10. Slave Markets of Egypt, 11. Humorists - Dickens and Thackeray, 12. The Captain's Story, Chambers' Journal, 209 Spectator and Times, 236 13. Russia and Turkey-France-President Taylor, POETRY.-Where shall I follow Thee, 196.-To the Author of Mary Barton, 205. SHORT ARTICLES-Promotion; Seniority and Capacity, 194.-Panorama of Switzerland, 205. -Proper Rende ing of the Word God, 208. PROSPECTUS. This work is conducted in the spirit of | now becomes every intelligent American to be informed Littell's Museum of Foreign Literature, (which was favor- of the condition and changes of foreign countries. And ably received by the public for twenty years,) but as it is this not only because of their nearer connection with ourtwice as large, and appears so often, we not only give selves, but because the nations seem to be hastening, spirit and freshness to it by many things which were through a rapid process of change, to some new state of excluded by a month's delay, but while thus extending our things, which the merely political prophet cannot compute scope and gathering a greater and more attractive variety, or foresee. are able so to increase the solid and substantial part of our literary, historical, and political harvest, as fully to satisfy the wants of the American reader. The elaborate and stately Essays of the Edinburgh, Quarterly, and other Reviews; and Blackwood's noble criticisms on Poetry, his keen political Commentaries, highly wrought Tales, and vivid descriptions of rural and mountain Scenery; and the contributions to Literature, History, and Common Life, by the sagacious Spectator, the sparkling Examiner, the judicious Athenæum, the busy and industrious Literary Gazette, the sensible and comprehensive Britannia, the sober and respectable Christian Observer; these are intermixed with the Military and Naval reminiscences of the United Service, and with the best articles of the Dublin University, New Monthly, Fraser's, Tail's, Ainsworth's, Hood's, and Sporting Magazines, and of Chambers' admirable Journal. We do not consider it beneath our dignity to borrow wit and wisdom from Punch; and, when we think it good enough, make ase of the thunder of The Times. 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It contains indeed the exposition only of the current literature of the English language, but this by its immense extent and comprehension includes a portraiture of the human mind in the utmost expansion of the present age. J. Q. ADAMS. LITTELL'S LIVING AGE.-No. 260.-MAY 12, 1849. From Chambers' Journal. for instance, the height of the human frame. By QUETELET ON THE LAWS OF THE SOCIAL SYS-aggregating the heights of the population of a TEM. country, a mean is obtained which gives the standard, and the departures or variations from this mean range symmetrically above and below it; GREATER attention has, perhaps, been paid to social questions during the present year than atas if," observes M. Quetelet, "nature had a type any recent period. Civil perturbations naturally produce, with other effects, a disposition to devise rules for their governance, or remedies against their recurrence. There will, of course, be great differ ences in the character of the remedial measures proposed; still it is always best to look boldly at the evils with which humanity is afflicted, and in this regard honest endeavors to systematize social aberrations, to explain their laws, may find accep tance. proper to a country, and to the circumstances in which it is placed. Deviations from this type would be the product of causes purely accidental, which act either plus or minus with the same intensity." 66 care the more numerous the more they approach to or The groups on either side of the average are resemble the mean; and the more widely they deviate, so do they terminate in rarities, as giants and dwarfs. Every portion of the scale, howAmong the writers who have occupied themever, has its value; "there exists between them selves with this subject, M. Quetelet of Brussels a mysterious tie, which so operates that each inis already favorably known to many readers by his dividual may be considered as the necessary part treatise on 66 Man,' "and the development of his of a whole, which escapes us physically only to faculties, published about twelve years since. be seized by the eye of science." The same law This was followed, in 1846, by "Letters on the applies also to the growth of the body, which Theory of Probabilities applied to Moral and Po- would be more regular were nature less interfered litical Science;" and now, as the complement with; there is, besides, a standard weight, and a of these, we have the work whose title is given in relation between a man's height and the rate of the note below. In the "Letters," &c., was orig- his pulse; taking the mean for males at seventy, inated the law of accidental causes; and this law we have a datum on which to base other calculais shown to be reducible to calculation in common tions. The author regrets that we have no with physical or mechanical laws. Many effects ful continuous observations on workmen whose which appear to be accidental, cease to be so when labor presents a certain periodicity in the exercise the observations are extended over a large number of the limbs; on blacksmiths, for example, sawof facts; and, as the author remarks," the liberty yers, shoemakers, tailors; they might lead to inof choice, (free will,) whose results are so capri- teresting results." With regard to growth, he cious when individuals only are observed, leaves continues, at the instant of man's entrance into no sensible traces of its action when applied to life, his height is fixed by nature; the variations multitudes." Hence the important law is de- remarked are purely accidental; and when grouped duced, “that social facts, influenced by liberty of by order of altitudes, they equally obey a law. choice, proceed with even more regularity than Such is the harmony with which all has been facts submitted simply to the action of physical combined, that the anomalies even exist only in Although the tracing out involves cer- appearance, and they march with the same regtain difficulties, yet analogies are to be found be- ularity as the laws whose movement they distween moral and mechanical laws; and on these guise." The mean height in Belgium for the various considerations it is urged that "henceforth male is 1.684 metres, and for the female, 1.579 moral statistics ought to take its place among the sciences of observation." It will thus be seen causes." that the aim of the work before us is something beyond mere political economy; it is to develop the laws of equilibrium and movement, and especially the preservative principles existing between different parts of the social system. Man is brought before us in his individual character; in his relations to the nation to which he belongs; and last, the ties which, uniting nations, constitute humanity. The law of accidental causes is not one of mere hypothesis, it may be proved by physical facts; * Du Système Social, et des Lois qui le Régissent. Par A. Quetelet. Paris: Guillaumin et Co. 1848. