In the course of this brief sketch I have been desirous of directing the attention of the Society to certain peculiar features of the tables, as illustrative of their utility in indicating the accession of some new stimulating or depressing cause, which it may be interesting and useful to investigate. Το go further than briefly to point out some of the most prominent of such variations, would be a departure from my task.

As my principal object was to call attention to the official returns of railway traffic in reference to their capability of adaptation to the purpose of furnishing information in local statistics, I have, with the exception of the remarks on the average rates of charge, left untouched the general results of the railway system. These have been given, as deduced from the same returns, by Mr. Porter, in the paper already alluded to, where they are stated with the perspicuity that characterizes the works of that able statist.

January 17, 1845.

Statistics of the Educational Institutions of the East India Company in India. By LIEUTENANT-COLONEL W. H. SYKES, F.R.S.

[Continued from page 147.]

HISTORICAL QUESTIONS.-Senior.

1. Give some account of the Gracchi-their descent and character, and the state of parties in Rome at the time they flourished.

2. What was the Mithridatic war, and who were the principal Roman Generals engaged?

3. State (1) the origin of the Achæan league, (2) the principles on which it was established, (3) its termination, and (4) the chief characters who figured in it.

4. Give some account, with dates, of the Battles of the Metaurus, Mycale, Arginusæ, Delium, Chæronea, and Mutina.

5. At what time, and under what Emperors, did the final division of the Roman Empire into East and West take place? and what countries were comprehended in each division?

6. Give the line of policy pursued by Henry VII. in his Internal Government, and the means by which he carried it into effect.

7. What events led to the English wars with France in the 13th and 14th centuries? How did the English finally lose possession of their conquests.

8. State the rise and progress of the representation of the Commons in England. 9. Mention some events in the lives of Sebaktagin, Nadir Shah, Seraji, Mahomed Toglak, and Holkar.

10. Describe the religious opinions, political designs, and revenue system of

Akbar.

11. When did the Romans first become acquainted with the Oriental mode of warfare, and in what respects did it principally differ from their own?

12. What are the earliest Historical Records among uncivilized nations? and what are the changes which they usually undergo before we arrive at the period of true History? Illustrate this by instances from the Histories of Greece and Rome, of India, and of Europe.

GEOMETRY.-Senior.

1. To a given straight line apply a parallelogram, which shall be equal to a given triangle, and have one of its angles equal to a given rectilineal angle.

2. If a straight line be divided into any two parts, the square on the whole is equal to the sum of the squares on the parts with twice the rectangle contained by the parts.

3. The opposite angles of a quadrilateral figure inscribed in a circle are equal to two right angles.

Give also the demonstration of the converse.

4. The area of a triangle is equal to half the product of its base multiplied by its altitude.

5. Describe an isosceles triangle having each of the angles at the base double of the vertical angle.

Give the construction for inscribing the regular decagon in a circle.

ALGEBRA.-Senior.

6. Find the square root of 4x8 16x6+ 1.

16x5 + 12x + 32x3 + 24x2 + 8x

7. Divide a number a into two such parts, that the sum of the quotients, which it contains, when one part is divided by m and the other by n, may equal b. 8. Required two numbers whose sum is of their product, and the greater is to the less as 3 to 2.

10. Find such a number, that if we take it seven times from its square, the remainder will be 44.

PLANE TRIGONOMETRY.- -Senior.

11. If A B be 8, A C 7.2, and B C 12 miles, and the angle A D B 107° 56′ 13′′: required the distances D A, D C, and D B.

12. The two sides of a right angled plane triangle, which contain the right angle, are 242.7 and 321 2; required the hypothenuse.

13. At the top of a castle which stood on a hill near the sea-shore, the angle of depression of a ship's hull at anchor was 4° 52', at the bottom of the castle the angle of depression was 4° 2. Required the horizontal distance of the vessel, and the height of the hill on which the castle stands above the level of the sea, the castle itself being 64 feet high.

NATURAL PHILOSOPHY.-Senior.

