mons to show the enormous moral value of pect that a distant future might yet the principal of resentment, if kept within come in which, if moral surgery were the right limits. Such positive proof of possible, if there were such a thing as a course would be as admissible if the new moral excision capable of being performed, notion of organic superfluities in the body it might be of the first benefit to man be granted, as before. But would not even to eradicate some of the persistent there be a very much weaker analogical moral tendencies which we have received case for the real worth of each of the ele- as heirlooms from our ancestors. Take mentary desires, emotions, and other prac- some of the cases of kleptomania, as it is tical tendencies, as we now have them? called, or even of the worst forms of avWould it not be argued very gravely that arice, i.e., of deeply persistent tendencies, if we all really inherit from our ancestors probably in some degree inherited, which superfluous bodily encumbrances of which have become to their present possessors it is our duty to rid ourselves, we are ex- what Sir William Gull asserts that the ecceedingly likely to have also inherited centrically developed duct he tells us of mental and moral superfluities of the same was to its victim, not only not useful, but kind, where again there would be a new centres of local disease, and can field opening not merely for restraint and doubt for a moment that here we have the culture, but, so far as that is possible, trace of a greed for accumulation, which for the intervention of moral surgery, for in the hard Stone Ages, for instance, may radical excisions of natural impulses and have been almost a condition of existence, tendencies? If the human reason applied developed into a thoroughly unsocial and to physiology has discovered that it has destructive passion in an age of comparapruning duties in relation to some of the tive ease and wealth? And if it be mornormal organs of the human body, will not ally certain, as it seems to us to be, that the human reason as applied to psychology in a higher state of existence the competibe strongly biased in favour of the belief tive instinct so deep in us, and, within that it may have pruning duties in relation limits, so useful to us now, will disappear, to some of the normal organs of the human why should it be incredible that even on mind? this earth in some distant future the moral uses of such a passion might vanish, and it might linger, if it lingered at all, as a mere centre of disease?

we

We should reply that it is of course far more difficult to determine what is a distinct organ of the mind than it is to determine what is a distinct organ of the body; We do not see anything really to startle and further, that as the mind is the highest us in Sir William Gull's striking suggespart of man, you might fairly expect nor- tion that science may in the future show inal organs of the body to have become for us how even to prune away superfluous all purposes of advantage obsolete, al- organs of our body with a purely benefithough still inherited from our ancestors, cial result to man; nor why something parwithout expecting normal organs of the allel might not happen, in some still more mind to have already lost all their primi- distant future, in relation even to the mentive functional uses; and that, consider- tal tendencies of men. All such a suging the extremely small number, even if gestion would imply is that God educates there be any, normal bodily organs which us to educate ourselves; and that in the medical science can venture to pronounce course of that education, as the higher really useless to man and mere monuments functions of both body and mind become of a primeval body to which they were developed, some of the lower will gradualuseful, there is no good analogical reason ly be of less and less use, and finally may to expect that anything equivalent would become really superfluous, without, howbe discernible in the mind. But it would, ever disappearing until our own reason and we think, be perfectly true to say that conscience are trained to help in extinthere are, in the mind itself, traces not guishing them. It is hardly possible to perhaps of completely useless habits, or doubt that in the only perfect human naappetites, or impulses which are inherited ture which ever lived upon this earth, in from our forefathers, but certainly and the divine humanity, some of the lower frequently of great excess of activity in principles even of the mind,-notably the such habits, or appetites, or impulses; competitive impulse, was kept altonor would it be at all unreasonable to ex-gether inactive.

