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    Wittxatntt.

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    Wittxatntt.

    Wittxatntt .

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    The bookselling controversy has been active this week ; and on Wednesday there was a large meeting at Lord Campbell ' s" house , where the advocates of Protection had their say , and showed the shallowness of their views . This question oug ht not to be disregarded by men of letters , for it involves their interests and the interests of literature . Unhappily our public press , with a few honourable exceptions , is notoriously and disgracefully so depen dent on advertisements , that the advocacy will be certain t < i preponderate in favour of Protection— -the great advertising houses being the Protectionists . The Times is against the Protectionists ; Macaulay is against them , Cablyle is against them , Hall am is against them , Gladstone is against them , and one may say that the whole body of authors is against them ; but they have " columns , of advertisements" which , like the lips of Anackeon ' s mistress , are flowing with persuasion ; and against these we know of but one remedy—a public meeting of authors .

    Mr . Murray advances the fact of the present system being a century old , and rendered authoritative by the approbation of Johnson , as an argument for its continuance ; and a very potent argument it would be were it not suicidal ! Observe : if the discount allowed to retail booksellers sufficed a century ago , when books were considerably fewer , arid when all the cost of carriage , postage , &c . was immeasurably greater , surely every one can see that it must be too large a discount now when publications are ten times more numerous , and the cost of transmission so very much reduced . A writer in the Times places the question in all its nakedness when he says , that while the cost of producing a work is 60 per cent , the cost of porterage on the present system is 40 per cent .

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    It is gratifying to note the advance of tolerant principles , although the advance is slower than it would be , if the advocates of toleration would themselves be more tolerant . When heterodoxy calls orthodoxy " bigoted fanaticism , " orthodoxy is ready with its retort of " infidel corruption . " Hard names are no arguments , and contempt is a bad vehicle for persuasion . It is somewhat strange , that men who have themselves been once believers , are found accusing believers of unworthy motives ! But the world is ripening , and its crudities gradually soften down . Toleration on all sides is becoming a living principle . In Stockholm , we observe in a new periodical , the Nordisk Tidskrift , there is an article on ¦ ¦ " Freedom and Religion , " advocating the abrogation of the present stringent laws against for the ants of Dale

    freedom of conscience ; and the article is timely , peas - carlia are rising up against the clergy , declaring they have no authority to preach . At Birmingham , the working-men have opened a Hall of Progress , for the free discussion of opinions , wherein " enemies are invited to come and oppose , friends are invited to come and assist . " Johannes Ronge , resident in England , announces , as in preparation , a new work , to be published by subscription , on The Reformation of the Nineteenth Century , or the Religion of Humanityt—a fine subject , tasking the highest powers . Meanwhile , the Restorer of Order , the pet of the Jesuits , Louis Napoleon , has at last deprived Michelet , Quinet , and Mickiewicz of their professorships , which will be given to those who love " the family " with a purer love .

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    German literature , which already owes so much to the brothers Grimm , has commenced the publication of a German Dictionary , which will be a history of the German language since Luther , as well as a dictionary . Every important word having reference to history , legislation , &c , is to be followed historically in its developments and applications . The idea is excellent ; it is the principle of that admirable dictionary to which Richardson devoted his life ; but some English philologist might be persuaded to adopt it in the extended form newly given to it . This scheme was too therefore

    gigantic for the unaided researches of the brothers Grimm , who , , addressed themselves to a vast variety of learned correspondents , begging them to read such or such an author , with a view to certain words . Imagine the result of such an invitation to Germans ! Boxes , carpet-bags , portmanteaus of MSS . arrived ! - —a chaos of erudition , which the editors had to fashion into a Cosmos : six months of labour , —and German labour , recollect—were required , before the two brothers could even arrange these fragments alphabetically , and after that , they had to classify and to select ! The editors of our Notes and Queries might usefully occupy their archeeological friends in some such undertaking .

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    JTIIE RESTORATION OF BELIEF . , Tho Restoration of Belief . No . I . Christianity in Bolation to its Anoient ^ Modern Antagonists . ' , Cambridge : Maoimllan and Co Some weeks ago wo announced a series of jUssays to bo published for the conversion to Christianity of those who denied , and those who wavered-. To restore beliof is , as wo often say , the fundamental necosmtyot this ace—" an ago destitute of faith , yot terrified at scepticism . A beliot sSoioty must have , and tho question is a momentous one , —What is to be tho creed of Christendom P Our essayist , like . many others , believes that Christianity can bo restored ; bo-do young Englanders ¦ | *^ » 5 * reatoration of mediaeval tastes and institutions , forgetting that , as Cfoetno save , whatever dios deserves to die —•

    Denn alles das ensteht 1 st werth dass es za Grunde geht . Here , at the outset , we part company . Qur object is the same as his our routes divergent ; Before indicating , however , the profound differences which , separate us , let us express the unfeigned respect inspired by the dignified liberality of his tone , the breadth of hfe purpose , and the beautyian $ , the Z ^ ryo of his stylet Such ; an / adversary piques all our courtesyi '; ^ Polemics with , such men become a passage o £ arms . 331 qws are given , and blood may be drawn , but the arena is uhdisgraced bybrutal passions or ignoble struggles . The essayist sees distinctly enough how urgent and inevitable is the confluence of all streams of thought into one doctrine , and he expresses that conviction in a passage which Auguste Gomte himself would accept i 1

    ---" It is natural and inevitable that this urgent feeling should drive men in from the surface of all subjects , and compel them to dig , and still to d ^ g , until , ficom sides , they have come to encounter each other , working in the same shafts , and pursuing the sames ^ ms and veins of thought . From these underground encounters , startling as they are when they bring those who beneath the upper sky are declared adversaries , face to face in the mine , and so near to the very pith of the world , will lead ( so I must profess to think ) to a common understanding , to a belief generally , if not universally assented to , and to a cONcitrsiON-, onco or all arrived at , and which thenceforward will , with its inferences , be brought to bear upon every practical question that can toe thought to stand related € o it in morals , politics , and education , as well as Religion .

