REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.

Dissertations and Discussions: Political, Philosophical, and Historical. By John Stuart Mill. In Three Volumes. 12mo. Boston: W. V. Spencer.

At a time of deep national emotion, like the present, it is impossible that we Americans should not feel some bias of personal affection in reading the works of those great living Englishmen who have been true to us in the darkest hour. Were it only for his faithful friendship to freedom and to us, Mr. Mill has a right to claim an attentive audience for every word he has ever written; and this collection of his miscellaneous writings, covering a period of thirty years, has a special interest as showing the successive steps by which he has risen to this high attitude of nobleness.

But apart from these special ties, Mr. Mill claims attention as the most advanced of English minds, and the ablest, all things considered, of contemporary English writers. His detached works have long since found a very large American audience,—larger, perhaps, than even their home-circle of readers; and the sort of biographical interest which attaches to a collection of shorter essays—giving, as it does, a glimpse at the training of the writer—will more than compensate for the want of continuity in these volumes, and for the merely local interest which belongs to many of the subjects treated. Church-rates and the English currency have not to us even the interest of heraldry, for that at least can offer pictures of mermaids, and great ingenuity in Latin puns; but, on the other hand, every discussion of the British university-system has a positive value, in the exceedingly crude and undeveloped condition of American collegiate methods. There is the same disparity of interest in the different critical essays. Bentham has hardly exerted an appreciable influence on American thought, and the transitory authority of Coleridge is now merged in more potent agencies; yet when the essays bearing those great names were first printed in the periodical then edited by Mill, they made an era in contemporary English literature, and therefore indirectly modified our own.

Thus, in one way or another, almost all these essays have a value. The style is always clear, always strong, sometimes pointed, seldom brilliant, never graceful; it is the best current sample, indeed, of that good, manly, rather colorless English which belongs naturally to Parliamentary Speeches and Quarterly Reviews. Not being an American, the author may use novel words without the fear of being called provincial; so that understandable, evidentiary, desiderate, leisured, and inamoveability stalk at large within his pages. As a controversialist, he is a trifle sharp, but never actually discourteous; and it is pleasant to see that his chivalry makes him gentlest in dealing with the humblest, while his lance rings against the formidable shield of a Cambridge Professor or a Master of Trinity as did that of the disguised Ivanhoe upon the shield of Bois-Guilbert.

The historical essays in this collection are exceedingly admirable, especially the defence of Pericles and the Athenians, in the second paper on Crete's History. In reading the articles upon ethical and philosophical questions, one finds more drawbacks. The profoundest truths can hardly be reached, perhaps, by one who, at the end of his life, as at the beginning, is a sensationalist in metaphysics and a utilitarian in ethics. It is only when dealing with these themes that he seems to show any want of thoroughness: unfairness he never shows. In the closing tract on "Utilitarianism," which the American publishers have added to the English collection, one feels especially this drawback. As the theory of universal selfishness falls so soon as one considers that a man is capable of resigning everything that looks like happiness, and of plunging into apparent misery, because he thinks it right,—so the theory of utilitarianism falls, when one considers that a man is capable of abstaining from an action that would apparently be useful to all around him, from a secret conviction that it is wrong in itself. There are many things which are intrinsically wrong, although, so far as one can see, they would do good to all around. To assassinate a bad neighbor,—to rob a miser and distribute his goods,—to marry Rochester, while his insane wife is living, (for Jane Eyre,)—to put to death an imbecile and uncomfortable grandmother, (for a Feegeean,)—these are actions which are indefensible, though the balance of public advantages might seem greatly in their favor. It is probable that at this moment a great good would be done to this nation and to the world by the death of Jefferson Davis; yet the bare suggestion of his assassination, in the case of Colonel Dahlgren, was received with a universal shudder, and disavowed as an atrocious slander. But Mr. Mill can meet such ethical problems only by reverting to that general principle of Kant, which he elsewhere repudiates: "So act that the rule on which thou actest would admit of being adopted as a law for all rational beings." Mr. Mill says of such instances, "The action is of a class which, if practised generally, would be generally injurious, and this is the ground of the obligation to abstain from it." But under the rule of utilitarianism, it is the injuriousness itself which should be the principle of classification, and to prove an action innoxious is at once to separate it from that class; so that the objection falls. By his own principles, a murder which would benefit the community is by that very attribute differenced from ordinary and injurious murders, nor can any good argument be found against its commission. The possible bad precedent is at best a possible misapprehension, to be sufficiently averted by concealment, where concealment is practicable.

In dealing with contemporary and practical questions, Mr. Mill shows always pre-eminent ability, with less of the Insular traits than any living Englishman. While there is perhaps no single passage in these volumes so thoroughly grand as his argument for religions freedom in his essay on Liberty,—an argument which the most heretical theologians of either Continent could hardly have put so boldly or so well,—yet through the whole series of essays there runs the same fine strain. He repeatedly renews his clear and irresistible appeal for the equal political rights of the sexes: a point on which there is coming to be but one opinion among the most advanced minds of Europe and America,—a unanimity which, after the more immediate problem of Slavery is disposed of, must erelong bring about some practical application of the principle, in our republican commonwealths. It is interesting to notice in this connection, that Mr. Mill has included with his own essays the celebrated article by his wife, on "The Enfranchisement of Women," and has prefixed to it one of the noblest eulogies ever devoted to any wife by any husband.

