New Publications.
Language, And The Study Of Languages.
In Twelve Lectures on the Principles of Linguistic Science.
By William Dwight Whitney, Professor of Sanskrit and Modern Languages in Yale College.
New York: Scribner & Co. 1867. 12mo, pp. 489.
Professor Whitney, with a full knowledge of the chief results thus far obtained in linguistic science by philologists, appears to be passably free and independent in his judgments, and cautious and sober in his inductions. His book is, however, rather an introduction to the study of linguistics than a full statement and vindication of its principles as a science. Its chief merit is in its correction of the exaggerations of enthusiastic and hasty philologists, and in brushing away numerous false theories and hypotheses unsustained and unsustainable by the facts in the case.
For the most part, the principles laid down by the author are sound and incontrovertible; but in some instances his application of them, and the conclusions he draws, may be disputed. Even his definition of language, as the medium by which men communicate their thoughts to one another, maybe objected to as superficial and inadequate, and as really including only one of its functions. Language is better defined: the sensible sign or representation of the ideal or the intelligible, and is as indispensable to the formation of thought in one's own mind as to the communication of thought to the minds of others. For intuition, no matter of what sort, language indeed is not necessary; but intuition is the à priori condition of thought, as necessary to it as creation is to contingent existence, not thought itself. Without intuition there is no thought; but thought itself is the action of the mind on the intuition—an action not possible without the sensible sign which holds and represents—re-presents—the intuition. What could we do in algebra or the calculus without sensible signs; or in philosophy or theology, or anything that belongs to the noetic or intelligible order, without the words which hold and represent the noetic object? There is a more intimate connection of thought and the word than the professor admits—a deeper significance, a profounder philosophy, a more inscrutable mystery in language, than most philologists dream of, and he who masters its secret masters the secret of the universe. He who is no theologian, no philosopher, can at best be only a sorry philologist. The part can be fully understood only in its relation to the whole, nor the effect without its cause, and hence it is that man and the universe cannot be understood without the knowledge of God.
The author regards linguistics as a moral science, dependent wholly on moral causes, and denies that it is a physical science, or that physical causes have anything to do in producing the dialectic changes, modifications, or differences of language, which the science notes. Here he is too sweeping in both his assertion and his denial. Moral causes operate in the changes language undergoes; and so do physical causes, especially in its phonetic change. At any rate, linguistics is to be classed with the inductive sciences, and, therefore, is a subordinate science, and can never without foreign aid be raised to the dignity or certainty of science itself. None of the inductive sciences are complete in themselves, or sufficient for themselves, and they all do and must, consciously or unconsciously, borrow from philosophy or theology, which has been very properly called scientia scientiarum, the science of sciences. Facts are facts always and everywhere; but facts are the matter of science, not science itself. The science is in their explication, or their reduction to the principles from which they proceed, and the law of their procession or production. The inductive philosophers seek to obtain the law by induction from the facts observed, and the principle by induction from the law, which is unscientific; for the principle determines the law, and the law the facts. Hence their inductions are never science, or anything more than empirical classifications. Till the law is referred to its principle, it is not a law, but simply a congeries of facts. The reason why the inductive philosophers fail to perceive this is in the fact that the mind is already in possession of the principle, and simply supplies or applies it to the facts observed; while they, finding they have it, take it for granted that they have obtained it by induction. But he who lacks intuition of the ideal or the universal can never from the observation and analysis of facts rise scientifically above the phenomenal. Here, under the point of view of science, is the defect of all the inductive sciences; and hence, the tendency of all inductive philosophy, as any one may see in the writings of the Positivists, Auguste Comte, E. Littré, J. Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, and Sir William Hamilton and his school, is to restrict all science to the phenomenal, and, therefore, to exclude principles and causes, and consequently laws.
