he seems to have made enemies right and left by "thinking aloud." A droll, given to much wine (which gave him attacks of blood to the head every now and then), he generally confined himself to practical jokes,-such as slily breaking the plates and glasses, smiling fatuously all the while with his eyes almost shut. But at times he could rail in a way which, in the jealous world of art, must have been unpardonable. Still he might well be soured by long neglect, and by the hard struggle of his youth. Schubert, teaching A B C in his father's school till he is turned out for giving a stupid girl a ringing box on the ear, may almost rank with Burns at his gauging.

There is not much of Schubert's own in this volume. Part of his Diary was cut up into shreds and distributed by a seller of autographs. We read, however, how he was struck with the beautiful scenery round Salzburg, "which was better than Eden, because I saw it from a charming carriage, a comfort which Adam and Eve never possessed." At fifteen, he writes a touching letter to his brother, quoting St. Matthew, about the "two coats," to back his modest request for one or two kreutzers a month pocket-money. There are scarcely any other letters.

Of his life there is little to tell. There is no public excitement, no intercourse with great men; he lived thirty years in the same town with Beethoven, and they never met but once, just before the latter's death. Yet, German-like, he has his bit of romance. He teaches music in Count John Esterhazy's family, spends the summer with them in Hungary, and, forgetting the immane quantum, falls in love with the youngest daughter, a girl of eleven. She wants him to dedicate something to her. "What's the use? Everything is dedicated to you already," he replies. "She does not see the extent and reality of his love," naïvely remarks the biographer. But, though Schubert's is a singularly uneventful life, the man comes out clearly enough in the book before us. To say that Mr. Wilberforce's work reads like a translation is by no means to dispraise it, for in no other form could so quaint a being be so well brought before us. We trace him on from the simple family life, where the evening concerts were a matter of course, "Franz, playing the viola, already quickest of all to note a mistake. If a brother was the offender he looked seriously at him; if it was his father he passed over the mistake once, but next time would say, with a modest smile, Father, there must be something wrong.' And so he grows

up into an obstinate, hard-writing, rollicking, fame-despising, boon-companion; possibly exemplifying the saw that music is of all the arts the most sensuous. Nor, devoutly worshipping two of the persons of Luther's triad, does he seem to have been kept from falling down before the third by his life-long passion for the Esterhazy. "He was often in love," says his biographer, "though we know singularly little of his love adventures." Well, eventful or not, the life of a man who composed the Erl King, and the Wanderer, and the trio in B flat, must surely be worth examining; and, when we close Mr. Wilberforce's book, we feel that (whatever they may say about his want of harmony as compared with his exuberant melody) the Germans, in his case, fell into what is commonly called the English error of not knowing their prophets.

H. S. FAGAN.

THE DIVINE GOVERNMENT. By SOUTHWOOD SMITH, M.D. Trübner & Co. 1866.

THIS ought to be a good book, for it is the reprint of an essay which appeared just half a century ago. It passed through four editions in ten years, and after being for at least a whole generation out of print, but as it appears not out of mind, it is now issued afresh. The subject can never grow out of date, for as long as we exist at all, the Divine government, its principles, purposes, and decrees, must be for every one of us the question of questions which, when rightly solved, answers all other questions, and reduces them to their due rank and importance. This is that question and mystery which haunts and agitates the awakened human soul more than any other. All other relations are fleeting and transitory, but our relation to the Supreme Power in the universe, what is the nature of that? are we disregarded and overlooked, or are we the objects of incessant care and superintendence? towards what sort of a future are we all tending? Is the Supreme Power beneficent, or is it of a mixed nature, beneficent only to chosen races or individuals, or is it alike beneficent to all? Is there a final end in creation, and has the Supreme Power a supreme design, and can we make out what that design is? He is accounted a worthless and trifling person who has no design in his doings, or who acts only pour passer le temps. Can we believe then that GOD is without a purpose, and that the ages roll on without bringing Him nearer to the accomplishment of that purpose? If we believe in a God at all, we must also believe in a final end, nor can we "doubt that through the ages one increasing purpose runs ;" and what should that purpose be but to make all happy-to produce universal good? All human activities have a final end, which end is the production of happiness. This is the end even of penal legislation. Now, unless we believe Man to be more benevolent than GOD, we must hold His final end to be the same as ours. And unless we believe Man to be more virtuous than his Maker, we must also hold that GOD aims at producing happiness by the same means by which man in his best state aims at producing it-by first producing virtue.

