REVIEW.

Globe, Volume IX, Issue 1220, 31 January 1878, Page 3

REVIEW.

THE " CONTEMPORARY." Decembeh, 1877. [from the PEESS.J The "Contemporary's " motto might well be "The Invincible." With true British pluck if; is determined never to be beaten. Neither the " Fortnightly " nor the " Nineteenth Century" has succeeded in wresting and wearing its well-earned laurels. Owing to tho loss of some of its very able staff, and the novelty of a rival, the " R.view " for a few month* fell below its usual level. That level, however, has again been reached. In the last three or four numbers the " Review " has even surpassed itself. Against all comers in its own line, the " Contemporary " holds its own as a faithful, able, iirnl lucid expounder of cultured opinion on the pressing and wide-reaching questions of the time. There are two features in the present number which, besides its eleven brilliant articles, especially render it worthy of notice. The first of those is the manifesto of Mr Strahan, to whose proprietory and editorship the magazine returns. After Dean Alford, Alexander Straban became the editor of the " Review," and was succeeded by Mr James Knowles, -who has now gone over to the "Nineteenth Century." Under Strahan's management the " Review " made a gigantic stride. He widened its basis by inviting foreign contributors and establishing foreign agencies. He was the first also to secure contributions from the opposite point of view. Hence the reader was put in possession of all that could bo said on various sides of any important question. Along with this high standard of literary ability, there has been a correspond-' ing improvement in literary amenity. " The vulgar fury of polemical propagandism is a gone thing in such literature as we have to do with here. Cultivated and earnest renders expect to have the higher controversies mapped out before them in ull their aspects, and all sides profit by this arrangement. The battles of authority and rationalism, of science and religion, are now fought over fields so far extended, upon a, scale of motion so large, and with such immense variety of flank movements and charges of front, that the cultivated reader who does not from time to time see every section of the war, soon learns that he sees none of it with a vision that can help him much." The other feature alluded to is the announcement of. a series of papers by very distinguished writers, on topics at once urgent and thoroughly interesting. Mr Gladstono is to furnish a number of articles on the courses of religious thought; Mr Green, on tho doctrine of evolution; Mr Goldwin Smith cvAvrs Mr M. Arnold's field, and discourses on Puri'anism and culture ; P releasor Jevomi is to expose the fallacies of Mr J. Sutsu-fc Mill; Dr. Friodrich is to give his version of the Vatican Council; Dr. E. Freeman is to examine M. Fronde's brilliant study Of Thomas a Becket; Professor L : "htfoot is going to dissect tho new edition of Supernatural R-liyion ; Professor Lotze writes a treatise on the philosophy of the last thirty years ; while Professors Itolleston, Taifc, Thomson, Wundt, Maxwell, and Helmholtz are to furnish from time to time short studies in Physical Science. Such is the striking and varied mental bill of fare with which the "Contemporary" opens its thirteenth year. It is related of an American lawyer— Rufus Choate —that being completely worn out by a wearisome ens'?, he went to a bookseller's in search of a book with which he could relax and refresh his mind. Glancing over the shelves, his eye fell on Hamilton's "Lectures on Metpahysics." " Here is food," exclaimed the lawyer, and trudging off into the country he spent a fortnight in ruminating on the subtleties of mental philosophy. The notion of turning to such a dry (?) subject for relief and pleasure will strike some readers as being slightly ridiculous. Yet we must believe men when they tell us that they do find both in divine philosophy. The ablest prelate on the New Zealand Bench is known to have beguiled a long and painful illness in a similar way. The proper study of mankind is man ; and in man there i 3 nothing so great or so intensely interesting as mind. Hence, from Plato downwards, there have not been wanting men to whom this study is neither " harsh nor crabbed, but a perpetual feast of nectared sweets where no crude surfeit reigns." To those readers whose tastes lay in this direction, the Rev T. H. Green's paper on Mr H. Spencer's application of evolution to human thought will be very welcome, and cannot fail to be helpful. It is the first instalment of what promised to be a valuable contribution to the philosophy of the century. Like many other thorough students of the mind's processes, Mr Green discerns many points of essential agreement in schools that have usually been regarded as decidedly antagonistic. Distance in history is like distance in a landscape ; it enables us to see the similarities among tho many, objects in our field of view. The time seems to have arrived whan it is possible to take a wider, and so a truer, view of the philosophical situation. Mr Green's subtle and lengthy paper will bo found to be a real step in this direction. The first instalment of another series of papers is also given in this number. Tins is a char article from the pen of Professor Stanley Jevons. "John Stuart Mill's Philosophy Tested," is the title and subject of the article. The admirers of the great utilitarian philosopher may well take alarm at the scathing way in which their hero's views are handled. For a long time, and with many minds, Mill has been a sort of infallible philosophical pope. Ho has been sworn by and appealed to as if he were a Plato or an Aristotle rieen from the dead. " On almost every subject of social importance, religion, moral, political philosophy, political economy, metaphysics, logic—he has expressed unhesitating opinions, and his sayings are quoted by his admirers as if they were the oracles of a perfectly wise and logical mind. Nobody questions, or ought to question, the force of Still's style, the persuasive power of his words, the candour of his discussions, and the perfect goodness of his motives. If to all his other great qualities had been happily added logical accurateness, his writings would indeed have been a source of light to generations to come. But in one way or another Mill's intellect was wrecked. Tho cause of injury may have been the ruthless training which his father imposed upon him in tender years; or it may have been Mill's life-long attempt to reconcile a false empirical philoso | ilty with conflicting truth. But, however it arose, Mill's mind was essentially illogical." (p. 169) So Professor Jevons undertakes the task of iconoclast. For twenty years he has studied Mill's works, during fourteen of which those books have been his text-books while lecturing at the University. Convinced that Mill's authority has done immense injury to the cause of philosophy and intellectual training in England, he feels bound to break (ho spell of the charmer. It would be easy to put in a good word for Mill on tho ground of his high-toned moral earnestness. Undoubtedly he was an ardent seeker after truth. I he spirit of his work was lofty and disinterested. But this must not blind our eyes to the falsity of his method and the inaccuracy of its results. Here is tho conclusion of Mr Jevon's masterly article : " It has been shewn that Mill undertakes to explain the origin of our geometrical knowledge on the ground of bis so-called ( Empirical Philo-

