of events in question were wrought by supernatural intervention; for this would be tantamount to begging the issue at once.

A strong point, made by those who advocate the affirmative side of the present question, consists in referring to the fact that all the principal actors in the New Testament have frequently referred in their conversation and epistles to the Pentateuch; and it is alleged that by so doing, they have endorsed and affirmed to the full and literal accuracy of the statements there made. But this fallacy has been most triumphantly exposed by Dr. Colenso, in his Preface, pages 30, 31, and 32; but as the paragraphs are too long for insertion here, we must request our readers to refer to them for themselves, satisfied that they will thereby receive additional confirmation of the Bishop's views.

In conclusion, we beg our antagonists to believe that, however opposed our opinions may be to theirs, they are, nevertheless, sincere, and were arrived at " according to the light that is in us." And if the present discussion should lead to a deeper and more comprehensive inquiry into the momentous questions involved in it, we shall be heartily grateful to Dr. Colenso for having directed public attention to the subject, and to the British Controversialist for affording an arena in which the truth may be maintained. For ourselves, we feel almost constrained to fall back appalled at having had the temerity to "argue this high subject," fearing that we have placed ourselves in the position of those who "rush in, where angels fear to tread." In the presence of the overwhelming doubts and conflicting problems thus elicited, we feel our own feebleness to deal with them to be but equal to that of—

"An infant crying in the night,

An infant crying for the light,
And with no language but a cry."

E. S. J.

Philosophy.

IS AN AGE OF GENERAL INTELLECTUAL CULTURE UNFAVOURABLE ΤΟ THE

DEVELOPMENT

OF

GREAT MEN?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE.-II.

To maintain the affirmative of this question will, no doubt, be considered by some as paradoxical and inconsistent; and we may be charged with promulgating opinions at variance with common sense and ascertained fact. Be it so. We are quite willing to undertake the risk, knowing that many apparent paradoxes, before

now, have been proved to be correct; and that the general idea upon a subject is by no means invariably the correct one, but more frequently the reverse. We have, as will be seen from perusing the question at the head of this article, two subjects upon which to speak, viz.-general intellectual eulture, and great men; and it is our purpose to show that the one is not a necessary or probable result of the other: but that the latter, instead of being produced and developed by the former, is often hindered and thwarted. We would particularly request attention to the word "general," as applied to intellectual culture, as it will bear no small influence in determining the question at issue. We know that without great intellectual culture, no one is likely to become truly great; and are also ready to admit that a man, who has attained a high state of intellectual culture, will probably be a great man. Indeed, he already deserves that title, whether his own generation or posterity award it to him or not. But it is only with those who make themselves a name in their own day, and are awarded by posterity a niche in the temple of fame,-men who rise above the level of, and are preeminently distinguished from, the majority of their fellows-that we have to do. It is only such that we can reckon as great; and as this greatness is connected with intellectual culture, it is manifest that we are only concerned with noticing those who have distinguished themselves in those paths of science and art where the intellect finds the fullest scope for the display of its wondrous powers. So much, then, respecting the term, great men," and what we understand by it.

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We have now to consider an age of general intellectual culture, and what is meant by the expression. The meaning of the term is, doubtless, easily understood, as referring to an age in which the majority of the people are educated and instructed in the rudiments of science; while a large portion are endeavouring to obtain all knowledge, and comprehend all science; and the age to which the term-" general intellectual culture"-may be most appropriately applied, is our own. We have, then, to ask, Are there greater men now than there were in past ages? or does the level of the intellectual status of the masses tend to produce a fairer number of great men? To both these questions we feel compelled to give a negative reply. Our reasons for arriving at this conclusion are based upon facts, and upon a consideration of the tendencies of general intellectual culture.

That there have been in past ages men as eminent as any now living, many, indeed, whom the present age has no way equalled, -is a fact which, we think, no one can deny. The ancients are still our acknowledged models. The tragedies of Sophocles, the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, the philosophy of Aristotle and Plato, the poems of Homer and Virgil, the histories of Thucydides and Livy, the biographies of Plutarch and Nepos, the geometry of Euclid and Archimedes, have been equalled by few, and excelled, perhaps, by none, in this present nineteenth century, albeit we have the

wisdom and experience of nearly thirty centuries to guide and assist us. Whether this arises from the fact that there is a limit to the culture of the human intellect, and consequently a limit to its powers; and that the ancients having attained this limit, it is impossible for us to surpass them; or whether there were, as we are inclined to think, peculiar circumstances in their case which materially contributed to develop their greatness, as we believe there are in the present day many things which tend to retard the rise of great men, we know not, nor are we at present concerned in determining; the fact is the same, that the great men of the ancients were as great, if not greater, both numerically in proportion to the people, and intellectually, as any men of our day; and these men arose in an age when intellectual culture was anything but general. To come nearer our own times, we have the Bacons (Roger and Francis), Raleigh, Spenser, Shakespere, Barrow, Boyle, Hooker, Tillotson, Stillingfleet, and even down to the reign of Queen Anne, including the names of Dryden, Pope, Swift, Addison, Steele, and Arbuthnot, and, greatest of all, Newton, existing and flourishing in an age when intellectual culture was anything but general. We may be told that the period of Elizabeth and of Queen Anne were the Periclean, Augustan ages of England, and we may grant that they were; but it must be remembered that these were the very men who constituted it, and that the mass of the people were still uneducated, and intellectual culture was, as a whole, low in status and limited in extent. Nor do we think the argument invalidated by referring to what is generally, but in our opinion erroneously, known as the dark ages, and to the successive periods, and short time, comparatively speaking, in which the arts and sciences have been cultivated. This may be true, though it must be remembered that had it not been for the studies of the monks and of the schoolmen, when ignorance was so general, the flood of light which followed the invention of the printing press, would never have existed, or thrown such glorious beams upon the Elizabethan age. The fact, however, remains the same, that in an age when intellectual cultivation was not general, there existed as large a number of great men; men who were great, not only because they rose above the level of their fellows, but men who were absolutely great, and are reckoned as such in the present age of general intellectual culture, which they could greatly exceed, and so still be reckoned great. Such are the facts. How, then, do we account for them? The following are some of the reasons to be adduced in explanation thereof.