.

There is indeed no difference between religionists of any shade as to the Deity's final end, but only as to the extent to which He pursues it. The narrow religionist exclaims, "God's end is indeed to produce happiness, but only to make me happy and my co-religionists. To make all happy is too vast a design even for Him. It was the original design, but all that has been baffled long ago; and now He has taken up with a smaller design, which is to make a part of His creatures happy, and what should that part be, but ourselves-we who are the flower of creation, the favourites of God, and the nurselings of His providence?"

It is to shatter such base reasonings as this, and to uphold the great original design of final happiness for ALL, and to show that there is nothing in any present appearances to the contrary which ought to make us doubt for a moment in its ultimate realisation, that Dr. Southwood Smith wrote this noble treatise. As he well remarks, "Nowhere in nature are there traces of a partial GOD. Every appearance of partiality vanishes from all his great and substantial gifts. It is only in what are justly termed the adventitious circumstances which attend his bounties, that the least indication of it can be supposed to exist; yet narrow minds confine their attention to these adventitious

circumstances, and hence conclude that He is partial in the distribution of his goodness, while all his great and fundamental blessings are so universally and equally diffused, that they demonstrate him to be a being of perfect benevolence." The conclusion at which the author arrives is the only one which can entitle Christianity to be called "good tidings." If it be not so, then is the Gospel the worst tidings ever brought to this earth, It will never appear in its native splendour, nor will its great characteristic doctrine of the Brotherhood of all men be truly received, until this conclusion is adopted.

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If I had space I could point out some flaws in the demonstration, and many parts where the reasoning requires to be strengthened. There is too much couleur de rose when the author seeks to make light of the afflictions of this life, as where he says that even the most wretched enjoy a great preponderance of happiness." Happiness and misery cannot be weighed against each other in scales in this way. Where there has been great misery, a fear of its recurrence embitters all the moments of ease. No; the misery of this life for very many is not to be palliated, but that fact only makes the claim of the wretched of this world the more irresistible. It also appears to me that Southwood Smith adopts Locke's shallow view of the process of moral restoration. Circumstances, indeed, do much, but he conceives that they do all; and that, given the circumstances, the character is moulded in exact correspondence. He conceives that this law of circumstances acts on the moral character "with as much certainty and steadiness as the law of gravitation" in the material world. But freedom is the attribute of Spirit, it will not be commanded, and in this mechanical view of the human soul its spontaneity is entirely lost sight of with all its other regalia.

Nearly one half of the volume is devoted to the Scriptural argument, and of course to the consideration of the term "Everlasting" (aiwvios). All this is satisfactory as it stands, but of course might be much improved and corrected by subsequent discoveries. Thus the strongest adverse passage in the New Testament (that of Jude) Dr. Smith did not know to be a mere legend extracted from the Book of Enoch, as was fully proved by Archbishop Laurence. A passage of St. Paul, which affirms that "God will have all men to be saved," the author strangely overlooks. He entirely fails to bring out the sense of the parable of Dives and Lazarus; he was quite blind to its most salient points, which is the more strange, as Abraham Tucker had admirably elucidated that parable, and shown how its Divine teaching is wholly blurred out and obliterated by the traditional misinterpretation. The passage in Daniel xii. 2, would now be best answered by showing the true character of that book, especially of its latter chapters.

But after all discoverable defects in either branch of the argument, whether from reason or from Scripture, it still remains that this is a most interesting and valuable treatise, and well worthy of republication.

G. D. HAUGHTON.

THE

FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW.

No. XXXIV.-OCTOBER 1, 1866.