We do not mean by these strictures to exclude the inductive sciences, so-called, to condemn the inductive method, or to maintain that the sciences are to be created by way of deduction or à priori. The inductive method is censurable only when it insists on being exclusive, and that it needs for its application only bare phenomena; and we value as highly as anybody does the inductive sciences when completed by the principles and laws which are neither obtained nor obtainable by induction. There is no way of constructing linguistics but by observation of facts and induction therefrom. The error as to principles and method of Professor Whitney is, that he forgets that all inductions of any value are made by virtue of a principle not obtained by induction, and, therefore, controllable by the science of sciences, that is, by faith, and universal science or philosophy.
The professor proves very satisfactorily that what are called dialects are the result of development, growth, or modifications of the original language, and, therefore, that the unity of the language precedes diversity of dialects. Hence, he maintains that the various languages of the Aryan, Indo-Germanic, or, as he prefers to say, Indo-European group, have all sprung from a common original now lost, but of which perhaps the Sanscrit is the best representative now remaining. Why not, then, conclude that all the languages of mankind, extinct or extant, have sprung from one common original? If we suppose the unity of the species, this must be so; and the professor says that, while linguistics is not and never will be able to confirm it, it cannot, by any means, deny it. The diversity of tongues, then, cannot be alleged as disproving the unity of the species; and as we know the species is one, and that all men have sprung from one original pair, we know that all the diverse tongues of men are but so many dialects of one and the same original language. This is not an induction from linguistic facts, nor can linguistics, in its present state, confirm it; but it is a scientific truth, and also a truth of faith which controls air linguistic inductions. The professor himself goes too far when he says linguistics will never be in a condition to confirm it. That it will not is possible, not certain. His whole work proves that as yet the science of linguistics is in its infancy, hardly a science at all, and that it is not safe to conclude what it may one day do, or not do.
The professor proceeds throughout on the assumption that language is conventional. We do not agree to this, for there can be no convention without language, and language, as he himself shows, is traditional. I speak English because I was born, brought up, and live in a community that speaks English, and because I have learned or been taught it. It is my mother tongue, the tongue of my mother, and taught me by her. Particular words, and particular senses of words already in use, may have been conventionally introduced, but not language itself. These words, whether newly coined or borrowed from other tongues, do not make up the language or modify its laws; they add to its vocabulary, but are subjected to its regimen. We have borrowed largely from the Latin, but we cannot construct a sentence with words so borrowed till we have made them English words. Nobody can talk Latin in English, though we can talk English in words wholly of Latin origin. The vocabulary is of various origin, but the language is English, and has remained so through all the changes the vocabulary has undergone; and this English language defies all conventions, and the influence of both the learned and the unlearned.
Professor Whitney, who appears never to have understood the relation of the inductive sciences either to science or to faith, denies the divine and supernatural origin of language, supposes man to have commenced his career on this earth without language, and to have formed for himself voluntarily but irreflectively language, by attempting to imitate the various cries of animals and the more striking sounds of nature, among which there is not a single articulate sound, the distinguishing mark of human speech. He does not represent men as saying to one another, "Go to, now; let us construct a language, so that we can tell each other our thoughts;" but he represents them as listening to the growl, barking, and howling of dogs, the bleating of sheep, the mooing of cows, the chirping of birds, the crowing of the cock, the hissing of the serpent, the roaring and whistling of the winds, the rattling of the shower or pouring of the rain, the bellowing of the storm, and, by way of imitation, forming out of these inarticulate sounds language in which we praise God and communicate with men. He adopts the onomatopoetic or bow-wow theory, so contemptuously dismissed by Max Müller. There is no doubt that in all dialects there have been introduced vocables in which there is an attempt in the word itself to imitate the sound or cry of the object named; but, supposing men had no language and were unable to converse, how were they to agree on the meaning to be given to these imitated sounds, or construct these words into sentences composed of subject, predicate, and copula, inflected according to the demands of number, gender, case, mood, and tense? There may have also been vocables formed from interjections, and there may be some truth in the interjectional or pooh! pooh! theory; but how form them into words, and these words into language with its grammatical laws and inflections before any knowledge of grammar or language, and bring about a general understanding as to the sense they are to bear? The same objections may be urged against the ding-dong theory, or that man is so constructed that, when touched in a certain manner, he involuntarily emits a certain sound. These theories explain the origin of certain vocables, but not of language.