He deals with strictly American subjects in the best criticism ever written upon De Tocqueville, where he shows conclusively the error of that great writer, in attributing to democracy, as such, many social phenomena which are equally observable under the English monarchy. These volumes also include—what the English edition of 1859 of course did not contain—the later essays on "The Contest in America," "The Slave Power," and "Non-Intervention." In treating of Slavery and of the War, the author rarely commits an error; in dealing with other American questions, he is sometimes misled by defective information, and cites gravely, with the prelude, "It is admitted," or "It is understood," statements which have their sole origin in the haste of travellers or in the croaking of disappointed egotists. The government of the majority does not end in tyranny: cultivated Americans are not cowards: the best heads are not excluded from public life: free schools do not tend to stifle free thought, but infinitely to multiply it: individuality of character is not checked, but healthily trained, by political equality. Six months in this country would do more to disabuse Mr. Mill, in these matters, than years of mere reading; and it is a positive injury to his large ideas that he should not take the opportunity of testing them on the only soil where they are being put in practice. Whenever he shall come, his welcome is secure. In the mean time, all that we Americans can do to testify to his deserts is to reprint his writings beautifully, as these are printed,—and to read them universally, as these will be read.

Narrative of Privations and Sufferings of United States Officers and Soldiers while Prisoners of War in the Hands of the Rebel Authorities. Being the Report of a Commission of Inquiry, appointed by the United States Sanitary Commission. With an Appendix, containing the Testimony. Printed by the U.S. Sanitary Commission. Philadelphia.

That uniform thoroughness and accuracy which have marked all that has been done by the Sanitary Commission, not in the field alone, but in the committee-room and the printing-office, were never better shown than in this Report. It attempts something which, unless done thoroughly, was not worth doing; since, on a subject which appeals so strongly to the feelings, mere generalities and gossip do more harm than good. It is the work of a special Commission of Inquiry, composed of three physicians, (Drs. Mott, Delafield, and Wallace,) two lawyers, (Messrs. Wilkins and Hare,)and one clergyman (Mr. Walden). This commission has performed a great amount of labor, and has digested its result into a form so systematic as to be logically irresistible. The facts on which the statement rests are a large body of evidence, taken under oath, from prisoners of both armies, and confirmed by the admissions, carefully collated, of the Rebel press. The conclusion is, that, in the Southern prisons, "tens of thousands of helpless men have been, and are now being, disabled and destroyed by a process as certain as poison, and as cruel as the torture or burning at the stake, because nearly as agonizing and more prolonged."

The next step is to fix the responsibility for all these horrors. All theories of apology—as that the sufferings were accidental or exceptional, or that, badly as our soldiers may have fared, the Rebel soldiers fared little better—are taken up and conclusively refuted, the last-named with especial thoroughness. The inevitable inference drawn by the Commission is, that these inhumanities were "designedly inflicted on the part of the Rebel Government," and were not "due to causes which such authorities could not control."

The immediate preparation of this able report is understood to be due to the Rev. Treadwell Walden, an Episcopal clergyman of Philadelphia, not unknown to the readers of the "Atlantic." His present work will be the permanent authority for the facts which it records, and will justify to future generations the suggestion with which it ends, that these cruelties are the legitimate working of a form of government which takes human slavery for its basis. The record of such a government is fitly written in these pages: it is as appropriate as is, for a king of Dahomey, his funeral pyramid of skulls.

Freedom of Mind in Willing; or, Every Being that Wills a Creative First Cause. By Rowland G. Hazard. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 455.

The State of Rhode Island is the most metaphysically inclined of all the sisterhood, not excepting South Carolina. A superficial observer or a passing traveller might take just the opposite view of her tendencies. The stranger who should complete a cycle of sumptuous suppers in Providence, or spend but a day or two in Newport at the height of the season, might conclude that Matter with its most substantial appliances, or Fashion with her most fascinating excitements, had combined to exclude all thoughts of the spiritual from the few square miles over which this least of the States holds dominion. Should he leave the two capitals of luxurious wealth and giddy fashion and seek for the haunts of Philosophy among the quiet nooks which her few valleys and her splendid sea-coast afford, he might judge that meditation had been effectually frightened from them all, for nowhere can he escape the whir of countless spindles and the clash of thousands of looms.

But inferences like these may not be trusted, as history demonstrates. The most admirable of modern treatises in the subtile science, that masterpiece of speculation in matter and style, "The Minute Philosopher" of Bishop Berkeley, was composed in Rhode Island, and the place is still indicated where the musing metaphysician is said to have written the greater portion of the work. That Berkeley's genius did not abandon the region, when he left it, is manifest from the direction taken by the late Judge Durfee, whose "Pan-Idea," if it cannot be accepted as in all respects a satisfactory theory of the relations of the spiritual universe, may be safely taken as an indication of the lofty and daring Platonism of the ingenious author. The anonymous author of "Language by a Heteroscian" is another thinker of somewhat similar tastes. If common report do not greatly err, it is the same thinker who in the volume before us solicits the attention of the philosophic world to his views of the Will. It adds greatly to the interest of the volume itself, in our view, and we trust will do so in the view of our readers, to know that he is no studious recluse nor professional philosopher, but active, shrewd, and keen-sighted, both in his mills, when at home in a fitly named valley, and upon Change, when in Boston or New York.

