Mr. Higginson is, indeed, a little fastidious, a little inclined to purism, a little rigid upon the mint, anise, and cumin of literary law. But this rendered him only the more fit for his present task. A translator must bear somewhat hard upon minor obligations to his vernacular, in order to overcome the resistance of a foreign idiom.
He has succeeded. He has given us Greek thought in English speech, not merely in English words. It is, indeed, astonishing how modern Epictetus seems in this version. This is due in part to the translator's tact in finding modern equivalents for Greek idioms, or for antiquated allusions and illustrations. Once in a while one is a littled startled by these; but more often they are so happy that one fancies he must have thrown dice for them, or obtained them by some other turn of luck.
But he was favored, not only by literary ability, but by a native affinity with his author and an old love for him. His taste is very marked for this peculiar form of sanctity and heroism, the simple Stoic morality, especially in that mature and mellow form which it assumes with the later Stoic believers. In these first centuries of our era a suffusion of divine tenderness seems to have crept through the veins of the world, partly derived from Christianity, and partly contemporaneous with it. In the case of Epictetus it must have been original. And the peculiar simplicity with which he represents this tender spirit of love and duty, while combining it with the utmost iron nerve of the old Stoic morality,—its comparative disassociation in his pages with the speculative imaginations which glorify or obscure it elsewhere,—is deeply grateful, one sees, to the present translator.
He must have enjoyed his task heartily, while its happy completion has prepared for many others, not only an enjoyment, but more and better than that. May it, indeed, be for many! What were more wholesome for this too luxuriant modern life than a little Stoic pruning?
Having mentioned that the book comes forth under the auspices of Little, Brown, & Co., we have no need to say that it is an elegant volume.
An Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy, and of the Principal Philosophical Questions discussed in his Writings. By John Stuart Mill. In Two Volumes. Boston: William V. Spencer.
Mr. Mill in this book defends England from the reproach of indifference to the higher philosophy. Americans are at least not indifferent to John Stuart Mill; and for his sake the volumes will no doubt be attempted by many a respectable citizen who would be seriously puzzled whether to class the author as a Cosmothetic Idealist or as a Hypothetical Dualist. And assuming, as such a reader very possibly will, that this last name designates those who are disposed to fight for their hypotheses, he will hardly think it in this case a misnomer. Yet Mr. Mill seems very generous and noble in this attitude. He has consented to put on the gloves since he fought Professors Whewell and Sedgwick without them; and there is perhaps no finer passage in the history of controversy than his simple expression of regret, in his preface, on attacking an antagonist who can no longer defend himself.
Yet his handling of Sir William is tolerably unflinching, when he settles to the work; and he will carry the sympathy of most readers in his criticisms, whatever they may think of his own peculiar views. The students of his Logic were rather daunted, years ago, on discovering that a mind so able was content to found upon mere experience its conviction that two and two make four, and to assume, by implication at least, that on some other planet two and two may make five. He still holds to this attitude. But so perfect are his candor and clearness, that no dissent from his views can seriously impair the value of his writings; and though no amount of clearness can make such a book otherwise than abstruse to the general reader, yet there are some chapters which can be read with pleasure and profit by any intelligent person,—as, for instance, the closing essay on mathematical study. This must not, however, be taken for an indorsement of all which that chapter contains; for it must be pronounced a little inconsistent in Mr. Mill to criticize Hamilton for underrating mathematics without having studied them, when this seems to be precisely his critic's attitude towards the later German metaphysics. He speaks with some slight respect of Kant, to be sure, but complains of the speculations of his successors as "a deplorable waste of time and power," though he gives no hint or citation to indicate that he has read one original sentence of Fichte, Schelling, or Hegel. Indeed, he heaps contempt in Latin superlatives upon the last-named thinker, and then completes the insult by quoting him at second-hand through Mansel, (I. 61,)—that Mansel some of whose doctrines he elsewhere proclaims to be "the most morally pernicious now current." (I. 115.) He afterwards makes it a sort of complaint against Hamilton, that he had read "every fifth-rate German transcendentalist"; but if this was so, surely a competent critic of Hamilton should have followed him at least through the first-rates. This unfairness,—if, indeed, these surmises be correct,—although it seems very much like the Englishman whom our current prejudices represent, seems very unlike John Stuart Mill.
As the ablest work that modern British philosophy has produced, this book will doubtless have many American readers, and well deserves them.
Speeches of Andrew Johnson, President of the United States. With a Biographical Introduction, by Frank Moore. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.