Professor Whitney is not willing, by any means, to admit the supernatural origin of language, for the inductive sciences recognize nothing above nature. But none of the facts treated by any one of the inductive sciences are explicable without God, and God is supernatural. Man has his origin in the supernatural, though the species is developed by natural generation. In like manner, language, though developed, modified, or changed structurally or phonetically by natural causes according to natural laws, has its origin in the supernatural, or the direct act of God infusing it along with the ideal truth it signifies into the first man. Its origin is divine, as is the origin of man. This is evident because it requires in man the possession of language to be able to invent language, as we have already seen. It is from God, because it can come from no other source; and immediately from God to the first man, though traditionally to us, because there is no natural medium through which its origination is possible; yet not the entire vocabulary of language, but language in the respect that it is the sensible sign or representation of the ideal or the intelligible, whence proceeds the sensible, which copies or imitates it.
I. Grammatical Synthesis:
The Art of English Composition.
By Henry N. Day.
New York: Scribner & Co. 1867.
12mo, pp. 356.
2. The Art Of Discourse:
A System of Rhetoric.
By Henry N. Day.
New York: Scribner & Co. 1867.
12mo, pp. 343.
We know Mr. Day only as the author of these two books, and these do not give us a very high opinion of him either as a master of English grammar or of English composition. His volumes are elaborate, and evidently have cost him much time and hard study; he has aimed to make them profound, logical, philosophical, attractive, and profitable to the student; but their depth is less than he believes, their logic is more pretentious than real, and their philosophy is borrowed from a bad school.
The first work purports to be a grammar of the English language, and aims, while teaching the art of composition or the construction of sentences, to make the study of grammar attractive by exercising the thought and reasoning faculty of the pupil. The aim is commendable, but is rarely successful. The author lacks simplicity, ease, and grace as a writer, and a thorough mastery of his subject; and his grammar, by its attempt at logic and philosophy, is better fitted to discourage than to quicken thought. As far as we can discover, the work is no improvement on Lindley Murray's well-known English grammar; it is less simple, and not a whit more logical or philosophical. It departs widely from the old grammatical technology, but with no advantage, that we can discover, to the pupil. What is gained by calling adjectives and adverbs modifiers, a name appropriate to adverbs only? Adjectives qualify; adverbs modify. Murray defines the verb, "A word that signifies to be, to do, or to suffer." What do we gain by rejecting this definition, and defining it to be the word in a sentence that asserts? The author makes a sentence, as a judgment, consist of three parts, subject, predicate, and copula, which is correct. He identifies the verb with the copula, which is also correct; but he makes its essence consist in assertion, which is not correct. There is, indeed, no assertion without the copula; but the copula alone does not make the assertion. The assertion is made by the whole sentence; and the three terms, subject, predicate, and copula, are each equally necessary to the assertion or judgment. The author is right in making the verb the copula, but not when he makes its essence consist in assertion. The verb, the author says, is the copula, and essentially the copula merely expresses the identity or non-identity of the subject and predicate; but the copula, in a judgment, distinguishes as well as unites the subject and predicate, and the predicate is never identical with the subject; for, if it were, it would be subject and not predicate. When an author attempts to make grammar, logic, and philosophy correspond, he can escape censure only by success. Murray's definition of the verb is sufficient for us and for all the purposes of grammar. As such, it is enough to say a verb is a word that signifies "to be, to do, or to suffer;" but, if you insist on running grammar into logic, and making the verb express the copula of the judgment, we insist that you shall make it represent, as it does philosophically, the creative act, the real copula between being and existence, in which case the predicate is connected by the copula to the subject as its product, as when we say, Two and two make four. The verb, then, while it expresses the union of the predicate with subject, distinguishes it from the subject, as the effect from the cause.
