concileable with the views which Mr. Combe advocates in connection with school-training and the management of criminals.

We would also qualify Mr. Combe's views respecting the progressive condition of the human race, by suggesting that a state of present progress is not a sufficient reason for concluding that the progress will always continue, or even carry us much beyond the present condition of things. If we should infer the future career of the race, from the analogies of the past and present courses of nature in other respects, the inference must be adverse to a career of indefinite improvement, and rather be in favour of the view that supposes the race destined to attain only a given height, and then to deteriorate and fall. This appears to have hitherto been the career of all organic nature; and in the inorganic world, also, a similar course is run, processes of formation and destruction, re-formation and re-destruction, constantly succeeding each other. The course of nature, we would therefore say, is better represented by circular movements or by oscillations, returning over the same space, than by any line indefinitely prolonged either upwards or downwards, either towards or from perfection. Of course, in a notice of this kind, we can only indicate a difference of opinion, without attempting to prove the correctness of the one adopted.

The preceding dissentient remarks will be understood only to bear upon the doctrines of Mr. Combe, regarded as a system of philosophy addressed to the reasoning intellect, and are not intended to call in question the general soundness of his moral precepts and directions. His intellectual explanations may be purely hypothetical, and we might declare them to be a fanciful hypothesis, and yet his views on the morality and expediency of certain courses of conduct may still be perfectly just and exceedingly beneficial. Here, indeed, we have scarcely a dissentient opinion to express, except in secondary details; our strong conviction being, that Mr. Combe's writings on Moral Philosophy contain a host of invaluable truths, most admirably adapted for the improvement of mankind; and that, viewed as a moral code, they far surpass the works of all preceding writers on the same subject, in clearness, consistency, profundity of thought, and nobleness of feeling. Could we see mankind in general acting up to Mr. Combe's aspirations, we might acknowledge that a heaven upon earth was an attainable, almost an attained, reality; but the chilling influence of Cautiousness, warned by the very different realities of the present day, here comes in to say that not in our time, if ever, shall these things be. How many of Mr. Combe's readers, for instance, will believe that a titled and monied aristocracy will ever voluntarily

surrender these advantages, either because they shall have become ashamed of such distinctions, and become satisfied with the consciousness of personal merit, or because the people at large shall have ceased to look up to hereditary title and wealth, with feelings of envy and submission. Yet Mr. Combe looks forward to this, and even more distant moral "reforms." Be it observed, however, that he would not rob families of their titles or wealth, as too many of our self-styled radical reformers, but real deformers, would gladly do under the specious dishonesty of" equitable adjustment," "abolition of hereditary titles," &c. &c. Thus, on the subject of hereditary rank, Mr. Combe has the following reflections.

"I beg leave," he writes, " to state that I do not propose to abolish hereditary and artificial rank by violence, and against the will of its possessors. The grand principle which I have advocated in these lectures, that all real improvement must proceed from the supremacy of the moral and intellectual faculties, forbids such a project. My aim is, to render nobles ashamed of hereditary titles, decorations, and privileges which testify nothing in favour of their merit; and I regard this as undoubtedly practicable, in the course of a few generations, merely by enlightening their superior faculties. If you trace the forms in which Self-Esteem and Love-of-Approbation seek gratification in different stages of social improvement, and how these approach nearer and nearer to reason, in proportion as society becomes enlightened, you will not consider this idea chimerical." ....The principle which has swept away tattooed skins, bone ornaments in the nose, full-bottomed wigs, and laced waistcoats, will one day extinguish orders of knighthood, coronets, and all the other artificial means by which men at present attempt to support their claims to respect and consideration, apart from their personal qualities and virtues. They will be recognized by the wearers as well as by the public, as devices useful only to the unworthy. An advanced education and civilization will render men acute observers of the real elements of greatness, and profound admirers of them, but equally intolerant of tinsel impositions."

This passage affords a good illustration of two peculiarities in Mr. Combe's writings, to which we would call attention. It is quoted as an example of that lively sense of justice and moral propriety which is so conspicuous in all his works; and at the same time it may be taken as an example of that kind of fallacious reasoning which we have before spoken of, namely, giving an inaccurate or modified representation of the subject for or against which the author apparently intends to argue, and adapting his arguments to the false picture. In our No. for April last, we quoted an example of this peculiarity, shown

in a comparison betwixt the experiments of physiologists and the fracture of a musical instrument, and on page 363. of this current No. the same fault is exhibited in a descriptive illustration designed to support Mr. Combe's views respecting the institution of death. It reappears in the passage just quoted, for the fact is, that titles and decorations of honour maintain their ground in public estimation just because they do testify something in favour of the persons on whom they are bestowed; and to contend that they will or ought to cease because they do not testify this, is arguing the question on a false bias. Were it true that titles are bestowed without regard to individual qualities or attainments," as Mr. Combe expresses it, his whole argument would be sound; but the general custom is that of bestowing titles upon individuals whose personal qualities have given them influence over others, or enabled them to outstrip their rivals in the race for power. These qualities are a personal superiority, and the superiority of the class is kept up partly by the tendency of personal qualities to become hereditary, partly in consequence of the ranks of the hereditary aristocracy being continually recruited by the addition of other individuals endowed with qualities which enable them to achieve titles for themselves and their descendants. The kind of personal qualities required in the ennobled class will doubtless vary somewhat from age to age; but whatever the qualities may be, the title is useful to those who have it, and will always be desired, as a public voucher for the possession of those qualities. In some families the personal qualities may have ceased to exist, and the title be misapplied; but individual exceptions cannot negative the general rule, nor is an abuse any legitimate argument against the use of a convenient distinction.