1. Illustrate the different kinds of levers, and calculate the advantages gained by each.

1

2. State the law for the transmission of force through a rigid body, and deduce it from the principle of two equal and opposite forces balancing upon such a body. 3. Describe the formation and use of the Screw.

4. Describe the Hydrostatic Press, and explain the principle of its action.

5. Describe the Air-pump, and some of the principal experiments for which it is employed.

6. The Cylinder of an Air-Pump

=

one-fifth the contents of the receiver: re

quired to find the exhaustion at the fourth stroke.

7. Explain and illustrate the principle of the Compound Microscope.

8. Explain the principles on which all telescopes are constructed.

9. State briefly the principles on which the Calender is constructed, and the nature of the Julian and Gregorian corrections.

10. State Kepler's three planetary laws, and deduce its own proper consequence from each.

ANSWERS.-AUNUND KISSEN BOSE.

Bacon.

1. The ancient philosophers, who delighted themselves in the luxuriance of imagination, rejected with disdain the aid of experience, which they thought was too humble and mean a guide to follow. They were as yet untutored by the truths of inductive philosophy, and hence they were led to make too poor an estimate of the tedious and irksome process of analysis and generalization.

This is the false estimation that Bacon here alludes to. To be much conversant in experience and particulars was, in the opinion of the ancients, a degradation

from the dignity of the human mind, and an occupation which seemed to contract its powers. They feared nothing so much as to be too matter-of-fact minded. They did not deign to examine the limits of their power; they therefore plunged themselves into inquiries which are beyond the reach of the human intellect; their speculations in theology, however sublime and transcendant, were carried too far to betray at once the energy and weakness of man. These reflections they thought were congenial to their nature, and hence derided such exertions as were directed to the discovery of truths which are subject to the sense; little knowing how to rise up "from Nature up to Nature's God." They found it more easy to invent a hypothesis for the explanation of a phenomenon than to search for its real cause; hence they call the search tedious; "ignoble to meditate" in comparison with the Divine speculations above alluded to; "harsh to deliver," because on such subjects they could not make a display of their eloquence, which they were ardently fond of, their delivery being reduced to a bare rationale of facts; illiberal to practise," because they thought it to be of a degrading occupation; "infinite in number," because they knew not how to generalize.

2. The doctrine of Plato here alluded to is that there is nothing new on the earth, and that all knowledge is but remembrance-he supposed that the mind is filled with the image of existing things from the very beginning, and that the senses cannot be accounted as the origin of knowledge; but as instruments, by which our notion of things, which lies dormant, becomes revived.

3. Superstition requires the immediate interference of the Deity in all the operations of Nature, and claims the peculiar privilege of explaining every physical, mental and moral phenomenon, by some development of supernatural agency. Her votaries fall into an error just opposite to that of the Atheists; the latter rest on "second causes scattered;" the former deny at once the efficiency of second causes; hence superstition cannot stoop to acknowledge the genuine functions of the senses; it is her interest to condemn them as fallacious. She valueth more the false operations, and the innate energy of the man within, than the indispensable aid of the man without.

4. The followers of Aristotle maintained, in their dialogues and discourses, that the senses are the origin of our knowledge, which the Platonists denied ; but the latter, in their reasoning and inquiry, take a view of particular examples, and make and approach to induction, though in a manner showing that they set not the least value upon it; while the former in their mode of argumentation betrayed a supine neglect of the aid of experience, a minute attention to rules of synthesis, without regard to the nature of the results they brought out. Hence the followers of Aristotle "give the due to the sense in assertions," (which the Platonists do not acknowledge,) and deny it much more in practice than those of Plato.

6. They rested only upon agitation of wit; that is, they rested only upon the deductions of theory without stooping to compare them with those of experience, or bringing the aid of the latter to bear upon the former. The schoolmen were particularly famous for their singular array of arguments, compact and beautiful in their superstructure, but based upon an unsteady foundation.

8. Bacon points out the errors into which the ancients had fallen with respect to their low estimation of experience; he shows clearly that the feeble progress of philosophy is owing to her votaries having disdained to court the aid of this humble but sure guide; that this contempt is unjust and unfounded; that induction is the only means by which man can unravel the arcana of nature and feel that he treads on firm and unyielding ground.

