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two, in return for which I have sent down three bottles of our host's champagne to his reverence. "Monday.-Lobsters.

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Tuesday.--Somebody ill apparently; much ringing of bells and disorder. My dinner an hour late. Another appeal from Mrs M'C., repeating her former proposal with greater energy; this feminine insistance provokes me. I might tell her that of the three women who have borne my name none but herself would have so far presumed, but I forbear. Pity has ever been the weakness of my nature; I feel its workings even as I write this. it may not carry me to the length of forgiveness, but I can compassionate; I will send her this note :

"MADAM,-Your prayers have succeeded; I yield. It would not be generous in me to say what the sacrifice has cost me. When a M'Caskey bends, it is an oak of the forest snaps in two. I make but one condition; I will have no gratitude. Keep the tears that you would shed at my feet for the hours of your solitary sorrow. You will see, therefore, that we are to meet no more.

"One of the ducats is clipped on the edge, and another discoloured as by an acid; I am above requiring that they be exchanged. Nothing in this last act of our intercourse shall prevent you remembering me as "Semper M'Caskey."

"Your cheque should have specified Parodi & Co., not Parodi alone. To a man less known the omission might give inconvenience; this too, however, I pardon. Farewell.'"

It was evident that the Major felt he had completed this task with befitting dignity, for he stood up before a large glass, and placing one hand within his waistcoat, he gazed at himself in a sort of rapturous veneration. "Yes," said he, thoughtfully, "George Seymour, and D'Orsay, and myself, we were men! When shall the world look upon our like again? Each in his own style, too, perfectly distinct, perfect

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ly dissimilar-neither of them, however, had this-neither had this," cried he, as he darted a look of catlike fierceness from his fiery grey eyes. The Princess Metternich fainted when I gave her that glance. She had the temerity to say, 'Qui est ce Monsieur M'Caskey? Why not ask who is Soult? who is Wellington? who is everybody? Such is the ignorance of a woman! Madame la Princess," added he, in a graver tone, "if it be your fortune to turn your footsteps to Montpellier, walk into the churchyard there, and see the tomb of Jules de Besançon, late Major of the 8th Cuirassiers, and whose inscription is in these few words-Tué par M'Caskey.' I put up the monument myself, for he was a brave soldier, and deserved his immortality."

Though self-admiration was an attractive pastime, it palled on him at last, and he sat down and piled up the gold double ducats in two tall columns, and speculated on the various pleasures they might procure, and then he read over the draft on Parodi, and pictured to his mind some more enjoyments, all of which were justly his due, "for," as he said himself aloud, "I have dealt generously by that woman."

At last he arose, and went out on the terrace. It was a bright starlit night, one of those truly Italian nights when the planets streak the calm sea with long lines of light, and the very air seems weary with its burden of perfume. Of the voluptuous enervation that comes of such an hour he neither knew nor asked to know. Stillness and calm to him savoured only of death; he wanted movement, activity, excitement, life, in fact-life as he had always known and always liked it. Once or twice the suspicion had crossed his mind that he had been sent on this distant expedition to get rid of him when something of moment was being done elsewhere. His inordinate vanity could readily supply the reasons for such a course. He was one of those men that in times of trouble become at once

famous. "They call us dangerous," said he, "just as Cromwell was dangerous, Luther was dangerous, Napoleon was dangerous. But if we are dangerous, it is because we are driven to it. Admit the superiority that you cannot oppose, yield to the inherent greatness that you can only struggle against, and you will find that we are not dangerous -we are salutary."

"Is it possible," cried he aloud, "that this has been a plot-that while I am here living this life of inglorious idleness the great stake is on the table-the game is begun, and the King's crown being played for?" M'Caskey knew that whether royalty conquered or was vanquished-however the struggle ended there was to be a grand scene of pillage. The nobles or the merchants-it mattered very little which to him—were to pay for the coming convulsion. Often and often, as he walked the streets of Naples, had he stood before a magnificent palace, or a great country-house, and speculated on the time when it should be his prerogative to smash in that stout door, and proclaim all within it his own. "Spolia di M'Caskey" was the inscription that he felt would defy the cupidity of the boldest. "I will stand on the balcony," said he, “and declare, with a wave of my hand, These are mine: pass on to other pillage."

The horrible suspicion that he might be actually a prisoner all this time gained on him more and more, and he ransacked his mind to think of some great name in history whose fate resembled his own. "Could I only assure myself of this," said he, passionately, "it is not these old walls would long confine me; I'd scale the highest of them in half an hour; or I'd take to the sea, and swim round that point yonder-it's not two miles off; and I remember there's a village quite close to it." Though thus the prospect of escape presented itself so palpably before him, he was deterred from it by the

thought that if no intention of forcible detention had ever existed, the fact of his having feared it would be an indelible stain upon his courage. "What an indignity," thought he, "for a M'Caskey to have yielded to a causeless dread!"