COMTE AND MILL.

WHEN a doctrine has been systematically established, when its bases are laid, and the main outlines of its superstructure are sketched, assaults on it from the outside only serve to call the attention of the world to its existence, they never shake the confidence of disciples. To be attacked with success it must be attacked from within. No man can be the victorious critic of a doctrine, withdrawing from it the allegiance of its subjects, unless he accepts its principles. He may indeed demonstrate the error of the principles to his own satisfaction, and to the satisfaction of all who think with him, but he leaves. believers quite unmoved. Hence the wearisome inutility of controversy, as it is usually conducted. The combatants are not on common ground, and their arguments are as ineffective as the war-dances of savages drawn up on either bank of an unfordable river: each vociferously claims superiority, but the battle is never fought. When christian and freethinker, catholic and protestant, tory and radical, metaphysician and positivist, assail each other's doctrine, there can be no decision, for there is no real conflict: no one is killed, simply because no one is touched: it is a war of words, not a clash of swords. A doctrine is never destroyed except by internal dissolution, or by the accumulating pressure of external evidence slowly numbing its vitality; its principles are given up one by one when they are seen to be at variance with indisputable truths; they are never given up because they are at variance with the principles of an antagonist.

Hence the importance which will be attached to the criticisms of Mr. Mill in a recent work,1 by all who regard the Positive Philosophy as the doctrine which must finally triumph, the only doctrine which thoroughly embraces all the great speculative results of the (1) Auguste Comte and Positivism. Reprinted from the Westminster Review. Trübner and Co. 1865.

past, and which must guide the future under successive modifications corresponding with the evolutions of Science. That doctrine is daily being attacked by antagonists more or less qualified (and mostly very ill qualified), but the attacks only serve to extend its notoriety, they do not affect its vitality. Theologians and metaphysicians will continue to oppose it, to insult it, to misconceive it, to misrepresent it; but-because they stand outside it-they can never refute it. I waive the question as to whether their Philosophy is right or wrong; the fact that it is fundamentally distinguished from Positivism prevents any actual conflict.

In Mr. Mill, a critic appears who, adopting the principles and the method of Posivitism, is in the right position for pointing out its defects, and suggesting modifications. No one supposes that the Philosophy is perfect; and every candid disciple will be grateful for any indication of a remediable defect. Whether Mr. Mill be suc-. cessful or not in any or all of his criticisms, the just respect attending whatever he writes will challenge disciples to scrutinise closely the objections he has to urge against a thinker whom he so bravely eulogises. Two thoughtful writers have already done so. Dr. Bridges, who is a Comtist (if I may so distinguish a disciple of Comte from first to last), mainly occupies himself with vindicating the unity of the doctrine, expounding what he conceives to be the organic relation of the later speculations (which Mr. Mill rejects), to the earlier speculations (which Mr. Mill accepts), and only touching other points incidentally. M. Littré, who is only a Positivist (by which I mean a disciple of the Philosophy, but a dissenter from the Religion), in a remarkable article,2 restricts his defence to certain points affecting the integrity of the Philosophy. I propose to consider here only the questions which affect the constitution of the doctrine; minor questions of detail, which carry no revolutionary significance, may be omitted.

One preliminary question, which has deeper importance than appears at first sight, namely, the claim of Comte to be considered as the originator of a Philosophy, may the more fitly be raised, seeing that there are indications in many quarters of a profound misconception of historical facts. Because the positive spirit and the positive method have been splendidly illustrated in the works of all great investigators since Science began its evolution, and because the Positive Philosophy resumes all that the great thinkers have achieved, both as to methods and results, it has been asserted that Comte did nothing more than place himself in the ranks of the advancing column, filling a place, indeed, but only such a place as would have been filled by several

(1) The Unity of Comte's Life and Doctrine. A reply to strictures on Comte's later writings, addressed to J. S. Mill, Esq., M.P. By J. H. Bridges, M.D. Trübner and Co. 1866.

(2) La Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 Août, 1866.