The details of the book are frequently objectionable. The author makes as, when it follows some, such, so, and as, a relative pronoun, and that, in the clause, "The last time that I saw him," a relative pronoun, and in other locutions, exactly similar, a conjunction. As is never a relative pronoun in any correct speaker, but an adverb or conjunction of comparison. We doubt if as ever properly follows same. "It is the same as a denial" is not good English, although sometimes met with; but, if so, the sentence is elliptical. "It is the same as a denial would be." Ordinarily, same requires that, which, or who after it; and where it will not take one or another of these terms, it requires with; for same expresses identity not comparison, and, therefore, can never be properly followed by as. The same as seems to us no better than equal as. So, when it must be followed by a relative pronoun, demands that. "He went as far as the gate" is good English, but neither as is a relative pronoun. The phrase, "Such men as these" is elliptical for, "Such men as these men are," where as is clearly an adverb or conjunction of comparison, and no relative pronoun at all. Wherever as is used as a relative, the phrase or sentence is a vulgarism; as, in the phrase mentioned by Mrs. Trollope, "The lady as takes in washing over the way," though not a Yankee vulgarism.
The second work should, by its title, The Art of Discourse, be a work on logic, not on rhetoric. Discourse is from the Latin discursus, and means reasoning as distinguished from intuition, if taken etymologically, and it is only in a neological sense that it stands for an oration. We see no gain in exchanging the old term rhetoric for that of discourse, which in the sense used is a pure neologism. In the first work, the author to a great extent confuses grammar with rhetoric, and in this second work he confuses rhetoric with logic. The arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic are undoubtedly three kindred arts, but yet distinguishable by well-defined lines of difference. Grammar treats of words and their formation into sentences; rhetoric, of the arrangement of sentences in an oration, essay, dissertation, or treatise; logic, of the construction, arrangement, and relation of propositions or judgments. Grammar teaches to speak and write correctly; rhetoric, to speak or write pleasingly and persuasively; logic teaches us to reason justly and conclusively. Grammar makes us acquainted with language; rhetoric addresses language to the affections, passions, and sentiments; logic addresses the reason and judgment. Though they must all three unite in forming what Mr. Day would call a perfect discourse, they should be taught separately. Sentences may be correctly formed, and yet the discourse be heavy and dull; the sentences may be rhetorically arranged so as to move the feelings, without instructing or convincing the understanding; but still, in teaching, each art should be kept distinct, and prevented from encroaching on the province of either of the others.
Mr. Day's treatise on rhetoric is not, in our judgment, superior, or, as a whole, equal to that of Campbell or even that of Blair. Yet it is not without value, though better adapted to private study than to colleges and academies. No man can treat the art of rhetoric well who does not understand well the science both of language and of logic. Mr. Day is well aware of this, and attempts to connect the art with the science of which it is the application. This is well and praiseworthy; but, unhappily, he understands the science neither of language nor of logic. He does not understand the relation of the word to thought any more than does Professor Whitney; and no one can understand the science of logic until he has mastered philosophical science, which Mr. Day is very far from having done. The science neither of language nor of logic can be mastered by one who holds Sir William Hamilton was a philosopher, whose pretended philosophy is substantially that of the Positivists. The school Sir William Hamilton founded, and of which Professor Ferrier and Mr. Mansel are distinguished disciples, avowedly maintains that philosophy cannot rise above the sensible, and that the supersensible as well as the superintelligible must be taken, if at all, on the authority of faith or revelation.
Mr. Day belongs to this school, and adopts, to a great extent, its manner of writing English, which is hardly more intelligible to us than Choctaw or the dialects of South Africa. His example, if not his precept, is likely to encourage the distortion, we may say corruption, of plain, simple, and nervous English, which we see coming into fashion with our English as well as Scottish writers. The present race of Englishmen, when treating philosophical or theological subjects, seem to mistake obscurity for depth, and darkness for sublimity. Undeniably Jeffrey is dead. We wish the authors of school-books would show that they know and love our real English tongue, and are aware that simplicity and clearness of style are merits that should be retained.
Short Studies On Great Subjects.
By James Anthony Froude, M.A., late Fellow of Exeter College, Oxford.
Crown 8vo, pp. 534.
New York: Charles Scribner & Co.
