explained the word as meaning whoso needed the aid a man could give, he represented a great moral progress since the Law was written. "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself:" these words are adequate to express the moral feelings of a good man to-day, as well as when first uttered; but how much more they include now than then! -removal of the causes of poverty, drunkenness, crime,— protection to the deaf and dumb, the blind, the crazy, and the fool. There has been no change in the multiplicationtable since the days of Pythagoras, there will be no change of it; but the knowledge of it has been spread among many millions; that knowledge has been applied to many things he never thought of; and there has been a great development of the mathematical faculty in mankind. Mr Buckle says the influence of a man of great morality is short in time, and not extensive in space. In both statements he is mistaken. For the good man directly incites others to imitate and surpass his excellence; the tradition of it remains long after he is dead, and spreads over all the civilized world. Besides, the moral idea becomes an institution or a law, and then is a continual force in the new civilization itself. A moral feeling can be organized, as well as an intellectual idea. The law forbidding murder, theft, the slave-trade, piracy, and a thousand other offences, was a moral feeling once. So a hospital, an almshouse, a school, a college, was once only the "dictate of the moral instinct." He says, "The deeper we penetrate into the question, the more clearly shall we see the superiority of intellectual acquisitions over moral feeling" (p. 167). He should invert the sentence. He says the Spanish Inquisitors were highly moral men, no hypocrites, but remarkable for an undeviating and incorruptible integrity; with conscientious energy "they fulfilled their duty.' Now it is quite clear that the leaders of the Spanish Church were men of large intellect, carefully cultivated, learned, adroit, familiar with the world. But we should say they were men of very little morality. The conscience, the power to discern right, was so little developed, that, if they were learned, they did not know it was wrong to tear a girl to pieces on the rack, because she could not believe that the Pope was infallible. We should not say a man's mind was well developed, who did not know that one and one make. two; should we say a man's conscience is well developed, who does not know it is wrong thus to torture a girl? He says (p. 220), "The stock of American knowledge is small, but it is spread through all classes." If by knowledge he means “an acquaintance with physical and mental laws," as on p. 246, it is not true that the amount is small in comparison with other countries; though acquaintance with literature is certainly quite rare. But when he says "little attention has been paid to physical science," we think him much mistaken. He thinks philosophical inquiries are "almost entirely neglected." It is not quite true. If no great metaphysician has appeared since Jonathan Edwards, as he truly says, how many has England produced since Berkeley ? Dr Hickok's "Rational Psychology" is a more profound book than that of Jonathan Edwards. Three things go to make a great metaphysician; --power of psychological analysis; intuitive power to perceive great truths, either by a synthetic judgment à priori, or by a comprehensive induction from facts of consciousness or observation; power of deductive logic. Jonathan Edwards was great only in the last, and least of all. America is more devoted to practical affairs, and certainly has done little in metaphysics. But from the death of Newton, in 1727, till the end of that century, how little England did in mathematics! We wish it were true that knowledge is so widely diffused as he says. But, alas! there are four million slaves who know nothing, and as many "poor whites" who know little. We shall not pursue these criticisms. "Ubi plura nitent in carmine, non ego paucis Offendar maculis, quas aut incuria fudit, Aut humana parum cavit natura.” Mr Buckle has given us one of the most important contributions which any Englishman has yet made to the philosophy of human history. We wish we had adequate space to point out its excellences in detail; but the analysis and the extracts we have given must suffice for the present. We congratulate the author on his success. We are sure the thoughtful world will give him a thoughtful welcome, and if his future volumes, which we anxiously look for, shall equal this, he is sure of a high place in the estimation of mankind. A BUMBLEBEE'S THOUGHTS ON THE PLAN AND PURPOSE OF THE UNIVERSE. MANY centuries ago, when the beings now known to scientific men as Radiata, Mollusca, and Vertebrata did not exist on the earth, on the twenty-first day of June, in the year one million six hundred and seventeen before our era, there was a great scientific convention of Bumblebees (Apis bombax) in a little corner of a valley in the Jura mountains. I know not how the place is now called, its latitude and longitude have not been ascertained; but then it was named Bumbloonia; a great town was it and a famous. I think this was not the first convention of Bumblebees, nor the last certainly there must have been many before it, probably also many after it, for such a spirit of investigation could not have been got up of a sudden, nor could it at once disappear and go down for ever. Possibly such scientific meetings went on in a progressive development for many centuries. But, alas! it is of this alone that the records have