Surely Roger Williams, that boldest of idealists, did not live in vain, in that he not only set apart the State which he founded as a place of refuge for all persons given to free and daring speculation, but made it a kind of Prospero's Isle, that should never cease to be haunted by some metaphysical spell.

The appearance of such a work from such a source is of itself most refreshing, as an indication that a life of earnest devotion to material pursuits is not inconsistent with an ardent appreciation of the surpassing importance of speculative inquiries. One such example as this is enough to refute the oft-repeated assertion that in America all philosophy must of course give way before the absorbing interest in the pursuit of wealth. A few years since we chanced to send a copy of an American edition of Plato's "Phaedo" to a German Professor. "Eine wirkliche Erscheinung," was his reply in acknowledgment, "to see an edition of a work of Plato from America." What would be his amazement at receiving a copy of a disquisition on the Will written by an American mill-owner!

It is still more refreshing to find the author so sincere and so earnest an advocate of the elevating tendency of philosophical studies. There is a charming simplicity in the words with which his Preface is concluded:—"Whatever opinion may be formed of the success or failure of any effort to elucidate this subject, I trust it will be admitted that the arguments I have presented at least tend to show that the investigation may open more elevated and more elevating views of our position and our powers, and may reveal new modes of influencing our own intellectual and moral character, and thus have a more immediate, direct, and practical bearing on the progress of our race in virtue and happiness than any inquiry in physical science." Such testimony, coupled with the impression made by his argument, is most gratifying, not only in consideration of the source from which it comes, but also as contrasted with the course of so much of the speculative philosophy of the day, towards Materialism in Psychology, Necessarianism in Morals, Naturalism in Philosophy, and Pantheism in Theology.

The doctrine of the writer, or rather his position with respect to theories of the Will, is distinctly indicated by the title of his volume. It is obvious that he must be a decided asserter of Liberty as opposed to Necessity who dares to throw down the gauntlet in support of the thesis that "every being who wills is a creative first cause." All his views of the soul and of its doings are entirely consistent with the direction which is required by this audacious assertion. That the soul is an originator in most of its activities is his perpetually asserted theme. To maintain this he is ready almost to question the reality, as he more than questions the necessity, of the existence of matter, verging occasionally, on this point, upon Berkeley's views and style of thinking. The constructive capacities of the intellect are inferred from the variety of mathematical creations which it originates, as well as from the more diverse and interesting structures which the never wearied and ever aspiring fantasy is always building. Should any one question the right of these creations to be, or seek to detract from their importance, our author is ready to defend them to the utmost in contrast with matter and its claims. Indeed, the author's exposition of his doctrine of the Will is by itself an inconsiderable source of interest, when separated from the views of all the functions of the spirit, which are interwoven with it. In discussing the Will he is necessarily led to treat of its relations to the other powers and functions of the spirit, and hence by necessity to give his philosophy of the Soul. This philosophy, briefly described, is one which regards the soul in its nature and its acts, in its innermost structure and its outmost energies, as capable of and destined to action. This in also its dignity and its glory. The soul or spirit, so far from being the subject of material forces, or the outgrowth of successive series of material agencies, or the subtile product or potence of material laws, is herself the conscious mistress and sovereign of them all, giving to matter and development and law all their importance, as she condescends to use these either as the mirror in which her own creations are reflected or the vehicle by which her acts can be expressed.

How the author maintains and defends this position the limits of this brief notice will not allow us to specify. The views expressed which have the closest pertinency to the will are those which lay especial stress upon the soul as capable of wants, and as thus impelled to action. Emotion and sensibility neither of them qualifies for action. Want must supervene, to point to the unattained future, to excite to change; and to this want knowledge also must be added, in order to direct the activity. Under the stimulus thus furnished, the future must be created, as it were, by the will of the soul itself, before it is made real in fact.

We are not quite sure that we understand the author's doctrine of Want, and its relations to the activities of the will, nor that, so far as we do understand it, we should accept it. But we agree with him entirely, that it is precisely by means of and in connection with a correct analysis of these impelling forces that the real nature and import of the will can be satisfactorily evolved. Mr. Hazard seems to us to make too little difference between the power of the soul to act and its power to will or choose. He conceives the will as the capacity which qualifies for effort of every kind, as the conative power in general, instead of emphasizing it as the capacity for a special kind of effort, namely, that of moral selection.