Mr. Froude is a very startling instance of the truth of a statement often made during the last few years—and made by men within the Church of England as well by men outside her pale—that the Anglican establishment is rapidly losing all hold upon the most thoughtful and best educated of those who profess to be her subjects. Time, which tries all things, is demonstrating beyond cavil the insufficiency of Anglicanism not only to content the soul but to satisfy the intellect. There are fashions of thought just as there are fashions of dress, and the church which Henry VIII. made to fit as well as he could the prevailing style of mental activity in his day has been getting more and more antiquated ever since, until now it will no more suit the intelligence of the present century than King Harry's hose and doublet would accord with a modern fine gentleman's idea of dress. In the sixteenth century, the mass of men knew very little; and so, when the king's clergy told them to believe this or to believe that, they were ready enough to obey, not because they heard the church as the voice of God, but because it was only the churchmen who had learning enough to know anything about it. Now all this is changed. The relative positions of the Protestant clergy and laity have been reversed. The education of the former is for the most part narrow and superficial. The best class of laymen, on the contrary, receive a broad and liberal schooling; they sound the remotest depths of science, and penetrate recesses of nature to which the clergy, as a general thing, never approach. Taking the average of all the educated classes, the laity know more than the churchmen. The obedience, therefore, which ignorance once paid to learning has vanished. What is there to substitute in its stead? The Anglican establishment claims no direct authority from heaven to teach and direct, or, if she does assert any such prerogative, she asserts it in so loose a manner, claiming and disclaiming in the same breath, that her disciples cannot help feeling themselves at perfect liberty to obey or not as they please.
What is the natural consequence of this state of things? Why, earnest, thinking men are driven away from the English establishment in constantly increasing numbers. In a few years, if matters go on as they are now going, the regular old humdrum Episcopalian or Anglican will be as great a curiosity as the last soldier of the Revolution. Some are taking refuge in ritualism, and trying to supplant their cold and cheerless establishment by a counterfeit Catholicism, which may, and we hope will, lead them ultimately to the one true faith, but which is at present only a pretty sham. Others, and among these is Mr. Froude, rush to the opposite extreme, and profess an extravagant rationalism which is nearly equivalent to no creed at all. Mr. Froude has been regarded as in some sense the champion of the English establishment. He is the admiring chronicler of its infancy, the apologist and biographer of its earliest apostles and prophets, Henry and Elizabeth, Cromwell and Cranmer. He has made the history of its foundation the study of his life, and has told that history in a strain of enthusiasm such as has inspired no other reputable writer. If there is any man from whom we might have expected a vigorous defence of the claims of Anglicanism, a recognition of its right to command our obedience, it is Mr. Froude. Yet he has given us just the reverse of this. His volume is at once a startling indication of the mental unrest which has kept thinking Anglicans disturbed of late years, and a strong protest against the right of the Church of England to seek to quiet that uneasiness by the exercise of ecclesiastical authority or the bold promulgation of clerical dogmas. In his "Plea for the Free Discussion of Theological Difficulties," reprinted in the present volume from Fraser's Magazine, he calls for a reopening of all the fundamental questions of religious belief, a subjection of every article of every creed to the most searching discussion. The clergy, he says in effect, are not to be our instructors in matters of theology. We are quite as competent to judge as they are. Theological truth is not different from any other truth. The Holy Spirit does not guide the Church, and there is no tribunal but public opinion which is competent to decide disputed questions of religious belief. In a word, the great truths of theology are all to be declared open problems, and the world is to be turned into one great debating society for their free discussion.
This is not the place to show the tendency of Mr. Froude's principles, nor to Catholic readers is there much need of showing it. We only refer to them as a remarkable example of a state of feeling which prevails among a large party of the most intellectual members of the Church of England, and what the result of that state of feeling must be it is not difficult to tell.
Of the other essays in this volume we have little to say. The three lectures on "The Times of Erasmus and Luther" are not very pleasant reading for us, but they are counterbalanced by a paper on "The Philosophy of Catholicism," in which the writer pays an eloquent tribute to "the beautiful creed which for 1500 years tuned the heart and formed the mind of the noblest of mankind." His admiration, of course, stops short of its logical term, and is but a coldly intellectual sort of appreciation at best—not that emotional comprehension which must accompany the grace of faith; but, such as it is, we thank him for it.
