to a new demand, and be treated with a firm yet discriminating criticism.

Best of all, it is to be hoped that there will be a more kindly and respectful feeling in the bosom of Christians towards their brethren the Jews. What if a persuasion should gain upon the parties on both sides the wall of separation, that Christ is He who alone can break it down, and make us one? Some little community of study may help us all to breathe the Spirit of the crucified King of Israel, and to emulate the tender compassion of that great Apostle of the Gentiles, who never loved his brethren according to the flesh so ardently as when the love of Jesus became the constraining motive of his life.

R.

"STUDIES ON THE BARBARIANS AND THE MIDDLE

AGES."*

M. EMILE Littré is one of the most indefatigable men we have ever met with. Not only has he published single-handed a French Dictionary before which all others dwindle into insignificance, and thus obliged the celebrated " Forty" of the Académie Française to blush for their own dilatoriness; he now edits a periodical intended to vindicate the claims of Positivism, and finds time, besides, to contribute to the Journal des Savants articles remarkable both for their learning and for the amount of research they evidence. These articles, collected from time to time, acquire fresh value on their being reprinted in the shape of goodly volumes; and it is to such a recueil that we would now direct the attention of our readers.

The essays composing the octavo, which M. Littré entitles Studies on the Barbarians and the Middle Ages, are eight in number, and they treat of a large variety of subjects; but although apparently disconnected from one another, they are really written under the inspiration of one leading thought, and are destined to illustrate one grand idea, namely, the continual progress of civilization according to the laws of "Positive" philosophy.

Persons acquainted with the various schools of French historians which have obtained during the last two centuries, need scarcely be reminded of the strong contrast noticeable between the views taken of history by Bossuet and his school, and those with which the name of Voltaire must ever be identified. In the Bishop of Condom's Discours sur l'Histoire universelle, the superintending action of Providence is directly and unmistakably vindicated. The writer places himself at the Christian point of view, and he shows us the whole course of human events tending towards the accomplishment of God's everlasting purposes in the redemption of His chosen people, through the Atonement made by our Lord Jesus Christ. Such is the text which Bossuet develops, so to say; and it is quite clear that the idea of progress, rightly conceived, is perfectly compatible with this theory of history.

Etudes sur les Barbares et le moyen Age. Par F. Littré, de l'Institut. Paris:

Didier.

Now, if we turn from the Discours of Bossuet to Voltaire's Essai sur les Maurs, and to the other historical compositions published under the influence of what was called, a hundred years ago, the "spirit of philosophy," we find ourselves in the presence of a totally different order of ideas. Instead of Providence, mere chance is presented to our view. We are told that the affairs of this world are subjected to nothing but a sort of hap-hazard administration, and that we are tossed about, up and down, any how and every how, in a kind of vortex, above the surges of which a few clever knaves alone manage to keep their balance. No progress, no harmony, no law of design. The middle ages are blotted out altogether as an epoch of unmitigated darkness, intellectual and moral, resulting from Christianity, and for which religion is accountable. Such is the pro-gramme of the sceptical historians who took up the cue of Voltaire. They called themselves philosophers, but they knew nothing whatever of the philosophy of history, because such an idea implies the acknowledgment, the recognition of some law; and of law, either in gencre or in specie, they had not the faintest conception.

In this last respect, the infidels of our own times have certainly more "method" in their "madness" than their predecessors; but the very appearance of impartiality they assume makes them infinitely more dangerous, and therefore no opportunity should be lost of denouncing their sophisms in every possible manner. M. Littré, we are sorry to say, is one of this class; and a glance at his introduction to the present Etudes is absolutely essential here.

"Those persons," says M. Littré, "who are not acquainted with positive philosophy, will no doubt be astonished when I tell them that it could only manifest itself at the moment when history became a science; that is to say, when the fundamental law of history had been discovered. And, let me add en passant, this necessity imposed upon Positivism is not the least of the differences which separates it from theology and metaphysics: these have been able to exist without history being reduced to the proportions of a science; in fact, history, considered as a science, may not unfrequently prove for them an impediment."

The first error we have to expose here is that which makes the science of history so modern a discovery, due to Positivism alone, and deriving from it all its reality. We are quite willing to admit that Bossuet did not know technically the science of history, such as we understand it in the present day; still more willingly would we agree that Voltaire knew nothing either of the science or of the spirit of history; but, certainly, if the power of tracing events to their true causes, and of showing by what law the political world is governed, deserves the name of philosophy, Bossuet, and all Christian historians, are a great deal more entitled to the name of philosophers than our Positivist friends, including M. Littré himself. The learned author of the Studies on the Middle Ages will perhaps tell us that God is not the Representative of the ideal law: we shall answer that this is an assertion which the whole Positivist school has as yet failed to prove.

Another mistake into which our opponents are constantly falling,

consists in their famous tripartite division of the intellectual history of the world. That is one of their chief hobbies, and they have nearly ridden it to death; but it cannot stand the test of close examination. How invariably simple and clear, by the by, are all the theories of infidel writers! For them no mystery exists; their steady gaze scans all nature's secrets, and they have an answer to any question you choose to put. Such was, during the last century, the famous system endorsed by Volney and Garat. Sensationalism accounted for everything,thought, virtue, volition; the most intricate and complex laws of our nature could be traced back to the irritation of a solitary nerve. It was quite pleasant to find metaphysics thus simplified and made easy: unfortunately, the whole edifice fell down at the faintest blow.

