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    work of passionate devotion on Eazlitt ' s part , and his son undertakes m this edition to correct its errors of name and of date . The same publishers present us with an amusing book of travels , profusely illustrated witii woodcuts , JSTeales Residence in Siam , which introduces us to manners and customs apt yet hacknied by the " free-pencillers . " Mr . Heale is a pleasant companion ; and although we have not travelled over all the ground with him , it has been from no lack of interest , but from lack ot time . We shall call upon his volume for extracts from time to time , and now dismiss it with our recommendation . Also from the game establishment comes this Illustrated London ' Cookery Bootc , a goodly volume

    containing fifteen hundred receipts , addressed to families blessed with an intelligent cook and a liberal purse . As reviewers we are supposed to understand " carving , " having so many occasions for " cutting up ; " but of the great art of cookery we must humbly declare our profound ignorance , and therefore decline to give our opinion on this book . Beales Laws of Health in relation to Mind and , Body ( 8 vo , Churchill ) , contains , in the shape of letters from a practitioner to his patient , some excellent advice , and some fourth-rate metaphysical writing . Although not by any means comparable to Andrew Combe ' s admirable books on this subject , Mr . Beale ' s volume may be commended as _ an intelligible exposition of certain general principles useful to bear in mind . The Introductory Lectures delivered at the Museum of Practical Geology , and published under the title of Records of the School of Mines ( Longman and Co . ) , are somewhat more interesting than inaugural lectures are aturai

    apt to bei notably that of Professor Forbes on the delations ot JN History to Geology , which has less of commonplace than the others . We noticed these lectures at the time , and now record their publication . The Life of Roger Williams , by Romeo Elton , D . D . ( 12 mo , A . Cockshaw ) , has peculiar interest to those who view in its true philosophic light the chivalrous element of that spiritual Quixotism named " Missionaryfervor ; " and from it the reader may turn to another psychological curiosity set forth in Wild ' s Irish Popular Superstitions ( 12 mo , Orr and Co . ) , written in a rapid touch-and-go style . #

    Railway Literature , as it is inappropriately called , entices us with Cunyngkame ' s lively Glimpse at the Great Western Republic ( Bentley ' s shilling series ) , with . Fanny Lewald ' s Italian Sketch-Booh , translated from the German for Simms and M'Intyre's Book-case ; with Captain Mayne Reid ' s rattling and vivacious romance , The Scalp Hunters ( Parlour Library ); with Mary Howitt ' s translation of A . Stifter ' s Pictures of Life ( Parlour Library ); and with an original novel by Miss Maillard , Zingra , the Gipsy ( Railway Library ) .

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    COMTE'S POSITIVE PHILOSOPHY . By Gr . H . Lewes . Part VII . —General Considerations on Astronomy . It is difficult not to talk poetry when talking of the stars ; but we must here do our utmost to repress that tendency , and to keep ourselves at the scientific point of view . That man should know anything of the stars would be marvellous , if all knowledge were not a marvel . The history of his knowledge , the gradual growth of his conceptions on this subject of the stars would be the history of the human mind . In Astronomy , from its very simplicity , we see with greater distinctness the procession of thoughts , from the time when the course of the stars seemed prophetic of human destinies , and their wayward ever-varying configurations dragged with them the strange vicissitudes of life , to the time when positive science has ascertained the main laws of the heavenly mechanism . In it may be seen amusingly illustrated the theological tendency of interpreting all phenomena according to human analogies , the metaphysical tendency of arguing instead of observing—of substituting some logical deduction for the plain observation of a fact ; and finally , the positive tendency of limiting inquiry to accessible relations , and rejecting as idle all speculation which transcends our means . Comte lias not only devoted some four hundred pages of his second volume to an exposition of the main points necessary to be understood in a philosophic survey of Astronomy , he has also devoted a separate work to the subject in his Treatise of Popular Astronomy , justly considering this science as one eminently calculated to render familiar his views of positive method . In the remarks which are now to follow , Comte himself must be understood as speaking ; the sentences are translations , or analyses , of what may be found in his work : — And first , as to the possible extent of our sidereal knowledge . Sight is the only one of our senses through which we can acquire a knowledge of celestial objects . Hence , their only qualities that can become known to us are their forms , their distances , their magnitudes , and their movements ; and Astronomy , therefore , may properly be defined thus : — It has for its object the discovery of the laws of the geometrical and mechanical phenomena presented to us by the heavenly bodies . It is , however , necessary to add , that in reality , the phenomena of all the heavenly bodies arc not within the reach of scientific investigation . Those philosophical minds who are strangers to the profound study of Astronomy , and even astronomers themselves , have not yet sufficiently distinguished , in the ensemble of our celestial investigations , between the solar point of view , as I may call it , and that which truly deserves the name of universal . This distinction , however , appears to me indispensable to mark precisely tho line of separation between that part of the science

