NOTES ON MAGAZINES.

THE editor of the Fortnightly makes, we think, only one mistake in his management. The magazine appears too often without a

" light " article, that is, an essay which, for some reason or other,

it is pleasant to read, but which demands little strenuous attention in the reading. This number, for instance, is full of valuable papers, but with the possible exception of the charming sketch of Charles Kingsley, the best of them require sustained thinking. It takes hours, for example, for an ordinary reader to get Mr. A. C. Lyall's admirable paper on the "Formation of Indian Clans and Castes" into his head. The writing is not heavy, the subject is most interesting, and the author is one of the few Anglo-Indians who have ever brought a scientific mind to bear upon Indian sociology, but his information is so large, and his habit of condensation so rooted, that every page demands a separate study, and single sentences stir up days of thought. Mr. Lyall, who, after living years in Central India, has become

Home Secretary to the Government of India, believes that the two main causes of the stratification of society have been kinship and religion ; the former, being, of course, supplemented, as a caste or clan extends, by highly artificial or even fictitious rules, and by discipleship. This proposition be proceeds to prove, by a series of arguments and illustrations, which, after one or two trials, we have found it impossible to condense without omitting some essential link in a chain in which nothing is inserted for the sake of effect or rhetoric. The steps are, however, the family in which intermarriage is prohibited, and the group of families, which, if lucky in the possession of some strong man, developes itself into the clan or caste : —

"It has already been suggested that a group in its earlier stages pushes itself forward among and above other groups by the great ad- vantage of possessing a vigorous leader who becomes a famous ancestor. So great is this advantage, that there is probability in the surmise that all the pure clans now existing in Central India have been formed around the nucleus of a successful chief. Certainly that is the source to which all the clans themselves attribute their rise ; and this view fits with an analogy that rune through all ancient tradition and authentic history of the first gathering and amalgamation, whether of men into a tribe, or of tribes into a kingdom or empire."

As the clan rises it comes within the influence of the great Levitical tribe, the Brahmins, one of whose functions is to inter- pret the divine rules for any Indian society which submits to them, and thenceforward the clan laws are fixed, and the clan introduced into the general Hindoo system. This process, again, may be materially modified by religion, for it is the nature of the Indian "to stand gazing at the heavens," and if he has found or accepted a religious idea, to make of his disciples or fellow-pro- selytes a caste by themselves, within which alone—though the rules of consanguinity are still strictly observed—the proselytes must thenceforward be content to marry. Mr. Lyall thinks the dissolution of these castes a "remote speculation," but admits that they are greatly threatened by the spread of mysticism in some parts of India. He quotes and assents to the remark of Mr. Shoolbred, missionary, of Ajmere, that,—

" The surface-drifting of the semi-Hinduised classes toward ortho- doxy is nothing in comparison with the current which is setting in among the people toward sects and secret societies that disown caste prejudices about bodily purity and distinctive ceremonial.' This ten- dency of religious enthusiasm to shake off the restraints of traditional 'external forms, and to prefer the vague disorderly suggestions of spiritual freemasonry and inward grace, is a known symptom of the decline of priestly influence, and of the rise of a kind of democracy in religion, which, if it spreads, will soon disintegrate the Indian caste."

Mr. Shaw Lefevre writes a singularly powerful plea against the English land system, pleading for small proprietors and the abolition of restrictions on tenure, as tending to produce them, and showing that in Ireland, under English law, and on estates held by Parliamentary title, and there- fore easily divided, the tendency is towards a freeholding peasantry; and Mr. Lowe tries to answer the arguments for a trial of the Gothenburg system of allowing the municipali- ties a monopoly of the liquor trade. He thinks the system would corrupt the municipalities, the dominant party expecting to exer- cise its new and important patronage, and elections turning upon the number of beerhouses ; that there would be no real decrease of drunkenness, as the number of shops could not be reduced below the wants of the people ; and that we have no right to interfere with liberty in order to put down what is not a crime, but only a vice. The last argument is not very strong. What is a crime, except a vicious act, which the community judges too in- jurious to be borne, and therefore punishes? If Parliament passed a Maine Law, it would be because it deemed drinking a vice too injurious to be borne, and therefore one to be declared a crime and punished, and it would be within its right. Every community plumes laws intended for social defence, and in one instance, at least, English legislation effectually puts down a practice neither vicious nor criminal, but simply injurious, namely, gambling at public tables. How would Mr. Lowe justify that kind of legis- lation? We have a strong idea that the Gothenburg system will fail in practice, if only from the excessive difficulties in the way of com- pensation, but sincerely hope that Parliament will allow Birming- ham to make the experiment. There are two papers on the Eastera Question, one by Mr. Freeman and one by Sir H. Havelock, both worth reading, but we desire this month in our notice of the Magazines to avoid this all-absorbing topic.

