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Mill and Hume of Mind and Matter
Wouldn't leave a rag or tatter:

What although we feel the blow?
That doesn't show there's Mind or Matter.

"Matter, then, may be defined a Permanent Possibility of Sensation."-Mill's Examination of Hamilton, p. 198.

"The belief I entertain that my mind exists, when it is not feeling, nor thinking, nor conscious of its own existence, resolves itself into the belief of a Permanent Possibility of these states." "The Permanent Possibility of feeling, which forms my notion of myself."- Ibid., pp. 205, 206.

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From the Saturday Beview. THE TIMES ON AMERICAN TRADE.

fore the civil war. Moreover, the excess of exports over imports is not yet supposed by the most gloomy prophets to exceed seven A SINGULAR Controversy has lately arisen or eight millions; and it is a fair observabetween the Times and some of its commer- tion that, while the City prophet of the cial correspondents, which is not the less Times sees no cause for alarm in a foreign important though it may be impossible to loan recently announced for about the same arrive at a certain conclusion. The Times amount, he need scarcely be frightened out insists that the trade with the United States is of his senses by trading operations on a absorbing English capital to an extent which corresponding scale. It is noticeable that threatens soon to lead to a pressure, and pos- foreign loans, which may be rational investsibly to a genuine crisis, such as has not been ments for surplus capital, have a far more witnessed for nearly ten years. The Amer-serious influence on our Money-market than ican merchants, on the other hand, show, the application of an equal sum of money or attempt to show, that the balance of our to domestic enterprise or foreign trade; and exports to their country over the imports yet it always happens that the Times, which during the last few months is extremely watches with so much jealousy - and, we small; that the trade, though rapidly aug- may add, with so much reason the promented, is thoroughly sound; and that gress of joint-stock speculation and export there never was less occasion for commer- trade, has never a word to say against the cial alarm. After the most careful conside- wildest proposals for putting British capital ration of the returns which relate to the into the hands of foreign Governments commerce of the country, it is by no means whose solvency is measured by promised easy to ascertain the exact truth as to the rates of interest of the most extravagant figures in dispute. It is undoubtedly true, kind. It is probably this one-sided view of as the Times maintains, that there has re- the transactions of the Exchange that has cently been a great expansion of the ex-produced much of the unbelief with which port trade to the American ports. On the the warnings of the Times City articles other hand, it is equally true that the arrivals of cotton have been largely in excess of the import of former years, and that to some considerable extent the remaining balance has been made good by the importation of American securities. Without entering into the fruitless controversy as to the precise amount of the debt which is running up against America, we may assume that it is not very far from being represented by the amount of imported bonds. Though the great impulse to this trade began two or three months ago, there is no flow of bullion either way between the two countries, nor any very distinct trace of an equivalent operation through the channel of any third country. Whatever America may owe us is clearly a debt of which payment is not at present very urgently demanded; and though, in part, this may be due to the fact that credits are unexpired, it is probably attributable in much greater measure to the considerable amount of Federal bonds and other American securities which has been purchased in England since the establishment of peace. This, of course, has only the effect of changing the form, without diminishing the amount, of national indebtedness; but it must not be forgotten that, if a tendency now exists to invest in Transatlantic securities, it may work for some time before it supplies us with as large a total as was always held in England be

have been recently received. They are palpably over-strained in attributing the most tremendous possible consequences to the absorption of what cannot be considered a very vast amount of capital; and many traders who know that the American trade is going on very smoothly, and to all appearance very profitably, at present, have jumped to the opposite conclusion, that there is nothing in the present state of commerce to call for any special degree of watchfulness. It may turn out that in this theory they are wandering further on one side of the truth than the Times has done on the other, and certainly excessive confidence is a more dangerous temper than excessive caution.