As he thus thought, he saw, or thought he saw, a dark object at some short distance off on the sea. He strained his eyes, and though long in doubt, at last assured himself it was a boat that had drifted from her moorings, for the rope that had fastened her still hung over the stern, and trailed in the sea. By the slightly moving flow of the tide towards shore she came gradually nearer, till at last he was able to reach her with the crook of his riding-whip, and draw her up to the steps. Her light paddle-like oars were on board, and M'Caskey stepped in, determined to make a patient and careful study of the place on its sea-front, and see, if he could, whether it were more of chateau or jail.

With noiseless motion he stole smoothly along, till he passed a little ruined bastion on a rocky point, and saw himself at the entrance of a small bay, at the extremity of which a blaze of light poured forth, and illuminated the sea for some distance. As he got nearer he saw that the light came from three large windows that opened on a terrace, thickly studded with orange-trees, under the cover of which he could steal on unseen, and take an observation of all within; for that the room was inhabited was plain enough, one figure continuing to cross and recross the windows as M'Caskey drew nigh.

Stilly and softly, without a ripple behind him, he glided on till the light skiff stole under the overhanging boughs of a large acacia, over a branch of which he passed his rope to steady the boat, and then standing up he looked into the room, now so close as almost to startle him.

LEWES'S

MR LEWES is known to every studious reader by his 'Biographical History of Philosophy,' by his physiological writings, by his 'Life of Goethe,' and by a host of miscellaneous papers, all displaying the same tact, the same clear vision and lucid style. Remarkable for a distinct and rapid development of difficult and intricate subjects, he has proved himself one of the happiest expositors of those metaphysical subtleties which he, at the same time, describes and discards; while in that branch of science to which he has sedulously devoted himself, he has been, if not a discoverer, yet much more than an expounder, for he has introduced into it an accuracy of thought, a distinctness in the reasoning or theorising upon known facts, which the readers of physiological works must often have felt the want of. Having paid his homage, his farewell tribute to philosophy, the parting guest, whom he "slightly shakes by the hand," he, as a true son of the nineteenth century, turns towards science,

46 "And with his arms outstretched as he would fly,

Grasps in the comer."

It is now apparently his design to do for the history of science what he had formerly done for that of metaphysics-to describe the course of its development, to give what he has called "the embryology of science;" and the present volume is a chapter from this projected work. It is a chapter which may very well constitute a distinct and separate treatise, what our neighbours have taught us to call a monograph. We have Aristotle brought distinctly before us as the man of science.

To all who felt a curiosity in estimating Aristotle from this point of view, and who were not them

ARISTOTLE.

selves willing or able to read critically the original Greek of a by no means captivating writer, some such work as this was absolutely necessary. Aristotle as a logician is known, or presumed to be known, to all educated men; at all events, there are works enough in our language to which to refer the eager student thirsting for syllogism, or the categories, or even for whatever the ancient sage may have taught of rhetoric, or politics, or poetry. But if any one, bewildered by the contradictory estimates thrown out by eloquent lecturers, or other distinguished men, desired to know what really Aristotle taught on scientific subjects-on the inorganic and organic world before us, on the great mechanism, in short, of nature-there was no book in our language, nor, as Mr Lewes assures us, in any modern language, which would have given him the materials for a calm and sober judgment. On the one hand, we hear the most unsparing contempt thrown upon the science of Aristotle; and till lately all popular lecturers, in their extravagant eulogies upon Bacon, were accustomed to tell their credulous audience that, till the lord of Verulam arose, no one understood that the knowledge of nature was built on the observation of nature. On the other hand, there have been eminent men who were not satisfied with proving that Aristotle knew as well, and had stated as distinctly as any of his successors, the paramount necessity of observation and an accurate collection of facts, but that he had really observed and reasoned upon facts in so miraculous a manner as to have been able -standing, as it were, at the very starting-point of science-to have anticipated many of those discoveries to which the moderns

'Aristotle: A Chapter from the History of Science, including Analyses of Aristotle's Scientific Writings.' By George Henry Lewes.

VOL. XCVI.-NO. DLXXXVI.

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ous.

had slowly attained by the labours of successive generations. If this were true, it would be, as we have intimated, nothing short of miraculIt would be as if Eclipse not only distanced all competitors in the race, but was gifted with a faculty by which he could reach the goal without passing over the intermediate ground. For science is knowledge built on knowledge; it is not an affair of intuition. Neither is a happy guess, figuring perhaps amidst a crowd of vagrant fancies, to be dignified with the name of a scientific truth. There is no such thing as the anticipation of a discovery, unless the intermediate steps also have been anticipated, by which alone it becomes a discovery, or is distinguished from a random guess. Amidst such opposite estimates as these, such unqualified detraction on the one hand, such inordinate and impossible praise on the other, Mr Lewes offers himself as our guide. He has given us an analysis of Aristotle's scientific writings quite ample enough for the purpose at which he aims. Had it

been more complete, the patience of the reader would have broken down; had it been briefer than it is, we should have complained that materials enough had not been given for an independent judgment. He himself holds the balance with impartiality, or, at least, with the evident effort to be impartial. Between the careless detractor who echoes a contempt which had become conventional, and the lover of paradox, or the pedantic devotee of whatever is ancient and whatever is Greek, Mr Lewes steers his middle course. He is, perhaps, more successful, more completely convincing, when he combats the exaggerated praise of certain admirers of Aristotle, than when he himself becomes eulogistic. Desirous of assuming the more agreeable attitude of bestowing praise, he, on two occasions, opens the chapter with a rather startling note of admiration, but the extracts which follow hardly support his own eulogium. He gradually relapses

into the calm and clear-sighted critic. On the whole, the work will confirm and render distinct the vague impressions which most of us have received of the science of Aristotle ; that it was all that could be expected from mortal man living at the period of Aristotle, but that, regarded from our present position, it can have no value except to those who are curious to trace the progress of the human mind.