Macbeth.

1. The witches had accosted Macbeth, calling him Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King that would be. On the arrival of the messenger from King Duncan, he learnt that he has been made Thane of Cawdor, and as he was already Thane of Glamis, the truth of these two assertions of the witches was consequently verified. These two truths, therefore, Macbeth considers as the prologue to the "imperial theme." The imperial theme is the promise of royalty which the

witches had honoured him with.

2. The hasty fulfilment of a part of the prophecy of the witches kindled up the ambition of Macbeth, who began to see before him the prize of Royalty. He is at first perplexed what to think of this circumstance, whether it would end in good or evil; then he makes up his mind and says, it cannot be ill, for it hath given me

earnest of success commencing in a truth, which is that I am already made the Thane of Cawdor; thus far his hopes being fed, there rises a secret question in his heart-why then may I not be a King.

3. Macbeth yielding to the electric current of his imagination, thinks of the murder of Duncan, but he staggers at the thought, and says to himself that the project of murder which his thought has hatched, though yet but a dream, works such a tremendous effect upon him.

4. The sense here seems to me ambiguous. It may either mean that from the perturbed state of Macbeth's mind, the functions of his body and mind were smothered and received a momentary check; or that the perpetration of the con templated deed seems to be prevented from its being smothered in surmise, buried as it were in doubts. The mind of Macbeth is in a state of dilemma; he wavers and fears, he hopes and determines, according as he looks forward to the consequence or reflects upon the present happy conjunction of circumstances.

5. That is, that which has no existence produces an effect like a real existence. The phantasm of the imagination, a mere nonentity, torments Macbeth and forces him to make this observation.

RAJNARAIN BOSE.
Bacon.

1. The supporters of this false estimation_maintained, that it is a matter of degradation to the mind of man to be much conversant with the knowledge of material nature, which is "subject to sense, and bound in matter, laborious to search, ignoble to meditate, harsh to deliver, and illiberal to practise;" but that it should rather soar on the wings of speculation, and meditate on the existence of God, his infinite attributes, the gradations of being that are links in the universal chain between God and man, and the pre-existence or immortality of the soul; that it should attempt to reconcile the foreknowledge of God with the free will of man, and the existence of evil with his infinite benevolence and infinite power, and that it should expatiate on the causes, progress, and effects of the phænomena and qualities of the human mind.

2. The doctrine of Plato here alluded to was this, that when Nature was not created, and the germs of the universe lay in chaotic confusion, the Supreme Being had in his mind the pattern of the present system of things in the form of ideas of a general nature, and that he did create this universe by impressing these ideas upon matter, which was at first without form and void. He maintained that the human soul, which is an emanation from the Divine essence; or in the beautiful language of the Persian poet, Jellal-ood-deen Roomee, "a rose from its native garden untimely torn," was, in its pre-existent state conversant with those ideas, and did revel in the appreciation of their beauty; that it has lost them by being confined in this " fleshly nook;" that it should attempt to regain them by contemplation; and that the cold particulars of physical nature should not merely endow the mind with a knowledge of themselves, but that they should contribute to the revival, and excite its faculties to the attainment of those ideas which it possessed when it was, in its pre-existent state, a portion of the Supreme Spirit. 3. Superstition never favoureth the investigation of the qualities of sensible objects. The fancy of the superstitious man is always engaged with the imaginary beings which his own brain has created, in propitiating them in his own favour, and in yielding homage to them with heartfelt veneration. The superstitious man has hardly the time and the inclination to make physical nature the object of his study and speculation. Plato did really mingle superstition with his philosophy. He admitted the existence of demons or genii between God and man, and allowed worship and sacrifices to be paid to their Divine Nature. He also maintained that the souls of wicked men, and those who luxuriated in the enjoyment of concupiscent pleasures, after the dissolution of their bodies, did hover around their tombs, and were unable to free themselves from the earth, in whose pleasures and passions they had so much indulged.

