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Vala, or The Four Zoas/Night the Fifth

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Infected Mad he dancd on his mountains high & dark as heaven Now fixd into one stedfast bulk his features stonify From his mouth curses & from his eyes sparks of blighting Beside the anvil cold he dancd with the hammer of Urthona Terrific pale. Enitharmon stretchd on the dreary Earth Felt her immortal limbs freeze stiffning pale inflexible His feet shrink withring from the deep shrinking & withering And Enitharmon shrunk up all their fibres withring beneath As plants witherd by winter leaves & stems & roots decaying Melt into thin air while the seed drivn by the furious wind Rests on the distant Mountains top. So Los & Enitharmon Shrunk into fixed space stood trembling on a Rocky cliff Yet mighty bulk & majesty & beauty remaind but unexpansive As far as highest Zenith from the lowest Nadir. so far shrunk Los from the furnaces a Space immense & left the cold	15 Prince of Light bound in chains of intellect among the furnaces But all the furnaces were out & the bellows had ceast to blow He stood trembling & Enitharmon clung around his knees Their senses unexpansive in one stedfast bulk remain The night blew cold & Enitharmon shriekd on the dismal wind	20

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Her pale hands cling around her husband & over her weak head Shadows of Eternal death sit in the leaden air But the soft pipe the flute the viol organ harp & cymbal And the sweet sound of silver voices calm the weary couch Of Enitharmon but her groans drown the immortal harps Loud & more loud the living music floats upon the air Faint & more faint the daylight wanes. The wheels of turning darkness Began in solemn revolutions. Earth convulsd with rending pangs Rockd to & fro & cried sore at the groans of Enitharmon Still the faint harps & silver voices calm the weary couch But from the caves of deepest night ascending in clouds of mist The winter spread his wide black wings across from pole to pole Grim frost beneath & terrible snow linkd in a marriage chain Began a dismal dance. The winds around on pointed rocks Settled like bats innumerable ready to fly abroad The groans of Enitharmon shake the skies the labring Earth Till from her heart rending his way a terrible Child sprang forth In thunder smoke & sullen flames & howlings & fury & blood Soon as his burning Eyes were opend on the Abyss The horrid trumpets of the deep bellowd with bitter blasts The Enormous Demons woke & howld around the new born king Crying Luvah King of Love thou art the King of rage & death Urizen cast deep darkness round him raging Luvah pourdt The spears of Urizen from Chariots round the Eternal tent Discord began then yells & cries shook the wide firma[m]ent

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Where is Sweet Vala gloomy prophet where the lovely form That drew the body of Man from heaven into this dark Abysselds Shew thy soul Vala shew thy bow & quiver of secret fires Draw thy bow Vala from the depths of hell thy black bow drawt And twang the bow string to our howlings let thine arrows black Sing in the Sky as once they sang upon the hills of Light When dark Urthona wept in torment of the secret pain He wept & he divided & he laid his gloomy head Down on the Rock of Eternity on darkness of the deep Torn by black storms & ceaseless torrents of consuming fire Within his breast his fiery sons chaind down & filld with cursings And breathing terrible blood & vengeance gnashing his teeth with pain Let loose the Enormous Spirit in the darkness of the deep And his dark wife that once fair crystal form divinely clear Within his ribs producing serpents whose souls are flames of fire But now the times return upon thee Enitharmons womb Now holds thee soon to issue forth. Sound Clarions of war Call Vala from her close recess in all her dark deceit Then rage on rage shall fierce redound out of her crystal quiver So sung the Demons round red Orc & round faint Enitharmon Sweat & blood stood on the limbs of Los in globes. his fiery Eyelids Faded. he rouzd he siezd the wonder in his hands & went Shuddring & weeping thro the Gloom & down into the deeps Enitharmon nursd her fiery child in the dark deeps Sitting in darkness. over her Los mournd in anguish fierce Coverd with gloom. the fiery boy grew fed by the milk Of Enitharmon. Los around her builded pillars of iron

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And brass & silver & gold fourfold in dark prophetic fear For now he feard Eternal Death & uttermost Extinction He builded Golgonooza on the Lake of Udan Adan Upon the Limit of Translucence then he builded Luban Tharmas laid the Foundations & Los finishd it in howling woe But when fourteen summers & winters had revolved over Their solemn habitation Los beheld the ruddy boy Embracing his bright mother & beheld malignant fires In his young eyes discerning plain that Orc plotted his death Grief rose upon his ruddy brows. a tightening girdle grew Around his bosom like a bloody cord. in secret sobs He burst it, but next morn another girdle succeeds Around his bosom. Every day he viewd the fiery youth With silent fear & his immortal cheeks grew deadly pale Till many a morn & many a night passd over in dire woe Forming a girdle in the day & bursting it at night The girdle was formd by day by night was burst in twain Falling down on the rock an iron chain link by link lockd Enitharmon beheld the bloody chain of nights & days Depending from the bosom of Los & how with griding pain He went each morning to his labours. with the spectre dark Calld it the chain of jealousy. Now Los began to speak His woes aloud to Enitharmon. since he could not hide His uncouth plague. He siezd the boy in his immortal hands While Enitharmon followd him weeping in dismal woe Up to the iron mountains top & there the Jealous chain Fell from his bosom on the mountain. The Spectre dark Held the fierce boy Los naild him down binding around his limbs The accursed chain O how bright Enitharmon howld & cried Over her son. Obdurate Los bound down her loved joy

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The hammer of Urthona smote the rivets in terror. of brass Tenfold. the Demons rage flamd tenfold forth rending Roaring redounding. Loud Loud Louder & Louder & fird The darkness warring With the waves of Tharmas & Snows of Urizen Crackling the flames went up with fury from the immortal demon Surrounded with flames the Demon grew loud howling in his fires Los folded Enitharmon in a cold white cloud in fear Then led her down into the deeps & into his labyrinth Giving the Spectre sternest charge over the howling fiend Concenterd into Love of Parent Storgous Appetite Craving His limbs bound down mock at his chains for over them a flame Of circling fire unceasing plays to feed them with life & bring The virtues of the Eternal worlds ten thousand thousand spirits Of life lament around the Demon going forth & returningt At his enormous call they flee into the heavens of heavens And back return with wine & food. Or dive into the deeps To bring the thrilling joys of sense to quell his ceaseless rage His eyes the lights of his large soul contract or else expand Contracted they behold the secrets of the infinite mountains The veins of gold & silver & the hidden things of Vala Whatever grows from its pure bud or breathes a fragrant soul Expanded they behold the terrors of the Sun & Moon The Elemental Planets & the orbs of eccentric fire His nostrils breathe a fiery flame. his locks are like the forestst Of wild beasts there the lion glares the tyger & wolf howl there And there the Eagle hides her young in cliffs & precipices His bosom is like starry heaven expanded all the stars rings Flow into rivers of delight. there the spontaneous flowers Drink laugh & sing. the grasshopper the Emmet & the Fly The golden Moth builds there a house & spreads her silken bed

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His loins inwove with silken fires are like a furnace fierce As the strong Bull in summer time when bees sing round the heath Where the herds low after the shadow & after the water spring The numrous flocks cover the mountain & shine along the valley His knees are rocks of adamant & rubie & emerald Spirits of strength in Palaces rejoice in golden armour Armed with spear & shield they drink & rejoice over the slain Such is the Demon such his terror in the nether deep But when returnd to Golgonooza Los & Enitharmon Felt all the sorrow Parents feel. they wept toward one another And Los repented that he bad chaind Orc upon the mountain And Enitharmons tears prevaild parental love returnd Tho terrible his dread of that infernal chain They rose At midnight hasting to their much beloved care Nine days they traveld thro the Gloom of Entuthon Benithon Los taking Enitharmon by the hand led her along The dismal vales & up to the iron mountains top where Orc Howld in the furious wind he thought to give to Enitharmon Her son in tenfold joy & to compensate for her tears Even if his own death resulted so much pity him paind But when they came to the dark rock & to the spectrous cave Lo the young limbs had strucken root into the rock & strong Fibres had from the Chain of Jealousy inwove themselves In a swift vegetation round the rock & round the Cave And over the immortal limbs of the terrible fiery boy In vain they strove now to unchain. In vain with bitter tears To melt the chain of Jealousy. not Enitharmons death Nor the Consummation of Los could ever melt the chain Nor unroot the infernal fibres from their rocky bed Nor all Urthonas strength nor all the power of Luvahs Bulls Tho they each morning drag the unwilling Sun out of the deep Could uproot the infernal chain. for it had taken root [ page 63 ]

Into the iron rock & grew a chain beneath the Earth Even to the Center wrapping round the Center & the limbs Of Orc entering with fibres. became one with him a living Chain Sustained by the Demons life. Despair & Terror & Woe & Rage Inwrap the Parents in cold clouds as they bend howling over The terrible boy till fainting by his side the Parents fell Not long they lay Urthonas spectre found herbs of the pit Rubbing their temples he reviv'd them. all their lamentations I write not here but all their after life was lamentation When satiated with grief they returnd back to Golgonooza Enitharmon on the road of Dranthon felt the inmost gate Of her bright heart burst open & again close with a deadly paint Within her heart Vala began to reanimate in bursting sobs And when the Gate was open she beheld that dreary Deept Where bright Ahania wept. She also saw the infernal roots Of the chain of Jealousy & felt the rendings of fierce howling Orc Rending the Caverns like a mighty wind pent in the Earth Tho wide apart as furthest north is from the furthest south Urizen trembled where he lay to hear the howling terror The rocks shook the Eternal bars tuggd to & fro were rifted Outstretchd upon the stones of ice the ruins of his throne Urizen shuddring heard his trembling limbs shook the strong caves The Woes of Urizen shut up in the deep dens of Urthona Ah how shall Urizen the King submit to this dark mansion Ah how is this! Once on the heights I stretchd my throne sublime The mountains of Urizen once of silver where the sons of wisdom dwelt And on whose tops the Virgins sang are rocks of Desolation My fountains once the haunt of Swans now breed the scaly tortoise The houses of my harpers are become a haunt of crows The gardens of wisdom are become a field of horrid graves And on the bones I drop my tears & water them in vain