WEST AFRICA. Another paper in the same the rock-islands in the river, the smoking mounjournal, accompanied by a map, gives a com- tain of Otombi can be seen to the north-east, plete history of the attempts which have been and, according to native report, there is a secmade to penetrate West Africa in the neighbor- ond volcano, named Onshiko, beyond this one hood of the delta of the Ogowai river, along in the same direction. The existence of a great with a summary of our knowledge of that part lake far in the interior was confirmed to the of the continent. Ogowai must be one of the traveller by every report, but whether this main arteries of the country, but nothing what- forms the source of the Okanda could not be ever is yet known of its course beyond a dis- ascertained. More recent excursions by the tance of 150 miles inland from its great delta, French have completed a rough survey of the the outmost branches of which are more than region of the delta. The Ogowai is the gate 50 miles apart on the coast. In recent years through which our knowledge of Central West attention was drawn to the magnitude of this Africa must be obtained. Academy. river, first reported by Bowdich in 1817, by Du Chaillu's journeys in the coast regions north of the Gaboon and south of the Ogowai, in the years 1856-59. The French, who have long had settlements in its neighbourhood, have at various times made efforts to navigate its waters, as yet without much success, though there do not appear to be any great barriers in the way of a determined explorer. Their first trial in 1862, under Lieut. Serval in the steamer Pionnier, was made in July, the season when the river is lowest, and soon the journey had to be continued in boats, but at a distance by river of about 100 miles from the coast, on the rumour of an attack by the natives, further progress was abandoned. Neglecting the experience of the former attempt, a second, under Lieut. Albigot

and Dr. Touchard, also in the Pionnier, was

undertaken at the same season in 1864, but, waiting till October, the expedition reached the mouth of a large tributary from the southward, named the Ngunië, at a distance of about 50 miles beyond the turning point of the first trial, A third voyage in 1867 under Lieut. Aymes did not reach farther than this confluence, beyond

THE STRUCTURE AND CLASSIFICATION OF COMPOSITE. - At the meeting of the Linnean Society on February 1st an important paper was read by Mr. Bentham, the president of the society, on this subject, to which he has recently given much attention. The order Composite or Synantheræ is remarkable not only from its enormous size, but also from its extremely natural and well-marked characters, there not bewhether a plant should be referred to this order ing a single instance in which it is doubtful

or not. All the essential characters of the anseed, and inflorescence, are absolutely constant droecium, pistil, structure of fruit, structure of throughout the ten thousand species comprised within it. This very fact, however, renders its subdivision into tribes and genera a matter of extreme difficulty, the systematist being compelled to adopt characters as generic which in other orders would hardly be considered as spebest distinguishing characters are derived were cific. The parts of the plant from which the treated at length by the author under the following heads:-1. Sexual differences in the florets contained in the capitulum; these are sometimes constant in large genera or subtribes, sometimes variable in closely allied species. 2 Di- and tri-morphism; very rare in Composita except as connected with sexual differences. 3. Differences in the pistil; these depend on variations in the style where it is not used for its primary purposes in connection with the fertilization of the ovules. 4. Differences in the fruit and its pappus. 5. Differences in the androe; these depend on the minute appendages office. 6. Differences in the corolla; numerous or tails which have apparently no functional

which the main river is named the Okanda. Overland from the Gaboon in 1864, Lieut. Genoyer, after an ascent of the coast range named by the Portuguese the Serra do Crystal, reached the Okanda above the confluence of the Ngunië, and returned to the Gaboon by one of the tributary streams of that estuary. Retraversing the country south of the Ogowai, visited by him in 1858, Du Chaillu came upon and traced the Ngunië down towards the Ogowai for a considerable distance in 1864, previous to his longest journey inland to Ashango. In 1866 a journey was made by an Englishman named Walker from the Gaboon to the Ogowai, during which he followed up the tributary Ngunië to the point at which Du Chaillu had turned, and afterwards navigated the Okanda by boat in its course from and important. 7. Differences in the calyx; north-east to a point 50 miles above the conflu- these are not important. 8 Differences in the ence, the farthest yet reached by any European. ultimate inflorescence and bracts; not of essenHere in July, the time of lowest water, at a dis- tial importance. 9. Differences in foliage; there tance of more than 200 miles by river from the is no type of foliage in Composite which may coast, the first hindrance in the form of rapids not be found in several other orders, although was encountered. The river breaks into several the leaves are never compound with articulate channels of from 100 to 300 yards in width, leaflets; the opposition or alternation of the and has a very tortuous course. leaves is sometimes of tribal importance, sometimes not. 10. Geographical distribution; on this portion of the subject a further paper is promised at a future meeting.