Perhaps the most valuable paper in Macmillan is the one on "The Election for the Presidency," by an American Repub- lican. It is not quite a fair paper, for its author does not sufficiently estimate the difficulty of conciliating a defeated people, or the exasperation of men ruled by a suddenly emancipated proletariat, but it is a most vigorous and eloquent statement of the Republican side in the controversy. His theory is that the Southern leaders and their Democratic allies are still carrying on the war, have resolved that there shall be no Republican party in the South, and are terrorising it out. They must be restrained, and will be restrained, if it takes another war. Meanwhile, however, the return of Mr. Tilden would be no injury to the Union, for with a hostile Senate, he would have to govern very much as his adversary would, and the South would find for the first time that the main results of the Civil War could not be changed. Mr. Petermann, the geographer, argues in an able paper that the road to the Pole should be sought through the Eastern Polar basin, and Mr. Goldvrin Smith repeats in clear and suggestive language a not very novel argument, that the acceptance of the doctrine of evolution is no proof that man cannot be " evolved " into something higher ; that religion is the service of a moral God through virtue, and is becoming more and more recognised by the highest minds as an inalienable property of the mind ; and that materialism, though it will die, will intermediately give society a very bad quarter of an hour. "A zealous servant of science told Agassiz that the age of real civilisation would have begun when you could go out and shoot a man for scientific purposes." "Young Musgrave," by Mrs. Oliphant, promises well, though we have met that motherly child before, a little older, in "The Doctor's Family ;" and we do not break our rule in mentioning Professor Lewis Campbell's translation of "A Modern Greek War-Song." Mr. Campbell's name is a guarantee for the accuracy of his work, but either he has made poetry prosaic, or a modern Greek would be inspired to battle by one of Watts's hymns. Anything less Tyrtman we never read. The song positively drawls. What warrior out of a pantomime ever sang like this ?— " Heavens ! What is here? With 'fire my bosom's blazing ;

My head is full of noise, my mind amazing ; My heart, as 'fore some sudden change, Is shaken with convulsion strange.

All lower life consuming, My spirit forth is fuming. "

Behold the Greek, where Nature bath ordained him, To rend apart the bonds that late enchained him ! What second figure shall Earth see So nobly longing to be free?

What chains that e'er have bound him Can long remain around him ? "

The Contemporary, though it contains nothing of the first interest, is full of characteristic papers, one of the best of which, Professor Clifford's "Ethics of Belief," we have noticed else- where. Another, on "Modern Atheism, and its Attitude Towards Morality," by Mr. W. H. Matlock, seems to require a supplementary paper. Mr. Mallock's argument is that without deciding what true morality in all its applications might teach, there exists a morality affirmed by believer and unbeliever alike—as for instance, when the unbeliever says that Truth is before all—and that this morality, when not supported by a belief in God or in a future state, loses its highest sanctions. The absence of external law produces these results,—that the difference between right and wrong, though it may continue to exist, becomes limited in importance, and will one day cease to be ; that the difference is measured by conscious pain and pleasure; and that the virtue, as virtue, cannot be enforced. That thesis is well maintained, and as against the opponents with whom Mr. Mallock fights is unanswerable; but his essay, to be complete, needs a supplement, showing, first, that it is indis- pensable to mankind that the difference between vice and virtue should be infinite, or at all events greater than the differ- ence between two lines of ordinary political action ; secondly, that unconscious pleasure is pleasure in any sense of the word ; and thirdly, that virtue as virtue can be enforced when theology is accepted. The three propositions can, we think, be demonstrated, or at all events the first and last—we suspect, as to the second, that the notion of pleasure as an end may have to be given up, and the notion of growth, even under suffering, substituted for it—but it is useless to meet men with propositions which many of them will accept, and then ask,—Cui -?ono' A true unbeliever, that is, one who denies not only the reality, but the possibility of law, external alike to human opinion and to natural evolution, will admit that there is a morality— possibly high, possibly low, but in either case peremptory—but will not be shocked by the statement that the difference between morality and immorality is finite, or comparatively, even slight. So, he will say, is everything else--e. g., the dif- ference between light and sound—but still it is important enough for man's guidance in a very short pilgrimage through a very imperfect world, the extinction, decay, or degradation of which would probably matter next to nothing to the universe. Neither will he be shocked by the notion that virtue cannot be enforced. In this world to which he confines himself it is not -enforced, theology notwithstanding. One virtue, abstinence from -certain evil deeds, is enforced, but human law can no more make a man wish rightly or think rightly than it can make him use his powers to good purposes. It can punish him for using them to bad purposes, but that is all. God can enforce the active virtues, but the idea of this thesis assumes that with the minds it opposes God is denied. "Imperfect Genius, William Blake," seems to us useful mainly as producing evidence satisfactory to an expert, as well as to a layman, that Blake was not, except in occasional moods, a great artist ; that he could blunder, and borrow, and draw badly. The definition of him as an imperfect genius is surely wasted subtlety. It seems to us more true, as well as easier, to say that he was a genius, and a considerable one ; but be was also a mad- man,—mad in the ordinary medical sense, from ordinary physical causes. Mr. T. W. Blips Davids offers an explanation of the true Buddhist doctrine of Nirvana, which has at least the merit of originality, he believing that Nirvana in its original con- ception was a state of mind nearly equivalent to the idea con- veyed in the word holiness.

