It would be difficult to find, at least in recent history, any record which matches the plain recital of the wrongs and villainies perpetrated under Russian imperialism. It is against this system that Nihilism is struggling, impotently in appearance, but always earnestly, persistently, intelligently. However the mind may revolt from certain phases of Nihilism and condemn some of its methods, it is impossible that, on the whole, intelligent minds should not sympathize with it and regard its success as the only hope of national salvation. Stepniak intimates that the time of terrorism, the era of assassination has passed. The propaganda of liberty has been pushed with great success in the ranks of the army, and at least a quarter of the commissioned officers below the rank of colonel, including many of the bravest and most skilful men in the service, are affiliated to Nihilism. Russia cannot remain for many years in her present condition. The mills of the gods, though grinding slowly, are grinding exceedingly fine. If the statements made by our author are true, the power to make an open and armed revolt effective is being forged and tempered rapidly. We believe that at least nine-tenths of men of AngloSaxon race will give that revolt a God-speed when the time does come. Stepniak’s book, which is singularly free from harsh invective and sounding adjectives, is terrible by the weight of its simple, direct, and, we believe on the whole, accurate statements. It certainly throws a light on Russian affairs such as the reader can obtain, probably, from no other contemporary work.
The French Revolution. By Hippolyte Adolph Taine, D.C.L. Oxon, Author of “A History of English Literature,” “Notes on England,” etc. Translated by John Durand. In three volumes. Vol. III. New York: Henry Holt & Company.
This is the concluding volume of Taine’s history of the French Revolution, and in vividness of presentation, charm of style, and clearness of statement it surpasses even its predecessors. The views of M. Taine in regard to the causes of the French Revolution, and his characterizations of the men who rose to the top during its fierce and bloody progress, have been severely criticised. Nearly every historian of the period is borne along by a strong partisan bias. It seems impossible for the writer to enter on this troubled and tempestuous period to keep himself aloof from the agitations which swell the events and motives he depicts. So all historians of the period are at odds with each other. M. Taine is more severe and sweeping in his condemnation of the men that guided the revolution than most of his rivals. Perhaps no better explanation of the view and attitude of the author can be given than that found in his eloquent and striking preface, which we give entire:
“‘In Egypt,’ says Clement of Alexandria, ‘the sanctuaries of the temples are shaded by curtains of golden tissue. But on going farther into the interior in quest of the statue, a priest of grave aspect, advancing to meet you and chanting a hymn in the Egyptian tongue, slightly raises a veil to show you the god. And what do you behold? A crocodile, or some indigenous serpent, or other dangerous animal, the Egyptian god being a brute rolling about on a purple carpet.’
“We need not visit Egypt or go so far back in history to encounter crocodile worship, as this can be readily found in France at the end of the last century. Unfortunately, a hundred years is too long an interval, too far away, for an imaginative retrospect of the past. At the present time, standing where we do and regarding the horizon behind us, we see only forms which the intervening atmosphere embellishes, shimmering contours which each spectator may interpret in his own fashion; no distinct, animated figure, but merely a mass of moving points, forming and dissolving in the midst of picturesque architecture. I was anxious to have a nearer view of these vague points, and, accordingly, transported myself back to the last half of the eighteenth century, where I have been living with them for twelve years, and, like Clement of Alexandria, examining, first, the temple, and next the god. A passing glance at these is not sufficient; a step further must be taken to comprehend the theology on which this cult is founded. This one, explained by a very specious theology, like most others, is composed of dogmas called the principles of 1789; they were proclaimed, indeed, at that date, having been previously formulated by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the well-known sovereignty of the people, the rights of man, and the social contract. Once adopted, their practical results unfolded themselves naturally; in three years the crocodile brought by these dogmas into the sanctuary installed himself there on the purple carpet behind the golden veil; in effect, he was intended for the place on account of the energy of his jaws and the capacity of his stomach; he became a god through his qualities as a destructive brute and man-eater. Comprehending this, the rites which consecrate him and the pomp which surrounds him need not give us any further concern. We can observe him, like any ordinary animal, and study his various attitudes, as he lies in wait for his prey, springs upon it, tears it to pieces, swallows it, and digests it. I have studied the details of his structure, the play of his organs, his habits, his mode of living, his instincts, his faculties, and his appetites. Specimens abounded. I have handled thousands of them, and have dissected hundreds of every species and variety, always preserving the most valuable and characteristic examples, but for lack of room I have been compelled to let many of them go because my collection was too large. Those that I was able to bring back with me will be found here, and, among others, about twenty individuals of different dimensions, which—a difficult undertaking—I have kept alive with great pains. At all events, they are intact and perfect, and particularly the three largest. These seem to me, of their kind, truly remarkable, and those in which the divinity of the day might well incarnate himself. The bills of butchers, as well as housekeeping accounts, authentic and regularly kept, throw sufficient light on the cost of this cult. We can estimate about how much the sacred crocodiles consumed in ten years; we know their bills of fare daily, their favorite morsels. Naturally, the god selected the fattest victims, but his voracity was so great that he likewise bolted down, and blindly, the lean ones, and in much greater number than the fattest. Moreover, by virtue of his instincts, and an unfailing effect of the situation, he ate his equals once or twice a year, except when they succeeded in eating him. This cult certainly is instructive, at least to historians and men of pure science. If any believers in it still remain I do not aim to convert them; one cannot argue with a devotee on matters of faith. This volume, accordingly, like the others that have gone before it, is written solely for amateurs of moral zoology, for naturalists of the understanding, for seekers of truth, of texts, and of proofs—for these alone and not for the public, whose mind is made up and which has its own opinion on the Revolution. This opinion began to be formed between 1825 and 1830, after the retirement or withdrawal of eye-witnesses. When they disappeared it was easy to convince a credulous public that crocodiles were philanthropists; that many possessed genius; that they scarcely ate others than the guilty, and that if they sometimes ate too many it was unconsciously and in spite of themselves, or through devotion and self-sacrifice for the common good.”
