The Positivists certainly deserve their name,'so far as it sug-
gests positiveness ; and positiveness, as we all learned iu our youth, too often implies the disposition to assert strongly, by way of making up for deficiency of evidence. These gentlemen have just put out a leaflet, signed, indeed, by Professor Beesly, but speaking in the name of the Positivists, as if the Positivists had but one mind (instead of the dozen minds or so which they can club amongst them), on "The Aggression in Egypt," in which they declare that the bombardment of Alexandria was carried out solely in the interest of the Bondholders and the European office-holders, and for the sake of depriving what they call"the Egyptian Parliament" of all control of Egyptian finance. " It is for this reason, and no other, that we are nsist- ing on the banishment of Arabi," say the Positivists, in their positive italics. " The motives which dictated the annexation of Afghanistan and the 'annexation of the Transvaal were, by comparison, respectable." There is no journal which has protested more consistently than we have done against the policy of maintaining the interests of the Bondholders in Egypt. We have always held that a great proportion of the present interest on the Egyptian debt ought not to be extracted out of Egyptian pockets, and hold this still. But to represent a selfish military mutineer like Arabi as an Egyptian patriot, and the British Government as acting in the interest of the Bondholders, is, we believe, the worst parody on history of the truth of which even the Positivists ever contrived to per- suade themselves, or foolishly endeavoured to convince others.
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