principle of Good, there still remains to be determined the place which Reason has in this connection.

Merely to act according to some teleological or determining principle gives man no preeminence above Nature, except in degree. That which is peculiar to man is that he has the faculty of acting according to laws as represented and reflected upon in the light of thought, to which reason is absolutely indispensable. Reason is therefore necessary to choice, to freedom. There can, therefore, no more be goodness without reason than there can be without will. Yet there might be, as Kant justly argues, if good were to be in any case identified with mere happiness. "For," says he, "all the actions which man has to perform with a view to happiness, and the whole rule of his conduct, would be much more exactly presented to him by instinct, and that end had been much more certainly attained than it ever can be by reason; and should the latter also be bestowed on the favored creature, it must be of use only in contemplating the happy predisposition lodged in instinct, to admire this, to rejoice in it, and be grateful for it to the beneficent Cause; in short, Nature would have prevented reason from any practical use in subduing appetite, etc., and from excogitating for itself a project of happiness; she would have taken upon herself not only the choice of ends, but the means, and had with wise care intrusted both to instinct merely." The fact, then, that reason has been given, and has been endowed with a practical use, is sufficient to prove that some more worthy end than felicity is designed, — namely, a will good in itself, rationally good,

- that is, from choice.

Out of the rationality of will is developed its morality. Here, only, is found the possibility of failure in respect of the end constitutionally indicated, — here only the avenues of temptation, by which alien elements come in to array the man against himself in a terrible conflict, so sublime that it is a spectacle to heavenly powers. It is only as this rationality is clearly developed, and is allotted its just place in Moral Science, that the universal structure to which we have already alluded, and which, as we saw, culminated in the will, assumes its peculiar sublimity. For the voluntariness which is consciously real

ized in reason gives man the mastery over constitutional processes, not merely to direct, but even to thwart them; nor this merely for himself, but it is in his power, through the nullification of his own constitution, to nullify also that of the world, to dally with the institutions of Nature, and on the grandest scale to play the meddler.

Merely of itself, apart from reason, the will could only work out its teleological type in darkness and by blind necessity; there could be no goodness, for this involves conscious elements. But through reason, that which of itself the will would yield as unconscious impulse obtains representation, and thus becomes a recognized principle, which in connection with the feelings involves an element of obligation.

Conscience, thus, instead of being a separate and independent faculty, is, as Dr. Hopkins also places it, a function of the moral reason. Into the courts of this reason come not only the higher indications of will, but also the impulses of appetite, instinct, and affection, -not moral in themselves, indeed, but yet assuming the garments of morality as seen in this high presence.

son.

That which was made fundamental by Kant, in all that he has left on the subject of Moral Philosophy, is the position that it is wholly to be developed out of practical reason, or will as represented in reaThe same position is fundamental in President Hopkins's work, and it is here that its philosophic value chiefly rests. This position is developed in plain English, with strict scientific truth, and yet with a warm and sympathetic glow, as regards outward embodiment, that very much heightens the elevating power of the principles and conclusions evolved. Nor is man, because of his independent personality, made to stand alone, but always is he seen in the higher and AllComprehending Presence. Ideal truth is reached without necessitating Idealism, and harmony is attained without Pantheism.

We have purposely confined ourselves to the most general feature of the work, because it is this which gives it its great and distinctive importance; yet the whole structure is as elaborately and beautifully wrought as it is fitly grounded in the truth of Nature.

The National Almanac and Annual Record for 1863. Philadelphia: George W. Childs. 12mo. pp. 600.

VOLUMES like this are the very staff of history. What a stride in literature from the "Prognostications" of Nostradamus and Partridge, and the imposture of such prophetic chap-books as the almanacs of Moore and Poor Robin, to the bulky volumes teeming with all manner of information, such as the "Almanach Impérial," the "New Edinburgh," or "Thorn's Irish Almanac"! In the list of superior works ranking with those just named is to be included the new "National Almanac." We have here assuredly a vast improvement over anything in this way which has heretofore been attempted among us. A more comprehensive range of topics is presented, and such standard subjects as we should naturally expect to find introduced are worked up with much more copiousness and accuracy of treatment. It is evident on every page that a thoroughly active and painstaking industry has presided over the preparation of the volume. Statistics have not been taken at second-hand, where the primary sources of knowledge could be rendered available. The details of the great Departments of the Federal Government have been revised by the Departments themselves. In like manner, the particulars concerning the several States have in most cases been corrected by a State officer. Thus, as respects the leading subjects in the book, we have here not only the most accurate information before the public, but we have it in the latest authorized or official form. Facts are as a general rule brought down to date, instead of being six or twelve months behind-hand, as has been the case heretofore in similar publications, the compilers of which were content to await the tardy printing by Congress of documents and reports. Hence the work is pervaded by an air of freshness and vitality. It is not merely a receptacle of outgrown facts and accomplished events, but the companion and interpreter of the scenes and activities of the

stirring present. It strives to seize and embody the whole being and doing of the passing time.