1. An age of general intellectual culture produces mediocrity, but not true greatness. The attainments considered requisite to pass society, or be, as it is termed, finished, in the present day, are so numerous and extensive, that the young man, in his haste to get through all, understands none properly, but has only a smattering, and that frequently confused and inaccurate, of each. When he has passed the curriculum of the sciences in this manner, his intellect,

instead of being cultivated and strengthened, is only dwarfed and weakened, and he feels no disposition to mark out any subject for himself, that he may penetrate it to its very depths. Take another view. The young man has, we will suppose, really mastered, so far as he has gone, everything considered requisite for his accomplishment. What is the consequence? He mixes with society, and finds that, in point of intellectual attainment, he is the equal, perhaps, in many things, the superior of others. He rests satisfied with this fancied superiority; and making no attempt to give himself that second education which, as Bulwer Lytton truly observes, is the more important of the two to the development and strengthening of the intellect, and formation of the character as a man, determines to be, as his preceptors say he is, finished. Again: the youthful student who has set out with a determination to be great, if perseverance be the essential requisite to success, finds, ere he has well begun to run the race, so many paths opening out before him, each fascinating and alluring his buoyant and eager spirit, that he is in perplexity which to choose to reach the goal; and in attempting to traverse them all, wastes his energies, overtasks his strength, and fails to win the laurels.

We are not here advocating the study of one subject, or culture of one faculty entirely, to the exclusion of everything else. It is, we are well aware, absolutely necessary to obtain some knowledge of several sciences, to the proper appreciation and successful mastery of one, so closely are they linked together; but what we do insist upon is, that the man who would, in this day especially, be truly great, must pursue one subject alone, and make all his previously acquired knowledge subservient to it. A man cannot be great at many things, and seldom at more than one. Michael Angelo, Cellini, Raphael, Rembrandt, Guido, and Hogarth, Vandyke and Reynolds, Turner and Wilkie, would, we feel convinced, never have attained the eminence they did, as sculptors and painters; nor Handel and Mozart, Mendelsohn and Beethoven, as musical composers; Herschel and Leverrier, as astronomers, have attained such distinguished honours, if they had, instead of pursuing one subject almost exclusively, attempted to master several, and endeavoured to become great in each. The question, in fact, is something akin to that so ably debated in the last volume of the British Controversialist, on intellectual progress, as fostered or retarded by a multiplicity of periodicals; and similar arguments may, we think, be brought to bear with effect upon it. As the mind is saturated and bewildered by the numerous books and articles hastily scanned, instead of being fertilized and strengthened by the few carefully read and well-digested, so it is with the various branches of science it loosely grapples with, but makes no attempt to master.

Lastly, it is much more difficult to attain a position of eminence, or, in other words, to be accounted great now, than it was in bygone ages; for more needs to be done to attain greatness than formerly.

Though it be true that the great men of former ages were absolutely as great as the great men of our day, it is also true that a man who is now looked upon as passable, or it may be as somewhat inferior in point of intellectual ability to the generality of his neighbours, would in former days, previous to the spread of education, have been looked upon by the "gaping rustics round" as a great man; and therefore to attain a position of eminence now, the labour is trebled or quadrupled; while, at the same time, no new powers have been conferred upon the intellect, its faculties being incapable of any further extension or development, than was exhibited by the master-minds of antiquity, there being, at least, no evidence to the contrary. The student, therefore, is, in the generality of instances, worn out by the time he has attained the level of his fellows; and setting aside the numerous attractions to wean from further pursuing the paths of science, he has neither inclination nor capability in himself to prosecute the work with vigour.

We would not, however, be understood as depreciating the merits of the age, or of ignoring the benefits arising to the masses from a state of general intellectual aulture; nor do we think the argument fairly admits of such an interpretation. We believe that it is much better that knowledge, however small in degree, should be conferred on the many, and not, as formerly, possessed by the few; but we at the same time strenuously maintain, for the reasons given above, that this age of intellectual culture will not be conducive to the development of great men.

NEGATIVE ARTICLE. II.

R. S.

THE appearance of the debate on this subject in the pages of the British Controversialist is a phenomenon worthy of the notice of all thoughtful men. It is strange that in an age like the present, which claims pre-eminence in general intelligence over all preceding ages, and in a periodical which has now for nearly fourteen years been distinguished by the liberality of its principles, and the broadness of its sympathies, there should be found writers of ability boldly maintaining that an age of general intellectual culture is unfavourable to the development of great men. If this be so, for what have philosophers, philanthropists, and educationalists, so long studied and laboured? Is it that human nature might become dwarfed, and mediocrity be our only attainable standard? Surely such a result as this could never have flitted before their minds, even in their dreams; and we cannot believe that it will be allowed to follow as a deadly curse upon their noblest efforts. The remark with which Touchstone," the affirmative writer, opens his article, on page 25, is the key-note to his whole performance: "Greatness is, of course, a relative term ;" but if we admit this, we must remind our friend that it has a very positive meaning; and nothing that is absolutely small, mean, or ignoble, can, under any circumstances, properly have greatness attributed to it.

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