Life And Letters Of Madame Swetchine.
By Count de Falloux, of the French Academy.
Translated by H. W. Preston,
1 vol. 12mo, pp. 369.
Boston: Roberts Brothers.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society. 1867.
It can hardly be necessary to inform our readers who Madame Swetchine was, or what are the claims of her life and career to the interest and attention of the public. A sketch of her remarkable history has been already given in The Catholic World for July, 1865. Her biographer was one of her most intimate friends—a member of the distinguished coterie of French ecclesiastics and laymen with whose aims and aspirations she most deeply sympathized—a witness of her dying hours, and the executor of her last will and testament. He is the Count de Falloux, and that is more than any eulogium we could pronounce on his qualities as a writer. Mr. Alger, under whose auspices this life has been translated and published, has done a great service, and has added no little to the value of the book, in its English dress, by the short preface with which he introduces it to the American public. The following passage shows what has been the intention and the spirit with which he has been animated:
"It may seem strange that a work so eminently Catholic in its quality as this biography should be introduced to a Protestant people by a Protestant translator and Protestant publishers. But, on further consideration, will not this be found especially fit and serviceable? In this country, a traditional antipathy or bigoted repugnance to the Catholic Church prevails in an unjustifiable extreme. Whatever is repulsive in the Catholic dogmas or rule is fastened on with unwarrantable acrimony and exclusiveness. The interests alike of justice and of good feeling demand that the attention of Protestants shall, at least occasionally, be given to the best ingredients and workings of the Catholic system. In the present work, we have the forensic doctrine and authority of Catholicity in the background, its purest inner aims and life in the foreground. We here have a beautiful specimen of the style of character and experience which the most imposing organic Symbol of Christendom tends to produce, and has, in all the ages of its mighty reign, largely produced. If every bigoted disliker of the Roman Catholic Church within the English-speaking race could read this book, and, as a consequence, have his prejudices lessened, his sympathies enlarged, the result, so far from being deprecated, should be warmly welcomed. This is written by one who, while enthusiastically admiring the spiritual wealth of the Catholic Church, the ineffable tenderness and beauty of its moral and religious ministrations, is, as to its dogmatic fabric and secular sway, even more than a Protestant of the Protestants. Finally, this book is especially commended to women as a work of inestimable worth. The character and life of Madame Swetchine, her lonely studies and aspirations, her sublime personal attainments, her philanthropic labors, her literary productions, her sweet social charm and vast influence, her thrice-royal friendships with kings and geniuses and saints, the sober raptures of her religious faith and fruition, form an example whose exciting and edifying interest and value are scarcely surpassed in the annals of her sex."
The translation has been well done, and the typographical execution is unexceptionable. We desire for the book as wide a circulation as possible.
The Catholic Crusoe.
Adventures of Owen Evans, Esq., Surgeon's Mate, set Ashore with Five Companions on a Desolate Island in the Caribbean Sea, 1739.
Given from the original MS.
By Rev. W. H. Anderdon, M.A.
12mo, pp. 344.
London: Burns, Lambert & Gates.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
The name of Dr. Anderdon's interesting story is so well indicated by the title that we have only to add that it seems admirably adapted both to amuse and instruct young people, is full of incident, and is written in a pleasant and simple style. A supplement entitled "Don Manuel's Narrative," a marvellous relation purporting to have been picked up at sea, is a second story of a nature similar to the first. We commend the book to parents and teachers as a very acceptable present for lads of a somewhat advanced age.
Aner's Return; or,
The Migrations of a Soul. An Allegorical Tale.
By Alto S. Hoermann, O.S.B.
Translated from the Original German by Innocent A. Bergrath.
12mo, pp. 294. New York: P. O'Shea.
This is an allegory of human life, sin, repentance, and forgiveness, the idea of which seems to have been inspired by Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. The excellence of the author's intentions and the soundness of his theology must plead in excuse for a great many shortcomings, the most serious of which is that the book is not very readable. The ambitious style, we fear, will repel a great many readers from a story which displays considerable ingenuity, and, as we are assured by the translator, has proved very popular in Europe. It is very neatly printed and prettily bound, and will serve well as a holiday present or school premium.