4. In theory, Aristotle favoured the study of external nature, and Plato of spiritual nature. But, in practice, the case has been different; for Plato has given, in his invaluable works, many examples of inductive reasoning; but (as he paid superficial attention to that method of ratiocination, and whenever he uses it, uses it in a kind of rambling excursive manner), they are of no force or effect; while on the other side, the schoolmen of the middle ages, the disciples of

Aristotle, who regarded the works of their master as possessing equal authority with the Bible itself, were not engaged in the study of physical nature, but busied themselves with theological inquiries and metaphysical subtleties.

5 and 6. The schoolmen were utterly ignorant of history, i. e., the history of material nature. Men who were enamoured of theological and metaphysical inquiries, and pursued those inquiries with the greatest alacrity and application, cannot be expected to have much knowledge of natural science, and to pay much attention to its investigation. Their minds rested only upon "agitation of wit," i. e., upon wrangling and controversy on the subjects above-mentioned. Theological controversy was the chief employment of the learned in the middle ages. Any university who could puzzle and confound a rival one with their subtleties was declared victorious, and its renown was spread far and abroad. There were prizes given to the parties victorious in metaphysical disputations. These incitements had due effect upon the minds of students, and they devoted their whole attention and time to the study of theology and metaphysics-to the perusal of the huge volumes of St. Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Duns Scotus. The sense in which the term "history" is used in this passage by Bacon, is countenanced by his division of the intellectual faculties of man, and of human knowledge, in the second book of his Advancement of Learning. He there divides history into civil and natural history.

7. Plato saw well that if we suppose man's mind to be all-sufficient, and that it can pronounce with decision upon subjects beyond its reach, we must acknowledge on the other hand that it has not the means of doing so; for as far as induction and view of particulars go, so far can man proceed with firm steps in his inquiries and speculations. This is well shown in the case of Plato himself, for he was obliged to have frequent recourse to inductions and view of particulars in the demonstration of his opinions on spiritual subjects as, for example, in his able demonstration of the dissimilarity of the corporeal and intellectual natures of man, and the distinct existence of the human soul.

8. In the above passage, extracted from the Filum Labarynthi of Lord Bacon, that illustrious philosopher persuades men to the study of physical nature, and refutes the false opinion that prevailed before his time, that it is a matter of degradation to the human mind to exercise its powers upon material objects, which occupation was considered, by the proud Peripatetics of the middle ages, to be ignoble and illiberal. It should be observed, to the honour of Lord Bacon, that though he depreciates Aristotle in the above passage, and various others of his great Instauration, and calls him the tyrannical Ottoman who kills his brothers that he himself may be the sole sovereign, yet in the dedication of his work named "Colours of Good and Evil" to Lord Mountjoy, he bestows such praise upon Aristotle as almost compensates all his depreciations of that gigantic intellect. Lord Bacon is the founder of modern science. He it was who freed philosophy from the cloister of monks, and the jargon of the middle ages. Though he himself did make few actual discoveries in physical science, yet to him we owe a Newton, a Boyle, and a Laplace. He has been well compared by Thomson, the poet of the Seasons, to Moses, as the person who, out of the gloom of the dark ages, conducted men to the land of true science and true philosophy.

II.-Shakespeare.

1. Macbeth, Thane of Glamis and General of Duncan, King of Scotland, in his way to the capital, after his successful repression of a rebellion of some Scottish Thanes, aided by the Norwegians, is greeted, in his way through a blasted heath, with the titles of Glamis, Cawdor, and King, by three witches who wished to gratify their malicious disposition by enticing him to his own destruction by ambiguous prophecies. Immediately after he is hailed with the title of Thane of Cawdor by some messengers from the King. Dumb with astonishment, at the devils' speaking true, he breaks forth into the above exclamation fraught with the most vehement pathos:

"Two truths are told

As happy prologues to the swelling act
Of the imperial theme."

These two truths are his being. Thane of Glamis and Thane of Cawdor; and these truths are happy prologues to the act of the imperial theme, i. e., to the act