NATIONAL EVOLUTION.

Mount Ida Chronicle, Volume VII, Issue 371, 14 April 1876, Page 3

NATIONAL EVOLUTION.

The possesses a'l the unpleasantness of the man or woman who has u mission. His mission is, in season ahd out of season, to be scientific. The' New Zealand Magazine,' iudgod by its first two numbers, is likely to be a hotbed for the development of scientific snobbery. We do not wish it to be understood that the writers of l)arwino-Theology and Naare full-blown specimens of the species. It is in the direction of their hero worship. They have at least sat at the hero's feet, aud Mr. Shaw more particularly has doveloped fruit after hia kind. Natioral evolution, purports to be written in answer to Mr. Stout's article in the first number on Specialisation in Government,. Unless wo had been told this by the Wellington * Argus, we should never have guessed it, for what of argument can be drawn from the quotations extracted from De Tocqueville. Freeman, and others—so far as they can bo considered applicable at all—is in favor of the more moderate views in Mr. Stout's paper. Mr. Shaw's opening statement is abruptly uuiquo: "We are in the middle of a most important crisis in the political existeuce of this Colony, a period of organic transition. These conditions of life iu all living organisms, whether natural

bodies or bodies politic, are especially critical and dangerous, and upon tlie way in which the given c gam'sod body natural or political gels through that s(age depends iu great measure its future iifo lor weal or for woe, for weakness or for power." This opening sentence is hardly a fair sample ot Mr. Shaw's grammer, but it is one of many groan verba/ blots in an ai'ticle which is wutten with a luxuriant carelessness, not easily to be excused whcu it is renumbered that it purports to be little mo e'ihau a reprnt of articles published in the ' .New Zealand Thnep.' .The object of the paper is to show that ''Evolution of perfect organisation ia oue thing, Federation is another thing, and Ceuir.ilisatiou is yet * different thing." Federation is cooly assumed to be .in " imperfect political develop*, menfc;" Centralisation—that is administrative Centralisation—is compared to " congestion and consequent paralysis in a natural body, alternating perhaps with an inflammatory or spasmodic action of the affected parts." The opening thus effected, Evolution ia ridden to death. Fir.it, we are treated to n. definition given by Mr. Herbert Spem er as a refined residuum of his theory, bn( never meant to be quoted alone. Hero it is— "A change from ao indefinite, incoherent, homogeneity to ;', definite, coherent, heterogeneity, through continuous differentiations and integration*." No doubt Mr. Shaw is rii;i.il;.; thw focalisea the doctrine; j.ud if a single word is omitted the doctrine will be truncated. Seriously, if our readers want to study Spencer lettbem be advised and <;oto the fountain bead. But for Mr. Shaw : Ho holds up to us the national organic integration bo successful in England—" tbe coalescence of local and territorial powers, jurisdictions, and representations, and the coalescence of estates or orders of men composing the ethnic whole." This is, we take it, a native attempt at localisation, we have huge, utterly irrelevant extracts from Freeman's Norman Conquest to drag in a feeble comparison between the gradual extinction of the clergy' and tbe baron;ige and the extinction of our Provinces. " The in h."' we are told, " a very striking ootb of differentiation and integration. The great military assembly pane.! at the point of least cohesion; and that point was the distinction between the majorat baronet and minoret baronet," Mr. Shaw could mourn for Italy that she has not passed through a despotic centralisation in order that she might attain a practical embodiment of the national idea, and thus at once naively admits that that is what is in for us, but it ia for

our good. Of course be takes refuge in ancient Greece to point his moral. , Por-getting ihat the Grecian Staten were; despotic centres—although he himself tells ub 'the principle of political reprenentationwaa quite unknown 1o the nucie-ntV—he claim* for our Provincial Byntcm,.founded upon representation, a similar teudency to promote national disunion. We are not spared the old Rtory of tbe increased facilities of < ommunif.it.ion in our dny, and the fallacious argument founded upon it, uh if both story and argument oid. not cut both \vayn v\it'> equal force, as if i«. would not Ifrid more and more io promote Colouh*' Legislative union, while retaining all oraclieal administration of local "evenue for ■f lie Provinces. " Gtood for one case, good for all; that is the maxim, the patent noßvruin panacea of a]' quacks, political oi other." "We. doubr very .iiuj h whether Mr. fciba.w or Mr. Shifovd, hoi to apeak of tbe modern ficienlific gods, leuow anything about the rea 1 cyv-t.e of tbe ueclioe and fa)' of Ancient Greece. An argument ih absurdly drawn from Eentha til 'n defence of slierjng the Constitution Act, because it isfallacious to suppose there can be <uich a tbinoas an ipuuila'ole ia>w. Did yve frame our own Constitution Act? Is New .Zealand independent? Perhaps independence, I* the al Evolution." We should like io know wha cxcuHO there w for v writer o p bo gieat pretensions offending good. taste by Ibe use of such mere dictionary words as "connotes," "extrudes," and then descending to "twaddle," and "tin-p0.,." Wo gavo Mr. bbaw'a opening sentence ; in justice to him we give h'\H eloquent, ca.-oi ully-worked-up, thought-'Pppiring concluHion : —"The

* ' National Evolution,' by John H. Shaw. * New Zealand Magazine,' No 2.

quesiion for the Colony i* this, 'Are we to coutinue a miserable aggregation of little political circumscription*, hotbeds of UDreasonalVe and uureanon'tug jea'oosies and prejudice, centres of political disioleg'at'on, tearing out ti)e bowels of tbe land ? ' 01 f ' Are we under tbe influence of an increasing internal communication audgrowiug Intelligence, giving full scope 1o the healthful instincts of our race, to coa'esce into odo organic whole, interpenetrated w<tb tbe sentiments of national unity, and pervaded, with tbe consciousness of national identity ? ' Which is to be?"

Mr. ."Shaw should understand, for his own peace, tbat big words are not science; neither is scientific cant caught up at secondhand argument. He appears to, be painstaking, and to have read aridly, though not with <iiscretion. Let bim study Davy's philosophic works, or even Wbately's, Hamilton's, or Stewart's. Tben perhaps, with continued assiduity, he may be able to give a translation of aSpencerioo maxim worth printing. Has be ever read ihe disputation between the Squire and. Moses in the 'Vicar of Wakefield—"lf so, tben," cried tbe Squire, " answer me directly to what I propose: Whether do you judge the analytical investigalion of the first part of my enthymem dei'-cn'out secundera quoad, orquoad kudus? p.nd give me your reasous, I sav, directly ; '' or the following from the immortal Jenkinson—"You talk of the world, sir . . . the world is in it* dotage, and yet Ihe costnogomy or creation of the world has puzzled the philosophers of every age. What a medley of opinions ! have ihey not broached upon the creatiou of the world. Sanehoniathon, Manettio, Berosus, and Ocellus Luca - nus have all attempted it in vain. Tbe latter has these words : anarchon ara Tcai atelutaion to pan, which implies—" Clearlv scientific snobbery of the present is evolved from the similar product of Goldsmith's time, which he satirised bo heartily.