against the good Of the poor wanderer . What ! your peace admits Of outside anguish while it sits at home ? I loathe to take its name upon my tongue—It is no peace . 'Tis treason , stiff with doom , — ' Tis gagged despair , and inarticulate wrong , Annihilated Poland , stifled Rome , Dazed Naples , Hungary fainting ' neath the thong , And Austria wearing a smooth olive-leaf On her brute forehead , while her hoofs outpress The life from these Italian souls , in brief . O Lord of Peace , who art Lord of Righteousness ,
Constrain the anguished worlds from sin and grief , Pierce them with conscience , purge them with redress , And give us peace which is no counterfeit ! " We must tear ourselves away from this record of hopes , shared with all the generous , to be afterwards so cruelly disappointed by the turn of events . It is a noble poem : full of sustained impassioned music and delicate imagery , with abundant faults for the querulous to crow , over , but so lofty in sentiment , and so thoroughly poetical in execution , that criticism runs into eulogy .
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BAILEY ' S THEORY OF IIEA 8 ONING . The Theory of Reasoning . By Samuel Bailey . Longman and Co . Tub problem of our intellectual constitution , of the laws of thought and reasoning , and the foundations of human certainty , is one of such essential interest , that even the dry formalism of the scholastic logic has not been able altogether to repel inquirers from its study . Of this fact we have evidence in the increasing number of treatises 011 the Theory or the Art of Reasoning , which the last few years have produced . Among nucsIi we are disposed to give an honourable place to the work
before us . It in manifestly the production of an original mind . Its object in not the exhibition of technical forma and canons , but of those general principles of which all special forms of inference are exemplifications . In endeavouring to accomplish this design the author has displayed much sound judgment and discrimination . He has also , as it appears to us , met a popular and really felt want . There arc many minds , not unversed in general literature and science , which have been deterred by the apparently forbidding aspect of this class of studies from engaging in their pursuit , and yet feel that they possess high claims . To such we can with confluence recommend the present
treatise . It contains , we think , not the whole truth of the matter , but much of what is most important , presented in an agreeable form , and aptly illustrated from sources of unquestionable general interest . The fate of logic has , indeed , been ' remarkable . Before the physical sciences were heard of , it sprang up to what , even now , is almost universally considered its full stature . Its nomenclature , its forms , its technical rules and distinctions , were fixed mainly upon the authority of a single mind at a period when astronomy was hut a collection of rude observations and still ruder conjectures . How
different has been the progress of the two sciences If the intellectual efforts which have been expended on each are compared , it may be doubted whether the balance would not incline to the side of logic . More than two thousand writers on this subject , from the days of Aristotle to the present time , are said to be recorded , not to mention those whose names and memories have utterly perished . Yet while the career of astronomy , since its emancipation from the trammels of the schools has been one of increasing light and power , the other seems to have been destined to move ever in the same narrow round of iteration .
Of the evils resulting from the abuse of authority , or from an excessive attachment to ancient systems , there are far more striking examples than are presented in the history of logic . Against these Mr . Bailey ' s work is an admirable protest . It could scarcely happen that one set of the forms of reasoning should prevail for many ages , serving as types to which no inconsiderable body of writers have endeavoured to conform in their practice without its at length being believed that these forms were universal . Such a claim has , indeed , always
been maintained for them by the vast majority of logicians ; and , perhaps , they have no more strenuous , certainly no more ingenious or learned advocate than the Archbishop of Dublin . According to this theory all reasoning is reducible to the syllogism in form , to Aristotle ' s famous dictum de omni et nullo in principle . The mind , in every process of demonstrative inference , is solely occupied in applying this one axiom—" Whatever is affirmed or denied of all the members of a class A , in which class an individual B is formed , is affirmed or denied of the individual B . " These
exclusive claims Mr . Bailey unequivocally rejects . Much that he has said upon this subject is in agreement with the views of Stewart , Mill , and . others We will , however , exhibit the many points of his doctrine , using for the most part his own words . Mr . Bailey defines reasoning as a " determination of the mind to the belief of something beyond its actual perception or knowledge . " He resolves it into two species , viz ., demonstrative and contingent ^ the latter term being used in the sense of what is more commonly termed moral or probable reasoning . The grounds of objection to the latter terms are thus stated : —
" To the term moral there is the objection that it is already used in several acceptations ; and , further , that the reasoning so designated frequently relates to purely physical or material subjects . To the term probable there ia the objection that it is usually employed in the sense of likely , and is qualified by epithets expressive of degrees . Cases might easily bo imagined in which these two senses would clashe . g ., it might happen that we should have to prove by probable reasoning that an event was exceedingly improbable . "
To the term contingent we think it might , on the other hand , be objected that it \ h liable to be confounded with hypothetical or conditional , which have already a definite and understood application in certain ionriN of demonstrative syllogism . Nor do we perceive that there is much real weight in the objection against the word probable . If probable reasoning i « sometimes lined to show that an event is improbable , equally often is demonstrative reasoning used to show that a proposition \» false .
It in , in fact , impossible to prove the probability of a given event without proving the improbability of its non-occurrence , just as it in impossible to prove the truth of a given proposition without proving the falsehood of its contrary . Nome dualling between the popular and t \ w . scientific use of the word probable can scarcely be avoided , but the student is in lens danger of b « ing misled by it than in almost , any other of th « innumerable canes in which philosophy Imih had to borrow its language from common discourse .
Mr . Bailey ' s theory of Contingent Reasoning is briefly us follows : — " I » rn walking on the seashore , and perceiving a quantity of seaweed lying on the beach , while the water in at the moment a quarter of a milo from it , I
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June 14 , 1851 . ] Wlfrt & * && £ ?» 561
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 14, 1851, page 561, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1887/page/13/
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