And indeed it is from this point of view that Mr Lewes invites us to the study of the scientific works of Aristotle. A mere history of past blunders is the dreariest thing imaginable. We are too anxious to learn something of real science, and there is too much on every side to be learnt, to allow us time for studying, merely for their own sake, the inevitable mistakes and errors of the past. And remember that in science the past error is utterly extinct-dead beyond all possibility of revival. It is otherwise in philosophy. The old quarrels here are always capable of being rekindled. Often they are the same disputes which agitate the living generation; nay, it has happened that a speculation in philosophy, after having been given over to mere ridicule as a flagrant folly of the past, has been revived, and taught, with some modifications, as a profound truth. We should not wonder if the very age we live in took to the belief in the transmigration of souls. When souls inhabit the legs of tables, or creep under chairs and paw us about the knees, this old fancy of the East must surely seem a most respectable article of faith. There is no folly of this kind that may not be revived. But a scientific hypothesis, once fairly supplanted, is extinct for ever; its place can know it no more; there, where it stood, and where alone it could stand, another growth has occupied the soil. The transmigration of souls might be revived to-morrow; phlogiston is dead for ever. sophical speculations are like the clouds of heaven, which may rise to

Philo

day and disperse to-morrow, just as they rose and dispersed a thousand yesterdays ago. Science is like the tree which grows from the seed, and from a seedling extends its branches into the air, but goes never back into the seed again. To write a narrative, therefore, of the errors of the past, that had no other object than simply to record such errors, would be the most wearisome and useless of tasks. But, in fact, it is not in this barren spirit of narrative that Mr Lewes, or any philosophical writer, would invite us to survey the mistakes and tentatives of the past. It is as part of the history of that living human mind which is still with us, and is still ours, that this narrative of its past wanderings becomes valuable. Phlogiston and the like are dead, and let them be buried so far as they are individually concerned; but that human spirit from which science grew is with us still, and we would study this its faculty of growth, and trace the method of its progress. From this point of view a history of scientific errors becomes a history of the development of the human mind. We highly approve of Mr Lewes's undertaking to write what he terms the embryology of science; nor need we suggest to a writer of his tact and discrimination that it would be useless to load his pages with a multitude of errors of the same kind. We have read histories of medicine where the philosophical lesson which might be learnt from past errors was quite lost sight of in the multitude of instances given of absurd hypotheses and miserable nostrums. The attention was fatigued by the mere enumeration of fantastic speculations, which were followed, alas! by very real sufferings to the patient in the shape of cruel and disgusting remedies. On the other hand, there is no more effective manner of expounding the latest

tenets or discoveries of science than by a judicious account of the errors and mistakes which preceded them, and which often led the way to

them. And Mr Lewes has shown in the present volume that he well understands the art of mingling together the modern truth of science and the ancient guess-work, so that by their contrast they may throw light upon each other. Of course, when we speak of the truth of modern science, we do not forget that many of our truths may be destined to figure as pardonable errors in the pages of some future historian of science.

A brief account of the life of Aristotle naturally precedes the criticism upon his philosophy, or rather, we should here say, upon his science. This relates, in a short compass, all, we believe, that is known of Aristotle's personal bistory. As the few facts that bear the stamp of credibility are familiar to most readers, or at least lie open to every one in the pages of biographical dictionaries, we need not repeat them here. But in this our critical age the following list of the authorities on which all these accounts are founded will be acceptable. It will be seen how remote we are from anything like contemporary evidence.

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'What, then, are the dates, or thereabouts? Aristotle was born B. C. 384.

Diogenes Laertius, whose narrative is the fullest, the best, and the most generally followed, was born, at the earliest, nearly six centuries later-i. e., A.D. 200; and it is even supposed that he was as late as Constantine. The next on our list is Ammonius (if the work be really his), who comes eight centuries after his hero, in A.D. 460; and that these eight centuries have not been profitably employed in sifting tradition and bringing it nearer to accuracy, may be gathered from a single detail noticed by Buhle, that Aristotle is made a pupil of Socrates, who died just fifteen years before the Stagirite was born. The nearest biographer in point of time is Dionysius of Halicarnassus (B. C. 50), and this gives a gap of three centuries; moreover, one meagre page comprises all he has to say. Hesychius was born A.D. 500, nearly nine centuries too late; the date of Suidas is uncertain, but probably not earlier than the eleventh century of our era.

"These writers contradict each other on separate points. What means have

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