The volume is divided into the following sections: “Establishment of the Revolutionary Government;” “The Jacobin Programme;” “The Governors;” “The Governed;” “The End of the Revolutionary Government.” The author gives a luminous picture of the facts and conditions which preceded the Reign of Terror. In reading these brilliant pages we are carried along so swiftly that it is hard to realize at first the enormous research and weighing of authorities, which we soon recognize by glancing at the foot-notes. The various elements entering into the situation were complex, but they are unravelled with great dexterity and presented with no less clearness. When we come to those pages which deal with the Reign of Terror proper, M. Taine rises to his most graphic and picturesque power. His description and characterization of Danton, Marat, Robespierre, Hebert, St. Just, and the other bloodhounds that led the pack, are masterpieces. Carlyle, whose account of the French Revolution is a lurid and magnificent prose poem, does not give a more powerful and vivid realistic picture, while the present author without doubt has by far the advantage in the accuracy of his statements, the reliability of his facts, the judicial weight of his opinions. It may be unquestioningly stated that among recent historical books there is none worthy to be ranked in interest and importance with this study of one of the most remarkable periods in the world’s history by M. Taine.
Louis Pasteur: His Life and Labors. By his Son-in-law. Translated from the French by John Durand. New York: D. Appleton & Co.
The career of M. Pasteur is one of those which rank among the greatest in the value of the results which he has obtained. Starting as a great chemist, he went on, step by step, making great discoveries in the line of his work, till he finally proved absolutely the germ theory of disease, which, prior to his investigations and experiments, had been merely an hypothesis. The great crowning work of his life, however, has been the establishment of the fact that vaccination, as discovered by Jenner is not an isolated truth, but one of a class of similar truths, which could be utilized to the incalculable blessing of the world; in other words, that it is possible in the case of a great many diseases to make the system proof against contagion by inoculation with an attenuated virus of the same nature. He has been splendidly successful in the cases of splenic fever and of hydrophobia, and all the analogies indicate that this is only the beginning of a much wider extension of the same principle. Pasteur’s conclusions are now accepted by the whole scientific, and a host of ardent and ingenious disciples are working along the same line of experiment and investigation. The beneficent results are likely to be of such a character as to revolutionize the whole treatment of disease. Before Pasteur had reached the culmination of his great career, he had saved millions of francs per annum to France by his discovery of the means to cure diseases in vines, and the method of saving silk-worms from the parasitic ailment which threatened the whole silk culture of France. But in absolutely demonstrating, starting from the germ theory of disease as a basis, that disease could be guarded against, at least in certain cases, by inoculation with attenuated virus, he has opened the way probably for results the greatness of which we do not yet appreciate. Like Dr. Robert Koch, of Berlin, he has been experimenting with cholera, but, unlike Dr. Koch, he denies that the cholera germ, or bacillus, has yet been found. Investigators are, however, on the road to the truth, and we confidently anticipate that the goal will be reached not only in cholera, but many other diseases. If so Pasteur’s name will shine primus inter pares among those who most contributed to such a beneficent revolution in the methods, of grappling with the most fatal forms of disease and death. The story of Pasteur’s life, of his methods of work, of his progress from discovery to discovery, is told by his admiring disciple and son-in-law in a very fresh and attractive style, unencumbered by technical terms and with a peculiarly French vivacity and grace of touch. There is a very interesting summary of the results of Pasteur’s work written by no less an authority than Professor John Tyndall, who does ample justice to the genius and ability of his great French contemporary. Pasteur is now only sixty-two years of age, and as his health has lately been re-established, the world may expect still more important discoveries than any which he has yet made.