The second part of the volume is devoted to a criticism of Edwards, the author on whose "steel cap," as on that of Hobbes of old, every advocate of liberty is impelled to try the strength and temper of his weapons. For a critical antagonist, Edwards is admirable, his use of language being far from precise and consistent, and his definitions and statements, through his extreme wariness, being vague and vacillating enough to allow abundant material for comment. Of these advantages Mr. Hazard knows how to avail himself, and shows not a little acuteness in exposing the untenable positions and the inconsequent reasoning of the New-England dialectician. The most ingenious of the chapters upon Edwards is that in which he refutes the conclusions drawn from the foreknowledge of God. His position is the following:—If we concede that the foreknowledge of God were inconsistent with liberty, and involved the necessity of human volitions, we may suppose the Supreme Being to forego the exercise of foreknowledge in respect to such events. But it would not therefore follow that God would be thereby taken by surprise by any such volitions, or would be incompetent to regulate His own actions or to control the issues of them in governing the universe. This he seeks to show, very ingeniously, by asserting that the Supreme Being must be competent to foresee not the actual volition that will be made, but every variety that is possible; and as a consummate chess-player provides by comprehensive forecast against every possible move which his antagonist can make, and has ready a counter-move, so may we, on the supposition suggested, conceive the Supreme Being as fully competent, without the foreknowledge of the actual, by means of His foreknowledge of the possible, to control and govern the course of the future. This solution is certainly ingenious, and doubtless original with the author. It has in all probability occurred to other minds; but, inasmuch as the advocate for freedom does not usually allow that he is shut up to the alternative of either denying the divine purpose or abandoning human freedom, the suggestion of the author has not often, if ever, been seriously urged before. But we have no space for critical comments.

The style of the author is good. With some diffuseness, he is usually clear and animated. The circumstances that he has approached the subject in his own way, independently of the method of books and the technics of the schools, has lent great freshness to his thoughts and illustrations. The occasional observations which he throws in are always ingenious and sometimes profound. He shows himself at every turn to be an acute observer, a comprehensive thinker, and deeply imbued with the meditative spirit. The defects incidental to his peculiar training are more than compensated by the freshness of his manner and the directness of his language. More interesting still is the imaginative tendency which gives to many of his passages the charm of poetic feeling, and elevates them to the truly Platonic rhythm. There are single sentences, and now and then entire paragraphs, which are gems in their way, that sparkle none the less for the plain setting of common sense and unpretending diction by which they are relieved.

We ought to add that the attitude of the author in respect to moral and religious truth is truly, but not obtrusively, reverent. Though he asserts for man the dignity that pertains to a creator, yet he never forgets the limits under which and the materials out of which his creations are wrought. His Theism is outspoken and sincere.

Whatever judgment may be passed upon this volume in the schools of philosophy or theology, all truth-loving men will agree that it brings honor to the literature and thought of the country. No man can read a few of the many passages of refined thought and sagacious observation with which the volume abounds, without acknowledging the presence of philosophic genius. No one can read the passages with which each principal division of the work concludes, without admiring the fine strains which indicate the presence of genius inspired by poetic feeling and elevated by adoring reverence. We are sure that the fit, though scanty, audience from whom the author craves a kindly judgment will cheerfully render to him far more than this, even their unfeigned admiration.

Military Bridges: With Suggestions of New Expedients and Constructions for crossing Streams and Chasms; including, also, Designs for Trestle and Truss Bridges for Military Railroads. Adapted especially to the Wants of the Service in the United States. By Hermann Haupt, late Chief of Bureau in Charge of the Construction and Operation of United States Military Railways, etc. New York: D. Van Nostrand. 8vo. pp. 310.

There is in the War Department at Washington a series of splendid photographs, illustrative of scenes along the line of march of our armies in Virginia, and depicting minutely the great pioneer labor of transporting troops and ammunition, giving evidence of the greatest engineering genius, and the illimitable resource that has been evoked by this dreadful War of Rebellion.

The book before us is the result of these operations reduced to form. The author's name has for the last twenty-five years been associated with most of the great works of internal improvement in this country, and is familiar to every Massachusetts man as connected with the great railroad-enterprise of the State,—the Hoosac Tunnel.

The professional reputation of the author of "The General Theory of Bridge-Construction" would of itself be a sufficient guaranty that a new work from the same source would be entitled to consideration. General Haupt does not often appear before the public as an author: his works are few, but of rare merit. The first which appeared, "The General Theory of Bridge-Construction," was the fruit of many years of experiment, observation, and calculation, and at once established his reputation in Europe and America, as unequalled in the specialty of Bridges. This work was not only the first, but up to the present time is the only publication in which the action of the parts in a complicated system is explained, and the direction and intensity of each and every strain brought within the reach of mathematical formulas, and rendered accurately determinable. Before the appearance of this book it is probable that not another engineer in the world could be found able to calculate the strain upon every sort of bridge-truss, but only on certain simple forms and combinations. Now, such calculations can be made by any student in any institution where civil engineering is taught thoroughly, and where "Haupt on Bridges" is used as a text-book. Professor Gillespie, writing from Europe, remarked that the greatest engineer of the age, Robert Stephenson, and his distinguished associates, had spoken of this book in terms of the highest commendation.

After the publication of the controversial papers between Messrs. Stephenson and Fairbairn in regard to the Britannia Bridge, it became apparent that neither of these gentlemen, with all their calculations and expenditures in experiments, had determined the proper distribution of the strains, and the size and strength required for the side-plates of tubular bridges, but only for those at the top and bottom. General Haupt solved the problem mathematically, and sent a communication on the subject to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which has been extensively copied into the scientific journals of Europe, and has added largely to the reputation of its author. In the Victoria Bridge at Montreal, the distribution of material in the vertical plates conforms to the proportions given by General Haupt.