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXI. 16 COLX. metres. M. Quetelet suggests, as a means of obtaining valuable and interesting data on many moral and physical questions, that a record should be kept in every family of all the events or circumstances that brought pleasure or grief to the household, that opened a new line of thought, started a new subject of inquiry, as well as periodical entries of the growth in height, weight, &c., of each member of the family. And he gives us an intimation that this course is pursued by Prince Albert, to whom his book is dedicated. With regard to the progressive development of the human being from birth to maturity, the author hopes at some future day to publish his researches, which will doubt 66 less be valuable in an artistic point of view. even in the unsealed, undirected, and illegibly-adComplex and difficult as the subject may appear, dressed letters deposited yearly in the post-office. it is much simplified by the chief result: "Man's" With such an assemblage of facts before us,” proportions are so fixed, at whatever age we con- asks the author, must man's free choice be desider him, that the having observed a small num-nied? Truly I think not. I conceive only that ber of individuals, is sufficient to give the type in the effect of this free choice is restrained within the mean." There is, besides, really less differ- very narrow limits, and plays among social pheence of development than would at first be sup-nomena the part of an accidental cause. It thereposed; uniformity is more prevalent than our fore ensues, that making abstraction of individuals, appreciation of objects would lead us to conclude. and considering circumstances only in a general "In my early investigations," pursues M. Quete- manner, the effects of all accidental causes ought let, on the proportions of the human body, I to neutralize and destroy themselves mutually, so measured thirty men of the age of twenty; I dis-as to leave predominant only the true causes in tributed them afterwards into three groups of ten virtue of which society exists and maintains itself. men each. In this separation I regarded one con- The Supreme Being has wisely imposed limits to dition only-that of having the same mean height our moral faculties as to our physical faculties; for each group, so as to render the other results man has no power over the eternal laws. The more easily comparable, without the trouble of possibility of establishing moral statistics, and dereducing by calculation. Thus the mean height ducing useful consequences therefrom, depends enwas the same for the first, second, and third tirely on this fundamental fact, that man's free group; but what was my astonishment to find choice disappears, and remains without sensible that the man selected as the mean, representing effect, when the observations extend over a great each one of my three groups, was not only the number of individuals." In predicating, however, same in height, but also for each part of the on the number of marriages to take place in any body! The likeness was such, that a single per- given year, it is important to distinguish between son, measured three times in succession, would the apparent and real tendency to the conjugal have presented more sensible differences in the state. These may exhibit great differences. measures than those which I found between my three means. "Thus one man may have all his life a real tendency for marriage, without ever marrying; while another, from fortuitous circumstances, may marry without experiencing any inclination for wedded life." It is possible to represent these tendencies The the age of 20, and ending at 80, shows the maximum to be between 35 and 40. For females, the curve terminates ten years earlier, and reaches its highest point in the years from 25 to 30. distinction between the apparent and real is essential; for although we are able to establish a law for the mass, we can prove nothing beforehand of the individual. and The conclusions to be drawn from these physical phenomena are all intended to bear on the great moral view of the subject. M. Quetelet shows that many of the erroneous opinions to which by curved lines, which, for males, commencing at writers on social questions have come, have originated in their regarding man in the individual ́rather than in the mass; that which defies calculation in the one case is easily established in the other. Moral are distinguished from physical phenomena by the intervention of man's free choice, and the exercise of this prerogative is found rather to restrict than to disturb the limits of deviation. Marriage is adduced as affording The same real and apparent tendency or inclithe best example of the direct interference of free nation exists also with regard to crime, and nearly choice; generally speaking, it is entered on with all other moral actions; for it is clear that a pergreat circumspection. Yet, during the past twen- son may have a great inclination for crime without ty years, the number of marriages in Belgium, re- once committing it; another may abhor crime, gard being had to the increase of population, has yet become culpable. "It is thus possible," says remained annually the same. Not only has the M. Quetelet, "to state, from continued observanumber proved constant