    " We have not , however , as yet , advanced quite abreast on the two highroads of Philosophy—the physical and ^ the intellectual ( or moral and religious ); for on thie former a rule is well understood and is universally obeyed , which on the latter is but dimly seen , or is perpetually broken . " What I mean is this—that in all departments of the physical sciences , both abstract and applicate , and on all fields of accumulated iridustiy- ^ natural history , for instance—every one , every inquirer , every reasoner , every collector of facts , is left to pursue his path in his own mode , and is held to be exempt from all interference on the part of others ; as if what one had . learned , or was teaching , could supersede , or might interdict the inquiries of another . Although , in the issue , there wi l l he One Pselosobht , and although there should be fellowship among the labourers , none are to put bars across thepaths of their companions . This sort of jealousy , as it would be groundless ^ so must it be fruitless in the end ; and meantime it would he mischievous . Nothing of this sort is ever ^ thought of , or

    attempted , in the world of physical science . " So much as this cannot be alleged in behalf of those branches of philosophy and of learning which touch human nature at the core . On this ground attempts are often made to intercept the progress of inquiry in some one direction , as if it might disturb what has been ascertained on another . Too often— -and we are all more or less in fault—^ -we carry inferences over from one field to another ; or , we are in too great haste so to doj for undoubtedly , in the end , all inferences , all

    deductions , will interlace and join on one to another /' The question now arises , —What is to be the doctrine P Not Chris * tianity , because it is confessedly incapable of solving scientific problems , so that if the domain of morals were left to it undisturbed , the immense discrepancies between its teachings and ihose of science must remain . The irresistible force of science is drawn from its certitude . It advances because men see ifc daily answering their questions with definite and demonstrable answers . Our author has admirably expressed this : —

    " In any case when that which on any ground of proof takes full hold of the understanding , ( such , for example , are the most certain of the conclusions of Geology , ) stands contiguous to that which , in a logical sense , is of inferior quality , and is indeterminate , and fluctuating , and liable to retrogression , —in any such case there is always going on . a silent encroachment of the more solid mass upon the grouAM of that which is less solid . What is sure will be pressing ^ upon what is uncertain , whether or not the two are designedly brought into collision or comparison . What is well defined weighs upon , and against , what is ill defined . Nothing stops tho continuous involuntary operation of science , in dinlodging opinion from the minds of those who are conversant with both .

    "A very small matter that is indeed determinate , will be able to keep a place for itself against this incessantly encroaching movoment ; but nothing else can do so . As to any of those theosophic fancies , which we may wish to cling to , after we have thrown away the Bible , we might as well" suppose that they will resist tho impact of the Mathematical and Physical Sciences , as imagine that the lichens of an Alpine gorge will stay the slow descent of a glacier . " It is not that these Demonstrable Sciences are likely to bo brought designedly into antagonism with tho tlieosophies of Disbelief . But instead of this , these sciences are now coming down , in one compact mass , upon all varieties of were opinion : without noiae are they coming , yot certainly , to raze them from tho soil where they grow . Travelling in its might , this solid mass will scrape tho surface over which it travels quite bare . Nor is it merely tho Mathematical and

    Physical Sciences that in this manner aro edging opinion out of tho intellectual world ; for in the train of these come tho Statistical , the Economic , and the Political sciences , which every day aro assuming a more positive tone than heretofore , and aro more articulate than any Religious opinions can be , unless sustained by evidence of the most conclusive port . Deductions that aro indisputable—p rinciples that have a near bearing upon tho palpable welfare of the community , not Jess than tho higher truths of philosophy , tend to disengage tho mind from whatever does not possess equal or similar recommendations . Men sicken of endless surmises , ot guesses , of aspirations , o impressions , of vague hopes . Now it is manifest that tho Beligious Disbelief which is at this tijno offered to us in tho < # ad of Ch ^ iat 1 * " ^' neither does , nor can , in the nature of things , take possession of solid grountt whereupon it ' might establish and fortif y itself . At tho vory best , it i 8 ^ l ploauing possibility , or a probability , —a Hoinething bettor than , nothing * Itsoir , from a consciousness of its own elondornosa , will bo glad to slip uway , unnoticed ,

    from tho halls of science . Tho incalculable power of early association , and the extraordinary way in which doctrines root themsolvos in tho mind , like parasitic insects fooding on the life in whioh they live , aro curiously illustrated in men like our author , men with rare powers , « vith cultured habits of tnougnw and with keen perceptions , who nevertheless cannot see tho incongruity of their own positions . Here is one forcibly stating why 8 pwn . ee must

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    Critics are not the legislators , but the judges and police of literature . They do not make laws—they interpret and try to enforce them . — Edinburgh Review .

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    374 T H E & E A PER , &a *^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), April 17, 1852, page 374, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1931/page/18/