But it is only fair to Mr. Combe, whilst we are objecting to his argument against nobility founded on the supposition that it does not represent personal superiority, that we should express concurrence in his views respecting the disadvantages of hereditary titles, and on grounds stated by himself, namely, that in a progressive nation hereditary title has a direct tendency to impede advance, by raising the present stage of advancement into a standard for the future. Amongst a stationary or a declining people, hereditary titles would be highly desirable as guides to the best standards; but it is otherwise amongst a people who are in a progressive state, and amongst whom many individuals are rapidly rising above the best standards of each successive age. Mr. Combe says, page 209., "If the distinctions instituted by nature were left to operate by themselves, the effect would be that the people at large would

venerate in others, and desire themselves to become distinguished for those qualities, which are esteemed most highly according to their own moral and intellectual perceptions; the standard of consideration would be rectified, and raised in exact proportion to their advance in knowledge and wisdom; and the removal of the obstruction to this advance, created by artificial and hereditary rank, would tend greatly to hasten the march of real improvement." Here, it seems to us, is the true ground for objecting to hereditary title, namely, that it represents a superiority only of a secondary value; for, though the titled classes are on the whole superior to most others, they are not absolutely the most advanced: there is a small class of individuals constantly rising above them in personal qualities, only a few of whom become mingled in the ranks of the privileged order, whose superiority is otherwise that of a past day. We conceive it very desirable that the individuals of this rising class should be endowed with rank, and with title which is the name and stamp of rank; their titles not being made hereditary.

Should any space be afforded for them in our concluding Section, we shall introduce some extracts from the Lectures, notwithstanding that we feel assured that all the readers of this Journal will also be readers of Mr. Combe's works. For ourselves, individually, we must acknowledge that a predominant supply of Caution and Causality may induce too much of sceptical scrutiny into Mr. Combe's propositions and trains of reasoning, which to others will seem like needless cavilling; but be this as it may, we are quite certain of one fact, namely, that we have never read any other works which had the like power of exciting delightful emotions of the higher faculties, and of inspiring with hope and confidence in the future improvement of mankind.

III. Destiny of the British Race.

1. An Examination of the Origin, Progress, and Tendency of the Commercial and Political Confederation against England and France, called the PRUSSIAN LEAGUE. BY WILLIAM CARGILL. 8vo. pp. 50. 1840. Newcastle.

2. Changes produced in the Nervous System by Civilization, considered according to the Evidence of Physiology and the Philosophy of History. By ROBERT VERITY, M. D. &c. Second Edition. 8vo. pp. 143. 1839. London: S. Highley.

WIDELY dissimilar as these two treatises must appear in their titles, they nevertheless meet on common ground in making

predictions respecting the future destiny of Britain and the British people. Devoting his attention to the politico-commercial relations of Britain and other countries, the author of the first-named treatise prophesies the inevitable and not very remote destruction of English commerce and dominion. The author of the second treatise, on the other hand, trusting to the organic superiority of the British race, boldly promises the trade and empire of the world to this hive of workers and the swarms that issue from it. Mr. Cargill contends that the successful advances of Russia towards subduing and absorbing into itself the people of Eastern Europe and Western Asia, and uniting central Europe with central Asia, through means of a solid commercial alliance and extensive interior traffic in the line of the Black and Caspian Seas, will eventually undermine the power of England, annihilate her commerce, and leave her scarcely more than a name in history. Both authors are right —with a reservation; each seeking the solution of a problem of futurity too exclusively in his own special hobby. Dr. Verity's hobby, however, seems to ourselves to be, en vérité, the "better horse," since the strongest wishes and intentions of a political cabinet will scarcely be able to surmount the obstacle of organic superiority in the people over whom they would triumph; and we take it, that at present the advantages of intelligence and foresight, enterprize and perseverance, are decidedly with the British race, when this race is placed in contrast with Russians, or Russo-Asiaties. Any such contest

as that looked forward to by Mr. Cargill, and pronounced likely to terminate in the destruction of England, as a commercial and political power, must be a contest of people far more than a contest of cabinets.

Russia can triumph over Britain only by becoming superior in intelligence; for, if pushed to an extreme analysis, this single word involves the one ever present and most potent ingredient in national superiority: be it in the arts of war or in the arts of peace, in the craft of commerce or in the craft of government, intelligence will triumph in the long contest - the contest that cannot cease whilst intelligence does not triumph. By this word intelligence we do not intend a mere capacity for knowledge, but an internal want and will—a craving and insatiable appetite for knowledge, combined with an irresistible impulse to use that knowledge for their own advancement, both of which are inherent in the organisation of man, and inherent in the British race probably in greater intensity than in any other race and this it is that will keep us in advance of Russia, let Russia advance as she may. We rejoice that she does advance; for her advances are a benefit to mankind. It is only