About the year 1853, General Haupt, then Chief Engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad, reviewed the work of Charles Ellett on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, with other plans of improvement that had been suggested, and, in a pamphlet of about a hundred pages, proposed a novel, bold, and simple method for the improvement of these rivers, costing scarcely a tenth as much as the estimated expense of some of the other methods, and promising greater durability and efficacy. The Pittsburg Board of Trade recently appointed a scientific commission to investigate the whole subject; and their report, which is thorough and exhaustive, gives unanimously the preference to the plan of General Haupt, as the only practicable mode of improving the Ohio River, so as to insure a permanent depth of water of not less than six feet. In passing, we would remark that one of the greatest difficulties the War Department has had to contend with has been the lack of suitable navigation on the Ohio River, and it is to be regretted that Government did not at once seize upon the plans of General Haupt and carry them into execution.

In the spring of 1862, General Haupt was solicited to take charge of the reconstruction of the railroad from Acquia Creek to Fredericksburg. Without material other than that furnished by forests two miles distant, and without skilled mechanics, but simply by the aid of common soldiers who had no previous instruction, he erected, in nine days, a structure eighty feet high and four hundred feet long, which for more than a year carried the immense railroad-trains supplying the Army of the Potomac. It was visited and critically examined by officers in the foreign service, as a remarkable specimen of bold and successful military engineering.

Major-General McDowell, in his defence before the Court of Inquiry, made the following statement in regard to the Potomac-Creek Bridge, on the line of the Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad.

"The large railroad-bridge over the Rappahannock, some six hundred feet long by sixty-five feet high, and the larger part of the one over Potomac Creek, some four hundred feet long by eighty feet high, were built from the trees cut down by the troops in the vicinity, and this without those troops losing their discipline or their instruction as soldiers. The work they did excited, to a high degree, the wonder and admiration of several distinguished foreign officers, who had never imagined such constructions possible by such means, and in such a way, in the time in which they were done.

"The Potomac-Run Bridge is a most remarkable structure. When it is considered, that, in the campaigns of Napoleon, trestle-bridges of more than one story, even of moderate height, were regarded as impracticable, and that, too, for common military roads, it is not difficult to understand why distinguished Europeans should express surprise at so bold a specimen of American military engineering. It is a structure which ignores all the rules and precedents of military science as laid down in books. It is constructed chiefly of round sticks cut from the woods, and not even divested of bark; the legs of the trestles are braced with round poles. It is in four stories, three of trestles and one of crib-work. The total height from the deepest part of the stream to the rail is nearly eighty feet. It carries daily from ten to twenty heavy railway-trains in both directions, and has withstood several severe freshets and storms without injury.

"This bridge was built in May, 1862, in nine working-days, during which time the greater part of the material was cut and hauled. It contains more than two million feet of lumber. The original structure, which it replaced, required as many months as this did days. It was constructed by the common soldiers of the Army of the Rappahannock, (command of Major-General McDowell,) under the supervision of his aide-de-camp, Colonel, now Brigadier-General, Hermann Haupt, Chief of Railroad Construction and Transportation."

A fine lithographic drawing of this bridge, taken from a photograph, forms the frontispiece to the volume before us.

Previous to the Battle of Chancellorsville, General Haupt received instructions to prepare for a rapid advance of the Army of the Potomac towards Richmond. He provided a sufficient amount of material to rebuild all the bridges between Fredericksburg and Richmond, and adopted the bold and novel expedient of portable railroad-bridge trusses. These trusses were built in advance, in spans of sixty feet; they were to be carried whole on cars to the end of the track, then dragged like logs, with the aid of timber-wheels and oxen, to the sites of the bridges, where they were to be raised bodily on wooden piers, and the rails laid over them. The reverse at Chancellorsville prevented this plan from being carried into effect; but four of these spans were used to replace the trestle-bridge across the Acquia Creek, where they were tested in actual use, and answered perfectly.

When informed of the contemplated advance on Richmond, General Haupt concluded to replace the trestle-bridge across Potomac Creek by the military truss-bridge, which was of a more permanent character. The trestle-bridge had performed good service for more than a year, but, as it obstructed the water-way of the stream too much, and as the preservation of the communications would become of even greater importance after the advance than it had previously been, it was thought best to take it down. General Hooker, having heard of this determination, sent for General Haupt in much alarm, and inquired if the report as to the proposed rebuilding of the bridge was true, and protested against having it disturbed, saying that he needed all the supplies that could be run forward, and could not allow a suspension of transportation even for a day. General Haupt replied, that he was willing to be held responsible for results, but must be permitted to control his own means; he did not ask for a suspension of transportation; he would take down the high bridge and build a permanent bridge on the piers, and would not detain a single train even for an hour. General Hooker and staff declared that they did not believe such a feat possible; yet it was actually accomplished without any detention to the trains whatever, and in a period of time so brief as to be almost incredible. In less than two days the trusses of the three spans were placed in position.