in the towns and the coun- tions, the relative degrees of energy which lead try, but also as respects marriages between young men to execute certain facts. Thus, if I see a men and young women, young men and widows, million men of 25 or 30 years produce twice as widowers and young women, and widowers and many murders as a million of 40 to 45 years of widows. The same fact holds, too, with regard age, I should be disposed to believe that the inclito the ages at which marriage is contracted; and nation to murder among the former has twice the the great discrepancies sometimes observed in ill-energy of what prevails among the latter. assorted unions, are neither to be considered as It is important, therefore, to have a number of obfatalities nor mere effects of blind passion; like servations sufficient to eliminate the effects of all giants and dwarfs in respect of growth, they con- the fortuitous causes from which differences may stitute the remotest deviations in the law of acci- be established between the real and apparent indental causes. The same result also obtains in clination to be determined. *** So long as other human actions as well as that of marriage; the march of justice and that of repression remain there is a certain regularity in crime, in suicides, the same, which can scarcely be possible, except in mutilations to avoid military service, in the sum in one and the same country, constant relations annually staked on the gaming-tables of Paris, and are established between these three facts:-1st, those which first manifest themselves, to verify the period when they attain their maximum of energy, and to appreciate the relative degrees of their development at different epochs of life." Crimes committed; 2d, Crimes committed and de- to establish numerically the values of these two nounced; 3d, Crimes committed, denounced, and portions of his intelligence; but as yet, we are brought before the tribunals." An investigation far from perceiving the possibility of such a reof criminal tables has shown "that the law of de- sult. * * * One of the most curious studies that velopment of the tendency to crime is the same could be proposed in relation to man concerns the for France, Belgium, England, and the grand-progressive development of his different intellecduchy of Baden, the only countries whose obser- tual qualities; it would be a question to recognize vations are correctly known. The tendency to crime towards the adult age increases with considerable rapidity; it reaches a maximum, and decreases afterwards until the last limits of life. This law appears to be constant, and undergoes no modification but in the extent and period of the maximum. In France, for crimes in general, the maximum appears about the 24th year; in Belgium, it arrives two years later; in England and the grand-duchy of Baden, on the contrary, it is observed earlier. *** Considering the circumstances," pursues the writer, "under this point of view, we shall better form an opinion of the high mission of the legislator, who holds to a certain extent the budget of crimes in his hands, and who can diminish or augment their number by measures combined with more or less of prudence." In the chapters on human societies, M. Quetelet traces cycles of duration for nations as for other departments of nature. Thus the Assyrian Empire lasted 1580 years; the Egyptian, 1663 years; the Jewish nation, 1522 years; Greece, 1410 years; the Roman Empire, 1129 years; giving an average of 1461 years, remarkable as corresponding exactly with the Sothiac period, or canicular cycle of the Egyptians, with which was comprehended the existence of the phoenix. This result would appear referable to the action of a law, of which, however, too little is known to predicate on events yet to transpire in the future. 66 transmitted in certain families, as scrofula or phthisis. Great part of the crimes which afflict a country originate in certain families, who would require particular surveillance-isolation simar to that imposed on patients supposed to carry about them germs of pestilence." With regard to the theoretical mean, M. Que- The law of accidental causes admits of applitelet affirms that " man, in respect to his moral cation to derangements of the mental faculties faculties, as with his physical faculties, is subject" Moral maladies," we read, are like physical to greater or less deviations from a mean state; maladies; some of them are contagious, some are and the oscillations which he undergoes around epidemic, and others are hereditary. Vice is this mean, follow the general law which regulates all the fluctuations that a series of phenomena can experience under the influence of accidental causes. *** Free choice, far from opposing any obstacle to the regular production of social phenomena, on the contrary favors them. A people who should be formed only of sages, would annually offer the The question is examined, Whether the indefimost constant return of the same facts. This may nite contraction of the limits between which men explain what would at first appear a paradox-can vary is a benefit? "Absolute equality, if it namely, that social phenomena, influenced by man's free choice, proceed from year to year with more regularity than phenomena purely influenced by material and fortuitous causes. could be realized, would lead society back to its point of departure, and if it became durable, would plunge it into the most complete atomy; variety and movement would be annihilated; the picturIn treating on intellectual qualities, the author esque would be effaced from the surface of the observes- "Two things at first are to be distin- globe; arts and sciences would cease to be cultiguished in our intellectual faculties; what we owe vated; that which does most honor to human geto nature, and what we derive from study. These nius would be abandoned; and as no one would wish two results are very different; when found united, to obey another man, great enterprises would beand carried to a high degree of perfection in the come impossible." To complete the argument, it same individual, they produce marvels; when they is shown that the means and the limits vary only present themselves isolated, they bring forth