Memoirs And Correspondence Of Madame Récamier.
Translated from the French, and edited by Isaphene M. Luyster.
12mo, pp. 408.
Boston: Roberts Brothers.
We published in an early number of The Catholic World a sketch of the remarkable and brilliant woman whose life forms the subject of this attractive little volume. The French work, from which Miss Luyster's translation is made, appeared in Paris in 1859. It was from the pen of Madame Lenormant, the adopted daughter of Madame Récamier, and niece of her husband. The lady seems, from all accounts, to have performed her task in a rather loose and confused manner, so that Miss Luyster's part has been not only to turn it into readable English, but to prune, condense, and arrange it in readable form; and this we judge she has done in a very satisfactory manner. The correspondence is strangely deficient in Madame Récamier's own letters; but the lack of these is well compensated for by numerous ones from Chateaubriand, Matthieu de Montmorency, and Ballanche, and a few from Madame de Staël, La Harpe Bernadotte, Louis Napoleon, Victor Hugo, and Béranger.
The Galin Method Of Musical Instruction.
By C. H. Farnham.
New York: American News Company. 1867.
Mr. Farnham gives us a very concise comparative view of the common system of musical notation and the new one known as the Galin Method, which has already received so much consideration in Europe, and must soon attract the attention of the musical world in this country. In France, many distinguished musicians have advocated the general adoption of the Galin method, and it is the only one now used at the Polytechnic and superior normal schools in Paris and in the government schools of Russia. It aims at simplifying the system of musical signs, now certainly somewhat complicated, by the substitution of a uniform series of figures for the old staff, with its different clefs and many-shaped notes.
It is claimed that by this method nine persons out of ten can be taught the whole theory of music in a few months, and learn at the same time to sing at sight and to write under dictation, independently of an instrument, music of ordinary difficulty. We have very little doubt that this system possesses immense advantages over the old one for learning the theory of music and for the execution of a vocal score. But we are not quite sure that a page of instrumental music written according to the Galin method would be any less difficult to read than one written in the old style. We have already simplified matters a good deal by the abandonment of several of the clefs formerly in use, and we do not see why a still further reformation might not be made. We had the pleasure of assisting at one of Mr. Farnham's classes, given in this city, and can testify to the remarkable facility of reading and writing music according to this method, as exhibited by his pupils. Our musical readers will not fail to find much to interest them in a perusal of this essay.
St. Ignatius And The Society Of Jesus:
Their Influence on Civilization and Christianity.
A Sermon delivered in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, in Boston, on Sunday, August 4th, 1867. By Rev. G. F. Haskins, Rector of the Home of the Angel Guardian.
Boston: Bernard Carr, Printer, 5 Chatham Row. 1867.
Father Haskins is one of our most eloquent preachers and most graphic writers, although he seldom favors us with any published productions. His eloquence is that eloquence of realities which flies off like a glowing stream of sparks from the energetic action of a soul on fire with zeal, incessantly occupied in practical works of charity. The sermon before us is a panegyric pronounced in the church of the Jesuits in Boston, on the occasion of the celebration of the feast of St. Ignatius. It recounts in a succinct but forcible and thorough manner the services rendered to religion and humanity by the Society of Jesus. Although the language is glowing and the eulogium of the highest kind, yet, in point of fact, Father Haskins has not exaggerated the reality. History bears out all that he so warmly claims for this great religious order, which has equalled in its history the greatest orders of past ages, while far surpassing all others in modern times. The hatred and calumny which the Jesuits have encountered on the part of anti-Catholics were never more gratuitous and undeserved. The whole sum of the accusations which Catholic writers have been able to bring against them merely show that some portions of the society have at times degenerated from its true spirit; that individuals have erred in doctrine, or committed faults in administration; that a mistaken policy has sometimes been adopted; and that the order has not, any more than the other great orders, transcended that limited though elevated sphere to which every order is confined by the law of its being. The Jesuits were constituted as one of the corps d'élite of the church militant. As such they have rendered the most signal services, which will ever cover their names with imperishable glory; and we ascribe their success, in subordination to the grace of God and the unfailing vigor of the Catholic Church whose offspring they are, to the genius elevated by sanctity of their founder, and the admirable constitutions which he bequeathed to the institute.