If there is any one faculty which General Haupt appears to possess in a preëminent degree, it is resource. He never finds an engineering problem so difficult that some satisfactory mode of solution does not present itself to his mind. He seems to comprehend intuitively the difficulties of a position, and the means of surmounting them. He never waits; if he cannot readily obtain the material he desires, he takes that at hand. His new work on "Military Bridges" exhibits this power of resource in a remarkable degree; it is full of expedients, novel, practical, and useful, among which may be mentioned expedients for crossing streams in front of the enemy by means of blanket-boats,—ingenious substitutes for pontoon-bridges, floats, and floating-bridges,—plans for the complete destruction of railroad bridges and track, and for reconstructing track,—modes of defence for lines of road, etc.: for the book, be it observed, is not limited in its contents to the single subject indicated by its title.

The design of the author, as stated in the Introduction, appears to have been to give to the army a practically useful book. He has not failed to draw from other sources where suitable material was furnished, an indebtedness which he has gracefully acknowledged; but a great part of the book contains new and original plans and expedients, the fruits of the experience and observation of the author while in charge of the construction and transportation for the armies of the Rappahannock, of Virginia, and of the Potomac, under Generals McDowell, Pope, McClellan, Burnside, Hooker, and Meade. It is a book no officer can afford to be without; and to the general reader who wishes to be thoroughly versed in the operations of the war, it will commend itself as replete with information on this subject.

Meditations on the Essence of Christianity, and on the Religious Questions of the Day. By M. Guizot. Translated from the French under the Superintendence of the Author. London: John Murray.

Whoever is familiar with religious controversies, past and present, has not failed to notice of late an improvement in their tone, for which we cannot be too deeply thankful. This does not arise solely from the neglect which now prevails of the ancient and highly recommended plan of imprisoning, torturing, and roasting such obstinate heretics as are too obtuse or too sharp-sighted to yield to milder methods of treatment. Such incidents in history as the exposure of Christians to hungry beasts in the Colosseum, a Smithfield burnt-offering of persistent saints, or a Spanish auto-da-fe, with attending civic, ecclesiastical, and sometimes even royal functionaries, and wide-encircling half-rejoicing and half-compassionate multitudes, were not without their charms and compensations for victims blessed with a fervid fancy or a deathless purpose. These cruel scenes associated such with the illustrious dead who have held life cheaper than truth, and gave them an opportunity of saying to countless multitudes such as no pulpit-orator could attract and sway,—"See how Christians die!" The liability to such trials turned away the fickle from the assembly of the faithful and attracted the magnanimous. When grim Puritans, in our early history, broke the stubborn necks of peace-preaching Quakers, the latter often thought it a special favor from Providence that they were permitted to bear so striking a testimony against religious fanaticism. They felt, like John Brown in his Virginian prison, that the best service they could render to the cause they had loved so well was to love it even unto death. Indeed, martyrs in mounting the scaffold have ever felt the sentiment,—

Such heroic treatment always relieves any cause from contemptuous neglect, the one thing which is always harder to bear than the fires of martyrdom. Every reader of Bunyan knows that he complains far less of his twelve years' imprisonment than he exults over the success of his prison born, world-ranging Pilgrim. He would doubtless have preferred lying in that "den," Bedford jail, other twelve years to being unable to say,—

The dreariest period in religious discussion commonly occurs when men have just ceased to inflict legal penalties upon the heterodox, but have not yet learned those amenities which lend so sweet and gentle a dignity to debate. In looking over the dusty pamphlets which entomb so many clerical controversies of our Colonial times, it has often seemed as though we had lighted on some bar-room wrangle, translated out of its original billingsgate into scholarly classical quotations and wofully wrested tests of Holy Writ. This illusion seems all the more probable when we remember that the potations which inspired the loose jester and the ministerial pamphleteer of that period but too often flowed from the same generous tap. This phase of theological dispute is best typified in that eminent English divine who wrote,—"I say, without the least heat whatever, that Mr. Wesley lies." The manner in which such reverend disputants sought to force their conclusions on the reluctant has not infrequently reminded us of sturdy old Grimshawe, the predecessor of Bronté at Haworth, of whom Mrs. Gaskell reports, that, finding so many of his parishioners inclined to loiter away their Sundays at the ale-house as greatly to thin the attendance upon his ministry, he was wont to rush in upon them armed with a heavy whip, and scourge them with many a painful stroke to church, where, doubtless, he scourged them again with still more painful sermons.

But, bad as were the controversial habits of the clergy, those of their skeptical opponents were still worse. That was surely a strange state of things where such freethinking as the "Age of Reason" could win a wide circulation and considerable credit. But it was not merely the vulgar among freethinkers who then substituted sophistry and declamation for honesty and sense. The philosophers of the Institute caught the manners of the rabble. What a revolting scene does M. Martin sketch in his "Essay on the Life and Works of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre"! "The Institute had proposed this as a prize-question:—'What institutions are best adapted to establish the morals of a nation?' Bernardin was to offer the report. The competitors had treated the theme in the spirit of their judges. Terrified at the perversity of their opinions, the author of "Studies of Nature" wished to oppose to them more wholesome and consoling ideas, and he closed his report with one of those morsels of inspiration into which his soul poured the gentle light of the Gospel. On the appointed day, in the assembled Institute, Bernardin read his report. The analysis of the memoirs was heard at first with calmness; but, at the first words of the exposition of the principles of a theistical philosopher, a furious outcry arose from every part of the hall. Some mocked him, asking where he had seen God, and what form He bore. Others styled him weak, credulous, superstitious; they threatened to expel him from the assembly of which he had proved himself unworthy; they even pushed madness so far as to challenge him to single combat, in order to prove, sword in hand, that there is no God. Cabanis, celebrated by Carlyle for his dogma, 'Thought is secreted, like bile, somewhere in the region of the small intestines,' cried out, 'I swear that there is no God, and I demand that His name shall never be spoken in this place.' The reporter left the members in grave dispute, not whether there is a God, but whether the mention of His name should be permitted."