It is quite impossible to exhibit in these few lines any adequate conception of the diversity and fulness of the subjects. All the valuable results of the last census are classified and incorporated. Then we have the entire organization of the military, naval, and civil service, - the tariff and tax laws conveniently arranged, the financial, industrial, commercial, agricultural, literary, educational, and ecclesiastical elements of our condition, the legislation of the last three sessions of Congress, and full and detailed statistics of the individual States, to which is added a minute sketch of the foreign Governments. Nor can we overlook the fact, that, in the abundant matter relating to our present war, the narrative of events, obituary notices, etc., reach back to the commencement of the Rebellion, so as to furnish a complete and unbroken record of the contest from its outbreak. So much for the diversified nature of the matter; and an idea may be formed of its aggregate bulk from the fact that it exceeds, by nearly onethird, the size of the American Almanac."

The publication is, we trust, the dawning of a new era in this department of our literature. We have done well heretofore, but we have been behind many of the leading foreign works. There are in this initial volume indications that the new series which it inaugurates will be conducted with a thoroughness, enterprise, and skill which cannot fail to supply a great want. The politician, statesman, and scholar, the merchant, mechanic, and tradesman, every newspaper-reader, and, in truth, every ob servant and thoughtful man, of whatsoever profession or business, always wants at hand a minute and trustworthy exhibition of the manifold elements which constitute the changeful present as it ebbs and flows around him. Such hand-books are indispensable for present reference, and they constitute an invaluable storehouse for the future.

PLUTARCH, when about to enter upon the crowded lives of Alexander and Cæsar, declares his purpose and sets forth the true nature and province of biography in these words:"It must be borne in mind that my design is not to write histories, but lives. And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever. Therefore, as portrait-painters are more exact in the lines and features of the face, in which character is seen, than in the other parts of the body, so I must be allowed to give my more particular attention to the marks and indications of the souls of men, and while I endeavor by these to portray their lives, may be free to leave more weighty matters and great battles to be treated of by others."

That these general principles of biography are correct, and that Plutarch, by adhering to them, succeeded, beyond all

all this

others, in making his heroes realities, men of flesh and blood, whom we see and know like those about us, in whom we feel the warmest interest, and from whom we derive lessons of deep wisdom, as from our own experience, could best be shown by the enduring popularity of his "Lives," and the seal of approval set upon them by critics of the most opposite schools. What a long array of names might be presented of those who have given their testimony to the wondrous fascination of this undying Greek!-names of the great and wise through many long centuries, men differing in age, country, religion, language, and occupation. For ages he has charmed youth, instructed manhood, and solaced graybeards. His heroes have become household words throughout the world. He has been equally familiar with court, with camp, and with cottage. He has been the companion of the soldier, the text-book of the philosopher, and the vade-mecum of kings and statesmen. And his name even now, after the lapse of so many generations, is fresher than ever.

Yet Lord Macaulay could not refrain from a sneer at Plutarch as a pedant who thought himself a great philosopher and a great politician. Pedant he may have been; philosopher and politician he may not have been; but he was, nevertheless, the prince of biographers. Macaulay has praised Boswell's "Life of Johnson as the best biography ever written. But was not Boswell a pedant? Was he a philosopher? Macaulay himself has penned many biographies. Most of them are quite above the pedantry of small facts. Instead, they are crammed with deep philosophy, with abstractions, and with the balancing of antithetical qualities. They are bloodless frameworks, without life or humanity, -bundles of peculiarities skilfully grouped, and ticketed with such and such a name. No one sees a man within. As biographies they will not be remembered, but as instances of labored learning, of careful special pleading, and of brilliant rhetoric. Elsewhere, however, he has descended from philosophy, and not been above the pedantry of detail. And he has given us, in consequence, charming lives, - successful, in fact, just so far as he has followed in the footsteps of the old Greek. Yet who would for a moment compare his Pitt, his Goldsmith, or his William IV., as biography, with Plutarch's Alcibiades, or Cato the Censor? We remember the fact that Goldsmith sometimes wore a peach-blossom suit, but we see Cato in his toga.