Positivism, too, is simplicity itself: theology, or the age of miracles, first; then metaphysics, or the substitution of ontological principles for the direct interposition of a Supreme Being; finally, Positivism, or the triumph of facts, and of laws derived from these facts: that is all— nothing more, nothing less. What objection can we raise against so clear, so methodical a division? Simply this one, that it is not true. In the first place, the progressive, as M. Littré deems it, determination of the law which connects cause with effect, is contradicted by history itself. We mean that in every epoch of the world's annals there have been simultaneously certain minds who lived by faith, whilst certain others endeavoured to arrive at the knowledge of truth through the exercise of the reasoning faculties. But, in the next place, supposing that we can trace back by a series of steps physical effects to their true causes, does this mental process prevent us from ultimately acknowledging as the original primary cause of all things a Supreme Power, all-Intelligent, and all-Good, who rules the world, and orders its course for the true interest of His creatures? M. Littré seems to believe that between metaphysicians, and natural philosophers as such, there is an antagonism which nothing can destroy; their notions, he assumes, are diametrically opposed to each other; and if these are in the right, those must necessarily be wrong. Now, the merest glance at the history of philosophy shows how utterly false such an assumption is. Surely Leibnitz, Newton, Pascal, Ampère, Euler, and Cuvier, cannot be regarded as unworthy representatives of science in its various branches; and yet no one ever surpassed them in their firm belief of those everlasting truths which are not to be realized by the efforts of the intellect alone.

Leaving, however, these general considerations, we shall now go on to say a few words of M. Littré's essays. They are, as we have already said, distinguished by great impartiality, but it is the impartiality of indiference. If certain events happen, it is not because God orders them; no: the principle must be sought in a fatal evolution of things which we cannot prevent, and before which we must bow like slaves. M. Littré's theory, like that of all Positivists, is that of "accomplished facts:" there is no absolute standard of right and wrong: the monks, for instance, who did so much for the triumph of civilization, at the time of the invasion of the Barbarians, succceded precisely because they appeared then, and not sooner or later: if Christianity, in like

VOL. XIV.-FIFTH SERIES.

M

manner, new-moulded society, and brought fresh life to men, it is for the reason that the preaching of the Gospel took place at the precise time when the world needed a fresh element of stability. Nothing more can be said of it. Christianity cannot boast of any superiority over Buddhism, or Fetishism, or Sabeism; inasmuch as, at the appointed season, Sabeism, Fetishism, and Buddhism-these too accomplished their ordained task; and, when that was done, disappeared for ever.

There is one point in mediæval history, with reference to which M. Littré differs altogether from most historians. He considers that the Germanic invasion, at the time of the downfall of the Roman Empire, produced more evil than good. Physiologically, the Teutonic races brought, as their share in the work of renovation, the wildest instincts, and a darkened understanding; their influence to us, therefore, far from raising the standard of civilization, tended, on the contrary, to lower it. Historically, they had nothing to boast of but the roughest possible industry, a system of religion based upon the worship of Odin, and a literature consisting merely in a few warlike hymns, without any real merit to recommend them. What were such scanty elements of progress compared with those which the Latin nations could produce; namely, Christianity, the letters and sciences, the fine arts, the industry and administrative traditions of Greece and of Rome? Of course, if we limit ourselves here to a bare enumeration of the ideas or elements of civilization which the Barbarians brought with them from their forests, we must acknowledge that the Latin races had greatly the advantage over them; but when we endeavour to appreciate medieval society, we should consider the Teutonic races as they were after they had been brought under the influence of the Gospel, and then we can scarcely overrate the share they had in the regeneration of Europe.

One of the best essays in M. Littré's volume is that on the introduction of science in the west, before the intellectual movement which the Arabs originated. When the new order of things, resulting from the invasion, was somewhat established, and attention began to be once more bestowed upon the amenities of science and literature, men found within their reach the treasures of Latin thought, as well as the riches contained in Latin versions of Greek philosophers and poets. To these abundant materials they applied themselves with the utmost zeal; and, although they added nothing to the stock, they went through a course of intellectual training which enabled them subsequently to be original in their turn. The Arabs, in the meanwhile, bad familiarized themselves with the metaphysical writings of Greece; they translated them into their own language, wrote commentaries upon them, and thus inaugu rated an age of intellectual splendour, which was equally dazzling and short-lived. The study of philosophy was the sole thing they possessed in common with the scholars of Western Europe; and therefore their sphere of influence was necessarily very limited; whilst the difference of religion made all amalgamation between the two races absolutely impossible. M. Littré thinks that the fourteenth century marks, both in literature and in politics, the end of the Middle Ages. Whatever opinion we may entertain, from the artistic point of view, of the old medieval romances and miracle-plays, we cannot refuse to them

the merit of originality and truthfulness. They represented, in the most naïve manner, a special state of society; and so far they had a merit which does not belong to the polished, but artificial, compositions of the Renaissance period. These latter productions, ingenious as they undoubtedly are, excite in us no sympathy, and leave us quite unmoved.

To conclude: M. Littré's volume deserves to be read, because the author's remarks on the history and literature of the Middle Ages are evidently the result of careful study; whilst, at the same time, it is always interesting to know what the views of our opponents are, especially when they are stated, as in the present case, calmly and dispassionately. M.

SELECT LITERARY NOTICES.

The insertion of any article in this list is not to be considered as pledging us to the approbation of its contents, unless it be accompanied by some express notice of our favourable opinion. Nor is the omission of any such notice to be regarded as indicating a contrary opinion; as our limits, and other reasons, impose on us the necessity of selection and brevity.]