We have fallen upon better days. The high debate which is now engaging the attention of Christendom is conducted, for the most part, on both sides, with distinguished courtesy. Not that the question at issue is, or is felt to be, any less vital than former ones. The aim of modern free-inquiry is to remove religious life from the dogmatic basis, upon which, in Christian lands, it has hitherto stood. Denying the existence, and sometimes the possibility, of a supernatural revelation, now admitting, now doubting, and now rejecting the personal immortality of the soul, our freethinkers profess a high regard for the religious culture of the race. They would found a new scientific faith, and make spiritual life an outgrowth of the soul's devout sensibilities. The soul is to draw its nutriment from Nature, science, and all inspired books; so that, if preaching is as fashionable in the new dispensation as under the old, the future saints will be in as bad a plight as, according to eminent theological authority, were those of a late celebrated divine:—

But is such a religion possible? M. Guizot thinks not, and comes forward in full philosophical dignity to repel recent assaults upon supernatural religion. The chief gravity of these attacks has doubtless consisted in exegetical and historic criticism. M. Guizot deems these matters of minor consequence, and believes that the most important thing is to settle certain fundamental metaphysical questions, and correct prevalent erroneous ideas respecting the purpose of revelation. His book consists of eight Meditations: Upon Natural Problems,—Christian Dogmas,—The Supernatural,—The Limits of Science,—Revelation,—Inspiration of the Scriptures,—God according to the Bible,—Jesus according to the Gospel. These themes are presented so skilfully as to attract the interest of the careless, while challenging the fixed attention of the trained thinker. The reader will find himself lured on, by the freshness of the author's method of handling, into the very heart of these profound and difficult questions. He will be charmed to find them treated with calm penetration and outspoken frankness. No late writer has displayed a better comprehension of all phases of and parties to the controversy. There is a singular absence of controversial tone, a marvellous lucidity of statement, and a visible honesty of intention, as refreshing as they are rare,—while a spirit of warm and tender devotion steals in through the argumentation, like the odor of unseen flowers through a giant and tangled wood. Yet there is no want of fidelity to personal convictions, no effort by cunning shifts to bring about an apparent reconciliation of opponents which the writer knows will not endure. With a firm hand he touches the errors of contending schools of interpreters, and demands their abandonment. To Rationalist and Hyper-Inspirationist in their strife he says, like another Moses, "Why smitest thou thy fellow?"

Those who have watched carefully the tendencies of these parties for many years must sometimes have grown despondent. The progressive school has claimed with unscientific haste the adoption, as a fundamental principle of Biblical interpretation, of the negation of the supernatural. Their argument is simply, that human experience disproves the supernatural. Man, a recent comer upon the globe, who has never kept a very accurate record of his experience, who comes forth from mystery for a few days of troubled life, and then vanishes in darkness,—he in his short stay upon earth has watched the play of its laws, which were before him and will remain after him, and has learned without any revelation that God never has changed, never will, never can change or suspend them! Who shall assure us that our experience of these laws does not differ from that of Peter and John, the Apostles? How much better to say of them with Hume, Whatever the fact, we cannot believe it, or to query with Montaigne, Que sais-je? Far better might we say that human experience can never overthrow faith in the supernatural, for none can ever say what has been the experience of the countless dead over whom oblivion broods. Shall a few savans say, Our experience outweighs the experience of the Hebrews plus one hundred generations of dead Gentiles plus one universal instinct of humanity? Credat M. Littré, non ὁι πολλοι, M. Guizot, vel Agassiz. But the laws of Nature are uncha——Ah! that is the very point in dispute. Why can they not alter? Because they are invari——Tut! Well, then, b-e-c-a-u-s-e——When you find a good argument, put it into that blank. Till then, adieu.

Those who claim a plenary verbal inspiration as essential to a real revelation are, according to M. Guizot, equally remote from a truly scientific spirit. Errors in rhetoric and grammar, passages where the writers speak of astronomical and geological matters in consonance with the prevailing, but, in many cases, mistaken theories of their times, being pointed out in the Bible, these cry out, "There can be no real errors in an inspired book,"—and we are at once amazed and disgusted to hear men deny the reality of things which they can but perceive, quite as sturdily as the Port-Royalists refused to allow the presence of sundry propositions in their books, which, notwithstanding the Pope's infallible assertion, they had no recollection of thinking or writing, which they supposed they had always hated and disavowed, and which they could by no ingenuity of search discover. Sir Thomas Browne might enjoy, could he revisit the world, the privilege of seeing many who are reduced to defend their faith with Tertullian's desperate resolution,—"It is certain, because it is impossible." If ever we escape from such ineptitude, it will come about by the diffusion of a more philosophic temper, and the use of a logic that shall refuse to exclude the facts of human nature from fair treatment, that shall embrace and account for all the questions involved, and that shall decline to receive as truth errors of finite science because found in an inspired book. We welcome this volume as an example of the right spirit and tendency in these grave discussions, and shall look eagerly for the promised three succeeding ones.