Very many works have been written, purporting to be "The Life and Times" of this or that man. Where a man has occupied a large historic place, has been moulded by his times, and has moulded in turn the coming years, such works are well enough as history. As biography they are failures. The Times get the upper hand, and thrust down the Life. Without the Life, such works would be better, too, as history; for man and the world are two different things, and their respective provinces cannot, without confusion, be thrown

- so far as he is the organ chosen by destiny to aid in the development of his race, just so far he is a maker of history, and therefore its proper subject, and its alone. Napoleon was not only a man, but he was Europe for some twenty years. Louis XIV. was the Europe of half a century. There should be lives of such men, for they were akin to their fellows: histories, too, should be theirs, for they were allied to Nature, and fate, and law. They jested; and Biography, smiling, seized her tablets. They embodied a people; and Clio, pondering, opened the long scrolls of time.

All biography has been said to be eulogistic in its nature. This is well enough. But it is not well, when the author, high on daring stilts, overlooks the little matters just about him, and, rapidly running his eye over the wastes that stretch from Dan to Beersheba, prates of the fields that lie along the distant horizon. Nor is it well, when he forgets his hero, and writes himself,— when he constantly thrusts upon us philosophy, abstractions, and the like, -when he has a pet theory to sustain through thick and thin, — when narrative becomes disquisition, memoir is criticism, life is bloodless, and the man is a puppet whose strings he jerks freakishly. There may be something good in all this; but it is all quite out of place: it is simply not biography. The foundation of most biographical sins is, perhaps, ambition, an ambition to do

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something more or something other than the subject demands, and to pitch the strain in too high a key. Hence we have usually found the memoirs of comparatively insignificant men to be better reading, and more fertile in suggestion, than those of what are called great men. Not that the real life, as he lived it, of a man of mediocrity has in itself more seeds of thought than that of a hero. Far otherwise. But his written life has often greater lessons of wisdom for us, precisely because it is generally found to give us more of the individual, and more of our common humanity, which is the very thing we want. There is less of pretext to pour this one small drop into the broad ocean, and then treat us to a vague essay on salt-water. What is it, for instance, that gives to Southey's "Life of Nelson" its great excellence ? There have been many other works on the same subject, larger, fuller, and more carefully studied. But these will perish, while that will be cherished by all the generations to come. It is because the author kept throughout precisely on a level with his subject. He was conscious, on every page, that he was writing of one man, -that nothing was trivial which could throw light on this man, and nothing important which did not tend directly to the same end. Nelson was made to speak, not only in his own words, but in the many little ways and actions which best show the stuff one is made of. There is no essay, nothing strictly didactic. Facts are given: inferences are left entirely with the reader. Few books are more wearisome than those which are thoroughly exhaustive, which point a moral and adorn a tale on every page. Imagination and thought must sit supine, despairing of new conquests. Their work has all been done before.

Christopher North-Heaven be praised!-was not an "historic force." He was a good many things, but not that. And so it was always pleasant to read him and about him. He was so com

pletely vital and individual, that nothing that concerned him ever lacked in human interest. The world has known him for a long time, and has lost nothing by the acquaintance. Latterly it has come to know him better than before in his character of citizen, son, husband, and father; and it has come to the sage conclusion that even as a family-man he was not quite so bad, after all. It is a great relief to know at last that Christopher was throughout consistent, that the child was father to the man. One of his first exploits was fishing with a bent pin. Another was to preach a little sermon on a naughty fish. The "application," though brief, was earnest. To the infant expounder, the subject of his discourse. doubtless appeared in the guise of a piscatorial Cockney. After many other the like foreshadowings, and after draining dry his native village, he went, when twelve years of age, to Glasgow University. Professor Jardine, who then held the chair of Logic, was fully alive to the rare promise of his pupil, and said of him subsequently,—"He lived in my family during the whole course of his studies at Glasgow, and the general superintendence of his education was committed to me; and it is but justice to him to declare, that during my long experience I never had a pupil who discovered more genius, more ardor, or more active and persevering diligence." But his ardor was not limited to philosophy and the humanities: his powers required a larger field than the curriculum. He walked, ran, wrestled, boxed, boated, fished, wrote poetry, played the flute, danced, kept a careful diary, and read largely. Even at this early age, he felt the merit of the then unappreciated Wordsworth, and, on the appearance of the "Lyrical Ballads," wrote the author a letter expressive of his admiration.

In 1803, Wilson, now eighteen, was transferred to Oxford as a Gentleman Commoner of Magdalen. And surely never lighted on the Oxford orb so glori