Meditations Of St. Thomas, etc.
For a Retreat of Ten Days.
Followed by a Treatise on the Virtues, etc.
By Father Massoulie, O.P.
Translated from the French.
London: Richardson.
New York: The Catholic Publication Society.
These Meditations have been taken, as to their substance, from the writings of St. Thomas, but arranged and supplemented by the learned Dominican whose name is given in the title. Their great advantage lies in the fact that they embody the doctrine of one who was not only the most consummate theologian the world has ever seen, but also a contemplative saint of the highest order. This gives one who wishes to use them for his own profit a secure warrant that they will furnish his mind and heart with the most choice as well as wholesome nutriment they can possibly feed upon. The works of saints are always to be preferred to all others. We recommend, therefore, this work, derived from the writings of a most illustrious saint, to all; especially to thoughtful and educated men who can relish, and who, therefore, desire and need, the most solid spiritual food to promote the growth of intelligent, solid piety and virtue in their souls.
The Heiress Of Killorgan;
or, Evenings With The Old Geraldines.
By Mrs. J. Sadlier.
New York; D. & J. Sadlier & Co.
The author of this very interesting novel has given to our literature a great number of works of various kinds, intended not only for our amusement but for our instruction; and the present volume is perhaps the very best specimen of her productions, combining, as it does, the interest of a romance with many genuine historical and personal reminiscences of the celebrated Anglo-Norman family of Fitzgerald, with which is associated so much of the history of Ireland from the English invasion until the present time. It cannot be said that there is any plot in the tale, being a simple narration of the incidents occurring in the household of a refined family reduced in fortune, but still retaining its native dignity and pride of ancestry; but the characters, though few, are clearly, gracefully, and vividly drawn. The heiress of the decayed house of Killorgan is admirably sketched with a pencil which aims less at personal description than at those delicate lines of thought and feeling which, after all, give us the truest idea of the excellence of the female character. The greatest merit, however, of the work rests in its historical descriptions, which, being taken from the best authorities, are thoroughly reliable and presented in a very attractive and concise form.
Affixes In Their Origin And Application.
Exhibiting the Etymological Structure of English Words.
By S. S. Haldeman, A.M.
Philadelphia: Butler & Co. 1865. 12mo, pp. 271.
Professor Haldeman has few if any superiors in the science of language, and he has also the modesty that always accompanies real merit. He pretends to no more knowledge than he really has, and he never undertakes to explain what in the present state of linguistic science is not explicable. His chief fault is his fear of saying on any point more than is necessary, which leaves him in his brevity sometimes obscure. We should find his work more easily understood if he allowed himself to enlarge a little more on the independent meaning of the prefixes and suffixes to English words. But perhaps he is full enough for others.
The importance of affixes in the construction of English words may be gathered from the fact that there are in English only about three thousand two hundred monosyllables, and that many of these even are not primitives, but have a prefix, a suffix, or both. It is evident that affixes must be concerned in the formation of by far the greatest part of the English vocabulary, and that an accurate knowledge of English words is to be obtained only "through a distinct appreciation of the modes used to vary them according to the exigencies of thought and speech." This appreciation in the case of our mother tongue becomes the more difficult because it is a composite tongue, and, unlike the Greek and Welsh, for instance, has not its chief etymological materials in itself, and its words cannot in general be analyzed independently of other languages. To have a scientific knowledge of our language we must know the languages from which its words are derived, and the derivation, meaning, and use of their affixes in those languages as well as in our own. Professor Haldeman has in this small but compact volume attempted to give us the derivation, meaning, and use of all the affixes, divided into prefixes and suffixes, in the English language, from whatever language taken, and he has done it in as satisfactory a manner as possible in the present state of comparative philology. No English scholar should fail to obtain and master it, if he wishes really to understand his own language.