sophy,' but that at every step ho involves himself in inextricable difficulties and contradictions. It may b" urged indeed that the ground-work of giometryis a very tlippery subject, and forms a severe test for any kind of philosophy. Thin may be quite true ; but it is no excuse for the way in which Mill has treated the.subject. It is one thing to fail in explaining a difficult matter, it is another thing to rush into subjects and offer reckless opinions and arguments which on minute analysis have no coherence. This is what Mill has done, and he has done it not in the case of geometry alone, but in almost every other point of logical and metaphysical philosophy treated in his works. "

' The paper contributed by a German pro-fes-"Or on the " hygienic value of plantß in rooms and in the open air " is very readable and full of sound information. Tbc following paragraph shews the practical and valuable character of the article—" Modern hygiene has observed that certain variations in the moisture of the soil have great influence on the origin, and spread of certain epidemic diseases, as for instance cholera and typhoid fever—that these diseases do not become epidemic when the moisture of the soil is below a certain level, and has remained so for some time. These variations can be measured with greater accuracy by the ground water of the soil than by tho rain fall, because in the latter case we have to determine how much water penetrates the ground, how much runs off the urfacc, and how much evaporates at onco. The amount of moisture in the soil of a forest is subject to considerably less variation than that outside. EberMayer has deduced the following result from his meteorological observations on forestry. If from the soil of an open space 100 p-irts of water evaporate, then from the soil of a forest free from underwood 38 parts would evaporate, and from a soil covered with underwood only 15 parts would evaporate. This simple fact explains clearly why the cutting down of wood over tracts of country is always followed by the drying up of wells and springs." In India, the home of cholera, much importance has been attached in recent times to plantations as preventatives of it. It has always been observed that tho villages in wooded districts suffer less than those in tho treeless plains. A medical officer gives the following proof:—During the wide-spread epidemic of cholera in Allahabad, in 1859, those parts of the garrison whose barracks had the advantage of having trees near them enjoyed an indisputable exemption, and precisely in proportion to the thickness and nearness of the shelter. Thus the European cavalry in the Wellington barracks, which stand between four rows of mango trees, but are to a certain extent open, suffered much less than the 4th European Regiment, whose quarters were on a hill exposed to the full force of the wind ; whil? the Bengal Horse Artillery, who were in tho thickest of the mango trees, had not a single case of sickness, and the exemption cannot be regarded as accidental, as the next year the comparative immunity was precisely the same." The able and accomplished French correspondent of the " Academy," M. Monod, is thoroughly at homo in giving a vivid and thoughtful sketch of contemporary thought in France. Any ono who wishes to fully understand the state of parties in France, and the tendencies of art, science, philosophy, and literature, will find here exactly what he wants. Tory noticeable is the fact that novels and poetry are being fast given up for learning, philosophy, and science in all its various and ever-widening departments. The " Rcpublique Franoaise " has almost banished the ieuilleton novel to make room for a review of the seiei ess. Two eminent men, M. Paul Best and M. Andre Lefere, edit this part of the paper, and are aided by a number of contributors. Tlieso articles keep the reader acquainted with the whole intellectual movement ; philosophy, history, philology, mythology, physical sciences, natural and medical, the application of science to industry, are all brought before him in turn, everything but literature properly so called.