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Once how I walked from my palace in gardens of delight The sons of wisdom stood around the harpers followd with harps Nine virgins clothd in light composd the song to their immortal voices And at my banquets of new wine my head was crownd with joy Then in my ivory pavilions I slumberd in the noon And walked in the silent night among sweet smelling flowers Till on my silver bed I slept & sweet dreams round me hoverd But now my land is darkend & my wise men are departed My songs are turned to cries of Lamentationt Heard on my Mountains & deep sighs under my palace roofs Because the Steeds of Urizen once swifter than the light Were kept back from my Lord & from his chariot of mercies O did I keep the horses of the day in silver pastures O I refusd the Lord of day the horses of his prince O did I close my treasuries with roofs of solid stone And darken all my Palace walls with envyings & hate O Fool to think that I could hide from his all piercing eyes The gold & silver & costly stones his holy workmanship O Fool could I forget the light that filled my bright spheres Was a reflection of his face who calld me from the deep I well remember for I heard the mild & holy voice Saying O light spring up & shine & I sprang up from the deept He gave to me a silver scepter & crownd me with a golden crown & said Go forth & guide my Son who wanders on the ocean I went not forth. I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath I calld the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away We fell. I siezd thee dark Urthona In my left hand falling I siezd thee beauteous Luvah thou art faded like a flower And like a lilly is thy wife Vala witherd by winds When thou didst bear the golden cup at the immortal tables Thy children smote their fiery wings crownd with the gold of heaven

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Thy pure feet stepd on the steps divine. too pure for other feet And thy fair locks shadowd thine eyes from the divine effulgence Then thou didst keep with Strong Urthona the living gates of heaven But now thou art bound down with him even to the gates of hell Because thou gavest Urizen the wine of the Almighty For steeds of Light that they might run in thy golden chariot of pride I gave to thee the Steeds I pourd the stolen wine And drunken with the immortal draught fell from my throne sublime I will arise Explore these dens & find that deep pulsation That shakes my caverns with strong shudders. perhaps this is the night Of Prophecy & Luvah hath burst his way from Enitharmon When Thought is closd in Caves. Then love shall shew its root in deepest Hell

End of the Fifth Night

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440 "wolfy." The man returned, put out the pine-knot—the linch-pin could not be found—and another quarter of an hour was spent in repairing with all sorts of odds and ends. How much longer Ingalls could, or would, have held the horses, we never asked him, as from different exclamations we heard him utter we thought it well to be silent on that subject. The day dawned fair and beautiful. I ran a mile or so ahead of the coach to warm my feet, and afterwards sat by the driver to obtain, if possible, some information about the country, which became poorer and poorer as our journey proceeded. We were all very hungry, and were told the "stand" stood twenty-five miles from the lost linch-pin. I asked our driver to stop wherever he thought we could procure a dozen or so of hard-boiled eggs and some coffee, or indeed anything eatable; so he drew up at a house where the owner looked us over, and said it would be quite impossible to provide a breakfast for six persons of our appearance. We passed on and soon came on the track of a tolerably large bear, in the road, and at last reached the breakfast ground at a house on the margin of Green Lake, a place where fish and game, in the season, abound. This lake forms part of the channel which was intended to be cut for connecting by canal the Atlantic, the Baie of Fundy, and the Gulf of St. Lawrence, at Bay Verte. Ninety thousand pounds have been expended, but the canal is not finished, and probably never will-be; for we are told the government will not assist the company by which it was undertaken, and private spirit is slumbering. We had an excellent breakfast at this house, seventeen miles from Halifax; this place would be a most delightful summer residence. The road was now level, but narrow; the flag of the Halifax garrison was seen when two miles distant. Suddenly we turned short, and stopped at a gate fronting a wharf, where was a small ferry-boat. Here we were detained nearly an hour; how would this work in the States? Why did Mrs. Trollope not visit Halifax?

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

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Rh 'Dost thou not understand, Pierre?' said Lucy, eyeing with concern and wonder his pale, staring aspect—'The waves: it is the motion of the waves that Isabel speaks of. Look, they are rolling, direct from the sea now.'

Again Pierre lapsed into a still stranger silence and revery.

It was impossible altogether to resist the force of this striking corroboration of by far the most surprising and improbable thing in the whole surprising and improbable story of Isabel. Well did he remember her vague reminiscence of the teetering sea, that did not slope exactly as the floors of the unknown, abandoned, old house among the French-like mountains.

While plunged in these mutually neutralising thoughts of the strange picture and the last exclamations of Isabel, the boat arrived at its destination—a little hamlet on the beach, not very far from the great blue sluice-way into the ocean, which was now yet more distinctly visible than before.

'Don't let us stop here,' cried Isabel. 'Look, let us go through there! Bell must go through there! See! see! out there upon the blue! yonder, yonder! far away—out, out!—far, far away, and away, and away, out there! where the two blues meet, and are nothing—Bell must go!'

'Why, Isabel,' murmured Lucy, 'that would be to go to far England or France; thou wouldst find but few friends in far France, Isabel.'

'Friends in far France? And what friends have I here?—Art thou my friend? In thy secret heart dost thou wish me well? And for thee, Pierre, what am I but a vile clog to thee; dragging thee back from all thy felicity? Yes, I will go yonder—yonder; out there! I will, I will! Unhand me! Let me plunge!'

For an instant, Lucy looked incoherently from one to

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496 the other. But both she and Pierre now mechanically again seized Isabel's frantic arms, as they were again thrown over the outer rail of the boat. They dragged her back; they spoke to her; they soothed her; but though less vehement, Isabel still looked deeply distrustfully at Lucy, and deeply reproachfully at Pierre.

They did not leave the boat as intended; too glad were they all, when it unloosed from its fastenings, and turned about upon the backward trip.

Stepping to shore, Pierre once more hurried his companions through the unavoidable publicity of the thoroughfares; but less rapidly proceeded, as soon as they gained the more secluded streets.

IV

Gaining the Apostles', and leaving his two companions to the privacy of their chambers, Pierre sat silent and intent by the stove in the dining-room for a time, and then was on the point of entering his closet from the corridor, when Delly, suddenly following him, said to him, that she had forgotten to mention it before, but he would find two letters in his room, which had been separately left at the door during the absence of the party.

He passed into the closet, and slowly shooting the bolt—which, for want of something better, happened to be an old blunted dagger—walked, with his cap yet unmoved, slowly up to the table, and beheld the letters. They were lying with their sealed sides up; one in either hand, he lifted them; and held them straight out sideways from him.

'I see not the writing; know not yet, by mine own eye, that they are meant for me; yet, in these hands I feel that I now hold the final poniards that shall stab me;

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Rh we see to the westward. The buildings, though principally of wood, are good-looking, and as cleanly as those in our pretty eastern villages, white, with green shutters. The style of the people, be it loyal or otherwise, is extremely genteel, and I was more than pleased with all those whom I saw. The coach is at the door, the cover of my trunk is gaping to receive this poor book, and therefore once more, good-night. August 24. Wind due east, hauling to the northeast, good for the "Ripley." We are now at Halifax in Nova Scotia, but let me tell thee how and in what manner we reached it. It was eleven last night when we seated ourselves in the coach; the night was beautiful, and the moon shone brightly. We could only partially observe the country until the morning broke; but the road we can swear was hilly, and our horses lazy, or more probably very poor. After riding twenty miles, we stopped a good hour to change horses and warm ourselves. John went to sleep, but the rest of us had some supper, served by a very handsome country girl. At the call, "Coach ready!" we jumped in, and had advanced perhaps a mile and a half when the linch-pin broke, and there we were at a stand-still. Ingalls took charge of the horses, and responded with great energy to the calls of the owls that came from the depths of the woods, where they were engaged either at praying to Diana or at calling to their parents, friends, and distant relations. John, Lincoln, and Shattuck, always ready for a nap, made this night no exception; Coolidge and I, not trusting altogether to Ingalls' wakefulness, kept awake and prayed to be shortly delivered from this most disagreeable of travelling experiences, detention at all times to be avoided if possible, and certainly to be dreaded on a chilly night in this latitude. Looking up the road, the vacillating glimmer of the flame intended to assist the coachman in the recovery of the lost linch-pin was all that could be distinguished, for by this the time was what is called

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Rh and by stabbing me, make me too a most swift stabber in the recoil. Which point first?—this!'

He tore open the left-hand letter:—

':—You are a swindler. Upon the pretence of writing a popular novel for us, you have been receiving cash advances from us, while passing through our press the sheets of a blasphemous rhapsody, filched from the vile Atheists, Lucian and Voltaire. Our great press of publication has hitherto prevented our slightest inspection of our reader's proofs of your book. Send not another sheet to us. Our bill for printing thus far, and also for our cash advances, swindled out of us by you, is now in the hands of our lawyer, who is instructed to proceed with instant rigour.

(Signed)

He folded the left-hand letter, and put it beneath his left heel, and stood upon it so; and then opened the right-hand letter.

'Thou, Pierre Glendinning, art a villainous and perjured liar. It is the sole object of this letter imprintedly to convey the point-blank lie to thee; that taken in at thy heart, it may be thence pulsed with thy blood, throughout thy system. We have let some interval pass inactive, to confirm and solidify our hate. Separately, and together, we brand thee, in thy every lung-cell, a liar;—liar, because that is the scornfullest and loathsomest title for a man; which in itself is the compend of all infamous things.