The fact seems to be that the really important point has been lost sight of, or at any rate kept in the back-ground, by both parties to the discussion. They have wasted their ingenuity and their power of assertion in the endeavour to determine the precise amount of the adverse balance, when the real danger is not at all that a moderate temporary outlay of this kind will prove more than English capital is able to provide for. At the most, if we assume American trade to be thoroughly sound, there is only an investment of a few millions in safe hands, and it will need something more than this to derange the whole course of Emglish commerce. But, in the midst of

all the wrangling about a secondary point, | matters. The stability of American marthe real question of which the importance kets would be much better secured if gold cannot be exaggerated is wholly overlooked. bore a premium more in proportion to the What the ultimate issue of the present ac- actual amount of superfluous notes; and it tivity of commerce may be depends mainly is impossible to contemplate the restrictive on the position in which our American debt- operations which Mr. M'CULLOCH is, propors may find themselves before the year is erly enough, bent upon, without grave over. If no part of the foreign and inter- doubts whether American trade will come nal activity of American traders is due to safely through the ordeal. The trial canthe enormous expansion of their currency; not be avoided by any policy, and there is if they have emerged from the war with a much sense in the determination of the solid basis of capital capable of supporting. Finance Minister to grapple with the risk at a traffic twice as large as that which exist- once, instead of waiting for a time when ed before the first shot was fired; if the ex- the commerce of his country may be still haustion of the South and the feverish spec- more inflated, and allowing the evils which ulation of the North involve no elements of follow in the train of a mock-prosperity to weakness; if there is no risk that trade may be aggravated, as they must be, by every collapse as soon as the attempt shall be day's delay. made to bring back the currency to par; if, in short Mr. M'CULLOCH is entirely wrong in warning his countrymen against the existing tendency to inflation; then we may rest assured that nothing will shake the foundations of American commerce, and that the profits on our exports will well repay us for locking up a little of the aggregate national capital for a short time in American ventures. We do not observe, however, that any of the vindicators of American merchants put the case as high as this. All they do say is, that at present remittances come as satisfactorily and rapidly as could be desired; that the profits on all sides have been large; that, in spite of the duties, the American people have found the money to purchase and consume unheard-of quantities of European goods; and that no indication of immediate financial weakness is discernible. All this may be perfectly true, and yet an American crisis may be brewing all the more rapidly for the present appearance of universal prosperity, And the great danger for England is the probability, approaching to certainty, that we shall become so extensively and so intimately engaged on American account as to preclude all hope of localising any commercial disturbance, and sustaining our own financial position in spite of any disasters that may occur elsewhere. The very fact that, with a circulation enormously beyond anything which has ever existed before, the premium on gold has stood, ever since the peace, at no more than 50 per cent. is the reverse of encouraging. An excessive currency can only be absorbed in this way by an excessive trade, and reaction follows as inevitably upon excess in this as in other

If it were only certain that we should escape the consequences of any monetary disturbance in America, the course of affairs there might be watched with the placid interest with which we ordinarily contemplate the struggles and disasters of our friends; but there has been no example of a general commercial crisis in the United States which has not been severely felt also in the English markets. It is in the possible consequences of such a calamity that the only serious danger need be feared from the expansion of our trade with the United States; and, however much the Times may have erred in supposing that England was unable to bear the weight of a prosperous trade on the scale recently carried on, it would be a much more fatal error on the part of our merchants if they should assume that, after all she has gone through, and with all the difficulties yet to be mastered, America is not now in a very critical financial position. It is clearly not well for this country to stimulate the already unprecedented activity of American importers, or to cast in its lot too completely with a neighbour so peculiarly situated: and, with the fullest admission of the completeness of the answers to some of the reasonings of the Times, it must be owned that the conclusion was not very erroneous. If not precisely for the reason assigned, still as a matter of fact, it is just now the most prudent course to keep transactions with America within moderate bounds; and the Times may well be thanked for giving a wholesome warning, even by those who utterly dissent, from its somewhat extravagant picture of the present condition of our American trade.

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From the Spectator, Jan. 6.
THE TRIUMPH OF IDEAS.

ever, ideas seem "to the wise," that is to those who want results, a "stumbling-block," and "to the Greeks," that is to Saturday Reviewers, who want everything to conduct itself in a highly cultured way, mere "foolishness."