noth-in proportion to science. ing but mediocrity. A student of the present day, Besides the points we have noticed, the work on leaving school, knows more than Archimedes, under consideration contains many valuable inquibut will he make science advance a single step?ries and suggestions. In the chapter on the intelOn the other hand, there exists more than one Ar- lectual faculties, for example, we find views on chimedes on the surface of the globe, without a literary, artistic, and scientific productions-influchance of making his genius public, because he ence of age upon the development of dramatic lacks the science." "If," we read in another talent-excess of labor-on emigration-the inplace, "phrenology should one day realize its fluence of the healing art on the social systempromises, we should have the means of directly demoralization and pauperism-antagonism of nameasuring man's intellectual organization; we tions; and in the concluding section on humanshould possess as a consequence the elements by ity," the department of aesthetics presents itself to which to solve an extremely complex problem; the discussion; these questions are treated with we should know what each individual owes to na- the author's well-known ability. His work must ture, and what to science; we should even be able be taken as a valuable contribution to moral sci ence, to the cause of justice, law and order. | curiously illustrative of the mental process by which Milton's poetical language was elaborated; but in those notes, and through the whole book, Milton's controversial writings were assailed in a temper of bigotry scarcely intelligible in our days and which Hayley's "Life" did much to counteract. To an extent which is quite surprising, he was enabled to effect what Michelet and others have done in the case of Luther, and thus Milton became his own biographer. Whatever differences of opinion may be enter- From the North British Review. Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell. Edited by Some years after, in his life of Cowper, Hayley gave to the public the very most interesting volumes of biography that have perhaps ever been published. The state of health which separated Cowper from the active business of life, was consistent with systematic study, and with the exertion of the poetical faculty. Cowper's residence at a distance from his relatives the peculiar tenderness with which he was regarded-and some circumstances connected with his pecuniary affairs, created a correspondence which was the amusement, and, in some sort, the business of his life. These letters, above all comparison the most charming that have ever been published, and from which, as we best remember, every passage that it could be thought unreasonable to living persons to bring before the public, had been first removed, rendered his style of biography popular. In formal autobiography there can seldom be absome appearance of vanity. In passages selected from letters in which the author is unconsciously writing his life, this fault is at least absent, and for the last half century rarely an eminent man has died, whose friends have not been solicited for copies of such letters as accident has It was scarce possible that the great poet, Campbell, should have escaped the common lot; and a considerable mass of his letters are now given to the public by his friend and executor, Dr. Beattie. The volumes also contain some biographical notes drawn up by the poet at the request of Dr. Beattie, and though we can imagine this voluminous work improved both by compression and by omission, and though we think a more diligent inquirer. without taking very much trouble on the subject, might have given us more scenes from the London life of a man who lived so much in the eye of the public -we yet think some gratitude is due to Dr. Beattie for many of the letters in these volumes. The book will aid us in appreciating the character of a man whose works will probably for many generations continue to give delight. FOR Something more than half a century the custom has been gradually increasing, of publishing, with but little reserve, such letters of emi-sent nent men as have been written in the ordinary management of the affairs of life, or the careless confidence of domestic intimacy. In Johnson's "Lives of the Poets," we scarcely remember a single private letter being printed as illustrating any one statement in the work, or as affording an | left undestroyed. exhibition of the character of any one of the writers, whose lives he relates. A short time before the publication of "The Lives of the Poets," Mason had in his memoirs of Gray, introduced a new style of biography which has affected, more or less, every work of the kind since written. The journals of Gray, a retired scholar, who took accurate notes of whatever he read, supplied much that was instructive and interesting to the earnest student; and Mason had the opportunity of selecting, from a correspondence conducted through the whole of Gray's life with one friend or another, a vast body of information on a great variety of subjects. There were few personal details; and though Mason made great use of Gray's letters, yet there was scarcely a single letter published without omissions. The example given by Mason, was followed in two remarkable instances by a writer whose poetry was once popular, and whose prose works, in spite of great affectation, which deforms everything he has written, are still very pleasing. Hayley, in his life of Milton, has With all men life is a struggle. With such woven together passages from Milton's letters, a man as Campbell-peculiarly sensitive—the calculated to make his readers sympathize with struggle was from adverse circumstances more the great poet, and which give a wholly different than ordinarily severe. He was the youngest of aspect to his life from that which the readers of ten children. The father of the poet, Alexander Johnson had received. Milton's minor poems had Campbell, had for many years been a prosperous been published by Thomas Wharton, with notes merchant in the Virginia trade. During the ear Campbell was a true and a great poet; he was, what is better, a true-hearted, generousminded, and honorable man. |