(Signed)

He folded the right-hand letter, and put it beneath his right heel; then folding his two arms, stood upon both letters.

'These are most small circumstances; but happening

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498 just now to me, become indices to all immensities. For now am I hate-shod! On these I will skate to my acquittal! No longer do I hold terms with aught. World's bread of life, and world's breath of honour, both are snatched from me; but I defy all world's bread and breath. Here I step out before the drawn-up worlds in widest space, and challenge one and all of them to battle! Oh, Glen! oh, Fred! most fraternally do I leap to your rib-crushing hugs! Oh, how I love ye two, that yet can make me lively hate, in a world which elsewise only merits stagnant scorn!—Now, then, where is this swindler's, this coiner's book? Here, on this vile counter, over which the coiner thought to pass it to the world, here will I nail it fast, for a detected cheat! And thus nailed fast now, do I spit upon it, and so get the start of the wise world's worst abuse of it! Now I go out to meet my fate, walking toward me in the street.'

As with hat on, and Glen and Frederic's letter invisibly crumpled in his hand, he—as it were somnambulously—passed into the room of Isabel, she gave loose to a thin, long shriek, at his wondrous white and haggard plight; and then, without the power to stir toward him, sat petrified in her chair, as one embalmed and glazed with icy varnish.

He heeded her not, but passed straight on through both intervening rooms, and without a knock unpremeditatedly entered Lucy's chamber. He would have passed out of that, also, into the corridor, without one word; but something stayed him.

The marble girl sat before her easel; a small box of pointed charcoal, and some pencils by her side; her painter's wand held out against the frame; the charcoal-pencil suspended in two fingers, while with the same hand, holding a crust of bread, she was lightly brushing the portrait-paper, to efface some ill-considered stroke.

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438 afternoon at a wayside house. The rain poured down; two ladies and a gentleman—the husband of one of them—had arrived before us in an open cart, or "jersey," and I, with all the gallantry of my nature, at once offered to change vehicles with them. They accepted the exchange at once, but did not even thank us in return. Shattuck, Ingalls, and I jumped into the open cart when dinner was ended. I was seated by a very so-so Irish dame named Katy; her husband was our driver. Our exchange proved a most excellent one: the weather cleared up; we saw the country much better than we could have done in the coach. To our surprise we were suddenly passed by Professor McCullough, who said he would see us at Truro. Towards sunset we arrived in view of this pretty, scattered village, in sight of the head waters of the Bay of Fundy. What a delightful sensation at that moment ran through my frame, as I realized that I was within a few days of home! We reached the tavern, or hotel, or whatever else the house of stoppage might be called, but as only three of us could be accommodated there we went across the street to another. Professor McCullough came in and introduced us to several members of the Assembly of this Province, and I was handed several pinches of snuff by the Professor, who loves it. We tried in vain to obtain a conveyance for ourselves to-morrow morning instead of going by coach to-night; it could not be done. Professor McCullough then took me to the house of Samuel George Archibald, Esq., Speaker of the Assembly, who introduced me to his wife and handsome young daughter. I showed them a few drawings, and received a letter from Mr. Archibald to the Chief Justice of Halifax, and now we are waiting for the mail coach to proceed to that place. The village of Truro demands a few words. It is situated in the middle of a most beautiful valley, of great extent and well cultivated; several brooks water this valley, and empty into the Bay of Fundy, the broad expanse of which

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Rh The floor was scattered with the bread-crumbs and charcoal dust; he looked behind the easel, and saw his own portrait, in the skeleton.

At the first glimpse of him, Lucy started not, nor stirred; but as if her own wand had there enchanted her, sat tranced.

'Dead embers of departed fires lie by thee, thou pale girl; with dead embers thou seekest to relume the flame of all extinguished love! Waste not so that bread; eat it—in bitterness!'

He turned, and entered the corridor, and then, with outstretched arms, paused between the two outer doors of Isabel and Lucy.

'For ye two, my most undiluted prayer is now, that from your here unseen and frozen chairs ye may never stir alive;—the fool of Truth, the fool of Virtue, the fool of Fate, now quits ye forever!'

As he now sped down the long winding passage, someone eagerly hailed him from a stair.

'What, what, my boy? where now in such a squally hurry? Hallo, I say!'

But without heeding him at all, Pierre drove on. Millthorpe looked anxiously and alarmedly after him a moment, then made a movement in pursuit, but paused again.

'There was ever a black vein in this Glendinning; and now that vein is swelled, as if it were just one peg above a tourniquet drawn over-tight. I scarce durst dog him now; yet my heart misgives me that I should.—Shall I go to his rooms and ask what black thing this is that hath befallen him?—No; not yet;—might be thought officious—they say I'm given to that. I'll wait; something may turn up soon. I'll into the front street, and saunter some; and then—we'll see.'

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Rh August 23. We had an excellent Scotch breakfast at Professor McCullough's. His whole family were present, four sons and a daughter, besides his wife and her sister. I became more pleased with the professor the more he talked. I showed a few Labrador drawings, after which we went in a body to the University, once more to examine his fine collection. I found there half a dozen specimens of birds which I longed for and said so; the Professor had the cases opened, the specimens taken out, and he offered them to me with so much apparent good will that I took them. He then asked me to look around and not to leave any object which might be of assistance in my publication; but so generous had he already proved himself that I remained mute; I saw several I would have liked to have, but I could not mention them. He offered me all his fresh-water shells, and any minerals I might choose. I took a few specimens of iron and copper. I am much surprised that this valuable collection is not purchased by the government of the Province; he offered it for £500. I think it well worth £1,000. Thou wilt say I am an enthusiast; to this I will reply—True, but there are many more in the world, particularly in Europe. On our return to the "Royal Oak" we were called on by Mr. Blanchard, the deputy consul for the United States, an agreeable man, who offered to do whatever he could for us; but the coach was almost ready, our birds were packed, our bill paid, and the coach rolled off. I walked on ahead with Mr. Blanchard for about a mile; he spoke much of England, and knew John Adamson of Newcastle and other friends there. The coach came up, and we said farewell. The wind had commenced to blow, and soon rain fell heavily; we went on smoothly, the road being as good as any in England, and broader. We passed through a fine tract of country, well wooded, well cultivated, and a wonderful relief to our eyes after the barren and desolate regions of rocks, snow, tempests, and storms. We stopped to dine at four in the

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500 V

Pierre passed on to a remote quarter of the building, and abruptly entered the room of one of the Apostles whom he knew. There was no one in it. He hesitated an instant; then walked up to a book-case, with a chest of drawers in the lower part.

'Here I saw him put them:—this,—no—here—ay—we'll try this.'

Wrenching open the locked drawer, a brace of pistols, a powder flask, a bullet-bag, and a round green box of percussion-caps lay before him.

'Ha! what wondrous tools Prometheus used, who knows? but more wondrous these, that in an instant, can unmake the topmost three-score-years-and-ten of all Prometheus' makings. Come: here's two tubes that'll outroar the thousand pipes of Harlem.—Is the music in 'em?—No?—Well, then, here's powder for the shrill treble; and wadding for the tenor; and a lead bullet for the concluding bass! And,—and,—and,—ay; for the top-wadding, I'll send 'em back their lie, and plant it scorching in their brains!'

He tore off that part of Glen and Fred's letter, which more particularly gave the lie; and halving it, rammed it home upon the bullets.

He thrust a pistol into either breast of his coat; and taking the rearward passages, went down into the back street; directing his rapid steps toward the grand central thoroughfare of the city.

It was a cold, but clear, quiet, and slantingly sunny day; it was between four and five of the afternoon; that hour, when the great glaring avenue was most thronged with haughty-rolling carriages, and proud-rustling promenaders, both men and women. But these last were

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436 such insect does either Labrador or Newfoundland afford. The voice of a Blue Jay was melody to me, and the sight of a Humming-bird quite filled my heart with delight. We were conveyed a short distance from the island to the main; Ingalls and Coolidge remained in the boat, and the rest of us took the road, along which we moved as lightly as if boys just out of school. The roads were good, or seemed to be so; the woods were all of tall timber, and the air that circulated freely was filled with perfume. Almost every plant we saw brought to mind some portion of the United States; in a word, all of us felt quite happy. Now and then, as we crossed a hill and looked back over the sea, we saw our beautiful vessel sailing freely before the wind, and as she gradually neared the horizon, she looked like a white speck, or an Eagle high in air. We wished our captain a most safe voyage to Quoddy. We arrived opposite Pictou in two hours and a half, and lay down on the grass to await the arrival of the boat, enjoying the scenery around us. A number of American vessels were in the harbor, loading with coal; the village, placed at the upper end of a fine bay, looked well, though small. Three churches rose above the rest of the buildings, all of which are of wood, and several vessels were on the stocks. The whole country appeared in a high state of cultivation, and looked well; the population is about two thousand. Our boat came, we crossed the bay, and put up at the "Royal Oak," the best house, and have had what seemed to be, after our recent fare, a most excellent supper. The very treading on a carpeted floor was quite wonderful. This evening we called on Professor McCullough, who received us very kindly, gave us a glass of wine, showed his fine collection of well-preserved birds and other things, and invited us to breakfast to-morrow at eight, when we are again to inspect his curiosities. The Professor's mansion is a quarter of a mile out of town, and looks much like a small English villa.