The advocates of this "philosophy of common sense" which after all is only utilitarianism degraded from a creed into an opinion, always seem to us to omit one great datum from their calculation. Souls always accrete themselves bodies of some

THERE is strength, then, in ideas after all. Never, perhaps, in the history of the world did an idea gain so rapid, complete, and visible a triumph as that which was consummated at Washington on the 19th December. One of the many depressing signs around us which observers watch with alarm, is the apparent decay, or rather temporary paralysis, of the faith in ideas. In the new search for intellectual realism kind, though not necessarily the fittest people doubt audibly witness the Pall Mall Gazette of Thursday, on the French Press-whether thought is stronger than armies, whether an idea has, simply because it is great, the power of making itself effective. They do not despise thought, they do not many of them deny that it would be well if it were stronger than bayonets, but they question its effectiveness, its power to cloth itself in flesh and bones, and do great things in the world. Freedom is better than tyranny; but, after all, French freedom has battled for a hundred years only to be suppressed by the peasants of France. Pauperism is an evil; but, after all, the ideas of the social thinkers of Europe have not perceptibly diminished pauperism. Ignorance is bad; but, after all, crime varies in the ratio of population, and not in that of education and enlightenment. Is it worth while to fight for a great idea, and with vast pain and expenditure of energy and self-sacrifice to accelerate its diffusion one little hairbreadth, when, after all, it may never grow strong enough to affect the welfare of mankind? Ideas must grow, and for growth there must be soil, and there is as yet no such thing, but only sand. Enthusiasts waste their lives in preaching co-operation, and co-operation is good; but to be effective, it needs a lower class aware that self-sacrifice is essential to its success- and there is no such class. Why strive and toil, and, it may be perish, to advance a principle which after all may never be more than abstract? Is it not better, or even nobler, says the modern Archimedes, to become wise one'sself, but never apply wisdom, to study the lever, but never build a catapult, to play the part of the intellectual Sadducee, seeing the wrong and the right and commenting thereon, but otherwise well content to know that sugar is sweet, and that one has sugar? Or better still, to do all that, and also what little good comes to hand easily, and leave principles to take of themselves; punish the beadle who starves the pauper, but level no stroke at pauperism? Now, as

bodies. Great ideas do not always triumph only by percolation; if they did, enthusiasts might well despair, for no generation would ever witness the realization of its own greatest thoughts. The labour of sending a new thought requiring the assent of millions before it can be effective through those millions of hostile and unreceptive minds would daunt the imagination of the thinkers of to-day, as it did those of the same class in the century before Christ, and again during the Renaissance. Individuals dislike planting oaks till the only oaks planted in Europe for timber are those planted by States, or by nobles who expect their families to endure like States. Let postérity judge, is the wish of the dreamer, rarely that of the man intent on diffusing a real idea. He wants to see it succeed, and, if he cannot see it, turns aside, as Comte did, to plunge into himself till he becomes a mere dreamer of dreams. Fortunately for mankind, the first property of an idea, that is of a thought with fructifying power, a thought for which men can be martyrs, is to accrete to itself weapons not its own, to use causes and dominate classes, and as it were dye acts, with all which it has little or no connection. The French idea of equality won its way not by percolation, but because there was in the France of 1789 no road to justice and physical comfort but through it. The idea of Free Trade by itself would never have won the battle, for the English masses are not free-traders yet, but it drew to itself the desire for cheaper food, and so used the "big loaf" as to come out triumphant. It will be triumphant in America, when it has found a similar weapon, and all who support it assist the day when the search for such a weapon shall be successful. We remember reading once an account in an American magazine, how far accurate we know not, of the way in which education triumphed in Rhode Island. The rulers there, middleclass, well-to-do men, would not have the idea, declared it expensive and visionary, fought it on the ground of economy, suc