In Blacicwood Mr. Charles Heade continues the "Woman- Rater," in which he is relying too much upon his cleverness, and becoming as wearisome as he can be, which is not saying much ; and somebody whom we do not recognise publishes a little story called "Weariness, a Tale from France," which we notice chiefly for this reason. It seems to us a nearly perfect bit of realistic writing, and will bore the majority of Blackwood's readers almost to suffocation. The story has absolutely no merit except as a work of art, and no interest except for those who can enter into the condition of the hero's mind, an inept person, as most English- men will consider, who having a most pleasant and dignified business, which yielded him a large income, definite though light work every day, ample leisure, a circle of friends, a cultivated mind, and no special trouble, killed himself rather than bear it all for a few years longer. We have not read anything more ,striking for many a long day, and so saying, surrender ourselves to the contempt of all who may buy Blackwood on account of that criticism. The graver matter is rather poor, though readers unfamiliar with the subject may be interested in a minute sketch of the ways and habits of the House of Com- mons, very carefully done, but so far as we can see, with nothing either original or suggestive about it, unless it be the whole column in which the writer explains that a Mem- ber cannot secure his seat before prayers by putting his glove upon it, but must put his hat. That, says the writer, with comical diffuseness, is arranged because the hat indi- cates that its wearer is in the building, while a glove might be put there by some friend. He might keep an old bat in the House, but to say nothing of the embarrassment of having two bats, &c., this "would be an unfairness of which no gentleman

would be guilty." Bather rubbishy, all that, but there are people who like written description to be as diffuse as talk.

The best paper in the Cornhill is one on "Dual Conscious- ness," which we may notice more at length hereafter, but which, appearing in the Cornhill, is in itself a curi- ous sign of the popularisation of metaphysical specula- tion now going on ; but the most readable is a protest quite needed, though quite useless, against the present tendency of journalism towards the occupation of Paul Pry,—the publi- cation of any facts, no matter how private, about any person who can in any way be considered public. There can be no doubt that the practice is increasing, or that it will be followed some day by one of two evil consequences. Either the refined, the sensi- tive, and the reserved will be driven, as in America, out of public life, unable to bear its desagremens ; or society, as on the Continent, will support the first statesman who brings the Press under rules scarcely compatible with its freedom. It is not to control the De'hats, but to control scurrilous little sheets which are to journals what valets are to doctors, that even Liberals in France look grave at the idea of a Press placed beyond any restraint except the verdict of a jury. They feel as if a Judge with a good deal of discretionary power was their only protection against insult which would drive them from public life.

Fraser would be poor this month, with no paper calling for notice, but for the charming " find " which the editor has made in "Jon Jensoun's Saga," a kind of autobiography, which an Icelandic farmer who has taught himself English without knowing a sound of it has written in English. It is perfectly genuine and truth- ful, and quite fascinating in its naive revelations of good, though humble motives, and entire want of perspective in the narration of facts. It is curious to note that this excellent fanner, specu- lating on the ultimate partition of Denmark, which he deprecates, heartily hopes that Iceland will be assigned to Great Britain.