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Author:Giovanni Francesco Straparola

Works

 * or Le piacevoli notti (1550)
 * The Nights of Straparola in two volumes, translated by W. G. Waters (1894)

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Rh August 21. To-day the storm ceased, but the wind is still so adverse that we could make no port of Newfoundland; towards this island we steered, for none of us wished to return to Labrador. We tried to enter the Strait of Canseau, but the wind failed us; while the vessel lay becalmed we decided to try to reach Pictou in Nova Scotia and travel by land. We are now beating about towards that port and hope to reach it early to-morrow morning. The great desire we all have to see Pictou, Halifax, and the country between them and Eastport, is our inducement. August 22. After in vain attempting to reach Pictou, we concluded, after dinner, that myself and party should be put ashore anywhere, and the "Ripley" should sail back towards the Straits of Canseau, the wind and tide being favorable. We drank a glass of wine to our wives and our friends, and our excellent little captain took us to the shore, while the vessel stood still, with all sails up, awaiting his return. We happened to land on an island called Ruy's Island, where, fortunately for us, we found some men making hay. Two of these we engaged to carry our trunks and two of the party to this place, Pictou, for two dollars—truly cheap. Our effects, or rather those we needed, were soon put up, we all shook hands most heartily with the captain—to whom we now feel really attached—said farewell to the crew, and parted, giving three hearty cheers. We were now, thanks to God, positively on the mainland of our native country, and after four days' confinement in our berths, and sick of sea-sickness, the sea and all its appurtenances, we felt so refreshed that the thought of walking nine miles seemed like nothing more than dancing a quadrille. The air felt deliciously warm, the country, compared with those we have so lately left, appeared perfectly beautiful, and the smell of the new-mown grass was the sweetest that ever existed. Even the music of the crickets was delightful to mine ears, for no

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454 I saw Gideon B. Smith and a few other friends, and on the next morning we entered the cars for Cumberland, which we reached the same evening about six. Here we had all our effects weighed, and were charged thirty dollars additional weight—a first-rate piece of robbery. We went on now by coaches, entering the gap, and ascending the Alleghanies amid a storm of snow, which kept us company for about forty hours, when we reached Wheeling, which we left on the 16th of March, and went on board the steamer, that brought us to Cincinnati all safe.

We saw much game on our way, such as Geese, Ducks, etc., but no Turkeys as in times of yore. We left for Louisville in the U. S. mail steamer, and arrived there before daylight on the 19th inst. My companions went to the Scott House, and I to William G. Bakewell's, whose home I reached before the family were up. I remained there four days, and was, of course, most kindly treated; and, indeed, during my whole stay in this city of my youth I did enjoy myself famously well, with dancing, dinner-parties, etc. We left for St. Louis on board the ever-to-be-remembered steamer "Gallant," and after having been struck by a log which did not send us to the bottom, arrived on the 28th of March.

On the 4th of April, Harris went off to Edwardsville, with the rest of my companions, and I went to Nicholas Berthoud, who began housekeeping here that day, though Eliza was not yet arrived from Pittsburgh. My time at St. Louis would have been agreeable to any one fond of company, dinners, and parties; but of these matters I am not, though I did dine at three different houses, bon gré, mal gré. In fact, my time was spent procuring, arranging, and superintending the necessary objects for the comfort and utility of the party attached to my undertaking. The Chouteaux supplied us with most things, and, let it be said to their honor, at little or no profit. Captain Sire took me in a light wagon to see old Mr. Chouteau one afternoon,

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 THE SECOND

INTERNATIONAL FOLK-LORE CONGRESS,

1891.


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 1891.

EDITED BY

JOSEPH JACOBS AND ALFRED NUTT,

CHAIRMAN AND HON. SECRETARY OF THE LITERARY COMMITTEE.

Published for the Organising Committee by

DAVID NUTT, 270-271, STRAND, LONDON.

1892.


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 All rights reserved.


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 PAGE . . . vii Transactions of the Second International Folk-Congress/Introduction. . . xiii (comprising List of International Folk-Lore Council). xxiv . — Presidential Address. . . . 1

FOLK-TALE SECTION.

. — Chairman's Address. . 15 .— Lady Featherflight, an inedited Folk-tale … 40
 * Discussion . . . . .65

. — Quelques Observations sur les "Incidents communs aux Contes Européens et aux Contes Orientaux". . 67 . — The Science of Folk-Tales and the Problem of Diffusion. .... 76
 * . List of Folk-Tale Incidents common to European Folk-tales, with Bibliographical References, and Map . . 87
 * Discussion ..... 99

.— The Historical Aspect of Folk-Lore 103
 * Discussion . . . 110

. — Problems of Heroic Legend. . 113 . — La Chanson Populaire en Finlande. . 135 MYTHOLOGICAL SECTION. (Myth, Ritual, and Magic.) . — Chairman's Address. . 143 . — Le Mythe de l'Odyssée. . . 161 . — Etrusco-Roman Remains in Modern Tuscan Tradition. 185
 * Discussion . . . 20l

. — The Holy Names of the Eleusinian Priests. . 202
 * Appendix ..... 212

. — The Origins of Mythology. . 215
 * Discussion .... . 226

. — Among the Voodoos 230
 * Discussion ...... 248

. — The Saliva Superstition. . 249


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vi INSTITUTION AND CUSTOM SECTION. . — Chairman's Address. .261 . — On a Comparative Study of Indo-European Customs, with special reference to the Marriage Customs. 267
 * Discussion . . ... 289

. — The Influence of the Gypsies on the Superstitions of the English Folk .... 292 D:iscussion ... .. 308 . — Indian Institutions and Feudalism. . 309 . — The Testimony of Folk-Lore to the European or Asiatic Origin of the Aryans .... 322 . — The Non-Aryan Origin of Agricultural Institutions. . . 348
 * Discussion ...... 356

. — The Origins of Institutions. . 357 . —The Tinwald. . . 379 _________ GENERAL THEORY AND CLASSIFICATION SECTION. . — Exhibition of Charms and Amulets 387
 * Discussion . . . . 394

. — The Significance of Folk-Lore 395 . — Sinhalese Folk-Lore 408 . — On the Progress of Folk-Lore Collections in Esthonia, with special reference to the work of Pastor Jacob Hurt. 427 . — Courtes Notices sur le feu Dr. G. J. Schoultz. . . . 430 .... 433 461  .... 465


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,—We are met to begin, for Folk-lorists will not say to "inaugurate", the second Folk Lore Congress. The honour of having to welcome you is to me embarrassing in more ways than one. I feel that, among so many students, far more learned and more specially devoted to our topic, I am but an amateur, and again, that on the matters of which I am least ignorant 1 have said, many times, at least all that I know. Leaving this personal apology, one may be asked what is the purpose of our congress. The cynic will say that we, like all congresses, want to advertise, if not ourselves, at least our objects; or, if he be more polite, that we want to keep our objects before the public. And so we do. In these studies of ours every one may help us; from the mother who observes the self-developed manners and the curious instincts of her children, to the clergyman who can record the superstitions of his flock, or the rural usages that survive from a dateless antiquity. Folk-lore, as we shall see, is very much like that study of man which the poet recommends to mankind; it is a study to which every one who keeps his eyes open can contribute. For example, I lately had the pleasure of meeting a young lady who, unconsciously, was the very muse of Folk-lore, and perpetuated all the mental habits which we attribute to early if not to primitive man. When she met a flock of sheep she said, "September 12, 1891, "and this she repeated thrice for luck. On encountering a number of cows she remarked whether


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 2 they divided on the road, or all took one side. Thence she drew auguries of prosperous or evil fortune. If she found a crow's feather in the fields she stuck it erect in the grass, and wished a wish. Old pieces of iron she carefully threw over her left shoulder, and when this is done in London streets it must be performed with caution, for it is unlucky to hit a citizen in the eye. She kissed her hand to the new moon. If there were three candles alight, she blew one out, not from motives of economy, but because three lighted candles arow are unlucky. She was perturbed by winding-sheets in a candle; she tried to count nine stars on nine consecutive nights—a thing difficult to do in this cloudy climate; spilt salt greatly exercised her mind, though, unlike another Folk-lorist, she did not spill the claret over it. She was retentive of old superstitions, and to new ones her intellect was as hospitable as the Pantheon of the Romans. One could not have a better example of the early mental habit which finds omens in all things, as in the flight of birds, especially magpies—in fact she was a survival or proof of how, in the midst of an incredulous civilisation, the instinct of superstition may linger in full force. We can all observe this ancient and long-enduring vein of human nature, which would survive religion if religion perished, and if all priesthoods fell, and all temples, would suffice to build up altars and rituals anew. Our congress, therefore, may help to suggest to people that they are living among mental phenomena well worth noting, and, in some cases, well worth recording. We can tell the world that it has in itself and around it the materials of a study at least as interesting as botany or geology. The materials of geology or botany we must seek in fields, and mountains, and road-metal; the materials of Folk-lore, of popular and primeval belief, we can find wherever there are human beings. It is also our part to show the conclusions, as wide as human fate and human fortunes, to which our perusal of the facts may guide us. And thus we may win a few new disciples to Folk-lore, and, I sincerely trust, a few more subscribers


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 Rh to the Folk-lore Society. To keep all this before the public is, let us frankly admit, the object of the congress. We also want to see each other's faces as we read each other's works, and to enjoy some personal discussion of matters in which there is much diversity of opinion. Probably we shall squabble; I hope we shall do so with humour and good humour. There may be solar mythologists here, or persons who believe in the white Archaian races, who gave their rosy daughters, and with them laws, to black, red, brown, and yellow peoples. These views do not recommend themselves to my own reasoning faculties; my notions do not recommend themselves to the solar mythologists and the Archaian whites, but that is no reason why we should not discuss them in a friendly spirit, and take a cup of kindness yet for auld lang syne. A congress has a perfect right to any social enjoyments within its reach, and if any one can sing folk-songs, or dance the beggar's dance to please us, like Paupakeewis in Hiawatha, I trust that the opportunity and the desire to oblige may not be absent. There is no use in confounding each other for our theories of customs or myths, and, in the acerbity of their bickers, our fathers, the old antiquarians, taught us what to avoid.