come down to us; none told the tale of the others. Vixere fortes ante Agamemnona Nocte, carent quia vate sacro! It is not quite easy to determine the affinity of the Bumblebee language used at that meeting: yet it seems to have analogies with the Caucasian, with both the Shemitish and the Indo-Germanic branches thereof; nay, some learned men have found or fancied a close resemblance to the dialect now in current use among German philosophers and professors, especially those of the Hegelian stripe. But I confess I have found the Bumblebee style a little clearer than that of the modern professors. However, I must pass over all these philological questions, interesting and important as they are. The meeting was conducted after much the same fashion as are congresses of the learned in these days. There were four or five hundred members, who met in general assembly, and had a celebrated Bumblebee for their president, vicepresidents and secretaries abounded. There were also sections devoted to special departments of science-Palæontology, Entomology, Zoology, Physiology, Geology, Botany, Astronomy, Mathematics pure and mixed; nay, Metaphysics were not neglected. Every section had its appropriate officers. These savants had their entertainments not less than their severe studies: several excursions were made to places remarkable for their beauty or their sublimity, or for some rare phenomenon of animate or inanimate nature. Rich persons, nobles, and even Bumblebee princesses and queens honoured the convention, sometimes by the physical presence of their distinguished personality, sometimes by inviting the naturalist to a repast upon choice flowers, or on honey of delicious flavour already stored up for winter. Once the whole assembly visited the palace of the Bumblebee Empress-Bombacissima CXLVII.-and admired it as much as if her subjects had not built it for this long descended creature, but she had made it herself. She conferred the order of the LONG STING on the president: an honour never given to any Bumblebee savant before! Patriotic and scientific songs were sung at their dinners, and the Bumblebees were as merry over their simple food as Homer's heroes have since been over their beef, or as modern naturalists with their icecreams and their wine. To their honour be it spoken, no savant required to be helped to his place of sleep after dinner, or was left unsupported and insupportable under the table; but when night drew on they went each to his several place of repose, in a pumpkin blossom-which was the favourite resort- -or under a leaf -or to some other convenient shelter. Yet I am sorry to relate, that little jealousies and rivalries, heart-burnings, and the disposition to steal another's discovery prevailed at Bumbloonia in the year B. c. 1,000,617 nearly as much as they have since done with the two-legged mammals who now-a-days take their place. On the last and great day of the meeting it was announced that by special desire the president would conclude the session with a brief speech on some matter of great importance to the interests of all science. He was the most distinguished savant in the world of Bumblebees, old, famous alike for his original genius and his acquired learning; he was regarded as the sum of actual knowledge, the incarna→ tion of all science, the future possible as well as the present actual. Besides, he would wear the splendid decoration of the order of the Long Sting-never seen in a scientific convention before, and be addressed as MOST MAGNIFICENT DRONE," the title of the highest nobility, members of the Imperial family! His speech was waited for with obvious and yet decorous impatience. At the appointed hour the sections broke up, though without confusion, and the members crowded about him greedy of knowledge: even to have heard might one day be a distinction. He was conducted to the tip of a mullein leaf (Verbascum Thapso-Lychnitis), while his audience below hummed and buzzed and clapped their wings and their antennæ with applause; nay, some briskly snapped their mandibles together with great and enthusiastic admiration. After order was restored, the great philosopher of the year B. c. 1,000,617 stretched out his feelers, and thus began: Illustrious audience! It is the greatest honour of my life, already oppressed with much more than I deserve, that in my old age I am allowed to I am allowed to preside over this distinguished body, and still more myself to address these assembled sections before we separate. For what do I now behold? I see before me the congregated talent, learning, and even genius of all the world. Here are travellers who have skirted every zone; Geologists who understand the complicated structure of the soil beneath our feet to the depth of nearly an inch; Astronomers familiar with the entire heavens; Botanists, Zoologists, Physiologists, Chemists, who know all things between the earth beneath and the heavens above; Philologists, understanding the origin and meaning, the whence, the wherefore, and the whither of every word in our wonderful language; and perhaps more remarkable than all else, here are Metaphysicians that have analyzed all the facts of consciousness or of unconsciousness which are known or not known to the Bumblebee. There was never such an assembly! Old, oppressed with the importance of my position and its solemn responsibilities, your presence overawes me! I can scarcely control my own emotions of admiration and esteem. [Great sensation.] Shall I proceed? shall I be silent? But wherefore am I here? Is it not to speak? I would fain listen, but obedient to your |