This translation, though "executed under the superintendence of the author," evidently does no justice to the original. We have not seen the book in French, but we venture to say that M. Guizot never wrote French which could answer to this version, awkward, careless, and sometimes obscure. A certain picture of dull and ancient aspect, which had long passed for an original from the hand of Leonardo da Vinci, and, despite the raptures of sentimental people who sought to tickle their own vanity by pretending to perceive in it the marks of its high origin, had commonly awakened only a sigh of regret over the transitoriness of pictorial glory, fell at length into the hands of a skilful artist. By careful examination, this worthy person became satisfied that the painting was indeed all that had been claimed, but that its primal splendors had been obscured by the defacing brush of some incompetent restorer. With loving care he removed the dimming colors, and to an admiring world was revealed anew the Christ of the Supper. Will not some American publisher perform a like kindly function for Guizot?

History of the Anti-Slavery Measures of the Thirty-Seventh and Thirty-Eighth United States Congress, 1861-64. By Henry Wilson. Boston: Walker, Wise, & Co. 12mo. pp. 384.

Senator Wilson is admirably qualified to record the anti-slavery legislation in which he has borne so prominent and honorable a part. Few but those engaged in debates can thoroughly understand their salient points, and fix upon the precise sentences in which the position, arguments, and animating spirit of opposite parties are stated and condensed. The present volume is a labor-saving machine of great power to all who desire or need a clear view of the course of Congressional legislation on measures of emancipation, but who prefer to rest in ignorance rather than wade through the debates as reported in the "Congressional Globe," striving to catch, amid the waste of words, the leading ideas or passions on which questions turn.

The first thing which strikes the reader in Mr. Wilson's well-executed epitome is the gradual character of this anti-slavery legislation, and the general subordination of philanthropic to military considerations in its conduct. The questions were not taken up in the order of their abstract importance, but as they pressed on the practical judgment for settlement in exigencies of the Government. When Slavery became an obstruction to the progress of the national arms, opposition to it was the dictate of prudence as well as of conscience, and its defenders at once placed themselves in the position of being more interested in the preservation of slavery than in the preservation of the nation. The Republicans, charged heretofore with sacrificing the expedient to the right, could now retort that their opponents were sacrificing the expedient to the wrong.

Senator Wilson's volume gives the history of twenty-three anti-slavery measures, in the order of their inception and discussion. Among these are the emancipation of slaves used for insurrectionary purposes,—the forbidding of persons in the army to return fugitive slaves,—the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia,—the President's proposition to aid States in the abolition of slavery,—the prohibition of slavery in the Territories,—the confiscation and emancipation bill of Senator Clark,—the appointment of diplomatic representatives to Hayti and Liberia,—the bill for the suppression of the African slave-trade,—the enrolment and pay of colored soldiers,—the anti-slavery Amendment to the Constitution,—the bill to aid the States to emancipate their slaves,—and the reconstruction of Rebel States. The account of the introduction of these and other measures, and the debates on them, are given by Mr. Wilson with brevity, fairness, and skill. A great deal of the animation of the discussion, and of the clash and conflict of individual opinions and passions, is preserved in the epitome, so that the book has the interest which clings to all accounts of verbal battles on whose issue great principles are staked. As the words as well as the arguments of the debates are given, and as the sentences chosen are those in which the characters of the speakers find expression, the effect is often dramatic. It cannot fail to be observed, in reading these reports, that there is a prevailing vulgarity of tone in the declarations of the champions of Slavery. They boldly avow the lowest and most selfish views in the coarsest languages and scout and deride all elevation of feeling and thought in matters affecting the rights of the poor and oppressed. Their opinions outrage civility as well as Christianity; and while they make a boast of being gentlemen, they hardly rise above the prejudices of boors. Principles which have become truisms, and which it is a disgrace for an educated man not to admit, they boldly denounce as pestilent paradoxes; and in reading Mr. Wilson's book an occasional shock of shame must be felt by the most imperturbable politician, at the spectacle of the legislature of "a model republic" experiencing a fierce resistance in the attempt to establish indisputable truths.

Most of the questions here vehemently discussed should, it might be supposed, be settled without discussion by the plain average sense and conscience of any body of men deserving to live in the nineteenth century; but so completely have the defenders of Slavery substituted will and passion for reason and morality, and so long have they been accustomed to have their insolent absurdities rule the politics of the nation, that the passage of the bills whose varying fortunes Mr. Wilson records must be considered the greatest triumph of liberty and justice which our legislative annals afford. And in that triumph the historian of the Anti-Slavery Measures may justly claim to have had a distinguished part. Honest, able, industrious, intelligent, indefatigable, zealous for his cause, yet flexible to events, gifted at once with practical sagacity and strong convictions, and with his whole heart and mind absorbed in the business of politics and legislation, he has proved himself an excellent workman in that difficult task by which facts are made to take the impress of ideas, and the principles of equity are embodied in the laws of the land.