    which may be brought to a state completely perfect , and the other , which without indeed being purely ppnjectural > must always remain in the stage of infancy , at least , when contrasted with the first . The . solar system of which we form a part , evidently offers a subject of study , whose boundaries are well marked ; it is susceptible of a thorough examination , and capable of leading us to the most satisfactory conclusions . But the idea of what we call . the universe is , on the contrary , necessarily indefinite , so that , however extensive we would suppose our well-grounded knowled ge of this kind to become in the course of time , we should never be able to arrive at the true conception of the ensemble of the stars . The , difference is at

    this moment , very striking indeed j for , with a solar astronomy in the high degree of perfection acquired during the two last centuries , we do not even yet possess , in sidereal astronomy , the first and simplest element of positive inquiry , —the determination of the distances of the stars . Doubtless , we have reason for presuming ( as I shall afterwards explain ) that those distances will yet be determined , at least , within Certain limits , in the case of several stars ; and that , consequently , we shall know divers Other important elements , which theory is quite prepared to deduce from this fundamental given quantity , such as their masses , &c . But the important distinction made above will by no means be affected thereby .

    In every branch of our researches , and in all their chief aspects , there exists a constant and necessary harmony between the extent of our intellectual wants , that truly are such , and the real compass , present or future , of our knowledge . This harmony , which I shall specially point out in all classes of phenomena , is neither the result nor the sign of a final cause , as our common-place philosophers try to believe . It simply arises from this evident necessity : ——on the one hand we have only need of knowing what can act upon and affect us , more or less directly ; and on the other , it follows , from the very fact of there being such influencing agencies in operation , that we are thereby sooner or later supplied with a sure means

    of knowledge . This relation is made manifest in a remarkable manner in the case before us . The most complete study possible of the laws of the solar system , of which we form a part , is of high interest to us , and we have succeeded in giving it an admirable precision . On the contrary , if an exact idea of the universe is necessarily interdicted to us , it is plain that this is of no real importance , except to our insatiable curiosity . The daily application of astronomy shows that the phenomena occurring within each solar system , being those which can alone affect its inhabitants , are essentially independent of the more general phenomena connected with the mutual action of the suns , almost like our meteorogical phenomena in their relation to the planetary phenomena . Our tables of celestial events ,

    prepared long beforehand , on the principle of taking no account of any other world in the universe , save our own , have hitherto rigorously tallied with direct observations , however minute the precision we introduce into them . This independence , so palpable , is completely explained by the immense disproportion which we are certain exists between the mutual distances of the suns , and the small intervals between our planets . If , as is highly probable , the planets provided with atmospheres , as Mercury , Venus , Jupiter , &c , are really inhabited , we may regard their inhabitants as in some shape our fellow citizens , seeing that from tlnY sort of common countiy there would necessarily result a certain community of th 6 ughts , and even of interests , while the inhabitants of the other solar systems must

    be entire aliens to us . It is therefore necessary to separate more profoundly than has hitherto been customary , the solar from the universal point of view , —the idea of the world from that of the universe ; the first is the highest which we have been able actually to reach , and it is , besides , the only one in which we are truly interested . Hence , without renouncing all hope of obtaining some knowledge of the stars , it is necessary to conceive positive astronomy as consisting essentially in the geometrical and mechanical study of the small number of heavenly bodies which compose the world of which we form a part . It is only within these limits that astronomy , from its perfection , merits the superior

    rank which it now holds among the sciences . . And here Comte calls attention to a very important philosop hical law , never distinctly recognised before his enunciation of it—viz .: That tnproportion as 4 he phenomena to be studied become more complex , they are , from their nature , susceptible of more extended and more varied means of exploration . . . In other words , tho complexity of the phenomena imply a greater vane y Bens

    of sources through which they can be investigated . If man had n tho less , the phenomena now perceived by that sense would be wanti g to him ; if he had a sense the more , lie would perceive more V hmo ™ e ^ There is not , however , an exact compensation between the increase o . ficulty nnd tho increase of our resources , so that ^ notwithstanding harmony , tho sciences which refer to tho most complex p henomena tinue rio less necessarily the most imperfect , in accordance with tho c ^ cloprcdical scalo established at the commencement of Conite ' s work . As nomical phenomena , then , being the simplest , ought to be those tor

    tho means of exploration are the most limited . ' •«• * nro-Our art of observing is , in general , composed of three differen : \ ^ cesses : 1 st , Observation , properly bo called—that is to say , the dire animation of the phenomenon , just as it naturally presents itself ; ^ nci , ^ ^ rimmt—that is to say , the contemplation of the phenomena , more o modified by circumstances artificially created by us , with the exprea v ^ pose of a more perfect exploration ; 3 rd , Comparison—* that is to 8 » y >

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    We should do our utmost to encourage the Beautiful , for the Useful encourages itself . —Goethe .

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    472 THE LEAJDEB . ESatordj ^

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 15, 1852, page 472, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1935/page/20/