From one of

Corresponding to the rainy season under the equator, the Ogowai has a considerable rise in April

and a lesser in October.

Academy.

2. OFF THE SKELLIGS. By Jean Ingelow. Part VI.. Saint Pauls,

Blackwood's Magazine,

131

146

154

163

Golden Hours,

Blackwood's Magazine,

173

Spectator, .

184

Spectator,

186

Spectator,.

187

Saturday Review,

191

130 SPIRITUAL SONG. From the German of
Novalis. By Geo. MacDonald,

192

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VOLTAIRE.

From Blackwood's Magazine. learning and some eloquence, is not historical but critical, and demands an acMR. MORLEY'S book* upon the great quaintance at once with the man and his French philosopher, just published, will works which we fear only scholars possess. no doubt bring the name and character of Approaching the subject from no scholarly Voltaire freshly before many readers, who point of view, and without any desire to have only the vague general knowledge of enter into the miserable maze of clever him which readers are apt to have of a argument by which Voltaire "se sentit writer whose works have fallen into that appelé à détruire les préjugés de toutes oblivion of greatness which is scarcely less espèces," we shall endeavour to throw a complete than the oblivion of littleness, little light upon the character and position and whose personal mould is no longer at- of this remarkable personage, for a real tractive to, or representative of, the age. and searching examination of his work His is one of the names which "everyand influence in history would require an body" knows; and everybody knows amount of space and labour which we cansomething about him. Certain facts in not pretend to give. Mr. Morley makes his history, certain things he has produced, very high claims for his hero: "When the are part of the general foundation of knowl-right sense of historical proportion is more edge which comes to us, we do not well fully developed in men's minds," he says, know how, from the fathers and grand-"the name of Voltaire will stand for as fathers to whom the quaint and old-fash- much as the names of the great classic ioned distance of last century bore a movements in the European advance, like personal intere t. We know something of the Revival of learning or the ReformaVoltaire's tragedies, something of Candide tion." This is making more than a man and Dr. Pangloss, something of his histories, and a great deal about his connection with the Great Frederic, and the miserable quarrels and spite of that philosophic circle. We know too that he holds a place in French literature of very high importance, and even in something more than French literature. In France herself, spiritual and moral, there is still a kind of galvanic life in the strange figure, half buffoon, half philosopher, which probably takes its chief value from the fact that in itself it was the most perfectly representative figure of his age. The man Voltaire died nearly a hundred years ago, but still Voltairism is spoken of as if it were a fit antagonist of Christianity on the other side of the Channel, and his influence represents at once to his enemies and his friends a power immensely greater and which in many ways is extremely cuthan any name of his century-nay, than rious. Everybody whose opinion has been all the names of his century put together - have left among ourselves. No inquiry could be more curious and interesting than the question how this all came about. The reader, however, will not be able to make this out from "Voltaire, by John Morley," which, though a work of much

Voltaire. By John Morley. London, 1872.

of the great representative figure of the seventeenth century. We should have thought that to place him on an equality with Luther would have been distinction enough, but Mr. Morley seems to require more than this. And indeed, Luther does not occupy anywhere the same living position which the name of Voltaire occupies in men's mouth's, at least on the other side of the Channel. It is a difficult position for an individual with so many imperfections on his head. His system was not a lofty one, whatever its success may have been, and in his own person he was very far from blameless. It is not an apostolic figure, nor a celestial work, which can be presented to us, even by the warmest of partisans, but still it is one which has filled a large place in the eyes of the world

worth recording for the last hundred years has given some deliverance on this subject; and, as Mr. Morley tells us, these judgments have been about as diverse as there have been lips to utter them. He is himself very deeply impressed with the importance of Voltaire's work. Yet he does not disguise, but rather, if we may say so, takes a kind of serious pleasure in record