wiser than the wise, as the Saturday Review is wiser than the Record,- thought John Brown's attempt a foolish waste of life, and yet as the fanatic body gave up its soul, slavery, to end which John Brown had given his body and offered his soul, died too. In all history nothing is more certain than that from John Brown's "mad" attempt sprang secession. "These men, then, can fight," said the South, "can die for their wild fanaticism, are not cowards, but madmen;" and from that moment, as Calhoun had prophesied, the South saw in separation the only chance for its beloved institution. It seceded, and the "idea" so long contemned, and derided, and despised, leaped up armed. Its advocates, by no means able men as a rule, were still the only men who saw, what

cceded year after in preventing its taking civilization might in their slow development to itself a body in the shape of a legislative gradually ameliorate the curse. The Act. The suffrage, however, was wide, "wise" defended it, the "Greeks,”—always and one fine morning Rhode Island found itself in presence of an imminent agrarian law. The idea had found its weapon, opposition died instantly away, and the common schools of Rhode Island are amongst the best in the Union. The truth would seem to be that conviction, or as most men following an Oriental model call it, faith, is in itself power, and that a minority once fully imbued with a principle can and does lead a majority anxious for something very different, but convinced against their will, or rather with their will and against their prejudices. Conviction gives the power to convince, and as we see every day in theological life and the life of scientific enthusiasts, faith is an effluent power as much as fire or electricity, or many other of the physical forces. Even inferior men, once possessed of it, can dominate superior men, and those who are not statesmen can lead masses, who are seeking far different results, direct to the one the enthusiasts have desired.

The recent illustration is, we believe, the most wonderful, or at least the most visible, yet recorded. On the 19th December Mr. Seward, Secretary of State, announced officially that the constitutional amendments abolishing slavery and enabling Congress to make that abolition effectual, had been signed by twenty-seven States, and had consequently become part of the Federal Constitution. It is not yet six years since John Brown died on the gallows, saying, "God sees that I am of more use to hang than for any other earthly purpose." He was the first abolitionist who died fighting the slave power, and in his death was one more illustration of the "worn out" truth that the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. It is impossible to conceive a cause more triumphant than that of slavery was when that old man, after kissing the negro child-thicklipped child, with yellow whites to its eyes walked quietly up to the gallows surrounded by an execrating soldiery. The institution, fenced in by the active love of eight millions who could slay or be slain for it, by the reverence of twenty millions more, who when the national existence was in question hardly dared to touch it, by the silent respect of probably five-sixths of the rulers of earth, who felt slavery an outpost of their own dominion, seemed beyond all human attack. The most sanguine dreamer only hoped that time and

·

the statesmen could not see, that in slavery was the root of the evil, that it or the Union must die, that in it lay the death warrant of Republican institutions. Alone decided amidst the rushing crowd, these men were always foremost, and always therefore guided the else vacillating rush. Reluctantly, defiantly almost, another idea, the thirst for empire, always armed and always ready for battle, placed its armies at the disposal of a nobler thought, and to secure a geographical gain worked out a moral victory. A half convinced President proclaimed to a partly convinced army and an unconvinced people that he accepted an idea he had not made, that not because it stood condemned of God, not because it was in itself the sum and aggregate of all human wickedness, but because it was opposed to a glorious dream-the dream of a continent set apart for the peaceful progress of humanity-slavery should die. And he did die, die of hard blows, and blood shed,and brave men put to flight, and strong men sent to the gallows- Captain Gordon, e. g.- and all those things which are done only by power clothed in flesh and dressed in armour. The idea had become flesh, had dressed itself in armour, and struck - this abstract and lightly ungentlemanly thing,as the Pall Mall Gazette would say terrible physical blows, as social equality has also struck, as religious freedom may strike, as democracy, one of the grandest, if one of the most imperfect ideas which ever visited man, will yet strike, at recalcitrant power. In 1859 abolition was John Brown. In 1865 it was John Brown followed by a million of armed and drilled Anglo-Saxons, intent doubtless on many ends, but fulfilling in their own

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