After these few prefatory remarks on the purpose of the congress I may endeavour to explain what we mean or, at all events, what I mean, by Folk-lore. When the word was first introduced, by Mr. Thoms, it meant little, perhaps, but the observing and recording of various superstitions, stories, customs, proverbs, songs, fables, and so forth. But the science has gradually increased its scope, till it has, taken almost all human life for its province. Indeed if any one asks how and where Folk-lore differs from anthropology, I am rather at a loss for a reply. When antiquarians such as our own old Aubrey began to examine rural usages and superstitions, like the maypole and the harvest home, they saw—they could hardly help seeing—that the practices of the folk, of the peasant class everywhere, were


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 LADY FEATHERFLIGHT: AN INEDITED

FOLK -TALE

.

woman, living on the edge of a wood, came at last where she found nothing in the cupboard for next day's breakfast. She called the boy Reuben, and said: "You must now go into the wide world, for if you stay here there will be two of us to starve. I have nothing for you but this piece of black bread. On the other side of the forest lies the world. Find your way to it, and earn your living honestly." She bade him good-bye, and he started. He knew his way some distance out into the blackest part of the forest, for he had often gone there for faggots. But after walking all day he saw no path or tree, and knew that he was lost. Still he travelled on and on, as long as the daylight lasted, and then lay down and slept.

The next morning he ate his black bread, and walked on all day. At night he saw lights before him, and was guided by them to a large palace. At last the door was opened, and a lovely lady appeared. She said, as she saw him, "Go away as quickly as you can. My father will soon come home, and he will surely eat you." Reuben said, "Can't you hide me, and give me something to eat, or I shall fall dead at your door?" At first she refused, but afterwards yielded to Reuben's prayers, and told him to come in and hide behind the oven. Then she gave him food, and told him that her father was a giant, who ate men and women. Perhaps she could keep him overnight, as she already had supper prepared. After awhile, the giant came banging at the door, shouting, "Featherflight, let me in, let me in." As she opened the door, he came in, saying, "Where have you stowed the man? I smelt him all the way through that wood." Featherflight said: "O father, he is nothing but a poor little thin boy; he would make but half a mouthful, and his bones


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12 Satan's intellectual and moral character was not the offspring of the same creative faculty which gave birth to his Garden of Eden? After such a definition, however, it is difficult to conceive how so very acute a writer should have referred to Imagination the abstractions of the geometer and of the metaphysician; and still more, that he should have attempted to justify this reference, by observing, that these abstractions do not fall under the cognizance of the senses. My own opinion is, that in the composition of the whole passage he had a view to the unexpected parallel between Homer and Archimedes, with which he meant, at the close, to surprise his readers.

If the foregoing strictures be well founded, it seems to follow, not only that the attempt of Bacon and of D'Alembert to classify the sciences and arts according to a logical division of our faculties, is altogether unsatisfactory, but that every future attempt of the same kind may be expected to be liable to similar objections. In studying, indeed, the Theory of the Mind, it is necessary to push our analysis as far as the nature of the subject admits of; and, wherever the thing is possible, to examine its constituent principles separately and apart from each other: but this consideration itself, when combined with what was before stated on the endless variety of forms in which they may be blended together in our various intellectual pursuits, is sufficient to shew how ill adapted such an analysis must for ever remain to serve as the basis of an Encyclopedical distribution.

The circumstance to which this part of Bacon's philosophy is


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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Fichel, Eugène

FICHEL, fē-shel, Eugène, French painter: b. Paris, 30 Aug. 1826; d. there, 2 Feb. 1895. He entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1844 and became a pupil of Delaroche, but painted very much more under the inspiration of Meissonier, whose exquisite handling is suggested in numerous small canvases of his which by their refined technique and vivid action recall the characteristic intensity and directness of composition which belong to the painter of ‘Friedland.’ The principal works of Fichel are of a high order of genre, and include, ‘The End of Dinner’; ‘A Festival in the Year 1776’; ‘The Capture of a Spy’; ‘The Wandering Singers,’ etc., and the following historic pictures, which have the freedom and imagination of pure genre: ‘The Night of August 24, 1572’; ‘Founding of the French Academy.’ He was a chevalier of the Legion of Honor and, in 1857, received a medal for his painting in the Salon of that year. In the latter he exhibited a canvas every year, up to a few years before his death. Many of his pictures are in galleries all over the world. Two of his paintings, ‘A Violin Player,’ executed in 1871, and ‘Awaiting an Audience,’ painted in 1881, are in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art. Consult Montrosier, E., ‘Les Artistes Modernes’ (Vol. IV, Paris 1884).


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Rh chiefly indebted for its popularity, is the specious simplicity and comprehensiveness of the distribution itself—not the soundness of the logical views by which it was suggested. That all our intellectual pursuits may be referred to one or other of these three heads—History, Philosophy, and Poetry, may undoubtedly be said with considerable plausibility; the word history being understood to comprehend all our knowledge of particular facts and particular events; the word philosophy, all the general conclusions or laws inferred from these particulars by induction; and the word poetry, all the arts addressed to the imagination. Not that the enumeration, even with the help of this comment, can be considered as complete, for (to pass over entirely the other objections already stated) under which of these three heads shall we arrange the various branches of pure mathematics? Are we therefore to conclude, that the magnificent design conceived by Bacon, of enumerating, defining, and classifying the multifarious objects of human knowledge—(a design, on the successful accomplishment of which he himself believed that the advancement of the sciences essentially depended)—are we to conclude that this design was nothing more than the abortive offspring of a warm imagination, unsusceptible of any useful application to enlighten the mind, or to accelerate its progress? My own idea is widely different. The design was, in every respect, worthy of the sublime genius by which it was formed. Nor does it follow, because the execution was imperfect, that the attempt has been attended with no advantage. At the period when Bacon wrote, it was of much more consequence to exhibit to the learned a comprehensive sketch, than an accurate survey of the intellectual world; such a sketch as, by pointing out to those whose views had been hitherto confined within the limits of particular regions, the relative positions and bearings of their respective districts, as parts of one great whole, might invite them all, for the common benefit, to a reciprocal exchange of their local riches. The societies or academies which, soon after, sprung up in different countries of Europe, for the avowed purpose of contributing to the general mass of information, by the collection of insulated facts, conjectures, and


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 4 remains of Gentilism or heathenism. The Puritans knew this very well, and if they hated the Maypole in the Strand, it was because they knew it to be at least as old as Troy, whose fate, as we know, it has shared.

The Puritans were conscious that much Pagan custom had been tolerated by the Church, and had survived, not only in ecclesiastical usage, but in popular festivals. The folk, the people, had changed the names of the objects of its worship, had saints in place of Gods, but had not given up the festival of May night, nor ceased to revere, under new titles, the nereids or the lares, the fairies or the browny. All these survivals the Puritans attacked and the old antiquarians obsei-ved, comparing early English customs with the manners of Greece and Rome. In these studies lay the origin of our modern Folk-lore, now far wider in scope, and better equipped with knowledge of many tales ancient and modern. For example, Acosta found in Peru rites which at once resembled those of the Church, those of our own harvest homes, and those of the Eleusinian mysteries and the practices of the Greek Thesmophoria. The earlier observers explained such coincidences in various ways. They thought that the devil in America deliberately parodied the ceremonial and doctrine of the Church. Or they thought that the lost tribes of Israel, in their wanderings, had carried all over the world the ritual of Judaism. At the end of the seventeenth century, Spencer, the master of C. C. C. Cambridge, reached a theory more like our own. He saw that the Jewish ritual was not an original pattern, from which heathen ritual was perverted, but was, as I have elsewhere said, a divinely licensed version of, or selection from, the religious uses of Eastern peoples in general. We have now expanded this idea, and find in the Jewish ritual a monotheistic and expurgated example of rites common, not to Semitic or Eastern peoples only, but common to all races


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14 queries, afford sufficient proof that the anticipations of Bacon were not, in this instance, altogether chimerical. In examining the details of Bacon's survey, it is impossible not to be struck (more especially when we reflect on the state of learning two hundred years ago) with the minuteness of his information, as well as with the extent of his views; or to forbear admiring his sagacity in pointing out, to future adventurers, the unknown tracts still left to be explored by human curiosity. If his classifications be sometimes artificial and arbitrary, they have at least the merit of including, under one head or another, every particular of importance; and of exhibiting these particulars with a degree of method and of apparent connexion, which, if it does not always satisfy the judgment, never fails to interest the fancy, and to lay hold of the memory. Nor must it be forgotten, to the glory of his genius, that what lie failed to accomplish remains to this day a desideratum in science,—that the intellectual chart delineated by him is, with all its imperfections, the only one of which modern philosophy has yet to boast;—and that the united talents of D'Alembert and of Diderot, aided by all the lights of the eighteenth century, have been able to add but little to what Bacon performed. After the foregoing observations, it will not be expected that an attempt is to be made, in the following essay, to solve a problem which has so recently baffled the powers of these eminent writers; and which will probably long continue to exercise the ingenuity of our successors. How much remains to be previously done for the improvement of that part of logic, whose province it is to fix the limits by winch contiguous departments of study are defined and separated! And how many unsuspected affinities may be reasonably presumed to exist among sciences, which, to our circumscribed views, appear at present the most alien from each other! The abstract geometry of Apollonius and Archimedes was found, after an interval of two thousand years, to furnish a torch to the physical inquiries of Newton; while, in the farther progress of knowledge, the Etymology of Languages has been happily employed to fill up the chasms of Ancient History; and the conclusions of


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Author:John Spencer

Works

 * De Legibus Hebraeorum, Ritualibus et earum Rationibus libri tres
 * A Discourse concerning Prodigies, wherein the vanety of Presages by them is reprehended, and their true and proper Ends asserted and vindicated, London, 1663; 2nd edit.
 * Treatise concerning Vulgar Prophecies, London, 1665

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Rh Anatomy, to illustrate the Theory of the Earth. For my own part, even if the task were executed with the most complete success, I should be strongly inclined to think, that its appropriate place in an Encyclopædia would be as a branch of the article on Logic;—certainly not as an exordium to the Preliminary Discourse; the enlarged and refined views which it necessarily presupposes being peculiarly unsuitable to that part of the work which may be expected, in the first instance, to attract the curiosity of every reader. As, upon this point, however, there may be some diversity of opinion, I have prevailed on the Editor to add to these introductory Essays a translation of D'Alembert's Discourse, and of Diderot's Prospectus. No English version of either has, as far as I know, been hitherto published; and the result of their joint ingenuity, exerted on Bacon's ground-work, must for ever fix no inconsiderable era in the history of learning. Before concluding this preface, I shall subjoin a few slight strictures on a very concise and comprehensive division of the objects of Human Knowledge, proposed by Mr. Locke, as the basis of a new classification of the sciences. Although I do not know that any attempt has ever been made to follow out in detail the general idea, yet the repeated approbation which has been lately bestowed on a division essentially the same, by several writers of the highest rank, renders it in some measure necessary, on the present occasion, to consider how far it is founded on just principles; more especially as it is completely at variance, not only with the language and arrangement adopted in these preliminary essays, but with the whole of that plan on which the original projectors, as well as the continuators, of the Encyclopædia Britannica appear to have proceeded. These strictures will, at the same tune, afford an additional proof of the difficulty, or rather of the impossibility, in the actual state of logical science, of solving this great problem, in a manner calculated to unite the general suffrages of philosophers. "All that can fall," says Mr. Locke," within the compass of Human Understanding being either, first, The nature of things


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Rh and I found the worthy old gentleman so kind and so full of information about the countries of the Indians that I returned to him a few days afterwards, not only for the sake of the pleasure I enjoyed in his conversation, but also with the view to procure, both dead and alive, a species of Pouched Rat (Pseudostoma bursarius) wonderfully abundant in this section of country. One day our friend Harris came back, and brought with him the prepared skins of birds and quadrupeds they had collected, and informed me that they had removed their quarters to B——'s. He left the next day, after we had made an arrangement for the party to return the Friday following, which they did. I drew four figures of Pouched Rats, and outlined two figures of Sciurus capistratus which is here called " Fox Squirrel."

The 25th of April at last made its appearance, the rivers were now opened, the weather was growing warm, and every object in nature proved to us that at last the singularly lingering winter of 1842 and 1843 was over. Having conveyed the whole of our effects on board the steamer, and being supplied with excellent letters, we left St. Louis at 11.30 A. M., with Mr. Sarpy on board, and a hundred and one trappers of all descriptions and nearly a dozen different nationalities, though the greater number were French Canadians, or Creoles of this State. Some were drunk, and many in that stupid mood which follows a state of nervousness produced by drinking and over-excitement. Here is the scene that took place on board the "Omega" at our departure, and what followed when the roll was called.

First the general embarkation, when the men came in

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456 pushing and squeezing each other, so as to make the boards they walked upon fairly tremble. The Indians, poor souls, were more quiet, and had already seated or squatted themselves on the highest parts of the steamer, and were tranquil lookers-on. After about three quarters of an hour, the crew and all the trappers (these are called engagés) were on board, and we at once pushed off and up the stream, thick and muddy as it was. The whole of the effects and the baggage of the engagés was arranged in the main cabin, and presently was seen Mr. Sarpy, book in hand, with the list before him, wherefrom he gave the names of these attachés. The men whose names were called nearly filled the fore part of the cabin, where stood Mr. Sarpy, our captain, and one of the clerks. All awaited orders from Mr. Sarpy. As each man was called, and answered to his name, a blanket containing the apparel for the trip was handed to him, and he was ordered at once to retire and make room for the next. The outfit, by the way, was somewhat scanty, and of indifferent quality. Four men were missing, and some appeared rather reluctant; however, the roll was ended, and one hundred and one were found. In many instances their bundles were thrown to them, and they were ordered off as if slaves. I forgot to say that as the boat pushed off from the shore, where stood a crowd of loafers, the men on board had congregated upon the hurricane deck with their rifles and guns of various sorts, all loaded, and began to fire what I should call a very disorganized sort of a salute, which lasted for something like an hour, and which has been renewed at intervals, though in a more desultory manner,

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 Rh everywhere which have reached a certain level of civilisation. Sacrifice, expiation, communion of the people with their God, laws of ceremonial, uncleanness, prohibitions from certain acts and certain foods, the tabernacle, and the rest, we find them, practically, in solution everywhere; in Judaism we find them codified, as it were, and committed, as a body of rules, to writing and to the care of a priestly class. Now the theory which I advance here in the case of certain rites, may be employed in all the provinces of traditional custom, belief, and even literature. The Greeks, like Herodotus and Aristotle, were struck by the coincidences of custom, festival, sacrifice, and hymn, among Hellenes and Barbarians, Egyptians, Assyrians, Phœnicians, Scythians. Aristotle himself could see that Greece had inherited, developed, and purified barbaric beliefs and usages, and myths; that the common stock was the same everywhere, and was only modified by the peculiarities of race. The modern learning has acquired fresh information, and has found that the myths and beliefs and customs of African, Australian, American, and insular races correspond with those of the ancient classical races. Further, we have learned that ideas, habits, myths, similar to those of the ancient world and of remote barbaric peoples unknown to the ancient world, endure still among the folk, the more stationary, the more uncultivated classes of modern Europe, among Lincolnshire hinds, Highland crofters, peasants of France, Italy, Germany, Russia. Now Folk-lore approaches the whole topic of these singular harmonies and coincidences from the side of the folk, of the unlearned rural classes in civilised Europe. We have turned the method of mythology, for instance, upside down. The old manner was to begin with the cultivated and literary myths, as we find them in Ovid, or Apollodorus, or Pausanias, and to regard modern rural rites and legends and beliefs as modified descendants of these traditions. But the method of Folk-lore is to study these rural customs and notions as survivals, relics enduring from a mental condition of


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 6 far higher than that of Hterary Rome or Greece. We do not say that, as a rule, this harvest rite, or vernal custom, or story filtered out of Ovid dovi'n into the peasant class. Rather we say that, as a rule, Ovid is describing and decorating some rural customs or tale which is infinitely older than his day, and which may be, and often is, shared with Roman agriculturists by the peasants of France and England, and also by natives of lands undiscovered by the civilised races of the old world. The method of Folk-lore rests on the hypothesis of a vast common stock of usage, opinion, and myth, everywhere developed alike, by the natural operation of early human thought. This stock, or much of it, is everywhere retained by the unprogressive, uneducated class, while the priests and poets and legislators of civilisation select from it, and turn customs into law, magic into ritual, story into epic, popular singing measures into stately metres, and vague floating belief into definite religious doctrine.

Thus, briefly to give examples, the world-wide custom of the blood-feud becomes the basis of the Athenian law of homicide. The savage magic which is believed to fertilise the fields becomes the basis of the Attic Thesmophoria, or of the Eleusinian legend and mysteries. The rural festivities of Attica become the basis of the Greek drama. The brief singing measures of the popular song become the basis of the hexameter. The sacrifice of the sacred animal of the kindred becomes a great source of Greek ritual. The world-wide märchen of the blinded giant, the returned husband, the lad with the miraculously skilled companions, are developed into the Odyssey and the Argonautica.

Thus on every side the method of Folk-lore sho's us mankind first developing in mass, and without the traceable agency of individuals (though that must have been at work), a great body of ideas, customs, legends, beliefs. Then, as society advances and ranks are discriminated, the genius of individuals selects from the mass, from the common stock, and polishes, improves, fixes, stereotypes,


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Rh at every village we have passed. However, we now find them passably good, quiet, and regularly sobered men. We have of course a motley set, even to Italians. We passed the mouth of the Missouri, and moved very slowly against the current, for it was not less than twenty minutes after four the next morning, when we reached St. Charles, distant forty-two miles. Here we stopped till half-past five, when Mr. Sarpy, to whom I gave my letters home, left us in a wagon.

April 26. A rainy day, and the heat we had experienced yesterday was now all gone. We saw a Wild Goose running on the shore, and it was killed by Bell; but our captain did not stop to pick it up, and I was sorry to see the poor bird dead, uselessly. We now had found out that our berths were too thickly inhabited for us to sleep in; so I rolled myself in my blanket, lay down on deck, and slept very sound.

27th. A fine clear day, cool this morning. Cleaned our boilers last night, landing where the "Emily Christian" is sunk, for a few moments; saw a few Gray Squirrels, and an abundance of our common Partridges in flocks of fifteen to twenty, very gentle indeed. About four this afternoon we passed the mouth of the Gasconade River, a stream coming from the westward, valuable for its yellow-pine lumber. At a woodyard above us we saw a White Pelican that had been captured there, and which, had it been clean, I should have bought. I saw that its legs and

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The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Fichte, Immanuel Hermann von

FICHTE, fĭ H 'tĕ, Immanuel Hermann von, German philosopher: b. Jena, 18 July 1796; d. Stuttgart, 8 Aug. 1879. He was a son of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (q.v.). He was graduated at the University of Berlin in 1818. Soon after he became a lecturer in philosophy at this institution. As a result of semi-official suggestions, based on official disapproval of his supposedly liberal views, he decided, in 1822, to leave Berlin, and accepted a professorship at the gymnasium in Saarbrücken. In 1826 he went in the same capacity to Düsseldorf. In 1836 he was appointed extraordinary, and in 1840 ordinary professor of philosophy at the University of Bonn, where he quickly became a successful and much admired lecturer. Dissatisfied with the reactionary tendencies of the Prussian Ministry of Education, he accepted a call to the chair of philosophy at the University of Tübingen in 1842 where he continued to give lectures on all philosophic subjects until his retirement in 1862 when he moved to Stuttgart. As a philosopher he was of lesser importance than his father. In his philosophy he was a theist and strongly opposed to the Hegelian School. The additional characteristics of mysticism and eclecticism, which are frequently attributed to him are only partially deserved. His greatest gift, perhaps, was his breadth of vision, enabling him to do justice to and give a philosophic interpretation of practically every new development and discovery throughout the long period of his intellectual activity (1818-1879). He was a very prolific writer. Many of his shorter works appeared in the Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Speculative Theologie, which Fichte founded in 1837 and which he edited from then on, later with Ulrici and Wirth, when the name was changed to Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Philosophische Kritik after a short period of suspension (1848-52). Of his many published works the following may be especially mentioned: ‘Sätze zur Vorschule der Theologie’ (Stuttgart 1826); ‘Beiträge zur Charakteristik der Neueren Philosophie’ (Sulzbach 1829); ‘Über Gegensatz, Wendepunkt und Ziel Heutiger Philosophie’ (3 parts, Heidelberg 1832-36); ‘Grundzüge zum Systeme der Philosophie’ (3 parts, Heidelberg 1833-46); ‘Religion und Philosophie in ihrem Gegenwärtigen Verhältniss’ (Heidelberg 1834); ‘Die Idee der Persönlichkeit und der Individuellen Fortdauer’ (Elberfeld 1834); ‘Die Spekulative Theologie’ (3 parts, Heidelberg 1846-47); ‘Grundsätze für die Philosophie der Zukunft’ (Stuttgart 1847); ‘System der Ethik’ (2 vols., Heidelberg 1850-53); ‘Anthropologie’ (Heidelberg 1856); ‘Zur Seelenfrage, etc.’ (Leipzig 1859); ‘Psychologie’ (2 vols., Heidelberg 1864-73); ‘Vermischte Schriften’ (2 vols., Heidelberg 1869); ‘Die Theistische Weltansicht und ihre Berechtigung’ (Heidelberg 1873); ‘Der neuere Spiritualismus’ (Heidelberg 1878). He also edited his father's writings under the title ‘Leben und Briefwechsel’ (2 vols., Sulzbach 1830); ‘Nachgelassene Werke’ (3 vols., Bonn 1834-35); ‘J. G. Fichte's Sämtliche Werke’ (8 vols., Berlin 1845-46); ‘Der Materialismus unserer Zeit in Deutschland, etc.’ (Leipzig 1866); a translation from the French work by P. Janet published originally in Paris in 1864, likewise bore his name as editor. Some of his works have been translated into English by J. D. Morell as ‘Contributions to Mental Philosophy’ (London 1860). Consult Erdmann, J. E., ‘History of Philosophy’ (3 vols., London 1890); Eucken, R., ‘Zur Erinnerung, I. H. Fichte’ (in Zeitschrift für Philosophie, Vol. CX, Bonn-Leipzig 1897); Hartmann, K., ‘I. H. Fichte’ (in Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Vol. XLVIII, Leipzig 1904); Scherer, C. C, ‘Die Gotteslehre von I. H. Fichte’ (1902).


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 Rh brings to perfection certain elements in the universal treasure. Here it is that the influence of race and of genius comes in.

The great races, as of the Aryan speaking and Semitic peoples, are races in which genius is common, and the general level is high. Such a race has its codes, its creeds, its epics, its drama, which the less fortunate races lack. But the fond, the basis, is common to humanity. Meanwhile, till quite recently, even in the higher races, the folk, the people, the untaught, have gone on living on the old stock, using the old treasure, secretly revering the dispossessed ghosts and fairies, amusing the leisure of the winter evenings with the old stories handed down from grandmother to mother, to child, through all the generations. These very stories exist, though the folk know it not, in another form, refined by the genius of poets. In time, and occasionally, they will filter back among the people. But, on the whole, till now, the folk have prolonged the ancient life, as it was in customs and belief long before Homer sang, long before the Hebrew legislation was codified and promulgated.

This is a broad general view of the theory of Folk-lore, a rule to the working of which there are doubtless many exceptions. For example, philosophers have tried to show that in religion all begins, as usual, with the folk, all starts from the ghosts which they saw, or thought they saw, while early theological genius and mature speculation select from these ghosts till, by the survival of the fittest, the fittest ghost becomes a god. I shall not throw the apple of theological discord among the Congress, and shall merely confess that this theory does not, as far as I have gone, seem to me to be justified by facts. Among the very rudest peoples whom I have tried to study, the God is already in existence, as well as the ghosts, already makes for righteousness, and promises future punishment and reward. How the idea came there, among these very backward, but far from really primitive people, I cannot


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 8 presume to guess, believing that here all research is but baseless conjecture. Certainly, among the most remote, secluded, and undeveloped ancestors of the folk I seem to find, as a rule, both ghosts and God, but whether one idea is prior to the other, and if so which, I have discovered no positive evidence.

I have tried to state the theory of Folk-lore as I understand it. I consider that man, as far as we can discern him in the dark backward and abysm of Time, was always man, always rational and inquisitive, always in search of a reason in the universe, always endeavouring to realise the worlds in which he moved about. But I presume man to have been nearly as credulous as he was inquisitive, and, above all, ready to explain everything by false analogies, and to regard all movement and energy as analogous to that life of which he was conscious within himself Thus to him the whole world seemed peopled with animated and personal agencies, which gradually were discriminated into ghosts, fairies, lares, nymphs, river and hill spirits, special gods of sky, sun, earth, wind, departmental deities presiding over various energies, and so forth. About himself, as about the world, he was ignorant and credulous. False analogy, the doctrine of sympathies, the belief in spirits that had and in spirits that had not been men, these things, with perhaps an inkling of hypnotism, produced the faith in magic. Magic once believed in the world became a topsy-turvy place, in which metamorphoses and necromancy and actual conversation with the beasts became probable in man's fiction and possible in man's life. A painful life it seems to us, or to some of us, in which any old woman or medicine man might blast the crops, cause tempest, inflict ill luck and disease, could turn you into a rabbit or a rook, could cause bogies to haunt your cave, or molest your path, a life in which any stone or stick might possess extra-natural powers, and be the home of a beneficent or malignant spirit. A terrible existence that of our ancestors, and yet, without it where


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CHAPTER III.

 Spanish colonial policy in Mexico — How Spain protected her home industries against colonial competition — Origin of the War of Independence — Portraits of the Spanish viceroys — The last auto-da-fe in Mexico — Portraits of distinguished Mexicans in the National Hall of Embassadors — Ingratitude of the republic — The American war of invasion and the spoliation of Mexico — Injustice of the war.

Spanish rule over Mexico lasted for just three hundred years, or from 1521 to 1821; and, during the whole of this long period, the open and avowed policy of Spain was, to regard the country as an instrumentality for the promotion of her own interests and aggrandizement exclusively, and to utterly and contemptuously disregard the desires and interests of the Mexican people. The government or viceroyalty established by Spain, in Mexico, for the practical application of this policy, accordingly seems to have always regarded the attainment of three things or results as the object for which it was mainly constituted, and to have allowed nothing of sentiment or of humanitarian consideration to stand for one moment in the way of their rigorous prosecution and realization. These

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 Rh would our poetry be, our Greek legends, even our fairy tales? Those fathers of ours, if they led this life, and if they took it seriously, were martyrs to our poetical enjoyment. Had the pagan not been nurtured in that creed forlorn, we could not have sight of Proteus rising from the sea, nor hear Triton blow his wreathed horn. The stars, but for the ignorant confusions of our fathers, might be masses of incandescent gas, or whatever they are, but they could not have been named with the names of Ariadne and Cassiopeia, nor could Orion have watched the Bear, nor should we known the rainy Hyades, and the sweet influences of the Pleiads. Ignorance, false analogy, fear, were the origin of that poetry in which we have the happier part of our being. Say the sun is incandescent gas, and you help us little with your sane knowledge, for we neither made it nor can we mend it. But believe in your insane ignorance that the sun is a living man, and Apollo speeds down from it like the bronze pouring from the furnace, in all the glory of his godhood. Great are the gains of ignorance and of untutored conjecture. Had mankind always been a thing of school boards and primers, we could not even divert a child with Red Riding Hood and The Sleeping Beauty and Hop-o'-My-Thumb. We should look on the rainbow and be ignorant of Iris, the Messenger, and of the Bow of the Covenant, set in the heavens.

Thus, as in a hundred other ways, the mental condition of our most distant ancestors has turned to our profit. He trembled that we might rejoice; he was ignorant for our happiness. And after all he was probably as happy as we are; it is not saying much.

The method of Folk-lore, as has been seen, rests on an hypothesis, namely, that all peoples have passed through a mental condition so fanciful, so darkened, so incongruous, so inconsistent with the scientific habit that to the scientific it seems insane. I am often asked, supposing your views are correct, how did mankind come to be so


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84 How the lower orders of the Mexican people, other than the distinctive Indian population, regarded the proceedings of the Government against the Church is thus described by M. Désiré Charney, in the account of his researches in Central America: "Upon the suppression of the monastic orders in Mexico, the confiscation of the property of the clergy, and the demolition of certain churches and convents, the multitude protested, but without violence. The leperos, all covered as they were with medals, rosaries, and scapulars, pulled down the houses of their fetiches, while the old women, indignant witnesses of the sacrilege, ejaculated their aves without ceasing. The exiles had fulminated the major excommunication against whoever should have act or part in the work of demolition, or should tread the streets cut through the grounds of the torn-down convents; but, after a week or so, all fear vanished, and not only did the destroyers go about their work without remorse, but they even used the sacred woodwork of the churches to make their kitchen-fires, and the new streets had their passengers like the older ones."—"North American Review," October, 1880. Mr. Strother, who has studied the matter very carefully, suggests that an explanation may be found in the character of the Indian races of

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82 will." Even the ringing of the church-bells is regulated by law. All those rites, furthermore, which the Catholic Church has always "classed as among her holy sacraments and exclusive privileges, and the possession of which has constituted the chief source of her power over society, are also now regulated by civil law. The civil authority registers births, performs the marriage ceremony, and provides for the burial of the dead; and while the Church marriage ceremonies are not prohibited to those who desire them, they are legally superfluous, and alone have no validity whatever." (See "Report on Church and State in Mexico to the State Department," by Consul-General Strother, December, 1883.)

Such an achievement as has been here briefly chronicled was, in every respect analogous to and was as momentous to Mexico as the abolition of slavery to the United States. Like slavery in the latter country, the Catholic Church had become, as it were, incorporated into the fundamental institutions of Mexico since its first invasion and conquest by the Spaniards. It had the sole management of all the educational institutions and influences of the country; it held, in the opinion of a great majority of the people, the absolute control of the keys of heaven and hell; it had immense wealth, mainly in the form of money ready to loan,

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Rh buildings in the cities, and haciendas or estates in the country, and all the influences which wealth brings. And, even when Mexico achieved her independence, the influence of the Church was so little impaired by the accompanying political and social convulsions, that the national motto or inscription which the new state placed upon its seal, its arms, and its banners, was "Religion, Union, and Liberty:" Except, therefore, for the occurrence of a great civil war, which convulsed the whole nation, and in which the Church, after favoring a foreign invasion, and placing itself in opposition to all the patriotic, liberty-loving sentiment of the country, had been signally beaten, its overthrow, as was the case with slavery in the United States, would not seem to have been possible. And even under the circumstances, it is not a little surprising and difficult of explanation, that a government could have arisen in Mexico strong enough and bold enough to at once radically overthrow and humiliate a great religious system, which had become so powerful, and had so largely entered into the hearts and become so much a part of the customs and life of its people; and that every subsequent national administration and party have now for a period of nearly twenty years unflinchingly maintained and executed this same policy.

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Rh, who constitute the bulk of the population, and "whose native spirit of independence predominates over all other sentiments." He also throws out the opinion that "the aborigines of the country never were completely Christianized; but, awed by force, or dazzled by showy ceremonials, accepted the external forms of the new faith as a sort of compromise with the conquerors." And he states that he has himself recently attended "religious festivals where the Indians assisted, clothed and armed as in the days of Montezuma, with a curious intermingling of Christian and pagan emblems, and ceremonies closely resembling some of the sacred dances of the North American tribes." It is also asserted that, on the anniversaries of the ancient Aztec festivals, garlands are hung upon the great stone idol that stands in the court-yard of the National Museum, and that the natives of the mountain villages sometimes steal away on such days to the lonely forests or hidden caves, to worship in secret the gods of their ancestors. But, be the explanation what it may, it is greatly to the credit of Mexico, and one of the brightest auguries for her future, that after years of war, and social and political revolutions, in which the adherents both of liberty and absolutism have seemed to vie with each other in outraging humanity, the idea of a constitutional government, based on the broadest republican

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458 feet were red, and not yellow, as they are during autumn and winter. Marmots are quite abundant, and here they perforate their holes in the loose, sandy soil of the river banks, as well as the same soil wherever it is somewhat elevated. We do not know yet if it is Arctomys monax, or a new species. The weather being fine, and the night clear, we ran all night and on the morning of the 28th, thermometer 69° to 78° at sunrise, we were in sight of the seat of government, Jefferson. The State House stands prominent, with a view from it up and down the stream of about ten miles; but, with the exception of the State House and the Penitentiary, Jefferson is a poor place, the land round being sterile and broken. This is said to be 160 or 170 miles above St. Louis. We saw many Gray Squirrels this morning. Yesterday we passed under long lines of elevated shore, surmounted by stupendous rocks of limestone, with many curious holes in them, where we saw Vultures and Eagles enter towards dusk Harris saw a Peregrine Falcon; the whole of these rocky shores are ornamented with a species of white cedar quite satisfactorily known to us. We took wood at several places; at one I was told that Wild Turkeys were abundant and Squirrels also, but as the squatter observed, "Game is very scarce, especially Bears." Wolves begin to be troublesome to the settlers who have sheep; they are obliged to drive the latter home, and herd them each night.

This evening the weather became cloudy and looked like rain; the weather has been very warm, the thermometer being at 78° at three this afternoon. We saw a pair of Peregrine Falcons, one of them with a bird in its

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86, has lived, and, to as large an extent as has perhaps been possible under the circumstances, practically asserted itself in a national administrative system. When the traveler visits the cities of Mexico, and sees the number and extent of the convents, religious houses, and churches, which, having been confiscated, are either in the process of decay or occupied for secular purposes; and, in the country, has pointed out to him the estates which were formerly the property of the Church, he gets some realization of the nature of the work which Juarez had the ability and courage to accomplish. And when he further reflects on the numbers of idle, shiftless, and certainly to some extent profligate people, who tenanted or were supported by these great properties, and who, producing nothing and consuming everything, virtually lived on the superstitions and fears of their countrymen—which they at the same time did their best to create and perpetuate—he no longer wonders that Mexico and her people are poor and degraded, but rather that they are not poorer and more degraded than they are.

What amount of property was owned by the Mexican Church and clergy previous to its secularization is not certainly known (at least by the public). It is agreed that they at one time held

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Rh the titles to all the best property of the republic, both in city and country; and there is said to have been an admission by the clerical authorities to the ownership of eight hundred and sixty-one estates in the country, valued at $71,000,000; and of twenty-two thousand lots of city property, valued at $113,000,000; making a total of $184,000,000. Other estimates, more general in their character, are to the effect that the former aggregate wealth of the Mexican Church can not have been less than $300,000,000; and, according to Mr. Strother, it is not improbable that even this large estimate falls short of the truth, "inasmuch as it is admitted that the Mexican ecclesiastical body well understood the value of money as an element of power, and, as bankers and money-lenders for the nation, possessed vast assets which could not be publicly known or estimated." Notwithstanding also the great losses which the Church had undoubtedly experienced prior to the accession of Juarez in 1867, and his control of the state, the annual revenue of the Mexican clergy at that time, from tithes, gifts, charities, and parochial dues, is believed to have been not less than $22,000,000, or more than the entire aggregate revenues of the state derived from all its customs and internal taxes. Some of the property that thus came into the possession of the Government was quickly sold

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88 by it, and at very low prices; and, very curiously, was bought, in some notable instances, by other religious (Protestant) denominations, which, previous to 1857, had not been allowed to obtain even so much as tolerance or a foothold in the country. Thus, the former spacious headquarters of the order of the Franciscans, with one of the most elegant and beautifully proportioned chapels in the world within its walls, and fronting in part on the Calle de San Francisco, the most fashionable street in the city of Mexico, was sold to Bishop Riley and a well-known philanthropist of New York, acting for the American Episcopal missions, at an understood price of thirty-five thousand dollars, and is now valued at over two hundred thousand dollars. In like manner the American Baptist missionaries have gained an ownership or control, in the city of Puebla, of the old Palace of the Inquisition; and, in the city of Mexico, the former enormous Palace of the Inquisition is now a medical college; while the Plaza de San Domingo, which adjoins and fronts the Church of San Domingo, and where the auto-da-fe was once held, is now used as a market-place. A former magnificent old convent, to some extent reconstructed and repaired, also affords quarters to the National Library, which in turn is largely made up of spoils gathered from the libraries of the

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CHAPTER V.

 Divisions of the population of Mexico — The national language and its commercial drawbacks — Extreme ignorance and poverty of the masses — Tortillas and frijoles — Responsibility of the Church for the existing condition of the people — Educational efforts and awakening in Mexico — Government schools, secular and military — Government and social forces of Mexico — What constitutes public opinion in Mexico? — Character of the present Executive — Newspaper press of Mexico.

thus briefly glanced at the physical condition and political and social experiences of Mexico, we are now prepared to discuss the economic condition of the country, its prospect for industrial development, and its possible commercial importance and future trade relations with the United States.

The element of first importance, and therefore the one entitled to first consideration in endeavoring to forecast the future of Mexico, is undoubtedly its population; the object alike for improvement, and the primary instrumentality by which any great improvement in the condition of the

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16 as they are in themselves, their relations, and their manner of operation; or, secondly, That which man himself ought to do, as a rational and voluntary agent, for the attainment of any end, especially happiness; or, thirdly, The ways and means whereby the knowledge of both the one and the other of these is attained and communicated: I think science may be divided properly into these three sorts:—

 * 1) Φυσικκὴ, or Natural Philosophy. The end of this is bare speculative truth; and whatsoever can afford the mind of man any such falls under this branch, whether it be God himself, angels, spirits, bodies, or any of their affections, as number and figure, &c.
 * 2) Πρακτικὴ, The skill of right applying our own powers and actions for the attainment of things good and useful. The most considerable under this head is Ethics, which is the seeking out those rules and measures of human actions which lead to happiness, and the means to practise them. The end of this is not bare speculation, but right, and a conduct suitable to it.
 * 3) Σημειωτικὴ, or the doctrine of signs, the most usual whereof being words, it is aptly enough termed also Λογικὴ, Logic''. The business of this is to consider the nature of signs the mind makes use of for the understanding of things, or conveying its knowledge to others.

"This seems to me," continues Mr. Locke, "the first and most general, as well as natural, division of the objects of our understanding; for a man can employ his thoughts about nothing but either the contemplation of things themselves, for the discovery of truth, or about the things in his own power, which are his own actions, for the attainment of his own ends; or the signs the mind makes use of, both in one and the other, and the right ordering of them for its clearer information. All which three, viz., things as they are in themselves knowable; actions as they depend on us, in order to happiness; and the